The New S and P: Sony's Tablet Plays

Sep 1, 2011
9:34 AM

The New S and P: Sony’s Tablet Plays

By Cheng Herng Shinn and Kenneth Maxwell This post originally appeared in Japan Real Time Another day, another tablet. In fact, make that another four of the portable devices now being cranked out as electronics makers rush to tap into the fast-growing market for mobile computer use.

Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

While HTC Corp. of Taiwan and Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. both rolled out new tablets, the most intriguing new offering was from Sony Corp., making its first foray into the field with not one, but two machines. Sony has endured some testing times this year, with its PlayStation gaming network suffering hacking. But could the Android operating system-based tablets build up enough steam for Sony to challenge the supremacy of the Apple Inc. iPad?

Danny Moloshok/Reuters

AT&T, T-Mobile: Now What? Everyone notes that yesterday’s DOJ suit against the AT&T, T-Mobile merger falls in line with a more aggressive antitrust stance taken by the current administration. So is it game over?

The Wall Street Journal says that there could be an out of court settlement. “Our door is open,” the DOJ’s antitrust chief told the WSJ. “If they want to resolve those concerns, we can certainly do that.” But another DOJ official tells the WSJ not to expect any deals.

The reason for government intransigence, as explained to the WSJ by Mark Ostrau, a partner at Fenwick & West LLP., is that whereas companies used to ease government concerns by selling off business in local markets, the DOJ is looking at this deal…



On today’s digits: details on why the DOJ is suing to block the $39 billion AT&T, T-Mobile merger; Samsung unveils a line of Galaxy S II phones in the U.S.; days after killing its iPad rival, H-P is bringing TouchPad back; the Financial Times pulls its App from iTunes, MoviePass is an all-you-can-watch pass to theaters, and, are classical music mix tapes the future of the music industry?



Citing T-Mobile’s role as a mobile technology innovator, the Justice Department, in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that AT&T’s $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile would lessen competition and violate antitrust law.

Stephen Yang/Bloomberg

Contrary to AT&T claims that a merger with T-Mobile would accelerate innovation, the Justice Department said that the opposite would occur, reducing the “competitive incentive to invest in wireless networks to attract and retain customers.” AT&T, the number two mobile carrier, with 98.6 million connections, has said that the merger would improve use of the spectrum, a driver for innovation. In its complaint the Justice Department cites the indispensability of mobile wireless communication, citing its role in creating jobs, increasing productivity. As such, the complaint says, “Vigorous competition is essential to ensuring continued innovation and maintaining low prices.”

The Financial Times’s iPad and iPhone apps are no longer available in Apple Inc.’s App store, making the Pearson PLC publication the latest developer to change course in response to newly tightened restrictions on selling content for Apple devices.



Pearson PLC

The publisher on Wednesday confirmed it had removed its apps from iTunes and is directing readers to a recently launched Web app that allows the FT to work around Apple’s newly restrictive terms. “iTunes will remain an important channel for new and existing advertising based apps,” a spokeswoman for the FT said.

Apple earlier this year laid out new terms for companies wanting to sell digital content via its devices. Among the new rules: all content in the app store had to be sold through Apple, meaning companies that had been offering links in their apps that sent customers to external websites to buy content had to take down those links. Apple set a June 30 deadline to comply.



Paul Sakuma / AP Photo

Oracle’s Dealings in Africa Investigated: Oracle is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Dept. and the SEC for violating federal antibribery laws in its business abroad. One prong of the investigation is looking at Oracle’s sales program in Western and Central African countries, particularly whether Oracle employees or agents made improper payments in order to close sales.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. government has stepped up its enforcement of antibribery laws. Other tech companies under investigation include H-P for its dealings in Russia. In March, IBM paid the SEC $10 million to resolve allegations of bribery in Asia.

The investigation has been underway for at least a year. [WSJ]

Aug 30, 2011

6:13 PM

New Address Scheme Aims to Speed up the Net

By Don Clark

Many techniques are used to reduce Internet traffic jams. But one of most popular ones sometimes runs into a bottleneck, which Google and other Internet companies are announcing plans to tackle.

Where communication carriers can expand the Net’s underlying capacity–think of adding more lanes to a freeway–another approach is to reduce the number of long-distance trips data has to travel. So companies called CDNs, for content delivery networks, have long operated data centers near major cities to store duplicate copies of videos and other files that customers call up frequently.

