Archive for April 5th, 2008

3G iPhone plans good news for Aust

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

With local mobile carriers rushing to convert their subscribers from 2G to faster broadband-like 3G services, the lack of a 3G-enabled model is viewed by analysts as the key impediment to releasing the device in Australia.
Analyst firm IDC said Australians wanted more than a large screen and great web browser and the appeal of an iPhone without 3G connectivity would be limited to die-hard Apple fans and the fashion conscious.
It would appear highly unlikely that a 2G iPhone [would] be released in Australia, with Telstra focusing all efforts to migrate subscribers onto Next G and Optus and Vodafone both building national 3G networks this year. The 2G market in Australia is shrinking fast, IDC telecommunications analyst Mark Novosel said.
In 2009 the number of 3G subscribers in Australia will outstrip 2G subscribers. By the end of 2009 56.6 per cent of all mobile subscribers in Australia will be on one of four 3G networks.
Apple has said the iPhone will be launched in Australia this year, but has yet to pin down an exact date.
In a research note sent to investors late last week, Bank of America financial analyst Scott Craig said channel investigations showed a 3G iPhone would be produced in small numbers in May followed by a larger production run in June.
The note came after Dow Jones Newswires reported that Taiwans Hon Hai Precision Industry, the largest contract manufacturer of electronics in the world, had won an exclusive contract to make a new version of the iPhone. It cited a person familiar with the situation.
As well, a Hon Hai official told the news service that the company was in talks with Apple for the supply of a more advanced version of the current iPhone.
Similarly, Taiwans Commercial Times reported, without citing sources, that Hon Hai had been competing with other manufacturers for the 3G iPhone contract.
This week, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he expected Apple would introduce a 3G iPhone within the next 3 to 6 months.
The upcoming annual Apple developers conference, scheduled to begin in San Francisco on June 9, could be an opportune time for Apple CEO Steve Jobs to unveil the device.
Jobs said battery life issues prevented the company from releasing a 3G model from the outset but he has indicated he would like to build in 3G support when the time is right.
In November last year, Randall Stephenson, the chief executive of AT%26amp;T, Apples exclusive iPhone carrier partner in the US, confirmed a 3G iPhone would land some time this year.
IDC has forecast that Australian iPhone shipments would commence in the third quarter of this calendar year, but predicted the device would comprise only 3.5 per cent of the Australian mobile phone market.
Apple stores across the US are experiencing iPhone shortages, and some have interpreted that to mean Apple is running down its existing stock to prepare for the launch of a new model.
Jaffray said of all possible explanations there was an 80 per cent chance that a new version of the iPhone is coming earlier than anticipated.
But some say the shortage is simply due to stellar demand for the device, particularly from countries where the iPhone has yet to launch. Many, Australians included, have imported the device and, using various unauthorised yet easy to perform hacks, unlocked it for use on their local networks.
Telstra was widely rumoured to be Apples iPhone carrier partner in Australia until January when Optus emerged as the dark horse.
Thailands largest mobile operator, Advanced Info Service (AIS), said it was negotiating a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Asia.
The telcos chief marketing officer, Sanchai Thiewprasertkul , told the Bangkok Post that AIS was collaborating with Singapore Telecom (SingTel) and Optus to launch the iPhone throughout the region.
Optus is a wholly owned subsidiary of SingTel, and SingTel owns 21.4 per cent of AIS.
Yet even before the local iPhone launch is announced, Telstras Sensis is already gearing up to create mobile applications specifically for the device. It has advertised for a business analyst to create iPhone search applications.

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Leaders gather for summit

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

LONDON British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting with about 20 world leaders and key officials over the weekend on climate change, the economy and global poverty, his office said Friday.Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and South African President Thabo Mbeki are be among the chief executives attending the two-day summit in Watford, according to a provisional list of summit participants.Former President Clinton, the World Bank’s Pascal Lamy and European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson were also expected.Summit participants were due to hold two round-table discussions focusing on climate change, development, and globalization, with leaders planning to issue a short joint statement and hold a news conference. The discussions were due to be broadcast live over the Web.

