Reuter site - EBay, Wal-Mart search for revved-up search engines

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EBay, Wal-Mart search for revved-up search engines

Fri, May 04 12:36 PM EDT

By Alistair Barr

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - EBay Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc are developing new Web search engines to better compete against Amazon.com Inc in the fast-growing e-commerce market.

As more people shop online, they often end up at the top of a website typing in a product name. If they cannot find what they want quickly, they will likely go to a rival website or venture into a physical store.

"Amazon is on version 8.0 of search," said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell more online. "EBay is at 2.0, but they are thinking about how they make this huge leap to 3.0."

The stakes are high because e-commerce is a huge, fast-growing market, putting billions of dollars in sales up for grabs. U.S. retail spending online grew 13 percent to $161.5 billion last year, according to comScore. Physical retail sales are much larger, but the sector is struggling to grow and losing share to online operators.

COMING SOON ... CASSINI

EBay's search technology, known as Voyager, dates back to the first dot-com boom a decade ago. After the company appointed Mark Carges as chief technology officer in 2008, he tested eBay's search engine by typing in "iPod." A car topped the list of results because the seller noted in the listing title that it came with an iPod adapter.

"Search was clearly broken in 2008," Carges said.

Since then, eBay has gone on a hiring spree to fix search. The number of employees working in that area has tripled to more than 150. EBay also poached several engineers from Microsoft Corp's Bing search unit, including Ken Moss, who runs the Seattle office, and Hugh Williams, who oversees eBay's new search engine, Cassini, to be rolled out in 2013.

"More customers, plus better search, means people buy more stuff," eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said in a recent interview.

Cassini will trawl full product descriptions, rather than just the titles of listings, and match search queries to photographs of products, while taking into account information about the seller and the buyer.

By crunching data on what shoppers have bought and browsed on eBay in the past, Cassini search results should be more tailored to their intent. For instance, if a shopper types in "HP," Cassini will know if the person means horsepower or Hewlett-Packard Co, Williams said.

"Voyager is pretty literal. It takes a query and matches it faithfully against the title of items. It's not intuitive," he said. "Cassini will take the user's query and understand that."

The search engine project takes time because eBay's online marketplace has so much variable information from millions of listings that are described differently by each seller - something known as unstructured data in the tech world.

In contrast, Amazon typically starts with a catalog of items it has for sale, including strict product descriptions, which are easier to search.

THREAT TO GOOGLE?

Wal-Mart recently launched a new search engine on its website that was built in less than nine months with 10 to 15 developers, according to Anand Rajaraman, who helps run the discount retailer's Silicon Valley tech arm @WalmartLabs.

The new search technology focuses on groups of related terms and phrases people use when describing products, rather than matching queries to exact words in listings.

"Wal-Mart's search knows that a backyard chair is the same as a patio chair or a garden chair," Rajaraman said. "These product listings will come up on that search too."

If eBay and Wal-Mart can vastly improve search on their websites, that could eventually threaten Google Inc, the world's leading Internet search company.

"Google doesn't want you to go directly to eBay to search for products," said Oren Etzioni, a search expert at the University of Washington's computer science department. "A lot of what funds these search efforts are e-commerce ads. If eBay and others stop advertising as much on Google, that would be a problem."

A Google spokesman said the company is "very focused on product search." One of Google's latest upgrades to its shopping search uses visual-recognition technology to track down products, especially in the apparel and fashion categories.

Type "red dress" into Google's Shopping page and frocks sold by retailers like J.C. Penney Co Inc, Nordstrom Inc and Neiman Marcus show up. Shoppers can refine the results by choosing silhouettes, such as "Empire Waist" and "V-neck" on the left side of the page. Google matches those phrases with photos of red dresses with those shapes.

"The stakes have never been higher for whoever can deliver a high-quality shopping search experience for consumers," said Etzioni, who has advised firms including Google and Microsoft.

Etzioni founded airfare search company Farecast, which Microsoft bought in 2008. His latest project is Decide.com, a product search website that trawls thousands of news articles and blogs to advise shoppers when prices may change or new versions of gadgets may come out.

"I'm putting my money where my mouth is. We're building a next-generation shopping search ourselves," Etzioni said.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; editing by Matthew Lewis)

Reuter site - RIM offers BlackBerry 10 tools to lure developers

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RIM offers BlackBerry 10 tools to lure developers

Tue, May 01 10:23 AM EDT

By Alastair Sharp

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd on Tuesday offered initial software tools to developers looking to create applications for its new BlackBerry 10 platform, moving a step closer to perhaps the most crucial launch in its history later this year.

Aiming to reverse huge market-share losses to Apple Inc and Google Inc's Android, RIM is essentially starting from scratch with its next-generation BlackBerry 10 devices. The new platform will be compatible with few of the apps available for its existing smartphones, and legacy BlackBerry smartphones won't be able to run apps being created for the new platform.

