Scientists urge pardon for gay code-breaking hero Turing

Google – AFP,  14 December 2012

A picture released by Sherborne School in Dorset shows Alan Turing

aged 16 in 1928 (Sherborne School/AFP/File)

LONDON — Leading scientists including Stephen Hawking urged Britain on Friday to pardon World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, who committed suicide after he was convicted of the then crime of homosexuality.

Often hailed as a father of modern computing whose code-cracking is credited with shortening World War II, Turing took his own life in 1954, two years after he was sentenced to chemical castration for the "gross indecency" of homosexuality.

"Successive governments seem incapable of forgiving his conviction for the then crime of being a homosexual, which led to his suicide," the scientists wrote in a letter published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"We urge the Prime Minister formally to forgive this British hero, to whom we owe so much as a nation, and whose pioneering contribution to computer sciences remains relevant even today."

Hawking and ten other scientists, including Royal Society president Paul Nurse, described Turing as "one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the modern era".

"It is time his reputation was unblemished," they said.

Turing died aged 41 after poisoning himself with cyanide.

In his short life, he lay the theoretical foundation for the modern-day computer and unravelled Nazi codes, which some historians argue saved millions of lives by cutting the war short.

A World War II Enigma decoding machine pictured at Bletchley Park,

central England, in 2004 (AFP/File, Martin Hayhow)

He is credited with breaking the "Enigma" code used to encrypt communications between German U-boats in the North Atlantic ocean, but he was virtually unknown to the public at the time of his death as his work was kept secret until 1974.

He also published pioneering work on early computers.

In 2009, Britain's then prime minister Gordon Brown issued a posthumous apology to the code-breaker, saying he had been treated "terribly".

Homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967.

The government rejected a call to pardon Turing in February after it was presented with an online petition of more than 23,000 signatures.

Junior justice minister Tom McNally said at the time that it would be "inappropriate" to pardon him as he was "properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence".

The office of Prime Minister David Cameron said it was considering its response to the scientists' letter.

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Internet remains unregulated after UN treaty blocked

Failure to sign agreement at ITU conference stops governments having greater powers to control phone calls and data

guardian.co.uk, Charles Arthur, Friday 14 December 2012

People use computers at an internet cafe in Beijing. Photograph: Diego
Azubel/EPA

A proposed global telecoms treaty that would give national governments control of the internet has been blocked by the US and key western and African nations. They said they are "not able to sign the agreement in its current form" at the end of a International Telecoms Union (ITU) conference in Dubai.

The proposals, coming after two weeks of complex negotiation, would have given individual governments greater powers to control international phone calls and data traffic, but were opposed as the conference had seemed to be drawing to a close late on Thursday.

The move seems to safeguard the role of the internet as an unregulated, international service that runs on top of telecoms systems free of direct interference by national governments.

The US was first to declare its opposition to the draft treaty. "It is with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that I have to announce that the United States must communicate that it is unable to sign the agreement in its current form," Terry Kramer, head of the US delegation, told the conference, after what had looked like a final draft was approved.

"The internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation. We candidly cannot support an ITU Treaty that is inconsistent with the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance."

The US was joined in its opposition by the UK, Canada, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Qatar and Sweden. All said they would not sign the proposed final text, meaning that although a number of other countries will sign it, the treaty cannot be effectively implemented.

"In the end, the ITU and the conference chair, having backed themselves to the edge of a cliff, dared governments to push them off," commented Kieren McCarthy, who runs the internet consultancy dot-nxt. "They duly did."

But Access Now, a lobbying group against ITU oversight of the internet, said that "despite all of the assurances of the ITU secretariat that the WCIT wouldn't discuss internet governance, the final treaty text contains a resolution that explicitly 'instructs the [ITU] secretary-general to take the necessary steps for the ITU to play and active and constructive role in... the internet.'" It urged governments not to sign it.

The ITU is a UN organisation responsible for coordinating telecoms use around the world. The conference was meant to update international treaties which have not evolved since 1988, before the introduction of the internet.

