The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

The iPhone is certainly bringing in new business to Sprint, but Sprint has to subsidize iPhones heavily. Sprint wanted the iPhone so bad that it guaranteed Apple $15.5 billion for the ability to sell Apple products over the next four years.

Previously when AT&T reported earnings for the fourth quarter, they were also dragged down by heavy iPhone subsidization costs.

I have previously written about the impact of the iPhone on Verizon in an article titled Apple iPhone A Bittersweet Taste For Verizon.

An iPhone 4S that a consumer can buy for $199 with a two year contract reportedly costs carriers about $500.

Moreover, iPhones are data hogs. Carriers have to make major investments to support the huge traffic volume.

iPhone 4S is particularly troublesome to carriers. The Siri virtual assistant feature in iPhone 4S connects to an Apple data center every time it is used. For background, please see my prior article Siri Is Apple’s Post-Jobs Ticket To $1,000. Siri users end up consuming twice the bandwidth compared to those who do not use Siri.

27-year-old CEO Zuckerberg and 42-year-old COO Sheryl Sandberg are in line for annual target bonuses of 45 percent of their salary plus other base wages. Zuckerberg could pull in roughly $225,000 this year, based on his annual salary of $500,000. Sandberg could take home an extra $135,000 based on her annual base salary of $300,000.

The majority of the social networkers’ fortunes will clearly come from the stocks, however, following what is expected to be one of the largest IPOs in stock market history.

Microsoft previewed Windows 8 last September. And it's important because the ARM version of the new operating system will be the one that powers many of the tablets that Microsoft hopes will compete with Apple's industry-leading iPads.

In a blog post today, Windows president Steven Sinofsky said "our collective goal is for PC makers to ship (Windows on ARM devices) the same time" as more conventional Windows PCs debut.

Sinofsky did not disclose the date the company is targeting for launch, though most analysts expect the new operating system to arrive before the end of this year, and possibly in time for the back-to-school sales season at the end of summer.

Cambridge company, founded and run by serial entrepreneur Ray Anderson, says it is too early to forecast the level of business this will produce.

But the stock market is in no doubt that it is very good news, with the share price surging over 40% to £1.38, having already performed a similar leap last week on news that a deal was being negotiated.

Bango specialises in collecting payments for music, games, apps, videos and services sold to internet connected mobile phone users.

Motorola has jumped the MWC gun officially unveiling the Motorola Motoluxe, a device which will land running Android 2.3 and sporting an 8-meg snapper

The car in question - a 1963 model with a chassis number of 5095 - is believed to have been sold by Jon Hunt, the Foxtons estate agency founder, who bought the vehicle in 2008 for a then world-record £15.7 million. Mr Hunt has therefore made a stunning profit of £4.5 million in just three years. John Collins, chairman of classic Ferrari specialists Talacrest, confirmed the GTO had been sold, but would not reveal the name of the seller to the Daily Mail: "Wealthy people are spending a lot of money on classic Ferraris and everyone wants a GTO at the moment. Classic Ferraris have seen more gains than others; they're like the Picassos of the car world." "And the 250 GTO is the golden car of its generation; show me a man who wouldn't want one. They are bought by people who have a love of cars and see them as an investment." The GTO is now the second most expensive car ever sold, as a Bugatti Type 57SC was sold for between £20 million and £26 million in 2010. Mr Hunt has declined to comment on the sale. Talacrest have been selling vintage Ferraris for over 30 years and told the Mail demand for vintage Ferrari's is skyrocketing, despite the economic downturn. The Italian vehicles are considered to be superb investments and as a result, Talacrest had record sales in 2011.

Samsung may still have product introductions at the show, it won't be on a big stage, at least. The company previously confirmed that its next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, would be announced later this year rather than at the Barcelona-based trade show.

Samsung is well-known for having flashy events at MWC. In 2011, the company introduced the Galaxy S II (slideshow below) at the show, which went on to become a best-selling global smartphone. In 2010, the company introduced its proprietary OS, Bada, in a flashy presentation featuring a dance team and a flying woman announced as the "Spirit of Bada."

This year, Samsung is anticipated to potentially launch a new tablet based on its new, speedy Exynos 5250 processor and discuss evolving Bada into Tizen, a new Linux-based OS which the company is championing in partnership with Intel.

"Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012," the company said in a statement last week.

We'll be meeting with Samsung at the show as well as visiting the company's booth, and we'll have hands-on time with all of the company's new products. Mobile World Congress runs from Sunday, Feb. 26 until Thursday, March 1.

If Samsung's latest Apple-bashing commercial during Super Bowl XLVI Sunday had you frothing at the mouth for the Samsung Galaxy Note, you can now place an advance order for the device from AT&T. The Korea-based gadget maker's latest addition to the Samsung Galaxy line will cost $300 with a new two-year contract from ATT.com or any company-owned retail store.

The Galaxy Note will launch on AT&T on February 19, but anyone who pre-orders the device by February 15 will get it delivered by February 17, according to AT&T. You can also pre-order from BestBuy.com for shipping after February 19.

The Samsung Galaxy Note features a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED screen with 1280-by800 resolution, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 16GB onboard storage, plus a microSD slot supporting up to 32GB for 48GB maximum. The device also has Bluetooth 3.0, LTE, and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 1080p video capture at 24-30 frames per second, and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The Galaxy Note comes with a Wacom-made "S Pen," a so-called advanced smart pen that can detect pressure and change the boldness of your handwriting accordingly. The Galaxy Note comes in blue or white.

Stylus Mania

Samsung kicked off the American introduction of the Galaxy Note with a festive Super Bowl commercial that mixed humor and Super Bowl-style grandiosity, plus a large heaping of self delusion. As we've seen from other Samsung Galaxy ads, it starts with a line up of bored Apple drones waiting in line for the next great iPhone when they are suddenly freed by the realization they can just buy a Samsung device (which apparently never warrants a massive line-up). Soon after, one of Samsung's Apple acolytes utters, "It's got a pen? This is awesome." I guess it's still 1997 in Samsung land.

The newly painted wall outside the Denver Performing Arts Complex looks like a million bucks. Make that $200 million. Because that's what graffiti artist David Choe stands to make in Facebook's public offering: When the street artist did a piece for Facebook headquarters years ago, he took his pay in stock.

​Choe, who is based in Los Angeles, was one of three street artists featured in last month's Terminal Kings project, billed as bringing "world-class" art to a city that many of us would argue already has world-class artists. Choe, along with Sam Flores and Highraff, was hired to create a giant mural -- one-hundred feet by eight feet, painted in panels -- that Denver International Airport's Art and Culture program will use as construction barricades at DIA over the next five years as the South Terminal construction project progresses. And the trio created this public art very publicly, in a makeshift gallery at City Hall.

Choe finished his mobile mural early, and was itching to leave his mark on more of the city. With the help of Denver Arts & Venues, he found just the spot on the west-facing wall of the Buell, at 13th and Champa streets (see more of this David Choe work here).

Too bad Arts & Venues didn't ask Choe to give a financial-planning workshop for artists, too. Back in 2005, the now 35-year-old Choe, who already had a rep as a bad-bay artist, was commissioned to paint Facebook's first corporate headquarters, and was offered his choice of cash or stock. Although as he told the New York Times that the idea of Facebook seemed "ridiculous and pointless" at the time, he chose the stock.