Sony unveils new motion contoller to slow Nintendo (tech)
TOKYO – Sony has a new message for Nintendo Wii gamers : Come join us. The Japanese maker of the PlayStation 3 unveiled Thursday its highly anticipated motion controlling system , as it takes aim at Nintendo’s dominance in the gaming sector. With the ” PlayStation Move,” Sony hopes to lure gamers who have outgrown Nintendo , which launched the Wii in 2006 and became the first to introduce motion-detecting controllers. Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment , credited Nintendo Co. for “introducing motion gaming to the masses.” Now it’s time for them to graduate to the PlayStation, which offers a new experience for both casual and hard-core gamers, he said at a press conference in San Francisco. “The migration path from the Wii household to the PlayStation 3 household is a pretty natural path, partly because of the experience that you can get on the PlayStation Move but also because of the content that we find on PlayStation 3,” Dille said. Used with the existing PlayStation Eye camera, Sony’s new wireless motion controller can track players’ body movements . The controller, in turn, has on its end a light-emitting orb that is recognized by the camera. “Nothing has ever been this precise,” said Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Electronics Worldwide Studios . The PlayStation Move will go on sale this fall. Complete details of prices have not been released, but a starter bundle including the PlayStation Eye, motion controller and one game will retail for under $100, Dille said. Major game publishers such as Activision Blizzard Inc ., Electronic Arts Inc . and Square Enix are developing Move-compatible games. The latest announcement comes as both Sony and Microsoft Corp ., maker of the Xbox 360 , attempt to gain ground on Nintendo. Since the Wii first hit stores, it has consistently outsold rivals by attracting casual and nontraditional gamers like women and seniors. Microsoft is planning its own offensive this year as well with its “Project Natal .” Natal, which combines a camera, depth sensor, microphone and processor, eliminates the need for any button-mashing device. Microsoft is expected to release Natal in time for the Christmas shopping season but has not set a specific date. Although demand for the Wii has slowed in recent months, it remained the most popular console among Americans in January with 465,000 units sold, according to market researcher NPD Group. Microsoft sold 332,800 units of the Xbox 360, trailed by 276,900 PlayStation 3 units.
Android Dominates, Windows Mobile Plummets, iPhone Stagnant (tech)
The results are in from comScore for the most recent quarter for smartphone usage in the United States. With smartphone use up 18 percent over the previous quarter, topping 42 million users, Google’s Android mobile operating system stands out as the dominant winner for this quarter. The smartphone statistics from this quarter demonstrate that the smartphone is still viewed primarily as a business tool rather than a consumer toy. Businesses and business professionals continue to embrace BlackBerry and Android devices, in all of their many shapes and forms, over the Apple iPhone . Verizon’s massive marketing effort leading to the launch of the Motorola Droid , and Google’s major media attention for the introduction of the Nexus One appear to have paid off. Android more than doubled its market share over the previous quarter–jumping more than 250 percent from 2.8 percent of the U.S. smartphone market to 7.1 percent. Apparently, much of that market share increase came at Microsoft’s expense. Microsoft finally unveiled the next generation Windows Phone 7 platform , but that hasn’t helped stop the bleeding for the current Windows Mobile devices. In fact, the lack of a path to upgrade current devices to the new Windows Phone 7 operating system when it arrives, and the lack of backward compatibility to run current Windows Mobile apps probably mean Microsoft can expect sharp losses in the next quarter as well. Analysts have generally praised Windows Phone 7 , which is a completely new platform from the ground up rather than an incremental evolution of the waning Windows Mobile operating system. The market is hungry for the next generation mobile operating system from Microsoft, and hopefully Microsoft will rebound and reclaim some of its lost smartphone market share once the new platform arrives. In spite of the steep losses, Microsoft remains in third place