Success of Crowdfunding Puts Pressure on Entrepreneurs

Leah Nash for The New York Times

Kickstarter's booth at the XOXO tech conference. Kickstarter has helped about 30,000 projects raise money.

PORTLAND, Ore. — An effort to build a sleek aluminum charging dock for the iPhone generated fervor online when it was announced last December. The project's creators raised close to $1.5 million through Kickstarter, a crowdfunding Web site, and promised to start shipping their Elevation Dock in April to those who had backed the project.

Leah Nash for The New York Times

The XOXO tech conference ended Sunday. The challenge of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter was a popular topic at the event.

But last week Apple announced a redesigned iPhone that is not compatible with the dock — and because of manufacturing delays, some of the project's original backers were still waiting to receive theirs. The designers are now scrambling to make an adapter and update the product.

"I'm just hoping to get mine before the iPhone 6 ships at this point," one backer wrote on Kickstarter.

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGogo are letting designers and other creative people connect with audiences who want to finance their dreams, and they are becoming increasingly popular. Nearly three million people have helped a total of 30,000 projects meet their fund-raising goals on Kickstarter, the largest such site, to the tune of $300 million in pledges.

But for the creators of these projects, getting the money is sometimes the easy part. They then have to turn their dreams into reality, with a crowd keeping an eye on their progress.

This new model comes with a host of potential pitfalls that are often difficult for project creators to anticipate, and hard for the armchair philanthropists who back them to grasp. Backers are essentially putting their trust in the project creators, giving them cash in return for the promise of a future reward.

Those who give a few dollars to a moviemaking project may get their names in the credits, while someone who puts up $100 to support development of a smart wristwatch might be promised one of the finished items.

Much of the time this works out. But some projects, including several prominent and in-demand ones, have run into missteps and lengthy delays. The permits for a new food truck might not come through. Or a gadget like the Elevation Dock might be harder than expected to manufacture and ship.

The rise of crowdfunding came up often over the weekend here at the debut of the XOXO Festival, a conference that focused on new models and outlets for creativity on the Internet. The conference was co-founded by an early Kickstarter employee, Andy Baio, who sold $400 tickets on Kickstarter itself to gauge interest in the event and raise money for it.

The relationship between creators and backers on crowdfunding sites is still being worked out. The backers play the role of philanthropists, investors, customers — or all of the above. And when promised rewards are slow to materialize, eager backers can get cranky.

"It's definitely a lot of pressure," said Eric Migicovsky, whose Kickstarter project to create a line of "Pebble" wristwatches with innovative displays raised more than $10 million — more than 10 times what he had hoped to get. "There are 65,000 people who have preordered a watch that doesn't yet exist."

Mr. Migicovsky hired someone to help manage his in-box — nearly 9,000 people have e-mailed him about the project — and to post updates. He originally hoped to start shipping the watches in September, a date that he has had to push back, although he declined to say by how much.

A study by Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found that 75 percent of design- and technology-related projects on Kickstarter, most of which involve physical products, failed to meet their promised deadlines. In general, project backers seem to be understanding of hiccups and willing to wait as long as they are kept informed.

"The honeymoon period that we are experiencing around crowdfunding is beginning to come to a close," said Wil Schroeter, co-founder and chief executive of Fundable, a company that is applying crowdfunding to the venture capital process. "People realize there is real risk involved in investing in anything early-stage, whether it's an idea, a charity or a product, and they're starting to understand they aren't buying off of Amazon."

Kickstarter says it is not responsible for making sure a project is completed on time, or at all. It says project creators are legally obligated to fulfill their promises, but if they do not, Kickstarter has no mechanism for refunding the money that was pledged. Sometimes project creators can be overwhelmed by the success of a crowdfunding campaign.

The four college students behind Diaspora, a project that aimed to build an open alternative to Facebook, began with the modest goal of $10,000. They raised $200,000 from around 6,500 people. But after three years, they still did not have a version to release publicly and turned the code over to anyone who might want to keep working on it. (One member of the team committed suicide last year.)

