Is 'open' killing the Android?

When Google decided to get into the smartphone business, it brought with it a philosophy.

Its Android devices would be everything that the iPhone was not.
Where Apple offered a set menu - one or two handsets at a take-it-or-leave-it price - Google was laying out a buffet.

Manufacturers could use the new operating system for free.
In return they would create scores of phones for every section of the market - high powered and pricey, cheap and cheerful.
But Android's real selling point would be the apps.
Here too, the policy was one of openness.
Apple ruled its App store with an iron fist, vetting every submission and rejecting those that contravened its rules.
There would be no bouncers on the door of the Android Market.
Anyone who had written an app could upload it. Quality products would prosper; the chaff would be lost in cyberspace.
At first, users and app developers welcomed the free-and-easy approach.
However, some have begun to question if Google's policy of app glasnost is the best way to manage the Market.
Google's growth There is no doubt about the success of the basic Android platform. Three years after its launch, hardware sales are booming.
According to research by Kantar WorldPanel Comtech, Android now accounts for 38% of the UK smartphone market, compared to 23% for Apple's devices.
Stateside, Android is faring even better, holding a 54.7% share, while iOS has 27.2%.

Last month, Google revealed that 350,000 Android phones are being activated every day.

Yet sales of Android apps remain relatively poor.
IHS Screen Digest estimates that £1.1billion of revenue flowed through Apple's App store last year.
Android Market managed just £62m. The figure was lower than both Blackberry App World (£100m) and Nokia's Ovi store (£64m).
Research predicts massive improvements for Android by this time next year, but it is still expected to lag far behind iOS.
Disgruntled developers
For many application developers, the problem lies with Android Market, the main download portal for apps.
"People complain about Apple where you have restrictions and it takes a while for things to be reviewed," said Chris McClelland, director of Ecliptic Labs, a mobile app developer based in Belfast.
"I think on one hand it's quite a good thing - one focused source, and you get feedback that's very useful for your app. It's quality control."

Amazon entered the app race earlier this year with much fanfare and exclusive rights to Angry Birds Rio

The Android Market needs to become that focused source, he says.
"Android is very popular with developers. It's got a lower barrier to entry, easier learning curve, and excellent tools, but app developers find making money on the Android platform more difficult."
Another criticism is the lack of quality control on Android Market.
While many developers welcome an alternative to Apple's walled garden, Google's offering, they say, has become over-run with weeds.
"There's a lot of apps on the Marketplace that are either copycats or pirates or scams," said Chris McClelland.
Security firm Symantec, in its 2011 Internet Security Threat Report, warned that Android was at particular risk from malware embedded in apps.
It found that at lease six varieties of malicious software were already being circulated.
There are also more benign threats to Android's success.
Michael Heller, from Android blog Androinica, is critical of the way that apps are catalogued and promoted.
"One of the most ridiculous things about the Android Marketplace is that the search feature is terrible.
"I mean, this is Google! You have to find out about the apps somewhere else and then go get them from the Android Marketplace," he said.
'Like Autotune'
Users' frustrations with the Market have not gone un-noticed by Google's rivals
Amazon, Cisco, Barnes and Noble, Verizon, GetJar, Andspot and OnlyAndroid are just a few of the tech companies hoping to improve the experience with their own Android app stores.
Unlike Apple's retail monopoly on apps, Android's open setup means anyone can set up shop.
"I feel like right now we're in one of those annoying periods like when Autotune got big, where everybody started using it," said Mr Heller, referring to the popular voice correction software, widely used in the music industry.
"Everybody is putting out an app store.

Barnes and Noble launched their own app store to compliment their Nook Color e-reader

"There are all these different players that want to create their own store but eventually it's not going to be a sustainable model.
"If all of these app stores are populated with all of the same apps that's kind of a waste for developers, isn't it?"
Amazon's store, named - despite the best efforts of Apple's legal team - the Appstore, launched in April.
It is not available on all Android devices due to individual carriers' rules on adding apps from sources other than the Android Market, but is likely to become a major player in the paid-app market.
One notable peculiarity of the Appstore is that, although its very existence is only possible because of Android's open policy, the store itself is a closed system.
Instead of letting everything and anything on, Amazon curates and monitors each app and developers must adhere to set standards in order to get their work in - just like the Apple's App Store.
"The Amazon store solves some of the problems that the standard marketplace has," said Mr McClelland. "It makes things a bit more exposed and helps search."

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“Start Quote

I think having to submit apps to different stores, it just becomes another problem.”

End Quote Chris McClelland Ecliptic Labs

While a wider choice of app stores gives Android users more choice about the kind of environment they want to shop in, it may also make life harder for developers.

