Apple put the finishing touches on its iCloud streaming music service, which is expected to be unveiled on Monday, while the U.S. military introduced efforts to fight digital cyberwars in the digital era.
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Apple: ICloud Coming Next Week
Apple CEO
Steve Jobs is expected to announce the company's
iCloud music and video-streaming service at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference next week. Jobs, which has been on medical leave since January 17, still has a major hand in the company's affairs.
The service can comb through users' personal music libraries and match those songs to songs stored on a digital locker in the cloud, streaming music over the Internet in lieu of having people load tracks on their mobile devices.
Apple has signed deals with the "big four" record labels, paying millions to
Universal, Sony Music, EMI and Warner Music for the rights to stream their songs. Meanwhile, Google and Amazon have thus far eschewed the labels' copyright claims, but Apple's cooperation with the music industry may force Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive to pay up in the future.
In the meantime, iCloud may feature movies too, as Apple discusses terms with Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, NBC and HBO. If the deal goes through, Apple could rival Netflix, Hulu and YouTube as the next big movie-streaming company on the market.
But iCloud could face problems in Tennessee, where a new state law bans movie- and music-streaming users from sharing their accounts with non-family members. This law protects content distributors from losing money to pirates, but could make logging in to accounts from a friend's computer an illegal activity.
Apple Fights On In Patent Wars
Apple's patent wars continue, as
Samsung says it deserves a first look at the iPhone 5 and iPad 3. The demand follows a judicial ruling giving Apple license to examine some of Samsung's new devices for evidence of copycatting. The tit-for-tat patent war between the two may be going strong in the courtroom, but as the companies rely on each other as supplier and consumer, they must keep up a "fremeny" relationship behind the scenes.
Lodsys, meanwhile, gave Apple a legal pinch by suing seven app developers whom Apple clams should be protected from litigation. Lodsys holds the patent rights to a popular in-app payment procedure; while Apple purchased these rights, the former says its developers must do so too or risk getting sued. Whether Apple will go to bat for its developers in court remains to be seen.
Also Apple has added more caveats to its growing list of patent and PR protections, prohibiting contests and raffles from giving away "free" iPhones as prizes. Apple doesn't want to be associated with seedy promotions after branding itself as an exclusive company.
Further polishing its good name, Apple is working on technology to prevent iPhone users from recording live concerts or movies in theaters. The project aims to prevent piracy, a goal which would benefit Apple by protecting the content distributors whose movies and songs the Cupertino, Calif.-based company streams over
iTunes and soon via iCloud as well.
But some of Apple's technology may never make it to market, such as the
GPS service and cellular carrier patents it recently filed. Given its recent location-tracking scandal and the fact that carriers would rather not let Apple use their spectrum to build a cell phone service of its own, it's unlikely we will hear more of these patents in the future.
Apple: Good News
Apple supplier
Foxconn reopened its doors after a blast last week killed three workers and injured scores of others. The iPad maker said its temporary closure will not affect tablet supplies, though the incident did affect the company's image, given its reputation for reportedly poor working conditions.
Apple and
Google renewed their maps partnership. Apple appears to willing to merely improve rather than eclipse its rival's map service during any future cartographic ventures.
Google Attacked With Phishing Scheme, Malware
Google had a rough week.
Chinese hackers conducted a "spear phishing" attack on the e-mail accounts of top officials in several Asian countries. While not exactly a hack, the perpetrators tricked some people into opening up their accounts and then secretly forwarded their e-mails.
Android Market received a similar blow when anywhere from 30,000 to 120,000 people downloaded apps without knowing they carried the
DroidDream virus. Google removed the 25 infected apps, but the incident left a mark by calling attention to the Wild West nature of the Android Market compared to Apple's relatively safe App Store.
Also former Google CEO
Eric Schmidt delivered an apology at the
AllThingsD conference, saying he "screwed up" on social networking while he was in charge of the company. Schmidt's candid statements about this failure underscore just how important social networking has become -- with
Facebook leading the way in this realm, Google may need to rethink its core strategy as more and more people seek information online from friends rather than impersonal search engines.
But it wasn't all bad news for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, as it debuted
Google Offers service in a bid to challenge rival
Groupon. Google earlier tried to buy Groupon for a hefty price but failed; now it is going full-force ahead to blow the competition out of the water. Google Offers will be compatible with NFC-enabled Android phones too, letting users simply tap or swipe their handsets to redeem the social coupons.
U.S. Government Begin Cyberwar Preparations
The
U.S. military issued a warning this week to would-be cyber criminals. In the wake of a hacking attack against
Lockheed Martin, the nation's largest military contractor, army officials are preparing their first formal cyber-warfare protocol.
The policy is set to categorize hacks, especially those targeting U.S. infrastructure, as acts of war. In other words, according to one military official, "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks."
The
Pentagon is also drafting a list of cyber-weapons it can use to strike back at attackers, extending its powers to combat aggression in the digital as well as physical realm.
U.S. Government Addresses Cell Phone Dangers
The U.S. government responded to the
World Health Organization's, or WHO, warning that cell phones are "possibly carcinogenic." Their report suggests a potential link between phones' electromagnetic waves and brain tumors.
