The original Peek spawned a successor, the Peek9, which is still active today. That threw in unlimited SMS messaging, though the service has since been deactivated as Peek’s text message gateway partner shut down.

Instead, Peek is looking to its so-called “Genius Cloud”, designed to run on any hardware from a basic dumbphone through featurephones and up to full smartphones. Peek’s servers handle data from Twitter, Facebook, email accounts and FourSquare, squirting real-time updates to devices running Android, BREW, Java and other platforms.

The company currently offers Peek for Android, a trimmed down “Peek Mail” client that promises reduced battery consumption, faster speed, an improved UI and more, though the company’s real goal is to partner with manufacturers and carriers.

“Email phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the Internet as a whole. Industry cooperation – combined with technology and consumer education – is crucial to fight phishing” Brett McDowell, Chair of DMARC.org and Senior Manager of Customer Security Initiatives at PayPal

According to DMARC, the widespread problems with spam and phishing today are the result of confusion and uncertainty between email providers over what security and authentication options are supported by both sender and recipient. Although existing options – such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) – can be used, there’s no way for providers to know if they’ve been implemented.

What DMARC has done, supposedly, is to integrate authentication more completely into their infrastructure. “A sender could set policies to easily request a provider to discard unauthenticated email in order to block phishing attacks” the group suggests; meanwhile, comprehensive reports are supplied to help spot any loopholes or gaps in the system.

Those taking part in the scheme are a mixture of email providers, security experts, social media firms and, not least, the banks and financial institutions that often have to pay up when credit card insurance claims are filed. AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, PayPal, American Greetings, Facebook, LinkedIn, Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path and the Trusted Domain Project are all involved.

Some of the new features that you’ll find useful is the ability to create custom mobile signatures as well as auto-responders directly within the app. And if you’re using iOS 5, the Gmail app now has a new notifications sound for incoming messages that better differentiates it from other iOS notifications.

The update also adds a fun new feature called Scribbles, which lets you doodle messages using simple drawing tools with a variety of colors and brush options. These hand-drawn notes and sketches can then be attached to an email and sent from the app.

Additional features to come include banner notifications and multiple account sign-ins. The current version 1.1 is free and available now at the iTunes App Store.

[via Google]

The apps and interface will seem pretty familiar to anyone who’s used similar applications on the iPad or any of the myriad Android Honeycomb tablets. The now-standard split-screen interface makes an appearance in the email app, though the Calender seems to be able to display a traditional grid and an agenda at once. Contacts are closely integrated with Gist, a contact management service for professionals. Naturally all three apps work within the Playbook’s WebOS-style interface.

Is this enough to save the PlayBook? Hard to say. Best Buy at least doesn’t seem particularly confident, as the tablet has been marked down to less than $200 for the base model. The PlayBook has failed to make a dent in the tablet market against the iPad juggernaut and increasingly popular Android alternatives at multiple price points. RIM isn’t giving up, though: the upcoming PlayBook update will also include an easy Android app converter, opening up the slim app options a bit.

[via BlackBerryCool]

Update: First impressions aren’t so hot… read on for more details

Auto-complete of email addresses from Gmail contacts is supported, along with your iOS device’s Contacts, and there’s attachment support as well. Some of the features we’re used to from the desktop browser are present too, like Priority Inbox for those content to let Google flag up their most important mail, threaded conversations and the usual bevy of archiving, labelling, starring, deleting and spamming tools.

Swiping support to see labels has been integrated, pulling out a label list from the side of the screen, and there’s pull-down-to-refresh support as well. You can download the Gmail app for iOS here [iTunes link]. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Update: Looks like it’s already netting some less than positive reviews. Error messages on start-up, only a single Gmail account supported; it seems this is merely a web view of your inbox wrapped up in an app.

Gmail has been what Google calls “streamlined” through email threading. Where before full emails had to be displayed beneath one another, here you get limited versions of messages with user icons to the left of the message so you can easily see who initiated each email. As Google says “we also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.” While you might find this enticing, there have been many people commenting on this and the recent upgrade of Google Reader that’ve said the update makes things harder to read because of the stark contrast and simple black and white nature of the setup. Flip over to the new interface and see what you think.

Of course the folks at Google have sort of anticipated this new vision looking a bit hard to read for some people, that’s why they’ve included what they call “Elastic Density,” this meaning you literally have the ability to decide how close you want things to one another. Up in the right-hand corner of your interface you’ve got the settings gear button, hit this and you’ll find Display Density able to be changed between Comfortable, Cozy, and Compact. Feeling claustrophobic? Switch to Comfortable. Feeling like your eyes don’t know where to go? Switch to Compact.

For all you lovers of bright colors and putting your children in the background of your web browser, Google has included HD Themes. You can get to these themes through the same settings button in the upper right of your screen, hit the Themes option and you’ll have a selection of images straight from iStockphoto. You’ll have quite a few options from the old themes collection as well as a handful of new ones. Try grass out if you’re finding the bright white too much to handle.

Navigation has been updated on the left of your screen, with labels and chat contacts now in view at all times. This interface is now completely customizable if you only want a tiny bit of folder action going on, and you can hide the chat area entirely with the chat icon in the very lowest left. In addition, your arrow keys can now be used to navigate the entire interface.

As expected, search has been improved drastically, made now more exacting so you can find just what you’re looking for as quickly as possible. Create a filter for your search as well, searching through your hoards of emails with only a few clicks. Search from, to, subject, “has the words”, “doesn’t have”, and inside a certain amount of time, searching through certain folders, your whole mail collection, and with or without attachments.

Though some of these changes are welcome, we’ve got other opinions about the greater bulk of the changes going on here. Our own Chris Davies had the following to say on the update:

“Gmail’s search and navigation improvements are both welcome, helping those of us who are many, many messages away from ‘Inbox Zero’ to get to grips with their overflowing mails. The HD Themes seem more gimmick than anything else, though, and I’d rather see Google’s engineers spend their time better integrating Gmail and Google+ than messing with photos.” – Chris Davies

What do you think? I’ve got a feeling that many people will be feeling the same thing when they hit up the update, and of course there’s no knowing whether or not G+ integration isn’t right around the corner, but for now, the changes described above are set to take effect this week, so check them out for yourself. Grab the update by heading to the “Switch to the new look” link in the bottom-right of your Gmail page in-browser that should be showing up inside the next few days for everyone!

