Does Information Really "Want to be Free"?

"On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable,' said writer Stewart Brand in 1984. 'The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."

All information is not equal. Some types of information are so valuable (the current price of lots of commodities) that spending huge amounts of money to discover price, and act on it, are justifiable. Other sorts of information do not have these characteristics.

But there is no single rule that adequately describes information economics.

MinnPost - The end of the free Internet?

Sigmoid Curves and Network Effects Drive Scale and, Usually, Profit Margins

Ultimately, businesses live and die on three simple dynamics: distributions, network effects and  sigmoid curves (S curves), says Niel Robertson, Trada CEO.

Distributions tell you how much you can afford to spend selling a product, he says. Accounts worth $1,000 each cannot be sold the same way as accounts worth $1 million each. Mass media advertising or distributors might work for the former, but direct sales is feasible for the latter. 

S curves determine how far you can scale a business, he says. S curves also illustrate product life cycles and the strategy of creating the next new wave of products before the current revenue driver begins to decline. 

Network effects account for the out-sized returns when a business can achieve huge market share.

Almost all problems (and most opportunities) come from understanding how to take advantage of these functions – rather than fight against them, he says.

There's a Difference Between a "Search Query" and a Robo Call

Twitter's search query numbers include 'searches' from Twitter apps such as TweetDeck and Seesmic that are actually just automated calls those apps send out every few minutes to populate columns users have set up to see tweets on certain topics.

So maybe recent Twitter "search volume" figures are a bit inflated?

Reality Check: Twitter's Huge Search Query Numbers Are Falsely Inflated

Differing iPhone Demographics in France, U.K., Germany

Apparently iPhone owners in several European countries have distinct and non-similar age profiles.

The key segment in France is 16-to 24-year-olds, who represent 36 percent of France’s iPhone owners; in the UK, it’s 25- to 34-year-olds, who account for 40 percent of the U.K.’s iPhone owners; and it’s 35- to 44-year-olds in Germany, who make up 33 percent of Germany’s iPhone owners.

In France, which has the highest adoption of iPhones in Europe, only 57 percent of the total iPhone installed base is male; in Germany, it’s 76 percent.

Profiling Your Best Mobile Customers | Forrester Blogs

Where Google Might Go Next

Taking a look at places users go immediately after visiting Google to search for something suggests the next area Google might explore, after its recent move into travel: gaming.

The table shows the top 20 downstream industries visited after a Google visit during the month of June 2010.

Google's presence is obvious in most: Search Engines (Google.com), Entertainment (YouTube), Shopping and Classifieds (Google Shopping, Google Base), Business and Finance (Google Finance). Google's presence is perhaps less obvious in others: Social Networking and Forums (YouTube, Orkut, Google Talk), Education (Knol, Google Book Search, Google Scholar), Lifestyle (Blogger).

After travel, gaming is the next area where Google does not arguably already have a presence.

Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America

Anybody Can Make a Mistake: This Doesn't Exactly Sound Like a Mistake

Late last month, lobbyists for the pro-net neutrality movement began circulating a letter on Capitol Hill demanding the immediate passage of a law that would allow the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband access as a common carrier service. The letter featured over 160 signatories, among them the Dr. Pepper Museum, Planned Parenthood of North Texas, and Operation Catnip, a spay-and-neuter clinic in Gainesville, Florida.

One signatory doesn’t remember signing anything related to net neutrality, and the other signatories contacted by The Daily Caller could not explain their support for Title II reclassification. In fact, they didn’t even attempt to explain their support.

Legislators vote on bills they haven't read. Apparently groups sometimes "support" issues they don't necessarily understand.

Free Press and NTEN con nonprofits into supporting net neutrality | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

The Web is Getting More Social, Google Says

No surprise then that Google, one way or the other, will "get more social" in response.

Deja Vu All Over Again?

Some might argue that Apple's invention of an amazing new product will prove to be "deja vu all over again."

Though any such analysis has to account for the intervening success of the iPod, which completely dominates market share in the MP3 player market, what happened in the PC business could happen in the tablet PC market, some will argue.

