As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
Hands-on: Power Support Air Jacket for iPhone 5s, iPad Air
Finding the right case to protect your gadgets can be an expensive hit-or-miss affair. With plastic smartphone cases typically priced at around $20-$30 and tablet cases typically priced at around $30-$40, it can be an expensive mistake if you end up with one that you aren’t happy with. Power Support is a Japanese-based company that has been making Apple accessories for the past few years. In particular, they are known for developing relatively thin and light, translucent polycarbonate cases for Apple’s iPhone and iPad range that are popular because they help to preserve the beautiful appearan
Cook: iPhone 5c, not 5s, was fastest-growing phone in June quarter
One of the most surprising things analysts heard on Tuesday in Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call that was low on surprises was that year-over-year growth of the iPhone 5c is strong — so strong, in fact, that its share gain outpaced that of its previous-year rival in the mid-tier “slot” in Apple’s lineup, the iPhone 4S, at the same point in the previous cycle. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts that it even outpaced the growth rate of the iPhone 5s vs the iPhone 5, and the 4S versus the iPhone 4, each in their respective tiers.
StubHub Says It Was Victim Of Cyber Fraud Ring; Arrests To Be Announced
By Deepa Seetharaman and Jim Finkle
SEATTLE/BOSTON (Reuters) – eBay Inc’s StubHub online ticket resale service said it was the victim of a massive international cyber fraud ring, the details of which authorities plan to disclose on Wednesday as they announce arrests in the case.
StubHub’s head of global communications, Glenn Lehrman, told Reuters late on Tuesday that his firm has been working with law enforcement around the world for the last year on the case.
Lehrman said he could not say how much money was involved or how many people were being charged ahead of announcements planned by authorities in several countries on Wednesday.
Fraudulent charges were posted after hackers obtained user credentials by hacking into other sites, then used them to log in StubHub, he said.
“We did not have anyone who hacked into our system,” Lehrman said.
He said the schemes involved a “pretty intense network of cyber fraudsters working in concert with each other.”
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance will announce details about the arrests along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the City of London Police and the U.S. Secret Service, according to a release from Vance’s office on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s office declined to elaborate.
(Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Joseph Ax in NEW YORK; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Christopher Cushing)
Electronic Arts earnings surge 51%
US video game publisher Electronic Arts reports a 51% jump in profit for the April-to-June quarter, boosted by strong sales of titles like Titanfall and FIFA 2014.
I Tried Amazon's Fire Phone — Here's Why I Won't Buy It
I’ve been using the Fire Phone, the long-anticipated smartphone from Amazon, for the last few days. It’s a fine phone …
The 4.7-inch screen is significantly bigger than one on my puny iPhone 5S, and it’s been a pleasure for reading, browsing Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and making calls and texting. It has a fast processor and the camera takes decent pictures. I like the way it fits in my hand. It’s a lot like any similarly priced, newly released smartphone.
… But I’m not going to buy it.
Amazon reportedly spent four years working on the Fire Phone. The retail giant is releasing it on Thursday, only on the AT&T network, with a starting price of $199 with a contract, or $649 without. The high price tag surprised many when Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the phone last month in Seattle. After all, Amazon is competing on price with the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S5, premium devices from the undisputed rulers of the smartphone market. And the price is a departure from the company’s past approach to selling devices. Amazon sells its Kindle line of eReaders and tablets at cost, profiting when people buy books and other goods on Amazon.
Like its Kindles, the point of the Fire Phone is to get you to buy stuff on Amazon.
And it’s incredibly easy. All you have to do is push a button on the side of the device, point the phone’s camera at an object or its barcode, and — just like that — the Amazon product page appears, allowing you to buy with the tap of a finger. This feature, which Amazon calls “revolutionary,” also can recognize phone numbers, email address, songs, TV shows and movies.
“Firefly” recognizes products, making it very easy to buy them on Amazon.
It’s impressive at first, and fun to show to other people, but I found that I had little practical use for it. It’s not a feature that would make me want to get the Fire Phone.
Amazon did give me a reason NOT to buy its phone, however: The Fire Phone’s operating system.
Don’t get me wrong — Fire OS, Amazon’s Android-based-but-not-actually-Android operating system — is incredibly easy to use. Easier, I think, than Android itself. And if you have questions about your phone — how to set up your email, how to take a screenshot, anything — you can tap the incredibly useful “Mayday” button for 24/7 help from a live tech support person.
