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INTEREST: how to get light to shine through aluminum....
by Billing Wayne 06 Nov '11

06 Nov '11

.....well, use lasers to drill some holes, of course. ...from: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/apples-supplychain-secret-hoard-lasers… TECHNOLOGY November 03, 2011, 4:50 PM EDT Apple's Supply-Chain Secret? Hoard Lasers The iPhone maker spends lavishly on all stages of the manufacturing process, giving it a huge operations advantage Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer By Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows Satariano is a reporter for Bloomberg News. Burrows is a senior writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, based in San Francisco. About five years ago, Apple (AAPL) design guru Jony Ive decided he wanted a new feature for the next MacBook: a small dot of green light above the screen, shining through the computer’s aluminum casing to indicate when its camera was on. The problem? It’s physically impossible to shine light through metal. Ive called in a team of manufacturing and materials experts to figure out how to make the impossible possible, according to a former employee familiar with the development who requested anonymity to avoid irking Apple. The team discovered it could use a customized laser to poke holes in the aluminum small enough to be nearly invisible to the human eye but big enough to let light through. Applying that solution at massive volume was a different matter. Apple needed lasers, and lots of them. The team of experts found a U.S. company that made laser equipment for microchip manufacturing which, after some tweaking, could do the job. Each machine typically goes for about $250,000. Apple convinced the seller to sign an exclusivity agreement and has since bought hundreds of them to make holes for the green lights that now shine on the company’s MacBook Airs, Trackpads, and wireless keyboards. Most of Apple’s customers have probably never given that green light a second thought, but its creation speaks to a massive competitive advantage for Apple: Operations. This is the world of manufacturing, procurement, and logistics in which the new chief executive officer, Tim Cook, excelled, earning him the trust of Steve Jobs. According to more than a dozen interviews with former employees, executives at suppliers, and management experts familiar with the company’s operations, Apple has built a closed ecosystem where it exerts control over nearly every piece of the supply chain, from design to retail store. Because of its volume—and its occasional ruthlessness—Apple gets big discounts on parts, manufacturing capacity, and air freight. “Operations expertise is as big an asset for Apple as product innovation or marketing,” says Mike Fawkes, the former supply-chain chief at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and now a venture capitalist with VantagePoint Capital Partners. “They’ve taken operational excellence to a level never seen before.” This operational edge is what enables Apple to handle massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. It’s allowed a company often criticized for high prices to sell its iPad at a price that very few rivals can beat, while still earning a 25 percent margin on the device, according to the estimates of Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. And if the latest rumors are to be believed, Apple’s operational expertise is likely part of what gives the company enough confidence to enter the notoriously cutthroat television market by 2013 with a TV set that would tightly integrate with existing Apple software like iTunes. The widespread skepticism over Apple’s ability to compete in such a price-sensitive market, where margins are often in the single digits, is “exactly what people said when Apple got into cell phones,” says Munster. Apple began innovating on the nitty-gritty details of supply-chain management almost immediately upon Steve Jobs’s return in 1997. At the time, most computer manufacturers transported products by sea, a far cheaper option than air freight. To ensure that the company’s new, translucent blue iMacs would be widely available at Christmas the following year, Jobs paid $50 million to buy up all the available holiday air freight space, says John Martin, a logistics executive who worked with Jobs to arrange the flights. The move handicapped rivals such as Compaq that later wanted to book air transport. Similarly, when iPod sales took off in 2001, Apple realized it could pack so many of the diminutive music players on planes that it became economical to ship them directly from Chinese factories to consumers’ doors. When an HP staffer bought one and received it a few days later, tracking its progress around the world through Apple’s website, “It was an ‘Oh s—’ moment,” recalls Fawkes. That