Chants Against Iran’s Supreme Leader in Video of Dissident Cleric’s Funeral

Chants in support of jailed opposition leaders, and against Iran’s ruling cleric, rang out during a funeral procession for a dissident religious leader in the city of Isfahan on Tuesday, BBC News reported.

Video obtained by the BBC’s Persian-language service appeared to capture some of the chanting in support of Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two reformists who ran for president in 2009, and then contested the results, claiming that the vote count had been rigged in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The two opposition leaders remain under house arrest.

While restrictions on independent reporting inside Iran make it difficult to confirm the authenticity of the video, similar chants were heard in three other clips posted online on Tuesday, also said to have been recorded during the funeral of Ayatollah Jalaledin Taheri, who led Friday Prayers in Isfahan until he resigned in 2002 and accused the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of betraying the promises of the Iranian revolution.

According to a translation from Golnaz Esfandiari, who blogs about Iran for the American-financed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, mourners appeared to chant “Oh, Hussein, Mir Hussein!” and “Karroubi and Moussavi must be released!” in a brief clip of the procession along a broad avenue in Isfahan posted on YouTube by a Persian-speaking blogger.

Video said to show the funeral of a dissident cleric in the Iranian city of Isfahan on Tuesday was posted on YouTube by an anonymous blogger.

While it is impossible to verify that the soundtrack to this clip has not been altered, visual clues from the video â€" including the appearance of the green-clad coffin held aloft by the mourners and a large, blue pedestrian overpass above the avenue â€" do seem to match exactly images of the funeral shot by Arshideh Shahangi, a photographer based in Isfahan, for the Web site of the Iranian Students’ News Agency.

Arshideh Shahangi/ISNA A screenshot from the Web site of the Iranian Students’ News Agency showing the coffin of Ayatollah Jalaledin Taheri, a dissident cleric who was buried in the city of Isfahan on Tuesday.

Arshideh Shahangi/ISNA A screenshot of a photograph posted on the Web site of the Iranian Students’ News Agency, showing the funeral of a dissident cleric in the city of Isfahan on Tuesday.

As Ms. Esfandiari explained, the chants in another two video clips apparently recorded during the funeral and uploaded Tuesday to a YouTube account registered in the name Sohail Jannessari made reference to another dissident cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whose funeral in late 2009 turned into a massive antigovernment protest.

In one of those clips, male mourners marching in the procession appeared to chant “Death to the dictator!” and “The real clerics: Montazeri, Taheri!”

Video uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday by an Iranian blogger, said to have been recorded during the funeral of Ayatollah Jalaledin Taheri, a dissident cleric.

Since the mourners were recorded from behind, it is not possible to confirm that the voices heard on the video soundtrack are those of the men pictured, although this is a common tactic of opposition activists seeing to prevent the protesters they film from being identified through their footage.

The soundtrack for the second clip seems to capture a group of female mourners also chanting a slogan in favor of the dissidents ayatollahs.

Video uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday by an Iranian blogger, said to have been recorded during the funeral of Ayatollah Jalaledin Taheri, a dissident cleric.

More images of the funeral were posted on Facebook and Twitter by supporters of the campaign of Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric who is the only representative of the reformist wing of Iranian politics permitted to contest the presidential election this month. The Rouhani campaign slogan, “Hope. Prudence.” seems to indicate how much more restrained the reformists are in 2013 compared to 2009, when calls for change were voiced loudly.

#Rouhani among masses in Isfahan taking to streets today to honor late Ayatollah #Taheri #hope #prudence http://t.co/56ASQC7zQ5

â€" Rouhani Campaign (@HassanRouhani) 4 Jun 13

As the bloggers at the Iranian-American site Tehran Bureau noted on Tuesday, at a recent campaign rally for Mr. Rouhani his supporters also chanted in honor of Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Video from the Rowhani #IranElection campaign where supporters also chant pro-Mousavi slogans http://t.co/sW7NC10HwC

â€" TEHRANBUREAU.COM (@TehranBureau) 2 Jun 13

Robert Mackey also remixes the news on Twitter @robertmackey.

Smartphones to Pass Feature Phones, Report Says

This may be the year of the smartphone.

The International Data Corporation, a market research firm, said in a report released Tuesday that the number of smartphones sold in the world will surpass unit sales of more basic feature phones by the end of 2013.

The report predicts that shipments of smartphones will be 32.7 percent higher this year than last year, reaching 958.8 million units. This is up from 722.5 million units shipped globally in 2012.

