DVD Ripper, Blu-ray Ripper – AudioToolsFactory

Nobody wants to get hacked. But when it comes to choosing a password, there are key steps you can take to reduce your risk of data intrusions from unwanted virtual visitors. This week’s edition of Upgrade Your Life will teach you how to make a strong, safe password that’s easy to remember — and how to reduce your odds of being an easy target for hackers.

1. Worst Password

In 2009, a major hack on social gaming site RockYou revealed some troubling patterns in how we choose our passwords. The Imperva Application Defense Center (ADC), a security research group, examined the passwords of RockYou’s clients to see just what went wrong. The study found that more than 29,000 of the compromised accounts were using the password “123456″ — the most popular password. The second and third most common passwords were also strings of consecutive numbers. And the fourth most common password? “Password.” Other popular passwords from the RockYou case include “iloveyou,” “abc123,” and a handful of common first names like “Ashley” and “Michael.”

How to avoid bad passwords:

* Don’t use any part of your name or email address: These two pieces of information are easily obtained about you.* Avoid any other personal information: Don’t use your birthday, family member or pet names, street addresses, or anything else that could be public knowledge for prying eyes.* Don’t use consecutive numbers: These are extremely easy for a cracking program to decode, and as you can see from the ADC study, they’re also wildly popular.* Avoid words in the dictionary: This includes random sequences of words and slang terms too.

2. Best Passwords:
Uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbolsNowadays, many websites encourage good password practices by forcing you to input a mix of numbers, letters, symbols, and mixed capitalization. This approach is definitely the right idea: mixing it up can pay off, statistically speaking. Why? Most password hacks you’ll be warding off use a technique called a “brute force attack.” This flavor of hack uses automated computer software to guess every possible combination to crack your personal code.According to the ADC study, automated hacking software combined with poorly chosen passwords means a hacker can break into 1000 accounts in just 17 minutes. If you introduce more variables into your password — namely numbers, symbols, and a mix of lower and upper case letters — intrusive software will take longer to crack your code.Make passwords more secure:* Add letters: Since there are 26 letters in the alphabet, one additional letter can make your password 26 times harder to crack.* Use a mix of lower and uppercase letters: Mixing up your cases adds complexity and safety to your chosen password.* Add numbers: Using letters, words, and phrases for your passwords seems both natural and easy to remember, but it’s much safer to diversify.* Add symbols: Symbols are the real secret ingredient to security. Since there are over 1500 symbols a hacking program needs to run through to correctly lock down one character of your password, adding one extra asterisk or exclamation point can make it 1500 times more difficult for intruders to pry open your personal accounts.

3. Password length = Password strength

Most websites prompt you to create a code with a minimum and maximum amount of characters, often between 8 and 14. Since each additional character increases your odds of staying safe, be sure to max out the length of your password. If you can enter 14 characters, don’t stop at 10 — those extra 4 characters will work to your statistical advantage.Here’s an example: compare the passwords m00se44 verses m00se44!.!.!.!Sure m00se44 might be faster to type, but m00se44!.!.!.! is a far safer bet. How much safer? According to a handy online brute force simulator, hackers could crack m00se44 in less than a second. What about m00se44!.!.!.!? Assuming that the hacking software is guessing one hundred billion combinations a second, believe it or not, it could take the same software almost 200,000 centuries to crack it.

4. Password padding:

Symbols are your secret weaponMuch of the basis for this article comes from the research of a noted security expert named Steve Gibson. His most recent practical advice involves a simple technique called “password padding.” It used to be that a random password like Pr5^w4”t3F was perceived to be the best password. But the reality is that people can’t actually remember those totally random passwords, so they don’t end up using or sticking with them.To solve this dilemma, Gibson wanted to create a memorable password strategy that would be equally secure. He stumbled onto the idea that long passwords loaded with symbols can be both ultra-secure and yet also easily memorized. He came up with the following example to prove his point.Which of these is easier to remember? Which is more secure?D0g!(!(!(!(!(!PrXyc5NFn4k77The more memorable password is D0g!(!(!(!(!(! since it looks like the familiar word “dog” and ends with a repeating pattern of symbols. And according to Gibson, D0g!(!(!(!(!(! is also the more secure password because, while it too has numbers, letters (upper and lowercase), and symbols, the first example is one character longer than the random second password — and it has more symbols.Want to see this effect in action? Play around with Gibson’s password security calculator yourself.
5. Store passwords in one place with a password manage

