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Writer Isaacson on Steve Jobs: 'I just listened' (AP) : Technet |
- Writer Isaacson on Steve Jobs: 'I just listened' (AP)
- FCC set to unveil rules for rural broadband fund (AP)
- Report: Facebook plans huge server farm in Sweden (AP)
- Buy a civilization starter kit, prepare for the apocalypse now (Yahoo! News)
- iPads and Angry Birds are headed to the International Space Station (Yahoo! News)
- YouTube Trolls Power Insult-Generating Search Engine (Mashable)
- US reaches out to Iranians, warns Iran government (AP)
- Google paid $151M for Zagat in flurry of 3Q deals (AP)
- Canon introduces a 12-ink PIXMA printer (Digital Trends)
- Sprint and Clearwire in talks to extend 4G agreement beyond 2012 (Digital Trends)
- Opinion: Unthink, Occupy Wall Street and the coming age of the anti-Facebook (Digital Trends)
- Sprint eyes new financing as iPhone swells costs (Reuters)
- App downloads dropped in September ahead of iPhone 4S launch (Appolicious)
- It's Showtime for Razr Phone Revival as Pre-Orders Open (NewsFactor)
- Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 unveiled with Windows Phone 7.5, turn-by-turn, free music - Everything you need to know (Digital Trends)
- Top 10 best iPhone food apps (Digital Trends)
- Symantec forecasts sales below Street, shares drop (Reuters)
- IBM Unveils New 'Big Data' Tools (NewsFactor)
| Writer Isaacson on Steve Jobs: 'I just listened' (AP) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:09 PM PDT NEW YORK – Steve Jobs told Walter Isaacson he wanted him to write his biography because he's good at getting people to talk. Jobs, it turns out, didn't need much prodding, secretive as he was about both his private life and the company he founded. "I just listened," said Isaacson, whose book, "Steve Jobs" (Simon & Schuster) went on sale Monday. Jobs, who died Oct. 5 at 56 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer, was a man full of deep contradictions, a product of 1960s counterculture who went on to found what is now the world's most valuable technology company, Apple Inc. In an interview with The Associated Press Wednesday, Isaacson said Jobs was a compelling storyteller with "fascinating stories." Sometimes, the author would hear him tell those tales two or three times, often with slight variations. But through more than 40 conversations with Jobs, as well as interviews with his family, close friends, co-workers and rivals, Isaacson painted a rich portrait of a complex, sometimes conflicting figure. Isaacson began work on the book in 2009 after Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell, told him that if he was "ever going to do a book on Steve, you'd better do it now." It was just after Jobs had taken his second medical leave as CEO of Apple, in January of that year. His third leave, which began in January 2011, would be his final one. "He was not sick through much of this process," Isaacson said, when asked about what it was like to be working on the book and speaking with Jobs' family while he was ill. "We took long walks," he said. "Every evening, he would have dinner around the kitchen table with his wife and kids. He didn't go out socializing or to black-tie dinners. He didn't travel much. Even though he was focused on his work, he was always home for dinner." Those who see Jobs as the iconic CEO first might be surprised to read about his devotion to his family. It wasn't always evident. As a young man, Jobs denied paternity of his first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, for years after Lisa was born in 1978. The two later reconciled. Isaacson said he was most surprised by the intensity of Jobs' emotions. "Sometimes I'd look up and there would be tears running down his cheek," Isaacson said. Jobs told him he was always moved by "artistic purity." Sometimes, it was the design of a product, or even the creation of an advertisement that would move him to tears. Other times, it happened as he talked about a person who meant a lot to him. For his 20th wedding anniversary with Powell, Jobs wrote her a letter that he read to Isaacson from his iPhone. By the end, Isaacson said, he was crying uncontrollably. "Years passed, kids came, good times, hard times, but never bad times," Jobs wrote in the note. "Our love and respect has endured and grown." Those around Jobs referred to his ability to influence the perception of those around him as his "reality distortion field." Though on the surface it sounds similar, this was far more complex than someone who is lying or deluding himself. As Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak puts it in the book: "You realize that it can't be true, but he somehow makes it true." The "reality distortion field" was Jobs' way of getting people to do what they thought was impossible, Isaacson said. An example was how he'd tell an engineer working on the Macintosh that he could save 10 seconds on the time the computer needed to boot up if he just wrote better code. "And the guy would say `no you can't,'" Isaacson said. Jobs then asked the engineer if he could do it if it would save a life. And so the engineer did; he wrote better code and he shaved not 10 but 28 seconds off the Macintosh's boot-up time. While writing the book, Isaacson said he came to understand the connection between Jobs' temperamental behavior and his artistic passion. "I have a strong emotional respect for Steve," he said. "And it helped me put in perspective ... the tales of him being hard on people. Because I knew it was all in the context of getting people to do the impossible. Which he did." Isaacson didn't spend time shadowing Jobs, though he did spend an afternoon at the design studio of Jony Ive, the chief designer at Apple who worked on the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. It was Ive who came up with the idea of making the first iPod, including its headphones, pure white. In the afternoons, Isaacson said Jobs would walk around Ive's studio and touch all the new prototypes that were laid out there. "He was a very tactile person," Isaacson said. "He loved to fondle the prototypes." Isaacson spent a long afternoon in that studio and doing so "realized what a serene experience it was. Quiet, with new-age jazz playing softly. The leaves from the trees outside casting dancing silhouette shadows on the tinted windows. And even small products like power adapters being lined up for inspections." Can Apple continue to thrive without Jobs? "Yeah, I think that his great creation was not any one product but a company in which creativity was connected to great engineering," Isaacson said. "And that will survive at least while the current people who trained under Steve are there." |
