Tag Archives: mozilla

Start up: damn internet fridges!, getting hacked, the coming phone shakeout, PGP doubts over “Satoshi”, and more

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This was when the fridge calendar worked. Photo by Kaeru on Flickr.

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A selection of 10 links for you. Use them wisely. I’m charlesarthur on Twitter. Observations and links welcome.

The joy of getting hacked » Waxy.org

Andy Baio:

A quick ‘top’ revealed that MySQL was pegging the CPU, so I logged into the MySQL console and saw that a dump of the database was being written out to a file. This was very unusual: I never schedule database backups in the middle of the day, and it was using a different MySQL user to make the dumps.

Then I noticed where the mysqldump was being written to: the directory for a theme from a WordPress installation I’d set up the previous month, an experiment to finally migrate this blog off of MovableType.

This set off all my alarms. I immediately shut down Apache and MySQL, cutting off the culprit before they could download the dumped data or do any serious damage.

I’d recently updated to the latest WordPress beta, and saw that the functions.php file in the twentysixteen theme directory was replaced with hastily-obfuscated PHP allowing arbitrary commands to be run on my server through the browser.

I’ve had this sort of experience in the past – also with WordPress. It’s a total pain.

Baio points out though that the real weakness was probably not WordPress, but PhPMyAdmin, which is even worse in terms of security vulnerabilities. If you’re running it, delete it.
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China’s hippest smartphone maker warns shakeout will get worse » Bloomberg Business

Shai Oster:

OnePlus, based in Shenzhen, is aiming for similar glory. After originally requiring customers to get an invitation before buying a phone, OnePlus is dropping that approach to broaden its appeal and raise its brand awareness in the U.S., Europe and India. The company says it earned $300m selling nearly 1m phones last year, but won’t reveal figures for this year.

Sales have increased to about 1.3m units worldwide in the first nine months of this year, with 57% sold in the Asia Pacific region, according to Jensen Ooi, an analyst at IDC Corp.

“2016 is the year that a lot of people will be exposed to OnePlus,” Pei said, adding that the company is spending money on promotions like a pop-up store in New York’s Times Square to advertise their brand.

The trouble is that almost no one is making money in smartphones these days except Apple. That company alone gobbles up some 90% of industry profits.

“No one is going to get rich off smartphones in the short term,” he said.

OnePlus is probably making more money than HTC.
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November 2014: Can’t sign in to Google calendar on my Samsung refrigerator » Google Product Forums

Kris Spencer (apparently):

I have a Samsung RF4289HARS refrigerator.  The Google calendar app on it has been working perfectly since I purchased the refrigerator August 2012.  However, with the latest changes in Google Calendar API, I can no longer sign in to my calendar.  I receive a message stating ” Please check your email in Google Calendar website”.  I can sign in fine on my home PC and have no problem seeing the calendar on my phone.  Perhaps this is a Samsung issue, but I thought I would try here first.  Has anyone else experienced this problem and what was the solution?

Yes, other people certainly had experienced this problem. The solution? Er.. well, here’s a post from 18 November 2015:

After 2 years, I still cannot access my Calendar on my Samsung HRS4289……It says cannot connect to the server. I just got done with Samsung and they say, if it needs a software update, it will ‘come’…..that’s a freaking joke. I have software 2.550 loaded……Is there something I need to do to reestablish my calendar??…..this is so ridiculous. I’m more of a yahoo person and not really too familiar with google calendar except I did have it up and running…Ii do have a google calendar account….and it should be talking. Please be specific if there’s something I need to do. I’d really appreciate it. Very frustrating.

Anyhow, do tell me more about your plans to build an internet fridge – the ultimate zombie product.
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Satoshi’s PGP keys are probably backdated and point to a hoax » Motherboard

Sarah Jeong:

there’s one really big problem with the case for Craig S. Wright as Satoshi: at least one of the key pieces of evidence appears to be fake. The “Satoshi” PGP keys associated with the Wired and Gizmodo stories were probably generated after 2009 and uploaded after 2011.

We say keys, because there are two entirely different keys implicated by Wired and by Gizmodo. And neither of them check out.

There is only one PGP key that is truly known to be associated with Satoshi Nakamoto. We’ll call this the Original Key.

