No rest for the weary D conference producers!

Which would be Walt Mossberg and me, since we are now hard at work — after a very successful ninth D: All Things Digital — on our newest event: AsiaD.

An international confab — this one will be held October 19 to 21 in Hong Kong — is a big deal for us and we’re making sure it is up to snuff for our audience there.

That begins with the speakers, which we will start announcing now and continue to as we add them onto the roster. As we have said before, we’re going for a lineup of both Asian and U.S. speakers, as well as demos from the region, with a focus on the critical emerging market.

That’s why with smartphones in ascendance globally, having Andy Rubin, who runs Google’s Android efforts, is a no-brainer. The longtime mobile exec is at the top of an aggressive push by the Silicon Valley Internet giant to dominate the important sector across the world.

Speaking of domination, we are asking Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma onstage to talk more about his efforts to make the company a powerhouse in China and elsewhere. His recent bare-knuckled fight with Yahoo over Alipay, as he has built a wide-ranging Internet giant, should make for an interesting interview.

Expect a deep dive into what makes the future Web work with Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey, who is someone breaking new ground as he tears down old digital paradigms. With Twitter, Dorsey redefined the real-time world and how the virtual one communicates; with Square, he is upending the payments arena, even as others try to upend him.

Nvidia is not only a pioneer of graphics chips, but now its processors are widely used in the latest mobile devices. That’s why its founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has a lot to say about the future of the fastest-growing sector of computing, from smartphones to tablets and whatever’s next.

And Asus Chairman Jonney Shih has presided over the Taiwanese tech giant since the early 1990s. Most recently, the company pioneered the netbook market and is now plunging deeply into the tablet business, making Shih perfect to discuss these key issues in Asia and around the world.

As usual with D, there will be more big names to come — and you can find out more here.

Supply chain sources tell China’s Economic Daily News that Apple has lined up four new component suppliers for the iPhone 5, which they claim is scheduled for a summer launch. Meanwhile, Taiwanese trade pub DigiTimes is reporting that Apple recently bolstered its printed circuit board (PCB) supply chain in preparation for the next iteration of the iPad. Where the company once used just three PCB suppliers for the device, it’s now using seven. Not a surprise, really, given the 14.8 million iPads Apple sold in 2010. DigiTimes’ sources claim they’re scheduled to begin small-volume shipments next month, before going all out in April. Which jibes nicely with that annual refresh cycle I mentioned earlier and rumors of a spring launch.

As I’ve noted here before, the iPad 2 is expected to be thinner than its predecessor and manufactured with the same unibody approach Apple’s been using for the MacBook. It’s also expected to feature an LCD backlit display, a front-facing camera and Facetime video chat support. Finally, some reports suggest it is powered by one of Qualcomm’s multimode chips and will run on both GSM and CDMA-based networks around the world.

I’m surprised this merits a send-up from everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators–on the level of their takes on enhanced TSA security screenings or Lindsay Lohan getting out of jail–but our friends at Next Media Animation are savvy about the power of hanging on to an Internet meme or, in this case, an Internet meme sweatshop.

NMA depicts Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh as an evil stealer of memes, over-worker of cats and receiver of Internet flames. It’s pretty funny.

Another Verizon (VZ) iPhone rumor to add to the pile, with a few caveats: Market source reports from Taiwanese trade publications like DigiTimes are sometimes dubious. Remarks by Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg this week suggest that the iPhone isn’t headed to the carrier’s network in the near future–certainly not as soon as this DigiTimes report suggests. “We would love to carry [the iPhone], but we have to earn it,” he said. “I can’t speak for Apple.”

That comment was widely interpreted to mean that Verizon hasn’t yet earned the right to carry the device. Which might be the case–unless this was simply a bit of misdirection from Seidenberg. In any event, the fact that Pegatron is said to be ramping up to build a CDMA iPhone doesn’t necessarily mean the device is destined for Verizon. As I’ve noted here before, it could be intended for Sprint (S)–or a foreign carrier like China Telecom, KDDI (Japan) or Telefonica (Mexico).

BoomTown has not been much of a fan of Facebook fan pages, finding most of them sterile affairs with empty marketing messages and little in the way of real life.

But things are actually hopping if you click over to the one, located here, created for JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who went loco after an encounter with a belligerent passenger, opened the emergency inflatable slide and got out of Dodge.

The JetBlue (JBLU) employee got out of jail just last night and still faces charges for his dramatic actions, which could be stringent.

