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Samsung Exynos 5 Octa with Heterogeneous Multi-Processing and GPU Compute is the hidden gem in the Galaxy Note 3 and GALAXY Note 10.1, 2014 Edition, launched at ‘Samsung UNPACKED 2013 Episode 2’ event

September 12, 2013 11:50 am / 2 Comments on Samsung Exynos 5 Octa with Heterogeneous Multi-Processing and GPU Compute is the hidden gem in the Galaxy Note 3 and GALAXY Note 10.1, 2014 Edition, launched at ‘Samsung UNPACKED 2013 Episode 2’ event

but used for 3G / WiFi versions only … while for LTE versions Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core SoCs at 2.3 GHz are used (probably the same one used in Xiaomi Mi3).

Details

ARM big.LITTLE Hangout with the Experts [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 14, 2013]

A technical discussion about ARM big.LITTLE processing technology from some of ARM’s experts.

Panelists:
Robin Randhawa, Principal Software Engineer, ARM
Charles Garcia-Tobin, Advanced Product Design Group, ARM
Brian Jeff, Senior Product Manager, ARM
Ian Smythe, Director of Marketing, ARM (Moderator)

Discussion questions with timecodes:

What is big.LITTLE? 1:25
How can the system switch between cores? 5:51
How does big.LITTLE save energy, compared to running one set of cores? 8:40
Why even use the big.LITTLE configuration? 13:03
How does the Software work? 14:58 (Software models 22:15)
How does this effect applications programmers? 25:46
What are the performance benefits of big.LITTLE? 28:47
Where can silicon partners get code for this? 34:48 (Software links 36:45)
Does this run on Android? 37:25

Samsung Primes Exynos 5 Octa for ARM big.LITTLE Technology with Heterogeneous Multi-Processing Capability [press release, Sept 10, 2013]

Samsung Electronics announced its Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) solution for the Exynos 5 Octa to fully maximize the benefits of the ARM® big.LITTLE™ technology. The HMP capability gives system-level designers the ability to develop solutions that deliver the right combination of high-performance and low-power to carry out tasks such as 3D gaming, complex augmented reality and advanced web browsing.

Samsung Exynos OCTA-pella: Performance + Efficiency in Perfect Harmony [SamsungExynos YouTube channel, Sept 9, 2013]

Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa series of mobile processors with ARM© big.LITTLE™ technology now supports heterogeneous multi-processing (HMP)! This advanced technology allows the Exynos 5 Octa processors to provide exceptional performance and increased power efficiency. In the OCTA-pella video, you’ll see how the Exynos 5 Octa uses ARM big.LITTLE processing to balance workloads across CPU cores, using the right core for the right task. Find out what else Exynos has in store on our Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/SamsungExynos and on Twitter:https://twitter.com/SamsungExynos If you want to learn more about the Exynos 5 Octa series of processors, visit our website:http://www.samsung.com/global/busines… Discover the advantages of ARM© big.LITTLE™ processing:http://www.thinkbiglittle.com/

“It’s usually assumed that the big CPU will do all the performance-critical work, however, power-efficient little cores can handle many significant workloads all on their own, so the workload is balanced within the system,” said Taehoon Kim, vice president of System LSI marketing, Samsung Electronics.

“We welcome Samsung’s continued commitment to deploying the leading-edge technology on their latest chips featuring the ARM Cortex™-A series of processors, ARM Mali™ GPUs and ARM Artisan™ physical IP.” said Noel Hurley, vice president, Strategy and Marketing, Processor Division, ARM.

HMP is the most powerful use model for ARM big.LITTLE technology, as it enables the use of all physical cores at the same time. Software threads with high priority or high computational intensity can be allocated to the ‘big’ Cortex-A15 cores while threads with less priority or are less computationally intensive, can be performed by the ‘LITTLE’ Cortex-A7 cores, enabling a highly responsive, low-energy system to be built.

Software implementation is essential to maximizing the benefits of big.LITTLE technology. Multi-processing software controls the scheduling of threads of execution to the appropriate core. In earlier versions of the big.LITTLE software, the whole processor context is moved up to the ‘big’ core or down to the ‘LITTLE’ core based on the measured work load. In-depth study and analysis of diverse use case scenarios enable Samsung to achieve efficiency and high-performance, while managing power levels to deliver optimal user environments.

The HMP solution for Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa application processors will be available to customers in 4Q of 2013.

Exynos 5 Octa: Heterogeneous Multi-Processing Capability [Samsung Exynos blog, Sept 10, 2013]

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the Exynos 5 Octa packs a serious punch when it comes to processing power and energy efficiency. Now, the team at Samsung has made the Exynos 5 Octa even better with the introduction of a new Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) solution.

Overview of big.LITTLE Technology

Before we jump into the benefits of HMP, let’s take a step back and go over the basics ofARM® big.LITTLE technology. In the Exynos 5 Octa, eight CPU cores are responsible for everything from browsing the web to playing your favorite game on your 5 Octa-powered mobile device. Four “big” 1.8GHz ARM®Cortex™-A15 cores handle intensive tasks like graphically rich gaming or HD video playback. Less intensive tasks like e-mail or text functions are tackled by four “LITTLE” 1.3GHz Cortex™-A7 cores. By dividing and conquering tasks and assigning them to the proper CPU cores, big.LITTLE technology maximizes performance while minimizing power loss.

HMP Makes big.LITTLE Technology Even Better

Now this is where HMP comes into play. Like a sports team, big.LITTLE technology relies on a software “coach” to call the plays and assign tasks to each core. In a basic implementation of big.LITTLE technology, this “coach” would alternate between using “big” and “LITTLE” CPU cores based on the computational intensity of any given task, and one core or cluster of cores would remain inactive while its counterpart was engaged.

With HMP, all eight of the CPU cores in the Exynos 5 Octa can be utilized at the same time. This provides users with an unlimited mobile experience in the current mobile environment and also paves the way for more advanced and complex functionality in the future. HMP is extremely versatile. Using a global load balancing scheduler, HMP can assign a single core to handle a task with low computational intensity in order to maximize power efficiency. On the flipside, HMP can also simultaneously utilize each of the eight individual cores in the 5 Octa to run multiple tasks in real time. The global load balancing scheduler pays attention to user workloads and will pull in the necessary available resources for the system to run flexibly and efficiently. By analyzing and assigning tasks,this highly complex software system maximizes efficiency by balancing CPU workload.

The result is the most advanced use of big.LITTLE technology to date and a huge leap forward for multi-processing capability in mobile devices. By allowing for the simultaneous operation of both “big” and “LITTLE” cores in the Exynos 5 Octa, Samsung offers an optimized HMP solution to the balancing act of maximizing mobile device capability while minimizing power loss.

Samsung has always been a leader in big.LITTLE technology, and this new Octa-core HMP solution is an industry first. HMP sets the stage for the future as mobile devices are increasingly called upon to handle complex and graphically rich tasks. Through this innovative solution, the benefits of big.LITTLE technology are maximized to their full potential. Get ready, because the future of mobile processing is evolving, and the Exynos 5 Octa with HMP is leading the way.

Samsung Brings Enhanced Mobile Graphics Performance Capabilities to New Exynos 5 Octa Processor [press release, July 23, 2013]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today introduced the latest addition to the Exynos product family with top level of graphic performance driven by a six-core ARM® Mali™-T628 GPU processor for the first time in the industry. With mobile use case scenarios becoming increasingly complex, Samsung’s newest eight-core ARM Cortex™ application processor gives designers a powerful, energy efficient tool to build multifaceted user interface capabilities directly into the system architecture. Samsung will demonstrate the new Exynos 5 family at SIGGRAPH 2013 in the ARM booth, #357; Exhibit Hall C at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Samsung’s new Exynos 5 Octa (product code: Exynos 5420), based on ARM Mali™-T628 MP6 cores, boosts 3D graphic processing capabilities that are over two times greater than the Exynos 5 Octa predecessor. The newest member of the Exynos family is able to perform General-Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) accelerating complex and computationally intensive algorithms or operations, traditionally processed by the CPU. This product also supports OpenGL® ES 3.0 and Full Profile Open CL 1.1, which enables the horsepower needed in multi-layer rendering of high-end, complex gaming scenarios, post-processing and sharing of photos and video, as well as general high-function multi-tasking operations.

“ARM welcomes the latest addition to the successful Exynos Octa 5 series, which uses ARM’s Mali GPU solution to dramatically improve graphics performance,” said Pete Hutton, executive vice president & general manager, Media Processing Division, ARM. “ARM big.LITTLE™ and ARM Artisan® Physical IP technologies continue to be at the heart of the Octa series and now complement the new functionality brought by ARM GPU Compute. This combination enables unprecedented capabilities in areas such as facial detection and gesture control, and brings desktop-quality editing of images and video to mobile devices.”

“Demand for richer graphic experiences is growing rapidly nowadays,” said Taehoon Kim, vice president of System LSI marketing, Samsung Electronics. “In order to meet that demand from both OEMs and end users, we developed this processor which enables superb graphical performance without compromising power consumption.”

The newest Exynos processor is powered by four ARM Cortex®-A15™ processors at 1.8GHz with four additional Cortex-A7™cores at 1.3 GHz in a big.LITTLE processing implementation. This improves the CPU processing capability by 20 percent over the predecessor by optimizing the power-saving design.

In addition, the mobile image compression (MIC) IP block inside this System-on-Chip successfully lowers the total system power when bringing pictures or multimedia from memory to display panel. This feature results in maximizing the usage hours of mobile devices with a high-resolution display such as WQXGA (2500×1600), in particular when browsing the web or doing multimedia application requiring the frequent screen refresh.

The new Exynos 5 Octa processor also features a memory bandwidth of 14.9 gigabytes per second paired with a dual-channel LPDDR3 at 933MHz, enabling an industry-leading fast data processing and support for full HD Wifi display. This new processor also incorporates a variety of full HD 60 frames per second video hardware codec engines for 1080p video recording and playback.

The new family of Exynos 5 Octa is currently sampling to customers and is scheduled for mass-production in August.

For Further information :

Samsung Exynos brand site : www.samsung.com/exynos
Samsung Exynos twitter : www.twitter.com/samsungexynos
Samsung Exynos facebook : www.facebook.com/samsungexynos
Samsung Exynos Youtube : www.youtube.com/samsungexynos

Transforming your mobile and TV experience with GPU Compute [Trina Watt on Multimedia blog of ARM, July 22, 2013]

As a mother of three young children I am very aware of their approach to technology, and how unaccepting they are of the established ways of interacting with devices that anyone over the age of 18 is used to. The first time I gave my 5 year old daughter a mouse she looked at me as if I was mad – why use this when you can touch the screen? Gesture, touch and voice are much more natural not only to elementary kids but to us all.

ARM has been working with our partners for several years on how GPUs can improve user experience, initially through bringing improved graphics to a wider range of devices, but more recently, improving interaction with your devices through GPU Compute support in the Mali-T600 series of GPUs. ARM have just created a video that gives more background on the potential use cases for GPU Compute and how we can expect them to change the way we interact with even more of our electronic devices.

ARM brings GPU Compute to mobile devices [ARMflix YouTube channel, July 22, 2013]

GPU Compute is becoming reality. Its advanced computational abilities and energy efficiencies are inspiring innovation in the mobile industry, innovation which will drive novel, exciting and intuitive user experiences for consumers. In this video ARM explains the key features of GPU Compute and sets out a vision of what GPU Compute will enable for consumers. Discover GPU Compute with the ARM® Mali™-T600 series http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-plus-gpu-compute/index.php

Gesture control is becoming increasingly popular in premium devices. What GPU Compute does is bring those features to a wider range of devices – you can expect to see it being built into more DTVs, tablets, and smartphones. GPU Compute enables smaller gestures to be supported even in low lighting, so searching for the remote down the back of the sofa will become a thing of the past! I am interested to see how we solve the “who is in control” issue once there is no longer a remote control to fight over…

Facial detection can also benefit from GPU Compute. Facial detection brings features like “smile detection” when taking photos, or having a camera only take the picture when everyone is looking in the same direction and has their eyes open. These types of services can link to and enhance other features, such as your tablet or DTV being aware of who is looking at a screen so it can make sure the content is suitable to the audience, or powering down when no one is watching.

More of our daily lives are being captured through smartphones and tablets. I have numerous nearly unusable videos that have been shot in motion – having video stabilization built into my mobile devices will help me capture more of the dynamic moments in my kids’ early years, and being able to edit those videos on my tablet (to crop out the inevitable shot of my feet before posting on Facebook for the grandparents to see!) is just another one of the benefits to come.

So next time I fall asleep in front of the television watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones, GPU Compute will help me, a tired parent, know how far I got through the last episode – then pick up where I left off! Got to love technology.

Trina Watt, Director of Channel Marketing, Media Processing Division, ARM.
I like to think of myself as a “geek in marketers clothing”. Gadgets and technology have been a passion for me as long I can remember – from dismantling my first radio when I was about 8 to now running around regularly with 3 phones, a tablet and laptop to feed my tech thirst. I started in the tech industry nearly 20 years ago in Motorola and I have never ventured far from it. I am currently focused on promoting the visually exciting Mali graphics processors. I get to work with a wide range of partners who are creating the innovative devices of the future. For a geek it doesn’t get much better than that!

Spotlight on the New Exynos 5 Octa [Samsung Exynos blog, Aug 8, 2013]

Meet the new and improved Exynos 5 Octa processor, designed to bring enhanced graphics performance and energy efficiency to the next generation of high-end smartphones and tablets. Advanced ARM® GPU Compute technology and a suite of power-saving features allow our latest processor to run complex applications while conserving battery life – because a mobile device isn’t really mobile if you have to worry about charging it all of the time. We’ll fill you in on the most important specs for this new SoC and give you an idea of what to expect from future devices that run on it.

Enhanced Graphics with New ARM® Mali™-T628 GPU

The new Exynos 5 Octa (5420) packs an ARM® Mali™-T628 GPU, which is powerful enough to support 3D graphics processing that’s more than twice as fast as the Exynos 5410, for smoother rendering and diminished lag times. The Mali-T628 is also capable of GPU Compute functionality, meaning it can perform general-purpose computing and intensive tasks to help alleviate the CPU’s workload and speed up processing times. In combination with big.LITTLE architecture, GPU Computing significantly increases power efficiency for noticeably better battery life. OpenGL® ES 3.0 and Full profile OpenCL™ 1.1 support provide the additional power that’s needed to render high-quality, complex gaming scenarios and handle comprehensive photo and video editing.

Making Advanced Applications Possible

GPU Compute technology was once limited to PCs and other desktop devices, but ARM Mali GPUs are bringing this functionality to mobile. There are a lot of advantages associated with GPU Computing that will open up opportunities for innovative applications on mobile devices that use the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420).

Video and image stabilization and editing – Get creative! Edit photos right after you take them or apply filters to live video directly on your smartphone.
Facial detection – Refined facial recognition allows for enhanced security features and content restrictions for children.
“Open eye” detection – You won’t have to retake nearly as many photos if your smartphone’s camera only captures an image when everyone is looking at the camera.

Increased Power Efficiency for Extended Use

The new Exynos 5 Octa (5420) features four 1.8GHz ARM® Cortex™-A15 cores and four 1.3GHz Cortex™-A7 cores in an optimized big.LITTLE™ configuration. This power-saving design provides 20% increased CPU performance over the previous version of the processor, but with 70 percent greater energy efficiency than Cortex-A15 cores alone. The system switches amongst eight cores of Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors depending on workload, selecting the right core for the right task and saving power in the process.

If you’re an avid mobile gamer who’s into FPS games with complex graphics or fast-paced, high-frame-rate racing games, the “big” Cortex-A15 cores are there to do the heavy lifting. Even if gaming isn’t your thing, you’ll notice faster page loading times and better graphics quality when browsing websites with high-quality media. Big.LITTLE technology is all about balance, so the “LITTLE” Cortex-A7 cores step in to take care of lighter workloads, like pulling up work emails, playing music and texting. The Cortex-A7 series is the most energy-efficient processor that ARM has to offer, helping your device go longer between charges so you can stay connected while you’re busy living life.

All of you Photoshoppers and Instagram addicts will be happy to hear that the Exynos 5 Octa (5420 ) also features Mobile Image Compression (MIC), which lowers the system power required to bring photos from memory to your screen for processing. This means photo-editing doesn’t unduly impact battery life, and you can get the maximum use out of your mobile devices with high-resolution displays.

To learn more about the flexibility that GPU Compute technology brings to the new Exynos 5 Octa, check out this guest blog post by Trina Watt, Director of Channel Marketing for ARM.

More specs and details can also be found on the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420) product page.

New Exynos 5 Octa with GPU Compute Enables Cool New Applications [Samsung Exynos blog, Aug 1, 2013]

Recently Samsung announced their latest addition to the Exynos 5 Octa family. With the ARM® Mali™-T628 as its GPU, this is the first silicon to reach the market which contains a second generation processor from the ARM Mali-T600 series. Improved GPU support is the key differentiating focus of this version of the Exynos Octa. In the past GPU support was solely about graphics performance; however, with the inclusion of the ARM Mali-T628 in Exynos 5 Octa, Samsung have brought market-leading GPU Compute support to mobile devices.

The ARM Mali-T628 comes with support for a wide range of APIs including OpenGL® ES 3.0 and 2.0, OpenCL™ andRenderscript™. This breadth of API support opens up a wider range of use cases for consumers. ARM has been spearheading activities for OpenGL ES 3.0 since its launch and this momentum continued with the ARM Mali-T600 series becoming one of the first to gain conformance. ARM’s continuous market driving is now expanding to the GPU Compute area. Previously, GPU Compute has only been in PC- or desktop-style devices. Now, ARM Mali GPUs are enabling GPU Compute within the mobile power boundary. Samsung started shipping the ARM Mali-T604 GPU back in back in October 2012 and since that point the ecosystem around GPU Compute has been growing with more and more partners seeing the advantages that GPU Compute can bring.

These advantages include video and image stabilization and editing (meaning users don’t have to wait to get home until they edit and upload), facial detection (enabling enhanced security, access to suitable content and smile detection) and “eyes open” detection (so that the photo is taken only when everyone is looking at the camera or smiling.)

GPU Compute also enables the application of filters to images and live video, opening up new forms of creativity. To see more of what GPU Compute can provide across smartphones, tablets and DTVs, watch this video.

ARM brings GPU Compute to mobile devices [ARMflix YouTube channel, July 22, 2013]

Since this is the second generation of the ARM Mali-T600 series, additional architectural refinements have been made which mean that the ARM Mali-T628, when at the same performance point as an ARM Mali-T604, provides a 50% energy-efficiency improvement, alternatively, when consuming the same level of power, offers substantial increased performance. GPU Compute is about making current use cases more efficient. The combination of GPU Compute and ARM’s big.LITTLE™ technology in one SoC opens up new opportunities for task management. Certain tasks can be handled more quickly and using less energy on a GPU then on a CPU – math-intensive activities in particular often run better on the parallelized GPU architecture. This means you get twice the energy efficiency benefit when you combine GPU Compute and big.LITTLE, as Samsung have done in the Exynos 5 Octa. The GPU takes suitable tasks off the CPU, allowing the CPU to work more often in LITTLE mode and ultimately increases energy efficiency on the GPU and energy savings on the CPU. It also frees up the CPU to run other, more latency-sensitive tasks.

At the end of the day, GPU Compute provides more flexibility in what consumers are able to do with their devices – meaning more end devices will be available which are both energy efficient and enablers of cool new applications, so consumers will no longer have to sacrifice one feature for the other.

Trina Watt, Director of Channel Marketing, Media Processing Division, ARM.
I like to think of myself as a “geek in marketers clothing”. Gadgets and technology have been a passion for me as long I can remember – from dismantling my first radio when I was about 8 to now running around regularly with 3 phones, a tablet and laptop to feed my tech thirst. I started in the tech industry nearly 20 years ago in Motorola and I have never ventured far from it. I am currently focused on promoting the visually exciting Mali graphics processors. I get to work with a wide range of partners who are creating the innovative devices of the future. For a geek it doesn’t get much better than that!

GPU Compute Technology: Benefits in the New Exynos 5 Octa [Samsung Exynos blog, Aug 19, 2013]

Mobile processors have advanced rapidly over the past several years due to the development of new technologies and manufacturing processes that allow for significantly increased performance and power efficiency. A more recent development from ARM®, GPU Compute technology harnesses the power of a component that was traditionally reserved for graphical processing and uses it to improve system-level performance and workload distribution. We’ll review the advantages and applications of this technology in the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420) to give you a better understanding of its importance.

What is GPU Compute Technology?

Over time, the market has come to expect higher and higher resolution displays, which has been a key driver in GPU advancements. Both resolution and power increasingly dominate processing requirements for the next generation of smartphones and tablets. As we demand more and more of our mobile devices, we have to find ways to meet these evolving needs without sacrificing power efficiency. Enter ARM’s general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU), also known as GPU Compute technology.GPU computing is best defined by the ARM experts who developed it:

“…The computational performance of the GPU, historically used for graphics, is harnessed to augment the main processor (CPU) for certain applications where the GPU architecture will be more effective. The result is improved performance and energy-efficiency and a more efficient use of the system as a whole, making computational photography, computer vision, advanced imaging, point-of-interest extraction and augmented reality possible because of the extended processing capacity.”

Long story short, GPU Compute allows a system to match workloads to specific compute devices for optimal performance and power savings. ARM GPUs with GPU Compute are more efficient and better suited than the CPU when it comes to executing certain tasks such as math-intensive operations. By taking on these tasks, the GPU alleviates some of the CPU’s workload and lowers overall power consumption.

Advantages of GPU Compute

GPU Compute technology comes with a host of benefits, from increased performance and energy savings to ramped-up application support. Our most recent processor, the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420), packs an ARM® Mali™-T628 with GPU Compute that significantly enhances graphics performance. Compared to the Mali-T604 GPU in the Exynos 5 Dual, the Mali-T628 can reach the same performance levels while providing a 50% improvement in energy efficiency. The newer generation of the Mali-T600 series also shows increased performance levels when consuming the same amount of power. By combining GPU Compute technology with ARM® big.LITTLE™ processing architecture, the new Exynos 5 Octa benefits from two layers of energy efficiency.

Trina Watt, Director of Channel Marketing at ARM, recently wrote a guest blog post on the advantages associated with GPU Compute functionality. Depending on the mobile device, GPU Compute enables video and image stabilization and editing, advanced facial detection, “eyes open” detection for photo-taking and filter application to images and live video. All of these capabilities open up a wide range of possibilities for advanced apps and features that aren’t currently supported on many phones and tablets. Better still, overall optimization of system workload means you can run those cutting-edge apps without unduly draining battery power – a win-win outcome for any mobile system.

GPU Compute in Action

GPU Compute has already made its way into mobile devices through Exynos 5 Dual -equipped products like the Google Nexus 10. You’ll see the benefits of this technology in action once you experience this tablet’s super high-resolution display. With a 2560×1600 (WQXGA) screen resolution, text is sharper and colors are more vivid than anything you’ve experienced on mobile.

You’ll also find this functionality on advanced development boards like the Exynos 5 Dual-powered Arndale board, which includes a number of common peripherals. With this full-fledged prototyping platform, developers can get a handle on working with GPU Compute-equipped systems in preparation for the first round of mobile devices to implement the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420).

By pulling together high-end ARM CPUs, ARM Mali graphics with GPU Compute and advanced technologies like ARM big.LITTLE processing, Samsung Exynos has fully realized the ideal GPU Compute system. Stay tuned for news about upcoming devices that will run on the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420)!

Need to know more? Head over to ARM’s blog to find out how GPU Compute technology can transform your mobile and TV experience.

Up close and personal with the latest Mali demos [Trina Watt on Multimedia blog of ARM, Aug 27, 2013]

The buzz at this year’s SIGGRAPH was fantastic and you have already heard from a number of my colleagues including Jem Davies with “Back from SIGGRAPH 2013 – Mali Rocks” and Akshay Agarwal with “From Advanced Graphics to Casual Gaming in the Cali Summer – Mali Everywhere.” But would you like to see more for yourself? Well now you can!

Check out our latest demos on ARMFlix and hear from our partners including Samsung, Unity and GameStick. I particularly recommend the ARM Trollheim demo as a great place to start, with Phill Smith explaining how OpenCL™ can vastly improve procedural terrain generation.

ARM Mali Trollheim demo: in-depth overview [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Phill Smith, Demo Manager at ARM, compares two methods of texture generation with the Trollheim demo. The first demonstration, on Exynos 5 Octa hardware with an ARM® Mali™-T628 GPU, generates terrain using GPU Shaders; the second, on the Arndale Development Board with an ARM Mali-T604 GPU, uses OpenCL™.

An immediate hardware comparison (call it obvious if you will, but we could hardly start with anything else) is first on our list to share with you. Jae-Uck Ahn, Marketing Manager for Samsung and representative for the new Exynos 5 Octa processor, analyzes the performance of our first and second generation ARM® Mali™-T600 series GPUs and clearly points out the advantages which the ARM Mali-T628 has over its predecessor, the ARM Mali-T604; to name but a few these include brighter colours, sharper images, higher frame rates – and that’s not even mentioning the massive increase in performance efficiency.

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa on ARM Mali – Siggraph 2013 [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Jaeuck Ahn, Marketing Manager, Samsung Electronics, describes the features and benefits of the recently announced Samsung Exynos 5 Octa based on ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPUs, 4 ARM Cortex-A15 processors and 4 ARM Cortex-A7 processors with ARM big.LITTLE technology. Jaeuck then demos the Exynos 5420 platform versus the Exynos 5 Dual based on the Mali-T604 GPU based Nexus 10 platform showing a 2x improvement in graphics performance

And it’s not just regular mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, which Mali is involved in. Our vision is to bring stunning visual computing to all mobile and consumer devices and the GameStick provides a fantastic example of Mali powering alternative gadgets. John Vega, Games Relationship Manager for GameStick, explains here how simply converting mobile games, which are now frequently designed for touch screens, to a new format can generate a hugely different, more interactive and responsive user experience – all still centred around great graphics supplied by the Mali-400 GPU.

Improving the mobile gaming experience with GameStick [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

John Vega, Games Relationship Manager at GameStick, demonstrates the touch-based iOS mobile application The Other Brothers running on a big screen with the GameStick.

The extent of API support in GPUs is a critical factor on the quality of graphics of the resultant product. As APIs evolve each generation is enabling more and better features. Android™’s recent upgrade to 4.3and its inclusion of support for OpenGL® ES 3.0 will go a long way in enhancing the look and experience of Android games (and as we’re in >50% of Android tablets and >20% of Android smartphones this is a big deal for the Mali ecosystem – especially as our GPUs already had support for all the latest APIs). A direct comparison of the capabilities of two different APIs is an excellent way of showing this and here Unity demonstrates the differences between OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 on a Nexus 10.

Unity discuss the benefits of OpenGL® ES 3.0 [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Renaldas Zioma of Unity discusses the experience of employing OpenGL ES 3.0 in the latest version of Unity Chase. Includes a visual comparison with the OpenGL ES 2.0 version.

One final video to share with you is not of a demo, but is a great wrap up to this blog and to the first half of ARM Mali’s year as a whole. Jem Davies, VP of Mali Technology, gives an overview of where Mali is and where he sees Mali GPUs going in the future. The general conclusion that can be made is that many more first-rate demos showing off new technological advancements can be expected from the Mali team in the very near future.

Interview with ARM’s VP of Mali Technology [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Jem Davies, VP of Technology for ARM’s Media Processor Division, discusses the growth in ARM® Mali™ GPU popularity and the opportunities for innovation that the ARM Mali-T600 series with GPU Compute is opening up. [1:34 Samsung is setting the way in terms of trend-setting devices 1:38 the new form factors like the phablets and 1:41 the tablets that they’ve been producing and the 1:44 the Mali partners here want to see Mali being used in these really 1:48 trend-setting devices, the things that are 1:52 approaching new markets, and knowing that they can buy with confidence that 1:56 there’s a 1:57 whole variety of market segments now being addressed ny our partners.]

ARM’s predictions for the future electronic media & entertainment industry [Matt Spencer on Multimedia blog of ARM, Sept 5, 2013]

The International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) is rapidly approaching. This is one of the leading conferences in the electronic media and entertainment sectors. It is a great place to find out about the future trends in media for the broadcast and mobile markets.

In this blog post, I am going to make a few predictions on what will be big at IBC, and as a result will be coming to your living room in the near future.

Natural UI

A Natural UI (NUI) is a man-machine interface that should be imperceptible to the user. A simple gesture with your hand, a smile, a conversation – “Hey TV, what’s on now… Have I seen that one before? OK, let’s watch it then.” Creating a more seamless interaction between man and machine is going to be one of the next big driving factors in consumer electronics. However, saying that, nobody has yet managed to create one that is a brand USP – has anyone bought a TV because you can wave at it?

At IBC, we will be seeing a raft of new improvements in the fields of gesture detection, face and speech recognition plus many others. All of these can be used to improve the realisation of NUI, and all of which can benefit from use of OpenCL™ in the ARM® Mali™ T6xx GPUs.Great examples of this can be found with some of our Mali partners such as eyeSight™, SoftKinetic™, CrunchFish and Ittiam®, all of whom are making great use of OpenCL to improve performance in both speed and energy consumption whilst performing what would traditionally be a highly CPU compute intensive task.

But what does this mean in terms of an actual on-screen UI? An implementation of a NUI is going to have to be as subtle as the interaction model that is driving it. This is the part of the NUI story that I believe will be in its infancy on the show floor at IBC.

To implement a UI that feels natural requires a lot of visual processing and this is where an ARM Mali GPU comes in. Imagine the use case where we want to show the results of the query “What’s on TV tonight”. The current trend in the UI space would be to de-focus the full screen video by either shrinking it to allow room for the results to be shown or overlaying the results over the video with a simple alpha effect. This is neither a natural nor unobtrusive way of pulling my focus to the results of the query. To do this unobtrusively required changing my physical focus point to the new information whilst not taking it fully away from the video. A simple way of achieving this would use a full screen Gaussian Blur effect to the video and overlaying the results in sharp focus over the top. This kind of process requires use of a GPU.

So, even though the NUI principles require that the UI is mostly invisible, we can see that the harder we try to achieve this, the harder the GPU is going to have to work.

UltraHD

Having seen UltraHD content for the first time last year at IBC, I have to say that the impact is immediate. There is no need to wear glasses as with current 3D technologies, the pictures seem to come alive with huge levels of detail and vibrant colours. There will be a lot of technology at IBC to help deliver broadcast UltraHD content to consumers from cameras and HEVC encoders through to STBs and TVs.

In terms of hardware accelerating HEVC content, the current generation of hardware does not have native capability to decode this content. So a traditional approach would be to use the CPU to decode the video, which would be a battery and CPU intensive task. ARM has recently been working with Ittiam to offload this compute intensive task to the GPU to improve decode performance for frame rate and battery consumption.

But what about the UI? Rendering a flowing, responsive UI at UltraHD resolutions is not an easy task. There are many more pixels that will need to be flung around the screen and the desire for browsers and UIs to hit a jank-free 60fps requires a top-of-the-range GPU combined with sufficient memory with high bandwidth. When the subtle complexities of NUI are added to the equation, the next generation of performance-efficient GPUs will be earning their keep in the consumer TV and set-top box (STB) space.