By JENNA WORTHAM 18 Sep, 2012

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/technology/success-of-crowdfunding-puts-pressure-on-entrepreneurs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Microsoft Battles the Botnets

WASHINGTON — A customer in Shenzhen, China, took a brand new laptop out of its box and turned it on for the first time. But as the screen lit up, the computer began taking on a life of its own. The machine, directed by a virus hidden in its hard drive, started searching the Internet for another computer.

The laptop, supposedly in pristine, direct-from-the-factory condition, had instantly become part of an illegal global network capable of attacking Web sites, looting bank accounts and stealing personal data.

For years, online investigators have warned consumers about the dangers of opening or downloading files sent by e-mail from unknown or suspicious sources. Now, they say, malicious software and computer code could be lurking on computers before the bubble wrap even comes off.

The shopper in this case was part of a team of Microsoft researchers in China investigating the sale of counterfeit software. They suddenly had been introduced to malware called Nitol. The incident was described in court documents unsealed Thursday in a U.S. court in Virginia. The records describe a new front in a legal campaign against cybercrime being waged by Microsoft, the maker of the Windows operating system, which is the biggest target for viruses.

The documents are part of a computer fraud lawsuit filed by Microsoft against a Web domain registered to a Chinese businessman named Peng Yong. The company says that domain is a focal point for illicit Internet activity. It is home base for Nitol and more than 500 other types of malware, making it the largest single repository of infected software that Microsoft executives have ever encountered.

Mr. Peng, the owner of an Internet services company, said he was not aware of the Microsoft lawsuit and denied the allegations, saying his company did not tolerate improper conduct on the domain, 3322.org. Three other unidentified individuals accused by Microsoft of establishing and operating the Nitol network are also named in the suit.

What emerges most vividly from the court records and interviews with Microsoft officials is a disturbing picture of how vulnerable Internet users have become, in part because of weaknesses in computer supply chains. To increase their profit margins, some computer manufacturers and retailers may use counterfeit copies of popular software products to build machines more cheaply. Plugging the holes is nearly impossible, especially in less regulated markets like China, and that creates opportunities for cybercriminals.

"They're really changing the ways they try to attack you," said Richard Boscovich, a former U.S. government prosecutor and a senior attorney in Microsoft's digital crimes unit.

And distance does not confer safety. Nitol, for example, is an aggressive virus found on computers in China, the United States, Russia, Australia and Germany. Microsoft has even identified servers in the Cayman Islands controlling Nitol- infected machines. All these compromised computers become part of a botnet — a collection of compromised computers — which is one of the most invasive and persistent tools of cybercrime.

Nitol, meanwhile, appears poised to strike. Infection rates have peaked, according to Patrick Stratton, a senior manager in Microsoft's digital crimes unit who filed a document in the court case explaining Nitol and its connection to the 3322.org domain.

For Microsoft, pursuing cybercriminals is a smart business. Its Windows operating system runs most of the computers connected to the Internet. Victims of malware are likely to believe their problems stem from Windows instead of a virus they are unaware of, and that damages the company's brand and reputation.

But more than Microsoft's image is at stake when counterfeit products are tainted by rapidly spreading malware, Mr. Boscovich said. "It's more than simply a traditional intellectual property issue," he said. "It's now become a security issue."

The investigation by Microsoft's digital crimes unit began in August 2011 as a study into the sale and distribution of counterfeit versions of Windows. Microsoft employees in China bought 20 new computers from retailers and took them back to a home with an Internet connection.

They found forged versions of Windows on all the machines and malware preinstalled on four. The one with Nitol, however, was the most alarming because the malware was active.

"As soon as we powered on this particular computer, of its own accord without any instruction from us, it began reaching out across the Internet, attempting to contact a computer unfamiliar to us," Mr. Stratton said in the document filed with the court.

Mr. Stratton and his colleagues also found Nitol to be highly contagious. They inserted a thumb drive into the computer and the virus immediately copied itself onto it. When the drive was inserted into a separate machine, Nitol quickly copied itself onto it.

Microsoft examined thousands of samples of Nitol, which has several variants, and all of them connected to command-and-control servers associated with the 3322.org domain, according to the court records.

"In short, 3322.org is a major hub of illegal Internet activity, used by criminals every minute of every day to pump malware and instructions to the computers of innocent people worldwide," Microsoft said in its lawsuit.

