I’m asking Microsoft Germany’s Windows Product Marketing Manager Boris Schneider-Johne some questions about the status of Windows RT, I also ask about the Android competition, RT vs Pro market share, everything on Windows RT is encrypted, Surface RT is his secondary computer (Photoshop/Ligthroom doesn’t run on RT), how often does RT crash? Connected Standby (gets latest info all the time through Connected Standby API), and I even ask questions which he obviously can’t answer, about Microsoft claiming ownership over Android (announcing certain Microsoft Partner Android companies paying Microsoft a licence for Android) Cheaper Windows RT? $299 instead of $599? 13.3″ RT? 7″ RT? 8″ RT? and the idea of making a Metro UI for Android (he says it can’t work).
My Google I/O 2013 expectations
I haven’t been able to buy a Google I/O ticket (servers crashed) and it doesn’t look like Google wants to invite me with a press badge (thus far), but here are my Google I/O May 15-17th 2013 expectations. I’ve not always been exact in my Google I/O predictions, see 2011 and 2012. Here’s what I’d announce at this point if I was running Google:
1. Google Smartwatch. (approx same “Wearable UI” as Google Glass) $199 BT 4.0.
2. Exynos5410/Tegra4/S800 Chromebooks launched. (prob 13.3″ $299, preferably with Pixel Qi 20-hour battery life).
3. Android 5 unveiled. intro “Full Chrome” on Android, Android Extension for Chrome OS too (that’s what I call “the merger”). Android 4.3 may get released at I/O with Android 5 release for months later.
4. Andy Rubin announced chief of new Google Internet of Things and Google Robots department (this is the new Google X project)
5. Google TV now part of Android 5. all HDMI/MHL turns any Android device to full Google TV UI, even HDMI throughput and IR blaster can be supported on most phones/tablets with adapter.
6. Google Gaming now serious. launches $99 Google Home Entertainment Console. It’s ARM Cortex-A15 with Mali-T678 GPU. Most Android games now mapped for TV controller game play. Exynos5410/Tegra4/S800 too.
7. Google Glass public release in 3 months for $499. $299 version by end of the year. Early Glass Explorers get choice of $1000 credit in Google Play Store or they get 2 extra Google Glass to give to friends/family.
8. Moto X Phones launched. $99/$199/$299 (540p-dual/720p-quad/1080p-octo) (maybe T4i/S600/T4) with no contract on T-Mobile in USA. unlocked worldwide. Waterproof, unbreakable, sunlight readable Pixel Qi LCD ultra long battery life.
9. Google Book launched. $99 WiFi e-reader with Google Books, Android E Ink front-lit based.
10. Google Play Subscriptions launched. $20/month for unlimited text/audio/video/apps (authors/devs can opt-out, users can pick any category separately at $5/month each, worldwide day-1). Overnight Google Play becomes by far biggest content platform worldwide.
11. Google+ 2.0. Now + gives personalized recommendations across web.
What am I forgetting? php/mysql wordpress/phpbb free hosting on Google App Engine? New YouTube monetization? White Space Global Google Voice (with launch of White Space modem in Moto X Phone)? The Cheaper $99 Nexus 7 Lite (RK3188 based)? Upgraded Google Arduino platform on ARM Cortex-M3? Google ARM Servers announcement for cheaper/better/cleaner cloud?
You can comment here or in my Google+ thread.
YouTube feature requests (so they can monetize more)
YouTube is the worlds coolest website in my opinion. World’s biggest in bandwidth usage. Super awesome/impressive. Thanks Google for the bandwidth and for the video storage! Here are 11 of my ideas (that I’ve been posting for years) for how YouTube can make 10x more money per view for themselves and for people like me who upload the videos, which I think would be good:
1. Let every YouTube Partner get donations like non-profits do. Integrate Kickstarter like functionality in YouTube channel “fund this video project, here are details what we would like to film” and show if goal is reached, donators can advertise their website/company if they want next to donations value.
