As Work Habits Change, Software Makers Rush to Innovate

They are not using these objects, of course, but clicking on the pictures of them in popular word-processing programs like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. The icons linger like vestigial organs of an old-style office, 31 years after I.B.M.'s personal computer brought work into the software age. They symbolize an old style of office software, built for the time when the desktop computer was new and unfamiliar.

But no longer are workers tethered to a desk, or even to an office; we are all toting around laptops, tablets and smartphones to make every place a workplace. And so office software is changing. These days, what is important is collaboration, small screens, fast turnarounds, social media and, most of all, mobility.

“The way people use things is fundamentally changing,” said Bret Taylor, chief executive of Quip, a start-up offering document-writing software that focuses more on mobile than desktop work.

Mr. Taylor, 33, is one of the best-regarded young software engineers in Silicon Valley. He helped create Google Maps before serving as Facebook’s chief technical officer. His co-founder, Kevin Gibbs, also 33, helped create Google’s data centers and as a side project developed the software that suggests completions when people start to type questions into Google search.

Their company is one of several that are developing office software for the mobile world. Some of the new programs still borrow from images of old-fashioned work in their design. But the capabilities they offer are decidedly up-to-date.

Last month Box, an online service for storing documents, pictures and other data, bought Crocdoc, a company that makes it possible to view Microsoft Word documents and other popular file formats across a variety of devices at the right size for whatever screen is being used at the time. Evernote, another online storage outfit, allows people to write, edit and share notes together, instead of e-mailing multiple versions of a Word document to one another.

Sam Schillace, Box’s vice president for engineering, wrote the original program that became Google Docs, which was introduced only six years ago.

He explained that in a mobile world, where everyone is in nearly constant contact, speed and ease of use are more important than lots of font choices. “We were guilty of taking the existing nature of documents,” he said, “but six years ago connectivity was a question. Now everything is connected all the time.”

Both Microsoft and Google are scrambling to make their products reflect a work environment where PCs exist alongside other devices. There is a mobile version of Microsoft Office, which includes Microsoft Word, but it can only be used to edit certain kinds of documents and collaboration is limited. One reason for this, the company says, is that it does not want to force its user base to relearn too much, too quickly.

“We have one billion users of Office,” said Julia White, general manager of Office marketing. “You can’t expect them to change every day.”

Still, social media touches, such as “liking” an e-mail to show you’ve read it instead of writing a response, are likely to be seen in the future, she said.

Quip’s product is for now fully available only for Apple’s mobile devices and laptops. It combines instant messaging with document creation, storage and sharing in a primarily touch-screen environment.

Tap an icon of a manila folder and the material inside appears, which any user can organize as they see fit. Tapping one of those documents brings it up to be written, edited or commented on.

Like on Facebook, people’s pictures appear alongside their comments. The pictures also appear on any folder or document a person has open, making it easy to start working with someone else. 

Facebook Briefly Trades Above I.P.O. Price

On Wednesday morning, shares of the world’s leading social network traded above $38 a share, the price at which the company first sold shares to the public more than a year ago.

The immediate catalyst for the rise was the company’s surprisingly strong second-quarter earnings report last Wednesday, which quelled many investors’ doubts about the company’s ability to make money from its legions of mobile users, and suggested that the company’s profit stream was growing.

Since last week’s report, shares have risen more than 40 percent. Early Wednesday, they touched $38.31 a share, although at midday, they were slightly below $37.

The company’s shares hit a low of $17.55 last fall, but since then investors have warmed to the company. Facebook has shown signs that it can significantly grow its advertising base and keep its 1.2 billion users engaged, despite competition from rival social networks like Twitter and other social sharing sites like Pinterest.

“Facebook was caught flat-footed by the shift to mobile,” said Mark Mahaney, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. “It took them four or five quarters to catch up.”

Now, he said, “they appear to be set up as a sustainable high-growth business.”

Mr. Mahaney, whose firm has a $40 price target on the stock, said that across Wall Street, analysts had increased their projections of the company’s financial performance. Analysts now expect Facebook to grow its profits 30 to 35 percent a year through 2015.

Since stocks tend to trade as a multiple of a company’s future profits, those upgrades last week sent Facebook’s stock soaring.

Still, there are reasons to be concerned. Mobile messaging platforms like Snapchat and Whatsapp are grabbing the attention of many of Facebook’s younger users. Twitter is mounting a major effort to go after marketers, especially brands that typically advertise on television, as it prepares for its own likely public offering.

And Facebook risks turning off users with too many ads. Currently about 1 in 20 items in the news feed, the main flow of items that a Facebook user sees, are ads. During the company’s quarterly conference call with analysts, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, said that users were beginning to notice the number of ads, suggesting that the company cannot greatly increase their frequency without losing some users.

Although the company raised $16 billion from the initial public offering in May 2012, problems immediately followed.

The Nasdaq stock exchange botched the handling of buy and sell orders on the first day of trading. (A few months ago, regulators fined Nasdaq $10 million fine for the fiasco.) And in ensuing weeks, shares continued to fall. Many Wall Street investors questioned whether Facebook’s stock was truly worth $38 a share at the time of the offering.

Particularly worrisome was Facebook’s seemingly nonexistent mobile strategy at a time when Internet users were abandoning PCs for their smartphones. The company’s smartphone and iPad applications were clunky, and it was generating no revenue from mobile ads.

Facebook’s management, including Mr. Zuckerberg, recognized the problem and embarked on a crash course to revamp the company’s approach to mobile and better position the company for fast-growing emerging markets.

The company overhauled its apps, introduced ads into its users’ news feeds, and created a lucrative new category of revenue called app install ads. With the app install ads, a game maker, for example, can promote its new game in Facebook’s mobile software and give users an easy way to install the app with just a couple of clicks.

At the same time, Facebook introduced new advertising products meant to give marketers ways to more directly target specific groups of customers, which allowed the service to command higher advertising rates.

While mobile advertising continues to grow, and was about 41 percent of Facebook’s ad revenue in the second quarter, investors are also looking to new areas of potential profit growth. Those include video advertising in the news feed, which is expected to begin later this year, and the possible sale of ads in Instagram, the fast-growing photo and video sharing app that Facebook bought in 2012.

“All of those seem like relatively large low-hanging fruit, and they are starting to go after them,” Mr. Mahaney said. 

NEC to Exit Japanese Smartphone Market

The retreat in the face of competition from an American and a South Korean company highlighted the country’s shift from electronics industry leader to laggard over the course of the last decade.

“We were late to enter the smartphone market, and we were unable to develop attractive products,” Isamu Kawashima, the chief financial officer of NEC, said at a news conference here. “That’s what it comes down to.”

Like other Japanese phone makers, NEC clung to old-fashioned flip phones — great for making phone calls, taking pictures or playing simple games, but not for much else — as rivals elsewhere were developing smartphones that put the entire Internet and more in users’ pockets. The first NEC smartphone did not appear until 2011, four years after Apple’s iPhone.

The strategic failure cost NEC hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as its share of the Japanese cellphone market slipped into the single digits. And corporate Japan suffered another blow to its once vaunted reputation for innovation.

“NEC was like the face of the Japanese phone industry,” said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a technology consultant and writer. “Losing them will be very upsetting for those who take pride in Japanese manufacturing.”

NEC’s surrender is the latest in a series of consolidations. In 2010, NEC absorbed the remnants of the mobile phone divisions of two other Japanese stalwarts, Casio and Hitachi, with NEC holding a controlling stake. In 2008, Kyocera acquired the phone-making arm of Sanyo. In 2010, Fujitsu and Toshiba combined their handset businesses; Fujitsu bought out its partner last year. Mitsubishi, another big electronics company, got out of the phone business entirely.

Analysts say NEC and other Japanese cellphone makers were tied too closely to Japanese network operators, developing what has come to be known in that country as a “Galápagos” effect; devices were cut off from the evolution of the phone business elsewhere. As a result, the makers failed to grasp the significance of the rise of the smartphone.

As Japanese consumers embraced the smartphone in a big way, the companies had nothing to offer. Although flip phones from NEC and other Japanese makers are still in wide use in the country, smartphones now make up a majority of new sales. Japanese brands struggle to compete with imported smartphones, especially the iPhone.

“As the market for mobile phone handsets, including the rapid spread of smartphones, has dramatically changed, economies of scale have become increasingly important for the maintenance and strengthening of competitiveness,” NEC said in a statement. “However, NEC’s mobile phone handset shipments are following a downward trend, and it is difficult to foresee improved performance in the future.”

By last year, Apple had become the market leader in Japan, where the iPhone had won 25.5 percent of overall cellphone sales, according to the MM Research Institute. Even Samsung, which has been slower to establish a foothold in Japan than elsewhere, surpassed NEC last year, with a 7.2 percent market share.

