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We’re talking less on mobiles, apparently. I can’t wait for the time I won’t have to overhear stupid, shouty conversations

So the word on the party line is that mobile phone calls are falling out of fashion as people find other uses for their handsets. Well, good. It’s about time. Yes, it’s useful to be able to make a call in an emergency, and yes, mobiles are a powerful tool for aid and medical workers, and they are of course the shiny and most essential item in the kit of the citizen journalist. But apart from those uses, making phone calls seems to have become the least important and most annoying thing a phone can now do.

And it’s about time. Landlines have already become a joke in many households (or those in areas where mobile signal is strong enough, at least). Ever more expensive to rent a line for, rarely answered (it’ll only be a spammer or a survey or someone wanting money, people say) and often neglected if a phone call actually needs to be made.

Because people use their mobiles instead. Or have. Now? Not so much. I could find the flashing green button on the bottom of my phone that would allow me to dial a number pretty easily, but once there, I’d have scant few numbers to dial. Last week I had to take the phone numbers of two friends I communicate with several times a day – in person, online, or through exchanging comments on various social media sites – but had never bothered to get the phone numbers for.

Having a device with which you can contact people on your person is a good thing, of course is – if you have fallen and you can’t get up, for instance. It is great. But since the days when mobile phones were about the size of Barbie’s Mobile Home but weighed the same as a solid gold throne, the urban world has been infected by people with a lack of social awareness and a diminished sense of the difference between public and private.

For a society used to the idea that phone calls, held generally in the home or office cubicle were somehow private and protected, the transition to mobile was a messy one, meaning that previously dead air was filled with shouted snatches of other people’s social lives and medical history; business being conducted, full of numbers, figures and urgency. Why this seemed like a reasonable way to behave, I have never known.

It’s not only a question of quietness – the more people become accustomed to securely and easily managing their affairs and time through applications, online forms and texts (and the more development goes into making that as secure and smooth as possible) the better, frankly. I have more confidence in seeing on a screen that a transaction has been completed or a booking made than hearing it mumbled by someone in a call centre who may or may not have correctly grasped the task I needed performed. I’d rather have an email trail backing up my complaint to a bank or a direct message sent through Twitter telling me where and when we were meant to meet than a half-remembered conversation held while distracted.

Phone calls were always flawed: a split-concentration substitute for talking face to face, which is increasingly easy, albeit in a virtual sense, with Skype-type programmes online and video chat a growth area on mobile devices. But the mobile should be a means to this end – that’s the only point where I’d really disagree with Clive Thompson’s take on the holistic hang-up on Wired. I don’t think the emotional or social value of calls will increase, or become lengthier, or more personal. I think they’ll continue to decrease, because it’s not the most enjoyable or pleasurable way of talking to people, is it? It’s just talking out loud, without facial expression, or touch or the power of silence to improve the conversation.

So this is great: if we can get to a point where making stupid shouty phonecalls is really only the ninth or tenth most practical thing your twentysomething entrepreneurial type might use their phone for – after email, texting, calendar synchronisation, Twitter, Facebook, watching videos of cats, extending their car reservation, booking a back-sack-’n-crack wax and taking photographs, then I think that mobile phones are finally becoming the useful, social, pocket-magic they should have been all along: something that helps clear everyday transactions painlessly, makes arrangements easy and leaves more room for meaningful human interaction with real people in real time – rather than some single-sense facsimile of the same.

Mobile phone calls going out of fashion? Brilliant. Next job for mobile device futurologists: make them unable to play music through speakers. That’s also completely pointless. Thanks.

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(Source The Guardian)

Data from the Android developers site suggests that lots of phones are running 2.1 – but there’s something missing from what we’re being told which may mean it’s exaggerated

How fragmented is the Android platform? Google knows. And it’s quite interesting. The problem is that it’s not quite ready to tell us in detail. Only with winks and nudges.

The chart above comes from data on its developer site about versions accessing the Android Market for apps. A point to note: there’s only one Android device out there which is running 2.2 (aka “Froyo”), and that’s the Google Nexus One. Which has been discontinued.

However, some of the other phones can be upgraded to 2.2; it will be interesting to see what sort of timescale there is on that.

But what must be encouraging for the folks at Google, and Android developers, is that 2.1 is so dominant in that pie chart. (There’s a tiny fraction, 0.3%, consisting of “incompatible versions” – not sure what those would be.)

Because certainly the biggest threat – and the biggest problem – for Android developers is platform fragmentation. Old version of Android can’t run apps that target more recent versions, though old apps can run on the new platform. (Think of it as being like Windows. Sort of.) But the later Android versions have all sorts of features that you don’t get on the others. (You can see the version feature comparison on Wikipedia.)

The timings of the version releases:

1.5: 30 April 2009
1.6: 15 September 2009
2.1: 12 January 2010
2.2: 20 May 2010

That means that this chart covers just one year (roughly).

The notable things that 2.2 has that 2.1 hasn’t? Adobe Flash 10.1 support [corrected]; “remote wipe”; Wi-Fi hotspot function; voice dialling over Bluetooth. So now the question is how soon operators (particularly UK operators) will be pushing 2.2 out to Android customers. The suspicion is that the answer is “not soon”, given that 2.1 only just made its way (via an over-the-air – OTA – update).

And be wary – very wary – of trusting these graphics as really indicating the preponderance of Android versions out there. What we don’t know, because these graphs don’t show us, is:

- whether people with newer versions of Android are more likely to access the Android Market (that would push the share for newer versions upwards: and it seems likely, since I’d be very surprised if Nexus Ones really were 3% of all Android phones sold)

- what proportion of Android apps are written for what version of Android. Although Android apps are forwards-compatible (ie if it’s written for 1.5, it will run on 1.5 and every successive release), you’d certainly be put off visiting the Market if you went there once on a 1.5 or 1.6 phone and found that pretty much everything required a later version: you wouldn’t go very much more. That would also push the numbers towards the later versions, and make it look like the more recent versions are doing better. (If you know any data about what proportion of apps in the Market target which version, do tell us in the comments.)

Here’s how the access has changed, according to Google. But again, the same uncertainties prevail: how many? Are people put off? What’s the real growth?

True, Android sales have accelerated this year and 2.1 is getting more prevalent. But that comparatively big chunk of 2.2 accesses indicates, to me anyway, that this is a distorted picture of what handsets out there are truly running.

Of course Google could help us to dispel this all by publishing how many accesses there actually were, and how many downloads. Whereas Apple likes throwing out numbers from the App Store, which gets lots of people going “ooo!”, the problem is that there’s nothing much to compare it with. Come on, Google, get into the game. You said there were 160,000 activations per day. Now tell us about Android Market transactions. It’s the least you could do.

Well, that, and pushing the network operators and/or handset makers to push out version 2.2.

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(Source The Guardian)

Early experiences by various testers show growing interest in new interface experience from Microsoft – but excitement is restrained

The early previews of Windows Phone 7 – for which reference hardware has started shipping to developers – are in. What to make of them? I think the best way to describe them would be a crouching ovation: people who’ve tried it like the fact that Microsoft is trying something different with the mobile experience, but they really can’t decide if it’s going to be a success or not.

Engadget’s in-depth preview (an intriguing concept) is sort of positive: “Microsoft still has a few months before it intends to get the first volley of Windows Phone 7-based products to the marketplace, but we’ve recently been provided with reference hardware — a not-for-retail Samsung called “Taylor” that’s closely modeled on the Symbian-based i8910HD — to get a feel for where they’re at as the clock ticks down.”

