Google announced the new browser in a blog post Tuesday. It’s available only for Android devices running Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ever since Android was released Google has used a different code base for the browser at the heart of Android, although both Android’s browser and Chrome are based on the Webkit open-source platform that powers almost all mobile browsers these days. But Android’s browser was not considered as agile or stable as others in the Webkit family, while Google’s Chrome browser has been steadily winning converts on the PC.

It will probably take a while before Chrome on Android turns into the default browser, however, given the beta nature of the product and the fact that virtually everyone using Android is running an older version of the operating system. In an interview with AllThingsD, Chrome leader Sundar Pichai confirmed that Chrome will take over as the default browser on Android eventually.

That could mean trouble for companies like MoboTap, which develops the Dolphin browser as an Android browsing alternative. The majority of Dolphin users are on Android, and they’re the type of users that want a more powerful and stable browser: something that Chrome for Android might provide.

So what now becomes of Chrome OS, Google’s bid to redefine the computer as existing entirely within the browser? Google didn’t comment on that project in a few of the interviews it granted to discuss Chrome for Android, but Chrome OS has been a clear disappointment ever since it was announced, with very few people adopting Chromebooks as interest in the netbook concept has plummeted alongside rising interest in tablets.

Here’s a video explaining the features of the new browser:

Related

• Was Google's Disastrous January A Passing Storm Or Sign Of Things To Come?
• Google And ChromeBook Partners Cutting Prices For Holiday Season
• Canalys: Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Overtake PC/Tablet Market
• NPD: Apple Takes Top Three Slots For Smartphone Best-Sellers In U.S.

Apple took 43 percent of all smartphone sales in the U.S. in Q4, according to the analysts, with its newest model, the iPhone 4S, ranking first—but with equally impressive showings from devices that are now over a year old, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS. Together, the three accounted for 43 percent of all sales in the U.S.

Tellingly, the two devices rounding out the top-five are Android handsets from Samsung, underscoring the close competition between the two companies and platforms at the moment.

While NPD does not give out total unit figures, it does offer some pretty stark sales proportions to spell out just how well the devices sold comparatively. Ross Rubin, executive director at NPD, noted in a statement that the iPhone 4S outsold the iPhone 4 by 75 percent, and it also outsold the iPhone 3GS by five to one.

Together, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms accounted for 90 percent of all smartphone sales in the U.S., pointing to the immense and continuing challenge for companies like RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to find a look in to what is currently the world’s largest smartphone market.

How does this compare to sales worldwide? We have contacted NPD to get an idea of that as a point of comparison and will update this post as we learn more.

In terms of what it is that is driving users to the iPhone 4S above all others, NPD says that one feature appears to be the dulcet tones of Siri, the voice-controlled “personal assistant” as well as the fact that, with the addition of Sprint (NYSE: S) as a carrier, the iPhone 4S became the most widely-available of Apple’s phones.

Android, despite Apple’s huge gains over the quarter, is still the most-common smartphone platform, however, accounting for 48 percent of all devices. Given that those devices cover a huge range of price points they will continue to give Apple a run for its money. Indeed, when looking only at sales patterns with first-time smartphone buyers, 57 percent of them opted for Android handsets, versus 34 percent picking up iPhones. That may have also had somewhat of an impact on the average sale price for smartphones, which now stands at $143, compared to $148 a year ago.

Together, smartphones accounted for 68 percent of all sales in Q4, a huge rise on Q4 2010, when they covered 50 percent of all sales.

For as long as Facebook has been running its Facebook Credits program—the virtual currency that users can redeem on games and other content peddled through Facebook’s network—it has been letting users top up those Credits using their mobile phones. It does this in partnership with companies like (reportedly) Boku and (definitely) Zong, the payments company bought by eBay’s PayPal last year. Users can also top up their Credits via PayPal and credit cards.

It’s not known how much, exactly, is purchased via the mobile channel today, but it is an example of how mobile is actually already driving significant revenue for Facebook. “Facebook Credits make a lot of money through mobile phones,” enough that Zong was “growing very fast last year” because of Facebook purchases, according to Frederic Court, a partner with Advent Venture Parnters, one of the VCs that backed Zong before the eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) buy.

This is because while sometimes the mobile payments were actually more expensive than a PayPal or credit card transaction, they are often a lot quicker to do, especially if you are in the middle of a game. And, as with other mobile-based payment options, they appeal to those who don’t have or want to enter card details.

Commissions on those Credits netted Facebook $557 million in revenues in 2011. (Facebook writes in the S-1 that the “other fees” that it designates on the same line as Payments was “immaterial.”)

At this point, Facebook doesn’t take any commission on Credits that are purchased via mobile: that service—which uses the premium SMS channel to send a code to a user to redeem Credits on the main site, and then charges the amount directly to the user’s mobile bill—already has some other parties taking a cut, including the provider (eg Zong or Boku), the mobile carrier and even another processing middleman. Rather, Facebook’s cut comes in the form of a commission on the payments, similar to what Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) takes for transactions on its App Store. That fee is 30 percent.

Could Facebook eventually take more control of its payments, and potentially cut out some of those middle people? Probably not soon, in Court’s opinion. “Zong brought something to Facebook that it didn’t know how to do, and it became very deeply integrated,” he said. “I don’t see them starting to do what Zong does, which is connecting hundreds of operators.” Then again, he added, “When they have a worth of $100 billion with $10 billion on the balance sheet they can do pretty much anything they want.”

What’s interesting is that as Facebook starts to expand some of the other functionality on its mobile platform, that will also open up a lot more opportunities in terms of mobile transactions as well.

As Facebook enables and opens APIs to get publishers to build apps for its mobile platforms (via the web and apps), “Facebook will make sure those are monetized,” he said. “I have no doubt Facebook will be making money on mobile games and other content given the engagement and scale on mobile. There is an amazing opening there.” Paying for Credits that will actually get used on the device itself, he said, will be “even more natural.”

Facebook in the S-1 said it had 425 million monthly active users accessing the social network via mobile devices, with that number outpacing the growth of overall subscribers.

“Credits is a wallet that you can top up in all kinds of ways,” he said. “Facebook has created its own currency and has imposed that on anyone offering digital goods on Facebook.” If anything, that currency might have a life outside the platform, to to buy things outside of Facebook.

But even with the opportunity for Credits, Court doesn’t see this eventually overtaking revenues from whatever advertising Facebook plans to put on its mobile services “for a very simple reason,” which is down to how those games are played today. “If you look at Zynga, only between two and three percent of people who play actually pay. The rest play for free. Tt will be the same for Facebook on mobile, with only a fraction spending money,” he predicted. “With advertising, 100 percent of the population is exposed.”

Even though Facebook has listed “no mobile ads” as one of its risks on the S-1, it could be playing its cards very close to its chest: the last few days has been a lot of speculation already about how soon Facebook will launch those mobile ads.

Razorfish (via Digiday) says that it is already working on a pilot for rich-media ads for the social network.

The blog Inside Facebook, meanwhile, has put its money down on sponsored stories to be the “most likely” first stab at mobile advertising on the site, with running a mobile ad network the second-most likely option. (That’s one that we explored a bit yesterday as well.)