behind Apple, which remained relatively stagnant . The iPhone saw an increase of 0.3 percent–statistically irrelevant and essentially no gain at all. The iPhone remains as the device that all others aspire to be, but Apple may have reached a saturation point when it comes to consumer adoption of a smartphone device. Despite its monumental success, Apple faces some hurdles in trying to continue growing iPhone market share. The combination of a closed, proprietary platform, inferior or immature tools for integrating it with business environments, and the fact that the iPhone is tied to a single wireless provider are all handicaps for the iPhone OS. The consumer versus business is apparently more than just a label. While Apple has made strides to make the iPhone more business-friendly, and IT administrators in many businesses have reluctantly embraced the platform, the fact is that it is still viewed as more of a consumer toy than an enterprise smartphone. It makes sense that those jumping ship from Windows Mobile would embrace Android, as appears to be happening. Android provides an experience approaching what users have come to expect from an iPhone (assuming you get the right device), but delivers it on an open source platform that is much more customizable and business-friendly than the iPhone. Android is now available from all four major wireless providers in the United States, while the iPhone is still available exclusively from AT&T. The initial Android device available from AT&T –the Motorola Backflip–is a weak device compared to the Droid or the Nexus One, but the door is open and AT&T will continue to expand its Android portfolio over time. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 devices are not expected to be available until later this year–probably just in time for the holidays. That means the next quarter will once again be a battle between Android and iPhone, and Android will most likely continue to be the benefactor of Microsoft ’s plummeting market share. If Google and Microsoft both have another quarter like this one again, Android could actually jump past Windows Mobile to take third place when the next comScore results come out. Tony Bradley is co-author of Unified Communications for Dummies . He tweets as @Tony_BradleyPCW . You can follow him on his Facebook page , or contact him by email at tony_bradley@pcworld.com .
Palm Inc. teeters in crowded smart phone market (tech)
SAN FRANCISCO – Last year, Palm thought it had all the pieces for a turnaround in the market it pioneered: A new CEO known for making the iPod a household name, a sleek new smart phone called the Pre and fresh, intuitive operating software. Instead, the company is in danger of going the way of its 1990s Palm Pilot , making it the latest innovator to learn that great technology and an accomplished leader don’t guarantee success. Several analysts say Palm Inc . might not remain an independent phone maker for more than a year or two. It just could be too late to stop the momentum enjoyed by Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd. ’s BlackBerrys — not to mention a growing crop of phones running Google Inc. ’s Android software . Palm spokesman Derick Mains said the company had no comment. Consumers have gravitated toward smart phones for their versatile features, such as Internet access and applications that can be downloaded. One out of six U.S. adults had a smart phone last year, according to Forrester Research . But Palm — a leader in the early days of handheld computing — was slow to adapt. It began fighting back in earnest in January 2009 at the International Consumer Electronics Show. It unveiled the stylish touch-screen Pre and webOS, software that allows Palm phones to do something the iPhone can’t — run multiple apps simultaneously. Ed Colligan , who was then Palm’s CEO, said at the time that the new products somewhat marked a relaunching of Palm itself. But it hasn’t gone as smoothly as Palm hoped. Palm released the Pre last June, for use on Sprint Nextel Corp.’s wireless network , and followed it in November with a cheaper model, the Pixi. Verizon Wireless started selling upgraded models of these phones in January, and AT&T Inc . plans to offer webOS phones later this year. Despite widespread availability and positive reviews, consumers haven’t really embraced the products. Palm sold 810,000 phones in the quarter that ended Aug. 28. In the next quarter, sales fell to 573,000. And Palm’s latest report, due March 18, is not expected to