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Vonage Settles Patent Suit with Nortel
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57473
In a move to begin the New Year with a clean slate, Vonage took a major step toward settling another patent suit against it. Vonage and Nortel Networks said they have agreed to end the litigation between them.
The settlement involves cross-licensing three Nortel and three Vonage patents, and does not include any monetary payments. The companies are dismissing claims relating to past damages and other patents not covered by the suit.
The settlement is subject to final documentation, but if it is finalized, it could mark the last of the string of patent suits against Vonage.
Just one week ago, the VoIP provider settled a patent dispute with telecom giant AT&T. AT&T had sued Vonage in October for using packet-based telephony products based on its intellectual property.
Since the company went public in May 2006, Vonage has been the subject of several patent suits from telecoms and other service providers. Both Sprint Nextel and Verizon targeted Vonage for patent infringement, and both companies won judgments against the young VoIP provider.
Before the AT&T settlement, Sprint Nextel took its turn collecting from Vonage for patent infringement. Specifically, a federal court ordered Vonage to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages for six counts of patent infringement. The ruling cost Vonage a third of its market value, although the stock has since seen gains.
Sprint Nextel claimed Vonage infringed on seven of its patents for connecting Internet phone calls. Vonage argued that Sprint's patents should not have been approved in the first place. However, in September, jurors in a Kansas City court decided Vonage deliberately violated Sprint's intellectual property.
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum had the option to triple the damages because of the finding of willful infringement. In the final ruling, a federal court ordered the company to pay $69.5 million in damages, plus...
Mon, 31 Dec 07
Gen Y Tops Internet Use at Libraries
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57472
New research is turning traditional thinking about libraries on its head. More than half of U.S. residents visited a library in the past 12 months to use computers instead of search for books, according to a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Specifically, 58 percent of participants in a national phone survey said they used the Internet at home, work, a public library, or some other place to get help in solving problems during the past two years.
"These findings turn our thinking about libraries upside down," Leigh Estabrook, Dean and Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois, and coauthor of a report on the results of the survey, said in a statement.
Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who said they visited a library in 2007, young adults age 18 to 30 -- commonly known as Generation Y -- were the biggest library computer users, according to the Pew study. Compared to their elders, Gen Y members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information and general patronage.
Overall, more than two-thirds of library patrons of all age groups said they used computers during their library visits. What's more, Internet users were more than twice as likely to patronize libraries as non-Internet users.
Young adults said they are most likely to use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40 percent of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20 percent of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library.
"Librarians have been asked whether the Internet makes libraries less relevant. It has not. Internet use seems to create an information hunger and it is information-savvy young people who are the most likely to visit libraries," Estabrook noted.
According to Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet &...
Mon, 31 Dec 07
Internet Opens Elite Colleges to All
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57455
Gilbert Strang is a quiet man with a rare talent: helping others understand linear algebra. He's written a half-dozen popular college textbooks, and for years a few hundred students at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been privileged to take his course.
Recently, with the growth of computer science, demand to understand linear algebra has surged. But so has the number of students Strang can teach.
An MIT initiative called "OpenCourseWare" makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free -- lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang's Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone.
Strang's classroom is the world.
In his Istanbul dormitory, Kemal Burcak Kaplan, an undergraduate at Bogazici University, downloads Strang's lectures to try to boost his grade in a class there. Outside Calcutta, graduate student Sriram Chandrasekaran uses them to brush up on matrices for his engineering courses at the elite Indian Institute of Technology.
Many "students" are college teachers themselves, like Sheraz ali Khan at a small engineering institute in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Noorali Jiwaji, at the Open University of Tanzania. They use Strang and other MIT professors as guides in designing their own classes, and direct students to MIT's courses for help.
Others are closer to MIT's Cambridge, Mass., campus. Some are MIT students and alumni, while others have no connection at all -- like Gus Whelan, a retiree on nearby Cape Cod, and Dustin Darcy, a 27-year-old video game programmer in Los Angeles who uses linear algebra regularly in his work.
"Rather than going through my old, dusty books," Darcy said, "I thought I might as well go through it from the top and see if I learn something new."
There has never been a more exciting time for the intellectually curious.
The world's...
Mon, 31 Dec 07
Data Breaches Set Record in 2007
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57452
The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card
and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007,
and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers
stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive
information.
And while companies, government agencies, schools and other
institutions are spending more to protect ever-increasing volumes of
data with more sophisticated firewalls and encryption, the
investment often is too little too late.
"More of them are experiencing data breaches, and they're
responding to them in a reactive way, rather than proactively looking at the company's security and seeing where the holes might be," said Linda Foley, who founded the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center after becoming an identity theft victim
herself.
Foley's group lists more than 79 million records reported
compromised in the United States through Dec. 18. That's a nearly
fourfold increase from the nearly 20 million records reported in all
of 2006.
Another group, Attrition.org, estimates more than 162 million
records compromised through Dec. 21 -- both in the U.S. and overseas, unlike the other group's U.S.-only list. Attrition
reported 49 million last year.
"It's just the nature of business, that moving forward, more
companies are going to have more records, so there will be more
records compromised each year," said Attrition's Brian Martin. "I
imagine the total records compromised will steadily climb."
But the biggest difference between the groups' record-loss counts
is Attrition.org's estimate that 94 million records were exposed in
a theft of credit card data at TJX Cos., the owner of discount stores including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. The TJX breach accounts for more than half the total records reported lost this year on both
groups' lists.
The Identity Theft Resource Center counts about 46 million -- the
number of records TJX acknowledged in March were potentially compromised. Attrition's figure is based on estimates from Visa and
MasterCard officials who were deposed in a lawsuit banks filed
against TJX.
The...
Mon, 31 Dec 07
Internet Giant Looks to the Future
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57448
You know your company is having a good year when its first-quarter profits top $1 billion. And that's exactly how Google kicked off 2007, by pulling in revenues of $3.66 billion for the quarter ending in March.
While we may have joked back in April 2006 that Google could afford to pay $1 billion to advertise on the lunar surface, in 2007 that was definitely true.
And in a way the company is doing something similar by putting up a total of $30 million towards the Google Lunar X Prize to encourage international teams to land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon. Well, the company has already mapped the stars.
While Google can obviously afford a few frivolous activities, it didn't take its business eye off the ball in 2007. Its most audacious move came at the expense of its biggest rival: Microsoft.
Microsoft was known to be in talks to buy ad tracking firm DoubleClick, valuing the company at $2 billion.
The buyout would have given Microsoft access to DoubleClick's Dart technology, which monitors how Internet adverts perform, boosting Redmond's ability to fight Google for online advertising market share.
A brilliant plan, except for the part where Google sneaked in and bought DoubleClick for itself.
The deal is naturally being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over competition worries following complaints from Microsoft.
Germany is also questioning the buyout over user privacy fears, putting the $3.1 billion deal under threat.
Even if the DoubleClick deal does eventually come unstuck, Google has plenty of irons in plenty of other fires.
For starters there's the rumored Google phone, a device that became much more likely when the company applied for a patent.
What Google eventually released was a mobile software platform called 'Android' that should have applications running on it by the second half of 2008.
Google claims that Android, which is...
Mon, 31 Dec 07
Pitfalls on the Road to Digital TV
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57446
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, more than 50 percent of U.S. households now own a digital television -- a milestone that the industry trade group's president Gary Shapiro characterized as a "critical threshold" for the nation.
What's more, an additional 32 million DTVs are now forecast to ship nationally during 2008, "with high definition expected to account for 79 percent of total DTV shipments in the U.S.," Shapiro explained.
However, the U.S. government's General Accountability Office (GAO) recently warned that no comprehensive plan is in place for tracking or measuring transition milestones. Having no plan raises concerns about whether consumers will have the information necessary to respond to the transition and to maintain access to TV programming, the GAO said.
"Only the FCC appears to be in a state of denial over what the GAO is telling us," FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein noted. "Rather than making excuses, we need to come up with solutions," including the establishment of an interagency task force, Adelstein said.
A comprehensive partnership between the public sector and the private sector should have accountability, clear lines of authority, and daily coordination at the highest levels, noted FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. "I agree with GAO that the FCC is in the best position to get the job done," Copps said. "But the hour is late -- very late."
Digital-to-analog conversion capabilities are included in all set-top boxes for cable and satellite TV reception -- the preferred reception mode used by 87 percent of U.S. households, which will be able to continue to view broadcast programming on analog TVs after the transition to digital. But the remaining 13 percent of U.S. households will not be so lucky.
These over-the-air reception households disproportionately represent low-income workers, the elderly, and minorities -- particularly those for whom English is a second...
Mon, 31 Dec 07
Mobile Advertising Still at Tryout Stage
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57443
In the weeks leading to Christmas, an online wine retailer gave 15 percent discounts to anyone who sent in a photo of its newspaper ad snapped with a camera phone.
SnapTell Inc., the company helping Wine Enthusiast and other merchants offer such services, uses image-recognition software to determine what offer, video clip or other content to return to the phone. In the coming months, the same technology could deliver movie reviews and discounts to anyone snapping a picture of a movie poster or billboard.
It's one of a number of emerging approaches to mobile advertising, an industry still in its infancy but showing promise. More than 80 percent of Americans now own cell phones -- a statistic Jupiter Research analyst Neil Strother equated with "carrying a potential advertising channel in their pocket."
Fast-food chains, carmakers and TV reality shows have run contests and other promotions in which consumers participate by sending text messages. Wireless carriers have begun letting companies run banner ads -- mini-versions of what you might see on a PC. Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have brought lucrative search ads to phones.
Advertisers have been spending a little money here, a little there trying to gauge what works on mobile phones. The efforts so far are best described as trials and pilots, lacking in comprehensive strategy.
"It's the Wild, Wild West right now," said Rick Sizemore, chief strategy officer for the tech consultancy Multimedia Intelligence. "This is an interesting and compelling vehicle, but they don't necessarily know who to work with. There are so many options out there -- a lot of hype with no substance, and then a couple of gems."
SnapTell is among Sizemore's favorites.
Gautam Bhargava, SnapTell's co-founder and chief executive, said the company considered the phone's unique qualities -- its lack of regular keyboards in most cases, and the ubiquity of...
Fri, 28 Dec 07
AOL Finally Kills Netscape Browser
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57445
On Friday, roughly a decade after Netscape's fortunes started to slide, AOL announced it is finally pulling the plug on the Netscape browser. "While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer," Tom Drapeau, AOL's director of development, wrote on the Netscape Blog.
The start of the saga dates back to 1994, when a University of Illinois student named Marc Andreessen founded a company called Netscape Communications, after taking the world by storm with the NCSA Mosaic browser. For a time, it looked like Netscape would be the dominant player on the Web, as Microsoft seemed to regard the Internet as somewhat irrelevant.
In 1995, Netscape had a stellar IPO, with shares almost tripling in value on the first day of trading, and the dot-com boom was born. Soon enough though, Microsoft got in the game and released its Internet Explorer browser. By 1997, Microsoft was already up to Internet Explorer 4, with significant advances over its three earlier versions.
By 1998, not coincidentally, Netscape's financial results had turned south and the company started laying off employees. A year later, America Online bought the struggling company for $4.2 billion, in what now looks like an exorbitant waste of money, but it was 1999, after all.
At the time of the acquisition, Netscape had started building an open-source version of the browser called Mozilla, an effort that in 2003 produced the independent Mozilla Foundation. Before the Foundation's creation, Drapeau said, "AOL played a significant role in the launch of the Netscape 6 browser, the first Mozilla-based, Netscape-branded browser that was released in 2000 and continued to solely fund the development and marketing efforts of Netscape-branded...
Fri, 28 Dec 07
Wireless Hitches a Ride on the Subway
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57441
Some cell-phone users were bemused a few years back when an episode of the Fox TV series 24 aired in which Jack Bower and his intrepid antiterrorist team used GPS technology to track the movements of a biological weapon riding on an underground train in Los Angeles.
Given that terrestrial cellular calls are unable to penetrate the wide expanse of concrete and earth that lies between trains underground and the sky above, viewers reasoned, then how could any space-based satellite be expected to succeed at the task?
These days, however, metropolitan subway systems are joining forces with technology providers to come up with a reliable method for delivering wireless services to their customers. Boston commuters, for example, now have the ability to use cellular phones and other wireless devices as they travel through some of Boston's busiest subway stations.
"This is a major customer service enhancement for our ridership," said Daniel Grabauskas, the general manager of the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority. "Not only can customers make calls, send text messages, and receive T-Alerts while using the subway, they can also access the Internet and check e-mails."
Boston's MBTA wireless system was constructed by InSite Wireless, which specializes in the deployment of distributed antenna system (DAS) technology in public facilities, such as San Francisco's Moscone Center.
DAS technology expands the wireless coverage of cellular networks in much the same way as access points extend the reach of today's Wi-Fi systems. The DAS signal, which is received by small antennas scattered throughout a facility, is balanced among the antennas and then forwarded over fiber optic cables to the carrier networks.
The DAS providers make money by charging access fees to cellular providers, such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. And the subway system operators benefit by getting a slice of...
Fri, 28 Dec 07
Google Responds to Reader Brouhaha
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57440
With Google users growing more irate over a sharing feature on its Google Reader service, the search giant is making moves to appease the masses.
The drama began on December 14 when Google announced that Reader, its RSS feed service, would connect with Google Talk and Gmail contacts. In other words, when users tagged a feed to "Share" in Reader the users' Gmail and Google Talk contacts would see it.
The uproar arose almost immediately, as industry analysts and consumers alike expressed their displeasure. In fact, the Google Reader forum offers 277 comments on the Share feature since it launched. Not all of them were negative, but most of them ranged from mildly annoyed to extremely angered.
"Don't you think there might be a method of being selective with what you share that might be slightly more fine grained than, you know, deleting our shared items en masse? This is the worst 'feature' you have ever introduced," wrote a Google Reader Help poster named "Modulo Noh."
Many had the same question: How do I turn this off? "Do I need to unsubscribe from all my feeds? I do *NOT* want colleagues seeing my personal feeds. Unless I'm misunderstanding something here, I have to stop using Google Reader," wrote a user by the name of LeeWNYC.
Chrix Finne, the Google spokesperson who blogs about the Reader, fielded the questions in one overarching blog post. He first acknowledged the "helpful feedback" about the new sharing feature. Then he admitted that the company had hoped making it easier to share feeds with people they chat with frequently would be useful and interesting.
"We underestimated the number of users who were using the Share button to send stories to a limited number of people. We're looking at ways to make sharing more granular and flexible, but...
Fri, 28 Dec 07
Tech Startup Bridges Mideast Divide
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57427
Zvi Schreiber is a British-born serial entrepreneur who established the headquarters of his latest tech startup, a software company called Global Hosted Operating System (G.ho.st), in Israel last year.
G.ho.st has developed a "virtual PC" that saves all of a person's files online so data and programs can be gathered from any computer. As Schreiber sees it, the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems that cram applications and documents all inside one physical computer will soon be obsolete.
"Our G.ho.st virtual computer will enable users to get their computing environment from any browser -- and we'll eventually compete head-on with Microsoft," Schreiber predicts.
Taking on Microsoft is tough enough. But Schreiber is embracing another challenge: He's helping create a high-tech economy in the Palestinian territories, one of the most poverty-stricken, crisis-riddled spots in the world. He has located the development center for G.ho.st in the West Bank.
It's a bold move at a time when the Palestinians are facing an unprecedented economic crisis due to years of Israeli restrictions and border shutdowns imposed for security reasons. Some $7.4 billion in aid was pledged by international donors at a Dec. 17 conference in Paris to shore up the government of President Mahmoud Abbas. But what is really needed, according to a recent World Bank report, is economic integration of Israel and the Palestine territories -- a task that's far easier said than done.
Consider the challenges Schreiber confronts. Though he has hired three dozen Palestinian engineers and programmers in Ramallah, Schreiber has yet to set foot in the development center, located a mere 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) north of his home in Jerusalem. As an Israeli citizen, he is barred for security reasons from entering Palestinian-controlled parts of the West Bank. And Israel's security fence prevents most Palestinians from entering Israel.
Still, the...
Fri, 28 Dec 07
Amazon Signs Warner in DRM-Free Music Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57425
In yet another step away from the digital-rights-management ties that bind, Warner Music inked a deal with Amazon.com on Thursday to sell songs and albums without copyright protections.
DRM-free music downloads from Warner Music Group are now available on Amazon MP3, Amazon's digital music store.
Warner Music Group is home to a collection of some of the best-known record labels in the music industry, including Asylum, Atlantic, Bad Boy, Cordless, East West, Elektra, Lava, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Rykodisc, Sire, and Warner Bros.
Amazon MP3's unique value proposition is that every song and album is playable on virtually any device capable of playing digital music.
Amazon targets Apple iTunes' sore spot. Most of the digital music on iTunes only works on iPods or in the iTunes software. However, a recent deal between EMI and Apple has opened up a portion of iTunes to DRM-free digital tracks.
Bill Carr, Amazon.com vice president of digital music, said consumers have responded well to Amazon's DRM-free MP3 service. Since the September launch, he reported, Amazon has received thousands of "thank you" e-mails from customers for offering MP3 downloads that play on any device.
Amazon officially offers the largest selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads with more than 2.9 million songs.
Most songs available on Amazon MP3 are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than one million of the over 2.9 million songs priced at 89 cents.
The top 100 best-selling songs are usually 89 cents. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99, with the top 100 best-selling albums typically priced at $8.99 or less.
In addition to Warner Music Group's digital audio catalog, Amazon and Warner are working to make available additional digital music products, such as album bundles containing exclusive tracks. The companies did not announce a timeline...
Fri, 28 Dec 07
Motorola's Pain Is Samsung's Gain
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57406
Samsung Electronics is confronting bad news on many fronts. The South Korean company is facing probes into an alleged bribery scheme implicating powerful sectors of the country's society, and its money-spinning memory-chip business is in the worst slump in five years. That's why Samsung executives must be thrilled to have their mobile-phone business. There, executives can get a very upbeat view of Samsung's future.
The numbers tell the story. With Motorola struggling for more than a year, Samsung overtook its American rival in 2007 to become the world's second-largest handset maker after Nokia. Its global market share is up about three percentage points from last year, at 14.5% in the third quarter, compared with Motorola's 13.1%. And for every quarter this year, Samsung set a new sales record, with the 115 million phones sold in the January-September period exceeding the 114 million sold during all of last year.
Samsung believes its record-breaking run is just beginning. This year, its sales are expected to top 160 million phones, up 40% from last year, and executives are confident the pace of its growth will be about double that of the rest of the industry next year, when they expect sales of 200 million. "The growth momentum is accelerating, and there's no reversal in the trend," says Samsung's Executive Vice-President Chu Woo Sik.
The big question is whether Motorola can rebound and stop Samsung. New Motorola chief Greg Brown, who was chief operating officer before being named CEO last month, has spent the past few months tackling the company's problems to try and restore the glory it had just after the Razr's sensational debut in 2004. "Samsung will face challenges," says mobile communications analyst Tina Teng at market researcher iSuppli.
Samsung's top brass believe the company's recent run is sustainable. That's because Choi Gee...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Warner Music Goes DRM-Free on Amazon.com
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57424
Warner Music Group, a major holdout on selling music online without copy protection, caved in to the growing trend Thursday and agreed to sell its tunes on Amazon.com Inc.'s digital music store.
Until now, Warner Music had resisted offering songs by its artists in the MP3 format, which can be copied to multiple computers and burned onto CDs without restriction and played on most PCs and digital media players, including Apple Inc.'s iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.
The deal raises the total number of MP3s for sale through Amazon's music download store to more than 2.9 million. Warner Music's entire catalog, including work by artists Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Sean Paul, will be added to the site throughout the week. The Amazon store launched with nearly 2.3 million songs in September.
Major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music Group PLC had already signed to sell large portions of their catalogs on Amazon, as had thousands of independent labels. Most songs cost 89 cents to 99 cents each and most albums sell for $5.99 to $9.99.
Warner Music Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman Jr. had been reluctant to follow in the steps of the rival recording companies.
In February, when Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs penned an essay calling on record labels to drop Digital Rights Management from tracks sold on the company's iTunes Store, Bronfman shot back during a conference call with Wall Street analysts: "We will not abandon DRM nor services that are successfully implementing DRM for both content and consumers."
The recording industry had argued that DRM itself is not what makes some songs incompatible with some digital players, but the fact that there are different versions of DRM in use. The companies suggested Apple, whose iPod outsells all other media players, should license its DRM technology to other...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Report: Google, DoCoMo Working on Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57423
NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile carrier, is partnering with Google to offer search and e-mail on its handsets, according to news reports.
DoCoMo subscribers could have access to Google's search tool, Gmail e-mail service, Picasa photo-sharing software, and Google Calendar application early next year via DoCoMo's i-Mode network, according to Reuters.
The report cited unnamed sources, and Google and DoCoMo could not immediately be reached for comment. However, according to Japan's main business daily, The Nikkei, DoCoMo is hoping to establish a closer relationship with Google than its growing competitors.
Last month, DoCoMo joined the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 companies that have pledged to work with Google and its Android platform.
Yahoo has inked several mobile services deals in Asia, but if Google and DoCoMo partner, it could be a major coup for both companies.
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research described the rumored deal as one more win for Google and another opportunity for the search titan to get its services and content into an important mobile market.
Google would gain access to DoCoMo's 49 million users of its i-Mode mobile phone Internet service in a market where Yahoo leads the pack.
"What we are seeing is that it's not an issue of dominance on the mobile platform," Gartenberg said, noting that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google all are making significant inroads onto mobile handsets. "It's an issue about many strong players each trying to grow stronger."
He said the mobile world has not turned into a winner-take-all scenario like PC desktops. "In 2008," he concluded, "we'll see different players try to break away from the crowd."
The mobile services market is growing by leaps and bounds. According to a recent study from ABI Research, the market value for mobile video telephony services, including video mail, video calling,...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
EMC Buys Document Sciences for $85 Million
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57422
EMC announced its intentions to acquire publicly held Document Sciences for approximately $85 million in cash. Document Sciences provides enterprises with software for creating and delivering personalized, multichannel communications to customers, partners, and suppliers.
The proposed stock buyout, which has been approved by Document Sciences' board of directors, is expected to extend EMC's position in enterprise content management, company officials said.
The core software technology that EMC is acquiring under the deal "provides a tremendous advantage in addressing transaction-intensive applications, such as loan origination, new account enrollment, wealth management, brokerage, and claims processing," noted Mark Lewis, the president of EMC's Content Management and Archiving Division.
It will give "our customers a significant competitive edge to increase customer loyalty and maximize business performance," he said.
Over 100 major organizations around the globe currently use Document Sciences' third-generation software for their document-generation requirements, company executives said.
Applications in the xPression 3 software suite, which is designed to help automate the creation and delivery of interactive communications, range from contracts, policies, and high-volume relationship statements to customized marketing collateral and correspondence.
The product's xPressContracts extension, for example, is designed to give financial organizations a method for initiating, negotiating, and managing their contracts.
Document Sciences' software suite integrates with traditional CRM, ECM, and ERP systems, and provides components for document design, assembly, composition, output, and delivery -- including the plug-ins for working with documents in Adobe InDesign, Dreamweaver, and Microsoft Word file formats.
At the time of publication, xPression-produced communications can be customized, assembled in batch or real-time using multiple templates and data sources, and delivered over the Web, in an e-mail, or as a printed document.
Under EMC's acquisition proposal, Document Sciences stockholders would receive $14.75 in cash for each share of common stock. "We are pleased to enter...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Apple Embraces Movie Rental Business
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57421
According to a report in the Financial Times, Apple has inked a deal with News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox that will bring a new video-on-demand service to iTunes. The companies are expected to announce the deal on January 14 at MacWorld.
The agreement reportedly will allow consumers to rent, for a limited time, just-released Fox movies via digital download from iTunes. Although Apple already peddles newly released movies through a deal with Disney, this is the first time iTunes will be renting rather than selling movies digitally.
MGM, Lionsgate, Viacom, and Paramount restrict their digital libraries to older titles. However, the Fox deal could open the floodgates for new release rentals. Apple is reportedly in talks with Paramount, Warner Bros., and Sony to make their new releases available on iTunes for rent or purchase.
The reports of a movie rental deal with 20th Century Fox, if they are accurate, represent an important shift in Apple's business process, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research.
The deal, Gartenberg said, is Apple's recognition that renting movies is an understood business model that could add profits to Apple's already swelling bottom line.
"The idea of people being able to rent movie content, put it on their iPod, watch it on the go, and then move on to the next thing is definitely a concept that will resonate with consumers," Gartenberg said.
Of course, iTunes won't be the first digital-download store to rent movies. Netflix and other companies offer digital rentals. But Apple's deal with Fox -- and the possible deals with the other studios -- could shake up the decades-old rental business.
"The Fox deal could become a tipping point for digital movie rentals because Apple has already built out this tremendous ecosystem between the computer, the iPhone, and the iPod," Gartenberg said....
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Reducing Storage's Thirst for Power
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57418
Anyone responsible for managing a data center understands the increasing importance of power efficiency. This is especially the case in data centers where consolidation and higher-density equipment have packed more and more devices into less floor space.
Although many companies have already consolidated their storage and server environments, they could benefit further by consolidating their storage-area-network (SAN) environments. In fact, some data centers have reached or are nearing the maximum power allotment for their facilities, meaning they have no choice but to consolidate and deploy more power-efficient devices.
I.T. managers already know that servers are putting a strain on the world's power grids, but what is often overlooked is the energy consumption of storage environments. The environments are expanding rapidly to accommodate the explosive growth of digital data. IDC calculates that 161 billion gigabytes of digital data were generated in 2006 alone.
According to Gartner, servers account for 40% of a data center's power consumption, but storage comes in a close second, with 37%. What's more, storage-related devices -- including SAN devices -- can consume 1,000 watts or more. The lesson? If you're attempting to contain your data center power use (and costs), you can't afford to neglect your storage or SAN environments.
What can you do to lower your data center's power consumption? To understand some of the issues better, it helps to consider the analogy of transportation and fuel efficiency. Vehicles such as electric, hybrid or compact cars obviously are more fuel-efficient than larger, petroleum-fueled vehicles.
But a larger vehicle, such as a bus, can provide a highly efficient mode of transportation because it can accommodate many passengers, making for a low fuel-per-passenger ratio.
This concept reflects what is occurring in today's data centers: consolidation of multiple devices into a larger, shared resource. If the shared resource happens to...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Inside Clearwire's Pre-WiMax Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57415
My cell phone rang just as I pulled my car into a park along the Puget Sound. I needed to add something to a news story I had written a few hours earlier, but I really didn't want to give up my evening stroll.
Instead of driving back to the office or hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot, I booted up my laptop, plugged in a PC card, connected to the Internet and updated my story -- all from a bench near the water, with a dreamy view of snowcapped mountains.
Such a feat is no surprise to anyone with a wireless card from a cellular carrier, but I wasn't connected to the networks of Verizon Wireless, Sprint or AT&T. Instead, I used an early version of the relatively new technology WiMax, which is being offered in Seattle by Clearwire Corp.
