Failed Russian Mars Probe Set to Crash in Indian Ocean

An artist's impression of Phobos-Grunt in Mars orbit.

Russia's failed Mars probe will come splashing down to Earth in the Indian Ocean between Jan. 14 and Jan. 16, the Roscosmos space agency said Wednesday.

The unmanned Phobos-Grunt spacecraft blasted off toward the Red Planet in November, where it was hoped to bring back rock and soil samples from the moon Phobos. But its engines failed to put in the correct course, and the craft only managed to reach an orbit about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Earth.

Since then, scientists have been trying to establish when it is likely to crash down, and where.

The scatter zone was most likely above the Indian Ocean, and as many as 20 to 30 fragments could hit Earth, Roscosmos said.

Previously, Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin said the probe would break up in the atmosphere, the Ria Novosti news agency reported.

The failed mission has been an embarrassment to Roscosmos, which has suffered a string of failures. Popovkin earlier in the week hinted that rival space powers may have been to blame for the failure of the Phobos probe.

"I don't want to make any accusations, but at present, there are powerful technologies that can impact spacecraft, and their usage cannot be ruled out," Popovkin said.

Source: Fox News

Nokia Lumia 710 On Sale At T-Mobile

Nokia Lumia 710

Nokia's first Windows Phone device for the U.S. market arrived at brick-and-mortar and online stores Wednesday.

The Lumia 710, announced in December, is available for $50 with a two-year contract on T-Mobile through the carrier's website and stores, as well as at electronics retailers like Best Buy. 

The Lumia 710 is similar to other mid-market offerings based on the Windows Phone platform, such as the Samsung Focus Flash or the HTC Radar.

It runs on a 1.4-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and features a 3.7-inch ClearBlack scratch-resistant display, a 5-megapixel camera, and 8 GB of storage. It's available in black or white.  

Like all Windows Phones, its interface uses Microsoft's Metro interface and Live Tiles, which display real-time updates from social networks, e-mail, messaging, and other services, directly to the home screen.

Nokia and T-Mobile are aiming the Lumia 710 at consumers who aren't looking for a top-of-the-line phone, but still want solid performance and all the basic features of a smartphone. "Our research shows that nearly everybody in the U.S. wants a smartphone, but many believe they can't afford it," said T-Mobile USA chief marketing officer Cole Brodman, in a statement.

Nokia Americas president Chris Weber said the device is "the perfect first-time smartphone: a well-designed product that delivers the most compelling Windows Phone experience in its price range."

Nokia does plan to introduce higher-end Windows Phone offerings into the U.S. market. Next in line is the Lumia 800. The 800 is armed with an ultra-bright ClearBlack Amoled screen that adds cyan and magenta to the standard RGB electronic display spectrum. It's also got a camera that uses Carl Zeiss optics and HD video playback.  

Read more from: Information Week

Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe heads for fiery finale

Named after the bellicose god of war, Mars has claimed many a victim, and the latest one, a Russian space probe, looks likely to tumble to Earth very soon.

Launched Nov. 8 from Kazakhstan, Russia's Phobos-Grunt (grunt is Russian for ground or soil) mission aimed for a first landing of a probe on the martian moon, Phobos. The $163 million spacecraft also carried a piggybacked Chinese Mars orbiter added late to the mission, and a Planetary Society microbe experiment.

Sadly, the spacecraft reached orbit around Earth but failed to fire the rocket that would send it on an eight-month interplanetary trip. The cause of the failure is the subject of an open investigation by Russian space officials.

"Way too ambitious, and way too underfunded, to reach its goal," says space law attorney Michael Listner, a writer forThe Space Review. "Adding the Chinese orbiter late seems to have pushed the risk to the mission very, very high."

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In Flop of H.P. TouchPad, an Object Lesson for the Tech Sector

Jon Rubinstein, left, and Todd Bradley, Hewlett-Packard executives, holding WebOS devices including the TouchPad.

