This time it’s GoGo Inc., maker of GoGo Inflight Internet service, which you’ve probably used at some point if you’ve ever accessed Wi-Fi during a flight.

The company is filing for an initial public offering that could raise as much as $100 million.

GoGo’s S-1 doesn’t say how many shares it plans to sell or at what price. But it does plan to trade under the stock symbol — you guessed it — GOGO.

There are currently 1,177 commercial airplanes offering Internet access through GoGo: That’s about 85 percent of North America’s Internet-enabled commercial aircraft.

According to the filing, GoGo’s consolidated revenue increased to $113.8 million from $60.1 million, a year-over-year increase of 89.3 percent in the nine-month period ending in September. Despite increasing revenue, the company still lost $25.8 million in the first nine months of 2011.

A large portion of GoGo’s revenue comes from its customers in the business aviation market, for which it provides both broadband connectivity and satellite-based communications systems. GoGo’s business aviation arm has sold approximately 6,000 ATG and satellite-based communications systems for private planes and has signed agreements with all of the largest fractional jet operators, according to the filing.

On the the commercial side, the company cites the emergence of the “connected lifestyle” for consumers, coupled with the projected growth of the worldwide travel market, as evidence of demand for its in-flight product. In 2010, there were approximately 2.7 billion scheduled passengers on commercial aircraft worldwide, with 630 million in the U.S. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of passengers worldwide is expected to grow to nearly 3 billion by 2012.

GoGo plans to expand internationally and to penetrate even more of the business aviation market, with the number of business jets in the North American and global business markets expected to grow by 8.3 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively, by 2015.

One of Gogo’s biggest risks is its dependence on partnerships with North American airline fleets for about half of its consolidated revenue. Approximately 45 percent of its commercial airline revenue — generated within a nine-month period ending September 30, 2011 — was acquired through Delta Air Lines; approximately 18 percent came via GoGo’s partnership with American Airlines, whose parent company, AMR Corp., recently filed for bankruptcy.

The company also cites as risks the increasing demand for in-flight WiFi, and the possible incapacity to meet that demand, as well as the need to keep up with rapidly advancing technologies in network infrastructure.

Low on the risk list, though still worth noting, is that in June of 2006, Gogo purchased at auction a $31 million, exclusive 10-year license for three megahertz, air-to-ground spectrum, outbidding at the time JetBlue LiveTV LLC and a company called Space Data Spectrum Holdings. GoGo expects to renew that license, but the FCC could, in the future, decide to auction additional spectrum for ATG use that is not currently designated for that purpose.

Illinois-based GoGo Inc. was originally incorporated in Texas in June of 1991 as Aircell Inc., and later became Aircell Holdings Inc. On June 15 of this year, Aircell Holdings Inc. officially changed its name to Gogo Inc.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, UBS, Allen & Company, Evercore Partners and William Blair & Company are listed as the underwriters on the IPO filing.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company helps brick-and-mortar retailers track shopping behavior by putting sensors in their stores; the sensors pick up Wi-Fi signals from smartphones.

Euclid has raised $5.8 million in capital, led by New Enterprise Associates with Harrison Metal, Triple Point Capital and other investors also participating.

Euclid’s CEO Will Smith said the system tabulates anonymous foot traffic and collects the data on a dashboard, where retailers can track loyalty by a phone’s unique user ID.

Challenged with the suggestion that most people turn off Wi-Fi on their devices to save battery life, Smith disagreed. “It’s accurate,” he said, adding that the sensors can even tell whether someone is entering the store, or just walking by.

The system cannot collect any information on a person and can’t communicate with them. But it can track whether the same person visited a coffee shop in the morning and returned for lunch in the afternoon.

The company’s COO, Scott Crosby, is the co-founder of the original Urchin team that was acquired by Google in April 2005, and which became the basis for Google Analytics.

This news comes from comScore’s new Device Essentials service, which looks at mobile usage worldwide. ComScore says that iPhones and iPads spent far more time connected to Wi-Fi networks than their Android-based rivals. In the United States, 47.5 percent of iPhone data traffic occurred over Wi-Fi networks. For Android phones it was less than half that: 21.7 percent.

In other words, iPhone users consume almost half of their content via Wi-Fi, and Android users consume more than three-quarters of theirs over cellular networks. In tablets, the difference is even more pronounced: 91.9 percent of iPad data traffic occurred over Wi-Fi networks compared to 65.2 percent for Android tablets.

