How fast is EE's 4G? Which handsets do I need? Your questions answered

Everything Everywhere, aka EE, will launch its 4G service on 30 October - but which handsets will work? Photograph: David Parry/PA

Everything Everywhere has announced that it will start offering its 4G service on 30 October. Here's what you might expect - including which handsets will (and won't) work on it - and the details that remain to be determined.

This is the sort of the speed that a 4G network offers on a phone - and something like this is what you may be able to expect from Everything Everywhere's network (from the conjoining of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK) by the end of October.

Speedtest.net app results for EE's 4G network, tested in London on 2 October 2012

By contrast, here's what a 3G network offers (in the same location, same time):

Speedtest.net app for EE's 3G network, tested on 2 October 2012

For those who don't have the images, the 4G network shows 38.59 megabits per second (Mbps) on the download, and 12.38 Mbps on the upload, using the standard Speedtest app; for the 3G network, it's 4.08 Mbps for downloads and 2.72 for uploads.

That's a factor of more than nine times faster on downloads, and 4.5 times faster for uploads.

Though you might not see such speeds once there are more people on the 4G network, it's clear that it has substantial headroom in speed terms over 3G - which has a theoretical maximum download speed of 7.2 Mbps, although other UMTS (3G) technologies such as HSDPA can in theory offer connections at up to 42 Mbps, and HSPA+ an incredible 337 Mbps.

By contrast LTE can - again, in theory - offer 300 Mbps downlink and 75 Mbps for the uplink.

EE has been working for some time on setting up its 4G network; the company decided to go ahead with building it even before Ofcom had decided to allow it to re-use its 1800MHz spectrum for 4G connections. Presently EE has about 60MHz available in the 1800MHz band to use for 4G (which will be shared with 2G services); next September it is obliged by Ofcom to sell 10MHz to Three. EE says that won't "significantly" affect its offering.

The base towers use Huawei's 4G systems - a significant win for the Chinese company which is rapidly challenging to become the largest provider of mobile network infrastructure in the world, against its main rivals Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Of course, the early tests are on uncongested 4G networks, compared with (comparatively) congested 3G ones. EE says that 4G will offer "superfast mobile internet at speeds typically five times faster than 3G speeds today".

Very probably, more customers. Already the biggest network in the UK (in terms of customers), it will now have around 11 months' headstart on other companies, which have yet to win 4G spectrum through the auction. Despite the peace deal brokered by the government and Ofcom, the reality is that EE will be able to offer handsets tuned for 4G at a time rivals cannot.

It plans to launch in 10 cities on 30 October, and up that to 16 by the end of the year.

Note that no handset bought before mid-September, even if it says it's 4G-ready, will work on EE's 4G network, apart from the iPhone 5 (and even in that case, only if bought in the UK). The following are on offer:

• Apple iPhone 5
• Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE (but not any SGS3 handsets sold in the UK up to this point)
• HTC's One XL
• Huawei Ascend P1 LTE
• Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE (from 15 October)
• Huawei mobile dongle

All are being offered through EE. (Note that the "new" iPad, aka iPad 3, launched earlier this year with 4G connectivity in the US won't work for EE's 4G because it uses a 2100MHz chipset.)

Although the SGS3 was sold as having 4G capability (and does, on networks that offered it as such), any that have been previously sold in the UK - even by Orange/T-Mobile itself - will not work for EE's 4G services. "The modem's different, the antenna is different, it's a different SKU [stock-keeping unit]", says Tom Bennett, EE's director of network services. In essence, any SGS3s (and other 4G phones, excepting the iPhone 5) not sold through EE for its 4G services won't work on its network, no matter what the specifications might say. Any iPhone 5 sold in the UK, even with another network, will work because it does use the 1800MHz chipset. (However, those networks will surely be reluctant to release people from contracts already signed without large compensation.)

Getting onto EE's 4G service will mean signing a new contract and in effect joining a new service, even for existing customers of Orange/T-Mobile. For the latter, there may be discounts if they signed a contract earlier this year; anyone who signs an Orange/T-Mobile contract for a 3G smartphone between now and the launch of the 4G service will be able to shift over with no penalty.

Confusingly, EE will now be the brand both for the network supplying coverage to Orange/T-Mobile customers on 3G contracts, and the brand supplying 4G connectivity.

Customers on other networks who want to shift over to EE to get 4G speeds will have to sign new contracts.

