tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17274423912457703032024-02-08T03:08:47.505-08:00Open World TechnologyThe World of Latest TechnologyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-57870749415255107272012-06-01T08:00:00.000-07:002012-06-01T08:00:00.448-07:00Nokia hits back at Google in latest patent war tussle<br />
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613999093&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8500N7L00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613999093&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8500N7L00" width="320" /></a></div>
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HELSINKI | Fri Jun 1, 2012 7:05am EDT</div>
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<b>(Reuters) - Nokia struck back at Google on Friday over its accusation that the cellphone maker was colluding with Microsoft to make money out of their patents.</b></div>
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"Though we have not yet seen the complaint, Google's suggestion that Nokia and Microsoft are colluding on intellectual property rights is wrong," Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said on Friday.</div>
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"Both companies have their own intellectual property rights portfolios and strategies and operate independently."</div>
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He also said that some Android devices had "significant (intellectual property) infringement issues" relating to Nokia's patents.</div>
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Google, in a formal complaint to the European Commission, said Microsoft and Nokia had transferred 1,200 patents to MOSAID, a so-called "patent troll" which makes money by taking legal action over patent infringements.</div>
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Nokia and Microsoft cooperate on smartphones that compete with Google's Android devices. The Finnish phone maker shifted from its own Symbian software in favor of Microsoft Windows in February 2011.</div>
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Google's accusations highlight current cut-throat competition in the mobile phone business where companies, including Nokia, are fighting to assert intellectual property rights over wireless technologies.</div>
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Nokia's patents have become valuable and stable assets for the company, particularly at a time when falling handset sales and a loss of market share threaten its future.</div>
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Nokia has already sued Android device makers HTC and ViewSonic for infringing its patents and is expected to go after others.</div>
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Nokia already earns 500 million euros ($618.22 million) a year from its patent royalties in key areas of mobile telephony and some analysts have said a more determined application of its patent rights could boost its income by hundreds more millions of euros a year.</div>
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Microsoft said earlier that Google's complaint about antitrust in the smartphone industry was a "desperate tactic" from a company that controls more than 95 percent of mobile search and advertising.</div>
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(Reporting by Tarmo Virki. Editing by Jane Merriman)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-88785075765245016022012-06-01T07:54:00.002-07:002012-06-01T07:54:30.213-07:00Facebook's website goes down temporarily<br />
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613985712&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8500KL200" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613985712&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8500KL200" width="320" /></a></div>
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Fri Jun 1, 2012 3:24am EDT</div>
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<b>(Reuters) - Facebook's website suffered sporadic outages on Thursday, anywhere from half an hour to two hours according to various blogs, tweets and affected users, but the company said the problem has been fixed.</b></div>
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"Earlier today, some users briefly experienced issues loading the site. The issues have since been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook," company spokesman Michael Kirkland told Reuters.</div>
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The outages came as Facebook continued to grapple with the fallout of its botched May 18 IPO. The stock has plummeted nearly 23 percent from its IPO price, and numerous lawsuits have been filed in the wake of first-day trading glitches.</div>
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Shares of Facebook closed up 5 percent at $29.60 Thursday on the Nasdaq.</div>
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(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Edwin Chan in Los Angeles; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-9065453257805634252012-06-01T00:16:00.003-07:002012-06-01T00:17:14.729-07:00Google accuses Microsoft, Nokia of mobile collusion<br />
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613920308&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84U1TMP00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613920308&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84U1TMP00" width="320" /></a>Thu May 31, 2012 10:51pm EDT</div>
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<b>(Reuters) - Google Inc accused Microsoft Corp and Nokia of conspiring to use their patents against smartphone industry rivals, and said it has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission.</b><br />
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In its complaint, Google claimed Microsoft and Nokia, which cooperate on smartphone technology and production, transferred 1,200 patents for assertion to a group called MOSAID, which the company called a "patent troll" - a term referring to a holder of patents that litigates them aggressively.</div>
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"Nokia and Microsoft are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that side-step promises both companies have made," the Internet search leader said in a statement, adding that the complaint was filed "recently."</div>
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"They should be held accountable, and we hope our complaint spurs others to look into these practices."</div>
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Microsoft said the complaint was a "desperate tactic" by Google.</div>
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"Google is complaining about antitrust in the smartphone industry when it controls more than 95 percent of mobile search and advertising," Microsoft said in an emailed statement.</div>
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"Google is complaining about patents when it won't respond to growing concerns by regulators, elected officials and judges about its abuse of standard-essential patents," Microsoft said.</div>
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Nokia was not immediately available for comment.</div>
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(Reporting by Edwin Chan in San Francisco and Bill Rigby in Seattle; additional reporting by Bijoy Koyitty in Bangalore.; Editing by Gary Hill, Matthew Lewis and Richard Pullin)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-41812349039279961592012-05-31T23:50:00.004-07:002012-05-31T23:51:57.043-07:00Analysis: Nasdaq plays tough with clients angry over Facebook<br />
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By John McCrank</div>
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NEW YORK | Fri Jun 1, 2012 12:05am EDT</div>
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613938908&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8500B9A00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120601&t=2&i=613938908&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8500B9A00" width="320" /></a><b>(Reuters) - It's crisis communications 101 for Corporate America: when a company bungles an event as big as the Facebook IPO, alienates customers, and spawns lawsuits and regulatory inquiries, the CEO apologizes and agrees to provide compensation to make things right. Everyone can then move on.</b><br />
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Not so at Nasdaq OMX Group, where technology glitches and a communications breakdown marred Facebook's $16 billion initial public offering on May 18.</div>
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Since then, the exchange has done little to conciliate market making clients - a number of which lost tens of millions of dollars each due to the trading problems. There has been no outright apology. And as angry as some customers may be, experts say they have little alternative but to keep trading on the exchange.</div>
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And they have. Nasdaq's trading volume this week is above the monthly average, and its share price is nearly unchanged two weeks after the trading glitch.</div>
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Nasdaq, one of only two U.S. exchanges on which companies can list their shares, is home to a raft of heavily traded household technology names such as Apple and Google, and has challenged the New York Stock Exchange for marquee listings. The Facebook IPO was seen as a major coup.</div>
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With so few options for traders, Nasdaq's strong position is giving confidence to investors and analysts.</div>
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"We expect this to blow over with time," said Chris Allen, an analyst at Evercore Partners, in a note to clients.</div>
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Many of Nasdaq's customers sing a different tune, however. During the first day of Facebook trading, technical glitches left the market makers - who facilitate trades for brokers and are crucial to the smooth operation of stock trading - in the dark for hours as to which trades had gone through.</div>
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The result was up to $115 million in losses for the Nasdaq's top four market makers alone. Two senior executives in the financial industry have said they expect Nasdaq member claims to total $150 million to $200 million.</div>
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Nasdaq's response amounted to a members-only call with one of its executive vice presidents, a statement that the exchange would set aside a pool of $13.7 million to accommodate losses, and a brief mention of Facebook during the company's shareholders meeting. Greifeld also hosted Nasdaq's party at a technology conference this week in California.</div>
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A source close to the exchange said it is reaching out to affected clients. Yet some big clients are still unhappy.</div>
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"Communication has been about as good as it was on the day of the IPO - minimal," said Mark Turner, head of trading at New York-based market maker Instinet.</div>
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Turner declined to say how much his firm lost but said it paled in comparison with losses suffered by larger counterparts like UBS, Citigroup, Knight Capital, and Citadel Securities, which lost between $20 million and $35 million.</div>
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THROWING OUT THE CRISIS PR PLAYBOOK</div>
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In most corners of Corporate America, such a situation would have driven executives into crisis communications overload.</div>
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Regular communication, not necessarily more, is the best way to handle a crisis situation, said John McInerney, a global vice president at public relations firm Makovsky and Co.</div>
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"Just saying 'we are going to talk to you at 4:00 or at a certain point and we are going to tell you where things are right now,' I think people can live with that kind of uncertainty as long as they know they are going to hear something," he said. "And that didn't happen."</div>
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On a call with select reporters the Sunday after the Facebook IPO, Greifeld said Nasdaq was "humbly embarrassed" over the trading glitch, but he stopped short of a public apology.</div>
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"They have failed in executing a comprehensive or cohesive communications strategy," said Michael Robinson, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission public affairs and policy chief who also spent three years in media relations at Nasdaq.</div>
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"Here we are a couple of weeks later and I'm still not entirely sure what it is they said went wrong," said Robinson, who is now an executive vice president at Levick Strategic Communications.</div>
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It's a sharp contrast to the way rival exchange BATS Global Markets handled a major crisis - the withdrawal of its own IPO on its own exchange in March after a technological glitch disrupted trading. Joe Ratterman, chief executive of BATS, was on television the next day taking the blame and explaining why the company pulled the plug.</div>
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The incident was an embarrassment at the time, but now market participants say BATS' swift response looks like a brilliant move compared with Nasdaq's inaction.</div>
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"Although they were highly criticized, guess what, no one lost any money, other than maybe the BATS guys. But ... investors didn't lose," said a financial industry executive who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.</div>
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"MODUS OPERANDI"</div>
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A lack of public communication is partly protective - lawsuits against Nasdaq by disgruntled investors are stacking up. But many people who deal with Nasdaq regularly, or are familiar with how it has handled its customer relationships, say even if there were no legal issues, the silence and lack of contrition expressed to market makers is par for the course.</div>
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"This is their modus operandi," said independent trading and market structure consultant William Karsh, a former chief operating officer of rival electronic exchange Direct Edge. "They screw the wholesalers because they can. At the end of the day, the wholesalers have no choice but to use them - they are still a huge liquidity pool."</div>
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Nasdaq declined to comment for this article.</div>
