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From: Eric L	7/4/2012 4:25:09 PM
	of 1546

Still Camera Phones & Newer Imaging Phones ... I personally have a serious interest in camera phones/imaging phones and I have followed their evolution and increasing utility rather closely over the years. Although my family's day to day phones are small and lightweight 1xEV-DO feature phones with relatively low end cameras (on Verizon Wireless) I also currently am using an unlocked Nokia Symbian Belle N8 (which replaced my Symbian N86) which has for the last few years been considered to be the best available imaging phone (nut not the best all around smartphone). Now, however, the Symbian Belle Nokia 808PV which is just hitting the streets is the consensus pick for best available camera phone. I plan to replace my N8 with the 808PV nut I'm in no hurry and I'll wait till the price settles somewhat. Purchase is probably 6 to 9 months out for me. In the interim I plan to link most camera/imaging phone posts I make to this board back to this post to create a thread (and one others can also link to if they are so inclined), and I'll probably create a post or two linked back to this one containing the URLs for some older posts from this board or others on Camera & Imaging Phones. I'll be leading off with a post linking a new podcast from the All About Symbian (AAS) and All about Windows Phone (AAWP) team headed by Rafe Blandford that focuses primarily on the Nokia N808PV. Speaking of AAS & AAWP whose Cameras guru is Steve Litchfield, this is how Steve (purely for amusement and reader interest) ranks and puts scores to the stills cameras in a range of 15 smartphones running Symbian, Android or iOS that he has tried and reviewed. 01. 90% - Nokia 808 PureView 02. 82% - Nokia N8 03. 73% - Apple iPhone 4S 04. 71% - HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S II, III 05. 67% - Nokia N82 06. 66% - Nokia N86 07. 60% - Nokia N95/N96/N97 08. 57% - Motorola Milestone XT720 09 55% - Apple iPhone 4 10. 54% - Nokia N93 Steve notes: [This was] "just for fun... The list isn't definitive, please don't start a comment war over the numbers!" There are certainly a few good ones he's missed from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, or Motorola running Symbian, Android, or Windows Mobile 6.x but based on what I know or have read that's a reasonably sound ranking. - Eric -

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To: Eric L who wrote (1404)	7/4/2012 5:06:05 PM
From: Cogito	1 Recommendation of 1546

Armchair Quarterbacking: Jean-Louis Gassée Speaks out about Elop and the Nokia Board ... Whatever his motivations, I find it hard to disagree with anything Gassée says about Nokia, Elop, and the very serious tactical mistakes that have been made. I can understand why the Nokia board thought that going with Android would mean that the company would lose control of its own destiny. However, it's hard to understand why they thought partnering with Microsoft wouldn't have the same effect. Microsoft hasn't helped Nokia at all, and their bait-and-switch with Windows Phone 7 and 8 has only caused more damage. The Lumia 900 was already suffering from disappointing sales, and this will, most likely, effectively kill it. So now Nokia has to wait until Windows Phone 8 is released before they can even begin to attempt to claw back all the market share they have lost in the past 18 months, together with 80% of the company's market cap, a lot of their cash reserves, and a huge chunk of their workforce. At this point, Nokia's best chance at righting their corporate ship is to produce a Windows 8 phone with the PureView camera in it, and to do so as soon as the operating system is released. That would really be something that would make the market sit up and pay attention. I don't know if they can do that, but I can only assume that they're working on it.

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To: Eric L who wrote (1406)	7/4/2012 5:07:30 PM
From: Eric L	of 1546

Camera & Imaging Phones: AAS Insight (Podcast) #217: The Nokia 808 PureView >> AAS Insight #217: Nokia 808 PureView Rafe Blandford All About Symbian June 25th 2012 allaboutsymbian.com In All About Symbian Insight number 217, we discuss the Nokia 808 PureView. Steve summarises his plans for review coverage and share his initial thoughts on Nokia's imaging flagship. Rafe and Steve talk about the type of people who are going to buy the 808 and what are the realistic expectations for future software updates and new app releases. In the latter part of the podcast David reports on the arrival of Office Mobile for the N8 and shares his thoughts on the game Carcassonne. ### This AAS podcast was recorded on Monday 25th June 2012. In this podcast the AAS team covers: • Nokia 808 PureView (review part 1) • Gallery: Nokia 808 PureView • Microsoft Apps now available for the Symbian Belle Nokia N8 Imaging Phone AAS Readers and Listeners can listen to earlier episodes of the AAS Insight Podcasts in the AAS Media Section ... allaboutsymbian.com - Eric -

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From: Eric L	7/4/2012 8:07:49 PM
	of 1546

