Smart move from Amazon on Kindle Fire

Looking forward to see some really great product in next version of Amazon Kindle Fire 2 or whatever it will be called. I guess it was really smart move from Amazon to halt production of current Kindle version as Google came up in similar price range slightly better tablet. So there was no reason for them to sell it for deeper loss. On top of that, it would have been slow sale hurting reputation of Kindle fire as top seller on their amazon site. For customers, there is no reason to buy Kindle Fire when Google's Nexus 7 is already out with much better feature set and similar price range..

Now question is, where will Amazon go with kindle fire 2. It has to be better than Nexus 7. They have few options left. Fire2 has to have better Webcam/Camera.. ideally both of them.. then resolution has to be close to Retina display.. Processor.. memory.. yada yada.. everything has to be better than nexus while price remains same.. or they can come with larger form factor version as well but then they hit iPad competition. I wish they will come up with 9 or 10 inch version with real good competitive iPad features as Samsung is more or less distance second player right now and seems to be focusing more on phone and larger phone segment. 

I really wish that there is some good competitor for iPad and will set higher bar for Apple to either further innovate or open iPad or cut down some prices.. Till Apple get hits on their tablet market share of 70% or more, they are not going to budge anytime soon. Not that I don't like iPad or have anything against it.. But still it could be even better and hopefully even more open..

I may go for Fire2 this time to test it out.. Most of the feedback I heard about Fire so far.. everyone seems to be happy with Graphic rendering, UI and smoothness which is one of the forte of iDevices.. Hope to have larger form factor from Amazon this time..

Kindle Fire tablet sold out as Amazon readies update

New model faces competition from Google’s Nexus 7

By Peter Svensson

Associated Press

NEW YORK —Amazon. com says it has sold out of its Kindle Fire tablet computer amid expectations of a new model for the holiday season.The Internet retailer has a major news conference scheduled for next Thursday in Santa Monica. It’s widely expected to reveal a new model of the Fire there, so Thursday’s announcement that the first model is “sold out” suggests that Amazon halted production a while ago to retool for a new model. Amazon launched the $199 tablet in November. It was the first Kindle with a color screen and the ability to run third-party applications, placing it in competition with Apple’s iPad, at half the price of the cheapest iPad.

Amazon doesn’t say how many Fires it has sold, but says it captured 22 percent of U.S. tablet sales over nine months. That would make it the secondmost- popular tablet, after the iPad. Tom Mainelli at research firm IDC said that figure matches his estimate of 6.7 million Fires sold, all in the U.S. The Fire, which is about half the size of the iPad, could face a tougher challenge this holiday season. Many analysts expect Apple to introduce a smaller, cheaper iPad to take on the threat of the Kindle Fire and reach buyers who can’t afford a full-size iPad. In addition, Google just launched its own Kindle-size tablet, the Nexus 7, and is selling it for $199.

Amazon kept the price of the Kindle Fire low by keeping it small, stripping it of features and taking a small or zero profit margin. Its strategy is to make the Fire a means for people to buy more e-books, music and movie downloads from the Amazon store, which is intimately linked to the device. That’s a contrast to the strategy of Apple, which sees content sales as a sideline and wants to make a profit on every device sold.

Apple has sold more than 84 million iPads since its debut in 2010, contributing to strong quarterly earnings and a market valuation that has exceeded $625 billion — the highest ever for a public company. The iPad 2, released in March 2011, sells for $399. The newest models, out in March, sell for $499 to $829, depending on the amount of storage and wireless capabilities.

Amazon itself was the main outlet for the Kindle Fire. Its website now directs customers to used Fires available from other merchants. Staples stores recently sold it for $179. It wasn’t immediately known whether some stores still had it on shelves.

Amazon could update the rest of its Kindle line at next week’s event, too. The current models were launched a year ago. In the intervening time, competitor Barnes & Noble has launched a Nook e-reader with a built-in screen illuminator for reading in the dark.

ABI Research said Thursday that sales of dedicated e-readers, like the non-Fire, black-and-white Kindles, peaked last year. It expects worldwide sales of e-readers at 11 million in 2012, down from 15 million in 2011.

The research firm expects tablets to outsell e-readers 9-1 this year, despite costing four or five time as much. Still, e-readers won’t go away completely, ABI analyst Joshua Flood said.

“We believe there will always be a niche market for the dedicated reading device for voracious readers, business travelers, and educational segments, particularly ones that are low-priced,” Flood said.

Shares of Amazon, which is based in Seattle, fell 90 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $246.22 Thursday.

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MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES

Half the size of the iPad, the Fire was the first Kindle tablet with a color screen and the ability to run third-party applications, at half the cheapest iPad’s price.

What's up with this Stylus based Notes..