4G is much, much faster than 3G. It offers higher speeds over longer distances from the base stations than 3G (because it uses different encoding and error-correction, says Bennett) and offers better connections even inside buildings where 3G services might be attenuated. (The speed tests above were taken by two iPhone 5s sitting side-by-side, in an upstairs room in the Frontline Club in Paddington, London. There were two large windows nearby, though also plenty of brickwork.)

4G is also fast enough to work as a replacement for fixed broadband in rural locations; given that many people outside cities don't get speeds much above 4Mbps, the potential for 4G to fill in the digital speed gap is substantial. However, whether it's effective for that will depend heavily on the cost of the service. EE has been testing it in Cornwall and Cumbria, with what it says are encouraging results.

One key difference between 4G and 3G is that 4G is a data-only connection, so that if you're surfing the web on 4G and get a voice call, the connection will automatically drop down to 3G (which is a voice-and-data connection), says David Salam, EE's director of network strategy architecture. If you're trying to do data-intensive work but also get phone calls regularly, that might be a problem.

4G phones bought and working here won't necessarily connect to 4G networks in other countries. They might work with Optus in Australia (which is building an 1800MHz 4G network), but there's no guarantee of it. Thailand has 4G networks using 1800MHz, but again, if the handsets aren't tuned for the precise frequency bands involved, they won't be able to connect.

EE isn't giving anything away about its pricing. But it does expect that people will want to use a lot of data. Will it therefore jack up the contract costs? Salam wouldn't be drawn. But he did say that "with 16 cities, we'll have coverage for 70% of the population. By 2014 we hope that will be up to 98% of the population. That's mass-market. We aren't building this for the elite few."

Studies in the US and South Korea, which have been in the forefront of implementing 4G (in the US's case, since early 2011) show that there's a dramatic ramp in the popularity of sites showing video, because people on the move are suddenly able to access streaming video without interruption - and buffering is much faster. Expect to see sites which do offer video to leap to the top of the viewing charts. Likely beneficiaries: the BBC's iPlayer, 4OD, ITVPlayer and any site that has a good variety of video content.

Making video calls will also become much more feasible because of the fast uplink speeds. In fact, sending video of any sort will become much simpler - with all that implies for coverage of live events.

Without knowing how much the data allowances will be on 4G, it's not possible to say whether people will be burning through their data allowances more quickly. But on the basis that 4G lets you get at data nine times faster, one might expect that 500 megabytes - currently the common ceiling for flat-rate data plans on most of the networks (apart from Three, which has a number of plans offering unlimited data) - will seem too restrictive.

If 4G pushes the data allowance up (one might guess to 2GB per month) that will create extra pressure on the other network operators, whose 500MB will look stingy (even if one can't normally get through it). It could have a similar effect to Google's introduction of Gmail in 2004, when it offered an entire gigabyte of free email storage - ten times more than rivals like Hotmail and Yaho were offering. That kicked off a revolution in webmail.

If (and it's still if) EE does the same with mobile data, and the other networks pitch in with their 4G offerings, we may see mobile data consumption - and, because of the fast uplink speed, creation - skyrocket in the coming years.

Amazon Kindle Fire HD review

Amazon released its first tablet device back in 2011. Known as the Amazon Kindle Fire it was the first  atypical budget tablet, in that it retailed at a low price point but wasn’t an absolutely abysmal product.

Consumers took note and the device sold well in the US, accounting for almost 50 per cent of Android-based traffic at one point. Google also noticed and set about raising the bar, which it did convincingly with its Nexus 7 – the world’s second atypical budget tablet.

Between these two products, a new niche in the market was opened up - one about services, hardware, performance and low-prices. It’s niche because only the biggest corporations like Google, Amazon, and Apple can afford to venture here.

The Apple, Amazon, and Google’s of the world can afford to sell at cost, or even a loss, because they own the services, the apps stores, and the content. Nokia, HTC, LG, and Samsung do not. And this is why we don’t see atypical budget offerings from them.

With the Kindle Fire HD, Amazon has come out with all guns blazing. The new tablet device is thinner, better looking, more powerful, and has a better display, as the name suggests. It’s also running Android Ice Cream Sandwich, albeit in an unrecognisable form, and is available for the first time in the UK.

But is it any good? Or should you go with Google’s similarly priced and arguably better-equipped Nexus 7 instead? Lets find out.

The original Kindle Fire didn’t look great. It felt a little rough round the edges and the performance just wasn’t there. These factors contributed to the impression that Amazon was using it more as a test device for its take on Android and how its services would be implemented than a genuine bid for the space.

