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السبت، 12 أكتوبر 2013

Top 10 Most Downloaded Apps for Smart Phones in US

Smart phones have changed the life of individual and had become an elementary device for the human beings. People are more concerned about the model they hold, the outlook of the device also how far it scales etc... Main purpose for a smart phone is the ease of accessing information.

From entertainment to route searching, all the details are accessed just through installing an app., starting from restaurant any information at any place can be found easily through installing an app. People feel more comfortable through smart phone, its compactness attract the people.

It is found in a survey that around 75% of the people in US owns a smartphone. There are many apps available for smart phone users. Here are the Top 10 apps for smart phone users.

Image : Most Downloaded Apps for Smart Phones in US

Facebook, social networking for connecting people. This is app is the world famous for people who loves chatting. It is purely for building up social relationship and to connect the people of various places. In a survey it is found that 76% of the US people own this app. It is the best owed app for smart phone users.

· Twitter, this is the next popular app for US people. Almost all the smartphones are installed with this app. People of US are always more concerned with social networking and hence this adds essence to their usage.

· Tumblr is also social networking app owned by yahoo Inc. This is also the popularly installed app in US smart phones. This app more popular in US and most of the population own this app.

· LinkedIn is yet another social networking app for the business people. This app is used mainly by business people and other professionals who share their ideas and views. Moreover this can be said as professional site where many professional people get connected.

· Pinterest is completely different from previously mentioned app. This allows the users to create images, theme based image and other images of memorable events. It is a photo sharing app for people who love to collect images and share.

· Google Maps is yet another important app for those people who love travelling. This is the best app for finding routes around the entire globe, this works with GSM, which captures the current location of the device and hence finds the route of the destined place.

· Instagram is photo sharing app that allows one to share their photos via social networks. This app is used by people who have more interest in sharing their photos within their circle. This app allows the users to take their photo, video and also let to apply digital filters which improve the picture quality. Finally these images can also be shared among people with the help of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter etc…

· Foursquare is a location based social networking, that is people use this app and locate the places they need and also connect the people. The device uses the GSM network with which the user’s location is being traced and hence the current location will be tracked easily.

· Yahoo weather widget most useful app for finding out the weather conditions in and around the country.

· G+ this is in bottom most priority, as preferred by the people. This is also yet another social networking for people. Which is owned by Google, since people find more convenient with Facebook, Twitter this takes up lower priority but also there are people who use G+ for their social communications.

Above mentioned are the top 10 smart phones app which people install to enjoy the benefits. Hence, these apps with a smartphone bring the people together and helps to stay connected.

Google plans to simplify how Android tablet owners find tablet-specific apps in the Play Store as part of a change next month.

Come November 21, Google says its "designed for tablets" section will effectively become the first thing tablet users see when browsing the Play Store from those types of devices. It's also tweaking its various "top" lists, like top paid and free titles, to mark what's been made for phones versus tablets.

The changes are part of a larger effort by Google to get developers to both support and note when their software is ready for larger-screened tablet users; that began back in May with its aforementioned designed-for-tablets section.

In a post on Friday announcing its plans to change the storefront, Google noted that developers "who invest the time" to tweak their apps and conform within the program's plans have seen increased downloads as a result.

At last public count, Google's Play Store has more than 1 million apps and some 50 billion downloads. Rivals -- though notably Apple -- have criticized that growing catalog, calling some versions of those tablet apps "blown-up smartphone app(s)."

Here's food for thought: Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth believes that Apple intends to merge the Mac and iPhone.
"Apple was sending what we think is a very clear signal that it will converge the iPhone and the MacBook Air," Shuttleworth said in an interview with UK-based PC Pro, published Friday.
The creator of the Ubuntu operating system expanded on what he believes Apple was thinking when it announced the 64-bit A7 processor:

People are saying yes, mobile processors are catching up with the desktop. When Apple announced the iPhone 5s, it called the processor "desktop-class," and I don't think that was an accident -- it was sending what we think is a very clear signal that it will converge the iPhone and the MacBook Air.
There's no point talking about the desktop performance of your CPU unless you plan to make a desktop device with that CPU.

