Cellcom: November 2013

Saturday 30 November 2013

Smartphone app to give earthquake warning

A smartphone app designed to give early warning of earthquakes could be ready as early as next year, according to scientists at the World Science Forum in Rio de Janeiro.

Researchers from the University of California showed off the project this week at a conference on how to use technology to ward off natural disasters.

The app is based on technology used in an early warning system prepared by a team under Professor Richard Allen, director of the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory.

California has already embraced the concept of an early warning network, with Governor Jerry Brown signing a bill in September mandating the creation of a system.

The smartphone app is capable of providing an alert between a few seconds and one minute before a tremor hits, depending on where an individual using it is in relation to the epicenter.
To do this, the app captures initial energy from the tremor, the so-called P wave or primary wave, which rarely itself causes damage.

The technology uses algorithms to detect rapidly when a quake is starting and determine its strength and location and when it is likely to reach its zenith and alert residents in potentially affected areas. The algorithms use data from regional networks monitoring seismic networks.

In the case of cell phones, those located at the actual epicenter of the quake will not receive the early warning.

But the tremors detected by the system will be transmitted in a chain to other receivers so that those a few kilometers (miles) away will be able to react to cloud-based data and glean more information on what is happening where and what is likely to happen next.

"All we need is a telephone at the epicenter of the quake which detects it and sends the information (saying) 'I felt a jolt, I am in this place' to a server," explained Allen.

"There are many phones simultaneously doing this to enable the server to determine the site and magnitude of the quake to send people further away a warning. These warnings include (information on) how much time to the start of the tremor and also its intensity."

The warning gives people precious time to seek out a secure place of refuge and halt industrial activity or transport, thereby reducing risk to the public at large.

The app uses various smartphone functions such as accelerometers and gyroscopes to determine movement, as well as GPS and Wi-Fi localization functions as well as a magnetometer to indicate direction.

The software makes use of the fact that there are 16 million smartphones in California alone and about one billion globally that are ever more interconnected.

The app will first be tested across a pool of several thousand users. Once it is fully rolled out it will be free via a coded access.

The biennial World Science Forum, held over three days this week in Rio after moving for the first time outside Budapest since its 2003 launch, brings together scientists, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations and researchers to debate issues of science policy.

The main theme of this year's event was "Science for Global Sustainable Development."

Friday 29 November 2013

Apple Objects to Monitor’s Fees in E-Books Antitrust Case

Apple Inc. said a monitor appointed by a judge to oversee antitrust compliance in its electronic books price-fixing case is charging too much money.

“Of all known past Apple matters,” no lawyer has had a higher rate than Michael Bromwich’s proposed hourly fee of $1,100, the world’s most valuable technology company said in a Nov. 27 filing in federal court in Manhattan.

“Mr. Bromwich appears to be simply taking advantage of the fact that there is no competition here or, in his view, any ability on the part of Apple, the subject of his authority, to push back on his demands,” lawyers for Cupertino, California-based Apple said in the filing.

Bromwich, a former U.S. Justice Department inspector general, is charging a 15 percent administrative fee on top of his hourly rate, as well as on the cost of hiring other lawyers to assist him, according to the filing.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote appointed Bromwich as a monitor in October following her July ruling that Apple played a “central” role in a conspiracy to fix prices for electronic books. Cote barred Apple from entering into anticompetitive contracts with e-book publishers.

Administrative Fee

Bromwich justified the administrative fee on the grounds that he’s handling the assignment through his consultancy, the Bromwich Group, rather than through his law firm, Goodwin Procter LLP, according to Apple’s filing.

The distinction “seems slippery at best” given that Goodwin Procter issued a press release “clearly meant to drum up more business” announcing Bromwich’s appointment as Apple’s antitrust monitor, Apple’s lawyers wrote.

Bromwich’s invoice for his first two weeks of work was $138,432, the equivalent of 75 percent of a federal judge’s annual salary, Apple said in its filing, which described the administrative surcharge as “unprecedented in Apple’s experience.”

Melissa Schwartz, a vice president of the Bromwich Group, said yesterday Bromwich was out of the country and unavailable for comment. She declined to comment on Apple’s claim.

