Hong Kong (CNN) – The official mourning period for Kim Jong Il is over and the world's eyes – and in many cases fears – are now focused on Kim Jong Un.

We still don't know with any certainly how old he is, let alone whether he is capable of running a country.

At first, he will have plenty of help from his father's trusted circle of advisers. But analysts say one of the reasons he was chosen over his two brothers to succeed Kim Jong Il is that he most closely resembles his grand-father, Kim Il Sung, founder of the Communist north. If that is the case, it is unlikely to be long before he begins to flex his muscles, political or otherwise.

Kim Jong Un faces a clear – and intriguing – choice.

Does he follow the path of his father and grandfather and keep his country in isolation and his people cowed? This would mean he would remain beholden to China for his very survival, while being shunned by most of the rest of the world.

Or does he look at his very own neighbourhood and learn from two of the most economically successful models in the world: South Korea and China?

When Kim Il Sung founded Communist North Korea in 1948, the country had a bigger industrial base that the south, and many more riches in the ground.

Over the ensuing 63 years Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il ran the country into the ground.

The economy has shrivelled as both South Korea and China have blossomed. From a rocky and authoritarian beginning, South Korea embraced the free markets with its own style of capitalism – significantly, heavy state support for key industries – and has become a democratic Asian tiger with an industrial based economy.

According to the CIA’s The World Factbook, South Korea’s economy is likely to have topped $1 trillion last year.

I use the CIA’s figures because they have also estimated the size of the North Korean economy – there are no official North Korean statistics – at about $28 billion. That makes South Korea's economy nearly 36 times bigger.

The contrast with China is even more extraordinary. In a little more than 30 years China has moved from near economic irrelevance to economic superpower. Money talks, and these days when China talks the world takes note.

Even that other international pariah nation, Myanmar, has shifted its policy. Enough, at least, for the U.S. president Barack Obama to send his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to see what's going on.

Kim Jong Un has reportedly been educated in Switzerland. He will have seen the sweeping changes in the global economy and the global order. He will be aware of the role that economics play in staying in power. He need look no further than China, where the Communist Party maintains its legitimacy by providing prosperity.

It won't happen overnight. Perhaps not even in years. North Korea watchers say he is unlikely to change his father's military-first policy anytime soon, despite its crushing impact on the people of North Korea. But if he does look beyond the immediate he will see a North Korean model of rule that is unsustainable and an economy in decay.

Call it enlightened self-interest but it may be that the younger Kim will have to turn his attention to economics 101, purely for the sake of of his own self-preservation.

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Hong Kong (CNN) – The official mourning period for Kim Jong Il is over and the world's eyes – and in many cases fears – are now focused on Kim Jong Un.

We still don't know with any certainly how old he is, let alone whether he is capable of running a country.

At first, he will have plenty of help from his father's trusted circle of advisers. But analysts say one of the reasons he was chosen over his two brothers to succeed Kim Jong Il is that he most closely resembles his grand-father, Kim Il Sung, founder of the Communist north. If that is the case, it is unlikely to be long before he begins to flex his muscles, political or otherwise.

Kim Jong Un faces a clear – and intriguing – choice.

Does he follow the path of his father and grandfather and keep his country in isolation and his people cowed? This would mean he would remain beholden to China for his very survival, while being shunned by most of the rest of the world.

Or does he look at his very own neighbourhood and learn from two of the most economically successful models in the world: South Korea and China?

When Kim Il Sung founded Communist North Korea in 1948, the country had a bigger industrial base that the south, and many more riches in the ground.

Over the ensuing 63 years Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il ran the country into the ground.

The economy has shrivelled as both South Korea and China have blossomed. From a rocky and authoritarian beginning, South Korea embraced the free markets with its own style of capitalism – significantly, heavy state support for key industries – and has become a democratic Asian tiger with an industrial based economy.

According to the CIA’s The World Factbook, South Korea’s economy is likely to have topped $1 trillion last year.

I use the CIA’s figures because they have also estimated the size of the North Korean economy – there are no official North Korean statistics – at about $28 billion. That makes South Korea's economy nearly 36 times bigger.

