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First look at Samsung's smart watch http://t.co/QsvXIhxoOI
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, speaks on stage during the introduction of the new iPhone 5c in Cupertino, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
The iPhone 5S, which comes in gold, silver or 'space grey', will on sale in the UK on Friday, September 20. The device will cost £549 for the 16GB model, £629 for the 32GB model and £709 for the 64GB model.
In 2001, Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, described Linux as a "cancer" that threatened his company's intellectual property. While in 2007, the software giant accused Linux and other open source providers of violating more than 200 of its patents.
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Matt Warman, The Telegraph's Head of Technology says among the features which Apple are rumoured to have included on the new devices are camera upgrades which overcome some of the photographic shortcomings of tablets, as well as a Retina Display, as seen on iPhones.
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Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, speaks on stage during the introduction of the new iPhone 5s in Cupertino, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013. Apple?s latest iPhones will come in a bevy of colors and two distinct designs, one made of plastic and the other that aims to be ?the gold standard of smartphones? and reads your fingerprint. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
The device is unlikely to be "a totally blinged-out gold," according to TechCrunch's MG Siegler, but a more subtle "champagne" colour - similar to the previously released gold iPod Mini.
A gold iPhone would likely do well in the Chinese and Indian Markets, where the colour is very popular. Once considered gaudy, gold is now reportedly one of the most popular after-market colour adjustments for current iPhones.
Apple has also launched a trade-in programme, in a bid to encourage more users to purchase iPhones through its own stores and to upgrade.
The Clic and Walk app, available on Apple iPhones and Android devices, pays users up to £3 for every picture they take.
Users of the app are given tasks, such as taking photos or writing a review, for businesses who want to measure their consumers experience in real time.
The tasks take anywhere from three minutes to 30 minutes and users of the app are only sent on the task once they accept it.
The app is used by 50,000 mobile customers and businesses who use the service include furniture maker Ikea and technology firm Logitech.
According to reports, the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will run Google's Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system, and feature a high-resolution 1920 x 1200 display with Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB RAM, front-facing camera, Wi-Fi and mobile connectivity.
The 8.9-inch version, meanwhile, will feature a 2560 x 1600 display, which would pitch it at the same level of sharpness as the Google Nexus 10.
The Kindle Fire HD launched last year and succeeded the extremely successful original version. Amazon was one of the first players in the 7-inch tablet market but now faces stiff competition from the likes of Apple's iPad Mini and Google's Nexus 7.
Global shipments of PCs in general hit a five-year low in early October, according to market research firm Gartner.
Despite Microsoft selling over 100 million copies of Windows 8, company sales began to dip in July.
The computer giant swiftly moved in to buy phone maker Nokia to combat their deficitit.
And now the organisation is preparing to launch a new version of its Xbox games console - the Xbox One.
Microsoft has announced that all PCs sold after October 17 will come with Windows 8.1 pre-installed.
The Windows 8.1 update is free for those already using Windows 8 and can be easily downloaded, however those with older editions could pay up to £200 for the upgrade.
Reimer noted that more than 1.1 million active users downloaded the BBM for Android app – albeit the unofficial version – in the first 8 hours after launch, indicating that demand for the Blackberry instant messaging service on other mobile platforms is high.
However, the decision to pull the app is likely to knock consumer confidence in the platform, with users not knowing how long the service will be available for.
The news follows BlackBerry's announcement last week it will be laying off 40 percent of its global workforce – around 4,500 positions – and reporting losses of nearly $1 billion at its second quarter results later this month.
The announcement will include a mammoth writedown of up to $960m, partly down to unsold handsets, and a $72m charge for restructuring.
Codemasters has released F1 Challenge on the App Store. The officially-licensed iPhone and iPad game costs 1.99.
Codemasters said it designed F1 Challenge, which plays from an isometric view tuned for Apple's Retina Displays, for quick-fire racing on the go. Modes include Time Trials, Duels, Chase the Ace, Race Events and short Grand Prix challenges with 12 cars on track. You can collect stats and info about the support as you play. Drivers include Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
The touchscreen controls include options for both left and right handed players. You touch to steer, tap to deploy KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), and gain an advantage by slip-streaming.
In stark contrast to its PC lineup, Lenovo's tablet offerings are often the wrong side of exciting. The IdeaTab S2109, for instance, arrived with little fanfare or enthusiasm, and little to make it stand out from the rest of the mid-range 10-inch tablet crowd. Unfortunately, the day-to-day experience was similarly underwhelming, thanks to its middling chip, short battery life and dodgy design decisions. So, instead, let's close our eyes and imagine what we'd have done if Lenovo had asked us to craft its next tablet. What would you do? Tell us in the comments below.
"Featurephone owners present a huge opportunity, representing more than half of all mobile users globally and this will be the new battleground over the next year. With the iPhone 4 and lower end or older Samsung Galaxy models selling well among first time smartphone owners, there is plenty of competition for these customers."
Globally, Apple and Android continue to dominate sales. Android is far stronger across the major European markets and China where it accounted for around 70 per cent of smartphone sales during the past quarter, while Apple continues to perform very well in the USA where it has grown its share to 43.4 per cent of sales.
"Apple and Android must focus on a balance between retaining existing customers and attracting featurephone owners to trade up if they want to continue their success over the next year," said Sunnebo.
The plans also suggested the watch would be able to make and receive phone calls, send emails and texts, store information and access the internet.
Documents on the Moveplayer news site showed then that the company has registered the names Samsung Galaxy Gear for the US market and Samsung Gear for South Korea.
The South Korean company is making the first major launch in what may soon become a crowded market: Google and Apple have filed patent documents suggesting they plan to develop watches, while Microsoft has confirmed it is working on a version of its own.
Meanwhile, specs for the Galaxy Note III have been leaked online, suggesting the device will have a 5.68-inch 1080p display, 3 GB of RAM, a 13 megapixel camera and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor.
IBM has reported a 4% decline in sales in the three months to September, which was worse than analysts had been expecting.
The world's biggest technology services firm has not reported a rise in quarterly sales since the fourth quarter of 2011.
