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Posts tagged earth
Google Insights analysis of Nokia and competitors
Jul 10th
I have been researching Nokia (NOK) lately and while I wait for the annual reports to be mailed, I have been thinking about their competition. Anyone that has looked at history knows that new industries start off with many competitors and within 10 years, many of them fall off the earth, including some of the early pioneers. I suspect that is what is happening in the mobile phone industry.
Mobile Phone Industry
It’s hard to correctly interpret the shift in the market that is unfolding in the background, let alone try to predict the future. Nevertheless, if one is considering investments in companies like Nokia, I think it’s important to think about the industry (this incidentally is one reason Graham-oriented value investors stick to stable industries.) My guess at this point in time is that the losers are Palm and Motorola. These two companies were pioneers in the mobile phone industry—in fact, I may be wrong but I believe Motorola invented the modern wireless networking technology and architecture (of course everything has advanced since then)—but I have a feeling their castles have been over-run—the moat just wasn’t strong enough.
The question for anyone looking at Nokia is whether it’s the next one to fall. Investors have been selling off Nokia recently due to the fear that it is on the way to joining Palm and Motorola as a has-been. I find it surprising that the market has re-priced Nokia so quickly. As you can see from the following chart, it lost around $50 billion in market cap within 3 months with little news other than a profit warning:
You may want to recall how BP lost around $100 billion in market cap due to the Macando oil well disaster, which will likely end up being the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in American history. Nokia has seen a similar sell-off so the market is clearly fearing some bad things for Nokia.
Admittedly, Nokia has a higher beta and is more sensitive to earnings but even then, the markdown is very large. Companies don’t lose $50 billion in market cap very easily. Typically you need some big disaster to cause that much wealth destruction.
So I decided to take a quick look at Google Insights, a free tool that lets you evaluate the popularity of various keywords (there is another similar one called Google Trends.)
Interest Over Time
Google Insights is simple on the surface but I find it quite interesting (thanks to Google for making it freely available.) I like to use Google Insights to ascertain the popularity of some brand, product, or company. This is especially useful if you are a newbie and not familiar with the industry/product/company/brand. Obviously, this analysis can be misleading and isn’t a replacement for primary research or detailed secondary research. I should point out that this data is backward-looking and the impact of issues such as language differences are not clear to me.
Although popularity doesn’t necessarily indicate profitability or attractiveness of an investment, it does provide some clues about the competitive strength of a company (especially for consumer companies.) I remember using it compare Expedia (EXPE) to Priceline (PCLN) when I was researching a while ago. Since I don’t travel much, looking at the popularity of those brands was quite helpful (especially since I never even heard of Priceline before I started looking at Expedia.)
Nokia’s market position is very tough for me to figure out. I am not into mobile phones and neither follow them nor buy the latest. On top of that, Nokia, especially their smart phones and higher-end phones, are not popular in North America. If one went with their experience in North America, they might conclude that Nokia is a minor player, when in fact Nokia is the largest mobile phone manufacturer.
I decided to look at key competitors. As usual with Google Insights, the comparison, which is based on keywords,
Pray for a Google Voice Desktop App
Jul 2nd
One of Google Voice’s many cool features, was its ability to call the Gizmo5
Pray for a Google Voice Desktop App
Jul 2nd
One of Google Voice’s many cool features, was its ability to call the Gizmo5
Google Earth, Scrabble, Star Walk: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch Apps
Jun 19th
Here are some popular and my favourite apps (applications) for your Apple iPad tablet PC, iPhone mobile and iPod Touch (FYI for upcoming Apple iPhone 4 with iOS 4, Apple’s iTune Store 9.2 is ready):
1. Google Earth:
Now Google Earth app is also available on Apple iPad in Apple iTunes store, ready for a download for free, whole of the Earth is on your palm now, try to fly to all corners of the planet Earth, with a the swipe of a finger, watch stunning imageries, explore global satellite, which includes high-resolution imageries, watch the latest geo-located Wikipedia articles,
2. Scrabble:
Scrabble is a popular English language board game in whole of the world, here you play with letters and words on digital screens of Apple iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch now with this $9.99 app,
3. Star Walk Apple iPad App:
Walk on the stars and be an astronomer with this iPad astronomy app, this costs one time USD 4.99 and can be downloaded from iTunes store, this app has won Apple’s design awards for 2010, so you can imagine how beautiful this app is,
You will love many of its great features like Time machine – time travel, Sky Live, Picture of the day, moon phases, Wikipedia links, worth a download!
