Yahoo Japan discussed share buyback from Yahoo

TOKYO (Reuters) - Yahoo Japan Corp has discussed a possible share buyback from key shareholder Yahoo Inc, but no agreement has been reached, Yahoo Japan Chief Financial Officer Toshiki Ohya said on Tuesday.

Yahoo Japan may consider buying back its shares from Yahoo if the terms are right, Ohya told reporters. The U.S. Internet pioneer is under pressure to free up cash for shareholders and simplify its ownership structure.

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Chinese investors scramble for a bite of Apple

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's rigid capital rules ban its citizens from investing directly in Apple Inc but that's not keeping them from seeking a piece of the iPhone maker's success by buying shares in its suppliers - and even companies rumored to be suppliers.

Investors have flocked to the only two China-listed firms that Apple has confirmed as suppliers, sending their valuations to lofty levels, while speculation has become rife in firms thought to be indirectly doing business with the technology giant.

Suzhou Anjie Technology Co Ltd has jumped more than 30 percent and Warren Buffett-backed carmaker BYD Co Ltd has gained more than 15 percent since mid-January, when they were cited on Apple's first-ever suppliers' list. China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index is up 5.6 percent for the same period.

"Investors want to share in Apple's growth as they believe sales of iPhones and iPads will remain strong," said Zhou Feng, analyst at Donghai Securities Co.

"Investing in Apple suppliers is not a bad idea, since they're the girls hanging out with the rich guy."

Shares of Apple, which is listed on the Nasdaq, hit a record high of $644.00 this month. They have since fallen 11 percent, closing at $571.70 on Monday, but are still up 41 percent in 2012.
The closest that Chinese individuals can get to owning Apple shares, given the ban on the direct purchase of overseas stocks, is to buy into one of the overseas investment funds permitted under China's Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) scheme that have invested in Apple.
QDII is China's main channel for outbound investment by individuals in foreign capital markets.
The biggest exposure to Apple in a QDII fund is around 20 percent, via the Guotai Nasdaq-100 Index Fund which tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index. The fund has gained 7.3 percent during the past 12 months, compared with a 21 percent drop in China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index.
Given their limited access, many local investors have turned to China-listed firms that directly or indirectly do business with Apple as proxies for the world's most valuable company.
Such a trading strategy is not uncommon in China's strictly controlled capital markets.
Investors use overseas REIT funds to speculate on the property market, for example, even though the performance of these products is based on the commercial rental market.
SUPPLIERS OF SUPPLIERS
The hunt for exposure to Apple has at times taken Chinese investors to the far periphery of Apple's supply chain or deep into the realm of rumor and speculation.
Shares of Success Electronics Ltd, which makes touch screens and has been cited by domestic media and analyst reports as an Apple supplier, nearly doubled in February on expectations of the imminent launch of the iPad 3.
Nanjing Yunhai Special Metals Co, which domestic media and analysts have said provides raw materials to suppliers of iPad and iPhone components, surged 35 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, following the launch of the iPhone 4 earlier in the year. Its shares have since fallen back, however, and the company barely made a profit in 2011.
But analysts believe that Anjie, with its proven and direct relationship with Apple, can continue to perform well, even with its high valuations.
The company last week forecast that first-half profit this year may grow as much as 70 percent, after surging 82 percent last year to 101 million yuan ($16 million).
"You can hold on to Anjie as long as you have faith in Apple," said Wu Binhua, analyst at Hwabao Securities. "But too much reliance on one single customer is also a potential risk."
Asset managers including China Asset management Co and Yinhua Fund Management Co boosted their holdings in Anjie during the first three months of this year, the company's first-quarter earnings report showed.
"It's possible that the Apple suppliers list has generated more investor interest in us," said Ma Yuyan, an investor relations official at Anjie, which makes components used in iPhones and generates about half its revenue from Apple.
Sixteen potential investors, including Haitong Securities Co, Bank of China Investment Management Co and HFT Fund Management Co, a fund venture of BNP Paribas, visited Anjie in January and February, its quarterly report showed.
BYD, which makes cars and batteries, declined to detail its business with Apple, citing a confidentiality agreement. The company has yet to publish its quarterly results.
Anjie now fetches 35 times its 2012 earnings and BYD trades at 46 times, far above the average of 29 times for firms listed on Shenzhen's SME board, which lists small- and mid-cap companies.
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....Tech billionaires bankroll gold rush to mine asteroids

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Google Inc executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and filmmaker James Cameron are among those bankrolling a venture to survey and eventually extract precious metals and rare minerals from asteroids that orbit near Earth, the company said on Tuesday.

Planetary Resources, based in Bellevue, Washington, initially will focus on developing and selling extremely low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.

