Tech News Today 424

Tech News Today Episode 424

"Nokia, Now Less Rediculous"Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar, Jason Howell, Patrick Beja Recorded: January 26, 2012 Published: January 26, 2012 Duration: 54:43 Transcript Previous episode – Next episode

Contents 1 Tech News Today 424: Nokia, Now Less Rediculous 1.1 Hosts 1.2 Top Stories 1.3 Discussion Stories 1.4 News Fuse 1.5 Randomizer 1.6 Calendar 2 INCOMING 2.1 Email 3 Sponsors 3.1 Ford 4 Production Information

Tech News Today 424: Nokia, Now Less Rediculous

ACTA fight begins in Europe, HTC aims to get simpler, Symantec says don't use their product, and more.

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Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@SarahLane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Iyaz Akhtar (@Iyaz)
  • ThisOldNerd.FiniteComedy.com
• Jason Howell (@RayGun01)
  • JasonHowell.net
• Patrick Beja
  • patrickbeja.com

Top Stories

• Thousands march in Poland over Acta internet treaty
• 22 countries sign ACTA
• Stop ACTA: secretive treaty will bring in the worst of SOPA through trade obligations
• Video opposing ACTA
• ACTA text
  • The UK and 21 other European Union member states signed ACTA in Tokyo today. five EU countries did not sign, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia.
  • The treaty will first have to be discussed by the EU International Trade Committee (INTA) at the end of February or in early March, then voted on by INTA in April or May. European Parliament plenary vote would happen between 11 and 14 June.
  • Thousands demonstrated in the streets of Poland opposing that country's signing of the treaty
  • European Commission claims the treaty does not change any existing European law
  • US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea signed last year.
  • What is in ACTA demands governments make it unlawful to market devices that circumvent copyright, such as devices that copy encrypted DVDs without authorization.
  • calls on participating nations to maintain extensive seizure and forfeiture laws when it comes to counterfeited goods that are trademarked or copyrighted.
  • countries must carry out a legal system where victims of intellectual property theft may be awarded an undefined amount of monetary damages.
  • ISP safe harbor is conditioned on the ISP "adopting and reasonably implementing a policy to address the unauthorized storage or transmission of materials protected by copyright."
  • also allows rightsholders to "expeditiously obtain from that provider information on the identity of the relevant subscriber"

• AT&T loses whopping $6.7B on pensions, T-Mobile breakup
• AT&T Demands More Spectrum, Slams FCC (Again)
• AT&T's Q4: 7.6 million iPhones activated, 9.4 million smartphones sold
• AT&T: 700k square miles of 3G added in 2011, 80 percent of mobile broadband now on 'enhanced backhaul'
• AT&T Generates 20 Percent of Apple’s iPhone Sales
  • $6.7 billion loss in the fourth quarter due largely to a change in how it accounts for its employee pension benefits and the breakup fee (last year profit $1.1 billion)
  • revenue rose 3.6 percent to $32.5 billion
  • AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson criticised FCC over spectrum "We don't know what spectrum caps are going to apply with one transaction to the next," Stephenson said. "The first issue is not identifying [available] spectrum, but what the rules are."
  • activated 7.6 million iPhones (20% of all sold) -- added a net 717,000 new contract subscribers and 9.4 million smartphones, or 50 percent more than its previous record.
  • While revenue per user goes down AT&T realising gains from connected devices like picture frames and dog collars
  • Rather than limit the amount of spectrum a company can hold, a 'spectrum screen' kicks in when a transaction would result in a company holding more than 1/3 of spectrum in a significant market.

• Nokia Sells 1 Million Windows Phones, But Symbian Dropping Faster than Expected
• Nokia reports $1.2b operating loss in Q4, sells 31 percent fewer smartphones than previous year
• Microsoft paid Nokia $250 million to use Windows Phone in Q4 2011
  • Sold 1 million Windows Phones (out of 19.6 million smartphones sold), Symbian declining faster than expected
  • Did not make a financial forecast for 2012 because of Symbian uncertainty
  • year-on-year decrease in smart device sales of 31 percent and an operating loss of €954 million (about $1.2 billion)
  • Nokia generated an operating profit of €208 million from its mobile division. It was its Location & Commerce group that dropped
  • received a "platform support payment" of $250 million from Microsoft.

Discussion Stories

• It’s About Time: HTC To Refocus Smartphone Efforts Around “Hero” Devices
• iPhone vs. HTC's phones
  • Talking to Mobile Magazine, HTC UK chief Phil Roberson said the company will be refocusing on phones and less on tablets.
  • HTC also will try to give customers "Something special", "deliver a few 'hero' products."
  • Roberson: "We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience,” Roberson said. “We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much.”

• iPad dominates tablet market, but Android is closing fast
• Strategy Analytics: Apple still owns tablet market, but Android narrows the gap
• Forrester: Nearly 50% of businesses now issuing Macs, 27% support the iPad
  • Strategy Analytics reports 10.5 million Android-based tablets shipped in the 4th quarter
  • Android now accounts for 39.1% of tablet market
  • iPad shipped 15.4 million and holds 57.6% of the market
  • Microsoft nabbed the third spot with 1.5 percent share, thanks to Windows running on 400,000 tablets shipped last quarter.
  • According to Strategy Analytics, 26.8 million tablets hit store shelves last quarter, and 66.9 million shipped worldwide in all of 2011. In 2010, 18.6 million tablets shipped globally
  • ipad numbers are SOLD Android numbers are SHIPPED

• Source code theft prompts Symantec to issue warning to customers
  • users running Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton SystemWorks, Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0, or Symantec AntiVirus 10.2 apply the latest maintenance patches.
  • If you have the company's pcAnywhere solution deployed, Symantec suggests only using it for "business critical purposes," as this software is "at increased risk."
  • Symantec has confirmed that the hacker group Anonymous stole source code from the 2006 versions of several Norton security products and the pcAnywhere remote access tool.
  • Issued a patch for PCAnywhere on Monday said it will continue issuing patches "until a new version of pcAnywhere that addresses all currently known vulnerabilities is released."