The above was said in the context of Ubuntu's current push to merge the desktop, tablet, and phone operating systems into one codebase.

Shuttleworth expects the converged Ubuntu OS to arrive next year, before Microsoft is able to "converge Windows on mobile and PC."

Apple's iOS runs on its A series chips, a flavor of the ARM processor design, while OS X runs on Intel x86 chips.

Though there are some commonalities between iOS and OS X, the operating systems remain very separate, both cosmetically and functionally.
Apple has not announced any plans to merge the two.

Facebook on Friday announced 1 million daily active users on its Android beta-testing program, which gives developers access to the Android app before it's released, in an attempt to find bugs and provide feedback to the company's engineers.

In a blog post, the company said that the users are in 150 different countries, and that the goal is to make sure the app is stable among all the different Android devices on the market. Right now, users are testing the app on devices from more than 50 manufacturers.

The company also announced the Facebook for Android alpha-testing service for examining even rougher versions of Android apps. "Alpha is not for the faint of heart -- features will come and go, crashes will be introduced and fixed, and designs may go through many
iterations," the blog post said. "Because we are continually testing and experimenting on alpha, the Facebook for Android app that alpha users test will look and behave differently than what ultimately gets shipped in a general release."

Peanut butter helps diagnose Alzheimer's disease

A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer's disease, University of Florida Health researchers have found.
Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the University of Florida (UF) McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and her colleagues reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.
Stamps came up with the idea of using peanut butter to test for smell sensitivity while she was working with Dr. Kenneth Heilman, one of the world's best known behavioral neurologists, from the UF College of Medicine's department of neurology.

While shadowing doctors in Heilman's clinic, she noticed that patients were not tested for their sense of smell. The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline.

"Dr. Heilman said, 'If you can come up with something quick and inexpensive, we can do it,'" Stamps says.

She thought of peanut butter because, she said, it is a "pure odorant" that is only detected by the olfactory nerve and is easy to access.

Widespread problem

According to the Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's disease affects 5.2 million people in the US and will cost the nation $203 billion in this year alone.

The Association estimates that one American develops Alzheimer's every 68 seconds, and they expect to see this figure rise to one American every 33 seconds by 2050.

In the study, patients who were coming to the clinic for testing also sat down with a clinician, who was armed with 14 grams of peanut butter - which equals about 1 tablespoon - and a metric ruler. The patient closed his or her eyes and mouth and blocked one nostril.

The clinician opened the peanut butter container and held the ruler next to the open nostril while the patient breathed normally. By moving the peanut butter up the ruler 1 cm at a time during the patient's exhalation, they were able to measure the distance at which the patient could detect the odor.

The distance was recorded and the procedure repeated on the other nostril after a 90-second delay.
The clinicians running the test did not know the patients' diagnoses, which were not usually confirmed until weeks after the initial clinical testing.

Sense of smell loss

The scientists found that patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease had a dramatic difference in detecting odor between the left and right nostril - the left nostril was impaired and did not detect the smell until it was an average of 10 cm closer to the nose than the right nostril had made the detection in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

This was not the case in patients with other kinds of dementia; instead, these patients had either no differences in odor detection between nostrils or the right nostril was worse at detecting odor than the left one.

Of the 24 patients tested who had mild cognitive impairment, which sometimes signals Alzheimer's disease and sometimes turns out to be something else, about 10 patients showed a left nostril impairment and 14 patients did not.
The researchers said more studies must be conducted to fully understand the implications.
Stamps explains:

"At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis. But we plan to study patients with mild cognitive impairment to see if this test might be used to predict which patients are going to get Alzheimer's disease."

Stamps and Dr. Heilman point out that this test could be used by clinics that do not have access to the personnel or equipment to run other, more elaborate tests required for a specific diagnosis, which can lead to targeted treatment.
At UF Health, the peanut butter test will be one more tool to add to a full suite of clinical tests for neurological function in patients with memory disorders.

