Technology News

Car providing relaxation to motorist stuck in heavy traffic jams

2012-07-14T08:46:00.001-07:00

Engineers have developed an advanced car which they say can drive itself on just the press of a button, providing much-needed relaxation to the motorist stuck in heavy traffic jams though it may sound like a James Bond movie stuff.

When the traffic jam ends and the car reaches 30mph, the auto-pilot -- called "Traffic Jam Assist" -- hands control of the vehicle back to the refreshed driver.

The revolutionary technology, developed by engineers at US auto major Ford, is expected to be available on several of its models within five years. Prototypes are being tested at Ford's European research and advanced engineering centre in Germany and in the US, the Daily Mail reported.

Experts said its widespread adoption could help speed up traffic caught in jams by up to 37 percent and reduce journey times by 20 percent by helping cars keep pace more efficiently with the flow of the traffic.

The technology works using a camera and radar behind the rear-view mirror which scans the road ahead by picking out the white lines marking the lane, plus any other traffic.

Signals are then sent to the "brains" of the system in a computer central processing unit or "black box". Once a jam is detected, the car uses a voice command to ask the driver if they want to switch to Traffic Jam Assist.

If the answer is yes, then the car assumes command -- braking to stop a collision with the car in front or to slow down to meet its speed, and then accelerating to keep up with the flow of cars in front when they move off. It will even recognise a car that "cuts in" ahead of the vehicle in front and take appropriate braking action needed.

The system is designed only for motorways, but coping with the problems of urban traffic is just a matter of time, Ford bosses said.

Pim van der Jagt, MD of Ford's Aachen operation said, "The car will stay in the middle of the lane even when the motorway takes a curve. It will accelerate, brake and steer itself in a jam." However, he insisted that the driver still has to pay some attention. Ford research engineer Joseph Urhahne added: "Traffic Jam Assist could help make travelling through congestion a more relaxing experience and, by keeping pace with the flow of traffic, potentially help relieve road congestion."

M2M or machine to machine communication taking giant strides

2012-07-14T08:34:00.002-07:00

With the mobile phone customer base growing rapidly, it was a matter of time before M2M or machine to machine communication started taking giant strides to become an integral part of the digital world.

M2M, in simple words, means combining technologies that allow both wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices of the same ability. M2M depends heavily on cellular technology and Indian companies are primed to cash in on its popularity.It just had to happen.

According to a research report released by Economist Intelligence Unit, about 50 billion devices worldwide would be connected by 2020. M2M is beginning to fulfil its promise, with several successful applications already in the field,â€ says Jason Sumner, senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit and editor of the report. â€œThe next step is to create a platform for innovation by standardising technologies, forming partnerships within the industry and demonstrating the benefits to consumers.â€ The report adds that growth and innovation will come from experimentation within individual sectors, but many firms either do not understand M2M technologies or have doubts about their true business benefits. A recent poll of businesses by Gartner, a technology analyst firm, found many with no plans to adopt M2M, largely owing to lingering doubt over its ability to provide measurable business value.

In India, however things are looking better for M2M. Telit Wireless Solutions, a UK-based technology firm is upbeat about the scope of growth in M2M. â€œPeople are keen to implement M2M technology into their existing deployments and applications to enhance their performance using wireless technologies as it makes them more viable and efficient,â€ says Ashish Gulati, country head for Telitâ€™s India operations. The Draft Telecom Policy released by the Ministry of Information and Technology in 2011, too, had stressed on the opportunities that M2M offers.

Reliance Communication was one of the big companies to latch on the M2M. The M2M applications were developed for the rural markets that enable water level monitoring, and data gathering for milk and agri-cooperatives, fisheries, poultry, and soil analysis. In the urban market, thrust is on mobile ticketing, vending machines and buying goods at kiosks. â€œM2M applications give alternative revenue streams as well as develop strategic partnerships,â€ says an analyst from Gartner India.

Gulati is of the opinion that M2M solutions can be effectively used in areas like healthcare, security, tracking, emergency telephone systems, information displays and others. Telit, which acquired Motorolaâ€™s M2M division last year, is now looking to get M2M into micro finance as well. â€œWe are already into AMR (automated meter reading) applications for power utilities in India, which enable utilities to monitor how much power is consumed by industrial consumers and how much is billed back, and whether there was any theft on the way between on transformer and the other,â€ says Gulati.