Quick briefs: “We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software’s touch responsiveness and speed. In fact, this is probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4. It’s kind of stunning how much work Microsoft has done on the user experience since we first saw this interface — everything now comes off as a tight, cohesive whole. It really put one of our major fears about Windows Phone 7 to rest. We haven’t seen any substantial lag while using the device, and the short transitions between applications or pages are well suited to the overall experience.”

Although: “the controversial cut-off text is still present, and while we happen to like the way it looks, it’s definitely an acquired taste, and there are times when it just doesn’t work, like in the Office hub where PowerPoint looks like it reads “PowerPoir.” And two other things: “There are two big omissions here, in our opinion. The device won’t support copy and paste, and won’t support third-party multitasking of apps. We knew this would be the case given what we heard at MIX10, but it doesn’t stink any less now. The former really doesn’t make any sense to us, especially since Microsoft did a good job of nailing text editing and selection (at least in Word, and really… you guys make Word), and it looks like it would only be a short walk to a contextual pop-over for copy and paste functions. The latter is practically inexcusable in this day and age — even Apple (which has been a complete laggard in this area) now supports basic multitasking.”

But they like the keyboard (“the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We’re talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It’s one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we’ve used on any platform — and that’s saying a lot”) and screen resolution (“the Windows Phone 7 standard 480 x 800″).

Then again, there are points where Engadget’s not so happy, which tallies with some of the doubts I expressed earlier (though I must point out that I’ve not held a WP7 phone, nor seen it demoed): “Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have “contacts,” per se — it has a People app, and there’s quite a difference. This is a thoroughly social platform, and it doesn’t really seek to make any sort of differentiation between people you talk to / text / email, those you just casually observe, and those with whom you’re “friends” in name only. If that kind of philosophy reeks of Motorola Blur or Palm Synergy, you’re on the right track; as soon as you add a Windows Live, Exchange, or Facebook account, it pulls in every contact associated with that account and disperses associated content throughout your entire phone — there’s nothing you can do about it. That means, for example, that your Pictures app could have a bunch of shots of your ex’s aunt’s new boyfriend’s dog in it (more on that in a bit), and there’s not a whole lot you can do to stop that behavior without completely removing your Facebook account from the phone.

“With Exchange, this strategy is probably fine in most cases — contact sync is one of the main reasons you use Exchange ActiveSync, really — but seriously, Facebook is another matter altogether. If you’ve got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list.”

Over at ZDNet UK, there’s another preview which goes (like Engadget) into plenty of detail: “Microsoft has stripped away all unnecessary information (almost too much, actually — the status bar displaying battery life, signal strength, and so forth goes into hiding after a couple of seconds) and soft buttons, and created a Start screen that consists of ‘live tiles’, which are essentially dynamic widgets to your favorite apps, contacts and hubs, and also display alerts, such as new email and missed calls. You can rearrange the order of the tiles and remove them by doing a long press on the screen. You can also ‘pin’ new tiles, but to do so, you must first navigate to the list of apps or the People hub, find the item that you want to add and then pin it to the Start screen.”

OK, and those hubs… “The names of the hubs are pretty self-explanatory. For example, the People hub merges contact information from your various accounts and then displays them in one long list. A swipe to the right will show you Facebook status updates (unfortunately, Windows Phone 7 will not have Twitter or MySpace integration at launch) and lets you add comments, while another swipe will brings up the people you’ve contacted most recently.”

“This type of panoramic UI runs across all the various hubs with bold, attractive text splashed across the top to identify different subsections (a.k.a. Pivots) and in some cases, a small contextual toolbar along the bottom of the screen to help you perform app-specific tasks.”

“Some might complain that this type of navigation requires too much scrolling and can be overly complicated. Admittedly, this is true when compared to Apple’s iOS 4 and Google’s Android, and may be a turn-off for consumers. On the other hand, we appreciate the ability to do so many things from one place without having to launch several different apps, so we have to give Microsoft kudos for thinking of this kind of organisation. We also like the consistent UI, which makes it easy to work the other hubs.”

Another point which has been made elsewhere: “What’s interesting about Windows Phone 7, though, is that at times it feels as though you’re getting two completely different experiences on one phone. The Start screen/menu list and some apps — such as the phone dialer, email inbox and calendar — are completely minimalistic, while other aspects of the phone, including the aforementioned hubs and multimedia features, are more sophisticated and elegant. It doesn’t hurt the navigation, as such, but is doesn’t make the phone feel like a cohesive unit either.”

And the big question: “Will this resonate with users? Frankly, we think it’ll be a hard sell initially. Despite all the improvements made to the UI, it’s still more involved than other operating systems. That said, we’d also caution you not to dismiss it completely, simply because it’s different. Change is scary, but it can also be a good thing.”

It’s a long review, which you’re urged to read in detail.

Meanwhile the Wired Gadgetlab has put its sticky fingers all over the screen: here’s the video. Their principal comment: “Still the lack of any kind of real app store is a major hindrance. Also, Microsoft just will not give up on the Zune marketplace. It’s admirable, but maybe they should re-examine their reasoning for keeping it.” But surely the Zune Marketplace is Microsoft’s leg up to an App Store? Abandoning it would look weird.

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(Source The Guardian)

Microsoft should abandon or entirely reboot its mobile strategy because its latest product is barely as good as the iPhone from 2007 on the present developer offer

The as-yet unreleased Windows Phone 7 is a “waste of time and money”, a “disaster” that Microsoft should kill as soon as possible. So says Galen Gruman of Infoworld, who has watched an in-depth demonstration of the new phone software at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partners Conference which has been going on all week at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Windows Phone uses a “contact-centric” approach, where rather than doing “tasks” (in the iPhone app way), you are presented generally with contacts, and informed when someone has done something (updated their Facebook/Twitter feed, called you, etc). My personal first impression of the screenshots was “that’s really not going to scale to the point where you have 300 people in your contacts book and 20 Facebook friends and 50 emails and 100 people you follow on Twitter and 30 apps”, but I thought that was just me not following the thinking behind it.

But it looks like I may have been right.

Gruman started the year being impressed with early demos of Windows Phone 7 – but that’s worn off in a big way.

“Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft’s mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw — with the caveat “so far.”

“No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money. It’s a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with. Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it’s out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship around Christmas 2010, but anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal. I really mean that.”

Ouch. What’s happened, Galen?

“The early demos were intriguing due to the use of the card metaphor to organize apps and information, providing a possible fluidity among apps and information that would let users swim through their business and social activities. And the distinct UI — though based on the unsuccessful Zune media player — looked as if it would stand out from the crowd of mobile devices that have largely copied the iPhone UI, such as Google’s Android, RIM’s touch-oriented BlackBerry Storm, and Palm’s WebOS.”

Hmm.

“But that was just the lipstick. Now, in Microsoft’s in-depth demo this week at the Mobile Beat conference, there’s no mistaking the big pig behind the gloss. Seeing the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, shows how awkward and unsophisticated it is — I had the same feeling you get when you got a movie based on a great trailer, only to discover that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was a mess. A pig, in fact.”

There’s plenty more; it’s worth reading in depth. Gruman says that as well as resting on old technology, Windows Phone 7 is simply outdated:

“The bottom line is this: Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. It’s as if Microsoft decided in summer 2007 to copy the iPhone and has shut its developers in a bunker ever since, so they don’t realize that several years have passed, that the iPhone has advanced, and that competitors such as Google Android and Palm WebOS have also pushed the needle forward. Microsoft is stuck in 2007, with a smartphone OS whose feature checklist might match that era’s iPhone but whose fit and finish would look like a Pinto next to a Maserati.”