The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard was one of the most closely watched new gadgets of 2011 — and quickly turned out to be the year’s biggest flop. The TouchPad, which was supposed to be a rival to Apple’s iPad, lasted just seven weeks on the market before H.P. killed it, citing weak sales. 

Analysts point to a long list of factors behind the tablet’s quick demise. But some of the people involved in creating the tablet’s core software now say the product barely had a fighting chance.

That software is called WebOS, an operating system built on the same technology used by many Web browsers. It promised to be more flexible and open than Apple’s tightly controlled iOS software, and more beautiful than Google’s sometimes wonky Android system. H.P. acquired Palm, the maker of WebOS, for $1.2 billion in 2010 so it could use the software in products like the TouchPad.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/technology/hewlett-packards-touchpad-was-built-on-flawed-software-some-say.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Roku Looks Beyond the Set-Top Box

“Set-top box” is one of those puzzling anachronisms, like “record industry,” that seems to persist for no clear reason. Perching a cable tuner, TiVo or Apple TV on top one of today’s slim television sets would require either amazing balancing skills, very strong adhesive or a bit of both.

For the last several years, Roku has been one of the companies selling devices that let users stream Internet video to their televisions from a big lineup of programming sources, including Netflix and Hulu Plus. Even though you can’t balance them on top of a modern television set, the Roku boxes are tiny things, roughly the size of a hockey puck.

Roku is announcing a plan on Wednesday to get rid of the box entirely.

The company is developing a product called the Roku Streaming Stick, a device that will be about the size of one of those miniature thumb drives you plug into a PC to back up documents and other files. The stick, which slips unobtrusively into an HDMI jack on the back of a TV, provides all of the same access to Roku’s video programming partners that one can get from a Roku box but without an extra piece of hardware dangling from the set by an umbilicus.

In an interview, Anthony Wood, Roku’s chief executive and founder, said the product was an outgrowth of the early consumer research Roku did as it was preparing to make its first Internet boxes. “What we found is that one of the biggest objections to the box was that it was there,” Mr. Wood said.

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PayPal Executive Named Chief of Yahoo

In this photograph taken by AP Images for PayPal, PayPal President Scott Thompson, right, demos upcoming technologies at the PayPal Shopping Showcase, Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011, in New York. (Diane Bondareff/AP Images for PayPal)

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120104/yahoo-looking-to-paypall-president-as-next-ceo-report-120104/#ixzz1iVbagCdc

Yahoo, the struggling consumer media company, announced on Wednesday that its new chief executive would be Scott Thompson, the president of PayPal, the online payment service. 

Mr. Thompson, analysts say, has a background mainly as a technologist instead of being an expert in digital media or corporate turnarounds. While PayPal, a division of eBay, is a consumer service, analysts said that is very different from a media company.

But in a conference call on Wednesday morning, Roy J. Bostock, the chairman of Yahoo’s board, said that at PayPal Mr. Thompson had proved he could take a company with solid assets and build the business. That is the central challenge at Yahoo, Mr. Bostock said, noting that the company has a wealth of strong media and advertising assets, and an online audience of more than 700 million visitors a month. 

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App downloads during Christmas week break record

The last week in 2011 was the biggest ever for Android and iOS. According to mobile app analytics company Flurry, over 20 million devices were activated between Christmas and New Year, and 1.2 billion apps were downloaded. That's about 60 percent higher than every week of December before Christmas, and marks the largest number of apps ever downloaded in a single week, passing a billion downloads for the first time.
Christmas Day was the high point of the week for activations, with 6.8 million. Downloads were a bit more spaced out, with only about a fifth of them taking place on the 25th. Flurry doesn't give numbers for iOS and Android individually, but Andy Rubin of Google tweeted the following a few days later:
Andy Rubin: UPDATE: There were 3.7M Android devices activated on 12/24 and 12/25.
From this and previous reports, Fortune's Philip Elmer-Dewitt deduced that about 1.6 million more iOS devices were activated on the 25th than Android ones. However, this doesn't account for Kindle activations, which he says wouldn't be counted in Rubin's tweet. Regardless of who took the top spot, if these numbers are right, Google and Apple have a lot to celebrate now that the holidays are over.
Source: washingtonpost

