Smartphones: Amazon Phone May Be a Tough Sell in Europe — When It Arrives - by Mark Scott

People outside the United States hoping to get their hands on Amazon’s new smartphone will have to wait awhile.

During the much-anticipated announcement of the company’s Fire handset, little attention was given to Amazon’s international operations, which deliver about 40 percent of its annual sales.

At first, the smartphone will only be available in the United States as part of an exclusive deal with AT&T.

Amazon is in talks with several European companies, including Vodafone of Britain and Telefónica of Spain, though no deal has been finalized to bring the phone to Europe, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Representatives of Vodafone and Telefónica declined to comment, while a representative for Amazon was not immediately available to comment.

When Amazon eventually takes its new phone abroad, it is likely to face an uphill battle to lure Europeans away from their devices in favor of an untested competitor aimed at linking users to Amazon’s e-commerce empire.

Online retail spending in Europe remains less developed than in America. And despite efforts by other tech giants like Microsoft to break into the smartphone market, Europeans still favor devices made by the existing market leaders, Apple and Samsung.

 
Read more: Amazon Phone May Be a Tough Sell in Europe — When It Arrives - NYTimes.com

Russia Smartphones : Yota Phone Review: The Android Smartphone From Russia With Two Screens - by Ewan Spence

YOTA Dual Smart Phone

Last year at CES, Russian manufacturer Yota demonstrated a prototype smartphone with two 4.3 inch displays, an LCD screen on one side and an e-Ink screen on the reverse. Now in production and available to buy in a number of European territories, how does a dual-core dual-screened Android device cope in the real world? Surprisingly well is the answer, even though there is some room for improvement.

Let’s start with the underlying hardware. Compared to some of the flagship and high-end Android devices launched in 2013, the Yota Phone is decidedly mid-range. The Dual-Core 1.7 GHz Krait CPU has the speed and capability to run Android comfortably, but the handset doesn’t stretch the specs in the current market. It’s nice to see it comes with 2 GB of RAM, and when it was announced at CES 2013 these were cutting-edge specs, but the Android world has moved on since then.

The handset comes in just one storage memory configuration (32 GB) and unfortunately there is no SD card expansion port. Given 16 GB feels a bit tight on Android handsets today, the 32 GB option should be good for the life of the handset, and with smart use of cloud based services for storage and streaming it should suffice for the majority of use cases.

International wise this is a 4G handset focused on Europe, with the key LTE  (800/1800/2600 MHz), UMTS (900/1800/2100 MHz) and 3G bands (900/1800/1900 MHz) all covered. The current configuration would struggle frequency-wise in the US market but if the handset was to appear in the future I’m sure that a US configuration would be supplied. For now, the focus is rightly on Yota’s home and European markets – adding in US frequencies right now would simply drive the manufacturing cost up for little return.

The handset is a monoblock design, and in this case that phrase is incredibly appropriate. Apart from a slight tapering at the top-rear of the handset, the Yota Phone is black, rectangular, blocky, and angular.With a glass front to the LCD, and the familiar feel of e-Ink on the rear, the only real scope for flair is in the banding around the device. Yota have went with a black plastic edging broken by the MicroUSB charging and connectivity port and microphone on the base, volume keys on the left hand side, and a headphone jack and SIM tray on the top.

There is a power button, but you’ll probably need to hunt for it. It’s actually the SIM card tray pulling double duty. A SIM ejection tool will free it for your card, and the rest of the time pressing it in with your finger will turn the main screen on and off. It’s nice touch and shows that Yota are thinking about design, but I suspect that forcing the two screens into the chassis has left them little room to do anything artistic.

Does it work and is it worth it? That’s the two questions to ask about the Yota Phone, because without the second screen we have a workmanlike Android 4.2.2 device coupled with a 1280×780 LCD screen. Quite frankly there are a lot of devices out there which match those parts of the specifications. The device is also more expensive than the major specifications suggest at €499. I suspect this is down to the extra cost of the e_ink screen, and the smaller volumes that Yota will be building.

