If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” consider attending our premiere GigaOm PRO webinar this Thursday at 1pm EDT. I’ll be sharing my thoughts along with Dr. Phil Hendrix of the Institute for Mobile Markets Research and Colin Gibbs, a Mobile Curator over at GigaOm PRO. Mike Wolf, our VP of Research is hosting.

Unlike our subscription service, this webinar is completely free. Or if it makes you feel better, it’s on me. However you look at it, all you have to do is resister and show up to the online event. We’ll be tackling topics like Android, Google Voice and many more mobile aspects pertaining to Google, so consider registering to join us for an hour of analysis!

Image courtesy of CNET

UPDATE: The report in Japanese that the Weibu N10A sports a dual-core Atom 330 processor has been corrected. It is now being reported that the N10A actually has an Atom 270 processor, which is a single-core configuration. We may still see dual-core processors make it into the netbook, just not yet.

The netbook market is still  growing by leaps and bounds with new models appearing all the time. The one consistent feature of these netbooks is Intel’s Atom processor. The Atom is cheaper to put into these netbooks, and that makes the low prices possible, which drive sales. The Atom processor has ample performance for simple tasks, but it does fall down when compared to “real” laptops. That performance gap may close when dual-core Atom processors begin appearing in netbooks. One such netbook is set to appear in Asia.

The Shenzhen Weibu Electronics N10A will have the dual-core single-core Atom processor, paired with the Nvidia Ion 9400M graphics. The combination of the dual-core single-core Atom and the Ion graphics could produce graphic performance much better than existing netbooks can provide. The N10A is expected to retail for around $500 when it is available and interestingly, reports indicate it will not ship with an installed operating system.

(via CNet) (Revised report via Liliputing)

I use Google apps every day, and it is a credit to the company that I can use them on any mobile device I pick up. I am able to get the full benefit from using Google Reader, Google Maps and Gmail on smartphones, desktops and notebooks. Google has removed the platform from the user experience to a great degree; it’s done that by tailoring its apps to the various platforms used for access.

Google Android is becoming a popular platform for smartphone makers, and it will not be surprising if the forthcoming Chrome OS hits the netbook once released. Google has a complex mobile strategy that straddles both the application and the platform.

GigaOM Pro has a new report (subscription required) that delves deeply into Google’s mobile strategy. The report shows how the company has leveraged the popularity of technology such as Google Maps, and capitalized on mobile platforms. It’s a good read for anyone who’s looking to jump on the Google train.

Google Voice has changed the way I use my smartphones; it’s so good at handling my stable of phones. About the only thing I can think of that could instantly make GV better would be native smartphone versions. These would let me essentially forget about which phone I am using, which carrier’s plan is controlling my call, generally make it easier for me to do my business. GigaOM reports that Google Voice will soon be available for the BlackBerry and Android platforms. The U. S. mobile phone picture just got a whole lot prettier.

What is cool about these mobile versions of GV is you will not only be able to manage your account, the phone’s contact list will be integrated. You can call your contacts as easily with Google Voice as without. It makes sense that Google has focused on Android and the BlackBerry first, let’s hope they expand to other platforms down the road.

Hector has installed Windows XP Tablet Edition on his Viliv S5 to give it the full Tablet PC functionality. It’s not something everyone can do, as the Tablet Edition version of XP cannot be purchased. Hector got his hands on it and finds the S5 makes a fine 5-inch Tablet PC. He’s documented it on a video, and he’s kindly given us permission to share. Have a look at Hector’s little Tablet PC.

The mobile phone is a personal device that has become ingrained in most everything we do in our lives. It is a device that is designed from the ground up to work with speech, and it makes great sense that a proper interface revolving around speech technology could be a huge benefit.

The report touches on current real-world applications that leverage the use of speech to their advantage — GOOG411, for example. It makes sense to speak your queries when possible for the ultimate ease of use. These applications are possible due to more capable hardware and using the cloud. Phones now have good processing power, and having the heavy lifting done by remote servers (the cloud) maximizes what can be accomplished with speech. Speech recognition takes a lot of processing power, and the report points out that local and remote resources are now sufficient to do a great deal.

I have used speech recognition for years, and the thought of a completely speech-enabled phone excites me. I would love to approach the “Star Trek” era by speaking commands to my phone and having it react appropriately. We do that on a restricted level currently, as in the case of voice dialing. That is speech recognition in its most basic form, and expanding that capability would only be better. As the report indicates, the next 12 to 24 months will see this ability spread much further toward total speech operation of our phones. Heck, my Bluetooth headset has speech recognition of its own that responds to basic commands.