But since it’s not Android, you don’t have access to Android’s huge app store. That’s an issue because Amazon’s app store, although growing, is only a fraction of the size of Google’s and Apple’s.
A lot of the big apps are there — Facebook, Instagram, Pandora and Spotify, for example. But hundreds of thousands aren’t.
Here’s how this affected my life over the last few days. Each morning when I walk to the subway on my way to work, I like to use the WNYC app to listen to my local NPR station. But there’s no WNYC app for the Fire Phone.
On the train, I catch up on The New York Times, but that app’s also absent from the Amazon app store.
Snapchat, the wildly popular ephemeral messaging service, is also missing.
Amazon said it’s “in discussions” with The Times and Snapchat, and a WNYC app is “targeted.” The company didn’t give a timeline.
Like millions of people, I rely heavily on Google. But no Google services are available on the Fire Phone. That means Fire Phone owners can’t use the many apps Google offers, like Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Authenticator or Google Drive. Amazon says Google “is welcome to submit their apps at any time to the app store.”
Amazon’s maps app could not locate Col du Lautaret in the French Alps when the search was one letter off.
Google Maps is without a doubt the best mapping application. Just think back to the outrage directed at Apple when it removed Google Maps from the iPhone two years ago. I use Google Maps, whether I’m using an iPhone or Android, and don’t want to use another mapping program. But there’s no Google Maps on Amazon’s phone.
You’re stuck with Amazon’s own maps app, which I had a mixed experience with. It navigated successfully to the beach on Saturday, but while watching the Tour de France earlier in the day, it returned no results for a search for “Col de Lautaret,” a mountain the cyclists climbed in that stage of the race. I inadvertently misspelled it — it’s “Col du Lautaret.” But even spelled incorrectly, Google knew what I meant and showed me exactly where it is in the French Alps.
I also found myself longing for the Gmail app instead of Amazon’s mail app. The familiar (and polarizing) “primary” “social” and “promotions” tabs don’t carry over to Amazon’s app — Amazon says this is Google’s doing — so all your email is grouped together. Even after a few days, I didn’t get used to this.
Along with Firefly, Amazon is pushing something it’s calling “Dynamic Perspective” as a feature that differentiates Fire Phone from the competition. Dynamic Perspective uses sensors to track how you hold and move the phone. This allows some images — notably on the phone’s lock screen — to appear like they’re moving with you, or that your view is changing when you move your head or the phone. But what’s more useful is that it gives you one-handed control of the phone. When you’re texting or emailing, a twist of the wrist brings up the photo gallery, so you can easily add a photo. When you’re in the home screen, a twist one way gives you an easy view of the weather and your calendar, and a twist the other way gives you access to the app store, games, music, videos and, of course, Amazon Prime.
Dynamic Perspective takes a bit of time to master — errant wrist flicks bring up menus at the wrong time. But it’s a nice feature.
Amazon is asking a lot of customers who switch to the Fire Phone — learning a new phone operating system, and giving up familiar Google products and access to huge app stores. That’s a tough sell. People are fiercely loyal to their operating systems. According to a survey by 451 Research/Yankee Group, 93 percent of current iPhone owners intend to stay with Apple, and 79 percent of Android owners intend to stay with Android.
I doubt that Firefly, Dynamic Perspective and easy shopping on Amazon is going to seriously test that loyalty.
It’s not enough to test mine.
Memphis Businessman Allegedly Raped Woman On Job Interview In His Home (GRAPHIC CONTENT)
Recently released police documents detail an alleged grotesque rape of a mother of four who wanted a housekeeping job in the home of a Memphis businessman.
The suspect is the businessman himself, Mark Giannini, the co-founder of IT company Secvice Assurance, according to WREG . He allegedly repeatedly raped a 26-year-old for several hours until she blacked out on June 19.
Police seized a trove of sex toys, women’s underwear, prescription drugs and firearms from the 49-year-old’s Eads, Tennessee home and a Lamborghini sports car, according to the newly released Shelby County Sheriff’s department files reported by WMC.
(Complete copies of the report can be read here, though readers should be aware it contains a graphic description of the alleged rape.)
The woman told sheriff’s investigators she allowed Giannini to drive her to his home for an overview of the house cleaning and office work he needed someone to do.
Giannini allegedly served her “a drink that tastes like a pop-up.” The woman told Giannini that she wanted to leave but he began kissing her aggressively and pulling her hair.
