India spectrum auction base price too high: Vodafone CEO

Vodafone, which has not applied for taking part in spectrum auction in March, Tuesday said the reserve price set is too high and the company cannot afford to pay in India where there is uncertainty about airwaves and revenues are low."The problem is that in India there is a misperception of what is the value of spectrum. The reserve prices are set too high. India has very low prices and very low revenues so we cannot afford to pay high price for spectrum," Vodafone Group's Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao told PTI.
The Department of Telecommunications has announced plans to conduct auction for spectrum that remained unsold in November auction along with the airwaves that are held by operators whose licences are due for renewal in 2014.
Vodafone holds 900 Mhz band spectrum in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata under permits that are to be renewed in 2014.
Russia's Sistema which operates on CDMA platform is the lone applicant for sale of airwaves in the March auction.
Government has fixed price of 900 Mhz two times high of 1800 Mhz.
"We have told them (Indian government) a number of times that the order of magnitude that they have in mind just does not make sense," he said.
When asked about the company's earlier plans to list its India unit, Colao said "In a country where you have uncertainty about not just the price of spectrum that you will have, but including the one that you do have already, you use already for serving the customers, and with a very abnormal tax dispute which the whole world cannot understand, I think its difficult to list a company."
He said that government needs to take clear and simpler views about the benefits that will come from lower value of spectrum.
"I think they have been influenced by auctions that went absolutely wrong as a consequence of that they have to take clear and simpler view about the benefits that will come from having a lower decent value of the spectrum rather than setting very high price for spectrum and than nobody bids," Colao said.
In November, 2012 auction, government received bids worth about Rs. 9,407 crore for total spectrum amounting to minimum of around Rs. 28,000 crore that were put for auction.
He said that the company will "engage the (Indian) government to explain again why we think that they should review downwards significantly the perception of value of spectrum."
Vodafone India, along with Bharti Airtel and Loop, had approached the Delhi High Court against DoT decision to put up for auction the more efficient 900 Mhz spectrum.

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Expanded Gmail field trial brings calendar

Expanded Gmail field trial brings calendar results to search

Participants in Google's personalized search experience can now see results from Google Calendar.

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Here's a nice new feature for anyone in Gmail's field trial, which brings personalized results directly into Google search. The trial, which is available only after you opt in, brings information like Gmail results, receipts, reservations, and Google Drive documents onto the search engine results page.

Today's update brings Google Calendar items into the trial. As the company put it on Google+:

We've added Calendar results to your Gmail and Drive results. You can learn your entire schedule for the day by searching for [what is on my calendar today]. Or if you'd want to know when you're meeting up with your friend Bryan for lunch, type [when am i meeting bryan].

The trial is currently available in the United States only. New users can opt in here.

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Facebook snags Microsoft's Atlas to boost ad sales

The deal gives the social-networking giant a tool to use the information gleaned from its users to serve up more relevant ads.

After months of speculation, Facebook today agreed to buy Microsoft's Atlas online-advertising platform, boosting the social-networking giant's ability to compete against Google in the display ad business.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies also didn't disclose the number of employees the deal affects, but Facebook noted that Atlas' employees will remain in Seattle.

Facebook and Microsoft, already partners in several businesses, began talking about a deal for Atlas, which helps advertisers buy and manage ads, late last year. The deal could help Facebook develop its own one-stop shop for advertisers and agencies to buy, sell, optimize, and track ads across the Web. The idea is to help Facebook give marketers tools to target ads based on social habits that it captures, and to better understand how social activity influences consumer purchases.

"Our belief is that measuring various touch points in the marketing funnel will help advertisers to see a more complete view of the effectiveness of their campaigns," Brian Boland, Facebook's director of product marketing, wrote in a blog post. "Acquiring Atlas will be an important step towards achieving this goal."

The expectation that Facebook will create an ad network that lets it sell ads outside of the social network has been talked about for a while, and it makes good sense. Facebook is already plugged into tons of Web sites through Facebook Connect, and each time people share or "like" an item on a site, Facebook's data trove gets a little bigger. Facebook can connect that data with the information from within Facebook -- the social graph -- to create a social ad network that is potentially more effective than Google's AdSense.

"This is a big opportunity and definitely on the list of to-dos," Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird, recently told CNET. "It's a matter of when they think the platform is ready and they're comfortable with privacy issues. The minute people go to other sites and see ads that look like they're coming from Facebook, alarm bells go off. They have to go into this slowly."Wall Street has wanted Facebook to do this for a while, though company executives have been quiet on the topic. It's a logical way for the social network to expand its business without cluttering up the Facebook site itself. A third-party ad network could become a multibillion-dollar business, and the financial pressure on Facebook is intense. Its stock, now around $27, has yet to claw back to its initial public offering price of $38.