mentality—spend exorbitantly wherever necessary, and reap the benefits from greater volume in the long run—is institutionalized throughout Apple’s supply chain, and begins at the design stage. Ive and his engineers sometimes spend months living out of hotel rooms in order to be close to suppliers and manufacturers, helping to tweak the industrial processes that translate prototypes into mass-produced devices. For new designs such as the MacBook’s unibody shell, cut from a single piece of aluminum, Apple’s designers work with suppliers to create new tooling equipment. The decision to focus on a few product lines, and to do little in the way of customization, is a huge advantage. “They have a very unified strategy, and every part of their business is aligned around that strategy,” says Matthew Davis, a supply-chain analyst with Gartner (IT) who has ranked Apple as the world’s best supply chain for the last four years. When it’s time to go into production, Apple wields a big weapon: More than $80 billion in cash and investments. The company says it plans to nearly double capital expenditures on its supply chain in the next year, to $7.1 billion, while committing another $2.4 billion in prepayments to key suppliers. The tactic ensures availability and low prices for Apple—and sometimes limits the options for everyone else. Before the release of the iPhone 4 in June 2010, rivals such as HTC couldn’t buy as many screens as they needed because manufacturers were busy filling Apple orders, according to a former manager at HTC. To manufacture the iPad 2, Apple bought so many high-end drills to make the device’s internal casing that other companies’ wait time for the machines stretched from six weeks to six months, according to a manager at the drillmaker. Life as an Apple supplier is lucrative because of the high volumes but painful because of the strings attached. When Apple asks for a price quote for parts such as touchscreens, it demands a detailed accounting of how the manufacturer arrived at the quote, including its estimates for material and labor costs, and its own projected profit. Apple requires many key suppliers to keep two weeks of inventory within a mile of Apple’s assembly plants in Asia, and sometimes doesn’t pay until as long as 90 days after it uses a part, according to an executive who has consulted for Apple and would not speak on the record for fear of compromising the relationship. Not every supplier gives in. An executive who works with a major parts manufacturer says that Apple’s bargaining tactics tend to exert downward pressure on prices, leading to lower profits and margins. After months of negotiations, the company declined a $1 billion payment from Apple that would have required the supplier to commit much of its manufacturing capacity to Cupertino’s products. The executive familiar with these talks, who asked not to be named because the discussions were not public, says that while deals featuring $1 billion in cash up front are basically unheard of, his company didn’t want to be too dependent on Apple—and didn’t want to help it deflate prices. Apple’s control reaches its crescendo in the leadup to one of its famed product unveilings, a tightly orchestrated process that has been refined over years of Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad debuts. For weeks in advance of the announcement, factories work overtime to build hundreds of thousands of devices. To track efficiency and ensure pre-launch secrecy, Apple places electronic monitors in some boxes of parts that allow observers in Cupertino to track them through Chinese factories, an effort meant to discourage leaks. At least once, the company shipped products in tomato boxes to avoid detection, says the consultant who has worked with Apple. When the iPad 2 debuted, the finished devices were packed in plain boxes and Apple employees monitored every handoff point—loading dock, airport, truck depot, and distribution center—to make sure each unit was accounted for. Apple’s retail stores give it a final operational advantage. Once a product goes on sale, the company can track demand by the store and by the hour, and adjust production forecasts daily. If it becomes clear a given part will run out, teams are deployed and given approval to spend millions of dollars on extra equipment to get around the bottleneck. Apple’s enormous profits—its gross margins were 40 percent last quarter, compared with 10 to 20 percent for most other hardware companies—are in large part due to this focus on operations, which is sure to remain a priority under Cook. The new CEO is known to give colleagues copies of Competing Against Time, a book about using supply chains as a strategic weapon in business. According to Martin, the logistics executive, Cook uses a catchphrase to hammer home the need for efficiency: “Nobody wants to buy sour milk.”