A demonstration mission in orbit around Earth is expected to be launched within two years, said company co-founders Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson.
Planetary Resources' aim is to open deep-space exploration to private industry, much like the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition, which Diamandis created.
The prize, which galvanized the emerging commercial human spaceflight industry, was awarded in 2004 to Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne for the first flights beyond Earth's atmosphere by a privately developed, manned spaceship. Commercial suborbital spaceflights are expected to begin next year.
Planetary Resources' first customers are likely to be science agencies, such as NASA, as well as private research institutes.
Within five to 10 years, however, the company expects to progress from selling observation platforms in orbit around Earth to prospecting services. It plans to tap some of the thousands of asteroids that pass relatively close to Earth and extract their raw materials.
Not all missions would return precious metals and minerals to Earth. In addition to mining for platinum and other precious metals, the company plans to tap asteroids' water to supply orbiting fuel depots, which could be used by NASA and others for robotic and human space missions.
"We have a long view. We're not expecting this company to be an overnight financial home run. This is going to take time," Anderson said in an interview with Reuters.
The real payoff, which is decades away, will come from mining asteroids for platinum group metals and rare minerals.
"If you look back historically at what has caused humanity to make its largest investments in exploration and in transportation, it has been going after resources, whether it's the Europeans going after the spice routes or the American settlers looking toward the west for gold, oil, timber or land," Diamandis said.
"Those precious resources caused people to make huge investments in ships and railroads and pipelines. Looking to space, everything we hold of value on Earth - metals, minerals, energy, real estate, water - is in near-infinite quantities in space. The opportunity exists to create a company whose mission is to be able to go and basically identify and access some of those resources and ultimately figure out how to make them available where they are needed," he said.
Diamandis and Anderson declined to discuss how much money has been raised for their venture so far. In addition to Google billionaires Page and Schmidt and filmmaker Cameron, Planetary Resources investors include former Microsoft chief software architect Charles Simonyi, a two-time visitor to the International Space Station, Google founding director K. Ram Shriram and Ross Perot Jr.
Planetary Resources also declined to discuss specifics about how and when asteroid mining would begin. A 30-meter long (98-foot) asteroid can hold as much as $25 billion to $50 billion worth of platinum at today's prices, Diamandis said.
The company's first step is to develop technologies to cut the cost of deep-space robotic probes to one-tenth to one-hundredth the cost of current space missions, which run hundreds of millions of dollars, Diamandis said.
Among the targeted technologies is optical laser communications, which would eliminate the need for large radio antennas aboard spacecraft.
"We're taking new approaches at design," Diamandis said. "Part of the philosophy we're taking is building very low cost, very small spacecraft. You put up six or 10 or dozens and you get reliability."
Planetary Resources, which currently employs about 20 people, is overseen by former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki. It was founded about three years ago, but has been operating quietly behind the scenes until now.
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China's dream of electric car leadership elusive

BEIJING (AP) — China's leaders are finding it's a lot tougher to create a world-beating electric car industry than they hoped.

In 2009, they announced bold plans to cash in on demand for clean vehicles by making China a global power in electric car manufacturing. They pledged billions of dollars for research and called for annual sales of 500,000 cars by 2015.

Today, Beijing is scaling back its ambitions, chastened by technological hurdles and lack of buyer interest. Developers have yet to achieve breakthroughs and will be lucky to sell 2,000 cars this year, mostly taxis. The government has hedged its bets by broadening the industry's official goals to include cleaner gasoline engines.

The government has repeatedly changed targets because the "technology isn't advancing quite as fast as people had hoped," said Joe Hinrichs, Ford Motor Co.'s president for Asia, at this week's Beijing auto show.
The government has yet to lower sales goals that ramp up to 5 million vehicles a year by 2020. But officials including Premier Wen Jiabao started acknowledging last year that progress was slow and developers need to improve quality instead of rushing models to market.
About 13,000 all-electric and other alternative energy vehicles are being tested in 25 cities, but that is "still small despite government subsidies," the deputy director of the Ministry of Science and Technology's electric vehicle bureau, Zhen Zijian, said in March, according to the business magazine Caixin.
China's most advanced developer, BYD Co., in which American investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Corp. owns a 10 percent stake, says its electric e6 sedan can travel 300 kilometers (190 miles) on a charge, similar to Western models.
BYD has sold 300 taxis and 200 electric buses used in the southern city of Shenzhen, a center for business and technology near Hong Kong, according to Henry Li, general manager of its export division. BYD has invested heavily in research and has thousands of engineers working on battery and motor technology.
"We think our EV (electric vehicle) platform is one of the most advanced in the world, and our capability for mass production is quite high," Li said.
But as for the rest of the industry, "there are not many manufacturers with really reliable or commercialized products," he said.
Chinese leaders saw electric cars as a way to curb demand for imported oil, which they regard as a strategic danger, and to help transform China from a low-cost factory into a creator of profitable technology.
"China has run up against the same technical obstacles as anyone else," said Michael Dunne, president of Dunne & Co. Ltd., a Hong Kong-based industry researcher.
"They said: Hold on, maybe we shouldn't marry ourselves to electrics just yet. Let's look at the alternatives. Maybe we have to take an incremental approach, just like everyone else," Dunne said.
Wary consumers have been put off by news reports of batteries in Chinese-made cars catching fire. A lack of charging stations is causing "range anxiety" — fears a car might run out of power, leaving the driver stranded.
Under the Communist Party's latest five-year development plan for China's economy, issued in 2011, the government has released guidelines for other industries but not for alternative vehicles — a possible sign officials have gone back to the drawing board.
Developers were encouraged last week by a Cabinet statement that repeated support for electric vehicles. But it also called for work on developing non-plug-in hybrids and energy-saving internal combustion engines.
"The momentum has been slowed down," said John Zeng, chief of Asian forecasting for LMC Automotive, a research firm.
"They don't expect the EV or hybrid can be the only way for China to maintain its future sustainable mobility," Zeng said. "They think they need multiple initiatives to achieve that target."
Plus, gasoline and diesel technologies are advancing, luring consumers with the promise of lower operating costs.
The government launched research into electric, fuel cell and other alternative power sources in 2001. It followed in 2004 with a plan to create a competitive electric car and promised financial support to developers.
Automakers responded to Beijing's enthusiasm. General Motors Co. announced plans in 2007 for a $250 million alternative fuel research center in Shanghai. Germany's Daimler AG teamed up with BYD to create an electric car joint venture dubbed Denza. They unveiled a display version of its first model this week at the Beijing auto show.
China's initiative prompted some in the United States and Europe to worry they might fall behind in a key technology. An assistant U.S. energy secretary, David Sandalow, visited Beijing in 2009 and warned China had "the potential to be ahead" if the United States failed to invest in development.
Beijing's 2009 plan called for world-class electric cars by this year, followed by trucks and buses. To encourage buyers, the government started paying buyers rebates of up to 60,000 yuan ($8,800) per car the following year in five cities including Shanghai.
But Wen, China's top economic official, expressed frustration at the slow pace of development in an article published last July.
"We are no match for developed countries in technology," Wen wrote in Qiushi, the ruling party's main theoretical journal.
"We've only just begun in electric car development," the premier wrote. Wen said Chinese leaders shared in the blame: "We have not set clear enough goals of which way to go."
Beijing strained relations with the United States and other trading partners by rolling out rules limiting access to its auto market unless foreign developers shared technology to Chinese partners.
Daimler has said it formed its venture with BYD not due to official pressure but because it wanted to create a low-cost brand for China. Daimler said their car, due to go on sale next year, should have a range of 200-250 kilometers (125-155 miles) on one charge.
Other manufacturers such as Nissan Motor Co., maker of the electric Leaf, and General Motors Co. have chosen to pay the higher taxes required to import electric and hybrid vehicles rather than disclose expensive know-how to Chinese partners that might become rivals.
GM is taking orders for its all-electric Volt in China but expects limited sales due to a relatively high price of 498,000 yuan ($79,000).
"It's expensive in China at the moment because of import duties, and we don't qualify for incentives," said Kevin Wale, president of GM China. "But we still think it's important that we demonstrate its capabilities here in China."
Chinese producers have unveiled a series of display models of electric and hybrid cars, some sprouting tiny solar panels or wind turbines for recharging, though most say they are not ready for mass-market sales.
LMC Automotive's Zeng said that aside from BYD, which has spent heavily on development, most have done only the minimum required to qualify for research grants.
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Chinese court seeking to mediate iPad dispute