So the prediction for IBC in the UltraHD arena is that there will be a lot of new hardware, both consumer and professional, but the user experiences on these devices will be in their early stages. We will start to see chipsets designed with the specific GPU needs of UltraHD resolutions, but implementations of User Interfaces on this new class of devices will not be very mature.

Rise of the Companion

The use of a companion device to augment live and recorded content will also be a big part of the show. This will partly be delivered by APIs that allow the synchronization of the content on the main screen and the application running on the companion device. From a UI perspective, I would expect to see a drive towards cross platform application frameworks.

To ease integration into the companion device and to allow rapid deployment of new applications, I would expect to see this implementation of the companion experience realised using HTML5. HTML5 is a great platform to enable this cross connectivity and interface design, but there can be difficulties getting the required performance due to the underlying browser and JavaScript engine implementations.

I would therefore expect to see a number of companies at IBC showing both bottom up and top down approaches to solving the problem. The bottom up approach would require bespoke rendering and JavaScript engines that solve some of these questions, whilst the top down approach will give you performance debugging tools and frameworks to help identify and solve performance bottlenecks in the HTML5 applications.

I see HTML everywhere

HTML5 will be the de-facto standard for implementing User Interfaces at the show. The problem with HTML5, however, is that a lot of UI implementations end up looking very similar. You can often tell an HTML5 UI just by looking at it.

Now that HTML5 is the standard for UIs I would expect to see more differentiation in the implementations. Vendors will be more experimental and start to push the bounds of standard web design when approaching their interfaces. More animation, more effects… more pazazz! It will no longer be acceptable to put a few buttons on the screen with a simple highlight and expect consumers to accept this as a good UI design.

ARM’s position

It is an exciting time to be in the market, with a lot of great new technologies maturing and filtering through to consumer products. ARM is in a great position at the heart of this process, and Mali technology is going to be key to the success of some of these initiatives with its adoption of technologies such as OpenGL® ES 3.0, OpenCL 1.1 and its work with key technology partners.

We are already seeing great performance from next generation Mali-based devices and the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa with Mali-T628 MP6 shows class-leading performance. I see a bright future for Mali-based devices in this exciting and fast paced industry.

Matt Spencer, UI and Browser Marketing Manager, Media Processing Division, ARM. Matt is a technologist and innovator at heart, working for 15 years on embedded platforms in every manner of language from assembler through to JavaScript. He recently made the move to the ‘dark side’ (Marketing), for which he hopes he hasn’t lost the respect of his technical peers and, more importantly, where he hopes to help educate and bring like-minded engineers together with the goal of making embedded systems rock.

Xiaomi announcements: from Mi3 to Xiaomi TV

September 5, 2013 11:27 am / 1 Comment on Xiaomi announcements: from Mi3 to Xiaomi TV

An Official Video of the MI3 & MITV Launch Event (with English & Chinese subtitles). HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR REAL UNDERSTANDING OF XIAOMI!)

Read before: Assesment of the Xiaomi phenomenon before the global storm is starting on Sept 5 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 30, 2013]
Watch before: Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Takes on Apple in China [Bloomberg TV, Sept 6, 2013] Xiaomi CEO and Founder Lei Jun discusses the company’s growth and competition with Apple on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.”
Read after: Exclusive: Hugo Barra Talks About His Future at Xiaomi and Why He Really Left Google [AllTingsD, Sept 12, 2013] … “There is no question the phone business is very low margin today, but they want to get to a place where they can sell the device at cost and then sell high-margin services to make that phone experience even better,” said Barra. … “The aspiration for the founders is that Xiaomi will become a global company that happens to be in China,” he said. “If I do my job right, in a few years, the world will be talking about Xiaomi in the same way that they talk about Google and Apple today.”

Introducing Xiaomi MIUI MI3 (3D) [MrMiui YouTube channel, Sept 5, 2013]

Check this thread for Xiaomi New Product Convention 2013http://en.miui.com/thread-7486-1-1.html (Live)

Xiaomi … 2 hours ago

ON AIR [Xiaomi 2013 New Product Announcement Event]
#MiPhone 3: The Fastest Smartphone#

Dual Platform – Nvidia Tegra 4 quad-core processors (1.8GHz A15 + A15) with 72 GeForce GPU cores + Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (8974AB quad-core 2.3GHz + 28nm HPM)). MiPhone 3’s overall performance increased 40% (compare to MiPhone 2S).
Screen – Sharp and LG 5-inch 1080P IPS display with ultra-sensitive touch. It works even when your figures are wet. You can set to recognize your figures even wearing gloves;
Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 RAM+16GB eMMC4.5 flash
Battery – 3050mAh battery;
Camera – SONY 13 MP Exmor RS CMOS back camera, 2MP BSI front camera
Supports NFC & 2.4/5G WiFi

Xiaomi … Yesterday

ON AIR [Xiaomi 2013 New Product Announcement Event]
#MiPhone 3: The Fastest Smartphone

Size: 114mm×72mm×8.1mm, weight: only 145g;
Six official colors;
Camera comes with Intelligent beauty corrector. It can also identify age and gender.
The GPS can preserve the satellite trajectory for 7 days.
Immersion vibration function with situational vibrate mode.
Price – USD$327 for 16GB; USD$408 for 64GB.

Tegra 4 Processors [NVIDIA, Feb 19, 2013]
Cortex-A15 Processor [ARM, Oct 31, 2012]
NVIDIA Introduces Groundbreaking Camera Technology With Chimera — World’s First Mobile Computational Photography Architecture [press release, Feb 19, 2013]
Nvidia Tegra4 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 with HDR [High Dynamic Range imaging] video and photo engine [Charbax YouTube channel, March 2, 2013]

Nvidia is releasing their quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor, here demonstrating their Chimera camcorder and photography engine that enables fast and easy HDR [High Dynamic Range imaging, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging%5D photography and video recording. They have a special sensor and technology that allows one optical system to record enough range to create HDR video at full 1080p 30fps framerate enabling also HDR photography on all upcoming Tegra4 devices without needing to take more than one picture. Tegra4 can playback 4K video, it has a 72-core GPU enabling advanced graphics and GPU Compute and a lot of other features.
NVIDIA Tegra 4 Family CPU Architecture – 4-PLUS-1 Quad core [NVIDIA whitepaper, Feb 24, 2013]
NVIDIA Tegra 4 Family GPU Architecture [NVIDIA whitepaper, March 6, 2013] … “the GPU also helps support 4K [4K Ultra HD] video output to high-end 4K video display” …
Chimera™: The NVIDIA Computational Photography Architecture [NVIDIA whitepaper, Feb 21, 2013]
Tegra 4 posts [NVIDIA blog, Jan 8 … Aug 23 … , 2013]
Nvidia sees growing Tegra 4 orders [Digitimes, Sept 9, 2013]

Nvidia has recently started receiving orders for its Tegra 4 processor, and in addition to the recently launched Mi3 smartphone from China-based vendor Xiaomi, Nvidia has also landed orders for Microsoft’s second-generation Surface RT as well as Asustek, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard (HP) tablets, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

The Mi3 is the first smartphone to adopt the Tegra 4 processor.

Nvidia is also supplying its Tegra 4 to Asustek for its 10-inch New Transformer Pad tablet, HP for its 10-inch Slatebook 10 x2 and Toshiba for its 10-inch Excite Pro. Nvidia is reportedly also considering releasing an own-brand tablet.

Nvidia has also been aggressively promoting its Shield gaming device, trying to compete against the 3DS and PS Vita with a price of US$299.

Snapdragon 800 Processors [Qualcomm, May 1, 2013]
Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Product Brief [Qualcomm, Aug 5, 2013]
Qualcomm Snapdragon UltraHD [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

Snapdragon 800 is the first mobile processor that can record and playback UltraHD. Watch as Aytac Biber, Senior Product Manager, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., explains how this feature is key to creating the best multimedia experience for consumers.
Qualcomm Snapdragon HD Audio [QUALCOMMVlog YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

Fifty percent of the multimedia experience revolves around audio. Watch as Ravi Satyanarayanan, Director, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., explains how the Snapdragon 800 facilitates exciting features such as multimode capture and playback, 7.1 surround sound, and other advancements in audio quality.
Snapdragon 800 Posts [Qualcomm Snapdragon Processors blog, Jan 7 … Sept 4 … , 2013]
Snapdragon 800 Posts [OnQ blog, Jan 7 … Jul 24 … , 2013]
What Can You Build around Snapdragon 800? [OnQ Blog, June 18, 2013]
Inside the Snapdragon™ 800 Series Processors – The New Adreno™ 330 GPU [OnQ Blog, Jan 11, 2013]

Photos Taken by Xiaomi MI3 (HD) 小米手机随手拍 (高清) [MrMiui YouTube channel, Sept 6, 2013], watch in either 720p or 1080p HD, and you could even watch in the original HD

MIUI is one of the most popular Android ROMs in the world. It is based on Android 2.3 and 4.1, featuring a rich user experience and user customizable themes. MIUI is updated every Friday based on feedback from its users. Now with over 20 million users and 17 MIUI fan sites worldwide, MIUI is the choice of many Android users globally.

Immersion Enters Multi-Year License Agreement With Xiaomi [press release, Sept 5, 2013]

Recently announced Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone is the first to launch with advanced tactile effects

SHANGHAI & SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Immersion Corporation (Nasdaq:IMMR), the leading developer and licensor of touch feedback technology, today announced that it has entered into a broad multi-year licensing arrangement with Xiaomi, one of the fastest growing smartphone makers in China, and that the recently released Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone uses Immersion’s TouchSense® technology to add new dimension of engagement in Xiaomi’s popular MIUI interface. Users can experience Immersion technology in two new downloadable tactile themes available in the MIUI storefront, as well as the crisp, intuitive tactile effects integrated throughout the Mi3 user interface and Tool applications. The Mi3 is Xiaomi’s first smartphone to come to market under the new license agreement between Xiaomi and Immersion, which covers Immersion’s Basic Haptics IP and select TouchSense and Integrator software solutions.

“We are pleased to work closely with Xiaomi to design tactile effects that create a rich user experience and deliver a distinctive and branded feel to MIUI, Xiaomi’s custom Android interface,” explains Dennis Sheehan, Immersion’s Sr. Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “Xiaomi is our first direct mobile OEM licensee in China, and this relationship further validates the value of our IP portfolio and software solutions. With Xiaomi’s focus on design and innovation, we’re looking forward to collaborating in the future to bring advanced tactile experiences to mobile users in China.”

The Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone is available in China online at www.xiaomi.com.

Mi3 users who want to experience tactile effects have many options:

Users can select which strength of tactile effects they experience throughout the handset by customizing the vibration settings menu, found in the Settings/Sound menu

Mi3 Tool apps, including Compass, Calculator, Clock, Torch & Recorder include customized haptic effects to create a more intuitive user interface

The Iron Man and Gun MIUI themes are enhanced with realistic tactile effects, and are available for download from the MIUI Themes app.

“The Xiaomi Mi3 was designed to be easy to use, personalized and cutting-edge. The addition of haptics seamlessly extends these values to the consumer through the sense of touch,” explains Lei Jun, Chairman and CEO of Xiaomi. “Immersion’s technology and expertise allows us to create a one-of-a-kind user experience that engages the sense of touch and complements our visual and audio design.”

For more information on Immersion’s TouchSense technology and Integrator platform, visit http://www.immersion.com/markets/mobile/index.html.

About Immersion (www.immersion.com)

Founded in 1993, Immersion (NASDAQ: IMMR) is the leading innovator in haptics, or tactile effects; the company’s touch feedback solutions deliver a more compelling sense of the digital world. Using Immersion’s high-fidelity haptic systems, partners can transform user experiences with unique and customizable touch feedback effects; excite the senses in games, videos and music; restore “mechanical” feel by providing intuitive and unmistakable confirmation; improve safety by overcoming distractions while driving or performing a medical procedure; and expand usability when audio and visual feedback are ineffective. Immersion’s TouchSense technology provides haptics in mobile phone, automotive, gaming, medical and consumer electronics products from world-class companies. With over 1,300 issued or pending patents in the U.S. and other countries, Immersion helps bring the digital universe to life. Hear what we have to say at blog.immersion.com.

About Xiaomi (www.xiaomi.com)

Xiaomi is a mobile internet company dedicated to creating the ultimate user experience through its overall portfolio of products including Xiaomi phones, a series of high-performance smartphones; MIUI, a customized UI based on Android; and internet service, such as MiTalk, app store, and game center. Founded in 2010, Xiaomi is headquartered in Beijing, China and has over 3,000 employees.

Xiaomi … 2 hours ago

ON AIR [Xiaomi 2013 New Product Announcement Event]
#MIUI V5 and MiCloud Service#

Hi to all MIFans!

-What do you like the most about MIUI? What is your wish list?
Today, we have over 20 million MIUI users around the world! MIUI team works hard to deliver updates each week. Until today, we have delivered 27 updates for MIUI V5.

-MiCloud Service
More than 10.5 million registered users uploading 11 million photos daily to our MiCloud. With MiCloud service, you can sync contacts, messages, settings, photos and videos etc. to our cloud. Feel free to delete and leave enough space for your phone to do more!

-Share Photo Album and Edit Together
MIUI V5 added an amazing feature. It allows you to share photo albums and invite people to edit those albums with you. You can simply invite people through texts or generate QR codes for them to scan.

-Share Public WiFi Access
Tired of asking for password to access public WiFi? MIUI V5 allows people to share access! Just one setting or simply generate and scan a QR code, you can soon be connected.

-Send Large File
Have you experienced problems sending huge files like movies using your phone? With our MIUI V5 new system app, you can send huge files without concerns.

Xiaomi TV Eyes On – GizChina [Gizchina YouTube channel, Sept 5, 2013]

We got some eye’s on time with the new Android Xiaomi TV yesterday in Beijing. The 47-inch smart TV is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset, features and LG/Samsung 3D display and has the narrowest borders we have seen of any TV to date!

Introducing Xiaomi MIUI MiTV (HD) 小米电视 (高清) [MrMiui YouTube channel, Sept 5, 2013], watch in either 720p or 1080p HD, and you could turn on even the 3D

Xiaomi … about an hour ago

ON AIR [Xiaomi 2013 New Product Announcement Event] Surprise! Xiaomi 47 inch 3D Smart TV Only USD$490

-47 inch Polarization 3D HD LCD from LG/Samsung;

-1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor MPQ8064 for TV , 2GB RAM /8GB flash memory ;

-TV remote with only 11 buttons, easy to use;

-Supports dual-band WiFi & Bluetooth 4.0;

-Run MIUI TV customized version, it is really smart!

Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share

September 4, 2013 2:32 pm / 1 Comment on Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share

Preceding analysis of the announcement materials on this blog:
Unique Nokia assets (from factories to global device distribution & sales, and the Asha sub $100 smartphone platform etc.) will now empower the One Microsoft devices and services strategy [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 3, 2013]
Other views are given here as well, after the Q&A excerpts coming immediately below. From a Reuters’ editor, an IHS senior analyst, an investment bank executive, and a business news presenter on France24 – in the form of 4 embedded videos. Those views could be summarized as “Nokia did a good deal while the success of Microsoft with this acqusition is uncertain and needs a lot of further investment”.

Let’s see how much the answers to the questions on the Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call (Sept 3, 2013 ) were able to clarify the analyses and critical views:

Tablets?

STEVE BALLMER: Tablets is an area where we absolutely have our own first-party hardware, as you know, and see opportunities to continue to build and strengthen. And it’s an area where we have very strong programs in place with our OEMs, particularly on the Intel Atom-processor-based product lines that people will really get a lot of value on, and you’ll see a range of new products coming for the holiday season.

Scaling Windows down?

TERRY MYERSON: It’s definitely a priority for us to bring Windows to as many customers as we can around the world. Lower-price phones is a strategic initiative for the next Windows Phone release, but we have nothing more really to say now.

Acquisition effect on the reorg?

STEVE BALLMER: No [effect], the reorg is absolutely intact. Obviously, the devices business has a broader scale and new capability. Julie Larson-Green, who is running devices and studios is flat out. We’ve got a lot of work we’re doing here over the next several months. And Julie and her team will work on a planning and integration phase. Julie will continue. She’s excited about working on devices, but absolutely, the critical mass of the group with that acquisition is in the phone space, and Stephen Elop will run the group and will take the appropriate steps with Julie working with Stephen to figure out appropriate integrations.

Windows Phones coming from OEMs in the future?

STEVE BALLMER: Today, Nokia, as I said, is well over 80 percent of all of our phones, and I don’t foresee that changing dramatically in the short run, but as the market grows, I expect to see additional percentages, if you will, go to our OEMs, but it’s premature to predict today. We definitely have interest from OEMs in the Windows Phone opportunity given that people understand we’re going to blaze the trails here with our own first-party hardware.

Cost rationalization over time?

STEVE BALLMER: Amy will take it. I do want to highlight that in many hardware companies, manufacturing labor is primarily outsourced. And Amy can remind us the numbers, but in Nokia, there is more in-sourced manufacturing. Nokia has had a strategy about that that, obviously, they’ve executed very well. But you kind of have apples and oranges a little bit between the 32,000 and our almost 100,000. But Amy, why don’t you provide some context and detail?

AMY HOOD: Sure. Thanks, Brent. About 18,000 of those 32,000 employees are really directly a part of the manufacturing business. And so I think a better way as you think about the scale and opportunity is to really focus on the percentage of Nokia outside of that.

I think both Steve and Stephen did a thoughtful job in the execution slide about talking about the philosophy we’re using as we go through the integration process around the benefits of the incremental sales force that we’re getting with Chris and his team, as well as really going through and being thoughtful about the rationalization so that we get to one voice, one brand, one team that can best execute and be efficient.

What was not possible that the acquisition enables now, or is it only ensuring a presence in the smartphone market for a long-term basis, i.e. ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment?

STEVE BALLMER: Well, the latter is certainly true. We see at least three distinct opportunities to do better as one company than as two.

Number one, we talk about one brand and the unified voice to the market. I will say that I think we can probably do better for consumer name than the Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 1020. And yet, because of where both companies are and the independent nature of the businesses, we haven’t been able to shorten that. Just take that as a proxy for a range of improvements that we feel we can make, we can simplify, the way in which we work with operators and the overall consumer branding and messaging gets much simpler. That is an efficiency of being one company.

On the innovation front, we’ve done a lot of great work together, and yet as two companies, there’s always some lines along which it’s hard to innovate. The Lumia 1020 is awesome in terms of what it has for camera and imaging, and yet I think as one company we would have doubled down on that bet and made an even greater range of software and services investments around the core hardware platform.

Third, I think we get business agility. As two companies, we’re making two independent sets of decisions about where and when and how to invest by country, by operator, by price point, and there is, let me say, an inefficiency financially as well as a lack of agility that comes with that.

So in all three of those areas, despite the fact that I think we’ve done a really good job, we can improve and accelerate quite noticeably.

How the much needed developer support for the fairly aggressive market share assumption will be ensured?

Note: the “fairly aggressive market share assumption” was presented by Microsoft as:

To which I added the following calculation and judgment in my analysis post:
15% of the 1.7B units in 2018 is 255M units. The ~$45 billion estimated revenue at that time means ~$176 ASP. Considering the latest Q2’13 EUR 157 [$207] ASP of Lumia it seems feasible, but in 5 years timeframe it needs a strong premium strategy to achieve that. … NPV – Net Present Value.

TERRY MYERSON: Well, for developers today, Windows offers an incredible opportunity with the installed base of PCs, phones, and tablets, and soon the new Xbox One. We want to offer them this opportunity to build either HTML5 applications or native applications that span all of those devices, enabling them to reach segments of users on those devices, users in an enterprise, users on a gaming console, and just provide them very unique opportunities to monetize their application investments.

So we’re pretty excited about the platforms we’re bringing to market. Developer reception in some areas is certainly better than others, but overall we’re making progress, and we know we’ve got a lot more work to do.

STEVE BALLMER: One of the keys, of course, is driving volume. We think we have differentiated products. We can tell the story a little bit better. We can get the volume up, and we have over 160,000 applications in the store. We know we have a long way to go, and the key is really offering with our own first-party applications and first-party hardware, enough reasons to buy to drive volumes and then attract the broader developer ecosystem.

Obviously, HTML5 would be kind of a neutral thing. I would expect all the major platforms to embrace it to some extent. And in some senses, it takes away a little bit of the apps barrier to entry, which we know we need to work hard on right now.

Assesment of the Xiaomi phenomenon before the global storm is starting on Sept 5

August 30, 2013 12:30 pm / 4 Comments on Assesment of the Xiaomi phenomenon before the global storm is starting on Sept 5

Follow-up: Xiaomi announcements: from Mi3 to Xiaomi TV [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 5, 2013] with detailed information links and videos about the two market leading SoCs used in Mi3:
– NVIDIA Tegra 4 with 4+1 Cortex-A15 CPU, 72 GeForce GPU and the absolutely unique Chimera™ solution for HDR (High Dynamic Range imaging) photography and video recording
– Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 with the high-end Krate 400 CPU cores and Adreno 330 GPU
(Actually the benchmark performances are roughly equal although Qualcomm needs for that a much higher frequency.)

The news came yesterday declaring not less than
A new Android chapter [Hugo Barra on Google+, Aug 29, 2013]

After nearly 5½ years at Google and almost 3 years as a member of the Android team — the most amazing group of people I’ve ever worked with in my life — I have decided to start a new career chapter.

In a few weeks, I’ll be joining the Xiaomi team in China to help them expand their incredible product portfolio and business globally — as Vice President, Xiaomi Global. I’m really looking forward to this new challenge, and am particularly excited about the opportunity to continue to help drive the Android ecosystem.

It has been an amazing ride and true honor to be part of the Android team at Google, and I especially want to thank +Andy Rubin , +Hiroshi Lockheimer , +Sundar Pichai and +Vic Gundotra for their phenomenal support and mentorship over the years.

+Android team, I will truly miss you all!

To which co-founder and president of Xiaomi Corporation Bin Lin responded on his facebook account on August 29:

I am truly grateful to have Hugo joining Xiaomi to help lead our international business.

Being Google’s VP of Product Management for Android, Hugo has a deep understanding of Xiaomi’s unique business model of building a fully compatible Android OS (aka MIUI) by embracing the openness of the internet, building top performance device with great user experience, and selling direct to consumers at substantially lower price. We’ve achieved some level of success in China market. Hugo is the best person to drive this globally.

Being ex-Googler myself, I’ve always made sure that Xiaomi shares many of the believes as Google Android. For instance, we believe in protecting the Android ecosystem and therefore our handsets have always passed Android CTS [i.e. achieving Google Play compatibility]. We believe in top performance device and eCommerce sell-direct would benefit consumers. We are committed to drive the Android ecosystem moving forward.

Welcome to Beijing, Hugo!

Last time we have seen Hugo Barra at a press event in San Francisco with
Google’s Nexus 7 goes full HD [CNETTV YouTube channel, July 24, 2014]:

The all-new HD Nexus 7 tablet is thinner and lighter than previous versions and sports an HD screen with 1,920×1,200-pixel resolution.

News were first leaked in: Android’s Hugo Barra Departs Google for China’s Xiaomi [AllThingsD, Aug 28, 2013 at 5:15 PM PT]

What’s going on? After Sundar Pichai expanded his Chrome responsibilities to Android as well, and Andy Rubin left the Android scene, so Hugo Barra became the #1 man in Google’s Android efforts, he is leaving for a much less influential Chinese maker of Android forked smartphones? What is the sense for him to have such a move?

In what follows below I will be able to give all the well justified reasons for that. Moreover, thanks to my earlier posts analyzing the Xiaomi phenomenon in all details, I will be able to convince every reader of this post in the most concise way that Hugo Barra was absolutely right about his decision to move to Xiaomi, as an even bigger thing is on the Horizon than what Google may become in the future.

Let’s start with the all-new RMB799 ($130) low-end superphone segment of Xiaomi: Xiaomi Red Rice (Hongmi) review
[a Xiaomi video on Youku via phonezilla2013 YouTube channel, Aug 21, 2013]

More information: UPDATE Aug’13: Xiaomi $130 Hongmi superphone END MediaTek MT6589 quad-core Cortex-A7 SoC with HSPA+ and TD-SCDMA is available for Android smartphones and tablets of Q1 delivery [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 12, 2012; Aug 1, 2013]

Note: Xiaomi Red Rice (Hongmi) manufacturing cost (BOM) has been estimated by TrendForce to be $84.7. See the press release, also included here in the very end of this post.

Then let’s see (note the Sept 5 warning on the illustration which is from Xiaomi itself):

Previous segments	Aug 16, 2011:	Aug 16, 2012:	April 9, 2013:
USD$326.6	Xiaomi smartphone	Xiaomi 2	Xiaomi 2S
USD$249.9		Xiaomi 1S	Xiaomi 2A

Detailed further information and market analysis:
– Xiaomi, OPPO and Meizu–top Chinese brands of smartphone innovation [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 1, 2013]
– The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 13, 2013]

Note: Only when you read The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower post (not only the e-book included there) completely (i.e. with the follow-up and global analysis parts) your understanding of the all-new Xiaomi Horizon could be sufficiently complete. It is only possible to give as a teaser certain crucial facts here:
– “The broader vision of Xiaomi, Lei [the founder and CEO of Xiaomi] pointed out, is to ship more than 100 million smartphones annually for one model by 2016” that was published in China Daily back 15 months ago. With Hugo Barra now in charge of Xiaomi Global it will be easy to achieve that, even far overcome.
– There is a new (maybe final before an IPO) round of financing said to be disclosed also on Sept 5 by Xiaomi. The amount was rumored as being not less than $2B and “from Chinese internet and mobile services firm Tencent (0700.HK), with Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) acting as an intermediary”. DST already invested $90 million into Xiaomi in Dec 2011, and another $216 million in Dec 2012.
– Then, DST is controlled by Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov with ~20B of private wealth and an additional ~13B wealth of its two business partners also controlled by Usmanov via 100% voting rights in his USM Holdings empire. USM Holdings has three groups of assets in its portfolio: Internet (with DST and a complete Mail.Ru Goup), Telecoms (with Megafon, Russia’s second largest mobile operator in terms of revenue and subscribers and the market leader in the mobile data segment, as well as Yota, the leader of the mobile broadband sector in Russia), Media and Steel & Mining.
– Tencent is controlled by Naspers (33.9%) which also heavily invested into the Mail.Ru Group earlier (29%), and might have some minority share of DST itself, indirectly via Tencent definitely (getting not less than 10.26% of DST with a $300M investment into it in April, 2010). Although Naspers’s CEO, Koos Bekker has a personal fortune of ‘only’ $580M (mid’12, so now closer to $1B probably) but has been the unquestioned leader and decision maker of the company, which has a market capitalisation of about $57B (mid’12, now much higher). Also Tencent’s own market capitalisation is not less than $88.6B (Aug 15, 2013).
– Also, Venture Capital Dispatch reported in January this year that “DST Global counts Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and online retailer JingdongMall [pre April 2013 360buy] as part of its Asian portfolio. DST, alongside other private equity firms like Silver Lake agreed to buy shares in Alibaba at a tender offer of $1.6 billion in 2011. That same year, DST Global also participated in a $1.5 billion third round of funding in Jingdong [pre April 2013 360buy] , with media reports stating that DST bought a 5% share in the online retailer for $500 million. … DST Global spent around $1.5 billion on both of those deals, said [DST partner John] Lindfors [responsible for the Chinese market].”
(AND THE FACTS DO NOT END HERE BUT ARE GOING TO EVEN HIGHER ECHELONS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM. GOLDMANN SACHS AND LARRY SUMMERS ARE THE MOST NOTABLE EXAMPLES. BUT DO NOT FORGET J.P. MORGAN EITHER WHICH IS HAVING A 5% OWNERSHIP OF TENCENT AS WELL. So read The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower post completely.)

Now an additional focus on Xiaomi’s design and user experience leadership must be emphasized here, out of all that above (the illustration below is again from Xiaomi):

Xiaomi MI2 Product 3D View [Xiaomi China YouTube channel, Aug 25, 2013]

Xiaomi Fans Festival: MIUI V5 Design Concept [MrMiui YouTube channel, April 9, 2013]

Xiaomi One Minute Show 01 Smooth MIUI [Xiaomi China YuTube channel, May 22, 2013]

A brief introduction of the brand new smooth MIUI v5.

0:04 This is our smooth MIUI v5
0:07 You can feel the smooth animation effect from every detail of MIUI v5
0:11 when switching the list in apps like Contacts or App Market
0:18 Feel the smooth switch of the background in the interface of Music
0:22 even the tiny volume icon is smoothly optimized as well
0:25 Your playlist, album photo and lyrics are perfectly combined
0:31 Switch between the camera and gallery swiftly and smoothly
0:37 When you open a photo album, you can see photos smoothly blossom on your screen
0:43 You can also have a quick and smooth slide when there are a lot of photos in your album
0:48 All the icons vibrate smoothly after reordering
0:51 We also redesigned the animation of deleting apps
0:55 You can feel the smooth animation everywhere in MIUI v5
1:00 What do you think of MIUI v5?
1:03 For more Xiaomi One Minute Show, please visit Xiaomi Community

Note: The Xiaomi community is on https://www.facebook.com/xiaomichina. The other shows are available when one click on the “YouTube” in the header (not all of them are one minute long). The “proper” One Minute Shows I found on XiaomiHK: currently 11, unfortunately all in Chinese.

There is also a MIUI community around the world which will make Barra’s job much easier. With ‘MIUI fan clubs’ – already available in 23 countries 15 months ago – the localization problem has been well solved. These fan clubs are producing MIUI ROMs for modding a range of already existing phones. And the results are quite good:
MIUI 5 on Samsung Galaxy s4 !!! (Review) [TheExilimus YouTube channel, July 28, 2013]

Note: this is why 20+ million MIUI users were indicated on the previous illustration by Xiaomi vs. 15+ million Xiaomi phone users.

Moreover, MIUI is continously evolving, and updated every Friday based on feedback from its users. The latest example (full description of the update):
MIUI ROM 3.8.30 Update Highlights [MrMiui YouTube channel, Aug 29, 2013]

1. Added the option of “Limit mobile data usage” in Browser 2. Added support for transfer of complete contact info and notes with images in Transfer … Find MIUI here (http://en.miui.com/) Facebook：https://www.facebook.com/miuiromchina Twitter： https://twitter.com/#!/miuirom Google plus: http://gplus.to/miuiofficial

Also the marketing hype generated by Xiaomi should be emphasized separately here as well. It is best demonstrated by this:
Xiaomi 2012 Conference Start Show [Xiaomi China YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

What kind of company Xiaomi is, after all?
Explanation: Xiaomi CEO: Don’t call us China’s Apple [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 15, 2013]

China’s Xiaomi has sparked a frenzy with a low-cost smartphone that may help the tech firm widen its lead over Apple in the local market — but CEO Lei Jun says it has very different ambitions.

Based on this interview Reuters published its news article For China’s Xiaomi, it’s what’s on the inside that counts [Aug 16, 2013] from which the following excerpts are the most relevant ones here:

Xiaomi looks a bit like Apple but is really more like Amazon with some elements of Google,” Lei said in an interview in Beijing, dressed in a blue shirt, blue jeans and brown shoes.

“The mobile phone is only the carrier,” Lei said. “Microsoft used to sell Windows in a box with a CD in it. Does that make Microsoft a paper box company?”