If you’re a little concerned about juggling all of the lengthy, ultra-secure passwords you’ve dreamed up, you can have a program do the heavy lifting. These programs and apps, known as password wallets or password managers, lock down your cache of codes by encrypting them, which translates them into a secure language that hackers can’t parse. If RockYou’s data had been encrypted, that security scandal could have been avoided altogether.While no method is infallible, well-regarded password managers like LastPass and 1Password are great options. With a password manager, you’ll use a master password to access the program or app, and it will auto-fill password entry fields for you as you log in around the web.  Both LastPass and 1Password feature mobile and desktop versions, so you can keep both computer and your phone locked down safely.

Once the industry’s most lucrative revenue stream, DVD sales have fallen by more than GBP3.5bn ($A5.41bn) in the last five years, leaving Hollywood in turmoil.
The decline spells trouble for the industry which is desperate to avoid suffering the same fate as the music business.
John Rodden, Head of Home Entertainment for Studio Canal, told Sky News: ‘Previously if films flopped you could make up the difference on DVD.
‘That’s harder to do now. Business is tougher and people need to be more efficient and adaptable.
‘I think with the decline in DVD sales inevitably Hollywood is getting nervous about the films it’s making.and we could see a decline in the number of films being made.’
High street rental stores are being replaced by digital providers and streaming services.
But although digital downloads are on the rise, it’s not offsetting the drop seen in physical sales.
The market is worth GBP2.6bn ($A4.02bn) to the UK economy but demand for actual discs fell last year by 8.3%.
Michael Comish, CEO of video-on-demand website Blinkbox, said people were weary of purchasing something that they may only watch once.
He told Sky News: ‘Consumers used to value building libraries of DVDs and the big trend we’ve seen in the last few years is that they are now not valuing ownership but valuing access.
‘They’re not that interested in buying but in renting or subscribing, and not having it on their shelf, but having it on the internet.’
Research suggests that spending habits have changed, but Gennaro Castaldo, from HMV, insists there’s still a market for the DVD.
‘People still buy – often for other people – and particularly at Christmas time when nearly 40-50% of our sales are generated.
‘And more often than not they want to get something physical and tangible as well, so we shouldn’t write traditional media off for many years to come,’ he said.

Apple is almost certainly working on a digital television based on its iOS operating system, according to multiple sources in Silicon Valley.
An Apple-based television makes sense in light of Apple’s continued expansion out of the computer industry into the larger consumer electronics market. But is it real?
Multiple reports, as well as sources interviewed by VentureBeat, support the rumor, which is widespread among the gadget industry.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, a longtime Apple analyst, predicts that Apple will produce a television in  late 2012 or early 2013. In an interview with VentureBeat, Munster cited multiple sources, including component suppliers as well as an internal Apple source, to back up his theory. Munster predicts this will be an actual TV, not just a set-top box, and most likely running a version of iOS. (Note: Munster made a similar claim in 2009, except then he said that Apple would have a TV by 2011. He now says “I think the probability is almost zero that it will be this year.”)Venture capitalist Stewart Alsop, of Alsop Louie ventures, lent credence to the “iTelevision” theory in an interview with VentureBeat. Alsop sits on the boards of TiVo and Sonos, follows the hardware industry closely, and says he has heard from multiple sources throughout Silicon Valley that the Apple television project is underway.The Wall Street Journal mentioned that Apple is “working on new technology to deliver video to televisions, and has been discussing whether to try to launch a subscription TV service,” according to “sources familiar with the matter.” That’s typically code for an inside source.And Cult of Mac notes that the time may be ripe for Apple to make a television, as high-end TVs have started to dip below the $1,000 price threshold.Even former Apple CEO Steve Jobs turned the wheels of the rumor mill in 2010, saying that it made sense for Apple to integrate its technology into television sets.Apple has been testing the waters with its AppleTV, a set-top box that provides access to movies and TV from iTunes as well as other online video content. The company has a number of partnerships with movie studios and television networks, giving it an impressive content library. And its lightweight iOS operating system seems ideally suited for consumer devices (the OS is already under the hood in AppleTV).
Alsop figures the only thing holding Apple back is the cost of LCD screens, which has been a limiting factor in all of Apple’s iOS products since 2007.
The company initially planned to make a tablet when it started planning a touchscreen-centric computer in the mid-2000s. But, Alsop says, the cost of the display was prohibitively expensive, so Apple instead focused on applying the technology to a device with a smaller, cheaper LCD: The iPhone.
The price of LCD panels has droped fairly steadily, thanks to increased manufacturing efficiency, so eventually quality screens became cheap enough to make the 9.7-inch iPad economically feasible.
It won’t be long, Alsop predicts, before 15-inch or 19-inch touchscreen televisions running iOS hit the scene, probably in time for the 2012 holiday season. That’s big enough to be a serviceable TV for the kitchen, bedroom or dorm room.
More importantly, iOS will enable Apple to transform the television into something that doesn’t just show videos, but also plays games, runs apps, lets you check your schedule and tweet about what YouTube movie you happen to watching at that moment.
And it could tie seamlessly into other Apple devices, like the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air, giving the company an enviable full-circle consumer product line. The vision might look something like what Corning, the makers of Gorilla Glass (widely believed to be the glass used for the face of the iPhone and iPad), predicted in a promotional video it published in February, below.
“You look at TVs in Best Buy and they’re the same damn things that they’ve been building for 30, 40, 50 years,” said Alsop. Although the display technology has changed and the screens are flat and high-resolution now instead of huge, low-res cathode screens, the fundamental act of watching TV is pretty much the same: Sit back and flip the channels.
“Apple will do to television manufacturers what it did to phone makers with the iPhone,” Alsop said.