In smartphones, Apple is even more dominant, with 40 percent of the Japanese market in the first quarter, according to another research firm, IDC.

For NEC, the final straw may have come when NTT-Docomo turned to a Samsung smartphone, the Galaxy S4, in an effort to stem the loss of subscribers to two rival network operators, SoftBank and KDDI, which have been marketing the iPhone aggressively.

Docomo does not offer the iPhone; instead, it has been featuring the Galaxy S4 and a Sony smartphone, the Xperia A, in a summer sales promotion. It is the first time that Docomo has featured a Samsung phone so prominently. Given the longstanding ties between Docomo, a former state-owned monopoly, and domestic phone makers, the decision was widely seen in Japan as a slap in the face to the Japanese industry.

There could be further bad news in store for the Japanese smartphone makers. Docomo has been talking with Apple about adding the iPhone to its range.

“Nothing has been decided and we’re always considering which models to launch,” Docomo said in a statement.

“There will be further consolidation in the industry,” said Jean-Philippe Biragnet, a partner at the Bain & Company consulting firm in Tokyo. “There is not space for more than two or three of these players. The question is, Who?”

Among the domestic brands, the leaders last year, according to MM, were Fujitsu, with a 14.4 percent share of the overall mobile phone market; Sharp, with 14 percent; and Sony, with 9.8 percent.

Panasonic and Kyocera are much weaker, though they were slightly ahead of NEC, whose share of the business had fallen to about 5 percent last year from nearly 28 percent in 2001, according to MM.

Among the remaining contenders, only Sony has a significant presence outside Japan. The other Japanese phone makers have been outflanked at the high end of the smartphone business by Apple, Samsung and others, and at the low end by a growing number of Chinese manufacturers.

NEC was in talks with one of the Chinese companies, Lenovo, about a partnership aimed at saving the smartphone business, but the negotiations broke down several weeks ago, making the company’s announcement Wednesday inevitable, analysts said.

For fans of retro-styled Japanese flip phones, which have come to be known here as “gara-kei,” short for “Galápagos phone,” there was at least one saving grace in NEC’s announcement. The company said that even though it was quitting the smartphone business, it would continue “developing and producing conventional mobile handsets.” 

State of the Art: Chromecast, Simply and Cheaply, Flings Web Video to TVs

Take the story of the iTunes music store. The instant somebody offered the chance to buy songs individually, the world changed forever. Hello, music à la carte. Goodbye, Tower Records.

Now it’s cable TV’s turn.

We are engaged in a great civil movement, testing whether that business, or any business so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. The number of people who cut the cord, or cancel the satellite, in favor of getting all their TV from the Internet is still small — maybe 1 percent of us a year. But the online alternatives to cable TV are growing. And once it becomes simple and easy to get Internet video from our laptops and phones to the actual television, well, the term “TV drama” will have a whole new meaning.

Actually, that has just happened. Google’s new Chromecast gizmo is the smallest, cheapest, simplest way yet to add Internet to your TV. It looks like a portly flash drive or maybe a fat keychain — and it costs $35. That’s not a typo.

So what does it do? If you have a Wi-Fi wireless network in your home, the Chromecast can perform two useful stunts.

Stunt 1: It lets you watch videos from YouTube, Netflix and Google Play (Google’s movie and TV store for Android gadgets) on your big screen. You use your phone or tablet (Apple or Android) as a remote control.

Stunt 2: The Chromecast displays Web sites on your TV — by broadcasting from Google’s Chrome browser on your Mac or PC. More on this in a moment.

Google’s promotional videos depict a fantasy of effortlessness: a hand slides the Chromecast into an HDMI jack on the back of a big-screen TV, clicking like a key into a lock. And then suddenly everything good on the Internet seems to be watchable on that TV, to the ecstasy of many young, attractive, multiethnic couch potatoes.

The videos leave out the fact that the Chromecast requires power. You can plug it into a power outlet or a USB jack on the TV itself, but either way, the result isn’t as clutter-free as the ads make it seem. Still — $35, remember?

Then you download a setup program, introduce it to your Wi-Fi network, name your Chromecast and so on. The whole setup process takes about five minutes; a child could do it. (Adults may need slightly longer.)

To perform Stunt 1, you open the YouTube, Netflix or Google Play app on your phone or tablet. Find a video to play. A special icon appears at the edge of the touch screen, resembling a rectangle with Wi-Fi signal waves in the corner. To begin watching that video on the TV, tap that icon and choose your Chromecast’s name.

Your phone is not actually transmitting anything. The Chromecast gets the video from the Internet directly; you use your phone or tablet only to find the movie and control its playback. You can even adjust the volume using the physical volume keys on the side.

The good news: this arrangement means you can do other things on your phone or tablet during playback, like working in another app or even turning the thing off.

The bad news is that the phone/tablet is the only remote control you’ve got. So if you want to pause, rewind or mute the video, you first have to find your phone/tablet, wake it up, enter the password if required, and finally reopen the app that’s doing the playing. It’s not especially graceful.

On Android gadgets, at least the Pause button appears right on the lock screen. You don’t have to unlock the device and reopen the app.

Otherwise, all of this is effortless and excellent. Even if you can already get Netflix and YouTube on your TV because they’re built into the TV, Xbox, TiVo or Blu-ray player, you may prefer the Chromecast; it’s just much easier to search for videos, thanks to the on-screen keyboard and voice dictation. You can also cue up several videos to play in sequence. That’s especially handy for YouTube videos, which are not exactly, you know, epic in length. 

Warrantless Cellphone Tracking Is Upheld

The closely watched case, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is the first ruling that squarely addresses the constitutionality of warrantless searches of historical location data stored by cellphone service providers. Ruling 2 to 1, the court said a warrantless search was “not per se unconstitutional” because location data was “clearly a business record” and therefore not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

The ruling is likely to intensify legislative efforts, already bubbling in Congress and in the states, to consider measures to require warrants based on probable cause to obtain cellphone location data.

The appeals court ruling sharply contrasts with a New Jersey State Supreme Court opinion in mid-July that said the police required a warrant to track a suspect’s whereabouts in real time. That decision relied on the New Jersey Constitution, whereas the ruling Tuesday in the Fifth Circuit was made on the basis of the federal Constitution.

The Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on whether cellphone location data is protected by the Constitution. The case, which was initially brought in Texas, is not expected to go to the Supreme Court because it is “ex parte,” or filed by only one party — in this case, the government.

But the case could renew calls for the highest court to look at the issue, if another federal court rules differently on the same question. And two other federal cases involving this issue are pending.

“The opinion is clear that the government can access cell site records without Fourth Amendment oversight,” said Orin Kerr, a constitutional law scholar at George Washington University Law School who filed an amicus brief in the case.

For now, the ruling sets an important precedent: It allows law enforcement officials in the Fifth Circuit to chronicle the whereabouts of an American with a court order that falls short of a search warrant based on probable cause.

“This decision is a big deal,” said Catherine Crump, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s a big deal and a big blow to Americans’ privacy rights.”

The group reviewed records from more than 200 local police departments last year, concluding that the demand for cellphone location data had led some cellphone companies to develop “surveillance fees” to enable police to track suspects.

In reaching its decision on Tuesday, the federal appeals court went on to agree with the government’s contention that consumers knowingly give up their location information to the telecommunications carrier every time they make a call or send a text message on their cellphones.



“That means it is not protected by Fourth Amendment when the government goes to a third-party service provider and issues something that is not a warrant to demand production of those records,” said Mark Eckenwiler, a former Justice Department lawyer who worked on the case and is now with the Washington law firm Perkins Coie. “On this kind of historical cell site information, this is the first one to address the core constitutional question.”

Historical location data is crucial to law enforcement officials. Mr. Eckenwiler offered the example of drug investigations: A cellphone carrier can establish where a suspect met his supplier and how often he returned to a particular location. Likewise, location data can be vital in establishing people’s habits and preferences, including whether they worship at a church or mosque or whether they are present at a political protest, which is why, civil liberties advocates say, it should be accorded the highest privileges of privacy protection.

The decision could also bear implications for other government efforts to collect vast amounts of so-called metadata, under the argument that it constitutes “business records,” as in the National Security Agency’s collection of Verizon phone records for millions of Americans.

“It provides support for the government’s view that that procedure is constitutional, obtaining Verizon call records, because it holds that records are business records,” said Mr. Kerr, of George Washington University. “It doesn’t make it a slam dunk but it makes a good case for the government to argue that position.”

An important element in Tuesday’s ruling is the court’s presumption of what consumers should know about the way cellphone technology works. “A cell service subscriber, like a telephone user, understands that his cellphone must send a signal to a nearby cell tower in order to wirelessly connect his call,” the court ruled, going on to note that “contractual terms of service and providers’ privacy policies expressly state that a provider uses a subscriber’s location information to route his cellphone calls.”