RIM already is far behind Apple and Android in getting independent developers and content producers to build apps, making the BlackBerry much less attractive to consumers. RIM is looking to change that.

"Developers building for BlackBerry 10 will be able to easily create the kind of cutting-edge apps that deliver truly engaging experiences," said Alec Saunders, RIM's head of developer relations.

To kick-start the effort, RIM this week is handing out a prototype device, known as the Alpha Dev, to developers at its BlackBerry World conference in Orlando. The handset will enable them to test how their creations perform on the new platform.

Unlike most other BlackBerry models, Alpha Dev has no physical keyboard. It looks like a smaller version of RIM's PlayBook tablet, complete with a touch-sensitive frame that a user swipes to call up a menu.

While RIM says the hardware it eventually launches will look much different than the prototype, apps built for the Alpha Dev's 4.2 inch screen will allow for a "very seamless transition" to BlackBerry 10 devices, said Christopher Smith, vice-president for application platform and tools.

The toolkits RIM is offering cover work in native code, the Cascades user interface framework and web-based HTML5.

Cascades helps in the creation of graphically rich work, while native code gives developers access to core device features such as the camera. Work created with HTML5 - commonly used by developers of web content - is typically transferable to other mobile devices.

Cascades was developed by The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish user interface company RIM bought in 2010. It offers guidelines and a "cookbook" where developers can select an effect with a touch and have it written directly into their software.

For example, a developer can select the speed at which an icon drops down the screen and whether it bounces to a stop without worrying about the algorithms and code behind it.

RIM said it would add more tools in coming months and apps created with any of the BlackBerry 10 tools will run on the company's poor-selling PlayBook once the tablet is upgraded to the new platform. They will not work on RIM's older smartphones.

QUICKER DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

RIM said it had been working with some partners to ensure users have content and apps waiting for them when the devices are launched.

Among those developers are social fitness app maker Endomondo, magazine store PixelMags, local search app Poynt, and augmented reality company Wikitude.

Gameloft said it was working to bring 11 games to the new platform, including a puzzle game called "Shark Dash" and a more immersive title, "N.O.V.A 3: Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance."

"RIM has got it right with the BlackBerry 10 platform," said Adam Linford from Truphone, which offers local calling and data rates while its customers are roaming. "The platform's support for open-source components flattens the learning curve, enabling us to build a new application quickly and cost effectively."

Impressing developers is crucial for RIM, which has expanded beyond its traditional strength in providing mobile email to office workers, only to struggle against the more consumer-friendly iPhone from Apple and the slew of devices that make use of the Android platform.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has around 15,000 apps for its PlayBook tablet and 70,000 apps for its smartphones or the tablet, compared with 200,000 iPad apps, and half a million for the iPhone.

A recent survey from Appcelerator and IDC showed less than 16 percent of developers were "very interested" in creating programs for RIM, compared with 90 percent for Apple and 80 percent for Android.

Earlier on Tuesday, research firm IDC said that RIM's share of the global smartphone market had slipped to 6.7 percent in the first quarter, from 13.6 percent a year earlier.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Frank McGurty)

Reuter site - Microsoft buys Nook stake, Barnes & Noble shares soar

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Microsoft buys Nook stake, Barnes & Noble shares soar

Mon, Apr 30 20:49 PM EDT

By Phil Wahba and Bill Rigby

NEW YORK/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is jumping into the fast-growing e-books market by investing $605 million over five years in Barnes & Noble Inc's Nook e-reader and college business, as it looks to unlock Amazon.com and Apple Inc's grip on the exploding tablet computer market.

The move comes just six months before the world's largest software maker is due to launch its new touch-enabled Windows 8 operating system, and the inclusion of a Nook app on Windows tablets should allow them to compete with Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle Fire.

It also gives Microsoft a direct interest in electronic publishing just as the market for downloadable college textbooks starts to take off and the publishing industry undergoes a radical shift toward electronic distribution.

"It's a good strategic deal," said Sid Parakh, an analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen. "It gets Microsoft in the game for e-readers, and gives them access to a market that has been growing nicely and they've basically sat out of. It also makes Windows 8 a more compelling platform from an e-readers perspective."

In turn, Barnes & Noble gets a much-needed capital injection and a way to enter the digital books market outside the United States. The new unit will be run and majority owned by Barnes & Noble and will maintain a relationship with the U.S. bookstore chain's nearly 700 stores.

Shares of Barnes & Noble soared as much as 90 percent in early trading, before sliding back and ending with a 52 percent gain at $20.75. Microsoft shares, which recently hit a four-year high, edged up 0.1 percent to close at $32.015.

Microsoft's initial investment of $300 million, which will give it a 17.6 percent stake in the newly created Barnes & Noble subsidiary, values the new unit at $1.7 billion. Over the next five years, Microsoft has committed to invest another $305 million.

