Boot up: Nexus 7 woes, after Sparrow, Marissa Mayer - robot or android?, and more

Sparrows take a cool bath in one of the fountains on the Bremerton Boardwalk in Bremerton. Note: these ones cannot do email. Photograph: Larry Steagall/AP

A burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Occasionally, you'll get a dud. Matt Jukes did: his Nexus 7 wouldn't power on. But what happens next?

So then at 7pm on Wednesday I emailed Google Play Devices support *AND* Google Wallet complaints. It is now 11am Saturday morning and I haven't even had a human acknowledge either email.

I also found the Google Play customer service telephone number (which as I use a mobile costs me 14p in minute!). Since Thursday morning I have called NINE times for a minimum of 10 minutes each times without ever getting beyond the hold music.

To say the whole experience so far has been disappointing would be an understatement. I understand that a 'dead on arrival' piece of hardware is just bad luck but the simple fact is if this had been Amazon, Apple or even f**king Argos I'd have had better service.

It's a long list, though oddly it excludes the HTC Desire HD, which gets this "explanation":

After extensive testing, we've determined that the current version of HTC Sense with Android provides customers with the best experience on the HTC Desire HD. When we consider new versions of software, we weigh a number of factors, but ultimately the customer experience on the product is the deciding factor.

You could call it the first open data question, sure. Anyhow, it has a long heritage.

[In August] Last year HTC made waves when it spent $300m to acquire a majority stake in audio brand Beats -- but things have new flipped back around, with HTC announcing that it sold 25% of Beats' shares back to the audio manufacturer for $150m.

Turns out people won't select a smartphone principally on its promised audio quality. HTC is probably glad of the money now.

Sparrow is also known first for its Mac client, and the Google purchase makes a native Mac Gmail client more of a reality. We heard that the acquisition is less about "building for a specific platform," and that Sparrow's experience at building simple and powerful email clients will be helpful in bringing consistency to the Gmail ecosystem. Our sources also noted that Google isn't ruling out native Gmail clients for platforms beyond iOS and Android, and emphasized that Google wants to bring polish, "beauty," and ease of use to all of its Gmail experiences across platforms

Sparrow for Windows Phone? Then again, how many email clients does the world need?

We're excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!

We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.

Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision -- one that we think we can better achieve with Google.

Google announced today [Friday] that it had acquired Sparrow, the OS X email app much-loved for its uncluttered layout and minimal user experience. This HOWTO will help get you ready for all the enhancements and developments to come as it is integrated into Google's established mail and messaging services.

It's a short video - worth your attention. (Works with or without volume.)

Another CNN-affiliated magazine issue, another Marissa Mayer profile. Fortune's new self-written piece on the Google VP's insane schedule (which somehow left time for contributing to Fortune) allows only two explanations for her lifestyle. Either Marissa Mayer is an artificially constructed hologram delivering a carefully performed script, or she is an artificially constructed android running a Google A.I.

Check for spinning saw attachments on the end of her arms. That should settle it.

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Source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/media/rss/~3/fcobVs_tYXM/technology-links-newsbucket

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