0500 28 0500

Samsung Electronics is predicting it will sell 20 million to 25 million smartphones this year. The company also aims to ship 50 million smartphones in 2011, J.K. Shin, the president of Samsung's mobile communications division, told South Korean media outlet EDaily on Friday.

Shin said Samsung's robust smartphone sales predictions are based on the resounding success of the company's Galaxy S series in the Asia-Pacific and North America regions. More than one million handsets based on the Galaxy S platform shipped to AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers during their first 45 days of availability in the United States, the company said.

Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, and Cellular South are all slated to introduce Galaxy S devices in the United States before Christmas. Moreover, on Aug. 31 Sprint Nextel launched the Samsung Epic 4G, which recorded one of the best first-day sales results for any mobile device on the carrier's network. "As we continue to build out our 4G network, more and more of our customers will realize the benefits of these amazing [Samsung Galaxy S] devices and the realities of life at these blazing-fast speeds," said Sprint Vice President Fared Adib on Friday.

High U.S. Expectations

According to IDC, global smartphone sales totaled 63 million units in the second quarter. What's more, Samsung supplanted Motorola as the world's fifth largest smartphone maker by shipping a record number of smartphones. Additionally, the Korea-based handset maker posted its highest smartphone growth rate since the third quarter of 2008, the firm's analysts said.

Nokia led the global smartphone market in the second quarter with a 38.1 percent market share on 24 million unit shipments, IDC's analysts said. Nokia was followed by Research In Motion (17.8 percent, 11.2 million), Apple (13.3 percent, 8.4 million), HTC (7.6 percent, 4.8 million) and Samsung (4.8 percent, three million).

Based on...

In what could be the first phase of a transformation in the way its smartphone users pay for Internet use, the nation's biggest carrier, Verizon Wireless, has introduced prepaid data plans. The no-contract plans, which go into effect Sept. 28, offer unlimited 3G access on select handsets for $30 per month, or $10 per month for 25 megabytes, with a 20-cent charge for each additional megabyte.

Verizon customers can sign up for the plans immediately at Verizon stores or online. Verizon already offered prepaid service for many voice plans.

'Robust Device Portfolio'

"These new data offerings will help our prepaid customers experience the full breadth of Verizon Wireless' robust device portfolio and the many engaging, informative and helpful applications that depend on a data plan," said Jim Sullivan, director of marketing for Verizon. "Our prepaid customers will now have the freedom to enjoy all of the capabilities that these phones have to offer, while controlling costs and without being tied to a contract."

The plans are likely intended to increase the appeal of some of Verizon's top-shelf handsets. They are available on a range of models, including the BlackBerry Curve, the Palm Pre and Pixi, all five models of the top-selling Droid (made by Motorola or HTC), the Motorola Devour and LG Ally, as well as multimedia phones such as LG's enV TOUCH and enV3, LG's Chocolate Touch and VX8360, Samsung's Alias 2 and Renown, Nokia's Twist, and Casio's EXILIM.

Prepaid is an emerging sector of the wireless industry, with Sprint Nextel now offering a $25 monthly prepaid calling plan and T-Mobile offering a $50 plan for unlimited voice and text. Clearwire and Virgin Mobile are also expected to roll out prepaid plans.

Sliding Toward Tiered Prices?

While Verizon appears to be the first out of the gate with prepaid data, the cost is no cheaper than...

Google's Chrome browser is now two years old, and the youngster -- and its proud parent -- are celebrating its steady rise in popularity. According to Net Applications, Chrome had 7.5 percent of the browser market in August -- putting it in third place behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox, and above Apple's Safari.

That market share is a slight rise from the 7.2 percent market share the browser had in July, while IE dropped 0.3 percent from last month and Firefox stayed even. In May, the search giant said Chrome had 70 million users worldwide.

Chrome 6

To celebrate, Google is releasing Chrome version 6, which product manager Brian Rakowski described on the company blog as "even faster and more streamlined" than the previous version. Rakowski cited several changes in the new browser, including a "minimalist user interface," the combination of two menus into one, an adjustment of the color scheme, and other modifications.

Looking into the future, he said Google is planning to make the browser faster, to improve graphics performance through hardware acceleration, and to launch later this year The Chrome Web Store, with apps designed for use in standards-based browsers.

Google has indicated that Chrome was designed to be more of a platform for applications than other browsers. Both the browser and Google's in-progress Chrome operating system are derived from the Chromium open-source project.

Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst with industry research firm Forrester, said the relationship between the Chrome browser and the Chromium project "was a bit of a mystery to me," although he suspects the core rendering engine was used in both.

HTML5 Implementation

Google is still trying to sort out the Chrome OS positioning against its open-source Android portable operating system, suggested Al Hilwa, program director for application development at industry research firm IDC. Android has enjoyed a huge...

New notebooks with the Nvidia GeForce 400M series of graphics processing units (GPUs) are being released this fall, and on Friday the chipmaker introduced the new chips at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Germany. The new series includes the GeForce GTX 470M and GTX 460M for enthusiasts, and the GT 445M, 435M, 425M, 420M, and 415M for performance users.