It is like going back to stone ages.. Honestly.. I can't understand rationale for huge success of Galaxy Note. It is good and seems useful but I still feel that stylus makes it really counter intuitive. I think that Samsung tagged on stylus with note mainly to circumvent around Apple patents. However surprising thing is.. it was huge success.. and mostly it is attributed to cool ads Samsung came up with tens of different unique use cases where stylus can be used.. It probably was very risky strategy but it worked.. Not sure, how many people are actually using these so Sam-Cool features. Personally I didn't liked that idea and couldn't imagine using stylus. I have few apps on iPhone/iPad where you can draw or write by free hand and finger works perfectly fine.

On the contrary, I liked form factor of Galaxy Note and could wish iPhone has bigger size.. I think iPhone5 will be slightly bigger for sure in all probability. Keeping my fingers crossed. Some day I will try Galaxy Note as well.. don't know when that day will come..

Updated Galaxy Note, with stylus, coming up

By Peter Svensson

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Fresh off a legal battle with Apple, Samsung is announcing a new version of the Galaxy Note, an offbeat, oversize smartphone that’s become a surprise hit. Samsung, the world’s largest maker of phones, is revealing the Galaxy Note II at a trade show in Berlin. The 5.5-inch screen is narrower but longer than on the first version. The processor is faster, and the software has been further adapted for the included stylus — the phone’s signature feature.

While Apple has been releasing a new smartphone model each year, Samsung makes several to target different types of customers. That includes low-end phones for priceconscious customers. As a result, Samsung has been selling more smartphones than Apple this year. The Note runs on Google’s Android operating system but isn’t among the phones that Apple is asking a judge to ban from the U.S., after a jury in California ruled last week that some of Samsung’s Android phones violated Apple patents. The jury awarded Apple $1 billion in damages in a high-profile case that could force Samsung and other Android phone makers to rethink their designs.

The Note is designed to work well with a stylus for jotting notes and drawing on a screen, while styluses for other devices tend to be an afterthought. The Note’s large screen also makes the phone more like a tablet and more suitable for playing games and consuming content. Samsung started selling a tablet version of the Note this month.

Samsung Electronics says it has shipped 10 million first-generation Galaxy Note smartphone in one year.

Now we race to get Ultra-HD TV

Wondering.. where this will end up. I think Ultra-HD resolution is more relevant for Ultra-Large Size TVs. I don't think that it will make much sense to make Ultra-HD TVs in 40-50 inch range. Not for now.. I am guessing that this is one of few last opportunity for Sony to come back in TV market where they lost big time to Samsung. They lost to Samsung not on quality but I guess more on price/performance ratio. Same will apply for these Ultra-HD TV launch. It is expected to be really highly priced. However, if they price it really Ultra-High-Price.

While pricing it, they should think about gaining customer confidence and changing their Ultra-High-Price TVs perception to good value for money TV. This good value for money perception is currently owned by Samsung and I am sure they will do everything to keep it that way. Sooner or later, Samsung will also launch these Ultra-HD 4K TVs. Sony has very short window of opportunity where they can think about customers instead of thinking their own profit and loss. Even though, there is no guarantee of Sony's turnaround but still there is some chance which has showed up after long time.

I am not planning to go and get these Ultra-HD TVs anytime soon. Though after watching them it may change. Though, again.. I am not sure how much content will be available for these 4K TVs. Only up-scaling is not going to justify higher resolution. They will have to come up with better Blu-rays. It is their chance to revive slowing down Blu-Ray disc sales which internet streaming is killing day by day. You can get 4K content on internet as well but it is going to need real fat pipe or some buffering and hence significant lag.

But then there is even bigger problem on disc based as they might need player upgrade which can be even more slower. This entire ecosystem is so messed up.. I wish that we had Gig Ethernet at home just like we have telephone line.. that would have solved most of these streaming bottlenecks and we could easily switch to complete streaming based solution rather transporting these discs all the places..


Sony to debut TVs with ultra-HD

Diagonal measure will be 84 inches, with ‘4K’ resolution

By Peter Svensson

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Highdefinition TVs roughly quadrupled the resolution of the sets that came before them. Now, the industry is poised to do it again. By December, U.S. stores will sell a TV set with four times the resolution of today’s best HDTVs, Sony said Wednesday. The set will measure 84 inches on the diagonal, making the screen area four times as large as the common 42-inch set.

Executives said Sony will reveal the price of the set next week. There is, for now, very little video content available that can take advantage of the higher resolution. With some work and know-how, a computer connected to the set can display video in the ultra-HD “4K” resolution.
The set will also do its best to “upscale” TV, DVD and Blu-ray movies, so they look better.

Phil Molyneux, chief operating officer of Sony Electronics, said the situation was no different from the launch of the cassette tape, the CD or the DVD.

“We always get this question when we launch beautiful new technology: Where’s the content?” Molyneux told journalists at an event in New York. “Did we bring the content to market? Yes, we did.”

The resolution of the set is 3,840 by 2,160 pixels. It’s known as “4K” because it has nearly 4,000 pixels on the horizontal edge. That compares with 1,920 by 1,080 pixels in “1080p” sets. More pixels allow TV makers to make bigger screens without compromising sharpness.

Sony makes digital projectors operating at 4K resolution for movie theaters.