be bright. Palm recently cut its forecast for that period, citing sluggish sales. Discouraged investors have sliced the company’s stock price by more than half since the Pre hit stores. In that same time, shares of Apple have risen nearly 50 percent to all-time highs, while RIM shares have fallen 11 percent. One big problem for Palm is standing out in a crowded market dominated by Apple and RIM. Many analysts believe Palm’s latest products are good, but the company simply hasn’t been able to make potential customers realize this. Not for a lack of trying: Palm spent $74.1 million on sales and marketing in its last reported quarter, up 64 percent from the previous year. Verizon and Sprint have advertised the Pre and Pixi, too, but now probably aren’t doing it as aggressively as they would if they had the phones exclusively. On Palm’s end, at least, the marketing push is likely to last for several more quarters as it tries to connect with consumers, said Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg. For a larger phone maker such as Motorola Inc ., in the midst of its own comeback attempt, an advertising blitz might not be such a big deal. But Palm is much tinier than its key competitors. It takes Palm an entire quarter to sell as many phones as Apple sells in a less than a week. RIM spent six times as much on a category it calls selling, marketing and administrative expenses in its last quarter as Palm spent on sales and marketing. One thing Palm has: a CEO who helped make Apple what it is. Right before the Pre launch, Colligan was replaced by Jon Rubinstein , 53, who spent a decade at Apple during its own comeback run. He started in 1997 and was a pivotal figure behind the brightly colored iMac computers and the iPod. He came to Palm in 2007 as executive chairman under a deal in which Palm sold nearly a third of the company to private equity firm Elevation Partners . Still, even the most astute leadership isn’t enough in such a competitive market, Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said. “It takes distribution, it takes cash, it takes luck. It takes a lot of things, and if all those things don’t click your probability of success is low,” he said. It also takes time. And Palm wasted it during many years of corporate restructuring, according to Donna Dubinsky , a former Palm CEO and board member. Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins founded Palm in 1992, and in 1995 it was bought by U.S. Robotics, a modem maker that was acquired by 3Com Corp . in 1997. Palm spun off as its own company in 2000, two years after Dubinsky and Hawkins left to form a rival startup, Handspring , that made influential early smart phones. In 2003, Palm acquired Handspring and spun off PalmSource , which made the PalmOS handheld computing software , as an independently traded company. PalmSource was bought by Japan’s Access Co. in 2005. Dubinsky said all the shuffling took “critical resources and attention from product development.” And even though it happened years ago, she called the decision to spin off PalmOS a “huge strategic error.” “As RIM, Apple and Palm all have demonstrated, these devices need to be highly integrated hardware and software developments in order to optimize the user experience,” Dubinsky wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “When Palm no longer could advance the OS, and had to create a new one, it lost several years.” So what will happen to Palm now? Misek thinks the company could keep spending its cash — it had $590 million at the end of its most recently reported quarter — and run out of gas in a year or two. Or, it could try to conserve funds and angle to be bought out. But Misek thinks a buyer could be dissuaded by the year or two it might take to get webOS working on new phones. Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu thinks Palm could be purchased in the next year by a company such as Motorola or Dell Inc . That would give those companies their own smart-phone software rather than making them rely on software found on many kinds of devices. In fact, Wu said, Palm’s best asset is its intellectual property. Palm has patents on its own style of the touch-screen technology that Apple popularized and is now suing phone maker HTC Corp. over. Ultimately, Wu thinks the smart phone market will look like the PC market, which was crowded with competition early on but eventually produced a short list of winners and a smattering of losers. “Palm’s almost on that list of losers,” he said.