But the company still delivered a net income of $4bn (£2.5bn), a rise of 6%.
IBM's computer hardware division had a particularly weak quarter with a 17% fall in sales.
"I think that the hardware business is going to be something they need to work through and growth markets are down much more than expected," said Josh Olson analyst, Edward Jones .
Shares in IBM fell 6% in after hours trading.
HP's range of thin-and-light notebooks like the Sleekbook 6z were designed to undercut the Ultrabook with cheaper internals. However, when the base model retails for around $600 and a bone-fide Ultrabook isn't that much more expensive, was there any point to this device? When we reviewed it, we found that the performance was sluggish and there was a finicky touchpad that detracted from its comfortable keyboard and decent battery life. So, let's imagine that Meg Whitman invited you to design the follow-up, tell us, how would you change it?
It is not surprising, and entirely understandable that it takes a while for newcomers to get to grips with all of the features on smartphones and tablets, so let us begin with reading barcodes. Nowadays they come in two varieties: original UPC (Universal Product Code) barcodes; which are the familiar blocks of vertical lines of varying width and spacing; and QR or Quick Response codes, square boxes, filled with a pattern of small blocks. In both cases they are captured by the smartphone or tablet's camera and decoded by an app, which uses the phone's Internet connection to identify the product or load a web page. On some phones you have to download a barcode reader app but one is pre-installed on the Xperia Z, called Neoreader. Just tap the Neoreader icon and point the camera at the barcode. The phone vibrates when it has been successfully read and it displays the search results or web page on the screen.
It's Friday, kids, so calm down and have a laugh. Do this: Stop caring about Apple and Microsoft and Google and the phone in your pocket and the platform of your dreams and all that. Instead, giggle at the following video clip in which Microsoft takes on Apple in a way that I honestly did not see coming.
Microsoft knew that the clip would cause controversy, and they yanked it quickly, likely as planned. Whatever. It's still farking hilarious and worth watching. If you can't laugh, you can't take a joke and that means you are three points of calcification from being a statue. Laugh!
Enjoy:
Go nuts if you want but I'm busy laughing. Have another coffee.
Top Image Credit: Sean MacEntee
Looking for more evidence that Nokia's about to unleash an oversized Windows Phone? You've got it: the company's official Tmall store (an online marketplace in China) recently published a product page for the fabled Lumia 1520. There's no images to speak of, but the listing agrees with the handset's rumored 6-inch 1080p display and 20-megapixel PureView camera. The page also promises a Snapdragon 800 CPU and a 4,999 Yuan (about $819) price tag. That said, the page seems to just be a placeholder for now, but the phone is expected to be officially announced at Nokia World later this week. Hopefully, it'll be worth the wait.
Apple states on its website that trade-in credit is only valid when the customer is purchasing a new iPhone activated in store with the network of their choice. This means that you cannot just trade your old iPhone for a gift card.
A number of third-party iPhone sellers already offer trade-in programmes. While some of these trade-in schemes offer a better price for old iPhones, Apple chief executive Tim Cook hopes that the scheme will encourage more people to buy devices directly from Apple stores.
Apple also operates a recycling programme by mail, which covers a wide variety of products and is not offered in-store. If a customer wishes to trade in an old broken device for which there is no monetary value, they can do so as a simple recycle.
Compare mobile phones and deals with The Telegraph Mobile Comparison >
Amazon's Kindle MatchBook service has gone live today, allowing customers to buy a heavily discounted Kindle copy of physical books they've purchased from the online retailer. Prices range between free and $2.99, offering a quick and cheap way to expand your Amazon ebook library. And on that note, there's good news: Amazon says that 70,000 books are enrolled in MatchBook at launch, dwarfing the original 10,000 titles it announced last month. More books will be added to the program every day, according to the company, and book detail pages will now list when specific titles will support MatchBook. Amazon combs through your entire order history going all the way back to 1995, so the initial list of ebooks offered to you may be longer than you'd expect. And since they're full-fledged Kindle copies, all of Amazon's signature features including Whispersync and X-Ray are included. To see which of your past purchases are eligible, head to Amazon now.
"Intro is available in English for members worldwide. We support Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, and iCloud – all in the iPhone Mail app you already use everyday."
To set it up, users simply need to visit intro.linkedin.com and go through a few steps to set up an account that is compatible with Intro.
LinkedIn intro is one of several new mobile initiatives announced by the social network this week. The company has also completely redesigned its tablet app for the iPad and rolled out a major update to Pulse, the news reader app that it purchased back in April.
Pulse now suggests people and groups for users to follow based on their LinkedIn behaviour, and allows users to comment on articles in Pulse using their LinkedIn ID.
The new app will be launching soon for iOS and Android, accordign to The Verge.
Meanwhile, mobile application performance management company Crittercism claims that apps on the iPhone 5s are crashing twice as frequently as they do on the 5s or 5. The crash rate for the 5c and 5 are both under one per cent, but the crash rate for the 5s is about two per cent.
“Anytime there is new hardware or software release, we see issues,†Crittercism CEO Andrew Levy told AllThingsD. “Inevitably, over time, those issues get resolved.â€
He added that Apple is "certainly aware" of issues and has already pushed out two updates for iOS. "Apple is doing a really good job of addressing these issues as they come up,†he said.
Several problems have been reported since Apple released its latest mobile software update, iOS7, including a glitch that prevented texts sent via iMessage from being delivered. Experts are expecting another patch to solve ongoing issues in the coming weeks.
"Overall the progress is very much on track," Sir Hossein said. "It's steady as she goes, there have been significant developments in the recent period."
He dismissed concerns that Imagination's dominance in graphics chips for smartphones – the company powers devices including the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S4 – was under threat from well-heeled competitors such as ARM Holdings, which is making strides in the space. "We are comfortable that we have got coverage of the market, we are a market leader," Sir Hossein said.
