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Thursday, August 25, 2011

Jobs' new job at Apple could be 'chief visionary' (AP) : Technet

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Jobs' new job at Apple could be 'chief visionary' (AP) : Technet

Jobs' new job at Apple could be 'chief visionary' (AP)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 04:40 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writers Michael Liedtke And Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writers – Thu Aug 25, 7:40 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – The end of Steve Jobs' reign as Apple Inc. CEO doesn't mean he is bowing out as the maestro of personal technology.

True to its tight-lipped style, Apple isn't spelling out how actively involved Jobs will be as the company's new chairman while he tends to his own fragile health after surviving pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant during the past seven years.

But longtime Apple watchers have no doubt that Jobs will weigh in on all key decisions and help sculpt the company's future product lineup.

"I know enough about Steve Jobs to know that as long as he has a breath in him, he will be giving direction at Apple," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies and the dean of Apple analysts. "He is going to remain Apple's chief visionary."

In his Wednesday resignation letter as CEO, Jobs, 56, wrote that he planned to be "watching and contributing" to Apple's success as chairman, a position that had long been vacant.

In a sign of his commitment, Jobs put in a full day at Apple's Cupertino headquarters during his last full day as CEO, even though he was technically still on medical leave, said Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe.

Bajarin and other people in close contact with Apple said Jobs remained intimately involved there even as he spent 14 of the past 32 months on medical leaves of absence. During that stretch, Apple kept pumping out smash hits and became more successful than ever, with its market value swelling from $80 billion to nearly $350 billion today.

Even so, the mere specter of Apple operating without Jobs conjures unwelcome memories. After co-founding Apple in 1976 and establishing it as a technology trailblazer, Jobs was forced out in 1985. When he finally returned in 1997, the company was in danger in going bankrupt and even needed financial help from longtime nemesis Microsoft Corp. to survive.

The ongoing prosperity during Jobs' recent illnesses is a testament to the management team he assembled and schooled, and to his own ability to remain engaged and inspired even as he convalesces.

The Steve Jobs way is so deeply ingrained in Apple's DNA that analysts are convinced that new CEO Tim Cook and his key subordinates no longer need to hear from Jobs every day to know what he wants.

In a Thursday letter to Apple employees, Cook stressed he won't mess with the formula that worked so well during Jobs' 14-year tenure as CEO.

"I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change," Cook wrote. "I cherish and celebrate Apple's unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that."

Cook also noted that he is "looking forward to Steve's ongoing guidance and inspiration."

Cook, who has run Apple during all three of Jobs' medical absences since 2004, will have ample help beyond his former boss. The other key players include marketing guru Phil Schiller, design chief Jonathan Ive, software mastermind Scott Forstall and the head of finance, Peter Oppenheimer.

"If you were trying to describe this group of people, it would be the dream team of executive management," said Howe said.

Nearly all the key Apple executives have been at the company for years, many of them joining the company around the time of Jobs' 1997 return.

The biggest area of concern is Ron Johnson, the man in charge of the Apple stores that have become the main showcase for the company's sleek devices. Johnson is leaving Apple in November to become J.C. Penney Co.'s CEO, but Howe thinks Apple won't have much problem finding another savvy merchant to replace him.

Jobs has done such a masterful job plotting Apple's progression from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad that the next few years of new products are probably already in the pipeline. With an operating system already in place for use on a multitude of devices, it's likely that Jobs already has laid the groundwork to place Apple's technology on other gadgets with screens, including in-car navigation systems and televisions, Bajarin said.

Investors appear to be betting that Apple won't miss a beat. Apple's stock dipped $2.46, or less than 1 percent, Thursday to close at $373.72.

Things could get rocky if it becomes clear Jobs' health is getting worse. He has looked frail in his recent public appearances.

Jobs resignation letter indicated he isn't feeling well enough to be a full-time CEO. But analysts think that could just mean he has figured out he needs to focus more on his health and spend just part of his time as Apple's chief visionary.

The resignation may even turn out to be a positive for Apple because it will end the perpetual guessing game about who is going to succeed Jobs as CEO and give Cook even more of a chance to prove his management chops, said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu.

Jobs' decision to step aside "is very brave," Wu said. "Some guys hold on to the last minute, but he had the foresight, the maturity level to do this. It's a huge step."

Apple's hot streak probably made the choice easier, Bajarin said. "If there ever was a time where Steve Jobs was going to make his own health his top job, this is it."

It could well be that Jobs will relish the opportunity to focus more on big-picture ideas and less on the more mundane tasks of running a company that can now be left to Cook and others, said Jay Elliot, a former Apple vice president who worked closely with Jobs in the 1980s.

