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Friday, February 11, 2011

Wireless advances could mean no more cell towers (AP) : Technet

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Wireless advances could mean no more cell towers (AP) : Technet

Wireless advances could mean no more cell towers (AP)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 08:52 PM PST

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – 36 mins ago

NEW YORK – As cell phones have spread, so have large cell towers — those unsightly stalks of steel topped by transmitters and other electronics that sprouted across the country over the last decade.

Now the wireless industry is planning a future without them, or at least without many more of them. Instead, it's looking at much smaller antennas, some tiny enough to hold in a hand. These could be placed on lampposts, utility poles and buildings — virtually anywhere with electrical and network connections.

If the technology overcomes some hurdles, it could upend the wireless industry and offer seamless service, with fewer dead spots and faster data speeds.

Some big names in the wireless world are set to demonstrate "small cell" technologies at the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest cell phone trade show, which starts Monday in Barcelona, Spain.

"We see more and more towers that become bigger and bigger, with more and bigger antennas that come to obstruct our view and clutter our landscape and are simply ugly," said Wim Sweldens, president of the wireless division of Alcatel-Lucent, the French-U.S. maker of telecommunications equipment.

"What we have realized is that we, as one of the major mobile equipment vendors, are partially if not mostly to blame for this."

Alcatel-Lucent will be at the show to demonstrate its "lightRadio cube," a cellular antenna about the size and shape of a Rubik's cube, vastly smaller than the ironing-board-sized antennas that now decorate cell towers. The cube was developed at the famous Bell Labs in New Jersey, birthplace of many other inventions when it was AT&T's research center.

In Alcatel-Lucent's vision, these little cubes could soon begin replacing conventional cell towers. Single cubes or clusters of them could be placed indoors or out and be easily hidden from view. All they need is electrical power and an optical fiber connecting them to the phone company's network.

The cube, Sweldens said, can make the notion of a conventional cell tower "go away." Alcatel-Lucent will start trials of the cube with carriers in September. The company hopes to make it commercially available next year.

For cell phone companies, the benefits of dividing their networks into smaller "cells," each one served by something like the cube antenna, go far beyond esthetics. Smaller cells mean vastly higher capacity for calls and data traffic.

Instead of having all phones within a mile or two connect to the same cell tower, the traffic could be divided between several smaller cells, so there's less competition for the cell tower's attention.

"If it is what they claim, lightRadio could be a highly disruptive force within the wireless industry," said Dan Hays, who focuses on telecommunications at consulting firm PRTM.

Rasmus Hellberg, director of technical marketing at wireless technology developer Qualcomm Inc., said smaller cells can boost a network's capacity tenfold, far more than can be achieved by other upgrades to wireless technology that are also in the works.

That's sure to draw the interest of phone companies. They've already been deploying older generations of small-cell technology in areas where a lot of people gather, like airports, train stations and sports stadiums, but these are expensive and complicated to install.

In New York City, AT&T Inc. has started creating a network of outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots, starting in Times Square and now spreading through the midtown tourist and shopping districts. Its network has been hammered by an onslaught of data-hungry iPhone users, and this is one way of moving that traffic off the cellular network.

Smaller cells could do the same job, but for all phones, not just Wi-Fi enabled ones like the iPhone. They could also carry calls as well as data.

San Diego-based Qualcomm will be at the Barcelona show with a live demonstration of how "heterogeneous networks" — ones that mix big and small cells, can work. A key issue is minimizing radio interference between the two types of cells. Another hurdle is connecting the smaller cells to the bigger network through optical fiber or other high-capacity connections.

"That's an impediment that we're seeing many operators struggling with right now as data volumes have increased," Hays said.

LM Ericsson AB, the Swedish company that's the largest maker of wireless network equipment in the world, is also introducing a more compact antenna at the show, one it calls "the first stepping stone towards a heterogeneous network."

Small cellular base stations have already penetrated hundreds of thousands of U.S. homes. Phone companies like AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. have for several years been selling "femtocells," which are about the size of a Wi-Fi router and connect to the phone company's network through a home broadband connection.

The cells project radio signals that cover a room or two, providing five bars of coverage where there might otherwise be none.

British femtocell maker Ubiquisys Ltd. will be in Barcelona to demonstrate the smallest cell yet. It's the size of a thumb and plugs into a computer's USB drive. According to Ubiquisys, the idea is that overseas travellers will plug it into their Internet-connected laptops to make calls as if they were on their home network, but there are potential problems with interference if used that way.

According to Rupert Baines, marketing head of Picochip Ltd., a more realistic application for a tiny plug-in cell is to make it work with cable boxes or Internet routers, to convert them into femtocells.

A key part of the "small cell" idea is to take femtocells outside the home, into larger buildings and even outdoors.

Picochip, a British company that's the dominant maker of chips for femtocells, will be in Barcelona to talk about its chips for "public-access" femtocells, designed to serve up to 64 phone calls at a time, with a range of more than a mile. They could be used not just to ease wireless congestion in urban areas, but to fill in dead spots on the map, Baines said.

For instance, a single femtocell could provide wireless service to a remote village, as long as there's some way to connect it to the wider network, perhaps via satellite.

Analyst Francis Sideco of research firm iSuppli pointed out a surprising consumer benefit of smaller cells: better battery life in phones.

When a lot of phones talk to the same tower, they all have to "shout" to make themselves heard, using more energy. With a smaller cell, phones can lower their "voices," much like group of people moving from a noisy ballroom to a smaller, quieter room.

"Ultimately, what you end up with is a cleaner signal, with less power," Sideco said.

Adam Lambert learns the dangers of drunk tweeting (AP)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 08:15 PM PST

By MESFIN FEKADU, Associated Press Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press – 1 hr 13 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – Adam Lambert has learned the dangers of TUI: Tweeting under the influence.

