Thursday, February 27, 2014

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Microsoft rumoured to break Windows price

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:41 AM PST

The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth rumour which suggests that Microsoft is going to drop the price of its Windows OS to go for the cheap and cheerful part of the mobile market.

Nokia is already attempting to sell low end smartphones, and was showing off Android-powered devices at MWC this year. But the word is that Microsoft is mulling a licensing fee price cut of up to 70 percent compared to what it currently charges to stick its OS on Nokia’s cheaper phones.

That price drop is coming, according to OEM smartphone maker Infosonics — which deals in low-cost Android devices.

The big idea is to make it possible for OEMs like Infosonics to build affordable Microsoft hardware that can compete with its budget Android devices.

This is not the first time we have heard such rumours. There was one that suggested that Vole was going to get rid of the licensing fee altogether and try to make the cash back from the phones.  However since Vole makes a lot of dosh from licensing its desktop OS it is not give up that revenue stream completely. Licensing fees for Windows Phone were between $20 and $30 so a 70 percent cut would put new fees at roughly between $6 and $10 per unit.

Redmond has been having a quiet word with some low-cost manufacturing partners, including manufacturers in China and India and is working around what some see as prohibitive hardware minimum spec restrictions for Windows Phone.

If it manages to pull this off, then it could end up being a good rival to Android in the low end market in developing countries.

The Nokia X project could continue to survive as a way to get users committed to Microsoft services, and businesses used to integrated Volish projects.

Smartphone shipments expected to fall

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:37 AM PST

The mobile revolution appears to be grinding to a halt as IDC expects a slow down in smartphone shipments at least until 2018.

Beancounters at IDC have been shuffling their Tarot cards and see that there will be a sharp drop in the growth in global smartphone shipments this year and keep slowing through 2018.

The report predicts that average prices will drop significantly as demand shifts to China and other developing countries.

Annual growth in 2014 is expected to be 19.3 percent and then decline to 6.2 percent in 2018, IDC said in a report. That follows a 39.2 percent jump in 2013 when smartphone shipments topped 1 billion units for the first time.

This reinforces concerns on Wall Street that the explosion in is coming to an end, at least in the United States and other developed countries where consumers favour pricey, top-tier handsets.

Smartphone growth in North America and Europe is expected to shrink to single digits and Japan could even see a slight slowdown in shipments in the next few years, IDC said.

Manufacturers are increasingly focusing on China where many consumers are upgrading from basic mobiles to smartphones selling for under $300.

"New markets for growth bring different rules to play by and 'premium' will not be a major factor in the regions driving overall market growth," IDC analyst Ryan Reith said in a report.

The average selling price for smarpthones last year was $335, already far below flagship devices like the iPhone 5S or Samsung Galaxy S4, and will fall to $260 by 2018, IDC said. 

Smartphones make Brits age fast

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:36 AM PST

The Daily Mail newspaper took time out from its busy schedule of creating fears about Bulgarians and Romanians to dust off a completely new terror for us to be worried about.

Apparently, smartphones are making British people ugly or age faster.

The problem is, says the Wail, that we are constantly looking down at our gadgets and this is causing a new wrinkle to appear around the neck and it's not helping our backs either.

Dubbed 'Techneck', the line around the neck and chin is caused by the modern day compulsion of looking down at handheld devices and computers on a daily basis.

Apparently, there are Brits who are sufficiently terrified of 'Techneck' to want plastic surgery for it and the Mail has some sauces in that industry in the form of the unfortunately named CACI.

CACI are apparently experts in non-surgical facelifts and combat it with a treatment called the Microlift.

Dean Nathanson, Managing Director of CACI international (no really), said that keeping one's head down, be it buried in work emails or in an e-reader, is completely the norm.

'We've identified a correlation between the rise of technology in recent years and the growth of the 'Techneck', so while there is little chance of the nation giving up technology, at least we can help people reduce wrinkles and keep their chin up!'