First, the basics

Most laptops use batteries that can last for 3-5 years, or about 1000 charges. (A premium laptop’s battery might last longer.) Every time you charge your battery, the total capacity of the battery is diminished. Originally it may have had a run time of 3.5 hours, but after a year it’ll run out of juice at 3 hours, even on a full charge.If your battery capacity has diminished, there are a few things you can do about it. First, you have to correctly gauge how much capacity has been lost. There are free downloads to do this job, like Battery Bar (for Windows PCs) or Coconut Battery (for Macs). These will compare your battery’s current maximum capacity to how long it lasted when it was new.(UPDATE- we originally recommended Battery Eater and while the program works great, their download site has been compromised and we are recommending an alternate program, Battery Bar downloadable from CNET.)Calibrating your BatteryYou can’t miraculously reconstitute your battery’s capacity. It loses power over time due to chemical reactions taking place in the battery, as it chugs along powering your laptop. You can’t undo those changes, but there is one common battery issue you can fix: In many laptops, the operating system’s battery meter gets out of sync with how much juice the battery actually has.Imagine if the gas gauge on your car dashboard was misreading how much gas you actually had in the tank. You’d either run out of gas when you thought you had a quarter of a tank left, or you’d be filling up too frequently. In your laptop, this can mean your laptop shuts down abruptly when the meter says you have 30 minutes left. Or else the meter might warn that you only have 2 minutes of battery life left and shut your laptop down, when it really has another 20 minutes remaining.Recalibrating gets the battery meter to correctly read the current state of the battery, so you and the operating system know where you stand with existing battery life.

How to recalibrate

First, charge your laptop’s battery to full, and leave it that way for at least two hours. Then unplug your laptop, and set its power management settings to never turn off or lower the monitor brightness. (HP has instructions for how do to this on Windows 7 and Vista, as well as Windows XP, while Apple has instructions for Mac laptops on their site.)You want to drain the battery completely, then let your laptop sit for at least five hours this way — like, say, overnight. (Just be careful and mute the volume, since some laptops make a warning sound when they’re about to run out.) Afterwards, charge it up again, and you should notice a more accurate portrayal of your battery capacity. In some cases, you may even get more life out of it.Best practices to maintain battery lifeYou’d think that the best way to keep your laptop’s battery from wearing out is to not use it. Right?As it turns out, batteries are like muscles; they need to be worked out regularly to stay healthy. Ideally, you’d use your laptop unplugged at least once a day, like on a train or bus commute or on the couch in front of the TV. If you’re not going to use it, constantly charging your battery is a bad idea; HP recommends on their website that if you’re going to leave your laptop plugged in or put up in storage for more than two weeks, you should take the battery out of your laptop.

