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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Obama to be 1st head of state to tour Facebook HQ (AP) : Technet

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Obama to be 1st head of state to tour Facebook HQ (AP) : Technet

Obama to be 1st head of state to tour Facebook HQ (AP)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 05:33 PM PDT

By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press – Tue Apr 19, 8:33 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – When President Barack Obama arrives at Facebook headquarters this week, he will be the first sitting head of state to visit the brick-and-mortar home of the social media powerhouse.

He will also be partaking in a unique pilgrimage to this area in Northern California that has become a cradle for social media, a trip that is all but obligatory for politicians like presidential hopefuls, celebrities like Lady Gaga and dignitaries from around the world like Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

Such visits to the hottest tech companies in Northern California's Silicon Valley offer a traditional chance to connect face-to-face with new-media users, voters, fans and potential donors. But the A-listers of entertainment and government also gain important cachet that comes from fusing their personal images with the technology brands the world sees as the future.

For politicians especially, this moment in the history of technology must feel like it did for their counterparts a half-century ago, when leaders knew they had to get wise to this new thing called television.

And as the 1960 televised presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy showed, some politicians turn out to be better than others at commanding a new mass medium.

Obama was the first president to take office after social media became commonplace. His campaign earned praise for its skill at using the Web to organize grass-roots fundraising and voting efforts.

Today, the president's official Facebook page has more than 19 million fans and his Twitter account nearly 7.5 million followers (still fewer than Lady Gaga, who has nearly 9.5 million followers). During his visit to Facebook, Obama's appearance will be broadcast live online as he takes questions from among the site's 500 million users worldwide.

Andrew Noyes, a public policy communications manager for Facebook, confirmed Tuesday that Obama's stop there would be the first time a sitting head of state takes questions at its headquarters.

These new versions of the traditional town hall give politicians the opportunity to appear as if they are interacting with the public in a more unfiltered way. But staffers are often behind the online profiles, composing Twitter and Facebook posts for their busy bosses.

As a result, the value of genuine face time still holds sway.

Obama's embrace of technology has coincided with his embrace of the tech industry, which in the liberal San Francisco Bay area tends to lean Democratic.

In February, the president came to Silicon Valley for dinner with the tech industry's biggest stars, raising a glass at venture capitalist John Doerr's Woodside home with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's then-chief executive Eric Schmidt and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.

The event was closed to the press, but publicity photos handed out afterward showed the president mingling with the industry leaders whose faces have become nearly as famous as those of the celebrities whose attention they command.

Obama praised the tech industry at the time as an economic bright spot and a jobs engine for the country. Employment will also be the topic of the Facebook town hall, even as the president's own job and those of his Democratic colleagues will be on his mind when he lands in San Francisco.

Obama will host four fundraising events while in the Bay Area, including a private dinner for 60 at the home of Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The event has sold out at $35,800 a seat, the newspaper reported.

___

Online:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?vOxqQmt_F240

Business buying lifts Intel as tablet threat looms (AP)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 09:04 PM PDT

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – 15 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Intel Corp. has sent a strong message to Wall Street: Tablets may be transforming the computer industry, but there's still a lot of money left to be made in the huge market for traditional PCs.

Despite all the hoopla around Apple Inc.'s iPad and an army of competitors, on Tuesday Intel reported that its first-quarter net income jumped 29 percent as corporate demand for new PCs led to lots of orders for Intel chips.

The results easily topped analysts' projections, as did Intel's second-quarter guidance. Its shares rose more than 4 percent in extended trading.

The stock move reflects the belief of many investors that Intel has plenty of opportunities to plumb its core businesses for more profits as it adjusts to a shifting technology landscape.

Intel, at 43 years old, is among the old guard of the computer industry. It's the world's biggest semiconductor company, with some 80 percent of the world's PCs running its processors.

Newcomers are challenging its dominance in PCs with mobile gadgets including smartphones and tablets. But the latest numbers show that Intel has scale and some of the most sophisticated manufacturing technology in the world on its side to beat back those pressures — for now.

Intel earned $3.16 billion, or 56 cents per share, in the first quarter, which was higher than the 46 cents per share that analysts polled by FactSet expected. A year ago, Intel earned $2.44 billion, or 43 cents per share.

It brought in revenue of $12.8 billion, a 25 percent increase from $10.3 billion a year ago and higher than the $11.6 billion that analysts expected.

The second quarter revenue forecast of $12.3 billion to $13.3 billion was also higher than the $11.9 billion analysts were expecting.

Intel shares rose 91 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $20.77 in extended trading.

Strong corporate demand for PCs is helping Intel overcome a series of problems. It had a serious product blunder in January when a design error in a new chip delayed production of new PCs and Intel said it expected the gaffe would cost $1 billion to clean up; PC demand in the U.S. and Europe is weakening because of tablets and economic worries; and demand in Japan has fallen because of the deadly earthquake and tsunami in March.

Intel also benefited from having an extra week in the latest quarter than it normally has, because of a change in the way the company measures its quarters.

The company's cutting-edge manufacturing technology, which requires billions of dollars in investments every year, also helps Intel wring more profit from its businesses. The technology allows Intel to make the circuitry on its chips smaller, reducing costs while boosting performance.

