Apple's iPad Mini, iPhone 5 head to China

Apple today announced that it will start selling the iPad Mini, fourth-generation iPad and iPhone 5 in China over the next two weeks, putting those new products on shelves in time for the January 2013 kick-off of Chinese New Year sales.

Analysts expressed surprise that the new iPads -- particularly the diminutive 7.9-in. Mini -- were reaching the Chinese market, having previously predicted that the tablets wouldn't start shipping there until early 2013.

"We are very surprised by the accelerated launch of the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad in China that we did not expect to occur this year but rather sometime in 1Q13," said Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets in a note to clients today.

Apple will start taking reservation requests for the Wi-Fi models of the iPad Mini and new iPad on Dec. 6 for pickup the next day, Friday, Dec. 7, when the tablets hit Apple's own stores and some authorized resellers in the People's Republic of China.

The iPhone 5 will be available for pre-order Dec. 13, and for pickup and sale on Friday, Dec. 14.

White expected the iPad Mini to sell "like wildfire" in China.

"We have noticed the growing popularity of the Samsung Galaxy Note in China during our trips to the mainland this year, and we believe this trend will play into Apple's hands with the iPad Mini," White wrote. "[With its] smaller form factor and lower price point, we believe Apple will be able to sell the iPad mini in meaningful volumes."

The Galaxy Note, which boasts a 5.5-in. screen, has been dubbed a "phablet" by some to describe its dual phone and tablet traits. This week Samsung said it had sold 5 million units of the Galaxy Note II in the device's first two months of availability.

White said that the iPad Mini's entry-level price of $329 will be about half that of the Galaxy Note II now in Chinese stores.

Apple's China online store has not yet posted prices for the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad. The latter, however, will probably be priced the same as the third-generation iPad, which costs 3,338 yuan ($535) for the 16GB Wi-Fi configuration.

The December introduction of the iPhone 5 puts that model in front of Chinese consumers a month faster than its predecessor, the 2011 iPhone 4S, which reached the market in mid-January 2012.

China Unicom and China Telecom are the two Apple-sanctioned carriers on the mainland. The government-owned China Unicom is the world's third-largest mobile carrier, with an estimated 233 million wireless subscribers. China Telecom, once state-owned, is the country's third-largest mobile provider, with 222 million subscribers.

Together, China Telecom and China Unicom have a 3G mobile subscriber base of about 133 million.

Greater China, an Apple sales region composed of the People's Republic, Hong Kong and Taiwan, accounts for a large share of Apple's total revenue. In the company's 2012 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 29 2012, Greater China generated $23.8 billion, or 17% of all Apple sales for the year.

During the July-September quarter, China revenues were up 26% over the same period the year before.

But Apple sales in Greater China have stalled recently as economic growth there has slowed. Earlier this month, for example, research firm Canalys said that in the third quarter Apple fell off the Chinese smartphone market's top-five list after placing fifth and second in the two previous quarters.

Both White and Brian Marshall of the ISI Group believe the iPhone 5 will reverse that trend, with White arguing that the redesigned phone will be the new status symbol in China, prompting upgrades from owners of the iPhone 4 and 4S. Marshall noted that the iPhone 5 is the first Apple smartphone able to run on all three of China's biggest carriers.

Marshall also pointed out that the American company has still not tapped the most lucrative market on the mainland. "[A] big question remains however ... when will China Mobile, the world's largest carrier with 700 million wireless subscribers, start selling the iPhone?" he told his clients in a research note Friday. "Our best guess is 2H13 as two main negotiating points remain: 1) carrier subsidy levels, and 2) joint marketing costs."

Analysts, however, have been predicting an impending partnership between Apple and China Mobilefor years, to no avail.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.

Read more about mobile/wireless in Computerworld's Mobile/Wireless Topic Center.

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DOE wants 5X battery boost in 5 years

The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today's within five years.

To accomplish this, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is taking some lesson from U.S. history.

The DOE is creating a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced an atomic bomb.

"When you had to deliver the goods very, very quickly, you needed to put the best scientists next to the best engineers across disciplines to get very focused," said Chu at a press conference Friday that was streamed live from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The center will be located there.

The Battery and Energy Storage Hub project will involve six national labs, five universities -- Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, and University of Michigan -- and four private firms, Dow Chemical, Applied Materials, Johnson Controls, and Clean Energy Trust.

