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Oonagh Reidy

Hello Siri: iPhone BFF Knocks But Where’s iPhone 5?

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As disappointment about the missing iPhone 5 rings, fear not. iPhone 4S has brought along Siri, the ” intelligent assistant that helps you get things done”… just by asking.


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Siri is an understanding friend to iPhoners and gets “context allowing you to speak naturally when you ask it questions,” Apple declared today.

Siri will also listen to your problems. For example, if you ask “Will I need an umbrella this weekend?” the clever PA understands you are looking for a weather forecast.

But Siri is also discreet and smart about using your personal information you give her access to, insist her makers.

And what’s more, the assistant will be available in beta on iPhone 4S in English  and localised for US, UK and Australia. (Does that mean she will say G’Day?). 

But, take note, the onhand assistant also knows your location and every move, but will help you find nice restaurant, movie house or nearby events.

Cupertino acquired Siri last year for $200m, which Steve Jobs described as “artifical intelligence.”

“Siri helps you make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. You can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking.”

“There’s so much you can ask. Compose and dictate emails, ask questions about the weather, stocks, set timers. It’s not perfect, but there’s a huge amount it can do,” declared Scott Forstall,, Apple head of iOS at the US launch yesterday.

Ok, enough about Siri. Where’s iPhone 5? Nowhere to be seen, to the disappointment of millions.

Read OZ Consumers & Analysts Not Impressed By New iPhone 4S Here

But wait.

 

The new iPhone 4S is “entirely new on the inside,” Cupertino insist at what was classed as a “dud” event in California.

Suri and the new iCloud were seen as mere distractions to the clear absense of a spanking new hero handset.

Industry watchers and Apple fans alike were hotly anticipating the release of a span new 5th generation Apple handset to wow them into 2012.

Read Apple Launch Upgraded iPhone 4 No iPhone 5 Here

So, what’s so new about this iPhone 4S? 8 megapixel camera sensor, which is 33% faster at taking photos, full 1080p HD video, new antenna system, faster download and upload speeds  to 14.4Mbps and 5.8Mbps, respectively, thanks to dual core A5 chip, and is now a ‘world’ phone, able to handle both GSM and CDMA networks, giving Apple a massive foothold in the Chinese market.

Other extras include iMessage, service that lets you send texts messages, photo and video messages and iCloud storage.

4S is also running iOS 5, which has 200 new features and will be available as a free software update for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS holders.

 

iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and will be sold here from October 14 for AUD$799 for the 16GB model, $899 for the 32GB and $999 for the new 64GB handset, in what is being called one of the fastest rollout’s ever.

iPhone 4 price is also being trimmed, available for “just” AU$679, while iPhone 3GS will now sell for $449.

Stop! Optus Are Bill Police & (Not) Charging You

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Optus are the new bill police and on the prowl for data roamers and plan jumpers.

To help customers manage their mobile bills, the Telco will inform mobile users via text when they exceed 80% of monthly voice/ data allowance and when they are being charged for roaming services. 

But, the bill alert is in place for postpaid plans only and the ‘roaming alert’ kicks in within an hour of the data downloads, meaning bills could still mount. 
However, the alert does allow customers to disable international data roaming to avoid further charges and for those who stay on, Optus will notify at every 15MB of usage to help control their spend. 
The alert system will give users “greater level of visibility and control of their mobile bill,” say Optus. Rival’s Telstra and Vodafone also recently announced similar policing plans.
The yellow Telco will also send alerts to customers if  they spend $20 or more on services which aren’t included in their cap, such as international calls or premium SMS. 
The new bill alert system, which is to kick off “soon”, will apply to the voice, text/ data, whichever is reached first. 
“This new alert system will notify customers when they use data roaming and make them aware of how much it is costing them if they choose not to turn it off,” says Gavin Williams, Marketing Director, Optus Consumer. 
We believe it will lead to fewer customers coming home to unexpectedly high mobile bills or at least make customers more aware of how much it will cost them if they do choose to use data roaming.” 
 

The SingTel owned telco are also looking at simpler plans and better data roaming rates for popular destinations, it also revealed today.

It’s War, iTunes: Samsung To Get Loud On Music

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Samsung want you to listen to them. To its music services, that is.