Still, the threat from tablets is real, and Intel and other companies in the PC industry are scrambling to find their place.

Goldman Sachs analysts say they expect that as many as 21 million people may buy tablets instead of laptops this year, and that the number could jump to 26.5 million in 2012. They also expect that the iPad, which went on sale just a year ago, will be so successful it will make more money for Apple than the company's entire Mac division by the end of this year.

While tablet demand is expected to grow sharply, the chasm between the size of the tablet market and the size of the PC market is large.

Goldman Sachs says it expects overall tablet sales in 2011 to be about $35 billion, with some 60 million units sold, while the PC market should be higher than $250 billion, with nearly 370 million units sold. If that prediction comes to pass, that's still a remarkable achievement considering that commercial PCs have been around 30 years.

That's a worrisome trend for Intel because Apple designs its own chip for the iPad, and other tablet makers are using other chips that consume less power than Intel's. Intel has chips for both smartphones and tablets, but it's late to the game.

The question isn't whether Intel will be frozen out of either market entirely; Intel's substantial resources and engineering talent make it a threat in any business it chooses to enter. But it has stumbled before in entering new markets, and some analysts question whether it can have a meaningful impact on smartphones or tablets considering it's facing entrenched competitors in phones, and Apple is seen remaining the dominant force in tablets.

Intel has argued that it expects the new classes of devices to expand the overall computer market. In an interview with The Associated Press, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he still holds that belief. He said it will take years to assess the impact of the trends, but that data Intel has collected so far don't support the idea of heavy "cannibalization."

One of the reasons is price. Tablets can be several hundred dollars more expensive than a PC. Another is tablets' role as a content-consumption device, and their limited abilities to create content.

"All of these devices have been additive. They all find a niche for different people, and they're all still relatively focused on mature markets," he said. "In emerging markets, the PC is much more affordable, and because of its content-creation abilities is the device of choice."

The chip design stumble could have been a boon for Intel's smaller microprocessor rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., but the fast turnaround likely prevented major losses in market share. AMD reports its first quarter results on Thursday.

Otellini said that Intel didn't see much of an effect from the March 11 disaster in Japan. That's because the company doesn't have factories in the country and because PCs are built around common standards that are easily met by suppliers outside of Japan. Japan is a major supplier of memory chips and key materials for making computer chips.

Yahoo 1Q results top analyst views; stock climbs (AP)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 05:23 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Apr 19, 8:23 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc. is delivering on its promise to boost its earnings even though a bumpy beginning to its Internet search partnership with Microsoft Corp. is causing it to fall further behind in the Web's most lucrative advertising market.

Despite the Microsoft problems, the results released Tuesday showed signs of progress, which could help Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz persuade skeptical investors that the company is getting better after years of financial infirmity.

Yahoo hired Bartz in January 2009 to revive revenue growth, a goal that has proven elusive so far. She spent most of the first two years on the job cutting and reshuffling staff, closing unpopular services and cobbling together the Microsoft alliance to reduce Yahoo's costs.

Yahoo's higher earnings have come from primarily from savings that have included paring the company's staff to 13,300 employees, a 6 percent decrease from 14,200 people a year ago. Investors generally prefer to see robust revenue growth, particularly in companies trying profit from an Internet ad market that has been expanding at a much faster rate than the overall economy.

Those expectations mean Yahoo eventually will have to increase its revenue if it hopes to restore investors' confidence. Facebook's increasingly popular online hangout also has been luring visitors and advertising from Yahoo, posing another serious threat for Bartz to confront.

The results released Tuesday showed a 10 percent revenue increase in Yahoo's stronghold — the online billboards known as display advertising — after subtracting commissions. Earnings exceeded expectations, as did another gauge followed closely by Wall Street.

"Our turnaround is proceeding on schedule," Bartz assured analysts in a conference call. "We are very confident we are headed in the right direction."

But an upturn in revenue isn't imminent, partly because the Microsoft alliance isn't providing the payoff that Bartz envisioned. Yahoo's forecast for the current quarter pointed toward revenue slipping again for the three months ending in June.

Investors appeared willing to settle for the earnings improvement while they await a revenue revival. The company's shares gained 50 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $16.62 in extended trading.

With Yahoo's revenue slipping below its levels before Bartz's arrival, the company's stock has been a lackluster performer. The shares have fallen by more than 40 percent since Google Inc. went public in August 2004 and proceeded to establish itself as the dominant force in Internet advertising. At the time of Google's IPO, Yahoo's stock stood at $28.11. Since then, Google's market value has increased by more than fivefold.

Measuring Yahoo's strides in the first quarter proved difficult because of various one-time gains and charges that muddled the comparisons to last year.

Yahoo earned $223 million, or 17 cents share, for the first three months of the year. That's a 28 percent decline from $310 million, or 22 cents per share, a year ago.

If not for unusual items, Yahoo said it would have earned 19 cents per share in the latest quarter compared with 15 cents per share a year ago.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected earnings of 16 cents per share. That meant Yahoo topped the expectations guiding Wall Street, no matter how the earnings were chopped up.

