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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Google going 'gangbusters' as 3Q wows investors (AP) : Technet

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Google going 'gangbusters' as 3Q wows investors (AP) : Technet

Google going 'gangbusters' as 3Q wows investors (AP)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 04:07 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Oct 13, 7:07 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Mounting worries about another global recession haven't shaken Google.

The online search and advertising leader's third-quarter earnings, released Thursday, are the latest reminder of how Google's position as the Internet's dominant gateway has spawned a business that endures economic turbulence better than most companies.

"When I look back at the last quarter, the word that springs to mind is, `Gangbusters,' Google CEO Larry Page crowed during a Thursday conference call with analysts.

Investors quickly chimed in with their approval as Google's stock price surged more than 6 percent. The stock climbed $35.94 to $594.93 in extended trading after the release of results.

The third-quarter numbers painted a picture of a company operating in a bubble of prosperity amid a sputtering economy.

Even as a stubbornly high unemployment rate vexes the U.S., Google added nearly 2,600 more workers to its payroll to guarantee that 2011 will be the biggest hiring year in the company's 13-year history. Google ended September with more than 31,500 workers, an increase of 28 percent, or nearly 7,000 jobs, from the end of last year.

While the U.S. economy's growth is shrinking, Google's is accelerating. The company's third-quarter revenue of $9.7 billion was 33 percent higher than the same time last year. It marked the fourth consecutive quarter that Google's year-over-year revenue growth has climbed.

Google earned $2.7 billion, or $8.33 per share, in the three months ending in September. That was up 26 percent from nearly $2.2 billion, or $6.72 per share, a year earlier.

If not for expenses covering employee stock compensation, Google would have earned $9.72 per share. That figure easily beat the average estimate of $8.77 per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

After subtracting the commissions that Google pays its advertising partners, Google's revenue stood at $7.5 billion — about $200 million above analyst projections.

Google is doing well because of the reach of its search engine and the effectiveness of its ads. Google processes about two out of three searches in the U.S. and an even higher percentage in Europe and other parts of the world. Those searches provide Google with the traffic and marketing insights prized by advertisers.

Internet ads also are generally less expensive than print and broadcasting campaigns, making online promotions less susceptible to corporate cutbacks during tough times.

But not all online ad sellers do as good a job as Google. Yahoo Inc. and AOL Corp., a pair of Internet pioneers that started before Google, have been struggling mightily — something that isn't expected to change when those companies report their third-quarter results. Yahoo's numbers are out next month while AOL will release its results Nov. 2.

Google is also helped by its expansion into mobile phones with its popular Android software. The company's mobile revenue is now running at about $625 million per quarter, Page said Thursday. He sounded confident that mobile will become an even bigger moneymaker with next week's scheduled release of updated Nexus phone from Samsung and Google's proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of cell phone maker Motorola Mobility Inc.

Page is also bullish on Google's 3 1/2-month-old Plus service, a social networking alternative to Facebook's online hangout. With 800 million users, Facebook is widely seen the biggest threat to Google. Plus has more than 40 million users, Page said.

As well as Google is doing, it won't be immune if the economy tumbles into a recession. Google's growth slowed dramatically during the first half of 2009 as a financial crisis caused the deepest recession since World War II. But Google never cut back as dramatically as most companies during the last recession and bounced back much more quickly.

Many analysts are more concerned about Google's Motorola Mobility acquisition, which is still under review by the U.S. Justice Department. Google is buying Motorola primarily for about 17,000 patents, but it also plans to manufacture cell phones _an area of technology that's not as lucrative as Internet search. Owning Motorola also could alienate Samsung and other handset makers that currently use the Android software.

For now, Google's third-quarter should bolster Wall Street's faith in Page, who initially got a cool reception from investors when he replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO six months ago. Google has now blown past analyst forecasts with Page calling the shots in each of the past two quarters. Although the company has usually topped analyst projections since it went public seven years ago, Google has been clearing Wall Street's hurdles by a greater margin under Page.

Google would have made even more money, if not for Page's determination to invest heavily in projects, people and computers that he believes the company needs to become even more powerful.

Excluding employee stock compensation, Google's operating expenses rose by nearly 40 percent to $6.1 billion.

Page has offset some of the higher spending by jettisoning Google services that haven't been paying off. He told investors he has dumped about 20 products so far, enabling Google employees can focus more on more promising areas like Plus and its Chrome Web browser, which now has more than 200 million users.

