Author: Shivaank Rana

Nokia Posts QWERTY Phone Teaser, Wednesday Announcement Expected

Nokia has released a teaser image today for an upcoming announcement, potentially revealing a new QWERTY smartphone, although all the signs point to this device falling under the Asha range of low-end quasi-smartphones, as opposed to their flagship Windows Phone Lumia line-up.

The teaser reveals rounded corners for the prospective device, showing a Z key and contoured Shift key.

The phone is apparently decked out in the vibrant primary colours that are the signature of Nokia’s Windows Phone-powered Lumia smart phone range. But a Qwerty Lumia is unlikely, and with Nokia’s mobile devices making the announcement it appears this will be a feature phone, perhaps an Asha phone.

You won’t have to wait long to find out.

On Wednesday morning at 7am GMT we will be announcing something new, followed by a Q&A session with Neil Broadley from our Mobile Phones team and a special guest.

Other than a yellow color option and a seemingly thin bezel, there’s nothing we know about the upcoming device. There should be more teasers until Wednesday, maybe even a leak so stay tuned!

There have been Windows Phone devices with QWERTY keyboards in the past, like the now- extinct Dell Venue Pro. It would be nice to have that option again.

Nokia’s new teaser ad comes close on the heels of the company’s 2013 Q1 results which reported a steep decline in Asha sales. “Asha full touch smartphones Q1 volumes decreased 46% quarter-on-quarter to 5.0 million units, reflecting intense competitive industry dynamics as well as lower seasonal demand,” said the company.

April 22, 2013
Newly Discovered Code In Google Page Hints At Google Now For Web

Google Now is arguably the single best feature found in Android Jelly Bean, and soon, it seems, it will also be added to Google’s homepage. Some code from a page that’s tested by Google offers more information about this feature.

Google Now brings you search results before you even go looking for them. Just swipe up, inside of Google’s search app, and Google Now activates. From there, the Google search app delivers today’s weather, your Google Calendar appointments, directions to home or work (depending on what time of day it is), a heads up to nearby events, the score from your favorite sports team’s latest game, boarding passes, package tracking, dinner reservations and a lot more.

Source code for the page in testing encourages you to, “get started with Google Now,” because it provides, “just the right information at just the right time.” It has the option to change your home and work locations as, “Google Now uses your Home location to show relevant information like weather, traffic conditions, and nearby places.”

As TechCrunch reports, previous discoveries have indicated that Google Now is probably being worked on for Chrome desktop browser integration, and for inclusion in Google’s iOS search app. But bringing it to the Google homepage means it’ll be broadly accessible. It also means Google will have an opportunity to deliver more via its homepage, sort of like an iGoogle, but hopefully better at its job of providing you with relevant, personalized content.

There are also plenty of references to “now_card.”

Google Now on the internet, yes please!

[TechCrunch, Engadget]

April 22, 2013
Google Fined In Germany Over Street View Data Collection

A German privacy regulator fined Google €145,000 on Monday for its systematic, illegal collection of personal data while it was creating its Street View mapping service, and it called on European lawmakers to significantly raise fines for violations of data protection laws.

It found that while specially equipped Google vehicles took city snapshots between 2008 and 2010 for its Street View function, which supplements its standard map service, they had also picked up data from unsecured wireless networks.

“Among the information gathered in the drive-bys were significant amounts of personal data of varying quality. For example emails, passwords, photos and chat protocols were collected,” the Hamburg authorities said in a statement.

Hamburg data regulator Johannes Caspar explained: “In my view, this is one of the biggest data protection rules violations known,” said Caspar. Google’s “internal control mechanisms must have severely failed.”

It not the first time Google as been fined for such a breach of data protection, with the French privacy regulator levying a €100,000 penalty on Google in 2011. However Google has now tightened up its policy with using the Google Street View car systems to address issues raised in the latest data protection violation, Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said in a statement.

