The Federal cabinet Division, islamabad has approved the revised payscale 2011.
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Revised Payscale 2011 pakistan
The Federal cabinet Division, islamabad has approved the revised payscale 2011.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Acura
Acura 2012 Acura TL
For years, Acura approached the evolution of its vehicles with the deliberate patience of a carpenter wielding a sanding block. Rough mechanical or aesthetic edges were banished not with axe swings, but with small motions that seemed barely perceptible compared to the ranging whims of the competition.
Then the 2009 TL came along.
While the automaker had already begun to dabble with its then-new corporate shield grille, the TL took the piece and ran with it in a direction no one else was heading. Ask Acura about the thinking behind the design, and the company will say that the look was a product of the times. When the vehicle was penned, the world was preoccupied with ever larger displays of affluence, and Acura wanted a sedan that was unmistakable in every way. Unfortunately, the fourth-generation TL landed right as the housing bubble popped and the rest of the economy began circling the drain.
In order to right the TL’s wrongs for 2012, Acura has put down the chainsaw in favor of the carving knife to build an altogether more attractive vehicle that brings additional fuel economy to the table as well. Are the small changes enough for the luxury sedan to put its dreaded beak behind it?
2012 Acura TL softens skin, sharpens claws in Chicago
Let’s be honest – the Acura TL isn’t exactly a pretty car. And while the vast majority of the automotive media and enthusiast forums immediately lashed out at the TL’s angular design, we were nothing short of pleased with its luxurious, high-tech interior and solid driving dynamics – especially the six-speed manual-equipped SH-AWD. For the 2012 model year, Acura has softened some of the car’s harsh lines, and while the automaker tells us that both the front and rear fascias are “all-new,” there’s no mistaking this sedan for anything but a TL.
Because this is merely a modest mid-cycle refresh, the TL’s powertrain hasn’t been completely overhauled. Both the 3.5- and 3.7-liter V6s are still on hand, though a new six-speed automatic transmission helps improve performance and fuel economy. A new set of 19-inch all-season tires are available on SH-AWD models in an effort to improve performance on snow and ice, fitted to an updated set of alloy wheels.
Inside, Acura has made substantial improvements to reduce wind and road noise, and the HDD navigation system has been upgraded to 60 gigabytes for improved music storage. What’s more, a new Advance Package nets customers things like a blind spot information system and cooled front seats. Look for the 2012 TL to hit dealerships later this year. Follow the jump for the official press release.
2012 Acura TL is the face of change… at least a little bit 
Acura has yanked the sheets off of the latest take on its bread-and-butter TL at the 2011 Chicago Auto Show. In the face of much criticism, the Japanese automaker’s stylists have set about taking some of the edge off of the sedan’s styling with a fresh front fascia that goes some way toward making the vehicle look more like a car and less like Picaso’s interpretation of one. The 2012 TL now wears shorter overhangs both front and rear, and the new look includes shedding the chrome trim from around the rear taillamps for a look that’s altogether more appetizing than the previous iteration.
A few changes have cropped up under the hood as well. Acura engineers managed to cut engine friction to increase fuel economy, and a new six-speed automatic transmission helps bump the final figures to 20 mpg city and 29 mpg highway. That’s an increase of three mpg highway over the five-speed automatic-equipped 2010 model. Fans of the third pedal need not fret, though. Acura says that buyers will still be able to snag their 2012 TL SH-AWD with the same six-speed manual setup that’s currently available.
2012 Acura TL to debut at Chicago Auto Show 
Acura has announced that it will debut the newly refreshed 2012 TL at the Chicago Auto Show next month. Details are slim as of this writing, but the automaker says that the 2012 model “further enhances its position in the segment with aggressive, yet refined styling and performance.”
In its current form, the TL has been praised for its high-quality and tech-friendly interior, not to mention the relatively impressive driving dynamics of the SH-AWD 6MT model. However, the biggest deal-breaker for the current TL has been its styling, which has garnered a whole slew of negative praise – especially the angular front fascia. We’ll have the full details on the 2012 TL closer to its official debut on February 9, so stay tuned.
Styling biggest reason people reject Acura
It’s no secret that the corporate schnoz adopted in recent years by Acura is, shall we say… controversial. But whether or not it’s helping or hurting sales is up for debate. On one hand, the brand’s 24-percent increase in sales in 2010 over the previous year has Honda’s luxury division outpacing the gains of its rivals. On the other hand, nearly everyone’s 2009 sales figures went down the economic toilet, and J.D. Power reports that exterior styling is the number one reason new car shoppers are rejecting the marque, followed closely by Acura’s interior styling.
Perhaps tellingly, Acura’s two most successful models in sales gains are the MDX and RDX utility vehicles, models competing in burgeoning segments (and the former of which features a somewhat muted faces compared to the rest of the company’s lineup). But hope may be on the way, and soon. According to Automotive News, Dave Conant, who owns an Acura store in Mission Viejo, California and has gotten an early look at the next-gen TL, Acura’s middle child is getting a major nose job.
And more new models are reportedly on the horizon as well, including hybrids and a likely return to the entry-level compact luxury class. What’s more, the automaker has promised dealers that future models will be better differentiated from one another, both styling-wise and in size. All that sounds good, just so long as no giant polished cow-catcher grilles get in the way.
2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon
Brush your long, grungy mop from your eyes, turn down the Nirvana and take a look around. It’s the early ’90s and an army of sport utility vehicles are flooding the streets. The newest four-wheeled object of America’s affection has quickly become the default mode of transportation for everyone from inner city professionals to suburban soccer moms.
Fast forward a couple of decades and although sport utes are still around, they’ve largely been displaced by the crossover – the SUV’s easier-to-maneuver, more fuel efficient and more comfortable unibody progeny. But even after years of refinement, the CUV is still a basketcase of compromises. Which begs the question: Did we have it right back in the day? Is a wagon still the best compromise of size, functionality and driving dynamics? We snagged the keys to a 2011 Acura TSX Sports Wagon to find out.
Abarth
Abarth 500 Motore Centrale R230 burns through its shoes
What’s the point in moving an engine to the back to drive the rear wheels if you can’t light up those rear tires? That’s what the folks behind the Motore Centrale R230 have evidently figured, taking the mid-engined FiatAbarth 500 for a spin or two around the back lot at a racing circuit.
The R230, for a quick refresher, is the first product of Lucarelli Monza, with an interior done up by Aznom. The comprehensive re-engineering of the car involved moving the engine – with some serious modifications – to the back of the car for entirely different dynamics from the Cinquecento on which it’s based.