Hulu no longer for sale, owners say (AP)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 06:52 PM PDT

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima, Ap Business Writer – Thu Oct 13, 9:52 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – After months of being courted by technology giants and TV signal providers, online video service Hulu is no longer for sale, its media company owners said Thursday.

The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., Comcast Corp. and Providence Equity Partners had been shopping the site since June after receiving an unsolicited takeover offer.

They tested the waters for other interest, and dozens of companies, from Internet giants Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. to satellite TV providers Dish Network Corp. and DirecTV, began circling.

But the owners said in a joint statement Thursday that Hulu "holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners" and that they would refocus on "mapping out its path to even greater success."

Bidding on the service reached as high as around $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The owners decided collectively that it would be better to build out Hulu than sell it for a short-term gain, the person said.

The site had been bulking up on content to top up its roster of reruns from Disney's ABC, News Corp.'s Fox and Comcast's NBC. It recently said it would add Spanish-language programming from Univision, adding to a whole host of content from rival media companies including Viacom Inc.'s MTV and film studio Miramax.

It had even teamed up with documentary maker Morgan Spurlock on an original show series.

The service has been gaining traction while online streaming rival Netflix Inc. has stumbled badly.

Hulu said last month it had more than a million subscribers who pay $8 a month for a deep catalog of TV shows, less than a year after launching the premium tier last November. CEO Jason Kilar has said Hulu is on track to make around $500 million in revenue this year, up from $263 million in 2010, and that the company is profitable.

In comparison, Netflix had 24.6 million paying subscribers at the end of June, but it warned last month that it expected a net 600,000 to leave by the end of September after a series of unpopular decisions. They included hiking prices as much as 60 percent on millions of customers and splitting its streaming and DVD-by-mail services into two separately-billed operations, a move it has since reversed.

Hulu's value may have fallen after consumers were seen railing against Netflix's price increase and Netflix balked at paying an estimated $300 million a year for Disney and Sony movies through pay TV channel Starz, said Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin.

With the market to pay to stream movies and TV shows cooling, media companies may have decided they could no longer cash out their stakes in Hulu and continue to sell content for top dollar to buyers like Netflix and Amazon.com Inc.

It may have seemed more profitable for Hulu to try to add subscribers and sell more advertising over the long haul.

"Suddenly, when those other entities can offer less cash ... then owning Hulu looks more attractive," she said.

Starz' shows are still in search of an online home and could migrate to Hulu after its deal with Netflix expires in March, she said.

Hulu's advertising model also has promise.

Despite lagging far behind online video sites like YouTube in terms of monthly visitors, Hulu viewers watch more ads than patrons of other sites. Hulu accounted for nearly a billion of the 5.7 billion ads viewed in the United States in August, the most of any entity, according to tracking firm comScore Inc.

Keep your brain young with help from Anti-Aging Games and Tecca (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 04:54 PM PDT

Verizon will soon begin spying on your web habits, here’s how to opt out (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 04:17 PM PDT

iOS 5 Release Accompanied by 6 New Apps by Apple [PICS] (Mashable)

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 05:09 PM PDT

Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Wed Oct 12, 8:09 pm ET

Apple has just unleashed six new applications along with iOS 5. Here's a pictorial tour of each one. The push marks the company's most aggressive software rollout to date. Apple has released Newsstand, Reminders, Find My Friends, Cards, iTunes Movie Trailers and AirPort Utility. The applications are either included with an update to iOS 5 or now available on the App Store.

[More from Mashable: 15 Songs That Defined the Sound of Apple Marketing]

Some of the applications will even compete against existing third-party applications including Postcard On the Run, Postagram, Flixster, Can't Wait!, Neer and Glympse.

Here we take you on a visual walkthrough and introduce you to Apple's newest software creations.

[More from Mashable: iOS 5: Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade]

With Apple delving deeper into its own application business, one has to wonder: What's next?

This story originally published on Mashable here.

SEC asks companies to disclose cyber attacks (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 06:13 PM PDT

By Jim Finkle and Sarah N. Lynch Jim Finkle And Sarah N. Lynch – Thu Oct 13, 9:13 pm ET

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators formally asked public companies for the first time to disclose cyber attacks against them, following a rash of high-profile Internet crimes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines on Thursday that laid out the kind of information companies should disclose, such as cyber events that could lead to financial losses.

