Apple’s Jobs goes on long leave

Casting a pall over one of the world’s most closely watched companies, Steven P. Jobs, chief executive of Apple, said on Wednesday that he was taking a leave of absence because of health concerns.

Jobs wrote in a letter to Apple employees, released after the markets closed, that he had learned over the last week that his health problems were “more complex” than he originally thought. He said he planned to return to Apple at the end of June.

Day-to-day control of Apple will pass to Timothy D. Cook, its longtime chief operating officer until then.

Jobs, 53, wrote that curiosity about his health continued “to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well.” He said he would maintain the chief executive title and stay involved in major strategic decisions.

Jobs’s leave of absence is the latest twist in a story that has left the company’s shareholders, analysts and ardent fans exasperated and straining to divine any hid den meanings in the company’s vaguely worded communications.

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Technology reshapes America's classrooms

From online courses to kid-friendly laptops and virtual teachers, technology is spreading in America's classrooms, reducing the need for textbooks, notepads, paper and in some cases even the schools themselves.

Just ask 11-year-old Jemella Chambers.

She is one of 650 students who receive an Apple Inc laptop each day at a state-funded school in Boston. From the second row of her classroom, she taps out math assignments on animated education software that she likens to a video game.

"It's comfortable," she said of Scholastic Corp's FASTT Math software in which she and other students compete for high scores by completing mathematical equations. "This makes me learn better. It's like playing a game," she said.

Education experts say her school, the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Boston, offers a glimpse into the future.

It has no textbooks. Students receive laptops at the start of each day, returning them at the end. Teachers and students maintain blogs. Staff and parents chat on instant messaging software. Assignments are submitted through electronic "drop boxes" on the school's Web site.

"The dog ate my homework" is no excuse here.

The experiment at Frederick began two years ago at cost of about $2 million, but last year was the first in which all 7th and 8th grade students received laptops. Classwork is done in Google Inc's free applications like Google Docs, or Apple's iMovie and specialized educational software like FASTT Math.

"Why would we ever buy a book when we can buy a computer? Textbooks are often obsolete before they are even printed," said Debra Socia, principal of the school in Dorchester, a tough Boston district prone to crime and poor schools.

There is, however, one concession to the past: a library stocked with novels.

"It's a powerful, powerful experience," added Socia. Average attendance climbed to 94 percent from 92 percent; discipline referrals fell 30 percent. And parents are more engaged, she said. "Any family can chat online with teacher and say 'hey, we're having this problem'."

Unlike traditional schools, Frederick's students work at vastly different levels in the same classroom. Children with special needs rub shoulders with high performers. Computers track a range of aptitude levels, allowing teachers to tailor their teaching to their students' weakest areas, Socia said.

SURGE IN ONLINE COURSES

The Internet is also a catalyst for change. U.S. enrollment in online virtual classes reached the 1 million mark last year, 22 times the level seen in 2000, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, an industry body.

That's only the beginning, said Michael Horn, co-author of "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns".

"Our projections show that 50 percent of high school courses will be taught online by 2019. It's about one percent right now," said Horn, executive director of education at Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Massachusetts.

K12 Inc, which provides online curriculum and educational services in 17 U.S. states, has seen student enrollment rise 57 percent from last year to 41,000 full-time students, said its chief executive, Ron Packard.

Much of the growth is in publicly funded virtual charter schools.

"Because it is a public school, the state funds the education similar to what they would in a brick and mortar school, but we get on average about 70 percent of the dollars," Packard told Reuters.

"We don't usually get capital dollars, or bond issue dollars. Sometimes we don't get local dollars. So on average it works out 70 percent of the per pupil spending that an average school in the state would receive," he said.

"We're getting the kids who the local school is not working for. And the spectrum goes from extreme special education to extremely gifted kids," he said.

U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley says K12 and similar companies look set to capture an increasing share of the $550 billion publicly funded U.S. education market for children aged from about 5 to 18 as more U.S. states adopt virtual schools.

