IDC crowns Samsung the biggest phone maker by shipments for Q1 2012

Research firm IDC is reporting that Nokia has been dethroned as the world's biggest phone maker by Samsung. In the first quarter of the year, Samsung shipped 98.3 million mobile phones, with Nokia and Apple in second and third place. In the smartphone-only charts, the Korean company shipped 42.2 million of its Android and Windows Phone handsets, while Cupertino shipped 35.1 million and Nokia shipped a paltry-by-comparison 11.9 million.

Samsung, Apple and companies outside the top 5 all made big gains in the smartphone space, while Nokia, RIM and HTC all felt their numbers drop. Unsurprisingly, companies with big stakes in dumb phones suffered, with Nokia and LG losing big chunks of their market share to the big two and stalking horse ZTE, which has bested LG for fourth place. After the break, we've got the official tallies that you can pore over.

Continue reading IDC crowns Samsung the biggest phone maker by shipments for Q1 2012

IDC crowns Samsung the biggest phone maker by shipments for Q1 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 May 2012 05:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Loopc.am Stops Being A Gimmick And Starts Getting Funding

Loopc.am has lately become a little bit of a craze amongst some iPhone users I know. Frankly, at first it seemed like something of a gimmick. Recording and sharing short gif-based videoclips called loops seemed like a temporary blip. I mean, why not just do a video and upload it somewhere? But word on the street is that users have taken to the app in droves and that is leading to significant traction in, perhaps, the same way that people took to sharing filter-altered images on Instagram. Loopc.am is also continuing an interesting startup tradition out of Berlin right now, joining EyeEm on the 'photography' front, and the 'Berlin Swedish Mafia' of Soundcloud and Readmill. But Loopc.am Founder Tor Rauden K?llstigen feels animated loops are a brand new category of shareable content, and so do his investors, Passion Capital, who today doing an undisclosed seed financing round. Alongside them are angel investors including Zoe Adamovicz (Xyologic, Concise Software), Alexander Ljung (Soundcloud), Heilemann Ventures (Dailydeal), Christophe Maire (Txtr), Felix Petersen (Amen), Peter Read and Eric Wahlforss (Soundcloud). The new funds will be used for growing the team and accelerating product development, including expanding the Loopc.am app client to support other platforms.

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California agency ripped over disparities in autism spending

California lawmakers and advocates for children with autism assailed the state Department of Developmental Services during a hearing Monday over the deep racial and ethnic disparities in how it spends money on the disorder.

"Families that are already the most disadvantaged get the least," Martha Matthews, an attorney for the advocacy group Public Counsel, testified before a panel of legislators in Sacramento. "This is exactly the opposite of what it should be."

State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who heads a committee on autism, called for legislation to provide greater accountability in the $4-billion-a-year entitlement program for people with developmental disabilities. Autism now accounts for about a quarter of the 252,000 people in the state system and 45% of all new disability cases it accepts. Budgets have not kept pace.

Steinberg ordered the hearing in response to articles in The Times documenting how obtaining help for an autistic child can require waging battle against the gatekeepers of state services. Parents with the time and resources to fight receive significantly more, resulting in enormous racial and socioeconomic disparities.

It is not uncommon for autistic children from affluent families to receive 25 hours a week of one-on-one behavioral therapy. Advocates for poorer families, on the other hand, said parents aren't necessarily even told what public services are available.

Matthews recounted the case of a severely autistic 6-year-old boy whose parents, a laborer and a seamstress who speak only Spanish, asked for individual behavioral therapy. The request was denied, despite a doctor's insistence that it was necessary. Instead, the state provided a month's supply of diapers, bus passes and 10 group classes in behavior management.

"This is such a hellish nightmare," state Sen. Mark Leno responded.

In its December series, The Times found that for autistic children ages 3 to 6 ? a critical period for treating the disorder ? the Developmental Services department spent an average of $11,723 per child on whites in 2010, compared with $11,063 on Asians, $7,634 on Latinos and $6,593 on blacks.

"Black and brown children are discriminated against," testified Areva Martin, a Los Angeles lawyer who runs the Special Needs Network, which advocates for poor minority children. "Parents should not be expected to sell their homes, quit their jobs and relocate to access services."

State money for the developmentally disabled flows to service providers through 21 nonprofit regional centers, which decide whether a child has a qualifying condition and what services to provide. Services are free for life, regardless of a family's means. In principle ? but not in practice ? everybody has the same opportunity for help. Regional center officials testified that the state budget crisis has worsened long-standing inequities.

Harried case workers have less time to find "creative solutions," said George Stevens, head of the North Los Angeles County Regional Center. The process used to award services is "slowly crashing down on clients it was intended to serve," he said.

Dexter Henderson, head of the South Central Los Angeles Regional Center, said many families in his largely impoverished area did not aggressively pursue services and the regional center "has zero dollars to advertise" them.

In 2010, the center spent an average of $1,991 on each autistic child age 3 to 6 ? the lowest in the state. The center in Orange County had the highest average spending, at $18,356 per child.

Terri Delgadillo, head of the state Developmental Services department, testified that regional center budgets eventually will be set so that similar amounts of funding are available for clients with similar needs.

alan.zarembo@latimes.com

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Is John Mayer's New Song Written About Jennifer Aniston?

Jennifer Aniston might be long over her relationship with John Mayer, but the singer is apparently still writing songs about his lost love.