Senator John Rockefeller had asked the SEC to issue guidelines amid concern that it was becoming hard for investors to assess security risks if companies failed to mention data breaches in their public filings.

"Intellectual property worth billions of dollars has been stolen by cyber criminals, and investors have been kept completely in the dark. This guidance changes everything," Rockefeller said in a statement.

"It will allow the market to evaluate companies in part based on their ability to keep their networks secure. We want an informed market and informed consumers, and this is how we do it," Rockefeller said in a statement.

There is a growing sense of urgency about cyber security following breaches at Google Inc, Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, Citigroup, the International Monetary Fund and others.

Tom Kellermann, chief technology officer of security firm AirPatrol Corp, said that the SEC guidance tells companies to report cyber attacks and disclose steps to remediate problems.

"They must also incorporate cyber events into their material risk reports," said Kellermann, who has advised U.S. President Obama on cyber policy.

The SEC gets into specifics, telling companies what type of data they might need to provide investors.

"Examples of estimates that may be affected by cyber incidents include estimates of warranty liability, allowances for product returns, capitalized software costs, inventory, litigation, and deferred revenue," it says.

(The document can be accessed on the SEC's website: www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/cfguidance-topic2.htm )

A report out earlier this month found that U.S. banks are losing ground in the battle to combat credit and debit card fraud because they balk at the expense of higher security. Globally, however, security is improving in the payment industry, according to data from The Nilson Report, a California trade publication.

There is some hope of U.S. legislation to address the problem, although the House of Representatives appears more interested in tackling it piecemeal while the Senate is opting for a more far-reaching approach.

Most of the concern has been focused on critical facilities like nuclear power, electricity, chemical and water treatment plants.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Gary Hill, Bob Burgdorfer and Carol Bishopric)

Hulu sale called off after months of talks (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 05:47 PM PDT

– Thu Oct 13, 8:47 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An attempted sale of online video website Hulu has fallen through after months of difficult and complex negotiations between owners such as Walt Disney Co and potential buyers.

Hulu's owners, which also include News Corp, Comcast Corp's NBC Universal and Providence Equity, said in a statement on Thursday they had decided against a sale of the video service.

"Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu," they said in a statement.

Reuters reported last month that the auction was in danger of getting derailed by conflicts over convoluted digital rights, a wide bid-ask gap, and a lack of commitment to sell by Hulu's owners, among other things.

This was the second time Hulu's owners had envisioned a full or partial exit strategy that failed. After nearly six months of planning, they ditched an initial public offering last December that might have raised up to $300 million.

Sources with knowledge of the talks said last month a rift had developed between the price bidders offered and the amount that Hulu's owners were willing to accept.

Bids had ranged from as low as $500 million to as much as $2 billion, the sources said at the time. The most serious suitors included Google Inc, Amazon.com Inc, DirecTV and DISH Network Corp.

Yahoo Inc had been viewed as one of the most enthusiastic bidders -- before its leadership imploded with the abrupt firing of CEO Carol Bartz.

Hulu's owners had always faced an uphill battle in valuing a nascent Web content-streaming service with no long-term content deals and with unclear digital rights for newer Internet or mobile platforms for which there exists no established model.

Some analysts had thought an outright sale to be an abandonment of Hulu's future growth potential, particularly if, as some experts say, Internet streaming will become mainstream in coming years.

(Reporting by Swetha Gopinath in Bangalore and Edwin Chan in Los Angeles; Editing by Gary Hill)

New iPhone goes on sale, fans say tribute to Jobs (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 09:31 PM PDT

By Michael Perry and Isabel Reynolds Michael Perry And Isabel Reynolds – 27 mins ago

SYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) – Apple Inc's latest iPhone went on sale in stores across the globe on Friday, with fans snapping up the final gadget unveiled during Steve Jobs' lifetime, many buying the phone as a tribute to the former Apple boss.

Hundreds queued around city blocks in Sydney and Tokyo to be the first to get their hands on the iPhone 4S, which looks similar to the previous iPhone 4 but has a better camera, faster processor and well-received voice activated software.

"I am a fan, a big fan. I want something to remember Steve Jobs by," said Haruko Shiraishi, waiting patiently with her Yorkshire terrier Miu Miu at the very end of an eight block queue in Tokyo's smart Ginza shopping district.