…

The 43 year-old chief executive said it was high time for the Apple comparisons to end and the rivalry with local tech giants Alibaba Group Holding, Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd to start.

Xiaomi currently makes around 20 million yuan ($3.27 million) a month in revenue from its mobile Internet platform, which includes a game centre, an online marketplace and a social messaging app that competes with Tencent’s popular WeChat.

In the first half, that figure was equivalent to less than 1 percent of monthly revenue, company data shows.

Lei estimated mobile Internet revenue may rise to as much as 150 million yuan [$24.41 million] a month by the end of next year as Xiaomi develops what he called its software ecosystem.

He declined to give specific details, but said Xiaomi had the hardware it needed to expand into online services.

“Xiaomi selling mobile phones is like Amazon selling Kindles,” he added.

This points quite clearly to the expansion of Xiaomi’s application (and operations) portfolio towards the e-commerce. Only this way would be possible to increase the current annualized revenue of about $40 million from the mobile Internet platform to about $300 million in just one a half year. This also means that in the long-run Xiaomi is going to be a mobile e-commerce company with affordable mobile devices offered as well, and not a premium device company, like Apple. Similarly, there are fundamental differences of the same kind from the business model of Samsung as well. Even more, this means an all-encompassing disruption of the whole industry.

Finally read this 3d party analysis:
TrendForce：Xiaomi’s New Red Rice Phone Takes China by Storm, Carries $US 85 BOM [press release, Aug 29, 2013]

(Note that Xiaomi’s own superphone segments are different as was shown above:
USD$326.6 for high-end superphones, USD$249.9 for mid-range superphones, and
?USD$130? for low-end superphones, with the latest question mark for the reason of not yet announced global prices – as the USD$130 equivalent RMB799 is China only price. Wait for Sept 5.)

According to global market research firm TrendForce, smartphone manufacturing costs are decreasing – in 2014, low-end devices that cost less than US$150 are expected to represent 14% of total smartphone shipments worldwide, up from 11% forecasted for this year. Mid-end smartphones, which cost between US$150 and US$450, are projected to account for more than 50% of shipments in 2014. Clearly, smartphone makers looking to expand their market share cannot overlook the low to mid-end sector. Fully aware of this, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has released a Hongmi, or Red Rice, a device with decent specifications and a low price tag of RMB799 [$130].

Taking a look at Red Rice’s hardware, its MediaTek MT6589 chipset accounts for 20% of total manufacturing cost. The 4.7-inch, 312 ppi IPS display by AUO represents 22% of cost and is a significant upgrade from the 220 ppi display commonly used in similarly priced devices. Based on component cost, total manufacturing cost for the Red Rice device is estimated at US$85 (4Q”13). With a retail price of RMB799, roughly equivalent to US$130, Xiaomi is profiting at a rate difficult for other smartphone makers to keep up with.

Xiaomi is not relying on traditional sales channels for its new device but turning to Internet retailers instead – the company hopes to garner revenue from software, advertising, etc., creating a new smartphone profit model. TrendForce believes Xiaomi is able to offer Red Rice at such a low price because the maker has a solid grasp on three important points of cost control.
– First, Xiaomi usually unveils new products very early, at least a quarter before the actual release date, which gives component cost time to decrease.
– Second, Xiaomi controls inventory better than its competitors. Using an Internet pre-order sales model, Xiaomi is able to get a more exact estimation for initial production, thereby avoiding risk if sales are not as strong as expected.
– Third, by marketing via social networks, Xiaomi cuts down on advertising costs, enabling the manufacturer to continue causing a stir on the market with each new device release.

Red Rice’s groundbreaking price will inevitably have an influence on other smartphone manufacturers’ pricing strategies, especially for low to mid-end products. Currently, Xiaomi’s main market is China. The company is eagerly expanding on foreign markets as well, but results have been limited. Whether Xiaomi’s low prices will have an effect on smartphone makers in other markets will depend on the Chinese manufacturer’s foreign sales.

TrendForce believes Xiaomi’s long-term strategy includes continued expansion on the domestic market as well as breaking into foreign markets with high price-performance ratio devices. As social networking platform services and software are the company’s main sources of profit, Xiaomi will need to develop new strategies to attract consumers in foreign markets. As the company’s recently closed funding round has skyrocketed its valuation, Xiaomi is financially set to expand in foreign markets, potentially by acquiring local businesses. Or, the funds could be used to improve manufacturing and ensure timely product delivery, a notable weakness of the growing company.

Mark Zuckerberg’s personality is hyped (again) with a quite worthwhile initiative (otherwise) but with substantial global financial interests behind it as well

August 24, 2013 9:37 pm / 1 Comment on Mark Zuckerberg’s personality is hyped (again) with a quite worthwhile initiative (otherwise) but with substantial global financial interests behind it as well

The internet.org initiative for the next 5 billion people is even a bigger announcement than the Steve Ballmer’s retirement from Microsoft announcement given The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [Aug 13, 2013, with extensive follow-up & ‘The global forces behind …’ analysis, later in the post, as of August 22 at 9:08pm] and the substantial global financial interests (uncovered there and) otherwise also tied to the creation of the whole global Facebook phenomenon (also indicating that Mark Zuckerberg has been just a strawman of something significantly bigger going on behind the scenes from the very beginning). Just two images which were included into the The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower as a reminder of that (before documenting the internet.org initiative in this post):

While the true intent of this announcement is covered by things described above, here is what was officially told to the world:

Every one of us. #ConnectTheWorld [Internet.org YouTube channel, Aug 20, 2013]

Technology leaders launch partnership to make internet access available to all [joint press release available from http://internet.org/ and number of other sources, Aug 20, 2013]

Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung to be founding partners

MENLO PARK, Calif., Aug. 20, 2013 – Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, today announced the launch of internet.org, a global partnership with the goal of making internet access available to the next 5 billion people.

“Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect,” Zuckerberg said. “There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.”

Today, only 2.7 billion people – just over one-third of the world’s population – have access to the internet. Internet adoption is growing by less than 9 percent each year, which is slow considering how early we are in its development.

The goal of Internet.org is to make internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected and to bring the same opportunities to everyone that the connected third of the world has today.

The founding members of Internet.org –Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung – will develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilize industry and governments to bring the world online. These founding companies have a long history of working closely with mobile operators and expect them to play leading roles within the initiative, which over time will also include NGOs, academics and experts as well. Internet.org is influenced by the successful Open Compute Project, an industry-wide initiative that has lowered the costs of cloud computing by making hardware designs more efficient and innovative.

In order to achieve its goal of connecting the two-thirds of the world who are not yet online, Internet.org will focus on three key challenges in developing countries:

Making access affordable: Partners will collaborate to develop and adopt technologies that make mobile connectivity more affordable and decrease the cost of delivering data to people worldwide. Potential projects include collaborations to develop lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and partnerships to more broadly deploy internet access in underserved communities. Mobile operators will play a central role in this effort by driving initiatives that benefit the entire ecosystem.

Using data more efficiently: Partners will invest in tools that dramatically reduce the amount of data required to use most apps and internet experiences. Potential projects include developing data compression tools, enhancing network capabilities to more efficiently handle data, building systems to cache data efficiently and creating frameworks for apps to reduce data usage.

Helping businesses drive access: Partners will support development of sustainable new business models and services that make it easier for people to access the internet. This includes testing new models that align incentives for mobile operators, device manufacturers, developers and other businesses to provide more affordable access than has previously been possible. Other efforts will focus on localizing services – working with operating system providers and other partners to enable more languages on mobile devices.

By reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models, Internet.org is focused on enabling the next 5 billion people to come online.

Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm, Samsung and other partners will build on existing partnerships while exploring new ways to collaborate to solve these problems.

“For more than 100 years, Ericsson has been enabling communications for all and today more than 6 billion people in the world have access to mobile communications,” said Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson. “We are committed to shaping the Networked Society – where everyone and everything will be connected in real time; creating the freedom, empowerment and opportunity to transform society. We believe affordable connectivity and internet access improves people’s lives and helps build a more sustainable planet and therefore we are excited to participate in the Internet.org initiative.”

“As a world leader in mobile solutions for emerging markets having powered more than 300 million smart devices within 2 years, MediaTek whole heartedly supports the Internet.org initiative,” said MK Tsai, Chairman of MediaTek. “Global internet and social media access represent the biggest shift since the industrial revolution, and we want to make it all-inclusive.”

“Nokia is deeply passionate about connecting people – to one another and the world around them,” said Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop. “Over the years, Nokia has connected well over a billion people. Our industry is now at an exciting inflection point where internet connectivity is becoming more affordable and efficient for consumers while still offering them great experiences. Universal internet access will be the next great industrial revolution.”

“Today, more than 300 million people use Opera every month to access the internet. Tomorrow, we have a chance to serve the next 5 billion people connecting on mobile devices in developing countries. It’s in Opera’s DNA to save people time, money and data, and through Internet.org we think we can help advance these goals,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO Opera Software.

“Mobile has helped to transform many people’s lives in the emerging regions where often a computing device will be the first and only mobile experience they’ll ever have” said Paul Jacobs, chairman of the board and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. “Having shipped more than 11 billion chips, Qualcomm is a market leader that is committed to the goal of bridging the digital divide. We’re pleased to be a part of Internet.org and to be working with key ecosystem players to drive this initiative forward.”

“This new initiative has big potential to help accelerate access to the internet for everyone,” said JK Shin, CEO and President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “We’re focused on delivering high quality mobile devices to ensure that the next five billion people have great mobile internet experiences.”

The Internet.org website launches today and provides an overview of the mission and goals, as well as a full list of the partners. In the coming weeks, it will feature interviews with technology leaders and experts, along with the latest news on Internet.org activities.

The embedded video on the internet.org site explains further: Mark Zuckerberg aims to put the entire world online [CNN YouTube channel, Aug 21, 2013]

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect five billion more people to the Internet.

adding more fuel to the campaign, as two follow-up videos on CNN channel as well:
– Zuckerberg, tech companies look for “next 5 billion… [CNN YouTube channel, Aug 21, 2013]

Facebook CEO is teaming up with tech companies to bring the web to every single person on earth. Erin Burnett reports.

– Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet plan: realistic or impossible? [CNN YouTube channel, Aug 22, 2013]

Tom Foreman examines how realistic it is for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to expand Internet access by 5 billion people.

And the leading global media was awash with extensive coverage of this as evidenced here just with the following videos:
– Mark Zuckerberg’s World-Wide Plan for the Internet [Bloomberg YouTube channel, Aug 21, 2013]

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) — “Lunch Money” Host Adam Johnson reports on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s new plan to bring internet service to 5 billion people in the world currently without it.

– Mark Zuckerberg Announces Plan To Get Billions More People Online [HuffPost Live YouTube channel, Aug 21, 2013]

Facebook Inc. announced a partnership called Internet.org on Wednesday. The company says its goal is to “make Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected.”

– Facebook-led project pushes for wider internet access – corporate [Euronews YouTube channel, Aug 22, 2013]

Facebook’s boss wants to make internet access affordable for the two-thirds of the world’s…

– Chinese manufacturing grows and Facebook wants to spread the internet worldwide [FRANCE 24 English YouTube channel, Aug 22, 2013]

The Facebook Internet initiative (internet.org) story is from [5:15] to [6:20]

From the participant companies we had the following corporate communications in addition to the joint press release:

Ericsson and Internet.org – providing the internet for everyone, everywhere [Aug 21, 2013]

The Networked Society will bring significant economic, social and environmental benefits to hundreds of millions of people, one of which is providing internet access to the remaining two-thirds of the planet. Today (Aug 21, 2013), Ericsson, Facebook and a number of other tech giants took a step closer to realizing these benefits through the announcement of a global initiative we call Internet.org. Through this, we aim to reduce the cost of delivering basic internet services and make them available to everyone, everywhere.

So, why is this initiative so important? In the Networked Society, connectivity is the starting point for new ways of innovating, collaborating and socializing. It’s about creating freedom, empowerment and opportunity, transforming industries and society while helping find solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing our planet.

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, says: “For more than 100 years, Ericsson has been enabling communications for all, and today more than 6 billion people have access to mobile communications. We are committed to shaping the Networked Society – where everyone and everything will be connected in real time; creating the freedom, empowerment and opportunity to transform society. We believe affordable connectivity and internet access improves people’s lives and helps build a more sustainable planet, and therefore we are excited to participate in the Internet.org initiative.”

Some of the initial areas that are considered barriers to increasing access to the internet are the cost of smartphones, the cost of delivering data, and inefficient data-hungry applications. Cheaper phones, improved data compression techniques, and apps that use less data and reduce battery usage are some of the initial areas of investigation. Others include more efficient allocation of spectrum, edge caching, sharing hardware design, and efficiency optimization.

Ericsson has several areas of expertise to offer the initiative, including: knowledge of scale, its global presence and local expertise, and its technology leadership in the area of mobile networks and supporting service enablers.

Ericsson believes that communication is a basic human need, and fulfilling this has been our mission since the foundation of our company.

Opera helps connect the next 5 billion online [Opera News, Aug 21, 2013]

Today, only 2.7 billion people are connected to the internet. The cost of getting online is one of the biggest challenges for users worldwide. We want to help get the next five billion online.

For the last 17 years, we have built products and services to get people online. We believe in the power of sharing ideas. Opera Mini is our mobile browser that uses compression technology to save you time and money. Operators around the world have embraced Opera Mini and Opera Web Pass as the best choice for their users to get online.

WE HAVE PARTNERED WITH FACEBOOK TO GET THE NEXT 5 BILLION ONLINE

Meet Internet.org – a partnership between Facebook, Opera, and other technology companies. This is a global effort that will also involve help from local communities, non-profit organisations and experts across the world. We are proud to contribute to the project with our competence in Internet technology.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

Are you among the few in your country who has access to the internet? Tell us how you spend your time online. How has the internet helped you? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook or byemail.

“Today, more than 300 million people use Opera every month to access the Internet.

Tomorrow, we have a chance to serve the next 5 billion people connecting on mobile devices in developing countries. It’s in Opera’s DNA to save people time, money and data, and through internet.org we think we can help advance these goals.”

— Lars Boilesen, CEO Opera Software.

Further information about the other companies’ involvement you can find in the following article also linked on the internet.org homepage:
Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access [The New York Times, Aug 20, 2013]

MENLO PARK, Calif. — About one of every seven people in the world uses Facebook. Now, Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and chief executive, wants to make a play for the rest — including the four billion or so who lack Internet access.

On Wednesday, Facebook announced an effort aimed at drastically cutting the cost of delivering basic Internet services on mobile phones, particularly in developing countries, where Facebook and other tech companies need to find new users. Half a dozen of the world’s tech giants, including Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson, have agreed to work with the company as partners on the initiative, which they call Internet.org.

The companies intend to accomplish their goal in part by simplifying phone applications so they run more efficiently and by improving the components of phones and networks so that they transmit more data while using less battery power.

For Mr. Zuckerberg, the formation of the coalition is yet another way in which he is trying to position himself as an industry leader. He has been speaking out more forcefully than other tech executives on topics like immigration overhaul, which the industry sees as critical to its hiring needs. With Internet.org, he is laying out a philosophy that tries to pair humanitarian goals with the profit motive.

“The Internet is such an important thing for driving humanity forward, but it’s not going to build itself,” he said in a recent interview. “Ultimately, this has to make business sense on some time frame that people can get behind.”

But the effort is also a reflection of how tech companies are trying to meet Wall Street’s demands for growth by attracting customers beyond saturated markets in the United States and Europe, even if they have to help build services and some of the infrastructure in poorer, less digitally sophisticated parts of the world.

Google, for example, began a program with phone carriers last year that offers wireless users in some developing countries free access to Gmail, search and the first page clicked through from a search’s results. Google is also reaching for the sky with Project Loon, an attempt to beam Internet access down to earth from plastic balloons floating more than 11 miles in the atmosphere.

Twitter, which is preparing to offer shares to the public in an initial stock offering, has struck its own deals with about 250 cellphone companies in more than 100 countries to offer some free Twitter access, and worked to make sure its service is easy to use on even the cheapest cellphones.

These companies have little choice but to look overseas for growth. More than half of Americans already use Facebook at least once a month, for instance, and usage in the rest of the developed world is similarly heavy. There is nearly one active cellphone for every person on earth, making expansion a challenge for carriers and phone makers.

Poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America present the biggest opportunity to reach new customers — if companies can figure out how to get people there online at low cost.

The immediate goals of the new coalition are to cut the cost of providing mobile Internet services to 1 percent of its current level within five to 10 years by improving the efficiency of Internet networks and mobile phone software. The group also hopes to develop new business models that would allow phone companies to provide simple services like e-mail, search and social networks for little or no charge.

While that sounds far less exciting than, say, Google’s idea of delivering the Internet by balloon, Mr. Zuckerberg says small efforts can add up to big changes.

“No one company can really do this by itself,” he said.

Facebook is already working on techniques to reduce the average amount of data used by its Android mobile app from the current 12 megabytes a day to 1 megabyte without users noticing.

Qualcomm, whose chip technology is prevalent in advanced cellphones, has created new designs to stretch a phone’s battery life, slice the amount of data needed to transmit a video and extend the reach of mobile networks through tiny devices similar to Wi-Fi routers.

The coalition partners have also begun trying new ways of reducing the data charges paid by cellphone customers while still enabling phone makers and carriers to make money.

For example, Nokia, the Finnish cellphone maker, ran a recent experiment with Facebook and the Mexican phone carrier Telcel, in which it bundled free Facebook access with some of its Asha feature phones. Sales rose significantly, and the company decided to run similar promotions for customers of Bharti Airtel, a mobile carrier in India and Africa.

[Note that with new Nokia Asha platform, which is a full platform enhancement of the earlier Asha Touch upgrade of the legacy S40 platform, Nokia has done already the most among the internet.org founding members to achieve the now declared common challenges of Making access affordable, Using data more efficiently and Helping businesses drive access. You can check that by reading the posts behind the indicated tags on this blog.]

However, the Internet.org team does not plan to tackle some thorny infrastructure issues that are huge barriers in the developing world, particularly the long-distance transmission of data to far-flung places.

Michuki Mwangi, regional development manager for Africa at the Internet Society, a nonprofit group that has long worked to expand global Internet access, said the continent sorely lacked local interconnection points, forcing most requests for content like YouTube videos to be routed through Europe at high cost. Creating more connection points would require navigating a thicket of government interests and powerful incumbents. But at the very least, the group would like Facebook and Google to put copies of their content on a greater number of African servers to deliver it more quickly and cheaply, something that both companies say they are considering.

As with the Open Compute coalition started by Facebook in 2011 to improve the efficiency of data centers, Facebook will seek to add other partners to Internet.org, including national governments, wireless phone carriers and Microsoft, a longtime Facebook ally that has its own projects to expand access.

But Google — whose search and YouTube video products are as fundamental as Facebook’s social network to many Internet users — is likely to remain outside the group.

For one, its own efforts to expand Internet access are aggressive. In addition, the company is constantly refining its Android software, which runs the majority of new smartphones sold, to improve efficiency and battery life.

“We’re always making investments in technology and programs to help people get online,” said Courtney Hohne, a Google spokeswoman. “We have teams around the world working on products tailored to local needs.”

Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recently suggested that Project Loon and similar projects were not the best use of resources to help people in the poorest nations.

“When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there’s no Web site that relieves that,” he said in a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.

Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that basic health care is essential, but said that “if you can afford a phone, I think it would be really good for you to have access to the Internet.”

The potential is already obvious in places like the Philippines, where the second-largest mobile phone company, Globe Telecom, has used free Twitter, Facebook or Google access as promotions to increase the number of its 37 million users who also subscribe to a mobile data plan to 20 percent from virtually zero in two years.

“Once you’re connected, you’re connected, and you don’t want to look back,” said Peter Bithos, Globe’s senior adviser for consumer business.

For Facebook, which generates most of its revenue from selling advertising that it shows to its users, the immediate profits from expanding Internet access will be minimal, Mr. Zuckerberg said, although he acknowledged that the long-term potential was there.

“We’re focused on it more because we think it’s something good for the world,” he said, “rather than something that is going to be really amazing for our profits.”

Windows [inc. Phone] 8.x chances of becoming the alternative platform to iOS and Android: VERY SLIM as it is even more difficult for Microsoft now than any time before

August 20, 2013 2:39 pm / 1 Comment on Windows [inc. Phone] 8.x chances of becoming the alternative platform to iOS and Android: VERY SLIM as it is even more difficult for Microsoft now than any time before

First recent findings about The hierarchy of developer needs: Creativeness, not money is the top motivator [VisionMobile blog, Aug 12, 2013] are showing quite clearly how much Microsoft is in disadvantage in the global developers community not only vs. iOS and Android, but even vs. HTML5 in general, which is already a real third platform for developers. Regarding that read UPDATE: HTML5 Vs. Native Mobile Apps — HTML5 Is Down But Not Out [Business Insider Australia, Aug 14, 2013], HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

It is even more so as a much better HTML5 platform (than the corresponding Windows 8 subset, so called WinJS) came now to the market with FireFox OS:
– as its “first two devices hitting the market – the Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open – the latter just launched in Spain from Telefonica for €69 ($90) contract-free including €30 ($39) of airtime for prepaid” according to p. 12 of the free Developer Economics Q3 2013 [VisionMobile, July 29, 2013] report
– and “In just a short space of time, Firefox OS has managed to amass a respectable Developer Intent share, even before devices hit the market, and while competing for Windows Phone, Windows 8 and BlackBerry 10 all of which are much older platforms, with devices in market and billions of market dollars behind them.” as per p. 24 of the same report.

Now the quite important findings from The hierarchy of developer needs: Creativeness, not money is the top motivator [VisionMobile blog, Aug 12, 2013]

What motivates developers? Is it fame or fortune? Our new Developer Segmentation 2013 report [starting from £1,495.00] addresses this questions, presenting a needs-bases segmentation model that focuses on developer goals, not just demographics. Based on data from our latest Developer Economics survey (6,000 respondents from 115 countries [FREE to download from here: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]), this article gives you some insights from the report, discussing how the sense of achievement, not money is the prime motivator for developers.

…

Most business are resorting to traditional, textbook marketing techniques to segment developers – by technology (web, Java, Windows, Android, Apple), job function (coders, designers, architects, team leads, IT managers, CxOs), by company size, app category (games vs enterprise developers), by audience (B2C vs B2B) or by demographics (age, income, education or location).

Yet all these segmentation models are bound to fail, as they fundamentally neglect to address how developers make investment decisions in a new platform, API or SDK. In other words, it’s not age, job function, audience or technology background that influences how a developer chooses between Apple, Google, Windows Phone, BlackBerry or Tizen.

To understand the complex mosaic of developer personas we segment developers in terms of their outcomes, or what developers are trying to achieve. This is based on the Jobs to Be Done methodology, popularized by Harvard Professor Clay Christensen and which constitutes today’s cutting edge in segmentation techniques. We have backed this model with unprecedented statistical rigor and hard data, from the largest-ever mobile developer survey of 6,000+ developers.

Building on our earlier Developer Economics 2012 research work, we extracted hard data on thousands of developers in terms of their aspirations, motivations, challenges and plans in app development. We produced a unique model of eight developer segments – the Hobbyists, the Explorers, the Hunters, the Guns for Hire, the Product Extenders, the Digital Content Publishers, the Gold Seekers and the enterprise IT developers.

How do these eight segments and three clusters contribute to the app economy? More importantly, when do these segments interact with platforms?

We find that Explorers and Hobbyists, those seeking to learn, have fun and self-improve, make up 33% of the mobile developer population but only 13% of the app economy revenues. These segments prefer – more than average – BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone as a platform, as these are more often associated with experimentation and learning.

The Hunters and Guns for Hire, those seeking revenues from the app economy, make up 42% of the developer population and 48% of the app economy revenues. These segments prefer – more than average – iOS as a platform, due to the consistent revenue-generating opportunities of the platform.

Product Extenders, Enterprise IT developers, Digital Content Publishers and Gold Seekers, aiming at extending a [non-mobile] business [with apps], make up 29% of the developer population, and a whopping 39% of app economy revenues. These segments prefer – more than average – Android and HTML5 as a platform – due to the reach that these platforms offer across the entire smartphone and feature phone installed base.

… <goes to “The Hierarchy of Developer Motivations” chart, not relevant to this post, so omitted> …

Then Microsoft should take into account The evolution of handset business models: From source of profits to distribution channel [VisionMobile blog, Aug 5, 2013]

The evolution of the PC and mobile handset industry have been mirror images of each other, as both saw two distinct disruptions: a new market disruption, followed by a low-end disruption. Guest author Sameer Singh discusses how the shift from integrated companies to modular competitors will pressure hardware profit margins across the industry, leading to the emergence of a new business model, i.e. hardware-as-distribution.

The mobile handset industry has already seen two waves of disruption: A “new market disruption”, led by Apple, and a “low-cost disruption”, driven by Google and its Android platform. Each wave created distinctly different business models that completely realigned competitive dynamics in the industry. Where do we go from here?

We believe that the coming, third wave of disruption will again reshuffle the deck for all industry players. We will see growth in a new class of business models, where handset hardware is no longer seen as a source of profits, but is treated as a distribution channel for digital products and services.

… <two long sections about “Dual Disruption Patterns in Computing” and “Impact of Value Chain Integration on Business Model Evolution” which are quite important to prove the author’s prediction about the inevitability of the third wave of mobile handset industry disuption, but for us here it is sufficient for our subject to include his “Third Disruption” discussion> …

The Third Disruption: Hardware as a Distribution Channel

As there will be fewer profits left in the handset industry, a third wave of disruption is a certainty.

In the PC industry, once the dominance of modular architectures led to deep commoditization, hardware just became a distribution channel for software (the operating system and applications). The evolution of the mobile handset industry works out slightly differently. Google essentially destroyed the software licensing business model by giving the Android operating system away for free. Consequently, the cost of owning a proprietary operating system became unviable for most players (like Motorola, Sony Ericsson or Nokia) because hardware margins became severely pressured. This ensured that industry focus and profitability would accrue to the next layer of the value chain that was underserved, i.e. Google’s core business – online services.

In the PC industry, OEMs like Dell and Sony used the “hardware as distribution” approach to charge software vendors to pre-install applications on their devices and boost margins. In the mobile industry, we have seen already numerous companies follow this model to create a competitive advantage by leveraging established ecosystems. Many service companies like Baidu, Dropbox, Opera, Facebook and Whatsapp have attempted this strategy by partnering with OEMs to pre-install or use their services by default.

Another variation of this strategy, followed by services and content companies, is selling relatively high-end hardware at cost, in order to enable deeper penetration of the company’s core services. Companies like Amazon and Xiaomi compete asymmetrically with true hardware vendors in order to expand their consumer base. Both strategies have been quite successful – Amazon has expanded Kindle Fire availability to numerous countries based on strong sales and Xiaomi expects to double its handset sales ~~to 15 million~~ this year [to 20 million, see p. 25 of my The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower mini e-book]. Many more services companies like Evernote and Spotify are contemplating the low-cost, “hardware as distribution” strategy in the future. We have already seen a smartphone called SmartNamo dedicated to an Indian politician, Narendra Modi. Will we see a “Justin Bieber phone”, “Shah Rukh Khan phone” or even a “Real Madrid phone”?

Rapid commoditization will only make it easier for companies to convert hardware into a distribution channel. The tablet industry has seen more price competition than the smartphone market in the absence of carrier-driven price distortions. As a result, commoditization has been much more rapid and the “hardware as distribution” model has come to the forefront in a very narrow time frame. Low-cost tablet hardware has allowed companies like Newscorp to enter the industry with preloaded, education-focused content. We have seen similar models emerge in South Africa, India, China and many more countries. As price competition increases, commoditization pressure in the smartphone industry, variations of “hardware as distribution”, could become one of the primary drivers of profitability.

The expected shift in handset business models will reshuffle the deck once again. Companies that catch the trend early will find plenty of opportunities to create competitive advantages and thrive in the new environment. Those who miss it will be destined to fight the losing battle of “competition to the best”, which Prof. Porter calls “the granddaddy of all strategy mistakes”.

On pp. 32-33 of my The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower mini e-book [Aug 14, 2013] it was further noted that:

China Daily reported not less than 14 months ago that Xiaomi, China’s Apple success story?

…

The broader vision of Xiaomi, Lei [Jun, chairman and chief executive officer of Xiaomi Corp] pointed out, is to ship more than 100 million smartphones annually for one model by 2016.

“I know it (the vision) is crazy, but we would like to have a try,” said Lei. Cupertino-based Apple managed to sell more than 90 million iPhone devices last year. It is widely believed that Apple will break the 100 million unit mark this year, although it has been less than five years since the first iPhone launched in 2007.

The difference in business model was even more clearly communicated in this recent interview: Xiaomi CEO: Don’t call us China’s Apple [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 15, 2013]

Aug. 15 – China’s Xiaomi has sparked a frenzy with a low-cost smartphone that may help the tech firm widen its lead over Apple in the local market — but CEO Lei Jun says it has very different ambitions.

This shows very well how the above mentioned third disruption could fundamentally alter the current state of mobile intelligent devices market. As far as our subject is concerned my three other posts are giving further clues about growing Microsoft difficulties:

Google Play catchup with iOS App Store and its way of assuring compatibility across Android 1.6 to 4.3 [Aug 15, 2013]
With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term [Aug 17, 2013] from which I include here this major chart (from myself) as well:

Watch also a recent video report closely related to that: In China smartphone market, cheap rules – and Apple suffers [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 19, 2013]

Aug. 19 – Apple’s seen its market share in China dwindle as homegrown smartphone makers crank out feature-packed budget models. Could the launch of a cheaper iPhone restore its flagging fortunes?

Android to overtake the overall PC market? [Aug 20, 2013] from which I include here this major chart (from IDC) as well:

Consider also Apple and Samsung Losing Share to Chinese Smartphone Makers [China Internet Watch, Aug 7, 2013]

The high-end players like Apple and Samsung are losing share to Chinese manufacturers like ZTE, Huawei, and Lenovo, and no-name brands which are willing to make extremely cheap smartphones. As you can see in the picture, Samsung’s Q2 share in 2013 is 1% lesser than that of 2012, and Apple decreases 3.6% share, while Chinese manufacturers grow 3.5%.

With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term

August 17, 2013 2:55 pm / 4 Comments on With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term

Here is the chart reflecting the performance of the market-leading mobile phones upto Q2’13:

From this the most visible things are:

Android and Android-forked (Xiaomi etc.) smartphones are the undisputed industry standards to dominate the market in years to come
Both the Symbian to Windows Phone and S40 to Asha Full Touch smartphone platform transition strategies from Nokia could survive the continued Android onslaught but only in a niche market status
There is no room for Apple’s further growth, and both the platform and the company could face a gradual decline in the smartphone market

My other observations about the state of the smartphone market after Q2’13 were already presented in the following posts:

Superphones turning point: segment satured with Tier 1 globals while the Chinese locals are at less than 40% of the Samsung price [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 3, 2013] OR Samsung is leapfrogging Apple while the Chinese local brands are coming close to Samsung but at less than 40% price. Meanwhile the superphone segment of the market becomes saturated.
Xiaomi, OPPO and Meizu–top Chinese brands of smartphone innovation [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 1, 2013]
GiONEE (金立), the emerging global competitor on the smartphone market [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 22, 2013]
Eight-core MT6592 for superphones and big.LITTLE MT8135 for tablets implemented in 28nm HKMG are coming from MediaTek to further disrupt the operations of Qualcomm and Samsung [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 20-29, 2013]
China: Entry-level dual core IPS WVGA (480×800) smartphones $65+ now, quad-core $70+ in June [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 29, 2013]

In essence we came to a point when the superphone market came down in price to as low as $110 and up, while the entry-level segment of good quality came down to a $65+ price level. Also the smartphone market became saturated in all segments which brings an end to Samsung’s ability to base its premium profitability ambitions on smartphones alone (almost), as it was reflected in 20 years of Samsung “New Management” as manifested by the latest, June 20th GALAXY & ATIV innovations [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 2-26, 2013]:

… innovations in the broadest sense of the world: technology, hardware and software engineering and design, marketing in general and branding in particular etc.