The contrast with China is even more extraordinary. In a little more than 30 years China has moved from near economic irrelevance to economic superpower. Money talks, and these days when China talks the world takes note.

Even that other international pariah nation, Myanmar, has shifted its policy. Enough, at least, for the U.S. president Barack Obama to send his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to see what's going on.

Kim Jong Un has reportedly been educated in Switzerland. He will have seen the sweeping changes in the global economy and the global order. He will be aware of the role that economics play in staying in power. He need look no further than China, where the Communist Party maintains its legitimacy by providing prosperity.

It won't happen overnight. Perhaps not even in years. North Korea watchers say he is unlikely to change his father's military-first policy anytime soon, despite its crushing impact on the people of North Korea. But if he does look beyond the immediate he will see a North Korean model of rule that is unsustainable and an economy in decay.

Call it enlightened self-interest but it may be that the younger Kim will have to turn his attention to economics 101, purely for the sake of of his own self-preservation.

View full post on Business 360

Yes, the Verzo Kinzo is real! That Americano-Czech Android smartphone with mid-range specs that went on sale in November with a ludicrous $459 price tag only to be hastily relaunched earlier this month for a slightly more digestible $359 is not a giant farce. (Well, maybe it is.) It left the ethereal world of rendered computer graphics and landed in our mitts just in time for the holidays. To be specific, we received the pricier $384 Verzo Kinzo Plus GPS package, which includes a voucher for Sygic‘s off-line navigation app and a gaudy, Star Trek-inspired carholder. After spending a few days with the handset we are able to report that it isn’t particularly impressive in this day and age but isn’t completely horrible either — not to mention the faux-Vertu packaging and branding which are rather, well… unique. So why not grab some leftover eggnog, and join us after the break for our unboxing and impressions?

Continue reading Verzo Kinzo unboxing and impressions

Verzo Kinzo unboxing and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These shots reveal Land Rover testing their new Range Rover 2012, in full camouflage, in the deserts of Dubai that is being developed at Land Rover’s global headquarters in Warwickshire, UK. These photos will put any enthusiasts at ease who may be concerned that Land Rover could be loosing their off-road focus because if there is any place that tests the toughness and resilience of an out-door vehicle its the desert.

The new Range Rover is likely to showcase all the latest in engineering from the Tata owned 4X4 specialist. The new architecture will be aluminium intensive, increased interior space, a focus on upmarket cabin appointments and a suite of upgraded V6 and V8 engines that will provide the power, with a hybrid electrified powertrain to follow.

This new Range Rover is expected to be revealed in about six months time for the UK summer of 2012.

Source: Car Magazine

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Hot on the heels of a report about Apple’s iTV plans on Tuesday, there are fresh stories about its potential components and supplier partners out on Wednesday morning. DigiTimes cited new supply-chain sources saying that Apple is entertaining bids from three chipmakers for the processor that will power the Apple smart TV.

Tuesday’s report suggested that Samsung would be responsible for the chip running the iTV, which would likely be another in Apple’s A-series of in-house-designed processors based on licensed ARM designs. On Wednesday DigiTimes’ source said that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) and Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) are also in the running for Apple TV component orders. TSMC has previously been reported as a possible replacement for Samsung for the production of its next-generation A6 processor, although that report was later contradicted.

Another new element reported on Wednesday in the Apple iTV story is that it will be assembled by Foxconn, according to industry sources. That’s not surprising, given that Foxconn handles a huge chunk of Apple’s manufacturing requirements. The production standards for the TV set are expected to be finalized by the end of the second quarter of 2012, with shipping beginning at the end of the year, according to the new sources. That’s in line with Tuesday’s report, which suggested we would see the iTV hit the market sometime in the last half of 2012.

Apple television set rumors have been around for a while, mostly sparked by analyst claims that such a device was in the works. Comments made by Steve Jobs in his recently released biography lent more weight to the claims, and now supply-chain reports seem to be streaming in steadily. Roughly the same thing happened with the iPad, with rumors of an Apple tablet in development circulating for years before the actual device’s launch. We now know, of course, that the iPad was actually in development prior to the iPhone, thanks again to details revealed in Steve Jobs’ biography.