At the Grammy Social Media Rock Stars Summit, the pop singer admitted that "drunk tweeting is not good," and that when he has looked over some of his tweets from the past, he could see how they were offensive.

"You have to be careful," Lambert said, who has over 860,000 Twitter followers. "Newspapers will quote your tweets."

The former "American Idol" runner-up also said that while he loves when fans take pictures and record video footage at his concerts, he feels like they're cheating themselves.

"It's (also) adding pressure on the performer ... since the stuff is up and everywhere," he said.

Lambert, 29, was joined by rapper Chamillionaire at the pre-Grammy event. Chamillionaire won a Grammy in 2007 for his No. 1 song, "Ridin'." Lambert is nominated this year for best male pop vocal performance for "Whataya Want from Me."

While the glam pop-rocker has a Facebook profile with close to 1.3 million fans, he said he has a personal page, too. Though that might be changing.

"It was hacked," he said, adding that someone has also posted his pictures onto message boards.

Former MTV News anchor John Norris hosted the panel, which included Facebook's director of platform product marketing, Ethan Beard, co-founder of Foursquare Naveen Selvadurai and Tim Westergren, Pandora's founder and chief strategy officer.

Beard said that because there's a lack of record stores today, he's hoping the connection between artists and fans are built back through the interaction on musicians' Facebook pages.

"Music is social activity ... and buying music on iTunes is different than in CD stores," Beard said. "(But) using social media makes it more social."

___

Online:

http://www.grammys.com

Pandora tunes up for IPO, looks to raise $100M (AP)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 04:27 PM PST

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Feb 11, 7:27 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Popular Internet radio service Pandora is tuning up for an IPO later this year.

In documents filed Friday, Pandora indicated it would raise $100 million with an initial public offering stock. That figure will likely change as bankers gauge the demand to invest in or an 11-year-old company that has helped change the way people listen to music.

A target price for the shares won't be set until the IPO is closer to happening. The offering probably won't happen for at least three months.

Pandora's decision to go public is the latest sign that Internet companies sense the time is ripe to mine the markets for money amid growing excitement about digital media and online networking. Demand Media Inc., an online service that hires freelance writers to go write stories about frequently searched topics, made a big splash with its IPO last month and professional networking service LinkedIn Corp. filed its IPO papers last week.

In the past few days, AOL Inc. agreed to buy online news and opinion service Huffington Post for $315 million and The Wall Street Journal reported that online messaging service Twitter may now be worth $8 billion to $10 billion. Online coupon service Groupon Inc. is expected to go public later this year and Facebook — the most prized of all privately held Internet companies with a market value recently pegged at $50 billion — may file its IPO papers next year.

Given the growing fervor for widely used Internet services, it makes sense for Pandora to make the IPO leap now, said Inside Digital Media analyst Phil Leigh. "It's kind of like nuclear fission; we're seeing a chain reaction of these things," he said.

Pandora Media Inc. started out in 2000 as a music recommendation service called Savage Beast Technologies. It changed its name in 2005 when it launched an Internet radio service that allows people to stream music over the Web — enabling users to tailor playlists suited to their tastes to listen whenever they want, wherever they want to be.

The idea came from Pandora founder Tim Westergren, an avid musician who also has worked as a record producer. Westergren, 45, is now the company's chief strategy officer and one of its largest stockholders with 3.6 million shares.

Joseph Kennedy, a former salesman for automaker Saturn Corp. and executive for online banker E-Loan, has been Pandora's CEO since 2005. He owns 4.2 million Pandora shares.

Other major shareholders in line for a potential windfall are venture capitalists Crosslink Capital, Walden Venture Capital and Greylock Partners. Those three firms collectively own about 85 million shares. Hearst Corp., a major newspaper and magazine publisher, also is a major stockholder with 8.7 million shares.

Pandora lets users create "stations" by typing in the name of an artist or song on its site: The site's software uses that information to create a personalized stream of music that may include the artist or song you indicated plus other similar music. If you like a song, you can give it a thumbs-up. Songs you don't enjoy can be skipped, but you can only skip a limited number of songs. Pandora users have created more than 1.4 billion stations thus far.

In addition to its website, Pandora.com, Pandora also offers several apps that enable its use on smart phones like the iPhone and phones that run Google Inc.'s Android operating software.

The basic Pandora service is free, with most of its revenue coming from advertising, just like traditional radio stations. Users can pay more to get rid of the ads, enable unlimited listening time and more "skips" and receive higher-quality songs. Most people apparently are willing tolerate the ads. The IPO documents said 86 percent of Pandora's revenue came from advertising in its fiscal year just completed Jan. 31.

The company has lost $83.9 million since its inception and remains unprofitable, according to Friday's filing. In the first nine months of its last fiscal year, Pandora suffered a $328,000 loss on revenue of $90.1 million.

The filing said its independent auditor determined there was "material weakness" in Pandora's financial reporting practices. The company said it's trying to fix the problems.

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Honeycomb-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 on deck? (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 11:08 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Fri Feb 11, 2:08 pm ET

While Samsung has yet to officially announce a follow-up to its seven-inch, Android 2.2-powered tablet from late last year, there's little doubt that the mobile giant will soon have a souped-up, Android 3.0 "Honeycomb"-powered sequel to show off.

Now comes work that a second-generation Samsung Galaxy Tab may take the spotlight Sunday, a day before the curtain rises on Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Pocket-lint claims to have the scoop on the new Tab, which (according to various unnamed sources) will arrive with a 10.1-inch display, an eight-megapixel camera, and a dual-core Qualcomm processor under the hood (pretty much de rigueur for the latest and greatest tablets and smartphones).

The revamped Tab will also boast Honeycomb, Google's tablet-focused version of the Android OS, says Pocket-lint. The current Tab runs on Android 2.2, an older version of Android that lacks Honeycomb's sleek new multitasking and notification features.

