Google drops Bluetooth and GTalk APIs from Android SDK 0.9

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In a blog post yesterday, a Google developer advocate detailed just why the latest SDK for the emerging Android phone OS isn't exactly the same as Google first intended -- in other words, why Bluetooth and GTalk are missing.

Why didn't Google's Android SDK version 0.9, released into beta earlier this week, include originally planned APIs for Bluetooth and Google's own P2P-enabled GTalkService? According to Dan Morrill, a Google developer advocate, Google drew the conclusion that neither its Bluetooth API nor the GTalkService would be ready for prime time prior to the final release of the SDK for the first Android phones.

As things now stand, the Android SDK will, in fact, support Bluetooth wireless headsets, Morrill maintained, in a post to the Android Developers Blog on Tuesday. In an earlier edition of the pre-release software, however, the SDK also included an incomplete draft of an API that would have exposed underlying Bluetooth functionality to Android developers. "Unfortunately, we had to remove that API from the 1.0 release," Morrill wrote.

Morrill also quoted Nick Pelly, one of the engineers responsible for the Bluetooth API functionality, as saying, "The reason is that we plain ran out of time. The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some clean-up before we can commit to it for the SDK. Keep in mind that putting it in the 1.0 SDK would have locked us into that API for years to come."

Google, though, is not abandoning its intentions for a Bluetooth API. "We absolutely intend to support a Bluetooth API in a future release, although we don't know exactly when that will be," Morrill contended.

As for GTalk, the service still has some security problems that need to be ironed out, according to Morrill. He cited Rich Canning, one of Google's security researchers, as noting that, as it was first designed, GTalkService placed too much of a security burden on developers to avoid security flaws and to perform user and relationship management.

"An Android application using GTalkService would be reachable from all of the user's Google Talk friends, and a flaw in that application could pose an inviting target to a malicious 'friend' or automated malware. There are automated mechanisms that could be used to help protect vulnerable applications or stop the spread of malware, but the deployment of these technologies was not possible in time for the launch of the first Android handsets," Canning elaborated.

Morrill didn't promise that the Android SDK will ever support this service, and he pointed out that, in any event, "it was never guaranteed that [GTalkService] would be present on every Android device."

Yet one of Google's top priorities after the first Android devices ship is to "develop a device-to-device (and possibly device-to-server) RPC mechanism that is fast, reliable, and protective of developers and users alike," according to Morrill.






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Worldwide iPhone 3G problems may lie with the network

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Although Apple's iPhone 3G is getting some plaudits in the world press, people are also complaining about wireless connectivity speeds, price, and other issues, depending in part on where they live.

In the US, iPhone 3G users with AT&T have reported average download speeds of about 990 Kbps, the same as for Softbank in Japan and Telia in Sweden. Canadian carrier Rogers Communications did much better with an average download speed of about 1,330 Kbps.

But users in many other countries continued to experience a range of different connection speeds, a phenomenon that Wired magazine attributed more to operators' networks than to the iPhone.

In an informal survey conducted by Wired , users in Germany and the Netherlands reported the fastest 3G download speeds -- of roughly 2,000 Kbps -- while users in Australia reported the slowest: about 759 Kbps.

Yet in San Francisco, 10 out of 30 participants reported speeds about equivalent to EDGE. The report theorized that, in major metro areas, 3G towers are getting overloaded. Also, US participants accounted for about 75% of zero data results, suggesting that many of them were dropped from AT&T's 3G network during speed tests.

Meanwhile, reports from French publications indicate that, in that country, wireless operator Orange might be artificially throttling iPhone 3G speeds.

Customers of Orange have been reporting download speeds as low as 350 to 450 Kbps. Yet the phone has shown itself to be capable of achieving much higher speeds when connected to other European networks, such as SFR in France, according to an account in iPhoneAtlas.

In Latin America, Telefonica last week launched the new phone in eight nations, and American Movil in ten. "Argentina, Uruguay and El Salvador have Latin America's highest wireless penetration rates, so products like the iPhone will help operators get new business from existing clients," according to an account in Latin Business Chronicle .

"However, despite the buzz around the iPhone specifically and 3G services in general, it will only be with a massive distribution of affordable third-generation phones that the 3G market will start taking off in Latin America, experts say. And that may not happen until 2010."

In India, where pricing now starts at $712 for an 8 GB model, other types of complaints are surfacing.

Indian wireless operator Airtel held a launch event at a local shopping mall last week and only "managed to sell over 25 pieces of the glorified mobile phone," says a report in iExpressIndia.

