Today is the day that Felix Baumgartner was originally meant to jump out of a pressurized cabin being carried by a balloon up 23 miles above the surface of the planet. This jump is already a record-breaking jump even before he lands, with 120,000 feet / 36,576 meters between him and Earth breaking a record that’s existed for more than 50 years. This jump that’s being sponsored by Red Bull also has Baumgartner breaking another record – he’s becoming the first human to break the sound barrier in freefall – that’s an estimated 690 miles / 1,110 kilometers per hour. UPDATE: The jump has been delayed for today on account of gusty winds, cancelled until tomorrow at best. Seeya then!
What you’re going to see below this paragraph is a dramatization of the event created by Red Bull to show you how epic this whole situation is. With this mission racking Baumgartner up another death-defying feat for his wall of excellence, we can’t help but wonder what he’s going to do next. He’s already jumped out of an airplane with nothing but shorts on, for goodness sake.
In addition to this dramatization, you can watch the whole event unfold live via the YouTube feed shown at the end of this post. It’s important to note that this drop doesn’t just break a couple of records for the fun of it, Baumgartner is also delivering data collected from his fall back to earth where it can be studied for the advancement of scientific and medical science. Literally dropping your body out of a craft at the edge of what we’ve decided is outer space – that’s quite a feat!
You can also have a peek at our timeline below to get additional details on this mission – if that’s what you’d like to call it. Be sure to pay attention to how Red Bull as a brand is making this quite clearly a one-on-one environment for you and your wallet. It’s the kind of situation where you’re not quite sure if you’re being advertised to – but with the Red Bull brand on every bit of gear, Baumgartner knows exactly what this is: an amazing opportunity to jump out of a metal canister 23 miles above the dirt!
UPDATE: live shots being added to gallery above as they occur – be sure to watch the whole drop and let us know how you enjoyed it in the comments below as well!
Google’s next Nexus tablet is likely to be a co-branded collaboration with Samsung, insiders claim, and giving the Nexus 7 a high-resolution 10-inch bigger brother. Unlike the budget $199 Nexus 7, NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim tells CNET, the Samsung-made “Nexus 10″ will be “a high-end device” that uses a 2,560 x 1,600 display for a 299 ppi pixel density, besting what Apple currently offers on its Retina display equipped new iPad.
The latest iPad runs at 2,048 x 1,536 spread across 9.7-inches, for a 264 ppi pixel density. Interestingly, Samsung has been tipped to be readying a 2,560 x 1,600 tablet for some time now, though the screen size has always been rumored to be bigger than 10.1-inches; last we heard, it measured in at 11.8-inches in a device codenamed the Samsung P10.
It’s certainly not impossible that Samsung could be delivering that resolution at a more typical tablet scale, however, though it’s most likely to be using LCD rather than AMOLED technology. The company announced a 10.1-inch 299 dpi panel in mid-2011, prompting speculation at the time that it could be the screen Apple would go on to use in the third-gen iPad.
In addition to the high resolution, the Samsung screen includes an “outdoor-viewing mode” that can boost brightness to 600 cd/m2. It also delivers a 72-percent color gamut range, whereas existing tablet LCDs of the time were hovering at around the 55-percent NTSC mark.
Pricing for the high-end Nexus tablet has not been leaked yet, though with a display of that resolution it’s unlikely to come cheap. Google’s focus in Android has centered more on tablets in recent months; in addition to pushing the Nexus 7, the company has redoubled its efforts in developer outreach to try to encourage more Android apps for tablets.
Shim also lent his weight to chatter of a $99 super-budget version of the Nexus 7, predicting that the new slate would drop in December 2012.
The US committee calling for ZTE and Huawei to be blackballed as suppliers has released a five-strong list of recommendations to protect against Chinese cyberterrorism, including demanding more government insight into private sector tech deals. The House Intelligence Committee report concludes that American companies should “use another vendor” and highlights the potential for damage when “critical infrastructure” such as the electricity supply, banking, water, and other systems are “incredibly connected.” As for the Chinese firms in question, despite their protestations that they have been open and honest, ”Huawei and ZTE provided incomplete, contradictory, and evasive responses to the Committee’s core concerns” the committee chairman said in a statement today.
