How Google's stealth support is buoying Samsung in Apple fight

(Credit: CNET)

Google may have kept a low profile amid the legal clashing between Samsung Electronics and Apple, but the company hasn't abandoned its Android partners.

Rather, Google has been quietly lending support, coordinating with Samsung over legal strategies, providing advice, doing extra legwork, and searching for prior evidence, CNET has learned from people familiar with the situation. Last month, Google asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to intervene on HTC's behalf in its case against Nokia. In addition, many of the companies that rely on Google's Android operating system to power their handsets, coincidentally or not, have tapped Google's law firm of choice.

The steps Google has taken to aid its allies illustrate the tenuous line the company walks as Apple wages war against many of them. Though Google and its Android platform have a vested interest in Google partners succeeding, the company has yet to directly take on Apple itself.

Google bolsters voice search app for iPhone

Google Inc showed off enhancements to its voice-based search technology for Apple Inc's iPhone and said it was testing a new service that will combine its Web-based email with its search engine. The new version of Google's search app for the iPhone and iPad, expected to be available

within a few days, will let users find information about everything from the weather to nearby movie showings by speaking into the devices, matching some of the capabilities offered by Apple's own Siri technology.

Google's new app recites answers to search results in a human sounding voice, similar to Apple's Siri, which some analysts and technology observers believe could make iPhone users less reliant on Google's search service.

Lenovo reportedly working on a convertible Windows RT tablet

Lenovo appears to be the latest hardware manufacturer working on an ARM-based Windows RT tablet. The Wall Street Journal reports that Lenovo has teamed up with Nvidia to create its Windows RT device and the publication hints that it will be a convertible one "with a keyboard that flips around to turn the product into a tablet." Previous reports revealed that Microsoft has been working with a variety of chipmakers and OEMs to limit variations based on chipset and device manufacturer partnerships. Nvidia has reportedly partnered with Lenovo in this regard, providing its ARM-based chip to the Chinese PC giant.

iPhone 4S gets $50 price cut

Deal of the Day, it is not

Fruity inventor of rounded rectangles, Apple, is taking the unusual step of cutting iPhone prices ahead of the iPhone 5 launch.

Previously Apple did not bother with cutting iPhone prices until the next model came online, with the exception of the original iPhone in 2007, which got a $100 price cut just a few weeks after launch.

However, Apple is now telling its retail stores that they can offer $49 discounts on the iPhone 4S, but the company is not saying much and it is unclear whether the cut will extend to all stores in all markets.

The price cut is probably aimed to coincide with the back-to-school shopping season and it could boost iPhone 4S sales until the new 5-series starts shipping.

Quite a few carriers and retail outlets in the US offered similar discounts this summer, but European consumers were not as lucky, although Amazon Germany dropped the price of the 4S 16GB model to €529 earlier this week.

Samsung Defeats Apple Bid For Sanctions Over Evidence

Thursday saw plenty of speculation about exactly what Samsung is launching at the media event it has arranged for German consumer electronics show IFA, and now the company has come clean and confirmed it will unveil the next version of the Galaxy Note ‘phablet’ on August 29 at the event.

A company spokesperson told Reuters:

We plan to unveil the next Galaxy Note at the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event in Berlin on August 29.

While the comment doesn’t win any records for insight, it does confirm rumours that began when the firm distributed invitations to an event scheduled to take place at IFA, which has traditionally been a launchpad for a number of tech industry players.

Among the action last year, the show saw HTC unveil its Windows Phone-based Titan and Radar. Samsung itself unveiled three new phones at IFA 2011, including its first Galaxy Note – which passed 7 million sales this June.

The timing of the launch of the next generation model is particularly interesting. Apple is heavily speculated to introduce its next generation iPhone on September 12, just two weeks later, and that may (or may not) include a smaller iPad device – a possible rival to the Note.

Interestingly, rumours suggest that the new note could be slightly larger — at 5.5-inches — with improvements made to the camera and a faster processor on board.

While Samsung has a history of IFA product launches, the late August timing is teasingly close to Apple’s speculated date. Deliberate or otherwise, that impending iPhone launch will give a little extra spice to the Korean firm’s plans.

Samsung is the world’s top smartphone seller and posted record quarterly profits of $5.9 billion last month. Its newly-released Galaxy S III smartphone has made an impressive start to life, selling 10 million units within its first six weeks, as it begins delivering on its promise to challenge Apple’s iPhone.


[Source: thenextweb]

Google Creates Interactive Visual About Small Arms Trade

Google has created an interactive visualization that shows patterns and trends in imports and exports of small arms and ammunition across the world, which it says is an $8.5 billion industry.

The graphic, which Google built using the open source WebGL Globe on Google’s Chrome Experiments site, shows the earth with fiery lines that indicate countries' imports and exports of ammunition and small arms, such as revolvers, assault rifles, and light machine guns. The United States is white hot with activity—in 2010 it imported $995,769,657 and exported $606,577,243 worth of munitions. That’s up from $272,612,334 and $455,520,281, respectively, in 1992.

The visualization is interactive in that you can manipulate it and zoom in and out of the globe, click on various countries to change the perspective, and use a timeline at the bottom to see trading patterns over the years.

“You can see, for example, that the scale of the global trade in ammunition rivals the scale of trade in actual weapons, an insight underexplored by policymakers today in conflict prevention and resolution,” writes Scott Carpenter, deputy director of Google Ideas, in a recent post on Google’s official blog.

The interactive visualization is part of the Google Ideas initiative on illicit networks and was produced by Google’s Creative Lab team working with the think tank Igarape Institute

Apple Could Sell 40 Million iPad Minis in a Year, Analyst Predicts

If Apple launches the purported iPad Mini, it could sell 40 million of the 7-inch tablet within the first year, an analyst believes.

The iPad Mini could launch at a special event on 12 September, alongside the iPhone 5, according to new speculation. Although Apple has not officially confirmed a launch date, or even the existence of such device, it did reveal that there would be a "fall transition" when speaking at the quarterly earnings call in July.RBC Capital analyst Amit Daryanani sent a research note on Thursday, claiming that Apple's iPad Mini would generate $10 billion in revenue by selling 40 million of the device, adding an extra $1.15 in share profits, reports Forbes. 

Daryanani said in his note that supply-chain commentary indicates a "material ramp-up" as Apple prepares for the autumn launch.

[source: PCWorld]