The deal - initially worth only 0.5 percent of Microsoft's cash hoard - is financially small, but strategically important for both companies.

Microsoft's Windows software still runs on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers, but the company has been left behind in the mobile revolution as millions of people do more computing on smartphones and tablets running Apple or Google's Android software. Microsoft has also struggled to make its mark on internet-based commerce, which is dominated by Amazon, or rival Apple and Google's online app stores.

"The deal brings Microsoft technology and engineers into the Nook business - that talent will be tapped to make the Nook even better," said Albert Greco, a book industry expert at the business school of Fordham University in New York. "It gives Microsoft a tablet already, and Barnes & Noble global reach for the Nook platform, through Windows 8."

Barnes & Noble Chief Executive William Lynch told Reuters that the investment would go primarily to fund the international rollout of the Nook's digital bookstores and new reading software for the Windows platform.

MICROSOFT BACKS ANDROID

Under the deal announced early on Monday, Microsoft will get a 17.6 percent stake in a new Barnes & Noble unit combining the bookseller's college bookstore and Nook businesses. Those areas made up just over $1 billion in sales last quarter, about 40 percent of Barnes & Noble's total.

Microsoft, which will get an unspecified share of the new unit's sales, will pay $25 million a year for the first five years to help with development costs and acquiring content, and will make an upfront payment of $60 million a year for the first three years after the launch of Windows 8, essentially guaranteeing minimum sales of that amount to Barnes & Noble.

That means Microsoft's total outlay will be at least $605 million.

As part of the deal, Microsoft has dropped a patent lawsuit against Barnes & Noble over the Nook, which runs on Google's Android system, and will get royalties on those patents. There is a possibility that future Nook models will be based on the Windows operating system, but executives would not comment on that in a call with analysts.

Barnes & Noble gets a much-needed capital injection and a way to enter the digital books market outside the United States. The new unit will be run by Barnes & Noble and will maintain a relationship with the U.S. bookstore chain's nearly 700 stores.

Barnes & Noble's Nook has found a strong following, allowing it to garner some 27 percent of the U.S. e-books market in the 2-1/2 years since the device was launched, compared with Amazon's 60 percent and Apple's 10 percent. But battling Amazon's market-leading Kindle has proved expensive.

"It gives them a much larger partner with deeper pockets, it gives them increased reach," said Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom. "In the last two years they've had their backs against the wall."

Last year, Barnes & Noble suspended its dividend to direct more cash into developing Nook, which resulted in a well-reviewed glow in the dark Nook introduced last month.

In January, however, it lowered its sales and profit forecasts as it faces pressure from Amazon's aggressive pricing strategy which has prompted it repeatedly to lower the prices on its own devices.

NOOK TO GO GLOBAL

Barnes & Noble has poured tens of millions of dollars into developing the Nook. The first version hit the market in 2009, two years after the Kindle.

The company's e-readers, tablets and electronic book sales have helped it offset a broader decline in book sales. Same-store sales of books at its brick-and-mortar stores have edged up again largely thanks to the bankruptcy last year of Borders Group.

But the Nook has been available only in the United States and the company said last year it wanted to take its digital business to new markets. Lynch told Reuters that deals to sell Nook through retailers abroad were "coming soon."

Barnes & Noble said in January that it might spin off its digital business, which includes the Nook, arguing that investors were not giving the company enough credit for that growth.

The company did not say on Monday if it would take the new venture public.

Barnes & Noble put itself up for sale in 2010 but attracted only one firm offer - a bid for $17 per share, or $1 billion, last May, from Liberty Media, which was drawn by the Nook's growth.

Liberty ultimately decided to invest $204 million rather than buy the company outright. It now has preferred shares it can convert into a 16.6 percent stake in Barnes & Noble at a strike price of $17.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba, Martinne Geller and Sinead Carew in New York and Bill Rigby in Seattle; Additional reporting by Mihir Dalal in Bangalore and Alistair Barr in San Francisco.; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Maureen Bavdek, Dave Zimmerman and Matthew Lewis)

Reuter site - It's not a BlackBerry World anymore

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It's not a BlackBerry World anymore

Mon, Apr 30 17:26 PM EDT

By Alastair Sharp

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - When Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie were running Research In Motion, BlackBerry World was a chest-thumping celebration of RIM's successes and a showcase for the innovations that would assure its continued dominance.

Their successor Thorsten Heins will preside over a very different event.

Three months after replacing the longstanding co-CEOs, Heins desperately needs more time to right the now-struggling company and he likely has next to nothing concrete to offer his restless audience in terms of new products and services.

In late March, Heins embarked on a strategic review of the Canadian smartphone maker's direction in an effort to reverse the growing power of Apple Inc and Google Inc's Android, and to thwart a budding Microsoft/Nokia resurgence.