Gruman went along to a presentation at WPC (which has been generally described as “lacklustre” – and certainly seems to have been much smaller than in previous years by all accounts) and was worried by what seemed like poor responses to the handful of outside developers who had come along.

Arguably, WPC is not the place where you’re going to find the hottest WP7 developers; it’s more about geeing up the people who will resell Microsoft products. But the fact that only a few months short of the grand launch of WP7 it can’t wow even developers for the platform sounds bad. Gruman’s description of the presentation makes it sound like one of those uncomfortable events where the tumbleweed was always at risk of rolling past.

And as for the “locked in a bunker since 2007″ jibe – don’t forget the Kin, which seems to have been the victim of political infighting at Microsoft, as the incoming developer team from Danger (which Microsoft bought to produce the Kin) found themselves mired in layers of management that effectively brought them to a dead stop. Read the full horror of it at the Mini-Microsoft blog (by a disaffected Microsoft manager, but the comments are from ex-Danger staff and others).

Back to Gruman, who points to the flaws with the “tiles” method:

“… the big tiles quickly eat up screen real estate (about four fit), so you don’t get the compact access to apps that all the other major mobile operating systems provide. I bet this will depress app sales for those poor souls unlucky enough to get seduced by the Microsoft brand or the inevitable discounts at the cellular stores as the carriers try to dump these devices in January 2011 for $25 (shades of the unlamented Kin).

“Plus, Microsoft has done its usual trick of gumming up the UI, even though this one is relatively simple. There are two ways to navigate through tiles: in panorama mode and in pivot mode. In both cases, the tile continues to the right, and you swipe to see more. In panorama mode, cut-off text on the right indicates there’s more (at Mobile Beat, a developer asked if users knew what that cut-off text was for, and the Microsoft rep essentially admitted they didn’t get it was a way to say “more”). In pivot mode, each tile is self-contained, and there is an icon to indicate there is more. It’s a subtle difference: Using a panorama basically means the tile continues because it won’t fit on screen, while using a pivot means you have a series of what are essentially pages. I bet developers and users will get confused very fast.

“Visions of Vista’s litter of control panel dialog boxes, Microsoft Bob, the Office ribbon, Clippy, and Windows 3 flew through my head — not that Windows Phone 7 looks like any of these; it just shares the same flaw of being obtuse.”

And that’s only for starters. Other complaints: the browser, IE7 with a bit of IE8, doesn’t support HTML5; there’s no multitasking except for Microsoft’s own apps (Android and, now, the iPhone both support cooperative multitasking by all apps); there doesn’t seem to be interapplication communication for third-party apps; there’s no copy-and-paste (emphasis added) – even though Apple was roundly and rightly criticised for not introducing it until summer 2009, and Windows Mobile 6.1 did have it.

Gruman says there’s going to be no come-from-behind take-over-the-world for Microsoft if this doesn’t succeed: RIM (prepping BlackBerry 6), Android, Apple and Nokia will all eat its lunch and dance on its grave.

At this point, people usually begin an ad-hominem, to ask whether Gruman is biased or (sigh) in the pay of company X or Y. Judge for yourself from the Infoworld author bio and item list.

Meanwhile, if anyone else has had a hands-on with Windows Phone 7 – via the developer kit or other methods – we’d love to hear about it. Good? Bad? Indifferent? What’s it really like?

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(Source The Guardian)

First-day woes as unusual design puts antennae on outside of phone where hands can form circuit with metal parts

Early reports from the US by users of Apple’s new iPhone 4 suggest that a design fault means its reception worsens when held with the hand wrapped around the phone.

Dozens of videos posted to YouTube, along with comments from people whose phones were delivered early yesterday – ahead of today’s official launch – show that reception appears to wane if people hold it with their hand touching the metal rim around the phone that forms its two wireless antennae.

The effect only appears to happen if the left side of the phone is connected by the user’s hand to the bottom edge. That would create a weak circuit of the two antennae, one for mobile reception and one for Wi-Fi, which lie on a stainless steel band on the outside of the phone.

The principal effect seems to be on mobile data connectivity when the phone is held so that the screen faces the user, with the thumb wrapped around one side – but, notably, with the hand touching the bottom of the phone. One American user who made a video of his problems, testing the phone against a data speed test site, said: “It won’t even start the test if I’m holding the phone.” The video shows the phone running perfectly when he releases his thumb from the side.

Other videos suggest that the problem lies with holding the phone in a way that connects the two antennae.

That could be due to interference effects as the hand forms a circuit which could cause attenuation of the signal: the size of the antennae will be tuned to specific frequency ranges, and when the hand connects them, it makes the antennae effectively larger – but thus less well-tuned to the correct frequencies.

Normally the presence of the body nearby helps to improve mobile reception on phones which have the antennae inside the casing – as is the case with almost every mobile made in the past 10 years. Apple may have taken a significant risk by putting the antennae on the outside where it can be damaged or cause attenuation as has been seen. Apple is offering “bumpers” to protect it – but they cost extra.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, made much of the iPhone 4′s new design when introducing it earlier this month. Rather than being inside the phone, as is customary for mobile phones now, the antenna for the iPhone 4 is a stainless steel band around its side, which is split into two parts to provide Wi-Fi and mobile reception.

After the launch, the design was praised by Dermot O’Shea, director for Taoglas, an Irish provider of antenna solutions, who told website Wireless Week that there might be problems with AT&T’s network – which is the only one on which the iPhone is available in the US: “In fairness, the cellular antenna – it looks like it goes all the way around the phone, so it looks like they’re getting a lot space out of the antena,” he told Wireless Week. “I think the reception challenge they would have is on the lower 850 MHz frequency that AT&T uses,” he says, noting that the thinness of the antenna could still lead to dropped calls on that frequency.”

Apple’s tablet computer, the iPad, was hit by similar woes after its launch in May: users found it difficult to get connected to Wi-Fi computer networks, apparently due to a problem with the software, for which it later released an update.

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(Source The Guardian)

A study published in the BMJ on 23 June found no link between childhood cancer and mobile phone masts. Over the coming days and weeks we will publish updates on this story and links to sources of further information

• The BMJ has made this research paper freely available
• Email us an update or other useful links

Expert comment

2:00pm: Some comments on the BMJ study courtesy of the Science Media Centre in London.

Eileen Rubery, former head of the public health prevention department at the UK government’s department of health, said: “This is a carefully done study by a highly reputable group … the size of the sample is large and the approach appropriate. It is reassuring that no adverse effects have been found and this fits with the anticipated and known biological effects from such sites and so is consistent with the physiology and biology.”

Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, said: “This study seems exemplary in its approach. The findings are well concluded and the methodology is thorough. The findings are generally in support of both the current understanding of tissue interactions and also in support of the work done by other similar research groups. The data is complex and requires some interpretation but the abstract and conclusions are well considered and easy to follow.”

1.30pm: If you only have time to read two things related to the analysis of this story, here they are.

NHS Choices cuts through all the complexity with a superb article on its Behind the Headlines pages. It explains how the study was carried out, what the results are and what caveats there might be on the work.

One of the limitations to this study design is that the exposures being assessed occurred in the past, and therefore it can be difficult to assess them accurately, particularly if researchers rely only on people’s recall of events. However, in this study, researchers did not have to rely on people remembering or estimating their exposure to mobile phone masts, instead they used data on where individuals lived and known locations of mobile phone masts. This increases the reliability of the information about exposure.