| FCC set to unveil rules for rural broadband fund (AP) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 11:38 AM PDT NEW YORK – Federal regulators are set to reveal their plan Thursday for an overhaul of the $8 billion fund that subsidizes phone service in rural areas and for the poor, with the goal of redirecting the money toward broadband expansion. The Federal Communications Commission is also preparing to disclose new rules for the byzantine system that governs how phone companies pay each other for phone calls. It's a system that, virtually everyone in the industry agrees, is outdated and leads to perverse schemes by carriers to stimulate certain kinds of phone traffic. However, reform of the system has been held up for years by competing interests. Together, the new rules are set to be the Obama administration's most significant overhaul of telecommunications regulations. The five-member commission will vote on the rules at a meeting Thursday morning. The Universal Service Fund was created to ensure that all Americans have access to a basic telephone line. It is supported by a surcharge on long-distance phone bills. The program subsidizes phone service for the poor and pays for Internet access in schools, libraries and rural health clinics. But more than half the money goes to pay phone companies that provide phone service in rural places where lines are supposedly unprofitable. John Stephens, chief financial officer of the country's biggest phone company, AT&T Inc., told investors and analysts last week that "in general, we're very positive to the idea of getting a refresh of those rules." AT&T and the other big phone companies have put forward their own reform proposal. The FCC's plan is expected to borrow at least some features from it. That plan suggested capping the size of the new fund at $4.5 billion annually, giving subsidies to only one provider in an area and directing funds toward places where there is no business case for companies to provide service on their own. In addition, it would fund wireless broadband access in remote or rugged areas where wired line construction costs the most. Policy director Matt Wood at consumer advocacy group Free Press said the phone-company plan had "very little to do with increasing broadband adoption, and everything to do with allowing monopoly local phone providers to reach further into the pockets of consumers." Meanwhile, small rural phone companies have their own plan, and are apprehensive that the FCC will place limits on how they use their funding and divert money to wireless broadband. The FCC estimated last year that 9.2 million U.S. households, or about 26 million people, don't have access to wired broadband. Excluding those who can get broadband wirelessly, the number shrinks to 5 million households or 14 million people. That's 4.5 percent of the population. Telecom consultant Rory Altman at Altman Vilandrie & Co. notes that broadband coverage has spread much faster than phone service once did, and further funding might not accomplish much. "What are we trying to solve by funneling more money into this?" he asked. |
| Report: Facebook plans huge server farm in Sweden (AP) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 11:07 AM PDT STOCKHOLM – Facebook plans to build a large server farm in northern Sweden near the Arctic Circle, taking advantage of the chilly climate to keep its equipment cool, a Swedish newspaper reported Wednesday The Norrbottens Kuriren newspaper said the American social network will announce its plans Thursday in Lulea, site of the operation, which is 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle. The paper cited Jan Fredriksson of Helm1 PR, a public relations agency that represents Facebook in Sweden. Fredriksson and Facebook officials didn't return calls and emails seeking comment Wednesday. Servers inside data centers are the backbone of Internet services such as Facebook, which has an estimated 800 million active users worldwide. The servers store and transmit billions of status updates, links, photos and all the outside apps used by Facebook's members. City officials in Lulea have said earlier they were in talks with an "American world-leading company" to build the 5-acre (2-hectare) data center near the Lulea University of Technology. They declined to comment Wednesday. The three server halls are expected to take three years to build at a cost of up to 5 billion kronor ($760 million). Lulea officials have stressed the city's access to renewable energy from hydropower facilities near the city and its solid power grid. In case of a blackout, construction designs call for each building to have 14 backup diesel generators with a total output of 40 MW. Officials also emphasize Lulea's favorable climate for the cooling of server halls, with winter temperatures below freezing and summertime highs that rarely climb above 80F (25 C). |
| Buy a civilization starter kit, prepare for the apocalypse now (Yahoo! News) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:57 PM PDT |
| iPads and Angry Birds are headed to the International Space Station (Yahoo! News) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:52 PM PDT |
