Bell Aliant makes strong progress on FTTH rollout
Canada’s Bell Aliant made major progress in its Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) expansion plan in the second quarter of this year, and now passes 294,000 homes and businesses in Atlantic Canada with the technology – with over half of its FTTH expansion plan still to come. The company added 8,000 customers for its ‘FibreOP’ broadband service in the second quarter of this year to reach a total of 22,000, with the majority of these being existing customers which migrated from DSL and Fibre-to-the-Node networks.
Telecoms.com

Smartphone Access to Retail Sites Up 163 Per Cent in the UK
13.5m users across the five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK), accounting for 5.8 per cent of all mobile subscribers, accessed online retail sites in the three month average period ending May 2011, according to the latest figures from comScore. In the EU5 region, the number of smartphone users accessing online retail sites has increased by 80 per cent over the past year. This growth is even stronger in the UK, with a 163 per cent increase in smartphone users accessing retail sites since May 2010.
Mobile Marketing

Mixed performance for Motorola causes concern; more LTE in the works
Recovering handset maker Motorola Mobility reported another quarterly loss, with several flies in the ointment which caused some concerns looking forward. For the second quarter of 2011, it reported a net loss of US$56 million, compared with a prior year profit of US$80 million, on revenue of US$3.34 billion, up 27.9 percent. For its Mobile Devices business (the company also has a Home line), it reported an operating loss of US$85 million, down from a profit of US$87 million, on sales of US$2.43 billion, up 41 percent. Sanjay Jha, the company’s CEO, acknowledged delays to the company’s first LTE smartphone, Bionic, were “disappointing,” while stating that this failure to deliver is an “exception rather than the rule.” The device is now set for release in September 2011, which means it will have a limited window to deliver in Motorola’s third quarter.
Mobile Business Briefing

Google Purchases 1030 Patents From IBM
Google has dipped into the vast pool of patents accumulated by IBM to protect its Android platform from litigation. Android has been attacked by patent lawsuits from all sides and Google has found itself virtually helpless, with its small patent portfolio. Oracle is claiming that Android infringes heavily on Java and Apple has targeted Android device makers like HTC and Samsung.  According to an article on SeoByTheSea, the search giant registered a purchase of more than 1,000 technology patents with the US Patent and Trademark Office in mid-July. The 1,030 patents purchased by Google from IBM cover a wide range of topics like fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips. Patents related to servers, routers, relational databases and object oriented programming have also been purchased by Google.
ITProPortal

Qualcomm Releases Augmented Reality SDK For Apple iOS
America’s leading wireless telecoms development firm Qualcomm has released its augmented reality software development kit for Apple’s iOS. According to technology website Slash Gear, Qualcomm has released its software development kit (SDK) for devices powered by Apple’s iOS including the iPhone 4, iPad 2 and the fourth generation iPod Touch. "The expansion of Qualcomm's AR Platform from Android to iOS enables developers to use Apple's XCode and Unity 3 to build high-performance, interactive 3D AR experiences," the company stated on Thursday. “This SDK supports iPhone 4, iPad 2, and the fourth generation iPod touch. It also supports Unity, a WYSIWYG rapid game development tool, while also allowing developers to work directly in Xcode if they prefer. The SDK can be downloaded from Qualcomm’s developer center,” the website reveals.
ITProPortal

This is not the Topiary you are looking for
When the Metropolitan Police arrested a 19-year-old Shetland Islands resident a couple of days ago, they crowed that they had collared the LulzSec and AnonOps kingpin known to his fellow hacktivists as 'Topiary'. The cops now say the man is 18 years old not 19 and there's increasing speculation that they've got the wrong Topiary. In a feat of misdirection worthy of Derren Brown, it seems like the real Topiary might have left the Met with even more egg on its face, as tales of doxing double-bluffs and Swedish hackers polishing up their best Highland accents start flooding the web. It turns out that there are at least two - and possibly many more - people going by the handle Topiary and whether the cops have collared the right one remains to be seen.
Thinq

Foxconn gives up on humans
Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn has decided that humans are not all they are cracked up to be and wants to replace them with a million robots. Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the company, told Xinhuanet that  it will take three years to replace the staff. The robots will be used to do simple and routine work such as spraying, welding and assembling which are now mainly conducted by workers. Foxconn has 10,000 robots at the moment and the number will be increased to 300,000 next year with the rest coming out of their boxes after that. It is not clear how many staff that will get their marching orders. The outfit currently hires more than 1.2 million problematic humans with a million of them based on the Chinese mainland.
TechEye

OK Go's new video does it again - when lycra meets HTML5
What was that Roger McNamee was saying about HTML5 opening a world of opportunity for artists? The proof is in OK Go's pudding. We have come to expect something truly special with every new OK Go video, and their latest project is arguably the best yet. Powered by HTML 5, All Is Not Lost works best in Chrome customising the video to the message of your choice with dancers from the group Pilobolus spelling it out. There are moments, if we're honest, when a little literal bottom lighting might have softened the viewing experience, shall we say. But it is a triumph. Credit to the band, director Trish Sie and the team they worked with at Google Chrome Japan.
The Guardian

Flat-screen TV electricity consumption falls by 60%
Along with patio heaters, SUVs and incandescent lightbulbs, flat-screen TVs became one of the products most loathed by environmentalists over the past decade. But improving energy efficiency means they have become greener than the hulking cathrode ray tubes they replaced, and cut their average electricity consumption by more than half, new figures show. Technology advances have driven down the energy use of all new TVs by 60% since 2006, leaving a 42-inch LED TV today costing just £14 a year to run compared with around £80 for a plasma screen in 2006, in present day prices. Over 9.5m flat-screens were sold in the UK last year. Globally TVs account for about 6-8% of electricity consumption in homes.
The Guardian

Hollywood's legal victory over BT threatens illegal file-sharing
Illegal file-sharing websites face a fight to survive after Hollywood studios won a landmark high court ruling forcing BT to block access to Newzbin2, a site providing links to illegal downloads of films, music and games. The decision paves the way for record companies, film studios and other copyright owners, such as the Premier League, to force other major UK internet providers to ban file-sharing sites. In what is thought to be a legal first, the Motion Picture Association of America took BT to court under the 1988 Copyright, Design and Patents Act in its capacity as an internet service provider (ISP), rather than as the source of alleged pirated content.
The Independent