Tech wrap: New RIM CEO says no drastic change needed
RIM’s new CEO Thorsten Heins, who joined RIM in 2007 and previously served as a chief operating officer, said during a conference call that he would hone the current strategy rather than abandon it. “I don’t think that there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving … but this is not a seismic change,” Heins said. RIM’s U.S.-traded shares tumbled as investors wondered whether Heins could reverse the BlackBerry maker’s decline, closing the day down 8.5 percent.
The founder of file-sharing website Megaupload was ordered to be held in custody by a New Zealand court, as he denied charges of Internet piracy and money laundering and said authorities were trying to portray the blackest picture of him. U.S. authorities want to extradite Kim Dotcom, a German national also known as Kim Schmitz, on charges he masterminded a scheme that made more than $175 million in a few short years by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization. Megaupload’s lawyer has said the company simply offered online storage.
The Supreme Court ruled that police cannot put a GPS device on a suspect’s car to track his movements without a warrant. The high court ruled that placement of a device on a vehicle and using it to monitor the vehicle’s movements was covered by U.S. constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures of evidence. “A majority of the court acknowledged that advancing technology, like cellphone tracking, gives the government unprecedented ability to collect, store, and analyze an enormous amount of information about our private lives,” Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union said.
YouTube is streaming 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months, according to the company. Roughly 60 hours of video is now uploaded to YouTube every minute, compared with the 48 hours of video uploaded per minute in May, Google said. The jump in video views comes as Google pushes YouTube beyond the personal computer, with versions of the site that work on smartphones and televisions, and as the company steps up efforts to offer more professional-grade content on the site.
The number of Americans owning a tablet computer or e-reader nearly doubled over the holiday period as Kindles, Nooks and iPads proved to be popular gifts, a new study found. In early January, 19 percent of Americans surveyed by Pew owned an e-reader, up from 10 percent in December, with identical results for tablets, according to a report released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Tech wrap: Nook too costly for Barnes & Noble?
Barnes & Noble cut its Nook sales forecast for this year and shocked investors by saying it was considering a sale of the electronic reader and tablet business, sending its shares down sharply. The bookseller has been banking on the Nook for growth, so news that holiday sales of the basic touchscreen e-reader were disappointing raised investors’ fears that Barnes & Noble was struggling to keep up with Amazon.com’s Kindle. ”They’re going to have to raise capital for Nook if they want to stay viable,” said Morningstar analyst Pete Wahlstrom.
Michael Woodford, the former CEO of Olympus, is dropping his bid to retake control of the troubled company because of lack of support from Japanese institutional investors, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Woodford will announce his decision to give up a proxy battle with management on Friday, the report said, citing an unidentified aide. Woodford was fired as chief executive in October and blew the whistle on a $1.7 billion accounting scandal at the Japanese maker of medical devices and cameras.
AT&T is on track to finish its wireless network upgrade with faster mobile Web services by the end of 2013, having exceeded its target for 2011 by 4 million people, a top executive said.
General Motors said it has developed a proposed fix to the battery pack for the Chevrolet Volt to eliminate the risk of a fire being triggered days after a crash. GM said it would strengthen structural protection for the 400-pound lithium-ion battery in the Volt by adding steel reinforcements and take other steps to prevent coolant fluid from leaking and triggering a fire. GM will notify Volt owners of the fixes in the coming days. Owners will be able to have Chevrolet dealerships conduct the needed repair work starting in February, the automaker said.
Blogging on Research in Motion’s downward spiral, Kevin Kelleher argues that:
…more than iPhones or Android phones, the main reason for RIM’s precipitous decline is the sense of complacency and even denial by its co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who greeted the new wave of touchscreen phones with indifference, as if they best knew the smartphone market they helped to pioneer. But markets evolve in unpredictable ways, and instead of building on the loyalty that Blackberry users felt for the brand, Lazaridis and Balsillie took it for granted.