According to research firm 6Wresearch, Indian M2M modules market is expected to generate $98.38 million by 2016, with an estimated compound annual growth rate of 33.81 per cent from 2011 to 2016. Cellular M2M modules generated $9.15 million in 2011 and are expected to reach $41.54 million by 2016. Figures like these are encouraging players like Gulati and Bangalore-based Avians Innovations. According to a company spokesperson, the market is still at a nascent stage but they are expecting it to grow faster than expected. The emergence of 3G in India has also been a driving factor in the growth of M2M communications. Projects like UID-Aadhaar too will fuel the growth, feel experts.

Automotive, healthcare, surveillance and equipment monitoring are four verticals where experts see a lot of growth potential for M2M. Security and surveillance is an area which is growing rapidly in the country â€“ both commercially and residentially. While telecom service providers like Reliance and Airtel have been working on their M2M applications primarily for the rural markets, the urban market has a lot of potential. â€œMore and more people are indulging in e-commerce and m-commerce and that is a great indicator that they will embrace M2M communications as well,â€ concludes Gulati.

Google, Web search giant, reimagin itself as a hardware maker

2012-07-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Google unveiled a new 7-inch tablet computer, called Nexus 7, and a sphere-shaped device for streaming music and video that it is calling Nexus Q, on Wednesday at Google I/O, the company's annual conference for developers.

It was an event that included sky divers, stunt bikers and people rappelling down the side of a building. Then came another spectacle: watching Google, the Web search giant, reimagine itself as a hardware maker.

Both debuts paled in comparison to the company's ramped-up demonstration of Project Glass, a device that puts a camera and a tiny video screen into a kind of eyeglass frame. This involved Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, jumping on stage wearing the device and engaging in a live video chat on Google's social network with a couple of wing-suited sky divers as they jumped out of a plane. They were followed by stunt bikers and rappellers who dropped down the face of the Moscone West convention center, all the while sharing what they were seeing through experimental versions of the glasses.

Brin said Google would make a $1,500 prototype of the glasses - which it calls the Google Glass Explorer Edition - available to developers from the United States who attended the conference. He said the glasses were slated to ship early next year.

Google's focus on hardware is a strategic shift for the company, which makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. Google is likely to sell the Nexus 7 and Nexus Q at cost, or even at a loss, but hopes to make up for those losses - and then some - with additional revenue from purchases made on Google Play, its app and content store; additional traffic to its YouTube video site; and the advertising it reaps from all of its Internet products.

By selling Google-branded devices, the company also aims to protect its core search business as competitors hover. Facebook is deepening its partnership with Microsoft's Bing search engine and Microsoft just announced plans for its own branded tablet. Apple is moving to cut Google out of its mobile and desktop operating systems with its own cloud, search and mapping services.

"Google is a hardware company now," said Colin Gillis, an Internet analyst with BGC Partners. "Hardware is becoming the doorway to products and services. If you're going to use the Internet, you are going to have to use a device. Whoever makes that device controls what services and products are offered to you, and those nickels and dimes add up over time."

Google's Nexus 7 tablet, which will be manufactured by Asus, the Taiwanese hardware maker, features a lightweight design, 7-inch screen and high-definition display. Google priced its tablet at $199, which puts it in direct competition with Amazon's Kindle Fire. The cheapest version of Apple's latest iPad sells for $500.

The Nexus 7 will feature Google's new version of its Android mobile operating system, called Jelly Bean, which was made available to developers Wednesday and will come to some Android devices next month.

Joe Britt, an engineering director at Google, said the Android updates include a simpler and more accurate on-screen keyboard and a smarter auto-correct feature. The new software will also transcribe speech even when the device is not online.

Google showed off a new voice search feature too, aimed at competing with Apple's Siri virtual assistant. In a demonstration, a Google employee asked an Android phone to "show me pictures of pygmy marmosets," which returned images of the very peculiar dwarf monkey.

