Plus will you update to the paid version?, the importance (or not) of manufacturing, make your own background music and more

A quick burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

We created a utilitarian ethics computer to replace government >> Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Weird is the wrong word. Indicative of what happens with monopolies perhaps better.

Apple’s tax strategy aims at low-tax states and nations >> NYTimes.com

That’s the web headline. The paper headline (and above the article online, but not the web page itself) is “How Apple sidesteps billions in taxes”. It’s lengthy, and details how Apple does indeed sidestep billions in taxes. and so – as the article says – do Google and Microsoft and Dell and HP and others. (Facebook and Twitter will too.)

The key problem – if we’re honest – is countries (or states) which jockey for business through their tax strategies. Nevada has zero corporate tax. Luxembourg and Ireland offer tax breaks. Close those loopholes, and tax becomes – well, fairer?

Tim O’Reilly on Apple’s tax avoidance >> Google+

I can already imagine the comments of the libertarians and anti-tax advocates in the comments on this post. “Avoiding taxes is just keeping more of the hard-earned wealth you’ve created by being productive and successful.”

But I’d like to suggest a thought experiment. Imagine that you and a large group of friends, or an extended family, decide to hold a reunion or big party that requires renting a space and some real expenses. you agree to share the expenses equally. Then one of you says, “I’m getting us a discount on the hotel from my friend, so I shouldn’t have to pay my share.” Another two or three say, “I’m helping with the catering, so I shouldn’t have to pay.” Another: “I’m willing to act as designated driver, so I shouldn’t have to pay.” each time, you think, “Yeah, that’s reasonable.”

But before long, things get dicey.

a good comparison (once you make the “family” large enough). Another point: many technology companies have founders who are libertarian in outlook – that governments hinder rather than help society.

Apple’s response on its tax practices >> NYTimes.com

In response to the NYT’s article on its home and international tax avoidance practices:

Apple has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards, complying with applicable laws and accounting rules. we are incredibly proud of all of Apple’s contributions.

Microsoft forges ahead with new home-automation OS >> CNET News

In 2010, Microsoft researchers published a white paper about their work on a HomeOS and a HomeStore — early concepts around a Microsoft Research-developed home-automation system. those concepts have morphed into prototypes since then, based on a white paper, “An Operating System for the Home,” published this month on the Microsoft Research site.

The HomeOS is a “PC-like abstraction” for in-home devices, like lights, TVs, surveillance cameras, gaming consoles, routers, printers, PCs, mobile phones and more. these devices appear to the HomeOS user as peripherals connected to a single PC.

The white paper never explicitly says that HomeOS is derived from or based on Windows. (There are other operating system research projects and incubations at Microsoft, including Singularity and Midori, neither of which is Windows-based, so it’s not a given that HomeOS is Windows-derived.) But it was built using C# and the .Net Framework 4.0, the new white paper on the technology explained.

Sounds good. Next: execute it well.

Google and Oracle ‘experts’ clash over Android’s Java mimic >> Wired.com

The code used to run Java applications on Google’s Android operating system is “completely different” from the code that underpins Oracle’s Java platform, according to an expert witness called by Google in its ongoing court battle with Oracle over Android and Java.

“The implementation code in Android is completely different than the implementation code in Java,” Duke University computer science professor Owen Astrachan said on Friday, though he added that the two use the same “method signatures,” code that defines the inputs and outputs for part of a computer program.

…Astrachan’s testimony contrasted sharply with that of Stanford University processor John Mitchell, who was originally called by Oracle on Monday and returned to the stand on Friday. Mitchell said that at least in some cases, Google must have copied code from Oracle’s Java platform. “I don’t think there is any way [Google] could have come up with it on their own,” he said, when asked if he thought Google copied code for the Java application programming interfaces, or APIs.

Google says Dalvik is a “clean room implementation,” meaning it was built from scratch. But Mitchell disagreed. “Whoever inserted that code into the codebase had access to it,” he said. “This wasn’t a clean room implementation.”

How important is manufacturing? >> The Enlightened Economist

I spotted a chart showing the share of world manufacturing output accounted for by the leading industrial economies. The proportions are:

China 19.4%, US 18.2%, Japan 10.9%, Germany 6.1%, Italy 3.1%, Brazil 2.7%, S Korea 2.6%, India 2.5%, France 2.4%, UK 2.3%.

Surprising how much higher all those countries’ manufacturing quotas are.

“Might upgrade to the paid version someday”? no you won’t >> Marco.org

Mobile ads pay very poorly. in my case, ads didn’t even come close to delivering similar value as the $4.99 paid-app sale — I was lucky to get even $1 of value out of an Instapaper Free user. What I’ve heard from other developers and other ad networks suggests that this is pretty close to the industry average.

I decided to yield the free market to my competitors and discontinue Instapaper Free over a year ago, and my sales have remained healthy. (In fact, they’ve increased, but it’s difficult to know whether that was the cause.)…

This definitely isn’t an Android problem: it’s a user problem. Maybe a significantly larger percentage of Android users insist on free apps than iOS users (it certainly seems that way). But both platforms have much larger demand for free apps than paid apps.

Make background music for when you work >> Incredibox

Enormous fun. (Requires Flash.)

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Boot up: Apple’s tax schemes, Microsoft’s HomeOS, Google v Oracle redux and more

Plus the new Yorker on the Daily Mail (just because), the tiny iPad?, the Pinterest botnet herder and more

A quick burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Windows 8 shutdown made easy, by way of Microsoft >> InfoWorld

Shut down, restart, and log-off used to be simple actions from the Start menu in Microsoft Windows, but in Windows 8, the Start menu sleeps with the fishes, and turning off your PC from the legacy desktop involves several less-than-intuitive steps. Imagine my surprise then when I discovered, hidden in a dark corner of the company website, a couple of Microsoft-approved apps that do everything you might want.