But his Internet life is looking good.

The Slater Facebook fan page, which has garnered 81,856 “Likes” since it was made yesterday, is the perfect example of what social networking is–chock-full of lively comments, homemade photos and topics, such as one titled “Holy Chute!”

I personally liked many of the photos, such as the one above, which has the caption: “The story of one man who’s dealt enough nuts to nuts.”

Two others are below.

YouTube is also seeing Slater-inspired actions, mostly in the form of original “take this job and shove it” ballad videos, four of which you’ll find below.

And finally–and, of course–Slater gets a Taiwanese CGI treatment from New Media Animation that is pretty priceless.

Enjoy:

Last week, it was inebriated actress Lindsay Lohan–and, this week, it is falling-down-drunk reality show star Snooki Polizzi.

Getting the wacky CGI treatment, that is, from Taiwanese “news” outfit Next Media Animation.

Depicting the “Jersey Shore” potty-mouthed princess pretty accurately–making out, passing out and getting smacked–I am starting to think these videos are the work of geniuses:

BoomTown is back from the woods of rural New York and was thrilled to find this waiting for me: Lindsay Lohan getting the wacky CGI treatment by Taiwanese “news” outfit Next Media Animation.

Lohan is out of jail, after 13 days of incarceration, and is now in rehab–all of which is covered here, along with other examples of the unstable actress’s greatest hits.

So, how much do I love the image of her chugging a purple martini whilst driving Herbie the Love Bug into a palm tree?

As much as I like being jacked back into the matrix after a week away!

Enjoy:

Industry sources tell the magazine that the device will feature a 960×640 pixel double-resolution display, enhanced with the same in-plane switching and fringe-field switching technology Apple used to improve viewing angle and readability in the iPad. The display panel itself is said to be 33 percent thinner than the one in its predecessors, presumably to allow for a larger battery.

Finally, the new iPhone is believed to run an A4 processor with 512MB of system RAM. In other words, it’s built with the same processor found in the iPad, but double the RAM. That would obviously make for an impressive smartphone, though it seems unlikely that Apple (AAPL) would outspec the iPad on that front so quickly after the latter’s debut.

Noticeably absent from the Digitimes report: Any mention of a front-facing camera for video chat. Odd, given what we’ve seen in the two prototype next-gen iPhones that have leaked to the wild.

In any event, Digitimes claims this iPhone will be announced on June 7 during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and that Apple, in preparation for the launch, has placed an astonishingly large order for them with its manufacturing partner, Foxconn. The company has requested 4.5 million units for June and another 19.5 million for the rest of 2010, for a total of 24 million units.

[Image credit: Taoviet.nv]

Here is yet another classic talk-sing video of actor William Shatner.

He’s in a duet with Taiwanese singer Lin Yu Chun, aired on the “Lopez Tonight” television show last night.

Lin became well known after a video of his wowza performance on a Taiwanese talent show, singing “I Will Always Love You” in Whitney Houston style, garnered more than 12 million views on YouTube.

The song Shatner and Chun share is the classic “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” first made famous by Bonnie Tyler.

Here’s their duet, as well as the performance that got Chun noticed, much in the same way it happened for Britain’s Susan Boyle:

That the agency has decided to investigate does not mean it has an opinion on the merits of the case. Still, the move has got to weigh heavily on HTC, which hasn’t yet even issued a formal response to Apple’s (AAPL) claims. That said, the company seems to be taking it all in stride. Said CEO Peter Chou: “It’s part of business. We need to face it and everyone can talk it through.”

Further Reading:

• Apple Sues Nexus One Maker HTC Over iPhone Patents
• Apple Sues HTC [Complete Court Filings]
• Why HTC, Apple? And Why Now?
• Apple vs. Google: Game On
• What, HTC Worry?
• HTC May End Up Bringing Knife to Apple Gun Fight
• HTC to Apple: We Built a Touchscreen Phone Before You Did

Before Apple lobbed a patent infringement lawsuit at Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC yesterday, we were lucky to get its CEO, Peter Chou, to agree to appear at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June to talk about its work making smartphones for Google and others.

That interview with Chou (pictured above) obviously got a whole lot more interesting with the epic legal action by Apple (AAPL) alleging that HTC infringed some 20 patents related to the iPhone’s graphical user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

Wrote Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski:

“The company is asking for a permanent injunction barring HTC from importing or selling infringing phones in the U.S., along with triple damages and maximum interest.

