SEARCH CLINIC

It is not just humans that are growing in size- web pages are getting bigger too.

The average web page is now about 965 kilobytes in size- reveals a study of top sites by the HTTP Archive trends.

The figure is 33% up on the same period in 2010 when the average webpage was even then a not so slim 726 kilobytes.

Keeping web pages small is vitaly important as not only are an increasing number of people browsing with smartphones, but also because Google use download times as a key search ranking determinant.

Analysis suggests the bloat is down to user demands for more interactivity, as well as the tools used to watch what happens when people visit a site.

To gather its figures, the HTTP Archive run a series of tests every month on the web’s top 1,000 sites.

These showed that average webpage sizes were trending steadily upward throughout 2011 and jumped sharply in October. Big pages generally take longer to load, which can mean visitors quit if a page takes too long to appear.

The metrics the HTTP Archive gathered suggest some causes for the growth. Images are a big proportion of the average webpage, and the higher resolutions people expect have led these to grow.

However, the statistics reveal that the category showing the biggest growth is that for Javascript.

This scripting language is widely used to make webpages more interactive and responsive.

The growth in the amount of Javascript on webpages may be down to the growing use of HTML5.

This is the latest version of the formatting language that defines how web pages should be written.

Independent estimates suggest more than 6.8 million Android or Apple iOS smartphones were activated on Christmas Day – more than double last year’s number.More than 3.7m Android devices were activated over the Christmas weekend, Google has revealed.

Industry experts believe the rise is partly because entry level smartphones have become cheaper.

The statistics, from Flurry Analytics, suggested 242 million apps were also downloaded on the same day.

The peak time for downloading new apps on Christmas Day was between 7pm and 10pm, the company said.

It gathered its data via its analytics tool which monitored downloads and usage of 140,000 apps in both Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store.

Flurry Analytics did not break down numbers for the individual operating systems.

It said the figures showed an increase in activations of 353% when compared to the daily average between 1 and 20 December. App downloads were up 125% over the same period.

The Android operating system can be found on a wide range of models produced by many different manufacturers, whereas Apple’s iOS is only found on iPhone, iPad and certain models of its iPod music player.

Demand for the iPhone has reached such a level that China based manufacturer Foxconn is looking to double production to 400,000 units per day, China Daily reported.

Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of design, has been awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours list.Mr Ive, who can now call himself Sir Jonathan has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE).

Raised in Chingford, Mr Ive began working for Apple in 1992 and since then has been the brains behind many of its products.

He described the honour as “absolutely thrilling” and said he was “both humbled and sincerely grateful”.

Mr Ive added: “I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making. I discovered at an early age that all I’ve ever wanted to do is design.”

Mr Ive has been lauded for the tight fit between form and function seen in Apple gadgets such as the iPod and iPhone.

Born in February 1967, Mr Ive inherited a love of making things from his father, a silversmith, and reportedly spent much of his youth taking things apart to see how they worked.

From the age of 14, he said, he knew he was interested in drawing and making “stuff” and this led him to Northumbria Polytechnic – now Northumbria University – where he studied industrial design.

On graduation he started work as a commercial designer and then, with three friends, founded a design agency called Tangerine.

One of the clients for the agency was Apple which was so impressed with the work he did on a prototype notebook that it offered him a full time job.

Mr Ive was apparently frustrated during his early years at Apple as the company was then suffering a decline. Everything changed, however, in 1995 when Steve Jobs returned to the company he helped found.

Mr Jobs described Mr Ive as his “spiritual partner” in the recent biography of the Apple co-founder written by Walter Isaacson. However, it also said that Mr Ive was “hurt” by Mr Jobs taking credit for innovations that came from the design team.

Mr Ive’s eye for design combined effectively with Mr Jobs’ legendary attention to detail and the products that have emerged from the company since the late 1990s have turned Apple into the biggest and most influential technology company on the planet.

The knighthood is the second time Mr Ive has been recognised in the honour’s list. In 2005 he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Research in Motion (RIM), which makes Blackberry phones has announced a delay to the launch of its new Blackberry 10.There was also disappointment at the prediction of sales of between 11 and 12 million smartphones in the current Christmas quarter, down from 14.8 million in the same period last year.

It reported net income of  £171 milion ($265 million) for the quarter to 26 November, down from £603 million in the same period of 2010.

RIM shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading.

The Blackberry 10 phones were supposed to be on sale in the first three months of 2012, but RIM now says they won’t be available until late in the year.

It blamed the advanced chips for the phones not being available until the middle of the year.

RIM has also taken a charge of £222 million for unsold PlayBook tablets, which were launched with much hype earlier this year.