Microsoft has to release apps to let you shot down / restart / log off in Windows 8? this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Apple: iPad battery nothing to get charged up about >> AllThingsD

So here’s how things work: Apple does, in fact, display the iPad (and iPhone and iPod Touch) as 100% charged just before a device reaches a completely charged state. at that point, it will continue charging to 100%, then discharge a bit and charge back up to 100%, repeating that process until the device is unplugged. Doing so allows devices to maintain an optimum charge, Apple VP Michael Tchao told AllThingsD today.

It’s as though THE MACHINES ARE LYING TO US.

A Pinterest spammer tells all >> Daily Dot

After he read our article about his process of spamming Pinterest through thousands of bot accounts, Steve, who declined to give his last name, contacted us with an offer to clarify some of his methods. he proved his identity by providing a screenshot of his Amazon Affiliate account–the same final-fantas07 that we discussed in the aforementioned article. We were shocked by some of the facts Steve shared. For instance, he makes $1000 a day, and out of his thousands of spambots, Pinterest has only deleted one.

so someone is making money out of Pinterest.

How the Daily Mail Conquered England >> The new Yorker

Not technology at all. you know what? It’s worth reading anyhow. also, the Mail has a website:

Clarke and his staff built the site by instinct. “I didn’t look at that many Web sites for design ideas,” he told me. Formally, they stuck with what they knew, developing a publishing system that allows them to put together the home page with the glue-pot flexibility of a newspaper, rather than having to slot stories into a template. The home page is hectic, with hundreds of stories competing for the reader’s attention. It is unusually long–literally, like a scroll–as are its headlines. (Both tactics help to bolster its search-engine rankings.) It uses far more pictures, and in larger sizes, than its competitors. “The site breaks all so-called ‘usability rules,’ ” Clarke said. “It’s user-friendly for normal people, not for internet fanatics.”

Note: extremely strong language.

Apple has 163 Reasons To Release Fabled ‘iPad mini’ >> AppAdvice

The rumour that won’t go away gets a fresh outing:

Two weeks ago, a Samsung executive with inside knowledge of Apple’s affairs repeated the all-but-forgotten 7.85-inch iPad mini rumor, and same-day (re)reports of contracted display manufacturers added considerable volume to the mini mania. still, rumors are just rumors, and they aren’t particularly convincing in and of themselves. It doesn’t matter how many sources echo some generic sentiment. What does matter is a rumor’s singular specificity. In this case, it’s that pesky 7.85 inches. And what makes everything even more convincing is that the leaky sources never sought to explain why that number’s so darned significant! so, allow me.

The analysis is, definitely, intriguing, though it’s based on what Apple could do rather than why it would want to release a smaller tablet. has the “iPad mini” moment arrived yet? In the iPod market, it only happened after Flash MP3 players started getting some traction at the low end. That’s just not happening outside China for 7in tablets. (Thanks @ClarkeViper for the link.)

ACCC to seek orders against Apple for alleged misleading iPad “4G” claims >> Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be making an application to the Federal Court in Melbourne tomorrow at 9:30am for orders against Apple Pty Limited and Apple Inc (Apple) for alleged contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). The ACCC alleges that Apple’s recent promotion of the new “iPad with WiFi + 4G” is misleading because it represents to Australian consumers that the product “iPad with WiFi + 4G” can, with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, when this is not the case.

Can’t see Apple winning this one. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)

Think twice before installing Chrome extensions >> Securelist

With Brazil loving Chrome, the bad guys are creating extensions which take over your Facebook profile.

You’re probably asking yourself how the bad guys are turning this malicious scheme into money. Well, it’s easy: they have total control of the victim’s profile, so they created a service to sell “Likes” on Facebook, especially focused for companies that want to promote their profiles, gaining more fans and visibility: 1000 likes earn R$ 50.00 (around U$ 27.00) of course, to sell the “Likes” they use the profile of the victims. be careful when using Facebook. And think twice before installing a Google Chrome extension.

(Thanks @pauljreynolds for the link.)

October 2007: Daedalus Capital’s Coleman says Apple ‘is going to $600′ >> Bloomberg

At the time, Apple had sold barely any iPhones, and its stock price was $184.70. In 2009 it fell back below $100 as the financial crisis hit. What is Stephen Coleman doing now?

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Boot up: stopping Windows 8, iPad charging redux, Chrome malware and more

Plus ex-Googler on why he left the internet giant, and why hacking is important

A quick burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Joe Pirillo uses Mac OS X for the first time >> YouTube

Yesterday we showed you Chris Pirillo’s father using Windows 8 for the first time. Now here he is using Mac OSX for the first time, and trying to find “the internet”. fascinating piece of user interface film: watch this before you judge users. (Pirillo senior is a confirmed Windows user, though he has used iPads and iPhones.)

Response to Open Data article in The Guardian >> Open Rights Group

The Guardian published quite a good article on Wednesday in relation to a public announcement on Open Data by Francis Maude, and we wrote a response highlighting some issues the Guardian missed. while the advances since 2006 are undeniable, the comment above shows there is a long way to go. The new Public Data Group that will amalgamate OS, Land Registry and some other data providers will perpetuate the monopoly model while giving away minor data concessions. The issue here is the basic core public data infrastructure (mapping, stats, etc.) required for every other service and open data project. This is the “too difficult” box that could hamper innovation beyond some college project apps.

No argument about this – there is a lot still to do.

