Pogue’s Posts Blog: A Better Google Maps App for Apple and Android Devices

Google Map’s new directory buttons.

Our story so far: Last September, Apple decided to dump the Google Maps app that had been on the iPhone for years. Apple replaced it with its own Maps app — software with so many problems that Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, apologized and even recommended that people use other apps until Apple could fix its own one.

In December — incredibly quickly — Google responded by introducing its own Maps app for iPhone. It’s a spectacular app, among the best apps ever written. It’s fast, beautiful and so good at guessing what you mean when you start typing a destination, it’s almost mind reading. You can read the details here.

Today, that delightful news gets even better. Not only has Google improved Google Maps for iPhone, it’s also brought that same free app to three machines that never had it: the iPad, Android phones and Android tablets. (The Android versions are available for download today; it requires the Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean version of Android — recent versions, in other words. The iOS versions will be available shortly.)

For Androidians, the biggest news is the design of the app itself. It’s modeled on the iPhone app, the one that’s simple and fast and elegant. It’s also uncluttered by the morass of menus that have always plagued the existing Maps app for Android.

But for practitioners of all religions — tablet, phone, iOS, Android — the other news is the new features that today’s new version brings. They include:

* Greater speed. All app versions are faster than before.

* Better place information. Half the time, you don’t even need navigation instructions; you just use Google Maps as the world’s smartest Yellow Pages, to find a nearby restaurant, movie theater, drugstore or whatever.

The details for found places now include a one-line description (“Chinese restaurant famous for dim sum”); a five-star rating system (including a decimal — “4.3,” for example — because, let’s face it, almost everything these days winds up with a four-star rating); the ability to upload your own photos of a place; and a more complete integration of the Zagat guides, which Google bought.

* Greater emphasis on exploration. Google Maps has always excelled at getting you to a known destination. But Google now wants the app to help you choose a restaurant, bar, store, recreation center or hotel, at least in major United States and European cities.

If you tap in the Search box without typing anything, new, photographic buttons appear: Eat, Drink, Shop, Play, Sleep. Each opens lists of corresponding facilities, sorted by criteria like Local Favorites, Popular with Tourists and so on. (Google says that these recommendations are never paid placement.)

* Traffic incidents and auto-rerouting. At last: Google Maps shows more than colored lines indicating current traffic speeds on major roads. Now it also displays tiny icons that represent accidents and construction. Tap one to read the details: “Right lane blocked on 680,” for example. (In case you were wondering, the information on traffic incidents doesn’t come from Waze, the traffic-incident app that Google recently bought. That data has yet to be incorporated into Maps.)

Better yet: Maps now looks ahead for traffic jams on your route, and interrupts your drive with a dialog box that offers to route you around it (if the new path would be quicker, of course). On its own.

* Offline maps. This feature is something of an Easter egg. It’s undocumented, a feature inserted by Google engineers simply because they wanted it. You can access it only if you know the secret. But wow, is it worth it.

This feature memorizes the map data for whatever area is displayed on your screen right now (up to a whole city in size). That way, you can use Google Maps even when you’re overseas and don’t want to turn on data roaming (because that’s insanely expensive), or when you’re in an area where there’s no cell reception. It’s very handy.

To capture a map snapshot like this, tap in the Search box. Use the speech-recognition button and say, “OK Maps.” (It’s a riff on the command “OK Glass” that prepares Google Glass, the company’s “smart headband,” for voice commands.)

A message quietly lets you know you’ve successfully stored the displayed area.

*Nice tablet layouts. On a tablet, Maps really shines. The app smartly reformats itself to take best advantage of whatever screen shape you have: two or three columns of place listings, for example, and luxuriously displayed photos and reviews for each business.

This new, improved Maps app works identically on both major flavors of phone and tablet. You know what? I don’t care how much you distrust Google and its motives. This is crazy good software, some the best work Google has ever done.

Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Streaming Netflix Video on Multiple Devices

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Devices Given to Chinese Legal Advocate Had Tracking Spyware, N.Y.U. Says

But according to officials at New York University, several electronic devices that were given to Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese legal advocate, soon after his arrival in the United States last year were loaded with spyware designed to track his family’s movements and their online activity.

Two of those devices, an iPhone and an iPad, were given to Mr. Chen by China Aid, a Texas-based Christian group that pushes for greater religious freedom in China. Bob Fu, the president of the group, said that he was out of the country when Mr. Chen arrived in New York so his wife, Heidi, handed over the equipment. The discovery of the tracking software came as a complete surprise, he said.

“This story is just crazy,” said Mr. Fu, an exiled Chinese dissident who championed Mr. Chen’s plight during the years of persecution Mr. Chen endured as an opponent of forced abortion.

The allegations, first reported by Reuters, threatened to further complicate an already messy narrative surrounding Mr. Chen’s tenure at N.Y.U., which includes accusations that school officials, bowing to pressure from the Chinese government, sought to curtail his public advocacy and then forced him to leave the Greenwich Village campus sooner than he expected.

School officials and associates of Mr. Chen, who is blind, have vehemently rejected such assertions and insisted that his fellowship at N.Y.U. was always meant to last one year.

Mr. Chen has declined to provide evidence backing up his assertions, issued in a brief statement last Sunday, that Beijing pressured N.Y.U. to terminate what he acknowledged was a generous arrangement that included tutors, security and housing for him, his wife, and their two children.

With Mr. Chen silent in recent days, Mr. Fu has become one of his more vocal advocates, eagerly telling reporters what Mr. Fu said were instances in which N.Y.U. tried to limit Mr. Chen’s access to conservative political figures and advocates who opposed abortion. Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, who frequently confers with Mr. Fu on human rights issues in China, has threatened to convene a Congressional hearing on Mr. Chen’s time at N.Y.U.

According to people with knowledge of the episode, Mr. Fu’s wife presented the Apple devices to an assistant of Jerome Cohen, the N.Y.U. law professor who was instrumental in arranging Mr. Chen’s exit from the American Embassy in Beijing, where he had sought refuge after escaping house arrest.

The gifts, along with at least two other phones that were handed to the assistant, arrived on the chaotic day Mr. Chen and his family landed in New York. After an examination by N.Y.U. technicians, all the devices were found to be compromised with spyware, said an associate, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

The spyware included global positioning software that allowed a third party to track the whereabouts of the device, and presumably its owner, and another program that copied its contents to a remote server. After removing the spyware, technicians returned the Apple devices to the Chens, who were told about what had happened. The two other phones, their provenance a mystery, were not given to Mr. Chen.

