Google acquiring Motorola Mobility

Google Inc. said yesterday that it will pay $12.5 billion for cellphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., the biggest acquisition in the Internet search giant’s history and one designed to make it a more formidable competitor to Apple Inc. and its iPhone.

The result, said Google’s chief executive, Larry Page, will be more and better smartphones for consumers. Google, which produces the popular Android software for smartphones and tablet computers, will be able to make its own hardware once it owns Motorola, which manufactures Droid smartphones and the Xoom tablet computer.

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“Together, we will create amazing user experiences,’’ Page wrote on the company blog.

The acquisition has a strategic goal, as well: to protect Google and its Android software for smartphones and tablets against a host of costly patent lawsuits filed by its rivals. Motorola holds thousands of patents, which now will be owned by Google, giving the search giant a stronger hand in court. Android products are “under threat from some companies who are looking to use patents to compete,’’ said David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer.

Google expects the deal to be finalized by the end of 2011 or early 2012, after review by antitrust regulators in the United States, the European Union, and other countries.

Motorola Inc., founded in 1928 in Chicago, developed the world’s first commercial cellphone service in 1983. Motorola Mobility, its mobile phone operation, was spun off as a separate company in January.

Android began as the product of a Silicon Valley start-up company with a software development facility in Cambridge. The company was purchased by Google in 2005, and the software has become the world’s most popular platform for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Every major US carrier and 231 wireless providers around the world sell Android devices.

As a result, sales of Android devices far outstrip those for the iPhone and iPad, which run Apple’s iOS software.

Page said yesterday that more than 150 million Android-based phones and tablets have been activated, with 550,000 coming online every day.

The research firm Gartner Inc. estimates Android has 38.5 percent of the worldwide market for mobile device software, compared to 19.4 percent for Apple’s iOS, and by next year Android’s market share will reach nearly 50 percent.

For Google, the biggest advantage of the deal may be getting Motorola’s portfolio of technology patents. Google has been under intense attack by competitors who claim Android violates some of their key patents. Last week, a German court ordered Samsung Group of South Korea to stop selling Android-based Galaxy Tab tablet computers in most of the European Union, after Apple said the Google software infringed on some of its patents.

Other lawsuits against Android, including one filed last year by the giant database company Oracle Corp., are pending. One small Boston company, Skyhook Inc., has filed suit, saying that Android’s navigation technology infringes on several of its patents.Continued...

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Ukraine ex-PM goes on trial

 Afp, Kiev

Ukraine's ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko yesterday went on trial for alleged abuse of power, denouncing her rival President Viktor Yanukovych as a coward fearing political competition.

The former premier, known as the "Iron Lady", is accused of abuse of power in connection with a contract she signed with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after a brief interruption of gas deliveries from Russia in early 2009.

Tymoshenko described the trial as a "kangaroo court" and vendetta orchestrated by the authorities.
"Whatever verdict is handed down, it will be a verdict against Yanukovych and not me," said Tymoshenko as several thousand of her supporters rallied in the streets near the courthouse in central Kiev.

The charges carry a sentence of between seven and 10 years, jeopardising Tymoshenko's ability to take part in

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China to boost coastal forces amid tensions

  China will boost offshore surveillance by adding ships and 6,000 personnel by 2020, state media said on Friday, another move likely to raise tensions with neighbours staking rival claims to waters thought to hold vast reserves of oil and gas.



The expansion of the China Maritime Surveillance Forces, a paramilitary law enforcement agency that patrols China's territorial waters, was unveiled two days after the country sent its largest civilian maritime patrol ship to the South China Sea.

The moves show Beijing's resolve to protect its "maritime rights and sovereignty" which it says have been increasingly violated amid a rising frequency of disputes.

The maritime surveillance forces, under the State Oceanic Administration, will have 16 aircraft and 350 vessels by the end of the country's five-year plan ending in 2015, and more than 15,000 personnel by 2020, the official China Daily said citing an unnamed senior official.

"There have been an increasing number of intrusions by foreign vessels and planes into Chinese waters and airspace in recent years,"

It said that the maritime surveillance forces had logged 1,303 foreign ships and 214 planes intruding in 2010, compared to a total of 110 cases in 2007.

Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in the past month on concerns China is becoming more assertive in the waters, parts of which are also claimed by the Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China's claim is by far the largest, forming a large U-shape over most of the sea's 648,000 square miles (1.7 million square km), including the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.

This week, Beijing warned outside countries not to step into the dispute, after Vietnam said other countries, including the United States, could help defuse the tension.