What's exciting here is the availability of yet another pipe for accessing the Internet at home, in the office and on the go. It raises the possibility that it not only will be faster but also -- in theory -- cheaper than the competition.
The Clearwire card saved me in a pinch when I needed to file a story from across town. But in the end, it didn't quite live up to my hopes for an "everywhere" broadband wireless connection. Coverage is far from complete, and it's still too expensive.
The company says its "pre-WiMax" network I tested is four to five times faster than cell phone providers' 3G, or third-generation, networks, and cheaper to deploy. It's also testing true WiMax, which can deliver connections that promise to be even faster over wider areas, and plans to launch its first network in the middle of 2008.
Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire sells high-speed Internet access and Internet-based calling for homes and businesses in 46 U.S. markets, including Seattle,...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Sony Looks to Future with LCD, OLED
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57413
Sony is dropping its money-losing rear-projection TV business worldwide to focus on two flat panel technologies -- liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode, the company said Thursday.
Sales of rear-projection TVs had been declining recently as LCD TVs gain in popularity and get bigger, Sony Corp. spokesman Shinji Obana said.
In October, Sony lowered its global sales forecast for rear-projection TVs -- which uses a projector to create images on large screens -- to 400,000 from 700,000, which is down from 1.1 million the previous fiscal year.
By contrast, Sony expects to sell 10 million LCD TVs this fiscal year through March, up from 6.3 million the previous year.
Sony sells 85 percent of its rear-projection TVs in the U.S., and about 10 percent in Europe, according to Obana. Production at the three plants that make the rear-projection TVs in Japan, Mexico and Malaysia, will be halted, Obana said.
The decision to abandon rear-projection TVs underlines Sony's strategy of focusing on LCDs and OLEDs at a time when competition is heating up in flat TVs.
In the fiscal half-year through September, Sony lost 60 billion yen ($526.3 million) in its TV operations, partly because of losses tied to rear-projection TVs. Diving prices of LCD TVs also contributed to the red ink, Obana said.
The world's electronics makers are all working on LCD technology for TVs, as well as another technology called plasma display panels, or PDP.
Earlier this month, Sony began selling a small 11 inch TV that uses a relatively new but expensive flat-panel technology called OLED. Sony's XEL-1 measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick and delivers clear, vivid images.
Earlier this week, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, Hitachi and Canon forged a tie-up in their liquid crystal display businesses -- another sign of how Japanese electronics makers are being forced...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Samsung Seeks Probe of Rival Sharp
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57412
Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it filed a complaint with American authorities over alleged unfair trade practices by Japanese rival Sharp Corp., fueling an intensifying legal battle over flat panel technology.
Samsung said in a statement that it filed the complaint with the United States International Trade Commission on Dec. 21, claiming that Sharp and two U.S. subsidiaries imported and sold liquid crystal display products that infringe on four of Samsung's U.S. patents.
The complaint came after Sharp earlier this month sued Samsung in a South Korean court, also alleging patent violations for LCDs. It demanded damages and a halt to manufacturing and sales of affected TVs and display panels.
In August, Sharp filed a similar lawsuit against Samsung in federal court in the U.S. state of Texas. Samsung said Thursday it was pursuing federal lawsuits in Texas and Delaware against Sharp.
The string of lawsuits between the two companies -- two of the world's biggest makers of LCD panels -- highlight the bruising competition to develop better technology for products like hot-selling flat screen TVs.
Samsung said its complaint calls on the Washington-based trade commission to launch an investigation and order that Sharp products that allegedly infringe on Samsung's patents -- including LCD TVs, monitors, notebook computers and mobile phones -- be kept out of the U.S. market.
"Samsung has and will continue to vigorously protect itself against the infringement and unauthorized use of its intellectual property," Samsung said.
Separately, Samsung also said it asked the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday to prohibit the manufacture and sale in Japan of Sharp LCD TVs it claims incorporate technology that allegedly violates two Japanese patents owned by Samsung.
"Sharp is prepared to take appropriate legal countermeasures once it studies the complaints," company official Akinori Shibuya said from Osaka, where Sharp is headquartered, referring to both the trade commission filing...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Chipmaker Via Faces New Challenges
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57409
The sad fall of Taiwan's Via Technologies picked up speed Dec. 19 when Bear Stearns dropped analyst coverage of the company. Once the top chip-design company in Taiwan and one of the world's premier makers of chipsets for PCs, Via had ambitions of entering the major leagues by creating microprocessors that would compete directly with those of Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Via was a headache for Intel, which charged the Taiwanese company with getting ahead by violating its intellectual property.
No doubt Intel execs are now smiling as things haven't worked out so well for Via and its plans to enter the microprocessor business. It turns out there's a very good reason Intel and AMD dominate the high end of the chip business: Making microprocessors (also known as central processing units, or CPUs) is no walk in the park, and convincing computers to switch to an unfamiliar alternative is even harder. Via's stock price, which traded at 50 Taiwan dollars in mid-2003, is now at 17. This year alone, it has dropped 56%. Sales for the first 11 months of 2007 were down 31%, to $430 million.
Bear Stearns decided that Via no longer warranted coverage even though just a day earlier Via struck a deal with China Unicom to provide the Chinese state-owned cellular operator with CDMA chips. "Given the company's uncertain growth prospects, investor interest in the stock has diminished substantially," the Bear analysts wrote.
The big problem: "It is increasingly difficult for Via to compete with Intel in the chipset market, given Intel's dominance in CPUs." Via spokesman Richard Brown declined to respond directly to a question concerning Bear Stearns' decision, but in an e-mail reply acknowledged that "we have undergone a challenging transition over the past few years from...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
AT&T and Cisco: A Bandwidth Bonanza
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57408
When AT&T went shopping for high-tech gear to soup up its communications network with advanced video, broadband, and voice services, it turned to long-time supplier Cisco Systems. On Dec. 10 the nation's largest telco announced a deal that could be worth up to $500 million to Cisco over the lifetime of the upgraded AT&T network, according to Jim Kelleher, an analyst at Argus Research.
What's noteworthy isn't simply the size of the deal but the vast amount of bandwidth it represents. When Cisco brought out its top-of-the-line router in 2004, many analysts felt it was so powerful that only a handful of companies would ever buy one. Now, AT&T plans to link 25 cities with these mighty machines to help it handle the rising tide of Net traffic -- particularly video. This bodes well for a Cisco unit that has traditionally brought in a steady 25% of networking giant's $34 billion sales.
Now other telcos and cable companies, located everywhere from Korea to Bulgaria, are flooding Cisco with orders -- and helping realize its dream of conquering the telecom market, long a domain of Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nortel. Cisco's service provider business finally had a major growth spurt this year, shooting up to nearly 30% of overall sales. To put this in perspective: Cisco's carrier revenues are nearly as large as all of Nortel's. And service provider sales "could grow another percentage point or two [as part of total sales] next year," says Eve Griliches, an analyst with consultancy IDC.
Why is Cisco on such a tear? It enjoys a far broader product line than most rivals, both for the basic routers that carriers need to run their networks and for related products, such as Scientific Atlanta cable TV set-top boxes and pricey videoconferencing systems, that can be resold by carriers to consumers...
Thu, 27 Dec 07
Online Advertising vs. Personal Privacy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57391
With more than $11 billion in acquisitions this year aimed at reshaping Internet advertising, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are ready for the competition to pick up steam.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the brave new world of online ads: Web users rediscovered a sense of privacy.
Members of the social network Facebook howled this month after it launched Beacon, an advertising feature that tells your network of friends about your shopping habits at dozens of Web sites. Facebook was forced to let users turn off the service.
"Beacon fell victim to a poorly thought out plan of execution," says Kevin Lee, founder of search consulting firm Didit.
Advertisers are hungry to reach consumers congregating at sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube to socialize and access free content. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo all want to help advertisers track consumer behavior, then distribute product pitches dovetailing with an individual's interests. If they are successful, consumers will see more Web sites posting compelling free content.
But pitfalls await tech giants as they attempt to engineer the great leap forward into "targeted advertising" -- marketing pitches that key off what individuals say and do online.
Google cleared an important regulatory hurdle when the Federal Trade Commission last week approved its $3.1 billion merger with ad placement giant DoubleClick.
But congressional hearings on privacy are set for this spring, and consumer advocates are clamoring for limits on Google's use of behavioral data. As part of its merger ruling, the FTC proposed a set of principles for self-regulation in behavioral marketing.
Meanwhile, European antitrust regulators have begun what could be a protracted look at whether the merger could stifle competition. "Google is so big and is moving so fast that they've became a natural target," says tech consultant Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.
Microsoft paid...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
Electronics Giants Form New LCD Alliance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57402
Canon, Hitachi, and Matsushita have formed a new alliance under which the three companies intend to cooperate in the development and production of LCD panels and related technologies. The announcement follows hard on the heels of a rival LCD deal announced by Sharp and Toshiba.
Canon, Hitachi, and Matsushita said intensifying competition has made it imperative for them to join together to ensure a stable supply of high-quality LCD panels at low prices.
Under their new alliance, Canon and Matsushita initially will acquire 24.9 percent of the shares of Hitachi's wholly owned subsidiary Hitachi Displays, reducing Hitachi's stake to 50.2 percent. In the long run, however, the three companies are planning ownership changes under which Canon will take a majority holding in Hitachi Displays.
Hitachi said the alliance would help it accelerate the development of cutting-edge technologies as well as strengthen its efforts to develop ultrathin flat-panel TV sets. The agreement also gives Canon and Matsushita access to Hitachi's highly regarded in-plane switching (IPS) technology for TFT liquid crystal displays.
Canon said the deal will help it secure a steady supply of LCD panels for its medical and office equipment products as well as consumer electronics offerings such as Canon's digital single-lens reflex camera. And by teaming up with Hitachi, Canon expects to accelerate its ongoing development of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.
Plasma display market leader Matsushita expects the cooperative effort with Canon and Hitachi will help it develop LCD offerings that can compensate for an anticipated slowdown in Plasma TV sales. Matsushita said it expects to take a majority stake in its separate LCD joint venture with Canon and Toshiba. That venture is known as IPS Alpha.
Matsushita is pushing ahead with construction of a next-generation plant for IPS Alpha that could serve as a possible future...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
E-Commerce Shines in Holiday Sales
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57401
Shoppers were spending money up until the last minute, but holiday sales were nevertheless a disappointment. So says MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse, a report that tracks retail sales nationally.
SpendingPulse analyzed the electronics, apparel, e-commerce, and luxury sectors. All categories experienced a surge in growth on Black Friday, a lag in the middle of the holiday season, and a rally to the finish line. MasterCard's report indicates that retail posted year-over-year growth of just 3.6 percent for the period between Black Friday and December 24.
"Overall, sales came in just above the lower end of the range we were expecting, maintaining the slower, modest growth we have been seeing throughout the year," Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis for MasterCard Advisors, said in a statement.
"Most industry observers had adjusted their sights down," he went on to say, "but anyone who was looking for this holiday season to kick-start a new wave of growth would find these numbers falling short of expectation."
Even so, electronics sales opened the season with a surge of 15 percent growth on Black Friday. By the middle of the season, however, consumer spending on electronics was showing only a 5.8 percent gain over the same period in 2006. By the end of the season, overall growth was a moderate 2.7 percent.
A noteworthy observation, however, is that SpendingPulse views the electronics sector as encompassing a product mix of large appliances as well as consumer electronics, such as cameras, televisions, and software and hardware for gaming.
"It's very likely that when you extract big appliances, that the consumer electronics sector provided a higher level of growth than we see in our view of this category," McNamara said.
E-commerce was the strongest category, easily outperforming all other categories covered by the SpendingPulse report. This channel enjoyed...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
Information Overload Costs Economy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57400
Think twice before you copy someone on an e-mail or hit "reply all." Such practices have made today's workers less productive, a research firm concludes.
After years of naming a product or person of the year, Basex Inc. decided to name "information overload" as problem of the year for 2007.
"It's too much information. It's too many interruptions. It's too much lost time," Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira declared. "It's always too much of a good thing."
Information overload isn't exactly new, but Spira said the problem has grown as technology increases societal expectations for instantaneous response.
And more information available, he said, also means more time wasted looking for the right information, whether in an old e-mail or through a search engine.
Workers get disoriented every time they stop what they are doing to reply to an e-mail or answer a follow-up phone call because they didn't reply within minutes.
Spira said workers can spend 10 to 20 times the length of the original interruption trying to get back on track.
He estimates that such disruptions cost the U.S. economy $650 billion in 2006.
Spira has a number of recommendations: Resist the urge to immediately follow up an e-mail with an instant message or phone call. Make sure the subject line clearly reflects the topic and urgency of an e-mail. And use "reply all" sparingly.
Wed, 26 Dec 07
India's Outsourcers Face New Problems
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57396
The job came with a good salary, and good perks. But, 26-year-old Vaibhav Vats will tell you, it was doing him no good. His weight had grown to 120 kilos (265 pounds) and he was missing out on social life as he worked long overnight hours at a call center. Eventually, he quit.
"You are making nice money. But the tradeoff is also big," said Vats, who spent nearly two years at IBM Corp.'s call center arm in India, answering customer calls from the United States.
Call centers and other outsourced businesses such as software writing, medical transcription and back-office work employ more than 1.6 million young men and women in India, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who make much more than their contemporaries in most other professions.
They are, however, facing sleep disorders, heart disease, depression and family discord, according to doctors and several industry surveys.
Experts warn the brewing crisis could undermine the success of India's hugely profitable outsourcing industry that earns billions in dollars annually and has shaped much of the country's transformation into an emerging economic power.
Heart diseases, strokes and diabetes cost India an estimated US$9 billion in lost productivity in 2005. But the losses could grow to a staggering US$200 billion (EU135 billion) over the next 10 years if corrective action is not taken quickly, said a study by New Delhi-based Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
The outsourcing industry would be hardest hit, it warned.
Reliable estimates on the number of people affected are hard to come by, but government officials and experts agree that it is a growing problem. Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss wants to enforce a special health policy for employees in the information technology industry.
"After working, they party for the rest of the time ... (They) have bad diet, excessive smoking and drinking," he...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
OLPC Project Enlivens Peruvian Hamlet
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57394
Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago.
These offspring of peasant families whose monthly earnings rarely exceed the cost of one of the $188 laptops -- people who can ill afford pencil and paper much less books -- can't get enough of their "XO" laptops.
At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night, they're dozing off in front of them -- if they've managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines.
"It's really the kind of conditions that we designed for," Walter Bender, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff, said of this agrarian backwater up a precarious dirt road.
Founded in 2005 by former MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte, the One Laptop program has retreated from early boasts that developing-world governments would snap up millions of the pint-sized laptops at $100 each.
In a backhanded tribute, One Laptop now faces homegrown competitors everywhere from Brazil to India -- and a full-court press from Intel Corp.'s more power-hungry Classmate.
But no competitor approaches the XO in innovation. It is hard drive-free, runs on the Linux operating system and stretches wireless networks with "mesh" technology that lets each computer in a village relay data to the others.
Mass production began last month and Negroponte, brother of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, says he expects at least 1.5 million machines to be sold by next November. Even that would be far less than Negroponte originally envisioned. The higher-than-initially-advertised price and a lack of the Windows operating system, still being tested for the XO, have dissuaded many potential government buyers.
Peru made the single...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
Report Predicts Drop in Next-Gen DVD Player Prices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57388
According to a new market report from Understanding & Solutions, both Blu-ray and HD DVD player prices should decline significantly in early 2008.
Consumers can purchase HD DVD players for less than $200 and Blu-ray player prices have dropped to below $300 at some online venues. This is just the beginning, according to Bill Foster, Understanding & Solutions' senior technology consultant. "Drive, chipset, and other system components are now benefiting from economies of scale," Foster said in a statement.
"In early 2008, we're going to see the bill of materials for a basic high-definition player, in either format, weighing in at less than $150," Foster said, "and that's going to impact the high street very soon, providing the consumer with a choice of low price players that allow consumer electronics companies a margin for profit."
The research group predicted that if both formats continue to sell, HD DVD and Blu-ray players will retail below $100 by 2011.
"Crucially, Blu-ray benefits from stronger Hollywood Studio support and represents a greater proportion of high definition disc production volumes and disc sales," said Jeremy Wills, a consultant at Understanding & Solutions. "To date, Paramount's move to sole support of HD DVD has failed to turn the market, despite the HD DVD exclusivity of key titles Transformers and Shrek the Third."
Notably, Blu-ray still represented over 70 percent of HD movie sales in the
U.S. during the week Transformers was released on HD DVD. As demand grows and manufacturing volumes build, Wills predicted, the market will see the costs of releasing on two different formats start to add up. Wills suggested that there might be surprises just around the corner, and that we could see a lot more clarity on these issues in 2008.
Despite all this action in the HD...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
IBM Buys Solid Information Technology
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57387
IBM said it will acquire privately held Solid Information Technology for the purpose of adding real-time, data-access capabilities to its existing database and information-management offerings.
Currently available in more than three million deployments worldwide, Solid's software employs in-memory database technology to access and store data in RAM at speeds up to 10 times faster than what can be achieved through the use of traditional disk-based database systems, IBM said.
The company's major clients include Alcatel, Cisco, EMC2, Nokia, and Siemens.
"Together, IBM and Solid Information Technology will provide a comprehensive set of capabilities that enable companies to deliver trusted information in real time to every person and every business transaction," said Ambuj Goyal, general manager of IBM Information Management.
Solid's solidDB software is designed to support numerous consumer applications as well as services in telecom, retail, finance, and healthcare.
In particular, the product's real-time, data-access capabilities provide nearly instantaneous access to data for mobile phones, Internet-based calling, online shopping, investment transactions, and other applications, IBM said. What's more, Solid maintains that its technology offers the ability to recover from a system failure within milliseconds..
IBM, which already partners with Solid on information management for telecommunication service providers, said it sees the acquisition as complementary to its own disk-based DB2 and Informix Dynamic Server offerings.
For example, a proof-of-concept conducted last June at IBM's Innovation Center in San Mateo, California showed how Solid's technology can be used to accelerate access to data stored in DB2 by a factor of 40 over a configuration lacking Solid's enhancements.
In a separate undertaking, the two companies have demonstrated how Solid's technology can work with IBM Bladecenter. According to the companies, the combination delivered an industry-leading throughput in a benchmark that simulated a wireless scenario involving one million subscribers.
The throughput...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
IBM Sets Out To Prove Security Mettle
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57371
IBM is trying to succeed in the less familiar terrain of network and desktop security -- and finding that a few high-profile moves aren't enough to sway some skeptical analysts.
When IBM acquired Internet Security Systems (ISS) a year ago, the industry's mixed reaction included that of Gartner security analyst John Pescatore, who said it doesn't "make sense for IBM to own network-security products."
IBM pushed forward nevertheless, striking a deal to buy Web-application security vendor WatchFire in June. Then in November IBM said it will spend $1.5 billion on security in 2008, and announced several new products and services for data security and compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data security Standard. The $1.5 billion sum is thought to be twice as high as IBM's previous security spending.
Pescatore still thinks IBM should take it slow, saying that the fact IBM has expertise in providing I.T. infrastructure doesn't mean it should be selling products that react to security threats. Fraud detection and fraud management are areas that would make sense for IBM to enter, but "the area we don't think they should go [into] is more network security stuff, like buying a firewall company or getting into antiviral software," he says.
IBM does provide antivirus software in IBM ISS' desktop offering. Moreover, IBM intends to be "the dominant security player" in a market that's ripe for consolidation, says Peter Evans, vice president of marketing at IBM ISS. A big enterprise that buys security products from dozens of vendors might have an easier time managing those tools if they all came from one vendor, or from just a few, Evans notes. Much of the $1.5 billion IBM plans to spend on security will focus on creating integrations between various security products, he says.
Some analysts are wary of IBM's increased focus on security, but others...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
Inside the Data Encryption Revolution
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57370
Although data encryption adds cost and complexity, business and government sectors are becoming wedded to it -- even though at times it's like an arranged marriage driven by regulatory compliance and fear of data-breach fiascos.
"We now require encryption for 'data at rest' on laptops in the Air Force," says Greg Garcia, member of the senior executive service of the US. Air Force and director of the 754th Electronic Systems Group at Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery Ala. The group sets security policy for the 500,000 laptops used by the Air Force.
"The contract we awarded for this grew out of what happened at Veterans Affairs," Garcia points out, alluding to the data breach fiascos of this year and last that led to millions of veterans' personal information being exposed on lost and stolen laptops.
The VA data-breach incidents spurred the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Defense and the civilian-side General Services Administration to look at government-wide approaches for data-at-rest encryption.
The outcome was the U.S. government's first-ever blanket purchasing agreements (BPA) for data-at-rest encryption products to protect sensitive but unclassified data on government laptops and removable storage devices.
BPAs were awarded in June to eleven resellers, including Intelligent Decisions, MTM Technologies and GovBuys.
The encryption products on the list include Credant Technologies' CredantMobile Guardian, Encryption Solutions' Skylock AtRest, GuardianEdge Technologies' GuardianEdge, Information security's secret Agent, Mobile Armor's Data Armor, Pointsec Mobile Technologies' Pointsec, SafeBoot's (acquired by McAfee for $350 million in October) SafeBoot Device Encryption, SafeNet's SafeNet protectDrive, Spyrus' Talisman/DS Data security Suite, and WinMagic's secureDoc.
What's known as the data-at-rest encryption BPAs are also available for use by state and local governments.
The Tennessee Department of Revenue is going its own way in adding encryption to its mobile laptops by deploying Entrust encryption software this...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
Surveillance: A New Look at Big Brother
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57323
There are about 30 million surveillance cameras in the U.S. -- inside ATM machines, at traffic lights, in department store dressing rooms. And while such digital eyes are now deeply woven into society's fabric, experts say there's scant public debate over how they should be used.
"Unfortunately, most people just don't care," says David Holtzman, author of Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy. "What this issue needs is a Michael Moore to go after the issue and raise public awareness."
Holtzman may have gotten his wish -- sort of -- in the indie film Look, which opened in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 14. Look is shot entirely from the perspective of surveillance cameras. The footage is fictional, but the angles are common to daily life.
This is no Michael Moore-like advocacy piece. Look takes no sides. The movie tells the story of a group of characters whose lives are dramatically affected by surveillance cameras. At times, the camera plays the hero, assisting in the capture of murderers.
At other points, it's negligent -- failing to alert police to the car left for days in a mall parking lot, a woman locked in the trunk dying. Always, the camera's power is palpable, as when it catches a dutiful husband in a moment of weakness. "We're not trying to grind any ax," says co-producer Barry Schuler, formerly chief executive of AOL, owned by Time Warner. "It's designed to be an eye-opener."
The movie is likely to succeed in that mission, challenging the laissez-faire attitude toward surveillance that's emerged since September 11. In a recent ABC News/Washington Post survey, 71% of respondents said they support increased use of surveillance cameras. The results may well be different if taken after a Look screening.
Look's release comes amid rapid advances in technologies that...
Wed, 26 Dec 07
Intel, STMicro Flash Memory Deal Delayed
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57403
Tightening credit markets have forced Intel and STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest semiconductor maker, to delay a planned merger of the companies' memory divisions.
The new company, to be called Numonyx, will be formed by March 28 instead of the end of 2007, as originally planned when the deal was announced in May, the companies said.
Numonyx, which would be the largest manufacturer of flash memory in the world, is an attempt to wrest profits from a sector that has seen slumping prices amid increased competition.
The companies estimate Numonyx would represent $3.6 billion in sales, making the new company bigger than Spansion, currently the market leader.
A third party in the deal is Silicon Valley-based Francisco Partners, which will invest $150 million for a 6.4 percent stake in the new company.
As the credit situation continues to be tight, banks are looking to scale back their exposure to the deal. In May, Intel and STMicro announced they had commitments for a $1.3 billion loan and $250 million in revolving credit, but Wednesday the companies said financing would be reduced to a $650 million loan and $100 million in revolving credit.
Under the new deal, STMicroelectronics will get 48.6 percent of the new company plus cash and notes worth $364 million. In May, the transaction called for Intel to get a 45.1 percent share of the company plus $432 million. Now, Intel isn't saying how big a payment it will take.
"We'll wait and see when we get the terms all finalized," said Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesperson.
"Numonyx will be the industry's largest supplier of NOR flash memory and a leader in nonvolatile memory solutions with a substantial patent portfolio," the companies said in a statement. "Intel, Francisco Partners, and ST intend for Numonyx to hit the ground running,...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
Army Adds Macs To Improve Security
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57382
One of Apple's major marketing themes is that Macs are less susceptible to viruses, Trojans, and other hacker attacks than Windows PCs. While that argument has yet to hold much sway with enterprise I.T. departments, it is causing the U.S. Army to add some Macs to its networks.
Lt. Col. C.J. Wallington, a division chief in the Army's office of enterprise information systems, told Forbes that the Army is adding Macs to make its networks harder to hack. Wallington said that making networks more heterogeneous might make it more difficult for attackers to compromise an entire group of computers.
These things don't just happen overnight. The Army's CIO, Gen. Steve Boutelle, called for more diverse computer networks back in August 2005. He said the Army should deal with a broader range of vendors to increase competition and harden I.T. defenses. But thus far, the Army has allowed only a trickle of Macs to enter military facilities. The Army buys only about 1,000 Macs during its twice-a-year buying seasons.
One key barrier -- besides Apple's price premium and the general I.T. resistance to Apple -- has been incompatibility with Common Access Cards, a security key card program the military uses heavily. Early in 2008, the Army will adopt software that will allow Macs to use CACs.
The Army is impressed with Apple Xserve servers' ability to withstand attacks, Wallington said. "Those are some of the most-attacked computers there are. But the attacks used against them are designed for Windows-based machines, so they shrug them off," he said.
The Army's Apple program is being led by Jonathan Broskey, a former Apple employee. He says it's not just that Macs are a less inviting target than Windows; Apple's version of Unix is inherently more secure than Windows, he says.
But some observers point out...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
FBI Unveils $1B Biometrics Initiative
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57381
The FBI is launching a $1 billion initiative to develop the world's largest biometrics database. The computer platform would collect information on people's physical characteristics, according to a report in the Washington Post.
The technology, which has been named Next Generation Identification, will give the government new capabilities to identify people in the United States and abroad.
"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the databases from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills, told the Washington Post.
The FBI already is compiling digital images of fingerprints, palm prints, and faces into its systems in Clarksburg, West Virginia, but the organization plans to award a 10-year contract in January that would expand the amount and types of biometric data it receives and stores in its computer systems.
For example, plans call for storing iris patterns, face-shape data, scars, and possibly even the unique ways people speak and walk -- all in the name of tracking down criminals and solving crimes.
"It's going to be an essential component of tracking," Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Washington Post. "It's enabling the always-on-surveillance society."
According to a new technical market research report by BCC Research called The Global Biometrics Market, the global market for biometrics was worth nearly $2 billion in 2006 and is expected to increase to $2.7 billion in 2007 and $7.1 billion by 2012, a compound annual growth rate of 21.3 percent over the next five years.