But a Facebook representative notes that the deal isn't about creating an ad network. Instead, it's hoping to help advertisers measure the impact of their ads across all forms of digital advertising. That's a challenge for online ads, and solving that problem could ultimately boost the industry, something that would certainly benefit Facebook. It gives the company a tool to measure how well ad campaigns do both on and off of Facebook.

"If marketers and agencies can get a holistic view of campaign performance, they will be able to do a much better job of making sure the right messages get in front of the right people at the right time," Facebook's Boland wrote. "Atlas has built capabilities that allow for this kind of measurement, and enhancing these systems will give marketers a deeper understanding of effectiveness and lead to better digital advertising experiences for consumers."

For Microsoft, the deal is another step away from its $6 billion deal to buy aQuantive, of which Atlas was a part, in 2007. The software giant wrote off most of the costs of that deal last July.

Microsoft is not walking away from online advertising. But rather than owning a singular ad technology and tools platform, the company is focusing on building devices and services -- such as Windows 8, its Surface tablets, Xbox Live, and Skype, among others -- that are advertising platforms.

"This deal allows us to dedicate even more energy and resources to those areas of our business that are core to the future direction of Microsoft Advertising," Microsoft Advertising Chief Operating Officer Dave O'Hara said in a blog post announcing the deal.

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Facebook testing new Timeline design

The company is eyeing a round of changes to the Timelines of its members.

Facebook is testing a series of changes to the current Timeline design.

Facebook users may be in store for some design tweaks to their Timelines.

The popular social network is testing a revamped layout for the Timeline among select users in New Zealand, a spot where Facebook typically tries out new features.

A representative for the company told  that "this is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage of people to make navigating Timeline even easier."

The new layout sports a single-column for all the posts and updates on your Timeline, according to a screenshot obtained by The Next Web. That by itself would be a welcome change from the current double-column layout, which has always struck me as confusing and unnecessary.

With your status updates and other posts on the right, an "About" section appears on the left with bits and pieces from your profile. The years appear all the way on a right sidebar, where you can jump to a particular year just as you're able to now.

Clicking on the link in the update opens the associated Web page, as always.Another image caught by TNW shows a new feature in the form of a status update, this one from BuzzFeed.

But a new "Like Page" button can take you directly to BuzzFeed's official Facebook page. This tweak seems designed to help people more easily find the actual Facebook pages of different businesses and organizations.

There's no word on when, or if, this new Timeline might pop up for other users. Assuming the test phase goes well in New Zealand, Facebook will undoubtedly start rolling out the Timeline tweaks to the rest of the world.

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The most secure Android phone in the world

The most secure Android phone in the world (maybe)

Motorola Solutions raises the curtain on an incredibly expensive Android phone made for locking down communications between government employees. But it's not at Mobile World Congress -- it's at RSA 2013.

The AME 2000, one of the world's most secure phones(pictures)

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SAN FRANCISCO--Of all the multitudes of phones launching amid the grandeur of Barcelona this week, Motorola Solutions quietly broke champagne over one device from the back corner of a convention center here.

The Motorola AME 2000, originally announced a few weeks back, is not a phone for the average consumer. That makes sense, given that its public bow was at the RSA Conference 2013 this week, an annual confab of security nerds, experts, researchers, enterprise security vendors, and government representatives.

Motorola Solutions focuses on government and enterprise devices, and remains independent from the Google-owned Motorola Mobility. Its booth at RSA was not front and center, but in the last row up against the east wall of the show floor. The booth was barely wider than a lectern, and was more easily identified by its floor number -- 114 -- than by any Motorola Solutions signage.

Motorola Solutions representative Silvia Grabacki introduced the phone with a slight accent. Based on the Motorola Atrix HD, the security-enhanced AME 2000 -- which stands for Assured Mobile Environment -- has been stripped of all AT&T branding, she said.

"We've enhanced the hardware along with management policies. It's several layers of security that are built from the ground up, all the way from the hardware through the stack," he said during a phone call from his office near Washington, D.C.It easily could run you $2,000, too. This is no off-the-shelf Android device, explained Gary Schluckbier, the senior director at Motorola who led the team that developed the souped-up device.

Not surprisingly, encryption plays a big part of the AME 2000's security appeal. "We utilize two layers of encryption instead of the one in a [standard] VPN. They operate in two different processors, the phone itself and in our hardware-encrypted chip," Schluckbier explained. Simple software app encryption, he said, is simply not enough protection for U.S. federal government use.

