Motorola Bought 280 North, A Web Apps Company

Andy Rubin (Google) and Dr. Sanjay K. Jha (Motorola) join Om Malik on stage at Mobilize 2009 in San Francisco.

Motorola is buying 280 North, a tiny software and web applications start-up started by ex-Apple employees, for $20 million. The company makes a web application framework called Cappuccino that allows anyone to build desktop-quality applications for the web. A good example is their 280 Slides offering, which allows users to create and view presentations on the web.

The acquisition is a pointer toward Motorola’s future plans, when its handset business (along with some other hardware product lines) is spun off into an independent company, Motorola Mobility. It is also Motorola’s attempt to capture the Apple magic.

The newly-independent Motorola is looking to build a series of converged devices that range from smartphones to Android-powered tablets to a newer kind of set-top boxes, but more importantly, a series of experiences based on that. In other words Motorola wants to go from being in the metal-bending business for carriers and cable companies to becoming a company with software and services based on that hardware: just like Apple.

Motorola’s desire to build its own software and services experiences only exacerbates the internal tensions in the Android ecosystem. Most handset makers — HTC, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson — are looking for an edge over others, at a time when carriers and Google are exercising more control over Android. In a superb piece of analysis, The dirty little secret about Google Android, Jason Hiner points to the ineffectiveness of the Open Handset Alliance and other problems.

Motorola, which has bet the farm on Android, needs to differentiate more aggressively via software and services, or it runs the risk of being lost in the sea of Android phones that are emerging every day. What it needs is unique and better Android user experiences. So far, any attempts to build a UI and interesting new apps haven’t come to fruition.  The company recently shut down its push service, Blur, because of poor usage and a bad user experience.

What Motorola needs is folks with true web and social networking skills to develop interfaces based on what it already has: a solid push infrastructure. The 280 North team helps add fresh blood to Motorola and gives the phone maker access to talented programmers, who can in turn help the company build on top of Android OS.  This “acq-hire” type deal is definitely a good one for its investors, who invested $250,000 in the company. The investment came from Lowercase Capital, Y Combinator and other angels.

Google Tablets, A New Trend in the Mobile Industry

Heating up today is a fresh serving of new gadget in the 'tablet space'. With quite a few companies having already indicated that products based on Google’s Android platform are in progress. Recent rumors have surfaced that indicate Google is working on not one, but two, tablets, one based on Android, and the other on the Chrome OS. The company is working directly with HTC and Motorola if the rumors are to be believed, with the goal to produce a flagship tablet for each platform.



In the midst of this Android tablet frenzy, we mustn’t overlook that Google is working on the Chrome OS, and is expected to make sure it works well on tablets. Google didn’t set any sales records with its flagship Android phone, the Nexus One. This phone was produced through a collaboration with Google and HTC to jump-start the fledgling Android platform in the smartphone market. That effort was a success on several levels, and there are three reasons Google should repeat the Nexus One process in the tablet space.

Intel Buying McAfee for $7.68B, A Bold Move

 Intel finally decided last Thursday to buy security-software maker McAfee Corp. for $7.68 billion, in what looks like a major bet on the need for enhanced security at the hardware layer, as corporate computing becomes increasingly mobile and continues to move into the cloud. The acquisition will give the company a suite of products from software to services that it can tie to its hardware in order to appeal to corporate customers.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a statement: “In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.” The price Intel agreed to pay for McAfee — which had revenue of $2 billion in 2009 and has gross profit margins in the 80-percent range — is a 60-percent premium to its trading price prior to the announcement. This isn’t the chipmaker’s first big bet on software by a long shot. Last year, Intel bought Wind River, a software company focused on the mobile and embedded market.

With the number of IP-enabled devices of all kinds expected to balloon to 50 billion or more in the next decade, having a multi-platform security offering will become even more important.  Intel clearly has its eye on that ball as it tries to maintain its IT dominion. The McAfee acquisition could allow Intel to offer a way to securely tunnel between client devices and servers in the cloud, with security on a mobile chip as well as on the server side. There’s also McAfee’s software and services business to tap into.