In my time so far with the Yota Phone, the answer is yes. By virtue of being e-Ink, the second screen is always on, drawing very little power, and Yota’s customizations of Android and their own apps which use the screen prove the concept works.

With just the e-Ink screen I’ve been able to navigate around Edinburgh, check my diary and upcoming appointments, follow my favourite websites via RSS, read a number of eBooks, control the playback of music on my smartphone, and naturally see what the time is. All without powering up the battery hungry LCD screen on my smartphone.

Read more: Yota Phone Review: The Android Smartphone From Russia With Two Screens - Forbes

Smartphone APPS: Snapchat hacked, info on 4.6 million users reportedly leaked - by James Eng

Someone claiming to be behind the reported leak of private account information on millions of Snapchat users says the goal was to raise public awareness about online security holes in the popular photo-sharing app.

A website called SnapchatDB.info went online on New Year’s Eve, offering for download what it said was a database containing the usernames and phone numbers of 4.6 million Snapchat accounts. (The last two digits of the phone numbers were blacked out.)

“This database contains username and phone number pairs of a vast majority of the Snapchat users. This information was acquired through the recently patched Snapchat exploit and is being shared with the public to raise awareness on the issue,” the site said.

“The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late and companies that we trust with our information should be more careful when dealing with it.”

By Wednesday morning, the site was taken down, but not before several visitors said they managed to download the database.

In a follow-up statement Wednesday to several tech media sites, including The Verge and TechCrunch, SnapchatDB said:

“Our motivation behind the release was to raise the public awareness around the issue, and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed. It is understandable that tech startups have limited resources but security and privacy should not be a secondary goal. Security matters as much as user experience does.”

TechCrunch said one of its readers found his own number, as well as the number of Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel, on the leaked list.

Read more: Snapchat hacked, info on 4.6 million users reportedly leaked - NBC News.com

Internet: VOIP Blocking Alive & Well

Reports about VOIP traffic being blocked by network operators are becoming more common in wake of customers complaining their telephony service is being degraded. In the United Arab Emirates, Internet users are complaining they have been unable to access Skype.com to buy SkypeOut minutes. The culprit seems to be Etisalat, the UAE's only ISP. In the U.S., there have been reports that Vonage's service is being blocked at times by phone companies. In Canada, the major broadband operators have promised the CRTC they will not engage in this kind of nefarious activity.

EU-Digest

Sweden - Taxation Policies: In Sweden, TV Tax Comes to Smartphones

Sweden's public broadcaster, feeling pressure as streaming heavyweights like Netflix NFLX +0.69% and HBO gain ground with their newly-founded Nordic services, is taking the nation's television license fees to a new level by asking smartphone and tablet users to pay up.

License fees have been in place for years as state-backed broadcasters look to fund commercial-free programming, including the BBC. In Sweden's case, anyone owning a television is forced to pay a SEK173 ($27) tab per month for Sveriges Television, Sveriges Radio and educational broadcasting known as Utbildningsradion.

That fee hardly looks like a bargain compared with the SEK79 ($12) monthly fee that Netflix Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s TWX +0.85% HBO each charge subscribers in Sweden.

The good news for Swedes is no matter how many televisions one owns, they only need to pay the fee once.

The bad news is times are rapidly changing and in order to keep up with the increasing use of nonconventional ways to access Sweden's public broadcasting, Sweden's Radiotjänst collection agency is expanding its reach to computers and mobile devices with an Internet connection. That means people ditching televisions for tablets and smartphones are no longer able to ditch the TV fee.

Read more: In Sweden, TV Tax Comes to Smartphones - WSJ.com

Smartphones: Huawei's Smartphone Sales Eclipse Nokia, HTC, RIM - by Anton Troianovski

China’s Huawei Technologies Co. has jumped ahead of Nokia Corp., HTC Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. in the world-wide smartphone race, but steep challenges remain for the telecommunications firm as it pursues a bigger role around the world.

Huawei, a Shenzhen-based manufacturer of telecom equipment that has aggressively pushed into the consumer market in recent years, shipped 10.8 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, ranking it the third-largest seller in the world, with a nearly 5 percent market share, according to researcher International Data Corp.

