Android Crushing Apple Worldwide

The Android L-Developer Preview is now well underway. In the first of a new series of DevBytes, Rich Hyndman brings together a look at the new features. (Jul 18, 2014)

Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Edge Past 300 Million Units in the Second Quarter; Android and iOS Devices Account for 96% of the Global Market, According to IDC - prUS25037214: "The dominant smartphone operating systems (OS), Android 84.7% and iOS 11.7%, saw their combined market share swell to 96.4% for the quarter, leaving little space for competitors. Android was the primary driver with its vendor partners shipping a total of 255.3 million Android-based smartphones in 2Q14, up 33.3% year over year. Meanwhile, iOS saw its market share decline despite posting 12.7% year-over-year shipment growth. While Android and iOS both realized gains from a year ago, the rest of the market recorded losses...."

A Fascinating Look Inside Those 1.1 Million Open-Internet Comments : All Tech Considered : NPR: ".... every emergent theme was "pro" net neutrality, or supports the idea of a level playing field for content on the Internet. The comments did include "anti" net neutrality positions. They included statements opposing the "FCC's crippling new regulations," as commenters wrote. But they came from a form letter, or template, and all comment clusters that came from templates (five separate ones in all, four of five supporting net neutrality) were collapsed into a single node. Taken with the entire body of comments sampled, there weren't enough unique or organic anti-net-neutrality comments to register on the map...."

TechStars NYC co-founder launches Spring, a brand-backed mobile marketplace - The Next Web: "David Tisch, the co-founder of TechStars NYC, today launched his new startup, Spring, an iOS-based ecommerce platform that has the support of several high-end brands. Shopping on the Spring app (US-only for now) feels like scrolling through Instagram if you only followed fashion brands, or Pinterest without all the amateur crafts. Product photos are meant to be edgy lifestyle images instead of your usual shots on a white background. At launch, Spring has over 100 brands on-board, including Warby Parker, Band of Outsiders and Hugo Boss. “The only brands we’re letting onto the platform is brands that care about the customer, brands that have a soul,” Tisch said...."

Exclusive: Ultra Violet: Google is testing a new design for Hangouts: "Given the all-encompassing redesign of various Google services, it was almost to be expected, now you can say it with any degree of certainty: Google Hangouts gets a new look...."

YouTube TV: YouTube refreshes television app for set-top boxes, game consoles and smart TVs "...The refreshed interface should pop up soon -- it's available now with Xbox One, and Google plans to roll it out to other devices within the next few weeks." https://www.youtube.com/tv

Google's IPO, 10 Years Later: "On August 19, 2004, Google went public in a highly anticipated initial public offering that valued the six-year old company at what seemed to be an astronomical $23 billion, with a price-earnings ratio of 80, a mere six years after its founding. The company was already generating annualized revenue of $2.7 billion and profits of $286 million. Today, Google’s market cap is $390 billion, with annualized revenue of $64 billion and profits of $13 billion. Google’s market cap is the third highest of any U.S. company, with only Apple and Exxon Mobil being bigger. Public market buy-and-hold investors have scored a “ten-bagger”, earning a return of more than 1,000% over the decade.... "

Google Exec Violated Ethics Rules While at DARPA | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: "...The Defense Department was tipped off in 2011 by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), which alleged that RedX received $1.75 million in contracts following Dugan's appointment to DARPA. The non-profit watchdog group also said she kept a financial stake in the company after her departure, Navy Times reported...."

Google goes DARPA: "...Today Dugan is leading a cadre of big-idea special forces—called Advanced Technology and Projects group, or ATAP for short—on an even grander mission for parent Google, where the unit is slated to remain after the sale of Motorola to Lenovo is completed later this year... "

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Windows Phone Losing, Badly

Momentum is everything for smartphone platforms. Windows seems to be losing it: http://t.co/xSbebhOYdK via @tgryta
— Drew FitzGerald (@DrewFitzGerald) August 14, 2014

Windows Phone market share peaked a year ago, and has slipped back to 2.5%. pic.twitter.com/gOnamRC28k
— Shira Ovide (@ShiraOvide) August 14, 2014

If You Haven't Seen A Windows Phone Lately, It's Because They're Practically Disappearing: "Neither Microsoft nor Nokia can hide from the very, very ugly truth. Windows Phone is failing miserably to gain any important traction despite tremendous marketing support. It’s true that globally, Nokia’s Lumia line set a record with 7.4 million units sold in the quarter. But those numbers mask the grim reality. First, North American sales actually fell to just 500,000 units. Second, average selling prices actually fell almost 20% from the prior quarter. To boost sales, Nokia has become a low-end smartphone maker..."