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HUMOUR: remembering Andy Rooney, may he rest in peace...
by billing 06 Nov '11

06 Nov '11

Andy Rooney on "computers aren't nice to us....": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1PO7nyyLn0

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INTEREST: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support
by billing 02 Nov '11

02 Nov '11

...from: http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a… October 26, 2011785 notes Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support The announcement that Nexus One users won’t be getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich led some to justifiably question Google’s support of their devices. I look at it a little differently: Nexus One owners are lucky. I’ve been researching the history of OS updates on Android phones and Nexus One users have fared much, much better than most Android buyers. I went back and found every Android phone shipped in the United States1 up through the middle of last year. I then tracked down every update that was released for each device - be it a major OS upgrade or a minor support patch - as well as prices and release & discontinuation dates. I compared these dates & versions to the currently shipping version of Android at the time. The resulting picture isn’t pretty - well, not for Android users: Other than the original G1 and MyTouch, virtually all of the millions of phones represented by this chart are still under contract today. If you thought that entitled you to some support, think again: 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS. 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less. 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period. 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release. 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter. 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010. In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind. At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich. Also worth noting that each bar in the chart starts from the first day of release - so it only gets worse for people who bought their phone late in its sales period. Why Is This So Bad? This may be stating the obvious but there are at least three major reasons. Consumers Get Screwed Ever since the iPhone turned every smartphone into a blank slate, the value of a phone is largely derived from the software it can run and how well the phone can run it. When you’re making a 2 year commitment to a device, it’d be nice to have some way to tell if the software was going to be remotely current in a year or, heck, even a month. Turns out that’s nearly impossible - here are two examples: The Samsung Behold II on T-Mobile was the most expensive Android phone ever and Samsung promoted that it would get a major update to Eclair at least. But at launch the phone was already two major versions behind — and then Samsung decided not to do the update after all, and it fell three major OS versions behind. Every one ever sold is still under contract today. The Motorola Devour on Verizon launched with a Megan Fox Super Bowl ad, while reviews said it was “built to last and it delivers on features.” As it turned out, the Devour shipped with an OS that was already outdated. Before the next Super Bowl came around, it was three major versions behind. Every one ever sold is still under contract until sometime next year. Developers Are Constrained Besides the obvious platform fragmentation problems, consider this comparison: iOS developers, likeInstapaper’s Marco Arment, waited patiently until just this month to raise their apps’ minimum requirement to the 11 month old iOS 4.2.1. They can do so knowing that it’s been well over 3 years since anyone bought an iPhone that couldn’t run that OS. If developers apply that same standard to Android, it will be at least 2015 before they can start requiring 2010’s Gingerbread OS. That’s because every US carrier is still selling - even just now introducing2 - smartphones that will almost certainly never run Gingerbread and beyond. Further, those are phones still selling for actual upfront money - I’m not even counting the generally even more outdated & presumably much more popular free phones. It seems this is one area the Android/Windows comparison holds up: most app developers will end up targeting an ancient version of the OS in order to maximize market reach. Security Risks Loom In the chart, the dashed line in the middle of each bar indicates how long that phone was getting any kind of support updates - not just major OS upgrades. The significant majority of models have received very limited support after sales were discontinued. If a security or privacy problem popped up in old versions of Android or its associated apps (i.e. the browser), it’s hard to imagine that all of these no-longer-supported phones would be updated. This is only less likely as the number of phones that manufacturers would have to go back and deal with increases: Motorola, Samsung, and HTC all have at least 20 models each in the field already, each with a range of carriers that seemingly have to be dealt with individually. Why Don’t Android Phones Get Updated? That’s a very good question. Obviously a big part of the problem is that Android has to go from Google to the phone manufacturers to the carriers to the devices, whereas iOS just goes from Apple directly to devices. The hacker community (e.g. CyanogenMod, et cetera) has frequently managed to get these phones to run the newer operating systems, so it isn’t a hardware issue. It appears to be a widely held viewpoint3 that there’s no incentive for smartphone manufacturers to update the OS: because manufacturers don’t make any money after the hardware sale, they want you to buy another phone as soon as possible. If that’s really the case, the phone manufacturers are spectacularly dumb: ignoring the 2 year contract cycle & abandoning your users isn’t going to engender much loyalty when they do buy a new phone. Further, it’s been fairly well established that Apple also really only makes money from hardware sales, and yet their long term update support is excellent (see chart). In other words, Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one. Then again, all of this may be ascribing motives and intent where none exist - it’s entirely possible that the root cause of the problem is just flat-out bad management (and/or the aforementioned spectacular dumbness). A Price Observation All of the even slightly cheaper phones are much worse than the iPhone when it comes to OS support, but it’s interesting to note that most of the phones on this list were actually not cheaper than the iPhone when they were released. Unlike the iPhone however, the “full-priced” phones are frequently discounted in subsequent months. So the “low cost” phones that fueled Android’s generally accepted price advantage in this period were basically either (a) cheaper from the outset, and ergo likely outdated & terribly supported or (b) purchased later in the phone’s lifecycle, and ergo likely outdated & terribly supported. Also, at any price point you’d better love your rebates. If you’re financially constrained enough to be driven by upfront price, you can’t be that excited about plunking down another $100 cash and waiting weeks or more to get it back. And sometimes all you’re getting back is a “$100 Promotion Card” for your chosen provider. Needless to say, the iPhone has never had a rebate. Along similar lines, a very small but perhaps telling point: the price of every single Android phone I looked at ended with 99 cents - something Apple has never done (the iPhone is $199, not $199.99). It’s almost like a warning sign: you’re buying a platform that will nickel-and-dime you with ads and undeletable bloatware, and it starts with those 99 cents. And that damn rebate form they’re hoping you don’t send in. Notes on the chart and data Why stop at June 2010? I’m not going to. I do think that having 15 months or so of history gives a good perspective on how a phone has been treated, but it’s also just a labor issue - it takes a while to dredge through the various sites to determine the history of each device. I plan to continue on and might also try to publish the underlying table with references. I also acknowledge that it’s possible I’ve missed something along the way. Android Release Dates For the major Android version release dates, I used the date at which it was actually available on a normal phone you could get via normal means. I did not use the earlier SDK release date, nor the date at which ROMs, hacks, source, et cetera were available. Outside the US Finally, it’s worth noting that people outside the US have often had it even worse. For example, the Nexus One didn’t go on sale in Europe until 5 months after the US, the Droid/Milestone FroYo update happened over 7 months later there, and the Cliq never got updated at all outside of the US. Thanks primarily to CNET & Wikipedia for the list of phones.↩ Yes, AT&T committed to Gingerbread updates for its 2011 Android phones, but only those that had already been released at the time of the July 25 press release. The Impulse doesn’t meet that criterion. Nor does the Sharp FX Plus.↩ A couple of samples just from the past week: 1, 2 - in comments.↩