| YouTube Trolls Power Insult-Generating Search Engine (Mashable) Posted: 25 Oct 2011 01:58 PM PDT YouTube is pretty great, but YouTube commenters? Not so much. For every smart, insightful, useful comment below a YouTube video, there are usually 25 trolls either talking about genitalia, belittling the content or belittling those smart, insightful, useful commenters. Chicago-based web developer Adrian Holovaty has put all that negativity to (relatively) good use with the YouTube Insult Generator, a website that lets you cull insults from commenters with a simple search. [More from Mashable: Why Obama Needs Social Media to Win in 2012] Here's how it works: A certain number of people always "Dislike" a YouTube video, and fans of the video make fun of those dislikers for having bad taste or just being jerks. The Insult Generator finds these responses to the dislikers and fits it into the site's search bar, using YouTube's API. The results you get are like comebacks against people who don't like the search term. Holovaty admits the system isn't perfect, but check out some of the results above for an idea of when it does work. The Insult Generator may just be a bit of fun, but it's also a glimpse into the patterns of YouTube commenters. Fun social experiment? Useless diversion? What do you make of Holovaty's project? [More from Mashable: Social Responsibility: It's Not Just for Brands Anymore] Image courtesy of Flickr, Trevor Coultart This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| US reaches out to Iranians, warns Iran government (AP) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 06:30 PM PDT WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is setting up an Internet-based embassy to reach out to Iranians hoping to broaden their understanding of the United States, while at the same time studying new sanctions to raise the pressure on Iran's government over its disputed nuclear program and alleged ties to terrorism. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in interviews Wednesday with Persian-language media that the U.S. wanted to affirm its friendship to the Iranian people even at a time of rising tensions with the regime in Tehran. As part of that effort, she said a "virtual embassy in Tehran" will be online by the end of the year, helping Iranians wishing to travel or study in the United States. "We're trying to reach out to the Iranian people," Clinton said. "We've tried to reach out to the government, just not very successfully." Clinton stressed that the U.S. was committed to its two-track approach of engagement and sanctions toward the Iranian government. But she said the outreach was being directed to ordinary Iranians who've suffered as a result of their government's "reckless" conduct regarding its uranium enrichment activities, fomenting of unrest in neighboring countries and its role in the alleged terror plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington. The U.S. hasn't had an embassy in Iran since breaking off diplomatic relations shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran, likewise, has no embassy in Washington, but Clinton said President Barack Obama has tried to entreat Tehran into negotiations. Separately Wednesday, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the U.S. should kick out Iranian officials at the United Nations in New York and in Washington because many of them are spies. King said the move would be an appropriate response to alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador, but the State Department rejected the suggestion. "First of all, we don't have any Iranian diplomats in Washington because we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran," department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. Concerning Iranian diplomats in New York, she said the U.S. as the host nation for the U.N. was obliged to allow diplomats from all countries that are members of the global body. Clinton, who celebrated her 64th birthday Wednesday, spoke with the BBC and "Parazit," a Persian-language program run by Voice of America that follows the news satire format popularized in the U.S. by the "Daily Show." Yet she spoke seriously about her fears that Iran was becoming a more entrenched "military dictatorship" threatening countries in its region and beyond. On Iran's uranium enrichment activities, Clinton said, "Everyone believes that the covert actions, the covert facilities, the misleading information is part of an attempt by the regime to acquire nuclear weapons." Iran says the program is solely for producing energy, but she claimed the evidence suggests otherwise. The U.S. already has a series of sanctions on the Iranian economy, but Clinton said new measures were being examined to pressure the government into being a better global citizen. Iran's central bank and the economic activities of the hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force are possible targets, she suggested. Clinton also spoke of Iran's efforts to jam Internet sites and track dissident activity on the Internet, part of a policy that she deemed an "electronic curtain." She said Iran's was the most effective government in the world in disrupting Internet and telephone communication. "It's the 21st century equivalent of the barbed wire and the fences and the dogs that the old Soviet Union used, because they come at it from the same mentality," Clinton said. "They want totalitarian control over what you learn and what you say and even what you think and how you worship and all the things that go to the heart of human dignity and human freedom." The U.S. is continuing work on creating new technologies to help dissidents and regime opponents circumvent censorship and monitoring, Clinton said. She called it one of her highest priorities. Yet she also expressed some regret for the U.S. government's tepid support for the opposition Green Movement after Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election. Unlike in Libya, where the U.S. and other countries intervened to protect people protesting against Moammar Gadhafi's dictatorship, Clinton noted that the Iranian demonstrators insisted that they wanted no U.S. help. "We were torn," she said. "It was a very tough time for us because we wanted to be full-hearted in favor of what was going on inside Iran and we kept being cautioned that we would put people's lives in danger, we would discredit the movement, we would undermine their aspirations. "I think if something were to happen again, it would be smart for the Green Movement, or some other movement inside Iran, to say we want the voices of the world, we want the support of the world behind us." |