The Justice Department’s press office didn’t immediately respond yesterday to a phone call seeking comment on the filing.

Apple also objected in its filing to proposals by Cote to allow Bromwich to interview company personnel without counsel present and to report to her without Apple lawyers present.

Those conditions “impermissibly expand the scope of the monitorship,” according to Apple’s filing.

The U.S. sued Apple and five book publishers in April 2012. After a trial that began in June, Cote ruled that Apple violated antitrust laws in its contracts with five of the six biggest book publishers. Apple is appealing.

The case is U.S. v. Apple Inc. (AAPL), 12-cv-02826, U.S. District Court, Southern District ofNew York (Manhattan).

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Wednesday 27 November 2013

Éric Lavoie chooses to give

Smartphone app to 'ID' fireballs

Researchers have designed a smartphone app that sends back information to users about their meteor sightings.

Called Fireballs in the Sky, it was developed by a team at Curtin University in Australia.

The app can return details on what created the fireball and where it came from in the Solar System.

Prof Phil Bland, who helped develop the app, said it could be used from anywhere in the world.

"If we get enough observations we can determine a trajectory and send that information back to you - for instance, you might get a message that the rock that made your fireball came from the outer asteroid belt, or that it was a chunk of a comet," he commented.

Users are asked to point at the sky where they think the fireball started and click on their phones. Then they are asked to do the same for where they think it ended.

Prof Bland told BBC News that the app used a phone's accelerometer, GPS, and compass to provide data of sufficient quality that it could be used to create a crowdsourced smartphone fireball network.

"Essentially, members of the public can help us track anything that's coming through the atmosphere," he said.

With enough observations the team can work out where the fireball came from and send that information back to users.

"Its wonderful to see one of these things; its even more amazing to know where the object that made your fireball came from in the Solar System," Prof Bland said.

The app was the brainchild of the Desert Fireball Network, a Curtin University project designed to track down meteorites as they fall to Earth, by capturing meteors and fireballs on camera.

The researchers have placed cameras in various remote locations throughout Australia. And capturing fireballs in images as they streak through the sky allows the team to calculate the orbit and origin of meteorites - and to determine where they have landed.

Researchers did similar analysis to track the origins of the Chelyabinsk asteroid that broke up over Central Russia earlier this year.

"Australia is a really great country for meteorite searching because it is flat and there's not much vegetation or grass around, making it easy to see a small black rock on the ground," Prof Bland, who leads the Desert Fireball Network, explained.

The free app was produced in collaboration with the software company ThoughtWorks and Curtin Geoscience Outreach.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

How to check alerts on PTT with Bell Canada - CellCom

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Apple Defeats Patent Claim Over Invention of Smartphone

Apple Inc. (AAPL), the world’s most valuable technology company, was found by a federal jury not to infringe the patent of a 70-year-old electrical engineer who claims he came up with the idea for the smartphone.

The jury in Los Angeles yesterday rejected the claim by NetAirus Technologies LLC, the company owned by inventor Richard L. Ditzik, that Apple’s iPhone infringes its patent for a handheld device that combines computer and wireless-communication functions over both a Wi-Fi and cellular telephone network.

Apple last month defeated patent holder Wi-Lan Inc. (WIN) at trial over a $248 million royalty demand for wireless technology used in mobile devices, and last week won $290 million in damages from Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) in a retrial over damages following a jury verdict in 2012.

The trial in Los Angeles was limited to damages NetAirus could seek for infringement by Apple’s iPhone 4 since October of last year, when the patent was recertified with changes in the language of the claims. NetAirus has filed a separate lawsuit for alleged patent infringement by the iPad and iPhone models that Apple started selling since the suit was filed in 2010.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, argued during the trial that Ditzik initially filed a patent application for a handset that used a laptop computer to make phone calls. The inventor revised the patent to include features that he had read about in magazines, such as the handset functioning as a personal digital assistant and being able to send e-mail, Apple said.

Juror George Escarrega, 50, a salesman for a uniform rental company, who voted in favor of the inventor on two questions and for Apple on two others, said after the verdict he wanted “to find some way” to reward Ditzik.