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New Mac Trojan horse disables Apple's automatic malware updates
by Andre Worms 20 Oct '11

20 Oct '11

I wonder if Kaspersky picks this up? http://www.macworld.com/article/163133/2011/10/new_mac_trojan_horse_disable… Andre Worms Information Technologist Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management University of Manitoba

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INTEREST: Moog releases another app, well, they say it best....
by billing 17 Oct '11

17 Oct '11

[NOTE: 99¢ for now. Eventually (30 days), $29.99....] ....from: http://moogmusic.com/products/apps/animoog#info-tab Animoog, powered by Moog’s new Anisotropic Synth Engine (ASE), is the first professional polyphonic synthesizer designed for the iPad. ASE allows you to dynamically move through an X/Y space of unique timbres to create a constantly evolving and expressive soundscape. Animoog captures the vast sonic vocabulary of Moog synthesizers and applies it to the modern touch surface paradigm, enabling you to quickly sculpt incredibly fluid and dynamic sounds that live, breathe, and evolve as you play them. Visually captivating and sonically immersive, Animoog brings iPad based music production to the next level. Whether you are new to synthesis or a professional, Animoog’s unique user interface gives you the power to easily create a visually vibrant and sonically rich universe. It is the ultimate tool for total creative expression! Animoog’s diverse library of timbres is derived from analog waveforms captured from classic Moog oscillators, both vintage and modern, and run through a boutique’s worth of high-end outboard and analog signal processors. These include modular synth panels, Moogerfooger pedals and more. · Anisotropic Synth Engine (ASE) - An exciting new Moog technology that allows the user to move dynamically through an X/Y space of unique timbres to create an expressive and constantly evolving soundscape. · Timbre page – Assemble unique sounds in the X/Y space from timbres of a wide variety of vintage and modern Moog synthesizers and pedals Note: this is NOT simple sample playback. · Polyphonic Modulation - Simply slide your fingers to control multiple modulation parameters in Animoog right from the keys. · Polyphonic Pitch Shifting - Easily manipulate the exact pitch of each note in a chord by rotating or sliding your fingers. · Delay Module - A classic analog style ping pong delay. · Thick Module - From bit crushing to unison voice detuning and drive, this module adds depth, edge and character to Animoog’s already massive sound palette. · Moog Filter - The classic four-pole Moog ladder filter with High Pass, Low Pass and Band Pass modes. · Record Module - Record your performance and overdub new layers, or play along live. Transfer recordings between Animoog and any other apps which support AudioCopy/AudioPaste · Path Module - Direct ASE through Animoog’s X/Y space to create new expressive and shifting sounds that will blow your mind! · Orbit Module - Control the rate of orbit in the X/Y space around the path you created for subtle to insane voice manipulation. · Flexible Modulation Matrix - Amp,Filter and Mod Envelopes, LFO with infinitely variable wave shapes and sync, and four super flexible and assignable modulation slots. · MIDI in/out - Use your LittlePhatty or any other MIDI controller to control Animoog. Video at: http://moogmusic.com/products/apps/animoog#demos-tab Manual at: http://moogmusic.com/sites/default/files/Animoog_manual.pdf iTMS at: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/animoog/id471638724?mt=8

