Elon Musk is a busy man. He's also a man who isn't afraid to speak his mind, as we found out during his SXSW keynote earlier this year. This evening, he's capping off a day of interviews at D11 with one of his own. As CEO of both Tesla Motors and SpaceX, he knows a thing or two about transportation -- both within this atmosphere and beyond. Grab a cup of cocoa and join us after the break as we cover it live, won't you?
Filed under: Transportation
The home automation market is really starting to take off, and surprisingly, it's door locks that are proving to be one of the biggest areas of interest. Established home security companies like Kwikset and mobile carriers (via unnamed OEMs) are working to combine smartphones and deadbolts, while startups like Smart Knob are using offline technology to simplify vacation rentals. August, the brainchild of Yves Behar and Jason Johnson, combines elements of both approaches and does so with Behar's typical flair for stunning design. The primary way of unlocking an August-equipped door is through an app that pairs with the stylish mechanism via Bluetooth. But it skips out on the direct internet connection, which could leave it more vulnerable to hacks.
Instead, it passes all necessary online communications through the paired phone or tablet. In fact, it's capable of operating without an internet connection at all, since it relies on algorithmically generated keys, similar to a secure ID token. Those "keys" are assigned to specific devices, that also have the app installed, which are identified via Bluetooth LE. Each lock is synced up with Augusts' servers and attached to a unique account that you manage through the companion app. And, even if the batteries die, you can still use the old standby: an actual key.
Filed under: Household, Software, Mobile
Source: August
Outside of possible FCC filings, Motorola has largely been coy about just what its next major smartphone will be -- until now. The firm's Dennis Woodside just revealed at D11 that the new flagship will be called Moto X (previously rumored as the X Phone), and that it will be built in a Fort Worth, Texas factory that was once used to make Nokia phones. Woodside isn't giving away many details at this stage, although he teases that the smartphone will "know what you want to do before you do." Oh, and he has a Moto X in his pocket... not that he's about to show us anything just yet, of course. If you're curious about Woodside's actual quote, it's below:
"It'll be the first Motorola smartphone built in the United States. It'll be built in Texas -- we'll employ around 2,000 people. It's right outside of Fort Worth in a 500,000 square foot facility that was previously used to build Nokia phones."
Update: Woodside had two extra nuggets while on stage -- he mentioned that the Moto X will be "broadly distributed" across numerous carriers, a rarity for Motorola smartphones in recent years. Specifically, he noted: "The Moto X is going to be broadly distributed -- that's a first for Motorola in a number of years. The support of the carriers has been fantastic." In other words, this won't be a Nexus device, and you can count on some amount of skinning and bloatware to muddle things up. On the issue of battery life, Woodside said: "I'll save the details for later, but [the industry issue of] battery life is a huge problem. Motorola has some of the world's best engineers and systems designers who spend their lives on that problem. There are two processors in the device that creates a system that allows you to do such a thing." Two processors, you say? Fascinating!
Update 2: The Moto X should arrive in late summer. Also, a reminder: Motorola mentioned a shift toward stock Android coming later this year. While there isn't any guarantee that the Moto X will embrace that philosophy, it would be a fitting poster child.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google
Google I/O came and went with nary a word of that rumored X Phone, but according to Eric Schmidt's recent comments at D: Dive Into Mobile, there are clearly some big, big plans for Moto that have yet to be fully realized. Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola Mobility will be joined by Dr. Regina E. Dugan, senior vice president of the same company, here on the D11 stage. We're expecting plenty of questions surrounding market share, the interaction with the Android team and a vision for generating RAZR-type buzz once more. Join us after the break for the liveblog!
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Google
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Ben Silbermann has found himself in a pretty swell spot. He's the CEO of Pinterest -- a company that was recently valued at $2.5 billion, despite not making a single cent to date. He took the stage today at D11 in Southern California, answering questions shot from Kara Swisher. One of the key points he made was on the topic of mobile. Swisher was asking about Pinterest's mobile efforts, and Silbermann suggested that in the very near future, asking such a thing would be borderline silly. "It'd be like asking a business today if they're a dot-com business," he said, suggesting that every business created in 2013 should absolutely have some sort of presence on the web.
It's perhaps due to the shocking uptake of Pinterest's apps. Said Silbermann: "A growing number [of users] use Pinterest exclusively on their phone or tablet. When we released our mobile apps, we were taking bets on how long it'd take for those to surpass our web traffic. I figured it'd take a few weeks. It was literally the day it was released [that the traffic was passed]. I think it's because phones and tablets are largely always around you, whereas you're not always around a [traditional] computer."
It's perhaps the token example of how consumers at large are moving away from needing a full-fledged machine at their fingertips, and the redefining of what a "computer" is for the newest generations.
Sheryl Sandberg has served as the chief operating officer of the world's most popular social network since 2008, and today she's taking the stage at D11 here in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. She's kicking off a day of high-profile interviews just hours after Apple CEO Tim Cook got things started last night, and we're expecting her to be grilled on all manners of things -- the company's stock price, the future of mobile advertising, the success (or failure) of Facebook Home, international growth and how many Likes this here liveblog will receive. Join us after the break for the blow-by-blow, won't you?
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While it may seem far-fetched that Apple would consider following BlackBerry Messenger's footsteps and bring some of its apps to Android, it turns out that such a move isn't out of the question. "We have no religious issue with porting an Apple app to Android," said Cook in response to whether iCloud should branch out to other platforms. "If it made sense for us to do that, we would do that. You could apply that to every area of Apple." That's far from a guarantee that apps coded by Cupertino will turn up on Google's mobile OS, but the fact that we could see iMessage make a Google+ Hangouts-like pilgrimage to rival territory is tantalizing.
Update: We now have the full interview with Tim Cook right after the break.
Follow along with our D11 liveblog right here.
Filed under: Mobile