“He was upset, but he was more concerned about the relatives he left behind who were being mistreated by the authorities,” the associate said.

Mr. Fu was not informed about the spyware on the items, and by all accounts, his relationship with the family deepened in the months that followed.

John H. Beckman, an N.Y.U. spokesman, confirmed the broad outlines of the episode but said he had no further information. Professor Cohen told Reuters he thought the compromised devices were an attempt to keep tabs on Mr. Chen remotely. “These people supposedly were out to help him, and they give him a kind of Trojan horse that would have enabled them to monitor his communications secretly,” he said.

Professor Cohen was traveling in Asia on Friday and could not be reached for comment.

In an interview, Mr. Fu said he learned on Thursday from Reuters that the items his wife had bought at an AT&T store in Texas were compromised. He said a technician he employs had activated the devices and added Skype but nothing else.

He suggested that the spyware could have been installed after his wife dropped off the items but before they were given to the Chens, a gap of at least a day.

“More than anyone else, we want to get to the bottom of this,” he said, adding that he had asked the F.B.I. to look into the matter. “We will fully cooperate with any investigation and hope N.Y.U. will do the same.”

Bits: F.A.A. to Consider Relaxed Rules for Devices on Planes

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Devices Given to Chinese Legal Advocate Had Tracking Spyware, N.Y.U. Says

But according to officials at New York University, several electronic devices that were given to Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese legal advocate, soon after his arrival in the United States last year were loaded with spyware designed to track his family’s movements and their online activity.

Two of those devices, an iPhone and an iPad, were given to Mr. Chen by China Aid, a Texas-based Christian group that pushes for greater religious freedom in China. Bob Fu, the president of the group, said that he was out of the country when Mr. Chen arrived in New York so his wife, Heidi, handed over the equipment. The discovery of the tracking software came as a complete surprise, he said.

“This story is just crazy,” said Mr. Fu, an exiled Chinese dissident who championed Mr. Chen’s plight during the years of persecution Mr. Chen endured as an opponent of forced abortion.

The allegations, first reported by Reuters, threatened to further complicate an already messy narrative surrounding Mr. Chen’s tenure at N.Y.U., which includes accusations that school officials, bowing to pressure from the Chinese government, sought to curtail his public advocacy and then forced him to leave the Greenwich Village campus sooner than he expected.

School officials and associates of Mr. Chen, who is blind, have vehemently rejected such assertions and insisted that his fellowship at N.Y.U. was always meant to last one year.

Mr. Chen has declined to provide evidence backing up his assertions, issued in a brief statement last Sunday, that Beijing pressured N.Y.U. to terminate what he acknowledged was a generous arrangement that included tutors, security and housing for him, his wife, and their two children.

With Mr. Chen silent in recent days, Mr. Fu has become one of his more vocal advocates, eagerly telling reporters what Mr. Fu said were instances in which N.Y.U. tried to limit Mr. Chen’s access to conservative political figures and advocates who opposed abortion. Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, who frequently confers with Mr. Fu on human rights issues in China, has threatened to convene a Congressional hearing on Mr. Chen’s time at N.Y.U.

According to people with knowledge of the episode, Mr. Fu’s wife presented the Apple devices to an assistant of Jerome Cohen, the N.Y.U. law professor who was instrumental in arranging Mr. Chen’s exit from the American Embassy in Beijing, where he had sought refuge after escaping house arrest.

The gifts, along with at least two other phones that were handed to the assistant, arrived on the chaotic day Mr. Chen and his family landed in New York. After an examination by N.Y.U. technicians, all the devices were found to be compromised with spyware, said an associate, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

The spyware included global positioning software that allowed a third party to track the whereabouts of the device, and presumably its owner, and another program that copied its contents to a remote server. After removing the spyware, technicians returned the Apple devices to the Chens, who were told about what had happened. The two other phones, their provenance a mystery, were not given to Mr. Chen.

“He was upset, but he was more concerned about the relatives he left behind who were being mistreated by the authorities,” the associate said.

Mr. Fu was not informed about the spyware on the items, and by all accounts, his relationship with the family deepened in the months that followed.

John H. Beckman, an N.Y.U. spokesman, confirmed the broad outlines of the episode but said he had no further information. Professor Cohen told Reuters he thought the compromised devices were an attempt to keep tabs on Mr. Chen remotely. “These people supposedly were out to help him, and they give him a kind of Trojan horse that would have enabled them to monitor his communications secretly,” he said.

Professor Cohen was traveling in Asia on Friday and could not be reached for comment.

In an interview, Mr. Fu said he learned on Thursday from Reuters that the items his wife had bought at an AT&T store in Texas were compromised. He said a technician he employs had activated the devices and added Skype but nothing else.

He suggested that the spyware could have been installed after his wife dropped off the items but before they were given to the Chens, a gap of at least a day.

“More than anyone else, we want to get to the bottom of this,” he said, adding that he had asked the F.B.I. to look into the matter. “We will fully cooperate with any investigation and hope N.Y.U. will do the same.”

Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Streaming Netflix Video on Multiple Devices

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Bits: F.A.A. to Consider Relaxed Rules for Devices on Planes

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Bits Blog: Jack Dorsey Talks Square and Wearable Devices

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Square, said he fancied devices that wrap around the wrist.

Many technology enthusiasts have had their eye on Glass, Google’s monocle that looks like something out of Star Trek. But the Internet-connected eyewear doesn’t really pique the interest of Jack Dorsey, chief executive of the mobile payment system Square and a co-founder of Twitter.

“Glasses are very compelling, and I think it’s an amazing technology,” Mr. Dorsey said, “but I just can’t imagine my mom wearing them right now. What is the value of Glass?”

Mr. Dorsey said he fancied devices that wrap around the wrist, like smartwatches or exercise bands, because they felt more natural. The conversation might hint that Square is considering a payment app for a smartwatch, perhaps the watch from Apple that has long been rumored to be in the works.

Mr. Dorsey shared his thoughts last Friday while at a grilled cheese shop in New York to talk about a new feature in Square’s cash-register software for iPads. The new feature allows restaurant owners to speed up the process of placing customized food orders with Square’s cash-register app for iPads, called Register.

With the new software, a restaurant can more easily customize orders. For example, if a customer chooses a grilled cheese sandwich, but wants it with gluten-free bread and extra peppers, the merchant can hit the grilled cheese sandwich button and then individually select the type of bread and extra peppers. In the past, a merchant would have needed to create a separate button in advance for each variation of each sandwich offered — for example, one for a regular grilled cheese sandwich, one for a grilled cheese with wheat bread and one with gluten-free bread and extra peppers.