Why the huge difference in network usage patterns? For tablets, the explanation is simple. The iPad is by far the dominant tablet worldwide, generating about 89 percent of tablet traffic in the 13 countries comScore surveyed (97.1 percent in the U.S.!). And tablet usage tends to be an in-home activity.

And for smartphones? It could be that iPhones are more proactive than Android devices in acquiring Wi-Fi signals and pushing their users onto Wi-Fi connections when they are available. It could be that technologies like Apple TV and AirPlay encourage heavier reliance on Wi-Fi among iOS device users. I imagine the prevalence of iPhones on AT&T and that carrier’s tiered data plans likely have something to do with it as well. Beyond that, I’m not sure. And, to be honest, these are just theories. If you’ve got ideas of your own, sound off in the comments.

Let it be said: For a digital information junkie such as myself, traveling abroad without any cellular or consistent Internet connection on my spanking new white Apple iPhone is agonizing.

To explain: I switched from AT&T to Verizon recently, in order to actually be able to make voice calls with regularity in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, Verizon does not go international. And, although I am carrying another local feature phone for calls, I am without the rich multimedia mobile experience that I usually get day to day at home.

Worse still, an “unlocked” iPhone only went on sale in the U.S. — which would allow me to use a SIM card bought in Europe –Tuesday, after I left.

Poor little me, I suppose, and there is certainly no need to cry any big, fat digital tears on my behalf.

Still, without the constant certainty of a Wi-Fi connection as I move around, it’s disconcerting for someone whose life has been jacked into the matrix 24-7-365 for far too long to be without consistent digital interconnections.

More to the point — as I watch endless legions of Europeans, who seem even more entranced by and stranded on their individual smartphone islands than in the U.S., obsessively checking out their devices every second — the concept of being completely out of touch with the pulse of the world while in the world is an odd one.

Or, at least the Twitter-fied world, in which I get short bursts of all kinds of information all the time. It takes the lack to understand what it means to be always checking in.

This is a big dose of the obvious, of course, but it was brought home to me in a can’t-miss piece in The Daily, published yesterday by the iPad news service and available here.

Titled “Speed Journalism,” it’s a succinct but important discussion on the push and pull between the ephemera of information we are increasingly getting from real-time Internet sources such as Twitter and the need for longer and more reflective pieces.

Wrote Trevor Butterworth: “The question is whether technology is diminishing our appetite or capacity for this kind of storytelling.”

This is not a new revelation, of course, but it bears repeating and considering again and again as we increasingly use these myriad social-local-mobile — so-lo-mo — devices.

And, as this so-lo-mo way of the encountering the world grows, it creates deep expectations of ever more detailed and immediate information about the world around you that is mostly immediately consumable and highly useful.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad one, I cannot tell yet, except to say that the last time I was here in Copenhagen, I was just 18 years old and I mostly wandered around in circles with an outdated guide book and without a clue.

As it turns out, without my super-duper-smart mobile phone being super-duper smart, very little seems to have changed.

“Verifying Google’s data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat. Consumers and businesses expect and deserve a full explanation, as well as measures shielding them from future spying. We will scrupulously safeguard the confidentiality of information we review.

“We will fight to compel Google to come clean–granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.”

– Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Dec. 10, 2010

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen has reassessed the need to review the consumer data inadvertently harvested by Google’s Street View cars and determined that it’s not quite as crucial as his predecessor claimed.

Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. Under the terms of the deal between the two, Connecticut will drop the civil investigative demand it was using to force Google to produce the data at issue here, and Google will stipulate to collecting and storing it. It will also stipulate that the data collected included confidential and private information like “partial or complete e-mail communications.”

“This is a good result for the people of Connecticut,” Jepsen said in a statement. “The stipulation means we can proceed to negotiate a settlement of the critical privacy issues implicated here without the need for a protracted and costly fight in the courts, although we are ready to do so if we are unable to come to a satisfactory agreement through negotiation.”

PREVIOUSLY

• Well, Hell, If I Knew All I Had to Do Was Seize the Hard Drives…
• Look, Sergey, a Christmas Card From the Connecticut AG! Wait…
• Google Street View Privacy Debacle Far From Over
• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

According to South Korea’s Cyber Terror Response Center, the hard drives it seized from Google’s Seoul office last August contained a smorgasbord of consumer data. “We unlocked 79 computer hard disks seized from Google Korea last summer and discovered e-mails, instant messages and other private data sent over Wi-Fi networks,” Response Center official Jung Suk-hwa told the Korea Times. “We are now working on an additional 145 hard drives, which were handed over to us later. These disks had previously been taken out of the country.”

