http://www.vrworld.com/2015/04/16/googles-antitrust-suit-in-europe-is-a-cash-...

GOOGLE’S ANTITRUST SUIT IN EUROPE IS A CASH GRAB BY THE EU

"While EU regulators have been going after Google for its expansive market dominance over the past five years, so far their efforts have been unsuccessful to produce a case for formal antitrust charges. Now, prosecutors are after a $6 billion Euro believe they’ve found a case that will stick: allegations that Google siphons traffic away from its competitors via its comparison shopping service for flights.

When a user puts in two airports and the world “flights”, say “LAX to SFO flights”, Google brings up its own flight shopping search engine first, which acquired from ITA in 2010, before others which is at the crux of the EU’s argument.

In its defense, Google says that that looking at the cold, hard traffic data tells another story. It says that its flight booking service only accounts for 5% of overall traffic while Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity account for the remaining 95%.



“At the time of the ITA acquisition, several online travel companies—Expedia, Kayak, and Travelocity–unsuccessfully lobbied regulators in the US and the European Union to block the deal, arguing that our ability to show flight options directly would siphon off their traffic and harm competition online,” the company said in a blog post. “Four years later it’s clear their allegations of harm turned out to be untrue.”

Google says the same holds true for other shopping sites too. According to a chart from Google, its shopping site in the German market is only ranked seventh which is far below local giants Amazon and Ebay."




I think the headline says it all -- Google isn't shutting down any of the competition and Google is not even "volume competitive" nor is it dominate in any fashion compared to the competition in any of the areas actually cited so enthusiastically by the new EU Commissioner.    This data proves that customers are choosing on their own, and are not being swayed by Google in any real fashion.

Indeed, it seems the Commissioner was just quoting some gross mis-information that had just been hand fed to her by her "local complainants" and she did not even check to see if the facts were correct and real before cranking up her big media circus and making all her threats.    

AS SUCH she is liable for whatever FALSE slander and libelous statements she has issued.

This embarrassment to the EU should cause the new Commissioner to be removed for incompetence and for showing the world some very dangerous overly liberal mindset issues and a complete lack of understanding of the rule of law in the EU.

Remember Joslyn Elders and her "kinder, gentler bullets"?  

Same sort of gross unsuitability for the job,  I am afraid.


Amazon and Ebay,  you had better watch out though  --  the EU is coming for you .....


      bullets are bullets, data are data -- it is what it is .....  only the overly liberal self-deluded think otherwise.

What shall MS do?

They are struggling to pull Win10 together and suddenly they have a new crop of other brand suitable power level chipsets to cover.

They had already agreed to cover Qualcomm and Intel, but you have Tegra X1 and Mediatek out right now that are suitable to be covered.   Mediatek is a major player in the Orient, which is a market MS wants right now, very badly.

What to do -- what to do -- what to do .....      

Now, financial upshot from the totality of last year, with all the industry standard financials being reported by all the players except for Intel, who insists on reporting all their chip sales at full retail list pricing although none are actually sold at these prices.

Fact to remember, a rising tide lifts all boats.





Biggest winner of the large fabs was TSMC with a 26% year on year increase.    Biggest winner of the fabless companies was Mediatek with a 25% year on year increase.   Kudos to these guys for cresting the very top of the wave of the 9% general growth in their industry.

..... and yes, you could say Mediatek's success fueled the rise of both of these players.

The 9% rising tide did not lift all boats equally.   Intel and Samsung went up with the tide, but their boat leaked some at the same time so at the end of the high tide they were only up by 6% and 8% respectively.   For Intel, this was a 6% improvement that was fueled mostly by their sorry sorry -2% performance from last year, which did improve upwards by 6% this year leaving them down by 14% compared to the 18% industry average increase over the two year period.  

Also it must be mentioned that Intel did a very dubious total restructure at the very end of last year intending to hide as much of their financial losses as possible.

Intel still refuses to list their fab numbers by how many units were sold at the price they were actually sold at  (Intel reports sales by FULL RETAIL list pricing only which is in conflict with Fab Industry standards).    This means all numbers pushed by Intel smell slightly of their favorite stinky brown vapor stuff ......  especially since it is known that 45m tablet chipsets were sold for approaching NOTHING last year, but show up on this ranking at full list retail value in the plus column.