He added that the company was integrating well with MIPS, the US chip designer it bought last year, and that MIPS was well placed to take advantage of the opportunity to design chips for "wearable technology" such as Google's internet-connected glasses and Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch. "It's a completely new segment of the market but we are already in a number of designs," Sir Hossein said.
Shares fell 2.7pc to 334.7p in a bout of profit taking after a recent strong run.
Noticing that your Windows Phone device is using more data than usual? You're not alone. As The Verge reports, Microsoft has confirmed that a recent backend change on Twitter's part has caused the built-in Twitter feature of Windows Phone to eat up data a far higher than expected rate; specifically, it's caused it to frequently re-download profile images. In an effort to fix the problem, Microsoft has made a change to sync Twitter accounts just once a day, but a fix will need to be implemented on Twitter's end to completely remedy the problem -- that, Microsoft says, will take a few more weeks. In the meantime, the only other alternative is to unlink your Twitter account from the device -- or accept the data charges.
''In the rush of live news, he didn't have an opportunity to swap the items, so simply went with it.''
In the past the presenter has been seen briefly resting his head on the desk when cameras cut to him.
While covering the birth of the royal baby for the BBC news channel from outside St Mary's hospital McCoy said: "None of this is news, of course, but that won't stop us".
He continued: "The world's media have gathered to report that there is no news... Let's speculate, because that's all we can do... breaking news: we have no news..."
Earlier this week, Apple briefly allowed internet shoppers to reserve the iPhone 5S for in-store pickup, but the company pulled the option after just one day. Thankfully it seems the reservation system is coming back, and soon; 9to5Mac reports that Apple is preparing to start taking web reservations this week — perhaps as soon as Monday. Customers can choose their preferred color, carrier, and storage capacity, and Apple's online store will reveal which local stores (if any) have each configuration in stock. Demand for the flagship iPhone has so far outpaced supply by a wide margin, particularly when it comes to the new gold model. And even with the reinstated reservation system, you may have a tough time securing the iPhone 5S you're after. But at least you'll be able to avoid the lines. Apple on Monday reported that it sold 9 million iPhones in the first weekend of availability for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5S.
HTC One in 18 carat gold to go to one lucky O2 customer
O2 today announces that one lucky customer who buys a HTC One from an O2 store between Thursday 17 and Sunday 20 October will get more than just a multi-award winning phone – they'll get a HTC One made out of 18 carat gold.
The 18 carat Gold HTC One, one of only five in the country, is worth over £2000 and is the most exclusive and expensive phone ever made by HTC. To win the device each HTC One sold in an O2 shop between Thursday and Sunday will come with a Golden Ticket – entering that code online will give customers a chance of winning the golden phone. They'll also keep the HTC One they purchased in the O2 store, meaning they can share the HTC One love with another person too.
The lucky winner will also get tickets to the MOBO tour at The O2 on 14 November where the phone will be presented to them by a MOBO artist.
For more information, visit www.o2htconegold.co.uk or www.o2htconegold.co.uk/ni for customers in Northern Ireland.
@evleaks is at it again. This time the prolific leaker has blasted out two screen grabs of an app called Storyteller, which made a Live Tile-cameo in the alleged screencap of a Nokia Bandit, an oversized Windows Phone 8 device. The app appears to be a Windows 8 and WP photo album that lets users sift through images by timeline, favorites and shared, or browse them on a map. A close look at the top right of the application meant for larger devices reveals a "My tablet" menu, suggesting it boasts integration with slates. Given that @evleaks mentions Bandit, Espoo's long-rumored Sirius pad and October 22nd event date, it's a safe bet that we'll see new hardware -- and at least one new app -- this fall.
Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation App announced earlier this year will be available for iOS and Android devices in North America on November 13 and in Europe on November 22.
The App is set to provide second screen functionality for some PS4 titles, as well as let you access your PSN profile, check up on friends and trophies, send messages to other people who have the App or to PS4, PS3, and PS Vita users. You'll also be able to make purchases using the App and remotely download it, and also use your smartphone or tablet to turn your console on and off or as a keyboard for typing.
Full details on what to expect when the app goes live can be seen in our walkthrough, below.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Junior Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.
In 2008, almost every one of my friends had a BlackBerry, and swore by BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), the company's lightning-fast messaging app. It wouldn't be a stretch, in fact, to say that most of my friends bought a BlackBerry just to be able to use BBM. In combination with the world's fastest hardware keyboard, BBM offered a new degree of speed and utility. Never before could we chat on mobile as quickly as we could IM on desktops.
Five years later, I can't name a single friend who owns a BlackBerry. Their phones have all been replaced by iPhones and Androids, and maybe a couple Windows Phones here and there. BBM has been replaced by iMessage, WhatsApp, Kik Messenger, and Snapchat. The shift from BlackBerry to newer, more modern platforms is nearly complete. BBM languished as the apps it helped inspire thrived and gained hundreds of millions of users. Yet, BlackBerry just this week launched BBM for iPhone and Android — perhaps its last chance at capitalizing on the brand equity the company once commanded.
I've been using the Surface Pro ever since it came out, but as much as I want to I've never been able to use it as my laptop replacement. It's powerful and impressive, but it's just too limited as a laptop, and too chunky as a tablet. I use tablets for long periods of the day, and I regularly work on my lap with a real keyboard, so a hybrid laptop and tablet sounds like a perfect solution. The Surface Pro wasn't it. The battery doesn't last long enough for tablet use, and it's not comfortable to use as a laptop in my lap.
Nine months after introducing the first device, Microsoft is back — it knows my problems, and says it's solved them. The Surface Pro 2 promises 75 percent more battery life, improved lap use, faster performance, and more, smarter accessories. Microsoft's second refreshed attempt to blend beauty and power into the perfect Windows 8 machine sets you back $899. That's a small price to pay — if this is the laptop I've been waiting for.
To be honest, I just thought that I would sell my Galaxy S3 for Galaxy Note 3. But I change my mind ever since read this awesome news.
Life has begun again, and proud to be owner of Galaxy S3 and its best OS: Android 4.3.
Life would be worthwhile with Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Gear.
Finally time would tell us one thing: Nobody could live without Samsung.