SHANGHAI (AP) — A Chinese court is mediating between Apple Inc. and the Chinese company challenging its right to use the iPad trademark, seeking to get the companies to settle an awkward standoff over the issue.

The Guangdong High Court in southern China, is seeking to arrange a settlement, said Ma Dongxiao, a lawyer for Proview Electronics Co. The court on Feb. 29 began hearing Apple's appeal of lower court ruling that favored Proview in the trademark dispute.

"It is likely that we will settle out of court. The Guangdong High Court is helping to arrange it and the court also expects to do so," Ma said Monday.
China has sought to showcase its determination to protect trademarks and other intellectual property, but with hundreds of thousands employed in the assembly of Apple's iPhones and iPads is unlikely to want to disrupt the company's production and marketing in China.
Court officials contacted by phone said they were not authorized to comment on the issue to foreign media.
The Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, a state-run newspaper in Shenzhen, where Proview is based, cited the court's deputy chief judge, Xu Chunjian, as saying last week that the court was working toward a settlement.
Proview, a financially troubled maker of computer displays and LED lights, says it registered the iPad trademark more than a decade ago. Apple says Proview sold it worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 2009, though the registration was never transferred for China.
"Actually Proview always expected to settle out of court from the beginning," Ma said. "I don't know if Apple has changed its attitude, but I believe that the key point now is the price."
Chinese courts often try to mediate agreements out of court. But it is unclear whether Apple is open to that option.
An Apple spokeswoman, Carolyn Wu, said the company had no new comment on the possibility of a settlement with Proview.
In a statement, Apple reiterated its earlier insistence that it would never "knowingly abuse someone else's trademarks."
The statement adds that Proview "still owe a lot of people a lot of money, they are now unfairly trying to get more from Apple for a trademark we already paid for."
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An app lover’s look at the Verizon Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7

An update to the comparatively recent Samsung Galaxy Tab 7+ arrived direct from Verizon, and we were fortunate enough to take it for a test run.

The hardware experience

This new tablet from Verizon sports a 4G LTE radio and is very slim at 0.31 inches. It’s also light at just 12 ounces. Though that screen is little larger than the older Galaxy Tab 7+, because of the 7.7’s thinness, low weight, and contoured brushed-metal back, it feels more comfortable in the hand. I’m still bugged that Samsung places the power button and the volume rocker buttons right next to one another. Too often, I inadvertently switch the device off instead of turning up or down the volume. I wish Samsung would move the power switch to the other side or top of the device.

The tablet uses a 1.4GHz dual-core Exynos CPU, plus 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. There’s also a microSD slot if you need it. This tablet is the first in the United States to sport a Super-AMOLED screen, according to Verizon. It offers a crisp, 1280x800 resolution, with a pixel density of 196dpi. Sure, that might not match the much-hyped Retina display on the new iPad, but make no bones about it: this is a beautiful display with deep contrast, nicely saturated colors and it looks fantastic when playing movies and games. Put it next to the 1024x600 LCD display of the older Tab 7+ and you really see the difference. Hands down, this is one of the best displays I’ve seen on any Android tablet so far.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 has dual cameras. The rear one offers a 3-megapixel sensor and can record video in 720p. It won’t win any awards, but it’s useful in a pinch. The tab also offers a front-facing 2-megapixel camera which is perfect for video calling. Interestingly enough, according to Samsung’s product page, the tablet actually boasts a proximity sensor and earpiece for regular voice calls. You may look a little silly holding this up to your ear, but the ability to place calls when you don’t have a Bluetooth headset nearby is of value.

