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This post was co-written by staff writer Marguerite Reardon.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

T-Mobile already has a decent portfolio of smartphones, including the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve, and BlackBerry 8820. It also sells two other HTC smartphones that use Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system, the T-Mobile Dash and T-Mobile Wing. But as the carrier rolls out its new 3G network, it needs a flagship device that will give consumers, who might be tempted to buy an iPhone for AT&T’s network, a reason to buy a phone on T-Mobile’s network.

Running the gamut
Android can be used by any phone manufacturer to build any kind of mobile phone–anything from a simple, inexpensive phone for the developing world to a power user’s high-end smartphone.

Andy Rubin, head of Google's Android project.

New rules
Android is an attempt to bring some of the ways of the computing industry to the mobile phone world.

The HTC Dream is T-Mobile’s iPhone slayer, or so the company hopes. Because the software has been developed by glamorous Google there are a lot of expectations. And some believe that Android could also be a game-changer, just like the iPhone before it.

For example, taking a page from Microsoft’s playbook, Google is trying to enlist countless programmers in its Android charge, relying on them to build applications for the phone. While the mobile phone business hasn’t made it easy to add new applications to phones, Google wants to reverse this and bring more of the openness of PCs to the phone market.

But Google’s advertising business is a money factory, and the company has shown it has patience to invest that money in key projects. So even if the first-generation Android phones don’t entice people to line up around the block, competitors who develop mainstream phone operating systems such as Nokia’s Symbian and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile doubtless are taking heed.

For Google, Android is a tool to spread Internet-savvy phones far and wide. People with powerful networked phones use the Internet much more, and Google wants to be the top company supplying the information they demand online.

“I don’t think it’s an iPhone killer. As long as Apple continues to innovate and create a good user experiences and sexy devices, there’s always a place for that,” Bruggeman said. “If the mobile phone market is 3 billion units and Apple has 15 million, they are a pimple on the mobile phone landscape. There will always be a room for a pimple on the landscape. Google is playing for the rest of the enchilada.”

HTC and T-Mobile seem to have gone the smartphone route in developing the Dream, which some are calling G1. So far, neither T-Mobile nor HTC has revealed details about the new phone. But rumored specifications for the device and pictures on various blogs suggest it’s chock-full of bells and whistles to help it compete in the smartphone market against devices like Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices.

The iPhone set the bar for what customers should expect from a smartphone. Apple then raised the bar this summer with the iPhone 3G and a new App Store that allows people to buy and download thousands of applications.

Bruggeman, though, doesn’t see Google’s crosshairs painted on Apple’s back.

Open-source software is another example. The Android software, millions of lines of code that will become open-source software with the release of the first phone, employs some components familiar to the computing industry and some new ones. It employs Linux at its lowest levels to communicate with hardware, but applications running on the system are written in the Java programming language. Java is common in mobile phones, but Google diverged from the mainstream phone industry by creating its own Java foundation, called Dalvik, for running the programs.

“If you’re going to be an Open Handset Alliance carrier, you can’t lock it down,” said John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer at Wind River Systems, a Google ally that helps phone makers build and customize Android for their phone hardware.

Because much of Android is open-source software, it can be used for free, and that means those selling phones can spend their money on better hardware rather than on software license fees, Bruggeman said. In addition, other individual programmers or interested companies can help improve that open-source software, so at least theoretically Android could become an exercise in collective engineering the way Linux has been.

Wind River is contributing code of its own as part of its Android support business. Its customers’ second-generation Android phones will ship in the first half of 2009, Bruggeman said, and “There’s a good chance we’ll make first quarter.” He called the Dream a good start, but promised better power management, performance, usability, and features for the sequels.

What’s not yet clear is how well Android phones will fare in the marketplace. Google’s software is untested, and there are plenty of competitors in the mobile phone market.

The phone, a somewhat chunky model called Dream built by HTC, is expected to cost about $200 from T-Mobile and go on sale in October. Until other partners in the Google-spawned, 34-member Open Handset Alliance bring their Android products to market, this small piece of electronics will shoulder a lot of ambitions.

In June, just a few weeks before the iPhone 3G went on sale, Sprint Nextel launched the Samsung Instinct, a touch-screen 3G smartphone designed to give iPhone a run for its money.

For T-Mobile, an Android phone could bring some Google buzz to the scrappy carrier, helping match what AT&T got from Apple’s
iPhone. It also could potentially persuade customers T-Mobile’s new 3G network is worth paying give T-Mobile new revenue from online application sales.

The Dream’s $200 price tag also hits the smartphone sweet spot for cost. T-Mobile is already selling both the BlackBerry 8820 and BlackBerry Curve for $199 with a two-year contract. And Apple and AT&T are offering the iPhone 3G for $200 with a two-year contract.