That hardware-encrypted chip is an unusual security feature that Motorola calls the CRYPTR micro. It looks like a microSD card, and it has the same form factor, but it's actually a hardware security module that provides tamper protection for tokens, keys, and certificates. It meets FIPS 140-2 Level 3 and National Security Administration Suite B encryption standards, and can perform high-assurance cryptographic operations.

The CRYPTR micro (on right) provides the phone with high-end encryption, including physical security mechanisms; a hardware-based random number generator for secure key creation; full NSA Suite B support; and FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validated for U.S. federal government uses.

Basically, if you're a high-security clearance government official, this is the kind of protection you want on your communications device. What makes the CRYPTR micro interesting is that implementing it makes upgrading an off-the-shelf device to U.S. federal government standards relatively cheap, obviating the expensive alternative of creating an entirely new gadget from scratch.

Another benefit of the AME 2000 is that it runs Android, which cuts down on having to create or teach users how to operate an entirely new operating system. The phone comes with several default app alternatives, including a secure dialer and a secure SMS app that use AES 256 and Suite B-level encryption. Like commercially available secure apps, these do require both the caller and the recipient to be using AME 2000 phones for the communications to be encrypted.

"We recommend that high security does not go to a low-security device," Schluckbier said dryly.

In the press release detailing the AME 2000, Motorola Solutions notes that the phone also implements security recommendations from the Security Enhanced Android project to harden the operating system against having its processes hijacked by malicious apps.

The AME 2000 can perform "normal" phone functions, but you can also choose to use voice or SMS over a secure connection.

So, how much is an AME 2000 going to set you back? And can private consumers even purchase one?

Schluckbier refused to cite a starting price point for the AME 2000. But he did provide some clues. "We don't normally sell them on a one-off basis," he added, which leaves the door open for sales to smaller businesses or even consumers.

That doesn't mean that they're going to be affordable for the vast majority of consumers, justifiably paranoid concerns about government eavesdropping notwithstanding. The cost of the phone, Schluckbier said, depends on how many phones are being bought by the purchasing organization. He did say that a starting price could be in the range of "two to two-and-half times" the cost of an unlocked phone, "although it totally depends on the kinds of security they have on the phones."

One buyer has already been lined up, and it may be the only buyer Motorola needs to make the AME 2000 a hit: the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Microsoft's little-screen, big-screen interactive future

Big and little screens interacting. That's Microsoft's vision of a collaborative future nirvana.

Microsoft's vision of a wall-spanning Surface that can be tapped to share data with tablets.

Giant interactive surfaces will complement the more mobile variety of today. That's how Microsoft sees the future.

Walk up to a massive interactive screen with a Surface tablet, tap it, and, voila, now you're working on the big screen. Or project your Windows phone screen onto a larger surface.

The video debuted as the company opened its doors today on a new Envisioning Centerwhere it looks at how technologies will shape our lives. It all fits in with Microsoft's longstanding vision of the "Home of the Future."The point of "Microsoft's Future Vision: Live, Work, Play" (see below), a concept video that describes how we'll live in five to ten years, is that there is fluid interaction between touch surfaces and devices of all sizes.

Those large Microsoft vertical touch surfaces are not unlike the so-called Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall used by news networks now.

And it's worth noting that the original Surface concept (now called PixelSense) was a table, not the 10.6-inch tablet we have today.

Another footnote: Intel promoted a similar idea a few years back, dubbed "Carry Small, Live Large."

It all sounds great, but one has to wonder if only people like Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will be able to afford it.

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Apple v. Samsung: Judge orders

Apple v. Samsung: Judge orders new trial on some damages, cuts award by $450M

Citing jury error, judge rules that damages awarded to Apple for some infringing Samsung products must be recalculated by way of a new trial focused on the issue.

The judge in last year's landmark Apple-Samsung patent case today cut damages on some Samsung products found to infringe Apple's patents, carving $450.5 million off the original $1.05 billion judgment and calling for a new trial on the damages to recalculate them.

"The Court has identified an impermissible legal theory on which the jury based its award, and cannot reasonably calculate the amount of excess while effectuating the intent of the jury," Judge Lucy Koh, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, said in an afternoon ruling.

The products in question include the Galaxy Prevail, Gem, Indulge, Infuse 4G, Galaxy SII AT&T, Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Tab, Nexus S 4G, Replenish and Transform. The Prevail in particular racked up $57.9 million of the damages tally, which Koh said was a failure on the jury's part, since the device was found to infringe only on utility patents, and not on design patents.

