Google+Facebook+iPhone: 09/05/11

Monday, 5 September 2011

Facebook Music Service for Streaming Music Likely This Fall

Facebook is likely to make a move towards Facebook Music this month, making it a hub for music, games and movies. The rumors of Facebook Music have been as rampant this Summer as the iPhone 5, but news surfaced last week of Facebook sharing information with a number of media outlets about the integration of streaming music services like Spotify, MOG, Rdio and Rhapsody.

The new music sharing on Facebook is being called "connective tissue" in describing the way in which users can share music and playlists. Right now, all of the streaming music services are stand-alone experiences, and Facebook Music looks like it will be a way to share a song or playlist with a Facebook friend in a way that translates to each person's streming music service of choice.

This means that a MOG user could share a playlist that a Spotify user can open in Spotify. It sounds simple in hindsight, but before now this was not possible. What remains unclear at this point is how it will take shape ... ideas in the past have included a Facebook Music page or a Facebook Music app, but what seems more likely is the ability of people to communicate via the normal way they have always done through Facebook, with playlist and song links that translate from from one streaming music site to another. It could be possible that the music app would open inside of Facebook.

Back in June, we talked about how a Facebook Music offering would be listed under a tab in the left-hand column of a Facebook page, alongside Photos, Friends, Places (etc.) and would be a "music dashboard" that integrates music recommendations from friends. Details are unconfirmed so far, but it looks like this area could provide a sort of Facebook Music player for a variety of music platforms, like iCloud, MOG, or whatever streaming music service your Facebook friend uses.

Ceglia: Facebook violated my privacy, published e-mail passwords

Paul Ceglia, a man that claims he owns half of Facebook, says the company’s lawyers committed an “egregious and massive violation” of his privacy by publishing his e-mail passwords. Ceglia’s filing notes Facebook’s lawyers included passwords to his Web-based e-mail accounts in a court document filed on September 1 in federal court in Buffalo, New York.

The papers were removed from the public file the next day. Ceglia, who is currently in Ireland, changed the passwords, according to his lawyers Paul Argentieri and Jeffrey Lake. “Counsel’s baffling misconduct resulted in Ceglia’s e-mail accounts being accessible to the world for 12 hours,” his lawyers said in court papers. They said they intend to ask the court for sanctions and attorneys fees, according to Bloomberg.

This passwords episode is the latest in a long battle between Ceglia and the social networking giant. Last month, Facebook charged that Ceglia has been withholding electronic devices from the court. The company asked US Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio to force Ceglia to turn computers, files, and e-mails.

Two months ago, Facebook said it found “smoking-gun evidence that the purported contract at the heart of this case is a fabrication.” When Facebook’s lawyers asked for a resubmittal of a document to the court due to improper redaction, it turned out the blacked out text referred to an “authentic contract” and “storage devices” that Facebook says Ceglia is intentionally hiding from the company, in violation of a court order.

Facebook said it found the original “authentic contract” between Mark Zuckerberg and Paul Ceglia. Facebook then produced said contract, noting it doesn’t even mention Facebook at all. Not only did the social networking giant reportedly find this allegedly genuine contract on Ceglia’s computer but on the e-mail servers of a Chicago-based law firm, Sidley Austin as well. Facebook alleges that Ceglia e-mailed the original contract to Sidely Austin back in 2004.

Foschio said Ceglia must allow Facebook’s experts to examine his Web-based e-mail accounts (this is how the passwords were exposed), which he said he used to communicate with Zuckerberg in 2003 and 2004 and later saved on floppy disks. Only then will Zuckerberg be required to turn over 175 e-mails from his Harvard University account. Ceglia and his team have been waiting for those e-mails for weeks and once again they have hit a setback: they must wait until five days after Ceglia hands over his electronic material.

Originally, Ceglia’s lawyers said the “authentic contract” is shielded from use in the lawsuit because it is designated as “confidential” under the rules of an agreement between the two parties. As a result, Facebook asked Foschio to overrule that designation; he agreed and ordered Ceglia to hand over documents Facebook says proves he forged the 2003 contract.

As for the “storage devices,” Facebook said that forensic data shows evidence of six USB devices, which it argues were likely used to modify the authentic contract. The company’s lawyers say at least one of those devices includes a folder called “Facebook Files” and an image called “Zuckerberg Contract page1.tif.” Facebook believes that image is the page of the contract that was forged to include mention of an investment in the social network.

In an exclusive interview with ZDNet, Ceglia told me the original “authentic contract” Facebook says it found is really just a Photoshopped image the company planted on his computer. He says he and his lawyers reportedly knew about it for some time and willingly handed it over to Facebook. He told ZDNet that his team will prove the image in question “has no authenticating properties whatsoever.”

Ceglia speculates it could have been Zuckerberg himself, or the US law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe that may have done the alleged dirty work. Ceglia called Zuckerberg “an admitted forger and an admitted hacker” and explained that Zuckerberg, or someone representing him, carelessly wrote his home address on the allegedly forged document that he didn’t know about or move to until more than a year after the document was supposedly written.

Google shuts down 10 more services in fall spring-clean

Google's Chief Executive Larry Page is continuing his efforts to streamline the company's operations by axing another 10 of their less successful ventures. Since his appointment in January, Page has been determined to move Google away from niche businesses and focus on the bigger products they offer instead.

In an official blog post, aptly titled "A fall spring-clean", Alan Eustace, senior vice president of search said: "This will make things much simpler for our users, improving the overall Google experience. It will also mean we can devote more resources to high impact products—the ones that improve the lives of billions of people." He went on to note that all existing Google staff working on these closed ventures will be moved to other posts throughout the company.

Aardvark will face the axe, despite Google spending a reported $50 million on the purchase of the Social search engine just last year. Other products to be euthanized include Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeller, Notebook, Sidewiki and Subscribed Links. All are being shutdown due to low demand and full details about their intended closure dates are available in Google's blog post.

Baidu forks Android to introduce its own mobile OS for China

Baidu, Google's Chinese counterpart in search, has announced plans to take Android, strip it of Google's apps and services and replace them with its own under the brand Baidu Yi.
Baidu announced the plan at its annual Baidu World event in Beijing, according to areport by Penn Olson. The Chinese search company's services have already been used to replace Google's on Android phones sold in China, but the new initiative will spin a new OS off from the mainstream development of Android itself.