| Google paid $151M for Zagat in flurry of 3Q deals (AP) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 04:35 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO – Google spent more than $500 million to acquire another 27 companies during the third quarter, ensuring this year will be busiest shopping spree in the Internet search leader's history. The tally emerged Wednesday in a quarterly report that included another previously undisclosed nugget: Google Inc. paid $151 million in cash for the Zagat Survey, a renowned restaurant review publisher that Google bought to counter the popularity of Yelp's business rating service. The price is higher than estimated in previously published reports, which pegged the deal's value between $65 million and $125 million. Google's latest flurry of deals raised its acquisition count to 57 companies through the first nine months of the year. That already exceeds Google's previous annual record of 48 acquisitions, reached last year. Although Google has never completed more acquisitions in its 13-year history, the company isn't guaranteed of setting a new spending record. Through September, Google's deals had cost a total of $1.4 billion. That's below the $1.8 billion that Google spent last year and less than the $3.2 billion it spent in 2008 buying online advertising service DoubleClick, its biggest-ever purchase and its only acquisition that year. Google agreed to buy cell phone maker for Motorola Mobility Inc. for $12.5 billion in August, but that deal may not be completed before the end of the year. That's because the U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether the proposed takeover would stifle competition in the increasingly important mobile phone market. Most of Google's acquisitions involve small startups that are developing promising technology or employ talented engineers. Google snapped up the Zagat Survey because it wanted a well-known brand that would allow it to feature more restaurant recommendations and reviews on its own website instead of sending Web surfers to Yelp and other rivals. Google tried to buy Yelp in 2009, only to be rebuffed. Yelp is now among a group of competitors trying to convince U.S. regulators that Google has abused its dominance of Internet search by highlighting its own services in its results. After Zagat, the next-largest acquisition Google completed in the third quarter was the $114 million purchase of Daily Deals, an online discount service in Europe. |
| Canon introduces a 12-ink PIXMA printer (Digital Trends) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:00 PM PDT
Earlier today, Canon officially announced the PIXMA PRO-1 professional inkjet printer. The PIXMA PRO-1 uses a new 12-ink system as well as a new FINE print head system for greater color accuracy when printing photographs. While five of the inks are monochrome, the entire color spectrum includes cyan, magenta, yellow, red, photo cyan, photo magenta, photo black, matte black, gray, dark gray, light gray and chroma optimizer. The magenta cast that's typically found when printing portraits has been eliminated with the 12-ink system and skin-tone reproduction has been significantly improved with a more lifelike, natural look. The PIXMA PRO-1 can also be networked via an Ethernet connection giving multiple users on a home network access to professional prints. This feature is ideal for schools with photography programs that are looking to network a computer lab with access to a high quality photo printer. The Canon PIXMA PRO-1 professional inkjet printer will have an approximate retail price of $999.99, but no release date has been announced for the launch of the new printer. This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends
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| Sprint and Clearwire in talks to extend 4G agreement beyond 2012 (Digital Trends) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 03:43 PM PDT
Sprint decided to ditch WiMax and focus on LTE for its flavor of 4G technology. Previously Clearwire powered Sprint's WiMax 4G network, and learned that it would be losing its biggest customer at the end of its current contract. Much like Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon, Clearwire also figured that the future of 4G lay in the hands of LTE, so it decided it would also build a LTE network. If your head is already spinning with all of this cell phone network talk please review our guide that explains all of the 4G options. This is why Sprint and Clearwire are on talking terms again. Sprint hopes to launch its LTE network by the middle of 2012, and in order to do so it will need all the help it can get. Things start getting a little tricky when the details around the possible contract extension are examined a little closer. Clearwire publicly announced that it will need around 1 billion dollars to build a LTE network, but Clearwire doesn't have that kind of money lying around. It is safe to assume that Sprint will help Clearwire with some or most of the billion dollars it needs, in order to use the network at a discounted rate. So why would Sprint help another company build a LTE network instead of building its own network? The answer is pretty simple in this case, because Sprint is the majority owner of Clearwire. If Clearwire isn't able to transition from WiMax to LTE then the company will have no future, and Sprint doesn't want that.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends
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| Opinion: Unthink, Occupy Wall Street and the coming age of the anti-Facebook (Digital Trends) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 05:26 PM PDT
Early today, Tampa-based startup Unthink launched its new social network, which describes itself as the "anti-Facebook." Complete with deeds and manifestos of its philosophies and guidelines, Unthink promises to never sell your personal data for financial gain, to not "spy" on you or interrupt you with unwanted advertising. "We are not another social network," the Unthink website proclaims. "We are a social revolution."
