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Motorola to Add Google to Mobiles

Kijori writes "Motorola has announced plans to enable users of its mobile phones to access Google's internet search engine at the touch of a single handset button, the BBC is reporting. "The US mobile phone maker said it would introduce Google's software technology to many of its new handsets. The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones." While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

10 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Does this mean all my calls will be archived? by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 5, Funny

    or is that already being done by the NSA?

  2. No they're not by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

    Not at the current access rates they won't. I've used WAP once, and after getting my bill, I was through. Many people I know had the same experience with it.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. Re:Babies can use google too! by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is a mobile. I hate that use of the word, "cell phone" worked just fine, IMO.

    This is a cell. I hate that use of the word, "mobile phone" worked just fine, IMO.

    Get off your high horse already, and realize English is a living, changing language. This isn't France for crying out loud...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. been doing that for a while by chrismtb · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have been accessing google and other wap sites for a long time, including my school email, gmail, weather, mapquest, yahoo and more. With verizon, WAP / wireless web only uses minutes (free on nights/weekends), as long as you use your own proxy server (or a free one). What you pay verizon $5/month for is use of their proxy server. Note that there are exceptions to this: some of the newest phones require a data plan and wireless web may not be charged as minutes.

    I run my own proxy server on my PC and log on to that with my phone. I set up a free WAP homepage, with links to a bunch of useful sites. If you set up or find a reliable proxy server, it is just a matter of doing some very basic on-phone "hacking", which usually just consists of accessing hidden menus. More information than you would ever need about phone hacking is available at Howard Forums. Mail2Web is a site that lets you check virtually any email through WAP.

    Noob note: if you are going to run your own proxy, make sure to password it, especially if you are on a network. Slashdot may not let you post if you are running a proxy.

    --
    Break the mindless monotony!
  5. Not any time soon by Dragoon412 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    While mobile-phone internet use is currently low, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is optimistic: "People are going to spend all their time on it eventually," he said."

    Not any time soon, they aren't.

    With carriers charging obscene rates for data transfer (my plan with Cingular is $15/month extra for 5MB), charging by the kilobyte for overage, and the realistic speed you get off their gee-whiz-bang-super-ultra new networks delivering an experience similar to visiting a Flash-heavy site on a 9600 baud modem, and phones so absurdly underpowered (yet still overpriced) that they choke running a text-only browser, you'd have to be delusional to think mobile phone internet access will increase by any substantial amount in the near future.

    Case in point: about a year ago, I got the much-hyped V3 Razr from Cingular. Remember the commercials? This thing was supposed to be a home entertainment center, PDA, and PC all in one device. Obviously I was skeptical, but I liked the form factor. And it's really hard to do much multimedia work with only 5MB of memory and no flash card capability.

    Turns out, even in an area covered by what Cingular claims to be their hi-speed network, it takes me roughly a minute just to launch the browser and get my text-only home page loaded (it may have a Cingular logo on there, too, admitedly). Just the other day, I was sitting in the pharmacy, waiting on a perscription to be filled, and really wanted to know what time the Red Wings game started. It took ten fucking minutes to load a page only 3 clicks deep off my homepage and find out the start time.
     
    ...and this is on a supposedly high-end phone. Sure, if you buy one of those PDAs with a phone tacked on (i.e. the Treo), the experience is dramatically better, but the Razr is (sadly) still one of the better (best?) phones on the market, and if this is the dismal experience I'm getting now, how long until phones progress to the point that going online is tolerable and affordable for Joe User and the phone that came free with his plan? Quite a few years, I'd imagine.

    It's sad, really. The biggest barrier to the adoption of mobile phone-based internet usage are the people trying to sell you the service in the first place. And the phone manufacturers aren't helping any. Cell phone providers suck the big one - who knew? ;)
  6. google stories on slashdot? by DarkClown · · Score: 4, Insightful

    what is the record for the most google stories at the same time off the slashdot homepage?
    right now there are 3...
    wonder what the record is for any single topic having the most slash-share at a given time...

  7. Ballmers new (broken) mobile by nighty5 · · Score: 4, Funny

    (Throws the mobile across the room)

    I'm gunna fuck'n kill Motorola
    Steve Ballmer

  8. Re:okay. by User+956 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I personally wouldn't want to carry a huge screen around...

    It doesn't have to be "huge". A 400x400 screen would be more than fine. The treo 650 has a 320x320 screen.

    So the 240x240 in a newer model is especially bizarre. Isn't technology supposed to advance, not regress?

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  9. Re:okay. by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The VGA (640x480, or actually 480x640) screens on PocketPCs look great. They're too wide for a phone, but a 640x240 screen, held in landscape mode, would work great on a phone in combination with a scroll wheel. From my own experience browsing on various Palm and PocketPC devices, the main thing to allow normal rendering is adequate width.

  10. In other news... by cgenman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Google has Googled the entire Googley Google. Google Google world park in Googleville has a Googleplex of Googish Googles Googling to Google your Googles. "We Google Your Google so you don't have to," said one Googliscious Googler.

    A spokesperson for MSN was Googled as saying: "Crap"