Baidu said it would deliver its own Maps, a service competing with Google Places, an ebook reader modeled after Apple's iBooks and a music player (depicted below from the Baidu website). The company will also fold in its apps that currently ship with Chinese Android phones, including a Chinese character input tool.

Baidu will target the new Yi OS in competition with Google's mainstream distribution of Android tied to its own apps, other Android variants already in use within China, and alternative mobile OS products like Alibaba, which is not based on Android but aims to run Android apps.

All of these products also compete with Apple's original iPhone, which has made an entry into China and will reportedly broaden its presence in a new partnership with the country's largest carrier China Mobile.

China's new fragment abandons Google
It's not clear what version of Android the new Baidu Yi will be based on. Android already suffers from an inconsistent, fragmented experience for users as individual phone makers and carriers add their own proprietary layers of apps and look and feel packages such as Motorola's Motoblur and Samsung's Touchwiz.

The new Baidu Yi OS, based on the open foundation code in Android, may run some Android apps but will face more technical barriers than the simple user experience overlays that complicate developers' ability to launch Android apps. Baidu's fragmentation barrier will be more like the OS version problems that split the Android ecosystem into incompatible API levels.

That issue is the result of hardware makers and carriers refusing to update earlier device models or taking several months to make updates available to users after Google issues a new build. Google's open model allows any partners to hold back updates, something Apple has eliminated with its policy of maintaining ownership of the iOS update system.

Of all Android devices to access Google's App Market over the past two weeks, half are still running last summer's Android 2.2 Froyo and only 30 percent are using Google's latest smartphone release, Android 2.3 Gingerbread. More than 16 percent are running a build older than Froyo, preventing them from being able to run modern apps.

Hacking in the Netherlands Took Aim at Internet Giants

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Attackers who hacked into a Dutch Web security firm have issued hundreds of fraudulent security certificates for intelligence agency Web sites, including the C.I.A., as well as for Internet giants like Google, Microsoft and Twitter, the Dutch government said on Monday.

Experts say they suspect the hacker — or hackers — operated with the cooperation of the Iranian government, perhaps in attempts to spy on dissidents.

The latest versions of browsers including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox are now rejecting certificates issued by the firm that was hacked, DigiNotar.

But in a statement on Monday, the Dutch Justice Ministry published a list of the fraudulent certificates that greatly expands the scope of the July hacking attack that DigiNotar acknowledged only last week. The list also includes certificates that were sent to sites operated by Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, Skype, AOL, the Tor Project, WordPress, and by intelligence agencies like Israel’s Mossad and Britain’s MI6.

DigiNotar is one of many companies that sell the security certificates widely used to authenticate Web sites and guarantee that communications between a user’s browser and a site are secure.

In theory, a fraudulent certificate can be used to trick a user into visiting a fake version of a Web site, or used to monitor communications with the real sites without users noticing.

But in order to pass off a fake certificate, a hacker must be able to steer his target’s Internet traffic through a server that he controls. That is something only an Internet service provider, or a government that commands one, can easily do.

Technology experts cite a number of reasons to believe the attack is connected to Iran. Notably, several of the certificates contain nationalist slogans in Farsi, the language spoken by most Iranians.

“This, in combination with messages the hacker left behind on DigiNotar’s Web site, definitely suggests that Iran was involved,” said Ot van Daalen, director of Bits of Freedom, an online civil liberties group.

So far, only a handful of users in Iran is known to have been affected.

The attack on DigiNotar closely resembles one in March of the United States security firm Comodo Inc., which was also attributed to an Iranian.

Although no users in the Netherlands are known to have been victimized directly, the breach has caused a major headache for the Dutch government, which relied on DigiNotar to authenticate most of its Web sites.

In a news conference on Saturday, the Dutch justice minister, Piet Hein Donner, said the safety of Web sites — including the country’s social security agency, police and tax authorities — could no longer be guaranteed.

Apple iPhone 5 ships October, claims rumor machine

With classic clumsiness and style I dropped my iPhone this morning and smashed its display. This means I'm so in the market for a new Apple [AAPL] smartphone: good news then that iPhone 5 production has begun and it looks likely we'll be getting hold of the new metal-back device starting next month (October).

October action
Multiple rumors this weekend seem to support an October release for the faster, slimmer, lighter Apple iPhone. German carrier Deutsche Telecom is even offering iPhone pre-orders to its customers on a voucher system, though won't say when the device will ship, or if it will ship.

Internal Best Buy documents leaked this weekend to the BGR blog claim the device is set to launch in the first week of October. A second report from a different source seems to hint an October 21 launch, however.

You can expect an iPhone on most networks, claims the Wall Street Journal, which tells us small US carrier, Sprint, will also begin offering an iPhone 5 from October.

Production begins
We're now picking up claims that production of the new iPhones has begun. There's been a spate of leaked component images in the past few weeks, now it seems the components are being put together.

Small Mac website, Macotakara claims Foxconn and Pegatron have begun assembling the iPhone 5 in preparation for an early October launch in the US, with an introduction in China scheduled for later that month.

Strangely, the report states that once the iPhones have been made they arenot being boxed-up, speculating that this is in order to install iOS 5 when that software is available.

Scheduled for introduction this Fall, iOS 5 preparation has already begun at Apple's chain of retail stores where staff are now being trained in iOS 5 and iCloud. This suggests the the new software and service to be set for imminent introduction -- though we've had no word of any Apple special event for this or for its iPod products as yet -- perhaps we'll see this emerge later this week?

Police, Facebook and presidential politics all on special session agenda

Missouri's special legislative session that begins Tuesday in Jefferson City isn't just about the economy, jobs and "Aerotropolis," aka the China Hub. (See Big idea of China Hub is big issue in special legislative session)

Legislators also have three other key topics that Gov. Jay Nixon has agreed need to be addressed:

Changing Missouri's presidential preference primary, so that it won't be held in February, a schedule that violates rules for both major parties.
Repealing and possibly revamping part of a new state law that now appears to ban most private teacher-student interaction on the Internet, including social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Returning control of the St. Louis police department to the city of St. Louis, a move that would end 150 years of state oversight.

