News Under the Sun

Crisis in Japan Affects Tech Companies

Tech companies are being crippled by shortages of memory chips, LCD displays, batteries and semiconductors due to damage to factories in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Plant closures by Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba, among others, have halted shipments of key components to smartphone and tablet makers. The prices of parts will likely spike, as damage to factories, roads and powers hobbles repair efforts in the near future.

Meanwhile, customers who ordered the iPad 2 earlier this week faced a wait time of four to five weeks, nearly double the delays suggested just two days ago. That number is expected to get pushed back even further as Apple faces disruptions to its supply chain.

HTC said its operations weren't significantly impacted and that shipments would continue as normal.

All four major U.S. carriers are helping provide relief by waiving charges for calls and texts to Japan. AT&T and T-Mobile are giving free international long-distance service to the country through March 31, Verizon and Sprint will extend it through April 10. All offers started effectively last week, on March 11.

In addition, Zynga, maker of popular Facebook games, raised more than $1 million for relief efforts by selling virtual goods like radishes in FarmVille, sweet potato crops in CityVille, Kobe cows in FrontierVille, among other games.

Mobile Payments Heat Up

Google will begin testing its mobile-payment systems in New York and San Francisco over the next four months. It is installing thousands of special cash registers that take payments from smartphones equipped with wireless technology, known as NFC, or near field communication.

Consumers will be able to pay for products and services by tapping their device against these special terminals, offering an alternative to cash, credit and debit cards. The Internet giant may add gift-card balances, store loyalty cards and coupon subscriptions, as well.

Crosstown rival Apple, meanwhile, decided not to include NFC on its highly-anticipated iPhone 5, due out in June. Instead, the company is reportedly adding a mobile-payment service to iTunes, its online music store, which could allow all its mobile products to shop wirelessly. That feature could be released as early as 2012.

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is tussling with AT&T and T-Mobile over where to add NFC technology -- on the phone itself or on the SIM card.

That customer data, currently stored in the magnetic strip on credit cards, will determine who controls the customer, and could alter how revenue is distributed in a $1.13 trillion industry.

RIM is reaching out to banks to bypass the carriers. But AT&T and T-Mobile are part of powerful consortium of more than 800 operators around the world, known as the GSM Association, or GSMA, that is racing to standardize its own mobile-payments system.

Facebook Readies to Wheel and Deal

Facebook poached Amin Zoufonoun, Google's director of corporate development, to join its mergers and acquisitions team, hinting that it will begin competing with rival Google for startup talent.

Facebook is flush with cash, raised $1.5 billion through a private offering to overseas investors. The private company currently has a valuation of around $50 billion.

The company also plans to launch a daily-offers coupon service, similar to Groupon, as it looks for ways to capitalize on its 500 million-plus users. The social network site will add daily-offers to its existing Facebook Places Deals service, which shown in the side bars.

Problems For Apple

Apple is dealing with yet another embarrassing iPhone alarm glitch. This time, rather than "springing forward" for daylight savings time, some owners found their iPhones hasn't adjusted, or in some cases, fell back an hour, making them two hours late for their appointments.

The problem is the latest in a series of clock-related snafus. In November, scores of Australians and New Zealanders reported late to work after the iPhone's alarm failed to readjust for a time-shift. In addition, on New Year's Day, a malfunction kept the phone from ringing the alarm.

Several customers are also accusing Apple of deliberately hindering the performance of web apps that run on the iPhone and iPad. Restrictions the company placed on how these programs run on mobile products have resulted in a two to two-and-half time slowdown than on normal browsers, according to The Register. These people claim Apple is deliberately handicapping the performance to make App Store apps more appealing.

And lastly, in a bit of good news, Apple's senior vice president Phil Schiller tweeted that the white iPhone "will be available this spring", after a delay of nearly a year. The iPhone was also awarded top honors in J.D. Power's customer satisfaction survey.

More Problems For Google

A flaw in its Flash Player could allow hackers to take over Android devices. Adobe did not elaborate on the vulnerability but said it expects to release a patch next week.

The problem comes a week after Google found 50 virus-infected apps in its Android Market, prompting the company to remotely enter 250,000 users' devices and remove the malware.

In a potentially larger legal issue, Google may have stolen code from Linux to use in Android, violating licenses that could lead to a lawsuit from the open-source owner Oracle. Experts are claiming the Internet giant essentially copied hundreds of files of Linux code, and then "cleaned" those files to remove any trace of their origins, declaring it free of GNU licenses.

Should Oracle file a lawsuit, the damages could be significant to the Android ecosystem. Oracle is already suing Google for Javascript patent infringement.

Even More Problems For RIM

Hackers have found a bug in the WebKit browser, allowing them to steal data from memory cards, and install malware, on certain BlackBerry smartphones. The company said emails and contacts were be safe, even if attacked, but recommended that users disable Javascript in their browsers until a solution could be found.

In India, RIM's problems with regulators don't seem to be easing. On Monday, Robert Crow, the company's vice president of industry and government relations, publicly questioned India's demands for access to encrypted communications. The country wants real-time access to all data to monitor suspected criminals and terrorists. That dispute has been ongoing since last fall.

Meanwhile, RIM keeps beefing up its services, as it prepares for the launch of its PlayBook tablet on April 19. This time, the BlackBerry maker is teaming up with Microsoft to offer cloud-based data storage and management for corporate smartphone and tablets customers.

That means customers that typically maintain expensive BlackBerry servers on company grounds, will soon be able to manage their email and other BlackBerry services on cheaper, offsite servers managed by RIM, saving cash, speeding up rollouts and enhancing security.

Microsoft won't be managing the data centers, but will allow RIM servers to connect to the software giant's own cloud initiative, called "Office 365".

New Products

After much delay, Verizon will release the HTC Thunderbolt, its first 4G phone, on March 17 for $250 with a two-year contract. It runs Android and features a large 4.3-inch touch screen display and dual-cameras -- an 8.0-megapixel one with high-definition video recording and a 1.3-megapixel lens for video chat.

T-Mobile introduced a new Android-based Sidekick, with higher-speed 4G service, to be sold "later this spring". The Sidekick 4G adds group and cloud texting, allowing groups of friends, across different platforms, to communicate. For instance, messages to a friend from a PC are automatically synched to that contact on the phone.

Sprint plans to launch the Kyocera Echo, a dual-screen Android smartphone, on April 17 for $200 with a two-year contract. The Echo can operate as a conventional smartphone or in a tablet-like layout with two 3.5-inch displays.

And lastly, Sprint customers that want an iPad 2 can connect the tablet to its 3G or 4G network using a mobile hotspot device called the Overdrive Pro. The palm-sized device can connect up to eight Wi-Fi gadgets.

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