Samsung's Galaxy S4 emerges to do battle on Apple's home turf

By Sinead Carew and Miyoung Kim

NEW YORK/SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co premiered its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, which sports a bigger display and unconventional features such as gesture controls, as the South Korean titan challenges Apple Inc on its home turf.

The phone, the first in the highly successful Galaxy S-series to make its global debut on U.S. soil, was unwrapped at Manhattan's iconic Radio City Music Hall on Thursday evening. Some industry watchers were clearly dazzled by its features, setting a high bar for Apple to surpass.

The S4 can stop and start videos depending on whether someone is looking at the screen, flip between songs and photos at the wave of a hand, and record sound to run alongside snapped still pictures. But other industry watchers said the phone would not upturn an industry that lives and dies by innovation.

The plethora of new features 'are good steps in this direction, but they can be seen as gimmicks rather than game changers. At this point, Samsung appears to be trying to kill the competition with sheer volume of new features,' said Jan Dawson, chief telecom analyst at IT research outfit Ovum.

'For now, Samsung can likely rely on its vastly superior marketing budget and the relatively weak efforts of its competitors in software to keep it ahead.'

The success or failure of Samsung's latest flagship phone - the fourth in a brand launched in 2010 - will be pivotal in the world's biggest smartphone maker's battle against Apple and smaller, and key to that struggle will be phone differentiation.

Apple may already be feeling the heat.

Just a day before, marketing chief Phil Schiller blasted Samsung and the Google Android software in rare interviews given to Reuters and other select media, underscoring the pressure that the iPhone maker is feeling from its Korean mobile-phone nemesis.

The S4, which Samsung preceded with a marketing blitz that drummed up industry speculation reminiscent of some of Apple's past launches, will be available by the end of April and rolled out to 327 carriers in 155 countries, including U.S. service providers Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA.

'Samsung has fulfilled the promise of their marketing that they are the tech innovators. It remains to be seen whether it's overload for customers, whether they can really take advantage of all these features,' said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

The S4 will use either Samsung's own applications processor or Qualcomm Inc's Snapdragon central processing chip, depending on the country. But the Korean company kept mum on exact dates and prices.

SAMSUNG HITS BROADWAY

Samsung took a slightly different tack with the S4's launch, using actors and a full live orchestra to present the smartphone's various features via a series of skits - as perhaps befitted its theatrical platform.

That marked a departure of sorts from the usual slick, high-wattage shows favored by rivals such as Apple.

Investors largely shrugged off the launch. Shares in Samsung were down 1.1 percent in a steady market in early Seoul trading on Friday.

The stock has stood little changed so far this year, while Apple's shares have tumbled 20 percent as disappointing sales of iPhones raised fears that its dominance may be slipping.

Apple's U.S. sales outstripped Samsung's for the first time in the quarter ending in December, even after Samsung spent a record $400 million on phone advertisements here last year.

While the global smartphone market's growth rate is tapering off, Samsung still derives the majority of its annual profits from Galaxy phones.

Samsung said the Galaxy S4 will sport a bigger 5-inch display than the S3's 4.8 inches. But because the new display will cover more of the phone's surface area, the device itself will be the same length and slightly narrower, thinner and lighter than the previous generation.

The newest features involve different options for navigation. For example, if the phone senses someone is looking at the screen, the user can tilt it forward or backwards to scroll up and down a Web page.

That feature falls slightly short of what some consumers may have expected after the New York Times reported that the phone would be able to scroll automatically by tracking readers' eyes.

But what it can do is sense when it has someone's attention. When a video is playing, for instance, the stream will automatically pause if the person glances away and it will restart when the eyes refocus on the screen.

This is an update on an existing Galaxy feature, which powers down the display if it senses no one's looking at it, conserving battery power.

The latest phone also has a sensor that lets users move their hands to the left or right to scroll between different websites they have opened or through songs or photos in an album without having to touch the phone.

The idea is to make it easier to change the song playing without having to pick up the phone while driving or to avoid putting sticky fingers on the touch-screen display while scrolling through a Web page at mealtimes.

The phone will also allow users to hover a finger over an email inbox or a photo gallery to get a glimpse of more details of what's in the email or which photos are in an album.

Another feature includes the option to automatically put a copy of details from a photograph of a business card into the phone's contacts database or call a number in the business card.

Samsung is also promising an instant translation between 10 different languages for certain applications, as well as a separate translation application on the device.