"Steve is incredibly passionate about the product, his whole life is driven by the product," said Elliot, who wrote a book "The Steve Jobs Way — iLeadership For a New Generation." "I view him as an artist making sure the final painting is a masterpiece."

___

AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson in San Francisco contributed to this story.

After Apple's fall, is it time to buy or sell? (AP)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 06:30 PM PDT

By BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writer Bernard Condon, Ap Business Writer – 2 hrs 28 mins ago

NEW YORK – Should you buy or sell Apple?

After the announcement that Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO, investors pushed Apple's stock down 0.7 percent on Thursday. By contrast, Wall Street analysts reacted with predictable optimism: Buy — a lot.

So who is right? The pros or the investors?

The short answer may be the pros, though the stock is probably not the bargain that many of them assume.

One popular way to value a company's stock is to look at how high it is trading relative to its earnings per share. It's a rough measure, but it does show that Apple is not much more expensive than the average company. At Thursday's closing price of $374 per share, Apple is trading at 12 times its expected earnings over the next 12 months compared with 11 times for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Translation: For every dollar you spend on Apple, you should expect roughly the same earnings as you would get on the average company.

The difference, of course, is that Apple has a tendency to beat expectations and send its stock soaring. It's up 16 percent since Jan. 1, and it briefly topped Exxon Mobil this month as the most valued U.S. company.

One reason the stock trades at a discount to its stellar reputation is a bit counterintuitive: The company has been so successful at producing hot products, starting with the iPod in 2001, then the iPhone in 2007 and last year's big hit, the iPad. The problem is, no one knows if the company can keep this up, especially now that its visionary CEO is resigning (though he will stay as chairman). If Apple doesn't produce more big sellers, estimates of future earnings may prove too high.

But Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne, Agee & Leach, says investors are confusing the image of Apple as an innovative, rebel company with the less colorful, but reliable profit maker that it is.

"It's not just a company producing hit products," Wu says. "The earnings have become more predictable."

Despite the popularity of its iPhone, Wu estimates that it still only accounts for 5 percent of cellphones in the world. He believes the iPhone's market share could triple to 15 percent, especially given the opportunity in China, where the company has started selling. He notes that Nokia at its peak had 40 percent of the cellphone market.

Similarly, Wu is bullish on Apple's Macs and iPads. He says they now account for more than 10 percent of the world's computers. He expects that to double. He says that Hewlett-Packard, at its peak, captured 25 percent of the PC market.

Both Nokia and HP are now hurting in part because of Apple's successes with the iPhone and the iPad.

"China is the next big frontier," says Wu, who's been recommending the stock since it was $40. "It's where the next $100 (jump) could come in the stock."

There are plenty of reasons for doubt, however. Even if Jobs had stayed on as CEO, the company faced numerous challenges. Rival phone makers such as Motorola, Samsung and LG Corp. are making inroads using Google's Android operating system for smartphones, which are just about as easy to use as Apple's iPhone. And the success of the iPhone and rival smartphones, which can play music and video, means fewer people need iPods from Apple.

Then there's the challenge of mathematics. As a company gets bigger, it's harder to get the same percentage increase in earnings that investors have come to expect.

Apple earnings have been growing an average of 60 percent annually over the past five years. But can investors really expect that to continue with annual earnings estimated to hit $26 billion the fiscal year that ends in September?

Even Apple fans such as Timothy Ghriskey, co-founder of Solaris Asset Management, which owns Apple stock, notes that selling iPads and iPhones to the Chinese and coming out with new versions of old products will only go so far.

"There is predictability to the earnings two or three years out. But beyond that? Who knows what the next handheld communications device is going to be?" he says. "Apple has to keep coming up with the (next) new thing."

To bulls, though, the benefit of buying stock now is that investors have already priced a bit of this danger into the stock.

"There's always the risk they'll lose their mojo, their magic," says Wu. "But that's why it trades at 12 times."

Apple's magic enthralls Main Street., Wall Street (AP)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 01:33 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Aug 25, 4:33 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – It's easy to forget now, but Apple's magnetism was once confined to a cult-like following of geeks seduced by the elegance and simplicity of the company's computers.

Over the past decade, though, Apple has emerged as a trendsetter and a wealth-making machine — the rare company that appeals to the cool cats hanging out in hip cafes and the fat cats looking to make another killing on Wall Street.

In the process, Apple has left an indelible mark that extends far beyond that first personal computer Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak introduced 35 years ago. Since then, Apple has transformed the music, retailing, marketing and cellphone industries. Now, it's engineering yet another evolution in computing with the increasingly popular iPad tablet.

Those achievements have endeared Apple to the masses, turning its product announcements into the technology industry's latter-day version of a Beatles concert and turning its familiar logo into an emblem of exquisite taste.

