Dina Pule is feeling the love, and she’s not happy about it. South Africa’s communication minister says she has been the target of a 10-month “smear campaign” by the Sunday Times, which included a proposal of “love” from a friend of a reporter for the Johannesburg paper. On Monday, Pule said the real reason for the Times’ stories is an attempt to influence a TV set-box tender contract worth billions of rand.

South Africa aims to bring digital television to more than 11 million homes by 2016. That means consumers will need to buy a set-top box to receive digital signals instead of today’s analog broadcasts.

“The stakes are very high and some unscrupulous individuals are so desperate to secure the set-top-box tender,” Pule said in Johannesburg. “They are willing to do anything, including using journalists to smear the minister. Shockingly, they found a willing partner in the Sunday Times.”

The newspaper yesterday reported that Pule had helped friends of her boyfriend win appointments to the boards of companies with state ownership.

Pule, who isn’t suing the newspaper, responded with her own claims of unethical behaviour, by Sunday Times reporter Mzilikazi Wa Afrika. She said the reporter offered to halt negative coverage in exchange for information on President Jacob Zuma at a meeting in a hotel in Johannesburg’s Sandton neighborhood. The newspaper’s report wilfully misled, manipulated facts, and distorted information, Pule said.

“The Sunday Times takes exception to Communications Minister Dina Pule’s unusual press conference today in which she accused this newspaper of running a deliberate smear campaign against her, orchestrated by unnamed handlers on behalf of unnamed people,” the newspaper said in a statement on its website. “If the minister has evidence that these businessmen were somehow attempting to influence the Sunday Times, please can she name them and their interests in an open forum.”

The government plans to subsidise 70 percent of the digital decoder’s cost for 5 million TV-owning households. In December, a South African court found that Pule had overstepped her power in deciding who would be allowed to provide the subsidized set-top boxes.

She didn’t name the company she thought was behind the newspaper’s allegations. But she said they had come from businessmen with close links to the Sunday Times who want to participate in the set-top box tender.

She also said an associate of Wa Afrika made a more intimate approach while she was having her hair done at a Pretoria salon.

“He personally made the proposal to talk to Wa Afrika about the story,” she said, and “went as far as to propose love to me.”

Original post is In South African Digital TV Shift, Claims of Love Offers and Graft by Tech Blog.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is getting a new phone. In fact, she’s buying almost 10,000 of them, for something in the neighborhood of $31 million.

This summer, the German government will get the first of about 9,600 hack-proof handsets. The government last year asked tech companies for bids on supplying phones to let ministry workers, diplomats, and other officials send and receive classified documents and make secure calls.

On Mar. 6, the government said the tender had been won by Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems unit and Secusmart, a security specialist in Dusseldorf. The devices will cost about 2,500 euros each, according to a March 12 report in Manager Magazine.

Secusmart says it is using Blackberry handsets for its phones. The company says it worked on the device for about a year and will start supplying the government in July. A mobile application security company in Hanover, mediaTest digital, will supply a secure internal app store for the devices.

“Secure phones used to be anything but sleek and smart,” said Hans-Christoph Quelle, Secusmart’s managing director. The device “will offer all amenities of a modern smartphone that can be used privately and at the same time, it will be secure enough for Ms. Merkel. That’s the first time this has been achieved.”

T-Systems says it started with phones from Samsung Electronics and added software that allows users to switch between private and secure work mode without having to restart.

Quelle predicts the trend will catch on. “We’re talking to governments around the world, and they all want the same thing: A secure phone that’s user-friendly,” Quelle said.

Original post is Forget the Batphone. Here Comes the Merkelphone by Tech Blog.

Courtesy HeartMath

The Inner Balance app coaches you through breathing exercises designed to reduce stress.

In a classic “Seinfeld” episode, George’s father adopts what’s supposed to be a stress-reduction technique. Except that, instead of reciting it softly to himself, he bellows to the rafters: “Serenity now!”

The Inner Balance Trainer is a $99 device from a company called HeartMath that’s supposed to help achieve the same goal without the bellowing.

After you download the free Inner Balance app, you clip the sensor to your earlobe and connect it to the dock connector of your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. (IPhone 5 and fourth-generation iPad users will need an adapter to use it with Apple’s new Lightning connector.)

The app then coaches you through breathing exercises designed to reduce stress, while recording data from the sensor on how you’re doing.