‘We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,’ Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a press release announcing the action. ‘We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.’”

HTC denied the allegations, not surprisingly, and was backed up in a statement of support by Google (GOOG). That is also not a surprise, since its Android operating system, which is in the HTC-made Nexus One phone, is mentioned prominently in the lawsuit.

Whatever happens, it all makes for what is likely to be a head-spinning technology rumble over the next months and underscores how important the burgeoning mobile arms race and the fight over innovation will be.

Until we get Chou in an onstage interview at D8 to talk about this and much more, here is a video of MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka talking about yesterday’s Apple action on the new Digits Live Show on WSJ.com:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100303/peter-chou-htc-at-d8/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100303/one-obvious-question-for-htc-ceo-peter-chou-at-d8-how-about-them-apple-patents/ http://allthingsd.com/20100303/one-obvious-question-for-htc-ceo-peter-chou-at-d8-how-about-them-apple-patents/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:15:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24982

Before Apple lobbed a patent infringement lawsuit at Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC yesterday, we were lucky to get its CEO, Peter Chou, to agree to appear at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June to talk about its work making smartphones for Google and others.

That interview with Chou (pictured above) obviously got a whole lot more interesting with the epic legal action by Apple (AAPL) alleging that HTC infringed some 20 patents related to the iPhone’s graphical user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

Wrote Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski:

“The company is asking for a permanent injunction barring HTC from importing or selling infringing phones in the U.S., along with triple damages and maximum interest.

‘We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,’ Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a press release announcing the action. ‘We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.’”

HTC denied the allegations, not surprisingly, and was backed up in a statement of support by Google (GOOG). That is also not a surprise, since its Android operating system, which is in the HTC-made Nexus One phone, is mentioned prominently in the lawsuit.

Whatever happens, it all makes for what is likely to be a head-spinning technology rumble over the next months and underscores how important the burgeoning mobile arms race and the fight over innovation will be.

Until we get Chou in an onstage interview at D8 to talk about this and much more, here is a video of MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka talking about yesterday’s Apple action on the new Digits Live Show on WSJ.com:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100303/one-obvious-question-for-htc-ceo-peter-chou-at-d8-how-about-them-apple-patents/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100302/apple-sues-htc/ http://allthingsd.com/20100302/apple-sues-htc/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:30:32 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=35865

“We’ve been pushing the state-of-the-art in every facet of design….We’ve been innovating like crazy for the last few years on this and we’ve filed for over 200 patents for all of the inventions in iPhone. And we intend to protect them.”

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Jan. 9, 2007

Asked for his thoughts on iPhone rivals during a January 2009 earnings call, Apple COO Tim Cook said the company would not stand for having its intellectual property ripped off.

“We are watching the landscape,” Cook said. “We like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our IP, and if they do, we’re going to go after anybody that does….We think competition is good; it makes it us all better. But we’re ready to suit up and go against anyone.”

Well, looks like Apple (AAPL) is suiting up, and against a big opponent. This morning, the iPhone maker filed suit against HTC, a Taiwanese handset manufacturer that makes a number of Android smartphones, including the operating system’s marquee device, Google’s Nexus One (Read the suits in their entirety here.)

In a lawsuit filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission and U.S. District Court in Delaware, Apple alleges that HTC infringed some 20 patents related to the iPhone’s graphical user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The company is asking for a permanent injunction barring HTC from importing or selling infringing phones in the U.S., along with triple damages and maximum interest.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a press release announcing the action. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

HTC appears to have been totally blindsided by the suit. As of this writing, it hasn’t even been served.

“We only learned of Apple’s actions based on Apple’s press release,” the company said in a statement. “We have not been served any papers yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years.”

It’s not yet clear whether Google (GOOG) is implicated here. But it certainly seems possible. After all, HTC manufactures a number of Android devices, and while Google insisted at the Nexus One launch that it didn’t design the device, the search giant clearly played a role in its development.

Of course, it could be that Apple is suing HTC because it can’t, for some reason, sue Google. More details to follow once I’ve read through the suits.

Further Reading:

• Apple Sues HTC [Complete Court Filings]
• Why HTC, Apple? And Why Now?
• Apple vs. Google: Game On

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100302/apple-sues-htc/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091228/qotd-227/ http://allthingsd.com/20091228/qotd-227/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:15:17 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=31148 Is Apple planning a special event for January? If so, what are the chances it will feature this mythical tablet/slate device everyone’s jawing about?

