Tech News Stop - Sharing by Wasim Akhtar

::::Morgan Stanley, others make $100 mln profit on Facebook trades - WSJ::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337884094_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and other underwriters have made a profit of about $100 million stabilizing Facebook (FB.O) stock since trading began on Friday, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.Facebook's listing, envisioned as a crowning moment for an eight-year-old company that has become a business and cultural phenomenon, has instead turned into a legal and public relations fiasco for the company and its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley.As a lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley would receive the largest chunk of those profits arising from stabilizing Facebook's stock price, the people told the Journal. These profits come on top of millions of dollars of IPO fees, according to the newspaper.The underwriters made the bulk of the profit in Monday's trading when they bought shares below the $38 offering price, a person familiar with the matter told the WSJ.Morgan Stanley was in charge of an overallotment of about 63 million shares that can be used to help support Facebook's share price. The underwriters are given the option to buy the overallotment of shares from the company at a discount.The underwriters bought from Facebook the offering's 421,233,615 shares, but sold into the market 484,418,657 shares, including the overallotment and doing so made the underwriters "short" 63,185,042 shares, the paper said.

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::::Facebook launches Facebook Camera for iPhone, complete with filters and batch photo uploading::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337883740_temp.png" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>Just after its proposed $1 billion acquisition of mobile photo sharing service Instagram, Facebook has announced Facebook Camera for iPhone this afternoon in a blog post.  The app features filters just like Instagram and features the ability to upload a batch of photos at once, where as the regular Facebook app only allows you to upload one photo at a time. Upon first opening Camera, it detects any Facebook accounts already associated with the iPhone so you can begin uploading photos. Facebook Camera for iOS is now available on the iTunes App Store.As you can tell from the screenshots of the app in the gallery below, it reminds us a lot of Instagram. There’s also the ability to view your friend’s photos in a single timeline. Complete with filters and quick sharing options, it’s almost like Facebook has launched a competitor to its own app.Here’s the full breakdown of features:<ul style="vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; list-style: none"><li style="text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15px 30px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px">Post multiple photos from your camera roll at a time</li><li style="text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15px 30px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px">Crop and apply filters to give your photos a new look</li><li style="text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15px 30px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px">Scroll down a single feed of all your friends’ photos</li><li style="text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15px 30px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px">Tag your friends, add photo captions and say where you are</li><li style="text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15px 30px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px">See photos from the different apps your friends use</li></ul> <div id="gallery-1" class="snap_nopreview gallery galleryid-175163 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail" style="vertical-align: baseline; margin: auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px"><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/screen-shot-2012-05-24-at-1-10-08-pm.png?w=155&h=103" border="0" alt="Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 1.10.08 PM" title="Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 1.10.08 PM" width="155" height="103" /><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/screen-shot-2012-05-24-at-1-15-49-pm.png?w=155&h=113" border="0" alt="Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 1.15.49 PM" title="Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 1.15.49 PM" width="155" height="113" /><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/screen-shot-2012-05-24-at-1-15-42-pm.png?w=155&h=113" border="0" alt="Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 1.15.42 PM" title="Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 1.15.42 PM" width="155" height="113" /><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mza_6994328467552621843.jpeg?w=86&h=130" border="0" alt="mza_6994328467552621843" title="mza_6994328467552621843" width="86" height="130" /> <img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mza_2980066498118615432.jpeg?w=86&h=130" border="0" alt="mza_2980066498118615432" title="mza_2980066498118615432" width="86" height="130" /><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mza_4435136449462719345.jpeg?w=86&h=130" border="0" alt="mza_4435136449462719345" title="mza_4435136449462719345" width="86" height="130" /><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mza_1811103374789598310.jpeg?w=86&h=130" border="0" alt="mza_1811103374789598310" title="mza_1811103374789598310" width="86" height="130" /><img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mza_7178373315264897789.jpeg?w=86&h=130" border="0" alt="mza_7178373315264897789" title="mza_7178373315264897789" width="86" height="130" /> <img class="attachment-thumbnail" src="http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/atrt2decaaeqzpz.jpeg?w=86&h=130" border="0" alt="AtrT2dECAAEqZPZ" title="AtrT2dECAAEqZPZ" width="86" height="130" /> </div>A lot more to come. 