Yahoo's revenue fell 24 percent to $1.21 billion. That decline is deceiving because it reflected the divestiture of some divisions and accounting adjustments dictated by the Microsoft partnership.

In a gauge followed more closely by Wall Street, Yahoo's revenue came in at $1.06 billion after subtracting ad commissions. Although that was $10 million higher than analyst estimates, it was 6 percent below $1.13 billion on the same basis last year.

In a long-running problem, Yahoo is still losing ground in search — an advertising gold mine that Google dominates.

Part of the decline stems from Yahoo's financial arrangement with Microsoft. The deal calls for Microsoft's technology to provide Yahoo's search results in return for $12 of every $100 in revenue from the ads placed alongside the recommended links. But Bartz said the Microsoft partnership isn't delivering as much revenue per search as the two sides envisioned.

Until the trouble is worked out, Yahoo is delaying its plans to rely on Microsoft's search ad system outside the United States. Bartz didn't quantify how much Yahoo's revenue per search in the U.S. is lagging projections. She said guarantees promised under Yahoo's contract will cover some of the shortfall through March 2012.

After taking out commissions, Yahoo's ad revenue from search totaled $357 million in the first quarter. That was down 19 percent from the same time year ago.

Yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., fared better in display advertising as net revenue in that category increased to $471 million.

Combined, Yahoo's ad revenue after commissions dipped 3 percent from a year ago to $828 million. Google's net ad revenue surged 32 percent to $6.3 billion in the first quarter.

Google's stock, though, has plunged since the company released its first-quarter report because its expenses are rising rapidly.

Facebook Accidentally Turns On Email Notifications, Sparks Wave of Complaints (Mashable)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 04:13 PM PDT

Ben Parr Ben Parr – Tue Apr 19, 7:13 pm ET

Facebook has accidentally turned on email notifications for some users, and the social network's users are complaining loudly.

Most users receive email notifications for events such as when someone sends a friend request or when a friend posts on their wall. This feature can be turned off in user settings, but apparently something has happened at Facebook that has caused the feature to be activated again.

"Some people are suddenly receiving email notifications for settings they had turned off, and the checkboxes are now checked," Facebook said on its Known Issues Facebook Page. "We are currently working on a solution to this problem."

As one might expect, affected Facebook users are not happy and are posting to Twitter and Facebook to complain.

We've reached out to Facebook and will update this story when we learn more.

Judge: No right to sell 'The Chronic' online (AP)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 06:57 PM PDT

By ANTHONY McCARTNEY, AP Entertainment Writer Anthony Mccartney, Ap Entertainment Writer – 2 hrs 22 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – The new incarnation of Death Row Records does not have the rights to sell Dr. Dre's iconic rap album "The Chronic" digitally, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruling states that the rapper and producer has received far less money than he is due from online sales of the 1992 album, which also helped launch the career of Snoop Dogg.

The ruling does not call for a halt of digital sales of Dre's music, but entitles him to receive 100 percent of the proceeds of online sales, his attorney, Howard King, told The Associated Press.

The rapper, whose real name is Andre Young, sued WIDEawke Death Row Records last year, claiming it was improperly selling "The Chronic" digitally and using some of his music on compilation albums without his permission.

Snyder's ruling states the label, which bought the original Death Row Records' holdings out of bankruptcy, does not have the right to put Dr. Dre's music on compilation or any other albums.

"For years, Death Row Records forgot about Dre when they continued to distribute his music digitally and combined his hits with weaker Death Row tracks in an attempt to elevate the stature of their other artists," King wrote in a statement. "We are gratified that the federal court has unambiguously declared that Death Row has no right to engage in such tactics, and must hold all proceeds from these illicit distributions in trust for our client."

Phone and email messages for WIDEawake's attorney, Michael Holtz, was not immediately returned Tuesday evening.

The rapper has a long history of battling Death Row Records, a label he confounded but later left.

The most recent case he filed centered on his 1996 exit agreement with the label, which called for him to receive 18 percent royalties on his music created while at Death Row and gave him substantial authority over how the songs were used.

The agreement states that WIDEawake can only sell Dre's music in the format it appeared in before the deal. Another of Dre's attorneys, Stephen Rothschild, told Snyder during arguments in court on Monday that meant it could only appear in four formats: CD, cassette, vinyl and 8-Track.

Threats against Web sensation Rebecca Black probed (Reuters)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 06:01 PM PDT

By Dan Whitcomb Dan Whitcomb – Tue Apr 19, 9:01 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Police said on Tuesday they were investigating two death threats against 13-year-old Internet sensation Rebecca Black over her low-budget music video "Friday."

The threats were made sometime in March, after "Friday" became a YouTube hit and went viral as a web phenomenon, Anaheim Police spokesman Rick Martinez said.

"In essence the threats were related to getting the music off the Internet or they were going to kill her," Martinez said.

"We can't validate how serious they are, but we do take it seriously," he said.

Martinez said officers were "keeping an extra eye out" for Black as they investigated the messages, which were made through her Los Angeles-based production and management companies.

One of the death threats was made by phone and the other by email, he said.

Martinez said that investigators had not yet identified the person or persons behind the threats, but that they could face criminal charges.