Robot with Emotion Prototype Now Completed

The first prototype of a robot that can develop emotions as it interacts with a human caregiver has been completed. A team across Europe was led by Dr. Lola Cañamero of the University of Herefordshire in the UK to develop the bot, which differs in several significant ways from those that came before it. These robots develop over time in much the way that a child does, learning to interact with and respond to the human beings around them.
Modeled after human and chimpanzee childhood development paths, they are programmed to be highly adaptable to the people around them, and to become attached to whatever person is most suited to its needs and 'personality' profile. Over time, the more they interact, the more they learn and bond to the human being. These little ones, moreover, are capable of expressing a wide range of emotions, including anger, frustration, fear and happiness. The next steps are to research the bots' emotional and non-linguistic behavior, and to move toward combining linguistic and non-linguistic communication to become further attached and adapted to them. Yes, we want one.

India eyes Google and Skype in security crackdown

Once it resolves security concerns with BlackBerrys, , which are now under threat of a ban, India may ask Google and Skype for greater access to encrypted information once it resolves security concerns.

The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, which were coordinated with satellite and cell phones, helped prompt a sweeping security review of telecommunications ahead of the Commonwealth Games — a major sporting event to be held in New Delhi in October.

Some analysts say more anonymous technologies — like the basic Nokia phones used by 10 gunmen who rampaged through Mumbai in November 2008, leaving 166 dead — and Gmail are more likely to be used to plan terror attacks than BlackBerry devices, which require reliable identity proof and contact information.



Last July 12, officials from India's Department of Telecommunications met with representatives of three telecom service provider groups to discuss interception and monitoring of encrypted communications by security agencies.

"There was consensus that there are more than one type of service for which solutions are to be explored," according to a copy of the minutes of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press. "Some of them are BlackBerry, Skype, Google etc. It was decided first to undertake the issue of BlackBerry and then the other services."

The officials' immediate concern was the BlackBerry, but they also plan to look at Google and other companies that use encryption for e-mail and messaging services, said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, who was briefed on the meeting.

Google and Skype said Friday they haven't received any notices from the government.

On Thursday, India threatened to ban BlackBerry services unless the device's manufacturer makes them accessible to its security agencies by Aug. 31.

On Friday, Research In Motion Vice President Robert E. Crowe met with Home Ministry officials in New Delhi to try to avoid the ban.

For now, more humble devices may present a greater security threat than the BlackBerrys used by India's business elite.

Scientists: Newly found fault caused Haiti quake

The devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti in January was unleashed by a previously undetected fault line — not the well-known one scientists initially blamed, according to an analysis of new data.

He said the analysis shows that most, if not all, of the geologic movement that caused January's magnitude-7.0 earthquake occurred along the newly uncovered fault, not the well-documented Enriquillo fault.



Calais, who presented the findings this week at a scientific conference in Brazil, said they suggest Haiti's seismic zone is far more complex than scientists had anticipated. But the new fault's profile, including the possibility that it merges with the Enriquillo fault at some depth, won't be known until scientists intensively study the region.

Ross Stein, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., said Calais' findings were fascinating and raise many questions about the complexity of Haiti's faults and what actually occurred during January's quake. But he said the discovery is not surprising, given the many unknowns about earthquakes.

The new findings are based on surface observations in the devastated region around Port-au-Prince, global positioning system measurements and other observations and data. Calais presented the research Tuesday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil.

Oracle Corp sued Google Inc over Android

Oracle Corp sued Google Inc, accusing the later of patent and copyright infringement in the development of the popular Android smartphone software. 

The case was filed last Thursday in California federal court, claims that Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property" in developing Android, Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman said in a statement.

Analysts said the suit against Google could signal that Oracle intends to be more aggressive in seeking licenses for Java, a technology that is used in many types of Internet-based products. Oracle acquired Java through its $5.6 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems earlier this year. Analysts say Google's Android operating system uses portions of Java technology.

 

About 200,000 smartphones and other devices based on the Android operating system are sold each day, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said at an August 4 conference.

The case is Oracle of America Inc v Google Inc, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California .