Australian Tom Mosca, the first to buy the new phone in Sydney, said the first thing he would do was ask his new white iPhone: "Where's Steve?" Many Apple fans believe the phone was called iPhone 4S meaning "for Steve."

Apple CEO Tim Cook and his executive team hope the first device launched without the firm's former visionary leader at the helm will safeguard their global market share against a growing challenge from the likes of Samsung.

The South Korean firm, Apple's arch-rival with smartphones powered by Google's Android software, expects to overtake it as the world's biggest smartphone vendor in terms of units sold in the third quarter.

The iPhone 4S -- introduced to the world just a day before Jobs died -- was dubbed a disappointment because it fell short of being a revolution in design, but glowing reviews centred around its "Siri" voice-activated software have since helped it set a record pace in initial, online sales orders.

Apple's Asian fans showed no disappointment with their new phones, ahead of sales in Germany, France, Britain and North America. In Tokyo, 24-year-old Ryosuke Ishinabe said: "I just wanted the newest iPhone. I want to try out iCloud."

But despite all the enthusiasm at Apple stores, the launch was marred somewhat by widespread complaints on the Internet about problems downloading iOS 5 -- the latest version of Apple's mobile software.

There were also problems with iCloud, Apple's online communications, media storage and backup service formally launched on Wednesday, with users reporting glitches such as losing their email access.

The iCloud issue coincides with problems for rival Research in Motion, which is grappling with an international outage of its Blackberry email and messaging services.

JOBS SHADOW OVER iPHONE LAUNCH

The vast majority of iPhone 4S buyers at the Sydney store appeared to be existing Apple customers, many having bought the original iPhone and upgrades each time. Only one out of 10 people surveyed by Reuters in Sydney was a new Apple customer.

"I have been waiting for the iPhone 5 for a long time. But since Jobs died, I wanted to make sure I had a new iPhone with some advantages over the old," said iPhone devotee Mark Du, concerned over future Apple gadgets without Jobs at the helm.

Apple fans in Sydney and Tokyo made sure Jobs was part of the iPhone 4S launch, with flower, candle and photo shrines to the late Apple boss erected outside the stores.

Demonstrating the enthusiasm for the new phone, Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Corp had to temporarily stop contract applications after its computer system was overwhelmed with more subscription requests than it had expected.

Apple said it did not release sales figures on launch day, so gauging the initial sales may be difficult. Apple said it had taken more than 1 million online orders in the first 24 hours after its release, exceeding the 600,000 for the iPhone 4, though that model was sold in fewer countries initially.

Some analysts expect fourth-quarter iPhone shipments of as much as 30 million or more, almost double from a year ago.

Apple's fifth-generation iPhone uses chips from Qualcomm Inc, Toshiba and a host of smaller semiconductor companies, according to repair firm iFixit, which cracked the device open on Thursday.

APPLE SOFTWARE CRITICISM

Apple's iOS 5 software became available this week and is intended to upgrade older phones and enable new features such as a messages and better Twitter integration.

Twitter users raged over "Error 3200," dredging up comparisons to the obscure numbered error messages supposedly prevalent in Windows software and complained of inordinately slow download times.

"This would be a great time for like, Samsung or something, to take out a sponsored ad," user Ryan James Kirk tweeted.

The iPhone -- seen as the market's gold standard -- is Apple's highest-margin product and accounts for 40 percent of its annual revenue. It is the world's biggest selling smartphone, with a slim market-share lead over Samsung.

Analysts point to several factors in Apple's favor: a $199 price that matches up well with rival devices such as Amazon.com Inc's "Fire" tablet; availability promised on more than 100 carriers by the end of 2011, far more than its predecessors; and glowing reviews.

In a sign of how tough the competition is, two doors along from the Sydney Apple store, Samsung has been selling its new Galaxy SII for only A$2 to its first 10 customers each day, prompting Samsung fans to also camp out on the footpath.

(Reporting by Michael Perry in SYDNEY, Edwin Chan in LOS ANGELES, Isabel Reynolds in TOKYO and Poornim; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Alex Richardson)

Android App Tablet Review: AndroidSocial for Facebook (Appolicious)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 09:00 PM PDT

Facebook to host cybersecurity discussion for users (Daily Caller)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 09:02 PM PDT

Samsung to unveil new Android model October 19 after delay (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 07:16 PM PDT

– 2 hrs 42 mins ago

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics said on Friday that it planned to unveil a new smartphone based on Google's latest version of the Android operating system at an event in Hong Kong on October 19.