The market is broken down into applications of fingerprint, face, hand, and other recognition technologies. Fingerprint biometrics, the oldest form of biometrics in use today, will continue to be the main revenue contributor from 2007 to 2012, according to the report.
According...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
OnStar Users Left in Lurch by Shutdown
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57379
When Adele Rothman bought her 16-year-old son a car in 2003, she made sure to pick one that had OnStar, the onboard communications and safety system.
What the Scarsdale, N.Y., resident didn't know was that the OnStar system in the car was already doomed to die. The federal government decided in 2002 to let cellular carriers shut down analog cell phone networks, used by Rothman's Saab and about 500,000 other OnStar-equipped cars, after Feb. 18, 2008.
It's the end of the nationwide network that launched the U.S. wireless industry 24 years ago, and it leaves a surprising number of users like Adele Rothman in the lurch.
OnStar told Rothman in March its service would stop at the end of this year, in anticipation of the network shutdown in February. "I was really upset," she said, "because that was my tieline" to her son.
Perhaps a million cell phones will lose service, but those are cheap and easy to replace. The effects will be felt the most by people who have things that aren't phones but have built-in wireless capabilities, like OnStar cars and home alarm systems.
The shutdown date has been known years in advance, but some industries appear to have a had a problem updating their technologies and informing their customers in advance, which raises the question of whether the effects will be even more widespread the next time a network is turned off, given the proliferation of wireless technology.
General Motors Corp., which owns OnStar, started modifying its cars after the 2002 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to let the network die, but some cars made as late as 2005 can't use digital networks for OnStar, nor can they be upgraded. For some cars made in the intervening years, GM provides digital upgrades for $15.
In 2006, OnStar said it had let customers know...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
Tech Innovation Comes to Retailing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57376
Red pumps. Silver slingbacks. Bronze flats. Black suede boots. Size 7 1/2, please.
Without leaving the customer's side, Macy's sales associate Felicia Dixon uses a small, handheld electronic device that essentially summons the shoes in the right style, color and size, from the stockroom. It is not quite magic: A clerk in the backroom receives the request electronically and brings out the merchandise.
The shopper does not have to hunt around for a clerk each time she wants to try on a different style or needs a different size. Better service means happier customers, and that could lead to more sales.
At least that is the hope, from the retailer's perspective.
Stores spend $34.5 billion a year on all kinds of technology, from the cables and routers behind-the-scene to in-store devices such as price checkers, self-service checkout stations and electronic kiosks for customers, says the National Retail Federation.
With older equipment needing to be replaced, spending for high-tech upgrades is expected to increase, the federation says.
Some workers might view technology such as self-checkouts threatening their job. Other devices -- electronic price checkers or Macy's shoe locator -- might make their jobs easier.
Still, the number of jobs in some segments of the retail industry is diminishing, and economists believe that technology has played a prominent role.
An Associated Press analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics' employment data found that department stores have slashed 247,100 jobs since June 2001, when employment in that sector peaked. The number of jobs at food and beverage stores has fallen by 118,800 since April 2000.
Technology that allows companies to produce more goods or provide service to their customers with fewer workers or with their current staff is a factor in some job losses, economists say. A second is consolidation when a company buys out a rival or merges with a competitor.
"No local...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
Airborne Internet Might Bring Turbulence
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57375
Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing porn sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep.
Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 33,000 feet -- and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months.
"This gets into a ticklish area," said Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's chief inventors and generally a critic of network restrictions. "Airlines have to be sensitive to the fact that customers are (seated) close together and may be able to see each other's PC screens. More to the point, young people are often aboard the plane."
Technology providers and airlines are already making decisions. Some will block services like Internet phone calls altogether while others will put limits and install filters on content. And traffic management tools that are frowned upon on terra firma could be commonplace in the air.
Panasonic Avionics Corp., a Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. unit testing airborne services on Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd., is designing its high-speed Internet services to block sites on "an objectionable list," including porn and violence, said David Bruner, executive director for corporate sales and marketing.
He said airlines based in more restrictive countries could choose to expand the list.
The company also is recommending that airlines permit Internet-based phone calls only on handsets with wireless Wi-Fi capabilities -- the technology delivering access within the passenger cabin. Bruner said the company believes Wi-Fi handsets use less bandwidth than telephone software that runs on laptops.
Airlines, he said, also could block incoming calls -- and the annoying ring tones they produce -- or designate periods of quiet time.
OnAir, which has European certification...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
China Cracks Down on Text Messages
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57374
A Beijing city regulation clamping down on people who send text messages that "spread rumors" or "endanger public security" is a threat to freedom of expression, a watchdog group said Monday.
China Human Rights Defenders, an international network of activists and rights monitoring groups, said the recent regulation on text messages "raises serious concerns over the restriction of freedom of expression in China."
The group said in a statement that an average of 180 million text messages are sent every day and that text messaging has become one of the most important means of receiving information unavailable in the mainstream media.
The 2008 Olympics, which Beijing is hosting, offer a high-profile opportunity for protesters to air their grievances against China on issues like religious freedom, human rights and Tibetan independence.
Beijing police will work with government agencies and telecommunications companies to investigate and punish those using text messages to "spread rumors" or "endanger public security," the city government said in a notice posted on its Web site late last month.
Chinese authorities commonly use vague charges such as those to detain dissidents or others it views as a threat to the ruling Communist Party.
Although the notice did not detail specific punishments, a story in the city's Communist Party mouthpiece newspaper, the Beijing Daily, earlier this year said people who spread rumors or other false information are subject to detention for up to 10 days and a fine of up to $70.
China has more than 500 million cell phone users and text messaging has become an increasingly effective way to spread word of meetings or demonstrations.
This summer, plans to build a chemical plant in the southern coastal city of Xiamen were suspended after residents sent nearly 1 million text messages to friends and family, urging the government to abandon the project because of its alleged health...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
Toshiba, Sharp Team Up in LCD Race
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57372
On Friday, electronics giants Sharp and Toshiba announced an agreement to collaborate on LCDs. The Japanese companies are market rivals, but both sides anticipate significant advantages from the alliance.
The move is expected to allow each company to leverage its respective strengths and resources, particularly Sharp's capabilities in LCDs and Toshiba's expertise in semiconductors. Sharp and Toshiba will launch the collaborative partnership in 2008.
The first initiative will be an expansion of an existing reciprocal procurement agreement. Sharp will purchase computer chips for use in LCDs from Toshiba, while Toshiba will purchase LCD panels for TVs that are 32 inches or larger from Sharp.
The companies made the announcement at a news conference at a hotel in Tokyo. Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters that the partnership combining the product strengths of both companies would create a win-win relationship.
"To survive the tough competition, we need to be strong in both the key devices of panels and the technology of system LSIs," Nishida told reporters, referring to the sophisticated chips increasingly used in digital consumer goods that are Toshiba's forte. "It is difficult for one company to handle both."
The global market for LCD TVs is growing at a brisk pace, a trend expected to continue in coming years. Indeed, factors such as rising demand, increasing prices, and a tightening supply have caused market research firm iSuppli to raise its forecast for shipments of large LCD panels for 2007 and beyond.
Global revenue for large LCD panels will rise to $66 billion in 2007, up 22.2 percent from $54 billion in 2006, according to iSuppli. This figure represents a 6 percent increase compared to iSuppli's previous forecast of $62 billion for 2007. In 2007, worldwide shipments are forecast to reach 353.8 million units, up 25.2 percent from 282.5 million units in 2006. Previously,...
Mon, 24 Dec 07
Vonage Settles Patent Suit with AT&T
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57366
On Friday, VoIP pioneer Vonage said it has settled a patent dispute with telecom giant AT&T, which had sued Vonage in October for using packed-based telephony products based on its intellectual property.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. However, on November 7 the companies said they had tentatively agreed to a settlement in which Vonage would pay AT&T about $39 million.
Since the company went public in May 2006, Vonage has been the subject of several patent suits from telecoms and other service providers. Both Sprint Nextel and Verizon targeted Vonage for patent infringement, and both companies won judgments against the young VoIP provider.
Most recently, a federal court ordered Vonage to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages for six counts of patent infringement. The ruling cost Vonage a third of its market value, although the stock has since seen gains.
Sprint Nextel claimed Vonage infringed on seven of its patents for connecting Internet phone calls. Vonage argued that Sprint's patents should not have been approved in the first place. However, in September, jurors in a Kansas City court decided Vonage deliberately violated Sprint's intellectual property.
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum had the option to triple the damages because of the finding of willful infringement. In the final ruling, a federal court ordered the company to pay $69.5 million in damages, plus future royalties.
Under the terms of the agreement, Vonage is paying Sprint Nextel a total of $80 million. That includes $35 million for past use of its technology, $40 million for a license going forward, and $5 million in prepaid services.
The suit that opened up the floodgates against Vonage was Verizon's legal bid against it. In June 2006, Verizon sued Vonage in Richmond, Virginia's U.S. District Court, claiming that Vonage's methods for interfacing between packet-switched...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Samba Gains Access to Microsoft Code
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57364
Microsoft has entered into a licensing agreement with the nonprofit Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF) under which the software giant will be providing developers working on the Samba file and printing system with the information they need to ensure interoperability between their open-source software and Windows.
Essentially, the agreement gives the Samba team access to Microsoft specifications for the protocols in the Work Group Server Protocol Program and allows the Samba team to create, use, and distribute implementations.
"What this process has shown me is that if we focus on technology, and patient, diligent execution, we can make real progress together," said Sam Ramji, the director of the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft.
Microsoft's licensing of proprietary information represents the first fruit of the software giant's capitulation to the European Commission's landmark 2004 antitrust decision.
"The agreement allows us to keep Samba up to date with recent changes in Microsoft Windows, and also helps other free software projects that need to interoperate with Windows," said Samba cocreator Andrew Tridgell.
In exchange for a one-time fee of 10,000 euros (US$14,350), the PFIF will be able to provide Samba with the necessary documentation for implementing all of the Workgroup Server Protocols covered by the European Commission's antitrust decision.
"I expect that this will significantly improve the process of Samba development, and produce better quality interoperation between the Windows and Linux/Unix environments," Ramji said.
The agreement clarifies the exact patent numbers involved so there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Microsoft is prevented from asserting any patents against any implementation developed using the supplied documentation, noted Samba cocreator Jeremy Allison. In addition, Microsoft's warranty under the agreement extends to all third parties, he said.
Samba will be able to continue its existing practice of including comments in its source code, "so that there...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Felon Became a Top Wikipedia Exec
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57363
The foundation that runs -- and accepts donations for -- the online encyclopedia Wikipedia neglected to do a basic background check before hiring a chief operating officer who had been convicted of theft, drunken driving and fleeing a car accident.
Before she left in July, Carolyn Bothwell Doran, 45, had moved up from a part-time bookkeeper for the Wikimedia Foundation and spent six months as chief operating officer, responsible for personnel and financial management. In March, she signed the small nonprofit's tax return, which listed more than $1.3 million (EU900,000) in donations.
At the time, she was on probation for a 2004 hit-and-run accident in Virginia that had landed her seven months in prison. Doran had multiple drunken-driving convictions, and records show earlier run-ins for theft, writing bad checks and wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest.
The revelation comes as the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the volunteer-written Wikipedia and its sister Web encyclopedias in other languages, is staging a fundraising drive and trying to expand beyond a ragtag startup.
"This is indicative of poor management of the Wikimedia Foundation," said Charles Ainsworth, a frequent Wikipedia contributor. Ainsworth said he had been considering donating to support the encyclopedia, but won't "unless they clearly get things fixed."
The foundation said it had no indication Doran did anything improper with donors' money. However, the organization's most recent audit is incomplete, despite a goal of completing it months ago.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who is on Wikimedia's board, said he did not expect to find anything amiss but would personally cover any losses that turned up.
"We are very saddened and hurt by these shocking revelations," Wales wrote in a message to the Wikipedia community. "Of course we are doing soul searching about what we could have done different."
Doran's background was reported first in The Register, a London-based...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
New Satellite Joins GPS Constellation
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57362
The U.S. Air Force has launched a new GPS satellite that is expected to provide civilian and military users with enhanced navigation capabilities. The latest GPS Block II series satellite to be modernized by aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin is expected to become operational next month.
"The successful deployment of this high-performance satellite represents another important milestone in the modernization of the GPS constellation and reflects our commitment to achieving mission success for our customer," said Lockheed Martin's VP of Navigation Systems Don DeGryse.
"Our team is now focused on performing a rapid and efficient on-orbit checkout to quickly place the satellite's advanced navigational capabilities into operational service," DeGryse added.
Operated by the GPS wing of the U.S. Air Force, the entire 30-satellite GPS constellation currently in orbit provides the data so GPS-enabled mobile phones, dashboard-mounted devices, and other electronic gear can determine their altitude, velocity, and geographic coordinates to within just a few meters -- on the ground, at sea, or in the air. The U.S. government provides users around the globe with access to the civilian side of this system free of charge.
Like its four predecessors already in commercial service, the newly launched satellite offers better performance than the previous-generation GPS platforms by incorporating a higher-powered antenna panel and an additional open-access signal for civilian use. And the new spacecraft features encryption and antijamming enhancements that will boost the security of the weapons control and navigation gear aboard U.S. military aircraft.
Moreover, the next GPS satellite in the series, which is slated for launch in 2008, will carry a demonstration payload that will transmit an additional civil "safety of life" signal that, among other things, will improve navigation accuracy.
"Early delivery of this payload reflects our team's commitment to successful and timely program execution," said DeGryse. "We look...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Japan Gives Two Companies WiMax Frequencies
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57359
The Japanese government gave licenses Friday for future high-speed wireless Internet services to KDDI Corp. and Willcom Inc., which is owned by U.S. investment fund Carlyle Group.
The decision for the 2.5 gigahertz broadband WiMax services is a victory for the telecommunications companies and a defeat for major mobile phone carriers NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Corp., which had also sought the license.
WiMax, a technology that allows speedy transmission of wireless data over long distances, is viewed as an attractive connection for future wireless devices, allowing users instantaneous access to the Internet while they're on the go, riding a commuter train, for example.
The Japanese government maintains tight controls over wireless services and earlier said it would allow only two companies to do WiMax.
Other companies won't be banned from offering WiMax services, but they will have to lease the frequencies from KDDI or Willcom.
KDDI is promising WiMax services for 2009, targeting 5.6 million users by 2013, with tests starting in February. By the end of 2012, WiMax will cover 90 percent of Japan's geographic area, according to a company release.
WiMax is already available in parts of the U.S., South Korea and other nations but has not yet started in Japan.
Similar to the Wi-Fi standard used at home and coffee shop hot spots, WiMax has much greater range and enables data transmission at higher speeds.
Softbank, which was planning to work with Internet services provider eAccess Ltd. has submitted a complaint to the telecommunications ministry about the decision, according to Japan's top business daily the Nikkei, opening a new chapter in Softbank's continued battle with the government over control of telecommunications.
Softbank President Masayoshi Son has repeatedly contested such government controls as holding back Japan's technological and economic growth.
The government has said it is weighing quality and the ability to cover areas with the services in...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Apple Squashes Mac Rumor Site ThinkSecret.com
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57358
Apple and Think Secret, a Mac rumor Web site published by Nicholas M. Ciarelli, have come to an agreement in a nearly three-year-old lawsuit. The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Ciarelli has agreed to shut down ThinkSecret.com.
Ciarelli posted a press release on his Web site that said the agreement results in a "positive solution" for both sides. "I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits," Ciarelli said in a statement.
Apple was not immediately available for comment.
Apple targeted Ciarelli with a lawsuit after he posted details about the Mac Mini computer prior to an official announcement at January 2005's MacWorld. The suit also named Ciarelli's company, dePlume Organization LLC.
The suit claimed that Ciarelli induced company employees to break confidentiality agreements with Apple. Ciarelli, the complaint argued, obtained the information illegally by posting an online request for Apple insiders to disclose trade secrets.
Ciarelli, who was also an editor at the Harvard Crimson, launched Think Secret when he was 13 years old. After Apple filed suit against Ciarelli, he told the Harvard Crimson he had a right to the same protections as other investigative journalists.
"I talk to sources of information, investigate tips, follow up on leads, and corroborate details. I believe these practices are reflected in Think Secret's track record," he told the paper in 2005. Ciarelli's attorney based his arguments on the First Amendment right to free speech. Ciarelli had a right to publish the information, he said, because it was legally obtained.
It's a shame that Apple is using its heavyweight status and obvious financial strength to squash some of these small players, said Tim Deal, a senior analyst at Pike & Fischer. But, he added, he...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
IBM Intros Semantic Search for E-Mail
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57356
With new search software for Lotus Notes announced Thursday by IBM, users will be able to find information in what the company described as "the vast personal database that e-mail has become."
The IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search (IOPES), from IBM's Research Labs, uses advanced algorithms that can figure out what is meant by incomplete queries and can find phone numbers, people, meetings, presentations, documents, images, and other data.
A search tool such as this is useful because e-mail is no longer a simple communication tool, Lotus Chief Technology Officer Douglas Wilson said in a statement, but has become a "personal database where we retain vast amounts of valuable information."
IOPES uses semantic searching so that users can, for example, find a phone number even if the words "phone" and "number" are not in the e-mail.
The concept of dates, times, phone numbers, and other terms are part of the tool's logic. And other concepts, such as meeting requests or locations, can be defined by users who are not programmers. In addition, users can share their customized concepts, and personalized searches can be saved.
The tool works by creating an index of keywords as well as another index of concepts and relationships. When a search is conducted, the tool finds the keywords in the first index and then relates them according to associations in the second one, assisted by rules provided by the searchers.
The IBM tool uses the Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), which is an open-source framework for creating analysis technologies to discover relationships, identify patterns, and predict outcomes in unstructured information.
UIMA was originally developed by IBM, and is also being used for concept search capabilities and text analysis in IBM's OmniFind product line, which includes OmniFind Enterprise Edition, Omnifind Analytics Edition, and OmniFind Yahoo Edition.
Matt...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Red Hat Names James Whitehurst New CEO
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57349
Red Hat Inc. tapped former Delta Air Lines Inc. executive James Whitehurst to lead the company into a new phase of growth, as the open source provider said Thursday its third-quarter earnings rose 12 percent.
Company officials said Whitehurst's experience at Delta, including his work leading the development of the online travel site Orbitz, will help him carry Red Hat to $1 billion in revenue and beyond. He was at Delta for five years, where he worked to bring the airline out of bankruptcy.
Long-standing Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik, explaining in a conference call he needs more time to tend to "serious health issues" in his family, will continue to serve as chairman of the company's board of directors.
Red Hat said its net income in the quarter that ended Nov. 30 climbed to $20.3 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with $14.6 million, or 7 cents per share, in the year-ago period. A surge in subscriptions in the latest quarter helped offset increased spending on marketing and research.
Revenue rose 28 percent to $135.4 million.
Analysts expected the Raleigh-based company to post earnings of 10 cents per share on revenue of $132.4 million, according to a Thomson Financial survey.
The company also raised its fiscal 2008 revenue outlook to between $521 million to $523 million, up from $510 million to $520 million.
Red Hat shares rose $1.16, or 6.2 percent, to $19.95 in after-hours trading. Before the news was released, the shares gained 53 cents, or 2.9 percent, to close at $18.79.
Szulik said the board selected Whitehurst after considering candidates from an array of industries.
"We were interviewing people with a track record of successful leadership first and foremost," Szulik said in a conference call, noting that Whitehurst also demonstrated a strong command of the open source industry. "We're getting a technically savvy executive who...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Yahoo China Loses Music Piracy Suit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57347
An industry group says it has won a new round in a court battle with Yahoo Inc.'s China arm, which is accused of helping online music pirates.
A Beijing appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling against Yahoo China over its search engine's links to outside Web sites that carried illegally copied music, the International Federation of Phonographic Industries said.
Court officials would not confirm the report. A spokesman for Alibaba Group, the local partner that manages Yahoo's China arm, said he had not seen the ruling and could not comment on it. But the spokesman, Porter Erisman, said Yahoo China hoped to reach an agreement with music companies to create a licensed download service.
China is a leading source of pirated copies of music, movies and other goods. Operators of pirate Web sites offer music, games and other services to attract users and make money from advertising or online commerce.
Industry groups have won a series of lawsuits against companies accused of profiting from piracy but say violations are growing despite increased Chinese government enforcement.
In the latest case, the IFPI -- representing companies including Warner Music Group Corp., Sony BMG and Universal Vivendi -- accused Yahoo China of violating copyrights because of links between its search engine and Web sites with 229 illegally copied songs.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled in April that Yahoo China facilitated the infringement of copyrights and awarded 210,000 yuan ($27,000) in damages.
Yahoo China appealed, arguing that search engines should not be liable for content on outside Web sites. The IFPI said that appeal was rejected by the Beijing Higher People's Court.
Music companies lost a similar lawsuit earlier against Chinese search engine Baidu.com Inc. But China changed its laws on enforcement of copyrights and other intellectual property after that, and Yahoo China was sued under the new...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Cisco Changes Management Structure
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57346
A "development council" composed of several executives will replace Cisco Systems Inc. CEO heir-apparent Charles Giancarlo, who has resigned.
Cisco Chairman and Chief Executive John Chambers announced the appointment of the group of executives to oversee acquisitions and other business deals on Thursday after he confirmed Giancarlo, his chief development officer, was leaving.
Giancarlo, whose last day is Dec. 31, plans to join Silicon Valley investment firm Silver Lake as a managing director.
Chambers said in a conference call he and Giancarlo held with reporters that Cisco is shifting from a "command and control" organization to a network of task forces and other teams.
Such a structure is rare in the tech industry, where heroic and charismatic executives often cultivate loyal followings. But "management by committee" approaches have become more common in the legal and financial industries in the last decade.
Chambers said he had no intention of naming another individual to be chief development officer and he might appoint multi-person councils to lead other divisions of the company if it the development council works well.
"I believe this type of structure will be the future, given the complexities and ... market adjacencies we're going to move into," Chambers said. "The future of our company will be about how groups work together architecturally."
Giancarlo's resignation was a rare loss for Cisco, which makes the switches, routers and other gear that enable people to use the Internet. It is the second-most valuable Silicon Valley company after Google Inc.
Cisco is often ranked among the top companies to work for nationwide, and it's known for high morale and low turnover, at least by Silicon Valley standards. In February, it also lost Mike Volpi, senior vice president and general manager in charge of the routing and service provider technology group.
The entrepreneurial Volpi, 41, said his decision to leave was influenced by...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Privacy Advocates Against GoogleClick
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57344
Google leaped over a major hurdle on Thursday when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission gave its blessing to its planned acquisition of DoubleClick. However, the European Commission has yet to give the nod to the megamerger.
Google announced in April 2007 its plans to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, along with JMI Equity and management.
"The FTC's strong support sends a clear message: This acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a statement.
The acquisition was approved earlier this year by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and was recommended for approval by one of three Brazilian regulatory agencies. But Google won't close the deal until the European Commission, which is still examining the transaction, grants it clearance.
In its opinion, the FTC explicitly rejected any concerns about competition. Google's current business involves the selling of text-based ads, while DoubleClick's core business is delivering and reporting on display ads.
DoubleClick does not buy ads, sell ads, or buy or sell advertising space. It provides technology to enable advertisers and publishers to deliver ads once they have agreed to terms, and to provide advertisers and publishers statistics relating to those ads.
The FTC's opinion noted the robust competition in online advertising, with Google's acquisition of DoubleClick being just one of several recent transactions that underscore this strong competition.
In recent months, several major transactions in the online advertising space were announced, including Yahoo's acquisition of Right Media, AOL's acquisition of ADTECH AG, WPP Group's acquisition of 24/7 Real Media, and Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive and acquisition of AdECN.
"For us, privacy does not begin or end with our purchase of DoubleClick," Schmidt said. "We have been protecting our users' privacy since our...
Fri, 21 Dec 07
Research In Motion Defies Conventional Wisdom
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57339
If there's supposed to be a big slowdown in corporate I.T. spending, then someone forgot to tell Research In Motion. The Canadian maker of the wildly popular BlackBerry wireless device reported sales that doubled over the year-ago quarter and profits that grew even better over the same period.
But then corporate spending was really only part of the story for RIM, which has over the year made a concerted push into consumer markets with new, sleeker devices, adding cameras and music-playing features it had long eschewed.
Clearly RIM's new image -- less suit, more T-shirt -- is paying off. Sales for the quarter were $1.67 billion, a 100% improvement over the $835 million reported a year ago, and a 22% boost from $1.37 billion in sales during the prior quarter. Profits came in at $370.5 million, or 65% per share, 111% better than in the year-ago quarter, and a 28% improvement sequentially.
RIM's powerful results delivered a strong counterpoint to the conventional wisdom that tech spending by large corporations, the company's bread-and-butter customer base, is heading into a slowing period. The ongoing credit crunch, which has pummeled the financial community and resulted in restructuring and layoffs at banks and other institutions, would appear to drive right to the heart of that base. Investment bankers and financial executives are big BlackBerry addicts, and in most cases their devices are paid for by employers.
Yet the company appears to have suffered no ill effects whatsoever. RIM added a net 1.65 million subscribers, and shipped 3.9 million units, finishing the quarter with 12 million Blackberry users. Nearly half of the new subscribers were either consumers or small business accounts, RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie told analysts.
The numbers beat analysts' expectations; many of them had predicted revenue of $1.65 billion, per-share earnings of 62%, and 1.7 million...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Google Text Ad Trojan Wreaks Havoc
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57337
A new Trojan has been discovered in an unlikely place: Google ads. According to BitDefender, the Trojan is actively hijacking Google text ads and replacing them with ads from a different provider.
BitDefender, which named the threat Trojan.Qhost.WU, said the Trojan modifies the infected computer's hosts file, which controls domain mappings. The Trojan damages both users and webmasters because it takes away viewers and thus a possible money source from Web sites, BitDefender virus analyst Attila-Mihaly Balazs said in a statement.
These days, ads may not be such an unlikely place to find Trojans. In fact, according to the Q1 2007 Web Trends Security Report published by Finjan, a computer security company, some 80 percent of malicious code now comes from online ads.
The proof is in the incidents. Beyond the Google-targeted Trojan, Danish media company sites have reportedly been inadvertently serving ads with malicious content this week. And last month, DoubleClick was serving ads that installed Trojan software on victims' computers. Earlier, in October, malicious hackers targeted RealPlayer software, exploiting it through malware embedded in advertisements.
"Certainly using advertisements -- and banner ads in particular -- to distribute malicious code is not new. We've seen it become more and more common over the past year or so," said Oliver Friedrichs, director of Symantec's Security Response. Friedrichs recalled another recent attack in which ad syndicator 24/7 Real Media was compromised. Its ads were poisoned with a Trojan downloader.
"Simply by compromising one system on the ad syndicator's network, an attacker can distribute his malicious code to many thousands of Web sites and potentially the many millions of users who are visiting those Web sites," Friedrichs said.
Symantec said it expects these sorts of ad-based attacks to continue in 2008. The simplicity and ease by...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Mozilla Releases New Firefox 3 Beta
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57336
Mozilla rolled out its second beta release of Firefox 3 in less than a month with the goal of receiving feedback from developers on the browser's core functionality. The Beta 2 release now available for download features builds for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in over 25 different languages.