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::::As rivals falter, Lenovo has emerging market edge::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337883200_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>With home turf advantage in the world's biggest computer market and a foothold in major emerging economies, China's Lenovo Group (0992.HK) is looking to turn market share into profit, heaping more pressure on U.S. rivals Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and Dell Inc (DELL.O).Concern that global tech spending, particularly in the developed world, is weakening faster than expected has battered Dell shares and prompted HP to axe some 27,000 jobs. To counter weakness in consumer spending in major cities in the world's second-largest economy, Lenovo is Casting its net wider."We are seeing strong growth in smaller Chinese cities," Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing said this week, unveiling a 59 percent jump in quarterly net profit. He noted that personal computer penetration in China is still just 20-30 percent versus 99 percent in the United States.China has been Lenovo's traditional stronghold, contributing 42 percent of group revenue and boasting the business's highest operating margins. Lenovo has around a 30 percent share of the Chinese PC market, well ahead of Acer (2353.TW), Dell, Asustek (2357.TW) and HP, all with single-digit market share, according to data from research firm IDC.Lenovo sold 2.5 million PCs in China in January-March, according to IDC, and company data showed the average selling price across its products rose 1.5 percent from the previous quarter to $545. In the fast growing tablet segment, its Lepad trails some way behind Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPad, but outsells Samsung Electronics' (005930.KS) Galaxy Tab.GRAPHIC: Global PC shipments r.reuters.com/deh48sAnalysts note that while Dell has focused on high-margin products, Lenovo has aimed for volume sales to gain market share. The key for Lenovo, which has risen to the world's No.2 PC maker after its 2005 acquisition of IBM's (IBM.N) PC business, is how to turn that market share into profit.In the year to end-March, Lenovo's operating margin was below 2 percent - though it was 4.5 percent in China - compared to more than 7 percent at Dell and HP. Yang said Lenovo would look to turn a profit in emerging markets once it hits a certain volume - or 10 percent market share. This would allow it to hook in customers and profit later when they upgrade their products, particularly corporate clients, analysts said.After quarterly profit fell sharply at both HP and Dell, investors are asking questions about their product strategies and management focus in a weak global economy.Sunny Chung, Allianz Global Investors Taiwan Domestic Equity head, said a slowdown would cause some build-up in PC inventory as there would be more uncertainty over demand later this year. Allianz Global Investors owns Lenovo shares.Lenovo lags HP by 4-5 percentage points as global PC market leader, but analysts expect the Chinese firm to take the top slot this year or next.Lenovo has unveiled a series of consumer products in China as it moves aggressively into smartphones, tablet PCs and smart TVs, though some analysts question whether all its products will have the same level of success it has had in PCs."Lenovo's strategy in China is to continue building its own ecosystem, such as notebook, desktop, tablet, smartphone and TV. This could be kind of a dream as it's not easy to generate large profits from building hardware," said Angela Hsiang, an analyst with KGI Securities in Taipei.BUYING MARKET SHARELenovo has been winning market share in other emerging markets, such as Russia and India, where it is the top vendor, but that has been at the expense of operating losses due to aggressive pricing.Yang said his company's focus over the coming quarters would be to improve profitability in these markets by increasing volume sales and controlling costs in areas such as hard disk drives. In mature markets, which generate more than 40 percent of Lenovo's revenue, the company has taken market share more by acquisition.Last year it bought Medion in a deal that valued the German consumer electronics retailer at around $900 million, and signed a joint venture with NEC Corp (6701.T) to sell laptops in Japan.Chief Financial Officer Wong Wai Ming says Lenovo is open to more acquisitions.