But whether those drives hold similar information or not, it’s already clear that Google violated South Korea’s law protecting telecommunications privacy. That said, it’s not immediately clear if the company will face a penalty for that. “We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program, but are unsure as of yet who that might be,” a police official told the Korea Herald. “Even after we confirm the identity of the suspect, we believe it will most likely be a U.S. citizen, and it is unclear whether the Korean Police Agency can prosecute those involved.”

An interesting remark, since Google has so far refused to identify the “rogue engineer” responsible for this whole Wi-Spy debacle. Perhaps if South Korea is able to do this, he or she can clarify things and confirm the veracity of Google’s explanation.

Google, for its part, trotted out yet another version of the same apologetic statement it’s issued in the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Britain….

“We are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks. As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities. We have been co-operating with the Korean Communications Commission and the police, and will continue to do so. Our ultimate objective remains to delete the data consistent with our legal obligations and in consultation with the appropriate authorities.”

PREVIOUSLY

• Look, Sergey, a Christmas Card From the Connecticut AG! Wait…
• Google Street View Privacy Debacle Far From Over
• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

The Irvine, Calif., company said its first mobile phone, to be called Via Phone, will have a four-inch screen, a front-facing camera for video calls, a rear-facing five megapixel camera and the capability to shoot video. The larger mobile device, the Via Tablet, will have an eight-inch, high-resolution screen; WiFi wireless connectivity; three speakers; and a front-facing camera for video conferencing. Both items will be introduced this summer and run Google Inc.’s Android operating system, providing access to the application store associated with the popular operating system, Vizio said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

But statisticians, urban foresters and even the researchers themselves say it is too soon to declare an urban tree epidemic, let alone to blame Wi-Fi. The Dutch tree figures are from a study of 600 trees in one small city this year, and the apparent jump in tree illness is based on a misleading comparison.

Meanwhile, the study linking leaf damage to Wi-Fi is so preliminary that it hasn’t been written up, let alone peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

“We need to verify what confidential information the company surreptitiously and wrongfully collected and stored,” Blumenthal said in a statement, adding that doing so is “crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat.”

Though Google has already shared some of the data with other regulatory authorities, it evidently sees little need for such verification and clearly has no intention of handing any data over to Blumenthal’s office.

“As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks,” the company said in a statement rehashing the endless string of similar statements that preceded it. “As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities. We did not want and have never used the payload data in any of our products and services. We want to delete this data as soon as possible and will continue to work with the authorities to determine the best way forward, as well as to answer their further questions and concerns.”

Google has until Dec. 17 to give Blumenthal’s office access to the data. Or else…

PREVIOUSLY

• Google Street View Privacy Debacle Far From Over
• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

[Image credit: Someecards]

Interesting, when you consider that prior to 2010, the Chinese smartphone market was ruled largely by Nokia’s Symbian OS and Windows Mobile.

How quickly things change. According to McCourt, Android now represents nearly 50 percent of smartphone volume in the country, up from zero last year. And Apple’s iOS, while a niche player with less than 500,000 iPhones sold last quarter, is ramping up quickly, thanks to the successful launch of the iPhone 4 in the country last month.

“Apple (must be) viewed as somewhat disappointing through Q3:10, but we suspect iPhone 4 and a WiFi-capable iPhone 3GS will substantially improve iPhone results in Q4:10 and beyond in China,” McCourt said in a note to clients. “The bigger picture is that the Chinese market for smartphones is exploding, but is at a much earlier stage of development than North America or Western Europe.”

Which means it’s a major geographic growth opportunity for the smartphone industry. Certainly, Apple views it that way. As COO Tim Cook said during an earnings call earlier this year, “If you look at greater China, which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over nine times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed, for the six month period, our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200 percent year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China.”

In a letter to the House Oversight Committee, The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) called for further investigation of the breach, suggesting that the FTC may have let Google off easy because of the company’s close ties to the Obama administration.

“Like Halliburton in the previous administration, Google has an exceptionally close relationship with the current administration,” the letter says, noting former Googler Andrew McLaughlin’s new gig as U.S. deputy chief technology officer and President Obama’s recent appearance at a Democratic fundraiser held by Google exec Marissa Mayer. “The FTC’s decision to close its investigation into Google’s unauthorized gathering of private data through its Google Street View program is troubling enough. But looked at in the context of this administration’s extraordinarily close relationship with Google, no fair-minded person could look at the record so far and not believe that further investigation is warranted.”