The
Supreme Court, hearing of the study, is now deliberating whether to hear a class-action lawsuit accusing 19 telecoms of downplaying cell phone dangers.
Federal regulations currently prohibit state-based, anti-cell phone company cases from going anywhere, but that could change in the wake of the WHO report.
U.S. Government Makes Technological Strides
Obama has hired
Harper Reed to spearhead the technology end of his 2012 re-election campaign. The unconventional CTO is expected to enliven the campaign with fresh and experimental ideas, such as possibly using geolocation tracking to organize volunteers.
Government workers are already experiencing a transformation in that
BlackBerry devices are no longer mandated for use as professional tools. Instead, workers at select departments can now use
iPhones and
Androids to send work e-mails.
Sony Humiliated Again
Sony was attacked again yesterday, this time on the
Sony Pictures website, just as the company had fully restored network services and even testified before Congress about recent improvements to its security measures.
This slap on the face was courtesy of
LulzSec, a hacker group that says it broke into Sony's site using a simple SQL injection. In technical terms, this is much like breaking into someone's house by retrieving a key from under the doormat.
Given its dismal last months, Sony had no choice but to support Rep. Mary Bono Mack's proposed legislation at a Congressional hearing Thursday. The law would mandate that companies alert consumers immediately whenever their personal information is compromised.
Bono Mack's law aims directly at Sony, which took a week to admit its
PlayStation Network fell victim to an attack that exposed 100 million accounts from April 16 to 19.
AT&T, T-Mobile Saga Continues
In the latest episode of the
AT&T/T-Mobile merger saga, the
FCC pressed AT&T to back up its statements about how a merger with T-Mobile would alleviate spectrum shortages. AT&T claimed the union will result in fewer dropped calls and more coverage for customers, while detractors allege the wireless carrier is merely making excuses as it is still sitting on unused spectrum.
One such detractor,
Sprint, filed a formal complaint with the FCC against the $39 billion merger. Following
CEO Dan Hesse's outspoken critiques of AT&T's plan, the company's complaint suggests it aims to fight to the death. It has no other choice, really, as a merger would result in AT&T and rival
Verizon controlling 80 percent of the U.S. wireless market, leaving Sprint out in the cold.
An interesting twist to the rancor between AT&T and Sprint is that
LightSquared, a fledgling 4G provider, is in talks to sell its services wholesale to both companies. This arrangement would definitely benefit Sprint, which could expand its network this way without having to spend money on expensive infrastructure.
AT&T too could use LightSquared's service as its CEO
Ralph de la Vega admitted poor call quality still plagues customers in crowded cities like New York and San Francisco. With Verizon's high-speed LTE network still in the lead, AT&T can't afford to sit back and relax, especially since the
iPhone 5 is rumored to be 4G-capable.
Amid the turmoil, AT&T is preparing for its acquisition of T-Mobile by moving to tiered pricing from unlimited plans, allowing it to easily blend with T-Mobile's pricing structure once the two join forces -- pending FCC approval.
Nokia Barely Treading Water
Nokia suffered greatly in the last years, having seen its slice of the mobile market share drop from nearly half to merely one quarter. Recently, the company lowered its profit forecast for this year, signaling more hard times ahead.
Ever since Nokia failed to challenge Apple's and later Android's app-centric, touch screen devices, the company has sat around showing few signs of life.
To help it claw out of the rubble, Nokia's CEO
Stephen Elop arranged a partnership with Microsoft to give Nokia a working alternative to its scrapped Symbian platform. Rather than side with Google, who refused to let Nokia differentiate its products from other Android phone makerse, Elop chose to put the
Windows Phone 7 on its handsets.
Elop blamed Nokia's complacent culture and mismanagement for its sliding stocks and woeful earnings reports. He is struggling to build effective communication channels to encourage innovation since taking the reins last fall.
Facebook Hits 700 Million Users
Facebook reached the 700 million-user mark this week, cementing its position as the dominant social networking platform. Facebook's rapid growth may surge if its talks with
Netflix result in a partnership.
But authorities also arrested a sex offender who logged into Facebook from an Apple store, causing concerns over the site's safety for young people.
CEO
Mark Zuckerberg remarked that children should be able to use the site for educational purposes, though incidents like these may make that dream tough to safely achieve.
Egypt, Iran Restrict Internet
Former Egyptian President
Hosnai Mubarak was fined for cutting Internet and mobile service during the winter revolution that eventually ousted him from power in February. He and his top officials must pay $91 million in reparations for telecom companies like
Vodafone that lost business during the blackout.
Mubarak's unprecedented decision to cut digital ties highlights just how effective the Internet and mobile phones were at organizing Egyptian citizens to rise up against the dictator.
Following Mubarak's lead,
Iran may soon clamp down on its Internet services as well. The country plans to create an internal "halal" network to reflect Muslim values after pulling the plug on the Web.
New Devices Headed to Market Soon
Sprint is set to ship the
HTC Evo 3D with pre-loaded 3D movies and games this summer, while
T-Mobile plans to sell its flagship model, the
HTC Sensation, on June 15.
Asus' PadFone bridges the gap between a tablet and smartphone. Not unlike
Motorola's Atrix, the Android-based PadFone allows users to share information by docking the phone in the tablet.