Who owns your data?Unlike either Facebook or Google+, Unthink says that users will have complete ownership of the personal data – things like names, ages, religion, political leanings and sexual orientation – that they add to their Unthink profile. Facebook, on the other hand, uses everything from personal data to users' photos to custom tailor advertising. It's one of the primary ways Facebook makes money – and the reason the social network doesn't cost a dime to use.Despite the revolutionary talk of Unthink, the company will still sell advertising. Rather than serve ads based upon mined data, however, Unthink (which has reportedly received around $2.5 million in funding from venture capitalists) will allow users to choose which companies, if any, they would like to have "sponsor" their profiles. Users can also opt-out of advertising entirely, at a shockingly low cost of $2 per year. The "anti-Facebook" message of Unthink appears to have resonated, as the site has been so heavily bombarded with traffic all day that gaining access has proven impossible. That is not to say, however, that Unthink will be successful, or steal even a single user away from Facebook – it probably won't. But I will say this: Change is in the air, and the desire for a new way floats just beneath the surface, ready to percolate to a disruptive boil the moment someone turns up the heat.
As you likely already realized, a similar anti-corporate sentiment has already begun to make waves offline. In lower Manhattan, and in cities around the world, disgruntled people who feel abused by a system that allows institutions to make nauseating amounts of money at the expense of the masses – the 99 percent – have begun to chant, and scream, and march, and occupy, in an attempt to have their voices heard. |
| Sprint eyes new financing as iPhone swells costs (Reuters) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:46 PM PDT (Reuters) – Sprint finally owned up to the massive bet it is making on iPhone, sending its shares down as much as 12 percent on Wednesday. The No. 3 U.S. operator said it could need $7 billion in new financing over the next few years to cover a cash shortfall caused by heavy investments in the Apple Inc iPhone introduction and a big network upgrade. Sprint said it does not expect the benefits from iPhone to exceed its costs until 2015. It also said it was negotiating a new deal with majority owned Clearwire Corp, its biggest client. Clearwire shares closed up 19.5 percent. Sprint was sharply criticized for refusing to disclose iPhone costs and its intentions for Clearwire at an October 7 conference. Besides the $7 billion network upgrade plan, Sprint has committed to pay at least $15.5 billion to Apple in the next four years for iPhone, but it expects that amount to be even bigger because it is based on the number of phones it sells. Sprint, whose market capitalization is $7 billion, estimated the "net present value," or present value of anticipated profits from the contract, at $7 billion to $8 billion over the next four years. Analysts were skeptical the bet would work. "To meet their target, they'd effectively have to turn their entire company into an Apple shop," said Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett. Another analyst said investors should stay away until they see clear signs Sprint will succeed. "They're betting the house on two things at the same time," said Mizuho analyst Michael Nelson. "If they pull it off, great. If they don't, their financial performance would get materially worse, and they could have significant liquidity risks." Nelson said it would be at least a year before investors could assess whether both plans are working because of the timing of the network upgrade. Sprint warned it would need to refinance $4 billion of debt and raise up to $3 billion from vendor financing deals in the next few years to cover iPhone and network costs and keep its cash balance at a minimum of $2 billion. Rating Agency Fitch said the company would need to go to the market to improve it's liquidity as soon as possible or face another review of its credit rating. "We need to see it's a priority for the company," said Fitch analyst Bill Densmore, who added that his current B+ rating of the company has "limited flexibility" for any missteps by Sprint in executing its strategy. IPHONE WORTH EVERY PENNY? Sprint, which started taking iPhone orders on October 7, said it would pay Apple a subsidy that is 40 percent higher, or $200 more per device, than what it pays for other phones. Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse told analysts on a conference call the iPhone would be worth the extra cost as it has already lured record numbers of new customers to Sprint. "IPhone has an expensive contract, but is worth every penny," Hesse said, but he added it was too early to estimate exactly how many iPhones he expects to sell. Sprint promised that, over time, the iPhone would bring 50 percent more value to the company than any other handset. In the meantime, the upfront costs from iPhone will cut fourth quarter operating income by between $500 million and $700 million to about $600 million to $800 million. Nelson had earlier estimated that profit at $1.1 billion. Sprint gave a 2011 free cash flow forecast ranging from a loss of $200 million to a gain of $100 million. It had previously promised positive 2011 free cash flow, which generally refers to earnings including capital spending, but excluding interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The outlook overshadowed Sprint's smaller-than-expected third-quarter loss. The company, which has struggled for years to stem customer defections, said the loss narrowed to $301 million, or 10 cents per share, from $911 million, or 30 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts on average expected a loss of 22 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. But Sprint said it lost 44,000 customers in the quarter, compared with the average expectation of a loss of about 11,000 from nine analysts contacted by Reuters. Net operating revenue rose to $8.33 billion from $8.15 billion a year earlier, but missed Wall Street expectations of $8.38 billion. Sprint Credit Default Swaps, or the cost of insuring its