2013-09-19

Stephen Hawking New Book

A brief history of me: Professor Stephen Hawking has a written a memoir without any help thanks to new technology

  • Renowned scientist will give fans an unprecedented insight into his life
  • For the first time he wrote a book without assistance
  • The book will feature details on his childhood and family
Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking is releasing a memoir that will provide a warts-and-all insight into his remarkable life.
The book, My Brief History, is the first that Hawking, who suffers from Motor Neuron Disease, has written entirely on his own thanks to the development of new technology.
Hawking is one of the most famous scientists in the world and a wildly successful author. A Brief History of Time has sold more than 10 million copies in 40 languages.
Instead of writing his usual brilliant books about the cosmos, Stephen Hawking is now publishing one about his life
Instead of writing his usual brilliant books about the cosmos, Stephen Hawking is now publishing one about his life
The publishers describe My Brief History as 'his most personal book to date' and said it will deal with how A Brief History of Time came into being, as well as details about his childhood in post-war London, his years at Oxford and Cambridge as his illness developed, his marriages, family and intellectual passions, reports the Independent.

Papal Selfie

Nintendo's Yamauchi died at 85


TOKYO (Reuters) - Former Nintendo Co Ltd President Hiroshi Yamauchi, who built the company into a video game giant from a maker of playing cards during more than half a century at the helm, died on Thursday of pneumonia, the company said. He was 85.

Yamauchi was the third-generation head of the family-run business, founded in the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto in 1889 as a maker of playing cards, and served as president from 1949 until 2002. He was an executive adviser to the company at the time of his death.

Under his leadership, the company developed the Famicom home game console and the Game Boy handheld player that helped to usher in the era of home game machines, which in more recent years has been dominated by Nintendo's Wii, Sony Corp's PlayStation, Microsoft Corp's Xbox.

Yamauchi was listed by Forbes magazine as Japan's richest man just five years ago, when Nintendo was flying high with the launch of the Wii with its motion-sensing controller, although the company's fortunes have since faded as smartphones displace consoles among gamers. His net worth at that time was estimated at $7.8 billion.

He was ranked 13th on the latest Forbes Japan list released this year, with an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.

Yamauchi bought the Seattle Mariners U.S. major league baseball team in 1992 when the franchise was struggling, although it was later taken over by Nintendo of America Inc.

(Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo and Edmund Klamann; Editing by Robert Birsel)

2013-09-11

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said the Internet company now has more than 800 million monthly active users

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said the Internet company now has more than 800 million monthly active users, which she said represented 20 percent growth.

Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Mayer said the 8

Facebook shares break $45 for first time since 2012 IPO

stock chart

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Facebook Inc rose more than 3 percent to a new high Wednesday, valuing the world's No. 1 social network at $106 billion, as investors focused on its recent mobile advertising advances ahead of a speech by its chief executive.
The stock touched $45 at 1:50 p.m. ET and briefly hit $45.07 shortly after 2 p.m. on the Nasdaq - highs not seen since May 18, 2012, the day of Facebook's initial public offering. It closed at $45.04.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to speak later Wednesday at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey said investors expect Zuckerberg to discuss future video ad products as well as plans to make money from its Instagram unit. The mobile photo app, acquired in 2012 by Facebook, is popular with young people but does not carry any advertising.
The stock's new intraday high is the latest milestone in its year-long recovery from fears that Facebook would struggle to make money from mobile users at a time when young people go online mostly through their smartphones.
The sentiment changed completely on July 24 when Facebook said its mobile advertising revenue grew 75 percent in the second quarter, trouncing analyst targets and delivering the company's strongest revenue growth since the third quarter of 2011.
The stock has risen 67 percent since then.
"The second quarter was the turning point when a lot of their work over the last year with the newsfeed came through," Josey said, referring to the format of Facebook updates that also carry mobile ads.
"Mobile is very hard to get audience at scale and Facebook is proving that it's one of those places where advertisers can go to reach eyeballs."
Facebook has said it expects sales and user growth for its mobile apps to outpace its desktop website.
Facebook options also traded heavily on Wednesday.
A total of 317,000 calls and 131,000 puts in Facebook changed hands on Wednesday, above its recent combined daily average of 355,000 contracts, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.
The weekly $45 strike calls expiring this Friday as well as the September $44 and October $45 strike calls are among the busiest options.
"But one play in the options market appears to be making a 'cheap' bet that the recent run higher is overdone," said WhatsTrading.com options strategist Frederic Ruffy.
The top trade on Facebook on Wednesday was a 10,250-lot of September $39 strike puts, which were bought for 7 cents per contract as a new position. The contract, which is out-of-the-money, expires at the end of next week and would be profitable if shares fall below $38.93, Ruffy said.