Pocket-lint's spies add that while the Tab 2's 10.1-inch display will dwarf the seven-inch screen on the current model, the new Tab will actually be "thinner and lighter" than the originalâ€"and indeed, the revamped Tab may end up being "physically smaller" than the first iPad, which has a 9.7-inch screen.

The original Galaxy Tab has only been on the market since November, and it marked the first major Android-based tablet to go on sale through a big U.S. carrier.

The Tab was joined last month by the Dell Streak 7, another seven-inch, Android 2.2-based tablet.

But both the Galaxy Tab and the Streak will soon face competition from such dual-core, Honeycomb-enabled competitors as the Motorola Xoom and the LG G-Slate, not to mention the widely-expected iPad 2.

Related:
Samsung 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet to debut at MWC [Pocket-lint]

— Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News.

Follow me on Twitter!

Nokia and Microsoft to team up against Apple, Google (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 07:19 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Fri Feb 11, 10:19 am ET

Well, that's that. Symbian and MeeGo are on the way out, new partners Nokia and Microsoft confirmed early Friday, and Windows Phone is in.

The widely anticipated news came just a few days after word leaked of an internal Nokia memo from CEO Stephen Elop, who compared Nokia's precarious perch atop the wireless world to that of a man standing on a "burning platform," with multiple explosions—the biggest coming from such runaway smartphone success as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android OS—erupting all around him. The only way to survive, declared Elop in the leaked memo, would be to leap into the "freezing water" below.

The freezing water, as it turns out, will be Microsoft's budding Windows Phone platform. (Kind of a back-handed compliment, but hey—so it goes.)

Details on the new, "broad strategic partnership" are still preliminary, Nokia said in an official blog post Friday, but make no mistake—we're not just talking a token handshake and photo opp here.

Coinciding with the deal is a major management shakeup, with Nokia poised to divide itself into two core businesses. The first: "Smart Devices," tasked with cranking out a "winning Windows Phone portfolio" and handling the soon-to-be-phased-out Symbian and MeeGo platforms. (Wait, MeeGo's already on the way out? Hold on—we'll get to that in a moment.)

The second business, called "Mobile Devices," will be focused on Nokia's (still massive) Series 40 division of low-cost handsets, with Nokia looking to connect the "next billion" would-be mobile users.

So, what does all this mean from a gadget perspective?

Well, you can pretty much kiss Symbian—a once-great smartphone platform that's fallen way behind the times—goodbye. While Nokia still plans on selling 150 million more Symbian phones "in the years to come," the new plan is to "retain" but "transition" Nokia's 200 million Symbian users to its new "primary" smartphone platform, Windows Phone.

And as for MeeGo, Nokia's long-awaited, next-generation mobile OS, expect one MeeGo-based handset (the first, by the way) this year. That said, MeeGo is now destined to become an "open-source, mobile operating system project" focused on "longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms, and user experience."

Translation: the first MeeGo smartphone, if and when it arrives, will probably be the last.

Meanwhile, Microsoft says it will look to Nokia to "help drive the future of Windows Phone," bringing such features as top-notch optics and Nokia Maps to the table, while Microsoft's Bing will become Nokia's search engine of choice. (What about tablets, you ask? Good question—neither Nokia nor Microsoft ever mention the "t" word in their respective press releases.)

Nokia also trumpeted Windows Phone features like live tiles, tight Xbox and Office integration, and the Zune media hub as reasons to "get excited" about the new partnership.

The Nokia-Microsoft deal had been rumored for months, but speculation grew to a fever pitch in recent days following the leak of Elop's extraordinary internal memo.

Another possible partner for Nokia was Google—and indeed, Nokia's Elop was reportedly in talks with Google CEO Eric Schmidt about a potential deal. In the end, though, Elop decided (according to CNET) that Nokia "would have difficulties differentiating within that ecosystem," and that all the "value" would have been "moving to Google."

In other words: with Microsoft's nascent Windows Phone OS, Nokia gets to be a big fish in a small pond, rather than a just one of many minnows in a growing sea of Android phones.

At the same time, Microsoft now has one of the largest phone makers in the world almost exclusively devoted to Windows Mobile—and Microsoft certainly needs the help if it's going to give Apple and Google a run for their smartphone money.

So, what do you think: did Nokia pick the right partner in wireless crime? And what about the prospect of a Nokia-designed Windows Phone? Fire away below.

— Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News.

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Is OkCupid's Dating Data Safe With Match.com? (PC World)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 05:15 PM PST

Dan Tynan Dan Tynan – Fri Feb 11, 8:15 pm ET

There are millions of fish in the sea and, it seems, nearly as many online dating sites. But few have captured users' hearts quite the way OkCupid has. Launched in 2004 by a quartet of Harvard mathematicians, OkCupid has attracted more than 7 million users thanks to its low-cost, social-media-savvy, statistically driven approach to dating.

Unlike most dating sites, OkCupid lets users set up profiles and contact other members without having to pay fees. (A $10-per-month "A List" version lets members cruise ad-free profiles and access additional features.) Members can set up their own blogs, take quizzes, and compose questions for other users to answer. The company's popular blog, OkTrends, mines site data for trends and offers tongue-in-cheek relationship advice.

As a result, OkCupid has garnered a younger, more technologically plugged-in audience than conventional dating sites. But geeks aren't the only ones attracted to OkCupid. Internet dating giant Match.com was so smitten that it bought the site for $50 million earlier this month. That transaction has some OkCupid users a little worried.

Jesse W., a graduate student in Southern California who's been active on OkCupid since shortly after it launched, says "my heart was broken when I heard the news. I immediately posted about it on Facebook and called and texted my friends, who sent me their condolences. I won't advocate for the bully of online dating like I did when OkCupid's owners cared about its members."