But the conference has been the source of huge controversy because the ITU has been accused of seeking to take control of the internet, and negotiating behind closed doors. Google has mounted a vociferous campaign against conference proposals that would have meant that content providers could be charged for sending data and which would have given national governments more control of how the internet works. Instead, lobbyists have said the treaties should simply not mention the internet at all because it is a service that runs atop telecoms systems.

But a bloc led by Russia, with China and the United Arab Emirates – where the conference is being held – said the internet should be part of the treaties because it travels over telecoms networks. A Russia-driven vote late on Wednesday seemed to push to include the internet in a resolution – a move the US disagreed with.

The failure to reach accord could mean that there will be regional differences in internet efficacy. "Maybe in the future we could come to a fragmented internet," Andrey Mukhanov, of Russia's Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, told the Reuters news agency. "That would be negative for all, and I hope our American and European colleagues come to a constructive position."

The US and Europe have indicated that they instead want private companies to drive internet standards.

McCarthy, who has published ITU planning documents that would otherwise have been kept out of sight on dot-nxt's website, criticised the conduct of the meeting: "attendees were stunned to find a conference style and approach stuck in the 1970s," he said.

Writing on the dot-nxt site, he said: "A constant stream of information was available only in downloadable Word documents; disagreement was dealt with by increasingly small, closed groups of key government officials; voting was carried out by delegates physically raising large yellow paddles, and counted by staff who walked around the room; meetings ran until the early hours of the morning, and "consensus by exhaustion" was the only fall-back position."

Attempts by the ITU to encourage the US to sign the proposed treaty by removing clauses – such as one that would give individual countries rights over website addresses – failed.

In this file photo dated Monday Dec. 3, 2012, participants listen

to  the speech of Hamdoun Toure, Secretary General of International

 Telecommunication Union in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.(AP Photo/
 Kamran Jebreili, File)

Related Article:

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Big Brother is listening—with tools Europe sold him?

RNW, Lauren Comiteau, 13 December 2012

(Photo: DeclanTM)

           

Are emails, cell phone records and SMS transcripts the latest additions to the tyrant’s arsenal?

In the digital age, electronic information seems to be attracting the attention of human rights groups almost as often as rubber hoses, sleep deprivation and water boards and information activists are calling for a burgeoning “digital weapons” trade to be nipped in the bud.

There’s growing concern about the sale of internet surveillance technology to countries with questionable human rights records. Activists say companies supplying the technologies need to be exposed and regulated.

“Several European countries are supplying systems used to track and trace activists for repressive purposes,” says Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament who is tasked with overseeing its Digital Freedom Strategy. “We need to know what is exported to whom.”

Shady deals

Schaake can’t even say if her own country is involved, hence “the need for greater accountability.” But investigative reports by Bloomberg, Reuters and other media outlets have implicated some companies and European countries. German electronics giant Siemens is reported to have sold surveillance gear to Bahrain, which the US added to its list of human rights violators earlier this year.

Currently there are ad hoc sanctions against selling such spy systems to Iran and Syria. But Schaake, and NGOs such as Humans Rights Watch and Reporters without Borders, are calling on the European Union to regulate internet surveillance tools the way they “verify the quality of foods and medicine or conventional weapons.”

Double-edged sword

“The struggle for human rights increasingly has a technological component,” says Schaake, “It’s how countries grip and control populations.” On the flip side of the technological coin, those same electronic advances allow activists, bloggers and journalists in repressive regimes to get information out to the world and organise mass protests in real time. One only has to think of Iran’s 2009 post-election Green Movement and the Arab Spring of 2010.

“It’s a cat and mouse game,” says Schaake. “But I’ve talked to activists in jail who have been presented with mobile phone records and emails when they’re being tortured and asked to identify who they are in contact with. It makes it more difficult to protect sources and to work for democracy and a just society.”

Iran doesn’t even have a world wide web, she says, but uses a nationalised internet more akin to an intranet. “Everything is centralised and monitored.”

Digital spyware

Human rights groups say surveillance software programs can be introduced into a targeted person’s computer via infected attachments or false software uploads. From there, governments can access hard drive contents, encrypted e-mails or chats, obtain passwords and even upload files—all without the computer owner’s knowledge.

According to HRW, “Some companies explicitly contact state actors such as intelligence agencies and security authorities to offer these technologies.”