Maybe, maybe not. That Halliburton quip sure does sting though, given Google Senior Competition Counsel Dana Wagner’s infamous comments about the company last summer. “There are a lot of companies in which I wouldn’t do this job, right?” he said at the time. “I spent seven years in the government. I very much believe in the message and the mission of the Justice Department. I would not be doing this at Halliburton, right?…The sense that I get is that their corporate values may be a little different from Google’s, on some things.”

Incidentally, the NLPC may get its wish–Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) last week told C-SPAN he plans to investigate the Google Street View privacy breach if he becomes chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

PREVIOUSLY

• FTC Closes Google Street View Probe
• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

What program would you recommend for saving Web articles such as yours and which also provides for filing them by classifications such as technology, taxes, health, investments, etc.

A:

There are a number of programs that will let you quickly and easily save links to Web pages you want to save or read later.

One is called Instapaper. Another, which I have recommended in the past, is Evernote. The latter allows you to categorize Web links or any other notes with tags, or to store them in different notebooks that you could label and organize for different topics. Using these tags and/or notebooks, you can quickly find all saved links to Web pages on different topics.

Q:

I always am wary of installing any Microsoft program on my Mac because of viruses. I have, however, been thinking of getting the new Office 2011 for Mac that you reviewed because I have not been happy with the iWork program from Apple. Should I have these virus concerns?

A:

Microsoft’s Office for Mac is a purely native Mac program and doesn’t involve running the Windows operating system, which is the platform on which nearly all viruses operate. So, when it comes to the danger of viruses, Office for the Mac is like any other Mac program—highly unlikely to expose you to viruses.

The one exception is that, years ago, there was a rash of viruses that spread through the use of macros, or automated features, in certain Office files. These could theoretically still plague you, but Microsoft long ago took steps to snuff out most of these, and you can choose to disable macros in any documents you open.

Q:

Several times a year, a group of my friends rents a house in England or France. None of the houses has Wi-Fi. What is the cheapest and easiest way to access the Internet on our computers?

A:

Assuming the houses also lack wired Internet connections, I’d investigate cellular data connections, either via cellular modems for each individual computer, or devices like the MiFi, which create a Wi-Fi network for multiple computers using the cellular data network. I cannot say whether this would be a “cheap” method, as it would likely vary depending on which carrier you used.

“Google’s alarming admission last week–confirming it collected entire emails and passwords–only heightened our concerns about how and why this data was collected,” Blumenthal said, adding that he’d rather not “rely on Google’s explanations and assurances…to confirm the facts about how this happened and how consumers will be protected going forward.”

A wise move, I think, particularly given the way Google’s narrative for this particular cock-up has evolved over the past few months, from an outright denial in April to a backpedaling, embarrassing admission in May and finally an apology in October.

In April, an outright denial:

Writing in Google’s European Public Policy blog, Peter Fleischer, the company’s global privacy counsel, denies there was a privacy issue with Google’s Wi-Fi data collection practices. “Google does not store or collect payload data,” he says.

Google product manager Raphael Leiteritz reiterates this assertion in the company’s Submission to Data Protection Authorities that same day. “All data payload from data frames are discarded, so Google never collects the content of any communications,” he writes.

In an interview with the New York Times a few days later, Google spokesman Kay Oberbeck dismisses the privacy concerns of German officials, saying: “What we are doing is totally legal and is being done by other companies around the world….We did not mention the WLAN project during our discussions with data protection officials because it is not related to Street View.”

In May, an embarrassing admission…

Writing in Google’s official blog two weeks later, Google SVP Alan Eustace reveals that the company actually had been collecting payload data. “It’s now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e., non-password-protected) Wi-Fi networks,” he explains. “So how did this happen? Quite simply, it was a mistake.” Then there was this from Peter Barron, Google’s director of communications for Northern and Central Europe: “We didn’t want to collect this data in the first place and we would like to destroy it as soon as possible.”

…followed by some aggressive damage control and a downplaying of the issue:

Speaking at Google’s annual Zeitgeist Europe forum, Google CEO Eric Schmidt describes the payload data collected as inconsequential and excuses the company for its misstep, saying, “There was no harm, no foul.”