Read more: Huawei's Smartphone Sales Eclipse Nokia, RIM - Anton Troianovski - Mobile - AllThingsD

Airline Industry: A free EU smartphone App to know your rights in Europe after flight disruptions and other mishaps

Even though some of us sometimes view the European Commission  as a slumbering giant, spending years to make decisions and implement policy – that is not always true, at least when it comes to travel industry issues.

Passengers stranded at airports or awaiting missing luggage may now use a smartphone application to check their rights immediately on the spot.

The European Commission has launched an application for smartphones which covers air and rail transport and works on four mobile platforms: Apple iPhone and iPad, Google Android, RIM Blackberry and Microsoft Windows Phone 7. The app is available in 22 EU languages. It currently covers air and rail transport to be extended to bus / coach and marine travel soon when these rights come into force.

European Commission Vice President Siim Kallas, responsible for Transport said: "How many of us have stood in an airport and felt the frustration of people telling you that you have no rights when you know you have! With this application millions of travelers can have easy access to the right information about their passenger rights when they most need it, when unexpected situations arise." 

Smart phone users can scan the QR code (left) to access the download pages directly from their smartphone or  click here.:  

EU-Digest

Smart Phones: by 2014 more than 76.9 billion Apps - two sides of the same coin - by Nerea Rial

Smartphones and Apps

Due to the increasing number of smartphone and tablets in the market, predictions say that in 2014 more than 76.9 billion mobile applications will be downloaded. These tools can make users' lives easier, but not everything is positive and people is starting to worry about their privacy.

To gain users' trust, the European Commission is working on its Data Protection Regulation, which regulates the processing of personal data regardless of whether such processing is automated or not.

During a conference celebrated at the “Reloading Data Protection” event in Brussels, Commission's representative explained that a useful regulation is needed, as well as transparency and users' control over their personal information in order to ensure a safe and fair system.

Over 92% of European users are worried about apps, and both policymakers and businesses have to create trust in an age of complexity, explained Pat Walshe, Director of Privacy at GSMA UK. He added that this complexity is composed, among others, by applications, search browsers, OS and social networks, where people is facilitating their personal data.

Read more: Apps, two sides of the same coin | New Europe

Spain: Smartphones: Mozilla Shows Off First Two Firefox OS Phones, For Developers Only - by Carl Franzen

Mozilla, the company best known for its Firefox Web browser, on Tuesday finally unveiled the design of the first two smartphones that will run its upcoming Firefox mobile operating system (Firefox OS).

Named “Keon” and “Peak,” the two smartphones are created by a Spanish mobile phone company called Geeksphone and will debut in Europe and Latin America in “the first half of 2013,” according statements a Mozilla spokesperson provided to TPM. But they’re not going to be sold on the mass market. Instead, Mozilla and Geeksphone are restricting them to software developers who want to build apps for Mozilla’s new Firefox OS, a Web-based platform that aims to be even more “open source,” and thus more permissive and flexible for development, than Google’s own Android operating system.

Read more: Mozilla Shows Off First Two Firefox OS Phones, For Developers Only | TPM Idea Lab

Tourism and Smartphones: One year after its launch: the JustBook App is European leader in spontaneous hotel bookings

A year after launching its free app, JustBook maintains a leading position in Europe for mobile hotel bookings at the last minute.

Currently, JustBook enjoys a record level of bookings thanks to the collaboration with Miles & More. Effective as of January 10, 2013, JustBook users collect award miles with Miles & More, the prestigious frequent miles program of Lufthansa and associated airlines. This offer is available for all hotel bookings with JustBook at over 1,000 hotels in 46 cities across Europe, independent of specific hotel chain brands.

This latest initiative makes JustBook the first hotel network enabling its members to earn miles "while they sleep". Already one week after the launch of the partnership, every second JustBook user is collecting award miles with each mobile hotel booking. The offer adds to existing collaborations, including the latest strategic media partnership with the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB). No wonder the JustBook App enjoys strong support among its fans: 92 percent of all users would recommend JustBook to friends.