The surveillance spyware sold by Siemens AG to Bahrain was maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). Bloomberg reports that NSN has divested from Trovicor, the unit that deals in the surveillance business.

New reality

“We are very aware that communications technology can be used for good and ill,” an NSN spokesman told Bloomberg in its August 2012 report. The risk of rights abuses, he said, was a big reason why NSN got out of the business and established a human rights policy and diligence programme. But the ultimate responsibility lies with “the people who use this technology to infringe human rights.”

MEP Schaake says the laws need to be updated to reflect the new reality we live in. “It’s also for our own vulnerability,” she says. Such technology “can be used against Europe, too, to track people here.”

RNW contacted Siemens for comment but has received no response.

Honouring computing’s 1843 visionary, Lady Ada Lovelace

Google Blog, December 10, 2012

Last year, a group of us were lucky enough to visit the U.K. Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, as part of the Silicon Valley Comes to the U.K. initiative. While there, we asked about some of the paintings on the wall. When we got to a large portrait of a regally dressed woman, our host said “and of course, that’s Lady Lovelace.” So much of world history leaves out or minimizes the contributions of women, and so “of course” most of us had no idea who she was. You can imagine our surprise when we learned she was considered by some to be the world’s first computer programmer—having published the first algorithm intended for use on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.

Lady Ada Lovelace, painted by Margaret Carpenter
 in 1836, from the U.K. Government Art Collection.
Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was born nearly two centuries ago in 1815. Her mother, mathematician Anne Isabelle Milbanke, was determined Ada would not fall prey to the same immoralities as Ada’s father, the “mad, bad and dangerous to know” poet Lord Byron. Thus, in an attempt to thwart any similar tendencies, she had Ada tutored in science and mathematics from a young age. It’s fair to say this did not completely work, as Ada went on to lead a rather colourful life. However it did fortuitously result in Ada becoming a mathematician like her mother, and pursuing what she termed “poetical science.”

After a chance encounter when aged 17, Ada became friends with Charles Babbage and grew fascinated by his idea to build an “Analytical Engine.” In 1843 Ada published a description of Babbage's machine. While partly a translation of an Italian work, Ada added voluminous self-penned notes, which made up the bulk of the document. Included in her notes were step-by-step instructions for how the machine could calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, prepared in collaboration with Babbage. In effect, this was the world’s first published algorithm.

Most importantly, the notes set out Ada's far-reaching vision for what the Analytical Engine signified. While Babbage saw it as a mathematical calculator, Ada understood it had much more potential. She realised it was, in essence, a machine that could manipulate symbols in accordance with defined rules, and—crucially—that there was no reason the symbols had to represent only numbers and equations.

“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.” Ada Lovelace, 1843

As Ada eloquently argued, such a device could do far more than mathematics. She even mused about its potential to compose music:

“Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

This was an astounding conceptual leap from calculation to computing. Ada envisaged a day when a single machine would be capable of a myriad of tasks, limited only by the creativity of its programmer. At the time—nearly a century before the first computers were built—it was a flash of brilliance.

After our visit to Downing Street, we returned to the U.S. determined to learn more about Ada, and to revive her memory. Today, her birthday, is an apt moment. In addition to this post, Google is honouring Ada with a doodle in recognition of her prophetic vision for computing.

Design of doodle by Kevin Laughlin

  

Unfortunately, Babbage's machines were never built in his lifetime, and Ada's vision of computing was lost to obscurity for more than a century. It wasn’t until 1991 that the Science Museum London built Babbage’s Difference Engine from his original drawings. That machine is now on show there, and a second one is now at the Computer History Museum in California. Plans are now afoot to build a replica of the Analytic Engine—so perhaps Ada’s algorithm will at last be run on the machine for which it was intended.

Ada's experience is sadly all too familiar. Too often, the contributions of women in science and technology are left untold, and to fade from view. While Ada’s story has been rediscovered, many others remain little known. That's why initiatives such as Ada Lovelace Day are so valuable, as a catalyst for raising the profile of women in science, past and present. Several wonderful biographies of Ada have been written already, and biographer Walter Isaacson has turned his attention to Ada as part of his next book.

