...
Samsung on Tuesday launched a Web site aimed at attracting software developers to its proprietary operating system, which it has named “bada,” the Korean word for ocean. It will provide a software development kit to programmers next month. The company hasn’t decided whether to let other cellphone makers to build phones based on its software….
Maybe they’ll use Bing search and henceforth be known as Bada Bing!
Just another stab in the heart of the dying dinosaur that is Microsoft IMO.
I say to Samsung with the memorable lines spoken in the movie “Taken:” Goooood luck. I don’t think this is targeting MS however—I think it’s old news that MS has lost its mobile space to others. RIP WinMo.
A Key for Unlocking Memories
Music Therapy Opens a Path to the Past for Alzheimer’s Patients; Creating a Personal Playlist
*
By MELINDA BECK
One of the raps on iPods is that users tend to close themselves off from other people and retreat into their own private world.
With the help of some old familiar tunes, advanced-dementia patients at Beth Abraham Family of Health Services in New York are reconnecting with their memories and with each other in ways that may seem surprising for those with degenerative brain diseases.
But with stroke and dementia patients, iPods and other MP3 players are having just the opposite effect.
Listening to rap and reggae on a borrowed iPod every day has helped Everett Dixon, a 28-year-old stroke victim at Beth Abraham Health Services in Bronx, N.Y., learn to walk and use his hands again.
Trevor Gibbons, 52, who fell out of a fourth-floor construction site and suffered a crushed larynx, has become so entranced with music that he’s written 400 songs and cut four CDs.
Ann Povodator, an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient in Boynton Beach, Fla., listens to her beloved opera and Yiddish songs every day on an iPod with her home health aide or her daughter when she comes to visit. “We listen for at least a half-hour, and we talk afterwards,” says her daughter, Marilyn Povodator. “It seems to touch something deep within her.”
Caregivers have observed for decades that Alzheimer’s patients can still remember and sing songs long after they’ve stopped recognizing names and faces. Many hospitals and nursing homes use music as recreation, since it brings patients pleasure. But beyond the entertainment value, there’s growing evidence that listening to music can also help stimulate seemingly lost memories and even help restore some cognitive function.
“What I believe is happening is that by engaging very basic mechanisms of emotions and listening, music is stimulating dormant areas of the brain that haven’t been accessible due to degenerative disease,” says Concetta Tomaino, executive director of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, a nonprofit organization founded at Beth Abraham in 1995.
Dr. Tomaino, who has studied the therapeutic effects of music for more than 30 years, is spearheading a new program to provide iPods loaded with customized playlists to help spread the benefits of music therapy to Alzheimer’s patients even at home. “If someone loved opera or classical or jazz or religious music, or if they sang and danced when the family got together, we can recreate that music and help them relive those experiences,” she says.
ARTICLE REMAINDER ON WSJ SITE, SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED:
A Key for Unlocking Memories
Music Therapy Opens a Path to the Past for Alzheimer’s Patients; Creating a Personal Playlist
*
By MELINDA BECK
One of the raps on iPods is that users tend to close themselves off from other people and retreat into their own private world.
With the help of some old familiar tunes, advanced-dementia patients at Beth Abraham Family of Health Services in New York are reconnecting with their memories and with each other in ways that may seem surprising for those with degenerative brain diseases.
But with stroke and dementia patients, iPods and other MP3 players are having just the opposite effect.
Listening to rap and reggae on a borrowed iPod every day has helped Everett Dixon, a 28-year-old stroke victim at Beth Abraham Health Services in Bronx, N.Y., learn to walk and use his hands again.
Trevor Gibbons, 52, who fell out of a fourth-floor construction site and suffered a crushed larynx, has become so entranced with music that he’s written 400 songs and cut four CDs.
Ann Povodator, an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient in Boynton Beach, Fla., listens to her beloved opera and Yiddish songs every day on an iPod with her home health aide or her daughter when she comes to visit. “We listen for at least a half-hour, and we talk afterwards,” says her daughter, Marilyn Povodator. “It seems to touch something deep within her.”