The company is working furiously to get a next-generation lineup of smartphones on sale, while also seeking licensing deals, partnerships and cost savings of $1 billion this year.

Unless Heins has a big surprise up his sleeve at this year's BlackBerry World, held next week in Orlando, Florida, analysts expect him to focus on products and services already in market. Most of them have so far failed to capture the imagination of investors or consumers.

"It's too early in RIM's strategic review process to announce one particular strategy," IDC analyst Kevin Restivo said. "However, Heins would be wise to provide any kind of news to help staunch the bleeding."

Restivo expects RIM to tout any progress it's made in attracting developers and possibly announce a PlayBook that connects to cellular networks. That would make the 7-inch tablet more portable and give carriers an incentive to promote the device.

PRESENTATION DELAYED

BlackBerry World - which brings together several thousand RIM partners and customers - was once a must for financial analysts. But this year few are making the trip, in part because RIM has broken with tradition by cancelling a specific presentation for them. Instead it delayed the briefing until the next-generation BlackBerry 10s are on sale, sometime later this year.

In the year since RIM's last Orlando conference, the company has issued a string of disappointing financial results, suffered an embarrassing global network outage and watched its share price tumble by 75 percent.

Lazaridis and Balsillie quit under pressure in late January, replaced by Heins, a former Siemens AG executive who ran RIM's hardware business for several years.

"Expectations are so low I don't think it's possible to disappoint investors," said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson. "The conference isn't for investors anyway; it's for customers, developers and partners."

Thompson said RIM may use the event to introduce a marketing chief, which he said was long overdue. RIM is also seeking a chief operating officer.

"The company needs to display confidence and staying power at the show to keep this constituency loyal until the BlackBerry 10 smartphones are launched," he said.

Other RIM watchers privately pointed to subdued comments from a major investor and new board member last week as a hint not to expect much. Prem Watsa, who joined RIM's board in January's reshuffle, said that a turnaround could take three to five years.

LOOKING AHEAD

The BlackBerry 10 devices will be RIM's first smartphones to make use of a hardy operating platform from QNX Software, an Ottawa, Ontario-based company that RIM acquired in 2010.

RIM's first test of QNX was its PlayBook tablet, which has languished on store shelves since its launch a year ago. The company is eager to get software developers to build PlayBook applications that could then populate an app store for the new phones.

On the sidelines of BlackBerry World, the company will hand out a prototype BlackBerry 10 device for developers to test their software applications. RIM has stressed that the device's hardware bears no relation to the finished product.

The BlackBerry was once seen as an indispensable business tool but has been eclipsed by more consumer-focused iPhones and Android devices which boast large, vivid touchscreens and hundreds of thousands more applications and games.

RIM had an 8.8 percent slice of the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter, according to research firm Gartner, down from 14.6 percent a year ago. Apple and Android smartphones accounted for almost three-quarters of the market, up from less than half a year earlier.

Meanwhile, a partnership between Microsoft Corp and Nokia Oyj threatens both RIM's corporate heartland and its recent growth markets internationally.

By the time RIM launches its first BlackBerry 10s, its global share could slip to 6 percent, analysts at Canaccord Genuity said in February. They said the small base would make it difficult for RIM to create an ecosystem of applications and content for its new platform.

Recognizing it is powerless to stop iPhones and Android devices from invading its once-impenetrable corporate and government business, RIM launched its Mobile Fusion software to enable IT managers to control those devices through RIM's servers. But it has so far failed to go further.

Sources told Reuters last month that former co-chief executive Balsillie had worked for months on a radical shift in RIM's strategy that would have offered use of its proprietary network, including its popular BlackBerry Messenger chat program, for rival devices such as the iPhone.

Heins has since said he believes in RIM's integrated model - in which it runs its own software on its own devices connected exclusively to its global peer-to-peer network - but that he would consider offering that via partnership.

(This version of the story has been corrected in the third paragraph to change period to three months from five months)

(Editing by Frank McGurty)

Reuter site - UPDATE 1-RIM turnaround could take up to 5 years, Watsa says

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UPDATE 1-RIM turnaround could take up to 5 years, Watsa says

Thu, Apr 26 16:24 PM EDT

* Smartphone maker has fallen behind rivals

* Hurdles in the road, but a good buy at current
levels-Watsa

* Fairfax CEO says stocks better than bonds over next decade

* Shares rise 3.6 pct

By Cameron French

TORONTO, April 26 (Reuters) - Research in Motion Ltd
may take up to five years to regain its stride after
its recent stumbles, but the BlackBerry maker's stock is a good
value at current levels, investor Prem Watsa said on Thursday.

Speaking at the annual shareholder meeting of Fairfax
Financial Holdings Ltd, the Canadian insurer he heads,
Watsa said he believed RIM's recent troubles were mere hurdles
for a company he called a "Canadian success story."