‘Little Guy’

Escarrega said he “almost felt like we were failing in doing everything we could for the system and for the inventor,” and that there “was an aspect to the case that Apple was this giant crushing the little guy.”

The jury of six women and two men had been deadlocked, repeatedly sending notes to the judge over three days of deliberations saying they were unable to reach the unanimous verdict required on each of the five main questions on the verdict form regarding whether Apple had infringed on the patents and damages. The judge had sent them back to continue deliberations.

After jurors sent a note saying they were still deadlocked yesterday morning, attorneys agreed to accept a majority vote, and sent them back to deliberate again. A majority of the panelists voted in favor of Apple on all four questions about the patent at issue. They didn’t reach the damages question.

Inventor Disappointed

Ditzik and his lawyer, Ray Niro of Chicago-based Niro Haller & Niro, said after the verdict they were disappointed with the outcome and are considering whether to appeal.

Attorneys for Apple declined to comment following the verdict.

“Obviously, the giant has more resources than the little guy and the little guy needs somebody to fight for him,” Escarrega said. “But it needs to be justified.”

The instructions given to the jury were “black and white” that the patent had to match the claims, Escarrega said. “We all looked at it and we found it just didn’t.”

The case is NetAirus Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., 10-03257, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).

To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in federal court in Los Angeles atepettersson@bloomberg.net; Valerie Reitman in federal court in Los Angeles atvaleriereitman@yahoo.com

Sunday 24 November 2013

Smartphone shoppers see app-y holiday season!

NEW YORK: When Georgia Benjamin goes holiday shopping this year, her smart phone will be her guide, pointing her to the items she is seeking and the best deals.

A transplanted Londoner working in New York as a fashion design intern, Benjamin said she has been using Snapette, a mobile app that allows her to find items in nearby retail stores.

“There are things on the app that I might not see otherwise,” she said.

“If I’m looking for a pair of sunglasses, I will type in the brand name, and it will show me what is nearby. And it will alert me if a store nearby has a promotion.”

In the past, Benjamin told AFP, she would “trudge from store to store on Oxford Street” in London, or “go through website after website” to search for holiday gifts.

As the holiday shopping season opens, shoppers will be armed with smart phones and an array of apps. Some will compare prices, offer gift suggestions, provide price alerts and more.

Snapette says nearly two million people have downloaded the app for iPhones or Android handsets to fill a need for people who want to use online tools but shop in local stores.

“Over 85 percent of retail sales is happening in stores but there wasn’t a great way to search for or discover products nearby,” said Sarah Paiji, co-founder and president of Snapette.

“We want to enable that shopper to shop in the real world as well as online.”

Snapette, which was acquired this year by online commerce site PriceGrabber, has data from some 270 US retailers and can direct a consumer to an in-store product, but also allows them to buy online directly from the app.

Scores of other smart phone apps also can be used by on-the-go shoppers. Amazon has one allowing a price check with the online retailer. Others can deliver digital coupons.

One called RedLaser will scan a bar code and tell a shopper if the product is less expensive somewhere else. Smoopa will similarly tell a consumer if the store price is a bargain.

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Saturday 23 November 2013

Short Film about Smart Phone Addiction Is So True It's Sad

Big U.S. Carriers Don’t Want Smartphone Muggings To Go Down

Smartphone crime is a huge problem. In fact, New York City’s crime rate went up for the first time in twenty years because people are mugged violently so often for their iPhones.

In response to iPhone crime, Apple has made some important improvements to iOS, including requiring users to enter their iCloud password to turn ‘Find my iPhone’ off, and the new ‘Activation Lock’ feature in iOS 7which allows users to disable stolen or lost iPhones remotely.

Apple’s got the right solution, but you know who hates it? The carriers. In fact, as other manufacturers have tried to insert similar cellphone kill switches in their smartphones to Apple’s, the carriers are standing defiant against them. Why? Because they are afraid that it will affect their bottom lines.

Law enforcement officials are up in arms that carriers have rejected building a kill switch into every smartphone, even as an increasing number of smartphone and tablet users are being violently assaulted for their gadgets.