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Facing the acid test

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

DEEP in the bowels of a Las Vegas hotel, a smiley face and the
words “Hello World” display on a web page. Applause breaks out. The
page is called the Acid2 Browser Test, and the web browser is a
preview of Internet Explorer 8, presented by its platform
architect, Chris Wilson.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” says a member of the
audience to more applause from about 3000 web designers and
developers at the Mix08 conference, where Microsoft showed its
latest internet technology.
The Acid2 page (webstandards.org/action/acid2/) was created by
the Web Standards Project to test whether a browser conforms to the
official standards for describing page layout, mainly focusing on
cascading style sheets (CSS).
The reason for the applause is twofold: first, until now
Microsoft’s web browser, used by an estimated 75% of net surfers
(although Firefox has been eroding that hold), has never been close
to passing the test; second, Internet Explorer’s poor standards
compliance causes significant extra work for web designers.
When users navigate to a web page, they expect it to look and
work the same whatever the browser or operating system they are
using. Achieving this is difficult. Different browsers display the
same page differently, with IE often the worst offender.
Web developers now hope they do not have to insert conditional
code to account for these differences, but can deliver a standard
page to all browsers. “CSS support in IE8 looks thus far to be
very, very promising,” says Eric Meyer, an independent expert in
the field. “It’s very important, because the level of CSS support
in IE7 and IE6 has served as a brake on advanced CSS adoption by
authors, limiting them to less-advanced techniques and
capabilities.”
Internet Explorer has a curious history. Six versions were
released between 1995 and 2001, the time of the “browser wars” with
Netscape. Microsoft won the war and then did not release another
major version of the browser for five years - long enough for it to
become thoroughly outdated.
IE’s CSS implementation fell far behind that of other popular
browsers. In late 2006 Microsoft released IE7, which fixed some
problems but still lagged behind its rivals. “Differences between
browsers simply waste too much developer time,” says Dean
Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s general manager for IE, without
mentioning the extent to which Microsoft created the problem.
Mr Hachamovitch, who has led the Explorer team since 2003,
explains why Microsoft took so long to address these deficiencies.
“It comes down to what we were doing with our time,” he says.
“Between 2001 and 2003 we were building what you experience now as
Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight.”
These technologies display not HTML, the language of web pages,
but XAML, Microsoft’s proprietary code for creating rich visual
content.
“In 2003 and 2004 we were making IE secure,” he says, referring
to the security-focused Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Security remained the theme in IE7. The dilemma was that fixing
bugs introduced compatibility problems. “You can’t just flick a
switch and have all the browsers in the world change, or have all
the servers and services in the world change,” Mr Hachamovitch
says. The result was that some websites looked worse than before,
because they detected that IE was accessing them and delivering
content that took into account presumed peculiarities.
Microsoft’s answer was to build “compatibility modes” into IE8.
The manner in which this was done remains controversial. The
question was whether to default to the IE7 compatible mode, or
default to the better standards mode, Mr Hachamovitch says. “(We
found in) releasing IE7 that web developers were slow to modify
their sites. We wanted to keep the web working.”
Microsoft initially announced that IE8 would behave by default
like IE7. Page designers would have to include special code to turn
on IE8’s standards support. The decision was greeted with a hail of
protest because it might perpetuate a non-standard web.
Earlier this month, Mr Hachamovitch announced that Microsoft had
changed its mind. “We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default,
interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it
can.”
Apparently the key to that change of heart was a separate
strategic announcement last month, covering what Microsoft calls
interoperability principles and promising “open connections to its
products, support for industry standards and data portability”.
According to Mr Hachamovitch, Microsoft now had “a more
interoperable way; a more compatible way”.
It sounded good, but what about browser scripting. The context
is important. Mr Hachamovitch had already stated that Microsoft
spent three years neglecting IE for the sake of a more proprietary
technology, which is now appearing on the web as a browser plug-in
called Silverlight.
This is similar in some ways to Adobe’s Flash, and supports rich
multimedia effects within web pages as well as the ability to run
applications written in Microsoft’s .NET Framework.
Silverlight and Flash applications in effect bypass the browser.
Web standards advocates are wary of them because they replace the
open web with content that depends on a proprietary plug-in.
The Mozilla Foundation, creator of the cross-platform Firefox
browser, prefers to upgrade the capabilities of the browser itself.
A key component of this is JavaScript, the programming language
that runs in the browser and that is standardised by ECMA, the
European standards body, under the name ECMAScript. Mozilla is keen
to see the current JavaScript upgraded to a far more powerful
version called ECMAScript 4.0.
“Why do we care about ECMAScript 4.0?” asks Mozilla’s
vice-president of engineering, Mike Schroepfer. The answer is that
JavaScript is the language of the net. We want to keep pushing that
technology forward to make it easier for people to build bigger,
faster, more secure websites.”
Asked if Microsoft will implement ECMAScript 4.0, Mr
Hachamovitch prevaricates and talks about competing demands on the
IE development team.
“Right now there isn’t really an ECMAScript 4 offering to
implement, there is an ECMAscript for discussion.” he says.
The Guardian