Updates: Q2 record-high operating profit + smartphone worries deepen + overall business situation + nonproportionally high capex of the semiconductor business + the #2 capex beneficiary, the Display Panel Segment

These observations also led to much greater conclusions about the upcoming changes:

China is the epicenter of the mobile Internet world, so of the next-gen HTML5 web [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 5, 2013]
The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 13, 2013]

Below I will assess the ‘Nokia Q2’13 market situation and changes’ as well as include ‘Gartner’s own assessment of the Q2’13 overall market situation and the changes’ to complete the picture.

Nokia Q2’13 market situation and changes:

Looking at the progress of Nokia Symbian to Windows Phone transformation Q2’13 was a straight continuation of the trends noted for Q1’13 in Nokia: Continued moderate progress with Lumia, urgent Asha Touch refresh and new innovations to come against the onslaught of unbranded Android and forked Android players in China and India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 18, 2013] as you could also well observe from the chart included here as well:

Nokia was extensively discussing its Windows Phone transition in Nokia Corporation Interim Report for Q2 2013 and January-June 2013 [press release, July 18, 2013]:

Lumia Q2 volumes increased 32% quarter-on-quarter to 7.4 million units, reflecting strong demand from customers for a broadened Lumia product range.
Commenting on the second quarter results, Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said: “ … In our Smart Devices business unit, we continue to focus on delivering meaningful differentiation to consumers around the world. We are very proud of the recent creations by our Lumia team, from the Lumia 520 – our most affordable Windows Phone 8 product which has enjoyed a strong start in markets like China, France, India, Thailand, the UK, the US and Vietnam – to the Lumia 1020, our star imaging product which we unveiled to the world last week. Overall, Lumia volumes grew to 7.4 million in the second quarter, the highest for any quarter so far and showing increasing momentum for the ecosystem. During the third quarter, we expect that our new Lumia products will drive a significant part of our Smart Devices revenue.”
In the third quarter 2013, supported by the wider availability of recently announced Lumia products as well as recently announced Mobile Phones products, Nokia expects higher Devices & Services net sales, compared to the second quarter 2013.
The year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices volumes in the second quarter 2013 continued to be driven by the strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms and our portfolio transition from Symbian products to Lumia products. The decline was primarily due to lower Symbian volumes, partially offset by higher Lumia volumes. Our Symbian volumes decreased from 6 million units in the second quarter 2012 to approximately zero in the second quarter 2013. Our Lumia volumes increased from 4.0 million in the second quarter 2012 to 7.4 million in the second quarter 2013.
On a sequential basis, the increase in our Smart Devices volumes in the second quarter 2013 was due to higher Lumia volumes, as we started shipping the Lumia 520 and 720 in significant volumes. In the second quarter 2013, the vast majority of Smart Devices volumes were from Windows Phone 8-based Lumia products.
The year-on-year increase in our Smart Devices ASP in the second quarter 2013 was primarily due to a positive mix shift towards sales of our Lumia products which carry a higher ASP than our Symbian products, partially offset by our pricing actions. Sequentially, the decrease in our Smart Devices ASP in the second quarter 2013 was primarily due to a negative mix shift towards sales of our lower priced Windows Phone 8-based Lumia products as well as our pricing actions.
Nokia announced and started shipments in select markets of the Nokia Lumia 925, a new interpretation of its award-winning flagship, the Nokia Lumia 920. The Nokia Lumia 925 introduces metal for the first time to the Nokia Lumia range and includes the most advanced lens technology and next-generation imaging software to capture clearer and sharper pictures and video even in low light conditions. The Nokia Lumia 925 offers a variety of exclusive services such as Nokia Music for unlimited streaming of free playlists, integrated HERE services, and the option to add wireless charging with a snap-on wireless charging cover.
Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 928 smartphone, exclusive to Verizon Wireless. With a 8.7MP camera and Nokia’s PureView imaging innovation, the Nokia Lumia 928 delivers superior imaging and video performance that enables people to capture bright, blur free photos and videos, even in low light conditions. The sleek and stylish smartphone comes with the latest high-end Nokia Lumia experiences, including Nokia Music, HERE services, and built-in wireless charging.
Nokia started shipping in volumes the Nokia Lumia 520, its most affordable Windows Phone 8 smartphone, delivering experiences normally found only in high-end smartphones, such as the same digital camera lenses found on the Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Music for free music out of the box and even offline, and HERE services.
Nokia’s Lumia range of smartphones continued to attract businesses, including Miele & Cie. KG, a global leader in domestic appliances and commercial machinery, which has chosen the Nokia Lumia range as the smartphone of choice for its global employees.
The Windows Phone Store continued to strengthen in terms of the quantity and quality of applications. The Windows Phone Store today offers more than 165 000 applications and games.

The Q2’13-related improvements mentioned above and influencing the below chart were even more extensively discussed in my earlier posts:

High-volume Nokia Lumia superphones with Windows Phone 8 extended on the top for China, and on the entry level needed for Asia and Middle-East as well UPDATE: at even lower price by 27% [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 5, 2012 – March 21, 2013] Note that the Lumia 520 W-CDMA mentioned there for ¥ 1299.00 [$209] is now (Aug 17) ¥ 899.00 [$147] while in India it is even lower priced at Rs 7,667+ [$124+]
Nokia’s expanded, new risks and uncertainties for its Windows Phone strategy for 2013 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 17, 2013]

while the Q3’13-related actions of improvements in these posts:

Nokia Lumia 1020: an excellent case of Nokia’s contribution to Microsoft as a key innovation partner [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 12, 2013]
Minutes of a high-octane but also expert evangelist CEO: Stephen Elop, Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 12, 2013]

Now look again at the performance chart for the reflections:

From the further decline of Asha Full Touch you could see that the Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013] continued into the Q2’13 as well as the result of entry-level local brand Android smartphones being in heavy price competition with Nokia Asha Full Touch during Q2 while having superior hardware specifications. Even Samsung’s REX 70 competed in price with Asha Full Touch.

Nokia was talking in his Nokia Corporation Interim Report for Q2 2013 and January-June 2013 [press release, July 18, 2013] only about the following future-oriented actions that were introduced in Q2 in order to remedy this situation:

In Devices & Services, our Mobile Phones business unit started to demonstrate some signs of recovery in the latter part of the second quarter following a difficult start to the year. Also, towards the end of the second quarter, we started to ship the Asha 501, which brings a new design and user experience to the highly competitive sub-100 USD market. While we are very encouraged by the consumer response to our innovations in this price category, our Mobile Phones business unit is planning to take actions to focus its product offering and improve product competitiveness.

On a year-on-year basis, our Mobile Phones volumes in the second quarter 2013 were negatively affected by competitive industry dynamics, including intense smartphone competition at increasingly lower price points and intense competition at the low end of our product portfolio. Compared to the second quarter 2012, our Mobile Phones volumes declined across our portfolio, most notably for our non-full-touch devices that we sell to our customers for above EUR 30, partially offset by higher sales volumes of Asha full-touch smartphones.

Nokia started production at its new manufacturing facility in Hanoi, Vietnam. The new site has been established to produce our most affordable Asha smartphones and feature phones.

Nokia announced and started shipments of the Nokia Asha 501, the first of a new generation of smartphones to run on the new Asha platform. Retailing at a suggested price of USD 99, the Nokia Asha 501 offers users affordable smartphone design with bold color, a high-quality build and an innovative user interface. The new Asha platform also allows developers who write applications for the Nokia Asha 501 to reach all smartphones based on the new Asha platform without having to re-write code.

These things were already extensively discussed in my earlier posts:

Nokia’s non-Windows crossroad [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 2, 2013]
New Asha platform and ecosystem to deliver a breakthrough category of affordable smartphone from Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant launch information
New Nokia Asha platform for developers [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant development platform information
Nokia becoming the next Samsung from its new Vietnamese manufacturing base? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 24, 2013]

And here is how Gartner was assessing the Q2’13 overall market situation and the changes:

Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Grew 46.5 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013 and Exceeded Feature Phone Sales for First Time [press release, Aug 14, 2013]

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 3.6 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013

Microsoft Has Become the No. 3 Smartphone OS Overtaking BlackBerry

Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 3.6 percent from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the second quarter of 2012. Sales of feature phones to end users totaled 210 million units and declined 21 percent year-over-year.

“Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.

Samsung maintained the No. 1 position in the global smartphone market, as its share of smartphone sales reached 31.7 percent, up from 29.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (see Table 1). Apple’s smartphone sales reached 32 million units in the second quarter of 2013, up 10.2 percent from a year ago.

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Samsung

71,380.9

31.7

45,603.8

29.7

Apple

31,899.7

14.2

28,935.0

18.8

LG Electronics

11,473.0

5.1

5,827.8

3.8

Lenovo

10,671.4

4.7

4,370.9

2.8

ZTE

9,687.6

4.3

6,331.4

4.1

Others

90,213.6

40.0

62,704.0

40.8

Total

225,326.2

100.0

153,772.9

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market (see Table 2), Microsoft took over BlackBerry for the first time, taking the No. 3 spot with 3.3 percent market share in the second quarter of 2013. “While Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, Microsoft should continue to focus on growing interest from app developers to help grow its appeal among users,” said Mr. Gupta. Android continued to increase its lead, garnering 79 percent of the market in the second quarter.

Table 2

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Android

177,898.2

79.0

98,664.0

64.2

iOS

31,899.7

14.2

28,935.0

18.8

Microsoft

7,407.6

3.3

4,039.1

2.6

BlackBerry

6,180.0

2.7

7,991.2

5.2

Bada

838.2

0.4

4,208.8

2.7

Symbian

630.8

0.3

9,071.5

5.9

Others

471.7

0.2

863.3

0.6

Total

225,326.2

100.0

153,772.9

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

Mobile Phone Vendor Perspective

Samsung: Samsung remained in the No. 1 position in the overall mobile phone market, with sales to end users growing 19 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (see Table 3). “We see demand in the premium smartphone market come mainly from the lower end of this segment in the $400-and-below ASP mark. It will be critical for Samsung to step up its game in the mid-tier and also be more aggressive in emerging markets. Innovation cannot be limited to the high end,” said Mr. Gupta.

Nokia: Slowing demand of feature phone sales across many markets worldwide, and fierce competition in the smartphone segment, affected Nokia’s mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013. Nokia’s mobile phone sales totaled 61 million units, down from 83 million units a year ago. Nokia’s Lumia sales grew 112.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013 thanks to its expanded Lumia portfolio, which now include Lumia 520 and Lumia 720. “With the recent announcement of the Lumia 1020, Nokia has built a wide portfolio of devices at multiple price points, which should boost Lumia sales in the second half of 2013,” said Mr. Gupta. “However, Nokia is facing tough competition from Android devices, especially from regional and Chinese manufacturers which are more aggressive in terms of price points.”

Apple: While sales continued to grow, the company faced a significant drop in the ASP of its smartphones. Despite the iPhone 5 being the most popular model, its ASP declined to the lowest figure registered by Apple since the iPhone’s launch in 2007. The ASP reduction is due to strong sales of the iPhone 4, which is sold at a strongly discounted price. “While Apple’s ASP demonstrates the need for a new flagship model, it is risky for Apple to introduce a new lower-priced model too,” said Mr. Gupta. “Although the possible new lower-priced device may be priced similarly to the iPhone 4 at $300 to $400, the potential for cannibalization will be much greater than what is seen today with the iPhone 4. Despite being seen as the less expensive sibling of the flagship product, it would represent a new device with the hype of the marketing associated with it.”

Lenovo: Lenovo’s mobile phone sales grew 60.6 percent to reach 11 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Lenovo’s quarter performance was bolstered by smartphone sales. Its smartphone sales grew 144 percent year-over-year and helped it rise to the No. 4 spot in the worldwide smartphone market for the first time. Lenovo continues to rely heavily on its home market in China, which represents more than 95 percent of its sales. It remains challenging for Lenovo to expand outside China as it has to strengthen its direct channel as well as its relationships with communications service providers.

Table 3

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Samsung

107,526.0

24.7

90,432.1

21.5

Nokia

60,953.7

14.0

83,420.1

19.9

Apple

31,899.7

7.3

28,935.0

6.9

LG Electronics

17,016.4

3.9

14,345.4

3.4

ZTE

15,280.7

3.5

17,198.2

4.1

Huawei

11,275.1

2.6

10,894.2

2.6

Lenovo

10,954.8

2.5

6,821.7

1.6

TCL Communi-cation [Alcatel]

10,134.3

2.3

9,355.7

2.2

Sony Mobile Communications

9,504.7

2.2

7,346.8

1.7

Yulong [Coolpad]

7,911.5

1.8

4,016.2

1.0

Others

152,701.5

35.1

147,354.60

35.1

Total

435,158.4

100.0

420,120.0

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

“With second quarter of 2013 sales broadly on track, we see little need to adjust our expectations for worldwide mobile phone sales forecast to total 1.82 billion units this year. Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays, and the continued price reduction of smartphones will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year,” said Mr. Gupta.

Additional information is in the Gartner report “Market Share Analysis: Mobile Phones, Worldwide, 2Q13.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/document/2573119.

Upcoming H2CY13 revitalization of E Ink Holdings’ business by greater cost effectiveness and next-gen EPD technology for the traditional e-book reader market (remaining flat), exiting the commodity LCD market, and addition of new applications for digital magazines, smart watches, handset covers and luggage tags

August 16, 2013 3:13 pm / Leave a comment

$66 6″ front-lit E Ink e-readers from Jawei [Charbax YouTube channel, May 26, 2013]

Jawei shows their latest range of E Ink based e-readers, starting at $40 for a 4.3″ E Ink e-reader without touch, $66 for 6″ without touch, add a bit for touch. Minimum order quantity is 2K.

OR While the jury is still out on E-paper renaissance because of A4 format on a lighter, plastic substrate? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 15, 2013] E Ink Holdings’ so far ‘LCD only’ subsidiary Hydis gathers ammunition with e-paper displays [The Korea Herald, June 26, 2013]:

Hydis Technologies is not what one would call a big company, but for Korea, it has a symbolic meaning. It was one of the firms that foreign capital gobbled up, only to spit out after stripping it of vital assets and technology.

Now, Hydis, owned by Taiwan-based E Ink Holdings, is out to get back on the map with the production of e-paper displays, the main element for e-books.

Starting in July, Hydis expects to start rolling out electronic paper displays, an area that E Ink is a global leader in.

Hydis officials said the contract is expected to extend to December.

“These displays are next-generation displays, and our technology is sufficient,” said one official, speaking anonymously.

Rollable displays also are in discussion, but that needs to be seen, as Hydis currently lacks the right equipment and capital.

Hydis was formerly a unit under Hyundai Electronics, the precursor to SK Hynix. It once supplied some of the big fish in the industry, such as Samsung and LG.

Prior to the acquisition by E Ink, Hydis had been exploited by China-based BOE Display, which bought Hydis from Hyundai, only to feed its technology to BOE’s Chinese operations.

E Ink initially appeared to have similar plans as it was reticent to make big investments, but both Hydis and E Ink claim that the only plans they have are to get the Gyeonggi Province-based display manufacturer back on track.

“The turnaround plan is aimed to optimally resize the company so that it can focus manufacturing on existing industrial products and explore other new high-margin niche opportunities,” the Hydis management said in a statement to The Korea Herald.

The management added that the focus now will be on high-margin industrial products, such as panels used in applications for medical equipment, avionics and automobiles.

The restructuring itself was painful as it involved letting go of more than half of the workforce, which at one point reached nearly 1,000.

There are now fewer than 400 employees, but those who left are said to have departed in peace, as they were offered an acceptable retirement package.

The restructuring was completed as of May 30.

The plants at Icheon are not yet running, but employees hope they can reactivate them by July, when the EPD orders go in.

“We are trying to optimize and rationalize productivity,” said Oscar Huang, a spokesperson for E Ink in Taiwan.

He also said he knew of the restructuring, but was not aware of the details, saying E Ink chose to leave those up to the Hydis management in Korea.

E Ink acquired Hydis in 2008. Prior, it was named PVI.

As the pioneer in electrophoretic displays used in gadgets like the Amazon Kindle, PVI also merged with E Ink, which is where it got its name.

E Ink is known for having only a small assembly line of its own, choosing to make money mainly from licensing deals.

E Ink suffers sharp revenue drop in 2Q13 [DIGITIMES, Aug 16, 2013] with slide inserts from E Ink Investor Conference Presentation [Aug 15, 2013]

Electrophoretic display (EPD) maker E Ink Holdings has reported consolidated revenues of NT$2.928 billion (US$98 million) for the second quarter, decreasing 45.56% sequentially and 34.61% on year mainly because Hydis Technologies, its South Korea-based subsidiary, has been reducing production of commodity LCD in line with its operational transformation.

E Ink said during its investors conference on August 15 that it has adjusted the organization of Hydis, downsizing its personnel from 800-900 to about 400.

But E Ink noted global demand for e-book readers is on the rise. According to the company, Amazon started selling Kindle Paperwhite in China and India in June 2013. Japan-based Rakuten has been selling its e-book reader Kobo Aura HD in the US and Europe and will soon tap the China, India and Russia markets. Korea Epub will launch its Android 4.0 e-book reader Crema Shine in late August 2013.

North America will account for 35% of global e-book reader shipments in 2013, Western Europe and Asia Pacific each for 27%, Latin America 6%, the Middle East and Africa 3% and East Europe 2%, E Ink cited forecast by IHS as indicating.

EPD can also be used in smartwatches and other types of wearable devices, electronic tags and back covers of handsets, E Ink indicated.

E Ink posted gross margin of 7.14%, net operating loss of NT$953 million, net loss of NT$1.008 billion and net loss per share of NT$0.93 for the second quarter.

Hands on with the Sony 13.3 inch e-Reader [Goodereader YouTube channel, May 21, 2013]

Sony announced a new 13.3 inch e-Reader and we got a chance to play with it at SID 2013 in Vancouver. This is simply the best e-Reader if Complex PDF documents or editing them appeals to you. Check it out.

E-paper firm posts worst loss in 4 years [Taipei Times, Aug 16, 2013] with slide inserts from E Ink Investor Conference Presentation [Aug 15, 2013]

INNOVATE OR DIE:With demand for e-paper displays plunging, the firm has turned to other growth areas, including digital magazines, smart watches and luggage tags

E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), which supplies e-paper displays for Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle e-reader series, yesterday reported a widening net loss of NT$1.01 billion (US$33.63 million) for last quarter because of slack demand for e-paper displays and LCD panels.

The quarterly net loss represented a deterioration from the first quarter’s net loss of NT$492 million and a net loss of NT$818 million in the second quarter of last year, the company’s financial statement showed. That also marked the worst quarterly loss in about four years.

Last quarter, E Ink also booked a one-time severance payment of NT$500 million for a 50 percent workforce layoff at its South Korean LCD manufacturing subsidiary Hydis Technologies Co. The number of Hydis employees has been halved to about 400 from between 800 or 900 before the personal adjustment, E Ink said.

Meanwhile, the Hsinchu-based company said it received a record high royalties fee at NT$400 million [US$13.4 million] by licensing Hydis’ patents to Sharp, LG Display and other panel makers to make high-resolution LCD panels that are partly used in Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics patents.

E Ink was upbeat about this quarter’s prospects.

“Customers have put off their new product launches to the third quarter from the second quarter,” company chief financial officer Eddie Chen (陳彥松) told investors.

“There is enormous growth momentum to arrive in the third quarter. You will feel the [strength of] an upswing,” Chen said.

This quarter, revenue is expected to at least double last quarter’s NT$2.93 billion, as customers were scheduled to ship new e-readers for the holiday shopping season, Chen said.

E-paper displays made up about 70 percent of the company’s overall revenue last quarter, according to E Ink.

Gross margin would rise further from last quarter’s 7.1 percent and 5 percent in the first quarter, as the company would ship more higher-margin e-paper displays, Chen said.

To reduce the impact of tablets, E Ink is seeking new growth areas in developing new e-paper applications such as displays for digital magazines, smart watches, handset covers and luggage tags.

By the end of this year, e-paper for those new applications are expected to make up less than 5 percent of the company’s overall revenue, Chen said.

Overall e-reader shipments are expected to be flat at a range between 10 million and 15 million units, compared with last year, E Ink said.

E Ink shares fell 1.23 percent to NT$16.1 yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which was down 0.81 percent.

Allwinner E200 Powered Gajah InkCase E Ink phablet case to be $99-$129 [Charbax YouTube czhannel, Aug 2, 2013]

Gajah International design house shows a unique Allwinner E200 powered E Ink Bluetooth case for you Galaxy Note 2 smartphone/phablet. “InkCase” works like a second casing or another panel for your gadget, On the back side of the casing you find E Ink panel serves as second panel to display photographs, you can read e-book, see the pop-up’s of Facebook and Twitter too. You can have eye on weather apps from your phone and all viewable apps you can see through this second panel. It works on Bluetooth connectivity has micro USB port for charging InkCase. Inside it has memory to facilitate switch over to next picture/page and to do this back panel has two keys.Price yet to be finalised may expect between $99-$129 You can have look here in this video of InkCase for Samsung S2. InkCase is also available for iPhones but works only as photo viewer, . Two colour variants Black & White are available. features: Ink Case Photo Epi reader FBInk TwitInk The problem is the way this one works is to beam pictures that it has to transmit, decode, instead of sending data to interpret and integrate in clever apps on the E Ink case device. That makes for slowish e-reader mode for now. But maybe they can improve this in software and other device like it a bit better integrated and much thinner and lighter could be huge advancement for changing the back-cover on your smartphone that has removable back-cover or for adding a back-casing to your smartphone and phablet to use the back surface of your devices for new smart potentially ultra-low power E Ink functionality. Filmed at Computex 2013

Here’s the flexible E Ink screen that could be in the 2014 Kindle [CNET, July 12, 2013]

Expect some incremental improvements to new e-ink e-readers this holiday season, but superslim designs are probably a year or two away.

…

I asked Giovanni Mancini, E Ink’s director of product management, what Amazon would be releasing this holiday season because, well, Amazon wouldn’t tell me.

“I can’t tell you, either,” he said. “We can’t comment on customers plans.”

I expected him to say that, but I figured I’d ask anyway. However, what he could tell me about was the advancements E Ink’s technology, some of which of which will find their way into new devices as soon as this year. In the next few months the company will announce its next-generation e-ink platform for e-readers, the successor to Pearl. That screen, released in 2010, is the one used in most current e-ink readers, including the Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader.

The new platform will offer slightly improved contrast and better optical performance that’s “better tuned to capabilities of higher-resolution TFT displays that are making their way into e-readers,” Mancini said (the $169.99 Kobo Aura HD is an example of a high-resolution e-reader).

Also, and perhaps most importantly, the company has introduced new technology that reduces the amount of ghosting (the digital artifacts left behind as pages are turned), so you won’t have to refresh the page as much. A lot of people don’t like the flash a page refresh creates, and the new screens won’t have to refresh as much. Today, the outer limit is around every six to seven page turns, and some devices now allow you to customize the frequency of page refreshes. Mancini said you’d potentially be able to read up to 100 pages without having the page flash.

“So, is it called Pearl 2?” I asked.

“It doesn’t have a name we’re sharing just yet,” Mancini said. “But before the end of the year we expect to not only bring our technology to market but to have customers announce products with that technology.”

…

With the next e-ink Kindles, I expect to see some slight improvements to the design and some small performance gains, as well even more uniform lighting in the Paperwhite. And we may see an entry-level Kindle priced at $49 ($20 less than its current price). Just how much weight, if any, Amazon can shave off its e-ink Kindles remains unclear. But I know a lot of people who prefer the entry-level Kindle to the Paperwhite because it’s lighter (5.98 vs. 7.5 ounces*. An ounce and half doesn’t seem like a lot of weight, but in a handheld device it’s very noticeable.

Imagine a 6-inch e-reader that weighs just 3.5 ounces [~100 grams]. That just might make you want to upgrade your device.

* [one ounce is approximately 28 grams]

E Ink Booth Tour at SID 2013 [May 21-23, 2013] [EInkSeeMore YouTube channel, July 19, 2013]

Giovanni Mancini, Director of Marketing at E Ink, gives a tour of E Ink’s new products and technologies at SID 2013 in Vancouver. He shows new E Ink products Mobius, Spectra, and Aurora, as well as signage, ESL, and displays with even faster page turns.

Shares of E Ink rise on upbeat Q3 sales prospects [Focus Taiwan, Aug 16, 2013]

Shares of E Ink Holdings Inc. got a boost Friday morning after the electronics paper display supplier said a day earlier that its sales for the third quarter could double from the second quarter on peak season effects, dealers said.

The optimistic third quarter forecast led investors to think that E Ink has hit a turning point in the current quarter, despite the fact that the e-paper maker remained in the red the previous quarter, dealers said.

As of 11: 29 a.m., shares of E Ink had added 5.90 percent to reach NT$17.05 (US$0.57) with 11.36 million shares changing hands. The index of the over-the-counter market, where the stock is traded, was up 0.12 percent at 118.89 points.

…

E Ink said that Hydis owns patents in display production, in particular fringe field switching (FFS) technology [see: Hydis: its FFS succeeding IPS [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 11, 2011 – Oct 12, 2012]], and that the unit’s FFS technology generated about NT$400 million in licensing fees in the second quarter.

Hydis licensing fees are expected to continue to serve as an income source for the parent company, E Ink said.

“The current buying helped E Ink shares clear the strong technical hurdles at around NT$16.80 so the stock has become technically healthier,” [Ta Ching Securities analyst Andy] Hsu said.

E Ink Launches Spectra, The World’s First True Three Pigment Electronic Paper Display [press release, May 21, 2013]

E Ink Technology Solves Unmet Need to Include Color on Electronic Shelf Labels to Highlight Promotions, Sales and Logos

May 21, 2013 – Cambridge, MA — E Ink® Holdings, “E Ink” (8069.TW), an ePaper and Electronic Shelf Label visionary, today introduced E Ink Spectra, the world’s first three pigment electronic paper display (EPD), featuring black, white and red pigments. Spectra is currently being demoed at SID Display Week 2013 in Vancouver, CA.

Price optimization strategies and adaptable technology are vital to ensuring retailers’ competitive advantage, success and growth. By using electronic shelf labels (ESL) with E Ink’s technology, retailers have the ability to change pricing strategies as needed in real time, allowing them to stay one step ahead of competitors while attracting consumers based on changing market conditions. Spectra allows retailers to elevate the impact of their ESLs, by adding color to logos and quickly directing consumers’ attention to important information, such as product sales and promotions.

“The three pigment system is a major achievement for E Ink, and a technological accomplishment in our industry,” explained Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “As the first product line to feature this advanced ink, Spectra provides retailers with the same visual and power savings attributes of our black and white ESL products, with the option of adding a third color to highlight promotions or other relevant information.”

“We are excited to see the addition of color, something requested by many of our customers,” said Niclas Qvist, Head of Marketing and Global Partner Management at Pricer, the leading Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) solution provider. “Pricer use E Ink’s e-paper in all our graphic products today. E Ink and Pricer are leading the way by giving shoppers the best in-store experience with clear and easy to read price tags. Product development is guided by market feedback and the first products will be developed in close cooperation with both E Ink and selected customers.”

“Pervasive Displays is committed to delivering innovative electronic paper enhancements and solutions that enable revolutionary commercial industrial electronic paper display applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “Adding color to electronic paper is an effective advancement to this technology. Color adds the benefit of being able to quickly draw attention to specific messages – in retail, red is prevalent for promotions; in other industries red is used for exception management. The ability to quickly discern the importance of a message is critical in any environment.”

Spectra will support both active matrix and segmented format ESLs, making it the ideal product for a range of retail applications. The three pigment EPD is also appropriate for industrial, smart card and medical market applications, where Spectra can be used to display information on electronic identification badges.

While the eReader market continues to be an important part of E Ink’s business and the company is unequivocally committed to the eReader product line, over the past few years E Ink has invested resources into supporting different applications across markets.

“We have always been fortunate to have high customer demand for our electronic paper displays for non-eReader applications,” stated Mancini. “The results of our investments will be evident in 2013 as more non-eReader products using E Ink EPDs are released into the market.”

Spectra will be available in Q3 2013.

E Ink Triton II Won 2013 Display Taiwan’s Outstanding Photonics Product Award [press release, June 17, 2013]

June 17, 2013 – Cambridge, MA — E Ink® Holdings, “E Ink” (8069.TW), a global leader in ePaper technology today announced that its E Ink Triton II has won the 2013 Display Taiwan’s Outstanding Photonics Product Award with superior product performance.

E Ink ePaper technology is featured by reading comfort, sunlight readability, high contrast ratio, and low power consumption. Triton II, the award-winner, applies the optical design of front light module and optimize color resist arrangement of color filters, to reach high color saturation, high brightness, high contrast and low power consumption. This has led to the development of the new generation of color electronic paper display, and come into mass production. This is another award won by E Ink after its Spectra obtained the Display Week Best in Show Award by the Society for Information Display in 2013.

“We are honored that the organizers of Display Taiwan have selected Triton for this award.” said Felix Ho, interim chairman for E Ink Holdings, “E Ink continues to invest significantly in the development of electrophoretic display technology. It is great to see the results of this work incorporated into a product such as the PocketBook Color eReader.”

E Ink Introduces New 1.73″ Flexible Mobius Display For Smartwatch Applications [press release, June 3 2013]

June 2, 2013 – Cambridge, MA — E Ink® Holdings, “E Ink” (8069.TW), a digital signage and display visionary, announces the addition of a 1.73″ flexible display to its Mobius product line of flexible electronic paper display (EPD) technology. The 1.73″ display has been specifically engineered for smartwatch and watch applications. The display is based on flexible TFT technology developed and brought to production by E Ink. The first commercial product to use this 1.73″ display is the Sonostar Smartwatch announced this week at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan.

The Sonostar smartwatch was jointly developed by E Ink’s subsidiary Transmart Co. Ltd and Sonostar. The smartwatch was chosen by the Taipei Computer Association as one of only 10 major product highlights at Computex, which will run from June 4-8 in Taipei, Taiwan.

The 1.73″ Mobius display supports a resolution of 320X240 pixels with 16 greyscale levels. The display size and characteristics make the technology ideal for the smartwatch market. Using a flexible substrate, the 1.73″ Mobius is lightweight and rugged and is conformable so the end product has a better fit for the consumer. Its low power usage and sunlight readability make this technology ideal for mobile devices. Unlike conventional displays, the 1.73″ Mobius display can be cut into different shapes.