Virginia-based K12 recently opened an office in Dubai to expand overseas. Packard says he expects strong offshore demand for American primary and secondary education tailored for foreign nationals who want to enter U.S. universities.

Apex Learning Inc, based in Bellevue, Washington, is seeing a similar surge in demand. It started in 1997 by offering online advanced-placement courses to parents and individual schools but now sells an array of online classes for entire school districts and state departments of education.

"Over the last two years in particular we have seen very, very significant growth in the interest and demand for our type of digital curriculum," Apex chief executive Cheryl Vedoe said in a telephone interview.

Apex enrollments rose 50 percent to 300,000 in 2006-2007, and likely grew at the same pace last year, she said.

"Where we see the greatest growth today is actually in brick and mortar high schools for programs for students who are not succeeding in the existing programs," she added.

Online tutoring is also expanding rapidly. Bangalore-based TutorVista, which launched online U.S. services in 2005, estimates its average global growth in active students at 22 percent a month -- all taught by "e-tutors" mostly in India.

Horn expects demand for teachers to fall and virtual schools to boost achievement in a U.S. education system where only two-thirds of teenagers graduate from high school -- a proportion that slides to 50 percent for black Americans and Hispanics, according to government statistics.

"You deliver education at lower cost, but you will actually improve the amount of time that a teacher can spend with each student because they are no longer delivering one-size-fits-all lesson plans," he said. "They can actually roam around."

Fans line-up in Asia 2 days before new iPhone launch

Seeking to be one of the world's first to grab the new-generation iPhone, fanatical Apple fans around Asia are queuing up two days before its launch, undiscouraged by rain or freezing temperatures.


The July 11 launch will be the first chance for Asian consumers to own an iPhone, and related websites have been swamped with inquiries and early orders.

In Japan, one of the world's most advanced mobile markets, about 20 people were lined up outside Softbank Corp's flag ship mobile store in Tokyo on Wednesday morning, with a sign at the head of the queue reading "We Love iPhone".

"The big appeal (of the iPhone) is that this is an Apple product," said Hiroyuki Sano, a 24-year-old graduate student who early on Tuesday arrived in rainy Tokyo from Nagoya, 225 miles west of the capital, to be first in line.

He will turn 25 on Thursday while waiting to get his hands on the high-end version of the iPhone with 16 gigabytes of memory. Apple also offers an entry-level version with an 8 gigabyte memory.

"I've told my professor I was going to go buy an iPhone, and he gave me permission," said Sano, wearing a T-shirt with an Apple logo. "He is an Apple-lover too, and he sent me off cheerfully."

The long-anticipated 3G iPhone, which has faster Web links than its predecessor and supports third-party applications such as games and email, will debut in Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand on Friday as part of the global launch in 22 countries.

The original iPhone was only available in the United States and Europe, and the next-generation model is expected to go on sale in 70 countries by the end of the year.

Shares of Apple gained 2.5 percent on Tuesday ahead of the launch. Softbank shares rose 1.9 percent on Wednesday.

Softbank, Japan's third-biggest mobile carrier, will start selling iPhones at its flagship store at 7 a.m. on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday) and expand sales nationwide at noon.

Targeting a far bigger market with its new iPhone, Apple slashed the handset price and is allowing carriers to subsidize the phone this time around, making it easier for users to bring home the device.

Research firm Enterbrain said 6.7 percent of 1,200 people it surveyed in Japan wanted to buy an iPhone immediately.

WORLD'S FIRST

Four New Zealanders with deck chairs, sleeping bags and a small tent started queuing on a chilly Tuesday night outside the Auckland shop of Vodafone, which will launch the iPhone at 12:01 a.m. Friday (1201 GMT Thursday), the first in the world.

"I'm really just doing it to be able to say that I'm the first one in the world with one of these phones," 22-year-old student Jonny Gladwell told the New Zealand Herald.

Vodafone, New Zealand's top mobile carrier, is selling the phone for as little as NZ$199 ($150) in the country if consumers sign up for a two-year contract. Demand for pricing details was so heavy it crashed Vodafone's New Zealand website on Tuesday.