4. UpNext 3D Cities:
Again a free app for Apple iGadgets (iPad etc), with this you can redefine a map and view it in 3dimension, right now its available in full 3D for New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, and Austin, many more cities are ready to hit this 3D app on Apple,
More soon, stay tuned…
Robo-Hunter: The Droid Files Volume One
Jun 11th
What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I’d recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Robo-Hunter: The Droid Files Volume One (Rebellion, 2009)
Rereading Robo-Hunter, as I do every other year or so, is always one of my favorite pastimes. It’s a pity that the character of Sam Slade remains so stubbornly unknown to audiences, particularly in this country, because it genuinely is one of the best and funniest comics ever made.
The series debuted in 1978 in the pages of 2000 AD, and for the first several weeks, appeared to be an off-kilter blend of a private eye series with a science fiction trapping. But slowly, pieces were added to the plot that showed that the world Sam Slade would be investigating was bent at very, very odd angles indeed. Before the saga of his introductory serial “Verdus” concluded, your old pal Sam would be pushed to his limit by a cast of nutball robots who twisted the plot in unexpected and bizarre directions. You remember that Tex Avery cartoon, “The Cat That Hated People,” where the cat goes to the moon only to find it populated by sentient bicycle horns and pencil sharpeners? Stick somebody who wants to be a hard-boiled PI in the middle of that, and let the sparks fly.
There are certainly readers who believe that “Verdus” was as good as Robo-Hunter got, but I’m of the school that thinks when he returned to Earth, the strip got even wilder. John Wagner, who, after the second serial, took on Alan Grant as co-writer, crafted a remarkably fun ride where the stakes get higher and the whole shebang escalates into a teeter-totter catastrophe. Every story is just a masterclass in high comedy, beautifully illustrated by Ian Gibson.
Sam himself is a terrific character, a blue-collar joe who just cannot catch a break and is saddled with two fantastic sidekicks. Hoagy is this oddball frog-looking thing who reasons that he can’t become a robo-hunter assistant without putting an ad in the paper for one, so he places an ad announcing that Sam has an opening, and then comes to fill it, and Sam can’t get rid of him. Carlos Sanchez Robo-Stogie is a Cuban “ceegar” designed to wean people off smoking by reducing nicotine intake, gifted to Sam by Hoagy’s “parents” because they don’t want Hoagy picking up any bad influences.
Hoagy and Stogie are somewhere between Kramer from Seinfeld and those three dimwits from Newhart, with Sam the straight man trying desperately to keep events from spiraling any further out of control while trying to keep these good-natured incompetents from making matters worse. There’s a beautiful bit in the fourth story where Sam sends Hoagy to infiltrate a robot cult, only to have Hoagy refuse to give him any information. After all, the religion is sworn to secrecy and Hoagy could never betray his brothers’ trust.
Rebellion has packaged the first five Robo-Hunter storylines in a nice, phonebook-sized omnibus called The Droid Files, adding a later, one-off episode by Grant and Gibson that first appeared in a 2000 AD Annual. The reproduction is nice, the volume is very well designed, and you get a great big chunk of really excellent comics in one thick package. The second book is also out, though I’m not finished rereading it. I’ll come back to it in a couple of months’ time; until then, just consider this book very highly recommended and give your bookshelf the pleasure of its company.
Impress your friends with Space InvadAR Android app
Jun 2nd
from Joystiq by Griffin McElroy
Impress your friends with Space InvadAR Android app: ”
There are two ways in which your acquaintances will likely be impressed should you load up Zenitum’s Space InvadAR app on your Android-equipped device:
- Using a picture of the Earth, it creates a pretty neat augmented reality overlay which forces you to defend the planet from a neverending onslaught of circling extraterrestrials. Line up your shot using your mobile device’s camera, and drop your favorite Independence Day quote as you blast aliens from the sky.
- The app itself costs $25, so your friends should be wowed by your apparently vast amounts of expendable income.
Check out a video of the pricey application after the jump.
Continue reading Impress your friends with Space InvadAR Android app
Impress your friends with Space InvadAR Android app originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource (3rd Edition)
May 23rd
Review
Google is much more than a search engine, but most people don’t know how to access the other features. This is a big, big book and it will show you the ropes. Get high altitude photos of almost any urban area and have Google label the roads. Have Google show the names and locations of the restaurants. Add driving directions. Read and respond to blogs; create your own blog. And on into the night.
- Bob and Joy Schwabach, On Computers Column/Universal Press Syndicate 10/16/06–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Googlepedia
Best Apps for Nexus One (Android Apps)
May 3rd
Actually Useful Stuff
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Swype. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. It makes text input on your phone a dream come true. Check out a quick video of someone using it here.
reddit is fun is the unofficial official reddit app. Some people don’t like it, a lot of people do. Check it out, but you can always still look at Reddit on your browser. Alternatively, Digg has an official Android app now too. I don’t have it, so I don’t know if it works, but you know… just FYI.
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Locale (as described by some website): “This smart app uses GPS, WiFi, and cell signal to adjust your phone settings based on where you are, and when. It will automatically turn itself off in meetings and movies, remind you to charge the phone when battery runs low, and more. There’s no better way to have your phone take care of itself.”