"Is it going to turn around in three months, six months,
nine months? No," Watsa told reporters after the meeting in
Toronto. "But if you're looking four, five years ... We make
investments over four or five years."

RIM's once high-flying shares have dropped 70 percent during
the past 12 months as it has bled market share to smartphone
rivals such as Apple Inc while demand for its Playbook
tablet device has floundered.

RIM's Toronto-listed shares rose nearly 4 percent Thursday
afternoon to C$13.90, likely helped by reports on a
Blackbery-focused blog that RIM plans to announce its first
BlackBerry 10 device in August for an October launch.

RIM declined to comment on the report, citing its standard
policy not to talk about rumors and speculation. The company
said in late March the first BlackBerry 10 device remained on
track for a launch in the latter part of the year.

VALUE INVESTOR

Watsa, a value investor whose approach and acumen is
sometimes compared to Warren Buffett's, joined RIM's board in
January as part of a front-office shuffle in which Thorsten
Heins replaced longtime co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike
Lazaridis.

Watsa also boosted Fairfax's stake in RIM to 5.1 percent at
the time, making it one of the company's largest shareholders.

Asked what he saw in the struggling company, Watsa pointed
to his close friendship and admiration for Lazaridis, who
remains on the company's board, and suggested shareholders have
been to quick to give up on the company.

"Mike Lazaridis is a technical genius. Some of you might
forget that this is a company in Canada that invented the
(mobile) email service that we all use. It's not like Apple
wasn't there, and Google wasn't there," he said,
stressing that he was speaking as an investor, rather than as a
board member.

Once the dominant player in the smartphone sector, RIM's
Blackberry has withered from competition from Apple's iPhone and
Google's Android system, prompting Lazaridis and Balsillie, the
men who had engineered RIM"s rise, to step down in favor of
former Siemens executive Heins.

More recently, RIM has hired lawyers to work out a
restructuring plan that could include selling assets, seeking
joint ventures or licensing patents, according to people briefed
on the matter.

Watsa would not comment on how RIM should move forward,
stressing that his investment was based primarily on his belief
the stock was undervalued.

"The stock price is down 90 percent (from its all-time high
in 2008). That overrides everything else," he said.

"People think that ... when things are going down it's over,
and when things are going up, it will never stop. The reality is
it's different," he said, noting the company's strong cash
position and lack of long-term debt.

"But there's no guarantees," he said.

GOOD MACRO CALLS

Watsa has built a reputation as a shrewd investor by
correctly calling major market disruptions like the 2008 and
1987 stock market crashes, and making billions for Fairfax as a
result.

Speaking at the meeting, he said he would maintain the
company's hedges on its equity holdings, as he believed the
equity market would retrench over the next few years.\

Further out, however, he said the days of bonds
outperforming stocks were likely over.

"If you take a 10-year view, stocks are going to be a
terrific place," he said. "For us, caution is the best way
forward."

Reuter site - App aims to make "Hey Sexy" a sound of old New York

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App aims to make "Hey Sexy" a sound of old New York

Tue, Apr 24 18:19 PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exasperated by the wolf whistles and cat calls that seem to be the universal welcome for women passing construction sites? New York City is creating an app for that.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor in 2013, said on Tuesday that $20,000 in city funding has been approved for development of a mobile-phone application to fight sexual harassment on the streets and subways.

It will be developed by the creators of hollabacknyc.com, a website that asks people to use camera phones to take a photo or video of their harasser and post it online. The new app is expected to work in a similar fashion but could also alert authorities to particularly egregious offenders.

"Harassers out there take note - We're going to know who you are, where you are, what you said and how many times you said it," Quinn told reporters.

"The days of thinking you can make life uncomfortable for women and girls are going to be over through old-fashioned girl power and 21st Century technology."

Research to develop the app is still underway but it will likely feed information into a collection center, Quinn said.

Review of the data may lead to sensitivity training for workers in particularly offending professions or for residents of badly behaved neighborhoods, she said. The most offensive data may be funneled to the New York City Police Department.

"Sometimes catcalling can be harassment or aggravated harassment," Quinn said. "It's a complete violation of someone's right to exist freely and safely in this city and it is also a terrible message to young boys that this is the way grown men conduct themselves."

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and David Brunnstrom)

Reuter site - Trimble Navigation to buy Google's SketchUp

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Trimble Navigation to buy Google's SketchUp

Thu, Apr 26 10:29 AM EDT

(Reuters) - Trimble Navigation Ltd has agreed to buy SketchUp 3D modeling platform from Google Inc for an undisclosed price, the companies said.

As part of the SketchUp platform, Trimble will partner Google in developing SketchUp's 3D Warehouse — an online repository where users can find, share, store and collaborate on 3D models, the companies said in a joint statement.