OkCupid's fans were not reassured by the immediate disappearance of an OkTrends blog entry from last April (you can find a cached copy here). Titled "Why you should never pay for online dating," the blog post by OkCupid cofounder Christian Rudder accused for-pay dating sites eHarmony and Match.com of misleading consumers with statistics that don't accurately represent their success rates.

OkCupid's CEO, Sam Yagan, says that he decided to remove the blog post on his own, deeming it to contain inaccurate assumptions about the other sites' data. "It was the common sense thing to do," he says. He also maintains that OkCupid will continue to operate separately from Match.com and be free for most users.

The question then becomes, what happens to the trove of personal data that OkCupid has amassed?

Whose Data Is It, Anyway?

Not surprisingly for a site founded by math geeks, OkCupid is extremely data driven.

The site's OkTrends blog employs sophisticated statistical analysis to offer advice on topics like how guys can tell whether their odds of scoring on a first date are better or worse than average (ask her if she likes the taste of beer), which digital cameras make people look the hottest (Panasonic's Micro4/3s), and what the biggest lies told by online daters are (how much money they make and how tall they are).

As on some competing sites, data is what feeds the algorithms that OkCupid uses to suggest good matches. Last June, for example, the site introduced a feature making it possible for people who are rated attractive by other members to receive suggestions only for similarly attractive members.

A lot of this data comes from aggregating clickstreams on the site, measuring which kinds of profiles or pictures elicit the greatest number of responses. Some of it also comes from OkCupid's unique Questions feature. While nearly all dating sites employ some kind of questionnaire--and some, like eHarmony's, are notoriously extensive--few can match the depth of personal information that OkCupid members reveal via their answers.

Largely created by the members themselves, the questions range from the mundane ("How do you feel about kids?") to queries about religion, politics, sexual practices, drug use, STDs, and more. For example: "What's your relationship with marijuana?" and "Would you rather a) be tied up during sex, b) do the tying, or c) avoid bondage altogether?"

Though you can mark your answers as private and thereby make them inaccessible to anyone else, by default they are public. When you view another member's profile, you can see which public questions they've answered and how their responses compare to yours. You can also change your answers later, make public answers private, or delete them entirely.

Answering publicly is what helps you find good matches, says Katherine L., who joined OkCupid a year ago.

"Whatever your 'thing' or 'kink' is, you want to find people who can enjoy it with you," she says. "It really is an awesome tool for finding a huge diversity of people, from the fundamentally religious to the really strange."

Now all of that data is in the hands of Match.com's parent company, InterActive Corp (IAC). In addition to Match.com, IAC owns more than 50 Web properties, including such popular sites as Ask.com, The Daily Beast, College Humor, and City Search. It also owns Mindspark, which markets a range of browser toolbars, cursors, emoticons, screensavers, avatars, and online sweepstakes sites.

According to Match.com's privacy policy, the company reserves the right to share personally identifiable information with "other IAC businesses" and "other businesses with which we partner or which we carefully select to offer you products, services, and promotions through our website or offline." Users can opt out of receiving promotional e-mail and phone calls via their account settings.

However, Yagan insists that OkCupid's privacy policy--which limits the amount of data it shares with third parties--will continue to govern the data that the site collects.

"We are not planning to share any personally identifiable information with anyone," he says. "Just because we were acquired doesn't mean we're handing over any user data. Can I sign in blood and tell you that our privacy terms will not change for all of eternity? No. Can I tell you we have no plans to do anything with any of that data? Absolutely."

Match.com declined our request for an interview, but offered the following statement via a spokesperson: "Post-acquisition, the OkCupid privacy policy will continue to apply to OkCupid user data, just as it did pre-acquisition. At this time, we have no current plans to change the policy."

As any Facebook user can tell you, however, privacy policies are hardly written in stone.

"The fatal flaw in privacy policies is the fact that they can be changed at any time," says Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "If there's anyone who has concerns about information they've shared with a site, they'd be well advised to remove or change that information while they still have the opportunity."

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Most OkCupid users contacted for this story said that they would consider leaving the site if it mined their personal data for marketing purposes. Others like Nikkie H. seemed resigned to the risks of sharing personal information online.

"I look at Facebook and how the online advertisers seem to know everything about me, given how they've customized the ads [and] I've almost become desensitized to it all," she says. "My way of thinking is, you should never assume anything you say online will be private even if they say it will be. It's just like you should never assume telling your best friend a secret will stay a secret. More than likely they have shared your secret to someone else within two hours."

Nicole G., a former user of Match.com who compares it to "a business school barbecue," was less sanguine.

"As soon as I heard the news, I e-mailed my boyfriend of three months, whom I met on OkC," she says. "We've had some ups and downs lately. My e-mail: 'Well, guess we should definitely stay together now, because Match.com just bought OkCupid.' "

PCWorld contributing editor Dan Tynan would never lie about his height. Okay, well once maybe. Enjoy a walk on the snide side at his humor site eSarcasm (Geek Humor Gone Wild) or follow him on Twitter: @Tynan_on_tech.

Coroner: Man texting before deadly SC crash (AP)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 06:25 PM PST

– Fri Feb 11, 9:25 pm ET

ANDERSON, S.C. – A coroner says a South Carolina man who was killed after wrecking his SUV was drunk and texting at the time of the crash and was still holding his cell phone when his body was found.

Anderson County Coroner Don McCown says 22-year-old Charles Dennard was driving home on U.S. 29 early Friday when his 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee ran off the road.

McCown says the driver then lost control and the SUV plowed through a fence and hit some trees before overturning.

The coroner says Dennard sent his last text at 2:47 a.m., but the wreckage of his SUV wasn't found for four hours.

McCown says Dennard's blood-alcohol level was 0.24 percent, three times over the legal limit to drive.

