AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Sega has transitioned to the mobile devices nicely.  And it has been years since Sega has been on the console or handheld business.  And while Sega has brought a few games over to the iPhone and Android, one major studios and hardware maker has not, Nintendo. Yesterday, the blogs were excited by news that Nintendo investors were not happy with the performance of the latest 3DS sales, the surprised price from $250 down to $170, and Wii 2 still at least a year away.  Also part of the news was that some investors want to see Mario and company on the iOS.   Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, a legend in his own right, has pledge to make first-title games for Nintendo hardware so long as he's in charge.  Having said that, in a gaming era where games can be had for $1 to $16 on iOS while Nintendo still charges $40 a pop, it doesn't seem like Nintendo is "with it" as the gaming market has moved beyond its comprehension of what the consumers, particularly mobile warri...

We are in the 21th Century. So I can ask this without strange stares. Are there apps for babysitters? Now, I am not talking about apps to entertain children directly. I've got those. Alphabet apps and games. I also have Netflix should the need arise. What I am talking about are babysitting or parenting apps that provide useful tips or instructions. For instance, how to put a twenty-month old to sleep. What to do when there are two of them and they each want to do different things or run odd in different directions. I haven't checked the app stores yet. I thought of this because I am watching my nephews. Love the little guys but I can't help wonder if I do a better job. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sometimes, we bloggers get expected and we talk about things in terms only we understand.  And sometimes, it can get pretty complicated.  So, when Dave the Mobile Sage sent me this post from  The Unofficial Apple Weblog  about how to set up a relatively cheap prepaid plan for the iPhone, I got really excited. But it was not all that easy to understand under the first read or the second read.  So I inquired the mobile sage about it and he put it into terms even I can understand. In simpler terms: Get a prepaid sim from att Set up an online account for the sim (you might need to a att prepaid phone to this) Buy a $100 prepaid card to fund the account Update the account to use a per-minute talk plan ($0.10 / minute, $0.20 / text) Call 611 to add a data package, the fees will be deducted from your $100 balance ($25 for 500 MB / $15 for 100 MB / $5 for 10 MB) When the balance run out, just add more money Unused data can roll over, you just need to top up with at leas...

As far as we know, the Playbook is still on sale for $500.   Earlier, I reported that Sprint is not going forward with a  WiMax version of RIM's Playbook .  Well, that's a bummer.  But for the moment, a LTE version running on Verizon's LTE network is still in the works.  And earlier this morning, we brought you exciting news that  7" Honeycomb based tablets  will go on sale this weekend for as low as $330. Then there's also the fact that the 10" Touchpad is now $100 cheaper than when it went on sale about a year ago.   I don't have to do the math for you to know where I am going with this. More at Clouding Around .

There are a good many folks who believe that at the end of the day, the patent lawyers currently involved in the Android suits will walk away fatter and richer.  Well, okay, that part is true.  What isn't necessarily true is that Apple will offer cross-licensing terms or simply collect patent royalties from HTC, Samsung and other Android devices makers.  And many "experts" and analysts believe that is how all this is going to end.   Think back to the iPods.  The scroll wheel.  Now, I ask you this:  which other companies out there have a MP3 player with a scroll/click wheel?  It's been 11 years, folks.  From Sony?  Samsung?  Creative?   That's right.  None.  And you know why?  Because Apple made it so.  It was a patented feature that it was not willing to share with anyone else on the planet (or on any other planet as far as we know).   Now consider the features that Apple is suing Android device makers ...

I think this  Reuters post  has it wrong.  It suggests that Apple is after Samsung, HTC, and Motorola (if I miss anyone else, my apologies) because Apple is fight a proxy war against Google via the patent suits.  They're read wrong. Think before Android.  Things were good between Apple and Google.  Eric Schmidt was sitting on Apple's board of directors.  Albeit a spy of sort but still he was there a long while. It was not until Google released Android, changed how the original Android phone looked and and feel and the whole UI did Apple felt betrayed.   I know that there are a lot of "he said, she said" but the point is that Apple and Google were fine before the first Android release in late 2007, the G1 by T-Mobile.   If tomorrow, Google suddenly said they were relinquishing control of Android to a true open source community and publicly declared that it will not contribute any more resource to its development, it may just be enough, over ti...

Uh-Oh...this might not be a good thing for AT&T.  According to a leaked document posted by its a law firm representing AT&T in the merger, AT&T does not have to buy T-Mobile at all for it to build out its LTE network to adequately over 97% off the US market. DSL Reports indicates that all AT&T has to spend is $3.8 billion to make that happen.   One has to wonder just what is AT&T trying to pull here.  The conclusion is just this:  T-Mobile represents a GSM threat and it's trying to pay for its elimination. No more, no less.  We'll get into it as we have time to examine what's going on.   Source: DSL Reports .