Facebook ordered to tighten privacy by regulators

Facebook has agreed to tighten its privacy practices and delete unneeded data sooner following an investigation by Irish regulators.

Facebook agreed to a series of privacy changes

 

The social network, which has more than 800 million users, houses user data and all operations outside the United States and Canada in Ireland.

Following a full audit of Facebook’s systems, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, Billy Hawkes, said the firm had agreed to more than a dozen privacy improvements, to be completed within six months.

The investigation was launched in October after a series of controversies the way Facebook treats personal data, including claims that Facebook was creating “shadow profiles” of people who are not members.

Irish regulators however found that while it does collect data about non-users for security purposes, Facebook does not otherwise use it and does not create shadow profiles.

“While certain data which could be used to build what we have seen termed as a ‘shadow profile’ of a non-user was received by Facebook, no actual use of this nature was made of such data,” their report said.
Lord Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of public policy in Europe, welcomed the finding.
“They’ve found that the way we’re using data is consistent with how we say we’ll use data… the issues raised were not based on substance," he said.
The data collected from non-Facebook users when they visit websites that have social elements such as the "Like" button is used to prevent fraudulent logins, the investigation found.
“For people who are not users of Facebook or who are not currently logged in the browser cookie we collect, which is an important security cookie, will be deleted after 10 days," Lord Allan said.
Regulators also investigated Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology, which encourages users to identify, or "tag", friends in photographs. They found fault in theway it was introduced but said it did not breach data protection law. The feature was switched on without notice in June, prompting criticism from privacy advocates.
"[Facebook] should have handled the implementation of this feature in a more appropriate manner and we recommended that it take additional steps from a best practice perspective to ensure the consent collected from users for this feature can be relied upon,” the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s report said.
Facebook agreed to provide users with more notifications about facial recognition to give them the opportunity to opt out, as part of changes that will mean more privacy alerts across the website.

It will also make it easier for users to find out what data Facebook holds about them, introduce clearer terms and conditions and a better mechanism for users to give consent for their personal data to be used by third-party apps, and give users more control over whether they are added to groups by friends.
“It will be an intense period in the next six months for us to get over some of the areas they’ve suggested for improvement,” said Lord Allan.
Last month Facebook was forced apologise and to agree to audits of its systems by American regulators, who said its privacy claims had been "unfair and deceptive, and violated federal law".

Apple iPhone 'outselling rivals as Christmas approaches'

Apple's iPhone 4S was Britain's biggest selling mobile phone in the month before December 9, according to analysts.

The iPhone 4S outsold rivals in November and December, according to analysts.

 

The iPhone 4S, which was released in October, made up a quarter of all handset sales in the four weeks before December 9, according to market research firm GfK.

Samsung's Galaxy SII was the second-best selling phone in the week up to December 9, the Financial Times reported.

However, Nokia's new Lumia handset was off to an underwhelming start, failing to make the top 10 handsets in the four weeks of the survey period. The Lumia, which runs Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system, was released in Britain on November 16.

GfK, which monitors sales through mobile network operators, said that Apple iPhone models made up five of the top 15 handsets sold in the first week of December.

The iPhone 4S is a more powerful version of its predecessor, with an improved camera and a new voice control system called Siri. Last week, there was speculation that Google was working on its own voice control software to be released as part of its Android mobile operating system.
RIM, the Canadian company that makes BlackBerry handsets, has had a bad year but there was at least some comfort in the GfK data. Sales of BlackBerry handsets increased during the period of the survey, with three variants of the BlackBerry Curve in the top 10. 

Will BlackBerry survive 2012?

Troubled BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has announced further delays to its new phones - now analysts and commentators are making their complaints ever more loudly 

BLackBerry's new generation of mobiles will not appear until late 2012

 

It seems that every month BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion has more bad news to announce. In November it paid a $365million charge for unsold PlayBook tablets; yesterday it announced that crucial new phones would now be delayed to the latter half of 2012, rather than being out by March.

Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis charitably cut their pay to just a $1 each, but analysts and critics argued they’re still overpaid. One writer on the respected blog PaidContent blog said the pair should have been “fired months, if not years ago”.

At the heart of BlackBerry’s problems lie its troubled transition to a new operating system: in order to compete with the iPhone and with Google’s Android phones, the Canadian company has had to rebuild its software from the ground up. So far, the only product using a new version is the underwhelming PlayBook.

Yesterday, announcing RIM’s results, Lazridis delivered the bad news almost casually. The new OS will power a new generation of phone, but in order to compete RIM had earlier changed its mind on which chips to use. Now he said RIM could not get enough of them and that delays were unavoidable.

Lazaridis compounded the disappointment for investors by cutting the firm’s prediction of sales to between 11 and 12 million smartphones in the current Christmas quarter, down from 14.8 million over the same time last year. Others companies’ sales are rising at his expense.