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Sources have confirmed that Downing Street is working to build an iPad app specially designed for British Prime Minister David Cameron — and said that, once completed, officials plan to make it available to the public.

The information comes after a report in today’s Times of London, which suggested that programmers were building a specialized app for Cameron — who it calls “an iPad devotee” who uses his tablet to keep on top of the news. The report (which is hidden behind a paywall) suggests that the app will allow Cameron to pull up the latest facts and figures on the country’s performance.

Mr Cameron will be able to see at a glance the latest NHS waiting-list figures, crime statistics, unemployment numbers and myriad other data which, in the short term, could provide quite grim reading.

The idea for the app came from a trip by advisers to the US and will also include “real time” information from Google, Twitter and other news sources.

The news was initially greeted with denial — or at least skepticism. Officials said they could not confirm or deny reports, leaving the BBC looking for confirmation, Meanwhile TechCrunch Europe tried dumping cold water on the story, arguing that it was little more than “idle chatter”.

However, my sources tell me that this is not just a tale cooked up over Christmas tipple — and that the eventual product should be made publicly available as part of the British government’s program to increase transparency.

Preliminary work has been underway “for a couple of months,” I am told, but if the finalized product ever makes the cut it will not be for some time.

Other details remain fuzzy: is it going to be a native iPad app? Possibly, but it would largely rely on public data streams that are already available online. Who is building it? That is not clear — the Cabinet Office does have a digital unit, but the final job will probably be offered out to tender rather than completed in-house.

What is obvious is that most of the pieces of the puzzle are already in place. For the most part it will provide a one-stop shop for existing data, rather providing Cameron a front-end for all his digital communications. That makes the product more like a Downing Street dashboard, rather than a digital equivalent to the famous famous red boxes that British ministers use to carry their documents around, but it would remain groundbreaking in its own way.

It’s no surprise that the news was greeted with skepticism, however. In his attempt to appear dynamic and forward-thinking the Prime Minister has made a sometimes-too concerted effort to align himself with new technologies — particularly his close relationship with Google, and the early push to show off his carefully presented “webCameron” videos on YouTube.

The trouble is, this attitude seems to be wheeled out only when it’s convenient — and gets ditched rapidly whenever the Prime Minister is put under pressure. During the summer, for example, when the rioting in London and other British cities was hitting the news around the world, Cameron said he was considering shutting down access to social networks. (Presumably his own access would remain unimpinged).

More recently, though — perhaps by the desperate state of the British economy — Cameron has returned to wooing the tech community again, softening his stance and resurrecting big data plans that he’d previously killed off. His backing of a new pseudo-governmental body intended to push London as Europe’s leading technology hub, meanwhile, has run into problems of its own. Still, whatever the web says about his administration… at least he’ll be able to read all about it on his iPad.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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(CNN) – Three continents, six personalities and one thing in common – being The Boss.

For more than a year, CNN has followed these business leaders, learning what really goes into running your own company. Some have bowed out, like Michael Wu and Richard Braddock, and some have stepped aside, like Sarah Curran.

Now the "Boss" era is coming to an end – but first, CNN's Richard Quest has a few more questions.

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Digitizing your analog archives? Vinyl to CD / MP3 / iPod turntables might do well enough for your old 45s, but the folks at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory prefer to listen to their old beats by taking pictures of them. More specifically, restoration specialists are using a system called IRENE/3D to snap high resolution images of damaged media. The cracked discs — often made of wax on brass or composition board — are then repaired digitally, letting researchers play the digitized discs with an emulated stylus. So far, the team has recovered a handful of 125 year old recordings from a team in Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta laboratory. The all digital system gives researchers a hands-off way to recover audio from relic recordings without running the risk of damaging them in the process — and no, they probably won’t let you use it to listen to that beat up copy of the White Album you’ve had in your closet since eighth grade. Hit the source link to hear what they’ve recovered.

