Apple chief calls for US corporate tax to be cut to single digits
Tim Cook warns Congress that he would refuse to repatriate $100bn stashed offshore unless US slashed its 35% tax rate
Apple has called for US corporate tax rates be reduced to "single digits" after it admitted sheltering at least $30bn (£20bn) of international profits in Irish subsidiaries that pay no tax at all.
In a dramatic display of how threats from multinational corporations are driving down taxes across the world, chief executive Tim Cook warned Congress that he would refuse to repatriate a total of $100bn stashed offshore unless it acted to slash the 35% US rate.
He also revealed that Apple had struck a secret deal with the Irish government in 1980 to limit its domestic taxes there to 2%.
Three subsidiaries based in Ireland are also used to shelter profits made in the rest of Europe and Asia but are not classed as resident in any country for tax purposes – a tactic dubbed the "iCompany" by critics.
Cook's testimony to a Senate sub-committee investigating multinational tax practices largely confirmed its findings that Apple had taken tax avoidance to a new extreme by structuring these companies so they did not incur tax liabilities anywhere.
Phillip Bullock, the California company's head of tax, estimated that just one of these subsidiaries – Apple Operations International – had channelled $30bn in global profits over the last five years without filing a single income tax return.
The only taxes paid were on the interest earned by the cash pile and small sums in local markets. Senate investigators allege a total of $70bn has been sheltered this way in just four years.
Despite heated exchanges with committee chairman Carl Levin, Apple largely shrugged off criticism of the practice, insisting it was acting "in the letter and the spirit of the law".
An independent tax professor Richard Harvey testified that its tax avoidance was "probably legal" and could have been much more aggressive.
The Apple chief used his appearance to renew lobbying for Congress to cut a deal with multinationals to encourage them to bring back, or repatriate, the billions of dollars kept offshore to avoid tax.
Cook said he had no plan to bring back the $102bn built up by Apple at current tax rates, and recently opted to return money to shareholders by borrowing money instead. "I have no current plan to do so at the current tax rates.
"Unlike some technology companies, I am not proposing a zero rate," he said. "My proposal is that we have a reasonable tax for bringing back money from overseas.
"A permanent change is materially better than a short term tax holiday."
Cook said he "personally doesn't understand the difference between a tax presence and a tax residence."
He was even defended by some members of the committee who accused Levin and Republican John McCain of "bullying" Apple. "I am offended by the tone and tenor of this hearing," said fellow Republican and presidential hopeful Rand Paul.
The hearing was seen as a watershed in the increasing tense clashes between governments and multinationals, particularly technology groups such as Apple, Amazon and Google.
Edward Kleinbard, professor of law at USC Gould School of Law, said: "Apple is not an outlier in its efforts to produce 'stateless income' – income that is taxed neither in the United States nor in the countries where its foreign customers are located – but it is an outlier in the baldness of its strategies. Apple shifted tens of billions of dollars of income without even breaking into a sweat.
"The hearing will forcefully remind policymakers that international tax reform will require the implementation of really thoughtful anti abuse rules, ideally developed in conjunction with other OECD member states.
Every country is the worse off when they facilitate multinationals aggressively pursuing stateless income strategies, just as every country is worse off when they all engage in trade wars."
Corporate tax expert Jennifer Blouin at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school said the Apple revelations were "extraordinary but not surprising".
"We have seen versions of this with Microsoft and with Google," she said. "I hope it gooses the notion that we need to fix the worldwide system."
She said Apple was working within the law but that the law was written before huge profits could be made by companies that trade not in goods and manufacturing but in ideas.
"I have worked in this area for years and it's been largely an obscurity. But it's at the forefront now, and it needs to get fixed."
- Apple
- Tim Cook
- Computing
- Tablet computers
- Tax avoidance
- Corporate governance
- US Senate
- US politics
- United States
- Ireland
- Europe
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Xbox One: Microsoft unveils new console that 'changes everything'
First major relaunch of Xbox since 2005 integrates TV, internet and gaming in what Microsoft describes as 'rocket-science stuff'
Microsoft revealed a new Xbox console on Tuesday that not only integrates TV, internet and gaming, but also will measure your heartbeat and recognise your voice.
The company said the Xbox One will revolutionise its users' lifestyles by integrating the cloud, voice control and gesture technology into a simple, intuitive machine.
"It changes everything," Marc Whitten, an Xbox executive, told a packed hall of technology journalists at the company's campus in Redmond, Washington. "This is rocket-science stuff."
Analysts who had wondered whether the company could follow up on the success of its Xbox 360, first unveiled in 2005, said its successor offered a complete entertainment system designed for the family, not just gamers.
"The Xbox One really looks to advance the state of video game technology and entertainment in a way that we haven't seen before," said Brian Blau, a director of Gartner Research.
"The Xbox One is a real advancement, one that will transform the way we experience TV, games, music, movies and more. From what we can see so far Microsoft has met and far exceeded expectations for the Xbox One. This is Microsoft branching out into the living room to reach more of a family audience rather than a core gaming audience."
Fred Huet, a managing partner at Greenwich Consulting, said Microsoft had thrown down the gauntlet to Sony's PlayStation and other rivals. "The Xbox One is set to mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment."
The Xbox One, which will be available from the end of the year, will be powered by 300,000 servers, more than the entire world's computing power in 1999, said Whitten.
An improved, ultra-sensitive Kinect sensor will track wrist and shoulder rotations and be able to read users' heartbeats. "This is human control for a human experience." Its main camera can record 1080P RGB video at 30 frames per second.
Microsoft executive Yusuf Mehdi wowed the audience by calling out commands and using minimal hand gestures to manipulate content on the Xbox One. He said "a new set of universal gestures to control your TV" would banish the fumbling confusion many feel with existing remotes. TechCruch called it a "massive, massive upgrade" from the original model.
A "snap mode" similar to Microsoft Windows 8 experience allows users to run two activities – such as watching TV and browsing the internet, or using Skype – simultaneously. It offers a second screen.
The Xbox One has 8GB of Ram, along with a Blu-ray drive, 64-bit architecture and a 500GB onboard hard drive. Microsoft also unveiled a new version of its camera-based Kinect system with better motion and voice detection. It showed how users can watch live sports on TV while getting updates on fantasy leagues on a split screen. In an effort to stay ahead of rivals, Microsoft said new content for the popular Call of Duty game can be downloaded on the Xbox One before any other system.
Microsoft said more games would be shown at next month's E3 video game conference in Los Angeles.
The previous model, the Xbox 360, was launched eight years ago, and has been the leading games console for the past two years.
Rory Carrollguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Xbox One: backwards compatibility, second-hand games and always online? The lowdown
A quick look at the issues many gamers will be wondering about with Microsoft's new console
So Xbox One has been unveiled and Microsoft is set to introduce us to a new interconnected entertainment universe. We've got a million questions about the console, but here are three issues important to lots of gamers, as well as the answers as they stand at the moment...
Always online connection?Nope. Apparently, you will need to be able to hook your console up to the net, but it won't have to be always online. A Microsoft spokesperson to Polygon: "It does not have to be always connected [...] We are also designing it so you can play games and watch Blu-ray movies and live TV if you lose your connection."
Backwards compatibility?No again. Xbox Live Vice President Marc Whitten: "The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn't really work from that perspective." However, music and video content downloaded via Xbox Live will be compatible with the new machine. Microsoft has not yet mentioned whether it will make Xbox 360 titles available via a streaming service a la PlayStation 4.
Second-hand sales of games blocked?A third no - but with a caveat. From Develop:
"On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play," said a spokesperson.
Microsoft then confirmed that users of a pre-owned game will have to pay a fee to gain access to the title if it had already been installed on another console so they could use it on their own account.
So it's going to work like EA's Online Pass, which might not be universally popular?
More details later...
Keith Stuartguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Microsoft unveils Xbox One console - live blog
Microsoft is showing off its new rival to Sony's Playstation 4 in first major revamp of Xbox since 2005. Follow live coverage here
Amanda HolpuchApple chief testifies at Senate – live
Apple has denied findings by congressional investigators that it uses 'highly questionable' tax minimisation strategy. By Jim Newell
Jim NewellXbox One unveiled - live stream
Why has Google's Eric Schmidt brought this awful smell with him?
