This Week in Mobile Episode 15

Cold Open
Today, join Ashley Esqueda and Michael Hobbs as they discuss new HTC phones, Nokiaworld, and interview Tak Fung the mind behind Mini Squadrons.

NEWS!

HTC announces Desire Z and Desire HD
HTC added two new phones to it's lineup with the Desire Z, a qwerty style flip phone and the Desire HD, a new version of the EVO. According to the Wall Street Journal HTC ranks fourth worldwide by market share with 8.3%

HTCSense.com offers cloud based backup
Another major news story from HTC concerns the ability to back up contacts and other info to the cloud. According to Android Central this will allow to locate their phone, ring it remotely even if the phone is set to vibrate, and remotely lock and wipe the phone.

Nokia crashes HTC event
Nokia, holding their NokiaWorld event the same time as HTC decided to crash the HTC event with balloons and "press survival kits"
And speaking of Nokia...

NokiaWorld!
Nokia held it's NokiaWorld event this week in London. Among other announcements, the company debuted a new line of phones.


The E7


The C7


And, The C6-01


Strangely missing from the event: any mention of MeeGo.

Windows Phone 7 video
A video has leaked around the net reportedly showing the new user interface of Windows Phone 7.



Apparantly it's going to be a panel within the phone.

Verizon to begin shipping Vcast on android phones
Verizon has plans to integrate it's Vcast store into andriod phones on it's network. According to PC World Verizon is currently accepting app submissions for the store which is rumored to debut on September 21. Ashley thinks it's just more bloatware.

21 year old makes amazing video

Transformers from repey815 on Vimeo.

The video has over 876,000 views so far.

Skyhook sues Google
Skyhook wireless has sued Google claiming that the company forced it's vendors to break existing contracts to use their location service.

Galaxy Tab Fail
According to reports reports the Samsung Galaxy Tab will not have voice capabilities in the US, unlike it's European counterpart. The device will be sold under all the major carriers but will require a two year contract for data.

iPad Stop-motion video
London based graphics firm Dentsu London used 3D modeling software to create long exposure photographs that then created a stop-motion video when the images are merged.



Windows Phone 7 keyboard demo
The fine folks at Pocket Now have a demo of the keyboard that Windows Phone 7 devices will use.


Bad autocorrect!

Epic Win, Epic Fail!
Engraved iPhone! This guy decided to engrave the underside of his iPhone. It only took 8 hours to do. And you think YOU have too much time...



Adobe admits major security flaw. Adobe posted a warning that it's flash player has a major security flaw. A fix is scheduled to be released on September 20. Guess Steve was right.

App of the Week!
MiniSquadron

Also available on Android and Palm

Interview
Ashley and Mike interview Tak Fung from Supermono.

Thank you
Tak Fung,
Supermono Studios,
And TriCaster
See you next week!

This Week in Startups Episode 78

Cold Open
Today on This Week in Startups, Jason interviews Alex Iskold, from GetGlue, Shira Lazar from CBS joins us for the news, and it's revenge of the frogs as Jason takes a Shark Tank call from Paris.

Intro
Today we have Alex Iskold, CEO of AdaptiveBlue live via Skype. If you'd like to be a guest on Shark Tank or Ask Jason, just email us with the details of your question, and Lon will get you on the air. *DISCLAIMER* Don't make it too promotional. If your question is "I'm starting this business, how successful will I be?" you won't get on the show. Ask an insightful question. The Startup Meetup is this tuesday at 8PM PST(4AM GMT) live from Mahalo HQ And if you want to host a meetup in your are just email Lon, the creative director at This Week In and he'll give you all the details.
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Shark Tank

This weeks Shark Tank is a company called Super Marmite the winners of the Paris startup meetup. The company offers people a way to crowdsource dinner by creating a marketplace for people to sell their cooking.
[Jason] Idea: 9 Pitch: 8-9
[Tyler] Idea: 9.5 Pitch: 8.5
[Chatroom] 7's and 8's

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Interview

Jason interviews Alex Iskold from Get Glue

News

Shira Lazar, blog, Twitter reads the news this week.

Yahoo! announces 3 year plan
Yahoo! has announced a strategic plan to, among other things, grow to a billion unique visitors, for their current 622 million, and to grow revenue to $10 Billion from it's current $6.5 Billion. Jason's opinion: Show, don't tell.

Verizon will not sell Windows Phone 7 at launch
According to business week Verizon does not plan to sell phones loaded with the new Windows Phone 7 operating system, though they may do so in 2011. Microsoft refused to comment on what carriers will support the new OS or when it will debut. The last time Verizon and Microsoft worked together, the result was a disaster.

Fraudulent Groupon deals?
According to a story on techcrunch, coupon site Groupon has been hit by a person advertising photography services using stolen images and who did not have the ability to fullfill all the orders generated. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason has issued full refunds for people affected and published a blog post about the incident. Jason's take: This is not a bad problem to have and Andrew handled this like a pro.

Goodbye, Lalawag
Lalawag founder(and This Week in Social Media host) Sean Percival posted an update saying that he can't put the necessary time into the site since the birth of his daughter and is shutting it down. Lalawag was 2 years old.

ChaCha dumps T-Mobile
Mobile question and answer service ChaCha has reportedly threatened to discontinue support for T-mobile if the company implements a plan to charge companies sending large amounts of text messages on it's network. ChaCha currently has 15 million unique visitors each month and sends 2 million texts a day.

YouTube tests live streaming
YouTube recently tested a live streaming service called YouTube Live. Accoring to Cnet the test was limited to Monday and Tuesday but depending on how well it does, they could roll the feature out worldwide at a later date.