”The report notes that modern critical infrastructure is incredibly connected, everything from electric power grids to banking and finance systems to natural gas, oil, and water systems to rail and shipping channels. All of these entities depend on computerized control systems. The risk is high that a failure or disruption in one system could have a devastating ripple effect throughout many aspects of modern American living” Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Among the recommendations are the suggestion that US carriers should look elsewhere for their infrastructure components, as these could potentially allow Chinese government snooping onto the telecommunications backbone, and that new legislation to put firms “with nation-state ties or otherwise not clearly trusted to build critical infrastructure” under the microscope should be considered. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) should take an active role in purchasing agreements, it’s proposed.
“Any bug, beacon, or backdoor put into our critical systems could allow for a catastrophic and devastating domino effect of failures throughout our networks. As this report shows, we have serious concerns about Huawei and ZTE, and their connection to the communist government of China. China is known to be the major perpetrator of cyber espionage, and Huawei and ZTE failed to alleviate serious concerns throughout this important investigation. American businesses should use other vendors” Mike Rogers, Chairman, House Intelligence Committee
The committee also saved some scolding for Huawei and ZTE’s perceived attempts to block investigations, with Huawei particularly singled out for a tongue-lashing. “Huawei, in particular, must become more transparent and responsive to U.S. legal obligations” the report insists, having “failed to provide thorough information about its corporate structure, history, ownership, operations, financial arrangements, or management.”
Chinese responsibility – although often only speculated at – for cyber attacks on US systems is responsible for fueling much of the concern within the report. “Recent cyber-attacks often emanate from China,” the committee suggests, “and even though precise attribution is a perennial challenge, the volume, scale, and sophistication often indicate state involvement.” Those attacks are often intended “to steal trade secrets and other sensitive proprietary data.”
As for security programs in operation elsewhere in the world, such as the Cyber Security Evaluation Centre formed in the UK with Huawei and the UK government, the US team argues that such projects can “create a false sense of security” as they encourage companies to bypass their own checks in deference to a perceived external validation of safety.
In addition, the committee casts doubt onto the usefulness of examining software/hardware in a single “snapshot” at any one point in its lifecycle, given that new functionality can be added at any time. That’s even before you get to malicious code that has been purposefully hidden. “If we also consider flaws intentionally inserted by a determined and clever insider,” the report argues, “the task becomes virtually impossible.”
“The Committee did not expect Huawei to prove that it has “no ties” to the government. Rather, in light of even experts’ lack of certainty about the state-run capitalist system in China, the Committee sought greater understanding of its actual relationship with the Chinese government. The Committee requested that Huawei support and prove its statements about its regulatory interaction by providing details and evidence explaining the nature of this formal interaction. Any company operating in the United States could very easily describe and produce evidence of the federal entities with which it must interact, including which government officials are their main points of contact at those regulatory agencies” House Intelligence Committee
US government systems and US government contractors, particularly those working on sensitive systems, should exclude any Huawei or ZTE equipment or component parts. Additionally, the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) must block acquisitions, takeovers, or mergers involving Huawei and ZTE given the threat to U.S. national security interests.
U.S. network providers and systems developers are strongly encouraged to seek other vendors for their projects.
Unfair trade practices of the Chinese telecommunications sector should be investigated by committees of jurisdiction in U.S. Congress and enforcement agencies in the Executive Branch. Particular attention should be paid to China’s continued financial support of key companies.
Chinese companies should quickly become more open and transparent. Huawei, in particular, must become more transparent and responsive to U.S. legal obligations.
Committees of jurisdiction in Congress should consider potential legislation to better address the risk posed by telecommunications companies with nation-state ties or otherwise not clearly trusted to build critical infrastructure, including increasing information-sharing among private sector entities and expanding a role for the CFIUS process to include purchasing agreements.