How Samantha Cameron might have commented on the Google boss's visit to No 10 Downing Street
Well it is SO stressful-making, everyone is nervous & Eric Schmidt has practically moved in & on top of everything there is this awful smell of rotten eggs? I'm like Dave, please ask Jo Johnson to DO something & Dave just goes chill babes, Eric and I are beyond relaxed, just open the window? I'm like, listen up, this is serious, I know Ocado promise never to mix up Morrisons and Waitrose orders but Mummy says how do they actually KNOW the Waitrose stuff will not be contaminated, I mean they said that about horsemeat right? It is like hearing Johnnie Boden is going to change to, I don't know, Johnnie Poundland, except without Boden you would still have Zara & Whistles & even tragic Jigsaw, whatever, but after Waitrose literally what is left?
So Dave says Jo will get on to that as soon as he is done with Operation Wingnut, as in poor Feldperson says the freaktards are STILL in a total bate even though he definitely remembers saying "no offence" before the loon part, as in sense of humour failure, much? And Jo has written this genius letter basically saying soz losers, lusms you for ever, and if that does not work we are going to buy them sweets? And Dave and Eric want After Eights but Oik says his local loonery practically live on Celebrations & personally I thought some darling mini-Haribos might work but Craig says they look gay so we are going to do one Ferrero Rocher per home counties loon and a Werther's Original everywhere else, Jo remembers this vintagey ad where they go "I felt like someone very special" #mentalistgold. Dave's like hell yeah, suck on THAT, Farridge.
So then Schmidty suddenly reappears *retches, opens window* which I would not particularly mind except when Schmidty sees any cameras he is always so shy, going quick unlock the back door? I'm like Eric, if there is something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you should not be doing it in the first place? But Dave's like, babes, trust me, it is part of our special pact that nobody will ever know about me and Schmidty, especially not Starbucks or Jimmy Carr and btw Eric says will you stop saying OMG, I'm like WTF?
Catherine Bennettguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Vodafone delays 4G superfast mobile internet launch until September
Vodafone, which had been expected to launch a rival to EE by June, is waiting for Apple to release a compatible iPhone 5
Vodafone has delayed the launch of its 4G service until around September, a full 10 months after rival EE brought the first version of superfast mobile internet technology to the UK.
Having spent £790m on 4G spectrum at a government auction in February, Vodafone had been expected to launch this month or next. But it would have done so without the world's best-selling smartphone.
The iPhone 5 works on Britain's first 4G network – with EE – but does not run on the frequencies Vodafone, O2 and many operators in continental Europe are planning to use for 4G. Apple is not expected to release a compatible device until the autumn.
Vodafone said on Tuesday its 4G switch-on would be delayed until "the end of the summer" to ensure its network was ready and to give the launch the best possible marketing window.
"We are convinced our own 4G will be better performing," said Vodafone's chief executive, Vittorio Colao. "We want to be able to launch it when it's really ready. End of the summer means when there is going to be a good commercial window for launching it."
Announcing annual results, Vodafone set a target of building high-speed 4G networks capable of broadcasting data-hungry videos to 40% of its network in its five biggest European markets, including the UK, by March 2014.
EE, still the only company running a 4G network in the UK, launched its service at the end of October and is targeting 1 million customers by Christmas, having signed up over 400,000 so far.
By this summer, EE will have doubled its 4G speed in 10 UK cities, with an achievable top speed of 80Mbps. The network is already available in 50 towns and cities, and a quarter of all customers new to the company, which also owns the Orange and T-Mobile brands, are subscribing to the service.
Vodafone had been expected to beat both O2 and Three to 4G. O2, which spent £550m in the auction, has indicated it intended to launch this summer at the earliest, while Three has said it is likely to wait until the end of the year before launching its 4G service.
Juliette Garsideguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
George Gray obituary
Leading authority on the chemistry of liquid crystals whose work led to the development of the ubiquitous LCD
The public gauges scientists by how their research affects everyday lives. The legacy of Professor George Gray, the world's leading authority on the chemistry of liquid crystals, could be measured by the quality of televisions, mobile phones and MP3 players and, at a deeper level, how we communicate with each other, whether through Twitter, Facebook or Skype. George, who has died aged 86, invented stable liquid crystal materials and in doing so unlocked the development of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as everyday consumer items.
He was born in Denny, Scotland, to John, a pharmacist, scientist and botanist, and his wife, Jessie. After graduating with a degree in chemistry from the University of Glasgow in 1946, he moved to University College Hull, an outpost of the University of London, to take up the post of assistant lecturer. With the guidance of Sir Brynmor Jones he studied for his PhD in the new topic of liquid crystals. After graduation he spent the next decade laying down the rules on the design and preparation of liquid crystals formed by organic compounds, culminating with the publication, in 1962, of his book Molecular Structure and the Properties of Liquid Crystals, the first English text on the subject.
By the mid-1960s, George found it difficult to find support for his work on liquid crystals. With provision from the Medical Research Council and Reckitt and Sons (now Reckitt-Benckiser, a Hull-based consumer goods company), he moved his research into the closely related study of the chemistry of the cell walls of bacteria.
Towards the end of the 1960s, there were worries that the licensing of colour cathode ray tubes for TVs was costing the country more money than it took to develop Concorde. John Stonehouse, who was minister for technology and postmaster general, encouraged the scientists at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvern to develop new technologies to replace such devices. Liquid crystals were already in the mind of senior scientist Cyril Hilsum as a leading candidate for exploration in displays, and potential exploitation, if only he could obtain suitable and stable materials.
At a scientific meeting Cyril met George, and subsequently the University of Hull, as it had become in 1954, was awarded a research contract by the Ministry of Defence to investigate "substances exhibiting liquid-crystalline states at room temperatures". George appointed two researchers, Ken Harrison and John Nash, and within two years they had success – not by designing favourable structures into molecules, but by leaving parts out, and so the stable cyanobiphenyls were born. They became the workhorses in the development of modern flat panel displays and inspired the creation of an international industry, such that now there are more liquid crystal displays in the world than there are people.
After the invention of cyanobiphenyls, more developments followed, including materials for colour-change thermometer strips, large screen LCD TVs and the eyepieces of digital cameras. In addition to technological developments, George made many fundamental contributions on the true nature of matter, including discoveries of new liquid crystal phases and their properties. His original research was published in more than 300 scientific papers and patents, and several textbooks.
George spent nearly his entire career in science at Hull, moving to work for Merck Chemicals at Poole in 1990. His research at Hull brought recognition to the university in the Queen's award for technological achievement in 1979, the first award of its type to a university, and, in 2005, a Historical Chemical Landmark was awarded to the university by the Royal Society of Chemistry to commemorate more than 50 years of liquid crystal research.
George won many awards for his research, including the Kyoto prize in 1995, and he became a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Irish Academy of Sciences. He was appointed CBE in 1991. Apart from his many honorary doctorates and medals for research, George was proud to have a train, which regularly ran from Hull to London, named after him.
George was once asked what advice he had for young scientists. He replied: "Science is a difficult field that demands great effort and dedication, but if you are willing to make the effort, there is much to gain."
He married Marjorie Canavan in 1953 and they were a warm, fun-loving couple. Marjorie died two weeks before George. Their daughters Veronica and Caroline survive them. Another daughter, Elizabeth, predeceased them.
• George William Gray, chemist, born 4 September 1926; died 12 May 2013
John GoodbyPeter Raynesguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Fighting hate speech against women on Facebook
A major new campaign calls on the social networking site to put an end to misogyny on its pages – including graphic videos and images that make light of violence against women. Here's hoping the message gets through this time
Last month, in a fit of anger, Laura Bates tweeted a screenshot of a Facebook page called "Drop kicking sluts in the teeth" to the beauty company Dove. Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism project, had become increasingly frustrated by how difficult it was to persuade Facebook to take down what she and many others perceive as gender-based hate speech – so she decided to contact those who advertise on the site instead. Dove's logo and ad appeared on that same page, and the beauty company's response was swift. They made it clear they don't choose the pages on which their ads appear, while also pledging to resolve the issue. Bates was pleased by how seriously they had taken the situation. She started contacting other advertisers, who responded similarly, with one, a web-hosting company, stating it would remove all its ads from Facebook.