[via Gmail]

The new interface can automatically adapt to fit nicely into any size window and you can manually resize Labels and Chat windows. You can also choose the density of the interface to suit your preferences, which affects the amount of white space and how densely components are laid out on the page. And there’s several updated high-resolution themes that you can choose from to customize the look of your Gmail account.

Threaded emails now appear in a new conversation view interface that looks similar to what you see with Facebook Messages and includes a profile pic for each person. It’s also easier to go through and read previous messages in the thread.

Additionally, there will be a more advanced search box that drops down from the search field at the top of the page. It makes it quick and easy to access different search features and also allows you to create filters directly from within the search box.

Some users have already been previewing the new theme on their Gmail accounts since June, but it’s not clear when the full revamp will roll out to everyone. But given the video preview, it’ll probably be sooner than later.

RIM has already detailed previously the cause of the outage, citing a hardware failure within its infrastructure. A failover backup system that was designed to handle such a “core switch failure” also failed to function as intended. This has caused a huge backlog of data with messages clogging up RIM’s servers, which is what’s now causing the service to go out in other parts of the world.

The company assures that the issue did not stem from a hacker attack or other security breach and that users will be able to recover all data and not lose any messages due to the outage. However, RIM did not specify when it might be able to restore the service and whether users would be compensated in any way for the loss of service.

[via AllThingsD]

The service first went down yesterday in the early morning, flooding Twitter and other social networks with plenty of complaints from angry users who could no longer access emails and BlackBerry Messenger on their devices. RIM has been apologetic from the start, but has so far only explained that they’re working on the problem.

The new statement from RIM details that the downtime was caused by a core switch failure, which was supposed to failover to a back-up switch. Apparently, neither one worked as previously tested and the outage is now going on two days. The issue caused a backlog of data that RIM is still clearing out and the company has not given a timeline as to when the service will resume.

The statement is included below:

“The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.

As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed.”

[via Pocket-lint]

The revamped Hotmail promises easier blocking and unsubscribing tools along with automated clean-up features and enhanced support for folders. The Hotmail for Android app will also include push email, calendar, and contact sync, send/receive images, send/receive attachments, multiple Hotmail account support, and folder and sub-folder support. The app is free and is available now to all devices running Android 2.1 through 2.3.3.

Hotmail will be native on iOS 5, which is expected to launch along with the rumored iPhone 5 during tomorrow’s major Apple event called “Let’s Talk iPhone.” (We’ll be covering that live, so be sure to follow along with our live blog at http://live.slashgear.com). In iOS 5, Hotmail will become a selectable account option under “Mail” and be easy to configure like any other email with push, calendar, and contacts features.

[via Pocket-lint]

As we’ve seen on various other apps, pull-to-refresh can make it far easier to check for new updates and messages when navigating with a single hand. Supported on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, as well as on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook, dragging the message list down triggers a refresh.

The icons, meanwhile, have gone from the old, fuzzy versions to higher-quality alternatives that show up better on the 960 x 640 panel than before. Google has also added some new transitions between view-changes, which it says required “a combination of up to eight different CSS3 transitions and Javascript to get things to look just right.”

You can access the updated web client at mail.google.com. Last week, Google update the Android Gmail app to support custom notifications and Priority Sync.

Facebook emails have been active for a while now, and you can grab yours for free if you just head to your Messages View in Facebook you’ll see a notification (if you’ve not already activated your Facebook email) that’ll allow you to match your new email to your Facebook Profile name. Aka if your Facebook is located at facebook.com/username, you’ll get username@facebook.com for an email! The neat thing about this is that when people send you email to that address, you’ve only got to go to your Messages View in Facebook to see what you’ve been mailed.

The only drawback here is that there doesn’t appear to be any way to make your Facebook email attach to any third-party clients the way, for example, Gmail allows you to attach to essentially anything and everything. In this way Facebook tries to keep you inside their system, while Google as always is allowing you to be essentially free to do what you will.

That said, we’re still looking forward to the “Awesome” announcement coming this Wednesday July 6 at 10AM PST. Will it be a free car for everyone, an iPad, perhaps face lotion for every third customer?! We can wait, I’m telling ya!

ALSO don’t forget to hook up with us on Google+ as it’s ALL THE RAGE these days!

Also featured in this list of improvements for mobile Mail were indentation control, things like bold, italics, and underline for rich text formatting, the ability to literally pick up and drop down addresses from to to from, bcc to bc, and back and forth until you’ve made so many switches that there’s no way you’ll be mailing that grocery list to aunt Mavis. Similar to what we saw in the desktop version of Mail you’ll be able to search entire messages. You’ll now be able to flag messages.

And what’s this? S/MIME has been added for all you lovers of security! Then there was a word or two about some features that worked well for Mail but also across the whole iOS platform including:

A built-in dictionary that all apps from the App Store can use.

A splittable keyboard that breaks in half, one for the right, one for the left when you’ve got your thumbs available whilst using your iPad and they aren’t massive like your humble narrator.

For the rest, check out SlashGear’s main news feed and go nuts on WWDC 2011 news!

Phil Schiller was called on stage to reveal the info about Mail, giving it a spin for the audience, noting that “With searching now we have new search suggestions. Mail recognizes whether that’s a person or a subject… select one it becomes a search token.” All messages are now shown inline, and all messages can be accessed much easier than in the past. You’ll now be able to search all of your messages as well as inside a single mail – this will be rather helpful for a disorganized fellow like your humble narrator. You can search by date, sender, subject, or a combination of many elements.

Stay tuned to SlashGear’s main news feed for the rest of the keynote!

Apparently, the breach occurred on March 30 and exposed the email addresses of the users the company markets too. That will likely mean if you use services for many of those firms you will be getting more spam than usual. Epsilon says that the information was hacked from the outside

An Epsilon spokesperson named Jessica Simon has declined to say how many other firms might be affected in the breach. Apparently, Epsilon is still investigation and offered no details on law enforcement agencies that are involved.