Hacking is important >> Rands in Repose

Michael Lopp explains: he doesn’t mean Anonymous-style hacking, but the coding-something sort of hacking a la mark Zuckerberg:

Hackers are allergic to process not because they don’t understand the value; they’re allergic to it because it violates their core values. These values are well documented in Zuckerberg’s letter: “Done is better than perfect”, “Code wins arguments”, and that “Hacker culture is extremely open and meritocratic”. The folks who create process care about control, and they use politics to shape that control and to influence communications, and if there is ever a sentence that would cause a hacker to stand up and throw his or her keyboard at the screen, it’s the first half of this one.

Demand for new iPad shakes up corporate market >> Changewave

A recent ChangeWave Research survey of 1,604 business IT buyers shows the new iPad is already having a powerful impact on the corporate tablet market. going forward, better than one-in-five companies (22%) say they’ll be purchasing tablets for their employees during 2nd Quarter 2012, and the percentage reporting they’ll buy Apple iPads has jumped to the highest level of corporate iPad demand ever seen in a ChangeWave survey. a total of 84% of companies planning to buy tablets next quarter now say they’ll purchase iPads – a 7-pt leap since the previous survey.

The current (global) Google Trends chart for Google+ >> Benedict Evans

The current (global) Google Trends chart for ‘Google Plus’ – a clear indication of how it is sliding away into irrelevance.

Or just slipping out of the media’s eye. not necessarily tied to actual use – the media overlooks such stuff rather easily.

Fourth-quarter tablet shipments >> IDC Press Release

Tablet sales exceeded IDC’s expectations:

Despite an impressive debut by Amazon, which shipped 4.7m Kindle Fires into the market, Apple continued to see strong growth in the quarter, shipping 15.4m units in 4Q11, up from 11.1m units in 3Q11. that represents a 54.7% worldwide market share (down from 61.5% in 3Q11). Amazon’s shipment total put the company in second place with 16.8% of the worldwide market. Third-place Samsung grew its share from 5.5% in 3Q11 to 5.8% in 4Q11. Despite shipping more units, including its new Nook Tablet, Barnes & Noble saw its worldwide market share slip to 3.5% (down from 4.5%). Pandigital rounded out the top five, grabbing 2.5% of the market, down from 2.9% the previous quarter.

When the second-placed Google Android tablet is getting just 6%, and in total they have under 25% of the market, there’s a problem. It’s greater for Microsoft, with 0% – but it has a strategy there.

Why I left Google >> MSDN Blogs

James Whittaker, who left Microsoft for Google, and then Google for Microsoft:

It wasn’t an easy decision to leave Google. During my time there I became fairly passionate about the company. I keynoted four Google Developer Day events, two Google Test Automation Conferences and was a prolific contributor to the Google testing blog. Recruiters often asked me to help sell high priority candidates on the company. No one had to ask me twice to promote Google and no one was more surprised than me when I could no longer do so. In fact, my last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation, trying in vain to get my passion back. The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.

This post has been going viral. Note that it’s on the MSDN blog, not Whittaker’s own – a clever bit of PR by Microsoft.

New iPad, Asus Transformer Prime, or Samsung Galaxy Note: which Tablet To buy? >>PCMag.com

Sascha Segan, at PCMag, wants a tablet for his six-year-old daughter and the rest of the family:

Google’s approach, which is to say that apps should be screen-size-independent and that it’s okay to blow up phone apps to tablet size, is simply wrong. Developers need to take different design approaches on a 4-inch screen and on a 10-inch one. there is no shortcut, no way around this. The result is that you have a lot of apps on Android tablets–Twitter and Facebook are the most prominent–that function but look ugly and take lousy advantage of the real estate. They aren’t grainy like iPhone apps blown up to 2x on an iPad, but they’re awkward to use and full of blank space. We see this problem regularly in the PCMag Labs when we try to do Android tablet app stories. It’s easy to create a list of 75 great iPad apps. Building a list of great Android tablet apps is harder. on our last attempt, our software team only found 12.

Yahoo Patent Suit makes Waves In Silicon Valley >> WSJ.com

(May require subscription:)

Yahoo’s decision to sue Facebook for allegedly violating 10 of itspatents covering technologies like online advertising, privacy controls and messaging is widely linked to the determination of the company’s new chief executive, Scott Thompson, to get a better return on its assets. those assets include Yahoo’s more than 1,000 U.S. patents, which reflect investments in research and development since the company was founded in 1994. Some industry executives, however, view Yahoo’s suit as a sign of weakness and a break with the Internet industry’s tradition of avoiding patent suits.

The Yahoo lawsuit against Facebook turns out to be one of the most-hated that you’ve ever seen in Silicon Valley – by both Facebookers, ex-Yahoos and onlookers.

My review of the new iPad Reviews. How Meta! >> Gigaom

Ranked by order of length. Of course, he couldn’t know about our review, which didn’t launch until 7am, and weighs in around 3,230 words (pictures too!), thus making it third-largest.

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Boot up: ORG on open data, demand for new iPad shakes up corporate market, and more

Plus Google Music losing users?, Microsoft’s clumsy lobbying, good commenting style, see yourself being tracked and more

A quick burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Android ‘Key Lime Pie’ comes after Jelly Bean >> the Verge

We’ve been tipped by a reliable source today that Google will be using the name “Key Lime Pie” for the version of Android that comes after Jelly Bean.

That’s the version after the version that hasn’t yet been officially announced, and after the one that has just started to appear on devices.

Microsoft v Google: How not to win friends and influence people | the Economist

The latest seminar was a textbook example of how not to lobby. ICOMP invited Christopher Graham, Britain’s information commissioner, and Georgina Nelson, a lawyer with Which?, a consumer-rights group, to give the event a veneer of respectability. but the aim of the evening seemed to be to give Pamela Jones Harbour, a former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, a platform from which to attack Google.

not very subtle. the smart thing would be for Google to apply to join ICOMP. if it gets rejected, that pretty much shows ICOMP up as biased. if it gets in, it can try to adjust the agenda. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)

Anonymous, decentralized and uncensored filesharing is booming >> TorrentFreak

The RetroShare network allows people to create a private and encrypted file-sharing network. Users add friends by exchanging PGP certificates with people they trust. all the communication is encrypted using OpenSSL and files that are downloaded from strangers always go through a trusted friend. in other words, it’s a true Darknet and virtually impossible to monitor by outsiders. RetroShare founder DrBob told us that while the software has been around since 2006, all of a sudden there’s been a surge in downloads. “The interest in RetroShare has massively shot up over the last two months,” he said.