Lcoal control has been sought by St. Louis mayors for decades, but just recently the effort began to gain traction in the General Assembly. The Missouri House approved local control during the regular session earlier this year, but the bill died in the Senate when it became a bargaining chip in the economic-development fight.

The St. Louis Police Officers Association, which long has opposed local control, came aboard earlier this year after a collective-bargaining contract was reached with the city's Police Board, largely made up of Nixon appointees.

Ironically, legislative term limits may have helped the city's cause, because the current crop of Jefferson City lawmakers appears to have far less interest in influencing operations in the St. Louis Police Department. Years ago, veteran city legislators often called the shots when it came to promotions and other internal matters.

On Friday, local-control backers were busy shooting down last-minute rumors on Twitter that the measure would include police pensions, which the association wants to remain under state control. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay's staff, and key legislators, say pensions are not part of the special-session bill.

TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND FACEBOOK

Despite the issue's historic backdrop, the battle over local control lately has been somewhat overshadowed by the late-breaking dispute over the state law restricting teacher communications with students.

Nixon just recently added to the special session the proposed repeal of the controversial electronic communication portion of a new law, called the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act. The law was designed to restrict social interaction between students and teachers,. The aim is to protect students from becoming sexually exploited by teachers and other adult educators.

The law took effect Aug. 28, but a judge imposed a stay on the section that has raised objections from teachers and others.

That section bars private exchanges between teachers and students -- including former students -- on online sites. Some critics and school districts say its wording even bars email communications. A teacher in Ladue filed suit claiming that because her children had been in her class, she couldn't even communicate with them on Facebook.

The bill's sponsors, led by state Sen. Jane Cunningham (right), R-Chesterfield, have contended that the provision is being misinterpreted by critics. Cunningham has said she is open to making some changes to clarify the intent. Backers note that the bill passed the state House and Senate unanimously.

Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem issued the temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the restriction for 180 days. Ruling in a suit brought by the Missouri State Teachers Association, he said it "would have a chilling effect on speech" and called the restrictions on electronic communication "staggering" in their breadth.

Nixon, who signed the original bill into law, concurs with the need to repeal the language. He said the importance of using social media in education has to be balanced against ensuring the safety of students, the main purpose of the law in the first place.

The sponsors and teachers groups have been working on crafting compromise language in time for the special session.

Hackers lift CIA, MI6, Mossad, Google, Twitter, Facebook security certificates

As it appeared that a group of hackers had successfully stolen a set of over 500 SSL certificates from a group by the name of DigiNotar, Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft see threat as too great and set in motion the permanent blocking of all digital certificates issued by DigiNotar. For those of you who have no idea what these security certificates do, just know that the holders of said certificates could, in one instance, set of a scam in which they appear to have a legitimate site (such as Gmail, for example), but once you’ve entered your name and password, they’ve intercepted it and have full access. It is this amongst many other plausible malicious situations that Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft are now guarding against.

Dutch company DigiNotar is at the center of this controversy, having had what appears to be over 500 digital certificates stolen from them since July, these including certificates for official sites for the CIA, Israel’s Mossad, and the UK’s MI6. The number set at 531 was written by Mozilla developer Gervase Markham, one of a team who has been working to modify Firefox in order to block all sites signed with the certificates now likely in evil hands. The full list of sites possibly affected is not known, but a short list reads like a who’s who of top sites globally: Facebook, Yahoo, Skype, Microsoft, Twitter, and Microsoft’s Windows Update service.

Reports coming from DigiNotar have noted that they’ve already attempted to revoke all fraudulent certificates but had just in the past few days found out that they’d overlooked certain ones that would allow the hackers access to Google cervices across the board. To combat this situation, Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft have stated that in addition to the more than 200 certificates they’d already blocked since DigiNotar originally started releasing information about a month ago, they’d be blocking the whole lot, including those used by the Dutch government, as soon as possible. Google Online Security Blog and Mozilla Security Blog AND Microsoft Security Response Center posted this inside the past few days.

Women more likely than men to click on Facebook ads

Interest around Facebook as an advertising medium is exploding, arguably because the site’s user base is still rapidly growing: 750 million users and counting. Of course, not all these users react to advertising the same way, according to a new research study by SocialCode, which calls itself a Facebook-focused agency.

The research examined over 4 million data points across over 50 clients from a wide variety of industries to get a better understanding of how age and gender affect click-through rates (CTR) and Facebook Like rates on the social network. The results show that older Facebook users have a higher CTR while younger Facebook users tend to click the ad’s Like button instead. Aside from being older, Facebook ad clickers are more likely to be women.

The study found that while age has a strong positive effect on whether a user will click, it oftentimes has the opposite effect on the likelihood of the user Liking a given Page:

50+ year-old users, the oldest segment in the study, are 28.2 percent more likely to click through and 9 percent less likely to Like than 18-29 year-old users, the youngest group observed.
Versus the rest of the younger population on Facebook, 50+ users see a 22.6 percent higher CTR and a 8.4 percent lower Like rate.

When broken down by gender, age has a much more pronounced effect on CTR for women than it does for men, whereas for men there is a stronger effect on the Like rate than for women:

Overall, women are 11 percent more likely to click on an ad.
Men are 2.2 percent more likely to Like an ad than women are.
For women, CTR is 31.2 percent higher for the 50+ age group versus 18-29 year olds, while men only see a 16.2 percent difference between the age groups.
Versus all age groups, 50+ women’s CTR is 22 percent higher versus a 16.4 percent difference for men.
The oldest male segment has an 11.7 percent lower Like rate than the youngest segment, and a 9.5 percent lower Like rate versus all age groups. Women only see a 7.2 percent and 7.9 percent difference, respectively.

Facebook starts experimenting with comment translations

Facebook is a social network focused on conquering the world by gathering all your friends and relatives in one place. Having over 750 million users counted on its books is the best start any social network has had so far, but Mark Zuckerberg surely has his sights set on over a billion users, many of whom won’t count English as a first language.

Google seems to have been the company pushing forward the most with language translation over the past few years. Google Translate supports 50+ languages, there’s mobile apps, Google Reader can auto-translate pages into your chosen language, and work is underway on a universal translator for making calls.