"We're going to investigate and determine, number one, the source of the comments and then based on the investigation determine what intent was and where we go from here," he said. "If we believe they were actually intended as threats we will work toward prosecution"

Black was an unknown Southern California middle-school student before "Friday" was released in February by a boutique record label.

The video, in which Black can be seen singing gleefully about her weekend plans and riding in a car with friends, generated more than 110 million views on YouTube even as it was mocked by Internet critics.

Since then Black has made appearances on national television and racked up chart entries in the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada.

Visible Measures, a company that tracks the performance of Web videos, has said that including copies of the video, spoofs and other versions available on hundreds of video sites, "Friday" has generated more than 200 million views -- surpassing Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" and Justin Bieber's "Pray."

(Editing by Greg McCune)

Surprise Finding: Cell Phones Can Make People More Social (LiveScience.com)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 04:40 PM PDT

Samantha Murphy, TechNewsDaily Senior Writer,
LiveScience.com Samantha Murphy, Technewsdaily Senior Writer,
livescience.com – Tue Apr 19, 7:40 pm ET

Reading the news on a mobile device while waiting in line at a coffee shop may seem like you’re cutting yourself off from the people around you, but a new study from the University of Michigan suggests the opposite: The more people use their phones in public to stay up on news, the more likely they are to talk to strangers in those settings.

The study, which was featured in the current issue of the international journal Human Communication Research, also found that people using their cellphones to make plans are also likely to participate in public conversations.

"We expected to find that frequency of cellphone use in public would cause people to have fewer interactions with strangers in public, but reading the news on your smartphone gives people something relevant to talk about with others who are also occupying that space," said report co-author Scott Campbell. "Information about public affairs is more relevant to a stranger than what you did last weekend."

Campbell noted that using technology in these settings may boost the "salience of news" since it is fresh, motivating users to discuss it with others around them.

Meanwhile, heavy use of the technology for social purposes -- such as calling friends --  appears to detract from conversations with strangers in public, the report said.

"This may show how technology can also fuel a type of insularity, where one is wrapped up in their own personal affairs at the expense of engaging with others in the public sphere," Campbell said. "But this occurs when people use their mobile phones for social reasons in public, not to read the news."

Reach TechNewsDaily senior writer Samantha Murphy at @SamMurphy_TMN.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

Japan supply-chain woes rattle earnings (Reuters)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 03:39 PM PDT

By Bill Rigby Bill Rigby – Tue Apr 19, 6:39 pm ET

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Global makers of products from motorcycles to mobile phones are finding it harder to get the parts they need after Japan's earthquake and tsunami wrecked supply chains, and investors worry that the worst is yet to come for earnings.

Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson Inc (HOG.N) lowered the bottom end of its 2011 shipments forecast on Tuesday because of problems getting hold of radio components. Revenue from phone handset maker Sony Ericsson (6758.T) (ERICb.ST) missed forecasts because of difficulties with displays, batteries and other parts.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O), which obtains many parts for its top-selling gadgets from Japan, may reveal on Wednesday how margins are coming under pressure as makers of electronic gadgets around the world compete for crucial components.

Toyota Motor Co (7203.T) said it would cut U.S. vehicle production and might have to lower its full-year U.S. sales targets if parts shortages extend into the summer.

"It's cross-sector. Electronics are used in so many areas," said Bryan Keane, equity analyst for the Alpine Mutual Funds. "It has the potential to be very wide-ranging. To some extent, it's going to affect everyone. Even if your direct supplier isn't impacted, your supplier could get their materials from someone in Japan."

Japan accounts for one-fifth of the world's semiconductors, which have found their way into a host of everyday products and industrial components. The uncertainty now is how long the disruptions will last as the country recovers from the March 11 disaster.

"The big issue is that even if everything now is under control in Japan, they've lost a big portion of their power," said Keane. "Even if they get the big factories up and running, how often are they going to be able to run them?"

CROSS-SECTOR PROBLEMS

The first major batch of earnings reports to hit Wall Street this week highlighted the problems plaguing global companies across a range of industries, from cars to semiconductors.

Iconic motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson said it was closely watching the situation in Japan, and expected only a "modest level" of supply chain interruption, but it still cut the low end of its shipment guidance. Its shares fell more than 5 percent.

Cellphone joint venture Sony Ericsson met analysts' profit forecast, but its revenue missed in what its CEO called a "challenging quarter" because of Japan-related disruptions. Shares of Sony's venture partner Ericsson fell almost 1 percent.

General Motors Co's (GM.N) chief executive warned on Tuesday that Japan-related supply problems, along with the high cost of oil, might be forcing down the company's share price.

Chip maker Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N) warned late on Monday of slower-than-usual quarterly sales growth as it scrambles to restart production after the quake, and said it was unclear when the supply of the silicon and wafers it needs would return to normal.

That followed a quake-related profit warning from Japanese electronics manufacturer Toshiba Corp (6502.T).

But the chief financial officer of rival chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) said late on Tuesday he saw no hindrance to production despite supply constraints from Japan.

Alpine's Keane said problems could extend into the second and third quarters, although inventories, which had been running high, may provide some comfort.

"There is room, there is a cushion," he said. "The question is, how long before everyone can get back up to 100 percent?"

(Writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Edwin Chan, Matthew Lewis and Tim Dobbyn)

Obama off to 'friend' Facebook in person (AFP)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 06:50 PM PDT

by Tangi Quemener Tangi Quemener – 2 hrs 28 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama heads to Facebook's headquarters on Wednesday to tout his budget cuts to followers of the social media powerhouse, which he also hopes to use to help get reelected.

Obama, whose audacious 2008 White House bid leaned heavily on social networking sites, will hype his "Shared Responsibility and Shared Prosperity" plan at Facebook's Palo Alto, California, headquarters.

With his 2012 reelection campaign just getting into gear, Obama is moving to bring some love to the more than 19 million Facebook followers he has, up close and in person.

The US president is to take part at 2045 GMT in a scheduled question and answer session at the headquarters not far from San Francisco.

If the format is different, the content should be familiar: Obama has been hammering away since April 13 at his strategy to get the federal deficit under control and pare US debt.

Obama has taken pains to contrast his vision with Republican calls to slash government spending and roll back regulations while lowering tax rates on the richest Americans and corporations.

In public speeches and private appeals to supporters, Obama has made Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's blueprint for cutting some $4.4 trillion from the deficit over 10 years into a political punching bag some 18 months before the November 2012 vote.

Obama -- who says his approach will slice some $4 trillion in 12 years or less -- has notably accused Ryan of looking to gut the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly and the poor.

But it will not be simple to slash away at a budget with an annual deficit of 1.6 billion dollars and a total federal debt topping 14.2 trillion.

And the budget and debt issue has been catapulted into presidential campaign politics.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut the outlook on US sovereign debt to "negative" Monday, sending stocks plunging as it doubted Washington's ability to tackle its huge debt and fiscal shortfalls.

"As S&P made clear, getting spending and our deficit under control can no longer be put off for another day," warned Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. "Serious reforms are needed to ensure America's fiscal health."

Tuesday, Obama told students in Virginia that more fortunate taxpayers, himself included, would have to make some sacrifices, while stressing he was not out to punish success. The White House repeatedly makes calls for what it calls "shared sacrifices" on the road to budget cuts and debt reduction.

Obama cited Facebook in his January State of the Union speech as an example of innovative US companies that can help the world's richest country overcome its dreary present economic circumstances and "win the future."

Apple's iOS Beats Android? Not Exactly (PC World)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 03:26 PM PDT

JR Raphael Jr Raphael – Tue Apr 19, 6:26 pm ET

Have you heard the news? Despite every analysis we've seen over the past two years about Android dominating the mobile market, Apple's iOS is the biggest mobile operating system by a landslide.

That's the story being reported by ComScore and repeated in countless headlines around the blogosphere this afternoon. Before you jump to any conclusions, though, hang on: The story isn't quite what it seems.

ComScore's data, to use a painfully cute cliche, is looking at apples and oranges. The analysis compares all iOS devices -- iPhones, iPods, and iPads -- with Android phones and a couple of early non-Honeycomb tablets. (The data goes only through February of 2011; the Motorola Xoom launched at the end of that month.) Not surprisingly, it finds that the total number of iOS devices exceeds the number of Android devices within the U.S.; in this scenario, Apple's share of American mobile users is 37.9 million, or 16.2 percent, while Android's is 23.8 million, or 10.2 percent.

Apple's iOS vs. Android: The Parallel Problem

Here's the problem: Typically, when we look at mobile market share, we look at a parallel comparison: one smartphone platform vs. another smartphone platform. A tablet OS against another tablet OS. Of course Android is going to look small in the scenario ComScore has created. Heck, forget the iPad: The inclusion of the iPod alone is what's skewing the results.

Don't believe me? Let's do some math. ComScore doesn't provide the exact breakdown of iOS users by device, but it does say this:

"The installed base of iPhones slightly exceeded that of iPod Touches, both of which were approximately twice as high as the number of iPads."

Let's say, then, we're looking at roughly 15,500,000 iPhones, 15,000,000 iPods, and 7,368,000 iPads. That would follow ComScore's description of the data, give or take a few hundred here or there.

Subtract out those iPods, and you're left with a total of 22.9 million iOS devices. Compare that now with the total number of Android devices, 23.8 million -- a number that, remember, includes primarily phones at the point of this data collection -- and you're looking at a very different story.

In other words, this data suggests that the total number of iPhones and iPads in America is actually less than the total number of Android phones and tablets -- even prior to the launch of any Google-endorsed Android tablet competitors.

Apple's iOS vs. Android: The Bigger Picture

In the big picture, Apple's blanket operating system may have the wider overall reach, but I'm not sure tossing MP3 players into a comparison of tablets and phones makes much sense -- or means that much. And when you take those MP3 players out of the equation, boy oh boy, does the picture shift.

Consider, too, where things are going from here. Android has been consistently snatching up more and more of the smartphone market with every passing month. This trend has been going on for quite some time now. There's typically some revolutionary Apple moment looming in the future that people insist will turn the tides. So far, none of those -- including first the launch of the iPhone 4 and then the launch of the Verizon iPhone -- have had any significant impact on the trend.