The other key piece of plumbing to keep in mind is the Domain Name System, which is often described as the phone book of the Internet. Companies operate what are called DNS servers, translating user requests to call up dot.com sites into specific sets of numbers–known as Internet protocol numbers–that computers use to recognize each other.

Most DNS servers that carry out this translation are operated by big Internet service providers. But some other companies, including Google and startups such as San Francisco-based OpenDNS, maintain alternative DNS services.

By Mia Lamar

Samsung Electronics continued to dominate the U.S. market for mobile subscribers in the three months ended in July, while Apple preserved its lead over Blackberry-maker Research in Motion, according to market researcher comScore.

Paul Sakuma/AP Photo

The results of comScore’s survey of more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers come amid stiff competition among makers of mobile phones and software.

Samsung’s lead as of the latest period rose to 25.5% from 24.5% in the three months ended in April. Apple maintained its position in the No. 4 spot, dominating Research in Motion with a 9.5% share. In the No. 5 spot, Research in Motion saw its share decline 0.6 percentage points to 7.6%.

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Aug 30, 2011
4:51 PM

Digits Live Show: RIM, Nokia Seek Lost Mojo

By WSJ Staff

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BlackBerry Maker RIM’s Stock Set in Motion: While the broader market has been volatile this past month, Research in Motion, maker of the iconic BlackBerry, has made gains on new handset launches and a little bit of improving sentiment on Wall Street. Dan Gallagher reports on Digits.

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Aug 30, 2011
3:07 PM

Java Icon Gosling Joins Sea-Robot Startup

By Ben Worthen

The father of the widely-used Java programming language is leaving Google for a startup that makes sea-faring robots.

Charlotte Fiorito/Mast Photography

James Gosling, the former Sun Microsystems engineer who went to Google after Sun was acquired by Oracle, has joined Liquid Robotics as chief software architect, he said Tuesday. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company–profiled in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year–makes “wave gliders” that ride ocean currents and collect and transmit data such as water temperature, wave heights, whale songs and chemical levels.

Liquid Robotics CEO, Bill Vass, another Sun alumnus, has big plans for the company. Mr. Vass says that there’s almost no limit to the type of information the gliders could collect, and that ultimately there could be thousands of them in the ocean at a time, giving the company unprecedented insight into what’s happening at sea. Liquid Robotics plans to operate a fleet of gliders and collect and sell access to useful data, according to Mr. Vass.

CES 2011: Razer Annoucnes Switchblade 7-Inch Gaming Tablet

If you thought you were tired of all the tablets and more tablets at the CES 2011, wait for a while. here is another tablet that was announced by Razer and it is the Switchblade 7 inch gaming tablet. This 7 inch PC gaming tablet concept would be a great boon to those who are addicted to gaming and playing video games on the go.
It comes with a multi touch screen and a cool design. Apart from this, there isn’t much information available but of course, you could always wait and watch this pace for more information. It changes its shape pretty well as well, which means the device has been designed in a manner that makes it look different from each angle.
It is perhaps a small device that would help gamers to play when they are in a metro or when they are on a bus. If you love playing video games no matter where you are but you liked the PC games more than the ones played on consoles, you should get yourself a tablet that look something like this. Moreover, the Razer tablet is well designed and looks chic too. It is not clear when they would divulge more information about this product.

CES 2011: Presenting An All New Video Aggregator, Fuugo From Axel Technologies

The Consumer Electronics Show 2011 (CES 2011) in Las Vegas proved to be platform was some of the most remarkable technologies as well as an assortment of gadgets and gizmos, that not only represented cutting edge advances in technology, but were quite refreshing as well. One such device is the all new Fuugo, which has been described as a video content aggregator, as this nifty little device is able to consolidate television, mobile TV and internet TV, on a singular platform and can operate in conjunction with numerous devices including mobile devices as well.
The brains behind Fuugo, Axel Technologies, has made this device compatible with numerous operating systems such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Linux, Mac OS X, Google Android etc. and Fuugo can easily be run with any mobile device that has a display between 3 inches to 24 inches. As far as the functions of this new device are concerned, Fuugo has been given social networking capabilities, where in this device can easily share a user’s activity on Facebook, Twitter etc. and will even intimate the user of new relevant content that Fuugo discovers, in an effort to expand the user’s choice. Another highly impressive feature of Fuugo is that, this device can even save and mark the downloaded content as favorite, thereby enabling you to watch the videos at your own convenience.