Read more at http://www.geek.com/articles/news/facebook-starts-experimenting-with-comment-translations-2011095/

Freddie Mercury's 65th Birthday Inspires Tributes From Artists, Google and Lotus

Artists from around the rock world took some time out Monday, Aug. 5, to pay tribute to the late Queen singer Freddie Mercury on what would have been his 65th birthday. Even Google got in on the celebration by dedicating their Google Doodle to the music icon.

As NME.com reports, Katy Perry, My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way, Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corganand Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump opted for video posts on YouTube, with Way saying "Freddie we love you, Freddie we miss you and we'll always think of you."

A nearly 12-minute compilation of some of the tributes -- concluding with a series of interview snippets from Mercury -- can be found on YouTube. Hawkins says his first concert was Queen back in 1982 while Perry sings "Happy Birthday" to Mercury, adding she wanted to be a "killer Queen" and how big of an influence the legendary frontman was to her.

"I wish I could sing half as good as he did," Corgan said, adding that Mercury was a "warm, loving person" but also a person who "loved grandeur." "If they were a band that was coming out today they would still be massive," he added.

Don`t Trust iPhone 5 Rumors: 10 Reasons Why

Just about every time one checks out the news and blogs on the Web these days, there will be some sort of rumor related to Apple’s iPhone 5. The latest rumors discuss everything from the device’s screen size to whether it will come with a better antenna to overcome the reception-killing “death grip” issue that plagued its predecessors.

But anyone who reads these rumors is left with no more knowledge than what they started with. We know no more factual information about the iPhone 5 than before these rumors started circulating. This situation is sure to continue until Apple decides to release the phone, or trickles out some real information about it.

That was made abundantly clear as of late when an alleged iPhone 5 prototype was reportedly lost in a bar. Immediately, reports cropped up, suggesting it was definitely the next smartphone that Apple would launch. But after the excitement faded, it’s apparent this rumor didn’t help to prove or disprove anything that has been suggested about what features the iPhone 5 will actually offer. In fact, it was little more than just another smartphone that might or might not make its way to store shelves eventually.

But this begs the real question: If an iPhone 5 prototype has really surfaced, why do Apple employees keep losing them in very public places? Readers might remember that this is the same thing that happened with a reputed prototype of the iPhone 4.

With this situation in mind, it might be a good time to examine why iPhone 5 rumors cannot be trusted. As many as there are out there, there isn’t a single rumor that you should believe will definitely come true.

Read on to find out why:

1. Prototypes aren’t finished products
Much has been made about the alleged iPhone prototype that was lost in a bar in San Francisco. Apple reportedly tried to find the device, leading some to wonder if it was, in fact, the iPhone 5. But the chances of that happening seem rather slim. Prototypes are by no means finished products. For single device, there can be many prototypes out there. But the finished product is likely locked away at Apple.

2. Remember Apple’s secrecy
Even though Steve Jobs is no longer CEO at Apple, his company’s value of secrecy has not changed. Over the years, Apple hasn’t let anything slip out. In fact, leaking information to the press is punishable with termination at Apple. Realizing that, all the rumors that crop up hardly ever (if ever, in fact) come from an Apple employee, which immediately makes them unreliable.

3. They’re an attention-grabber
One of the things about Apple rumors is that they do a good job of grabbing the attention of people. They tend to be sensational; they usually discuss major improvements that folks would want to see if their next iPhone; and for the people crafting them, they get a chance to show off their predictions for Apple’s future. But sadly, they hardly ever prove to be true.

4. The ideas don’t make sense
If one considers some of the ideas that have been floated on the Web about the iPhone 5, they will quickly realize why Apple rumors can’t be trusted. Some suggest that the iPhone 5 will come with several different versions for people looking for different things in the device. Other rumors say Apple will finally offer an enterprise-friendly, physical-keyboard-equipped option. Both rumors are fanciful and make little sense. That’s the problem with many of the iPhone 5-related rumors.

5. Creating a false trail
Apple has long been a leader in making people think about its products by baiting them into developing an insatiable desire to learn more and more about its upcoming devices. Who knows if the reports that the latest iPhone model went missing isn’t more of the same? There is some speculation around the Web that Apple might have intentionally let the device go missing to throw folks off the scent of the real iPhone 5. Whether or not that’s true will never be known, of course. But Apple’s past false trail techniques have proven quite effective. And there’s no reason to suggest it won’t use them again.

6. Anyone can say anything
The problem with rumors is that they can’t be easily substantiated. Like it or not, Apple is the only company that knows what it has planned. And at least so far, it isn’t talking. The rumor mill can say anything it wants without fear of being wrong, since Apple won’t say anything one way or another. It’s an issue that folks must keep in mind with the iPhone 5.

7. Apple uses it to its advantage
If Apple really wanted to stop the rumor mill from continuing to churn out information, it could do so without much trouble. It could simply showcase some new products or features and immediately put the speculation to rest. But Apple doesn’t want to do that. It realizes how important the rumor mill is to the popularity of its products, like the iPhone 5, and so, without publicly admitting it, the company lets rumors run amok so it can benefit. It’s an ingenious strategy, and it’s something that only helps to feed into the hysteria across the Web.

8. There is no recourse for getting it wrong
What happens when a person offering up a rumor related to the iPhone 5 gets it wrong? Right now, nothing. If their predictions happen to be incorrect, they talk about the feature that was actually made available. And in the process, their credibility as a verifiable source of Apple information doesn’t get hurt one bit. There’s simply no risk when it comes to iPhone 5 rumors, which makes the flood of reports continue to rise.

9. Fake devices are everywhere
Nearly every week, images crop up claiming to show the future iPhone 5. They show smartphone cases with big displays, different colors and just about everything in between. While it’s certainly possible that at least a few of those could be the iPhone 5, in most cases, they’re simply faked photos or mockups of prototypes that will never hit store shelves.

Read more at http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Dont-Trust-iPhone-5-Rumors-10-Reasons-Why-840898/

Google's Just Made the Line Between Mobile Web and Apps Even Sharper. As It Happens, It Doesn't Matter.

The mobile app versus mobile web debate, a concept made famous by Steve Job’s walled garden vision of the Internet, has been highlighted again, this time by Google.