The notebooks are expected from such leading manufacturers as Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and others. In particular, Nvidia is emphasizing the use of Optimus and 3D Vision technology in the 400M series computers.

Optimus, Fermi, Direct X

Optimus is intended to allow high-performance users to have their graphics-intensive cake, along with enough battery power to enjoy it. By automatically switching the GPU on and off as needed, the company said "extra-long" battery life is available.

Discrete graphics processors are becoming more popular, as they can provide better performance for games and other multimedia. Optimus utilizes discrete graphics processing for intensive tasks, and integrated graphics for less-demanding efforts, thus saving battery life. The company said this power-conserving approach "has been described by reviewers as among the most important notebook technologies to come to market in recent years."

Nvidia said the GPUs will be about 40 percent faster than the 300M series. The 400M series are the first processors for notebooks using the company's Fermi architecture, and they have been designed "from the ground up" for support of Direct X 11, the latest version of Microsoft's graphics technology.

The chips are also designed for stereo 3-D images, when used with a 3-D display and the company's 3D Vision glasses. Two of the upcoming notebooks supporting 3D Vision will be the Acer Aspire 5745DG, with the GT 425M, and the ASUS G53Jw, with the GTX 460M. Other notebooks can utilize Nvidia's 3DTV Play,...

Consumer Watchdog is attacking Google in a very public way -- with a Jumbotron digital advertisement in New York's Times Square. The missive comes in the form of an animated satirical video that portrays how the group sees Google CEO Eric Schmidt's stance on consumer privacy.

Entitled Don't Be Evil? the avatar-style animation features Schmidt driving an ice-cream truck and secretly spying on children. Consumer Watchdog produced the animated short in hopes of enticing Congress to enact a national Do Not Track Me list.

"We're satirizing Schmidt in the most highly trafficked public square in the nation to make the public aware of how out of touch Schmidt and Google are when it comes to our privacy rights," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "America needs a Do Not Track Me list, and Google is Exhibit A in the case for it."

Do Not Track Me

As Consumer Watchdog sees it, Google's recent actions reveal that the Internet giant, whose motto is "Don't be evil," has lost its way. The group argues that Google has collected massive amounts of personal data from Wi-Fi networks through its Street View cars, made private Gmail contacts publicly available on Buzz, and done a complete about-face on Net neutrality, joining with Verizon in calling for toll lanes on the Internet.

"We think there should be another way to protect the public's online privacy: A Do Not Track Me list that prevents Google or any other Internet company from tracking your every move online," said John Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog's Inside Google Project.

Consumer Watchdog argues that a Do Not Track Me list would prevent online companies from gathering personal information, just as Congress had the Federal Trade Commission create a Do Not Call list to prevent intrusive telemarketers from invading consumers' privacy.

Google Not the Worst

"This largely...

Apple launched iTunes 10 with Ping, a new music-oriented social network, on Wednesday. Within hours, the site fell victim to spammers looking to make a quick buck from Apple's unsuspecting 160 million music lovers exploring the new way to discover what music their friends are listening to.

Ping was heralded as the future of social commerce by some analysts, but Apple will have a near-term challenge of battling identity thieves looking to steal the credit-card numbers of iTunes users. Some Ping posts are attempting to trick users into believing they will receive a free iPhone if they complete online surveys.

Sophos published research earlier this year demonstrating a 70 percent increase in the number of users reporting spam and malware being spread via social networks, a trend that continues to grow. It would appear that Apple missed that report.

Apple's Wake-Up Call

Graham Cluley, a senior security consultant at Sophos, is not at all surprised that spammers and scammers have flooded the Ping platform. As he sees it, Apple doesn't appear to have anticipated that spammers and scammers would find the opportunity too good to miss.

"If Apple had implemented some antispam technology, pre-filtering the messages for malicious or fraudulent links, then that might have prevented the problem becoming as big as it is as rapidly as it has," Cluley said. "It also appears to be simple to create fake accounts on the system. For instance, there's more than one 'Mark Zuckerberg' and even 'The Beatles' -- who famously aren't distributed via iTunes- -- claiming to have an account on Ping."

Cluley is used to survey scams like this being spread on sites like Facebook, but he sees the irony in Ping scams focusing on Apple's iPhone. He hopes Apple's security team can block scam messages and malicious links quickly.

Deterring Consumer Use

Cluley said there is...

Federal regulators have shot down a proposal by a startup called M2Z Networks Inc. to build a free, nationwide wireless broadband network using a spare slice of airwaves.

The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday said it has rejected M2Z's request that the agency demand that the winner of an auction for the radio spectrum provide free Internet service to anyone who connects to it.

That condition would have mirrored M2Z's business model of offering free basic wireless broadband access -- with speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second -- that would be supported by advertising in addition to a faster, premium service.

"We gave careful and thorough consideration to the proposal, but ultimately determined that this was not the best policy outcome," Ruth Milkman, head of the FCC's wireless bureau, said in a statement. The FCC did not explain its rejection further.

M2Z's plan had encountered resistance from T-Mobile USA and other big wireless carriers, which warned that it would interfere with their own services.