"The next Milestone is Beta 3 scheduled for February," explained Mozilla vice president of engineering Mike Schroepfer. "We'll either do more betas or move to final release based on feedback from users and Web developers."
Mozilla is making several changes to Firefox that it hopes will compel more Internet users to try the free browser. For example, Firefox 3 sports improvements to the browser's look and feel, including a full page zoom capability, one-click bookmarking, and a location bar that matches against the user's history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles. In addition, Firefox 3's menus display using Vista's native theme.
Web-based applications, such as the user's favorite e-mail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications such as Outlook for handling "mailto:" links. And a new keyword tag function allows Firefox users to sort their bookmarks by topic.
Users can resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting their network connections. Or type in all or part of the title, tag, or address of a Web page to scan a list of matches from the browser's personalized history and bookmarks.
Firefox 3's security enhancements include antivirus integration in the download manager, version checking for insecure plug-ins, malware alerts, and better presentation of Web site identity and security. The content of Web pages suspected to be forgeries is no longer shown. And bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now protected from system crashes through storage in a new database format.
For its part, Microsoft says...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Microsoft Offers IE6 Crash Solution, Preps IE8
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57335
Microsoft's recent set of security patches is causing problems, namely for Internet Explorer 6 users, who are watching their browsers crash midstream when visiting some sites. Redmond has offered a technical workaround to solve the problem until a more formal fix can be developed.
"First, I want to note the security update does protect against the vulnerabilities noted in the bulletin," Kieron Shorrock, Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) program manager responsible for Internet Explorer, wrote in the MSRC blog. The Internet Explorer patch fixes four critical vulnerabilities in the browser, making it the most important of December's Patch Tuesday updates.
Shorrock said Microsoft has been working with a "small number" of customers who reported issues related to the browser resulting from the update described in security bulletin MS07-069. The problem generates a message that reads, "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close." The bug is not widespread, according to Microsoft, and only affects certain installations of Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP.
While Microsoft downplayed the bug, Paul Zimski, senior director of market strategy at Lumension Security, called the Internet Explorer problem a large-scale issue. The problem, he said, illustrates that the patch-management process is not one that administrators should treat as a checklist item.
"Microsoft has yet to issue a fix, and its temporary workaround does not guarantee to correct the problem. Uninstalling the patch is also not an ideal solution because it will leave a tremendous number of machines vulnerable," Zimski said.
"To avoid similar issues in the future," Zimski went on to say, "we recommend that organizations deploy solutions for developing customized, home-grown patches and other hot fixes as an added layer of protection against vulnerabilities in case vendor-issued patches do not work correctly."
Meanwhile, Microsoft developers are working on Internet Explorer 8. The...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
FTC Clears Google's DoubleClick Buy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57334
Google took a step closer to its acquisition of online advertising server DoubleClick on Thursday, when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the sale. One major hurdle still remaining is approval by the European Commission.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the 4-1 vote by the FTC, following an eight-month investigation, sends a message that the acquisition "poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers."
In April, Google had announced its agreement to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. Some competing companies, such as Microsoft and AT&T, as well as a variety of consumer advocates and lawmakers, had argued that the purchase could give the software giant an unfair advantage.
The acquisition already has been approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and has been recommended for approval by one of three Brazilian regulatory agencies, but Google will not close the deal without the European Commission's approval, which has said that it will complete its review by April.
Google made the case that it and DoubleClick are complementary, not competing, businesses. "Google's current business primarily involves the selling of text-based ads," the company said in a statement, "while DoubleClick's core business is delivering and reporting on display ads." It noted that DoubleClick does not actually buy or sell ads or ad space, but provides the technology so that advertisers and publishers can deliver and track ads.
It also pointed out that the FTC's opinion noted the "robust competition" in online advertising, with a variety of recent acquisitions. These include Yahoo buying Right Media, AOL acquiring ADTECH AG, WPP Group snapping up 24/7 Real Media, and Microsoft spending $6 billion to take over aQuantive.
Andrew Frank, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner, noted that Microsoft's advertising-and-content deal with Viacom, announced Wednesday, also shows the vitality of the online...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Report: Google's Android Full of Bugs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57327
Android has problems. That's the word from developers, according to an article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. The article indicates that the early version of the software development kit is full of more bugs than one would expect.
"Functionality is not there, is poorly documented, or just doesn't work," the Journal quoted Seattle software engineer Adam MacBeth as saying. "It's clearly not ready for prime time." The Journal article added that "a sizeable number" of developers say Google has been "unresponsive."
But the Journal also quoted another software engineer, Rick Genter, who told the newspaper that Android is no buggier than any other software tool at this stage. And, earlier this week, Gizmodo quoted an unnamed programmer as saying an Android prototype device was "light and fast" and "a lot more put together than Windows Mobile 5."
The developer's tool kit was released last month by Google, which has spearheaded the creation and release of Android as an open-source platform for mobile devices.
Android complements Google's drive for opening up wireless networks to all kinds of devices. Google was partially successful in lobbying for such requirements for spectrum being auctioned next month by the Federal Communications Commission. Google is bidding on those frequencies, as are 265 other companies, and Android could be a key part of the company's strategy.
It is important enough that Google is offering $10 million in prize money to stimulate the development of new Android applications.
Ironically, some observers are indicating that the prize money could be stifling development, as well as promoting it. Open-source platforms move forward by the sharing of information, but developers eager for the cash might be hoarding information to prevent its use by competitors.
Chris Hazelton, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said that any sharing of information...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Internet Giants Settle Web Gambling Suit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57322
The three largest Internet companies have agreed to pay a combined $31.5 million to settle federal civil allegations they took ads for illegal gambling, the U.S. Attorney for eastern Missouri said Wednesday.
Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. also agreed to stop accepting ads for sports wagering and other online gambling, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said.
The investigation conducted by Hanaway's office, along with the IRS and the FBI, dates to 2000, she said. Negotiations have been going on for 12 to 18 months, she said.
"This is a very profitable business that had a lot of money to spend on marketing," Hanaway said of the online gambling firms advertising on the Web.
All three companies said they stopped taking the ads years ago.
"I do think it will have a major impact, Hanaway said. Obviously these are three of the largest online organizations in the world."
Microsoft's $21 million portion of the settlement includes a $4.5 million forfeit, $7.5 million to be paid to the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children and $9 million in public service ads over a three-year period starting next year.
The public service campaign will be aimed at informing users, especially those of college age and younger, that online gambling is illegal.
Microsoft said it stopped accepting ads from sites associated with online gambling nearly four years ago.
"This agreement reflects our ongoing commitment to online safety," the company said in a statement. "We're hopeful that our educational campaign will stop young people from gambling before they start."
Yahoo's $7.5 million share of the settlement includes a $3 million forfeiture and $4.5 million in public service ads over three years.
"Yahoo stopped accepting online gambling advertisements years ago, and after the U.S. Attorney's office contacted Yahoo with its concerns, we worked cooperatively over several years to reach this settlement," spokeswoman Kelley Benander said...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Facebook Drops 'Is' for Status Updates
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57321
To be, or not to be: Now Facebook users can decide. For years, members of the popular online hangout Facebook have been able to compose one-liners called "status updates" to tell friends what's going on with them, as in, "Jessica is craving egg and cheese on an English muffin."
Each update started with the member's name and "is," followed by a blank box. This led to tongue-in-cheek workarounds (say, "Jessica is egg and cheesed"). Others ignored "to be" completely and followed "is" with a second active verb.
To the delight of several hundred thousand Facebook users who joined protest groups online, the "is" quietly disappeared last Thursday, making "Jessica is wants an egg and cheese muffin" a thing of the past. Users now supply their own verb.
Facebook claims 58 million active members. In comparison, the largest anti-"is" group, "Petition to Get Rid of 'is' from Facebook Status Update!" was 182,015 strong when its founder, Ahmed Shama, pronounced the "is" dead.
In an interview, Shama, a 29-year-old technology consultant who lives in Irvine, Calif., said he was half joking when he started the group with his brother and invited friends to join. But supporters all over the world wrote to him -- and not just because they were tired of gerunds.
Many who speak languages other than English complained Facebook "was imposing a very English-specific way of updating your status," said Shama.
Anti-"is" groups formed in Turkish and even Norwegian. Facebook hasn't translated its site into languages other than English yet, but a spokeswoman said that's on the agenda for early 2008.
Reeling from public outcry against a viral advertising effort, in which it published information about what members were doing and buying online, Facebook declined to speak about this issue. The company had hinted in November that it would drop the verb. It began by letting...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
NetSuite IPO Prices at $26 Per Share
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57319
NetSuite Inc. priced its initial public offering at $26 per share Wednesday, raising $161 million for its online business software service and showering its largest stockholder, billionaire Larry Ellison, with still more riches.
The IPO proved more lucrative than the San Mateo-based company anticipated, reflecting the hopes riding on NetSuite despite a nine-year history of losses, which total nearly $242 million.
NetSuite's investment bankers, led by Credit Suisse and WR Hambrecht, aimed to sell 6.2 million shares at $13 to $16 apiece when bidding began last week in an unusual "Dutch" auction that gave more investors a chance to participate in the IPO. The bankers still have an option to buy another 930,000 shares at the IPO price from NetSuite and its top executives.
Propelled by the strong demand for its stock, NetSuite now boasts a market value of $1.5 billion.
Investors' interest in NetSuite will be tested again Thursday when its shares are to debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol, "N."
NetSuite is at the forefront of a gradual change in the way companies -- especially small- and mid-sized businesses -- buy software to help manage and analyze their operations.
Instead of paying a hefty price to install programs on their own computers and maintain them, thousands of companies are subscribing to services like NetSuite's that enable workers to use software on any device with an Internet connection.
The on-demand concept, known as "software as a service," or "cloud computing," is winning over converts because it saves money and boosts employee productivity by freeing programs from specific computers. Software also can be updated more quickly when it is hosted online.
"This is where all the interesting ideas in software are coming from today," said Deborah Farrington, a NetSuite director and general partner with StarVest Partners, a venture capital firm that owns a...
Thu, 20 Dec 07
Oracle Shrugs Off Fears of a Slowdown
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57317
The economy may be sputtering, but Oracle Corp. is still hitting on all cylinders. Brushing aside worries about a possible slowdown in the technology sector, Oracle soared well beyond analyst expectations in its fiscal second quarter and raised hopes for a strong start in 2008 with an upbeat forecast.
The results released late Wednesday drove up Oracle's stock price by more than 6 percent.
Now the big question is whether Oracle's performance and bullish outlook should be interpreted as a positive sign for the entire technology industry.
Some analysts aren't ready to leap to the conclusion, reasoning that Oracle is simply outsmarting and out-hustling its competition. "It would be inappropriate to think that just because Oracle is doing well, the rest of the industry is too," said Cowen and Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher.
Because Oracle's latest quarter ended in November, its results came out about a month before most other tech bellwethers.
The Redwood Shores-based company earned $1.3 billion, or 25 cents per share, for the three months ended Nov. 30, a 35 percent increase from net income of $967 million, or 18 cents per share, at the same time last year.
If not for stock option expenses and the costs incurred in recent acquisitions, Oracle said it would have earned 31 cents per share -- 4 cents greater than the average estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Revenue totaled $5.31 billion, a 28 percent improvement from $4.16 billion last year. Analysts, on average, had projected revenue of $5.04 billion.
"It was a very strong quarter, based on just about every metric you can think of," said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.
In a telling indication of the company's growth, Oracle's sales of software licenses climbed by 38 percent to $1.67 billion. Analysts had predicted gains in the 20 percent range.
Software sales are closely watched because new...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Third Service Pack for Windows XP in Public Beta
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57313
Microsoft's Windows XP Service Pack 3 release candidate is now available to anybody and everybody who wants to confirm reports that XP with SP3 is significantly faster than Windows Vista.
Recent tests by Devil Mountain Software show that Windows XP, coupled with Service Pack 3, runs certain desktop computing tasks roughly twice as quickly as Vista. Devil Mountain also discovered that SP3 offered a 10 percent performance boost over XP with SP2, while the firm said that performance gains with SP1 for Vista were negligible.
"Some people are commenting that SP3 makes XP faster than Vista, but I don't think it's appropriate to comment on a service pack candidate because service packs are about making the operating system more reliable," said Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry. "I'm not sure how you even benchmark something that isn't final code."
The final version of Windows XP SP3 is still slated for delivery during the first half of 2008, but Microsoft seems bent on downplaying the attention Windows XP SP3 might get in favor of pushing Vista. The company posted a white paper to its Web site last week to remind users that Vista provides "the most advanced security and management capabilities" of any OS.
Windows XP debuted in October 2001. The last update, SP2, was released in August 2004. XP3 is slated to be the last major upgrade of the OS. Like most service packs, SP3 rolls up fixes that were previously released. Most of the fixes are already available to users who keep their system updated though Windows Update or who visit Microsoft's Download Center to download fixes individually.
It's nice to get the fixes delivered in one neat package, Cherry said, because you don't have to download them separately and experience the hassle of the various installation programs. However, he...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Microsoft and Viacom in $500M Advertising Alliance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57312
Microsoft and Viacom announced on Wednesday a "broad-based, strategic alliance" for collaborating on several fronts -- including advertising, content distribution, event promotions, and games.
Although financial terms were not disclosed, the companies said the arrangement has a "projected base value" of about $500 million in financial considerations and business services.
For content, the deal includes Microsoft's nonexclusive licensing of content from Viacom's cable network and movie businesses, which include MTV Networks, Comedy Central, BET, and Paramount Pictures.
The content will be used for MSN, the Xbox 360, and other Microsoft properties. Viacom noted that it already distributes its content to Xbox 360 users through the Xbox Live Marketplace, although this deal adds content from BET.
For advertising, Microsoft gets the exclusive right to sell remnant display ads on Viacom's Web sites in the U.S., and its Atlas division will become the sites' ad server. In August, Atlas AdManager was obtained by Microsoft as a result of its $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive.
In addition to highlighting the ad-serving component of the partnership, the companies said that AdManager will provide optimization features, inventory forecasting, real-time reporting, and precise audience advertising targeting. AdManager is part of Microsoft's newly created Advertiser & Publisher Solutions division, which covers mobile, gaming, video-on-demand, and IPTV.
Microsoft will buy ads on Viacom's cable and online networks over five years. Viacom, whose properties also include Spike TV, TV Land, Neopets, Nickelodeon, VH1, Logo, DreamWorks, and others, offers about 145 channels and 300 online properties in 160 countries and territories.
The arrangement includes several stated intentions for the companies to work together in developing a closer relationship, including working together for Viacom to become a preferred publishing partner for Microsoft's gaming platforms, and for joint promotions and sponsorships for award shows on MTV Networks and BET Networks.
As one example, the...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Uproar Over FCC Vote on Media-Ownership Rules
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57311
The Federal Communications Commission, at the urging of Chair Kevin Martin, voted 3-2 on Tuesday to relax longstanding rules that block corporations from owning a broadcast TV station and a newspaper in the same city.
At the same time, the Commission also voted 3-2 to impose a 30 percent national audience cap on cable companies. Both votes were along party lines, with Republican commissioners Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert McDowell supporting Martin, also a Republican, and Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein opposing the proposals.
In a statement released following the vote, Martin said that his proposals are designed to promote "competition, diversity, and localism."
"I believe a vibrant print press," Martin said, "is one of the institutional pillars upon which our free society is built. In their role as watchdog and informer of the citizenry, newspapers often act as a check on the power of other institutions and are the voice of the people. Allowing cross-ownership may help to forestall the erosion in local news coverage by enabling companies to share these local news gathering costs across multiple media platforms."
Consumer advocacy and media watchdog groups believe that Martin has actually ignored the voice of the people on this issue. "The FCC has defied will of people and Congress in its rush to push through these new regulations," argued Jen Howard, assistant communications director for Free Press, a nonpartisan media reform group.
"Hundreds of thousands of people filed statements in opposition to the proposed changes," said Howard, "and at the eight hearings held by the FCC around the country, the vast majority spoke against greater media consolidation."
The FCC vote is also getting a cool reaction on Capitol Hill. Four days before the FCC's votes, a bipartisan group of 26 U.S. Senators sent a letter to Martin, protesting the fact that...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
FCC Spectrum Auction Draws 266 Applicants
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57310
The cast for the federal spectrum auction in January has now been assembled. On Tuesday night, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a list of 266 applicants who want to bid. The auction will offer frequencies that had been used for analog transmission by TV stations, which are now moving to digital.
The applicants include Google, Cablevision, Cox, Qualcomm, Alltel, Chevron, US Cellular, as well as Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., regional carriers such as Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, the startup Frontier Wireless, and a Guam-backed phone company headed by Roy Disney, Walt's brother.
There's also the tiny, Middletown, Rhode Island-based fixed-wireless Internet provider, Towerstream, which reported a $1.75 million loss in its third-quarter, on revenues of $1.76 million.
AT&T and Verizon Communications have applied, but the FCC marked their applications as "incomplete" for unspecified reasons. In all, about 170 of the 266 applicants had incomplete applications, including MetroPCS and Alltel.
The auction will cover five blocks of 700-MHz spectrum. Many observers are describing it as "the chance of a lifetime," and it certainly has the makings of an epic event.
For one thing, the lead-up to this auction has included lobbying by an alliance of organizations and companies, spearheaded by Google, to require open access for at least some of the spectrum to be auctioned.
This openness would include the ability for any outside, compatible device and nonmalicious software to be used on those frequencies, a requirement that the FCC eventually adopted.
Although other open-access requests were not adopted, including a requirement that the winner make the bandwidth available on a wholesale basis to third-party resellers, the initially reluctant AT&T and Verizon Wireless now have declared their support for open networks.
Godfrey Chua, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said that the list of applicants has "no real surprises." But...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Hollywood Gives TorrentSpy a Black Eye
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57309
In an unusual victory for the major Hollywood studios, a federal judge in Los Angeles halted an ongoing lawsuit against the operators of TorrentSpy.com in favor of all six of the Motion Picture Association of America's member companies.
The MPAA classifies TorrentSpy as one of the world's most notorious pirate Web sites and claims that the site blatantly contributes to and profits from massive infringement of copyrighted content, including movies, music, and games.
The court imposed the harshest sanction against the TorrentSpy defendants because of their destruction of evidence and subversion of the judicial process. The ruling against TorrentSpy means TorrentSpy operators are liable for copyright infringement, despite the fact that the case did not come to a normal close.
"The court's decision is a significant victory for MPAA member companies and
sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system," John Malcolm, executive vice president and director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA, said in a statement.
"TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement," he went on to say, "and we will continue to aggressively enforce our members' rights to stop such infringement."
The evidence the defendants destroyed included forum postings with references to
copyright infringement, site directories referencing copyrighted works, and records of user IP addresses.
Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California ruled that "although termination of a case is a harsh sanction appropriate only in extraordinary circumstance, the circumstances of this case are sufficiently extraordinary to merit such a sanction."
The court found that the evidence was "not deleted or modified negligently, but intentionally in direct response to the institution of this lawsuit." Observing that defendants "already had been subjected to lesser sanctions in this case," including a fine for $30,000 for...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Consumers Still Spending on Gadgets
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57301
Retail slowdown aside, people are still shopping for consumer electronics this holiday season, and growth in the field could be double the growth in retail overall.
Among the best-selling categories are global positioning systems, laptops and video games.
Market researcher NPD Group said Tuesday Americans spent $4.5 billion on electronic gadgets between Nov. 18 and Dec. 9. This is half a percent lower than last year's figure, but NPD analyst Stephen Baker said everything is "pretty much on track to what we expected it to be."
Global positioning systems were the fastest-growing category, followed by digital picture frames. People also bought more laptop computers and digital SLR cameras, but they spent less on point-and-shoot digicams and MP3 players. And while sales of LCD TVs grew, people bought fewer plasma TV sets -- which are generally available in bigger sizes.
"There is clearly a lot of interest in electronics," Baker said. "And people are willing to spend on what they want."
Instead of spending less on electronics, people are cutting back on extras like travel and some household purchases such as decorations, said Tim Herbert, senior director of market research at Consumer Electronics Association.
But while electronics sales overall are solid, they are growing slower than in past years. In October, the CEA forecast 7 percent growth in factory-to-retail sales of consumer electronics in the fourth quarter, and so far this seems to be holding up, said Tim Herbert, senior director of market research at Consumer Electronics Association.
This is still better than the 4 percent overall retail growth forecast by the National Retail Federation. But it's slower than last year's 16 percent growth rate.
NPD, which tracks video game sales separately from consumer electronics, said last week that sales of consoles, games and accessories hit $2.63 billion in November, up 52 percent from last year.
And with "the...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Managing Terabytes of Customer Data
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57229
Usama Fayyad's colleagues say he battles monsters for a living. In the elite engineering circles that this former NASA rocket scientist inhabits, the job description passes for a wisecrack. But, like many jokes, there's truth behind it.
Fayyad is Yahoo!'s chief data officer, possibly the first person to hold such a position. His role since he took the post in December, 2004, has been to make both sense and money from the vast amounts of information Yahoo collects on the doings of 500 million people who visit its site every month.
Each day, Yahoo collects between 12 and 15 terabytes of data. This vast store includes the search keywords people type, the Yahoo pages they visit, the ads they click, the videos they watch, and even whether they scroll all the way down to the bottom of an article.
Yahoo's daily data collection exceeds the digital size of the entire Library of Congress. A single terabyte alone is so massive that computer scientists named it after teras, the Greek word for "monster" -- hence the humor in Fayyad's job description. "We used to call them 'terrorbytes,'" says Fayyad.
Lately, the tongue-in-cheek explanation of Fayyad's employ seems more apt that ever. Fayyad, along with a growing number of executives at other companies who also oversee reams of data collected on their Web sites, are engaged in a major battle over how freely that information can be used to tailor ads to individuals. The monster, as even Fayyad sees it, is the potential to misuse the data -- violating consumer privacy in the name of personalization and profits. "Humanity as a whole hasn't figured out how to deal with this," says Fayyad.
The battle came to a head recently with Web users and government regulators becoming involved like never before. On Dec. 5, Facebook...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Security Concerns Cloud Virtualization
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57151
Server virtualization makes it possible to run multiple applications and operating systems on fewer hardware resources, and it lets customers quickly provision new resources based on demand. But the features that enable such flexible computing cause network and security managers to wonder whether a security threat in a virtualized environment could spread to the entire network.
"I am holding off on server virtualization because I have already been hearing about security issues with the hypervisor," says Craig Bush, network administrator at Exactech in Florida. "One server being breached doesn't take down our entire network, but if it is possible for a hypervisor to do that, I'll just wait until the security angle is more played out before I jump into virtualization."
Here we address four of the top concerns about securing virtual environments and attempt to discern the hype from reality.
I.T. managers worry that security attacks designed to exploit a hypervisor could infect virtual machines that reside on the same physical host, in what is known as a "virtual-machine escape".
If a virtual machine is able to "escape" the isolated environment in which it resides and interact with the parent hypervisor, industry experts say it's possible an attacker could gain access to the hypervisor, which controls other virtual machines, and avoid security controls designed to protect the virtual machine.
"The Holy Grail of security in the virtual world is to bounce out of the [virtual machine] and take control," says Pete Lindstrom, a senior analyst at Burton Group, in a recent webcast on virtualisation security.
But while there are documented attempts to execute a virtual-machine escape, some point out that a security disaster related to such an event has yet to be proved.
"To my knowledge, there has never been a hack that has allowed a security problem to propagate...
Wed, 19 Dec 07
Palm Posts Loss, Outlines Comeback
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57314
Palm reported $349.6 million in revenue and a $9.6 million loss for the company's second quarter. By contrast, the handset-maker generated $392.91 million in revenue and a $12.77 million profit in the year-earlier period.
CEO Ed Colligan attributed Palm's underwhelming financial performance to an unanticipated delay in delivering the company's Treo 755p smartphone to Verizon Wireless. "The time required to run every quality issue to ground" prior to the smartphone's release "pushed delivery of the product out of the quarter and was the primary reason we did not meet our revenue expectations," Colligan said.
Palm currently has a relatively narrow smartphone product lineup, which is likely why a single miss with one carrier had such a measurable impact on the company's bottom line. "There's definitely lost business when you fail to ship during the holiday season," Colligan said. "We have to build a broader array of products so one miss does not have such a big effect."
Colligan blamed the snafu on the venerable Palm OS, which is slated for a major upgrade within the next six months. "We have an older operating system here that sometimes is challenged in certain situations relative to network performance issues," Colligan noted. "We have to get to the next-generation operating system," he said.
Despite the setback, Palm's quarterly smartphone sales rose by 11 percent year-over-year to 686,000 units -- driven by the popularity of the company's new Centro handset, which achieved sell-through rates in excess of any cell phone Palm has delivered in the past.
"And as we expand distribution with a wider range of partners this quarter we expect those sell-through rates to expand significantly," Colligan said.
On the other hand, Palm's CEO admitted that the popularity of the company's low-cost smartphone had eaten into sales of its higher-priced Treo handsets. "At...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Google-DoubleClick Deal Under Fire in Europe
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57295
In what is being described as an unusual move, members of the European Parliament are urging trade regulators to expand their review of Google's proposed $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick.
In particular, some lawmakers are concerned that the European Commission has not focused enough on privacy, and have even scheduled a hearing in late January to highlight their concerns.
In comments to the Associated Press in Brussels, Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch Liberal Member of the European Parliament, said that several interested parties would be invited to testify about the privacy implications of the deal. Among those on the guest list are Google, DoubleClick, various U.S. and EU officials, and consumer groups.
The Google-DoubleClick deal, in 't Veld told the Associated Press, underscores the need for the European Union and the U.S. to hold substantive discussions on how to protect personal privacy online.
"Ultimately we will have to arrive on common standards," she said. "We're not interfering. ... The committee is not discussing the merits or details of the merger. That's not our business; that's the task of the Commission."
The world's largest search engine firm already has responded, at least in part, to European privacy concerns. Earlier this year, Google announced that it would make search data anonymous after 18 months. That step was taken in response to a separate EU investigation by the region's privacy authorities.
Google's proposed purchase of DoubleClick has intensified privacy concerns across the globe. In September, for instance, Thilo Weichert, the Data Protection Commissioner of the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Competition, registering his region's objection to the proposed merger.
In the U.S., the deal has been opposed by several groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy.
Earlier on Tuesday,...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Apple Rolls Out Another Mammoth Patch
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57294
On Monday, Apple released a mammoth patch to fix 41 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X and to update the beta version of its Safari browser for Windows. The update follows a similar large patch last month.
Security Update 2007-009 fixes vulnerabilities in Apple's code, as well as in some open-source components that Apple integrates with Leopard and Tiger. Apple put almost half of the vulnerabilities in the category of "arbitrary code execution." That means the bugs could open the door to a hacker exploit.
"It's a large dump," said Ken Dunham, director of Global Response for iSight Partners. "The good news is that even though these vulnerabilities exist on a Macintosh operating system, we have not yet seen attackers give the Macintosh platform a lot of attention."