Rob Glaser Thinks Mobile Is the Next Big Thing (tech)
In his first speech since stepping down in January as CEO of the company he founded, RealNetworks Chairman Rob Glaser on Wednesday encouraged startups to look for business opportunities in wireless. Several independent trends are reinforcing each other and suggesting that “the next five or 10 years will represent as dramatic a sea change in the digital environment as we’ve seen the past 15 or more years,” he said, during a speech at a Mobile Monday event in Seattle. That sea change revolves around wireless, he said. Glaser pointed to recent Gartner research predicting that by 2013, the installed base of smartphones will exceed the installed base of PCs. “That’s fundamentally a revolution,” he said. He also said that it’s important to note that smartphones are getting smarter. While Google started using the term “super phone” during its launch of the Nexus One phone, Glaser thinks that the term is a valid one to describe the new generation of phones. Super-phone users: can choose from tens or hundreds of thousands of apps; tend to have 40 or more apps on their phones; use touch screens to interact with the phones; view content on superior screens; can access the entire Internet rather than a subset of it; and can access location information from the phones. At the same time, there has been a “massive explosion of media and consumption,” he said. “In wireless, it’s echoing the massive growth on the wired broadband side. The digitization of our lives is getting to the point where we just assume that something we do on one device naturally propagates everywhere else.” Taking advantage of new opportunities resulting from these trends isn’t necessarily easy, he said. “It’s not shooting fish in a barrel,” he said. Some of the challenges involve the fact that not all devices have the same capabilities and not all networks offer the same levels of service. Also, building commercial business models and working with the variety of necessary partners including mobile operators, software developers, phone makers and other service providers is complex, he said. Success for startups may also depend on whether the predominant structure of the mobile market is horizontal or vertical. At this stage, it’s uncertain which model will win, he said. Google, with its Android platform, has built a somewhat horizontal business model where it makes the software but different companies make the hardware and develop services. Apple, which is now one of the most successful mobile-phone makers, has a completely vertical structure. “In my view, if that’s the way the industry plays out and there are vertical stovepipes, we will have a much slower pace of innovation and there will be a tremendous loss in terms of value creation versus a more horizontal approach,” he said. “I don’t think it’s inevitable which way it will go.” Glaser gave startups one parting piece of advice: “If you have the opportunity to be lucky or good, pick lucky every time,” he said. When he started Real in 1994, he was lucky that his timing was just right because the bigger, established companies were focused on interactive TV, he said. “When we came up with an Internet streaming solution we didn’t have big competition for the first couple of years,” he said. He advised startups to try to focus on an idea, scaling up before established companies notice.
Former FCC Chair Says More Fiber Will Help Wireless Crunch (tech)
Laying more fiber is one way to make more efficient use of wireless spectrum, former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said on Wednesday. Speaking at a Mobile Monday event in Seattle, he was repeating an idea presented by researcher David Clark from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at an FCC panel last year. “A significant amount of mobile broadband activity actually occurs indoors,” Martin said. “That should be gotten off-net quicker.” For instance, he said he might sit on the couch in his house and look something up online using his cell phone, which doesn’t have Wi-Fi. Rather than use that valuable cellular spectrum, he could instead free up that bandwidth for mobile customers by using his Wi-Fi network, either from a capable phone or his laptop. Wi-Fi uses unlicensed spectrum and bridges a short gap between a wired connection in the wall and a user. He implied that regulations could help encourage the use of Wi-Fi and wireline networks when possible. “We should make sure we’re thinking about ways, that we have policies that try to make sure we utilize spectrum in the most effective way possible,” he said. “And that includes getting things off-net.” He also discussed other ways to make more efficient use of spectrum and praised some of the ideas that the current FCC has said will be in its forthcoming National Broadband Plan, to be unveiled on March 17. Technological advancements can help make more efficient use of spectrum, he said. That’s happened in the past. For instance, some spectrum that has been allocated for unlicensed use such as Wi-Fi wasn’t initially thought to be useable for such services, he said. “The benefits of technology will let us use more,” he said. Martin’s excited that the FCC said it plans to open up 500MHz worth of spectrum in the coming years. Currently, operators are using a total of 450MHz, so the plan will more than double the current uses, he noted. Martin said he didn’t have any details of the FCC’s plan to potentially use wireless to deliver free broadband. On Tuesday, the FCC said that the broadband plan would include an effort to consider using wireless broadband to deliver free or very low-cost broadband to underserved people, although it did not explain how. He expects that the FCC will use several methods to do that. The government could provide direct subsidies to consumers through vouchers, similar to the food stamp program , he said. The current low-income fund is a similar idea but for voice services. It can also require carriers to provide services to people, similar to the universal service program , he said. In addition, the FCC could require spectrum winners to deliver some level of free service to people. “In the end, we’ll probably see a mix of all these,” Martin said.