Just before the start of the Labor Day weekend it announced it was cutting off AdMob support for mobile web sites seeking to monetize their mobile web content and pushing them onto its AdSense ad platform. Mobile app developers will continue to use AdMob.

To mobile web developers and those few companies that have utterly committed to their mobile strategies this is big news and undoubtedly a hassle too (something even Google alludes to in its blog post: “We know that these sorts of transitions can cause our customers some extra work….”).

For most other companies, though, it’s just another data point to consider, especially by smaller firms, as they plot marketing strategies and budgets for 2012 (yep, it’s that time of year again).

Only the biggest firms spread their resources equally and liberally between mobile web and mobile apps. For everybody else, increasingly it seems, the case for mobile apps seems more heavily weighted.

The App Inventory That Ate the Ad Budget
For instance, Flurry just released some interesting research: US mobile app inventory is poised to absorb the equivalent of the entire US internet display advertising spend by the end of this year as mobile app inventory has grown from less than $500 million in January to close to $1 billion.

By the end of 2012, Flurry predicts mobile app inventory will reach $4.5 billion, which is triple the expected $1.5 billion that will represent online display ad spending.

It’s not that simple though. Not all apps are equal in the eyes of consumers. True, Nielsen Smartphone Analytics recently noted that when Android users are given a choice between the mobile web and specially-created mobile apps they usually prefer the mobile apps in terms of time spent. But it also found that despite the hundreds of thousands of apps available for Android, only a very small proportion of apps make up the vast majority of time spent, with the top 10 Android apps accounting for 43% of all the time spent by Android consumers on mobile apps. The top 50 apps account for 61% of all time spent.

Google will rock you: 'Doodle' celebrates Queen's late frontman

(CNN) -- Google users around the world were rocking out to Queen on Monday -- except for in the U.S., where search engines will remain quiet until Tuesday.

Monday would have been the 65th birthday of Queen singer Freddie Mercury, the flamboyant, four-octave frontman who penned such enduring hits as "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Are the Champions."

To commemorate the day, Google added an animated doodle to its search page -- an appropriately over-the-top video clip set to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" that shows Mercury morphing into a space traveler, a bicyclist and a king on a throne flanked by lions and mustachioed bears.

As a nod to Queen's '70s-and-early-'80s-heyday, parts of the video have a retro, arcade-game style.

The doodle was showcased on Google's homepages around the world -- except for in the U.S., where, out of respect to the Labor Day holiday, the page remained unadorned.

Google planned to display the doodle in the U.S. Tuesday.

"Freddie was fully focused, never allowing anything or anyone to get in the way of his vision for the future," writes Queen guitarist Brian May in a guest Google blog post accompanying the doodle. "He was truly a free spirit. There are not many of these in the world. To achieve this, you have to be, like Freddie, fearless -- unafraid of upsetting anyone's apple cart."

Mercury was born September 5, 1946, in Zanzibar, which is now part of Tanzania, and moved to Britain as a teen-ager before joining Queen in 1971. He led the band through its 15-year run of radio smashes ("We Will Rock You," "Another One Bites the Dust") and operatic live shows. He died in 1991 at age 45 of an AIDS-related illness.

T-Mobile iPhone 5 officially goes on sale today – just not in U.S.

Those wanting an iPhone 5 can purchase a unit right now. They just can’t get a look at it first or a timeframe for when it’ll be specifically delivered. No, the guy who found the prototype in a bar last week didn’t put it up for sale on eBay. Instead T-Mobile, or its international parent company Deutsche Telekom, has begun taking pre-orders for the iPhone 5 today. Just don’t expect Apple to get involved yet, as it’s still too busy offering a “no comment” on when the iPhone 5 will or arrive or whether the next-gen iPhone even exists.

The cruel twist for customers in the U.S. is that Deutsche currently sells the iPhone across Europe but not on its American subsidiary T-Mobile, which it’s in the process of attempting to spin off to AT&T. That leaves current T-Mobile customers in limbo regarding the iPhone 5 as the proposed merger has met resistance from the U.S. government. However, T-Mobile customers can take solace in the fact that neither AT&T nor Verizon, who already off the iPhone 4, nor Sprint, who has thus far been outside the iPhone market, is offering the iPhone 5 yet either. DT’s play, in which it’s essentially forming an online queue for those who are willing to commit to buying the device in advance, simultaneously points to a near term launch and to unprecedented sales by iPhone standards…

Apple is said to have sent ten million or more iPhone 5 units into production well ahead of the device’s launch, in order to avoid the continued scenario faced by its iPad 2 and iPhone 4 before it in which the device launched with insufficient initial inventory. Some of those in line went home empty, and stores suffered shortages for weeks or months. After so many iPhone 4 preorders were placed that AT&T’s servers crashes, preorders were halted prematurely. The iPad 2 offered no preorders at all amid even tighter launch day inventory, which was all sent to retail instead. Deutsche Telekom, for its part, looks to avoid such a scenario with the iPhone 5. In doing, so it affirms that the iPhone 5 will in fact be available for advance online preorder…

Following Lost iPhone 5, Apple Job Hunts for "New Product Security Managers"

What do you do when an employee at your company just lost another top-secret smartphone prototype somewhere in a San Francisco-area bar?

It remains to be seen what Apple has in store for the poor worker who allegedly lost an iPhone 5 in a Mission District bar called Cava 22, but we do know that Apple seems to have finally learned its lesson from its second missing phone prototype in a row. The company's going hiring: Specifically, Apple listed two new job postings last Thursday for "New Product Security Managers."

"The candidate will be responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple's unreleased products and related intellectual property," read the job postings.

Apple's looking for applicants with a track record in problem solving and, go figure, people who regularly achieve their goals in a large business environment – goals that will transform into projects like, "Make sure nobody loses an iPhone 6," we surmise.

The two positions will both reside at Apple HQ in Cupertino, California, but will require up to 30 percent travel both domestic and abroad. They'll be responsible for maintaining the plans and procedures set forth by Apple's director of global security, former NSA vulnerability analyst and author David Rice, but will also be required to contribute to new security strategies themselves.

There's still no update as to the whereabouts of the alleged missing iPhone 5 that was lost in late July. The last official communications on the matter came from the San Francisco Police Department, which issued a statement to explain its role in assisting Apple investigators' attempts to track down the device.