Google said it now activates 1 million Android devices each day, or 12 devices every second.

The company's Nexus Q streaming music and video device will sell for $299. Google is betting that it can differentiate the Q from competitive products, like the Apple TV, by making it more social. The Q allows any user with an Android phone or tablet - not just the owner - to wirelessly send content to speakers or a television, all over the air.

Ultimately, Google plans to make the Q a portal that will link to other internet-connected devices in the home, such as smart refrigerators, picture frames and light bulbs.

But Google Glass seemed to garner the most excitement from developers at the event. When Brin said Google would begin taking orders for the devices, he drew loud cheers.

Isabelle Olsson, who is leading the design effort for Google Glass, said the idea behind the project was to try and get "technology to get out of the way." She added: "We created Glass so you can interact with the virtual world without obstructing the real world."

Google seems to be realizing that it needs real-world products to connect with its many virtual-world services.

Apple Inc. and book publishers face trial next year in US

2012-07-14T08:29:00.002-07:00

The US joined 15 states and Puerto Rico in claiming Apple, CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster, LagardÃ¨re SCA's Hachette Book Group, News Corp.'s HarperCollins, Macmillan and Penguin colluded to fix prices of e-books. US District Judge Denise Cote, who is presiding over the consolidated lawsuits in federal court in Manhattan, set the trial for June 3, 2013.

Apple Inc. and book publishers that haven't settled e-book price-fixing claims will face trial next year in a case filed by the US Justice Department, a federal judge in New York decided.

"Several parties, Apple and DOJ are pushing for a fast trial as fast as can be accomplished that is consistent with justice," Cote said yesterday as she set the nonjury trial with Apple and other defendants that haven't settled.

US antitrust officials have stepped up enforcement against anticompetitive price-fixing agreements in industries including health care and auto parts. Regulators have also increased scrutiny of Cupertino, California-based Apple's digital publishing, mobile computing and music retail businesses to make sure the iPad maker hasn't thwarted competition on its way to becoming the world's most valuable company. Three e-book publishers named in the US government's antitrust lawsuit, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins, settled their cases after the complaint was filed April 11.

A group of 15 states and Puerto Rico filed a similar lawsuit. Connecticut Assistant Attorney General Gary Becker told Cote on Saturday that a settlement with the three publishers and all 50 states would be agreed to by Aug. 10.

"We are in the process of getting the other states to sign on," Becker said. "I think we're off to a good start. I have no reason to believe they won't sign up."

Shepard Goldfein, a lawyer for Harper Collins, told Cote on Saturday that he was confident the accords with the states would "get done." Pearson Plc's Penguin unit and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, continue to fight the lawsuit.

Apple's digital book-pricing practice may have cost consumers more than $100 million, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said at a Washington news conference after that suit was filed.

The case is US v. Apple, 12-cv-02826, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network

2012-07-14T08:25:00.001-07:00

A new book by a former senior staff member has claimed Facebook, which is supposed to be one of the most dynamic companies in the world, was deeply sexist and stuck in a 1950s mentality that was a cross between a frat house and Mad Men until recently.

Katherine Losse, who worked for Facebook between 2005 and 2010, claims that female workers at the social network were propositioned for threesomes or given crude insults like â€˜I want to put my teeth in your assâ€™ in The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network.

Lower ranking employees, who were invariably female, were treated like â€œsecond class helpâ€ and banned from a conference unless they worked as coat checkers whilst there.

Meanwhile in between toga parties and late night â€˜hackathonsâ€™, male engineers raced skateboards around desks as if they were in the X Games.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckberg has been compared to Napoleon and branded a â€˜little emperorâ€™ who created a company where his staff could â€˜idol worshipâ€™ him.

On his 22nd birthday female workers were even asked to wear a T-shirt with his face on it in his honour.

Losse was employee number 51 and worked her way up from customer relations to a senior marketing role before becoming the speechwriter for Zuckerberg.

At its core, she claims that Facebook is all about creating a â€˜popular techno frat that didnâ€™t exist at Stanford or Harvardâ€™ where men can engage in endless competition with each other.

â€œThe older men in the office could be unbridled in their wide ranging desires for sex and attention as the youngest ones,â€ the Daily mail quoted her as writing.