HP TouchPad: Has HP Done Enough to Compete With Apple and Android? (PC World)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 05:00 PM PST

Melissa J. Perenson Melissa J. Perenson – Fri Feb 11, 8:00 pm ET

I'll say this up front: Hewlett-Packard is no Apple. The company has neither the fanbase nor the reputation for creating lust-inducing products that appeal to the masses with the same polish and veneer of Apple's repertoire. And yet, with its newly unveiled WebOS strategy, HP is clearly on the path toward doing just that.

In recent years HP has upped its attention to usability, with the goal of providing products aimed at mainstream consumers. Palm--the company HP acquired last year in a deal that set the stage for the swath of WebOS announcements--has its own long history of providing top-notch interfaces that create fans and devotees, but it has struggled to remain relevant in a market dominated by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android army of handsets.

HP's far-reaching, just-introduced WebOS strategy underscores the point that HP has an overall vision for its WebOS products. In representatives' remarks during a marathon launch event, HP explained how WebOS products could interact, and it gave a framework (albeit one short on details) for how it might implement that vision.

That vision is missing from many of the me-too competitors throwing tablets out into the marketplace.

HP, like Apple, has the advantage of making devices and the OS that runs them. And as with Apple gatherings, at HP's event we saw clear demonstrations of capabilities (even though some features were not yet enabled and, infamously, no one but HP's own demonstrators could actually get their hands on the TouchPad tablet).

In fact, HP's splashy event reeked of showmanship--complete with a crowd seeded by guests who'd cheer at Jon Rubinstein's words, and celebrity name-dropping. But what the event also illustrated was that HP understood just what it needed to show to differentiate its tablet in an increasingly crowded landscape.

By comparison, at other recent events (Google's Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" launch, RIM's showing of its PlayBook at a developer's roundtable) companies seemed to lose sight of the prize: a clear demonstration of what each tablet and its software could do for consumers. That doesn't necessarily mean that Honeycomb tablets and the PlayBook won't be solid consumer products, but you have to wonder: If the companies couldn't focus on the consumer experience during their product introductions, how will the final devices fare when they roll out to the masses?

WebOS: A Cross-Platform Strategy

HP's WebOS had the advantage of already being primed for Web-connected functionality, and the company had to do little tweaking to optimize it for tablets. HP says that it altered notifications, the mail view, and the photos view, specifically, but little else within the core software changed in the jump from handset to tablet. At the launch event, HP did not announce a new name or version number for the WebOS variant loaded on the tablet, beyond saying that it would be a 2.x version. The company also declined to focus on the OS changes, preferring instead to showcase how the OS worked for the user and how it delivered and presented information differently than competing tablet OSs do.

When asked about the handful of apps (some 6000) already available for WebOS, HP officials indicated that the programs should be able to scale and function on the tablet without issue, but that's something they're still vetting. It's a fair answer, given that the TouchPad isn't shipping anytime soon.

What struck me most about HP's WebOS strategy was its simplicity. Everything the company showed just worked (well, the nifty touch-to-share was slow to transmit in the demos, but it did work eventually), and demonstrations focused on how WebOS's design could streamline everyday tasks.

Exactly how fast the app ecosystem will ramp up is a significant unanswered question. At this week's event, HP trotted out Time Inc. in support for its platform--but just last week, a Time rep stood at a modest station in Google's HQ, showing off an impressive Sports Illustrated app on Android 3.0.

Has HP done enough to compete with Apple, Android, and RIM? Perhaps. A lot remains unknown about the TouchPad: Battery life (anticipated to be "all day") and price are the big outstanding issues for now, outside of the question of who's developing WebOS apps. As for the hardware, the TouchPad's specs seem good but not mind-blowing, especially given that the tablet is weighing in at 1.6 pounds--heavier than the current first-generation iPad.

Where HP impresses is in its WebOS software. The interactivity within the OS, not to mention real-time cloud syncing among devices, is a real boon for a connected device like the TouchPad. The more I see of the coming deluge of tablets, the more convinced I am that the battle for dominance in the burgeoning tablet market will be fierce. And the battle won't be just about sleek hardware. Yes, in the early days, the physical design of these plastic slabs--er, tablets--will play a role. But potentially more important will be the aesthetics and fluidity of both the operating system and the apps.

Vt. mulls ban on aliases online for sex offenders (AP)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 04:41 PM PST

By DAVE GRAM, Associated Press Dave Gram, Associated Press – Fri Feb 11, 7:41 pm ET

MONTPELIER, Vt. – Vermont lawmakers are considering making it a crime for convicted sex offenders to use false names on social media sites like Facebook, after one such incident was reported in the state.

Only two states have related measures, said Erik Fitzpatrick, a lawyer on the research staff for the Vermont Legislature: New York and Illinois bar convicted sex offenders from using social networking sites at all as a condition of their probation. The National Conference of State Legislatures was unaware of similar laws or pending legislating in other states.

A former teacher at a school for boys who had committed sex crimes told a state Senate committee Friday that he spotted a Facebook profile last fall with a picture of a former student in the program who was using an alias.

Chuck Laramie, the former teacher, said the 26-year-old man had become Facebook friends with 14- and 15-year-old girls.

The man was convicted in 2004 of sexual assault, defined in Vermont law as engaging in a sex act with another person without that person's consent, and has not completed a sex offender treatment program, the state's online sex offender registry shows.

Laramie said he saw Facebook messages the man sent the girls, telling them he was "struggling with his sexuality and thinking he might be gay. Some of the girls were replying by saying, 'Oh, no, you're not.' He was getting these young girls to feel sympathy for him," Laramie said. "It was a classic grooming situation" in which sexual predators psychologically manipulate potential victims.

If the man were a sex offender trying not to re-offend, that was "an extremely high-risk situation to put yourself in," Laramie said.