The fixes plug holes in Address Book, ColorSync, CUPS, iChat, Mail, Samba, Software Update, Spotlight, and several other applications and modules.
In one vulnerability, an attacker on a local network can initiate a videoconference with an iChat user without the user's approval. A Safari flaw, meanwhile, could let attackers gain access to personal information if the user visits a malicious Web site. And if users don't install the general update for the operating system, they could be exposed to a man-in-the-middle attack that causes Software Update to execute arbitrary commands.
Still, Dunham said he is not overly concerned. He cited only a few notable incidents in the last two years -- some related to proof of concept and others that spread in the wild just briefly. In each instance, he said, the media tends to act like the sky is falling.
"The reality is there's only a few dozen families of code that are even out there for the Macintosh system itself. Of those, many of them are not even functional today," Dunham said. "Before Windows...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
New GPS Unit Connects to Wi-Fi, Cellular
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57293
Dash Navigation is now taking preorders for a dashboard unit that feature a two-way wireless connection to the Internet. Called the Dash Express, the GPS-based navigation device is designed to provide mobile users with access to information on local traffic, road conditions, and even gasoline prices.
The built-in cellular GPRS and Wi-Fi capabilities of Dash Express give users instant access to information about what's happening along the freeways and arterial roads on which they expect to travel.
This picture of road conditions is compiled from the data gathered by each and every unit on the network, together with information supplied by unrelated traffic resources. In addition, Dash Express automatically alerts travelers whenever traffic conditions suddenly change and a faster route becomes available.
In a blog posting, Mark Williamson, an employee at Dash Navigation, explained how he used the unit when he had to rush his pregnant wife to the hospital last month. "I knew the most direct route was a local highway (California's infamous US 101), but this can be a parking lot at 8:00 a.m.," Williamson noted. "My other option was to take various surface streets, but I really needed to know what traffic was like on these two routes before making my first turn."
Dash Express gave Williamson the green light for using the local highway and the couple arrived at the hospital well in advance of their daughter's birth.
Road warriors can use Dash Express to access local search services of Yahoo and other providers in order to review the people, places, products, and services that are located in the vicinity of their routes. For example, the device provides access to gas prices, theater schedules, and other time-sensitive information.
The MyDash portal gives Dash Express users the ability to create and send customized search buttons...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Apple's Leopard Roars in Its First Full Month
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57292
Apple hit the target with Leopard, the NPD Group said Monday. According to Reuters, the research firm's report described the new OS update as Apple's best yet in sales, with revenue for the first full month of Leopard up 32.8 percent over the comparable period for the company's preceding OS release.
Leopard, which went on sale on October 25 after a delay of several months, had unit volume sales that were 20.5 percent more than the previous version, Mac OS 10.4, also known as Tiger.
After the first weekend of sales, Apple said it had moved two million copies of Leopard, OS X 10.5. Apple will not officially report numbers for the period covered by the NPD Group until early next year.
While the high sales can be attributed in part to the holiday season, NPD noted that the volume shows Apple has found the right approach.
Richard Shim, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said he was "not surprised" at the good reception Leopard has received in its first full month. He attributed the volume to several factors, in addition to the holiday shopping season.
He said a new OS release usually meets pent-up demand from users, and that was the case for the much-anticipated Leopard. When its release was delayed by Apple, ostensibly because the company needed to focus on the iPhone's release, there were complaints in the Apple community and suggestions that the company needed more time to add more goodies.
Adding to that pent-up demand and expectation, he said, is that Apple has market momentum derived from the iPhone's spectacular release and the continued popularity of the iPod, as well as from Mac users.
At the same time that Apple has been gaining momentum, Shim noted, Microsoft's new operating system -- Vista -- has been losing some. Shim...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Can Ribbit Pull Off a VoIP Revolution?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57291
When Silicon Valley telephony startup Ribbit announced the availability on Monday of its SmartSwitch, an open platform for embedding telephone capabilities in any Flash-enabled browser, it took square aim at one of the leading technological trends of the past decade: smartphones.
While smartphones are becoming more computer-like every day, Ribbit is coming from the opposite direction. In a press statement, the company said that it has the potential of converting any of the world's 750 million computers into "the next generation of phones," with developers deciding how they work.
But thanks in part to its lengthy history, telephony is a complicated business, and substantial questions remain about how effectively Ribbit can bridge the dynamic world of Web development with telephony's often arcane and inconsistent technical standards.
"It's not clear to me whose underlying network infrastructure ('wires') is being used," said Lisa Pierce, vice president at Forrester Research.
"It's not really possible to completely separate applications from infrastructure (for example, apps require certain infrastructure performance parameters, and those still vary quite a bit)," she said. "Who tests the apps and makes sure they all play well together and don't cause interoperability problems?"
Pierce added that it remains unclear how Ribbit will be able to assure tolerable performance by applications without providing tight linkage to existing telephony infrastructure. That might be more complicated, she suggested, than Ribbit anticipates.
"There is also no mention of security -- a major concern with VoIP," Pierce said, adding that the fact that Ribbit is proposing an open platform for developers only heightens security issues.
With the ink barely dry on Ribbit's press release, it may be premature to contemplate possible exit strategies for the startup. The company is buoyed by $13 million in venture capital and also has announced a new deal with Salesforce.com to integrate the...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Voicemail-to-Text Comes to Alltel Phones
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57290
You're in a meeting, and silently receive your latest voicemail -- as a text message. That service could become more common on cell phones after Monday's announcement that Alltel Wireless and SpinVox are launching a new voicemail-to-text service.
The companies said that this is the first time one of the five largest U.S. carriers has offered customers the option of receiving voicemails as text. The service, called Voice2TXT, is available on any Alltel phone that is capable of text messaging. The message is received in the standard text-message inbox, and so can be retrieved without dialing in or stepping through a series of voice messages.
The recipient still can retrieve the original voice message, and can store and forward the converted voicemail as a text message.
Voicemail management is the key advantage here, according to Craig Kirkland, Alltel Wireless' director of messaging and voice services. "Our customers will appreciate the fact that they no longer have to wait for the opportune time to listen to a voicemail," he said in a statement.
The companies point out that a text message -- assuming it is an accurate transcription -- eliminates the need to hunt for a pen while listening to voicemail.
The price for freedom from pen-hunting is about $5 each month for 20 voicemail conversions, with additional ones at 25 cents each. Rates are available for 50 and 100 conversions, which, at the larger volume, translate into about 20 cents each.
Bill Ho, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said that if the service is targeted at consumers, it could be considered pricey, "especially if you don't know how well the speech-to-text works." He suggested that getting a garbled message every so often at those prices might be less annoying to a mobile professional for whom the convenience -- and occasional...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Study Highlights Realites of Reputation 2.0
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57276
Nearly 50 percent of Internet users have searched for their own name online, but few regularly monitor their online presence with great regularity. Even more people -- 53 percent of Internet users to be exact -- have searched online for information about personal and business contacts.
So says the Pew Internet & American Life Project's "Digital Footprints" report. The report also says that what's online about you could come back to haunt you, especially in job hunting.
"The cumulative traces of our online activity are more visible in the age of Web 2.0," Mary Madden, a co-author of the report, said in a statement. "The more content we voluntarily contribute to the public or semipublic corners of the Web, the more we become not only findable, but knowable."
Indeed, more powerful search engines have made it easier to find a match for a personal name search, and the "participatory Web" has made those searches more interesting. The increasing popularity of blogs, YouTube, Flickr, and other similar sites has increased the size of people's digital footprint, but few adult Internet users have made digital identity management a routine part of their online lives.
According to the report, most Internet users are unconcerned about the extent of the data available about them. Some 60 percent of Internet users say they are not worried about how much of their information is online, while 38 percent of Internet users say they have taken steps to limit the amount of online information that is available about them.
It likely will not come as a surprise to know that recruiters routinely use the Internet to find out what is said online about job candidates. Jo Parente, a legal recruiter at Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks PC in Boston, searches for background information on candidates online. She called...
Tue, 18 Dec 07
Apple Mulls Options for iPhone Japan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57296
Apple is in negotiations with two Japanese wireless carriers to sell its iPhone, but negotiations are dragging out over the critical issue of revenue-sharing, according to press reports.
Apple is talking with Japan's top carrier, DoCoMo, as well as No. 3 carrier Softbank. Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently had a sit-down with DoCoMo chief executive Masao Nakamura in San Francisco to discuss a deal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"The negotiations are not going smoothly, as Apple's conditions are extremely hard to meet," a source familiar with the meeting told Reuters. "The ball is in Apple's court right now."
Apple appears to be ready and willing to play hardball in Japan. While it clearly has shown a preference to cut exclusive deals with the top carrier in a country -- that means DoCoMo -- press reports suggest that Softbank is extremely interested in becoming the iPhone carrier, leverage Apple would use to bring DoCoMo to its terms.
Apple has been talking to Softbank for some time, and the No. 3 carrier is making an aggressive push to take customers away from its larger competitors. The Wall Street Journal suggested Jobs is feeling quite smug about Japan. "A person familiar with the situation said Apple doesn't expect to have any difficulty concluding a deal with a Japanese operator," the Journal reported.
Japan is the world's second largest economy and one with a healthy appetite for the latest in cell phones. It boasts 100 million cell phone users, who buy new phones every two years on average. Whichever carrier gets the Apple deal will certainly sell a lot of phones.
But for Apple, Japan is a critical part of the global iPhone strategy to sell 10 million of the devices by the end of 2008. The question is which company will blink first.
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Facebook Sues Porn Site for Spidering
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57273
Facebook is suing a Canadian company and 17 individuals for using bots to harvest members' personal data. In a lawsuit amended in California this month, Facebook alleges that Istra Holdings and others used programs to access Facebook's computers 200,000 times in a two-week period in June.
"Each of these requests sought to direct Facebook's computers to send information on other Facebook users back to (the defendant's Internet) address," the complaint alleges.
Facebook said the defendants were making "unauthorized attempts to access and harvest proprietary information" and that "the defendants knowingly and without permission took, copied, or made use of data from Facebook's proprietary computers and computer network."
The complaint, originally filed in June, was amended this month after Facebook identified the alleged perpetrators. Facebook is requesting a jury trial in the case and is seeking damages and an injunction against the defendants. Istra Holdings owns a popular site called SlickCash, which pays Web sites for referring users to its portfolio of porn sites.
The case raises questions about the consolidation of so much personal data in the hands of a few social-networking providers like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. While individuals and business users find great benefits in being connected to others and in providing the information to allow others to find them, this also means people are exposing more personal details than ever before -- exactly at the time when spammers, hackers, and criminals are abusing such information.
It's not even clear that the defendants in this case did anything wrong, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security. "Did the porn site break the information security barriers of Facebook or did they just act like a normal user but in a quicker, automated fashion?" he asked. "If Istra Holdings had broken the law, then why aren't police authorities knocking...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Amazon Launching Database-as-a-Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57272
Having made book-buying easier, Amazon.com is now seeking to do the same thing for databases. Developers can sign up now for Amazon SimpleDB, a Web service for running queries on structured data, that will be available as a beta within several weeks.
The database access, in conjunction with Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) application hosting, provides services that the company said will make Web-scale computing "easier and more cost-effective for developers."
Users only pay for what they use, at the rate of 14 cents per machine hour used. The machine hours are determined by measuring the use required for every request, on the basis of the capacity of a current-generation 1.7-GHz Xeon processor.
In addition, there are charges for data in and out, starting at 10 cents per GB in and 18 cents per GB out, although data transferred to other Amazon Web Services is free.
Amazon said that, traditionally, this type of functionality has used a clustered relational database, with considerable investment, complexity, and management requirements. "Many developers," the company said in a statement, "simply want to store, process, and query their data without worrying about managing schemas, maintaining indexes, tuning performance, or scaling access to their data."
Amazon said that its SimpleDB can be automatically indexed for "fast real-time lookup and querying capabilities." It compared a SimpleDB domain to a spreadsheet table, with items as rows of data, attributes as column headers, and values as the data in each cell. Administrative complexity is simplified through a set of APIs for storing, processing, and querying data, and the costs of software licenses, hardware, and resource management are removed.
If a full relational database is needed, the company added, developers can host their own inside the Amazon EC2 environment.
Brad Shimmin, an analyst with Current Analysis, said...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Startup Ribbit Unveils New Web Telephony Platform
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57271
Silicon Valley startup Ribbit has taken the wraps off a new open telephony platform that promises to give Web sites a whole new set of voice capabilities.
"The world doesn't need another phone company," said Ribbit cofounder and CEO Ted Griggs. "What it needs is a new kind of phone company, one that liberates voice from its current confines -- devices, plans, and business models -- and more readily integrates into the workflow of our professional and personal lives."
At the heart of Ribbit's new telephony platform is the startup's SmartSwitch -- a multiprotocol soft-switch that bridges the gap separating the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) from next-generation networks based on VoIP and other advanced communication protocols.
The technology is designed to work through virtually any Flash-enabled browser and from any mobile or fixed location with an Internet connection, the company said.
For example, calls placed on mobile phones can be answered over a Web browser, through a Flash widget, or on a VoIP client, Ribbit executives noted. Moreover, calls made over the Web can be answered on the Web, on a regular phone, or through a desktop widget. The Ribbit SmartSwitch makes all this transparent.
Though Ribbit voice applications will be similar in many respects to what today's VoIP operators now provide, the company said that users will not be required to download a soft-phone application before they can start placing or receiving calls over the Web. In addition, consumers will have the option of using Ribbit's AIR iPhone software interface, which mimics the look and features of Apple's popular iPhone handset.
Ribbit's platform will even transcribe user voicemail into text messages. And it will offer support for existing Web-based voice services, such as GoogleTalk, MSN, and Skype.
"Ribbit's arrival comes at a...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Americans Googling Themselves More
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57270
A report released Sunday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that growing numbers of Americans are searching for information about themselves and others on the Internet.
According to "Digital Footprints," nearly 50 percent of Americans have searched for themselves online, more than double the number who reported doing so in 2002. Even more people -- 53 percent of those surveyed -- said that they searched for information about acquaintances or business contacts.
In general, the Pew report found that younger users are more comfortable searching for information about themselves and others than older Internet users. Pew researchers found little difference in the frequency with which men and women searched for themselves online, but concluded that as education and income rise, so does the tendency of people to monitor their online profiles.
Not surprisingly, the Pew report found that a much higher percentage of teens (55 percent) than adults (20 percent) have created profiles of themselves on one of the social-networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook. But teens, the report also found, are much more likely to post information on their profile pages (particularly photos and videos) that adults would consider private.
"This gap between young people not caring about privacy, and older people caring more about privacy has existed over a long period of time," said Ari Schwartz, the deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Younger people that just don't have experiences of older people of information coming back to haunt them. And now technology gives them the opportunity to be more careless than they were in the past."
Somewhat surprisingly, teens were more cautious about who can view their social-networking information. Nearly 60 percent of teens restrict access to their Web 2.0 profiles to "friends."
The opposite is true for adults: some 60...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Google Knol: 'Brilliant Web Marketing Strategy'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57269
Google is developing an online publishing system that many are saying could rival Wikipedia. Google's system will display content penned by folks who have knowledge about various subjects.
Google is calling the project "knol," which the company says stands for a unit of knowledge. Currently in the invitation-only beta stage, knol will allow people to develop Web pages oriented on a broad range of topics.
"There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that," wrote Udi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.
The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names on the cover and articles have bylines, Manber explained, but somehow the Web evolved without a strong standard to keep author names highlighted.
Knowing who wrote what, he continued, will significantly help users make better use of Web content. Manber described knol as a well-organized, nicely presented Web page with a distinct look and feel. Google will provide tools for writing and editing, and will host the created pages for free.
A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read, Manber said. Google's goal is for a knol to cover just about any topic imaginable. "Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content," Manber wrote.
"We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line," Manber went on to say. "Anyone will be...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Palm and Verizon Wireless Announce Treo 755p
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57268
Palm joined Verizon Wireless in announcing on Monday the availability of the Treo 755p smartphone through that carrier. While not the breakthrough product that some had been hoping for, the 755p refreshes the Treo line for Verizon.
As an updated version of the 700p, the 755p features the Palm OS, EVDO for data transmission and reception, a touch screen, a full Qwerty keyboard, a 1.3 megapixel camera, a mini-SD slot for cards up to 4 GB, support for Microsoft Office documents, and a preinstalled version of Google Maps.
The companies said that, compared to its predecessor, the 755p has "a sleeker design with an internal antenna and a soft-touch feel."
As smartphones proliferate, the pressure is on Palm to update the Treo, overhaul the Palm OS, and release new products.
Sean Ryan, an analyst with IDC, noted that the 755p is new to Verizon, but is not a new generation of Treo. He pointed out that it's also available in the U.S. on Sprint, but that, for Verizon's Treo users, it provides an upgrade path in the "flagship Treo line."
While the Treo line still has legs, Palm itself has been trying to regain its foothold as a leading innovator in smart, mobile devices. Ryan noted that the company is "poised to release something potentially revolutionary," since the company has new management, private equity, and new talent.
Earlier this year, Palm hired Paul Mercer, a designer who had worked on the interface for Apple's iPod, and the expectation is that the Palm OS will be getting a new interface.
The Centro line, released in the fall, is the smallest and lightest Palm phone and also works with EVDO for high-speed data transmission. It is available exclusively from Sprint. When the Centro launched, it was greeted by some...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
IBM's India Base Now 73,000 Strong
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57259
IBM Corp.'s expansion in developing countries shows no sign of relenting. The technology company revealed Friday that it now has 73,000 employees in India, almost a 40 percent leap from last year.
IBM did not provide updated figures for its work force in the U.S., which has held steady around 125,000 people in recent years.
Nor did IBM project its total head count. It had 355,766 employees worldwide at the end of 2006.
If the total has risen by the same rate as in 2006, almost one in five IBM workers now is in India, its second-largest center.
Like many other technology providers, IBM has rushed to take advantage of the lower labor costs India offers even for highly skilled workers. IBM's base in India numbered only 9,000 people in 2003, but it was about 53,000 last year.
IBM has been stressing not only the lower expense of working in India but the potential of the Indian market.
IBM executives told visiting Indian journalists last week that the company expected to see revenue from the Indian market jump to nearly $1 billion this year, from $700 million in 2006.
Armonk, New York-based IBM is also ramping up in other key developing markets. Its chairman and chief executive, Sam Palmisano, recently formed a new organization that will spur IBM's investment in emerging economies.
The plan is meant to capitalize on the higher growth rates in the so-called "BRIC" countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
IBM's revenue from those countries rose 18 percent in the first three quarters of this year, even after discounting the benefit of currency fluctuations. IBM's total employee count in those countries now is nearly 100,000, up from 70,000 a year ago.
IBM's vice president of financial management, Jesse J. Greene Jr., would not forecast how much more hiring the company still might do in...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
DirectTV Acquires DVR Pioneer's Brand
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57256
In the latest twist in the ever-shifting digital video recording industry, the nation's leading satellite broadcaster DirecTV has purchased most of the assets of ReplayTV, an early pioneer of DVRs that was crushed into near oblivion years ago after
a court battle with Hollywood.
DirecTV Group Inc. acquired the ReplayTV brand and other assets
from Tokyo-based D&M Holdings Inc., D&M said Thursday. Financial
terms were not disclosed.
D&M is the parent company of Denon, Marantz and several other
audio and home theater brands. ReplayTV, along with rival TiVo Inc., debuted its DVR in 1999, introducing TV viewers to the technology of
pausing live TV, zipping past commercials and recording programs
without the hassles of videotape.
ReplayTV beat TiVo to the market by a few months, but TiVo ultimately prevailed, becoming the catchy brand synonymous with DVRs.
It's unclear what DirecTV's specific plans are with ReplayTV,
though some might construe the purchase as pre-emptive protection
against future patent disputes.
TiVo is in a high-stakes DVR patent fight against DirecTV's
rival, EchoStar Communications Corp., which operates the Dish
Network. TiVo has already won a jury verdict in the case, which will
force EchoStar to stop selling its DVR boxes.
But that court ruling is on hold, pending the outcome of an
appeal.
In a statement issued Friday by spokeswoman Jade Ekstedt, DirecTV
said the ReplayTV acquisition will allow it to "explore new
services" and "the potential of ReplayTV's (intellectual property)"
and patents.
"We consider this to be a significant portfolio in the area of
DVRs and advanced DVR features," DirecTV said, adding that "no
decisions have been made concerning the integration of Replay
technology with our existing platform."
In fact, El Segundo-based DirecTV used to partner with TiVo to
sell DVR-enabled satellite receivers, but now it uses DVR technology
from NDS Corp. instead. Just earlier this month, DirecTV extended
that contract with NDS to 2013.
D&M's chairman and chief executive said the ReplayTV...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Can Tech Keep Pace with Moore's Law?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57255
Sixty years after transistors were invented
and nearly five decades since they were first integrated into
silicon chips, the tiny on-off switches dubbed the "nerve cells" of
the information age are starting to show their age.
The devices -- whose miniaturization over time set in motion the
race for faster, smaller and cheaper electronics -- have been shrunk
so much that the day is approaching when it will be physically
impossible to make them even tinier.
Once chip makers can't squeeze any more into the same-sized slice
of silicon, the dramatic performance gains and cost reductions in computing over the years could suddenly slow. And the engine that's
driven the digital revolution -- and modern economy -- could grind
to a halt.
Even Gordon Moore, the Intel Corp. co-founder who famously predicted in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip should double every two years, sees that the end is fast approaching -- an outcome the chip industry is scrambling to avoid.
"I can see (it lasting) another decade or so," he said of the
axiom now known as Moore's Law. "Beyond that, things look tough. But
that's been the case many times in the past."
Preparing for the day they can't add more transistors, chip
companies are pouring billions of dollars into plotting new ways to
use the existing transistors, instructing them to behave in
different and more powerful ways.
Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, predicts that a
number of "highly speculative" alternative technologies, such as
quantum computing, optical switches and other methods, will be
needed to continue Moore's Law beyond 2020.
"Things are changing much faster now, in this current period, than they did for many decades," said Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. "The pace of change is accelerating because we're approaching a number of different physical limits at the same time. We're really working overtime to make sure we can continue to follow Moore's Law."
Transistors work something...
Mon, 17 Dec 07
Alltel Feature Turns Voicemail to Text
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57254
Alltel Corp. is unveiling a new feature that uses voice-recognition software to allow wireless phone customers to read their voicemail messages as text messages.
Monthly fees for the Voice2TXT service start at $4.99, and users will still have the option to listen to the messages.
"It'll appeal to a broad customer base ... people who are in meetings quite regularly and can't take a phone call -- it's very useful in those settings," said Wade McGill, Alltel's senior vice president of product management.
Alltel is using technology developed by Britain-based SpinVox. It will work on any Alltel wireless phone that can receive text messages, McGill said.
"It was one of those services that once you get it, you don't want to give it up," he said, describing the reaction of a test group.
Alltel began offering the service in a soft launch Friday. To access it, customers need to reset their voicemail and greeting. After that, the voicemail text option will be available, McGill said.
SpinVox said its Voice Message Conversion System, which converts messages in English, French, Spanish and German, eliminates the need to search for a pen to write down the details of a message or navigate through a voicemail service.
"Voice2TXT as delivered by SpinVox eliminates the frustrations with dialing into voicemail by offering a discreet, efficient alternative," said Christina Domecq, co-founder and chief executive of SpinVox.
Alltel is the first among major U.S. wireless carriers to offer such a service. A New York startup, SimulScribe Inc., unveiled a similar service at the International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.
Fees for the service start at $4.99 for 20 voicemail conversions a month and go up to $19.99 monthly for 100 conversions.
Little Rock-based Alltel has 12 million customers in 35 states. Last month, the company was taken private in a $24.7 billion buyout by two private...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Death Knell Sounds for Wikipedia, About.com
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57252
In relatively quiet fashion, search engine giant Google announced the testing of a new tool for organizing and disseminating knowledge on the Web. The new tool is built around the concept of a "knol," which the company says stands for "a unit of knowledge."
"A knol on a particular topic," wrote Udi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, "is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read."
Manber said that, unlike Wikipedia, which relies on the collective and relatively anonymous contributions of many different editors, Google's knols will be primarily written by a single, identified author whose credentials will be displayed at the top of each knol.
"Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content," Manber emphasized. "All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line."
The common consensus in the media is that Google's knols are aimed squarely at Wikipedia, and in fact, the sample Web page on display in Manber's blog post does bear some passing resemblance to a typical Wikipedia page. At the top of the page is a brief summary, beside which is a table of contents with links to various sections of the page.
But Google is considering several different features, the most provocative of which is a ranking system that will affect how high the knols appear in Google search results. Manber said that Google anticipates that there will be competing knols for some topic, and rankings will help readers decide which knols are the most reliable and useful.
Google anticipates that some writers will choose to include Google Ads on their...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
FTC Chair Declines To Recuse Herself in Google Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57251
The chair of the Federal Trade Commission announced Friday that she will not recuse herself from considering a proposed merger between Google and DoubleClick.
Two privacy groups -- the Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic Privacy Information Center -- had petitioned for Chair Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself because, they said, the Washington law firm of Jones Day -- of which Majoras' husband is a partner -- is representing DoubleClick before the FTC and the European Union.
Majoras said the groups' complaint is factually inaccurate. First, she said, Jones Day is not representing DoubleClick before the FTC but is focused on the European Union's review of the merger.
In addition, because her husband, John M. Majoras, is a "fixed participation partner," without an equity interest in the firm, his involvement with Jones Day does not present a conflict of interest.
"Jones Day does not represent DoubleClick before the FTC and, indeed, in dozens of meetings and submissions, has never appeared or even been mentioned," Majoras wrote in a statement posted to the FTC's Web site. Only the firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett represents DoubleClick before the FTC, she said, adding that no one at the FTC knew of Jones Day's involvement in the matter until Tuesday, December 11, 2007, "at which time staff learned and contacted me."
As a non-equity partner in Jones Day, John Majoras' compensation is not affected by changes in the firm's income. "All benefits my husband receives from Jones Day are the same as those earned by other similarly situated non-equity partners in the firm," she wrote. "Therefore, my husband does not have a financial interest in the firm's income, and thus I do not have an imputed financial interest."
Under federal law, Majoras would not be able to participate if her determinations in...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Microsoft Fires Back at Opera Software
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57247
Microsoft fired back at Opera Friday, after the maker of a for-pay browser known for its strict compliance with Web standards filed a complaint with the European Commission.
"We believe the inclusion of the (IE) browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers are already free to choose to use any browsers they wish," Microsoft said in a statement.
"Internet Explorer has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade," the company said, "and supports a wide range of Web standards."
Opera filed a complaint Thursday with the Commission, claiming that Microsoft had engaged in anticompetitive behavior by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, putting other browser makers at a disadvantage.
Opera also claimed that Microsoft's weak support for Web standards puts more compliant browsers at a disadvantage because Web developers will focus on the browser with the greatest market share.
"We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera. "In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers, we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation."
Microsoft "only recently begun to offer some of the innovative features that other browsers have offered for years," he added.