While physical proximity will have a role in the research, Chu said electronic communications and video conferencing will help achieve similar results.

The intent is to organize research in a way that can "change the rate in which something is actually done," said Chu. The key is moving technology innovations from the lab to the private sector as quickly as possible, he said.

Improving battery technology is seen as pivotal to transportation and storage, particularly around the need to store solar and wind energy.

Chu said the idea of seeking a 5X improvement is really around getting the battery and energy storage prices to a point where they will gain widespread adoption.

"We look very carefully at the price points," said Chu, who cited the impact of falling prices on cell phones of PCs, as examples of how low prices trigger mass adoption.

Chu said the effort it's "very, very important for American industrial competitiveness that research be intimately linked with manufacturing in a way that will propel the United States forward. This is what the whole Hub concept is about."

The intent isn't to aim for incremental improvements of existing technology, but to seek new approaches and "rapidly drive towards electrochemical energy storage solutions beyond the current limits," according to DOE's proposal.

DOE, in its solicitation for proposals, said current battery research is typically focused on one particular problem "and thus lacks the resources and the diverse breadth of talent to consider holistic solutions."

The goal of the Hub is to create a "critical mass for the best, most innovative and far-reaching ideas."

"Based on new understanding, the Hub should foster new energy storage designs that begin with a 'clean sheet of paper' -- overcoming current manufacturing limitations through innovation to reduce complexity and cost," said DOE.

Chu personalized the results.

When his home lost power recently, Chu said he did some calculations and said with battery storage improvements someone could halve the number of solar panels on their roof, "you can be 80% self-sufficient and blackout immune," he said. If prices were less than $10,000 for that system, "I would get that," he said.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov, or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

Read more about emerging technologies in Computerworld's Emerging Technologies Topic Center.

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Why Your Data Center TCO and Location Matter

Selecting a good location for your data center is a critical element of data center planning, as deciding where to build and maintain a facility directly impacts the total cost of ownership (TCO) over the lifetime of the data center.

In looking to either purchase an existing facility or build a new data center, there's an exhaustive list of factors to be weighed and analyzed before you select a site. To that end, CIO.com spoke to industry leaders to learn more about considerations that range from the probability of basing your data center in an area where a natural disaster could occur to the availability of utilities and the cost of energy.

Key Data Center Location Considerations: Expenses, Expenses and Expenses

According to data center solutions provider Lee Technologies, a subsidiary of Schneider Electric, one basic mistake organizations make is failing to take TCO into account. In its report, The Top 9 Mistakes in Data Center Planning: The Total Cost of Ownership Approach , Lee Technologies recommends that the best approach to is to focus on three basic TCO parameters: capital expenses, operations and maintenance expenses, and energy costs.

News: New Data Center Design Boasts "World's Most Efficient Cooling System"

Keith Lambert, senior vice president of design, build and construction for Lee Technologies, says the company looks at potential sites for clients looking to build new or retrofit an existing structure. Depending on the organization's needs, there's a number of different ways to approach site selection.

The TechVault data center in Vermont deploys Schneider Electric equipment. (Image credit: Tom Way Photography)

"We're mainly interested in site selection if there are tax incentives in the area-and only if they are true incentives," Lambert says. Many communities, especially those in rural areas, offer incentives aimed at attracting investment and creating jobs in construction as well as information technology.

Utility costs matter as well, Lambert adds. "For example, we want to know the cost of water per gallon, the electricity rate and also the cost of [sewer] discharge."

There's also real estate, infrastructure, materials and labor. At the moment, says David Eichorn, data center practice head for Akibia, which offers services to improve the availability, reliability and performance of data centers, Oregon is a popular data center location. That's due to a combination of a highly skilled labor force, favorable climate and lower cost of living than, say, neighboring California. (For many of the same reasons, Canada is also attracting the attention of firms looking to build a data center.)

Finally, during the site selection process, it's critical to examine network connectivity in the area and find out how close to the facility it runs. Depending on the complexity of the site and redundancy levels, the availability of multiple power sources may be a key factor for some companies.

Don't Let Energy Costs Overwhelm Your Data Center

Power doesn't come cheap. Rob Woolley, senior vice president of critical environment services for Lee Technologies, says energy costs-and the types of deals you can get from various providers in the area-have become increasingly important over the past 10 years.

