These are the days in Helsinki when the sun never seems to set. So maybe it's not so surprising that Stephen Elop, the CEO of the beleaguered Finnish phone giant Nokia, rejects the conventional wisdom that his company is as lifeless as the salted cod served in local restaurants. Instead, he sees a moment ripe with opportunity.

Apple's pioneering iPhone has not seen a major reset in many months. Samsung, the dominant player in the Android system, just released a flagship phone with a chaotic blur of features, none of them truly memorable.

So Nokia's unveiling today of the Lumia 1020 represents a chance - maybe the last, best one - to make its case to users, and to demonstrate that there's actually room for the 'third ecosystem' that Elop hopes Nokia will become. The case for the previous Lumias -- the well-received WinPhone operating system, a slick design, and some other nice features - has won a foothold but not much more. For Nokia to gain true momentum, it must provide something new and big. Something that people can not get elsewhere. Something technolust-worthy. Something actually useful. To engage in Elop-speak: a true differentiator.

'The tonality has changed a little bit in the industry. Look at the recent products launched. Their makers say: 'This is the next one.' But is it that innovative? Have they really differentiated this current generation from the previous generation product?'

'The basis we've chosen to compete on is innovation and differentiation,' he says. 'We have to set ourselves apart from the people who are leading the smartphone industry. The tonality has changed a little bit in the industry. Look at the recent products launched. Their makers say: 'This is the next one.' But is it that innovative? Have they really differentiated this current generation from the previous generation product?'

The Nokia 1020 - to be released on July 26 for $300 and a two-year AT&T contract - does have something genuinely unique. It boasts a suite of imaging features built around a technology called PureView, involving what Nokia describes as a '41-megapixel backside illuminated sensor.' Cut the jargon and what you get is a leap in camera tech. The sensor captures so much information that you can do a detailed zoom after you take the picture. It's like a real-time implementation of all the rigmarole that the photographer in the 1966 movie 'Blow Up' went through when he noticed a detail in his photo that proved evidence to a murder. Years after the fact, information stored in these 'superpixels' could unearth similarly amazing, if not incriminating, artifacts.

The Lumia 1020 is also augmented with a Xenon flash that grabs sharp pictures in low-light-images that the iPhone and the Samsung portray as blurs. Nokia has augmented its already excellent capabilities in image stabilization to allow users to capture steady high-def video, even in rocky conditions. And it will be a platform for an endless parade of nifty features. One example available on launch is the ability to use part of an image as an animated GIF while the rest of the image remains a static photo.

PureView really is a differentiator. When I got a demo of it early last year in Nokia's research lab, it was clear that this could make a difference to a lot of users. After all, taking photos is a core smart phone activity. But I was disappointed to learn that Nokia's first implementation of the technology would not be appear in the Lumia series of Windows phones that represented the company's future. Instead, Nokia chose to put its most amazing advances in the PureView 808 - a phone running the doomed Symbian operating system. It was like opening a new Danny Meyer restaurant in Chernobyl.

Elop defends the move now by saying that the 808 was successful on its own terms. 'It sold well,' he said, while not giving any numbers. (But I'll bet most of you have never seen one in the wild.) Its photography-crazy users loved it. But 808's real value was as a test bed for PureView. Nokia was able to gauge from real users how to improve the technology for the next iteration, the one now on the 1020.

Sure enough, this version of PureView seems ready for prime time. To accommodate the advanced camera, the 808 had a hideous unsightly bulge in its middle. It looked like it was momentarily about to give birth to an MP3 player. The 1020 has only a modest rise where around the lens - it reminds me of the stoic eye of HAL in Kubrick's '2001' - and is around the same thickness as the trim Lumia 920.

If this powerful imaging technology had been part of the last iPhone release, the internet would have exploded with Blogosphere hosannas and the lines outside Apple stores would have clogged entire metropolitan areas. But can innovation and differentiation really help Nokia make today's one-on-one smartphone battle into something more à trois? Skeptics - and plenty of people not normally inclined to skepticism - will probably stick to their view that at this point there is nothing Nokia can do to turn things around, and that the Finnish giant will wind up, with Blackberry, in high-tech's dustbin.

But Elop has a point to make about tables turning. 'If you had asked anyone in the smartphone world on January 1, 2007, they would have said Nokia was incomparable,' he says. 'It had such a strong share, so much lock-in, so much brand awareness that no one could challenge it. And yet innovation, disorientation, disruption changed that. It set Nokia on an entirely different trajectory.'

That trajectory turned downward so precipitously that Nokia's very survival is at stake. But Elop believes that PureView - along with future differentiators he says are in the works - will help him paint a very different picture. With 41 million megapixels.

Summary: Nokia has launched its latest smartphone, the Lumia 1020, with souped-up, top-of-the-line camera technologies. Is that enticement enough to push Windows Phone share beyond three percent?

I don't take a lot of pictures on my Windows Phone -- other than lots of pictures of my craft beer pints (for my Untappd.com app). I don't take a lot of pictures with a regular point-and-shoot camera, either.

So when I got to see Nokia's newest Windows Phone, the Lumia 1020, during its unveiling in New York City today, I was interested but still not sure if it's for me.

The good news, on first 'hold' (we didn't get loaner units to try out at the launch), is the 1020 is much nicer 'in the hand' than the heavier/bulkier Lumias like the 920. Yes, I know some folks don't find the weight/size of the Lumias problematic, and some even prefer the heavier form factors. I am not in that group. The new camera doesn't protrude much, either, in spite of all the technology it packs inside.