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Nasdaq's liabilities for a trading glitch are limited through regulation and a contract with its customers to $3 million per month. The exchange has applied to the SEC to increase the amount to $13.7 million to include a gain of $10.7 million it made from the Facebook IPO through the sale of shares it was left holding due to the technology glitches.</div>
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"They are certainly facing the specter of some significant lawsuits if this pool is not enough," said an attorney who is familiar with the situation.</div>
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The customers are arguing that the limit on liabilities should not apply because the Facebook problems were the result of gross negligence.</div>
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While its trading customers have little option but to stick with Nasdaq to do their business, the longer-term risk for the exchange is not landing the next Facebook.</div>
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"The Nasdaq has just handed the New York Stock Exchange the best marketing bonanza they could ever hope for," said Robinson.</div>
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(Reporting By John McCrank; editing by Jennifer Merritt and Edward Tobin, Martin Howell)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-2291704214846906572012-05-29T18:53:00.002-07:002012-05-29T18:53:43.899-07:00French court backs Google in TV piracy case<br />
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PARIS | Tue May 29, 2012 12:59pm EDT</div>
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(Reuters) - A French court ruled that Google is not responsible for filtering content on YouTube, dealing a blow to French broadcaster TF1 which sought damages for copyrighted sports and movies which ended up on the video-sharing website.</div>
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TF1 claimed 141 million euros in damages but was ordered to pay 80,000 euros of Google's legal fees.</div>
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The decision mirrors an earlier case in France in 2011 in which video-sharing website Dailymotion was classified as a 'platform' for content and not an 'editor' of content.</div>
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The two French decisions mean that the websites are not legally responsible for ensuring that pirated content does not appear, as long as they take steps to remove it once the copyright owner indicates its presence.</div>
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Google faces other cases in the United States involving media giant Viacom and in Italy involving broadcaster Mediaset over whether its YouTube site is responsible for pirated content.</div>
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A German court ruled in April that YouTube was responsible for the content its users published and should take down copyrighted clips or face a hefty royalties bill.</div>
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In April a U.S. appeals court also dealt Google a blow by reviving lawsuits by Viacom Inc, the English Premier League and other media companies over the use of copyrighted videos on YouTube.</div>
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In France the courts have sided with Google.</div>
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"The defendant is not responsible in principle for the video content on its site; only the users of the site are," the decision reads.</div>
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"It has no obligation to police the content before it is put online as long as it informs users that posting television shows, music videos, concerts or advertisements without prior consent of the owner is not allowed."</div>
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The case can still be appealed because it was made by a civil court of first instance in Paris.</div>
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A spokeswoman for TF1, which is France's biggest broadcaster, said it saw the decision as "surprising in several respects."</div>
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"For that reason, TF1 is studying whether to appeal the decision," she added.</div>
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Google welcomed the decision, saying it was good for the company and for Internet users.</div>
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Christophe Mueller, head of partnerships for YouTube in Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, welcomed the decision as allowing the site to continue as an "open platform for everyone."</div>
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"We continue to oppose any demands to systematically filter or pre-screen YouTube content and are confident that future court rulings will uphold the need to allow innovative Web services to flourish," Mueller said in a statement.</div>
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Google shares were up 0.9 percent to $596.75 per share at 1443GMT.</div>
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(Reporting by Leila Abboud and Gwenaelle Barzic; Editing by David Cowell)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-35748279912734595452012-05-29T18:39:00.000-07:002012-05-29T18:39:12.277-07:00Opera seen a Facebook fit but no "For Sale" sign<br />
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120529&t=2&i=612928293&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84S0T1D00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120529&t=2&i=612928293&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84S0T1D00" width="320" /></a></div>
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OSLO | Tue May 29, 2012 2:01pm EDT</div>
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(Reuters) - Facebook is under pressure to make money from the increasing number of users who access the social networking site from mobiles, making Norway's Opera a good fit for it, bankers familiar with the technology industry said.</div>
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Shares in the mobile browser maker soared by as much as 26 percent on Tuesday. Tech blogs reported recently that it was in the sights of Facebook, which was criticized at the time of its $100 billion initial public offering for failing to have an effective mobile advertising strategy.</div>
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Opera's Internet browser optimizes surfing on mobiles, which can be a slow and painful experience especially on more basic phones, and is especially popular in emerging markets.</div>
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Bankers said the company had long been up for sale informally but they ruled out rival interest from the likes of Google and Yahoo in the short term.</div>
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"The company has been available for a long time. Informally it is for sale," one of the bankers said. "And Facebook wants to buy its way into the emerging markets."</div>
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Another source familiar with the matter said it was unclear whether interest from third parties would ultimately result in closer partnerships or an outright takeover of Opera.</div>
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"Opera is attracting growing interest as mobile becomes more strategic for Internet companies, but there is no ‘For Sale' sign up over the company," the source said.</div>
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Opera currently benefits from partnerships with multiple companies including Google, which would be threatened by a takeover from a powerful rival such as Facebook.</div>
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"It's a classic challenge for a company like this. They're like the Switzerland of mobile. Someone would have to derive meaningful value to take them off of that independent path," the sources said.</div>
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Facebook shares slid to a new low on Tuesday at just above $30, extending a losing streak since its controversial and glitch-ridden market debut on May 18.</div>
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Facebook is approaching saturation point in the developed world and says its next billion users will come from countries such as India and Nigeria.</div>
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Because many people in those markets own simple phones and do not have access to app stores, it is important for Facebook to make the experience of accessing the site through a Web browser as painless as possible.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Its chief technology officer, Bret Taylor, said in February that Facebook would lend its weight to a push for better Web standards that would enable more apps to be delivered via a simple Internet browser, instead of going through Apple and Google stores.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"On paper (a Facebook-Opera combination) is a good story. Opera's browser is used in feature phones, not smartphones, mainly in the emerging markets," a second banker said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Opera, which has about 200 million subscribers to its Mobile and Mini services, has built a significant share in major emerging markets such as India and Brazil, which are strategic growth markets for Facebook.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
HEFTY PREMIUM</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Norwegian company would be such a perfect fit for Facebook that the U.S. company would have to pay a hefty premium, analysts said.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
DNB, Norway's top bank, said the price would have to be double Friday's closing level, or 68.6 crowns, valuing Opera at $1.35 billion. Danske Bank and ABG Sundal Collier both predicted a price between 50 and 60 crowns a share, or $1 billion to $1.2 billion.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Opera would be sensible for Facebook on several levels," Arctic Securities said.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It would enhance the now limited mobile experience of Facebook, improve Facebook's mobile monetization problem, help Facebook retain online game developers leaving the social network over the lack of a mobile platform and further improve Facebook's ability to target ads."</div>
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<br /></div>
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Opera makes various Web browsers that work across an array of platforms including mobile phones, tablets, PCs and TVs.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The software is available on most phones, including Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry, and works on various operating systems, including Google's Android, giving Opera the reach Facebook is seeking.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The browser can compress data by as much as 90 percent, saving consumers on data charges, and has the technology to better display ads, a significant factor for Facebook which has struggled to convert its rapidly increasing traffic from mobile platforms to revenue.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Opera officials have repeatedly declined to comment.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, Chief Executive Lars Boilesen last October said he would "love to" further cooperate with Facebook.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"We are already Facebook's platform of distribution in emerging markets like Africa and India. A big part of the Opera Mini traffic is from Facebook. So we are already their channel in these markets," he said in October.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"We would love to cooperate with Facebook, but the same goes for Google and everyone else. There are no limits here, because we are the leading mobile client in these markets," he added.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
OBSTACLES</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Still, several obstacles remain.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Opera's founder and top shareholder, Jon S. Von Tetzchner, said the firm should focus on organic growth.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I want Opera to focus on growth and delivering good results; there are big opportunities for Opera," Tetzchner, who holds 10.9 percent of Opera, told Reuters. "We have been promised 500 million users by 2013, and I think that's a good goal and the firm should keep going for it."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He added, "I personally think that an ARPU (average revenue per user) goal of $1 is even modest. I am not pushing for a takeover."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Tetzchner said he was not aware of a bid and had not decided how he would react to one but that it would be, as he described it, "undemocratic" to try to block it if others supported it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another obstacle could be Google, which has extensive relationships with Opera.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"A takeover by Facebook will likely send cold water down Google's spine," Arctic Securities said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Google is Opera's default search partner for Opera Mini and Opera Mobile worldwide outside Russia/CIS, making the firm a major relationship for Google.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Additional reporting by Victoria Howley and Georgina Prodhan; Editing by David Cowell and Jane Baird)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-34434303295745800002012-05-29T18:32:00.002-07:002012-05-29T18:34:04.792-07:00Samsung Galaxy S3 gets head start on rival iPhone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.netbooknews.com/wp-content/2012/05/iphone4svss3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.netbooknews.com/wp-content/2012/05/iphone4svss3.jpg" width="314" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">By Miyoung Kim and Paul Sandle</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
SEOUL/LONDON | Tue May 29, 2012 3:12pm EDT</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics launched its top-of-the-range Galaxy S3 smartphone in Europe on Tuesday, aiming to outsell its previous model that helped the South Korean company topple Apple as the world's largest smartphone maker.</div>