In the tablet world, Apple clearly has a hefty head start. But an army of Android tablets is forming. The T-Mobile G-Slate is launching this week. Samsung's new line of superthin Galaxy Tabs is on the way soon. More and more high-end options are going to be arriving each month. The iPad isn't going to flounder by any means, but over the next couple of years, it is going to have some serious -- and very widespread -- competition.

As I like to preemptively point out in any market share comparison, we aren't talking about profits here; we're talking about overall device adoption. And regardless of what platform you prefer, the fact that the companies are duking it out for market position is actually great news. Android's success forces Apple to step up its game and aggressively push out new features for its products. Apple's success forces Google and the various Android manufacturers to come up with innovative ways to differentiate their devices and create new kinds of value for consumers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: In the race for mobile dominance, the users always win.

JR Raphael is a PCWorld contributing editor and the author of the Android Power blog. You can find him on both Facebook and Twitter.

Active Twitter Users Have Shorter Relationships [STATS] (Mashable)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 02:26 PM PDT

Ben Parr Ben Parr – Tue Apr 19, 5:26 pm ET

The romantic relationships of active Twitter users apparently don't last as long as the rest of the population, according to stats published by dating website OkCupid.

The dating website, which regularly publishes information about dating trends and statistics, has compiled a number of charts about the sexual habits of its millions of users. The website determines dating compatibility based on how users answer thousands of questions.

Among OkCupid's findings are two conclusions about Twitter users. The first one: according to its analysis of 833,987 OkCupid users, people who use Twitter every day tend to have shorter relationships, and the problem gets worse as a person gets older. The average relationship for an 18-year-old that uses Twitter is about nine months, while "everybody else" usually has a relationship average of nine-and-a-half months. At age 50, the frequent Tweeter has a 15 month-long relationship, while the non-frequent Twitter user stays in a relationship for an average of almost 17 months.

The dating website has another conclusion that is sure to catch some eyeballs -- if someone is a frequent tweeter, he or she is more likely to masturbate (or at least report that he/she is masturbating). Based off data from 21,315 users, OkCupid concludes that there is a 2-to-1 chance that someone who tweets daily is masturbating on any given day, a higher chance than everybody else.

OkCupid also published several sex-related correlations and conclusions based on its data, including that GDP has a greater influence on a region's sexual habits than culture or religion. You can check out the dating site's blog post for the juiciest bits of data.

iPhone 5 won’t be anything special (Appolicious)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Motorola pushes Bionic launch to summer (Reuters)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 04:31 PM PDT

– Tue Apr 19, 7:31 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Motorola Mobility changed the launch target date for Bionic, its next key phone for Verizon Wireless to this summer, potentially making the device a quarter later than expected.

After promising in January that the high-speed wireless phone would hit shelves in the second quarter, Motorola said on Tuesday that it now expects to sell the Bionic this summer, which officially starts June 21, days before the end of the second quarter.

Motorola said it was changing the launch target date so that it could add new features to the device and change its form based on feedback it received since it showed off an early copy of the phone at a gadget show in January.

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc, has been Motorola's most important customer for the last year as it helped the company regain some market share lost to rivals.

But soon after Motorola Mobility became an independent company this year, Verizon, the biggest U.S. mobile provider, took on another key phone supplier, iPhone maker Apple Inc making it tougher for Motorola to compete.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Carol Bishopric)

YouTube to Stream Royal Wedding Live (PC World)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 02:52 PM PDT

Jeff Bertolucci Jeff Bertolucci – Tue Apr 19, 5:52 pm ET

There is no escaping the Royal Hype Machine, and now YouTube is getting in on the act. Google has announced the April 29 wedding between Britain's Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton will be streamed live on YouTube. Royal-watchers, anglophiles, and the merely curious will be able to watch every minute of the ceremony on the official YouTube Royal Channel.

"More than 50 years ago, the marriage of The Queen's sister, Princess Margaret, and Antony Armstrong-Jones was the first royal wedding to be broadcast on television and had over 20 million viewers," wrote Google's Rachel Ball in a Tuesday blog post. "This one is already heralded as the first of the Internet age, where for the first time in thousands of years of royal history, the moment will be captured online and preserved forever."

Indeed, the royal streaming may be a sign of things to come, as organizers of live events turn to the Internet to reach a global audience. Earlier this month, Google launched YouTube Live, new branch of the video-sharing service that streams live events rather than the recorded videos found on the regular YouTube site.

For Britain's royal family--as well as other image-conscious individuals and organizations--YouTube Live provides an appealing platform where they control the message. Live-streaming frees event planners from the whims of third parties, such as broadcast networks that may be less enthusiastic about showing every minute of the ceremony. And I suspect the Royal Channel's coverage won't include snarky cable TV hosts intent on ridiculing the bridesmaids' dresses or Prince William's retreating hairline.

There will be commentary, however. The Royal Channel will feature live updates and insights throughout the event. If you happen to miss it live, the wedding will be available for viewing on the site

afterward. The live stream begins Friday, April 29 at 10:00a BST (9:00a GMT, 2:00a PT, 5:00a ET).

If, by chance, your invitation got lost in the mail, will you watch the royal wedding live on YouTube?

Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci ) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com .