Nokia is providing a new app on these phones that will help non-pro photographers like me figure out how to use all the new bells and whistles. And there will be a number of new third-party apps that are built using the Lumia 1020 software-development kit to take advantage of all the new optics and audio capabilities in the phone.

Nokia wisely didn't run through a bunch of speeds and feeds during today's unveiling, and instead focused on showing off all the new things the new PureView camera can do. For the full list of specs on the device, check out Nokia's official spec sheet. The short version: The 4.5-inch AMOLED device has a 41-megapixel camera, 7712 X5360 resolution, 2 GB of RAM; 32 GB of internal memory and 7 GB of free SkyDrive cloud storage.

Under the hood, the 1020 runs Microsoft's GDR2 update to Windows Phone 8, plus the 'Amber' layer of customized Nokia firmware and fixes; plus additional camera-specific software.

As someone who cares less about snapping pics than I do about browsing the Web and checking email on my phone, would I pay $299.99 with a two year contract on AT&T for this device? Or $659.99 off contract?

(Unsurprisingly, given Nokia's relationship with AT&T, this phone -- which goes on sale on July 26 -- is an AT&T exclusive in the U.S. Microsoft is promising that the 1020 will be available later this quarter in China, select European countries and various other countries around the world.) I am a Verizon customer, which means if anything comparable to the Lumia 1020 comes to Verizon, it won't likely happen for months.

I'm skeptical the new camera will win me over. But I'm reserving final judgment until I get a loaner device so I can try it out myself. What about you, photography-fanatics and not?

Global PC shipments reached 75.6 million units.

Global PC shipments of Lenovo reached 12.61 million units during the second quarter of 2013, reporting a 1.4% drop, while has surpassed HP that shipped 12,378 million units, according to a new report from IDC.

IDC's latest Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report revealed that Lenovo's market share remained 16.7%, while HP captured 16.4% of the global PC market share during the quarter.

In the quarter, Lenovo's sales increased outside of APeJ, while its sales in China were also affected due to short-term economic and inventory hurdles affecting shipments.

HP reported growth over the last quarter due to a strong boost from shipments to India, while faced drop in shipments in EMEA region, with a stabilised business in the US.

Other firms that followed in the list of top vendors include Dell, Acer and ASUS.

During the quarter, global PC shipments reached 75.6 million units, an 11.4% drop, but was slightly better than anticipated results for the period.

IDC Worldwide PC Tracker senior analyst, Jay Chou, said that with second quarter growth so close to forecast, some improvement in growth is anticipated during the second half of the year.

'Slower growth in Europe and China reflect the risks, while the improved U.S. outlook reflects potential improvement,' Chou said. 'Still, the weakness in emerging markets is a threat to a core long-term growth area.

'In addition, while efforts by the PC ecosystem to bring down price points and embrace touch computing should make PCs more attractive, a lot still needs to be done in launching attractive products and addressing competition from devices like tablets.'

Heads up, mobile gamers. Tiny Thief, the latest title backed by Angry Birds maker Rovio, is out now for iOS and Android devices.

Developed by the Barcelona-based studio 5 Ants, Tiny Thief is the second game released under the new Rovio Stars third-party publishing initiative. Set in medieval times, the game is described as 'an atmospheric, beautiful stealth based adventure featuring point-and-click style gameplay, off-beat humor, mind-bending puzzles, and memorable characters.'

Players assume the role of the Tiny Thief, a blond hooded hero who must use his kleptomaniac ways to outsmart opponents across six 'epic quests' and save a princess and kingdom in danger. Along the way, players will square off against enemies like the Dark Knight, rogue pirates, dragons, evil sheriffs, and even a giant robot.

'The game throws some seriously mind-boggling puzzles at you, with tons of surprising interactive gameplay elements along the way,' according to the App Store description.

The release comes after Rovio back in May announced plans to boost its game lineup with selections from third-party developers. The effort, dubbed Rovio Stars, is the Finnish game maker's first foray into publishing games that were not developed in-house.

The first Rovio Stars game Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage launched in early June for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. That game has not yet landed on Android.

Meanwhile, Angry Birds fans continue to wait it out for Rovio's new top-secret addition to the franchise. Without revealing too much (or anything at all, really), the gaming company last month teased its 'most thrilling and action-packed game yet!'

In the meantime, gamers can pick up Tiny Thief in the App Store or Google Play for $2.99. For more, check out the video below.

In the retailing wars with Apple Inc. (AAPL), score one for Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)

A judge's ruling that Apple violated U.S. antitrust laws by colluding to increase e-book prices gives retailers such as Amazon added flexibility to sell digital books more cheaply and gain market share. The decision may also lead to greater government oversight of the iPhone maker's ability to control pricing in other markets, such as music and movies.

'Amazon emerges as the winner from all of the activity related to e-book pricing,' said Tom Forte, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group in New York. 'The company seems to be free to price the way it wants to, which, by Amazon's standards, is aggressively to gain market share.'

Apple used agreements with publishers to fix prices of e-books, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled yesterday. Those deals helped the company sell reading content that boosted the appeal of its smartphones and tablets, while forcing Amazon to raise prices on some books and abandon the one-size-fits-all pricing that lured users to its Kindle readers. The verdict stands to give Amazon more leverage in negotiations with publishers.

While sales of e-books have exploded in the U.S., they still make up only 20 percent of the market, and those gains are slowing. Last year, e-book sales rose 44 percent to $3.04 billion after more than doubling in 2011, according to the Association of American Publishers.