Impress your friends with insights from Tyler
The days of wishing you too could be insightful like Tyler are over thanks to this breakthrough website.

Thanks to:
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This week in iPad episode 24

Cold Open:

Today on This Week in iPad, we'll be talking with Brett and Eileen Rounsaville of Rounsa iPad Cases, Lon will review the hot new game Rocketeer-HD and what do you get when you cross light painting, stop motion animation, and the iPad? Besides an awesome concept for a new Tim Burton movie? We'll find out today, on This Week in iPad.

Intro:

This week in iPad is looking for a new blogger. The former blogger Matthew Paulson can no longer do it due to time constraints, but we thank him for his efforts. If you would like to blog for This Week in iPad, email the show with a link to your blog.

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Rocketeer-HD Review

Rocketeer HD is a physics based game akin to Osmos. In the game you launch Rocketeers to a warp using various planets gravity to assist you.
Pros:
Easy to play, you get the hang of the game quickly.
No penalty for loss. You won't start the whole game over if you don't succeed.
Lots of gameplay. 80 levels to beat.
Cons:
Repetitive. After 8-10 levels they all seem the same.

Jacob reviews Worms HD the classic turn based game where you kill the opponent.
Pros:
Classic gameplay including elements from the old game including the Ninja Rope.
Cons:
A bit hard to play with the iPad interface. Also the UI needs to be cleaned up a bit.

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Interview
Lon and Jacob find out the story behind Rounsa.

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News

Amazon has a new Kindle Ad. An unusually self satisfied young lady is asked how she can read outdoors given the glare. Video below.



Awesome collection of iPad cases. Following the theme of iPad cases Lon found a blog post detailing several unique cases from around the internet.

Light Painting A film company in London used several iPad's and long exposure film to create a stop motion animated video. The results are amazing.



Apple is finally ready for newspaper subscriptions
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Apple may finally be ready to embrace newspaper subscriptions. According to the story, has agreed to provide an opt-in function for subscribers to allow Apple to share with publishers their information, which includes vital data that news organizations use to attract advertisers.

Twitter reveals their latest site redesign and it looks just like Twitter for iPad.

Twitter revealed a brand new site design that looks surprisingly like Twitter for iPad.

Next week
Tune in to see Cyril Moutran creator of the Friendly FaceBook app as well as a new Planet of the Apps where they'll review task management and productivity apps. Also we need your feedback, email us if you'd like to host a this week in iPad meetup in your town. We did one early on and we're curious if you'd like us to do another. Thank you for your time and join us next week for this week in iPad.

How to NMLL your iPhone

The following is a way to display your signal strength in decibel meters (dBm.) This will accomplish the same thing on an iPhone that holding the alt key and pressing NMLL will on a blackberry. In order to do this, you'll need to run iOS 4.1:

• Go to phone > keypad.
• Dial *3001#12345#*
• Tap call.
• You're now in "Field Test Mode" iPhone should show dBm instead of bars.
• To keep the display, simply force quit the app (Hold sleep wake button until it shows the swipe bar to power down. Then hold the home button until the app disappears.)
• To return to bars, tap numbers.

This is the best shortcut I've seen since the screenshot. Have fun with it. :)

A year gone by

Time flies. I've always heard that said when you're having fun but
the truth is that time flies without consideration to your experience
of it. One year ago today I made a life changing decision. I quit my
job, a job where I was reasonably secure and was making ok money at to
become my own boss. I did this because through a series of mishaps and
heartbreak I'd realized that I can never achieve my goals collecting
a paycheck. So I quit. And of course as I've detailed in depth here
before, things did not work out as I'd planned. And still haven't.
So after a period of homelessness, despair, and depression, I find
myself finally at a point where I am ready to make good on the
intentions I had last year. I should detail why I've been held back
thus far. Businesses fail primarily due to a lack of planning. And as
I've said before, i had no idea what I was going to do to make money,
only that I was going to make money. And that was a big mistake. The
second reason businesses fail is because the business owner did not
think in the long term. If you need to make rent the same month you
start, don't bother. As I've said before, never gamble with your
rent money. You need to make decisions with the long term in mind and
that simply doesn't happen if you're desperate for money. So now I
have a detailed plan to dismount from the hamster wheel. First I am
not going to rely on any one thing for my income. I'm going to be
starting a series of blogs, video content, and e-commerce sites to
ensure that. Also, I think that there's a huge market that will
emerge shortly in non iPad tablets so I'm going to be focusing
heavily on learning the various languages that are out there. It's
time to get going. I am exited. Stay tuned. ;)

This is only a test.

I've often wondered what it would look like if I attached a picture to a blog post. Let's find out.

Pivots

Gwallet started out in consumer coupons. Sony started out selling rice cookers. Successful companies have a history of changing what they do and being very successful in doing so. Tonight I read an article that will change my life. It contained an image that showed how major sites get copied in niche markets. An example would be how Blippy is FourSquare for purchases. So they had an example here of a website that I learned does EXACTLY what I wanted to do. Basically I wanted to start a site selling goods everyone uses around the house everyday. I would leverage the fact they'd be reordering to get price concessions and pass the savings on to the customer. I'd make money by charging delivery fees and or membership fees. Well, the site I found does this same service and features free delivery. So my major revenue stream has been cut off. At this point I have two things going for me: I have not spent a tremendous amount of money thus far and I still own my domain http://www.1every.com so the question is what to do now? I don't have an answer to that question. I simply don't know what the pivot will be. I was pitched a manor curve ball and as of yet I'm not sure the next move. I'm taking the weekend to consider my next move. Stay tuned. Should be a fun Monday. Until then, rest assured. I've had the rug pulled out from under me time and time again. And I'm goin' up! :) $$