Update: Razorfish’s VP of mobile, Paul Gelb, has made a correction on how his comments were portrayed in the Digiday story (via Twitter): his agency is not working on any mobile ad buying with Facebook. “In the interview I was referring to rich media featured stories, not paid ads,” he said.

A Facebook spokesperson, via email, added the following: “We want to clarify that we are not working with any agency to create paid ads on our mobile platform.”

Related

• Updated: In-App Purchases To Overtake Sales From Paid Apps By 2013
• eBay Antes Up In Mobile Payments Game, Buys Zong For $240 Million
• Isis May Get $100M, But What Is The Future Of Its Mobile Technology?
• Another Key Win For Boku: A Deal With Telefonica's BlueVia
• Boku Now Powers Carrier Billing For Nearly All Of France
• Boku Inks Deals With Carriers In France, Korea For Mobile Payments
• Boku Raises More Money From New Advisors Andreessen Horowitz
• Facebook May Not Be Into Mobile Ads Yet, But Plenty Of Others Are
• Now Facebook Must Prove To Wall Street Its Ads Really Work
• The Facebook IPO Lowdown 2-1-12
• 2.7 Billion Daily Likes And Other Key Numbers From Facebook's S-1
• Facebook's Status Update: $5 Billion IPO Filed
• Social Network Ads: LinkedIn Falls Behind Twitter; Facebook Biggest Of All

The report, from the English-language China Daily, says that China Telecom released a statement this week that said it was beginning “preparatory work” to launch the iPhone 4S—the first time that China Telecom would offer one of Apple’s smartphones.

China Telecom has been talking of an iPhone launch for some time now, touting Apple’s work on a CDMA-based device even before the company launched its first non-UMTS handset with Verizon last year. It seems that the big holdup has been getting the right operating licenses for the device. There are three, and they have apparently now all been secured.

If China Telecom does indeed get the device in the next month, it will make it the third CDMA operator to carry the iPhone, after Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and Sprint (NYSE: S) in the U.S.

Pricing details for the device have not been disclosed but given how iPhone-crazy the Chinese public appear to be, this will probably kick-off a price war for the device—although the carriers’ offerings will likely still come at a premium compared to the cheap knock-offs that one can buy in the country.

The race for 3G subscribers is actually quite close in China: At the moment, the only carrier with the official right to sell the iPhone on its network is China Unicom, the second-largest operator after China Mobile; China Telecom ranks third. Among those, China Unicom is the fastest-growing, thanks in part to the success of the iPhone. Among the three of them, China Mobile still has the most 3G subscribers, with 51.2 million; China Unicom has 40 million; China Telecom has 36.3 million.

The move to add China Telecom as a carrier partner will also make a big difference to Apple’s exposure in the country. China Daily, citing figures from Gartner, notes that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) currently is the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the country, trailing behind Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Samsung and Huawei. 

Related

• Updated: Apple Gets Egged In Beijing, Halts iPhone 4S Sales In Its Stores

The company is also working closely with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), which is providing the software for its new top-end smartphones, to co-ordinate software details such as tile colours to match its hardware accessories, Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s head of design, told the Guardian.

New versions of the Lumia design, introduced to showcase Windows Phone in November, will also remove the flip-up plastic tab that presently covers the micro-USB charger for the phone – one of just two moving parts on the Lumia 800 phone.

“If you can take away a moving part and make it [the phone] more beautiful in the placement of the components, we’ll do it, so that’s something where we can certainly keep improving,” Ahtisaari told the Guardian. “Take it to the extreme, and why are there any connectors?”

Ahtisaari is extremely influential within Nokia (NYSE: NOK), having been appointed last week to its leadership team, reporting directly to chief executive Stephen Elop.The removal of the USB connector would imply the use of wireless charging – a system that has already been demonstrated by products such as HP’s TouchPad, which had a wireless charging system. A Nokia spokesman said the company declined to comment on future product features.

Speaking in Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland, earlier this month, Ahtisaari said that new elements will “ship with the product that we will ship in the future”. Nokia already has “open NFC” incorporated into a number of its smartphones to enable rapid, password-free setup of Bluetooth pairing between phones and accessories such as speakers and headsets.

Although current versions of Windows Phone do not include NFC elements, Microsoft has indicated that it could be included in versions shipping by October 2012. And Elop also said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that although the current Windows Phone Lumia models – the 800 and 900 – do not have NFC, “it is growing in importance, and I personally believe in it”.

NFC “open” allows Bluetooth pairing without the use of password by tapping the devices to be paired together: an exchange of electronic tokens takes place, so that Bluetooth connection – for a hi-fi, speakers or headset – can occur within seconds with virtually no other interaction. Current secure Bluetooth pairing otherwise requires the user to enter a password of up to eight digits.

Nokia has shipped more than a million Lumia phones since introducing them in November. The company decided to abandon its Symbian platform for high-end smartphones in January 2011 after Elop decided it could not compete against Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile operating systems.

He also suggested that touchscreen interaction is in its very early days, comparing it to the early days of the automobile: “In the 1880s in the car industry cars had tillers – it took 15 years to agree on the steering wheel controlling the front wheels. We’re in the middle of that part of the evolution of interaction.”

Charles Arthur’s trip to Finland was paid for by Finnfacts, an independent media service organisation that provides contacts between international media and Finnish business.

Related

• Nokia Tottering At The Top Of Mobile Rankings; Apple Leading Smartphones
• Nokia Q4: Scrambling For A Grip, But Still Falling; 1M+ Lumia Phones Sold
• At $99, Nokia And AT&T Hoping To Spark Interest In Lumia 900
• Analysts: Nokia Shipped Around 1.3 Million Lumias In Two Months

The $4 billion charge—$3 billion in fees and $1 billion in wireless spectrum to T-Mobile USA—put a big dampener the quarter, which otherwise saw big gains in what the carrier refers to as its “growth engines”: wireless services and specifically those around smartphones; wireline data, including its U-verse TV service; and business services.

Overall revenues were $32.5 billion for the quarter, coming in above analyst estimates according to a poll from Yahoo. Excluding the charges, earnings per share were $0.42, which missed average analysts’ estimates of $0.43. The total net loss for the quarter was $6.63 billion.

iPhone juggernaut. It’s been a year since AT&T lost its exclusive grip on the iPhone in the U.S. but such is the power of the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) brand in wireless right now, and AT&T’s continuing hold on its original iPhone customers, that the carrier nevertheless continues to get great dividends out of its association with it. AT&T said that it made 7.6 million iPhone activations for the quarter, with overall smartphone sales totaling 9.4 million devices.

AT&T didn’t spell out exactly how many iPhones it sold of those activated—and indeed some could have been bought directly from Apple unlocked. But if you assume that most would have been bought directly via AT&T, that works out to AT&T accounting for some 20 percent of the 37 million iPhones Apple sold in the last quarter, and iPhone accounting for some 80 percent of AT&T’s smartphone sales.

