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* 4 of 5 FTC commissioners see illegal activity-sources
* Google probed for manipulating search results
* FTC decision could come in late Nov., early Dec.-sources
* Google has denied any wrongdoing
A long list of companies has been complaining to the FTC, arguing that the agency should crack down on Google.
Companies rarely talk publicly about their dealings with the FTC, but consumer reviews website Yelp and comparison shopping website Nextag have both complained about Google during open hearings in Congress.
Google rivals specializing in travel, shopping and entertainment have accused Google, the world's No. 1 search engine, of unfairly giving their web sites low quality rankings in search results to steer Internet users away from their websites and toward Google products that provide similar services.
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in mid-September that he expected a decision in the case by the end of the year. European regulators are conducting a similar antitrust probe.
If the agency finds that Google broke the law, the FTC and Google could hammer out a settlement that resolves the issues or, if settlement negotiations fail, the matter could end up in a lengthy, expensive court fight.
The FTC announced in April that it had hired high-powered Washington lawyer Beth Wilkinson to lead the probe. The hiring was seen as a sign that the FTC was contemplating filing a lawsuit against Google.
This is not the first run-in that Google has had with the agency.
In August, Google was forced to pay $22.5 million to settle charges it bypassed the privacy settings of customers using Apple Inc's Safari browser. The practice was in violation of a 2011 consent decree with the FTC over a botched rollout of the now defunct social network Buzz. .
Reminds me of the similar ones againgst mickey a decade earlier- both from uncle and oirope.
Time will tell if iPad can slay the Win8 demon in tablets and leave a vacuum for someone else to take up the challenge or whether the 2 will divide up the spoils like the good ol' days.
One of the biggest inhibitors to the Android tablets are that very few, if any, have 3G/4G, LTE capability that is not tied down to a 2-year service contract with a carrier. The iPad is great in that respect when you can turn on a wireless service for a month or two and then turn it off for several months afterwards. The new Kindle HD tablets appear to be the same way as well. Sammy is going to have 10.1 Nexus tablet (Nexus 10) coming out this fall, but I don't know if it will have any 4G or LTE capability. Supposedly there will be a new Nexus 7 that will have that as well as a new version of the HTC Flyer 2 tablet. Time will tell and by this time next year, we'll know which way this is all headed.
What I don't understand is what inhibits Chacha from incrementally building its own manufacturing capabilities (or as the case might be, leveraging A-grade Chai-nees contract manufacturers), thereby not be so OEM reliant with respect to quality control.
I know margins are pacqui in the hardware market, but as Fruit has demonstrated very ably (although not a perfect example as Fruit has a long history of manufacturing), being a User Experience Nazi can really pay you back handsomly.
^^Becoz Chacha's pill-o-soppy is to spread his seeds wide and far horizontally rather than vertically. They may be forced to go vertical but then they will be playing in Fruit Co, Takla and Mickey's turf rather than their own. Till now Chacha has succeeded in making others play on its turf onlee.
Jehaaard......bought meself a Nokia Lumia 800 phone....had got the Samsung Tablet 2 so did not want another Android platform phone....taking time to getting used to it.....but I really really miss my N8 (which BTW met a brutal death after it slipped from my hand fell 4 floors down)....the camera was something I really loved...checked Nokia 808 Pure View but was out of my budget....even the Lumia 900 looks really impressive with its size and design and finish....I think the Lumia 800+ family is the best designed form...looks real sleek and smart.
Lumia 900 sucks - serious manufacturing problems and bad front design. Lumia 800 is so-so but feels like a shoe-horned product. I spent some time with the 920 and GB has really done its old magic there.
See I told you to dump the N8 and get a Lumia 920 when it arrives and you said noooo I don't want any phone. Now you dumped the N8 literally
Raja Bose wrote:Lumia 900 sucks - serious manufacturing problems and bad front design. Lumia 800 is so-so but feels like a shoe-horned product. I spent some time with the 920 and GB has really done its old magic there.
See I told you to dump the N8 and get a Lumia 920 when it arrives and you said noooo I don't want any phone. Now you dumped the N8 literally
thousand lice in your beard for raining on my parade and may your camels and goats get stolen by the phaithfool.....you evil kaafir....inspite of your blasphemous rantings....I will continue to love my Lumia 800 and will surely upgrade to 920 in another years time...I think I have just got hooked to the sleek design
Globe and Mail
Softbank in $20B deal to buy almost 3/4 of Sprint
CBS News - 8 minutes ago
Updated 6:40 a.m. ET. TOKYO Softbank Corp. has reached a deal to buy 70 percent of U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. for $20.1 billion in the largest-ever foreign acquisition by a Japanese company.