In any event, the court added, the use of cellphones “is entirely voluntary.”

The ruling also gave a nod to the way in which fast-moving technological advances have challenged age-old laws on privacy. Consumers today may want privacy over location records, the court acknowledged: “But the recourse for these desires is in the market or the political process: in demanding that service providers do away with such records (or anonymize them) or in lobbying elected representatives to enact statutory protections.”

Cellphone privacy measures have been proposed in the Senate and House that would require law enforcement agents to obtain search warrants before prying open location records. Montana recently became the first state to require a warrant for location data. Maine soon followed. California passed a similar measure last year but Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed it, saying it did not strike what he called the right balance between the demands of civil libertarians and the police. 

How To Not Be A Slave To Technology

The way we work just isn't working. Perhaps nobody knows this better than Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project and author of Be Excellent At Anything, who has built his career around transforming the way we live, work and use our energy.

In our "culture of distraction," many of us live and work with divided attention and depleted energy resources, largely thanks to the unrelenting siren song of technology and social media. Here are some sobering statistics: Two-thirds of mobile users check their phone for messages, alerts and calls even when it's not ringing or vibrating, according to Pew research, and the average smartphone user checks their phone every six and a half minutes (that's up to 150 times a day). A 2010 AOL survey even found that 59 percent of mobile users check their email from the bathroom.

According to Schwartz, we've crossed the line of being able to effectively manage all of the information that's coming at us. He likens the brain on digital overload (and working memory in particular) to an overflowing glass of water.

Schwartz explains to The Huffington Post:

"It’s like having water poured into a glass continuously all day long, so whatever was there at the top has to spill out as the new water comes down. We’re constantly losing the information that’s just come in -- we’re constantly replacing it, and there’s no place to hold what you’ve already gotten. It makes for a very superficial experience; you’ve only got whatever’s in your mind at the moment. And it’s hard for people to metabolize and make sense of the information because there’s so much coming at them and they’re so drawn to it. You end up feeling overwhelmed because what you have is an endless amount of facts without a way of connecting them into a meaningful story."
In a recent New York Times op-ed, “Losing Our Way In The World,” Harvard physics professor John Edward Huth argued that the Internet may have a greater effect on our sense of meaning than we realize. He explained that an over-reliance on technology has a tendency to encourage us to isolate pieces of information without fitting them into a broader cognitive schema.

“Sadly, we often atomize knowledge into pieces that don’t have a home in a larger conceptual framework,” Huth wrote. “When this happens, we surrender meaning to guardians of knowledge and it loses its personal value.”

But it's not just our personal use of technology that's contributing to our collective "energy crisis": It's the "more, better, faster" work ethic that demands more of us than our energy can supply. “Volume is God,” as Schwartz puts it, and our physical energy is being undermined. And when you undermine your physical energy, it has an effect on your mental, spiritual and creative energy.

"When demand exceeds what a person is able to deliver, you get sickness, less high-quality thinking, irritability and frustration, people become very survival oriented and much less likely to become reflective and relational and imaginative," says Schwartz. "Speed and demand are probably the biggest cultural factors that have turned the workplace into an untenable place for many people to be."

Schwartz shared five of his most important tools for interacting with technology more productively, and building a work life that supports -- rather than depletes -- your energy.

Build daily rituals.

"For the things that you decide matter … the only way to ensure that things that aren’t urgent but are important happen is to build rituals," Schwartz says. "Build highly specific behaviors that you do at precise times over and over again until you don’t have to use energy to get yourself to do it anymore -- until it becomes as automatic as brushing your teeth at night."

We only have a limited amount of willpower and discipline, so the best way to prioritize what's important to us and make sure we actually do the things we care about is to create highly specific habits (for these successful people, a daily meditation practice keeps them centered and sharp at work).

"Ritualize it, so that when your email is beckoning you in its Pavlovian way and you find yourself moving toward it, you have an alternative behavior to which you’re already committed and used to," says Schwartz. "Then it becomes what you default to instead of your email."

Take a ‘first things first’ approach to your mornings.

"Do the most important thing first every day," says Schwartz. "Ninety-five percent of people have more energy early in the morning than they do as the day wears on, and they also have fewer distractions. So if that’s the case, why wouldn’t you do the most important thing when you have the most energy?"

Many successful leaders and intellectuals are big proponents of the morning ritual, super-charging their early hours with daily rituals that allow them to get the important things done first. But you don't have to be a crack-of-dawn early riser to build a powerful morning routine -- as Schwartz points out, the key is working with your own schedule and making time for what's most important as you're starting your day, whether it's at 5 a.m. or 9:30.

Use devices selectively.

It's no secret that 24/7 connectivity and constant digital distractions are taking a toll on our well-being -- excessive reliance on technology has been shown to have detrimental effects on productivity, focus, sleep quality and mood, among other negative health impacts. So how do we use technology in a way that won't drive us crazy? Schwartz says that taking deliberate breaks from your devices is the only answer.

“These forms of technology are as addictive as crack. Period. If you expose yourself to them continuously, they will pull you in the way a drug would –- continuously, even when you know it’s not serving you well," he says. "If that’s the case, you’ve got to move in and out of exposing yourself to them.”

Keep technological temptations away when you find yourself getting too distracted and constantly drawn in to work emails -- or as Schwartz puts it: “If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t have cupcakes in the fridge."

Make time for renewal.

"We’re trying to keep up with our technology -- the digital flow operates at this very high speed continuously," explains Schwartz. "Whereas we’re designed to operate rhythmically, to move between activity and rest; that’s when we’re at our best. So when you start overloading the brain with information, what’s going to happen is that the system begins to break down. You’re not going to think as well, you’re not going to think as deeply."

Taking breaks throughout the work day isn't just a nice thought: Science supports the idea that relaxation has a positive effect on productivity and vacations improve our sense of well-being, yet more and more Americans work through their lunch breaks, weekends and vacation time. Building time to recharge into our schedules is actually essential to working at the highest possible level.

"Renewal is not for slackers," Schwartz said at The Huffington Post's women's conference, "The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power," last month. "Renewal is a way in which to increase your capacity to be more effective."

Be intentional with your energy.

Many of us live our lives in a gray zone -– we’re not fully focused on work when we’re working, and during our leisure time, we’re not fully relaxed. This leaves us feeling distracted and depleted -- not to mention more prone to being dissatisfied with our work and lives. Schwartz’s remedy? Approaching everything we do with a “fierce intentionality.”

"That means that when you're working, you're really working; and when you're renewing and refueling, you're really renewing," Schwartz said at the Third Metric conference.

Spending an hour doing something doesn’t automatically mean that you’ve gotten an hour’s worth of value from doing it, he points out. Applying less than your full focus doesn't just make you less productive; according to Schwartz, distraction keeps you from being fulfilled by and connected to your work.

“Distraction is the enemy to meaning,” he says.

If distraction is the enemy, then mindful awareness is the remedy. Countless studies have linked mindfulness (as cultivated through a meditative practice) with a wealth of cognitive and physical health benefits, including lower stress levels, improved focus and concentration, and greater compassion and self-knowledge.

“Noticing is the first job in life,” says Schwartz, adding that being consciously aware of more, is a sort of “higher consciousness” that we can all tap into.

“It’s about becoming a bigger person,” he says. “The bigger you get, the deeper you get, the wider you get, the richer the life you’re capable of having.”

6 Healthy Popsicles That Put Your Neighborhood Ice Cream Truck To Shame

In the sweltering summer heat, ain't nothing like a popsicle to cool you down.

We have yet to meet a popsicle we didn't like. Refreshing as they are, most of the icy treats on the market are loaded with sugar and dyes that can leave your lips a Cookie Monster blue. Not to mention, an average box can cost over on buck per -- we can't help it -- pop.

These six incredible homemade recipes below will put your neighborhood ice cream truck to shame. You're in control of the ingredients, which means you can adjust the sugar count to your liking. With a few tools and a serving of patience for your mix to solidify in the freezer, you're on your way to homemade popsicle heaven. Sorry (kind of) to put you out, ice cream man.

Vegan Black Bean Fudge Pops

fudgesicle
Photo: Flickr/thecraftykitty
These are not your momma's Fudgesicles. Rather than a sticky mixture of empty, chocolatey calories, these pops boast a healthful amount of fiber. The recipe, which comes from Kathy Hester's "The Great Vegan Bean Book," is soy-free, gluten-free oil-free all thanks to it's main ingredient, which is -- you guessed it -- black beans. Find the recipe here.

