Scientists are predicting the loss of another major ice sheet in Antarctic by the end of the century. – Courtesy Photo

WASHINGTON: Global temperatures were above average for the 36th straight year in 2012 and the planet is likely to chalk up more record warm highs over the coming decade, US scientists said Tuesday.

The year 2012 marked the ninth or 10th warmest on record, depending on the measurement. Space agency Nasa put the average temperature at 14.6 Celsius (58.3 Fahrenheit), 0.6 degrees Celsius higher than in the 20th century.

Data released last week found that the continental United States experienced its warmest year on record in 2012.

However, several regions including parts of Alaska, western Canada, central Asia and the Antarctic were cooler.

James Hansen, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said it was likely that an upcoming year would break the record high global temperature set in 2010.

“What we find is that the ocean is getting warmer — that shows that the planet is out of balance, there is more energy coming in than going out,” Hansen told reporters on a conference call.

Kakao Talk founder and Chairman Brian Kim speaks during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012.—AP Photo

SEOUL: Kakao Talk, a popular mobile messenger in South Korea, will launch an online music and electronic book shop next year as it continues to grow beyond its original mission to provide a simple messaging service.    

The shop named ”Kakao Page” will provide publishing tools for artists, writers, musicians and other creative types to sell and market their songs, music videos and electronic books to Kakao Talk users, which number 66 million, CEO Sirgoo Lee said Tuesday.

Kakao Inc. has built on the success of its mobile messaging service, which was launched in March 2010, to expand into online games, advertising and other forms of electronic commerce.

The company has lost money since being founded in late 2006 but expects to make a profit this year.

The company plans to take a 20 per cent cut from Kakao Page sales after giving 30 per cent to application store operators like Google or Apple and 50 per cent to the content creator.

When launched next year, Kakao Page will be available only in South Korea where roughly half of its users are based, Lee said.

Kakao has been trying to increase its overseas Kakao Talk users by partnering with companies in other markets. Last month, Kakao sold a 50 per cent stake in Kakao Japan to Yahoo! Japan, hoping to achieve more growth in Asia’s second-largest economy where rival Line messenger by NHN Japan has been expanding rapidly.

In the US, it hopes to partner with Internet giants such as Google and Facebook to reach US smartphone users, its founder and chairman Brian Kim said.

”We are looking for partners in the US,” he said. ”Google would be nice and Facebook will be nice as well.”

Kim, a respected entrepreneur in South Korea, was formerly a CEO of South Korean Internet giant NHN Corp.

Others suggest a partnership with a game publisher or a mobile carrier could boost Kakao’s overseas ambitions.

”The key for Kakao will be to find a company with a large existing user base and strong brand awareness in the US market. Such a partner is most likely to come from the digital game industry or among the country’s mobile network operators,” Mark Ranson, an analyst at research firm Ovum.

In South Korea where ”Ka Talk” has entered the local lexicon to describe a mobile chat, Kakao operates a popular photo-sharing tool akin to Instagram and a mobile commerce shop to send digital coupons to friends.

Its biggest move so far was opening a mobile game store in July.

Kakao Talk helped three mobile games gather more than 10 million users in about one month.

The Cisco logo is displayed at the technology company’s campus in San Jose, California February 3, 2010. – Reuters (File Photo)

Sun Nov 18, 2012 – Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc said it will buy privately held cloud networking company Meraki for $1.2 billion in cash as part of its cloud and networking strategy.

Cisco said the acquisition of Meraki, which was founded in 2006 by members of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science, is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco’s 2013 fiscal year and is subject to regulatory approval.

Cisco’s second quarter runs until the end of January.

Meraki – funded by Sequoia Capital and Google Inc – offers Wi-Fi technology, switching, security and mobile advertising/device management from the cloud with a focus on mid-sized businesses.

“This is a very logical move for Cisco,” said ZK research analyst Zeus Kerravala.

He said the deal will allow Cisco to offer alternative solutions to traditional Wi-Fi deployment models like smaller competitors, such as Aruba Networks and Ruckus Wireless, which debuted on Friday.

“Cisco didn’t really have anything to counter that before,” Kerravala noted.

Meraki’s Chief Executive Sanjit Biswas said in a letter to employees posted on the company website that Cisco had approached the company several weeks ago.