[via Bloomberg]

For some people, especially older people, all they want to do is get email, see pictures of family, and maybe do a little shopping. Why do they need to install the Office Suite, or worry about defragmenting?

My mother-in-law, for example, hates going near a computer. She doesn’t know how to use a mouse, and she actually still uses a camera with film. When I tell her that someone emailed me about a family event, she still says things like “Oh, yes, that’s what they do these days, isn’t it? They just email, they don’t need to call.” And she shakes her head, as if it is just so surprising. She was so happy and shocked that we could watch clips from American Idol on YouTube the day after the show aired. “It’s amazing what they can do these days on these computers.” We’ve tried on several occasions to get her hooked up, and signed up for email addresses that are now languishing.

There have been many attempts to make getting email easier for older people especially. And there are special email devices like the Peek, and email printers like Presto, that try and help older people connect with their younger counterparts, who don’t know what a stamp is and don’t print pictures anymore.

But these solutions only address email. What if someone wants to go online and research a product, play a game, watch video, find out more about a health issue, or even go on Facebook? Even using email is too old fashioned for many “kids these days“. If a grandparent really wants to keep up with the grandkids and see the latest photos, he or she is going to need to be on Facebook. So tablets may be the perfect solution for older types that don’t want to bother with a PC, but want more than just email. My mother in law (who is 64), has not tried a tablet, but I could see her taking to it. The touch screen interface is so much easier to deal with than a keyboard, it seems. When there is something you want to see, you just tap it. There is only the screen to deal with, not the screen, the mouse and the keyboard.

David Worthington, on PC World, interviewed his mom about her experience using an iPad, which is her first computer. Her reactions were very interesting. She had never had an email address, and found it really exciting that she could now join the online world:

David: Has your experience made you more eager to delve into it and learn more?

Mom: Yeah. I’m doing more and more of that lately. I’m learning from my mistakes, and beginning to use Google.

David: What do you like about it?

Mom: That I have an e-mail address – you know. ‘Cause that’s the first thing [people] ask you: ‘What’s your e-mail address?’ So now, that makes me feel that I’m part of something-and then I feel that I can see and do more things now than I did before, because I didn’t have it a computer.

She was even able to update apps without really knowing she was doing it. And checking email was easy: “go just push the e-mail, and then it goes to it real fast.” No web addresses to remember, nothing to type.

Tablets may not be the death of PCs as some people have predicted, but they may just bring in some who have been left behind by PCs, and make the online world more accessible. And that’s a great thing.

Do you have anyone who is “computer-phobic” in your family that has tried a tablet? What was their experience?

Yes, that’s a screenshot of my inbox. Well, a shot of the interior of my brand spanking new Bulk Smart Label. As you might be able to discern from the screenshot, the smart labels sorted everything into three folders, Bulk, Forums, and Notifications. The Bulk folder contains all of the ad-spam I subject myself to just in case something too cool to pass up drops in through one of those social network coupon sites. The Forums tab has some bits and pieces from some old-school style mailing lists. The Notifications folder contains things like e-mails from super-secret Facebook groups I’m subscribed to, links to e-cards from my Aunt, and other kinds of website-generated e-mail traffic that’s wasn’t part of a bulk mailing. It just worked. Thanks Google!

[ via Gmail Blog]

[via BBC]

Some users are reporting that once they are able to log in, they are being greeted by welcome messages as if they are a new user. Some of the people are claiming that the outage has resulted in the loss of emails, chat logs and more.

I haven’t backed up my Gmail account in years; luckily, for me I use Outlook to get mail from Gmail so I have offline copies of everything. My personal Gmail account is fine right now so the disruption is apparently not affecting everyone. As of 5am this morning Google says that it is investigating the issue and the next update will come at 7am.

Microsoft’s existing filtering and email managing systems are used, so it sounds like the company hasn’t had to invest much effort in getting the new filtering service up and running. As well as handling potential spam sources, the new service will also allow for personal and private addresses to be handled by the same core account.

[via CNET]

He looked at how Yahoo! mail servers handled iOS requests, and discovered a whole lot of extraneous information being fired back without actually being asked for. One suggestion is that, since iOS only fetches info on 50 messages at a time – rather than 200 – the unnecessary data use isn’t so obvious, but it’s still there. Android seems to be immune to the problem, however.

Microsoft has its collective hands full with the whole Bing/Google argument which is still ongoing, so they might be too busy to take Yahoo! to task on their server behavior. Still, both companies say they’re working together to address the WP7 IMAP issue, so hopefully this extra wrinkle will get ironed out in the process.

[Thanks Sarkis!]

To grant access to another account through your Gmail account, simply slick the Settings link in the top right corner of Gmail. In your Accounts tab, you’ll see a brand new section where you can choose to “grant access to your account.” The account you end up adding will get a verification email that allows them to either accept or deny. Once you’ve got another account accepted into yours, (and you refresh your browser or log out and back in again) you will see a toggle arrow beside your email address in the top right corner. This will allow you to switch between accounts.

Each account will end up opening into a different window or browser tab so you can see both accounts at the same time while you’re logged into your primary account. When you sent a message from email B while you’re logged in as email A, your message will appear as “sent by A on behalf of B.” Simple!

[Via Gmail Blog]

Google and their government-reselling partner Onix have file this suit claiming the Department of the Interior excluded them from bidding on a contract to provide collaboration technology and email to their 88,000 employees. Competition! Google demands it!

But why shut them out? The Request for Quotations department of the Department decided they required standardization on Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, which meant, yes, Google’s out. “Significantly, the SOW (statement of work) and even certain terminology were closely aligned with Microsoft’s product literature for its Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online applications,” Google writes in its complaint, “This was because the DOI had defined its needs and requirements around the Microsoft products.” The company argues that’s “unduly restrictive of competition,” and is “arbitrary and capricious, and abuse of discretion, and otherwise contrary to the law.”

Google wants the Department of the Interior to comply with what they see (and with what the US Government will perhaps see) are the legal requirements for open and competitive process. Google also hopes to get an injunction against the Department to prevent it from proceeding with the bidding until the lawsuit is complete.