We brought you initial details of the car’s development last month, followed by its unveiling at Top Marques Monaco. Now the same snap-happy videographers at Marchettino have given us footage of the R230 pulling donuts in a parking lot. And while the driver may not exactly be Tanner Foust, it’s worth a watch, so check it out after the jump.
Romeo Ferraris and Fenice Milano pay tribute to Monza with limited edition Abarth 500
Like weddings in the Deep South, everything with cars is relative. For instance, we’d strain to call most cars with racing stripes running every which way “subtle.” But when the treatment comes from Fenice Milano, anything short of gold chrome is understated. See? Relative.
The Milanese design house is the same that has gilded everything from the Fiat 500C to the Rolls-Royce Ghost. But for this special edition, they’ve teamed up with Romeo Ferraris, the Italian tuning house that’s given us custom Corvettes, Land Rovers and of course… Fiat 500s. Okay, so between them there’s no lack of love for the retro hatchback, and this is the embodiment of their shared passion: the Abarth 500 Monza.
A limited-edition tribute to the legendary grand prix circuit, the Monza edition is limited to just ten examples. So what makes it so special? Well it’s got red and blue racing stripes – the track’s official colors – that do a wicked Herby the Love Bug impression, sans Lindsay Lohan (for better or worse). But while the stripes continue into the white leather interior, this isn’t just a trim package.
Romeo Ferraris stepped in to nearly double the engine’s output, upping the horsepower figure from 135 to 260. They also threw in 280mm Brembo disc brakes, 205/40-R17 Yokohama tires and a full aero kit. And in case that wasn’t enough with the special treatment, each example gets a brass plaque with the owner’s name, an edition number on the shifter and a whole mess of Monza logos all over the place. Which may seem a little over the top, but again: think relative. And while you’re mulling that over, check out the high-resolution images in the gallery below.
Read more…
Romeo Ferraris and Fenice Milano pay tribute to Monza with limited edition Abarth 500
Like weddings in the Deep South, everything with cars is relative. For instance, we’d strain to call most cars with racing stripes running every which way “subtle.” But when the treatment comes from Fenice Milano, anything short of gold chrome is understated. See? Relative.
The Milanese design house is the same that has gilded everything from the Fiat 500C to the Rolls-Royce Ghost. But for this special edition, they’ve teamed up with Romeo Ferraris, the Italian tuning house that’s given us custom Corvettes, Land Rovers and of course… Fiat 500s. Okay, so between them there’s no lack of love for the retro hatchback, and this is the embodiment of their shared passion: the Abarth 500 Monza.
A limited-edition tribute to the legendary grand prix circuit, the Monza edition is limited to just ten examples. So what makes it so special? Well it’s got red and blue racing stripes – the track’s official colors – that do a wicked Herby the Love Bug impression, sans Lindsay Lohan (for better or worse). But while the stripes continue into the white leather interior, this isn’t just a trim package.
Romeo Ferraris stepped in to nearly double the engine’s output, upping the horsepower figure from 135 to 260. They also threw in 280mm Brembo disc brakes, 205/40-R17 Yokohama tires and a full aero kit. And in case that wasn’t enough with the special treatment, each example gets a brass plaque with the owner’s name, an edition number on the shifter and a whole mess of Monza logos all over the place. Which may seem a little over the top, but again: think relative. And while you’re mulling that over, check out the high-resolution images in the gallery below.
Abarth
Abarth 500 Motore Centrale R230 burns through its shoes
What’s the point in moving an engine to the back to drive the rear wheels if you can’t light up those rear tires? That’s what the folks behind the Motore Centrale R230 have evidently figured, taking the mid-engined FiatAbarth 500 for a spin or two around the back lot at a racing circuit.
The R230, for a quick refresher, is the first product of Lucarelli Monza, with an interior done up by Aznom. The comprehensive re-engineering of the car involved moving the engine – with some serious modifications – to the back of the car for entirely different dynamics from the Cinquecento on which it’s based.
We brought you initial details of the car’s development last month, followed by its unveiling at Top Marques Monaco. Now the same snap-happy videographers at Marchettino have given us footage of the R230 pulling donuts in a parking lot. And while the driver may not exactly be Tanner Foust, it’s worth a watch, so check it out after the jump.
Read more…
Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Share on technorati Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Bookmark in Browser Tell a friendBe the first to comment - What do you think? Posted by dailycar - May 27, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Categories: Abarth Tags:
Romeo Ferraris and Fenice Milano pay tribute to Monza with limited edition Abarth 500
Like weddings in the Deep South, everything with cars is relative. For instance, we’d strain to call most cars with racing stripes running every which way “subtle.” But when the treatment comes from Fenice Milano, anything short of gold chrome is understated. See? Relative.
The Milanese design house is the same that has gilded everything from the Fiat 500C to the Rolls-Royce Ghost. But for this special edition, they’ve teamed up with Romeo Ferraris, the Italian tuning house that’s given us custom Corvettes, Land Rovers and of course… Fiat 500s. Okay, so between them there’s no lack of love for the retro hatchback, and this is the embodiment of their shared passion: the Abarth 500 Monza.
A limited-edition tribute to the legendary grand prix circuit, the Monza edition is limited to just ten examples. So what makes it so special? Well it’s got red and blue racing stripes – the track’s official colors – that do a wicked Herby the Love Bug impression, sans Lindsay Lohan (for better or worse). But while the stripes continue into the white leather interior, this isn’t just a trim package.
Romeo Ferraris stepped in to nearly double the engine’s output, upping the horsepower figure from 135 to 260. They also threw in 280mm Brembo disc brakes, 205/40-R17 Yokohama tires and a full aero kit. And in case that wasn’t enough with the special treatment, each example gets a brass plaque with the owner’s name, an edition number on the shifter and a whole mess of Monza logos all over the place. Which may seem a little over the top, but again: think relative. And while you’re mulling that over, check out the high-resolution images in the gallery below.
Read more…
Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Share on technorati Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Bookmark in Browser Tell a friendBe the first to comment - What do you think? Posted by dailycar - December 17, 2010 at 8:49 am
Categories: Abarth Tags:
Fiat 500 Abarth coming to U.S., all-electric 500 BEV to launch first
The other day we told you to bone up on your Italian because the Fiat 500 configurator came online. Now you should seriously start saving your Lira because the high-performance 500 Abarth model has been confirmed for the U.S. market. No date has been confirmed, but we’ve been told that the launch of all 500 models will be staggered and the Abarth is last in the queue.