Last month, analyst Ian Fogg said that “if you look at RIM’s track record they have a history of missing launch dates; that doesn’t bode well.” He warned ominously that “If they fail to ship quality products we’ll see a slow decline,” and it would appear that Fogg’s predictions are already coming true.
With rather dry understatement, however, Lazaridis said in a statement that "It may take some time to realise the benefits of the platform transition that we are undertaking, but we continue to believe that RIM has the right set of strengths and capabilities to maintain a leading role in the mobile communications industry”. When he claimed that people tell him “every day” that BlackBerry is the best communications device around, commentators immediately said he was listening to the wrong people.
RIM's share of the smartphone market in the US fell to 9.2 per cent in the third quarter from 24 per cent in the same period last year, according to research group Canalys. Increasing numbers of analysts across the board now find one conclusion inescapable: RIM doesn’t just need customers – it needs a buyer.

Google teams up with Science Museum for new exhibitions

Google is supporting two exhibitions exploring the history of computing at the Science Museum in London. 

Google has put $12m into its international museum project, which it hopes will galvanise interest in computing

 

The exhibitions, funded by Google, will open to the public over the next three years with a view to stimulating interest in computer technologies among youngsters.

The partnership, which is part of Google’s multi-million dollar initiative announced in April this year, hopes to inspire the next generation of scientists. So far Google has put forward $12 million into seven museums, six in the US and one in the UK.

However Michael Jones, Google Earth’s chief technology advocate, said the international initiative “won’t end by signing a cheque,” and the company aims to work closely with museums to educate children and adults alike. "Besides, how else can we all touch the moon?" he said.

The first exhibition, opening in June next year, will celebrate the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the well-respected English mathematician who is largely considered the “father” of computer science. His most famous creation, the Turing machine, formed the first basic model of the modern computer.

Peter Barron, director of external relations at Google, said he hopes the exhibitions will be “inspiring” for young visitors. “We are delighted to be able to support these new exhibitions which will help explain both the birth of modern computing and how that revolution touches our lives today.”

The second exhibition, named Making Modern Communications, will not open until Summer 2014 but will remain thereafter at as a permanent addition to the museum. The show will give visitors an in-depth look at the last 200 years of information and communications technology, showcasing “never seen before objects,” according to Google.
Earlier this week Google donated £550,000 to the Bletchley Park Trust, where Alan Turing famously shortened the Second World War through his code-breaking expertise, in a bid to transform the site into a national heritage.

2011: the year of Google Android

More than 10bn apps have now been downloaded by Google’s smartphone users, writes Matt Warman , but Android is set to get even bigger 

ANDROID

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, the pair were already plotting big things: not for nothing was the logo designed with the help of a professor of design at Stanford.

Even Brin and Page, however, would probably not have bet that in 2011 nearly 8bn mobile apps would be downloaded for a mobile phone the like of which hadn’t even been thought of.

But 2011 has indeed been the year of the Android. Google’s free, open-source operating system has been so widely adopted by manufacturers the world over that it now accounts for the majority of smartphones sold and has been used for applications in appliances from fridges to televisions.

Top London tailor Spencer Hart is even using an Android-based “notebook”, the Samsung Galaxy Note, to annotate drawings for bespoke suits. Its uses are apparently endless.

The total number of applications downloaded now stands at slightly over 10bn. At an equivalent stage in its development cycle, Apple’s App Store was at just half that. As it’s compatible purely with Apple products, it could be argued that in fact the original App Store was more eagerly adopted, but the sheer volume of Android apps downloaded is a force to be reckoned with.

All the same, with 190 countries downloading apps – led by the South Koreans, Hong Kong and Taiwan and closely followed by America, Singapore, Northern Europe and Israel – sceptics would be right to ask why Apple’s remains the more profitable platform.
A quarter of all Android downloads are casual games, which are typically low-margin for software developers. Analysts believe Apple users download twice as many apps per device and that Apple has, thanks to the iTunes store, the payment details of 200m people. With the two app stores now growing at the same rate, those are the figures Google really needs to match.
Still, Google claims that while the first 1bn app installs from Android Market took nearly 20 months and the second billion took five months, the third billion took only two months. More than half a million new Android phones are now activated globally every day and the growth is continuing to accelerate.
The company has placed increasing emphasis on app sales and downloads, launching movie rentals and redesigning the Android Market to better rival Apple’s App Store. In due course,
it is very likely to start to offer the kind of performance that in particular makes the best iOS games so much better: that will be down to the puff of a vast customer base and better hardware.
To mark the 10bn downloads landmark, Google is also making a number of apps available for 10p for 10 days. Titles such as driving games Asphalt 6 HD, Sketchbook Mobile and keyboard improver Swiftkey X are intended as much to encourage users to download even more software and to show them what the platform is capable of as they are to mark the occasion.
It’s a peculiar situation, but in some ways Google’s marking this massive number not because it’s significant in itself – the real story, in fact, is how much bigger this Android is likely to get.

Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook founder admits 'bunch of mistakes' amid privacy u-turn

Mark Zuckerberg has admitted Facebook has made "a bunch of mistakes" on privacy and agreed to overhaul its policy to make all major changes opt-in, following regulatory criticism from the American Federal Trade Commission.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, is to implement a new privacy regime Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Writing in a rare blog post, the social network site's founder and chief executive said he “founded Facebook on the idea that people want to share and connect with people in their lives, but to do this everyone needs complete control over who they share with at all times”.

