Mobile phones to exceed world population by 2014

GENEVA: The number of mobile telephones worldwide is set to catch up to the globe's population next year, the United Nations' telecommunications agency said Thursday.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said mobile subscriber numbers looked set to top seven billion in 2014.

"More than half of all mobile subscriptions are now in Asia, which remains the powerhouse of market growth," the ITU said.

By the end of 2013, overall mobile penetration rates will have reached 96 percent globally, 128 percent in the developed world, and 89 percent in developing countries, it added.

"Near-ubiquitous mobile penetration makes mobile cellular the ideal platform for service delivery in developing countries," said Brahima Sanou, director of the ITU's telecommunication development bureau.

The ITU also forecast that 2.7 billion people, or 39 percent of the world's population, would be using the Internet by the end of this year.

Europe will remain the world's most connected region, with 75 percent Internet penetration, far outpacing the Asia-Pacific region at 32 percent, and Africa with 16 percent, it said.

"Household Internet penetration -- often considered the most important measure of Internet access -- continues to rise. By end 2013, ITU estimates that 41 percent of the world's households will be connected to the Internet," the agency noted.

Over the past four years, household access has grown fastest in Africa, with an annual growth rate of 27 percent, it said.

But despite a positive general trend, 90 percent of the 1.1 billion households around the world that are still unconnected are in the developing world.

It also highlighted disparities in the field of broadband Internet.

It said the star performers in terms of access speeds were South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, alongside some surprises in Europe, including Bulgaria, Iceland and Portugal.

The cost of fixed-broadband services has dropped precipitously over the past five years, declining by 82 percent if measured as a share of gross national income per capita, it said.

In developing countries, however, such services remain relatively expensive, with residential fixed-broadband accounting for just over 30 percent of average monthly gross national income per capita.

Broadband is most affordable in Europe, where a basic subscription costs on average less than two percent of gross national income per capita, the ITU said.

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The next big smartphone accessory: your car

BARCELONA: Automobile giants at the world's biggest mobile fair are showing off a new technology that turns a car into a smartphone accessory, allowing a driver to use cutting-edge apps without veering off the road.

Called MirrorLink, and adopted by 85 big manufacturers from Ford to General Motors, Chrysler, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, BMW, VW, Fiat or Renault, it connects a smartphone and car entertainment system with a two-way audio, video and data link.

"People are using their smartphone applications and services 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent when they are not using them is when they are in the car," said Jorg Brakensiek, technical coordinator for the Car Connectivity Forum.

"There is no really safe mechanism for the driver to do that," he told AFP at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

MirrorLink requires a compliant car entertainment system and a smartphone with the software, which can be downloaded.

Drivers then can access their favourite apps.

The apps must meet legal requirements for screens that face drivers, for example the text must be a certain size and some functions such as typing must be disabled while the car is moving.

"The basic assumption is that the phone comes with the application," said Brakensiek.

"You use the car as an accessory."

Eventually, the MirrorLink technology will feed other data from the car to the smartphone, such as speed, location and even weather. That information can be used to develop new applications or improve other services, such as traffic news.

The Car Conectivity Forum, which groups nearly all car manufacturers, was set up to develop the technology two years ago.

The first MirrorLink compliant car entertainment systems have been released by the likes of Sony and JVC, for installation into existing vehicles.

The next step will be for manufacturers to build them into cars before sale.

The new technology avoids problems posed by the "smart car" in which manufacturers weld a SIM card into a vehicle so as to offer driver services such as navigation, SOS response and door unlocking, as well as paid-for entertainment.

One challenge is that the SIM card built into the car ties the owner to one operator for the car's life -- up to 15 years. To overcome this, car makers are trying to agree on a standard way to program the SIM card by remote.

"From out point of view, remote SIM management becomes a key enabler, it becomes a game changer," BMW's project manager for telematic control units, Markus Kaindl, told a symposium at the mobile congress.

But there are other drawbacks, too.

Much of the hardware built into a car cannot keep up with the mobile industry's fast-pace developments, the car owner must pay for the SIM contract, and each manufacturer has its own platform for applications, making it difficult to attract developers.

Yet the "smartcar" services may live on alongside the MirrorLink technology, industry analysts said, especially in high-end cars.

General Motors, one of the leaders in the field with its OnStar service offering navigation and help for drivers, announced before the show it will embed 4G connectivity in all 2015 model cars in North America.

At the mobile show this week, it showed off an impressive concept car, a Cadillac, with all the latest connected gadgets.

It has streaming movies, dedicated apps, and a system that alerts an absent car owner that something has hit his car, and even lets him view the

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Video games zap their way into top New York museum

NEW YORK: Pac-Man and other legends from the video game world became the latest and perhaps most unlikely additions to the Museum of Modern Art's illustrious collections in New York on Friday.

Fourteen games were displayed in the elegant contemporary design gallery on the third floor as part of a wider exhibition called "Applied Design," which celebrates trends in contemporary design.

Pac-Man (1980) and Tetris (1984) get the full treatment, mounted on small screens set into a dark wall. Each has an accompanying label that explains its history, while Pac-Man gets an additional display, called a distella map, of its original code.

A neighboring room featured Myst from 1993, Another World (1991) and Sims from 2000, the air filled with music from the games.

The rarified atmosphere of the MoMA makes an unusual place to satisfy nostalgia for these video relics, but visitors can do just that -- the museum has provided controllers, although there are headphones to keep the noise down.

Games requiring multiple players are the only ones unavailable.