Hunching over our smartphones is killing our backs too with back pain one of the most common complaints amongst the British work force.

Josh Catlett, a Chartered Physiotherapist, was quoted as saying our bodies are not designed to be in the same position for long periods and many people get into bad postures when using these devices.

He is seeing patients with neck, back and shoulder problems and pain in the hands and wrists. We thought that was due to the rise of internet porn. 

Google ordered to kill anti-Islamic video

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:34 AM PST

An interesting censorship case is taking place across the pond where Google has been asked to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islamic film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

According to CNN, by a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google's claim that the removal of the film "Innocence of Muslims" amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the US constitution.

This would mean that YouTube would have to take down the video, although Google is likely to appeal to the Supremes.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, wanted the film taken down after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie. In this film, she had been partially dubbed to say, "Is your Mohammed a child molester?"

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said  the propaganda film differs so radically from anything that Garcia could have imagined when the director told her that she was being cast in the innocent adventure film.

The controversial film depicted the prophet Mohammed as a fool and a sexual deviant and created shedloads of anti-American unrest among Muslims in Egypt, Libya and other countries in 2012.

For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is considered a bit blasphemous, but in this particular case it was just plain insulting.  There was talk that the film was an Israeli plot to destabilise the Middle East, because life there was just getting a little too comfortable.

Google had refused to remove the film from YouTube, despite pressure from the White House and others, though it blocked the trailer in Egypt, Libya and certain other countries.

Google argued that Garcia appeared in the film for five seconds, and that while she might have legal claims against the director, she should not win a copyright lawsuit against Google.

"Our laws permit even the vilest criticisms of governments, political leaders, and religious figures as legitimate exercises in free speech," the company wrote.

Garcia argued that her performance within the film was independently copyrightable and that she retained an interest in that copyright.

9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski confirmed that Garcia was likely to prevail on her copyright claim, and having already faced "serious threats against her life," faced irreparable harm absent an injunction. He called it a rare and troubling case.

Apple has another crack at innocence

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:32 AM PST

The fruity cargo cult is having another go at trying to convince a court that it is not an evil company which set up a pricing cartel to force its customers to pay far too much for ebooks.

Despite the fact that its co-conspirators have admitted that they have done wrong and paid fines, Apple's reality distortion field will not allow it to admit that it has done wrong.

In fact it is currently urged a US appeals court to throw out a judge's "radical" finding that it violated antitrust law by manipulating electronic book prices. Instead, it claims that the publishers were running a conspiracy it claimed to know nothing about.

This argument is a little amusing as Steve Jobs actually bragged about the conspiracy in his biography and there are a few Apple emails which indicated that Jobs' Mob did know about the whole thing.

Apple claimed that it lawfully took advantage of market "discord" and the publishers' own frustrations with Amazon, and "kick-started competition in a highly concentrated market, delivering higher output, lower price levels, and accelerated innovation".

It will be a matter for the Appeals court to decide if that sentence is just a spinning of the phrase "set up an illegal cartel with publishers to force its customers to pay more than they needed to".

Apple tends to believe that its perception is reality and its experience in the courts has so far been met with total denial.

US District Judge Denise Cote in New York concluded last July after a nonjury trial that Apple had played a "central role" in illegally scheming as early as December 2009 with five publishers to raise e-book prices and impede competitors such as Amazon.com.

The publishers previously agreed to pay more than $166 million to settle related antitrust charges.

Apple insisted that Cote's decision was a "radical departure from modern antitrust law" and If allowed to stand, the ruling will stifle innovation, chill competition, and harm consumers.

Apple also again faulted Cote's appointment of Washington lawyer Michael Bromwich to monitor its antitrust compliance, calling that oversight unconstitutional.

Already the 2nd Circuit rejected Apple's request to halt Bromwich's oversight during its appeal so it is not likely that things are going to go as Jobs' Mob plans. 
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