2013-09-10

iPhone History

Apple announced two new iPhones on Tuesday, its seventh and eighth models since the iPhone made its debut in 2007. Here are details on the past iPhone releases, along with the new ones.
— iPhone, June 29, 2007, starting in the U.S. (announced Jan. 9)
— iPhone 3G, July 11, 2008, starting in the U.S., Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K. (announced June 9)
— iPhone 3GS, June 19, 2009, starting in the U.S. (announced June 8)
— iPhone 4, June 24, 2010, starting in the U.S., France, Germany and Japan and the U.K. (announced June 7).
— iPhone 4S, Oct. 14, 2011, starting in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the U.K. (announced Oct. 4).
— iPhone 5, Sept. 21, 2012, starting in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the U.K. (announced Sept. 12).
— iPhone 5C, Sept. 20, 2013, starting in the U.S., Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the U.K. (announced Tuesday).
— iPhone 5S, Sept. 20, 2013, starting in the U.S., Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the U.S. (announced Tuesday).

2013-09-09

Samsung smartwatch

BERLIN (AP) — Nearly 70 years after Dick Tracy began wearing a two-way wrist radio in the funny pages, the technology that once seemed impossibly futuristic will be widely available by Christmas.

Samsung on Wednesday introduced a digital watch for the holiday season that will let users check messages with a glance at their wrists and have conversations secret agent-style.

So-called smartwatches have been around for several years. But so far, they have failed to attract much consumer interest. That may change with the Samsung Galaxy Gear, which offers the company a chance to pull off the same as feat Apple did with the iPad — popularize a type of device that has lingered mostly unnoticed on store shelves.

The Gear must be linked wirelessly with a smartphone to perform its full range of functions. It acts as an extension to the phone by discreetly alerting users to incoming messages and calls on its screen, which measures 1.63 inches diagonally.

"With Gear, you're able to make calls and receive calls without ever taking your phone out of your pocket," Pranav Mistry, a member of Samsung's design team, told reporters at the launch in Berlin ahead of the annual IFA consumer electronics show here.

."Kazuo Hirai, President and CEO of Sony presents …
Sony and Qualcomm also introduced smartwatches Wednesday. Apple Inc. is expected to release its own smartwatch, though it's not clear yet when. The release of separate products from so many manufacturers could stir interest in smartwatches in general. Meanwhile, Google is working on Google Glass — a device designed to work like a smartphone and worn like a pair of glasses.

With smartphones and tablets now ubiquitous, electronics companies are trying to create a new category of products that put advanced computing technology into everyday objects such as wristwatches and glasses. Research firm Gartner projects that wearable smart electronics will be a $10 billion industry by 2016.

But Ramon Llamas, an analyst at research firm IDC, said many things have to go right for smartwatches to succeed. Llamas said the devices need to offer a range of useful applications that justify carrying around — and charging — another digital device.

"It can't just be notifications of how many incoming messages you have," he said. "Health applications seem to be the low-hanging fruit."

For starters, the Gear will work with sporting and fitness apps such as RunKeeper, which tracks runs and other workouts.

."
Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi believes it ought to do more, such as monitor a user's pulse and other health information. Other sensors, she said, could also authenticate a user's identity when making payments or detect locations so users could share their whereabouts with their friends.

"The watch is smart, but not as smart as it could be," Milanesi said. "It doesn't look like Samsung pushed the envelope as much as I hope Apple will. Right now, it looks like (Gear) will just provide you with an extra screen that is more convenient to look at than to have to take out a larger device. I don't think that's what consumers want."

The Gear goes on sale in the United States and Japan next month. The rest of the world will get it sooner, on Sept. 25, with prices starting at $299. That is about twice the price of currently available devices such as the Sony SmartWatch and the Pebble, which was funded through more than $10 million pledged by individuals on fundraising website Kickstarter. Another startup, also funded through Kickstarter, hopes to launch a stand-alone watch called Omate TrueSmart that comes with built-in cell connectivity.

Samsung Electronics Co.'s smartwatch uses Google's Android operating system, just like many of the phones and tablets made by the South Korean electronics company.

Mistry demonstrated the calling function on the Gear by holding it up to his ear and talking into a microphone hidden in the watch. The watch then relays the call to a smartphone over a built-in Bluetooth connection.

."
The strap, which comes in six colors, holds a basic camera that can be used to shoot photos and video. When linked to a smartphone or tablet, the Gear lets people check emails and Facebook updates from their wrists. Samsung said replies are possible through voice dictation. Voice commands can also be used for such tasks as setting alarms, creating calendar entries and checking the weather.

