IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 29 June
29-06-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Elevation raises Facebook stake | Apple tells customers to get a grip
The Irish Times reports that private equity firm Elevation Partners has reportedly increased its stake in social networking firm Facebook. Technology blog Techcrunch said that Elevation bought 5 million Facebook shares in the secondary market for USD120 million. Last November the fund bought 2.5 million shares in the company for USD90 million.
The Irish Examiner notes that Apple has released advice on how to overcome a lost signal issue when holding its new iPhone 4 handset. If gripped by the lower left hand corner, network coverage can be blocked, Apple admitted. "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas," it said. Apple said to make sure the phone was not gripped in a way that would cover both strips in the metal band. It also suggested using one of the many available cases for the handset. "Just don't hold it that way," said CEO Steve Jobs.
In more news of the iPhone 4, the Wall Street Journal says that Apple has sold more than 1.7 million devices within the first three days of the phone's launch. The strong start surpassed the early performance of the last version of the iPhone. The company said the initial sales marked the most successful start for a product in the company's history. Analysts are expecting the new model to help Apple sell about 36 million iPhones in the fiscal year ending in September.
The paper also says that the BT Pension Scheme, the UK's biggest fund, made a dent in its multi-billion-pound deficit after earning a 12.2 percent return on its investments last year. The fund, which manages the pensions of 336,000 current and former employees of UK telco BT Group, made a net gain of STG2.7 billion in 2009, taking the value of its portfolio to STG34.1 billion as of 31 December. As a result, the fund reduced its deficit from STG9 billion to an estimated STG7.6 billion by the end of 2009.
According to the Financial Times, Google is making a final attempt to retain a presence in mainland China, after the Beijing government threatened to close its Chinese operation. The internet giant said the Chinese government wanted to put a stop to its practice of automatically redirecting users in mainland China to its Hong Kong site -- an arrangement which has allowed Google to avoid self-censoring its search engine in order to meet China's strict internet regulations. "It's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable -- and that if we continue redirecting users, our Internet Content Provider licence will not be renewed," said David Drummond, chief legal officer. "Without an ICP licence, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn -- so Google would effectively go dark in China."
The paper also says that US president Barack Obama has pledged to improve broadband access across the US by nearly doubling the availability of airwaves during the next ten years. A memorandum signed by the president would free up 500 megahertz of spectrum held by both the US government and US companies, to meet the growing demand for broadband services. The proposal would force US government agencies that are sitting on under-utilised spectrum to give up the airwave space. The White House is also looking to television companies to give up spectrum voluntarily. The spectrum would then be auctioned, which could raise billions of dollars to compensate the companies and help pay for a new internet network aimed at improving public safety online.
Free! "In the papers" email newsletter -- get the full text to your in-box every business day. Email itp@enn.ie with 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 