But he added that while overall the site had a good history of being open about privacy, "I am the first to admit that we have made a bunch of mistakes".

He also admitted that the site's executives "can always do better" on the controversial issue.

His comments came after the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Facebook of systematically invading user privacy on seven specific counts, including when the social network had changed settings to make more of its users' information publicly visible.

The new plan to settle the compaints marks a major step on the social network’s road to its initial public offering, which had been widely expected to value the company at $100 billion.

Facebook will now be “required to obtain consumers’ affirmative express consent before enacting changes that override their privacy preferences”.
This will effectively make all major future privacy control changes opt in. Facebook must also submit to privacy audits every 2 years for the next 20 years, stop any access to content on deactivated accounts, and present its policies on privacy or security of user data more clearly.
Although new settings can apparently be added without requiring users to opt in, new services will now require users to explicitly give their consent if they are to take part. Facebook Places, for example, which allows users to check-in online to physical locations, was cited as an example of a service that Facebook would not now be able to turn on for all users without their consent.
Zuckerberg conceded that the site had made major mistakes with users’ privacy, citing the launch of the ‘Beacon’ system which showed users’ friends their shopping habits, and the company’s previous changes to privacy policies.
He claimed, however, that “When I built the first version of Facebook, almost nobody I knew wanted a public page on the internet. That seemed scary. But as long as they could make their page private, they felt safe sharing with their friends online. Control was key”.
Zuckerberg put the social network’s success down to making it “easy for people to feel comfortable sharing things about their real lives”.
“Overall, I think we have a good history of providing transparency and control over who can see your information,” he wrote.
"That said, I'm the first to admit that we've made a bunch of mistakes. In particular, I think that a small number of high profile mistakes, like Beacon four years ago and poor execution as we transitioned our privacy model two years ago, have often overshadowed much of the good work we've done.
"I also understand that many people are just naturally skeptical of what it means for hundreds of millions of people to share so much personal information online, especially using any one service."
He added: "Even if our record on privacy were perfect, I think many people would still rightfully question how their information was protected. It's important for people to think about this, and not one day goes by when I don't think about what it means for us to be the stewards of this community and their trust.
Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us – and we have led the internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share.
"But we can also always do better. I'm committed to making Facebook the leader in transparency and control around privacy."
The new agreement with the FTC “means we're making a clear and formal long-term commitment to do the things we've always tried to do and planned to keep doing - giving you tools to control who can see your information and then making sure only those people you intend can see it”, Zuckerberg said.
The social network will now also have two Chief Privacy Officers; former lawyer Erin Egan will be responsible for Policy, while Michael Richter will become Chief Privacy Officer, Products. Richter is currently Facebook's Chief Privacy Counsel.
Overall, the changes are set to alter Facebook’s development of new products, as well as its attitude to users. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said ”Facebook’s innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not.”
The proposals will now be put to a 30-day consultation period. They are likely to meet the majority of the concerns raised be European privacy regulators, although those issues remain unresolved.

Microsoft defends against espionage virus

Microsoft has released a temporary software patch to defend against the threat from Duqu, an espionage virus thought to be closely related to Stuxnet, the cyber attack that disrupted the Iranian nuclear programme. 

Cyber espionage is a growing threat, according to the Government

 

Duqu was first detected last month and, according to security analysts, is designed to steal sensitive information from industry.

Microsoft said it exploited a vulnerability in the Windows TrueType font parsing engine to gain control of infected computers. The temporary patch will be replaced by permanent update at an undisclosed later date.

Whoever was behind Duqu was able to “install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights", Microsoft said.

It has also shared technical details with anti-virus firms.

"This means that within hours, anti-malware firms will roll out new signatures that detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability,” Microsoft said. “Therefore, we encourage customers to ensure their antivirus software is up-to-date.”

The Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security at Budapest University, which first detected Duqu, has said it is spread by a bogus Word document.
Only a handful of targets have been identified, according to anti-virus firms, leading them to suspect the virus is being used as part of a highly-targeted espionage operation, potentially as a prelude to further Stuxnet-style attacks.
“Duqu's purpose is to gather intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party,” Symantec said.
Similarities between Duqu and Stuxnet have led to claims they must have been created by the same state-sponsored entity. Israeli and American intelligence agencies are widely belive to be behind the attack on the Iranian nuclear programme.

Hackers go after Facebook sites 600,000 times every day

Hackers are breaking into hundreds of thousands of Facebook accounts every day, the social network has admitted. 

Facebook is ramping up security measures.

 

Out of more than a billion logins to the website every 24 hours, 600,000 are impostors attempting to access users’ messages, photos and other personal information Facebook said.

The figure is the first time that Facebook has revealed how it is bombarded by hackers on a daily basis.

It was revealed as part of a Facebook blog post announcing a couple of new security measures being implemented across the site over the coming weeks to tackle these sorts of breaches.

Security experts have said the figure is a “big concern” and that people need to be more careful when choosing their passwords and responding to offers supposedly from friends on Facebook.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, a computer security organisation, said: “When a Facebook login is compromised, it means that someone else, the hacker, has taken control of that account.

