BlackBerry’s all-out price war in the UK

The Curve 9320 is the last of the BlackBerry phones using the old operating system, and it is the cornerstone of RIM’s attempt to salvage its Christmas season. The UK is Research In Motion’s (RIMM) most important market in Europe. The latest Kantar World Panel numbers for August-October period showed BlackBerry’s share of the UK market crashing from 19% to 8% in a year, but RIM is now executing the most aggressive BlackBerry price campaign British consumers have ever seen in a bid to stand its ground before its new devices arrive. As the price of the 9320 crashes to rock bottom, the high-end BlackBerry Bold pricing remains at a completely unrealistic level. It looks like British operators have given up on pricier BlackBerry phones and are now putting all promotional support behind the dirt cheap 9320. What does this mean for the launch of the next generation of high-end RIM models in 2013? The British phone retail giant Phones4U just broke new ground by dropping the price of the 9320 from £150 to just £99. Traditionally, even the cheapest Curve models have cost around £130 in the UK during the first year on the market. The 9320 debuted in May and it is already breaking the 100-pound barrier. In comparison, Phones4U’s Christmas pre-paid deal for Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy Ace II is £156. Nokia’s (NOK) cheapie Lumia 800 starts at £150. The price of the six-month old BlackBerry 9320 is now comparable to the Samsung Galaxy Ace — an old war-horse that first rode in the spring of 2011. At another UK retail powerhouse, E2Save, the price of the 9320 remains at £130. But on the contract phone side, E2Save is launching a monster BlackBerry campaign: the cheapest 9320 now starts at under £10 per month. This is unprecedented for a new BlackBerry device. The cheapest monthly offers for budget Android phones like the Galaxy Y and the Galaxy Ace stand at £25 and £17. High-end smartphones have contract prices starting from £35 per month. RIM has started executing an amazingly aggressive Christmas price war in the UK. This is no big surprise; according to Kantar, BlackBerry’s market share in the UK crashed from 19% to 8% between autumn 2011 and autumn 2012. The company has to stanch the bleeding now in order to maintain some leverage with British retailers before new models arrive in 2013. But what is happening to the brand perception? The first new-generation BlackBerry phones are going to be priced close to the BlackBerry Bold level. That aging flagship still costs a hair-raising £440 in the UK pre-paid market and £31-39 per month in the contract phone category. This isremarkably close to Samsung Galaxy S III pricing, a true sign of delusion. The UK operators have apparently completely given up on the Bold and RIM sees no reason to offer steep price cuts for the device. The 9320 is now the only game in town. Perhaps this makes short-term, margin management sense. Perhaps the goal is to protect the high-end BlackBerry brand. But the result is that the only deals the consumers see are the ones hawking BlackBerry phones at £99 in pre-paid and £10 per month as contract devices. These are Huawei-level prices. How on Earth is RIM going to then pivot in February and ask £500 for unsubsidized phones and £35 per month contract prices for the next-generation BlackBerry phones? This will be the branding challenge of the 2013 in the telecom industry.

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Nokia Siemens to close services unit: sources

FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks' (NSN) services unit faces closure as an essential contract with Deutsche Telekom will not be extended, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. One person said the closure, effective en 2013 would be announced on Wednesday during a workers' meeting in Kassel. NSN Services, which generates under 100 million euros ($130.7 million) in annual sales and employs about 1,000 people, ensures that calls and data are transmitted via overhead cable networks. Deutsche Telekom sold the unit to NSN five years ago. At the time the two companies agreed on a 5-year 300 million euro services contract. The unit also counts Vodafone as a customer. The contract would not be extended, the person said. German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung first reported about the closure of the unit. Verdi union representative Mike Doeding said that a meeting to update workers about next year's plans was scheduled for Wednesday, adding he had no idea about the message to be expected. "If they are to close the unit it would be an outrage," Doeding said. NSN declined to comment, while Deutsche Telekom referred to NSN for comment. NSN, a 50-50 joint venture between Nokia Oyj and Siemens AG, is cutting costs and plans to shed a quarter of its staff and sell product lines to focus on mobile broadband. NSN had 60,600 employees at the end of the third quarter. The telecoms equipment market is going through rough times with stiff competition from Chinese peers Huawei and ZTE as the major telecoms operators postpone investments, faced with shrinking markets due to the weak economy. France's Alcatel-Lucent is also cutting costs. On Monday, NSN said it was selling its optical fiber unit to Marlin Equity Partners, resulting in the transfer of up to 1,900 employees, mainly in Germany and Portugal.