"One of the biggest problems with Blackberry was that there were fragmented app stores, and I think the same problem's going to happen with Android," said Chris McClelland.
"I think having to submit apps to different stores, it just becomes another problem."
He also worries that with more and more stores appearing, it will be hard for one company - even a giant like Amazon - to become the definitive source for all the best apps.
Ideas grab
Which is why Google will eventually win, according to Mr Heller.
"Some of them may do certain things pretty well but eventually Google just takes the good ideas and fold them into their own product as best they can.
"Even if Amazon gets huge, and everyone is using it, if Google sorts out their store... what's the point of using Amazon?
"It's an Android phone, it's a Google phone. You're already in this ecosystem, why would you go somewhere else if the product is just as good?"
But there may be money to be made in niche markets - especially corporate.
"Cisco alone has a chance to become fairly big because enterprise is something that neither Android nor iPhone really had figured out quite yet.
"They're still very consumer oriented devices," said Mr Heller.
It is predicted that the appetite for paid apps will increase massively in the very near future, surpassing $8bn (£4.8bn) in the next three years.
But just how much of that lucrative pie will come from Android remains to be seen, and it could be make or break for Google's open mobile ambitions.

Afghanistan ambush kills six policemen in Ghazni

At least six Afghan police officers have been killed in an ambush in Ghazni province, officials have told the BBC.

The attack took place in Deh Yak district, several kilometres from the district headquarters.
Police officials said a group of police was hit by a roadside bomb and then came under gunfire.

The attack comes a day after government forces beat back an attempt by scores of militants to seize parts of Kandahar city, to the south of Ghazni.
The police of Ghazni province, Dilawar Zahid, told the BBC that six police officers were killed and four wounded in Monday morning's attack in Deh Yak district.
Security officials in the district said eight police were killed and four injured.
"The group of our police were leaving for the provincial capital of Ghazni," one of the security officials told the BBC.
"It was a shock because the attack took place so close to the district headquarters. They ambushed our forces. There was a roadside bomb followed by a firefight."
The district, just eight kilometres (five miles) south-east of the provincial capital, Ghazni city, was considered one of the safest in the province.
Experienced fighters In Kandahar, government forces took two days to fight off co-ordinated assaults with suicide bombers and rocket-propelled grenades on government buildings.

The raid paralysed Kandahar, with civilians too afraid to go out

The provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa, said 11 insurgents were killed and seven suicide bombers blew themselves up.
Two soldiers and three civilians died, and dozens more were wounded.
The attack came less than two weeks after nearly 500 prisoners, among them Taliban field commanders, escaped from Kandahar's main prison.
Afghan officials say the complex nature of the Taliban assault was due to the presence of some of the escapees, who are experienced fighters.

HSBC profits fall 14% due to higher costs

HSBC has seen its quarterly profits fall 14% due to higher costs.

The bank made a pre-tax profit of $4.9bn (£3bn) in the first three months of 2011, down from $5.7bn a year ago.
HSBC also announced that it would set aside £269m to pay compensation for UK customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

Its latest profit figure comes two days before HSBC's new chief executive Stuart Gulliver is expected to announce substantial cost-cutting plans.
There is speculation that HSBC could exit from some countries, and reduce its branch network in others.
PPI policies are supposed to cover loan repayments if someone falls ill, has an accident or loses their job. But many of the policies were mis-sold by the UK banking industry.
Last month, the High Court backed new rules by the Financial Services Authority that force banks to go back over their past PPI sales to see if customers have a claim for mis-selling.

Nuclear 'cheapest low-carbon option' for UK energy

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Concentrated solar power could be piped in from overseas, the committee says - maybe from North Africa

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Nuclear power will remain the cheapest way for the UK to grow its low-carbon energy supply for at least a decade, according to government advisers.

But renewables should provide 30-45% of the nation's energy by 2030, says the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
Its new report suggests ministers may want to temper ambitions for offshore wind, which is still fairly expensive.
The coalition asked the CCC to advise on options for a low-carbon future shortly after taking office a year ago.
"People argue that offshore wind is very expensive - and it's true, it is more expensive at the moment than some other technologies, so nuclear at the moment looks like the lowest cost low-carbon option," said CCC chief executive David Kennedy.
"But we can expect significant cost reductions over the next two decades across a range of technologies, whether wind, marine or solar, and that's why these technologies are promising."
Wind could replace nuclear as the cheapest option within about 15-20 years, he indicated.
By 2030, the cost of using these low-carbon technologies rather than fossil fuels would put about £50 onto the average household's energy bill.
However, bills could actually go down if plans to improve energy efficiency, such as boosting home insulation, come to fruition.
Hard target
The committee's advice comes against a number of different targets and constraints.