"The cost of energy and availability of utilities...is at the top of everyone's list of selection criteria," Woolley says, adding that green initiatives such as free cooling can have "a major impact on savings."

Make no mistake, utility costs can be the deal breaker when choosing a site. For Lee Technologies, energy costs is also a leading indicator to get a client to build in a specific area-especially if there's hydroelectric power or another source of energy in the area that drives operational costs down. "Hydro is great power. Not only is it relatively inexpensive compared to other sources, but it's also very clean. There's very little carbon associated with hydroelectric power," Woolley says.

Akibia's Eichorn, for his part, says that green IT is one of the biggest changes in the industry. "In the past couple years, it's a positive trend that has taken hold in the data center industry."

Analysis: Are CFOs Turning Greener?

Eichorn agrees that power has become an increasingly a cost driver in data centers. At the same time,green initiatives have people talking how to better manage power consumption. As a result, he says, there are many new techniques available to companies today.

"Companies use green, and they use it for different reasons," Eichorn says. "There is an emphasis on being environmentally conscious, but there's also the [monetary] value...that being green brings to the table."

Backup Data Center Shouldn't Be Too Close-Or Too Far

Most companies don't plan for just one data center at a time, Eichorn notes. Usually, it's two: a primary facility and a business continuity and disaster recovery redundant facility.

David Eichorn, data center practice head for Akibia, believes today's data center industry provides accessibility to green initiatives for everyone.

One of the biggest concerns, Eichorn says, is the proximity of the two data centers. Putting one facility in an area that's prone to natural disasters is risky enough, but if your data centers are too close, a hurricane, tornado or other big storm could take out both facilities, he says.

How-To: 6 Energy-Efficient Data Center Practices

At the same time, if the data centers are too far apart, turn-around time suffers. In addition, putting facilities in another state, province or territory will increase the overall cost (and complexity) of capital and labor, which is an important consideration for small and medium-sized companies. (Larger firms with multiple offices, of course, have more options for where to base a data center.)

In the end, Lambert says, most businesses establish a perimeter or short-list of ideal regions and go from there. If you narrow your site selection down to a few regions, then you can analyze the benefits of each location and plan your facility.

The good news for companies looking to expand facilities or invest in new data center builds is that the industry is more open today than it was in the past. Far from being proprietary and secret, today's data centers show that there is more interest and more willingness from companies to share their experiences and knowledge with other companies.

"When people bring knowledge and technology advancements to the table, it brings forth a more open environment and accessibility to green initiatives for everyone," Eichorn says.

Based in Nova Scotia, Canada, Vangie Beal has been covering small business, electronic commerce and Internet technology for more than a decade. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, on Facebook, and on Google +.

Read more about disaster recovery in CIO's Disaster Recovery Drilldown.

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Wipro, HP top Greenpeace list of green electronics companies

Indian technology company Wipro cracked into the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics at the No. 1 spot, a memorable feat that knocked off last year's top dog HP. Apple took a hit in the rankings.

Wipro scored 7.1 out of a possible 10 points in the guide that ranks global electronics companies based on their commitment and progress in energy and climate, greener products and sustainable operations. HP finished second with 5.7 points.

Greenpeace, an environmental advocacy group, attributed Wipro's hefty score to its efforts to embrace renewable energy and support of green energy policies in India. The company also got high marks for post-consumer electronic waste collection for recycling and for phasing out hazardous substances from its products.

"Wipro has set a new benchmark for sustainability, not only in India but across the globe, that will have a long-term impact in shaping the green energy debate in the electronics industry," Greenpeace India Senior Campaigner Aphishek Pratap said in a statement.

HP had the highest score among American companies on the list. HP is still above most companies on the ranking, according to the guide.

The company scores most of its points, and is the leader, in the sustainable operations criteria, which includes the management of its supply chain, according to the guide.

Electronics companies have made great strides in removing toxic chemicals from devices, Greenpeace said, but need to concentrate on reducing the dependency of their manufacturing and supply chains on dirty energy sources that are contributing to climate change.

The environmental group maintained that more carbon is used in the manufacture of some gadgets, such as tablets and smartphones, than consumers ever use after buying them.

"Companies should work with their suppliers to implement more efficient manufacturing processes and to power the supply chain with renewable energy, not fossil fuels, just as they have successfully done to reduce the toxic materials in electronics," lead author of the guide, Casey Harrell, said.