Go Sammy, you're more than a miracle, more than savior.
Here's some good news for those who have been pining for a more carrier-friendly version of Sony's Xperia Z1 flagship, at least if they're on T-Mobile. While no exact date has been set in stone yet, the smartphone has just been spotted at the Bluetooth SIG bearing T-Mobile's name, suggesting that an official launch might be coming soon.
We had a chance to get our hands on the Xperia Z1 right after Sony announced its latest flagship smartphone at the IFA trade show in Berlin early last September. The device was built to impress and it seems to get that part nailed down. It sports the usual specs that you'd expect in high-end smartphones by now, including a 2.3 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 2 GB of RAM, a 300 mAh battery, and Android 4.2.2. It was, however, on the camera that Sony pulled out all the stops, blessing the Xperia Z1 with a 20.7 megapixel 1/2.3-inch sensor with an f/2.0 aperture and 27 mm wide angle lens, and BIONZ processing sensor. Of course, there's also the waterproof feature that Sony has added on top of all these.
It took more than a month for the smartphone to become widely available in the US, but even so, the Xperia Z1 announced by Sony in mid-October came as an unlocked variant with HSPA+ connectivity only. Now, however, it seems that another model will soon be heading for T-Mobile. A filing for a Sony Xperia Z1 device, bearing the model number C6616, was recently seen at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). While this doesn't even give a ballpark date of launch, it does, however, give us a bit of hope that it will be happening soon. There are no news on the device's availability on other major US carriers.
Although the unlocked Xperia Z1 costs $669.99, pricing details for the T-Mobile variant are also still unknown at this point. Another unknown is whether the Xperia Z1 will be receiving an update that will bump it up to Android 4.4 directly or if the firmware will only go as far as Android 4.3 for now.
VIA: Xperia Blog
Right on cue, on November 1, Microsoft introduced a new option to its Enterprise Agreement licensing plan that "allows highly committed customers to standardize broadly on one or more key Server and Cloud technologies from Microsoft."
Microsoft officials said last month that these enterprise discounts, slated to go live on November 1, "will be better than Amazon's on commodity services like compute, storage and bandwidth." The new discounts will run alongside Microsoft's current guarantee that it will match Amazon.com's prices on compute, storage and bandwidth.
This new Server and Cloud Enrollment (SCE) offers users a subscription option for not just cloud, but also on-premises Microsoft software, including Windows Server, System Center, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, SharePoint Server and Visual Studio.
SCE adds new "cloud-optimized licensing options" and "the best pricing and terms," according to Microsoft's November 1 volume-price list.
To incent users to subscribe, Microsoft is providing a fiscal 2014 jumpstart promotion for SCE, which runs from November 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014. During that period, Microsoft will offer a 15 percent discount on Core Infrastructure Suite Data Center Licensing and Service Agreement (L&SA), as well as Software Assurance only to customers purchasing these products via Enterprise Volume Licensing. This price cut is available only for new purchases and will be available to customers via SCE in all customer segments worldwide.
Here's the fine print about SCE from the downloadable SCE datasheet and frequently asked questions document. (Thanks to Rich Gibbons from Bechtle for the datasheet pointer).
In order to enroll in SCE, users have to make "an installed-base-wide commitment to one or more components," for three years, which means committing to full Software Assurance coverage across the installed base of a particular component. For doing so, users get 15 percent discounts for new licenses and Software Assurance purchases, plus a five percent discount on Software Assurance renewals.
Microsoft will provide SCE subscribers with new "cloud-optimized" licensing options, "simplified license management" and "the best pricing and terms." According to the datasheet, SCE is the way users can get Microsoft's lowest Windows Azure pricing, application-license mobility to the cloud and other new benefits for using System Center to manage Azure resources. Other SCE benefits include a "new subscribtion-based option" which provides greater flexibiity for retiring workloads, consolidating or migrating to the cloud, the datasheet specified.
Microsoft's co-founders are beginning to weigh in on the company's strategy and the succession plan for CEO Steve Ballmer.
Bill Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, told the Financial Times that he plans to spend considerable time working with the next CEO. It's not clear from the interview whether Microsoft's board has asked Gates to help break in the next CEO.
A spokesman for Gates didn't respond to a request for comment.
Gates also said he's spending much more time on Microsoft business than the one day a week he planned when he stopped working there full time in 2008. The disclosures highlight Gates' continued influence as Microsoft prepares for its first chief without ties to the company's founding.
Also in the Financial Times in recent days, the head of Paul Allen's investment firm was quoted saying Microsoft's next CEO should consider spinning off the company's consumer businesses, such as the Bing online-search engine and videogame unit Xbox.
"My view is there are some parts of that operation they should probably spin out, get rid of, to focus on the enterprise and focus on the cloud," Paul Ghaffari, the head of Allen's Vulcan Capital, said at a New York event.
Several investors share those views, but Microsoft has said its businesses work better together than separate.
Ghaffari also said that if Microsoft selects a CEO without experience in the tech industry, the company should consider pairing him or her with a tech-oriented executive. That's become an issue since Ford CEO Alan Mulally emerged as a contender for the Microsoft CEO job.
Ghaffari's comments are noteworthy in part because Allen doesn't say much publicly about Microsoft, the company he founded with Gates. The day Ballmer announced his retirement as CEO, Allen issued statement saying he looked forward to a "fresh approach" at Microsoft.
A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Vulcan didn't respond to a request for comment.
Could Apple have a sixth-generation "iPhone Air" in the pipeline? If so, one designer – Federico Ciccarese – has imagined how the anticipated product could look in an impressive new concept.
Like the fifth-generation 9.7-inch iPad, the concept envisages that Apple's new iPhone, too, could borrow from the design and form factor of the first- and second-generation iPad mini, offering users a "flatter," more rounded handset with curved edges.
Here are a few more images from Ciccarese's concept. See what you think.
Could Apple release an iPhone Air?
Of course, the handset would feature a Touch ID-equipped Home button.