The announcement came after the world's second-biggest handset maker put off the launch of the new device based on the Ice Cream Sandwich system while the world paid tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died last week.

"We are unpacking our new Android phone in concurrence with Google," Samsung said in a statement on Friday, without disclosing the name of the new gadget.

Apple and Samsung are engaged in a bruising legal battle that includes more than 20 cases in 10 countries as the two jostle for the top spot in the smartphone and tablet markets. Apple is also the biggest customer of Samsung, buying mainly chips and displays.

Apple's new iPhone 4S finally went on sale in stores around the globe on Friday, with fans snapping up the final gadget unveiled during Jobs' lifetime.

A U.S. judge said on Thursday Samsung's Galaxy tablets infringe Apple iPad patents, but also that Apple has a problem establishing the validity of its patents.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)

Android App Tablet Review: Ustream (Appolicious)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 08:00 PM PDT

FCC presses AT&T on jobs claims for merger (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 07:16 PM PDT

– 2 hrs 42 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal telecommunications regulator asked AT&T Inc (T.N) on Thursday to provide data on claims that its deal to buy T-Mobile USA would mean a net gain of U.S. jobs, saying its responses on this issue "remain incomplete."

The Federal Communications Commission said in a letter to AT&T's lead attorney Rick Rosen that the agency had asked about U.S. jobs in a request for information sent in May.

AT&T has defended the $39 billion transaction, saying it would bring 5,000 overseas jobs back to the United States, but the FCC pressed for data to show there would be a net increase in U.S. jobs.

"Our review of the information currently in our record suggests that AT&T's response on this issue remain incomplete," wrote Rick Kaplan, chief of the FCC's wireless communications bureau.

Kaplan also asked for all AT&T data on the "size and location" of AT&T's workforce currently and after the planned merger is consummated. The $39 billion deal would merge two of the four large national cellphone carriers.

In August, the Justice Department sued to stop the deal, saying that the transaction would lead to higher wireless prices. A trial will begin on February 13.

The FCC must also approve the merger for it to go ahead.

Last month, attorneys general from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington signed onto the effort to stop

The deal would vault AT&T over Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L), into the No. 1 spot. T-Mobile USA is now owned by Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE).

Sprint (S.N), the third-largest carrier, has bitterly opposed the AT&T buy.

A key government concern is that T-Mobile, the No. 4 wireless carrier, generally costs less than other carriers so its disappearance could mean higher prices for wireless service.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Gary Hill)

Google may pair Music Beta with an Online music store (Digital Trends)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 08:57 PM PDT

Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes – 1 hr 1 min ago

google musicGoogle is said to be planning a launch of an MP3 download service; a counterpart to Apple's upcoming streaming product and Amazon's Cloud Drive. The search giant is currently stuck in negotiations with major record labels.

The New York Times was the first to report on the matter, pointing out that Google would most likely be combining the Music Beta product—first launched in May—with the upcoming MP3 store. The Music Beta allows users to back up songs remotely and stream on mobile devices; a competitor to Amazon's Cloud Drive service, as well as Apple's upcoming iCloud.

Google is hoping to launch the MP3 store service within weeks, perhaps before Apple makes iMatch available later on in the season, but its not clear whether the search company can finalize the deals in time. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

Google and Amazon initially went ahead with their locker services without partnerships from music labels. Though locker services were legally absolved of piracy issues a couple months ago in the MP3tunes case, the lack of cooperation from record labels who are wary of piracy issues with remote music storage is not helping Google's product.

Apple has an edge over Amazon and Google, having secured licenses from the big 4 music companies: Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music and EMI. Google wants to offer an efficient and comprehensive service, but according to the WSJ, the runt of the litter, EMI, is the only one close to a deal for catalog licensing with Google. The other three major music companies are continuing with talk s over copyright issues.

Music Beta was launched earlier this year and is currently invitation only. Google's cloud product is free, compared to the $25 iCloud and $20 Cloud Drive. Users have the ability to upload 20,000 songs, including iTunes music.

 

 

Apple must show patents valid in Samsung case: judge (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 09:12 PM PDT

By Dan Levine Dan Levine – 46 mins ago

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) – A U.S. judge said that Samsung Electronic's Galaxy tablets infringe Apple Inc's iPad patents, but added that Apple has a problem establishing the validity of its patents in the latest courtroom face-off between the technology giants.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh made the comments in a court hearing on Thursday, but has yet to rule on Apple's request to bar some Galaxy products from being sold in the United States.