Now Bates is spearheading a campaign, backed by more than 40 other international organisations, calling on Facebook to put an end to violent misogyny on the site. In an open letter, just published online, she and the activists Soraya Chemaly and Jaclyn Friedman ask for three things from Facebook. One is for them to recognise any speech that trivialises or glorifies violence against women as hate speech, and to make a commitment not to tolerate this. The second is to effectively train their moderators to recognise and remove gender-based hate speech. And the third is to train their moderators to understand how online harassment affects women and men differently, due to the prevalence of violence against women in daily life.
They are also starting what they hope will be a major social media campaign, running day and night, worldwide, asking Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads appear beside violent or misogynist content on Facebook. The site does have a policy on hate speech – its community standards state that attacks on people on the basis of sex or gender, for instance, are not allowed. But when the campaigners wrote their letter, Facebook was apparently carrying pages titled "Fly kicking sluts in the uterus"; "Kicking your girlfriend in the fanny because she won't make you a sandwich"; and "Violently raping your friend just for laughs". They added that "images appearing on Facebook include photographs of women beaten, bruised, tied up, drugged, and bleeding, with captions such as 'This bitch didn't know when to shut up' and 'Next time don't get pregnant.'"
Misogynistic content has long been a problem for Facebook. In 2011, there was a major campaign against the pro-rape pages that then appeared on the site, with titles including "What's 10 inches and gets girls to have sex with me? My knife" and "You know she's playing hard to get when your [sic] chasing her down an alleyway". (This last page was "liked" by Facebook users more than 130,000 times.) After two months of protest against these pages, including a petition featuring more than 100,000 names, Facebook did take down some of the content in November 2011. But the problem clearly hasn't gone away. Bates says that a few weeks ago she was sent a video that appeared on Facebook "of a woman being beheaded by a man ... It was horribly graphic and very close-up, so you could see the woman's face while it was happening, and it wasn't just a swift blow of an axe, it was a man with a short knife, literally hacking her head off." For two days after watching it, she couldn't stop crying, and eventually went to see someone who specialises in post-traumatic counselling for journalists to address this. Despite the graphic nature of the video, she says Facebook didn't immediately remove it.
Bates understands, of course, that Facebook isn't pre-moderated, and so problematic imagery can always be posted, but wants the site to remove it as quickly as possible. She recognises that arguments are likely to be made about freedom of speech, but points out that Facebook has policies defining what is acceptable content already, and she just wants these to be properly enforced. If the site took a clear public stand on this issue, she says, less of this content would probably be posted in the first place. When I contacted a UK spokesperson for Facebook, they said they hadn't yet formulated a response to the open letter, which was published at 2pm.
Many women have contacted Bates to say how upsetting they find this imagery, as have parents who have been horrified to find their children exposed to such sites. "They've said: 'I'm absolutely devastated that my son or daughter has seen this, it's come up in their timeline, and they're getting the message, as a teenager, that this is a normal thing to joke and laugh about.'" If she and the other campaigners prove successful, all that could be about to change.
Kira Cochraneguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Pebble smart watch - review
Born in a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $10m in a month, Pebble's watch is wearable computing made real. Cleverly, the designers make sure it does a few things really well
Nowadays, when my phone rings, my wrist buzzes. When someone texts me, I don't look at my phone to find out what they said; I look at my watch.
Why? I've got a Pebble - the "smartwatch" launched on Kickstarter last year which hit its $100,000 target within two hours and had raised $10.2m from nearly 69,000 backers by the time it closed in May 2012 after a month. (I was one of those backers, with my own money.) So far, according to the site, it's delivered 85,000 of its watches, each costing $150 (£98). Yes, it's this year's buzzword, wearable computing, but you don't have to genuflect to Google or splash out $1,000 to get it. Plus it's unobtrusive.
Pebble describes it as an "E-paper watch for iPhone and Android". The "e-paper" bit might get some thinking you're going to be reading books on it. You're definitely not (the screen's only 1.26in - 3.2cm - diagonally). But it is great fun.
So what do you then get for your money? It's a watch, to start with. The face is 144x168 pixels, a large black/white e-paper display. I chose the black body and strap (you can get it in black, white, cherry red or grey). Open the box, and you're instructed to go to getpebble.com. That's a neat touch - no manual at all. The whole initial setup is done through its web page and then app.
Open that page on your smartphone, and it directs you to the iPhone or Android app store, where you download a free app which connects via Bluetooth. Through that, you can send software updates (such as new watchfaces) and, more usefully, back-and-forth notifications when someone calls or texts. (You can also set it to notify you when you get an email. Don't do this unless you never get email.)
The watchface is scratch-resistant (not -proof) and has an anti-glare coat; I find it very readable in all lights, except when it's dark. Then you have the options of an automatic backlight (adjusted to light levels), or being able to flick your wrist to activate the backlight. The strap feels like rubber; it's wide (to go with the watch) but not uncomfortable.
Charging is via a USB lead terminating in a magnetic attachment to a pair of contacts on the left-hand side of the watch; I assume a micro-USB slot would have taken up too much internal space and created waterproofing problems (it is waterproof, at least for swimming). So don't lose that charger; you'll be needing it every four or five days (in my limited experience, though the makers claim up to seven.. probably if you have Bluetooth off) and it's unique.
One bad thing: the interface doesn't show the battery level (even in the phone app), which can leave you in the lurch without warning. The charge level only shows when you're charging, and even then only in the menu, as opposed to standard watch, display.
The controls are pleasingly simple. There's a large rectangular button on the left-hand side which takes you back up a level of control; press it enough times and you'll reach the time display, which is the default.
On the right are three buttons (one large, one small, one large) which function as "up, choose, down" for scrolling through menus. Pebble doesn't try to do a lot of things. You turn on the Bluetooth, connect it to your phone, and that's mostly it. You can control the music playback on your phone via the right-hand buttons (it shows the artist, album and track name, though not album art; the buttons will advance a track, play/pause, skip back). However, that's really a party piece; unless you're on the other side of the room, it's simpler just to pull out your phone or, on headphones with a mic, click the control button, than to press the two buttons required to change the music. And yes, running Bluetooth will use some phone battery - perhaps 5% over a normal day. Turn it off, and the Pebble still works as a watch.
Next you're expecting a touchscreen with icons and apps, aren't you? No such thing. Pebble's designers have wisely held back from overegging the interaction pudding. The screen isn't touch-sensitive, and you won't be squinting and trying to operate tiny physical or onscreen buttons. (Looking at you, Sony Smartwatch.)
Presently, the on-watch functions are simple: you can set alarms; choose different watchfaces (which you download via the phone app); decide how you want the phone's backlight to come on; and whether you want notifications from your phone on. (You probably do, else it's just a watch). On-watch apps haven't happened yet. But there are fortnightly software updates. It's probably coming.
NotificationIt's the notifications that make this stand out. A little bit of configuration on your phone and you can get incoming calls and texts displayed (and emails - only recommended if you never get email). This is the great thing about Pebble: you can figure out whether to ignore a call by looking at the number (if it's in your address book, it'll show up; you can also reject calls from the phone) and you won't miss texts even if your phone is on silent. It's also a lot less intrusive to look at your watch during a meeting than to take out your phone.
Pebble says you can add calendar alerts, Facebook Messages, tweets, and weather alerts to the notifications; I do wonder what sort of weather alert (short of a tornado) you'd want to know about, but in principle it's putting everything just where you want it.
I find that I can read entire text messages on it without trouble, though spotting the name of a caller is harder (perhaps because it feels more urgent to decide).
But phone calls and texts are just the start. Pebble last week released an SDK that will let developers push notifications from third-party apps; think of apps that you'd like to give you updates, but which you don't want to have to keep monitoring your phone for, and you've found a use for the Pebble. It's working on apps for bicyclists, golfers (err…), runners (it syncs with Runkeeper), and whoever else they can think of. (The forums are pretty busy with people suggesting stuff.)
Do I like it? No, I really love it. My wife gives me pitying looks when I try to describe its benefits, but a couple of weeks in the fun hasn't worn off. And the idea that it could connect with more apps (train times? Concert ticket availability? Just think of things you'd like to be quietly notified about) is enticing. If it shipped with those apps and capabilities preinstalled, it would be an instant five-star product.