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</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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The Galaxy S3, which tracks the user's eye movements to keep the screen from dimming or turning off while in use, hits stores in 28 European and Middle East countries, including Germany, as Samsung aims to increase its lead over Apple months ahead of its new iPhone, expected in the third quarter.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung has tried to create the kind of frenzy around the launch that has become the norm for Apple's new gadgets. But some customers will have to wait a couple of weeks to get their phone because of delays in making it in a newly-invented "Pebble Blue" color.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In Berlin, about 50 customers queued outside the BASE mobile phone shop on Monday night eager to be the first to lay their hands on the S3.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Also in Frankfurt some 100 people were in the queue this morning when the Deutsche Telekom shop on the city's busiest shopping street The Zeil opened.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
"That's about the same as when the latest iPhone went on sale," said 21-year old Steven Barth, who was taking orders at the shop. "I think our publicity campaign also helps. We are giving away about a hundred Galaxys today, in this shop."</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Robert, a student from Frankfurt, who declined to give his last name as he should have been studying, said he had already ordered his Galaxy S3.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I didn't really like it when Apple was selling the iPhone only via Deutsche Telekom. That's when I decided to buy a Samsung and never left," the 28-year old said.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Other Frankfurt cellphone stores were not so busy.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
And in Paris, several cellphone stores did not have the S3 and sales assistants said they did not know when they would get it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Consumers have been waiting for the Galaxy S3. It's one of the few emblematic smartphone launches this year," said Laurent Lame, marketing director of devices for French operator SFR.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He said Samsung was aiming for a similar buzz as with iPhone launches.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Samsung has closely guarded the details of the phone to create a sense of secrets and confidentiality that then makes the launch into an event. They do 'teasing' like Apple does now," Lame said.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
A spokesman for Vodafone in Britain said the device had been the most pre-ordered Android device in its line-up ever.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
MASSIVE MARKETING</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The smartphone, running on Google's Android operating system, boasts a 4.8-inch screen, one of the largest on smartphones ever, and much bigger than the 3.5-inch display on the iPhone 4S.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Top global carriers - from Britain's Vodafone to Singapore's SingTel - have started to promote the S3 aggressively, fuelling speculation the smartphone could top its predecessor, the Galaxy S2's 20 million sales worldwide.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung itself has said it expects the new flagship model to outsell its predecessor.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung introduced its first Galaxy in 2010, three years after the iPhone's debut, to counter Apple's roaring success in smartphones when the troubles of bigger rivals Nokia and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion had started.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung sold 44.5 million smartphones in January-March - equal to nearly 21,000 every hour - giving it 30.6 percent market share. Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones, taking 24.1 percent market share.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The Galaxy S3 is a real challenger to the upcoming iPhone," said Francisco Jeronimo, an IDC analyst based in London. "This is likely be one of the most sold smartphones this year, though the real test will come when the next iPhone is launched."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the race for global smartphone supremacy, Apple has accused Samsung of copying some of its products. The South Korean company counter-claims that Apple has infringed its patents. Both have denied the allegations, and a long-running court saga continues.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Apple plans to use a larger screen on the next iPhone, according to people familiar with the situation. The current iPhone 4S model was introduced last October.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung has launched its own music service on the Galaxy S3, putting itself head-to-head with Apple. It has previously rebranded existing music and video services.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Samsung is not known for our content services; we make good hardware products but we haven't done much in the content space but that's changing," T.J. Kang, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics' Media Solution Center, said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"We are doing it to create a better experience for our users. There are things we could do better if we have complete control over all of the service."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
MORE ROUNDED</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a departure from its predecessor, whose look and feel became the main subject of the legal dispute with Apple, the latest Galaxy has a more rounded outline. It also has voice recognition, dubbed S Voice, which will inevitably be compared with Apple's Siri, and image recognition software that can tag and share photographs.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Prices vary depending on the contract. A model with 16 gigabytes of memory costs up to 189 pounds ($300) under a 12-month contract with Vodafone. A similar package for the iPhone 4s costs 159 pounds, but comes with a more expensive monthly data plan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung said it will release the S3 via 296 carriers in 145 countries by July.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Profit from Samsung's mobile division nearly tripled in January-March to $3.6 billion, accounting for 73 percent of operating profit.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Analysts estimate its global marketing campaign for the S3 will likely have cost several hundred million dollars.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung - whose shares have gained 82 percent since late-August, beating Apple's 58 percent rise - is now banking on an aggressive marketing campaign ahead of the summer London Olympics to further drive sales. It has said its mobile market share in China doubled after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The S3 is supported by an unprecedented promotional campaign," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst at CCS Insight in London. "Samsung's timing with the Galaxy S3 is perfect."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
($1 = 0.6396 British pounds)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
($1 = 1185.3500 Korean won)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Additional reporting by Fabrizio Bensch in BERLIN, Leila Abboud in PARIS, Harro ten Wolde in FRANKFURT and Tarmo Virki in HELSINKI; Editing by Ian Geoghegan, Erica Billingham and Jane Merriman)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(This story was refiled to remove extraneous apostrophe in paragraph six)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-91214978000255248932012-05-29T18:30:00.005-07:002012-05-29T18:36:45.981-07:00HTC says phones pass U.S. customs review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.segub.bj/IMG/siteon16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://www.segub.bj/IMG/siteon16.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">TAIPEI | Tue May 29, 2012 8:56pm EDT</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Reuters) - Smartphone maker HTC (2498.TW) said on Wednesday its latest smartphones have passed a U.S. customs review, clearing the way for it to ramp up sales in the United States as it looks to turn around a decline in what was once its largest market.</div>
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</div>
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Earlier in May HTC had said that U.S. sales of two new smartphones, the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE, would be delayed due to a requirement for customs inspections after the Taiwanese company lost a patent dispute with Apple Inc (AAPL.O).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
That news sent its shares tumbling on concerns over its ability to win back share in the U.S. market. HTC said at the time that its new phones contained a workaround to avoid the technology covered in the patent case, but that inspections were still required.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
HTC has struggled to compete with Apple's iPhones and Samsung's (005930.KS) Galaxy range, and faces a further threat after Samsung launched its latest S3 model in Europe on Tuesday.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In April, HTC Chief Executive Peter Chou said HTC would not return to the days when more than 50 percent of its revenue came from the United States.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The company said in a brief statement on Wednesday that its phones "met International Trade Commission standards and imports to the U.S. would proceed according to normal processes."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
HTC launched the One series of models in February to lead its fight back against Apple and Samsung, giving the phones fast graphic chips and advanced music and photography functions.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Reporting by Faith Hung; Editing by Richard Pullin)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-51420067523702825162012-05-28T20:34:00.001-07:002012-05-28T20:37:06.740-07:00Samsung launches Galaxy S3 to cement smartphone supremacy<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120529&t=2&i=612676985&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=300&r=CBRE84S07XS00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120529&t=2&i=612676985&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=300&r=CBRE84S07XS00" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: justify;">By Miyoung Kim</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
SEOUL | Mon May 28, 2012 10:51pm EDT</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co launches its latest Galaxy S smartphone in Europe on Tuesday, with the third generation model expected to be even more successful than its predecessor, which helped the South Korean company topple Apple Inc as the world's top smartphone maker.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The S3, which tracks the user's eye movements to keep the screen from dimming or turning off while in use, hits stores in 28 European and Middle East countries, including Germany and Britain, as Samsung aims to widen the gap with Apple months ahead of its rival's new iPhone, expected in the third quarter.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Galaxy S3, running on Google's Android operating system, boasts a 4.8-inch screen, bigger than the 3.5-inch display on the iPhone 4S and the 4.7-inch screen on HTC's One X model.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the kind of anticipation that has become the norm for new Apple gadget releases, hopeful customers began queuing outside an electronics retail store in Berlin on Monday night eager to be the first to lay their hands on the S3.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Major global carriers - from Vodafone to Singapore's SingTel - have been aggressively promoting the S3, fuelling speculation the smartphone could top the Galaxy S2's 20 million unit sales worldwide.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"In the two years that we've been offering pre-orders, it's the most pre-ordered Android device we've had in our line-up," said a spokesman for Vodafone UK, declining to disclose exact numbers. "It's on track to meet, if not exceed, the level of pre-orders we expected by the time it actually launches."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung introduced its first Galaxy in 2010, three years after the iPhone's debut, to counter Apple's roaring success in smartphones at a time when other rivals such as Nokia were struggling to make much impact.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung sold 44.5 million smartphones in January-March - equal to nearly 21,000 every hour - giving it 30.6 percent market share. Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones, taking 24.1 percent market share.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The Galaxy S3 is a real challenger to the upcoming iPhone," said Francisco Jeronimo, an IDC analyst based in London. "This is likely be one of the most sold smartphones this year, though the real test will come when the next iPhone is launched."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The race for global smartphone supremacy comes as Apple has accused Samsung of copying some of its products. The South Korean company counter-claims that Apple has infringed its patents. Both have denied the allegations, and a long-running court saga continues.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Apple plans to use a larger screen on the next iPhone, according to people familiar with the situation. The iPhone 4S was introduced last October.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
MORE ROUNDED</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a departure from its predecessor, whose look and feel became the main subject of the legal dispute with Apple, the latest Galaxy has a more rounded outline. It also has voice recognition, dubbed S Voice, which will inevitably be compared to Apple's Siri, and image recognition software that can tag and share photographs.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Prices vary depending on the contract. A model with 16 gigabytes of memory costs up to 189 pounds ($300) under a 12-month contract with Vodafone. A similar package for the iPhone 4s costs 159 pounds, but comes with a more expensive monthly data plan.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung said it will release the S3 via 296 carriers in 145 countries by July.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Profit from Samsung's mobile division nearly tripled in January-March to $3.6 billion, accounting for 73 percent of operating profit.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samsung - whose shares have gained 82 percent since late-August, beating Apple's 58 percent rise - is now banking on an aggressive marketing campaign ahead of the summer London Olympics to further drive sales. It has said its mobile market share in China doubled after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The S3 is supported by an unprecedented promotional campaign," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst at CCS Insight in London. "Samsung's timing with the Galaxy S3 is perfect."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