Microsoft's Greg Sullivan x 3: Plenty More in Store with Windows Phone 8 ... Greg Sullivan is Microsoft's senior product manager for Windows Phone ... ... and there are 3 articles below penned by Stuart Miles of Pocket-lint and published by them in the last 3 days. Each is based on conversations with Greg. I've also posted part one of a recent interview with Greg conducted by Ben Griffin of Know Your Mobile on the SI Windows Phone board: Message 28245037 >> Microsoft: We've only shown you a minority of consumer features in Windows Phone 8 so far EXCLUSIVE: Plenty more in store Stuart Miles Pocket-lint 2 July 2012 pocket-lint.com Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Windows Phone, has told Pocket-lint that the company has so far only showed a minority of features aimed at consumers in Windows Phone 8. We can expect plenty more to be revealed in the run up to the launch later this year. "We showed a lot at the Sneak Peek event in San Francisco, if you were a developer or an IT pro," he exclusively told us. "Of the end-user consumer visible features and capabilities, we showed a minority of features at the event." Sullivan wouldn't share with us what the company still has in store, but confirmed there was plenty more coming besides just a new start screen - maybe a new Windows Phone 8 arched keyboard? [See 'Windows Phone 8 to get arched keyboard, for better one-handed texting' Pocket-lint article at the end of this post] Much of the Sneak Peek event focused on Windows Phone 8 developer and IT pro features, with consumers only really getting a glimpse at the new start screen and the NFC wallet. However, Sullivan was keen to tell us that won't be the case in the final version. "This release has a significant amount of new functionality for developers and IT pros in particular, and because of the planning cycles involved in getting them the information they need to take advantage of the release when it hits, we thought it was important to confirm and prepare them. Which is partly why we didn't detail all the consumer features," he explained. The news is likely to be welcomed by Windows Phone fans who probably thought that, from a feature point of view, the new update, expected in October, wasn't going to deliver much to the average consumer. "You have to balance it. We aren’t vertically integrated like Apple, we have a host of partners we work with, a developer eco-system to think about," said Sullivan. "We [Microsoft] provide a general-purpose platform that provides a choice of manufacturers and a choice of folks building on it, and that really makes it difficult for us to launch hours after we announce it." It's a schedule that the senior product manager hopes won't have to be repeated anytime soon though. "The way we are thinking about this is that Windows Phone 8 is a generational shift that has an associated discontinuity that we don't expect to happen again soon," he said. "The headroom that we get from this new architecture is so significant that it provides us room to grow for a long time." That headroom is in line with what you see on laptops and tablets today. In theory, Sullivan said, the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system will be able to support processors with not just dual-core capability, but also those up to 64-cores. But why the change now rather than three years ago when Windows Phone 7 was announced? Did the Windows Phone team make a mistake? Sullivan doesn't think so. "We reset our mobile strategy in early 2009. And in late 2010 we delivered a product based on that approach. We went back to the drawing board and started over," he told us. "We didn't start over from an architecture point of view, but we went very 'low'. It did lots of things, but not what we have today with Windows Phone 8. "We didn't [go with Windows architecture] because of a couple of dynamics that made it infeasible to do that at the time. The first is that Windows wasn't on ARM at that time. Could the phone team have down it? Yes I suppose, but that work hadn't been done yet. "The other reason is that the work we've done on Windows Phone 8 and the processors are different in a meaningful way from the previous generation or the ones that we are shipping on today. "At a risk of over simplifying it, the work on the SOCs [phone processors] today is hierarchy dominated by the modem chip and the apps processor is secondary to it, in the next generation that relationship is reversed and the apps processor is the boss." But perhaps more importantly for Microsoft, seeing that Apple's iPhone was dominating the smartphone market, and Google's Android platform was starting to get traction, Microsoft didn't want to wait any longer. "In 2009 it didn't seem a good idea to wait for multi-core processor support," Sullivan rationalised. ### >> Microsoft: Bringing Windows Phone 8 features to Windows Phone 7 smartphones doesn't make sense EXCLUSIVE: Let's push on Stuart Miles Pocket-lint 3 July 2012 pocket-lint.com Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Windows Phone at Microsoft, has told Pocket-lint that the current line-up of Windows Phone devices won't be getting the update to Windows Phone 8 later in the year because it doesn't make sense to commit the manpower to making it happen. "Support for dual-core multi-processors, new screen resolutions, NFC, removable SD card - this awesome Lumia 900 has none of those features, so doing the work to bring those features to this phone doesn't make sense," he explained to us on a trip to London on the way back from TechEd in Europe. "Instead, what we focused on was making Windows Phone 8 fully exploit the latest generation of hardware, taking the most obvious user changes we are making and bringing that to existing devices." Rather than NFC or faster processor support for a device that doesn't have it, Windows Phone 7.5 users will be getting a new start screen - among other things - that allows them to get more information at a glance than previously. Shown at the company's Sneak Peek event in San Francisco last month, the new feature will be coming to Windows Phone users around the same time, if not slightly after the Windows Phone 8 roll out begins. It's clear though, from talking to Sullivan, that much of the final design is yet to be locked down. In a quick demo of a Nokia Lumia 900 running an early build of Windows Phone 7.5, we noticed that double-digit notifications on the smaller tiles