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AP Source: Apple nears music deal with labels (AP) : Technet |
- AP Source: Apple nears music deal with labels (AP)
- Malone's Barnes & Noble bid a bet on the Nook (AP)
- Panasonic sees light after darkness of disaster (AP)
- Sony website and customer accounts hit with new wave of attacks (Yahoo! News)
- Should you buy a tablet if you already have a smartphone and a laptop? (Yahoo! News)
- 6 Important Tips for First-Time Startup Investors (Mashable)
- Live Nation, Guy Oseary launch online photo gallery (Reuters)
- U.S. lagging in broadband adoption, speed: FCC report (Reuters)
- Verizon 'PlayStation Phone' Unlikely to Lure Gamers Away from iPhone (ContributorNetwork)
- Android Assault on iPhone Market Continues (NewsFactor)
- A footballer takes legal action for Twitter details (AFP)
- Apple probes blast at Chinese plant linked to iPad (Reuters)
- New Bay Bridge Explorer app could change the way we learn to drive (Appolicious)
- Carriers to revamp tablet service pricing (Reuters)
- Apple tuning into music deals (Investor's Business Daily)
- Explosion at Foxconn iPad factory kills 2 in China (Yahoo! News)
- Talks begin to bring CDMA iPhone to China Telecom (Appolicious)
- IBM briefly tops Microsoft in market value (AFP)
| AP Source: Apple nears music deal with labels (AP) Posted: 20 May 2011 03:47 PM PDT LOS ANGELES – Apple Inc. is close to securing deals with all four major recording companies on a music service that will allow users to stream songs stored on remote computer servers, presumably to an array of portable Apple-made devices, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. Such a service would give users a wide array of music on-the-go, without having to worry about limited storage space and the need to physically connect different devices to transfer songs. Universal Music Group, a division of Vivendi SA, is about to sign a deal that will give Apple the right to stream songs to its customers, although how exactly the service will function is unclear, the person said. The cloud music service is likely to be unveiled at Apple's annual developers' conference in San Francisco, which gets under way on June 6. Agreements with the units of the recording companies that collect songwriting royalties have not yet been completed but are expected to be finalized soon, the person said. The person was not authorized to speak publicly on the deals and spoke on condition of anonymity. Universal would be the largest and last recording company to sign a cloud music deal with Apple after the maker of iPads and iPhones cut deals with Sony Corp.'s music arm, EMI Group Ltd. and Warner Music Group Corp, the person said. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Apple had reached agreements with Sony, EMI and Warner and that Universal was close to a deal. Over the last two months, Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. have both unveiled cloud music plans but neither had secured deals with the recording companies. The services appeared to have limited functionality and amounted to allowing people to access material they had uploaded themselves. Apple's deals with music companies will allow for downloading, mobile use and streaming — and will enable it to offer a more complete service, the person said. However, it is also unclear how much Apple will charge for such capabilities, and whether people would pay per song or by subscribing to a regular plan. Amazon offers free storage for up to 5 gigabytes of cloud storage but charges, starting at $20 per year, for 20 gigabytes and more. Google's service works by invitation only and is free to use during the current test phase. ___ AP Business Writer Rachel Metz in San Francisco contributed to this report. |
| Malone's Barnes & Noble bid a bet on the Nook (AP) Posted: 20 May 2011 01:35 PM PDT NEW YORK – Why buy a bookstore? John Malone, who made a fortune in cable television, is offering $1 billion for Barnes & Noble — trying to jump into a business so sick that its No. 2 competitor, Borders Group Inc., is on life support. The difference is that Malone and his Liberty Media conglomerate aren't betting on the books-and-mortar past, analysts say, but the promise of the electronic future. Barnes & Noble's Nook electronic reader now accounts for 28 percent of the market for those devices. And the Nook has the potential to go beyond books to deliver all types of digital products, including music, magazines, TV shows and movies. That makes it a competitor not just to Amazon.com's Kindle but also to Apple's iPad. "This deal is all about the device," said Sherif Mityas, a partner in the retail practice of global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. "As Apple proved, you need to have the content and the device. Malone has the content, and Barnes & Noble has the device. You're not buying the stores; you're buying the Nook." Malone's empire, Liberty Media Corp., operates three publicly traded companies — Liberty Interactive Inc., Liberty Starz Group and Liberty Capital Group — through which it runs home-shopping network QVC and movie channel Starz. It also holds stakes in numerous other online, media and communications companies. Some believe that QVC could be used as a marketing vehicle for Barnes & Noble's Nook. With the backing of a media conglomerate, Barnes & Noble's digital business would be able to compete better with Amazon, Apple and others, said Gary