Huawei is now the world’s third largest smartphone vendor, but still far behind Samsung and Apple

Research firm IDC released the latest numbers from its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker this week and found that a total of 482.5 million mobile phones were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, an increase from 473.4 million in 2011. Smartphones accounted for nearly half, or 45.5%, of all mobile phone shipments, the highest percentage ever. Samsung (005930) and Apple (AAPL) remained the two top vendors with market shares of 29% and 21.8% respectively. The report did include some surprises, however.

[More from BGR: Sony’s PS Vita: Dead again]

“The high-growth smartphone market, though dominated by Samsung and Apple, still presents ample opportunities for challengers,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC. “Vendors with unique market advantages, such as lower-cost devices, can rapidly gain market share, especially in emerging markets”

[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]

The remaining top five smartphone vendors are very different now, however — they no longer include LG (006570), HTC (2498) or Motorola, all of which have been replaced by Huawei (002502), Sony (SNE) and ZTE (0763).

Huawei, a company previously known for its telecom equipment, spying scandals and low-end smartphones, is in the midst of a major transition. Rather than focusing on cheap and carrier-branded phones, the Chinese company has begun to compete with high-end manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple with its new flagship devices.

Huawei experienced unprecedented growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 with shipments increasing 89.5% year-over-year for a 4.9% market share. Close on the company’s heels are both Sony and Chinese rival ZTE with 4.5% and 4.3% shares of the market respectively.

“The fact that Huawei and ZTE now find themselves among the Top 5 smartphone vendors marks a significant shift for the global market,” noted Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC’s Mobile Phone team. “Both companies have grown volumes by focusing on the mass market, but in recent quarters they have turned their attention toward higher-end devices. In addition, both companies have pushed the envelope in terms of industrial design with larger displays and smaller form factors, as well as innovative applications and experiences.”

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Disney says JJ Abrams to direct next 'Star Wars'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's official. The force is with J.J. Abrams.

The Walt Disney Co. issued a statement Friday night confirming reports that had been circulating for two days that Abrams, Emmy-award-winning creator of TV's "Lost" and director of 2009's "Star Trek" movie, has been pegged to direct the seventh installment of the "Star Wars" franchise.

"J.J. is the perfect director to helm this," said Kathleen Kennedy, the movie's producer and president of Lucasfilm, which was acquired by Disney last month for $4.06 billion.

"Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience," Kennedy said in the statement.

The movie will have a script from "Toy Story 3" writer Michael Arndt and a 2015 release.

Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" in the original trilogy, will work as a consultant on the new project.

Abrams has already headed the reboot of another storied space franchise, "Star Trek," for rival studio Paramount Pictures. The next installment in that series, "Star Trek: Into Darkness," is set to hit theaters May 17.

But he has long been known as a "Star Wars" devotee. Abrams spoke about the plot of the original "Star Wars" in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007, and reportedly became enamored of "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof partly because Lindelof was wearing a "Star Wars" T-shirt when they first met.

In 2009, Abrams told the Los Angeles Times: "As a kid, 'Star Wars' was much more my thing than 'Star Trek' was."

In Friday night's statement he called it an "absolute honor" to get the job.

"I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid," Abrams said.

Lucas himself said in the statement that "I've consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He's an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn't be in better hands."

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40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Pro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday.

WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday for the annual March for Life rally, which culminated in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building.

On a gray morning when the temperature was well below freezing, the crowd pressed in close against the stage to hear more than a dozen speakers, who included Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who recently introduced legislation to withhold financing from Planned Parenthood, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston; and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania and Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Santorum spoke of his wife’s decision not to have an abortion after they learned that their child — their daughter Bella, now 4 — had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18.

“We all know that death is never better, never better,” Mr. Santorum said. “Bella is better for us, and we are better because of Bella.”

Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said that the march was both somber and hopeful.

“We’ve lost 55 million Americans to abortion,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re starting to win. We’re winning in the court of public opinion, we’re winning in the states with legislation.”