British children adopted after abusive childhoods are at risk of fresh emotional turmoil as some birth parents turn to Facebook and other social networking sites to track them down, adoption agencies said. “Social networking sites have blown things open — you can’t keep things secret,” said Julia Feast, consultant at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering.”It really unsettles the whole family,” she told Reuters. Since 2005, adopted adults and their birth relatives have had the legal right in the UK to ask for intermediary services from an approved agency to help them make contact with each other, but this can be turned down if there are concerns following an assessment. It’s not known how many birth parents are using social networking sites to get around this, but the BAAF said it was receiving “more and more cases.”
Tech wrap: Can Nook tablet take on Kindle Fire?
Let the low-end tablet wars begin. Barnes & Noble unveiled a Nook-branded tablet on Monday, the company’s answer to Amazon.com’s recently announced Kindle Fire. At $249, the 7-inch Nook tablet is a bit pricier than the $199 Fire, but Barnes & Noble is betting that consumers will pay the extra $50 for the device because it offers faster processing speeds and 16 gigabytes of storage space compared to the Amazon tablet’s 8 gigabytes. Both devices hit shelves next week. Barnes & Noble, which operates a chain of 700 U.S. bookstores, also lowered the price on its Nook e-book devices in an effort to take on Amazon’s line of Kindle e-readers, which were recently reduced in price.
Early reaction to the device was varied. One analyst characterized it to Reuters as a “wow” product, while another said it will keep “Barnes & Noble shoppers loyal.” All Things D’s Peter Kafka called Barnes & Noble’s product pitch “a bit muddled” when it came to explaining how people will access content on the device: “Unlike Amazon and its Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble isn’t marketing its tablet with a proprietary cloud service that will get you access to music, movies and TV shows. Instead, the bookseller is leaving that up to other cloud-based services, like Netflix and Pandora. But make no mistake — these are cloud-based services,” he writes. Why then was the company so eager to play up the Nook Tablet’s extra storage capacity if it expects you’ll be streaming most content, not storing it, wonders Kafka. Engadget takes the new tablet through its paces in a hands-on video.
Google+ expanded its circles to make room for businesses who are looking to reach out to customers on the social network. Called Google+ Pages, the new service will allow corporate brands and businesses to set up a special page within the social network . Google said that 20 businesses, including Toyota, Pepsi and retailer Macy’s, have set up special pages so far, and that any organization will soon be able to join as well. Until now, only individual users have been able to sign up for Google+. Businesses are increasingly using online social services, such as Facebook, to reach new customers and to cement relationships with loyal customers through special offers and promotions.
A German court granted a preliminary injunction against Apple in a patent infringement case that banned the California company from selling some devices in Germany. But the ruling should not impact Apple’s sales in Germany as the company sells all its product there through a local subsidiary, which was not covered by the injunction, reports Reuters correspondent Poornima Gupta. The district court in Mannheim, Germany, said on Friday Apple may not sell certain mobile devices in Germany that infringe on two Motorola Mobility patents related to wireless technology. If Apple does sell the devices, it has to pay a fine of up to 250,000 euros, according to the court.
HTC said on Monday it will put equal investment weight on emerging markets next year as it does in developed ones like the U.S. and Europe, and will dip its toes back into the tablet market with a new model next year, reports Reuters correspondent Clare Jim from Taipei. HTC CEO Peter Chou told a media briefing HTC would not give up its “premium brand” image by expanding in emerging markets through cheap phones. Regarding tablets, Chou said: “Tablet is a market we would like to try and test, to see whether we can make ourselves stand out and prevent a me-too product.”
Tech wrap: New Nook Color on the way?
Barnes & Noble sent out invites on Monday to a Nook-related event coming up on November 7. Most tech watchers expect the company to use the occasion to unveil a new version of its Android-powered Nook Color tablet e-reader, which could sport a better screen and upgraded hardware.
As CNet points out, the most anticipated question will be how much Barnes & Noble decides to charge for the new device. “With the Kindle Fire on sale at $199 (it ships November 15), there’s some pressure on B&N to come close to matching that price, though Amazon is allegedly losing money on each Fire it sells (our sources suggest the Fire currently costs around $220 to build). With that being the case, Barnes & Noble is more likely to come out with a faster, more powerful Nook Color that costs $249, though we wouldn’t be surprised to see it at $299,” writes David Carnoy.