Apple's lawsuit reveals sales figures (Digital Trends)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 08:33 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – 45 mins ago

iphone 4
So the legal eagles at Apple are pressing ahead with their lawsuit accusing Samsung of "slavishly" copying the designs of Apple's own products, such as the iPhone and iPad.

The South Korean electronics giant issued a robust response, saying in a statement, "Samsung will respond actively to this legal action taken against us through appropriate legal measures to protect our intellectual property.

Apple's lawsuit, which comes in at 373 pages, contains some interesting information regarding sales figures for some of the company's most popular products, the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

The lawsuit is available as a pdf file, ideal for any budding lawyers out there who like their bedtime reading to fall in the category of "heavyweight", grab the magnifying glass from the drawer and take a look yourself.

Information contained within the lawsuit shows that by March this year, Apple sold an impressive 19 million iPads, a colossal 60 million iPod touch media players and an app-creator-pleasing 108 million iPhones. That's a whole lot of electronic components (many of which were made by Samsung).

Those figures will already be out of date – they can't make the iPad 2 fast enough, with wait times of between two and three weeks showing at the online US Apple store – but they nevertheless indicate just what an enormous number of units the Californian-based company is shifting.

It's unlikely that the lawsuit or any counter-lawsuit from Samsung will have an effect on sales, just so long as Samsung keeps supplying Apple with the necessary components.

On Wednesday, Apple will be announcing its financial results for the first calendar quarter of 2011. It should yield good news, as it was during this time that the iPad 2 was released, as well as the new MacBook Pro model featuring Intel's revolutionary Thunderbolt data transfer technology. Hot cake, anyone?

After Delays, Windows Phones Get Update (PC World)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 04:20 PM PDT

Nancy Gohring Nancy Gohring – Tue Apr 19, 7:20 pm ET

Microsoft on Tuesday started rolling out software updates to users of the Samsung Focus and LG Quantum, following more than a month of delays.

Microsoft and AT&T are still testing updates for the HTC Surround, the last phone model that still needs the updates.

Focus and Quantum users will get a message indicating that the updates are ready. They can then download the February update, which was designed to make the process easier, as well as the so-called NoDo update, which includes the capability to cut and paste.

The phones check for new updates every three days, said Eric Hautala, general manager of customer experience engineering for Microsoft, in a blog post. So users may have to wait several days for both updates. However, they can instead connect their phones to their PCs and download the updates via the Zune software manually.

Microsoft has struggled to roll out these first two updates to the Windows Phone 7 software. Shortly after it began pushing out the February update, it discovered that the new software made the Samsung phones unusable for some people.

The company then delayed the NoDo update in order to try to avoid any similar problems. It has seemed to shift some of the blame for the delay in pushing out the updates to carriers, saying that some operators take longer than others to test the software before approving it.

In a blog post earlier this month, Hautala said that the delays with the first two updates shouldn't affect a larger one scheduled for later this year. That software update, called Mango, will include a new HTML 5-friendly version of Internet Explorer and a Twitter feature.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

Instant View: Intel, IBM surpass Wall Street targets (Reuters)

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 07:14 PM PDT

– 2 hrs 5 mins ago

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Intel Corp forecast revenues well above Wall Street's targets, sending its shares higher in after hours trade.

International Business Machines results also outpaced expectations and it raised its full-year profit forecast.

Commentary:

Intel:

DOUG FREEDMAN, ANALYST, GLEACHER & CO

"It's actually a question of how did management. Why did they guide where they guided, if this is what they could do and people called it a tough environment. My thought is what we are really seeing here -- Q1 last year was a big surprise as well. I think something is changing in terms of global seasonality that is driving it.

"The world had known they were introducing a new product -- sandy bridge. It shows Q3 and Q4 were really sub-seasonal they were really disappointing numbers.

"The result is that we cleaned all the inventory out of the channel. This is a bit of, we like your new product, we want your new product, now that you have it available start shipping it to us even though the build production over in Taiwan was lower and less than expected.

"There is no denying the data points were not good. I do think the data points out of Taiwan are becoming less and less indicative of the market. I think there is more production taking place in mainland China by people that we are not familiar with tracking or don't allow us to.

"We don't have the same visibility we might have had."

HENDI SUSANTO, ANALYST, GABELLI & CO

"Overall it's very positive. Gross margin is very strong.

"Despite the growth of tablets and mobile devices, people don't realize that at the back end, it still requires microprocessors. And Intel has 80 percent of that market.

"This is very positive for the small players in the semiconductor business that have a presence in the PC supply chain. It is also positive for the semiconductor equipment industry as Intel increased its guidance."

KEVIN CASSIDY, ANALYST, STIFEL NICOLAUS

"They are stunning numbers, especially that it was the PC client group that was so strong to them. Every region of the world to them was up quarter over quarter. It's quite a surprise to the market. There have been industry reports that say PC growth has been down year over year. Forward guidance looks good also.

"Overall, there are some PC products that get manufactured in Japan: probably no more exposure than any other company.

"One other thing, a question we might have: gross margins were expected 61 pct this quarter, their guidance shows 61 pct next quarter. We would have thought that gross margins would have moved up. On Sandy Bridge, they had to redesign that chip, that cost them $400 million Q1. We're not sure what else is happening there.