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Urbanspoon is awesome for finding nearby restaurants depending on your mood, price, and location.
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Movies by Flixter is handy if you go see a lot of movies. It lets you know what’s playing nearby, what’s opening, and what it has on the Tomatometer.
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Barcode scanner does what it says. I use it to scan QR codes I find online, like this one for 10001 Cocktails, that automatically download apps to my phone.
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Cab4Me shows you the locations of nearby cab companies and ratings, prices, and phone numbers.
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If you’re a traveler, TripIt has a fantastic itinerary app.
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Shopsavvy is cool because it lets you scan barcodes on items at any store, and it shows you a map of all the places nearby that have that item and how much they sell it for. I haven’t really gotten a chance to use it yet, but a lot of people like it.
Social Stuff
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I love A World of Photo. It’s not very useful, but it’s crazy interesting. Basically, someone on Earth “picks” you to take a photo of something around you, and you send it to them. Then, you point your phone in a direction and “pick” someone else, who has to send you a photo. See some cool ones here, at the World of Photo subreddit. You can rate the photos and send a comment to the sender without giving your phone number or any other info away, except for the World of Photo username you create. I’ve carried on conversations with all kinds of different people in different parts of the world about the photo they just took of their dog. I’ve also met redditors. You can make a short bio and people can look; most redditors mention reddit in their bio. I’ve gotten all kinds of awesome pictures, like a beach in Spain, and a guy in Germany(?) that was at a soccer (football lol) game. I got an actual photo of that game as it was occuring across the pond! It’s really rad. I just take pictures of my cat with my ferret on his head.
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Meebo IM lets you sign onto AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and ICQ all at the same time on your phone. If you’ve ever used http://meebo.com, you’re already familiar with this app.
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Twitter just released their official app, if you’re into that, and Facebook comes standard on it (I’m sure you’ve noticed that by now). I’d used the default Twitter app, called Peep, and I’ve also used Seesmic and Tridroid, but I think I like the official app best. The Incredible also has “Friendstream” by default, which merges your friends’ Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr updates into one thing, but I prefer having those items separate.
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Tip Calc is a handy, easy-to-use Tip Calculator.
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If you care, The Weather Channel has an official app. I don’t care. But you might.
Music Stuff
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Ringdroid is awesome. You can take any song you have saved and cut out a part you’d like to use for a ringtone and save it. Beats paying for tones (or having to use myxer.com).
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Pure Music is a better way to listen to music on your phone. It displays a widget on one of your pages that gives you full control to play, pause, or do whatever with your music without having to have your music app open, taking up your whole page.
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Shazam identifies music for you. Like if you hear a song in a restaurant and you don’t know what it is but you’d like to hear it later, just open Shazam and let it listen; it’ll almost always correctly ID the song for you.
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Grooveshark lets you stream music to your phone. There are other services like Pandora that will do this, too. Personal preference.
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TuneWiki is rad. While you play music from your phone, it displays the lyrics, scrolling on your screen accordingly. The lyrics I’ve seen thus far have always been accurate and punctuated correctly, all the words are spelled right, etc. I believe you can use it for both music you have saved on your phone or Micro SD andstreaming music. I think.
Generally Useless Stuff
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Pokedroid. A Pokedex for your phone. If you like Pokemon. You can actually speak the Pokemon’s name into your phone and it pops up with its stats, the moves it can learn, when it evolves, and it even provides a link to its entry on Bulbapedia… I am a loser
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If you like when people hate you, the Instant Button app is really helpful. It’s basically The Instants Collection, but on your phone. Great. (Yes, I do have it, and yes, I do love it.) The great thing about most of the soundboards you can get is that you have the option of saving any of those sounds as notification sounds or ringtones. But I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.
Customization
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Handcent SMS lets you completely customize your SMS experience, from colors to the way you are notified. You can have it use one of three different kinds of pop-ups when you get a message, or no popup at all. You can even change the little icon that appears in your notification bar when you get a message. It also lets you save pictures that people send you right to your Micro SD card. After getting Handcent, I recommend opening your “Messages” app that comes default on the phone, hitting the Menu button, and turning off notifications on that one so you’re not notified on both Handcent and Messaging.
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There are all kinds of different wallpaper apps you can get, which are basically huge collections of wallpapers you can choose from and set. I use 4chan Wallpapers because, well, 4chan is good at awesome wallpapers. I think there’s a catch, though; you have to have that app either installed or running to use the wallpapers they provide. What I just do is pick a wallpaper, email (or SMS) it to myself, open that email on my phone and save the image to my SD card. That way, if I get rid of that app, I still have the wallpaper.
[List derived from Reddit User Helloeien's Comment]
Motorola Droid Still Leading the Android Pack
Apr 29th