2. Display Google Shopping Buy Now links under video and at end of video when the video is about a product that is for sale online, thus enable 4% commission built-in (quadruples revenue overnight I’d guess) Partner can opt-out or manage each video by evt selecting specific product from Google Shopping to list if that is not clear enough for Google based on title, description, search etc. Let Partner evt pick favorite web stores to list in priority, for example Amazon, Adorama, Newegg, Buy.com and BHphoto for US viewers, and others can be selected for other regions of the world.
3. Let viewers pay some monthly price perhaps $5/month or $10/month for an unlimited ads-free YouTube experience, simply remove advertising and set 1080p as default but only for the people who pay for YouTube. (doubles revenue overnight I’d guess), can also include netflix/hulu/amazon prime style contents, but unlocks ads on all YouTube Partner content by default. Partner can opt-out if they prefer. YouTube subscribers can evt get prioritized bandwidth in certain situations. Maybe there is a high-end 1080p encode, or premium 4K stream bandwidth when available.
4. YouTube should offer automatic “upload all my videos to YouKu” for Chinese audiences, until China finally at some point allows their people access to YouTube. Which may happen at any moment, but for now, please just let us easily clone everything to Youku. And a wordpress plugin to auto display the youku instead of youtube when website visitors are in China would be good. If you do this, maybe you’ll accelerate the Chinese Government un-blocking youtube simply because they’d be impressed you’d offer that kind of service. If not a service by Youtube, please link us to third parties who can hook up and automatically do this kind of thing.
5. Enable p2p video subtitling and subtitle translations. YouTube Partners can decide how much of a share of revenue to evt pay to volunteers who spend time improving the automatic subtitles and automatic translations of those subtitles. Thus when “manual subtitles” are available for video, that can be highlighted and displayed instead of the automatic one. And each can be improved collaboratively, subtitlers/translators get paid based on how many people view their work and evt how good it’s rated, let people rate those subtitles and translations of subtitles. The link to subtitle and to translate subtitles should be visible by everyone “improve subtitles” and “improve translated subtitle”, people can set which languages they understand in YouTube viewer settings to automatically display correct subtitles and buttons to “improve french subtitles here” or to hide that button if people are not interested to participate. All videos with for example over 100 thousand views may thus get better manual subtitles in many languages submitted by viewing public.
6. Offer p2p video titling/describing service. People can volunteer to watch yet unlisted videos as soon as a YouTube channel uploads them, and people can collaboratively submit manual titles/descriptions/tags for each video, which the YouTube upload can approve to be used to make the video public.
7. Auto-post YouTube uploads to WordPress blog, including management of WordPress categories when the YouTube video is being uploaded and eventual other default texts or code to add before or after video. Same for scheduled publishing.
8. Explain what time of day is best to publish video to get optimal view count based on channel statistics, suggest YouTube uploader schedule publishing to those times.
9. Improve YouTube Editor it needs to be near as good as Pinnacle/Sony Vegas/Avid/Final Cut etc. Let us edit with voice-overs, music, more stable frame precision, better flexibility/stability.
10. Offer p2p video-editing. People can spend time to offer suggested shorter edits of each video as alternative shorter versions of the video. Thus people watching who don’t have time, can switch to shorter user-submitted and upload-approved shorter version of video when that one is available. Allow also p2p video-editing to combine evt several videos into one, can be limited from playlist if YouTube upload decides to, or can be channel-wide. Also the edits must be approved by uploader before those can be listed somewhere in a “user submitted edits” section on the channel. YouTube uploader can decide how much to share evt revenue from edits with the editor.