The commissioner also ordered Google to delete all the data it had gathered. A third party verified that Google indeed deleted the data.

Google said it would not appeal the fine.

[The Guardian]

April 22, 2013
Rumour : Start Button To Make A Return In Microsoft Windows 8.1

Microsoft, which is being berated for taking out the Start button from Windows 8, may put it back in the next major Windows update known as Windows Blue.

The classic Start menu which Windows users have come to know and love over the years, was missing in Windows 8, which was released in October 2012, resulting in an unprecedented backlash.

The Verge is also reporting that plans have been revealed to them to indeed bring back the Windows 8 start button together with the boot to desktop option also rumoured earlier this month.

According to another report by Microsoft insider Paul Thurrott, Microsoft’s Executives are the ones who are overruling objections from the Windows team about bringing back the Start button. “And I’ve separately confirmed that this is really happening, with the Start button, in particular, driven by upper management, which overruled objections from the Windows team,” Thurrott added.

It turns out, however, that Windows 8.1’s Start button will have a different behavior as compared to the traditional one, according to a report by The Verge. Microsoft is looking to bring us a Start button that would launch the Start Screen, instead of a Start Menu.

Microsoft hasn’t said a thing about such a feature, so more details will most likely be provided in June at the BUILD developer conference when the company is expected to unveil the public beta of the new OS.

Recent reports are that the global computer market fell 14% in the first quarter of 2013 with market analysts IDC putting the blame squarely on Microsoft’s shoulders with a lacklustre launch of Windows 8.

But if Microsoft brings the Start button back and adds in a few new tricks into Windows 8.1, combine that with the new Intel Haswell chips on the way and it could make for a very different second-half of the year for computer fans.

[The Verge, Geeky Gadgets]

April 22, 2013
Bing Answers Critics, Says It Blocks “94% Of Clicks To Malicious Sites”

Bing has responded to the malware study conducted by AV-TEST earlier this week, claiming that Bing search results led to five times more malware than Google.

To that Bing said, “the conclusions many have drawn from the study are wrong.”

A blog post by Bing said :

AV-TEST didn’t actually do any searching on bing.com. Rather they used a Bing API to execute a number of queries and downloaded the result to their system for further analysis. By using the API instead of the user interface, AV-TEST bypassed our warning system designed to keep customers from being harmed by malware. Bing actually does prevent customers from clicking on malware infected sites by disabling the link on the results page and showing the below message to stop people from going to the site.

Overall, Bing says it shows results with malware warnings for about 0.04 percent of searches. Microsoft’s senior program manager for Bing David Felstead also claims that Bing’s warning system blocks “94% of clicks to malicious sites.”

We show results with warnings for about 0.04% of all searches, meaning about 1 in 2,500 search result pages will have a result with a malware warning on it. Of those, only a small proportion of malicious links ever get clicked and the warning therefore triggered, so a user will see the warning only 1 in every 10,000 searches. In any case, the overall scale of the problem is very small.

Felstead later points out a search term that can be entered into Google that results in malicious results.

[SearchEngineLand, TechCrunch, Bing]

April 20, 2013
Yahoo To Shut Down 7 Products, Including Yahoo Mail And Messenger For Feature Phones

Yahoo announced today that it is shutting down a number of its products as part of its efforts to make sure its products “are still central to your daily habits”.

The company will be shutting down Yahoo Deals, Upcoming and its API, Yahoo SMS Alerts, Yahoo kids, Yahoo Mail and Messenger feature phone (J2ME) apps, and much older versions of Yahoo Mail by June 3.

“The most critical question we ask is whether the experience is truly a daily habit that still resonates for all of you today,” wrote Jay Rossiter, Yahoo’s executive vice president of Platforms.

The announcement represents Yahoo’s second group shutdown of products since Mayer, a former Google executive, became CEO of the struggling Web portal in July. So-called “spring cleaning” announcements, in which multiple products are shut down, have become a regular feature at Google in recent years.