HP teases 14-inch Envy 'Spectre' Ultrabook

The idea behind so-called Ultrabooks is to take some of the advantages of tablets -- like portability and instant-on capabilities -- and combine them with the performance and convenience of notebooks. IHS iSuppli projects ultrabooks will make up 43% of global PC shipments in 2015, up from 2% in 2011 and 13% in 2012.

Pricing will be a decisive factor in the success or failure of Ultrabooks, but after an initially lukewarm reception, it looks like things could improve with the second wave devices seeing how some are already selling for around $800-$900 -- like the Toshiba Portege Z835 or HP's own Folio 13, for example. Along with lower prices, Ultrabook sales will undoubtedly benefit from the upcoming release of Windows 8 later in the year.

Source: techspot News

Apple's academic January event delayed from 2011

Citing unnamed sources in a blog post today, Morris said the event, which will reportedly be education-focused and tie into Apple's iTunes University program, was originally set to be held in the fall, but was pushed back to this month for reasons unknown.

Morris said that what Apple plans to unveil has "been in the making for years," and is being held in New York instead of Silicon Valley due to textbook publishers being centrally located there. It also won't be hardware-related, Morris suggested, squashing any indications of a new iPad being unwrapped.

The tidbits join a host of others stemming from an All Things Digital report yesterday that claimed that Apple is gearing up to hold an event in New York later this month with a focus on advertising or publishing. TechCrunch later weighed in, saying that the event will center on publishing and Apple's iBookstore. Macrumors mentioned that Apple has already filmed interviews with "textbook industry executives" for use in a promotional video that is expected to accompany a new product launch. And Ars Technica suggested that part of the change could amount to support for the EPUB 3 standard, as well as improved tools for publishing books on Apple's platform.

Read more from: CNET news

Sony, Samsung end joint venture

Japan's Sony and South Korean rival Samsung are dissolving their joint venture in liquid crystal display panels as Sony tries to stanch years of losses in its TV business.
Samsung Electronics Co. will buy all of Sony's shares in the joint venture for about 1.08 trillion Korean won ($935 million) subject to a final agreement, Sony Corp. said Monday.
The joint venture called S-LCD was set up in 2004. Sony, which fell behind in flat panel TVs, invested in a Samsung panel factory to ensure a steady supply of panels for its LCD TVs.
Sony's TV operation has lost money for seven straight years and the company is straining to return that key business to profit.
Source
The prices of TVs as well as panels have been dropping so it makes more sense to buy panels at the market rate than to invest in production.

Twin Probes to Orbit Moon, Study Gravity Field

This undated artist rendering provided by NASA shows the twin Grail spacecraft mapping the lunar gravity field.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/26/twin-probes-to-orbit-moon-study-gravity-field/#ixzz1hfhyvmed

The moon has come a long way since Galileo first peered at it through a telescope. Unmanned probes have circled around it and landed on its surface. Twelve American astronauts have walked on it. And lunar rocks and soil have been hauled back from it.

Despite being well studied, Earth's closest neighbor remains an enigma.

Over the New Year's weekend, a pair of spacecraft the size of washing machines are set to enter orbit around it in the latest lunar mission. Their job is to measure the uneven gravity field and determine what lies beneath -- straight down to the core.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/26/twin-probes-to-orbit-moon-study-gravity-field/#ixzz1hfhnDtGD

Sony sells its half stake in TV joint venture to Samsung

Television manufacturers are outsourcing LCD screens production as competition and weak demand squeeze profits Photograph Thomas Collins/Getty

Sony has sold its nearly 50% stake in joint venture with Samsung Electronics to the South Korean company for $940m (£602m), as the Japanese company struggles to cut its losses at its TV business.