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“Start Quote

We have to ask, 'why would you expect anybody to build an offshore wind turbine factory in the UK?”

End Quote David Kennedy CCC

First, there are European Union targets under which the UK has to achieve a 15% share of renewables by 2020, and a 34% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.

It is already most of the way to the second of those targets, thanks mainly to the "dash for gas", measures to clean up methane emissions from landfill sites and the recession; but the renewables target is likely to prove tougher.
The government's main strategy is to encourage the installation of offshore wind farms - committee calculations suggest that even if 10MW turbines come into the market, at least 3,600 would be needed.
Here, the committee has two concerns. Some of that electricity could be generated more cheaply through onshore wind or buying renewable electricity from overseas; and currently, financial incentives end in 2020.

Nuclear continues to be the cheapest low-carbon energy source, the committee says

"There isn't anything in the way of government support after 2020 - it falls off a cliff - so we have to ask, 'why would you expect anybody to build an offshore wind turbine factory in the UK?'" said Mr Kennedy.
"So we're saying the government should commit to renewables support through the 2020s, and we've got offshore wind and marine technologies in mind here."
The committee is also looking at the government's long-term target of a cut of at least 80% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and asking what policies are needed in order to get on the right road.
They say that by 2030, it would mean generating virtually all electricity through low-carbon technologies - nuclear, renewables, and perhaps fossil-fuel stations that capture and store the carbon dioxide they produce.
Nuclear and renewables would each have about a 40% share, the report envisages.
This would require an additional two or three nuclear reactors on top of those developers are already planning to build.
The total amount of electricity generated would be about 20-25% larger than today, with the additional energy going to replace some of the heating currently done through burning gas and coal, and to power a burgeoning fleet of electric vehicles - 10 million by 2030.
"Smart batteries" in those vehicles would be among the resources used to store electricity at times of low demand and release it during peaks, helping to "smooth out" the supply across the day.
About 30-35% of the remaining heat requirement could be supplied through renewable technologies such as heat pumps and biogas, the committee says.
Only in transport would there be an enduring requirement for fossil fuels, with biofuels constrained by issues such as the increasing need for land to grow food crops.
Clean future?
Environmental groups have given the report a mixed reception.
"It's great that the committee has recognised the huge role renewable energy could and should be playing in taking Britain towards a clean, prosperous future - and is right to call for a dramatic increase in investment to make this happen," said Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns with Friends of the Earth.
"But nuclear power can't be part of the answer - our analysis shows it will divert vital money and effort away from developing renewable energy, and the jobs and industries it could bring to the UK.
"We've had 50 years of successive governments pandering to the nuclear lobby. If their promises of cheap, low-carbon energy were true, they would have been delivered by now."
EDF, one of Europe's largest energy companies that is aiming to build new reactors in the UK, welcomed the nuclear emphasis.
"The CCC has said that safe nuclear power, the lowest cost, large scale, low-carbon electricity source, is a key element; we agree," it said in a statement.
"EDF Energy has already taken steps to respond to early lessons from Fukushima.
"The designs we propose for the future already build in the lessons from previous extreme events, inside and outside our industry [and] we will take account of new lessons from Japan."

Leonardo da Vinci exhibition visitors 'to be capped'

London's National Gallery is to limit visitor numbers to a major exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci works in an attempt to prevent large crowds detracting from the viewing experience.

Admissions will be fixed at 180 every half hour - 50 fewer people than the gallery is legally allowed to let in.
"We've looked hard at the problems caused by very popular exhibitions... and decided to take action," gallery director Nicholas Penny told The Times.
Advance booking opens on Tuesday.
According to the gallery, Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan will bring together "the largest ever number of Leonardo's rare surviving paintings".
The "landmark" exhibition, which includes works never shown in the UK before, runs from 9 November 2011 to 5 February 2012.

Concentrating on da Vinci's career as a court painter in Milan in the 1480s and 1490s, it will display more than 60 paintings and drawings by the artist.
These include his acknowledged masterpiece The Lady with an Ermine, the Belle Ferronniere and the National Gallery's own recently restored Virgin of the Rocks.
A full-scale copy of his famous Last Supper, on loan from the Royal Academy, will also be included.
But speculation that the exhibition might feature the Mona Lisa proved to be unfounded.

France to hand over mummified Maori head to New Zealand

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French senator Catherine Morin-Desailly and Michelle Hippolite from the National Museum of New Zealand on returning the mummified head

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The mummified, tattooed head of an ancient Maori warrior is to be returned to New Zealand after spending decades in a French museum.