The Indian publication also quotes one user -- a high-tech marketing executive -- as saying that, "The cost of the phone is too high and, moreover, the phone is poor -- pretty low in features."

As the user then elaborated: "The first generation iPhone and the iPods have full metal bodies, but the second generation iPhone that has been launched in India has a plastic body and is prone to cracks and scratches. The battery life is low."

In the Philippines, a reviewer was impressed with certain features of the new phone, such as the Safari browser and the quality of video and audio playback. But he was not enthralled by the new phone's lack of a replaceable battery.

"Ah, this one is a big issue considering that the new iPhone has a 3G radio and GPS. The battery would last for a day but anything more than that is a miracle -- unless you turn off everything from Wi-Fi [to] Bluetooth, GPS [and] 3G," he wrote in the Manila Bulletin Online.






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TiVo: Viewers don't skip movie promos

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In its latest Stop||Watch commercial rankings , TiVo found that, while viewers fast-forward through most paid advertisements, movie trailers are among the least skipped.

Stop||Watch has been measuring this trend for months. In May, the top three most-watched commercials were promoting movies. Now, the results for June show the top four commercials in total viewing were for movies.

Commercials for Sony Pictures' Hancock with Will Smith ranked as the most viewed altogether, followed by spots for Universal's The Incredible Hulk, Warner Brothers' The Dark Knight, and 20th Century Fox's The Happening. Disney's Wall-E was in sixth place behind a Nike ad.

Astute advertisers have already exhibited their firm grasp of the power of movie trailers this year. Sprint's and Samsung's Instinct smartphone was backed by "The Ultimate Product Placement" movie trailer ad campaign. Perhaps not so coincidentally, The Instinct became Best Buy's top selling handset over the past two years. And two months ago, LG's movie-trailer-style campaign for its 'Scarlet' HDTVs was so convincing -- complete with a real actress in the "starring role" -- that some viewers were actually left wondering when the movie would premiere.

Also, as TiVo revealed today, Stop||Watch research data has found that viewers are more likely to fast-forward through broadcast network commercials than those aired on cable networks. 60% of ads aired on Fox during prime time, for example, are skipped; while only 22% of ads on ESPN were skipped during prime time. Cable networks, however, have only a fraction of the viewers of broadcast networks.






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Sirius XM disputes negative interpretation of its CEO's comments

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Following a BetaNews article indicating that Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin suggested the company's finances were in bad shape, the company shot back that it was not the case.

A spokesperson for the satellite radio provider contacted BetaNews late Tuesday refuting the original article's premise that Karmazin had admitted that Sirius XM's finances were not healthy.

"There was certainly no place where Mel 'admits' to the company in bad financial shape. Simply not true nor said," Sirius SVP for Communications Patrick Reilly told BetaNews.

Sirius XM did not deny that the company's CEO did say that the terms of the debt refinancing accepted by Karmazin were unfavorable to the company. In order to complete the transaction, over a half-billion dollars was refinanced at the last minute to complete the $2.76 billion transaction.

In his note to BetaNews, Reilly pointed to the fact that Sirius was able to increase revenues in the most recent quarter, as well as growing its total subscriber base by 25 percent. Two weeks ago, Sirius posted revenues of $283 million on 8.9 million subscribers.

He also argued that Sirius' position in the industry is strong, and it is among the fastest growing subscription media businesses. Additionally, the company's costs to acquire customers decreased, and it was able to keep its cash expenses essentially flat.

But Reilly's major point of contention was not so much with the body of our story as with the headline, "CEO Mel Karmazin admits Sirius XM is in bad financial shape." "We would like your headline to more accurately portray what [the] Bloomberg story said and the reality of our recent publicly announced results," he wrote.

While a further review of the original story, along with the Bloomberg News story that triggered it , may indicate that in this particular case Karmazin did not explicitly admit to problems with the company's finances, other recently uncovered comments -- including some on Bloomberg's television network -- and further research suggest otherwise.

For example, take a look at both merger partners' balance sheets. XM's final independent quarterly report is here , while Sirius' most recent report for its fiscal Q3 is here . On July 22, XM -- which was responsible for the additional debt that Sirius may have not initially seen, according to Karmazin -- explained that its debts were primarily a factor of subscriber acquisition costs (SAC).

Simply put, subscriber acquisition costs are the subsidies a satellite broadcaster pays for the marketing and production of its radios. These fees include subsidies to automakers and CE manufacturers, as well as incentives related to marketing these devices and the like. It could be argued that XM was just spending too much money to sign on new customers.

