Daily News Courier

Google CEO: Fixing supply woes ‘a priority for our team’

Larry Page, from this afternoon's Q4 2012 earnings call:

"Clearly there's working to be done managing our supply better, and that is a priority for our team."

Certainly nothing there we didn't know — the Nexus 4 is still unavailable on Google Play, and the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tend to come and go as well. 

But it is nice to hear the boss acknowledge it.

Plane carrying fashion boss missing

Vittorio Missoni, a director of Italy’s Missoni fashion house, and his wife were on board a small plane carrying two other Italians and two crew members, officials say.

Dead Trigger ‘Merry Christmas’ update brings North Pole arena, new boss

Dead Trigger is keeping in the holiday spirit of joy and cheer today by bringing a "Merry Christmas" update to its game. You'll continue to kill countless hordes of undead, but now they'll be festive with Santa hats on. This update brings a new North Pole arena, as well as a new boss named "Zanta." There's some holiday-agnostic updates as well, including a new grenade launcher, price discounts on upgrades and new story missions. There have even been some memory optimizations for low-end devices.

We'd venture to say most of us don't normally associate the holidays with killing zombies. But if that happens to be your cup of tea, go grab Dead Trigger at the Google Play link above and get to work.

Google UK boss offers ‘unreserved apology’ for delayed Nexus 4 orders

Dan Cobley says pre-Christmas deliveries on track for this week, offers shipping refund for late orders

As we've reported in great detail over the past month, customers hoping to pick up the Nexus 4 directly from the Google Play Store haven't had the easiest time ordering the device. Even after dealing with a tumultuous ordering process, some in the UK have found that their orders had missed the shipping window they'd been given by Google Play.

As a result, some disgruntled customers decided to go straight to the top to get answers, reaching out to Google UK Managing Director Dan Cobley on his Google+ page. Today Cobley has responded with an update on the situation, an apology to those affected, and a shipping refund for those whose orders had missed the quoted 3-5 day window.

In the Google+ message, Cobley also addresses the subject of stock levels, saying supplies from Nexus 4 manufacturer LG have been "scarce and erratic." The first wave of Nexus 4 stock sold out in under an hour, and the second wave was back-ordered by over one month in under a day.

Here's Dan Cobley's message in full –

Dear all

I know that what you are going through is unacceptable and we are all working through the nights and weekends to resolve this issue. Supplies from the manufacturer are scarce and erratic, and our communication has been flawed. I can offer an unreserved apology for our service and communication failures in this process.

For those that originally received a 3-5 days shipping estimate, your orders are now in process for fulfillment. You can expect an email notification early this week which will include tracking information. Although you will be initially charged in full, you will receive a credit for the shipping charge soon after.
For others that received pre-Christmas shipping estimates, we anticipate processing your orders for fulfillment this week.

I realise that the people who ordered the Nexus 4 so early are among our most committed and loyal users and we are doing all we can to put things right.

Sorry again.

Dan?

So there's good news for anyone with a Nexus 4 order due before Christmas, and customers experiencing delays might be reassured that Dan Cobley is taking charge of the situation personally.

If you placed a Nexus 4 during the second wave of stock, let us know how you're getting on down in the comments.

Source: Google+; via XDA, Eurodroid

The Most Controlling Smartphone Ever Made

A custom version of Android exerts total control over what you can do, depending on where you are and what apps or networks you are using.

This is one smartphone your boss and IT guy will love.

From the experts: Debugging an Android application like a boss

Remember how you can tap things and do a little voodoo to enable developer options in Android 4.2? Most of us still won't need to enable any of these other than USB debugging, but folks who are developers have some serious tools at their disposal in there. That's why we're fine with them being hidden for more normal users. Out of sight, out of mind, and the folks who need them know where to look.

