Was 8.8.8.8 your default? well there's a new server in town and it's 1.1.1.1

The DNS wars are hotting up (well maybe if there was a DNS war in the first place), but there's a new player in town trying to topple Google's dominance in the domain name serving business.

Up until now, the generic default for putting in your resolv.conf (or equivalent) was Google's 8.8.8.8 public DNS IP service, well now Cloudflare have launched their own public DNS on 1.1.1.1 and it's fast.

The service was announced on April 1st, so many thought it was a spoof, a joke (it also happened to be Easter Sunday and Pesach) but it was real and it works. 1.1.1.1 is actually under the auspices of APNIC (the regional registry for the Asia Pacific region, more specifically their research group) and many a misconfigured service has a DNS entry of 1.1.1.1 - APNIC always wanted to research what traffic was bound there, but every time it was published, traffic overwhelmed whatever network it was pointed to.

Cloudflare offered to handle the traffic and analyse it, and then use it for DNS, which they have done and done it not for commercial gain (though presumably they get a lot of insight into DNS traffic and DNS use) but for the good of a healthy Internet.

As well as supporting standard DNS queries, 2 types of transport layer security are also supported, DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS which are both open standards.

More info can be found at 1.1.1.1

Project Ara, a nice idea

Google's next big thing, Project Ara - a modular phone with an exoskeleton that will last 5 years. That's their story and they're sticking to it.

Most people don't realise that there's a huge complex certification process that mobile phones have to undergo including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US, CE in Europe, and the Mobile Networks Operators (MNOs)/carriers etc.

Building a modular phone is all very well, but the phone as a WHOLE has to be certified. Mobile networks don't like users being able to change bits, they certify that a phone's compatible with their network and that's it, change something and the phone needs to be re-certified.

There's an opinion out there that operating systems are open source, and a lot of it is. The guts of it that talks GSM or GPRS or 3G isn't, in fact it's highly encumbered. Networks REALLY don't want you to mess with those bits as you can do nasty things to the network (in the good old days of TACS/ETACS you could REPROGRAM the network and set transmitter power levels etc.). That's why networks liked nice phones where you could only do certain things through the APIs and SDKs, there was no concept of 'root' and root couldn't play with those bits of code that operators didn't want you to mess with.

Google can afford the whole process, add a new module, certify the whole thing, it works. It all falls down when they allow 3rd parties to change things. The certification isn't for the module it's for the whole phone. Maybe Google have the clout to change the certification process, but as it stands it's not going to be easy to get carrier approval let alone regulator approval.

It's all well and good producing a modular phone, but is it going to work on real networks? Take your Ara with your custom modules, yes it may work (on a public network, but it's probably illegal), you might get away with it at Burning Man.

Yes Google 'could' certify every variation of the Ara that comes out, but it's unlikely.

Maybe the regulations need to change, but that's going to be a lengthy process and very expensive (well Google can sort out the second bit).

So though Ara may be the future of mobile phones, it's not going to be mainstream for a while and 3rd party modules even longer.

Google up storage to 15GB

Google announced on Monday 13/05/2013 that it was increasing the storage for GMail and GDrive customers to 15GB (this is shared if both are being used) and the upgrade will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks. Google App users also get an increase to 30GB as standard.

This should suit users who have say small mailboxes, but large image files or vice versa.

Customers can still upgrade and 100GB is $4.99 per month, or 200GB is $9.99 per month.

This will surely put pressure on other cloud storage providers such as Dropbox - who only offer 2GB as standard (though this can be increased by referring people and other methods to around 25GB).

Android apps must play nicely

Google has updated its terms and conditions so that all apps on the Play store must use Google's update mechanisms and are not allowed to directly update themselves.

This will directly affect Facebook's Android app, which had a persistent message displayed to users that a new version was available and took the user to a download link directly from Facebook.

Forcing users to only update through Google Play is a good move as it also allows Google to ensure apps can be removed from the store and thus users will no longer be able to access updates, which is especially useful if they are found to have malicious code or break other T&Cs. It also allows Google to track downloads etc.

Opensignal launches iPhone app

Opensignal the company behind Opensignal Coverage Maps has released an iPhone app available on the iTunes store.

The Android app (available in Google Play) has been around for some time and the iPhone app is unfortunately a poor cousin in terms of functionality due to the limitations of Apple's restrictions in iOS.