Dark Chocolate Frozen Kiwi Pops

chocolate covered kiwis
Photo: Bare Feet In The Kitchen
These are beautiful, smart and healthy. A dream date, if you will. This recipe from Bare Feet In The Kitchen calls for three simple ingredients: Kiwi, dark chocolate and coconut oil. Find the whole recipe here.

Pickle Pops

pickle pops
Photo: Amy Bayliss
Don't have a sweet tooth but want in on the frozen fun? We can't possibly blame you. These colorful concoctions are made fuss-free with everyone's favorite sandwich accouterment. Some athletes choose pickle juice over sugary, electrolyte-surged beverages to refuel after a tough workout. There's no reason you can't take a tip from the pros and enjoy one of these post-sweat session. Find the recipe here.

Strawberry Smoothie Popsicles

smoothie pop
Photo: Chocolate Covered Katie
These sweet things have a secret ingredient we can't help but reveal: Kale! Thanks to everyone's favorite leafy green, these delights serve up a healthy dose of vitamin C. Find how to make your own, here.

Strawberry Shortcake Greek Yogurt Popsicles

strawberry shortcake
Photo: The Kitchen Paper
Here's something else to do with all that yogurt you've been buying. These beautiful creations boast a protein punch that'll satisfy your hunger as well as your craving for something sweet and creamy. Find the recipe here.

Frozen Fruit Pops

tiedye pops
Photo: SkinnyTaste
These tie-dye little numbers require just two elements: fruit (whatever kind your heart desires) and juice. Find the step-by-step recipe from SkinnyTaste here.

Study Strengthens Family History As Cancer Risk Factor

Having a family history of cancer raises your own risk of the disease -- even if it's not the exact same type, according to a new study.

European researchers found that family history increases the risk of not only concordant cancer -- which is the same cancer -- but also discordant cancer, or a different kind of cancer. The findings, published in the journal Annals of Oncology, held true even after taking into account other potential risk factors, such as alcohol or tobacco use.

"Our results point to several potential cancer syndromes that appear among close relatives and that indicate the presence of genetic factors influencing multiple cancer sites," study researcher Dr. Eva Negri, who is the head of the Laboratory of Epidemiologic Methods at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Italy, said in a statement. "These findings may help researchers and clinicians to focus on the identification of additional genetic causes of selected cancers and on optimizing screening and diagnosis, particularly in people with a family history of cancer at a young age."

The study is based on data from 12,000 cancer cases that occurred between 1991 and 2009 in 13 different sites, including the kidneys, breast, ovaries, prostate, liver, colorectal, stomach, mouth and esophagus. Researchers compared these cases with 11,000 people who didn't have cancer, and specifically examined family history of cancer and lifestyle risk factors.

Researchers found associations between having a family history of cancer and having a higher risk of cancer yourself, even if the cancer is of a different type. For example, if a woman has a close relative with colorectal cancer, she has a 1.5-fold higher breast cancer risk.

And if a person has a first-degree relative with cancer of the larynx, he or she has a 3.3-fold increased risk of oral or pharyngeal cancer. If a woman had a first-degree relative with breast cancer, she has a 2.3-fold higher ovarian cancer risk.

For people with a first-degree relative with bladder cancer, their own risk of prostate cancer is 3.4-fold higher.

Researchers noted that some of this increased risk of cancer could come from shared environments, such as family smoking or drinking habits. But they also said there's evidence genetics seems to play some sort of role.

Researchers Present Striking New Hypothesis On Why We Sleep

We spend nearly a third of our lives sleeping, yet the reasons why we need to are still poorly understood. What we do know is that the brain is highly active during sleep. According to a popular current theory, the resting brain is nearly as busy as the waking brain because during sleep, neural circuits replay memories in order to aid learning by strengthening the circuits. But now researchers are presenting a very different explanation for this activity.

"Every night, while we lie asleep, blind, dumb and almost paralyzed, our brains are hard at work. Neurons in the sleeping brain fire nearly as often as they do in a waking state, and they consume almost as much energy," researchers Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli of the University of Wisconsin–Madison write in a new Scientific American feature. "What is the point of this unceasing activity at a time when we are supposedly resting? Why does the conscious mind disconnect so completely from the external environment while the brain keeps nattering on?"

The answer they propose in a new hypothesis is, essentially, that the brain's activity during sleep weakens the brain's neural connections, rather than strengthening them, as has generally been thought. Their reasoning is that strengthening the neural connections would saturate the brain's circuitry, consuming so much energy that the brain would struggle to encode new information. The purpose of sleep, they argue, is to bring brain cells back down to their baseline.

5 Ways To Make Your Thoughts More Empowering

Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds. -- Author Unknown

I'm a long-time believer in the power of our thoughts, and I tend to focus on the positive. But sometimes, those darn thoughts just spin out of control and go on their own little tangents, taking us along for the ride. This happened to me recently, but it served as a good reminder of just how powerful our thoughts are.

I was messing around online when an article that somebody posted caught my eye. There was a local headline about a fatal motorcycle crash. Eek. Bad news, for sure. Normally, I would avoid clicking on such an article, just because I prefer not to fill my conscious with the gruesome details of the unfortunate things going on in the world. However, I couldn't help but click this time. You see, my father sometimes rides a motorcycle and the crash happened within a few miles of his home. I felt a strong urge to read more. When I clicked on the article and started reading the details, my heart sank. While the identity of the motorcyclist was not released, the details of the crash had it taking place on a road, in a direction, and at a time that could have easily been my dad. I gulped. Very aware of my own body, I could suddenly feel my heart rate quicken and my breathing become more shallow as my chest tightened up. It was an uneasy, although not completely unfamiliar feeling. I started to feel a deep sadness and worry. I did not like it at all.

"Okay, wait a second," I said to myself. I had no idea how many motorcycles drive down that road on a given morning, but it had to be a lot. It was a very busy intersection, after all. Plus, I didn't even know for sure if my dad drove his bike that day, or if he even took that route. There was no real logic behind the sudden-panic feeling. I was being crazy and I knew it. In fact, I confirmed shortly thereafter that all was well with my father. Phew.

This example of the human mind at work is something we can all relate to. It's just how we're wired. From back in the caveman days, we were programmed with a "fight or flight" trigger, which used to have a very real purpose (you know, running away from dinosaurs and such). Though we have evolved quite a bit since then, our brains are still wired very similarly. The reaction I felt in my body was actually a defense mechanism. My brain was preparing me for danger. And, despite the incredibly low probability of that bad news actually pertaining to me, from a logical perspective, my brain treated it as if it was actually happening to me. In fact, the feeling was so real that it was indeed my reality for those few moments while the feelings took place. I had created my own illusion, just like each and everyone of us go around creating our own illusions on a daily basis. Our perception is our reality.

I tell this story to help others become more acutely aware of their own thoughts and just how incredibly powerful they are. Isn't it funny how our brains work? From worrying about something that hasn't even actually happened to reliving a moment in the past to making assumptions that what other people do or say has anything to do with us at all -- these are all ways that our mind likes to create illusions for us! And yes, we are ALL a little bit crazy like this at times.

The good news is that as powerful as our thoughts are, we can work to take control of them and harness that power for good. Here are a few pointers on how to do just that.

What are you thinking? Notice whenever your mind starts reeling, and also take note of the physical changes in your body. Knowing really is half the battle. A mentor of mine, Angela Jia Kim of Savor the Success, says there are really only two types of thoughts: empowering ones and disempowering ones. Simplify it to that level and learn to ask yourself in any given moment, how is this thought serving me?Check yourself. Don't get me wrong, sometimes we really are in danger... But, usually not. Is there really a "dinosaur" chasing you? Is it really about you? Give yourself an ego-check. In addition to trying to protect us from (often imaginary) danger, our ego likes to make us feel really special and like everything is about us. But, upon a little logical reasoning, we can realize that whatever disempowering thoughts we are having are not actually about us or even real at all. With this awareness in hand, we can then work toward changing them. Just breathe. This simple nugget of wisdom can be applied to just about any uncomfortable situation. Breathe it out. Deep breathing actually has a physiological effect on our nervous system that sends out neurohormones to basically tell the stress hormones to chill. Visualize as you practice breathing. Inhale peace slowly and deeply through your nose into your diaphragm and exhale stress slowly and completely out through your mouth. Continue this until you feel calmness restore.Fill your consciousness with positive and uplifting ideas. Since thoughts are energy and they turn into our reality, why not feed your brain with some good stuff? From the articles you read to the people you hang out with, to the TV you watch (or not), you are setting the stage for what kind of thoughts will go into that beautiful little noggin of yours. Fuel your mind with knowledge that empowers you. Surround yourself with people who lift you up.Practice mindfulness. I can't recommend a mindfulness practice enough. It helps us become so much more aware of our thoughts and what's going on with our bodies. It keeps us connected with our core being and intuition. While meditation is definitely at the top of the list of becoming more mindful, there are many other ways you can practice. Yoga is another wonderful one. However, it can also be taking an introspective walk or doing your favorite in-the-flow activity, such as painting, sewing or playing an instrument. Regularly practicing these mindfulness enhancers will help you stay grounded and will keep those crazy thoughts at bay.
Learn to harness the power of your thoughts and enjoy the reward of unlimited peacefulness and joy!