One galling point: HM Revenue & Customs, eager to generate tax revenue from somewhere (since it can't seem to get big companies to pay), slaps an import tax of £25.06 on each one. That brings the total price for the device to around £125. Crazy? A bit. But I'm convinced that wearable technology is the future, or at least a significant component of it. And at this price, it's worth it.
Speeds and feedsSpecifications:
• Load apps using Bluetooth
• 144 x 168 pixel display black and white e-paper
• Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and 4.0 (Low Energy)
• Four buttons
• Vibrating motor (for alerts)
• Three-axis accelerometer with gesture detection
Compatibility: iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S, 5 or any iPod Touch with iOS 5 or iOS 6. (iOS 5 and iPhone 3GS have restricted feature sets). Android devices running OS 2.3 and up, including Android 4.0. No support at present for Blackberry, Windows Phone, or Palm phones.
Price: $150. Customs and shipping charges will apply outside the US.
Charles Arthurguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Flickr back in the picture with 1TB of storage
Yahoo hopes its rebooted photography service is 'not only beautiful, but bigger and better than anything else'
Having made headlines with its $1.1bn acquisition of Tumblr, Yahoo has also revamped its Flickr photo-sharing service, boosting its free storage to 1TB for every user and revamping its website and Android app.
"We hope you'll agree that we have made huge strides to make Flickr awesome again," wrote chief executive Marissa Mayer in a post on Yahoo's new corporate Tumblr blog, in a reference to a popular internet petition in July 2012 asking the former Googler to "please make Flickr awesome again" following her appointment.
The big change is the storage increase, which is intended to ensure that the vast majority of Flickr's users never have to worry about running out of space.
A prominent slider bar on Flickr's site breaks the figure down, explaining that one terabyte equals 537,731 photos shot with 6.5-megapixel cameras, and 218,453 for 16-megapixel shots.
"The team has ramped up extraordinarily in the last few months. It's exciting that we're investing in it. We wanted to create something that is not only beautiful, but bigger and better than anything else," says Jennifer Davies, head of social and community properties, EMEA product marketing for Yahoo, in an interview with The Guardian.
"Other people are talking about gigabytes of storage, but here we are talking about terabytes. 'Limitless' is very difficult to say from a legal perspective, but we hope people using Flickr will never have to worry about storage."
The redesigned Flickr website is certainly a departure from the previous version, with its endlessly vertically-scrolling feed of photos from contacts, all on a black background. The sidebar, meanwhile, includes an ad, access to Flickr's Groups and Explore features, the latest post from its blog, and suggestions for "People you may know".
"If you used Flickr before, you'll know there was a lot of white space and a lot of text. We really wanted to take a step back and put the photograph at the centre," says Davies.
A clear influence on Flickr's website redesign has been its iPhone app, which was relaunched in December 2012 with a similarly clean, image-centric interface – yes, the idea of a photography app that isn't image-centric sounds strange, but that shows you how much the previous app needed the change.
It's the latest example of mobile app user interfaces influencing web design, right down to the share arrow on Flickr photos, which is familiar from iOS.
"The iPhone app was our first challenge: it was really important for us to get that out as soon as possible last year, and everything else is going from there," says Davies.
Including the new Flickr Android app, which sports a similar design to the iPhone version. Davies says the little details in both apps are important too, such as fine control over privacy settings, including location.
It's clear that Yahoo sees an opportunity to position Flickr as a more privacy-friendly alternative to services like Facebook, which is hugely popular for photo-sharing, but has regularly been accused of making its privacy settings less user-friendly than they should be.
"We allow the users to be as particular as they'd like when it comes to the geotags and privacy settings," says Davies. "It's the other side of the things we think are really important when talking about people's pictures: their ability to manage with whom they share what, and to bring these settings to the forefront rather than making them difficult to find."
The iPhone app's relaunch gave Flickr a boost – admittedly after a long period of neglect. In January, Mayer told investors that the app's launch the month before had generated "25% more photos uploaded, viewed and shared on a daily basis".
In April, she added that "photo uploads on our Flickr mobile apps have increased over 50% quarter-over-quarter". The company will be hoping that rolling the new design out to Android and web will continue that growth, particularly as Yahoo repositions itself as a more mobile-centred company across its services.
"Mail, Sports, Finance, Answers, the homepage… What you'll see is an increased focus not only on improving the user experience of the core website, but also bringing that experience to multiple devices, whether it's iOS, Android or tablet," says Davies. "It's really important for us to be where the users are."
Wait, though. Tablet? For now, the new apps are for iPhone and Android smartphones only, although the new website works pretty well on a tablet. Judging by Davies' comment when asked, a native Flickr tablet app is on Yahoo's to-do list. "There's not a tablet app yet, although keep posted," she says.
From the outside, it looks like one of Mayer's achievements so far in her tenure as CEO has been to get different divisions within Yahoo working together more. Witness the recently-launched Yahoo Weather app, which pulls in Flickr photos for the user's location.
That's a small example, but now Yahoo is buying Tumblr, which surely has some interesting potential for links with Flickr. "I can't comment on Tumblr, although I have lots of cool ideas about what we could do with them," says Davies, before talking more generally.
"We are working much more as a network together to understand how different properties can interplay with other properties. The Weather app is a good example of that, and if you go to a lot of our media pages – UK News for example – in the header you'll see a new sub-section 'Your Pictures' where we invite people to upload through Flickr," she says.
Davies says control is still important here for Flickr users: they upload photos to a specific Flickr group called Yahoo Your Pictures in the knowledge that they may then be used elsewhere.
"For us it's very important to have attribution back to the original owner of the picture, and always have a link going back to their photo pages so people know who the artist is," says Davies.
Before Mayer took over at Yahoo, there was a tech industry narrative that saw Flickr as a limping Dodo, not quite dead but on the way to extinction thanks to a combination of Facebook, Instagram and Yahoo's own neglect.
In 2013, the comeback is on. Flickr currently has more than 90m monthly active users, but just as importantly, the service looks reinvigorated.
Its mobile-first approach has made it relevant again, while that terabyte of storage makes it a viable candidate for anyone wanting to store their digital photos all in one place in the cloud – with the caveat that applies to every such service, that terms can change and services can shut down in the future.
In short, the Flickr comeback is on. Successful in the longer term? It's too early to tell. Awesome again? It's getting there.
Stuart Dredgeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Call of Duty Ghosts preview – the next generation of CoD
Activision unveils the next-generation debut of its multi-million selling CoD series, complete with high-end graphics effects
The first live footage we see is a forest. Well, this is Call of Duty – of course it's a forest. A week before the big Xbox reveal, Infinity Ward is showing off Ghosts to a roomful of journalists in LA.
Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, has been onstage giving it the corporate spiel. "We could have played it safe and simply made Modern Warfare 4, which is what a lot of people were expecting," he says with admirable understatement. Then he tells us that, before he got on stage, he Googled Modern Warfare 4, just out of interest: "122m search results for a sequel that doesn't exist," he laughs. "That's a lot of built-in interest."
So, what's the deal Eric? Why the new brand? "We didn't want to do the easy thing," is his immediate explanation. "We wanted to push forward, and we wanted to use the opportunity presented to us by the next generation consoles to usher in the next generation of Call of Duty. We wanted to eliminate the restrictions that would have come with a straightforward sequel."
Yes, this is the next generation Call of Duty, targeted at the coming Xbox and PlayStation machines. It's built around an entirely new engine, which ramps up every facet of the visual experience. The poly count is through the roof, the textures are super high resolution. The coders have added fluid dynamics, interactive smoke and a new AI system.
We're introduced to a cavalcade of improvements. There's a better lean system, which lets you look out over battlefield from cover; the animation is more intuitive and reactive – when your character runs at a wall, he'll just leap over, maintaining momentum. The team has also added a slide mechanic which lets you slip straight out of line of fire, or into an offensive position. It looks like the sliding in Bulletstorm – and indeed, much of this sounds familiar. But here, the screen is alive with detail and activity.