Visibility is also the reason why we launched the Women Techmakers series on GDL, to help shine a light on the roles and contributions of the many talented technical women in our industry today. We hope our series will complement other efforts to raise the profile of women, such as the new AOL/PBS supported website and documentary Makers.com or the work of Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis on SeeJane to improve gender balance and reduce stereotypes in childrens’ television globally.

We hope today's doodle inspires people to find out more about Ada, and about the contributions made by women in general to science and technology.

Posted by Megan Smith, VP, Google[x] and Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations

Apple Maps glitch could be deadly: Australian police

Yahoo – AFP,  10 December 2012

People queue up to buy Apple's iPhone 5 in Sydney in September 2012.

Australian  police have warned motorists about using the map system on new

 Apple iPhones after rescuing several people left stranded in the wilderness, 

saying the errors could prove deadly

Australian police Monday warned motorists about using the map system on new Apple iPhones after rescuing several people left stranded in the wilderness, saying the errors could prove deadly.

Victoria state police said drivers were sent "off the beaten track" in recent weeks while attempting to get to the inland town of Mildura, being directed instead to the middle of a national park.

"Police are extremely concerned as there is no water supply within the park and temperatures can reach as high as 46 degrees Celsius (114 F), making this a potentially life threatening issue," police said in a statement.

Authorities said tests on the mapping system had confirmed that it lists Mildura, around 500 kilometres (310 miles) northwest of Melbourne, as being in the heart of the Murray Sunset National Park.

This is about 70 kilometres (43 miles) from its actual location.

Six motorists have been rescued in recent weeks from the park after following directions on their Apple iPhones, some of them after being stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water.

Others had walked long distances through dangerous terrain to get reception on their phones.

"If it was a 45-degree day, someone could actually die," Mildura's Local Area Commander Inspector Simon Clemence told state broadcaster ABC.

"It's quite a dangerous situation, so we would be calling for people not to use the new Apple iPhone mapping system if they're travelling from South Australia to Mildura."

Photo illustration of an Australian road sign. Six motorists have been rescued

in  recent weeks in Australia after following directions on their new Apple iPhones,

some of them after being stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water

Apple was not immediately reachable for comment on the issue.

In September the company apologised for its glitch-ridden maps application in the new operating system used by the iPhone 5 and urged customers to use rival programmes while improvements were made.

The iconic US firm developed its own mapping programme included in its new mobile iOS 6 operating system, and in doing so booted off Google Maps, which had been the default programme for Apple devices.

But the new system immediately drew scorn for omitting key landmarks and cities, failing to identify correct locations and distorting views from its images.

Victoria police said they had contacted Apple about the problem and they hoped it could be rectified promptly. In the meantime, they asked motorists in the state to rely on other forms of mapping.

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PSY's riches from 'Gangnam Style' not made at home

The Daily Star, AP, Ryan Nakashima, December 06, 2012

South Korean rapper Psy performs at KIIS FM's Jingle Ball concert in Los
Angeles, California December 3, 2012. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

                              

SEOUL: As "Gangnam Style" gallops toward 1 billion views on YouTube, the first Asian pop artist to capture a massive global audience has gotten richer click by click. So too has his agent and his grandmother. But the money from music sales isn't flowing in from the rapper's homeland South Korea or elsewhere in Asia.

With one song, 34-year-old Park Jae-sang - better known as PSY - is set to become a millionaire from YouTube ads and iTunes downloads, underlining a shift in how money is being made in the music business. An even bigger dollop of cash will come from TV commercials.

From just those sources, PSY and his camp will rake in at least $8.1 million this year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of publicly available information and industry estimates. But for online music sales in South Korea, he'll earn less than $60,000.

Here's how it works.

YOUTUBE

"Gangnam Style" with its catchy tune and much imitated horse-riding dance is the most-watched video on YouTube ever.

The viral video has clocked more than 880 million YouTube views since its July release, beating Justin Bieber's "Baby," which racked up more than 808 million views since February 2010. PSY's official channel on YouTube, which curates his songs and videos of his concerts, has nearly 1.3 billion views.