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::::See, where Apple, Samsung phones still canâ€˜t beat BlackBerry::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337828102_temp.jpeg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>Along with firearms, radio and other standard-issue gear, Constable Ken Koke's police cruiser comes equipped with portable technology made by Research In Motion Ltd that he says has become an important tool in policing rural Canada.  Koke, with the Chatham-Kent police force in southwestern Ontario, uses RIM's PlayBook to run checks on vehicles and suspects. Unlike his old laptop, the tablet is portable enough to take out of the car to record evidence at crime scenes.  But for law enforcement officers like Koke, the big draw is RIM's acclaimed network security, a feature that Apple and RIM's other competitors can barely match, and cannot beat - at least not yet.  Police, along with insurers, the military and thousands of government agencies, remain important customers for the struggling BlackBerry maker as a data breach could invite litigation, compromise reputations or even endanger national security.  "Despite the adversity and displacement RIM is experiencing across its enterprise customers, it's obvious that a hardcore contingent still see no solution better than BlackBerry," said John Jackson at CCS Insight, which advises wireless companies.  The loyalty of that core customer base is a rare bright spot for RIM as it fights a tide of defections to flashier devices.  Its still-unrivaled leadership in secure communications could also pique the interest of a potential buyer for the Canadian company, whose shares have sunk 80 per cent since February 2011.  "When I go in the street I have my handcuffs, I have my sidearm, and I have my BlackBerry. It's part of my gear and not something I would leave the station without," Koke said. "The PlayBook is a natural extension of that."  Niche not safe But it's far from clear if that niche will be big enough to rescue RIM, which faces a continuing decline in sales for its once-ubiquitous BlackBerry, and whose compact PlayBook never took off with consumers.  RIM does not specify what proportion of its sales go to security focused government, legal and military customers, and analysts don't break that market out of the broader "enterprise market," which they believe has stagnated in recent years to make up about a quarter of RIM's 77 million BlackBerry users.  Unlike Apple and other rivals, security-focused RIM has built direct connections between its servers and those of carriers and big customers, and its private network offers encryption that others need help to get.  But the niche is not as safe for RIM as it used to be, given the arrival of smaller providers such as Good Technology, a private outfit based in Sunnyvale, California, that help companies beef up security on their employees' iPhones and Androids.  Such offerings may not be as convenient for a corporate IT manager as RIM's out-of-the-box security, but they have enabled many companies to let their employees use personal devices in the workplace.  The BlackBerry's secure approach is "becoming less of an advantage for RIM because, frankly, organizations are being forced to put solutions in place to allow secure access to documents and apps and other things on (Apple's) iOS and Android devices," said Tyler Lessard, who left RIM six months ago to join Fixmo, a small mobile security company.  To fight this challenge, RIM is taking an "if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them" approach, offering to manage other devices via a service it calls Mobile Fusion. Even if it no longer sells every device, the thinking goes, RIM can still profit by keeping office communications secure.  Several analysts say RIM's strength in security and network components could attract takeover interest from companies that deliver online content such as Akamai Technologies Inc or Amazon.com Inc. Amazon took a look at RIM last year, but decided not to bid after RIM made it clear it wanted to fix its problems on its own.  Ken Dulaney, vice-president for mobile devices at research firm Gartner, said RIM's connections into hundreds of carriers worldwide represent an "intriguing" asset that could hold value to Amazon or Akamai, the company that powers Apple's iTunes store.  At a current valuation of less than $6 billion, a fraction of its 2008 peak of $84 billion, RIM might look cheap to a company such as International Business Machines Corp. IBM could use RIM's assets to expand corporate services on to mobile platforms, said Northern Securities analyst Sameet Kanade.  RIM's customer base alone could tempt buyers such as Cisco Systems Inc, he added, but cautioned that prospective buyers could also choose to build such capabilities internally.  Security aside, the larger market for smartphones and tablets is turning away from RIM, which now has less than 7 per cent of the global smartphone market, according to Gartner, down from 13 per cent a year ago.  CEO Thorsten Heins is putting his hopes on a new generation of phones, due later this year, as well as possible asset sales. He has not ruled out a sale of the entire company.  "The rules have changed," said David Krebs, vice-president for mobile and wireless practice at VDC Research. "They're not acting from a position of strength today."  A loyal core But at the same time, the most security-conscious customers prefer the tried-and-true RIM approach.  Aviva, one of Britain's largest insurers, has handed out PlayBooks to scores of risk assessors, the type of traditional road warrior that first worshipped the BlackBerry.  "For any role in Aviva that's collecting data, why would we use anything but the PlayBook," said Paul Heybourne, who heads the company's global technology innovation efforts.  Meanwhile, the Pentagon, RIM's single largest customer, this month approved six recent BlackBerry models for use on its secure networks, meaning some quarter of a million military and intelligence staff can upgrade to more modern devices. Counterparts in Britain and Australia followed soon after.  David Paterson, RIM's vice-president for government relations and public policy, said BlackBerry sales to the US government are still growing.  "There is no mass exodus," he insisted, even after Washington's main procurement agency, theGeneral Services Administration, loosened its BlackBerry allegiance to adopt an approach more open to RIM's rivals.  If RIM fends off its challenges until new phones and tablets are ready - and if the market embraces the new devices - its future could brighten. If not, a takeover could loom.