don't fit. The clock - now rather unsightly - overlays the Live Tiles, and the arrow to move to the app page is now gone (although the app page is still present). The response from Sullivan? "It's not clear that the arrow on the start screen may stay gone. We may figure out how to bring it back. It's still early days." We are sure it will be fixed. Sullivan and Microsoft seem very proud of the Metro design. "If you type in your Live ID, your Facebook and LinkedIn credentials, right away that phone is more obviously yours than any other platform," Sullivan said. "It automatically personalises itself. With the new start screen you can take that to another level. The phone really reflects you. "We've taken this core principle around the design approach around Metro and made Windows Phone about your content. We don't have faux 3D, or pretend highlights. The user interface is trying to get out of the way. We are really tweaking it around personalisation and customisation." Windows Phone 8 is expected to be launched on a new bevy of smartphones available later in the year. ### >> Microsoft: Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 to be separate for now... EXCLUSIVE: Different thinking Stuart Miles Pocket-lint 4 July 2012 pocket-lint.com Greg Sullivan, Senior Product manager for Windows Phone, has told Pocket-lint that the company opted out of creating a phone version of Windows RT (the tablet version of Windows 8) because it felt that having the two operating systems still made very good sense, for the moment. In an interview with Pocket-lint in London following Tech Ed in Europe, Sullivan detailed how - while the two platforms are very close in what they can offer - Microsoft believes that it is worth keeping the two separate, while at the same time allowing the two to benefit from each other to beat the iPad. "We believe the phone - and the aspect ratios of the phone form factors - is unique enough to devote a specific effort to building a phone operating system and differentiating that," he said. "Will there be more of this convergence we are seeing between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 in the future, absolutely, it makes a lot of sense. We still think there will be a discrete offering, but you will get more and more of this efficiency that we are beginning to get with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Sullivan went on to explain: "There are meaningful differences between the two. Take iOS: while the iPhone and iPad versions look the same, underneath they are very different. If you write an app for both of them you have unique code that is targeting the different devices. "Our approach is really not any different except they [Apple] drew a line between phones/tablets and then the Mac, while we've drawn a line between the phone and the tablet/PC operating systems. We have a significant amount of code reuse, we have the same device driver code, we have a similar user experience with Metro." Sullivan believes that in the long run this should help Microsoft gain the upper ground and help it show the iPad's forthcomings. "When I use an iPad I think it’s a really pleasurable experience, it’s a great consumption device, but I constantly run into guardrails. I want to connect a USB mass storage, oh a can't. I want to print to a printer other than the one Lexmark or whatever, I can't. I keep wanting to do things I can't do. I think it's primarily because of the fundamental strategy where they took a phone OS and stretched it up to a tablet. "We are taking a PC OS and shrinking it down. We could have done the same thing, but it doesn't make sense. When we deliver Surface or any Windows 8 device, the Pro model will run every Windows app ever written. That think will run Visicalc 1.0 from 1981. I saw a demo. It's amazing. It's part of the promise." Given Apple's history and success with the iPhone, Sullivan said he completely understood why Apple made the choices it did, and why Microsoft was coming at it from the direction it is. "Apple was coming from their area of strength. They own the API in the mobile space. It made more sense for them to go with their area of strength and stretch the API so developers could benefit from that [with the iPad]. In their true way they've done an elegant well integrated one. "People have asked us why we haven't just put Windows Phone on a tablet and said it's good, that's what Apple did? But our approach in fundamentally different and the long-term benefits mean I won't run into those guardrails, there will be printer drivers, everything will work, and those things will keep adding up and adding up. I think our approach will end up with a much more powerful functionality, less limited, less constrained device." Sullivan added: "They draw the line between the phone/tablet and the PC, and we are drawing the line between the PC/tablet and the phone. "Over time we will already, in Windows Phone 8, share more things like the architecture, and user experience level, and as I hinted that kind of convergence will mean it will make more sense to invest in our platform in the future." ### A new feature of Windows phone 8? >> Windows Phone 8 to get arched keyboard, for better one-handed texting Curve ball Danny Brogan Pocke6t-lint 2 July 2012 pocket-lint.com A leaked image showing a curved virtual keyboard has emerged that suggests Windows Phone 8 could be implementing a better way of typing one handed. The image is allegedly from a Microsoft Research presentation and shows a keyboard arching itself across the display of an HTC Trophy handset. WMPoweruser.com says the keyboard enables users to reach the alphanumeric panels more easily when texting one-handed. In addition the keyboard will help remember what words are being typed, depending on how you hit the keys, to help create a more accurate but faster typing method. It won’t just be Western keyboards that will be getting the curve treatment either, with WMPoweruser also revealing a Korean design. The site is even speculating that the arc keyboard could debut on Windows Phone 7.8. We’ll reserve judgment until we’ve tried it for ourselves, but the theory appeals. Typos are all too common when trying to text one-handed, particularly with devices with larger displays. Windows Phone 8 is set to arrive later this year with Nokia, Samsung, Huawei and HTC all revealing they will have handsets that run the OS. Via: wmpoweruser.com ### - Eric -