[Via AllThingsD]

In an announcement maid today on the Gmail blog, Wiltse Carpenter, Technical Lead for Gmail, outlined why the company decided to make the change. Carpenter likens the situation to those who dislike cilantro, and says that while there’s a small group out there that dislike the conversation view, they’ve got a loud voice, and they’ve spoken long enough to get the attention of Google.

To change your settings, you’ll just have to access the Settings menu, and then find where it says “Conversation view.” You can alter the setting right there, and then have your Gmail expand as it removes all those conversations, and separates them into separate emails. And, as usual, the feature is being rolled out, so if you don’t see it right away in your own Gmail settings, don’t worry. It’s coming. What do you think? Is conversation view something you’ve been wanting gone since it was introduced? We’ve included the full statement from Google below, just because it’s a fun read for a Wednesday afternoon.

[via Gmail Blog]

Google Announcement

The way Gmail organizes mail into conversations is like cilantro. You either love it — and, like me, enjoy the nice citrusy, herbal finish it gives to everything from salsa to curry — or you hate it. And those of you who hate it hate it enough to launch sites like nocilantro.com and ihatecilantro.com (“an anti cilantro community”), where you can hate it together.

But my fondness for cilantro pales in comparison to my love for Gmail’s conversation view, or message threading. I haven’t had to wade through multiple messages to follow a conversation in years. A centithread hasn’t filled up the entire first page of my inbox in almost as long as I can remember. Having all the replies to an email (and replies to those replies) grouped with the original message simply makes communicating so much easier.

It turns out not everyone feels the same way. And just as an outspoken minority has banded together in unison to declare their distaste of one of nature’s most delicious herbs, some of you have been very vocal about your dislike of conversation threading. So just like you can order your baja fish tacos without cilantro, you can now get Gmail served up sans conversation view. Go to the main Settings page, look for the “Conversation View” section, select the option to turn it off, and save changes. If you change your mind, you can always go back.

The Peek 9 has a very thin design and is designed to allow wireless communications like texting and email without having to spend lots of money on a data plan for a smartphone. The device has push email delivered to your webmail and Peak 9 device at the same time. The 9 can text directly to other cell phones. The 9 also supports Peektop apps that allow users to load their own apps for all sorts of tasks. Peek also integrates with Facebook and Twitter for keeping up to date with social networks. The device has a full QWERTY keyboard and works with Outlook and Exchange.

Battery life is claimed to be 4-5 days of typical use. The Peak 9 weighs 3.8 ounces, has a US Tri band GPRS 800/1800/1900MHz radio and supports GPRS. The screen is 2.5-inches with a 320 x 240 resolution and the device has 8MB of user memory. The CPU is an ARM7 running at 104MHz and it runs Peekux for the OS. The price for the device only is $69.99 and with two months of service included, the price is $99.99. Lifetime service is $249.99 with monthly service for $19.95.

Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg recently declared e-mail a dying breed, mostly because teenagers seem to prefer other forms of communication. In a rebuttal, Nick Saint at Silicon Alley Insider says that Sandberg was misreading the Pew study that brought her to that conclusion, but Saint is missing the point entirely. It doesn’t matter if teens were never e-mailing each other in the first place, or it they are using other means to communicate. These methods need to die regardless.

Imagine we live in a world with all the technological advances of our current one, but nobody has an e-mail address or a phone number. How would you design a communication medium for the world to talk to each other? It certainly wouldn’t be the current paradigm. You would never say: here, have a ten digit number that corresponds to a small electronic device that will make noise and jump around when someone types in those digits on a similar device. When only a few thousand people had telephones, it might have made sense to have a number that corresponded to that person’s state, city and local area, as phone numbers originally did. Now, it makes no sense.

I have three phone numbers. One is a Boston phone number that I got years ago. I’ve moved to New York, back to Boston, back to New York and now to Texas since I got that number. On my second stint in the New York area, I also picked up a work phone number, and I’ve kept that one as well. I keep both because I like having two cell phones, but nobody knows which number to use to reach me. Am I carrying my Nexus One today or my Palm Pre?

To solve that problem, I got a Google Voice number. It uses a Montana area code, which is tough to explain when it shows up on a friend’s phone. The last seven digits spell a word that I thought people could remember, but they don’t. I though I was making things easier by offering one number that would reach all my phones at once, even the test phones I use for reviews. But my mother still has trouble changing her phone book without my personal assistance, and my friends are too lazy to remember which number to call. Besides, most of my phones don’t integrate tightly with Google Voice, and sometimes Google Voice doesn’t work properly. So, when my friends look at their call log and redial the last number I used, it usually isn’t the GV number, it’s the number of the phone I was using. Problem not solved.

E-mail, in its own way, is even worse. My first real Internet e-mail address was st931341@pip.cc.brandeis.edu. Once you’ve memorized that ridiculous code, it’s hard to forget. I’ve had more e-mail addresses than phone numbers, and now I’ve finally settled on a Gmail address, which I hope will be more permanent. Of course, I have to have a professional address for work, separate from my personal address, but I send those messages to the same mailbox. It’s not like I’m keeping my personal address secret, since I often forget which account I’m using in Gmail and send messages from the wrong one.

What happens when I make that mistake? Nothing. No problems. Because my business associates aren’t looking for my domain, they’re looking for my name.

That was Sandberg’s real point. Instead of worrying about numbers and domains, codes and allegiances, Facebook is only concerned with names. If my friends want to send me an email on Facebook, they don’t need to know which number to use. They just click on my name and know it will get to me. Of course, I have Facebook send messages to my email account, and I can check notifications on my phone, but these are really incidental. It’s time for communication to be based around identities and people, and not on obscure codes and distant servers.

I would go even further than Sandberg. Why stop with e-mail? When we write to someone via e-mail, what we’re really doing is sending them a long form text message. When we send a text message, we’re sending a shorter note. Instant messaging is just that, instantaneous. Other forms are not as urgent.