($1 = 0.6396 British pounds)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
($1 = 1185.3500 Korean won)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
(Additional reporting by Paul Sandle in LONDON and Tarmo Virki in HELSINKI; Editing by Ryan Woo and Ian Geoghegan)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-14162158578588634262012-05-28T19:27:00.001-07:002012-05-28T20:07:29.417-07:00Analysis: Falling prices to kill off half of Chinese LED chipmakers<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120527&t=2&i=612276967&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84Q1NXD00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120527&t=2&i=612276967&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84Q1NXD00" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
By Leonora Walet and Twinnie Siu</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
HONG KONG | Sun May 27, 2012 5:34pm EDT</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>(Reuters) - In China, surplus capacity and sliding prices are sounding the death knell for half of the companies making light emitting diode (LED) chips used in Samsung television panels and Sharp computer monitors, with only the large, state-backed players likely to pull through.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sluggish global sales of TVs and computers may further cut LED chip prices by 20 percent this year, and consolidation or closure are the only options for China's smaller LED players, analysts say.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
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By contrast, Sanan Optoelectronics Co Ltd, China's top LED chipmaker with a market value of $2.8 billion, and Elec-Tech International Co Ltd will be among a handful of large companies that will survive as they continue to receive subsidies and incentives from the government, according to analysts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"That's China's strategy. They want their biggest companies to survive" in this restructuring, Nomura analyst Anne Lee said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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For the majority of LED firms, the government is slowly rolling back incentives, including tax breaks, free land and more than $1.6 billion in cash to buy LED chip-making equipment, that had helped sustain the industry for more than three years.</div>
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Proview International, whose Shenzhen-based unit is battling Apple Inc over the iPad trademark in China, is grappling with slumping LED prices and fierce competition that have dragged down earnings for other LED companies including Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co and Foshan Nationstar Optoelectronics.</div>
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Hangzhou Silan fell 2.9 percent to 10.10 yuan in Shanghai trading on Friday, while Foshan dropped 1 percent to 8.10 yuan on the Shenzhen exchange. The stocks were down more than 30 percent in the past year.</div>
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Many LED companies are operating their factories at 50 percent capacity in China, with up to half of the 700 or so chip-making machines purchased with government money during the boom years in 2009 and 2010 left idle, industry watchers say.</div>
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In the past year, overcapacity has shut hundreds of small Chinese makers of LED lighting, according to analysts.</div>
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"China's financial policy is not giving enough support to mid-tier and smaller enterprises," said Bao En Zhong, executive vice chairman of the semiconductor lighting association in Shenzhen, one of China's largest production bases for LED lighting. "We may see more factory closures."</div>
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BIGGER COMPANIES</div>
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Government subsidies helped China triple its global share in packaged LED components, consisting of chips, wiring and conductive paste, to 6 percent last year from 2 percent in 2010.</div>
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Sanan Optoelectronics said net profit more than doubled to 936 million yuan ($147.52 million) in 2011, thanks to government subsidies of about 1.8 billion yuan, analysts say. Elec-Tech's net income expanded two-fold to 392.3 million yuan.</div>
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Armed with nearly 2 billion yuan in cash in total, the bigger LED companies are ramping up capacity, despite a slow market, to better capture a larger share of state-backed LED lighting projects China plans to roll out this year, analysts said.</div>
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A UBS report said Elec-Tech had added 50 chip-making metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOVCD) tools, used to produce LED chips, and may add 100 more this year. Sanan is also planning to buy more MOVCD tools, according to UBS.</div>
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China's Ministry of Science and Technology has said it plans to increase the value of the country's LED industry to 500 billion yuan ($79.10 billion) by 2015.</div>
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Analysts say the industry was valued at 31 billion yuan last year and consolidation is crucial to boost growth.</div>
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The death of weaker companies will also be a boon for bigger, state-backed LED firms looking to compete with regional rivals such as Taiwan's Epistar Corp and South Korea's LG Innotek at a time when many of their Asian peers have reported profit declines or losses.</div>
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NEAR-TERM OUTLOOK</div>
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A broad cyclical decline in demand for LED chips and a market that remains 50 percent oversupplied continue to weigh on prices and margins.</div>
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While the industry saw a seasonal increase in orders for LED chips early this year, fundamentals are still looking weak.</div>
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Sales growth at Taiwanese LED companies slipped to 3 percent in April month on month, after rising 12 percent in March from February, a UBS report showed.</div>
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Taiwanese LED companies account for about 19 percent of global output of packaged LED chips.</div>
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"We will see a real problem in demand due to reduced usage of LEDs in television and monitor units as backlight technology improves," said HSBC analyst Jerry Tsai. "Add to that a 20 percent fall in prices, you can just imagine the headwinds the industry will face next year." ($1 = 6.3447 Chinese yuan)</div>
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(Reporting by Leonora Walet and Twinnie Siu; Additional reporting by Chyen Yee Lee; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Ryan Woo)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-18868218564295423902012-05-28T19:19:00.001-07:002012-05-28T19:20:41.817-07:00Powerful "Flame" cyber weapon found in Iran<br />
By Jim Finkle<br />
BOSTON | Mon May 28, 2012 6:17pm EDT<br />
(Reuters) - Security experts said on Monday a highly sophisticated computer virus is infecting computers in Iran and other Middle East countries and may have been deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.<br />
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120528&t=2&i=612585308&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84R15DH00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120528&t=2&i=612585308&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE84R15DH00" width="320" /></a>Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.<br />
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Kaspersky researchers said they have yet to determine whether Flame had a specific mission like Stuxnet, and declined to say who they think built it.<br />
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Iran has accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.<br />
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Cyber security experts said the discovery publicly demonstrates what experts privy to classified information have long known: that nations have been using pieces of malicious computer code as weapons to promote their security interests for several years.<br />
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"This is one of many, many campaigns that happen all the time and never make it into the public domain," said Alexander Klimburg, a cyber security expert at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.<br />
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A cyber security agency in Iran said on its English website that Flame bore a "close relation" to Stuxnet, the notorious computer worm that attacked that country's nuclear program in 2010 and is the first publicly known example of a cyber weapon.<br />
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Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team also said Flame might be linked to recent cyber attacks that officials in Tehran have said were responsible for massive data losses on some Iranian computer systems.<br />
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Kaspersky Lab said it discovered Flame after a U.N. telecommunications agency asked it to analyze data on malicious software across the Middle East in search of the data-wiping virus reported by Iran.<br />
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STUXNET CONNECTION<br />
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Experts at Kaspersky Lab and Hungary's Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security who have spent weeks studying Flame said they have yet to find any evidence that it can attack infrastructure, delete data or inflict other physical damage.<br />
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Yet they said they are in the early stages of their investigations and that they may discover other purposes beyond data theft. It took researchers months to determine the key mysteries behind Stuxnet, including the purpose of modules used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.<br />
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If Kaspersky's findings are validated, Flame could go down in history as the third major cyber weapon uncovered after Stuxnet and its data-stealing cousin Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain.<br />
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The Moscow-based company is controlled by Russian malware researcher Eugene Kaspersky. It gained notoriety after solving several mysteries surrounding Stuxnet and Duqu.<br />
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Officials with Symantec Corp and Intel Corp McAfee security division, the top 2 makers of anti-virus software, said they were studying Flame.<br />
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"It seems to be more complex than Duqu but it's too early to tell its place in history," said Dave Marcus, director of advanced research and threat intelligence with McAfee.<br />
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Symantec Security Response manager Vikram Thakur said that his company's experts believed there was a "high" probability that Flame was among the most complex pieces of malicious software ever discovered.<br />
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At least one rival of Kaspersky expressed skepticism.<br />
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Privately held Webroot said its automatic virus-scanning engines detected Flame in December 2007, but that it did not pay much attention because the code was not particularly menacing.<br />
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That is partly because it was easy to discover and remove, said Webroot Vice President Joe Jaroch. "There are many more dangerous threats out there today," he said.<br />
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MAPPING IT OUT<br />
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Kaspersky's research shows the largest number of infected machines are in Iran, followed by Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan and Syria.<br />
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The virus contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, which caused centrifuges to fail at the Iranian enrichment facility it attacked. It has about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, said Kaspersky Lab senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg.<br />
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Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.<br />
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Kaspersky Lab said Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and that both viruses employ a similar way of spreading.<br />
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That means the teams that built Stuxnet and Duqu might have had access to the same technology as the team that built Flame, Schouwenberg said.<br />
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He said that a nation state would have the capability to build such a sophisticated tool, but declined to comment on which countries might do so.<br />
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The question of who built flame is sure to become a hot topic in the security community as well as the diplomatic world.<br />
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There is some controversy over who was behind Stuxnet and Duqu. Some experts suspect the United States and Israel, a view that was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine what they say are Iran's efforts to build a bomb.<br />
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The U.S. Defense Department, CIA, State Department, National Security Agency, and U.S. Cyber Command declined to comment.<br />
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Hungarian researcher Boldizsar Bencsath, whose Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security first discovered Duqu, said his analysis shows that Flame may have been active for at least five years and perhaps eight years or more.<br />
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That implies it was active long before Stuxnet.<br />
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"It's huge and overly complex, which makes me think it's a first-generation data gathering tool," said Neil Fisher, vice president for global security solutions at Unisys Corp. "We are going to find more of these things over time."<br />