Past the expiration date

So when is it time to throw out that old battery? The answer, surprisingly, is “never.” Laptop batteries contain lots of toxic chemicals, and should never end up in landfills. Fortunately, e-stewards.org has a list of environmentally responsible recyclers that will take your old battery with no fuss.When is it time to replace your battery, then? Use the free utility apps Becky mentioned, and when they say that your battery can only hold around 25% of its original capacity it’s probably time for a new one. You can buy a replacement battery from the original laptop manufacturer, and there are plenty of places online that sell discounted PC laptop batteries, like Laptops for Less and Batteries.com. Owners of newer Mac laptops can get their laptop’s non-removable battery swapped out at any Apple store, with a scheduled appointment.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The end of Steve Jobs’ reign as Apple Inc. CEO doesn’t mean he is bowing out as the maestro of personal technology.True to its tight-lipped style, Apple isn’t spelling out how actively involved Jobs will be as the company’s new chairman while he tends to his own fragile health after surviving pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant during the past seven years.But longtime Apple watchers have no doubt that Jobs will weigh in on all key decisions and help sculpt the company’s future product lineup.”I know enough about Steve Jobs to know that as long as he has a breath in him, he will be giving direction at Apple,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies and the dean of Apple analysts. “He is going to remain Apple’s chief visionary.”In his Wednesday resignation letter as CEO, Jobs, 56, wrote that he planned to be “watching and contributing” to Apple’s success as chairman, a position that had long been vacant.In a sign of his commitment, Jobs put in a full day at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters during his last full day as CEO, even though he was technically still on medical leave, said Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe.Bajarin and other people in close contact with Apple said Jobs remained intimately involved there even as he spent 14 of the past 32 months on medical leaves of absence. During that stretch, Apple kept pumping out smash hits and became more successful than ever, with its market value swelling from $80 billion to nearly $350 billion today.Even so, the mere specter of Apple operating without Jobs conjures unwelcome memories. After co-founding Apple in 1976 and establishing it as a technology trailblazer, Jobs was forced out in 1985. When he finally returned in 1997, the company was in danger in going bankrupt and even needed financial help from longtime nemesis Microsoft Corp. to survive.The ongoing prosperity during Jobs’ recent illnesses is a testament to the management team he assembled and schooled, and to his own ability to remain engaged and inspired even as he convalesces.The Steve Jobs way is so deeply ingrained in Apple’s DNA that analysts are convinced that new CEO Tim Cook and his key subordinates no longer need to hear from Jobs every day to know what he wants.In a Thursday letter to Apple employees, Cook stressed he won’t mess with the formula that worked so well during Jobs’ 14-year tenure as CEO.”I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change,” Cook wrote. “I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that.”Cook also noted that he is “looking forward to Steve’s ongoing guidance and inspiration.”Cook, who has run Apple during all three of Jobs’ medical absences since 2004, will have ample help beyond his former boss. The other key players include marketing guru Phil Schiller, design chief Jonathan Ive, software mastermind Scott Forstall and the head of finance, Peter Oppenheimer.”If you were trying to describe this group of people, it would be the dream team of executive management,” said Howe said.Nearly all the key Apple executives have been at the company for years, many of them joining the company around the time of Jobs’ 1997 return.The biggest area of concern is Ron Johnson, the man in charge of the Apple stores that have become the main showcase for the company’s sleek devices. Johnson is leaving Apple in November to become J.C. Penney Co.’s CEO, but Howe thinks Apple won’t have much problem finding another savvy merchant to replace him.Jobs has done such a masterful job plotting Apple’s progression from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad that the next few years of new products are probably already in the pipeline. With an operating system already in place for use on a multitude of devices, it’s likely that Jobs already has laid the groundwork to place Apple’s technology on other gadgets with screens, including in-car navigation systems and televisions, Bajarin said.Investors appear to be betting that Apple won’t miss a beat. Apple’s stock dipped $2.46, or less than 1 percent, Thursday to close at $373.72.Things could get rocky if it becomes clear Jobs’ health is getting worse. He has looked frail in his recent public appearances.Jobs resignation letter indicated he isn’t feeling well enough to be a full-time CEO. But analysts think that could just mean he has figured out he needs to focus more on his health and spend just part of his time as Apple’s chief visionary.The resignation may even turn out to be a positive for Apple because it will end the perpetual guessing game about who is going to succeed Jobs as CEO and give Cook even more of a chance to prove his management chops, said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu.Jobs’ decision to step aside “is very brave,” Wu said. “Some guys hold on to the last minute, but he had the foresight, the maturity level to do this. It’s a huge step.”Apple’s hot streak probably made the choice easier, Bajarin said. “If there ever was a time where Steve Jobs was going to make his own health his top job, this is it.”It could well be that Jobs will relish the opportunity to focus more on big-picture ideas and less on the more mundane tasks of running a company that can now be left to Cook and others, said Jay Elliot, a former Apple vice president who worked closely with Jobs in the 1980s.”Steve is incredibly passionate about the product, his whole life is driven by the product,” said Elliot, who wrote a book “The Steve Jobs Way — iLeadership For a New Generation.” ”I view him as an artist making sure the final painting is a masterpiece.”