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From: zax	7/4/2012 8:39:56 PM
	of 1546

Android spam botnet revealed by Microsoft engineer By Louis Goddard on July 4, 2012 08:11 am theverge.com A Microsoft anti-spam engineer has identified an international botnet controlling Android devices, using them to send spam on an industrial scale. Writing on his MSDN blog, Terry Zink describes how he analyzed the headers of spam samples containing the signature "Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android," tracing them to a number of locations in the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe. "I am betting that the users of those phones downloaded some malicious Android app in order to avoid paying for a legitimate version and they got more than they bargained for," writes Zink. "Either that or they acquired a rogue Yahoo Mail app." This is not the first time that Android malware has been caught connecting to a botnet — back in February, researchers discovered a malicious application that infected mostly Chinese phones running Gingerbread, gaining root access and then calling premium rate phone numbers to generate revenue for its creators. The month before, Symantec identified multiple publishers offering infected apps in the official Android Market, now known as Google Play. With any luck, this latest attack will catch the attention of the recently-launched Android Malware Genome Project, aiding their efforts to combat malicious software on the platform. Source Terry Zink's Cyber Security Blog (MSDN)

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To: Eric L who wrote (1408)	7/5/2012 3:04:51 PM
From: Eric L	2 Recommendations of 1546

The Nokia 808PV Imaging Smartphone: Richard Dorman's 'Seagull Set' Richard's complete 808PV Seagull Set (9 photos) is here ... flickr.com About the Photographer: Richard Dorman (sheridan01 on Flickr, jjsheridan01) shot the above with his new 808PV. Richard is a Finnish world traveler, an amateur photographer, and Nokia imaging phone enthusiast -- make that uber-enthusiast. His first digital camera purchased in 2002 was a Nokia 7650 smartphone. As of mid-January he owned 127 Nokia devices and has added the 808PV and several Lumia imaging phones. His blog site is Only Fools and Mobiles. • Other PureView Photos (over 130 in 8 sets) by Richard are here ... flickr.com • Lots more shot with the N8 and other earlier Symbian smartphones are here ... flickr.com >> Is this the Nokia N8's biggest camera fan? Alex Bentley NokNok January 16, 2012 noknok.tv While there are millions of keen Nokia N8 enthusiasts around the world (us included), we may have found the biggest supporter of them all. With more than 100 Nokia devices in his collection and a penchant for taking stunning photos with his Nokia N8, Richard Dorman could be Nokia’s number one smartphone fan. Why the Nokia N8 is still the ultimate Symbian smartphone Via his website, Only Fools and Mobiles, Dorman takes a regular look at the latest Nokia phones, with a main focus (no pun intended) on their camera functionality. And since he seems to spend a good deal of time jetting off to exciting places around the world, his Nokia N8 camera is never far behind. Highlighting just how amazing the Nokia N8’s market-leading 12-Megapixel camera is, Dorman’s gorgeous photos really showcase the kind of results you can achieve on this great smartphone. And with photos taken in a range of environments across the world, the images he captures prove just how versatile the N8's camera really is. Dorman’s latest blog post - A Finnish Phone in Rekjavik [sic] - is a great example, as he took a trip to Iceland and brought back 26 beautiful photos on his Nokia N8. Despite being swamped by snow and ice most of the time, the N8’s sharp sensor and Carl Zeiss lens still managed to capture every moment perfectly. And it’s not just great photos you can find at Only Fools and Mobiles. With Dorman’s in-depth analysis on the latest Nokia cameras, his site makes for some fascinating reading too, with insights straight from a true Nokia fan. And since we thought we were the only people that had more than 100 Nokia phones, we’re glad to know that we’re now not alone! We’ve posted a few of our favourite photos from Dorman’s blog below, for you to check out just what the Nokia N8’s 12-Megapixel camera is capable of and you can pay his site a visit at Only Fools and Mobiles to view the rest. So, do you think that Richard Dorman is the world’s number one Nokia N8 fan or do you know an even more passionate Nokia supporter; maybe even yourself? ### In January Richard wrote ' A Decade of Imaging' on his blog site - Eric -

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From: Eric L	7/6/2012 11:25:35 AM
	of 1546