It also shows that despite some of the negative press that AT&T has faced over the quality of its wireless data network, it is still holding on to its customers over competitors Verizon and Sprint (NYSE: S). In its earnings earlier this week, Verizon noted that it had sold 7.7 million smartphones and seen 4.3 million iPhone activations in the quarter.

Correspondingly, AT&T said it saw a 10 percent growth in wireless revenues to $16.7 billion. Wireless data revenue growth is outstripping that of mobile revenues overall: it was $5.9 billion, up nearly 20 percent on a year ago, which AT&T says was driven by internet access, app usage and messaging.

AT&T’s fixed digital content play isn’t doing so bad, either. Revenues for its U-verse high-speed broadband and TV service were up by almost 44 percent over a year ago, and partly offset declines in DSL. Still not by enough: total revenues for wireline services were down by 1.4 percent to $14.9 billion.

AT&T does not break out tablets as an individual category and instead groups them with other non-phone “branded computing devices” like aircards. It said it had its best-ever quarter for the category, with sales of 571,000 with total subscribers now numbering 5.1 million, a rise of 70 percent.

Related

• Verizon Moved 4.2 Million iPhones In Q4 But Costs Higher Than Expected

Nokia currently has two models Windows Phone devices in the market, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, both 3G models, and is planning to launch a new 4G version in the U.S. in March of this year.

The day before Nokia’s results, a trio of news items released by the company—combined with the “leak” that it would be offering its first 4G phone, the Lumia 900, at a massive discount to the rest of the 4G offerings out there—looked a little like padding for worse news to come today, and that’s more or less what we got:

Handset unit sales were down eight percent to 113.5 million.

Feature phones actually held up in their unit sales: 93.9 million for the quarter, down by only one percent.

Smartphones, however, did significantly worse: 19.6 million devices, down 31 percent.

Device revenues overall were €6 billion, down 29 percent. Again, the biggest weakness was in smartphones, which had sales of €2.74 billion, down 38 percent.

Not surprisingly, Nokia is very much trying to draw a line under last year, one of profound transformation for the company, and look ahead to what 2012 will hold.

It’s taking a very aggressive strategy to pick up much-needed market share for its devices in key markets like the U.S. and UK, offering its handsets at massive discounts—and in the case of the UK, even free under certain contracts. That tactic will come at a big price though: unless Nokia has worked out a way to make high-end devices for less money than its competitors, it will continue to see erosion of its margins and device average selling price. In other words, it might win business, but at what cost?

In the quarter just ended, those margins continued their decline. In this quarter Nokia reported gross margins of 23.7 percent on smart devices, compared to 30.8 percent for the same quarter a year ago. ASP for smartphones was down by only three percent to €140—a figure that was helped by sales of more expensive models such as the N9 and the Lumia 800, according to Nokia. Feature phones saw a decline of 10 percent in ASP to €35, their lowest price yet.

Windows Phone sales. Nokia reached a milestone—or a “beachhead” as it calls it—by selling more than 1 million Lumia handsets. But this number is still a far, far cry from the 20.8 million smart devices that Nokia sold in Q4 of 2009, let alone the 37 million iPhones sold by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) sold in Q4 2011.

The Windows Phone platform, according to figures from Kantar out this week, accounted for less than two percent of sales in any of the nine countries it surveys as a barometer of smartphone demand. That points to a very long road ahead for both companies to bring those numbers into a more credibly competing realm.

Nokia says that it will introduce its first WP7 devices into China and Latin America in the first half of 2012. This is important for a number of reasons: Greater China is currently Nokia’s second-largest market after Europe (€5 billion in device sales for China compared to €7 billion for Europe), but it is declining, seeing an 18 percent drop in revenues over last year and 20 percent in volumes. Meanwhile, LatAm is Nokia’s second-smallest market after North America but it’s one of the only ones that is growing (Middle East being the other growth region.) In LatAm, Nokia had sales of €2.5 billion on volumes of 46 million units.

LatAm and China are also both markets where Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has yet to introduce Windows Phone, and where there is still a lot of room for smartphone growth—something that Apple, RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) and Android makers have not overlooked, either. Still, that means a population of consumers with less preconceptions about Android and iOS being “the” smartphone platforms of the future—getting through to those consumers is crucial if Microsoft truly hopes to makes its OS a truly global smartphone player.

Design front and center. In one more move to shore up confidence for the year ahead, Nokia today, separately, also announced that Marko Ahtisaari has been promoted to the position of EVP of design, and has also joined the company’s leadership team. Ahtisaari is a Nokia veteran who left the company and then returned after it acquired his social networking startup Dopplr. The emphasis on design is a significant one, considering that this is where Nokia will have to differentiate and excel in the years ahead as it makes phones on a platform—Windows Phone—that is also being used by its competitors.

During the earnings analyst call, Nokia executives gave a bit more color to the results:

CEO Stephen Elop acknowledged some of the big issues facing declining sales for the Symbian platform but still said the company would continue to remain committed to supporting the OS through 2016. Nokia earlier this year struck an outsourcing deal with Accenture to take over the management of the platform as part of its gradual winding down of operations. In the last year, Nokia has rolled out several new devices based on Symbian, and has a roadmap for updates to the software for the year ahead.

Nokia also highlighted the platform support payments and licensing fees that Microsoft and Nokia are paying each other. It was described by the company’s CFO Timo Ihamuotila as a “competitive” structure that will run in the billions of dollars between the two companies—although no indication of which party benefits more financially from those. This last quarter, Nokia recorded a payment of $250 million from Microsoft as a result of this arrangement and did not specify whether it paid out money to Microsoft as well. Consider that without that quarter-billion dollar payment those bottom-line results would have been even more gloomy.

The company will be offering a dividend of 20 euro cents per share and has no plans for stock repurchases in the year ahead.

Elop also highlighted something we have heard many times already—from carriers and Nokia itself: “The third ecosystem” argument is “very strong” with carriers. One wonders what that might mean between the lines. More big discounts, subsidized by operators, in the pipeline? More large orders ahead? Preferential treatment for Nokia over other platforms and handset makers?

Related

• Nokia Clears The Decks Of Its Burning Platform Ahead Of Results Tomorrow
• At $99, Nokia And AT&T Hoping To Spark Interest In Lumia 900
• Why Apple Just Pulled Off The Company's First True Post-PC Quarter
• 2012 Mobile Ad Spend Revised Up To $2.6 Billion, Google Fueling The Machine
• The Year Of The Dumb And Dumber, Sub-$100 Smartphone - 500 Million Of Them
• Nokia: Three New Symbian Belle Devices Launched Today, One Costing $260
• Kantar: Apple Back On Top As Bestselling Smartphone In The U.S.

BGR first reported the pricing strategy, which was also confirmed by CNET. AT&T is eyeing a March 18th launch date for the Windows Phone Lumia 900, which joins the Lumia 710 on T-Mobile’s network as engine of Nokia’s comeback hopes for the U.S. market, where it has historically struggled.

AT&T offers three LTE Android phones at the moment: the HTC Vivid, the Samsung Galaxy S II, and the LG (SEO: 066570) Nitro, all of which cost $199 with a two-year contract (although the HTC Vivid is currently available for $99 online). Verizon’s LTE phones, which include the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Motorola (NYSE: MMI) Razr, are priced anywhere from $299 for the Galaxy Nexus to free for the HTC Thunderbolt.