The U.S. government and 33 state attorneys general sued Apple and five of the biggest publishers in April 2012, claiming the Cupertino, California-based company pushed publishers to sign agreements letting it sell e-books under a model that raised prices and harmed consumers.

Apple fought the lawsuit, seeking to fend off greater oversight and continue the agency model of letting content owners rather than retailers set prices, while generating income by taking a commission.

'Apple is using that agency model in a number of contexts and they chose to use it in part for e-books because they were using it in other contexts,' said Scott Kessler, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ.

Apple is the world's largest seller of music, and established the pricing model where tracks typically sell for 99 cents and albums for $9.99. With movies and television shows, where there is more competition from cable companies and online services such as Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Hulu LLC, Apple has a less rigid pricing model.

By adopting a new model with higher e-book prices, Apple sought to force Amazon to change its pricing, the plaintiffs argued. At the time, the online retailer was selling titles for $9.99, often below cost. E-books now have a wider price range. More than 650,000 e-books sold by Amazon cost $4.99 or less and more than 1.2 million are $9.99 or less, the company said in May. Currently, the digital version of Dan Brown's 'Inferno' sells for $12.99.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said Apple lost the case, in part, because of statements by its deceased founder, Steve Jobs, that government lawyers said showed Apple was targeting Amazon. States are seeking triple damages for overcharges, according to Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen's office. Another trial will be held to determine Apple's penalty.

'Any financial penalty is pocket change for Apple, but this decision can have a long-term effect,' said David Balto, a former policy director for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. 'The government can extend this beyond books.'

The ruling gives Seattle-based Amazon leeway in an industry that already accounts for a significant portion of its revenue. Amazon began selling e-books in 2007, and four years later, books for Kindle readers surpassed print sales.

Media, which includes digital content such as books, music and movies, will make up 26 percent of Amazon's total sales in 2014, according to Dan Kurnos, an analyst at Benchmark Co. E-books will account for about half of that, he said.

Amazon's aggressive pricing means the online retailer's massive scale ends up benefiting customers, Kurnos said. Amazon has aligned itself with antitrust laws that seek to protect consumers, making its model difficult to contest, he said.

'Competitive practices are for the benefit of the consumer,' Kurnos said in an interview. 'When was the last time you saw someone get in significant trouble for cutting prices too severely?'

Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon, declined to comment.

While this ruling doesn't affect authors and consumers because the agency model had already been phased out by the publishers' settlement with the government, the decision may pave the way for Amazon to become even more powerful in the book industry, according to Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild.

With Amazon able to discount e-books at will, that will make digital titles more appealing and could increase pressure on brick-and-mortar bookstores, Aiken said. Fewer bookstores will also only increase Amazon's negotiating power with publishers. For those chains that do offer e-books, like Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS), competing with Amazon will be even harder considering that in the past it's sold best-selling digital titles at a loss.

'If one is concerned about competition in the book industry, a healthy retail sector is critical,' Aiken said. 'That now seems to be very much in doubt.'

Apple argues that it wasn't fixing prices and was trying to create more competition in a market dominated by one player.

'Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations,' said Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman. 'When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We've done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge's decision.'

The company's appeal isn't likely to prevail and a final penalty could be in place within a year, said Christopher Sagers, a law professor at Cleveland State University. The ruling may put Apple in a similar situation as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which faced increased oversight as part of its deal to resolve antitrust charges. The software maker was subject to periodic status reports to check whether it complied with its settlement with the government.

'We're likely to see pretty broad, invasive government monitoring,' Sagers said. 'This case could have a big effect in how they set up new businesses.'

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net; Danielle Kucera in San Francisco at dkucera6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Pui-Wing Tam at ptam13@bloomberg.net

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Path is preparing to cross to the Windows Phone mobile platform - one of the more 'private' mobile OSes currently in play, with its marginal marketshare compared to the dominant duo of Android and iOS. Which sounds like a perfect fit for a private social network. Path co-founder and CEO, Dave Morin, confirmed to TechCrunch the network is 'coming to Windows Phone in full partnership with Nokia'.

Path was also named as one of the forthcoming apps at the launch of Nokia's new Windows Phone flagship, the Lumia 1020, taking place in New York today, as Nokia announced a new imaging SDK specific to that device.

It's unclear whether Path will be exclusive to the Lumia 1020 at this point, or available on any Windows Phone handset. We'll update this post as soon as we confirm.

It's also unclear whether the partnership means Nokia is part-funding development of the Windows Phone version of the app but it seems likely. And if not Nokia, then Microsoft - who has been spending considerable cash encouraging developers not to overlook its third ecosystem.

What is abundantly clear is that Nokia is hoping Path can be the Lumia 1020′s Instagram substitute - in the absence of the real deal. In a press release announcing the partnership, the pair play up the photo filter aspect of their partnership:

Path with Nokia will bring more than 50 free and premium filter effects; along with high resolution & deep zoom imaging capabilities that allow users to capture and share those personal moments and every day works of art. Path users can also share their location, what music they are listening to or movie they are watching as well as express thoughts and moments, chat with private messages, and share emotions with no words through fun-loving stickers from the Path store.

Path has been eyeing up Windows Phone for a while. Back in March Morin told Pandodaily it was 'beginning work on Windows Phone'. At the time he also said Path was committing to the Windows Phone platform because 'we believe that the product is really good' . And last year described himself as ' bullish on Windows Phone '.

Nokia has also been been working hard to support the wider Windows Phone ecosystem by spending time trying to convince developers to port flagship apps across ( see: Instagram, for instance), and also making its own apps - such as its Here mapping software - available to the whole WP ecosystem, not just its own Windows Phones. At its last device launch event, the Lumia 925, it made much of Hipstamatic's Oggl being available on Windows Phone.