Those other variations include the standard 500 that you can start ordering now, the 500C drop-top and a 500 that runs on all-electric battery power. Still, the one we’re breaking out the driving gloves for is the Fiat 500 Abarth… and rumor has it that we might see the tiny terror running Stateside within the next three years because the 500 BEV hits the market in 2012.
Read more…
Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Share on technorati Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Bookmark in Browser Tell a friendBe the first to comment - What do you think? Posted by dailycar - November 19, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Abarth to go it alone on mid-engine roadster?
Reports of Abarth getting its own sports car have been surfacing pretty much since Fiat relaunched the brand. They seem to have intensified recently, with reports alternately suggesting that the Scorpion marque could partner with either Lotus or KTM on the development of a mid-engine roadster. The latest scuttlebutt, however, indicates that Abarth could go it alone on the new model.
The issue with KTM is reportedly that its carbon-fiber X-Bow, upon which the Abarth roadster could be based, is too expensive for the low price point Fiat seeks. The hesitance to work with Lotus, however, may be more personal. Lotus CEO Danny Bahar defected there from Ferrari, and took a number of personnel from both Maranello and Maserati with him.
As a result, Abarth could build a Lotus Elise rival from the ground up, powered by the latest-generation MultiAir engine mated to the company’s new dual-clutch gearbox. Such a move would, however, seem at odds with Sergio Marchionne’s push to integrate products and platforms across Fiat and Chrysler brands. But if a mid-engine Dodge roadster came out of it as well, you wouldn’t find us complaining.
Paris Preview: Abarth launches EsseEsse versions of 500C and Punto Evo
Unveils New Rules About Sunscreen Claims
After 33 years of consideration, the Food and Drug Administration took steps on Tuesday to sort out the confusing world of sunscreens, with new rules that specify which lotions provide the best protection against the sun and ending claims that they are truly waterproof.
The F.D.A. said sunscreens must protect equally against two kinds of the sun’s radiation, UVB and UVA, to earn the coveted designation of offering “broad spectrum” protection. UVB rays cause burning; UVA rays cause wrinkling; and both cause cancer.
The rules, which go into effect in a year, will also ban sunscreen manufacturers from claiming their products are waterproof or sweatproof because such claims are false. Instead, they will be allowed to claim in minutes the amount of time in which the product is water resistant, depending upon test results.
And only sunscreens that have a sun protection factor, or SPF, of 15 or higher will be allowed to maintain that they help prevent sunburn and reduce the risks of skin cancer and early skin aging.
The rules have been under consideration since 1978, when “Boogie Oogie Oogie” was a hit on the radio and most beach lotions were intended to encourage tanning, not protect against it. But federal regulators said they had yet to decide whether to end an SPF arms race in which manufacturers are introducing sunscreens with SPF numbers of 70, 80 and 100 even though such lotions offer little more protection than those with an SPF of 50.
Still, dermatologists said they were thrilled.
“Now, we’ll be able to tell patients which sunscreens to get,” said Dr. Henry W. Lim, chairman of dermatology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and a spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology.
The rules will transform the $680 million domestic market for sunscreens, which has been growing rapidly because of an aging population and growing worries about skin cancer. And the final regulations are a stark change from a proposal the agency released in 2007, which would have created a star-based system for UVA protection. Under that system, sunscreens would have provided an SPF number for UVB protection and one to four stars for UVA protection.
The agency received more than 3,000 comments on that proposal, with many asserting that allowing products to offer differing levels of protection against UVB and UVA rays would be confusing. So the agency ditched the stars and instead will tell manufacturers that if they wish to label their products as offering “broad spectrum” protection they must make their defense against UVB and UVA radiation proportional.
“We think this is going to be much easier for the consumer to understand,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the F.D.A.’s drug center, said in an interview. “All they’re going to need to do is pick an SPF number and then make sure that it’s broad spectrum.”
Any product that fails to offer proportional protection or has an SPF of 2 to 14 must include a warning that the product has not been shown to help prevent skin cancer or early skin aging. The new rules will standardize the testing that manufacturers must conduct for UVA protection.
The agency had proposed allowing manufacturers to use SPF numbers no higher than 50, but that remains only a proposal for which the agency will seek further comment. In particular, the government is asking whether there are special groups of people who would somehow benefit from having a product with an SPF of more than 50.
“Right now, we don’t have any data to show that anything above 50 adds any value for anybody,” Dr. Woodcock said.
Dr. Warwick L. Morison, a professor of dermatology at Johns Hopkins University and chairman of the photobiology committee for the Skin Cancer Foundation, said he was disappointed that the F.D.A. failed to ban SPF numbers higher than 50 because such products expose people to more irritating sunscreen ingredients without meaningful added protection.
“It’s pointless,” Dr. Morison said.
More than two million people in the United States are treated each year for the two most common types of skin cancer, basal cell and squamous cell, and more than 68,000 receive a diagnosis of melanoma, the most deadly form of the disease. Sunscreens have not been shown to prevent the first case of basal cell carcinoma, but they delay reoccurrences of basal cell and have been shown to prevent squamous cell and melanoma.
The F.D.A. announced that it was re-examining the safety of the roughly 17 sunscreen agents approved for use in the United States, although it has no information to suggest that they are not safe. Tuesday’s announcement will do nothing to speed the approval of more sunscreen agents. There are roughly 28 such agents approved in Europe and 40 in Japan, and some in the industry complain that the best ingredients have yet to reach American shores.
Some consumer and environmental groups have expressed concern that the ingredients in some sunscreens have been made so microscopic that they could be absorbed through the skin into the body, but Dr. Woodcock said that the F.D.A.’s own tests had found no cause for such concerns.
The agency is also asking for more information about sunscreen sprays to ensure that consumers get adequate quantities from spray bottles and to explore what happens when those products are inhaled. “You could imagine a child getting a sunscreen sprayed on and turning their face into the blast and breathing it in,” Dr. Woodcock said. “It’s a question of safety.”
The new regulations will do nothing to prevent the most common problem with sunscreens lotions, which is that consumers fail to use enough of them. The rules become effective in one year, although manufacturers with less than $25,000 in annual sales will have two years to comply.
Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, said the new rules were important. Mr. Reed proposed legislation mandating that the F.D.A. finally adopt the sunscreen proposals it floated in 2007.
“The F.D.A. has been sitting on these proposals for many, many years,” Mr. Reed said. “This is a major step, and I’m glad they’ve done it.”
Nokia Settles 2-Year Fight With Apple on Patents
Nokia said on Tuesday that it had settled a two-year-old patent fight with Apple over smartphone technology through a licensing agreement that will commit Apple to make a one-time payment to the company and to pay regular royalties in the future.