Oracle sues companies it says provide Solaris OS support in illegal manner

Oracle is continuing to crack down on companies it claims are providing support services for its products in an illegal fashion.

Last week, Oracle sued IT services providers Terix and Maintech, alleging they have "engaged in a deliberate scheme to misappropriate and distribute copyrighted, proprietary Oracle software code" in the course of providing support for customers using Oracle's Solaris OS.

Terix and Maintech officials have "falsely told unwitting end users they are authorized to access and distribute Solaris Updates to the end users and/or that the end users are entitled to perpetual support on [Solaris], including to receive Solaris Updates, based on their original purchase on the hardware on which the operating system was installed," adds Oracle's complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

But Oracle, "and Sun before it, have long required customers to purchase an annual support agreement to receive that support," according to the complaint.

Oracle customers who buy support services receive an identification number that allows them to create a login for Oracle's support site and download updates for systems covered under the agreement, Oracle said.

Terix and Maintech induced a number of customers, including Sony, Comcast and Bank of New York Mellon, to "improperly obtain unauthorized Solaris Updates, including by using login credentials to Oracle's password-protected support sites after their Oracle support on the relevant servers had expired," according to the complaint.

Terix and Maintech convinced customers to cancel their support agreements with Oracle by "falsely representing" they could legally provide service and support for less money, it adds.

Oracle is asking for both a preliminary and permanent injunction against the defendants, an order dictating the return of any of Oracle's intellectual property they hold, and punitive damages and restitution.

One of the companies named in Oracle's suit strongly denied the allegations.

"Oracles complaint is without any basis in either law or fact," Terix CEO Bernd Appleby said in an emailed statement Thursday.

"Terix fully respects and diligently strives to protect the intellectual property of any third party," Appleby added. "Terix acts only as an authorized agent of the end-users, pursuant to their rights, to facilitate support services. Each end-user referenced in the complaint has valid license, rights, entitlements and credentials provided by Oracle. Each end-user has their unique login credentials which are only used for the sole benefit of that end-user and are never shared."

Maintech couldn't immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Oracle's allegations are similar to ones it has made in lawsuits against other Solaris service providers, such as ServiceKey, as well as Rimini Street, which provides third-party support for Oracle and SAP applications.

Like Terix, other third-party providers have maintained they operate within the legal boundaries of customers' license rights.

Software vendors derive handsome profits from support and maintenance revenues, which also provide continuous income even when customers scale back on new license purchases, and are undoubtedly loath to see money siphoned away to third parties.

There are a few lessons for all customers to take away from the swirl of ongoing litigation, said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research.

"Customers who have paid maintenance should always be in the process of downloading all the patches, updates, and fixes they are entitled to before they cancel the contract," Wang said via email.

"It's an unfair trade practice to force customers away from third party maintenance options," he added. "This lock-in is monopolistic in general, regardless of the vendor. Customers should make sure they do not bundle any Oracle and Sun contracts to avoid any other issues that continue a lock-in behavior."

Five indicted in massive hacking scheme

Five men from Russia and Ukraine have been indicted in New Jersey for charges they conspired with each other in a worldwide hacking scheme targeting major corporate networks that compromised more than 160 credit card numbers, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

The men allegedly attacked the networks of several companies, including Nasdaq, 7-Eleven, JCP, Dow Jones and Hannaford, the DOJ said. Companies reported US$300 in losses from the attacks, the DOJ said in a press release.

Charged in an indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey were Vladimir Drinkman, 32, of Syktyykar and Moscow, Russia; Alexandr Kalinin, 26, of St. Petersburg, Russia; Roman Kotov, 32, of Moscow; Mikhail Rytikov, 26, of Odessa, Ukraine; and Dmitriy Smilianets, 29, of Moscow.

Drinkman and Kalinin allegedly specialized in penetrating network security and gaining access to the corporate victims' systems, while Kotov allegedly specialized in mining the compromised networks to steal data, the DOJ said. The defendants hid their activities using anonymous Web-hosting services provided by Rytikov, while Smilianets allegedly sold the information stolen by the other conspirators and distributed the proceeds of the scheme to the participants.

The five compromised networks for nearly five years, between mid-2005 and mid-2012, according to court documents.

""This type of crime is the cutting edge," Paul Fishman, U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement.  "Those who have the expertise and the inclination to break into our computer networks threaten our economic well-being, our privacy, and our national security.  And this case shows, there is a real practical cost because these types of frauds increase the costs of doing business for every American consumer, every day."

Kalinin and Drinkman were previously charged in New Jersey as "Hacker 1" and "Hacker 2" in a 2009 indictment charging Albert Gonzalez, 32, of Miami, in connection with five corporate data breaches, including the breach of Heartland Payment Systems, which at the time was the largest breach ever reported.  Gonzalez is currently serving 20 years in federal prison for those offenses.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on Thursday announced two additional indictments against Kalinin. One charges him in connection with hacking certain computer servers used by Nasdaq and a second indictment charged Kalinin and another alleged Russian hacker, Nikolay Nasenkov, with an international scheme to steal bank account information by hacking U.S.-based financial institutions.

Rytikov was previously charged in the Eastern District of Virginia with an unrelated scheme. Kotov and Smilianets have not previously been charged publicly in the U.S.

Drinkman and Smilianets were arrested at the request of the DOJ while traveling in the Netherlands on June 28, 2012.  Smilianets was extradited on Sept. 7, 2012, and remains in federal custody. Kalinin, Kotov and Rytikov remain at large.

The five defendants allegedly conspired with others to penetrate the computer networks of several of the largest payment processing companies, retailers and financial institutions, stealing the personal identifying information of individuals. They allegedly took user names and passwords, other means of identification and credit and debit card numbers, the DOJ said.

The attackers often gained initial entry into a corporate network through an SQL injection attack, the DOJ alleged. The hackers identified vulnerabilities in SQL databases and used those vulnerabilities to infiltrate a computer network. Once the network was infiltrated, the defendants allegedly placed malware on a network, creating a back door that allowed further access. In some cases, the defendants lost access to the system due to companies' security efforts, but they were able to regain access through persistent attacks.

The defendants often targeted victim companies for many months, with the DOJ saying they waited "patiently" as their efforts to bypass security were underway.

After acquiring the card numbers and related data, the conspirators allegedly sold it to resellers around the world, the DOJ alleged. The buyers then allegedly sold the so-called dumps through online forums or directly to individuals and organizations. Smilianets was allegedly in charge of sales charging approximately $10 for each stolen U.S. credit card number and associated data and approximately $50 for each European credit card number and approximately $15 for each Canadian credit card number.

If convicted, the maximum penalties for each of the counts are: five years in prison for conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers; 30 years in prison for

Boost for Amazon as Penguin agrees to end Apple e-books deal

Penguin has agreed to terminate its e-book agreement with Apple and to allow Amazon to set its own prices for electronic books in a settlement of a European Union antitrust case.

The European Commission accepted the deal with Penguin on Thursday after more than a year of investigations into allegations of cartel price fixing in the e-book market.

Four other e­book publishers -- Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Livre and Macmillan -- together with Apple were originally included in the investigation, but they agreed to terms with the Commission last December.

The Commission concluded that an infringement had probably taken place when the five publishers and Apple jointly switched from a wholesale model to an agency sale model. Under a wholesale model, the retailer is free to set the price, but with an agency model, the retail price of e­books is determined by the publishers.

It appeared that the alleged cartel wanted to limit retail­price competition, particularly with regard to Amazon, which was the uncontested leader in the retail market for e­books at the time of the change to the agency model, said the Commission.

Like Apple and the other publishers, Penguin has agreed to terminate the current agency agreements and will not hamper e-book retailers, such as Amazon, from setting their own prices for e­books or from offering discounts and promotions for the next two years. Penguin first offered these commitments in April, but they will now become legally binding.

E.U. Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia said the deal would restore "a competitive environment in the market for e-books."

cloud.IQ raises £250,000 through government innovation competition

Tech City start-up, cloudIQ, has received £250,000 from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) after winning an SME innovation competition.

The one-year-old firm, which provides cloud based marketing applications, secured the money through the TSB’s Smart Programme for its idea of creating a web-based tool that allows non-technical people to build, publish and monetise web apps that can integrate email, voice, web, social and mobile technologies into innovative services.

The funding will be used for research and development of the tool, known as AppEditor.