Part visionary, showman and uncompromising taskmaster, Jobs assembled a team that had an incredible knack for anticipating consumer trends and popularizing them by designing devices that were easy — and delightful — to use. Apple didn't invent music players, smartphones or tablet computers, but under Jobs' leadership, the company convinced the masses that the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad were breakthroughs that they couldn't live without.

It seemed as if the second coming of Walt Disney and the rest of the "imagineers" who built Disneyland during the mid-1950s had come to Silicon Valley to lead the way into the 21st century.

In the past decade, Apple's gadgets have transformed society, enabling people to bring along their favorite music, books, videos and websites almost everywhere they go. In the process they inspired countless imitators and ensured that Jobs, who resigned Wednesday, will be remembered as one of the most successful CEOs in American history.

None of it would have happened if Jobs hadn't returned to Apple in 1997 after being pushed out of the company in the mid-1980s by John Sculley, a CEO that Jobs had lured away from Pepsico Inc. by asking, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?"

Jobs never left any doubt he intended to be a game changer from the time he and Wozniak, a high school buddy, planted Apple in a Silicon Valley garage. With the introduction of the Apple II — the first personal computer to display color graphics _Jobs provided a glimpse of how he would go on to put the "i" into personal technology and change people's lives.

The innovations kept coming as long as Jobs was at Apple (there was 12-year exile after the falling out with Sculley).

The Mac computer brought a graphical interface that could be clicked with a mouse. The iPod enabled anyone to carry around a library of music in their pocket. The iPhone changed the concept of mobile computing and popularized the catchphrase "there's an app for that." Most recently, the iPad is making the PC look antiquated as it creates more convenient ways to read, watch movies, play games and fetch information from the Internet.

Jobs' wizardry rescued a company on the precipice of bankruptcy and elevated it into the second most valuable business in America. It now has a market value of nearly $350 billion, behind only Exxon Mobil Corp. — a company whose fortunes are tied to wildly fluctuating oil prices rather than the beauty of a good idea.

Anyone who had the foresight to dip into their retirement accounts to buy $100,000 worth of Apple stock on the day Jobs became the company's CEO in September 1997 would be set for life: That investment would be worth more than $6.8 million now. When he took the job, Jobs foreshadowed the marketing hook for a new product line by calling himself "iCEO" to reflect his initial role as Apple's interim leader.

Just as many love affairs can be fleeting, so can the aura of seemingly invincible companies. It happened to IBM Corp., the computer monolith that Jobs likened to an Orwellian "Big Brother" in a 1984 TV commercial. More recently, auto maker General Motors Corp. needed a bailout from U.S. taxpayers — a far cry from its heyday as the biggest company in the world.

The last test of Jobs' genius may come as he tries to pass on his magical touch to his successor. He believes he has found the right guy in Tim Cook, with whom he has worked closely since 1998. The collaboration doesn't necessarily have to stop because Jobs will still hold an influential role as Apple's chairman.

By all accounts, Cook is a top-notch executive who has proven that he knows how to pull the levers of Apple's mystique. He has run the company during Jobs' three leaves of absence since 2004. He was the one responsible for tuning Apple's manufacturing process to solve chronic product delays and supply problems prevalent when he joined the company in 1998.

Still, it's hard not to shake the feeling that this may be the beginning of the end of an era — both for technological zealots trying to figure out when the iPhone 5 is coming out and nervous investors wondering whether to buy or sell the company's stock.

"Oh my goodness, I was terribly shocked!" said Chris Perez, 32, as he stood outside an Apple store in north Phoenix on Wednesday night. "He was the man that came up with everything `i.'"

____

AP Writer Michelle Price in Phoenix contributed to this story.

Diamond planet discovery is an astronomer’s gem (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 05:04 PM PDT

Jaw-droppingly gorgeous video captures the Milky Way as Earth spins (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 04:46 PM PDT

Rachael Yamagata's New Album Cover Created on the iPhone (Mashable)

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 06:53 PM PDT

Christina Warren Christina Warren – Wed Aug 24, 9:53 pm ET

It's not just fashion photographers that are embracing camera apps for the iPhone -- musicians are too. When it came time for singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata to create the album cover for her upcoming release, Chesapeake, the musician didn't look for an expensive digital SLR camera. Instead, she reached for her iPhone.

[More from Mashable: The Social Music Network: Napster Documentary in the Works]

The album artwork and packaging for Chesapeake were created using the iPhone app Camera+ [iTunes link]. The popular iPhone app has moved more than 3 million copies in the last year and is a hit with fashion photographers and musicians alike.

[More from Mashable: Sprint To Sell the iPhone 5 [REPORT]]

We asked Yamagata about why the iPhone was chosen as the creation tool for this album's artwork.