"Four SFPD Officers accompanied Apple employees to the Anderson street home. The two Apple employees met with the resident and then went into the house to look for the lost item," reads the statement. "The Apple employees did not find the lost item and left the house. The Apple employees did not want to make an official report of the lost item."

Why not everyone wants to be a G+ celebrity

Google+, which launched in June, is the search-engine giant's answer to Facebook.

(CNN) -- Don't call me popular!

That seems to be the reaction from the Internet's tech celebrities to a new Google-created list of interesting people to follow on Google+.

Robert Scoble, a popular tech pundit and blogger, actually asked Google to take him off the list of people to follow on the new-ish social network.

"I totally understand why Google did this list. It just isn't a well curated list and so I don't want my name associated with it," he wrote Sunday.

In a follow-up post, he wrote that Google should promote thoughtful or popular posts on Google+, rather than turning a few people into celebrities.

"Why don't we have a list of recent great posts in tech, politics, photography, science, education, entertainment, music, media, economics, etc?" he wrote on his Google+ blog. "Why do we need to focus so much on people?"

Craig Kanalley, a senior editor at The Huffington Post, also spoke out against the list, saying it promotes online celebrity over community.

"It's going to alienate people and lead to an inevitable followers war that can hurt the health of the social network and inflate people's egos," he wrote Saturday, also on his Google+ page.

"As the famous get more followers, the non-featured fall farther behind, and a giant gap is created between the two. This is what happened on Twitter. (In a perfect world, all interact together, around common interests, and there aren't such huge disparities.)"

The Google list includes people from eight categories, from technology to entertainment and a catch-all category called "fun and interesting."

There are some familiar names -- Ashton Kutcher, Dolly Parton, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are all on the list. But there are some less-well-known people, too, like Maria Popova, who writes a blog called "Brain Pickings," and Richard MacManus from the blogReadWriteWeb.

From the outside, this debate may seem very high-school and very silly. Some people who aren't on Google's lists surely would like to be. And it could seem whiny that people like Scoble, who just got lots of free publicity from Google, would gripe about being highlighted as "interesting."

But simmering beneath the surface of this feud is something a little more substantive: Social media users are still trying to figure out what the heck Google+ is, and how it fits into the already crowded world of online communication. Can this new site be a tech utopia, where everyone communicates on an even playing field and all voices are heard? Social media promises to be a two-way street, after all -- a "conversation" rather than a lecture.

Or will it be dominated by a few power users and celebrities, with normal people relegated to watch from the digital bleachers?

It's also worth noting that a similar conversation popped up when Twitter released its own version of a "suggested users" list in 2009.

Google's Bradley Horowitz responded to the criticism about the list by saying that no, this list doesn't include everyone; yes, there will be updates; and, in the future, he said, Google will personalize its recommendations so that the network won't be dominated by big-name people.

Facebook To Provide Translation for Comments?

Social networking giant Facebook is reportedly testing a new feature which will allow its users to translate wall posts in the language of their choice with a single click.

According to Inside Facebook, the feature is visible only to a handful of Facebook users at the moment.

When users receive a comment on their page in a language that is not their account’s language, a new Translate button will appear next to the comment, allowing users to translate it into their own default language. Users can click ‘Original’, which appears in the place of ‘Translate’, to view the original message.

The new feature has been designed to make it easier for Facebook’s 750 million+ users to communicate with each other. The ‘Translate’ feature only supports a handful of languages at the moment including Spanish, French, Chinese, and Hebrew. But, it seems that the translation option is restricted to Facebook Pages only and users’ profiles, if in another language, do not get translated.

Read more at http://www.itproportal.com/2011/09/05/facebook-provide-translation-comments/#ixzz1X6pawu2q

Lost iPhone 5 prototype and other rumours

Last week's iPhone 5 rumour harvest shows a certain desperation and perhaps oxygen starvation: The iOSsphere is living on rumours built on rumours built on other rumours.

This time, a generic drawing in an application "reveals" the iPhone 5, the lost or theft of another prototype may be phony, an early upgrade for Android phone users at one carrier means good news for iPhone users, and no big-screen iPhone 5.

You read it here second.

"'Quashing' a rumor with another rumor is like squashing Jell-O with Jell-O. It just adds to the mess." -- Anonymous

iPhone 5 revealed by illustration used in beta cloud service from Apple.
9to5Mac "broke the news" that a grainy illustration used in the latest beta release of Apple's Photo Stream cloud service "seems to look like" an earlier iPhone 5 rumor -- a model with an edge-to-edge screen and a wider home button.

In a later post, the website created mockups based on counting the pixels and figuring the "new dimensions" supposedly revealed in the illustration.

Here's the illustration it's all based on, which shows some kind of smartphone illustration, above two other illustrations, one of a camera, and one of a group of photographs.

"What do you think?" Seth Weintraub asks. " Coincidence?" As everyone knows, there are no coincidences in the iOSsphere.

Photo Stream is a photo taking, storing and sharing service that's part of Apple's iCloud, which is being introduced with the fall release of iOS 5.

In a follow-up post, Weintraub includes a mockup of an iPhone 5 based on the illustration. It shows an iPhone that's actually smaller in overall size than the iPhone 4, but with an edge-to-edge screen that is two-tenths of an inch longer diagonally -- 3.7 inches instead of 3.5.

Unless, the illustration actually reveals the other iPhone 5 -- one that will offer a larger screen (9to5Mac accepts the long-standing rumor that Apple is set to reveal two new iPhones) -- and Weintraub helpfully includes a comparison illustration of that possibility, too.

Of course, naysayers might say that the illustration that generated all this creative activity is "just" a generic smartphone icon illustration; and that it would be foolish, if not presumptuous, to conclude it's an actual depiction of one or the other of the two unannounced Next iPhones. But they would be wrong.

MacRumors picked up on the same revelation, observing the illustration "matches up nicely with many of the circulating rumors about the iPhone 5."

"As pointed out by one of our readers," notes MacRumors, "Apple tends to be very precise with their artwork, even at small icon sizes." That reader, nickpro, posted in the MacRumors forum, "can anyone point to another instance where a 'generic' iOS device has been pictured anywhere in apple's marketing materials, mac os x graphics, etc.? i have NEVER seen apple do this anywhere. i don't buy the explanation, thats the iPhone 5." And he posted a screenshot showing teeny but precise illustrations of the various Apple mobile products.