There's also SimCity 2000 (1994), vib-ribbon (1999), Katamari Damacy (2004), EVE Online (2003), Dwarf Fortress (2006), Portal (2007), flOw (2006), Passage (2008) and Canabalt (2009), where the entire life of a couple plays out in under five minutes.

But is it art -- particularly in such a prestigious institution as the MoMA?

Paola Antonelli, senior curator for the museum's department of architecture and design, has no doubt.

"The whole world has always believed that they were a form of art," she told AFP.

"Frankly, I am not interested at all in the discussion about video games or even chairs being art. I find design one of the highest form of human creative expression and when something has great design that is more than enough."

That approach and the museum's desire to expand its exhibits on interactive designs is what underlines the show, which took more than a year and a half to prepare and will be up until January 2014.

MoMA chose the games from a multitude of candidates, studying their cultural significance, their aesthetic quality, but also hard to quantify attributes like "the elegance of the code."

"Definitely function is important," Antonelli said. "It also has to have a certain attitude towards form, that is also a means of communication."

A sure-fire way to decide on which to include is this, she added: "Would the world miss it if it didn't exist?"

This is just the start for what MoMA hopes will be a 40-strong collection eventually. New arrivals being lined up are Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Yars' Revenge (1982), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), and The Legend of Zelda (1986).

But there is no rush, she said. "It is also our job as a museum to preserve whatever we acquire."

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David Bowie releases first album in decade

NEW YORK: British rock icon David Bowie released his first album in a decade Thursday, streaming the comeback record exclusively on iTunes.

The highly anticipated surprise release -- coming more than a week before its commercial launch on March 12 -- will be streamed on Apple's media player until the album is formally made available in stores.

On his official Facebook page, Bowie said that fans would have a chance in the coming days to win signed "deluxe" copies of the album if they indicate their favorite tracks.

"Spread the word children," he said.

The new album contains 14 tracks and the deluxe version includes three bonus tracks.

Bowie has enlisted British actress Tilda Swinton for a music video of one of the album's tracks, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)."

On January 8, he unveiled a new single -- "Where Are We Now?" -- to coincide with his 66th birthday.

Bowie has been a relative recluse in recent years, having released no new music since his last album, 2003's "Reality," and having not performed live since 2006.

Britain's Independent newspaper has described "The Next Day" album as "the greatest comeback album in rock'n'roll history".

The musician, whose real name is David Jones, reportedly spent most of the past decade living in New York with his wife, the Somali-American model Iman, and their daughter.

He underwent a medical procedure for a blocked artery in 2004.

Bowie's androgynous style and outrageous costumes -- often worn as part of his alter egos Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane in the 1970s -- shook up the world of rock 'n' roll and catapulted him to worldwide stardom.

He has sold an estimated 140 million albums over a career spanning almost 50 years.

AFP

Complete list of Oscar winners

HOLLYWOOD: The following is a list of the winners so far at the 85th Academy Awards on Sunday: Best picture: "Argo" Best director: Ang Lee, "Life of Pi" Best leading actor: Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln" Best leading actress: Jennifer Lawrence in "Silver Linings Playbook" Best supporting actor: Christoph Waltz in "Django Unchained" Best supporting actress: Anne Hathaway in "Les Miserables" Best foreign language film: "Amour" (Love) Best animated feature: "Brave" Best original screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained" Best adapted screenplay: Chris Terrio, "Argo" Best original score: "Life of Pi" Best original song: "Skyfall," music and lyrics by Adele and Paul Epworth Best production design: "Lincoln" Best cinematography: "Life of Pi" Best costume design: "Anna Karenina" Best documentary feature: "Searching for Sugar Man" Best documentary short: "Inocente" Best film editing: "Argo" Best makeup: "Les Miserables" Best short animated film: "Paperman" Best short live action film: "Curfew" Best sound editing: "Zero Dark Thirty" Best sound mixing: "Les Miserables" Best visual effects: "Life of Pi" AFP

Iran slams Hollywood, US 'excited' over 'Argo' Oscar win

 
TEHRAN: Iran on Monday criticised Hollywood for awarding its top honour to the Iran hostage drama "Argo", with a senior official saying it "lacks artistic value" and media poking fun at US first lady Michelle Obama's surprise appearance at the Oscar ceremony.
"This anti-Iran movie lacks artistic value," Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hosseini was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
"It was awarded the top honour through a massive financing and advertisement campaign ... so that it attracts more attention worldwide," said Hosseini, who also accused Hollywood of targeting the Islamic republic.
Iran's state television earlier slammed the 85th Academy Awards as "the most political Oscar ever," as it reported the news that "Argo" had won the coveted best film Oscar.
The Fars news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, branded "Argo" as an "anti-Iran movie" financed by a "Zionist company" -- in a reference to the California-based Warner Bros. which produced it.
Meanwhile, The US State Department, still mourning the loss of its diplomats in a bloody attack on a mission in Libya, cheered the Oscar win for "Argo" based on a true life tale of diplomatic bravery.
"I think we all were excited to see it win," deputy acting spokesman Patrick Ventrell told journalists of Ben Affleck's film which picked up the coveted best picture award at the Oscars on Sunday night.
"We cooperated with them in some of the production aspects of, you know, filming inside of this building," Ventrell said.
New Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday tweeted ahead of the awards ceremony in Los Angeles wishing "Good luck @BenAffleck and #Argo" and adding "nice seeing @StateDept & our Foreign Service on the big screen - JK."
Affleck, who also stars in the movie, tweeted back his thanks, adding "Grateful for the outstanding service and sacrifice of US diplomats and their families!"