"Our goal is to make everything around you more life-like and more immersive," says Infinity Ward exec producer, Mark Rubin when he comes on stage. And, well, that has always been the aim of Triple A visuals. How does this move things along?
The hills are aliveAfter a brief behind-the-scenes video from the development studio, we're into a live demo, showing a jungle location. It is a richly organic scene: hundreds of different types of flora surround the player; vines hang from trees; branches part in your wake – you can even make out detail on individual leaves. The air is fecund with mist and insects; we pass a shattered helicopter buried in the undergrowth, and move on toward a water fall, in which a quivering rainbow is suspended.
Lead Animator Zach Volker talks about the use of volumetric lighting and self-casting shadows: "specular mapping on particle effects, environmental tessellation and a drastic increase in the sheer volume of objects create a near-photorealistic world," he says. And yeah, it's beautiful, a clear generational leap beyond the current games machines and into the territory of upper-end PCs – not obviously further though. Not yet.
The overall message, as you'd expect I guess, is detail: texture detail and geometry detail. We see some of the character models, the eerily life-like faces employing high-res textures, sub-surface skin shaders, multiple lights and self-casting shadows. We see the new weapon models, with every detail modelled down to the texture on the grips and the screws.
"All weapons use dual spec metal shaders for enhanced realism," says Volker – I'm not sure how many people in the audience know what that means, but it's the sort of thing you hear at the beginning of a new console generation. He also talks about how the main visual representations of the player character in a first-person shooter are the arms and hands, so the team has bloated the detail here: fine hairs, bruising, cuts, the dirt beneath finger nails …
Oh yes, the plotWait, the setting, we're forgetting about the setting. What is Ghosts about? This is the … difficult part. At the time of the demo, a week before the Xbox reveal, there aren't many details to play with.
During the brief video at the start of the presentation, Rubin says this: "The story opens with a mass event, America is crippled, the military forces are devastated, the government is in disarray, and as the player you're actually the underdog, fighting back against these superior forces."
Immediately I was thinking, so, Modern Warfare 3, then? Mixed with a little Black Ops 2? But the game is definitely taking place in a whole new fictional universe, so this isn't the North Koreans. And it isn't just set in America – there will be missions all over the world.
We also know the Ghosts are formed from the remnants of various US special forces outfits. They're an elite fighting force, the Spartans of a post-apocalyptic USA, and they've adopted every technique useful for modern urban guerrilla combat. In this world, they are near-mythical.
"The idea of the Ghosts team is that these guys are mysterious," Volker tells me later. "We don't know who they are, we don't know where they came from, we don't know anything about them. But the public sees them as this legendary force that is out doing great things behind enemy lines. They're really a symbol of hope for the American people. Their backs are against the wall, they're fighting for their lives – they see the Ghost team as a possible salvation."
The player is a Ghost then? Not quite, not right away. "So when the player and his brother start, you're young, around 18-ish, and this is the world you've grown up in – you don't know any different," continues Volker. "The Ghost team is your idol, it's what you've always wanted to be when you grew up. That's what we wanted to build – the idea that, 'what if the best of the best that we have to offer is a force that you look at from the outside.'"
Hollywood effectI don't know. It sounds a bit like the movie Reds, which is sort of where Homefront evolved from. I try to get more detail, but the doors close on the conversation. Clearly, Infinity Ward wants to take narrative seriously, but they don't want to talk about it right now. Except… the studio has bought in Stephen Gaghan, the Oscar-winning writer of Traffic and director of Syriana as a script consultant.
"We wanted to create a cast of characters you felt more emotionally attached to," says Rubin. Indeed, Infinity Ward is also employing a wealth of CG talent from Hollywood: "They've had a dramatic effect on the look of the game, they've bought with them a lot of new tech philosophies," he continues. And we're back to visuals.
There are two key technical additions Infinity Ward wants to show us with this demo – and they hint at what we can expect from next-gen console titles in general.
First up, the new engine employs 'Sub D', or subdivision surfaces, a graphical effect which – as the name suggests – subdivides polygons as the camera draws closer to an object, creating almost perfectly curved surfaces. The concept was perfected by Pixar for use in its movies and can be seen working to great effect in the studio's award-winning short Geri's Game. But here, the computationally expensive effect is working in real-time.
During his live demo, Rubin shows this off by looking through the sight of his gun; and true enough, the lens seems totally round. "The engine determines on its own how many polygons it needs to create a perfect smooth surface," he says. "And it changes depending on how close you are."
The second big term is displacement mapping, another costly effect that's coming in from CGI, a more demanding cousin to bump and normal mapping. This time it's a technique that involves elevating points on a texture surface in order to create a more three dimensional model, which can even cast shadows and occlude models behind it. So instead of a flat texture of, say, a rock face, displacement mapping picks out geometric points in the map and adds geometric data, making authentic outcrops and fissures.
In the forest demo, Rubin shows us this effect on the rocks that line a river edge – they're raised and uneven, as though modeled by artists. "But the artists didn't create all these rocks," he says. "This is all done on the fly – the engine is determining what that geometry should look like." It's subtle, but this is lovely stuff for a console game.
Dogs of warYet, amid all this talk of increased particle counts and volumetric lighting effects, what caught the imagination of most attendees is the dog. You may have caught a glimpse of a canine companion in the Ghosts teaser trailer launched a week ago. Well, this is a key new feature.
In Ghosts, your squad will have a dog AI along for the ride. The model is based on high-resolution scans of an actual SEAL team German shepherd, replicated down to scars on its nose and the tattoo inside its ear. It is, says Rubin, a fully active member of the team, able to sniff out explosives as well as attack enemies.
"It was all about the gameplay," says Volker when I ask about this unexpected addition. "We've experimented with dogs in our games in the past, but then one of our designers just said, hey, what if we made him an AI character – on a par with your friendlies. We thought we could do some really cool stuff with that.
"Eventually, we moved on to talking with different special forces consultants, dog handlers, asking them about what a dog does in the military. The perception is, it'll just chase people down and bite their heads off, but what they really do is reconnaissance: they seek out explosive ordinance and also use their nose to alert friendlies to human contacts outside of visible sight. We took some liberties, we pushed it more toward the Hollywood side because from a gameplay perspective it has to be fun. But we maintained believability."
This could be an intriguing addition. Lots of games have used canine companions – Shinobi, Dead to Rights, Fallout – but we've not really seen them in a military context. What will be interesting is if you have to start really learning to read the animal, understanding when there's danger nearby from its actions and noises rather than from an HUD. This is what increased modelling detail and visual realism should be about: an increased demand on the player's visual perception and intelligence. We'll see.
As for multiplayer, not surprisingly, there were few details at the demo event. Rubin did mention that the studio is introducing more dynamic maps. "We have everything from earthquakes and floods to player driven actions, explosive traps, things that change the flow of the map," he says.
"All of this creates a more dynamic experience whether it's a large map-changing event or a gameplay mechanic that you have to work with to win the game." Again, we've already seen this slipping into Call of Duty tittles, as well as other shooters like Gears of War 3 with its gigantic sandstorms, but it's all about scale and detail now.
Oh, two more things. Volker hinted that dogs will play a part in multiplayer, either as player companions or even as playable avatars. There will also be an advanced customisation option with players able to change the faces, bodies, helmets and outfits of their characters.
In a conversation later, Volker said to me there will be some crossover between assets and gear in single and multiplayer – stuff you pick up in the former, will maybe be available in the latter. A slight but welcome evolution of the transferable XP we've seen in most recent shooters.
Hidden depthsBack to the demo and we're finally shown another excerpt of in-game footage. This time it's a live mission rather than a scene walkabout. We're with a squad of divers, deep under water, heading out to intercept an enemy ship. The seascape detail is as a rich as the jungle: light beams stream in from far above, coral reefs glow beneath and schools of fish zig-zag past (apparently using crowd AI to bloom away from the soldiers as they pass).
Suddenly we're intercepted by some sort of submersible pod, from which enemy divers emerge instigating a brief subaquatic fire fight. Then we're on though the skeleton of a sunken craft and a ruined lighthouse, and suddenly, the ship looms above. The player then launches an RC torpedo, controlling it toward the vessel. There's a huge explosion and after the shockwave, vast chunks of wreckage start dropping through the murky brine. There's a sequence where the player is trapped under rubble, but is freed, only to look up and see dozens of enemy divers heading in. It's time for another shoot out. With guns. Underwater.