The crime report says Giannini performed several sexual acts on the woman against her will and forced her to consume urine, blood and fecal matter, telling her it was part the job interview, according to WBTV.
The woman says she blacked out and doesn’t know how she got back to her room in a nearby Motel 6 where her family found her.
Relatives brought her to a hospital where ER staff said she was frothing at the mouth and exhibiting symptoms similar to someone who had overdosed on drugs.
An attorney for Giannini said his client is not guilty and claims he was set up, according to WNCN.
Detectives arrived at Giannini’s gated home on June 23, but a man who answered the intercom system said the suspect was not home and he refused to allow the investigators to enter the property, according to another affidavit. The detectives forced themselves onto the grounds and found wet footprints leading into the woods from the back of the home.
Giannini soon presented himself to officers on the street outside of his home. He was “perspiring profusely and had fresh cuts and scratches on his legs,” according to a detective’s sworn statement.
The subsequent search turned up more than $16,000 in cash, 24 firearms and various pills of Viagra, Xanax, hydrocodone and other medications.
Detectives also removed an inventory of items spanning several pages that includes samples of human hair, boxes and baskets of women’s panties and shoes sorted by size, a sheriff’s badge and ID , handcuffs, duct tape, sex toys and nipple clamps.
Giannini has been charged with two counts of aggravated rape, two counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of a firearm, according to Fox 13.
He was released after posting $150,000 bond.
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Sexual Assault Witnesses At Occidental College Subjected To Vile Harassment Emails
On June 6, a stranger from Powersite, Missouri, emailed a female witness to a sexual assault case at Occidental College in Los Angeles to complain she represented “what’s worst about America.”
Two days earlier, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties nonprofit known as FIRE that mostly focuses on free speech issues, had announced it was working with a John Doe who was suing Occidental. Doe, a pseudonym for an anonymous freshman, was expelled in December after Occidental found him responsible for sexual assault. FIRE contended in an email blast to followers that the expulsion lacked due process for the accused.
“What kind of a radical fucking man hating dyke are you?” the angry stranger asked the witness in the email. “Please, slice your goddamn wrists, nail your pussy shut and go wait tables before you harm someone else. It’s bitches and whores like you who give women a bad name.” (The witness requested anonymity for this story an attempt to avoid further harassment.)
The email author presumably got the witness’ name through a confidential investigator’s report that FIRE had posted online, along with its announcement supporting Doe. The report was prepared by an independent attorney hired by the college to investigate the sexual assault allegation filed against Doe by a female freshman, whose name was redacted. The woman had sex with Doe on Sept. 8, 2013, but she and witnesses contend she was too drunk to consent.
Since FIRE’s publication of the report on June 4, at least four of nine witnesses named in the document have received harassment online. One now plans to transfer to another school.
“How can you feel anything but terror when you read through these vile comments online that are only directed at the survivor and the women in this case?” the witness who received the Missouri email told HuffPost.
Occidental faces intense pressure to improve how it handles sexual violence on campus.
In the spring of 2013, a group of 37 students, alumni and faculty filed two federal complaints against Occidental for its alleged failures handling such cases. Occidental is among 68 colleges currently under investigation by the Education Department over similar concerns. Some of the women who have publicly come forward against the private California college have faced harassment in the form of scurrilous emails and social media messages — similar to what other women around the country have reported experiencing after filing their own complaints.
But in the case highlighted by FIRE, no one initially attempted to go public. The reported victim, who was 17 at the time, never wanted to speak to the press — and still doesn’t. None of the witnesses were aware that their participation in a confidential investigation would be posted online for anyone to read, and picked up by news outlets like the Los Angeles Times and Fox News.
Attorneys for Occidental asked FIRE in June to take down the investigator’s report, saying it was taken from the college’s “secure system” in violation of school policy.
Complainants and respondents “are prohibited from downloading, copying, distributing or retaining those records,” Occidental spokeswoman Samantha Bonar told HuffPost. “The investigative report was one such record in this case, and the College believes that it was removed from the ‘view-only’ website in violation of College policy.”
Aidan Dougherty, a male witness interviewed for the case, who agreed to speak on the record for this article, said disclosure of witness names sends a message. “Future witnesses might not step forward or tell the whole truth because they do not want their friends and family — let alone the world — to know that they had been drinking or smoking the night of an incident, all important pieces to a testimony,” he said. Several other witnesses either declined to comment or could not be reached for this story.