The device also has a 13-megapixel camera, compared with the S3's 8-megapixel camera.

'They kind of cherry-picked features that other competitors had, and then packed them up all together into one device,' said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

'The story though is more about who Samsung is and where they want to be. It is clear today that they want to play in an ecosystem game, their own ecosystem. The word Android didn't come up once.'

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Edwin Chan, Richard Chang and Ryan Woo)

Exclusive: EMC, IBM eye web hosting company SoftLayer - sources

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM Corp and EMC Corp are among parties in talks to buy privately held database web hosting company SoftLayer Technologies Inc, in a deal that could fetch over $2 billion, three sources close to the matter said.

Dallas, Texas-based SoftLayer has hired Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse to run the sale process, the sources said, asking not to be named because the talks are private.

SoftLayer's sale process was initially spurred by one of its customers, AT&T Inc, which approached the company in recent months seeking exclusive talks, one of the sources said. AT&T is no longer involved in the process, two of the sources said.

Spokespeople for SoftLayer, AT&T, EMC, IBM, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

(Reporting by Nadia Damouni; additional reporting by Nicola Leske and Sinead Carew; Editing by Soyoung Kim, Bernard Orr)

More change at Google as head of maps and commerce gets new role

(Reuters) - The head of Google's Inc's mapping and commerce division is stepping down from the role, the latest change to the company's senior management team, which saw Android boss Andy Rubin hand over the reins on Wednesday.

Google will split its Maps/Geo and Commerce group into two separate units. Senior Vice President Jeff Huber, who has led the group since 2011, is moving to Google X, the company's experimental projects group known for developing self-driving cars and the Google Glass wearable computer.

Huber, who worked on some of Google's 'most complicated issues like ads, apps, payments and geo,' is now 'eager to work in a more startup-like environment,' the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Google executive Alan Eustace will take over the Maps/Geo group, while Susan Wojcicki will lead Google's Commerce group.

On Wednesday Google announced that Sundar Pichai would take over its fast-growing Android mobile software business, replacing Rubin, who is moving to a new, yet-to-be-defined role at the company.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Google to shut Reader web feed application, users vent

By Sayantani Ghosh

(Reuters) - Google Inc said it will shut Google Reader on July 1, citing declining usage for the application that aggregates content served by web feeds, as it forges ahead with its strategy to focus on fewer products that have more impact.

Google Reader was launched in 2005 to make it easy for people to discover websites of interest and keep tabs on them.

Google said there were 'two simple reasons' for closing the service. 'Usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we are pouring all of our energy into fewer products,' the company said on its official blog on Wednesday.(http://r.reuters.com/nur66t)

Users of the doomed app took to Twitter to vent about the closing of the service, making 'Google Reader' one of the top trending topics on the microblogging site.

'Shutdown of Google Reader because of a 'lack of consumer appeal?' No way. The simple reason: RSS can't be controlled and monetized easily,' one Twitter user wrote.

'The killing Of Google Reader highlights the risk of relying on a single provider,' another Tweet said.

Lawyer Dan Lewis started a campaign on petition website Change.org to save Google Reader that garnered more than 31,000 supporters in about 12 hours.(http://r.reuters.com/kyr66t)

PepsiCo Inc recently removed a controversial chemical from its Gatorade drinks following concerns from consumers and an online petition on Change.org started by a Mississippi teenager.

Some users pointed out alternative readers such as Feedly (http://r.reuters.com/sur66t) and NewsBlur, and Feedly was quick to capitalize on Google's announcement by offering tips to Reader users for moving their data to its website.

Google said users and developers interested in alternatives to Reader can export their data, including subscriptions, with the Google Takeout service over the next four months.

Google Takeout allows users take their data out of multiple Google products and collate it in portable and open formats, making it easy to export to other services.

Google said it would retire seven other products and services over the next few months, including its voice app for BlackBerry.

In a blogpost titled 'A second spring of cleaning', Google said the latest closures meant it has now pulled the plug on 70 features or services since it started streamlining its product base in 2011.

(Additional reporting by Sakthi Prasad and Supantha Mukherjee; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Ted Kerr)

Google's Android chief Andy Rubin steps down

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Andy Rubin is stepping down as head of Google Inc's Android division after he helped turn the software into the world's most widely-used mobile operating system.

Google's browser and applications chief Sundar Pichai will replace Rubin, bringing the firm's mobile software, applications and Chrome browser under one roof.

