Author: Brad Reed

One of the big questions surrounding Apple this year is whether there will be any significant market for its so-called “iWatch” that will reportedly act as a wearable computing accessory that can complement its other mobile devices. PCMag points us to a new survey of North American consumers from ChangeWave Research showing that roughly one in five consumers are either “somewhat” or “very” likely to buy an Apple-branded watch when it’s released. ChangeWave director of operations Andy Golub told PCMag that interest in the still-unconfirmed “smartwatch” is a testament to Apple’s enduring brand strength with consumers and noted that “Apple’s track record of delivering ultra-convenient, easy to use products with a perceived ‘cool factor’ is driving pre-release demand.”

Although gadget fans may be itching to buy a Google Glass headset, it seems that they’ll have to wait a bit longer before they get their chance. The Telegraph reports that Google chairman Eric Schmidt has told the BBC’s Radio 4 that the company expects to offer Glass to the general public in roughly one year’s time, which would give it a release date of early to mid 2014. Glass, which Google has been teasing for the past year as a headset capable of projecting images and data onto users’ eyes, features a 640 x 360 pixel display, 16GB of internal storage, a microUSB port and a 5-megapixel camera capable of shooting 720p video. While Google was originally aiming to release Glass sometime in 2013, it seems that the company has pushed back its launch timeline into at least next year.

We tend to think of an open source operating system as something that gives both smartphone vendors and end users more freedom to customize their experiences. But as Bronte Capital’s John Hempton points out, open source software can have a dark side as well if it is changed by authoritarian governments to limit the information that end users can access. Hempton says he bought a Samsung Desire HD off of eBay from a Middle Eastern country a couple of years ago and found that “it did not contain any access to the Google market place (Google’s equivalent of the App store),” that “it had limited apps and no possibility of adding more” and “it contained a non-standard web browser and a non-standard email client (leaving open the possibility of the State watching what I wrote and said).”

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While Steve Ballmer’s job is still safe for now, a major new investment from an activist hedge fund could put pressure on Microsoft’s chief executive to significantly boost shareholder value or risk coming under greater scrutiny. CNBC’s David Faber on Monday reported that hedge fund ValueAct has taken a $2 billion stake in Microsoft, which is likely large enough to make the firm one of Microsoft’s 15 largest investors.

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Good news for Daily Show fans: You’ll still be able to watch clips of Jon Stewart on YouTube. The Los Angeles Times reports that Viacom has lost a major copyright suit against YouTube after “a federal judge in New York on Thursday ruled that YouTube had not violated Viacom’s copyright even though users of the popular online site are allowed to post unauthorized video clips from some of Viacom’s most popular shows.” U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed Viacom’s lawsuit and said that a safe-harbor provision within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects YouTube from copyright infringement charges. In response to the ruling, Google’s general counsel Kent Walker said that “this is a win not just for YouTube, but for people everywhere who depend on the Internet to exchange ideas and information.”

This has certainly been a pretty quiet spring for Apple so far, as the company has made more headlines for reported product delays than actual product releases. While Apple has remained silent, its share price has continued to plummet, plummeting from a high of over $700 in September all the way down to below $400 this week. Barron’s points us to a new note from Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes, who makes a fairly bullish case for Apple that assumes that the company “does SOMETHING by September and lifts itself from an almost ‘frozen state’ during the March quarter.”

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Samsung’s next big thing could be very big indeed if its engineers succeed in creating brain-controlled tablets. Technology Review reports that Samsung’s Emerging Technology Lab has teamed up with University of Texas electrical engineering professor Roozbeh Jafari to research “how to bring mind control to its mobile devices with the hope of developing ways for people with mobility impairments to connect to the world.”

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Anyone who wonders why Google has poured so many resources into Android, Google Fiber and Motorola should understand that the company doesn’t plan to make money by selling smartphones or by being an ISP. Instead, Google’s game plan is to boost traffic to its hugely profitable websites and raise the rates that it can charge advertisers. A new chart from Asymco’s Horace Dediu, posted below, shows that Google websites such as YouTube, Google Maps and plain old search remain as vital as ever to Google’s success as a company, with both its websites and network websites combining for more than $10 billion in revenues.

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If Sprint was hoping that Dish’s merger offer would get rival suitor SoftBank to up its bid, it may come away disappointed. An unnamed SoftBank executive tells Bloomberg that the company has no plans to sweeten its offer and instead “will focus on its existing plans” for acquiring the company. As it stands now SoftBank’s $20.1 billion offer is significantly less than the $25.5 billion offer that Dish proposed earlier this week. Sprint has formed a special committee to take a look at Dish’s offer and Dish has asked the Federal Communications Commission to hold off on approving the proposed SoftBank merger until Sprint executives have had the opportunity to evaluate the competing offer.

The Federal Trade Commission’s new chairwoman doesn’t trust advertising companies to play by the honor system. AdWeek reports that FTC chair Edith Ramirez  said this week that “consumers await a functioning Do Not Track system, which is long overdue,” thus implying that the current Do Not Track system is inadequate. Instead, Ramirez said that web users needed “a persistent Do Not Track mechanism that allows consumers to stop control of data across all sites, and not just for targeting ads.” Both Google and the Digital Advertising Alliance last year agreed to adhere to a Do Not Track system that lets users restrict the data that  websites can collect about them through cookies. However, the DAA drew some significant criticism last year when it announced that its members would not honor the Do Not Track settings of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser because it made Do Not Track the default option for users.

Dish will obviously have a hard time buying Sprint if SoftBank is allowed to buy it first, which is why the company is asking the Federal Communications Commission to delay any action on the proposed Sprint-SoftBank merger until Dish’s own proposal gets a fair shake. Bloomberg reports that Dish is describing its $25.5 billion bid for Sprint as “an important new development” that Sprint executives need time to consider before the FCC moves to sign off on a deal with SoftBank. In particular, Dish argues that because its “merger proposal is currently before the Sprint board of directors, the question of which transaction the commission ultimately should be deciding is unsettled.” Dish’s announcement earlier this week that it was interested in buying Sprint marked the first time that the satellite television provider had signalled a clear intent to move into the mobile voice and data market.

Google on Thursday posted first quarter earnings of $11.58 per share on revenue of $11 billion, thus beating Street expectations of $10.64 in EPS on $11.11 billion in sales. The $11.58 EPS represented a 15% year-over-year increase from Q1 2012. Google’s shares immediately climbed by 2% in after hours trading on news that it had beat expectations. On the downside for Google was the $271 million operating loss posted by its Motorola Mobility unit, which the company has struggled to return to profitability ever since its acquisition in 2012. The company’s full press release is posted below.

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