SpaceX and NASA have made history again, with the CRS-1 Dragon capsule successfully launching for its first supply mission to the International Space Station. The first time in history that a private American spacecraft has run such a flight for NASA, the blast-off – atop SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 rocket – marks the beginning of twelve missions to the ISS. According to the CRS-1 timescale, the Dragon capsule is expected to reach the ISS on Wednesday morning, October 7.
The launch itself took place at 8:30pm EDT from Cape Canaveral, though wasn’t entirely smooth. At T+80 seconds – roughly 1:30 into the video below – one of Falcon 9′s nine engines suffered some sort of failure, but the remaining rockets were undamaged and the systems compensated for the loss in thrust, meaning the Dragon capsule could still reach orbit.
SpaceX CRS-1 Launch to International Space Station:
On Wednesday, Dragon will fly up to the ISS and be snatched up by the space station’s robotic arm, manned by station commander Suni Williams. It contains 1,000 pounds of materials, which will be unloaded and replaced – over the course of around three weeks – with near 2,000 pounds of used materials and completed experiments that are to be shuttled back to Earth.
SpaceX CRS-1 Falcon 9 and Dragon Go Vertical:
Since NASA mothballed the Space Shuttles, it has been reliant on other countries to run service missions to the ISS, as well as to transport US astronauts to the orbiting station. However, plans have been in progress for some time to replace the Space Shuttle program with a more cost-effective and manageable alternative, of which SpaceX’s Dragon is one example. NASA has awarded SpaceX a $1.6bn deal for the dozen unmanned missions it will fly over the space of roughly a year.
Samsung’s new Galaxy Note II arrives with some heritage to explain it, though a 5.5-inch smartphone can still take some explaining. After its first-gen predecessor blustered its way into a new segment – known by some and loathed by others as “phablets” – the new model tweaks the formulae some, boosting performance, smoothing the design, and polishing the digital pen elements that help set it apart from the smartphone crowd. So, if the original Galaxy Note eventually answered the question “will it sell?” can the Samsung Galaxy Note II convince us that it’s a worthwhile upgrade? Read on for the full SlashGear review.
Hardware
Though twelve months old, the first Galaxy Note still doesn’t look too shabby in terms of specifications, and so the Note II generally tightens up the package and polishes off any glaringly rough edges. Design-wise, it’s now more akin to the Galaxy S III – all curves and fake chrome edges – than the model it replaces, and side-by-side the pair are obviously from the same family. At 80.5 x 151.1 x 9.4 mm and 182.5g, it’s slightly longer and heavier than the first Note, though also narrower and thinner; slimmer bezels have meant Samsung can fit a bigger display despite the only moderate size changes, now at 5.5-inches rather than 5.3-inches.
The panel itself continues to use HD Super AMOLED technology, though the resolution has changed: the Note II drops an 80-pixel column and trims things down to 1280 x 720 (rather than 1280 x 800). That means the Note II is actually showing less on-screen than before, despite the larger display, but it also makes it more directly compatible with apps for 720p smartphones, not to mention likely making Samsung’s own software engineers’ lives easier.
There’s more to the screen change than the size and resolution, however. Samsung has thrown out the contentious PenTile panel of before, maligned for its surfeit of green pixels, and replaced it with a brand new pixel layout that gets a step closer to true RGB. The end result is a far more balanced display that looks incredibly good: bright and color-rich, with the syrupy blacks we’re used to, and a crispness to text that’s distinctly better than what the first Note could manage. Samsung’s default color temperature remains more saturated than we’d like, but you can easily tweak that between four presets – dynamic, standard, natural, and movie – in the settings.
Inside there have been some advances too, with the Exynos processor now packing four cores and running at 1.6GHz. It’s paired with a healthy 2GB of RAM – something some, but not all, of the original Note versions offered – and either 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage, with a microSDHC card slot to bolster that. Samsung’s default battery is also considerably improved, at 3,100 mAh up almost a quarter over the handset it replaces, and that gives plenty of juice for the surfeit of radios.