“The joint development between Sonostar and Transmart is the perfect example of the how E Ink can help its customers get their product to market,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management for E Ink Holdings. “E Ink displays enable unique products that capture the customer’s imagination. Our business development team has the expertise to help our customers design the displays into their products in ways never before thought possible.”

More information on the Sonostar smartwatch can be obtained by visiting the Sonostar booth at Taipei World Trade Center Hall I (No: C0317) during Computex Taipei 2013 (June 4 to 8) or by going to www.sonostar.com/Smartwatch/. You can get more information about the Mobius 1.73″ display by visitingwww.eink.com.

E Ink Unveils Aurora, The World’s First Low Temperature Matrix Electronic Paper Display [press release, June 3 2013]

May 21, 2013 – Cambridge, MA — E Ink® Holdings, “E Ink” (8069.TW), an ePaper and Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) visionary, today announced the upcoming release of E Ink Aurora, a first-of-its-kind electronic paper display (EPD) able to withstand freezer’s temperatures. The new solution provides retailers and business owners with greater flexibility and a more efficient solution in managing pricing strategies for products sold in freezers and cold outdoor climates. A demonstration of Aurora, along with E Ink’s latest products can be seen at Display Week 2013 in Vancouver, CA from May 21-23.

Providing low power usage and cost optimization through a 5-volt driving capability, Aurora supports applications in conditions as cold as -25 C. Additionally, Aurora has been tuned for non-eReader applications, and is ideal for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and smart cards in the retail, medical and logistics markets. Aurora will be available to partners and customers starting in July 2013.

The release of Aurora is an indication of E Ink’s product diversification strategy and commitment to providing the ESL market with an extremely durable, low power display technology. While eReaders continue to be an important market for E Ink, and the company is unequivocally committed to the eReader product line, E Ink believes that its unique technology addresses retailers’ and business owners’ needs to install displays in previously impossible or impractical locations across markets.

“Opticon is excited to work with E Ink to expand our portfolio of e-paper based electronic shelf labeling (ESL) products. With the integration of a low temp film, we can finally install our ESL solution into all departments in a grocery or convenience store,” said Mike Waters, Opticon, Inc. “To date, we’ve lacked the technical capability to operate our wireless shelf tags inside a freezer, limiting the opportunities to completely eliminate manual paper price changes. Opticon will now be able to offer a line of IP rated freezer tags in 2″, 2.7″, 4.41″, and 7.4″ form factors.”

“Pervasive Displays is committed to advancing the use of electronic paper in industrial applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “The new Aurora product from E Ink extends the reach of electronic paper to cold chain applications, signage, automotive and a myriad of additional industries, unlocking new ROI potential for e-paper applications.”

“Inaccurate prices are one of consumers’ major gripes when shopping at supermarkets,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “With an average of close to 40,000 items carried in supermarkets, effective price management can become a herculean task. At E Ink we believe that ESLs not only cut down on the instances of mislabelled information, but also can ultimately help retail stores maximize profits.”

In the Food Marketing Institute’s 2012 Shopper Trends report, consumers rated accurate shelf tags as one of their most important criteria in selecting their primary store. Learn more about Aurora and E Ink’s other breakthrough digital signage and display technologies by visiting booth #1215 at SID from May 21-23.

Google Play catchup with iOS App Store and its way of assuring compatibility across Android 1.6 to 4.3

August 15, 2013 8:00 pm / 2 Comments on Google Play catchup with iOS App Store and its way of assuring compatibility across Android 1.6 to 4.3

OR Google Play, a digital application distribution platform for Android (the former Android Market) and an online electronics and digital media store, is still to catch up with the Apple iOS App Store in terms of top apps and revenue but coming on par with it in terms of downloads

Half of top iPad apps either unavailable or not optimized on Android [Canalys press release, Aug 14, 2013] – 30% of the top 50 free and paid iPad apps in the US are absent from Google Play

The top 20 app lists referenced in the Canalys press release, ‘Half of top iPad apps either unavailable or not optimized on Android’ (published 14 August 2013). You can dowload the full top 50 app lists HERE.

New Canalys’ App Interrogator research highlights one of the deficiencies of the Android ecosystem: limited availability of high-quality, tablet-optimized apps in the Google Play store. Of the top 50 paid and free iPad apps in Apple’s US App Store, based on aggregated daily rankings in the first half of 2013, 30% were absent from Google Play. A further 18% were available, but not optimized for tablet users, offering no more than a smart phone app blown up to the size of a tablet screen.

Just 52% of apps had Android versions both available through Google Play and optimized (if only a little) for tablet use. ‘Quite simply, building high-quality app experiences for Android tablets has not been among many developers’ top priorities to date,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst Tim Shepherd. ‘That there are over 375,000 apps in the Apple App Store that are designed with iPad users in mind, versus just a fraction of this – in the low tens of thousands – available through Google Play, underscores this point.’

Canalys expects this to change as the addressable base of devices continues to soar and Google brings improvements to the Play store, but points out that Google needs to do more to encourage greater numbers of developers to invest in delivering high-quality Android tablet apps quickly, else it risks disappointing consumers with weak app experiences in the short term.

The 52% of top apps available through Google Play and optimized for tablets also includes six titles that appear as top paid titles on iOS, but are only available as free, ad-supported versions on Android. ‘While nominally free, set against a paid version of the app, ad-supported offerings typically deliver a poorer and often more limited user experience, sometimes taking a considerable toll on device battery life and often subjecting users to unskippable videos or other unpopular intrusions,’ said Canalys Analyst Daniel Matte.

It is important that Google wins consumers’ trust and encourages them to register credit cards and billing details, so that the barrier to them spending money on apps – and other content – is reduced at the point of purchase. ‘Improved consumer willingness to spend will increase developers’ monetization potential and options, and help to reduce their reliance on in-app ads, leading over time to an increase in app quality,’ said Matte.

It will also make the Android tablet opportunity more enticing for developers and increase the revenue potential of the Play store and ecosystem for Google. ‘To take the Play ecosystem to the next level, Google needs more than just a large addressable base of devices. App developers need to see clear potential to build robust and sustainable business models around apps built for the platform, so increasing monetization potential must be a priority,’ said Shepherd. ‘And for tablet apps in particular, Google should go further with changes to the Play store to ensure more rigorously managed, high-quality, optimized experiences are highlighted, to the benefit of consumers, and to reward those developers who invest the time and resources in building them with improved discoverability.’

The top 50 lists [of both the “Top 50 paid tablet apps (Apple App Store, H1 2013)” and the “Top 50 free tablet apps (Apple App Store, H1 2013)”]referenced in this release can be viewed here.

About Canalys

Canalys is an independent analyst firm that strives to guide clients on the future of the technology industry and to think beyond the business models of the past. We deliver smart market insights to IT, channel and service provider professionals around the world. Our customer-driven analysis and consulting services empower businesses to make informed decisions and generate sales. We stake our reputation on the quality of our data, our innovative use of technology, and our high level of customer service.

App Store Market Q2 2013: Google Play Exceeds iOS App Store in App Downloads by 10%

Riding strong performances in India and Brazil, Google Play’s total app downloads were higher than those in the iOS App Store in Q2 2013.

Though Google Play had more downloads, the iOS App Store still generated 2.3x the revenue.

Bertrand Schmitt Interview – GigaOM Mobilize 2012 [AppAnnieTV YouTube channel, Oct 10, 2012]

App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt talks about The Math Behind The App Stores. App Annie is the industry leader in app store analytics and market intelligence supporting iOS, Mac and Google Android Market. Annie takes care of all the Math Behind The App Stores keeping you up-to-date with your own app’s metrics and the latest app store trends. Annie provides three fabulous products for her fans: APP ANNIE ANALYTICS A free web-service that automatically retrieves, visualizes and stores your app’s download, revenue, ranking and review data. APP ANNIE STORE STATS The most comprehensive free app store database on the Internet today. It provides you with detailed ranking charts, historical data, Featured placements and international app store matrices. APP ANNIE INTELLIGENCE Introducing our newest premium product – it allows our advanced customers to access the most accurate market intelligence data available for app stores today.

App Annie Reports Google Play Exceeds iOS App Store in App Downloads by 10% in Q2 2013

App Annie has released its 2nd quarter mobile platform analysis and reports that Google Play has exceeded the iOS App Store downloads by 10%. While iOS is behind Android in downloads, still generates 2.3 times the revenue.

For iOS, the top countries by number of downloads were: (1) – United States; (2) China; (3) Japan; (4) United Kingdom; and (5) Russia, with the US and China making up around 40% of the market. The top countries by revenue were: (1)United States; (2) Japan; (3) United Kingdom; (4) Australia; and (5)China, with Australia moving to #4 and China dropping to #5 compared to Q1.

For Android, the top countries by download were: (1) United States; (2) South Korea; (3) India; (4) Russia; and (5) Brazil putting three emerging markets (South Korea, Russia, and Brazil) into the top 5. The top countries for revenue were: (1) Japan; (2) South Korea; (3) United States; (4) Germany; and (5) United Kingdom with Germany and the UK swapping spots.

Games have not slowed down and are still at the top of revenue and download charts for both iOS and Android.

For iOS, the top countries by app category downloads were: (1) Games; (2) Entertainment; (3) Photo & Video: (4) Lifestyle and (5) Utilities with games garnering 40% of downloads. The top iOS revenue by category were: (1) Games; (2) Social Networking; (3) Music; (4) Productivity; and (5) Entertainment with games taking almost a 75% share.

For Android, the top countries by app category downloads were: (1) Games; (2) Communication; (3) Tools; (4) Entertainment and (5) Social with communication apps moving up one. The top Android revenue by category were: (1) Games: (2) Communication; (3) Social; (4) Travel and Local; and (5) Tools with games accounting for over 80% of revenue.

The Global App Store Economy – Olivier Bernard, App Annie [Welcome to Nevosoft.Ru YouTube channel, April 4, 2013]

The Global App Store Economy — Olivier Bernard, VP of Europe, App Annie, on February 8, 2013 (on Day 1 of The Winter Nights: Mobile Games Conference: http://www.wnconf.com/en). Presentation slides: http://www.slideshare.net/anastasiaalikova/the-global-app-store-economy

Google Play Now Generates More Downloads Than iOS App Store

The latest App Annie statistics show that Google GOOG -1.38% has already overtaken iOS in app downloads. This has happened far faster than anyone would have expected even one year ago. One factor here was the massive surge in Android app downloads in Japan and South Korea in 1Q 2013. What finally pushed Google into lead was another surge in India and Russia during 2Q 2013. Russia and Brazil have become Top Five countries for Google Play app download volume, which bodes well for future growth of the platform.

On app revenue front, iOS still leads Google Play by 130%. Yet even this lead has been shrinking rapidly – less than two years ago, the iOS lead was more than 400%. It now seems that it will be only a matter of time before Google will overtake iOS in revenue generation. The key here is the flood of cheap Android models that have started dominating the smartphone markets of China, India, Russia and Brazil, the most important growth engines of the global smartphone industry.

Much now depends on h0w low Apple AAPL +2.42% will price the new budget iPhone. Apple may value its hardware margins highly, but app market leadership is exceptionally important in attracting the best app developer talent and thus ensuring long term success of the entire OS ecosystem. Apple clearly needs to hit Google hard in Latin America, India and China before Android app market takes over these regions decisively.

More at: http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-index-market-q2-2013/ [July 31, 2013]

Global Trends in App Store Monetization | Junde YU [CasualConnect YouTube channel, June 5, 2013]

Using App Annie Intelligence, the most accurate market data on the app stores, Junde will deliver the most unique insights on Global Trends in App Store Monetization. – What are the highest countries for revenue, downloads and ARPU? – Just how significant is the growth of the app stores in Asia? – Where are the growth opportunities for publishers across different categories and regions? Delivered at Casual Connect Asia, May 2013. For slides, visit: http://gamesauce.org/news/2013/06/05/junde-yu-on-the-increasing-opportunities-in-asia-casual-connect-video/

Month Report Webinar: A Granular App Level Look at Revenues: Google Play vs Apple App Store [distimo YouTube channel, June 7, 2013]

On Thursday June 6th, we hosted our Monthly Publication Webinar. The topic of this webinar was ‘A Granular App Level Look at Revenues: Google Play versus App Apple Store’, which follows the findings in the Monthly Publication of May. We also demonstrated the most important examples from the publication by using our AppIQ (http://www.distimo.com/appiq).

Google Play Revenue Up 67% Over Past 6 Months, Fueled By Japan & S. Korea [TechCrunch, Aug 12, 2013]

Google’s Android app marketplace, Google Play, has seen significant revenue growth this year, fueled in large part by Japan and South Korea. In a new report released today by app store analytics firm Distimo, the company found that Google Play’s revenue grew by 67 percent over the past six months, while Apple’s App Store revenue grew by just 15 percent during the same time frame.

While these numbers reflect the impact Android’s massive market share is having on the app industry, it’s worth noting that of the two app stores, the Apple App Store’s market is still the largest, and continues to see more than two times the revenue of Google Play.

That latter figure varies a bit from an earlier report put out by competing analytics firm App Annie in April, which found that Apple’s App Store earned around 2.6 times more revenue in the preceding quarter. But not only do the firms’ methodologies differ in general, Distimo looked at the earnings of all ranked apps in the 18 largest countries over 6 months, while App Annie’s data was, as noted above, for the quarter.

That being said, Google Play’s revenue growth is notable. While only 25 percent of the revenue from the two stores combined came from Google Play in February 2013, this went up 8 percentage points to reach 33 percent by July.

…

Tanisha Gupta Discusses Distimo’s Mobile Conversion Tracking Technology [TheMailDotCom1 YouTube channel, Aug 2, 2013]

Murray Newlands interviews Tanisha Gupta from Distimo at the Casual Connect conference in San Francisco for TheMail.com

Celebrating Google Play’s first birthday [Official Android Blog, March 6, 2013]

Accessing digital entertainment should be simple, whether you like to read books on your tablet, listen to music on your phone and computer, or watch movies on all three. That’s why one year ago today we launched Google Play, where you can find and enjoy your favorite music, movies, books and apps on your Android phone and tablet, or on the web.

Google Play has grown rapidly in the last year, bringing you more content in more languages and places around the globe. In addition to offering more than 700,000 apps and games, we’ve partnered with all of the major music companies, movie studios and publishers to bring you the music, movies, TV shows, books and magazines you love. And we’ve added more ways for you to buy them, including paying through your phone bill and gift cards, which we’re beginning to roll out in the U.K. this week.

Since no birthday is complete without presents, we’re celebrating with a bunch of special offers across the store on songs, TV shows, movies and books. We’re even offering a collection of games with some fun birthday surprises created by developers.

It’s been a busy year, but we’re just getting started. We look forward to many more years of bringing you the best in entertainment!

Introducing Google Play: All your entertainment, anywhere you go [Google Official Blog, March 6, 2012]

Entertainment is supposed to be fun. But in reality, getting everything to work can be the exact opposite—moving files between your computers, endless syncing across your devices, and wires…lots of wires. Today we’re eliminating all that hassle with Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all your music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to you, and you never have to worry about losing them or moving them again.

Introducing Google Play [googleplay YouTube channel, March 6, 2012]

Your favorite entertainment is now all in one place, always accessible on the web and across your Android devices.

With Google Play you can:

Store up to 20,000 songs for free and buy millions of new tracks
Download more than 450,000 Android apps and games
Browse the world’s largest selection of eBooks
Rent thousands of your favorite movies, including new releases and HD titles

Starting today, Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore will become part of Google Play. On your Android phone or tablet, we’ll be upgrading the Android Market app to the Google Play Store app over the coming days. Your videos, books and music apps (in countries where they are available) will also be upgraded to Google Play Movies, Google Play Books and Google Play Music apps. The music, movies, books and apps you’ve purchased will continue to be available to you through Google Play—simply log in with your Google account like always.

To celebrate, we’ll be offering a different album, book, video rental and Android app at a special price each day for the next week in our “7 Days to Play” sale. In the U.S., today’s titles include the collection of top 40 hits Now That’s What I Call Music 41, the popular game Where’s My Water, the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the movie Puncture for just 25 cents each. In addition, you’ll find great collections of hip-hop, rock and country albums for $3.99 all week, detective novels from $2.99, some of our editorial team’s favorite movies from 99 cents, and our favorite apps from 49 cents.

In the U.S., music, movies, books and Android apps are available in Google Play. In Canada and the U.K., we’ll offer movies, books and Android apps; in Australia, books and apps; and in Japan, movies and apps. Everywhere else, Google Play will be the new home for Android apps. Our long-term goal is to roll out as many different types of content as possible to people around the world, and we’ll keep adding new content to keep it fresh.

To learn more, head over to play.google.com/about or keep up with the latest on our Google+ page. If you’re headed to Austin later this week for South by Southwest, come to the Google Village to see Google Play in action. We can’t wait for you to try Google Play and experience a simpler way to manage your entertainment.

Posted by Jamie Rosenberg, Director of Digital Content

Android Apps on Google Play [googleplay YouTube channel, March 6, 2012]

With Apps on Google Play download more than 450,000 Android apps and games and begin enjoying them instantly on your Android phone or tablet. Experience all the entertainment you love, anywhere you go. Discover more athttp://play.google.com/store/apps.

Supported devices [Android Developer Help, Aug 5, 2013]

The following is a list of devices that are supported for use with Google Play. This list is sorted alphabetically by manufacturer. You can also search within this page to find your device (PC: Ctrl + F, Mac: Command + F).

If you’re experiencing issues with the Google Play website or the Google Play app, please verify that your device is included on the list below. If your device isn’t listed, it’s possible that your device is newly released or may not be listed for other reasons. If you need further information on whether your device is supported for use with Google Play, please contact your device manufacturer for further support.

Note: Some devices are listed by their official model number. To find your model number, go to Settings > About Phone > Model Number on your device.

This list was last updated on 8/5/2013.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

…

Google Apps on Android [GApps] [Google site, created on June 27, 2012]

… [Google Keyboard Hangouts Keep]

Featured Apps

Google Search

Quickly & easily find what you need on the web & your phone or tablet.

Download App

Chrome for Android

Browse fast & bring your personalized Chrome with you.

Download App

Google Maps for Android

Never get lost as you go to new places & old favorites.

Download App

Google+

Stay connected and share life as it happens.

Download App

Google Play Books

Read the books you love, everywhere you are.

Download App

Google Play Magazines

Read your favorite magazines, everywhere you are.

Download App

Google Play Music

Play your music instantly, anywhere.

Download App

Google Play Movies & TV

Watch movies & TV shows instantly, anywhere.

Download App

YouTube

Millions of videos at your fingertips, available on the go.

Download App

Google Drive

One place to create, share, collaborate & keep your stuff, available on all your devices.

Download App

Gmail

Get smarter email wherever you are.

Download App

Google Wallet

Make your phone your wallet.

Download App

Google Offers

Discover, buy and redeem great deals with your Android device.

Download App

… [ Voice Search Google Translate Google Earth Google Goggles Google Currents Google Voice Google Shopper Schemer My Tracks Google Finance Blogger Orkut Authenticator ]

A Note on Google Apps for Android [Android Developers Blog, Sept 25, 2009]

Lately we’ve been busy bees in Mountain View, as you can see from the recent release of Android 1.6 to the open-source tree, not to mention some devices we’re working on with partners that we think you’ll really like. Of course, the community isn’t sitting around either, and we’ve been seeing some really cool and impressive things, such as the custom Android builds that are popular with many enthusiasts. Recently there’s been some discussion about an exchange we had with the developer of one of those builds, and I’ve noticed some confusion around what is and isn’t part of Android’s open source code. I want to take a few moments to clear up some of those misconceptions, and explain how Google’s apps for Android fit in.

Everyone knows that mobile is a big deal, but for a long time it was hard to be a mobile app developer. Competing interests and the slow pace of platform innovation made it hard to create innovative apps. For our part, Google offers a lot of services — such as Google Search, Google Maps, and so on — and we found delivering those services to users’ phones to be a very frustrating experience. But we also found that we weren’t alone, so we formed the Open Handset Alliance, a group of like-minded partners, and created Android to be the platform that we all wished we had. To encourage broad adoption, we arranged for Android to be open-source. Google also created and operates Android Market as a service for developers to distribute their apps to Android users. In other words, we created Android because the industry needed an injection of openness. Today, we’re thrilled to see all the enthusiasm that developers, users, and others in the mobile industry have shown toward Android.

With a high-quality open platform in hand, we then returned to our goal of making our services available on users’ phones. That’s why we developed Android apps for many of our services like YouTube, Gmail, Google Voice, and so on. These apps are Google’s way of benefiting from Android in the same way that any other developer can, but the apps are not part of the Android platform itself. We make some of these apps available to users of any Android-powered device via Android Market, and others are pre-installed on some phones through business deals. Either way, these apps aren’t open source, and that’s why they aren’t included in the Android source code repository. Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it’s done with the best of intentions.

I hope that clears up some of the confusion around Google’s apps for Android. We always love seeing novel uses of Android, including custom Android builds from developers who see a need. I look forward to seeing what comes next!

Compatibility Test Suite [Frequently Asked Questions | Android Open Source, created on May 24, 2010; excerpted on Aug 15, 2013]

Compatibility Test Suite

What is the purpose of the CTS?

The Compatibility Test Suite is a tool used by device manufacturers to help ensure their devices are compatible, and to report test results for validations. The CTS is intended to be run frequently by OEMs throughout the engineering process to catch compatibility issues early.

What kinds of things does the CTS test?

The CTS currently tests that all of the supported Android strong-typed APIs are present and behave correctly. It also tests other non-API system behaviors such as application lifecycle and performance. We plan to add support in future CTS versions to test “soft” APIs such as Intents as well.

Will the CTS reports be made public?

Yes. While not currently implemented, Google intends to provide web-based self-service tools for OEMs to publish CTS reports so that they can be viewed by anyone. CTS reports can be shared as widely as manufacturers prefer.

How is the CTS licensed?

The CTS is licensed under the same Apache Software License 2.0 that the bulk of Android uses.

Does the CTS accept contributions?

Yes please! The Android Open-Source Project accepts contributions to improve the CTS in the same way as for any other component. In fact, improving the coverage and quality of the CTS test cases is one of the best ways to help out Android.

Can anyone use the CTS on existing devices?

The Compatibility Definition Document requires that compatible devices implement the ‘adb’ debugging utility. This means that any compatible device — including ones available at retail — must be able to run the CTS tests.

Compatibility [Frequently Asked Questions | Android Open Source, created on May 24, 2010; excerpted on Aug 15, 2013]

Compatibility

What does “compatibility” mean?

We define an “Android compatible” device as one that can run any application written by third-party developers using the Android SDK and NDK. We use this as a filter to separate devices that can participate in the Android app ecosystem, and those that cannot. Devices that are properly compatible can seek approval to use the Android trademark. Devices that are not compatible are merely derived from the Android source code and may not use the Android trademark.

In other words, compatibility is a prerequisite to participate in the Android apps ecosystem. Anyone is welcome to use the Android source code, but if the device isn’t compatible, it’s not considered part of the Android ecosystem.

What is the role of Google Play in compatibility?

Devices that are Android compatible may seek to license the Google Play client software. This allows them to become part of the Android app ecosystem, by allowing users to download developers’ apps from a catalog shared by all compatible devices. This option isn’t available to devices that aren’t compatible.

What kinds of devices can be Android compatible?

The Android software can be ported to a lot of different kinds of devices, including some on which third-party apps won’t run properly. The Android Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) spells out the specific device configurations that will be considered compatible.

For example, though the Android source code could be ported to run on a phone that doesn’t have a camera, the CDD requires that in order to be compatible, all phones must have a camera. This allows developers to rely on a consistent set of capabilities when writing their apps.

The CDD will evolve over time to reflect market realities. For instance, the 1.6 CDD only allows cell phones, but the 2.1 CDD allows devices to omit telephony hardware, allowing for non-phone devices such as tablet-style music players to be compatible. As we make these changes, we will also augment Google Play to allow developers to retain control over where their apps are available. To continue the telephony example, an app that manages SMS text messages would not be useful on a media player, so Google Play allows the developer to restrict that app exclusively to phone devices.

If my device is compatible, does it automatically have access to Google Play and branding?

Google Play is a service operated by Google. Achieving compatibility is a prerequisite for obtaining access to the Google Play software and branding. Device manufacturers should contact Google to obtain access to Google Play.

If I am not a manufacturer, how can I get Google Play?

Google Play is only licensed to handset manufacturers shipping devices. For questions about specific cases, contact android-partnerships@google.com.

How can I get access to the Google apps for Android, such as Maps?

The Google apps for Android, such as YouTube, Google Maps and Navigation, Gmail, and so on are Google properties that are not part of Android, and are licensed separately. Contact android-partnerships@google.com for inquiries related to those apps.

Is compatibility mandatory?

No. The Android Compatibility Program is optional. Since the Android source code is open, anyone can use it to build any kind of device. However, if a manufacturer wishes to use the Android name with their product, or wants access to Google Play, they must first demonstrate that the device is compatible.

How much does compatibility certification cost?

There is no cost to obtain Android compatibility for a device. The Compatibility Test Suite is open-source and available to anyone to use to test a device.

How long does compatibility take?

The process is automated. The Compatibility Test Suite generates a report that can be provided to Google to verify compatibility. Eventually we intend to provide self-service tools to upload these reports to a public database.

Who determines what will be part of the compatibility definition?

Since Google is responsible for the overall direction of Android as a platform and product, Google maintains the Compatibility Definition Document for each release. We draft the CDD for a new Android version in consultation with a number of OEMs, who provide input on its contents.

How long will each Android version be supported for new devices?

Since Android’s code is open-source, we can’t prevent someone from using an old version to launch a device. Instead, Google chooses not to license the Google Play client software for use on versions that are considered obsolete. This allows anyone to continue to ship old versions of Android, but those devices won’t use the Android name and will exist outside the Android apps ecosystem, just as if they were non-compatible.

Can a device have a different user interface and still be compatible?

The Android Compatibility Program focuses on whether a device can run third-party applications. The user interface components shipped with a device (such as home screen, dialer, color scheme, and so on) does not generally have much effect on third-party apps. As such, device builders are free to customize the user interface as much as they like. The Compatibility Definition Document does restrict the degree to which OEMs may alter the system user interface for areas that do impact third-party apps.

When are compatibility definitions released for new Android versions?

Our goal is to release new versions of Android Compatibility Definition Documents (CDDs) once the corresponding Android platform version has converged enough to permit it. While we can’t release a final draft of a CDD for an Android software version before the first flagship device ships with that software, final CDDs will always be released after the first device. However, wherever practical we will make draft versions of CDDs available.

How are device manufacturers’ compatibility claims validated?

There is no validation process for Android device compatibility. However, if the device is to include Google Play, Google will typically validate the device for compatibility before agreeing to license the Google Play client software.

What happens if a device that claims compatibility is later found to have compatibility problems?

Typically, Google’s relationships with Google Play licensees allow us to ask them to release updated system images that fix the problems.

The Benefits & Importance of Compatibility [Official Android Blog, Sept 15, 2012]

We built Android to be an open source mobile platform freely available to anyone wishing to use it. In 2008, Android was released under the Apache open source license and we continue to develop and innovate the platform under the same open source license — it is available to everyone at: http://source.android.com. This openness allows device manufacturers to customize Android and enable new user experiences, driving innovation and consumer choice.

As the lead developer and shepherd of the open platform, we realize that we have a responsibility to app developers — those who invested in the platform by adopting it and building applications specifically for Android. These developers each contribute to making the platform better — because when developers support a platform with their applications, the platform becomes better and more attractive to consumers. As more developers build great apps for Android, more consumers are likely to buy Android devices because of the availability of great software content (app titles like Fruit Ninja or Google Maps). As more delighted consumers adopt Android phones and tablets, it creates a larger audience for app developers to sell more apps. The result is a strategy that is good for developers (they sell more apps), good for device manufacturers (they sell more devices) and good for consumers (they get more features and innovation).

In biological terms, this is sometimes referred to as an ecosystem. In economic terms, this is known as a virtuous cycle — a set of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. Each iteration of the cycle positively reinforces the previous one. These cycles will continue in the direction of their momentum until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle.

When we first contemplated Android and formed the Open Handset Alliance, we wanted to create an open virtuous cycle where all members of the ecosystem would benefit. We thought hard about what types of external factors could intervene to weaken the ecosystem as a whole. One important external factor we knew could do this was incompatibilities between implementations of Android. Let me explain:

Imagine a hypothetical situation where the platform on each phone sold was just a little bit different. Different enough where Google Maps would run normally on one phone but run terribly slow on another. Let’s say, for sake of example, that Android implemented an API that put the phone to sleep for a fraction of a second to conserve battery life when nothing was moving on the screen. The API prototype for such a function might look like SystemClock.sleep(millis) where the parameter “millis” is the number of milliseconds to put the device to sleep for.

If one phone manufacturer implemented SystemClock.sleep() incorrectly, and interpreted the parameter as Seconds instead of Milliseconds, the phone would be put to sleep a thousand times longer than intended! This manufacturer’s phone would have a terrible time running Google Maps. If apps don’t run well across devices due to incompatibilities, consumers would leave the ecosystem, followed by developers. The end of the virtuous cycle.

We have never believed in a “one size fits all” strategy, so we found a way to enable differentiation for device manufactures while protecting developers and consumers from incompatibilities by offering a free “compatibility test suite” (CTS). CTS is a set of software tools that tests and exercises the platform to make sure that (for example) SystemClock.sleep(millis) actually puts the device to sleep for only milliseconds. Like Android, the test suite is freely available to everyone under the Apache open source license: http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html

While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform — not a bunch of incompatible versions. We’re grateful to the over 85 Open Handset Alliance members who have helped us build the Android ecosystem and continue to drive innovation at an incredible pace. Thanks to their support the Android ecosystem now has over 500 million Android-compatible devices and counting!

Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content

On Android Compatibility [Android Developers Blog, May 31, 2010]

[This post is by Dan Morrill, Open Source & Compatibility Program Manager. — Tim Bray]

At Google I/O 2010, we announced that there are over 60 Android models now, selling 100,000 units a day. When I wear my open-source hat, this is exciting: every day the equivalent of the entire population of my old home city starts using open-source software, possibly for the first time. When I put on my hat for Android Compatibility, this is humbling: that’s a whole lotta phones that can all share the same apps.

Another thing we launched at Google I/O was an upgraded and expanded source.android.com. The new version has refreshed info on the Android Open-Source Project, and some new tips and tools for device manufacturers — useful if you’re an OEM. However, it also has details on the Android compatibility program, now. This is also aimed mostly at OEMs, but Tim Bray suggested that developers might be interested in a peek at how we keep those 100,000 devices marching to the same beat, every day. So here I am, back on the blog.

The F-word, or, Remember remember the fifth of November

I remember sitting with my colleagues in a conference room in Building 44 on November 5, 2007, listening to Andy Rubin and Eric Schmidt announce Android to the world. I remember a lot of the press stories, too. For instance, Android was “just words on paper” which was especially entertaining since I knew we were getting ready to launch the first early-look SDK a mere week later.

Another meme I remember is… yes, “fragmentation”. Literally before the close of business on the same day we announced Android (4:46pm to be precise), I saw the first article about Android “fragmentation.” The first day wasn’t even over yet, and the press had already decided that Android would have a “fragmentation” problem.