Steve Jobs shook up the electronics world for a decade with the iPod, iPhone and iPad at the expense Sony Corp. (6758), Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) His exit as Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s chief executive officer may pave the way for competitors to regain market share, analysts said.

Sony and Nokia were among Apple rivals whose shares advanced during Asian and European trading amid speculation Jobs’s withdrawal may increase their ability to compete in products ranging from smartphones to tablet computers. Jobs, who will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, rescued Apple from the brink of failure and turned it into the world’s biggest technology company.

“It’s going to give competitors a bit more of a lease of life to go out and compete harder,” said Richard Windsor, global technology analyst at Nomura International Plc. “It’s been thought about, talked about endlessly for the past several years that Tim Cook would probably take over so while you get an initial knee-jerk reaction on the downside, we would probably expect that not to last very long.”

Sony climbed 2.1 percent in Tokyo, while Samsung Electronics Co., which also counts Apple as its biggest customer, gained 2.4 percent in Seoul. Nokia advanced as much as 2 percent in Helsinki. HTC Corp. (2498), the Taiwanese maker of phones that run on Google Inc.’s Android software, rose 1.4 percent in Taipei.

Spearheading Innovation

“If the new management team doesn’t sustain the level of innovation that Steve Jobs spearheaded, it’s going to be an opportunity for the competition in the long term,” said Lee Young Seog, a Seoul-based fund manager at Korea Investment Management Co., which oversees about $19 billion. “Still, because of Tim Cook’s competence and the system at Apple, the competitive landscape isn’t likely to change anytime soon.”

Jobs, whose transformation of Apple picked up pace from the iPod’s introduction in 2001, will become chairman. Jobs was on medical leave since Jan. 17 after combating a rare form of cancer since 2003 and surviving a liver transplant in 2009.

Since the iPod, Apple has unseated Nokia as the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker by revenue with the iPhone, while the success of the iPad tablet computer came at the expense of traditional desktop and laptop computer makers such as Hewlett- Packard and Taiwan’s Acer Inc. (2353)

Documented ‘Brilliance’

Investors aren’t the only ones praising Jobs.

“I think his brilliance has been well documented, but what gets forgotten is the bravery with which he’s confronted his illness,” said Howard Stringer, chairman and chief executive officer of Sony, whose products compete against Apple’s iPhones, iPods, iPads and Mac computers. “For him to achieve this much success under these circumstances doubles his legacy.”

James Chung, a spokesman at Samsung, declined to comment on Jobs’s resignation as did Winston Yung, chief financial officer at HTC.

“Steve Jobs is a visionary in the computing industry,” Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said in an e-mailed statement. “We look forward to both Steve and his team having a positive impact on our industry for many years to come.”

China’s ZTE Corp. (000063) said it will see a “more active” role in the smartphone industry as Jobs’s resignation creates opportunities for rivals.

‘Active Role’

“We are very thankful to Steve Jobs’s contribution to the smartphone and mobile broadband industry,” Xie Daxiong, ZTE executive vice president, said in an e-mail today. “With innovation spirit, ZTE will play a more active role in communication, smart terminal and mobile broadband industry, and build more value for consumers around the world.”

Cook, who’s been running day-to-day operations at Apple since Jobs went on medical leave, may improve relations between Apple and Samsung, which makes key components for the iPhones and iPads, said Seo Won Seok, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul. Apple has sued HTC and Samsung — which use Google’s Android software — on claims of patent breaches.