BETACHECK

For more:

CEO Mel Karmazin admits Sirius XM is in bad financial shape by Ed Oswald

Press release: "SIRIUS XM Radio Reports Second Quarter 2008 Results" , issued August 7, 2008

Press release: "XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2008 Results" , issued July 22, 2008

Essentially, during its due diligence, XM may have forgotten to compound the total deficits that came with attempting to grow its total customer base, ending up with over a billion dollars more in debt than it initially indicated it had.

Sirius is suffering from the same problem. By taking on XM's SAC-related debt, it has only compounded the issue.

CEO Karmazin is obviously not ignorant to this. In fact, in the portion of his interview that appeared on Bloomberg TV, when asked about the company's financial situation, Karmazin does admit there are issues. In a segment cited by BloggingStocks , the CEO said, "We need to get the revenue up beyond the cost of operating our business."

That's been the problem with satellite radio all along. In its most recent quarter, Sirius posted a net loss of $83.9 million, while XM posted a net loss of $120 million for its final Q2. While both have cut losses significantly over a year ago -- in the case of Sirius, by some 37% -- they are still considerable by any means.

Lending weight to the case against Sirius XM's claims of purely positive financial health, is its current stock price. Now trading under Sirius' old ticker symbol SIRI, its stock value is down 50% since the beginning of the year, and over 60% from its 52-week high in late November 2007.

What these various factors add up to is a much weaker financial picture for the combined company, as opposed to when XM and Sirius first announced their merger plans over a year and a half ago.






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Auto dealer software company slashes '08 outlook

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Mon Aug 11, 5:40 PM ET

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. - Automotive dealer software manufacturer DealerTrack Holdings Inc. slashed its full-year earnings and revenue projections Monday, saying a challenging credit environment and slowdown in new car sales would impede performance.

Its shares tumbled 16 percent in after-hours trading, shedding $2.54 to $13.25 after closing the regular session down 21 cents at $15.79.

The Lake Success-based company said it expects to earn between $9.4 million and $12.8 million in 2008. That would be earnings per share of between 22 cents and 30 cents.

The company previously expected to earn between $21 million and $22.6 million, or 48 cents to 52 cents per share.

DealerTrack executives said they expected revenue of $246 million to $253 million — down from earlier estimates of $268 million to 272 million.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect the company to earn 98 cents per share on revenue of $260 million for the year.

"We continue to expand our product offerings and to invest in our existing products," DealerTrack Chairman and Chief Executive Mark O'Neil said in a statement. "We believe we can continue to grow through this economic downturn. It would be shortsighted of us to stop development of new projects; instead, we remain focused on growing DealerTrack by providing our customers with the solutions they need to be more efficient."

The company said its new outlook doesn't assume a recovery in the nation's auto lending environment this year.

Separately Monday, DealerTrack said its second-quarter profit fell 51 percent to $3.06 million, or 7 cents per share, in the quarter ending June 30. That's down from $6.28 million, or 15 cents a share, during the same period last year.

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Attacks continue on Russian and Georgian Web sites, but who's to blame?

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Armed conflict between Russia and Georgia has been paralleled by what many in the media have classed a "cyberwar," where Georgian Web sites have been crippled by DDoS attacks and defacements.

As Georgian government sites were rendered inaccessible this week, Poland, Estonia, and the United States hosted mirrors to provide supplementary outlets for information. Polish president Lech Kaczynski's official site says, "Along with military aggression, the Russian Federation is blocking Georgian Internet portals."

Though the attacks were traced to servers in both Russia and Turkey, the Russian government has denied involvement in the action, citing several of its own Web services that have also succumbed to DDoS attacks.

The denial of service attacks against Georgia bear a remarkable similarity to those that took place against Estonia in 2007. These attacks, due to their scope, were also suspected to have been orchestrated by the Russian government, but no evidence could be provided to substantiate any accusations.

In July, 300 Lithuanian sites were compromised and defaced by pro-Russian hackers in response to the Lithuanian ban on Soviet symbols, such as the hammer and sickle of the old Communist Party. This act was preceded by appeals on Russian forums, according to The Baltic Course , that called for hackers to unite against Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as well as Ukraine.

"All the hackers of the country have decided to unite, to counter the impudent actions of Western superpowers. We are fed up with NATO's encroachment on our motherland, we have had enough of Ukrainian politicians who have forgotten their nation and only think about their own interests. And we are fed up with Estonian government institutions that blatantly re-write history and support fascism," the message stated.

Those attacks, according to Lithuanian security researchers, came from compromised French and Swedish hosts.

The Estonian cyberattacks in 2007 and the current ones against Georgia are now regarded as the two of the biggest organized service attacks in history. Unfortunately, no firm evidence has been presented that implicates any single organization in either action.






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