Path's arrival on the Lumia 1020 is another Windows Phone stepping stone that Nokia will be keen to shout about - especially in light of the ongoing absence of Instagram. But a private social networking app, however well known, does not detract from the fact Nokia has been forced to unbox a 41MP cameraphone on a platform without the current photo-sharing social network du jour.

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After two years in beta, Valve's wildly popular Dota 2 is finally finished-or, at least finished enough for an official release. The beta ended earlier this week, and you can grab the latest version of the free-to-play game right here on Steam. You won't be alone. Dota 2 is by far the most popular game on Steam, with over 321,000 active players I write this. Team Fortress 2, Steam's second-most-popular title, has less than one sixth the players right now.

Because Dota 2 is so popular, Valve is rolling out the official version in waves. The server infrastructure behind the game is being updated to prepare for the expected influx of new players, and Valve doesn't want those servers to be swamped. I just tried to download Dota 2 and was told that I'm number 1092 in the launch queue. Apparently, I'll get an email when my turn is up. No time estimate is provided, though.

We've seen high-profile game launches distrupted by server issues, so I can understand why Valve is taking a slower approach here. The developer is adding server capacity for an additional 450,000 concurrent players, but figuring out exactly where to deploy all that new hardware is challenging, according to the release FAQ. Valve wants to ensure players in various regions all have a good experience.

Now that the beta is over, what's next? Mac and Linux versions. Both are 'currently in testing and will be available soon.' You should be able to access early builds through the program. The Linux version is particularly intriguing given Valve's apparent interest in using that OS to power its own console.

Our story so far: Last September, Apple decided to dump the Google Maps app that had been on the iPhone for years. Apple replaced it with its own Maps app - software with so many problems that Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, apologized and even recommended that people use other apps until Apple could fix its own one.

In December - incredibly quickly - Google responded by introducing its own Maps app for iPhone. It's a spectacular app, among the best apps ever written. It's fast, beautiful and so good at guessing what you mean when you start typing a destination, it's almost mind reading. You can read the details here.

Today, that delightful news gets even better. Not only has Google improved Google Maps for iPhone, it's also brought that same free app to three machines that never had it: the iPad, Android phones and Android tablets. (The Android versions are available for download today; it requires the Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean version of Android - recent versions, in other words. The iOS versions will be available shortly.)

For Androidians, the biggest news is the design of the app itself. It's modeled on the iPhone app, the one that's simple and fast and elegant. It's also uncluttered by the morass of menus that have always plagued the existing Maps app for Android.

But for practitioners of all religions - tablet, phone, iOS, Android - the other news is the new features that today's new version brings. They include:

* Greater speed. All app versions are faster than before.

* Better place information. Half the time, you don't even need navigation instructions; you just use Google Maps as the world's smartest Yellow Pages, to find a nearby restaurant, movie theater, drugstore or whatever.

The details for found places now include a one-line description ('Chinese restaurant famous for dim sum'); a five-star rating system (including a decimal - '4.3,' for example - because, let's face it, almost everything these days winds up with a four-star rating); the ability to upload your own photos of a place; and a more complete integration of the Zagat guides, which Google bought.

* Greater emphasis on exploration. Google Maps has always excelled at getting you to a known destination. But Google now wants the app to help you choose a restaurant, bar, store, recreation center or hotel, at least in major United States and European cities.

If you tap in the Search box without typing anything, new, photographic buttons appear: Eat, Drink, Shop, Play, Sleep. Each opens lists of corresponding facilities, sorted by criteria like Local Favorites, Popular with Tourists and so on. (Google says that these recommendations are never paid placement.)

* Traffic incidents and auto-rerouting. At last: Google Maps shows more than colored lines indicating current traffic speeds on major roads. Now it also displays tiny icons that represent accidents and construction. Tap one to read the details: 'Right lane blocked on 680,' for example. (In case you were wondering, the information on traffic incidents doesn't come from Waze, the traffic-incident app that Google recently bought. That data has yet to be incorporated into Maps.)

Better yet: Maps now looks ahead for traffic jams on your route, and interrupts your drive with a dialog box that offers to route you around it (if the new path would be quicker, of course). On its own.

* Offline maps. This feature is something of an Easter egg. It's undocumented, a feature inserted by Google engineers simply because they wanted it. You can access it only if you know the secret. But wow, is it worth it.

This feature memorizes the map data for whatever area is displayed on your screen right now (up to a whole city in size). That way, you can use Google Maps even when you're overseas and don't want to turn on data roaming (because that's insanely expensive), or when you're in an area where there's no cell reception. It's very handy.

To capture a map snapshot like this, tap in the Search box. Use the speech-recognition button and say, 'OK Maps.' (It's a riff on the command 'OK Glass' that prepares Google Glass, the company's 'smart headband,' for voice commands.)

A message quietly lets you know you've successfully stored the displayed area.

*Nice tablet layouts. On a tablet, Maps really shines. The app smartly reformats itself to take best advantage of whatever screen shape you have: two or three columns of place listings, for example, and luxuriously displayed photos and reviews for each business.

This new, improved Maps app works identically on both major flavors of phone and tablet. You know what? I don't care how much you distrust Google and its motives. This is crazy good software, some of the best work Google has ever done.

The collapse of the PC business is accelerating. Worldwide shipments fell by more than 10% year on year in the second quarter, recording an unprecedented fifth successive period of decline as the market undergoes a fundamental shift towards tablets, smartphones and touch devices.