IHS iSuppli Media Tablet Semiconductor Forecast and STerm Tablet Forecast (from March and May) Coming up from the No. 35 position in 2010, media tablets rose to become the eighth-largest semiconductor market in 2011. Their ranking will climb to fifth place in 2012, and then rise to fourth in 2014—a position it is set to maintain in 2015. In a parallel development, mobile handsets will become the world’s largest semiconductor application in 2012, for the first time ever exceeding mobile PCs as the leading chip segment. also: After dipping to 55.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a final estimate, the Apple operating system’s share of worldwide tablet sales—a segment including both media tablets and PC-type tablets—is set to recover to 61 percent for the full year of 2012, about the same portion it had in 2011. >> Led by iPad, Media Tablets Expected to Become Fourth-Largest Semiconductor Market by 2014 IHS iSuppli Press Release Dale Ford March 9, 2012 tinyurl.com In a remarkably rapid ascension, media tablets in 2014 will become the world’s fourth-largest application for semiconductors, up from 35th in 2010, rising in just four short years from obscurity to a level rivaling the position of powerhouse chip markets like mobile handsets and PCs, according to the IHS iSuppli Application Market Forecast Tool from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). Sales of semiconductors for use in media tablets are expected to skyrocket to $18.2 billion in 2014, up from $2.6 billion in 2010, the year that Apple kicked off the market with the introduction of the iPad, as presented in the figure below. In 2014, sales of semiconductors for tablets are expected to be exceeded only by mobile handsets, mobile PCs and desktop PCs. In contrast, media tablet semiconductor sales in 2010 ranked lower than the relatively small-scale applications of workstations, USB flash drives, mobile wireless broadband wireless access devices and flat-panel monitors. “The speed of the media tablet’s rise from near insignificance to top-tier prominence is unprecedented in the history of the global semiconductor industry,” said Dale Ford, head of electronics & semiconductor research for IHS. “Driven primarily by Apple’s iPad, the media tablet in four years is expected to scale semiconductor heights that took more than a decade for other products to attain, such as notebook PCs and cellphones. This meteoric ascension will have major repercussions for the global semiconductor industry, as it realigns to accommodate the fast growth and vast size of the media tablet market.” Coming up from the No. 35 position in 2010, media tablets rose to become the eighth-largest semiconductor market in 2011. Their ranking will climb to fifth place in 2012, and then rise to fourth in 2014—a position it is set to maintain in 2015. In a parallel development, mobile handsets will become the world’s largest semiconductor application in 2012, for the first time ever exceeding mobile PCs as the leading chip segment. Semiconductor Empires The rise of tablets as a chip application market could bring significant changes to the semiconductor market, realigning the players and products that shape the industry. “The rise of specific applications has led to the creation of semiconductor powerhouses in the past—such as the PC microprocessor colossus of Intel Corp. or the cellphone chipset juggernaut of Qualcomm Inc.” Ford said. “However, media tablets will generate semiconductor demand that is much more broadly diversified, spreading the opportunity among a wider set of suppliers than previous platforms did.” Beyond yielding vast revenues for application processors, baseband and radio frequency (RF) chips, media tablets also are creating exciting opportunities for the makers of NAND flash and DRAM, wireless integrated circuits, image sensors, microelectromechanical sensors, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and power management ICs, Ford observed. “So, while there will be a handful of suppliers that will stand out as the leading suppliers of semiconductors for media tablets, there are many component markets that represent highly attractive opportunities for a diverse group of suppliers. Interestingly enough, media tablets and handsets are a key driving force in reducing some of the consolidation in the semiconductor industry that has developed in more mature markets like PCs.” ### >> No Contest: Apple iOS to Maintain Tablet Dominance in 2012 IHS iSuppli Press Release May 15, 2012 Rhoda Alexander tinyurl.com After suffering a temporary dip in market share in the fourth quarter of 2011, Apple Inc.’s iOS is expected to reassert its commanding leadership of the worldwide tablet space in 2012, according to an IHS iSuppli Worldwide Tablet Market Tracker report from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). After dipping to 55.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a final estimate, the Apple operating system’s share of worldwide tablet sales—a segment including both media tablets and PC-type tablets—is set to recover to 61 percent for the full year of 2012, about the same portion it had in 2011. Apple’s dominating media tablet market share in the fourth quarter of 2011 had been diminished by a surge in sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, which is based on Google’s Android operating system. This had caused Android’s share of the tablet operating system market to climb to 41.1 percent, up from 31.1 percent during the third quarter of 2011. However, as Apple reasserts its leadership, Android’s share will decline to 38.4 percent for the full year of 2012. “The key to Apple’s media-tablet success has been its offering of a complete hardware-plus-content ecosystem,” said Rhoda Alexander, director for monitors and tablets research at IHS. “The combination of a good-looking device, well-designed applications, video, books and music has provided consumers with an easy-to-use product and an appealing use case. Such an ecosystem took Apple years to put together, starting with the iPod plus iTunes Music Store more than nine years ago, and it’s proving to be a challenge for the company’s competitors to replicate it.” Further bolstering Apple’s commanding position in the market, supply-side sources indicate that the company will deploy a smaller, 7.8-inch display version of the iPad later this year, although Apple has yet to confirm this. A smaller screen does not necessarily mean a substantially lower price; rather, IHS expects Apple will place continuing emphasis on the quality of the overall tablet experience and the benefits of selecting the company’s products. Growth Tablets Sales of tablets this year—including both media tablets and PC-type tablets—will soar to 126.6 million units, up a remarkable 85 percent from 68.4 million units in 2011. The impressive performance of tablets this year builds on an even mightier 253 percent explosion last year from sales of 19.4 million units in 2010. Tablets comprise one of the strongest categories in the consumer electronics market today, with heady growth in the next few years matching the wild exuberance of the cellphone or mobile handset industry in its initial years of market-busting expansion. Tablet sales will rise another 63 percent next year, on their way to 360.4 million units by 2016. Enter the PC Tablet While media tablets such as the iPad dominate now and throughout the forecast, new ultrabook offerings and the release of Windows 8 later this year will help drive stronger sales in 2013 and beyond of PC-type tablets, IHS predicts. PC tablets will appeal to users wanting the flexibility of a tablet with the versatility of a traditional computer. These devices are able to manage multiple windows and applications including traditional full desktop applications, but can also convert to a slate form with touch capability. The smaller, lighter form of some of the new ultrabook offerings, touch improvements in Windows 8, and more aggressive pricing will help drive growth in this category. Media tablets are often designated as “consumption-type” products with which users can browse the web, send email, view video, play games or interact with applications. Within the media tablet space, however, the market is fragmenting into two segments—value products largely serving as “consumption-type” portable media players; and higher-performance units incorporating more complex applications and stronger processors. Much of the growth in the future will come from the value segment, but the performance sector will provide the stronger challenge to traditional PCs in both business and consumer markets. Overall, the growth last year of media tablets dwarfed that of tablet PCs, and media tablet sales will continue to outperform those of tablet PCs in 2012. By next year, tablet PC growth will accelerate to nearly 160 percent, compared to a still-robust 60 percent increase for media tablets. The PC tablet growth is a form transition within the larger notebook market and does not reflect any cannibalization of the media tablet opportunity. This is because PC tablets will still lag well behind their media tablet counterparts next year, numbering a little over 8 million units compared to more than 197 million units for media tablets. ### - Eric -