“Look at Japan, (where) we have far more usage of mobile Web. It’s similar with the iPhone,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin in a meeting with reporters last week. “If the Internet is widely available, that’s good for us.”

Since the iPhone was first launched in 2007 exclusively on AT&T’s network, wireless operators have been scrambling to find a cool device to compete. Last year, Verizon Wireless introduced the LG Voyager, which has a touch screen that flips up to expose a QWERTY keypad. Earlier this year, in anticipation of an iPhone with 3G, Verizon launched the LG Dare, a 3G touch-screen phone with a
mobile browser.

There will be plenty of hullabaloo on Tuesday when T-Mobile unveils the first phone powered by Google’s Android operating system. But the event is only the beginning of a long effort to rewrite the rules of the mobile communications industry.

Like Apple, Google plans a central site to distribute and sell applications. In August, it announced plans for the Android Market, an online center where people can find, buy, download, and rate applications and other content for Android phones. Initially, the site will only support distribution for free applications. An update later will handle different versions of applications, support different profiles of Android phones, and include analytics to help developers track adoption, Google has said.

High hopes
But the big question is whether the Dream can live up to expectations.

Marguerite Reardon co-wrote this article.

Some of the features that are rumored to be included are a full QWERTY keyboard, 3G support as well as Wi-Fi, a full HTML browser, embedded GPS, easy access to Google applications such as maps, YouTube, instant messaging, e-mail, SMS texting, a 3-megapixel camera, a music player, video recorder and player, and a memory card slot.

A report in the New England Journal of Medicine in April suggested that Google and Microsoft’s databases of patient information could eventually grow to be larger and more up-to-date than the databases of other well-known medical research programs. As a result, researchers may find it easier and cheaper to team up with Microsoft and Google when doing their research, rather than relying on a number of sources for data to do their research.

The move comes as Google and Microsoft ramp up their efforts to create portals where consumers can l upload, store, and view personal information, as well as share that information with medical professionals and insurance companies.

Microsoft and Google have joined a collection of insurers and health care providers in endorsing privacy standards intended to protect medical records stored online.

Others supporting the guidelines include WebMD, lobbying group AARP, Aetna, America’s Health Insurance Plans, BlueCross BlueShield Association, and the American Medical Association.

“Consumer demand for electronic personal health records and online health services will take off when consumers trust that personal information will be protected,” Zoe Baird, the Markle Foundation’s president, said Wednesday in a statement.

However, consumer adoption has been slow. Just 6.1 million adults in the United States have electronic personal health records, according to estimates released by the Markle Foundation.

The new “Connecting For Health” guidelines, which are also intended to reassure people that storage of their medical records online is safe, aim to break the “typical logjam in health care,” according to a statement released by the Markle Foundation, which organized the consensus framework.

Ozzie also presented Thursday, promising the rest of Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy will be revealed over the coming fiscal year (which runs through June), although he gave little in the way of new specifics.

After checking that she heard the visitors correctly, and double-checking both workers want to take the same shuttle, the robot declares: “It should be here in four minutes.”

“FY 09 will round out the story with some significant announcements,” he said. Microsoft is widely expected to expand on its Live Mesh product and discuss its developer strategy at its Professional Developers Conference, which takes place in October in Los Angeles.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

REDMOND, Wash.–Microsoft’s receptionist of the future is a robot.

In a video, two Microsoft employees approach the robot, who said (in a rather robotic voice) “Which building do you want to go to?”

“This is what a natural user interface is all about and it won’t be just a receptionist,” Mundie said. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

The demo came as part of Mundie’s presentation at the company’s Financial Analysts Meeting here. Mundie is one of two executives (Ray Ozzie is the other) tasked with filling the very large shoes left by Bill Gates, who stepped down from full-time work at Microsoft last month.

Chief Research and Strategy officer Craig Mundie on Thursday demonstrated a software-based robot that uses a combination of visual and voice recognition as well as speech synthesis to handle basic tasks. Microsoft itself plans to use the software robot to handle shuttle requests in its own buildings, which typically have a pair of receptionists to handle visitors and shuttle requests.

Microsoft plans to use this robot receptionist to handle the task of reserving interoffice shuttles for its employees.

Microsoft has launched a robotics effort, though it is still in its early stages.

If an item fits into a category it's now automatically tagged with it for easy sorting later on.

(Credit:
Shoeboxed / CNET Networks)

Users of Mint.com and other online banking services have been enjoying auto-categorization for some time now, but keep in mind these places are getting the information digitally. Shoeboxed must first scan your receipts then run them through optical character recognition. The categorization is not just for the scanned receipts though; any online receipts you “CC” Shoeboxed with will get tagged too.