In Hong Kong, Hutchison Telecom International was flooded by 60,000 online applications over the weekend from consumers who are hoping to grab one of just 500 phones on sale.

A number of the more desperate would-be users pleaded online they needed the iPhone to appease demanding wives or stressed it was their birthday, according to Hong Kong media.

The only woman in the Tokyo queue said she was securing places in line with her co-workers so that her company, Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc, can own iPhones and develop content for the device.

Despite the hype, analysts say Japan's 108 million mobile subscribers who are already frequent users of Web browsing and email on 3G networks might not be easily wowed by the iPhone.

Most of the people in the Tokyo queue told Reuters they plan to buy the device as their second cellphone.

"We can expect certain demand from core Apple fans and others, but there will be users who would hesitate about buying the iPhone because of the high monthly charges of some 8,000 yen," said Hironobu Sawake, a JPMorgan senior analyst in Tokyo.

"Even though there will be other features that are more attractive than ordinary phones, the fact that the iPhone does not offer some features that are available on most handsets could turn off some users too," he said.

Watch superheros fight evil -- on your mobile phone

After taking on the big and small screens, comic book heroes like Spiderman and Superman may soon be appearing on an even smaller screen -- your mobile phone.

Suit-clad businessmen reading comic books are a common sight on Japanese trains, but they could soon be poring over their phones with publishers increasingly digitalizing their comics to cash in on the country's mobile-savvy consumers.

The July 11 launch of Apple Inc's APPL.O iPhone could also spur the growth of the mobile comic market as the device's touch-screen would make it easier and more appealing to read comics on handsets, analysts say.

As the number of mobile phone subscribers approaches 108 million, or 85 percent of Japan's population, carriers are moving away from voice services, beefing up content services and data transmission to increase revenues.

E-mailing, music-downloads and Internet surfing are already popular, and analysts expect comics to be the next big thing with the number of titles for mobile use soaring recently.

Comics led the size of the mobile publication market to double in the last business year to 22 billion yen ($204 million), according to Internet and media research firm Impress R&D. The size is almost three times bigger than the e-publication market for PCs.

"Until now, users had been extensively using mobile phones for emails," said Shinko Securities analyst Tomohiko Okugawa said. "Now that's shifting to games and comics ... this is the area it's going to be very interesting."

Top mobile phone carriers -- NTT DoCoMo Inc , KDDI Corp and Softbank Corp -- recently unveiled handsets and services, enhancing features like video downloads and animated e-mails, a move seen benefiting content providers such as MTI Ltd , DeNA and Dwango.

"We cannot be ahead of competition just by prices, features and sounds like we used to, and now we have to improve contents and user-friendliness to position ourselves apart from the rivals," said Toshitake Amamiya, general manager of KDDI's content and media division.

"The importance of contents has been growing ... It is crucial to pursue what we can do in this market where each adult always carries around a mobile phone and uses it ,as a life tool."

Nikko Citigroup analyst Hiroshi Yamashina said the bigger, better screens of new cell phones will help make mobile comics more popular.

Carriers have been releasing handsets in collaboration with popular TV brands, with some of them boasting 3.3-inch screens. Yamashina said the launch of Apple Inc's iPhone would also push up popularity of mobile comics as it can revive the sense of turning pages on its touch-screen.

Vodafone scores first deal to sell Apple's iPhone

Mobile phone group Vodafone scored its first deal to sell Apple Inc's iPhone after the UK group lost out to Telefonica's O2 to sell it in Britain.

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue, has been competing with operators and retailers to secure the right to sell the iPhone the touch-screen device which combines Apple's popular iPod music player, a video player and Web browser. Vodafone will sell the iPhone in 10 countries.

O2 has described the device as a star performer which draws increased numbers of customers into its stores.

Customers using the phone have also driven up data revenues by surfing the Internet and sending emails, a key attraction to operators as the cost of making calls decreases.

"Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network," the British-based firm said in a statement without giving any more details.