Continue reading Scientists scan damaged audio discs, resurrect fresh beats

Scientists scan damaged audio discs, resurrect fresh beats originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s App Store is doing well thanks to the successful launch of the iPhone 4S. For the second month in a row, it posted record downloads among the top 200 free apps according to mobile app marketing firm Fiksu. For the first time, free apps in the top 200 exceeded the 5 million mark, with an average of 5.65 million downloads per day.

Source: Fiksu

That’s a 15 percent increase over the same stat as measured in October, when the App Store saw 4.91 million downloads per day among the top-ranked free apps. Before that, downloads had been declining slowly since June 2011, a lull some attributed to the release date of the iPhone 4S, which came months later than Apple’s usual annual smartphone refreshes.

Fiksu says that the introduction and rapid adoption of iOS 5 also helped downloads climb, due in part to a slew of app updates from developers designed to bring software up to spec for the new mobile OS. Downloads for November were a full 83 percent higher than at the same time in 2010, as a result of the combined factors of the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 launches.

Apple’s software market will continue to see benefits from the iPhone 4S launch, Fiksu expects especially since most analysts are now predicting that Apple will sell 30 million or more iPhones in the quarter covering the end of the 2011 calendar year. But what’ll be more interesting to watch is how app downloads perform over the course of the next year; Apple has changed up its release timeline, and that means it’ll be harder for consumers to predict when the next iteration of the iPhone arrives. As a result, the rumor mill could have a stronger impact on determining app market fluctuations.

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London (CNN) – Want to know what should be on Europe’s wish list if it wants its common currency to survive beyond 2012? Ask a leading financial sector economist.

As head of international economics at Barclays Capital, Julian Callow has formulated his own battle plan – but one which can only work if Europe is willing to get behind united political goals.

“We are still talking about a group of country states which have this common currency, but what the markets really want to see is a clear, decisive plan to move to a political union for the eurozone,” Callow told CNN.

His 2012 check-list includes serious commitment from governments to balance their budgets, a weak euro and a more proactive European Central Bank.

But while these factors could signal to the markets that Europe is serious about political union, there are still likely to be doubts that the continent’s differing economies and priorities can ever come together as a United States of Europe.

Certainly, a March 2012 date set by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy for a revamped EU Treaty seems wildly ambitious.

Callow agrees. “Look at how many years it took to create the American Constitution,” he said.

Part of the problem, of course, is that each key eurozone player has its own wish list.

Germany wants an austerity union with minimal government borrowing, everyone playing by the rules and heavy sanctions against those who break them.

France wants a system where individual countries have control of things at a national level.

Spain and Italy will have different issues, and smaller countries will want to make sure that they are represented at European level to varying extents.

Add the 2012 French presidential elections into the mix and the picture gets even more complicated.

Amid this push and pull, it will fall to the ECB to keep the markets happy – a duty Callow says it must try harder to fulfill.

Further, Italy, in particular, should be making use of the IMF facility to eliminate doubts over its finances, he said. “If it had some precautionary credit line, this would give the markets more confidence in Italian debt,” he added.

That brings us to Callow’s most important wish for 2012: Fix Italy.

“If you can solve Italy, if you can dampen the concern that markets have, then I believe the concerns will dissipate significantly elsewhere,” he said.

Focus on Italy seems inevitable, since the markets are already resigned to losses over Greece and are now shifting attention to other countries with towering debt problems, namely Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Spain.

“The markets are saying they are not 100% confident that some of these countries are fiscally solvent and that is why so much of the task of policymakers and governments is to reassure the market,” Callow said.

Italy, according to Callow, can do this by making a firm commitment to a new austerity plan.

At the same time, Spain has the opportunity to cut its deficit and introduce plans to consolidate its banking sector.

Portugal and Ireland, meanwhile, are small enough to be covered by IMF programs and European lending.

In short, in 2012 and beyond, the eurozone will need a better set of rules to make the whole system function. For now the focus is on financial austerity and restoring the appearance of solvency in the eyes of investors.

The bigger challenge is for governments to show they are deadly serious about achieving balanced budgets and implementing tough policies to promote growth.

Only then will the markets really believe Europe’s own long-term wish for political union will one day be granted.

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