11. Massively improve content recommendations algorithm. Let me enter a gree/red full screen mode. It must show me content YouTube knows I will like, let me Thumbs up each video with the space bar and let me evt skip video with right button. Thus remote control can be built with a big green thumbs up button and a red skip button (evt a red skip and dislike rating button also). People must be able to lie back in sofa and start some impressively awesome automatic playback of YouTube’s personalized recommendations of content. Each view must be absolutely awesome. Viewer must be able to type in area of interest, search query or pick from previous areas of interest that YouTube can detect, for example now I’m in the mood for tech videos, and at another point I’m in the mood for comedy videos, with evt tags like Android within technology and tags like Louis CK within comedy. For example. Build recommendations engine on YouTube that can reliably replace TV. When people watch YouTube in family or with friends, everyone has to be constantly impressed by each video shown. A mic in room can eventually record laughs as indicator to how good the content is and to attempt at continuing to show such cool content. Recommendations engine can automatically pick user submitted shorter edits instead of the full videos if it’s measured that the certain shorter edits are better than some of the original longer videos.
You can comment here on in my Google+ thread.
$45.8 7″ A20, $46.9 7″ RK3168 and more from Sawink
Sawink shows some of their latest cheap Android tablets. Their new Allwinner A20 dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 tablet with 800×480 7″ touch screen is just $45.8 when bought in bulk. They also show their new Rockchip RK3168 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 tablet for $46.9 in bulk. RAM/Flash/Camera configurations to confirm when you contact them. They also show $133 A31S 9.7″ 1024×768 IPS. This video also features prices for screen resolution upgrades and more. They sell about 100K tablets per month and employ about 200 people in their factory.
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Alldocube Smartphones MT6577 and MT6589 5.3″ 960×540 qHD priced around $115
Cube is launching MediaTek based smartphones in the weeks/months to come.
You can watch my videos at the Alldocube factory: Headquarters, SMT and Assembly.
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Alldocube U35GT 7.85″ RK3188 for $120 in bulk
Here’s perhaps the best “ipad mini style” (exact same ipad mini 7.85″ screen) that are now invading the Shenzhen market. Are those too similar to the ipad mini to be sold legally in Europe and the USA? Is it at all possible to design a tablet using that 7.85″ screen that doesn’t look like an ipad mini clone? What kind of flexibility does a tablet maker have when using that 7.85″ screen? Cube U35GT uses the iPad Mini screen size, this video features all the prices for the different RAM, Flash, camera configurations or more.
You can watch my videos at the Alldocube factory: Headquarters, SMT and Assembly.
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$75 8″ A20, $130 A31/A31S 9.7″ by Epudo
Epudo shows some of their latest tablets, 1024×768 9.7″ tablets, some about the price for Retina, $75 8″ Allwinner A20, $135 A31 10.1″ 1280×800. They sell about 150K tablets per month with 300 workers in the factory.
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Sailing Android HDMI Sticks and Car DVRs
Shenzhen Sailing Digital Technology Co., Ltd. is a company with a long history of in-car accessory products. They are just moving into the production of Android boxes and TV sticks. They sell 20,000 bluetooth adaptors per month to countries including Chile.
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$88 A20 with 3G 7″ by Hengbida HBD and other cheap tablets in all colors
Shenzhen Hengbida Electronic Technology is a small-looking, unassuming company having an outsized impact on the tablet industry. They sell 4,000 pieces a day of various tablet designs, which come in a variety of colorful and attractive cases. Their most popular tablet model sells a pink case with an A13 – selling to the US, Middle East and Asia at $54 in quantity 500. For another $34 you get 3G and the A20 processor. They have just over 100 people in their Shenzhen factory.
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Mele Allwinner A31 and A20 Device Demo Showroom
Mele shows off some of their upcoming TV Box devices in their Showroom area at their Shenzhen headquarters.
Mele contact:
Gennie
Sales Manager
Email: sales10@mele.cn
SKYPE: apvell091
Mobile: +86 1501 3777 080
Web: http://mele.cn
Mele Founders talk Mele Company History (making the Aigo hard drive based PMPs, Sigma Designs, Realtek and now ARM Android Set-top-boxes)
Here’s an interview with Nico Zhao (President) and Brian Xia (CEO), the co-founders of Shenzhen MELE Digital Technology Ltd. They talk about how they started Mele making ARM7 and embedded Linux in hard drive based portable media players for the Aigo brand in 2004, after 2006/2007, Mele enabled the Realtek MIPS based Set-top-box market by adopting that Realtek processor for the multimedia player box (switching from Sigma Designs) and then how they’ve shifted to using ARM processors in the last year or two to run Android on their latest series of TV Set-top-boxes and bringing a whole range of new features with that.