Namely, Apple could wind up a niche supplier of high-end devices, rather than the dominant provider in the segment, because of its insistence on a "closed" model.

This Android Chart Should Scare The Bejesus Out Of Apple

Mobile Access: People are Rational

One of the issues when looking at broadband access is the role of demand. People sometimes assume that more people would use broadband if more were available, which ignores the fact that most people do have access, and choose not to buy fixed broadband service, for example, much as most people choose not to buy the fastest-possible speed service.

The point is that consumers are rational: they buy services and products that have value.

Consider use of mobile Internet services. According to researchers at Pew Internet & American Life Project, minority Americans lead the way when it comes to mobile access, especially mobile access using handheld devices. Does that mean there is a "mobile broadband digital divide?" Hardly. The same percentage of European-descended Americans have mobile phones.

Sometimes, different segments of the consumer population will use some services, features or applications more than others. That does not necessarily mean there is a "divide" of any sort that is driven by disparate access to assets. It does mean some people find some services and applications more useful than others do.

Nearly two-thirds of African-descendedAmericans (64 percent) and Latinos (63 percent) are wireless Internet users, for example, a higher percentage than European-descended Americans. More Latinos and African Americans own mobile phones than European-descended Americans.

"Minority" Americans are significantly more likely to own a cell phone than their white counterparts (87 percent of blacks and Hispanics own a cell phone, compared with 80 percent of whites). Additionally, black and Latino cell phone owners take advantage of a much wider array of their phones’ data functions compared to white cell phone owners.

Statistical variances, in other words, are just that--variances--and not necessarily evidence of disparity of access.

Mobile Access 2010 | Pew Internet & American Life Project

60% of U.S. Adults Use Mobile Internet

About 60 percent of adult American adults are now wireless Internet users, and mobile data applications have grown more popular over the last year, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew defines "wireless Internet use" as going online with a laptop using a Wi-Fi connection or mobile broadband card, or using the Internet, email or instant messaging on the mobile phone.

Roughly half of all adults (47 percent) say they use a Wi-Fi connection, up from the 39 percent who did so at a similar point in 2009.

About 40 percent of adults use the mobile Internet, email or IM from a mobile device, an increase from the 32 percent of adults who did so in 2009.

Mobile Access 2010 | Pew Internet & American Life Project:

Digital Migration Hurts Traditional Media More Than Expected

The annual decline in 2009 revenues in several traditional media categories was more severe than originally forecast, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers research. Most striking was the decline in out-of-home revenues, which fell approximately 13 percent in 2009, compared to a forecast of about seven percent. In addition, radio revenues declined about nine percent, compared to an approximately seven percent forecast.

The other two media categories which had a 2009 revenue decline more severe than originally predicted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers were newspaper publishing (approximately 12 percent compared to a forecast of slightly more than 10 percent) and consumer magazine publishing (about 11 percent compared to a forecast of about nine percent).

Digital Migration Hurts Traditional Media Revenues More than Expected

Mobile TV Revenues to Double by 2015

Global revenues from mobile TV, which totaled $3.2 billion in 2009, should reach $7 billion by 2015. Almost all of this growth will occur in streamed TV services, which currently account for the vast majority of mobile TV revenues, according to Juniper Research.

Broadcast TV services will undergo slight but steady growth, while streamed TV services will steadily rise for the next year or so and then sharply accelerate through 2015.

Mobile TV Revenues to Double by 2015

What Keeps Service Provider Executives Awake At Night? A Service Provider Survey by Metaswitch Networks - Thoughts on Carrier Evolution - Carrier Evolution

Service provider executives surveyed by Metaswitch Networks say uncertainty about new services and revenues, plus competition, remain the top concerns over the next decade. That has been true for most of the past decade, and the survey results confirm that the search for new revenue sources and the pressure of competition remain dominant facts of life in competitive and changing marketplaces.

The significant new difference is that telecom regulators—and what they might do—now are among the top three concerns. Of the three top concerns, though, only service innovation and the organizational response to competition are under direct control.

Click the image for a larger view. 