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Are you smarter than a physics professor? (Unqualified Offerings)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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Antarctic lake mission key tests

1 May 2012 Last updated at 04:13 ET

Crucial training has begun for a project to search for life in a lake hidden beneath the Antarctic ice-sheet.

Scientists and engineers are rehearsing the most challenging stages of the drilling operation planned for Lake Ellsworth.

The goal is to gather samples of water and sediment in a hunt for microbial organisms and clues about past climate.

Training is focused on the handling of a water sampling device and a corer to extract sediment from the lake floor.

?Start Quote

This level of hygiene has never been attempted before in the exacting conditions of a polar region.?

End Quote

To avoid contamination, the drilling has to be undertaken in conditions cleaner than those required in an operating theatre.

The rehearsals are taking place at the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton with the team that will be deployed to Antarctica later this year.

The equipment has to remain sterile to avoid polluting the lake - believed to have been isolated for up to 500,000 years - and to preserve the value of the samples.

This level of hygiene has never been attempted before in the exacting conditions of a polar region.

Blasting a hole

The plan calls for a hot-water drill to blast a hole through the two-mile-thick ice sheet within three days.

The assumption is that the hole will remain open for 24 hours - allowing a brief window for the different probes to be deployed.

At the quay side in Southampton, a deep storm drain serves as a location for the first tests of the system, and the water sampling device has been lowered inside it.

A specially-adapted shipping container, mounted on rails above the drain, provides shelter and holds the winching mechanism for 4,000m of cable - long enough to reach through the ice sheet to the dark waters of the lake below.

Each component is kept sterile within air-tight plastic compartments tested to withstand the temperatures of -30C expected in the field.

The task of connecting and disconnecting the different probes has to be carried out by reaching into the compartments using in-built rubber gloves - an awkward process in the benign weather of a spring day on the English South Coast, but potentially nightmarish in a punishing wind chill.

First run

In the first run, attaching and lowering the water sampling device took 44 minutes; extracting it took 32 minutes, and the team was reasonably satisfied.

?Start Quote

Every minute will count before the drill-hole re-freezes but working in icy conditions is bound to add delay and complication?

End Quote

In the actual operation, every minute will count before the drill-hole re-freezes; but working in icy conditions is bound to add delay and complication.

In the first day of testing, the team encountered some teething problems including the design of some of the clamps holding components in position. These can, though, be re-engineered.

According to Ed Waugh, who designed the electronics for the water sampling device, the trials are "a useful way of getting a feel for the task".

Detailed planning includes a step-by-step guide to each stage of the operation - with no fewer than 20 steps for the job of getting the water sampling probe into position, and another 13 to deploy it.

At key points, components will go through further careful cleaning with ethanol and a thorough sterilisation with hydrogen peroxide vapour which, to add to the challenges, has to kept above 15C.

Once the hole has been blasted open with hot water, a probe carrying an ultraviolet light will be lowered to sterilise its upper section.

That will then be followed by the water sampling device - its descent captured live by HD cameras - and then the sediment corer. If time allows, each will be deployed a second time.

1. A hot water drill will melt through the frozen ice sheet, which is up to 3km (2 miles) thick. After drilling, they will have an estimated 24 hours to collect samples before the borehole re-freezes

2. A probe will be lowered through the borehole to capture water samples

3. A specialised corer will then recover sediment from the floor of the lake through the same borehole

Source: Subglacial Lake Ellsworth Consortium

All this has to be carried out in the notoriously cold and windy environment of West Antarctica.

The tests will continue at Southampton for several months, culminating in a "dress rehearsal". Then the the equipment will be packed up to be shipped south in August.

Five containers of heavy gear including the hot-water drill were delivered to the lake site earlier this year, where they will stay under wraps through the polar winter.

After 10 years of planning and two years of design and engineering, the project is entering a critical phase.

By the end of the year, if all goes according to plan, we should have the first sight - and the first samples - of a lost world beneath the ice.

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Pepsi partners with Twitter for online concerts

NEW YORK (AP) ? PepsiCo Inc. is tweeting to a new generation of music lovers.

The No. 2 soda company said Monday that it's partnering with Twitter to provide streaming videos of live music concerts to Pepsi's followers on the social networking site. The deal is part of Pepsi's new global ad campaign that will also feature a TV ad with singer Nicki Minaj.

The company, based in Purchase, N.Y., isn't yet saying which musicians will be featured for the Twitter concerts this summer, but the first concert is slated to take place in June. Additional details on the Twitter partnership will be unveiled next week.

Terms of the deal with Twitter were not disclosed.

The marketing push comes as Pepsi looks to revive the cola wars with The Coca-Cola Co., with up to $600 million in additional marketing slated for this year. Investors have criticized PepsiCo for letting its namesake soda lose market share to Coca-Cola in recent years. In 2010, Pepsi was bumped from its No. 2 spot by Diet Coke in the U.S., with Coca-Cola remaining in the top spot, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest.

Pepsi isn't the only one using music to tap into the youth market. Coca-Cola earlier this month announced a partnership with the online music provider Spotify; the companies are unveiling the details of their campaign later this year.

Coke and Pepsi both have a long history of using music to connect with young consumers. Over the years, Pepsi has featured musicians including Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, MC Hammer, Britney Spears and Beyonce in its marketing.

Associated Press

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