This detailed list as reported by Bussiness Insider is as below :

Upcoming
As of April 30, 2013, Upcoming will be going away. If you have uploaded events to the site, please click here to learn how to download your information. Additionally, effective on April 30, 2013, we will no longer support the Upcoming API.

Yahoo! Deals
As of April 30, 2013, Yahoo! Deals will be going away. You can find out more details about this, including instructions on how to save your coupons prior to the Yahoo! Deals shutdown here.

Yahoo! SMS Alerts
As of April 30, 2013, Yahoo! SMS Alerts will be going away. If you’ve been receiving SMS alerts, we encourage you to stay-up-date on all the latest with our mobile apps including Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Sports, or Yahoo! Finance. If you’ve been receiving horoscope alerts, you can check your horoscope on yahoo.com. Alternatively, you can go to alerts.yahoo.com and select to receive your alerts via email or Yahoo! Messenger.

Yahoo! Kids
As of April 30, 2013, Yahoo! Kids (formerly known as Yahooligans) will be going away. Our youngest users still have plenty of opportunities to engage with Yahoo! content and products. For example, users who are under 13 can register for a Yahoo! ID through our Family Accounts program, connect with family and friends through Yahoo Mail and Messenger, and check out upcoming family friendly films on Yahoo! Movies.

Yahoo Mail and Messenger feature phone (J2ME) apps
As of April 30, 2013, the Yahoo Mail and Messenger apps for feature phones (J2ME) will be going away. We continue to support Yahoo Mail and Messenger via mobile web for our users with feature phones. We also offer Yahoo! Mail apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8; and Yahoo! Messenger apps for Android and iOS.

Older versions of Yahoo Mail
Beginning the week of June 3, 2013, older versions of Yahoo! Mail (including Yahoo Mail Classic) will no longer be available. Those of you using these older versions of Yahoo Mail can switch to the new Yahoo! Mail, which is fast and easier-to-use. If you’re on dial-up or an older browser, we’ll move you to an HTML only / basic version of the new Yahoo! Mail. We’ll be reaching out to each of you via email to give you more information about this and what to expect. Additionally, to learn more about the Yahoo! Mail migration, please click here.

[Bussiness Insider, Reuters]

April 20, 2013
Razer To Honour Unauthorized 90% Off Coupon Code

According to a statement issued by the gaming hardware maker’s CEO, Min-Liang Tan, an unauthorized coupon code for 90% off any order placed through Razer’s online store leaked online, resulting in a flood of new orders with deep discounts. While the company says it’s within legal boundaries to invalidate the orders, Razer will honor the discount, allowing users to apply the 90% discount to one product in their order.

The executive said in a post on Facebook that the coupon code was generated by a third party to test their shopping cart system and inadvertently left in the system. The UK Razerzone store had to be shut down for a bit until they figured out what was going on.

“While we have the option of cancelling the orders legally, we’ve always had a customer comes first policy at Razer,” said Tan, “and in respect of this incident, we have decided to honor the orders that were placed using the unauthorized code by Razer fans buying single products for their own use.”

Tan goes on to explain that doing so will “likely cost us an insane amount of losses” and that Razer won’t be honoring all orders, as some people attempted to buy multiple units of the same item.

“For orders in the multiples of units for a single product, we will still give each an opportunity to purchase one item of each product ordered at the 90% off discount but not for multiple units of the same product,” he explains. “Our focus is on doing the right thing for our fans, the gamers and the community, not for resellers or users to profit from this. That’s not gaming, that’s not our deal.”

He cautions that it could take weeks — and maybe months in some cases — to fulfill all the orders, as a number of items purchased during the rush were already on back-order.

Way to go Razer!

April 20, 2013
Apple Dealt Blow As Top Chip Designer Raja Koduri Leaves For AMD

Raja Koduri has returned to a position with GPU company AMD from a 4-year appointment with Apple.