Mr. Peng, the registered owner of 3322.org, said he had "zero tolerance" for the misuse of domain names and worked with Chinese law enforcement whenever there were complaints. Still, he said, his huge customer base made policing difficult.

"Our policy unequivocally opposes the use of any of our domain names for malicious purposes," Mr. Peng said in a private chat via Sina Weibo, a service like Twitter that is popular in China. "We currently have 2.85 million domain names and cannot exclude that individual users might be using domain names for malicious purposes."

But past warnings by other online security firms have been ignored by Mr. Peng, Mr. Boscovich said. The 3322.org domain accounted for more than 17 percent of malicious Web transactions worldwide in 2009, according to Zscaler, a computer security firm in San Jose, California. In 2008, the Russian security company Kaspersky Lab reported that 40 percent of all malware programs linked, at one point or another, to 3322.org.

Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of U.S. District Court, who is presiding in the case, granted a request from Microsoft to begin steering Internet traffic that has been infected by Nitol and other malware away from 3322.org to a special site called a sinkhole. From there, Microsoft can alert affected computer users to update their anti-virus protection and remove Nitol from their machines.

Since Judge Lee issued the order, more than 37 million malware connections have been blocked from 3322.org, according to Microsoft.

By RICHARD LARDNER | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 18 Sep, 2012

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Internet Archive Amasses All TV News Since 2009

Inspired by a pillar of antiquity, the Library of Alexandria, Brewster Kahle has a grand vision for the Internet Archive, the giant aggregator and digitizer of data, which he founded and leads.

"We want to collect all the books, music and video that has ever been produced by humans," Mr. Kahle said.

 As of Tuesday, the archive's online collection will include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news.

The latest ambitious effort by the archive, which has already digitized millions of books and tried to collect everything published on every Web page for the last 15 years (that adds up to over 150 billion Web pages,) is intended not only for researchers, Mr. Kahle said, but also for average citizens who make up some of the site's estimated two million visitors each day.  "The focus is to help the American voter to better be able to examine candidates and issues," Mr. Kahle said. "If you want to know exactly what Mitt Romney said about health care in 2009, you'll be able to find it."

 Of course, if you want to discredit or satirize a politician based on a clip showing some reversal of a position, that will be made easier as well. Or, as Mr. Kahle put it, "Let a thousand Jon Stewarts bloom."

 Many conventional news outlets will be available, including CNN, Fox News, NBC News, PBS, and every purveyor of eyewitness news on local television stations. And Mr. Stewart's program, "The Daily Show" is one of those 1,000 series that is part of the new news archive.

"Absolutely," Mr. Kahle said. "We think of it as news."

The Internet Archive has been quietly recording the news material from all these outlets, which means, Mr. Kahle said, capturing not only every edition of "60 Minutes" on CBS but also every minute of every day on CNN.

All of this will be available, free, to those willing to dive into the archive starting Tuesday. Mr. Kahle said the method for the search for information would be the closed-captioned words that have accompanied the news programs. The user simply plugs in the words of the search, along with some kind of time frame, and matches of news clips will appear.

Mr. Kahle predicted there would often be hundreds of matches, but he said the system had an interface that would make it easy to browse quickly through 30-second clips in search of the right one. If a researcher wants a copy of the entire program, a DVD will be sent on loan.

The inspiration of the Library of Alexandria, the archive of the knowledge in ancient world in Egypt, was not frivolous. Mr. Kahle said that early effort to assemble the collected works of civilization was in his mind when he conceived the idea to use the almost infinite capacity of the Web to pursue the modern equivalent.

 "You could turn all the books in the Library of Congress into a stack of disks that would fit in one shopping cart in Best Buy," Mr. Kahle said. He estimates that the Internet Archive now contains about 9,000 terabytes of data; by contrast, the digital collection of the Library of Congress is a little more than 300 terabytes, according to an estimate earlier this year.

Mr. Kahle calls himself a technologist and says he moved to the archive project after previously founding and selling off two data-mining companies, one to AOL, the other to Amazon.

The TV news project, like his other archive projects, is financed mainly through outside grants, though Mr. Kahle did put up some of his own money to start. He said grants from the National Archives, the Library of Congress and other government agencies and foundations made up the bulk of the financing for the project. He set the annual budget at $12 million, and said about 150 people were working on the project.