In June, an unsettling hypothesis:

Apologizing for the company’s mistaken collection of user data, a Google New Zealand spokesperson tells the Otago Daily Times that the information the company’s Street View cars intercepted might not have been as inconsequential as Schmidt claimed. “Our in-car WiFi equipment automatically changes channels five times a second,” she says. “That said, it’s possible that the fragments of data we collected could contain entire emails or other content if a user broadcast personal information over an open network at that moment.”

In October, some hard evidence, another embarrassing admission and a change of tack…

A few months pass, and then a Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s investigation reveals “that Google did capture personal information–and, in some cases, highly sensitive personal information such as complete emails.” Interestingly, in its report on the matter, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s office notes that while Google “does not intend to resume collection of Wi-Fi data through its Street View cars…[it does intend to] rely on its users’ handsets to collect the information on the location of Wi-Fi networks that it needs for its location-based services database.”

And then the Schmidtstorm:

Appearing on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer,” Google CEO Schmidt cavalierly suggests that folks worried about Google Street View invading their privacy should “just move.” Ironically, he says this on the very day that Google admits those cars captured more than just fragments of personal payload data and says it is “mortified by what happened.”

Schmidt apologizes for his remark the next day:

“As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy,” he says. “I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house removed please contact Google and we will remove it.”

And a day later the FTC announces that it has concluded its inquiry into Google Street View, saying the improvements Google has made to its internal privacy practices have alleviated its concerns for consumer safety.

Meanwhile, Blumenthal’s investigation continues.

“…We note that Google has recently announced improvements to its internal processes to address some of the concerns raised above, including appointing a director of privacy for engineering and product management; adding core privacy training for key employees; and incorporating a formal privacy review process into the design phases of new initiatives,” David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a letter to Google’s attorney. “The company also publicly stated its intention to delete the inadvertently collected payload data as soon as possible. Further, Google has made assurances to the FTC that the company has not used and will not use any of the payload data collected in any Google product or service, now or in the future. This assurance is critical to mitigate the potential harm to consumers from the collection of payload data. Because of these commitments, we are ending our inquiry into this matter at this time.”

Looks like Google won’t face any fines for the incident in the U.S., though it’s still subject to investigations abroad.

PREVIOUSLY

• Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm
• Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video
• Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.
• Mr. Schmidt, There’s an Inspector Lestrade on Line One
• State AGs to Probe Google’s “Deeply Disturbing Invasion” of Wi-Fi Data
• No Harm, Big Foul: Google Intercepted Passwords and Email Extracts
• Germany Questions Google’s Data “Mistake”
• Google Street View Cars Collected Wi-Fi User Data for Three Years

“My office will lead a multistate investigation–expected to involve a significant number of states–into Google’s deeply disturbing invasion of personal privacy,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Street View cannot mean Complete View–invading home and business computer networks and vacuuming up personal information and communications. Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information–which could include emails, web browsing and passwords–Google may have collected, how and why. Google must come clean, explaining how and why it intercepted and saved private information broadcast over personal and business wireless networks.”

Blumenthal says some 30 states have expressed concern over the matter, and he expects a number of them to ultimately join the investigation, which will determine the legality of Google’s collection of data from personal wireless networks.

Google (GOOG), for its part, insists the practice wasn’t illegal–just stupid.

“It’s still too early to say what will happen as a result of this investigation,” the CNIL said. “However, we can already state that…Google did indeed record e-mail access passwords [and] extracts of the content of e-mail messages.”

Now, recording passwords and extracting them are two entirely different matters, and there’s no evidence of the latter. That said, this is still an unfortunate revelation for Google (GOOG), which has sought to downplay the implications of the breach by portraying it as a mistake and the data collected as inconsequential. Indeed, last month CEO Eric Schmidt excused the company for its misstep, saying, “There was no harm, no foul.”

No harm, perhaps, but there was certainly a foul–particularly since it now appears the data collected may have been protected by privacy laws.

Ironically, such data collection is a non-issue for all who actually heed the universal advice to secure their Wi-Fi networks–advice that comes in the documentation of every router and advice that Google itself gives the customers of Google WiFi. The FAQ for the service states: “In order to make our service easily accessible to a large number of WiFi-enabled devices, Google WiFi is an open-access wireless network, and our signal is not encrypted. However, users can achieve a secure connection by using GoogleWiFiSecure if their device supports WPA, WPA2 or 802.1x protocols (most laptops do)….As with any wireless network, users should take certain precautions to secure their online experience from security violations by third parties or unintentional security breaches.”