Though Apple's iPhone 5s only reached the market back in September, there have been a large number of reports discussing the Cupertino, Calif. company's next-generation smartphone, which most are calling the "iPhone 6."
Back in October, for example, the research firm NPD DisplaySearch claimed that Apple could be planning on releasing two larger-screen iPhones next year: one with a display of 4.7-inches, and the other with a screen size of 5.7-inches. Similar reports have argued that a so-called "iPhone maxi" is set to reach Apple Store shelves in 2014, and if market research is a reliable indication, consumers indeed appear to be demanding a phablet-style iPhone handset.
Of course, though it's not so clear, it looks like the above concept proposes a 4-inch iPhone Air, which would feature a different form factor but a screen size nevertheless similar to that of the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s.
Personally, I think Apple's iPhone is already big enough; any larger, and I'd struggle to hold on to it while using the handset. How about you?
For more weekend reading, see: Today's Apps Gone Free: Actions, Runtastic Squats Trainer, USB Flash Drive And More, ModCloth Updated With "Fit For Me" Feature To Help You Find The Perfect Fashion Fit, and The AppAdvice Week In Review: Apple's iPad Air Arrives.
IBM is stepping up its fight against Amazon.com around cloud computing.
In an unusual move, IBM is launching a marketing campaign Monday that names Amazon as a rival and implicitly claims that IBM is the leader in the estimated $40 billion-a-year cloud-computing market. IBM rarely mentions competitors in any of its advertisements.
"Whose cloud powers 270,000 more websites than Amazon?" asks one print advertisement that will run in some major newspapers and business magazines. "If your answer is IBM, you're among the well informed. The IBM cloud offerings also support 30% more of the most popular websites than anyone else in the world."
The campaign, which will run in print, online and outdoors, highlights the growing stakes in the battle for the cloud as companies shift more of their technology purchasing dollars to renting computing over the Internet rather than buying and maintaining their own hardware and software. IBM would not disclose how much it is spending on the campaign.
The trend is a challenge to IBM, which has made billions of dollars installing, maintaining and upgrading computer systems for clients.
IBM recently lost a high-profile fight with Amazon for a $600 million contract to set up a cloud-computing system for the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA surprised IBM when it picked Amazon, a win that could help unlock doors for Amazon with security-sensitive government agencies and commercial clients that have long been IBM's turf.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the IBM campaign.
IBM vice president of cloud services Ric Telford said IBM is launching the campaign largely because it recently completed its $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer Technologies Inc.
SoftLayer rents space to clients on computers the clients don't own, an area dominated by Amazon. A client, for example, might put its database or website on computer servers operated by SoftLayer rather than buy its own.
Telford downplayed the loss of the CIA contract, claiming it was just one deal of many. "IBM wins more than it loses," said Telford, citing a 10-year, $1 billion cloud computing contract it announced this August with the Department of the Interior.
In the most recent quarter, IBM disappointed investors by falling short of Wall Street revenue estimates, but named cloud computing as a bright spot. IBM it generated more than $1 billion in cloud revenue, up 70% from a year earlier, and the first time IBM disclosed its cloud revenues.
In July, IBM said in a securities filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission was conducting an investigation into how the company reports cloud revenue. IBM said it is cooperating with the agency and follows accepted accounting rules.
– Greg Bensinger contributed to this report.
Free Regcast : Microsoft Cloud OS
Teardown According to the teardown fanatics at iFixit, Apple's new iPad Air is twice as easy to repair as Microsoft's equally new Surface 2 – which received an as-low-as-you-can-go repairability rating of 1 out of a possible 10.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the iPad Air is only one small step away from being as fiendishly difficult to repair as the Surface 2. The low, low repairability score of 2 that iFixit assigned to Apple's slimmed-down fondleslab after their teardown is certainly nothing to be proud of.
As iFixit wrote in an email, "The changes to the new iPad are bad for repairability, but not quite bad enough to halve its score from 2 to 1. It was an extremely close call, though. We wrestled with the decision for quite a long time before reaching our conclusion."
Copious amounts of adhesive was the villain in the teardown of the Surface 2, and that gunk makes its return in the iPad Air. Unlike the Surface 2, however, iFixit didn't have to break out their Chicago Heat Gun to loosen the gluey grip securing the iPad Air's case; their microwaveable iOpener heat pad was sufficient – along with the help of a handful of guitar picks.
Oz readers will I.D. that coin as an Australian 20¢ piece – 28.5mm in diameter, by the way (click to enlarge)
After popping open the case and freeing the 2048-by-1536 pixel, 264 pixels-per-inch Retina display, the two-cell lithium-polymer battery was revealed. That battery, iFixit notes, provides 32.9WHr of juice, significantly less than its predecessor's 43WHr three-cell "behemoth." Apple's tech specs, by the way, report the capacity to be 32.4WHr.
Despite this large drop in capacity, however, Apple claims that the iPad Air's enhanced efficiency will still allow for "up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music."
Why Apple understates the Air's battery capacity is an unknowable Cupertinian mystery (click to enlarge)
The amount of glue holding down the battery caused the iPad Air's Australian disassembler, iFixit reports, to send them "one, last, coherent message before strings of expletives" when attempting to remove the battery: "It's the worst battery ever," he said.
Fortunately, the iPad Air's logic board is not glued down, and removing it allowed iFixit and their pals at Chipworks to identify the chippery powering Apple's latest slab of shiny-shiny.
It turns out that an A7 is not an A7 is not an A7 (click to enlarge)
Interestingly, the A7 chip in the iPad Air, outlined in red and sitting next to 1GB of Elpida low-power DDR3 SDRAM outlined in orange, has a different ID number than does the A7 in the iPhone 5s – the Air's A7 is marked APL5698, while the A7 in the 5s is labeled APL0698.
Chipworks surmises that the renaming of the A7 is due to the fact that it's reported to run at 1.4GHz; the A7 in the iPhone 5s is said to run at 1.3GHz. "It's quite a hefty heat sink on the chip," they write, "so it's definitely running warmer." Alternatively, they say, the new designation could be due to a different pin-out needed to talk with the Elpida memory.