The TV industry has been looking for a technology that will get consumers to upgrade their HDTV sets. Sales are slumping after an initial wave of upgrades from standard-definition sets, and 3-D sets attract only a small number of consumers.

Apple has slowly been quadrupling the resolution of its devices, starting with the iPhone 4 two years ago. This year, it released iPads and MacBooks with ultrahigh- resolution screens.

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SONY VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sony’s new ultra-HD 4K TV sets with resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 pixels are scheduled to be in stores by December. Prices will be announced next week.

Interesting development..

Let us see when it can become mainstream... it will be really interesting to see how it goes and to what extent it goes.. there is potential for this technology to become robotics or self driven cars ultimately..


Wi-Fi network will let cars talk to each other

By Tom Krisher

Associated Press

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In a few weeks, about 2,800 cars, trucks and buses will start talking to each other on the streets of Ann Arbor, Mich., in a giant experiment that government officials are hoping will lead to safer roads.

Wireless devices will allow the vehicles to send signals back and forth, warning their drivers of potential dangers such as stopped traffic or cars that might be blowing through a red light. They can even get traffic lights to turn green if no cars are coming the other way.

The U.S. Department of Transportation and the University of Michigan are hoping the yearlong, $25 million project generates data that show the devices can cut down on traffic crashes. Officials say eventually this could lead to the devices going in every car. About 500 vehicles with the devices are now on the roads. That will rise to 2,800 in about six weeks, officials said Tuesday.

“This is a big day for safety,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said at an event at the university formally kicking off the experiment. “We’ll use this information to decide if vehicle technology can be applied to daily lives.”

More than 32,000 people died last year in U.S. traffic crashes, down 1.7 percent from 2010. The number of crashes has fallen in recent years as automakers added safety devices such as air bags, anti-lock brakes and stability control, which helps drivers keep cars under control in emergency situations.

But LaHood said Tuesday that 80 percent of crashes in which the drivers aren’t impaired by drugs or alcohol could be prevented — or the severity reduced — if cars could talk to each other.

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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder helps launch the Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot with the Transportation Department in Ann Arbor, Mich.

MELANIE MAXWELL/ ASSOCIATED PRESS 

This highlights problem with India.. Social Media is just scapegoat

I think this clearly shows that India need to work more on it's infrastructure and education and awareness.. It is easy to blame on something like Facebook, Twitter or Google.. These are superb tools and like everything can be used or mis-used. We know for sure that all these tools have been greatly used in Arab-spring. There most of the population really used it for their advantage.

Now here in India, we are seeing reverse. These graphics and messages floating are creating reverse impact.. they are meant to be creating hatred and anger among different sects of the population. However, these are just inert messages or images.. Interpretation of these messages and images is up to human brain. How they interpret depends upon the environment, education, social values and trust system among fellow human and rest of the system. If the trust level is so low, then any image or message can inflame any kind of riot.. it doesn't need these social media sites.. it is not that these kind of things didn't happened earlier.. people used paper or print media to do that in past.. did we stop using paper or print media?

This is totally ridiculous.. Government or rather than that, population of India needs to first introspect and find out root cause of these kind of things. Root cause is lack of education, lack of trust on government or police for that matter.. off course rampant corruption at all levels tops it up... Going after these social media sites is simple distraction from core fundamental issue..


Social sites squeezed in India

Leaders pressure Web companies to restrict hate speech

By Vikas Bajaj

New York Times

MUMBAI, India — The Indian government’s efforts to stem a weeklong panic among some ethnic minorities has again put it at odds with Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Officials in New Delhi, who have had disagreements with the companies over restrictions on free speech, say the sites are not responding quickly enough to their requests to delete and trace the origins of doctored photos and incendiary posts aimed at people from northeastern India. After receiving threats online and on their phones, tens of thousands of students and migrants from the northeast have left cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in the last week.

The government has blocked 245 Web pages since Friday, but still many sites are said to contain fabricated images of violence against Muslims in the northeast and in neighboring Myanmar meant to incite Muslims in cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai to attack people from the northeast. India also restricted cellphone users to five text messages a day each for 15 days in an effort to limit the spread of rumors.

Officials from Google and industry associations said they were cooperating fully with the authorities. Some industry executives and analysts added that some requests had not been heeded because they were overly broad or violated internal policies and the rights of users.

The government, used to exerting significant control over media like newspapers, films and television, has in recent months been frustrated in its effort to extend similar and greater regulations to websites, most of which are based in the United States. Late last year, an Indian minister tried to get social media sites to prescreen content created by their users before it was posted. The companies refused and the attempt failed under withering public criticism.

While just 100 million of India’s 1.2 billion people use the Internet regularly, the numbers are growing fast among people younger than 25, who make up about half the country’s population.

Sunil Abraham, an analyst who has closely followed India’s battles with Internet companies, said last week’s effort to tackle hate speech was justified but poorly managed. He said the first directive from the government was impractically broad, asking all Internet “intermediaries” — a category that includes small cybercafes, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook — to disable all content that was “inflammatory, hateful and inciting violence.”