HSPA+ 21Mbps and LTE 100Mbps will be offered, though the 4G versions will be country-dependent; all models get Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX high-quality audio support, WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) with WiFi Direct, NFC, and USB 2.0 Host for hooking up accessories like external storage. There’s also A-GPS and Glonass positioning, an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor, gyroscope, and a barometer, while a multicolor LED light hides up near the earpiece.
Two cameras are included, an 8-megapixel main shooter on the back with an LED flash, backside-illuminated sensor, and Full HD video recording, and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, also with a backside-illuminated sensor, itself also capable of 1080p video. A 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top edge; the microUSB port is on the bottom, as is the bay for the stylus (more on which in a moment). Samsung persists in putting the volume rocket and the power/lock key on the sides of the Note II – left and right edges respectively – but they’ve been shuffled further down the body than before, and are easier to press when holding the phone around the middle.
Still, this is undoubtedly a large phone, and our recommendation with the original Note to try before you buy still holds true second time around. The slightly narrower form-factor does make a mild difference in hand-feel, as do the curvier corners, though it can be a stretch reaching down to the menu and back soft-keys – flanking a squashed home/task-switcher button – if you’re trying for single-handed use. Those with a fondness for skinny jeans may find the Note II altogether too much for comfort, though the slick, gloss-finish plastic, while not as premium in its feel as the brushed metal of the iPhone 5, does mean the Samsung can slip friction-free into the tighter of crevices.
Stylus
Ever since the iPhone launched, we’ve seen attempts to pair capacitive touchscreens with styli, but Samsung looked beyond dreary finger-mimicry with the Note’s digital pen. Instead, it turned to digitizer expert Wacom – known for its high-quality graphics tablets – for the active digitizer that accompanies the Note II’s capacitive screen. It means you can use the Note II with your finger, as you’d expect, but also whip out its pen and get far more precise input as well as pressure sensitivity, useful if you’re sketching or using handwriting recognition.
For the new Note II, the stylus itself has had an overhaul. It’s now thicker and longer than the previous version (though still fits snugly inside the body of the phone) and the tip has a new coating that’s kinder to the screen and feels more like a ballpoint pen when you’re writing. The difference in barrel width does make a difference to comfort, now less like pinching a pen refill between your fingertips, though the button on the side – which can be used to call up sub-menus of commands, app depending – still takes a little getting used to.
Samsung now supports hover with the pen, the display recognizing that the nib is floating a half-centimeter or so above the display. It gives the Note II a second degree of input: like positioning your computer cursor over an icon or control, but not actually clicking it. In Samsung’s case, the actual functionality varies depending on the app, though it means you can see things like calendar event details without having to actually tap into the appointment, preview the content of a message from the inbox list, or look inside a gallery album. You can also use hover to scroll through lists, holding the nib near the end to automatically slide through the options.
Software and Performance
Launching a new Android phone running anything other than the latest version of the OS, particularly when it’s a flagship, is grounds for a severe scolding, so thankfully the Note II runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box. For a long time we’ve been critical of companies who redress Android in their own custom interfaces, but TouchWiz on the Galaxy Note II does at least bring functionality beyond what Jelly Bean alone delivers.
The most obvious of those changes are aesthetic, but as you spend more time with the Note II – particularly with the pen – you see the tweaks and touches that go beyond design. Many of those are familiar from the original Note, of course: you still get the S Planner calendar app, which allows you to circle dates with the stylus and generally scrawl across your agenda, and S Note with its notebooks of memos, diary entries, meeting notes, and more. S Note content can be synchronized with Google Docs or Evernote, too, which makes it far more useful than traditional notes trapped in physical notebook.
Samsung Galaxy Note II software review:
Samsung’s stylus can also be used to grab sections of the display as screenshots. There’s support for the hand-side-swipe to grab a full screenshot, just as on the Galaxy S III, but you can also hold down the barrel button of the pen and snip out a shape – as basic as a circle or square, or something more finicky – and then annotate it or add it to a notebook. S Note has various preset shapes and clipart, too, and you can add voice recordings, sections of maps, photos, video, and other attachments to each note.