Non-invasive, early stage test

One of the first places in the brain to degenerate in people with Alzheimer's disease is the front part of the temporal lobe that evolved from the smell system, and this portion of the brain is involved in forming new memories.
"We see people with all kinds of memory disorders," Heilman said. Many tests to confirm a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or other dementias can be time-consuming, costly or invasive. "This can become an important part of the evaluation process."
The UF study could help by detecting a person's likelihood of developing the disease at a much earlier stage, with a non-invasive test.
The Alzheimer's Association acknowledge that at the moment, there is no cure for the disease, nor can current Alzheimer's treatments stop Alzheimer's from progressing. They can, however, temporarily slow the worsening of dementia symptoms. This improves the quality of life for both sufferers and their caregivers.

As Stamps says:

"If we can catch it at that early stage, we can start treatment more aggressively at the early stage and you can possibly prevent a lot of the progression."

including taking regular exercise and eating a balanced diet, could reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer's.

Homer Simpson has a green light for a record 26th season of nuclear near-misses, fatherhood foibles and tavern tantrums.

Fox Broadcasting Co. announced Friday that "The Simpsons," already the longest-running scripted show in television history, has been renewed.

The animated show's 25th season debuted Sunday. Fox said ratings were up 12% from last year's average.

It's all about the timing.
On the one hand, you offer a loud piece of news that oh, no, people can't keep themselves private from Facebook's Graph Search anymore.

On the other, there emerges a whisper that you've bought four houses around your own in order to secure a little more, well, you know, seclusion.

Yes, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly dug deep into his jeans, found $30 million, and exchanged them for four houses adjacent to his own in Palo Alto, Calif.
As the San Jose Mercury News tells it, this isn't really out of fear that mooching paparazzi will move in next door, take photographs of him mowing the lawn, and put them up on, say, Facebook.
Well, actually it rather is.

For Facebook's CEO reportedly heard word that an unscrupulous someone was trying to buy one of the neighboring houses and then market it as "The House Next Door to Mark Zuckerberg."
Gosh, that would be like taking someone's Facebook profile picture and using it to sell a 55-gallon tub of lube.

What kind of feeling-free, predatory money-grabber does something like that?
Zuckerberg, though, is keen not to disrupt the neighborhood (and his own image). So he's buying the houses and leasing them back to the folks who currently live in them.

The progressive purchases began last December. And one house he bought -- a 2,600 square-foot edifice -- fetched $14 million. Which seems even more absurd than the fee Yahoo paid for Tumblr.

I have contacted Facebook to see whether Zuckerberg might lease me a cellar in one of the houses -- I'm sorry, I mean to see whether the company might comment on this apparent sprint to privacy. I will update, should my request survive inspections.

This truly isn't a case of the rich not being like you and me. One can surely understand Zuckerberg not wanting to have people snooping around his steamed-up windows, or even buying a neighboring house just to live next to him.
This is more a case of the shifting definition of personal information.
Your personal life is now known as Facebook's data. Its CEO's personal life is now known as mind your own business.

Ahead of next week's expected debut of Android 4.4 KitKat are even more shots of Google's next flagship Nexus phone and the OS update.

Italian tech site Tutto Android has an extensive gallery of the device with notes on what's new or different. That list includes tweaked voice activated search, a new camera shortcut from the lock screen, a different app drawer, and a camera that appears to use image stabilization.

Google announced the name of its next Android OS update last month, surprising some by licensing the popular candy bar namesake from Nestle. It follows July's release of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, which was introduced in late July alongside Google's Nexus 7 tablet.

The photos come a week after an extensive leak from tech blog GadgetHelpLine, which posted a gallery of 4.4 shots showing new features like wireless display support, cellular phone plan settings, and new printing and payment options.

Google's expected to take the full wraps off the OS update at a developer event next Tuesday.

Steve Ballmer may be retiring sooner than many expect.
Microsoft's board of directors is working to have Ballmer's successor in place by the end of this year, according to a Bloomberg report that cited unidentified people with knowledge of the discussions. The timetable for announcing a new Microsoft chief executive hinges on negotiations over compensation and departure from the current employer if the selection comes from outside the company, the sources said.