Mr. Dorsey answered several of our questions about Square and its future. A transcript of the interview follows, edited for length and clarity.

What’s the message behind the news about the customized food orders?

People have known Square for accepting credit cards. This is a big push we’re making into smaller businesses and brick and mortar, specifically around restaurants. There’s this huge movement around quick-service restaurants all over the country, especially in places like New York, where you order at a counter. Food trucks are often an offshoot of this. These places are doing really creative crafty things and doing them very well.

When it comes to speeding up food orders for businesses, some of your competitors are enabling the ability for customers to order ahead and pay with an app, then skip the line and grab the food. Are you looking into that capability, too?

That’s definitely something we hear about it and it’s something we’d naturally want to do.

Last year Square introduced the ability for customers to pay with their face through Square Wallet, its payment app. Are people using that feature a lot, or is it just tech nerds?

We do have early adopters. I don’t want to disparage tech nerds because they’re the ones that spread things like Twitter and Facebook. I think we’ve been happy with the residence of Wallet, but we haven’t been thrilled. A lot of that is due to people understanding how to use it. We have a lot more work to do to surface it.

For those who use it, they love it. For the merchants who receive it, they love it. They get to know their customers as they walk in, what they like, what they might order, and it increases their revenue.

How has the Starbucks partnership been going? Have you seen an increase in users?

We definitely saw a surge in Wallet. We definitely saw a surge in Register, actually. It really validates the high end. They’re using the same tool that these guys are using, they’re using the same infrastructure. It really levels the playing field for them to compete with each other. It really validates that this is something businesses can trust —this huge company is using it, and I can also build my business on it.

Have you looked into Google Glass?

I don’t think glasses are the answer. I think it might be a 10-year answer, but not in the next five years. Maybe if they’re in sunglasses or what not.

I think the movement you see around Fitbit, Up and FuelBand, that seems to be the next step in wearable. So something on the wrist that feels natural, almost feels a bit like jewelry.

Glasses are very compelling and I think it’s an amazing technology, but I just can’t imagine my mom wearing them right now. What is the value of Glass?

Sounds like you have a lot more faith in the rumored iWatch.

(Laughs.) I don’t know, I think there’s a lot going on. The Pebble watch I think is pretty compelling as well.

Advertising: ABC Works on an App for Live Streaming Shows to Mobile Devices

The app will live stream ABC programming to the phones and tablets of cable and satellite subscribers, allowing those subscribers to watch “Good Morning America” on a tablet while standing in line at Starbucks, for instance, or watch “Nashville” on a smartphone while riding a bus home from work. The app could become available to some subscribers this year, according to people briefed on the project, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

With the app, ABC, a subsidiary of Disney, will become the first of the American broadcasters to provide a live Internet stream of national and local programming to people who pay for cable or satellite. The subscriber-only arrangement, sometimes called TV Everywhere in industry circles, preserves the cable business model that is crucial to the bottom lines of broadcasters, while giving subscribers more of what they seem to want — mobile access to TV shows. The arrangement could extend the reach of ads that appear on ABC as well.

Disney already distributes similar live streaming and on-demand apps, known as “Watch” apps, for ESPN and the Disney Channel. Special hurdles exist, however, for the ABC app, in part because of contracts between the network and the companies that produce some of its shows that were written before mobile phone video streaming was even possible. Other complexities involve ABC’s local stations, which might — if not courted properly — feel threatened by an app.

But ABC, seeing shifts in consumer behavior, is pressing forward. It has started to talk with stations about how to include them in the live streaming app. Illustrating the difficult contractual issues, ABC offhandedly first mentioned a forthcoming Watch ABC app in a news release nine months ago, when it signed a deal with Comcast to make several Watch Disney apps available to Comcast subscribers.

But the network live streaming ability is inching closer to fruition, the people briefed on the project said. A spokesman for ABC declined to comment.

Executives at other networks who have heard about the ABC plan regard it with a mixture of awe and fear. No other broadcaster is believed to be as far along as ABC, which is also the first broadcaster to sell TV episodes through Apple’s iTunes store and the first to stream free episodes on its Web site.

Subscriber-only apps like Watch Disney and, eventually, Watch ABC stand in stark contrast to the free-to-all content available on Hulu, the online video site that is co-owned by Disney, Comcast and News Corporation. Comcast is a silent partner. The other two companies are debating what to do with the six-year-old Web site, which has lost most of its original executive backers at NBC and Fox and will soon lose its founding chief executive, Jason Kilar.

Last week, when Mr. Kilar, who is stepping down this month, named an acting chief executive, Andy Forssell, he wrote in a message to staff members that “Disney and News Corporation are currently finalizing their forward-looking plans with Hulu, and the senior team has been working closely with them in that process. Once the plans are finalized, a permanent decision will be made regarding the C.E.O. position.”

Hulu has been an innovator in both the Web streaming and the advertising arenas, forcing media companies to think about how their TV shows should be distributed online. But it has been marginalized as the companies seek out more lucrative revenue streams.

Under one plan discussed recently, according to several people with ties to Hulu, Disney would buy out the other co-owners’ stakes in the company. But the opposite could happen, too, with News Corporation as the buyer. Or the two companies may choose to sell Hulu to a third party, if one shows interest.

The companies could also retain their stakes in Hulu and change the business model. Disney is said to be more supportive of the free, ad-supported model that it is most closely associated with; News Corporation is more supportive of Hulu Plus, the monthly subscription service that is an add-on to the free Hulu site. Mr. Kilar, in his message last week, did not indicate when any change could take place.

Whatever happens, the owners appear more interested in maintaining their existing relationships with cable and satellite companies. That is what an app like Watch ABC would do. It would protect the cable model while providing a good example of how authentication — the idea that people log in to prove they have a subscription — works.

A few cable and satellite companies already have their own products that allow ABC and other broadcasters to be streamed on devices. But for most Americans, it remains difficult to place-shift a show — say, to watch a local nightly newscast live on an iPhone.

A start-up company that is being sued by Disney and several other major media companies, Aereo, has made that possible by installing an antenna farm in New York; some analysts have said Aereo might motivate broadcasters to make their own live streams more freely available on their own terms. But James L. McQuivey, a digital media analyst at Forrester and the author of the book “Digital Disruption,” said he thought ABC’s plan wasn’t a rebuttal to the start-up.

“This and Aereo are both a response to the fact that people are habitually connected to live viewing,” he said. “The Internet will gradually undo that,” he predicted, “but it’s being very gradual about that for the time being.”

Brooks Barnes contributed reporting.