What Keeps Service Provider Executives Awake At Night? A Service Provider Survey by Metaswitch Networks - Thoughts on Carrier Evolution - Carrier Evolution

Apple's iPhone 4 Update Won't Fix Reception

Apple is working on an update for the signal strength display on iPhone 4 models. There is a problem with the way the iPhone 4 display signal strength, and the update will mean the display corresponds to the received signal strength.

The software update will not fix the antenna reception problem, though. According to some wireless experts, there is an antenna design problem. Using a bumper seems to help.

Why Apple's iPhone 4 Update Won't Fix Your Reception Problem

Apple's IPad Getting Enterprise Traction

Despite its launch as a consumer device, the iPad, like the iPhone before it, is getting workplace adoption. That doesn't mean Apple is especially anxious to create enterprise products, but simply that the same attributes that appeal to consumers also appeal to business users.

Research in Motion and Microsoft are the two companies which have to worry about such trends, since those two companies tend to dominate corporate demand for smartphones and PCs.

Apple's IPad Wins Corporate Converts at Wells Fargo, SAP - Bloomberg

Twitter Has Changed the News Business

Public relations practitioners are already talking about ‘breaking’ news of an event (staged for commercial benefit) using Twitter, thereby bypassing any editorial scrutiny.

Click on image for larger view.

Of course journalists themselves are being side-stepped by bloggers and citizen reporters, some would rightly note.

These are people who have little interest in what is viewed as “old-school” media practices that require investment of more time when researching stories. Even journalists would admit to relaxing their own rules for their blogs, Twitter feeds and other interweb media.

Twitter breaks news, but will it break journalism? | memeburn

Cisco Cius is First "Phone" Tablet

Cius, the new Cisco tablet PC, might seem an odd product for the networking company to introduce, but think of it as a new form factor for a business phone and you will get the idea.

Aimed at a business user, rather than consumer, the Cius is designed to act as a portable communications and collaboration platform, working as a phone with a screen that works with Cisco applications such as Telepresence or WebEx, and with Cisco’s Unified Communications manager, or as a tablet.

When the tablet is docked it provides the screen, and the base has USB ports, a wired Ethernet connection, and, of course, a telephone handset and speakerphone.

In fact, the Cius is the first tablet device specifically designed to work as a "phone," not a device for consuming Internet media.

Unified Communications Strategies Blog � If Unified Communications Could be Fun - Cius Demo at Ciscolive

132 Announced LTE Network Launches

2011 will be the year when LTE goes live in a big way, as Verizon in the United States and DoCoMo in Japan will begin wide-scale roll-outs by the end of 2010.

Don't call it the "year of LTE," as that will almost ensure it won't be, but it is noteworthy that of the 132 networks have reported trials or plans to launch LTE commercially, some 32 more carriers have declared their intentions over just the last six months.

Verizon has also hinted at the availability of LTE-based handsets by May 2011," says ABI Research analyst Bhavya Khanna. That means LTE initially will be a PC dongle and PC card service, not a voice handset network, for at least half a year.

LTE Trials Pick up Speed as the World Prepares to Go 4G; ABI Research Reports - Yahoo! Finance

Lobbyists Swarm FCC Meeting

Two of the biggest proponents of net neutrality rules for broadband providers involved in closed door congressional committee negotiations have hired 112 former government officials to lobby as Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have both pushed new broadband Internet policies.

For the first three months of 2010, 74 percent of the lobbyists hired by both Google and Microsoft have previous experience in government, according to data obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics and lobbyist disclosure forms. This is a very similar number when compared to the percentage of former government officials hired to lobby for the top six telecommunications organizations.

Key net neutrality supporters hire former government officials to lobby — Making Government Transparent and Accountable - Sunlight Foundation Blog

Display Advertising Explains "Google Me"

Google's rumored launch of its own social network "Google Me" might seem curious, but there is a good reason why the move would make business sense: display advertising.

According to ComScore, Google sites place sixth among web publishers for display ad impressions at 25.8 billion, the equivalent of 2.4 percent of the total impressions for the first quarter of 2010. Facebook easily dominated the display ad market for the same period at 16.2 percent or 176.3 billion impressions.