The thing is, nobody ever defined “fragmentation” — or rather, everybody has a different definition. Some people use it to mean too many mobile operating systems; others to refer to optional APIs causing inconsistent platform implementations; still others use it to refer to “locked down” devices, or even to the existence of multiple versions of the software at the same time. I’ve even seen it used to refer to the existence of different UI skins. Most of these definitions don’t even have any impact on whether apps can run!

Because it means everything, it actually means nothing, so the term is useless. Stories on “fragmentation” are dramatic and they drive traffic to pundits’ blogs, but they have little to do with reality. “Fragmentation” is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers. Yawn.

Compatibility

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t real challenges in making sure that Android devices are compatible with each other, or that there aren’t very real concerns that keep app developers awake at night. There definitely are, and I spend a great deal of time indeed thinking about them and addressing them. The trick is to define them clearly.

We define “Android compatibility” to be the ability of a device to properly run apps written with the Android SDK. This is a deceptively simple way to frame it, because there are a number of things that can go wrong. Here are a few:

Bugs – devices might simply have bugs, such as a buggy Bluetooth driver or an incorrectly implemented GPS API.

Missing components – devices might omit hardware (such as a camera) that apps expect, and attempt to “fake” or stub out the corresponding API.

Added or altered APIs – devices might add or alter APIs that aren’t part of standard Android. Done correctly this is innovation; done poorly and it’s “embrace and extend”.

Each of these is an example of something that can make an app not run properly on a device. They might run, but they won’t runproperly. These are the things that I spend my time preventing.

How It Works

As stewards of the platform we realize that it’s vital to allow only compatible devices to participate in the Android ecosystem. So, we make compatibility a strict prerequisite for access to Android Market and the right to use the Android name. This means that developers can rely on the fact that Android Market — the keystone of the Android ecosystem — will only allow their apps to run on compatible devices. It’s pretty self-evident that a single app ecosystem is better than many small ones, so OEMs are generally pretty motivated to ship compatible devices.

But motivation alone doesn’t get us very far without tools to actually ensure compatibility, which is where the Android compatibility program [page created on May 20, 2010] comes in. This program is like a stool with three legs: the Android source code, the Compatibility Definition Document, and the Compatibility Test Suite.

It all starts with the Android source code. Android is not a specification, or a distribution in the traditional Linux sense. It’s not a collection of replaceable components. Android is a chunk of software that you port to a device. For the most part, Android devices are running the same code. The fact that all Android devices run the same core Android code goes a long way toward making sure those devices all work the same way.

However, this doesn’t solve the problems of missing components or altered APIs, because the source code can always be tweaked. This is where the Compatibility Definition Document (or CDD) comes in. The CDD defines in gory detail exactly what is expected of Android devices. It clearly states, for example, that devices may not omit most components, and that the official Android APIs may not be altered. In a nutshell, the CDD exists to remove ambiguities around what’s required of an Android device.

Of course, none of that overcomes the simple reality of human error — bugs. This is where the Compatibility Test Suite comes in. The CTS is a collection of more than 20,000 test cases that check Android device implementations for known issues. Device makers run the CTS on their devices throughout the development process, and use it to identify and fix bugs early. This helps ensure that the builds they finally ship are as bug-free as possible.

Keeping Up with the Times

We’ve been operating this compatibility process with our OEM partners for over a year now, and it’s largely responsible for those 60+ device models being interoperable. However no process is ever perfect and no test suite is ever 100% comprehensive, and sometimes bugs get through. What happens then?

Well, we have great relationships with our OEMs, and like I said, they’re motivated to be compatible. Whenever we hear about a serious bug affecting apps, we report it to our partners, and they typically prepare a bugfix release and get it out to end users. We will also typically add a test case to the CTS to catch that problem for future devices. It’s an ongoing process, but generally our partners are as interested as we are in the user experience of the devices they sell.

The mobile industry today is “very exciting”, which is code for “changes painfully fast”. We believe that the only way Android will be a success is to keep up with that change, and ultimately drive that change. This means that over time, the CDD will also change. We’ll add new text to handle problem cases we encounter, and the actual requirements will change to accommodate the innovations happening in the field. For example, in the 2.1/Eclair CDD, we tweaked the CDD slightly to make telephony optional, which allows Android to ship compatibly on non-phone handheld devices. Whenever we do this, of course, we’ll make corresponding changes to the Android APIs and Android Market to make sure that your apps are protected from ill effects.

On a somewhat related note, a lot of ink has been spilled on the fact that there are multiple versions of Android out there in users’ hands at the same time. While it’s true that devices without the latest software can’t run some of the latest apps, Android is 100% forward compatible — apps written properly for older versions also run on the newest versions. The choice is in app developers’ hands as to whether they want to live on the bleeding edge for the flashiest features, or stay on older versions for the largest possible audience. And in the long term, as the mobile industry gets more accustomed to the idea of upgradeable phone software, more and more devices will be be upgraded.

What It Means for You

All that is great — but what does it mean for developers? Well, we put together a page in the SDK Documentation to explain this, so you should take a look there. But really it boils down to this:

As a developer, you simply decide what features your app requires, and list them in your app’s AndroidManifest.xml.

The Android compatibility program ensures that only compatible devices have access to Android Market.

Android Market makes sure your app is only visible to those devices where it will run correctly, by filtering your app from devices which don’t have the features you listed.

That’s all!

There almost certainly will be devices that have access to Android Market that probably weren’t quite what you had in mind when you wrote your app. But this is a very good thing — it increases the size of the potential audience for your app. As long as you accurately list your app’s requirements, we’ll do the rest and make sure that your app won’t be accessible to a device where it won’t run properly. After all, we’re app developers ourselves, and we know how painful it is to deal with users upset about an app not working on a device it wasn’t designed for.

Now, that’s not to say that we think our current solution is perfect — no solution is. But we’re continuously working on improvements to the SDK tools and Android Market to make your life as an Android developer even easier. Keep an eye on this blog and on the Android Market itself for the latest info.

Thanks for reading, and happy coding!

Android Compatibility Downloads [page created on May 19, 2010; content excerpted on Aug 15, 2013]

Thanks for your interest in Android Compatibility! The links below allow you to access the key documents and information.

Thanks for your interest in Android Compatibility! The links below allow you to access the key documents and information.

Android 4.3

Android 4.3 is the release of the development milestone code-named Jelly Bean-MR2 [July 24, 2013]. Source code for Android 4.3 is found in the ‘android-4.3_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.3 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 4.3 R1 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)
Android 4.3 R1 CTS Verifier

Android 4.2

Android 4.2 is the release of the development milestone code-named Jelly Bean-MR1 [Oct 29, 2012]. Source code for Android 4.2 is found in the ‘android-4.2.2_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.2 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 4.2 R4 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)
Android 4.2 R5 CTS Verifier

Android 4.1

Android 4.1.1 is the release of the development milestone code-named Jelly Bean [July 23, 2012]. Source code for Android 4.1.1 is found in the ‘android-4.1.1_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.1 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 4.1 R3 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)
Android 4.1 R6 CTS Verifier

Android 4.0.3

Android 4.0.3 is the release of the development milestone code-named Ice Cream Sandwich [Dec 16, 2011]. Android 4.0.3 is the current version of Android. Source code for Android 4.0.3 is found in the ‘android-4.0.3_r1’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 4.0 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 4.0.3 R3 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)
Android 4.0.3 R2 CTS Verifier

Android 2.3

Android 2.3 is the release of the development milestone code-named Gingerbread [Dec 6, 2010]. Source code for Android 2.3 is found in the ‘gingerbread’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 2.3 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 2.3 R13 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)
Android 2.3 R3 CTS Verifier

Android 2.2

Android 2.2 is the release of the development milestone code-named FroYo [May 20, 2010]. Source code for Android 2.2 is found in the ‘froyo’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 2.2 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 2.2 R8 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)

Android 2.1

Android 2.1 is the release of the development milestone code-named Eclair [Jan 12, 2010]. Source code for Android 2.1 is found in the ‘eclair’ branch in the open-source tree. Note that for technical reasons, there is no compatibility program for Android 2.0 or 2.0.1, and new devices must use Android 2.1.

Android 2.1 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 2.1 R5 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)

Android 1.6

Android 1.6 was the release of the development milestone code-named Donut [Sept 15, 2009]. Android 1.6 was obsoleted by Android 2.1. Source code for Android 1.6 is found in the ‘donut’ branch in the open-source tree.

Android 1.6 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD)
Android 1.6 R1 Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)

Compatibility Test Suite Manual

The CTS user manual is applicable to any CTS version, but CTS 2.1 R2 and beyond require additional steps to run the accessibility tests.

Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) User Manual

CTS Media Files

These media files are required for the CTS media stress tests.

CTS Media 1.0

Older Android Versions

There is no Compatibility Program for older versions of Android, such as Android 1.5 (known in development as Cupcake). New devices intended to be Android compatible must ship with Android 1.6 or later.

The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower

August 13, 2013 10:28 pm / 9 Comments on The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower

download this PDF-format mini e-book
(now with an extensive follow-up & ‘The global forces behind …’ analysis, later in this post)

Subtitle:
China is the epicenter of the mobile Internet world, so of the next-gen HTML5 web

Put* together by Sándor Nacsa in August 2013

This mini e-book is a follow-up to the findings of “China is the epicenter of the mobile Internet world, so of the next-gen HTML5 web” [Aug 5, 2013] post from my trend-tracking blog “Experiencing the Cloud”, as well as the following posts which lead to those findings:

IMT-Advanced (4G) for the next-generations of interactive mobile services, China is triumphant [Oct 24, 2010]

Good TD-LTE potential for target commercialisation by China Mobile in 2012 [July 13, 2011 – Feb 8, 2012]

TD-SCDMA: US$3B into the network (by the end of 2012) and 6 million phones procured (just in October)[ Oct 18, 2011]

China becoming the lead market for mobile Internet in 2012/13 [Dec 1, 2011]

MWC 2012: the 4G/LTE lightRadio network [Oct 16, 2012]

China: 20,000 TD-LTE base stations in 13 cities by the end of 2012 and about 200,000 base stations in 100 cities launched in 2013 with the 2.6GHz TDD spectrum planning just started—SoftBank with TD-LTE strategy in Japan getting into global play with Sprint (also the 49% owner of US TD-LTE champion, Clearwire) acquisition [Oct 16, 2012]

download this PDF-format mini e-book

Now an extensive FOLLOW-UP
(& ‘The global forces behind …’ analysis after that)

China emerging as ‘mobile only’ in sharp contrast to the US multiscreen market [DIGITIMES, Aug 19, 2013]

With smartphone penetration still in the early stages in China, a new study indicates that the country could become a “one screen nation,” outpacing the US in consumers who use smartphones as their sole or primary media device, according to research developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Interactive Internet Advertising Committee of China (IIACC).

The research revealed that media consumption is more impacted by smartphone ownership in China. More than a quarter of China-based smartphone owners report less TV watching and reduced print consumption as a result of owning a mobile connected device (28% and 27% respectively). In comparison to their US counterparts, China-based smartphone owners are 86% more likely to report less TV usage and 42% more likely to report less print usage.

In contrast to China smartphone owners’ concentrated focus on the small screen, US smartphone owners are much more likely to consume other media with their mobile devices in hand. For example, while watching TV, smartphone users report participating in Internet communication (51% US vs. 10% China), reading social media (38% US vs. 9% China), and conducting a local search (34% US vs. 8% China). The data shows similar disparities when it comes to reading print media, the research found.

The two firms said the research also illustrates Americans’ greater dependency on their smartphones as devices that they would “never leave home without” (69%). In comparison, merely 6% of their China counterparts said the same. Approximately one-third (34%) of Americans said that their smartphone is the “first thing I reach for when I wake up,” as opposed to 7% of China-based smartphone owners.

China-based consumers are also more apt to use their smartphones for web browsing than Americans (32% China vs. 21% US), the research found. More than one fifth (23%) of China-based respondents said that they spent three hours or more per day in the last week accessing the Internet with their smartphones. The top reason they cited for turning to their smartphones was “entertainment.”

Slush 2012: Keynote by John Lindfords (Digital Sky Technologies – DST) [startupsauna YouTube channel, Nov 24, 2013]

Nov 21, 2012 [16:30-16:50]: John Lindfors of DST chats about how the Internet and especially mobile are changing the world as well as the ample startup opportunities that ensue out of that unprecedented connectedness. But what has he to say of Asia’s perception of European startup activity? John Lindfors is a Partner of Digital Sky Technology (DST) and Managing Director of the Asian office in Hong Kong. He joined DST in 2010. Prior to joining DST, he was the Partner in charge of the European Technology and Media department for Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in London in 1993 and worked in London and New York during his 17 years at the firm focusing on the technology and media sectors. John has a M.Sc. (Econ) from the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki.

How Social Media & E-Commerce Operate in China [Tim Swanson YouTube channel, Aug 13, 2013]

Tim Swanson, author of Great Wall of Numbers, interviews Matt Garner, a seasoned China specialist about companies such as Tencent and Alibaba — the giants of the Chinese Internet. Matt worked for a brand marketing consulting company and large NGO in Shanghai and is an expert on Chinese web trends and market analysis. Website: http://www.ofnumbers.com

China’s E-Commerce Boom: Millennials Shop Alibaba & ASOS [ForaTv YouTube channel, Aug 3, 2013]

Full video available at: http://fora.tv/2013/07/11/Around_the_World_in_Almost_10_Slides Matt Hiscock, senior vice president for ASOS US, describes how the fashion e-commerce company plans to work with the demands of shoppers in China.

Weibo: How Chinese Microblogs Sneak Fashion Past Censors [ForaTv YouTube channel, June 14, 2013]

Full video available for purchase at: http://fora.tv/2013/05/21/Do_in_Rome_as_the_Romans_Do_-_Winning_Strategy_in_a_Fast-Changing_Market Executive vice president of Shanghai Jahwa United Co. Ltd. Hua Fang shows how microblogging tools like Weibo – the equivalent of Twitter in China – are helping to globalize brands.

Alibaba investment spooks some of China’s online shoppers [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 4, 2013]

Aug. 5 – E-commerce giant Alibaba’s investment in the Weibo microblogging service has resulted in users being bombarded with targeted ads for everything from bikinis to coffins. Anita Li examines the reaction.

Chinese Tech Giant Sets Sights on $265 Billion “Smart TV” Market [TheMotleyFool YouTube channel, July 24, 2013]

It’s no secret that the television will be the next great tech battleground. But what is less clear— and what will ultimately prove most profitable to tech-oriented investors— is what company will be the last one standing. Motley Fool analyst Lyons George discusses Alibaba, a Chinese Internet giant that deals in e-commerce, online auctions, and— as early this week— “smart television” operating systems. With an IPO expected any day now, Alibaba’s entrance into the projected $265 billion next-gen TV market is raising investor eyebrows around the globe.

In China smartphone market, cheap rules – and Apple suffers [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 19, 2013]

Aug. 19 – Apple’s seen its market share in China dwindle as homegrown smartphone makers crank out feature-packed budget models. Could the launch of a cheaper iPhone restore its flagging fortunes?

FACTBOX: Will China Mobile deal widen Apple’s wedge? [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 20, 2013]

Aug. 20 – Apple is losing market share to cheaper rivals in China. But a tie-up with top carrier China Mobile seems to be getting closer, and could quickly alter the country’s billion-strong playing field.

‘Broadband China’ aims to speed up network [CCTV News YouTube channel, Aug 18, 2013]

In its emphasis on ensuring that information technology becomes a key driver of growth, China has unveiled its new Broadband China strategy. As in the US, and Europe, the goal is that faster broadband should result in greater industrial efficiency, and, convenience for households.

More foreign carriers to deploy TD-LTE [China Daily video published on March 14, 2012 via SPHRazorTV YouTube channel]

March 14, 2012: Wang Jianzhou, Chairman of China Mobile Communications Corporation and a CPPCC member, talked about the current situation of TD-LTE’s development and promotion as an international 4G standard.

TD-LTE Subscriptions to Surpass 500 Million by 2017, Representing Annual TD-LTE Operator Service Revenues of $91 Billion Worldwide [Research and Markets announcement via PRNewswire, Aug 16, 2013]

More than 50 mobile carriers worldwide have so far committed to TDD LTE technology, and over 30 OEMs have commercially launched TD-LTE compatible devices, with a major proportion of these devices supporting both FDD and TDD modes of operation.

This forecast datasheet presents revenue and shipment market size and forecasts for both infrastructure and devices, along with subscription and service revenue projections for the LTE market as a whole, as well as separate projections for the TD-LTE and FDD-LTE sub-markets from 2012 through to 2017. Historical figures are also presented for 2010 and 2011, along with vendor market share data.

Driven by large scale TDD spectrum availability and the technology’s lower deployment costs, the industry witnessed several prominent TD-LTE network deployments in late 2011 and early 2012, including Softbank in Japan, Etisalat Mobily and STC in Saudi Arabia, and Bharti Airtel in India. More recently, in October 2012, the TD-LTE ecosystem received a major boost when China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that the entire 190 MHz of spectrum in the 2.5/2.6 GHz band will be allocated for TD-LTE deployments in China, which harmonizes its TDD spectrum with Japan and the US, two major LTE markets.

These developments could allow the TD-LTE ecosystem to reach significant economies of scale, boosting further infrastructure and device investments in TD-LTE technology.

20130430 SoftBank、Sprintについての会見。質疑最終部分と囲み [Tamotsu Hashimoto YouTube channel, May 1, 2013]

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son arguing against Dish Network counteroffer to acquire Sprint.

Sprint shareholders approve $21 6 billion deal with SoftBank [KansasCityNews YouTube channel, news article and video on June 25, video published via YouTube on Aug 13, 2013]

By combining their interests, Sprint and SoftBank hope to be able to negotiate better deals with network equipment companies, cellphone makers and lenders. Their aim is turning Sprint into a stronger competitor for Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Sprint and SoftBank’s plans rely heavily on valuable wireless spectrum controlled by Clearwire Corp. Spectrum are the licensed airwaves that carry video, downloads and other data-heavy activity of smartphone customers. Sprint has a deal to buy the roughly half of Clearwire it doesn’t already own for $5 a share. The Clearwire merger is part of the plans Sprint and SoftBank submitted to the FCC’s review. Clearwire shareholders vote July 8 on the merger with Sprint. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/25/4311893/sprint-shareholders-approve-deal.html#storylink=cpy

Sprint CFO: SoftBank deal lets us take Clearwire spectrum nationwide [FierceWireless, July 30, 2013]

Sprint (NYSE:S) will be able to deploy Clearwire’s 2.5 GHz spectrum for TD-LTE service on a nationwide basis now that it is flush with fresh capital from SoftBank, which now controls 78 percent of Sprint, according to Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer. Sprint formally took control of Clearwire earlier this month.

Steve Elfman, president of network operations at Sprint, noted during the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call that Sprint now plans to deploy Clearwire’s 2.5 GHz spectrum on all 38,000 of its planned Network Vision cell sites and even more sites than that in a nationwide rollout. Previously, Sprint had said it would use Clearwire’s spectrum as a “hotspot” LTE network to offload traffic in urban markets.

In an interview with FierceWireless, Euteneuer said SoftBank’s $21.6 billion acquisition–which includes $5 billion in new capital and allowed Sprint to buy Clearwire–spurred Sprint to make the shift in strategy. The move will let Sprint add more capacity to its own FDD-LTE network, which it is still in the process of being built out. Euteneuer noted that Sprint and Clearwire originally planned to deploy Clearwire’s spectrum on around 5,000 cell sites as an offload network in urban markets. Those plans are still proceeding this year, but Sprint now wants to expand that to improve the customer experience.

“Now that we own 100 percent of Clearwire, with the help of SoftBank, we said, how do we take full advantage of the 2.5 GHz spectrum?” Euteneuer said. “The best way to do that is to have it fully integrated with the rest of your spectrum capabilities. And to do that you really need to put it on every tower.”

The Sprint CFO said because of the weaker propagation characteristics of 2.5 GHz, Sprint will deploy small cells and other sites beyond the 38,000 Network Vision sites the company has mapped out. He said it is unclear at this point if the nationwide deployment of Clearwire’s spectrum will be finished by the end of 2014. Clearwire commands around 160 MHz of spectrum in the top 100 markets.

It is unclear exactly how many TD-LTE cell sites using Clearwire’s spectrum will be online by year-end. Iyad Tarazi, head of network development and integration for Sprint, recently told CNET that Sprint will have 5,000 Clearwire sites on air by year-end, but on Tuesday Elfman was less specific, and said “we’ll have several thousand sites up this year because of the work that Clearwire was doing before us.”

“We are working with Clearwire on plans and will share more soon,” Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton said in a follow-up statement.

…

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said the deployment of a nationwide LTE network on 2.5 GHz will help give Sprint “competitive parity” with its rivals. “And the important thing in terms of what we believe will be a better, a superior network experience will depend upon how quickly we roll out the 2.5 [GHz spectrum], because that will give us extraordinary capacity and some speed and performance advantages in the market,” he said. …

Xiaomi CEO: Don’t call us China’s Apple [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 15, 2013]

China’s Tencent tops leaderboard, but rivals loom [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 15, 2013]

Aug. 15 – China’s biggest Internet firm, Tencent, has been signing up users and burning up the stock charts. But its recent results point to a tougher future marked by higher costs and tougher competition.

WeChat, Made-in-China Messaging App Grows in Popularity [CCTV News YouTube channel, July 30, 2013]

As SMS messaging continues to grow, more and more players has entered this competitive space. One of those grabbing a bigger and bigger share of this market is the App – WeChat – owned by the Chinese internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd. WeChat is currently the number one messaging App in China. Follow us on Twitter/Facebook/WeChat @CCTVNEWS

Tencent Corporate Video [Alison Lee YouTube channel, Aug 6, 2013]

The global forces behind the overall setup of Chinese Internet giants:

China Deals Represent Half of DST Global’s Recent Investments [The Wall Street Journal – Venture Capital Dispatch, Jan 29, 2013]

China’s doors may be closed to social network company Facebook, but for its pre-IPO investor DST Global, the gates are wide open.

As a result, the firm has managed to invest about $1.5 billion into China-based companies over the past four years, translating into around half the amount of capital it has invested worldwide, Partner John Lindfors told Venture Capital Dispatch.

Unlike some foreign investors, DST Global is happy to take a minority shareholding in portfolio companies, and being a late-stage investor with the ability to write bigger checks, it has also encountered less competition among China-focused investors when targeting new deals.

“We don’t want to take control. If you think about it, some of the most successful companies have been run by their owners. We’re trying to find the next Bill Gates, and back him,” said Lindfors.

DST Global counts Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and online retailer Jingdong Mall as part of its Asian portfolio. DST, alongside other private equity firms like Silver Lake agreed to buy shares in Alibaba at a tender offer of $1.6 billion in 2011. That same year, DST Global also participated in a $1.5 billion third round of funding in Jingdong, with media reports stating that DST bought a 5% share in the online retailer for $500 million.

Although DST Global spent around $1.5 billion on both of those deals, said Lindfors, he noted that the firm is also “happy” to invest far less in a deal, even from $50 million, as deal sizes in China can often be smaller due to the general market size.

Other firms active in China’s Internet space include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, which typically target lesser-sized deals than DST Global, opening the playing field for the Russian investment firm. In fact, KPCB China Investment Partner Wei Zhou last year told Venture Capital Dispatch that it had even started investing in pre-Series A deals.

DST Global, headed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, expects to invest in a “few” more deals in the next year or two across China’s Internet sector, specifically in e-commerce and mobile Internet, on expectations that growing domestic consumption and increasing users of mobile devices will bolster growth in these areas, said Lindfors.

“We see an explosion of smartphone usage,” said Lindfors. Indeed, industry insiders, including Kai Fu Lee, founder of Chinese investment firm Innovation Works, predict China will have 500 million smartphone users by the end of this year, jumping up from the current 330 million.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, DST Global has invested in the likes of Twitter and now-Nasdaq-listed Facebook–which faces restricted use in China–and manages three funds. Last year, Bloomberg reported that DST Global was raising $1 billion for a new technology fund, and separately reported that DST Global I achieved an annual 151% gross internal rate of return. Lindfors declined to comment on the firm’s funds.

DST Global likes other countries across Asia such as Indonesia and India, but for the meantime, opportunities are too early stage, said Lindfors, who previously worked at investment bank Goldman Sachs.

DST Global, which has an Asia-based office in Hong Kong, was set up by entrepreneur Milner, and is best known for investing $200 million in Facebook in 2009, and then a subsequent round in 2011 worth $500 million with Goldman Sachs.

Milner Discusses Social Networking Companies, Facebook: Video [Bloomberg YouTube channels, March 23, 2012]

Yuri Milner, chief executive officer of Digital Sky Technologies, talks with Bloomberg’s Cris Valerio about his company’s investment strategy in social-networking companies like Facebook Inc. Digital Sky is a privately held company investing in Internet related companies. Bloomberg’s Betty Liu also speaks.

2012 – My Recipe for a Better Tomorrow – Mr. Yuri Milner [PresidentialConf YouTube channel, June 24, 2012]

The fourth Israeli Presidential Conference, Facing Tomorrow 2012. Plenary: My Recipe for a Better Tomorrow. Speaker: Mr. Yuri Milner.

Encouraging Innovation – Yuri Milner at European Zeitgeist 2011 [zeitgeistminds YouTube channel, May 17, 2011]

Yuri Milner talks about his primary aims, which include finding investors for new businesses and to encouraging innovation. He calls social a dominant theme and says that innovation happens when there is concentration and a critical mass.

Юрий Мильнер с 2005 года началась эра социального Интернета [Umid Matnazarov YouTube channel, Sept 20, 2011]

Президент компании Digital Sky Technologies Юрий Мильнер – член президентской комиссии по модернизации и технологическому развитию экономики. В интервью “Вестям” он рассказал о направлениях работы комиссии и о тенденциях развития Интернета.

Alibaba Said to Have Applied for HK Listing [The China Perspective, July 23, 2013]

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China’s dominant e-commerce service provider, has lodged its application for listing at the Hong Kong stock exchange aimed at raising up to $20 billion, Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily reported. The company is expected to float in October with a valuation of $100 billion. Approximately $7 billion from the money raised will be used to buy back Alibaba’s share owned by Yahoo! Inc (Nasdaq: YHOO), the source said. Alibaba delisted its B2B site Alibaba.com a year ago in preparation for the initial public offering of the group as a whole. Its Taobao.com is China’s top C2C site; its Tmall.com is China’s top B2C site; its Alipay is China’s top third party billing service provider. Japan’s Softbank is Alibaba’s largest shareholder, holding a 35% stake; Yahoo owns 23%, Alibaba’s management owns 24.7%; some private equities and institutional investors own 10.3%; its founder Jack Ma owns 7%.

Masayoshi Son [Wikipedia]

Masayoshi Son (Japanese: 孫正義 Hepburn: Son Masayoshi^?, Korean: 손정의 Son Jeong-ui; born August 11, 1957) is a Japanese businessman and the founder and current chief executive officer of SoftBank, the chief executive officer of SoftBank Mobile, and current chairman of Sprint Corporation. According to Forbes magazine, his net worth is $8.1 billion as of 2011 and he is the second richest man in Japan,^[1]despite having the distinction of losing the most money in history (approximately $70 billion during the dot com crash of 2000). ^[2] Forbes also describes him as a philanthropist.

Masayoshi Son is known for his extreme persistence to achieve his business goals. As example, when Japan’s Post and Telecommunications Ministry denied his application for a particular telecommunications license, he is reported^[3]^[4] to have threatened to set himself on fire inside the Ministry if his company is not awarded the desired license (however, he is reported^[5] not have brought any fuel along to back up his threat).

Former Amazon manager takes Chinese e-commerce company global [GeekWire, Aug 16, 2013]

Watch out, Amazon.com. A Chinese e-commerce company is out to redefine notions of customer service. If you think free shipping in two days is fast, how about in three hours?

In cities across China, customers can order everything from fresh produce to a new laptop, get it delivered for free the same day, pay cash on delivery and even refuse the goods at the door if they fail to meet expectations.

It’s all part of a strategy of JD.com (formerly 360buy) to become China’s largest e-commerce company and expand globally. China’s booming and highly competitive e-commerce market gets more interesting all the time, and JD.com is a major player to watch.

JD.com stands for parent company Jingdong, which has grown to become China’s largest online company that sells directly to consumers, with 100 million registered users, 5 million orders a day, and a whopping 60 billion RMB in sales ($10 billion) in 2012. The company rebranded itself earlier this year and may be planning a U.S. IPO.

Jingdong Vice President and General Manager Shi Tao, who spent more than three years working for Amazon China, visited Seattle this week to introduce the company and meet with prospective customers and partners.

JD.com operates differently than its major competitor, Alibaba’s Tmall, in that Jingdong spent years building its own network of warehouses and fulfillment centers, allowing it to manage its own delivery rather than simply matching buyers and sellers or relying on third parties to ship the goods.

“Chinese consumers want to shop on the platform with the best experience, especially shipping and post-sales customer services,” Shi said. In May Jingdong introduced nighttime and three-hour delivery services in six Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenyang. The company offers same-day delivery in 27 major cities and next-day delivery in more than 150 cities across China.

Tmall is still the leading B2C company in China overall, with more than 51 percent of the market, compared to Jingdong’s 17 percent, according to iResearch. Amazon China has about 2 percent of that market.

…

China’s e-tailing industry has posted 120 percent annual growth since 2003, and online sales in China could reach $650 billion by 2020, according to McKinsey Global Institute.

What was not mentioned in the DST/Lindfors interview earlier:

DST has strong ties to
DST’s partners and employees
Goldman Sachs. Alexander Tamas
in 2008 and John Lindfors,
Goldman Sachs, joined DST in
employees include Rahul Mehta and
2011, DST has orchestrated an
brought Goldman Sachs into the

Goldman Sachs. The majority of
have previously worked at
joined DST from Goldman Sachs
a previous partner at
2010. Other ex-Goldman Sachs
Shou Zi Chew. In January
investment into Facebook and
deal.

From Digital Sky Technologies is …

Asia Awards: VC Deal of the Year – Xiaomi [Asian Venture Capital Journal, Dec 5, 2012]

Validation of Xiaomi’s approach was provided by Yuri Milner of DST Advisors who led a $216 million third round of funding in June – valuing the company at $4 billion – with Government of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC) also involved.

DST Founder Yuri Milner Invests in Xiaomi [Tech In Asia, Dec 23, 2011]

We already knew Xiaomi had scored $90 million ~~RMB~~ in new financing — they announced that at their press conference with China Unicom on Tuesday — but Lei Jun has now revealed on Weibo where at least some of that money came from: DST founder Yuri Milner.

Xiaomi’s market value could reach US$10bn after new financing [WantChinaTimes.com, July 28, 2013]

Xiaomi Technology, a Chinese manufacturer of own-brand budget smartphones, will soon launch another round of financing worth more than US$2 billion, with insiders suggesting the main investor will be Russian venture capital firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the Shanghai-based First Financial Daily reports.

Leading Chinese internet firm Tencent Holdings invested US$300 million in DST in April 2010 and would therefore become an indirect investor in Xiaomi, the report said, though both Tencent and Xiaomi have declined to comment.

Rumor: Tencent Invests in Xiaomi via Russian VC [Marbridge Consulting, July 23, 2013]

According to industry insiders, Beijing-based Android handset developer Xiaomi has secured a new round of funding exceeding USD 2 bln from Chinese internet and mobile services firm Tencent (0700.HK), with Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) acting as an intermediary.