HTC Settles F.T.C. Charges Over Security Flaws in Devices

The Federal Trade Commission charged HTC with customizing the software on its Android- and Windows-based phones in ways that let third-party applications install software that could steal personal information, surreptitiously send text messages or enable the device’s microphone to record the user’s phone calls.

The action is the first attempt by the commission to police a manufacturer of mobile devices. As smartphones and tablets become a common way for consumers to shop, bank and chat online, personal information and privacy will need to be guarded.

HTC America, based in Bellevue, Wash., agreed to settle the civil suit with the commission by issuing software patches that close the security holes, and by creating a security program that will be monitored by an independent party for the next 20 years. The F.T.C. does not have the authority to assess fines in consumer protection cases.

“The company didn’t design its products with security in mind,” Lesley Fair, a senior lawyer in the commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, wrote in a blog post. “HTC didn’t test the software on its mobile devices for potential security vulnerabilities, didn’t follow commonly accepted secure coding practices and didn’t even respond when warned about the flaws in its devices.”

An HTC official said Friday that the company had already started to update its software and distribute it to users of some, but not all, of the affected phones.

“Working with our carrier partners, we have addressed the identified security vulnerabilities on the majority of devices in the U.S. released after December 2010,” Sally Julien, an HTC spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We’re working to roll out the remaining software updates now and recommend customers download them once available.”

“Privacy and security are important,” the statement added, “and we are committed to improving practices that help safeguard our customers’ devices and data.”

The trade commission charged that the security flaws resulted from HTC’s modifying the operating system software used on most of the affected phones. In the case of Android, created by Google, the system is designed to protect sensitive information and phone functions through what is known as a permission-based security model.

That requires a user, when installing an application that is not a standard part of the operating system, to be notified and to agree that the application could gain access to certain information or functions.

HTC, however, preinstalled certain apps on its phones in a way that, in addition to preventing consumers from removing them, disabled the permission-based model and allowed newly installed apps to have immediate access to personal data.

“The analogy isn’t exact,” wrote Ms. Fair of the F.T.C., “but it’s like giving a friend the combination to a safe only to find out he’s handing it over to anyone who asks.”

That security hole could, for example, let the rogue software secretly record users’ phone conversations or track their location.

Flaws in the security system could also give third-party apps access to phone numbers, contents of text messages, browsing history and information like credit card numbers and banking transactions. Those flaws also affected HTC phones that used Windows-based operating systems.

While HTC’s actions introduced numerous security vulnerabilities to its phones, a commission official said it was not clear how many users experienced illegal incursions into their phones and personal information.

The flaw in the company’s phones has been known since at least 2011. HTC acknowledged the problems at that time and developed software patches for at least some of the deficiencies that year.

But the problems were far from minor. The F.T.C. said that text-message toll fraud, in which a hacker causes a phone to send text messages to a number that charges the user for delivery of the message, “is one of the most common types of Android malware,” or malicious software.

HTC’s user manuals either said or implied that a user was protected against malware because of the permission-based security, the commission said.

The commission will collect public comments on the proposed remedies for 30 days, after which it will decide whether to formally carry out the order. If HTC subsequently violates the order’s restrictions and requirements, it faces civil penalties of up to $16,000 a violation.

Disruptions: F.A.A. Rules Make Electronic Devices on Planes Hazardous

Airbus, via European Pressphoto Agency A pilot uses the FlySmart with Airbus app on an Apple iPad. The F.A.A. has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims.

Over the last year, flying with phones and other devices has become increasingly dangerous.

In September, a passenger was arrested in El Paso after refusing to turn off his cellphone as the plane was landing. In October, a man in Chicago was arrested because he used his iPad during takeoff. In November, half a dozen police cars raced across the tarmac at La Guardia Airport in New York, surrounding a plane as if there were a terrorist on board. They arrested a 30-year-old man who had also refused to turn off his phone while on the runway.

Who is to blame in these episodes? You can’t solely pin it on the passengers. Some of the responsibility falls on the Federal Aviation Administration, for continuing to uphold a rule that is based on the unproven idea that a phone or tablet can interfere with the operation of a plane.

These conflicts have been going on for several years. In 2010, a 68-year-old man punched a teenager because he didn’t turn off his phone. Lt. Kent Lipple of the Boise Police Department in Idaho, who arrested the puncher, said the man “felt he was protecting the entire plane and its occupants.” And let’s not forget Alec Baldwin, who was kicked off an American Airlines plane in 2011 for playing Words With Friends online while parked at the gate.

Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn teenager. The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.

A year ago, when I first asked Les Dorr, a spokesman for the F.A.A., why the rule existed, he said the agency was being cautious because there was no proof that device use was completely safe. He also said it was because passengers needed to pay attention during takeoff.

When I asked why I can read a printed book but not a digital one, the agency changed its reasoning. I was told by another F.A.A. representative that it was because an iPad or Kindle could put out enough electromagnetic emissions to disrupt the flight. Yet a few weeks later, the F.A.A. proudly announced that pilots could now use iPads in the cockpit instead of paper flight manuals.

The F.A.A. then told me that “two iPads are very different than 200.” But experts at EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200. “Electromagnetic energy doesn’t add up like that,” said Kevin Bothmann, the EMT Labs testing manager.

It’s not a matter of a flying device hitting another passenger, either. Kindles weigh less than six ounces; Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs weighs 2.1 pounds in hardcover. I’d rather be hit in the head by an iPad Mini than a 650-page book.

In October, after months of pressure from the public and the news media, the F.A.A. finally said it would begin a review of its policies on electronic devices in all phases of flight, including takeoff and landing. But the agency does not have a set time frame for announcing its findings.

An F.A.A. spokeswoman told me last week that the agency was preparing to move to the next phase of its work in this area, and would appoint members to a rule-making committee that will begin meeting in January.

The F.A.A. should check out an annual report issued by NASA that compiles cases involving electronic devices on planes. None of those episodes have produced scientific evidence that a device can harm a plane’s operation. Reports of such interference have been purely speculation by pilots about the cause of a problem.

Other government agencies and elected officials are finally getting involved.

This December, Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, sent a letter to the F.A.A. telling the agency that it had a responsibility to “enable greater use of tablets, e-readers and other portable devices” during flights, as they empower people and allow “both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S. competitiveness.”

A week later, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, also sent a letter to the F.A.A. noting that the public was “growing increasingly skeptical of prohibitions” on devices on airplanes. She warned that she was “prepared to pursue legislative solutions should progress be made too slowly.”