HP also reaped high points for its paper procurement policy, which bans suppliers linked to illegal logging.

In addition, the company was a top scorer for its policies and practices on the sourcing of conflict minerals, for publishing its suppliers, and for engaging effectively in the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition's conflict-free smelter.

One area where HP faltered, though, was in handling electronic waste.

Following HP in the rankings were Nokia (5.4 points), Acer (5.1) and Dell (4.6).

Nokia met a renewable energy target of 40 percent -- a strong number -- but below its 2010 target of 50 percent, the guide noted. The company also falls short in adopting a robust clean electricity plan, a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target of 30 percent by 2015 and a renewable energy target of 100 percent by 2020.

Acer saw its ranking improve over last year, the guide said, largely due to its taking a leadership role in its conversations with suppliers on a range of issues, including GHG emissions and hazardous substances, conflict minerals and fibre sourcing.

Dell saw its ranking slip due to its poor showing in removing harmful chemicals from its products.

Apple (4.5 points), maker of the iPhone and iPad, also experienced a decline in its guide ranking this year.

According to the Greenpeace, which has had some prominent disagreements with Apple over environmental issues over the years, the company lost points due to its lack of transparency on GHG emissions reporting, clean energy advocacy, disclosure of information on its management of toxic chemicals and details on post-consumer recycled plastic use.

The guide was critical of Apple's battery replacement policies towards notebook computers. Those policies make it difficult for both the recyclists and consumers to choose responsible recycling options for the products they buy from Apple.

It also recommended that Apple take innovative measures to increase the lifespan and durability of whole product systems, rather than just individual parts.

As far as the energy efficiency of Apple's products go, the guide observed, they meet and exceed the US Environmental Protection Agency's strict Energy Star guidelines, with all products being at least twice as efficient as the Energy Star standard and in the case of the Mac Mini, six times as efficient.

Other companies ranked in the Greenpeace guide included Samsung (4.2 points), Sony (4.1), Lenovo (3.9), Philips (3.8), Panasonic (3.6), LGE (3.5), HCL (3.1), Sharp (3.1), Toshiba (2.3) and RIM (2.0), which makes the Blackberry.

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Users see random reboots on two Windows Phone 8 smartphones

Hundreds of early users of two Windows Phone 8 smartphones have complained of recurring and random reboots on Nokia's Lumia 920 and the HTC 8X smartphones.

More than 65 similar posts had been filed by users on a Microsoft support forum early Monday, while 165 complaint posts were made at the Windows Phone Central forum.

Many complaints blamed the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system for the reboots, although some users said Microsoft Support personnel had suggested the problem could be related to running a Skype preview app or to running Internet Explorer on the phones.

Microsoft officials could not be reached to comment.

However, Microsoft Support suggested to one user in the forum named Sweendog_99 to uninstall the Skype preview app, then clear the Internet Explorer history and reset the phone.

Sweendog_99 responded on the forum that taking the steps might have worked since he didn't have any reboots afterward -- that he noticed. However, for many of the users, the reboots happen while the phones are idle and no apps are being actively used.

HTC and Nokia could not be reached for comment, although Nokia told users to reset their phones by turning them off, removing the SIM card and waiting 10 minutes before re-inserting the SIM and then turning on the phone again.

The problems seem to be related to both the Lumia 920 and the HTC 8X phones running on a variety of carriers in both the U.S. and Europe and on both phones regardless of the whether the apps were factory-installed or installed by the user.

Some of the complaints go back to early November, but continued Monday. "Be thankful you're only getting reboots," Martinmc78 told other users on the Windows Phone Central Forum on Monday. He said that since Friday he has been having major problems, including reboots on his HTC 8X on O2 in the UK, SIM errors, messaging not working and more.

Some complaints have also noted battery problems, and possibly phone connection problems to the cellular network. JGraves4480 said early Monday that he went out of town and lost all of his data outside of his home town on a Verizon Wireless HTC 8X. "I'm just wondering if the phones are losing connection with the cell system, causing issues," JGraves 4480 said.

A user named Nicooke on Windows Phone Central said HTC agreed to swap out his 8X because of the reboot problems, but said it would take more than a week to do so. "Just wish they would come out and say what the issue is," Nicooke said.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

See more by Matt Hamblen on Computerworld.com.

Read more about smartphones in Computerworld's Smartphones Topic Center.

