Visually, I find the avatars extremely cute.  One feature I also thought was neat was that each DJ laptop reflects the operating system in use by the user.  That the site displayed an Ubuntu logo for me makes me like it even more.  (That’s me with the green hair.)

In the meantime, I’m going to use this site in moderation because I could really stay on it all day.

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Android Honeycomb Demo

Honeycomb looks promising. The apps and widgets are designed for the larger screens and the navigation is sleek. The interface also takes advantage of larger resolutions.

Many have pointed out that current Android tablets are using an operating system designed for phones so they are essentially “blown-up” phones.  I can agree with that sentiment from playing with my “knockoff” tablet but the fact that this guy from Motorola mentioned that their competitors are doing this make me wonder if Honeycomb will be available to other manufacturers when these other devices are released.  (Obviously Motorola, Vizio and others have a head start.)  If all the Android tablets (eventually) run Honeycomb wouldn’t that even the playing field?

Many of the manufacturers of the tablets being shown at CES are Google partners so their tablets come with the Google Experience.  I’m really interested in how Honeycomb will run on nonpartner devices but that will come in due time.  If the current situation with tablets being released without the Google Experience carries forward, many of the apps demonstrated won’t even be available on those nonpartner devices.

I don’t know if Toshiba is a Google partner but I noticed their demo device does not have 3.0 running on it but instead 2.2 (Froyo) though they say it will be released with 3.0. There were a lot of tablets shown that were running 2.x and will be released running that version. Consumers will need to really pay attention to a device’s specifications before buying it to make sure they get what they want because there is a lot of room for confusion in the market for Android devices.

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• Adios Augen Tablet
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I ordered an Augen GenTouch78.  It’s a 7 inch device that runs Android 2.1.  I read a lot of reviews and only saw minor complains (i.e. reflexive touch screen as opposed to multitouch) but nothing major that would have prepared me for what I was going to receive.  It took me a while to realize that there were no Google applications (GMail, GTalk, YouTube) included on the device.  While Android itself is open source, Google’s programs that run on Android are not.  Manufacturers of Android devices need to license the apps in order to include them in their builds.  Augen had not done that and in fact had gotten into trouble with earlier releases of the GenTouch78 for including Google’s apps.

I also read that none of the inexpensive tablet manufacturers have licensed Google’s apps thus far.  This also includes Market which is the official app store for the Android environment so not only can you not have Google apps but that pretty much excludes most other popular apps as well.  There are certainly alternative app stores but none of them have anything close to the more than 100,000 apps listed in Google’s Market.  I looked all over the internet for direct downloads of apps but rarely found anything worth downloading.  In fact, most links to Android apps link directly to the Market app store.

After practically pulling my hair out trying to prepare the device for my nephew, I decided that I could not give it to him.  He would not have been able to do most things he wanted to do: namely download games and watch videos.  I ended up giving him a netbook with Ubuntu 10.04 LTE installed which he loves.

I still have the GenTouch78 and have been playing with it and am now trying to find apps for myself (i.e. Twitter client, Facebook app, Flickr, etc.).  There is hardly anything outside of Market.  It is clear to me that Android is nothing without its Market app store.  I had considered an Archos tablet for myself but it also does not have access to Market without doing a mod.  Clearly I had not read enough beforehand but that was because I had no idea that Android could come without the Google apps especially Market.  How long will it be before Google gives tablets its blessing?  Or will they?  Until then it might be wise to hold off on buying one, especially a cheap one, unless you really want to get hands on in trying to make it work.

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• Adios Augen Tablet
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Virgin America runs Linux on 12seconds.tv

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• Does the OS Matter?

If a company designs both hardware and software, it can build much better systems than if they only design the software. That’s why Apple’s iPhone is so much better than Microsoft phones.

(I’m sure Microsoft will find that quote interesting.)

Oracle will also increase the investment in SPARC as SPARC processors have some advantages over Intel processors.

Granted this is only Part 1 of the interview, I was more interested in what Oracle would do with the open source properties it will acquire with Sun which was not covered.  Yesterday, I read that Ellison wants to see more Java-based devices like mobile phones and netbooks and intends to devote more money and research into Java development.

So Oracle is dedicated to Java.  What about MySQL?  What will happen with it?

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