Plainly, Google feels its transgression falls into the latter category–not illegal, but an unintentional intrusion. As Google’s director of public policy, Pablo Chavez, wrote in a recent letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “As an initial matter, collection of network information broadcast by WiFi routers (such as SSID and MAC address) is used to improve location-based services and is a lawful, established business practice….We believe it does not violate U.S. law to collect payload data from networks that are configured to be openly accessible (i.e., not secured by encryption and thus accessible by any user’s device). We emphasize that being lawful and being the right thing to do are two different things, and that collecting payload data was a mistake for which we are profoundly sorry.”

BoomTown began this week with a little D-gazing to get us all amped for the coming conference. She posted a video of Steve Jobs from way back in the days of D2 (we are about to enjoy D8 at the end of the month). Jobs has agreed to make an appearance at this year’s D as well, so we can look forward to yet another savory interview. Kara followed with a post about John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, who is leaving the software world for Greylock Partners. Lilly will continue to serve on Mozilla’s board and is leaving at a time when Firefox, Mozilla’s signature product, is enjoying an all-time high market share near 25 percent. Toward the end of the week, Kara revealed that semistealth start-up Kakai, which is now called Kno, will debut its student-focused e-reader at the upcoming D Conference. Weekend Update wonders if this one will have legs since you can basically draw a straight line between the new reader and the Web’s largest online textbook renter, Chegg.

Early in the week, Digital Daily brought readers another installment from Apple’s (AAPL) “oh brother” file. It seems that yet another prototype iPhone made it out of grand master Steve’s grasp, this time in Vietnam. The identity of this particular phone has not been confirmed, but it sure looks like the real thing, right down to the chips inside. Yep. This one got dismantled too. In other smartphone news, John reported later in the week that Google would be closing its online Nexus One store in favor of selling the phones through retailers like everyone else. We guess they should have put “beta” up on that page too. That gets rid of some of the sting. On Friday, John closed things out with another tidbit to throw on the privacy concern pile. It came out that Google’s (GOOG) famous Street View cars (yep, the ones that take all the pictures) have been collecting data on all the Wi-Fi networks they drive past. That in itself isn’t news. We knew they were doing that. What’s new is that they were inadvertently gathering “payload data,” or the actual data being passed over unsecured networks while they drove past. This puts Google in a tough spot of having data it doesn’t want just when everyone is getting up in arms over privacy violations. We’re curious to see what the “un-evil” response to this oversight will be.

MediaMemo started things off early with coverage of President Obama’s comments on electronic distraction. It seems the president is a little concerned that the prevalence of iThings in the world today is going to distract the attention of the world’s future problem solvers. He might have a point, but isn’t this the president who was so attached to his BlackBerry that he ordered a special, supersecret encrypted one so that he could keep using it after he’d been given the nuclear launch codes? Just saying. Later on in the week, we all got word that one of TV’s longest-running franchises, “Law and Order,” will be canceled after 20 years. While it may not mean much to the viewing audience, as we still have seemingly endless spinoffs to hold us (not to mention 20 years of reruns), it is big news for the countless actors who filled their downtime playing junkies, murderers and victims. Peter rounded things out by bringing a little sense to the convoluted story of the iPhone leak. The much-needed wrap-up helped us sort out the whole sordid tale and make sense of all the finger pointing.

Walt covered interesting new ground this week with some digital products to help you organize all the vital data in your life. Both Orggit and InformationSafe aim to help you keep track of important records with cloud and local-storage solutions. Walt admitted that it is early days for these types of services, but sees promise in what they offer as life in the cloud gets more complicated. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt demystified the “n” and “g” differences in Wi-Fi tech and gave some advice on the new line of superfast laptops on the way from Apple. Weekend Update will admit to being a confused more than once by all the wireless options, but no more, thanks to Walt. Katie rounded out our week of coverage with a review of the new Sony (SNE) “Dash,” a passive countertop Web device that aims to bring another Web-connected screen into the room. Katie is a little skeptical of the device, as it seems to have more than a few bugs and doesn’t really have a niche to fill.

We’re counting down to D8 and the numbers are getting pretty small now. Weekend Update can’t wait to see what Kara and Walt will drag out of the world’s tech leaders. We guess you’ll just have to stay tuned along with us.

That’s about 10 times faster than Wi-Fi, which operates in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. And it’s fast enough to stream high-definition video without the need for HDMI or DisplayPort connections–assuming your video source and monitor are close to each another, preferably in the same room.