Mele contact:
Gennie
Sales Manager
Email: sales10@mele.cn
SKYPE: apvell091
Mobile: +86 1501 3777 080
Web: http://mele.cn
Mele R&D Department and Management Offices
Gennie Peng of Mele shows around the Mele Shenzhen Headquarters Management Offices as well as Mele’s research and development, hardware, software, mechanical design, graphic design, testing, quality control and more. Also showing the CEO, President, Sales Manager offices, HR, Finance and everything else. Mele is a lead Allwinner A31/A20/A10 TV Box maker, probably one of the worldwide leaders in that ARM Powered Set-top-box segment.
Mele contact:
Gennie
Sales Manager
Email: sales10@mele.cn
SKYPE: apvell091
Mobile: +86 1501 3777 080
Web: http://mele.cn
Mele Factory Tour
Mele is probably one of the worlds biggest ARM Powered Android Set-top-box makers in the world. They manufacture up to 500 thousand Android ARM Set-top-boxes per month. On this Mele factory tour, 8 floors, 10 thousand square meters, One floor is for Management, one floor is for R&D the other floors are for the Factory. This tour shows the SMT lines that are gearing up to mass produce Allwinner A31, A20 PCBs that go in Mele’s next generation Android Set-top-boxes. The next floor tour features the factory assembly lines, where the Mele factory workers are assembling the latest Mele Android set-top-boxes. Finally, this tour also shows Mele’s storage area for packed Set-top-boxes to ship as well as storage area for components before assembly.
Mele contact:
Gennie
Sales Manager
Email: sales10@mele.cn
SKYPE: apvell091
Mobile: +86 1501 3777 080
Web: http://mele.cn
Innex Gaming Accessories, home and portable consoles
Innex shows a whole range of licensed designs for small toys featuring Nintendo characters, Hello Kitty, Star Wars and many other, game consoles that play original NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, wireless N64 and SNES remotes, portable SNES and Sega Genesis player and they are teasing a new home console that they’ll release at E3 next month.
ICOO Tablet Factory Tour
Here’s a tour of the ICOO Tablet factory, it’s on a Saturday so their 150 workers are at home. They make Rockchip RK3066, Allwinner A31, A31S, A20, A13 for $48, ATM7029 and many other devices in this factory, they can output up to 2000 tablets per day.
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ICOO 11.6″ A31, RK3188, 7″ Actions ATM7029 and many more new tablets
ICOO shows a whole range of new tablets, featuring A31, A31S, RK3188, ATM7029, MT6577, Amlogic-MX and more.
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Woddon iConEyes quad-copter with Bluetooth streaming video camera
I’m super excited about integrating cameras in quad-copters, on top of that they use Bluetooth to Android and iOS for remote control and for streaming back the quad-copter video! The Woddon Industrial iConEyes will sell starting in about one month for about 229 euro in Germany. The next version to be released maybe by the end of this year, with automatic person recognition, to follow you around without needing to control it, switching the battery on your backpack would be nice. The Woddon says all ideas are possible. You can see my previous Woddon remote controlled gadget videos here: http://138.2.152.197/2012/03/09/woddon-industrial-limited-shows-iosandroid-remote-controlled-helicopters-airships-and-more/ http://138.2.152.197/2012/08/31/woddon-industrial-limited-shows-robots-androidiphone-spy-wifi-car/ and http://138.2.152.197/2013/01/14/woddon-industrial-shows-remote-controlled-tank-helicopter-quad-copter-cars-and-more-at-ces-2013/
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