Ministers have blamed groups in Pakistan, a neighbor with which India has tense relations, for creating and uploading many of the hateful pages and doctored images.

Do we really need to make note on tablet?

I don't know about you guys.. but I can't really think of lot of use cases where I will take out my pen (digital pen with tablet) and make notes on my tablet's content.. I think it is yet another trick or I should say another effort by Samsung to try to differentiate with iPad. I hope it works and keeps up bar for Apple high so they continue to build better tablets instead of taking it easy..

Biggest advantage of Apple products in general is User Interface (UI). from rendering to ease of use to intuitiveness to simplicity.. to smoothness to... to.. to... I am real hardcore fan of their UI and will continue to so till I see something better.. which I am yet to see.. on top of it.. Apple's ecosystem and ease of using their devices with TV or otherwise as well are superb..

Let us see how Samsung's new Note does it.. It's price point is attractive.. just slightly below comparable iPad with promise of better processor power and memory.. I don't know if it also has retina display or its equivalent.. I am sure it  must be close..

I guess, Samsung should come up quickly into area of Digital Media Player like Apple TV and complete integration of their devices with HDTV and many more comparable features of Apple TV. Apple TV, once dark horse of Apple is slowly coming up and becoming household thing.. It extends most of the Apple products thru itunes media play.. If Samsung can't come up with good hardware then they should talk to Roku or someone established player in this field. Google's Apple TV equivalent was more or less flop with significant higher prices.. let us see.. what is next from Android side..

Let me know if you use Galaxy Note tablet and ifyou can compare it with iPad.. for now, I don't have any plans to buy it..


Newest Galaxy tablet has pen

By Youkyung Lee

Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics is taking another shot at the dominance of Apple’s iPad with a tablet equipped with a digital pen and a faster processor at the same price tag. The Wi-Fi-only version of the Galaxy Note 10.1 will go on sale in the U.S. on Thursday. The price starts at $499 for the basic model with 16 gigabytes of storage and $549 for the 32-gigabyte model, expandable with an external memory card. Apple’s latest iPad starts at the same price but the Note 10.1 offers some features that the iPad doesn’t have, while its screen resolution is lower than the iPad’s. It is Samsung’s first Android tablet equipped with a digital pen and can run two applications side-by-side on a screen divided in half. The split screen, made possible by the quad-core processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM, can be useful when taking notes while watching a video or surfing the Internet.

Analysts said this capability of the Note tablet is intended to attract business and education customers, a strategy that could be more effective than going all out against the iPad, which already dominates nearly 70 percent of the worldwide tablet market.

Samsung released about a half-dozen Android tablets in the past two years under the Galaxy Tab series but none of them has been as popular as the iPad. Analysts say Android tablets are less successful because of a dearth of applications and higher prices. But with the Note 10.1, the South Korean company believes it has a product that will find favor with corporations and schools despite the iPad’s rich pool of applications and sharper screen.

While Apple makes one new model for the iPhone and iPad every year to meet demand from all around the world, Samsung releases multiple mobile products with variations in prices, screen sizes, hardware and operating systems. This strategy helped Samsung edge pass Apple in smartphone sales but hasn’t paid off in the tablet area, probablybecauseSamsung’s previous tablets were not differentiated enough from the iPad. Samsung’s secondquarter market share in the global tablet market fell to 9 percent, while nearly seven out of 10 tablets in the market were emblazoned with Apple logo, according to IHS iSuppli.

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MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Samsung's new Galaxy Note 10.1 goes on sale in the U.S. on Thursday, starting at $499 for the 16gigabyte model and $549 for the 32GB tablet.

This is definitely bad news for all of us..

FedEx and UPS are slowing down.. In general this is really bad news for all of us as these guys are best indicators of global economy.

If I take optimistic approach.. It could be possible that more and more people are buying local (going green and organic) or using e-signature kind of services.. ahhhh.. I totally forgot the main culprit.. blame it on Apple.. Apple delayed iPhone5 release. that is causing entire global economy especially this high end shipping type of work.. more and more I think about it.. I get certain that it is iPhone5's delayed launch which is causing all the global economy meltdown. FedEx and UPS should sue Apple ;-) unfortunately, Apple has entangled FedEx and UPS as well as their one of the bigest customer.

Jokes apart, I think we should brace ourselves for slowdown in coming months/years. Global economy is still in bad shape.. with slowdown in China and little bit in India... very few sweet spots are left. Europe is in bad shape and doesn't look like it is going to come out anytime soon.. US economy is still limping at the best.. We need something to drive growth.. in my view there has to be really strong spending on infrastructure. That is the only thing which can revive economy in both short term and long term if right kind of infrastructure projects are started.

After these recent blackouts in India.. India should be investing heavily into infrastructure.. Power, Road, Rail, Internet.. They have to do it and have to do it big.. I was hoping for massive investment from US in internet side.. but doesn't look like anything is going to happen any time soon.