^^^No. Softbank wants Clearwire (the company that provides Sprint spectrum). Sprint has assets of $50 billion, but market cap is at $17 billion. So, its a good deal for Softbank, or at least they think it is. Americans are addicted to data from mobile devices and will pay just about anything. It is probably the only country in the world where people will go for unemployment and food aid with their latest iPhone. lWhen the shift to voice-over-IP happens in the US in the next few years with full LTE implementation, then Softbank should be in a good position.
ShauryaT wrote:How will the rumored new iPad mini price point compare with the new iTouch, which starts at $299? I mean, is not an iPad an iTouch onlee?
What does Takla want Amazon to be in the future? Internet retail king, content king, or chip manufacturer? The strat-e-gee makes no sense and seems more like Takla's ambitions and interests. IIRC, wasn't he also a big investor in Segway?
I like Amazon for my cameras, lenses, electronics, computers, books on hex, lube and bulk condos. If Takla gets in to SoCs then I'll have to buy development boards from Amazon next!
Raja Bose wrote:Actually his strat-e-jee makes a lot of sense. Takla is going CE.
The appeal of Amazon for CE is that they carry all brands for sale. If they themselves are in CE and also sell their competitors, then how do they plan on succeeding? For example, Amazon is one of the biggest retailers for Apple products since they sell in high volumes, and now they will compete with Apple. At one time even Dell wanted to sell Apple products, but could never work out an agreement.
London Calling: Is Cisco Intel's $1 billion foundry deal?
Peter Clarke
10/11/2012 7:23 AM EDT
The word on the street in Bratislava, Slovakia, is that Intel's foundry operation has started or will start to make chips for Cisco. What is more the deal could be worth as much as $1 billion.
That's what we heard at the International Electronics Forum held in Bratislava last week and organized by market analysis firm Future Horizons. It did come couched as a "just a rumor" from one of the speakers, but in addition analysts at investment bank Piper Jaffray have reportedly told clients in a note that Cisco could cut a foundry partnership deal with Intel worth $1 billion.
Known users of Intel foundry services include FPGA companies Achronix and Tabula and network processor company Netronome.
Most of Cisco's silicon right now is at the 40-nm level with a number of 28-nm chip designs in the pipeline. But Intel is known to have been offering its 22-nm FinFET process as a foundry option for some time.
So it would be the right time for Cisco, which employs about 750 chip designers, to be working on IC designs intended for implementation at the next node. And it would seem that the step up to high-performance Intel silicon could make sense for a networking equipment and chip company that is likely to bring all its own intellectual property and IP cores to the design process.
And who was it that mentioned the possibility of a billion-dollar Intel foundry deal to the assembled executives at the IEF? It was non-other than John Lofton Holt, chairman and founder of Intel foundry user Achronix.
In the dim and distant past (2004) Cisco used IBM as a foundry supplier of its chips. But a billion dollars does make you stop and think. Even though it may be spread over several years a billion dollars is a significant amount of other foundries' lunch that Intel would be eating.
I find the iPad Smart Cover a real pain to use. It comes off far too easily, and while it props up the iPad fairly well I always get the feeling that the device is on the verge of falling forward on its screen. The magnetic clamp for the device is far too weak and doesn't wrap around the edge of the iPad like it should for good stability. And the Smart Cover doesn't cover the back of the iPad, which means I expect to see scratches on the device real soon now (yes, I knew this before I bought it).
I much prefer the simple case we have on our old iPad 1 (we got the smart case for a new iPad 3), which protects the device from scratches and is never comes off unless you want it to.
The Smart Cover, of course, costs almost twice as much as a regular iPad case.
Raja Bose wrote:Actually his strat-e-jee makes a lot of sense. Takla is going CE.
The appeal of Amazon for CE is that they carry all brands for sale. If they themselves are in CE and also sell their competitors, then how do they plan on succeeding? For example, Amazon is one of the biggest retailers for Apple products since they sell in high volumes, and now they will compete with Apple. At one time even Dell wanted to sell Apple products, but could never work out an agreement.
Takla Co. is a good example of diversification in a logical manner. Have faith in Takla and perhaps we will see. One can ask the same question of Mickey for going vertical on devices competing with its OEM partners or Chacha for launching Android which competed with its then bff Fruit Co. on service platform. In the end one's self-interests reign supreme - something which our Man Mohan doesn't get. Better to do it and say sorry than worry about ruffling someone's sensitivities.