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FYI: Mac trojan pretends to be Flash Player Installer
by billing 30 Sep '11

30 Sep '11

[NOTE: for information about antivirus/antimalware at the University of Manitoba, please visit: http://umanitoba.ca/computing/ist/security/kaspersky-antivirus.html] ...from: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/09/mac-trojan-pretends-to-be-flash-p… Mac trojan pretends to be Flash Player Installer to get in the door By Jacqui Cheng | Published 4 days ago Hot on the heels of last week's Mac malware posing as a PDF is a new piece of malware posing as something even more insidious: a Flash player installer. Security firm Intego was the first to post about the new malware on its blog, noting that although the company has only received one report so far from a user who downloaded it, the malware does exist in the wild and may trick Mac users who don't yet have Flash installed. The malware in question is a trojan horse called Flashback (OSX/flashback.A); users may end up acquiring it by clicking a link on a malicious website to download or install Flash player. If those users also have their Safari settings to automatically open safe files (which .pkg and .mkpg files are considered to be), an installer will show up on their desktops as if they are legitimately installing Flash. Continuing through the installation process will result in the trojan deactivating certain types of security software (Intego specifically noted that the popular Little Snitch would be affected) and installing a dynamic loader library (dyld) with that can auto-launch, "allowing it to inject code into applications the user launched." The trojan then reports back to a remote server about the user's MAC address and allows the server to detect whether the Mac in question has been infected or not. The threat is currently marked as "low," but Mac users are advised to follow safe security practices—don't open files or attachments that you don't remember downloading, and turn off Safari's setting for opening safe files automatically. It's also worth noting that Apple now updates its malware definition file on a daily basis, and has already updated it to address the PDF trojan discussed last week. If you haven't already scoured the Internet for a malicious version of the Flash installer, then it's likely Apple will have added the new malware to the file by the time you run into it.

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INTEREST: Samsung blinks....
by billing 30 Sep '11

30 Sep '11

..... in a kind of "aggressive/passive" way.... ...from: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/09/samsung-lawsuits-against-apple-ov… September 23, 2011 [...] Samsung senior vice president Lee Younghee in a recent interview with the Associated Press [...] characterized Samsung's legal maneuvers against Apple since Apple launched a massive lawsuit against the company's Galaxy-branded devices in April as "passive." Now, however, Samsung "[will] be pursuing our rights for this in a more aggressive way from now on," Lee said. [...] ...from: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/09/samsung-to-ditch-two-multitouch-f… Samsung to Apple: we'll ditch Galaxy Tab 10.1 features to sell in Australia By Chris Foresman | Published September 30. 2011 Samsung has agreed to make a number of changes to its Galaxy Tab 10.1 to keep the devices from getting banned for sale in Australia before the holiday shopping season. During hearings in Sydney, lawyers for the company agreed to remove two multitouch features patented by Apple in order to get the device on the market as soon as possible. On Friday, Samsung also offered Apple a proposed settlement agreement, which would let Samsung sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as soon as next week. Apple and Samsung are currently embroiled in as many as 23 lawsuits globally after Apple accused Samsungof "slavishly copying" its designs for the iPhone and iPad in its Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tab tablets. Apple has been been requesting preliminary injunctions in a number of markets where it has filed claims against Samsung, including the US, the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia. So far, Apple has been awarded preliminary injunctions against the Galaxy Tab in Germany and against some Galaxy S smartphones in The Netherlands. The hearings this week in Australia concern Apple's request for a preliminary injunction there, which could be decided as early as next week. Throughout the proceedings, the numerous claims Apple brought were essentially reduced to three patent infringement issues, including two for certain multitouch-related features and one that relates to how multitouch-capable touchscreens are manufactured. Samsung agreed on Thursday to remove features that use certain heuristics to filter out "accidental" touch input as well as the "zoom bounce" effect that the iPhone uses when zooming past the minimum or maximum zoom level. On Friday, Samsung told the court that it also made proposed settlement offer to Apple. The settlement, if Apple agrees to forgo its request for a preliminary injunction, would allow Samsung to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as early as next week. The details haven't been made public, but it could at least bring a temporary truce while Apple presses for a full hearing by the end of the year. Apple's attorneys said of the proposed agreement that "[o]ur friend's inconvenience would be minimised and we would be comforted." The hearing will continue again on Tuesday, and the judge has encouraged Apple and Samsung to settle the issue before her final decision is entered tentatively by the end of next week.