Ballmer, who has led the company for the past 13 years, announced in August that he would retire within 12 months once a replacement is found who will carry out Microsoft's new vision of offering more devices and services. The company's board has formed a special committee to seek out potential candidates. Meeting with Microsoft's shareholders, the committee has been narrowing down its list of possible successors from an initial 40 people, both internal and external.

The committee has already spoken with Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Bloomberg reported, as well as former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who will rejoin Microsoft when its $7.2 billion acquisition of the Finnish company's handset division closes. Mulally, who has been CEO of Ford for seven years, initially expressed disinterest in the position but has reportedly warmed up to the idea in recent weeks.

Among others rumored to be leading the list of candidates are Microsoft Executive VP Tony Bates, who had previously been CEO of Skype, Computer Sciences CEO Mike Lawrie, former Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky, and former Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson.

Google TV will soon give up on separate branding and going all-in with its operating system by renaming itself Android TV.

The television-specific, media-focused version of Android has lay more or less fallow since it received its Honeycomb upgrade in 2011. There's no word if or when Google is planning on upgrading Google TV from its current Android 3.2, but Google developers and hardware partners have begun to drop use of the "Google TV" moniker in favor of "Android TV," reports GigaOm.

The rebranding isn't surprising, considering that Google told CNET after the Chromecast launch in July that Google TV was not about to go the way of the Nexus Q.

"Google TV is moving forward in a major way," Chrome and Android chief Sundar Pichai told CNET. Google, he said, planned on announcing more hardware partners for Google TV at CES. It's possible that the January tech mega-show also will see the rebranding into Android TV.

Without a lot of fanfare, Instagram updated both its Android and iOS apps on Thursday. The updates bring new video features to both apps and add photo straightening to the Android app -- something the iOS app had for months.
On Google Play and in Apple's App Store, Instagram only says the update gives "performance updates and other improvements." But, on Twitter the photo-sharing app gave a few more details.

Besides getting photo straightening, the Android app has also been updated with "new sound and data usage controls for Instagram videos." The same goes for the iOS app. While it's unclear what exactly Instagram has done with the update, it appears the company is looking to refine how users can record and edit videos.

Instagram announced last week that it will soon be inserting photo and video ads into the stream for its US members, which could cause a commotion among people who don't want to see brands intermixed with their puppy, baby, and selfie photos. But, with Facebook as its parent company, the photo-sharing app needs to chip in on the revenue front.

It may have been a long time coming, but those hidden in plain sight on Facebook are in for a rude awakening in the weeks ahead.

The social network said Thursday that it is, as promised 10 months ago, killing off a privacy setting that allowed members to prevent themselves from appearing in search results. Facebook first put the setting, called "Who can look up your Timeline by name?," on life support in December of last year, removing it for people who weren't using it. Now, it's ready to finish off the job.

Simply put, the setting let people hide their Timelines -- aka profiles -- from public view. Members could use it to control if they could be found, and by whom, when other people typed their name into the Facebook search bar.

"For the small percentage of people still using the setting, they will see reminders about it being removed in the coming weeks," Facebook announced in a blog post on the change. "Whether you've been using the setting or not, the best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share."

The change is bound to cause some confusion, if not stir up strong emotions. Privacy and Facebook have always had a complicated relationship, and now it's as if the company is decreeing: if you're a member, you can be found, and what people find on your Timeline is entirely up to you.

For its part, Facebook will remind people with an on-site notice that when they post something publicly, the post can be seen by anyone, including people they may not know. It should also be noted that Timelines will not be visible to people you've blocked.

The social network contends that the setting never prevented people from finding Timelines in other ways such as clicking on a name in a status update. Another plausible motivation behind the change is improving the quality of the people results in Graph Search, Facebook's nascent natural language search engine.

The extra-long warning or the seemingly rational explanation may do little to temper the concerns of those who have clung to the last bit of anonymity they have left on the social network. But ready or not, Facebook search here you come.

The National Security Agency's electronic surveillance programs are already having a chilling effect on free speech, at least according to a report by the former executive editor of The Washington Post.

"The Obama Administration and the Press," penned by Leonard Downie Jr., whose career at the storied newspaper included time spent as an editor during the Watergate era, says sources for stories involving national security are far less likely to talk to reporters following revelations of mass spying by the NSA.