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Windows 8 PC orders weak, says analyst

Computer sellers have scaled back their expectations of the sales pop they'll get from Windows 8 this year, an analyst said today.

Brian White, of Topeka Capital Markets, said that his checks of Asian computer manufacturers -- the relatively unknown firms that build desktop and notebook PCs to specifications issued by the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Dell -- found that orders last month climbed by less than half the average of the last seven years.

"With all of the sales numbers out for our ODM Barometer, October sales rose by 2% month-over-month and below the average performance of up 5% over the past seven years," White said in a note to clients earlier this month. "This is weaker than our preliminary estimate of up 5% month-over-month in October and speaks to the continued challenges in the PC market."

White's ODM Barometer -- ODM for "original device manufacturer" -- is a metric of sales by the Asian companies that assemble PCs for brand-name computer sellers. It does not show sales of those PCs to buyers, but hints at the orders those computer sellers have placed for inventory.

The ODM Barometer for October was also down in a year-over-year comparison, repeating a less substantial slide in September, White said.

"The sales cycle has decelerated further into negative territory, dropping to down 13% year-over-year in October from down 9% in September," he wrote. "This weakness is unusual given that PCs with Windows 8 and new ultrabook products are ramping."

PC sellers had hoped that the release of Windows 8 would kick-start sales, which first flattened, then fell in the face of still-unsettled economies and fierce competition from smartphones and tablets for customers' dollars.

It seems that computer sellers expected more from Windows 8 earlier this year, but have since rethought, said White. "Sales [by ODMs] in October will clearly be helped by the ramp of Windows 8, [but they're] much lower than the PC makers originally expected a few months ago."

His conclusion: "The macro [economic] weakness is weighing in on PC demand and the plethora of new tablets is driving more conservatism on the part of the PC makers," he said in an email reply to follow-up questions.

The result: "The Windows 8 ramp is much lower than expected a few months ago, partly related to these issues and others," White said.

ODM sales -- again, a harbinger of orders placed by computer sellers for future PC deliveries -- this year were also weak when compared to the months leading up to Windows 7's launch in 2009.

"During October 2009, sales rose a similar 2% month-over-month," White added in his email. "However, the three prior months [then] were much stronger than July, August and September of this year."

Previously, Computerworld has tracked usage patterns of Windows 8 in the months leading up to, and including, the Oct. 26 launch, and found that the new operating system is being run by less than a fifth as many people as ran Windows 7 in the same months before its debut.

Although many analysts and Microsoft watchers have cautioned that it is too early to conclude that Windows 8 sales -- and by extension, those of Windows 8 PCs -- are sluggish, others, including David Johnson of Forrester and Paul Thurrott, who writes the popular "Supersite for Windows" blog and is the co-author of Windows 8 Secrets, have claimed that that is exactly what is happening.

Thurrott, who last week cited unnamed sources within Microsoft, said that Windows 8 sales were below the company's internal projections and had been called "disappointing" internally. According to Thurrott, Microsoft has put the blame at the feet of its OEMs (original computer manufacturers), the vendors that contract with ODMs to build their wares.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

See more by Matt Hamblen on Computerworld.com.

Read more about windows in Computerworld's Windows Topic Center.

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10 great Google tools you need in your business workflow

Google is so ubiquitous in our everyday digital lives that it's easy to overlook the many tools it offers that have a business slant. But there are lots of them, and I'm not just talking about Microsoft Office equivalents such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, or Google Analytics.

Gathered here are ten serious Google services that can boost your productivity, get your team on the same page, and market your company. You probably already use some of these services for funlike Hangoutsbut they have powerful business applications as well.

Blog: Google and Your Business 

If you haven't stumbled across Google and Your BusinessGoogle's blog for businessesyou owe it to yourself to check it out. It's a gateway to all sorts of resources, including tip collections, case studies, and news about relevant hangouts and sites, such as Google for Entrepreneurs. The fly-out toolbar on the right makes it easy to archive posts, apply labels, add to your RSS feed, and find other useful Google blogs.

Google Places for Business

With Google Places for Business, you can add salient details about your businessnot just name, address, and phone number, but business category, hours of operation, types of payment accepted, and areas servedto Google's database without paying Google a dime. The informationincluding a small mapappears in relevant Google search results. Google Places previews what your listing will look like even as you provide the information in a questionnaire. While this service is free, Google does encourage you to increase your business's visibility by buying an AdWords ad, but the sales pitch is low-key.