In a research note this morning, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster hazards a guess, putting the odds of the company hosting a special event at 75 percent and the odds that Apple (AAPL) will use the event to debut a tablet-like device at 50 percent, with an eye toward a March release date.

“Based on new media reports of trademarks connected to Apple (iSlate, Magic Slate), and our own conversation last week with with a Taiwanese component supplier, we are reaffirming our expectation that Apple will likely ship a tablet device by the end March,” Munster writes. “We believe there is a 75% chance Apple will host a January event and a 50% chance it will be held to announce the tablet.”

And if Apple does announce such a device, what can we expect from it? Largely what we’ve been hearing recently, says Munster, who outlined his own expectations for an Apple tablet in another research note issued earlier this month. “We expect the tablet hardware to be similar to an iPod touch but larger (about 10″); we expect the key differentiator of the device to be its software,” Munster wrote.

“While there are several options ranging from a touch screen Mac OS X to an iPhone-like OS,” the analyst elaborated, “we expect the tablet to be driven by a new version of Apple’s iPhone OS that runs a new category of larger apps alongside all the current apps from the App Store. We believe Apple’s tablet would compete well in the netbook category even though it would not be a netbook. Rather it would focus more on apps, entertainment content (from the iTunes Store), and web surfing.”

That would make for a pretty compelling device at the right price point. Indeed, says Munster, “we believe Apple could sell about 1.4m units if the tablet shipped in March, adding 2 percent to revenue.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091228/qotd-227/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090311/apple-netbook-actually-an-e-book/ http://allthingsd.com/20090311/apple-netbook-actually-an-e-book/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:15:19 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=14669 Reports that Apple is developing a new touchscreen device are picking up traction and credibility. In the past few days, claims made in a Chinese-language financial newspaper have been reinforced, first by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, and now by Reuters as well. Consensus seems to be that Apple (AAPL) has ordered 10-inch touchscreens from Wintek–the Taiwanese outfit that manufactures the smaller screens used in its iPhone and iPod touch–and that those screens are destined for an entirely new device. Netbook is the word most often bandied about for it, but given its size and function, I wonder if it’s not more of a tablet. Or e-book reader. There’s nothing much on which to base this theory, aside from another rumor that’s been making the rounds lately, as recounted by Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times.

“There’s something I keep hearing, and I don’t think I’d rank it as high as a rumor, but it’s an interesting story that I keep hearing, that for awhile, trucks loaded with books would arrive at a loading dock on the Apple campus, and offload big, big, big, big, huge loads of books, and then the trucks would leave empty. And Apple does not have a 100,000-book employee library there on the Apple campus. So one is prone to believe that they’re doing something with these books, such as turning them into text for some purpose we can only guess at. There’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple has been silently preparing to open a bookstore on the iTunes store, and they want to make sure that they have a very large stock of electronic titles when they do open.”

Interesting, no? Especially in light of these new reports about 10-inch touchscreen devices. Could Apple be developing a new souped up e-book reader–a TouchBook, if you will? Something on which you could read books (in color), watch movies, surf the Web and create and edit documents? Something that would upend and redefine the e-book sector as we know it? And are the mysterious “books” to which Ihnatko refers really books and not the device themselves…

PREVIOUSLY:

• Coming Soon From Apple: Big Touch?
• iTablet: Apple’s Killer App for Higher Ed

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090311/apple-netbook-actually-an-e-book/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20081007/corning-q3-glass-shipments-short-of-expectations/ http://allthingsd.com/20081007/corning-q3-glass-shipments-short-of-expectations/#comments Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:39:40 +0000 Eric Savitz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=4691 The troubles are deepening at LCD glass maker Corning (GLW).

This morning, Corning CFO James Flaws said in a statement that third-quarter glass shipments grew 2 percent sequentially, which was lower than expected. Corning said volume was was up 12 percent at Samsung Corning joint venture, but down 10 percent at the wholly-owned business.

The company still expects Q3 EPS of 43-45 cents a share before special items.

Flaws is not providing specific Q4 guidance at this time. But he did offer some cautionary comments. “We believe that many Taiwanese panel makers may decide to continue to run at lower utilization rates for much of the fourth quarter,” he says. “We actually think this may be more beneficial to the supply chain heading into the first quarter. If this happens, we would not be surprised if volumes at our wholly-owned business decline sequentially in the fourth quarter. Regarding SCP, we believe their volumes could be higher if the Korean panel makers continue with their higher utilization rates.”

Read the rest of this post

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