The agreement settles all outstanding patent litigation between Apple, the leader in the smartphone market, and Nokia. The companies also agreed to withdraw complaints against each other with the International Trade Commission over the use of intellectual property.
“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, the Nokia president and chief executive. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry-leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”
Nokia, which is based in Finland, did not disclose the financial terms of the settlement but said the agreement would have a “positive financial impact” on Nokia’s revised second-quarter results.
Nokia shares rose 15 cents, or 2.45 percent, to $6.26 in New York trading, after the announcement of the deal. Its shares had plunged on May 31, after Nokia revised its second-quarter sales and profit forecasts sharply lower, and abandoned its previously announced full-year targets for 2011 amid rising competition.
Apple described the agreement as limited in scope.
“Apple and Nokia have agreed to drop all of our current lawsuits and enter into a license covering some of each other’s patents, but not the majority of the innovation that makes the iPhone unique,” Apple said. “We are glad to put this behind us and get back to focusing on our respective businesses.”
Analysts said the financial impact on Apple was likely to be small.
“I don’t think it is material,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Company. Investors appeared to agree, sending Apple’s shares up about 1.8 percent, to $332.44.
Mr. Wolf said most of the Nokia patents appeared to cover highly technical internal components, which he described as the “plumbing” of mobile devices. The iPhone’s distinctive look and feel did not infringe on Nokia’s patents, he said. The mobile phone makers had been embroiled in more than 40 patent lawsuits in Germany, Britain and the United States since 2009 over basic technologies relating to a handset’s user interface, power management, antenna and camera.
Florian Mueller, an intellectual property analyst in Starnberg, Germany, said the announcement was a victory for Nokia, which in the first quarter ceded its long-held lead in global cellphone revenue to Apple. The iPhone is the world’s best-selling smartphone.
Mr. Mueller said while Apple benefited by settling its legal differences with Nokia, it was likely that the patent settlement with Apple involved “significant” payments by Apple to Nokia.
“I’m sure Nokia had to go down from its maximum demands because otherwise there wouldn’t have been a settlement,” Mr. Mueller said. “But the deal structure is very telling: A combination of a payment for past infringements as well as running royalties is a clear indication that there’s serious money in this for Nokia.”
Mr. Mueller said the agreement was the first fruit of a new Nokia strategy to more aggressively defend its patent portfolio, which includes more than 10,000 groups of handset patents developed over the past two decades. Nokia has said it invested more than 43 billion euros ($62 billion) to develop its patent archive.
“Having proven its ability to defeat Apple after the most bitterly contested patent dispute that this industry has seen to date is clear proof of” the effectiveness of Nokia’s more aggressive strategy, Mr. Mueller said. “Other companies whom Nokia will ask to pay royalties will have to think very hard whether to pay or pick a fight.”
Mr. Mueller said Nokia might now turn its sights on Google, the maker of the Android open-source phone operating system, which is the world’s fastest-growing mobile operating system. Mr. Mueller asserted that Android was technologically similar to Apple’s iPhone operating system and might invite a legal challenge from Nokia.
The agreement settles all outstanding patent litigation between Apple, the leader in the smartphone market, and Nokia. The companies also agreed to withdraw complaints against each other with the International Trade Commission over the use of intellectual property.
“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, the Nokia president and chief executive. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry-leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”
Nokia, which is based in Finland, did not disclose the financial terms of the settlement but said the agreement would have a “positive financial impact” on Nokia’s revised second-quarter results.
Nokia shares rose 15 cents, or 2.45 percent, to $6.26 in New York trading, after the announcement of the deal. Its shares had plunged on May 31, after Nokia revised its second-quarter sales and profit forecasts sharply lower, and abandoned its previously announced full-year targets for 2011 amid rising competition.
Apple described the agreement as limited in scope.
“Apple and Nokia have agreed to drop all of our current lawsuits and enter into a license covering some of each other’s patents, but not the majority of the innovation that makes the iPhone unique,” Apple said. “We are glad to put this behind us and get back to focusing on our respective businesses.”
Analysts said the financial impact on Apple was likely to be small.
“I don’t think it is material,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Company. Investors appeared to agree, sending Apple’s shares up about 1.8 percent, to $332.44.
Mr. Wolf said most of the Nokia patents appeared to cover highly technical internal components, which he described as the “plumbing” of mobile devices. The iPhone’s distinctive look and feel did not infringe on Nokia’s patents, he said. The mobile phone makers had been embroiled in more than 40 patent lawsuits in Germany, Britain and the United States since 2009 over basic technologies relating to a handset’s user interface, power management, antenna and camera.
Florian Mueller, an intellectual property analyst in Starnberg, Germany, said the announcement was a victory for Nokia, which in the first quarter ceded its long-held lead in global cellphone revenue to Apple. The iPhone is the world’s best-selling smartphone.
Mr. Mueller said while Apple benefited by settling its legal differences with Nokia, it was likely that the patent settlement with Apple involved “significant” payments by Apple to Nokia.
“I’m sure Nokia had to go down from its maximum demands because otherwise there wouldn’t have been a settlement,” Mr. Mueller said. “But the deal structure is very telling: A combination of a payment for past infringements as well as running royalties is a clear indication that there’s serious money in this for Nokia.”
Mr. Mueller said the agreement was the first fruit of a new Nokia strategy to more aggressively defend its patent portfolio, which includes more than 10,000 groups of handset patents developed over the past two decades. Nokia has said it invested more than 43 billion euros ($62 billion) to develop its patent archive.
“Having proven its ability to defeat Apple after the most bitterly contested patent dispute that this industry has seen to date is clear proof of” the effectiveness of Nokia’s more aggressive strategy, Mr. Mueller said. “Other companies whom Nokia will ask to pay royalties will have to think very hard whether to pay or pick a fight.”
Mr. Mueller said Nokia might now turn its sights on Google, the maker of the Android open-source phone operating system, which is the world’s fastest-growing mobile operating system. Mr. Mueller asserted that Android was technologically similar to Apple’s iPhone operating system and might invite a legal challenge from Nokia.
Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants in Bin Laden Raid
Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.
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Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
A casualty of the recent tension between the countries is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the northwestern tribal areas.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment.
“We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” said Marie E. Harf, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. “Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs.”
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a brief telephone interview that the C.I.A. and the Pakistani spy agency “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage.”
Over the past several weeks the Pakistani military has been distancing itself from American intelligence and counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Pakistan. This has angered many in Washington who believe that Bin Laden’s death has shaken Al Qaeda and that there is now an opportunity to further weaken the terrorist organization with more raids and armed drone strikes.