Caregivers have observed for decades that Alzheimer’s patients can still remember and sing songs long after they’ve stopped recognizing names and faces. Many hospitals and nursing homes use music as recreation, since it brings patients pleasure. But beyond the entertainment value, there’s growing evidence that listening to music can also help stimulate seemingly lost memories and even help restore some cognitive function.
“What I believe is happening is that by engaging very basic mechanisms of emotions and listening, music is stimulating dormant areas of the brain that haven’t been accessible due to degenerative disease,” says Concetta Tomaino, executive director of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, a nonprofit organization founded at Beth Abraham in 1995.
Dr. Tomaino, who has studied the therapeutic effects of music for more than 30 years, is spearheading a new program to provide iPods loaded with customized playlists to help spread the benefits of music therapy to Alzheimer’s patients even at home. “If someone loved opera or classical or jazz or religious music, or if they sang and danced when the family got together, we can recreate that music and help them relive those experiences,” she says.
ARTICLE REMAINDER ON WSJ SITE, SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED:
Android’s Rapid Growth Has Some Developers Worried
A year after its release, Google’s open source Android operating system has become a sensation. After a slow start, it is now available on at least 12 phones, with more devices waiting in the wings.
Good news for Android fans, right? Not really, say some developers. A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a “nightmare,” they say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models.
AT&T* today announced that it has invested nearly $65 million from 2008 through the 3rd quarter of 2009 to complete a substantial upgrade of its local 3G wireless network in the greater San Francisco Bay Area with the launch of additional wireless spectrum in the 850 MHz band. As a result of this upgrade, local customers are expected to experience better 3G wireless connectivity, performance and enhanced in-building wireless coverage. The enhancement also increases network capacity, and is intended to support the ever-growing demand for 3G mobile broadband service. In the greater Bay Area, AT&T upgraded close to 850 cell sites as part of this enhancement, the majority coming in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
This network enhancement is one part of AT&T’s ongoing efforts to drive innovation by investing to deliver the benefits of smartphones and mobile broadband for customers. More smartphone customers have chosen AT&T over any U.S. competitor, resulting in wireless traffic on the AT&T network that has quadrupled over the past year. This growth includes a volume of smartphone data traffic over the AT&T network that is unmatched in the wireless industry.
The high-quality 850 MHz spectrum generally results in better in-building coverage. While specific benefits of the additional spectrum will vary by location, AT&T 3G customers should see improved quality and coverage throughout dozens of greater Bay Area communities, including San Francisco, Brisbane, Daly City, Colma, South San Francisco, Pacifica, Sausalito, Tiburon, Mill Valley, Corte Madera, San Rafael, San Anselmo, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Alameda, Piedmont, Hayward, San Leandro, San Mateo, Burlingame, Millbrae, Hillsborough, Palo Alto, San Carlos, Belmont, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Richmond, Albany, El Sobrante, El Cerritos, Pinole, Crockett, Hercules and more.
Android’s Rapid Growth Has Some Developers Worried
A year after its release, Google’s open source Android operating system has become a sensation. After a slow start, it is now available on at least 12 phones, with more devices waiting in the wings.
Good news for Android fans, right? Not really, say some developers. A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a “nightmare,” they say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models.
yeah, lets put a GOOGLE man on our Apple Board { Schmidt } so he can learn how to undermine, cut out, thwart, and backstab Apple investors over and over.
The ONE true advantage was the OP system, and now that is being undermined rapidly, by an GOOGLE OPEN SOURCE product??
And when the FEDS force him off, act sad that he had to go.
What kind of board member do they want, Green Gore, Snidely Schmidt? Who will be next, “FESTER?”
What kind of board member do they want, Green Gore, Snidely Schmidt? Who will be next, “FESTER?”
Schmidt is running plays out of Bill Gates’ playbook: It’s far easier to steal than innovate. And Jobs’ strategy of “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” didn’t work, so now we have Google playing in Apple’s orchard.
SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Xinhua)—South Korea’s telecom regulator said Wednesday it had approved local sale of Apple Inc.‘s iPhones, opening the domestic handset market to the U.S. company.
According to the Korea Communications Committee, its policymakers reached an agreement to grant Apple a license to run location-base services on the iPhone in the country, which is a prerequisite condition for cellphone makers or mobile carriers to be allowed in the local market.