Lenovo first quarter net profit climbs 23 percent as smartphone sales surge | Reuters: "Lenovo's core PC business, which still accounts for roughly 82 percent of sales, continued to tighten its grip on the market despite a prolonged decline in the broader industry. Lenovo's laptop sales rose 12 percent over the year while global laptop shipments fell 3.7 percent, the company said. The company this year struck agreements to acquire IBM's low-end server unit and Motorola's handset business from Google Inc. Both deals hinge on U.S. regulatory approval, which analysts say could come as early as the third quarter of 2014."

Do You Really Need Microsoft Office Anymore? - WSJ: "Word, Excel and PowerPoint Alternatives From Google and Apple Have Many of the Same Features...."


Wall Street Journal
Amazon Unveils Mobile-Payments Service for Local Shops
Wall Street Journal
Amazon unveiled Local Register, a new mobile-payment service that could threaten rivals like Square and PayPal. WSJ's Scott Thurm explains on ...


CNNMoney
Apple Bans Use of 2 Chemicals in iPhone Assembly
ABC News
Apple is banning the use of two potentially hazardous chemicals during the final assembly of iPhones and iPads as part of the company's latest ...
Apple Bans Two Nasty Chemicals From Being Used In iPhone - TechCrunch


ITProPortal
Google goes DARPA
Fortune
Google goes DARPA ... the Defense Department's prodigious technology research organization that gave .... user interface, only to see them commercialized by Apple and Microsoft.


Yahoo Travel
Stalk the Reefs With Google Maps for Under the Sea
Yahoo Travel
The basketball-shaped, triple-lens SVII cameras use the same technology ... Thetechnology also records GPS data and quickly stitches the images together into panoramic views or 360-degree views. ... Follow us on Facebook and Twitter so that we can inspire you every day. ... Yahoo Travel Editors ... https://www.google.com/maps/views/streetview/oceans
Google 'street view' goes undersea to map Florida Keys, reefs - Florida Today


Bloomberg
Facebook to Track Users Across Devices to Study Shopping Habits
Bloomberg
Facebook Inc. (FB) will let advertisers know where a promotion was first viewed and when it led to a purchase by tracking users between their ...


Daily Mail
The Real Reason Facebook Is Forcing You To Download Messenger
Huffington Post
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken about his strategy to ... bought in the past,Facebook incorporated their technology into existing products ...

The Guardian
Orwell estate hits back at Amazon's corporate 'doublespeak'
The Guardian
George Orwell: 'If other publishers had any sense they would combine against [Penguin] and suppress them.' 

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Google Robots Project Rejects US Military Funding

Google to US military - We don't need your money --

Google rejects military funding for its advanced humanoid robot | The Verge: "Google isn’t interested in taking money from DARPA because its ambitions are in the more lucrative consumer market, and any association with DARPA leads to headlines like, "What the heck will Google do with these scary military robots?" DARPA doesn’t want to give Google money because it wants to use its $2.7 billion budget to fund startups with scarce resources, not Goliath tech companies, and its investments are supposed to seed technology that can one day be purchased by the Pentagon for national defense, which Google is unlikely to play along with...."

Report: 97% Of Mobile Malware Is On Android. This Is The Easy Way You Stay Safe: "Let’s be clear. From a statistical viewpoint researcher and security specialist F-Secure got them right. Android does account for 97% of all mobile malware, but it comes from small, unregulated third party app stores predominantly in the Middle East and Asia. By contrast the percentage of apps carrying malware on Google’s official Play Store was found to be just 0.1% and F-Secure acknowledges rigorous checks mean “malware encountered there tends to have a short shelf life.” If you want to stay safe on Android there’s the solution: stick to buying apps on the [Google] Play Store [play.google.com]‎ and every one in 1000 apps you buy may have had malware for a brief period...."

