Google Motorola deal is a gamble

Google's purchase of Motorola will allow it to go head-to-head with Apple in the smartphone market photo: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Google Apple and is involved in a replay of war Steve Jobs lost against Microsoft two decades ago. They compete to create the dominant operating system for the computers in the future — smartphonesour.

If you want to force his hand, Google has mobilised a legion of Motorola footsoldiers. Motorolans, comes as Google Chief Larry Page referred to them, in both human and patents form.

Androidsuccess has prompted its main rivals to start buying up patents in an attempt to kill from the operating system that is used in almost half of new smartphones. $ 12.5bn heel on Motorola can mainly justified by its significant intellectual property shield.

More interesting is the business-building reasons to trade. The biggest headache Androids horizon is not disputes, but fragmentation. Unlike Apple addicted to Google other companies such as Samsung, HTC and Motorola, of course, to make its handsets. It can not tightly control the user experience. For phones can function properly, their software has to be constantly updated, but in many Android phones this does not happen, and customers are starting to cotton.

Mini software downloads or "apps" that allows us to find a street map or Play angry birds game for smartphones which entries are for record players. There is little point in having one without the other.

Unfortunately, use no older phones always the available apps in the Android store. Before Apple and Google entered the market, there were dozens of operating systems and developers were not able to build and market the apps that was guaranteed to work. By Google system openness is to recreate the fragmentation, it was created to solve the very problem.

Motorola is a gamble. Google has a chance now to make phones as good as Apple 's, but if competing manufacturers feel pressure set aside, they might desert Android rows.

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Shuffler last.FM revamps web app with native iPad version coming

Shuffler. FM: from the ashes of social music service Twones.

Shuffler. FM is the latest music site to set its sights on iPad-owner of music fans, revealing a revised version on Tuesday, while submitting a native app Apple to for approval.

The site was born in 2010 from the ashes of social music service Twones. The new site transformed music blogs to streaming radio stations, play the songs embedded in their posts. Today's useful looking site styling itself as an "audio magazine", although with the same core functionality.

New features include the ability to play a radio station from an individual blog, browse the most popular songs and artists in Shuffler. fm's aggregated chart, search for individual artists, and create a personal channel with favorite tracks and updates from specific blogs.

Visit the site on an iPad, and despite a warning at the top of the screen about a missing Flash plugin that is missing, it is perfectly usable. Press a specific channel – for example – and Indie music starts playing, complete with the appropriate record from the whatever blog that tracks buzzing.

Its capabilities for aggregation and curation bring Shuffler last.FM for similar area Hype Machine and RCRD LBL, albeit using different technology. Both launched apps native iPhone this year, and Shuffler. fm after them on to the App Store.

Its iPad app has been submitted to Apple, and judging from the preview version, we have played with, doing a good job of simplifying the site's interface for Tablet usage, throw in YouTube videos alongside blog posts.

Tablets have particular potential as a music discovery service units: Shuffler last.FM accedes apps such as Aweditorium, Discovr music, Hitlantis and Hunter on the iPad, all of which offer various degrees of song or artist recommendations.

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Anonymous protests shut down the us train stations

Bart station Civic Center was closed after protesters gathered there. Police said there had been no arrests. Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Four San Francisco underground railway stations closed temporarily on Monday during a demonstration organized by the group anonymous of attacker, alleged police violence and freedom of expression.

Service Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) commuter train cut off mobile phone networks in some stations on Thursday to stop the demonstrators who organise a protest over the fatal shooting of a man by police last month.

"This was a complete silencing of the people," said Carlos Wilson, a 41-year-old gay rights activist who came to protest against the killings and closure of the mobile phone network in the last week.

A few dozen protesters turned on for the operation, during rush hour, which ended when authorities closed the Civic Center station. Three other stations to close later, briefly, apparently due to crowding.

Police said there had been no arrests, although officers arrived dressed in riot gear.

Mobile phone service was left on the station during the operation, and some demonstrators took as a sign of victory. Beck Simmons, a 21-year-old student, said: "I have more cell service now than usual on Bart. I think what they did last time was an empty threat. I have full bars. " Anonymous, a loose knit group that has attacked the financial and Government websites, had called for protestors to descend on station 5 PM.

Would-be protesters were encouraged to download the software for short-range mobile to mobile messaging, in the case of the in-station network was cut off again.

Bart said a website for its users mybart.org,, had been hacked over the weekend, and contact information of at least 2,400 people had stolen.