"A designer allocation auction that would be tailored for one company was not in the public's interest, especially when that company was offering broadband service that is slow by even yesterday's standards," Steve Largent, head of industry trade group CTIA-The Wireless Association, said in a statement.

M2Z was founded in 2005 by John Muleta, a former FCC official who at one time also headed the agency's wireless bureau, and Milo Medin, co-founder and chief technology officer of cable modem pioneer (At)Home. The company's investors include several top Silicon Valley venture capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Redpoint Ventures.

In a statement, Muleta said "the FCC's decision to delay the use of this valuable spectrum forgoes the consumer welfare and economic stimulus that would result from putting new spectrum into the marketplace."

The FCC is still studying possible uses of...

The chief of the U.N.'s telecommunications agency urged the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry to allow law enforcement agencies access to customer data, saying that governments all over the world had legitimate security concerns which should not be ignored.

The International Telecommunication Union agency's Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure said that all governments engaged in the fight against terrorism had the right to demand access to users' information from the maker of the BlackBerry -- Research in Motion Ltd.

"Those are genuine requests," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "There is a need for cooperation between governments and the private sector on security issues."

RIM has said it complies with all legal requests, but is unable to provide anyone with the text of e-mails sent using its corporate service, which is designed from the ground up for secure communications.

The International Telecommunication Union is responsible for coordinating the use of the global radio spectrum, promoting international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, and establishing standards for the telecommunications industry. The little-known body also serves as a global forum for discussion of cutting-edge communications issues.

The agency has no independent regulatory power, but Toure's comments are a barometer of sentiment among the agency's 192 member states, who are expected to re-elect him to a second term later this year.

At least five of those members -- India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates -- are already considering banning some BlackBerry services over concerns that the devices' powerful data encryption could be used as a cover for terrorist and criminal activity. Civil libertarians have argued that the controversy is in fact fueled by authoritarian governments' inability to eavesdrop on BlackBerry-using citizens.

Governments in the U.S. and elsewhere have largely made their peace with encryption technology. E-mails can still be obtained through legal channels, for example by obtaining a...

India has widened its security crackdown, asking all companies that provide encrypted communications -- not just BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion -- to install servers in the country to make it easier for the government to obtain users' data. That would likely affect digital giants like Google and Skype.

"People who operate communication services in India should (install a) server in India as well as make available access to law enforcement agencies," Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters. "That has been made clear to RIM of BlackBerry but also to other companies."

On Monday, India withdrew a threat to ban BlackBerry service for at least two more months after RIM agreed to give security officials "lawful access" to encrypted data.

Indian officials have for some time also been concerned about Google and Skype, neither of which maintains servers in India. Google has an Indian unit, but Gmail is offered by Google Inc., a U.S. company subject to U.S. laws. Luxembourg-based Skype has no India operations.

India began a sweeping information security review after the November 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, which was coordinated with cell phones, satellite phones and Internet calls. Officials are also eager to avoid any trouble at the Commonwealth Games, a major sporting event to be held in New Delhi in October.

At the same time, India seems to be gaining confidence in its own attractiveness as a market, taking a tougher stance with international companies, not just in telecommunications -- where it is the world's fastest-growing major market -- but also in mining and nuclear energy.

"Our stand is firm. We look forward to get access to data," Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters. "There is no uncertainty over it."

The U.N. technology chief expressed support for the Indian demand on Thursday. Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, told The Associated Press...

For all the glitz that surrounds first models of high-profile tech products, it often behooves consumers to wait awhile. Exhibit A: the new Kindle e-readers from Amazon.

Compared with previous models (which I liked), new, smaller and lighter Kindles have better battery life, superior glare-free displays and enough storage for up to 3,500 books. What's more, the new entry-level Wi-Fi-only Kindle costs $139 vs. $399 for the original reader three years ago. A step-up model with both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular wireless is also attractively priced at $189. Both models are on back-order at Amazon.com, with new orders expected to ship by Sept. 17.

Add the 670,000 e-books on sale in Amazon's U.S. Kindle Store -- and the fact that you can download them in less than a minute via 3G or, now, Wi-Fi -- and the latest devices reinforce why Kindle is the category leader. Most available e-books still cost $9.99 or less. Prices on others have crept up to around $13.

The new Kindles are by no means perfect. Amazon faces competition from Sony, Barnes & Noble (Nook) and others that use similar paperlike E Ink display technology. Hovering over them is the iPad and its sexy, color touch-screen.

A closer read:

*Kindle vs. iPad. Amazon's devices aren't glamorous. Unlike the iPad, Kindles don't have color touch-screens, pages that curl like a real book or stunning software bookshelves. Reading periodicals on Kindle isn't as appealing. The backlit display on the iPad means you can read in the dark, which is beyond Kindle's capabilities.

Despite all that, I'd still pick Kindle for reading most books where photos and illustrations are scarce. At 8.5 or 8.7 ounces, compared with 1.5 pounds for the iPad, Kindles are lighter and smaller, making them an easy choice when you're in bed or a cramped coach seat. Kindles are a...