So the Lumia 900 may not be the cheapest LTE phone on the market when it arrives in March but it will definitely fall into a competitive pricing band that includes Android phones that are starting to get a little old by the hyper-quick standards of this market. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) also seems determined to help its partner revive Microsoft’s mobile division, which is believed to make more money from Android licensing deals than it does from software.

Related

• Nokia Clears The Decks Of Its Burning Platform Ahead Of Results Tomorrow
• Analysts: Nokia Shipped Around 1.3 Million Lumias In Two Months
• Microsoft Nabs Another Android Patent Licensee With LG Deal
• @ CES: Nokia Determined To Battle In America With Lumia 900
• Nokia's First Windows Phone For The U.S., The Lumia 710 With T-Mobile

Boxee’s Live TV dongle, available for pre-order for $50 device, connects the Boxee Box streaming device (via USB port) to an ATSC antenna, allowing users to access the HD signals of over-the-air broadcast channels including the Big Five Networks.

Now, in addition to streaming video content from platforms like Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and Vudu, Boxee users can watch those episodes of Big Bang Theory they’ve been missing. (But Boxee still doesn’t have a digital video recorder option to time-shift this kind of viewing.) And as TechCrunch noted Tuesday, those who get their broadband service through cable providers might also be able to access a handful of basic-cable channels by porting the cable feed through the device. Boxee also released the latest version of its device software, which includes a new user interface to support these channel inputs, among other refinements.

Boxee, which says it has 2 million registered users, ranks third in the so-called over-the-top (OTT) set-top box category, behind Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) TV and Roku. Boxee’s market share is only a small slice of a total category user base that the company says numbers about 15 million. The company argues that its newest enhancements will help it justify having the highest price point in the category—D-Link’s Boxee Box sells for $180. “In one fell swoop, Live TV has allowed us to add 89 of the top 100 shows to Boxee, and to create a seamless experience between broadcast and internet content that Roku and Apple TV can’t match,” Boxee VP of marketing Andrew Kippen told us.

For their part, cable and satellite providers have sensed the threat from the new competition, and have tried to beef up their own product offerings like digital video recording. And while TV services like DirecTV have continued to raise prices across the board, they’ve begun allowing some customers who threaten them with cord-cutting to renegotiate their monthly rates (this reporter was able to have his bill reduced by the satellite carrier from $87 to $57 in December using that leverage).

How widespread is cord cutting? Bain Capital, in figures released last year, found the trend is still in its very early stages. However, the company’s research also determined that one-third of cable and satellite subscribers would give up their subscription for the right alternative. Bain also found that 13 percent of subscribers would prefer a “cable light” option, whereby they access only a handful of basic-cable channels for a much lower price.

Related

• Boxee's Latest Cord-Cutter Tool: A Cable Set-Top Box 'Stick'
• Boxee Adds Indie-Film Hub Fandor
• Boxee Going Overseas, Launching TV Payments With CBS
• What's Coming In 2012: Internet TVs Out-Box The Boxes
• Roku Aims To Launch In UK And Canada In 2012

The new service, due to launch in mid-February, this week opened its doors for pre-registration for “small businesses, traveling salespeople and other hard-working Brits”, to received free, square-shaped dongles that plug into a mobile device to let merchants scan people’s credit and debit cards.

Like Square, mPowa will make its money on a fee charged per transaction. Unlike Square, the fee will be lower: 0.25 percent per charge.

mPowa says when it goes live it will work on iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry devices. A spokesperson for the company tells paidContent that the apps to make the dongle work on these platforms are still pending approval.

The spokesperson declined to say whether any companies have signed up to use the service yet. The start-up’s parent company, Powa, already has a relationship with Barclay’s, which has an exclusive deal to sell Powa’s web-based e-commerce platform to businesses in the UK. Some thought that might mean Barclay’s would also distribute the dongles on behalf of mPowa, too—although this has not been confirmed by either party.

We have asked mPowa whether it is at all worried about whether it could face any legal problems from Square for making a device that works and looks so similar to it—or whether it is actually licensing some IP or other technology from Square. We have also asked Square whether this new product poses any issues. When either company responds we will update this post.

In any case, the fact that Square has not launched yet in the UK presents an opportunity for other mobile payment companies to make their own mark among retailers.

Although there have been various mobile payment services around for years already, Square has been a breakout success in the U.S. for the fact that it rides quite neatly on the smartphone boom and makes it very easy for small merchants to use these devices to take payments and cut out expensive, incumbent merchant acquiring companies in the process.

Since launching it has also introduced other services like loyalty programs and location-based alerts. For what it’s worth, it looks like mPowa is also looking to offer other services on top of the card-swiping capability.

Last year Square raised huge funds from high-profile investors, including Visa; a $100 million Series-C round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, valuing the company at $1 billion; and an undisclosed amount from Sir Richard Branson.

In November, the company said it shipped 800,000 dongles so far and processed $2 billion in payments annually. It also said it planned to launch internationally sometime this year.

Related

• Branson's Next Mobile Act: An Investment In Mobile Payments Startup Square
• Not So Square Anymore: Dorsey's Payment Startup Gets $100M, Valued At $1Bn
• PayPal Hits 100 Million Users As Mobile-Payments War Heats up
• Square's New Mobile Payment Apps Let You Ring Up A Tab
• Visa Invests In Mobile Payment Startup Square

The discussion started with a little tour de table, in which everyone had to explain his/her view of the law. I used the standard Alcoholic Anonymous introduction: “I’m Frederic, and I’ve been downloading for several years. I started with the seven seasons of The West Wing, and I keep downloading at a sustained rate. Worse, my kids inherited my reprehensible habit and I failed to curb their bad behavior. Even worse, I harbor no intent to give up since I refuse to wait until next year to see a dubbed version of Damages on a French TV network… I can’t stand Glenn Close speaking French, you see…” It turned out that everybody admitted to copious downloading, making this little sample of the anti-Sarkozy media elite a potential target for HADOPI enforcers. (Since then, parliamentary filibuster managed to emasculate the bill.)

When it comes to digital piracy, there is a great deal of hypocrisy. One way another, everyone is involved.

For some large players — allegedly on the plaintiff side — the sinning even takes industrial proportions. Take the music industry.

In October 2003, Wired ran this interesting piece about a company specialized in tracking entertainment contents over the internet. BigChampagne, located in Beverly Hills, is for the digital era what Billboard magazine was in the analog world. Except that BigChampagne is essentially tracking illegal contents that circulates on the web. It does so with incredible precision by matching IP numbers and zip code, finding out what’s hot on peer-to-peer networks. In his Wired piece, Jeff Howe explains:

BigChampagne’s clients can pull up information about popularity and market share (what percentage of file-sharers have a given song). They can also drill down into specific markets – to see, for example, that 38.35 percent of file-sharers in Omaha, Nebraska, have a song from the new 50 Cent album.

