Over the weekend Google teased some big announcements were coming to Google TV on Monday, but so far all we have seen is a blog post about a new YouTube udpate that is coming later this week. Many are assuming that the YouTube news was the big announcement, but Google actually made that [...]]]>

Over the weekend Google teased some big announcements were coming to Google TV on Monday, but so far all we have seen is a blog post about a new YouTube udpate that is coming later this week. Many are assuming that the YouTube news was the big announcement, but Google actually made that post Sunday night and they did tease announcements, plural.

Hopefully Google still has some kind of big reveal coming later today, but if they don’t here is my list of three things I would like to see.

1. A new $99 companion device

Where are the new devices? We saw a few products demoed at CES like the LG Smart TV and Marvell set-top box, but none have gone on sale yet. To make matters worse, some of the previous generation of Google TV products have been discontinued and are no longer available in retails stores.

Recent rumors have suggested that Google will get into the hardware business and release their own home entertainment system. People briefed on the company’s plans think Google’s box will stream music and other digital media, and we have our fingers cross that this device somehow integrates with Google TV.

Google recently made the switch to ARM based processors from Intel x86 processors, which should help to reduce the overall cost of devices. When we questioned a Marvell representative at CES about the cost of future Google TV devices they said, “I can tell you it’s going to be a lot cheaper than $300. It will be a very attractive price point.”

We saw the sales of the Logitech Revue really take off when the price was reduced to $99, so hopefully Google and their OEM partners can offer a device somewhere around that price point.

2. Content deals with major networks

After the recent update to Android 3.1, I am really happy with my Logitech Revue. For people that wish to cut the cord, Google TV is about 90% of the way there. Their new content channels menu offers a great experience, and I now go to it first instead of my lame Time Warner channel guide.

Instead of focusing on what’s showing on live TV, the new menu lets me browse shows and movies from all sources. I can still filter down to only live TV shows, but it’s nice to just browse by category when I know what I want to watch. Google TV supports Netflix, Amazon Videos on Demand, and a whole host of other online streaming content.

Google’s Chrome Browser supports Adobe Flash Player, which opens the door to a huge chunk of streaming content. More and more networks are putting live TV shows and sports broadcasts online (like Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl), but the major networks still block the Google TV browser from accessing a lot of their content.

For example, if your wife wants to watch the latest full episode of The Bachelor on abc.com, you will be granted with a message that your device is not currently supported. You will see similar messages from NBC, CBS, and FOX. Some cable channels like TBS and TNT will allow you to watch some full episodes online, but you are required to login to your cable account and not all providers are supported.

If Google can somehow work out a deal with these broadcast networks, it would make Google TV much more appealing to the average user.

3. Timely software updates to Android and Chrome

It took Google almost two years to upgrade Google TV devices to Android 3.1, which added the Android Market. Now Google has already moved on to Android 4.0, but there are no promises that current hardware will ever get that software update.

I understand that wireless carriers are a big bottleneck with software updates for phones, but there’s just no excuse for the slow updates on Google TV devices.

Another example is the Chrome Browser found on current Google TV devices. It is stuck at version 11, while version 17 was just released to other devices last week. Now that Google has placed the Chrome Browser on the Android Market, they should be able to push out timely updates. Google TV devices would still need to be upgraded to Android 4.0 before that happens, but hopefully it’s on their list of to-dos.

Wrap Up

Don’t get me wrong. I’m completely satisfied with my current Google TV experience, as are many others. I think the main frustration comes from the slow pace of innovation compared to other Android devices. I thought by now there would be some awesome applications for my Google TV, but there are not enough devices out there yet for developers to actually get a return on their investment.

Even though many would consider Google TV to be a complete failure up to this point, I still see huge potential in the platform. If Google goes down the route of re-branding their efforts as Google @home or Android Hub, and just makes TV another application of the platform, I think they can turn it into a winning product.

What kind of announcements would you like to see in relation to Google TV?

Samsung, have you learned nothing from the past couple years worth of advertising failures? You could have done so much with your Super Bowl ad, but you didn’t. You did nothing but brag about a stylus, and make fun of one of your main competitor’s customers. Samsung blew a monstrous opportunity yesterday to show off [...]]]>

Samsung, have you learned nothing from the past couple years worth of advertising failures? You could have done so much with your Super Bowl ad, but you didn’t. You did nothing but brag about a stylus, and make fun of one of your main competitor’s customers. Samsung blew a monstrous opportunity yesterday to show off why people all over the world love the Galaxy Note.