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Digital rights groups blast Dutch computer plan

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Digital rights groups have called on the Dutch justice minister to retract a proposal that would give the country's police the right to break into computers, including foreign citizens' computers, to combat cybercrime. Minister Ivo Opstelten says investigators have the right to install Internet taps with court permission, citing the need to fight online pedophiles. That sometimes requires breaking into computers. But a coalition of rights groups — including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Netherlands' Bits of Freedom — say other countries will likely follow suit and then attempt to enforce their own laws abroad. The coalition said "these local laws would not solely address cybercrime, but also issues deemed illegal in other countries, such as blasphemy and political criticism." The Dutch parliament debates the proposal this week.

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Nokia Siemens cerrará su división de servicios: fuentes

FRANCFORT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - La división de servicios de la empresa de redes Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) enfrenta su cierre debido a la cancelación de un contrato esencial con la empresa de telecomunicaciones alemana Deutsche Telekom, dijeron el martes dos fuentes con conocimiento del tema. Una persona dijo que el cierre, que se hará efectivo en el 2013, se anunciará el miércoles durante una reunión con los empleados. NSN Services, que genera ventas anuales por 100 millones de euros (130,7 millones de dólares) y emplea a unas 1.000 personas, se asegura de la transmisión de llamadas y datos por redes de cables aéreas. Deutsche Telekom le vendió la unidad a NSN cinco años atrás. NSN declinó comentar. La firma, una asociación en partes iguales entre Nokia Oyj y Siemens AG, está bajando costos y planea reducir su plantilla y vender líneas de productos para enfocarse en el negocio de banda ancha móvil. NSN tenía 60.000 empleados a fines del tercer trimestre. El mercado de equipos para telecomunicaciones está atravesando un momento complejo con una fuerte competencia de firmas chinas como Huawei y ZTE, a la vez que los operadores de telefonía posponen inversiones.

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Data: New (physical) book chronicles the virtual