Netflix has added a slew of new TV show episodes to its streaming video catalogue through an expanded licensing deal with ABC Television Group, a division of Disney. In addition to extending licensing for popular ABC shows such as “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” that it already offers, Netflix added ABC’s “Switched at Birth,” “Alias” and episodes from past season of Disney Channel’s animated series “Kick Buttowski” to its streaming selection. Amazon.com also unveiled a content agreement with Disney on Monday that will let Amazon Prime subscribers stream shows from ABC studios, Disney Channel, ABC Family and Marvel.
A single hacker based in China launched a coordinated cyber attack earlier this year that compromised computer systems belonging to at least 48 chemical and defense companies, according to a new report from security firm Symantec. Computers belonging to these companies were infected with malicious software known as “PoisonIvy,” which was used to steal information such as design documents, formulas and details on manufacturing processes, Symantec told Reuters on Monday. The companies were not identified, but Symantec said the bulk of the infected machines were found in the U.S., Bangladesh and the UK and included some chemical companies that develop advanced materials used in military vehicles.
It’s no secret that Steve Jobs used to enjoy taking the occasional potshot at Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates. But Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the Apple co-founder, which was released shortly after he died earlier this month, reveals just how harsh Jobs could be in his criticism of Gates. In addition to calling Gates “unimaginative”, “weirdly flawed as a human being” and “fundamentally odd”, Isaacson quotes Jobs as saying “He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.” When ABC’s Christiane Amanpour brought up the comments in an interview last week, Gates dismissed the criticisms, saying “none of that bothers me at all.” He went on to praise Jobs in the interview. At one point, he even went so far as to claim he helped Jobs invent the Mac.
Tech wrap: HP TouchPad’s second coming?
In an interview with Reuters, the head of HP’s PC business Todd Bradley gave the throngs of people who lined up outside stores to snap up discontinued and deeply discounted TouchPads hope that the company wouldn’t abandon them, saying the tablet could be resurrected. This, as the TouchPad was on track to become the second-best selling tablet of all time behind Apple’s iPad.
GigaOm’s Ryan Kim says HP’s revelation muddies the waters, making the biggest maker of PCs in the world seem indecisive, which hurts it’s stock price.
There are lessons to take away from HP’s TouchPad firesale, argues Jon Collins of The Register. Chief among them is that there’s a massive pent-up demand for tablets from any manufacturer at the expense low-end PC and netbook sales.
Barnes & Noble forecast sales of its Nook e-reader and e-books would more than double this fiscal year to $1.8 billion. Sales of the Nook group of devices, which includes a standalone as well as a touch-screen reader, rose 140 percent to $277 million in the quarter, comprising nearly 20 percent of the company’s total sales and making it a larger business than the College Bookstore chain of 635 stores, where sales fell. CEO William Lynch said that the bookseller has 26 percent to 27 percent of the e-book market, the same market share he claimed last quarter.
Apple’s iCloud isn’t what it’s made out to be, writes AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka. In a demonstration of Apple’s upcoming music service iTunes Match, what looked like streaming, whereby files are stored remotely and accessed online, was actually just an option to listen to songs while they are downloaded to the device used to play them. And that eliminates one of the main advantages of a cloud: freeing up much needed space on users’ devices. Kafka suspects legal and licensing issues with big music labels and publishers are behind the move.
Google’s board of directors faced a lawsuit for previously allowing Canadian pharmacies to advertise prescription drugs to U.S. customers via the Web search leader. The civil lawsuit claims the ads — which Google stopped displaying in February 2010 — led to what it calls the “illegal importation” of the drugs. Last week, the Department of Justice said Google agreed to pay $500 million to settle the investigation into ads it accepted for online Canadian pharmacies selling drugs in the United States.
Steve Jobs made Apple great by ignoring profit, Clayton Christensen and James Allworth argue. Disruptions, or incumbents moving upmarket and leaving the bottom of the market completely open for scrappy upstarts to enter, can explain the rise and fall of many great companies. But, despite being perceived as a premium, high-end player, Apple under Job’s leadership has not only managed to avoid being disrupted by others, it has disrupted entire industries. Even more impressive, it’s disrupting itself, Christensen and Allsworth add.