If progress is slow, there will eventually be an episode on a plane in which someone is seriously harmed as a result of a device being on during takeoff. But it won’t be because the device is interfering with the plane’s systems. Instead, it will be because one passenger harms another, believing they are protecting the plane from a Kindle, which produces fewer electromagnetic emissions than a calculator.

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

App Smart: Apps Help Extend the Battery Life of Devices

Thanks to my job, I experience more battery angst than most people, so I have tried some battery life apps. You may too. But unlike other types of apps, you need to be wary with these.

Apple’s tight control of iOS means battery apps on the App Store, even popular ones like Battery Life Pro All-in-One (free on iTunes), cannot automatically control an iPhone or iPad’s real-time battery consumption. This is because of Apple’s own systems for protecting battery life and app security. That said, there are some supposed best practices you can follow to keep your iDevice’s battery healthy. And there are ways you can manually adjust your phone.

Battery Doctor Pro is one of the best-designed battery advice apps ($1 on iTunes). Its main page has a graph showing current battery charge and a grid of icons that activate submenus. The “status” submenu lists estimates of how much talk time your battery offers at that moment, how much video playback and so on. The “inspection” submenu offers a list of actions to help extend battery life — like disabling Wi-Fi. Some of these actions are accompanied with tips on how to carry them out. These are the really useful parts of the app, which teach you about your phone.

Another useful feature is the “maintain” submenu, which guides you through a process said to increase the performance of lithium batteries. This involves letting the battery run down to less than 20 percent charge, then charging it to 100 percent and letting it remain on charge for a while.

Battery Doctor Pro has a long list of other options, like a selection of themes — monitoring the device, keeping track of charges — but really these are just useless frills. For example, it may be interesting to use the “monitor” to see what code your phone is running, but it will not be of immediate use in extending battery life.

Battery Boost Magic (free on iTunes) is a very similar app, with a slightly flashier interface, and its battery life tips section may be more easily accessible for iDevice beginners. Essentially, however, this app works in the same way as Battery Doctor Pro. If you are really into these apps, Battery Life Pro All-in-One has a very flashy interface, although it too works the same way.

Android device owners face a different situation. Android apps can get access directly to some settings in the device to help preserve battery life without the user’s having to dive into them manually. But the more open design of Android itself presents a problem, because some apps can run in ways that really do eat up battery life.

The 2X Battery — Battery Saver app (free) is perhaps one of the more straightforward battery life apps for Android. It indicates how long a battery has left until it runs out and also offers alerts about whether power-hungry systems like GPS are turned on. Tapping these alerts takes you directly to Android’s settings so you can turn off services to save battery life. The app also has different modes, so it can automatically control a device’s behavior — turning Wi-Fi off for long intervals at night, for example, on the premise that you are not using the device while asleep.

Easy Battery Saver (free) is another good battery app. Its best feature is its main dashboard, which reports on current battery status and allows one-tap access to turn off or adjust Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, mobile data and screen brightness. Like 2X Battery, this app has different power-saving modes that try to minimize power-gulping activities like getting access to wireless networks. The app also shows graphically which apps seem to be using the most power. This data may prompt you to turn off an especially power-hungry app you may have forgotten is running, like a live wallpaper app.

The problem with these apps is that the next time you pick up your Android device, you might find you have turned off the very function you need. For example, you may have selected low screen brightness to save battery life, but suddenly find you need to read the screen in a brightly lighted room. Thus you may have to jump in and out of your battery saver apps to adjust their settings.

My advice would be to concentrate on free versions of these different apps on iOS or Android. Try them for a while to see if they help, or at least teach you good habits. But do not panic about battery apps; you bought your phone to use it, after all.

Quick Calls

YouSendIt, the popular cloud file-sharing service, has introduced an exclusive Windows Phone 8 app on the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820. The app has all the usual YouSendIt tricks about syncing and sharing files, and users can share files directly between phones using NFC. ... Etsy, the online store for handmade crafts, has finally released a dedicated Android app (free on Google Play) to help you shop among its wares.

Gadgetwise: Devices for Children: Tablets, Toys or Both?

The boundary between toy tablets and real tablets keeps getting thinner. Cases in point: the LeapPad 2 from LeapFrog and the $100 Wi-Fi-enabled Innotab 2S.

The InnoTab 2S from Vtech

As the price and processing power of these types of toys begin to approach those of real tablets, more parents are finding themselves with a tricky choice. Is it better to invest in a toy that acts like a tablet, or a tablet that has been configured to impersonate a toy?

To help you plan your child’s digital path, consider recent history. Over the last 12 months, a variety of Android tablets for children have been released. They are often more similar than they are different; with a girl-or-boy themed silicone frame for protection, slots for adding more storage, 7-inch multitouch screens and a handful of preloaded $1 apps like Angry Birds. There’s also a key selling point: parental control features to keep a child from drifting into, say, YouTube.

Examples include LexiBook ($150), Kurio ($200), Nabi 2 ($200), Meep ($170) and Tabeo ($150). Each is trying to distract your child from Apple’s iPad and its new little brother, the iPad Mini ($330).

Throw into the mix three additional $200 tablets, each made for adults but also easy to configure for children. There is the Amazon Kindle Fire, Google’s Nexus 7 and Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD ($200).

This fall, toy rivals VTech and LeapFrog have updated their portable platforms, succeeding in offering the lowest price of entry to the world of apps and touch screens.

The cheapest option is VTech’s MobiGo 2 ($50), followed by the updated LeapsterGS ($70). Both are solid choices, despite having smaller screens that can process only one finger on the screen at a time. These editions come with faster processors and separate log-in accounts so multiple children can share the same device while saving their progress. Both also now have accelerometers, letting you tilt or lean in some of the games. MobiGo’s microphone and fold-out keyboard are noteworthy, and the back-facing camera on the LeapsterGS is the best yet, especially because of the improved photo and movie editor.

Designed to fool a child into thinking he or she has a real tablet, VTech’s InnoTab 2 ($80) comes with a new rotating camera. A second model, the InnoTab 2S ($100) has built in Wi-Fi that does nothing more than let your child browse apps, while generating e-mails telling you which ones you should buy. The InnoTab devices have less storage capacity than the LeapPad, but the storage can be expanded by way of an SD card. The LeapPad2 Explorer ($100) starts faster and comes with two better-quality cameras, in front and in back.

All four devices let you purchase new software the old-fashioned way: by driving to a store and paying $20 to $25 for a cartridge. Each also has an online option that involves downloading and installing an app store on your Mac or Windows computer and plugging in with a USB cable. If you forget to unplug, you can drain the AA batteries — just one of the many clunky steps to this process.