No wonder some clients pay BigChampagne up to $40,000 a month for such data. They use BigChampagne’s valuable intelligence to apply gentle pressure on local radio station to air the very tunes favored by downloaders. For a long time, illegal file-sharing has been a powerful market and promotional tool for the music industry.

For the software industry, tolerance of pirated contents has been part of the ecosystem for quite a while as well. Many of us recall relying on pirated versions of Photoshop, Illustrator or Quark Xpress to learn how to use those products. It is widely assumed that Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) and Quark have floated new releases of their products to spread the word-of-mouth among creative users. And it worked fine. (Now, everyone relies on a much more efficient and controlled mechanism of test versions, free trials, video tutorials, etc.)

There is no doubt, though, that piracy is inflicting a great deal of harm on the software industry. Take Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and the Chinese market. For the Seattle firm, the US and the Chinese markets are roughly of the same size: 75 million PC shipments in the US for 2010, 68 million in China. There, 78 percent of PC software is pirated, vs. 20 percent in the US; as a result, Microsoft makes the same revenue from the Chinese than from… the Netherlands.

More broadly, how large is piracy today? At the last Consumer Electronic Show, the British market intelligence firm Envisional Ltd. presented its remarkable State of Digital Piracy Study (PDF here). Here are some highlights:

—Pirated contents accounts for 24 percent of the worldwide internet bandwidth consumption.>

—The biggest chunk is carried by BitTorrent (the protocol used for file sharing); it weighs about 40 percent of the illegitimate content in Europe and 20 percent in the US (including downstream and upstream). Worldwide, BitTorrent gets 250 million UVs per month.

—The second tier is made by the so-called cyberlockers (5 percent of the global bandwidth), among them the infamous MegaUpload, raided a few days ago by the FBI and the New Zealand police. On the 500 million uniques visitors per month to cyberlockers, MegaUpload drained 93 million UVs. (To put things in perspective, the entire US newspaper industry gets about 110 million UVs per month). The Cyberlockers segment has twice the users but consumes eight times less bandwidth than BitTorrent simply because files are much bigger on the peer-to-peer system.

—The third significant segment in piracy is illegal video streaming (1.4 percent of the global bandwidth.)

There are three ways to fight piracy: endless legal actions, legally blocking access, or creating alternative legit offers.

The sue-them-untill-they-die approach is mostly a US-centric one. It will never yield great results (aside from huge legal fees) due to the decentralized nature of the internet (there is no central servers for BitTorrent) and to the tolerance in countries in harboring cyberlockers.

As for law-based enforcement systems such has the French HADOPI or American SOPA/PIPA, they don’t work either. HADOPI proved to be porous as chalk, and the US lawmakers had to yield to the public outcry. Both bills were poorly designed and inefficient.

The figures compiled by Envisional Ltd. are indeed a plea for the third approach, that is the creation of legitimate offers.

Take a look at the figures below, which shows the peak bandwidth distribution between the US and Europe. You will notice that the paid-for Netflix service takes exactly the same amount of traffic as BitTorrent does in Europe!

US Bandwidth Consumption:

Europe Bandwidth Consumption:

Source : Envisional Ltd

These stats offer a compelling proof that creating legitimate commercial alternatives is a good way to contain piracy. The conclusion is hardly news. The choice between pirated and legit content is a combination of ease-of-use, pricing and availability on a given market. For contents such as music, TV series or movies, services like Netflix, iTunes or even BBC iPlayer go in the right direction.

But one key obstacle remains: the balkanized internet (see a previous Monday Note Balkanizing the Web), i.e. the country zoning system. By slicing the global audience in regional markets, both the industry (Apple, for instance) and the local governments neglect a key fact: today’s digital audience is getting increasingly multilingual or at least more eager to consume content in English as it is released. Today we have entertainment products, carefully designed to fit a global audience, waiting months before becoming available on the global market. As long as this absurdity remains, piracy will flourish. As for the price, it has to match the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) generated by an advertising-supported broadcast. For that matter, I doubt a TV viewer of the Breaking Bad series comes close to yielding an advertising revenue that matches the $34.99 Apple is asking for the purchase of the entire season IV. Maintaining such gap also fuels piracy.

I want Netflix, BBC iPlayer and an unlocked and cheaper iTunes everywhere, now. Please. In the meantime, I keep my Vuze BitTorrent downloader on my computer. Just in case.

Based in Paris, Frédéric Filloux is the GM of the French ePresse consortium. He also edits the Monday Note, where this was first published. It is posted here with his permission.

Related

• Megaupload Case Grows Bigger, Stranger
• Leaders In House And Senate Postpone Anti-Piracy Efforts
• Europe Says It Won't Adopt 'Bad' Digital Policy Like SOPA
• Over 9,000 Hackers Join Anonymous DDoS SOPA/Megaupload Protest
• SOPA Blackout, Anonymous-Style: FBI, DOJ Sites Downed In Megaupload Protest
• Updated: Day After Piracy Bill Collapses, Feds Shut Down Megaupload
• Tech Industry Breaks Back Of SOPA As Republicans Jump Ship On Black-out Day

Update: We’ve also published a new story with further developments here. [To read about how events unfolded last night, continue reading below…]

Using distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the hackers have gone after the Department of Justice’s site, the RIAA, the MPAA and the major record labels—so far Universal, BMI and Warner Music Group have been affected.

At the moment, the hackers are updating a Twitter feed with news of developments of the attack, which it is code-naming #OpMegaupload. It also appears that it is also going after related sites outside of the U.S. as well.

A series of messages posted on Anonymous’ Twitter feed, have detailed the group’s trail of destruction across the internet.

They are covering not just U.S. sites but also extending their work to similar organizations in Europe, such as Hadopi.fr, which is now also down.

Hadopi is the French law that was introduced in 2009 and is used to regulate internet access and copyright violations in France. This controversial bill basically outlines a three-strikes procedure for suspending internet access for those who download illegal content. There are legislators now considering how to apply this to streamed services as well, which are currently not covered.

Taking down government sites like the DOJ’s and potentially the FBI’s—the Anonymous Twitter feed has mentioned it is working on the latter, although at the time of writing the FBI’s site is still up—could mean the group would be subject not just to felony charges but also potentially terrorist violations.

Update: FBI.gov is now down, too.

Cases involving the prosecution of Anonymous hackers are still being played out, so it’s not clear what route authorities may take over this current spate of attacks: hackers that were identified as part of Anonymous are currently being prosecuted in California for allegedly hacking PayPal when the Ebay-owned payments provider halted payments to Wikileaks. Defendants in that case pleaded not guilty in November 2011.

This case could be considerably more difficult to track for authorities: Anonymous says that there are 5,635 people confirmed to be working towards taking down sites.

A DDoS attack can mean several things, but one of the most common is when a person or network of people “attack” a site or server with a flood of communications requests, so that the target cannot respond to normal requests.

Adrian Chen at Gawker further describes how those DDoS attacks are getting amplified using viral techniques: hackers are at the moment spamming out links that effectively rope innocent users into also taking part in the attacks, by clicking on the links to automatically start pinging one of the sites on the target list.