â€œOne of the few married engineers on the team was known by his female colleagues (after he had made several unwelcome propositions to them) to invite lower ranking women at the company to have threesomes with him...

â€œ...When a female employee reported being told by a male co-worker in the lunch line that her backside looked tasty â€” â€œI want to put my teeth in your assâ€ was what the co-worker said â€” Mark asked (it was hard to tell whether it was with faux or genuine naivetÃ©): â€˜What does that even mean?â€ she wrote.

During an away trip to Las Vegas a group of Facebook engineers filmed themselves inviting girls up to their table in a club then shouting â€œLeave, youâ€™re not pretty enough!â€ when they didnâ€™t like them.

The 2007 â€˜F8â€™ conference in San Francisco was open only technical employees but Facebook relented on everyone else - so long as they carried out coat checking duties whilst there.

This meant lower paid employees who were invariably female were treated like â€˜second class helpâ€™, Losse writes.

The year before Facebook had offered its staff a $1,000 a month subsidy to live within a mile of the office in the belief that it would make them happier.

But until there was an outcry this was only offered to engineers on 80,000 dollars a year salaries.

Customer service workers, which included the few women who worked for the company, were told they could not have it even though they were on just 30,000 dollars a year.

â€œThe companyâ€™s entire human resources architecture was constructed on the reactionary model of an office from the 1950s in which men with so-called masculine qualities (being technical, breaking things, moving fast) was idealised as brilliant and visionary whilst everyone else (particularly the nontechnical employees on the customer support team who were mostly female and sometime, unlike the white and Asian engineering team, black) were assumed to be duller, incapable of quick and intelligent thought. It was like Mad Men but real and happening the current moment, as if in repudiation of fifty years of social progressâ€¦,â€ Losse wrote.

â€œ...Facebook it seemed wanted to have it all: to be the new and scrappy kid on the block and have the feel of an old boysâ€™ club that had been around forever,â€ she added.

It wasnâ€™t until the arrival of chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg in 2009 that things actually changed.

Google rolling out consumer version of its electronic eyewear

2012-07-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

Google Inc though it stopped short of putting a price tag on the "smart" glasses, expects to roll out a consumer version of its electronic eyewear that can live-stream images and audio and perform computing tasks in less than two years.

Google Glass, as the technology is known, will be sold to consumers at a price "significantly" lower than the $1,500 that the company is selling it to US-based software developers from early next year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said.

Brin showed off the glasses at Google's annual developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, providing the most in-depth public look at the futuristic technology since Google first announced the project in April.

Google also unveiled its first tablet which it will start selling from mid-July for $199, hoping to replicate its smartphone success in a hotly contested market now dominated by Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire and Apple Inc's iPad.

Google Glass is a stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on the left side of a pair of eyeglass frames which can record video, access email and messages, and retrieve information from the Web.

In a high-octane demonstration of the technology, several skydivers wearing the glasses jumped out of an airship and landed on the roof of San Francisco's Moscone Center, sharing a live video of the stunt with the crowd.

Reporters at a briefing after the conference lined up to try on Brin's personal pair of glasses, where they were able to watch a video of fireworks displayed on the small screen. The perspective in the video shifted as wearers moved their heads to look up, down or sideways.

The glasses, which weigh less than some sunglasses, contain a wireless networking chip and essentially all the other technology found inside a typical smartphone - save for a cellular network radio - Google executives said.

The battery is smaller than a smartphone battery, but Google is working on ways to make the battery charge last for a full day.

Brin said he expects the glasses to be available to consumers less than a year after the developer version is available.

Google is still experimenting with various aspects of the glasses, including potentially providing directions on the screen and the ability to have the glasses speak out text messages, Brin said.

He said, in response to a question, that there are no plans to offer any kind of advertising on the device.

Microsoft buying internet startup Yammer for $1.2 billion

2012-07-14T08:18:00.002-07:00

Microsoft is buying internet startup Yammer for $1.2 billion in an attempt to bring Facebook-like sharing features to its widely used suite of business software applications.