What they did

The first thirty seconds of Samsung’s Super Bowl ad are dedicated to showing people standing in line complaining. With one of the few product related dialogue lines during that thirty seconds being, “It’s the new Samsung Galaxy Note, It’s got a pen?!”

The next minute is dedicated to an old song from The Darkness, and who knows how many thousands of dollars worth of dancing and stunts. Oh, and some people are using the Note’s camera.

The end of the 90 second commercial shows the Note, with a coming soon sign right next to Best Buy’s logo.

If you had never heard of the Galaxy Note, what would you assume it is? A tablet with a stylus? That has a camera? Are either of those features compelling enough to drive the average consumer to investigate? Or will they be busy talking about how they used to have a Palm Pilot with a stylus?

It looks likes Samsung may have left consumers with more questions than answers. And nothing compelling enough to push them to find out more.

What they should have done

The Galaxy Note doesn’t just feature a stylus. The Note’s S Pen is paired with a Wacom brand digitizer. A brand recognized by millions upon millions of professionals in all sorts of media and art related industries. Samsung really should have shown that off.

They should have talked about how fluid using the S Pen is. And how it’s nothing like the styluses of yesteryear. They should have shown off how it’s pressure sensitive, all the different brush strokes you can use, and the different applications the S Pen works with.

Then, they should have mentioned how the large ultra crisp display is excellent for viewing and editing photos and video. A perfect compliment to the level of detail the S Pen is capable of.

Oh, and about that display. They need to make sure everyone knows about the rigorous testing done to make sure it was just the right size. Perfect for the Samsung exclusive technology built into the Note. Great for reading books and watching movies. Just big enough to give you a roomy tablet-like experience. Yet still small enough to use as a phone. Because you know, the Note is a phone after all.

Samsung could have done a lot with their Super Bowl ad. But they did practically nothing. Maybe next year?

As is usually the case with these sorts of things, we’ll start off with a disclaimer or two. Most importantly you [...]]]> I am taking a chance here by discussing a topic such as this, and in particular taking the stance that I am taking. So, with that in mind, let’s just get down to business.

As is usually the case with these sorts of things, we’ll start off with a disclaimer or two. Most importantly you must realize that these are my opinions and observations, and some of them might be wrong. Please feel free to let me know if you disagree with anything I say. Keep in mind also that I am not saying that rooting your device does not have its benefits, but rather that one must be careful. Now that that is out of the way…

So, you just got your fancy new G1 or MyTouch 3G (or whatever other device you happened to get) and you’ve been reading about all of the cool things that you can do with it… but there is a catch. You have to “root” your device in order to do these cool things. So, of course, you hop online, find a tutorial (or even better, the so-called “1-Click Root” method) and proceed to root your device. To your surprise, it has been made so easy by now that it worked perfectly on the first try. Congratulations.

Now, in a perfect world, every user who has gone through this process knows exactly what they are doing and, even more importantly, how to keep their device and the information within and connected to it safe afterward.

But the reality is we don’t live in a perfect world and I see new Android users every day who choose to root first and ask questions later. That is, they decide that they want or need to root their device before truly knowing what that entails.

However, I can’t really put all of the blame on the users at this point because I know that there are a lot of (really great) tutorials out there for rooting, and I know that not all of them put enough emphasis on the seriousness of it all. Some flat out fail to make it clear that you are compromising the security of your device when you root it. It is as if they make assumptions about the technical level of the reader, and we all know what happens when you assume.

Accordingly, it always concerns me when rooting guides are placed right alongside beginner tutorials. To the reader, this implies that rooting is a beginner process, and that all beginners should do it. To that I would have to disagree. In fact, there are some users that simply should not do it.

To fully explain why I think not all users should root I have to jump out of the “root” discussion for a while, but I hope it will help to make my point.

How many times have you been perusing the Android Market and seen an application or game that you wanted to download? Countless, right?

How many times have you gone to download that application or game, been presented with a list of requested permissions, and seen things like Full Internet, GPS Location, Read Contacts, etc… Do you ever think “Hmm, why would a game like Asteroids or “Insert Game Name Here” require access to these things?” Do you ever install anyway? Don’t be afraid to say yes… I have done it too.