“It is highly disturbing that these corporations rejected a proposal that would have helped keep millions of consumers safe,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said Wednesday, as reports swirl that carriers have rejected the idea. “If they did so to protect their own profit margins, as several recent reports suggest, it is even more egregious,” the pair continued.

The issue for carriers is this: the threat of being mugged sells insurance plans to customers. If you’re less likely to be mugged for your smartphone or tablet, because it will stop functioning the second someone hits the kill switch remotely, you’ll be less likely to buy insurance.

To be fair, though, the carriers have other concerns. For example, a kill switch could be taken advantage of by hackers to disable phones maliciously. But it sure sounds like an additional concern for carriers is the fact that that the less people getting beaten and stabbed for their smartphones, the less money they’ll make.

Another way Apple is ahead of the competition, and standing up for the little guy.

Friday 22 November 2013

Tablets with 64-bit Android, Intel Bay Trail chips coming next year

Tablets with 64-bit versions of the Android OS and Intel Atom chips code-named Bay Trail will become available next year, Intel said on Thursday.

Intel is developing a 64-bit version of the Android OS to work with Bay Trail chips, said Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, during an investor meeting in Santa Clara, California, which was webcast.

The 64-bit Android tablets will be released after Bay Trail tablets with a 64-bit version of Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 are released in the first quarter next year, Krzanich said. Intel has said Android tablets with Bay Trail could be available starting at $150. The Bay Trail chips already support 64-bit addressing.

Right now tablets running on ARM and Intel processors are equipped with 32-bit versions of Android. It is not clear what version of Android will be used in the 64-bit Intel-based tablets. Intel is currently developing an image of the Android 4.4 OS code-named KitKat.

But the Intel-based Android tablets will not be the first with support for 64-bit addressing. Apple’s latest iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina Display already have the A7 processor and iOS operating system that support 64-bit addressing. Apple claims that the 64-bit addressing has improved application and graphics performance in devices.

An Android tablet with 64-bit kernel support will have access to increased system memory and pave the way for Ultra-HD video in mobile devices, said Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of Intel’s software and services group, during a speech at Intel’s developer conference in September.

Most tablets today run on ARM processors, but Google and Intel have worked closely to optimize Android to tablets with Intel processors. Intel has contributing heavily to the x86 Android software stack. Intel aims to provide OS flexibility, and says that Android could allow device makers to offer cheaper tablets.

Intel hopes to quadruple shipments of tablets with its chips to 40 million units this year, Krzanich said.

Thursday 21 November 2013

Samsung's offer to install 'kill switch' in its smartphones rejected

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, has proposed installing a built-in anti-theft measure known as a "kill switch" that would render stolen or lost phones inoperable, but the nation's biggest carriers have rejected the idea, according to San Francisco's top prosecutor.

District Attorney George Gascon said Monday that AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, United States Cellular Corp., Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. rebuffed Samsung's proposal to preload its phones with Absolute LoJack anti-theft software as a standard feature.

The wireless industry says a kill switch isn't the answer because it could allow a hacker to disable someone's phone.

Gascon, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other law enforcement officials have been demanding that manufacturers create kill switches to combat surging smartphone theft across the country.

Almost 1 in 3 U.S. robberies involve phone theft, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Lost and stolen mobile devices - mostly smartphones - cost consumers more than $30 billion last year, according to a study cited by Schneiderman in June.

Samsung officials told the San Francisco district attorney's office in July that carriers were resisting kill switches, and prosecutors have recently reviewed emails between a senior vice president at Samsung and a software developer about the issue. One email in August said Samsung had pre-installed kill switch software in some smartphones ready for shipment, but carriers ordered their removal as a standard feature.

"These emails suggest that the carriers are rejecting a technological solution so they can continue to shake down their customers for billions of dollars in (theft) insurance premiums," Gascon said. "I'm incensed. ... This is a solution that has the potential to end the victimization of their customers."

Samsung said it is cooperating with Gascon, Schneiderman and the carriers on an anti-theft solution but declined to comment specifically about the emails.

"We are working with the leaders of the Secure Our Smartphones (SOS) Initiative to incorporate the perspective of law enforcement agencies," said Samsung spokeswoman Jessica Redman. "We will continue to work with them and our wireless carrier partners toward our common goal of stopping smartphone theft."