The European Commission acted against Microsoft 2004, but the remedy the Commission came up with was seen as ineffective. The issue at the time was whether Microsoft's bundling of Windows Media Player was anticompetitive. The EC ruled that it was and ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows free of the Media Player.
The problem was that the two versions of Windows cost the same, few PC makers opted to preinstall the version without Windows Media Player,...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
OpenSocial Faces Off with Facebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57246
Following the announcement by Facebook that it would make its platform available to other sites, the application-sharing environment for social networking is moving quickly and picking up steam.
Bebo, a popular social-networking site based in the UK, also announced its own Open Application Platform, with an application programming interface (API) for third-party developers. Bebo has partnerships with more than three dozen developers -- including NBC Universal, NBA, The Gap, and Yahoo -- who are creating music-, movie-, and photo-sharing applications for the site's 40 million users worldwide.
In a statement, Bebo noted it would "be the first in the industry to implement the standards defined by the Faceook Platform." But it also said that it will be compatible with the other major platform for social-networking sites, OpenSocial, and thus become the first to support both.
OpenSocial is a Google-led effort to provide open APIs for social-networking sites, and is now positioned as the main alternative to an open Facebook platform. Other sites that have said they will support OpenSocial include MySpace, Hi5, Plaxo, Ning, and Friendster.
But "there are concerns that OpenSocial is behind the ball" as an alternative to Facebook, according to Forrester senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang. The latest word, he noted, is that OpenSocial will release proofs of concept in early 2008.
He described the current situation as having "a lot of fragmentation," given that many of the announcements are relatively recent. But, he noted, even with widely available standards for distributing third-party applications, developers likely will need to tweak their products for each site because there will be some technical interface or social differences among different sites.
"The expectation that every application will work similarly on every site is over-optimistic," Owyang said.
If interoperable social-networking applications become widespread, consumers could have their own expectations about what widgets they can use...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Cover-Up Roils Google-DoubleClick Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57244
As various U.S. presidents have discovered to their sorrow, a cover-up is often more damaging than the underlying offense. That's the uncomfortable position in which Washington powerhouse law firm Jones Day finds itself, one day after two privacy groups flagged the firm for deleting potentially embarrassing Web pages.
For the last several months, the Federal Trade Commission has been reviewing Google's proposed multibillion-dollar purchase of DoubleClick, the leading server of online advertising. Earlier this week, the news broke that Jones Day was working with DoubleClick both in Europe and the United States.
The news quickly raised conflict-of-interest issues, because FTC Chair Deborah Platt Majoras is the wife of John Majoras, an equity partner in Jones Day.
Jeff Chester, founder of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), and Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), who have both expressed serious concerns about the privacy implications of the Google-DoubleClick deal, filed a formal petition with the FTC asking Majoras to recuse herself from voting on the purchase.
On Wednesday, during the course of their research for the recusal petition, Chester and Rotenberg visited the Jones Day Web site and saw a page listing DoubleClick as a Jones Day client, along with the following statement: "Jones Day is advising DoubleClick Inc., the digital marketing technology provider, on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition by Google Inc."
The following day, however, the DoubleClick client page and all related material was gone. Chester and Rotenberg were able to retrieve earlier versions of the deleted Web pages using the cache feature on, of all things, Google.
They included screen shots of the original Web pages and the newly empty versions in a Freedom of Information Act letter on Thursday afternoon to Donald S. Clark,...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Is Microsoft Hyper-V a VMware Killer?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57243
Microsoft unveiled a public beta for its hypervisor-based server virtualization technology. Known as Hyper-V, the technology is featured with some versions of Windows Server 2008.
The beta for Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V offers features not previously available in the September 2007 Community Technology Preview, such as quick migration, server core roles, and server manager integration.
Microsoft said Hyper-V is designed to help reduce operating costs, increase hardware use, optimize infrastructure, and improve server availability.
"Delivering the high-quality Hyper-V beta earlier than expected allows our customers and partners to begin evaluating this feature of Windows Server 2008 and provide us with valuable feedback as we march toward final release," said Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft, in a statement.
To provide integrated management of physical and virtual environments, Microsoft is readying the next version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Customers will be able to use this integrated management tool to provision and configure new virtual machines running on Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, VMware ESX Server, and Virtual Infrastructure 3 (V13).
So far, Microsoft reported, almost two million customers around the world have obtained Windows Server 2008 evaluation code. Redmond is calling the software "the most reliable and highly secure server platform on the Windows platform Microsoft has yet delivered, introducing role-based installation and management that will make it easier to help manage and secure specific server roles."
Microsoft Hyper-V could receive a warm welcome, especially from small and midsize businesses, according to Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata. There is a large number of Microsoft shops in the marketplace, he said, that tend to prefer to use Microsoft software across the board.
"At some level, Hyper-V is competitive to VMware and other hypervisors," Haff said. "In situations where companies have invested...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Beleaguered AMD Keeps Head in Game
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57240
The world's No. 2 microprocessor maker, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said it won't return to profitability until the second half of next year and delayed the full release of the product it says will enable its recovery.
"We have gone through a very difficult time, reacted quickly and decisively, and we are on our way to really have, I believe, a phenomenal transition year in 2008," CEO Hector Ruiz said at an analyst conference Thursday in New York.
AMD, which has been struggling to catch up with much larger Intel Corp., is committed to breaking even in the second quarter and returning to profitability in the third, Ruiz said.
In response, investors sent AMD's shares to their lowest level since August 2003. The stock closed at $8.84 Thursday, down 13 cents, but had traded as low as $8.42 during the day.
"The lack of specific information is likely the chief culprit of the shares' weakness," wrote Stifel Nicolaus analyst Cody Acree in a note to investors. He found the analyst day more positive than AMD's share price indicated.
"We believe the information was incrementally encouraging, and that AMD is in the process of a solid recovery," he wrote.
AMD's stock has taken a beating the past two years amid fears the Sunnyvale-based company has been losing some of its competitive edge against Intel because of debt from a costly acquisition and because its technology is aging.
AMD shares have plunged nearly 80 percent from early 2006, when they traded above $40 and the company's market value was more than $20 billion. AMD's market value is less than $5 billion today, and the stock has been stuck under $10 for two weeks.
Many on Wall Street had hoped AMD would provide details on its "asset lite" strategy to sell off some factories and outsource manufacturing tasks to cut costs,...
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Utah Firm Goes Where GPS Doesn't
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57238
In one high-tech thriller after another, the hero
attaches a tiny tracking device on the villain and follows him as a
blinking dot on a computer screen.
In real life, this kind of technology would be great for tracking
pets or kids, even packages or luggage -- anything that tends to
wander.
But it doesn't really exist.
There are GPS devices, of course, but strap a half-pound GPS
collar to a dog and you'll realize it's far from "Mission Impossible." GPS-enabled cell phones are becoming more common, but they have problems, like accuracy indoors, and they aren't cheap.
A Sandy, Utah company, S5 Wireless, is looking to bring reality closer
to the movies, with small, cheap chips that can be powered by a single battery for up to two years and tracked indoors and outside,
over long distances.
For instance, an S5 chip could go into a dog collar, complete
with a battery, in a package about the size of a stick of gum that costs $3 to $4 to make. When the battery runs down, it's time to buy a new collar.
The same concept could be applied to a kid's backpack, with an
antenna running through the strap.
"It's like a poor man's LoJack or OnStar," said David Carter,
S5's chief executive.
The drawback to the technology is that unlike the Global
Positioning System, which is quite literally global, S5's technology
would only work where the company has a network of stations to
receive S5 signals. S5 is planning to start building those in some
major U.S. cities next year.
What the chips do is basically GPS in reverse. GPS satellites
operated by the Air Force send signals to receivers in devices like car navigation systems. Those receivers need a line of sight to the sky, so they work only outdoors and are fairly power-hungry.
By contrast, the S5 chips send radio signals that will be picked
up by receivers S5 plans to build....
Fri, 14 Dec 07
Study: iPhone Major 2008 Hack Target
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57227
It's hard to think of a higher-profile device than Apple's iPhone or one that has had more attention from hackers. In 2007, hackers broke Apple's security system by exploiting several vulnerabilities. Now, security researchers at Arbor Networks are predicting that the iPhone will be subject to "serious attack" in 2008.
The attacks, they say, will likely take the form of malware embedded in photos or video. Until its latest update, the iPhone was vulnerable to such attacks through a bug in its handling of TIFF images. Previous versions of Apple's firmware used a version of the libtiff library that was susceptible to buffer-overflow attacks.
Security researcher and hacker HD Moore in October revealed that the TIFF exploit would allow malicious hackers access to the phone's root level. All of the iPhone's key applications run as root processes, Moore found, so exploiting the TIFF bug provided the ability for hackers to take control of the phone.
Arbor Networks predicted that hackers will be enticed by the possibility of attacking Apple users and the opportunity to be the first to hack a new platform.
"2007 was the year of the browser exploit, the data breach, spyware, and the storm worm," the Arbor report said. "We expect 2008 to be the year of the iPhone attack, the Chinese Hacker, P2P network spammers, and the hijacking of the Storm botnet."
The prediction is hardly a risky one, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Security. "Predicting a higher rate of attacks on the iPhone is like saying there will be more people trying to hack Leopard in 2008," he wrote in an e-mail.
"This is an obvious direction for the hacking community," he added. "Those who hack for good or bad are always interested in the newest target and even better...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
Vista's First Service Pack Enters Beta
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57225
Wednesday's beta release of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista boasted more than 300 bug fixes for Microsoft's troubled OS but will offer modest performance improvements and no compatibility improvements. A final version will be released to the public in early 2008.
The size of the service pack is something of a surprise because Microsoft had said in March that the updates would be minor. Vista was "high quality right out of the gate," vice president Michael Sievert said.
"From the sheer size of SP1, some people might look askance, especially since Microsoft insisted a major SP1 was not on the Vista line," said Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT. Still, he said, SP1 will be welcomed by those consumers and businesses already running Vista but won't encourage many to speed up their switch-over.
"The conventional wisdom for most businesses is to wait until the first service pack for any purchase, except customized software," King said in a telephone interview. "There are some things to feel pretty good about here." The fact that Microsoft changed its plans on SP1 shows that the company is "moving aggressively" and realizes "there are issues around Vista," King said.
Major improvements in SP1 include boosting file copy speed by 25 percent, fixing battery consumption issues which King said were "really irritating" to users who had fully switched over to laptops, and ironing out certain network-performance issues.
The release does not impact compatibility issues in Vista, Microsoft said. "Applications that have compatibility issues with Windows Vista today will most likely continue to have the same issues with Windows Vista with SP1," Microsoft said in a white paper. "Microsoft recommends that all enterprise customers begin testing their applications on the currently available version of Windows Vista," the company said.
Although large businesses deploying custom...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
Facebook To License Its Platform Code
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57223
The rapid evolution of social-networking sites now will feature a competition among platforms, with the announcement on Thursday that Facebook will make its platform available to other sites.
Writing on a company blog, platform manager Ami Vora said that the company wants "to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model," and that it will be licensing Facebook Platform methods and tags to other sites.
The posting includes a link to the platform's technical specifications, which said that developers who create Facebook applications will be able to make them available at compatible sites without adaptation.
Vora said that this step was another toward Facebook's "vision of easy, open sharing of information" that began in August of last year when the Facebook Platform application programming interface (API) was released, so that third-party developers could create apps for the site.
This is a busy time for the developing social networking environment. Earlier this week, for instance, LinkedIn said it would provide a platform for third-party developers called Intelligent Applications. As with Facebook, outside developers can create applications for the site, but, because LinkedIn is a professional, business-oriented site, it is keeping more control over which applications it allows.
"We're not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other," Chief Executive Dan Nye told the New York Times. Instead, LinkedIn's first announced outside app will allow site users to hover over company names on BusinessWeek online, and see a list of people on LinkedIn who have some connection to that company.
LinkedIn's move followed the recent announcement of OpenSocial, a Google-led effort to provide open APIs for social-networking sites. LinkedIn's platform will support OpenSocial, as will Hi5, Plaxo, Ning, Friendster, and MySpace.
But opening up a social-networking site can have...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
A New Front Is Opened in the Browser Wars
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57222
Opera Software, the Oslo-based producer of the Opera browser, has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, alleging that the software giant is unfairly abusing its dominant market position by tying Windows to Internet Explorer. The complaint also alleges that Microsoft is hindering Web interoperability by failing to adhere to widely accepted Web standards.
In a press statement released earlier Thursday, Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said that the company was acting on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them.
"In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers," Tetzchner added, "we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation. We cannot rest until we've brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide."
The company is asking the European Commission to order Microsoft either to unbundle Internet Explorer or to require it to bundle additional competing browsers, such as Firefox or Opera. In addition, Opera is seeking an order requiring Microsoft to comply with "fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring community."
Earlier this year, the European Court of First Instance upheld a 2004 ruling by the European Commission that Microsoft abused its monopoly position by unfairly tying its Windows Media Player to its operating system. Opera's Chief Technology Officer, Hakon Wium Lie, said in a telephone interview that the Microsoft's behavior with its browser is parallel to its treatment of its music player.
"We think it's even more serious for browsers, though, because browsers are more important to people in their everyday lives," Lie said. "And with Web 2.0, the browser is increasingly turning into a platform for application development. If one company retains monopoly power, that's very harmful."
The crux of Opera's interoperability claim centers on Internet Explorer's failure to master...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
What Will Apple Release in 2008?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57221
A new report from investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts that Apple's 2008 releases will include a 3G iPhone and a modified Apple TV. According to AppleInsider, the research report was written by Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey and was based on information obtained from component suppliers in Asia.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson have indicated that a 3G iPhone is planned for release next year, although there has been no formal announcement. The second-generation iPhone is currently being designed, the Goldman Sachs report said, and will have a form factor similar to the current model.
The impact of the iPhone's highly successful U.S. launch in June, and the iPod's position as the leading portable media player, has reignited media curiosity about what Apple has coming up. Similar reports are likely to increase in the run-up to the annual MacWorld show, which has been a launch pad for earlier Apple products.
Bailey is quoted as saying that the new iPhone will debut in the second half of 2008, but that a smaller upgrade with more flash memory is expected earlier in the year. Some observers have speculated that a 3G iPhone will be announced at the MacWorld conference in January.
Although the iPhone's recent launch in Europe was "pretty good," according to IDC analyst Chris Hazelton, it wasn't as boffo as the reception in the U.S. One factor noted by Hazelton is that there are several competing 3G smartphones in that market, so the device wasn't perceived as being as unique there as here.
He said that there is "pent-up demand" from some potential customers in the U.S. and elsewhere who are waiting for a second-generation version of the iPhone, with 3G.
Bailey's report also said that Apple not only will modify its Apple TV to include an...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
Judge Affirms $30M Ruling Against eBay
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57217
A federal judge has approved a roughly $30 million judgment against eBay Inc. more than four years after a jury concluded the online auctioneer had infringed on the patent of a small Virginia company.
U.S. District Court Judge Jerome Friedman's certification, issued late Tuesday in Virginia, edges Great Falls, Va.-based MercExchange LLC a step closer to cashing in on its long-running battle against one of the Internet's powerhouses.
But eBay still hopes to avoid writing a check.
"We are disappointed with the court's order and we plan to appeal it," the San Jose-based company said in a statement Wednesday.
EBay believes Friedman could have rejected the judgment, based on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the laws governing patent enforcement.
The case already has been tied up in years of appeals, including an issue that landed in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The dispute revolves around eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which sells merchandise at a fixed price instead of fluctuating bids. MercExchange contends the system tramples on its patented technology.
A federal jury sided with MercExchange in 2003, concluding that eBay should pay $35 million in damages. The award was later reduced to about $25 million. With interest accumulating since then, the value of the judgment has climbed back up to about $30 million, according to both MercExchange and eBay.
MercExchange had hoped to use the jury's findings to win a court order that would have prevented eBay from continuing to use the "Buy It Now" feature.
The legal wrangling over MercExchange's bid for an injunction against eBay culminated in a pivotal ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. The high court decided that judges aren't automatically required to block a technology from being used even after a jury finds a patent violation like eBay's.
In addition to the judgment, MercExchange wants millions in licensing fees for use of...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
AMD Acknowledges Overpaying for ATI
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57216
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. acknowledged Wednesday it overpaid in its $5.6 billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies Inc., adding to the deepening financial woes of the slumping semiconductor company.
Sunnyvale-based AMD, the world's No. 2 maker of microprocessors behind Intel Corp., said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission it will have to write down the value of the goodwill estimate it attached to ATI when it bought the company in October 2006.
AMD said it does not currently know how big the charge will be.
Goodwill refers to the value of intangible assets such as a company's reputation or influence within an industry, or even employee morale, all of which are believed to influence its ability to drive future sales.
AMD's final purchase price for ATI included a $3.2 billion allocation for goodwill, nearly three times the value of product technology that ATI had already developed and was working on in its laboratories, according to AMD's regulatory filings.
AMD bought ATI to bolster the graphics capabilities of its chips and add valuable "chipset" technologies to its product lineup. Chipsets are responsible for sending data from the microprocessor to the rest of the computer.
AMD, until that point, focused primarily on microprocessors, which are the brains of computers.
Analysts immediately questioned the wisdom of the deal, however, expressing worries over AMD's ability to pay down the billions of dollars in debt it incurred to finance the transaction, and whether ATI's technologies would add enough value to AMD to justify the price.
AMD, which was riding high off several years of impressive market-share gains at Intel's expense, suddenly fell on hard times in the summer of 2006 when Intel struck back with a new product lineup.
AMD's finances were hurt by a fierce price battle and slumping demand for its chips, and its deep losses and...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
Ads on Mobile Phones: Not So Fast
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57211
Ads on cell phones have long been hailed as the next big thing. But flipping through industry forecasts, Didier Kuhn says, "I don't believe the figures I am seeing." And he doesn't mean that in a rah-rah kind of way.
Kuhn, CEO of a mobile advertising company acquired by Microsoft in May, views most analyst predictions as way too rosy. Gartner expects $11 billion in global revenue from ads on mobile devices by 2011, up from less than $1 billion a year now.
Strategy Analytics sees an even bigger $14.4 billion revenue pie by then, accounting for a fifth of all online ad spending. These forecasts are "incredibly steep," says Kuhn, relieved that his company, ScreenTonic, has Microsoft to watch its back as the market develops. "It will take slightly more time for the industry to grow."
Mike Baker, vice-president in change of Nokia's ad business, also sees a longer wait, suggesting it will take at least five years for the industry to surpass $10 billion in annual revenue. "The near-term visibility is cloudy," he says.
Realistically, no matter how often you see people checking e-mail on a BlackBerry or surfing the Web on an iPhone, the vast majority of consumers are just beginning to use their phones for functions, other than calling, that are conducive to ads. Today, only some 16% of U.S. wireless users access the Web on those devices at least once a month, according to JupiterResearch. It doesn't help that the U.S. economy is being buffeted by the mortgage crisis and housing slump.
Wireless carriers, meanwhile, have been slow to embrace ads, fearful their customers will be driven away by floods of text-message spam or banners and pop-ups crowding such a tiny screen. As a result, only 10% of nearly 2,000 Americans surveyed by Jupiter earlier...
Thu, 13 Dec 07
Congress Presses Google on Privacy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57206
While Ask.com is offering users greater privacy controls this week, Google is getting grilled about its privacy controls. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt expressing his concerns about the privacy aspects of the company's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.
The letter demands answers to 24 questions addressing privacy and consumer protection aspects of the deal. Specifically, Barton, the ranking minority member of the House and Energy Commerce Committee and cofounder of the House Privacy Caucus, said he wants to know how the companies store and use information.
The letter also communicates Barton's displeasure that Google declined to meet with committee members about the merger.
"On November 20, I wrote Google corporate officials to request that two counsels from the House Energy and Commerce Committee staff be permitted to visit your California headquarters offices, at committee expense," Barton said in the letter.
The purpose of this trip, he explained in the letter, was to learn firsthand about existing search and targeted advertising technology, what information may be garnered through the use of this technology, how that information is used, and how that information could be used.
"Google officials with whom we spoke deemed the dates inconvenient, and the request was denied," he wrote. "Since then, all efforts to reach a mutually agreeable time have been rebuffed, and it begins to seem that no date for a visit is sufficiently convenient to Google. Your warm initial invitation, followed by Google's chilly response to a proposed visit by committee counsels is disconcerting."
Google could not immediately be reached for comment on Barton's letter.
Barton's letter asks for an explanation of retention policies for consumer data, including what is collected, who can access it, how long it is stored, and exactly how it is disposed of or deleted.
"If...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
Penthouse Puts Out $500M for Social Networking Sites
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57205
The online adult entertainment grotto just got a little more crowded. Penthouse Media Group, Inc. (PMGI), the parent company for Penthouse magazine and the owner of extensive online properties, announced Wednesday that it is spending $500 million to acquire Various, Inc., the owner of numerous social networking sites, including AdultFriendFinder.com, one of the Web's leading dating sites. The transaction is one of the largest ever for an adult business.
"Various is an attractive addition to our already strong print platform, and one that puts Penthouse in a very robust position in the ever-growing online social networking arena," said Penthouse Media Group CEO Marc Bell said in a statement. "We like where the business combination puts us and that this transaction will enhance PMGI's current and future licensing, print and interactive ventures."
In addition to AdultFriendFinder.com, Various owns and operates a network of more than 25 other popular sites, including JewishFriendFinder.com, OutPersonals.com, and Cams.com, which advertises itself as "The Wildest Live Webcams."
Clearly, a leading attractor for Penthouse Media Group is the staggeringly large member base that Various commands. An estimated 260 million people at one time or another have joined a Various Web site, including the 18 million alone that are members of AdultFriendFinder. The company's paid subscriber total is far smaller, just 1.2 million, but that still translates into a substantial revenue boost for Penthouse Media. In fact, the companies predict that PMGI's purchase will make it the largest adult entertainment company in the world, with projected revenues for 2007 of $340 million.
In our telephone interview, Bell acknowledged the importance of the customer base that Various brings to the table. "They've got tremendous market reach," he said. "Social networking is clearly the future of adult entertainment, particularly in the mobile space, and we're excited to be joining forces with...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
What's This w00t and Why Is It Word of the Year?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57204
Gamers, rejoice! The quintessential l33t-speak shout -- "w00t!" -- has been named the "Word of the Year" by the Merriam-Webster Online Web site. In the somewhat dry language of the company's press release, "w00t" is listed as an interjection, and defined as "expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word 'yay.'"
According to the Merriam-Webster Web site, "w00t" is a transliteration derived an acronym for the phrase "We Owned the Other Team." The innovative spelling, with two zeros in the middle, is derived from a hacker language known as "l33t," in which numbers and symbols are substituted for letters they resemble.
"What's interesting about the selection of w00t is that it is taking language in a new direction," said John Morse, President and Publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc., in the company's press release. "Given the inefficiency of texting with a numeric keyboard, people look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A. This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."
Another explanation, according to some gaming Web sites, is that hackers began developing l33t as a way of making it harder to search for their bulletin board conversations online. Undoubtedly, however, the NSA is hard at work on a real-time l33t translator.
Regardless of exactly how "l33t" and "w00t" developed, it is a safe bet that somewhere, Noah Webster is smiling. In 1828, after more than two decades of work, Webster published "An American Dictionary of the English Language," in which he himself revolutionized the spelling of many common words. Among other things, he dropped the "u" in words like "colour," changed "centre" to "center" and "gaol" to "jail," and added words that were uniquely American,...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
Copyright Battle Erupts over Porn 2.0
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57196
Despite a reputation as the most profitable of businesses, life is not all beautiful women, hot tubs, and a constant stream of money for porn kings these days. In a tell-tale sign of financial stress, Vivid Entertainment Group -- one of the largest pornography shops -- is suing a Web site called PornoTube and its parent company for copyright infringement.
Vivid is asking for $4.5 million in damages and an injunction against Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network from continuing to operate PornoTube. The amount is based on the statutory maximum of $150,000 per copyright infringement.
"PornoTube and AEBN have exactly the same responsibility as any other adult content distributor or producer to obey U.S. copyright laws," said Steven Hirsch, cochairman of Vivid. "We've decided to take a stand and say 'no more,'" Hirsch added. "We will go after all the free sites."
Vivid is something of a poster child for the pressures the traditional industry is suffering at the hands of Porn 2.0 -- the numerous sites modeled on Google's YouTube that allow users to upload their own video content. While much of the content on those sites consists of illegally copied content, users are uploading their own amateur videos. As the trend continues, viewers are finding fewer reasons to pay for porn.
Three years ago, 80 percent of Vivid's income came from DVD sales; today, it's about 30 percent. In a profile for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, Hirsch told writer Claire Hoffman that he expects DVD sales to hit zero within five years. In 2007, DVD sales dropped 35 percent, he said.
With those trend lines, porn producers such as Vivid are betting on Internet sales to make up the difference. But that's going to be hard if users of sites like PornoTube are just going to copy their content...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
Office 2007 Gets Its First Service Pack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57195
Almost exactly one year after Microsoft first released Office 2007, the latest iteration of its massive office suite, the software giant surprised users by quietly releasing the product's Service Pack 1 (SP1) nearly a month ahead of schedule.
In November, Microsoft Office product manager Reed Shaffner told attendees at the IT Forum that users could expect the shipment of SP1 sometime in early 2008. But Microsoft's Office software team apparently had a particularly productive fall.
"Our development team," Shaffner said in a statement, "was able to deliver the enhancements and fixes earlier than we'd anticipated, so we wanted to get them in the hands of customers as soon as possible."
Office 2007 users who undertake the download (over 200 MB) and mandatory reboot will not find a significant number of new features. Instead, Shaffner said, the service pack concentrates on making Office 2007 a more stable platform.
"SP1 provides stability and performance improvements across the 2007 Office system, keying in on customers' leading productivity concerns, and beefs up security precautions to stay ahead of the latest threats from malicious software and other risks," Shaffner said. "Crashes are one of the most frustrating experiences customers have, and the team worked hard with SP1 to make our products more stable."
Office 2007 users interested in upgrading their software can visit the Microsoft Office Web site and either download the patch or order a CD-ROM with the new code. In addition, the patch is available as an optional download through Windows Update.
Kyle McNabb, principal analyst at Forrester Research, suggested that Microsoft had at least a couple of reasons for accelerating the release of SP1. "I do think that they are trying to keep their presence first and foremost in the minds of enterprises and individual consumers, particularly those using Office on new laptops...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
SWsoft Renaming Itself Parallels in 2008
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57194
The company responsible for creating the popular virtualization program Parallels is now taking the name of its offspring as its own. On Tuesday, SWsoft announced that it will become Parallels in early 2008.
In addition, the company outlined a new vision of "optimized computing" for multiplatform virtualization and automation software.
Parallels, a leading desktop virtualization product for running Mac OS and Windows on Intel-based Mac hardware, is not the company's only product but is probably its best known. The other two major product lines in the SWsoft fold are Virtuozzo, a server-based virtualization solution, and Plesk, a server control panel.