Despite any perceived limitations, NHS Choices concludes that the BMJ study “appears well conducted”.

Funding

As well as elucidating the way the research was carried out, Ed Yong’s post at the Cancer Research UK blog addresses the issue of funding:

It’s also worth talking about sources of funding. This study was funded by an independent body called the UK Mobile Telecommunications Health Research Programme (MTHR). The MTHR was set up in 2001 to fund research into any possible health effects of mobile phones, following a recommendation by an independent expert group called the Stewart Committee.

The group is jointly funded by the UK Department of Health and the mobile telecommunications industry. It says, “In order to ensure that none of the funding bodies can influence the outcome of the MTHR Programme, it is run by an independent programme management committee.” This is a common theme in this area of research – industry funding has always been mediated by an independent third party, such as the International Union for Cancer Control.

In addition, CRUK have posted data showing that the rates of malignant brain tumours in the UK have remained stable over the past 10 years.

12.40pm: An article in the British Medical Journal today reports a study looking at whether there are any links between children developing leukaemia or a tumour of the brain and whether their mothers lived near mobile phone masts at the time of their birth.

Sarah Boseley’s write-up in the Guardian makes it clear that “Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house”. She continues:

Researchers from Imperial College London identified 1,397 children under five who were diagnosed with leukaemia or a tumour of the brain or central nervous system between 1999 and 2001. They compared each child with four children of the same gender who were born on the same day but had not developed cancer.

The researchers studied the distance of the mother’s home at the time of the birth from a phone mast, the total power output for base stations within 700 metres and the power density for base stations within 1,400 metres.

“We found no pattern to suggest that the children of mums living near a base station during pregnancy had a greater risk of developing cancer than those who lived elsewhere,” said Professor Paul Elliott, one of the report’s authors and director of the MRC-HPA centre for environment and health at Imperial.

Press roundup

In the Independent, health editor Jeremy Laurance gives some context for the study:

The increase in mobile phone use – from 9 million handsets in 1997 to 74 million in 2007 – has raised worries about the effects of exposure to low-frequency radiation. Several studies, including the Interphone study involving more than 10,000 people from 13 countries that was published last month, have found no damaging health effects from mobile phones themselves.

Public anxiety about transmitters has grown despite the level of individual exposure from transmitters being much lower than from mobile phones.

The LA Times Booster Shots blog reports some of the ways the researchers thought they might have improved their study:

The mothers whose children were diagnosed with cancer lived an average of 1,173 yards from a cellphone tower while they were pregnant – statistically indistinguishable from the 1,211 yards that separated the other pregnant women from their nearest cellphone towers. Tallying up the total power output of all cellphone towers within 766 yards of each pregnant woman’s home, they found that both groups had nearly the same exposure – 2.89 kilowatts for the mothers of cancer victims and 3.00 kilowatts for the other mothers.

Only one of their models revealed a difference that was statistically significant, though just barely. In that case, higher radio-frequency exposure was associated with a reduced risk of cancer of the brain or central nervous system. (This result calls to mind a mouse study from last year that found that electromagnetic radiation from cellphones actually protected mice from Alzheimer’s.) The results were published online Tuesday by the British Medical Journal.

The British researchers admitted their study would have been stronger if there had been some way to determine the actual radiation exposure for each pregnant woman instead of relying on mathematical models. They also would have liked to have tracked the exposure of babies after they were born, but the necessary data weren’t available. Still, they said that if the cellphone towers had doubled the risk for these childhood cancers, the odds that their study would have picked up on it were greater than 90%.

The Press Associaton, Associated Press, Bloomberg Business Week and Irish Times, and the Washington Post’s The Checkup blog also have reports.

Story summary

12.31pm: Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house, scientists said today, following the publication of a study which found no link to early childhood cancers.

There has been public concern over the possibility that living near phone masts could raise the cancer risk of small children and clusters of cases around masts have been reported. But a study published in the British Medical Journal – the first to examine possible links between phone masts and childhood cancer across Britain – found no cause for concern.

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(Source The Guardian)

HP seems to be buying a route into the mobile phone market with its purchase of Palm, but it could also plan to emulate Apple’s strategy with tablets and other media devices

Was it a good idea for Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest computer company, to buy Palm – which now specialises in mobile phones – for $1.2bn?

The initial response from analysts has been as mixed as you’d expect – see the comments from Forrester, Gartner, IDC, Informa, and Ovum below – but almost everything depends on what HP intends to do with its new company.

At one extreme, the takeover could just involve a change from a Palm that’s struggling in the smartphone business to a Palm with the cash (and the resulting market confidence) to create a successful smartphone business. That’s IDC’s basic view. At the other extreme, HP could be more interested in owning its own operating system across phones and mobile devices (and being free of Microsoft in those areas), much like Apple. That seems to be the view held by Informa Telecoms & Media.

But in the long term, it also depends on how these market areas turn out.

Previously, Palm and many rivals – including Microsoft and Nokia – took the view that the mobile phone business would develop like previous technology platform businesses. Typically these start with one or a few small companies that supply an end-to-end solution, but develop into large industries to which many companies contribute parts. This involves a change from vertical organisation (where one company provides the hardware, software, online service, shops etc) to a horizontal organisation (where different companies provide the chips, operating system, services etc).

Palm split itself into hardware and software divisions, and Nokia helped set up Symbian, precisely to enable a move from a vertical (owned and mostly closed) organisation to a horizontal one (open licensing). Both wanted to avoid Apple’s mistake in staying with a vertical organisation: that while the bits work together, you end up with 2% (or so) market share.

But the mobile phone and media tablet markets won’t necessarily follow the sort of path that has become well known in the computer industry, and change from vertical to horizontal structures. They could, instead, reduce to a few vertically-oriented companies. That’s how the games console business still works, with platforms owned and closely controlled by (currently) Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Apple’s iPad is another example of a vertically-organised highly-controlled system, exactly like Sony’s PlayStation Portable, for example. This kind of structure works better in the consumer market than the business market, because businesses hate the prospect of being overcharged by companies who realise they don’t have a choice. Consumers just throw their gadgets away.

If HP sees the market becoming Balkanised so that a handful of competitors (Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Nokia) own and control their own platforms, then buying Palm makes perfect sense. It will have its own platform.

But if the market is going to tip to a horizontal one, where a few companies compete to provide software (Google, Microsoft, Symbian), many compete with hardware (Samsung, LG, Sony, Dell etc), and many compete with services (AT&T, Verizon, Orange etc) then the Palm purchase may not work out too well.

HP is, of course, capable at both types of business. It’s the world’s biggest supplier of Windows PCs, a horizontal business, and it is also the world’s biggest supplier of printers, where vertical lock-in drives profitability. At the moment, we don’t know which way HP plans to go. Does it know itself?

What the analysts say

Charles Golvin, mobile analyst at Forrester Research
“The good news is that HP made a strong move toward becoming a player in the mobile market. The bad news is that it’s the wrong move. Palm could be valued for its brand, its intellectual property, its platform, or its people. HP doesn’t need the Palm brand; the IP helps an existing player not a new entrant; we don’t think the WebOS platform is viable long term in the face of its competition; and HP could sweep up Palm’s people individually at a much lower price. HP needs a strong presence in mobile, but Palm doesn’t deliver that.”

