Have cellphone, will shop

Shopping via mobile phone is taking off. New apps are helping.

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These are dreary days for retailers. As consumers hold back on spending, many vendors are feeling pinched. Yet among the gloom there is a bright spot: Online spending is growing. And another development may spark even more shopping--mobile commerce.

Shopping by mobile phone is still a nascent development. Of the 45 million U.S. cellphone users who take advantage of their phone's Internet connection, just 6.4 million bought something through phone this year, according to research firm Nielsen. U.S. consumers are just now getting the hang of shopping via cellphone, thanks to easy-to-use, mostly-free applications available on smart phones like Apple's iPhone and gadgets running Google's Android software system.

ShopSavvy, an Android app, is just one example of how consumers can use their phone to shop.

This is how it works: The user scans a product's barcode through his phone's camera. Once the ShopSavvy application reads the barcode, it can show the user other local and online outlets that carry the product, and how much each of them is charging. The user can either request that the product be put on hold for local pick-up or order it to be delivered to a specified address. About half of its 1 million users--75% of whom are male--scan consumer electronics. Other popular items are DVDs, videogames, books and groceries.

Big In Japan, the Dallas-based developer behind ShopSavvy, has created a similar application for Apple's iPhone, set to launch in July. ShopSavvy apps for Research in Motion's BlackBerry smart phones and the Palm Pre should be released this fall.

ShopStyle.com--an aggregator of fashionable e-commerce boutiques that was acquired by Bay Area-based, women-focused media firm Sugar, Inc., in 2007--released an iPhone app in May that allows users to easily search and compare prices on their favorite of-the-moment items, be it an Yves Saint Laurent handbag or a pair of Oliver People's sunglasses. The ShopStyle app links directly to the particular item's e-commerce page for a fairly easy purchase.

Price comparison sites are great for bargain shoppers, but individual retailers are also realizing that mobile phone applications not only draw in more customers, they also raise brand awareness. For example, in May athletic footwear company Reebok released Your Reebok, an application for the iPhone that allows users in the U.S. and U.K. to create and purchase personalized sneakers in a variety of colors and materials.

While Reebok may not see a large boost in sales from this app, the company will be noticed by a new group of potential customers. "This is a loyalty device," says Paula Rosenblum, a managing partner at Retails Systems Research, a Miami-based firm that focuses on retail technology. "It's not just about sales; it's also about marketing, promotions and getting closer to the customer."

1-800-Flowers Mobile Gift Center allows BlackBerry and iPhone users to order flowers for all occasions. And Amazon has created a Kindle app for the iPhone that allows users to download over 300,000 books onto their iPhone. If you do have both a Kindle and an iPhone, it automatically syncs your last page read between devices.

From clothing to concert tickets to electronics, consumers can buy pretty much anything on their phone these days. Who said impulse purchasing was a thing of the past?

(Lauren Sherman, Forbes.com)

Facebook to simplify privacy settings

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Facebook plans to simplify the way in which it offers privacy options to give users more control over the information they share, media reported Thursday.

In a blog post on Wednesday, chief privacy officer Chris Kelly said Facebook is in the process of streamlining its privacy settings over the next few weeks.

To make the settings easier, Facebook is consolidating all of its existing six privacy pages and more than 30 settings onto a single privacy page. It will also standardize the options for each setting so the choices are always the same, something that hasn't always been the case.

Right now, Facebook privacy controls are too scattered across multiple settings pages and they lack uniformity, creating confusion among members, Kelly said during a press conference.

"It's too complex at this point," Kelly said.

Privacy has been a central, and often thorny issue for Facebook because so many people use it to share personal information with their friends and family and beyond.

Facebook hasn't managed that issue very well in recent years as efforts to monetize the free service have led to privacy oversights.

Its Beacon social advertising scheme, for example, created considerable controversy in 2007 for violating user privacy. The uproar eventually prompted an apology from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a shift to an opt-in system.

(Agencies)

China's Compass expected to rival GPS

China's global navigation satellite system, Compass, will provide regional service in 2011 with a constellation of 12 satellites, a navigation industry insider said Thursday.

China aims to make Compass a navigation satellite system of 35 satellites by 2020, which can offer global service.

Compass, or Beidou (Big Dipper) in Chinese, is expected to rival the US-developed GPS, the EU's GPS and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System, earlier reports said.

Officials representing the four systems are now in negotiations to make their civilian-use technologies compatible, Hu Gang, vice-president of Beijing BDStar Navigation Co Ltd, said during a two-day national geological information industry summit that ended yesterday.

"This could possibly allow a civilian user of global navigation satellite system to have access to more than 120 navigation satellites in the future, which will assure stability and improve accuracy," he said.

The 12 satellites that will be part of the Compass program's first phase will "improve the positioning accuracy of the satellite navigation system greatly", he said.

Only two Compass satellites have been reportedly launched into orbit so far - one in 2007 and the other in April this year, he said.

According to the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, which sponsored the summit, the satellite navigation industry is estimated to generate 50 billion yuan ($8 billion) in China by 2010, up from the 12 billion yuan in 2006.

Cao Chong, chief engineer of the China Electronics Technology Group Corp, said the car industry and the cell phone industry will be the major players of satellite navigation applications.

"China still has a huge potential for satellite navigation application, as only less than 5 percent of cars have installed navigation devices," he said.