Personally, I find the 7-inch tablet experience enjoyable. They are easy to carry around and don’t take up as much room as 10-inch tabs, as well as being comfortable to hold. With its great screen resolution, the 7.7 offers plenty of screen real-estate and a good viewing experience, and I like that it’s easy to hold in on hand. Clearly, there is a market for 7-inch and 8-inch tablets, what with the success of the Amazon Kindle Fire, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Apple enter this market one day. Bigger than a smartphone, but not as cumbersome as a large tablet, if they can be priced right, they offer a nice alternative and give consumers plenty of choice.

The software experience

When it comes to software, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is still on Android 3.2 Honeycomb with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz skin on top. While this is familiar and works efficiently, it’s still a little disappointing that such a new device isn’t on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich yet. With this newer version of Android finally rolling out to devices, it seems Samsung and Verizon missed an opportunity here to market the first 4G carrier tablet to sport ICS. If only they’d have waited an extra month or two.

Still, the version of Honeycomb runs a little more efficiently than the similar version on the 7+. It uses darker accents, like in the Settings area, for a sharper, cleaner look, and because of that beautiful display, everything looks crisp and colorful, especially when using the in-built Google suite of apps. Battery life seems greatly improved over the 7+ too. Perhaps the AMOLED display saves some energy or perhaps the new processor is more efficient?

I found most of my favorite apps worked well, though there still seem to be many not yet optimized for the 7-inch tablet device. I’m not sure if this is an issue with developers or Samsung itself, but it’s common that certain popular apps don’t recognize the tablet as such, and consider it a smartphone instead. Look through the Google Play Store, for example, and the tablet-specific Angry Birds Space HD doesn’t show up, but then again, it’s not there on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 too, so perhaps there are compatibility issues. Hopefully, minor issues like this will get ironed-out with future updates from both developers and Samsung/Verizon.

Our favorite pre-installed app on the Galaxy Tab 7.7 (and hopefully yours!) is Samsung Apps. Here Samsung uses app search, recommendation and discovery technology developed by Appolicious to help users find the best titles specific to the device and its form factor.

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Facebook to buy Instagram for $1 billion

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook will pay $1 billion in cash and stock for Instagram, a 2-year-old photo-sharing application developer, in its largest-ever acquisition just months before the No. 1 social media website is expected to go public.

The price was stunning for an apps-maker without any significant revenue, even with soaring startup valuations in Silicon Valley, as Facebook sought to absorb a potential rival or at least prevent it from falling into the hands of a major competitor like Twitter or Google.

As Instagram's popularity has shot up in recent months, the company's leadership has mulled possible strategies to expand the service into a fully featured social network - much like a photo-driven, stripped-down version of Facebook, Twitter, or even Path, a company insider said.

Instagram is "a property that would have been amazingly valuable to not just Facebook, certainly Twitter was in the hunt as well," said Lou Kerner, founder of the Social Internet Fund.

"I'm sure Google was interested as well. So to some degree an acquisition like this is both offensive and defensive. It would be a highly leveragable asset for anybody who wanted to compete against Facebook."

The acquisition marks an exception in strategy for Facebook, which has traditionally bought small companies as a means of hiring coveted teams of engineers. Facebook typically discontinues the acquired company's products or builds similar versions that it integrates into its service.

Instagram, however, will not only remain running, but Facebook will build features into it as time goes by, both companies said.

The Instagram application, which allows users to add filters and effects to pictures taken on their iPhone and Android devices and to share those photos with their friends, has gained about 30 million users since it launched in January 2011.

Instagram, with roughly a dozen employees based in San Francisco, was reportedly in the process of wrapping up a $50 million funding round last week from investors including Sequoia Capital, according to the technology blog AllThingsD.com. The funding valued the company, founded in early 2010, at $500 million, it said.

Facebook, which is expected to raise $5 billion via the largest Silicon Valley initial public offering by May, will acquire Instagram's entire team.

"This is an important milestone for Facebook because it's the first time we've ever acquired a product and company with so many users," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post. "We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all."

The deal, a closely kept secret at the tiny start-up, is expected to close this quarter. CEO Kevin Systrom announced the transaction to Instagram employees at a 9 a.m. meeting on Monday, according to the source inside Instagram.

TAKING PAGE FROM GOOGLE'S BOOK

The Instagram deal is expected to resemble Google Inc's $1.65 billion acquisition of video service YouTube in 2006. YouTube retains its own offices in San Bruno, California, and largely operates independently of Google.

The acquisition came as Instagram was in the process of meeting with venture capital firms about raising more funding, according to one source familiar with the matter.

"It was not long-planned," the source said on condition of anonymity, referring to the Facebook acquisition. "What happened is that Facebook must have come in with a number."

In addition to bolstering Facebook's photo-sharing and mobile capabilities, one side benefit of the deal for Facebook, the source noted, is that it prevents rival Twitter from acquiring the popular app.

With its purchase, Facebook said it would continue to develop Instagram as an independent app that remains compatible with other social networking services.