Although the popular Samsung Galaxy smartphones are shipped across the country without LoJack as a standard feature, users can pay a subscription fee for the service.

CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group for wireless providers, said it has been working with the FCC, law enforcement agencies and elected officials on a national stolen phone database scheduled to launch Nov. 30.

The CTIA says a permanent kill switch has serious risks, including potential vulnerability to hackers who could disable mobile devices and lock out not only individuals' phones but also phones used by entities such as the Department of Defense, Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies.

"The problem is how to you trigger a kill switch in a secure manner and not be compromised by a third party and be subjected to hacking," said James Moran, a security adviser with the GSMA, a United Kingdom wireless trade group that has overseen a global stolen mobile phone database and is helping to create the U.S. version.

Last year, about 121 million smartphones were sold in the U.S., according to International Data Corp., a Massachusetts-based researcher. About 725 million smartphones were sold worldwide, accounting for $281 billion in sales, IDC said.

Samsung Electronics Co., with its popular Galaxy S4 smartphone, shipped 81 million phones - more than the next four manufacturers combined - during the most recent sales quarter for a market share of 31 percent, IDC reported in October. Apple Inc. shipped 34 million iPhones for a market share of 13 percent.

(Also see: Android's smartphone marketshare rises to nearly 80 percent: IDC)

In June, Gascon and Schneiderman held a "Smartphone Summit" in New York City to call on representatives from smartphone makers Apple, Samsung, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to adopt kill switches that would be free to consumers.

That week, Apple said such a feature, an "activation lock," would be part of its iOS 7 software that was eventually released this fall. The new activation lock feature is designed to prevent thieves from turning off the Find My iPhone application, which allows owners to track their phone on a map, remotely lock the device and delete its data.

The activation lock requires someone to know the user's Apple ID and password to reactivate a phone, even after all the data on the device is erased.

In July, prosecutors brought federal and state security experts to San Francisco to test Apple's iPhone 5 with its activation lock and Samsung's Galaxy S4 with LoJack.

Treating the phones as if they were stolen, experts tried to circumvent their anti-theft features to evaluate their effectiveness, and that work is continuing.

One Silicon Valley technology security expert said he thinks Apple's activation lock is the first kill switch that meets law enforcement's desire to protect iPhone users and other smartphone manufacturers should follow suit.

"Thieves cannot do anything with the device unless they have the user's ID, which they don't," said Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy at Mobile Iron, a technology software security company in Mountain View, Calif.

"The activation lock addresses this issue without the carriers having to do anything," Rege said, adding that he does not believe resistance to implementing kill switch technology is fueled by profits.

"That is not the number one priority for manufacturers. They're driven by creating the next great feature for their smartphones," he said.

Wednesday 20 November 2013

The Best Smartphones: Week 89

Tuesday 19 November 2013

The Smartphone Is the Swiss Army Knife of Gadgets

Cellcom

Each time this year, my wife asks me what I want for Christmas. When it comes to giving me gifts, I truly frustrate her.

I’m a gadget freak. I love techie toys. And in my line of work, I get a lot of them to test and play with. If I see something I really like, I impulsively buy it myself.

However, over the years, my wife would still listen in on conversations I would have with my geeky son or tech friends in order to glean anything she could regard something I might really want. One year, she deciphered that I would really like a handheld GPS system to take with me on the road. Another year she determined that I would like a compact digital camera with a telephoto lens so I could snap pictures of interesting slides I saw during tech event presentations. Another year, she got me a digital compass; she was keenly aware that due to my nickname of “Wrong Way Bajarin,” I could use some help figuring out north from south and east from west.

She also decided I could use a digital level since my sense of perspective was highly questionable when I hung pictures around the house. She even got me a keychain flashlight to make sure I would not stumble in dark places. She also bought me a pedometer so I could track my steps.

As we were discussing things I might want this Christmas, it dawned on us that much of the gadgets we have bought as individual products in the past are now available as smartphone features. For instance, since I often have to interview people in our research sessions, I now use my smartphone as a digital voice recorder instead of buying a single dedicated voice recorder as I would have in the past.I don’t know if Steve Jobs or Apple execs understood that with the iPhone, they were creating much more than a smartphone. It has kind of morphed into the Swiss Army knife of gadgets.