News Fuse

• Things aren't looking good for Nintendo. The company announced a loss of over $600 million for first three quarters of 2011 and could have its first annual loss in over 30 years. For the fiscal year, Nintendo expects to lose as much as $838 million.

• Don't feel so alone Nintendo, AT&T, and Nokia! Motorola sucks too! The soon to be Google-owned Motorola recorded a net loss of $80 million compared to a net income of $80 million in last year’s fourth quarter. The biggest drag on profits were those darned phone. Motorola’s mobile division recorded an operating loss of $285 million for the full year, and an operating loss of $70 million in the fourth quarter.

• Valve introduced a closed beta version of a Steam app for iOS and Android. The app gives users access to the Steam store and Steam Chat. To request an invite, you have to download the app first. If you were wondering if you could games with the app, the answer is no.

• Zynga Poker has a new friend. The first new game in the Zynga Casino franchise is here. Bingo is being released on Thursday in beta to a small group and will gradually be rolled out to millions on Facebook in the next few weeks. Mashable's Kate Freeman says the game is beautiful like a real Bingo parlour. Huh. Players can earn coins, cards and keys to move up levels and unlock rooms within the game and play in real time with friends.

• Along with its earnings report yesterday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he believes that Amazon will introduce a standalone version of its streaming video service and it will be at a lower price that Netflix's. Hastings said he wasn't worried about the competition because Netflix has a larger library of content than the others. Hastings also told investors that the company will not be offering video game rentals. Video game rentals were to be a part of the ill-fated Qwikster service that never got off the ground.
• Netflix abandons video game rental plans

• Starting today, 13 year olds and older can sign up for Google+. Those under 18 will have a modified Plus experience as they will receive extra warnings for public posts and hangouts will have a feature that will turn off video and audio if someone outside the user's circle joins. Google has also added Google Earth to Google+ so you can share your trips socially.

• Google+ Invades Earth

• A new bill introduced in the state of Hawaii would require Internet Service Providers to keep a log of every website its users visit along with the customer's name and address for two years. The bill, HB 2288, was introduced last Friday. A virtually identical bill is also making its way through the Hawaiian Senate. As expected, there is a backlash to these bills on privacy concerns.

• The $25 Raspberry Pi Linux box is being put through its paces to see what kind of performance you can expect from the low cost machine. In a video demo, the PC was able to run H.264-encoded 1080p video smoothly and a slightly flicker-y version of XBMC. Home theater PC enthusiasts, take note!

• The FBI is planning to build an application that will scrape information from social networks to create a system to warn of domestic and global threats. The warnings would be overlayed onto a map to see where the threat applies. The app is in planning stages and the FBI is just getting estimates from contractors now.

Randomizer

• AT&T unearths Jim Henson's 1963 Robot short for Bell

Calendar

• Lenovo ThinkPad X130e now available, one with AMD's E-300 APU for $429 and another with Intel's Core i3-2367M for $549. estimated ship date of February 9th.

INCOMING

Email

"Hey TNT crew;

Today on Episode #423, you had an e-mailer explain that there is no incentive for buying unsubsidized phones and switching to prepaid or month-to-month plans. This is absolutely not true! There are about 10 MVNO's on AT&T, and 5 MVNO's on T-Mobile that offer prepaid plans in the $30 (in the case of T-Mobile) to $70 (in the case of AT&T) range, which are HUGE discounts from 2-year contracts. These plans regularly offer the exact same (or very similar) coverage maps as their more expensive counterparts, but at a fraction of the price, and with no commitment!

I personally do not have a contract with T-Mobile on a older Even More+ plan ringing up around $70/month, but as they've phased these out and moved to offer better value plans, I'm switching to a prepaid T-Mobile + WalMart plan for my new Galaxy Nexus. $30 a month! with no tax on refills. I'm looking forward to saving myself $450+ every year on cell phone service, which will easily pay off the extra you spend on unlocked phones. Not to mention that you will be saving $20 or more a month by not paying for tethering plans, as unlocked devices do not have IMEI's in the carriers systems.

Just wanted to express that it can be done! The sooner we start showing the carriers that we don't want to put up with their high prices and 2-year agreements, the sooner they'll start to (hopefully) change their tune. Vote with your dollars, people!!

Hope my comment can make it into the show!

Andrew from WA"

"hey TNT Crew!

With the news that Facebook is going to be rolling out the Timeline to everyone, I thought you might be interested in knowing there is a way to change the audience of your posts and status updates for past posts, with one click. Basically what the setting does, it changes everything to only being visible to Friends only(as opposed to Friends of friends, and public). This way, once you do this, you can go back to individual posts, and manually change the audience to public or viewable to friends of friends…

Anyway to get to this setting is simple, Go to the ""Privacy Settings"" look for the setting labeled ""Limit the Audience for Past Posts"" and click its link. you will now have a box appear with a button labeled ""Limit old posts"" click this, and you are done! Pretty simple! Love the show. Stephen Charlotte, NC"

Sponsors

Ford

• ad times: :35-:47 and 21:42-22:45

Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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