Fruit Co. is Mickey's competitor since before I was born yet Mickey makes the #1 software sold for the Mac. Most companies know how to play with each other as long as their interests are met. Except Fruit co. nowadays seems to be acting like a schizophrenic paranoid abdul especially wrt Sammy and sees an uncircumcised kaffir behind each goat.
So the Surface RT is now available for pre-order starting at $500. Can the learned mullah's here tell me why mickey$ is releasing tablets with 2 different versions of Windows, with RT not being able to run Win 8 apps? I thought RT was supposed to be a lower end version of the Win 8 Surface. Since its price is the same as that of the iPad, will the Win 8 tablet cost even more?
If mickey$ wanted to really challenge Fruit co. they shouldn't have complicated things for the consumers.
^^^Both run Win8 RT is the ARM tablet, Pro is the x86 tablet. In terms of horsepower Pro is better (and more expensive) but for most folks RT is what they can use without missing out on any capability and fondling value.
^^The OS for ARM and x86 are different. Apparently the RT version cannot run apps made for the Pro. So I guess developers will have to create two versions of every app.
Two different architectures so app binary for one wont run on another without emulation which is slow. I would imagine Mickey's VS tools cross compile for both and the developer's app code doesn't need to be written twice. Mickey typically makes good dev tools even when it made shitty OSs. Win8 is probably the 1st time its making a user centric OS though I would expect people who use it on legacy machines with mouse and keyboard onlee to cry foul.
Anujan wrote:Fruit co has announced an event on Oct 23. I am sure they will invent a revolutionary new category of small tablets.
Oct 23: Apple - iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and iPad Mini
Oct 24: Samsung - Flagship phone. World wide release of the Galaxy Note II with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
Oct 26: Microsoft - Surface tablet available with Windows 8 (pre-order from today)
Oct 29: Microsoft - Windows 8 phones (pre-order from 21st)
Oct 29: Google - Android 4.2 Key Lime Pie and Optimus Nexus phone (praying for an unlocked version for $399)
Raja Bose wrote:Two different architectures so app binary for one wont run on another without emulation which is slow.
Hmmm. I guess with ARM based SoC's ruling the roost in phones and tablets, mickey$ had no choice but to have two different versions.
It also means that ChipZilla's entry into the mobile device market will be restricted to devices running Win 8. I don't see an Android version for x86 coming out soon.
Win8 is probably the 1st time its making a user centric OS though I would expect people who use it on legacy machines with mouse and keyboard onlee to cry foul.
From a couple of early reviews I have read, mickey$ has managed to play the balancing act fairly well. They have managed to make the UI keyb/mouse as well as touch friendly. Only problem is the steeper learning curve for the new features and shortcuts even if they are pretty nifty once you get used to them.
Raja Bose wrote:Two different architectures so app binary for one wont run on another without emulation which is slow. I would imagine Mickey's VS tools cross compile for both and the developer's app code doesn't need to be written twice. Mickey typically makes good dev tools even when it made shitty OSs. Win8 is probably the 1st time its making a user centric OS though I would expect people who use it on legacy machines with mouse and keyboard onlee to cry foul.
Either that or all the antitrust restrictions apply only to Intel x86 and not to other platforms where they can go all paki (read fruitco) and place numerous restrictions on what can run and what can be installed ityadi.
If the difference is only in the binary, why different app restrictions, device restrictions and marketplace restrictions hain ji ?
^^^I doubt the anti-trust restrictions are on x86 onlee - ChipZ quite deftly managed to use 64 bit excuse to say, look AMD got there 1st, clearly we are not the king of the hill.
More than Android, it might be Sammy's home grown OS on x86 mobile - Sammy is trying to go vertical like a Paki with a hard-on chasing a donkey. Android is already on x86 in some random phone.
in marketing terms I think they are going to get hit by apple and samsung on using a compromise display resolution though. "eagle eye" or whatever creative name appl uses on its retina++ gen screens will surely up the pixel count . eagle eye because only a eagle or falcon might notice the diff between retina and retina++ mahdi would be yelled at customers for not taking enough carrots and vitamin-A injections to develop such magical eyes.
RT is the ARM tablet, Pro is the x86 tablet. In terms of horsepower Pro is better (and more expensive) but for most folks RT is what they can use without missing out on any capability and fondling value.