“When a hacker takes over a user’s Facebook account, they can post images, send messages and access all of that person’s private information in one fail swoop. Facebook has had a lot of security issues which it is now trying to address.”
The most common reason for hackers to breach Facebook users’ accounts is so that they can spread scams and send false offers to the member’s friends in an attempt to sell counterfeit goods and benefit financially.
Cluley said it was becoming easier to hack into more users’ Facebook accounts as thirty per cent of people online are using the same passwords across all of their digital accounts – making it simpler for hackers to control a person’s entire web identity.
He also warned that growing numbers of teenagers are hacking into the Facebook accounts of their school rivals in order to post malicious messages and photos on their behalf.
Facebook declined to comment.
Increasingly more people are also duped into sharing their login details on fake sites, a process called phishing, which gives hackers access to passwords and email accounts.
Security experts have advised people to choose complicated passwords in order to avoid any of their personal online accounts being hacked and to have different ones for every single digital service they use.
It is understood that out of the approximate 600,000 ‘compromised Facebook logins’ a day, not all of them are successful as Facebook is able in certain circumstances to block some pre-emptively using location technology.
The social network is rolling out two new features in an attempt to further protect Facebook users’ security. ‘Trusted Friends’ is a tool which will allow users to nominate three to five ‘trusted friends’ to be sent login codes if a person is locked out of their account, having had their password changed by a hacker.
The site is also introducing passwords for apps, meaning members do not have to use the same logins for different third party services they access via Facebook – such as Spotify.
Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 800 million members who spend more than a total of 700 billion minutes on the site per month. Half of the UK now have accounts on the site which was created and still run by Mark Zuckerberg, a 27 year-old technology entrepreneur. The average user has 130 friends on the service.

Apple 'working on prototype television set'

Apple is creating a television set that could be released late next year or early in 2013, it has been claimed. 

The most recent Apple TV was smaller and had more streaming options than its predecessor. Photo: AFP/GETTY

 

Sources within the company said that Jeff Robbin, the Apple engineer who helped create the iPod and iTunes, is leading the effort. However, Apple declined to comment publicly.

According to Bloomberg, an Apple insider said that the company wants to let users seamlessly access television shows by integrating all the available sources, such as satellite TV, online film rental services and iTunes downloads.

Shortly before he died, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, told his biographer that he had "finally cracked" the problem of building a television.

In Walter Isaacson's book, Steve Jobs, which was published yesterday, the Apple founder says: "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

Jeff Robbin joined Apple in 2000 to work on iTunes, which at the time was a music playing application. Since then it has expanded to incorporate film, TV shows, apps and more. Apple has also added the iTunes Store, which sells a variety of content.

Apple has been experimenting with television since 2007, when it launched the Apple TV - a box that connected to a television and offered access to content stored on the device's hard drive or downloaded from iTunes. A new version of Apple TV, which did away with the hard drive and added more streaming options, was released last year. 

Apple hits Samsung in court again

Spot the difference: Apple and Samsung remain locked over the iPad and Galaxy devices

Samsung's tablets infringe patents owned by Apple, a US judge has ruled.

However, she warned that Apple needs to prove the validity of those patents if it is to win an injunction preventing the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab.
The decision is the latest in a dispute which spans 20 cases in 10 countries, some of which have led to Samsung products being taken off the shelves.
Apple claims that the Galaxy range "slavishly" copies its massively-selling iPad and iPhone.
The Californian company has sought to ban the sale of the Galaxy S 4G smart phone and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the US.

US mobile networks have opposed Apple's request, saying it could affect sales of the products in the run up to Christmas.
California District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that while patents have been infringed, Apple must now show that its claim on those inventions is valid.
The disputed patents include three covering design - including the exterior look of the device - and a 'list scrolling patent' which relates to how users view documents.
Samsung argued that Apple's claims are invalid due to previously registered patents relating to design elements and functionality.
The company's attorney, Kathleen Sullivan, said her client "clearly raised substantial questions" and that the injunction bid should therefore be rejected.

Apple spokeswoman

But Apple argue that its own product's design is far superior to those which came before the iPad and iPhone, and so therefore its patents should not be invalidated.

At one point in the hearing the judge held both Samsung and Apple products up on the air and challenged the defence to whether they could identify which device was which.
Samsung attorney Ms Sullivan, who was roughly 10 feet away, responded: "Not as this distance your honour."
Another lawyer for Samsung correctly distinguished the two.
A spokesman for the South Korean company described Apple's claims as "groundless".
Apple spokeswoman Kristen Huget said: "It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad.
"This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."
Both companies have been locked in patent disputes since April, with each accusing the other of infringing various patents.

YouTube now offer film rental service in UK

After Providing film rental service to US and Canada now google landed their service to UK with blockbusters such as classic including the The Birds can be watched.Youtube offer over 1000 movies for english peoples.
YouTube will grant 3.49£ for newly released films and £2.49 for library titles.Users  have 30 days to start watching movie and from them they must finish their screen play after 48hours.
Universal, Lionsgate, Entertainment One as well as independent British film makers such as Metrodome and Revolver Entertainment are the partners engage with this service.
"Exit Through the Gift Shop" is the best rentaling  movie right now in UK.
Extra movies are also added to this service and include interviews with cast and crew, documentaries, behind the-scenes clips as well as parodies and remixes too.
If someone rented movie from Youtube he or she can watch movie from any computer from his or her YouTube account.
Rented movies will also be available at Google TV,Android tablets and Android handsets.A special application has been designed to use above Devices and services.