Google Now arrives in Chrome for Windows and Mac - The Next Web: "To turn the feature on, all you need to do is sign in to Chrome with the same Google Account you’re using for Google Now on mobile. If you use Google Now on multiple devices, you will need to manage your location settings for each "

ATM operators eye Linux as alternative to Windows XP: "End support for XP is prompting them to seek out Windows alternatives...."

Xiaomi's Hugo Barra: True world phones in 2 years, Android all the way - CNET: "...Barra emphasizes to me the company's core mission to produce "aggressively priced phones focused on performance and quality." He also says Xiaomi won't be making a Firefox OS or an Ubuntu handset. "We have no plans to do anything other than Android. There's no point. Android has a phenomenal ecosystem. I'm saying this from a practical perspective. If you look at other players who have attempted to build ecosystems and failed despite having great platforms, it's because it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to build an ecosystem," he explains. "Google has done that with Android, and we're firmly behind it. We're heavily invested as well. We don't just take Android from Google -- we make a significant amount of improvements, changes, and additions to Android. We think we've made Android an even better operating system."..."

S. Koreans overwhelmingly approve scrapping of ActiveX: poll: "South Koreans overwhelmingly approve the scrapping of the ActiveX framework citing it as a hindrance to online transactions, a poll conducted by the lobbying group for the country's large conglomerates said Sunday."

AWS urges developers to scrub GitHub of secret keys - Security - Technology - News - iTnews.com.au: "....Earlier this year, AWS contacted Rich Mogull, analyst and CEO of Securosis after three days of unusual activity on his account had run up US$500 in charges. In a blog post from January, Mogull said he had mistakenly published his AWS secret key on GitHub. "I did not completely scrub my code before posting to GitHub. I did not have billing alerts enabled ... This was a real mistake ... I paid the price for complacency," he admitted in his blog...."

How an Under-Appreciated iOS 7 Feature Will Change the World | Cult of Mac: "...Think of wireless mesh networking as giving app developers the ability to create tiny, private or public Internets that are limited in time and place. It will have a somewhat similar impact as the Internet itself in how it undermines authority control over communication. Ubiquitous wireless mesh networking could erase many of the places and situations where connectivity isn’t possible, or connectivity over the Internet isn’t desirable. Kudos to Apple for building this into iOS 7. It’s the first major mainstream implementation of wireless mesh networking that I’m aware of. Thanks Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity Framework, wireless mesh networking is here. It’s peer-to-peer...."

Google looks at Ray-Ban, Oakley partnership for Glass
ZDNet
Google says it is joining forces with the frame giant behind Ray-Ban and other brands to create and sell Glass internet-linked eyewear in the US. The California-based technology titan billed the partnership with Luxottica as its "biggest step yet into the ...

Google Drops Cloud Pricing
InformationWeek
Taking aim at Amazon Web Services, Google on Tuesday slashed the ... Both Amazonand Microsoft are expected to respond with price reductions for ...

Apple, Comcast Likely to Invite Scrutiny
Wall Street Journal
Apple wants to make the service on its Apple TV as good as cable, and to do that, it's talking to Comcast, the largest cable company in the nation, ...

Facebook's Sandberg Says Declined to Limit Google Hiring
Bloomberg
Her statements spotlight controversial Silicon Valley hiring agreements that have thrust companies including Google, Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Intel Corp.

Amazon e-book customers wake up to free cash
MarketWatch
The settlement is being dispensed in the form of credits in one's Amazon ... (Appledecided to go to trial and that case continues in the U.S. District ...

Microsoft's CEO may come out swinging
Chicago Tribune
Microsoft and Apple declined comment. ... view it as a doomed defensive play to curbGoogle Inc's Android's dominance in the smartphone market.

Minyanville: Apple may go back on its word to combat sinking sales
USA TODAY
A recent report from Nielsen SoundScan shows digital album sales -- where Apple rules over Amazon, Google, and the like -- is down 13% in the US, ...

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DARPA Wants More Efficient Robots

DARPA Officials Aiming for More Efficient Robots
eWeek
The Defense Department is looking for help in creating robots that have are up to 2000 more efficient than the ones being developed now. The Department of Defense is asking for help in building more energy-efficient robots.