The iPhone app is more of a WiFi locator app, though it does have access to Opensignal's coverage data as a map overlay. This is pulled from Opensignal rather than being able to read any information (apart from signal strength and connected network) from iOS itself.

In order to better coverage data, users will still have to download the Android app and use that to map WiFi and cellular signals which are directly exposed in the underlying operating system.

Opensignal could release a Blackberry app as much of the underlying network is also exposed, though whether they will do this is as yet unknown.

Netflix dumps Silverlight

Netflix the video on demand service has dropped Microsoft's Silverlight in favour of using HTML5 vide extensions.

Though Microsoft have said they will support Silverlight until 2021, Netflix have been ready to migrate for a while and users can be unhappy with the browser extension that can be troublesome to install.

The video extensions Netflix will use are Media Source, Encrypted Media and Web Cryptography API which will be implemented in Google's Chrome browser and ARM based Chromebook and are likely to be native to other browsers soon. As the extensions are part of the W3C HTML5 specifications, users wont have to install any browser plug-ins to support them.

Blackberry Balance arrives on Android and iOS

One of the best new features of Blackberry's new BB10 operating system is Blackberry Balance. This allows a corporate user of Blackberry to maintain two profiles, one completely secured and tied-down by the office using Blackberry's Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES) and the other for personal use. The user can switch between the two, but cant, say, install their own apps in the secure environment.

Since BES 10 now supports non Blackberry devices such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android, the Secure Work Space service has been made available to them and includes protected client applications for email, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos, secure browsing and document editing. Unfortunately due to operating system differences the service won't be as secure on non Blackberry 10 devices (though there are now 3rd party enhancements to Android to do similar things).

If Blackberry can regain their enterprise customers while allowing users to have access to other features they may actually be able to hold on to the market which they've been losing over the last few years.

Blackberry 10 to launch Jan 30th 2013

RIM have announced that Blackberry 10 devices will launch on Jan 30th 2013 and that they have already received Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 security certification which means they are suitable for (US) Government use on launch.

The Blackberry 10 platform is based on QNX so is similar to the Playbook operating system which is already based on it and though it's possible to write native and Java based apps, RIM are no where near the number of apps available for Apple's iOS or Google's Android.

RIM have tried to be as developer friendly as possible and have given devices to anyone who'll listen, but with iOS and Android getting Government use approval, they may well have done too little too late.

Blackberry have always made smartphones (with keyboards) that excel in Email, text and instant messaging and also get phone features right (like handling pretty much any phone number format and being able to dial it correctly in the local convention) and they sort of do apps. This is contrast to iOS and Android which are computers that sort of do phone stuff.

Droidcon returns to London

Next week (October 25/26th 2012) Droidcon returns to London at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

Droidcon is the best Android conference in Europe and anyone interested in the Android ecosystem should definitely go.

Day one is using the 'barcamp' idea whereby anyone can come along and give a talk (with a few 'proper' talks interspersed) and then demo slots and of course the evening party.

Day two is structured with the the more formal speaking slots.

See you there.

Will Amazon buy OMAP?

Texas Instruments (TI) recently announced they were 'defocusing' efforts on their OMAP line of ARM based CPUs (OMAP is their bleeding edge line of ARM based CPUs made for mobile type devices, they also have various lines of industrial ARM based CPUs, but these tend to be based on older ARM architectures). The defocusing has led to rumours that TI want to sell their OMAP devision. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble use OMAP processors for their Kindle and Nook readers respectively. It seems Amazon has been in discussions with TI for a while and they may be a leading contender in an OMAP purchase. This would give Amazon control of their own CPUs, much like Apple has done with its Ax range of CPUs. Amazon could also use the OMAP processor in devices that may come to market such as a smartphone or other tablet. Amazon may also be in discussions with RIM to license Blackberry OS 10 and also in discussion with HP to buy or license WebOS (which HP took control of when they purchased Palm). Currently WebOS is being open sourced. Amazon have already forked Google's Android and removed all the Google sign-in functionality as well as Google's apps and they run their own Amazon app store.

Nokia dumps Qt

Nokia has sold the Qt business to Digia including 125 staff mainly from Oslo and Berlin. Digia had already purchased the Qt licensing business from Nokia in March 2011.