The new phones will operate the QNX operating system, which is seen as crucial to the company if it is to compete with phones using Google’s Android software or Apple’s iPhone.

The company has had a difficult few months, with a service outage knocking £25 million off its net income.

“As part of our commitment to improving our performance to better meet the expectations of shareholders and customers, we continue to evaluate ways to improve in several areas of the company’s operations,” RIM’s joint chief executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis said in a statement.

“It may take some time to realise the benefits of these efforts and the platform transition that we are undertaking, but we continue to believe that RIM has the right set of strengths and capabilities to maintain a leading role in the mobile communications industry.”

The two chief executives said they had reduced the cash element of their pay packages to $1 per year.

The source code behind the mobile operating system WebOS, is being given to open source software developers by Hewlett Packard.The company acquired the software when it bought the smartphone maker Palm for £767 million ($1.2 billion) last year.

HP used the code to power its short-lived range Touchpad tablet computers before it abandoned the product line.

The firm said it would continue investing in the project to help third parties add enhancements.

“By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices,” said the firm’s president and chief executive, Meg Whitman.

A statement from the company said it would make the underlying code behind WebOS available under an open source licence. It said third-party developers, partners and HP’s own engineers could then “deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace”.

The firm added that it intended to be “an active participant and investor in the project”.

Analysts said the decision secured the platform’s future, at least in the short to medium term.

Software installed on millions of Android phones is thought to be secretly tracking every key stroke, Google search, and text message by their users, it has been claimed.An Android app developer in America has posted a video showing what he claims is ‘conclusive proof’ that ‘Carrier IQ’ software installed by manufacturers of many US phones records the way those phones are used in real time, as well as their geographic locations.

Carrier IQ has claimed that the software only tracks information for the benefit of users, not for any spying purposes, and that it is “counting and summarising” information rather than recording it.

However, in a YouTube video the developer, Trevor Eckhart, did a “factory reset” on his Android phone, returning it to the condition in which it is shipped to customers, and linked it to a computer screen which allegedly displayed what the Carrier IQ software was tracking.

The demonstration shows that the software reads every keystroke put into the phone, as well as every text message sent to it. It also appeared to log location data, and transmit this to Carrier IQ.

Mr Eckhart, claims it is used by manufacturers of phones that use Google’s Android operating system, as well as some BlackBerry and Nokia handsets. It is not thought to be used in Apple’s iPhones.

It is not known if Carrier IQ is in use in Europe, where it might present a serious breach of the Data Protection laws.

A source at a leading mobile operator said his company didn’t install it but that he had been investigating whether UK manufacturers had done so and “couldn’t give a definitive answer”.

Google’s Chrome has overtaken Mozilla’s Firefox as the world’s number two browser behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer last month, according StatCounter. The findings quote Chrome’s worldwide market share at 25.69% and Firefox’s at 25.23%. Internet Explorer, according to the same findings, dominates worldwide market share at 40.63%.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Chrome is still number three with 17.3%, a 6.41% jump compared to last November. Internet Explorer held the top spot with 50.66% and grew by 0.42%. Firefox was second with 20.09%.

Internet Explorer’s commanding lead has been challenged by the browser’s near absence from smartphones and tablets.

Last month, another researcher, Netmarketshare, reported that Internet Explorer’s share dipped below 50% for the first time.

Safari, Apple’s default browser on the iPhone and the iPad, claimed 62.17% of mobile traffic. Internet Explorer, meanwhile, had 52.63% of desktop traffic, according to the researcher.

Chrome may be coming to Google’s mobile Android platform soon, according to reports. The 3-year-old browser’s growth, which benefits from being promoted on Google.com, hit 200 million users in October.

Chrome also became the most popular browser for accessing Mashable in August.

UK shoppers are buying more online products and services and at a faster pace than many other countries- a survey of global shopping habits by KPMG has found.Seventy seven per cent of British shoppers prefer to buy goods like CDs, DVDs, books and video games online – compared with 65% globally.

But when it comes to mobile banking, consumers in the UK are more reluctant than those in other parts of the world.

KPMG surveyed 9,600 consumers aged between 16 and 65, across 31 countries.

When buying goods or services, the majority of customers (both in the UK and globally) now said that they look at social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and online review sites.

“From buying goods on their mobile phones to keeping up with friends on social networks, consumers are increasingly reliant on a range of technologies that perform important – yet often overlapping – tasks,” said Tudor Aw, KPMG’s European head of technology.

“This new ‘converged lifestyle’ will have huge implication for retailers.”

Eighty eight per cent of respondents in the UK and worldwide reported downloading an app to their mobile.