Honest reporting by both Intel and Samsung using EXACTLY what was sold at the real net price it was sold at would influence the top 3 ranking by quite a bit.

Texas Instruments, Broadcom and AMD lead the list of the deepest sinkers, all winding up settled deeper yet into the water despite a good year for the industry in general.

Mediatek is your rising star,  shining with a 25% increase in volume which is also reflected in the 26% increase in TSMC which is the fab that makes their chipsets.   At this rate of growth Mediatek will roll up into the top 10 this year and get closer to their goal of supplanting Qualcomm (a worthy goal for an ex-hockey stick boy, to be sure).

Here is last years ranking, so you can answer any questions you have about your favorite company.   And yes, Nvidia is just barely hanging on to the top 20 and apparently isn't selling much apart from their overly expensive video cards any more.

http://liliputing.com/2015/04/arms-plans-for-10nm-chips-may-have-just-leaked....

ARM’s plans for 10nm chips




OK, what is new ---  Ares, Prometheus, Artemis, Ananke and Mercury

5 levels of mix and match performance at four different levels of lithography --Flexibility, speed and affordability -- ongoing. all talking to the same enlarged fast buss and scheduling softwares combined with the 880 series and above Mali graphics.   Flexibility, speed and affordability -- ongoing.

We also know that the new LAPTOP strong Ares Cortex A72 can supposedly run on 20nm lithography, 16nm lithography, 14nm lithography and 10nm lithography --- this flexibility gives a tremendous range of implementation depending on whose process you are stuck with using early on.

For example, Mediatek likes low cost -- so they will likely stay stuck on the plain jane 20nm planar lithography for just as long as they can make it work out well for them.  A72 cores running on 20nm just run the costs lower and lower as the months go by until FinFET finally becomes fully cost competitive at a lower lithography level.   Between times, Mediatek can kick some Intel butt starting later on this summer with this plan -- and they fully intend to.

ARM seems to move on a two year total life cycle, with older chipsets hanging on at larger lithography levels to make up the low end of things.

ARM is also stretching out to INTENTIONALLY cover 10, 14, 16, and 20nm 64 bit lithography levels -- this is what has actually happened in the past with ARM chipset makers, but this is the first time ARM HAS ACTUALLY BUILT THE FLEXIBILITY RIGHT IN FROM THE GET-GO, RIGHT INTO THE BASIC DESIGN.   Look to see Qualcomm and Samsung at 14nm for the rest of this year switching to 10nm as soon as Apple's production requirements for next year are met (in late spring, just like this year most likely).  

Look to see everybody else sticking with what TSMC can do, which is 20nm and 16nm for this year (and those older designs will still come off at 28nm for another year at least for the low end stuff)

Look to see ARM chip producers customizing chips that change lithography levels inside the chip freely as cost and circumstances dictate.   Example, an already approved 20nm LTE World Modem can do shared duty on lower and lower lithography chipsets until the awkward very long radio approval process can approve a 14 or 10 nm version.

Next -- expect ARM vendors to intentionally hang back at known cost efficient lithography levels until they need to move down, need to move down strongly enough to make it worth while to them that is.  

Intel panic drove itself to FinFET before it even needed to at 22nm and then they busted themselves to go all the way down to 14nm pretty much knowing it wasn't ready for a VERY complicated CISC processor like theirs -- the thermal throttling issues Intel is having now are just part in parcel of some very bad decisions made early on, over 3 years ago as a matter of fact.

Now, Intel isn't ready to go to 10nm and it will take them years to dig out at 14nm and make that 10nm move.    Or they can go jump the gun again and dig their trouble hole deeper accordingly.

Samsung and Apple have trial production run their 10nm process already and whole lot sized runs of sample RISC A-10 chipsets have already been produced and tested.   Second sampling is going on and a re-tuning of OS and A-10 chipset is in motion as we speak.   Sample runs of an A-11 laptop chipset have also been run, just in case Intel really can't straighten up in time for a GOOD 14nm product for Skylake later on this summer.

