Google Will Launch 1-G bps broadband network.

Google will launch a 1G-bps broadband network for faculty homes on Stanford University's campus in 2011. Think of it as a flight test for its planned community deployment.

Some city leaders resorted to extreme measures (jumping in freezing water, swimming with sharks, renaming islands) to catch Google's eye 

to be the site for an ultra high-speed broadband zone.

The Stanford test, characterized as a "beta deployment," will serve as a template for how future deployments in the winning city or cities might fare.

Google Fiber Product Manager James Kelly made it clear that the Stanford network "is completely separate from our community selection process for Google Fiber, which is still ongoing."

Even so, Kelly said this is the first time Google is trying its service out with real customers.

"We'll be able to take what we learn from this small deployment to help scale our project more effectively and efficiently to much larger communities," Kelly added.

The test will allow Google to play with its new fiber optic technologies, normally the purview of broadband carriers such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T, as well as the networking gear providers who make the equipment.

Google cited Stanford as the first customer test because the university is close to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and is open to the company experimenting with new fiber technologies on its streets.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google at Stanford, which later invested in the project that would become the world's leading search engine.

While Google likes to characterize these broadband network dalliances as tests, the company never does anything without some higher meaning and goal.

It's unlikely Google will become a massive, certified global carrier of broadband. But it could create a decent-sized footprint of pipes through which it can sell its own brand of Web services, starting with Google TV, which was launched in October on Logitech companion boxes and Sony Internet TVs and Blu-ray players.

While Google has not formally announced advertising plans for Google TV, the company is the Web's premier digital ad provider, so there's no question it's got an idea of how it wants to target consumers with ads while leveraging the convergence of Web and TV.

Populating speedy broadband networks can help Google TV, as well as boost the company's Web apps and services, such as YouTube. 

By: Clint Boulton

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Google Says Whole Emails Gathered By Street View Cars

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--Google Inc. (GOOG) acknowledged Friday the cars its uses to collect data for its online mapping service had inadvertently gathered entire emails and passwords, a disclosure that prompted the Internet giant to appoint a privacy chief and tighten its policies.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet search giant said it wanted to delete the information as quickly as possible. It also announced several steps its would take to improve its internal privacy and security practices, including the appointment of Alma Whitten, who specializes in computer security, as director of privacy for both engineering and products.

The development comes as Google faces heightened regulatory scrutiny around the world prompted by revelations in May that its cars had collected personal data from unsecured wireless networks while taking photos for its Street View mapping service. Google initially said the data was fragmentary, but external reviews discovered that some of the data was more complete than expected.

"A number of external regulators have inspected the data as part of their investigations," Alan Eustace, a senior vice president in charge of engineering and research, said in a blog post. "It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords."

Google's admission came just days after Canada's Privacy Commissioner said the company violated the privacy of perhaps thousands of Canadians when it captured sometimes highly sensitive personal information such as complete emails, email usernames and passwords, and even information about certain Canadians' medical conditions.

"Canada has played an important role in blowing the digital whistle," said Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Privacy groups have increasingly become concerned by the amount of data companies collect on consumers as they use the Internet. Google Buzz, a social networking project, quickly became the target of complaints when user information was revealed more broadly than anticipated.

Social network Facebook Inc.'s privacy policies have also been scrutinized.

Eustace said Google would enhance training on the proper collection and use of data for its engineering, product management and legal groups. In December, all employees will be required to take a new information awareness program.

Google said the data collection was caused by the accidental inclusion of coding from an experimental project.

On Friday, Google shares were little changed at $612.53.

By Scott Morrison and Andrew Morse Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

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Facebook, Amazon and Zynga bet on social web

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (centre) is backing the fund

Facebook, Amazon and Zynga will invest in a fund to help entrepreneurs develop applications and services for a new era of the social web.

The lion's share of the sFund's $250m (£160m) will come from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Details were announced at an event at Facebook's California headquarters.