We'll ask Apple, and we're sure they'll tell us. That was a joke, by the way.
Other chips of interest include 16GB of Toshiba NAND Flash (yellow) and Apple's 338S1116 Cirrus Audio Codec (black), which iFixit says they also found in the iPhone 5c. For a full listing of all the chips, check out iFixit's teardown, which also includes 55 photos detailing the entire process.
And a painful process it was. The front panel is glued down, which increases the chances of cracking it when you attempt to remove it, for example, and the display is fastened to the front panel with foam sticky tape, which also boost the likelihood of inadvertent shattering upon removal.
All in all, the iPad Air is a bear to take apart for repair – but at least it's not a Microsoft Surface 2. ®
Free Regcast : Managing Multi-Vendor Devices with System Centre 2012
Google unwrapped a brand new version of its mobile software on 31 October called Android 4.4 "Kitkat", featuring an always listening intelligent search and more.
With Android 4.4 Kitkat Google has improved Android's performance, added new features and services, as well as integrated new software to support the potential for innovative new uses.
Since its inception, Google has used both an increasing numeric value, like Android 4.4, as well as names taken from famous confectionary.
It started with Android 1.5 "Cupcake", and continued through the alphabet via Android 1.6 "Donut", Android 2.0 "Eclair", Android 2.2 "Froyo" (frozen yoghurt), Android 2.3 "Gingerbread", Android 3.0 "Honeycomb", Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" and most recently Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean".
It was long-rumoured that the follow up to Jelly Bean would be "Key Lime Pie", however in a deal with Nestle, Google named Android 4.4 after the Kitkat chocolate biscuit.
Google's intelligent digital assistant and smart search, Google Now, has been given much larger prominence within Android 4.4 Kitkat, integrating an always listening feature, which will instantly respond to voice commands triggered by the phrase "OK Google".
Instead of having to launch a separate app, your searches can be made directly from the homescreen without having to tap any buttons, just by starting your commands with "OK Google". This always-listening feature was first introduced with Google's smart glasses Google Glass, which is voice-activated by the phrase "OK Glass".
Google has taken steps with Android 4.4 Kitkat to make the experience of using apps like ebook readers or web browsers a much more immersive experience. It has changed the way the system-level interface elements are presented, including the status bar at the top of the screen and the Android menu buttons at the bottom.
Instead of permanently bracketing your screen with two black bars, the top notification bar is now transparent, allowing more of your homescreen wallpaper to shine through. The menu bar at the bottom of the screen can now also disappear when an app is put into a full-screen mode, allowing content to take up the full real estate of the screen.
Dragging your finger down from the top of the screen or up from the bottom of the screen now reveals the notification or menu bars when in full screen applications.
Android fragmentation has been a big problem for app developers ever since the operating system's inception. Essentially it means that multiple versions of Android that aren't up to date exist on various devices. While that's not an issue in and of itself, for developers it presents a massive challenge as they have to programme their apps to support multiple versions of Android – all with differing capabilities.
Google has already taken steps towards minimising fragmentation through the decoupling of its own applications and services from the operating system into separate downloadable apps. That allows users on older versions of Android to update these apps separately through the Google Play store and gain access to the new services and features.
Now Google is taking its battle with fragmentation a step further by reducing the system requirements for Android 4.4 Kitkat. In doing this Google has made it possible to run Kitkat on much lower power devices.
Following Apple's lead with the iPhone 5S and its low-power M7 motion co-processor, Kitkat also features support for low power sensors using a process called "hardware sensor batching".
Essentially, Android will now queue up sensory input to be processed in batches, which means that the central processor doesn't need to be in a high-power state all the time to accept and process data from the phone's sensors like the GPS, accelerometers and gyroscopes.
The end result is much improved battery life, while maintaining the data logging and sensory activities that facilitate great features like Google Now, fitness trackers and location reporting.
Google has also taken steps to simplify and hopefully accelerate the use of near-field communication (NFC) for payments. A significant proportion of Android phones come with an NFC chip built in, which is currently mainly used for pairing accessories and Bluetooth devices.
Now Google has baked a new feature into Android Kitkat that aims to simplify the use of NFC applications for payments called "Host Card Emulation", which facilitates the connection between the applications and the NFC hardware within the Android device.
Google hopes that this new simplification within the Android software will help NFC payments, as well as other NFC uses gain traction.
Following the announcement of the Nexus 5 smartphone and Android 4.4 Kitkat, various manufacturers announced that they would be updating their smartphones with Kitkat.
Google announced that previous Nexus devices, including the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 7 and 10 tablet computers would get the update within the coming weeks.
HTC also confirmed that it would be updating its HTC One line of devices, including the new One Max phablet to Android 4.4 Kitkat, with the HTC One seeing the update within 90 days.
Other smartphone manufacturers are currently looking at the update, although it is known that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will not get the Kitkat update.
• In October, Google launched its new flagship Android smartphone the Google Nexus 5 that provides high-end features at a more affordable price
Last month, we reported Microsoft was investigating claims that some ads on Bing were redirecting users to malware. Security firm ThreatTrack Security Labs has once again discovered fraudulent ads on the search engine, after its Labs team identified numerous files named "Snapchat.exe."
As before, we contacted Microsoft to let them know of the claims. "We appreciate you letting us know about the malware activity on Bing Ads," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "We are investigating the claims of fraudulent ads and will take any and all appropriate action to help ensure our customers are protected."
Last time, ThreatTrack found malware after clicking on ads on the search page that comes up when you type in the query "youtube." The company noted, however, that the scammers could of course be targeting other keywords; we agreed – the more popular the keywords, the bigger the potential for infection.
Now ThreatTrack has found suspicious activity when searching for Snapchat on Bing. Notice the ad from videonechat(dot)com that comes up at the top:
We have confirmed this ad comes up for us as well when we query Bing. The website the ad links to is quite dodgy: it talks about installing Snapchat, while also listing the program as "Dorgem" in small letters.
