Sony Ericsson phone models Vivaz Pro, Xperia X10 Mini Pro and Xperia X10 Mini (L-R) displayed at the Mobile World Congress in BarcelonaFebruary 15, 2010 / Reuters

Source: Reuters

Modern mobiles are feature-heavy, internet-savvy, app-packed and now responsible for almost half of the world’s new internet connections.

But plans are afoot to make mobiles even more central in our lives, with exhibitors at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona showing ways phones will become a one-stop hub for social networking, even more portable, and filled with slicker, easier-to-use menus.

Be warned though, there are tough choices to make to invest in your next phone.

Social simplicity

Fragments of our lives are now strewn across the web. Email, tweets, status updates, photo galleries and more all require regular attention, and often more than we have to give.

Phone makers will offer a solution this year, in social networking apps that deliver your friends’ news straight to your phone. Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, HTC and even Microsoft revealed social phone apps last week.

Samsung’s offering, called Social Hub, will be sewn into its Contacts, Calendar and Messaging menus. Once you sign into a Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Gmail or Yahoo Mail account, Social Hub will add your friends’ details to their contact listings, including a recent photo. Select a contact and it will show their most recent online updates, from status messages to tweets.

The phone’s calendar will show Facebook events and let you send party invitations.

Social Hub will be included in Samsung’s Wave phone due here mid-year and added to other phones later.

HTC announced Friend Feed, delivering Twitter, Facebook and Picasa updates on one screen, eliminating several website visits. It will feature in the company’s two new Google phones, the HTC Legend and the Desire due in Australia in April.

Microsoft’s new Windows Phone Series 7 will also offer social feeds, pushing Facebook and Windows Live updates on to its screens, and Sony Ericsson will add a Timescape app to its phones.

Motorola added the Motoblur social networking app to its new touchscreen Quench phone.

Mini mobiles

Mobile phones have put on weight recently, with some touchscreen models bigger than the average hand. But miniature mobiles are back, revealed by HTC, Sony Ericsson and LG at the show.

Sony Ericsson’s two mini Google phones were perhaps the most extreme versions of tech shrinkage, being smaller than a credit card and weighing less than 100g. The Xperia X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro are full-function phones despite their size, offering Google Android apps, a 5-megapixel camera, navigation and, in the Pro, a slide-out keyboard.

LG’s Mini is the smallest and slimmest 3.2-inch touchscreen phone. At only 1cm thin and 92g, it fits comfortably in a pocket despite its 5-megapixel camera and fast internet connection. HTC also revealed a diminutive version of its largest phone, the HD2.

Software wars

Think choosing an operating system for your computer is difficult? You must do the same for your mobile phone amid fiercer competition.

Google’s Android phone software dominated Mobile World Congress, appearing on future releases from Acer, LG, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola.

More than 60,000 Google phones are shipping each day.

Mic rosof t fuel led that competition with its launch of Windows Phone Series 7, its new software due to arrive before Christmas this year.

The software offers a strikingly different look for Windows phones, with photo-filled menus, Live Tiles with updated web information, and graphical menus called Hubs.

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) — Google is being scrutinized by European antitrust officials, who have notified the Internet search giant that three companies have complained about its practices.

The European Commission is investigating complaints made by Ciao! from Bing, which is a unit of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500); UK price comparison site Foundem; and French legal search engine ejustice.fr, Google said.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), which revealed the inquiry in a post on an official company blog early Wednesday, said that given its growth, it wasn’t surprised its search and search advertising practices were being examined.

“This kind of scrutiny goes with the territory when you are a large company,” senior competition counsel Julia Holtz said on the company’s European Public Policy blog.

She said that Google will provide information on the complaints and said that the company is confident its business operates in line with European competition law.

Color astronomers surprised.

Newly released Hubble Space Telescope photos show the distant one-time planet — demoted to “dwarf planet” status in 2006 — is changing color and its ice sheets are shifting.

The photos, released by NASA Thursday, paint a Pluto that is significantly redder than it had been for the past several decades. To the layman, it has a yellow-orange hue, but astronomers say it has about 20 percent more red than it used to have.

The pictures show icy frozen nitrogen on Pluto’s surface growing and shrinking, brightening in the north and darkening in the south. Astronomers say Pluto’s surface is changing more than the surfaces of other bodies in the solar system. That’s unexpected because a season lasts 120 years in some regions of Pluto.

“It’s a little bit of a surprise to see these changes happening so big and so fast,” said astronomer Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. “This is unprecedented.”

From 1954 to 2000, Pluto didn’t change in color when it was photographed from Earth. But after that, it did. The red levels increased by 20 percent, maybe up to 30 percent, and stabilized from about 2000 to 2002, Buie said. It’s not as red as Mars, however, Buie said.