All of the devices share one consistent attribute. They are not shy about pestering a child to find a grown-up to help them download more apps.

The bottom line is that the differences between this year’s Leapster, InnoTab and LeapPad models are slim. Whichever you choose, remember that each is a platform that can lead to a significant investment in software. After you add up the $100 for, say, a LeapPad or an InnoTab, and then buy four $20 cartridges, you’ve already spent more than the price of the latest iPod Touch ($175), a device with a high-resolution display, parental controls and an app store with thousands of $1 treasures. Not to mention no need for AA batteries.

If you’ve somehow managed to raise children who have not yet touched an iPad or a Nexus 7, you might be able to sell them on the idea of one of these lesser tablets. But be warned: once they’ve sampled a good app on a glossy, responsive multitouch screen, it’s hard to go back.

Bits Blog: Like Apple, Google Now Has Devices That Come in Three Sizes

From top: the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.

With the addition of its new iPad Mini, Apple offers touch-screen devices in three sizes. Now Google is matching that by introducing a tablet that is meant to compete directly with the larger iPad.

Google on Monday unveiled the Nexus 10, a 10-inch tablet it developed with Samsung, and a new phone, the Nexus 4, that it made with LG. Google also said it would upgrade its seven-inch tablet, the Nexus 7, to include a cellular data connection.

Google’s Nexus line of devices shows off Google’s latest mobile software.

“We’re building pretty sensational world-class products here,” said Hugo Barra, director of product management for Android at Google, at a news conference in San Francisco on Monday. “You don’t find anything even remotely like that out there.”

Also on Monday, Microsoft held a press event in San Francisco to talk about the imminent release of Windows Phone 8, its new mobile operating system, which it announced in June.

Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.com are all building devices in part to recruit customers to use their other services and buy apps, music, books and other content from them.

The Nexus 10 tablet includes a high-resolution display and the newest Android software, which has a feature that allows the tablet to be shared by setting up separate user accounts, something the iPad does not have.

Most notably, the 10-inch screen size will allow Google to go after the market that Apple created with the 9.7-inch iPad: people who are buying full-size tablets instead of laptops. The iPad has been Apple’s most quickly adopted product ever, with 100 million tablets sold to date. Clearly, that market is a juicy target for Google, as well as for Amazon, which recently introduced a bigger 8.9-inch tablet.

With the Nexus 10’s starting price of $400, $100 less than the cheapest iPad, Google has a good chance of selling plenty of tablets, said Jan Dawson, a research analyst with Ovum. But Google would still not pose much of a threat to Apple because it has been selling its tablets at cost, Mr. Dawson said. Google’s goal is to build market share and profit from ads and content sales.

“Neither Google nor Samsung can afford to do that for long with the Nexus 10,” he said. “The more they sell, the more money they lose.”

The Nexus 4 phone has a few features that the last Nexus phone did not. Among them are wireless charging by setting the phone on a small charging station, faster processing, an improved screen, typing by moving a finger instead of pressing individual keys and panoramic photo-taking.

Google also had news about Google Play, its store for apps, books, music and videos, which has lagged other online stores because it has not offered as comprehensive a selection.

Its music service finally signed a deal to bring the catalog of the Warner Music Group — with Green Day, Madonna, Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and hundreds of other acts — to its Google Play store. This means Google’s millions of Android users will have an essentially complete catalog of MP3s to buy.

Google also recently signed deals with Time Inc. for magazines and 20th Century Fox for movies, filling other major holes in its offerings.

At its event, Microsoft said Windows Phone 8 would appear on new smartphones made by Samsung, Nokia and HTC starting next month. It also talked about some new features, like Data Sense, a tool that allows people to see how much data apps are using, so they can close data-guzzling apps and avoid exceeding their data plans.

Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing and promoting its Windows Phone operating system since releasing it two years ago. But despite some rave reviews from critics, Windows Phone 7, the previous version, has been unpopular among consumers, with only about 2.5 percent of the American market to date.

Nokia, the Finnish phone maker, has staked its future on Windows Phone. It formed a partnership with Microsoft to ship Nokia Windows phones. But sales of its Lumia handsets featuring the software have been slow.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows Phone, said in an interview that he felt it was the right moment for the software, because it was getting strong support from manufacturers and carriers, and was coming out at the same time as Windows 8, Microsoft’s new desktop and tablet operating system. The architecture of Windows Phone 8 has been rewritten to share the core software in Windows 8, and many features will work between the operating systems, he said.

Ben Sisario and Claire Cain Miller contributed reporting.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 29, 2012

An earlier version of this post misidentified the company that Google worked with to create the Nexus 10. It was Samsung, not LG. Thanks to commenter Joie2 for spotting the error.

Disruptions: Apple's New iPads and Planned Obsolescence in Devices

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times The new iPhone uses a charger that is incompatible with those used for older models.

Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s vice president for marketing, strode across the stage of the California Theater in San Jose last week trumpeting the virtues of new Apple products. As he caressed the side of the latest iMac personal computer, he noted how thin it was — five millimeters, 80 percent thinner than the last one. Then he said, with an air of surprise, as if he’d just thought of it: “Isn’t it amazing how something new makes the previous thing instantly look old?”

Umm, yes, Mr. Schiller, you design your products that way. It’s part of a strategy that Apple has perfected. How else can the company persuade people to replace their perfectly fine iPhone, iPad, iMac and iEverything else year after year?

In the past, electronics makers could convince consumers that the design was different, because it actually was. The first iMac, for example, was a blue bubble. Then it looked like a desk lamp, and now it’s a rectangular sheet of glass with the electronics hidden behind it. The iPod designs changed, too, over time, before they became progressively smaller sheets of glass.

Certainly makers add features like better cameras or tweak the software — Siri and Passbook on the iPhone are examples of that for Apple — to persuade people to upgrade. But in the last few years, consumer electronics have started to share one characteristic, no matter who makes them: they’re all rectangles. Now, companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google need to persuade consumers to buy new rectangles once a year.

“This phenomenon happened to the TV manufacturers a few years ago. They all started to look the same: flat panels on a wall,” said Donald A. Norman, author of “The Design of Everyday Things.”

The consequences for manufacturers were disastrous. “Customers no longer had to buy the higher-end Sony model; instead, they could get the cheaper, Chinese one,” Mr. Norman said. “This is what today’s companies are scared of. Turn off the screen on a smartphone or tablet and they look identical. They’re just rectangles.”

Each year, Apple and other companies seem to put those rectangles in a vise, flatten them slightly, alter the exterior dimensions and showcase them as the next big, or little, thing. (Apple did not comment on its design strategy.)