Before we continue, we should note that the PGP keys are just one piece of the puzzle. When asked for comment, Gizmodo editor Katie Drummond said that the keys “are just one (relatively small) data point among many others, including in-person interviews and on-the-record corroboration.”

But the keys are important because they’re not just plain suspicious, there’s evidence of active, intentional deception with respect to the keys. (Wired’s Andy Greenberg pointed out that this was already in line with their article, which notes that Wright may have engaged in an elaborate, long-running deception).

Urgh. So much work, and a detail like this seems to sink it (although read on; key creation dates can be faked). The element that made me (as a journalist) wonder about the original story was that the details were leaked by someone who claimed to have “hacked Satoshi”. Really? And yet the characters in the story – far-flung, credible – equally point strongly to it being correct. That sort of detail doesn’t happen coincidentally.

Also, Leah Goodman – who wrote the original “not quite” Satoshi story – says the “hack” was being touted to journalists aggressively this autumn, apparently from a disgruntled employee of the latest “Satoshi”.
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The dangers of setting VR expectations and valuations too high » Forbes

Anshel Sag:

One report by Juniper Research forecasts 30m head-mounted display (HMD) shipments by 2020. That expectation includes a projection that 3m HMDs will ship by 2016 driven by video and gaming use cases. My biggest problem with this projection is that there is no one combination of players that can ship 3m units. Even taking Oculus, Sony, Samsung Electronics , and HTC Valve and all their HMDs [head-mounted displays] into account, the prices and volumes simply won’t be there for 3m units in 2016.

The reality will be much closer to 1 to 2 million units in 2016, and most of those will likely be Samsung Electronics’ Gear VR headsets, since the latest version will be shipping for $99 and be compatible with all of Samsung’s latest high-end phones. Oculus doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity or the price point (around $400-$500) to drive enough volume to help reach 3m units. The same goes for the Vive; they aren’t targeting to make it a high volume product. While we don’t know the price yet, we know it’s going to be more than the Oculus Rift and that will affect volume on its own, not to mention the fact that you need quite a bit of space to set it up. Sony and Samsung are the only two companies that really have the knowhow to potentially ship enough units to hit the million mark.

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The global village and its discomforts — Design Fictions » Medium

Fabien Girardin suggests that new technologies bring their own anxieties with them:

Social network platforms act as an extension of our social practices. Like with any technological extension we are right to be fascinated by its power and scale. However, we too frequently choose to ignore or minimize the ‘amputations’ and implications they produce.

Or as French cultural theorist Paul Virilio would argue: “The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.”

For instance, our capacity to record every moment of our lives comes with the high vulnerability of digital data. In fact, no machine can today read a 15 years old hard drive. It is ironic that we have the technological means to record and share our social lives, yet we all might suffer one day from ‘digital amnesia’.

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Can Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes fend off her critics? » Bloomberg Business

Sheelah Kolhatkar and Caroline Chen:

Theranos isn’t the only diagnostic company to provide scant details on its technology. “The process has been suboptimal across the industry, but now I think we’re at the crossroads,” [John] Ioannidis [professor of medicine at Stanford, and author of a 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”] says. “Theranos caught my attention early on because they had such vibrant media stories. Other companies just don’t make such claims. Today it’s Theranos. Tomorrow it may be another company.” He adds: “If you get the wrong test result, you could go down a path that could really destroy your life.”

Holmes says the company’s era of secrecy is over, and it’s inviting outsiders, including reporters, to try the tests for themselves. (For the record, the finger prick feels like a finger prick.) In December, she says, a group of independent medical experts will spend two days in Theranos’s lab to examine the technology, the data, and the regulatory filings, and can then talk publicly about what they found.

Looking forward to that. It would be fantastic if Theranos actually does have a super-cheap blood test; it could make a vast difference to diagnosis. But are the odds in its favour?
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Focus by Firefox: content blocking for the open web » The Mozilla Blog

Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Mozilla’s chief legal and business officer:

We want to build an Internet that respects users, puts them in control, and creates and maintains trust. Too many users have lost trust and lack meaningful controls over their digital lives. This loss of trust has impacted the ecosystem – sometimes negatively. Content blockers offer a way to rebuild that trust by empowering users. At the same time, it is important that these tools are used to create a healthy, open ecosystem that supports commercial activity, instead of being used to lock down the Web or to discriminate against certain industries or content. That’s why we articulated our three content blocking principles…

…we’ve based a portion of our product on a list provided by our partner Disconnect under the General Public License. We think Disconnect’s public list provides a good starting point that demonstrates the value of open data. It bases its list on a public definition of tracking and publicly identifies any changes it makes to that list, so users and content providers can see and understand the standards it is applying. The fact that those standards are public means that content providers – in this case those that are tracking users – have an opportunity to improve their practices. If they do so, Disconnect has a process in place for content providers to become unblocked, creating an important feedback loop between users and content providers.