The company’s founders had at first rejected the offer in favor of continuing Meraki’s strategy aimed at an initial public listing.

“After several weeks of consideration, we decided late last week that joining Cisco was the right path for Meraki,” Biswas said.

He also said that Meraki had achieved a $100 million bookings run rate, grown to 330 employees and had a positive cash flow.

—File Photo

MUMBAI: Indian police said Monday they had arrested a woman for criticising on Facebook the total shutdown of Mumbai after the death of politician Bal Thackeray, as well as a friend who “liked” the comment.

The pair were due to appear in court later in the day charged under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, said Police Inspector Shrikant Pingle in the town of Palghar north of Mumbai.

“The two women will be produced in a local court later this afternoon. They are being charged for hurting religious sentiments,” he told AFP.

They were arrested on Sunday, when a huge funeral procession attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters was held in Mumbai for Thackeray, the divisive founder of the rightwing Shiv Sena party.

News of his death on Saturday afternoon brought the city to a virtual standstill for the weekend, with businesses shutting and taxis going off the roads, amid fears of violence by Thackeray’s supporters.

While his followers mourned, others were angered at the hold Shiv Sena exerted over India’s financial capital. The 21-year-old arrested for her Facebook post was among many who aired opinions on social networking sites.

“Her comment said people like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a ‘bandh’ (city shutdown) for that,” Police Inspector Uttam Sonawane told the Mumbai Mirror.

Despite widespread concerns, there were no reports of unrest in Mumbai itself on the day of the funeral of Thackeray, one of India’s most polarising party leaders who was widely accused of stoking ethnic and religious violence.

India in recent months has shown sensitivity to criticism of its politicians, sparking criticism in turn from freedom of speech campaigners.

In September campaigners were outraged by the arrest in Mumbai on charges of sedition of a cartoonist for his anti-corruption drawings.

The charges were later dropped.

The ban encompasses the sale of mobile phone SIMs at all company and franchise outlets.   -File Photo

PESHAWAR: Acting on the directives of the Federal Interior Ministry, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) on Monday banned the sale of all private cellphone company’s Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, DawnNews reported.

The ban encompasses the sale of mobile phone SIMs at all company and franchise outlets.

The decision to enforce the ban in the province was taken in view of the  prevalent use of illegal SIMs in most terrorist activities in the province.

The International Space Station (ISS) crew members Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide (L), Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (C) and US astronaut Sunita Williams rest after landing near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan November 19, 2012. — Photo by Reuters

ALMATY: A Russian Soyuz capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe on Monday, safely delivering a trio of astronauts from a four-month stint aboard the International Space Station.

The Soyuz TMA-05M capsule, carrying Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Sunita Williams, parachuted through dark, cloudy skies and touched down at 7:56 am local.

A round of applause greeted the landing at Russian mission control near Moscow, footage from Nasa TV showed. A screen inside the building showed the message: “We have landing!”

The capsule blazed a red plasma trail across the dark sky after re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It landed on its side on the snow-covered steppe 52 miles northeast of the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan.

The astronauts were extracted quickly from the capsule and wrapped in blue thermal blankets. All three smiled and appeared relaxed as they chatted with the search-and-recovery team, Nasa TV footage showed.

“Fresh air – very good!” Williams said, in Russian. The landing, after a three-and-a-half-hour descent from the orbital outpost, was the first pre-dawn touchdown since 2006.

The Expedition 33 crew had spent 125 days aboard the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex involving 15 countries and orbiting 250 miles above Earth.

The crew conducted a number of experiments, including tests on radiation levels at the space station and research into the effects of melting glaciers and seasonal changes on Earth’s ecosystems, Nasa said in a statement.

They also managed several visits to the space station by international and commercial spacecraft and conducted several space walks to maintain the station.

A three-man crew remains aboard the space station. When Nasa’s Kevin Ford and rookie cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin – both on their first space mission – docked on Oct 25, they brought with them Japanese fish for a variety of experiments.

They are scheduled to be joined by another trio – Canadian Chris Hadfield, US astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko – who are due to blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec 19.

Monday’s smooth landing will help to ease concerns over Russia’s space programme following a string of recent mishaps.

