TechBytes: Android Smart Phone
Big Internet deal, Google vs. Bing, Dish TV goes mobile.
Aug. 5, 2010— -- There's a new king of the smart phones. Industry-tracker NPD says Americans bought more smart phones with Google's Android software last quarter than any other smart phone. Android accounted for one-third of all sales, from April until June. BlackBerry fell to second place, for the first time since 2007. Apple's iPhone came in third.
Google and Verizon are said to be working on an agreement that would give some of what we view and download online special priority. That's "if" the companies creating the content are willing to pay extra.
It would mean sites such as YouTube could pay more, so that people using the site would see faster results. Such a deal would fly in the face of a long-held principle of the Internet, which says that no content is favored over the other. Consumer advocates argue it could also mean higher fees for all of us.
The race between Google and Bing is on. Google is still the giant, handling the majority of searches in the United States. The site has recently added more features, such as ways to view more images at a time, links to social networking sites and new navigation tools. Bing has only been around for a year but, the New York Times' Nick Bilton says, it's making a name for itself with the amount of detail it provides.
"So how Bing is trying to stand apart from its competitors is, it's trying to create searches that are much more in depth and offer more information" Bilton said. "For example, if you search for a flight on the Bing search engine it'll tell you what the current prices are and also try to predict what future prices will look like, and tell you whether you should buy now or wait till later."
Google handles about five times more searches than Bing.
And Dish-TV subscribers will soon be able to watch live satellite TV on their mobile devices. Dish will offer the feature to iPad, iTouch, iPhone and BlackBerry users beginning in September. It will require dish customers to update their home hardware, with either a new set-top box or slingbox.