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Others said cyber weapons technology has inevitably advanced since Flame was built.<br />
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"The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now," Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.<br />
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Some experts speculated that the discovery of the virus may have dealt a psychological blow to its victims, on top of whatever damage Flame may have already inflicted to their computers.<br />
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"If a government initiated the attack it might not care that the attack was discovered," said Klimburg of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. "The psychological effect of the penetration could be nearly as profitable as the intelligence gathered."<br />
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(Additional reporting by Jim Wolf in Washington, Daniel Fineran in Dubai and William Maclean in London; editing by Edward Tobin, Ron Popeski and Mohammad Zargham)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-90284165328558997812012-05-10T05:02:00.002-07:002012-05-10T05:02:57.354-07:00Sony sees return to profit, aims to halve TV losses<span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans;"></span><br />
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<b>(Reuters) - Sony Corp predicted a return to profit this year as it looks to halve the losses in its TV business that pushed the Japanese consumer electronics giant to a record loss of $5.74 billion in the year just ended.</b></div>
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120510&t=2&i=605310168&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=300&r=CBRE8490RUP00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120510&t=2&i=605310168&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=300&r=CBRE8490RUP00" /></a>Sony shares, valued at around $15 billion or just 3 percent of rival Apple Inc, this week slipped to a quarter century low, a sign of how the Walkman and PlayStation maker has lost its innovative edge and fallen behind Apple and Samsung Electronics.</div>
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Under new CEO Kazuo Hirai, Sony is slashing costs - 10,000 jobs, or 6 percent of the global workforce, will go - in a bid to turn around its struggling TV unit. At a briefing last month, Hirai sketched a future driven by mobile devices such as the Xperia smartphone, gaming and cameras, as well as medical devices and electric car batteries, along with big cost cuts in the TV business that has lost more than $12 billion in 9 years.</div>
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The company said on Thursday it expects to sell more than 33 million smartphones this year, up from 22.5 million last year. In preparation for that mobile push, Sony last year bought out Ericsson from a phone joint venture to integrate the business with its other consumer electronics units.</div>
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"In handsets, without big innovations, Sony will still be a second-tier smartphone market player," said SR Kwon, an industry analyst at Dongbu Securities in Seoul. "I'm just not impressed by Sony smartphones."</div>
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"Will Sony get much better as time goes by? I'm not that optimistic. Currency is not the only problem, the bigger problem is that Sony has failed to catch up with consumer trends in TVs and handsets."</div>
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Sony expects an operating profit of 180 billion yen in the year to next March, slightly ahead of market estimates, but a rebound from a loss of 67.3 billion yen in the year just ended. It forecast a full-year net profit of 30 billion yen.</div>
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"The operating profit forecast isn't far off the level seen two years ago ... This suggests we're on a recovery trend and last year was definitely the bottom," said Kenichi Hirano, operating officer at Tachibana Securities in Tokyo. "But I think not everyone in the market is convinced of this, especially since the company lacks a solid plan to turn around its TV business."</div>
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Sony's net income forecast, though, was not as high as some had anticipated. "The net profit came in below expectations, but they're projecting a strong operating profit, which I'm still doubtful they can achieve," said Hiroyuki Fukunaga, chief executive at Investrust.</div>
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"It looks like they're trying their best, but just looking at the figures it's hard to see exactly how they're going to increase margins."</div>
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HIRAI'S BATTLE</div>
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Sony predicted sales of its liquid crystal TVs would fall 11 percent to 17.5 million in the current year, but forecast its losses from the LCD TV business would halve to 80 billion yen.</div>
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As TV technology moves on, Samsung reiterated on Thursday it plans to sell organic light emitting display (OLED) TVs from the second half of this year and reckons this will become mainstream TV technology within 2-3 years.</div>
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Hirai, who succeeded Welsh-born Howard Stringer last month, hopes to reduce Sony's TV costs after exiting a joint LCD panel venture with Samsung. The Japanese firm in December agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in the panel production firm that had locked it into buying expensive panels as a market glut triggered a drop in the price of the main TV component.</div>
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Sony also sees an 11 percent decline in sales this year of its PlayStation games console, to 16 million. Sales of its new Vita handheld games console hit 1.8 million in the previous year, Sony said.</div>
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Sony's January-March operating loss of 1.4 billion yen was narrower than the average 10 billion yen loss estimated by five analysts.</div>
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Hirai has set a target for group sales of 8.5 trillion yen ($106.85 billion) in two years, with an operating margin of more than 5 percent, but he has yet to spell out just how Sony will achieve those mid-term targets, and investors are concerned about Sony's prospects as consumers flock to gadgets made by Samsung and Apple. Since the start of the year, Sony shares have dropped 12 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei 225 index has gained nearly 7 percent.</div>
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Hirai "seems to have the will to turn the company around, but he's a young CEO and it's unclear whether he will actually be able to," said Investrust's Fukunaga. "Until we see some progress it's hard to judge whether they can meet their goals."</div>
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Ahead of the results on Thursday, Sony shares closed down 1.2 percent at 1,213 yen, while the Nikkei average slipped 0.4 percent.</div>
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($1 = 79.5500 Japanese yen)</div>
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(Additional reporting by Mari Saito and Sophie Knight in TOKYO and Hyunjoo Jin and Miyoung Kim in SEOUL; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Ian Geoghegan)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-78165170676448544222012-04-01T03:25:00.003-07:002012-04-01T03:29:33.654-07:00Obama gets custom-made New Balance running shoes<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22px;">President Barack Obama is well known as a basketball fanatic, but he might feel more like going for a jog after receiving a custom-made pair of New Balance running shows, embroidered with the words “President” and “Obama,” on them Friday night in Maine.</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or free sneakers, however. Obama will also get a nudge from a Maine lawmaker to require that the Department of Defense outfit service members with domestically-produced athletic shoes.<a name='more'></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mike Michaud, who represents Maine’s Second Congressional District, picked up Obama’s size 12D gray sneakers on Friday from New Balance’s facility in Norridgewock, central Maine. He will present the shoes at an Obama fundraiser at the Portland Museum of Art.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Michaud has been working on the defense issue since last year to promote manufacturing growth in his state. Maine is historically a major footwear manufacturer which has seen its production undercut by foreign competition. In all, tens of thousands of U.S. jobs in the footwear industry have moved overseas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The workers in Norridgewock produced a pair of high-quality sneakers, and I’m proud to be able to deliver this Maine-made product to the President,” Michaud said. “I’m hopeful he’ll make this policy change so that we can create more jobs in Maine. We also need to be doing whatever we can to encourage domestic procurement government-wide.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Berry Amendment, a law on the books for decades, requires the DOD to buy certain categories of products from American companies, including food, clothing (but not footwear, specifically), fabrics, stainless steel, and certain tools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In crafting “American Shoes for American Service members,” a resolution demanding that footwear be covered by the law, Michaud said that the Department recently stopped providing American-made sneakers for the troops. Instead, service members are issued cash allowances to buy their own athletic shoes. And chances are, those sneakers might hail from Anywhere But Here – China or Vietnam, for example.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Boston-based New Balance is the last major manufacturer still making athletic shoes in the United States, with three factories in Maine and two in Massachusetts. It’s facility in Norridgewock has been operating since 1982, in a building that has been cranking out footwear since 1945.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obama may have new sneakers, but Republican Mitt Romney has benefited far more from the a top New Balance official. Chairman Jim Davis in 2011 donated $500,000 to Restore Our Future, a political action campaign backing Romney. The company was quick to say that Davis’ contribution was private, from an estimated fortune of $1.8 billion, and unconnected to the company.</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo: REUTERS/Handout courtesy of Rep. Mike Michaud.</span></em></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-90535919886696513932012-03-29T21:50:00.008-07:002012-04-01T03:28:50.562-07:00Verizon plans wireless video service: WSJ<span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans;"></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">(Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc is aiming to offer an integrated video service for its wireless customers, its FiOS customers and its cable partners as soon as this holiday season, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing the telephone company's chief executive.</b></div>
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120330&t=2&i=588731652&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82T00UO00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120330&t=2&i=588731652&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82T00UO00" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Technically, I think we could have something out that would be the beginnings of an integrated offering in time for the holidays," said CEO Lowell McAdam, according to the Journal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Verizon is ramping up talks with television programmers to prepare for the service even as Verizon is still looking for U.S. government approval for its agreement with the cable operators, the report said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Verizon is looking to buy spectrum for about $3.9 billion from cable operators including Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable. As part of the deal, the cable companies also set up reseller agreements with Verizon and the companies are looking to form a joint venture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Verizon spokesman did not return requests for comment.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-7087294600810419752012-03-27T17:15:00.001-07:002012-03-27T17:20:14.094-07:00Amazon Kindle store buy buttons vanish for hours<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120327&t=2&i=587783122&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82Q1RQW00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120327&t=2&i=587783122&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82Q1RQW00" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(Reuters) - Maybe Lord Voldemort put a spell on Amazon.Com Inc on Tuesday.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the same day that Amazon started selling Harry Potter e-books in a landmark deal, buy buttons on the company's dominant Kindle e-book store disappeared for several hours.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Top-selling e-books, including The Hunger Games series and the Fifty Shades trilogy, instead had bigger green buttons saying "This title is not available for customers from: United States."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several Amazon customers complained about the mysterious button disappearance on the company's online Kindle forum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"What does this mean? Why am I seeing this message? I am from the United States. I want my readers who live in the United States to purchase this book. Any ideas why this is showing up?" someone wrote on the Kindle Direct Publishing online forum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazon spokespeople did not respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment on Tuesday. However, a forum post from Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing unit said it was a "website issue" affecting the buy box for Kindle books and noted that it should be resolved "shortly."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Tuesday at 3 p.m. Pacific time, the buy buttons were back on listings for The Hunger Games series and the Fifty Shades trilogy titles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-13746620279634324762012-03-27T16:56:00.003-07:002012-03-27T16:57:08.680-07:00Angry Birds maker buys Finnish gaming studio<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="articleLocatio</span>n"><b>(Reuters) - Angry Birds maker Rovio said on Tuesday it had bought Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of Finnish benchmarking software firm Futuremark, for an undisclosed sum.