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Nexus 4 Sells Out in 15 Minutes. Could the iPhone 5S Beat That?

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Mellisa Tolentino

In today’s mobile new roundup: iPhone 5s already in the works; Nexus devices are a hit in the UK; and Good Technology teams up with BoxTone.

iPhone 5s already in the works

Just bought the iPhone 5? How would you feel if I told you that Apple is already working on the iPhone 5S, set to be released during the first quarter of next year? You’d say that the rumor is absurd and that Apple doesn’t release phones in the first half of the year, but Apple seems to be full of surprises these days. Remember the iPad mini? It launched way off Apple’s schedule of product releases.

Though the source, Digitimes, is a bit questionable, you can’t deny that Apple may need to release a revamped version of the iPhone 5 to address standing issues like poor mapping software. They did something with the iPhone 4S, so a 5S wouldn’t be difficult to imagine. No news yet as to what features the 5S could have, only that early stages of production would begin in December in order to meet a first quarter launch.
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Booksellers Resisting Amazon’s Disruption

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By DAVID STREITFELD

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon prides itself on unraveling the established order. This fall, signs of Amazon-inspired disruption are everywhere.

There is the slow-motion crackup of electronics showroom Best Buy. There is Amazon’s rumored entry into the wine business, which is already agitating competitors. And there is the merger of Random House and Penguin, an effort to create a mega-publisher sufficiently hefty to negotiate with the retailer on equal terms.

Amazon inspires anxiety just about everywhere, but its publishing arm is getting pushback from all sorts of booksellers, who are scorning the imprint’s most prominent title, Timothy Ferriss’s “The 4-Hour Chef.” That book is coming out just before Thanksgiving into a fragmented book-selling landscape that Amazon has done much to create but that eludes its control.


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Netflix takes steps to thwart hostile takeover

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By Cliff Edwards, Bloomberg News

SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix Inc., the world’s largest subscription video service, adopted a so-called poison pill to protect against a hostile takeover after billionaire investor Carl Icahn acquired an almost 10 percent stake in the company.

The stockholder rights plan, approved unanimously by Netflix’s board on Nov. 2, would be triggered if an “activist shareholder” acquired 10 percent of the stock, or an institutional investor bought 20 percent, Jonathan Friedland, a company spokesman, said in an interview.

The move is designed to make a hostile takeover too expensive and gives Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings a tool to thwart Icahn or other potential buyers. Icahn, 76, said on Oct. 31 he had acquired stock and options representing 5.54 million Netflix shares. He said the video service is an attractive takeover target for larger companies, including Amazon.com and Verizon Communications, that have entered the market Netflix pioneered.

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Superman Home: Planet Krypton ‘Found’ in Sky

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By Ned Potter

Look! Up in the sky! It’s — oh, forget it.

Superman is, of course, a fictional character, the stuff of comics and movies. But that didn’t stop DC Comics, which owns the Superman franchise, from enlisting the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to “find” the location of his lost home planet, Krypton.

It’s in the constellation Corvus the raven, in the southern sky not far from Virgo and Hydra. The planet Krypton — not that it ever existed — would have orbited a red dwarf star called LHS 2520, Tyson concluded. The star is 27.1 light-years from Earth.

You’ll recall that according to the story, the baby Kal-El was sent in a spaceship to Earth by his parents, who knew that Krypton would soon be destroyed. As an adult in the city of Metropolis, he disguises himself as Clark Kent, a reporter fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way. But he also has feelings. In the newest comic, out this week, Tyson is seen helping the homesick Superman trace his roots.

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Apple’s mea culpa: U.K. site posts apology, new statement

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After testing a British court’s patience with a not so apologetic public statement, the iPhone and iPad maker is finally eating humble pie.

by Zack Whittaker

Apple’s U.K. Web site now includes a prominent, hard to miss apology after a U.K. appeals court found a previously published statement to be “untrue.”
(Credit: Screenshot by Zack Whittaker/CNET)

Apple has reissued and updated its Samsung “apology” statement on its British Web site after a U.K. Court of Appeal found it to be “untrue” and “incorrect.”

It comes of weeks of back and forth from the U.K. courts after Samsung scored a rare legal win over Apple, after the iPhone and iPad maker lost an iPad design patent suit it brought to the British court against rival tablet maker Samsung.

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Early look at Windows 8 baffles consumers

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By PETER SVENSSON | Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system is a week away, and consumers are in for a shock. Windows, used in one form or another for a generation, is getting a completely different look that will force users to learn new ways to get things done.

Microsoft is making a radical break with the past to stay relevant in a world where smartphones and tablets have eroded the three-decade dominance of the personal computer. Windows 8 is supposed to tie together Microsoft’s PC, tablet and phone software with one look. But judging by the reactions of some people who have tried the PC version, it’s a move that risks confusing and alienating customers.

Tony Roos, an American missionary in Paris, installed a free preview version of Windows 8 on his aging laptop to see if Microsoft’s new operating system would make the PC faster and more responsive. It didn’t, he said, and he quickly learned that working with the new software requires tossing out a lot of what he knows about Windows.

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Billboard Hot 100 Singles – Week of Oct 20, 2012

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1. Maroon 5, “One More Night”
2. PSY, “Gangnam Style”
3. One Direction, “Live While We’re Young”
4. fun., “Some Nights”
5. Taylor Swift, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”


6. Taylor Swift, “Red”


7. Justin Bieber f/ Big Sean, “As Long As You Love Me”
8. Adele, “Skyfall”
9. P!nk, “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)”
10. Alex Clare, “Too Close”


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Microsoft Makes New Push Into Music

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By NICK WINGFIELD

SEATTLE — Music fans have often viewed Microsoft as something like a bad cover band, one that pumped out uninviting facsimiles of Apple’s iPod and iTunes with its Zune music players and service.

Now that the Zune brand is dead, Microsoft is once again in search of a hit in digital music. But this time, to improve its odds of success, it is marshaling some of its most powerful brands as never before: Windows and the Xbox.

On Monday, the company plans to announce a service called Xbox Music that will offer access to a global catalog of about 30 million songs. The service will let consumers listen free to any song on computers and tablets running the latest version of its Windows software, as well as on the Xbox console. Microsoft will not initially limit how much music can be streamed, though that could change over time.

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