Disconnect is the company whose product was banned from Google Play for “interfering with” other apps. Disconnect formally complained in the EU in June, but hasn’t apparently done so with the FTC in the US.
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EU explores whether Google, Yahoo should pay for showing online news snippets » Reuters

Julia Fioretti:

The European Union is looking into whether services such as Google News and Yahoo News should pay to display snippets of news articles, wading into a bitter debate between the online industry and publishers.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, said on Wednesday it will consider whether “any action specific to news aggregators is needed, including intervening on the definition of rights.”

The move came as Brussels unveiled plans to loosen copyright rules in the 28-member bloc in order to allow citizens to watch more content online.

Dubbed the “Google Tax”, making online services pay to display news snippets has sparked fierce opposition from both the tech industry and some publishers.

Can’t see it ending well for those who want payment. It’s like banning people from deep linking: sounds great to people who haven’t used the internet.
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Samsung, Micromax planning to discontinue 2G phones » Times of India

Writankar Mukherjee & Gulveen Aulakh:

Samsung and Micromax, the leading sellers of smartphones in India, are planning to discontinue so-called 2G phones and focus on devices that run on faster 3G and 4G networks as prices have dropped sharply for such handsets in the past year. Then there’s the Reliance Jio effect.

“The focus has shifted to 4G phones with telecom operators launching such services,” said Micromax Informatics chief executive officer Vineet Taneja. “4G models already account for 30% of our portfolio with 14 models and will increase to 20 by March.”

The imminent launch of 4G services by Reliance Jio Infocomm has prompted incumbents Bharti Airtel and Vodafone to launch their own high-speed networks in anticipation of competition. That coupled with falling prices has almost wiped out demand for handsets running on 2G.

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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified.

Start up: now on email!, video adblocking, Toshiba’s PC loss, iOS 9 for enterprise, and more

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This is the hamburger menu you’re looking for. Photo by jpellgen on Flickr.

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You’ll need to click a confirmation link and then it should all roll on. (We’re still ironing out a few bugs in formatting for mobile but otherwise it’s perfect. Ish.)

A selection of 8 links for you. May contain nuts. I’m charlesarthur on Twitter. Observations and links welcome.

Adblockers hit another market: video » Monday Note

Frederic Filloux:

Using its thorough analytics, YouTube was first to understand that viewers should be given the opportunity to skip videos ads. This markedly increased the value of actually viewed clips.

But the damage is done. With ad blockers, the tragedy is that one bad apple contaminates the whole crate. Once installed, the adblocker will indiscriminately eliminate ads from all sites. The few that were willing to preserve a decent user experience were washed away.

Between April and June 2015, SecretMedia, teaming up with with JW Player, reviewed the data from one billion devices in 42 countries. Here, precautions are warranted: SecretMedia, based in New York, sells an anti-adblocking solution for video; its clients are mainly broadcasters. But even though SecretMedia has a vested interest in darkening the picture, its conclusions are consistent with other surveys in the US and Europe.

The point about the bad apple contaminating the crate is key. Oh well, iOS 9 comes out today – and tons of people will begin deploying adblockers. Let’s watch.
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​Mozilla quietly deploys built-in Firebox advertising » ZDNet

Steven Vaughan-Nichols:

Darren Herman, Mozilla’s VP of Content Services, announced in May 2015 that “Suggested Tiles represents an important step for us to improve the state of digital advertising.”

Then, this summer, Mozilla quietly launched Suggested Tiles, the organization’s first commercial ad product. Well, it will be ads. At the moment, Mozilla claims it’s not getting paid for them.

Herman explained, “Since early August, we have been delivering promoted content provided by our first wave of partners including Yahoo, a number of top tier news titles including Fortune Magazine and Quartz, and mission-oriented partners such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.”