Balter, a retail analyst at Credit Suisse. Barnes & Noble's 700 stores may appear to be an albatross. But they could be transformed into places that highlight mostly digital devices and content and mimic Apple's successful stores. Barnes & Noble has already cleared space at the front of its stores to display the Nook and push e-books. "You don't want the old-fashioned bookstore customer who goes in and sits and reads a book for two hours. You want people going in there who are hungry for experience," said Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist with Global Hunter Securities. Barnes & Noble's shares surged almost 30 percent on Friday and passed Liberty's bid of $17 a share in cash, closing at $18.33. The companies haven't yet signed an agreement, and the deal is still subject to closing conditions, including one that founding Chairman Leonard Riggio keep a stake in the company and remain in a management position, Barnes & Noble said. Barnes & Noble reiterated Friday a committee of its board is evaluating the offer. Barnes & Noble had put itself up for sale in August in response to pressure from billionaire activist shareholder Ron Burkle, but the company didn't find much interest. Traditional book sellers have been facing increasing competition from online retailers like Amazon.com and discounters like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. And heavy readers are quickly embracing e-books. Right now, though, Simba Information senior trade analyst Michael Norris estimates there are still at least five print book buyers for every e-book buyer. Still, the industry thinks e-books are the future. Amazon.com said Thursday that, after less than four years of selling electronic books, it's now selling more of them than printed books. Stores have cut shelf space devoted to printed books by 15 percent over the past year, estimated Mike Shatzkin, CEO of Idea Logical, a book consulting company. Last year, he predicted that it would take five years for stores to cut space for printed books by 50 percent; now, he believes it will only take about three. The shift has already rocked Borders Group, which filed for bankruptcy court protection in February. It has been closing stores and is reportedly in talks to sell more than half of those that remain. While Barnes & Noble has done better than Borders, its quarterly results have been weighed down by large investments in its online and e-reader businesses. Barnes & Noble reported growth in its online store in the most recent quarter, and said both that and its bricks-and-mortar stores were helped by sales of its Nook e-reader. Last month, Barnes & Noble added an app store and an e-mail program to its Nook Color e-reader. That brings the $249 device closer to working like a tablet computer like the iPad, which sells for twice as much. Barnes & Noble is expected to announce a new version of the Nook next week, though it hasn't said what features it will include. Clearly, there are concerns. Norris says he would like assurance from Liberty that it's not going to look at the Nook in "a vacuum" and get rid of the stores. "Its success has been (tied) with the physical bookstores because people are not giving up physical books," he added. No one know knows exactly what Malone, 70, has in mind. He has typically been a pure investor, like Warren Buffett or a private equity firm, who buys companies when they are cheap and on the brink of financial ruin. Malone doesn't have a history of putting together grand technological schemes, said Wedge Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen. He called Malone a "financial engineer" who demands excellent returns, keeps management in place and reaps rewards when the business returns to health. It could be there is no grand plan with Barnes & Noble, either, besides closing unprofitable stores and otherwise improving profitability. One thing that is similar with other Malone investments is Barnes & Noble's big share of its market, which could get bigger if Borders Group closes or sells more stores. "Malone's style is to very quietly, very patiently look and watch, and when things get to his threshold level, then make his move," Pyykkonen said. "But he makes his move in a generally quiet, friendly, cooperative way, because he actually wants management to stay in there and keep running the company." ___ AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this report. |
| Panasonic sees light after darkness of disaster (AP) Posted: 20 May 2011 05:00 AM PDT TOKYO – Panasonic Corp., which faces a tough road this year after Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis, believes it can turn disaster into opportunity as the country rethinks its energy policy. President Fumio Ohtsubo said Friday his company's recent efforts to move toward environmentally friendly products and renewable energy technologies would eventually pay off. Like other Japanese companies, Panasonic faces intense competition from newcomers and aggressive Asian rivals in its mainstay consumer electronics business. The Osaka-based company, which makes Viera TVs and Lumix digital cameras, decided it needed to seek new growth elsewhere. If Panasonic sticks to audiovisual and white goods, then "our future growth will be limited," Ohtsubo told reporters in Tokyo. Panasonic's goal is to transform itself into "the No. 1 green innovation company in the electronics industry" by 2018. It aims to grab the biggest