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To: Eric L who wrote (1406)	7/6/2012 1:27:56 PM
From: Eric L	1 Recommendation of 1546

Camera & Imaging Phones: The Nokia 808 PureView Video on Steve Litchfields Phones Show: >> The 808 PureView gets The Phones Show Treatment Steve Litchfield All Anout Symbian July 4th 2012 allaboutsymbian.com Yes, I'm in the middle of my 20,000 word multi-part AAS review of the Nokia 808 PureView [Part 2c was published on July 5], but I also wanted to take time to deliver my verdict on the phone as a whole in video form. Who's going to buy the 808, how well will it do and how good is it as a real world smartphone? Find out in The Phones Show 174, embedded below. As usual, start the show playing, make full screen and then click the gear wheel to up the quality. The Phones Show is available every 10 days or so from my YouTube channel and also via iTunes and RSS. ### The Phones Show 174 (review of the Nokia 808 PureView) stevelitchfield.com Steve's 808PV Review: Links to the 4 Sections already published ... • Part 1 \| 808PV hardware, initial thoughts on performance and camera allaboutsymbian.com • Part 2a \| 808PV Camera: Stills and Video Overview allaboutsymbian.com • Part 2b \| 808PV Camera Comparisons with predecessors and a competitor allaboutsymbian.com • Part 2c \| 808PV Camera Interface, Defaults and Final Quality Comments versus the N8 allaboutsymbian.com In the next review Part 2d, Steve will be looking at Video Capture and Rich Recording - an area in which the Nokia 808 really excels. AAS Insight #218 Podcast: The Nokia 808 PureView In All About Symbian Insight number 218, the AAS team continues their Nokia 808 PureView coverage. with Steve summarising the first four parts of his review coverage, with a focus on camera performance. Rafe and Steve talk about the relative merits of the 808 when compared to the Nokia N8. ### - Eric -

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To: zax who wrote (1410)	7/6/2012 1:45:40 PM
From: sylvester80	of 1546

Google Blasts Credibility of Microsoft's Android Botnet Story; Says It's Just As Likely Spam was Spoofed And Came From Windows PCs dailytech.com Jason Mick (Blog) - July 6, 2012 11:58 AM dailytech.com Google says it's just as likely spam was spoofed and came from Windows PCs Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT) spam researcher Terry Zink played provocateur when he published a blog indicating he had discovering a thriving Android botnet, which appeared to be driven by app piracy in the developing world. The evidence he presented was a series of emails with distinctive signatures -- both email header information, and the text signature in the body -- indicating they had originating on an Android device. Google Inc. ( GOOG) has responded by pointing the finger back at Microsoft, suggesting that the headers and signature were likely spoofed to look as if they came from Android. Comments Google, "The evidence does not support the Android botnet claim. Our analysis suggests that spammers are using infected computers and a fake mobile signature to bypass anti-spam mechanisms in the email platform they're using." Android has relatively robust anti-spam guards, so even if the device was infected with malware, Google says it would be difficult to exploit it for spamming purposes. Spoofing is a time honored technique used by hackers to obfuscate IP requests, email headers, and phone numbers. [Image Soource: PC1 News] As the text signature implicated Yahoo! Mail, the post also raised awkward questions for that company. Yahoo! Inc. ( YHOO) says that it is investigating the report to see if its email client is being abused. As with the Android aspect, it's again possible that the header and body were merely spoofed to look like they came from the Yahoo! Mail client on Android, typically a relatively trustworthy source. Header spoofing is a common, technique used by computer criminals. As an email's header information and text are easily manipulated (or "engineered" in hacker terms), malicious user can change messages' headers to serve the dual purpose of disguising their true origin and to build trust by making it look as if it originated from a legitimate source. Terry Zink, the researcher who published the original report, has since backtracked in the comments section of his post, acknowledging that spoofing was a possibility, but commenting that it merely seemed more likely that an Android botnet was causing the spam onslaught. He did not, however, provide any additional evidence of how he came to that conclusion. Source: The Register

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From: Eric L	7/6/2012 4:43:59 PM
	of 1546