Trimble, which makes surveying, mapping, and marine navigation equipment, said SketchUp will enhance the integration of its field presence with the wider enterprise.

SketchUp is a free 3D modeling platform that helps in designing 3D models within Google Earth — a virtual map of most of the planet's surface.

The platform enables users to create collections of models, including 3D buildings, and share them with fellow modelers around the world.

SketchUp, which was a tiny startup when it was bought by Google in 2006, now boasts of millions of active users.

"With over 30 million SketchUp activations in just the last year, we're awfully proud of our accomplishments," John Bacus, SketchUp product manager wrote in a blog post.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012, and it would not be material to Trimble's 2012 earnings.

Trimble's stock was trading flat at $53.98 in morning trade on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Good times with the POTUS

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Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Sunday mornings

Sunday mornings

Part one

The one thing I remember most about Sunday mornings were my mothers outfits. Her hats were so ornate. The colors screamed at you in golds and purples and reds and auburn. And her suits were amazing as well. I remember this one gold suit she had. Loved it so much. And she had the golden shoes to match. With the gold and purple hat, and the suit had these bright golden buttons.

In the Jamaican sunlight, everything looked heavenly. Your skin glowed with the awesomeness of love. A country with so much culture and vibes and music with such conservative traditions. Blame it on the English monarchy or the religious indoctrination, but if you weren't in reggae, dancehall, or calypso, you were in church. And Sunday morning was quite a parade.

My fathers outfits were nothing to scoff at either. He had this brown suit that shined like it was polished with light and dark stripes pinned to each other. In the caribbean sun it looked like he had just stepped out of the morning news and into your life, live and direct.

We were a family of beauty. I spit polished my shoes. My sister had curly blonde bangs in her hair. The had called her Goldie locks because of her fair complexion and sunlight kissed mane. My brother came along later on and did not stay long enough in the island to participate in the unofficial pageant that was Sunday morning service. But his baby clothes and carriage were nothing to scoff at either.

We were the Nation family. My father was Keith Nation, the youth president for the biggest Pentecostal church in Jamaica and and held the National position of youth president as well. He bought and sold auto parts for a living and also rented cars to Jamaican ex patriates who visited the island for vacations and to anyone that wanted to look fashionable on wheels. He had style, swag, and was a serious man.

My mother was a lab technician that often times put her career on pause to help my dad with his businesses, returning on and off when finances were needed. Eventually for health reasons, she couldn't continue with the chemical company she worked for, and worked with my dad full time. At least that how I remember it as a child. It is what I was told.

Mom had worked for Sherlhome Chemicals. The were a nationally recognized cleaning products company. They had commercials on prime time Jamaican TV, billboards all across the island, and print adds and the national publications, The Daily Gleaner, The Weekly Star, The Daily Star, The Sunday Herald, The Jamaican Observer, and the like. I was proud to have known my own mother had a hand in making the chemicals the kept the country clean. Every time I saw a billboard for Sherlhome Chemicals, I would say to myself with pride ,"my Mommy makes that".

I remember going to the parties her company used to have. Awesome beauty. Jamaican professionals, light skinned, dark skinned, white, asian, all colors, and the national motto goes, "Out of many, One People".

And it was on on Sunday morning. You dare not leave the house without primping and priming every aspect of your body. Your hair must be well oiled with Dixie Peach hair oil. A clear petroleum jelly that was very popular in the island back them. It was on my the family dresser which was really my Mom and Dad's dresser that me and my sister adopted for ourselves on Sundays. Teeth scrubbed to the max and flossed, mother always said, "take the pains to keep your teeth clean". Mom had taught me from when I could walk tie my shoes how to press my shirts and my pants. I had my own iron and ironing board and I always spent minutes or hours getting my shirts and pants pressed tight with the long crease down the front and back of each leg, we wore 'Chaplin' pants back then, baggy dress pant like the ones Charlie Chaplin wore in his movies with pleats in them. Three on each side normally, or if you were fancy, you would have variations in yours. If you were daring, you would try to get away with what the youth of my time called 'bell bottoms'. The style of today, a flat pants front with no pleats, tight and low at the waist with some room in the ankle were the stuff of jokes and ridicule back then, and only older folks, being forty and older, would even dare step out in public with such designs.

I spent time getting my pleats straight. Spraying them with the water in the iron or pouring water from a cup, dragging the iron across the wet garments and watching the steam hiss and rise like snakes from a snake charmers whistle.

With shiny hair, shiny shoes, pressed and straight pants, and sharp shirt collar, and stunning neck tie, I was proud to be Brother Nation's big son. "young Nation" is what they called me. And I liked it.

After we were all ready, we would go into the gaily vehicles, and travel to Sunday morning service.