Google+ Pages

Google+ Pages is Google's equivalent of a Facebook page, but with a couple of customization options specifically designed for businesses. You start by choosing the type of businesses (brick-and-mortar companies have options to help people locate them), then add content such as a cover photo, your logo, and a brief description. As the creator of the page, you can designate other administrators or even transfer ownership of the page. Use it to promote your business with photos, videos, news, links to Hangouts, and more.

Google+ Hangouts

Google often promotes Hangouts as a video chat room for friends and family, but the chat rooms also have features that make them useful for business meetings. Not only can you see and hear up to ten participants, but you can collaborate on Google Drive documents, share your screen, or run third-party apps. A Hangout may not offer all the features of a commercial Web-conferencing tool such as WebEx or GoToMeeting, but the ones it does have may be all that a geographically dispersed team needsand it's free.

Google Voice Global Spam Filtering

Sadly, spam is no longer confined to the email inbox. Robocalls can be a major time-consuming distraction. But just as Gmail's spam filter quite effectively winnows out a lot of junk mail, Google Voice (Google's universal call forwarding/voicemail service) offers tools for discarding these unwanted calls before they ring through. Primary among them is Global Spam Filtering, which immediately discards calls coming from numbers Google has identified as spam sources. Activate it by clicking on Calls in Google Voice's settings.

Smart Rescheduler for Google Calendar

If you need to reschedule a meeting you've created in Google Calendar, you could look through participants' shared calendars to see when everyone is freeor you could enable Smart Rescheduler inGoogle Calendar Labs (which you access from the GCal settings menu), and let Google do the searching for you. Once enabled, Smart Rescheduler appears as a widget on the right side of the Calendar window; to use it, highlight the event you wish to reschedule, and click the Find a new timelink. You'll get a list of alternative times, each with a Schedule This button to click for the time you choose.

Google Forms

Google Forms, a capable and easy-to-use survey tool, is a free Google Drive add-on you can download at the Chrome Web Store (which also has free and paid business apps from third-party vendors). Create your survey from question templates (choosing between types such as multiple choice, checkbox, scale, or text answers), then either post it in a Google+ Hangout or distribute it via email. Recipients submit the completed form by clicking a button at the end. The survey itself and the responses are all automatically stored on your Google Drive, and you can view the results in either summary form (with auto-generated graphical aides) or in a spreadsheet.

GoMo

In the era of the smartphone, having a website created for desktop browsers may not be enough. GoMoby Google is a site for businesses that want to investigate creating a mobile-friendly version of their site, or at least that want to test how accessible their site is to mobile users. There's a tool that shows what your site looks like on a smartphone and that rates its mobile-worthiness by asking a couple of questionsfor example, whether you can click links with your thumb. If nothing else, GoMo makes you give some thought to these issuesand if you want to act, it has links to developers that can help you out or do the work for you.

GMail Priority Inbox

Gmail puts yellow arrows next to messages it believes, based on Google algorithms, you'll find important, and you can modify its choices manually (by clicking on the arrows) to help teach it what really matters to you. The visual cues save you time in sifting through your mailbox, but you can speed things up even further with Gmail's Priority Inbox feature. Just click on Inbox in the left nav bar (to bring up the inbox-style menu) and choose Priority Inbox, which will group at the top of your inbox all unread messages with yellow arrows. If you want to go back to sorting mail according to when it arrived, just pick Classic from the Inbox style menu.

Two-step verification for Google accounts

If news about hackers gaining access to password-protected data has made you nervous (or even if it hasn't), consider beefing up your Google account security by activating Google's two-step verification for account logins. This adds a second password (in addition to the usual password entry) for logins: a code Google sends to your cell phone or landline, or that you store on paper in your wallet (in case you're not near a phone). After an initial setup, you can waive the requirement on trusted computers and mobile devices for 30 daysand you can always revoke waivers from your security settings. Read adetailed explanation and setup guide here.

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The 4G ad wars: Evaluating AT&T and Verizon Wireless

Wireless carriers are battling in print, TV and Web commercials that focus on having the biggest 4G network or the most 4G coverage. All these commercials create a phony issue that doesn't relate to the actual reasons for choosing 4G service or choosing a given carrier to provide it.

We looked at two TV ads, from AT&T and Verizon Wireless, posted on their YouTube accounts.