Nokia Location Based Services for Microsoft Windows Phones ... For Nokia the decision to "give away" Nokia Drive is driven by a desire to open (control) the location platform across the Windows Phone 8 ecosystem. Over the next few years that will be far more important that the benefits provided by an exclusive app. That desire to play a key role in the Windows Phone platform is significant in itself, but more importantly Nokia's ambition for its location platform (known as Nokia Where) extend far beyond mobile. It's already dominant in the automotive industry (90%+ market share) and is used in a large number of websites. Given Nokia's partnership with Microsoft it's not hard to imagine that it may play an important role in Windows more generically (tablets, laptop and PCs) in the future. - Rafe Blandford, AAS - >> How Nokia will differentiate with location-based services Pino Bonetti Nokia Conversations [The official blog of Nokia] June 29, 2012 conversations.nokia.com Our announcement on June 20th, that we are making Nokia Drive available on other, non-Nokia Windows Phone 8 devices generated some interesting feedback that deserves a response. Turn-by-turn navigation is becoming a standard features on smartphones We have believed in navigation on smartphones for several years, from when we first acquired Gate5 and then NAVTEQ. Back then everyone was assuming that the PND (personal navigation device) was the device of choice for navigation and that navigation services wouldn’t be relevant in a smartphone. This is why we were the first to introduce a PND-like navigation offering and the first smartphone with GPS on the market. Now, opinion is very different. Smartphones create a much more fluid location-based experience because they are always with us: in-car, when we walk around, when we are at a restaurant or at home.At the same time navigation is a feature we expect to find in every smartphone. Think about it: would you ever buy a smartphone that doesn’t play music? The same rule is very quickly being applied to navigation too. Not surprisingly, across all the different app stores in the market, navigation apps are always among the most downloaded. Because location based services are now more than ever at the core of our business, we are going to license Nokia Drive, the best navigation solution on the market, to all Windows Phone 8 devices. Nokia Drive might not be exclusive to Nokia smartphones anymore but that doesn’t mean that we can’t differentiate with apps anymore. How can we still do it? First of all, navigation on Windows Phone 8 will be always exclusively provided by Nokia. Then by having the very closest, deepest integration possible. So watch this space for more apps and upgrades that become a seamless aspect of the overall Nokia Lumia experience. But there is more to it than this. In fact, this is an area that creates a lot of confusion when people don’t distinguish between apps and platform. The Nokia Location Platform (often referred to by us as the Where Platform) provides a set of APIs that let organisations develop map-related apps and services. This platform provides the ability for people to get from A to B, decide their best mode of transport, avoid delays and get the most out of their local environments, wherever they are. The location platform business The location business can be explained in terms of ingredients and recipes. The map and all the info it contains are the ingredients. The location platform is a set of basic-to-advanced recipes to cook those ingredients. And the apps are dishes ready to eat. If you are hungry, you go to a deli or to a restaurant and you eat what you feel like at that moment. You want some sushi? You go to a Japanese restaurant. That’s a bit like being on foot and deciding to use Nokia Transport to get somewhere. Customisation in these cases is limited: you know how to order or how to operate the app, but everything is constrained by the programmed user experience. If you are a cook, with more or less expertise, however, you can buy ingredients and follow recipes to create your own dish. Even more tailored to your need. It requires some effort, but you can decide on the taste, size and appearance of the final product. The same happens if you are a big or small developer and you want to use our location platform and content to build your own location-based experiences. Perhaps you can now see that the location business is not only about apps (final products) but also, and most importantly, about the platform (ingredients and recipes). The ‘where’-enabled Windows Phone 8 ecosystem [See Video at end of this post] By opening the location platform to the whole Windows Phone 8 ecosystem, we are differentiating Nokia as a company because we are the company most able to cover the location business on all levels. And we are promoting innovation because all Windows Phone 8 developers and manufacturers can build location-based experiences on top of our platform. As we’ve said before, success in the mobile sector today is all about platforms and ecosystems. In the case of location platforms, this is more accurate than ever, because all smartphones are nowadays equipped with GPS. ### >> Nokia Drive for all Windows Phone 8 smartphones Pino Bonetti Nokia Conversations [The official blog of Nokia] June 20, 2012 Location-based services, as Nokia announced last week, are becoming more and more core to our strategy. We’re focusing on location-based services, not just at Nokia, but bring our extending our services across many industries. Today, we are making Nokia Drive available to other Windows Phone 8 partners to offer a turn-by-turn navigation experience for people in over 110 countries. Nokia Drive is one of the key experiences on Nokia Lumia smartphones, thanks to its ease of use and the experience that has gone into developing our location-based services. With Nokia Drive on Windows Phone 8, we will make drive navigation effortless. Image credits: Samsung and HTC respectively. This is a mockup of what Nokia Drive might look like on different Windows Phone 8 devices. Nokia Drive is one of the major apps that on Nokia’s location platform. Today, we are also making this platform and its unrivalled quality of data and richness of features available on Windows Phone 8 for all partners. This means that Nokia’s Location platform will be central to the Windows Phone 8 experience, with the intention of developing smartphones that bring advanced location experiences. Windows Phone 8 partners and developers will be able to use our location assets to build location-based apps and experiences of superior quality. Nokia has more quality location data than any smartphone manufacturer in the market. Our platform is the most advanced mobile location platform in the world because it offers true offline functionality (for the past six years), fast client-side map rendering (50 fps) and only requires 10 per cent of the bandwidth when compared to traditional