This week had me running around the Consumer Electronics Show floor, where Android was everywhere. Except for the Microsoft booth, that is, where Windows Phones got people buzzing. It doesn’t matter though as Microsoft rakes in cash from approximately 70 percent of all U.S. Android handset sales due to patent licensing agreements.

At the show were tablets and smartphones galore running Android; many of them showing off the new Android 4.0, which I find is a huge improvement for the platform. Huawei impressed me early on in the week with the debut of its Ascend P1 S handset. Short of a quad-core processor and large amounts of internal storage, this phone has outstanding specifications. Combined with Android 4.0, it should sell well, pending the price and carrier options forthcoming.

Later in the week, the same company showed me a 7-inch Android 4.0 tablet with similar specifications. One notable bump is the 1280 x 800 display with IPS technology, allowing for wide viewing angles. As much as I liked the Huawei MediaPad though, the Android star of CES for me was the Asus Transformer Prime.

This large tablet has an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor and outstanding graphics capabilities. That kinds of power was illustrated in a demo of the game Shadowrun. The Transformer Prime can drive an 8-person multiplayer instance of the game while also mirroring the display on a large screen HDTV in 720p format.

That may be a bit of overkill for most people, but it’s an example of the power coming to Android tablets. And the keyboard dock option allows for keyboard and mouse use while also boosting the total run-time of the device to more than 20 hours. To say I can’t wait for a review unit is an understatement as I’d like to see if the Prime with optional dock could suffice as a true notebook replacement for my specific computing needs.

Of course, hardware alone is generally useless without good software and an effective mobile user interface. Google has done well with the Android 4.0 interface, but this week reiterated that developers should follow certain design guidelines for third-party Android applications. Developers can hit the Google Android Design portal where the three overall themes for app design are “Enchant Me”; “Simplify My Life”; and “Make Me Amazing”.

This approach is optional, so I don’t expect new apps to start looking vastly different in the near future. But developers would be wise to integrate their personal design tastes with Google’s suggestions for the betterment of the overall platform.

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This week, I got my hands on what may the hottest new Android handset; at least for now. I bought an unlocked Google Nexus at full price from a U.K. retailer and it arrived late in the week.

The phone includes a pentaband radio, meaning it works fully on both AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s networks. I haven’t tested it on AT&T yet, but a popping a T-Mobile SIM card in has already provided download speeds of 9.4 Mbps.

I shared a brief video overview of the Galaxy Nexus within 24 hours of it arriving, so I was still learning the ropes of Android 4.0. It impressed me then and continues to do so with more usage. The phone has very capable hardware to power Google’s mobile operating system: a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of memory, fast mobile broadband and a gorgeous 4.65-inch Super AMOLED display with 1280 x 720 resolution. See for yourself:

But no phone is perfect and some may not care for the 5 megapixel camera sensor Samsung used for the Galaxy Nexus. With limited use, I find it to be more than adequate for still images in good light and also for high-definition video capture up to 1080p resolution. During the next week, I’ll try to connect the phone to my HDTV to see the output on a larger screen.

Where there may be gaps in the hardware, the software is excellent. Android 4.0 is the best attempt yet for any company to compete against Apple’s iOS 5 operating system. Google has refined the user interface by bringing the most positive aspects of Android 3.x (aka: Honeycomb) to the smartphone screen. Gmail’s revamp is superb as is the overall consistency of the entire user interface.

It’s not all peaches and cream though: There’s an issue with Facebook integration and I’m seeing some strange text formatting problems in the otherwise very impressive stock browser. And I love how my Google Chrome bookmarks on the desktop are kept in sync with the Galaxy Nexus. In fact, I like Android 4.0 so much, I’m going to install it on my old Nexus One smartphone when time allows.

This week wasn’t all good news though. A demonstration of software called Carrier IQ showed the service to be collecting data from smartphones; mainly on Android devices. The story continues to develop, but some are concerned — rightly so — about Carrier IQ’s lack of transparency. The service is apparently installed at carrier’s requests and consumers aren’t aware of this. Nor is there a choice to opt-out or shut down the service; it simply runs silently in the background.

This type of practice is one of the several reasons I’d rather have a Nexus phone, which doesn’t include any carrier software. My bigger reasons were faster Android updates and the ability to easily customize the phone with other Android software, but diagnostic tools that are hidden in the background got added to my list this week.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Continue reading FXI’s Cotton Candy could turn every screen you own into a cloud client

FXI’s Cotton Candy could turn every screen you own into a cloud client originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know how it is, you have a big HDTV and inexpensive adult beverages at home and you just don’t feel compelled to spend the bucks to go to the game in these tough economic times. We feel for you, but the NFL does not as your situation doesn’t exactly pay all those player’s salaries. Well, starting this Friday the Sports Fans Coalition, along with other organizations, plans to petition the FCC for change to the current blackout rule. The groups argue that since many of the stadiums are built with public funds, Joe Consumer has the right to watch those games at home. As is, we’re mostly just glad the old NFL blackout policy, prior to 1973 that made all home games unavailable to the home market, isn’t still in effect. Of course that doesn’t mean that we believe the current blackout policy actually helps sell those 0+ tickets and believe the NFL might realize more profits if it sought out more modern supplemental revenue strategies.

Sports Fans Coalition intends to lobby against NFL blackouts originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Consumers can dream of 1Gbps, businesses might ask for 10Gbps, but here’s the next step along that logarithmic curve: Shaw and Alcatel-Lucent just launched a new 100Gbps inter-city fiber optic network in Canada, following a successful trial between Calgary and Edmonton. The network can purportedly handle 133 million simultaneous voice calls, 440,000 HDTV channels, or transmit the equivalent of 44 Blu-ray discs in a single second. More redweed details in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Shaw plants 100Gbps fibers in Canada, watches them grow

Shaw plants 100Gbps fibers in Canada, watches them grow originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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