Google's Display Advertising Plans Include Gmail, YouTube - Advertising Age - Digital

Mobile Accounts for 17% of European Mobile Connections

Mobile broadband accounted for 17.3 percent of the total number of European broadband connections in Europe at the end of 2009, " according to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight.

The North American market has so far evolved at a slower pace, with mobile broadband accounting for just 7.1 percent of the total number of connections, says Berg Insight.

The number of HSPA/LTE mobile broadband subscribers (connected PCs) grew by 71 percent year-on-year in 2009 to reach 25 million and is forecasted to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21.6 percent to 81 million by 2015.

Berg Insight

More than 50 percent of applications are priced below or equal to $2.00 in all stores, with the exception of BlackBerry App World and Windows Marketplace for Mobile, says Distimo.

The average price of all paid applications and the 100 most popular paid applications in the Apple App Store for iPad ($4.65) is higher than in the Apple App Store for iPhone ($4.01).

Google Android Market has the largest share of free applications (57 percent) and Windows Marketplace for Mobile has the smallest (22 percent).

Ethernet Access Now Cheaper than SONET

Domestic access Ethernet circuits now cost less, in most case, than traditional SDH/SONET leased circuits, says Owen Irving, vice president, Commercial, Asia Pacific at Cable & Wireless Worldwide, CommsDay reports.

“10M Ethernet appears to have settled at approximately two times E1 pricing, 50 Mbps Ethernet is often a lower price than DS3, while 100M is often a similar price to DS3," he says.

Required Reading

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

A citizen's required reading for July 4th: The Declaration of Independence (with music) | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

Required Reading

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

A citizen's required reading for July 4th: The Declaration of Independence (with music) | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

European Commission Inquiry on Net Neutrality

The European Commission is looking into such issues as whether Internet providers should be allowed to adopt certain traffic management practices, prioritizing one kind of Internet traffic over another and whether such traffic management practices may create problems and have unfair effects for users.

The EC also will look at whether the level of competition between different Internet service providers, transparency requirements and whether the EU needs to act further to ensure fairness in the Internet market, or whether industry should take the lead.

The consultation will feed into a Commission report on net neutrality, which should be producedby the end of this year.

EUROPA - Press Releases - Digital Agenda: Commission launches consultation on net neutrality

Consumer Reports Says iPhone 4 Signal Reception Not a Serious Problem

All mobile phones can encounter signal reception problems when the devices are held, notes Consumer Reports "Your hand, your head, or any other part of your body that comes between the phone's antenna and the nearest cell tower will interfere with reception, and devilishly well."

"Humans are mostly made of water, and water is very good at blocking phone signals."

Consumer Reports Electronics Blog: iPhone 4's supposed signal woes aren’t unique, and may not be serious

Should Fixed-Line Providers Go "Over the Top"?

Now that residential voice and Internet services are no longer tied to a physical household, fixed-line operators can (and should) customize services for individual members of a household and compete on a nationwide basis versus a specific fixed territory,” says Diane Myers, Infonetics Research directing analyst.

The decline of traditional fixed-line voice service and the rise of broadband access, video, and mobile data is speeding up, and PC-based mobile broadband subscribers will surpass all other types of Internet access subscribers by 2013. Under such conditions, where some companies compete without regard to geography, firms that remain location-bound will be at a disadvantage, Myers seems to conclude.

In 2009, 70 percent of all North American voice subscribers were mobile; by 2014, that number will grow as an increasing number of consumers go mobile-only.

Infonetics Research - Broadband, video, and mobile services fuel the residential services market

Lance Takes Last Tour de France Ride

Lance Armstrong begins his last Tour de France ride on Saturday. Good luck, Lance.

Apple Appears to Permit Google Ads Inside iPad and iPhone Apps

Apple Inc. doesn't appear to have barred Google Inc. and others from selling targeted ads inside iPhone and iPad applications, after implying several weeks ago that it might do so, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Software developers say their new and updated applications are getting approved by Apple, even though the apps are enabled to serve ads by third-party ad networks such as Google's Mobile Adsense and AdMob.