Looking at the Fire HD, the successor model, this seems to be proving true. It’s well crafted, thin, and very easy on the eye. It also feels light in the hand and has a robust premium feel that was previously lacking in a big way.

The front of the device is glass for the most part and then tapers away to a grippy soft-touch backing, which not only looks very smart but also aids handling substantially.

From the front, the only visible imperfection is the camera, which sits dead center above the display. The volume rocker, power/unlock button, and 3.5mm jack run down the right hand side and two ports – one micro-HDMI, one microUSB – can be found on the bottom of the slate.

The volume rocker and power/unlock keys sit flush to the device and, as you’d expect, are quite difficult to locate without looking first. Over time you do get used to their positioning but it is rather infuriating during the first few days with the device.

Exact proportions are 193x137x10.3mm and it weighs in at 395g. That makes it shorter and thinner (although not by much, a mere 0.5mm in fact) than the Nexus 7. The Fire HD is also wider than the Nexus 7 on account of its bezel and is heavier by around 55g.

A metallic strip that runs the entire length of the back, where the Fire HD’s Dolby audio dual-driver stereo speakers are housed, adds a nice finish to an already great-looking device.

Overall, I’d argue that the Kindle Fire HD surpasses the Nexus 7 for looks, despite it’s slightly heavier build and wider design. It definitely feels more robust in the hand. What's more, thanks to the combination of build materials and styling it looks significantly more premium too.

Another big positive of this device is its display. It’s an utterly gorgeous 7-inch IPS LCD setup with a 1280x800 pixel resolution. Video, text, eBooks, and the Fire HD’s navigation menus all look extremely crisp and detailed.

It’s not quite up the standard of Google’s Nexus 7, however, despite having the same display resolution. Colours seem a little washed out and there’s a weird yellow hue that pervades everything, which isn’t present on either the Nexus 7 or the Nook HD.

Viewing angles are excellent, however, and Amazon says that it is tinkering with the device’s display technology – the touch sensor and the LCD have been laminated together, which drastically improves visibility in direct sunlight.

It’s a welcome addition but the effects could hardly be described as dramatic. That said, no-one – not Samsung, Nokia, or LG – has managed to solve this pesky issue as yet, but it is good to see that efforts are now being made improve devices for outdoor usage. Amazon gets 9/10 for effort, in this regard.

Just as it did with the original Kindle Fire, Amazon has implemented its own bespoke take on Google’s world-beating OS. It’s definitely unique, offering a completely new experience, one packed with truly awesome services, but it’s not without its issues.

For starters we’ll look at the UI. Being bespoke means there is zero trace of Android here. It’s Amazon all the way. There’s no Chrome browser, no Google Play, and no Google services. Instead you’re pushed towards Amazon’s way of doing things – sometimes quite forcefully, too.

As UIs go, Amazon’s offering isn’t all that intuitive. You have all your content options across the top – Shop, Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstands, Web, Photos, Docs, and Offers – and a swipable row of icons below that show all the apps you’ve used recently. Below that you have another row of recommendations.

Hit the Apps menu and you’re taken to a more familiar setting, one laid out with app icons which automatically makes you feel more at home. The only issue here is that the apps aren’t static and switch around based on how much you use them. We get the logic but it’s pretty annoying in practice.

Amazon’s App store is also grossly under-stocked compared to Google’s Play store despite growing significantly during 2012. At  last count, there were around 50,000 apps and games available via Amazon’s app portal. That’s not bad but it’s still a long, long way behind Google’s Play store.

Not that this should bother you. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is most definitely not about apps and games. It’s about services – Amazon’s services, to be precise, which are as expansive as they are diverse. TV, film, music and docs are all supported and all run both on and off the cloud.

But there is a catch: you have to give yourself over to Amazon completely. The best way to do this, as you’ll find out when you power the device up, is by signing up for an Amazon Prime account. You get a 30-day free trail and after that it’s £49 a year.

If you use Amazon a lot then a Prime account makes a lot of sense. For your £49 you get unlimited One-Day delivery on certain purchases and the ability to ‘borrow’ titles from the Kindle store, although you’re limited to one book per month.

LoveFilm is also deeply integrated into the Kindle Fire, bringing films, TV shows, and documentaries direct to your tablet wherever you are. You will have to signup for a subscription though and, no, Netflix is not available for the tablet, so it’s LoveFilm or no film, sadly.

In terms of storage the Fire HD comes in two varieties: 16GB or 32GB – and there’s no support for SD cards. Storage isn’t all that important, however, as Amazon’s expansive Cloud service means that you don’t need to store everything on-device, just pull it down when you want it.