James Critchley, CEO and co-founder of cloud.IQ said: “In just 12 months, we have launched a suite of apps for SMEs which have already delivered significant results in helping businesses convert more customers.

“The investment from the Technology Strategy Board provides us with a platform to bring to market a new solution which we believe will have an ever wider reach and impact on the businesses community.”

The government innovation agency launched the award with the aim of finding an innovative idea that that offers significant potential to help stimulate economic growth in the UK.

James Heydari, TSB programme manager, said: “Smart awards support SMEs with high growth ambition and potential. Successful applicants need to show that they have a really innovative idea, addressing a real market need and have the ability to deliver their idea to drive economic growth.”

In 2012, the start-up, which also has offices in Sydney, received £2m in funding from Bridges Ventures.

Over the past 12 months, cloud.IQ has launched a suite of conversion focused apps including callMe, cartRecovery and SmartSMS. The start-up says that its integrated applications help companies of all sizes acquire more customers and build brand loyalty.

PayPal opens up bug bounty program to minors

PayPal is opening up its bug bounty program to individuals aged 14 and older, a move intended to reward younger researchers who are technically ineligible to hold full-fledged PayPal accounts.

PayPal's program, which is a year old this month, only applied to those 18 years and older. Under the old rule, participants in the program were required to hold valid accounts, which excluded minors, said Gus Anagnos, PayPal's director of information security.

In May, 17-year-old Robert Kugler, a student in Germany, said he'd been denied a reward for finding a vulnerability. PayPal said the bug had already been found by two other researchers, which would have made Kugler ineligible for bounty.

In an apparent miscommunication, Kugler said he was initially told he was too young rather than the bug had already been discovered. Nonetheless, PayPal said it would look to bring younger people into its program, which pays upwards of US$10,000 for remote code execution bugs on its websites.

Those who are under 18 years old can receive a bug bounty payment through a PayPal student account, an arrangement where a minor can receive payments via their parent's account, Anagnos said.

Anagnos said other terms and conditions have been modified to make its program more transparent, such as clarifying which PayPal subsidiaries and partner sites qualify for the program.

PayPal pays much less for vulnerabilities on partner websites, which have a URL form of "www.paypal-__.com." A remote execution bug found on that kind of site garners only $1,500 rather than up to $10,000 on the company's main sites.

Like other bug bounty programs run by companies such as Microsoft and Google, PayPal will publicly recognize researchers on its website with a "Wall of Fame" for the top 10 researchers in a quarter. Another "honorable mention" page lists anyone who submitted a valid bug for the quarter.

Eusebiu Blindu, a testing consultant from Romania, was one of the researchers listed on the Wall of Fame for the first quarter of this year.

"I think Paypal is the best bug bounty program, and I am glad I participated in it from the first days of its launching," he wrote on his blog.

Drone show attendees flock to new $700 model

3D Robotics gave a sneak preview of a comparatively cheap consumer drone at an unmanned aircraft convention in San Francisco this week.

The company's new quadcopter, or four-rotor helicopter, can be controlled from a tablet running an Android flight system or other similar app. The as-yet-unnamed drone will cost about US$700 and is aimed at an audience of hobbyists, even wedding photographers, who could attach a camera to the front and get sweeping shots from the sky.

You can see an IDG News Service video of 3D Robotics engineers flying two drones here.

"I think the bigger market is people who just want to do stuff, regular people like you or I," said Brandon Basso, a research and development engineer at 3D Robotics.

Some people attending the conference were there to learn how to implement drones for search and rescue.

"I'm not saying that a person can be replaced in the cockpit yet, but you can fly some of these (drone) missions at about a tenth of the cost, and you can fly them in weather where a human pilot wouldn't be out," said Colin Loring, a volunteer search and rescue pilot from Greenville, S.C. He intends to buy a drone for his group within a few months.

Larger commercial-sized drones were displayed but not flown at the convention. Drone maker MLB brought its V-Bat UAV vertical take-off and landing drone, as well as the Super Bat, which is made of Kevlar and has cameras with target tracking and 20X zoom lenses. Prices for those drones start around $120,000.

A national drone convention is slated for Aug. 12-15 in Washington, D.C. The California event's organizers say it's possible that the D.C. meeting will have protestors demonstrating outside against military applications of drones.

What's next for Dish after losing out on Sprint?

As the dust settles after SoftBank's US$21.6 billion acquisition of Sprint, losing bidder Dish Network may be just getting started at stirring up the U.S. mobile industry.

The satellite TV and Internet provider tried to buy Sprint and Clearwire but failed in both efforts when SoftBank closed its own deal to become the third-biggest mobile operator in the U.S. But led by an aggressive chairman and facing a lackluster satellite TV industry, Dish still has incentives to break into mobile and may do it through a new type of partnership or network, analysts say.

Mobile services and apps are growing a lot faster than TV or relatively slow, expensive satellite Internet. That's partly why Dish has amassed two chunks of land-based mobile spectrum and may be trying to scoop up more. Spectrum is the lifeblood of mobile, and Dish seems intent on becoming a player one way or another.

"If they don't have some form of a wireless play, then it's very hard for them to survive longer term," said Chetan Sharma, founder of Chetan Sharma Consulting. That's because consumers are increasingly watching video online rather than over broadcast, cable or satellite TV. In fact, the U.S. consumer satellite industry may soon shrink, with Dish possibly acquiring DirecTV, analysts say.

Dish has two kinds of spectrum that are approved for commercial mobile use: a block of frequencies it bought in the FCC's 700MHz auction in 2008, and the so-called AWS-4 frequencies it acquired by buying two bankrupt satellite companies in 2011. If Dish succeeds in buying another bankrupt satellite company, LightSquared, it would have yet another set of frequencies it might be able to use for cellular services. Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen reportedly has already bought a large part of LightSquared's debt, and Dish is now offering $2.2 billion for the company.

But in the cellular world, Dish isn't likely to build its own network, a project that would cost billions and might take years. Instead, the company will probably keep trying to buy or partner with an existing operator, analysts say. That would be a quicker and cheaper way to put its frequencies to work, which the company will have to do in order to keep its spectrum licenses.

An existing carrier could add equipment for Dish's spectrum to its cell sites and then offer new devices to its customers to take advantage of those bands. Dish's video business could also be a plus, with opportunities to bundle or cross-promote it with mobile services.

"The logical next step for Dish would be to partner with a service provider like T-Mobile to build out in their spectrum," said Phil Marshall of Tolaga Research. Though AT&T is also considered a candidate to work with Dish, analysts say fourth-place T-Mobile is the most likely candidate because it has the most to gain.

However, if it's looking to make a deal, Dish doesn't hold all the cards. Sprint is now bigger and richer than it used to be, but it still has only about half as many customers as its bigger rivals. Some analysts expect Sprint to make a grab for T-Mobile, finally making Sprint a powerhouse to truly rival AT&T and Verizon Wireless. A behemoth like that wouldn't need Dish's spectrum.

To head off that possibility, Dish is likely to bid for T-Mobile itself, and soon, according to Sharma.

"If Dish is really serious about the wireless market it has to make a move in the next six months. Otherwise, as time goes on, SoftBank's positioning to acquire T-Mobile becomes stronger," Sharma said. He thinks Dish knows this and sparked bidding wars for Sprint and Clearwire just to make SoftBank pay more for its entry into the U.S.

Having put together a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint, Dish could probably afford to buy the smaller T-Mobile. But even if it did, Sharma thinks the buyouts wouldn't end there. Most countries' mobile industries consolidate down to three main players, and the U.S. is likely to follow suit, he said. In time, Sprint might turn the tables on its former suitor and buy out the combined Dish and T-Mobile.

Dish also has another asset that might come into play in a partnership or acquisition, according to analyst Tim Farrar of TMF Associates. That's the satellite dishes on top of current Dish subscribers' homes.

Here's how those might come into play, according to Farrar:

Dish's AWS-4 spectrum would be hard to use for service directly to cellphones because other carriers don't use it, he said. "Dish doesn't want to have to go and pay Apple to put AWS-4 on the next iPhone," Farrar said.

Instead, Dish could use that spectrum for a fixed wireless broadband service to the homes of its current subscribers, which they would receive on a modified version of the satellite dishes they already have on their roofs. Equipped with an added antenna for the new service, those dishes could receive signals from large AWS-4 cell towers placed five to eight miles apart, Farrar said.

Clearwire tried a similar approach with its WiMax network and an earlier, pre-standard system, but it needed more towers because it had to penetrate walls to reach indoor modems, he said. Dish's outdoor gear is perfectly positioned, he said. "The main gain you've got is that you're outside and on the roof," Farrar said. The dishes already have coaxial cable going into the homes, so there's no need to rewire, he said.