The funny thing about the family vehicle, is we never really had one for a long time. We had like five. My father's auto business gave him access to many of the latest model of motor vehicles. Nissan Sunnys and Nissan Sentras, Toyota Camrys and Ladas, but the one I remember the most is the stone white Mazda RX7. That was the first family I remember, the last one was a Ford Escort. In between were company cars of various designs like the Burgundy Honda Civic that one of my Dad's employees wrecked on Flat Bridge. That burgundy was amazing with a powdered finish, the man who wrecked it was lucky to survive and from what I can remember and I will never forget this, he was skidding, and tried to get out of the skid, and the car flipped over. Now if you know Jamaica, and you know Flat Bridge, you know that Flat Bridge is the most terrifying bridge to cross in the world, it is between two banks over a river with no railings and looks like driving your vehicle across a tight rope with ninety degree turns on each side. That burgundy Honda Civic, flipped over on that Bridge, and if it ended up in the river or the banks, I do not know, but the top of the vehicle when it was brought back to my Dad's shop was caved in. A part of my Dad's business along with buying and selling parts, and renting fancy wheels, was auto body repair. His guys put the bits and pieces back together of that vehicle, but like humpty dumpty, it was never quite the same. They worked weeks if not months on that vehicle, and I watched them every day after school when I would spend evenings at my Dad's place of business. They hammered it and welded it and sanded it and putty and what not all over it and painted it till it was good as used.

The Mazda RX7 had a special demise. We were all packed in the sports sedan. I was six years old. My sister was two. My mother was still in her twenties, and my father just into his thirties. We were an amazing family. I was all polished and shined up, my Mom had on her Gold and Purple Sunday suit, my father was wearing his Brown Bomber, my sister with her red complexion and sunny kinky hair, we were going to Sunday Morning Service and Sunday School. My father, the Sunday School teacher, my mother, a Sunday school teacher, young professionals late for the Sunday parade, my dad, speeding in the sports car with his two young children in the back slams on the breaks. I lurch out of my seat, flying against his and falling to the floor of the car, my sister was strapped in her car seat, my Mom has screamed out in her beautiful and elegant Jamaican accent, "Jesus!" and my father was quiet as a mouse, eyes wide open, teeth clenched tight. I looked up from where I was, on the floor of the rear of the car, if I was not six years old and all of three feet long or so, I would have still been in the back seat, but I managed to fly around the rear and end up on the floor, I saw blood all over the cracked windshield. The boy my father had hit was on the sidewalk, wincing in pain,his back a pattern of cuts and bruises, like a hundred shards of glass were crudely spread in a plaid pattern across his backside. He was in pain. He and his friends were playing cricket, and he ran out into the street to get the ball, and my fathers car with his his family in it, and that boy and his backside both collided.

After the vehicle was repaired, my father tinted the windshield. Yup. Tint it a midnight black. He sold the vehicle not long after that and rotation of family vehicles began not long after.

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Reuter site - Still in the frame, the camera defies smartphone onslaught

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Still in the frame, the camera defies smartphone onslaught

Wed, Apr 25 01:55 AM EDT

By Jeremy Wagstaff, Asia chief technology correspondent

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - While most attention in the gadget world is on the breakneck pace of innovation in mobile phones, tablets and computers, another device has resolutely refused to die: the camera.

Despite the onslaught of camera phones — the iPhone 4 has this year become the most popular device for posting snaps to the photo-sharing website Flickr — cameras are still being sold. Japan, the world's largest manufacturer, shipped nearly three times as many cameras in January as it did in the same month of 2003, when the camera phone was still in its infancy.

"For several years, it has been predicted that smartphone adoption would cut into digital camera sales," said Prashant Malaviya, Associate Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "In fact, the exact opposite has happened."

Driving this is a number of factors, analysts and enthusiasts say. And, while most point to a continuing role for cameras for both professional and personal users, the device's future is far from assured.

Firstly, photography is personal. We may be happy taking snaps with our cellphone or simple point-and-shoot camera, but it turns out that most of us won't entrust key memories to such basic devices. Surveys by NPD In-Stat last November show that while more than a quarter of all American photos were taken by a smartphone, more people were buying cameras with detachable lenses or cameras with optical zooms of 10x or more.

This, says NPD In-Stat senior digital imaging analyst Liz Cutting, is because those people taking important family photos don't want to trust them to a device that isn't up to the task. "Camera photography is certainly not dead," said Cutting. "We're just seeing a skewing towards what the smartphone can't deliver. People are recognizing that and are going for a higher end camera."

This in turn benefits the established players, because users are reluctant to entrust their photos to an untested brand. We may be ready to try out a new brand of cellphone, laptop or TV, but when it comes to family snaps we're more conservative. "It's part of who you are, showing the kind of brand of camera you have," Cutting said. "But it's also trusting the quality of that memory because that's how you remember your life."