Receipt-scanning service Shoeboxed just launched a new feature that automatically files scanned receipts into one of 15 expense categories. These include groceries, gas, and travel expenses, which you can view simply by clicking on them. Users can also create their own expense categories, although there’s currently no way to have the service auto-tag expenses by keyword.

In addition to new receipts, users will find a good number of their old receipts categorized. Dan Englander, Shoeboxed’s VP of Communications says some may not get the tagging treatment if the system can’t find a match, but that a “large majority” have.

The Live Mesh service that Microsoft unveiled Tuesday night is a peek of what Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has been working on all these months.

In the coming months, Microsoft hopes to bring Live Mesh closer to the product it envisions: a way for users to connect all of their key devices and keep them up to date with important data, and to further blur the line between online and desktop applications. If things are on track, we will see Microsoft add support for more devices and testers in short order.

News.com’s Mike Ricciuti contributed to this report.

The Live Mesh widget tells you what's happening with your shares and syncs. Click the image for more early screenshots.

(Credit:
CNET News.com)

But Microsoft is not alone in trying to be the platform of the Web. There are consumer efforts like Facebook and OpenSocial, and business ones, such as Amazon and Salesforce’s Force.com.

In its initial incarnation, Live Mesh is mostly a file-sharing and folder-synchronization service, as well as a nice, easy way to access a PC remotely. Down the road though, it’s Microsoft’s latest attempt to find preeminence in a world in which Microsoft-based devices are just part of the mix.

“Microsoft’s answer to platform-as-a-service is just more .Net software in a world where cloud computing negates their monopolistic control of the Windows desktop,” Benioff said. “Microsoft has let us all down through their lack of innovation; fortunately, the SaaS and PaaS movements will finally release us all from their old software models and outdated business practices.”

Even assuming it finds developers more willing than Benioff to bet on Microsoft, there’s also the question of business model.

Microsoft is trying to woo developers by letting them write their code in any number of different ways, from RSS to Atom to Javascript.

I guess Ozzie can’t count Benioff among the Web 2.0 developers that will add-in Live Mesh support into their applications.

Obviously Microsoft hopes to go further, looking to make Mesh a place where developers can write applications that can live on all manner of devices with data and settings stored in the cloud and changes on one device automatically synchronized with other devices and the cloud.

Also, Microsoft faces significant competition in both what it is offering initially and with what it eventually envisions for Live Mesh. It will need to convince consumers and developers alike that its way is the best one.

“This time the centricity is the Internet which puts Microsoft on an even playing field as their desktop monopoly is negated through the network and new devices,” he said. “After a decade of using their monopoly to stop (software-as-a-service) innovation through false prophecy and rhetoric; Microsoft has relented by delivering a service that is still too little too late without the platform as a service customers are demanding to succeed.”

You can also check out Webware editor Rafe Needleman’s hands-on review here.

We’ll have much more to say about Live Mesh in the coming days and I invite you to share your take below.

In an e-mail interview, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Microsoft was forced to respond to these other Web platforms.

As previously noted, the version that launches Tuesday is limited considerably from the broad service Microsoft envisions. (See Ozzie’s recent memo to Microsoft employees for the big vision.) Although pitched as a way to seamlessly connect various devices, for now the only devices it is synching are Windows PCs (though Macs and Windows Mobile phones are just around the corner, we’re told). For now, it’s limited to a closed beta of about 10,000 testers, though Microsoft says it plans to bring on more people over time and have a broad beta around the time of this fall’s Professional Developer Conference.

As for the current stuff, there are lots of Web services that offer remote desktop or file-sharing capabilities–Box.net, LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, SugarSync and Microsoft’s own FolderShare–to name a few.

Microsoft has said it is exploring several models, including paid subscriptions and advertising, though it vowed to always offer a free service with at least 5GB of cloud storage. At the moment, though, it is just a free service and a consumer-focused one at that. Microsoft said it would have more to say on the business possibilities later in the year.

See also Techmeme for more coverage of Live Mesh

At its core, Live Mesh is vintage Ozzie, touching on themes that go back to his Lotus Notes days such as a focus on collaboration and synchronization. The core notion is deliciously appealing. All of your data should live in the places you need it and stay up-to-date automatically.

But Microsoft’s approach holds the possibility of peril, in addition to its considerable promise. Microsoft has outlined broad visions before only to be thwarted by either technical challenges (Longhorn and Cairo) or customer concerns (Hailstorm and Smart Tags). One potential sticking point with Mesh–it requires users to use Microsoft’s Live ID for authentication, though the company said it is exploring whether it can support OpenID in the future.

Algae being grown at GreenFuel Technologies' test site at Arizona Public Service power plant.

GreenFuel builds bioreactors that grow algae at sites that emit a lot of carbon dioxide. Its first pilot was at an Arizona power plant.