One screen features a brightly colored circle that pulses at the pace you’re supposed to breathe. Another has a soothing photo of a waterfall that you can replace with one of your own. You can also select music from your collection to accompany your sessions. I decided on the Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” which seemed appropriately New Age-y.

It turns out that, according to the Inner Balance, I’m sort of a whiz at “coherence” — the synchronization of heart, brain and nervous system that’s the centerpiece of HeartMath’s stress-reduction approach. Or at least, I’m a whiz at “Quick Coherence,” at the lowest level.

As you progress with your training — sessions can be as brief as three minutes, though five to 10 minutes somehow seemed more appropriate — you can ratchet up the level of difficulty. At the end of each session, you get a report on how you did, including an overall score as measured in “coherence points.”

You can even post the results of your training to Twitter and Facebook, so you can have coherence contests with your friends. Sort of like competing to see who can yell “Serenity now!” the loudest.

Original post is Inner Balance Promises Stress Relief for IPhoners: Rich Jaroslovsky by Tech Blog.

Photograph by Bobi/Getty Images

Motion sensors allow users to control the screen of a device without having to touch it.

It’s the latest in mobile technology, inspired by an invention nearly a hundred years ago.

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,  chipmaker STMicroelectronics is showcasing screen technology that works by just hovering your hand a few inches away from the surface. Thanks to motion sensors, users don’t have to touch a screen to flip through an e-book or surf the Web. No more finger smudges.

Little do tech addicts know that a similar hovering gesture was invented about a century ago in Russia. In fact, that is what inspired STMicro’s device, said Benedetto Vigna, the Geneva-based company’s head of MEMS and sensor products.

“There was a nice instrument invented in 1919 by a Russian guy called Theremin,” Vigna said in an interview. “You could play music with your hands by hovering above it, without even touching the device. That’s how we came up with the idea.”

Leon Theremin, also known as Lev Termen, invented what he called the termenvox, an electronic musical instrument built around two antennas. Also known as a theremin, the device has been used to create those eerie sounds found in old sci-fi movies.

STMicro’s hover screen technology will be used later this year in a multimedia tablet, said Vigna, who declined to say which manufacturer will make the device. The company’s clients include Samsung, Apple, Nokia and Blackberry.

Those who can’t wait for the hover-screen devices can try their hand now on the theremin.

Original post is How an Old Russian Invention Inspired STMicro’s Hover Screen by Tech Blog.

Photograph by David Becker/Getty Images

Journalist Greg Sandoval (L) with actor/director Danny DeVito on stage during the 2013 International CES at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Jan. 9, 2013.

(This post was updated with information from a CNET blog.)

CNET reporter Greg Sandoval said on Twitter today he has resigned from the digital media site after its parent company, CBS, forced staff to withdraw a new product by Dish Network from its Best of CES awards.

Sandoval said on Twitter he is no longer confident “that CBS is committed to editorial independence” and that “CNET wasn’t honest about what occurred regarding Dish.”

Dish complained last week that its Hopper with Sling set-top box had been eliminated from a best-of-show award at the Consumer Electronics Show. CBS said at the time that a new policy would prohibit it from reviewing products of anyone in litigation with the company. CBS, based in New York, is engaged in a lawsuit with Dish over one of the features of the Hopper that allows consumers to skip commercials.

CNET said in a blog post today that the Hopper had actually won its top prize, only to be rejected by CBS. The parent company forced CNET’s staff to re-vote, according to Editor-in-Chief Lindsey Turrentine. The Razer Edge gaming tablet ended up winning the Best of CES award.

“I wish I could have overridden the decision not to reveal that Dish had won the vote,” Turrentine wrote. “For that I apologize to my staff and to CNET readers.”

CBS, which acquired CNET in 2008, said in an e-mail that the situation was an “isolated and unique incident in which a product that has been challenged as illegal was removed from consideration for an award.”

The move didn’t affect CNET’s news gathering, CBS said.

“In terms of covering actual news, CNET maintains 100 percent editorial independence, and always will,” the company said. “We look forward to the site building on its reputation of good journalism in the years to come.”

The Razer Edge gaming tablet ended up winning the Best of CES award.

Dish spokesman Bob Toevs said he wished CNET’s editorial staff was able to express its original view and praised the “collective wisdom” of the website’s newsroom.

