Scott Forstall, senior VP of iOS, to leave Apple in 2013

Apple has announced some major changes in the company's management, starting with the exit of senior vice-president of iOS software Scott Forstall from the company. Forstall will leave Apple in 2013 and till then will act as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook.

In the wake of him leaving the company, his responsibilities will be shared by four of Apple's current executives. Jony Ive, who is in charge of the Industrial Design department at Apple will now head the Human Interface department as well. This means Ive will now be in charge of the hardware as well as the software designs at Apple.

Meanwhile, Eddy Cue will take on responsibilities of Siri and Maps, Craig Federighi will lead both iOS and OS X and Bob Mansfield will lead a new group called Technologies that covers all the wireless teams at Apple.

It is said the Forstall was liked by few people within the company, least of all by Jony Ive, who apparently wouldn't even sit in the same meeting room as Forstall. According to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Forstall's "design taste, engineering management and abrasive style, and the whole iOS 6 Maps thing" were key factors in Forstall leaving the company, or to put it bluntly, him being made to leave the company.

According to The Verge, Forstall's biggest mistake was him refusing to sign his name on the apology letter that Apple issued regarding the customer dissatisfaction with the new iOS 6 Maps software. He thought the complaints over the data quality were over-blown, so instead Tim Cook signed his name on the letter.

With Craig Federighi leading iOS and Jony Ive handling the design department, we are really looking forward to some new design innovations in iOS in the future versions. Jony Ive's minimalist design taste with the hardware is almost universally loved and we would love to see more of that in the software, with less leather and linen backgrounds. Still, we would like to give credit where it's due and would like to thank Scott Forstall for giving us one of the best mobile operating systems of all time, which was nothing short of groundbreaking at the time it came out.

In other news, Apple's head of Retail John Browett is also leaving Apple. Browett joined the company in January this year and was apparently not one of the best employee choices made by Apple.

Source

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/scott_forstall_senior_vp_of_ios_to_leave_apple_in_2013-news-5020.php

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Behind the Lumia: How Nokia designs its phones

Nokia's executive vice president Kevin Shields

If you've ever found it hard to decide between two Nokia handsets because the cheaper model has some features you'd really like, that's deliberate Nokia executive vice president, Kevin Shields told TechRadar. Crazy? Shields thinks it makes perfect sense.

"As a consumer you have two good choices as opposed to there's a really good one and a sort of dumbed down one. At every price point we play in, we sort of want you when you walk in the store to not have price be your only decision.

"With the Lumia 610, we did a really delightful, beautiful colours and materials and design. Consumers picked that thing because it was cool looking even though it was a lot less expensive. We almost make you have to think 'Huh; that material they use in that phone is pretty cool; maybe I do want to get that one even though I can afford the more expensive one'. "

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What is NFC and why is it in your phone?

That means leaving the microSD slot out of the Lumia 920 leaves something for the Lumia 820, which also has the wireless charging option. And sometimes you have to suffer to look good; "we wanted to have an uncompromised physical form that generated a really beautiful device and if we put a microSD card in this thing it's just going to defile it."

Plus Shields says most users don't actually need extra storage. "Our research is showing us that consumers - especially with this phone - are streaming music, they're streaming video," Shields told us. "They aren't really using the storage they have anyway."

Taking out what people don't need

They don't need other high end features like HDMI out, because when you put them into handsets, they don't get used. "We know in software how often used and it's hardly ever activated. The industry is deeply guilty of innovation for the sake of innovation; it confuses things, consumers don't know what they are and are not supposed to care about.

"Let's just stop, let's do a few things that work really well for customer that are executed well and actually give them some really daily benefit."

So what new features are useful? Shields has a shopping list that sounds remarkably like the Lumia 920. "Take wireless charging; if we can get wireless charging to be ubiquitous this would be a real benefit. Optical image stabilisation; finally I can take a really good picture with my smartphone and not to feel I have to carry an SLR. A display that works great outdoors in bright sun and with gloves on.

"These are innovations that that are going to make your smartphone work better - and more usefully - for you in your normal life."

Ignoring features that sound good but don't get used also leaves more time for Nokia to solve technical problems like radio frequency interference. Moving the USB port to the bottom of the phone so it's easier to put it on a charging dock wasn't a trivial redesign. "This was a pain the in the rear end," Shields said with some feeling.

"It turns out that the micro USB port in phones is just an RF nightmare. The reason why you see it get put in these ridiculous places on phones is that there are antenna issues, they're trying to get it out of the way.

"The decision to put it where you want it on the bottom took some serious, serious engineering to do it and not end up with the antenna compromises. Having the headphone socket on the top is a little less difficult but it still has its own challenges. The point is to develop a really beautiful phone; don't screw with it."

Adding more radios

Building in wireless charging only adds to the problem, he points out. "Wireless charging effectively is radio; it's an antenna. Obviously NFC is too, then you got LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth… suddenly you have a lot of antennas and it gets really challenging to make them all work well together."

Wireless power isn't only about convenience - although we're really looking forward to a feature we last saw on the HP TouchPad.

Because the Lumia 920 has NFC, it knows which wireless charging pad you've paired it with so you can set specific applications to load when you put your phone down on each base. Your Lumia can show the clock when it's by the bed and photos or appointments when it's on your desk at work.