"We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook," Zuckerberg wrote.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Gerry Shih; Editing by Edwin Chan, Lisa Von Ahn and Richard Chang)

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Verizon plans big Windows Phone push for the holidays

Verizon Wireless chief financial officer Fran Shammo said the company is looking to market a third mobile platform to help develop a strong competitor to Apple and Google. That operating system will be Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 8. “We’re really looking at the Windows Phone 8.0 platform because that’s a differentiator. We’re working with Microsoft on it,” Shammo said in an interview with Reuters following the company’s earnings call on Thursday. The carrier expects to have Windows Phone 8-powered handsets in time for the 2012 holiday shopping season. The executive suggested that Verizon could play a similar role in helping Microsoft’s platform to grow as it did with Google’s Android OS

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Apple iPad 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Introduction:
Now that the iPad 2 has made way for its successor in the new iPad, it’s only fitting to pit Apple’s latest baby against the horde of competition that are already littered across the tablet landscape. Rising above most  other things, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE comes to mind as a dubious competitor since it’s regarded as the best of the best from Samsung’s camp. On the surface, both are very similar with their options, which is hardly a surprise, but as we’ve come to expect, there can only be one that will ultimately prove itself to be the sole standout hit. Before diving in, it’s worth noting that the Apple iPad 4G LTE’s price starts at $629.99 for both AT&T and Verizon variants, whereas the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE is a bit more at $699.99 through Verizon only.

Design:
From a distance, the two look similar to one another, but once we’re able to grasp both in our hands, the new iPad is able to deliver the impactful wow factor thanks to its premium feel. Well, it’s not to say that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 isn’t a bad looker, especially when it’s the lighter and slightly thinner tablet, but its all-plastic body doesn’t have the allure to match the impeccable industrial design of the iPad. Indeed, the new iPad’s appearance might not bring anything fresh to the table, especially when its design is a recycled one, but nonetheless, its iconic look combined with its premium construction still hits the high marks in our books.No doubt we dig the responsiveness exhibited by the physical buttons available on both tablets, but the ones on the iPad are raised higher to offer better distinguishability with our fingers. As for charging and data connectivity, both resort to using proprietary 30-pin connection ports, which is also the way they’re able to gain video-out functionality with the aid of optional accessories. For all of you audio buffs, the iPad has a single speaker located of the bottom left corner of its rear, while the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 boasts stereo sound thanks to its two speakers
In terms of cameras, there’s plenty to like since the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is outfitted with a 3.2-megapixel snapper with LED flash. Conversely, there might not be a flash on the new iPad, but rather, it’s impressiveness is found with its 5-megapixel iSight camera, which features an F2.8 aperture lens and sensor with backside illumination. On the other hand, front-facing cameras are naturally available with both, as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 packs a higher count 2-megapixel camera, versus the paltry VGA snapper on the iPad.

 Display:

Absolutely, if there’s one reason why the new iPad is such a feared competitor, it has to be none other than the crisp and super detail Retina display it’s bringing to the tablet. Comparing the two, the numbers seemingly do all the talk as the iPad boasts a mind-bending resolution of 2048 x 1536, which blows away the 1280 x 800 resolution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Although it’s hardly noticeable to visually see the superiority of the iPad’s Retina display from a far distance, it’s evident once we take a peek at our web site at a full zoomed out view. At times, the iPad’s display is simply surreal with its stunning visuals. Details aside, both offer wide-viewing angles, high contrasts, and natural looking colors – though, the iPad’s display tends to come off warmer looking. When it comes down to it, however, the iPad has the eye candy to pique anyone’s interest from afar.

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Apple in settlement talks with Proview over iPad trademark dispute

Apple and Proview have initiated talks in an attempt to resolve an ongoing legal dispute over the iPad trademark, IDG News Services reported on Friday. Earlier this week, a Chinese high court recommended the two companies find a way to mediate the ongoing dispute. The mediation talks were voluntary, however both companies agreed to meet. “I think there is some hope the talks will lead to a resolution,” Zhao Zhanling, a legal expert on China’s information technology law, said, adding that if the negotiations were to fail, the higher court will be forced to move ahead and make a ruling. Apple and Proview have been locked in a high-profile legal dispute over whether or not Apple has the right to use the use the iPad name in China and elsewhere. If Apple were to lose the case, the Cupertino-based company could be banned from selling the iPad in China. Apple maintains that it licensed the trademark from Proview in 2009, however the Chinese company claims the transaction in question is invalid.

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Apple's new iPad goes on sale in South Korea

 

Hundreds of customers lined up Friday at Apple stores as the new iPad went on sale in tech-savvy South Korea, about one month after it made its international debut.

Four of Apple's stores in Seoul opened early to sell the tablet computer, and there were also queues outside branches in the city of network providers KT and SK Telecom, the two distributors of iPhones and iPads.

First in line at KT was university student Lim Jun-Hong, 21, who slept overnight on the pavement to be the first to get his hands on the tablet.

"Got my new iPad! Hooray!" wrote one Twitter user.
Apple is selling the gadget with WiFi at 620,000 won ($545) to 860,000 won ($755), depending on memory size. The cost is slightly higher for models with both WiFi and 4G.

South Korean users, at least for now, will use 3G instead of 4G. The faster connection speed is currently unavailable locally due to differences in frequencies.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics, Apple's biggest rival worldwide, introduced its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in February last year, only four months after launching the series.

Apple's latest iPad has a more powerful processor and a screen resolution called retina display, which it says is the sharpest ever on a mobile device.

The company said it sold three million over the course of its first weekend on the market last month.

The latest iPad is also going on sale in 10 other countries on Friday and Apple says it plans for the best-selling tablet to be available in more than 50 nations by the end of the month.

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Motorola CEO pay package rose to $47 million in 2011

Motorola CEO, Sanjay Jha speaks …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sanjay Jha, the chief executive to Motorola Mobility, was awarded a total compensation package of about $47 million in 2011, almost four times his 2010 pay, according to a regulatory filing.

The cellphone maker, which agreed to be bought by Google Inc for $12.5 billion, said on Friday that the rise was due to the successful splitting of Motorola into two companies last year to form Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions.

Jha's pay package, including option awards, increased from about $13 million in 2010, the company said in its proxy filing on Friday.