Communication comes down to a series of questions. Do I want to communicate with my voice or with text, or even in pictures? Do I need the person to get the message immediately, or can it wait? Should it wait? Is this a business message, or personal? Do I have a lot to say, or just a little?

Right now, every different answer requires a different mode of communication, a different address. Some don’t even exist yet. If I want to communicate by voice, but I don’t need the person to hear the message immediately, I can send a MMS message with an audio recording, or I can pray that my recipient won’t answer and I’ll be sent directly to voice mail.

This doesn’t make sense. This isn’t how we’d design a communication system from the ground up. We wouldn’t start with the device, or with the company that provides the e-mail address. We would start with the person. Then we would make all of the other decisions.

There’s a great opportunity here for a communications platform that would change the way we get in touch with each other. I think it would even change the way we relate to each other. You don’t need to know the special codes, you just need to know the person’s identity. There are problems to solve, like multiple people with the same name, or privacy protection, but those problems are not insurmountable. I’d be curious to hear what those solutions might be.

Video demo after the cut

HP’s strategy is pretty simple.  People are spending more and more of their time on various companion devices, many of which – like smartphones or Apple’s iPad – lack traditional printer support.  To cater to that market (and to sell a few more cartridges, naturally) they’ve come up with ePrint, set to be a standard feature on all HP printers priced above $99/€99/£99 from hereon in.

ePrint basically allows you to register your new HP printer with the company’s cloud service, where it’s given a unique email address.  Any document you email to that address, as an attachment, is printed out; basically, as long as your cellphone or tablet (or indeed anything else) can send an email, you can print from it.  In addition, the printers – each of which has integrated WiFi and a touchscreen of some dimension – can access HP’s new ePrint app store, full of widget-style software that can be used to print off maps, the latest news stories, coloring patterns for children and recipes.  Prints can also be scheduled, so that you have the latest news ready to read on the commute or a new puzzle in time for your kids getting home from school.

HP ePrint all-in-one demo:

It’s an ambitious plan, though v1.0 is still relatively limited in its scope.  HP say they’re concentrating initially on making it simple to use, and it’s certainly that; unfortunately in the process it lacks certain key printing options that people are used to.  To avoid spam you can set up a whitelist of approved senders and/or a blacklist of blocked senders; however there’s no way to selectively print certain pages from a document.  If, say, you have a 300 page PDF on your phone, there’s no way to only have your printer produce hard copies of select page ranges.  What’s needed is a way to specify particular pages in the subject line, perhaps (similar to how Evernote allows you to email notes and specify which tags that note should have).  There’s also a shortage of two-way communication with the printer: it will send out an acknowledgement email to say its received the print job, and another if there’s an error, but HP have missed a trick and not included any paper or ink status updates in those messages.

Still, it’s early days, and HP are obviously hoping they’ll get developer interest – there’s already an SDK out for those wanting to create their own apps, currently free but with paid-app support in the pipeline – as more users bring the technology home.  The company expects to sell “tens of millions” of ePrint-enabled models, with SMB printers due later in the year (both inkjet and laser) since the service will be a standard feature rather than a premium option.

The service is also compatible with Google’s Cloud Print for upcoming Chrome OS netbooks – the Google Cloud OS layer will pass documents on to HP’s ePrint cloud layer, which will handle the rendering – and there’s direct Google Docs access from the printers’ touchscreen (together with Flickr gallery browsing and other services).  In addition, you’ll be able to send scanned documents from the all-in-one printers to your Google Docs store.  Planned services include ad-supported pages and coupons, and since all that functionality is based in the cloud layer, the ePrint printer you buy today should be able to access them tomorrow.  We also asked HP about the transition between the current proprietary platform and webOS-based models, and while they wouldn’t be drawn on exact plans, they did say that any current apps would be able to run on future webOS printers (and vice versa).

There are more details on the four initial printers themselves here and the ePrint service here.

Compatible content providers include Yahoo! and msnbc.com daily news; Crayola and KoL.com for coloring pages and family ideas; Picasa Web Albums for printing photos; and PBS KIDS literacy, math and science activities featuring characters such as Curious George.  There’s also Facebook support, for printing from a user’s photo album or listed events; MapQuest for maps and directions; Artsonia for images from the world’s largest kids art museum; Arrival Guides’ travel guides for hundreds of destinations around the world; and Live Nation for access to concert tickets and promotions.

Four new printers – kicking off at $99 – are making their debut, each with ePrint support:

• HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One – Provides wireless access to the web and can be customized by selecting from the full line of advanced print apps such as Fandango and Coupons.com. Features a 4.3-inch HP TouchSmart screen with enhanced touch technology and can save paper by up to 50 percent using automatic two-sided printing. Expected to be available worldwide in September for $199.
• HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One – 3.5-inch HP TouchSmart screen; print web content such as coupons, recipes, quick forms, greeting cards, HP Games, crafts and news without a PC. Expected to be available worldwide in August for $149.
• HP Photosmart e-All-in-One – Print web content using the 2.4-inch HP TouchSmart screen. Create photo projects using individual inks and photo printing features such as the auto-engaging photo tray and direct access to Snapfish the online photo service. Expected to be available in North America later this month for $99.
• HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One – Fax, scan and copy using the automatic document feeder; plus, print photos and web content easily through the touchscreen interface. Incorporates a host of connectivity options including wired and wireless networking.  Expected to be available worldwide in September for $299.

Later in 2010 HP will be adding Google Docs support, Box.net and Reuters, among others.  There’s also a new HP iPrint Photo app for Android released today.

Press Release:

HP Introduces the Future of Printing: Web Connected and Cloud Aware
Print from any email device to any HP printer from anywhere in the world with HP ePrint

NEW YORK, June 7, 2010 – HP today unveiled a new category of web-enabled printing solutions designed for the cloud that will, for the first time, allow people to:
Print from any email device to any new ePrint-enabled printer from anywhere in the world through the new HP ePrint platform;(1)
Store documents or files in the cloud and print direct when needed;
Transform their printers into publishing platforms from which they can customize print apps and schedule timed delivery of content – such as news from msnbc.com and Yahoo! and creative after-school activities from Disney – directly to their home or business printers;(2)
Manage and customize their full printing experience through the new HP ePrintCenter to enjoy relevant, fun and interesting content that is formatted for efficient printing.