Apple and Samsung are engaged in a bruising legal battle that includes more than 20 cases in 10 countries as the two jostle for the top spot in the smartphone and tablet markets.

Earlier on Thursday, an Australian court slapped a temporary ban on the sale of Samsung's latest computer tablet in that country.

Apple sued Samsung in the United States in April, saying the South Korean company's Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copies the iPhone and iPad.

Apple then filed a request in July to bar some Samsung products from U.S. sale, including the Galaxy S 4G smartphone and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

Mobile providers Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA have opposed Apple's request, arguing that a ban on Galaxy products would cut into holiday sales.

Apple must show both that Samsung infringed its patents and that its patents are valid under the law.

Samsung attorney Kathleen Sullivan argued that in order to defeat an injunction bid, Samsung need only show that it has raised strong enough questions about the validity of Apple's patents.

"We think we've clearly raised substantial questions," Sullivan said at the hearing on Thursday in a San Jose, California federal court.

Apple attorney Harold McElhinny said Apple's product design is far superior to previous tablets, so Apple's patents should not be invalidated by designs that came before.

"It was the design that made the difference," McElhinny said.

Koh frequently remarked on the similarity between each company's tablets. At one point during the hearing, she held one black glass tablet in each hand above her head, and asked Sullivan if she could identify which company produced which.

"Not at this distance your honor," said Sullivan, who stood at a podium roughly ten feet away.

"Can any of Samsung's lawyers tell me which one is Samsung and which one is Apple?" Koh asked. A moment later, one of the lawyers supplied the right answer.

Additionally, at the hearing Koh said she would deny Apple's request for an injunction based on one of Apple's so-called "utility" patents.

She did not say whether she would grant the injunction based on three other Apple "design" patents.

Koh characterized her thoughts on the utility patent as "tentative" but said she would issue a formal order "fairly promptly."

"It took a long time to make that distinction," Koh said.

After the hearing, Samsung spokesman Kim Titus said Apple's injunction request is "groundless."

Apple spokeswoman Kristen Huguet said, "It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad ... This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.

(Editing by Tim Dobbyn, Steve Orlofsky, Richard Chang and Alex Richardson)

NPD: US retail video game sales fell in September (AP)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 06:09 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Oct 13, 9:09 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories dipped 4 percent to $1.13 billion in September, according to market researcher NPD Group. Sales of the games themselves grew somewhat, but this was overshadowed by lower sales of game consoles and accessories.

The NPD Group said Thursday in its monthly report that sales of video game software — which refers to the actual games — rose 3 percent to $630 million in September, up from $612 million a year earlier.

The top game during the month was the latest installment of Electronic Arts Inc.'s "Madden" football game, "Madden NFL 12." The game came out at the end of August, which is later than EA usually rolls out a new version of the game. Microsoft Corp.'s "Gears of War 3" and Deep Silver Inc.'s "Dead Island" took the No. 2 and 3 spots, respectively.

Sales of video game hardware, which includes hand-held game systems and gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox 360, fell 9 percent to $349 million from $383 million last September. And sales of video game accessories sank 14 percent to $155 million from $181 million.

When including PC game sales, overall U.S. sales declined 6 percent to $1.16 billion.

The research firm does not include game downloads and online games in its monthly retail sales data, so the numbers can sometimes show a decline even if more people are playing games on Facebook, their mobile phones and elsewhere.

Was Dennis Ritchie more important than Steve Jobs? (Digital Trends)

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 03:17 PM PDT

Geoff Duncan Geoff Duncan – Thu Oct 13, 6:17 pm ET

dennis-ritchie-vs-steve-jobs

Computing pioneer Dennis Ritchie died this past weekend at age 70, becoming the second technology giant to pass within a week — the other, of course, being Apple's Steve Jobs. Although Jobs was unquestionably the better-known figure, Ritchie was the creator of the C programming language and one of the primary developers of the Unix operating system, both of which have had profound impacts on modern technology. Unix and C lie at the heart of everything from Internet servers to mobile phones, set-top boxes and software. They have exerted tremendous influence on almost all current languages and operating systems. And, these days, computers are everywhere.