Buie said he can explain the redness, but not why it changed so dramatically and so recently. The planet has a lot of methane, which contains carbon and hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen gets stripped off by solar winds and other factors, leaving carbon-rich areas on the surface, which tend to be red and dark.

The Hubble photos were taken in 2002 and the analysis took a few years. But why Pluto changed so quickly was such a mystery that Buie held off for years on announcing what he had found, worried that he might be wrong. However, since Pluto’s moon Charon hadn’t changed color in the same telescope images, he decided the Pluto findings weren’t an instrument mistake.

His analysis also found that nitrogen ice was shifting in size and density in surprising ways. It’s horribly cold on Pluto with, paradoxically, the bright spots being the coldest at about -382 degrees Fahrenheit. Astronomers are still arguing about the temperatures of the warm dark spots, which Buie believes may be 30 degrees warmer than the darker areas.

Part of the difficulty in figuring out what is going on with Pluto is that it takes the dwarf planet 248 years to circle the sun, so astronomers don’t know what conditions are like when it’s is farthest from the sun. The last time Pluto was at its farthest point was in 1870, which was decades before Pluto was discovered. Unlike Earth, Pluto’s four seasons aren’t equal lengths of time.

Buie’s explanation makes sense, said retired NASA astronomer Stephen Maran, co-author of a book on Pluto. “Pluto is interesting and poorly understood, whether it qualifies as a planet or not,” he said.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If you watched the Grammy Awards Sunday night, it would appear all is well in the recording industry. But at the end of last year, the music business was worth half of what it was ten years ago and the decline doesn’t look like it will be slowing anytime soon.

Total revenue from U.S. music sales and licensing plunged to $6.3 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research. In 1999, that revenue figure topped $14.6 billion.

Although the Recording Industry Association of America will report its official figures in the early spring, the trend has been very clear: RIAA has reported declining revenue in nine of the past 10 years, with album sales falling an average of 8% each year. Last decade was the first ever in which sales were lower going out than coming in.

“There have been a lot of changes over the past 10 years,” said Joshua Friedlander, vice president of research at RIAA. “The industry is adapting to consumer’s demands of how they listen to music, when and where, and we’ve had some growing pains in terms of monetizing those changes.”

The two recessions during the decade certainly didn’t help music sales. It’s also a bit unfair to compare the 2000s with the 1990s, since the ’90s enjoyed an unnatural sales boost when consumers replaced their cassette tapes and vinyl records en masse with CDs.

But industry insiders and experts argue that the main culprit for the industry’s massive decline was the growing popularity of digital music.

“The digital music business has been a war of attrition that nobody seems to be winning,” said David Goldberg, the former head of Yahoo music. “The CD is still disappearing, and nothing is replacing it in entirety as a revenue generator.”

The battle for paying digital customers may have been lost before it had truly begun. In 1999, Napster, a free online file-sharing service, made its debut. Not only did Napster help change the way most people got music, it also lowered the price point from $14 for a CD to free.

“It’s pretty easy to give away something for free,” said Russell Frackman, the lead attorney for the music industry in its 1999 case against Napster. “It’s not that the music industry thought the technology was bad, it just objected to the use to which it was being put.”

Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iTunes is credited with finally getting people to pay for digital music, but it wasn’t unveiled until 2003.

In the time between Napster’s shuttering and iTunes’ debut, many of Napster’s 60 million users found other online file sharing techniques to get music for free. Even after iTunes got people buying music tracks for just 99 cents, it wasn’t as attractive as free.

“That four-year lag is where the music industry lost the battle,” said Sonal Gandhi, music analyst with Forrester Research. “They lost an opportunity to take consumers’ new behavior and really monetize it in a way that nipped the free music expectation in the bud.”

Now just 44% of U.S. Internet users and 64% of Americans who buy digital music think that that music is worth paying for, according to Forrester. The volume of unauthorized downloads continues to represent about 90% of the market, according to online download tracker BigChampagne Media Measurement.

“People will steal music regardless, so it’s not worth trying to fight against something where the fight’s already over,” said Dan Ingala, founder and lead singer of the band Plushgun.

When Plushgun released its album “Pins and Panzers,” it was the most downloaded album on the popular peer-to-peer Web site What.cd with 100,000 illegal downloads.

“That’s 100,000 CDs we would have sold,” said Ingala. “At the same time, it’s helping us create an audience. It’s just a matter of adjusting.”

The problem for the music industry may actually be its greatest opportunity. Despite the great decline in sales, the Internet has exposed consumers to more music than ever before. But that accessibility has been difficult to monetize.

The music industry has tried to keep up by licensing ringtones, licensing music on popular Internet radio stations like MySpace Music and Pandora and licensing music videos on YouTube. Digital licensing revenue reached $84 million in 2009, and it is expected to grow substantially in the coming year. (See correction below.)