This is Call of Duty Ghosts. A new world, new engine, new characters, much of it still a mystery. What's clear is that this is no bizarre left-lurching revolution for the series. Hirshberg can rattle on all he likes about taking chances but this is clearly an Infinity Ward CoD title, from the linear design (Volker tells me some stages will be more open, but this is still an A-to-B blaster at heart) to the emphasis on apocalyptic scenarios and near-futuristic hardware.
"We get to be the studio that brings Call of Duty into the next generation," says Rubin early on, "We have a unique opportunity to re-invent the series." And perhaps the really explosive new stuff is waiting to be discovered. This is after all, is a demo running on what Activision very deliberately refers to as 'next-generation specifications' – a powerful PC in other words. There could be console-specific features we're not seeing here just yet.
But you know, Call of Duty – like Killzone: Shadow Fall – was never going to be the place to come for stark staring innovation; and Ghosts – like Killzone: Shadow Fall – does look truly beautiful.
The canine aspect is compelling, the environments buzz with life, we're promised 60-frames-per-second gameplay, low latency controls … and there is bound to be something we can really look forward to in multiplayer.
For now, this is a glimpse at what Triple A next-gen games will look like in the coming months, provided by a developer that is often wrongly overlooked when we think of technical expertise. Some feel that Call of Duty has been fading of late; this is the originator of the brand picking up a megaphone and yelling about the future.
Yet, although there are 40 million CoD fans out there listening, it will be interesting to discover how loud this voice really is when other next-gen Xbox titles are around trying to drown it out.
Keith Stuart attended a press trip to LA, with expenses and accommodation paid for by Activision.
Keith Stuartguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Xbox 720: Microsoft banking on entertainment services in the next generation
Rival to Sony's PlayStation 4 due to be revealed in Washington on Tuesday, with name of latest incarnation still a mystery
The world's gaming press is descending on Redmond, Washington, on Tuesday, as Microsoft gears up to reveal the successor to its hugely successful Xbox 360 machine. After months of speculation, and following the announcement of the PlayStation 4 in February, tech pundits are desperate to see what the latest next-generation console will look like. Although it's the entertainment services under the hood that will matter in the long run.
One thing is almost certain, judged on technical specifications alone, the next Xbox is set to be very similar to Sony's PS4, featuring an eight-core processor, 8GB of memory and a Blu-ray drive – exactly the same set up as its rival. However, Microsoft's machine is set to boast Kinect 2.0, an updated version of the 20m-selling motion-control peripheral that's likely to be so advanced it can track up to four players at once and allow owners to sign in to their profiles using facial recognition.
The new Xbox – whether it's called Infinity, Fusion, 720 or an as-yet unguessed monicker – is also likely to feature the most advanced online entertainment functionality. Microsoft is expected to announce a range of video-on-demand deals with major TV channels, and may even ensure that its machine is capable of playing and recording live TV, placing it into direct competition with firms such as Sky and Virgin Media.
When official Xbox spokesman Major Nelson announced the launch event last month, he wrote, "we'll mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment" – hinting that games will only be a part of the equation.
Little is known about which games will be announced during the event on Tuesday, although it's known that Activision will be showing off Call of Duty: Ghosts – the first next-generation instalment in the hugely successful shooter series. A whole range of recognisable franchises, including Fable, Forza Horizon and Halo, are expected to be premiered, as well as promising multi-platform titles such as the cyberpunk thriller Watch Dogs from Ubisoft and Destiny, the latest sci-fi opus from Halo creator, Bungie.
Whatever Microsoft shows on Tuesday, the next-gen battle is well and truly on. Sony has already tried to "troll" the Xbox launch event by releasing a teasing YouTube video of its PlayStation 4 console, which provides blurred glimpses of the hardware. The two companies have fought savagely for the past eight years, and their consoles finished the current generation more-or-less neck and neck, with around 77m unit sales each. And with Nintendo seemingly stalling due to poor sales of its Wii U console, the market is a two-horse race once again.
Both companies realise, however, that there's huge competition from smartphone and tablet formats, which have eaten away at the gaming market. Hence, both PS4 and Xbox 720 are likely to feature integration with handsets and mobile computers, allowing players to continue their games while on the move. The message behind the next Xbox is likely to be, if you can't beat the cable providers, satellite networks, smartphone makers and tablet manufacturers, then join them.
Whatever Microsoft tells us about its machine later on Tuesday, it won't be just about games – it wants to dominate our living rooms with a complete entertainment solution. So with Google, Apple, Sky and Virgin as potential rivals, Xbox's old nemesis PlayStation is set to be the least of its worries.
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Apple tax row: Ireland says its tax regime is not to blame
Deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore insists any loopholes in international tax rules exploited by Apple were 'issues that arise from other jurisdictions'
Ireland's deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore has insisted any loopholes in international tax rules exploited by Apple were not the fault of the Irish tax regime.
Some of the computing group's Irish subsidiaries have been criticised by a US Senate committee because they appear not to be designated as tax-resident anywhere in the world. One source on the committee called them "iCompanies – 'I' for imaginary, invisible".
A main European subsidiary of Apple Inc, a holding company that includes Apple's retail stores throughout Europe, had not paid any corporate income tax in the last five years, according to a 40-page memorandum from the cross-party committee.
"They are not issues that arise from the Irish taxation system," said Gilmore, an Irish Labour party politician who is also Ireland's minister for foreign affairs and trade.
Asked about the Senate committee's report, he told national broadcaster RTE: "They are issues that arise from the taxation systems in other jurisdictions and that is an issue that has to be addressed first of all in those jurisdictions."
Gilmore was speaking from Brussels, where the European parliament backed a common European strategy to combat tax fraud, evasion and havens. Ireland currently holds the EU presidency.
Sharon Bowles MEP, who chairs the European parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee, said: "It is totally unacceptable that corporate tax avoidance is now the norm in Europe, aided and abetted by aggressive tax planning and tax consultancy firms."
She added: "The European parliament vote today sends a strong signal to Europe's Finance Ministers, ahead of the EU Summit tomorrow, that the time has come to clamp down on tax evasion and tax havens once and for all.
"Hopefully, Mr Osborne sees that the EU can in fact help the UK in combating a problem that costs the Inland Revenue an estimated £4bn a year."
The Senate committee found one of Apple's Irish subsidiaries, with an address in Cork, received $29.9bn (£19bn) in dividends from lower-tiered offshore Apple affiliates from 2009 to 2012, comprising 30% of Apple's total worldwide net profits, its report said.
The report said it exploited a difference between Irish and US tax residency rules.
Apple said in a comment posted online on Monday it does not use "tax gimmicks". It said the existence of its subsidiary "Apple Operations International" in Ireland does not reduce Apple's US tax liability and the company will pay more than $7bn in US taxes in 2013.
A number of American multinationals, including Google and Facebook, have their European headquarters in Ireland to take advantage of its low corporate tax rate.
Ireland's main rate of corporation tax is 12.5%.
Simon Bowersguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Senators accuse Apple of 'highly questionable' billion-dollar tax avoidance scheme
Senators claim Apple has avoided paying billions in US tax by creating offshore entities that are not tax resident anywhere
Apple uses a "highly questionable" web of offshore entities to avoid paying billions in US income taxes, a Senate committee alleged on Monday.
The complex arrangement includes three subsidiaries, based ostensibly in Ireland, which appear not to be designated as tax resident anywhere, the committee said. A source on the committee called them "iCompanies – I for imaginary, invisible".
The commitee said that the arrangement, described by one senator as "the epitome" of tax-avoidance schemes, allowed Apple to pay only very small amounts of tax on much of its overseas profits, thanks to the Irish companies that exist "nowhere" for tax purposes.
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, will answer the accusations at a hearing convened by the bipartisan permanent subcommittee on investigation in Washington on Tuesday. Apple vehemently denied the charges ahead of the meeting.
During its investigations, the subcommittee found that Apple considers three key subsidiaries, all based in Ireland, to have no tax jurisdiction at all. One of those Irish affiliates, Apple Sales International (ASI), reported sales income of $74bn over four years but paid hardly any tax. In 2011 ASI had pre-tax earnings of $22bn but paid just $10m in tax, a rate of 0.05%.