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The Koreans are about to up the ante on its software business, a senior exec has indicated, and plans to unleash brand new services for 2013.

“We’re preparing new services for launch early next year. With these offerings, people will start to think Samsung is good in software, too,” Kang Tae-jin, Samsung senior VP of Media Solution, told Reuters.

However, what exactly some of these ‘services’ are remains a mystery.

But the world’s No. 1 phone maker, Samsung, is getting set to buy mobile content providers, and aims to become among the top 4 music content services within 3 years.

“The message we’re getting from the top is to raise software capability, and buy rather than build, if needed.”

The move would not be to make money per se, but rather support its hardware operation–including its line of Galaxy smartphones and Tabs–and create a seamless, fully integrated software and hardware system for Samsung’s millions of users.

“Our focus on software is primarily aimed at driving hardware sales, rather than making money. We have a full range of handsets in so many countries, and, to better market our products, we thought it’s better to start our own software business,” Kang said.

The move would also give Samsung a leg up against arch rival Apple, who has its own well established iTunes and rumoured to launch its own Pandora style streaming service, with hundreds of Internet-based radio stations streamed from the cloud.

Just two weeks ago, Apple announced a brand new iTunes featuring a redesigned player and integration with iCloud.

But its not just Apple that Samsung will be up against – Amazon cloud player, Google Music as well as independent streamers like Spotify, Pandora are all popular among music lovers.

“We want to grow the Music Hub to rank in the world’s top four services within three years in both revenue and subscriber numbers,” Kang said.

“And to shorten the time, we’re ready to do more acquisitions, if needed.” And Samsung are willing to dig deep to pay for it, he added.

 

Samsung already have an in-house Music Hub service available in Australia, US and parts of Europe that starts at A$9.95 a month, streaming tunes and music videos straight to Samsung devices.

The Korean giant even opened a pop-up store in Sydney pushing the new service last year, so clearly sees it as a major differentiator among rival mobile brands.

Samsung has made several acquitions already this year, and purchased cloud-based music locker mSpot in May for around $10m and British owned wireless technology experts CSR in July for $310m.

iPhone 5 On $99 ‘Unlimited’ Plan?

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US carrier sprint is said to be offering unlimited data usage on iPhone 5. The new Apple was thought to provoke a major battle between iOS and Android.


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But now it appears a major battle for smartphone customers between carriers is also to unfold, with Sprint Nextel rumored to be offering unlimited data/calls usage on iPhone 5. 

The third largest carrier in the US, after AT&T and Verizon is looking to gain competitive advantage over its two larger rivals who already sell the device, sources told Bloomberg. 
Sprint has been waiting for the lucrative iPhone carrier deal since 2007. iPhone 5, which looks like it might get an October release, should inject some fresh momentum into the Apple phone market, after a relatively quiet period of late. 
Apple are said to be producing 4.5 million iPhone 5 units per month to keep up with what looks set to be unprecedented demand for the cult device. 
And one Wall Street analyst has predicted more then half of all Android users may defect in the next 12 months – with many predictably switching to Apple iOS as anticipation for 5 builds. 
The new iPhone is said to sport a dual core A5 processor a la iPad 2, 8MP camera and HD display. 
Sprint already offers unlimited data plans for US$99 on Blackberry’s, Samsung and HTC handsets on Android. 
AT&T offers iPhone 4 data plans range from 200MB for $15 to 4GB for $45 but certainly as much data as you can fit is a tasty deal. 
 

Lets hope Telstra and Optus get a similar notion here.

Search War: Microsoft Losing Billions On Bing As Plans Secret Weapon

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It’s less Bada Bing and more Zero Bing. Microsoft’s search engine is on a losing streak as reports suggest it is losing $1 billion per quarter – a massive loss for the search engine which kicked off just two years ago.


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Microsoft who are draining billions on the loss making engine – a jaw dropping $5.5bn in total since its kick off in June 2009, according to CNN Money calculations.

Steve Ballmer’s Microsoft has never made money in its online services division, the report suggests, which has lost $9bn since 2007. Ouch.

However, Bing claims it has gained market share from Google accounting for 14.7% of all online searches currently – almost double the figure it held when starting out.

But it appears, this is far from reality – search king Google has retained its lions share of the search pie – at 64.8% – according to ComScore stats – just 0.2% fall since Bing’s arrival two years ago.