Licensing fees don’t make up for the volume of total lost sales, but Gandhi says the fact that the music industry is finally embracing these new technologies and revenue streams means the industry is finally getting it.

She said the combined effect of interactive multimedia, a growth in digital licensing and services such as Lala, which was bought by Apple in December, will ultimately help give sales a boost.

“The industry is actively doing a lot of things that are putting us back on the right path,” said RIAA’s Friedlander. “We’re switching to an access model from a purchase model.”

Forrester forecasts music industry revenues will continue to decline until it reaches about $5.5 billion a year by 2014, as new revenue sources begin to lift sales again.

Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly reported the figure for digital licensing revenue as $84 billion when it should have been $84 million. 

“AT&T is providing the service,” Jobs announced, as murmurs ran around the room. “AT&T is throwing in free use of their Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.S. with this. No contract. And you can cancel anytime.”

But where was Verizon? I thought it would be both carriers. As I reported before the event, Verizon appeared to be on board and was even working out the final details of the partnership. While refusing to comment on the Apple tablet, Verizon spokesman Jeff Nelson said last week that the company’s network was built with these “types of devices” in mind — a clear slap at AT&T’s network, which Apple was forced to defend in its quarterly conference call last Monday.

What happened to cause this rift in the space/time continuum? According to sources at Verizon, the company is more interested in the lucrative iPhone contracts. But the two companies are still “very much talking and plan to bring an iPhone and an iPad” to the CDMA network this year, following the expiration of AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple.

Still talking? These guys have been talking since 2006 before the launch of the first iPhone! Stop talking already and consummate the darn relationship — or walk away. When asked for comment about these on-going talks, Verizon spokesman Jeff Nelson said, “no comment,” so officially the company isn’t talking about the talks.

Of course “still talking” doesn’t mean anything. It would be ridiculous to think these companies aren’t still talking: that’s what big companies do. To be fair, these talks are very much in keeping with reports from Wall Street analysts who expect some Apple/Verizon partnership announcement this year. But I’ll believe it when I see it.

Technology strategist Michael Gartenberg thinks it isn’t coming any time soon, however, noting that even Verizon has acknowledged that its existing CDMA network architecture is obsolete. “Once Verizon moves to LTE, which is a next-generation wireless tech, it would make a lot more sense for Apple to partner.”

Even if Verizon gets the iPhone or the iPad, it doesn’t look as though AT&T will be going anywhere. A deal will just mean more choices for consumers.

According to my sources, AT&T was able to outbid every other GSM carrier with a $14.99 or $29.99 plan that gives customers 250MB or unlimited data, respectively.

I asked AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel if his company outbid T-Mobile and Sprint. He refused to comment, noting only that “we’re very happy that Apple selected AT&T to be the main carrier partner on the iPad.”

I must say I am impressed with AT&T’s iPad data pricing structure — and I wasn’t alone given the amount of applause during the Apple event.

“I think the pricing speaks for itself,” said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. “Apple sets the price for these plans and the $29.99 unlimited plan is comparable to our data plans for other devices.”

Comparable? Actually AT&T brought its A game, offering much cheaper options for consumers than currently exist for netbooks. Consider the following plans:

HP Mini 110 — $60 for 5GB of monthly usage, or $35 for 200MB per month

Acer Aspire One — $60 for 5GB of monthly usage, or $35 for 200MB per month

Apple iPad — $29.99 for unlimited data and $14.99 for 250MB per month, with no contract, and you can cancel anytime

I’m no math wizard, but those numbers are clearly different.

To be honest I don’t know that I care about a Verizon iPhone/iPad given AT&T’s massive investment in building a more robust 3G network. Besides, speed tests by Engadget and others repeatedly show it has a faster network than Verizon, and reports last week indicated that AT&T is closing the gap on dropped calls.

In fairness, my iPhone dropped a few calls in San Francisco last week prior to the Apple event, and I had a difficult time sending text messages over AT&T’s data network.

Ironically, journalists at last week’s congested Apple event reported that Verizon’s network screeched to a halt. I was able to send photos and video from my iPhone back to Fox over AT&T’s 3G network without a problem, while Verizon Mi-Fi cards around me were unusable. One journalist remarked “I couldn’t even send an e-mail on Verizon.”

With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching maybe we’ll finally get some closure on this thorny relationship one way or the other. But until then, the talking continues.

The tablet PC the world had waited for since whispers about a “Kindle rival” emerged in May last year was unveiled yesterday to the usual extravagant media fanfare, with trademark beskivvied Jobs and giant screen treatment.

Yet within hours of introducing the world to the “game-changing” iPad, the vast majority of reviews and consumer feedback was homing in on what it didn’t do, as opposed to what it did.

It seems the iPad has almost none of the wow-factor of Apple’s previous launches, the iPhone and iPod – devices that undoubtably changed the way the world communicated.