“What we want is fair, critical coverage from independent reporters and editors,” Toevs said. “We want honest brokers to come to their own conclusions. When you earn that praise, that’s praise hard won. It’s unfortunate that CNET has to deal with this.”

Sandoval didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Original post is CNET Reporter Resigns After CBS Interferes With Coverage by Tech Blog.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

An air hockey app is demonstrated on Lenovo’s Horizon touchscreen PC at CES in Las Vegas.

Turns out, there’s a reason why Lenovo released its hit-or-miss tabletop PC, the Horizon.

According to CEO Yang Yuanqing, family patriarchs are increasingly frustrated with their kids constantly playing on their smartphones and tablets at the dinner table. Individual devices are making individual kids increasingly, well, individual.

Horizon, according to Yang, will put the “family” back into “family dinner.” Of course, he’s not suggesting you eat dinner off Lenovo’s new $1,700 27-inch flat-bed touchscreen PC. But he does think it can reunite the family.

Showing off the air hockey app at Lenovo’s showcase inside the Venetian at Las Vegas, Yang’s enthusiasm is palpable. His own kids, of which he has three, love the electronic keyboard app. His mother is also a fan, and the family even sits around for a game of poker (not the kids, he says).

Of course, there may be a convenient upside to the new Horizon. It may end up being the one new device dad buys that the kids don’t want to borrow.

Original post is Lenovo to Kids: Stop Texting at the Dinner Table by Tech Blog.

It was a slick presentation by Sony Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai.

But it was an oops and a subtle mea culpa that highlighted the long road ahead for the Japanese company to rebuild its battered brand.

Kaz, as he’s known informally, was joined by COO Phil Molyneux as they went through an array of new devices: headphones to beat Dr. Dre at his own game, speakers that can be activated with a tap, and new waterproof Xperia handsets.

And then there was the TV. Samsung and Sharp had already unveiled their 4K and OLED TVs. 4K, also known as Ultra HD, is being touted as making that Full HDTV you bought last year look like a CRT. Organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), apart from allowing more efficient, thinner TVs, are the next cool thing. Either technology has a high-end sticker price.

So Kaz went one better. With great joy and triumph, he unveiled 4K and OLED in the same device. Except it didn’t work, showing what appeared to be a console screen with generic white text on a blue background.

The malfunction elicited chuckles from the audience and a meek grin from the CEO. After a pause and a quip, he moved on, missing that grand triumph he might have craved.

The snafu didn’t stop Kaz from ending his CES pre-show briefing with a vow to “surprise and delight” before letting an AV presentation explain what’s on the minds of Sony and its customers:

“We used to make people say `Wow!’ all the time. And it wasn’t an accident,” a female narrator said over a video show and background music that promised to lure customers back one “wow” at a time.

“Our unique combination of artists and engineers set out to create a surprise everyday,” she went on. “We’d forgotten the power of that for a while.”

Original post is Wow! Meets Oops! as Sony Trips on Road to Recovery by Tech Blog.

Courtesy Moshi

Moshi, formerly an Internet telephony company, has found a big business in selling accessories for devices such as the iPad.

Technology startups are notorious for making dramatic product changes, whether that means moving from hardware to software or from an ad-supported business to one based on subscriptions. In Silicon Valley, it’s called the pivot. But few companies have pivoted the way Moshi has.

Founded in 2003 as Aevoe, the company developed technology for Web-based telephony, a market that would eventually be won by Skype and Vonage. Eight years later, Moshi is one of the leading sellers of Apple accessories, such as iPod cases, iPad sleeves and patented iPhone screen protectors — called iVisors — that eliminate the annoying air bubbles found in rival products.

While Moshi is still in a highly competitive market and has to fight to stay in Apple’s favor, business is booming. Moshi has sold more than 5 million iVisors for various mobile devices, and its MacBook keyboard protectors are also popular. Apple’s online store lists 31 of the company’s products for sale and three of its products are sold in physical stores, said Moshi Executive Director Jon Lin.

The company recently opened a San Francisco office, where it plans to more than double its staff next year to 40. It has over 100 employees globally, with products sold in more than 10,000 stores in 45 countries, Lin said. It’s a reality that would have been unthinkable five years ago, when Aevoe was still trying to slog it out in the telecom world.