China Mobile buys 20% stake in mainland bank (tech)
HONG KONG () – Phone giant China Mobile said Wednesday it will pay about 5.8 billion US dollars for a 20 percent stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank as part of its bid to enter the wireless banking market. Hong Kong -listed China Mobile , the world’s largest phone operator by value, said it will work with the mainland Chinese bank on products that would let customers pay bills or transfer money via their mobile phones. “Mobile handsets have transformed from a simple tool for communications to a valuable device for communications, entertainment and shopping,” China Mobile said in a statement. ” Mobile phone payments and mobile e-Commerce will become one of the major means that people make their spending in the future, which will present unprecedented development opportunities to mobile telecommunications operators in China .” China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou told a news conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday that the deal is an “extension of our core telecom business. We see big growth potential in the profitability of the mobile financial business.” But some analysts questioned the move away from China Mobile’s main business and said shareholders would prefer that the company pay them dividends. Telecom operators in Japan and South Korea have already struck agreements with banks to offer payment services via cellphones as a way to generate additional revenue. South Korea’s biggest telecom operator by revenue, SK Telecom Co., agreed late last year to buy a 49 percent stake in the credit card unit of Hana Financial Group for 343 million US dollars to introduce products that bundle banking and telecom services, Dow Jones Newswires said. Wednesday’s agreement would see Shanghai Pudong issue 2.2 billion new shares. China Mobile, which said the deal needs regulatory and shareholder approval, described Shanghai Pudong as a good investment bet. The medium-sized bank, which has about 600 locations in mainland China, booked a profit of 1.8 billion US dollars in 2008, the statement said. “The fundamentals of SPD Bank are favourable and its profitability is steadily increasing,” it said. “All these support the company?s belief that this investment is not only an important strategic investment but will also, from a financial perspective , provide a favourable return.”
IBM, universities target easy-to-use cellphones (tech)
HELSINKI () – IBM has started a two-year research program that aims to make cellphones easier to use for groups including the elderly and the illiterate. As growth in developed markets such as Europe , Japan and United States has stalled, the wireless industry is looking especially toward the elderly who have so far thought they could do without a cellphone, or who can’t use the one they have. IBM said on Wednesday software developed in the program, which also involves the National Institute of Design of India and Tokyo University , will be made available on an open source basis , and other materials developed will also be made publicly available for governments and businesses. Telecom industry watchers said the IBM program addressed a genuine need. “As the population in Europe and North America ages , the need for specialized mobile devices will become acute,” said Ben Wood, research director at British consultancy CCS Insight. “Phone makers will have to adapt if they want to appeal to a generation that has grown up with mobile devices, but can’t use them in the ways they used to,” he said. Major phone vendors such as Nokia and Samsung Electronics have produced phones with big buttons and simple designs, but have shied away from marketing them specifically to the elderly. This has opened the market for smaller companies like family-owned Emporia and Sweden’s Doro , whose recent study showed most over 65 year-olds in developed markets already own a cellphone. Austrian Emporia focused solely on phones for the elderly a few years ago after the retired mother of Chief Executive Albert Fellner regularly asked for help with using her phone. “She always drove me crazy with her mobile phone. Every two weeks I had to explain to her how to use it. I gave up. I said I will make you a phone you know how to use,” Fellner said. IBM Research Fellow Chieko Asakawa, in charge of the research programme, has a similar personal experience. She is blind and her first cellphone in 1990s was used mostly for voice communication as opposed to text or other uses. “There was no accessible phone. I just used it to dial and call,” she said. (Editing by David Holmes )
NFL signs mobile phone deal with Verizon Wireless (tech)