share of the worldwide market for lithium-ion batteries, and use its acquisition of Sanyo Electric Co. to jump into the top three in the global solar business. Japan's disaster could set the stage for that to happen. The country faces potential power shortages this summer, without electricity from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which was knocked out by the tsunami. The Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan is also being shut down because of safety fears, further crimping energy resources. The government has asked companies to cut electricity use by 15 percent. At home, people are being encouraged to set room temperatures at 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), use fans instead of air conditioners and unplug gadgets. Earlier this, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that Japan would overhaul its long-term energy policy, which had included a plan to raise the country's reliance on nuclear energy from 30 percent to 50 percent. The government, Kan said, will place greater focus on renewable energy such as solar, wind and biomass, as well as conservation. For Panasonic, the new thinking on energy represents a "big chance" for the company, Ohtsubo said. "In the mid- to long-term, there are big overlaps between Japan's recovery vision and Panasonic's concept," he said. It will first have to weather challenges in the short term. Ohtsubo said he expects this fiscal year to be "extremely difficult," with sales slumping in the aftermath of March 11 disasters. Also weighing on the company are potential power shortages this summer and shortages of components that continue to hamper production. Last month, Panasonic said it is cutting about 17,000 jobs worldwide over two years as part of restructuring. The company will streamline operations to boost profitability, including selling some of its businesses, and reduce its nearly 367,000 workers to 350,000 by the fiscal year ending March 2013. Ohtsubo said Friday that the cuts would affect a roughly equal percentage of workers in Japan and overseas. Panasonic reported a 40.7 billion yen ($499 million) loss for the January-March quarter. The loss was largely due to 61 billion yen ($748 million) in restructuring costs. Panasonic had reported an 8.89 billion yen loss for the same period the previous year. The company did not release forecasts for the fiscal year that began April 1 because it could not yet calculate the full damage from the disasters. ___ Follow Tomoko A. Hosaka at http://twitter.com/tomokohosaka |
| Sony website and customer accounts hit with new wave of attacks (Yahoo! News) Posted: 20 May 2011 03:28 PM PDT
Sony just can't seem to catch a break. After locking down and overhauling its online services due to a cyber attack that revealed the personal information of over 100 million account holders — and fixing a snafu in its password reset system — Sony is under the gun once again. Both a major Sony homepage and Sony's Japanese internet service division have now been victimized. According to a warning from security firm F-Secure, Sony's Thai website was hacked and used to trick unsuspecting visitors into handing over personal information to a fraudulent Italian credit card company. Sony was notified of the unauthorized activity and is taking action to rectify the problem. On a much more serious note, Sony's Japan-based So-Net internet was reportedly breached, with the hackers making off with over 100,000 yen (roughly $1,200) of account holder funds. The company is currently investigating that breach, but has reportedly found no evidence that any personal information was obtained by the attackers. At this time, it doesn't appear that the attacks are directly connected to the network breach that brought the PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment (which just came back online today) to a halt late last month. However, Sony is most definitely in the public eye, as customers begin to question what people and services should have access to their vital information. [Image Credit: Tripp] More from Tecca: |
| Should you buy a tablet if you already have a smartphone and a laptop? (Yahoo! News) Posted: 20 May 2011 12:59 PM PDT
A unique angle? Tablets are another story. There's not much basic functionality they can offer that's not offered by either smartphones or laptops. Tablets can give you GPS maps on the go, a full-featured web browser that's comfortable to use, and if you're accustomed to touchscreens, they can even handle word processing or photo editing. If the $500-$1,000 cost of a tablet is only justified to you by new abilities and functionalities, you probably won't want to buy one. Other than a very strong battery life and the ability to surf the web on a large screen from anywhere — both of which are absent from most but not all laptops — there's nothing new here. The performance advantage Take GPS maps as an example. You can take your iPhone or Android phone with you on a trip and use it as a GPS navigation device, but you'll be squinting to see the maps. The large screen on the iPad makes apps like Google Maps that much more powerful. The same goes for anything with a strong visual element, like movies and games. Even productivity apps are better on a tablet — more screen space means more real estate for options and features. That doesn't give a tablet an edge over a laptop, of course; laptops usually have even more real estate to work with.