For the past 4 years Raja Koduri has been working on all things graphics at Apple, but now thanks to a great offer and a fear of getting too comfortable at Apple, he’s back at AMD.

Raja Koduri, 44, will lead engineering efforts in visual computing, reporting to Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster, another former Apple executive, Sunnyvale, California-based AMD said in a statement today.

Mr. Koduri was instrumental in the past, with ATI Technologies winning over the Xbox deal from Nvidia, as well as paving path to future business wins with Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and so on. However, in 2009, Mr. Koduri was disillusioned about the path AMD-ATI was taking, and left the company – taking the role as Chief Technology Officer for Graphics at Apple Inc. That role later moved to Director of Graphics Architecture, Apple.

AMD Chief Executive Officer Rory Read is remaking the company to develop new processor technology, part of an effort to differentiate its products from those of larger rival Intel Corp. and open up new markets outside of PCs. Global PC shipments fell 14 percent in the three months that ended in March, the steepest quarterly drop on record and worse than the 7.7 percent decline forecast by research-firm IDC.

Raja believes there’s likely another 15 years ahead of us of good work in high-end discrete graphics, so we’ll continue to see AMD focus on that part of the market. However, Raja’s efforts will span everything from discrete GPUs to its own APU/SoC strategy.

After the company bled numerous brilliant minds, seeing people like Jim Keller, Roy Taylor, Colette LaForce, John Gustafson and now Raja Koduri all joining AMD – it is clear that the company is rebuilding itself.

[AnandTech]

April 20, 2013
Apple Keeps Your Siri Data For Two Years

Apple has revealed that it holds on to voice data that users submit to Siri for up to two years.

Siri keeps your personalized data collected and stored on its servers whenever you pick up your iPhone and ask her a question. The Cupertino firm also assured customers that the files it retains become disassociated from the user after six months, or if they deactivate the personal assistant.

Responding to questions raised by the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday, Apple on Friday dispatched its spokeswoman Trudy Muller who explained to Wired the firm’s data retention policy governing Siri.

Apple may keep anonymized Siri data for up to two years. If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data.

Based on the information Muller provided, Wired’s Robert McMillan explains exactly what happens when you use Siri:

Whenever you speak into Apple’s voice activated personal digital assistant, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.

Citing the Apple spokeswoman, the site reveals that the company makes sure the data is anonymized. Apple “only collects the Siri voice clips in order to improve Siri itself,” it says.

However, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who had previously raised privacy questions about Siri says Apple should take additional steps to protect its users’ privacy.

According to Nicole Ozer, “There is no good reason for Apple to not include information about privacy practices on their Siri FAQ page.”

[Wired]

April 19, 2013
Google MyGlass App Leak Reveals Multiplayer Gaming In Upcoming Android

A teardown of the MyGlass Google Glass companion app reveals that Google may have plans for a gaming service similar to Apple’s Game Center.

Android Police discovered the complete feature list for a gaming service when tearing down the MyGlass application that will accompany the Google Glass AR specs.

According to the website, Google usually ships apps with a few Google-powered components that some apps depend on to work but Google accidentally shipped all of them, even though the service has no connection with Google Glass.

The underground Games service will feature support for real-time multiplayer games allowing users to play games with other connected players, as per the website. It would also apparently support turn-based multiplayer games such as board games where players take chances to play, and the teardown reveals that users will also get notifications when it’s their turn.

Users would also be able to chat with other players within the game in real-time multiplayer mode, in addition to offering leader boards and allowing users to keep a track of achievements.

The game service will bring in the ability to invite friends and will come with a ‘Lobbies’ feature through which users will be able to chat before a game begins, plan strategies, rules, and choose teams.

If Google could create their own gaming service for Android and include some killer features, it could look much more attractive than iOS’s gaming offerings.

Android Police has concluded that this gaming service is nearly finished, speculating that we might be able to learn more about it during Google I/O.