Though the main event officially started at noon, the day began much earlier for the participants, with groups in matching scarves engaged in excited chatter on the subway and gaggles of schoolchildren wearing name tags around their necks. Arriving on the Mall, attendees were greeted with free signs (“Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Personhood for Everyone”) and a man barking into a megaphone, “Ireland is on the brink of legalizing abortion, which is not good.”

The march came two months after the 2012 campaign season, in which social issues like abortion largely took a back seat to the focus on the economy. But the issue did come up in Congressional races in which Republican candidates made controversial statements about rape or abortion. In Indiana, Richard E. Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the Senate, said in a debate that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were something that “God intended,” and in Illinois, Representative Joe Walsh said in a debate that abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother because of “advances in science and technology.” Both men lost, hurt by a backlash from female voters.

Recent polls show that while a majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned entirely, many favor some restrictions. In a Gallup poll released this week, 52 percent of those surveyed said that abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances, while 28 percent said they should be legal under all circumstances, and 18 percent said they should be illegal under all circumstances. In a Pew poll this month, 63 percent of respondents said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned completely, and 29 percent said they did — views largely consistent with surveys taken over the past two decades.

“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”

“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.

The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”

Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.

Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America started a new Web site, and on Tuesday, its president, Cecile Richards, released a statement supporting abortion rights.

“Planned Parenthood understands that abortion is a deeply personal and often complex decision for a woman to consider, if and when she needs it,” she said. “A woman should have accurate information about all of her options around her pregnancy. To protect her health and the health of her family, a woman must have access to safe, legal abortion without interference from politicians, as protected by the Supreme Court for the last 40 years.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 25, 2013

A summary that appeared on the home page of NYTimes.com with an earlier version of this article misstated the day of the march. It took place on Friday, not Thursday.

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Labor Relations Board Rulings Could Be Undone

By ruling that Mr. Obama’s three recess appointments last January were illegal, the federal appeals court ruling, if upheld, would leave the board with just one member, short of the quorum needed to issue any rulings. The Obama administration could appeal the court ruling, but no announcement was made on Friday.

If the Supreme Court were to uphold Friday’s ruling, issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it would mean that the labor board did not have a quorum since last January and that all its rulings since then should be nullified.

Many Republicans and business groups applauded Friday’s ruling. They often assert that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the board have transformed it into a tool of organized labor. But many Democrats and labor unions say Mr. Obama’s appointments restored ideological balance to the board after it was tipped in favor of business interests under President George W. Bush

Mark G. Pearce, the board’s chairman, issued a statement saying the board disagreed with the ruling and suggested that other appeals courts hearing cases about the constitutionality of Mr. Obama’s appointments could reach a different conclusion.

“In the meantime, the board has important work to do,” said Mr. Pearce, whose agency oversees enforcement of the laws governing strikes and unionization drives. “We will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.”

Unless the Senate confirms future nominees to the board — Senate Republicans have blocked several of Mr. Obama’s board nominees — Mr. Pearce will be the only member left if Friday’s ruling is upheld. The board has five seats.

Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a statement that urged the recess appointees to “do the right thing and step down.” He added, “To avoid further damage to the economy, the N.L.R.B. must take the responsible course and cease issuing any further opinions until a constitutionally sound quorum can be established.”

The three disputed recess appointees included two Democrats, Sharon Block, deputy labor secretary, and Richard Griffin, general counsel to the operating engineers’ union; and one Republican, Terence Flynn, a counsel to a board member. Mr. Flynn resigned last May after being accused of leaking materials about the group’s deliberations. Another Republican member, Brian Hayes, stepped down when his term expired last month.

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North Korea Turns Its Ire on South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea threatened on Friday to take “physical countermeasures” against South Korea if it takes part in enforcing sanctions against the besieged North, calling the United Nations-endorsed penalties a “declaration of war” and warning of a prolonged chill in the relations between the two Koreas.