Sure, they understood that by creating an operating system and a set of developer tools that the iPhone could have a lot of functionality beyond just voice, games and entertainment. But I really doubt they envisioned that a smartphone could become a multitool gadget in its own right. All of the individual products I mentioned above are now just features or functions built into smartphone apps. There are dozens of other things that a smartphone can do that in the past had to be bought as dedicated gadgets with standalone functions.

As I look closer at the smartphone and its increasing intelligence and functionality, it has become clear that this device is the most important screen in our digital lives. It is the one device that we carry with us all the time and use dozens of times a day for various purposes. So while it has become the Swiss Army knife of gadgets, it has also become a hub in our digital lives. And there is a particular technology that has been developed that helps smartphones become hubs in a lot of ways. This technology is called Bluetooth.

If you have a PC, tablet or smartphone, you are already familiar with Bluetooth, as it has impacted your digital lifestyle in many ways. Bluetooth’s communication range is about 30 feet, and one important part of its feature-set is that it can deliver a continuous stream of data. I use it a lot for hands-free communications in my car as well as with a Plantronics BackBeat GO wireless headset for listening to music and podcasts during my daily walk.

Over the years, Bluetooth has evolved to become more stable, more powerful and is being used in thousands of applications and services. The newest version of the Bluetooth spec, known as version 4.1, has one updated feature that I believe is quite important and will drive a lot of new hub-like innovation in the future. Known as Bluetooth Low Energy or BLE for short, this feature allows for short bursts of data transmissions instead of a continuous stream that ultimately has an impact on the battery life of the device it is in. For example, in my Plantronics BackBeat GO headset, which uses standard Bluetooth protocols, I can stream about four hours of continuous music before the battery dies. However, in a device that uses BLE, the battery could last days or even weeks depending on the type of application and battery used with the device. BLE was actually in the Bluetooth 4.0 spec but in version 4.1, it has greater support for LTE, more range and more power.

A good example of this is in another device I use all the time called the Nike+ Fuelband. This device has a Bluetooth Low Energy radio in it that can communicate with my iPhone or my Samsung S4 smartphone. I check the data on this device multiple times a day, but each evening I download the data to my iPhone using BLE in a simple burst of data. More importantly, I can go at least a week without charging the Nike+ Fuelband since it only connects to the Bluetooth radio when I activate it and just sends short bursts of information to my smartphone.

There are hundreds of new devices and applications that are either on the market or on the horizon that include products in categories such as sports and fitness, medical and wellness devices, and connected apps for the smart home. I already mentioned its use in fitness with the Nike+ Fuelband, but BLE is in pretty much all modern-day fitness devices that communicate with smartphones, tablets and PCs. Adidas has even created smart footballs and soccer balls with sensors in them that report distance traveled, spin, speed and provide analysis of an action. They will be on the market in 2014.

As for medical devices, they are showing up in diabetic blood test kits, blood pressure cuffs and other areas. Here is a great primer from ConnectBlue that shows how BLE works within the healthcare industry. Note that in these cases, the devices send bursts of data to smartphones or tablets and then, using a wireless connection, it can transmit that data to your healthcare provider for real-time analysis.

In smart homes, BLE connects with sensors to turn on lights, regulate temperature and is being integrated into all kinds of smart appliances and electronic products in the home. BLE is even showing up in door locks. Kwikset’s Kevo, for instance, turns your iPhone into your key. It has a sensor in it and when you wave your iOS device in front of it, the door opens.

As you can see, the smartphone is becoming the most indispensable device we own. It serves as a multi-function gadget, and as the hub for connecting to all types of other devices and services. Who knew that when Steve Jobs gave us the iPhone, he would unleash one of the most powerful digital tools people can own — and that it would become so much more than a smartphone?

Bajarin is the president of Creative Strategies Inc., a technology industry analysis and market-intelligence firm in Silicon Valley. He contributes to Big Picture, an opinion column that appears every Monday on TIME Tech.