The act of copying all this news material is protected under a federal copyright agreement signed in 1976. That was in reaction to a challenge to a news assembly project started by Vanderbilt University in 1968.

The archive has no intention of replacing or competing with the Web outlets owned by the news organizations. Mr. Kahle said new material would not be added until 24 hours after it was first broadcast. "We don't expect this to replace CNN.com," he said.

As enormous as the news collection is, it is only the beginning, Mr. Kahle said. The plan is to "go back" year by year, and slowly add news video going back to the start of television. That will require some new and perhaps more challenging methodology because the common use of closed-captioning only started around 2002.

Mr. Kahle said some new technique, perhaps involving word recognition, would be necessary. "We need some interface that is good enough and doesn't interrupt commerce enough that they get upset with us."

But the goals for the news service remain as ambitious as all the other services the Internet Archive has embarked upon.

"Yes, we want eventually to be able to make coverage of, say, the 1956 political conventions available," Mr. Kahle said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 17, 2012

An earlier version of the headline with this article misstated the status of Internet Archive.  It was founded in 1996 and is not a start-up.

By RICHARD LARDNER | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 18 Sep, 2012

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Slipstream: In Microsoft’s New Browser, the Privacy Light Is Already On

IT could usher in a new era of online privacy. Or it might bowdlerize the Internet as we know it.

Then again, it might do almost nothing at all.

The item in question is Microsoft's latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, scheduled to be available to consumers in late October, packaged with Windows 8. The browser comes with an option called "do not track." It lets users indicate whether they'd like to see ads tailored to them by companies that track their online browsing histories — or whether they'd rather not have their online activities tracked, recorded, analyzed and stored for marketing purposes.

Of course, browsers like Firefox from Mozilla, Safari from Apple and even an earlier version of Internet Explorer already offered this choice for people who expressed a preference. But Microsoft is going further — by making privacy a more public issue. The new Internet Explorer 10 comes with the don't-track-me option automatically enabled, a fact that the software makes clear. During installation, a notice will appear giving users the choice to keep that preselected don't-track-me preference as is, or switch it off on a customization menu.

It's a radical move for a technology company, especially one like Microsoft, with an ad business of its own.

"No one says today, when a consumer first loads a product, 'Hey, by the way, there are some privacy choices you may want to consider,' " says Alex Fowler, the global privacy and policy leader at Mozilla. He believes that this may be the first time that privacy features so prominently "in the first-run experience of a consumer software product."

Right now, however, people who raise the do-not-track flag are making a mostly symbolic choice, having their browsers send out a preference signal. Web sites that receive the signal can honor it — or simply disregard it.

Over the last few years, as tailored ads have become more personal and persistent — often pursuing users around the Web with pitches for products they recently viewed but elected not to buy — many consumers have sought ways to navigate an advertising system that can seem too close for comfort. To increase people's options, the Digital Advertising Alliance, an industry group, publicly introduced a self-regulatory program in 2010, and more recently an updated consumer site,

youradchoices.com. It explains how behavioral advertising works and gives consumers the choice to opt out of the practice by the group's members.

But now major browsers are flexing their muscles with an alternate option, the do-not-track button, hoping to gain traction with consumers who want to manage their Internet experience on their own devices.

"There is vast consumer awareness and concern about privacy," says Fatemeh Khatibloo, a senior analyst in customer intelligence at Forrester Research. "If a browser can differentiate itself by saying 'we provide you better privacy tools,' I think they'll increase adoptions."

But the specter of people opting out of tracking en masse presents a serious risk for marketers.

Consumer data, marketers say, is the fuel that powers the Internet, driving ads that support free content and e-mail services, search engines and social networks. If millions of consumers opted out of behavior-based advertising, industry representatives argue, many ad-sponsored sites could shut down or put up pay walls for people who elect not to see the ads. Internet Explorer 10 is only heightening their concerns. Because consumers tend not to change preset technology options, advertisers worry that the browser could shift millions of people to the do-not-track category.

"That would drastically skew the economic model underlying the Internet," says Stuart Ingis, counsel to the Digital Advertising Alliance. "The choice is the Internet as we know it, or a much smaller, cannibalized Internet where you don't have the diversity."