The problem with this kind of "reasoning" in this case is that, as MacRumors itself notes, "There isn't a whole lot of detail with the icon ..." Which is an understatement, as can be seen in theicon blow-up that MacRumors posted along with its own previously posted rendering of what a Next iPhone would look like if it looked like the device that would fit in "leaked" prototypes of third-party phone cases purportedly for iPhone 5.

"We had initially dismissed it as possibly being a generic artist rendition, but upon further consideration, it does seem too coincidental that an icon closely resembling circulating rumors would appear in an official Apple release," concluded MacRumors' Arnold Kim.

There. Are. No. Coincidences.

iPhone 5 prototype left in a bar! Or not!
CNET says an iPhone prototype was left behind in a tequila bar in San Francisco, touching off an investigation by "Apple security" (guys in red shirts, no doubt) and eventually the police.

But if anyone lost it, and anyone else then stole it, so far they haven't sold it to Gizmodo or posted any pictures on the Internet. So we still don't know what the prototype looks like. Or whether it's actually an iPhone 5 prototype or possibly just an iPhone 4 with upgraded CPU, which was released to some developers earlier this year, presumably to test apps and development tools with the more powerful chip and iOS 5.

And at week's end, doubts have begun to emerge about the whole alleged incident, as CIO.com's Ed Oswald summarizes. The San Francisco Police Department says it doesn't have any information about a reported theft, or an investigation.

CNET based its report entirely on one source who claimed to be "familiar with the investigation," though CNET doesn't indicate whether that means the investigation by Apple security or by police.

The phone allegedly was left behind in a Mexican restaurant and bar called Cava 22. According to CNET's source, Apple traced the phone electronically to a two-floor, single-family home in San Francisco's Bernal Heights, where a team of Apple security and local police questioned a man in his mid-20s. The man denied any knowledge of the phone.

It is of course eerily reminiscent of the lost iPhone 4 prototype in 2010, also at a bar in California. The phone was picked up and then hawked to various online media outlets until the "news" website Gizmodo forked over $5,000 in cash for the stolen property, disassembled it and posted the results online. It was the stuff of Shakespearean tragicomedy, at least by "John Shakespeare" [see our satire, "Love's Labor Lost (or Stolen): a felony in three acts"].

Hope fades. No early September iPhone 5 announcement.
After last week explaining its flawless reasoning about why it was likely that Apple would send out press invitations this week to announce iPhone 5 next week, Beatweek this week acknowledged that it probably wasn't going to happen.

"Hopes of a post-Labor Day release date for the iPhone 5 fade as Apple fails to announce a launch event prior to the holiday weekend," Johnny Major posted.

There was sense of bafflement: What was Apple thinking?! "September 7th had long been circled as an ideal date for the event which would push the iPhone 5 into the spotlight ...," he writes. Technically, that should be, "... had long been circled by Beatweek as an ideal date."

"That leaves the iPhone 5 looking for a release date all over again," Major grouses.

That seems ungrateful. If the announcement date and release date were both announced, think of how few rumors the iOSsphere would be able to produce.

In a separate post, Major insists that Apple's inexplicable "delay" of the iPhone 5 "has frustrated though not quite fully alienated many among its intended customer base. ... In my opinion, Apple is poised to lose a significant share of the smartphone market, if they decide to unveil iPhone 5 after September 9, and enough product in stock for sale by first week in October 2011," he says.

Sprint's Oct. 7 "Strategy Update" means ... something about iPhone 5.
Sprint at least knew enough to send out press invitations this week: for an Oct. 7 "Strategy Update," apparently to update reporters on, you know, strategy.

BoyGeniusReport's Zach Epstein admits that no one knows that Sprint execs will talk about, but he's pretty sure one topic will be 4G/LTE.

But how could any carrier have a strategy that doesn't include iPhone 5? "Sprint is also set to launch Apple's next-generation iPhone 5 handset this fall, and while we couldn't get a peep out of the carrier while we were visiting its corporate headquarters back in July, we wouldn't be surprised if Sprint is a bit more talkative in October when it comes to Apple smartphones," he writes.

Epstein's lame observation didn't satisfy the rest of the iOSsphere, which dared to draw the conclusions that he fecklessly only hinted at. "If the event timing seems familiar, it's because October 7th is the date we expect for an iPhone 5 release," writes GottaBeMobile's Josh Smith. "This date isn't a set in stone iPhone 5 release date, but the Sprint timing gives more credibility to the data and to the fact that the company will carry the iPhone 5."

It's hard to see how a "fact" can be given more credibility since it is, well, a fact. But using "the data" in place of "rumor and unfounded speculation" is a nice touch.

Verizon may let you upgrade early to iPhone 5.
That's how the ever-optimistic Smith at GottaBeMobile interpreted a post at DroidLife that doesn't mention the iPhone 5.

Kellex posted at DroidLife that he had received a Verizon email offering him an upgrade opportunity as an HTC Droid Incredible 2 user. That would possibly give him a chance to trade in the Incredible for discount pricing for either the Motorola Droid Bionic or HTC Vigor, both about-to-be-released Android phones. Normally, he wrote, he wouldn't be eligible until April 2012.

GottaBeMobile concludes that "it appears that Verizon is giving out early upgrades to long-term customers in order to tempt them to upgrade to the Motorola Droid Bionic and iPhone 5."

"This is a big deal for customers who have been eagerly waiting for the iPhone 5 or Motorola Droid Bionic, and quite a surprise," Smith writes.

It may not be quite as big as he thinks. Most of the comment thread for the original DroidLife post was taken up by a waspish argument over the site's introduction of full-page online ads.

iPhone 5 could be thinner.
Who knew that Ubergizmo trolls Greek iPhone sites for news? Or at least for leaks. Or technically "leaks," because apparently what we thought were leaks could actually be a nefarious Apple disinformation campaign. "Some are speculating Apple is purposely leaking false information in order to throw off actual leaks and what not," writes Tyler Lee.