China's Lenovo emerged as the top seller according to separate data from research companies IDC and Gartner - though even it saw a year-on-year fall in total sales.

But amid a market where Taiwan's Acer and Asus saw shipments crash by more than 30% and 20% respectively, Lenovo's emergence at the top over long-time leader HP, the American PC maker and technology company, marked a figurative passing of the torch. Its principal market was China, which represented more than 50% of its 12.7m shipments.

Gartner says worldwide PC shipments fell to 76.0m, from 85.3m in the second quarter of 2012; IDC put the figures at 75.6m, and 85.4m in 2012. Gartner also revised down its figure for PC shipments in the year-ago period, from 87.5m.

All regions saw a fall in PC shipments compared with the year-ago period - suggesting that economic factors are not the key ones.

'We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed markets,' said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. 'In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC. This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini notebook market.'

The fall suggests that not only is the marketing shrinking, but that the shrinkage is accelerating. The year-ago period, just ahead of the launch of Windows 8, saw an expected slowdown of 2% as PC OEMs and businesses paused while they waited for new products and new software from Microsoft.

But Windows 8 has not proved to be the hoped-for shot in the arm for the PC business, which has been losing attention as consumers - who make up half of purchasers - shift to buying tablets and smartphones.

IDC forecast in May that tablets will outsell laptops this year, and that by the end of 2015 they will outsell the entire PC segment.

The only ray of hope is that the US market - where Apple emerged as a surprise third place, behind HP and Dell, despite shipping only 1.8m units there - is showing some signs that enterprises are beginning to shift from Windows XP, which is approaching the end of its support period 12 years after launch, to Windows 7.

As well as a rise in Dell's enterprise-focused PC business - crucial if the company is to survive its shift to a private entity - Bob O'Donnell of IDC said: 'We're also starting to see more stabilisation in shipments [in the US], which we think is a reflection of PC lifetimes finally starting to even out after a long period of gradual increase. The end result should be more PC replacements, even if consumers and companies are selective in making replacements and wait until PCs are older before replacing them.'

Technology companies are paying out dividends at the fastest pace in more than a decade, boosting cash returns to appease investors dismayed by slowing growth.

Led by Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), technology companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index distributed $10.8 billion in dividends in the most recent quarter, up from $5.1 billion in the same period in 2010. They paid a record $11.9 billion in dividends in the previous quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Their average dividend yield, a metric for measuring payments in the past 12 months as a percentage of market value, stands at 1.21 percent for technology companies, the first time it has exceeded 1 percent in at least 15 years, the data show.

Apple, Cisco, Dell Inc. (DELL) and their peers have a total of $590 billion of cash on hand, up from $508.5 billion a year ago and $436.5 billion two years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Dividend payouts are likely to keep rising as once-cash-strapped startups become larger, slower-growth companies -- a shift that may raise expectations that holdouts such as Google Inc. will follow suit, said Jennifer Koski, a finance professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

'These companies are now grownups,' Koski said. 'They are more developed in their life cycle, they are profitable and they don't need as much in terms of capital.'

The cash reserve numbers are likely to be even larger when technology companies start reporting quarterly earnings, with Intel Corp. (INTC), Microsoft Corp. and Google announcing results next week. Apple's report will follow on July 23.

The average per-company payout for hardware and software makers has reached $154.9 million, compared with $151.1 million for all companies in the S&P 500, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's a shift from years past, when technology firms traditionally avoided dividends out of concern that they signaled a slowdown in innovation and growth, said Barry James, president of James Investment Research Inc. The firm oversees about $3.5 billion, including shares of Microsoft, which initiated a dividend in 2003.

'It takes off some of the growth luster,' James said.

Apple for years held its ground, with late co-founder Steve Jobs spurning investor requests for a dividend before he handed the reins to Tim Cook, who became chief executive officer in August 2011. In March 2012, Apple unveiled its first dividend in 17 years, heeding investors who had been clamoring for a bigger slice of the company's cash pile, which at the time had swelled to almost $100 billion, bolstered by demand for iPhones and iPads.

That wasn't enough for some investors, as the Cupertino, California-based company continued to rake in money, boosting its cash hoard to $137.1 billion at the end of last year. Investors, led by hedge-fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital Inc., lobbied Cook to return more money as Apple's stock price languished.

In April, the company unveiled a plan to add $55 billion to its dividend and buyback plan, for a total of $100 billion. The announcements came the same day Apple reported its first profit drop in a decade, and were followed in May by a congressional hearing at which senators accused the company of using loopholes and offshore entities to avoid paying some U.S. taxes.

The industry's dividends are rewarding firms such as BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and State Street Corp., which are the largest shareholders in both Apple and Cisco.

The rising payouts also make technology firms more attractive to value investors, or those who are looking for stable and steady returns, a shift for an industry that has long been a favorite of hedge-fund managers and investors looking for fast gains, Koski said.

Still, technology companies' payouts remain a drop in the bucket compared with the cash they generate each quarter. The industry produced $57.4 billion in cash flows in the first quarter, excluding dividend payments, according to the data. There have only been three other quarters since 2001 where that cash figure was higher.

The new wave of payouts will increase pressure on those technology companies with big balance sheets that don't pay a dividend, James said. Of the 70 companies classified by the S&P 500 as technology, 36 pay dividends, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Microsoft, Intel (INTC), International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp (ORCL). are among the technology companies that have paid dividends since before 2010 and have steadily increased the payments.