E-mail: slipstream@nytimes.com.

By NATASHA SINGER 18 Sep, 2012

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/technology/in-microsofts-new-browser-the-privacy-light-is-already-on.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Gadgetwise Blog: Where Smartphones Lose Their Way, Navigation Services Step In

In the battle between Google's Android smartphone and the Apple iPhone, free navigation is one of the most fiercely contested fronts. At least one area where Apple might have created a decisive advantage over Google has gone begging, however, in the latest generation of the iPhone, unveiled last week.

Apple's turn-by-turn navigation suffers from a flaw common to Android-based phones, in that when the cellular connection is lost, the route's instructions are lost as well.

To avoid this problem, dedicated apps like Scout Plus from TeleNav, at $9.99 for one year of service, download and store maps directly on the phone, so turn-by-turn instructions work with or without reliable cellular reception. On Monday, TeleNav announced a version, at $24.99 for one year, called Car Connect, that would allow drivers of Ford vehicles subscribed to the Sync service to connect their phones to the dash, where the maps could be displayed on the car's larger screen. Subscribers would also be able to use hands-free voice commands and hear directions through the car's audio system. In essence, the system frees the driver from looking down at the handset or fiddling with awkward cradles.

It is a significant development in an industry in which automakers have zealously guarded that in-dash real estate. The TeleNav approach means the navigation software can be downloaded once and used wherever a Sync-subscribed Ford may travel.

A company trying to revive its fortunes against Apple and Google is Nokia, a fading force in mobile phones that has hitched its star to the Windows operating system from Microsoft. The Nokia Windows Phone 8 handsets are not yet available for purchase, but judging from demonstrations for the news media, one feature in particular should appeal to drivers. The handsets have built-in free maps and navigation based on the company's Navteq maps. And like the TeleNav approach, the maps live on the phone, not in the cloud, so the feature is impervious to the failings of weak or nonexistent signals.

Neither of these alternatives may ultimately dissuade die-hard Apple fans eager to get the iPhone 5. For their fealty, Apple has added a few wrinkles to its existing navigation software, including 3-D views of some metropolitan areas and a social networking feature. The company licensed maps from TomTom, a traffic-reporting service, and the social component from Waze, a developer of a traffic-reporting app.

The standalone Waze app, featured in Wheels, reflects the position and speed of other users on roads near you, delivering live traffic information and alerts about accidents and police speed traps. How this information is integrated on the final version of the new Apple software is unclear because the iPhone 5 is not scheduled to be available at Apple retail stores until Friday.

Drivers who connect their iPhones to their cars, and who plan to upgrade to iPhone 5, are faced with a hardware purchase to make the connection. The plug, which has not changed since 2003, has been shrunk, and the new version is expected to require the purchase of a $29 adapter to work with speakers and docks that used the old plug.

The plug's evolution will also change how graphics, and therefore display information, are transmitted to connected displays, a byproduct of the so-called Lightning connector. That means that even with the adapter, the iPhone 5 would not fully cooperate with in-dash systems that are compatible with existing iPhones. Consequently, no iTunes graphics or video from the iPhone 5 would display on the car's in-dash screen.

While it would be tempting to fault Apple for going it alone, throughout the industry there is a lack of coordinated thinking on standards for the interaction of smartphones with in-car telematics. Ideally, drivers would be able to use one common connection to link their smartphones to their cars and operate compatible apps, like navigation, on the cars' displays. But that day is not approaching any time soon.

"We've got a fragmented market, and there's no single standard yet," Niall Berkery, senior director of business development at TeleNav Automotive, said in an interview.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES 18 Sep, 2012

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Google Won’t Rethink Anti-Islam Video’s Status

SAN FRANCISCO — Google said on Friday that it would not comply with a White House request to reconsider the anti-Islam video that has set off violent protests in the Arab world in light of its rules banning hate speech on YouTube, which it owns.

Google said it had already determined that the video did not violate its terms of service regarding hate speech. In this case, the video stays up because it is against the Islam religion but not Muslim people.

The company also said Friday that it had blocked access to the video in India and Indonesia because it violated local laws.