Now YouTube have to fight with many film rental services like Apple,XBox and Playstation.

Something big is coming

Wow, yesterday was an exciting day for Android phone fans as a flurry of speculation erupted around Samsung's new phone, code-named

.
Let's start at the beginning. Next week at CTIA, Samsung and Google are hosting an event called Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2011. Google has already spilled the beans that they'll be announcing Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) and Samsung is teasing the event with a video (embedded below) stating "Something BIG is coming." Most pundits expect Samsung will show off its new phone currently code-named Nexus Prime. Of course, most pundits expected Apple to show off the iPhone 5 earlier this week, too.
Anyway, early in the day yesterday, Boy Genius Report leaked the specs of the Nexus Prime, calling it the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and saying that it would be a Verizon exclusive.
As for the technical specs, the highlights were a TI OMAP 4460 dual-core processor running at 1.2 GHZ, a 1280x720 4.65" Super AMOLED HD screen with curved glass, a 5 megapixel back-facing camera, a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, 32 GB of on-board storage, a 1,750 mAh battery and running Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
There were a few details that surprised me. 32 GB of storage seemed very generous and the post said both that the phone would be a Verizon exclusive and that it was "LTE/HSPA depending on carrier."
Anyway, the Internet did not take kindly to these leaked specs, with various comments on blogs and social media disputing the them. At this point there's so much confusion that we should probably just sit tight until next Tuesday when all will be revealed, but where's the fun in that?
GSMArena is one of the sites disagreeing with BGR. They claim to have spoken to a tipster from inside Google who said the device will have Samsung's own chipset with a dual-core, 1.5 Ghz processor. This chipset also has a dual-core GPU from Imagination; possibly the same GPU found in the iPad 2. The tipster told GSMArena that the rear-facing camera is 8 megapixel and capable of shooting 1080P video and that it would have a 2,050 mAh battery that should be good for a couple of days between charges.
The one point of agreement is the 1280x720, 4.65" screen, described as "head turning."
Now let's dip into the social networking pool for an example of what's going on there. Over on Google+, a gentleman in my Circles named Lee Johnston claims he has the real specs as well. His specs are basically in line with GSMArena's except he suggests the battery is only 1,850 mAh and that the front facing camera is a 2 megapixel. Johnston says the Nexus Prime is basically a Galaxy S II LTE and offered a link to Samsung's Galaxy S II press release. Johnston says he knows people; maybe he does.
Confused yet? It gets better. Droid-Life defended BGR's leak, saying "these [specs] match up exactly to what our sources have told us" and going on to say the Nexus Prime will have a 5 megapixel camera but that it'll be very fast. I hope that part of the rumor, at least, is right. I'd love a faster camera on my next phone.
So who should we believe? I must confess I'm not sure.
I do think the reveal is going to be more than just a phone. I think they must have at least two products, given that their teaser vid is all about how some things just go better together (though maybe they're just referring to Android 4 and the phone). What do you think?

Apple Co-founder Steven Paul Jobs is Dead-May you attain Nibbana

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died on Wednesday at age 56. Wall Street Journal managing editor Alan Murray and editors discuss Jobs's legacy, early reactions to his death and how his showmanship changed the retail and tech landscape.

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple Inc. chairman and co-founder who pioneered the personal-computer industry and changed the way people think about technology, died Wednesday at the age of 56.
His family, in a statement released by Apple, said Mr. Jobs "died peacefully today surrounded by his family."
The company didn't specify the cause of death. Mr. Jobs had battled pancreatic cancer and several years ago received a liver transplant. In August, Mr. Jobs stepped down as chief executive, handing the reins to longtime deputy Tim Cook.

Steve Jobs: Personal Media Pioneer

Photos: Through the Years

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Timeline: Steve Jobs and Apple

The Apple Evolution

Associated Press

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg News

Fans held iPads during a vigil outside an Apple store in Tokyo Thursday.

"Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," Mr. Cook said in a letter to employees. "We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much."
During his more than three-decade career, Mr. Jobs transformed Silicon Valley as he helped turn the once-sleepy expanse of fruit orchards into the technology industry's innovation center. In addition to laying the groundwork for the industry alongside others like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates Mr. Jobs proved the appeal of well-designed products over the power of technology itself and transformed the way people interact with technology.
"The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come," Mr. Gates said in a statement Wednesday.
The most productive chapter in Mr. Jobs's career occurred near the end of his life, when a nearly unbroken string of successful products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad changed the PC, electronics and digital-media industries. The way he marketed and sold those products through savvy advertising campaigns and Apple's retail stores helped turn the company into a pop-culture phenomenon.
At the beginning of that phase, Mr. Jobs described his philosophy as trying to make products that were at "the intersection of art and technology." In doing so, he turned Apple into the world's most valuable company with a market value of $350 billion.
After losing considerable weight in mid-2008, Mr. Jobs took a nearly six-month medical leave of absence in 2009, during which he received a liver transplant. He took another medical leave of absence in mid-January, without explanation, before stepping down as CEO.
Mr. Jobs is survived by his wife, Laurene, and four children.
Mr. Jobs turned Apple into the largest retailer of music and helped popularize computer-animated films as the financier and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which he later sold to Walt Disney Co. He was a key figure in changing the way people used the Internet and how they listened to music, watched TV shows and movies, and read books, disrupting industries in the process.
"Despite all he accomplished, it feels like he was just getting started," Disney CEO Robert Iger said in a statement Wednesday.
Mr. Jobs pulled off a remarkable business comeback, returning to Apple after an 11-year absence during which he was largely written off as a has-been. He went on to revive the struggling company by introducing products such as the iMac all-in-one computer, iPod music player and iTunes digital-music store.