debt, rose after the report. It now costs $1.475 million paid upfront to insure $10 million of Sprint debt, on top of $500,000 in annual payments. That is up from $1.25 million upfront plus $500,000 annually the day before. Sprint shares closed down 7 percent at $2.51 on the New York Stock Exchange after falling as low as $2.38 earlier in the session. Clearwire finished up 19.5 percent at $1.96 on Nasdaq. It lost a third of its value after Sprint comments at its October 7 meeting led investors to believe it was a bankruptcy risk and to worry that the parent might abandon it after the end of next year. But Fitch's Densmore said it was unclear if the liquidity risks of Clearwire, which is currently seeking about $900 million in funding, have abated just because of Sprint's announcement it is looking for a potential deal. "The only way we get more comfortable is if Sprint reaches and agreement and Clearwire is able to go out and get more funding. There's some hurdles to that," he said. (Reporting by Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke; editing by Derek Caney, Lisa Von Ahn and Andre Grenon) |
| App downloads dropped in September ahead of iPhone 4S launch (Appolicious) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 11:29 AM PDT |
| It's Showtime for Razr Phone Revival as Pre-Orders Open (NewsFactor) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 02:25 PM PDT Revivals generally have mixed success on Broadway. Verizon Wireless and Motorola Mobility soon will see how they play out in the smartphone market as they unleash the new Razr, available for pre-orders Thursday. A pre-iPhone favorite in 2004 as a clamshell, flip-top feature phone, the Razr is back as a state-of-the-art, Android-powered touchscreen smartphone complete with 4G data speed via Verizon's long-term evolution network. Superior Experience The phone will take its place on the top shelf of Verizon's smartphone lineup as part of its branded Droid line, which Verizon says is reserved for "premium devices that offer customers a superior experience." In addition to its speed, other features include a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED advanced display, thin 7.1 mm design, one gigabyte of RAM and 8 megapixel rear camera and enhanced security features like remote wipe, pin lock and government-grade encryption for e-mail, calendar and contacts. It ships with Android 2.3.5, or Gingerbread. A nano-coating protects it from spills, and it ships preloaded with QuickOffice to handle Microsoft Office files. On the drawback side: The $299 price tag (with two-year voice and data contract), which will be tough to swallow for the cost-conscious during these hard economic times, especially with much cheaper competitors, including the now $99 iPhone 4. Pre-orders begin at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time via droiddoes.com/DroidRazr or by phone. The in-store release date was not announced, though Verizon promises to ship orders by Nov. 10. Stiff Competition The Droid Razr release comes as Nokia is ushering out its first crop of phones powered by Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, including the snazzy Lumia 800 (with the Mango update); Apple is seeing record sales for the iPhone 4S; and Samsung's Galaxy S II is also making strong headway. And while Research In Motion is rolling out some new BlackBerry products, that company has suffered from bad publicity after this month's three-day outage of data services for users in parts of Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The Razr is priced high among other Verizon offerings, even in the limited 4G category. The LG Revolution can be purchased for just $149 while another Droid product, Samsung's Charge, is $100 cheaper at $199. The $299 price is the same as the 3G Apple iPhone 4S with 32 GB of storage. "At a $299 price point, it's aimed at the deep-pocketed to the well-off early adopters," said William Ho, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis. "It runs in parallel to the early Razr days that commanded premiums. It competes against other Android phones vs. iPhone and BlackBerry." Verizon hopes to have a total of 15 LTE-capable devices for sale by the end of the year, Forbes magazine reported, as the company further extends its 4G network, currently serving markets covering 185 million Americans. |
| Posted: 26 Oct 2011 04:41 AM PDT
At 9 a.m. U.K. time this morning, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop kicked off Nokia World 2011 by unveiling six new phones including its first two Windows Phone 7.5 handsets: the Lumia 800 and the cheaper Lumia 710. Unfortunately for those of us in the States, they won't be coming to the U.S. until sometime in 2012. Below is a breakdown of each device and some of Nokia's additions to the Windows Phone platform. These devices are already shipping to France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the U.K. for a November launch. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan will get them before the end of the year. Those of us in the U.S., well, we may get it next year.
Nokia Lumia 800 The Finnish phonemaker's flagship Windows Phone is an evolution of the N9 design, which Elop explained has been one of Nokia's most successful launches in some parts of the world (Russia) despite its MeeGo operating system. The Lumia 800 is the "first real Windows Phone," claims Elop, who said it embodies the intent and aspirations of Microsoft's Windows Phone platform like no other. Specs:
Nokia Lumia 710 The Lumia 710 will be sold as a cheaper alternative to the Lumia 800. It's main feature is its swappable back covers and differing color selection from the 800. Its battery life, camera, and screen are somewhat weaker, though internally it seems to run the same processor, and comes with a microSD card slot, unlike the 800. Specs:
New Symbian devices During the keynote, Nokia also announced the Nokia Asha 200, 201, 300, and 303. These devices are intended for developing markets, and run on Nokia Series 40, which now has Angry Birds. All of them have QWERTY and Web browsers that compress webpages up to 90 percent to save bandwidth. The higher end Asha 300 comes with dual-SIM capability, capacitive touch, 3G, and a 1GHz processor.