Back then, the company had moved to Taiwan from Silicon Valley and cut its staff from 20 to four. With no venture capitalists willing to fund the business, Aevoe started developing soft microfiber pouches for iPods and other electronics under the brand name Moshi just to bring in a little revenue. After some success, they then built keyboards for MacBooks and followed that up with keyboard protectors that were thinner than similar products made from silicon.

“We took a big detour,” Lin said.

By 2008, Aevoe only existed as the corporate name with all of the company’s resources focused on the Moshi accessories business. The company reopened its U.S. operations in 2009 in Sunnyvale, California, and moved its headquarters to San Francisco a month ago.

Now, as it competes in a market that includes companies such as Belkin and Incase, Moshi is using its growing money pile to fund new products, including an audio line with earbuds that range in price from about $40 to $200.

“Apple consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that are unique, well-designed and well-made,” Lin said. “We’re never going to make me-too products.”

Original post is Moshi’s Mega Pivot: From Web Telephony to Apple Accessories by Tech Blog.

Now my colleagues Jun Yang and Kyunghee Park have authored “The Curious Case of Samsung’s Missing TVs,” a great read on how a couple of missing TVs hold clues to the multibillion-dollar corporate espionage business that makes Danny Ocean’s rag-tag team look like petty pickpockets.

South Korea, which counts Samsung as its chief exporter, estimates foreign theft of its corporate secrets cost it $82 billion in damages in 2008. In Taiwan, legislators are drafting tougher laws on IP theft with stricter penalties for cross-border espionage, after a Chinese rival allegedly stole secrets from panel-maker AU Optronics. Meanwhile, in India, 35 percent of companies engage in stealing secrets to gain an edge.

While it hurts the boffins coming up with the innovations, the good news for Hollywood is that as the heists continue, there’ll be no shortage of fodder for sequels.

Original post is Hollywood’s Next Heist Flick Should be Set in Suwon by Tech Blog.

Image courtesy of Jawbone

Jawbone's UP wristband tracks the wearer's physical activity.

When I first reviewed Jawbone’s UP fitness wristband a year ago, I cautioned that it would soon come to seem remarkably rudimentary.

A lot’s happened since. Problems with the band’s durability forced the company to stop production for most of this year. Meanwhile, competing devices like the Fitbit and the Nike+ FuelBand embraced wireless technologies that made the UP’s system for syncing with your smartphone — by physically plugging it into the headphone jack — seem positively archaic.

Now, the UP is back. Its physical problems are apparently fixed. Its technology problem isn’t.

The colorful, rubber UP, for the uninitiated, is meant to be worn 24 hours a day as it counts your steps, measures your sleep cycles and, with the help of an iPhone application, tracks your diet and links you up with friends who can provide extra motivation.

During the UP’s long absence from the market, Jawbone managed to preserve customers’ goodwill through a generous refund program. And more than a week of using the new version evinced none of the issues that sank it the first time around, which included imperfect waterproofing that rendered many bands unable to hold a charge, and damage from people twisting it in unexpected ways.

I didn’t go out of my way to stretch or bend the UP, but I didn’t baby it either. And I made sure in the shower every day to apply a generous helping of soapy lather, the treatment that undid version one. No problems to report.

Image courtesy of Jawbone

Unfortunately, the company didn’t use its unplanned hiatus to bring the bracelet up to date. Rather than match its competitors by embracing Bluetooth, it’s stuck with the same audio-connection plug, complete with the small detachable tip that I just know I’ll lose.

It’s all so … 2011. Except, that is, for the price, which has jumped to $130 from last year’s $100.

Meanwhile, Fitbit, which recently introduced its ultra-simple $60 Zip, has just come out with another model, the $100 Fitbit One. Besides being cheaper than the UP, the One is less obtrusive (you can clip it to clothing or slip it into a pocket) and does more (an altimeter measures stairs climbed, in addition to steps taken). And it’s wireless, automatically syncing with the Fitbit app on your iPhone 4S or 5. (Android users, at least for now, have to use an included Bluetooth dongle to sync with a personal computer.)

It isn’t like Jawbone is a stranger to Bluetooth; after all, it makes some of the best wireless headsets around, as well as the Jambox portable speaker. If the UP has a future, Jawbone will have to make use of that expertise.

Original post is Jawbone Fitness Band Could Use Some UP-Dating: Rich Jaroslovsky by Tech Blog.