In a statement issued in the name of its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, which manages relations with South Korea, North Korea gave no hint on what those countermeasures might be. While its earlier pronouncements more often than not turned out to be a bluster, North Korea does have a history of following up some with unexpected military attacks — most recently, its shelling of a border island in 2010 that left four South Koreans dead. It was also blamed for the sinking of a South Korean warship the same year that left 46 sailors dead.

Those two incidents brought the two Koreas closer to waging a full-scale war than ever in recent decades, dispelling Washington’s desire to engage North Korea for a serious negotiation. In the last few days, while calling for a vigorous enforcement of U.N. sanctions, U.S. officials also appealed to the North’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, not to overreact and miss the opportunities for a new beginning.

Pyongyang’s threat against South Korea was the latest in a verbal barrage it has launched since the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning North Korea’s Dec. 12 rocket launching as a violation of earlier U.N. resolutions banning it from testing ballistic missile technology. The resolution called for tightening sanctions to cut off the procurement activities for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, while the North accused Washington of masterminding the Security Council to “stifle” the already impoverished country.

“If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the U.N. ‘sanctions,’ the D.P.R.K. will take strong physical countermeasures against it,” North Korea said on Friday, using the nickname it often uses for the South Korean government and the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “‘Sanctions’ mean a war and a declaration of war against us.”

The U.N. resolution was the fifth to be slapped on the North for its rocket and nuclear programs since 1993. It calls for the tightening of existing sanctions, such as expanding a travel ban on North Korean officials and the freezing of assets of North Korean banks and other agencies accused of engaging in shipments and financing for the North’s missile and nuclear programs. It also broadened the means for U.N. member nations to intercept and confiscate cargo headed for the North.

Since the Security Council resolution, North Korea has said it would conduct a nuclear test and launch more long-range rockets and that there would be no more talks on the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, a main goal of Washington’s thus-far unsuccessful diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula for the last two decades.

With Friday’s threat against the South, North Korea, under the young Mr. Kim, appeared to be following a well-worn track established under his late father, Kim Jong-il, before his death in December 2011: a cycle of North Korean provocation such as a rocket launching, U.N. condemnation, North Korean warnings of “physical countermeasures,” which were sometimes followed by provocative actions, such a nuclear test.

While this familiar cycle repeated itself in recent years, North Korea also steadily boosted its nuclear and missile capabilities. The North Korean nuclear crisis began in the early 1990s with nothing but a tiny amount of fissile material North Korea was suspected of gleaning from its experimental research reactor. It has since accumulated enough plutonium for an estimated half dozen nuclear bombs, built a full-scale uranium-enrichment program, conducted two nuclear tests and made strides toward building intercontinental ballistic missiles that U.S. officials feared could one day be tipped with nuclear warheads.

On Thursday, North Korea said it felt no need to hide its intention of building rockets and nuclear weapons with the United States as a “target” because Washington had intensified its “hostile” policy against the North.

On Friday, North Korea directed its ire at its neighbor, South Korea, warning that Seoul should expect a continuing confrontation and even potential military clashes on the Korean Peninsula if the hard-line policy of the outgoing President Lee Myung-bak was inherited by his successor, President-elect Park Geun-hye, who will be sworn in next month.

“Now that the South Korean puppet conservative group is more desperately kicking up a racket against the D.P.R.K. over its nuclear and missile issues with the U.S., there will be no more discussion on denuclearization between the north and the south in the future,” North Korea said. “As long as the South Korean puppet group of traitors persistently pursues a hostile policy toward the D.P.R.K., we will never negotiate with anyone.”

In its statement, the North also said that a 1992 joint declaration in which the two Koreas committed themselves not to purse nuclear weapons was now completely invalid. It was not the first time North Korea has called its deals with Seoul and Washington nullified. Still, analysts said, the North’s posture significantly limits room for Ms. Park’s overtures toward the North; like Mr. Lee and President Obama in the United States, Mr. Park considers the dismantling of the North’s nuclear program the premise in all South Korea’s diplomacy toward the North.