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Intel shows off new classmate PCs

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Intel unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for
schools on Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage
capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One
Laptop per Child organisation, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs - slated to go on sale in April for
between $US300 and $US500 - reflect the company’s growing efforts
to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in
developing countries, a battleground for technology companies
because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the
developed world as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down
machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest
in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,”
which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops
but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced on Wednesday
from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of
both 7-inch (18cm) and 9-inch (23cm) screens, a 30 gigabyte hard
disk drive and an integrated web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five
new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed
for pocket-size internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to
1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom
processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its
processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold
under a variety of brand names.
The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch
screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of
thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific
data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing
products.
The nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its
$US188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO
laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices, the
world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this
year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of
directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when
founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates
overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps
disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.
AP

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Intalio and Alfresco Integrate BPM Suite with Enterprise Content Management

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Intalio, an Open Source BPMS company, has announced a partnership with Alfresco Software, the Open Source alternative for Enterprise Content Management. The integrated offering of Intalio|BPMS and Alfresco ECM aims to allow users to manage advanced document-centric workflow processes and support the collaborative development of complex business processes. “Our partnership with Alfresco serves as a foundation for building BPM into something larger a true Business Process Platform (BPP),” states Intalio CEO and Founder, Ismael Ghalimi. According to the company, document-centric workflow processes provide for automation of business communications, allowing documents to be transmitted to the right people based on complex rules. For example, insurance companies can use workflow processes to handle end-to-end policy management processes and provide better visibility to customers regarding the processing of claims. The integrated solution also allows Business and IT to collaboratively document complex business processes, making it easier to understand business requirements and the rational behind new procedures. The Alfresco integration project was funded under the Demand Driven Development (D3) model introduced by Intalio in 2006, which allows customers to direct Intalio’s product development roadmap in specific directions, then participate in the overall development process through syndicated funding.

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Intel Unveils New Classmate PCs

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Intel Corp. unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for schools Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One Laptop per Child organization, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs _ slated to go on sale in April for between $300 and $500 _ reflect the company’s growing efforts to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in developing countries, a battleground for technology companies because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the U.S. as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,” which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced Wednesday from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of both 7-inch and 9-inch screens, a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive and an integrated Web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed for pocket-size Internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to 1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold under a variety of brand names. The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing products.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its $188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.

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Venezuela nationalizes cement sector

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

CARACAS, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’s government justified its plans to nationalize the cement industry Friday by accusing foreign-owned cement companies of restricting supply to boost local prices while boosting exports to maximize profits.Industry Minister Rodolfo Sanz said the foreign-owned companies that dominate cement making in Venezuela have been “producing below their capacity so supplies don’t increase, exporting their production and creating domestic market shortages.”But the nationalization measure Chavez announced Thursday night quickly led to friction with the government of Mexico. A Mexican company, Cemex SAB, supplies about half of Venezuela’s cement.Mexican Finance Secretary Agustin Carstens called Chavez’s order “an inappropriate action that does not respect the property nor the rights of Mexicans.”"There is definitely nothing more to do than condemn this action,” Carstens told a news conference in Mexico.France’s Lafarge SA and Switzerland’s Holcim Ltd. also are affected by the order.Chavez said he cannot allow businesses to continue exporting raw materials needed to tackle a domestic housing shortage. He said it would occur in “the short term.”Sanz said the government will soon start talking with the companies “to evaluate their assets” ahead of compensation.The cement action is Chavez’s most radical nationalization move since early 2007, when he announced the takeover of this oil-rich South American nation’s electricity, telecommunications, natural gas and oil industries.Government officials argue most of the country’s basic industries should be controlled by the state to contribute to national development, and Venezuela has suffered from a severe housing shortage for decades.Cemex runs three cement plants in Venezuela that produce about 4.6 million tons annually, as well as 13 distribution centers and four maritime export terminals.Cemex’s figures seemed to contradict Sanz’s allegation. It reported that its sales in Venezuela rose by 17 percent last year over 2006, with concrete volumes up by 10 percent because of construction boosted by public spending.Cemex exports from Venezuela fell by half, it said, because the company focused on supplying the domestic market.Holcim has two plants that produce 3 million tons a year. And Lafarge has two plants that produce 1.5 million tons a year, according to the company’s Web site.Holcim spokesman Peter Gysel said Friday the Zurich-based company has not yet been contacted by Venezuelan authorities and Cemex spokesman Gerardo de la Torre also said his company had not been officially notified of the plan.”We are requesting a meeting with the government to understand the scope of the statements made by President Chavez,” he said.Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said it “will do everything within its reach to protect the interests of Mexican companies operating abroad.”Last year, Chavez said many of Venezuela’s cement factories prefer to sell their product abroad at higher prices and warned: “If the cement factories do not (sell in Venezuela), we will occupy them.”