The fact is the majority of users simply don’t pay enough attention to the permissions requested by Android applications.

The fact that the Market tells us what types of things a given application wants to do is totally awesome, but it isn’t enough. Unless the user takes this information and makes an informed decision, there is little point to this security measure. As soon as you grant these rights to an application, there is little you can do to stop them taking all of your Contacts information (for example) sending it up to their server and doing with it what they please. I am sure that your mother wouldn’t appreciate whatever repercussions this might have (spam, telemarketing calls, junk mail, etc…).

And take for example another type of app. The kind that may have the best of intentions, but the worst of implementations. Believe it or not, developers do make mistakes. Sometimes a developer chooses to use a protocol that they think is secure but isn’t. Or maybe they choose to use a single sign on for all users, and then leave in the debugging code that prints that sign-on information to the console. Suppose also that this well-meaning application also offers an option to remotely wipe your phone. What happens when someone figures out how to spoof information (they probably already have) and send it to the server and invoke a wipe of your data without you knowing it?

Basically, what I am saying is that even non-root applications can be harmful to the overly trusting user. With that being said, we’ll head back to the discussion of root access for applications.

So, with root-enabled Android applications we see all of the same potential for misuse that we see in regular Android applications and then add on a whole new level of potential. Why? Because root access circumvents the security restrictions that are put in place by the Android OS and there is not really any effective way to tell just what the application intends to do with that power.

Sure, most (if not all) modified firmware releases include the Super User application by Koushik Dutta, or a variant of it, but is that enough? Similarly to the user account control message in Windows or other similar programs in other operation systems, this app only tells when an application requests Super User access. It does not (can not?) tell us what the application intends to do with that access.

How many times have we (yes, I have done it too) granted “Always Allow” access to an application without fully knowing exactly what the app was going to do? How can we tell exactly? Most of us can’t, so we rely on what other users tell us, or we trust the developer. But, of course, that is not always reliable.

In many cases, but not all, these applications are open source so we can look at the source code to assess the risk. Then again, with an open source application, there is a greater possibility of coming across a modified version. Even if you only allow access once, your phone could be ruined.

But what exactly might a malicious root application do? Basically anything. In a little brainstorming session with a friend we came up with a wide variety of evil things that a root-enabled application could do.

• replace the Gmail application with a modified version
• replace your keyboard with a version that logs keystrokes
• delete files such as applications or application data
• download and attempt to install a different modified ROM
• download and install another application that wakes up nightly to call toll-numbers
• gain access to your Market account and make purchases on your behalf
• and the list goes on…

Luckily, we haven’t yet seen anything like these. Hopefully, we never will.

If you are now thinking, “Man, that stuff is scary…” then I am already starting to feel better. It is the user, who recognizes the potential misuse and keeps it in mind when using these applications, that will be better able to protect their device and information.

Do your research. Learn about an application and the developer before trusting them. As a precaution, don’t use “Always Allow” in the Super User application, though that will not protect you against a one-time attack.

Ideally, we wouldn’t have a need to “root” our devices for some of the things that we are rooting for.

Case in point, I’d guess that a large portion of users root because they want to apply a theme. If Android were to natively support themeing, that might reduce the number of people rooting. Some people are rooting because there are optimizations added to make the phone run faster. Perhaps some of those optimizations could be contributed to the Android Open Source Project and included in official builds. In the case of the G1, where storage is extremely limited, we are rooting so we can store apps on the SD Card, or so that we can continue to receive updates to the OS.

In the effort of full disclosure, I have two Android devices, a T-Mobile G1 and a Google Ion ( HTC Magic), and both of them are rooted. I rooted my G1 when I first got it so that I could install applications to my SD Card. I will not claim to have known exactly what I was doing at that time and I am pretty sure that I don’t now. For months I used my Ion without rooting, and only did recently to try out the “1-Click Root” method. Otherwise, I’d be pretty happy plodding along without root on my phone.

I am sure that there are a few readers who might be wondering what brought on this post? To be honest, it really comes down to an observation that a lot of new Android users have the impression that in order for your Android device to be “functional” it must have root. And while I wouldn’t normally see that as a problem, we are beginning to see more users who don’t fully understand the whole root concept and as Android continues to gain momentum, the likelihood of an attack grows.