Key to the optimized computing vision is the Parallels Open Platform, which CEO Serguei Beloussov said means "enhancing Windows, Linux, Mac, x86, and ia64-based bare metal systems with innovative hypervisor-based virtualization, container-based virtualization, and a suite of complementary automation solutions."
As it undertakes this corporate renovation, SWsoft said it will have more than 500 official partners, including Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Dell, HP, AMD, and SGI.
The company is planning a stream of new products in the new year. These include the 4.0 version of its Virtuozzo container-based virtualization software, a server-based hypervisor, major updates to Parallels Desktop and Parallels Workstation, and new virtualization management for third-party technologies, in addition to its own.
On Monday, SWsoft said it had delivered to beta testers its first release candidate of Virtuozzo 4.0. The company said in a statement that the product differs from traditional hardware virtualization solutions in that it provides "exceptional data center efficiency" because it is the only virtualization product that enables hundreds of containers to leverage hardware. "Containers" are efficient and scalable virtual environments created by the dynamic partitioning of a single Windows or Linux operating system.
According to Beloussov, the virtualization software, initially announced in September, can reduce "hardware and OS...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
Do Searchers Really Care About Privacy?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57186
Ask.com might not be the leading search engine, but it's trying to prove it's the most consumer-friendly with its latest privacy move. The question is whether consumers really care as much as privacy advocates claim they do.
On Tuesday, Ask.com launched a new product designed to give consumers more control over the privacy of their online searches. The technology, called AskEraser, allows searchers to erase queries completely from Ask.com servers, including IP address, user ID, session ID, and the complete text of their queries.
There is little argument about the significance of the move. Ask.com is a major player in search engines, and giving users control over the data generated by their activities online could lead the way for industry change, privacy advocates say.
Still, others are waiting and watching to see whether Ask.com's users truly care enough about privacy to use the eraser.
"There's going to be a lot of talk about how many people have turned the AskEraser on. In some ways that's not the real question," said Ari Schwartz, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
"It's really about building trust and the possibilities of personalization in the future," he said. "If people trust Ask services because they have the ability to turn them off, that's a significant move forward."
Ask.com users will find the AskEraser link featured in the upper right corner of the search engine's home page and search results pages. Once enabled, AskEraser remains "on" for searches conducted across Ask.com's major search verticals: Web, images, AskCity, news, blogs, video, and maps. The feature can be turned on or off by the user at any time.
"The key is that AskEraser is on every page that you go to on Ask.com. Ask has given it priority. That's what makes it work," Schwartz said....
Wed, 12 Dec 07
Microsoft Fixes 11 Bugs in 2007 Patch Tuesday Finale
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57185
Microsoft on Tuesday issued its December security update. After a light Patch Tuesday in November, security administrators have their hands full this month. The 2007 finale addressed 11 vulnerabilities altogether in seven patches.
Specifically, the release contains three "critical" and four "important" updates, including two that patched "zero day" vulnerabilities, one involving Internet Explorer and the other involving Macrovision. Critical patches also fixed vulnerabilities in DirectX and Windows Media.
The three critical patches all address remote-code execution and should be rolled out as quickly as possible, according to Paul Zimski, senior director of market strategy at Lumension Security. That's because the vulnerabilities are Web-based, and hackers can prey on unsuspecting users by dropping malicious code into videos and other media on legitimate Web sites.
"This is particularly troublesome because attackers can prey on users as the weakest I.T. security link by posting seemingly harmless videos on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, or similar sites," Zimski said. "If a user watches one of these infected videos, malware will execute, compromise their machine, and put the entire network at risk."
The critical vulnerabilities, he added, could also be exploited directly through Web-based mail, allowing hackers to slip under the radar screen by targeting individual users or user groups.
Indeed, three of the seven patches impact the "rich Web" audio-visual experience. That indicates a change from attachment-based malware to drive-by attacks that require very little user interaction, explained Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle.
"Users now are less prone to open e-mail attachments that can be loaded with malware," he noted, "but are less likely to be concerned with malware delivered through Web sites and media players."
Of seven total security bulletins issued this month, five apply to Windows Vista. "It appears the Vista users are still in the same boat with...
Wed, 12 Dec 07
More Words of Caution on Open Wi-Fi
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57188
For the modern nomadic worker, few things are more enjoyable than heading to a cafe, ordering a cappuccino and firing up the laptop to get some work done. As far as anyone you're e-mailing knows, you're at the office.
Unfortunately, few things expose your work to greater security risks than latching onto a public Wi-Fi service. Most people don't realize the risks, and even fewer have the ability to perform the geeky tasks that would fix it.
Computer criminals can "sniff" the traffic in a cafe, or set up a fake hot spot that you might innocently log into. When that happens, watch out: Everything you type goes directly to the host computer, known as an "evil twin." In that scenario, as soon as you get into your online bank account, the evil twin is ready to grab the password.
The best advice for avoiding those situations is to tap only into wireless connections that you trust. Be wary of connections with names such as "free public wifi." Ask at the cafe for the name of its network. Even then, be aware that someone sitting next to you could have set up a network with the same name, such as "Starbucks," that you could tap into unwittingly.
Most security-savvy travelers assume the worst and don't do anything that could cause trouble if it fell into the wrong hands.
"Every packet that goes out over the Internet is observable" by a tech-savvy hacker, says Brett Levine of San Francisco.
Nonetheless, Levine, a vice president at Internet video start-up Dovetail, remains a dedicated cafe worker. He spoke from Hong Kong, at the end of a business trip in which he communicated with "nothing but my laptop. The only connections I've had were in hotel lobbies or cafes. I'm sitting here with my ramen noodles."
He just makes sure that...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
Nokia Fights To Defend Its Dominance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57179
The entrance in 2007 of Apple and Google into the cell phone business is causing major upheavals. For one thing, Apple fundamentally changed the balance of power by extracting a hefty revenue-sharing deal with AT&T and its other exclusive carriers in Europe.
For another, Google's Android promises to be an open platform for new devices and applications, a move that threatens the current model of proprietary phones tied to service contracts with the carriers. And Google's participation in next month's auction of 700-MHz spectrum could make the search king a player in the delivery of wireless services.
None of this is sitting particularly well with the No. 1 handset maker, Nokia.
Between the iPhone and Android, Silicon Valley envisions a world in which mobile devices are used as much for Internet access and data-based applications as for voice and text messaging. But in an interview with the International Herald Tribune, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo spoke of the coming industry "convergence" with alarm and disdain.
"It's very clear that Apple, Google, and other players are bringing in a lot of new directions," Kallasvuo said. "Convergence is a nice, dandy word, but it means industries colliding."
As for Android, Kallasvuo accused Google of hawking vaporware. "We've seen an announcement," he said. "Conceptually, we could have made that announcement a long time ago."
Apple's iPhone and iPod touch devices are Wi-Fi-equipped, and the iPhone's ability to run third-party applications via the Web or natively -- after Apple releases a software developer's kit in February -- is a big part of the phone's appeal.
Google's moves with Android and spectrum similarly push the smarts away from the network, turning phones and the network into an open platform on which thousands of services and applications can bloom.
Nokia is responding vigorously to these challenges by...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
Norton AntiVirus 11 Ships for Leopard
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57178
Leopard has a new weapon in its antimalware arsenal with Symantec's release on Monday of Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac OS X 10.5. Symantec said the new product offers improved performance and better protection against Internet-connected applications.
The new version of the popular security software features signature-based protection against malware that can be installed when the user downloads pictures, music, and software. Symantec said that 78 percent of attacks take place at this level.
Even though Macs are less of a target for malware, Symantec noted that the machines still can pass malicious software to others by e-mail, instant messages, or Web links. The other machines can be either PCs or Macs, so AntiVirus 11 scans for viruses and other vulnerabilities for both platforms.
AntiVirus 11 can gather updates in the background, so it can protect with what Symantec called "set it and forget" convenience. The software also has less impact on system startup and resource use, according to the company.
The newly updated interface features wizards to indicate system status, and a new Norton AntiVirus dashboard widget that shows a summary of current protection levels. For users who hate to be interrupted in the middle of a movie scene, scheduled virus scans can be moved to a less intrusive time with the "snooze button."
For power users, there is a command line interface via the Terminal, for adding virus scans and custom scripts as desired. But some Mac users, power or not, invariably ask whether antivirus software is needed for their platform.
Apple itself promotes Macs as being less vulnerable to viruses than PCs. On its Web site, for instance, it said that while "no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100 percent immune from attack, Mac OS X has helped the Mac keep its...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
Ask.com Gives Privacy Control to Users
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57177
On Tuesday, Ask.com launched a new product designed to give consumers more control over the privacy of their online searches, but at least one privacy guru remains skeptical about its effectiveness in a Google-driven search world.
Users can enable the new technology, dubbed AskEraser, to completely delete search queries and associated information from Ask.com servers, including IP address, user ID, session ID, and the complete text of their queries.
"For people who worry about their online privacy, AskEraser now gives them control of their search information," Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com, said in a statement. "AskEraser is simple, straightforward, and easy to use. It is an idea whose time has come."
Ask.com users will find the AskEraser link featured in the upper right corner of the search engine's homepage and search results pages. Once enabled, AskEraser remains "on" for searches conducted across Ask.com's major search verticals: Web, images, AskCity, news, blogs, video, and maps. The feature can be turned on or off by the user at any time.
This is the next step in Ask.com's plans for privacy. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to implement a new data-retention policy to disassociate search history from IP address and user IDs after 18 months.
In addition, Ask.com has taken steps to further industry collaboration on privacy issues. In July, Ask.com and Microsoft joined together in urging the online industry to develop global privacy principles for data collection, use, and protection related to searching and online advertising.
Since then, Ask.com has worked with other technology leaders, consumer advocacy organizations, and academics to make progress toward the development of these principles.
"Anonymized search data provides online companies with important information to optimize the overall search experience," Doug Leeds, senior vice president at Ask.com, said in a statement. "At Ask.com, that aggregate information is already guided...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
Nanotech Firms Find Room on Campus
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57171
Neil Kane and his staff had figured out how to rearrange methane gas to create industrial diamond, but their company couldn't afford to build the highly specialized lab needed to develop such nanotechnology.
So they hit the rental market and paid for lab time at Cornell University's Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility.
Thirteen nano-level university laboratories across the country are hiring themselves out to businesses eager to make their mark in the millennium of the minuscule. The intimidatingly named National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, begun in 2004, is funded in part with $14 million a year from the National Science Foundation.
Participating business owners say the network allows them to do much more research than they would have without access to its resources. That research, to which the businesses retain all rights, will foster better products and industrial processes that will bolster the national economy, they say.
The number of companies taking advantage of the network is growing 10 percent a year, said the National Science Foundation's senior engineering adviser, Lawrence Goldberg.
Host universities can apply the fees they receive to anything they like, including beefing up their lab equipment. Those fees ranged in fiscal 2007 from a few hundred dollars to $100,000. Cornell's lab and a dozen other campus nano-labs around the country cater mainly to students, faculty and visiting scholars. They are built and run with public and private money.
In addition to Cornell's lab, participants are at Stanford, Pennsylvania State, Harvard, Howard and North Carolina State universities, at Georgia Institute of Technology and at the universities of Michigan, Washington, California, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas.
Even though the universities must give up some use of the labs and don't get royalties from the business work done there, as they would from most academic work that later proved marketable, the arrangement seems to sit well with...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
Sony: Innovation Key After Restructuring
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57169
Flat-panel TVs, a music player with robotics technology and planned networking services for the PlayStation 3 video game console are a key part of Sony's growth following a nearly three-year restructuring effort, Chief Executive Howard Stringer said Tuesday.
Such products "bring back some of the wow factor" and show the electronics and entertainment company has recovered from its past financial problems, Stringer told reporters at Sony's Tokyo headquarters.
"The next cycle is actual innovation," he said.
Sony's network service, now used to pipe video games to the PlayStation 3, will be expanded to offer other kinds of content. He did not give details or a timetable.
Besides its core electronics business, Sony owns the Hollywood movie studio that made the "Spider-Man" series. Sony also has a joint venture in music with Bertelsmann AG that has Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce Knowles under its labels.
Such entertainment content will likely be offered as downloads for the PlayStation 3 in Sony's effort to catch up with U.S. companies like Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
When Stringer took the helm at Sony in 2005, the company -- once a symbol of innovation with its Walkman line of personal stereos -- had been stumbling, falling behind in flat-panel TVs and digital music players.
The turnaround plan that Stringer engineered -- which included massive job cuts, plant closures and dropping unprofitable businesses -- will be completed in March next year.
The company has sold off part of its stake in its financial unit, which had a bank and insurer. Sony also has sold to Toshiba Corp. its advanced computer chip operations for making the PlayStation 3's "Cell" microprocessor.
On Tuesday, Stringer talked proudly about its latest TV technology and its robotic music player, dubbed Rolly.
This month, Sony began selling in Japan the world's first television for the commercial market with an organic light-emitting...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
Dell Unveils Its First Tablet Computer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57163
Dude, you're getting a tablet PC. That could be the ad tagline for the Latitude XT, Dell's first tablet, which was announced on Monday. The company described it as "the industry's only sub-four-pound convertible tablet with pen and capacitive touch capability."
Dell is emphasizing the quality of its tablet's touch technology, noting that most tablets use resistive touch, which requires more pressure for an input to be recognized and can be less accurate or durable than capacitive touch.
"Until now," said Dell Product Group Director Margaret Franco, "customers have been forced to make tradeoffs in tablet functionality to have usable systems." But the XT's capacitive technology, she said, allows users to get more done, more quickly and more precisely.
Capacitive technology does not require pressure because the technology recognizes a finger touch. The model has "advanced digital palm rejection," so that, if the rest of your hand gets in the way of your finger, the XT recognizes your intended input. And the touch response time, according to Dell, is up to 10 times faster than other tablets, such as the Lenovo X61T.
The XT features Core 2 Solo and Duo low-voltage processors, ATI Radeon X1250 integrated graphics, a full-size keyboard, up to 9.5 hours of battery life, and an optional media base for docking and optical media. The tablet is available with a solid state drive or a standard hard disk. Prices start at $2,499.
Doug Bell, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said that tablet PCs are "becoming more of a play" for vendors, as they become more common for consumer and business users. HP, for example, came out with a tablet last year, he noted, and on Monday Toshiba announced its first tablets with LED screens.
"Most of the high-profile vendors are releasing tablets,"...
Tue, 11 Dec 07
LinkedIn's New Battle Against Facebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57180
LinkedIn unveiled moves to compete more aggressively with Facebook earlier this week, as the biggest name in social networking appeared to stumble on the balance between advertising and privacy.
LinkedIn was an early social network focused on professional networking but was eclipsed when Facebook launched a third-party development platform. Almost overnight, Facebook became the dominant name in social networking, even eclipsing News Corp.'s MySpace.
Announcing LinkedIn's Intelligent Application platform, Lucian Beebe, LinkedIn's director of product management, said the new platform allows developers to bring LinkedIn data into their applications and to deploy applications inside of LinkedIn's site.
"There is a very strong need to let LinkedIn users take their network with them as they use the Web to be more productive. Most every task we do on the Web could be augmented by including the help, filter, or aggregate knowledge or our professional network," he wrote on the LinkedIn blog.
LinkedIn supports Google's OpenSocial platform, Beebe said, which will allow developers to create applications with their user interface and back end, but use LinkedIn's application programming interfaces. "These applications will display within the LinkedIn.com Web site and will be aware of the current LinkedIn user and his/her network. You'll be able to create applications that run on users' home and profile pages," he wrote.
In addition, LinkedIn unveiled a new Web site design, including news feeds, customizable modules, and network updates. LinkedIn also inked a deal with BusinessWeek to provide news feeds on the companies in users' networks.
In the announcements, LinkedIn hammered hard on the point that it is not a mass consumer social site but is laser-focused on business and professionals. "LinkedIn is a business network of nearly 17 million professionals, growing faster than one million new members per month," Beebe wrote.
Is that focus enough for success under the ubiquity...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
Microsoft Office Enters Web 2.0 Era
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57162
Microsoft took the wraps off its Office Live Workspace service Monday, at least for those users who preregistered for the software in October. It will be weeks to months before the service -- which lets users store their Office documents online -- is available to the general public.
Office Live allows users to post files created in Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office formats and share them with other users. Unlike Google Docs and similar online apps, users still need Microsoft Office software, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
"We think that Office Live Workspace will be important for our 500 million Office customers because it's one of the first tightly integrated Web-based sharing and collaboration services designed to give a seamless experience for Office users," Kirk Gregersen, who directs product management for Office on the consumer and small business side, said in an announcement.
He hailed the service as a "good example" of Microsoft's "software plus services" approach.
Both Office Live Workspace and Google Docs are described as "cloud" computing because they store the data on remote servers instead of on the user's hard disk. With Internet access nearly ubiquitous, storing files remotely gives users the advantage of being able to access a file from a laptop while traveling or from any desktop machine.
It also facilitates collaborative editing and revision management. Users are "frustrated with the confusing free-for-all that can result when multiple versions of documents circulate in e-mail attachments that then have to be manually pulled together by the original author," Gregersen said. "We're hopeful that Office Live Workspace helps solve these challenges by providing a place online to keep a single version of a document that everyone can work on."
While users could always upload their files to corporate servers or Web-based storage services, these are hardly seamless options....
Mon, 10 Dec 07
Universal Socializes with Imeem for Streaming Music
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57161
Universal Music Group announced a deal on Monday with social-networking site imeem to provide its community with on-demand, interactive streaming of Universal's extensive digital music and video catalog. The news comes months after Universal and Apple severed ties.
The deal makes imeem the first social-networking company to offer full-length, streaming access to the entire music and video catalogs of all four major music companies on an advertising-supported basis.
Imeem's 19 million users can listen to music and watch video from Universal's top-selling artists, such as Kanye West, Amy Winehouse, Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas, The Pussycat Dolls, and Nelly.
"Universal Music Group is committed to exploring new ways for consumers to discover and enjoy our artists' music online," Doug Morris, Chairman and CEO of UMG, said in a statement. "Imeem has developed an innovative way to make our artists' music a central part of the social-networking experience."
More importantly, Morris went on to say, imeem has done so "the right way" by working to provide "an exciting musical experience for consumers, while ensuring that our artists are fairly compensated for the use of their works."
Dalton Caldwell, founder and CEO of imeem, called the deal "a defining moment for social networking and ad-supported music." Imeem's ad-supported social music and media model makes it possible for artists, labels, studios, and media companies to make their music and video freely available for interactive streaming to the imeem community and share in the advertising revenue.
Imeem takes a much different approach to the strategy than, say, Spiral Frog, another online community that offers ad-supported music. While Imeem allows listeners to stream music, Spiral Frog allows consumers to download tracks (with digital rights management that prevents file-sharing). Some analysts are skeptical about the latter model's potential for long-term success.
"Consumers love the...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
AMD Issues Patch To Fix Barcelona Bug
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57160
In the ever-more complicated and ever-smaller world of computer processors, even the tiniest error can have major ramifications. In September, chip manufacturer AMD announced the global launch of a new quad-core Opteron processor that was codenamed Barcelona.
As AMD chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz acknowledged at the time, the launch was a good six months later than AMD had hoped it would be. Its chief rival, Intel, had introduced its own quad-core processor nearly a year earlier. AMD was in the uncomfortable position of playing catch-up in the market of high-end, cutting-edge processors and wrestling, as Ruiz vaguely put it, with "technical problems."
But as AMD got ready to ramp up full-scale production on the Opteron chip, it got more bad news. A bug was identified in a section of the chip's architecture known as the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB). Although AMD said that none of its customers have had issues with the bug, the company nonetheless issued a fix to address the problem.
There are some suggestions that although the patch might prevent the random crashes caused by the TLB problem, the fix causes its own problems, including a significant slowdown of desktop applications (up to 13 percent), and an even greater slowdown to virtualized systems.
Some commentators indicated that various OS manufacturers, including Microsoft and Red Hat, have come up with a work-around that avoids the performance penalty. In general, however, industry OEMs are holding off on offering the new AMD processor until the first quarter of 2008, when the company promises that the TLB issue will be resolved in manufacturing.
In a statement sent out to the media last Thursday, AMD said that it identified the problem and provided purchasers with the fix. "AMD notified customers of this erratum," the company said, "and released a BIOS fix prior...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
Nuclear Lab Breach Linked to China
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57158
Phishing attacks on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, a nuclear weapons research facility, appear to have originated in China, raising concerns that the attacks represent some form of Internet warfare.
The United States Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) prepared a memorandum that traced IP addresses involved in the attack to computers in China. The memo was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security to public and private security officials and obtained by the New York Times.
"The level of sophistication and the scope of these cyber security incidents indicate that they are coordinated and targeted at private sector systems," the memo said.
According to Thom Mason, the director of the Oak Ridge lab, attackers sent 1,100 phishing e-mails to lab employees, with attachments purporting to contain information about a scientific conference or an FTC complaint.
"At this point, we have determined that the thieves made approximately 1,100 attempts to steal data with a very sophisticated strategy that involved sending staff a total of seven phishing e-mails, all of which at first glance appeared legitimate," Mason wrote to employees. "At present we believe that about 11 staff opened the attachments, which enabled the hackers to infiltrate the system and remove data."
The attackers stole a database containing personal information of visitors to the lab, about 3,000 researchers annually.
The fact that phishing attacks worked at a top-secret lab shows the power of the technique, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. "One would think that despite technical security mechanisms in place, that
employees at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos would be some of the most security-aware
persons," he wrote in a e-mail.
Still, Storms questioned the "sophistication" of the operation. "Calling it an attack at all seems nebulous," he said. "This was just one of thousands phishing...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
JetBlue Readies Inaugural Wi-Fi Flight
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57156
For those technophiles itching to be on the cutting edge of technology once again, $449 seats are still available on JetBlue's inaugural Web access flight from New York to San Francisco on Tuesday, December 11.
"Betablue," JetBlue's specially equipped A320, is scheduled to take off at 8:00 a.m. EST from JFK Airport. Along the way, passengers will have a chance to test the future of air travel: wireless communication with people on the ground.
Last year, JetBlue and its subsidiary, LiveTV, spent $7 million to buy a 1-MHz segment of the electromagnetic spectrum previously owned by Verizon Airfone. If the initial test is successful, JetBlue will use the spectrum to expand its own offerings and possibly license the service to other airlines.
Although reporters and analysts offered mixed reviews for BetaBlue's Wi-Fi service after sampling the service last week, there is general agreement that JetBlue's service will rapidly accelerate the availability of Internet access on commercial flights.
Alison Eshelman, the manager of corporate communications for JetBlue, declined to offer technical specifications about the network, but said that it has been optimized for e-mail and messaging.
"In order to provide the maximum amount of service to people on the plane," Eshelman said in a phone interview, "we looked at ways for customers to communicate with friends and family on the ground, in a simple and fun way, and something that would be free and available to all our customers. That's why we're offering access through Yahoo Mail and Messaging, or through Wi-Fi-capable BlackBerries."
Eshelman reiterated that JetBlue has no schedule yet for expanding its service to other flights. "We will listen to what passengers have to say," Eshelman promised, "and work from there to rolling the service out on a fleet-wide basis, depending on what our customers want."
She also said that although...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
Report: Local Online Ad Spending Will Double in 2008
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57150
Local online ad spending will grow a whopping 48 percent in 2008 to $12.6 billion. The demand for paid search and video advertising will drive the demand, according to a new study.
Indeed, after a decade of testing the Web, local advertisers are making significant
adjustments to their marketing dials, turning up the volume on online advertising, says local media research firm Borrell Associates. The firm predicted local search advertising will more than double next year to $5 billion, while locally placed online video will triple to almost $1.3 billion.
The report suggests that next year will be a perplexing one for local media companies trying to tackle the Web. "Most yellow pages publishers, cable companies, newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations are still pinning their hopes on their traditional sales reps being able sell online ad packages," the report reads. "But there is increasing evidence to support the idea that a greater investment in an independent online sales force will be necessary to continue the growth these properties have enjoyed for the past few years."
The growth rates for most local media operators have slipped well below the overall growth rate for local online ad buys, the report revealed, which suggests these properties are losing market share. Pure-play Internet companies hungry for the growth they see in the local market are capturing much of that share, the report said, and are seeing benefits from partnering with local media companies to supplement their own efforts.
"Key advertising segments for 2008 will continue to be the Big 3 classified categories of automotive, recruitment, and real estate, with online political marketing holding promise for local sites as state and presidential campaigns heat up," the report offered. "A major component of local video advertising will be long-form pieces for home, automotive, and health-related categories."
Marketing budgets...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
Asia's New Foray into U.S. Wireless
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57143
Masaki Yoshikawa employs 80 people in an office on Manhattan's Park Avenue. All told, they serve only a few thousand customers, mostly frequent travelers from Japan who prefer to use their own mobile phones with Japanese characters while in the U.S. But that's all right. Yoshikawa's office is actually an outpost for NTT DoCoMo USA, a little-known subsidiary of Japan's largest wireless company. His primary mission is to watch out for new business opportunities, and Yoshikawa thinks he has just spotted one.
On Nov. 30, Google confirmed it will file an application with the Federal Communications Commission to bid in January's auction of some very valuable wireless spectrum. "Google is trying to acquire spectrum now. Maybe they will be looking for a partner" for their network, Yoshikawa tells BusinessWeek.com, stressing that no talks have been held by the companies. "Perhaps we can be involved in the process."
That DoCoMo is on a U.S. prowl is striking, given the company's painful past in the States. Only three years ago DoCoMo threw up a white flag and sold its 16% stake in AT&T Wireless (now a part of AT&T's mobile business), taking a $3.3 billion loss on its $9.8 billion investment. Yet the Japanese company isn't the only Asian telecommunications provider eyeing the market or actually dipping its toes.
Another Japanese carrier named KDDI is already testing a cutting-edge wireless service in the Northeast. Elsewhere, Korea's SK Telecom recently boosted its ownership in Helio, a struggling youth-oriented service, by pledging up to $270 million in extra funding. And the Korean company may be looking for additional investments: In November, it bid unsuccessfully with Providence Equity Partners for a $5 billion slice of the troubled carrier Sprint Nextel, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Chinese companies and investors, having made a fortune in that...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
Police Probe New Blog in MySpace Suicide Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57141
A woman linked to an online hoax played on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide and has been vilified for it may be the subject of a deception -- someone on the Internet is posing as her and blogging about the case.
Lori Drew's attorney said Friday that she is not the writer. The St. Charles County sheriff's department is investigating who is behind the blog postings on Blogger.com to see if a crime has been committed, a spokesman said.
The family believes the postings are an effort to damage its reputation following the death of the Megan Meier.
"Any Internet message that purports to be a member of the Drew family is being managed by an impostor and undoubtedly is being done for the purpose of further damaging the Drews' reputation," the family said in a statement.
A blog entitled "Megan Had It Coming" surfaced more than two weeks ago. Earlier this week, the person writing the blog claimed the messages were being written by Lori Drew.
The detailed blog lays out Drew's would-be motives for getting involved with the MySpace hoax against Meier.
Lori Drew's lawyer, Jim Briscoe, said they have contacted Google Inc., which owns Blogger.com. "We have contacted Google, telling them that was an impostor," Briscoe said.
