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Friday, December 13, 2013

Why Android Takes Forever to Get Cool Apps

Some phonemakers are quietly exploring alternatives to the Android operating system implicated in the Samsung-Apple ruling, industry watchers say, despite their public pronouncements they are sticking with the technology.

Some phonemakers are quietly exploring alternatives to the Android operating system implicated in the Samsung-Apple ruling, industry watchers say, despite their public pronouncements they are sticking with the technology.

Last week, a US court ruled Samsung's Android devices were violating Apple patents - a major blow to the leading mobile software platform because it could lead to sales bans and high licensing fees.

The impact could also hit smaller vendors that use Android like HTC, ZTE, and Sony. Android is used in more than two thirds of smart phones.

Huawei, Sony, Lenovo and ZTE - which all use Android extensively - told Reuters they were continuing to bet on the Google's platform despite the ruling.

"(The ruling) is not relevant to what we are doing," said Chris Edwards, chief of ZTE's business development in Europe.

But as the mobile market matures and more patent cases look likely, some makers are looking at the alternatives.

Samsung, which has used a number of platforms but now mostly uses Android, announced a new phone running on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 software at a consumer technology conference on Wednesday, sneaking ahead of a hotly-anticipated launch of a Nokia-Windows phone due next week.

Shares in Nokia, which has partnered with Windows and is its main user, jumped after the Samsung ruling on expectations it might be a safer legal bet than Android makers.

The California jury said Samsung infringed six of seven Apple patents in the case, including technology that recognizes whether one or two fingers are on the screen, the front surface of the phone and the design of screen icons, which is a clear reference to Google's technology.

After the verdict, Google said that most of the patents involved "don't relate to the core Android operating system."

Android was used in 68 percent of all smartphones sold last quarter, with Samsung making almost half of them, while Microsoft had 3 percent market share.

The balance of power is unlikely to shift quickly as this season's new phones were all made before the ruling.

Sony launched three Android phones this week at IFA, Europe's largest consumer electronics fair. Chinese phone maker Huawei launched four.

Internet, Keep Your Damn Hands Off My Rom Coms

The government policymakers sought to allay fears, saying they were coming up with a raft of measures to better secure the users online.

The ‘Dialogue on Safer Internet' was held at the Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel in Dhaka on Saturday.

Toufique Imrose Khalidi, bdnews24.com’s Editor-in-Chief, moderated the brainstorming session, and at the outset, he raised the sensitive issue of personal safety on the internet.

The senior journalist brought up the shocking episode where cricketer Nasir Hossain shared a photo of his sister on his Facebook fan page, which was littered with vulgar comments.
Toufique Imrose Khalidi
Toufique Imrose Khalidi
Nova Ahmed
Nova Ahmed
He told the panellists and audience about blogger and writer Avijit Roy’s wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya’s write-up drawing a torrent of indecent remarks.

Nova Ahmed, assistant professor of computer science at North South University, touched on the personal safety issue at the beginning of the discussion.

Ahmed, who researched on the issue, said in some cases, a girl’s photo was uploaded on the web with a price tag on her, leaving the girl feeling terrible.

“Again, someone is signing up for a Facebook account using the photo of a girl and the acquaintances of that girl are adding her, believing that account to be hers. And then those acquaintances are told indecent stuff.”

The main problem was, Ahmed said, the female victims were not willing to talk about the harassment. “They don’t know how they should take up the issue and with whom. So, they go silent.”
But, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister for Information and Communication Technology, claimed telecoms regulator and law-enforcing agencies were alert to the cyber harassment.

The government’s cyber security call centre received 12,000 calls in the past one year and those harassed on the internet were being given legal and other aid.

He said, when asked by the moderator, they were successful in 80 percent of the cases.
Tarana Halim
Tarana Halim
Zunaid Ahmed Palak
Zunaid Ahmed Palak
“We are not worried about making investments to make the internet a safer place. We are drafting digital cyber security law and will install a digital forensic lab.”

“If we want to catch cyber criminals, we can track them down by going to the digital forensic lab and see what device was used and when the crime was done.”

However, State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim believed politics and militancy fuelled personal attacks in cyber society.

To back her assertion, she cited the instance of Hifazat-e Islam running a ‘propaganda campaign’ with ‘fake’ photos to claim scores were killed in the drive to flush out its violent activists in Motijheel’s Shapla intersection.

The MP also referred to the destruction of Buddhist temples in Cox's Bazar's Ramu by spreading lies.
Halim said militant outfits ran countless Facebook accounts and they could take down only a handful before commenting that “there was no alternative to adopting effective measures”.
Benazir Ahmed
Benazir Ahmed
Md Emdad ul Bari
Md Emdad ul Bari
The state minister said the government was procuring Internet Safety Solutions (ISS) to ease the problem.

BTRC Director General (System and Service) Brig Gen Md Emdad ul Bari highlighted internet security issues.

He said the problem was that they can track only the real IP addresses in the country, not beyond.

But RAB Director General Benazir Ahmed said those who launched personal attack on Facebook or ran propaganda were not primary users, but “super users”.