TubeMogul, a video ad buying platform, estimates that PSY and his agent YG Entertainment have raked in about $870,000 as their share of the revenue from ads that appear with YouTube videos. The Google Inc.-owned video service keeps approximately half.

PSY and YG Entertainment also earn money from views of videos that parody his songs.

Google detects videos that use copyrighted content. Artists can have the video removed or allow it to stay online and share ad revenue with YouTube. In the last week of September when "Gangnam Style" had around 300 million views, more than 33,000 videos were identified by the content identification system as using "Gangnam Style."

But since YouTube can be accessed from all over the world, wouldn't Asia be responsible for a significant chunk of the $870,000? The countries with the second- and third-highest views of the video are Thailand and South Korea.

"Ads rates vary depending on which country the video is played. Developed countries have higher ad rates and developing countries lower," said Brian Suh, head of YouTube Partnership in Seoul.

And the country with the most views of "Gangnam Style?" The United States.

LEGAL DOWNLOADS, CDs

"Gangnam Style" has been downloaded 2.9 million times in the U.S. and has been the No. 1 or No. 2 seller for most weeks since its debut, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The song sells for $1.29 on Apple's iTunes Store, the market leader in song downloads. Apple generally keeps about 30 percent of all sales, so the PSY camp could be due more than $2.6 million.

How much PSY keeps and how much goes to his managers, staff and record label is unclear. South Korean industry insiders said PSY likely gets 70 percent and YG Entertainment 30 percent for U.S. downloads.

But earnings from downloads in PSY's homeland are far from an embarrassment of riches.

South Koreans pay less than $10 a month for a subscription to a music service that allows them to download hundreds of songs or have unlimited access to a music streaming service. That makes the cost of a downloaded song about 10 cents on average. The average price for streaming a song is 0.2 cent.

PSY's cut for downloads is 14 percent. That falls to 7.5 percent for streamed songs. Yes, 7.5 percent of 0.2 cent. And that's before PSY's "Gangnam Style" co-composer take his share. The biggest cut goes to his agent and online retailers.

According to South Korea's national Gaon Chart, "Gangnam Style" was downloaded more than 3.6 million times and streamed around 40 million times as of November. That adds up to a little more than $61,000.

It's likely the fast-fading music CD industry generated even smaller revenue. PSY's 9 percent cut from sales of 102,000 CDs in South Korea would earn him $50,000 or more, according to an estimate by Kim Dong-hyun, a senior manager at Korea Music Copyright Association.

As for many other parts of Asia, illegal downloads and pirated CDS are so pervasive that only a small minority are willing to pay up for the legal versions.

TV COMMERCIALS

PSY has been jetting around the world, performing on shows such as "The X-Factor Australia" and NBC's "Today Show," but such programs usually cover travel costs and not much else, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of concert trade magazine Pollstar.

It is television commercials that are the big money spinner for the most successful of South Korea's K-pop stars. PSY has been popping up in TV commercials in South Korea for top brands such as Samsung Electronics and mobile carrier LG Uplus.

Chung Yu-seok, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, estimates PSY's commercial deals would amount to 5 billion won ($4.6 million) this year.

The money is cool. The products not so much. PSY is now the face of a new Samsung refrigerator and a major noodle company.

THE FAMILY

A fact little known outside South Korea is that PSY's father, uncle and grandmother own a combined 30 percent of DI Corp., a company which makes equipment that semiconductor companies use to make computer chips.

It's a stretch to plausibly explain how the success of "Gangnam Style" will boost DI's profits but that doesn't matter to the South Korean stock market. Perhaps inspired by the pure power of pop, DI shares surged eightfold from July after PSY's hit reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart.

It was time to cash in for PSY's grandmother, who sold 5,378 shares for about $65,000.

The share price has fallen since then but is still about double what it was before the release of "Gangnam Style."

PSY's agent YG Entertainment has also done well. Its share price is up about 30 percent since mid-July. The value of CEO Yang Hyun-suk's stake has swelled to about $200 million, making him among the richest in South Korea's entertainment industry.

THE FUTURE

The question now hanging over PSY is whether he will replicate the blockbuster success of "Gangnam Style" or end up remembered as a one-hit wonder.