One of those folks is Romain Guy. He's an extraordinary photographer, but he's also an Android engineer at Google who focuses on graphics and animation. In short, he knows what he's doing. Turns out he's a fan of the new Falcon Twitter client, and likes it enough to notice that there might be a hiccup or two in the timeline scrolling. Software engineers are regular people for the most part, but in our imaginations they grab a cable and a laptop to investigate anything that gets them curious. This time, out imaginations are correct.

Have an excellent read of just how he uses the developer tools available to track down the issue, and see just what developers have to go through sometimes to pump out awesome Android applications. Chances are you'll only understand part of it, but that will be enough to have a better appreciation of what these guys do.

Source: curious-creature.org

Pixar names main headquarter building after Steve Jobs

Today every animation movie lover is familiar with smash box hits like Monsters, Inc and Toy Story, but back in 1995 the company behind them – Pixar was just starting developing a name for itself.

This week a Pixar employee tweeted an interesting photo that showcases the main building of Pixar’s headquarters. The surprise wasn’t the building’s architecture but its name – it’s called the Steve Jobs Building. Apparently Pixar decided to pay tribute to the late Apple boss who financed the company when it was first starting up, thus helping it to bloom into the major industry name it is today.

Pixar even credited Jobs at the end of its latest animation movie Brave, but naming a building after him will sure help preserve his name into posterity. According to OfficeSnapshots Steve Jobs was directly involved in the design of the building and offered his creative input in many matters of the company. Pixar’s facilities director stated that:

“Jobs strived for a campus that stood the test of time. He didn’t want a standard office-park building – one with corrugated metal siding or ribbon windows. The building had to look good 100 years from now That was his main criterion.”
Steve Jobs even acted as CEO of Pixar for a brief period of time in 2004, just before Disney brought the animation studio under their wing.

By Radu

Pixar dedicates main campus building to late CEO Steve Jobs

Bungling Cyber Spy Stalks Iran

Government departments, banks, and companies that operate critical infrastructure have fallen victim to badly crafted malware known as Mahdi.

Over the past two years, governments in the Middle East have been targeted by sophisticated spying software, apparently created by world-class researchers whom unknown nation-states are paying to target sensitive data and infrastructure. Yet the latest piece of malware successfully spying on banks, government departments, and companies in Iran and nearby countries is almost laughably amateur. Experts believe that the software, called Mahdi, may have been created by activists. This possibility suggests that the United States and other governments fretting about their vulnerability to cyberwar (see “NSA Boss Wants More Control Over the Net”) may need to worry about more than just other nations.

NSA Boss Wants More Control Over the Net

The Internet should be adapted to allow for oversight by the National Security Agency, the organization’s boss says.

The U.S. Internet’s infrastructure needs to be redesigned to allow the NSA to know instantly when overseas hackers might be attacking public or private infrastructure and computer networks, the agency’s leader, General Keith Alexander, said today.

New York Times seems to confirm the Mini iPad

The host of rumors that has been circling around the Internet about the upcoming ipad-mini plans from Apple seems to have a new proponent. The New York Times jumped on the band wagon reporting that the mini iPad might come out on the market as soon as this autumn. Is Apple rushing things? The editors of NYT seem not to think so.

The fact is that the tablet race is getting more and more competitive with Google starting the shipments of the Galaxy Nexus 7 last week. This tablet comes at a cheaper price and is smaller and maybe more practical than the iPad. Also Microsoft has made public its intentions of unleashing a tablet of its own, which it has nicknamed Surface. Amazon is not wasting any time either and is already working on a different version of the Amazon Kindle which is rumored to bring a larger screen.

Bearing this in mind, it is no wonder that Apple would think of producing a cheaper device so as to not fall behind in the race. As the market for tablets is expanding sales will rise up to 85% and the iPad is a very big part of the revenue coming from all parts of the world at the Cupertino hq.

This is an obvious change of strategy. Back in 2010 late Apple boss Steve Jobs commented on the subject of a 7-inch tablet saying that it would constitute a useless device since there would not be enough room to fine tune finger movements. Apparently that dogma has changed.

By Radu

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/te…ipad.html?_r=1