Every smaller firm that finds it has become a dominant firm, or is perceived as potentially dominant, will incure antitrust and other regulatory scrutiny. It might be that Apple and Google both must move more cautiously now that each is seen as reaching the threshold of dominance in existing markets that might be leveraged to attain dominance in new markets.

If the pattern continues, it will be good for advertisers, content owners and software developers, as they will have more freedom to pick their partners and keep more business leverage.

Apple on iPhone 4 Reception Issues

Apple says the signal strength indicator on its iPhone 4 is displaying incorrect results. "Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong," Apple says. "Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength."

In areas of weak signal, the "big drop in bars" when the device is gripped is "because their high bars were never real in the first place."

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4

Nexus One Lessons

There are perhaps some lessons Google and everybody else can learn from the mixed results of the "direct to consumer" Nexus One effort.

Though it is hard to say for sure, the experiment might have influenced the current direction of the leading Android devices, ranging from the HTC Evo to the Droid Incredible and Droid X. If that was the intention of creating the Nexus One, the experiment bore fruit.

It might also be important to note that we had a test of two retailing concepts: the idea that U.S. consumers actually hate contracts so much they will pay full retail prices for advanced devices, and the notion that such devices can be sold direct from a website, bypassing the retail distribution chain the leading mobile companies use.

One might conclude that demand for unlocked phones is not as significant as one might have thought. The other observation is that the current retail model works pretty darn well, compared to "web only."

Also, after-sales support proved to be another weakness. Customers do not appear to have been happy with "email-only" customer support, and seem to have been scarcely happier with the added "by phone" support.

There's nothing wrong with experimentation, to test such notions. But we might remember that Apple was highly criticized for opening its retail store network. It now appears those critics were wrong. The retail store experience is helpful, maybe even necessary, as a distribution channel for advanced mobile devices.

Wikipedia To Add A U.S. Data Center � Data Center Knowledge

Wikipedia plans to add a third data center, budgeting $3.27 million for the new facility, on top of the $1.87 million it expects to spend on maintaining the Tampa and Amsterdam data centers.

That might not be much by commercial standards, but Wikipedia is a non-profit organization. In part, Wikipedia will use a $2 million grant from Google to help expand its data centers.

Virginia is a likely site for the second U.S. data center. Wikipedia also has data centers in Amsterdam and Tampa, Fla.

Wikipedia To Add A U.S. Data Center � Data Center Knowledge

Google To Offer Threaded, Non-Threaded Email Formats

Google is planning to offer a standard email option in Gmail in the next few months, Henry Blodget reports. Currently, Gmail presents email in a threaded format, in which replies and follow-on emails with the same subject line are grouped together. That's helpful to people who want to follow a single conversation as it develops, or refer back to earlier messages.

Others will find it less useful since the threading feature means new replies do not automatically appear at the top of the inbox, and that's where people are trained to look for new messages.

Apparently Google will simply offer a way to select the "threaded" or non-threaded" formats.

Google To Change Gmail, Add "Normal Email" Option Instead Of Just "Conversations"

How To Watch Movies And TV Online For Free

If you watch much television online, Googling around for it quickly becomes a drag. Clicker is a great one-stop shop for finding this content. It's legal content.

How To Watch Movies And TV Online For Free

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on 3 Key Trends

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says mobile, clouds and networking are three fundamental trends.

watch the video here

Tweens Now Targeted for Mobile Phone Ownership

Mobile service providers have shifted their targets as they hunt for new customers over the years.

Business users were an early target, followed by consumers who wanted convenience, then adults who wanted "safety," then older children for "keeping in touch" and now "tweens" seem to be a demographic where new customers can be found.

Nissan's First iAd Campaign

Google Buys Leading Airline Data Company

Google is acquiring ITA, a Boston-based software company specializing in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.

Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data, and plans on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for people to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy a ticket.

ITA's software is employed by a long list of airlines and travel sites, including Kayak and Orbitz, and is considered by many to be the dominant provider of such information.

The move is logical given the prominence Bing has been giving to flight-related search and commerce.