Many of the sites listed above are simply leading to blank pages now, or “down for maintenance” pages, but one site, for the Utah police association, which might have less administrators than those of the DOJ, has been hacked with a message from the hackers about Megaupload:

The MPAA, meanwhile, has taken to posting Twitpics of its statements—for the moment, it has no website to use to post them, and a Twitpic can’t get hacked. “Our website and many others…were attacked today,” begins the 150-word statement. It also says it is working with law enforcement agencies to identify those responsible, and that “Protecting copyrights and protecting free speech go hand in hand.”

Update 2: Several of these sites are back up and running, but so is Anonymous’ own effort, with some 9,000 users participating in its site take-down. Read about other developments in this separate post.

Related

• Updated: Day After Piracy Bill Collapses, Feds Shut Down Megaupload
• Over 9,000 Hackers Join Anonymous DDoS SOPA/Megaupload Protest

In a new report bringing together dozens of predictions in telecoms, media and technology for the year ahead, Deloitte paints a picture of a “dumber” smartphone than the ones we know today. Largely absent will be Android, iOS, RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), Symbian and Windows Phone. In their place, closed, proprietary platforms:

“Many consumers, particularly middle majority adopters, are likely to consider phones as smart if they have touch screens or full keyboards and not what intangible OS is under the hood,” Deloitte writes.

Nor will many of them even carry 3G—instead running on slower data services like GRPS and EDGE, because chipsets for faster data will still cost too much to integrate into cheap handsets.

However, WiFi is likely to become a “standard” feature of these devices, as will email, instant messaging, a pared-down form of apps and a camera—a list of services, that, along with the touchscreens, seem to now be the smartphone bare essentials. As prices for components continue to drop, specifications for these sub-$100 phones will continue to get better (or smarter, as the case may be).

Deloitte says that a lot of these devices are aimed at developing markets, but points out that there is also an opportunity in more advanced markets where economies are “stagnant.”

With companies like Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Samsung looking drive improvements and experience in their feature phone platforms (Nokia recently buying Smarterphone, and Samsung looking to progress its bada platform by merging features with its new Tizen project), the implication here is that the boom in smartphones is even driving growth in the feature phone segment—feature phones, that is, that can now be considered slightly less-clever smartphones.

Deloitte predicts that in 2012, there will be at least 300 million of these sub-$100 handsets sold to consumers worldwide, which they have added to the 200 million they estimate were sold at this price point this year.

Related

• Samsung Is Doing Well; Now Raising $1bn, Looking To Tizen To Do Better?
• Nokia Buys Norway's Smarterphone To Spruce Up Its Feature Phone OS

The dressing down came in response to “Only In the Alley,” a glossy calendar of New York tech types strutting beside their company names. Or, in the words of the Merc News, a confirmation of the city’s reputation for “flashy, soulless advertising.”

The calendar, created by the heads of app developer SNAP Interactive and entertainment site Hotlist, features companies like Livestream, Thrillist and Mashable.

But the west coast is not exactly shaking in its boots.

After issuing a challenge in the introduction—“Bring it on, Silicon Valley”—the calendar offers fashion-shoot-like photos of tech entrepreneurs in New York City, highlighting ideas such as online dating, a database of local doctors, a daily-deals site and an online beauty-products store.

How innovative!

How could analysts think Facebook will have 2012’s biggest IPO when these companies are around? [...]

And feel free to contact IA with ideas about a Silicon Valley response for 2013. Maybe just pictures of the headquarters of the biggest tech companies in the world? They’re all here

.

Ouch. But then again, if the calendar gambit was intended as a publicity stunt, Silicon Valley’s paper of record took the bait.

More seriously, it’s starting to feel that there may be more at stake in the east-west tech dispute than idle bragging rights.

Recall that Mayor Mike Bloomberg, as part of a bid to make New York a “technology capital,” opened the year promising to learn coding while San Francisco’s mayor last week announced a scheme to bring the tech community directly inside city government.

And it’s still unclear what led Silicon Valley’s intellectual jewel, Stanford University, to abruptly pull out of a contest to install a science graduate school near the Upper East Side (New Yorkers had for months assumed Stanford was the default winner but the school bailed in December and Cornell was selected instead).

It looks like the Silicon Valley vs. Silicon Alley story is far from finished but, on this bitter winter day in New York, the west coast sure looks more appealing for technology companies (and everyone else).

Related

• Don't Hold Breath For TechCrunch-Silicon Alley Insider Pairing

Predictably, the company’s stock rose on the news by some five percent when the report emerged yesterday, originally at the Fox Business site. RIM’s stock has declined in value by some 75 percent in the last year, as its share of worldwide sales of smartphones has declined. The latest figures from Gartner, covering Q3, 2011, note that RIM’s BlackBerry platform had an 11 percent share of smartphone sales, down from 15.4 percent of smartphone sales in the same quarter a year ago.

The Fox (NSDQ: NWS) report says that Goldman will be exploring “strategic options” for the company. If it is true, it could mean RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) merging with another company; or it could mean a sale of parts. One investor, Jaguar Financial, has advocated RIM selling its handset business, and its many valuable patents, and then focusing on services—although it is questionable whether those mobile services like email and BBM have enough steam in them to run on their own without the direct link to the devices designed for them. That would also be a massive step away from the “vertical” company model, used by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), that so many hold up as essential for success today.

Perhaps more significantly than the 4.4 percent decline in smartphone market share that RIM has faced is the fact that many investors, and a sizable-enough swathe of the general public, have largely seemed to lose confidence in the company after a disastrous year.

Problems included a less-than-spectacular entry into the tablet market with the PlayBook; legal hiccups surrounding the launch of the next OS for its phones BlackBerry 10; and a major international service outage that knocked out email, BlackBerry Messenger, Internet and other data services for thousands of its customers.

The role that BBM played in helping enable communications between rioters last year in London was not the company’s fault, but it didn’t exactly heap good PR on the company, either.

On top of all that, there are many lingering questions over whether the company’s longtime management structure, with co-CEOs, is really the best way to move ahead in the current market climate, faced as RIM is with competition from all sides: on platforms in the form of iOS, Android and potentially Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7; and in devices again from Apple, plus the many licensees making devices using those other operating systems. RIM is now apparently changing how it runs things, but perhaps not soon and drastically enough.

As for would-be buyers for RIM, names that have been floated include the usual suspects among large companies that might be on the hunt for a bolt-on acquisition that would give it instant scale in mobile: among them, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), presumably to beef up their mobile push and for the enterprise services part; and a joint bid from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK), which would probably be more for the mobile enterprise customer base, and a complement to the handsets Nokia makes already.

And while we’re throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, what about LG, or Dell?