“With the rise in global smartphone shipments, demand has quickly spread from developed markets to emerging markets,” the report said.

One factor contributing to the growth of smartphone sales is the decline in price of the devices.  In 2011, the average price of a smartphone was $443. By 2012 that figure had dropped to $407 and in 2013 it has declined even further to $372 per phone. The cost of a smartphone is expected to dip to $309 by 2017.

This comes on the heels of the continuing fall in the personal computer market. As Asymco, a research company that follows the computing industry, noted on Monday, ”Windows has now reached 60 percent market share and it’s likely to dip below 50 percent during this year.” Smartphones and tablets running Google Android and Apple iOS continue to take the place of PCs.

At the Google I/O technology conference held last month, Google said its mobile operating system was installed on 900 million devices, including smartphones and tablets. This is up from 400 million in 2012.

Ramon Llamas, research manager for the International Data Corporation’s mobile phones program, said the latest numbers represented a ”watershed year for smartphones.”

Smartphones to Pass Feature Phones, Report Says

This may be the year of the smartphone.

The International Data Corporation, a market research firm, said in a report released Tuesday that the number of smartphones sold in the world will surpass unit sales of more basic feature phones by the end of 2013.

The report predicts that shipments of smartphones will be 32.7 percent higher this year than last year, reaching 958.8 million units. This is up from 722.5 million units shipped globally in 2012.

“With the rise in global smartphone shipments, demand has quickly spread from developed markets to emerging markets,” the report said.

One factor contributing to the growth of smartphone sales is the decline in price of the devices.  In 2011, the average price of a smartphone was $443. By 2012 that figure had dropped to $407 and in 2013 it has declined even further to $372 per phone. The cost of a smartphone is expected to dip to $309 by 2017.

This comes on the heels of the continuing fall in the personal computer market. As Asymco, a research company that follows the computing industry, noted on Monday, ”Windows has now reached 60 percent market share and it’s likely to dip below 50 percent during this year.” Smartphones and tablets running Google Android and Apple iOS continue to take the place of PCs.

At the Google I/O technology conference held last month, Google said its mobile operating system was installed on 900 million devices, including smartphones and tablets. This is up from 400 million in 2012.

Ramon Llamas, research manager for the International Data Corporation’s mobile phones program, said the latest numbers represented a ”watershed year for smartphones.”

Daily Report: Apple Cast as ‘Ringmaster’ in E-Book Pricing Case

The government presented evidence that executives of big book publishing companies discussed raising e-book prices at Apple’s behest before the introduction of the iPad.

A Feature Film, Starring Google

Coming soon to a theater near you: an advertisement for Google, in the form of a feature film.

“The Internship” is a comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as two washed-up, laid-off salesmen who get internships at Google. They have no tech experience and, past 40, are ancient by Silicon Valley standards.

The movie is funny in parts, predictable in others, but underlying it all is an extended product placement for all things Google.

“Imagine the greatest amusement park you’ve ever been to as a kid,” Mr. Wilson’s character says upon arriving on Google’s campus. “Now imagine nothing like it and a million times better. That’s where we are.”

Shawn Levy, the film’s director, said at the San Francisco premiere that the movie was irreverent and that he was not trying to serve any agenda other than entertainment. “There was no way to do this movie well if the company wasn’t willing to have a sense of humor about themselves,” he said.

Still, there are lines that sound as if they were written by Google’s marketing department instead of by the screenwriters, Mr. Vaughn and Jared Stern.

Mr. Wilson’s love interest in the movie earnestly explains that she works such long hours because she believes that Google is making the world a better place. At one point, a character says, “You can actually have the same tabs open across all your devices” â€" which happens to be one of the features of the Chrome browser that Google is trying to promote.

And when a character asks for a definition of Googliness, a word that Google employees actually use to describe one another, someone replies, “The intangible stuff that made a search engine into an engine for doing good.”

Even if the marketing department did not write those lines, it did create the closing credits sequence, in which nearly every Google product makes an appearance, like Gmail,  YouTube, Hangouts and Now to Drive. It was made by the Google Creative Lab, which also prepares Google’s ads.

And all the typical Google perks have cameos. Mr. Wilson’s love interest picks up her dry cleaning at the office and they flirt in nap pods. And when Mr. Vaughn’s character first orders coffee and discovers it’s free, he adds seven bagels to his order. There is even a chase scene on Google’s primary-color bikes.