Since Apple can fix an issue from both ends (or either end) they tend to do just that -- and this careful tuning of OS and hardware is so so very much of what makes an Apple product work as well as it does.

Remember, Apple is not happy with Intel right now --- and the Apple Rumor Mill is expecting some sort of laptop RISC chipset product to be Apple's low cost leader laptop for next year.

Apple just sliced off 10% of MS's laptop business just by lowering their price a hundred dollars or so -- what could they do if they sliced off $300 ????


     ..... OK Google, the ARM side is out there now,  what are you going to put forth for an Android/Chrome/Ubuntu fusion to run on it and make it all work out seamlessly on those new more powerful RISC based LAPTOPS ???  

We know Apple has a RISC laptop OS already developed, but do you?

Please, tell us we aren't "waiting on MS to do it" ......        

Amazon Kindle Fire comes in 8.9" as the large version.   A newer one comes out every year.

http://www.amazon.com/kindle-fire-hdx-best-movie-tablet-8-9/dp/B00BHJRYYS

Amazon makes a fairly good product, but it always lacks at least a whole level of being the best of the best.    If you want Amazon, you want the Amazon eco system and you will have to take the tablet that comes with that.

Or you can buy an Apple tablet, since Amazon supports the Apple tablets with all their various Amazon stuff.   The most modern Apple tablet is as good as it gets, year on year.   Apple is by far the most expensive tablet out there, but at least it is a true 10" tablet.

Amazon can be bought on sale, or bought refurbed fairly frequently.    So can Apple.   I bought a pair of Apple Ipad 2 units REFURBISHED two years after they came out and have been well pleased with them so far.

If you are talking a black & white e-reader (ie the original kindle idea) I have no clue since those are way way off the front burner now even at Amazon.   You can still buy them though, although the 2 year back refurbed models are likely as useful and as good as the current stuff, just a lot cheaper.

If you are into Amazon -- do not buy an Android tablet -- because Amazon does not support plain Android at all.   Amazon IS an android tablet, but they want you to buy theirs not somebody elses.   Screwing over the rest of Android by not supporting them is something Amazon has been doing for years now.   Ditto for Linux -- Amazon does not support Linux distros at all with Amazon prime movies, etc  --

It has been two whole days now and still no big brown vaporous 10nm butt blast from Intel's infamous PR department .....

  --- what's wrong, Intel, cat got your tongue ????


    ...... or did all your 14nm processors running your PR department all thermal throttle back down to half speed on you all at the same time and you are just slow on the comeback ??


  =====================================   two more days go by


Here is day #4's input from the pundits, maybe that will get Intel's anal glands to produce some sort of a brown vaporous reply as the poot factory is still silent at the moment.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Well-hello-Prometheus-ARM-roadmap-leak-hints-a...

"With Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 still rocking it at 20nm, and the bleeding edge Exynos 7420 in Galaxy S6 shrunk at the record for a mobile 14nm, a leaked ARM roadmap comes to show that's not all we can expect from flagship chipsets in the near future. As you can see in the chart above, ARM is prepping a Prometheus architecture that will be as powerful, as it will be power-sipping, and will be hammered out with a breathtaking 10nm production process.

The speculated timeframe seems to infer that we could see such SoCs as soon as the second half of next year, and a previous rumor claimed that it might be Samsung that will be at the forefront of their production, going from 14nm straight to the 10nm goodness. Rumor has it that Qualcomm has already tasked Samsung with the making of its next big thing - Snapdragon 820 - which means 14nm will be the flagship norm in the second half of the year, and now we can see that 10nm is on the horizon as well. Good times."

    ..... rumor has long had it that Samsung's 14nm lines were actually 10nm/14nm lines and that with a few extra lithography passes the new lines
could give you 10nm production off the exact same equipment. The fact Samsung quoted and won the 10nm Apple A10 business for next year and is busy running it on one (1) dedicated line right now confirms this rumor/knowledge.  

Samsung has three of the new 10/14nm lines up and running now, with a 4th coming in the fall.   Global foundry will have two of the Samsung type lines up and running this fall as well.  

TSMC uses different tech and is stuck at 16nm for their very best stuff at the moment, but TSMC is working on getting a 10nm process defined, building a new building to house it and working all out the 10nm details for next year.