Related

• Why The Canadian Government Wouldn't Block A RIM Takeover
• Why RIM Needed To Fire Its Co-CEOs Months, If Not Years Ago
• Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? RIM Shamed Again By Trademark Defeat
• Woes Piling Up For RIM? BlackBerry Makers' Shares Dip Below Book Value
• RIM Agrees To Examine Management Structure Under Shareholder Pressure
• Another Trademark Suit For RIM, This Time Over BBM
• UK Government Wants Police Empowered To 'Close' Twitter, BBM
• RIM: $485 Million Charge On PlayBook Surplus, Admits It Won't Make Targets
• BlackBerry Hit With Lawsuits Over Outage, But Cases Look Weak

This 4G auction—covering unused spectrum in the 800MHz band, along with higher-frequency airwaves in the 2.6GHz band—had previously been scheduled for the first quarter of 2012, and for those keeping track was talked about as early as 2009. Ofcom had to delay that when major operators protested Ofcom’s proposals for how it would allocate spectrum (the combined JV of Orange and T-Mobile and their existing spectrum presented one issue; another was how Three, the smallest of them, would get a fair shake). The regulator’s priorities are to make sure that there are four strong competitors, but it also wants to ensure that it raises the highest amount of money possible from those operators in exchange for the licenses.

The 3G auction in UK in 2000 raised a ridiculous amount of money for the UK government: £22.47 billion ($35.4 billion), with Orange, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Airtel (now just called Vodafone), O2 (then owned by BT (NYSE: BT) and called Cellnet), One2One (now known as T-Mobile) and new entrant Hutchison Whampoa (now called Three) all winning spectrum. Operators in the UK and elsewhere in Europe ended up having to write down some of the value of those costly 3G projects.

The advantage of a delay is that it has given Ofcom a chance to revisit some of the requirements that it will put on would-be 4G operators. It should be noted that so far it is staying out of saying what kind of services should run on those 4G networks, although it looks like LTE is the most-preferred technology among those operators.

And the disadvantage of the delay? Despite the UK government’s constant claims of being a digital leader, the UK is not very trailblazing in this case. Ofcom notes that mobile data demand in Europe is expected to grow by more than 500 percent in the next five years. For those in the UK who like to use mobile services, hopefully this delay to 4G auctions and commercial rollouts will be the last.

Some of the highlights from the consultation released by Ofcom today (full documentation can be found here):

—98 percent cover: Ofcom proposes that 4G services will cover “at least” 98 percent of the UK population. That’s higher than 3G today, and represents an increase on the 95 percent requirement originally laid out in Ofcom’s first consultation. The UK government is investing £150 in building out coverage to “not-spots”, and one option Ofcom lists is to potentially link up one of the bidders with this government scheme to support that rollout. It will effectively mean that more remote parts of the UK will be using mobile broadband in place of fixed broadband to be connected.

—Competition: This time around, Orange and T-Mobile are bidding as one in their Everything Everywhere venture, bringing the existing mobile network operators down to four, not counting the possibility of another company emerging and bidding for spectrum. Ofcom said today that it believed “at least four” was the right number of operators in 4G to ensure effective competition.

What’s interesting is that Ofcom proposes keeping aside some of the 2.6GHz spectrum for a group of new entrants to use for new services (such as those on educational campuses). It’s not clear whether that group would count as one of Ofcom’s “at least four” operators and what other allowances they might get.

—New deadline: Interested parties now have 10 weeks to comment on these proposals with a final decision coming in 2012 and the auction starting a few months later.

Related

• UK Launches LTE Trial, But Is It Falling Behind In The 4G Race?
• Piracy Much Higher Than Freeloaders Confess To, Ofcom Told
• Mobile Data Use Expected To Grow 21x By 2015
• Mobile News Consumption Is Highest In UK
• Linear TV Consumption Is Growing, But Is Ad Spend?
• Smartphone Penetration Approaching Tipping Point As PC Usage Declines

Of course, the big news this week was Tom Hanks partnering with Yahoo for the animated series “Electric City.” Hanks, one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, said he was drawn by the opportunity to make “ambiguous attractive” which feels like another way of saying he’s searching for greater creative freedom. While creativity may be motivating Hanks, in Louis C.K.‘s case, it seems more about tweaking the System and proving that when presented with a compelling offer (in this case a $5 DRM-free download of his “Live at the Beacon Theater” special), people will behave properly (i.e. pay rather than steal).

All of these initiatives are risky, but the prerequisites for them to succeed are firming up as well. Most important, established companies like YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), AOL (NYSE: AOL), Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and Hulu are leading the charge, and seem ready to invest in and deficit finance these productions. Each has meaningful original content initiatives, underpinned by their sizable audiences and monetization capabilities (whether ad-supported or subscription-based). They are each doing their part to create an ecosystem of third-party production houses gaining expertise in digital, and therefore poised to help subsequent stars succeed in the online medium. Often big brands are getting involved early on, enticed by customized, high-value opportunities.

In addition, there are countless independent online vide sites that are attracting big audiences, increasing their content quality and building their own brands. In this group are sites and producers like Machinima, Revision3, Maker Studios and others.

One final - and crucial - piece to the picture are the connected TVs and devices that allow audiences to experience these new shows in a familiar and high-quality, lean-back mode. Watching short clips on computers jump-started the online video industry, but to make it a mainstream entertainment experience requires conforming to viewers’ expectations. The proliferation of connected TVs, gaming consoles, Blu-ray players, tablets, Rokus, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) TVs, etc. is creating a massive user base that can tune into these online-only productions as easily as flipping conventional channels.

And that brings us to the question of what impact all of these initiatives will have on the traditional Hollywood ecosystem. I think it’s inevitable that audience fragmentation will increase further. Just as cable TV networks have splintered broadcast TV audiences over the last 30 years, online is now going to sub-divide all of TV. Many on-demand viewers are already oblivious to what channel a particular program actually appears on; to this audience there will be no big behavior leap required to navigate to Tom Hanks’ or another star’s new online show. Discovery will be facilitated by emerging personalized aggregation and recommendation mechanisms.

Hollywood is entering a brave new world, driven by audience changes, technology advancements and the shifting interests of its own biggest stars. How it adapts to all of this is yet to be determined.

Will Richmond is president and founder of Broadband Directions LLC, a market intelligence, publishing and consulting firm specializing in broadband-delivered video, which he established in 2003. Will edits and publishes VideoNuze, a daily online publication widely read by broadband video decision-makers.

Related

• Can Tom Hanks Really Deliver The 'Comic-Con Crowd' For Yahoo?
• Comedian Louis CK Says $5 Rights-Free Content Is A Winner

Orange today is introducing a new Android tablet, the first to come with Orange’s own branding instead of that of the tablet-maker. Called the Tahiti, the device, Orange tells me, was built by Huawei, sports a seven-inch screen and runs on Android Honeycomb, Google’s tablet-optimized version of the platform.

Possibly the most unique selling point—or at least the one that Orange is touting above others—is its price point. The 3G and WiFi-enabled tablet will cost users a mere £69.99 ($108), in addition to a commitment to a 24-month, £25/month contract. That sounds potentially reasonable until you work out the total cost: £669.99 ($1,036). That includes two gigabytes of data, 1 GB of which is during “quiet time” when fewer people use Orange’s network.

Prior to this, Huawei had developed two of its own-branded tablets to-date; both have seven-inch screens like the Tahiti. The IDEOS S7 is marketed as a content-friendly device, while the higher-specced MediaPad was the company’s first foray into using the Honeycomb OS.