"There's going to be an opportunity over the next five years or so to pick any industry and rethink it in a social way," said Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

"We think that every industry is going to be fundamentally re-thought and designed around people."

That was a view backed by KPCB partner John Doerr, best known for investing in Amazon, Google and Netscape.

"These social networks are going to go from a half a billion people to billions of people connected on the planet and so represents an extraordinarily exciting time on the internet," he told BBC News.

"Think of it as a quarter-billion-dollar party. The third great wave of the internet is mobile and social together. It's going to be tectonic," added Mr Doerr.'Hopes and dreams'

The sFund will provide financing, advice and relationship capital for a new generation of start-ups to deliver on the promise of the social web.

Amazon will help businesses get access to the company's web services platform for one year, as well as provide business and technical support.
The backers of the fund believe the social web will become even more important in the coming years

Facebook will contribute access to its platform teams, beta APIs, and new programmes like Facebook Credits.

The essence of the sFund is similar in concept to KPCB's $200m iFund aimed at companies that create applications for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

That fund, which started in 2008, has invested in 14 start-ups so far.

The sFund will be led by Bing Gordon, a partner at KPCB and former chief creative executive at Electronic Arts.

The main focus will be on social start-ups in all industries from consumer to enterprise and from health to mobile. It will not invest in direct competitors to Facebook, Amazon or social gaming company Zynga.

"We intend to be very loyal to the people we are working with. Our hopes and dreams get kind of enmeshed with theirs," Mr Gordon told the BBC.

"The companies we will invest in will be the Zynga of health, the Zynga of education, different kinds of commerce, of social utility, of finance. There is an opportunity to build Zynga-sized companies that will scale up.

"Social is just getting started and the opportunities are vast. As in the early days of the internet, the race is on."'Facebook effect'

For Google, which harbours social ambitions of its own, the creation of the sFund could be seen as a blow to the search giant.

"It is aligning everything against Google," said MG Siegler of the technology blog TechCrunch.

"I am sure the sFund will say they will be okay to fund things built on Google's upcoming social graph but it will be a long time before any of those companies pop up. This really does bolster the Facebook effect here."

Asked why Google is not taking part in this fund, Mr Doerr, who sits on their board, told reporters, "Google is still developing their social strategy. Stay tuned."

At the event the sFund's first investment was announced.

Cafebots closed a first round of $5m. The company is involved in what has been termed "friend relationship management". They did not make any comment because they are in stealth mode.

Other companies that KPCB said would have made the grade for the sFund were ones that the venture capital firm had invested in.

They included Jive, Lockerz and Flipboard.

"Everything is becoming more and more social," said Evan Doll, co-founder of Flipboard.

"This is about people. Applying that point of view to a lot of businesses and services will be great going forward and help the internet feel less like this cold and impersonal technological space," Mr Doll told BBC News.

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Microsoft fighting back

BeforeApple's iPhone barged in and changed the game, Microsoft was one of the leaders in the smart phone arena. Its Windows Mobile phones were popular contenders, particularly among business users.

But the iPhone took smart phones in a different direction. The clunky menus and awkward navigation on Microsoft phones paled in comparison to the intuitive, touchscreen-based competition. Microsoft couldn't respond fast enough, and Windows Mobile's market share imploded.

Because smart phones are a rapidly growing and lucrative category, Microsoft isn't about to give up. Enter Windows Phone 7, a completely reworked version of the company's smartphone software and a reboot of how Microsoft thinks a smart phone should work. I've been playing with a phone that uses it; it's remarkably good and very different from anything else out there.

Most modern smart phones use an interface that dates back to the earliest models developed by Palm, with rows of applications you tap or click to launch. On Windows Phone 7, you're presented with a series of tiles in two columns. They represent either frequently used apps or a collection of related apps called hubs. They're dynamic: If there's live information coming into an app, you'll see it displayed in the tiles. For example, if a song is playing in the Zune media player, its album art is visible in its home screen tile.