Let us hope for best and do our part by spending more and more to avoid this impending slowdown!!

Buyouts to pare FedEx staff

Forecast for current quarter fell well below expectations

By Samantha Bomkamp

Associated Press

NEW YORK — FedEx will soon begin offering buyouts to U.S. employees in an effort to cut costs in the face of a weakening global economy. The world’s second-largest package delivery company hinted at cutbacks earlier this summer when it said that slowing economic growth would crimp its earnings well into next year. It has already removed some aircraft from its fleet of more than 600 to account for a loss of demand. While FedEx hasn’t yet decided how many positions will be eliminated, it is likely to focus on slow-growth areas like its Express and Services units.

Express is where FedEx got its start in 1971, and it’s still the company’s biggest segment by far. The speedy shipping division, which moves 3.5 million packages on an average day, has been hit hard as people shift to slower delivery methods to conserve cash. The unit is also being dragged down slowing Asian growth and a reduction in demand for Asian goods from the U.S. and Europe. The unit reported revenue of $26.5 billion in the latest fiscal year and has more than 146,000 employees worldwide — 102,000 of those in the U.S.

Services is FedEx’s behind- the-scenes logistics division, but it also includes FedEx Office, formerly Kinko’s. It was formed in 2000 and with annual revenue of $1.7 billion in 2012, is one of FedEx’s smallest units. It has 13,000 employees, all of whom are U.S. based.

FedEx said those that are close to retirement are also eligible for buyouts.

When it reported fourthquarter earnings in June, FedEx vowed significant cost cuts to offset any drop in shipments. Its forecast for the first-quarter, which ends this month, fell well below Wall Street expectations.

And second-quarter results released in late July by larger rival United Parcel Service suggested that the global economic slowdown may be even worse than FedEx anticipated.

UPS lowered its forecast for all of 2012 and said its third-quarter earnings will fall below last year’s results, with many customers fearing what’s in store for the second half of the year. Their skittishness was also felt in the second quarter, where UPS missed analysts’ expectations for both earnings and revenue.

Shares of FedEx fell 3 cents to close at $87.77 Monday. UPS lost 15 cents to hit $76.15.

It will be interesting to see Google's Motorola

Couple of interesting and different approach.. First time we are seeing that majority of layoffs will be outside of United States. Most of the Layoffs are in US for most of the technology companies in order to save cost and doom themselves further down the drain... That way it was smart move from Google... at least in my view..

Next.. is not so smart move though it may seem to most of other folks. I don't think it is great idea to get rid of so called 'feature phones'. If you are truly innovative then you don't want to limit innovation only to high end devices like smart phones and tablets. These feature phones are still consumed a lot by masses and they also need to be in touch with latest and greatest. Moreover, there is lot of budding customers for you in this segment. If you really come up with something useful and innovative for them.. something like android lite with simple browser and messaging based connectivity  they would still love you. I am not talking MBA here.. and as per all the theories I may be wrong, but first sign of any companies demise is when they start going after profitability instead of overall growth. It works well in short term to increase your profit margin and keep only high margin product lines, but it eventually leads to disruption of overall company's culture and values. Company is only focussed on pleasing stock holders after that and they often forget customers' real interest.

Silver lining of all this.. I hope to see some real cool gadgets and phones in coming days. I loved Motorola's phones.. they were really great when it comes to just core features of phones.. however, they didn't continued that sprit for smart phones or tablets.. I hope Google's magic will fix it.

Cheers!!!

GOOGLE’S ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION

4,000 jobs to be cut at Motorola Mobility

Net giant aims to make unit profitable; bulk of layoffs will be overseas

By Brandon Bailey

bbailey@mercurynews.com 

MOUNTAIN VIEW — When Google spent $12.5 billion to buy Motorola’s phone business, the Internet search giant said it was investing in a portfolio of valuable patents and hoping to gain firsthand experience in building mobile gadgets.

But Google also wants to make a profit, as it made clear Monday by announcing it will cut 4,000 jobs at Motorola Mobility, or about 20 percent of the workforce at the Illinois-based business.
Google said the layoffs — an unusual move for the Internet company — are part of a broader overhaul aimed at turning around the struggling phone business it acquired last year. “These changes are designed to return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability, after it lost money in 14 of the last 16 quarters,” Google said in a regulatory filing.

About two-thirds of the job cuts will be made outside the United States, as Google moves to close a third of the division’s 90 facilities around the world. Google also said it will phase out lower-end Motorola models known as “feature phones” in favor of smartphones and other handheld gadgets that are “more innovative and profitable.” 

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KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS 

Buying Motorola was one of the first big moves by Google co-founder Larry Page after he became CEO last year. Google dominates the Internet search industry but the company has acknowledged that its business is still centered on desktop computers and needs to expand in the growing mobile sector. 

Along with replacing some of Motorola’s top executives, Google confirmed Monday that it has hired a former official at the U.S. military’s renowned Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to run a Sunnyvale-based research team charged with developing new technology features for Motorola phones. 