“The new management team will have to prove itself in terms of innovation,” said Abhey Lamba, an analyst at ISI Group in New York, said in a telephone interview. “Investors are going to be a little careful.”

Apple Without Jobs

Apple fans expressed their concerns.“I’m worried about how big the impact will be on Apple’s performance,” said Ichiro Kato, a 32-year-old office worker visiting Apple’s flagship store in the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo today. “Apple’s products cannot be produced without Steve Jobs”

Some investors say Apple may have outgrown Jobs.

“The Apple halo effect is still very strong, and doesn’t just rely on Steve Jobs being there,” said Arnout Van Rijn, chief investment officer for Asia at Robeco Group, which owns shares of Samsung and HTC. The departure of Jobs as CEO won’t strengthen competitors such as Samsung and HTC, Van Rijn said.

Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., said in a note to clients he kept his “overweight” rating on Apple’s stock unchanged “without hesitation.” Jefferies & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Morgan Stanly also maintained their investment ratings on Apple.

Suppliers Fall

Apple suppliers fell. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the Foxconn Technology Group flagship that assembles iPhones and iPads, fell 4.6 percent to a two-year low in Taipei. TPK Holding Co. and Wintek Corp. (2384), which supply touch-screens for Apple, also declined.

“Foxconn wishes Steve Jobs will get well,” Hon Hai said in an e-mail. “We think Tim Cook has shown good work as stand- in CEO during Jobs’s absences and expect Apple will perform well in the future.

The relationship between Cook and Foxconn has been very close and we expect that the relationship will become even closer in future.”The iPhone’s popularity and Apple’s creation of the App Store, where users can download applications that can be used for everything from playing games to organizing daily chores, has spawned new opportunities for software writers. It’s also helped boost popularity of companies such as Rovio Entertainment Oy, the creator of the Angry Birds game.

Applications on Apple’s online store have been downloaded more than 15 billion times since its opening in 2008, with the Cupertino, California-based company getting a 30 percent cut in each sale. The iPhone is Apple’s best-selling product and contributed to 38.6 percent of the company’s revenue last year.“Apple’s management was partly dependent on the charismatic manager, so if he is going to step away, Apple may have come to a threshold,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees $600 million in Tokyo as chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. “Apple may already have peaked out in terms of the market capitalization and stock price, so this resignation may become the symbol of that.”

One device that always manages to attract tremendous pre-release hype is the iPhone. Apple is due to release the next iteration this fall and rumors over its release date and features abound.
The latest one from the rumor mill is that the iPhone 5 with a materially revamped user interface will come only in 2012, and Apple will launch only an iPhone 4S in the fall.
The latest rumor goes against the expectations that Apple would be launching iPhone 5 this fall and would link it to Sprint along with Verizon and AT&T.
“Of note, we see an iPhone 4S this fall, an iPad 3, and an iPhone 5 with a materially revamped user interface and 4G early next year. We also believe Apple will move more materially into the ‘connected TV’ space,” Wedbush Morgan analyst Scott Sutherland wrote in a note to clients.
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Analysts expect iPhone 4S to have more evolutionary than revolutionary changes and the device would feature a better camera and a different case.
Sutherland also believes the iPhone 5 will have a materially upgraded user interface and will be tied to a major cloud initiative supported by data centers in North Carolina and California. He believes Apple’s cloud strategy will be very important and will take the fight onto Google’s turf. He expects increased CDMA distribution, seasonality, and the White iPhone to drive more typical seasonal growth, with an iPhone 5 pop in the second quarter of fiscal 2012, around March.
Analysts expect that iPhone 4S would be low-cost, targeted at prepaid and emerging markets. But iPhone 4S is expected to run iOS 5, which will be necessary to run the new cloud-based services. This will maintain the unity of the Apple iOS code base, and likely increase low-cost iPhone shipments, but there could be greater cannibalization of higher-end iPhones as differentiation is lessened.
“Based upon our checks and public comments by Verizon and others, we are in the camp that expects only an incremental iPhone upgrade (iPhone 4S) this September, which includes a dual-core processor and improved imaging. We expect the iPhone 5 to arrive by next January, which will include 4G and can work on both Verizon and AT&T’s networks, thus allowing CDMA and GSM based subscribers equal access to the new iPhone,” said Sutherland in a recent note.