Motorola said it still expects the Google deal to close in the first half of 2012 even though the Chinese government last month extended its review of the deal, which has been approved by U.S. and European regulators.

Motorola Mobility said it and Google are working closely with China's regulators in their investigation of the deal.

The company scheduled its annual meeting for June 4 but said it could be canceled depending on the timing of the sale's completion.

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Rumors swirl of smaller iPad, which Jobs detested

                                                 NEW YORK (AP) — Apple generates more gossip than the Kardashians.

There's a constantly spinning mill of rumors about Apple products, most of which turn out to be untrue. What's unusual this week is that talk has revived of a smaller iPad model, an idea company founder Steve Jobs derided publicly a year before he died.

Apple and its suppliers aren't commenting. Rumors of a smaller iPad, or "iPad mini" have percolated ever since the first iPad was launched two years ago. This time around, they're fed by media reports from South Korea, China and Taiwan, saying Apple has ordered Samsung screens that are 7.86 inches measured on the diagonal. That would make the screen about two-thirds the size of the current iPad, which has a diagonal measurement of 9.7 inches.

—WHY IT'S A GOOD IDEA: A smaller tablet would help Apple further its lead in the tablet market.

"From a competitive standpoint, we believe an iPad mini with a lower price point would be the competition's worst nightmare, says Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee. "Most (competitors) already have a tough enough time competing against the iPad 2, as well as the new iPad."
Apple has successfully fended off competitors who have tried to sell tablets in iPad's size range. But last year, Amazon.com Inc. figured out how to crack Apple's stranglehold on tablets by making a half-size, no-frills tablet. The result was the Kindle Fire, which sells for $199 —basically, the cost of production. Amazon has sold millions of them.
Apple sells the iPod Touch for $199, but its screen is about a quarter of the size of the Kindle Fire — a big disadvantage for people who want to enjoy books, movies and games. It also sells the older iPad model for $399. It has nothing in between.
Price isn't the only reason customers might prefer a smaller tablet. A 7-inch model would fit in many handbags, unlike the current iPad.
Wu says he's seen evidence of Apple experimenting with both smaller and larger tablet screens since 2009, and doesn't sense that the release of an iPad mini is "imminent."
—WHAT IT MIGHT COST: It could be hard for Apple to make money from an iPad-quality 7-inch tablet that sells for $299. Analysts at IHS iSuppli estimate that a smaller tablet would cost around $250 to produce, a figure that doesn't include development costs, packaging or patent royalties. That suggests Apple would price it at $329 or $349.
"The first thing you always have to keep in mind is: Apple is not going to sell an unprofitable product," says Rhoda Alexander at iSuppli.
—WHY IT'S A BAD IDEA: A smaller iPad would be a headache for software developers.
"Going to a different screen size ends up being a ton of work," says Nate Weiner, the creator of Pocket, an application that stores Web pages and other material for later reading.
"If you take, for an example, an interface built for the iPad and try to cram it into the Kindle Fire, it just doesn't fit," he says.
However, developers who have already adapted their programs to the Kindle Fire or other 7-inch tablets wouldn't face a big hurdle in adapting to a third Apple screen size, Weiner says.
—WHAT JOBS THOUGHT: Apple's late CEO made a rare appearance on an October 2010 earnings conference call to launch a tirade against the 7-inch tablet Samsung Electronics Inc. was set to launch as the first major challenger to the iPad.
"The reason we wouldn't make a 7-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit a price point, it's because we don't think you can make a great tablet with a 7-inch screen," Jobs said. "The 7-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad."
He said the resolution of the display could be increased to make up for the smaller size, but that would be "meaningless, unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size."
"There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps," he said.
Jobs failed to mention Apple's success developing apps that use taps, flicks and pinches on the iPhone, with its 3.5-inch screen.
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AT&T’s 4G and T-Mobile’s 3G found to be nation’s fastest wireless services

The four major carriers in the United States — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile — all advertise some form of 4G technology, whether it is LTE, WiMAX or HSPA+, and each company claims to have either the most reliable, biggest, fastest or best network. PCWorld put the carriers claims to test in its “2012 Mobile Speed Test” and found that AT&T’s 4G LTE service featured the fastest download speeds while Verizon’s 4G LTE network provided the fastest upload speeds. T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 21 network was the fastest 3G service and the carrier’s HSPA+ 42 service held its own with both AT&T’s and Verizon’s 4G networks, making T-Mobile a good choice for many wireless users who are looking for affordable plans. Sprint’s 3G service and WiMAX technology lagged behind the competition according to the report. The “real-world speed tests” were conducted in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington DC. PCWorld’s press release follows below.

AT&T Fastest 4G Service, T-Mobile Fastest in 3G, PCWorld Mobile Speed Tests Reveal
Sprint lags badly behind in both 3G and 4G speeds, 13-city testing shows.
San Francisco, April 17, 2012—Mobile internet service is a major monthly expense for most American consumers, and a very big business for U.S. wireless companies. The marketing machines of those companies are now in high gear, touting their services as the industry transitions from 3G service to the much faster 4G. Problem is, everybody’s service is “4G”, “most reliable”, “biggest”, “fastest” and “best,” if you believe all the names and claims flying about on TV, radio, print media and the Web.
That’s why PCWorld has once again hit the road to measure the real-world performance of the four major wireless services on America’s streets and in its coffee shops. During February and March of this year, PCWorld measured the speeds of the major U.S. carriers’ 3G and 4G wireless services from 130 locations in 13 major U.S. cities.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE STUDY
AT&T had the fastest download speeds of any 4G service, along with an HSPA+ service that’s very competitive with 3G services–a compelling service combination for AT&T dual-mode phones.