Zippy and fluid

Tap on any item, and the tiles swing out of sight, as if a wind has blown them away. Apps launch very quickly, and on the phone I tested — an HTC Surround, to be sold by AT&T - almost everything about the phone was zippy and fluid.

The Surround uses a 1-gigahertz processor to power a 3.8-inch touchscreen display. The bottom half of the phone slides up to reveal a set of small speakers, which, along with a kickstand on the back, make it easier to watch video. As with all Windows Phone 7 devices, there are three software buttons under the screen - Back, Home and Search, which brings up Microsoft's Bing search engine. It will sell for $199 with a two-year contract. (So far, AT&T and T-Mobile have announced nine Windows 7 Phone devices.)

Each of the phone's hubs is devoted to a specific category. The People hub manages your contacts and social media; the Office hub lets you read and edit Microsoft Office documents; the Games hub integrates games on the phone with those on your Xbox 360, and so on.

Some apps written by Microsoft partners can plug directly into the hubs, while others work as standalone programs. For example, access to Facebook is integrated deeply into the People hub. If you link up your Facebook account, your contact list can show Facebook updates from your friends.

2 classes of apps

However, because not all Windows Phone 7 apps get to plug into the hubs, you don't always get this blended experience. I much prefer Twitter to Facebook, but none of the available Twitter apps has hub status. Microsoft effectively has created two classes of apps, and as George Orwell once put it, some are more equal than others.

Once you're inside a hub or an app, you navigate in two ways. Usually, scrolling horizontally takes you through categories of features. Then, to see specific features or information, you scroll vertically.

In the Outlook app, for example, you scroll horizontally to see All Mail, Unread or Urgent categories, then you scroll down to see each e-mail in those categories. It's a smart and intuitive design.

One of the nicest features is the Zune media player, which uses the same software found in Microsoft's Zune hardware players. While the Zune has been mocked in the past, its software is actually quite good, and in many ways I prefer it over that found in non-touchscreen iPods. I think the Zune's audio quality beats Apple's iPods. You can sync it wirelessly over your home Wi-Fi network, as well as the more traditional method using a USB cable.

As with the iPhone and Android, Microsoft is making apps available through an online store, the Marketplace. As you'd expect, there aren't many apps in there at the moment, and of those available, many are of from small developers you've probably never heard of. But even some of the big-name apps still need work. I downloaded a Windows Phone 7 version of Seesmic, the popular app for accessing Twitter, and found it to be irritatingly slow. Over time, this kind of thing will be fixed, but early adopters should keep that in mind.

Very impressed, but . . .

I'm very impressed with Windows Phone 7, to the point that I'd consider a phone that uses it in the future - and that's coming from a die-hard iPhone user. That said, this is very much a Version 1.0 release and lacks some key features. It doesn't have cut-and-paste, for example, and its multitasking is severely limited. There are small interface irritations, too. For example, the battery status and connection icons can't be displayed full-time at the top of the home screen; you only see them briefly when you tap the top of the screen.

These can all be fixed with updates (Microsoft will add copy/paste early next year), so I expect this already intriguing mobile platform to get even better. Right now, Windows Phone 7 is a contender. A year from now, I expect it to be a serious challenger.

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Survey: Who is more likely to use a mobile health app?

According to the latest survey conducted by the Pew Internet Project, of the 85 percent of American adults who use a mobile phone today 17 percent have used their phone to look up health or medical information. Perhaps not surprisingly, mobile phone users aged 18 to 29-years-old are much more likely to have searched for health information from their phones: 29 percent of this age group has conducted such a search.

The survey shows that using a mobile browser to search for health or medical information is nearly twice as popular as having a health-related app: Only 9 percent of mobile phone users have a software app on their phone that helps them track or manage their health. The percentage goes up to 15 percent for mobile phone users aged 18 to 29-years-old. Only 8 percent of mobile phone users aged 30 to 49-years-old use health apps. African American mobile phone owners are more likely than other groups to use health apps: 15 percent do so compared to 7 percent of white and 11 percent of Latino mobile phone users, the survey found. Urban mobile phone users are more likely than those in suburban or rural areas to have a health app on their phones, but there is no significant differences between usage among men and women nor among income groups, the survey found.