It’s serverless, so it’s like Limewire and other decentralised networks. but the PGP swapping is going to be a big hurdle; this isn’t going to get big in a hurry.

Retina display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI: Doing the Math >> TUAW

Richard Gaywood does the maths. You may be surprised at the Apple non-phone that in effect already has a retina display; and the non-Apple product which does too.

Why Google+ doesn’t care if you never come back >> TechCrunch

Isn’t it curious that Google+ doesn’t actually show you any ads? It’s because the time-on-site and page views there are trivial. Hit the road, Jack. Don’t you ever come back and post an update, upload a photo, or add anyone to your Circles. It doesn’t matter. What’s important to Google is getting your biographical data.

Logically consistent.

Our comments policy >> Hacker News

We like this:

The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. does your comment teach us anything? there are two ways to do that: by pointing out some consideration that hadn’t previously been mentioned, and by giving more information about the topic, perhaps from personal experience. whereas comments like “LOL!” or worse still, “That’s retarded!” teach us nothing. empty comments can be ok if they’re positive. There’s nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just “Thanks.” what we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative–comments that are mere name-calling.

Interactive demo: how sites track you across the net >> Collusion

HTML5 demo showing how you get tracked by cookies across various sites. Available as a downloadable add-on for Firefox. more than a little creepy:

If you haven’t realized it yet, companies are tracking you across most of the sites you visit daily on the web. It’s quite likely that these companies know more about you than your government. some of them might even know more about you than your best friends.

Sony’s Comeback >> Seeking Alpha

Derek Cheung, money manager of Honny LP:

The screen of the Xperia has the same resolution as the iPhone 4s (330 pixels per square inch)! That’s one of the iPhone’s biggest selling points, and something to this day unmatched by phones like the Samsung Galaxy S2. the Sony’s aluminum body gives it the best build quality of all Android phones. believe me when I say that this is going to take share of mind.

Let us know how things are going if Derek is managing your money. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)

Google Music Losing Users Weekly >> Wayne’s World

According to a highly placed digital music executive, Google Music has actually been losing customers week over week-consistently-since it’s launch last November. “I’ve never seen anything like it”, the source said.”It’s astounding. It’s hard to believe that with an install base of over 200 million Android handsets they’re actually losing customers.” Evidently some label execs are very concerned that things are so bad at Google Music that the mothership might just decide to pull the plug on the whole service, except for the geniuses at Warner Music who have refused to license it. the thinking is that the industry needs for Google Music to be successful so that the whole sector prospers. A failure of Google Music would be perceived as a setback and, of course, a loss of much-needed revenue for the labels.

Rosso has tended to have an inside track from the music industry, so this is worth noting. unlikely that Google would pull the plug – there’s always the chance of a miracle – but comments suggest that Amazon’s music locker does it better.

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Boot up: filesharing rises again, Google+’s data grab, Retina displays analysed and more

Plus UK government’s Open Standards consultation, Nokia’s heavy lifting, Schmidt at MWC, Android photo access and more

A quick burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Stop the ‘Do not Track’ Madness >> Wired.com

Part of the problem is that the entire concept of simplistic internet “Do not Track” systems is based on a number of false premises. Maybe the biggest misleading assertion is that internet advertising is essentially equivalent to the invasive telephone solicitations the “Do not Call” registry was created to quash. But most internet ads — occasional egregious exceptions notwithstanding — aren’t anything like some phone-calling stooge interrupting your dinner. and reducing the value of web ads to advertisers — either through ad blocking systems or “Do not Track” regimes that encourage random rather than personalized ads — fundamentally undermines the primary funding mechanisms that help to satisfy our (let’s admit it!) essentially selfish desires to keep most web services free.

On reading this that you suddenly understand that the thing about web ads is that hardly anyone acts on them at all. they may be some of the most-ignored content ever anywhere, and have been for years.

Why should we opt out of Google’s new privacy policy? >> Wired UK

We’re entering this strange phase of privacy where people truly can’t fathom what is being done with their “personal data”. When they hear changes are coming, they for some reason equate that it means Google will be rifling through their old love letters and home videos and selling them to the highest bidder. for all the articles out there that detail how to circumvent Google’s new privacy policy, there’s a real lack of anything that truly explains why. It’s also another fascinating example of the sense of entitlement people feel to free online services (news, search, maps, encyclopaedias) — and how that is at odds with their understanding of how these companies make money.

In the Valley, anything less than 92% share makes you irrelevant >> Ed Bott

Guess how many people run Vista?

Oh, look! Worldwide, 8% of all desktop/portable computer users are still running the hated, reviled Windows Vista. That’s more than all users of OS X and Linux combined. and, of course, if you add up the number of Windows XP users (dominated by enterprises) and Windows 7 (mostly consumers and small businesses), the percentage is more than 10 times the total of all OS X and Linux users combined. That’s from a worldwide base of nearly 1.5 billion traditional computers–PCs and Macs. Pretty good for an irrelevant company.

Yeah, but unlike Apple, Microsoft’s invitations are really easy to decode.