Although the company did not provide many details, Google’s announcement represents more of a glimpse into its plans for the Motorola division than it has offered before now. Analysts said the company faces numerous challenges and it’s still not clear if Google’s investment will pay off. 

“It’s not going to be easy, but there’s a lot of things they can do,” said Will Stofega at research firm IDC. 

The Motorola division also makes television settop control boxes, which Stofega said could help Google in its goal of building a home-entertainment business. But he warned that rival companies are developing new gadgets at a rapid pace, while Motorola seems to be drifting. 

“They’ve got to get going,” he said. 

Google said last year that it bought the Motorola division for its sizable trove of technology patents, to help counter a wave of patent lawsuits filed against Google by Apple and other competitors. 

While it has little experience making hardware, analysts said Google also hoped to follow Apple’s model of designing its own gadgets to get the most performance from its own software. Google’s Android mobile software is already used by Motorola and several other smartphone makers. 

But if Motorola was known for cutting-edge phones in the past, its sales and reputation have not kept pace with Samsung, Apple and others in recent years. The division had an operating loss of $233 million in the last fiscal quarter, the first since the acquisition closed, which lowered Google’s overall profit margin. 

Google’s stock gained nearly 3 percent Monday, though the company warned it will incur $275 million in costs for severance benefits to affected employees. 

“We believe these pending actions make sense, given Google’s recent purchase of Motorola and that unit’s lack of profitability over a number of quarters in the past couple of years,” analyst Scott Kessler of S&P Capital IQ wrote in a note. 

Contact Brandon Bailey at 408-920-5022; follow him at Twitter.com/brandonbailey. 

Proces Security break-ins?

Very interesting.. We normally focus only on device level security.. Now this is another example that human and process level security is equally important and should be taken equally seriously if not more. Especially, in case of Apple ID which is now almost equivalent to your almost all digital life and even includes credit card as a bonus.

This means that we have to take our security codes and question/answers for manual verifications also equally seriously. It is very much clear that call center agents need more process and clarity to verify individuals. Can't apple use Siri to add voice based recognition? or even better, ask users to submit their video snippets thru face time and as part of security verification automatically start iPhone/iPad's face time, record users visuals and match it reference face time video. further extending this.. add simple facetime contact and use it for all customer service options.

Nothing is complete security and if someone wants, they can come up and circumvent process to gain access to your data or your digital life.. it is just that, how important you are for them or how lucky or unlucky you are..



Apple tightens security in wake of user’s hack

Journalist’s data was stolen, all his accounts lost

By Jeremy C. Owens

jowens@mercurynews.com 

Apple will alter its system for allowing users to change the password to their account after a hacker managed to gain access to a journalist’s Apple account and wreak havoc on his digital life.

The Cupertino tech giant announced the change Wednesday, five days after well-known tech journalist Mat Honan posted a blog explaining that a hacker had gained access to his AppleID using the final four numbers of his credit card account, which he had gleaned from Amazon. An Apple spokeswoman said the company would temporarily block password changes through over-the-phone customer support, and strengthen the system when it comes back online.

The hacker managed to remotely erase all of Honan’s content fromhis iPad, iPhone and MacBook, as well as gain access to Honan’s Gmail account, his Twitter account and the account of his former employer, Gizmodo.“In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed,” Honan said in a follow-up report for his current employer, Wired. The hacker was able to use a partial credit card number visible through Amazon to persuade Apple customer support to change the password on Honan’s AppleID account to one only the hacker — pretending to be Honan on the phone — knew.

“What happened to me exposes vital security flaws in several customer service systems, most notably Apple’s and Amazon’s,” Honan wrote in the Wired piece, adding, “The very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification.” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said Wednesday that the company has “temporarily suspended the ability to reset AppleID passwords over the phone.” “We’re asking customers who need to reset their password to continue to use our online iForgot system,” Kerris added. “When we resume over-the-phone password resets, customers will be required to provide even stronger identify verification to reset their password.”

Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/ mercbizbreak.

Is this the only way left for Facebook to make money?

Initially, I was kind of surprised to see this news. but then later on realized.. what else to expect from FB. To prep up their stock prices they can resort to anything. Bingo is just beginning.. This is where I feel Google as much better company.. at least for now.. there is no pressure from Google founders to really make stock go super north.. where as we can see here in Facebook, that they will do anything and everything to make stock go up.

I am fine with it.. there is nothing wrong legally or for that morally.. who we are to decide what is moral and what is not.. It is just that.. this thing is not aligned with my values. I personally am great fan of facebook as platform and had much higher hopes of its usage and applications.. may be I was wrong.. may be not.. time will tell..

Facebook debuts bingo game played for real cash in U.K.

By Salvador Rodriguez

Los Angeles Times

When it comes to the U.K., most people are getting into the Olympic Games, but not Facebook. It’s getting into a different type of gaming in the U.K. — gambling to be exact. The 955 million-member social network began allowing users in the U.K. to play a new bingo game using real money.