“This means that health‐information searches and communications have joined the growing array of non‐voice data applications that are being bundled into cell phones,” Pew’s Susannah Fox writes in the report. “Fully 76 percent of cell phone owners (age 18+) use their phones to take pictures, for example, up from 66 percent in April 2009. Seven in ten cell phone owners send or receive text messages; four in ten access the internet on their phones. In addition, 35 percent of U.S. adults have software applications or “apps” on their phones (but only one in four adults actually use them).”

Of course, most Americans turn to health professionals, friends, or family when they have a health question. Pew notes that the Internet plays a “growing but still supplemental role” and mobile connectivity has not changed that.

Urban cell phone owners are more likely than those who live in suburban or rural areas to have a mobile health app on their phone. There are no significant differences between men and women, nor among income groups.

For the table at the right, the numbers represent the percentage of mobile phone users who have a health app on their phones — the asterisks indicate a statistically significant difference.

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Sprint, Clearwire and Time Warner Cable together announced that they’ll each offer their own branded WiMax 4G service in New York over Clearwire’s growing WiMax network.

Sprint, Clearwire and Time Warner Cable are planning to pick up the pace for New Yorkers. In an Oct. 18 announcement, the three announced plans to launch 4G mobile Internet services “later this year” in the Big Apple, each under its own 4G brand.

Each service, however, will be based on Clearwire’s WiMax technology — a competitor to the LTE (long-term evolution) technology favored by Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

The Clearwire brand, Clear, is a dual-mode 3G/4G service, meaning it reverts to the former where the latter is unavailable. The service is now live in some parts of New York. While equipment pricing varies, the unlimited service is $35 for the first two months and $55 a month for the remainder of the two-year contract. There are also Clear packages available that include service and the device, whether a USB modem or a Series G modem for the home.

Go the Sprint 4G Service route instead and you’ll get access to Sprint’s line of 3G/4G handsets—which for now means the HTC Evo 4G and the Samsung Epic 4G—and USB modems. Sprint has also confirmed that its 4G support in New York will go live Nov. 1. Pricing plans are available on the Sprint site. Want to take it for a spin? If you’ve got a 3G/4G model and existing Mobile Broadband Connection plan, the carrier offers a 24 Hour 4G Day Pass for $9.99. And while it puts a 5GB cap on its 3G network offering, on the 4G network it offers “all you can stream, browse, e-mail, chat, watch and game."

Time Warner Cable Mobile Internet service will include nationwide 3G service and 4G coverage in participating markets, and requires a subscription to at least one other Time Warner Cable service. As with the others, 3G network speeds are said to average 300 to 1400 K bps for downloads and 350 to 500 K bps for uploads, while 4G speeds are up to 6 M bps, with peak downloads up to 10 M bps.

The service is available with a two-year agreement, in which case the modem is discounted and activation is free, or without an agreement, in which case activation is $35 and the modem is full price.

The New York deployment will bring the number of Clearwire-covered U.S. markets to 57, a figure poised to continue climbing. By the end of 2010, Denver, Miami, Cincinnati and Cleveland are scheduled to receive coverage, and in a separate Oct. 18 statement, Sprint and Clearwire announced that on Dec. 1, Los Angeles and San Francisco will get the treatment as well.

Such deployments don’t come cheap, however. Analysts estimate that the fourth-quarter build-out of the network will run approximately $2 billion. To help it foot the bill, Clearwire has announced that it will auction off a portion of its considerable spectrum holdings, which according to Bloomberg News has attracted the interest of AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom and cable operators Cablevision and Time Warner.

It’s been speculated that the auction is also related to the recent resignation of Sprint CEO Dan Hesse from the Clearwire Board of Directors.