The U.N. sanctions and the North’s angry reactions dissipated early hopes that changes of leadership in Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington might open the way for easing tensions. But some analysts said that North Korea was just escalating tensions ahead of dialogue to increase its leverage.

North Korea, which has lived through U.S.-led trade embargoes throughout its existence, considers itself a small yet proud nation struggling for independence in the face of an “imperialist” plot to erase its from the earth. It has typically called any new round of American-inspired sanctions a declaration of war.

Washington says North Korea is one of the leading threats to global efforts for nuclear and missile non-proliferation.

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New PlayStation 4 details emerge: 8-core AMD ‘Bulldozer’ CPU, redesigned controller and more

2013 is a huge year for gamers. Nintendo (NTDOY) just launched the Wii U ahead of the holidays and both Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) are expected to issue next-generation consoles before the year is through. We’ve seen plenty of rumors about both systems over the past few months, and the latest comes from Kotaku and focuses on Sony’s PlayStation 4.

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The site claims to have gotten its hands on documents describing Sony’s developer system given to premier partners so they can build games ahead of the next-generation console launch. The specs, if accurate, will obviously line up with the release version of the system. Included in the specs Kotaku is reporting are an AMD64 “Bulldozer” CPU with eight cores total, an AMD GPU, 8GB of system RAM, 2.2GB of video memory, a 160GB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, four USB 3.0 ports and more.

[More from BGR: Apple: ‘Bent, not broken’]

Sony also reportedly has a redesigned controller in the works that will include a capacitive touch pad.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Damon 'hijacks' Kimmel's ABC show

NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Damon had his revenge.

The butt of a long-running joke on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the actor opened Thursday night's show as a kidnapper who tied Kimmel to a chair with duct tape and gagged him with his own tie.

"There's a new host in town and his initials are M.D.," Damon said. "That's right, the doctor is in."

For years, Kimmel has joked at the end of his show that he ran out of time and was unable to bring Damon on as a guest. Kimmel was the silent one Thursday, watching from the back of the stage as Damon did his job.

Damon tormented Kimmel by bringing on a succession of big-name guests. Robin Williams stopped by to finish the monologue. Ben Affleck had a walk-on role. Sheryl Crow was the bandleader and performed her new single. Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman, Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon and Demi Moore all crowded the talk show's couch.

"I've been waiting for this moment for a long, long time," Damon said. "This is like when I lost my virginity, except this is going to last way longer than one second."

Damon's guest hosting turn came at a key time for Kimmel. ABC earlier this month moved the show to 11:35 p.m. ET and PT after a decade of airing it a half hour later, putting him in direct competition with Jay Leno and David Letterman.

Thursday's special program aimed for the same water-cooler status as a memorably lewd short film Damon made for the show a few years ago with Kimmel's then-girlfriend, Sarah Silverman. It went viral and remains probably the best-known skit in the show's history.

To twist the knife even further, Damon brought Silverman on as his final guest Thursday night, with Kimmel looking on forlornly as she likened their five-year relationship to an unfortunate trip to a hot dog vendor.

"Is there anything you'd like to say to Jimmy?" Damon asked.

"No, I'm good," Silverman replied.

Then came the sweetest revenge of all, with Damon promising to ungag Kimmel in the show's final minutes.

"Wait," he said. "I'm sorry. We're out of time."

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Storm-Damaged Homes Mean Lower Property Tax Revenues in New York Region

Localities across the New York region, already reeling from the cost of cleaning up from Hurricane Sandy, are confronting the prospect of an even bigger blow to their finances: a precipitous decline in property tax revenues.

The storm damaged tens of billions of dollars’ worth of real estate, especially in coastal areas of Long Island and New Jersey. As a result, localities can no longer expect to reap the same taxes from properties that have lost much of their value — in some cases, permanently.

Without new revenues, state and local officials and Wall Street analysts said, these areas may have to make deep cuts in spending on schools, police and fire departments and other services. They also may be hard-pressed to finance rebuilding.

“Absolutely, this is going to be devastating for several years,” said Ester Bivona, former president of the New York State Receivers and Collectors Association, which represents local tax officials.