Twitter Tweaks Tweet Search
InformationWeek
By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek Having decided last summer not to renew its search deal with Google, Twitter has been paying more attention to its own search capabilities. In May, Twitter added spelling corrections and related queries alongside its ...

Cisco Rethinks 'Cloud' Service After Customer Outcry
Wired News
By Caleb Garling Cisco has adjusted its approach to a “cloud service” that ties into its home routers, responding to an outcry from customers. With a blog post, the company now says that it will change the settings on two of its home wireless routers ...

Wired News

Apple Sued for Siri Patent Infringement
eWeek
A Chinese company claims Apple's Siri technology infringes on a patent for software providing a similar service. It's been a litigious week in the technology world, with Nokia telling Google and Asus to pay up for patents, Toshiba receiving an $87 ...

Swirling currents fuel huge blooms in North Atlantic
msnbc.com
The North Atlantic is currently bursting with color as blooms of microscopic plants erupt on the surface of the chilly sea. But these expanses of plankton, which provide the basis for the area's food chain and help take in enormous quantities of the ...

msnbc.com

DNS Changer Malware Could Lock Unwary Users Out of the Internet on July 9
eWeek
NEWS ANALYSIS: While the chances of any of your computers having an active DNS Changer malware infection are remote, you should still check to make sure your system is clean and confirm that somewhere along the line your DNS settings didn't get changed ...

Google Delivers $4M Legal Bill to Oracle Over Java Patent Dispute
PC Magazine
By Damon Poeter Do you think Oracle CEO Larry Ellison may be fuming over the $4 million legal expenses bill Google wants paid in full following the headline-grabbing court battle between the two tech giants over Google's use of Oracle's Java ...

US to begin new phase of hypersonic flight program
Fox News
LOS ANGELES – The Defense Department's research arm will seek proposals next month for solutions to technology hurdles in super high-speed flight with a goal of testing a full-scale hypersonic X-plane in four years. The Defense Advanced Research ...

Tesla's new Model S: I am silent, hear me roar
MarketWatch
By Dan Neil This Tesla Model S thing you've heard so much about? You know, all-electric sedan, Silicon Valley, that guy from SpaceX? This is one amazing car. I mean, hard-core amazing. But first and foremost, gentle reader, it goes like the very stink ...

MarketWatch

Robotic legs move just like yours
TG Daily
US researchers have built what they say is the first set of robotic legs that walk just like a human being. They've based their design on the neural architecture, musculoskeletal architecture and sensory feedback pathways in humans, making the legs ...

TG Daily

Can Apple Find Enough Value In A 7 inch iPad?
Forbes
Once more, it's time to discuss Apple, so once more I'll invoke Taniyama-Shimura and look at the world of the seven inch tablet and the iPad. When it was Steve Jobs running Apple it was easy. Jobs would say that something was silly, impossible, ...

AT&T customers can start blocking stolen devices on July 10
Digitaltrends.com
Ideally making a mobile device completely unusable after a theft, AT&T is launching a new service for customers that will help protect their voice or data plan from being used. According to an internal AT&T memo published on The Verge earlier today, ...

Digitaltrends.com

British Airways will Google passengers ahead of flights
BetaNews
By Wayne Williams British Airways faces criticism after unveiling plans to look up frequent fliers on Google as part of a customer service programme called "Know Me". Two-thousand iPad wielding airline staff will be given access to the data, ...

BetaNews

NASA releases stunning photo of Mars panorama [photo]
The Bunsen Burner
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is giving scientists a new view of where the space agency's rover hunkered down for the recent Martian winter. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports that the rover's panoramic camera (Pancam) has spotted ...

The Bunsen Burner

Does size suggest function when it comes to tablets?
PhoneDog
When the TouchPad by HP went on its fire sale last year, I told my dad about this tablet that normally sold for around $400, but had been knocked down to a ridiculously low $100. He didn't really have any idea what a tablet was used for, ...

Facebook to Target Ads Based on App Usage
Wall Street Journal
By SHAYNDI RAICE Facebook Inc. is launching a new type of mobile advertising that targets consumers based on the apps they use, pushing the limits of how companies track what people do on their phones. The social network is tracking the apps that ...