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Active Archiving to Become More Integral to Information Management Initiatives Says Study

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Archiving will become more integral to information management initiatives, particularly for larger organizations, and non-technology stakeholders will continue to play a large role in purchasing decisions, a new IDC multiclient study reveals. According to the study, the main drivers for archiving are compliance with record retention requirements, improving the efficiency and accuracy of ediscovery, and achieving overall IT optimization gains. “Archiving is a priority for midsize to the largest firms”, added Vivian Tero, research manager, for Compliance Infrastructure at IDC. “However, larger firms view archiving in the broader context of information management, in particular for non-technical stakeholders. The far greater opportunity for suppliers is in providing a larger information management portfolio of solutions rather than just providing a solution for archiving.” Archiving approaches, long directed at email, are becoming more comprehensive and including additional content, starting first with other unstructured information. Among other key findings from the study include: Information reuse is a sophisticated sell. Leveraging information in an archive for innovation, new product development, or improved customer service aligns with business unit or C-level executive objectives. Future archiving solutions need to address a broad spectrum of content types, initially more unstructured than structured content. The role of ediscovery in archiving purchases is important across firms of all sizes because it presents the greatest risk, disruption, and unknown to the firm.

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China alleges Tibetan ’suicide squads’

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

BEIJING China has branded the Dalai Lama a “wolf in monk’s robes” and his followers the “scum of Buddhism.” It stepped up the rhetoric Tuesday, accusing the Nobel Peace laureate and his supporters of planning suicide attacks.The Tibetan government-in-exile swiftly denied the charge, and the Bush administration rushed to the Tibetan Buddhist leader’s defense, calling him “a man of peace.”"There is absolutely no indication that he wants to do anything other than have a dialogue with China on how to discuss the serious issues there,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.Wu Heping, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Public Security, claimed searches of monasteries in the Tibetan capital had turned up a large cache of weapons. They included 176 guns, 13,013 bullets, 7,725 pounds of explosives, 19,000 sticks of dynamite and 350 knives, he said.”To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibetan independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks,” Wu told a news conference. “They claimed that they fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice.”Wu provided no details or evidence. He used the term “gan si dui,” a rarely used phrase directly translated as “dare-to-die corps.” The official English version of his remarks translated the term as “suicide squads.”Wu said police had arrested an individual who he claimed was an operative of the “Dalai Lama clique,” responsible for gathering intelligence and distributing pamphlets calling for an uprising.The suspect admitted to using code words to communicate with his contacts, including “uncle” for the Dalai Lama and “skirts” for the banned Tibetan snow lion flag, Wu said.Beijing has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama and his supporters of orchestrating violence in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. Protests which began peacefully there on the March 10 anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule spiraled out of control four days later.Chinese officials have put the death toll at 22, most of them Han Chinese; the government-in-exile says 140 Tibetans were killed.China also says sympathy protests that spread to surrounding provinces are part of a campaign by the Dalai Lama to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and promote Tibetan independence.The 72-year-old Dalai Lama has condemned the violence and denied any links to it, urging an independent international inquiry into the unrest.”Tibetan exiles are 100 percent committed to nonviolence. There is no question of suicide attacks,” Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of the government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, said Tuesday. “But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans.”Experts on terrorism and security risks facing Beijing and the Olympics have not cited any Tibet group as a threat.Scholars said the claim of suicide squads was a calculated move by China allowing it to step up its crackdown in Tibetan areas.”There is no evidence of support for any kind of violence against China or Chinese,” said Dibyesh Anand, a Tibet expert at Westminster University in London.Instead, Beijing is “portraying to the rest of China and the rest of the world: these people are basically irrational” and that there was no room for compromise, he said.Tuesday’s accusations could also further divide the Tibetan government-in-exile and other groups like the Tibetan Youth Congress, which has challenged the Dalai Lama’s policy of nonviolence, Anand said.”This is a way of pressuring the Dalai Lama to renounce Tibetans who have created violence,” he said.Andrew Fischer, a fellow at the London School of Economics who researches Chinese development policies in Tibetan areas of China, dismissed Wu’s warnings as “completely ridiculous.”What China is trying to do “is justify this massive troop deployment, a massive crackdown on Tibetan areas and they’re trying to justify intensification of hard-line policies,” Fischer said.Drawing from a deep historical reserve of angry rhetoric, Tibet’s tough-talking Chinese Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, recently called the Dalai Lama a “wolf in monk’s robes, a devil with a human face, but the heart of a beast” and deemed the current conflict a “life-and-death battle.” State media has denounced protesting monks as the “scum of Buddhism.”The campaign against the Dalai Lama has been underscored in recent days with showings of decades-old propaganda films on state television portraying Tibetan society as cruel and primitive before the 1950 invasion by communist troops.The escalation of the rhetoric to include claims of possible suicide attacks may also touch upon another sensitive issue for China’s communist leadership - unrest in Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim region to Tibet’s north, and Beijing’s tight security measures in the area.On Tuesday, a local government Web site in Xinjiang reported that a protest has broken out in a market in the region on March 23. One official linked the incident to the unrest in Tibet.But U.S.-government funded Radio Free Asia, which first reported the demonstration, said the protesters were demanding authorities not ban headscarves, and that they stop torturing Uighurs and release all political prisoners. It said several hundred Uighurs staged the protests in Hotan and a nearby county and were taken into custody.Fu Chao, an official with the Hotan Regional Administrative Office, disputed that characterization. “The riot was nothing to do with the ban on headscarves, but about responding to the riots in Tibet,” Fu said.Last month, Chinese state media reported that a woman had confessed to attempting to hijack and crash a Chinese passenger plane from Xinjiang in what officials say was part of a terror campaign by a radical Islamic independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. The reports said the woman was from China’s Turkic Muslim Uighur minority.While the United States has labeled the East Turkestan Islamic Movement a terrorist organization, the State Department alleges widespread abuses of the legal and educational systems by the communist authorities to suppress Uighur culture and religion.Fischer said China has tried to change the “nonviolent, compassionate” image of Tibetans into one of violence and brutality to draw parallels to the pro-independence stance in Xinjiang.”If they succeed in portraying them that way, then they can treat them the same way they treat Muslims in Xinjiang,” he said.