"Apple wasn't satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven," said senator Carl Levin, the subcommittee's Democratic chairman.
"Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere. We intend to highlight that gimmick and other Apple offshore tax avoidance tactics so that American working families who pay their share of taxes understand how offshore tax loopholes raise their tax burden, add to the federal deficit and ought to be closed."
Senator John McCain, the subcommittee's ranking Republican member, said Apple's "creation of companies that don't exist anywhere for tax purposes" was "the epitome of tax creativity".
McCain said his constituents were "mad as hell" to learn that Apple was paying tax rates that were sometimes lower than 1%. "I've never seen anything like this."
Levin said the repuercussons would be significant: "There are going to be some shockwaves, I believe, going through Europe when countries in Europe see Ireland not even implementing their own tax rate but working out a deal with Apple for a 2% rate instead of a 12% tax rate which Ireland is supposed to have."
Apple released Tim Cook's statement to the committee before the meeting. In it, he robustly defended the company, denying charges that the company uses tax gimmicks and pointing out that the company has created 600,000 jobs in the US and paid $6bn in taxes to the US Treasury in 2012. Cook also defends the Irish subsidiaries, which he says now employ more than 4,000 people.
"Apple complies fully with both the laws and spirit of the laws. And Apple pays all its required taxes, both in this country and abroad," the statement read.
"Apple welcomes an objective examination of the US corporate tax system, which has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy. The company supports comprehensive tax reform as a necessary step to promote growth and enable American multinational companies to remain competitive with their foreign counterparts in both domestic and international markets," Cook said.
He characterised Apple's relationship with the Irish subsidiaries as "cost-sharing agreements" and said the subsidiaries shared risks as well as rewards. He said the arrangement was regularly audited by the Internal Revenue Service in the US.
The senators dismissed his argument, calling the practice a loophole that needed to be closed. "This is not an agreement between independent parties. These tax agreements they talk about are people all working for Apple sitting down and signing a piece of paper which shifts profits to a tax haven, that's what it is all about," said Levin.
Cook called for an overhaul of US corporate tax laws that should be "revenue neutral" for corporations. But critics charge his solutions are likely to exacerbate the issue.
"This is one of the most profitable companies in the world, and it has been acting like a back-alley thief trying to pick the pocket of American taxpayers," said Frank Clemente, campaign manager of pressure group Americans for Tax Fairness. He said a free repatriation would be "another mugging of the American people".
The committee will report more details of its findings at Tuesday's hearing. The news comes as Apple, Google, Starbucks and others face mounting criticism of their tax avoidance schemes in the UK.
Last week Margaret Hodge, the chair of the public accounts committee in the UK parliament, rounded the head of Google in northern Europe, Mark Brittin, during a hearing on the search firm's tax arrangements. "You are a company that says you 'do no evil'. And I think that you do do evil." She said the group's approach to tax in the UK was "devious, calculated and, in my view, unethical".
Eric Schmidt, the Google chairman, told the Observer at the weekend:"Given the intensity of the debate, not just in the UK but also in America and elsewhere, international tax law could almost certainly benefit from reform."
Dominic Rusheguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Privacy and the moral hazard of surveillance
If online oversharing is a public health problem, then the state's decision to harness it for its own purposes means that huge, powerful forces within government will come to depend on it
Whenever government surveillance is debated, someone inevitably pooh-poohs the subject as cause for alarm: after all, people overshare so much sensitive personal information with services like Facebook that there's hardly anything to be gleaned from state surveillance that isn't already there for the taking on "social media."
I don't question the assertion that people overshare on social networks – that is, people share information in ways that they later come to regret. The consequences of oversharing range widely, and we hear of any or all of losing a job; being outed to your family or co-workers for your sexual orientation; having embarrassing youthful episodes of intoxication and/or ill-considered opinion forever tied to your name in the eyes of potential lovers, friends, and employers; and alienating friends and family who don't approve of some aspect of your life, associations, or hobbies.
If you live in a dictatorship, the problems are much worse, of course: dictators have used intercepted social media sessions to compile enemies lists, exploring the social ties between activists as a means of determining whom to arrest, whom to disappear, whom to torture, and, according to some human rights activists, whom to murder.
So oversharing is a problem. Does that mean government surveillance isn't a problem?
Quite the contrary. As surveillance becomes the first and last line in modern governance, policing and espionage, it puts the state in a terminally conflicted position over one of the key public health problems of the modern age: privacy.
Many modern public health pathologies – obesity, substance abuse, smoking – share a common trait: the people affected by them are failing to manage something whose cause and effect are separated by a huge amount of time and space. If every drag on a cigarette brought up a tumour, it would be much harder to start smoking and much easier to quit.
If every slice of pizza turned into an instantaneous roll of cellulite, it would be much easier to moderate one's eating. As my GP explained to me when I quit cigarettes, "not getting cancer in 30 years" is a difficult goal to focus on when you want a cigarette now (I quit 10 years ago by keeping in mind that I was spending a laptop a year on cigarettes, and the money was going to the worst companies on earth, firms that literally invented using junk science as a lobbying tactic – I buy a laptop every year now and never feel guilty about it).
Getting better at something without feedback is very hard. Imagine practising penalty kicks by kicking the ball and then turning around before you saw where it landed; a year or two later someone would visit you at home and tell you where your kicks ended up. This is the kind of feedback loop we contend with when it comes to our privacy disclosures.
You make a million small and large disclosures on different services, with different limits on your sharing preferences, and many, many years later, you lose your job. Or your marriage. Or your family. Or maybe your life, if you're unlucky enough to have your Facebook scraped by a despot who has you in his dominion.
Some sharing is definitely in order. Careful, mindful sharing holds enormous benefit for us individually and a society. Sharing is what makes us into a society. We need to be good at it, though – not merely prolific, but skilled. Skill in sharing includes a hard-won, difficult-to-inculcate appreciation of consequences and the ability to weigh them against the benefits.
When a sizable fraction of society has a problem with an activity that has this cause/effect gap, it's customary for the state to intervene through things like public education, labelling rules, help hotlines, and sometimes direct regulation of the system. I'm sceptical of this last as a way of solving the privacy crisis, but I'd be happy to see the other stuff tried well and in earnest – not just the tabloid OMGFACEBOOKISFULLOFPAEDOES noise we usually get.
And here's where the problem with the state's addiction to surveillance kicks in. Governments have woken up to the fact that social media is full of material that might be useful for identifying and prosecuting miscreants, not to mention spying on political activists and "potential terrorists" and people applying for work visas and well, just about everybody.
Pushes like the (dead for now) Communications Data Bill (UK), CISPA (USA) and C-30 (Canada) all sought to recruit the entire internet industry to act as adjuncts to the state's surveillance apparatus, requiring them to retain titanic databases of online activity for government fishing expeditions. And while all three attempts failed, they're just the latest, and certainly not the last – after all, universal internet surveillance was back in the Queen's speech.
That's a crisis. If online oversharing is a public health problem, then the state's decision to harness it for its own purposes means that huge, powerful forces within government will come to depend on oversharing. It will be vital to their jobs – their pay-packets will literally depend on your inability to gauge the appropriateness of your online disclosure.
They will be on the same side as the companies that profit from oversharing, because they will, effectively, be just another firm that benefits from oversharing.
It's as though Scotland Yard decreed that obesity was critical to its ability to catch slow-moving, easily winded suspects. It's as though the NHS announced it would cope with the expense of an aging population by encouraging chain-smoking. The dangers of oversharing are hard enough to manage when it's just the private sector that benefits from them.
When the state announces that a public health problem is integral to its governance strategy, the problem turns into an unscalable, permanent mountain of smoking rubbish that will smoulder for generations.
Cory Doctorowguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Boot up: Intel v big data, wearable and health, Apple on tax, Google Island and more
Plus Dell blames Windows 8 (again), Jolla hopes with Sailfish, southeast Asia's smartphone growth, and more
A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Intel's data economy initiative aims to help people capture the value of personal data >> MIT Technology ReviewIntel is a $53bn-a-year company that enjoys a near monopoly on the computer chips that go into PCs. But when it comes to the data underlying big companies like Facebook and Google, it says it wants to "return power to the people."