The Soviet Union put the first satellite and the first man in space, but Moscow’s space programme has suffered a series of humiliating setbacks in recent months that industry veterans blame on a decade of crimped budgets and a brain drain.

While none of the mishaps have threatened crews, they have raised worries over Russia’s reliability, cost billions of dollars in satellite losses and dashed Moscow’s dreams of ending its more than two-decade absence from deep-space exploration.

Since the retirement of the US space shuttles last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly astronauts at a cost to the nation of $60 million per person.

The road across the wolds by David Hockney.—Reuters (File Photo)

LONDON: Britain has some of the best galleries in the world, but the vast majority of the oil paintings in public ownership have for decades been hidden away in private offices or storage. Until now.

By the end of the year, 210,000 paintings will have been dusted off and photographed for inclusion in a ground-breaking online museum, accessible to members of the public at just a click of a button.

“The UK has a very large collection of oil paintings in public ownership and about 80 per cent are not on view,” said Andy Ellis, the director of the Public Catalogue Foundation which has organised the project with the BBC.

In one of the most ambitious art projects in the world, curators have spent ten years tracking down publicly-owned paintings by 45,000 artists from every corner of Britain, from the Shetlands to the Channel Islands.

Some have been in storage and others hung in buildings where there is no access to members of the public, but they are finally seeing the light of day on a dedicated website, “Your Paintings”.

Museums have helped out where they could but the catalogue required some detective work as about 100 researchers tracked down paintings in universities, police and fire stations, libraries and hospitals.

The hunt took them to a zoo, a lighthouse and to art colleges that held some early works by their famous alumni, including David Hockney.

There were other nice surprises.

A London hospital had a Veronese, a huge triptych by William Hogarth adorned a wall of the town hall in Bristol, surrounded by computers and photocopiers, while a Whistler was found in a Cold War bunker.

Unlike the Google Art Project, an online initiative cataloguing works of art from museums across the world, the British website only includes paintings in oil, acrylic and egg tempera.

This is partly because the curators decided that including watercolours and drawings would have busted its $9.5-million budget, largely funded by private donations.

But within these techniques, anything and everything is welcome. The work of thousands of obscure painters, such as a fireman who dabbled during the Blitz, is pictured alongside masterpieces by Rembrandt and Raphael.

Ten percent of the paintings remain unattributed, but the curators hope members of the public may be able to help identify their artists, as well as their often mysterious subjects.

“The project is democratic. We include all the works, irrespective of the quality, the condition of the work,” said Ellis.

“The point of this project is to allow everyone to see all the works in the collection and then make the decision themselves about what they like and what they don’t like.”

He added: “We don’t think there is any equivalent anywhere in the world.” Ellis, a former financier who was drawn into the project through his passion for art, is already looking at how to expand the museum to include sculptures.

“It’s the ultimate realisation of Andre Malraux’s dream of a museum without walls,” commented Charles Saumarez Smith, chief executive of the Royal Academy, referring to the post-World War II French writer’s vision of how photography would democratise art.

The Nexus 4 smartphone, left and the Nexus 10 tablet are shown by Randall Safara of Google at a Google announcement in San Francisco, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012.—AP (File Photo)

SAN FRANCISCO: Smartphones and tablets powered by Google’s Android software are devouring the mobile gadget market, eating into Apple’s turf by feeding appetites for innovation and low prices, analysts say.

The Android operating system powered nearly three out of four smartphones shipped worldwide in the recently ended quarter as the mobile platform dominated the market, according to industry trackers at IDC.

“Android has been one of the primary growth engines of the smartphone market since it was launched in 2008,” said IDC’s mobile phones research manager Ramon Llamas.

“In every year since then, Android has effectively outpaced the market and taken market share from the competition.” In tablets, Apple’s market share has fallen to just over 50 per cent from 65 per cent in the second quarter as Android devices gain ground, according to IDC figures.

“Having a lot of people building a lot of things covering a lot of price points with multiple brands in multiple places makes a big difference,” said NPD Group analyst Stephen Baker.

“Variety is strength when it comes to moving units.” Android smartphones shipments surged to 136 million, topping those in the same three-month period last year by slightly more than 90 per cent, IDC reported.