How Twitter broke Twitter >> The Incidental Economist

Now notes whether you “reply” to a tweet and filters who sees it accordingly:

Dan initiated his tweet by “replying” to one of mine (i.e., he clicked “reply”). back in 2009 Twitter changed what “reply” means. But even after that change, prefacing with a “.” did permit all your followers to see the reply (or so I’ve been told). this seems to be one of the most important early lessons most learn on Twitter. there are loads of blog posts out there that explain this usage, and many since 2009. Now even that has changed. Clicking “reply” now means that only joint followers see the tweet even if you prefix it with a “.” (or anything else for that matter). you can still tweet at (@) someone with a “.@” construction and have all your followers see it but not if you click reply. When did this change occur? I cannot find anything on the internet that documents it. Is this the first post to do so?

A later addition says: “Dan has been tracking this story and tells me that it appears Twitter has been changing their code over the past few hours. So, folks out there testing “.@” replies may be getting different results than we show above for that reason.”

UK Government: Open Standards Consultation

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude:

Open standards are vital for progressing this work and I encourage you to share your views in this consultation.

Get stuck in – or you can’t complain in the future.

Nokia’s bet on Microsoft may still yield payoff – WSJ.com

(Subscription may be required):

Part of the problem, said Mr. Elop, is that not only does Nokia have to sell phones, it has to sell the whole ecosystem. and in that space it appears to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting by itself. for while Microsoft says there are some eight manufacturers signed up to the platform only Nokia has declared it as its principal platform. On the stand of China’s ZTE Corp. at Mobile World Congress, an assistant wasn’t too clear how many Windows Mobile phones the company has in its portfolio: less than five, she seemed to think, compared to more than 20 Android devices. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Europe, Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corp., one of the first to market with a Windows Phone device, said sales had been disappointing. Mr. Chou was in town to talk about its new Android phone. So who is to blame? Emma Mohr-McClune, research director at Current Analysis, laid part of the blame with the carriers. “Carriers all talk about the need to support a third ecosystem, to create better balance in what is effectively an OS (operating system) duopoly. But so far there’s been little more than lip-service. Windows Phone support should be more of a strategic priority, and I’d like to see more creativity in the partnership,” she said.

Inside Eric Schmidt’s brain: Holodecks, robo-cars and jail bandwidth >> The Register

Fun precis of Schmidt’s speech:

As ever with these presentations it’s the question-and-answer sessions which are most interesting – and it’s a great shame that the other CEOs didn’t follow Schmidt’s example of giving 30 minutes of his time to the audience. Your humble scribe asked how Google would handle Chinese manufacturers violating Motorola Mobility’s IP now that Google more or less owns it; Motorola was never brave enough to take on China’s finest in the Asian nation’s courts. Schmidt said he was aware of the issue, said he was not scared of asserting rights in China, but added that the merger was still in progress and no decision had been made.

Pity. But the writeup shows Schmidt as someone very much on top of even the tiny detail.

Et tu, Google? Android apps can also secretly copy photos >> NYTimes.com

As Bits reported earlier this week, developers who make applications for Apple iOS devices have access to a person’s entire photo library, as long as that person allows the app to use location data. it turns out that Google, maker of the Android mobile operating system, takes it one step further. Android apps do not need permission to access a user’s photos, and as long as an app has the right to access the Internet, it can copy those photos to a remote server without any notice, according to developers and mobile security experts. it is not clear whether any apps that are available for Android devices are actually doing this.

The proof-of-concept was done by Lookout Software, which specialises in spotting malware on mobiles. Google, in response, said it would consider changing its approach; “A Google spokesman said that the lack of restrictions on photo access was a design choice related to the way early Android phones stored data.”

Opinion: Should you care about Pinterest? >> Macworld

“A lot of what gets pinned on Pinterest is aspirational–what could be, what I’m going to have, where I’m going to go,” said Gartner senior research analyst Jenny Sussin. What sets Pinterest apart from other social networks is that it isn’t about sharing what’s happening to you right now, it’s about sharing and collecting what you like and what you want and what inspires you.

some of bloggers I talked with who use Pinterest say they depend on it as a personal tool rather than a social one. “I am always saving images for inspiration, future post ideas, and projects, so I use Pinterest every day,” said Joy Cho of Oh Joy. “It’s just fun looking at a beautiful page of images that make me happy and inspire my work.” Visual bookmarking isn’t a totally new idea–sites like Ffffound have offered similar features. Pinterest just does it better.

That’s the key thing about a social network – have a USP.

Nokia 808 PureView pixels versus the iPhone 4S

The numbers behind the Nokia 808 PureView do boggle the mind. Or at least they should. The populist tech media has leapt up on the ’41 Megapixel’ figure and generally either misunderstood why it needs to be so high or questioned whether it’s real in the first place. yet that stat is only incidental in the bigger story.

A good read. (Thanks @anig for the link.)

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Boot up: the privacy row, Vista v OSX, Twitter’s reply tweak and more

Plus be careful what you link to, the Android radar and more

A quick burst of 7 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Sources: Apple not pulling Evi app, working with developers to avoid confusion >> The Verge

Despite what true Knowledge told TechCrunch, the app remains in the App Store, and according to sources familiar with the matter, Apple is attempting to work with the developers on bumping out those similarities, rather than just pulling the product.

Indeed, the app is still there; Apple seems to have mollified its stance. we still haven’t heard from the company.

“Make sure we’re winning” >> Marco.org

Marco Arment on Andy Rubin’s comments about “doubling down” on tablets:

Assuming that Google is firmly planted in reality, what are they actually going to do to meaningfully improve Android’s disappointing tablet sales and lack of much good tablet software? more importantly, what can Google do? with the realities of the tablet market (excuse me, “other platforms”), and with the existing Android hardware ecosystem and the software policies that let it get there, I don’t think I have a realistic, practical answer to suggest. I honestly have no idea what Google could meaningfully do about their tablet problems.

Worth reading just for the footnotes.