Instead, tech writers and Apple fanboys and girls were left to fight it out over how a machine quickly coined as a “giant iPhone” was the next big leap forward for the iconic Californian company.

And as a list of iPad pitfalls quickly coalesced and spread through the internet community, Apple shares reacted, dropping 3.5 per cent after gaining one per cent just prior to the launch.

In contrast, Amazon – the manufacturer of the Kindle, iPad’s main e-book competitior – gained one per cent.

In Australia, opinion was guarded, mainly because the details of what version would be shipped out and at what cost were hazy at best.

If it mirrored the iPhone’s launch, Australians would be more inclined to wait for the 3G version, which could be up to six months away and will cost substantially more (close to $700) than the wifi version expected to arrive in April ($560).

There’s also some concern that Australians won’t be able to access content from Apple’s iBook store – at least until the end of the year.

But aside from local worries, the consensus among the iPad’s detractors centred on:

The display – the iPad’s backlit LCD screen is too bright for extended e-book reading.

Battery life - At 10 hours, it’s ahead of any netbook, but still a good 20 or 30 hours behind any e-book on the market.

Security - If your iPad gets stolen, there’s apparently no way to remotely lock it.

Apps lock-out – The iPad only runs apps from Apple’s App Store. Which is a lot of apps, admittedly, but not everyone’s happy about Apple’s inconsistency when it come to what apps it allows for sale.

Camera - There isn’t one.

USB input - There isn’t any. At least, not without an adapter.

No Flash - Without Flash, forget about displaying around the majority of internet content the way you could on a netbook or laptop.

Multitasking - Is impossible on the iPad, which means you can only use one application at a time, reducing its functionality as a work computer to little more than a large iPhone.

No HDMI - So you won’t be sitting back to watch any movies you download from iTunes on your TV.

Obviously, it’s the first look from Apple at what is essentially a first generation machine, despite the fact that tablet computers have been around for a decade, so users can expect at least several of the iPad’s perceived shortcomings to be rectified in one way or another over the next 12 months.

Jobs is relying on that faith amongst his consumer base to push sales of the iPad up to two million in 2010.

Yet market analysts says the low pricing could see that figure come in from anywhere between 1.1 million and seven million, and that’s probably as good an indication as any of just how poorly the normally PR-savvy Jobs has failed to convince the world about the merits of his new toy.

But now it seems that Twitter, the internet upstart of last year, may have reached its peak.

New web figures showed the number of visitors to the micro-blogging site worldwide flattened out in the later part of 2009, and even fell in October and December.

So with celebrities such as Stephen Fry, Lily Allen, Miley Cyrus and Ricky Gervais all abandoning the site, is the Twitter trend over?

At the end of 2008, Nielsen tracking company figures show there were 3,914,000 unique users on the Twitter website.

By September last year, that had leapt to an astonishing 49,393,000.

However, over the next few months, global figures fluctuated falling in October, rising in November, and falling again in December to 36,208,000.

The numbers are not necessarily proof that the world has fallen out of love with Twitter yet.

Nielsen analyst Alex Burmanster said traffic tended to fall for all websites except retail in November and December.

He also warned many people who used Twitter accessed it from third-party websites – something which does have the potential to impact the figures, although that impact was not believed to be large.

“Although less people are visiting the official Twitter site, some of the applications that feed into the Twitter community have been seeing significant increases in popularity, notably services like Tweetmeme, Tweetphoto and Tumblr,” Mr Burmanster said.

“For example, in December 2009, over 20 per cent of Americans who visited Twitpic . . . didn’t go on the Twitter site.”

The Virgin Atlantic boss hopes the submarine with fighter jet technology will explore uncharted depths at 10,600m.

The £415,000 ($749,000) carbon fibre prototype Necker Nymph will swoop 40m under the surface but Sir Richard, 59, is building a stronger version to go deeper than any sub has ever been.

Sir Richard said: “It is very similar to an airplane flying in the sea. You can literally do loop-the-loops.”

It could eventually reach the Mariana Trench, believed to be the world’s lowest spot in the Pacific Ocean.

US company Hawkes built the 5m “winged” sub which has three 360-degree view cockpits and is steered like a plane with a joystick.

Film director James Cameron used one of their subs to look for underwater inspiration for his 3D blockbuster Avatar.

Sir Richard, who last month unveiled the world’s first commercial spaceship, told The Sun the sub will be based at his private Necker Island.

He plans to use it to take holidaymakers on underwater trips.

He said: “We hope to have submarines dotted throughout the world.

“A pressurised submarine is nearly completed. But the real challenge is to explore what’s going on at the bottom of the oceans.”

Read more at The Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2829637/Richard-Branson-unveils-Virgins-underwater-plane.html#ixzz0dzC07Ob7