The physical form of a tablet is more comfortable to hold and interact with in almost every environment, and we can't say enough in favor of the multi-touch interface used by most tablets. It's that interface that sets tablets apart from laptops or desktops, in most cases. It's more powerful, making a mouse or a trackpad seem like a limiting relic of the past. Touching is more intuitive anyway, and a mouse only gives you one virtual finger with which to interact with the digital world; a tablet gives you 2, 3, or even 5. Laptops are better at multitasking than tablets are, but focusing entirely on one application or task has its advantages, especially for creative types. Sure, multi-touch trackpads are becoming more common on laptops, but since they're not integrated with the screen, they're used only for gestures. That's nice, but a multi-touch tablet lets you interact with the content directly. We've already noted that tablets have better battery life. Between that, their always-on internet (on 3G models, anyway), and their comfort of use on the sofa, in bed, or on the bus, it's clear that tablets are more fun to use for light computing tasks. Should you buy a tablet? However, do not buy a tablet to replace either of those devices; it only adds something as a third device. You can't really use a Galaxy Tab while walking down the street because it's too big for that. And there are many heavy computing tasks that a tablet cannot do, which means ditching your laptop or desktop altogether would be something you'd regret later. For those who already own the other two types of gadgets, a tablet is a luxury, not a necessity. Like all luxuries, we'd all be lucky to have them, but don't make huge financial sacrifices to make it happen. More from Tecca: |
| 6 Important Tips for First-Time Startup Investors (Mashable) Posted: 19 May 2011 06:03 PM PDT Bill Clark is the CEO of Microventures, a securities broker/dealer that uses crowdfunding to allow investors to invest between $1,000 to $10,000 in startups online. You can follow him on twitter @austinbillc. An angel investor used to be defined as someone with a high net worth. They typically have more than $1 million and privately invest money in startup businesses that are seeking capital. The SEC restricts investing in private deals to mostly accredited investors. I say mostly because there are some opportunities for non-accredited investors to participate on a limited basis. The definition of an accredited investor in the U.S. is a person who either has a net worth (excluding a primary residence) of $1 million, an income of $200,000 per year for the last two years, or $300,000 in household income per year for the last two years. [More from Mashable: Shopkick & The CW Strike Deal To Deliver Rewards for Watching TV Ads [VIDEO]] Angel investing has gained a lot of popularity despite anxieties over the bubble bursting. You need to understand what you are getting into before making that first investment. The general rule is that you shouldn't invest more than 10% of your net worth, since startups can be risky. Investments typically range from $25K to $250K, but with startups needing less capital to launch these days, the amounts are shrinking. Aside from the accredited investor rule, you don't need to have any additional qualifications to become an angel, but you do need to make sure you understand the following concepts. [More from Mashable: Plizy Recommends Videos To Watch on Your iPad [INVITES]]
1. Be Ready to Write the Check |
| Live Nation, Guy Oseary launch online photo gallery (Reuters) Posted: 20 May 2011 06:16 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – This week, Untitled Entertainment partner Guy Oseary and Live Nation are going live with a joint web venture RockPaperPhoto.com, an online art gallery selling largely unpublished, hand-signed, limited-edition prints of more than 1,000 singers and acts ranging from B.B. King and James Brown to Green Day and Gwen Stefani. The site features the work of 70 photographers including such recognized names as Baron Wolman, Ian Dickson, Deborah Feingold and Michael Putland. RockPaperPhoto museum-quality processes include silver gelatin, archival chromogenic, platinum print and archival print, with entry prices at $250 running to a top-tier of $10K. The website is a bit of a passion project for Oseary, who manages the careers of Madonna and Alex Rodriguez among others and is also the exec producer of "Last Call with Carson Daly." He was the architect of Madonna's landmark 2007 deal with Live Nation. "I've been collecting photos for a long time, I mean since I started making money. But what you have had to go through to find a good photo is like a needle in the haystack sometimes. You'll drive from one gallery to the next gallery to the next gallery. It's not an easy process. It's a very ancient model that just hasn't caught up with the times," says Oseary. "So I really came up with this idea out of frustration." Oseary first discussed the concept with Live Nation CEO/president Michael Rapino over dinner a few years ago. "We've been talking about it for a while and we finally said, 'Just go for it.' I really wanted to create a place where you could just sit back and be able to discover great photography instead of specifically going to a gallery to find one," says the manager. He says his own collection of photos numbers around 200, including a number of shots of The Sex Pistols and John Lennon by Bob Gruen (who is not featured on the site). "Those were the ones that when I made my first dollar I decided to invest in," he says. Says photographer Tom Murray, whose famous 1968 photos of the Beatles are on the site: "It runs the gamut from Frank Sinatra to Justin Bieber and it suits everyone's pocketbooks. It's all limited editions - they are interested in low numbers and high quality." Among Murray's photos is his famous, or perhaps infamous, shot of John Lennon playing dead in a park while his three bandmates look on. "We were taking other pictures