The latest round of funding values Xiaomi at approximately USD 10 bln.

Tencent Invests $300m in DST and Establishes Strategic Partnership [Tencent press release, April 12, 2010]

Tencent Holdings Limited (“Tencent” or the “Company”, SEHK 00700), a leading provider of Internet and mobile & telecommunications value-added services in China, and Digital Sky Technologies Limited (“DST”), one of the largest Internet companies in the Russian-speaking and Eastern European markets, today jointly announced that Tencent will invest approximately US$300 million in DST, thereby establishing a long-term strategic partnership between the two companies.

The aggregate consideration of approximately US$300 million, which will be paid in cash, gives Tencent approximately a 10.26% economic interest in DST upon completion of the transaction. Tencent will hold approximately 0.51% of the total voting power of DST and have the right to nominate one observer to the DST Board.

DST and Tencent will embark on a long-term partnership and co-operation as they seek to benefit from each other’s insights gained from their respective markets. DST’s deep understanding of the Russian Internet market, together with its leading brands such as Mail.ru, Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, will enable Tencent to benefit from the high growth of the Russian-speaking Internet market. At the same time, Tencent’s leading position in China will provide DST and its companies with unique and valuable operational insights and access to its regional network that can help DST further accelerate its growth path.

Chief Executive Officer of DST, Mr. Yuri Milner, said, “We are extremely pleased to welcome Tencent as a shareholder in DST. This investment is a vote of confidence in DST from the market leader in China and one of the world’s most successful and dynamic Internet companies overall. Our teams share many common views and beliefs and a clear vision about the significant opportunities that lay ahead. We look forward to working together with Tencent and benefiting from their expertise as we both push forward with our plans to capitalize on this immense growth in our markets.”

President of Tencent, Mr. Martin Lau, said, “We are excited to enter into a long-term strategic partnership with DST, a key global Internet player and a leader in Russian-speaking Internet markets. The investment allows us to benefit from the fast-growing Internet market in Russia, as well as to leverage our technical and operational know-how to strengthen the leadership position of DST and explore new business opportunities in the Russian-speaking Internet markets.”

Details of the transaction can also be obtained from the statutory disclosure documents available on http://www.hkexnews.hk website and http://www.tencent.com/ir .

About Digital Sky Technologies

DST was founded in 2005 and is one of the largest Internet companies in the Russian-speaking and Eastern European markets and one of the leading investment groups globally to exclusively focus on internet related companies. DST, together with its affiliate DST Global, also hold stakes in Internet world leaders such as Facebook and Zynga. DST is a privately held company backed by leading Russian and Western financial institutions. For more information please visit http://www.dst-global.com .

About Tencent

Tencent aims to enrich the interactive online experience of Internet users in China by providing a comprehensive range of Internet and wireless value-added services. Through its various online platforms, including Instant Messaging QQ, web portal QQ.com, QQ Game portal, multi-media social networking service Qzone and wireless portal, Tencent services the largest online community in China and fulfills the user’s needs for communication, information, entertainment and e-Commerce on the Internet.

Tencent has three main streams of revenues: Internet value-added services, mobile and telecommunications value-added services and online advertising.

Shares of Tencent Holdings Limited are traded on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited, under stock code 00700. The Company became one of the 43 constituents of the Hang Seng Index (HSI) on June 10, 2008. For more information, please visit http://www.tencent.com/ir .

Naspers makes strategic investment in DST [press release, July 14, 2010]

DST to assume full control of Mail.ru upon share swap with Naspers

Johannesburg and Moscow, 14 July 2010 – Naspers Limited (“Naspers”), the broad based international media group, and Digital Sky Technologies Limited (“DST”), one of the largest internet companies in the Russian-speaking markets, announces today that Naspers’s subsidiary Myriad International Holdings B.V. (“MIH”) will take a 28,7% stake in DST. The transaction will be effected by Naspers contributing its 39,3% stake in Mail.ru into DST and investing US$388m in cash. Concurrently, Mail.ru management and other minorities will also convert their shares into DST.

Upon the close of this transaction, DST will own over 99,9% of Mail.ru. Mail.ru is the leading communication and entertainment platform in the Russian-speaking internet world, with over 50m registered email accounts, leading market share in MMO games and one of the leading social networks in Russia.

Naspers and DST have worked closely together over the past three years as co-owners of Mail.ru and today’s transaction will enable them to further strengthen that relationship.

Chief Executive Officer of DST, Yuri Milner, said, “Naspers’s strategic insight has already proven to be valuable in our partnership and we welcome the expertise they will bring to DST. We are delighted to announce this transaction and look forward to creating further value through our relationship.”

Antonie Roux, head of Naspers’s internet operations, commented: “We have known DST and its management for years and we share a similar view and approach. We are excited to strengthen our partnership. This opportunity further expands our exposure to emerging markets and the fast-growing internet sector.”

About Digital Sky Technologies

DST was founded in 2005 and is one of the largest internet companies in the Russian-speaking and Eastern European markets and one of the leading investment groups globally to exclusively focus on internet related companies. DST, together with its affiliate DST Global, also holds stakes in internet world leaders such as Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. DST is a privately held company backed by leading international financial institutions and companies. For more information please visit http://www.dstglobal.com.

About Naspers

Naspers is a leading emerging market media group operating in 129 countries. It is listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE), with an ADR (American Deposit Receipt) listing on the London Stock Exchange. The group’s principal operations are in internet platforms (focusing on commerce, communities, content, communication and games), pay-television and the provision of related technologies and print media (including publishing, distribution and printing of magazines, newspapers and books). The group’s most significant operations in emerging markets include South Africa and subSaharan Africa, China, Central and Eastern Europe, India, Brazil, Russia and Thailand. For more information visit http://www.naspers.com.

Tencent (700 HK) [RHB OSK Securities (Thailand) report, Aug 15, 2013]

Internet – Online Games and Media
Market Cap: USD88,608m

Shareholders (%)
MIH China (Naspers)         33.9
Ma Huateng [Pony Ma]     10.2
JP Morgan                             4.5

…

Good WeChat progress. The pace of development on Tencent’s mobile social platform WeChat has exceeded our expectations since its launch. Monthly active users (MAU) breached 236m in 2Q13 (1Q13: 194m) while new services such as sticker sales, targeted ads and the first game released on the platform, TTAXC (天天爱消除), showed monetisation potential.

…

Online advertising is a major earnings driver at the gross profit level.

…

SWOT Analysis

…

Company Profile

Tencent is a leading internet conglomerate in China with operations in online games, social networks, advertising and e-commerce. The company operates leading online games in China while its mobile chat application, which has expanded globally, has a user base exceeding 300m.

Naspers Fact Sheet June 2013:

Business overview

Founded in 1915, Naspers is a leading multinational group of eCommerce and media platforms, with operations in more than 133 countries. Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) since September 1994, it also has an ADR listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

The group’s principal operations are in e-commerce, paytelevision & related technologies and print media. It also has minority investments in listed, integrated social-network platforms Tencent (SEHK 0700) and Mail.ru (LSE: MAIL).

The group focuses on attaining sustainable market positions in growing emerging markets which it believes to present above-average growth opportunities. These markets include South Africa and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, China, Brazil and the rest of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East.

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INTERNET

Naspers operates platforms that offer customers fast, intuitive and secure environments where they can communicate, participate, entertain and shop. The group’s e-commerce services include marketplaces, general and vertical e-tail, classifieds, lead-generation and payments.

Naspers major e-commerce operations are:

Allegro (97%), a leading e-commerce business in Central and Eastern Europe.

BuscaPé (95%), a major e-commerce platform in Brazil.

OLX (84%), a strong classifieds operator in a number of emerging markets.

Other investments include 36Boutiques, Avito, Brandsclub, Dealfish, Dubizzle, eMag, Fashion Days, Flipkart, Fixeads, ibibo Group, kalahari.com, Korbitec, LevelUp!, Markafoni, Movile, Netretail, OLX, PayU, PriceCheck, redBus, Ricardo, Sanook!, Souq, Sulit, Tokobagus, Travel Boutique Online and Trendsales.

Naspers also holds minority positions in:

Tencent (34%) – China’s largest and most used internet services platform.

Mail.ru Group [DST] (29%) – the leading internet company in Russian-speaking markets.

Naspers rides Tencent to Internet fortune [TechCentral (South Africa), Aug 31, 2012]

When Naspers stumbled on a little-known Chinese Internet company in 2001, it could not have dreamed that a US$32m investment would account for more than 80% of the media conglomerate’s R200bn market cap now.

Tencent Holdings is the largest Internet solutions provider in China and Naspers, which owns a 34% stake, is its largest shareholder. R4,8bn of Naspers CEO Koos Bekker’s personal fortune of R6bn in shares is linked to Tencent.

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It [Naspers] has a market capitalisation of about $57bn and its total revenue for the year to 31 December 2011 was up by 45% to $4,4bn. Profit attributable to equity holders was $1,6bn — 27% higher year on year — and its profit for the second quarter of 2012 was up by 32%. The p:e ratio (share price compared with its earnings) is 33.

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Founded in November 1998, Tencent has become one of China’s largest and most widely used Internet service portals and, in 2004, it was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

More than 50% of Tencent employees are research and development staff and the company has obtained patents relating to technology for instant messaging, e-commerce, online payment services, search engines, information security, gaming and more.

Its leading Internet platforms in China include instant messaging, social networking (with 580m active users) and a mobile chat and micro-blogging service known as Weixin. It is also the largest online gaming company in the world.

And the DST money is said to come from:

Faces of the Facebook Corruption [Americans For Innovation or FB Cover-up opinion blog, Jul. 11, 2013]
47 million “likes” undermine the U.S. Constitution and the Rule of Law

THE THREE KINGS & THEIR PRINCES(S)

“Larry Summers is ethically challenged.”
Former Economist Colleagues

Larry Summers and his Facebook Friends conspire to undermine U.S. “checks & balances” and take control of the world economy by stealth, we believe.

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First see a specially written article to understand very easily the whole affair with the judicial and other systems in U.S. in Facebook — a force for freedom perhaps, but at odds with the rule of law in the U.S. [Americans For Innovation (AFI) via Open Trial, July 26, 2013] from which I will include here only the following excerpts:

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In the late 1990s Innovator Leader Technologies invented a technology we now call “social networking.” By the time they filed for their first patents in 2002, they had invested 145,000 man-hours and over $10 million. Literally within three months of Leader perfecting the lynch-pin of their invention, Mark Zuckerberg and his PayPal associates were in the market, on February 4, 2004. Zuckerberg claims to have done all the work himself in “one to two weeks” while chasing girls and studying for finals.

New evidence indicates he received Leader’s source code from a mole who was cooperating with Zuckerberg’s apparent mentor, James W. Breyer, of Accel Partners LLP and with Fenwick & West LLP, who was also Leader’s attorney at the same time. It appears that they were waiting for Leader to finish debugging its invention so that they could roll out the Harvard-boy-genius-Facebook-origins myth, with Zuckerberg in the leading role.

Not so coincidentally, Lawrence Summers was President of Harvard at the time. Summers arranged for the 19-year old Zuckerberg to get more Harvard Crimson news coverage than any world leader or event. Breyer was a big alumni contributor. PayPal COO, Reid Hoffman (later LinkedIn CEO) was coaching Zuckerberg and feeding him spending money, as was Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. Tellingly, these three sold over $6 billion of their Facebook stock on Day 3 of the Facebook IPO, at the highest price anyone received for their stock before it crashed. Summers popped up in Silicon Valley before the IPO too—as “special advisor” to Instagram that sold their 13-man company to Facebook for $1 billion. Could it be that their CEO, Matt Cohler was able to exert some influence over Zuckerberg, as he knew about the theft of the Leader invention?

Forty-four months after filing for their patents, Leader received their first patent on November 21, 2006—U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761. On November 19, 2008, Leader filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook. Leader Technologies, Inc., v. Facebook, Inc., 08-cv-862-JJF-LPS (D.Del. 2008).

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Current Federal Reserve Chairman candidate, Lawrence “Larry” Summers has mentored Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg since the early 1990’s. He also mentored Russian Yuri Milner, who has close ties to Russian oligarch Alisher Asmanov and the Kremlin. Summers was one of the Harvard-wunderkind architects of the disastrous Russian voucher system in the early 1990’s while Chief Economist for the World Bank. Milner is Facebook’s second largest shareholder and is partnered with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. With Goldman’s and Morgan’s help, Milner moved billions of dollars into Facebook pre-IPO. Curiously, Cohler helped Hoffman start LinkedIn in 2004. There appears to have been a feeding frenzy surrounding the debugging of Leader’s invention.

This occurred after the US taxpayers bailed out Goldman and Morgan Stanley in 2008. To this day no one knows the origins of those funds, which pumped Facebook’s valuation up to $100 billion. Milner is also connected with Bank Menatep, which was caught laundering $10 billion in Russian mob funds and diverting $4 billion in IMF funds. Summers’ conduct here has never been scrutinized, even though he was appointed to oversee the bailout soon after Barack Obama was elected President. See Congressional Briefings.

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Georgia [Beardslee] interviews the real inventor of social networking, Michael McKibben, CEO of Leader Technologies, Columbus, Ohio: GEORGIA! KSCO AM 1080, Apr. 10, 2013 Michael McKibben interview, CEO of Leader Technologies, Inc. [leadertv100 YouTube channel, April 12, 2013]

Georgia: “One of the most interesting, complicated and disturbing stories of the decade.” On April 10, 2013, news-talk show host Georgia Beardslee interviewed Michael McKibben, CEO of Leader Technologies, Columbus, Ohio on her weekly radio show GEORGIA! KSCO 1080 (Santa Cruz, CA) about Leader’s battle with Facebook over Leader’s U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761. The interview covers (1) background on the LEADER V. FACEBOOK patent infringement lawsuit; (2) the suspicious split verdict; (3) the Harvard back story; (4) the Federal Circuit judge’s stock in Facebook; (5) the refusal of the Federal Circuit court to disclose their Facebook stock holdings; (6) the likely undue influence of the federal courts by financiers, bankers, underwriters, Silicon Valley venture capitalists; (7) the questionable conduct of the U.S. Patent Office; (8) the judges’ ignoring of Zuckerberg’s concealment of 28 hard drives and Harvard emails; (9) the Facebook-doctored trial evidence; (10) the ruling against Leader without a shred of evidence; (11) the involvement of billions of pre-IPO investments in Facebook by Russian companies, (12) Goldman Sachs’ and Obama bailout director Larry Summers’ involvement, and now (13) the interference of the White House at the U.S. Patent Office. This case appears to have exposed an underbelly of corruption at the national and international levels that is much worse and even more organized than we might have otherwise suspected. While the video plays, pages from Leader’s Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Leader Technologies, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 12-617 (U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 16, 212) will display, page by page (41 pages not counting the appendices). This document can be obtained at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/113545399/P… For background facts, see alsohttp://americans4innovation.blogspot…. This broadcast and these notes may contain opinion. As with all opinion, the information should not be relied upon without independent verification.

Georgia: “One of the most interesting, complicated and disturbing stories of the decade.” On April 10, 2013, news-talk show host Georgia Beardslee interviewed Michael McKibben, CEO of Leader Technologies, Columbus, Ohio on her weekly radio show GEORGIA! KSCO 1080 (Santa Cruz, CA) about Leader’s battle with Facebook over Leader’s U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761.

The interview covers

background on the LEADER V. FACEBOOK patent infringement lawsuit;
[18:30] the suspicious split verdict;
[34:25] the Harvard back story;
the Federal Circuit judge’s stock in Facebook;
the refusal of the Federal Circuit court to disclose their Facebook stock holdings;
the likely undue influence of the federal courts by financiers, bankers, underwriters, Silicon Valley venture capitalists;
the questionable conduct of the U.S. Patent Office;
the judges’ ignoring of Zuckerberg’s concealment of 28 hard drives and Harvard emails;
the Facebook-doctored trial evidence;
the ruling against Leader without a shred of evidence;
the involvement of billions of pre-IPO investments in Facebook by Russian companies,
Goldman Sachs’ and Obama bailout director Larry Summers’ involvement, and now
the interference of the White House at the U.S. Patent Office. This case appears to have exposed an underbelly of corruption at the national and international levels that is much worse and even more organized than we might have otherwise suspected.

While the video plays, pages from Leader’s Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Leader Technologies, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 12-617 (U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 16, 212) will display, page by page (41 pages not counting the appendices). This document can be obtained at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/113545399/P…

For background facts, see also http://americans4innovation.blogspot….

This broadcast and these notes may contain opinion. As with all opinion, the information should not be relied upon without independent verification.

Obama is protecting his 47 million Facebook “likes” at the expense of the U.S. Constitution [Georgia! KSCO-AM1080, May 31, 2013]

(My collaboration with a listener, 5/31/2013):Washington D.C. is toxic and fiendishly deceptive these days. Speaker John Boehner described the flow of scandal developments as “Drip, drip, drip.” I take this to mean that the Deception Tank is full and starting to leak. (At last!)

Investigators are now uncovering common people driving these scandals. The Leader v. Facebook property rights debacle seems to have been another one of their pet deception projects. Remember, Facebook was judged guilty on 11 of 11 counts of stealing the inventions of Columbus-based innovator Leader Technologies, Inc., yet the federal courts ruled for Facebook anyway. They had to ignore the Consitution to do it.

Many people lusted after Leader’s innovations that we know as “social networking.” Obama and his handlers needed it to raise election dollars and polish Obama’s persona many times a day. Larry Summers, Accel Partners and the PayPal Mafia wanted it as their global financial transactions platform, Zuckerberg and his fellow thieves wanted it as a global voyeur platform to invade everyone’s privacy, the Kremlin wanted it as a money-laundering vehicle, James W. Breyer wanted it as his ‘pump and dump” stock manipulation scheme, the greedy law firms wanted it to rake in fees. And, at least two Federal Circuit Judges Alan D. Lourie and Kimberly A. Moore were beefing up their financial portfolios with the pump of their undisclosed Facebook shares at the IPO. Wow, that’s a lot of interests all lusting after Michael McKibben’s innovation! (I have interviewed him on this show twice.)

Beware of McBee Strategic lobbyist Jeff Markey bearing gifts

Americans for Innovation has smoked out intimate, undisclosed relationships among Facebook’s chief litigator in Leader v. Facebook, Cooley Godward LLP’s Michael Rhodes, Obama’s Justice Department Cooley “Advisor,” Donald K. Stern, the failed $1.6 billion BrightSource Obama “green” stimulus project, big Facebook IPO winner J.P. Morgan Chase and McBee Strategic’s Steve McBee and Jeff Markey.

This is so convoluted I asked by resident artist to do me a diagram of these relationships. No wonder Washington is so confused. It’s intentional on the part of some morally bankrupt people and organizations (click to enlarge):

Figure 1: Conflicts of Interest Map among Barack Obama, Executive Branch, Justice Department, Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, Michael Rhodes, Donald K. Stern, McBee Strategic, Steve McBee, Jeff Markey, Judge Leonard P. Stark, Judge Alan D. Lourie, Judge Kimberly A. Moore, Leader v. Facebook, BrightSource, Solyndra,Tesla Motors, Solar City, Elon Musk and 47 million “likes” on Facebook.

McBee Strategic and their lobbyist Jeff Markey have lied at least twice on disclosures that we have already identified. On their BrightSource Senate disclosure on 11/20/2009 they answered “No” to affiliated organizations that actively participate in their activities. This was false since on 4/23/2009 they had publicly announced their alliance with Facebook’s attorney Cooley Godward Kronish LLP specifically about helping companies access Obama’s “green energy” money. That’s LIE #1. Then, we discover that Jeff Markey is accustomed to lying whenever it is to his benefit. On 4/30/2004 Markey lied on a financial disclosure that he was an Executive for SAIC in an apparent deception to gain access to the National Congressional Republican Committee. That’s LIE #2.

Markey clearly plays on both sides of the ball in Washington. While he is busy spending Obama’s billions, he donates mostly to Republicans, including MITCH MCCONNELL, ROB PORTMAN, ARLEN SPECTER, LINDSEY GRAHAM. Republicans beware of this wolf in sheep’s clothing. Such cynical parlaying of contacts just to keep one’s job in Washington is why Washington is failing. These people are there for the wrong reasons. They need to get real jobs. Professional bureaucrats and politicians (and the lobbyists who feed on the rotted meat) are the death knell of a democracy.

While we’re on the subject of lying to Congress, then Magistrate Judge Leonard P. Stark told Congress in his 4/22/2010 confirmation hearing that he would follow the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Appeals Courts. However, three months later he ignored that promise and even after instructing the jury to do so, he ignored the Supreme Court’s Pfaff test of on-sale bar evidence, as well as the Federal Circuit’s Group One tests. Obama and his Facebook “friends” just seem to lie all the time.

Don’t believe me? Check out the source material yourself. Here are some of them we downloaded quickly. Please share more as you find your own information.

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Detailed information is available in Mark Zuckerberg used Leader white paper to build Facebook [Origin of Facebook technology?, Aug 27, 2011] post, from which I will include just the most relevant excerpt in my opinion:

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The court documents reveal how Mark Zuckerberg was able to accelerate from 0-to-60 mph in “one or two weeks” while studying for his Harvard finals to start Facebook on February 4, 2004. The idea for the student facebook was already known at Harvard from three well-documented sources prior to Mr. Zuckerberg: (1) the Winklevoss twins’ ConnectU,[1] (2) Aaron Greenspan’s houseSYSTEM,[2] and (3) from the Harvard computer administration.[3] And, if Leader Technologies (“Leader”) is right, Mr. Zuckerberg lifted the ideas for the structure of the platform from Leader Technologies’ patent pending white papers, one published on October 22, 2003, along with Leader’s first patent publication on June 24, 2004—exactly when Mr. Zuckerberg says “Steven Dawson Haggerty” was hired to build the “groups functionality” which is disclosed in the Leader patent publication.[4][5][6][7]
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More on Yuri Milner:

Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga: I Love Yuri Milner [PandoDaily YouTube channel, July 19, 2012]

From the Wikipedia article: The company develops social games that work stand-alone on mobile phone platforms such as Apple iOS and Android and on the Internet through its website, Zynga.com, and social networking websites such as Facebook, Google+, and Tencent.[5] Zynga states its mission as “connecting the world through games.”[6]

Russian Billionaire buys $100 Million U S Mansion Yuri Milner [estarcobusiness10 YouTube channel, (originally made the news on March 31, 2011) April 2, 2012]

Home Brings $100 Million [WSJ.com, March 31, 2013]

A Russian billionaire investor paid $100 million for a French chateau-style mansion in Silicon Valley, marking the highest known price paid for a single-family home in the U.S.

The purchase of the 25,500-square-foot home in Los Altos Hills, Calif., underscores the strength of some luxury properties in an otherwise depressed housing market.

The buyer, Yuri Milner, 49, who heads Digital Sky Technologies and whose investments include Facebook Inc., Groupon Inc. and Zynga Inc., had no immediate plans to move into the home, said a spokesman.

Mr. Milner is the stocky founder of DST, a Moscow-based fund that’s made a splash in Silicon Valley via its investments. Its first in the U.S. was a $200 million check for Facebook in 2009. His primary residence is in Moscow, where he lives with his wife and two children.

The sky seemed to be the limit for Mr. Milner’s new house, a symmetrical limestone mansion with San Francisco Bay views that was inspired by 18th-century French chateaux.

The home has indoor and outdoor pools, a ballroom and a wine cellar. The grounds include a tennis court and inside are chandeliers and a frieze around a skylight in the entryway, among other details.

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Mr. Milner bought the home through a limited-liability company; the home wasn’t on the market, according to people familiar with the deal.

Mr. Milner, who studied theoretical physics in Moscow and attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, began his career in Moscow in the 1990s. By 1999, he had focused on the Internet after dabbling in everything from private equity to a macaroni-and-cheese factory. …

Larry Summers:

Update: Larry Summers had already a much larger influence over the global affairs since 1990 than anybody could have only imagined. Read Greg Palast’s latest finding of Larry Summers and the Secret “End-Game” Memo [Aug 22, 2013] related to second half of 90s when Summers was Deputy Secretary of U.S. Treasury and Summers was leading what Palast calls “top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet”. Note as well that the author of the secret “End Game” memo written to Summers was nobody else than Timothy F. Geithner than Assistant Secretary to Summers.
AFF 2013 Keynote Luncheon with Lawrence Summers [HKTDC YouTube channel, Jan 23, 2013]

The Asian Financial Forum (AFF) 2013 welcomed Professor Lawrence H Summers, one of America’s most influential economists, who served as Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. In this AFF luncheon on day one of the 14-15 January event – Prof Summers discussed potential short-term and long-term solutions for the global economy, and the unique opportunities presented by low interest rates.

Larry Summers Seeks Edge in Search for Next Fed Head [Bloomberg YouTube channel, July 29, 2013]

Bloomberg’s Hans Nichols reports on President Barack Obama’s search for the next leader of the Federal Reserve, his personal relationships with Lawrence Summers and Janet Yellen and the prospects of a confirmation battle for whoever is the candidate. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.”

The Disastrous Larry Summers For Fed Chair? [golefttv YouTube channel, Aug 10, 2013]

There is some serious talk in Washington about appointing Larry Summers as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. Obama has been out on the stump praising Summers, but when you look at his record, there isn’t anything worthy of praise on this guy’s resume’. Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio talks about the disaster that is Larry Summers with economist Dean Baker.

Peter Schiff – Next Fed Chair Will Lead US to ‘Economic Ruin& Crisis’ economy, economic, crisis, collapse, dollar, crash, us, debt, 2013, 2014 [Gold, Silver & Economy News YouTube channel, Aug 15, 2013]

Alisher Usmanov (+Irina Viner):

Sunday Times Rich List 2013 reveals wealthiest members of UK Jewish community [JewishNewsOne, April 22, 2013]

This year’s Sunday Times Rich List has been revealed — with Arsenal FC 30 per cent shareholder Alisher Usmanov, who hails from Uzbekistan leading the way with a fortune of GBP 13.3 billion. Usmanov is married to a Jewish lady – Irina Viner, who is the Russian national team gymnastics coach.

BBC News – Sunday Times Rich List: Alisher Usmanov [BBCWorldNewsWatch YouTube channel, April 21, 2013]

Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov has topped the Sunday Times ranking of the wealthiest people in Britain and Ireland with a fortune of £13.3bn. The wealthiest British-born person in the list is the Duke of Westminster in eighth place with £7.8bn from property.

Moshiri Becomes Billionaire Helping Usmanov [jagan washpost YouTube channel, July 9, 2012]

Bloomberg’s Matthew G. Miller reports on Farhad Moshiri, an Iranian-born accountant who is now a billionaire after a two-decade alliance with Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s current richest man. Miller speaks on Bloomberg Television’s "InBusiness With Margaret Brennan."

Russia’s Usmanov – Fed Tapering ‘Vital & well-balanced’ (CNBC) [gmshadowtraders YouTube channel, July 11, 2013]

Full video here http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000177176 Alisher Usmanov, founder of USM Holdings, says that the decisions taken by the Fed regarding money and derivatives are “vital” to the global economy and the decision on tapering is “well-balanced”.

Full video: Russia’s Richest Man Supports Fed [CNBC, June 20, 2013]

Форум в Давосе. Интервью А.Усманова [Моше Кац YouTube channel, Jan 23, 2013]

Алишер Усманов одобряет планы, поставленные российскими властями, которые заключаются прежде всего в диверсификации экономики, уменьшении зависимости от сырьевого сектора и развитии новых технологий. Все это позволит построить новую экономическую действительность. Потому бизнесмен уверен: вероятность, что Россия избежит любого из обозначенных на форуме негативных путей, достаточно высока. Интервью главы холдинга “Металлоинвест” Алишера Усманова телеканалу “Россия 24”.

Алишер Усманов: на Россию надвигается этап сложностей [Моше Кац YouTube channel, June 23, 2013]

Инициативы президента Владимира Путина глазами одного из крупнейших бизнесменов России. Предложения и темы ПМЭФ-2013 в интервью телеканалу “Россия 24” комментирует учредитель USM Holdings Алишер Усманов. Он предположил, что мир может находиться в середине кризиса, начавшегося в 2008-ом году. В таком случае выводы, сделанные на форуме, дадут реальный шанс преодолеть предстоящие трудности. Также Алишер Усманов дал ответ на вопрос, который активно обсуждался участниками форума: замедление экономического роста – это миф или реальность?

Без галстука с Ириной Винер [Russia24TV YouTube channel, Nov 7, 2012]

Те, кто хорошо знает Ирину Винер, говорят: “женщина странная”. Добилась всего на самом высоком уровне, уважаемая, заслуженная, доктор, профессор – и все же никак не успокоится: что-то планирует, строит, генерирует новые идеи. Тренер сборных России и Узбекистана по художественной гимнастике стала героем нового выпуска программы “Без галстука”.

Russian Billionaire Usmanov Bets $100M on Apple’s Rebound [Bloomberg YouTube channel, April 30, 2013]

In today’s “Movers & Shakers,” Bloomberg’s Betty Liu reports that Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has bet big on Apple, investing $100 million on a rebound of the company’s stock. She speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.” … He is the world 35th richest person with just under 20 billion dollars.

Results of the year for Alisher Usmanov [Моше Кац YouTube channel, Dec 21, 2012]

Алишер Усманов прокомментировал ситуацию в “Норильском никеле”. В эксклюзивном интервью телеканалу “Россия 24” известный российский бизнесмен сказал, что не хочет участвовать в олигархических сговорах. Кроме того, он предостерег инвесторов от ошибочных выводов: по мнению совладельца крупных предприятий, разочаровываться в Facebook рано. Алишер Усманов рассказал также о том, что планирует увеличить свою долю в социальной сети “ВКонтакте”.

USM Holdings – Internet [Feb 24, 2013]

USM Holdings is a leading global investor in companies in the digital space. Its deep understanding of the internet sector has played a key role in the success of its businesses and the development and diversification of
internet services.

USM Holdings is a major shareholder in Mail.ru Group, with a 17.9% economic stake and 58.1% voting power, and the largest investor in the Digital Sky Technologies (DST ) family of funds, an investment company specialising in late stage, high growth private businesses in the global internet sector. USM Holdings recognises the future growth prospects of e-commerce, social networks, online video, online gaming, mobile internet and online advertising.

MAIL.RU GROUP

Founded in 1998, Mail.Ru Group is the number one internet company in the high growth Russian-speaking internet market reaching c. 85% of Russian users on a monthly basis. It is the world’s fourth largest internet company based on total page views, with a global monthly audience of 97.4 million users.

In line with its ‘communitainment’ strategy, the company is moving rapidly to build an integrated communications and entertainment platform. Mail.Ru Group comprises the most popular Russian free email service Mail.Ru and two popular Russian-language internet instant messengers. The company operates two leading Russian social networks, My World and Odnoklassniki.ru, and owns a 40% stake in VKontakte, Russia’s number one social networking site. Mail.Ru Group is also a leading player in the online games market.

In 2010, Mail.Ru Group successfully completed an IPO on the London Stock Exchange worth c. US$92 million.

Mail.Ru Group’s aggregate segment revenue in 2012 was RUR 21,151 million, representing a 39% year-on-year increase.