Meanwhile, the modified dishes could also serve as small cell towers providing cellular service in the areas around homes, with the longer-range network serving as backhaul, he said. That network of small cells could either use spectrum that Dish acquired by buying a mobile operator or host the spectrum of a partner carrier. AT&T or T-Mobile might pay good money to get access to all those dishes, Farrar said.

"Even without owning a mobile company, Dish could effectively be a tower company," he said. If just 10 percent of its customers agreed to have the service operate from their roofs, Dish could offer a carrier 1.4 million new cell sites for better coverage and capacity. "It's purely an issue of finding the right partner and the right commercial deal to make this happen."

Even if none of these schemes works out, today's red-hot mobile market will probably be a winner for Dish, which bought its desirable 700MHz spectrum five years ago and persuaded the government to let it use former satellite bands for terrestrial mobile.

"If everything fails, they might just sell the spectrum," Recon's Entner said.

Astronaut controls robot on Earth from the ISS

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station used an extraterrestrial remote control system on Friday to maneuver a robot rover at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

In the test, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano used the rover to deploy a simulated radio telescope antenna on the Ames Roverscape, a sandy and rocky simulation of the lunar landscape that's about the size of a football field.

Parmitano was controlling the rover from a Java application running on a Lenovo ThinkPad on the ISS. The rover, a four-wheeled robot called a K10, steadily moved around the Roverscape as it was commanded during the test. A team of NASA scientists kept watch on the test at Ames, but it was Parmitano in control all the time, they said.

"Our goal here really, overall, is to understand how humans and robots can really work well together," said Terry Fong, telerobotics program manager at NASA Ames. "And not just any kind of robot, we're really interested in remotely operated robots. In particular, we're looking at how can we use these robots to improve the way humans can live and work in space."

The test, one of a series, points to NASA's latest thinking about lunar and planetary exploration. Whereas the Apollo astronauts did everything themselves and the Mars Rover has done its work autonomously, NASA is looking to a future where astronauts control nearby robots to carry out tasks.

That can't be done easily from Earth because of the long time it takes for radio signals to travel the vast distance to neighboring planets. In the case of Mars, there's an eight-minute delay before a signal reaches the planet, and then an eight-minute return time for a confirmation signal.

So while Friday's test had an ISS astronaut controlling a rover in Silicon Valley, it simulated a future lunar mission with a spacecraft in an orbit between the moon and Earth.

"We've chosen a mission scenario that involves taking a robot to the far side of the moon and deploying a radio telescope to observe the early history of the universe, the so-called cosmic dawn," Fong said.

Scientists are eyeing the moon's far side as a location for a future radio telescope because the moon itself shields the location from radio interference being emitted from Earth. Radio and communications transmitters continuously blast out signals on the frequencies of interest to radio astronomers, so finding a spot with little radio noise is a challenge. After the moon, they estimate the next best location for low radio noise is beyond Jupiter.

In the test, the simulated radio telescope antenna was made of a thin, plastic film that was stored on a roll inside the rover's body. The rover drove to a pre-determined point and one end of the film would drop from the back. It then moved forward, unrolling the antenna onto the ground behind it as it drove.

"The future is going to be an astronaut or a series of astronauts in control of a fleet of rovers, either if you're on the surface of a planetary body like the moon or Mars or from orbit," said Jack Burns, a professor at the University of Colorado and director of the lunar university network for astrophysics research.

Facebook invents a PHP virtual machine

Social networking giant Facebook has taken another step at making the PHP Web programming language run more quickly. The company has developed a PHP Virtual Machine that it says can execute the language as much as nine times as quickly as running PHP natively on large systems.

"Our goal is to make PHP run really, really quickly," said Joel Pobar, a Facebook engineering manager. Facebook has been using the virtual machine, called the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), across all of its servers since earlier this year.

Pobar discussed the virtual machine at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) being held this week in Portland, Oregon.

HHVM is not Facebook's first foray into customizing PHP for faster use. PHP is an interpreted language, meaning that the source code is executed by the processor directly. Generally speaking, programs written in interpreted languages such as PHP tend not to run as quickly as languages, such as C or C++, that have been compiled beforehand into machine language byte code. Facebook has remained loyal to PHP because it is widely understood by many of the Web programmers who work for the company.

To keep up with the insatiable user demand, however, Facebook originally devised a compiler, called HipHop, that would translate PHP code into C++, so it then it could be compiled ahead of time for faster performance.

While Facebook enjoyed considerable performance gains of this first version of HipHop for several years, it sought other ways to speed the delivery of the dynamically created Web pages to its billion or so users. "Our performance strategy for that was going to tap out," Pobar admitted.

HHVM is the next step for Facebook. Under development for about three years, HHVM actually works on the same principle as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). HHVM has a just-in-time (JIT) compiler that converts the human readable source code into machine-readable byte code when it is needed. (The previous HipHop, renamed HPHPc, has now been retired within Facebook.)

This JIT approach allows the virtual machine to "make smarter decisions at runtime," Pobar said. For instance, if a call is made to the MySQL database to read a row of data, the HHVM can, on the fly, figure out what type of data it is, such as an integer or a string. It then can generate or call code on the fly that would be best suited for handling this particular type of data.

With the old HipHop, "the best it can do is analyze the entire Facebook codebase, reason about it and then specialize code based on its reasoning. But it can't get all of the reasoning right. There are parts of the code base that you can not simply infer about or reason about," Pobar said.

Pobar estimated that HHVM is about twice as fast as HPHPc was, and about nine times as fast as running straight PHP.

Facebook has posted the code for HHVM on GitHub, with the hopes that others will use it to speed their PHP websites as well.

HHVM is optimized for handling very large, and heavily used, PHP codebases. Pobar reckoned that using HHVM for standard sized websites, such as one hosting a Wordpress blog, would gain only about a fivefold performance improvement.

"If you take some PHP and run it in on HipHop, the CPU execution time [may] not be the limiting factor for performance. Chances are [the system is] spending too much time talking to the database or spending too time talking to [the] memcache" caching layer, Pobar said.

Google confirms it's shutting down Google Local for iOS

Google is shutting down the Google+ Local places and discovery app for iOS devices and will be transitioning its features over to its Maps app, the company said Friday.

Google+ Local was an iOS-based app that offered several discovery services such as place recommendations based on the user's friends and location, and also Zagat summaries and business reviews. As of Aug. 7, it will close as a stand-alone product, although its features will be incorporated into Google's Maps app for iOS, a spokeswoman said.

The app already appears to have been pulled from Apple's App Store -- searching for it returns a message saying it is currently not available in the U.S. store.

Google+ Local joins a range of other products and services recently closed by Google. The company officially announced Friday that it was also pulling the plug on its Shopper app for Android- and iOS-based devices, effective August 30, in an effort to focus instead on its search service and Google Shopping site. Shopper was an app that let people find information on products by scanning them or through voice and text search.

The company's longstanding Google Reader service for RSS feeds met its demise earlier this month.

Google did not provide additional information about why Google+ Local was killed off. But it is clear that in recent months the company has focused on enhancing both its Maps product and Google+ social network, while at the same time streamlining other services through product closures.

On Android and iOS, Maps received a range of new features earlier this month including improved search, navigation and interface design. The company concurrently announced that Google Latitude and check-ins would be killed off as part of the update and incorporated over to the Google+ social network.

Even bigger changes to Maps were unveiled at the company's I/O developers conference in May. Those enhancements included the ability for users to add personalized landmarks as long as they are logged into the service.

Meanwhile, Google faces mounting pressure to demonstrate value to users with its Google+ social network as it competes against Facebook and Twitter. A range of features for that product were also rolled out in May, such as a redesigned social stream, automatic hashtagging and photo-sharing enhancements.

Google+ Local launched in 2011. There was an Android version too, but it linked only to the old version of Google's Maps app. When Maps for Android was updated earlier this month, Google+ Local's functionality was integrated into that product.

Wall Street Beat: Mobile is key to tech earnings

Tech earnings this week highlighted the importance of mobile communications to IT, as companies including Apple, Samsung, Facebook, AT&T and Texas Instruments reported mixed results for the quarter ending in June.

Apple and Samsung earnings underscored competition in the mobile market. Reporting Tuesday, Apple said revenue was up 1 percent year over year to US$35.3 billion, while profit declined 22 percent to $6.9 billion.

The lack of a new hit product, competition from Android-based devices and sagging sales overseas, particularly in China, hampered earnings for the quarter. Apple sales in China declined 4 percent year over year. The overseas results indicated a problem other IT companies face.

"The continued recession in Europe and slowing growth in China will offset improvements in the US, Japan, and some emerging markets," according to Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels, in a recent forecast for IT sales this year.