Downie -- also an executive with the Committee to Protect Journalists, the press-freedom nonprofit that published the report Thursday -- spoke with 30 experienced Washington journalists about the Obama administration's dealings with the press, and its aggressive policies toward leakers such as Edward Snowden. The journalists included reporters from ABC, the Associated Press, CBS (parent of CNET), CNN, The New York Times, and the Post.

Downie says there's no evidence the Obama administration is tapping NSA tools like Prism in its efforts to track and prosecute leakers but that the tools are nevertheless a threat to the press' role as a watchdog over government:

At this writing, no connection has been established between the NSA surveillance programs and the many leak investigations being conducted by the Obama administration -- but the surveillance has added to the fearful atmosphere surrounding American journalists and government sources.
"There is greater concern that their communications are being monitored -- office phones, e-mail systems," Post reporter [Rajiv] Chandrasekaran said. "I have to resort to personal e-mail or face to face, even for things I would consider routine."

Downie also quotes the Post's Dana Priest, whose 2011 book "Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State" examined the huge and secretive national security apparatus assembled after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Potential insider sources "think [the government is] looking at reporters' records," Priest said. "I'm writing fewer things in e-mail. I'm even afraid to tell officials what I want to talk about because it's all going into one giant computer."

It's not just the NSA. Downie's report looks at the Obama administration's attitude toward the control of information and the censuring of leakers -- "the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration," he says.

In regard to leakers/whistle-blowers, The New York Times' Scott Shane is quoted as saying:

I think we have a real problem. Most people are deterred by those leaks prosecutions. They're scared to death. There's a gray zone between classified and unclassified information, and most sources were in that gray zone. Sources are now afraid to enter that gray zone. It's having a deterrent effect. If we consider aggressive press coverage of government activities being at the core of American democracy, this tips the balance heavily in favor of government.

And Downie taps Harvard Law professor and former Bush administration lawyer Jack Goldsmith for some perspective. There's no "perfect solution to this problem," Goldsmith says. "Too much secrecy and too much leaking are both bad. A leaker has to be prepared to subject himself to the penalties of law, but leaks can serve a realy important role in helping correct government malfeasance, to encourage government to be careful about what it does in secret and to preserve democratic processes."
The report also discusses the Obama administration's unprecedented use of social media and the Web. What some might characterize as an effort toward transparency and direct contact with the public is called into question as something more akin to propaganda and, as former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno puts it, an attempt "to end run the news media completely."
Downie said that in its defense, the administration points, in part, to "presidential directives to put more government data online, to speed up processing of Freedom of Information Act requests, and to limit the amount of government information classified as secret." It also cites the "declassification and public release of information about NSA communications surveillance programs in the wake of Snowden's leak."
You can read the report in its entirety -- including the various responses from the Obama administration -- here.
Snowden feted in Russia
Meanwhile, Prism leaker Edward Snowden was visited in Russia by four US whistle-blowing advocates, who gave him an award for his efforts and said he looked "great" and was "remarkably centered."
Snowden had pretty much vanished since being granted temporary asylum by Russian President Valdimir Putin this summer.

Except, that is, for the occasional run to the grocery store for a shopping cart full of secrets. (Note: The Christian Science Monitor reports that Snowden's lawyer says, yes, that is indeed Snowden on a supermarket run, though probably not in Moscow.)

Those honoring Snowden were members of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of former national security officials, says The Washington Post.

They included Thomas Drake, a former NSA employee who leaked documents about spending and mismanagement issues at the NSA to a Baltimore Sun reporter, and was subjected to a prosecution that a federal judge later called "four years of hell." (Drake figures in the above mentioned report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.)

Another, former CIA officer turned activist Ray McGovern, said, according to The Wall Street Journal, that Snowden has "made his peace with what he did. He's convinced that what he did was right. He has no regrets and he is ready to face whatever the future holds for him."
Snowden's father also landed in Russia on Thursday and will presumably be secreted away to a visit with his son.