PORTFOLIO INVESTMENTS WITH DST

DST was the group’s first internet investment. In 2008, DST became a backer of Facebook based on a firm belief in the strong growth potential of the internet, and particularly social networking. The current market valuation of Facebook exceeds the initial value at the time of DST ’s entry by approximately seven times.

In 2009, DST spun off DST Russia, later renamed Mail.Ru Group (see above), which is a separate business at present.

Through DST and Mail.Ru Group investments, USM Holdings gained international prominence with stakes in some of the world’s leading and most valuable internet assets, including Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Zynga, Spotify, Zocdoc, Airbnb, Alibaba and 360buy.

USM Holdings – Telecoms [April+, 2013; extracted on Aug 22, 2013]

USM Holdings is a major investor in some of Russia’s leading telecoms businesses. It is ideally positioned to leverage its assets
and experience in the rapidly growing market
for 4G and other mobile services.

USM Holdings owns 82% of Garsdale, a telecoms holding, which in turn controls 50% plus 100 shares of MegaFon, Russia’s second largest mobile operator; 100% of Yota, a pioneering international 4G services provider; and 51% of Peter-Service, a billing services company. Through Garsdale and MegaFon, USM Holdings owns 50% of Euroset, Russia’s number one mobile retailer.

MEGAFON

Formed in 1993, MegaFon is Russia’s second largest mobile operator in terms of revenue and subscribers and the market leader in the mobile data segment.

With over 33,000 employees, MegaFon is a leading universal telecommunications provider with c. 62.7 million wireless subscribers in the Russian Federation as of 31 March 2013. The company offers a full range of voice, data and other mobile and fixed-line telecommunications services, including digital TV and IP telephony, to retail customers, businesses, government clients and telecommunications services providers. MegaFon operates one of the most extensive 3G networks in Russia and renders a wide range of mobile services in Tajikistan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The company has a strong track record in innovation and pioneered the introduction of a number of services in Russia, including the launch of MMS and mobile TV in 2004, free incoming calls in 2006, 3G services in 2008, significant reduction in roaming charges in 2011, and 4G/ Long Term Evolution (LTE ) services in 2012.

Through MegaLabs, a fully owned subsidiary, the company develops a variety of new projects in the promising value-added service (VAS) market in a number of areas, including content and media, mobile finance, mobile advertising, cloud and IT solutions, M2M, e-government and m-health.

MegaFon owns a large distribution network. As of the end of 2012, it included 1,785 owned and operated stores and 1,757 third-party points of sale operating solely under the MegaFon brand. In addition, its acquisition in late 2012 of a 25% stake in Euroset, the largest wireless mobile equipment retailer in Russia, is expected to enhance the company’s initiatives focused on improving the quality of MegaFon’s subscriber base and broadening the marketing of its products.

In November 2012, the company listed c. US$1.7 billion worth of shares in an IPO. The company’s shares are traded on MICEX-RTS , and its GDR s on the London Stock Exchange.

In 2012, MegaFon’s revenue grew 12.4% year-on-year to RUR 272.6 billion. The company demonstrated a strong performance in Q1 2013, achieving consolidated revenue growth of 7.6% y-o-y to RUR 67.7 billion.

YOTA

Yota was founded in 2007. It is the leader of the mobile broadband sector in Russia. It was the first company to offer its subscribers access to services based on WiMAX and LTE technologies, and is one of the leading companies in this segment globally.

In 2013, Yota was divided into two companies: Scartel, which is involved in construction and management of 4G infrastructure, and Yota (Yota LLC), a mobile operator.

Scartel operates LTE networks and provides access to its networks for telecom operators using a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) model. It was the first company worldwide to launch LTE-Advanced technology for a commercial network, enabling data transfer rates of up to 300 Mbps. The company’s LTE networks are currently available in 31 regions and more than 100 cities in Russia. Its total investments in LTE infrastructure in Russia to date exceed US$400 million and are set to reach US$1 billion by the end of 2014.

Yota provides communication services to its subscribers through Scartel’s platform. Yota owns an extensive retail and dealer network throughout Russia, offering its users a truly unlimited LTE experience, coupled with the provision of hardware and the highest level of customer service. At present, Yota services are available in more than 20 major cities in Russia.

Yota and Scartel are 100% owned by the telecoms holding Garsdale, which is part of USM Holdings.

EUROSET

Founded in 1997, Euroset is the largest mobile retail chain in Russia, with more than 5,000 outlets. Its stores offer a wide range of goods, such as handsets, accessories, tablets and netbooks; and services, such as mobile top-ups, repairs and financing.

Euroset is one of the best known brands in the Russian market for consumer goods and services. The retailer’s share of Russia’s mobile phone market is approximately 30%. The company operates in more than 1,500 towns and cities in Russia and Belarus, and attracts more than 40 million customers to its stores each month.

The company today is one of the largest Russian employers, providing jobs to over 30,000 people.

PETER-SERVICE

Peter-Service is the first Russian developer of billing systems for telecoms operators. It provides billing solutions along with product installation, integration and support services. The company has regional offices across Russia and in Ukraine. Since its establishment in 1992, Peter-Service has completed over 100 projects for more than 50 operators of fixed and mobile networks in 10 countries.

USM Holdings – Media [Feb 23, 2013]

USM Holdings owns 50% of UTH Russia, one of the country’s fastest growing commercial television broadcasters. The company aims
to capitalise on the expansion of the youth entertainment
market and the ever increasing interest
in youth lifestyle and wellbeing.

UTH RUSSIA

Through UTH Russia, USM Holdings owns some of the country’s most popular outlets in broadcast and digital media. Building the main framework on its two free-to-air channels – the Disney Channel and U channel – and the cable MUZ-TV channel, UTH Russia is on its way to becoming the leader in youth entertainment and lifestyle programming. U channel and the Disney Channel broadcast in more than 880 cities, and the company continues to expand its market share.

The UTH platform also houses the specialist online video service ClipYou, which offers licensed content from leading Russian and international music companies, including some of the top labels, such as Universal Music, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI.

USM Holdings – Steel & Mining [Feb 23, 2013]

USM Holdings invests in a number of Russia’s steel and mining companies. It owns 100% of METALLOINVEST, a leading global iron ore
and hot briquetted iron (HBI) producer
and one of the regional steel producers.

METALLOINVEST

METALLOINVEST extracts and exploits iron ore from the second largest measured reserve base in the world (c. 14.9 billion tonnes).

In 2011, the company was the largest commercial iron ore producer in Russia/CIS and the fifth largest globally, the leading producer of pellets in Russia/CIS and the third largest globally, and the leading producer of merchant HBI globally.

The main production assets of the company are strategically located in the European part of Russia and the Urals.

The company is organised into three integrated operating segments focusing on mining operations, steel production and auxiliary businesses and other assets. The mining segment includes Lebedinsky GOK and Mikhailovsky GOK, and the steel segment includes OE MK, Ural Steel and Ural Scrap Company. In addition to its mining and steel businesses, the company owns several supporting businesses and other assets that provide services and raw materials to the mining and steel segments.

Lebedinsky GOK is a leading manufacturer of iron ore products in Russia and operates as an integrated mining company whose assets comprise iron ore extraction facilities and secondary processing facilities, including beneficiation and secondary beneficiation plants, a pellet plant and two HBI plants.

Mikhailovsky GOK is the second largest iron ore extraction and processing operation in Russia, after Lebedinsky GOK. In 2014, Mikhailovsky GOK intends to finish construction of what is expected to be the largest pelletising plant in Russia, with a capacity of five million tonnes a year.

OEMK is one of the most modern steel mills in Russia, employing Midrex DRI technology. The unique application and properties of the steel and finished products from OE MK have ensured stable demand in Russia, the CIS and worldwide. It is located close to Lebedinsky GOK, which supplies OEMK with high grade iron ore concentrate through a 26-kilometre slurry pipeline. OEMK sells products for engineering, automotive, pipe, hardware and bearing industries in the domestic market, and exports its high quality pipe and cast billets and long rolled products such as wire coil and bar to foreign customers.

Ural Steel is a major manufacturer of strips for large diameter pipes, pipe billets, bridge construction steel and heavy plates. Ural Scrap Company purchases, processes and delivers ferrous scrap to METALLOINVEST’s steel producing assets.

Baikal Mining Company, a subsidiary of METALLOINVEST, holds the licence for the development of the Udokan copper deposit, which has a mineral resources base of c. 2.7 billion tonnes. Udokan is one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of copper amounting to c. 25.7 million tonnes of metal. The licence covers 60% of copper deposits in Russia.

With a 21% holding, METALLOINVEST is a major shareholder of the Canadian company Nautilus Minerals. Nautilus Minerals commercially explores the seafloor for massive sulphide systems, which are a potential source of high grade copper, gold, zinc and silver. The company is developing the world’s first seafloor copper-gold project in Papua New Guinea.

METALLOINVEST has a shareholding of approximately 5% in Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel (18% of the market) and palladium (41%), as well as a leading producer of platinum (11%) and copper (2%). Norilsk Nickel also produces multiple by-products, such as cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium and sulphur.

In 2012, METALLOINVEST’s net income grew by 20.4% year-on-year to US$ 1.7 billion.

USM Holdings – Alisher Usmanov Founder of USM Holdings [June 12, 2013]

Mr. Usmanov is an investor, industrialist and philanthropist.
He created and built up USM Holdings by identifying
and focusing on growth businesses.

Mr. Usmanov was born in 1953 in the town of Chust in the Namangan region of Uzbekistan, which was then part of the USSR . He graduated in 1976 from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, a leading Russian university, with a degree in international law. In 1997, he received a degree in banking from the Finance Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation. He is fluent in English, French, Russian and Uzbek.

Mr. Usmanov has played a number of key roles in businesses essential for the advancement of the Russian economy. Since February 2006, he has been a member of the Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and currently heads its Committee for Updating of Control and Supervision and Elimination of Administrative Barriers. Mr. Usmanov has served as General Director of Gazprom Investholding since 2000, prior to which he was as an Advisor to the Chairman of Gazprom and was First Deputy General Director of Gazprom Investholding. From 1994 to 1998, Mr. Usmanov held the position of General Director of Interfin Investment and Finance Company. From 1995 to 1997, he served as the First Deputy Chairman of MAPO-Bank, and from 1994 to 1995, he was an Advisor to the General Director of Moscow Aviation Industrial Enterprise. From 1990 to 1994, Mr. Usmanov worked as the Deputy General Director of Intercross JSC.

Mr. Usmanov is the President of the International Fencing Federation and a member of the councils of the 2014 Sochi XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games, the 2013 Kazan XXVII Summer Universiade and the Russian Olympian Sportsmen Support Fund. He is a Trustee for a range of social, educational and cultural organisations, including the Russian Geographical Society, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, National Research University Higher School of Economics, and European University at St. Petersburg.

Mr. Usmanov is the founder of the Arts, Science and Sports Charity Foundation.

In 2013, Mr. Usmanov was awarded the Order for Service to the Fatherland IV class in recognition of his services to the state, as well as his community and charitable activities. In 2004, he was presented with the Order of Honour of the Russian Federation for his contribution to business and charity.

In 2011, he received the Order of Friendship of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Alongside his investments within USM Holdings, Mr. Usmanov owns Kommersant Holding, the leading Russian business media group, as well as almost 30% of Arsenal, an English football club.

USM Holdings – About us [June 21, 2013]

USM Holdings Limited (“USM Holdings”) is a diversified, international company with significant interests across the metals and mining,
telecoms, internet and media sectors. It was established in 2012
to consolidate the various investments and holdings of
Alisher Usmanov, which are the result of more than
30 years of his investment and business
development activities.

In consolidating Mr. Usmanov’s interests into one company, USM Holdings has the right structure to enable the sharing of both intellectual and financial capital amongst its various businesses. The group’s companies benefit from a global network of relationships and a wealth of experience, which enable them to access international investment opportunities. Through its structure, reporting and transparency, USM Holdings aims to ensure that its companies adhere to the highest international standards of corporate governance.

In carrying out its operations, USM Holdings acts in a socially responsible way, investing in long-term sustainable enterprises, stimulating economic development and creating employment opportunities in Russia. The group cares about the communities in which it conducts its business, and supports them through a wide range of social projects in the fields of education, sports, arts, science and ecology.

The main shareholders of USM Holdings are Alisher Usmanov, Vladimir Skoch and Farhad Moshiri. Their economic interests are divided 60%, 30% and 10% respectively, while Mr. Usmanov holds 100% of the voting rights with respect to USM Holdings.

Russian Billionaire Usmanov Links Fortune to Partnership [Bloomberg, Feb 6, 2013]

Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s richest man, and two of his long-time billionaire investment partners have joined all of their assets in USM Holdings, a limited liability company based in the British Virgin Islands.

Conceived in early 2012 and completed in December, the new formation holds the trio’s assets in mining, technology, telecommunications and media, and carries a value of more than $29 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“We have completed the process of consolidating assets into USM Holdings,” Usmanov, 59, said by e-mail Feb. 5. “The formation of a single holding company enables us to optimize business processes, enhance the efficiency of managing subsidiary companies, and provide more opportunities to access international capital markets.”

According to the company’s website, which went live late last month, USM was established to consolidate the holdings Usmanov has built up during the last 30 years, including closely held Metalloinvest Holding Co., Russia’s largest iron ore producer, publicly-traded mobile phone company MegaFon OAO and Internet company Mail.Ru Group Ltd., as well as the technology investments he has made through the DST investment funds.

USM shareholders include Usmanov, who holds 60 percent; Vladimir Skoch, who holds 30 percent on behalf of his son, Russian Duma deputy Andrey Skoch; and Ardavan Farhad Moshiri, an Usmanov adviser of 23 years, who owns 10 percent.

Usmanov and Moshiri continue to hold their shared 29.9 percent stake in London-based Arsenal Football Club Plc separately. Usmanov owns all of newspaper Kommersant outside of USM.

‘One Roof’

Usmanov controls all of USM’s voting rights and also has the ability to block his partners from selling any assets it holds without his consent. He first disclosed his plans for the holding company in April 2012, and released further details of its formation in MegaFon’s preliminary prospectus, which was released in November.

Ivan Streshinskiy, who has helped manage Usmanov’s investments since 2006, was appointed to the USM Holdings board and named chief executive officer of USM Advisors, an affiliated company that will provide advisory services to the holding entity.

“Having all of the assets under one roof makes it easier to manage them and value them,” Kirill Chuyko, head of equity research at BCS Financial Group said by phone Jan. 21, explaining the possible reasons for structure.

Longtime Allies

The two minority partners acquired their stakes in USM by swapping their existing equity in holding companies controlled by Usmanov and making a cash investment. After the transaction, Usmanov has a net worth of $21.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Moshiri controls a $1.7 billion fortune. Skoch is valued at $6.2 billion.

Rollo Head, a spokesman for Moshiri at London-based RLM Finsbury, said Moshiri declined to comment on his net worth. Albert Istomin, a spokesman for Skoch, declined to comment on the net worth calculation. Usmanov also declined to comment.

Usmanov first met Andrey Skoch in 1992, when he was importing cigarettes to Russia and Skoch was working as an oil trader. At the time, the country was suffering from a deficit of consumer goods, which enabled Usmanov to build a thriving trade business.

He and Skoch purchased metal and mining assets during and after the country’s chaotic privatization years, including a steel plant in the Belgorod region, central Russia, and iron ore producer Lebedinsky GOK. In 2006, after buying Mikhailovsky GOK from Georgia’s current prime minister, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, they created Metalloinvest, now Usmanov’s most valuable asset.

Government Ally

Usmanov’s rise to prominence was boosted in the early 2000s, when he proved to be an ally to the new government led by Russian President Vladimir Putin. As head of Gazprominvestholding, the investment arm of Russia’s gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, Usmanov helped negotiate the return of assets to state-run Gazprom that had been moved out of the company under previous management.

In 1999, Skoch was elected as a deputy of the State Duma, Russia’s main legislative body, representing the Belgorod region. He later transferred the fortune he had built to his father, Vladimir, shielding himself from public criticism. He was re-elected to the Duma four times.

Iranian Emigrant

Moshiri, an Iranian emigrate to London who now resides in Monaco, first met Usmanov in 1989, and has served as Usmanov’s financial consultant ever since. Through the years, he earned shares in some of Usmanov’s most important assets, including Metalloinvest, MegaFon and Arsenal.

The former accountant, who is a British citizen, resisted Usmanov’s diversification into technology investments, which began in 2008, using billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST funds.

“Moshiri also didn’t believe in the prospects for investments in Facebook and Groupon,” said Usmanov in an April 2012 phone interview with Bloomberg News.

His hesitation did not prevent Usmanov from allowing him the chance to participate, which has given Moshiri holdings through DST in publicly-traded Facebook Inc., Zynga Inc. and Groupon Inc., as well as other investments in a number of closely-held technology companies, including Twitter Inc.

USM did not disclose how much Moshiri and Skoch may have paid to make those investments, or their exact stakes.

New Valuation

The new holding company requires a revised method for the Bloomberg ranking to calculate the net worth for Usmanov and Moshiri, and established a valuation for Skoch’s fortune.

Prior to the transaction, Usmanov and Moshiri controlled half of Metalloinvest through Cyprus-based Gallagher Holdings Ltd., which has since been renamed USM Steel & Mining Group Ltd. That stake was combined with the 30 percent held by Skoch. The remaining 20 percent of Metalloinvest was bought back by the company from Moscow-based OAO VTB Bank at the end of 2012 through debt financing, consolidating all of the company under the control of USM.

Further details on the debt financing will be provided when Metalloinvest releases its earnings in April, the company said.

Alisher Usmanov: Uzbek eyes a prize listing [Financial Times, Nov 16, 2012]

The billionaire businessman reflects the new style of oligarch that puts a premium on loyalty and predictability

When Alisher Usmanov met Lloyd Blankfein on the sidelines of the St Petersburg Economic Forum in June, the two men appeared to strike up a rapport. The Uzbek-born billionaire and the chairman of Goldman Sachs discussed the planned initial public offering of Megafon, the mobile phone company owned by Mr Usmanov, say people familiar with the conversation. Mr Blankfein courted Mr Usmanov, one of Russia’s most powerful and best-connected businessmen, for an insight into upcoming deals.

Within months, everything had changed. By early October, Goldman had dropped Mr Usmanov and the Megafon deal, throwing a spanner in the company’s IPO plans and launching a storm of bad publicity around Mr Usmanov personally.

Goldman declined to comment on its reasons for quitting the IPO. Morgan Stanley, Sberbank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and VTB are still working on the deal, which began formal marketing on Thursday after receiving delayed approval from the UK regulator, which appeared to have been shaken by Goldman’s exit.

Should the deal, which could raise as much as $2.1bn, go through, it would be the biggest flotation by a Russian company in nearly three years. If it flops, it will be another setback for Mr Usmanov, a symbol of a class of powerful Russian businessmen who work closely with the state, and his plans to take his empire public.

Businessmen close to the 59-year-old oligarch say he was dumbstruck by Goldman’s move. In his world, loyalty and predictability are prized above all else, and it is partly because of his strict adherence to such a code that he has risen so far in the Russia of President Vladimir Putin.

Today’s oligarchs are not the brash, buccaneering variety of the 1990s, who wielded both wealth and influence in Boris Yeltsin’s Kremlin. Putin-era billionaires such as Mr Usmanov are expected to respect state power in order to thrive.

It was in this context that Mr Usmanov – worth $18bn, according to Forbes – bought the art estate of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and then donated it to the state. It was also for that reason, analysts say, that he agreed to take a stake in Megafon, interceding in a years-long shareholder feud that was damaging Russia’s investment climate.

“Usmanov is known as a person able to resolve delicate situations to the satisfaction of all the parties,” says Ivan Streshinsky, a long-time associate.

That is not all he is known for. The 45 pages of Megafon’s IPO investor prospectus entitled “Risk factors” includes “media speculation” about Mr Usmanov’s alleged mafia ties and the six years he spent in an Uzbek jail in the 1980s, along with more media speculation that the real owner of a large share in Megafon might be Leonid Reiman, a former communications minister.

This week it also emerged that a public relations firm had tampered with Mr Usmanov’s Wikipedia page to remove mention of an incident in which the billionaire had allegedly threatened bloggers who repeated allegations that he was a “gangster and racketeer”, and also edited out mentions of his jail term.

Mr Usmanov and his partners deny issuing such threats, deny having any ties to organised crime groups, and he and Megafon’s management deny Mr Reiman is a shareholder. Andrei Skoch, a long-time friend and business partner, blames Mr Usmanov’s fraud conviction in 1980 on enemies of his father, a local Uzbek prosecutor. The criminal charges were overturned in 2000.

The criminal conviction did dash Mr Usmanov’s dreams of a career as a diplomat moving between the world’s capitals, an ambition forged in a remote corner of central Asia in his native Uzbekistan, where he was born in 1953 in the small city of Chust, a place renowned as home of the traditional Uzbek skullcap.

Once out of jail Mr Usmanov built up a number of small businesses before consolidating some of Russia’s biggest metal and steel holdings into holding company Metalloinvest in 2006. Since then he has expanded outside Russia: acquiring stakes in internet groups such as Facebook and Groupon, and buying properties and trophy sporting assets in London as well as some of Russia’s most prestigious media properties.

Some international ventures have been less than happy. At Arsenal, the English Premier League football club in which he holds a near 30 per cent stake, he has waged a running battle with the board, criticising strategy and complaining that the best players have been let go.

Football is one of his passions, along with opera, ballet and fencing.

His approach to business involves close attention to detail. Despite poor eyesight, he is said to read up to 300 pages of analytics, reports and news items a day that are tirelessly rewritten into Russian by a retained group of round-the-clock translators.

Close links to the Kremlin have not harmed his prospects, say analysts. In 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, Metalloinvest received Rb61bn in bailout loans from state bank VTB, allowing Mr Usmanov not only to emerge from the crisis unscathed but also in the same year to spend $200m on a 2 per cent stake in Facebook through Digital Sky Technologies, a company in which he is a shareholder.

Associates say any political connections are normal. “With the scale and size of his business it would be misleading to say he has no relationship with the authorities – just like any major business leader in the world,” says Mr Streshinsky.

But Mr Usmanov’s political allegiances came under scrutiny last year when he fired two executives at his news weekly Kommersant Vlast because of a cover, published at the peak of mass anti-government protests in Moscow, that featured an obscene comment about Mr Putin.

Critics saw this as trampling on editorial freedom. Friends say he acted for reasons of taste. “He’s an old-fashioned guy. This overstepped the bounds of decency,” says Mr Streshinsky. “This has nothing to do with freedom of speech”.

The ‘Facebook Corruption’ accusations via a U.S. Congress Representative:

Briefing For Representative Jim-Jordan [better to use PDF from Leader]
CORRUPTION OF US FINANCIAL SYSTEMS and COURTS Oct 19, 2012

…

in addition a page from Who is Lawrence “Larry” Summers? [FB Cover-up opinion blog, Jul. 31, 2013]

Company	2Q13 Units	2Q13 Market Share (%)	2Q12 Units	2Q12 Market Share (%)
Samsung	71,380.9	31.7	45,603.8	29.7
Apple	31,899.7	14.2	28,935.0	18.8
LG Electronics	11,473.0	5.1	5,827.8	3.8
Lenovo	10,671.4	4.7	4,370.9	2.8
ZTE	9,687.6	4.3	6,331.4	4.1
Others	90,213.6	40.0	62,704.0	40.8
Total	225,326.2	100.0	153,772.9	100.0

Operating System	2Q13 Units	2Q13 Market Share (%)	2Q12 Units	2Q12 Market Share (%)
Android	177,898.2	79.0	98,664.0	64.2
iOS	31,899.7	14.2	28,935.0	18.8
Microsoft	7,407.6	3.3	4,039.1	2.6
BlackBerry	6,180.0	2.7	7,991.2	5.2
Bada	838.2	0.4	4,208.8	2.7
Symbian	630.8	0.3	9,071.5	5.9
Others	471.7	0.2	863.3	0.6
Total	225,326.2	100.0	153,772.9	100.0

Experiencing the Cloud

Category Archives: consumer devices

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa with Heterogeneous Multi-Processing and GPU Compute is the hidden gem in the Galaxy Note 3 and GALAXY Note 10.1, 2014 Edition, launched at ‘Samsung UNPACKED 2013 Episode 2’ event

The new GALAXY Note 10.1 expands on the advanced productivity and creativity leadership delivered by the original Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1. In addition to enabling productivity, the device has been redesigned with a sleek, light, slim frame that is both fashionable and portable.

…

GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) will be on display at the Samsung booth # 20 at IFA 2013, September 6 through September 11, 2013. Full details and product images are available at www.samsungmobilepress.com or m.samsungmobilepress.com

[GALAXY Note 10.1 (2014 Edition): Related articles – Gallery – Videos – Features – Tech Specs]

Introducing Samsung GALAXY Note 3 [SAMSUNGmobile YouTube channel, Sept 4, 2013]

Hardware & Design

The GALAXY Note 3 also features a textured back cover and delicate stitching that delivers a premium look and feel.

Everyday Made Easier with S Pen

Air Command, a palette of features and commands which you can activate on any screen simply by hovering and clicking the S Pen button, lets you access useful features for everyday tasks such as Action Memo, Scrapbook, and S Finder.

Smarter Large Screen Experience

Details

A technical discussion about ARM big.LITTLE processing technology from some of ARM’s experts.

Panelists:Robin Randhawa, Principal Software Engineer, ARMCharles Garcia-Tobin, Advanced Product Design Group, ARMBrian Jeff, Senior Product Manager, ARMIan Smythe, Director of Marketing, ARM (Moderator)

Discussion questions with timecodes:

Samsung Exynos OCTA-pella: Performance + Efficiency in Perfect Harmony [SamsungExynos YouTube channel, Sept 9, 2013]

“We welcome Samsung’s continued commitment to deploying the leading-edge technology on their latest chips featuring the ARM Cortex™-A series of processors, ARM Mali™ GPUs and ARM Artisan™ physical IP.” said Noel Hurley, vice president, Strategy and Marketing, Processor Division, ARM.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the Exynos 5 Octa packs a serious punch when it comes to processing power and energy efficiency. Now, the team at Samsung has made the Exynos 5 Octa even better with the introduction of a new Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) solution.

Overview of big.LITTLE Technology

HMP Makes big.LITTLE Technology Even Better

The newest Exynos processor is powered by four ARM Cortex®-A15™ processors at 1.8GHz with four additional Cortex-A7™cores at 1.3 GHz in a big.LITTLE processing implementation. This improves the CPU processing capability by 20 percent over the predecessor by optimizing the power-saving design.

The new family of Exynos 5 Octa is currently sampling to customers and is scheduled for mass-production in August.

ARM brings GPU Compute to mobile devices [ARMflix YouTube channel, July 22, 2013]

So next time I fall asleep in front of the television watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones, GPU Compute will help me, a tired parent, know how far I got through the last episode – then pick up where I left off! Got to love technology.

Enhanced Graphics with New ARM® Mali™-T628 GPU

Making Advanced Applications Possible

Increased Power Efficiency for Extended Use

To learn more about the flexibility that GPU Compute technology brings to the new Exynos 5 Octa, check out this guest blog post by Trina Watt, Director of Channel Marketing for ARM.

More specs and details can also be found on the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420) product page.

GPU Compute also enables the application of filters to images and live video, opening up new forms of creativity. To see more of what GPU Compute can provide across smartphones, tablets and DTVs, watch this video.

ARM brings GPU Compute to mobile devices [ARMflix YouTube channel, July 22, 2013]

What is GPU Compute Technology?

Advantages of GPU Compute

GPU Compute in Action

By pulling together high-end ARM CPUs, ARM Mali graphics with GPU Compute and advanced technologies like ARM big.LITTLE processing, Samsung Exynos has fully realized the ideal GPU Compute system. Stay tuned for news about upcoming devices that will run on the new Exynos 5 Octa (5420)!

Need to know more? Head over to ARM’s blog to find out how GPU Compute technology can transform your mobile and TV experience.

Check out our latest demos on ARMFlix and hear from our partners including Samsung, Unity and GameStick. I particularly recommend the ARM Trollheim demo as a great place to start, with Phill Smith explaining how OpenCL™ can vastly improve procedural terrain generation.

ARM Mali Trollheim demo: in-depth overview [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa on ARM Mali – Siggraph 2013 [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Improving the mobile gaming experience with GameStick [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Unity discuss the benefits of OpenGL® ES 3.0 [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

Interview with ARM’s VP of Mali Technology [ARMflix YouTube channel, Aug 27, 2013]

The International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) is rapidly approaching. This is one of the leading conferences in the electronic media and entertainment sectors. It is a great place to find out about the future trends in media for the broadcast and mobile markets.

In this blog post, I am going to make a few predictions on what will be big at IBC, and as a result will be coming to your living room in the near future.

Natural UI

But what does this mean in terms of an actual on-screen UI? An implementation of a NUI is going to have to be as subtle as the interaction model that is driving it. This is the part of the NUI story that I believe will be in its infancy on the show floor at IBC.

So, even though the NUI principles require that the UI is mostly invisible, we can see that the harder we try to achieve this, the harder the GPU is going to have to work.

UltraHD

Rise of the Companion

I see HTML everywhere

HTML5 will be the de-facto standard for implementing User Interfaces at the show. The problem with HTML5, however, is that a lot of UI implementations end up looking very similar. You can often tell an HTML5 UI just by looking at it.

ARM’s position

We are already seeing great performance from next generation Mali-based devices and the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa with Mali-T628 MP6 shows class-leading performance. I see a bright future for Mali-based devices in this exciting and fast paced industry.

Xiaomi announcements: from Mi3 to Xiaomi TV

The Mi3 is the first smartphone to adopt the Tegra 4 processor.

Nvidia is also supplying its Tegra 4 to Asustek for its 10-inch New Transformer Pad tablet, HP for its 10-inch Slatebook 10 x2 and Toshiba for its 10-inch Excite Pro. Nvidia is reportedly also considering releasing an own-brand tablet.

Nvidia has also been aggressively promoting its Shield gaming device, trying to compete against the 3DS and PS Vita with a price of US$299.

Recently announced Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone is the first to launch with advanced tactile effects

The Xiaomi Mi3 smartphone is available in China online at www.xiaomi.com.

For more information on Immersion’s TouchSense technology and Integrator platform, visit http://www.immersion.com/markets/mobile/index.html.

About Immersion (www.immersion.com)

About Xiaomi (www.xiaomi.com)

Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share

Note: the “fairly aggressive market share assumption” was presented by Microsoft as:

See also Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call with slides from Microsoft Strategic Rationale inserted- ebook – 3-Sept-2013 edited by Sándor Nacsa from those two sources into an ebook format PDF

Microsoft buys Nokia’s handset business for $7.2 bln. Both companies will be hoping it heralds a new era, but overcoming brand weakness will be a huge challenge. For them both, says IHS Senior Mobile Analyst, Daniel Gleeson.

SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (REUTERS – ACCESS ALL) (SEPTEMBER 3, 2013)

Panelists:
Robin Randhawa, Principal Software Engineer, ARM
Charles Garcia-Tobin, Advanced Product Design Group, ARM
Brian Jeff, Senior Product Manager, ARM
Ian Smythe, Director of Marketing, ARM (Moderator)

See also Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call with slides from Microsoft Strategic Rationale inserted- ebook – 3-Sept-2013
edited by Sándor Nacsa from those two sources into an ebook format PDF