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Rural broadband is set to £ 362 m boost

Remote villages in regions such as Cumbria should enjoy the funding boost for rural broadband. Photo: Charlie Hedley to guardian

Millions of Britons living in rural areas are set to benefit from internet faster speeds after the Government allocated £ 362 m to improve broadband connections in England and Scotland .

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, said Tuesday that the Fund would ensure that 90% of hard to reach communities with "painfully slow" internet speeds to access Superfast broadband by 2015.

Remote villages in the areas in regions such as Cumbria and the Scottish Highlands, where it is currently difficult to load a simple Web page, you should be able to download or stream high quality movies within four years.

English counties get £ 294 m and Scotland £ 68. 8 m to bring high-speed internet to areas not taken into account for the private sector. The assignments that come out of the £ 530 m "digital United Kingdom" Fund commitment of Chancellor, George Osborne, earlier this year.

"I definitely decided, the United Kingdom will have the best super fast broadband network in Europe by 2015 – we all enjoy," said Hunt. "Quick broadband is essential to our economic growth, to deliver public services efficiently and to implement our everyday lives.

"But some areas of the UK is missing, with many rural and hard to reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections, or no coverage at all. We are not willing to leave certain parts of our country get left behind in the digital age. "

English Councils and private companies will be responsible for the delivery of broadband deployment, with delivery plans and match-funding expected to be drawn up to specify timetables. The Scottish Government will decide how to allocate money in Scotland.

Hunt added: "the Government is investing £ 530 m of public money to help bring broadband to all homes and business in the United Kingdom. We do our part – it is now up to local authorities and the Scottish Government to do their bit, to come on board and work with us to ensure the social and economic future for their communities. "

"I urge all those who suffer frustration over slow internet connections to make it clear to your local elected representatives that you expect them to do what is needed to access this investment and deliver broadband to your community."

Wales and Northern Ireland have already been allocated their share of the Fund for the spread of broadband.

Wales was last month given £ 56. 9 m, with the Welsh Government is expected to match the Fund to complete the rural broadband upgrade plan.

Northern Ireland is to get £ 4. 4 m as part of the program. Northern Ireland-Executive will decide how to spend the money.

Bedfordshire (Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Luton): £ 1, 060,000

Berkshire (Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham): £ 1, 430,000

Buckinghamshire (Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes): £ 2, 100,000

Cambridgeshire (Cambridgeshire, Peterborough): £ 6, 750,000

Cheshire (Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton, Warrington): £ 3, 240,000

Cumbria (Cumbria): £ 17, 130,000

Derbyshire (Derbyshire, Derby): £ 7, 390,000

Devon and Somerset (Devon, Plymouth, Torbay, Somerset, North Somerset): £ 31, $ 320,000

Dorset (Dorset, Bournemouth, Poole): £ 9,440,000

Durham (County Durham, Gateshead): £ 7, 790,000

East Sussex (East Sussex, Brighton and Hove): £ 10, 640,000

Essex (Essex, Southend-on-sea, Thurrock): £ 6, 460,000

Gloucestershire (Gloucestershire): £ 8, 070,000

Greater Manchester (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan): £ 990,000

Hampshire and Isle of Wight (Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton): £ 8, 420,000

Herefordshire (County of Herefordshire): £ 6, 350,000

Hertfordshire (Hertfordshire): £ 1, 110,000

Humber (the city of Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire): £ 8, 540,000 (reviewed)

Kent (Kent, Medway): £ 9, 870,000

Lancashire (Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool): £ 10, 830,000

Leicestershire and Rutland (Leicestershire, Leicester, Rutland): £ 3, 880,000

Lincolnshire (Lincolnshire): £ 14, 310,000

Merseyside (Watford, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral): £ 5, 460,000

Norfolk (Norfolk): £ 15, 440,000

Northamptonshire (Northamptonshire): £ 4, 080,000

Northumberland (Northumberland): £ 7, 030,000

North Yorkshire (North Yorkshire, York): £ 17, 840,000

Nottinghamshire (Nottinghamshire, Nottingham): £ 4, 400,000

Oxfordshire (Oxfordshire): £ 3, 860,000

Shropshire (Shropshire, Telford and Snow-white): £ 8, 210,000

Staffordshire (Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent): £ 7, 440,000

Suffolk (Suffolk): £ 11, 680,000

Surrey (Surrey): £ 1, 310,000

Tees Valley (Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees): £ 770,000