and suddenly he dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead. Twelve years later when it actually happened it was very spooky. It's a very controversial picture. Beatles fans either love it or hate it," says Murray. RockPaperPhoto shares profits 50/50 with artists, a traditional split in the bricks-and-mortar art gallery world. The site is one of many recent forays into the digital world by Oseary. He was instrumental in developing GrouponLive, a discount-tickets joint venture, announced May 11, between Groupon (for whom he advises) and Live Nation. Last year, he formed a digital investment partnership with Ashton Kutcher called A-Grade which has helped fund such recent start-ups as video-chat service TinyChat, anonymous-flirting hub LikeALittle and GrubWithUs, a website for finding like-minded people to dine with. "We are making a lot of investments," says Oseary. (Editing by Zorianna Kit) |
| U.S. lagging in broadband adoption, speed: FCC report (Reuters) Posted: 20 May 2011 06:11 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States continues to lag behind other countries in broadband adoption and download speeds, according to a report released by the Federal Communications Commission on Friday. Based on broadband data from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries, the United States ranked ninth out of 29 countries for mobile broadband adoption on a per capita basis, and 12th out of 33 countries for percentage of households with fixed broadband, the FCC said. The United Kingdom, South Korea and Iceland were among countries to top the United States' 63 percent broadband adoption rate. Extending affordable Internet access to all Americans is a priority of the FCC. The agency released its National Broadband Plan last year, a blueprint for expanding coverage, making more airwaves available for mobile services and upgrading Internet speeds up to 25 times the current average. Consumers in some large European and Asian cities reported faster download speeds than consumers in comparable U.S. cities, the report released Friday said. For instance, average download speed was found to be 11.7 Mbps in New York with a population of nearly 8.4 million people compared with 35.8 Mbps for the 10 million residents of Seoul, South Korea, the report said. But the agency acknowledged that gaps and variations in data collection methodologies across countries prevent any definitive conclusions from being made. Therefore, the report also detailed efforts by the FCC, along with the State Department and Commerce Department, to work with OECD to make more reliable, standardized data available and less expensive to collect. A separate FCC report released on Friday found that about 26 million Americans, most of whom live in rural areas, do not have access to broadband. A third of Americans with access do not subscribe to broadband, likely due to high costs, low digital literacy and concerns about privacy, the FCC said. The report will be delivered to Congress. The agency said it relied on data from actual broadband deployment for the first time this year. In past years, the report was based on estimates derived from broadband adoption. The head of the lobbying arm of the cable industry called the FCC's conclusions in this report regrettable and wrong. "While the Commission's headline proclaims that 20 million Americans are denied access to broadband, by that measure private investment has fueled the build-out of broadband networks to nearly 300 million consumers and is responsible for the jobs that flow from that investment," said Michael Powell, president and chief executive of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. USTelecom, the broadband trade association, also questioned the FCC's findings. Walter McCormick Jr, the group's chief executive, pointed to FCC data showing that 95 percent of Americans have access to fixed broadband, and 93 percent are happy with their service. He also said private sector investment in broadband grew by $3 billion from 2009 to 2010 to $66 billion. "Clearly the private sector is doing its part -- broadband has been deployed to virtually every corner of America where a business case can be made for investment," McCormick said. (Reporting by Jasmin Melvin; Editing by Gary Hill) |
| Verizon 'PlayStation Phone' Unlikely to Lure Gamers Away from iPhone (ContributorNetwork) Posted: 20 May 2011 03:02 PM PDT Contribute content like this. Start here. COMMENTARY | Who knew, when it first came out, that the iPhone would be so popular with gamers? Epic Games, ID Software, EA and Square-Enix already have games on the App Store, some of them truly -- well, epic. Even the iPad's getting some gaming love, from "Plants vs. Zombies" to analog joystick attachments. Obviously, not all of the major players in the gaming space are happy about this. Nintendo considers Apple a threat, according to Forbes, and Sony Ericsson is building Android phones now. "PlayStation Certified" Android phones. Like the Xperia Play, which is coming to Verizon May 26 for $199, reports BGR. The Play's the thing The Xperia Play has some truly impressive specs. It doesn't have a dual-core processor, but it has as much RAM as an XBox 360, the standard front-facing camera, and between six and eight hours of talk time. Its screen is almost as sharp as the iPhone's, and it comes with unique Android features, such as Google Voice Search and the latest Google apps. What makes it a PlayStation phone, though, are its gaming features -- like a slide-out controller with shoulder buttons and analog thumbpads, plus apps that let you buy PlayStation games and access the PlayStation Network. And it's not just 10-year-old classic games that are being featured on the Xperia Play,either; over 60 games are being sold through its built-in store, including exclusives, and the Android Market has its own gaming section. iOS exclusives The problem for Android and PlayStation gamers, though, is that the iPhone has the Xperia Play beat when it comes to