This means Microsoft is eating into other competitors share – Yahoo!, Ask, and AOL.

And as CNN points out, Yahoo’s search is powered by Bing.

And despite Google’s dominance, Microsoft aren’t giving up without a fight, telling analysts last week how it will “reorganise the web” and make the Net more searchable than rivals allow (no cooking a la Google, then).

And its all thanks to a technical secret search weapon, President of Online Services Qi Lu told analysts last week.

And Bing has been busy of late, introducing ‘action buttons’ and ‘deep links’ on web searches meaning users can dive straight into a site’s main functionality from results.

“With Action Buttons, it’s less about searching and more about getting things done. With one click of a button, you can get to what you’re looking for right from your search results,’ it said on its blog this week.

Bing wantd to be able to discipher this by being able to understand natural human speak as opposed to just keywords or what Lu termed ‘caveman speak’.

So, instead of typing ‘Jennifer Aniston” and ‘boyfriend’ you can just type ‘Who is Jens boyfriend at the moment’ and get the same results.

 

The software ace plans to leverage products and partnerships to gain a better understanding of what web searchers really are looking for when they enter a query, said Lu.

To this end, it has hooked up with Facebook for search operations as well as other companies to sell items like tickets, clothes, flights as well as ‘featured Bing brands’ like LG, Sony and Samsung.

However, it would not seek to “out-Google” its biggest rival rather “change the game fundamentally.”

Myer Sales Head South

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Myer continues to be subject to chilly trading conditions as sales suffer 1.7% fall.


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It figures for first six month of fiscal 2012 to January 28 show pre tax earnings of $142.9 m – down 15.1%.

H1 sales were down 1.7% to $1,704m – or 3% on a comparable store basis, while second quarter sales fell 0.4% to $1,023 m.

Net profit after tax  was also down 19.8% to $87.3m, included one-off costs of around $17 million (including Melbourne store build) and a $5 million increase in depreciation.

However, both of these not repeated in second half of the year, Myer said today.

The best performing categories across Myer store network were (Youth), Womenswear,Childrenswear and Cosmetics. Overall, the best performing states were Western Australia and South Australia.

Electrical sales fell $22 million in H1, impacted by planned category exits in consoles, gaming and rationalisation in white goods, music, DVDs and navigation systems, which it is replacing with higher margin categories.

Myer said it was making “good progress ” on exist of consoles and gaming categories.

Strong sales in Appliances and Home Office sectors partially offset the ongoing significant price deflation in TVs.

“Appliances and Home Office continue to perform well. The current market conditions relating toTVs, music and DVDs reflect a saturated and competitive market with significant pricedeflation,” CEO Bernie Brookes said.

“The planned rationalisation of these categories is nearing completion and we anticipate further improvements to profitability with the more productive use of space.

The department store admitted “challenging trading environment” but says there there continues to be “a number of opportunities” to improve business including omni-channel offer, markdown management, further shrinkage reduction, benefits from our sourcing offices, improved store lease terms, MYER one program.

Myer is also continuing its investment in improving customer service spent an additional $13m during the six months.

 

Cost impacts during the half were driven by increase in depreciation to $40 million as a result of the completion of major capital projects, new point of sale systems, Myer Melbourne rebuild and new IT hardware and update stores.

Myer also reconfirmed full year net profit guidance, predicting it will to be “no worse” than ten percent below 2011 figure of $162.7 m, meaning subdued trading growth is ahead.

“Recognising Myer’s continued strong cash generation and stable balance sheet, the Board has declared an interim dividend of 10 cents per share,” Brookes said.

The store’s net debt increased by $46 million to $298 million compared to January 2011, primarily due to the impact of the sass & bide acquisition.

Myer says it continues to be “very well placed” to benefit from any improvements in discretionary retail conditions when they occur.

Dont hold your breath, Bernie.

Samsung: Show Us The Source Code, Apple

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Samsung are demanding the source code for iPhone 4S firmware as well as Apple’s agreements with all major Aussie telco’s as it looks to ban iPhone 4S here.The demand came today as Samsung faced yet another legal showdown with foe Apple, who claim the South Koreans infringed iPhone and iPad patents, and have already succeeded in gaining a temporary ban on sale of Galaxy Tab 10.1 here.