Not sure that’s going to be popular.
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Random thoughts on the new Apple TV » Medium

Ouriel Ohayon of Appsfire:

Most apps live out of ads. Most apps are Free. What was not said today is whether TV apps will be able to monetize with ads the same way iphone apps are monetized with ads. This is a big deal not just for monetization but also for discovery. Ads are one of the key channels for discovery and if no native ads are allowed in TV apps then the only way to get discovered is via the TV app store: meaning you have zero chance unless featured by Apple. I doubt Apple will completely ignore that question: Ads on TV can be a huge opportunity (including for iAds). They may not be ready for it just yet.

But what that means for app developers: get ready to suffer to get your free TV app (or paid app) discovered and monetized.

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Toshiba loss on weak TV, PC sales boosts case for revamp » Reuters

Makiko Yamazaki:

Toshiba Corp swung to a first-quarter loss on weak PC and TV sales, raising pressure on its new chief executive to speed up a business revamp in addition to improving governance after a $1.3bn accounting scandal.

The laptops-to-nuclear power conglomerate reported an April-June operating loss of 10.96bn yen ($91m) on Monday compared with a ¥47.7bn profit a year earlier.

Specifically looking at the PC business – which is the one under stress – the Toshiba financials say “The Lifestyle Products & Services segment saw significantly lower sales, reflecting significantly lower sales in the Visual Products business, which includes LCD TVs, and the PC business, due to a shift in focus to redefined sales territories and other factors.
The segment as a whole saw deteriorated operating income (loss), reflecting deteriorated operating income in the PC and Home Appliances businesses.”

Specifically, the PC business shrank from a quarterly ¥169.4bn ($1.4bn) a year ago to ¥116.8bn ($970m) in the April-June period. And to a loss. How long can Toshiba’s PC business carry on?
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Apple makes its biggest push to date into the enterprise » Re/code

Sean Ginevan, sr director of strategy, MobileIron:

With iOS 9, Apple is introducing features that will more easily enable IT to control iOS devices and automate provisioning of software. Using iOS 9, an enterprise can provision apps from the App Store silently, and disallow the user from installing their own applications. The operating system also makes it easier to place devices into supervised mode, which enables capabilities like disabling iMessage and locking device settings, round out the abilities to make an iPad Pro more suited to mission-specific tasks enterprise IT wishes to deploy them for…

…Three features have been introduced in iOS 9 that address that issue [of data going to non-managed devices]. The first allows enterprise IT to decide which applications are “managed,” meaning the data within them is owned by IT. Prior to iOS 9, if a user installed a business app from the App Store, then the app was “unmanaged” and could not interact with enterprise data. The user would have to reinstall the app over again through their corporate app storefront to make it managed. Now, enterprise IT can easily flag which apps are managed and reduce the user intervention required.

Second, iOS 9 provides enhanced controls over AirDrop. Prior to iOS 9, the only way to prevent corporate data from being shared with an unauthorized device was to turn off AirDrop completely. Now, enterprises can configure iOS 9 such that managed applications can’t have their data shared out via AirDrop.

Third, Apple decided that “simple passcodes,” will now require a minimum of six characters when a device with TouchID is enabled.

MobileIron is now up against BlackBerry/Good Technology in aiming to manage enterprise iOS devices.
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Hamburger menu, the most recognizable thing on the planet » DeveloperTown

Randy Fisher:

Using eye tracking software, we ran 25 people through a series of tasks to gather viewing data. We used Google Inbox as the test site, but created two different versions that were presented at random. Version 1 was Inbox exactly as it is currently designed today with a hamburger menu, and Version 2 was another version we created with a horizontal menu of the same main menu choices hidden in the hamburger.

What happened next will [pick from menu above]
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Why tablets are the future of computing » WSJ

Christopher Mims:

Take Intel’s coming line of Skylake chips, which CEO Brian Krzanich has said will enable thinner, lighter notebook PCs with better battery life. All of this will be possible because the chips will be more efficient, with some Skylake chips drawing less than 4½ watts, says IT analyst Patrick Moorhead.
“That power envelope is the first time you can do a fanless device, and fanless means thin,” says Mr. Moorhead. In other words, those svelte, MacBook Air-like “ultrabooks” Intel has been touting have the potential to turn into ultra tablets with detachable keyboards.