"A lot of the best spontaneous moments of making music happen when no outsiders are around and this includes photographers," Yamagata said. "It's been pretty standard in my experience to keep the studio a sacred space of sorts, and it's surprising how even the best intended energy of someone new can throw off the vibe of the session. That said, it was a perfect thing to be able to capture these moments in photographs on our own."

She added that her drummer Victor Indrizzo took most of the shots featured in the album artwork, noting that "the picture quality is so good and the app so effective, that the moment was allowed to shine and not be lost."

Using a phone and an app also made taking the photos more affordable, while giving off a DIY vibe that fits well with the album's aural aesthetic.

Using camera apps to create analog-style art is a growing trend. In July, an eight-page print spread in the magazine Everyday Food was comprised of photographs taken with the iPhone app Hipstamatic.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tumblr close to raising up to $100 million: report (Reuters)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 06:41 PM PDT

– 2 hrs 20 mins ago

(Reuters) – The blogging service Tumblr is close to raising $75-$100 million in venture capital, implying a market value of $800 million, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Greylock Partners, whose portfolio companies include daily deals company Groupon and bed-for-rent service Airbnb, was named as one of the big firms that is taking part in the deal, according to the report.

Tumblr and Greylock could not be reached immediately for a comment on the report.

In June, mobile location based start-up, Foursquare raised $50 million in a round of financing lead by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Tumblr counts Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, among its existing investors, according to its website.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in Bangalore; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Pandora Media revenue beats on strong ad sales (Reuters)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 03:35 PM PDT

Rumor: Walmart cutting 4GB Xbox 360 price to $250 August 28 (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 07:21 PM PDT

Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes – 1 hr 40 mins ago

xbox 360 kinect via JoystiqPrice cuts; you know you want them. The Wii was first to fall earlier this year, and with the PS3 price drop announced last week at Germany's Gamescom the Xbox is expected to follow in order to stay competitive. That Xbox price drop may actually be happening quite soon as rumors are circulating that the console will get $50 shaved off next week at Walmart.

Over at Joystiq, they published a Walmart newspaper flyer advertising a $50 "rollback" on the Xbox 360 4GB Kinect bundle. If this is true, this would bring the price down to $249 for the week of August 28. However, this doesn't seem to be a permanent change.

Microsoft issued a statement in response to this, saying: "Walmart made an independent decision to implement this temporary price cut. We've made no announcements about price drops, and do not discuss our pricing plans in advance. Xbox is the number-one selling console in the U.S. for 13 of the past 14 months, and is showing record growth. With an incredible line-up of games and entertainment, we're expecting the biggest year in Xbox history as the best-selling console worldwide."

Yes, its too good to be permanent, but perhaps its too soon for Microsoft to notice the changes brought about by the PS3 announcement. Last week, Microsoft's director over in Europe, Chris Lews, said that the Xbox 360 wasn't feeling any pressure from the Playstation 3′s price drop. The PS3 now goes for $250 and $300 for the 160GB and 320GB models respectively.

The Nintendo 3DS recently saw a huge jump in sales overseas in Japan after falling almost 50%. The 3DS sold 215,000 units between August 8 and 14.

Well, the Xbox's temporary cut is either cruel or hope inspiring. Perhaps we'll see a change closer to the holiday season.

Analysis: LG faces tough choices for mobile phone division (Reuters)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 08:36 PM PDT

By Miyoung Kim and Anshuman Daga Miyoung Kim And Anshuman Daga – 25 mins ago

SEOUL/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – South Korea's LG Electronics (066570.KS) hasn't been so smart with its smartphone business. Its mobile phone division has suffered five consecutive quarterly losses, cutthroat competition is pressuring it to overhaul the business and its shares have plummeted.

The money-losing phone unit has also been a major value destroyer for LG shareholders. LG's market value is only $7.5 billion, roughly one-third that of global rivals HTC Corp (2498.TW) and Nokia (NOK1V.HE), even though it also has sizeable TV and home appliances divisions.

LG's handset division is the company's biggest capital sinkhole and the shares have more than halved this year, making it the worst performer even when compared to HTC and Nokia.

"Selling the loss-making business is probably what investors want," said Harrison Cho, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities. "But even with that option, LG wouldn't get much from the sale. They should have sold it long ago before the overall landscape got tougher."

"They simply missed the boat," said Cho.

Setting up ventures with the likes of Philips (PHG.AS) and Nortel to share risks is what LG has done in the past in flat-screens and telecom gear. But analysts say there may not be many potential partners keen to team up with the loss-making mobile phone business.

The changing of the guard at Apple Inc (AAPL.O) could offer opportunities for rivals to chip away at the technology powerhouses's strongholds in some sectors, but on a standalone basis, LG is limited by its scale of operations in smartphones.