exclusive games -- at least games that aren't found on any other smartphones. And while some of these games, like "PopCap's," are coming to Amazon's "Appstore for Android," publishers like Epic Games have held back, according to Gizmodo, for a variety of reasons Even companies that develop games for both platforms typically write for the iPhone first, and for Android much later (if at all). Square-Enix's called "Chaos Rings," that is an iPhone/iPod/iPad exclusive. A game-changer? Sony seems to be embracing Android because, unlike other game companies, it makes a lot of its money from gaming hardware rather than the games themselves. Convergence devices like smartphones are where things are heading, and Android does a lot of the heavy lifting of making a smartphone. Hence, the "PlayStation Phone." Unlike Sony, gamers aren't tied to hardware platforms, and are free to choose which device they want to game on. So the question is, does the Xperia Play offer anything that could induce gamers to buy it over the iPhone? The slider controller is a neat touch, and Sony's clearly committed to Android for the foreseeable future. That means more games, and more "PlayStation Certified" phones, are coming. The iPhone is where smartphone gamers are right now, though, which leaves Sony with an uphill battle ahead of it. Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008. |
| Android Assault on iPhone Market Continues (NewsFactor) Posted: 20 May 2011 02:03 PM PDT Apple shipped an impressive 16.9 million iPhones in the first three months of this year, according to Gartner. The downside for Apple, however, is that 36.2 million Android-based smartphones shipped in the first quarter -- up from 8.36 million units one year earlier. Android's steep rise suggests that Apple's hold on the leadership position in the smartphone application space is slipping. If past history is any indication, however, Apple may begin offering the iPhone 4 at a reduced price after the new iPhone 5 launches later this year, noted Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi. "Apple has been decreasing the price of the previous generation device when the new one launched so I would expect a similar trend this time around," Milanesi said in an email Friday. "It will depend what kind of [iPhone 5] improvements we will see as to how much discount we will see on the iPhone 4 and indeed if the 3GS will continue to ship." LTE On The Backburner Still, Apple will need to do more to keep from eventually being overwhelmed by Android's startling growth, which rose 36 percent year-over-year in the March ending quarter. By contrast, Apple's iPhone shipments grew 16.8 percent growth during the same period, according to Gartner. Earlier this month, Google said it was activating over 400,000 Android-based handsets on a daily basis, and with more than 100 million devices based on Google's mobile platform already in play. Android Market is also growing rapidly. Over 200,000 free and paid applications were available in Android Market as of May 10, with more than 4.5 billion applications already installed on handsets worldwide. One looming issue that gives Android-based handset makers a potential edge is the wireless industry's ongoing transition to LTE. According to Piper Jaffray, LTE modems currently consume too much power to meet Apple's battery life requirements, and hence are "not likely be in the next iPhone," noted the firm's analysts Gene Munster and Andrew Murphy in a note released Thursday. Still, Apple expressed no sense of urgency when the topic came up during the company's conference call with investors last month. "The first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those, we are just not willing to make," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. Delayed iPhone 5 Launch Apple's postponement of its iPhone 5 launch from the usual early June release date gives Android-based handset makers an opportunity to make short-term market-share gains at Apple's expense. Piper Jaffray expects Apple to sell 16 million iPhones in the June ending quarter, versus the 16.9 million iPhones Apple in prior quarter, according to Gartner. Piper Jaffray believes that Apple won't ship its fifth generation-iPhone until late in the September-ending quarter. "We recently spoke with an iPhone manufacturing equipment supplier who indicated that orders for new equipment are several months later than usual," Munster and Murphy wrote. Earlier this week, Gartner noted that a 13 million unit bump in global handset inventories occurred in April due to an overstocking of the channel in response to the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, which "caused an initial panic over shortages," Milanesi observed. However, what happened in "Japan does not seem to have impacted Apple," Milanesi said. Still, Piper Jaffray thinks it's possible that supply issues related to Japan's earthquake and tsunami had affected Apple's hardware ramp for the iPhone 5. Alternatively, dithering over whether to support LTE or add an audio codec socket might have contributed to the delay as well as having to deal with software-driven features not "fully-baked" in time to permit a normal June release. On the other hand, the analysts added, "we have no tangible insight as to which one or group of these reasons caused the slip." |