State Minister Palak urged conscious and progressive-minded people to get active in the social media to tackle the menace.

Tarana Halim said no individual could resist alone; different organisations and agencies needed to make joint efforts and a social resistance built up.

How to Start Investing in Stocks with Only $100 in Your Pocket

As stocks soar, everybody wants in. Bourses are on a roll, indices have hit new highs drawing in new investors. But the price of many issues rising far beyond their fundamentals has led the Securities and Exchange Commission to voice concern recently on the "abnormal" state of the stock market. As economic indicators show signs of sluggishness in countrywide business and investment, the stock market's remarkable buoyancy would appear to oppose rational behaviour. Analysts say the market is behaving in apparent opposition, however, precisely because excess liquidity is being diverted to the stock market. A lack of business and investment opportunities has resulted in idle funds, which have been pouring into stocks.

But the price of many issues rising far beyond their fundamentals has led the Securities and Exchange Commission to voice concern recently on the "abnormal" state of the stock market.

As economic indicators show signs of sluggishness in countrywide business and investment, the stock market's remarkable buoyancy would appear to oppose rational behaviour.

Analysts say the market is behaving in apparent opposition, however, precisely because excess liquidity is being diverted to the stock market.

A lack of business and investment opportunities has resulted in idle funds, which have been pouring into stocks.

"The share market usually rises if there are signs of hopes in the economy. [At present] pessimism prevails in the economy while optimism prevails in the stock market. It is contradictory," said Abu Ahmed, who teaches economics at Dhaka University.

"Bangladesh's share market is proving the existing economic theories wrong simply because the economy is slowing down while the market is getting overheated," he said.

Official statistics shows that business and industry performances, as evidenced by exports and investments, are not healthy.

Overall earnings from exports declined 21.08 percent to $902.33 million in July, from the same month a year ago, depressed by a 24 percent fall in export earnings from garment, the main foreign exchange earner.

Local and foreign investment proposals with the Board of Investment also dropped substantially, although banks are sitting with over Tk 142 billion in excess liquidity.

By contrast, the stock market except for price corrections—and occasional shocks on fears of anticorruption and anti-tax evasion drives—has been heating up since January as investors regained confidence after fears of a political fallout.

The market's buoyancy may not bring any positive impact on economic growth in the short-run, say analysts, but could be a future avenue for raising capital for industrialisation after the economy passes a correction phase.

10 Actionable Trends For Mobile Marketers In 2013

Now one of Asia's top 10 mobile phone markets in terms of adding net subscribers, according to the chairman of GSM Asia Pacific, an alliance of GSM mobile operators. Mehboob Chowdhury spoke exclusively to bdnews24.com Technology Editor Abu Saeed Khan.

Besides, the country has added 8.945 million GSM mobile users in a single year -- from July 2005 to June 2006, according to the latest figure of GSM Association.
"It has put Bangladesh in the top tenth position among the worldwide mobile markets," Chowdhury says.

In an exclusive interview with the bdnews24.com, Chowdhury discloses that Bangladesh now ranks eighth among the top 10 Asian mobile markets in terms of adding net subscribers during January to March, 2006.

Citing the data of Informa Telecoms & Media, a London-based research firm, he says Bangladesh has had 1.265 million new users during the first quarter of 2006. The figure is slightly lower than the net addition of Thailand and Philippines combined, and marginally lower than seventh-ranked Malaysia's first quarter intake.

Vietnam, fifth on the list, has added more than two million mobile subscribers during this period, but its total clientele was smaller than what Bangladesh had in the first quarter of 2006.

The chairman of GSM Asia Pacific credits the cellular mobile operators with this achievement while being critical of the government's "pounding the industry with disruptive policies."

"When the operators made new connections affordable and started slashing the call charges; the government came up with this disastrous tax last year. It was a bolt from the blue (for the operators) that slowed down the market for a while."

The operators, however, turned things around by subsidising this "mindless tax" to revive the growth. The new 8.945 million GSM mobile users that have put Bangladesh in the global map is the result of the operators' continuous subsidy, Chowdhury points out.

BlackBerry Z10 review: a new life, or life support?

BlackBerry Ltd said on Friday it was entering a handset production deal that lowers the risk it will have to take more massive writedowns on unsold smartphones, and its shares surged even though it posted dismal quarterly results.

The stock rose as much as 17 percent after the company announced the five-year partnership with FIH Mobile Ltd. The Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwan's Foxconn will initially build low-end devices for sale in Indonesia and other emerging markets. BlackBerry said it hoped to expand the fledgling relationship to its top-of-the-line smartphones.

The deal is unconventional in that BlackBerry will no longer pay upfront for components used in the devices made on its behalf in Foxconn's Indonesian and Mexican factories.

Instead, Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, will take a share of profit on each device in return for taking on inventory management, which can result in writedowns if smartphones go unsold. Foxconn will also help with developing, designing and distributing the handsets.

Chief Executive John Chen, who took the helm at BlackBerry last month, said he expected the Foxconn deal to help BlackBerry's handset business turn cash-flow positive, and for the company as a whole to post a profit for the fiscal year that begins in early 2015.