Read more: One year after its launch: the JustBook App is a European leader in spontaneous hotel bookings

Finland: Nokia’s Lumia 920 and 820: How they look, work and feel

Nokia launched two smartphones yesterday — the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820, both of which will run on Windows 8 OS. So what are the key features of the two smartphones? We take a quick look.
First, let’s look at the technical specifications of both smartphones.

Nokia Lumia 920: This is, of course, Nokia’s flagship device. As far as technical specifications go, this has a curved 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ screen. A dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 CPU with 1 GB RAM, 32 GB disk space and 7 GB storage in the cloud with SkyDrive for users.

Nokia Lumia 820 : This is the less pricier version. The smartphone has polycarbonate unibody with a 4.3 inch screen. It is also NFC enabled with an 8 megapixel PureView branded camera. This smartphone will also support wireless charging. The 1GB RAM and dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor will ensure that there is little lag. It has 8GB space (expandable upto 32 GB) and 7 GB in SkyDrive.

Read more: Nokia’s Lumia 920 and 820: How they look, work and feel | Firstpost

Smartphone use can mean a never-ending workday - by Paul Sakuma

There was a time when the workday ended after leaving the office, but a new survey suggests the arrival of smartphones has meant many workers are putting in as much as a full day of unpaid overtime each week – answering work emails at the dinner table, on family outings and even from bed.

The benefits and flexibility of going mobile clearly come at a price, indicates the May poll of 1,000 working American adults that was conducted by Good Technology, a California company that makes software allowing people to work on their smartphones away from the office.

For instance, 80 per cent of those polled said they used mobile technology to continue working after office hours.

Half of respondents admitted to checking work emails in bed, starting at 7:09 a.m., on average. Fifteen hours later, the story was much the same, as 40 per cent said they were checking work emails after 10 p.m. and more than two-thirds saying they wouldn't go to sleep without checking in.

All this adds up to an average of seven extra hours each week — almost a full day of unpaid overtime.

Read more: Smartphone use can mean a never-ending workday - Business - CBC News

Credit Cards: soon to become obsolete with the introduction of NFC enabled smartphones

Today, more than 10,000 credit card transactions take place every single second -- and the total value of goods and services purchased with them totals more than euro 1.92 trillion ($2.5 trillion)  per year. But the domination of the plastic credit and debit card might soon be over.

Given that we now use smartphones to do everything from checking the weather to sending emails to watching YouTube videos to getting directions to making restaurant reservations, it only makes sense that we would use them to pay for things, too.

With so-called "near field communication" (NFC) technology we may soon be able to do just that.

This technology allows two NFC-enabled devices placed within a few inches of each other to wirelessly swap data -- meaning you can simply touch your NFC-enabled smartphone to an NFC reader any time you need to pay your bar tab, buy a plane ticket, or even get groceries.

This revolution in payments is already beginning to take shape. In Britain mobile provider Orange has already teamed up with a number of companies including MasterCard and Barclaycard to offer NFC payment options at roughly 50,000 locations around Britain -- including fast-food chains like McDonald's and Subway.

Nokia, Sprint, and Research In Motion are all reported to be working on building NFC-enabled smartphones -- and it is widely rumored that NFC technology may well be a prominent feature of the next iPhone.

Imagine how our daily routines will change if everything works out like the technology's supporters hope it will.

• We'll never have to worry about feeding coins into parking meters or vending machines ever again.
• We won't need tickets to board a train or get into a ball game.
• We won't be asked for our license and registration when we get pulled over, a passport when we cross the border, or an ID when we go to the gym.
• We won't use keys to unlock our cars, our offices, or even our front door.
• Stores and restaurants will no longer give us printed receipts, and business cards will become a thing of the past.

Unfortunately there is one problem with this new technology. What happens to the older folks who can't use a smart phone for a variety of reasons and poor people who can't afford them ? 

EU-Digest

Smartphone shipments surpass feature phones in Europe - by Hayley Tsukayama

Despite high handset prices and expensive data plans, smartphones are steadily growing in popularity worldwide. Now, research company IDC says that shipments of smartphones passed shipments of feature phones in Europe for the first time.

For more: martphone shipments surpass feature phones in Europe - The Washington Post