Amazon’s WhisperSync is supported throughout the device, meaning you can start reading a Kindle title on the Fire HD and continue reading from the same spot on your smartphone, computer, or traditional Kindle ereader.

And thanks to the Micro-HDMI, porting content over to an HDTV is also possible. Again to really get the most from this you’ll need to sign-up for a LoveFilm account but be aware that selection, compared to some competing services, namely iTunes, is still rather thin on the ground especially for newer titles.   

Video support is limited with only three video codecs – MP4, VP8, and H.263 being supported. With music you can upload your own tracks from your PC, but we do get the distinct impression that Amazon would rather you buy all your music from its own store (surprise, surprise).

Amazon has yet to release a 3G or LTE-enabled version of its Kindle Fire HD. You don’t even get GPRS or EDGE. Instead you have dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, which is great for accessing faster broadband networks but means you’ll struggle using the device while out and about.

Bluetooth is also supported and Amazon’s Silk browser is your default option for exploring the web. Chrome isn’t supported nor is Firefox, which means you’re stuck with Silk – and this is definitely not a good thing.

The browser is laggy, unintuitive, and features none of the services many users now expect from their mobile device’s browser. Yes, you can use bookmarks and save searches but if you’re already invested in either Chrome or Firefox on your PC then Silk will be a massive disappointment.

Amazon says Silk is fast. It’s not. According to our SunSpider benchmark (where lower scores are better) it scored a paltry 1806.6ms, which is significantly slower than the Nexus 7, Nook HD, and way behind iOS Safari and Windows Phone 8’s IE 10 browser.

Packing a TI OMAP 4460 dual core chipset clocked at 1.2GHz and 1GB of RAM should translate into decent performance across the board, and in most cases it delivers the goods, handling games like Dead Trigger with ease.  

There are hiccups though along the way with touches not registering and more than occasional lag and stuttering when traversing the Amazon UI. Two years ago this would have been fine but in todays market, what with the advent of Android Jelly Bean, Windows RT, and iOS6, it’s simply not acceptable.

Battery life is pretty stellar though and we managed to get through a full day with extensive usage from a single charge. Certain things will run the battery down faster – gaming and video calling, for instance – but generally speaking we don’t have any real complaints in this regard.

Overall, the Kindle Fire HD is a mixed bag of tricks. It looks great, is very cost-effective, and generally performs adequately at most tasks. For us though the UI was just too busy – it tries to do too much and doesn’t deliver a very coherent experience.

It’s also far too focused on getting you to buy Amazon services and goods. At times it feels downright aggressive, in fact. However if you’re the type of user that wants pick an ecosystem and opt inside it fully then this approach could definitely work for you.

Amazon Prime, for instance, is utterly brilliant as are the company’s cloud services and the way its Kindle services are integrated. But if you like to pick and choose what services you use and also alter the look and feel of your tablet, like you can aboard the Nexus 7 and the iPad to a lesser extent, then the Fire HD will feel very restrictive.

This device, in its most stripped down form, is simply a beacon for Amazon services and products. It’s not a tablet like the Nexus 7 or iPad, it’s a device that’s designed to suck you fully into Amazon’s retail universe – and make you stay there.

This is fine, providing that’s what you’re looking for. But if you’re not, and you want more choice and freedom – the two cornerstones of Android since day one – then the Amazon Kindle Fire HD may be a tough pill to swallow.

For me personally, it’s no patch on the Nexus 7 despite Amazon’s best efforts and excellent built-in services.   

View the original article here

WhatsApp now available on Windows Phone 8

WhatsApp free messenger application is now available on Windows Phone 8.

WhatsApp worked closely with Nokia to produce the Windows Phone 8-styled app, following its success on Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7.5.

WhatsApp allows you to message your friends also using the app as you would via normal SMS. The benefit is it uses data rather than your free SMS message allowance.

When you install the app, it will scan your phonebook to find contacts who are already using WhatsApp. When you message any of those contacts, it will use an available data connection to send the message.

You can send just plain text, photos, audio and video too, making it comparable to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) but cross-platform.

More than 100 million people worldwide are using WhatsApp to communicate for free.

WhatsApp is free to download and use for the first year, costing $0.99 a year thereafter.

View the original article here

Samsung Confirmed as Top Manufacturer for 2012

According to figures from IHS iSuppli, Korean manufacturer Samsung has continued to cement its position in the mobile phone industry during 2012, and is confirmed as top manufacturer for the last year, passing long term number one manufacturer Nokia.