To showcase these new solutions, HP announced a full suite of web-empowered e-All-in-One printers for home and business that start at $99.(3) These will be the first printers able to “talk” to the “Google Cloud” without requiring a local proxy PC or web appliance, which means people will be able to access Google Docs, Photos and Calendar directly from their printers. A selection of new print apps from partners such as Yahoo!, msnbc.com, Facebook®, Live Nation, Crayola, Reuters, DocStoc and Picasa Web Albums™ also will be available.

“We are once again revolutionizing printing to make web-empowered, cloud-enabled printing the new industry standard,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “We know that our customers want an easy way to print their content, anywhere, anytime. We’re making that a reality today by giving people the power to print from any web-connected device – smartphones, iPads, netbooks and more – to any printer in our portfolio above $99. The world has changed.”

HP web-connected products and services are supported by a digital print advertising platform that can be leveraged by print app partners. Customers can get premium content at no additional cost and brands can add value to their audience by populating select print content with customized messages, promotions and information like coupons or local services.

HP ePrint: if you can email it, you can print it
The HP ePrint platform harnesses the cloud to break down the barriers of distance and connectivity and allow people to send the files they want to print from their mobile devices.(1) From a mom and son printing drawings from an iPad, to an executive on a train sending a presentation from a Palm Pre or Blackberry® smartphone to print and pick up at a FedEx Office store, HP ePrint allows people to print anytime, anywhere.

Every HP ePrint printer will have a unique simple email address that allows the sender to deliver a print the same way they would send an email message. Customers also can send documents to print through an HP ePrint mobile app on their smartphone device to a home, office or public print location such as a hotel or FedEx Office store. Customers will be able to send Microsoft® Office documents, Adobe® PDFs and JPEG image files, among others.

HP ePrintCenter: a home for all things printing
The HP ePrintCenter is an online hub for all HP customers to explore new services and customize their printing experience. For example, people can register their products and receive updates according to their preferences, configure their devices, track ePrint jobs, and browse and suggest new print apps.

Scheduled delivery available through HP e-All-in-One printers
Following a successful pilot study in two major cities, HP has announced a new service called Scheduled Delivery, which allows customers to choose content to be pushed to a printer at a designated time each day or week.(2) For example, they might choose a customized news feed from msnbc.com to arrive at 7 a.m. for picking up on their way out of the door, or they might choose fun kids activities from Disney to be ready when the children get home from school.

Users simply register for the news or content feeds of their choice through the HP ePrintCenter and schedule the day, time and frequency of delivery so items will be printed and waiting
when they want them.

The Scheduled Delivery service also opens up a new era of digital print advertising for HP and content partners. HP and Yahoo! plan to launch the service as a pilot program to help marketers consider ways to provide added value to their audiences by populating select print content from partners with customized messages, promotions and information like coupons or local services.

New HP Photosmart printers at every price
The new line of web-connected HP Photosmart printers allows consumers the freedom to access content and print from anywhere without a PC. This can be achieved through HP ePrint from any mobile device or by touching a variety of customizable apps and printing options on the printer’s intuitive HP TouchSmart screen.(2)
The HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One – This top-of-the-line printer provides wireless access to the web and can be customized by selecting from the full line of advanced print apps such as Fandango and Coupons.com.(2) It features a 4.3-inch HP TouchSmart screen with enhanced touch technology and can save paper by up to 50 percent using automatic two-sided printing. Expected to be available worldwide in September for $199.(3)
The HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One – Produce lab-quality photos, everyday documents and creative projects using this printer’s 3.5-inch HP TouchSmart screen. Quickly print web content such as coupons, recipes, quick forms, greeting cards, HP Games, crafts and news without a PC.(1,2) Expected to be available worldwide in August for $149.(3)
HP Photosmart e-All-in-One – Quickly print web content using the 2.4-inch HP TouchSmart screen. Create impressive photo projects affordably using individual inks and photo printing features such as the auto-engaging photo tray and direct access to Snapfish, the No. 1 online photo service. Expected to be available in North America later this month for $99.(3)
HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One – Easily fax, scan and copy using the automatic document feeder; plus, print photos and web content easily through the touchscreen interface. Incorporates a host of connectivity options including wired and wireless networking.(1,4) Expected to be available worldwide in September for $299.(3)

New free HP Photo Creations software ships with all the new printers and allows people to create photo books, calendars and other fun projects. All of the printers announced today reduce packaging waste by using an innovative, reusable bag and are ENERGY STAR® qualified.

New for these printers is HP Everyday Photo Paper, an affordable, glossy photo paper designed for value-conscious customers. Constructed from Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper fiber, this recyclable photo paper makes it easy to print colorful, everyday snapshots and photo projects on any inkjet printer. HP recommends ColorLok® papers for best printing results.

New print app partners for consumers and businesses
Newly available print apps include: Yahoo! and msnbc.com for daily news; Crayola and KoL.com for coloring pages and fun family ideas; Picasa Web Albums for printing photos from a user’s personal account; PBS KIDS literacy, math and science activities featuring popular characters such as Curious George; Facebook for printing from a user’s photo album or listed events; MapQuest for maps and directions; Artsonia for images from the world’s largest kids art museum; Arrival Guides – travel guides for hundreds of destinations around the world; and Live Nation for access to concert tickets and promotions.

Later this year, business customers can enjoy print apps from services such as: Marketsplash by HP for a shortcut to print customized marketing materials such as brochures and flyers; Google Docs for easy document scanning to the web for printing at a later time; Box.net to scan, share, manage and access business content online; Portfolio.com and Reuters for the latest news articles; Daily Brief for business essentials in one place including calendar, to-do list and news from American City Business Journals; and DocStoc and Biztree for immediate access to business forms such as invoices, contracts, receipts, legal agreements and checklists.
HP is working with a select group of developers to refine its beta software developers kit and to add hundreds of print apps by the end of the year. Developers can request the kit from the developers tab of the HP ePrintCenter.