The venture for liquid crystal display (LCD) had been subject to rumours that Sony was negotiating an exit, aiming to switch to cheaper outsourcing for flat screens for its TVs while Samsung pushes ahead with next-generation displays.

"In terms of direction it is a positive [for Sony]," said Keita Wakabayashi, an analyst at Mito Securities in Tokyo, about the deal. "But if they are making a loss on the sale, one could ask why they didn't make this decision sooner."

"Their biggest problem is that they are not making a profit even though they don't have many plants," he said.

In November, Sony, the world's third largest flat panel TV maker, warned of a fourth straight year of net losses for the financial year to next March, with its TV unit alone set to lose $2.2 bn on tumbling demand and a surging yen.

The company said on Monday it would review its earnings forecast to reflect ¥66bn in impairment losses from the transaction.

While the sale is seen as a move in the right direction for Sony, it will not be good for Samsung, analysts said.

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LG to upgrade high-end Optimus smartphones to Android 4.0 ICS starting in Q2 2012

LG already revealed that it plans to upgrade its high-end Optimus smartphones released in 2011 to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but now we have a more concrete time period that users can expect to get the upgrades delivered to their phones.

LG says that it will begin delivering the Android 4.0 upgrade to the LG Optimus LTE, Prada phone by LG 3, the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Sol, the LG myTouch Q, and the LG Eclipse in the second quarter of next year. Following that, the LG Optimus 3D, the LG Optimus Black, the LG Optimus Big, the LG Optimus Q2, and the LG Optimus EX will be upgraded in the third quarter. The company notes that timing for the upgrades is dependent on carriers and regions, so the upgrades may arrive at different times for each country.

LG says that further details will be announced closer to each upgrades' launch date.

LG is a little behind other companies that have promised upgrades to Android 4.0 for their devices in "early 2012." Sony Ericsson recently announced that it was targeting a March or April release date for the upgrade for many of its smartphones. Motorola, Samsung, and HTC have not announced any exact time period for their upgrades, but many expect to see them arrive in the first few months of 2012. [LG via The Verge]

 Source: mobileburn.com

Microsoft: Five things to look for in 2012

Next year is one of those years that can't come soon enough for Microsoft.

It's not that 2011 was a particularly difficult year. The company posted record revenue for the fiscal year that ended June 30. And its 2-year-old PC operating system, Windows 7, hit 500 million copies sold, further embedding it as the most widely used operating system in the world. But 2011 had few big product launches at the company, Office 365 and Internet Explorer 9 notwithstanding.

Next year will be altogether different. Microsoft is prepping the big kahuna of its product arsenal, Windows 8. The company hasn't set a date, though most analysts expect the flagship operating system to debut before the end of the year, and perhaps in time for back-to-school shopping. From that product, much else from Redmond flows.

Read More from: CNET news

Samsung buys out Sony S-LCD share in $940m TV deal

Sony will sell its shares in the LCD panel joint-venture S-LCD to partner Samsung, the two companies have announced, in a deal worth $940m, as the Japanese firm struggles to coax profit out of its TV line. S-LCD Corporation had been established in 2004 by Sony and Samsung, with this new deal – that will leave S-LCD a wholly owned Samsung subsidiary – expected to close by the end of January 2012. Sony will continue to source displays for some of its TVs from S-LCD.