For the first time in 14 years, Nokia has been beaten to the top spot, as Samsung's market share rose from 24% a year ago to 29% in 2012. During the same period, Nokia have seen their share fall to 24%, from 30% last year.

Wayne Lam, Senior Analyst at IHS said: “Samsung's success and Nokia's struggles in the cellphone market thus year were determined entirely by the two companies' divergent fortunes in the smartphone sector.”

Samsung have had a dominant 2012 in smartphone sales, riding high on the back of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Samsung's biggest challenger in the smartphone arena continues to be the iPhone, with combined sales of Samsung and Apple devices accounting for almost half of the entire smartphone market.

It is not just Nokia who are falling way behind in the smartphone race, either, as both RIM and HTC have had a miserable time recently. IHS peg all three manufacturers with just a 5% market share, and plenty of work to do to regain lost ground.

Nokia are still pinning their hopes on Windows Phone 8 becoming a viable third option to iOS and Android, whilst RIM will be hoping that the release of the new BlackBerry OS in early 2013 will bring it back to a competitive level. Meanwhile, HTC will be hoping to capitalise on the good work seen following the release of the popular HTC One range.

Overall according to IHS, the global mobile phone market saw 1.4 billion shipments in 2012, with 654 million smartphones shipped worldwide.

Source

Nokia CEO says less is more when it comes to networks and Windows Phone

When it comes to networks, says Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, less is more. It’s a left-field approach that involves using fewer networks to create a sense of exclusivity around the company’s flagship devices.

Speaking to CNET, Elop said: ‘One of the things we had learned with the first launch was being very narrow would yield better results for us,’ Elop said.

He added: ‘we take a product and go exclusive with a particular carrier. In a market where subsidy and marketing dollars are heavy, we encourage them to promote it as a hero product, and use the subsidy to drive down the pricing to a competitive point. It also gives you access to in-store resources.’

It’s a tactic that worked well for Apple when it first released the iPhone way back in the mid-2000s. So the reasoning behind Nokia’s approach is sound.

What’s really important, however, is uptake by consumers en masse of Windows Phone. This has yet to happen for the platform despite concerted efforts from Nokia, Samsung, HTC, LG, and ZTE.

The Nokia Lumia 920 and the Nokia Lumia 820 are excellent devices, providing you don’t mind the Windows Phone adjustment, and has even sold out in some regions.

Windows Phone currently accounts for just two per cent of the smartphone space, as of Q3 2012. Adoption of Windows Phone 8 has been better than expected in some regions, but the platform still has a long way to go before it’ll be giving Android or iOS any trouble.

Will Elop’s Apple-approach to propagating its Windows Phone flagship devices pay off in the long run? It’s difficult to say at present but we’ll know a lot more once we get the company’s Q1 2013 results through.

View the original article here

HTC suspends development of several new smartphones

HTC has apparently halted the development of several new smartphones, according to reports.

DigiTimes broke the news, citing unnamed sources, and claims that the company has already cut its projected shipment growth for Q1 2013 from 20-30 per cent to 10-15 per cent.

Once a dominant force in the Android space and a consistent producer of excellent hardware, HTC has now been reduced to playing second fiddle to Samsung, which now owns almost 50 per cent of the market.

HTC lost 16 per cent of its market share between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012, according to recent stats, and now faces the unenviable task of reasserting itself in the space.

Samsung has spent literally billions on marketing its products over the past 18 months. And it’s clearly paid off – the company doubled its stake in the Android market within the space of a year.

HTC does not have this luxury, however, being a smaller company with more limited marketing spends.

Apple and Samsung dominate because they can afford to spend billions on advertising. Sure they're products are good but there is very little disparity between the HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S3, and iPhone 4S.

Great products become best-sellers off the back of expansive marketing campaigns. And with the financial clout to implement them HTC's woes look set to continue well into the new year and beyond. 

HTC has yet to comment on this story.

View the original article here

Boot up: Google's hardware dream?, open data closure, how Dropbox thrived, iOS in China and more

Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse in Disneyland in Hong Kong. To find out more, would you look on Wikitravel? Photograph: Mark Ashman/Associated Press

A quick burst of 12 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

While Mr. Schmidt acknowledged that Google purchased the company and its patents, in part, as a reaction to rival "Apple's behavior," he said its hardware business was a real draw. Mr. Schmidt was tight-lipped about Google's plans for Motorola but he promised that a new batch of products were nearly ready for prime time.

"We always wanted to be in the hardware business," he said. "Larry and Sergey have always wanted to do hardware in one form or another. This was a way to get into it quickly."