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Sprint to sell iPhone-like device

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

LAS VEGAS Sprint Nextel Corp. on Tuesday said it is betting heavily on a touch-screen phone that appears to be the closest thing the U.S. market has seen to Apple Inc.’s vaunted iPhone.The Samsung Instinct will be available in June for a yet undetermined price, Sprint announced at CTIA Wireless, a cell-phone industry trade show in Las Vegas. Executives hinted that the price would be substantially lower than the $399 for the cheapest iPhone.Sprint, which has been losing subscribers, will spend $150 million to advertise the Instinct when it launches, compared with $30 million for a typical product introduction, according to David Owens, the company’s director of devices.Like the iPhone, the Instinct lacks a keypad and has just a few buttons. Most of the functions are accessed by touching the screen.A few touch-screen phones appeared on the U.S. market last holiday season, after the iPhone’s debut in June.Verizon Wireless launched the LG Voyager, which has an exterior touch screen and folds out to reveal a non-touch screen paired with a keyboard. Sprint introduced the Touch by HTC, a slim pad with only a touch screen.Both phones were hampered by the lack of software designed specifically for a touch screen. The Voyager dealt with that by adding a keyboard. The Touch grafted some touch-friendly features on to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile operating system, which is designed for smart phones that either lack a touch screen or are intended for use with a stylus. Some functions on the Touch are hard or impossible to use by tapping with the fingers alone.The Instinct is based on a Samsung phone that’s already available under different names, and with different software, in South Korea and Europe. Sprint commissioned its own software from European design house Icon Mobile.”We took a more active part than we ever have” in a phone’s development, Owens said. “This was designed from the ground up to be a touch-screen phone.”The software is based on Java, a commonly used programming language that should make it easy to develop applications for the phone.The Instinct will have a few features the iPhone lacks. For one, it will be the first consumer phone in the U.S. to use EV-DO Rev. A, the fastest cellular broadband technology available on the Sprint and Verizon Wireless networks.AT%26T Inc. has phones that use a competing technology with equivalent speeds, but the iPhone is not one of them: It runs on a comparatively slow network, supplemented by Wi-Fi access.The Instinct also contains a Global Positioning System chip, for location applications. The iPhone lacks one, but it can use cellular and Wi-Fi signals to determine an approximate position.The Instinct’s screen measures 3.1 inches diagonally, compared with the iPhone’s 3.5 inches.The Instinct won’t be able to take input from more than one finger at a time: The iPhone’s characteristic “pinch to zoom out, spread to zoom in” feature won’t work. Sprint compensates for this by using the phone’s motion sensor. In a demonstration of a prototype, tilting the phone while holding a button made a Web page scroll.

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