NEW YORK (AP) — We question. We research. We catalog. We quantify. We aggregate, calculate, communicate, analyze, extrapolate and conclude. And eventually, if we're fortunate and thoughtful, we understand. These are the contours of the society that has taken shape in the past generation with the rise of an unstoppable, invisible force that changes human lives in ways from the microscopic to the gargantuan: data, a word that was barely used beyond small circles before World War II but now governs the day for many of us from the moment we awaken to the extinguishing of the final late-evening light bulb. This is the playing field of "The Human Face of Big Data," by Rick Smolan ("A Day in the Life of America") and Jennifer Erwitt, an enormous volume the size of a flat-screen computer monitor that chronicles, through a splash of photos and eye-opening essays and graphics, the rise of the information society. The book itself ($50, Against All Odds Productions) is a curious, wonderful beast — a solid slab that captures a virtual universe. Weighing in at nearly five pounds (a companion iPad app is available), it is being delivered Tuesday by the publisher to what it calls some of the world's most influential people, including the CEOs of Yahoo and Starbucks and Amazon, Oprah Winfrey and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The goal, say those behind the project, is to "ignite a conversation about an extraordinary knowledge revolution." You would think that capturing such a sprawling — and, one might easily conclude, inherently nonvisual — societal change would be difficult in a coffee-table book. You'd be wrong. This is one of those rare animals that captures its era in the most distinct of ways. It's the kind of thing you'd put in a time capsule for your children today to show them, long after you're gone, what the world was like at the beginning of their lives. The obvious is here, of course — the crimefighting, the moneymaking, the advertising, the breathtaking medical advances, the dark pathways of data nefariousness. But there are more unexpected tales as well. Among the pools the book dips into: —How data can provide utterly unexpected results: In Singapore, a project designed to look at why people couldn't get a taxi during a rainstorm came back with a surprising dividend — the cabs, fearful of accidents and the financial impact they cause even for drivers who may not be at fault, were just pulling over when it started to pour. Now they're changing policies to counteract that problem. —How global connectivity can beget entirely new forms of storytelling: The Johnny Cash Project invites people worldwide to share their visual representations of the iconic musician, and each submission is combined with others to create a music video that keeps changing based on the images that people are sending in. —How crowdsourcing is changing science: "Technology grants us the ability to harness wisdom from anywhere for specific projects, encouraging scientists to cooperate more, seek other points of view and share their achievements quickly — "the beginning of a democratization of discovery," writes science journalist Gareth Cook. —How machines are now communicating among themselves (though no sign yet of Skynet from the "Terminator" movies): "Humans will no longer be the center of the data solar system, with all of the billions of devices orbiting around us, but will rather become just another player, another node, in an increasingly autonomous data universe," writes technological thinker Esther Dyson. Brave new world? Of course. Yet it's easy to be unsettled by all of this. Hackers lurk everywhere; organizations like WikiLeaks are — depending on your politics — irresponsibly revealing secrets or responsibly liberating information. And anytime the notions of biology and technology meld, it's difficult not to summon images of the part-human, part cybernetic Borg from "Star Trek." In the face of so many preconceptions, what makes "The Human Face of Big Data" so engaging, so important, is its balanced tone. This is not a screed, in either direction. Technology is not greeted only as a marvel to be worshipped, nor is it cast as only a villain whose bits and bytes can blight our inherent humanity. The notion of making sense of information, of unpacking what the changes that data has wrought will mean to all of us, is the underpinning of the book. That's as it should be: As information's pathways and archives develop at breakneck speeds, we must race, too, to develop a vocabulary to describe and critique its rise. Passionate, critical thinking about a subject is still the sole purview of humanity — at least for now. "The history of mankind has always been influenced by a shortage of knowledge," technology and business writer Michael S. Malone says in one essay. "Now the opposite — an information surplus — may soon define our lives." The question, of course, runs even deeper. There is information, there is knowledge and there is wisdom. And no matter how many strong numbers we humans have at our disposal, if we can't understand the important differences between those three categories, the odds are good that we're on a path not toward 1, but toward 0. Save to the cloud and fire up the iPad tonight, sure — but do it with open eyes and probing mind. "Not everything that can be counted counts," warns a saying that Albert Einstein loved, "and not everything that counts can be counted."

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British TV astronomer Patrick Moore dies

LONDON (Reuters) - British astronomer Patrick Moore, who helped map the moon and inspired generations of star gazers with decades of television broadcasts, died on Sunday aged 89. Moore presented BBC television's landmark "The Sky at Night" programme for more than 50 years, making him the longest-running presenter of a single show in broadcasting history. His old-fashioned appearance and rapid-fire delivery endeared him to television viewers and captured the imagination of future astronomers who paid tribute to the presenter and prolific author. "Patrick would just sit in front of the camera for a whole episode ... and just tell you about a constellation, about the stars, their names, their history," British astronomer David Whitehouse told Sky News. "It was captivating and the best example of communication and an expert sharing his enthusiasm that I have ever experienced." A space enthusiast from his early childhood, Moore's television career coincided with the start of the space race between Russia and the United States. "He was broadcasting before we actually went into space and he saw a change in our understanding of the universe," British space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock told the BBC. Moore, rarely seen without his trademark monocle, was also an enthusiastic musician and xylophone player and once accompanied a violin-playing Albert Einstein on the piano. He never studied for a degree, building up his expertise through his own, single-minded enthusiasm, constructing an observatory in the garden of his southern England home. His television show marked many astronomical landmarks, and he was broadcasting live when the first picture of the far side of the moon were returned by a Russian satellite. Television schedulers were not always sympathetic to the significance of developments in space. During the NASA Apollo 8 mission, Moore told viewers they were about to hear the voices of first men round the Moon in "one of the greatest moments in human history," only to be interrupted by BBC switching the broadcast to a daily children's show.