These actions came after Google temporarily blocked the video on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya of its own volition — not because it violated laws or YouTube's terms of service — an extraordinary measure that it said it took in response to the delicacy of the situation. The video is accessible in the rest of the world, even as protests spread to nearly 20 countries, from North Africa to Indonesia.

Google said its decisions were consistent with a 2007 policy for controversial content in which the company would take into account not just laws and its own policies, but cultural norms.

"One type of content, while legal everywhere, may be almost universally unacceptable in one region, yet viewed as perfectly fine in another," Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president for communications and public policy at Google, wrote in the 2007 policy. "We are passionate about our users, so we try to take into account local cultures and needs."

YouTube said it was continuously monitoring the circumstances in other countries.

The controversy over the video has raised questions about the role of Google in governing free expression by determining which content is acceptable to show online and which is not.

The company does not police videos uploaded to the site because of the sheer volume involved; 72 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. It reviews videos only if users flag them as inappropriate or if it receives a valid court order or government request to remove them for violating the law.

That was the case in India and Indonesia, which have laws restricting content that provokes enmity.

Also, Google removes illegal content only in the 45 countries in which it has local Web sites, which include Egypt, Indonesia and India but not Libya, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

"We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia as well as in Libya and Egypt given the very sensitive situations in these two countries," YouTube said Friday in a statement.

"At Google we have a bias in favor of people's right to free expression in everything we do," Ms. Whetstone wrote in Google's 2007 policy. "But we also recognize that freedom of expression can't be — and shouldn't be — without some limits. The difficulty is in deciding where those boundaries are drawn. For a company like Google with services in more than 100 countries — all with different national laws and cultural norms — it's a challenge we face many times every day."

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that the company had restricted access to a link to the film in Pakistan, at the request of its government.

Kevin Bankston, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital civil liberties, said that Google, as a private company, could decide what was appropriate on its sites and what was not. But he added, "Considering the power that many of these platforms have, it's important for them to be as clear and transparent as possible about those decisions."

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES 18 Sep, 2012

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Japanese Companies Close Facilities in China as Tensions Rise

SHANGHAI — Some major Japanese brands announced factory shutdowns in China on Monday and urged their Japanese workers in the country to stay indoors ahead of what could be more angry protests over a territorial dispute between the two biggest economies in Asia.

China's worst outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment in decades led to demonstrations over the weekend and violent attacks on well-known Japanese companies, like the carmakers Toyota and Honda, forcing frightened Japanese into hiding and prompting the Chinese state news media to warn that trade relations could be in jeopardy.

Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the government would protect Japanese companies and citizens and called for protesters to obey the law.

China and Japan, which generated two-way trade of $345 billion last year, are arguing over the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, a longstanding dispute that erupted last week when the Japanese government decided to buy some of them from a private Japanese owner.

In response, China sent six surveillance ships to the area, which contains potentially large gas reserves. On Monday, a flotilla of 1,000 Chinese fishing boats was sailing for the islands. The islands are called the Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China.

The protests over the weekend mainly targeted Japanese diplomatic missions, but they also occurred at shops, restaurants and car dealerships in at least five cities. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor said arsonists had badly damaged their dealerships in the eastern port city of Qingdao.

Toyota said its factories and offices were operating as normal Monday and that it had not ordered its Japanese employees home.

Honda said it would suspend production in China starting Tuesday for two days. Fast Retailing, largest apparel retailer in Asia, said it had closed 7 of its Uniqlo outlets in China and may close 19 more.

The top Japanese general retailer, Seven & I Holdings, said it would close 13 Ito Yokado supermarkets and 198 of its 7-Eleven convenience stores in China Tuesday. Sony is discouraging nonessential travel to China.

Mazda Motor will halt production at its Nanjing factory, which it jointly operates with Chongqing Changan Automobile and Ford Motor, for four days. Nissan Motor suspended China production for two days, starting Monday.

"I want to leave," said a Nissan executive, who declined to be named, in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. "Protests near my home were horrifying over the weekend."

The electronics maker Panasonic said one of its plants had been sabotaged by Chinese workers and would remain closed through Tuesday.

Canon, the camera and copier maker, will stop production at three of its four Chinese factories Tuesday, Japanese news media reports said, while All Nippon Airways reported a rise in cancellations on Japan-bound flights from China.

