3IS4

Google rolls out rival to iPhone

Reuters
Google rolls out rival to iPhone
09.23.08, 6:11 PM ET
UNITED STATES - (Adds HTC comment, T-Mobile comment, recasts throughout)
By Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - T-Mobile has rolled out Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people )'s answer to the iPhone as the Web search giant makes its biggest stab yet at leaping from consumers' computers into their pockets with a device cheaper than rival Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) offers.

The widely-anticipated G1 phone, introduced Tuesday made by HTC Corp, has a touch-sensitive screen, a computer-like keyboard, Wi-Fi connections and uses Google's new Android operating system.

Available in three colors -- black, white and brown -- it includes familiar Google services, such as Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube. Like the iPhone and other "smartphones" the device is meant to broaden the appeal of Web surfing on the go.

"If we see more mobile Web usage we'll be happy," Google co-founder Sergey Brin told Reuters after arriving at the launch on roller-blades.

His company, a powerhouse in Web advertising, would benefit if Android led more cell users to spend time on the Web, no matter which phone they are using.

Google is well ahead of rivals Yahoo Inc (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and Microsoft Corp (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) in Web search on computers, but it wants to use Android to ensure this dominance carries over to the phone when mobile Web surfing becomes more popular.

But while no clear mobile Web winner has emerged so far, Google faces stiff competition from longer established phone players such as Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people ), Research In Motion Ltd (nasdaq: RIMM - news - people )'s BlackBerry and Microsoft, as well as Apple.

Analysts saw the device as a "good first step" rather than an iPhone killer, but some expect as many as 400,000 to be sold in the United States by year-end. A T-Mobile executive said the estimate was "not incredible."

When it becomes available to U.S. consumers on Oct. 22, the G1 will sell for about $179 -- slightly cheaper than the entry-level price of $199 for Apple Inc's iPhone -- with a two-year contract.

The G1 will be launched by T-Mobile's UK unit in November and other European countries such as Germany, Netherlands and the Czech Republic in the first quarter of 2009.

"The G1 doesn't threaten Apple now, but Android has raised the bar for competing mobile platforms. The bigger concern here is for Microsoft and Nokia if Google can win over the hearts and minds of operators and developers," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst with British firm CCS Insight.

NEXT GOOGLE PHONE MAY CHANGE

Both Google and Apple are wooing developers to create applications for their devices, but unlike Apple, which keeps a tight grip on the iPhone's hardware and operating software, Google's Android is open to be changed by outside developers.

Asked if the user interface of future Google phones would look anything like the first one, Andy Rubin, who developed Android for Google, said: "Its completely replaceable."

For example, Leslie Grandy, T-Mobile USA's product development vice president sees the carrier selling a range of Google-powered phones in future, including more basic ones without a touch-screen or full keyboards.

The new phone features Android Market, where customers can find and download free applications to expand and personalize their phones. T-Mobile's Grandy said the marketplace would eventually include applications that are sold for a fee.

"Because the platform is open, we think Android is somewhat future proof," Rubin, Google director of mobile platforms, told the audience at the launch.

A similar strategy helped increase the buzz around Apple's second-generation iPhone, which can support more than 3,000 applications available online.

Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people )'s digital music store will be loaded on the G1, allowing users to search, download, buy and play more than six million songs, pitting it against iPhone's music player.

Android also competes with Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, which has been solidly gaining ground. HTC Chief Executive Peter Chou told Reuters his company, which has concentrated on Windows phones so far, is already planning more Android and Windows devices.

Between the United States and the United Kingdom, Chou said he expects to have sold more than 400,000 G1 by the year end.

Android's biggest competitor is Symbian software, which represents 60 percent of the smartphone market and which Nokia plans to buy out and open to other developers.

Nokia, which has about 40 percent of the mobile phone market, has also branched into mobile Web services such as mapping that compete directly with Google. Speaking at a conference in Chicago Tuesday, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said he was not worried by new competition.

"The entry of Apple and Google -- in fact today in a very concrete way -- in mobile communications is the best possible illustration of the fact that there's a lot of possibility here," he said. (Additional reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki and Benjamin Klayman in Chicago; Editing by Derek Caney and Andre Grenon)
Posted by Glucose Digital at 8:09 PM 0 comments Labels: Google rolls out rival to iPhone

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4 Shapsy (my Kuti pal)

Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation (2008)

http://rapidshare.com/files/146937853/Thievery_Corporation-Radio_Retaliation.zip

tracklist:
1. Sound The Alarm - featuring Sleepy Wonder
2. Mandala - featuring Anoushka Shankar
3. Radio Retaliation - featuring Sleepy Wonder
4. Vampires - featuring Femi Kuti
5. Hare Krsna - featuring Seu Jorge
6. El Pueblo Unido - featuring Verny Varela
7. (The Forgotten People)
8. 33 Degree - featuring Zee
9. Beautiful Drug - featuring Jana Andevska
10. La Femme Parallel - featuring LouLou
11. Retaliation Suite
12. The Numbers Game - featuring Chuck Brown
13. The Shining Path
14. Blasting Through The City - featuring Notch
15. Sweet Tides - featuring LouLou