Beyond PCs

Apple now produces $65.2 billion a year in revenue compared with $7.1 billion in its business year ended September 1997. Apple dropped the "computer" in its name in January 2007 to underscore its expansion beyond PCs.
Although Mr. Jobs officially handed over the reins of the company to Mr. Cook, his death nevertheless raises a question for Apple of how it will sustain its success without his vision and guidance. Other companies, including Walt Disney, Wall Mart Stores Inc. and International Business Machines Corp., experienced some transitional woes before eventually managing to thrive after their charismatic founders passed on.

AllThingsD's Kara Swisher discusses the what the impact of Steve Jobs's death will have on Apple and whether the company will remain an innovator and market leader. Photo: Getty Images

Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs died on Wednesday at the age of 56. A look back at the life of an American business icon. (Photo: Getty Images)

Among Steve Jobs's legacy was a gift for presentation and speech-making that changed the way tech companies unveiled new products, Lauren Goode reports on a special edition of the News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.

But few companies of that stature have shown such an acute dependence on their founder, or have lost the founder at the peak of his career. Several years after Mr. Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985, the company began a steady decline that saw it drift to the margins of the computer industry. That slide was reversed only after Mr. Jobs returned in 1997.
Mr. Jobs also leaves behind many tales about his mercurial management style, such as his habit of calling employees or their ideas "dumb" when he didn't like something. He was even more combative against foes like Microsoft,Google Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. When Adobe Systems Inc. waged a campaign against Apple for not supporting Adobe's Flash video format on its iPhones and iPads in April 2010, Mr. Jobs wrote a 1,600-word essay about why the software was outdated and inadequate for mobile devices.
He maintained uncompromising standards for the company's hardware and software, demanding "insanely great" aesthetics and ease of use from the moment a shopper walked into one of Apple's stores. His attention to detail shaped some of the distinctive features of Apple's products.
Mr. Jobs enforced strict secrecy among employees, a strategy that he believed heightened anticipation for new products. News of his death came a day after Apple unveiled its newest device, the iPhone 4S, without him on stage.
Mr. Jobs, the adopted son of a family in California, was born on Feb. 24, 1955. A college dropout, he established his reputation early on as a tech innovator when, at 21 years old, he and friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer Inc. in the Jobs family garage in 1976. Mr. Jobs chose the name, in part, because he was a Beatles fan and admired the group's Apple records label, according to the book "Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders" by Wall Street Journal reporter Jim Carlton.
The pair came out with the Apple II in 1977, a computer that was relatively affordable and designed for the mass market rather than for hobbyists. It went on to become one of the first commercially successful PCs, making the company $117 million in annual sales by the time of Apple's initial public offering in 1980. The IPO instantly made Mr. Jobs a multimillionaire.
Not all of Mr. Jobs's early ideas paid off. The Apple III and Lisa computers that debuted in 1980 and 1983 were flops. But the distinctive all-in-one Macintosh—foreshadowed in a TV ad inspired by George Orwell's novel "1984" that famously only aired once—would set the standard for the design of modern computer operating systems.
Even then, Mr. Jobs was a stickler for design details. Bruce Tognazzini, a former user-interface expert at Apple who joined the company in 1978, once said that Mr. Jobs was adamant that the keyboard not include "up," "down," "right," and "left" keys that allow users to move the cursor around their computer screens.