China has accused Vietnam of violating its claim to the Spratlys and nearby seas, which Vietnam also deems its own. China calls the islands the Nansha group.

Beijing said last week it would hold naval drills in June in the western Pacific Ocean and the navy has done little to disguise plans to launch its first aircraft carrier.

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China to boost coastal forces amid tensions

  China will boost offshore surveillance by adding ships and 6,000 personnel by 2020, state media said on Friday, another move likely to raise tensions with neighbours staking rival claims to waters thought to hold vast reserves of oil and gas.



The expansion of the China Maritime Surveillance Forces, a paramilitary law enforcement agency that patrols China's territorial waters, was unveiled two days after the country sent its largest civilian maritime patrol ship to the South China Sea.


The moves show Beijing's resolve to protect its "maritime rights and sovereignty" which it says have been increasingly violated amid a rising frequency of disputes.

The maritime surveillance forces, under the State Oceanic Administration, will have 16 aircraft and 350 vessels by the end of the country's five-year plan ending in 2015, and more than 15,000 personnel by 2020, the official China Daily said citing an unnamed senior official.

"There have been an increasing number of intrusions by foreign vessels and planes into Chinese waters and airspace in recent years," the newspaper said.

It said that the maritime surveillance forces had logged 1,303 foreign ships and 214 planes intruding in 2010, compared to a total of 110 cases in 2007.

Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in the past month on concerns China is becoming more assertive in the waters, parts of which are also claimed by the Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China's claim is by far the largest, forming a large U-shape over most of the sea's 648,000 square miles (1.7 million square km), including the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.

This week, Beijing warned outside countries not to step into the dispute, after Vietnam said other countries, including the United States, could help defuse the tension.

China has accused Vietnam of violating its claim to the Spratlys and nearby seas, which Vietnam also deems its own. China calls the islands the Nansha group.

Beijing said last week it would hold naval drills in June in the western Pacific Ocean and the navy has done little to disguise plans to launch its first aircraft carrier.

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Obama holds big 2012 lead over Republicans

President Obama greets a student during a visit to Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia, June 8, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

President Barack Obama retains a big lead over possible Republican rivals in the 2012 election despite anxiety about the economy and the country's future, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday.
Obama's approval rating inched up 1 percentage point from May to 50 percent but the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track also rose as pricier gasoline, persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market chipped away at public confidence.
Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins, the poll showed. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points -- 51 percent to 38 percent.
"Obama's position has gotten a little stronger over the last couple of months as the public mood has evened out, and as an incumbent he has some big advantages over his rivals," Ipsos pollster Cliff Young said.
"Until Republicans go through a primary season and select a nominee, they are going to be at a disadvantage in the head-to-head matchups in name recognition."
Obama, who got a boost in the polls last month with the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is amassing an election campaign warchest likely to be larger than the record $750 million he raised in 2008.
Sarah Palin and Romney lead the Republicans battling for the right to challenge Obama in the November 2012 election.
Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, had the support of 22 percent of the Republicans surveyed. The former governor of Alaska has not said whether she will run for president next year.
Romney, who failed in a 2008 presidential bid, had 20 percent support.
Representative Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas, and former pizza executive Herman Cain were tied for third with 7 percent each.
REPUBLICAN RACE STILL FORMING
The Republican candidates are just starting to engage in their slow-starting nomination race. Young said Palin and Romney had a clear advantage at this stage over other challengers in name recognition among voters.
Other surveys have shown Romney in a stronger position. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this week gave Romney a slight lead over Obama among registered voters.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the other Republican contenders fared even worse than Romney's 13-point gap in a match-up with Obama. Palin trailed Obama by 23 points and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was behind by 19 points.
The survey was taken after weak jobs and housing figures released last week showed the U.S. economy is recovering slower than expected. Unemployment rose slightly to 9.1 percent for the month.
The poll found 60 percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track, up from 56 percent in May but still below April's high of 69 percent. In the latest survey, 35 percent said the country is going in the right direction.
Obama's approval rating has drifted in a narrow range between 49 percent and 51 percent since January, with the exception of April when the first spike in gasoline prices drove his rating lower.
With Congress battling over a Republican budget plan that includes scaling back the federal Medicare health program for the elderly, the poll found a plurality of Americans, 43 percent, oppose the Medicare cuts and 37 percent support them.
The poll, conducted Friday through Monday, surveyed 1,132 adults nationwide by telephone, including 948 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.

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