“…what looked like streaming, whereby files are stored remotely and accessed online, was actually just an option to listen to songs while they are downloaded to the device used to play them….”
Duh. That’s what streaming is. Playing it while it downloads. Not waiting til it’s finished. If you don’t want to keep the downloaded copy then you can delete it. But if you aren’t given the option to keep it, then you have no choice but to redownload every time you stream.
Tech wrap: Liberty Media eyes Nook e-reader
Some see e-readers as the poor cousin to more glamorous tablets, but that may soon be about to change. Billionaire media mogul John Malone, whose Liberty Media owns DirecTV Group and the QVC shopping channel, may be interested in buying the Barnes & Noble chain specifically for its Nook e-reader, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking behind the deal.
The Nook is now the second biggest e-book seller, behind Amazon, which only yesterday announced is now selling more e-books than print books. With Liberty as a backer, Barnes & Noble and the Nook may be well positioned to compete against Amazon and Apple.
Hackers set their sights on Sony – again, this time hacking into the company’s Internet service provider So-Net, stealing virtual points worth $1,225 from account holders. This after Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that Sony was considering re-starting its U.S. based online games service on Tuesday, after shutting it down last month when the company discovered hackers had accessed the accounts of more than 100 million users.
An explosion at a Foxconn factory in China shook Apple shares slightly, sending them one percent lower after local news media said the factory was involved in the production of the iPad2.
And the Reuters Global Technology Summit wrapped up with word that American consumers can soon expect to swipe their cellphones to pay for things as companies will soon begin to roll out their “virtual wallet” technology.
But don’t expect to swipe your smartphone for the latest tablet. “Right now we are looking at areas around low value transactions, as we’re trying to see what consumers want and how much they feel comfortable with, says James Rees from Orange, which launched launched Britain’s first mobile payments service today.
Tech wrap: Retailers’ wake-up call
Retailers risk losing the majority of mobile device users unless they make mobile shopping easier and more engaging, writes Jessica Woh. While 89.7 percent of Americans aged 18 to 64 have mobile phones, only 49.1 percent use their phones to shop, according to marketing service Arc Worldwide. Consumers who use mobile phones to shop are able to compare prices on the go and are seen as less likely to make impulse buy, Woh adds.
Apple’s iPad 2 went on sale in 25 countries outside of the United States. But if you’re traveling abroad and price is your main consideration, you’ll want to wait until you get home to buy one. In the U.S., you’ll pay $499 for the base model– with 16 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi only connectivity — while the same model in Denmark will set you back the equivalent of $702.
What the RIM PlayBook’s ability to run Android apps really means is akin to a Mac running Windows via a virtual machine, writes Business Insider’s Dan Frommer. The upcoming PlayBook tablet will only support apps for the Android 2.3 operating system and not 3.0, which was designed for tablets. RIM made the announcement so “it will able to say that the PlayBook can technically support tens of thousands of Android apps”, Frommer added.
Barnes and Noble announced that it’s adding email, Flash multimedia support and an unspecified number of new apps to its Nook Color e-readers next month.
Online media brands matter, Chrystia Freeland writes, citing an unpublished study by Harvard professor Bharat Anand and a former visiting researcher Alexsander Rosinski. 700 people were presented a Huffington Post story in three forms: unlabeled and published online, published online by the Huffington Post and published online by The Economist and asked to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. Respondents who thought they were reading an Economist story rated its quality 6.9; The Huffington Post version scored 6.1; and when it had no label, it scored 5.4.
Google edged out Microsoft in BrandFinance’s annual Global 500 ranking, based on dollar value. Google’s 2011 brand value was $44.3 billion, just ahead of Microsoft at $42.8 billion, according to the consulting firm’s ranking. Other tech notables like IBM stayed in 4th place; Vodafone took 5th; Apple jumped from 20th in 2010 to 8th in 2011; and AT&T rounded out of the top ten at $28.9 billion. Facebook entered the list in 285th place with a brand value of $3.7 billion.