Qt is a cross platform set of libraries allowing developers to use the same front-end code for MacOS X, Windows and Linux (as well as other embedded system like Symbian, INFINITY, VxWORKS and QNX). Qt was originally developed by Trolltech which Nokia bought in 2008.

Nokia has lost its way in recent years having dropped its lead in the mobile phone markets (though it still has a large base in 3rd world countries) as is now concentrating on a smartphone market using Microsoft Windows Phone.

Digia is hoping to further develop Qt which has been used by over 450,000 developers and Digia is hoping to rapidly support MS Windows 8, Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

The commercial version of Qt will be maintained at Digia and the open-source variant at Qt-Project.

New look GMail has chat and calls

It seems that the new version of Google's GMail has re-instated free calling into the web based email service.

It has been available to US users since launch as part of Google Voice and appeared briefly in other markets, but now it's come back (at least in the UK version).

Your Google Talk contacts appear (if they're on-line) but there's now also a call icon when clicked brings up a popup with the ability to dial numbers.

If this stays, then there's a good chance their going to introduce Google Voice outside the US and can compete with Skype.

Nuance takes over voice, text and screen input

Nuance the company that pretty well dominates the text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-to-text (STT) market is now taking over the whole device input market too. It previously acquired Tegic (who produced the T9 text input system from AOL for $265m in 2007.

T9 was developed by Cliff Kushler while at Tegic, who then left to found Swype who produce a device input system for Android phone (users swipe their finders across the touch-sensitive screen to write words), it has been installed on around 50m Android phones.

Nuance has now purchased Swype directly for $102.5m ($77.5 now and a further $22.5m after 18 months).

Nuance's STT technology is already used in Google's Android, Apple's iOS, RIM's Blackberry and allegedly in the Siri service which is used by Apple's iOS v5 (and the iPhone 4S).

Google to buy Motorola Mobility

Google is buying Motorola Mobility their (ex) handset division for $12.5bn in cash, however Mobility also manufactures set-top boxes (and a lot of them) which fits in nicely with Google's TV plans.

The deal should complete in 2012 but there will be a lot of US and EU competition regulations to wade through, so the deal might actually a while to get final approval. Shareholders should be happy as Google paid $40 per share which was a 63% premium (on Friday's closing price).

Google will gain access to a large patent portfolio which may help them against the threat from other IP holders such as Microsoft and Apple, though it's unlikely to do much for the fight against Oracle and their Java legal issues.

Motorola are one of the major Android licensees and Google expect to keep them at arms length in terms of Android development. It's likely that Google will sell all or part of the division in the future - so a cash deal means it's easy to chop off the divisions without their being any legacy tie-ins to Google.

Google's Nexus One was manufactured by HTC, the Nexus S by Samsung, this deal probably means the next Nexus will be a Motorola unit.

Microsoft makes more from patent licensing than WP7 licenses

Microsoft (MS) has a huge patent portfolio and a lot related to mobile technologies used in mobile operating systems such as Android and others.

It recently added General Dynamics Itronix division (who make ruggedised systems running both Windows and Android), though a small player it is going after companies like this to show that it may be better to license Windows Phone 7 (WP7) rather than use Android and pay MS patent license fees.

MS has already reached agreement with large companies such as HTC (one of the largest manufacturer's of smartphones again running Android and WP7) and has lawsuits against Motorola and Barns and Noble.

It is thought MS are trying to destabilise Google's mobile power base and get manufacturers to use WP7 as it's protected against any other kind of licensing in terms of intellectual property.

It's alleged that Microsoft make more money from Android IP royalties than they do from WP7 licenses - so though they'd like more vendors to adopt WP7, they're winning on both sides.

Nokia releases MeeGo v1.1

Nokia has released version 1.1 of the MeeGo Operating System (OS) which contains Linux Kernel 2.6.35, X.org server 1.9.0, Web Runtime, Qt 4.7, and Qt Mobility 1.0.2. It's available in several versions optimised for the devices that they run on i.e. MeeGo for Handsets, MeeGo for Netbooks, MeeGo for In-Vehicle Entertainment.

The Netbook version is actually 2 versions, one with the completely open source Google Chromium browser and the other with Google's Chrome browser which requires the suer to agree to Google's EULA.