The Division of Local Government Services in New Jersey estimated this month that more than a dozen municipalities in the state could lose at least 10 percent of their tax bases. About another 10 face a drop between 5 percent and 10 percent, state and local officials said.

Among the worst hit is Toms River, one of New Jersey’s largest municipalities, with 90,000 people. It recently warned Wall Street that property tax receipts could drop 10 percent to 15 percent, according to its financial disclosure documents.

Down the coast, the tiny borough of Tuckerton lost close to 20 percent of its property tax base. In Sea Bright, nearly half the homes are uninhabitable.

The situation is similar on Long Island, according to interviews with officials there.

The village of Freeport in Nassau County expects that many of its 15,000 homeowners will qualify for reductions in property tax bills, erasing at least 5 percent of property tax revenues and probably far more.

Experts said the looming revenue crisis for localities in the region underscores how natural disasters can have a profound effect long after the debris is gone.

If localities try to raise overall tax rates to make up for looming deficits, they may touch off a backlash from homeowners with undamaged properties.

“My thing is to encourage property owners to not seek reassessments because you’re going to pay on one end or the other,” said Andrew Hardwick, Freeport’s mayor. “If too many people seek reassessment and are successful with it, that means, how do you pay the bills on the other end? You raise the taxes again? It doesn’t make sense.”

Some localities, like Long Beach, on Long Island, had shaky finances before the storm and are now in deeper trouble, according to local budget records. But many others had been on solid financial ground.

Two major bond-rating agencies, Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, have expressed concerns in recent weeks about the fiscal stability of numerous municipalities in the region.

New York City and county governments in New York are far less reliant on property taxes than localities, so they are expected to have an easier time weathering a drop in the value of the tax base caused by storm damage. The city, for example, has its own income and business taxes.

What’s more, the city and county governments in both states have a much broader property tax base than small localities.

The $50.7 billion Hurricane Sandy relief bill approved this month by the House of Representatives provides up to $300 million in low-interest loans for localities facing shortfalls. The Senate has supported a similar provision in its own relief package.

But some local officials said such financing was not nearly enough. States themselves have not yet sent aid, and senior state officials said they were not inclined to do so until federal money was exhausted.

“It’s a pretty inescapable conclusion that there will be an impact on the tax base,” said Michael Drewniak, chief spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

“In many instances, we had homes completely wiped out or severely damaged to the point they were rendered uninhabitable,” Mr. Drewniak said. “That left behind rebuildable land but, in the meantime, no ‘improvements’ to tax. In other cases, people may find it cost prohibitive to rebuild at all, depending on their individual circumstances.”

It could be a year or two before the aftereffects are fully understood, given that localities will have to assess damaged properties before lowering property taxes on them.

Griff Palmer contributed reporting.

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Li Na Overpowers Sharapova at Australian Open

Andy Wong/Associated Press

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus makes a forehand return to Sloane Stephens of the United States during their semifinal match at the Australian Open.

MELBOURNE, Australia — It will be Li Na versus Victoria Azarenka in the women’s final at the Australian Open, and though Li’s straight-set victory over Maria Sharapova in their semifinal Thursday brooked no argument, the same could not be said for Azarenka’s straight-set victory over the 19-year-old American Sloane Stephens.

While the sixth-seeded Li romped 6-2, 6-2, playing one of the finest and most composed big matches of her career, the top-seeded Azarenka struggled to keep her cool on this steamy day in Melbourne, when temperatures hit 97.

Serving for the match against Stephens at 5-3 in the second set, she failed to convert on five match points and was eventually broken when Stephens slapped a forehand winner down the line.

When Azarenka walked to her seat for the changeover, she wrapped a towel stuffed with ice around her neck and was examined by a trainer and physician. She eventually left the court for further treatment, which meant that Stephens, in her first Grand Slam semifinal, was left waiting as she was about to serve to stay in the match.

Azarenka eventually returned to the court six minutes later, and the overall break in play was close to 10 minutes. The time allotted on a normal changeover is 90 seconds.