These devices won’t just be running Windows, of course, because manufacturers also have plans to sell them with Google’s Chrome operating system and even a version of the Android OS modified to function like a full desktop operating system.

What’s just over the horizon is a weird moment in computing history, when every major desktop and mobile OS, with the notable exception of Mac OS, will be competing on devices with the same ultra tablet form factor. With Windows 10, Microsoft has already blurred the lines between a mobile and a desktop OS, and now Google, Apple and others are following suit.

Arguably it should be “why 2-in-1s are the future of computing”, but it would make the headline unwieldy. Does this mean the Ubuntu Edge idea of a mobile phone you plug into a keyboard/display becomes feasible soon? It seems an idea that comes and goes – some times it’s good (Handspring had a good version in the early 2000s), some times it’s bad (Motorola Atrix).
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Notebook retailers in Europe having difficulty clearing inventory » Digitimes

Aaron Lee and Joseph Tsai:

As the year-end holidays approach, the [upstream supply chain] sources are concerned that the retailers may reduce their notebook prices further in order to quickly clear up their inventory, but such a move is expected to greatly impact notebook brand vendors’ profitability and affect overall notebook sales in the second half.

The sources pointed out that brand vendors such as Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have been encouraging their retail partners to stock up since May by offering them high commissions. However, weak demand and Windows 10’s failure to kickstart a PC replacement trend have caused the retailers to suffer from high inventory pileup despite their aggressive promotions.

Acer and Asustek Computer, neither of whom has used the high-commission strategy, are still expected to be affected as the retailers are selling competitors’ notebooks at a much lower price range, forcing the two firms to follow suit or risk losing market shares. Currently, Acer and Asustek take up about 30-40% of Europe’s notebook sales.

Asia Pacific is also seeing weakening notebook demand amid a slowing China economy. The PC market in the US is the only one seeing meaningful growth, but only US-based vendors HP, Dell and Apple will benefit.

I’d guess the “sources” in this story aren’t too far from Asus and Acer.
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Start here: Firefox dumps Google, 50m Lumias?, Galaxy Note v iPhone 6+ screens, Uber accounting, and more

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Search no further for Yahoo if you use Firefox. Well, maybe.

A selection of 11 links for you. Ventilate room thoroughly.

New search strategy for Firefox: promoting choice & innovation >> The Mozilla Blog

Today we are announcing a change to our strategy for Firefox search partnerships.  We are ending our practice of having a single global default search provider. We are adopting a more local and flexible approach to increase choice and innovation on the Web, with new and expanded search partnerships by country:

• United States

Under a new five-year strategic partnership announced today, Yahoo Search will become the default search experience for Firefox in the U.S.
Starting in December, Firefox users will be introduced to a new enhanced Yahoo Search experience that features a clean, modern interface that brings the best of the Web front and center.

Wow. A few days ago I wrote “I’m certain that no matter what price Mozilla demands (it presently gets about 90% of its revenue from Google kickbacks on searches), Google will pay it. Why? Because the cost of losing 20% of the desktop to Microsoft search at once is far greater than the odd millions it shovels Mozilla’s way.” So, that’s me wrong.

It’s not clear yet whether Google dumped Firefox, or Yahoo outbid Google; the latter seems unlikely, unless Google substantially cut its offer from the previous $300m three-year deal. Last time, Microsoft pushed up the bidding up to try to get Bing there; Google outbid it. No doubt the details will emerge in the coming days, or hours. Also unclear: what the default search will be in European countries. (Russia: Yandex; China: Baidu.) Quite a coup for Marissa Mayer, though.

Firefox does have a problem, though: it’s nowhere in mobile, and that’s increasingly where the search volume is. Update: Mozilla tells me that Google will remain the default for now in Europe.

Reaction on Twitter is that people will just switch the default back to Google. There’s sure to be some sort of search volume target in Yahoo’s deal; if too few searches come to Yahoo, Mozilla will lose out financially.

Passenger stuck with $1,171 Wi-Fi bill on Singapore Airlines flight >> WSJ Digits blog

Jeremy Gutsche, chief executive of Toronto-based innovation consultancy Trend Hunter, says he unwittingly accrued the charges on a flight last week from London to Singapore.