GreenFuel Technologies on Wednesday said that it has completed a round of funding to ramp up its algae-farming projects.

(Credit:
GreenFuel Technologies)

In March, news Web site Xconomy reported that GreenFuel had landed a customer in Europe that could be worth $92 million.

A number of companies are developing algae technologies because of the rising cost of soybeans to make biodiesel and growing concern over growing food crops for fuels.

In a statement, Metcalfe said the company will announce a new CEO, a C round of funding, and signed customers for its technology.

GreenFuel also disclosed that one algae-growing project began in January but declined to provide details.

The algae is harvested and can be turned into biodiesel or other forms of biomass that can be converted into electricity or other liquid fuels.

The company landed $13.9 million, which was led by Access Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Polaris Venture Partners.

A portion of the money will retire debt the company borrowed following a corporate shakeup last year that put Bob Metcalfe in as interim-CEO. The remaining $7.6 million in new capital, which completes its series B round, will go to scale up technology projects.

Other social networks will be included later, as will mobile support, the company said. The application programming interface will also be made available to developers to create other applications.

Basically, you click on the Giftag icon in the browser bar, pulling up a window at the bottom for adding items to a list. If the site supports the Microformats standard, you can just click on the item you want and the specs are added to the Giftag window. You can add tags and create a new list or add it to another list.

There is integration with Facebook so all your friends there can see your wish list and buy gifts for you.

Best Buy demonstrated a version in
Firefox and said an Internet Explorer version will be available soon.

You can e-mail the list to anyone and it will include links they can click to make purchases.

If the Web site doesn’t support the standard, which most retailers won’t, you can highlight and select the item and description and it pulls the information automatically into the Giftag window.

SAN DIEGO–Best Buy launched at DemoFall on Tuesday an online gift registry that enables people to create lists of items they want from any Web site and share that list with others.

On Monday, Yahoo programmer Vik Singh, who has been involved in the BOSS project, released software that lets those two projects work together. Specifically, he adapted a package called the BOSS Mashup Framework (BMF), which provides some pre-written tools to let programmers more easily use Yahoo search data via the BOSS interface, so it runs on Google’s App Engine.

(Credit:
Vik Singh)

The goliaths of the Internet are dangling an ever-larger supply of bootstraps for folks who want to try new ideas for the Web.

The first case in point is Google App Engine, an infrastructure that lets people run their Web applications on Google’s servers, for free up until certain limits are set. Second is Yahoo’s BOSS (build your own search service) that lets people extract Yahoo search results, reorder them, and mix them with other content–also without constraint within certain limits.

Those tools, called a library, are written in the Python programming language that so far is App Engine’s only native language.

“Running BMF on top of Google App Engine is a seemingly natural progression, and quite arguably the easiest way to deploy Boss–so I spent today porting BMF to the GAE platform,” Singh said on his blog.

Singh also built an example application: the Question-Answering Service. (Don’t expect infallibility, but it does answer some questions correctly.) There was a day when this sort of thing, even this imperfect, would require a lot more resources than just a few dozen lines of source code. You’d have to assemble a lot of servers to index the Internet, analyze the results, process queries, and serve up results.

Another example Singh mentioned is called 4HourSearch, so named because it took four hours for programmer Sam Pullara to whip it together, according to his blog. The search site presents a Yahoo-powered interface that mirrors that of Cuil, a loudly trumpeted would-be Google slayer.

A rough-and-ready search engine Vik Sighn created to show how a Python programming library used to process Yahoo's BOSS-based search results on Google App Engine.

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Electroadhesion lends itself to a variety of wall-climbing robots, including tracked “tank”-style robots, as well as the more biomimetic-inspired, legged and inchworm-type robots, according to the company. The robots are simple, low-cost, easy to clean, and readily conform to different surfaces like bumps, corners, or cracks. And they’re quiet, unlike other wall-climbers that use suction technology.

(Credit:
SRI International)

(Credit:
SRI International)

SRI International has announced the development of a wall-climbing robot that uses a new electrical adhesive technology called “compliant electroadhesion” that can stick to anything from brick to glass–even damp, dirty glass.

Electroadhesion, or electrically controlled electrostatic attraction, is an electrically controlled adhesion technology that induces an electrostatic charge using a power supply connected to pads placed on the robot allowing it to scale walls, even those covered with dust or moisture, SRI says.

“Recent events such as natural disasters, military actions, and public safety threats have led to an increased need for robust robots–especially ones that can move in three dimensions,” said SRI mechanical engineer Harsha Prahlad. “The ability to climb walls and other structures offers unique capabilities in military applications, such as urban reconnaissance, sensor deployment, and installation of network nodes in an urban environment.”