The dispute also hit the shares of Hong Kong-listed Japanese retailers on Monday, with the department store operator Aeon Stores (Hong Kong) falling to a seven-month low.

"All Japan-related shares are under selling pressure," said Andrew To, a research director from Emperor Capital.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan, who met visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday, urged Beijing to ensure Japan's people and property were protected.

Mr. Panetta said the United States would stand by its security treaty obligations to Japan but not take sides in the dispute, and urged calm and restraint on both sides.

The overseas edition of The People's Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, warned that Beijing could resort to economic retaliation if the dispute festered.

"How could it be that Japan wants another lost decade, and could even be prepared to go back by two decades?" asked a front-page editorial. China "has always been extremely cautious about playing the economic card," it said. "But in struggles concerning territorial sovereignty, if Japan continues its provocations, then China will take up the battle."

 

By SOMINI SENGUPTA 17 Sep, 2012

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Apple: iPhone 5 Preorders Top 2 Million in 24 Hours

CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple says iPhone 5 preorders topped 2 million in 24 hours, more than double the amount of iPhone 4S preorders.

The company also says that while most preorders will be delivered on Friday, demand for the iPhone 5 exceeds the initial supply, so some of the devices are scheduled for delivery in October.

The iPhone 5 has a bigger screen — 4 inches (10.16 centimeters) measured diagonally — that creates room for another row of icons and lets widescreen movies fit better. The calendar will now show five days at a time instead of just three. Previous iPhone models carried 3.5-inch (8.89-centimeter) screens.

The iPhone 5 sells for $199 for the 16 gigabyte model, $299 for the 32 GB or $399 for the 64 GB model.

Apple says the iPhone 5 will be available at its 356 U.S. stores starting on Friday. Each customer that makes a purchase at a store will be offered free personal setup service, which will help them customize their device.

Aside from Apple stores, the iPhone 5 will be available at Apple's website as well as through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, some Best Buy, RadioShack, Target and Walmart stores and certain Apple authorized resellers.

Earlier Monday AT&T Inc. said it set a sales record for the iPhone 5, with customers ordering more of them than any previous iPhone model on the first day of preorders and over the weekend.

Apple Inc. says the iPhone 5 will be available in more than 22 countries on Sept. 28.

The Cupertino, Calif. company's stock added $7.56 to $698.84 as of 15 minutes before the market open on Monday.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 17 Sep, 2012

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/09/17/business/ap-us-apple-iphone-5.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Icon Housekeeping on the iPhone

I have dozens of icons on my iPhone screens. What's the easiest way to rearrange them in the order I choose?

Apple offers two ways to move your iPhone icons around, but the ease of each method is up to you. For one, you can rearrange the icons directly on the iPhone. To get started, press your finger on any icon until all the icons begin to animatedly "wiggle" on the screen.

Once the icons are wiggling around, press your finger on the edge of an icon you wish to move and drag it to your desired location on the screen. Repeat the process of pressing and dragging until you have moved all the icons into the order you prefer. You can move icons from screen to screen by dragging them to the edge of each iPhone home screen until the next screen slides into view.

You can create folders of apps on the screen by dragging the icon of one app on top of another. After you create a folder, the phone's software gives you the chance to give it a name like "Games" or "Productivity" and you can add more apps by dragging them in by their icons. When you are finished moving things around, press the iPhone's Home button to stop the icons from wiggling and lock the new order into place.

Rearranging icons on the iPhone itself allows you to take care of your Home screen housekeeping wherever you may be. However, some people may find it awkward to drag the small icons around from screen to screen — especially if there are quite a few apps on the phone or the fingers are not quite as nimble as they used to be.

As an alternative method, you can also rearrange your iPhone's screens in Apple's iTunes program. You should already have iTunes installed on the computer and set up to sync with the phone. Once you do, connect the phone to the computer.

Using the iPhone's USB cable is a common way to link the iPhone with the copy of iTunes on the computer, but it is also the old-fashioned approach. In iOS 5, the latest version of the iPhone's software, you can also sync the two devices over a wireless network.

When you have the phone and computer connected, click the iPhone's icon on the left side of the iTunes window to select it. Next, click the Apps tab in the main part of the iTunes window. You should now see a virtual version of your iPhone's screens and all its icons.