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INTEREST: Gartner Group: "Apple’s design team is unparalleled in the industry..."
by billing 29 Sep '11

29 Sep '11

...from: http://www.macworld.com/article/161951/2011/08/what_jobss_departure_means_f… What Jobs's departure means for the mobile industry by Matt Hamblen, Computerworld Aug 25, 2011 5:01 pm Editor's Note: This story is excerpted from Computerworld. For more Mac coverage, visitComputerworld's Macintosh Knowledge Center. The iPhone. The iPad. Both iconic Apple products have soared in global popularity. Both have led to a mobile computing movement started, arguably, when the iPhone first appeared in 2007. Perhaps it is more properly called a minor revolution that has forced the public to question its reliance on desktop and laptop computers. Both products had Steve Jobs as the motivating spark behind their development. Now that he has resigned as CEO, probably due to lingering health concerns, can his fire still burn inside Apple’s engineers, designers and marketers? Jobs stays on as Apple’s board chairman, with former chief operating officer Tim Cook installed as CEO. But is that enough to keep Apple on top with alluring new product designs and technology marvels, much less the business savvy to work with carriers and manufacturers globally? “His departure will affect parts of the [mobile computing] industry dramatically,” independent analyst Jeffrey Kagan said in an email. “Remember, it was Apple that was the leader in changing the music business [with iTunes], the smartphone business, and Apple invented the [touchscreen] tablet computer business. Much of that came from Steve Jobs’ vision.” Magical products from a magic maker Many will recall that Apple is the company whose CEO called the iPad “magical” in January 2010. The touchpad device has easily captured the global media tablet market, with more than a 70% share, according to IDC. What perhaps best captures Jobs’ impact on Apple, and his imprint on the entire mobile computing industry, is the way he put everything together in a company: brilliant marketing, combined with the ability to find creative managers and designers to do all the heavy lifting. The first-generation touchscreen iPhone was inspired in its design and software function, but Jobs clearly understood the need to sell the device around the globe. Setting up manufacturing, marketing and business agreements with hundreds of global carriers (most speaking different languages) is plain hard work, and it takes a capable manager to find the right people and keep the effort thriving. Analysts noted that it took Research in Motion more than a decade to set up the global carrier agreements to sell BlackBerry smartphones that Jobs and Apple were able to put in place in less than half the time. Leveraging the powerful carriers In 2007, Jobs was especially shrewd in negotiating with powerful carriers around the world to provide wireless service for the iPhone. Jobs and his team initially set up an exclusive iPhone deal with AT&T that took advantage of the carrier’s universal GSM network (useful for later expansion of the iPhone abroad), while forcing CDMA provider and staunch competitor Verizon Wireless (and lesser competitor Sprint) to sweat it out for years. Verizon finally got a CDMA iPhone 4 in February, while Sprint is reportedly getting an iPhone in the fall. “Jobs changed the way that phone makers interact with carriers,” Kagan noted. “Before the iPhone, carriers ruled. Now, Apple and Google rule.” No big opportunity for Apple rivals Five industry analysts interviewed after the Jobs resignation mostly said Jobs and Cook, his successor, can continue to inspire and motivate the Apple team during this transition period and beyond. They also said the near-term won’t necessarily be a time for Google, Android manufacturers and Android developers to seize the market advantage. Much the same view was held about Microsoftwith its big ambitions but tiny market share with Windows Phone mobile operating system and its prospects for Windows 8 on tablets. Research in Motion might have the most to gain from a leadership shift at Apple, because with its latest innovations to the Blackberry, especially the upcoming QNX OS. RIM’s smartphones and itsPlayBook tablet have struggled to compete with the iPhone, the iPad, and Android products, and the Blackberry maker has lost some of its vaunted smartphone market share which was first focused on business users, analysts noted. “Competitors who think they can exploit Jobs’ departure … are making a mistake,” said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg in an email. “Apple’s design team is unparalleled in the industry and will likely continue thriving under the leadership of Jonathan Ive,” Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design. Apple’s iPhone, iPad brain trust continues Ive was described by BusinessWeek in 2006 as the “man behind Apple’s design magic.” He and Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS software (the operating system for the iPhone and iPad), have often appeared onstage with Jobs to introduce a next-generation iPhone or iPad. They are sometimes referred to as the brain trust behind the iPad and iPhone. The real question for Apple is how well they will work together with Cook at the helm, some analysts said. However, Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, said he doesn’t believe there’s “any real change that will result from the departure of Jobs. He has set up the teams and staffed them with people who know how to move forward … Cook has a record of being able to run the company.” Gold said makers of the Android platform, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and others “have an opportunity to catch up, but I don’t think that would be directly related to Jobs’ leaving.” Gold wished Jobs good health, and said he hoped he can stay as chairman a long while to keep inspiring the company. “CEO transitions for founders are fairly common,” he said. “Strong personalities move on. Some seem to have little effect on the company’s market position and some don’t. In the case of Apple, Jobs has set up a mechanism that allows Apple to move forward without him at the helm day to day.” Carolina Milanesi, a Gartner analyst based in Europe, also said she saw little impact from the Jobs’ departure as CEO. “As far as I’m concerned, tomorrow will be business as usual in Cupertino. Apple continues to be the benchmark,” she said. “Competitors will be foolish to think that they can take advantage of any momentary loss of direction.” She added: “There is no question that Steve’s charisma will be hard, if not impossible, to replace, but there is more to Apple than Steve Jobs as far as product design, planning and execution.” Kagan, the independent analyst, said even though Jobs has been a key ingredient behind the iPhone and iPad, the entire company has had years to prepare for his departure, since the time Jobs was first diagnosed with cancer in 2004. “If Jobs resigned six years ago, his departure would have been an earthquake,” Kagan said. “This time, they have been preparing, so it may just be a tremor.” Still, it is easy to wonder what could happen, Kagan said. “Steve Jobs drove much of the change in the mobile industry,” Kagan said. “What could have changed that won’t change now, going forward? Good question. We may never know.”