TARGETS CUT

The world's No.3 mobile phone maker has already cut this year's smartphone sales target by 20 percent to 24 million units and has given no outlook for when the business will turn profitable.

LG's Android-based smartphones are marketed under the Optimus brand and sales of such models as Optimus 2X and Optimus 3D have been solid, although nothing like the Galaxy and iPhone.

Koo Bon-joon, a member of LG's founding family, took over as CEO of the group's flagship firm in October and is cutting the portion of unprofitable feature phones and shifting focus to high-margin smartphones.

But the rapidly changing industry landscape has more bad news in store for LG.

Nokia has dumped its mobile platform and tied up with Microsoft (MSFT.O) to survive, while Motorola Mobility (MMI.N) is selling itself to Google (GOOG.O) to become a handset manufacturer for the search giant.

"What LG can do at this point is keep doing what it can do best; keep upgrading its hardware offering, differentiate them and then diversify away from Android to Microsoft's Windows phones," said Jung Kyun-sik, a fund manager at Eugene Asset Management in Seoul.

LG is among StarMine's weakest companies for earnings quality versus its peers, with a score of 8 out of 100. By comparison, Apple scored 77.

Even a bolt-on acquisition, which many companies utilize to quickly expand, appears a difficult choice for LG to make.

"Buying a rival with either deep patent pools or research staff is another option to quickly boost its growth. But LG's not got much cash reserve to fund such deals," said S.J. Lee, a fund manager at Midas Asset Management, which holds LG shares.

LG had cash and cash equivalents of 2.2 trillion won ($2 billion) as of end-June and some 21 trillion in total debt.

WHAT'S IT WORTH?

LG is the world's No.6 smartphone maker and its market share, virtually negligible year ago, rose to 5.6 percent in the second quarter, ahead of Motorola and Sony Ericsson, following the long-awaited launch of its Optimus range.

Mobile phone sales totaled 3.2 trillion won ($3 billion), or roughly one-fifth of the group's total sales, in the second quarter.

"We sold off LG stock a couple of months ago due to its poor handset business prospects and don't have any plan to add it back any time soon," said a fund manager at HI Asset Management, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Valuing the unprofitable business is tough and how much potential buyers might be willing to pay for LG's sharply weakened brand value will decide much of the upside, analysts said.

Many analysts have forecast the business to turn profitable next year, but confidence levels have waned after the consecutive string of quarterly losses.

The dire business outlook had already pushed LG shares below their book value to a record-low multiple of 0.9 times its book value, much cheaper than Research In Motion's (RIMM.O) 1.6 times, Nokia's 1.1 and HTC's 8.2.

That's a huge discount for a company that is also a global brand in television and home appliances.

DILEMMA

Selling the phone business will be hard to swallow for the family-owned LG Group, which has invested heavily in phones to resuscitate the business and grow it as a core profit pillar.

LG reiterated its commitment to the unit on Friday.

"Our efforts this year have been successful despite the gloomy economic outlook in many parts of the world and we are confident that the handsets we have in the pipeline for 2012 will prove to be even more successful," the company said in a statement in response to queries from Reuters.

Koo, the CEO, has replaced the heads of the struggling phone and TV divisions and added research staff.

Reviving the business is crucial because its television business is also struggling with a razor-thin profit margin, leaving home appliances as a major cash generator for now.

"Hiving off the handset business can be an option, but the dilemma is nothing will be left at LG without handsets," said the HI Asset fund manager.

Being marginalized to a pure whitebox maker, a business that often suffers from thin margins, is something that many global technology firms are trying to avoid. That fate would also deny LG access to the exploding mobile industry market, which is widely expected to revolutionize personal computing.

"Should LG decide to sell the handset business, it will be left with only the home appliances operation and that'll lower the company's valuation matrix to pure appliances plays. I don't think that's what investors want," said Lee at Midas.

"There's not much LG can do in the near term to dramatically turn around the dire situation. It should instead focus on restoring investor confidence that it can deliver attractive models and make it profitable longer term. That momentum building will boost its share price," Midas said.

($1 = 1082.200 Korean won)

(Editing by Matt Driskill)

Virginia quake resulted in 5,500 tweets per second, map shows spread (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 07:30 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – 1 hr 31 mins ago

virginia-earthquake-5.9Every time a major event happens in the world these days, it's only a matter of seconds before Twitter starts fizzing as people jump online to start spreading the news and sharing experiences.

It happened just yesterday when Steve Jobs announced he was stepping down as CEO of Apple. And it happened again on Tuesday when a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Mineral, Va., about 100 miles southwest of Washington, DC.

It may not have been the strongest recorded quake to hit the East Coast (there was a magnitude-7.3 shaker in Charleston, S.C. in 1886, according to the US Geological Survey), but by all accounts, Tuesday's tremor was still enough to cause clammy hands and racing pulses for those living as far away as New England.

