Boot up: China's PC market overtakes US, Windows Phone 7 – the (preliminary) verdict, and more

China's PC market ... now bigger than US's

A quick burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

"PC shipments in the China market have exceeded those of the United States in the second quarter of 2011 (2Q11). Approximately 18.5m units worth US$11.9bn shipped in China during the quarter, compared to 17.7m units worth US$11.7bn in the U.S. China represented 22% of the global PC market's unit shipments compared to the US at 21%."

Nice implementation in HTML5 - though of course you'll need a compatible browser. Code at https://github.com/emmasax/Phone-hacking by Emmasax.

"Look, I recognize that no phone is perfect, no mobile OS is perfect, no technology is perfect, I'm not perfect, all of that. And Mango is, by and large, a good effort. But at this stage in the game, it's got to be on point if Microsoft has any hope of convincing people to turn their adoring eyes from iPhone or pull them away from the massive marketing machine of Android. Mango is good. A lot of people could use it every day and be totally happy with it. But it's not great."

Molly Wood is usually thought of as a Windows fan. (Thanks @Avro for the link.)

"Pretty much ever since Paul Buchheit suggested "Don't be evil" as a corporate values statement (and Amit Patel begun writing it on whiteboards around the office), any time Google does something people don't like, they begin calling it 'evil' and complaining that Google is violating its prime directive.
"But surely 'evil' means something more than just 'wrong' or 'bad'. If the girl across the street peers through your window to watch you undress, we might say that was bad and wrong and awful, but I don't think anyone would try to claim it was evil."

Thoughtful: captures the essence of how Google, and companies that succeed in building loyal customer bases, think, and how it differs from those which don't.

Intriguing investigation of how the ability to build stuff has leaked away across the Pacific: the two companies given as examples make an interesting contrast.

"The series of pie charts shows the sales of various music formats: Thus, you can see cassettes begin devouring the LP, and then CDs devouring cassettes, and then, of course, downloadable MP3s decimating CD sales:"

The trouble though is that it's jerky and less easy to follow than the same data as a straight line graph. Only us?

Includes Michael Dell.

"Robert McMillen, president of Portland, Ore.-based All Tech 1, a security solution provider with a strong mobile security business, said his company wasted no resources on the WebOS software or the TouchPad hardware because neither offered a value proposition for his customers.
"'We never had a single meeting with our staff about supporting [the HP TouchPad] platform,' he said. 'There was almost no information on security for this product. It wasn't built for business, it was built more for consumers. It wasn't even a blip on our radar.'"

And he's not alone. HP has burnt a lot of boats with this move.

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Windows phone 'Mango' production released: now wait until October

Cut mango slices. If Microsoft people buy five a day can... get Photo: Helen Rimmel

Microsoft has signed the code for the "mango" version of the operating system Windows phone - officially, the code has RTM had (appeared on production) - according to Windows team blog.

It, explains Terry Myerson, corporate Vice President in the Windows phone team (in fact of the daily Manager), that "this is the point in hand, where we code to our listeners and mobile operator partners to optimize of mango for their specific telephone and network configurations development."

(See our previous coverage of Windows phone mango for an idea of, what it contains.)

The good news: this is slightly above where it was expected, be (and certainly better than the original release of Windows phone that rewrite acquisition of risk Rosa - members and Windows Mobile Entertainment & device about the project from the $500 m caught up in the internal struggles within the Division have miles).

The bad news: It will be called "Windows Phone 7.5". We liked mango. For now stay with, we.

So it's at the end of July, in and out of the code is now so they have the entire August so mean, that should release in September, right...? Fear not. The complicated dance are telephone code right contains an extra layer that is not to the release of Windows OS to PC OEMs: the carriers.

So the mango into peoples hands (or a retailer shops), the processes are navigated:

• Cell phone manufacturers have mango against their new designs make sure that the code is run, really well on their systems to test

• Cell phone manufacturers have mango their old designs ensure that the code none caused catastrophic things happen, and that in fact only good things happen - not even indifferent to test. This worked with the first update to Windows phone ("Pre NoDo" update), which some LG phones mess when it rolled out in April.

• who have cell phone manufacturers (Nokia) to take their mobile phones to the carriers and allow them to test their networks. All air carriers insist on this as a precondition for the phones go in the network - new mobile phones; It is the same for Apple. (New iPhones are sent to carriers in sealed boxes, that the software can be tested.)