| A footballer takes legal action for Twitter details (AFP) Posted: 20 May 2011 05:41 PM PDT LONDON (AFP) – A British footballer is taking legal action to force Twitter to give the details of users who broke a gagging order granting him anonymity over an alleged affair, according to his lawyers. The married player had earlier obtained an order from a judge banning publication of his identity over an alleged sexual relationship with a female contestant on the reality television show Big Brother. "An application has been made to obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a small number of individuals who may have breached a court order," his law firm, Schillings, said in a statement. The player is not identified in the court documents. A spokesman for US-based Twitter said: "We?re not able to comment." Earlier this month a Twitter user published the names of several British celebrities who have allegedly obtained anonymised injunctions or so-called super-injunctions which prevent even the mention of the order itself. A long-awaited judicial report on Friday said that the gagging orders should only be granted where strictly necessary and that media who may be silenced by such bans should also be informed beforehand. But senior judge David Neuberger also urged lawmakers to think twice before using their right of unrestricted freedom of speech in parliament to undermine them. On Thursday, a member of the House of Lords revealed that Fred Goodwin, the former boss of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, had won an injunction banning publication of details of an alleged affair with a colleague. The High Court subsequently quashed the anonymity order that had been protecting him. |
| Apple probes blast at Chinese plant linked to iPad (Reuters) Posted: 20 May 2011 04:22 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc is investigating an explosion that killed two people and injured 16 at a Foxconn factory said to produce the popular iPad 2. The official Xinhua News Agency reported a large explosion rocked the Hongfujin Precision Electronics plant in a high-tech industrial zone west of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on Friday evening. Local officials are also looking into the cause of the blast. Apple shares closed down 1.56 percent at $335.22 on the Nasdaq, which saw a broad sell-off on euro-zone debt worries. The explosion in a key factory owned by Foxconn International Holdings Ltd -- Apple's main manufacturing partner -- could affect the supply of iPads and investors were watching closely. Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said the company was assessing the situation. "We are deeply saddened by the tragedy at the Foxconn plant in Chengdu and our hearts go out to the victims and their families," he said. "We are working closely with Foxconn to understand what caused this terrible event." Foxconn representatives did not immediately respond. Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said Foxconn's Chengdu factory makes a lot of iPads because some production had been shifted to that facility from factories in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Apple's iPad 2 commands 80 percent of the burgeoning tablet market in which Motorola Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd also compete. Apple sold 4.69 million iPads last quarter and is scrambling to meet staggering demand for the mobile device, but is heavily backlogged. Executives had expected production to ramp up during the present quarter to meet demand. The plant explosion is the latest setback for Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer and an affiliate of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Ind Co Ltd. The Taiwanese company made headlines last year after reports emerged about poor working conditions at factories in southern China, which critics say may have helped drive several employees to suicide. The company pledged to improve employee welfare. Facing higher wages in the southern China manufacturing belt, the scene of labor disputes last year, some Taiwanese manufacturers have opted to shift some operations to the country's interior, where costs are lower. Foxconn also has plants in North America and Mexico, as well as in European countries, including Slovakia and Poland. (Reporting by Poornima Gupta; editing by Edwin Chan, Lisa Von Ahn, Richard Chang and Andre Grenon) |
| New Bay Bridge Explorer app could change the way we learn to drive (Appolicious) Posted: 20 May 2011 02:10 PM PDT |
| Carriers to revamp tablet service pricing (Reuters) Posted: 20 May 2011 04:54 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mobile service providers are reworking charges for wireless connections on tablet computers to lure in customers put off by costly fees. Carriers see tablets like Apple Inc's iPad as key to revenue growth. But high prices for the devices and more fees on top of phone plans are seen pushing consumers to bypass the cellular network and rely on free Wi-Fi services. This is expected to result in a drop in the percentage of tablets supporting cellular, potentially making operators less relevant as tablet distributors than electronics stores. "The tablet's more natural point of sale is retail," Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang told the Reuters Global Technology Summit this week. "The question is whether carriers will find a reason to bundle tablets with other services and create a subsidy model that is really appealing." Today, carriers limit cellular Web use on tablets by charging for each gigabyte (GB) of data downloaded. For example, Verizon Wireless charges $20 per gigabyte and AT&T Inc charges $25 for two. Sprint Nextel subsidizes tablets but charges more per gigabyte and requires long-term contracts. Such arrangements will gradually result in more consumers opting for Wi-Fi-only tablets, according to iSuppli, which sees sales of tablets with cellular connections falling as low as 30 percent of the total in 2015 from about 60 percent in 2010. To avoid being sidelined, some operators are planning changes. France Telecom says it will be ready to change pricing "soon." Verizon Wireless said it would make changes eventually but was careful not to provide a timeline. Orange, France Telecom's mobile service, is looking at offering a data plan shared between smartphones and tablets. "Shared bundles may be an answer for these customers who don't know how much they will use on the go," Anne Bouverot, head of mobile services for Orange, told the summit in Paris. Verizon Communications sees its mobile venture Verizon Wireless taking the concept a step further by letting families share data service plans across