Apple is getting ready to launch two phones, according to people familiar with the matter, confirming rumors that have run rampant for months which suggested another phone would join the launch of the iPhone 5.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based consumer electronics company has already begun manufacturing a lower-cost iPhone 4 that will come “around the same time,” as the iPhone 5, according to Reuters, citing Asian manufacturers.
The phone, with 8GB of memory, will help Apple break into lower-priced, broader markets, particularly in the emerging market segment.
It is in talks with Chinese carriers China Mobile and China Telecom, both of which are eager to carry the device, giving Apple an inroads into a lucrative and sprawling growing Chinese middle-class.
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“A lower-priced version of iPhone 4 seems to be a necessary evil at this point in the iPhone adoption cycle, especially in emerging markets where the average income of individuals is much lower,” Channing Smith of Capital Advisors Growth Fund told the agency.
Trouble for Android
Mobile industry analysts also say that Apple has already begun production on the iPhone 5, the next generation of its venerable smartphone, expected to feature the A5 processor from its iPad 2 cousin, and higher screen resolution.
The roll out is expected not only to boost Apple revenue, but also wrench away the market leader position from arch-rival Google.
At the moment, Google’s Android platform reigns supreme among mobile users , having a healthy installation across a number of devices. But even the current iPhone models virtually halted this.
Couple this with the upcoming iPhone 5, and what some dub the “iPhone Lite” analysts are predicting that Google may have to step down from its No. 1 spot.
“In our opinion, this is just the beginning of Android’s share loss in the U.S.,” according to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf.
Android commanded 36.2 percent of worldwide smartphone market share in March.
But its month-to-month gain was just three percentage points, down from a 7.5-percentage-point gain in the December quarter, and a 9.5-percentage-point gain in the September quarter.
The slowing is because the Android platform fell from 52.4 percent of U.S. smartphone sales to 49.5 percent in the quarter – Android’s first sequential loss in any region.
On the contrary, iPhone rose from 17.2 percent in December to 29.5 percent by March, according to IDC numbers.

According to market research company NPD Group, the sale of Android-based handsets grew 29% in the second quarter of this year, bringing the operating system to a 52% share of the US market. Contributing to this growth were South Korean manufacturers Samsung and LG, which both experienced “substantial gains.”But while Samsung and LG were improving their Android sales, Motorola Mobility fell dramatically.A total of 22% of all Android-powered phones that sold in the second quarter were made by Motorola, a significant share. But this is exactly half of the percentage Motorola held last year. During the course of the year, between Q2 2010 and Q2 2011, Motorola lost a quarter of its overall handset market share as well, down to 9% from 12%.
Still, NPD’s news of depressed handset sales have had very little impact on Motorola Mobility’s stock price, which is still trading high on the news that the company is going to be acquired by Google.Handset sales, it would appear, are only a minor concern right now when it comes to Motorola and its future parent company.”Google’s acquisition of Motorola shifts the balance of power in the handset-patent conflict between Google and its operating system competitors,” NPD executive director of industry analysis Ross Rubin said in a statement today. “Android’s momentum has made for a large pie that is attractive to Motorola’s Android rivals, even if they must compete with their operating system developer.”Indeed, when Google acquires Motorola, it will pick up an estimated 17,000 patents, and a Bloomberg report on Monday picked out a core of eighteen of these patents that could prove pivotal in protecting Google from infringement suits from Android rivals Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Apple.

DAILY DOT COM – If you are one of the many people who surf the internet while at work, according to a new survey, chances are you are significantly more productive and effective.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore looked at roughly 100 students. They were split up into three groups with a workday that consisted of 20 minutes of work, a 10 minute break and 10 more minutes of work.
The study called “Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement” was revealed last week at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in San Antonio, Texas.
Researchers discovered internet users who took a short break to browse the internet to check on a favorite sports team or do some shopping, were more focused when they got back to work.
The study showed a brief break made workers more excited, interested and alert than those in the other two groups. They also reported lower levels of mental exhaustion or boredom and higher levels of engagement.
Still, researchers caution the same was not true for employees who checked their personal email accounts. It seems the need to respond to friends or family negatively affects concentration because employees spend too much time responding to those emails.
Many employers see internet use as a distraction and monitor their employees’ internet use. But researchers warn that could cause employees to browse the internet even more, feeling that the company does not trust or value them.
Incidentally, this is not the first study on internet productivity.