The alleged victim reported the incident to the college and the police a week after it occurred, on Sept. 16, 2013. Local prosecutors declined to press charges, but the college launched an investigation that resulted in finding Doe responsible for sexual assault in December. Doe sued Occidental on Feb. 19, 2014.
A series of text messages submitted to the court show both parties were aware they were engaging in sexual acts. But the questions are whether the woman was too drunk to comprehend the situation, and whether the accused assailant should have realized she was too intoxicated to consent. FIRE and the lawsuit say it’s unfair to blame Doe because both individuals were intoxicated, and allege the college was quick to punish him in an attempt to mute criticism of school amid the ongoing federal investigation.
Occidental hadn’t done much initially to protect the confidential investigator’s report, but tried to after the FIRE’s involvement escalated publicity of the case.
The document has since been submitted to Los Angeles Superior Court as part of the lawsuit and is accessible to anyone. Occidental’s request to seal the portions of the lawsuit was denied in June, with a judge declaring, “I don’t understand why [it] is so pressing in June when it wasn’t so pressing in February.”
Dougherty said publishing the names of witnesses leaves Doe and the reported victim vulnerable as well.
“FIRE may have omitted the names of the survivor and the perpetrator, but the fact that they publicized the witnesses’ names nullified everyone’s privacy,” Doughery said. “It does not take a lot to put two and two together to find out who the omitted persons are when you include the names of both their roommates, the residence hall they live in, and their room number.”
None of the parties involved have taken responsibility for making the confidential documents public.
“John Doe’s attorney has refused to answer the question of how they obtained a copy of the ‘view-only’ investigative report, and FIRE thus far has refused to remove it from its website,” said Bonar, the Occidental spokeswoman.
Doe’s attorneys declined to explain to HuffPost how they got the investigator’s report. They said it was necessary to submit it to the court, where it became open record, “in order to appeal Occidental College’s administrative decision to expel the student.”
Robert Shibley, FIRE senior vice president, declined to remove the investigator’s report from his group’s website for the same reason he supported the judge’s denial for sealing portions of the lawsuit. “The public interest lies in transparency, especially when the charge is so serious and the procedure is as flawed and unjust as it was in this case,” Shibley said in an email to HuffPost.
“I am sorry to hear that people are allegedly being harassed for their involvement in the Occidental case,” Shibley said. “As should be obvious, FIRE is in no way responsible for such activity and neither encourages nor facilitates such activity.”
Fly on the Facebook wall documentary
How to make a documentary in the social media age
Apple Q3 breakdown shows biggest growth in China
In addition to its official announcement, Apple has also posted a detailed breakdown of its fiscal Q3 results. “Greater China” — including Taiwan and Hong Kong — continued to lead the charge regionally, with its revenue increasing 28 percent year-over-year to $5.935 billion. Europe and Asia-Pacific each advanced 6 percent, to $8.091 billion and $2.161 billion, respectively. Apple’s most important market, the Americas, rose 1 percent to $14.577 billion. Global retail numbers were up 1 percent to $4.104 billion.
Microsoft profit falls on Nokia loss
Technology giant Microsoft reports a 7% fall in profits to $4.6bn in the second quarter, hit by a $692m loss at its newly-acquired Nokia handset division.
The 'Seinfeld' Emoji Are Here, And They're Spectacular
No wait for you! The “Seinfeld” emoji have arrived!
Earlier this month, it was announced that the guys behind the Seinfeld2000 Twitter and Instagram accounts developed a new set of emoji inspired by the show, and now they’re here and available for a free download on iTunes. Giddy up!
Technically these aren’t traditional emoji since they’re currently available through an app rather than your iPhone’s keyboard; however, you can still write out the message you want, save it and then post to social media or text, according to Death and Taxes.
Android support will reportedly be added if demand is high enough.
Check out some of the emoji in the slideshow below, and yada yada yada, visit iTunes to download the app.
Apple reaps $37.43 billion in third-quarter revenues
Apple revenues rose 6 percent year-over-year to $37.43 billion in its third fiscal quarter, which ended in June, the company has announced. Profits were up 12.3 percent to $7.75 billion, while earnings per share climbed from $1.07 to $1.28 when adjusted for the recent 7-to-1 stock split. Gross margin increased from 36.9 percent to 39.4 percent.