By comparison, the Tahiti looks very much like the MediaPad (pictured) in its button-free face and camera positioning in the upper corner of the device. It may well be the MediaPad but under a different name. That would be a clever way for Huawei to shift stock further than its own retail steam might allow.

Orange tells me this is the first time it has launched an own-branded tablet in the UK, and the first time that it is selling this specific product. But that does not mean that it is new to the game. The company launched another own-branded tablet last year, which it distributed through its operations in Spain, Poland, Romania and Slovakia around the concept of offering inexpensive tablets against pricier branded products like the iPad.

That first tablet was a rebranded IDEOS S7, Orange told me at the time. Clearly that did well enough for them to try the concept out again with a more expensive tablet in a more developed market.

The Tahiti looks anything but exotic, so why the name? It could be a play on a type of fruit, the Tahiti Orange, AKA the Persian Lime. The other connection: Orange already has a line of own-brand handsets named after various destinations (San Francisco, Rio, Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Atlanta).

Announced during an afternoon press conference at CES, the company’s spiffy new “Hopper” DVR was the highlight among numerous Dish Network announcements, as the Englewood, Colo-based satellite TV carrier looks to recover from several tough years filled with subscriber losses. In fact, appearing at the Las Vegas press conference alongside a live kangaroo—the new Dish mascot—CEO Joe Clayton even rolled out a new logo, terming the press conference a “relaunch of the company,” according to published reports.

Coupled with a sidekick box called the “Joey” – subscribers can put up to four of those in places like bedrooms and bathrooms—the Hopper is part of a new service Dish calls Prime Time (NYSE: TWX) Anytime. Up to six live programming signals can be recorded at once and up to four can be played back at one time. Among the other news from Dish Monday:

>> Dish will begin bundling broadband with its video services this summer (base bundle price: $79.99 per month). The company is partnering with satellite communications company ViaSat Inc. to provide up to 12 Mbps of data transfer.

>> Dish will expand its Blockbuster Home package by adding 3,000 kid-friendly titles to the library. Titles available for streaming on demand include Veggie Tales, Inspector Gadget, Goosebumps, Heathcliff, I Spy and Strawberry Shortcake.

>> Dish is also expanding the amount of Latino-targeted programming available through Blockbuster home, adding more than 3,000 episodes of telenovellas.

>> The company touted a new adapter that lets subscribers watch live programming on devices including tablets.

In November, Dish reported that it had lost an additional 111,000 subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its total customer count below 13 million. Through September 30, Dish’s subscribers were down nearly 20 percent for 2011.

A new survey from ChangeWave Research, polling some 4,000 consumers in the region, paints an interesting picture for how the smartphone market might play out in the next couple of months.

It found that 54 percent of those planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days said that they were planning to buy an iPhone. That number is actually down by 11 percent since the last survey taken in September, but still gives the company a massive lead over the next most-popular smartphone brand, Samsung.

ChangeWave also notes that this represents a huge lead especially considering that the company’s last new phone model, the iPhone 4S, came out some two months ago. Overall, Apple has taken a very minimalistic approach to smartphone rollouts compared to companies like HTC, Samsung, and the others, which have dozens of smartphone handset models between them, compared to the three from Apple.

Korea-based Samsung—which last week posted results that showed that at the moment it is the Android handset maker to beat—polled as the most-wanted brand by 13 percent of consumers.

That’s well behind Apple, but still represents a rise of eight percent, the biggest gain of any brand. ChangeWave speculates that the recent launch of the 4G Galaxy Nexus, with the latest version of Android, could have been behind some of that bigger-than-average rise.

Another Android maker, Motorola, at seven percent, posted a slight increase of two percent over the last-polled period—a contrast to the sales decline Motorola expects to report for the quarter just ended. Motorola is currently getting acquired by Google (NSDQ: GOOG) for $12.5 billion.

HTC and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), meanwhile, rounded out the brands and both declined. This is not much of a surprise: HTC has had a mixed set of results over the last couple of quarters (with more recent numbers being declines) and recently downgraded its forecasts. RIM, too, has been seeing declines in sales and much else: ChangeWave notes that since peaking in September 2008, RIM has declined in eight of the last 12 quarterly surveys conducted by the researchers.

Current customer satisfaction. What’s driving the customer buying intentions? One big area, contends ChangeWave, is existing customer satisfaction, with largely mirror buying intentions—with three notable exceptions.

As with buying intent, Apple continues to top the polls for customer satisfaction, with the most recent numbers indicating that 75 percent of current iPhone owners consider themselves “very satisfied.”

Then it gets somewhat confusing: Android makers Samsung and HTC tie with a 47 percent rating, while Motorola comes in fourth at 45 percent. LG (SEO: 066570) and Nokia don’t make the top-five buying intentions but they still score higher than RIM in terms of keeping customers happy. In other words, brands like HTC, LG and Nokia are keeping their current owners happy enough, but they are not able to convey that very well to the marketplace at the moment.

Separately to this, we’ve received some other survey results from Mobile Posse, a homescreen messaging and marketing company, on a survey they’ve been conducting with new handset owners in the U.S.—a rolling list of around 100,000, which gets polled monthly.

These results don’t compare different brands or models to each other, per se, but they do take stock of how satisfied a current owner is with his or her new handset. This is done through a pop-up screen on the device itself, and is done in cooperation with the handset makers, who agree to allow the messaging on their devices. The messages come up within 48 hours of the phones being activated and cover some 100 models from 10 handset makers including HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Pantech, RIM, Samsung, Casio and PCD.

Mobile Posse found that, in contrast to ChangeWave’s overall brand satisfaction rankings, the two devices that ranked the highest in its survey were, surprisingly, some older models: the HTC Hero (mean score: 4.3) and the Motorola Electrify (mean score: 4.4).  The lowest scoring models averaged mean scores of 3.8, although Mobile Posse does not specify which device this was.

There are a couple of big caveats to this data. For starters, Apple is not on the list so you are unable to have a comparative score for how its devices compare; ditto companies like Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Similarly, it’s not clear which models, exactly, are included in the poll, so again its difficult to know if the Motorola Electrify or the HTC Hero actually scored better than, say, a Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

One end note: Mobile Posse’s research also threw a bit of light onto the usefulness of buying intent information—or not, as the case may be.

It found that 43 percent of those being polled were decided buyers—meaning that they knew exactly what they wanted to buy before they bought it. But almost just as many—34 percent—were undetermined. Combining that with 11 percent saying they were “converted” to a particular device at the point of sale, that means there is still a lot to play for between buying intent and actually forking out the dough. (And it also explains why Apple’s singular retail strategy is so clever: give users no other options to change to except for their own models.)

Related

• Correction: Razr Ain't Cutting It: Motorola Mobility To Fall Short On Q4
• Samsung/HTC: Two Sides Of An Android Coin. Why's Samsung Winning The Toss?
• Sprint's Galaxy Nexus Makes An Early Debut In Pre-CES Ads
• Google Strikes A Blow For Android Consistency By Requiring Stock Theme
• What To Expect At CES: Tablets, TVs, And Transition