[Android Police, SlashGear]

April 19, 2013
YouTube Defeats Viacom In Lawsuit Again

A federal judge handed a major victory to YouTube on Thursday, one year after a federal appeals court breathed new life into Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit. Viacom had accused YouTube of illegally hosting videos that infringe on the company’s intellectual property, including popular content like MTV videos and TV shows like Comedy Central’s “South Park.”

The case has flip-flopped in federal courts, with YouTube winning the first round in 2010 when U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed Viacom’s allegations that YouTube had violated copyrights by displaying videos of Viacom shows uploaded to the site by users. Stanton ruled that YouTube was shielded by the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by removing such videos when asked to and granted Google’s request for a summary judgment.

YouTube submitted 63,060 video clips that were later identified as infringing copyrights and challenged Viacom to prove adequate notice of infringement was given to YouTube. Viacom admitted in January that “neither side possesses the kind of evidence that would allow a clip-by-clip assessment of actual knowledge. Defendants apparently are unable to say which clips-in-suit they knew about and which they did not.”

In a decision filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Southern New York, Stanton reaffirmed his original stance. “The burden of showing that YouTube knew or was aware of the specific infringements of the works in suit cannot be shifted to YouTube to disprove,” Stance said. “Congress has determined that the burden of identifying what must be taken down is to be on the copyright owner.”

Google, which purchased YouTube in 2006 for $1.8 billion, hailed the outcome.

“The court correctly rejected Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube, reaffirming that Congress got it right when it comes to copyright on the Internet,” Kent Walker, Google’s Senior Vice President & General Counsel, said in a statement. “This is a win not just for YouTube, but for people everywhere who depend on the Internet to exchange ideas and information.”

[BillBoard]

April 19, 2013
Google Reveals $14 Billion Revenue In Q1 Earnings

Google presented its Q1 2013 earnings today and, overall, the company looks to be in good shape. Revenues of $13.97 billion were down slightly from the always-hot previous quarter, but that number was in line with analysts’ expectations. More impressive was the $3.35 billion net income, which was up over 30% from the same period a year ago.

Motorola Mobility continued to shed money, gross revenue of $1.02 billion and a net loss of $271 million. Patrick Pichette, Google’s CFO, said, ”We’re pleased with the velocity of change at Motorola Mobility. We’re excited about the future, but results will continue to be variable.” The amounts of lower, both in revenue and money lost, than the previous quarter, which means internal money-saving measures, in addition to the substantial number of jobs shed, are making a difference.

The company hasn’t released a product since September of last year, but 2013 promises to be one of big changes in the company. Now fully integrated into Google, we’re hearing rumours that the X-Phone will be “phenomenal” and come in up to 20 colours (don’t hold your breath), in addition to being much more manageably-sized. Motorola has also promised to stick fairly close to the stock Android experience, though whether that, along with Google’s help, will be enough to regain much of its lost brand recognition and market share remains to be seen.

Last year was Google’s first $50 billion revenue year, and CEO Larry Page said that the three pillars of the business — Chrome, Android and Ads — would continue to be the focus in 2013. The company is activating 1.5 million Android devices every day and with the release of Google Glass to developers this week, there’s yet another platform on which users can expect to see Google dominate.

April 19, 2013
Leaked : Alleged Low-Cost iPhone’s Rear Plastic Shell

Despite nothing resembling an acknowledgment from Apple that the company is indeed planning to unveil a low-end iPhone, the rumor just won’t go away. Now, we have our first look at what may in fact be the shell of the budget iPhone.

Spotted by case manufacturer Tactus apparently during a factory tour of a plant that provides parts to Foxconn, the shell shown is a polycarbonate build, finished in white, and not dissimilar to the back casings of the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

Where it differs is in its flatness – the 3GS and 3G had curved designs – which could effectively cut manufacturing costs due to the simplicity to produce such shapes, as well as setting the style apart from the older models in what would be set to become Apple’s premium range. The people at Tactus also say that this shell is a bit taller, wider and thicker than the iPhone 4, but shorter than the iPhone 5.