But in recent months, dating approximately to when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis on a street in the eastern city of Lahore in January, American officials said that Pakistani spies from the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, have been generally unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A. The Pakistanis have also resisted granting visas allowing American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and have threatened to put greater restrictions on the drone flights.
It is the future of the drone program that is a particular worry for the C.I.A. American officials said that during his meetings in Pakistan last week, Mr. Panetta was particularly forceful about trying to get Pakistani officials to allow armed drones to fly over even wider areas in the northwest tribal regions. But the C.I.A. is already preparing for the worst: relocating some of the drones from Pakistan to a base in Afghanistan, where they can take off and fly east across the mountains and into the tribal areas, where terrorist groups find safe haven.
Another casualty of the recent tension is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those same tribal areas. That program has ended, both American and Pakistani officials acknowledge, and the last of about 120 American military advisers have left the country.
American officials are now scrambling to find temporary jobs for about 50 Special Forces support personnel who had been helping the trainers with logistics and communications. Their visas were difficult to obtain and officials fear if these troops are sent home, Pakistan will not allow them to return.
In a sign of the growing anger on Capitol Hill, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he believed elements of the ISI and the military had helped protect Bin Laden.
Related
Room For Debate: Should the U.S. Cut Off Aid to Pakistan?
Times Topics: Pakistan The Death of Osama bin Laden
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Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
A casualty of the recent tension between the countries is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the northwestern tribal areas.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment.
“We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” said Marie E. Harf, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. “Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs.”
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a brief telephone interview that the C.I.A. and the Pakistani spy agency “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage.”
Over the past several weeks the Pakistani military has been distancing itself from American intelligence and counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Pakistan. This has angered many in Washington who believe that Bin Laden’s death has shaken Al Qaeda and that there is now an opportunity to further weaken the terrorist organization with more raids and armed drone strikes.
But in recent months, dating approximately to when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis on a street in the eastern city of Lahore in January, American officials said that Pakistani spies from the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, have been generally unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A. The Pakistanis have also resisted granting visas allowing American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and have threatened to put greater restrictions on the drone flights.
It is the future of the drone program that is a particular worry for the C.I.A. American officials said that during his meetings in Pakistan last week, Mr. Panetta was particularly forceful about trying to get Pakistani officials to allow armed drones to fly over even wider areas in the northwest tribal regions. But the C.I.A. is already preparing for the worst: relocating some of the drones from Pakistan to a base in Afghanistan, where they can take off and fly east across the mountains and into the tribal areas, where terrorist groups find safe haven.
Another casualty of the recent tension is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those same tribal areas. That program has ended, both American and Pakistani officials acknowledge, and the last of about 120 American military advisers have left the country.
American officials are now scrambling to find temporary jobs for about 50 Special Forces support personnel who had been helping the trainers with logistics and communications. Their visas were difficult to obtain and officials fear if these troops are sent home, Pakistan will not allow them to return.
In a sign of the growing anger on Capitol Hill, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he believed elements of the ISI and the military had helped protect Bin Laden.
PESHAWAR BOARD MATRIC RESULT
PESHAWAR BOARD RESULT MATRIC 10TH & 9TH
http://www.bisep.com.pk/results/
http://www.bisep.com.pk/results/
Monday, June 13, 2011
I.M.F. Reports Cyberattack Led to ‘Very Major Breach’
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.
The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.
The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.
“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order.
Valerie E. Caproni, the F.B.I. general counsel, said the bureau had fixed the problems with the national security letters and had taken steps to make sure they would not recur. She also said the bureau, which does not need permission to alter its manual so long as the rules fit within broad guidelines issued by the attorney general, had carefully weighed the risks and the benefits of each change.
“Every one of these has been carefully looked at and considered against the backdrop of why do the employees need to be able to do it, what are the possible risks and what are the controls,” she said, portraying the modifications to the rules as “more like fine-tuning than major changes.”
Some of the most notable changes apply to the lowest category of investigations, called an “assessment.” The category, created in December 2008, allows agents to look into people and organizations “proactively” and without firm evidence for suspecting criminal or terrorist activity.
Under current rules, agents must open such an inquiry before they can search for information about a person in a commercial or law enforcement database. Under the new rules, agents will be allowed to search such databases without making a record about their decision.
Mr. German said the change would make it harder to detect and deter inappropriate use of databases for personal purposes. But Ms. Caproni said it was too cumbersome to require agents to open formal inquiries before running quick checks. She also said agents could not put information uncovered from such searches into F.B.I. files unless they later opened an assessment.
The new rules will also relax a restriction on administering lie-detector tests and searching people’s trash. Under current rules, agents cannot use such techniques until they open a “preliminary investigation,” which — unlike an assessment — requires a factual basis for suspecting someone of wrongdoing. But soon agents will be allowed to use those techniques for one kind of assessment, too: when they are evaluating a target as a potential informant.
Agents have asked for that power in part because they want the ability to use information found in a subject’s trash to put pressure on that person to assist the government in the investigation of others. But Ms. Caproni said information gathered that way could also be useful for other reasons, like determining whether the subject might pose a threat to agents.
The new manual will also remove a limitation on the use of surveillance squads, which are trained to surreptitiously follow targets. Under current rules, the squads can be used only once during an assessment, but the new rules will allow agents to use them repeatedly. Ms. Caproni said restrictions on the duration of physical surveillance would still apply, and argued that because of limited resources, supervisors would use the squads only rarely during such a low-level investigation.
The revisions also clarify what constitutes “undisclosed participation” in an organization by an F.B.I. agent or informant, which is subject to special rules — most of which have not been made public. The new manual says an agent or an informant may surreptitiously attend up to five meetings of a group before those rules would apply — unless the goal is to join the group, in which case the rules apply immediately.
At least one change would tighten, rather than relax, the rules. Currently, a special agent in charge of a field office can delegate the authority to approve sending an informant to a religious service. The new manual will require such officials to handle those decisions personally.
In addition, the manual clarifies a description of what qualifies as a “sensitive investigative matter” — investigations, at any level, that require greater oversight from supervisors because they involve public officials, members of the news media or academic scholars.
The new rules make clear, for example, that if the person with such a role is a victim or a witness rather than a target of an investigation, extra supervision is not necessary. Also excluded from extra supervision will be investigations of low- and midlevel officials for activities unrelated to their position — like drug cases as opposed to corruption, for example.
The manual clarifies the definition of who qualifies for extra protection as a legitimate member of the news media in the Internet era: prominent bloggers would count, but not people who have low-profile blogs. And it will limit academic protections only to scholars who work for institutions based in the United States.