Yammer specializes in creating private social networks so employees within the same company can keep tabs on what colleagues are working on. That's similar to how Facebook's online social network allows friends and families to track what's happening in each other's personal lives.

The deal, announced Monday, comes nearly two weeks after word of Microsoft's negotiations with Yammer first leaked out in published reports.

The acquisition represents Microsoft's latest attempt to adapt to a major shift in the technology industry, one that is fueling demand for more Internet-connected services and social-networking tools.

The upheaval is threatening to marginalize Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, and ultimately diminish the amount of money coming in from sales of its Windows operating system and a wide range of applications designed primarily for personal computers.

As part of its effort to remain relevant, Microsoft paid $8.5 billion last year for Internet video chat service Skype in the largest acquisition in its history.

In another bold move, Microsoft last week unveiled its own tablet computer, Surface, to compete with Apple's iPad. Microsoft has designed Surface to run on the upcoming Windows 8, the biggest change to the company's operating system in nearly two decades.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is counting on Yammer's sharing tools to ensure that long-established Microsoft applications, including its word processing and spreadsheet programs, remain vital components for getting work done. Google has emerged as a threat with a toolbox of similar programs that run primarily over the Internet rather than on individual machines.

"Think of Yammer as a fundamental part of our Office family," Ballmer said on a Monday conference call.

Microsoft will have much of the same autonomy given to Skype since that deal closed eight months ago. Yammer will continue to be run from its San Francisco headquarters by its co-founder and CEO, David Sacks. It will also continue to provide its services separately from Microsoft's offerings.

Microsoft did not give a time frame for when the deal should close.

Gartner Inc. analyst Larry Cannell said Microsoft's latest acquisition was smart and reflected "a recognition that the social capabilities in Microsoft's products have been deficient."

Investors couldn't muster much enthusiasm for the deal on another somber day for the stock market. Microsoft's stock fell 82 cents, or nearly 3 percent, to close at $29.88.

Although other companies such as Jive Software and Salesforce.com are building social networks for businesses, Yammer shares the most DNA with Facebook Inc.

When it started in 2008, Yammer raised its initial funding from Peter Thiel - Facebook's first major investor. Thiel formerly worked with Sacks while they were both executives at PayPal, an online payment service that eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Research in Motion Ltd seeks patience until BlackBerry 10 ready

2012-07-14T07:58:00.001-07:00

As the company develops new devices to rival the iPhone and Android smartphones, the CEO of embattled BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd asked disgruntled investors for patience Tuesday.

Thorsten Heins, who replaced longtime CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in January, said the past year has been very difficult for RIM, as its once-pioneering BlackBerry devices lost market share to smartphones that do much more than email and phone calls.

RIM has been developing the BlackBerry 10 operating software to catch up with competitors and even surpass them, but the software has faced repeated delays. Devices running it will now miss the lucrative holiday shopping season. By the time they go on sale, RIM will have even more competition, including a new iPhone expected from Apple this fall.

Heins said the company has spent the past several months reorganizing operations and is working "around the clock" to get BlackBerry 10 out in the first quarter of 2013, a year after analysts had expected it.

"I want to assure you that I am not satisfied with the performance of the company over the past year," he told investors during RIM's annual shareholders meeting. "The management team and I have already instituted some major changes and there will be more as we work to turn around the company's performance."

Heins said the company will try to tap its strengths in corporate markets once new devices come out, but he warned that the benefits of BlackBerry 10 "will take time to have a meaningful impact on our performance." He reiterated that the next several quarters will be challenging for the company.

Heins said Tuesday that he expects the company will book another operating loss in the current quarter as the company cuts prices to sell its older BlackBerry models.

Analysts believe RIM is running out of time to turn itself around.

Sales of BlackBerry phones fell 41 percent in the most recent quarter and likely won't pick up again until new phones come out next year. By then, people will have even more choices, likely including a new iPhone and devices running the latest version of Google's Android software, called Jelly Bean. Phones running a revamped version of Microsoft's Windows system are also coming this fall.

Although BlackBerrys were once a staple in corporate environments because of their reputation for security and reliability, they've lost their cachet as iPhones demonstrated that smartphones are good for more than email. The BlackBerry's U.S. market share has plummeted from 41 percent in 2007, when the first iPhone came out, to less than 4 percent in the first three months of 2012, according to research firm IDC.