CES 2011: Toshiba Announces Sleek 3DTV

The prototype 4k glassless 3DTV is one of the most talked about devices at the CES 2011. It was revealed at the Toshiba event this evening and it comes with an LCD panel that is out of this world. It comes with billet aluminium enclosure and red rope restricting access. The guys who saw the device however did not have many opportunities to explore it further.

It offers great 3D stuff but it may not meet the stiff competition that is offered by products by other companies. It is not clear how much the device costs but Toshiba will announce it formally in a couple of days at the CES 2011. It sure is going to be one of the best 3D devices though it may not match the expectations of everyone. Toshiba also offers great consistency in its quality and the prices of its gadgets are usually rather affordable.
We shall just have to wait and watch till we get more details about the glasses free 3DTV. 3D lovers sure have a lot of things to look forward to this year at the CES 2011, and many more products would be announced by other companies as well.

CES 2011: Philips Knows How to Please HD Lovers

HD seems to be really big this year as well, along with tablets and 3D gadgets. Philips has some major plans for HDTV lovers as well, and would be launching several products for HD market at the CES 2011. CES 2011 is going to be held at Las Vegas between the 6th and 9th of January this year, which would begin tomorrow. LCD HDTVs, Blu-ray decks and home theatre systems would be announced by Philips at the CES 2011.
4000 LED series of HDTVs come in various dimensions ranging from 40 inches to 55 inches. They would connect to Vudu, Netflix, Blockbuster and FilmFresh. There is also the 5000 LED series which would cost a little more. The LED 6000 series is a higher end product that would come with 3D as well.
Philips will also be launching a home theatre system that would come with Blu-ray, MediaConnect / NetTV, wireless rear speakers and DLNA streaming. They would also be launching Blu-ray decks that would cost between $199.99 and $219.99. Thus, it looks like Philips is all set to get some amazing gadgets right on the exhibiting section at the CES 2011.

CES 2011: Dell Finally Launches The All New Dell Venue Smartphone

One of the most prominent names in the field of computer hardware, Dell, after much speculations and rumors, has now finally taken its official step in the global smartphone market, with the launch of the all new Dell Venue at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 (CES 2011). With the Venues, Dell has now stepped into the highly lucrative and insanely competitive mobile phone market, where in it would have to face off against some of the most established names in this field, such as Apple Inc, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC etc.

The all new Dell Venue is a Google Android smartphone, running the Android 2.2 Froyo operating system and features an impressive 4.1 inch AMOLED touchscreen display with Gorilla Glass. This gorgeous looking handset is powered by a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdrafon QSD 8250 processor and comes with 512MB RAM and 1GB ROM. Dell has cleverly layered its own Dell Stage UI over the Android 2.2 and with this new UI, users will now have access to widgets, that would help them in organizing multimedia content such as pictures, videos and music. Dell Venue has been given a cool 1GB of internal storage with an option 32GB microSD card for additional space. The Venue features an 8MP camera with LED Flash, autofocus, 4x Digital Zoom, and geo-tagging and also supports 720p high definition video recording. Among other features, Dell has give Venue a variety of connectivity options, in the form of Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Wi-Fi, microUSB and the device also comes with ActiveSync, Microsoft Exchange support, Web 2.0 HTML supporting mobile browser and 3.5mm audio jack.

CES 2011: Avatar Kinect Comes to Xbox 360

Kinect is one of the most advanced technologies that Microsoft has come up with and it is all about motion sensors that would know what you are doing and command the console or computer accordingly. This time around, Microsoft has announced Avatar Kinect for Xbox 360 at the CES 2011.
With the help of Avatar Kinect, the Xbox 360 can recognize various facial expressions, raising eyebrows, frowning or even a grin. This would not only help you in controlling several games but would also make playing video games pretty fun and exciting. You could also add cool animated effects or even visual effects to enhance your natural expression.
It all depends on how creatively one can express their thoughts. It could help players to discuss latest entertainment and sports topics. The Avatar Kinect on Xbox 360 will follow a user’s zooming, panning and performance. You could also go ahead and share videos with your friends, thanks to Avatar Kinect technology. It is surprising how gaming has come so far that you can now control a game by just raising an eyebrow!