"The market is going to be just shocked at the top line numbers."

WIN CRAMER, ANALYST, AVIAN SECURITIES:

"It's impressive. Overall very good numbers, well ahead of Street expectations.

"The PC Client Group revenue was much higher than anyone anticipated. Everyone expected some poor numbers there due to the Sandy Bridge delays in that particular segment of the business.

"The revenue for McAfee, Infineon wireless was less than $500 million. Even if you take that out they still performed well."

ALEX GAUNA, ANALYST, JMP SECURITIES

"A nice upside surprise. What is most telling: they were able to deliver such a powerful topline with average selling prices up across the board. If there was anything I would poke a hole in, I would like to see a better gross margin profile, especially with the McAfee acquisition."

IBM:

KIM CAUGHEY FORREST, SENIOR ANALYST, FORT PITT CAPITAL GROUP

"Growth in North America was very strong, probably stronger than I had anticipated and it's great the company was able to hold gross profit margins relatively high.

"The concern is they didn't really guide a whole lot higher than they had originally for the year, if you take into account the earnings surprise. That's a little disappointing.

"I'm very interested in some sort of detailed commentary from the company in terms of what their short term signings are, that's always an indicator for the longer term growth of the company."

TED PARRISH, CO-PORTFOLIO MANAGER, HENSSLER EQUITY FUND

"These numbers shows IBM's resiliency. They beat on just about every area I had hoped. They had strong bookings still, backlogs growing. Margins are holding up across the board.

"It's a margins story, and an emerging markets growth story too. Seems they're firing on all cylinders. Japan was a concern since they have so much exposure but what strikes me is they raised their guidance for the year, which gives me confidence that the Japan situation didn't affect them as much as you would think."

RICHARD SICHEL, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT PHILADELPHIA TRUST CO

"The earnings beat by a decent amount. Looks like gross margins were pretty much in line with expectations. (Japan) wasn't really a detriment, not a real consideration going ahead. All the numbers I see look good."

FRED HICKEY, EDITOR, HIGH TECH STRATEGIST

"Everything looks to be in line, that is what is to be expected. Revenue was up more than expected. I didn't expect any problems. They don't have the component issues that others do -- like Seagate today -- that were affected by the Japanese earthquake.

"It was a good report but it wasn't unexpected."

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba and Yinka Adegoke in New York and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco)

The Gadget Hound bids farewell (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 11 Mar 2011 08:11 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Fri Mar 11, 11:11 am ET

Four years, 3,000+ posts, and more gadgets than you could shake a stick at—it's been a great run.

And just think: when I first started blogging as Yahoo!'s resident Gadget Hound back in March of 2007, there were no Kindles, iPod Touches, Android phones, and yes, no tweets (well, not unless you count those from sparrows). Google was already huge, but Facebook wasn't—not yet, anyway. And Windows Vista was barely two months old.

Believe me, writing about tech for Yahoo! has been a blast and an honor, and I'm proud to have been part of such an all-star team.

But change is good, and about a month ago, I informed my super smart, tireless, and always supportive editors that I'd decided to move on. So this, dear readers, will be my last post as a full-time blogger for Yahoo! News.

For those of you who followed my Gadget Hound blog regularly, thank you. I'm grateful to everyone who took the time to read my posts, e-mail a question or leave a comment. Your feedback, encouragement, and tough love has been inspiring and motivational, and I truly appreciate it.

So, what's next for me? Well, vacation, for starters. After that, it's back to work as a freelance writer. And I've already got a project or two in the pipeline—and if you're interested, I'd love to tell you about them. So stay tuned to my Twitter feed and my personal Web site (here's the RSS link), and feel free to contact me directly.

There are many people to thank. First, thanks to the current team here at Yahoo! News: Richard Vega, Jamie Mottram, Andrew Golis, Sam Silverstein, Leah Hitchings, Alex Romanelli, Mia Zuckerkandel, Oliver Libaw, Phat Chiem, Richard Eisenberg, Becky Worley, Daniel Garza, and Anna Robertson. Special thanks to Jennifer Karmon and David Caplan for their copy-editing skills over the past year. On the business side of things, thanks to Yahoo!'s Chris Hunter and my agent, Ted Weinstein.

Then there's the original Yahoo! Tech crew, which welcomed me with open arms and immediately made me feel right at home: Pat Houston, Annette Cardwell, Laura Lindhe, Roger Hibbert, Alexander Yoon, Gina Hughes, Dory Devlin, Robin Raskin, Erica Smith, and James Hamilton. Thank you. I'd also like to tip my hat to Yahoo! Tech's first Gadget Hound, Tom Samiljan.

And last but not least, many thanks to my former partner in tech-blogging crime, Christopher Null, who e-mailed me more than four years ago to see if I'd be interested in writing for Yahoo!. He promised I'd have a ball, and you know, he was right.

Thanks again for reading, and keep in touch.

Note: My departure from Yahoo! seems like (very) small potatoes compared to the terrible tragedy unfolding in Japan. "Today we are all Japanese," tweets George Takai, who urges us all to make a donation for disaster relief through the American Red Cross.

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

Follow me on Twitter!

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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