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INTEREST: Art on a shoestring; well, a $2.99 iPod app, at any rate...
by billing 26 Sep '11

26 Sep '11

The following pictures were created on an iPod Touch..... (well, OK,the one on the left was an iPad... but it could have been done on an iPod Touch or iPhone, at least, Mr. Yamaoka could do it...) ...from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/picture-galleries/8776362/Digital-pai… Japanese artist Seikou Yamaoka creates complex and beautiful digital paintings on his iPod Touch during his commute to work. This amazing time-lapse video reveals the striking image of a woman 'painted' over three and half hours using the £1.99 app ArtStudio. https://www.youtube.com/user/yamaz0714#p/u/4/8AJdsgvo0Bo Japanese commuter paints iPod art on train to work Artist creates a complex and beautiful digital painting on his iPod Touch during his commute to work. 12:19PM BST 20 Sep 2011 Using just his finger tips and a cheap application, Seikou Yamaoka carefully builds up strokes of colour on a 3.5-inch screen to create an image more resembling an oil painting than a digital artwork. Speeded up footage reveals the developing image of a Japanese woman 'painted' over three and half hours using the £1.99 ArtStudio app. The first iPod Touch was released in by Apple in September 2007 and more than 60 million devices have been sold to date. - - - - - - - = - - - - - - - - - You can see his YouTube channel with many more videos of his drawings at: https://www.youtube.com/user/yamaz0714 The iTunes App Store link to the free ArtStudio Lite: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/artstudio-draw-paint-edit/id395508420?mt=8 .....to the full version of ArtStudio: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/artstudio-for-ipad-draw-paint/id364017607?mt… ArtStudio Features: FEATURES: - SUPPORT FOR ANY DEVICE ORIENTATION - available canvas sizes: 768x1024, 768x768, 1024x1024, 2048x2048 (iPad2 only), CUSTOM - 30 BRUSHES including pencils, brushes, WET BRUSH, eraser, smudge tool, bucket fill (simple/smart, eraser), gradient fill, glow, tube, airbrush, blur/sharpen, 1px and many more… - CUSTOM BRUSHES - just start new image with size 128x128px, and save it as custom brush! - SELECT TOOL (rect/ellipse/lasso/magic wand/by color, add/sub/intersect, contract/expand/round corners/border/...) - TEXT TOOL (44 fonts, settings: normal/bold/italic, left/center/right alignment, size, opacity, color) - CLONE TOOL - slots to SAVE 20 BRUSH PRESETS with names - 17 DRAWING LESSONS (animals, human, 3d, perspective) - DODGE/BURN - lots of brush settings: size, opacity, fadeout, spacing, jitter, speed-based thickness, hard-edge, incremental and more - real-time preview for all brushes - simulated brush pressure - line smoothing, antialiasing - symmetric drawing - horizontal and vertical - shapes: lines, rectangles, ellipses, polygons (open, closed) - quality and performance unmatched by any other app in the app store - 6 LAYERS with options: add/new / delete / reorder / duplicate / merge / clear / transparency / visibility - LAYER MASKS - layer transformations: ROTATE/MOVE/SCALE/FLIP with multi-touch - image transformations: rotate left/right, flip horizontal/vertical - 9 layer blending modes: normal, multiply, add, screen, overlay, hue, saturation, color, value, difference - preserve transparency layer mode (so you can draw only on the visible contents of a layer) - copy/paste layer between projects - file sharing - transfer projects between ArtStudio for iPad and iPhone - clipboard support - copy/paste images (with transparency) from ArtStudio to other apps and vice-versa. - multi-touch navigation with unlimited zoom - tap-and-hold to enable eyedropper - advanced color editing with real-time colorized RGB sliders - UNDO/REDO system, with almost infinite number of steps - image resize, change canvas size, crop - filters: gaussian blur, sharpen, pixelize, add border, vignette, noise, color-to-alpha, posterize, edge detect, sepia and more... - adjustments: brightness/contrast/exposure(gamma); hue/saturation/lightness; red/green/blue; colorize - load/save/export to iphone gallery / import from gallery / send by e-mail - export to PSD - additional "QUICK MENU" with the most frequently used functions, displayed after three-finger tap - thousands of beautiful paintings in ONLINE GALLERY - Video Output - after you connect your iPad to TV or VGA adaptor, the canvas will be mirrored to external screen. Two settings available: "panscan" and "show pan/zoom also on external screen"