Use the mouse to click and drag icons around, make folders and move between phone screens. When you are done with your reordering, click the Apply button (and then the Sync button) in the iTunes window to finish the job.

By J.D. BIERSDORFER 17 Sep, 2012

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Source: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/qa-icon-housekeeping-on-the-iphone/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Despite a Slowdown, Smartphone Advances Are Still Ahead

The arrival of the original iPhone in 2007 was a quantum leap for cellphones. Phones had never worked or looked like that.

Peter Foley/Bloomberg News

Sergey Brin of Google, left, and the designers Diane Von Furstenberg and Yvan Mispelaere wearing Project Glass glasses at Ms. Von Furstenberg's fashion show.

Eric Risberg/Associated Press

The iPhone 5.

The iPhone 5 that Apple introduced last week with only incremental changes seemed to signal that the industry has entered an era of technological bunny hops.

Faster chips, bigger screens and speedier wireless Internet connections are among the refinements smartphone users can count on year after year in new models, most of them in familiar rectangular packages. They are improvements, to be sure, but they lack the breathtaking impact the first iPhone had, with its pioneering fusion of software and touch screens.

"Since then, it has been kind of incremental," said Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst. "It does not feel like there is a big shift."

But big innovations in smartphones are not a thing of the past. Incremental improvements can add up over a span of years, providing the computing horsepower to enable big advances in software. Breakthroughs in smartphone materials, software and even batteries could lead to substantial changes in how smartphones look and function in the years ahead.

One of Apple's most intriguing recent efforts to redefine the iPhone is Siri, the voice-activated virtual assistant that it introduced in October with the iPhone 4S. The feature has the potential to change how consumers retrieve information on their iPhones, giving them the ability to find information on the Web with natural voice commands and to perform other tasks. The product, though, has been criticized for its inaccuracies.

As Apple continues to improve Siri, Google, the maker of the Android phone operating system, improves on its voice search products. Google and some of its mobile phone partners have also moved toward replacing the credit card with the smartphone using a technology called near-field communications that lets users make payments wirelessly at cash registers.

That system has been slow to take off because most merchants do not support it yet. Apple is taking a more cautious approach to new mobile payment systems, offering a feature in its new iPhone software called Passbook for storing electronic versions of store payment, gift and loyalty cards.

Technology analysts say smartphones could again see big changes akin to the one Apple introduced in 2007. Wearable computers are a source of fascination among many Silicon Valley companies, especially at Google. The company has put tremendous effort behind Project Glass, eyeglasslike frames that can display texts, e-mails and other information from a smartphone on a miniature screen in front of the wearer's eye.

Google has said it plans to release a version of the technology for developers that would cost $1,500 in the first half of next year and a consumer version sometime after that.

Although it could take years of work before the technology reached mass market prices, researchers and some intrepid technology companies said they believe wearable computers could be crucial to unlocking a new category of applications called "augmented reality." Virtual objects and information could be overlaid on the real world. Imagine visiting ancient ruins and seeing, through a pair of glasses connected to a smartphone, how the site looked before its decay. People could eventually play augmented reality games that could involve laying virtual ambushes around corners in the real world.

"A lot of people are thinking about augmented reality as a possible game changer in mobile computing," said Tobias Hollerer, a computer science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is researching the field.

Changes in materials could also allow for more radical designs for smartphones and peripherals that connect to them. Corning, a company that makes the glass used in iPhone and other smartphone screens, has developed a flexible product called Willow Glass. Paul Tompkins, director of commercial technology at Corning, said the thin and strong glass could give designers a way to make devices that have more curves conform to a part of the body. A wrist device, for example, could display much of the information that's now on a smartphone.

"We're really working hard on that with a couple of companies," he said. "You can achieve more organic designs."

Then there are seemingly mundane technical breakthroughs that could take away some of the more vexing aspects of smartphones, like the need to worry constantly about keeping them charged. In 2010, Apple filed a patent application for a small fuel-cell power supply that could potentially give the iPhone and iPad enough juice to last for weeks without the need to plug them in.

By NICK WINGFIELD 17 Sep, 2012

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/technology/despite-a-slowdown-smartphone-advances-are-still-ahead.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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