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The acquisition of the studio - known for its space-games Unstoppable Gorg and Shattered Horizon - comes a week after Rovio launched its latest Angry Birds Space game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its new game was downloaded more than 10 million times within first three days, topping the sales charts on Apple platforms in 104 countries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rovio, the Finnish company behind the world's most downloaded mobile game, has been valued at up to $9 billion little more than two years after it first launched Angry Birds for Apple's iPhone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Angry Birds games have been downloaded more than 700 million times and are the fastest-growing games on Facebook.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-9529245204093920262012-03-27T16:55:00.003-07:002012-03-27T16:58:04.702-07:00Apple, Sony, 4 others sued by Graphics Properties<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="articleLocatio</span>n"><b>(Reuters) - Apple Inc, Sony Corp and four other companies were sued by Graphics Properties Holdings Inc, formerly known as Silicon Graphics Inc, for allegedly infringing a patent through their sale of mobile phones and other electronic devices.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lawsuits against Apple, Japan-based Sony, Taiwan-based HTC Corp, South Korea-based LG Electronics Inc and Samsung Electronics Co were filed in the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The patent at issue relates to a computer graphics process that turns text and images into pixels to be displayed on screens.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to the lawsuits, the defendants' infringing devices include Apple's iPhone and the HTC EVO4G, LG Thrill, Research in Motion Torch, Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, and Sony Xperia Play smartphones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Graphics Properties said that unless the alleged infringements are halted, it will suffer irreparable harm. The lawsuits seek to stop the sale of infringing products and also seek reasonable royalties and other damages.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HTC spokeswoman Lori Rodney, LG spokesman John Taylor, Research in Motion spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy and Sony spokeswoman Sandra Genelius declined to comment on the substance of their companies' respective lawsuits. Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Silicon Graphics filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and sold much of its operations to Rackable Systems Inc. The remaining operations are based in New Rochelle, New York, and are owned by private investment firms and other investors, according to the complaints.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lawsuits are all in the U.S. District Court, District of Delaware. They are Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. Apple Inc, No. 12-00385; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. HTC Corp et al, No. 12-00387; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc. v. LG Electronics Inc et al, No. 12-00389; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. Research in Motion Ltd et al, No. 12-00386; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co et al, No. 12-00388; and Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. Sony Corp et al, No. 12-00390.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting By Jonathan Stempel, Liana B. Baker and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and John Wallace)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-68615767279901801532012-03-27T16:54:00.001-07:002012-03-27T16:58:28.365-07:00Most of world interconnected through email, social media<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120327&t=2&i=587531913&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82Q0VA100" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120327&t=2&i=587531913&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82Q0VA100" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(Reuters) - Most of the world is interconnected thanks to email and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eighty five percent of people around the globe who are connected online send and receive emails and 62 percent communicate through social networking sites, particularly in Indonesia, Argentina and Russia, which have the highest percentage of users.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More than eight in 10 Indonesians and about 75 percent of people in Argentina, Russia and South Africa visit social media sites, the new Ipsos/Reuters poll showed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although Facebook and other popular social networking sites, blogs and forums, were founded in the United States the percentage of users was lower at six in 10, and in Japan it fell to 35 percent, the lowest of the 24 countries in the global survey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Even though the number in the United States was 61 percent, the majority of Americans are using social media sites," said Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fact that more than six in 10 people worldwide use social networks and forums, she added, suggests a transformation in how people communicate with each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It is true interconnection and engagement with each other. It is not just about a message back and forth but building messages across communities and only the meaningful messages stick," she explained.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It looks like a majority of the world is communicating this way," she said, adding the numbers were more than half in almost every country polled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ipsos questioned a total of 19,216 adults around the world in the online survey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Email usage was highest in Hungary, where 94 percent of people communicated online. The numbers were similar in Sweden, Belgium, Indonesia, Argentina and Poland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saudi Arabia, where 46 percent of people said they communicate via email, had the lowest usage, followed by India at 68 percent and Japan at 75 percent. In all the other countries eight or nine out of 10 people were email users.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although Americans and Japanese are thought to be very tech savvy, voice-over IP (VOIP), audio conversations conducted via an Internet connection, were not very popular in both countries with less than 10 percent of people using the relatively new technology, compared to 36 percent in Russia, 32 percent in Turkey and 25 percent in India.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ipsos questioned people in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Paul Casciato)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-50713516397892605602012-03-27T16:52:00.003-07:002012-03-27T16:58:37.524-07:00Twitter coverage of court gets struck down<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120327&t=2&i=587765308&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82Q1OYL00" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120327&t=2&i=587765308&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE82Q1OYL00" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(Reuters) - A lawyer discovered how far the U.S. Supreme Court will go to close itself off from the public when it hears a case, no matter how many people on Twitter may be interested.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Casey Mattox went to the court on Tuesday to see historic arguments over whether to strike down the Obama administration's healthcare law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His plan was to give live updates and the idea appeared to work as descriptions from the arguments showed up on the Twitter feed of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group where Mattox is a senior counsel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But after finding out about the social networking, the court marshal's office asked Mattox to stop, citing a policy against electronic communication, a spokeswoman for the Alliance Defense Fund said afterward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mattox "complied with the marshal's directions when asked to stop communicating," said the spokeswoman, Katie Blechacz.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Except for the errant tweets, and reports from journalists who left the proceedings early, the only way to follow the healthcare case was to wait in the dark until after Tuesday morning's two hours of arguments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NO CAMERAS ALLOWED</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom, and the court waits until arguments are over to release audio recordings. Journalists inside have only paper and a pen or pencil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rules are an attempt to maintain decorum and limit the influence of the media on what lawyers and the justices say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mattox was not in the 400-seat courtroom but instead was listening to the arguments as they were piped into a separate overflow room known as the lawyers' lounge. The room is reserved for any of the 230,000 lawyers who are active members of the Supreme Court Bar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At intervals, Mattox would leave the room and, from a hallway, send e-mails to an Alliance Defense Fund staff member who was on the social network Twitter, Blechacz said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Justice Sotomayor asks for explanation on the three seemingly different arguments from Solicitor General. #ObamaCare #SCOTUS," read one typical tweet by @AllianceDefense at 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The group initially defended the tweets, telling its followers that it was "posting twitter updates remotely" from its headquarters in Arizona, not from the court. By late Tuesday, it had 4,800 followers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its final update quoting the arguments came at 11:14 a.m., or about 46 minutes before the arguments ended.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said there are two signs in the lawyers' lounge noting that cellular phones and other electronic devices are prohibited in the room. Lawyers can check personal belongings in a separate room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, Blechacz said there was confusion and that Mattox was unaware of any written rules ahead of time. Mattox was not available for an interview, she said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A news release from the organization dated March 26 promoted the idea ahead of time, saying that Mattox "will be providing live Twitter updates from the ObamaCare oral arguments."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Alliance Defense Fund opposes the healthcare law and its requirement that most people have health insurance. It submitted a legal brief on the side of the challengers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lawyers who dabble in the media have found the audio in the lawyers' lounge tempting before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I live blogged from there once and the court banned it," said Thomas Goldstein, a lawyer who founded the popular website SCOTUSblog. "Now I leave the building."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Howard Goller; Desking by Lisa Shumaker)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-74184356624495030352012-03-27T16:51:00.000-07:002012-03-27T16:51:20.281-07:00EBay blocks sale of sorbitol after death in Italy<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(Reuters) - Online auction company EBay Inc said on Monday it had blocked global sales of sorbitol following the death of a medical patient in Italy who consumed a sample of the sugar substitute which had been bought on the Internet.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teresa Sunna, 28, took the additive as part of a food intolerance test in a private clinic in the southern Italian town of Barletta. Two other patients who underwent the same test are recovering in hospital.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Italian authorities have launched an investigation and police in the northern town of Padua seized 1,000 tonnes of sorbitol from local businesses over the weekend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Italian Health Ministry released a statement on Sunday advising anyone who had purchased sorbitol on eBay to not use it and to contact the police.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EBay said it was "saddened" by Sunna's death in a statement and said it was cooperating with authorities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorbitol is used to sweeten products such as cakes, ice cream and diet foods and is widely available to buy legally online. EBay, which previously carried sorbitol along with many other chemical products, said it was blocking sales as a precautionary measure until the cause of death was clarified.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(This story corrects spelling of "Health Ministry" in fourth paragraph)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by David Holmes)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-67845660863090298662012-03-27T16:50:00.001-07:002012-03-27T17:00:04.767-07:00Windows Phone struggles to break catch-22 as app makers hold off<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Tarmo Virki and Supantha Mukherjee</span></div>
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<span class="timestamp" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:22am EDT</span></span></div>