Since the release of the 2008 manual, the assessment category has drawn scrutiny because it sets a low bar to examine a person or a group. The F.B.I. has opened thousands of such low-level investigations each month, and a vast majority has not generated information that justified opening more intensive investigations.
Ms. Caproni said the new manual would adjust the definition of assessments to make clear that they must be based on leads. But she rejected arguments that the F.B.I. should focus only on investigations that begin with a firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing.
The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.
The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.
“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order.
Valerie E. Caproni, the F.B.I. general counsel, said the bureau had fixed the problems with the national security letters and had taken steps to make sure they would not recur. She also said the bureau, which does not need permission to alter its manual so long as the rules fit within broad guidelines issued by the attorney general, had carefully weighed the risks and the benefits of each change.
“Every one of these has been carefully looked at and considered against the backdrop of why do the employees need to be able to do it, what are the possible risks and what are the controls,” she said, portraying the modifications to the rules as “more like fine-tuning than major changes.”
Some of the most notable changes apply to the lowest category of investigations, called an “assessment.” The category, created in December 2008, allows agents to look into people and organizations “proactively” and without firm evidence for suspecting criminal or terrorist activity.
Under current rules, agents must open such an inquiry before they can search for information about a person in a commercial or law enforcement database. Under the new rules, agents will be allowed to search such databases without making a record about their decision.
Mr. German said the change would make it harder to detect and deter inappropriate use of databases for personal purposes. But Ms. Caproni said it was too cumbersome to require agents to open formal inquiries before running quick checks. She also said agents could not put information uncovered from such searches into F.B.I. files unless they later opened an assessment.
The new rules will also relax a restriction on administering lie-detector tests and searching people’s trash. Under current rules, agents cannot use such techniques until they open a “preliminary investigation,” which — unlike an assessment — requires a factual basis for suspecting someone of wrongdoing. But soon agents will be allowed to use those techniques for one kind of assessment, too: when they are evaluating a target as a potential informant.
Agents have asked for that power in part because they want the ability to use information found in a subject’s trash to put pressure on that person to assist the government in the investigation of others. But Ms. Caproni said information gathered that way could also be useful for other reasons, like determining whether the subject might pose a threat to agents.
The new manual will also remove a limitation on the use of surveillance squads, which are trained to surreptitiously follow targets. Under current rules, the squads can be used only once during an assessment, but the new rules will allow agents to use them repeatedly. Ms. Caproni said restrictions on the duration of physical surveillance would still apply, and argued that because of limited resources, supervisors would use the squads only rarely during such a low-level investigation.
The revisions also clarify what constitutes “undisclosed participation” in an organization by an F.B.I. agent or informant, which is subject to special rules — most of which have not been made public. The new manual says an agent or an informant may surreptitiously attend up to five meetings of a group before those rules would apply — unless the goal is to join the group, in which case the rules apply immediately.
At least one change would tighten, rather than relax, the rules. Currently, a special agent in charge of a field office can delegate the authority to approve sending an informant to a religious service. The new manual will require such officials to handle those decisions personally.
In addition, the manual clarifies a description of what qualifies as a “sensitive investigative matter” — investigations, at any level, that require greater oversight from supervisors because they involve public officials, members of the news media or academic scholars.
The new rules make clear, for example, that if the person with such a role is a victim or a witness rather than a target of an investigation, extra supervision is not necessary. Also excluded from extra supervision will be investigations of low- and midlevel officials for activities unrelated to their position — like drug cases as opposed to corruption, for example.
The manual clarifies the definition of who qualifies for extra protection as a legitimate member of the news media in the Internet era: prominent bloggers would count, but not people who have low-profile blogs. And it will limit academic protections only to scholars who work for institutions based in the United States.
Since the release of the 2008 manual, the assessment category has drawn scrutiny because it sets a low bar to examine a person or a group. The F.B.I. has opened thousands of such low-level investigations each month, and a vast majority has not generated information that justified opening more intensive investigations.
Ms. Caproni said the new manual would adjust the definition of assessments to make clear that they must be based on leads. But she rejected arguments that the F.B.I. should focus only on investigations that begin with a firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Absences Speak Loudly at Video Game Expo
LOS ANGELES — The big names were all here last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the video game industry’s annual conclave — Microsoft, with its XBox; Sony, with its PlayStation; and Nintendo, with its Wii. But they all make console games, and these days the game platforms enjoying the most explosive growth are a social network — Facebook — and a mobile device maker — Apple.
Neither was represented here (although Apple rarely appears at industry events), but they were the elephants in the room.
Everyone noticed their absence, even if the big three tried to brush off their importance.
“Imagine the type of amazing game Nintendo could make for an iPhone, yet they can they barely even acknowledge that the iOS platform exists, and has the potential to eviscerate their portables business,” said Joel Johnson, editorial director for Kotaku, a popular online video game blog.
“Nintendo has owned portable gaming for years, but are still wedded to the idea that they have to sell the game and the platform.”
As if underscoring the point, Albert Penello, director for marketing at Microsoft, said in an interview, “This concept of games that are more bite-sized and more casual is something we get, but our primary focus is Xbox 360 and Kinect right now.”
What could be called iElephant loomed particularly large.
Over the past year, Apple’s mobile operating system, which powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, has become one of the largest mobile gaming platforms in the world. Apple’s mobile users can now pick among 100,000 games and entertainment applications to play on their mobile devices, said Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president for iPhone software, speaking at the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco last week.
The company also said it now had 50 million registered users on its social gaming platform, Game Center. Citing these numbers, Mr. Forstall told the conference attendees that iPod Touch had become “the most popular gaming platform on the planet.”
Meanwhile, as Mr. Johnson said, Facebook has also become an important gaming platform. Zynga, which makes online games for Facebook including the hugely popular Farmville, has tens of millions of users who play Facebook’s free games on a daily basis.
“You have this 800-pound, 10-billion-dollar gorilla in the room that is Zynga, and just like Apple, is not even mentioned in the same breath as the other three main competitors,” Mr. Johnson said.
On the conference floor, the demonstration suite of Electronic Arts, publishers of the popular games Angry Birds, FIFA Soccer and The Sims, seemed to have more iPads and iPod Touch devices than are on display in an average Apple store.
“The iPhone was a long time coming in this industry and I think mobile is one of the most important gaming platforms that will ever exist for gaming,” said Travis Boatman, senior vice president for worldwide studios for Electronic Arts.