“This transaction will enable [Sony] to monetize its shares in S-LCD and aims to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility” the Japanese company says. As for Samsung, it “anticipates heightened flexibility, speed and efficiency in both panel production and business operations.”
The deal is another step in Sony’s attempts to bring its large-format LCD business into profit, the TV division proving to be a significant money pit in recent quarters. Back in November, Sony warned of losses of around $1.15bn, with under-performance in the TV segment a sizable contributor to that.
Initial goals of LCD production, Sony explained, had been set when there was a shortage of panels and the belief that demand would continue to grow. Both those factors proved unreliable, leaving Sony with a wasteful production setup. The company announced plans to divide the LCD business into three, one section handling the legacy LCD TV business (using Sony-designed and produced components), another the ODM business (using third-party components) and finally a group that would be responsible for “developing and designing the next generation TV.”
 Article From: slashgear.com

Air Dictate: Enter text on Mac using Siri/iPhone 4S

The folks that gave us Air Display have just released a 99-cent app called Air Dictate. This app lets the user enter text in any text field on a Mac system, by speaking into the iPhone 4S. Once Air Dictate is installed on the iPhone and the receiver app on the Mac, the two devices can be linked for easy text entry by speech. Both devices must be on the same Wi-Fi network to link.
How does Air Dictate use Siri to convert speech to text?

Apple expressly prohibits developers from using private Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). And, there aren’t any public APIs enabling Siri to take dictation. Avatron programmers, independent of Apple, have devised codes that empower Siri to automatically convert speech spoken into an iPhone 4S into a Mac’s text field, just as if it was typed on the computer’s keyboard.

I have tested Air Dictate and it is pretty good at accurately converting speech to text. It is not perfect, but can be a viable input method for 99 cents.
Source: zdnet

Smartphones that stole the show in 2011

SAMSUNG GALAXY SII
Best Buy price : Rs 30,100

Smartphones have been in vogue for several years but in 2011 they really became the soul of the handset industry. Every vendor claims to have a smartphone portfolio that can be used by masses and classes. A few brands succeeded and a few are yet to shine through.

The craze for smartphones is reflected in the numbers. In the third quarter of 2011, IDC estimates that smartphone shipment to India market grew by 21.4 per cent, and Android overtook Symbian to emerge as the top platform in India.

A smartphone is defined by dual core processors, AMOLED screens, high definition video and camera quality, battery size, data storage capacity and apps. With enough computing power to handle most of the functionality of the typical information worker, a smartphone purchase is not an easy choice. What needs to be evaluated closely is the ease with which the user can manage email and multiple inboxes, use text messages to communicate, check the latest posts on social networking sites, search for important business news items and plan meetings on their smartphone.

Source: business-standard.com

Apple iPad 2 online sales will start in wee hours

If you're in the market to buy an iPad 2 online tomorrow, you're going to have to wake up a bit early.

Apple this morning announced that online sales of the iPad 2 will begin at 1 a.m. PT/4 a.m. ET, many hours ahead of when the new tablet goes on sale at the company's retail stores.

The company had previously told customers that online sales would begin the same day as the iPad 2's retail release, but had not provided the start time.

Retail availability of the iPad 2 remains unchanged, with Apple beginning sales at 5 p.m. local time at its 236 retail stores as well as at partner retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, and carrier stores for Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the company said in its release.

Along with the start time, Apple also announced early arrivals of the GarageBand and iMovie iPad apps that the company demonstrated during the iPad 2's unveiling last week. Available today, these apps had originally been slated to be released tomorrow to coincide with the new iPad hardware, which in iMovie's case is required to be able to run the video-editing software.

The last Apple product to get an early online sale was the Verizon iPhone, which became available for preordering at 3 a.m. ET from Verizon's online stores, selling out just a few hours later.

SOURCE

AOL to Cut Up to 900 Jobs as It Integrates Huffington Post

AOL Inc. (AOL), the Internet company that agreed to buy the Huffington Post last month, said it will eliminate as many as 900 jobs as the company integrates the news website and restructures to try to return to revenue growth.

The company will cut as many as 700 jobs in India and 200 in the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong wrote in a memo to employees today. In India, 300 of the affected employees will move to outsourcing partners and continue to do work for AOL, he said.

“The changes for me today are very personal,” said Armstrong at the Bloomberg Media Summit in New York. “AOL employees deserve a tremendous amount of credit because I don’t think it’s easy to go from managing decline to managing growth.”

Armstrong said he would discuss the job cuts with employees later today.