"It's almost like BlackBerry is disposing of its consumer handset business without actually disposing of it," said Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who likened the deal to what Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell have done with laptops.

The move, which comes a month after BlackBerry said it was giving up on a plan to sell itself, helped take the sting out of the massive, $4.4 billion loss that it posted for the quarter ended November 30, as smartphone sales shrivelled.

A new line of devices running on BlackBerry 10 software has failed to gain traction, forcing the company to write off $1.6 billion of inventory and supply commitments for the quarter. The previous quarter it wrote off $934 million for unsold phones.

Make Better Presentations With the Instagram for Pitch Decks

Facebook will pay $1 billion in cash and stock for Instagram, a 2-year-old photo-sharing application developer, in its largest-ever acquisition just months before the No. 1 social media website is expected to go public.

SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 10 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Facebook will pay $1 billion in cash and stock for Instagram, a 2-year-old photo-sharing application developer, in its largest-ever acquisition just months before the No. 1 social media website is expected to go public.

The price was stunning for an apps-maker without any significant revenue, even when measured by the lofty standards of Silicon Valley, where startup valuations have soared in recent years. It highlights the rising stakes in the social networking market in which services such as Facebook need to constantly excite consumers with new features and mobile applications.

By acquiring Instagram - in a deal announced days after the startup closed a funding round that valued it at $500 million - Facebook may also have sought to absorb a potential rival or at least prevent it from falling into the hands of a major competitor like Twitter or Google Inc.

"Anytime you see a social platform that's growing that quickly, that's got to be cause to be nervous," said Paul Buchheit, a partner at the start-up incubator program Y Combinator and a co-founder of FriendFeed, which Facebook acquired in 2009.

"It would be better to have bought Twitter at this stage," he said of Facebook. "So if you're thinking this could be the next Twitter, it could be a smart thing to do."

The Instagram application, which allows users to add filters and effects to pictures taken on their iPhone and Android devices and to share those photos with their friends, has gained about 30 million users since it launched in January 2011.

Instagram says that as of the end of 2011, its users had uploaded some 400 million photos or about 60 pix per second, suggesting the sort of activity that Facebook seeks as it tries to wring revenue from mobile devices. Instagram launched its Android app just last week, garnering more than one million downloads already.

As Instagram's popularity has shot up in recent months, the company's leadership has mulled possible strategies to expand the service into a fully featured social network - much like a photo-driven, stripped-down version of Facebook, Twitter, or even Path, a company insider said.

Instagram is "a property that would have been amazingly valuable to not just Facebook, certainly Twitter was in the hunt as well," said Lou Kerner, founder of the Social Internet Fund.

"I'm sure Google was interested as well. So to some degree an acquisition like this is both offensive and defensive. It would be a highly leveragable asset for anybody who wanted to compete against Facebook."

Makerbot Digitizer Will Let Anyone Scan and Print Physical Items in 3D

In a world first, a groundbreaking 3D-printed device has helped three toddlers suffering from a life-threatening condition lead a normal life.

Kaiba, Garrett and Ian in the US had a terminal form of tracheobronchomalacia -- a severe disease which causes the windpipe to collapse periodically and prevents normal breathing.

There was no cure and life-expectancies were grim. The custom-designed airway splints from University of Michigan's CS Mott Children's Hospital have kept their airways open, restored their breathing and saved their lives.

"These cases broke new ground for us because we were able to use 3D printing to design a device that successfully restored patients' breathing through a procedure that had never been done before," explained senior author Glenn Green, associate professor of paediatric otolaryngology.

Kaiba was just a newborn when he turned blue because his little lungs were not getting the oxygen they needed.

Garrett spent the first year of his life in hospital beds tethered to a ventilator, being fed through his veins because his body was too sick to absorb food.

Baby Ian's heart stopped before he was even six-months-old.

Using 3D printing, Green and his colleague Scott Hollister were able to create and implant customised tracheal splints for each patient.

The device was created directly from CT scans of their tracheas, integrating an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint.

The splint was sewn around their airways to expand the trachea and bronchus and give it a skeleton to aid proper growth.

The splint is designed to be reabsorbed by the body over time.

Researchers closely followed their cases to see how well the airway splints implanted in all three patients worked and the results are promising.

"Today, our first patient Kaiba is an active, healthy three-year-old in preschool with a bright future. The device worked better than we could have ever imagined," Green informed.

Now an energetic two-and-a-half-year-old with a contagious laugh, Garrett is able to breathe on his own and spend his days ventilator-free.

Ian, now 17-months-old, is known for his huge grins, enthusiastic high fives and love for playing with his big brother, Owen.

None of the devices, which were implanted in then three-month-old Kaiba, five-month-old Ian and 16-month-old Garrett have caused any complications.

The findings also show that the patients were able to come off of ventilators and no longer needed paralytics, narcotics and sedation.

Researchers noted improvements in multiple organ systems.

"This treatment continues to prove to be a promising option for children facing this life-threatening condition that has no cure, the authors concluded.

The results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.