MIAMI () – The NFL has signed a four-year agreement with Verizon Wireless to show live games and highlights on mobile phones in a deal U.S. media reported was worth $720 million. “We are looking forward to working with Verizon Wireless to deliver our fans the most extensive experience on mobile phones,” said NFL senior vice president of media strategy Brian Rolapp in a statement. “Our fans have an insatiable appetite for football and we will be able to keep them connected wherever they are on game day but also throughout the year.” The NFL and Verizon declined to comment on the financial terms but the Wall Street Journal said the deal, which includes a rights fee as well as advertising spending, was worth $720 million. The deal makes the communications company the official wireless provider for the league and boosts the number of games that can be viewed on mobile devices . Under the agreement, which replaces the NFL’s previous deal with Sprint Nextel Corp , Thursday and Sunday night games from NBC and coverage from the league-owned NFL Network channel and the Red Zone channel will be broadcast. The content will be available primarily on 3G but Verizon plans to have the faster 4G available in 25 to 30 markets in 2010 and in virtually all its 3G-covered areas in the U.S. by the end of 2013, the company said. Verizon ’s live coverage will begin with the NFL draft next month. (Reporting by Simon Evans in Miami , editing by Tony Jimenez)
U.S. considers some free wireless broadband service (tech)
WASHINGTON () – U.S. regulators may dedicate spectrum to free wireless Internet service for some Americans to increase affordable broadband service nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday. The FCC provided few details about how it would carry out such a plan and who would qualify, but will make a recommendation under the National Broadband Plan set for release next week. The agency will determine details later. One way of making broadband more affordable is to “consider use of spectrum for a free or a very low cost wireless broadband service,” the FCC said in a statement. The FCC statement was released during a Digital Inclusion Summit aimed at connecting one-third of Americans without home broadband service. The FCC also said there would also be a recommendation in the broadband blueprint to launch a Digital Literacy Corps of volunteers who would provide training to communities with low rates of adoption. (Reporting by John Poirier; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Intel Sees 2012 Deployment for Mobile WiMax Release 2 (tech)
Chip giant Intel, a major backer of the movement to provide mobile WiMax wireless broadband to Internet users around the world, expects the next major release of the technology to be deployed starting in 2012, an executive said Tuesday. “Standards work will be completed by the end of this year,” said Rama Shukla, a vice president and director of the WiMax program office at Intel, during a news conference in Taipei . The new Mobile WiMax standard, 802.16m, will replace 802.16e and offer far faster download and upload speeds. The new technology will provide users 170M bps (bits per second) download speed and 90M bps upload speeds, according to Intel data, and will be fully backward compatible with 802.16e. Users will be able to use the service even while traveling at speeds up to 350 kilometers per hour, he said. Current WiMax network operators are offering service packages for 16Mbps download and 4Mbps upload on networks using 802.16e technology. Shukla said that this year, estimates for the number of global WiMax subscribers range from around 6 million to 10 million, led by users in the U.S., Russia and Japan. Most of those users are turning to mobile WiMax for laptop computer use. “We see very strong momentum [for WiMax] in notebook PCs today,” he said. The earlier 802.16d version of WiMax is not called mobile WiMax because it was made for devices in fixed locations, not devices on the move such as smartphones in hand or laptops inside a moving train. WiMax is competing with mobile phone-based wireless standards such as HSPA ( High Speed Packet Access) and LTE (long term evolution) for wireless data services. WiMax is currently at a disadvantage because networks are just now being rolled out in many places and do not yet cover a significant part of the globe, unlike mobile phone networks , which cover much of the world’s population. In Taiwan , for example, WiMax wireless service provider Vmax Telecom covers Taipei , but its network does not extend outside the capital city. Meantime, Chunghwa Telecom , the island’s largest mobile phone service provider , offers HSPA throughout Taiwan. WiMax promises download and upload speeds significantly faster than those on a mobile phone network in the future, but the mobile phone industry is also hard at work boosting performance to maintain its edge.
keep looking »