Microsoft Resolves Mysterious Xbox Live Issue, Keeps Culprit a Secret
Hot Hardware
Summertime is a perfect opportunity for school age kids to take their backsides outside and enjoy the sun, running through the neighborhood to do all the they things they can't when stuck in a classroom. But who are we kidding -- today's generation ...

Hot Hardware

Dead Reefs Can Come Back To Life, Study Says
NPR
by Richard Harris Coral polyps feed in the plankton-rich waters by Santa Catalina, Panama. A new study of coral reefs off the Pacific coast of Panama shows that dead coral reefs may be able to recover from rising ocean temperatures and other ...

GreenTech to Take First US MyCar Order From Domino's
Bloomberg
GreenTech Automotive Inc., a startup maker of battery-powered vehicles led by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, said Domino's Pizza Inc. (DPZ) is the first US customer for its low-speed cars. GreenTech initially expects at ...

Sun Fires Off Fourth of July Solar Flares
Space.com
by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor The sun is unleashing some powerful solar flares today (July 4) in an impressive celestial fireworks display just in time for the US Independence Day holiday. The latest solar flare erupted at 5:47 am EDT (0947 ...

HTC DROID Incredible 4G LTE review
Mobile Burn
Compared to the giant Android devices that manufacturers have been keen to produce recently, the HTC DROID Incredible 4G LTE is quite small. Strikingly small, in fact. Its footprint measures only 122mm x 61mm (4.82in x 2.4in), making it easy to handle ...

Mobile Burn

Apple Responds To And Fixes App Crashing Issues, DRM Software To Blame
TechCrunch
Just a quick update on the issues plaguing Apple's iOS and Mac App Stores: Apple has now informed developers that it's aware of the problem and is working on a resolution. For background, a serious problem has been discovered in the iOS and Mac App ...

TechCrunch

Samsung: Galaxy 'S3' burns not caused by smartphone
ZDNet
By Karen Friar | July 7, 2012 -- Updated 11:23 GMT (04:23 PDT) Samsung has doused worries that its flagship Galaxy SIII could spontaneously burst into flames, after investigators found they could only reproduce the burns on a damaged phone by putting ...

Macs Gaining Significant Ground Against PCs
RedOrbit
Narrow is the gap 'twixt Mac and Windows machines. The narrowest since the 90s, in fact, when the Windows platform completely dominated the Mac platform. As such, the Mac has always been seen, in one way or another, as an alternative platform, ...

Worms In Space Live Longer Than Their Earthly Counterparts
RedOrbit
Scientists have reported in the journal Scientific Reports that spaceflight could help a microscopic worm live longer. The international group of scientists were studying the loss of bone and muscle mass experienced by astronauts when they found that ...

RedOrbit

Facebook, Yahoo! settled patent suits
UPI.com
SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 (UPI) -- Two Silicon Valley giants, Yahoo! Inc., and Facebook said they had turned a patent duel into a business deal, settling their differences out of court. Yahoo! filed first, accusing Facebook of abusing 10 patents.

Some Thoughts On SimCity Social
PCWorld
By Alex Rubens, PCWorld Jul 6, 2012 1:00 PM It's not often that I play social games on Facebook, mainly because I don't like to spam my friends with constant notifications. No one likes to get those, especially every single time that someone does ...

How to Be Sure You've Found a Higgs Boson
Wall Street Journal
By CARL BIALIK The physicists who announced the likely discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson particle this week were operating according to an extremely high standard of certainty. As was widely reported, in order to achieve discovery status their ...

Wall Street Journal

Apple pulls products from government-backed 'green electronics' list
Apple Insider
By AppleInsider Staff Apple in June asked government-backed electronics standard-setting group EPEAT to remove 39 desktops, laptops and monitors from the body's list of environmentally friendly devices including legacy models that already hold the...

Climate Change Concern Slipping as Scientists Ponder Link between Recent Events
National Geographic
A new poll says climate change is no longer first on Americans' list of the most critical environmental problems. About three in 10 people, or 29 percent, believe water and air pollution to be the top issue. Meanwhile, 19 percent saw climate change as ...

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