T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 21 service proved faster overall than comparable 3G services in our study, and the carrier’s high-end HSPA+ 42 service held its own with the 4G services of its larger competitors. Those services, and the array of flexible and affordable plans it offers, make T-Mobile a good choice for many wireless users.

Verizon has 4G service in many more locations than other providers, but in most localities the download speed of its 4G service doesn’t match AT&T’s (though its upload speeds are faster, more often than not). And Verizon’s 3G speeds have not improved much, especially when compared to the competition.
Sprint is a consistent laggard in the wireless speed races. The company appears to have virtually stopped developing its network while looking for a way to transition from its outdated WiMAX 4G technology to LTE.
“The big surprise in this year’s study is T-Mobile’s performance,” says PCWorld Senior Editor Mark Sullivan, who designed and managed the study. “By offering data speeds that are very competitive with AT&T and Verizon along with its affordable data plans, T-Mobile is proving why its proposed acquisition by AT&T last year would have been bad news for US consumers.”
“The other (rather sobering) surprise in this year’s data is Sprint’s poor performance, both in 3G and 4G service. The carrier’s speeds suggest that both the Sprint CDMA and WiMAX networks have seen very little investment and upgrade over the past year—in a mobile data market where the rule is ‘grow faster or parish.’”
While a majority of wireless consumers still use slower 3G devices today, most will transition to faster 4G devices over the next five years as carriers push them to upgrade to newer 4G devices when their contracts expire, Sullivan says. Meanwhile wireless companies will continue to increase their networks’ data transfer speeds to compete for new customers and retain old ones.
FASTEST 3G AND 4G SERVICES BY CITY:

Atlanta — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T
Boston — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T
Chicago — 3G: AT&T; 4G: AT&T
Dallas — 3G: AT&T; 4G: AT&T
Denver — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: Verizon
Los Angeles — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T
Las Vegas — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T
New Orleans — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: Verizon
New York — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T
San Jose — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: Verizon
San Francisco — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T
Seattle — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: Verizon
Washington DC — 3G: T-Mobile; 4G: AT&T

“Our annual speed study is an important part of what we do at PCWorld,” explains VP, Editorial Director, Steve Fox. “Many consumers look to us for an unbiased, independent, empirical assessment of the wireless technology and services being offered in the U.S. today.”

“It’s exciting to see the data speed wars heating up as the wireless providers move from 3G to 4G technology in their networks and devices,” Fox says. “We only hope that the competition eventually translates into better performance and better value for consumers.”

Our testing cities:Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington DC

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A month with the new iPad

Apple released its third-generation iPad on March 16th and I purchased mine one day later on the 17th. There were no lines at my local Best Buy when I went to buy the new model. In fact, there were still more than 100 new iPads in stock when I picked up my iPad more than 36 hours after it was released. The store was eerily quiet. It felt nothing like an Apple launch.

Of course we learned just a few days later that a lack of demand was certainly not to blame for the surplus of inventory; after five years, Apple had finally managed to meet demand with a mobile product at launch. The Cupertino, California-based company sold more than 3 million third-generation iPads during the tablet’s first four days of availability, making the new iPad Apple’s second biggest product launch of all time behind the iPhone 4S, which sold more than 4 million units during its debut weekend.