ThreatTrack explains what happens if you install it (see the VirusTotal ranking for this threat):
The install offers up a number of ad serving programs, media players and additional software offered up with no relation to Snapchat whatsoever. During testing, we saw Realplayer, GreatArcadeHits, Optimizer Pro, Scorpion Saver and Word Overview. Legitimate programs being bundled with Adware is a common enough tactic, but this is an Optimum Installer bundle where a website serves as clickbait for a deliberately misrepresented app – you most definitely do not get what you're promised in return for installing numerous pieces of ad-serving software.
For the record, Snapchat is only available for Android and iOS. In general, please make a point to install apps from official sources such as Google Play and Apple's App Store.
Top Image Credit: George Crux
One of Microsoft's biggest retail goals for holiday 2014 is to sell 16 million Windows tablets, according to alleged Microsoft strategy documents obtained by Paul Thurrott, editor of the Windows SuperSite.
To achieve this goal, the Softies are going to be increasing retail spending, according to Thurrott's report. Last fiscal year (ending June 30, 2013), Microsoft spent $241 million on its retail Windows efforts. This year, that amount will jump to $405 million, according to Thurrott's information. Of that $405 million, $131 million will be spent on incentives and offers, with the remaining $274 million going toward direct marketing and operating expenses.
Microsoft also is going to try to move the public perception meter about Windows devices. The idea is to make the Windows experience a "loved part of people's lives," not just something functional and utilitarian. Yes, this is all part of Microsoft's push to increase its appeal to consumers, since they've already got many business users sewn up.
I'm assuming Windows tablets here means not only Surfaces but also Windows tablets from other vendors. I'm not sure what Microsoft's desired mix might look like.
Microsoft has not released publicly the number of Surface sales it has made to date. Surface revenues (which are reported into Windows client) for Microsoft's most recent quarter were $400 million. Microsoft officials said they sold double the number of Surfaces this quarter that they did in the previous calendar quarter. (Note: We don't know what either of those numbers are.) Surface RT sales were better than anticipated, officials said, while some potential Surface Pro customers held off, waiting for the Surface Pro 2.
So is 16 million a lot of tablets? A very modest goal? Again, I'm not entirely sure. Gartner recently estimated that 184 million tablets will be sold worldwide by all vendors in calendar 2013.
One way Microsoft can sell more Windows tablets is to hurry up and get those promised Microsoft stores inside Best Buy up and running. I stopped by a couple of New York City's biggest Best Buy retail stores this week. The situation is not pretty. There's still nowhere for those interested in Windows PCs and tablets and the new Surfaces to go to do side-by-side comparisons.
The only Microsoft brick-and-mortar store in Manhattan remains a very small kiosk in the Time Warner Center mall. Here's hoping for some new/more Microsoft holiday pop-ups and/or specialty stores in the not-too-distant future.
This story originally appeared as "Microsoft's holiday goal: Sell 16 million Windows tablets" on ZDNet.
The Xbox One Kinect sensor identifies users by measuring the arrangement and length of certain facial features and calculating that into a number, Microsoft has revealed as part of a detailed disclosure about its privacy policies.
ZoomIn what could be a crucial clarification amid growing paranoia and distrust over Microsoft's privacy policies, the corporation explained that this unique number - even if passed onto government officials - could not be retroactively used to build an image of the user's face.
With this clarification, Microsoft is promising that it is not technically possible for security agencies and state officials to access images of players.
The company also clarified that, while game software can read player expressions and respond accordingly, that data is not sent to Microsoft.
"It stays on the console and is destroyed once your session ends," the company claimed.
Microsoft has come under significant scrutiny regarding its privacy policies. In July it was discovered that the corporation supplied email and Skype details to the NSA. Microsoft said it was legally bound to not discuss the matter openly.
Doubts and suspicions over Microsoft's handling of personal data has not abated. Late in September, a former Microsoft privacy adviser said he no longer trusts the company after reading about the NSA mass-surveillance operation.
Days later it was revealed that Microsoft handed over the personal information of more than a thousand customers to Australian government agents in the first half of 2013.
In response, Microsoft has launched a privacy policy disclosure web page, detailing its rules and limitations.
Standout Xbox privacy policies include:
As the first of the aluminum-and-glass smartphones out of Cupertino to deviate from the binary black/white options that have been available since the iPhone 4, the new gold option has gotten people really excited.
Business Insider's Megan Rose Dickey got hold of one a few weeks back and couldn't get over how beautiful it is.
Apple's television ad for the gold iPhone made it look sexy and luxurious.
Yet Apple, a company famous for its industry-leading supply chain, hasn't been able to keep up with demand.
We've heard reports of the gold iPhone instantly selling out in China and Hong Kong. Others have pointed out that major carriers in Europe (and the entire continent of Australia) went through a period of literally having zero units of the gold model.
There are a few possible explanations for this.
It could be that Apple has been overwhelmed by the sheer demand for gold objects in status-obsessed Asia. It could be that Apple is artificially boosting demand with "velvet rope" marketing.
Either way, the shortage has led to reports that the gold iPhone 5S has sold the least units of the three available color options.
Today I visited the Apple Store here in Berkeley, where a manager told me that they received two gold iPhones when it launched and still sold out on the same day that they receive any more.
Now, Apple Stores deal with an insane amount of customers every day. In fact, they average well over 200,000 customers per store per quarter. If the gold iPhone is in such low supply that most customers who show up wanting it are turned away, that could quickly add up to millions of potential customers becoming unhappy in a very short amount of time.
Not exactly the best practice for a company that charges a premium for quality products and top-notch customer service — or Apple's style. That's why I don't think Apple is artificially raising demand or sending all of its supply of the gold iPhone to Asia. I think that it *is* a supply issue, and it's awfully similar to a situation Apple has previously faced when introducing a new color iPhone.
Remember the launch of the original white iPhone?
It was supposed to ship at the same time as the black iPhone 4, back in June 2010. But as CNN's Mark Millan reported in April of 2011, manufacturing the white iPhone at scale caused a number of unforeseen issues for the company — among other things, the design team's favorite white paint interfered with the phone's proximity sensor.