Dropping the Needle: Disruptive Innovation and Higher Education
More than 30 years ago I would huddle with other music majors at our college’s music library, the cords from our headphones stretching over each other’s record players as we tried to cram a semester of classical music listening into a few hours at the end of the term. We know our professor would randomly “drop the needle” on records during our final exam, challenging us to identify a composition and its composer by its structure, instrumentation, motifs and harmony. The music library of our generation was a room with 12-inch records, record players, and headphones.
There was some great bonding that came from roaming the small library, stretching our headphone cords all the while, comparing notes on our strategies to recognize open fifths, plagal cadences, Mozart’s use of the clarinet, or Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” chord. In the end, one learned to recognize the compositional attributes that made a piece a chanson, a sonata, a recitative, through-composed, atonal, and so on. You were trying to make sense of an aural landscape having been dropped in the middle of it. It was very exciting, stressful, and chaotic.
In much the same way I am trying to make sense of our era during a sabbatical from my day-to-day responsibilities at Marymount California University. I had committed early on to trying to get up-to-date on literature regarding wellness, resilience and disruptive innovation. I started this week with a pile of New Yorker magazines, trying to ease myself back with a predictably high-quality publication that offers the occasional cartoon chuckle. I got lucky because, over the course of a couple of issues, I got a sense of how the American higher education sector feels about disruptive innovation.
Disruption theory comes from the business literature, but it has been co-opted by other sectors as it provides a framing device that helps us make sense of the fast-paced 21st century. Harvard professor Jill Lepore’s article, “The Disruption Machine,” along with the letters to the editor that followed, goes after the theory put forward by her Harvard colleague, Clayton M. Christensen. While some subscribe to the theory as a way to identify successful companies, Lepore plays the contrarian, sharing that theory is really about how things go wrong: “Disruption is a theory of change founded on panic, anxiety, and shaky evidence… a competitive strategy for an age seized by terror.”
Lepore takes the reader through the ages (enlightenment, reason, industrial, evolution, technology) to support an argument that we see our current age as an era “founded on a profound anxiety about financial collapse… and an apocalyptic fear of global devastation.” Lepore portrays the disruption ethic as applied in modern business as: “Forget rules, obligations, your conscience, loyalty, a sense of the commonweal. Don’t look back. Never pause. Disrupt or be disrupted… the time has come to panic as you’ve never panicked before.”
Many academics weighed in on Lepore’s article over the last month. The University of Maryland’s David B. Siclia challenged disruption theory when citing Alfred D. Chandler’s research that found successful companies evolved a great deal, but “without self-cannibalizing their hard-won know-how for the sake of change.” UT Arlington’s Kathryn Hamilton Warren wondered why “the idea that something that works must be changed for change’s sake — and that change in and of itself is seen as progress — is an economic driver.” There are a good number of points of view about the Lepore vs. Christensen debate to be found online if you are interested.
Why is it important for us to contemplate this debate? Disruption theory is now so pervasive that it presents itself to our students in the classroom and when they enter their professions. University presidents and newspaper editors are being dislodged from their appointments for “failing to be disruptively innovative,” as Lepore puts it. Politicians and influential thought leaders have predetermined that the same technologies that provided us with the “Angry Birds” app will revolutionize higher education. University graduates have ambitions of becoming entrepreneurs who will disrupt their chosen industry, create great value in a new company, and then sell it.
Disruption theory correctly observes that many businesses ultimately fail because they are not organized in a manner that easily allows for adaptation to rapidly changing environments. Quite simply, the ones that succeed do so when they provide products or services that society desires to buy or support. Successful organizations are always developing new products or services, relying on the law of averages to play out. Some things will succeed and some will fail, but organizations need to resource the development of new initiatives knowing that not all will fly.
In other words, organizations resource failure. In an “on demand” culture, it is quite understandable that most feel that “failure is not an option,” but that runs counter to everything we know about human learning and development, and, of course, university research. Finding information or data no longer challenges young professionals, but are they equipped to discern what is significant in the seemingly endless supply of information pouring out of the Internet fire hydrant?
In recent years American higher education has absorbed national conversations about MOOC’s, Title IX, for-profit colleges, accountability, and unacceptable graduation rates. Our society is conflicted about economic stratification, immigration, wars in the Middle East, and global warming. All of this is happening while universities are trying to preserve what they have done really well for nearly for a thousand years: putting students in classrooms with faculty who can inspire them about what it means to be human. Environments where character formation is at the heart of the enterprise.