Lorraine Twohill, Google’s vice president of global marketing, said at the premiere that Mr. Vaughn approached Google with the idea two years ago, and the company agreed. The marketing department worked with the film’s producers throughout the process and read the script. Mr. Levy said that Google did not have editorial control and that much of the final film was improvised by Mr. Vaughn and Mr. Wilson anyway.

Still, according to news reports, Google had some veto power: it jettisoned a scene in which one of its driverless cars crashed. (Instead, as the two stars stare at the empty driver’s seat, Mr. Wilson’s character says, “It’s scary because it’s new.”) Yet Google didn’t step in with other elements, like the Google employee who moonlights at a strip club.

Google clearly thinks the film can do wonders for recruiting. Last month, Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, said the company had participated because the movie made computer science cool and might encourage people to pursue it. Last week, Google drove employees and interns in buses to see the movie, drink at an open bar and see Mr. Vaughn, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Levy in person. (Ms. Twohill, though, was quick to tell the interns that the movie did not portray real life at Google.)

“The Internship” depicts Google as some dreamy foreign land. Mr. Levy said he shot the first part of the movie, before arriving at Google, without much color, to paint Google as the Emerald City.

Though only some scenes were shot on Google’s Silicon Valley campus, and the rest at Georgia Tech, many of the surprising details are realistic. Self-driving cars really do drive by, and Sergey Brin, one of Google’s co-founders, really does randomly show up riding an elliptical bike in workout clothes.

Other details, not so much. For instance, moviegoers may be disappointed to discover when they search for a 1-800 number that Google has no help line for questions about all its products.

A Feature Film, Starring Google

Coming soon to a theater near you: an advertisement for Google, in the form of a feature film.

“The Internship” is a comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as two washed-up, laid-off salesmen who get internships at Google. They have no tech experience and, past 40, are ancient by Silicon Valley standards.

The movie is funny in parts, predictable in others, but underlying it all is an extended product placement for all things Google.

“Imagine the greatest amusement park you’ve ever been to as a kid,” Mr. Wilson’s character says upon arriving on Google’s campus. “Now imagine nothing like it and a million times better. That’s where we are.”

Shawn Levy, the film’s director, said at the San Francisco premiere that the movie was irreverent and that he was not trying to serve any agenda other than entertainment. “There was no way to do this movie well if the company wasn’t willing to have a sense of humor about themselves,” he said.

Still, there are lines that sound as if they were written by Google’s marketing department instead of by the screenwriters, Mr. Vaughn and Jared Stern.

Mr. Wilson’s love interest in the movie earnestly explains that she works such long hours because she believes that Google is making the world a better place. At one point, a character says, “You can actually have the same tabs open across all your devices” â€" which happens to be one of the features of the Chrome browser that Google is trying to promote.

And when a character asks for a definition of Googliness, a word that Google employees actually use to describe one another, someone replies, “The intangible stuff that made a search engine into an engine for doing good.”

Even if the marketing department did not write those lines, it did create the closing credits sequence, in which nearly every Google product makes an appearance, like Gmail,  YouTube, Hangouts and Now to Drive. It was made by the Google Creative Lab, which also prepares Google’s ads.

And all the typical Google perks have cameos. Mr. Wilson’s love interest picks up her dry cleaning at the office and they flirt in nap pods. And when Mr. Vaughn’s character first orders coffee and discovers it’s free, he adds seven bagels to his order. There is even a chase scene on Google’s primary-color bikes.

Lorraine Twohill, Google’s vice president of global marketing, said at the premiere that Mr. Vaughn approached Google with the idea two years ago, and the company agreed. The marketing department worked with the film’s producers throughout the process and read the script. Mr. Levy said that Google did not have editorial control and that much of the final film was improvised by Mr. Vaughn and Mr. Wilson anyway.

Still, according to news reports, Google had some veto power: it jettisoned a scene in which one of its driverless cars crashed. (Instead, as the two stars stare at the empty driver’s seat, Mr. Wilson’s character says, “It’s scary because it’s new.”) Yet Google didn’t step in with other elements, like the Google employee who moonlights at a strip club.

Google clearly thinks the film can do wonders for recruiting. Last month, Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, said the company had participated because the movie made computer science cool and might encourage people to pursue it. Last week, Google drove employees and interns in buses to see the movie, drink at an open bar and see Mr. Vaughn, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Levy in person. (Ms. Twohill, though, was quick to tell the interns that the movie did not portray real life at Google.)