And when it struck, mass tweeting quickly followed. According to Twitter, within a minute of the shaking, there were more than 40,000 quake-related tweets.

"We hit about 5,500 Tweets per second (TPS). For context, this TPS is more than Osama Bin Laden's death & on par w/ the Japanese quake," the social networking site said in a tweet of its own.

A guy called Eric Fischer has taken the time to produce an animated map (see below) of the quake-related tweets, which he posted on photo-sharing website Flickr. The 28-second video clearly shows the increase in Twitter activity, even though it only shows tweets with geotags.

Key: Green dots are tweets about the quake. Gray dots are tweets about other topics. Each frame is one second (total of 12 minutes).

Samsung leaks names of three unannounced products in Android app (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 05:29 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – Thu Aug 25, 8:29 pm ET

ifa unpacked logoIt looks as thought Samsung has provided the leaked information on three mystery products to be announced September 1. There appears to be three logos for unannounced products buried inside Samsung's Android app created for their IFA conference. The product names are Galaxy Note, Wave 3, and Galaxy Tab 7.7. The Wave 3 is most likely Samsung's next Bada Device which isn't overly interesting. The Galaxy Note and Tab 7.7 have peaked our interest though as they appear to be variations of Samsung's Galaxy Tab line up.

Samsung has already released the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and announced the Tab 8.9 but there has been no word about a new 7.7inch Samsung tablet. There is of course no specs or hardware information to share about the new tab as we only know of the name. It is safe to assume due to the name that it will be much like the Galaxy Tab 10.1 that we know and love, but just be a slightly more pocket friendly size. 

The head-scratcher of the three devices wold have to be the Galaxy Note. Judging form the name it is most likely a phone or tablet, since we haven't seen Samsung release any other product with the Galaxy name tag on it. We are guessing that the Galaxy Note will most likely be a tablet that comes with a stylus, much like HTC's 7inch tablet. We of course reserve the right to be wrong, but following Samsung's naming scheme it makes sense.

Bada is Samsung's homegrown mobile smartphone operating system.  It seems odd that Samsung would continue making bada devices when it is doing so well with Android.  It looks as though Samsung is keeping bada alive just in case Google's purchase of Motorola shakes up the Android game and the company has to jump ship.

IFA is on September 1, so we should know all about these three products then.

What Skype’s purchase of GroupMe means for the future of mobile messaging (Appolicious)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 03:30 PM PDT

The Galaxy S II will not be coming to Verizon (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 04:05 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – Thu Aug 25, 7:05 pm ET

Galaxy S IISamsung's four pronged attack of the US mobile phone market with the Galaxy S won't be repeated with the Galaxy S II. Verizon, the countries largest carrier, will not be carrying the next-generation Galaxy S phone. Verizon says that they will be carrying a similar device, but it will not be a Galaxy S branded device.  It is possible that the Galaxy S II phone on Verizon will just be rebranded a Droid phone, but that seems unlikely at this time.

With Samsung's Droid Charge recently launching on Verizon it's understand able that the companies didn't want to launch such a similar product so close together. Verizon already has several 4.3inch LTE devices, and the rumored 4.5inch Droid Bionic coming soon. The Droid X2 also recently launched with a Verizon 3G antenna, but a similar form factor to the other phones.  It is possible that Verizon feels that it has the giant screen market covered for the time being.

We have been hearing about other Galaxy variants coming to market, so it is possible that Samsun will launch a Galaxy R phone instead of the Galaxy S II. The Galaxy R comes with a Tegra 2 processor so performance should be similar to the S II. 

For the time being we still believe that the Galaxy S II or some version of it will come to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. We have seen leaked pictures which are believed to be AT&T's version of the phone, as well as a leaked T-Mobile document that discussed its version.  We should get most if not all of the official details at Samsung's press event on August 29.

China bars some Lady Gaga hits from download sites (AP)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 08:39 PM PDT

– 21 mins ago

BEIJING – China's Ministry of Culture has ordered music download sites to delete songs by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and other pop stars within two weeks or face punishment.

The ministry posted a list of 100 songs — including Lady Gaga's "Judas" and Perry's "Last Friday Night" — that had to be purged from the Chinese web because they had never been submitted for mandatory government screening.

Six Lady Gaga songs in all were on the list, all from her latest album. The 12-year-old ballad "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys was also targeted. Dozens of Hong Kong and Taiwanese pop songs and a few Western hits were listed as well.

The ministry said the rule was meant to preserve China's "national cultural security."

Sites were told in the Aug. 19 announcement posted to the ministry's website that they had until Sept. 15 to carry out "self-correction" and delete the songs. It said violators would be punished, but didn't outline the penalties they would face.