Carolina Milanesi, Gartner’s research vice-president for mobile devices
“We believe HP’s purchase of Palm shows a clear intention to enter the consumer mobile device market. The pairing has merit: HP brings financial strength and broad reach; Palm brings a set of consumer-focused hardware, OS, application store and intellectual property. HP has made a clear commitment to invest in Palm’s technologies and has hinted at ambitious plans that go beyond smartphones. But neither Palm nor HP have a strong presence in the consumer market. Most significantly, they lack momentum around mobile application stores and a developer ecosystem. It will take time for HP to build up such an ecosystem, and it faces extremely strong competitors like Apple and Android. The consumer smartphone market moves quickly and HP will have to act fast.”

Francisco Jeronimo, IDC’s European research manager for mobile devices
“This is a good move for both companies. HP always struggled to grow its smartphone business unit because it never knew how to make mobile phones. The iPaq devices never were successful, and HP only achieved 0.1% market share in 2009. On the other hand, Palm developed a good operating system but was struggling to sell its new WebOS devices, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, because money makes the difference at point of sale. Palm’s worldwide market share was 1.5% in 2009. If HP didn’t have the right products to become a smart phone player, Palm didn’t have the money to compete with Apple and RIM in the US market and to make the brand known outside its home market. This deal takes a good operating system to the right hands and to the next level.

“In the short-term, the impact of this deal will be felt in the US market and Nokia will be one of the most affected players. When a company has a good product and the money for marketing activities, it creates a problem for its competitors. With money to invest, Palm will be able to leverage its brand, broaden its portfolio, and provide carriers with the money they need to sell devices. Money brings success if you have the right product, as Palm has. Palm’s survival no longer seems to be a problem, for the time being, but one question remains: will HP allow Palm to drive the business the way it wants and back it up with cash? To HP, smart phones are not new – it always had money, but it never succeeded. Will things be different this time? Yes, if HP takes advantage of the convergence with mobile, but sticks to the business it knows best – printers.”

Tony Cripps, principal analyst at Ovum
“After several seeming knock-backs from specialist handset manufacturers, HP’s rescue of Palm will be great news for the Palm faithful and undoubtedly the best deal for Palm – the Palm brand continues to receive a considerable following and goodwill from the North American public and HP is serious about boosting its image and presence in the connected consumer device space. WebOS could indeed become a major asset for HP and obviously has scope for use on devices such as tablets – Palm’s engineers and designers clearly put a lot of time and effort into creating a very slick user experience. However, HP will need to drive traction for WebOS among developers, if it is to truly capitalise on that potential.

“That may not prove easy – as Ovum’s recent survey of mobile application developers shows, application writers show an overwhelming desire to support three or perhaps four device platforms. With at least that many already dominating the space, HP may have its work cut out proving the revenue earning potential of WebOS devices to developers.”

Dave McQueen, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media
“The acquisition of Palm seems to be a good fit for HP; however, it will be interesting to see how the combined organisation will operate – particularly as neither HP’s Windows Mobile business focused devices nor Palm’s webOS handsets have been particularly successful in the mobile handset market. I’m not convinced the Palm devices will add much to HP’s portfolio (relatively poor sales, build quality, etc).

“It appears that HP intends to use webOS in other device types, much as Apple has extended iPhone OS X to the iPad. However, there are still issues with awareness and applications development, which is paramount to success in the smartphone market. Also, does that mean HP will not make Android smartphones and focus solely on webOS devices? This could prove to be a restrictive strategy in the fast growing smartphone market. Distribution is key, as Google recently learned. Traditionally, HP has a very good distribution network that will help channel to market but it will need to work closely with mobile operators, a weakness of Palm’s, in order to succeed.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

The ongoing battle of wills between Apple and the Flash community has turned
ugly, with an Adobe evangelist making scathing personal comments about the
blocking of Flash on Apple hardware.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Nokia will be online this week to discuss its environmental track record – post your questions in the comments below

Want to know how green the average Nokia phone is? For this week’s You ask, they answer, the Finnish mobile phone giant joins us to discuss its environmental track record and efforts, so start posting your questions below.

From humble beginnings as a wood pulp mill back in 1865, Nokia is now the world’s number one mobile phone company, with 37% of the global market share. Yet despite its size, the firm enjoys a good record with Greenpeace, holding the top-spot in the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics. However, Nokia lost points this year for failing to do “proactive lobbying” for the revised RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics) directive.

Nokia has also highlighted the potential for mobile phones to collect real-time information about pollution and other local environmental data. Henry Tirri, head of Nokia’s research centre, has cited pollution as an area for which “killer” eco-apps might be created. “The things people don’t usually think about with location-based systems are aggregate things like traffic information, and collective information about air pollution and other environmental data,” he said.

Nokia is online from Monday to Friday this week to answer your environment questions – please post yours below.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Corporation to roll out official applications, beginning with BBC News in April and BBC Sport in May

The BBC has announced a new range of free applications that will deliver its online services to mobile devices, starting with BBC News in April. The BBC is also considering an iPlayer application for release later in the year.

BBC Sport will follow News, lauching its application in May. Both apps will be launched in a UK and a global version.

Announcing the new mobile services today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers, said: “It’s been 12 years since the launch of BBC Online, but as media converges and technology accelerates, licence fee payers are increasingly using sophisticated handheld devices to access information. They tell us that they want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them.”

A range of unauthorised BBC applications are already available and fairly popular. The new official applications now give licence payers an authorised alternative as mobile phones become more powerful and connectivity more accessible.

According to the second largest app store GetJar, an unauthorised version of BBC Mobile was downloaded 110,032 times by January. In December, the mobile BBC site attracted by 1,851,000 visitors.

BBC News

BBC News for mobile will not only provide users with updated breaking news including video and audio, it will also allow them to send comments and pictures directly to the newsroom. However, the demo of the new app reveals that the user integration isn’t as prominent as with the BBC’s international rival CNN.

The simple and intuitive navigation of thn ews app can already be tested online. “The main screen uses a carousel structure so you can quickly catch up on the news by sliding each row sideways to skim through the latest stories. You can also personalise the experience by reordering the rows to put your favourite news section at the top,” says David Madden of the future media and technology mobile team in a blogpost.

BBC News will first be available on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, followed by the BlackBerry OS and Google’s Android later in the year.

BBC Sport

Starting with the football World Cup in South Africa, the sport app will focus on the live match experience. Content that is broadcast on TV by the BBC will be available for football fans as well as on-demand clips of every goal scored in the tournament. Users will also be able to access content from BBC Radio 5 Live, and live text commentaries from BBC presenters and blogs.

The 2010/11 English football season, Formula One and coverage of other sports will be added later in the year. While the UK version of the spoart app will be free, the global version will be released separately by BBC Worldwide and, in line with other international BBC Worldwide services, will feature advertising.

How will news organisations react?

The BBC iPlayer is already optimised for mobile browsers, and available for Nokia’s Ovi app store, but there are plans to make further versions available for other smartphones available to UK audiences only.

While news organisations have pinned their hopes on smartphone applications as a way to make revenue, the BBC will offer its applications for free. Recently, News Corporation’s James Murdoch said that a “dominant” BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK.

Should the BBC charge for its mobile applications or does its licence fee already include them? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Comments by McGraw Hill’s chief executive have confirmed that the new Apple
tablet to be announced tomorrow will be running the iPhone operating system
rather than a version of OSX.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

What would you want from a wine app? Or have you already found one which suits you?

Although I enjoy chatting to sommeliers (once I’ve laid my cards on the table regarding my meagre budget) and will always pick staff brains in a proper wine merchants, the fact is that sometimes you find yourself on your own when it comes to choosing wine. Disappointingly few supermarkets or chain off-licences employ anyone on the shop floor with a real passion for wine, so the idea of applications which can help you pick out a good bottle on the hoof, or identify an unknown grape on a restaurant wine list, is potentially a very exciting one.