Facebook takes extensive steps, including teams of internal investigators working with law enforcement agents around the country, when it detects people on its network behaving suspiciously, the company said in a statement. Contacting minors or users of predominantly one gender are seen as clues, and Facebook uses systems including a national database of convicted sex offenders to do real-time checks, the statement said.

"Protecting our users, especially the many children who use Facebook, has always been a top priority for us. We've devoted significant resources to developing innovative and complex systems to proactively monitor the site and its users," the company said.

Some state senators questioned whether Vermont could ban sex offenders from using computers altogether, but one, Sen. Jeanette White, a Windham Democrat, noted that many public services, such as applying for extended unemployment benefits, require using computers.

The bill under review would make the crime a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in jail. The committee said it would continue to consider the bill.

Man gets life in wife's murder recorded on cell (AP)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 06:01 PM PST

– Fri Feb 11, 9:01 pm ET

LARGO, Fla. – A Tampa Bay-area man convicted of killing his wife in a crime that was recorded because he'd accidentally called her cell phone has been sentenced to life in prison.

A Pinellas County judge sentenced 45-year-old Ronald Earl Williams on Friday. A jury found him guilty Thursday night of second-degree murder.

Prosecutors had been seeking a first-degree murder conviction and a possible death sentence.

Prosecutors said Williams activated his cell phone, which then called his wife's cell phone while he was killing her. Voicemail recorded Williams saying he was going to kill her, followed by 31-year-old Mariama Williams' terrified screams.

The defense acknowledged that Williams killed his wife but argued that it was not premeditated.

___

Information from: St. Petersburg Times, http://tampabay.com

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LARGO, Fla. (AP) — A man who Florida authorities say accidentally called his wife's cell phone while killing her and left a voicemail recording of it was found guilty of second-degree murder.

Jurors reached the verdict Thursday outside St. Petersburg.

Ronald Earl Williams faced a possible death sentence, but defense attorneys told jurors their client killed his wife Mariama in 2007 and asked them to consider lesser charges.

Sentencing is set for Friday afternoon. The maximum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison.

Prosecutors say Williams activated his cell phone, which then called his wife's cell phone while he was killing her. Jurors heard the voicemail recording of Williams saying he was going to kill her and the 31-year-old woman's screams.

___

Information from: St. Petersburg Times.

Telus profit surges on data and wireless revenue (Reuters)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 03:03 PM PST

By Alastair Sharp Alastair Sharp – Fri Feb 11, 6:03 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – Telus Corp posted a 46 percent jump in quarterly profit on Friday, driven largely by strong data and wireless revenue, the Canadian telecoms company said, as it pushes ahead with its Internet television service.

But stiff competition in the wireless sector, which provides about half the Vancouver-based company's revenue, meant Telus failed to sign up as many new customers as analysts expected.

Its mobile phone customers spent more, however, suggesting most of the weakness was in the low-end of the market.

"We are seeing very heavy competition at the low end," said Maher Yaghi, an analyst at Desjardins Securities in Montreal.

"They're not getting dirty ... they are trying to concentrate on bundles," he said, referring to more loyal customers who sign up for phone, Internet and television packages. "Those are customers who Bell and Telus are concentrating on."

Telus and BCE Inc's Bell Canada unit share an upgraded national wireless network that has helped them win share from market leader Rogers Communications as they offer more high-end smartphones such as Apple's iPhone.

One-third of Telus's wireless customers now have smartphones , accounting for two-thirds of wireless voice and data activity in the quarter, executives said. Wireless data revenue jumped to C$326 million.

Bell, Canada's largest telecoms company, also posted strong wireless growth this quarter, boosting profit and revenue.

Telus Chief Commercial Officer Joe Natale told analysts during a conference call that the company's Internet TV service, Optik, would now turn its focus to boosting content packages after reaching 314,000 subscribers.

"That's roughly 10 percent market share in Western Canada; that's a critical mass where we can turn the jets on," he said.

Telus is odd man out in Canada's increasingly integrated telecom industry, where competitors are buying TV content providers to complement their distribution services.

It competes fiercely in Western Canada against cable company Shaw Communications, which bought the television assets of bankrupt Canwest Global Communications last year for C$2 billion.

Shares of Telus slipped 32 Canadian cents, or 0.7 percent, to C$47.57 on Friday afternoon. They have risen 2 percent since the company issued robust 2011 guidance in December.

NET INCOME SURGES

Telus said fourth-quarter net income rose to C$227 million ($229 million), or 70 Canadian cents a share, from C$156 million, or 49 Canadian cents, a year ago. The company reported a 4 percent rise in revenue to C$2.55 billion.

Analysts, on average, had expected Telus, which provides phone, Internet and television services mostly in Western Canada, to earn 72 Canadian cents a share, on revenue of C$2.51 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

It added 119,000 wireless subscribers, 3,000 less than a year earlier. But its mobile customers on average paid C$58.48 a month, a first year-on-year increase since early 2007.

Signing on lucrative smartphone users comes at a cost, however. Telus paid C$170 million in subsidies as customers upgraded to iPhones and Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones.

Its fixed-line operating margins were also squeezed by costs to expand its Optik service. Telus added 48,000 Optik subscriptions and is now available to more than 2.1 million homes in British Columbia, Alberta and eastern Quebec.

"We're seeing the growth there but it's still small," Yaghi said. "It's actually putting pressure on the bottom line because when you hook up customers the initial cost is high."

Typically for the industry, Telus's revenue from fixed-line operations is sliding as customers become more mobile.

Telus's wireless numbers, with the more lucrative postpaid subscriber growth static at 109,000, reflect pressure from newcomers like Globalive that have entered the sector since a 2008 government spectrum auction, as well as from budget brands owned by Bell and Rogers.