The shareholders meeting, which took place in RIM's hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, and was monitored by webcast, came less than two weeks after the company reported quarterly results that were worse than analysts had expected. It also said it will be cutting 5,000 jobs, or 30 percent of its workforce, and delaying the launch of BlackBerry 10 yet again.

All 10 directors on the company's board were re-elected Tuesday, though some investors questioned the wisdom given the company's poor performance. Investors also questioned senior management's ability to turn the company around in the face of continued declining sales and the BlackBerry 10 delays.

"We understand shareholder support is not unanimous, and it's a difficult period for our shareholders," Heins told the capacity crowd at an auditorium at Wilfrid Laurier University.

One shareholder, Vic Alboini, the CEO of Jaguar Financial, asked whether the board was searching for additional technology talent to augment the board. Board Chairwoman Barbara Stymiest replied that the company had enlisted a firm to search for new members in an attempt to appease shareholders.

Shares in the company, which traded for more than $30 less than a year ago, have recently dropped below $8, near a nine-year low. The stock fell an additional 38 cents, or nearly 5 percent, to close Tuesday at $7.29.

The stock performance has increased the pressure on RIM to find a buyer or sell assets. RIM has hired a team of bankers to help it weigh its options as it loses market share.

Despite the poor performance, Heins expressed optimism about the company's future, once it gets BlackBerry 10 out.

"In May, we had BlackBerry World, where we had 5,000 attendees. And we provided a sneak preview of the BlackBerry 10 interface and some camera features and we got some extremely good feedback," Heins said.

Few details about BlackBerry 10 have been released, but the company has said it will include the ability to run multiple programs at once and will let users switch between programs without returning to the home screen. It promises the multimedia, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now demand.

Heins reiterated that the latest delay resulted from the challenge of integrating large amounts of software code. He said the product's quality is more important than rushing out the software, and he argued that some telecom carriers prefer a 2013 launch because next-generation wireless networks will be more widely operational by then.

Frank Boulben, who became chief marketing officer just four weeks ago, said he's confident RIM will have a receptive audience when the new operating system is launched next year. He said RIM will try to get the products to BlackBerry fans first in order to encourage a word-of-mouth marketing campaign.

Heins said the company plans to save money by cutting its external manufacturing facilities from 10 to three, and by outsourcing its global repair services. It is also cutting jobs as part of a plan aimed at saving about $1 billion this year.

The company also said it is examining all options, including partnerships and strategic business model alternatives to ensure RIM's success moving forward.

BlackBerry marketing head not dejected by 'ancient' perceptions

2012-07-14T07:56:00.002-07:00

Frank Boulben is four weeks into his job as chief marketing officer for Research in Motion Ltd. The new marketing chief for BlackBerry smartphones isn't dejected by perceptions that his products look ancient next to iPhones and Android devices.

He promises to impress people when phones running the company's new BlackBerry 10 software are released in early 2013, at least a year later than analysts had expected.

He told The Associated Press in a Monday interview that RIM will tout features that current devices lack. That includes better ways to run multiple programs at once.

But touting new features is just part of the challenge. BlackBerry devices will be handicapped because, compared with rivals, they have fewer games, utilities and other apps available to extend the phones' functionality.

Amazon may launch new smartphone production later this year

2012-07-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

Amazon the online retail giant is testing a new smartphone and may launch production later this year or early next year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The story, datelined Taipei, said the company is working with Asian component suppliers to test the new device, which would enter a crowded market dominated by Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy handsets and LG models.

Amazon, the electronic books pioneer whose Kindle reader has grown enormously popular in recent years, expanded into the tablet market last year with Kindle Fire, which runs on Google's Android software.

The Android platform is used by slightly more than half the smartphones in the US market, while the iPhone accounts for 31.9 percent, according to an industry survey released earlier this month.

In the overall US market for mobile handsets, Korean-based Samsung led with 25.7 percent, followed by LG, another Korean firm, with 19.1 percent and Apple with 15 percent, according to the survey by the comScore group.