Higher education’s entire value proposition is seriously being reconsidered by modern society, often because it is not considered innovative enough. Picture the stress of the modern world relentlessly pressing in against the four walls of university classrooms, beckoning students to forego the undergraduate degree with the siren songs of venture capitalism, creating value, making one’s “nut” by the age of 30, etc.
Is this an era of disruption? There can be little doubt that the constant barrage of infotainment influences how we perceive personal and societal circumstances. Do we have time to reflect on what we are learning from our families, our colleagues, our students and our research?
For some unknown reason I took breaks from my work today to learn that there are Internet followers who believe Steven Spielberg has killed dinosaurs; that snorting ground-up rhinoceros horn was trendy in Vietnam; and that the walnuts I had ordered from Amazon were on the delivery vehicle making their way to my mailbox.
Did I need to know any of this? Is this what “dropping the needle” is now for me? What is different from the records that our faculty assembled in that old music library and the infotainment that technological innovation is delivering to me all the time? Is this what disruption feels like?
Apple earnings up on iPhone sales
Apple reports quarterly profits of $7.75bn up 12%, helped by strong sales of its iPhone.
FLIR One thermal imaging iPhone case preorders commence July 23
Thermal imaging company FLIR will launch pre-orders for its infrared camera-containing case on July 23 at AM. Once mounted, the case for the iPhone 5 and 5s displays a live thermal image of the world right on the phone’s screen, giving users the ability to “see” in an array of conditions, including complete darkness.
Gravity Explained, In One Simple Video
Albert Einstein once described gravity as the warping of space and time in his theory of general relativity. But what exactly does that mean?
YouTube personality Edward Current attempts to simplify this theory in a new YouTube video, using a so-called “Spacetime Stretcher,” built mostly out of materials from his garage and the hardware store. Check out the video above.
“As a falling object’s path goes increasingly in the space (down) direction, it goes a little bit less in the time direction,” Current wrote in the video’s YouTube description. “Gravity is effectively converting some of its travel through time into travel through space.”
Got that? On different social media websites, science enthusiasts have been praising the video for demystifying an otherwise mind-boggling concept.
“The best explanation of gravity I have seen,” YouTube user Tjaart Blignaut wrote in a comment.
Still, gravity remains one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Even though scientists can explain how it behaves, they are still trying to pinpoint what causes gravity and how it really works.
How The EU's 'Right To Be Forgotten' Rule Is Backfiring Completely
When the European Union’s so called “right to be forgotten” policy was instituted in May, news outlets worried that the ruling could have a negative impact on the media. But according to journalism.co.uk, some publishers are finding the opposite.
The policy, which mandated that Google would have to delete links to articles if a person involved in the story asked it to, was instated to give people more control over the information that can be found about them online. It was celebrated as a big win for privacy rights, particularly by those who want stories about their past arrests or wrongdoings gone from the web for good.
Some outlets, like the Oxford Mail, expressed concerns that the ruling might be “misused” by criminals and public figures like celebrities and politicians who “want to hide embarrassing stuff.” What actually happened was a little different.
The Mail saw the link to its story about a man caught shoplifting removed from Google in July. In response, the website wrote about what happened, republished information about the shoplifter, and attracted tens of thousands of new, curious readers.
“Whoever has asked Google to remove this story, it’s not worked,” assistant editor Jason Collie said. “It’s brought it to a much wider audience.”
According to Collie, the story brought in only 28 views at the time of its original publication. But since re-reporting the story, it has been read more than 13,000 times.
The Oxford Mail is one of many outlets in the UK to begin using this tactic, journalism.co.uk said. The method is to write a new story, “repeat the link,” and put the deleted information back into Google. In other words, publishers are using the EU’s attempt to hide a story to bring even more traffic to that story than the original may have ever gotten on its own.
Apple Sold 35.2 Million iPhones In Just 3 Months
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple’s growth prospects are looking brighter as anticipation builds for the upcoming release of the next iPhone, a model that is expected to cater to consumers yearning for a bigger screen.
The latest evidence of Apple’s mounting momentum emerged Tuesday with the release of the company’s fiscal third-quarter report.
Earnings rose at the highest rate in nearly two years as Apple Inc. sold 35.2 million iPhones during the period. The iPhone shipments climbed 13 percent increase from the same time last year, even though many people are believed to be holding off on new device purchases until the next version comes out this fall.