Monday's handover of the "toi moko" follows years of campaigning by New Zealand officials and Maori elders.
It has been held at the Museum of Rouen in northern France since 1875.
More than 300 such heads have been returned from several countries since New Zealand began requesting their return.
French museum officials say they have no idea how the "toi moko" - which is intricately tattooed and has one damaged eye socket - came to be in their possession.
Until 1996, it had been on public display alongside the museum's prehistoric collection, said museum director Sebastien Minchin.
"As was done at the time, they compared the 'savage' from the other side of the world with our local cavemen," he told the Associated Press news agency.
It is thought to be one of some 15 similar relics in French possession and one of about 500 around the world.
'Killed to order'
New Zealand first began requesting their return in the 1980s, but France's laws on cultural artefacts meant it could not give up the Maori heads in its possession.
In 2007, Rouen's council voted to send theirs back, but were overruled by the Ministry of Culture, which feared it could set a precedent for countries to reclaim their historical artefacts.
A traditional ceremony with incantations will be carried out in Rouen's town hall on Monday to hand the head over to representatives of Wellington's Te Papa museum, who are touring Europe collecting the relics.
New Zealand's Dominion Post newspaper reported that the delegation would be bringing home nine heads in total.
"The French government have provided Te Papa, on behalf of Maori, the ability to bring these ancestors home," Maori leader Michelle Hippolite told the paper.
"This momentous occasion is filled with joy but is also a time for reflection on the journeys of these tupuna [ancestors]."
The Maori traditionally kept tribal heads as war trophies, but they later became much sought after by Western explorers.
They were in such demand that men were believed to have been killed specifically for their heads and slaves were said to have been tattooed and then killed.
Once back in New Zealand, DNA tests will be carried out on the remains where necessary to determine the correct ancestral lands for a proper burial.

Gay men 'report higher cancer rate than straight men'

Homosexual men are more likely to have had cancer than heterosexual men, a US study has suggested.

The study of more than 120,000 people in California has led to calls for more specialist support.
Lesbians and bisexual women also had poorer health after cancer than heterosexuals, according to research published in the journal Cancer.

Cancer Research UK said more research was needed as the reasons for any difference were unclear.
In the 2001, 2003 and 2005 California Health Interview surveys, a total of 3,690 men and 7,252 women said they had been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.
Out of the 122,345 people interviewed, 1,493 men and 918 women described themselves as gay, while 1,116 women said they were bisexual.
Gay men were twice as likely to have been diagnosed with cancer as straight men and, on average, it happened a decade earlier.
There was no such link in women.
Survival or risk? The survey interviews "survivors" so is not a true representation of the number of cancer cases.
Some patients will have died before the survey and others would have been too ill to take part.

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“Start Quote

It could be down to better survival or higher rates of cancer among gay men”

End Quote Jessica Harris Cancer Research UK

Dr Ulrike Boehmer, from the Boston University School of Public Health, said it was not possible to conclude "gay men have a higher risk of cancer" because the underlying reasons for the higher incidence could be more complicated.

Further research would be needed to determine if homosexual men were actually getting more tumours or had greater survival rates, she said.
The authors speculate that the difference in the numbers of cancer survivors could be down to the higher rate of anal cancer in homosexual men or HIV infection, which has been linked to cancer.
Jason Warriner, clinical director for HIV and sexual health at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "We know that HIV can cause certain types of cancer, and that gay men are at a greater risk of HIV than straight men.
"Another factor potentially having an impact is Human Papilloma Virus, which can lead to anal cancer in gay men.
"The government currently runs a national vaccination programme for young girls, but we think recent figures on oral and anal cancers justify taking another look at whether the programme should be extended to include boys."
Jessica Harris, senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "There is already evidence of some health inequalities as a result of sexuality, for example, smoking rates are higher in homosexual men and women than in heterosexual people.
"In this Californian survey, gay men were more likely than straight men to say they had been diagnosed with cancer, but it's not clear from this study why this might be.
"It could be down to better survival or higher rates of cancer among gay men and we'd need larger studies that take both of these factors into account to find out."
Psychological health Looking at the health of patients who survived cancer also showed differences based on sexual orientation.
Lesbian and bisexual women were more than twice as likely as heterosexual women to say they were in "fair or poor health".
This effect did not appear in men.
Dr Boehmer said: "One common explanation for why lesbian and bisexual women report worse health compared to heterosexual women is minority stress [which] suggests lesbian and bisexual women have worse health, including psychological health due to their experiences of discrimination, prejudice, and violence."
She called for more services to "improve the well-being of lesbian and bisexual cancer survivors" and for programs which "focus on primary cancer prevention and early cancer detection" in homosexual men.