Globalive's low-cost and contract-free Wind Mobile has grabbed more than 250,000 subscribers since its late 2009 launch. Two other wireless-only entrants, Mobilicity and Public Mobile, also offer unlimited talk and text packages.

Wind Mobile and Mobilicity are moving west in earnest but Telus got a reprieve when main rival Shaw delayed the launch of its mobile service until early in 2012.

(Additional reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay; editing by Rob Wilson)

X-Men: First Class Trailer Hits YouTube [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 01:11 PM PST

Jolie O'Dell Jolie O'dell – Fri Feb 11, 4:11 pm ET

If you like Cold War-flavored, comic book-inspired action flicks (and who doesn't?), here's something to kick off your weekend.

We've got a long wait until the theatrical premiere of the next X-Men installment from the Marvel comic universe, X-Men: First Class, but here's a sneak peak at what the film will entail, courtesy of a 2-minute YouTube trailer.

According to accompanying text, we learn that the new movie in the successful comic-to-silver-screen franchise "charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga and reveals a secret history of famous global events.

"Before mutants had revealed themselves to the world, and before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other mutants (some familiar, some new), to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto's Brotherhood and Professor X's X-Men."

The film, which won't be in theaters until June 3, 2011, is seen by Fox as both a prequel to the three primary X-Men films and as the beginning on a new trilogy.

X-Men: First Class is produced by Bryan Singer, directed by Matthew Vaughn and stars James McAvoy as the young Professor X; Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, who becomes Magneto; Kevin Bacon as villain Sebastian Shaw; and January Jones as Emma Frost. Principal photography took place in London.

X-Men: First Class is the fifth in the X-Men film series, which includes X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Will you be going to see the new X-Men film when it's in theaters?

Nokia considered Android before going with Microsoft (Appolicious)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 11:50 AM PST

China will convert phone booths into Wi-Fi hotspots (Digital Trends)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 05:47 PM PST

Molly McHugh Molly Mchugh – Fri Feb 11, 8:47 pm ET

china wifiAs the Chinese smartphone market nears almost complete saturation and land lines are fading away, the government will begin turning its obsolete public phone booths into Wi-Fi hotspots. According to popular Asian tech blog Mobinode, a local Chinese paper reported that some of the booths are getting less than one user a day and the cost of upkeep and operation for them is a waste.

Aside to the spending of unnecessary resources, allowing users to more readily access Wi-Fi would be a boon to the current spotty 3G service in China. But phone booths are reportedly only one piece of the expansion. Implementing Wi-Fi hotspots in locations like restaurants, hotels, and gyms is a larger project.

Of course, eliminating public phone use only benefits mobile phone owners, and those without could find themselves with incredibly limited communication access. Largely, however, the current situation as is, is throwing resources down the drain, and turning what's quickly becoming an archaic item into services for the mass majority of Chinese citizens sounds like an all around win. And with as many of the world's Internet users as China has, you can bet most will be thrilled with improved connection.

PayPal Aims to be the Leader in Micropayments (PC World)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 02:05 PM PST

Brennon Slattery Brennon Slattery – Fri Feb 11, 5:05 pm ET

PayPal wants to be the go-to company for digital goods in a world where micropayments are becoming increasingly popular for mobile apps, tablet versions of newspapers, and music. The company announced its micropayment system called PayPal Digital Goods is no longer in preview mode and now available to any seller of digital content.

PayPal Digital Goods allows for two-click payments without having to leave the originating site or service. The service has a low transaction fee threshold (5 percent plus 5 cents for purchases under $12), and offers one-time micropayments, pay-as-you-go, and subscription models. Carey Kolaja writing on PayPal's blog claims the fee structure is lower than those typically charged by payment processors in the digital goods industry, and, as always, payments are automatic and funds are immediately accessible.

PayPal's move to become the leading name in micropayments comes at just the right time: the mobile app industry is expected to hit $15 billion this year, and the virtual goods industry - such as add-ons to iPhone games like Angry Birds and stuff for FarmVille - is expected in 2011 to hit $2.1 billion.

There is some skepticism as to whether people are willing to pay for virtual goods that cost as low as 25 cents, but one look at iTunes' economic model should alleviate those concerns. It used to be silly to use a debit card to buy a pack of gum. Now we're spending 99 cents on songs and app downloads without blinking an eye, and it's that same unthinking two-click agreement that will be a boon for the digital goods industry and PayPal, should PayPal become its leader.

Remains of the Day: Talk the talk (Macworld)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 04:38 PM PST

Dan Moren Dan Moren – Fri Feb 11, 7:38 pm ET

Surprise! Steve Jobs is still working at Apple. Plus, the company may be looking to beef up a key iOS feature with a little outside (soon to be inside?) help and you too can get more cell phone minutes than you will ever need. The remainders for Friday, February 11, 2011 are all talk.

Apple's Jobs Calls Shots From Home (Wall Street Journal)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean to tell me that Steve Jobs is still involved in high-level strategic decisions during his medical leave of absence— just like he said he would be ? What kind of amazing technology has Apple developed that allows someone to work from a place that is not actually their office?

Apple Is Revamping Notification System For iOS [Exclusive] (Cult of Mac)

Rumors suggest that Apple may be snapping up App Remix, developer of the popular notification app Boxcar, in order to help improve its iOS notifications. Cult of Mac got in touch with App Remix CEO Jonathan George to ask him if his company was being bought by Apple—to which he reputedly replied, "Not if I answer that question it ain't."

AT&T iPhone customers: go grab your free 1000 minutes (TUAW)

If you're hard up for minutes on your AT&T iPhone, the carrier will give you 1000 rollover minutes in exchange for welcoming its text message-based marketing deals into your life. So I guess we now know precisely how much we can be bought for.