Tyne and Wear (Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland): £ 3, 420,000

Warwickshire (Warwickshire, Coventry, Solihull): £ 4, 070,000

To the West of England (Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City, South Gloucestershire): £ 1, 430,000

West Midlands (Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton): £ 630,000

West Sussex (West Sussex): £ 6, 260,000

West Yorkshire (Bradford, Calder valleys, Kirklees Metropolitan Council, Leeds, Wakefield): £ 6, 340,000

Wiltshire (Wiltshire, Swindon): £ 4, 900,000

Worcestershire (Worcestershire): £ 3, 350,000

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Boot up: Apple may invest $ 1 billion in Sharp, HP tablets not selling at Best Buy, and more

Apple chief Steve Jobs at Apple by the second generation iPad. Sale of tablet last quarter was three times sales in its first three months of photograph: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

A quick burst 6 links you to chew over, as picked by the technology team

"Apple Inc may invest $ 1 billion in Sharp Corp. Kameyama factory to ensure the provision of monitors for iPhones and iPads, MF Global FXA securities wrote in a sales memo on Wednesday, sending shares in Japanese consumer electronics maker, up more than 2 percent."

"In a note to investors on Tuesday, Jeffries and co. analyst Peter Misek concluded that Apple will probably strike" back "by acquiring patents from rivals such as Nokia or research in motion as a response to Google's purchase of Motorola mobility. He also mentioned the InterDigital, which have been widely seen as a potential target for acquisition by Apple and other major players in the industry smartphone. "

"At an event last week Facebook Director of game partnerships Sean Ryan had some choice words for its new competitor."Google has emulated aspects of our system, which is what they are entitled to do, "he said. "We just need to be better." He refers to the way companies make money from casual online games like Farm ville and words with friends. Players pay for play time or virtual goods within games, and the social networks take a cut of sales. Currently, Facebook reportedly 30% from game developers, Google takes only 5%. "

"In other words-and I never thought I would say this--Steve Ballmer was correct. Android is not free. It is actually not even cheap. As John Gruber points out Fireball's Durst, $ 12.5 billion to Google spending on Motorola amounts to almost two years worth of Search company profits. No company--not even Google--can throw around these kinds of cash without devising a direct return on its investment "

"According to a source who has seen internal HP reports that Best Buy has taken delivery of 270,000 touch pads and has so far managed to sell only 25,000 or less than 10 percent of units in its inventory.

Microsoft is finally ready to talk about Windows 8. Here is the new official blog.

You can follow the guardian technology's linkbucket on delicious

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Superfast broadband gets ready to go the UK-wide

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The government wants all 25m UK homes to have access to a minimum speed of 2Mbps and has a £530m fund for broadband-starved communities. Yoav Levy/Alamy

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will fire the starting gun on the race to turn Britain's internet "not spots" into hot spots this week by allocating a £530m fund for broadband-starved communities. Cornish fishing villages, Welsh valleys and Cumbrian farmsteads will all have access to high-speed internet within four years if telecoms companies add their money to the state pot and consumers show interest.

Hunt is expected to announce how the money, diverted from the BBC to create a digital Britain, will be shared among 40 areas including English councils, Scotland and Northern Ireland. A further £300m has been promised after 2015.

The government wants all 25m UK homes to have access to a minimum speed of 2Mbps (megabits per second), which would mean that reading web pages, making Skype phone calls or watching TV catch-up services, such as the BBC's iPlayer, will all be possible from the most remote cottage. If all goes to plan, 90% of homes will be able to get even faster speeds of over 24Mbps, enough for several computers to download video simultaneously on a single line.

The BT Group has already promised to spend its own money getting superfast, fibre-optic broadband to two thirds of households by 2015, without government help. This will cover the towns and cities, where BT can quickly recoup its £2.5bn investment. Getting broadband to those villages and valleys will be less economical, however, with lines having to stretch longer distances to reach fewer people. So will the two tranches of public subsidy, totalling £830m, be enough to reach the final third?

Where BT wins council contracts backed by the government, it is offering to match the money and it expects councils to as well, by securing other subsidies, so that just under £2.5bn should be available for the final third. The BT executive responsible for leading 19,000 engineers in building what will be the UK's largest fibre network is Olivia Garfield, chief executive of its Openreach division, which rents out BT's network to other internet providers such as BSkyB and TalkTalk. She believes universal broadband access can be achieved, but only if a mix of technologies and every available resource is used, from telegraph poles to mobile phone masts and Virgin Media's cable network – which unlike BT's infrastructure is currently off-limits to rival companies.