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Challenger: Merkel isolating Germany in Europe

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-left challenger accused the German leader of isolating the country in Europe as he sought Sunday to kick-start his campaign for next year's elections, pledging to make social policy and promises of tougher financial regulation central issues. Former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck's Social Democrats rallied around him after a difficult start to his quest to unseat Merkel. About 93 percent of delegates at a special party convention endorsed the 65-year-old Steinbrueck, who ran unopposed, as her challenger in parliamentary elections expected in September. Merkel's conservatives lead polls, helped by the chancellor's personal popularity — itself bolstered by her hard-nosed approach to Europe's debt crisis. But the outcome remains far from certain, with surveys showing a majority neither for her center-right coalition nor for Steinbrueck's hoped-for alliance with the Green party. The center-left parties have criticized Merkel for what they decry as a too-little, too-late response to the eurozone's debt crisis, but have supported her rescue plans in parliament. They have argued more needs to be done to foster economic growth, and lack her aversion to any kind of pooling of European countries' debt. "We must show the flag and go into this election with a clear pro-European position — not fearing the resentments that exist, not fearing the position of some that 'we don't want to pay for other countries,'" Steinbrueck said in a televised speech to the party convention in Hannover. "In the eyes of our neighbors, we are acting in a pretty schoolmasterly way at the moment — a good neighbor doesn't do that," he said. "My main accusation is that Mrs. Merkel has (led) Germany into isolation in Europe." Steinbrueck didn't go into details of European policy in a speech that hammered home his party's center-left credentials. He declared it will make the election "a face-off about social policy," with promises of a mandatory minimum wage and a quota for women in management positions, among other things. Steinbrueck has called for big European banks to build up a rescue fund of their own rather than relying on taxpayer-funded aid. He pledged "instead of capitulation in the face of financial markets' potential for blackmail, more rigid regulation and supervision of financial markets." Taxes for top earners need to rise to finance spending on education, infrastructure and Germany's transition from nuclear to renewable energy, he said, while stressing that keeping down debt is essential. Party leaders nominated Steinbrueck in September. His start was marred by criticism of his high earnings for lectures — about €1.25 million ($1.6 million) for speaking to audiences including financial institutions — that he gave after leaving government in 2009. "My speaking fees were stones that I have in my luggage and unfortunately put on your shoulders too," Steinbrueck said, thanking his party for "carrying and bearing this burden with me."

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6 dead as heavy snow hits Balkans

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall have killed at least six people and caused travel chaos across the Balkans, with rescue teams struggling to reach passengers stranded in buses and cars in Serbia on Sunday. Officials said four people have died in Croatia and two in Serbia as a result of blizzards in the region of southwestern Europe over the weekend, closing airports and roads and blocking public transportation in big cities. People traveling in vehicles waited for hours on several roads in Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina, including the main highway leading from Belgrade to the Hungarian border, before rescue teams could free them from 50 centimeters (20 inches) of snow that had fallen in just a few hours. A woman gave birth to a healthy baby in a stranded truck on her way to a hospital, and named her Snezana, or "Snow White" in Serbian, state TV reported. By late afternoon, 660 people, including 30 children, were evacuated from stranded vehicles, Serbia's emergency authorities said, adding that army tanks were used to remove heavy trucks that skidded and blocked highways. Ivica Dacic, who serves as Serbia's prime minister and interior minister, ordered all available police personnel to take part in the rescue operations. The airport in Zagreb, Croatia, was closed for several hours Saturday, and some roads were closed because of high winds and heavy snow. The situation improved in Croatia on Sunday, but a warning against driving remained in place because of icy roads. Croatian authorities said it was the heaviest snowfall in Zagreb in 57 years. Authorities in Serbia and Croatia warned people to stay indoors. Blizzards also hit Slovenia and Bosnia. As the storms headed east across the Balkans on Sunday, Romania's army was trying to clear snowbound roads as the country voted in a parliamentary election.