Although the wine writers I contacted for recommendations all claimed to be technophobes (it must go with the territory), I found a fan in amateur wine buff and professional expert on mobile apps, Tim Harrison. He’s tested most of what’s out there and, he says, “came to the conclusion that there was a gap in the market since most of the apps I had tried failed either in the area of catalogue, functionality and relevance (and usually all three!)”.

The problem, in his opinion, that many apps are targeted at what he calls ‘vinoraks’, who have large cellars to manage, and the dedication to input detailed tasting notes for every glass, and the majority are aimed at US consumers, which makes price and stockist details irrelevant to the British user. However, there are a few which are worth their modest price-tags.

Wine Enthusiast Guide, £2.99 (MobileAge)

This is useful tool for anyone who’d like to pretend they know more about wine than they actually do (that’s everyone then). Puzzled by a word on the label, or unsure whether 1995 or 1996 was better for Alsatian whites? This app puts the information at your fingertips. It also features reviews from its namesake American magazine and allows you to create a list of your favourite wines, although annoyingly you can’t add your own comments. Search is by price, rating, style, varietal and region, so you can get quite specific and this one seems to have more of a world view than Drync (although still no English wine, sadly).

Wine Chap, £2.99 (Wine Chap)

A good-looking app that claims to be the first to evaluate restaurant wine lists, rather than individual bottles – so should you find yourself, say, at The Box Tree at Ilkley, you can mug up on their selection in the loo, and then breeze out and say authoritatively, after a mere glance at the wine list, “oh, the 2006 Cristom Vineyards Pinot Gris is terribly good value, we must order that!” There are also ‘first date wines’, ‘old school classics’ and ‘treat yourself’ options, specifically tailored to the menu, so, for example, a red from the Luberon at Edinburgh’s The Kitchin is recommended as ‘a sound pick for [chef] Tom’s game specialities’. This is an app which will become increasingly useful as their selection of reviews expands – at the moment, the list is very London-centric (although, for the frequent traveller, Hong Kong and New York are also well served).

Drync Wine Pro, £2.99 (Drync)

If you’re looking for information on a particular wine, then this is almost certainly the app for you as it searches 10 online databases, including Snooth, to bring you ratings on over 80,000 wines and reviews from the likes of Robert Parker. You can also build your own virtual cellar, add your own ratings, and see what’s top of other users’ wish lists. It’s rather US-centric, both in terms of featured bottles (strong on France and the Americas, not so hot on Australia or Eastern Europe, for example) and reviews (you won’t find anything from UK critics here), but it’s easy to use, and if you get lucky, there’s a few wines that can even be bought online from British stockists – although not many.

Wine Quiz, £1.19 (Berry Bros & Rudd)

This is an ideal app to have on your phone, being utterly frivolous and guaranteed to leave you feeling cross and worthless. It’s nothing fancy – just endless rounds of questions on the world of wine, with enough easy ones to keep you motivated and sufficient brain teasers to stop you throwing the phone away with a contemptuous curl of the lip; I’d like to think I’m not alone in failing to name the grapes used to produce ‘the Hungarian wine Egri Bikavér’.

Pair It!, £1.79 (Pair It)

This app is, as the name suggests, a tool that helps you match food with wine, and vice versa, and contains over 20,000 different suggestions, from the standard (Stilton and port) to the extremely niche (spicy citrus bourbon ribs with Asti Spumante, anyone?). Some of the dishes featured are so specific that a link to a recipe would be helpful, and a few of the suggestions are rather general – it suggests nearly 40 styles to go with a beef lasagne – but it’s not a bad tool to have with you in the supermarket, even if you’ll never need to know what to drink with a Sloppy Joe (white zinfandel, apparently which frankly sounds even worse than the thing itself).

There are of course mobile devices other than the iPhone available. We asked Neil Davey how those apps which run on the BlackBerry match up, and this is what he told us.

Wine of the Day, £2.79 (Enigma Games)

Does what it says, suggesting a new and interesting wine each day, but it doesn’t tell you what food to match with, where to buy, what the grape is (well, not all the time), or the price. The descriptions are pretty good though.

Cellar Rat, £2.09 (Telltale Social Media)

A wine rating app that uses emoticons rather than numerical ratings. Rates over 60 regions worldwide, and two decades of vintages. Designed for everyone from the novice to the expert. Generally favourably reviewed, it can help steer you to something on a wine list or a supermarket shelf – but it’s very general, not specific: hence Napa Valley is apparently good for 2005. Er … OK, but is that ALL wine in Napa?!

R-Vintage Lookup, £2.79 (REGARD Solutions Corporation)

Again, rates vintages – numerically – and also suggests “drink” or “hold”. A few reviews on the BlackBerry, mostly of the 4, 5 star variety. Not comprehensive by any stretch but would appear to be the best of its kind on the BlackBerry. Nice interface, simple to use.

Useful as these are in their own ways, none tap into what either Tim or I really want from a mobile wine guide – which is to have a trustworthy sommelier in our pockets, ready for all eventualities. We both agree that a regularly updated app which collated the recommendations of British critics would be helpful, so we could see at a glance what Jancis or Victoria or Jonathan were recommending that week, as would one which noted our favourite styles, and then alerted us when, say, our beloved Sicilian reds were on offer locally.

Tim, who has big ideas, even dreams of a programme which uses the barcode scanner tool already available on the iPhone to give you information about bottles on the shelf – “Wouldn’t it be great to scan something in Sainsbury’s,” he says wistfully, “read a few views from the press and your mates and then go and buy it more cheaply at Majestic?”

So, what would you want from a wine app? Or have you already found one which suits you?

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Comments taken out of context, truth lost in translation

Orange France has denied reports that a company executive admitted the existence of Apple’s much-rumoured iPad tablet.…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

• We’ve just wrapped up CES, which took an interesting turn over the weekend as we head interesting comments from Microsoft on the Xbox, Intel’s Sean Maloney and Palm’s Jon Rubinstein. Full coverage here – including our stories, blog posts, videos and three special editions of the Tech Weekly podcast

• Fanning the flames of its war with Microsoft, Google said at CES on Friday that its next phone would focus on business users. Android chief Andy Rubin said might have a physical keyboard to sway heavy emailers away from Windows Mobile and BlackBerry.

• Away from the halls and corridors of Las Vegas, there was still plenty going on in the world this weekend. With airports bringing in more technology to screen passengers, US officials have said that, in part, a
reliance on technology was itself to blame for letting the Christmas bomber slip through the net. Basically, a White House review discovered that poor counterterrorism software couldn’t handle misspellings, and therefore didn’t pick up on the danger posed by Umar Abdulmutallab.

You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter
(@guardiantech.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

As the naughties come to a close, we take a look at the biggest technology stories of the decade – and how the Guardian reported them at the time

Sitting here at the tail end of a vast, sweeping recession, it may feel grim out there. There’s a good reason for that: it is. But for the technology industry, few collapses cut deeper than the dotcom bust that really hit crisis point in 2001.

That year was a defining moment for so many reasons: the attacks on September 11th were not only horrifying to witness (as millions of us did) but they have also warped the world’s political outlook ever since. Not only that, but thousands of people lost their jobs as the economy plunged, struck by the double whammy of the bust and the general climate of fear.

Personally, it was a time of transition. I got my first national newspaper byline (I think it was this article about a cancer-stricken blogger who turned out to be fake). It was the kind of story that told me something fundamental about the web: that the evolution we were seeing online was one that mirrored human nature, even at its most avaricious… and that meant it was where real life was starting to happen.