The white iPhone ended up being delayed for 10 months, and Steve Jobs even made a self-deprecating jab about making sure that there would be a white iPad 2 from day one at its announcement.
I'm guessing that Apple is facing some kind of trouble ramping up the process for integrating gold-hued anodized aluminum into its manufacturing supply chain. While they've gotten better at handling such things — as Dan Frommer notes, Apple has gone from being a company that can sell 9 million phones in a quarter to a company that can sell 9 million in a weekend in a mere three years — they're still only able to get thin shipments out to stores, if any.
Rather than repeat the white iPhone debacle and face another faux-crisis (I bet the tech press would call it "Goldgate," since everything Apple does wrong is a buzzword-gate worthy mistake at this point), Apple is making the smart choice of getting something to market.
This is what Steve Jobs meant when he threatened to go nuclear against Android.
Yesterday, on Halloween, a consortium of companies including Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Ericsson, and BlackBerry filed lawsuits again Android manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei, Asustek, and ZTE, as well as other Android manufacturers. All the lawsuits target Google as well, if only indirectly, and one mentions the company by name, saying its core money-maker, Adwords, violates a 1998 patent.
Yesterday, the latest smartphone marketshare reports showed that Google's Android mobile operating system has attained a record 81 percent share, and that Google's app store, Google Play, now drives 25 percent more downloads than Apple's, and is catching up in revenue.
Essentially, having failed to compete in the marketplace, Apple and Microsoft are choosing to compete in the courts.
Apparently, they haven't learned anything from the recent past, in which Apple won a billion-dollar judgment against Samsung that has since been whittled down, reduced, appealed, and essentially stuck in legal limbo. One tremendous accomplishment of that lawsuit, however, has been that many lawyers have gotten much richer.
The lawsuit stems from over 6,000 patents acquired by Apple, Microsoft, and others from the bankrupt early mobile innovator, Nortel, for $4.5 billion in 2011, and amassed in a holding company that the companies' executives, in an adolescent fit of testosterone overdosing, dubbed Rockstar Bidco. Google was also bidding for the patent portfolio — it was the first bidder, at $900 million — but lost that battle.
At the time of that bidding war, there were already 45 patent lawsuits against Android in various shapes and forms. Today, there are many more. And Google, probably, knew at that moment that this day was coming.
The Google lawsuit cites United States Patent No. 6,098,065, won by Nortel originally, for "matching search terms with relevant advertising." In other words, this is not just a fight against Android. Rockstar Bidco — and by extension Apple and Microsoft — are firing directly at the very basis of Google's existence, its very lifeblood, and the source of all the revenue that enables it to build and give away the world's best or second-best mobile operating system essentially for free: advertising.
It's genius, really. Why attack your enemy's toes when you can go straight for the heart?
And the companies say that by bidding on the Nortel patents, Google was essentially admitting that it was infringing them:
Google was aware of the patents-in-suit at the time of the auction.
Google placed an initial bid of $900,000,000 for the patents-in-suit and the rest of the Nortel portfolio. Google subsequently increased its bid multiple times, ultimately bidding as high as $4.4 billion. That price was insufficient to win the auction, as a group led by the current shareholders of Rockstar purchased the portfolio for $4.5 billion.
Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe the patents-in-suit.
That's really going too far — the patent portfolio includes many mobile-relevant patents that any company in the space would love to have — but it may play well in court. The Adwords-relevant patent was issued in December, 1998. Google was founded in September of that year, and currently earns $50 billion-plus annually based on technology that, on the surface, appears to infringe the patent.
(Of course, the patent may also be obvious — at least, it is in retrospect.)
The Samsung lawsuit cites seven patents that Rockstar Bidco, and by extension, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and Ericsson, say Samsung infringes. They include U.S. Patent No. 6,765,591, on virtual private network technology, a user interface patent, and a seemingly impossibly broad U.S. Patent No. 5,838,551, which covers an "Electronic Package Carrying an Electronic Component and Assembly of Mother Board and Electronic Package."
The lawsuit is extremely comprehensive, citing no fewer than 118 claims of infringement on Samsung's part, and no fewer than 21 "prayers for relief," in the somewhat archaic language of the court. Those prayers, which Apple has been offering up fervently for years now, include that Samsung be found guilty of infringement, be forced to pay damages — including triple damages for willful infringement — and either a permanent injunction or a "compulsory ongoing licensing fee."
Products cited include the Galaxy S III, the Galaxy family of tablets, and others.
In other words, this is likely to be the definitive battle that shapes Android and the future of mobile technology in the U.S. and abroad. Google will likely strike back — every large enterprise has patents that just about every company could be conceivably infringing — and we'll likely enter a long, protracted, messing, and boring sideshow of legal shenanigans that advance the world of technology not a single bit, but continue to enrich lawyers.
And may, eventually, result in licensing fees on Android that will make the free operating system slightly less free.
Here's the Google lawsuit:
Here's the Samsung lawsuit:
Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC has reported its first ever loss as it continues to lose ground to rivals.
It made a net loss of 2.97bn Taiwan dollars ($100m; £62m) in the three months to September.
Its numbers are in sharp contrast with rival Samsung, which has forecast record profit for the same period.
HTC was one of the early market leaders in Android smartphones, but has lost market share to rivals such as Samsung and Apple in recent years.
It has launched new products, such as the HTC One, in an attempt to regain some of the lost ground.
While the firm has claimed that the response to those products has been encouraging, analysts have warned that prospects of a recovery continue to remain weak.
Laura Chen, an analyst at BNP Paribas, said that there were "no signs" of a recovery anytime soon.
The company's shares have fallen more than 50% over the past 12 months amid concerns over its future growth.
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Amazon plans entry into smartphone market with HTC Financial Times By tapping HTC to help design the phones, Amazon is acting much like Google, which has partnered with brands such as Asus and LG to develop its own Nexus line of tablets and phones. Selling smartphones could help Amazon foster greater consumer loyalty ... |