But undeterred by this prospect, he offers "another 'leak', this time by Greek website Greek-iPhone, which shows what they're claiming to be the iPhone 5's camera module and flash."

And he includes the Greek-iPhone photos of the camera module in question. He also includes a link to a Google Translate version of the original Greek-iPhone page, though, oddly, the translation he selected is from the original Greek to Croatian. Which is not a big improvement for those of us who speak neither.

"Based on the photo alone you can tell that it looks a lot different compared to the previous leak, and supposedly it will feature more megapixels," Lee writes. "It also appears to be thinner which could possibly mean that the rumors of an even thinner iPhone 5 may be true."

Into English, Greek-iPhone is actually reporting, via Google Translate: "The handset iPhone 5 is the same shape as that of the iPhone 4 but a little thinner. The code on the part of the iPhone 4 00064 C/1144LB is that while the iPhone 5 00094 C6/11291 BB and say it is a little thinner in thickness."

It probably loses something in the translation.

Read more at http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?newsid=3301196&pagtype=allchandate

Two lens makers tapped by Apple to supply 8MP cameras for iPhone 5

Apple has secured deals with two suppliers to build 8-megapixel camera lenses for the company's forthcoming next-generation handset, a new report claims.

Both Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical are said to be supplying smartphone lenses for the iPhone, Taiwan Economic News reported on Monday. Specifically, both are said to be providing 8-megapixel cameras for "Apple's newest iPhone 5."

The report notes that both companies were previously responsible for 5-megapixel lens modules found in the current-generation iPhone 4. Both Largan and Genius are expected to keep ahead of competition as their shipments are boosted by a massive amount of orders from Apple.

Orders from Genius and Largan reportedly pushed both companies to a combined 27.5 percent global market share last year. As sales of the iPhone continue to grow, with a record setting 20.34 million sales by Apple last quarter, both companies' shares could move even higher.

While rumors about the size, shape and even functionality of Apple's so-called "iPhone 5" have varied, one relatively consistent element in rumors leading up to the device's debut has been the camera. For months now, repots have claimed that the new handset will sport an 8-megapixel camera.

Google Customer Support Surprise: 1,000 Reps Handling 10,000 Calls A Week From 60 Countries

Google has long received mixed-to-negative criticism for its customer service — or lack thereof. But Francoise Brougher is changing all that. Perhaps the least well-known senior executive outside Google, the VP of Global Advertising and Product Operations has quietly built an impressive telephone customer support organization for Google AdWords advertisers.

Telephone support for AdWords was first announced earlier this year in April and it saw some coverage. However since that time Google has been silent about it. I spoke to Brougher roughly a week ago and was surprised to hear how large and sophisticated the operation has become.

A Thousand Reps Servicing 60 Countries
Google has invested heavily in building an organization that can address calls from 60 countries around the world. The company has more than 1,000 Google-employed customer service people fielding “more than 10,000 calls a week,” according to Brougher. The reps are located in several regional call centers around the world.

Google is learning a great deal about its customers through these phone calls. This may seem an obvious point but it’s giving Google more insight into advertiser needs and issues than in the past. And many of these insights can be used by marketing and product development people. This offers a kind of virtuous cycle or loop between customer care and marketing and product development. Too many companies treat their customer care organizations purely as a “cost center” and fail to see customer service as a strategic asset with a wide range of organizational benefits.

Brougher understands very clearly the benefit of this organization for Google. She lobbied the executive team to make significant investments up front that now appear to be paying off.

“People Like to Talk”
One of the surprises for Google is the nature of the inquiries it’s receiving on the phone. Google has had email-based support for AdWords for a long time but the calls coming in are qualitatively different. Calls are more expansive, friendly and less pointed. “People like to talk,” Brougher joked. Beyond this, she explained, calls coming from different countries are also quite different from one another, reflecting various cultural differences.

Google is encountering numerous first time small business advertisers who want education and help. (Roughly 20 percent of the calls Google is receiving are from new advertisers.) With telephone calls Google is in a much better position to provide small business support than with email and online tools exclusively.

Brougher is also the one who leads the group that manages AdWords reseller relationships, Google’s network of publishers and partners that sell to small businesses. As with Google’smove into direct small business sales (Offers, AdWords Express) — the customer support reps don’t do any outbound sales — the creation of this customer care organization reflects a “cultural shift” and maturation within Google.

I asked why Google didn’t simply outsource customer service to a third party, as so many US companies do. She said that Google is able to deliver a much higher level of quality and service by having all the reps in house.

DigiNotar SSL certificate hack amounts to cyberwar, says expert

The Dutch government says hackers who broke into a web security firm in the Netherlands last month issued hundreds of bogus security certificates that could be used on websites including the CIA and Israel's Mossad, as well as internet giants such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter.

More than 500 fake certificates, including some which could be used to send fake Windows updates to computers, and others which could be used when connecting to the CIA's site, were fraudulently issued in the hack, which occurred in July.

The Dutch government took the exceptional step of calling a press conference at 1.15am on Saturday morning to announce that it was revoking all trust in digital certificates issued by DigiNotar, which until then had been used for all online tax returns filed in the Netherlands.

The government said that browser companies are now rejecting all security certificates issued by the hacked firm. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google's Chrome will all reject certificates from the company. Apple systems require a manual update. Apple has not made any statement on whether it will revoke DigiNotar certificates.

The fake certificates could in theory be used to monitor users' communications with those sites without them noticing, but only by an organisation that also has the ability to reroute internet traffic to servers they control – most likely a government.

Iran's government has been suspected of involvement in the hack, which led to the creation of hundreds of fake security certificates used to create cryptographically secure links between users and sites. A handful of Iranian users of Google's popular email service are known to have been affected by the faked certificates, which would allow a "man in the middle" attack, where an apparently secure link could in fact be tapped by an intermediary. Security experts noted that earlier this year, Iranannounced that it was changing the setup for its domain name servers(DNS) used to make connections to sites – which would give it the ideal opportunity to insert faked certificates into the system.

Roel Schouwenberg of the security company Kaspersky warned that the long-term effects of the DigiNotar hack could be more serious than Stuxnet, a computer "worm" that is believed to have been written by US and Israeli computer experts to attack Iran's nuclear facilities by destabilising computer-controlled systems in its uranium centrifuges.