OK, the gist of this is that is Samsung, Qualcomm and Mediatek all lining up to do something strong for the second half of this year and all three are going to do something AMAZING for 2016.   Through their contacts (the ex-Qualcomm woman) MS will be tracking this progress and perhaps building instant acceptance into Win10 since the Orient is a major MS focus at the moment.

This does not mean Intel is dead, they will go ahead and sell their partially broken 14nm chipsets to their fans during the second half of this year and make money doing it, just as they have done with partially broken stuff in years past.

Those of us who remember the AMD Athlon years remember clearly when Intel had nothing good to show us for a period of about 4 years, and Intel lost functionally about a third of their market share during that same period -- but they recovered and came back.

Losing the lead does not kill Intel, Chipzilla just gets a little quieter for a while.  

To recover their lead position Intel needs to forgo 10nm (since they are not in position to go there both timely and effectively anyway as CISC chips apparently have thermal issues when the detail levels get that small) and Intel should concentrate all their efforts on their "beyond silicon" 7nm technology that Intel has said that they are working on.


====================================


OK, a full week has gone by and NOTHING out of Intel

--- total silence ----  

A ringing total silence for a whole week after your main competitor and one of his actual customers broaches a plan to enter into your very own back yard and eat some your tomatoes off your favorite vine, well folks, that implies a bunch of things .....

(and a bunch of "not good for Intel things" are ringing in the silence right now).

http://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/none/332398-making-chips-beyond-14nm

Intel has issues in "Making Chips Beyond 14nm"




Since the Intel PR dept has gone silent on us, let's see what Mark Bohr said at the last International Solid States Circuits Conference (ISSCC) since that was Intel's head chipdog talking directly to a group of people who are his peers in the foundry industry.

"Contrary to some published reports, Bohr did not actually confirm that Intel will be shipping 10nm parts in 2016. (Given that Intel shipped its first 14nm chips at the end of 2014, shipping 10nm next year would match the typical two-year cadence of process nodes; when I asked Intel CEO Brian Krzanich whether the two-year cadence will continue, he said that Intel believed it could.) Intel's 14nm process ramped slower than expected, and while Bohr said its 10nm pilot line is showing a 50 percent improvement in throughput compared to where 14nm was at the same point in its progress, the company doesn't want to make a firm commitment."

This tells us that Intel is having similar scaling issues and yield issues (and possibly the same THERMAL THROTTLING issues ??) with their experimental 10nm runs.

Samsung shows no 14nm thermal throttling issues and they and Apple are off to the 10nm production races as we speak.    Once again, the full production 10nm "first" goes to Samsung just like the first production 14nm crown did.  

Remember, Apple chips count as a Samsung production win and they roll out a year ahead of ARM chipsets generally speaking.   In this case Samsung produced and shipped all the Apple 14nm chipsets and they then did their own Exynos 14nm IN MASSIVE VOLUME before Intel got their first production out.

Intel is not in the 10m running at this time and Intel has already lost first place for "the first 10nm full production" to Samsung when they do finally get there.

And the Samsung chipsets don't seem to have the Intel thermal throttling issues, either .......        

http://liliputing.com/2015/04/acer-abtouchphone-prototype-desk-phone-with-a-b...

Acer Touch Phone: Desk phone with a built-in Android tablet interface



"I guess the idea is to bring smartphone-like features to an office phone. Instead of a basic speed dial feature, you can access your full contact list and tap a button to make a call or send an instant message.

The phone could also have some advantages over a smartphone, since there’s room for a large speaker at the bottom which you could probably use both for spearkerphone functions or for music playback. Throw a camera in the tablet section and you could also make video calls."

People are used to Android now, and they like the familiar functionality it brings to devices.   We are seeing the Android look and feel move into car navigation systems, radios and now desk phones.

Example, everywhere I have worked has always had "internet phones" or phones that ran off LAN cables rather than the old Ma Bell 4 wire connection jacks.   This may be a harbinger of a new generational change in common old everyday appliances like the desk phone, which has already evolved into a simple dumb terminal on a LAN, but now is becoming something more significant.