Who really has the most 4G wireless coverage?

Performance and pricing determine the "4G experience"

The AT&T commercial consists of nearly 30 seconds of listening to the monotonous guitar hammering of "Memory Lane" by Eddy Current Suppression Ring and watching a young Dude appearing in about 40 different locations, with not quite that many girls, and with his trusty AT&T smartphone. He talks, laughs, smiles, walks, lies on a beach, looks at stuff, texts, takes photos of himself with one or another of the girls, and stuff like that.

At the end, and 30 seconds rarely has felt so long, the voice-over says, "AT&T. The nation's largest 4G network, covering 2,000 more 4G cities than Verizon."

Or as the YouTube text helpfully elaborates, "This spot follows our main character as he uses his AT&T smartphone throughout his adventures across the states. He chronicles his travels and shares his memories and experiences with the people he cares about thanks to AT&T, the nation's largest 4G network."

The concept of the "nation's largest 4G network" is a key message for AT&T. The carrier arrives at "largest" by adding together cities covered by two different cellular technologies, both of which AT&T labels 4G: LTE, in 103 cities at this writing, and HSPA+, which covers a whole lot more.

AT&T's website distinguishes between the two. 4G LTE represents the "fastest mobile Internet speeds," whereas "4G Mobile Broadband" is the carrier's "4G HSPA+ network with enhanced backhaul. AT&T's 4G HSPA+ network is capable of delivering 4G speeds when combined with enhanced backhaul."

Apparently our Dude in the TV commercial is On the Road, an epic journey of exploration and discovery. Who is this guy? He's young. A casual dresser. He laughs a lot. His one obvious flaw is that he favors clear plastic parasols on rainy days. Perhaps he's a successful high-tech entrepreneur who's cashed out on some esoteric Web technology and retired at what looks like about 26 or so, and with time to kill and money to spend, decides to have adventures across the states. All 50 of them it seems. Maybe he's decided to visit the "2,000 more 4G cities than Verizon" that AT&T covers with the nation's largest 4G network.

Verizon Wireless takes a less impressionistic approach: It focuses on, you know, facts. This commercial, called "Easy Choice," opens with the headline "4G LTE Focus Group," so we know the people we're about to see are "real" people.

It's a conference room, clean, well-ordered, spare. The Focus Group Guy (FGG) begins helpfully by telling us that 4G LTE "has the fastest speeds."

"So, let's talk about coverage," he says, getting right to The Point. We see an easel with a bar chart, labeled "U.S. Markets with 4G LTE Coverage." A humongous red bar -- Verizon! -- rears up from the x coordinate, towering above the shrimpy little LTE bars for AT&T, and Sprint and poor T-Mobile.

"Based on this chart, who would you choose?" he asks the focus group. And they are wowed, stunned, impressed. Eventually, they all agree that they'd choose Verizon. The voice-over, as the words "It's an easy choice" appear on screen: "It doesn't matter how you present it. Verizon. More 4G LTE coverage than all other networks combined."

But what are these people "choosing" Verizon for? The FGG's question is ambiguous. He could be asking, "Based on this chart, which carrier would you choose as having the most LTE sites?" In that case, it's a simple matter of counting, and currently Verizon does indeed have the largest number of LTE cities. But he could also be asking, and this clearly seems to be the implication of the commercial, "Based on this chart, which carrier would you choose as your LTE provider?"

Both AT&T and Verizon are trying to persuade people that having a lot of LTE or 4G base stations somehow makes for a superior or better network, and therefore becomes a reason, or even the reason, for choosing the carrier. But you'd have to be as peripatetic as AT&T's Dude before a nationwide network of Verizon LTE base stations actually becomes a tangible benefit.

About one mile from where I live there's a main drag with a McDonald's, a Burger King and a Mexican restaurant that's part of a small Massachusetts chain. Based on the number of fast food restaurants owned by McDonald's, Burger King and this Massachusetts restaurant chain, which would you choose?

The answer is: The number doesn't have any bearing on my choice. I don't care if McDonald's has eleventy zillion stores in 50 states. I only care if it's got one where I live. And if I want TexMex instead of a Big Mac, I don't care even if there is a McDonald's where I live.