So, continuing our look back at a decade of the Guardian’s technology coverage, it’s time to cast our eyes over the top stories of the second year of our round-up.

2001

• Barely a day went by without news of one dotcom company or another going bust. Literally: by the end of 2000, closures were happening at the rate of more than one every 24 hours.
The dotcom crash was documented not only in our pages, but also in magazines like the Industry Standard – which itself went under in 2001. One article in March described the climate as “widespread start-up slaughter”, while Duncan Campbell took to the streets of San Francisco to witness the phenomenon of the pink slip party.

• Apple which had been in the doldrums for some time, started finding its way out of the woods once it announced the launch of Mac OSX early in the year. And how the company needed it: US sales had already fallen by 40% and Steve Jobs was struggling to make profit with its iMac and Cube computers.

• Early in 2001, the knives were out for Microsoft in a big way. The judge who ordered the breakup of the company labelled Bill Gates “dinosaur” and “miscreant”, while. A long serialised profile of Gates by Ken Auletta described him as a ‘chilly messiah with a mission to blank out the competitive world’. And yet the Microsoft juggernaut continued: the relentless acquisitions continued (listed in an article with the eerily prescient title of “Vista expands for Bill’s window on the world”) and by the end of the year the company had stretched out into yet another field by launching the Xbox console.

The company ended up sticking together, thanks in part to Auletta’s reporting, and we scanned over the potential competition which appeared to exist in the form of Linux, RealNetworks, AOL and Netscape. My, that wasn’t how things turned out, was it?

• With internet access and mobile phones beginning their incessant rise in the public’s consciousness, a poll looking at the way British people were dealing with these new-found technological riches discovered that 41% of us were regular texters. A survey by Oftel later that year found that 40% of households were now online (dial-up access, of course).

• And while September 11 was responsible for a lot of horrific things, the enormous outpouring of grief and astonishment online was among the most stunning. A number of bloggers documented the strikes on the World Trade Center – and a brand of hawkish political tirade began to establish itself as a recognisable force in blogging. In the US, politicians pushed through a series of draconian monitoring and enforcement laws known as Patriot Act, while Britain began to realise the breadth of things that the recently-enacted Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act granted.

Tomorrow it’s time for 2002 – but if you’ve got any memories of the crash, or anything else you were doing in 2001, then leave them in the comments.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

• The group has increased half-year profits to £75m, from £40m
• Demerger to create two separate stock exchange listed firms

Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone condemned as “crazy” government plans to combat online piracy by severing people’s broadband connections . The mobile phone retailer and owner of TalkTalk cheered investors by raising its profit forecast for the year.

TalkTalk, Britain’s second largest internet service provider behind BT, has threatened to take legal action if plans championed by Lord Mandelson to cut-off persistent unlawful online file sharers make it into law. An e-petition on the No 10 website against the law, which is part of the government’s Digital Economy Bill, has already garnered 26,000 signatories and the support of such technophiles as Stephen Fry.

“I do get the sense that the debate is moving in our direction,” Dunstone said yesterday. “People are coming to terms with the fact that what is being proposed subverts some of the basic principles of British justice. What’s being proposed is just crazy.”

His comments came as Carphone Warehouse said half year profits increased to £75m, from £40m last year as revenues rose 13% to £789m despite the gloomy economic climate. Accounting for the impact of writedowns, profits were £30m compared with a loss last year of £23m.

TalkTalk and the company’s retail business – named Best Buy Europe after its tie-up with American retailer Best Buy – did better than expected in the first half of the year and Dunstone predicted a strong Christmas quarter, meaning profits will exceed the City’s forecasts. Dunstone is hoping for strong sales of pre-pay mobile phones helped by cheap touchscreen handsets.

Carphone Warehouse, which bought Tiscali in May, is planning to demerge its retail business from its TalkTalk residential telephony and broadband operation by the end of the first quarter next year gave details about the demerger process today. There will be two separately listed businesses: TalkTalk Group PLC, which will have a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, and Carphone Warehouse Group PLC, which will have a secondary listing. The latter will comprise Best Buy Europe – its 50/50 partnership with Best Buy of the US – plus its 48.5% stake in Virgin Mobile France and Carphone’s property assets.

TalkTalk has secured £650m banking facilities for the post-demerger period meaning TalkTalk and Carphone will be fully funded for their anticipated medium-term requirements. Carphone Warehouse Group will not pay dividends for at least two years after demerger, while TalkTalk is expected to pay dividends from the outset equivalent to that of the current group with a progressive policy thereafter.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Two years ago, security researchers showed the Black Hat security conference how hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in Apple’s Safari web browser on the iPhone to steal your data or another exploit to send text messages or turn of the microphone to eavesdrop on you.

The first exploit required the iPhone owner to visit a website. Another exploit was triggered via a maliciously formed text message. Now, a malicious worm is biting its way through Apple’s iPhones.

The worm – called iBotNet.A by Intego or Duh virus by Sophos – looks for new victims on the networks infected iPhones connect to. The Dutch bank ING has linked the worm to a criminal network trying to steal its customers’ banking details.

Like computer worms, this bit of malware is also using techniques similar to botnets, which attack desktop computers. To be fair, some of the vulnerabilities have only been possible after users “jailbroke” their phones to run applications not authorised by Apple, or added features such as data tethering. They also had to install SSH and not change the default password, to which Apple has shown very little sympathy.

Such users should have considered themselves warned by another worm that Rickrolled users by changing their wallpaper to Rick Astley.

Are all iPhones vulnerable to this attack? To put this into perspective, only about 6-8% of iPhone users have jailbroken their handsets, according to InformationWeek.

Are all iPhone owners vulnerable? There have been vulnerabilities that affect all iPhones, but the recent attacks follow the lines of many computer attacks. Computer security experts will often say that the weakest point of computer security is PEBKAC – the problem exists between the keyboard and chair.

The weakest link is the computer user or the iPhone owner. There is a perverse irony that people who have cracked their iPhones are now being targeted by hackers.

Mobile phones used to be just that: phones that you could carry. They were able to make calls, send text messages and manage your contacts. Although smartphones have for a long time been described as handheld computers, it was more aspiration and marketing than reality until relatively recently.

Now, especially with the iPhone-driven apps revolution, smartphones can truly be called handheld computers. However, with great power can come great vulnerabilities. Just as we’ve had to learn how to keep our desktop computers secure, we’re going to have to learn how to keep our handheld computers, our smartphones, secure.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Finnish company Nokia admits that it has underperformed

The many touchscreen mobile phones that have hit the shops this year, from the Apple iPhone and Palm Pre to the HTC Hero, have continued to eat into the commanding lead once enjoyed by Nokia, with the world’s largest handset manufacturer reporting its first loss for over a decade.

The Finnish company admitted that it underperformed the overall mobile phone market in the three months to 30 September. The decision to slash the value of its networks joint venture with Germany’s Siemens, due to the continuing economic gloom, plunged the company into an overall quarterly loss of €913m (£836m) compared with a profit last year of €1bn. It is the first loss for the company since it started reporting on a quarter-by-quarter basis in 1996.

Nokia, which once made more than four out of every 10 mobile phones sold worldwide, has suffered as new entrants including Samsung, LG, Palm, HTC and Apple have barged their way into the lucrative market for so-called smartphones, devices that can access the web, send email and play music. Consumers are increasingly being offered a range of touchscreen devices, most recently the Palm Pre, Motorola Dext and BlackBerry Storm 2, which will hit Britain later this month. Nokia has been slow to react; as a result its average selling price has slipped as it has sold more so-called mid-range phones and its smartphone pricing has come under intense pressure.