The coinciding events lead to an obvious question: Who was more important to modern technology, Ritchie or Jobs? It’s a classic apples-to-oranges question… but the search for an answer sheds a bit of light on what lead to the high-tech revolution and all the cool toys we have today.

Dennis Ritchie, Unix, and C

Dennis Ritchie was a computer scientist in the truest definition: He earned a degree in physics and applied mathematics from Harvard in the the 1960s and followed his father to work at Bell Labs, which was one of the hotbeds of tech development in the United States. By 1968 Ritchie had completed his Ph.D., and from 1969 to 1973 he developed the C programming language for use with the then-fledgling Unix operating system. The language was named C because it developed out of another language called B, created by Ken Thompson (with some input from Ritchie) for use with Multics, a Unix precursor. So, yes, even the name is geeky.

dennis-ritchie

Both Multics and Unix were developed for early minicomputers. Of course, they were "mini" in name only: Back in the early 1970s, a "minicomputer" was a series of cabinets that dominated a room, made more noise than an asthmatic air conditioner, and had five- and six-figure price tags. The processing and storage capacities of those systems are utterly dwarfed by commonplace devices today: An average calculator or mobile phone has thousands-to-millions of times the storage and processing capability of those minicomputers. Minicomputers' memory and storage constraints meant that, if you wanted to develop a multitasking operating system that could run several programs at once, you needed a very, very efficient implementation language.

Initially, that language was assembly: low-level, processor-specific languages that have a nearly one-to-one mapping with machine language, the actual instructions executed by computer processors. (Basically, when people think of utterly incomprehensible screens of computer code, they're thinking of assembler and machine code.) Ritchie's C enabled programmers to write structured, procedural programs using a high-level language without sacrificing much of the efficiency of assembler. C offers low-level memory access, requires almost no run-time support from an operating system, and compiles in ways that map very well to machine instructions.

If that were all C did, it probably would have been little more than a fond footnote in the history of minicomputers, alongside things like CPL, PL/I, and ALGOL. However, the Unix operating system was being designed to be ported to different hardware platforms, and so C was also developed with hardware portability in mind. The first versions of Unix were primarily coded in assembler, but by 1973 Unix had been almost completely rewritten in C. The portability turned out to be C's superpower: Eventually, a well-written program in standard C could be compiled across an enormous range of computer hardware platforms with virtually no changes — in fact, that's still true today. As a result, C compilers are available for virtually every computer hardware platform today and for the last three decades, and learning C is still a great way to get into programming for a huge number of platforms. C remains one of the most widely-used programming languages on the planet.

The popularity of C was tied tightly to the popularity of Unix, along with its many offshoots and descendants. Today, you see Unix not only in the many distributions of Linux (liked Red Hat and Ubuntu) but also at the core of Android as well as Apple's iOS and Mac OS X. However, Ritchie made another tremendous contribution to C's popularity as the co-author with Brian Kernighan of The C Programming Language, widely known as the "K&R." For at least two generations of computer programmers, the K&R was the definitive introduction to not just C, but to compilers and general structured programming. The K&R was first published in 1978, and despite being a slim volume, set the standard for excellence in both content and quality. And if you've ever wondered why almost every programming reference or tutorial starts out with a short program that displays "Hello world"… just know it all started with K&R.

To be sure, neither Unix nor C are beyond criticism: Ritchie himself noted "C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success." Both C and Unix were developed for use by programmers and engineers with brevity and efficiency in mind. There's almost nothing user-friendly or accessible about either Unix or C. If you want to stun non-technical computer users into cowed silence, a Unix command prompt or a page of C code are guaranteed to do the job. C's low-level power can also be its Achilles Heel: for instance, C (and derivatives like C++) offer no bounds-checking or other protection against buffer overflows — which means many of the potential security exploits common these days can often be traced back to C… or, at least, to programmers using C and its descendants. Good workmen don't blame their tools, right?

But the simple fact is that Unix and C spawned an incredibly broad and diverse ecosystem of technology. Microcontrollers, security systems, GPS, satellites, vehicle systems, traffic lights, Internet routers, synthesizers, digital cameras, televisions, set-top boxes, Web servers, the world's fastest supercomputers — and literally millions of other things… the majority descend from work done by Dennis Ritchie. And that includes a ton of computers, smartphones, and tablets — and the components within them.

