Android Director: ‘We Have the First Natural-Sounding Synthesized Voice in the World’

Hugo Barra, Android’s director of product management. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

When Google unveiled its latest mobile operating system to the world last week, the company asked a reserved but extremely confident man named Hugo Barra to grab the microphone, and celebrate Android 4.1 as the best mobile operating system the world has seen. It couldn’t have been easy to sing the praises of an OS code-named “Jelly Bean” with a completely straight face, but Barra, Android’s director of product management, was cool and composed as he shared Android’s latest killer features.

There was the new graphically enhanced search tool, Google Now. There was the new voice-based search assistant — Google’s answer to Apple’s Siri. And there was also a new piece of hardware — the Nexus 7 — which would show off Android’s full potential. Barra anchored all these announcements, reporting the Google I/O news that the world was most interested in hearing.

And now he speaks directly with Wired about Google’s mobile future. We sat down with Barra last week at Google I/O to pick his brain about the Nexus 7, and all the other key Android announcements. Here is the edited conversation.

Wired: Jelly Bean really has two major new features — Google Now and voice search. Walk us through the thinking behind these additions.

Hugo Barra: The concept of a card with some information in it [Google Now] isn’t actually new. For a long time, we’ve had the notion of “One Boxes.” Whenever Google presents information to you on top of search results — it’s sort of formatted in a particular way, and physically separate from the search results — we’ve called that a “One Box” for awhile. So we’ve taken that concept of a card with information in it just a few steps further by formatting it in a way that’s more appropriate for mobile devices and giving it a significant amount of visual polish. It’s not a new concept. It’s just an advancement of an existing concept when it comes to search.
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Review: Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet

The Nexus 7 delivers the finest experience we’ve seen yet from an Android tablet. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Note to all tablet makers not named Asus: This is how you make a 7-inch tablet.

The Nexus 7, the first tablet to wear Google’s Nexus brand, sets a new standard for smaller slates, proving that just because it isn’t as big as Apple’s iPad doesn’t mean it can’t be just as useful, as fast, or as fun. If you’ve been on the fence about Android, or tablets in general, this is the tablet you’ve been waiting for.

If you’ve been on the fence about Android, or tablets in general, this is the tablet you’ve been waiting for.

While the Nexus 7 isn’t a full-on iPad-killer, it far out-classes anything else offered in the 7-inch category, and most 10-inch tablets too. The Nexus 7 does this by offering smartly designed, powerful hardware and the best Android tablet experience to date. For those who only use their gadgets to surf the web, check e-mail, play games and update their social media feeds, the Nexus 7 might be an even better choice than an iPad, given how much easier it is to carry around.

But the feature that will probably be the most enticing to consumers is the price. The Nexus 7 sells for $200 with 8GB of storage. That’s the same price as the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet at the same storage capacity. If you want a bit more room to download HD movies, music, games and apps, you can get the 16GB version for $250. At these prices, the Nexus 7 is frankly a steal when you compare it to what else is out there at the same cost.

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Review: Parrot Zik Noise-Canceling Wireless Headphones


          

Today’s smartphones are loaded with sensors. Soon, your headphones will be too.

These wireless, noise-canceling headphones from Parrot (yes, the same people who brought you the quad-copter you control with your iPhone) are packed with multiple sensors: capacitive surfaces, different types of microphones and an NFC chip.

The design is smart, too — they’re crafted from high-quality materials that provide a comfortable fit, they’re well-suited for travel, and they exhibit a quality of sound that’s competitive with other higher-end noise-canceling models.

Parrot’s Zik headphones aren’t cheap ($400, available in July), but they are positively futuristic, and all the technology crammed into these cans make them far more interesting than your average pair of wireless over-the-ear headphones.

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Ratio of PC to Mac Sales Narrowing to Lowest Level in Over a Decade

Innovative products like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display, pictured, have helped propel Mac sales. Photo: Peter McCollough/Wired

Apple must be doing something right in the PC space — or PC makers or doing something wrong. The ratio of PC sales to Mac sales has dropped to the lowest point in about 15 years, according to a chart created by analyst Horace Dediu.

PC sales numbers peaked against Mac sales in 2004, with more than 50 times as many PCs sold as Macs. Now, that ratio is down to just over 15x. In addition to hitting the lowest level in more than a decade, it’s also approximately the same ratio of PC to Mac sales as in 1985.

These numbers are likely global, as the Mac market share in the U.S. alone hovers at around 25 percent.

Industry-leading products like the MacBook Air, which was introduced in 2008, and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display have instilled new life in the notebook space — and left PC makers scrambling to catch up. The rise and consumerization of video and photo editing, industries that are typically Mac-centric, also likely contributes to the narrowed ratio.

Image: Horace Dediu, Asymco

via Business Insider

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Judge Upholds Sales Ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 have been halted by a federal judge in a patent dispute between Samsung and Apple. Image: Samsung

Samsung is suffering an eight-day losing streak in its patent battle with Apple. The latest loss to be played out in a San Jose courtroom: A judge has rejected Samsung’s request to overturn a temporary sales ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh shot down Samsung’s request to throw out her June 26 decision to place a preliminary sales stoppage on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 because she ruled it looked too much like Apple’s iPad, according to a Bloomberg report.

At the core of the ongoing patent dispute between the two rivals is Apple’s contention that Samsung’s phones and tablets are rip-offs of the iPhone and iPad. Both Samsung and Apple are also accusing each other of infringing on technology patents as well. In her decision to issue the sales block before the suit goes to trial, Koh said, “The Court noted that the GalaxyTab 10.1 is ‘virtually indistinguishable’ from Apple’s iPad and iPad 2.”

On Friday, Koh issued a preliminary sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone as well. But that halt wasn’t issued because the Nexus looks too much like the iPhone. Rather, Koh ordered a sales stoppage to the Nexus due to Apple’s claim that the flagship Android phone infringes on a patent pertaining to “unified search” as seen in the iPhone’s voice assistant app Siri.

Officials at Samsung were unavailable for comment by press time. The patent fight is set to go to trial on July 30.

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