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INTEREST: first there was SETI@Home; then predicting protein structure....
by billing 21 Sep '11

21 Sep '11

...then SETI@home became the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Now "crowd sourcing" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_source) takes on the AIDS virus... and cracks it..... FTW! (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_the_win) You remember the SETI@home project. Ordinary people would offer up CPU cycles on their computers to analyze "pictures" of the heavens looking for signs of extra-terrestrial life: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ For various technical and security reasons, this grew into the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) which now encompasses SETI@home as well as over 40 other "crowd sourced" analysis projects. Stanford released the Folding@Home project was started in 2001 to help scientists studying diseases by simply running a piece of software. Folding@home is a distributed computing project -- people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer takes the project closer to our goals. Folding@home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems millions of times more challenging than previously achieved. In 2008 FoldIt (a protein folding game) was developed by doctoral student Seth Cooper and postdoctoral researcher Adrien Treuille, both in computer science and engineering, working with Zoran Popovic, a UW associate professor of computer science and engineering; David Baker, a UW professor of biochemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator; and David Salesin, a UW professor of computer science and engineering. Professional game designers provided advice during the game's creation. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508122520.htm "The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems." Now, it seems, FoldIt gamers have, well, see for yourself: ...from: http://gizmodo.com/5841782/gamers-crack-code-that-could-lead-to-new-aids-tr… http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-pu… TOP STORIES SCIENCE Gamers Crack Code That Could Lead to New AIDS Treatments Scientists spent a decade trying—and failing—to map the structure of an enzyme that could help solve a crucial part of the AIDS puzzle. It took online gamers all of three weeks. The enzyme in question is the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus retroviral protease, and researchers have been seeking ways of deactivating it as a way of developing new anti-HIV drugs. Unfortunately, the conventional efforts of computers and scientists have come up short for years. Enter: Foldit. Foldit was developed in 2008 as a means of discovering the structures of various proteins and amino acids—something computers can't do very well—by turning it into a game. By inputting the experimental coordinates for the monkey virus enzyme, gamers—most of whom didn't have a background in molecular biology—were able to accurately predict the structure of the protein, allowing scientists to pinpoint locations to stop the virus' growth. The study, published in Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, details how incredible a step this is towards developing more effective therapies for HIV/AIDS patients. It's also an important precedent that lays the groundwork for scientists and lay people to work together to solve new problems and save lives. Which is very exciting.

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