different devices in the same way that today's voice service plans allow family members to share a bucket of phone call minutes. "I think it's safe to assume that at some point you are going to have mega-plans (for data) and people are going to share that mega-plan based on the number of devices within their family," Fran Shammo, Verizon's chief financial officer, said at the summit in New York. "That's just a logical progression. When we get there, I have no idea." SHARED/SESSION PRICING Other pricing options will involve the sale of tablet connectivity for limited time periods, an executive for Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 U.S. mobile provider, said. "What you'll see is the ability to buy sessions -- a day, a month or a week pass," David Owens, vice president for product development at Sprint told Reuters ahead of the summit. The industry could move this way in the coming months, he said. Because consumers use tablets more sporadically than smartphones, the plans need to reflect this. "This is not a product like a handset where you have to always be tied to a network connection," Owens said. Other operators like AT&T Inc, which will become the biggest U.S. mobile provider if its plan to buy T-Mobile USA succeeds, were less vocal about the need for change. John Stankey, AT&T's head of business solutions said AT&T's tablet plans are already "very consumer friendly" because while the operator does not pay a subsidy to reduce the price of the device, neither does it require a long-term contract. But he said AT&T could possibly provide subsidized tablets in future to consumers who subscribe to a long-term contract. Analysts say operators need to make changes, either by making the device or the service cheaper. "In the absence of higher subsidies or lower connection fees, the logical channel is not the carrier," CCS Insight analyst John Jackson said, ahead of the summit. Tablet makers, trying to challenge the dominance of Apple's iPad, could also be hindered if the carriers charge too much. Rival tablet makers include Samsung Electronics Co and Motorola Mobility and computer makers like Huawei Technologies and Dell Inc. Even if carriers subsidize iPad rivals, "consumers might not want to lock themselves into an iPad competitor" that could end up being upstaged by the next iPad, Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said. "The carriers have a long way to go to figure out the right business model." (Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris, Noel Randewich and Poornima Gupta in New York; Editing by Gary Hill) |
| Apple tuning into music deals (Investor's Business Daily) Posted: 20 May 2011 03:18 PM PDT The tech giant has reached agreements with three major record labels to let users of a forthcoming iTunes service listen to songs on mobile devices via the Internet, Bloomberg reported. Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL - News) service follows similar ones from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG - News) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN - News), but the other services didn't secure licensing deals. Apple reportedly reached deals with Sony's (NYSE:SNE - News) music division, EMI and Warner Music, and is close to a pact with Universal Music. Apple fell 1.6% to 335.22. |
| Explosion at Foxconn iPad factory kills 2 in China (Yahoo! News) Posted: 20 May 2011 12:03 PM PDT
A local news department neat Chengdu has reported 2 deaths and 16 injuries from the blast, which occurred around 7 p.m. Friday night. Local media identified the plant as one of the iPad manufacturing sites, though there's no word on if today's explosion could disrupt Apple's supply chain. Foxconn also manufactures the Amazon Kindle. A rash of employee suicides at Foxconn's manufacturing plants have thrust the company (and Apple, its high profile partner) into the spotlight before. Between January and November of 2010, 14 Foxconn workers committed suicide, and many of the incidents were connected to the company itself. While Foxconn has reportedly made efforts to improve safety and morale (at the behest of the world's most valuable brand) for employees in its sprawling campus-like complexes, today's explosion once again brings the company's practices under scrutiny. MICGadget via The Wall Street Journal [Image credit: Sohu Video] More from Tecca: |
| Talks begin to bring CDMA iPhone to China Telecom (Appolicious) Posted: 20 May 2011 10:35 AM PDT |
| IBM briefly tops Microsoft in market value (AFP) Posted: 20 May 2011 04:41 PM PDT NEW YORK (AFP) – IBM briefly topped Microsoft in market value on Wall Street on Friday to become the second-largest technology company after Apple. But IBM shares lost 0.25 percent to close at $170.16, giving the New York-based company known as "Big Blue" a market capitalization of $206.1 billion. Microsoft shares shed 0.91 percent to close at $24.49, giving the US software giant a market capitalization of $206.5 billion. During mid-day trading, however, IBM shares hit a high of $171.15 and the company topped Microsoft in market value at one point. Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, dethroned Microsoft in market capitalization in May of last year to become the largest US technology company in terms of market value. IBM announced meanwhile that it is investing an additional $100 million in data analytics and unveiled new software and services to help clients manage large amounts of data. "The volume and velocity of information is generated at a record pace," Steve Mills, senior vice president of IBM Software and Systems, said in a statement. "This is magnified by new forms of data coming from social networking and the explosion of mobile devices," Mills said. "Through our extensive capabilities in business and technology expertise, IBM is best positioned to help clients not only extract meaningful insight, but enable them to respond at the same rate at which the data arrives." |
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