The Gear will be compatible initially with two Samsung products also unveiled Wednesday — the Galaxy Note 3, a smartphone with a giant 5.7-inch screen and a digital pen, and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer with a 10.1-inch screen comparable to Apple's full-sized iPad. But Samsung promised to update other Galaxy phones and tablets to work with the Gear in the future.

The number of apps that work with the Gear is also still limited. More than 70 apps are currently supported, including Facebook, Twitter and RunKeeper. That compares with the hundreds of thousands available for leading smartphones.

Unlike normal watches that can tick away for years on end, Samsung only promises a full day's use out of the Gear before it has to be charged.

Apple's plans for a smartwatch aren't known, but the company has been seeking a trademark for the iWatch name. The company is widely believed to be developing a watch that works on the same software as its iPhone and iPad, although it's unclear if it will be ready before the holidays. An announcement event next week is expected to be on new iPhones. Apple declined to comment Wednesday.

."
Meanwhile, Qualcomm didn't disclose a specific price or date for the Toq, beyond saying it will come out this year. Sony didn't provide many details about its SmartWatch 2 either. The focus of its announcement Wednesday was a new smartphone with a high-resolution camera.

Robert-Jan Broer, head of Germany-based market research firm Chronolytics, said many people who have stopped wearing watches because they are surrounded by time-telling devices might consider buying a smartwatch.

Brian Profitt, a technology expert and adjunct instructor of management at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, said the real question is whether the Samsung watch "will make the purchase of yet-another smart device worth it."

"It's great to have hands-free capabilities to take notes or snap a picture," Profitt said. "But it is $299 great? That's going to be the real test for the Galaxy Gear."

___

."
AP Technology Writers Youkyung Lee in Suwon, South Korea, and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

___

Lee can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/YKLeeAP . Frank Jordans can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter .
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2013-09-03

R. I. P. Windows

Farhad ManjooWin­dows is dead. Let’s all salute it—pour out a glass for it, burn a CD for it, reboot your PC one last time. Win­dows had a good run. For a time, it pow­ered the world. But that era is over. It was killed by the unlike­li­est of col­lab­o­ra­tions—Microsoft’s ancient ene­mies work­ing over decades, in con­cert: Steve Jobs, Linus Tor­valds, and most of all, two guys named Larry and Sergey.