Gutsche says he signed up for a 30 megabyte Internet plan, which cost $28.99, and was aware that he would be responsible for data beyond that limit. But he was stunned when he learned upon landing that viewing some 155 pages — mostly checking email and uploading a PowerPoint document — had resulted in $1,142 of overage fees, he said in a blog post and on Twitter.

PowerPoint considered… expensive. (It was about 4MB, Gutsche says.)

Display color accuracy shootout >> Displaymate

Ray Soniera:

Some manufacturers and models provide better color accuracy than others. We have taken the six best mobile displays from our Display Technology Shoot-Out article series over the last year and compared their color accuracies all together side-by-side with detailed and very revealing measurement results. Since we only test the best performing displays to begin with, they were already known to have fairly good color accuracy, so we’ll learn which are the Best of the Best, and the reasons why…
 
But why is color accuracy important? Poor to mediocre color accuracy has been the rule since the dawn of color TVs in the 1950s, and people are also accustomed to seeing mediocre color prints from their film and now digital cameras. But the technology is already available that makes it possible for today’s consumer displays to be as color accurate as the best studio production monitors that cost $50,000 ten years ago. And once you get used to beautiful accurate colors on a display you won’t want to go back…

TL:DR: Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 comes out top, Surface Pro 3 next, iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2 are good on skin tones but score badly on others. Not clear who makes Apple’s screens.

Samsung preps new mobile video service >> The Information

Jessica Lessin:

Samsung Electronics is rebooting its mobile video strategy in a test of whether short-form video content can drive mobile revenues just as games have.

The South Korean company has earmarked several tens of millions of dollars to invest in short-form video for a new mobile product, according to people Samsung talked to about the effort. Internally, the product had gone by the code name Volt but will launch under another one.

The initiative is being overseen by John Pleasants, a gaming veteran who managed Disney’s mobile services and gaming business before joining Samsung as executive vice president of media solutions in June. While the initial business model for the service, which could also include music, isn’t clear, over time the company is looking to create media services for which it could charge a few dollars a month, said one of the people briefed.

Possibly might work in South Korea; can’t see it getting any traction in the US or Europe. Nokia used to think it could charge people a few dollars a month for mapping services, which is why it bought Navteq for $8.1bn in 2007, two years after Google Maps launched and a year before Android did. Nice timing, Nokia. Similarly, “short-form video” is already plentiful – and free.

What Uber drivers really make (according to their pay stubs) >> Buzzfeed

Johana Bhuiyan:

So we calculated Khalid’s new average of net income per hour over the five weeks I had access to by distributing his two largest expenses of being an Uber driver (rent and insurance) of approximately $641.67 over hours worked per week and subtracted that hourly expense from the net income per hour based on his pay stubs. His original average hourly net income without expenses was $32.90. Accounting for two weeks where he was technically in debt and could not cover both his rent AND insurance because he did not make enough, Khalid’s new average including expenses was a net income of $10.36.
Even drivers who own their vehicles and don’t have to worry about rental payments still come up against concerns.

Telling that NY general manager Josh Mohrer, who offered reporters the chance to verify his claims that Uber drivers make an average of $25 per hour (before expenses) is being investigated by Uber for allegedly tracking Bhuiyan.

I deleted the Uber app months ago over its tactics against Lyft. It seems that every day brings another reason to make its icon do the bee dance on your phone screen before you zap it.

GT Advanced creditors chafe at settlement deal with Apple >> Re/code

Holders of GT Advanced’s notes, including Aristeia Capital and an affiliate of Wolverine Asset Management, said in court papers that the “extraordinary allegations against Apple … call into question the adequacy of the settlement agreement.”

The noteholders cited allegations that Apple breached its contract and acted unfairly as GT Advanced’s lender. The noteholders also said Apple’s claims on GT Advanced’s equipment may be unsecured. This would put Apple among the last creditors to be paid, not the first as Apple’s deal anticipates.

Apple has denied GT Advanced’s allegations. In court filings, Apple has called the accusations “scandalous and defamatory” and “intended to vilify Apple and portray Apple as a coercive bully.”

Likely to run and run. (Reminder: I wrote about the travails at GTAT last week.)