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::::Sony to phase out feature phones by Sept::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827955_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>  Sony Mobile Communications (India), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japanese technology giant Sony, has decided to phase outfeature phones (non-smart mobile phones) by the end of September to focus solely on the fast-growing smartphone segment, a company official said Wednesday.  "The smartphone segment is growing by a compound annual growth rate of nearly 70 per cent. We as a company want to focus only on this segment. By the end of September this year, we plan to phase out all our feature phone models," the company's managing director P. Balaji told reporters on the sidelines of a programme here.  "The decision to phase out feature phones was taken a few quarters back and is being implemented now. There are six-seven feature phone models of the company in the market currently," said Balaji.  The company's cellular arm - Sony Ericsson which was a joint venture with Sweden's LM Ericsson - October 2011 became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Japanese company.  The company, which launched its smartphones under the Xperia brand, owned by the erstwhile Sony Ericsson, will continue to use the brand to market its products.  "Though volume wise, smartphones contribute only 10 per cent of the sales, value wise their share is nearly 40-45 per cent. We, therefore, want to tap the huge potential of this segment,' added Balaji.  The company, which imports its products from three manufacturing units in Japan, China and Mexico, ruled out setting up a production unit in India.  The company also unveiled three new models of its smartphones.

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::::West Bengal keen on Infosys unit in state::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827843_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div> West Bengal government on Wednesday finalised its IT policy at the meeting of the cabinet standing committee on industries. Informing this, IT minister Partha Chatterjee told reporters at Writers' Buildings that the new incentive schemes for IT industry will be announced within a fortnight. He also said that they have urged Infosys co-founderNR Narayana Murthy to come to Kolkata and hold talks with the government to set up their unit in the state.  "The chief minister is very keen to see Infosys set up their unit in West Bengal. We have categorically told Infosys that it would not be possible for our government to give them SEZ status as we are principally opposing setting up of any SEZ in West Bengal. But we have clearly told the Infosys officials that we will try our best to offer them adequate facilities. Since many senior Infosys officials who were holding talks with our government have left the organisation, it seems that we will have to initiate fresh dialogues with the company," Chatterjee said. The minister also said that if necessary, they will amend the SEZ Act passed by the previous Left Front government in 2003.  "We have also decided that we will provide land to ITC and Infotech at Rajarhat," Chatterjee informed. The minister said that two private companies had submitted expressions of interest for setting up Indian Institute of Information Technology at Kalyani in Nadia district.

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::::Yahoo! moves to reclaim Internet search crown::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827743_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>Yahoo! on Wednesday set out to reclaim the Internet search crown from Google with the release of software that transforms the way users explore the Web using Apple's coveted gadgets.  A Yahoo! Axis application was introduced for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch devices and also as "plug-in" software for Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and other Web browsers featuring HTML-5 graphics capabilities.  "Yahoo! is still very much in search," special projects product management director Ethan Batraski said while giving AFP an advance look at Axis. "We continue to flourish."  Axis does away with the blue links that have defined Internet query results for a decade and replaced them with previews of pages that might provide the information being sought.  The application lets users easily "swipe" from one Web page to another or review a pull-down strip of preview pages instead of making them click on links to see what websites look like.  "We removed the entire search results page from the equation for a game-changing search experience," Batraski said.  "The entire search experience is in the app," he continued. "You will never have to use Safari ever again."  Safari is the Web browsing program Apple builds into its devices.  The Axis search results pane instantly displays information of potential interest, such as the score from a most recent game if the query is a sports team.  Yahoo! also made it simple to email, tweet, "pin," or bookmark pages with touches of screens.  Axis also gives users the option of synching pages across devices, so that driving directions, movie times or other pages left open on one gadget will automatically display on another, the demonstration showed.  "I could easily start something on my iPad and continue on my iPhone," Batraski said. "The goal here is to connect all my devices together."  Clicks of side tabs replace swipes in the plug-in version of Axis for desktop computer browsing software.  For now, Yahoo! is not displaying ads in Axis because the focus is on winning users before weaving in ways to make money without marring the smooth experience.  Yahoo! has been steadily losing ground to Google in the Internet search market. Google's share inched up to 66.5 percent in April while Yahoo!'s portion slipped a fraction to 13.5 percent, according to comScore.  Microsoft's Bing was the second most popular search service, handling 15.4 percent of queries, the industry tracker reported.  Yahoo! in 2009 made a deal with Microsoft to have Bing handle the labor-intensive job of finding and indexing content on the Internet, freeing itself to concentrate on interesting or personalized ways to present results.  "We outsourced a backend process that every search engine was trying to do," Batraski said.  "It is grunt work and we are really focused on innovating."  Axis became available at Apple's online App Store late Wednesday.  Axis will be begin rolling out to France, Britain and a few other countries by the end of the year, according to Batraski.

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