September 2013

The Japanese electronics industry largely missed out on the smartphone revolution. Yet this summer, even as one Japanese company, NEC, exited the business, another one, Fujitsu, announced plans for a new export push. Rather than competing with dominant brands like Samsung and Apple in the mainstream smartphone market, Fujitsu is aiming at a niche — older consumers, who, the company says, are not always served adequately by products like Apple’s iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy series.

In partnership with Orange, formerly France Télécom, Fujitsu has started selling a smartphone in France that uses a technology called Raku-Raku, or “easy easy.” The Raku-Raku handset has a touch screen and provides on-the-go Internet access, but it has larger buttons and other features aimed at older people who sometimes struggle with the complexity of conventional smartphones. While aging consumers may be a niche market, they present a growing opportunity in most industrialized countries. In Japan, 39 percent of the population will be 65 or older in 2050, up from 23 percent in 2010, according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan. In France, the 65-and-older cohort will grow to 25 percent in 2050 from 17 percent in 2010, data from the United Nations show. “It’s an underserved market,” said André Malm, an analyst at Berg Insight, a research firm in Gothenberg, Sweden. As for Orange and Fujitsu, the companies say they view the partnership in France as a pilot project; if the Stylistic phone catches on, they say, it will also be offered in other European markets in which Orange operates, like Britain. “For Japanese vendors, it has been challenging to go abroad,” said Michito Kimura, an analyst at the research firm IDC, “but this technology does meet a demand.”

If President Barack Obama orders an attack against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, it will likely include cyberattacks.

Experts say President Obama is unlikely to order the kind of stand-alone cyberattack against Syria that the United States launched against Iran’s nuclear facilities a few years ago. But digital sabotage could play a significant role in an American military strike if Congress approves an intervention. Syria’s air defenses would likely be among the first targets of any cyberattack, the experts said. US forces could trick the country’s radar system into seeing nothing as American jets passed overhead, or disrupt Syrian missile sites designed to shoot down US aircraft. American engineers also could disable Syria’s power grid remotely while the intervention was ongoing, then bring the system back online. They might take down Syrian command-and-control networks, or, in a move reminiscent of more traditional electronic warfare, jam the Syrian army’s communications or block its propaganda.

Verizon's $130 billion deal with Vodafone is huge for both companies, although Verizon customers in the US are unlikely to see any big changes to their bills or their service.

Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam said that the company's US wireless businesses are working well now, and that he would move slowly on any changes to its structure. "We're very bullish on the growth outlook for the US wireless marketplace," he said. In the most recent quarter, Verizon Wireless added 941,000 devices to its contract-based plans, exceeding expectations and extended a strong run. But almost all of Verizon's wireless gains were customers upgrading to higher-priced plans or adding more devices, rather than an influx of new customers. Verizon said it expects regulators to approve the deal since it already controls its US wireless business. It also needs shareholder approval. It expects the deal to close during the first quarter of next year.

CBS and Time Warner Cable finally agreed on a new contract, ending a month-long blackout of the network in certain markets. But the deal isn't a fix for what's widely considered a broken TV model, meaning CBS probably won't be the last network to go dark this year as battles between content providers and cable and satellite operators intensify.

There's certainly little rest ahead for Time Warner Cable, whose deals with both Discovery Communications and Viacom expire before the end of the year. It is playing hardball in particular with Viacom -- whose networks include MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central but also smaller channels like MTV Jams and Palladia. Cablevision has called out Viacom for the way it wields its portfolio, filing a lawsuit in February that claimed Viacom forced Cablevision to pay for 14 low-rated channels if Cablevision also wanted access to core networks like MTV and Nickelodeon. Refusing to carry those smaller channels would have incurred a $1 billion penalty, Cablevision alleged. Pay-TV operators are also increasingly looking for rights to stream programming to their subscribers over the web -- rights that networks may want to sell elsewhere.