I have never been an iPad user. I took possession of a first-generation iPad out of necessity — I had to know what I would be reporting on for the year to follow — but I rarely touched the tablet unless I had to test a new app or cover something else having to do with Apple’s slate. Light-duty media tablets simply did not appeal to me, and I maintained my indifference toward the category for the two years that followed. I have a drawer full of smartphones with screens that vary in size from 3.5 inches to 5.3 inches, an eReader, a lightweight MacBook Air laptop and a Dell desktop PC. I’m covered.
Even the BlackBerry PlayBook, my one-eyed man in the country of the blind, has sat untouched for several months since I purchased a Nook Touch from Barnes & Noble. While PlayBook OS 2.0 has brought a number of much-needed improvements to the device, reading eBooks was really the only function I could find that I continued to enjoy more on a tablet than on a laptop or smartphone. That experience is infinitely better on the Nook though, and my BlackBerry tablet has been boxed as a result.
So I bought a new iPad, and these are my thoughts after having spent the past month with it.
As was the case when Apple released its first- and second-generation iPads, reviews of the third Apple tablet were overwhelmingly positive. Despite conspiracy theories that run rampant on enthusiast forums and in the comments sections of news sites, this is not because of some elaborate scheme among the media and technology blogs to give Apple positive coverage. No, the truth is far less scintillating and scandalous: Apple makes products people like.
BGR reviewed the iPad in March and Editor-in-chief Jonathan Geller said the only real competition the new iPad has comes from its predecessor, the iPad 2, which is currently available for just $399. While low-end slates like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet have been well received, I agree that these are not iPad competitors and I conveyed as much in my review of Amazon’s tablet last year. Apple CEO Tim Cook then confirmed the notion this past January, stating on an earnings call that the Kindle Fire had no impact whatsoever on iPad sales.
I am on record numerous times stating that media tablets have no place in my life. My opinion was that tablets, and the iPad specifically, do many things well but nothing as well as as one of several other devices I already own. You can watch videos on an iPad, but I would rather watch on a TV. You can work on an iPad, but I would rather use a notebook or desktop computer. You can quickly maneuver through dozens of gorgeous apps on an iPad, but I have smartphones packed to the brim with great apps. You can read books on the iPad, but I have a Nook Touch that lasts for more than a month on a charge, and is much lighter and more comfortable to hold than the iPad. For everything the iPad does, I already own something that does it better.
This is no longer the case.
Apple’s new tablet isn’t magical, but it certainly is amazing. The hardware is a feat of design and engineering that has no equal in the tablet space. Sleek and smooth, the case on the new iPad is very similar to the previous model, though it is slightly thicker to make room for a massive 11,560 mAh battery and a few other new components. The new dual-core A5X processor with quad-core graphics offers significant performance improvements compared to the iPad 2, which was already impressive, and iOS is as smooth as a modern mobile operating system can be.
But the new iPad won me over due to what essentially boils down to two things: the Retina display and the talent of third-party iOS developers.
Countless adjectives have been used to describe the Retina display on the new iPad. Amazing. Fantastic. Brilliant. Gorgeous. Vivid. Beautiful. Stunning. They’re all accurate.
The 9.7-inch, 2,048 x 1,536-pixel panel on the iPad offers better-than-Blu-ray resolution at a class-leading 264 pixels per inch. The pixel density on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is 149 pixels per inch, and while such comparisons are meaningless due to the user’s position relative to a television, a 42-inch HDTV with 1080p resolution offers 52 pixels per inch.
More than pixel counts, brightness measurements or any other specs on paper, the iPad’s Retina display is an experience. Nothing on a widely available consumer electronics device even comes close to offering the experience afforded by this amazing screen, and it may be some time before anything does. The color reproduction and clarity make staring at the Retina display like looking through a window, but the user has the ability to touch and manipulate the items that exist on the other side.
The iPad’s Retina display creates a new reality that the user holds in the palm of his or her hand — which brings me to apps.
Our world would be a very different place if Steve Jobs and Apple’s top executives had stuck to their original plan and confined third-party developers who wanted to address iOS to the Web. Apple’s mobile devices, and all mobile devices, would be infinitely less useful and a $20 billion industry responsible for creating more than 466,000 jobs to date would not exist.
The things these talented people have created for iOS are simply breathtaking. While fantastic apps exist for Android, Windows Phone, webOS and other platforms, the cream of the crop on these operating systems does not measure up to the look, feel or performance of top iOS apps. And on the third-generation iPad, the gap is significantly greater than it has ever been before.
Even apps from top developers that exist on multiple platforms offer far more attractive and often more enjoyable experiences on iOS, and especially on the iPad. Look at Netflix, Evernote, Hulu Plus, ESPN ScoreCenter, TED, Kobo, Pulse, Adobe Photoshop Touch or any one of a hundred other popular apps. These applications exist for the iPad and for Android tablets, but the difference between performance — and often, the look and feel — on the iPad and on Android devices is painful. There are several root causes of this disparity, but none of them matter even a little bit to the end user. All that matters is the experience.
These differences grow even more vast with the new iPad. Things aren’t just better on the iPad than they are on other tablets, they’re completely different. The impact of this next-level visual element cannot be overstated.
And the best apps the iPad has to offer aren’t just a cut above the rest now, they are jaw-dropping. There is nothing else in the world that lets people take in news and other content like Flipboard. There is nothing widely available to the mass market that lets people sketch and translate ideas onto “paper” like Paper by FiftyThree. Nothing even approaches these experiences. Not on a tablet, not on a smartphone and not on a PC.
This brings me back to the competition. On top of everything else, the third-generation iPad shows us exactly why Apple’s rivals are floundering and will continue to flounder unless they readdress the market from a smarter angle.
Apple’s competition has effectively gotten nowhere with their efforts to profit from the media tablet market Apple created. The first round of Android tablets was a bust because the user experiences these devices afforded were awful. Vendors scrambled to launch tablets similar to the iPad and the smartphone platform on which they based their efforts did not translate well at all to larger devices.
The second round of Android tablets offered a much better user experience, however these devices bring nothing new and desirable to the table where mass-market consumers are concerned. There is no valuable differentiation for average users, only a more complex and sometimes confusing interface, a weaker assortment of applications and a user experience that cannot match the iPad.
We’ve seen a few success stories, but to call them moderate is kind. With just a pair of niche devices as the exception — the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet — Apple sold more iPads during the new model’s debut weekend than most competing tablets will sell in a quarter, half or even a year.
Tablet makers are doing it wrong.
Now, the situation stands to get even worse. Vendors have been unable to create a tablet experience that consumers are willing to get behind en masse, so they now plan to compete not with products but with pricing. Companies have seen the success enjoyed by Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire, a specialized device, and they now hope to bolster sales by launching cheaper tablets. Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab models are about to hit the market with trimmed price points, and Google itself is said to be readying an own-brand tablet that could cost as little as $149. These devices may or may not perform well in terms of sales, but my concern lies elsewhere.
This path leads only to compromise, certainly not to innovation.
Why am I being so hard on Android tablets and the companies that build them? Is it because I do not believe top vendors like HTC and Samsung can compete with Apple in the tablet space? Is it because I enjoy seeing them fail? Quite the contrary, it’s because I want to see Apple’s competition succeed.
Apple’s new tablet is amazing, and it has proven to me that a tablet can indeed offer real value and utility where smartphones and traditional computers cannot. But the iPad is only one vision of a tablet.
I don’t want to see companies like Samsung and HTC try and fail to replicate Apple’s vision, and I certainly don’t want to see them do it repeatedly. I want to see them create their own unique visions of what a media tablet might be, and I want to see them launch products that are worthy of our attention — not because these new devices are like a cheaper iPad or like an open-source iPad, but because they are well-designed, well-made, useful and unique.
I want a tablet market, not an iPad market.
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