Nokia's exclusive Windows Phone appsAll of these apps are free and are exclusive to Nokia's Windows Phone devices.Nokia Drive: Nokia is bringing turn-by-turn driving directions to Windows Phone. It should work mostly like Google's Android offering, but will use Nokia's Navteq maps engine. Nokia Public Transport: This app was not shown but was announced. It will support 430 cities worldwide and will have public transit info available. In 45 cities, up-to-the-minute bus and subway routes will be available. ESPN Hub: Get scores, updates, and watch clips of your favorite sports teams. The ESPN app will let you pin your favorite sport or team right to the home page to get updates on its progress at all times. Nokia Music: This wasn't fully explained, but Nokia showed off Mix Radio, a new feature that is an "effortless, easy-to-use way to discover, acquire, and experience new music." Basically, you can choose between prepackaged mixes made by Nokia and instantly start listening without having to sign up or do anything, much like a radio. Better, you can download mixes for offline listening. With the ability to create your own mixes by typing in an artist name, the service is beginning to sound a lot like Pandora. There will be no charge and no signup page. It will supposedly just work, for free. Nokia Live View: This will be an augmented reality app for Nokia phones, but no details were released. This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends
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| Top 10 best iPhone food apps (Digital Trends) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 03:23 PM PDT
There are so many thousands of apps our there these days that it can be hard to find what you're looking for, even with the App Store's categories and highlighted apps. Luckily, the increasing numbers also mean that you'll never be short on great apps when you need them, in whichever category you're searching. If you've got an iPhone, you probably already have Yelp downloaded and ready to help you find a good restaurant in your location, but we've rounded up some of our favorite apps for all of the foodies out there. These will help you decide where to eat, what to cook up, how to do it, and where to find your ingredients.
Urban Spoon, Free You might have seen this popular app before, but we're including it because it puts a fun spin (literally) on the restaurant-choosing game. Just shake your iPhone, and with the help of GPS, Urban Spoon will pick a nearby restaurant for you to try. If that's too spontaneous for you, you can also browse nearby restaurants by neighborhood, cuisine, or price, compare restaurant picks with your friends, and read reviews by newspapers, bloggers, and other Urban Spoon users.
Epicurious, Free This great free app is one of the most comprehensive when it comes to cooking up your own fantastic meals. Browse thousands of recipes, including special recipe collections, search by keyword, and save your favorites to your own virtual recipe book. Once you've chosen which recipes to use, you can even create a shopping list and share via Facebook and Twitter. This app has a recipe for everything, and each one includes step-by-step instructions and stunning professional photos.
Seafood Watch, Free Started by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, this app aims to help you choose the most ocean-friendly seafood at restaurants or in-store based on your regional location. Search by common names to find important information about any kind of fish, including whether it is recommended or should be avoided based on health and environmental concerns. The app also has a helpful sushi guide that lists both English and Japanese fish names, and will provide users with alternatives to fish that land on the "avoid" list.
Foodspotting, Free This visual app, as the name would suggest, puts the emphasis on specific dishes and documenting the foodie experience. Users can see photos of the best-rated dishes nearby, search for a specific food, or look up a restaurant and see what particular dishes are good there. Users are also encouraged to take their own photos of restaurant dishes and earn badges and points with participation.
Locavore, Free As you might guess by the name of the app, Locavore is intended to help users eat more sustainably by eating locally. Using your location, the app will tell you which foods are in season and which foods aren't, also giving you locations of local farmer's markets where you can buy in-season foods from those harvesting them. Users can also find recipes using local, in-season foods and share to Facebook. The app even tells you how many weeks you have left to buy in-season fruits and vegetables.
Chefs Feed, Free This app lets you follow famous chefs and learn where they go for their favorite eats in every city. View your city's list of best chefs, see chef-recommended dishes in your area, and follow live Facebook and Twitter posts from your favorite chefs. Participating chefs include legends like Thomas Keller, Wolfgang Puck, and Mario Batali. Users can also create itineraries and share via Facebook.
Martha's Everyday Food, $2.99 Almost every famous chef has their own app, but Martha Stewart has a whole army behind her comprehensive app that acts almost like its own little magazine. Users can browse through recipes, watch tutorial videos, and check out the "Dinner Tonight" selection, which features simple and fast seasonal recipes. The app also includes a shopping list feature, saved favorite recipes, and daily articles by Everyday Food editors. You just can't beat Martha.
GrubHub, Free If you're a foodie who likes to indulge in some good takeout once in a while, GrubHub can help. Based on your location and search terms, the app will find local meal options for takeout and delivery in all major cities. Users can then easily place a delivery or takeout order right in the app and save favorite orders as for speedy re-ordering. Payment information is stored to make the checkout process simple.