While Apple had a soft quarter, however, a refresh of its mobile product lines should bolster growth, analysts said. "We maintain our belief that Apple has a strong product pipeline, including a refreshed iPhone 5S, mid-tier iPhone, and iPad lineup that should result in solid earnings growth," wrote Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley in a research note. The launch of a lower-cost iPhone should also help Apple in emerging markets, Walkley noted.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics, reporting Friday, said that even though revenue and net earnings rose significantly year over year, tough competition in the mobile phone market and the need to boost marketing costs cut into results.

The company generated a profit of 7.77 trillion won (US$6.89 billion), up a whopping 50 percent year over year, as sales rose 21 percent to 57.5 trillion won. However, marketing costs associated with, among other things, launching its Galaxy S4 during the quarter brought operating profit down for the mobile unit by 3 percent even though sales increased.

Samsung has been edging out Apple in the hard-fought mobile phone market. A report from Strategy Analytics on Friday said that Apple's share of the smartphone market declined in the second quarter to its lowest level in three years, slipping to 13.6 percent in the quarter from 16.6 percent year over year. During the same period Samsung's market share rose to 33 percent from 31 percent.

However, Apple and Samsung face a similar problem: Their success in high-end smartphones means that mature markets are saturated. They face the tough task of getting users in developed markets to upgrade while coming up with devices tailored to emerging markets, some of which face slowing growth over the next few quarters.

The shift to mobile computing has implications for a wide variety of IT and Internet companies. Facebook on Wednesday said mobile ad sales helped fuel revenue, which skyrocketed 53 percent year over year to $1.81 billion, while profit totaled $333 million compared to a net loss of $157 million.

A year ago, the social networking giant had essentially no mobile revenue, but during the past quarter sales of mobile ads came out to 41 percent of total advertising revenue for the quarter.

Mobile communications also played an important part in AT&T's quarter. The company reported a rise in revenue as strength in its mobile business made up for flat-lining wireline sales.

The company Tuesday said it gained 632,000 wireless subscribers in the quarter, while mobile data sales increased almost 20 percent year over year. Total revenue increased 1.6 percent year over year to $32.1 billion. Excluding AT&T's former Advertising Solutions division, which was sold off, sales were up 2.6 percent. However, as operating expenses rose, profit declined to $3.82 billion, down from $3.9 billion.

Other tech companies reporting earnings this week included:

-- Texas Instruments. The chipmaker, noting weakness in the PC market, said revenue declined by 9 percent year over year to $3.1 billion. Net income, however, rose by 48 percent to $660 million as cost-cutting measures took effect.

-- Amazon, which reported that sales for the quarter rose 22 percent year over year to 15.7 billion. Operating income, however, declined 26 percent to $79 million. The good news was that its business in the U.S., which is expected to expand faster than overseas markets, increased and earnings in the region were up.

US will not seek death penalty for Edward Snowden

The U.S. will not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor responsible for leaking documents revealing classified government surveillance programs, according to a recent letter from attorney general Eric Holder.

The charges Snowden faces in the U.S. do not carry the death penalty, and the U.S. will not seek the death penalty even if Snowden were charged with additional death penalty-eligible crimes, Holder said in the letter, which was sent to Russian minister of justice Vladimirovich Konovalov and obtained by CBS News.

The letter was dated July 23. The U.S. attorney general's office declined to comment immediately.

Snowden is currently thought to be residing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Last week he requested temporary asylum in Russia in an effort to avoid prosecution by the U.S. government, which has indicted Snowden on charges related to the leaks.

Should he return to the U.S., Snowden will not be tortured either, Holder said. He would be promptly brought before a civilian court convened under Article III of the U.S. Constitution and supervised by a U.S. district judge, according to the letter.

"Mr. Snowden would receive all the protections that U.S. law provides to persons charge with federal criminal offenses in Article III courts," Holder said.

Snowden would be appointed counsel and would have the right to a public jury trial, according to the letter, and he would have the right to testify if he wished to do so.

"We believe that these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr. Snowden's claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise," Holder said.Snowden has expressed an interest in relocating to Latin America, where Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him safe harbor, but those efforts are complicated because the U.S. revoked Snowden's passport.

But Snowden is eligible for a limited validity passport for direct return to the U.S., Holder said, adding that the U.S. is willing to immediately issue such a passport.

Earlier this week Snowden was granted a document allowing him to leave the Moscow airport.

Dell's thumb-size PC, Project Ophelia, ships to testers

Dell has started shipping its thumb-size PC called Project Ophelia to beta testers and is preparing to ship the final product in the coming months.

Ophelia looks much like a USB stick and it can turn any screen or display with an HDMI port into a PC, gaming machine or streaming media player. The thumb PC runs on the Android OS and once it is plugged into an HDMI port, users can run applications, play games, watch streaming movies or access files stored in the cloud.

The final product will ship during the next fiscal quarter, which runs from August through October, a Dell spokesman said in an e-mail. The device has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity options.

Priced at about US$100, Dell hopes Ophelia will be an inexpensive alternative to PCs, whose shipments are falling with the growing adoption of tablets and smartphones. With more data now being stored in the cloud, Dell hopes the idea of a keychain PC will catch on, especially for those who do most of their computing on the Web.

The device will also compete with Google's recently announced Chromecast media streaming device, which is priced at $35 and also the size of a thumb drive. With Ophelia, users will be able to run Android games or stream movies from Hulu or Netflix, and even download apps, movies and TV shows from the Google Play store.

One of the value propositions of Ophelia is that it is a lightweight PC alternative, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"Being able to carry their desktop in their pocket rather than having to lug it around would perhaps make a great deal of sense," King said.

Ophelia won't offer high-end performance, but it has Android and can take advantage of an applications stack already installed on many smartphones and tablets, King said, adding that for some, that is more than enough.

Ophelia could also be attractive to companies looking to cut costs or trying to escape PC upgrades to Windows 8, King said.

"A lot of businesses are faced with whether or not they want to move on to Windows 8 and buy the necessary equipment," King said.

Ophelia takes that upgrade cycle in a "radical direction" by replacing PCs with a pocket-size thin client, and Windows with the Android OS, King said.

Dell has demonstrated Ophelia running on 19-inch and 55-inch screens. The company said it will offer hands-on demonstrations at future trade shows in which the company participates.

Dell also hopes to build in some enterprise features to differentiate Ophelia from other consumer-focused thumb PCs, many of which are based on Android.

For example, IT administrators will have the ability to manage and secure the device. Much like a smartphone, if the thumb PC is lost or stolen, IT administrators will be able to remotely shut down the device and wipe it clean. Dell is also building features so IT can track the activities on the device.

Ophelia will also come with Wyse's PocketCloud, which allows users to access files stored on PCs, servers or mobile devices.

The device could be attractive to sales staff, field personnel, and maintenance crews, King said.

Dell has said it will sell Ophelia through its website and also through wireless carriers and cable companies. Dell originally announced Project Ophelia at the International CES in January.

Some privacy advocates question mobile apps agreement

A proposed code of conduct for mobile app developers intended to make them explain how user data is collected and used does not have a clear enforcement mechanism,  one privacy advocate said.

The code was negotiated this week by several trade groups and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). While many participants in the NTIA's mobile privacy negotiations voiced support Thursday for the transparency code of conduct, Consumer Watchdog criticized the document and the NTIA process.

Just two participants voted to fully endorse the code, while 20 supported it, 17 voted for further consideration and one objected. Participants voicing support had no obligation to adopt the code, the NTIA said.

"This is absurd Orwellian doublespeak," John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project director, said in an email.  "A company can put out a press release saying it supports the transparency code, boosting its public image and then do absolutely nothing."

Several consumer and privacy groups voted to support the code, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The code defines a short notice to provide consumers with information about the data collection and sharing practices of the mobile apps they use. The short notices tell consumers if the apps are collecting biometrics, browser history, contacts, financial information, health information, location, and other information.

NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, called Thursday's vote a "seminal milestone in the efforts to enhance consumer privacy on mobile devices. "

Several software trade groups also praised the transparency code. The short notice will quickly and easily inform consumers about the personal information apps collect, said Jon Potter, president of the Application Developers Alliance.

"App developers know that consumer trust is critical to our industry's continuing success," Potter said in a statement. The agreement that "the model notices are ready for introduction and consumer testing is a win for both consumers and app developers."

But Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, criticized the NTIA's negotiation process. Chester, who abstained from the vote, had asked the NTIA to review existing mobile and app practices to determine the extent and range of data collection, but the agency didn't do that, he said.

"The NTIA process is seriously flawed," he said in an email. "It's as if a surgeon was allowed to operate without first examining the patient. [The agency] refused to make the industry discuss all the ways mobile apps use data and target users."

The code approved Thursday "is just words on a very small screen," Chester added.