"We are pleased that the court decided to strike $450,514,650 from the jury's award," Samsung said in an e-mailed statement. "Samsung intends to seek further review as to the remaining award."

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

As part of a verdict in August, a California jury said 26 of Samsung's mobile devices infringed on a handful of Apple's patents, leading to the $1.05 billion damages award in Apple's favor. Following the decision, Apple filed for an injunction against a number of the infringing products, attempting to keep them off store shelves, though Koh rebuffed the effort, saying most of those devices were already no longer in stores.

Samsung products involved in rethink of damages (pictures)

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In her order today, Koh said she would hold off on evaluating evidence pertaining to postverdict sales, as well as interest accrued before the judgment, until appeals in the case wrapped up.

It remains unclear from the ruling when a new trial for the 14 products in question would be held. The two companies are slated to meet once again in court next year over a separate group of patents and products from both companies, including the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy SIII.

The full ruling is embedded below:

Apple v. Samsung Damages by

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powerful Chromebook Pixel

Why Google built the pricey, powerful Chromebook Pixel

With Chrome OS foundering, the company needed to take a bold step to kick-start its cloud vision.

Chrome OS needed a push. Is the Chromebook Pixel it?

It's been a week now since Google unveiled the Chromebook Pixel, and the reactions have settled into a rough consensus: nice laptop, but not for you.

"The Chromebook Pixel is just too much machine for the software," the Wirecutter's Nathan Edwards writes in a representative take. At CNET, Seth Rosenblatt's review makes a similar point: "the Chromebook Pixel's high price and cloud OS limitations make it impossible to recommend for the vast majority of users."

All of which raises the question -- why release it? Surely Google knew that by introducing a high-end laptop for the bare-bones Chrome operating system, it would court incredulity even from enthusiastic early adopters. When you're charging $1,300+ for a Web browser, "Just look at that screen!" only goes so far.

But while we were scratching our heads over Google's intentions with the Pixel, company executives laid out a reasonably persuasive case for bringing it to market. J.R. Raphael, in a sharp piece at Computerworld, has the relevant quote from Google's vice president of engineering, Linus Upson. Emphasis Raphael's:

The Chromebook Pixel ... brings together the best in hardware, software and design to inspire the next generation of Chromebooks. With the Pixel, we set out to rethink all elements of a computer in order to design the best laptop possible, especially for power users who have fully embraced the cloud.

There are two big ideas there. Let's take them in turn.

The Pixel is meant to inspire. No one denies that this Chromebook turns heads. Much of the Pixel's unveiling last week was given over to discussion of the laptop's design and construction -- the etched glass used in the trackpad, the subtle placement of the microphones, the playful light bar on the exterior that changes color to reflect battery life. And that's to say nothing of that screen, the 4.3 million-pixel showstopper from which the laptop gets its name.

Compare that to the bargain-basement laptops that have carried Chrome OS until now. The operating system began life on the CR-48, a rubbery brick of a prototype that appeared to take its design cues from the Brutalists. The first consumer models, from Samsung and Acer, offered only modest improvements in style and performance. What the early Chromebooks lacked in style they made up in value -- starting at $349, they offered a bargain to workers and students who lived primarily in the Web browser and wanted more power than they could get from a tablet.

The problem is that Chromebooks have yet to escape the perception that they are inferior, meant for consumers who simply can't afford better. Google's vision of the cloud extends to the entire market -- the low end, the high end, and everything in between. Until now, there hasn't been a high-end Chromebook. As a result, you're unlikely to ever step into a meeting and see an executive carrying one under her arm.

Google hopes the Pixel's power pushes Chrome OS forward.

Walk around the Google campus in Mountain View and you're struck by how many Googlers are working on MacBooks. But of course they are: Apple laptops are built with style, sophistication, and power -- adjectives few would ascribe to the Samsung Series 5. The Pixel marks an attempt to meet style with style and power with power -- to show Web developers, manufacturing partners, and its own employees that Chrome is a serious operating system deserving of a first-class computer.

The Pixel could inspire developers to build fast, full-featured Web apps that take advantage of touch -- a feature rapidly becoming standard on laptops. It could inspire manufacturing partners to launch sleeker, more powerful Chromebooks themselves, at prices above the $250 and $350 they have been able to charge to date. And it could inspire Googlers to ditch their MacBooks in favor of a homegrown solution that has its own advantages. That's a best-case scenario, sure -- but if you're Google, it's one worth pursuing.