server-side map platforms. The Nokia location platform is the biggest in the world: • We have maps data for more than 190 countries in more than 50 languages and navigation in more than 110 countries • We collect information from Nokia Drive users and local authorities to provide traffic alerts in 26 countries, and also allow dynamic rerouting • We have venue maps in over 5,000 shopping malls, train stations, airport, sports venues, etc. in 35 countries • We support multi-modal routing: by car, on foot (including footpaths, shortcuts, etc. in over 00 cities) and by public transportation (over 100 cities) Also, Nokia’s location data is not confined to smartphones and computers. Our data already powers four out of five cars with in-car navigation and our customer list includes top brands in the tech and auto industries: Bing, Yahoo!, BMW and Ford. All of these elements are coming together to form the ultimate Where experience, connecting individuals with the world around them. At Nokia, we are working on constantly improving that experience, and striving to deliver novel and meaningful customer interactions with our location platform, content and apps. ### >> Maps and the importance of offline Pino Bonetti Nokia Conversations [The official blog of Nokia] June 7, 2012 conversations.nokia.com Since we first introduced navigation on our smartphones, we’ve been taking offline maps very seriously. That is why we have been using vector maps since 2006. For smartphones to become the ideal personal navigation device that never leaves your side, they have to work with preloaded maps and completely offline. Offline user experience Offline maps are at the core of our navigation offering (with Nokia Drive) and we have been developing the perfect know-how over the past six years. Offering offline maps is not only about giving the option to cache some data offline for later use, it’s a complete experience. Maps are either preloaded on the smartphone to offer a great out-of-the-box experience or people are taken through an easy first-use process to make their favourite countries and regions available offline. This provides an easy way to manage your offline maps that you can always go back to, regardless of service provider coverage. An offline experience is not only about street maps, it’s also about offline available points of interest (POIs) to enable offline search, it’s about navigation voices (over 70 of them, btw) available on-device and offline rerouting. Size does matter And where do offline maps actually go? They are locally saved on your device, the memory usage of which you are probably very protective, and rightly so. That’s why we are giving you complete flexibility and not limiting you to a 10 square mile radius. You can download an entire country (e.g. USA for 1.8 GB, China for 862 Mb, UK for 203 MB) or specific regions (e.g. California for 147 MB, England for 166 MB, Beijing for 63 MB): just like having a shopping list. Numbers don’t lie So now you have all these shiny maps stored offline and you are ready to go. What will you do with them? Most probably you are going to put your smartphone in your car and start navigating. In your home city, in your country or abroad for vacation. It would be a shame to travel somewhere and discover you couldn’t do much with the offline maps because no navigation instructions were available. This is why our voice guided turn-by-turn navigation is not only available for 1, 2 or 29 countries; it is available for over 110 countries. >> Nokia Maps, Drive and Transport updated for Lumia Pino Bonetti Nokia Conversations [The official blog of Nokia] March 20, 2012 conversations.nokia.com If you are a Nokia Lumia user, some applications are exclusive to you. Among those, we’re proud to list Nokia Transport, Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive, which we recently updated with new features. To get them, look no further than the Windows Phone Marketplace on your Nokia Lumia: you’ll be automatically notified when the updates are available for download. We mentioned some of the new features included in these releases about two weeks ago but if you want to know more and discover what else is there, just keep reading. Nokia Drive You’re driving on an unknown road and you suddenly wonder whether you’re still respecting the speed limits. Or the road ahead is almost empty and you instinctively speed up a bit. Do any of these examples sound familiar? The new Nokia Drive can help you in those circumstances. You can drive more safely because speed limits and relevant notifications are clearly visible in the app dashboard. Warnings are fully customizable with audio alerts and specific triggers. Additionally, we introduced your most requested feature in this update: a complete offline experience. When you open Nokia Drive, under Settings > Manage maps you can download country maps for offline access. You can now rely on Nokia Drive in areas with poor network coverage or cut your data costs when you’re visiting foreign countries. Nokia Maps If you like to create a list of all the places you want to visit in a city, you’ll enjoy using the new feature of Nokia Maps that allows you to add places to favourites. And because you are most likely to share your new findings with friends, we made it easier to share place details and how to get there via SMS, email or social networks. But this isn’t everything. On Nokia Maps you can also see the traffic situation in USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Belgium, Russia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, UK, France, Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, India and UAE. Just use the live traffic view, which is available next to the map, satellite and public transport views. By the way, when you plan a journey with trains and buses, you can now tap on each waypoint shown on the map to get immediately more information. However, if you use public transport to commute or when visiting a foreign city, we suggest you to download the newest Nokia Transport app. Nokia Transport Available in more than 510 cities in 46 countries, Nokia Transport has received a lot of attention since we first introduced it at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The app provides an overview of how to get, within city limits, from A to B using public transportation. Walk directions are displayed to help you get to the next stop and from the last stop to your destination. In 86 cities we also include timetable information. You don’t need to download specific apps for each city you visit, you have everything in one place. Conveniently enough, you can also pin a favourite destination to start and always know how to get there from anywhere in the city. Just download Nokia Transport for your Nokia Lumia from the Windows Phone Marketplace. ### The location business - Nokia's Where Platform [Apr 3, 2012 by Nokia] ### - Eric -

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