"When this slows down, what comes next for PSY?" said Nielsen analytics vice president David Bakula. "Is it the evolution of a new musical style, something audiences are going to be craving en masse, or is it something that's just a passing fancy?"

Analysts say "Gangnam Style" alone will not be enough to propel PSY into the ranks of musicians such as Adele and may not even be enough to make him the top-grossing K-pop star. That will depend largely on his upcoming album, which PSY said will be released in March.

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Swimming robot reaches Australia after record-breaking trip

BBC News, 5 December 2012

Related Stories

• Robots 'repair' Scotland's corals
• Swimming robots set world record
• Robots set out to sample the seas

The robot was fished out of the water in
Byron Bay after completing its journey

A self-controlled swimming robot has completed a journey from San Francisco to Australia.

The record-breaking 9,000 nautical mile (16,668km) trip took the PacX Wave Glider just over a year to achieve.

Liquid Robotics, the US company behind the project, collected data about the Pacific Ocean's temperature, salinity and ecosystem from the drone.

The company said its success demonstrated that such technology could "survive the high seas".

The robot is called Papa Mau in honour of the late Micronesian navigator Pius "Mau" Piailug, who had a reputation for finding ways to navigate the seas without using traditional equipment.

"During Papa Mau's journey, [it] weathered gale-force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the east Australian current to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay, near Bundaberg, Queensland," the company said in a statement.

Some of the data it gathered about the abundance of phytoplankton - plant-like organisms that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and provide food for other sea life - could already be monitored by satellite. However, the company suggested that its equipment offered more detail, providing a useful tool for climate model scientists.

Ongoing travels

Liquid Robotics still has a further three robots at sea. A second is due to land in Australia early next year. Another pair had been heading to Japan, but one of them has suffered damage and has been diverted to Hawaii for repair.

Each robot is composed of two halves: the upper part, shaped like a stunted surfboard, is attached by a cable to a lower part that sports a series of fins and a keel.

They do not use fuel but instead convert energy from the ocean's waves, turning it into forward thrust.

Solar panels installed on the upper surface of the gliders power numerous sensors that take readings every 10 minutes.

Papa Mau was the first of the firm's four
marine robots to complete its journey

Mixing electronics and water might sound like a risky idea - but Dr Jeremy Wyatt, from the school of computer science at the University of Birmingham, said there was good reason there was so much interest in marine robotics.

"The ocean is a very big place and therefore a safe place to test autonomous robots - these Wave Gliders move slowly and have a low risk of bumping into other objects," he said.

"There are also autonomous sailing competitions in which craft plot their journey completely independently - unlike the Wave Gliders which autonomously follow a prescribed route - and there are a variety of types: robots which bob on the ocean surface, gliders and even fully autonomous submarines which plan their own routes and dive to collect data.

"We are reaching a tipping point in that the technology is becoming so cheap that it's now a much cheaper to use a robot to gather data than to pay for a manned ship to be at sea for months at a time."

Android extends global smartphone lead

The Daily Star, AFP, December 04, 2012

A Google Android figurine sits on the welcome desk as employee Tracy McNeilly
 smiles at the new Google office in Toronto, November 13, 2012. (REUTERS/
Mark Blinch)

                              

WASHINGTON: Google's Android operating system will power more than two-thirds of smartphones sold worldwide in 2012, and will remain the dominant platform for at least the next four years, a survey showed Tuesday.

The survey by the research firm IDC showed Android will be the platform for 68.3 percent of smartphones shipped in 2012, far ahead of 18.8 percent for the iOS platform used on Apple's iPhone.

"IDC forecasts Android to be the clear leader in the smartphone mobile operating system race, thanks in large part to a broad selection of devices from a wide range of partners," the market tracker said.

"Samsung is the leading Android smartphone seller though resurgent smartphone vendors LG Electronics and Sony, both of which cracked the top five smartphone vendors during the third quarter, are not to be overlooked. IDC believes the net result of this will be continued double-digit growth throughout the forecast period."

The report said Android will retain the top position through 2016, when it will have 63.8 percent of the market in the face of increased competition from Apple, Microsoft's Windows Phone and others.