Microsoft swallows Nokia's handset business for $7.2 billion

Microsoft swallows Nokia's handset business for $7.2 billion


File illustration photo shows a woman posing with a Nokia Lumia smartphone in the central Bosnian town of Zenica
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By Ritsuko Ando and Bill Rigby
HELSINKI/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Two years after hitching its fate to Microsoft's Windows Phone software, Nokia collapsed into the arms of the U.S. software giant on Tuesday, agreeing to sell its main handset business for 5.44 billion euros ($7.2 billion).
Nokia, once the world's dominant handset maker, has failed to close a yawning lead opened up by Apple and Samsung in the highly competitive market for smartphones and will now concentrate on its networking equipment unit, navigation business and technology patents.
Nokia's Canadian boss Stephen Elop, who ran Microsoft's business software division before jumping to Nokia in 2010, will return to the U.S. firm as head of its mobile devices business - a Trojan horse, according to disgruntled Finnish media.
He is being discussed as a possible replacement for Microsoft's retiring CEO Steve Ballmer, who is trying to remake the U.S. firm into a gadget and services company like Apple before he departs, though it has fallen short so far in its attempts to compete in mobile devices.
"It's very clear to me that rationally this is the right step going forward," Elop told reporters, though he added he also felt "a great deal of sadness" over the outcome.
"I feel sadness because inevitably we are changing Nokia and what it stands for," he said.
In three years under Elop, Nokia saw its market share collapse and its share price shrivel.
In 2011, after writing a memo that said Nokia lacked the in-house technology and needed to jump off a "burning platform", Elop made the controversial decision to use Microsoft's Windows Phone for smartphones, rather than Nokia's own software or Google's ubiquitous Android operating system.
Nokia, which had 40 percent of the handset market in 2007, now has just 15 percent, and only 3 percent in smartphones.
Shares in Nokia surged 39 percent to 4.10 euros on Tuesday. While up from their decade-low of 1.33 euros hit last year, they are still only a fraction of their 2000 peak of 65 euros.
After today's gains the whole company is worth about 15 billion euros, a far cry from its glory days when it peaked at over 200 billion euros.
Tuesday's deal includes an agreement to license Nokia's patent portfolio for 10 years. Without it, Nokia's devices and services business would have been worth about 3.7 billion euros, the companies said.
Microsoft shares in Frankfurt were down about 5 percent.
SOLD FOR "PEANUTS"
While some investors have credited Elop for bringing urgency to Nokia, which has stepped up its pace of product development in recent months and is due to announce a "phablet"-type large-screen handset this month, his legacy will be a bitter one for Finland. The company, which began life as a paper mill and has sold an eclectic range from television sets to rubber boots in its 148-year history, was a national champion in its heyday, accounting for 16 percent of all exports.
Hired by former chairman Jorma Ollila, Elop was the first foreigner to lead it.
For many Finns, the fact that a former Microsoft executive had come to Nokia, bet the firm's future on an alliance with Microsoft, laid off about 40,000 worldwide and then delivered it into Microsoft's hands, was a galling snub to national pride.
"Jorma Ollila brought a Trojan horse to Nokia," a column in widely read tabloid Ilta-Sanoma said.
"As a Finnish person, I cannot like this deal. It ends one chapter in this Nokia story," said Juha Varis, Danske Capital's senior portfolio manager, whose fund owns Nokia shares. "On the other hand, it was maybe the last opportunity to sell it."
Varis was one of many investors critical of Elop's decision to bet Nokia's future in smartphones on Microsoft's Windows Phone software, which was praised by tech reviewers but hasn't found the momentum to challenge the market leaders.
"So this is the outcome: the whole business for 5 billion euros. That's peanuts compared to its history," he said.
Alexander Stubb, Finland's Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, said on his Twitter account: "For a lot of us Finns, including myself, Nokia phones are part of what we grew up with. Many first reactions to the deal will be emotional."
Nokia's new interim CEO Risto Siilasmaa painted a picture of just how grudgingly the call to sell had been arrived at, describing how the board had met almost 50 times after the approach by Microsoft around February.
Ballmer, at a news conference in the Finnish capital, sought to assuage fears the deal would hit jobs in the Nordic country and said Microsoft would build on the recent growth of Nokia's flagship Lumia smartphones.
Nokia said it expected around 32,000 people of its roughly 90,000 worldwide staff would transfer to Microsoft, including about 4,700 who will transfer in Finland.
PIVOTAL FOR MICROSOFT
It is also a pivotal moment for Microsoft, which still has huge revenues from its Windows computer operating system, Office suite of business software and the X-Box game console, but has failed so far to set up a profitable mobile device business.
Microsoft's own mobile gadget, the Surface tablet, has sold tepidly since it was launched last year.
"It's a bold step into the future — a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies," Ballmer said. "Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft's share and profits in phones and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services."
The move leaves the Finnish company with Nokia Solutions and Networks, which competes with the likes of Ericsson and Huawei in telecoms equipment, as well as a navigation business and a broad portfolio of patents.
The Nokia deal thrusts Microsoft deeper into the hotly contested mobile phone market, despite some investors urging it to stick to its core strengths of business software and services.
Elop will return to Microsoft as its board ponders a successor to Ballmer, who will depart in the next 12 months.
Activist fund manager ValueAct Capital Management, which has been offered a board seat, is among those concerned with Ballmer's leadership and his attempts to plough headlong into the lower-margin, highly competitive mobile devices arena.
Others applauded Ballmer's aggressive gambit.
"Microsoft cannot walk away from smartphones, and the hope that other vendors will support Windows Phone is fading fast. So buying Nokia comes at the right time," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner.
"In today's market it is clear that a vertical integration is the way forward for a company to succeed. How else could Microsoft achieve this?"
As part of Microsoft, Elop will head an expanded Devices unit. Julie Larson-Green, who in July was promoted to head a new Devices and Studios business in Ballmer's reorganization, will report to Elop when the deal is closed.
FIRE SALE
Analyst Tero Kuittinen at consultancy Alekstra said the sale price of Nokia's phone business, about a quarter of its sales last year, represented a "fire sale level", though others were less clear about what a shrunken Nokia was worth.
The price agreed for the devices and services business gives it an enterprise value of about 0.33 times sales for a loss-making business, about half what Google paid for Motorola's handset business in 2012.
"What should be paid for a declining business, where market share has been constantly lost and profitability has been poor?" said Hannu Rauhala, analyst at Pohjola Bank. "It is difficult to say if it's cheap or expensive."
Nokia is still the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker behind Samsung, but it is not in the top five in the more lucrative and faster-growing smartphone market.
Sales of Nokia's Lumia series have helped the market share of Windows Phones in the global smartphone market climb to 3.3 percent, according to consultancy Gartner, overtaking ailing BlackBerry Ltd for the first time this year. Still, Google Inc's Android and Apple's iOS system make up 90 percent of the market.
Nokia said in a statement it expected that, apart from Elop, senior executives Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, and Chris Weber would transfer to Microsoft when the deal is concluded, probably in the first quarter of 2014.
($1 = 0.7582 euros)