In the UK, 74% of consumers said they were more likely to buy flights and holidays online and six in 10 used some form of online grocery shopping.

In the US, by contrast, the same amount would book flights but only 21% said they were more likely to buy groceries online.

But when it comes to mobile banking, only 27% in the UK said they had used some form of mobile banking in the past six months.

That compares with 52% globally – a massive jump from just under 20% in 2008, according to the audit firm.

Consumers in the UK are also more reluctant to embrace the cloud – storing their data online rather than on their own computers – with 53% of respondents saying they do some compared with 65% globally.

“The report also shows that consumers’ concerns over privacy and data security have increased over the last few years and companies across all sectors need to take this concern seriously,” Mr Aw said.

Online sales rose faster than expected in the US on Black Friday, according to surveys- with more expected next week.Internet sales totalled £524 million ($816 million), a 26% gain on last year, said Comscore. IBM Coremetrics put the rise at 24%.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is treated by many retailers as the start of the Christmas shopping season. They offer one-off discounts to mark the occasion.

Analysts said heavy promotional activity helped drive demand.

By comparison, a report by Shoppertrak suggested that in-store Black Friday sales were up by 7% on last year, at £7.12 billion ($11.4 billion).

Around 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Friday, according to Comscore.

It said Amazon was the most popular destination, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.

Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple were next in line, said the analytics company.

“Despite some analysts’ predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce,” said Comscore’s chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

IBM Coremetrics also noted a trend towards shopping on smartphones and tablet computers.

It said Black Friday purchases made on mobile devices had accounted for 9.8% of all online sales, compared with 3.2% last year.

IBM described mobile shoppers as having had a “laser focus” since they had been more likely to view a single page on a retailer’s site rather than browse what else was for sale.

IBM said Apple’s iPhone and iPad had generated the most mobile internet visits to online stores, accounting for more than double the traffic originating from devices running Google’s Android system.

The company also noted a jump in Black Friday related chatter on social networks. It recorded a 110% rise in discussion volumes after consumers had shared tips on how to secure products before they sold out and the best places to park.

Friday’s internet sales are expected to be eclipsed today on what is referred to as Cyber Monday – which many experts believe will be the US’s busiest online shopping day of the year.

Close to 123 million Americans plan to make an online purchase according to a survey commissioned by the US National Retail Federation, an industry lobby group. That would be a 15% increase on last year.

NRF said nearly eight in ten online retailers would run special promotions including “flash sales that last an hour” and “free shipping offers”.

The federation also highlighted the shift to mobile devices, saying it expected 17.8 million Americans to use them to shop today, nearly five times the number in 2009.

“Retailers have invested heavily in mobile apps and related content as the appetite for Cyber Monday shopping through smartphones and tablets continues to rise,” said Vicki Cantrell, executive director of the NRF’s website shop.org.

UK internet retailers said it was less clear which day will be the UK’s busiest online shopping day this year.

“Over the last couple of years we have seen a fortnight of peak activity over the period corresponding to both this and next week,” said Andy Mulcahy, a spokesman for the industry body Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

“We expect £3.72bn will be spent online over the two week period.”

Mr Mulcahy said that although some retailers are trying to generate interest in the idea of a cyber event in the UK, but they are split over which day to mark.

Visa Europe said it believed today will be the UK’s busiest internet shopping day, with £303m spent online.

eBay has forecast that it would experience its peak in activity this Sunday with more than 5.5 million people expected to log onto the UK version of its auction website.

Amazon said it expected to experience more demand the following day.

“In recent years, the first Monday in December has been Amazon.co.uk’s busiest day with orders for over 2.3 million items being placed on Monday 6th December last year,” said Christopher North, the website’s managing director.

Shares of smartphone maker HTC have fallen by 7%, the maximum allowed in one day, after the company cut its growth forecast.Taiwan-based HTC said on Wednesday that it expected revenues for the final three months of 2011 to be little changed from a year earlier.

The firm had earlier forecast growth of 20% to 30%.

HTC, the world’s fourth-biggest smartphone brand, blamed increased competition and weakening demand.

Analysts and the markets were surprised by the statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

In October, the company had warned that fourth quarter revenue was slowing, predicting 125bn to 135bn New Taiwan dollars (£2.6 billion- £2.9 billion), compared with T$135.8bn (32.81 billion) in the previous three months.

Although HTC did not give a specific forecast for Wednesday’s further downward revision, it said it predicted no growth compared to the same period last year. HTC’s revenue in the last three months of 2010 was £2.166 billion.

Analysts said the grim outlook could be blamed on lack of new products to compete with an expansion in Apple’s distribution channels in the US.

However, the company said it expected a pick up in revenue in the first half of 2012.