Google's browser apps hit 'millions of downloads a day'
Google Chrome users are now downloading millions of web apps a day, as the group’s app store comes up to the first anniversary of its launch. Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, senior product manager for Chrome, said he was “delighted” with the progress of the web store, which offers apps from news and retail companies to music and books. A spokesman for Google said: “We’re now seeing millions of installs per day from the Chrome Web Store from our base of over 200 million active Chrome users.” Google launched the Chrome Web Store in December 2010 with several hundred apps. According to a spokesman for the group it now has over 30,000 apps, themes and extensions to customise the Chrome browser.
Independent

Using Carrier Ethernet to backhaul LTE
Mobile backhaul networks have been under siege for the past three years as the smartphone market, typified by the iPhone, has exploded, and with it, data usage, which stresses backhaul networks. Adding LTE will only exacerbate the backhaul problem, bringing with it the need to continue backhauling 2G and 3G traffic. Although LTE is IP-based, many mobile operators and backhaul transport providers want to keep their access and aggregation networks simpler by avoiding layer 3 routing and avoiding the use of dynamic routing and signalling protocols across the backhaul to the cell site. They also prefer to transport not only LTE traffic, but also 2G/3G on carrier Ethernet backhaul (which they consider less complex and less expensive). Indeed, the costs of IP/Ethernet backhaul transport, whether wireline or microwave, are much lower than the costs of TDM. This white paper shows how CE can be used to solve the many issues and problems involved with LTE backhaul.
Telecoms Europe

HTC rumoured to be building Facebook phone
After many months of speculation and innuendo, here finally is, well, more speculation and innuendo. This time is Allthingsdigital that has the scoop, but there's precious little detail and no actual comment from the two protagonists. Still, the blog wouldn't have published if it didn't have some inside skinny. And what it says is that Facebook and HTC will build a smartphone 'that has the social network integrated at the core of its being' with HTML5 as a platform for applications. It reckons the phone is 12 to 18 months away. Allthingsdigital spoke to Facebook and got the following bland reply: “Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”
Mobile Entertainment


Swedish operators follow m-commerce joint venture trend
Sweden's four main mobile network operators have formed an equally-owned joint venture company to provide mobile payment services to customers by summer 2012. The unnamed venture between Telia, Tele2, Telenor, and 3's Swedish arm aims to create a single platform for all types of mobile payments, including Near Field Communications (NFC). The solution will be unified across the four operators, allowing both contract and prepaid subscribers to keep their mobile wallet details when changing provider, the companies revealed late last week.
Total Telecom

Samsung Galaxy Nexus now shipping from Clove
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus launched to great fanfare last week. Well, we were excited anyway. So much so that we queued up for one and had a chat with fellow Android enthusiasts in the line. After hitting Phones 4U, Three and O2, it’s now available to order directly from the guys at Clove, unlocked an SIM-free for £514.80. As is normal with orders from Clove, all deliveries are next day and costs either £7 or £8 if you’re using UK Special Delivery of UK Courier Citylink. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus comes with a huge 4.65-inch HD AMOLED display, a 5-megapixel camera (a not-too shabby one at that) and of course runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Recombu

Google boosts search for the iPad
Internet search outfit Google has refreshed its search application for the fashionable fondle slab, the Apple Ipad. The app is aimed at Ipad users running IOS 4 and above and Daniel Fish, software engineer for the Google Search app, ushered it in with some flowery talk about how well it suits the hardware." Whether you're doing research and comparing results, or exploring beautiful imagery, we have added new features to make the app more interactive, more visual and to help you find what you want more easily," he said. "You'll notice that searching is faster and more interactive from your first keystroke. As soon as you begin to type, Google Instant starts to display results, so you don't even need to press the search button."
The Inquirer

Adobe: Flash for Android 4.0 before end of 2011, no Flash for Android 5.0
Adobe has confirmed to Pocket-lint that it plans to release Flash for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of 2011, but it will be the last update going forward. That means that there will be a Flash-free future for Android beyond ICS.  "Adobe will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will provide support for Android 4.0, and one more release of the Flash Linux Porting Kit - both expected to be released before the end of this year," a company spokesperson told us. That's going to be good news for Samsung Galaxy Nexus owners who currently don't have Flash installed on their new phone. It will allow them to also enjoy the "full web experience" as promoted and promised by Google for its Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) users.
pocket-lint

European mobile social media use on the rise
A growing number of Europeans are logging on to social media websites via mobile devices, new figures have revealed. Research from comScore MobilLens shows 55.1 million people in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain accessed social networking sites and blogs through their phones in September, representing a 44 per cent increase compared with the same month in 2010. It also found that Facebook was the most visited social media website by mobile users, followed by Twitter and Tuenti.com, a Spanish social network. Twitter and LinkedIn saw their audience more than double in the 12 months to September 2011. Facebook's own statistics show 350 million active users around the world currently log on to the social network through their mobile phones.
Direct News

Voice recognition: has it come of age?
Since October, people have been buying and using Apple's new iPhone4S, which comes with a function called Siri – a "voice-driven assistant" which can take dictation, fix or cancel appointments, send emails, start phone calls, search the web and generally do all those things for which you might once have employed a secretary. Siri isn't just a "voice recognition" tool, though it can do that (so you speak some words and it turns them into text, and sends them as an email or text message). You can also ask it things such as: "How's the weather looking tomorrow in London?" and it will come back with the forecast for London ("England").
The Guardian

Southwark Council dumps 7,200 files in disused building
Southwark Council in London has been heavily criticised by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after leaving behind the personal data of thousands of citizens in a building it had vacated. The data on 7,200 people were stored on a single unencrypted iMac computer and paper files were forgotten during a move by the Council from a building in Spa Road in October 2009. The data remained in the empty premises until its habitation almost two years later in June of this year, at which point it was put into skips by the new tenant. The lost data was then noticed in the skip and reported to the ICO. Embarrassingly, as well as the usual personal data such as names, addresses and ethnicity, medical history and criminal convictions were also recorded in the mislaid data. The ICO hinted that it might have imposed a fine had the offence not occurred before it had the power to impose such a penalty.
CIO