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 overtook Apple’s iPhone 4S in the third quarter to give the South Korean firm the world’s best-selling smartphone model for the first time ever, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

“The pace of innovation in Android is faster than Apple,” said Gartner vice president of mobile computing Ken Dulaney. “They are just trying harder; Apple is way behind in that area.” Android is benefiting from being an “open-source” platform that gadget makers use free of charge and improve as they deem fit, providing Google with insights along the way.

Apple tightly controls its products from the software to the hardware and even the online shop for music, books, games or other content.

“What you get with Android is this incredible feedback loop with developers, equipment makers, customers, and designers,” Dulaney said.

“At Apple, as long as they have a great vision internally it is fine but they don’t have the feedback Android does.” Having thousands of different Android devices vying for consumers’ cash is a strength when it comes to market share but puts hardware makers into a fiercely competitive arena, Baker noted.

“Other than Samsung, I don’t know if other Android guys are making money,” the analyst said.

Google gives Android away free, but the platform is crafted to make it easy for people to use the California Internet titan’s money-making services such as search and maps, and get content at its online Google Play shop.

Forrester analyst Charles Golvin said that forces powering Android momentum include changing demographics of smartphone buyers.

Early adopters of smartphones focused more on new technology than on price, but the devices have gone mainstream with cost increasingly important to shoppers, according to Golvin.

“People are more inclined toward the Android platform because there is more choice and most of that choice is low price,” Golvin said.

The open nature of Android and the myriad models offered by gadget makers serve as a “double-edged sword,” warned the analyst.

Apple pushes annual updates of iOS mobile operating system out to its devices, while new versions of Android hit more often but must get through hardware makers and telecom services to get onto people’s handsets.

“You have this lengthy chain of intermediaries who are delaying the delivery of that new software and its innovations to existing devices in the market,” Golvin said.
He backed his point by noting that many Android devices in use still run on generations-old versions of the operating system.

Android gadget variety can also make it tough to design accessories or even “apps” that can be used across the array of devices.

For its part, Google has done an excellent job of improving the “ecosystem”of music, films, apps, books and more available for Android-powered devices, according to analysts.

In the red-hot tablet market effectively created by the iPad, strong growth is being seen by Android rivals including Amazon’s popular Kindle Fire and Nook devices from Barnes & Noble, which run custom versions of the software.

Analysts believe that the Google-backed operating system is likely to spread to typically “dumb” gizmos like appliances.

“These platforms are becoming the molecule elements for building all kinds of hybrid devices,” Dulaney said.

According to PTA’s figures, 118m people are using the Global System for Mobile communication across the country.-File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The ban on mobile number portability (MNP) ordered by the ministry of interior as part of its ‘counter-terrorism measures’ has dismayed cellphone users who feel deprived of their right to switch over to a network of their choice.

Under the MNP policy announced by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, cellphone users could switch to different networks while retaining their numbers.

“How can you snatch the right of 118 million customers to have a network of their own choice since they pay for your services,” Farhana Niaz, a mobile phone user of a leading cellular company, said.

According to PTA’s figures, 118m people are using the Global System for Mobile communication across the country.

The PTA decided to ban the MNP on Nov 9 at a meeting chaired by the interior minister since the facility was reportedly creating problems to track down anti-state elements.

Some sources said the ban might be reviewed by the PTA after Muharram.

“Some mobile phone operators have raised concerns over the ban on MNP because it will hurt the companies having limited users on their networks,” they said.The source said the MNP was beneficial to users because some companies had limited service in remote areas of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and they could switch to other networks if they faced problems.

However, a counter-terrorism official said: “We keep people under observation and track them down through their cellphones but now terrorists or other people under observation port out their numbers from one network to another.”

“Once a user switches to a new company because of MNP the new operator does not impose observation, call recording and message tracking on the number until it is approached by the security authorities,” he said.

While the MNP process is implemented in a couple of days, the user manages to remain off the radar for seven to 15 days.

The business head of a mobile phone company claimed that big firms having a major share of customers and revenue were against the MNP.

“The new entrants in the telecom market or small companies are always willing to offer good call rates and packages to new customers wishing to benefit from the MNP.”