It has been a slow process to bring the iPhone to the local market as the South Korean government was reluctant to give permission on concerns over the potential privacy violation by the phone’s location-base services (LBS).
Speaking at the Canalys Mobility Forum in London yesterday, analyst Pete Cunningham revealed that the iPhone was France’s favourite smartphone in Q3 2009.
That, he said, arose because of the ending there of single-carrier sales. And with that now happening in the UK too - Orange has the 3GS and Vodafone will begin offering it early next year - we could see a big increase in iPhone ownership here too.
Exclusivity was a good idea in the early days of the iPhone, Cunningham said, but now it was “restriciting sales volumes”. Punters want to buy the device but are not willing to switch operator to do so.
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa during Q3, Apple took 17 per cent of the smartphone market, second only to Nokia, which took 57.5 per cent. But Nokia’s unit shipments were down 10.4 per cent year on on year - Apple’s were up 22.5 per cent.
Google phone real, due early 2010?
updated 09:15 am EST, Wed November 18, 2009
Google’s own Android phone custom-made
Google’s rumored self-developed Android phone is real but has been pushed back, a scoop claimed on late Tuesday. The handset would be built by a third party, most likely LG or Samsung rather than the previously preferred HTC, but would carry only Google’s branding and is said by TechCrunch to be designed almost exclusively according to Google’s design. It would launch in early 2010 after a delay but would receive heavy marketing as soon as January.
This wouldn’t be one of Google’s developer phones, such as the Dev Phone 1 or the Ion. Both of these were existing designs with the only change being unrestricted, reference installations of Android.
While these rumors have persisted in the past, Google has publicly denied such rumors by arguing that it doesn’t want to compete with its own hardware partners. It has also maintained that what little influence it has had on Android phones’ hardware design, such as on the T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream), has been more detrimental than helpful. However, it’s been asserted in the past that Google has been taking an increasingly hands-on approach and may have heavily influenced the Droid.
The move would pit Google more directly against Apple as it would not only have its own mobile OS but also its own hardware. It may also create a conflict of interest as features like Google Maps Navigation may get preferential treatment.
Regardless, the same sources claim that a third phone, the long rumored HTC Dragon, has already been in late testing at Google for weeks and should be available “very soon.” Most expect it to be a spiritual cousin of the Windows Mobile-based HD2 and to center on a large touchscreen with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. As there has been talk of more Android phones at Verizon in the next few weeks, the Dragon may be one of those devices.
Samsung on Tuesday launched a Web site aimed at attracting software developers to its proprietary operating system, which it has named “bada,” the Korean word for ocean. It will provide a software development kit to programmers next month. The company hasn’t decided whether to let other cellphone makers to build phones based on its software.
So if they develop an application using Samsung’s proprietary OS to access the Microsoft search service would they call it “Bada-Bing!”?
For those concerned about security Cisco has released a new Iphone app which is free. Via Ipodnn
Aimed at IT managers and security experts, SIO To Go allows users to choose from a variety of security news feeds, including Cisco’s Risk Report, podcasts, security blog, Twitter feeds and more. Cisco says the free app provides unique information based on the company’s monitoring of more than two-thirds of the world’s e-mail through its security appliances and from more than 500 experts.
Apple uses Infineon 3G chips to dodge Qualcomm royalties
updated 05:35 pm EST, Thu November 19, 2009
Chip choice helps increase gross margin on iPhone
Apple has allegedly established a system to minimize licensing costs for 3G components patented by Qualcomm, according to Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi. While most 3G OEMs are paying Qualcomm roughly 4 percent on the wholesale price of their phones, Apple reportedly dodges most of the fees and pays an estimated 1.6 percent of its iPhone revenue to the chip maker.
The discrepancy is attributed primarily to the fact that Apple is not a direct Qualcomm licensee. By purchasing Infineon baseband chips and allowing Foxconn to pay the standard Qualcomm royalties, Apple is paying licensing fees on the transfer price from the iPhone’s contracted manufacturer.