New is Quick Command, summoned by holding down the barrel button and swiping up the display; it works no matter what app you’re currently in, and brings up a floating dialog for pen-triggered shortcuts. Write a question mark, for instance, followed by “weather” and you’ll get a browser search for the current weather; write “@” and a name, and a new email will open up with suggestions as to the recipient from your contacts (if you’ve only one contact with that name, they’ll automatically be selected). Somewhat annoyingly, given the excellent Gmail app is one of the boons of Android, Quick Command’s email composer only works with the customized regular email application. Samsung preconfigures a number of shortcuts, but you can also train it to recognize your own.
If you’d rather not use handwriting recognition – which requires reasonable penmanship – there’s a spacious onscreen keyboard which becomes practically obscene in its size when the Note II is in landscape orientation. New for this second-gen model, though, is the ability to offset the keyboard for one-handed use: you can choose to shrink it down and nudge it over to the left or the right of the phone, making it easier to tap with your thumb while holding the Note II with the same hand. It’s an interesting approach, and worked fairly well, though the sheer size of the handset does mean it requires some balancing to keep it from toppling out of your hand.
S Voice, Samsung’s answer to Siri, is present, and triggered by default by a double-press of the home button. It’s still patchy in its usefulness, however, and we had mixed results day to day; since the processing is all done server-side, it’s possible for Samsung to upgrade and add new features just as Apple did with Siri in iOS 6, though the functionality appears to be unchanged versus what we saw on the Galaxy S III.
New with Jelly Bean, though, is Google Now, Android’s attempt to bring some context and prediction to the platform. It’s triggered from an icon in the task-switcher menu – hold down the home button and you’ll see it, flanked by a shortcut to the task killer and a button to axe all the currently running apps. As on the Galaxy Nexus, where we first saw it, Google Now is of mixed use, and you need to have invested your digital life in Google’s service if you want to get the best out of it. If you’ve set up your calendar, for instance, Google Now will remind you of an upcoming appointment and help you with directions to get there, as well as telling you the weather. It’s still early days for mobile context engines, but we’re glad to see it show up on the Note II.
Jelly Bean’s other improvements are included too. There’s Project Butter behind the scenes, keeping the interface moving slickly, and the Note II did indeed keep up with every swipe. If we ever had any hiccups it was usually down to the sheer size of the display; swiping an unwanted notification from the drop-down menu, for instance (now with a handy preview of the content of new messages) required just a little bit more of a flick than we would do by default, meaning it would sometimes take a couple of tries before it disappeared. Given time, though, we’d expect to get used to that.
In addition to Google’s own Android backup, Samsung has added in support for its Cloud service. Register for a free Samsung account, and you can sync your calendar, contacts, internet history, and S Note data; you can also do device backups, of logs, SMS and MMS messaging, and wallpapers, either on-demand or according to a regular schedule. If you’d rather not use Samsung’s cloud, there’s baked-in support for Dropbox instead.
Multi Window borrows from the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, pitting two apps side-by-side on the display. Unlike on the Note 10.1, there’s no noticeable performance hit, and it’s useful being able to quickly review a webpage while jotting reminders in S Note, or keep an eye on an IM conversation.
We had high hopes for the Note II’s performance, and the reality didn’t disappoint. Day-to-day it’s smooth and lag-free, capable of handling any app we could throw at it. In terms of raw numbers, we saw a score of 5908 in Quadrant and 1829 in Vellamo 2′s HTML5 tests and 635 in its Metal tests, while SunSpider came in at 1044.7ms. In short, this is one of the fastest, slickest Android devices around.
Camera
The Note II shares the same camera with the Galaxy S III, an 8-megapixel backside-illuminated sensor with autofocus and an LED flash on the back, and a 1.9-megapixel webcam on the front. As with the smaller phone, it’s capable of some great shots, though it can sometimes tend toward over-exposure and we saw some interesting lens flare when trying to shoot brighter scenes. Close-up shots do particularly well, though, and while sometimes blue skies looked over-saturated on the Note II’s display, they were more realistic when we viewed them off the phone.