“From an execution perspective, we did a really great job,” Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said in an interview with the Associated Press. “We have some things in the pipeline that we think people will really be excited about.”
Apple earned $7.7 billion, or $1.28 per share, for the three months ending June 28. That represented a 12 percent increase from income of $6.9 billion, or $1.07 per share, at the same time last year. It’s the first time that Apple’s earnings have increased by more than 10 percent since the quarter that included the September 2012 release of the iPhone 5 — the last time that the company boosted the device’s screen size.
The earnings per share for the latest quarter exceeded the average estimate of $1.23 per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Revenue rose 6 percent from last year to $37.4 billion — about $600 million below analysts’ forecasts.
If media reports based on leaks from Apple suppliers prove accurate, the iPhone 6 will boast a screen of at least 4.7 inches compared to the current 4-inch display. Some analysts also speculate Apple will simultaneously unveil an iPhone with a 5.5-inch screen.
An iPhone with a larger screen probably would unleash a flood of sales among Apple fans interested in a smartphone that would make it easier to read and see other features. A bigger-screen iPhone might also tempt consumers already accustomed to the larger screens on a variety of smartphones running on Google Inc.’s Android operating system.
Apple is also widely believed to be gearing up to release a smartwatch, a move that would mark the first time the company has entered a new device market since Tim Cook replaced Steve Jobs as CEO nearly three years ago. Jobs died in October 2011 after a long battle with cancer.
The chances of Apple unveiling a high-tech watch as a complement to the iPhone looked even more likely Tuesday when Apple was granted a U.S. patent for a touch-screen device designed to be worn on wrists. Sketches attached to the filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office indicated that Apple intends to call the device, “iTime.”
Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet declined to comment on the filing or patent approval.
The iPhone’s third-quarter sales growth was strongest in Brazil, India, Russia and China, where device sales increased 55 percent from last year. The gains are testament to the ongoing allure of Apple’s marquee product seven years after the first iPhone came out.
Apple’s trend-setting tablet computer, the iPad, seems to be losing some of its appeal amid a bevy of less expensive alternatives. The Cupertino, California, company shipped 13.3 million iPads in the latest quarter, a 9 percent drop from the same time last year. It marks the second straight quarter that the iPad’s sales have fallen from the previous year.
Meanwhile, Apple’s sales of Mac computers increased 18 percent from last year.
Apple is counting on a partnership forged with IBM Corp. last week to help boost iPad sales to corporate customers and government agencies.
Some analysts believe a larger-screen iPhone could also undercut iPad sales in future quarters, but Cook didn’t sound worried in a Tuesday conference call with analysts.
“We still think there is significant innovation that can be brought to the iPad and we plan on doing that,” Cook said.
Investors have been flocking back to Apple after an extended stretch of disillusionment. Just 15 months ago, Apple’s stock had plunged by 45 percent from its peak reached in September 2012 amid concerns about tougher competition and the company’s ability to innovate without Jobs.
Propelled by high hopes for the next iPhone and the potential release of a smartwatch, Apple’s stock has surged 18 percent this year. After closing at $94.72 Tuesday, the stock is just $6.01, or about 6 percent, away from setting a new high. The shares shed 62 cents to $94.15 in Tuesday’s extended trading.
Net Neutrality's Brain Drain and Distraction
As a national community, we debate and think often about the impact of the Internet on our lives. The issues that emerge in those conversations are tied to real needs – for affordable connectivity, access to laptops and mobile tech for learning and business, as examples. Latino tech leaders talk about the stories of Dreamers organizing on social media via mobile devices, and how they kept up with el Mundial at work, by checking Facebook from their phones.
Net neutrality doesn’t even come up in conversation. Yet the outcome of the seemingly never ending debate over net neutrality or the “Open Internet” does have an important effect: it distracts us from the real issues facing the Internet and those depending on it.
Latinos and their leaders understand the real issues facing the Internet. They want an ever faster Internet with even more video, more bandwidth, and next-generation technology. From a policy perspective, the community wants more school connectivity and a national focus on digital skills so that all students learn 21st century creation and coding skills alongside math and history. We know this is key to better prepare young people to participate in the digital revolution that has helped create multi-billion dollar businesses like Uber, Whatsapp and Airbnb – all of which represent the future of the economy, yet lack significant Latino participation.