If anyone can find a quote from any of Schmidt, Page or Brin from any period before 2012 in which they have indicated that they want to get into the hardware business, please point us to it. (Note: "Android" isn't the hardware business. It was always software, and intended to be software.)

RIM's revenues, broken down by geography. Note the divergence.

Even without availability on China's largest mobile provider, the iPhone's market share in China has grown form 9.9% a year ago to 17.3% in the June quarter.

Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf's quarterly report on the smartphone industry was issued on Monday, and identified the "big news" of the quarter as the emergence of China as the leading smartphone market. Smartphone shipments in China grew 164% year over year to 33.1m units in the June quarter, topping the 25m units sold in the US.

Android share: 69.5% (so Android is outselling iPhone 4:1). That leaves 12.6% for all other platforms.

Trojan malware has hit 100,000 devices using the Google Android operating system (OS) in China, say security researchers.

The Trojan, dubbed MMarketPay.A, is designed to purchase apps and content without the consent of the device user, running up high mobile bills.

Researchers from security firm TrustGo said 10 China-based Android marketplaces have so far been infected with the Trojan, which can be hidden in applications which appear legitimate.

Kasabi, a platform that hosted and published linked data, is closing down after owners Talis Systems said the market was growing too slowly to be sustainable.

The UK-based company allowed anyone to publish data sets, create APIs and use tools to combine and recombine them with each other. It was spun out of Talis, a semantic web developer that focuses on moving information to the web, last year.

But after just over 12 months on its own, the parent company said that while the opportunities were still interesting they were too large and too slow-moving to be sustainable. It said that the market for linked data wasn't panning out as it expected, and it was "time to admit that Kasabi is not getting the traction we thought it would."

Most of them are pretty obvious, but the point where it's compared to Megaupload seems like the most relevant broadly.

The US judge who tossed out one of the biggest court cases in Apple's smartphone technology battle is questioning whether patents should cover software or most other industries at all.

Richard Posner, a prolific jurist who sits on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, told Reuters this week that the technology industry's high profits and volatility made patent litigation attractive for companies looking to wound competitors.

Patents are in effect a serious cost of entry as well as a source of ongoing litigation. Hard to argue against Posner on their applicability to software.

Ten years ago, writer Nick Carr suggested that "IT Doesn't Matter". Tech execs scoffed. Now:

In truth, it has taken just about 10 years for Carr's view of the world to reach mass adoption. Without question, some startups are producing cutting-edge technology and some customers are taking advantage of their wares to one-up rivals. On the whole, however, corporations now seem to prefer, whenever practical, to rent the same computing services their rivals do, rather than try to build custom systems.

Yahoo! recently confirmed that an older file containing approximately 450,000 email addresses and passwords was compromised. The compromised information was provided by writers who had joined Associated Content prior to May 2010, when it was acquired by Yahoo!. (Associated Content is now the Yahoo! Contributor Network.) This compromised file was a standalone file that was not used to grant access to Yahoo! systems and services.

We have taken swift action and have now fixed this vulnerability, deployed additional security measures for affected Yahoo! users, enhanced our underlying security controls and are in the process of notifying affected users. In addition, we will continue to take significant measures to protect our users and their data.

There was something about the file that was odd: none of the contributors seemed very active. Which this confirms. Even so, bad policy by Associated Content to leave a plaintext password file lying around.

On July 11, 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation of Wikipedia fame made a decision that has been a long time coming: they decided to support hosting a new wiki devoted to travel, populated with Wikitravel content and, most importantly, the community that built Wikitravel. It's not a done deal yet, as the decision has to be confirmed by public discussion, but as it's looking pretty good so far; and if it comes true, this second shot at success is almost certain to result in the new gold standard for user-written travel guides, in the same way that Wikipedia redefined encyclopedias.

Involved post, but basically it's moving from being owned by Internet Brands to a fork run by Wikipedia.

Nvidia has admitted that it suspended its user forums last week because they were hacked and posters' personal data lifted.

The graphics chip maker said last night that its investigation following the discovery that "unauthorised third-parties gained access to some user information", specifically user login names, email addresses and profiles, though the latter just comprised information forum users could view anyway.

The profit warning comes as a report emerged that the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into the Shenzhen-based company over the sale of banned U.S. computer equipment to Iran and its alleged attempts to cover it up and obstruct a Department of Commerce probe.

Neither of these is good. ZTE has an estimated 4.2% share of the global handset market.

You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard. To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service;