The reluctant sex lube salesman >> Kottke.org

Nick Bergus recently posted a link on Facebook to a 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant sold by Amazon — it’s only $1500! Then the post got sponsored and his family and friends started seeing it when they used Facebook, turning Bergus into a pitchman of sorts for an absurd amount of sex lube… get used to this…promoted word of mouth is how a lot of advertising will work in the future.

Google to ‘double down’ on Android tablets in 2012, says Andy Rubin | The Verge

“I can’t force someone to write a tablet app,” he said, adding that developers are “looking at market share and… being frugal.” But he said that it was Google’s responsibility to evangelize the platform and sounded optimistic about the overall momentum of Android on tablets. “We’re now starting to get on the radar, and I’m hoping people decide to put in the muscle and make their apps work great on tablets.”

Correction: Amazon is starting to get on the Android radar. not Google.

The business of bookmarking (PDF) >> Pinboard

Right now there’s an agency problem with large web businesses that collect user data. People upload photos, videos, email, and all kinds of valuable personal information to websites large and small on the assumption that someone there will take appropriate technical measures to safeguard their stuff. Most of those websites don’t get their revenue from users. instead, they rely on some form of advertising, or on investor money they receive in return for telling a credible story about future advertising. and since the job of advertisers, by definition, is to persuade people to buy things they would not otherwise purchase, the third leg of this relationship is somewhat adversarial.

The solution: pay. Money. (Guardian Technology has a paid account which it uses to collect each day’s links.)

Apple (mostly) isn’t to blame for the patent mess >> Forbes

Timothy Lee, who wrote the article on Ars Technica about how the iPhone drew on earlier work:

From the perspective of patent law, the question is whether the improvements in question (putting multitouch on a phone, adding a graphical indicator to slide-to-unlock) would have been “obvious” to someone of ordinary skill in the art. But thisis just re-stating the same subjective question in slightly different terms. if you polled a bunch of engineers or patent lawyers, you’d likely get widely varying opinions. and yet patent law imposes harsh penalties on subsequent innovators who stray outside these extremely fuzzy legal boundaries.

true, though he’s clearly wrong about multi-touch; Apple bought Fingerworks, which had been working on multi-touch long before Jeff Han showed it off.

Google, please don’t kill video on the web >> Microsoft

Dave Heiner, deputy head lawyer at Microsoft:

Motorola should honor its promises, and make its standard essential patents available on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. Microsoft is certainly prepared to pay a fair and reasonable price for use of others’ intellectual property. within just the past few years, Microsoft has entered into more than a thousand patent licenses. we know how it’s done. Unfortunately, Motorola has refused to make its patents available at anything remotely close to a reasonable price. for a $1,000 laptop, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay a royalty of $22.50 for its 50 patents on the video standard, called H.264. as it turns out, there are at least 2,300 other patents needed to implement this standard. They are available from a group of 29 companies that came together to offer their H.264 patents to the industry on FRAND terms. Microsoft’s patent royalty to this group on that $1,000 laptop? Two cents.

Mentioned in our story yesterday. we await Motorola’s response.

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Boot up: Evi saved?, improving Android, making money, the patent mess and more

Plus will Apple unveil an Apple TV too, Twitter to promote tweets on mobile, more Google+ visitor data and more

A quick burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

The Smartphone Revolution is over (for now) >> Fast Company

Written ahead of MWC, but still true:

We’ve got the iPhone to thank. It set the pattern for the current smartphone paradigm because its design departed so radically from pretty much everything that had gone before–so much so that some people scoffed at the very idea that it could be successful. It’s sold so very well and has transformed the entire market to the extent that it’s inspired all of these iPhone-esque designs (some of which Apple accuses of all but cloning its ideas).

It’s also the reason that MWC for this year and probably next will be very samey-samey, with all the innovation restricted to honing features like processor speed, screen technology for vividness, brightness, or pixel density, incorporating better camera technology, variations in the touch interface and the OS and the UI that controls how users interact with it. Phone CPUs will get more cores (and marketing folks may try to spin this to an unknowing public as a benefit, much as during the megapixel wars when digital cameras were becoming popular). NFC and other sensors and interactive tweaks will be added. That’s all innovative for sure, but it’s hardly revolutionary – it won’t take mobile phone tech in an amazing new direction.

Google+ trending down? Data suggests users only visit the site three times a month >> the Verge

To go with the ComScore data from the other day:

according to Compete, Google+ visitors went to the site less than three times a month and spent about three and a half minutes per visit (on average from July 2011 through January 2012). Facebook visitors, on the other hand, ended up visiting Facebook about 21 times each month, spending almost 20 minutes each time they visited. This works out to a little over 10 minutes spent on Google+ compared to about 7 hours spent on Facebook.

the question is whether people have the spare time to make that additive, whether they’ll abandon Facebook, or what.

Who decides what gets sold in the bookstore? – the Domino Project

There’s been a long history of ubiquity at the bookstore. with a few extreme exceptions, just about every book is available at every bookstore if you’re willing to order it. Universal availability feels like part of the contract we make with bookstores-we expect them to sell everything. In the digital world, this goes triple, because there’s no issue of shelf space to deal with. I just found out that Apple is rejecting my new manifesto stop Stealing Dreams and won’t carry it in their store because inside the manifesto are links to buy the books I mention in the bibliography. Quoting here from their note to me, rejecting the book: “Multiple links to Amazon store. IE page 35, David Weinberger link.”

Of course ebooks are software, not really books. This just heightens that. the interesting question: would Amazon allow an ebook whose bibliography linked to other ebook stores? does it? the gulf between physical and ebooks grows.