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<span class="articleLocatio</span>n"><b>(Reuters) - Apps, apps, apps! That is the main challenge that Microsoft and Nokia, who are trying to claw back market share from Apple Inc's iPhone and Google's Android in the red hot smartphone market, face now.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so far the going does not look too good for the challengers and their warhorse Windows Phone platform.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apps, short for applications, are small pieces of software that do useful or fun things on cellphones. The huge number and variety of apps in Apple and Google stores are a key factor that has helped the companies emerge as dominant players in the lucrative smartphone market.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Monday, Microsoft and Nokia said they would invest a total of 18 million euros ($23.9 million) into a new mobile application development program, AppCampus, at Helsinki's Aalto University during the next three years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The move underscores the seriousness with which the two companies view the problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most popular global apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Evernote are available on the Windows Phone platform, but makers of many niche or local apps have shied away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of apps available in the Windows Phone Marketplace now exceeds 65,000, surpassing those at another rival Research in Motion's BlackBerry store. But that is still far short of around half a million apps available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, according to app researcher Distimo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Worse still, only 37 percent of developers are keen to make apps for Windows Phone, showed the latest IDC/Appcelerator survey. That number, slightly down from the previous survey, compared with the 89 percent interested in iPhone and 79 percent in Android phones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Mobile developers' interest for the Windows platform has been for the least very lukewarm over the last two years, with no sign of improvement," Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Microsoft launched its latest Windows Phone 7.5 operating system, Mango, last year to good reviews. And Nokia, struggling to reclaim smartphone handset marketshare from nimbler rivals such as Apple and Samsung Electronics, launched its Lumia line of phones running on Mango late last year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lumia phones look sleek and spiffy, with live, tiled icons that automatically update news, weather, pictures and social feeds. But the fewer number of apps and their quality are hobbling the phones' appeal to customers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finn Christian Lindholm, a Helsinki-based partner at digital design agency Fjord, believes the latest Windows Phones are interesting enough to challenge the iPhone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The key to both companies' strategy to gain in the smartphone market would be how they break out of the vicious cycle -- the low sales of the Windows phones holding back app makers, and consumers shunning the phones for lack of the apps they are accustomed to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"They need to break the Catch-22 before there is enough volume and natural pull," Lindholm said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SHRINKING MARKETSHARE</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Monday's announcement by Microsoft and Nokia is an attempt to find new solutions to the problem, in addition to paying third-party developers for the apps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They hope the program, which will provide support, coaching and also funding for app makers, will boost the number of unique and outstanding apps on Windows Phone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's an uphill road for a new platform. Microsoft's share of the smartphone market fell to just 2 percent last quarter, from 3 percent a year ago and 13 percent four years earlier, according to Strategy Analytics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last month, Windows Phone lost also its highly respected chief of developer relations, Brandon Watson, who left for Amazon.com Inc, which is taking on established players in the mobile devices market with its Kindle e-readers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apart from Nokia, which has a lot riding on the platform, Microsoft has little support from other handset makers, such as Samsung, which are clearly focused on their Android offerings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is not surprising as the other handset makers are struggling to sell their Windows Phone models. They, unlike Nokia, can only dream of payments from Microsoft for promoting and supporting its software. Last quarter, Microsoft paid $250 million to Nokia on this account.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NO TALKING TOM CAT</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Friday, Rovio, the maker of the wildly popular Angry Birds game, created a scare when media reports said the latest version of the game -- Angry Birds Space -- will skip the Windows platform.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rovio Chief Executive Mikael Hed later told Reuters that the company is working toward getting the game to Windows Phone but did not specify when it will be available.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Showing how difficult a task that Microsoft and Nokia face, many small app developers, such as Outfit7 -- maker of the popular Talking Tom Cat app -- and Joby -- which makes a camera app -- said they have no plans to be on Windows Phone either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pioneers in augmented reality -- a technology that combines the digital and real worlds, and is one of the hottest areas of wireless -- are also holding back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We have enough work in keeping Android and iPhone apps up to date, as well as in enhancing our augmented reality capabilities on them," said Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, co-founder of Dutch-based augmented reality firm Layar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeff Janer, co-founder and CEO of Springpad, which makes the namesake app that allows users to store, organize and share content, raised the main concern of the app makers: Will the hard work to move to a new platform pay off?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"When considering a new platform, we look to balance cost of development and support against potential return in terms of market opportunity and the ability to cost-effectively reach the market," said Janer, who currently has no plans to develop an app for Windows Phone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For many small developers, it is a question of cost and how fast they can recoup the investment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would probably take six man-months to build an app for Windows phone and if that was contract work it would be $60,000 or more, said Adam Saltsman, co-founder of Semi Secret Software, which makes the Wurdle word game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The small customer base for Windows Phone is forcing developers to charge more for the apps, turning off customers further. Most apps that are available for 99 cents on Google Play cost $2.99 on the Windows Phone Marketplace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andreas Bernstrom, CEO of Rebtel, one of the most popular Internet-based calling applications on iPhone and Android, said the company has Windows Phone on its development roadmap for later this year but has not yet started work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I don't know what the market will be like in six months, maybe we need to focus on tablets or something else," he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeffrey Glueck, chief executive of Skyfire Labs Inc, which makes the eponymous mobile Web browser, said the main driver for developing on Windows Phone will be carrier requests. "So far, we're only getting requests around Android and iPhone."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is one more challenge for Microsoft and Nokia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">($1 = 0.7540 euros)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki and Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Unnikrishnan Nair)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-12424831400099638692012-03-25T19:26:00.006-07:002012-03-25T19:35:03.875-07:00YouTube adds one-click video editing for busy videographers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">by </span>Don Reisinger </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">YouTube has launched a new feature to help those of us who don't have the time to edit videos before we pop them onto the Web.Upon uploading a video to YouTube, users will find a notification bar that will ask them if they want to allow the video site to auto-correct their clip. If the user chooses to fix the video, YouTube will automatically tweak the video's color and shakiness.</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Sometimes videos suffer from symptoms like 'shaky-camera-itis' or 'augmented darkness levels' that keep viewers from seeing just how awesome your video really is,"YouTube software engineer John Gregg wrote yesterday in a blog post. "We made a big step last year with the YouTube Video Editor, and now we're adding a feature that does the work of curing these symptoms for you."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">YouTube last year released a built-in video editor designed to help users touch up clips they upload to the site. The editor is by no means a powerful tool, but it can handle some basic tasks, like fixing color or stabilizing a shaky recording. The tool's big draw is its built-in effects, giving people the chance to turn their clips into black-and-white or modify the video to appear as though it was recorded with an old camera.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">YouTube's auto-correction feature is rolling out now. The company says it plans to address more "symptoms" in future updates.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a video from YouTube detailing how the new feature works:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;">by Don Reisinger</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">March 25, 2012</span><br />
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<b>Company says number of employees in supplier factories who work "excessive" hours is dropping.</b></div>
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Apple says it's making progress on working conditions in supplier facilities. The company recently issued its monthly report on "excessive work hours" in supplier factories around the world, saying that 89 percent of workers were in compliance with a 60-hour work week. In January, 84 percent of the employed workers were found to be in compliance. According to Apple, the typical factory worker was on the job for 48 hours each week in February. "That's a substantial improvement over previous results, but we can do better," the company wrote on its Supplier Responsibility page. "We will continue to share our progress by reporting this data on a monthly basis."<br />
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Apple has been under fire as of late over working conditions in supplier factories overseas. The company responded to the outcry by bringing in Fair Labor Association inspectors to investigate how workers are treated in Foxconn plants. After that investigation is completed, the independent inspectors will be moving on to other Apple supplier sites.</div>
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Apple has been making it abundantly clear as of late how important working conditions are to the company. In an e-mail to employees earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company cares "about every worker in our worldwide supply chain," adding that any claim to the contrary is "patently false and offensive to us."</div>
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John Gruber, who writes Apple enthusiast blog Daring Fireball, was first to report on the work-hours report and points out that February's reduced work hours may have occurred as new iPad production was "ramping up." What's not clear, though, is how many hours the remaining 11 percent of employees worked, the role they may have played in iPad production, and how the reported work hours are verified.</div>
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Apple conducts weekly tracking on 110 factories "where excessive work-hour violations were commonplace." According to the company, reducing "excessive overtime" is the Supplier Responsibility program's chief responsibility in 2012.</div>
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<i>Originally posted at The Digital Home</i></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-852591656165148592012-03-25T02:44:00.002-07:002012-03-25T02:46:02.643-07:00Twitter Turns 6: What Next?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By SUROJIT CHATTERJEE:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">March 25, 2012</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">First Sketch by Jack about new communication tool</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Last Wednesday, March 21, Twitter celebrated its sixth anniversary. A company announcement on its blog reports more than 140 million active users who send roughly 340 million tweets each day. Just two months ago, in January, Twitter said 250 million tweets are being sent out every day, which means a whopping increase of 36 percent in such a short time.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Without you, of course, there wouldn't be a Twitter," reads the company's blog post. "We mark our sixth birthday with you in mind, and celebrate your myriad ways of engaging, enjoying, and emoting on our platform."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twitter Breaks Barriers</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the past decade, social media has gained considerable ground and has become a part of our daily lives, but Twitter seems to have done more than that. "Twitter hasn't just left a mark. Twitter has changed the way we view virtual life and what we think of traditional means of interacting with one another," said Brad Shimmin, an analyst at Current Analysis. "Before Twitter there was a large distance between someone writing news and someone reading news. The people who are being interviewed and were making the news were separated from the consumer by the media."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">News Straight from the Source</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we come to think of it, there's a whole lot of truth to this statement. While in the past the only way you could get access to celebrities, businessmen, athletes, government officials or other prominent figures was through media stories, now you can simply follow the people you're interested in and get the scoop straight from the source. Thanks to Twitter, now it is possible to bypass traditional media coverage and learn more about high-profile public figures straight from their tweets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Twitter has come along and disintermediated the situation so you don't have to really look at media outlets as your only source of contact with the people making news," added Shimmin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in September, Twitter announced it had reached 100 million active users, which included 82 percent of the U.S. House and 85 percent of the Senate, 75 percent of the NBA's players, 50 percent of the NFL, 87 percent of the Billboard Top 100 Musicians, and 93 percent of the top Food Network chefs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twitter Has Big Plans, but Not Ready to Go Public</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, Twitter is looking to grow further and move beyond its current status, aiming to become an even greater business. In a deliberate effort to expand its suite of advertising products, the company is now offering advertisers more ways to target Twitterers, especially on mobile platforms, and has increased the amount of ad content users see on Web and mobile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in January, CEO Dick Costolo said Twitter is planning to be around for decades to come, however it doesn't have any immediate plans to go public. "We are going to be really patient about the way we build the business," said Costolo. "We are trying to build a decades-long, lasting business."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1727442391245770303.post-3733183565797855242012-03-24T23:54:00.002-07:002012-03-24T23:56:57.466-07:00Another iThing, Another iTempest<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">By Paul Hartsock</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TechNewsWorld<br />03/24/12 5:00 AM PT</span><br />