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EU leaders accept Peace Prize in anti-EU bastion

OSLO, Norway (AP) — European Union leaders arriving in Norway to receive the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize said the 27-nation bloc needs more integration and authority to solve problems, including the worst financial crisis afflicting it since the union was formed. Conceding that the EU lacked sufficient powers to stop the Bosnia war in the 1990s, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Sunday that the absence of such authority at the time is "one of the most powerful arguments for a stronger European Union." Barroso was speaking to reporters with EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy and the president of the EU Parliament, Martin Schulz in Oslo, where the three leaders were to receive this year's award, granted to the European Union for fostering peace on a continent ravaged by war. Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland will hand over the prize, worth $1.2 million, during a ceremony at Oslo City Hall, followed by a banquet at the Grand Hotel, against a backdrop of demonstrations in this EU-skeptic country that has twice rejected joining the EU. About 20 European government leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, will be joining the celebrations. The decision to award the prize to the EU has sparked harsh criticism, including from three peace laureates — South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina — who have demanded the prize money not be paid out this year. They say the bloc contradicts the values associated with the prize because it relies on military force to ensure security. The EU is being granted the prize as it grapples with a debt crisis that has stirred deep tensions between north and south, caused soaring unemployment and sent hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest austerity measures. It is also threatening the euro — the common currency used by 17 of its members — and even the structure of the union itself, and is fueling extremist movements such as Golden Dawn in Greece, which opponents brand as neo-Nazi. Barroso acknowledged that the current crisis showed the union was "not fully equipped to deal with a crisis of this magnitude." "We do not have all the instruments for a true and genuine economic union ... so we need to complete our economic and monetary union," he said, adding that the new measures, including on a banking and fiscal union, would be agreed on in coming weeks. He stressed that despite the crisis all steps taken had been toward "more, not less integration." Van Rompuy was optimistic saying that EU would come out of the crisis stronger than before. "We want Europe to become again a symbol of hope," he said.

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Australian radio chair: Station reviewing policy

LONDON (AP) — The reverberations from the death of a nurse who accepted a hoax phone call about the ill Duchess of Cambridge spread through two countries Sunday, as Australian authorities said London police had contacted them about a possible investigation. The Australian radio station behind the call also announced an immediate review of its broadcast practices after the debacle, which began with a prank call made Tuesday to the hospital where the former Kate Middleton was being treated for acute morning sickness. Two radio DJs managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess's medical condition, which was broadcast on-air. The controversial prank took a dark twist three days later with the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, a 46-year-old mother of two, who was duped by the DJs despite their Australian accents. The death has sparked an angry backlash against the DJs, who have been taken off the air indefinitely. After an emergency meeting Sunday, Max Moore-Wilton, the chairman of parent company Southern Cross Austereo, which owns the 2DayFM radio station, said in a letter to the hospital's chairman that the company will cooperate with any investigation. "It is too early to know the full details leading to this tragic event and we are anxious to review the results of any investigation that may be made available to us or made public," he wrote. "I can assure you we are taking immediate action and reviewing the broadcast and processes involved." "As we have said in our own statements on the matter, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable," he wrote. Australian police Sunday confirmed they had been contacted by London police and said they would cooperate. Police have not yet determined Saldanha's cause of death, but people from London to Sydney have been making the assumption she died because of stress from the call. Both DJs involved apologized for the prank before Saldanha's death. Their Twitter accounts have been taken down after they were bombarded by thousands of abusive comments. A spokeswoman said Sunday the two DJs want to speak out about Saldanha's death. The station has a history of controversy, including airing a segment in which a 14-year-old girl revealed that she had been raped. It also ran a series of "Heartless Hotline" shows in which disadvantaged people were offered a prize that could be taken away from them by listeners. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which regulates radio broadcasting, says it received complaints from around the world and is considering whether it should launch an investigation Separately, Prince William on Sunday pulled out of attending the British Military Tournament, billed as "the largest display of military theatre in the world", citing Kate's illness. The Duchess has been resting and has not been seen in public since leaving the hospital. Officials from St. James's Palace have said the duchess is not yet 12 weeks pregnant. The child would be the first for her and William and would be third in line to the British throne.

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