Sources: New Apple TV launching in March, near-immediate availability hinted for new iPads >> 9to5Mac

Reliable sources familiar with Apple’s upcoming product release have said that the company is in fact launching a new Apple TV alongside the next-generation iPad. we initially reported that Apple would be releasing two major new products in early March, and then believed the product would be a new Apple TV due to mounting code-based evidence for such a product with simultaneous supply constraints. Now, sources have outright said Apple is launching this J33 (the new Apple TV’s codename) alongside the new iPad.

It would be a bit boring if they just launched a new iPad. then again, everyone thought there would be “one more thing” at the iPhone 4S launch.

Scoop: Less than 1M Google TV devices in use >> Gigaom

Some neat digging around in Android Market stats yields that nifty data.

Still, the numbers clearly show that Google has some work to do. Even if you take into account that active devices don’t equal sold devices, it’s obvious that others have been doing far better. Apple has sold 4.2m Apple TV units, and Roku — despite missing its own sales goals — was able to sell 2.5m boxes by the end of last year.

(Also: should we quibble about whether “less” is correct over “fewer”?)

When will Android reach one billion users? >> asymco

The always-insightful Horace Dediu forecasts that Android will hit a billion within five years:

The crucial question is whether the billion Android phones will have an effect on the opportunity for new entrants like Windows Phone and future BlackBerry variants as well as Bada and other Linux-based platforms. the answer is that there will be well over 6bn mobile “connections” by the end of 2013. ITU reports that “By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3bn mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 940m subscriptions to 3G services. It follows then that if this forecast is correct then by the end of 2013, Android will have about 17% penetration of the connections market.

Promoted Products: now more mobile >> Twitter blog

With our most recent app updates, Promoted Accounts are now in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. And in the coming weeks, we’ll begin introducing Promoted Tweets in the timeline on these mobile apps. Initially, a small number of users may see Promoted Tweets near the top of their timelines from brands they already follow. This will help ensure that people see important Tweets from the brands they care about. for both products, the experience will be the same as on Twitter.com: Promoted Tweets will appear in your timeline like any other Tweet, and like regular Tweets, they will appear in your timeline just once; as you scroll, the Promoted Tweet will flow with the rest of the Tweets in your timeline. as with Promoted Tweets in search, we will only display Promoted Tweets in the timeline when they are relevant. If you see a Promoted Tweet that isn’t relevant to you, you can easily dismiss it from your timeline with a single swipe. Promoted Accounts appear in your list of who to Follow recommendations.

not in third-party apps? then again, Twitter must know what it does and doesn’t control.

Sony goes mental and releases its Nintendo DS in the USA | Revert to Saved: A blog about design, gaming and technology

Re Sony’s dual-screen Tablet P:

“the clam-shell tablet runs a special version of the Android Honeycomb operating system that allows for dual-scren-tailored applications [sic]

To which Craig Grannell responds:

Which I’m sure devs are just going to flock to, because if there’s one thing devs love, it’s fragmentation and designing apps specifically for an unproven device that’s probably going to vanish from the face of the planet within a few months.

Actually, has anyone seen anyone using this thing? In real life?

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Boot up: Apple blocks ebook, just 1m Google TV devices?, a billion Androids and more

Plus the mysterious case of the address book and Path

A quick burst of 5 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Yahoo loses chairman as board is shaken again >> guardian.co.uk

In case you missed last night…

Chrome for Android: The Browser for The 1% >> parislemon

First of all, yes, Chrome for Android is here. Second, it’s only compatible with Ice Cream Sandwich which is currently on — wait for it — 1% of Android devices. But in an attempt to add some silver-lining to the 1% joke, I will say that Chrome for Android is of a much higher class than the previous Android browser, the aptly-named and horribly icon’d: Browser.

Path 2 Uploads Address Book, But says it will be Opt-In Soon

Developer Arun Thampi was doing a bit of hacking around with Path 2, trying to get a version of it running on OS X as an experiment, when he discovered that the app actually uploads your entire address book when it is launched. This obviously raised concerns about what the app is doing with that information and, in fact, why it needs it at all.

Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers >> Mclov.in

And the founder of Path has responded…

Hokum watch: Safer Internet Day >> PC Pro blog

We’re going to wait for “Less Safe Internet Day” too, but this is a nice gathering of the rubbish that gets promulgated by those who would like safer internets.

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Boot up: Roy Bostock leaves Yahoo, Google Chrome for Android, and more

Plus testing the MacBook Air as a real ultrabook, social networks in a single slide, OAuth’s risk to data, why fragmentation won’t matter and more

A burst of 11 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

What the Path privacy breach shows us about real privacy online >> NYTimes.com

The big deal is that privacy and security is not a big deal in Silicon Valley. While technorati tripped over themselves to congratulate Mr. Morin on finessing the bad publicity, a number of concerned engineers e-mailed me noting that the data collection was not an accident. it would have taken programmers weeks to write the code necessary to copy and organize someone’s address book. Many said Apple was at fault, too, for approving Path for its App Store when it appears to violate its rules.

As Bilton points out, dissidents are often approached by state security in disguise; getting access to their address books puts them at risk. these need better protection.

Google’s path is the right one. It’s just going to hurt >> Technovia

In other words, Google is going to start controlling Android more tightly by stealth: it will sell the best phones, with rapid, regular updates that its erstwhile-partners can’t match. Within a few years, I fully expect Motorola to have overtaken Samsung as the number one Android vendor. and, what’s more, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung hadn’t forked Android and ended up producing its own Samsung-only variant, with its own App Store.

Platform wars, app stores and ecosystems >> Benedict Evans

A set of 16 slides looking at the principal mobile ecosystems in play right now – and how they break down in various ways.

The 9X Email Problem >> Andrew McAfee

Broad-ranging and intriguing:

Gourville talks about the ’9X problem’ — “a mismatch of 9 to 1 between what innovators think consumers want and what consumers actually want.”1 the 9X problem goes a long way to explaining the tech industry folk wisdom that to spread like wildfire a new product has to offer a tenfold improvement over what’s currently out there.