This wasn’t always the case. As a child I remember exploring my father’s Minolta film camera — a camera from the mid-1950s that was given to him by his father. Although film cameras are now for the most part obsolete, you can bet that camera can still take 36 pictures without a hitch.

Yet can you imagine, 10 years from now, someone handing a child an iPad Mini, the latest Apple gadget? They would scoff, just as people do today when they see an older — two or three years old — version of the iPhone.

There is a term for all of this: “planned obsolescence,” which was popularized in the 1950s by Brooks Stevens, an industrial designer who specialized in making new cars. Briskly adopted by postwar consumer goods industries, the strategy coaxed Americans to sell their 1955 Cadillacs for the 1956 Cadillacs with their pronounced tail fins, and then the 1957s with even more exaggerated fins, and then ’58s, ’59s and so on.

Mr. Stevens’s term was often misinterpreted as meaning things were designed to fall apart on a regular schedule. But he believed that true upgrades and design changes would make people want to buy the latest thing. That still holds true in this era, when consumers are supposedly wary of the hucksterism of manufacturers. If you don’t upgrade to the latest iPhone or iPad, you fear you may look dated and clueless, even though the rational part of your brain says, “This is a perfectly fine, useful device.”

Consumer electronics companies, Mr. Norman noted, have adopted the same marketing techniques the automobile industry perfected decades ago. Introduce fancy upgrades to the top and then, each year, push them down to lower-tiered products. This way, customers on every level feel the need to buy a newer version. “This is an old-time trick — they’re not inventing anything new,” he said. “Yet it’s to the detriment of the consumer and the environment, but perhaps to the betterment of the stockholder.”

He added: “For Apple, you forgot the other trick: change the plugs!” While the rest of the electronics industry has adopted micro-USB ports, Apple just changed the proprietary ports and plugs on all of its latest devices — laptops, iPads and iPhones included.

The documentary, “The Light Bulb Conspiracy,” showcased how past industries have gone to great efforts to reduce the life span of products — often products that couldn’t be designed to look different. Light bulbs were made to burn out sooner and stockings snag by early afternoon.

Even so, my first iPod still plays music. My laptop from four years ago can still browse the Web. And my first e-readers can still display books.

It seems some consumers are starting to feel upgrade fatigue. There is no lift in PC sales, and people are owning them longer. A report by Recon Analytics, a market research firm, found that people around the globe were waiting longer to buy new mobile phones. In 2007, Americans upgraded their phones every 18.7 months on average; three years later, that number had stretched to 21.1 months. In Finland, people now wait 74.5 months to upgrade, compared with 41.8 months in 2007.

Maybe Mr. Schiller’s comment about the iMac isn’t how consumers see it anymore. Instead, people are starting to realize that these upgraded products are simply flatter rectangles that don’t really offer much more than the last model. Just like the tail fins on the ’56 Cadillac.

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

Advanced Micro Devices Posts a $157 Million Net Loss

The company’s chief executive, Rory Read, said he did not expect the personal computer industry to improve for several quarters.

A.M.D., which is a distant No. 2 to the top chip maker, Intel, said in a statement that it expected its restructuring actions to result in savings of $190 million next year. It expects to record a restructuring expense in the fourth quarter of about $80 million.

“It’ll bring earnings up, I guess, but you still have to ask how disruptive this will be and what roles are they cutting,” said Stacy Rasgon, an analyst at Bernstein Research. “The market is not going their way, and they’re not in a strong position.”

Last week, A.M.D. warned that its third-quarter revenue fell more than it had previously expected and that gross margins suffered from a $100 million write-down because of lower future growth of some products.

A.M.D. posted a net loss of $157 million, or 21 cents a share, compared with a profit of $97 million, or 13 cents a share, in the period a year earlier. Revenue dropped to $1.27 billion from $1.69 billion.

Mr. Read took over at A.M.D. last year promising to fix long-standing execution problems that have plagued the company. But A.M.D. has continued to lose money as well as market share to Intel and the graphic chip rival Nvidia.

“The trends we knew would reshape the industry are happening at a much faster pace than we anticipated,” Mr. Read told analysts in a conference call.

Looking for markets with faster growth than personal computers, A.M.D. said it planned to increase its focus on selling chips for communications, industrial and gaming applications. Mr. Read said those areas would grow to account for 20 percent of quarterly revenue by the fourth quarter of next year, compared with 5 percent now.

Like Intel, A.M.D., which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., was caught flat-footed in recent years with the emergence and fast growth of mobile devices like Apple’s iPad.

A.M.D. and Intel have been slow to adapt their computer chip designs to mobile. But while Intel has poured its huge resources into efforts to catch up to smartphone chip makers like Qualcomm, A.M.D. has yet to define a clear mobile strategy.

Shares of A.M.D. closed at $2.62., down 5.4 percent, before it announced its results.

Media Decoder Blog: Barnes & Noble to Introduce New Video Service for Nook Devices

Barnes & Noble said on Tuesday it would introduce a new video store for its Nook products this fall, the latest expansion of the bookseller’s digital content.

The service will allow customers to stream and download movies and television shows for a fee onto TV’s and mobile devices, while storing the content in the Nook cloud. The video catalog includes HBO shows, like “Game of Thrones” and “True Blood,” and movies including “The Artist” and “Toy Story 3.”

Barnes & Noble has focused heavily on its digital offerings to compete with retailers like Amazon and Apple. In April, it received a boost when Microsoft said it would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the bookseller’s digital division.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook enters a crowded market of digital rental services that let viewers download movies and television shows to mobile devices. The video streaming service would be similar to Apple’s iTunes in that viewers could rent single episodes, movies or whole TV seasons. Wal-Mart entered the streaming business in 2010 with its $100 million acquisition of Vudu, which allows viewers to rent high-definition movies on Internet-enabled televisions. Many new television sets now come with the Vudu and Netfix apps built in. Verizon and Redbox recently partnered to introduce their own streaming service.

Major studios have taken a blow in home video revenue in recent years as DVD sales and traditional rentals decline. Deals like the one with Barnes & Noble help bring in additional rental revenue and offer viewers another outlet on which to find content. That’s in combination with home-grown streaming services like HBO Go, which requires users to authenticate that they pay for Time Warner’s HBO before accessing hundreds of episodes of past and current shows on tablets and mobile devices.

William J. Lynch, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said in a statement, “As one of the world’s largest retailers of physical video discs and digital copyrighted content, our new Nook Video service will give our customers another way to be entertained with a vast and growing digital video collection, as part of our expansive Nook store.”