Google, owner of the world's largest Internet search engine, doesn't pay a dividend, even though it has $51.6 billion of cash and investments. Tim Drinan, a spokesman for Google, declined to comment on the possibility of a dividend.

'People have to get their head around the psychology of this and change their mindset,' James said. 'It's a perception problem.'

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net; Shin Pei in New York at spei@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Pui-Wing Tam at ptam13@bloomberg.net

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I have an HP Pavilion w5129 from 2005 with 3GB of memory, AMD Athlon 64, and ATI Radeon 4350 (no HDMI, USB3, etc). It crashes occasionally, for which I can't find any specific reason, but my guess is that it's a software fault which could be 'repaired' by installing Windows 8 from scratch.

It seems that the graphics card is compatible but the monitor resolution is too low (1280 x 1024 pixels).

This is a personal decision, and one I took about 18 months ago. As mentioned in the previous answer, I replaced a Dell Dimension 8400 purchased in April 2005 (see The art of buying a desktop) with a Dell Vostro 460 MT running Windows 7 Pro. (I chose the Pro version so that I could use the free XP Mode, though I haven't needed it.)

I reckon a modern desktop PC should last for about five years, if it's given a 'mid-life kicker'. In my case, I had upgraded the memory, added a new graphics card, and reinstalled XP. I could have upgraded it to Windows 7 but I would have missed out on USB3 and HDMI, as you mention. I would probably have wanted another graphics card upgrade and a new hard drive (the old 160GB model was almost full), but I'd still have been stuck with a slow, single-core Pentium and a 32-bit operating system.

After six years, I was also starting to worry about component failures. Would the hard drive or power supply fail? When would the system battery run out?

Replacing the PC brought a few unexpected benefits. The new system is smaller, runs much quieter, and consumes less power (which is good for the environment). Further, the new widescreen monitor is much brighter than the original, to the point where I can't stand to use the old one, even as a second screen.

You're in much the same position. You could upgrade the operating system, but your PC is old and could fail at any time. Upgrading the operating system won't actually provide the speed of a new PC, and other useful features.

Technically, Windows 8 should run on your HP Pavilion w5129: it meets the bare Windows 8 system requirements, including PAE (Physical Address Extension), NX Bit and SSE2. However, I'd expect it to be somewhat slow. If your PC has the Athlon 64 3200 version of the processor, this is slower than a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550, which no one would pick for a Windows 8 desktop PC today. (The CPU's Socket 939 was superseded in 2006, so there probably aren't any good upgrades, either.)

The ATI Radeon HD 4350 (I'm assuming the HD) graphics card was good value when you did the upgrade, but it has been left behind by more recent graphics cards. Also, although Windows 8 can use DX9 and this card supports DX10, DX11 has been out since 2009 and we're currently on DX11.2.

With the arrival of Windows 8, hardware designs have moved on again, although many of the changes are aimed at exploiting touch-sensitive screens on laptops and tablets. They include the replacement of the old BIOS chip by UEFI firmware, support for solid state drives (SSDs), and fast startup.

Windows 8 does need a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels or higher for some functions, but your monitor resolution (1280 x 1024) is not too low to run Windows 8 or to access the Windows Store. It is too low for the 'snap' function to work with full-screen Windows 8 apps from the Windows Store, but that doesn't affect standard Windows programs run from the desktop.

Now, you asked whether it was 'a good idea/alternative to keep [your] old PC and monitor' and change just the operating system. I'm pretty sure that you can just change the operating system if you want to. Windows 8 will run, and it could run at a similar speed to Windows XP. Whether it will repair the software crashes is another matter, because these could be due to an intermittent hardware fault.

However, you will be missing out on the extra performance and new features that you would get from a new PC, including smoother and more consistent operation, the extra speed of USB3 connections, faster graphics and a much bigger hard drive. PC hardware really has improved over the past eight years.

The real problem is that an operating system upgrade will only put off the inevitable. At some point, hardware unreliability, component failures, or simply the need to use increasingly bloated websites will prompt you to upgrade. The question is whether installing Windows 8 will delay that new PC purchase by a year, or two years, or more?

Since you can get an upgrade from Windows XP SP3 to Windows 8 Pro for only £49.50 at Amazon.co.uk, it could be worth upgrading, even if it only lasts a year.

Otherwise, I think it's best to take a businesslike approach to buying PCs, and budget for a new desktop every four or five years whether you need one or not. You can take this literally by sticking £2 a week into a piggy bank. Forego a designer coffee if necessary. Then the question isn't whether to upgrade your PC, but when is the best time to do it.

The coming Christmas sales season, which kicks off in November, looks like being a good time to upgrade, or possibly just before that. There are two reasons. First, PCs with Intel Haswell processors should be widely available, Haswell being the fourth generation of the familiar Intel Core iX range. (The previous versions were codenamed Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge.) Second, Microsoft has said that it will ship Windows 8.1 to PC manufacturers by the end of August, so it should be available pre-installed by leading desktop PC manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Lenovo.

Haswell chips aren't that much faster than the Ivy Bridge versions, but they are much more power efficient, which will reduce running costs on a desktop PC. (They are really aimed at expanding battery life on portables.) They also offer better built-in graphics, though still not up to AMD levels. However, they do require new motherboards.

Windows 8.1 has a number of improvements that should make it more palatable to someone upgrading from Windows XP. Some of these are mostly cosmetic, such as putting the Start Screen menu over the top of your desktop background, bringing back a Start button (but not the Start menu), and allowing users to boot straight to the desktop. Either way, the performance remains impressive, which is why Windows 8 is being adopted faster by gamers such as Steam users. Currently, Windows 8 is at 13%, though Windows 7 still dominates with 66%, and 32-bit XP trails with 7%.