Though WiGig can carry a lot of data, its range is significantly shorter than Wi-Fi N, the latest iteration of the Wi-Fi specification. And it doesn’t handle obstructions nearly so well. Which is why the announcement of today’s Wi-Fi Alliance agreement likely heralds a tri-band Wi-Fi standard, one that would use 60GHz WiGig–or a similar technology like WirelessHD (said to support speeds of 10-28Gbps) when it is available and fall back on slower, longer-range Wi-Fi connections in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands when it isn’t.

BoomTown is always up at 5:30 am PT, but now I will apparently be joined by twitch-fingered Apple fanboys waiting for the iPad pre-order rush to begin this morning.

Currently, the Apple Store online has this note of heady anticipation (A Post-It? Katie, surely you could do better!):

Getting the actual magic tablet into your grubby mitts will have to wait three more weeks until April 3, when the Wi-Fi-only version comes out, followed soon by the 3G iPad.

Meaning it will be a month of me doing videos of overstimulated dudes in line at Apple (AAPL) stores.

Until then, here are a couple of my videos from the iPhone debut in late June 2007 in Palo Alto and San Francisco:

According to China Unicom Chairman Chang Xiaobing, the two companies are discussing plans to debut a Wi-Fi-enabled version of the iPhone, something they couldn’t do previously because of a government regulation prohibiting the sale of Wi-Fi devices that don’t support China’s Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure wireless standard.

Evidently, Beijing has recently revised that regulation and now permits the sale of Wi-Fi phones in the country as long as they also support WAPI, and this change has reignited talks between the two companies.

“I know that in the market there is hope we will offer an iPhone with Wi-Fi,” Xiaobing told reporters attending the annual session of the National People’s Congress. “We have been holding talks with Apple in this area.”

Whether the talks go anywhere is another question. As Dan Butterfield observes at iPhonAsia, an iPhone that supports two different wireless standards would require Apple (AAPL) to customize the device for the Chinese market, something it has been loath to do in the past.

“It runs against Apple’s DNA to build a special model iPhone solely for one market…even if that market is China,” Butterfield writes.

“But,” adds Butterfield, “…never say never! The current model iPhone for China Unicom is already a special production run (no WiFi chip + many ‘for China’ apps preloaded). If China Unicom commits to a sufficiently large iPhone pre-purchase, then Apple may entertain the idea of a WAPI/WiFi iPhone.”

Though $14.99 per month for 250MB of data and $30 per month for unlimited data are bargains, particularly considering that 3G service for laptops costs an average of $60 a month, AT&T (T) doesn’t see many people taking advantage of them.

During an appearance at the Morgan Stanley (MS) conference in San Francisco Tuesday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said he doesn’t expect Apple’s (AAPL) iPad to generate a lot of new 3G service subscriptions for the carrier.

“It will be interesting to see customer reaction to the iPad,” Stephenson said. “My expectation is that there’s not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription. We think it’s going to be a largely WiFi-driven product.”

That seems like an odd remark from the CEO of a company that’s got the exclusive on iPad 3G connectivity in the U.S. Honest, though. The consensus among analysts seems to be that most folks in the market for an iPad will buy the Wi-Fi-only version. At $499-$699, the iPad is a real head-turner and relatively easy on the wallet. But at $629-$829, it becomes more of a “Do I really need this thing?” question.

One last point worth noting here: Asked about the fate of the company’s iPhone-exclusivity deal with Apple, Stephenson said he expects the iPhone to be a staple of AT&T’s business for “quite some time.”

Still, RBC/ChangeWave found that 13 percent of the 3,200 respondents who participated in its iPad survey were either somewhat or very likely to purchase the device, compared with the nine percent who gave the same reply for the original iPhone in a similar survey conducted prior to its launch (see chart below; click on charts to enlarge). Said RBC analyst Mike Abramsky: “While we do not expect feverish initial launch lines like iPhone, the data portends well for healthy initial iPad uptake.”

The reason? The iPad’s unexpectedly low price point. Starting at $499, it is significantly below the $999 price expected. “Only 8 percent (of respondents) appear unwilling to pay Apple’s indicated iPad prices,” Abramsky notes. “That’s below the 28 percent who balked at initial iPhone pricing. Interest appears strongest with both Entry-Level and Tech-Savvy Buyers; 19 percent of declared iPad buyers indicated interest in the $499 16GB WiFi-only iPad, and 19 percent in the $829 64GB 3G iPad.”