"I have no idea what [my son's] intentions are, but ever since he has been in Russia, my understanding is that he has simply been trying to remain healthy and safe and he has nothing to do with future stories," Lon Snowden was quoted as saying in The Christian Monitor.

"I am not sure my son will be returning to the US again. That's his decision, he is an adult, he is a person who is responsible for his own agency. I am his father, I love my son, and I certainly hope I will have an opportunity to see my son," the elder Snowden said.

It appears a new budget Lenovo laptop is on the way. The company accidentally leaked a manual for this so-called IdeaPad A10 online, according to PCWorld.

The manual (PDF) shows that this 10.1-inch laptop will be running Android, rather than Windows, and have an HD screen that works as a touch screen. Like other Lenovo laptops, the IdeaPad A10's display can be opened up to 300 degrees, so that it can be folded to sit in "kiosk mode" with the screen pointing out from the rear of the laptop, away from the keyboard and touch pad.

When contacted by CNET, Lenovo spokesman Chris Millward confirmed that the company is planning on launching this device.
"Yes, we are launching this product," he said. "We're excited about it and encouraged by the strong interest already shown."

Although Millward didn't give any more information on release dates or pricing. He did provide CNET with information that said the laptop was unveiled this week at the Middle East electronics expo Gitex Shopper 2013 and will first be offered in the United Arab Emirates.

He also provided CNET with a few more specs on the laptop, which described it as being "affordable," having a 1.5Ghz quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM, and 16GB internal storage capacity. It will also run on Android's 4.2 operating system.

Looking at the features of the laptop in the manual, it appears that Lenovo is gearing the IdeaPad A10 to be a budget computer. Like its other low-cost PCs, this laptop has a smaller screen and doesn't come with an optical disk drive. It does, however, have a camera, memory card slot, and a Micro USB port.

iPad 5 goes slim, space gray in latest batch of leaked photos

Apple's next iPad appears to be on display in full view in a series of high-resolution photos leaked online.
Popping up on the Web site of known Apple leaker Sonny Dickson, the new photos display what appears to be the next-generation iPad in space gray, one of the colors available for the iPhone 5S.

The alleged images also show off the new thin design of the fifth-gen iPad, a trait borrowed from the iPad Mini. The full gallery displays the tablet from various angles, revealing the back casing, the sides, and even parts of the interior.
Previous images leaked by Dickson purported to show the iPad 5 in both silver and space gray. Add in a gold option, and that means the next iPad will offer the same colors available for the iPhone 5S. Photos released in August also hinted at the tablet's thinner iPad Mini-like design.

Dickson, who told Reuters that he receives the photos and videos from sources in China, has a pretty good track record at leaking accurate information and images. We should know if the latest photos prove true when Apple holds its iPad event later this month. That event could occur on Tuesday, October 22, according to the latest scoop from AllThingsD.

With little more than a week ahead of the Windows 8.1 rollout, Microsoft said it dished out its biggest ever reward to a British researcher who found a chink in the armor of the new operating system.
James Forshaw uncovered a bug in a preview version of Windows 8.1 that hackers could exploit, according to The Guardian. The London resident is a security researcher by trade.

Microsoft paid Forshaw $100,000, the first time it has paid such a big reward.
Not bad for three and a half weeks of work.

Katie Moussouris, Microsoft senior security strategist, told the paper that Forshaw's discovery was particularly valuable because it learned a new technique of attack and its variants. Thanks to a newfound ability to defend against whole classes of attacks, Microsoft paid more than it would for an individual bug discovery, she said.

Microsoft has opened preorders for Windows 8.1, the update coming later in October 18, that's designed to make it easier for people to absorb the dramatically different interface that Windows 8 introduced.

Windows 8 fell flat with many customers by booting into a start page covered with high-contrast app rectangles rather than the familiar desktop with its start button. In 8.1, Microsoft reinstates the start button and gives users the option to boot their systems into the old-style desktop interface.

Apple's iPhone 6 will jump in screen size to almost 5 inches from the current 4 inches. At least, that's the claim from Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White.

After meeting recently with an Apple supplier, White expressed confidence that a new big-screen iPhone will emerge next year, as reported by Boy Genius Report.