Phones operated by speech will have to overcome a couple of barriers to adoption, in my opinion. My experience with speech recognition, and talking to others about it, has me convinced that many are embarrassed at the thought of operating a phone by voice in public. I’ve had many people tell me that’s why they don’t use headsets, either — they don’t like to be seen by others talking to their phone. Public places are often too noisy to allow accurate speech recognition, and this will have to be solved before widespread adoption can take place. The speech interface must work everywhere, no matter what, to gain widespread adoption. These barriers are just a result of human nature, and speech is a very human phenomenon, so they will have to be addressed.

The GigaOM Pro report is a good, comprehensive look at bringing a speech interface to the mobile phone.  I recommend you take a long look at this report if you are a GigaOM Pro subscriber, and if not, maybe you should think hard about becoming one.

I’m not sure how often iPhone owners are cracking their screens, but they’re covered now by the local Geniuses in the store. Are there a lot of people dropping their iPhones? Just looking at the photo on the right hurts.

(via TheAppleBlog)

Om Malik pointed out

CompuServe was the place where geeks could congregate and discuss geek stuff. In those early years, the only other places where geeks could get together virtually and share experiences about using those new computer things were local bulletin board systems (BBSs). CompuServe was amazing to us, as it formed a place where lots of BBSs could form in one place, and thousands of geeks flocked to the service.

We were all connecting via super-fast 2400 baud dial-up modems, and a lot of effort was spent to make sure we were connecting via local numbers; long-distance geekery was just too expensive. In spite of all the obstacles to building this unique global community CompuServe grew massive and was a glimmer in the geek’s eye of how great the web could and eventually would be.

I got my first taste of online service on CompuServe. I was invited by IBM to moderate its Aptiva forum on the service. Aptiva was IBM’s home computer line at the time, and the forum was a great place to test my toes in the water of the online community. I had a blast working in that forum, and it paved the way for my work today.

So long, CompuServe. You were an extremely important chapter in the web’s history. You brought the geek world together and showed us what community and social networking could be in its simplest form. You will be missed.

• Smart Meters That Can Tweet, From a Utility That “Gets” Broadband- GigaOM
• Chu: For Green Building Design, We Need to Go Open Source- Earth2Tech
• Will Michael Jackson’s Funeral Be Live-Streamed- NewTeeVee
• Firefox 3.5, Portable Edition Arrives- OStatic
• Apple/NVIDIA Rift to Spark Major Component Changes?- TheAppleBlog
• 3 Options for Sharing Your Project Research- WebWorkerDaily
• Is Marketing Key to Mobile App Store Sales?- GigaOM Pro

This is an interesting concept as there are those who need to keep cell phone service charges to a bare minimum. The willingness to put up with ads is a fair trade-off to some, no doubt. This new effort by Orange might just fly but then the devil is in the details- those details being how much do the reduced rates save the consumer, how much do the ads interfere with normal phone usage, etc.

I have been enjoying the beta of gdgt for a bit already, and it is all that Peter and Ryan said it would be. There is already a big database of popular gadgets and information about them all. What makes the information very useful is that gdgt members share their thoughts on these gadgets, giving the whole place a homey feel. It’s live for the masses now, so head on over and check it out. You may like it well enough to stay a while.

DISCLOSURE: GDGT is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

Image courtesy PreCentral

The Palm Pre auto-rotate feature is very useful, but I occasionally get one of those HTML emails that is too wide for the narrow screen. The email app doesn’t natively rotate into landscape, which would make it easier to read such email — that is, it didn’t rotate until this simple little hack was reported.

PreCentral points out that enabling landscape mode in the Pre email app is as simple as typing in:

RocknRollHax

This has to be done in the mailbox listing view (top level), and it’s not sticky. This means you need to do this every time you open the email app, so just leave it running in the background all the time. That’s what multi-tasking is for, anyway.

WebWorkerDaily reports that this production version is not much different than the Release Candidate version. They reviewed that version so you can get good insight into the benefits you may receive by upgrading to 3.5 by reading their review. I have been using it since its release and it is definitely one speedy browser.

This is not a scientific poll by any means; it is simply a quick and dirty chance to see how people feel about hacking their own phone. Fill out the poll as best you can, and if you want to elaborate on your choice, leave a comment.

• Biggest Barriers to Seamless Mobile Connectivity- GigaOM
• Microsoft’s Craig Mundie: Next Windows Will Have Better Power Management- Earth2Tech
• Facebook Gives Live-Stream Chat Add-On to Everyone- NewTeeVee
• Songbird Jukebox App Out in New Version, Complements iTunes- OStatic
• Wild Charge Helps iPhone Steal a Trick from Pre With Wireless Charging- TheAppleBlog
• Talk to Your Email, and Have Your Email Talk Back- WebWorkerDaily
• Can Microsoft’s OS Versions Survive the Netbook Challenge?- GigaOM Pro (subscription required)