“Our strategy remains clear: create high quality content experiences for consumers, at scale,” Armstrong wrote in the memo. “Today, we are announcing an organizational structure that will significantly improve AOL’s ability to focus on growth.”

The company had 5,860 employees at the end of last year, according to regulatory filings. If the company sheds 900 jobs, that would be 15 percent of the total.

Declining Revenue

AOL, whose sales have declined for four straight quarters, agreed to buy the Huffington Post for $315 million, aiming to increase online content to help boost advertising revenue. In India, the company is outsourcing back-office work to cut costs and focus on increasing consumer product sales.

Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post, joined AOL as president and editor-in-chief of a newly formed media group, which includes other AOL content. Her website will serve as the model for other journalism efforts, Armstrong said in the memo.

“AOL will invest more heavily in our in-house editorial team and transition away from a reliance on freelance journalists,” he said. “Journalists are the heart and soul of a media company.”

Armstrong said he recently made a personal purchase of $10 million in AOL stock. In May, the former Google executive, who became AOL’s CEO in 2009, bought $11.1 million worth of stock.

“AOL will turn around,” he said. “I have no doubt about that.”

AOL, based in New York, gained 31 cents to $19.65 at 11:41 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares had fallen 18 percent this year before today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Katie Hoffmann in New York at khoffmann4@bloomberg.net; Brett Pulley in New York at bpulley@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net. 

SOURCE

Kinect's Sales Put It into Guinness World Records

Microsoft 's Kinect is now in the Guinness World Records. The global authority on record breaking awarded that honor to the company's successful gestures-in-air controller for being the fastest-selling electronics device ever, selling an average of 133,333 units daily since its launch. To top things off, Microsoft announced Wednesday that the Kinect has sold 10 million units worldwide through the end of last month.

The Kinect's phenomenal sales record, including eight million units sold in the first 60 days since its release on November 4, outstrips "both the iPhone and the iPad for the equivalent periods after launch," according to Guinness.

Five Million Projected

When it was released, Microsoft had projected selling five million units through the end of last year. Kinect's sales are a major factor in the 55 percent increase in revenue in the company's Entertainment and Devices division for the last quarter of last year, and in the projected 50 percent rise expected for the current quarter.

By contrast, Sony's new motion-sensing controller for its PlayStation, Move, has sold about three million units through the end of 2010, since its launch in September.

Despite all of the promotional hand-waving that Microsoft did to launch its hands-free game controller, Kinect, the company may have underestimated its appeal. In addition to sales to game players, the Kinect has instigated a cottage industry of radical experimentation by developers that could have a major impact on user interaction with a wide range of non-game devices. With the Kinect, users control the device through in-the-air gestures and motion, as well as voice commands.

One university researcher, for instance, has used the two cameras in the device to gain control of the 3D software and turn the unit into a 3D camera. In Kinect, one of the cameras shoots video, while the other measures depths, resulting in a 640 x 480 video stream and 320 x 240 depth stream.

TVs, Windows

Others have gotten the Kinect to work with Mac OS X, Windows 7, and Linux computers. Israeli company PrimeSense, which makes the chip controlling motion-sensing in the peripheral, has said that it is licensing its chip for other uses, such as controlling PC functionality in TVs.

After the first experiments, Microsoft had issued a statement that it "does not condone the modification of its products," and that "numerous hardware and software safeguards" are intended to reduce the chances of "product tampering." It later noted that, in fact, Kinect software and hardware were not in fact modified, but only the software in the main device that interacted with the Kinect, and it has since embraced the research.

Michael Gartenberg, Research Director at analyst at the Gartner Group, said "ten million units is impressive and shows that the Kinect is not just a peripheral for the Xbox but is leading to an evolution of the Xbox platform itself."

He added that ten million units "will resonate very, very well" with developers, as will the company's recent release of a software development kit and its current efforts to integrate the technology into an upcoming version of Windows.

Source