Still Fucking hate Email >> MG Siegler

On the persistent problem, and why it should be thought of more like tweets – not necessary to read – than must-read:

there’s a problem with changing the mentality about email because most people don’t get as much email as [venture capitalist Fred] Wilson or I do. So it just looks like we’re complaining for being popular or something. BUT the fact of the matter is that as more and more of the world spends more time online, more and more people will feel email overload.

The Perpetual, Invisible Window Into your Gmail Inbox >> Andy Baio at Wired

since Gmail added OAuth support in March 2010, an increasing number of startups are asking for a perpetual, silent window into your inbox.

I’m concerned OAuth, while hugely convenient for both developers and users, may be paving the way for an inevitable privacy meltdown.

Will make you think twice about giving your approval to apps you haven’t researched.

Does Android fragmentation matter to Google? not much >> Benedict Evans

Writing for Enders Analysis:

Even the most fragmented, forked, customised and mangled ‘Android’ device has an open web browser and data connectivity and can drive mobile use of Google Search. indeed, saying that an Android device like the Kindle fire ‘has no Google services’ might be true in one sense but misses the underlying point – the browser itself is by far the most important Google Service on any device.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that what Google wants is everyone using the net, because its gravity well there is so powerful.

US’s NOAA to drop BlackBerry for iPhone >> NYTimes.com

This is very bad for RIM:

Joining the large crop of businesses and organizations dropping the BlackBerry, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to provide employees with Apple’s iPhones and iPads instead.

The government agency, based in Washington, cited the steep cost of Research in Motion’s software, which is used to secure and manage BlackBerry devices, as the primary reason for the switch, which was first reported Thursday by the Loop. the agency has distributed about 3,000 BlackBerry devices among 20,000 workers, and plans to move to the Apple devices beginning in may.

If many more decide that BES is too expensive (as happened here), that becomes a serious risk for RIM’s future business. Also: the NOAA is shifting to Google Apps; it tried Android but decided the Apple products were a better fit.

MacBook Air with Windows 7 review: the ultrabook to rule them all? >> the Verge

Joanna Stern has really smart idea: run Windows 7 on a MacBook Air via Parallels and Boot Camp.

The MacBook Air is simply best in class when it comes to hardware. the build is outstanding, the touchpad works better with Microsoft’s operating system than any other laptop trackpad out there, and the display makes Windows look better than ever. All that combined with very snappy performance makes the Air more enjoyable to use than many of the other ultrabooks on the market, including the higher end $1,110 Asus Zenbook and the $1,200 Lenovo IdeaPad U300s.

It’s expensive, and the battery life is worse. But it kicks all the others in the display and trackpad, Stern says.

Social networks explained in one picture (includes ‘donuts’ >> Douglas Wray

We’d prefer to call them doughnuts, but this is very witty.

Phone size comparison made easy! >> phone-size.com

Very neat – even if you don’t do it life-size, you can compare the relative size of a huge number of phones.

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Boot up: the privacy problem, Google’s tough path, the 9x email problem, RIM’s latest woe and more

Plus Tim Cook on smartphone competitors, and Western Digital hard drive prices rose 47% after Thai floods

A quick burst of 6 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Tim Cook on first four months at Apple >> AllThingsD

Cook is not discounting Windows Phone:

“I wouldn’t say it is a two-horse race,” he said. “There’s a horse in Redmond that always suits up and always runs.”

Apple reports first-quarter earnings >> Apple

Blink and you’d miss it.

[Apple] sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. the Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter

Google’s new Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You do May be used to Target You? >> Marketing Land

Danny Sullivan has an essential reader on Google’s contentious new plans. Simple, you say?

Western Digital hard drive prices rose 47% after Thai floods >> the Verge

Western Digital’s earnings report for Q1 2012 attaches some hard numbers to the impact. Although prices rose 47% to $69 per unit over last year, WD sold 23.7m fewer hard drives, a 45% drop. Some of that price jump can be attributed to increased manufacturing costs, but most of it went to towards profit with a gross margin increase to 32.5% over last year’s 19.2%. Overall, WD reported $199m in expenses related to the floods and $2bn in total revenue, down about half a billion dollars from last year. the company says its factories in Thailand should be back to pre-flood capacities by September 2012…

Solid state drives are looking like a better deal all the time. seen our comparative reviews?

Amazon fire takes Android, leaves Google Apps >> Bloomberg

According to Flurry Inc., a software company that tracks usage of apps, the average smartphone owner uses a mobile app — for example, seeking a restaurant by clicking on the OpenTable Inc. icon on a phone, instead of using a browser to access the website — 94 minutes a day, compared to 72 minutes accessing websites via a browser. A year ago, time was almost equally split.

“This may be small potatoes now, but increasingly it’s going to be way search gets conducted,” Sena said.

if mobile app usage becomes dominant in that way, it changes the whole tenor of search.

GEMA hits back at Grooveshark’s reasons for pulling out of Germany

“Contrary to its statements, the provider Grooveshark did not discontinue its services in Germany due to disproportionately high operating expenses,” says GEMA in a statement.

“The fact is, as a service provider Grooveshark fundamentally refuses to pay compensation in any shape or form at all for the service. as of this writing, Grooveshark has also not contacted GEMA in any way.”

The statement goes on to refer to the lawsuits against Grooveshark from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI, as well as Apple and Google’s decisions to remove its native iPhone and Android apps from their respective stores.

Wow – getting pulled by Apple is nothing special, but pulled by Google? Grooveshark is starting to look like the digital equivalent of something on the bottom of businesses’ shoes.

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Boot up: Apple’s blowout quarter, Google’s privacy umbrella, and more