But Mr. Boatman said that though his company had a strong focus on mobile gaming, it was still aggressively committed to other gaming consoles and was “platform agnostic” when it came to game development. Electronic Arts currently offers more than 50 games in the Apple iTunes Store. Many of its most popular games are available on other consoles too, including the portable Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.
An employee showed off new Electronic Arts games, using an Apple iPad 2 plugged into a large flat-screen television. As he played a first-person-shooter video game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it seemed as if the iPad was essentially the controller for the game. No expensive gaming console was necessary.
Consoles Still Have Fans
Apple devices are not the only platform for mobile games; the discussion also centered on Google Android, which has become the most popular smartphone platform in the United States, and now has thousands of games in its arsenal too.
But plenty of game makers still have faith in the console. Activision, maker of the popular console game Modern Warfare, wasn’t entirely sold on the benefits of mobile devices for immersive gameplay.
“There are 400,000 apps in the iTunes app store,” said Eric Hirshberg, chief executive of Activision. “I don’t want to be number 400,001.”
And Activision doesn’t need to jump on the same game wagon as other developers, yet. Earlier this year, its latest hit, Call of Duty: Black Ops, attracted $650 million in its first five days on sale.
Yet, one official action of the Electronic Entertainment Expo spoke volumes about the importance of the mobile game platform: For the first time, the group did not bother to put up a mobile gaming booth.
“We decided to forgo a separate mobile pavilion this year because it is clear that mobile gaming is no longer different from other forms of video games,” a spokeswoman for the conference said. “Mobile gaming is everywhere now. It didn’t make sense to separate it at the convention either.”
Sony Security
Another elephant stalked the halls of the conference all week — the question of security in Sony’s PlayStation network.
At a news conference held by Sony that felt more like a rock concert than a press event because it was held on a huge stage in a stadium, Jack Tretton, the chief executive of Sony America, apologized to customers for the data breach that knocked the PlayStation Network offline for almost a month.
In an interview later, Mr. Tretton defended the company’s security methods, even in the face of a barrage of successful attacks on Sony’s servers. “This was a real wake-up call we had to go through,” he said, “but now we feel our systems are more secure that they have ever been.”
But, on the same day of the interview, a group of hackers claimed to have breached the company’s servers again. Security experts estimated that this was the 18th successful attack on Sony in the last two months.
The hacking seems to have affected Sony’s business. Mr. Tretton said in the interview that network activity was “currently at 90 percent what it was before the outage.” This means that 10 percent of its users, almost seven million people, have not returned to the service.
Neither was represented here (although Apple rarely appears at industry events), but they were the elephants in the room.
Everyone noticed their absence, even if the big three tried to brush off their importance.
“Imagine the type of amazing game Nintendo could make for an iPhone, yet they can they barely even acknowledge that the iOS platform exists, and has the potential to eviscerate their portables business,” said Joel Johnson, editorial director for Kotaku, a popular online video game blog.
“Nintendo has owned portable gaming for years, but are still wedded to the idea that they have to sell the game and the platform.”
As if underscoring the point, Albert Penello, director for marketing at Microsoft, said in an interview, “This concept of games that are more bite-sized and more casual is something we get, but our primary focus is Xbox 360 and Kinect right now.”
What could be called iElephant loomed particularly large.
Over the past year, Apple’s mobile operating system, which powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, has become one of the largest mobile gaming platforms in the world. Apple’s mobile users can now pick among 100,000 games and entertainment applications to play on their mobile devices, said Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president for iPhone software, speaking at the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco last week.
The company also said it now had 50 million registered users on its social gaming platform, Game Center. Citing these numbers, Mr. Forstall told the conference attendees that iPod Touch had become “the most popular gaming platform on the planet.”
Meanwhile, as Mr. Johnson said, Facebook has also become an important gaming platform. Zynga, which makes online games for Facebook including the hugely popular Farmville, has tens of millions of users who play Facebook’s free games on a daily basis.
“You have this 800-pound, 10-billion-dollar gorilla in the room that is Zynga, and just like Apple, is not even mentioned in the same breath as the other three main competitors,” Mr. Johnson said.
On the conference floor, the demonstration suite of Electronic Arts, publishers of the popular games Angry Birds, FIFA Soccer and The Sims, seemed to have more iPads and iPod Touch devices than are on display in an average Apple store.
“The iPhone was a long time coming in this industry and I think mobile is one of the most important gaming platforms that will ever exist for gaming,” said Travis Boatman, senior vice president for worldwide studios for Electronic Arts.
But Mr. Boatman said that though his company had a strong focus on mobile gaming, it was still aggressively committed to other gaming consoles and was “platform agnostic” when it came to game development. Electronic Arts currently offers more than 50 games in the Apple iTunes Store. Many of its most popular games are available on other consoles too, including the portable Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.
An employee showed off new Electronic Arts games, using an Apple iPad 2 plugged into a large flat-screen television. As he played a first-person-shooter video game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it seemed as if the iPad was essentially the controller for the game. No expensive gaming console was necessary.
Consoles Still Have Fans
Apple devices are not the only platform for mobile games; the discussion also centered on Google Android, which has become the most popular smartphone platform in the United States, and now has thousands of games in its arsenal too.
But plenty of game makers still have faith in the console. Activision, maker of the popular console game Modern Warfare, wasn’t entirely sold on the benefits of mobile devices for immersive gameplay.
“There are 400,000 apps in the iTunes app store,” said Eric Hirshberg, chief executive of Activision. “I don’t want to be number 400,001.”
And Activision doesn’t need to jump on the same game wagon as other developers, yet. Earlier this year, its latest hit, Call of Duty: Black Ops, attracted $650 million in its first five days on sale.
Yet, one official action of the Electronic Entertainment Expo spoke volumes about the importance of the mobile game platform: For the first time, the group did not bother to put up a mobile gaming booth.
“We decided to forgo a separate mobile pavilion this year because it is clear that mobile gaming is no longer different from other forms of video games,” a spokeswoman for the conference said. “Mobile gaming is everywhere now. It didn’t make sense to separate it at the convention either.”
Sony Security
Another elephant stalked the halls of the conference all week — the question of security in Sony’s PlayStation network.
At a news conference held by Sony that felt more like a rock concert than a press event because it was held on a huge stage in a stadium, Jack Tretton, the chief executive of Sony America, apologized to customers for the data breach that knocked the PlayStation Network offline for almost a month.
In an interview later, Mr. Tretton defended the company’s security methods, even in the face of a barrage of successful attacks on Sony’s servers. “This was a real wake-up call we had to go through,” he said, “but now we feel our systems are more secure that they have ever been.”