The game, called Bingo & Slots Friendzy, lets users 18 and older ditch Facebook Credits and play with their real money while Facebook takes in 30 percent of the money collected by the app, as it does with all other apps.

“Gambling is very popular and well regulated in the U.K. ... For millions of bingo users it’s already a social experience so it makes sense for us to offer that as well,” said Julien Codorniou, Facebook’s head of gaming for Europe, Middle East and Africa, according to the Financial Times.

The decision to allow this type of gaming in the U.K., where gambling is more accepted than in the U.S., is seen as a test by Facebook to determine if it may want to bring the practice stateside.

“Facebook is a place that allows people to connect and share,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Real money gaming is a popular and well-regulated activity in the U.K. and we are allowing a partner to offer their games to adult users on the Facebook platform in a safe and controlled manner.”

Business Insider says, quoting an “industry insider,” online gambling would turn Facebook into a $100 billion-revenue company. That number seems a bit high, but Facebook likely would stand to see its revenue grow drastically.

Currently, its Facebook Credits revenue stream has been growing at a snail’s pace, growing by only $6 million between its last two quarters. The infusion of gambling could change that.

I guess this is good news..

I am assuming, this will free up both Google and Apple to create better YouTube app for iPhone. I don't care about advertisements as long as my video quality improves. Currently, you-tube video quality on 3/4G network sucks. It has gone slightly better on 4G but still they have put some kind of throttling when you are on cellular network.

APPLE

Next iPhone, iPad won’t have YouTube packaged

Apple’s new version of its iPhone and iPad software will not include a pre-packaged app for Google’s popular video website, YouTube, Applesaid Monday. The move marked the latest sign of the growing rivalry between the two technology companies, close on the heels of Apple’s decision to dump Google’s mapping software from its devices.

“Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended,” Apple said in a statement Monday.

“Customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new You-Tube app to be on the app store.”

Google was not immediately available for comment.
— Reuters 

Interesting innovation.. but is it really that big a problem to be solved?

People think a lot and come up with innovation.. This is not a problem for me.. neither I got so many baby pics nor I am bored with them.. Yet!!! But in case you are.. feel free to use. for curiosity sake, I would love to try it out but nothing more than that.

However, I would like to extend this idea further.. I would use this type of app to update my feeds and pictures of friends I don't like to see any more.. moreover, it should further go into my albums and posts and clean images which contains such friends or references.. essentially data cleansing type of app/code but with image processing. In case any graphic developers are listening to it.. go ahead.. I won't sue you for patent rights like Apple and Samsung are wasting their time..

Cheers!!!

Taking babies out of the Facebook picture

Tired of all those too-cute photographs?

Website replaces them with cats, manatees

By Deborah Netburn

Los Angeles Times

Tired of looking at baby pictures on Facebook? Now you can fight back. A new service called Unbaby.me is designed to automatically replace all the baby photos on your Facebook feed with pictures of something more palatable — like cats, or manatees, or album covers.

Unbaby.me launched last week, and its website has already received 41,000 Facebook likes. That’s a lot of people who were really sick of seeing babies on Facebook. The photo-replacing plug-in is the brainchild of three New Yorkers — Yvonne Cheng, Chris Baker and Pete Marquis — who work together at the advertising agency BBDO. They are, unsurprisingly, in their late 20s and early 30s.

“We were having drinks one night after work and were joking around about how Facebook is just lousy with babies, and wouldn’t it be funny if you could replace all those photos with cats,” Cheng said.

The friends, who all work in interactive advertising, contacted a developer to help them make their joke a reality. Cheng said it took about one month from the initial conversation to the launch of Unbaby.me.

The plug-in can be downloaded from the Chrome Web store. It’s easy to install — and, if you feel guilty, to uninstall.

Once it is running, it will scan your Facebook feed for key words such as “cute,” “adorable” and “first birthday” — trigger words that indicate a baby photo may be attached. You can also add your own key words. Then it replaces the offending baby photo with a different photo from an RSS feed of pictures. The current default feed is cat photos.
Pictures of babies that have no captions will not be replaced, though, so if you are looking for a complete baby-photo-eradicating solution, this may not be it.

Cheng insists that not wanting to see pictures of babies on Facebook does not correlate to not liking babies at all.

“Personally, I don’t hate babies. I love babies. But I do get tired of looking at babies,” she said. “I think we just addressed the fact that people use social networks for different reasons, and I guess because of the age we are, the majority of people we knew were just using to post pictures of their babies.”

Amazing.. just beautiful.. Rover Landing on MARS!!!

I watched it live on NASA TV and was truly salute all these scientists and engineers who achieved this great feet for human kind. The kind of system they are putting in place is remarkably powerful and hopefully pave way for many more discoveries about past life and more importantly future human life on our dear red planet.

Moreover, the technologies put in place to achieve this feet are remarkable and hopefully lead to more greater achievements in future both for US and humankind in general.