"Android is expected to stay in front, but we also expect it to be the biggest target for competing operating systems to grab market share," said Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC.

"At the same time, Windows Phone stands to gain the most market share as its smartphone and carrier partners have gained valuable experience in selling the differentiated experience Windows Phone has to offer."

Llamas said other players jockeying for market share will include Research in Motion's BlackBerry, which releases a new operating system next year, and the open-source Linux system.

BlackBerry, which until a few years ago was the dominant smartphone, will see its market share slide to 4.7 percent in 2012, according to IDC, and to 4.1 percent by 2016.

Linux will be used on two percent of smartphones this year and 1.5 percent in 2016, it said. Windows will grow from 2.6 percent this year to 11.4 percent in 2016, IDC said.

Apple's iOS will remain the clear number two platform but will be "cost prohibitive for some users within many emerging markets," IDC said.

"In order to maintain current growth rates, Apple will need to examine the possibility of offering less expensive models," it said.

The report said the overall worldwide mobile phone market will grow just 1.4 percent in 2012, the lowest annual growth rate in three years. The total number of devices sold is expected to be around 1.7 billion.

The forecast reflects an estimated 39.5 percent growth in smartphones, but declines in sales of other kinds of mobile phones.

"Sluggish economic conditions worldwide have cast a pall over the mobile phone market this year," said IDC's Kevin Restivo.

"However, the fourth quarter will be relatively bright due in part to sales of high-profile smartphones, such as the iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S3, in addition to lower-cost Android-powered smartphones shipped to China and other high-growth emerging markets."

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WhatsApp: the new text messaging

As texting turns 20, could this popular app that allows phone users to chat for free take the place of SMS?

Guardian, Charles Arthur, Tuesday 4 December 2012

WhatsApp … RU still using SMS? LOL! Photograph: Getty Images/
OJO Images

You've heard of texting, right? Billions of people use text messages, which have just turned 20. And you've heard of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), the free system for users of BlackBerry phones where, unlike texts, sending or receiving messages costs nothing because it's done as data that you have already paid for in your contact.

OK. But have you heard of WhatsApp? If you're under 25, the answer is almost certainly yes. It is a cross-platform mobile messaging app that allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS, and has an estimated 250 million users worldwide. That's more than four times as many as BBM, and it has the mobile operators increasingly worried, because it works like BBM – over data – but on any phone that can run the app, including phones running Android, Windows Phone, Nokia's Symbian and S40, BlackBerry OS and Apple's iOS. To communicate with someone, you both have to have WhatsApp installed. (It will recognise your contacts who do have it from their phone number.) That's a potential market of many hundreds of millions of users, and although the company hasn't released any formal numbers, it's safe to say that it's already really big, and likely to become even more so.

WhatsApp was started in 2009 by two ex-Yahoo staff, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and presently handles more than 10bn messages per day. And it's also one of the most popular paid-for apps on any platform. Why a paid app (you have to buy it on the iPhone; it's free for the first year on other platforms) rather than totally free? Koum and Acton recently posted on the company blog to explain: "These days companies know literally everything about you, your friends, your interests, and they use it all to sell ads," they wrote.

"We wanted to make something that wasn't just another ad clearing-house. We wanted to spend our time building a service people wanted to use because it worked and saved them money and made their lives better in a small way. We knew that we could charge people directly if we could do all those things. We knew we could do what most people aim to do every day: avoid ads."

Text messaging may still be pulling in the money from pay-as-you-go users, but these days they can get data bundles that let them send endless numbers of WhatsApp messages, and never touch the gold-plated text message (whose per-message cost, especially on PAYG, is miles out of kilter with what it costs to deliver or send).

Tero Kuittenen, of the Finnish consultancy Alekstra, says: "I believe we are facing a period of accelerating erosion of SMS volumes – this is not going to be a linear process." WhatsApp, he says, has grown tenfold in a year: "Even though WhatsApp is such a fresh phenomenon, it has already played a major role in pushing Spain's SMS volume into 25% annual decline."

So if you haven't heard of WhatsApp, you might soon do. And if you have, when's the last time you sent a text?

Facebook is updating its Messenger

 app for Android mobile phones allowing 

people send messages via their data

plan. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP

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