The market as a whole, meanwhile, has been suffering as consumers have been holding off getting a new phone, instead switching to cheaper Sim-only deals because of worries about their own finances in the economic downturn. Nokia signalled in its third quarter results that this trend may be coming to an end, helped in part by the slew of attractive new touchscreen devices which operators are using to lure consumers on to long-term contracts. This year, Nokia expects industry mobile device volumes to be approximately 1.12bn units, down 7% from 1.21 bn units in 2008. That is a better performance than Nokia’s previous forecast of a 10% decline this year.

But Nokia itself does not appear to be capitalising on the pick-up, with its sales lagging the overall market in the third quarter.

Nokia said it reckons the entire mobile phone industry shipped 288m units in the quarter, down 7% on the same period a year ago, but up 7% on the second quarter. Nokia, however, shipped 108.5m units in the third quarter, which is down 8% on the same period last year and only up 5% on the previous quarter.

Nokia blamed a shortage of components for its poor third quarter performance compared with the wider market. Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, its chief executive, said “We would have sold more devices and smartphones in the third quarter without the capacity constraints. The constraints did in fact hit the smartphone part of the business more than the rest of the devices.”

Nokia’s average selling price in the quarter was €62, at the same level as in the second quarter, but well down on last year’s €72.

Analysts believe Nokia has yet to come up with a real competitor to the iPhone. In a note issued after the results, Standard & Poor’s equity research team said Nokia’s overall market share actually fell in the third quarter, to 37.7% from 38.5% in the previous quarter and its share of the high-end smartphone market was also down. Nokia had originally forecast that it would grow its market share this year but was forced to ditch that forecast in July.

“While commentary that the demand environment for handsets improved during Q3 is encouraging, as is the improved industry outlooks for both handsets and infrastructure, we believe competitive pressures are intensifying and we see nothing from our preliminary read of results to change our view that Q4 will be challenging from both a market share and profitability standpoint,” the S&P team added.

Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at industry specialist Gartner, said sales of Nokia’s flagship N97 smartphone do not appear to have been exactly stellar. “Despite their positive comments on the N97 I am reluctant to say that sales of 1.8m for a flagship product are good enough. Moreover, as Nokia stated at the beginning of September that N97 shipped 1.5m devices since the launch we can see that sales are actually not accelerating.”

Nokia plans to launch four new touchscreen phones in the fourth quarter including the 5230 and 5530. Milanesi said she expects them to do well but “they will help drive volume, not necessarily value” because they are likely to be relatively cheaply priced.

Nokia stripped out smartphone sales for the third quarter, saying 47m “converged mobile devices” were shipped in the three months, compared with an estimated 44.2m units in the third quarter 2008 and 41m units in the second quarter 2009. Of that total figure, Nokia sold 16.4m units in the third quarter 2009, compared with 15.5m units in the third quarter 2008 and 16.9m units in the second quarter 2009.

Nokia’s share of the converged mobile device market was an estimated 35% in the third quarter 2009 down from 41% in the second quarter 2009, suggesting that consumers who were on Sim-only deals in the summer and have recently decided to take a phone on a long-term contract have not been rushing to grab a Nokia device, but instead plumped for rivals such as the iPhone.

In a note on Apple, American investment house Northeast Securities said it has run supply chain checks which indicate that shipments of the iPhone in September “exceeded [Wall] Street estimates of 7m by 25%-30%. Wider distribution and share gains were contributing factors”.

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(Source The Guardian)

A row over the pricing of an app upgrade on the iPhone, and hints about Guardian plans there, frame a debate: what’s worth paying for?

Money. Would you spend it on apps? It seems apposite to ask, since something of an argument has blown up inside the blogosphere over the upcoming release of Tweetie 2, a Twitter client (Twitter haters, your work is done) for the iPhone for which the developer, Loren Brichter, says – gasp! – that he will be charging $3 for the paid-for version, just as with the first one. And you don’t get a free upgrade from version 1. You want version 2, you pay for it.

Wait – you mean the updated version costs again? Yup, that’s right. It’s outraged a number of people, such as Just Another iPhone Blog (call them JAIB), which says Tweetie 2 will “spit on existing old app users” on the grounds that “the whole ‘it’s a completely new app’ argument seems like utter bullshit to me. It is still a Twitter app for **** [sic] sake. A slew of new features and functionality does not, to me, make it a different app.”

So the argument is that building a new framework around the content (which is free) shouldn’t attract a charge. It’s not clear whether JAIB would pay for a Twitter account; we’ll leave that hanging.

But now to add to the context, PaidContent has a post that says that the Guardian (that’s us) is planning to launch a paid-for iPhone app:

digital director Emily Bell told [PaidContent]: “It’s still in development, but we are working on an app which I can’t give you too much more detail on at the moment, although we are likely to charge.”

She added that getting apps into the app store is an “unpredictable business”, quite reasonably making a launch date difficult to give; The Spectator’s paid-for iPhone app took three months to get clearance from Apple.

So while the main guardian.co.uk website will remain free (Bell recently reacted strongly in rejecting a pay wall for Guardian.co.uk), it appears that its iPhone app itself will be paid-for, unlike several Guardian rivals.

I don’t know about the iPhone app or pricing plans or stuff like that. PaidContent (whose parent company I must point out is owned by Guardian Media Group, which also owns the Guardian and guardian.co.uk) seems to have what you need.

Here’s the interesting question. The announcement about Tweetie’s pricing suggests that people don’t think they should pay for rewritten apps (though of course they will pay for the hardware and the connectivity – £30 per month upwards). The announcement about the Guardian seeking to offer a paid iPhone app leaves open the possibility of charging for *extra* content in the app. (The Spectator does, for example.) A Guardian spokesperson said: “Initially it will be a one-off charge. We are committing to offering a core level of service for the one-off charge but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of charging for extra functionality at some point in the future.”

The content that a news organisation puts out isn’t identical every day; it’s sort of like building an app each day. (More tightly frameworked, but similar, if you get my drift.)

So which is really worth paying for? The software that provides the framework for the content? The content that hangs off the framework provided by the software? Both? Neither? What’s the balance? Let us know in the comments.

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(Source The Guardian)

This is what I’m reading. How about you? Leave links and why it caught your eye in the comments

• Twitter Mania In China: Another Microblogging Service Being Tested (SINA, SOHU) >> Silicon Alley Insider

• Facebook Phishers Target Notification Messages [ALERT] >> Mashable

• RentHop: What Apartment Listings on Craigslist Should Be >> Mashable

• New Ways to Create iPhone Apps on the Cheap >> Time

• Top 10 Most Exciting Web Apps or Services >> ReadWriteWeb

• Facebook’s PayPal Rival? Gift Marketplace On the Way >> Mashable

• The YCombinator list: Bump, Mixpanel, JobPic take off with newest class >> VentureBeat

• Baidu Hopes New Ad System Will Give Quick Lift To Revenues, Image >> paidContent.org

• Tesco Promises 2 Years of Service for Their Grocery API >> Programmable Web

• Droidify: An Unofficial Spotify Android App To Tide You Over >> TechCrunch

• You Don’t Need Bit.ly, Tr.im & Co.: Just Host Your Own URL Shortener >> ReadWriteWeb

• Report: Most Mobile Startups Hedge Their Bets By Developing Apps For All Major Platforms >> mocoNews

Via delicious

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(Source The Guardian)