Though the handset version supports Nokia's N900, they say it works but it's not really for end-users yet and the the user interface (UI) isn't ready for prime-time.

The IVE release supports text-to-speech using the open source Festival speech engine and speech recognition using PocketSphynx (which is based on the open source Sphynx speech-to-text system).

Though Nokia are developing MeeGo (which is the combination of Nokia Maemo OS and Intel's Moblin OS) it may be another dead-end OS as Android is starting to dominate the smart-phone market and Google will release their ChromeOS for Netbooks (though Android is already being used on tablets).

Qt (the cross-platform toolset that Nokia acquired with Trolltech) is the key technology that Nokia want to push (it sits on top of MeeGo and Symbian as well as MacOS and Windows) and MeeGo may just be a way to ensure they have an in-house development platform that's use don live devices, but that cant be a long-term strategy (MeeGo is only officially supported on the N900 and Aava devices in terms of handsets).

MeeGo version 1.2 can be expected in 6 months i.e. April and will include a more polished UI and other new features.

Google gets ballsey on the UK homepage

It's Sept 7th 2010 which must be special (for Google anyway) as their UK homepage now has a set of balls (or are they balloons) that swirl around as the mouse goes near them and then they settle back into the semblance of the Google logo.

Google usually modify their homepage on specific anniversaries and it could be the date Google opened their doors in Menlo Park on Sept 7th 1998, which they have celebrated previously so it would make it the 12th anniversary, but why bouncing balls which look more particle physics?

Chris Heilmann who's Yahoo's Developer Network evangelist has published the source code (reverse engineered) to how they've done it based on HTML/Javascript and CSS.

Google do publish a list of their logos but today isn't on there yet.

HP's saucy acquisition of Palm

HP acquired Palm for $1.2bn and maybe there's method behind the madness, why would they want Palm?

The price seems quite high for a mobile company that isn't quite meeting market expectations and though Palm have some nice devices (the Pixie and Pre) and a new operating system (WebOS) they're not selling brilliantly.

HP make PDAs, they're trying to sell them into the enterprise which is where HP do well. Palm used to sell into the enterprise and do well, but they've lost their way and the introduction of WebOS was too late too little and they've been overtaken by Apple with the iPhone, RIM with their Blackberries and Google with Android based systems. HP license Windows Mobile which hasn't been the huge success that both Microsoft and HP would have liked.

So HP's acquisition of Palm suddenly means they have their own operating system WebOS which they can develop, make shiny and integrate on to their own devices and get their mobile devices back into the enterprise.

There's a second reason too, HP want to make tablets (of the computing variety) and they need an operating system, especially since Microsoft have just dropped their tablet plans. WebOS could fit that bill and again would fit well in HP's core enterprise market. It will need some polishing, but HP have got the clout to push it in the right direction. They can develop a creditable competitor to Apple's OS and Google's Android/Chrome systems and Intel/Nokia's MeeGo.

Maybe the acquisition was too cheap?

Google buys a mis-spelt Linux

Google has acquired Agnilux a silicon foundry made-up of ex PA Semi employees who jumped ship when Apple acquired PA Semi in 2008 (for $280m).

PA Semi design ARM based CPUs and their fruition of their work is meant to be the A4 processor which is the heart of Apple's new iPad (and probable forthcoming iPhone 4G as leaked by Gizmondo).

Little is known about Agnilux but it seems that as well as ex PA Semi employees, there's a few ex Cisco employees too and it has a partnership with Cisco.

Rumours are that Google will use the Agnilux technology to drive a new generation of Google tablets, though the Cisco relationship could mean it's more of a network processor or for video, in which case Google could use it for building into set-top-boxes and such like (which would then run Android).

Another rumour is that they are producing highly scalable low-power ARM designs which could be used in datacentres - which would also suit Google who have lots of servers and reducing the power footprint while increasing their CPU capacity would mean huge savings in the long term for them,

It's all looking Pink for Plink

Google have just acquired UK art search company Plink.

Plink's technology allows users to point their phone at a work of art and take a picture which will then link to the original artwork (and prints etc can be purchased). Plink were finalists in Google's Android Developer Challenge, winning $100,000.

Mark Cummins and partner James Philbin who founded Plink will move over to Google and work on Google's Goggles application utilising the back-end Plink technology for that platform.

The Android app is still available for download, though development of it will no longer take place.