"Our meeting with a tech supply chain vendor highlighted a bigger iPhone is in the works, and our contact expects a launch in the 2Q:14/3Q:14 time frame," White said in an investors note released on Thursday.
"Nearly a year ago, our research in Asia uncovered early stage work on a larger iPhone, and we indicated in our Apple initiation report dated 9/4/13 that 'a larger screen size on the iPhone is possible in 2014 that could approach 5 inches.' Given today's meeting, we are confident that a larger iPhone (approximately five inches) will become a reality in 2014."

White's prediction follows a similar claim from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek that the iPhone 6 will sport a 4.8-inch screen. Misek's forecast followed a meeting between him and Apple suppliers in Asia.
DisplaySearch analyst David Hsieh also is eyeing a larger screen for next year's iPhone, specifically one that's 4.7 inches.

Other reports have suggested even bigger screen sizes for a future iPhone, anywhere from 5.7 inches to 6 inches.

Apple has lost a large chunk of market share to the Android world, which offers a huge array of big-screened smartphones. Some rival phones are growing in size to 5.5 inches and even 6 inches. But Apple is unlikely to go that large, so a size somewhat under 5 inches sounds feasible. Apple could also offer a couple of different sizes to hedge its bets.

In his report, White also chimed in with some interesting thoughts on an Apple smartwatch. The analyst's contact at the Apple supplier described an iWatch as "much more than an extension of your iPhone but as a multi-purpose gateway in allowing consumers to control their home (i.e., heating/cooling, lights, audio, video, etc.)."

White expects Apple to launch its iWatch before the end of 2014.

A Hewlett-Packard vice president had a lot to say about alternatives to Microsoft and Intel during a meeting of financial analysts Wednesday. And HP CEO Meg Whitman had some pretty provocative comments of her own.

The shift to non-Windows products at the world's largest PC maker is happening against a backdrop of a shrinking "Wintel" (Microsoft-Intel) PC market.

IDC reported this week that worldwide PC shipments in the third quarter of 2013 contracted 7.6 percent year-to-year.

"The market is changing more today than it has in the past 30 odd years I've been in the industry," Dion Weisler, executive vice president of printing and personal systems at HP, said at the company's Securities Analyst meeting in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday. He continued:

In the past, if you had the Wintel playback and played by the Wintel playbook you could pretty much predict your results. You just needed to run a little faster than the other guy. Everything was pretty predictable...[But] we're in a new world now with multiple operating systems, new architectures, new silicon, new graphics, new subsystems.

Whitman had some tough words of her own for Microsoft and Intel.

HP's traditional highly-profitable markets face significant disruption. In personal systems...Wintel-based devices are being aggressively displaced by ARM-based PCs and mobile devices running competing operating systems...current, long-term HP partners, like Intel and Microsoft, are increasingly becoming outright competitors.

The push into non-Windows markets is being driven by places like China. "In China there are more tablets sold than [in] the United States. Guess what? Most of those are not on the Windows operating system," Weisler said.

HP is focused on four OSes now: Microsoft, Android, Chrome, and Ubuntu, he added.

"Chrome and Android represent $46 billion of opportunity and is growing at 12 percent," Weisler said.

As an example, Weisler brandished the new Chromebook 11 jointly developed with Google.

And it's not just Chrome and Android. He talked about a major a new contract in India for systems running on Ubuntu.

HP is not giving up on the PC market, of course. The market is still a $170 billion global market, he said. But it's declining.

"The traditional PC market declined faster than we thought it would," Weisler said.

He did cite opportunities, even in the shrinking Windows-Intel market. They include all-in-ones, workstations, and thin clients.

The Google Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat are less than a week away, according to new rumors. Word on the street is that the new phone and next Android update explode onto the scene together on October 15 -- next Tuesday.

That date comes from whispers around the campfire at Google Launchpad, a fortnight-long event run by the Big G for helping startups to develop their business.

At the event, developers have been served lashings of Key Lime Pie -- the planned name for the next update -- and Kit Kat bars -- which lent their name to the update at the last minute.