The source of this leak is also claiming it’ll come with an A5 chip, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and come in five color options: black, white, blue, red and yellow. Its release date is being expected to be on October 15 and priced at only $300, which is certainly a much lower price than the current iPhone 5.

Last week Tactus leaked a purported iPad 5 mold case.

We’re still treating budget iPhone rumours with a pinch of salt, but at least this time there’s a physical object to go with the rumours, regardless of whether its been faked or not!

So what do you guys think? Would you be disappointed if Apple released an iPhone looking like that?

[Tactus]

April 18, 2013
Nokia Reports $196 Million Loss In Q1 2013 Earnings

Nokia posted an operating loss of €150 million (PDF), or around $196 million, today on around $7.65 billion in revenue, with a total revenue for the quarter reaching €5.85 billion ($7.65 billion), which is down from €7.35 billion ($9.6 billion) during the same time last year.

However, despite the losses, Nokia Lumia sales have hit a record high of 5.6 million in Q1 2013. This is up from 4.4 million during the previous quarter. In the same quarter last year, Nokia only sold two million Lumia smartphones, so that’s less than double of what they’re selling now. Since shipping their first Windows Phone device in November 2011, Nokia has just under 20 million Lumias.

At the highest level, we are pleased that Nokia Group achieved underlying operating profitability for the third quarter in a row. While operating in a highly competitive environment, Nokia is executing our strategy with urgency and managing our costs very well.

We have areas where we are making progress, and areas where we are further increasing the focus. For example, people are responding positively to the Lumia portfolio, and our volumes are increasing quarter over quarter. Nokia Siemens Networks delivered another strong quarter and contributed to an overall improvement in Nokia Group’s cash position. On the other hand, our Mobile Phones business faces a difficult competitive environment, and we are taking tactical actions and bringing new innovation to market to address our challenges.

All of these efforts are aimed at improving our financial performance and delivering more value to our shareholders

Nokia’s total smartphone volumes in Q4 2012 were 15.9 million units – 9.3 million Asha full-touch ‘smartphones’, 4.4 million Lumia smartphones and 2.2 million Symbian smartphones. That was noteworthy as it was the first that Lumia device numbers had exceeded those of Symbian.

[The Next Web]

April 18, 2013
Obake Create A 2.5D Display Prototype With Actual Pinch And Zoom

The new Obake elastic 2.5D display is sure to open the eyes of many tech lovers.

With touchscreens being the dominate user interface these days the new Obake prototype display gives a new element of user interaction which standard touchscreens just can’t give us.

As Gizmodo reports, Designed by MIT Media Lab’s Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley, Obake is what its creators consider a 2.5D interface. Formed from an elastic screen with an image projected on it from above, the Obake can detect push and pull input with a depth sensing camera and has a series of linear actuators under its surface that can alter the screen’s topography.

Obake’s Vimeo page reads :

Screens as they exist today are flat, 2D and rigid; even the 3D displays we have today are not true 3D – they are optical illusions. We created a 2.5D display that is shape changing with the help of actuators, depth cameras, projector and a silicone screen. ‘Obake’ (o-baa-keh) as we lovingly call it, imagines how we would interact with elastic display. We could literally pinch and pull them!

Create mountains by pulling them out of the screen, draw rivers with your fingers, elevate an entire terrain to see a cut section view. Make your data come alive. The video shows our working prototype.

Hardware built with – Wood, linear actuators, liquid rubber casted into a screen, Kinect, Projector
Software written in – openFrameworks

Dand and Hemsley’s research may influence how we interact with 3D displays in the future!

[vimeo clip_id=”63494095″ width=”100%” height=”300px”]

[Gizmodo, DhairyaDand]

April 18, 2013