"It's whether you believe that the most important thing is to roll out fibre at speed in the UK to help recover from economic recession," says Garfield.

The problem is that even in neighbourhoods where BT does not have to dig up the road to lay fibre, because it already has ducts carrying its copper wires, many of those ducts are blocked or broken. If those ducts happen to serve one of the 12m homes where Virgin Media has cables, Garfield says BT will not lay its own fibre. This means many homes will have only one choice of high-speed internet supplier, which in turn threatens higher bills.

Allaying fears that Hunt's announcement will not go far enough, some regions are ensuring that government subsidy will not have to cover every rural area in the UK. Cornwall has already raised £132m to reach up to 90% of homes by 2014. BT is building the network and providing £79m of the funding, the rest is coming from Europe. Northern Ireland is well on its way, also with BT. Some smaller areas, such as the Angus Glens, have attempted to go it alone (see box).

But there are dangers for those who decide to build without BT. Hull is one of the few areas in the UK where the phone network has always been owned by the council, not BT, and broadband penetration there is lower than the national average.

For an internet service provider such as TalkTalk or BSkyB to link in to the local network requires an outlay for equipment and software, and a separate negotiation over price. Many prefer the simplicity of dealing with one network nationally, which means BT.

Of the government's £530m pot, around £150m has already been committed to Wales and a number of English counties including Wiltshire, Norfolk, North Yorkshire and Cumbria. A further 40 areas, as well as Northern Ireland and Scotland, are likely to hear this week how much they will be allocated.

BT is not guaranteed to win all the new contracts. Fujitsu, the Japanese electronics firm, has offered to reach 5m homes in three to five years, if it beats BT to secure around £500m in government subsidy. Both BT and Fujitsu will be hoping that councils club together to appoint one main contractor, allowing for economies of scale. Declaring his interest earlier this year, Fujitsu managing director of network solutions Andy Stevenson said: "We don't want to end up with 40 fragmented networks so it makes sense for regions to come together." However, fibre cannot reach everywhere. Tim Watkins, head of sales for western Europe at Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, which would like to supply equipment for the network, says the final 10% will be reached by a combination of satellite and mobile phone masts. "If you want to deliver high-speed broadband services to rural areas with six farmers, it's never going to be achieved with just fibre."

But carriers will have to take a mature approach and agree to share equipment in remote locations. Broadband expert Ian Watt at Enders Analysis believes the government funds will only get broadband to three-quarters of homes. "It's more likely that high-speed broadband will be available to the centre of the village, for example to a school, library or post office. We don't see the subsidy being enough to get it to everyone."

Garfield doesn't claim to know what will trigger demand, but believes it will come. "There is evidence that once you have access to it, the minute you've seen the new world, you would never go back. So, I don't believe there is a lack of desire, but it is a premium product, it will never be the de facto normal product," she says. Speed can be addictive. It is also of the essence if the government's dream of creating Europe's first extensive fibre network by 2015 is to become a reality.

Nestling at the foot of the Cairngorm mountains on the east coast of Scotland, the inhabitants of the Angus Glens tend to make their living from hill farming and gamekeeping. But some commute to Dundee, where hi-tech industries, like biotechnology and computer games, are among the biggest employers. With 2,400 properties across a 500 mile area, and the more remote telephone exchanges serving fewer than 100 lines, there is little likelihood of BT or another major carrier building a fibre broadband network.

When lecturer Geoff Hobson moved to the area in 2007, he concluded that if the Glens wanted a fibre network, they would have to install it themselves. The Angus Broadband Co-operative was created to raise money and provide a community ownership model. The need for better broadband infrastructure is acute. A survey last year showed that 9% of properties had no internet connection at all, while 5% had only a dial-up service. Three quarters had fixed-line broadband but of those 67% reported speeds lower than 2Mbps, the minimum needed to allow quality home working. Meanwhile, a third of local homes are used for some form of business activity.Hobson says: "If you try watching a programme online it can just give up, particularly when it's busy in the evening." With two school age children, the family's need for bandwidth will only increase.

A nearby hill farmer, whose wife is disabled, has to shop online, and her husband needs the internet to fill in government forms. But they have only dial-up access, which means no phone calls while they are using the web.

Another neighbour, a games developer who works from home, has to shuttle to and from the office with CD-Roms because he cannot send material online.

