Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google is a smart man.  I make this assessment not, as one would logically assume, based on Google’s success.  Rather, it is what I heard on NPR yesterday.  Schmidt makes a heck of an argument that is tough to assail.

No R&D spending?
His argument is about electricity.  Google is a big consumer of the stuff and Schmidt believes future wars (if not current ones) will be fought over it.  He asserts there has been almost no investment in our infrastructure in the past 20 or 30 years, leaving us vulnerable and with a system guaranteed to fail.  His solution?  Do something about it.

See Google’s action plan, hit the link…

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Sometimes a good partnership will come to an end, no matter how strong and stable your company is, it will tend to suffer some major setbacks no matter how you try to avoid it. Take the case of the recent falling out between Qwest and Sprint Mobile. After rescuing Qwest a few years ago when it folded up its cell phone services, Sprint is now about to lose one of its major outlets for its cell phone services. Ironically, Qwest will be turning to one of Sprint’s competitors, Verizon Wireless for its mobile services needs. But that’s just the way business works, right?

Anyway, with the new agreement, Qwest customers will have the option to either purchase Verizon’s full mobile services as a bundle with Qwest’s landline services or separately. Existing Qwest subscribers of Sprint’s mobile services will have until February to enjoy the Sprint-Qwest services, after which they will be given the option to migrate to the new Qwest-Verizon mobile service partnership. Both Sprint and Verizon use the same CDMA infrastructure so migration would not be a problem at all. But users who are interested with the new Verizon service can opt to subscribe even before February.

Read [Reuters]

If you’re sick and tired of watching downloaded videos on your computer monitor, you’ll love TiVo and Amazon’s new offering.  Amazon’s Unbox service allows you to watch a library full of films and TV shows on your computer.  With their new TiVo partnership, you will now be able to download the videos directly to your TiVo, which is the first offering of this type to be released.  For those that don’t want to fork out $300 to the man for that Apple TV, this sounds like quite an attractive alternative.

With the reach of both services, the companies have a great chance at making this become the future of distribution.  TiVo’s 1.5 million customers with Series 2 or 3 set-top-boxes will be able to take part in the beta test - which is currently running.  Following the beta period, the companies will decide how to proceed and will likely do some hardcore marketing push.

Read [USA Today] Via [Engadget]

Though Apple and Cingular seem happier than ever to work together for the iPhone, Cingular was not Apple’s first choice. Verizon was the first picked but could not agree on a deal that worked well with both companies. Talks began as far back as 2 years ago, but Apple’s demands were quite steep. They gave us an idea between the Apple / Verizon agreement: Apple wanted control over distribution that would limit iPhone sales to Apple and Verizon stores, a percentage of monthly service fees, and even some control over the service/support aspect for iPhone customers.

Cingular, on the other hand, does not quite see the deal in this way, so perhaps Apple changed some of the conditions while working with Cingular. “I don’t want to leave the impression that these (iPhone) customers are not ours. They are.” says Cingular spokesman, Mark Siegel. Mark also clarified that Cingular would field all calls related to wireless service. Whether customers will be happy with the Cingular / Apple relationship has yet to be seen, guess we’ll have to wait until June to find out.

Read [USAToday] Via [Engadget]

If you’re as into labels as we are, then you’ll be excited to hear that LG and Prada have teamed up for a new mobile phone, the KE850.  Back in December, there were rumors, but nothing definitive at that time.  Now, LG and Prada have officially announced the device.  It actually looks very similar to Apple’s long-awaited iPhone that was announced at this year’s Macworld.  In fact, LG is currently fighting a legal battle with Apple over the originality of the iPhone.

The KE850 is a 12mm thick slim-phone with GSM/EDGE connectivity, a touch-screen, a 2 megapixel camera with flash, microSD card slot, and support for some of your favorite audio formats: MP3, ACC, ACC+, WMA, and RA.  It also supports MPEG4, H.263, and H.264 video formats.  Chris over at SlashPhone mentions that the battery life may not even last you a whole day.  If that’s the case, the phone may be quite a disappointment.

Read [LG Prada] Via [MyiPhone]

As we mentioned a few days ago, LG and Prada are teaming up for a new expensive stylish mobile phone.  News of the LG KE850 was recently released, but nobody thought the stories were related.  Now, Gizmodo is reporting the LG Prada phone rumored last week is actually a repackaged KE850.  As you can see in the pictures above, the phone will sport the Prada name prominantly and likely a Prada branded interface as well.  The phone hits Europe in spring 2007, but no word yet on a U.S. release.  It also looks like the handset will be priced around $400 or $500.

Read [Dial-a-phone]

TiVo and DirecTV announced that they are going to extend their working partnership for another three years. Under the agreement, DirecTV will continue to provide TiVo service to its existing subscribers. Both companies also extended their advertising relationship and agreed not to assert patent rights against each other.

TiVO had about 4.4 million subscribers as of January; 2.8 million of them were DirecTV subscribers who bought the satellite company’s TiVo-based receivers.

Glad we all could work this out. Now where’s my series 3 HD box?

Read [NY Times]