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<a href="http://images.alarabiya.net/1d/dc/640x392_40275_199913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://images.alarabiya.net/1d/dc/640x392_40275_199913.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>With the new iPad, Apple has yet another hit product on its hands. However, some owners complain that their devices grow incredibly hot during operation. Does this spell big trouble for Apple's latest iThing, or will it blow over like Antennagate and the iPhone 4S battery blues? Meanwhile, AAPL investors score a win, "Mass Effect 3" gamers call the ending a dud, and Nokia wants to tattoo you.</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">The debut of the latest iPad was once again an orgy of revenue for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). The company claims 3 million were sold in the opening weekend, and that certainly does sound like a lot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But just as iPad sales are running hot, apparently so are the iPads themselves. Some users claim the devices are growing alarmingly warm in their hands during heavy use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's easy to see why the new iPad could grow hot. It boasts some heavy graphics power to support that super-high-res Retina display. It's got a much bigger processor than the iPad 2, its battery needs to be much larger to supply the juice needed to keep it running, and the result is you've got a nice little magazine-sized radiator to keep your lap warm on a cold winter night while you play "Infinity Blade II." For some users, that's a little worrying -- not only because their iPads become uncomfortable to hold, but also because when a device gets that hot, you might start wondering whether there's something wrong with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apple says its iPads are running well within safe parameters, but if you're really worried about it, just call AppleCare.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few outfits ran independent tests. Cnet measured temperatures at points all over the iPad and found no spot exceeding 90 degrees. Then again, Consumer Reports said it measured temperatures as high as 116 degrees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But unless we start hearing stories of iPads causing actual burns or exploding during a fevered round of "Scrabble," this issue will probably pass by just like the iPhone 4S battery crisis before it and the iPhone 4 antenna predicament before that. Still, temperature management may require some new innovations for upcoming iPad models if Apple wants to keep amping up power in future generations. I don't know if anyone wants to hear their iPads start muttering the f-word -- fan noise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Urge to Splurge</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes people who lived through the Great Depression have habits about saving money and supplies that seem a little odd to those of us who grew up in more comfortable times. Steve Jobs didn't live through the Depression, but he did at one time see the company he founded on death's doorstep, financially speaking. At a certain point, Apple even had to depend on a cash infusion from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) to keep going.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jobs apparently never wanted to see Apple penniless again, regardless of whether it made a flop product, hit a major supply chain snag or got caught up in worldwide economic turmoil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Under Jobs' second reign, Apple pulled itself out of the doldrums. It went from corporate skid row to vying with an oil firm as the most valuable public company in the world. Along the way, it amassed an incredible pile of cash, which now approaches $100 billion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That war chest might give Apple an incredible sense of financial security, but to investors, there is such a thing as having too much walking-around money. Stagnant cash is good to have as a fallback, but having too much can be regarded as wasteful. But even though Apple could probably operate just fine with a fraction of the cushion it currently holds, demands for investor payoffs like dividends got nowhere under Jobs' watch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But with Tim Cook now in the CEO seat, a new chapter in Apple's financial story has apparently begun. The company has decided to put its obscenely fat wallet through a round of fiscal liposuction. Starting this summer, it's promised a dividend of $2.65 per share. It's also staging a $10 billion stock buyback over the course of the next three years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dividends make nice thank-you notes to investors, who should already be pretty happy about the company's incredible climb in value over the past half-decade. In fact, AAPL shares recently closed above the $600 mark for the first time ever. That value actually makes the $2.65 dividend seem kind of small by comparison. You'd have to own tens of thousands of dollars in Apple stock to get even a couple hundred bucks from the dividend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, to investors who've been clamoring for a dividend for months, if not years, any payout at all is a win. It may not make them a whole lot wealthier right away, but it does indicate that Tim Cook is going to run Apple his own way, at least as far as the balance sheet is concerned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The LTE Challenge</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sprint (NYSE: S), the distant-third runner in the U.S. wireless race, took a big gamble when it signed on with Apple to be an iPhone provider. Apple demanded some heavy terms for the agreement -- namely that Sprint put itself on the hook for billions of dollars worth of iPhones over the next several years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The carrier is offering subscribers plenty of incentives to make it stand out from its iPhone rivals Verizon and AT&T (NYSE: T) -- unlimited data plans, for one. But Sanford C. Bernstein doesn't seem to think that will be enough for Sprint to avoid disaster. It downgraded Sprint to underperform recently, and one of its analysts, Craig Moffett, expressed concern that the wireless carrier might go bankrupt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shortly after that news was released, Sprint investors chewed almost 5 percent off its share value.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Going all-in on iPhones is proving to be especially burdensome for Sprint, according to Moffett, and the carrier's sizable debt level doesn't help matters either. But that's not the only problem Moffett sees on the horizon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps more worrisome is that Sprint could let technology pass it by. Verizon has so far led the charge into super-fast 4G LTE networks. AT&T is on the LTE bandwagon too, and both are spending big to get more LTE access to more of the cities they cover.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it's an area in which Sprint is lagging. It sells WiMax service, but that's not a protocol next-generation smartphones are trending toward. New handsets now often feature LTE support, and Sprint's plans for that technology are proving slow to take off. It tried tying up a deal with LightSquared, but that effort ended in flames after the FCC repeatedly stuffed LightSquared's network proposal. Apparently its technology interferes too much with <a class="story-keyword-offsite" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS" style="color: #154296; text-decoration: none;">GPS</a>signals, though that's something LightSquared continues to deny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without a sizable LTE network, Sprint could begin to lag even further behind. The latest iPad includes LTE support, meaning there's a very good chance the next iPhone will too. If that comes to pass before Sprint can whip up some respectable LTE coverage, the company will have assumed billions of dollars in obligations in order to sell a product that can barely work to its full potential on its own network. And with T-Mobile announcing layoffs and call center shutdowns this week as well, it looks like Moffett's fears that the U.S. wireless market is beginning a slow fade into duopoly may prove true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Tingling Tats</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An inconvenient incoming call on a cellphone means different things in different situations. For moviegoers, it's a dirty look; for classical music concertgoers, it's social death; and for ninjas, it's actual death. Turning off the phone isn't a perfect solution either, if you really want to know that you're being called without being a pest to everyone around you. Vibration mode? Sometimes too loud, sometimes unnoticeable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There has to be a way to silently find out that someone's calling without alerting anyone sitting nearby. Sight and sound alerts are out. Taste and smell alerts ... are not going to happen. What's left is the sense of touch, and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) seems to have figured out a way to do it. The solution, of course, is a tattoo, which is always an excellent idea under any possible set of circumstances.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The company has filed a patent for a magnetic tattoo that would silently alert the wearer to notifications coming from a mobile device he or she was carrying around. So instead of irritating other people in the movie theater or missing a call entirely, you'd presumably be able to step outside and take a call once you felt a tingly feeling on your arm. Or ankle. Or your lower back if you're saucy. Or your face and neck if you're just that hardcore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It might sound a little ridiculous at this point to get needled with ink over a cellphone. And there's no telling whether Nokia will actually go through with something like this at any point in the future. It's just a patent application the company's filed, and large tech firms constantly patent weird ideas they never end up using.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then again, the idea of implantable personal tech isn't completely out of left field, at least not to sci-fi fans. And it's impossible to say what future technology users will be willing to put up with for the sake of convenience. Far enough in the past, the idea of carrying a phone around with you all day might have sounded like some kind of twisted punishment for misdemeanors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mass Reject</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The "Mass Effect" series of games features one of the most developed and deeply imagined sci-fi worlds ever created for a video game. Its biggest fans will favorably compare it with "Star Wars" and "Star Trek."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it seems the wrap-up to "Mass Effect" has stumbled into a hole that's all too common for popular, long-running science fiction sagas: The fans hate the ending.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It happened with "Battlestar." It happened with "Lost." "Indiana Jones" too, if you count that as sci-fi.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This time, though, superfans are doing more than hanging their heads and commiserating on message boards. Instead, they're lodging a complaint with the FTC about the game's makers, BioWare and Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS). They've also started a petition demanding a change to the ending.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's one thing when a once-great artist loses the edge and puts out a finale to a long-running series that turns out to be kind of limp. Or when several talented writers paint themselves into a corner and end up tying things off with a bunch of nonsense for lack of an exit strategy. But in the case of "Mass Effect," some fans of the series claim the ending wasn't just bad -- it was false advertising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The galled gamers say they were led to believe that various decisions they made and actions they took while playing the game would result in a wide variety of different endings to the series. Win the war, lose the war, save New Vegas from the Kilrathi, destroy Metal Gear's Triforce, whatever. I don't know the details; I've never played "Mass Effect." But the idea of multiple, very different endings based on in-game decisions isn't uncommon in role-playing games, and these players say "Mass Effect" did not deliver as advertised. They want EA and BioWare to make downloadable content that will serve as a more satisfying, multi-faceted coda.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what is the FTC going to do about it? That's very hard to say. On one hand, it may just decide that all those promos and previews that led gamers to believe there'd be multiple endings don't reach the threshold of false ads. And with agenda items like cracking down on unsafe products that could actually physically hurt people and make them die, the commission might not have time to talk about the ending to a video game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other hand, it is the FTC's job to stand up for aggrieved consumers, including gamers, and nothing aggrieves gamers more than when you mess with their games.</span></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0