“The Internship” depicts Google as some dreamy foreign land. Mr. Levy said he shot the first part of the movie, before arriving at Google, without much color, to paint Google as the Emerald City.

Though only some scenes were shot on Google’s Silicon Valley campus, and the rest at Georgia Tech, many of the surprising details are realistic. Self-driving cars really do drive by, and Sergey Brin, one of Google’s co-founders, really does randomly show up riding an elliptical bike in workout clothes.

Other details, not so much. For instance, moviegoers may be disappointed to discover when they search for a 1-800 number that Google has no help line for questions about all its products.

The Distasteful Side of Social Media Puts Advertisers on Their Guard

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Advertising on social media is also becoming a bigger piece of many digital advertising budgets.

As social media sites pursue advertising in a bid for new revenue, they are finding that they must simultaneously create a safe space for the advertisers they attract.

With the money, they are discovering, comes responsibility.

Facebook learned that the hard way last week. After failing to get the social network to remove pages glorifying violence against women, feminist activists waged a digital media campaign that highlighted marketers whose ads were found alongside those pages. Nissan and several smaller advertisers temporarily removed their ads from the site.

As public pressure mounted, Facebook acknowledged that its systems to identify and remove such content had not worked effectively and promised to improve those processes. The company began removing the pages in question.

The episode underscored a conundrum for social media sites forged from the philosophy that free speech should thrive on the Internet: will they be able to control content created by their users, so that advertisers are not embarrassed by material beyond their control?

“Certainly advertisers have a singular purpose, they want to reach consumers in a positive way,” said David Reuter, the vice president for corporate communications at Nissan Americas. “It is up to the social companies to create an environment that provides that level of support and safety for the companies.”

Nissan immediately began working with Facebook to find a solution, Mr. Reuter said, and the brand has resumed advertising on the site. Mr. Reuter praised Facebook for acting quickly and said the company “assured us that Nissan will be able to opt out of advertising on any pages that may be deemed offensive.”

Dove, another brand that activists cited for having ads on Facebook pages denigrating women, said in a statement that it was working with Facebook to have such pages removed. “We are also refining our targeting terms in case any further pages like these are created,” said Stacie Bright, global director of marketing communications for Dove, which is owned by Unilever. “Facebook advertising targets people’s interests, not pages, and we do not select the pages our adverts appear on.”

Exactly how advertisers will be able to prevent their brands from appearing on Facebook pages with offensive content is unclear. Sarah Feinberg, director of policy communications at Facebook, declined to offer specifics about how advertisers would be able to better manage where their ads appear but said that Facebook had a policy that “if a page is flagged as controversial, there are not ads on those sites.” The site, she said, does not pre-emptively identify content as controversial until it is reported.

While traditional media companies have provided advertisers with more predictable ad positions â€" during a certain television show, for instance, or in specific pages of a magazine â€" the level of control that marketers have over online display ads is not as precise. Digital ads are often placed using high-speed algorithmic technologies that allow advertisers to aim ads at a certain demographic, say men ages 30 to 40.

“You don’t have any control, quite honestly,” said Audrey Siegel, the president of the media agency TargetCast TCM, part of MDC Partners’ Maxxcom Global Media Group. “You’re never going to know your ad was here or there. It will change every time a user refreshes their browser.”

Robert J. Quigley, a senior lecturer specializing in social media at the University of Texas’s journalism school, said that it only made sense that social media companies would face more pressure from companies as they demanded more ad dollars.

“More and more advertising dollars are moving to nontraditional online forums. That is why there is more pressure to conform: money is behind it,” he said.

Many social media sites are also free for users, so as these companies expand, they must look to advertising for revenue. (Facebook had its initial public offering last year, and there is widespread speculation that Twitter will follow its lead soon, putting additional pressure on these sites to satisfy investors.)

Advertising on social media is also becoming a bigger piece of many digital advertising budgets. According to the research firm eMarketer, revenue from social media advertising in the United States is expected to reach $6.43 billion by 2015, or 12.2 percent of all digital advertising spending. Revenue from Facebook advertising in the United States is expected to reach $3.87 billion, up from $2.75 billion in 2013. Revenue from Twitter advertising in the United States is expected to reach $484 million in 2013 and just over $1 billion by 2015, eMarketer said.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 4, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: The Distasteful Side of Social Media Puts Advertisers on Their Guard.