Larry Page, Google's chief executive and co-founder, credited Rubin for evangelizing Android more than half a decade ago and said the decision to switch was Rubin's. Page was mum on Rubin's future role in a blogpost on Wednesday announcing the switch.

Rubin built Android into a free, open-source software platform now used by most of the world's largest handset manufacturers, from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to HTC Corp.

Android is now installed on roughly two-thirds of the world's smartphones, supplanting Apple Inc at the pinnacle of the fast-moving mobile arena.

Anrdoid tablets are also expected to overtake Apple's iPad in terms of shipments in 2013, IT research house IDC predicted on Tuesday.

'Going forward, Sundar Pichai will lead Android, in addition to his existing work with Chrome and Apps. Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use-and he loves a big bet,' Page wrote in the blogpost.

'Andy's decided it's time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google. Andy, more moonshots please!'

Pichai, who began his engineering training in India before moving to the United States, aggressively pushed Google's Chrome browser in 2008, when Microsoft Corp's Explorer lorded over the market. Chrome now commands a roughly 35 percent market share according to Web traffic analyzers StatCounter.

He is also credited with the development of some of the company's more successful apps, such as Maps and gmail.

'While Andy's a really hard act to follow, I know Sundar will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward,' Page said.

Shares in the company slipped 0.2 percent to $825.83 in afternoon trading.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Leslie Adler and Andrew Hay)

Google names Pichai to head Android, replacing Rubin

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc has appointed Sundar Pichai the chief of its Android division, replacing Andy Rubin as the overseer of a software platform that in just a few years has become the world's most-used mobile software.

The move brings Google's mobile software, applications and Chrome browser under one umbrella. Larry Page, Google's chief executive and co-founder, credited Rubin for evangelizing Android more than half a decade ago and said the decision to switch was Rubin's. Page was mum on Rubin's future role.

Rubin built Android into a software platform used by most of the world's largest handset manufacturers, from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to HTC Corp, supplanting the platform of Apple Inc.

'Going forward, Sundar Pichai will lead Android, in addition to his existing work with Chrome and Apps. Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use-and he loves a big bet,' Page wrote in a Wednesday blogpost.

'Andy's decided it's time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google. Andy, more moonshots please!'

Shares in the company slipped 0.5 percent to $823.37 in afternoon trading.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Leslie Adler)

Cyber threats against U.S. "ramping up," Obama says

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cyber security threats against the United States are growing, President Barack Obama said before a meeting on Wednesday with corporate leaders about the issue, as concerns rise about hacking attacks emanating from China.

Speaking in a television interview, Obama stopped short of echoing concerns expressed by some lawmakers that the United States was engaged in some kind of electronic war with China.

'You always have to be careful with war analogies ... there's a big difference between them engaging in cyber espionage or cyber attacks and, obviously, a hot war,' Obama told ABC News in the interview, which was taped on Tuesday but aired on Wednesday.

'What is absolutely true is that we have seen a steady ramping up of cyber security threats.'

Some of the threats are 'absolutely' sponsored by governments, he said. 'Some are state sponsored. Some are just sponsored by criminals.'

'We've made it very clear to China and some other state actors that, you know, we expect them to follow international norms and abide by international rules,' Obama said, adding that Washington has already had 'some pretty tough talk' with other countries.

Cyber attacks can cost billions of dollars, lead to stolen industry secrets, and place the United States at a competitive disadvantage, he said.

Obama is scheduled to meet with a group of CEOs at the White House later in the day to solicit their input on how the government and private sector together can improve U.S. security for the Internet, online databases and more. The White House has not yet named the CEOs.

The meeting comes just days after U.S. authorities said they were investigating reports that Obama's own family had been hit by hacking.

The president said in the interview that he did not know whether reports were true that hackers had posted financial and personal information online about his wife, Michelle, along with other high-profile Americans.

'It would not shock me if some information ... among people who presumably have pretty good safeguards against it, still gets out,' he said.

Obama signed an executive order a month ago directing authorities to improve information sharing on cyber threats. However, such orders do not carry the weight of law and Obama told ABC that Congress has to act.

A Senate bill on cyber security last year failed to secure enough votes to pass, and was opposed by business groups.

'There are ways that we can harden our critical infrastructure, our financial sector,' Obama said. 'They need to get this done.'

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton; editing by Christopher Wilson)