But the next stage is doing away with wires and ports altogether. "What I'm looking forward to is the day you don't have to hard power at all," Shields told us. The day is coming that the power port and the USB port don't have to be there anymore. That day is a long way away, there's a lot of inertia built up. But once you get all those ports off there, interesting things start to happen."

If you can seal a phone completely it's less likely to be damaged by dust or water and you can use the space from the power connector for something else.

It's not that easy, Shields points out. "There is actually one hole left after that, the earpiece hole and the mike so it's not like it's completely sealed at that point. But we have ideas about that too."

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/behind-the-lumia-how-nokia-designs-its-phones-1101883

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US House supports 5 more years of foreign surveillance

Monitoring, if passed by the Senate, to continue until 2017

While everyone is concentrating on whether or not President Barack Obama will get four more years in the White House, the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012 cleared the U.S. House of Representatives this week, giving the controversial act an additional five years.

This extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was due to expire on Dec. 31, 2012, passed on a 301 to 118 vote. Since 70 percent of representatives (227 Republicans and 74 Democrats) voted in favor of the bill, it exceeded the simple majority required to pass.

"The Act allows intelligence professionals to more quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications, while protecting the civil liberties of Americans," states to the bill's summary. The text attempts to make the case by illustrating foreign surveillance before the FISA Amendment.

"Admiral McConnell stated that the Intelligence Community was not collecting approximately two-thirds of the foreign intelligence information that it collected prior to legal interpretations that required the government to obtain individualized FISA court orders for overseas surveillance."

The bill cites changes in technology as justification: "This is contrary to what Congress intended when it enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978 and had come about due to changes in telecommunication technology."

Dubbed 'warrantless wiretap bill' by opponents

Critics have long decried the FISA Amendment as an overreach by the federal government and a violation of citizens' Fourth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The provisions of the FISA Amendment and its 2012 extension are a work around of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. That bill prevented the government from using its vast resources to spy on Americans in the wake of Richard Nixon's involvement in Watergate.

This has led opponents to routinely refer to the FISA Amendment as a "warrantless wiretap bill" and a spy program in which citizens can be unfairly targeted. On the latter criticism, dissenting Congressmen decry the lack of data available on how many citizens have been affected.

Backers, on the other hand, simply use its official name and point to the fact that the bill "requires court orders to target Americans for foreign intelligence surveillance, no matter where they are, and requires court review of the procedures used to protect information about Americans."

On to the Senate

Following its passage on the House floor, the FISA Amendment of 2012 is due for a vote by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The Senate, however, rubber stamped the FISA Amendment of 2008 with 22 Democrats and 46 Republicans voting in the affirmative. The only dissenters were the 27 Democrats.

On top of its bipartisan support, President Obama is in favor of the Bush-era Amendment and voted for the bill as a Senator in 2008. Prior to that vote, however, he opposed the Act because it retroactively granted immunity for telecommunications companies.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/other-phones/us-house-supports-5-more-years-of-foreign-surveillance-1097582

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FISA Amendment renewed by US House for 5 more years of foreign surveillance

Monitoring, if passed by the Senate, to continue until 2017

While everyone is concentrating on whether or not President Barack Obama will get four more years in the White House, the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012 cleared the U.S. House of Representatives this week, giving the controversial act an additional five years.

This extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was due to expire on December 31, 2012, passed on a 301 to 118 vote. Since 70% of representatives (227 Republicans and 74 Democrats) voted in favor of the bill, it exceeded the simple majority required to pass.

"The Act allows intelligence professionals to more quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications, while protecting the civil liberties of Americans," states to the bill's summary. The text attempts to make the case by illustrating foreign surveillance before the FISA Amendment.

"Admiral McConnell stated that the Intelligence Community was not collecting approximately two-thirds of the foreign intelligence information that it collected prior to legal interpretations that required the government to obtain individualized FISA court orders for overseas surveillance."

The bill cites changes in technology as justification: "This is contrary to what Congress intended when it enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978 and had come about due to changes in telecommunication technology."

Dubbed "warrantless wiretap bill" by opponents

Critics have long decried the FISA Amendment as an overreach by the federal government and a violation of citizens' Fourth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The provisions of the FISA Amendment and its 2012 extension are a work around of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. That bill prevented the government from using its vast resources to spy on Americans in the wake of Richard Nixon's involvement in Watergate.

This has led opponents to routinely refer to the FISA Amendment as a "warrantless wiretap bill" and a spy program in which citizens can be unfairly targeted. On the latter criticism, dissenting Congressmen decry the lack of data available on how many citizens have been affected.

Backers, on the other hand, simply use its official name and point to the fact that the bill "requires court orders to target Americans for foreign intelligence surveillance, no matter where they are, and requires court review of the procedures used to protect information about Americans."

On to the Senate

Following its passage on the House floor, the FISA Amendment of 2012 is due for a vote by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The Senate, however, rubber stamped the FISA Amendment of 2008 with 22 Democrats and 46 Republicans voting in the affirmative. The only dissenters were the 27 Democrats.

On top of its bipartisan support, President Obama is in favor of the Bush-era Amendment and voted for the bill as a Senator in 2008. Prior to that vote, however, he opposed the Act because it retroactively granted immunity for telecommunications companies.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/other-phones/fisa-amendment-renewed-by-us-house-for-5-more-years-of-foreign-surveillance-1097582

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