Intel Labs, the company's R&D arm, is launching an initiative around what it calls the "data economy"—how consumers might capture more of the value of their personal information, like digital records of their their location or work history. To make this possible, Intel is funding hackathons to urge developers to explore novel uses of personal data. It has also paid for a rebellious-sounding website called We the Data, featuring raised fists and stories comparing Facebook to Exxon Mobil.
"To destabilise a company, make what it charges for into a commodity."
Credit Suisse says wearable tech "the next big thing" >> ForbesDan Munro:
At a health conference last year the CIO of a teaching hospital shared a provocative statistic that his organization had uncovered in their ROI [return on investment] analysis of a large iPad purchase. At the time, the hospital was debating the merits of such a large financial commitment – so they tasked the CIO to do a crude ROI analysis to justify the sizable expense. Was the ROI six months – or maybe a year? The (unscientific) results were jaw dropping. Using some crude calculations around workflow and time-motion analysis the CIO calculated the ROI for an iPad in their hospital would be nine days. That's right – nine days.
But you can see that with wearables, such as internet-connected glasses, it could be even faster. Voice-operated means fewer hygiene problems. It's hard to leave behind at a bedside. It could hold and display patient notes confidentially. Hugely exciting.
Apple's Cook faces Senate grilling over company taxes on Tuesday >> WSJ.comA day before Mr. Cook's appearance, the company revealed the testimony it submitted to Congress. Apple urged Congress to lower corporate-tax rates and reduce the tax on bringing back cash earned overseas, according to testimony that was also posted on its website Monday.
The testimony, which Apple submitted in recent days, also defends the operations of Apple's Irish subsidiaries. It says that the subsidiaries, which employ around 4,000 people, distribute dividends that aren't taxable under US law.
You can read the testimony (PDF), including the remarks that
"Apple does not move its intellectual property into offshore tax havens and use it to sell products back into the US in order to avoid US tax; it does not use revolving loans from foreign subsidiaries to fund its domestic operations; it does not hold money on a Caribbean island; and it does not have a bank account in the Cayman Islands."
Can't think which search company beginning with "G" and ending with "e" it's referring to. Some examination is surely coming of its Irish arrangements, though.
UK record labels launch unprecedented anti-Torrent campaign >> RT NewsThe third and biggest wave of sanctions aimed against Torrent and music file-sharing websites is sweeping the internet, with 25 online addresses set to be blocked by the British Recorded Music Industry trade body.
The websites targeted by the campaign include the biggest torrent pages and file-hosting search engines, like ExtraTorrent, Torrentz, TorrentReactor.
Welcome to Google Island >> Wired.comMat Honan, on his customary awesome form:
"Hello."
The soft, froggy voice startled me. I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses.
"Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn't bother you. We're completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It's something I learned at Burning Man," he said. "Here, drink this. You're slightly dehydrated, and your blood sugar is low. This is a blend of water, electrolytes, and glucose."
I was taken aback. "How did you…" I began, but he was already answering me before I could finish my question.
(Thanks @ClarkeViper for the link.)
Dell replays Windows 8 blame card as PC sales slide - ComputerworldDell last week again blamed Windows 8 for contributing to a decline in PC sales revenue during the quarter that ended 3 May.
"Windows 8 has been, from our standpoint, not necessarily the catalyst to drive accelerated growth that we had hoped it would be," said Brian Gladden, Dell's chief financial officer, in a call last week with Wall Street analysts to discuss the quarter's financials.
Those results were shocking - profit down 79% to $130m on revenues down 2% to $14bn. That's a 1% margin - the same, as it happens, as HTC in smartphones. But for very different reasons. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)
Jolla prices first Sailfish OS smartphone at €399 for a 2013 launch >> The VergeJolla has just unveiled its first smartphone, which will go on sale this year for €399 (roughly $510). Running the company's MeeGo-derived Sailfish OS, it features a 4.5-inch display, a dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, LTE (in selected markets), removable back covers, 16GB of onboard storage, and a microSD slot. According to Jolla, the handset will be "compliant" with Android apps, although it's not sure how many apps will be supported, nor is it clear where users will download the apps from.
Nor is it clear how it will sell in any volume at that price. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)
Smartphones continue to drive mobile phone sector in southeast Asia >> Celllular News15.8m "smartphones" sold:
smartphone take-up rates vary across the countries from 30% in Indonesia to more than twofold in Philippines (146%), Thailand (140%) and Vietnam (118%).
"Growth in this region is primarily driven by affordable smartphones which averaged in the price range of US$100-$200," said [GfK director Gerard] Tan. "However, the rise of local brands in countries such as Philippines and Indonesia has resulted in the growing market share of those in the US$50-$100 price segment - the budget price range which bridges the transition from basic mobile phones to smartphones."
Within the smartphone segment, two specific features that are increasingly popular with buyers and often the deciding factor of which model to purchase are the display sizes and operating system.
Screens 4.5in and above are 20% and rising of sales; Android is 70% of smartphone sales. (Thanks @modelportfolio2003 for the link.)
Billions: How exactly do Apple and Google count app downloads? >> The Next WebMatthew Panzarino:
you can consider this the canonical answer to that question.
Both Apple and Google tabulate unique downloads of apps per user account. This means that they count only one download of an app no matter how many devices that you install that app on after you purchase it. Neither company counts updates in its app download numbers. These are purely single downloads from their stores.
So their app download figures are directly comparable.
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Charles Arthurguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Fiat's YouTube hit shows adverts breaking down borders online
Arianna featuring Pitbull's Sexy People is perfect example of ad-promo hybrids that wouldn't be allowed on TV
As technology slowly removes the distinction between content watched on a television and content viewed on a computer screen or mobile device, it's increasingly difficult to draw an absolute distinction between programming and advertising.
Strictly enforced broadcasting regulations ensure that television viewers are protected from over-zealous advertisers, but it's a different story in the "wild west" of online content.
A perfect illustration of this is provided by the promo for Sexy People (The Fiat Song) by Arianna featuring Pitbull which has been viewed about 5.5m times on YouTube in less than three weeks. Is it a commercial or is it a pop promo? Or is it both at the same time?
Its history suggests it might be both. Last year, Italian singer Arianna was asked by a friend who produces music for television commercials to record a few lines of a Neapolitan folk song, Torna a Surriento, for a Fiat ad.
It's impossible to know how to categorise the resulting film as it's pretty much a perfect hybrid. While this might matter a great deal in the old media world of television broadcasting, it's neither here nor there in the brave new world of online content.
For the Italian car manufacturer, it's a dream outcome. Not only does it get to associate its brand with a significant slice of popular culture, its involvement appears to be welcomed by fans of the song rather than resented as might be expected.
Fiat has proved very adept at this kind of innovation. In 2010, it bought an entire ad break during Big Brother – when it was still being broadcast by Channel 4 – for a film it described at the time as "the world's first promercial".
Made by London agency Krow, the ad featured a track called Feelin' Good by British electronica band Faithless and looked more like a pop promo than a commercial.
Krow was also behind a pair of very successful virals for Fiat called The Motherhood and The Fatherhood which took an entertaining look at modern parenting. Both films cleverly subverted the pop promo format and were quite cautious about the prominence given to the cars they ostensibly advertised.
This circumspection reveals the delicate balance that advertisers such as Fiat are trying to negotiate. If the product looms too large then the target audience may completely reject the message – but will an advertiser feel it's getting value for money from a piece of film if its product only plays a bit part?
A recent Pepsi commercial featuring Beyoncé demonstrates advertisers' determination to experiment with this balance and to provide the audience with something more than a celebrity endorsement. Not only did the ad feature an excerpt from Grown Woman – a song that hadn't yet been released – it included an entirely new dance routine for the aficionados.
It remains to be seen whether Pepsi will have any involvement in the pop promo for Grown Woman when it's released as a single but there's little doubt that the success of Arianna's collaboration with Fiat will encourage further entanglements between advertising and pop promos.
Jason Stoneguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Chatterbox: Tuesday
The place to talk about games and other things that matter
It's Tuesday – XBOX DAY!!!
Keith Stuartguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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