"We decided to going for a fibre network because it would be future-proof. We got some funding and drew up a plan for how to lay the cables: £9.5m is the lowest quote so far. We weren't expecting such a large figure," says Hobson. The Co-operative has approached BT about sharing its ducts, which would bring down the cost. "They appear very helpful when you have meetings and run out to be very unhelpful when they send a written response."

Hobson is waiting to hear whether his area will be included in an east of Scotland bid for government subsidy.

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Liberal Democrats signal opposition to restrictions on social media networks

David Cameron said users of social media networks like Twitter could have their access to services blocked. Photo: Jonathan Hordle/Rex features

The Liberal Democrats to oppose David Cameron's proposals that people suspected of inciting violence during social unrest could be banned from social media network.

Tabled an amendment to the party's autumn Conference, that if voted through, would put pressure on the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, to withstand Cameron's plan.

Signs of increased tension between the coalition partners appeared acting police Metropolitan Commissioner Tim Godwin, told the Home Affairs Select Committee Tuesday that he had considered asking the authorities to turn off social media networks.

He said he had considered steps, because, although they were often a source of information that Web sites could also be misleading.

Details about Conference amendment came as Clegg tried to propose its own policy response to the unrest, with the different philosophies coalition parties begin to come into the foreground.

Tuesday morning, he announced a "riot payback" scheme to make the looters and arsonists are confronted with their victims, along with support to help EX-offenders to find jobs.

The scheme would mean looters performs community service in riot-hit neighborhoods.

They have to wear orange clothing to make them visible, and money is provided to enable the victims who want to do this is to confront the people who burned their homes or plundered their businesses last week.

The announcement put some of the policies, including checks on social media networks, the section object by Cameron in the wake of the riots.

Differences between the coalition partners surfaced over the weekend as senior Lib Dems urged to "kneejerk" reaction by politicians. The party's deputy leader, Simon Hughes, insisted long-term solutions lay in supporting communities by providing opportunities and redistributing wealth, not undermine assistance from the State.

In the past, Cameron has made positive and liberating effect social liberating media can be central to his vision of the "post-bureaucratic age".

Texts and BlackBerry Mobile Messenger was critical in planning the riots and, in last week's recall of Parliament, the Prime Minister said users of social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger, could have their access to services blocked.

He said he had instructed the intelligence services and police to investigate whether it was "right and possible" to intercept them "to plot violence, disorder and crime".

On Monday welcomed the Chinese Government official news agency Xinhua, proposal, saying it marked an improvement from Cameron's comments in February.

He was then invited to Egypt and other North African Nations to allow freedom of expression after they attempted to restrict the use of social media.

Xinhua said: "for the benefit of the public, proper web monitoring is legitimate and necessary.

"We can ask why Western leaders, on the one hand, tend to indiscriminately accuse other Nations in the monitoring, but on the other, take for granted their steps to monitor and control internet".

Evan Harris, Vice-President of the Lib Dems ruling Federal Policy Committee, will propose an amendment at the party gathering.

By this spring conference was a vote on a Lib Dem amendment a u-turn on NHS policy as Clegg came under pressure in order to reflect the Lib Dem grassroots views.

The amendment, entitled "protection of the essential freedom of the Internet", calls for "additional guarantees for online freedom of expression be in place".

It reads: "oppose additional powers to the police or the Government to restrict access to the Internet or to social media or to order its suspension.

"[We must] makes it clear that the Government will not allow a two-tier internet, and will keep the principle of net neutrality, possibly through regulation."

The amendment is likely to get wide support. On Monday wrote backbencher Julian Huppert also against blocking any contemplation to close social network.

He said: "some people in this House and elsewhere has chosen to focus on the use of social media in these riots. And David Cameron has responded by announcing a revision designed to examine whether it would be right and possible to turn off social networks or services in the mobile phone during times of unrest.

"Even if we look at these riots in isolation – always a dangerous approach to policy formulation — the idea that we should prevent communication via these networks is obviously ridiculous.

"The brilliant response to the riots on Facebook, Twitter and the wider internet, embodied most clearly by site Riot Clean-Up, has arguably done more to bring communities together than anything else.

"There is little evidence to suggest this is a problem that needs to be tackled, and even the Government appears to give serious consideration to curb freedom of expression-message in a way that would make it much harder for the good things that have come from this unrest either to continue or to happen again.

"This authoritarian knee-jerkery is a reminder of the bad old days. Those who cherish freedom, of all parties and none, must now defend these important new forms of communication. "

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