HP iPrint Photo for Android
Now available for Android smartphones, HP iPrint Photo is a free photo printing application for quick and easy direct wireless printing to HP inkjet printers connected to a local Wi-Fi network. The Android version joins HP iPrint Photo for Symbian, Windows® Mobile, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The Snapfish by HP mobile app for Android is expected to launch this summer.

HP at Internet Week New York
All of HP’s new products, solutions and features will be on display June 7-10 at Internet Week New York headquarters at the Metropolitan Pavilion.
HP executives will speak at the Federated Media Conversational Marketing Summit June 7-8 at the Hudson Theater and Millennium Broadway Hotel:
Tariq Hassan, vice president, Worldwide Marketing and Communications, Imaging and Printing Group, will speak on the “Marketing to Businesses in Real Time” panel. June 7 at 12:05 p.m. ET.
Tuan Tran, vice president and general manager, Inkjet Consumer Solutions, will present a case study on marketing opportunities made possible through web-empowered printing. June 8 at 11:50 a.m. ET.

HP also will support the Mashable Media Summit on June 8, will power the blogger lounge and have its newest web-connected printing lineup available at The TimesCenter.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.
(1) Requires an internet connection to the printer. Feature works with any internet- and email-capable device. Details at www.hp.com/go/ePrintCenter.
(2) Requires a wireless access point and an internet connection to the printer. Touchscreen menus are in English or English/French only. Availability varies by region. Services may require registration. Details at www.hp.com/go/ePrintCenter.
(3) Estimated U.S. street price. Actual price may vary.
(4) Wireless performance is dependent upon physical environment and distance from access point.

There’s also a more iPad-like UI, together with an optional “compact” view that hides the folders; Apple have also added single-click archiving and a new formatting toolbar.  The whole thing is supposedly faster, too, and the webmail client now uses SSL for security.  If you’re trying to access MobileMe on your iPad, your MacBook and your iPhone – and we know there are plenty of people out there with just that trio of devices – then this new beta may be the answer to your email prayers.  You can sign up for an invite at Me.com and hitting “Request an invitation”; now we just have to hope Apple go the whole way and make it all free.

That price is the same for the life of the device, which since you can pick up a Peek Classic for $19.95 means the total two-year cost of ownership is $259.71.  That’s pretty much a whole order of magnitude less than some smartphones, once you’ve factored in the initial purchase price and a typical two year carrier agreement with data.

Of course, at that point we’d also be looking to the Lifetime Service Peek Pronto, which for $299.95 gets you no monthly bills whatsoever.  If you’re keeping your Peek for more than two years then it makes sense to go with the Lifetime option, frankly.

That compares very well with their existing Peek Pronto with a year’s service, which comes in at $229, just $70 less.  As you might expect, Peek have also done the math to compare the deal to what you might pay over the course of a 24 month contract with a standard smartphone, and they reckon that will be more in line with $2,500-$3,000.

The deal is currently at number one in Amazon’s PDAs/Handhelds chart, and number 73 in electronics overall, and according to Peek the first shipment has already sold out.  No word whether this is a limited-time offer, so if you’re interested then probably best to order now.

Google Sync is a free service to Gmail/Google Calendar/Google Contacts users, whether free or enterprise.  It requires ActiveSync support on the wireless device, which means if you have an iPhone you’ll need iPhone OS 3.0 or higher in order to use it.  More details on how to enable Gmail support in Google Sync here.

Essentially, Wave is what email would look like if it were designed today, according to Google anyway. You’ll see all of your contacts in the “Navigation” side bar, which is like your buddy list. You can select to communicate with any person, online or off, and send them a message. If they’re not online, you can just click below their message and reply as in GMail, except there’s no additional “New Message” window to pop up or anything. You can even respond to a particular section of a message someone sent you by clicking below that portion and typing. If your friends are online, you can start typing to them, and they will see your words appear in real-time, as you type them. If you don’t like that idea, you can enter into “Draft” mode and hide what you type until you’re finished with it. This would enhance the communication between the two of you, and is intended to help keep the flow of the conversation.

There are a boat-load more features that Wave offers, including wiki-like collaboration on projects between friends or co-workers. If someone wants to jump in on an ongoing communication, they can see how the conversation flowed by using the Playback feature which will show them all the changes that were made to the message over time. Say you want to add a friend into Wave. You can go click and drag their picture into Wave, and you’re done. Even dragging photos into Wave to share them with friends is all drag-and-drop because of Gears. You can host Wave on your blog, and allow visitors to communicate with you directly on your blog through wave. The largest draw to Wave is the collaboration functionality that it offers. It can allow friends and co-workers to collaborate on projects, communicate together, send out meeting invites and track who is attending.

Google designed Wave to be customizable by developers. Developers can use Wave and implement it into their projects, workplaces, and applications for better communication and collaboration. This will be a huge benefit, since all workplace environments are different and have different aims. Wave is a confusing service at first, and it’s something you have to see in action to fully understand, and even then, the scope of the project can go way beyond your own imagination. Wave is relying on HTML5, which was heavily discussed during yesterday’s keynote. This ties it in all quite nicely. There are tons more features, and even iPhone and Android clients coming once the Wave service is launched later this year. If you want in on the testing, sign up over at wave.google.com

UPDATE: Google posted on their site about the new service. The story behind the concept is insanely interesting, and so simple, it’s no wonder why Google is the best. The idea is to remove the barriers between the two most popular forms of communication: IM and email, both of which were designed decades ago to mimic phone calls and snail mail respectively. By combining the two services, Google created Wave. Wave will be completely open source for developers to use and implement to their liking. You can read up more on the Google Blog.

This is great news for Pre users. Currently, the only phone to support GMail push is the G1 (and soon the HTC Magic or any other Android device). Palm’s close relationship with Google and their heavy incorporation of GMail into Synergy and the Pre’s contacts and calendars is proving to be extremely beneficial for soon-to-be Pre users.

There have been some complaints recently over the inability to select which contacts are synced through Synergy on the Pre from sources such as GMail and Facebook. The system is an All-or-Nothing system, and makes it frustrating for users who have hundreds of useless contacts. This news of Push GMail however, makes it worth it to dig through those GMail contacts and clean it up.