Stephens, who had the upset tournament favorite Serena Williams in the quarterfinals, proceeded to lose her serve and the match 6-1, 6-4.

It was not immediately clear why Azarenka required treatment. Though medical timeouts are permitted by the rules at that stage of a match, the timing of her break in play was immediately questioned by many in the tennis community who viewed it as potential gamesmanship.

“An absolute travesty,” said Patrick McEnroe, the ESPN analyst who is also head of the United States Tennis Association’s player development program that has helped to back Stephens.

In her post-match interview, Azarenka, the defending champion, did not immediately explain if she was suffering from a legitimate injury or medical condition. But she made it clear that she had been distraught.

She was asked why she had gone off court.

“Well, I almost did the choke of the year right now at 5-3, having so many chances I couldn’t close it out. I just felt a little bit overwhelmed. I realized I’m one step away from the final and nerves got into me for sure.”

Asked if she was happy, Azarenka responded: “Until 5-3, yes, very happy. After that, it wasn’t my best, but it’s important to overcome this little bit of a struggle and win the match. I’m definitely happy to be in the final. I just love to play here, and I just couldn’t lose. That’s why I was so upset.”

Stephens said she did not believe the long break had an impact on the outcome.

“It didn’t go my way, but I wouldn’t say at all that her, what happened, affected the match,” Stephens said.

That Li could beat the second-seeded Sharapova was no great surprise. One of China’s biggest sports stars, Li is one of the game’s true quality players and was a finalist here in 2011. But it was definitely a surprise that she could beat Sharapova as comprehensively as she did Thursday.

Sharapova had lost just nine games in five matches heading into the semifinal. Mischievous number-crunchers were calculating her earnings per minute of court time: well over $1,000.

But Li will end up with the bigger paycheck in Melbourne after feasting on Sharapova’s second serve and winning a clear majority of their physical baseline rallies.

Asked if her lack of a major test in the earlier rounds might have played a role in her minor-key performance on Thursday, Sharapova demurred.

“I can’t think of it that way; I certainly can’t use that as an excuse,” she said. “When I go into any match, I’m trying to win with the best scoreline I can. That’s my goal.”

“Today I felt like I had my fair share of opportunities. It’s not like they weren’t there. I just couldn’t take them today.”

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Google Wants to Own the Airwaves, Now

As if Google‘s launching a free Wi-Fi network in New York City earlier this month wasn’t curious enough, now the search giant is asking the Federal Communications Commission for a license to create an “experimental radio service.” What’s an experimental radio service, you ask? Well, Google won’t say exactly what its doing with the air above its Mountain View, California headquarters, but the details of the FCC application suggest it’s trying to build its own proprietary wireless network.

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Oh, so this must have something to do with Google Fiber and Google‘s becoming an Internet service provider, offering insanely fast Internet, right? Again, not exactly. “Google‘s small-scale wireless network would use frequencies that wouldn’t be compatible with nearly any of the consumer mobile devices that exist today, such as Apple’s iPad or iPhone or most devices powered by Google‘s Android operating system,” explain The Wall Street Journal‘s Amir Efrati and Anton Troianovski. “The network would only provide coverage for devices built to access certain frequencies, from 2524 to 2625 megahertz.” However, networks using those frequencies are under construction in Asia, just waiting for devices that support them. And last year, Google purchased Motorola Mobility, a mobile phone manufacturer that could ostensibly manufacture such devices. This is starting to sound sort of shady.

RELATED: You Were Right to Delete Your Google History

While it’s too soon to understand the extent of the company’s plans, it certainly looks like Google actually wants to own the airwaves now. Could we see a Google phone that works on a custom built Wi-Fi network, one that nobody else can use? It’s very possible. For now, Google‘s official answer to that line of questioning is that the company experiments all the time with all kinds of things. But according to Steven Crowley, a wireless engineer who first spotted the FCC application, ”The only reason to use these frequencies is if you have business designs on some mobile service.” 

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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