Can Lenovo Succeed With Tablets?

Lenovo on Friday said it would continue selling sub-10-in. Windows tablets in the U.S., backing away from statements it made the day before, when it said it was pulling the ThinkPad 8 from the North American market and had discontinued offering a model of the Miix 2.

“We will continue to bring new Windows devices to market across different screen sizes, including a new 8-inch tablet and 10-inch tablet coming this holiday,” Lenovo said in a press release published on its website Friday.

“Our model mix changes as per customer demand, and although we are no longer selling ThinkPad 8 in the U.S., and we have sold out of Miix 8-inch, we are not getting out of the small-screen Windows tablet business as was reported by the media (emphasis in original),” the statement continued.

On Thursday, the IDG News Service — like Computerworld, owned and operated by IDG – reported the withdrawal of the ThinkPad 8 and the 8-in. Miix from the U.S. market. The ThinkPad 8 had debuted in January at prices starting at $449, and the similarly-sized Miix had launched in October 2013.

Lenovo told IDG News that it was diverting remaining stocks of the ThinkPad 8 to other countries, including Brazil, China, and Japan, where demand was stronger for smaller Windows 8.1-powered tablets.

The China-based company, which has made impressive gains in the global market — it was the world’s largest personal computer seller during the second quarter, ahead of Hewlett-Packard and Dell, according to IDC — did not say exactly when it would return with an 8-in. device. If it begins selling the unnamed device in October, typical of OEMs that seed the channel then for the holiday sales season, it will have been absent from the market for two or more months.

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Google Snubs Privacy

Search giant Google has told the British government it is immune to prosecution on privacy issues and it can do what it like. The US Company is accused of illegally snooping on its British customers by bypassing privacy settings on Apple devices, such as iPads, to track their browsing history.

A group of British people took Google to court but the search engine is trying to get the case thrown out. Its argument is that it is not subject to British privacy law because it is based in California. This is the second time that Google has tried to avoid British law by pretending to operate in another country. It has come under fire for failing to pay tax in the UK

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘It is deeply worrying for a company with millions of British users to be brazenly saying they do not regard themselves bound by UK law. Solicitor Dan Tench, of law firm Olswang, said this was another instance of Google being here when it suits them and not being here when it doesn’t. Ironically when the US ordered Google to stop what it was doing, it forced the search engine to pay a $22.5million to regulators.

There are some indications that Google may not get its way. In July the Information Commissioner’s Office told Google its privacy rules breached UK law so it will be very hard for it to stand up in court and say it didn’t.

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Google Fights NSL Over Data Privacy

Google is fighting a National Security Letter (NSL) issued by the US government, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) acknowledging it is one of the first firms to do so.

Google took the unusual step last month of revealing, albeit in vague terms, the number of NSLs it received from the US government. At the time the company said it was working with the authorities to improve transparency around the subject, but according to court filings it is also fighting against handing over users’ data.

In March, Google filed a petition to set aside a legal process. Kevan Fornasero, a lawyer for Google said in the filing that petitions “filed under Section 3511 of Title 18 to set aside legal process issued under Section 2709 of Title 18 must be filed under seal because Section 2709 prohibits disclosure of the legal process”.

Fornasero’s reference to Section 2709 refers to the ability of the FBI to issue NSLs and force the handover of user data. According to the EFF, Google is one of the first communications companies to fight an NSL, but because Section 2709 doesn’t allow firms to disclose the legal process, few people can be certain that others haven’t tried to stand up to the US government.

Matt Zimmerman, a lawyer for the EFF said, “The people who are in the best position to challenge the practice are people like Google. So far no one has really stood up for their users’ among large Internet service providers.”

Google has tried in recent years to provide users with some information on how it deals with government agencies’ requests for user data. If the firm can succeed in its fight against NSLs then it could open the floodgates for others to stand up against a law that some see to be nothing more than a snooper’s charter.

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Asus Stakes Claim In Tablets Market

Asus has won critical acclaim for its early tablets, including the quad-core Transformer Prime TF201 that was debuted last year and the new quad-core Transformer Pad TF300T that will be available in some U.S. retail stores next week.

And it continues to improve its place in the crowded market — jumping into the Top 5 list of suppliers for the first time in 2011, according to the latest research from IDC. Asus ranked fifth in tablet shipments in both the U.S. and world in 2011 with a 2.3% share of the U.S. tablet market and a 2.5% share of the worldwide market.

Apple’s iPad remained at the top of both lists.

Though Asus still lags somewhat behind the market leaders, its influence on the market is clearly on the rise and could move it further up the tablet list, analysts say.

For instance, along with launching an array of powerful higher-priced new tablets, Asus is reported to be Google’s choice to supply a low-priced $200 device said to be called Google Play. The Google tablet would run Ice Cream Sandwich and a Tegra 3 quad-core processor, reports say.

The reports suggest Google is looking to launch the new tablet at its Google I/O developer conference in late June.

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Privacy Advocates & Lawmakers Push For Google Probe

Privacy groups and lawmakers are pushing for a new and more expansive investigation into Google and its privacy practices after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced that it found no evidence that the company violated eavesdropping laws.

Late last week, the FCC reported that there was no legal precedent to find fault with Google collecting unprotected home Wi-Fi data, such as personal email, passwords and search histories, with its roaming Street View cars between 2007 and 2010.

However, the FCC did fine Google $25,000 for obstructing its investigation.

A Google spokesperson took issue with the fine.

“We disagree with the FCC’s characterization of our cooperation in their investigation and will be filing a response,” said the spokesperson in an email to Computerworld. “It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We have worked with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns.”

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a national privacy watchdog, disagreed with the FCC findings.

In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today, EPIC asked that the Department of Justice investigate Google’s surreptitious collecting of Wi-Fi data from residential networks.

“Given the inadequacy of the FCC’s investigation and the law enforcement responsibilities of the attorney general, EPIC urges the Department of Justice to investigate Google’s collection of Wi-Fi data from residential Wi-Fi networks,” wrote Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the advocacy group.

“By the [FCC’s] own admission, the investigation conducted was inadequate and did not address the applicability of federal wiretap law to Google’s interception of emails, usernames, passwords, browsing histories and other personal information,” Rotenberg added.

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