Barnes & Noble currently has about 25 percent of the e-book market. In August, the company reported a loss of $41 million, or 78 cents a share, in the quarter ending July 28. Nook sales were flat over the previous year, at $192 million.

On Tuesday, Barnes & Noble also signaled its intentions to build a bigger presence in Britain. It said the company Dixons Retail, which owns the electronics retailers PC World and Currys, would sell Nook products in 600 stores. Barnes & Noble also named Patrick Nourvillois as a managing director responsible for building the Nook brand “outside the U.S. across the globe.”

Silicon Valley Worries About Addiction to Devices

In a place where technology is seen as an all-powerful answer, it is increasingly being seen as too powerful, even addictive.

The concern, voiced in conferences and in recent interviews with many top executives of technology companies, is that the lure of constant stimulation — the pervasive demand of pings, rings and updates — is creating a profound physical craving that can hurt productivity and personal interactions.

“If you put a frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it’ll boil to death — it’s a nice analogy,” said Mr. Crabb, who oversees learning and development at Facebook. People “need to notice the effect that time online has on your performance and relationships.”

The insight may not sound revelatory to anyone who has joked about the “crackberry” lifestyle or followed the work of researchers who are exploring whether interactive technology has addictive properties.

But hearing it from leaders at many of Silicon Valley’s most influential companies, who profit from people spending more time online, can sound like auto executives selling muscle cars while warning about the dangers of fast acceleration.

“We’re done with this honeymoon phase and now we’re in this phase that says, ‘Wow, what have we done?’ ” said Soren Gordhamer, who organizes Wisdom 2.0, an annual conference he started in 2010 about the pursuit of balance in the digital age. “It doesn’t mean what we’ve done is bad. There’s no blame. But there is a turning of the page.”

At the Wisdom 2.0 conference in February, founders from Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Zynga and PayPal, and executives and managers from companies like Google, Microsoft, Cisco and others listened to or participated in conversations with experts in yoga and mindfulness. In at least one session, they debated whether technology firms had a responsibility to consider their collective power to lure consumers to games or activities that waste time or distract them.

The actual science of whether such games and apps are addictive is embryonic. But the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, widely viewed as the authority on mental illnesses, plans next year to include “Internet use disorder” in its appendix, an indication researchers believe something is going on but that requires further study to be deemed an official condition.

Some people disagree there is a problem, even if they agree that the online activities tap into deep neurological mechanisms. Eric Schiermeyer, a co-founder of Zynga, an online game company and maker of huge hits like FarmVille, has said he has helped addict millions of people to dopamine, a neurochemical that has been shown to be released by pleasurable activities, including video game playing, but also is understood to play a major role in the cycle of addiction.

But what he said he believed was that people already craved dopamine and that Silicon Valley was no more responsible for creating irresistible technologies than, say, fast-food restaurants were responsible for making food with such wide appeal.

“They’d say: ‘Do we have any responsibility for the fact people are getting fat?’ Most people would say ‘no,’ ” said Mr. Schiermeyer. He added: “Given that we’re human, we already want dopamine.”

Along those lines, Scott Kriens, chairman of Juniper Networks, one of the biggest Internet infrastructure companies, said the powerful lure of devices mostly reflected primitive human longings to connect and interact, but that those desires needed to be managed so they did not overwhelm people’s lives.

Advanced Micro Devices Reports Profit Down 40%

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — Trouble in the global economy dragged the chip maker Advanced Micro Devices’ profit down 40 percent in the second quarter, and the company warned Thursday that revenue would continue to be hurt through the summer.

“Overall weakness in the global economy, softer consumer spending and lower channel demand for our desktop processors in China and Europe made the closing weeks of the quarter challenging,” Rory Read, the president and chief executive of A.M.D., said in a statement.

A.M.D. is the world’s No. 2 maker of microprocessors, behind Intel. Mr. Read warned that though the company was acting to improve its performance, he expected headwinds to continue in the third quarter. A.M.D., which makes about a fifth of the world’s computer processors, said its gross margin, a measure of profitability, was 45 percent in the second quarter, compared with 46 percent last year.

Early this month, A.M.D., which is based here, slashed its second-quarter revenue forecast, citing weaker-than-expected sales in China and Europe and lackluster consumer demand over all.

Some analysts said that the largest issue for the company, other than weak demand for personal computers, was that Intel became very competitive on prices in late May and June.

A.M.D.’s net income tumbled to $37 million, or 5 cents a share, from $61 million, or 8 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges and gains, the company earned 6 cents a share, missing analysts’ expectations by a penny, according to data provider FactSet.

Revenue fell 10 percent to $1.41 billion, in line with analysts’ revised expectations. A.M.D. said computing services revenue fell 13 percent because of lower desktop sales in China and Europe.

The company’s stock fell 61 percent Thursday to close at $4.86.

A.M.D. said it expected third-quarter revenue to fall 1 to 3 percent from the second quarter.

Advanced Micro Devices Reports Profit Down 40%

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — Trouble in the global economy dragged the chip maker Advanced Micro Devices’ profit down 40 percent in the second quarter, and the company warned Thursday that revenue would continue to be hurt through the summer.

“Overall weakness in the global economy, softer consumer spending and lower channel demand for our desktop processors in China and Europe made the closing weeks of the quarter challenging,” Rory Read, the president and chief executive of A.M.D., said in a statement.

A.M.D. is the world’s No. 2 maker of microprocessors, behind Intel. Mr. Read warned that though the company was acting to improve its performance, he expected headwinds to continue in the third quarter. A.M.D., which makes about a fifth of the world’s computer processors, said its gross margin, a measure of profitability, was 45 percent in the second quarter, compared with 46 percent last year.

Early this month, A.M.D., which is based here, slashed its second-quarter revenue forecast, citing weaker-than-expected sales in China and Europe and lackluster consumer demand over all.

Some analysts said that the largest issue for the company, other than weak demand for personal computers, was that Intel became very competitive on prices in late May and June.

A.M.D.’s net income tumbled to $37 million, or 5 cents a share, from $61 million, or 8 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges and gains, the company earned 6 cents a share, missing analysts’ expectations by a penny, according to data provider FactSet.

Revenue fell 10 percent to $1.41 billion, in line with analysts’ revised expectations. A.M.D. said computing services revenue fell 13 percent because of lower desktop sales in China and Europe.

The company’s stock fell 61 percent Thursday to close at $4.86.

A.M.D. said it expected third-quarter revenue to fall 1 to 3 percent from the second quarter.