It didn't say that the listed songs were objectionable, just that they had not been approved for distribution.

The Chinese government carefully screens the content of imported entertainment content for political messages or commentary that runs contrary to its official line.

Foreign music acts in particular are believed to receive special scrutiny after Icelandic singer Bjork shouted "Tibet!" during a 2008 concert in Shanghai after performing a song titled "Declare Independence."

China claims Tibet has always been part of its territory, but many Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries and that Beijing's tight control is draining them of their culture and identity.

Analysis: Apple's supporting cast steps into the limelight (Reuters)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 05:17 PM PDT

By Poornima Gupta and Sarah McBride Poornima Gupta And Sarah Mcbride – Thu Aug 25, 8:17 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – As Steve Jobs leaves the stage at Apple Inc, four of his top understudies are coming into the limelight.

Jobs has long been a larger than life figure inside and outside the company he co-founded, even though for years he was surrounded by superb talent who deserve at least some credit for runaway successes such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod.

Enter newly minted CEO Tim Cook, design genius Jonathan Ive, mobile software guru Scott Forstall and product marketing maestro Phil Schiller. The quartet have stayed in the wings for years, operating in relative anonymity.

But within the tightly knit Silicon Valley community, they have built formidable reputations in their fields. With Jobs' departure, they now have an opportunity to take center stage, former Apple executives and experts said.

In June, J.C. Penney Co Inc announced it lured away Apple retail chief Ron Johnson to be its CEO and a few weeks later news emerged that veteran lawyer Chip Lutton is also planning to leave. Rumors surface sporadically that Ive might return to his native Britain, although they have never been corroborated.

Jobs' stepping down "may give these guys more freedom to make decisions themselves," said David Hornik, a partner at August Capital, about the top tier.

Jane Stevenson, vice chairman of board and CEO services at executive recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International, agrees.

"When a strong person steps out, it's an opportunity for others to step up," she said. "And I think this is a great opportunity in many ways because Steve is still there as chairman."

Those who have known or worked with some of these executives describe the team and talent at Apple using terms such as "brilliant" and "very close."

London native Ive -- Jony to most people -- is particularly referred to as a "genius" and a "dreamer."

Known as a confidant of Jobs, the soft-spoken Ive has led Apple's design team since 1996 and was among the few who survived brutal staff cuts Jobs made when he returned to Apple in late 1997.

"Ive has been involved in every dramatic device Apple has done for a decade," said a former Apple executive in products and marketing. "He looks at things differently always. Going into Jonathan's design lab was always fun."

SUPPORTING CAST

Then there's software chief Forstall, the architect of the iOS software that powers over 100 million iPhones.

Marketing head Schiller is a regular stand-in for Jobs at launch events. Some of the products he has shepherded include the iMac, the iPod, Safari Web browser and the iPhone.

Other top executives include veteran Eddy Cue, who rose to prominence by managing the iTunes and App stores, and Jeff Williams, who heads the company's supply-chain operations.

That sort of bench strength underscores Jobs' reputation for surrounding himself with the best people in any field.

"One of Steve's greatest assets is to be able to detect and find talent," said Jay Elliot, a former Apple senior vice president who worked closely with Jobs. "All along, he has always been able to sniff out what people's real talent is and what they really are good at."

Apple's talent bench attracts recruiters for other companies, but few have succeeded in luring anyone from top management until recently.

Change at the top might spur some veterans to ponder new careers, executive recruiters said. But almost all of the top people reporting to Cook are expected to stay to help Apple through the transition and support their new CEO, who has worked closely with Ive, Forstall and others.

"At the point of such pivotal transition, if someone cares about the company and cares about Steve -- because he's still there -- they are probably not going to want to leave," Stevenson of Korn/Ferry said.

Most of the top-tier executives had been working with the expectation Jobs would eventually step aside. But the move still made them "very sad," the former Apple product and marketing executive said.

"All are really busy and happy about the stuff they're doing," the person said. "I feel strongly they will continue to do extremely well for a long time. It's the kind of company that people get very committed to."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr; editing by Edwin Chan and Andre Grenon)

Low-Cost Nokia Phones Target Emerging Markets (NewsFactor)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 01:41 PM PDT

Mark Long, newsfactor.com Mark Long, newsfactor.com – Thu Aug 25, 4:41 pm ET

Nokia has taken the wraps off two low-cost mobile handsets slated for introduction at $30 and $35 price points later this year, not including carrier subsidies. Based on Nokia's Series 30 operating system, the Nokia 100 and Nokia 101 feature a built-in color display, an FM radio, pre-loaded games, and even an integrated flashlight.