In a business environment, there's an economic case for upgrading from Windows XP even if the hardware isn't decrepit, because of the reduced number of reboots and the reduced risk of viruses, among other things (see the white paper on Why Sticking with Windows XP is a Bad Idea). There's also an economic case for upgrading hardware after three or four years because of the increase in hardware problems. For home users, it boils down to whether you put any value on your time, and on having a better computing experience. That's really up to you.

Considering Microsoft's history of supporting desktop operating systems past their expiration date, learning that Windows Phone 8 would be cut off from updates after a short 18 months was a bit of a slap to the face. Thankfully, Redmond has come to its senses: as of this week Microsoft has doubled its mobile OS' support life cycle. Devices running Windows Phone 8 will be sustained through January 2016, provided your carrier of choice chooses to make the update available to you. The company hopes this will make the platform more appealing to enterprise users. Speaking of courting the business crowd, the official Windows Phone Blog also outlines a set of enterprise-specific features, including new options for corporate-level email, WiFi and application management. The full info with all the high-level security features you can handle is in the links below.

Summary: My new Android phone makes my old iPhone feel like a dinosaur. I did not root my phone. Every app you see here is a standard product, available from the Google Play store. This is what you can do right out of the box.

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A few weeks ago, I told you about my plans to ditch my old iPhone 4S and get a brand-new Samsung S4 Android phone. Well, a few days later, I did just that.

Since then, I've been playing around with the new phone and I came to a rather surprising realization: it makes my old iPhone feel like a dinosaur. We have a bunch of Nexus 7 tablets floating around the house and I use mine almost every day. But a phone is a far more personal device and, as a result, the desire to make it truly fit with a lifestyle is strong.

I knew the S4 had a lot more features than the iPhone. But until I started playing with it, the scope of the advancement of the device over even the iPhone 5 wasn't immediately apparent. This gallery should rectify that.

Before you dive in, I have a few things to say. First, I'm well aware of the state of handheld technology from the 1990s. Back then, we were in the early PalmPilot days, and there weren't smartphones. That's not the point. I know the iPhone seemed advanced five or seven years ago, but using it now, holding it next to the new Android phone, it feels so dated. It seems older than just the last decade. It seems like something from before the turn of the century.

The second thing I want to say is that I did not root my phone. Every app you see here is a standard product, available from the Google Play store. This is what you can do right out of the box.

Well, without further ado, let's explore the 25 things my new Android phone does that makes my iPhone feel like it comes from the 1990s.

Remember that new version of Google Maps for Android that Google previewed back at I/O in May? It's here! The new app began rolling out to Android devices this morning, bringing with it a new interface (including one built just for tablets) and a handful of new features. The iOS build, meanwhile, should be updated in just a few days - and it'll bring proper Google Maps support back to the iPad, to boot.

Alas, the interface revamp means a few old features had to get the chop.

Google says the update should be 'gradually rolling out to Android 4.0.3+ users over the next few weeks'.

If you've been running the Maps app that Google released for iOS back in December (three months after Apple ditched Google Maps in favor of their own, not-at-all-ready-for-prime-time app), the new Android interface probably looks pretty familiar. The core of the interface, that big ol' fullscreen map view, is almost identical on both platforms now. The menus which once dropped down now slide out from a drawer on the side, instead.

Interfaces aside, this new Android release has a few tricks that its iPhone counterpart doesn't have (quite yet):

Don't be sweatin' too hard over the lack of realtime traffic rerouting and all that other stuff on your platform, though, iOS users; from what I gleaned during the meeting, it sounds like the iOS version of the update - complete with proper iPad support - is just waiting for Apple's oh-so-crucial greenlight. Once it's released, the Android and iOS builds of Maps should be a near feature-by-feature match for the first time in ages.

As mentioned, though, there's a catch or two. Dumping the old interface and bringing in a whole new one meant a few features got the boot, if only temporarily. The 'Make Available Offline' button (which, as labeled, let you save maps for offline use) has been pulled. According to Graf, it just wasn't quite ready. On the upside, I learned a little easter egg that kinda-sorta brings it back - more on that in a post later today. (Update: here's the trick)

Google Maps has also dropped support for Latitude, the service that lets you share your location with friends and stalk them accordingly (with permission, of course). Instead, location sharing is getting integrated into Google Plus. The move is part of a wider closure of Latitude that will see Google moving out of check-ins and real-time location tracking, as well as offering these to developers via a set of APIs. More on the Latitude closure here.

Oh, the irony.

I'm fairly sure every Google 'product update!' post is actually a veiled 'we're closing things down!' post. http://t.co/TL2DAaSUP2

- Tom Scott (@tomscott) July 10, 2013

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Microsoft wants to get Windows XP below 10% by April 2014

Microsoft has hatched a plan to get resellers to help wean customers off Windows XP by April 2014. Windows XP currently holds the second largest percentage of the computer operating system market right below Windows 7. According to Net Applications, Windows XP holds 37.17% of the operating system market while Windows 7 holds 44.37%. Microsoft is reminding resellers and customers that there is less than a year left until all support for Windows XP is stopped. On April 8, 2014, Windows XP will no longer receive patches or updates including critical security updates. Moving consumers from Windows XP to a newer version of Windows is reportedly one of Microsoft's top priorities for its fiscal 2014, which began on July 1.