Official Google Blog: Taking off with ITA

Mobile Data: Not the Deluge You Might Expect

Average mobile data consumption increased from about 90 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2009 to 298 MBytes per month during the first quarter of 2010, according to Nielsen.

This represents a year-over-year increase of approximately 230 percent. While this increase is substantial, in the first quarter of 2009 more than a third of smart phone subscribers used less than 1 MByte of data per month and usage has dropped to a quarter in the first quarter of 2010.

About 20 million current smartphone users are hardly using data.

Quantifying the Mobile Data Tsunami and its Implications | Nielsen Wire

"It's Just a Phone"

Problems with your iPhone 4? "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it." Probably good advice. Also a reminder that civility is a virtue.

Exclusive: Conversation with Steve Jobs on the iPhone 4 antenna problems � Boy Genius Report

Just in Time for July 4

Why Intel Uses Ethnographers

Most companies ask customers what they want or need when designing the new generation of products or services. Intel has a bit of challenge in that regard since people sometimes don't know what they want, and Intel makes products are are building blocks for the products end users actually experience.

So Intel hires ethnographers to "stand in" for the market.

How Moore's Law drove Intel into the arms of anthropologists

470.6 Billion Mobile VoIP Minutes of Use by 2015

The number of mobile VoIP minutes carried annually on 3G and 4G networks will rise from 15 billion minutes in 2010 to 470.6 billion by 2015, finds a new report from Juniper Research.

Mobile VoIP traffic will see steady rises in all regions over the forecast period, but particularly in developed markets, due to the increasing ubiquity of 3G networks.

WiFi mobile VoIP is potentially the most damaging of all VoIP traffic as it bypasses the mobile networks altogether, says Anthony Cox, Juniper Research senior analyst. We forecast that mobile VoIP over WiFi will cost operators $5 billion globally by 2015, he says.

Annual Mobile VoIP Minutes to Double Each Year, Reaching 470.6bn by 2015, According to Juniper Research

Over-the-Top Video Will Generate $20 Billion in 2014

U.S. broadband households that view over-the-top video will grow from 38 million in 2009 to 81 million by 2014, according to In-State. Of course, "viewing" is not the same thing as "paying."

But revenue from OTT video will more than quadruple by 2014 to nearly $20 billion, In-Stat forecasts.

Most of that revenue likely will come from subscriptions and pay-per-view sources, as content owners so far have found difficult the challenge of creating a revenue stream based solely on advertising.

In-Stat - Press Releases:

iPad Replaces Menus

So the big problem is people stealing the menus, eh?

Intel backs off WiMAX

Intel has decided to dissolve its WiMAX Program Office, which was set up to promote the development of related WiMAX technologies, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

That is not exactly the same thing as suspending or ending its support for WiMAX, which continues. It does indicate the expected returns from such promotion efforts now are diminished to the point where it doesn't make sense to keep pouring resources into the effort.

Once the global GSM mobile community decided to back Long Term Evolution, that was a turning point for WiMAX.

Staff members of the WiMAX Program Office will be incorporated into Intel's Mobile Wireless Group (MWG), PC Client Group (PCCG), or Sales and Marketing (SMG) unit, depending on their skills.

Intel backs off WiMAX industry, dismisses WiMAX Program Office, say sources

Mobile Games Explain Much About Mobile App Disuse

You probably have seen statistics indicating that a typical mobile app gets used for perhaps a month, and then usage declines dramatically over the following two months. One reason is that so many mobile apps are either pieces of content or gaming apps, and will lose their novelty over time.

After looking at about 40,000 game titles, O'Reilly Radar estimates a popular game app, on average (median), spends about 15 days on the "Top 100" list.

Popular iPhone games stay highly-ranked only for a few weeks - O'Reilly Radar

Walt Mossberg Sorts Through HSPA+, 4G Claims

Looks Like Your Starbucks Purchases are a Coincident Economic Indicator

Your spending at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts looks like a coincident economic indicator, meaning coffee purchases at the two outlets track the economy.

The Christmas season spike, when people are buying gifts, rather than coffee, appears to be the only anamoly.

Too bad Starbucks is not a leading indicator.