Mr. Jobs's pursuit of aesthetics sometimes bordered on the extreme. George Crow, an Apple engineer in the 1980s and again from 1998 to 2005, recalls how Mr. Jobs wanted to make even the inside of computers attractive. On the original Macintosh PC, Mr. Crow says Mr. Jobs wanted the internal wiring to be in the colors of Apple's early rainbow logo. Mr. Crow says he persuaded Mr. Jobs it was an unnecessary expense.
Even in his appearance, Mr. Jobs seemed to cultivate an image more like that of an artist than a corporate executive. In public, he rarely deviated from an outfit consisting of Levi's jeans, a black mock turtleneck and New Balance running shoes.
As Apple expanded, Mr. Jobs decided to bring in a more experienced manager to lead the company. He recruited John Sculley from PepsiCo Inc. to be Apple CEO in 1983, overcoming Mr. Sculley's initial reluctance by asking the executive if he just wanted to sell "sugar water to kids" or help change the world.
After Apple fell into a subsequent slump, a leadership struggle led to a board decision to back Mr. Sculley and fire Mr. Jobs two years later at the age of 30. "What can I say—I hired the wrong guy," Mr. Jobs brooded in a PBS documentary. "He destroyed everything I had spent 10 years working for."
Mr. Jobs then created NeXT Inc., a start-up that in 1988 introduced a black desktop computer with advanced software. The machine suffered from a high price and some key design decisions. But its operating system would eventually become a foundation for OS X, the software backbone of today's Macs, after Apple purchased NeXT for $400 million in December 1996.
In 1986, using part of his fortune from Apple, Mr. Jobs paid filmmaker George Lucas $10 million to acquire the computer-graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd. The company Mr. Jobs formed from that purchase, Pixar Animation Studios, went on to create a string of computer-animated film hits, such as "Toy Story." Mr. Jobs sold Pixar to Disney in 2006 in a $7.4 billion deal.
In Mr. Jobs's absence, Apple began foundering, and computers using Intel chips and Microsoft software became increasingly dominant. By 1997, Apple had racked up nearly $2 billion in losses in two years, its shares were at record lows and it was on its third CEO—Gil Amelio—in four years.
Eight months after the deal to buy NeXT in December 1996, Mr. Amelio was ousted and Mr. Jobs appointed interim CEO, a title that became permanent in January 2000. One former Apple employee recalls Mr. Jobs joking soon after he returned that "the lunatics have taken over the asylum and we can do anything we want."
Mr. Jobs, who was given a salary of $1 a year along with options to Apple stock, made a series of changes. He killed the struggling Newton handheld computer and trimmed a confusing array of Mac models to a handful of systems focused on the consumer market.
In May 1998, he introduced the iMac, an unusual one-piece computer that sported a colorful translucent case. Apple launched an ad campaign featuring the phrase "Think Different," featuring photographs of creative individuals including Albert Einstein and Muppets creator Jim Henson.
While shareholders cheered the changes, Mr. Jobs flexed his power on Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus. Within months of taking over, he replaced four of the five top executives with former NeXT underlings. He issued emails forbidding employees to bring pets to the office or to smoke, even in parking lots. He threatened to fire anyone caught leaking company documents.
Apple had stumbles during Mr. Jobs's second stint, including a cube-shaped Macintosh that failed to catch on and was scrapped in 2001. The failure was one reason Apple posted a quarterly loss and warned it would miss estimates several times in 2000 and 2001.
But big hits followed. In 2001, Apple introduced the iPod, which transformed digital music players. Apple has more than 70% market share in the market.
A key advantage was the iTunes Music Store, opened in 2003. Mr. Jobs helped persuade major record labels to sell recordings for 99 cents each. The store, which has sold more than 16 billion songs, became an incentive for people to buy iPods because, for much of its history, songs from the iTunes store could be downloaded only to Apple's music player.
At the same time, Mr. Jobs was building his bench of executives. He recruited Mr. Cook, a former Compaq Computer Corp. executive, in the late 1990s to straighten Apple's operations and promoted him over time to chief operating officer.
In 2004, Mr. Jobs had to lean on this bench when he disclosed that he had had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. Apple revealed the procedure in early August 2004, but a person familiar with the situation said Mr. Jobs first learned of the tumor during a routine abdominal scan nine months earlier. The board and Mr. Jobs said nothing to Apple shareholders as the Apple executive, during that time, dealt with the tumor through changes to his diet, the person said.
In June 2007, Mr. Jobs made another splash when Apple introduced the iPhone. Mr. Jobs was typically hands-on in the creation of the iPhone. People familiar with the matter say the former CEO was the one who made a decision to change the screen of the iPhone from plastic to glass after he unveiled the product at the Macworld trade show in 2007. The iPhone team scrambled to procure glass that would meet his standards, so the devices could be manufactured in time for the launch.
Despite skepticism about Apple's ability to enter an already competitive market dominated by the likes of Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry devices, Apple became a force in the mobile phone market, selling 92 million iPhones as of December 2010.
Last year, Mr. Jobs also unveiled the iPad tablet computer to great fanfare. Apple has sold more than 29 million iPads as buyers snapped them up. People who work closely with Mr. Jobs said the project was so important to him that he was deeply involved in its planning even while recovering from his 2009 liver transplant.
Those who knew Mr. Jobs say one reason why he was able to keep innovating was because he didn't dwell on past accomplishments and demanded that employees do the same. Hitoshi Hokamura, a former Apple employee, recalls how an old Apple I that was displayed by the company cafeteria quietly disappeared after Mr. Jobs returned in the late 1990s.
"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose," Mr. Jobs said in a commencement speech at Stanford University in June 2005, almost a year after he was diagnosed with cancer.

Samsung wants iPhone 4S sales banned in France, Italy

Seoul: Samsung Electronics said it will file patent-infringement claims in France and Italy to ban the sale of Apple’s new iPhone less than a day after it was unveiled, intensifying a legal battle between the two top brands.
It will also file legal cases in other countries to stop the sale of the iPhone 4S after further review, the South Korean maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets said in a statement. Samsung has emerged as a credible challenger to Apple’s mobile devices and the two companies are battling over patents in courtrooms around the world. They have sued each other in 10 countries involving more than 20 cases since April.
The latest salvo from Samsung comes hours after Apple’s newest iPhone launch left investors and Apple fans wishing for more than a souped-up version of its previous device introduced more than a year ago. Apple shares fell as much as 5 percent before recovering to close down 0.6 percent on Tuesday.