Harvest, $1.99 This one is for all the produce fiends out there. Your mom probably taught you a few things about how to tell when a fruit is ripe or how to store your romaine lettuce, but this app brings all those tips together into one helpful app. Select a food and Harvest will give you the inside info on how to tell if it's ripe or good quality. Beyond that, the app will also tell you how to store each food to keep it fresh for the longest period of time. The app offers pesticide residue levels for each produce item, enabling users to selectively buy organic based on such data.
FoodGawker, Free This visually-stunning app lets users browse dishes and recipes primarily by the images that accompany them. Food bloggers from around the world submit photos and recipes to FoodGawker everyday, and the editors select the best and most delicious-looking to publish. Visually browse through food to find something appealing, or enter a search term for quick results. Tap on the image to see the accompanying recipe or blog post submitted by a foodie blogger, then save your favorite images to your personalized home screen. This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends
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| Symantec forecasts sales below Street, shares drop (Reuters) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 03:17 PM PDT (Reuters) – Symantec Corp, the top maker of computer security software, failed to match Wall Street's high hopes for future sales growth even as the company benefits from a raised awareness of hackers. The Silicon Valley-based company forecast fiscal third-quarter revenue of $1.7 billion to $1.715 billion, reflecting a 6 percent to 7 percent growth rate over last year. But that fell short of analysts' average estimate of $1.72 billion. Symantec shares closed down 0.3 percent at $18.49 on the Nasdaq and fell a further 3.6 percent to $17.82 after hours, following the release of its second-quarter earnings. Expectations for Symantec have been raised recently as hacking has become a top business concern, in the wake of high-profile attacks on Google Inc, Lockheed Martin Corp and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. The National Security Agency is now helping Wall Street banks with intelligence on foreign hackers. Awareness of the need for protection is at its highest in recent years, which is helping to boost the company's results, said Symantec Chief Executive Enrique Salem in a telephone interview. "The threats are more targeted and you are definitely getting more visibility and awareness for the issues," he said. "Individuals, small businesses, large businesses, government. Everybody is a target right now." Symantec posted a higher-than-expected 34 percent increase in fiscal second-quarter net profit on Wednesday, helped by the surge in demand. The company reported fiscal second-quarter net profit of $182 million, or 24 cents per share, compared with $136 million, or 17 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter Excluding one-time items, it earned 39 cents per share, meeting the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Sales rose 14 percent to $1.68 billion. Analysts were expecting $1.66 billion. The Mountain View, California-based software maker also forecast third-quarter per-share profit, excluding items, of 40 or 41 cents per share, close to the average analyst forecast of 41 cents. (Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle; Editing by Andre Grenon and Steve Orlofsky) |
| IBM Unveils New 'Big Data' Tools (NewsFactor) Posted: 26 Oct 2011 01:32 PM PDT IBM has unveiled new software to bring the power of "big data" analytics to health care, marketing and other business apps. The company presented the new offerings earlier this week at the 2011 Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas. IBM said in a statement that the new software will now allow employees in an organization to "explore unstructured data such as Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, weather data, log files, genomic data and video, and make sense of it on the fly as part of their everyday work experience." Key components of the software tools were obtained by IBM when it bought Netezza and Cognos, and the healthcare analytics software is built on artificial intelligence developed for the Jeopardy-winning supercomputer Watson. 90 Percent in Two Years The new software tools are intended to make a difference in a business environment that is awash with data. IBM said 90 percent of the world's data, including information generated by sensors, mobile devices, online transactions and social networks, has been created within the past two years. New IBM cloud-based software using Hadoop-based analytics -- IBM InfoSphere BigInsights on the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise -- can be operational within a half-hour. It allows users to analyze unstructured data from such sources as social networks, mobile devices and sensors, as well as structured data in databases. The company pointed out that basing the tool in the cloud eliminates any need for Hadoop skills, or having to support the necessary software or hardware infrastructure. A basic, entry-level version is offered at no charge, and an enterprise version is available at hourly pricing. A developer sandbox is available in both versions, to enable custom analytical app development. The company said uses include understanding consumer trends or increasing security on networks. Location-Aware Analytics Mobile analytics software is being made available from IBM for iPad users as a free download from Apple's App Store. It's designed to assist in crunching data for such industries as financial services, healthcare, government, communications, retail, and transportation. The predictive analytics software has mapping functionality that can be used in marketing campaigns, resource management for retail stores, crime prevention and academic assessment. The iPad app, called IBM Cognos Mobile, can be used to analyze data about sales, customer feedback, or financial data, using reporting, a dashboard and scorecards. Other possible uses include doctors analyzing electronic medical records and providing customized treatment plans, or insurance agents analyzing loan data to create individualized policies. The company said the Cincinnati Zoo was using the software to analyze sales and attendance data, in order to adjust marketing budgets that are based on purchasing patterns. SPSS Statistics 20.0 offers a new mapping feature so that location can be added to analysis and reports, and planning can be made by geographical area. Uses include more precise tracking of marketing campaign effectiveness by place, detection of crime hot spots, or spotting of areas with high accident or illness rates. |
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