Source: ZDNet

After appearing in the Play store last night, the Google Maps update for Android that was previewed at I/O in May has been unveiled in full. The redesigned maps experience, which we first saw on the iPhone last December, works on both phones and tablets. It follows the same Google design aesthetic that has taken the rest of the company by storm - with information cards, cleaner fonts, and radically fewer buttons and menus. In lieu of difficult-to-understand icons and buttons, the map view simply has a search box, a button to center your view on your location, and a tiny menu button. When you search, information pops up and you can swipe left and right between info cards or alternate routes.

On tablets, the interface is slightly different but just as clean; it more closely matches the look and feel of the Google Maps desktop beta that was released at I/O. Instead of a single swipeable information card at bottom, the tablet gives you a grid of cards more appropriate for the larger screen size. Both versions benefit from the cleaner layout, with the previous version's little-used and ill-conceived menus and options excised in favor of in-map information or information that only appears when you search. They also utilize the new, cleaner map layout that debuted on the desktop version, with easier to read road and location names that intelligently appear when you zoom around.

Zagat reviews are still included alongside user reviews, but Google has standardized its ratings on a five point scale instead of a 30 point scale. Google says that Waze, which the company purchased last month, is not yet integrated in this version. The Zagat information has been expanded to provide local 'guides' broken down into five categories: eat, drink, shop, play, and sleep. Google is also beginning to use more of the information it can collect from its users. 'Local favorites,' for example, show highly-rated places from users who have set their home location in that city, while 'Tourist favorites' show the same for people who Google knows are traveling.

Google also says it has improved navigation, presenting alternate routes when you initially search in a easier-to-read format. Traffic incidents will be displayed, so you can see what is causing the snags on your route. Finally, the company claims that it can redirect you when you're in transit if something on your route goes awry.

The new interface does have some slight differences next to December's iPhone update - the menu button has been moved to the lefthand side to better fit with the Android standard of presenting menu options in a lefthand drawer. Unfortunately, on phones that button is still as tiny and hard to hit as it was before, but on tablets its a larger target placed next to the search box.

The other problem with the redesign is that Google (mostly) removed the option to save offline maps - a feature that was only a year old to begin with. Power users still have a way to cache maps locally, however. Daniel Graf, director for Google Maps, tells us that the company's engineers were just as unhappy with the loss of the feature as we were, so they built an Easter egg. When you type in 'OK maps' (or 'okay maps') into the search box, it will save a cached version of the visible map area locally. It's not as convenient or manageable as proper offline maps, but at least it's an option - assuming you remember it's there. If you were using Latitude as a 'Find my Friends' service, that has also been removed. Google will instead be promoting Google+ location sharing.

While Google says that versions for both the iPad and iPhone are coming 'soon,' the company wouldn't be drawn on whether they had been submitted to Apple for approval. The Android version should be available today in the Google Play store, but it will only work on Android 4.0 and up. It's a much-needed refresh for the design of one of Android's core apps, and hopefully a sign that the rest of Android will be headed in this new, Google Now-esque direction.

By Todd R. Weiss | Posted 2013-07-10 Email Print

Now available for Android, an updated and improved Google Maps app will also soon be available for Apple iPhone and iPad users, according to Google.

Google is continuing to build on the continuing evolution of its mobile Google Maps app with the release of a new version aimed first at Android smartphone and tablet users. 'The new Google Maps for mobile builds on the design we released for iPhone last December and improves on it with a few useful search and navigation features,' wrote Daniel Graf, the director of Google Maps, in a July 10 post on the Google Official Blog. The updated new version is 'the first dedicated app for Android tablets and iPads,' which provides 'a new mapping experience that makes exploring the world and getting to the places that matter to you a lot faster and easier,' wrote Graf. The new Android version is gradually rolling out globally in the Google Play store and an iPhone and iPad version will be available soon in Apple's App Store, he wrote. The new app will run on Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean versions of the operating system. The Apple version will support iOS 6+ when available.

Among the new features of the new app is an 'explore' option that allows users to visually browse and discover new places without typing. Instead, users can tap the search box, and they'll be shown pop-up 'cards' that display nearby places to eat, drink, sleep and shop, wrote Graf. Also included are enhanced navigational capabilities that can help users navigate around traffic. 'You can now see reports of problems on the road that you can tap to see incident details,' he wrote. 'While on the road, Google Maps will also alert you if a better route becomes available and reroute you to your destination faster. This feature is available only on Android and is coming soon to iOS.'

Android tablet users will find that the newly redesigned Maps app works better on their devices because it is now specifically designed to render images and information in a tablet format, wrote Graf. Also unveiled in the refreshed Maps app is a new 5.0 star rating system that gives users ratings on restaurants, bars, cafes and other destinations, wrote Graf. 'For an expert's opinion, the Zagat badge of excellence and curated lists are integrated into search results so you can quickly spot the very best places. From 'Best Restaurants to meet for a drink in NYC' to 'Best Restaurants in the Mission' in San Francisco, Zagat's there to help you uncover the local gems.' Reviews from friends and acquaintances are also available through the app. Another new feature is the availability of mobile offers and discounts from national brands like Macy's, Michael's and Toys 'R' Us, that are presented and labeled on the user's map screen, wrote Graf. As part of the changes, two older Maps features, Latitude and check-ins, are missing from the new app and will be dropped from old versions of the app as of Aug. 9, he wrote. 'We understand some of you still want to see your friends and family on a map, which is why we've added location sharing and check-ins to Google+ for Android (coming soon to iOS).'