Samsung Galaxy S2. Reuters.

“Apple has continued to flagrantly violate our intellectual property rights and free-ride on our technology,” the South Korean firm said in a statement. “We will steadfastly protect our intellectual property.”
Samsung said preliminary injunction requests for a ban on iPhone 4S sales will be filed on Wednesday and each case involves two patent infringements related to its wireless technology.
Under French and Italian laws, companies can seek and courts can order a ban on sales of a product even before it hits the market, Samsung spokesman James Chung told Reuters.
Apple and Samsung are vying for the top spot in the global smartphone market.
But the intensifying legal battle with Apple threatens to derail Samsung’s telecoms and component businesses. Apple is Samsung’s biggest customer, buying mainly chips and displays.
On Tuesday, Apple rejected an offer from Samsung to settle a tablet computer dispute in Australia, possibly killing off the commercial viability of the new Galaxy tablet in that market.
Samsung is set to report sharply lower quarterly earnings on Friday on persistent declines in chip prices, while investors look for signs its telecom business can sustain its booming growth.
Legal Battle
Samsung’s intensifying attack comes after a series of setbacks in Europe and Australia.
Apple and Samsung are due to meet again in courtrooms in the United States, the Netherlands and South Korea next week.
Apple says Samsung’s Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets “slavishly” copied its iPhone and iPad.
Samsung, widely expected to overtake Apple as the world’s No.1 smartphone vendor in unit terms in the third quarter, rejects the claims.
Samsung accused Apple of not paying licensing fees for some of its patents before it started selling iPhones in 2007. Apple argues Samsung never demanded a licence fee until 2010 and before that Samsung remained silent because Apple is an important customer.
The iPhone 4S adds to Apple’s iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 products that Samsung claims infringed its wireless-technology patents.
Samsung’s latest Galaxy tablets, powered by Google’s Android operating system, have already been blocked in Germany. So too have some smartphone models in the Netherlands.
Shares in Samsung closed up 1.7 percent on Wednesday after the new iPhone failed to wow fans and investors, leaving Android rivals better placed to grab market share.

India's low-cost tablet is made by Canada's DataWind

India is closer to its much-touted target of a US$35 tablet, with DataWind, a wireless Web access products maker in Montreal, designing and making a device that it will sell to the government for $50.
The country's Minister of Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal, launched the tablet, called Aakash, on Wednesday. The tablet will likely be distributed at a subsidy to students in higher education in the country.
DataWind has been able to get to a price of $38 for the tablet which has a 7-inch display with 800-by-480 pixel resolution, 256MB of RAM, 2GB flash storage, and a 366MHz processor from Connexant. The tablet runs the Android 2.2 operating system.
Local sales taxes, performance guarantees, and an exacting replacement warranty have taken the price to the government up to $50, said Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind in an interview.
The target is to get to $35 per unit, inclusive of warranty, once volumes pick up.
The Indian government is expected to buy 8 million to 10 million units of the device by March 31, 2012, the end of the Indian fiscal year, Tuli said. The first order of 100,000 units will be executed from a factory in Hyderabad over the next six weeks, he added.
Tuli said that Sibal's vision and the commitment of business from the government had driven the company to accept the challenge to come up with a device at about $35.
The Aakash tablet has been designed, developed and manufactured by DataWind, in partnership with an educational institution, IIT Rajasthan, DataWind said in a statement.
The design of the product was done by DataWind between its centers in Montreal and India, Tuli said. IIT Rajasthan is coordinating the project, including firming up the specifications, and doing the field testing.
DataWind plans to market the product in a number of emerging markets, and also commercially in India in November where the price will be about $60 with added GPRS (general packet radio service) capability, which will allow it to double as a phone. Higher-end versions of the product will also be launched in less price-sensitive markets like the U.K. and the U.S.
India's low-cost computer had a number of false starts and experimentation with the government at one point talking about a $10 laptop. Officials in the Department of Higher Education, however, clarified that the device would not be a laptop.
In July last year, the country's Ministry of Human Resource Development announced a $35 computing and access device for students of colleges and universities. The price of the device, which was to be designed by Indian academic research and education institutions, was eventually dropped to $10, according to a statement from the ministry.
India did not sign up for the One Laptop Per Child program after officials in the education ministry decided that giving a computer to every child is "pedagogically suspect" and may actually be detrimental to the growth of the creative and analytical abilities of the child.
The configuration of the DataWind tablet is adequate for most applications including HD quality video, reading books, and basic office applications, according to Tuli. The company makes up for the lower speed of the processor by using compression acceleration technologies that shift a part of the processing during Web browsing from the device to the cloud, Tuli said.

DataWind was able to achieve a low price for the device by its vertical integration model which includes designing its boards, integrating some components in-house, developing the middleware, and making the touch panels, he added.