The new devices are squarely aimed at consumers in emerging markets who are looking for a phone that offers great features but is also dependable, noted Nokia Executive Vice President Mary McDowell.

"When paired with powerful and locally relevant services such as Nokia Life Tools, the Nokia 101 and Nokia 100 offer a unique experience that is simply unmatched in their markets at these price points," McDowell said Thursday.

For an extra five dollars, Nokia 101 buyers also will get a built-in MP3 player and headset, together with dual SIM-card capabilities. Calls routed between two different wireless carriers within the United Kingdom and other mature markets don't cost extra, "but this is not the case in most countries," said IDC Research Manager Francisco Jeronimo.

Dual-SIM Phones

Nokia's dual-SIM phones will let handset users access to two different carriers from the same handset. One SIM card provides access to the user's principal wireless provider, while the second can accommodate a prepaid SIM card for a second operator offering lower calling prices in areas beyond the reach of the principal provider's network.

Dual-SIM phones have become popular in southern Europe, where the cost savings can be substantial, Jeronimo noted. The Nokia SIM manager allows users to select which SIM card to use for a call or to send a text message.

"So there's no need to carry a second device, [which] is the main reason why people like dual-SIM phones," Jeronimo explained. "Another reason is related to personal and professional numbers when needed."

Nokia's low-cost handsets are also designed to enable a single device to be shared among multiple members of the same family. The Nokia SIM manager offers support for "up to five separate address books and stores personalization details for up to five different SIM cards," Nokia explained.

Brand-Name Leverage

Through its introduction of the low-cost Nokia 100 and Nokia 101, the handset market is clearly aiming to leverage its well-known brand to recapture a percentage of the so-called "white box" sales that have been growing more popular in emerging markets. Gartner noted last January that non-brand-name handset shipments exceeded 360 million in 2010.

Nokia remained the global market leader last year with a 28.9 percent market share, but white-box sales amounted to 23 percent of shipments overall. Moreover, Gartner's analysts noted that non-brand-name sales accounted in part for the 7.5 percent drop in Nokia's market share from 2009.

Non-brand-name handsets grabbed share from Nokia with features like dual SIMs, noted Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi on Thursday. "Nokia is late to the dual-SIM party, but now has very attractive devices that should do well in standing out from the white-box crowd," she said.

Though smartphones are in hot demand in the United States, Europe and other mature markets, the latest Android models and Apple's iPhone are priced well beyond the budgets of many residents living in emerging nations, Nokia observed. "For the 'next billion' mobile users, a reliable, inexpensive, regular phone is a lot more relevant," the handset maker noted.

In high-growth emerging markets such as India, for example, the new low-cost Nokia phones will ship with mobile applications such as Nokia Life Tools and Nokia Money. With Nokia Life Tools, the handset's SMS capabilities are harnessed to deliver market information, weather forecasts, health advice, language tuition, and entertainment news.

AMD names Lenovo's Rory Read as new CEO (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 Aug 2011 10:47 AM PDT

Geoff Duncan Geoff Duncan – Thu Aug 25, 1:47 pm ET

AMD CEO Rory Read

Chipmaker AMD has named Rory Read as its new CEO, effective immediately. Read comes to AMD from five years at PC maker Lenovo, where he was most recently company president and chief operating officer; before working at Lenovo, Read put in 23 year with IBM, including serving as general manager for business consulting services in teh South Pacific as well as managing director for IBM's Consulting Services division. AMD has also appointed Read to the company board of directors.

"Rory is a proven leader with an impressive record of driving profitable growth," said AMD chairman Bruce Claflin, in a statement. "He is ideally suited to accelerate AMD's evolution into the world's leading semiconductor design company."

Reads appointment follows more than eight months after AMD's previous CEO Dirk Meyer resigned in what the company described as a "mutual decision" over a reported disagreement involving the company's mobile strategy. AMD launched a search for a new CEO immediately, although there hasn't been much word on what other candidates were considered for the role: rumors have focussed on former NCR and Intel executives, as well as former HP CEO Mark Hurd and now-Apple CEO Tim Cook. In the meantime, Thomas Seifert had been serving as interim CEO for the company; with Read's appointment, he will return to his role as senior vice president and CFO.

In the meantime, AMD has worked to consolidate its turf in high-performance graphics processing (where it competes primarily with Nvidia) and launched its new Fusion line of APU processors with integrated graphics, specifically geared to compete with Intel's second-generation Core processors and myriad Atom offerings.

Read's time with IBM and Lenovo demonstrated an aptitude for taking companies into new product areas and maintaining profitability. Those traits may help Read in his new role, although he certainly faces challenges: both Lenovo and AMD have been late to enter the burgeoning market for tablet devices, and AMD has been struggling to compete against Intel in the high-end server market.

at 9:30 PM

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