Steve Jobs and the rest of us

Steve Jobs' legacy is (and will continue to be) well-documented elsewhere: As co-founder and long-time leader of Apple, as well as a technology and business celebrity enveloped in a cult of personality, Jobs' impact on the modern technology world is indisputable.

However, Jobs' contributions are an interesting contrast to Ritchie's. Ritchie was about a decade-and-a-half older than Jobs, and got started in technology at a correspondingly earlier date: When Ritchie started, there was no such thing as a personal computer. Although a perfectionist with a keen eye for design and usability — and, of course, a charismatic showman — Jobs was neither a computer scientist nor an engineer, and didn't engage in much technical work himself.

steve-jobs-holding-iphone

There's a well-known anecdote from Jobs' pre-Apple days, when he was working at Atari to save up money for a trip to India. Atari gave Jobs the task of designing a simpler circuit board for its Breakout game, offering him a bonus of $100 for every chip he could eliminate from the design. Jobs' response — not being an engineer — was to take the work to long-time friend and electronics hacker Steve Wozniak, offering to split the $100-per-chip bounty with him. The incident is illustrative of Jobs' style. In creating products, Jobs didn't do the work himself: He recognized opportunities, then got the best people he could find to work on them. Woz reportedly cut more than four dozen chips from the board.

Wozniak and Jobs founded Apple in 1976 (with Ronald Wayne), just as Unix was graduating from research project status at AT&T to an actual product, and before K&R was initially published. But even then, Jobs wasn't looking at the world of mainstream computing — at least, as it existed in 1976. Apple Computer (as it was known then) was about personal computers, which were essentially unknown at the time. Jobs realized there was a tremendous opportunity to take the technology that was then the realm of engineers of computer scientists like Ritchie — and, to be fair, Wozniak — and make it part of people's everyday lives. Computers didn't have to be just about numbers and payrolls, balance sheets and calculations. They could be entertaining, communication tools, even artful. Jobs just didn't see computers as empowering to large corporations and industry. They could be empowering to small businesses, education, and everyday people. And, indeed, Apple Computer did jumpstart personal computers, with the Apple II essentially defining the industry — even if it was later eclipsed by IBM and IBM-compatible systems.

With the Apple Lisa and (much more successfully) the Apple Macintosh, Jobs continued to extend that idea. Unix and its brethren were inscrutable and intimidating; with the Macintosh, Jobs set out to make a "computer for the rest of us." As we all know, the Macintosh redefined the personal computer as a friendly, intuitive device that was immediately fun and useful, and to which many users formed a personal connection. Macs didn't just work, they inspired.

Jobs was forced out of Apple shortly after the Mac's introduction — and, indeed, Apple spent many years literally building biege boxes, while Microsoft worked on its own GUI — but his return to the company brought back the same values. With the original iMac, Macintosh design regained its flair. With the iPod, Apple was able to meld technology and elegant design to many consumers' obsession—popular music—and when Apple finally turned its attention to the world of mobile phones, the results were an undeniable success. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the bulk of the PC industry has been following Apple's lead for at least the last dozen years (even longer, when it comes to notebooks), and Apple was never matched in the portable media player market. Similarly, Android might be the world's leading smartphone platform, but there's no denying the Apple iPhone is the world's leading smartphone—and the iPad defined (and still utterly dominates) the tablet market.

As with the original Mac, the Apple II, and even that old Atari circuit board, Jobs didn̢۪t do these things himself. He turned to the best people he could find and worked to refine and focus their efforts. In his later years, that involved remaking Apple Computer into Apple, Inc., and applying his razor-sharp sense for functionality, purpose, and design to a carefully selected range of products.

Who wins?

Dennis Ritchie eventually became the head of Lucent Technologies' Software System Research Department before retiring in 2007; he never led a multi billion-dollar corporation, sought the public eye, or had his every utterance scrutinized and re-scrutinized. Ritchie was by all accounts a quiet, modest man with a strong work ethic and dry sense of humor. But the legacy of his work played a key role in spawning the technological revolution of the last forty years — including technology on which Apple went on to build its fortune.

Conversely, Steve Jobs was never an engineer. Instead, his legacy lies in democratizing technology, bringing it out of the realm of engineers and programmers and into people's classrooms, living rooms, pockets, and lives. Jobs literally created technology for the rest of us.

Who wins? We all do. And now, it's too late to personally thank either of them.

at 10:08 PM

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