Samsung provides an HDR mode, which combines shots of various exposures to make one with artificially broader dynamic range, together with a burst shot mode for grabbing multiple frames in rapid succession. Panoramic capture is supported, again, just as on the Galaxy S III. There’s control over exposure, brightness, and other basics, together with the usual array of filters.
Video, meanwhile, is captured at up to 1080p Full HD resolution whether with the front or back cameras, and marks another solid showing by the Note II. There’s little in the way of motion blur, even with faster moving scenes, and the Note II can handle reasonably low-light scenes without descending into too much noise and grain. Stereo audio is also captured.
1080p Full HD video sample:
With support for MHL-HDMI output, with the right adapter you’ll be able to hook up the Note II to a display or projector and review whatever footage you’ve recorded. Alternatively, there’s Samsung’s AllShare technology for wireless streaming, either to the company’s own HDTV dongle, or to any DLNA-compliant device.
Phone and Battery
Holding a device of this size to your head and making voice calls is still a good way to feel self-conscious in public, though the growing popularity of the original Note means there’s less of that “talking into a tablet” conspicuousness than before. We experienced no dropped calls on the Vodafone network. The extra length of the Note II does mean the microphone and earpiece are well spaced, and voice calls in general were of high quality. The speakerphone, too, proved loud and resilient to crackle. If you really do feel too ridiculous holding the Note II to the side of your head, there’s Bluetooth for wireless headsets, and the aptX support meant, when tested with an aptX-compatible stereo headset, music playback quality was noticeably improved.
Samsung has outfitted the Note II with a vast battery – 3,100 mAh, and since it’s user-replaceable you could feasibly swap it out for another – though the big display and quadcore processor means it’s not shy about drinking power. Nonetheless, even with a day of heavy use – including push email turned on, using the camera and then automatically uploading photos and video to the cloud, Google Maps, the browser, some sketching with the pen, and a couple of YouTube videos, not to mention a couple of short calls and some SMS messaging – we reached the end of the day with juice to spare.
There are new power management tools on the Note II, too, with the existing Power Saving mode (which dims the screen and throttles back the processor, among other things) joined by a new Blocking Mode. That allows you to shut off incoming calls and notifications, alerts from the alarm or timer, and even whether the LED notification light blinks, either permanently or within certain hours. It’s ideal if you leave your phone on your nightstand when you’re sleeping and don’t want to be perpetually disturbed by bleeps and flashing, particularly because you can also set a list of priority contacts who will be allowed through the lockdown.
With some sensible use of the settings, then, you could feasibly have two days of use on a charge, though that will depend on how much you use 3G (on this European-spec model; US versions will have LTE, which is even more power-hungry) and other features.
Wrap-Up
For some, the original Galaxy Note was a monstrosity: not quite a phone, not quite a tablet, and not standing any chance at all of ending up in their pocket or bag. They’re unlikely to be any more convinced by this refined, faster successor, since the main criticisms are the same: it’s big, it’s heavier than many phones, and it often requires two hands to use it properly.
Those not immediately turned off by the Note II’s size have a more tempting prospect ahead of them. The new phone offers a bigger display and better pen functionality, not to mention a jump in core performance and – until Samsung can push out OS updates – a newer and more user-friendly version of Android and TouchWiz than its predecessor. It’s nicer to look at and hold, faster in use, and lasts longer; most importantly, it takes greater advantage of the digital pen, something which continues to set the Note II apart from most of the competition.
First time around, Samsung had to convince us there was still a place for the stylus with today’s smartphones. That ice has already been broken for the Galaxy Note II, and while its audience is undoubtedly smaller than for the Galaxy S III, perhaps, or the iPhone 5, those opting for Samsung’s biggest smartphone will find themselves with a handset whose capabilities are even bigger than its display.
Apple has revealed a video tribute to Steve Jobs, to mark the one year anniversary of his death, complete with a personal message from CEO Tim Cook describing the company as “one of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world.” The video, which has taken over the homepage of Apple’s site today, chronicles the various high-profile and in many cases pivotal launches Jobs made as head of the company, including the iPhone, iMac, and iPod.