But, on the same day of the interview, a group of hackers claimed to have breached the company’s servers again. Security experts estimated that this was the 18th successful attack on Sony in the last two months.
The hacking seems to have affected Sony’s business. Mr. Tretton said in the interview that network activity was “currently at 90 percent what it was before the outage.” This means that 10 percent of its users, almost seven million people, have not returned to the service.
Twitter’s Secret Handshake
CHARLIE SHEEN’S meltdown took many forms: a cocaine-fueled rampage in a New York hotel room, an erratic radio rant, a vulgar one-man comedy tour. But his biggest contribution to current culture may have been more subtle. With a simple Twitter phrase, #winning, known in the parlance of social media as a hashtag, Mr. Sheen underscored one of the newest ways technology has changed how we communicate.
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Kristofer Cheng for The New York Times
AN IDEA Chris Messina invented the hashtag.
Related
Times Topic: TwitterHashtags, words or phrases preceded by the # symbol, have been popularized on Twitter as a way for users to organize and search messages. So, for instance, people tweeting about Representative Anthony D. Weiner might add the hashtag #Weinergate to their messages, and those curious about the latest developments in the scandal could simply search for #Weinergate. Or Justin Bieber fans might use #Bieber to find fellow Beliebers.
But already, hashtags have transcended the 140-characters-or-less microblogging platform, and have become a new cultural shorthand, finding their way into chat windows, e-mail and face-to-face conversations.
This year on Super Bowl Sunday, Audi broadcast a new commercial featuring a hashtag, #ProgressIs, that flashed on the screen and urged viewers to complete the “Progress Is” prompt on Twitter for the chance to win a prize. Then, in Canada’s English-language federal election debate in April, Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, set the Canadian Twitterverse aflame when he attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s crime policies, calling them “a hashtag fail.”
And when Chris Messina, a developer advocate at Google, wanted to introduce two friends over e-mail, he wrote #Introduction in the subject line. No need, he explained, for a long preamble when a quick, to-the-point hashtag would do.
Then again, Mr. Messina is no ordinary Twitter user. The self-described “hash godfather,” he officially invented the Twitter hashtag in August 2007, when he sent out a Twitter message suggesting that the pound symbol be used for organizing groups on Twitter. (For example, if attendees at the South by Southwest music and technology conference all add #sxsw to their messages, they can more easily search and sort themselves on Twitter.) Though the idea took awhile to catch on, it quickly snowballed — on Twitter and offline.
“At first, people who weren’t using Twitter were saying: ‘What’s this pound sign? Why am I seeing it?’ ” said Ginger Wilcox, a founder of the Social Media Marketing Institute. “I would say 2010 was really the year of the hashtag.”
Soon, people began using hashtags to add humor, context and interior monologues to their messages — and everyday conversation. As Susan Orlean wrote in a New Yorker blog post titled “Hash,” the symbol can be “a more sophisticated, verbal version of the dread winking emoticon that tweens use to signify that they’re joking.”
“Because you have a hashtag embedded in a short message with real language, it starts exhibiting other characteristics of natural language, which means basically that people start playing with it and manipulating it,” said Jacob Eisenstein, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in computational linguistics. “You’ll see them used as humor, as sort of meta-commentary, where you’ll write a message and maybe you don’t really believe it, and what you really think is in the hashtag.”
So, for instance, a messages that reads “3 hour delay on Amtrak #StimulusDollarsAtWork,” likely implies that the user does not, in fact, think that their stimulus dollars are hard at work.
Hashtags then began popping up outside of Twitter, in e-mails, chat windows and text messages. When Adam Sharp was hired as Twitter’s Washington liaison, he said he received a number of e-mails wishing him well — and, of course, #congrats.
In a time-crunched world, the hashtag proved itself a useful shorthand. “If Twitter is a compression of ideas and a compression of expression, then hashtags are just an extension of that, so of course it bleeds over into other forms of communication, because our time is compressed, our thoughts are compressed and our space is compressed,” said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist. “In Washington, it’s a very happy extension of an acronym-happy culture.”
Using a hashtag is also a way for someone to convey that they’re part of a certain scene. “You kind of have to be in-the-know,” Mr. Messina said. “So it’s one of those jokes where you’re like, ‘Oh, I see what you did there, because you’re on Twitter and I’m on Twitter.’ ”
To deftly deploy a hashtag, after all, you need to understand the culture, said Susan Herring, a professor of information science and linguistics at Indiana University-Bloomington.
U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.
Multimedia
Slide Show Technology for ‘Shadow’ Internet Networks.
Graphic Creating a Stealth Internet.The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”
Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.
The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.
Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.
The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.
In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban’s ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.
The effort has picked up momentum since the government of President Hosni Mubarak shut down the Egyptian Internet in the last days of his rule. In recent days, the Syrian government also temporarily disabled much of that country’s Internet, which had helped protesters mobilize.
The Obama administration’s initiative is in one sense a new front in a longstanding diplomatic push to defend free speech and nurture democracy. For decades, the United States has sent radio broadcasts into autocratic countries through Voice of America and other means. More recently, Washington has supported the development of software that preserves the anonymity of users in places like China, and training for citizens who want to pass information along the government-owned Internet without getting caught.
But the latest initiative depends on creating entirely separate pathways for communication. It has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler.
Sometimes the State Department is simply taking advantage of enterprising dissidents who have found ways to get around government censorship. American diplomats are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones in the hills near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, according to interviews and the diplomatic cables.
The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. “We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations,” Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. “There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports,” she said. “So we’re focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world.”
Multimedia
Slide Show Technology for ‘Shadow’ Internet Networks.
Graphic Creating a Stealth Internet.The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”
Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.
The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.
Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.
The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.
In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban’s ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.
The effort has picked up momentum since the government of President Hosni Mubarak shut down the Egyptian Internet in the last days of his rule. In recent days, the Syrian government also temporarily disabled much of that country’s Internet, which had helped protesters mobilize.
The Obama administration’s initiative is in one sense a new front in a longstanding diplomatic push to defend free speech and nurture democracy. For decades, the United States has sent radio broadcasts into autocratic countries through Voice of America and other means. More recently, Washington has supported the development of software that preserves the anonymity of users in places like China, and training for citizens who want to pass information along the government-owned Internet without getting caught.
But the latest initiative depends on creating entirely separate pathways for communication. It has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler.
Sometimes the State Department is simply taking advantage of enterprising dissidents who have found ways to get around government censorship. American diplomats are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones in the hills near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, according to interviews and the diplomatic cables.
The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. “We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations,” Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. “There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports,” she said. “So we’re focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world.”
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