Which leads us to the second big reason Google says it developed the Pixel:

The Pixel is a tool for power users. When Google isn't selling the design of the Chromebook, it's selling features meant for people who spend all day on their laptops. The hardware boots up in seconds, connects to Verizon's 4G LTE network, and comes with 1 terabyte of Google Drive storage for three years -- which ordinarily costs $1,800.

At the same time, to say the Pixel is for "power users" feels like a case of marketing materials getting ahead of reality. Power users like laptops that are light; the Pixel weighs 3.3 pounds, or a third of a pound heavier than the 13-inch MacBook Air. Power users need battery life; the Pixel tops out around five hours, the MacBook gets closer to seven.

And while workers whose companies use Google Apps will feel at home on the Pixel, enough is missing from Chrome OS to make it difficult to use as a primary computer. Having used it for a week now, I find myself constantly missing the native apps that help me work: Evernote, OmniFocus, Tweetbot, 1Password, Rdio. In most cases I can make do with a combination of Web apps and Chrome extensions, but the experience is inferior -- and belies the notion that this is a computer for needy, greedy "power users."

It turns out that the Pixel is more of a computer for what you might call cloud zealots -- users determined to store almost of all of their data online, in exchange for the added convenience and security. It's easy to see why Google would want to cultivate cloud zealots -- more Web surfing equals more advertising revenue. But Chrome OS makes average users -- to say nothing of power users -- constantly aware of the trade-offs they are making. (For a good list, see David Pogue.)

Still, improvements to Chrome OS over the past four years mean that users are making fewer trade-offs than they used to. HTML5 is improving, and Web apps along with it, and the result is that it's now unfair to dismiss Chromebooks as mere Web browsers. Browsing is still the thing they do best, but you can do real work on a Chromebook (I wrote this piece on a Pixel, not all that much more slowly than I might have on my MacBook Air). In time, you might be able to work as fast on a Chromebook as you can on a more traditional laptop.

Ultimately, the Pixel is a case of a company putting its money where its mouth is. If Chrome OS was ever to be anything more than a curiosity -- and let's face it, it's almost four years old andhasn't exactly set the computing world on fire -- Google had to do something dramatic. Some of that can be done on the software side, but a world-class operating system needs great hardware. Great hardware pushes operating systems forward.

And so the reviews that say the Pixel isn't for most people are right -- Google itself all but admits it. That doesn't mean it's a failure, though. If a year from now Samsung and Acer are releasing higher-end Chromebooks of their own, and Web apps have come closer to reaching parity with native software, and more Googlers are using Pixels as their main machines, Google can call its expensive laptop a success. Chrome OS finally has the concept car to advance its vision of pure cloud computing. Now the company can only watch and wait as it sees what the world makes of the concept.

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Google testing new navigation design

Google testing new navigation design borrowed from Chrome

The company confirms it is testing a new look that dumps the controversial black navigation bar -- again.

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Google tests a new navigation system for its services that dumps the controversial black bar along the top of the screen.

Google is testing a new version of its home page that eliminates the controversial navigation bar that has sat atop its services for two years, the company said.

The version now being tested requires users to click a grid icon borrowed from Chrome OS for links to Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and other products. The design, which was first spotted by blog Google Operating System, appears to be in an early stage of testing -- screenshots show the grid icon includes a redundant link to Google search, even when accessed from the search page.

"We're always experimenting with the look and feel of our home page," a Google rep told CNET.

If it tests well, the grid would replace the prominent black bar that has served as the company's site navigation tool since 2011. The nav bar has always polarized design-minded users: Some like the unified look it brings to Google products, while others think the interface could be improved. Among those who think that: Google itself, which has eliminated the navigation bar in the past only to bring it back later.

In November 2011, Google moved its list of services into a drop-down menu that descended from the Google logo. But some users criticized the move for making those services harder to find, and the experiment was dropped six weeks later.

A similar criticism might be levied at the new design, which buries the services under an icon in exchange for a cleaner overall look. And with the company putting greater emphasis on Chrome OS this year than ever before, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised to see elements from the operating system migrating into more and more Google services.

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Facebook to unveil new News Feed design next week

The social network invites journalists to check out the feed's "new look" at its headquarters on Thursday.

Get ready for some changes to your Facebook profile.

The social network is unveiling a new design for its News Feed on Thursday, according to an invite sent to journalists today.

The bare-bones invite tells journalists to "Come see a new look for News Feed," at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters next week.

Coincidentally, a new look for Timeline was spotted today in New Zealand, a country where Facebook typically tries out new features. The layout had a single-column for all the posts and updates on your Timeline, instead of two columns.

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