Each of those launches marked a turning point in the consumer electronics industry, reframing the world of smartphones, home computing, and portable music. “No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself” Cook writes in his open letter, and going on to describe more recent launches since Steve’s death as “a wonderful tribute” to what the outspoken chief exec stood for.
Although a contentious figure in the electronics world, and one who refused to accept compromise in many ways, Jobs has been widely recognized by Apple fans and rivals alike as having a huge impact on the industry. His attitudes towards quality, usability, and design have left Apple is a privileged place when it comes to value and success, at odds with the struggles other firms are facing.
Steve’s passing one year ago today was a sad and difficult time for all of us. I hope that today everyone will reflect on his extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place.
One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple. No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself. Our values originated from Steve and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We share the great privilege and responsibility of carrying his legacy into the future.
I’m incredibly proud of the work we are doing, delivering products that our customers love and dreaming up new ones that will delight them down the road. It’s a wonderful tribute to Steve’s memory and everything he stood for.
Samsung announced record profits of $7.3bn for the last quarter, setting a new personal-best for the firm, though it warned that stronger competition from the iPhone 5 means the good news may not last. Samsung almost doubled profits from a year previous, strengthening its position with the Galaxy S III and other high-profile Android devices, though it won’t detail specifics until it releases full-quarter results by October 26. In the meantime, there are some big bills to be paid.
For instance, there’s the contentious $1bn fine Samsung has been told to pay Apple, after a San Jose jury ruled that the South Korean company had slavishly copied its Cupertino rival’s iOS product design. Samsung will appeal the ruling, though there’s no telling how the appeals court will decide.
For the full year, Samsung expects profit to hit $25bn. That could also leave it facing a higher than usual bonus round for its global workforce, Reuters reports, under performance-related payment schemes.
The arrival of the iPhone 5 is likely to give Samsung the biggest headache, however, with Apple facing so much demand for its new smartphone that it is struggling to keep it in stock. Samsung’s Galaxy S III has become the de facto Android device to challenge the iPhone, with sales actually jumping in number initially despite Apple’s lawsuit and the increased attention on the iPhone refresh.
Samsung also has a close relationship with Google, though it’s speculated that the search firm will partner with another company for its next Nexus “own brand” Android handset, breaking a two-device run with Samsung.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has dismissed concerns that the Lumia 920 will suffer from not being Microsoft’s “signature” Windows Phone, with HTC instead taking that crown, arguing that the perceived advantage is “ambiguous.” Asked whether Nokia felt slighted or sidelined at HTC inking a deal with Microsoft to put the Windows Phone 8X and 8S at the core of its new advertising campaign, Elop insisted that there’s more to Lumia than just Windows Phone itself. “We could have called our devices Windows Phone 920 or whatever,” the chief exec told Wired, ”but we felt it was important to say that we stand for something a step above.”
That “step above” could consist of wireless charging, location-based services, photography under the PureView brand, or something else, but whatever it is it’s over and above the basics of the OS, Elop argues.
Mildly spanking rivals while remaining loyal to Windows Phone overall has become something of a habit for Elop in recent weeks. Speaking to GigaOm earlier this month, he countered suggestions that the rumored Microsoft own-brand Surface Windows Phone 8 might damage Nokia’s prospects.
“I don’t think it changes the relationship” Elop said of Nokia and Microsoft’s partnership, should a Surface phone appear. “It’s incumbent upon us at all points in time to build the world’s most innovative smartphones. Which is what we believe we’ve done, for example, with the Lumia 920. That’s something that’s done based on years and years of work, and years of investment in what makes great mobile devices.”
In fact, Elop is doubtful that Microsoft taking the sudden decision to lead the Windows Phone device parade, Google Nexus-style, would actually work out too well, because it takes significant periods of time to develop compelling features. “The reason the Lumia 920 is standing out so well amongst the competition, one of the reasons is the imaging capability, this low-light photography capability” he points out. “That’s five or six years of work in our labs, engineers doing nothing else but working on that technology. Saying, “oh, this year, we’re going to do our own phone,” doesn’t allow you to do that. You have to make those investments over a period of time.”