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In retaliation, Samsung are now seeking to ban the sale of iPhone 4S here, claiming Cupertino violated three of its wireless 3G patents.

In Federal court today Samsung counsel Cynthia Cochrane said her client would need the source code for the iPhone 4S and agreements Apple had with major carriers Vodafone, Telstra and Optus in order to make a legal case for a ban before the court.

Samsung are also looking to ascertain the subsidies the telcos pay to their rival Apple for selling the iPhones on plans, according to ZD Net.

Justice Annabel Bennett, who is presiding over the case, is also the Judge in the Apple V Samsung tablet dispute, handing down a interim injunction banning Tab 10.1 last month, pending a full hearing.

“It goes to show that since the iPhone 3G was made available in Australia in July 2008, the impact on the market for every iPhone product has been significant, and has lead to a substantial increase … in market share by revenue,” Cochrane said in court today.

“If subsidies are given for the iPhone 4S, there are less to go around for my client’s products.”

Apple deny the infringement claiming Samsung agreed to license the three patents in question under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory terms (FRAND) standard.  However, Samsung say the international agreement may not extend to Australia and Apple rejected its previous invitation to license the patents in question.

 

However, the iPhone 4S, unlike Galaxy Tab banned, is already on sale here for several weeks, which Apple counsel referred to, saying “the horse had already bolted.”

In relation to firmware source code demand by Samsung, Apple said they will have to wait for advice before allowing access to the information, although claim third party license held by Qualcomm who developed the the iPhone 4S chip in question, MDM6610, according to ZD Net, automatically covers Apple also.

The case will continue on Friday November 4.

Bin iPhone Accessories: “i5” Renders Them USELESS

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Apple has just been granted a patent for a new 19 pin dock connector, rendering iPhone accessories useless.
The controversial 19 pin connector tipped for the iPhone 5 due later this year looks slimmer and smaller than the previous iPhone charge dock, and tiny by comparison to the iPhone 4 charging port (as pictured).

The new innovation allows the iPhone 5 to have a slimmer form factor and charger connection a la Android competitors like Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC.

The new 19 pin will replace Apple’s usual 30 pin connector used on all previous iPhone models and accessories like speaker docks and other (usually pricey) accessories.


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A typical iPhone speaker dock and charging station can set Apple users back several hundred dollars.

The new Apple patent as approved by the US Patent Office, believed to be iPhone’s new skinny charging dock, states it is a ‘power adapter for a peripheral device such as portable electronics device.’

“The power adapter includes a housing that contains electrical components associated with the power adapter. The power adapter also includes a data port provided at a surface of the housing.”

 


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The data port is configured to provide external power to the peripheral device.

However, Apple may release an adapter to keep the potential backlash from iPhone fanatics who upgrade to “5”, at bay.

“I really hope apple releases an adapter of some kind. I have too many apple cords and etc that use the current 30 pin port,” one Apple user wrote on iPhone forum.

“I just want it to be a magnetic connector like their laptops,” said another.

Two dock distributors in Australia confirmed last month that Apple is set to move away from a 30 pin connector to a smaller 19 pin connector.

Hello Skype: Microsoft Kills ‘Live Messenger’

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Bye bye MS messenger, hello Skype.
Microsoft is to dump its instant ‘Windows Live Messenger’ system in favour of Skype IM messenger, it confirmed on a blog yesterday.

Its first move towards killing off ‘Live Messenger’ kicked off few weeks back, releasing Skype 6.0 for Mac and Windows, which allows users sign in using their Microsoft details. 

The change means you can sign into Skype using Microsoft account details. Messenger users need to update to the latest version of Skype, sign in and their Messenger contacts will be there.

Skype 6.0 also lets you log in using Facebook details.

Microsoft bought VOIP giant Skype last year for $8.5 billion.

“Millions of Messenger users will be able to reach their Messenger friends on Skype. By updating to Skype, Messenger users can instant message and video call their Messenger friends,” Tony Bates, Skype President said on Big Blog yesterday.

The Redmond software giant will retire Messenger worldwide in the first quarter of 2013 (with the exception of mainland China).

 

Microsoft-ers will now have more tools on its Skype messenger service including:

Broader device support for all platforms, including iPad and Android tablets, video calling and sharing screens to name but a few, Bates also pointed out.