Users warned of "Michael Jackson" email virus

Computer security firm Sophos issued a warning about an Internet virus transmitted from a mass e-mail claiming to contain secret songs and photos of Michael Jackson. (AFP/File/Carl de Souza)

BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Computer security firm Sophos warned Thursday that an virus is floating around the Internet and told people not to open an email claiming to contain secret songs and photos of Michael Jackson.

The email has a subject line of "Remembering Michael Jackson" and is sent from "sarah@michaeljackson.com," Sophos said in a statement sent by its Asia office in Singapore.

According to Sophos, the email tells recipients that an attached file titled "Michael songs and pictures.zip" contains secret songs and photos of the pop music icon, who died of a heart attack in the United States on June 25.

Sophos advised users not to open the email.

"By opening the attachment, computer users are exposed to infection. Once infected, a computer will begin automatically spreading the worm onto other Internet users," Sophos said.

Sophos said the virus is also capable of spreading as an Autorun component on USB memory sticks.

Expo on geographic information applications kicks off in Beijing

A female presents a stylish portable inter-communicative onboard navigator, during the National Exposition on Geographic Information Applications and Maps, which opens at the Beijing Exhibition Center, in Beijing, July 1, 2009. (Xinhua/Chen Xiaogen)

Visitors watch a novel model of drone aircraft, during the National Exposition on Geographic Information Applications and Maps, which opens at the Beijing Exhibition Center in Beijing, July 1, 2009. (Xinhua/Chen Xiaogen)

A flat television shows the 3-dimensional geographic informational service system for China Shenzhou Travel, during the National Exposition on Geographic Information Applications and Maps, which opens at the Beijing Exhibition Center, in Beijing, July 1, 2009. (Xinhua/Chen Xiaogen)

Visitors catch the sight of the urban 3-dimensional scene through the polarized light spectacles, during the National Exposition on Geographic Information Applications and Maps, which opens at the Beijing Exhibition Center, in Beijing, July 1, 2009. (Xinhua/Chen Xiaogen)

Visitors watch the ADS40 digital orthophoto map of Taiyuan City, during the National Exposition on Geographic Information Applications and Maps, which opens at the Beijing Exhibition Center, in Beijing, July 1, 2009. (Xinhua/Chen Xiaogen)

The exposition, on the motif of intensifying the service of geographic information application and promoting its industrialization, epitomizes its application in national economy, social development and people's livings since the 60 years of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Renault to test electric cars in Paris, Milan

An electric cable is attached to the side of a car. Renault-Nissan will hold large-scale tests for its new electric cars in the Paris and Milan regions next year ahead of planned mass production from 2012, the Franco-Japanese auto group said Thursday. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Alex Wong)

Renault-Nissan will hold large-scale tests for its new electric cars in the Paris and Milan regions next year ahead of planned mass production from 2012, the Franco-Japanese auto group said Thursday.

The tests include a try-out in the Paris region of a new car charging network being developed in conjunction with French electricity giant EDF.

"One hundred electric cars from the Renault-Nissan alliance... will be tested from September 2010 for a year by individuals, companies and local authority employees" around Paris, Renault-Nissan and EDF said in a statement.

People testing the cars will be able to recharge them in their homes, at their workplace, in car parks and along roads, the companies said.

Renault-Nissan also announced a separate agreement with Italian energy group A2A to launch electric car tests in Milan's Lombardy region in 2010.

Renault-Nissan and EDF paired up last year to develop an "electric mobility operator" -- a full network providing charging spots and battery exchange stations for electric vehicles across France.

(Agencies)

Conviction reversed in web hoax that led to suicide

A camera operator covers Lori Drew as she leaves the federal courthouse in Los Angeles Thursday, July 2, 2009, after a federal judge tentatively threw out the convictions of the Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

Lori Drew leaves the federal courthouse in Los Angeles Thursday, July 2, 2009, after a federal judge tentatively threw out the convictions of the Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

A woman who was convicted of computer fraud in an Internet hoax that led to the suicide of 13-year-old girl was tentatively acquitted Thursday by a federal judge.

Lori Drew, 50, drew national scorn after it was revealed that she helped create a fictional boy on MySpace to befriend the girl and pump her for information about her on-again-off-again friendship with Drew's daughter.

Megan Meier, who was being treated for depression, hanged herself in 2006 after the fictitious boyfriend dumped her and told the Missouri girl that "the world would be a better place without you."

In November 2008, jurors acquitted Drew of the more serious charges of using a computer to intentionally inflict emotional harm but convicted her on three misdemeanor counts of illegally accessing a protected computer.

Judge George Wu said his decision to reverse the verdict is tentative and will not become final until he issues a written ruling.

Prosecutors had urged the judge to send Drew to federal prison for three years.

But her attorney argued that she should not even have to pay a fine because she had already suffered as a result of the bad publicity surrounding the case.

At a previous hearing, attorney Dean Steward argued that the facts used to support Drew's conviction on illegal access -- that she violated the website's terms of service by creating a false account -- do not constitute a criminal offense and there is no evidence she even knew the rules existed.

"This is conduct done every day by millions and millions of people," Wu said Friday in apparent agreement.

"How many times do people get on these 'match' sites and pretty much lie about everything? What is the crime here?"

The trial was held in Los Angeles because MySpace's servers are located in Beverly Hills.

Prosecutors in Missouri had declined to bring a case against Drew.

(Agencies)