[Via My Pre]

T-Mobile UK

Beyond that, owners “top up” their BlackBerry with credit in the usual pay-as-you-go (PAYG) fashion, adding money to their account to cover any calls and SMS or MMS messages.  T-Mobile are hoping the deal will appeal to those interested in push email but wary of ongoing contract costs.

Right now the deal is not showing up on T-Mobile UK’s PAYG pages, so you may have to head into stores to find out more about it.  The gauntlet is down; which of the US carriers will be first to offer a similar deal?

[via Register Hardware]

The Peek device itself will be priced at around $100 in India, and will offer the same straightforward email access.  In contrast, an unlimited BlackBerry data plan in India costs around 900Rs. ($18) per month, to which a voice package would have to be added.  The BlackBerry handsets themselves are also more expensive than the Peek messenger.

We’re hoping this marks a shift from the Peek being US-only to launching in more countries.  No word on European availability, but given the size of the market it seems likely that Peek have been talking about bringing their messenger to the UK or mainland Europe.

Video overview after the cut

The Pronto is also said to run faster than the original Peek, and the company is also promoting its unlimited texting abilities.  There’s also on-device searching, together with support for PDF and DOC attachments, as well as the regular picture attachment support. 

Battery life for the Peek Pronto is estimated at 4-5 days with typical usage, and the whole thing weighs 3.8oz and measures 4 x 2.7 x 0.4 inches.  The display is 2.5-inches QVGA resolution and there’s 8MB of onboard memory, triband US GPRS connectivity and a 104MHz ARM7 TI chipset running Peek’s own Peekux OS.  The original Peek remains on sale for $49.95 with the same monthly service charge.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3822631[/vimeo]

Press Release:

PEEK PRONTO FACT SHEET

Peek Pronto:
Mobile messaging device

Peek Pronto
Features

Simple, but powerful
Building on the successful launch of its Peek mobile email device, Peek (www.GetPeek.com) is adding an exciting new product to its lineup – the Peek Pronto. Peek Pronto responds to the growing demand for mobile messaging that is both affordable and powerful.

Peek Pronto builds on the original Peek – not by
adding unnecessary bells and whistles – but by further enhancing
the core functionality of mobile messaging. The key features of
Peek Pronto are:

* push email;
* unlimited email and texting;
* compatibility with Microsoft Exchange;
* ability to view images/PDF/doc files;
* access to up to five email accounts;
* ability to search for emails on the device;
* 50% improvement in speed of the
software;
* larger font size option.

Peek Pronto retails for $79.95. A flat monthly fee of just $19.95
provides the user with unlimited emails and unlimited text
messages – substantially cheaper than a comparable
smartphone plan (for details see www.Peekonomics.com).

While Peek Pronto offers powerful new features, it continues
Peek’s philosophy of a stylish device that is easy-to-buy and
easy-to-use. There are no contracts to sign, and no hidden fees
or “gotcha” charges.

Peek Pronto takes just 2 minutes to setup and works
automatically with all major email providers including Yahoo!,
Hotmail, GmailTM, AOL and many more.

Peek Pronto’s full QWERTY keyboard makes typing easy, and its
large color screen and straightforward navigation makes mobile
messaging simple.

3/18/09 Pronto Fact Sheet 2

Peek Pronto is perfect for the busy person who needs to be
connected on the go, but does not want to pay a fortune for the
privilege.

Specifications Size:
Height = 102 mm (~ 4.02 inches)
Width = 68 mm (~ 2.7 inches)
Depth = 10.1 mm (~ 0.42 inches)
Weight = 109 grams

Color:
Charcoal Gray

Display:
2.5” diagonal
QVGA (Quarter VGA) which is 240 pixels high by 320 pixels wide
Languages: English

Battery: rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Charge: via power adapter
Battery life: average two to three days with typical usage

Availability Available exclusively at Amazon.com from March 24, 2009 until
March 31, 2009

Available online at www.GetPeek.com from April 1, 2009

Available at select Radio Shack stores nationwide from April 8,
2009

Pricing

Peek Pronto retail price: $79.95
Peek Pronto monthly service: $19.95

Peek and GetPeek are the exclusive trademarks of Peek, Inc.

The feature allows five seconds for the GMail user to click “Undo” next to the standard “Your message has been sent” dialog; this returns the email to draft-status, and allows not only the recipients but text, attachments and formating to be tweaked.  What it won’t do is claw back a mail that has already been sent.

To use GMail Undo, go to Settings and then the Labs tab, and the option is down near the bottom of the list.  We’d quite like to see a user-selectable longer time delay option in the future, but for those “oh no, I didn’t just…” moments it could be a life-saver.

Peek have also confirmed that a new device, the Peek Pronto, is in development and will soon be announced, after the teaser image in the gallery below was leaked to Engadget.  According to Peek, the device will be “much, much faster in every way possible”:

“I don’t have much to say, but I will give a leak away.. it is much, much faster in every way possible.

The time to open a menu on 1.08 is .09 seconds. The time to open a menu on Pronto, .04 seconds!!!!” Peek official blog

Our contacts at the company had nothing official they could tell us, but this looks like not only a new device but a new feature-set, and possibly even 3G connectivity to help achieve those all-round speed increases.  It’s also unknown whether the Pronto will have GPS, or merely online map access.  What also remains to be seen is whether existing Peek owners will be able to upgrade to the Google Maps app; given that it’s been spotted on what looks to be an original device, we’re hoping the answer is yes.

[Thanks Rad!]

Luckily for us SayType aims to end this problem with their voice to text services. The service allows you to compose text messages or email without even touching your device.  Just sign up for this service, phone the company and you have 120 second to say what you need to say. But just how well does this service work?

Say you mess up a message and it gets sent, your more than likely going to grab your phone and try to right any wrongdoings that have been done. Long story short, you’re all over the road as much if not more than you were originally. Of course this is going to cost you a monthly subscription fee. You will have to drop $14.95 for email services OR text services. Spending $180 a year I would have to have some really solid evidence that this service does as well as they claim. We want to know how well you thnk it works.