Year: 2010

Whoa.  We knew that the Droid brand had swooped in to steal smartphone market share from just about everyone including RIM and their Blackberry line, but that chart above puts it on a whole other level.  With the introduction of the original Droid and the Eris in October of 2009 on Verizon, you can see when the beginning of the end got its jump start for RIM.  And throughout the rest of the year, we saw 5 more “DROID” phones plus a handful of other Android devices land on Big Red that all seem to be the choice for future smart phone goers.  While Motorola has already jumped well beyond everyone in terms of overall numbers, Samsung, LG, and HTC will surely overtake RIM as well once 4G LTE devices become available.

The rest of the numbers after the jump.   (more…)

Remember the exploding Droid 2 from last week that crushed some guy’s ear, leading his shadiness it to bleed all over the internet in a set of ridiculous pictures?  Well, I’m sure you’ll be so surprised to know that the guy was potentially lying.  Shocker, I know.  Motorola has commented to Gearlog this morning, confirming that the phone was likely dropped, leaving the screen cracked.  The man then cut his ear on the cracked glass after forgetting Childhood No-Nos 101 which says, “stay clear of broken glass you fool.”

Motorola also made it clear that nothing exploded in this device:

[T]he only things that could explode in a phone would have resulted in a phone that did not work, yet this phone worked. And there was no explosive damage to the device (things inside blown outward, etc).

I love scamsters.  They make for great internet reading.

Via:  Gearlog

When I got to last night’s Blazers game against the Orlando Magic, the first thing I noticed was this group of guys sitting in front of me wearing Google Places shirts.  I was just about to ask if they were Google employees, hoping they were all carrying Nexus S devices until I realized there was a red shirt similar to theirs on every chair in the arena.  Sure enough, Google sponsored a “red out” of Blazers shirts and brilliantly placed their new Hotpot service on the back of them.  Good stuff right?  Well they didn’t stop there.  Above every single urinal in every bathroom in the building, they had stickers reminding you of Hotpot with catchy slogans like, “Rate like a Racehorse” which of course received a nice laugh from those of us deep into a couple of pints.

And then this morning, I wake up to a Google Mobile Blog post announcing Portland as the first to get a major Hotpot marketing campaign for this new service.  They have already distributed business kits to some of the top restaurants and businesses in the area to help promote it, so expect to see Google Places stickers in the windows of your favorite cafe.

Speaking of those stickers, if you have a Nexus S, you’ll be able to use that NFC chip to check in simply by touching one.

Portland readers, be sure to check out the Hotpot blog for more, head to Voodoo donuts (either location) this Saturday for a special treat, and enter to win a dinner for 10 to your favorite restaurant here.

And Google, feel free to send us a Nexus S to test on all of our favorite Portland pubs.