This has helped entrench several key players, some of whom have dominated the scene for a generation or more — Canon Inc <7751.T>, Nikon Corp <7731.T>, Sony Corp <6758.T>, Olympus Corp <7733.T>, Pentax <7752.T>, Fuji <4901.T> and Panasonic Corp <6752.T>.

CANON FODDER

Canon has been one of the main beneficiaries of this, maintaining a strong brand from the professional high end to the point-and-shoot bottom, says Christopher Chute, global imaging chief at International Data Corp. Canon has seen its camera business grow as the proportion of its overall sales to more than 25 percent in 2008 from below 11 percent in 1999. In a survey of more than a quarter of a million users of Ontario-based gadget website Sortable.com, Canon was the most popular brand, with a third of the vote.

Not that its rivals are standing idle.

Panasonic, Olympus, Pentax and Nikon have in the past few years launched a new kind of camera that matches the quality of lenses of a professional model with the sleek, light body of a pocket, point-and-shoot device. Although these mirrorless cameras aren't a lot cheaper than the professional digital single lens reflex (DSLR) model, they are lighter and more compact.

This has won them fans among both those trading up and those looking to replace or supplement their professional gear. Ong Hock Chuan, a hobbyist who runs a Jakarta public relations company, recently sold his heavier Canon EOS 50D for a mirrorless Sony NEX-7. Price wasn't a factor. "I was tired of lugging around an SLR and getting a hernia for it," he said. Canon has yet to announce a mirrorless model.

Not only are camera manufacturers seeking an edge over each other: They're battling the encroachment of camera phones on to their territory.

At the bottom, Nokia and other mobile manufacturers have long partnered with lens makers like Carl Zeiss to improve the quality of photographs and phones, a trend which has meant many mobile phones now do a better job of a point-and-shoot camera. The appeal of the camera phone has also grown as social media services like Facebook <FB.O> make it possible to share a photo with friends and family as soon as it's taken.

This leaves the compact point-and-shoot camera segment of the market vulnerable.

In markets such as the United States and Japan, says Japan-based IHS analyst Kun Soo Lee, there's not many more people who want to buy one. On the one hand, this is eating into sales that Canon and others traditionally dominated. On the other, the ease with which photos can be taken on a phone is feeding an interest in taking better photos, expanding the middle of the market into a "pro-sumer" segment of devices which cost a bit more but offer the user options so far unavailable on the mobile phone: An optical, rather than digital, zoom, for example, better flash, and image stabilization.

CANNIBALISATION, INNOVATION

This is driving manufacturers to push more and better technology from their upper end models into cheaper devices. Prices have fallen dramatically in the past decade, says Mark Walters of U.S.-based website TechBargains.com. Ten years ago a 3-megapixel DSLR camera would cost $3,000; now a better quality 18-megapixel DSLR can be found for less than $500. "The technology that has trickled down into the more consumer-targeted DSLRs is incredible," he said.

Lowering prices and raiding the technologies of formerly professional models is not without danger. "This pricing strategy has certainly caused some cannibalization of sales at the higher end for the likes of Canon and Nikon," said Walters, "but they make up for it with volume at the low end by selling more critical accessories like lenses and flashes."

Manufacturers are also competing through innovation.

Apart from mirrorless cameras, there have been improvements in sensors and a technology called high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, which layers images at different exposures. "There's an amazing amount of innovation in digital photography equipment at the moment," said Melbourne-based Sydney Low, a former Internet entrepreneur who now takes sports photos for a living. "More so in many ways than Apple <AAPL.O>, HP <HPQ.N> and other computer manufacturers."

While enthusiasts like Low believe that still cameras will eventually be replaced by video cameras — from which scenes can be grabbed — others believe that eventually mobile phone and camera will start to look and feel more like each other.

A range of cameras launched in the past few months, said NPD In-Stat's Cutting, have for the first time included WiFi chips, making it possible for users to share their photos much as a smartphone user might. "It has to be easy, and we haven't hit that yet," she said.

Just as the camera gets smaller and more sociable, so will the mobile phone evolve to incorporate features presently only available on a camera. IHS's Kun said the introduction of 12 megapixel cameras into smartphones, for example, is a "kicker to change the market."

Then, said J. Gerry Purdy of cellphone analysts MobileTrax, there's Polaroid's SC1630, announced in January and due to be launched this year: an Android device with an optical zoom. These and other innovations, Purdy said, may usher in a future where a smartphone camera "will perform as well as today's digital cameras with large optical zoom and larger lenses." California-based Pelican Imaging Corp, for example, promises a camera that will improve image and video quality while allowing for thinner smartphones.

How traditional players react to these challenges is unclear. Canon, for example, has no obvious strategy to combat the rise of the smartphone, said IHS's Kun, and so will have to keep on peddling digital cameras. In the meantime other technologies may arise either inside or outside the industry.

Says IDC's Chute: "Everything is up in the air."

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)