Top planned uses for the device among both groups of buyers: Surfing the Internet (68 percent), checking e-mail (44 percent), and reading e-books (37 percent).

Evidently, Apple (AAPL) has managed to hit the pricing sweet spot at both the high and low ends of the market, which, as Abramsky observes, bodes well for its chances for success. “This data, while preliminary, suggests iPad may have greater potential than expected, to expand Apple’s addressable PC, iPod markets and to capture a segment of the home PC market (est. 35M+ units/yr),” he writes.

Abramsky’s estimate for iPad sales in CY 2010: Five million units, for revenue of $2.4 billion and earnings per share of 33 cents.

Uh-oh.

As he usually does to competitors, Apple CEO Steve Jobs smacked the netbook market upside the head with a $499 intro price for the iPad tablet computer unveiled today at a live event in San Francisco.

What this means for makers of netbooks–such as Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Lenovo–is clear: Ouch.

Jobs insulted the category of small, cheap minicomputers right at the start of the Apple (AAPL) iPad event, saying they were mostly useless though cheap.

But the real punch came later when he announced the price for the 16-gigabyte base model at $499.

As Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski writes in the liveblog of the event:

“iPad pricing starts not at $999, but $499,” Jobs says to a huge round of applause.

$499 for 16GB base model
32GB for $599
64GB for $699

Adding 3G requires an additional fee.

Apple will be shipping Wi-Fi models in 60 days and the 3G models in 90.

In other words, Apple is now competing in the low-price market with a more innovative device packed with a huge number of robust multimedia and mobile features and slick software.

While some are calling the iPad nothing more than a supersized iPod touch, it will still be interesting to see how netbooks react to the challenge.

Why? Do they expect the tablet to be Wi-Fi-only like the iPod touch? That would certainly make things a lot easier for the carriers.

No. Most analysts I spoke to said the probability that Apple’s new offering will support mobile broadband is quite high. “I can’t imagine it not having it,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told me.

There are other good reasons not to fear the tablet as a bandwidth hog. First, the device will presumably rely heavily on Wi-Fi to off-load wireless traffic onto the wireline network, the assumption being that it will be used most often in locations with Wi-Fi access–homes, schools, libraries, cafes and whatnot. Moreover, a mobile broadband plan will likely be optional.

Second, despite all the hype and hoopla, initial unit sales of an Apple (AAPL) tablet are likely to be too low to have much of an impact.

As Munster told me: “…turn the clock back and look at the iPhone and the first year Apple sold 5.5 million units in the US and the ASP was $475. At that time there were no issues with AT&T’s network. The issues began occurring last year, right around the time we saw the hockey stick in iPhone adoption.”

Regarding the tablet, Munster says, “If this device is $800-$1000, I think adoption is going to be much lower than the hype would lead you to believe. So the bottom like is this: on a per-unit basis it might put a lot of stress on the network, but there will be too few of them on the street to collectively have a real negative impact.”

Presumably, that will give the carrier, whatever company that may be, time to build out in anticipation of increased adoption. A good thing, since a tablet may well pose unique network challenges, particularly if it is used as a streaming video viewer, says Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.

“Streaming video is uniquely demanding traffic, as it is both bandwidth intensive AND latency sensitive,” Moffett explained. “That’s a recipe for disaster. For that reason, it’s unlikely that carriers would invite that type of usage. A large screen tablet would likely rely heavily on download-to-watch-later to sidestep the latency problem, and would almost certainly provide incentives to shift the most bandwidth-intensive applications to the wired network via Wi-Fi.”

But that’s a future scenario. “I don’t see this as a device that will in the next 12 months inspire people to save their money to buy it, the way they have with the iPhone,” says Munster, who sees Apple selling about 1.4 million tablets in calendar year 2010, assuming it ships in March.

“Certainly, it will take off in due time–this is the future of publishing,” Munster concludes, “but it takes 2-3 years for these things to really get going.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Apple Announces Jan. 27 Special Event: “Come See Our Latest Creation”
• Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27
• Apple Pitching Tablet to Publishing Industry; Spring Launch Expected
• Time (Finally) for the Tablet? Apple Developers Supersizing Their Apps for January Event.
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• $1.9 Billion in Capex? What’s Apple Planning?
• Apple’s Tablet: Read Different?
• Imaginary Demand for Mythical Apple Tablet Exceeds All Estimates
• Apple Tablet Coming to AT&T?
• New From Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster: The Apple iPad
• Rumored Apple Netbook Actually an E-Book?
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