Those investments may well expand to encompass a more holistic ecosystem of devices than simple smartphones. Asked about the possibility of tablets or, further afield, TVs and other product lines, Elop was coy on plans but honest about the gap in Nokia’s current portfolio. “We haven’t announced anything specifically, but what I will say is that people in their digital experience expect to be able to move seamlessly between form factors like a phone, a tablet, a television, an automobile, on and on and on. So we’ll participate in different elements of that to a greater or lesser extent.”
Don’t expect a tablet immediately, however, as Nokia focuses on getting a solid start in smartphones. “The ecosystem in which we’re involved, we’ve got to be a part of a world where people are experiencing all of those things. Everything’s got to hang together” the CEO points out. “So yes, there’s a lot of opportunity there.”
Nokia and AT&T announced earlier today that the Lumia 920 would be ranged by the carrier as an exclusive in the US, the second time AT&T has been the sole place to pick up a flagship Lumia Windows Phone. Although rival brands have had great success broadly spreading their devices across multiple networks, Nokia has previously insisted that its strategy of focusing marketing and sales training on one specific carrier has paid dividends as it attempts to reposition itself in the smartphone marketplace.
Facebook has passed one billion active users, social network founder Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed, of which 600m are mobile users. The new milestone again sees Facebook’s average age of users fall, now down to 22 versus 23 when Facebook hit 500m users in July 2010; according to the site, it has seen over 1.13 trillion “Likes” since the February 2009 launch.
“If you’re reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you” Zuckerberg wrote today of the announcement. “Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life. I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.”
There are 140.3bn friend connections, including check-ins and location-tagged posts, and Facebook now has a total of 219bn photos uploaded. Counting images that have since been deleted, 265bn images have been uploaded to the site since fall of 2005.
Other stats include 17bn location-tagged posts, and 62.6m songs played a total of 22bn times overall. Zuckerberg told Businessweek that the celebrations were relatively low-key: “Well, just everyone came together and counted down” the founder said, “then we all went back to work. We have this ethos where we want to be a culture of builders, right?”
Next up, though, isn’t necessarily chasing more membership numbers, but using the shared data more effectively. According to Zuckerberg, that may well involve commerce:
“So for the next five or 10 years the question isn’t going to be, does Facebook get to 2 billion or 3 billion? I mean, that’s obviously one question. But the bigger question is, what services can get built now that every company can assume they can get access to knowing who everyone’s friends are. I think that’s going to be really transformative. We’ve already seen some of that in games and media, music, TV, video, that type of stuff. But I think there’s about to be a big push in commerce” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
Google has updated Google Maps on the web with Street View functionality, allowing iPhone 5 and other iOS 6 users to again access the street-level photography missing from Apple’s own Maps app. The new feature, which Google confirmed was incoming late last month, works on the iPhone and iPad, adding a Street View icon to the toolbar at the bottom of the page.
Clicking that button brings up a new tab in the iOS browser with Street View photography. Navigation is via the usual arrow buttons, with floating street names and other details overlaid; closing the tab returns you to the regular map.
Interestingly, loading up maps.google.com in Android does not bring up the same Street View icon. Instead, users of Android phones and tablets need to go to the dedicated Google Maps app to access the service. [Update: You can in fact access Street View in the Android browser version, but you need to drop a pin on the map first; the Street View icon does not show up by default as it does in the iOS browser] Google has said that it is working on a Google Maps for iOS app, though that isn’t expected to be released until later in the year.
As well as apologizing for the poor reception of Maps, Apple has also made it straightforward for iOS 6 users to use alternative mapping providers. There is now a featured section for recommended downloads from the App Store, including MotionX, Waze, Mapquest, and TeleNav, while Apple also suggested adding homescreen shortcuts to Google Maps or Nokia Maps as web-based alternatives.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