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs Keeping Cash `Powder Dry' for Future Bets

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, joining an earnings conference call for the first time in two years, said the company will use cash for deals as it repels threats from Google Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd.

“We’d like to continue to keep our powder dry,” Jobs said yesterday when asked whether Cupertino, California-based Apple would use the cash for a stock buyback or dividend. “We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along.”

Apple has $25.6 billion in cash and short-term investments. Including longer-term holdings, the amount climbs to about $51 billion, more than any other technology company, said Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co. in San Francisco. Apple may eventually make a large acquisition, possibly for a company such as Akamai Technologies Inc., which makes technology for distributing media content on the Web, he said.

“They are in a position to outbid everybody if they view the asset as valuable enough,” said Marshall, who recommends buying Apple shares and doesn’t own any himself.

Jeff Young, a spokesman for Akamai, didn’t return an after- hours call seeking comment.

Jobs spoke after Apple reported that fourth-quarter profit rose 70 percent to $4.31 billion, or 4.64 a share, on sales of $20.3 billion. The stock fell in late trading yesterday after Apple forecast narrower gross margins in the current quarter as well as profit that will rise less than analysts projected. The company sold fewer iPad tablets than some analysts predicted.

‘Closing In’

Profit will be about $4.80 a share this quarter, which includes the holiday shopping season. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted profit of $5.03. Gross margin, the percentage of sales left after deducting production costs, will be about 36 percent, compared with 36.9 percent last quarter and 41.8 percent a year before that, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said on the call.

Apple slumped as much as 7.9 percent to $292.75 in extended trading. Earlier, it had climbed $3.26 to a record $318 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares, up 51 percent this year, surpassed $300 for the first time last week. Apple accounts for 21 percent of theNasdaq 100 Index.

The rising popularity of devices using Google’s Android software may hurt Apple in the long term, said Michael Obuchowski, chief investment officer of First Empire Asset Management, which holds Apple shares.

“Everyone is closing in and it’s a huge question of how they are going to respond,” said Obuchowski, whose firm oversees $4 billion. “I’m really worried about Apple; I’m not convinced that I’m going to hold Apple two years from now.”

‘Commodity’ Experience

Jobs dismissed the threat of rivals. Apple’s approach of designing the software and hardware for its devices results in a better user experience, he said. By contrast, Google gives Android free to handset makers including Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp., creating a “commodity” experience, he said.

Jobs said Apple is outselling BlackBerry-maker RIM and he doesn’t “see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.”

Marisa Conway, a spokeswoman for Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, declined to comment. Jane Penner, a spokeswoman for Google in Mountain View, California, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Apple sold 4.19 million iPad tablet computers last quarter, fewer than the 4.5 million predicted by Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Cos. in Minneapolis. Today’s results also included the first full quarter of sales for iPhone 4, released in June. Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones and 3.89 million Macintosh computers.

Supply Constraints

Munster, who estimated Apple would sell 11 million iPhones, said last week that supply shortages likely held back sales of both the smartphone and iPad.

The cost of making the iPhone may be increasing, said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon. The device accounts for 43 percent of Apple’s revenue.

“We saw what we think is a pretty remarkable increase in iPhone costs,” and that’s fueled concern over margins, Hargreaves said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Revenue this quarter will be about $23 billion, Apple said. Analysts had predicted sales of $22.3 billion.

Even so, competition is increasing. The Android operating system was the most popular smartphone software in the U.S. in the second quarter, according to Gartner Inc.

Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Dell Inc. are among the companies using Android in tablet computers to rival the iPad. Hewlett-Packard Co., the largest computer maker, is developing a tablet computer.

Apple may get a sales boost by expanding the availability of the iPhone in the U.S. Verizon Wireless may begin selling it in January, two people familiar with the matter said in June.

Jobs also said he’s been surprised by iPad purchases by business customers.

“We haven’t pushed it real hard in business and it’s being grabbed out of our hands,” Jobs said. “The more time that passes, the more I am convinced that we’ve got a tiger by the tail.”

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