Despite what many people say about spending billions of dollars on such missions as waste when more than three fourth population on earth won't even understand what has been achieved.. forget about caring about such things as they are still worried about clean water and decent food for themselves.

My rationale is.. this money is million or zillion times better spend than other inefficiencies in the systems. For US and developed countries.. Wars are biggest example of wasteful expenditure.. for developing countries, before they ask anything morale about spending so much, they should ask their politician's swiss bank account balance.. I only wish, we could spend more on such scientific achievements.. Hopefully, NASA has bootstrapped this field enough that capitalism will take care of next steps and even greater achievements.

check it out..
mercurynews.com/science

To satisfy Curiosity, signs of life are sought

Rover will check systems for 10 days before rolling out

By Lisa M. Krieger

lkrieger@mercurynews.com 

The whole purpose of the Mars rover is to explore the possibility of life.

So why is it so obsessed with rocks?

Only moments after Curiosity’s safe landing — decelerating from mind bending speeds to a gentle and accurate touchdown — it began sending home photos: Dust. Shadows. Rock.

For a public raised on pulp sci-fi films and literary thrillers, the images fell short of the hopedfor glimpse of dramatic vistas, green goblins or aliens. Now that Curiosity has landed safely, the thrill is gone. We can return our attention to the Olympics.

But for 200 to 300 scientists, turning toward many 16-hour days in Curiosity’s two-year search for signs of life, the excitement is just starting.

“You can see a gravel field,” said an elated John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA’s 

Mars Science Laboratory mission, describing a grainy black-and-white photo at a Monday briefing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The rocks, say scientists, will reveal if Mars ever supported germ-sized life. If so, what did it look like? Where did it go? And is it still there, hiding?

Curiosity will look for carbon-based building blocks of life. It will look for habitats that could have once supported life. And it will look for chemical “biosignatures” in rocks that will suggest that Mars may once have sustained life.

On Sunday night, Curiosity landed in a swirl of fine-grained soil in a crater, thought to have once been one of the planet’s wettest places. It’s just north of the sand dunes that fringe “Mount Sharp,” a mountain higher than Mount Whitney.

For the next several days, the rover will start a gradual rev-up of the 10 science instruments and cameras it carries to make sure nothing was damaged during the long journey and dramatic landing.

One of the early tasks will be to check the health of a small nuclear battery. Then the rover will unpack, raising a mast and weather monitoring instruments. By “sol 10” — the10th of the planet’s 24.66-hour days — it will begin wheeling and working.

On Earth, researchers will be living on the slightly longer Mars day, incrementally pushing downloaded data and uploaded instructions 40 minutes later every day. Eventually, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory team in Pasadena will be attending 3 a.m. science and planning meetings.

One of their main interests will be in Martian soil. A robotic arm will scoop and dig the iron-laden sands to test in the rover’s mini laboratories. It is not looking for signs of life — but signs that life may be or have been possible.

Life needs energy and water and certain elements. Energy? Check. It’s there. Water? Check, though not liquid.

Chemical elements that serve as the building blocks of life? That’s the $64,000 question. No one knows.

“So we’re searching for things like carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur and nitrogen,” said Bruce Barraclough, designer of the ChemCam instrument, in a Monday radio interview.

“We are not designed to find microbes or fossils but find the elements that life could have evolved from, in specific environments that are hospitable to life,” he said.

Another tool, known as Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, can detect methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane breaks down quickly, so there must be some ongoing source. On Earth, it comes from biological creatures like cows. What creates it on Mars?

SAM can break down the distribution of carbon isotopes to determine whether the gas was created biologically or geochemically, perhaps by volcanos.

In the South Bay, NASA Ames senior scientist David Blake designed CheMin, short for chemistry and mineralogy, which uses Xray diffraction to analyze soil and rock samples.

The Red Planet has been a source of legends since early human history. In the 1950s, some scientists concluded that some of its colors that mimicked those of chlorophyll that gives a green color to plants.

But we lost interest in the 1960s, when early Mariner missions sent home photos of a rocky, barren and apparently dead planet.

Hopes were raised — prematurely — in 1976, when Mars Viking mission scientists asserted that they saw evidence of biological activity on the Red Planet. It happened again in 1996, when researchers at Johnson Space Center said they had found nanofossils inside a meteorite from Mars.

In 2004, other researchers suggested that methane gases detected on Mars hinted at the presence of life.

So NASA is very cautious, and uses the “L word” — life — very carefully.

No one expects to find living bacteria or fossils in this rock.

But if Mars ever bore life, once wet sediments from 4 billion years ago preserved in neatly layered years would be the perfect place to find its record.

“Things may seem slow,” said NASA Ames’ Blake. “But we have a precious resource up there. It’s worth much, much more than the $2.5 billion that has been invested.

“We want to preserve it, and keep it doing things for years. We will not hazard this rover. We’re here for the long haul.”
Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 650-492-4098.

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NASA VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASA took a picture of the gravel on the surface of Mars’ Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover landed late Sunday. On the horizon is the rim of the crater. Part of the lens cover can be seen on the bottom right.