““Given that iPhone gross margins are ~60%, Apple is effectively paying royalties on just 40% of the iPhone’s average wholesale ASP, vs. 100% for its handset OEM peers,” according to Sacconaghi.
The analyst suggests Apple has added an estimated $280 million to its FY 2009 operating profit through the arrangement, which could fetch over $400 million in FY 2010. Separate reports suggest Qualcomm is seeking a chip deal with Apple, although the details of such talks remain unclear.
Apple uses Infineon 3G chips to dodge Qualcomm royalties
updated 05:35 pm EST, Thu November 19, 2009
Chip choice helps increase gross margin on iPhone
Apple has allegedly established a system to minimize licensing costs for 3G components patented by Qualcomm, according to Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi. While most 3G OEMs are paying Qualcomm roughly 4 percent on the wholesale price of their phones, Apple reportedly dodges most of the fees and pays an estimated 1.6 percent of its iPhone revenue to the chip maker.
The discrepancy is attributed primarily to the fact that Apple is not a direct Qualcomm licensee. By purchasing Infineon baseband chips and allowing Foxconn to pay the standard Qualcomm royalties, Apple is paying licensing fees on the transfer price from the iPhone’s contracted manufacturer.
““Given that iPhone gross margins are ~60%, Apple is effectively paying royalties on just 40% of the iPhone’s average wholesale ASP, vs. 100% for its handset OEM peers,” according to Sacconaghi.
The analyst suggests Apple has added an estimated $280 million to its FY 2009 operating profit through the arrangement, which could fetch over $400 million in FY 2010. Separate reports suggest Qualcomm is seeking a chip deal with Apple, although the details of such talks remain unclear.
I think Toni’s research is suspect. For those who care Vijay Nagarajan , who actually works in the wireless industry covered this issue back in 2008. I would put much greater weight behind his take on the issue. This article was pre Iphone 3G release and unfortunately Vijay no longer blogs on this subject due to conflict of interest due to his current employer.
With a substantial portion of the 3G intellectual property (IP), Qualcomm stands to make royalty money from every CDMA-based phone sold around the world. Three out of four phones in the 2010-2011 timeframe are expected to be CDMA-based. Quite obviously, this includes the impending 3G iPhone.
If a 3G iPhone is available in the next couple of months, I estimate about 2.5 million units will be sold. This number is expected to climb to about 17.5 million units in 2010. With a conservative selling price of $350 and a royalty percentage of 5%, Qualcomm stands to make close to $44 million this year and as high as $300 million in 2010 just on iPhone sales.
Both Apple and Infineon (whose chipset, I am betting, is central to the 3G) will certainly be aware of this situation. Infineon purchased Agere’s mobility products business from LSI last year. This acquisition, as Will Strauss of Forward Concepts points out, brings with it a huge body of patents (including 3G) from Agere’s Bell labs legacy. Besides, Infineon has a strong ally in InterDigital, the IP powerhouse which supplies the 3G stack for Infineon chipsets. Apple also signed licensing agreements with InterDigital last year for 2G and 3G iPhones.
While it appears that the iPhone camp has a good IP position, it does not obviate the need for a Qualcomm license. The combined patent portfolio of Infineon and InterDigital will help bring down the net money flowing into Qualcomm’s coffers. However, it is unlikely that this number will become public knowledge. We will also not know what percentage distribution of this fee as paid by Apple or Infineon.
Also back in 2007 Apple sign a patent deal with InterDigital
Apple signs iPhone patent deal with Interdigital
By Tom Krazit, CNET News.com
Sep 12, 2007
Apple has signed a patent-licensing agreement with a company called InterDigital for what appeared to be US$20 million, plus ongoing royalties, that covers the current iPhone and hints at a 3G successor.
Interdigital broke the news in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday, amid all the hubbub related to the iPhone pricing flap. The company said it has signed a seven-year licensing agreement with Apple retroactive to iPhone Day that covers the technology used in the iPhone.
Interdigital develops technology that gets mobile phones onto cellular networks. The company’s products and designs are used for older cellular standards, like the EDGE network used by the iPhone, but is focusing most of its current development on designing technology for the WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) and HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) standards that power faster 3G networks.
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