?Thievery Corporation return and once again raise the bar with their 5th independent studio album ?Radio Retaliation?. Along with long-time microphone co-conspirators like Sleepy Wonder, LouLou & Notch the Outernational DJ, the production duo are joined this time by a new cast of musical collaborators; including Nigeria?s Afro-beat heir Femi Kuti, Brazilian star vocalist & guitarist Seu Jorge, Indian sitar virtuoso Anushka Shankar, Slovakian chanteuse & violinist Jana Andevska and Washington DC?s own godfather of go-go Chuck Brown. With an uncompromising socio-political agenda and richly layered production touching upon the eclectic sounds of Jamaica, Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, ?Radio Retaliation? is Thievery Corporation?s broadest and most progressive album yet!).?

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Al Stewart - Sparks of Ancient Light [2008]
Author: flip September 20th, 2008

try http://www.mediafire.com/?ibqw8edgfux
listen

tracklist:
01. Lord Salisbury
02. (A Child?s View Of) The Eisenhower Years
03. The Ear Of The Night
04. Hanno The Navigator
05. Shah Of Shahs
06. Angry Bird
07. The Lonliest Place On The Map
08. Sleepwalking
09. Football Hero
10. Elvis At The Wheel
11. Silver Kettle
12. Like William Mckinley

Even though he once stole my girlfriend (long story), and I?ve never entirely forgiven him for it, I have to admit that I?ve missed Al Stewart.

Likewise, I have to begrudgingly admit that it?s great to see him back in such fine form, doing what he really does best on his new album, Sparks Of Ancient Light. The album comes out in about two weeks on the Appleseed Recordings label.

For those new to Mr. Stewart, that something he does so well is weave these wonderful historical references into his songs. Literate as they are, Al Stewart?s songs have this weird and wonderful way touching a personal nerve. Not only that, they can also be downright catchy.

As a lyricist who has a unique way of wrapping an engaging narrative around an equally compelling melody, I?d actually put Al Stewart just a notch under people like Dylan and Neil Young. He also has that rare gift of being able to turn a phrase in the sort of cinematic, universal way that his songs become personalized in a manner that, subject matter aside, nearly anyone can relate to.

Stewart really can be that good. And during his brief run at the top in the seventies and early eighties, everybody knew it.

The thing is, once Al Stewart hit the big time, he just as quickly abandoned that wonderfully literate storytelling, replete with historical references as it was, that got him there in the first place. On his big hits like ?Time Passages? and ?Year Of The Cat,? the descriptive language remained. But the stories accompanying Stewart?s best songs like ?Roads To Moscow? and ?Nostradamus? ? songs that took you to another time and place the same way that a great novel does ? were long gone.

By the mid-eighties, Al Stewart was just another cog in the soft rock treadmill of people like Christopher Cross and Gerry Rafferty, and in even quicker time he also suffered their same fate as a footnote of latter day, post-sixties folk-rock. Talented though he was, there would be no Dylan sort of accolades here. Today, Al Stewart is largely regarded as the sort of also-ran that doesn?t even rate James Taylor props in the bigger picture.
Much as I loved Al Stewart back then, I have to admit that I haven?t followed him much in the years (make that decades) since ? something about that whole girlfriend thing. Which is why I am happy to report that his new Sparks Of Ancient Light is such a pleasant surprise.

On this album, not only does Stewart?s voice ? distinctive, wispy sort of willow that it is ? sound like it hasn?t aged a minute despite the decades which have since passed. He?s also picked up that whole literary thing right where he left it on those great seventies albums like Past Present And Future and Modern Times.

In an odd sort of way, it?s almost like reconnecting with an old friend.

Stewart?s sound from those days also remains by and large intact. Tim Renwick, the great guitarist from those old records is apparently gone, but his rather large shoes have been filled quite well (and then some) by former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber. On songs like ?Angry Bird,? the guitar flourishes are so ultra clean, if you close your eyes you?d almost swear Renwick never left.

Speaking of those songs, Stewart once again instantly transports you back to such far away times and places as post World War II fifties America ["(A Child's View of) The Eisenhower Years"], 1970?s pre-Ayatollah Iran (?Shah of Shahs?), and Great Britain circa the late 1890?s (?Lord Salisbury?).

On this album, Stewart practically recounts the history of the world in a way that would make Mel Brooks proud ? from the pre Christian calendar journey to the world?s edge of ?Hanno The Navigator? to the King?s own religious experience in ?Elvis at The Wheel.?

Talk about your Time Passages. On Sparks Of Ancient Light, Al Stewart is back in peak historical, literate, and most importantly, lyrical form. You?ll find it in stores on September 15.

And yes Al, all is forgiven.
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