Consumer Reports, while not the last word on cellular service and phones, lists a "reader score" of overall satisfaction with their cellular service and then a set of criteria that CR's experts created for measuring specific features or attributes. "Voice and texting scores are relative (reflecting differences from the average of all providers)." It then goes on to give mean scores on a scale of "Very poor" to "Excellent" for: "value for money, satisfaction with data service, ease and speed of reaching support staff through the phone system, and support staff knowledge. Issue resolved ratings are relative as well."

There's no rating of coverage, reflecting the fact the total number of LTE or 4G cities served by a carrier is simply not a criteria for buying a particular phone or choosing a particular provider. In fact, the major wireless carriers in CR's most recent ratings scored well below much smaller providers, which often make use of one of the major's wireless network and may focus only on a given region.

CR concludes: "On the whole, readers who prepaid for their service (without a contract, for monthly minutes, unlimited or pay-as-you-go) were more satisfied overall than respondents with standard service. Customers at prepaid carriers were also happier with the value for money of their service."

Data speeds, the latest network technology, are only one part, and apparently often not the biggest part, in customer satisfaction with wireless service. TV commercials that focus on the number of cities covered by a 4G service simply try to deflect attention from more substantive and more relevant issues.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World. Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnww Email: john_cox@nww.com

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AC/DC finally rocks the iTunes Store

Apple and Columbia Records on Monday announced that AC/DC's complete catalog is available digitally for the first time--exclusively at the iTunes Store. The rock band had long been missing in action from online music stores, but now the entirety of the band's discography is available for digital purchase. All the music has been Mastered for iTunes as well.

According to a press release, all sixteen of AC/DC's studio albums, along with four live albums and three compilations, are now on sale in the iTunes Store.

Two collections are available: The $100 Studio Collection encompasses all of AC/DC's 176 studio-recorded songs, complete with an iTunes LP featuring photos and liner notes. The $150 Complete Collection adds in rarities, demo tracks, the four live albums, and an iTunes LP with "a detailed essay and photos from the era," according to iTunes. The compilation includes 312 tracks.

The iTunes Store also now offers AC/DC ringtones.

The AC/DC announcement comes two years after another significant iTunes hold out finally arrived in the store.

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US lawmaker asks Reddit for ideas on website seizures

A U.S. lawmaker has asked users of Reddit for their ideas about legislation to address the controversial recent practice by two U.S. agencies of seizing websites for alleged copyright infringement.

U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said Monday she is considering legislation to address free expression and due process concerns with the website seizures by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the past two years, the two agencies have seized about 1,500 websites they accused of selling pirated digital goods or counterfeit products.

Users of Reddit, a popular social news site, showed a "strong dedication to free expression" during a debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act, Lofgren said in a statement. SOPA, defeated after millions of Internet users protested earlier this year, would have expanded the DOJ's powers to seize websites for alleged copyright infringement.

Reddit was one of the first sites to announce it would go black for a day to protest SOPA and the Protect IP Act, a similar bill. With Reddit's involvement in the SOPA debate, "I thought I would attempt an experiment: crowdsourcing a legislative proposal on Reddit," Lofgren said.

Lofgren will consider proposals from Reddit users in the drafting of legislation, she said.

Lofgren's move toward introducing legislation shouldn't be seen as an endorsement of the seizures, she said.

"Although I am considering introducing a bill on domain name seizures for infringement, that does not mean I accept the practice as legal or constitutional," she said. "Nonetheless, since these seizure actions are occurring, I thought it worthwhile to explore a legislative means providing appropriate protections for free expression and due process."

Critics of the seizures have said the DOJ and ICE give website owners no notice before seizing the sites. In some cases, the websites seized may include blog posts, discussion boards or other material protected by U.S. free speech rights, critics have said.

Supporters of the seizures, including many in the U.S. entertainment industry, have argued that the seizures are necessary to stem rampant copyright infringement online.

New legislation from Lofgren would focusing on requirements that the agencies provide notice to website owners and an opportunity for them to defend against a seizure, she said.

Four Reddit users had submitted comments as of Tuesday afternoon.

"Domain Name seizures should be made completely illegal, with no compromises or exceptions," one Reddit user wrote. "The government has taken down countless websites across the internet with absolutely no due process with only a judge's signature on a piece of paper with most of the evidence for the take down coming from the biased entertainment industry."

Representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, both supporters of the website seizures, didn't immediately return messages seeking comment on Lofgren's proposal. A representative of the Recording Industry Association of America declined to comment.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

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