• If all in best order, then the carrier is will be know the cell phone manufacturers. This is of course by the slowest carrier to respond, in General.

This year there is a larger problem: much of Android phones and of course the new iPhones - expected in September - which are in the queue before the Windows phone mango phones. This may be a traffic jam, which will keep things.

This means that you should not expect the mango update to be rolled, or the new Windows phones (including Nokia's Sea Ray - no doubt, they find an exciting name, such as N9487) appear as a whole before October.

What was telling at least in terms of Nokia, which is I since February, have.

You may also want to consider, much like mango world, in the new OS be issued, the it in will be added. Many said that Windows phone non-competitive when (no cut + paste and various other things) published. Mango is a big improvement. The Windows team blog notes that it to talk to a single person multiple connections (IN IM, email, text) threading in a single view. Multi-tasking; and Internet Explorer 9. Not a word about Flash.

The question is whether it is large enough be after Apple's iOS 5 is released, and whether the next version of Android - codename ice cream sandwich - it is available until then. That is likely to have ingredients such as face tracking, a new application launcher, USB hosting (for a game controller), and simpler updates. Given the fact that Android notifications system is almost perfect, but its gingerbread keyboard system (in my opinion) is dire, perhaps is the UI improvements.

Whichever, not go mango, to have a soft landing.

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Vodafone 555 Facebook is blue phone to address emerging markets.

Vodafone is the latest company to reveal a Facebook phone, although the Vodafone-555-blue rather is emerging economies such as India as in the United Kingdom to a hit in mobile.

The device is a feature phone with Vodafone's proprietary operating system, but as Android or another Smartphone OS.

Made by TCL, the device has a 2.4 inch screen with a physical QWERTY keyboard, but is missing 3 g or Wi-Fi connectivity with 2.5 G / EDGE instead. It has a two-megapixel camera and micro SD card slot, with a dedicated Facebook button on the keyboard.

Buyers register their Facebook account, as soon as blue turn it the 555, and can sign up for the social network, if you already have an account.

Joanna Shields, Facebook's Vice President and managing director EMEA, said that the company hopes that the device in the developing countries of new registrations will be travelling. Meanwhile, access 250 million people Facebook from their phones.

"What they have done here really the most brilliant product out of the ground is created", said shields. "It is enabled in all aspects of Facebook."

555 Blue will go in various Vodafone markets including the United Kingdom in August in the sale. It is expected to cost less than $100 (about £ 60) on a prepay tariff, which will include a set of data usage.

"This is all about drive data growth in the segment of pre-pay", said Peter Becker-Pennrich, group terminals, marketing director at Vodafone Group. "How can we get an experience, abhebendes the real competition, and create nice and very relevant to this segment?"

In question, about the lack of 3 g or Wi-Fi, Becker-Pennrich proposed that users feel not negative, as updates and news about them over the air to be pushed. Continue to fall as prices for Android smartphones on pre-pay contracts, will face the 555 blue stiff competition in countries like the UK.

The deal is the latest mobile partnership for Facebook, that repeated proposals, the it a dedicated ' Facebook phone ' has rejected, touting instead would like to start a strategy of deep integration with many mobile phones.

To do this, Facebook is a central feature of Microsoft's Windows phone OS, while manufacturers release HTC mobile phone released two Android smartphones with dedicated buttons for Facebook has: the HTC salsa and HTC ChaCha - the Vodafone 555 Blue design is similar to the latter up to the blue Facebook button.

INQ was two Facebook phones of its own earlier in this year: the INQ cloud touch and INQ cloud Q, running also Android.

Apple has so far resistance of temptation, integrate Facebook into its iOS, instead striking a deal with Twitter that a flagship feature of the upcoming iOS are 5 software.

Facebook is intended, to an HTML5-based platform for social mobile Web applications, code name project Spartan according to the TechCrunch shovel work this year.

It will bring platform expected, iOS and other smart phones, complete with Facebook apps, Facebook credits payment system.

However blue sit phones like the 555 more by Facebook's efforts to drive use in emerging markets. Partnerships thanks the social network launched in May 2010 0.facebook.com, a stripped-down mobile site with NULL 3 g data charges with operators around the world.

More recently, Facebook launched a new every phone Java application that concerned itself only runs on more than 2,500 feature phones, and once again signed with operators to remove data charges, if only for a period of 90 days.

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