Our full and focused attention on bridging those gaps, stimulating and spreading the digital economy to everyone, and realizing universal broadband adoption must be our community focus. The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), and 42 national minority serving organizations so rightly highlight this point in their filed comments in the FCC net neutrality proceeding.
The open Internet is critical to maintaining a flourishing broadband innovation environment, as broadband technology and digital skills are the tools for small business, communication and virtually all key activities. A recent survey by Mobile Future finds that 83 percent of Latino small business owners surveyed experience productivity gains and 62 percent credited business growth from integrating mobile tools into their business.
Maintaining an open Internet basically means having an Internet ecosystem where providers of all kinds of legal content have open and non-discriminatory access to the nation’s privately owned broadband networks. Clearly, it is vital to ensure the continued benefits of broadband innovation and participation online. It should be equally clear, though, that we already have an open Internet. And current laws give the FCC adequate power to deal with violators of net neutrality should that become necessary, without turning to an outdated regulatory scheme that would treat the Internet like the telephone. This is what activists are proposing when they support reclassification of the Internet under Title II of the Telecom Act. No community would benefit from this dramatic change in treatment of the Internet.
We can maintain a balanced approach that supports future investment and innovation in the broadband infrastructure, while also reestablishing robust protections for the open Internet. A June essay by Georgetown business professor and telecom policy expert John W. Mayo warns that a decade of debate over economic regulation of the Internet is creating the false impression that America is limited to two stark and unattractive choices. One, a laissez faire free-for-all market where government is little more than a spectator. And two, a market regulated like a telephone utility under Title II of the Communications Act, an environment where speed and innovation would become an endangered species.
As Mayo points out, Section 706 of the same Communications Act provides for “a congruence between legal authority and sound economic policymaking.” Section 706 focuses the FCC’s authority on preserving and expanding output in the telecom industry while giving the public maximum access to advanced telecom services. It gives the FCC flexible authority to deal with any future anti-competitive behavior, because that behavior would discourage growth.
With the Section 706 arrow in the FCC’s quiver, there is no need to choose between what Mayo calls “the pitfalls of either a completely unregulated Internet or last century’s public utility regulation model.”
But still, the fight over net neutrality continues to draw undue attention and drain our national energy.
Last month, I participated in this Google hangout on net neutrality hosted by Elianne Ramos and featuring FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Arturo Vargas from presente.org, during which I argued again that the battle over net neutrality is diverting precious energy from the real issues – the pressing needs – facing Latinos in the 21st century digital economy. While a small group of “consumer advocates” threaten that the Internet would be destroyed unless we enact anything but the strictest, most outdated regulations, the real issues falter from the spotlight. Regulations created eight decades ago for the old telephone system look nothing like the policies that have governed the Internet since its beginning and resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment leading to technologies we take for granted – names like FiOS and XFINITY, Google Fiber and 4G LTE. Those groups would like to see the modern Internet treated like your abuela’s old rotary telephone from a legal standpoint.
There is a clear disconnect.
Of course, Latinos value the open Internet, and want the web to remain as open a platform as it has always been. But net neutrality is a debate hijacked by fear-driven hypotheticals, and not much more. Since the 2010 net neutrality rules were adopted, the investment in the United States’ communications infrastructure continues to increase, while Title II like regulations in the European Union continue to hinder investment. The plan put forth by FCC Chairman Wheeler would seek to accomplish what the 2010 rules did while reestablishing rules of the road that guarantee access to all legal content without degradation (or slowing), and put in place rules that guarantee transparency for the ISPs. It’s the kind of middle-ground plan that protects an open Internet without unnecessarily imposing strict regulatory oversight over the broadband ecosystem. Extreme, public utility-style regulation would reverse progress on Internet expansion and adoption nationwide and would fail to make the Internet faster, more affordable and more accessible.
Perhaps most importantly, the Chairman’s plan, and the ideas supported by MMTC and a national community of leaders is one that would put this debate behind us, so that we can focus on the real issues of today, and the policies that will deliver the Internet of tomorrow.
The FCC’s Open Internet docket is open for your replies through the fall. It still craves input from all communities, calling for openness, innovation, and investment. It takes all three of these things, plus an active, inclusive entrepreneurial culture to deliver the Internet of tomorrow. You can email a reply comment about what you want for the Internet to the FCC at openinternet@fcc.gov.
Jason Llorenz, JD is a scholar at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, where he teaches courses in technology policy and social media. His research focuses on universal digital inclusion in the digital economy. Twitter: @llorenzesq
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