Why You Need to Have a Linux LiveCD (PC World)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 03:31 PM PST

Katherine Noyes Katherine Noyes – Fri Feb 11, 6:31 pm ET

As a longtime fan of Linux, I'm a big believer that most business users would benefit greatly by dumping Windows and switching over to the open source operating system instead. It's stable, it's reliable and it's highly secure, among many other advantages.

What many people don't realize, however, is that even if you choose not to do that, there are still many reasons to keep a copy of Linux close at hand. Most Linux distributions are available in LiveCD, Live DVD or Live USB format, either sold commercially that way or downloadable so that users can make their own.

OSDisc.com is one place to buy live versions of Linux in one of these formats. Alternatively, the LiveCD List offers a list of downloads along with links, ratings and requirements, while UNetbootin focuses on USB drives. However you do it, what the resulting media have in common is that they contain a whole, bootable operating system that does not need to be installed on the hard drive.

How could this be useful to your business? Let's look at a few ways.

1. Healing a Sick PC

It's no secret that Windows PCs are particularly prone to malware, and getting rid of it is no easy feat. That's one place Linux can help. LiveCDs, DVDs and USBs can all be used to resuscitate a crippled machine without having to access its boot records, as I've noted before.

To rescue your infected PC, you first make sure the machine is turned off, and then you turn it on again with the CD, DVD or USB installed. This boots the computer directly into Linux, completely avoiding Windows and its infection.

From there you can get some good antivirus software to battle the infection. ClamAV with its ClamTK interface are my favorite solution, and can be obtained from the Ubuntu Software Center, for instance. With such software in hand, you can then proceed to squash the nasty bug that crippled your machine in the first place.

Once that's done, you can boot back into Windows and get on with things.

2. Banking

Such is the poor security situation in Windows that experts now commonly discourage users from conducting online banking or other sensitive transactions over a Windows PC. Once again, Linux live media can help you out here.

Use your LiveCD, DVD or USB to boot your computer into Linux when you need to do some banking, and you're effectively removing yourself from the vast ranks of the Windows-based targets most malware seeks. Instead, you can launch a browser and do your banking in comparative safety, away from most malware's prying eyes.

Then, when you're done, you can boot back into Windows again, safe in the knowledge that your money is still in your bank account.

3. Reviving Old Hardware

Linux is generally far less resource-intensive than Windows is, but some distributions minimize their requirements down even further. Puppy Linux--which I looked at not long ago--and also Damn Small Linux (DSL) are two such examples and can be particularly useful for getting new life out of an old machine.

With a Linux LiveCD, DVD or USB, you can get your old machine up and running and productive once again. Depending on the hardware you've got, you can probably even go on to install Linux--particularly a diminutive distribution such as Puppy--and run it off the hard drive without any trouble.

Time to buy a new machine? Not so fast, thanks to Linux.

4. Testing Linux

Finally, I understand that it's not a simple matter for some businesses to switch to Linux, and that there can be compelling reasons for them to stay with Windows, at least in the short term.

When the malware, the hardware requirements and the expense finally become too much, however, a LiveCD or similar bootable technology can be a great way to give Linux a commitment-free test drive.

If you choose not to install it, nothing is lost--just remove the disk or drive and go back to Windows. If you like what you see, though--and I'm betting you will--you'll be equipped with what you need to install Linux for real.

Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk.

Could Google Risk Taking on the CRM Market? (NewsFactor)

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 02:18 PM PST

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Jennifer Leclaire, newsfactor.com – Fri Feb 11, 5:18 pm ET

There's speculation that Google may be toying with the idea of entering the CRM market. With Google Apps gaining traction in the enterprise, some observers think a CRM app might make sense for the search giant.

Google hasn't even hinted at the idea, so where do such thoughts come from? Likely it's sheer curiosity. Google is sitting on hordes of cash, is actively acquiring companies, and many observers are trying to figure out what Google might scoop up next. CRM software is so far an untouched vertical for Google.

"Google is still enthralled, much like Netscape was, with the enterprise market. So if Google is going to go into the enterprise, CRM would be a logical place for them to jump," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "But for the type of company Google is, the more effort they put into the enterprise market, the more exposed they are going to be -- and the more likely they are going to end up like Netscape did."

The Netscape Comparison

Why does Enderle draw the Netscape comparison? Because, as he sees it, Netscape made the mistake of going after enterprise business before consolidating control of its base revenue. Although Google does have control of its base revenue, the best possibilities of new revenue for the company are in consumer-oriented and advertising-based products. Google Apps may have gained some traction, but enterprise revenues are largely insignificant compared to Google's consumer-facing business.

"If Google moves over to CRM, which is solidly business, the advertising-revenue model probably won't work because the people don't want their opinions or information shared," Enderle said. "In that product class, Google is on a hard path to a traditional software model, and that is a model that Google is not set up to embrace yet."

Could Google build out its own CRM product? Yes, but Enderle questioned whether Google could do so successfully against the likes of Oracle and Microsoft. Google, he said, isn't structured to go after the traditional software market. Google is still essentially an advertising-driven free utility vendor. Enderle thinks a Google CRM product would be a spectacular failure.

Google's Model Flaw

"CRM is about as far away from that type of product as you are likely to get from what Google does. One step further would be CAD/CAM. Google going to CRM would probably make [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer's day," Enderle said. "If you are competing, you compete on your strengths. You don't step into an area [dominated by] the strengths of others."

Still, Google may have to do something different. Enderle sees a long-term problem with the company's business model -- the source of revenue is largely smoke and mirrors. Google essentially sells eyeballs of people browsing the web.

"Unlike a traditional vendor, Google doesn't own its product. Maintaining control over something you don't own can be very difficult," Enderle said. "Any distraction at all at this phase could open them up to a major mistake. On the other hand, if they don't make a conversion before someone figures out their model and that this revenue could be shared, they are going to be screwed, regardless."
at 9:40 PM

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