Apple plans to push Beats to every iPhone >> FT.com

Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw:

Apple’s revamped Beats service will operate on a paid subscription model. The service, which is likely to be rebranded under the iTunes label, will form part of a three-pronged music strategy for Apple, alongside downloads and iTunes Radio, which it launched in 2013. The trio will challenge not only Spotify, whose paid streaming service has more than 10m subscribers, but also Pandora and Soundcloud.

Apple is preparing to put its new Watch on sale in early 2015, to which the new music push could be linked.

200m iTunes accounts, and many more iPhones than that in use. Obstacles: song/artist licensing (Beats and iTunes Radio are both only available in the US); price; getting those already on subscription services to switch.

Techcrunch’s Josh Constine originally reported this in late October, but the FT adds timing (March) and the app install.

More than 50 million Lumias activated, 320,000 apps in store and more interesting Windows Phone stats from Microsoft >> WM Power User

[Microsoft] also revealed [at a blogger conference] there were 320,000 apps in the store, up from 300,000 in August 2014.

Another very interesting item was that 50m Lumias have been activated to date [worldwide].  While this does not tell us how many Windows Phones are still in use, with Lumias being more than 90% of Windows Phones in use according to AdDuplex, it does set some kind of upper limit.

According to Nokia’s/Microsoft Mobile’s financials, 67m Lumias have been shipped since 3Q 2011. So this doesn’t quite square: where are the other 17m?

Meanwhile if AdDuplex’s 90% is right, then that’s an upper limit of 55m Windows Phone devices active – about as many as active BlackBerry subscribers (not BBM users), and a long way from the 350m or so iPhones (500m-odd iOS devices) and billion-plus Google Android devices. In fact, AOSP (non-Google Android, used in China) is about as big as iOS.

That makes Windows Phone the fourth ecosystem. Still, one of the slides in the presentation says it’s outsold the iPhone in 24 countries, so that’s OK.

Report: Android One facing stiff competition and low sales in India >> Android Authority

Android One was announced at Google I/O earlier this year, and with it, a promise that Mountain View would be handling all of the updates for these low-priced devices aimed at developing countries. Though some might not be aware, not one but three One devices launched in India mid-September, but the problem is not one of them has done well. Those trying to find out why need only look at Samsung’s plight: stiff competition.

Consumer sales is a game of numbers, and for the last two weeks of September, a total of 230,000 units running Android One were imported into India. But it gets worse: only 200,000 devices were imported for the entire month of October, according to data shared with The Economic Times by local marketing firm Cybex Exim Solutions. To put things into even better perspective, “for the month of October, roughly 8m smartphones were shipped into [India], of which Android One would be just about 2.5%,” a source told The Economic Times. Compare this with the extremely rosy expectations that were originally had.

The original extremely rosy expectations came from chipmaker MediaTek which expected 2m sales by the end of the year . Could be tough to meet. Small onboard storage, online-only sales and supply problems are listed as parts of the problem.

Helping users find mobile-friendly pages >> Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Starting today, to make it easier for people to find the information that they’re looking for, we’re adding a “mobile-friendly” label to our mobile search results…

…We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.

“Ranking signal” means “we might demote you if you’re bad on mobile”. Questions: (1) how large or small does a screen have to be to count as “mobile”? Or is it dependent on access method, eg 3G = mobile, Wi-Fi = fixed? (2) how strong will the signal of being non-mobile be?

Also: Google first said it would do this “in the near future” 18 months ago. Clearly it wasn’t so near. What made it harder?

Rides of Glory >> Uber Blog

Cab service Uber thinks it has erased the “walk of shame” (ask your parents, kids) and replaced it with the “ride of glory”. Morning glory? Anyhow:

One of the neat things we can do with our data is discover rider patterns: are there weekend riders that only use Uber post-party? What about the workday commuters who use us every morning? It was while playing around with this idea of (blind!) rider segmentation that we came up with the Ride of Glory (RoG). A RoGer is anyone who took a ride between 10pm and 4am on a Friday or Saturday night, and then took a second ride from within 1/10th of a mile of the previous nights’ drop-off point 4-6 hours later (enough for a quick night’s sleep). (This time window may not be the best, but small changes don’t change the overall pattern.)

RoGer. Haha. Though it might just be people getting together for an all-night coding session starting their principled cab-offering rival, eh? (Anyhow, Boston comes out top, well ahead of New York, though this probably takes no account of the number of users, number of cabs, or any other relevant piece of statistical information.)