A network engineer of a mobile phone company said: “Once we put a number under observation on the request of ‘sensitive institutions’ we regularly share their data with them. However, once a customer uses MNP, issues often arise. But the agencies are supposed to follow the number not the operator.”

“I think the security operators, the cellular network companies and the regulator should sit down and resolve the issue as cellphone use is always linked with terrorism and ordinary costumers have to suffer,” Saeed Ahmed Khan, a telecom analyst, said.

He said such measures would discourage investment by the telecom operators.

He said the telecom operators should take up the issue with the authorities jointly, otherwise “they will be the ultimate losers since they will lose business and the telecom industry will suffer because of continuing directives of the ministry”.

In this Dec. 6, 2011 photo, cups bearing the Google logo are displayed at Google France offices before its inauguration, in Paris. – AP (File Photo)

SAN FRANCISCO: A proposed $22.5 million fine to penalize Google for an alleged privacy breach is on the verge of winning court approval, despite a consumer rights group’s cry for tougher punishment.      

US District Judge Susan Illston told lawyers during a Friday court hearing in San Francisco that she is likely to approve the fine, which is the cornerstone of a settlement reached three months ago between the Federal Trade Commission and Google Inc.

The rebuke is meant to resolve allegations that Google duped millions of Web surfers who use the Safari browser into believing their online activities couldn’t be tracked by the company as long as they didn’t change the browser’s privacy settings. That assurance was posted on Google’s website earlier this year, even as the Internet search leader was inserting computer coding that bypassed Safari’s automatic settings and enabled the company to peer into the online lives of the browser’s users.

The FTC concluded that the contradiction between Google’s stealth tracking and its privacy assurances to Safari users violated a vow the company made in another settlement with the agency last year. Google had promised not to mislead people about its privacy practices.

While FTC hailed its actions as proof of its resolve to protect the public interest, a consumer rights group attacked the settlement as an example of ineffectual regulation. The group, Consumer Watchdog, is trying to bring more attention to the issue as the FTC wraps up a separate investigation into complaints that Google has been stifling competition and raising online ad prices by highlight its own services in its influential search engine.

Consumer Watchdog attorney Gary Reback is hoping to pressure the FTC to take Google to court in the antitrust investigation instead of negotiating a settlement known as a consent decree, as it did in the Safari privacy flap.

A consent decree ”is not a good way to police Google,” Reback said in an interview after Friday’s court hearing. Reback also is representing some of the Internet companies that have filed complaints against Google in the antitrust case.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz has said he expects regulators to decide whether to sue, settle or simply close the antitrust investigation by the end of this year.

In the Safari case, Consumer Watchdog argued the fine amounts to loose change for a company like Google, which generates about $22.5 million in revenue every four hours. In legal briefs, Reback asserted that Google should be fined at least $3 billion because of the number of people potentially affected.

The FTC estimates about 190 million people use Safari to browse the Web on computers, smartphones and tablets made by Google’s rival Apple Inc. But the agency said the impact of Google’s breach was relatively small, estimating the company picked up about $4 million in revenue from the intrusion. The FTC considers the fine to be a milestone because it’s the largest the agency has ever levied for a civil violation. The FTC estimates Google generated no more than $4 million in revenue from its alleged misconduct.

Consumer Watchdog also contended the settlement lacked teeth because it allowed Google to deny any liability for its conduct. That echoed a concern of FTC Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch, who voted against the Google settlement. Leibowitz and three other FTC commissioners voted for the settlement anyway because they believe it will deter similar breaches in the future. Google insists it didn’t intentionally bypass Safari’s default settings.

Finally, Consumer Watchdog blasted the settlement for allowing Google to retain the data that it got from Safari users without authorization.

Illston brushed off the objections about the magnitude of the fine and Google’s denial of liability. She did probe deeper into Google’s retention of the Safari browser data, raising the possibility that she could require revisions to that portion of the settlement. Illston didn’t say when she intended to issue a ruling.

Analyzing Web surfing data helps Google gain a better understanding of people’s preferences so it can customize online ads to appeal to different tastes.

But Google lawyer David Kramer told Illston that the data vacuumed from the unauthorized snooping on Safari browsers would be too stale to be of practical use to the company. He also maintained that much of the data transmitted to Google would have been sent even without the secret insertion of additional computer coding.