A Google spokesman said the company is currently reviewing the impersonation allegation.
Meier thought she was corresponding over MySpace with a cute boy named "Josh Evans" online. The boy never existed. Instead, Drew, her 18-year-old employee and 13-year-old daughter, and Megan's one-time friend, helped create the hoax.
When messages from the fictional boy and others on the Internet turned cruel, including one stating the world would be better off without her, Megan hanged herself in October 2006.
Drew, a mother of two in her 40s, has denied saying hurtful things to the girl over the Internet, and prosecutors have...
Mon, 10 Dec 07
LinkedIn Opens Itself to Developers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57136
Taking a page from the Facebook playbook, social-networking site LinkedIn announced Monday that it will provide a platform for third-party developers. With Intelligent Applications, or InApps, developers can create plug-ins for LinkedIn.
While Facebook is oriented more to younger users, LinkedIn has been focused on professional and business types, and the new apps are expected to act appropriately. Dan Nye, LinkedIn Chief Executive, told news media that the new platform will enable the site's professional users to be more effective in communicating with each other. "It's not a place," he said, "where you waste two hours of your time trying to find a date."
In October, Nye similarly emphasized the site's focus on professionalism. "We're not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other," he told the New York Times.
Being so choosy, LinkedIn has publicly discussed only one application. It will allow site users to hover over company names on BusinessWeek to see a list of people on LinkedIn who have some connection to that company.
By contrast, less-choosy Facebook reportedly has over 10,000 applications for its user platform, even though it was only released in May.
As part of its makeover, LinkedIn is testing a beta version of a new home page that is designed to make it easier for users to choose their contact path -- either school-based or company-based.
There are also a variety of new features being rolled out to the site's 17 million members, including ways to check the questions people in one's network are asking, and LinkedIn News, an aggregated summary of headlines that is oriented toward a given user's company and interests.
LinkedIn is not the only social-networking site to follow Facebook's path toward supporting outside developers, as other sites rush to create a similar kind of ecosystem. The trend...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
NY Governor Calls for Statewide Broadband
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57131
Even as municipal Wi-Fi has floundered nationwide, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer unveiled a plan to bring affordable broadband to the entire state. The plan would beef up the state's economy, especially in long-depressed upstate New York, the governor said.
"It is as critical to the next-century economy as the Erie Canal was the last," Spitzer said. "It is how information flows, and we are living in an economy where information is the commodity that matters and it is necessary that everyone is wired."
When the average kid in South Korea has better access to broadband than the average kid in New York State, he said, "something is wrong."
Taking a long-term approach to the issue, Spitzer appointed a panel, the New York State Council for Universal Broadband, to recommend ways to extend broadband connections to remote and underserved areas. The state's chief information officer, Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, will lead the council, Spitzer announced.
"Internet access is no longer a luxury," Spitzer said. "We must implement a strategy that leads to every New Yorker having access to affordable, high-speed Internet so that they make take advantage of the economic, social and cultural opportunities it provides."
Spitzer's initiative shows that there is a new emphasis at the state level to support broadband deployment, but the dynamic is much healthier than the municipal Wi-Fi hype that exploded in 2006 and 2007, Craig Settles, a consultant to governments regarding mobile and wireless networks, said in a telephone interview.
"In rural areas and many small towns, providing access is something government should be involved in," he said, adding that, unlike with municipal Wi-Fi, residents probably don't necessarily expect it to be free.
Settles worked with local governments in rural North Carolina and Kentucky, where it was not economically feasible for the incumbent provider to come in. "In...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
IBM Claims Optical Computing Breakthrough
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57130
New research from IBM could bring the speed of fiber optic networks to computer processors, resulting in chips 100 times faster and 10 times more efficient. IBM published the research on electro-optic modulators in the journal Optics Express on Thursday.
The research centers on the modulators that connect the cores in multicore chips. Current multicore technology uses silicon photonics modulators to connect cores, which results in high heat and energy consumption, and limits how many cores can fit on a chip.
By using optics instead of wires, IBM researchers have shown they can fit hundreds or thousands of cores on a chip, which will one day mean supercomputer-like processing power will fit on a chip.
The technical name of the new modulator is "silicon Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulator" and it can convert electrical signals into packets of light. Not only would optical modulators allow many more cores to fit on a chip, but also communication between the cores would be faster.
"Work is under way within IBM and in the industry to pack many more computing cores on a single chip, but today's on-chip communications technology would overheat and be far too slow to handle that increase in workload," T.C. Chen, a vice president at IBM Research, explained.
"What we have done is a significant step toward building a vastly smaller and more power-efficient way to connect those cores in a way that nobody has done before," Chen said.
But don't hold off on buying the latest multicore technology. Will Green, IBM's lead scientist on the project, was quoted by Reuters as saying that commercial applications of this research are at least 10 to 15 years away.
The technology would essentially take the supercomputer out of the data center, Green said, enabling powerful mobile and real-time rendering applications. "You immediately can...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
Cisco Intros New Role-Based Security Architecture
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57129
On Wednesday, Cisco announced a new technology, called Trusted Security (TrustSec), that integrates identity and role-based security measures for enterprise networks.
TrustSec is designed to address the increasing number of compliance requirements for a global and mobile workforce, and ultimately enable a more agile and secure infrastructure.
"Customers are demanding a highly secure way to expand their businesses and compliance policies," Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of the Data Center, Switching, and Security Technology Group at Cisco, said in a statement.
"The Cisco TrustSec architecture delivers a new paradigm for security in role-based user access to applications and resources without compromising business velocity," Ullal added.
Cisco TrustSec taps into several components of the Cisco lineup to create a trusted enterprise network. The solution depends on Cisco switches along with Cisco routers and Cisco Unified Wireless Network controllers as a foundation for authenticating users, assigning roles, enforcing access policies, and delivering integrity and confidentiality to network traffic.
Cisco TrustSec includes Role-Aware Secure Campus Access Control, in which access to the network is determined by an individual's role in the company. This "role aware" network helps enforce identity-based security policies pervasively across the network, regardless of the network access method or device, Cisco said.
With the Converged Policy Framework, various authentication mechanics are converged into a single central policy engine that communicates across the entire switch infrastructure. This framework, Cisco said, addresses the I.T. challenge of managing policies consistently across the network by simplifying the control of identity policies through disparate authentication methods.
In addition to these components, what Cisco is calling Pervasive Integrity and Confidentiality is designed to help maintain the integrity and confidentiality of data as it moves through all points in the network. This, the company said, safeguards against data leakage, supports regulatory requirements, and increases the privacy of the...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
JetBlue Tests High-Flying Wi-Fi Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57128
The friendly skies are about to get a little bit friendlier for BlackBerry addicts and messaging fanatics. Discount airline JetBlue announced that it will test free limited Internet service on a single round-trip flight from New York to San Francisco next week.
For the time being, JetBlue is planning to offer Internet access only on a single Airbus A320, and only to those using Yahoo e-mail, Yahoo instant messaging, or BlackBerry models 8820 and 8320. Due to bandwidth limitations, users will not be able to download e-mail attachments or surf the Web.
The Wi-Fi-equipped plane will be dubbed "BetaBlue," and will be used to work out the inevitable kinks in system. There is no word yet on whether BetaBlue will remain on the NY-SF loop or will be used on other routes as well.
Henry Harteveldt, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research for airline/travel industry research, who was invited by JetBlue on a trial run of the service, said he was not surprised that JetBlue is taking the lead in offering Internet access.
"JetBlue was the first to put satellite television on its flights," Harteveldt said. "They have been at the forefront of making flying pleasant for as many people as possible." The airline's core customer base, he added, is the so-called "millennial generation," the 18- to-40-year-olds who have embraced technology and want to be online constantly.
The BetaBlue's Wi-Fi service is being run by LiveTV, a unit of JetBlue that purchased a portion of the broadcast spectrum abandoned by Verizon Airfone, a venture that used to operate the ubiquitous seat-back phones. Verizon discontinued the service on commercial flights at the end of 2006.
The LiveTV system works by sending signals from an antenna on the airplane to base stations on the ground. The antenna is connected to an on-board...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
Handset Hiatus Hits Palm's Bottom Line
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57127
Palm warned financial analysts this week of a $25 to $30 million revenue decline from previous in-house estimates for the company's second quarter, which ended on November 30.
The handset-maker said it now expects to post a loss of 8 cents to 10 cents per share for the quarter, excluding one-time charges. The trimmed-back figures surprised Wall Street analysts, who had been anticipating significantly better results in the period leading up to this year's holiday shopping season.
Palm CEO Ed Colligan attributed the shortfall to an unforeseen delay in shipping out a new product. "We are disappointed that we did not get a key product certified for delivery in the quarter, but we are focused on realizing the long-term benefits and opportunities that inspired our transaction with Elevation Partners," Colligan said.
To help revive its sagging fortunes, Palm sold a 25 percent interest in the company to the private-equity firm last June. However, analysts note that the product revamp that Palm needs to keep pace with smartphone rivals Research In Motion and Apple has yet to materialize.
Although Palm maintained its No. 1 status as the world's leading PDA vendor by racking up a market share of 44.6 percent in this year's third quarter, it was little solace given that the nonwireless handheld device market is running out of steam. According to researchers at IDC, third-quarter PDA shipments fell by 39.3 percent year-over-year -- the market's fifteenth consecutive quarter of unit declines. Palm's PDA shipments fell from 450,000 in the year-earlier period to just 325,000 units.
Palm has not launched a new PDA model for more than two years. And now that its Life Drive has been retired, the company is relying on the popularity of its aging Z22, TX, and Tungsten E2 handhelds to stay...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
Hack Attack Compromises National Lab
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57121
On Thursday, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) said a "sophisticated cyberattack" executed over the past several weeks might have allowed hackers to steal the personal information of thousands of lab visitors.
According to ORNL Lab Director Thom Mason's memo to the 4,200 employees at the Department of Energy facility, the assault appeared "to be part of a coordinated attempt to gain access to computer networks at numerous laboratories and other institutions across the country."
ORNL did not return requests for comments, but the lab has publicly stated that the hackers might have gained access to a database of names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of every lab visitor between 1990 and 2004.
"Our cyber security staff has been working nights and weekends to understand the nature of this attack," Mason wrote. "Reconstructing this event is a very tedious and time-consuming effort that likely will take weeks, if not longer, to complete."
Some news reports call the hack a phishing attack, but Carole Theriault, a security analyst at Sophos, said she has a gut feeling the network was infected by a Trojan. Whatever the case, she continued, using social-engineering tricks to lure users into clicking on a malicious link or open an infected attachment is nothing new.
"What is scary is the number of facilities and organizations one would assume to have adequate security and user education that are falling victim to these attacks," Theriault noted. "So many companies have our names and addresses, our bank details, and, in the case of labs and hospitals, our very private health records."
A recent PCI Security Standards Council report suggested only half of the United States' large companies have appropriate security in place to help mitigate attacks. Theriault said she wants to shout from the rooftops that companies need to wake up and...
Fri, 7 Dec 07
AT&T Says 'We're an Open Network'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57120
Mirror, mirror, who's the most open network of all? AT&T said Thursday that not only is its network open, but also that it is "the most open wireless company in the industry" and has been for quite a while.
The statement follows Verizon Wireless' recent announcement that it was going the open-network route, and the Federal Communications Commission's recently adopted requirement that third-party devices and applications must be allowed by the winner of some of the 700-MHz spectrum being auctioned next year.
Open in this case means that a network is open to all kinds of compatible, third-party devices and nonmalicious applications, as opposed to a closed environment where the phone company sells the only available devices and apps.
According to a story in Thursday's USA Today, Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T's wireless business, is promoting the idea that the company's GSM network is open to any device. "We don't prohibit it, or even police it," he told the paper.
Some observers are noting that this is not a change in the network, but in the company's attitude toward open networks. AT&T uses a GSM network, as opposed to CDMA technology. On a GSM network, a device is given its phone number and network instructions through a SIM card. Buy a GSM device, use the right SIM card, and -- voila! -- you have a third-party device that can work on the AT&T network.
The irony is that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless initially opposed the lobbying by a Google-led alliance for more open standards in the upcoming 700-MHz auction, but now both are touting their openness.
There will be some raised eyebrows about AT&T's new positioning, however. For instance, the idea that AT&T is "the most open wireless company in the industry" will come as news...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Young Couple Lives Large Through ID Theft
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57110
A young Pennsylvania couple has been charged with using a combination of old-fashioned and high-tech burglary techniques to help fuel a globe-hopping, luxury lifestyle.
Edward Anderton, 25, and Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, were arrested last Friday on suspicion of identity theft, forgery, and unlawful use of a computer. They voluntarily returned to Philadelphia police headquarters to answer to additional charges, including theft and burglary.
A Pennsylvania judge doubled Anderton's bail to $100,000 and Kirsch's to $75,000 after prosecutors pointed out that the couple has been evicted from the upscale apartment where they had been living and now have no fixed address.
The couple spent last night in jail, but are expected to post bail Thursday.
The primary victims of the crime spree were the neighbors of the alleged perpetrators at the Belgravia, located in Rittenhouse Square not far from Philadelphia's City Hall. Police believe that the couple somehow obtained keys to other condo units and used them to steal both items and information from residents. A search of the couple's apartment turned up several stolen items and more than $17,000 in cash.
The search also turned up the tools of the modern-day identity thief: multiple computers and printers, a scanner, and an industrial-quality machine used for creating identity cards. Along with the equipment, police seized dozens of credit cards and fake driver's licenses.
Philadelphia police reportedly are investigating whether surveillance software was installed on victim's computers to track their online activity and capture passwords and other confidential information. However, the detective in charge of the investigation was not available for comment, and the press office had no additional information about the case.
Officials claim that Anderton and Kirsch used the fake IDs and stolen credit information during the last two years to purchase a dizzying array of electronics, expensive meals, and lavish travel around...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Google Releases iPhone-Specific Interface
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57103
In its never-ending quest for platforms, Google has turned its attention to Apple's iPhone. On Wednesday, the search giant announced an iPhone version of its home page, and its approach might point the way to how it sees mobile applications working in a new, open environment.
When an iPhone visitor goes to google.com via the iPhone's Safari browser, the device type is detected and the user is automatically redirected to a home page that has been optimized for the popular smartphone.
It provides quick access to find and switch between Gmail, Calendar, and Reader, along with autocomplete options if the user types in the search box. If a user wants to go back to the old home page interface, a link will make that happen.
The applications reportedly respond more quickly through this customized iPhone interface than they would if the iPhone user just visited Google normally. Google said the interface uses Ajax (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and other technologies to provide this optimized device-specific version. Ajax has been used by the company to make Google Maps, Gmail, and other applications respond more quickly.
This is not Google's first foray into iPhone-specific interfaces. Google Maps already has been optimized for the iPhone. And one of the iPhone's first device-specific native applications was for YouTube videos. YouTube is owned by Google.
In its announcement of the iPhone interface, Google made a point of saying that its "overall goal" is to provide users with access to information via applications that are "device-independent." This latest incarnation of that strategy could provide another indication of Google's goals for future mobile devices.
Last week, after months of leading lobbying efforts for more open-access policies in the auctioning of 700-MHz bandwidth, Google announced that it would bid in that auction. Scheduled for January, the auction by...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
AMD Delays Barcelona's Full Release
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57102
In the category of "news it didn't need," Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) confirmed that the full release of its first quad-core server processor will be delayed -- once again.
The company said that the Opteron chip -- also known by its codename of Barcelona --
has shipped to some customers in the high-performance market, but also said that the full-scale launch planned for this month has been delayed.
The chip was originally released in September, but technical problems have caused the current delay.
According to The Tech Report, the Operton's hardware bugs also affect AMD's recently released triple-core Phenom 9500 and 9600 chips for desktops. The Report said that AMD knew about the problem before the Phenom product launch but the company indicated it was only an issue for Phenoms running at 2.4 GHz and higher. The publication also quoted an AMD manager who said the problem was not related to clock speed.
In particular, The Tech Report said that the problem is a "chip-level issue" that can cause system hangs during high use, such as during virtualization. It added that there is a software workaround, but that workaround reduces performance as much as 20 percent. A hardware fix is expected for the first quarter of next year.
The delay will mean that, by the time Barcelona is shipping in volume, it will be about a year since the chip was supposed to be launched.
In addition, the delay comes at a particularly bad time for the company. A year ago, AMD rose into the top-10 list of global chipmakers by market share, but the company fell off the list this year. Its semiconductor revenue was $7.5 billion in 2006 and is set to drop to $5.6 billion in 2007.
"Having a chip delayed is not uncommon," noted Mark Margevicius, a Research...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Vista SP1, Server 2008 in Final Tests
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57101
Microsoft has rolled out its release candidates for Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008, which are now available for download at the software giant's Web site.
The two test versions represent one of the last opportunities for Microsoft's partners and enterprise-class customers to evaluate the new products and provide the company with feedback before their release, the company said.
"The release candidate phase of beta software is typically the final phase before the release-to-manufacturing of a product and indicates that the code has attained a significant level of performance and stability," said Microsoft product manager and Windows Vista launch team member Nick White.
Microsoft attributes about 5 percent of its Windows desktop OEM revenue growth in the third quarter to declines in piracy. "While piracy rates are hard to measure precisely, we're seeing indications from internal metrics, like WGA validation failures, that the Windows Vista piracy rate is less than half that of Windows XP today," said Microsoft corporate vice president Michael Sievert.
Still, pirates have discovered two different ways to generate counterfeit versions of Windows Vista, Sievert noted. One method involves modifying system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to mimic a type of product activation performed on factory-installed copies of Vista, while the other exploit attempts to reset the "grace time" limit between installation and activation. "SP1 will include updates that will target those exploits and disable them," Sievert said.
Users of systems identified as running counterfeit versions of Vista will be presented with clear and recurring notices about their status. "They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Window Vista is not genuine and they need to take action," Sievert added.
In addition to targeting the piracy issues, Windows Vista SP1 will address...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Mark Zuckerberg Red in the Facebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57100
Stung by the fierce criticism from privacy advocates and tens of thousands of users, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg issued a lengthy apology on the Facebook blog on Wednesday.
"It took us too long after people started contacting us to change [the Beacon ad program] so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share," Zuckerberg conceded. "Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better."
Kathryn Montgomery, professor of communication at American University and author of "Generation Digital," said in a telephone interview that the Beacon issue, which Facebook hopes will go away after issuing "the most minimal mea culpa," is merely "the most visible part of what is a really massive system of data collection, and a few minor changes won't make much difference."
User concerns about Beacon, which gathers information about some transactions with third-party companies and incorporates that information into Facebook's News Feed (which in turn is visible to a user's list of friends), have been steadily growing.
From the start, some users were upset about the fact that Beacon was initially set up as an "opt-out" program, which meant that users had to choose to block the broadcast of third-party activity on a case-by-case basis. Many people either forgot or didn't catch the quickly disappearing pop-up with the opt-out option.
Facebook community outrage boiled over, however, after several well-publicized incidents in which holiday surprises were ruined when shoppers failed to opt out. Facebook initially changed the ad program to make it opt-in and then announced that users would be given the option of turning off their participation in the Beacon program altogether.
"We were excited about Beacon because we believe a lot...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Is Microsoft's New Volta a Java Killer?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57099
On Wednesday, Microsoft took the cover off a preview version of a new programming toolset designed to ease the pain of developing Web and rich Internet applications.
Dubbed Volta, the toolkit for creating multitier Web applications relies on C# and Visual Basic. It is closely tied to .NET, and applications written with Volta can be debugged from within Visual Studio.
With Volta, developers can delay some key decisions until later in the development process, which Microsoft says makes it faster and less expensive to adjust architectures to accommodate evolving requirements.
Volta relies on a technique called declarative tier-splitting. The programmer inserts declarations into the source code to indicate the tiers on which certain classes and methods should run. Volta automatically inserts low-level communication and serialization code and moves the code to the appropriate tiers.
"By releasing Volta as an experimental toolset, we hope to validate the overall goal and approach, as well as collect feedback that will be helpful in driving further development," Eric Meijer, principal architect at Microsoft and for Volta, said in a statement.
Microsoft is convinced that Volta is unique among its peers. Meijer explained that Volta starts with a client-side perspective. Once developers are satisfied with an application's functionality and fully understand the internal object interactions, they "decorate" the code with declarative attributes to indicate the parts of the application that should run on other tiers.
What's more, Volta is deeply integrated with Visual Studio 2008. Developers can step from one tier to another through code, set breakpoints on any tier, and trace flows of control across distributed systems. "Volta enables new end-to-end profiling and testing for higher levels of application performance, robustness, and reliability by maintaining a single programming model across multiple tiers," Meijer said.
Volta's entrance on the scene could set up a face-off with Sun's...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Google Seeks To Open Wireless Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57085
With 35 million U.S. cell phone users, the mobile ad market is potentially huge. Market research firm EMarketer estimates it could grow to a $16 billion industry. That figure has certainly grabbed the attention of Internet search companies, which have made billions from online ads.
But mobile advertising is still a nascent business due to fragmentation in the market and the control the carriers assert over their networks. Despite the size of the potential gains of this new market, carriers are cautious about opening up their networks and becoming commoditized while companies such as Google exploit the opening.
"There's tremendous fragmentation, which creates advertising barriers," said Greg Sterling principal analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence. "Historically, there's consumer behavior and then the advertisers come along." Interactive advertising agencies take an experimental attitude toward the market, he added. Many agencies are still getting their head around Web advertising, he said.
That might be because the opportunities are so limited. "The carriers are too busy trying to protect the money they are making now to look at the next way to make money," Chad Stoller, head of mobile advertising at Organic, told Bloomberg. He added that carriers "want to control every aspect of the relationship between the consumer and the phone."
Sterling agreed that "the structure of the industry has been largely responsible for the absence on advertising." Carrier control, Google has argued to the FCC, inhibits innovation and consumers have suffered. While this argument was theoretical, the release of the iPhone underscored the extent of the inhibition. "The iPhone comes out and there's great consumer demand for it," Sterling said.
The carriers say they're interested but need to move slowly. Ralph de la Vega of AT&T said the No. 1 carrier is concerned about the experience on less powerful phones. "We want to do this...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Best Practices for LAN Security Projects
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57109
LAN security projects can be overwhelming. They can span multiple groups within an I.T. organization, including the teams responsible for desktops, servers, networks and security, as well as directories and applications. Business units outside I.T. also must be involved to determine the appropriate policies for who should be able to access which resources on the LAN.
Over the past four years, I've worked on such projects with hundreds of enterprises around the world. While they fall into a wide variety of vertical markets, and range in size from 500 to nearly 100,000 employees, they have several issues in common:
While everyone's situation is unique, at least to some extent, these issues have been challenging enterprises for years. I hope that the following...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Hypervisor Rivals Targeting VMware
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57108
A rash of hypervisor virtualization announcements from Microsoft, Oracle and Sun signal the game is on to beat down leader VMware and jump in the corporate virtualization revolution.
These moves, observers say, expose a strategy against VMware to commoditize hypervisor technology and then win the hearts of corporate users by providing choices for management and other tools to administer what experts say is a coming explosion in virtualization on corporate networks.
VMware, which disputes any notion that hypervisor will become a commodity, has been the undisputed leader in virtualization since shipping its first product six years ago. No one is questioning the depth of its hypervisor, which eschews the stripped-down route and builds in proprietary management technology, nor are experts claiming VMware's dominance is in dispute in the near term.
Clearly, however, the level of competition and the number of competitors in the market reached a crescendo following August's $500 million acquisition by Citrix of XenSource and its virtualization technology.
The long-term benefit of the coming vendor battles will be felt in IT in the form of server hardware that ships with hypervisor technology embedded and the availability of a single set of tools that simultaneously manages virtualized environments, such as servers and storage, along with physical resources.
The recent focus, however, was mostly aimed at hypervisor technology, a base technology layer that acts as the foundation for guest operating systems.
The two choices today are VMware and Xen-based hypervisors – including derivatives from XenSource, Oracle, Red Hat, Novell and Virtual Iron.
Xen is an open source hypervisor project, while VMware has a robust hypervisor that anchors its ESX-based Virtualization Infrastructure that includes management features like VMotion for disaster recovery.
Microsoft late in 2008 will add a third hypervisor option with the Hyper-V Server it unveiled and the Hyper-V technology...
Thu, 6 Dec 07
Microsoft Pushing Windows XP for XO Laptops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57104
Microsoft is working on a version of Windows XP for One Laptop Per Child's new XO computers, a Microsoft executive announced on a company blog Wednesday. And according to a Wall Street Journal article, the company will start testing the new software with XO laptops in the U.S., India, and Romania.
"We are hard at work on the project here," wrote James Utzschneider, general manager for marketing and communications for Redmond's Unlimited Potential group, which focuses on emerging opportunities in the developing world. "Between Microsoft employees and third-party contractors that we have brought into the effort, we have over 40 engineers working full-time on the port," he said.
Contrary to statements by OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte that "Windows already runs on XO," Microsoft doesn't plan to complete the port until "mid-2008 at the earliest," Utzschneider said. "In fact, you should not yet assume that Windows on the XO is a done deal," he said, adding that Redmond hopes to be more definitive within six months.
Utzschneider detailed several major technical challenges to porting XP to the XO, including the lack of a hard drive, the need to create drivers for the XO's innovative hardware features, and the fact that the OLPC team was making substantial hardware design changes right up until the machine entered production.
Because the XO comes with just 1 GB of flash memory and no hard drive, Microsoft has been working on how to cram Windows into such a small space. In fact, the team cannot get XP into 1 GB and asked the OLPC to add a slot for an internal SD card that will provide the 2 GB of extra memory needed to run XP. In addition, Microsoft is writing a new BIOS so Windows can boot and run off the SD card.
Microsoft is writing 10...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Vista Goes Nagware To Fight Piracy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57084
The surprise announcement by software behemoth Microsoft that its first Service Pack for Vista will eliminate the widely loathed "kill switch" that restricts the software's functionality if not successfully authenticated within 30 days represents a partial victory for consumers and another blow to the tottering edifice of digital rights management.
In an interview posted on the Microsoft Web site, Michael Sievert, corporate vice president for Windows Product Marketing, said that instead of losing functionality, unauthorized Vista users "will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine. They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Window Vista is not genuine and they need to take action."
IDC analyst Al Gillen, like many other industry watchers, said he was surprised by Microsoft's announcement. "This does represent a step backward for Microsoft," Gillen said. "It's always been pretty aggressive about trying to reduce piracy, so this is a significant move."
Vista's "kill switch" (not surprisingly, Microsoft prefers the phrase "reduced functionality mode") is part of the company's Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy initiative. Microsoft says that WGA has been a success; the company reports that the counterfeit rates for Vista are roughly half that for Windows XP.
But there have been widespread reports from consumers that WGA either failed to authenticate their copy of Vista properly, or reduced Vista functionality even after a successful registration. In last August, a Microsoft server erroneously identified nearly 12,000 copies of Vista as counterfeit, leading WGA senior product manager Alex Koch to apologize in a WGA blog post.
"I want everyone to know that I am personally very disappointed that this event occurred," Koch wrote. "As an organization, we've come a long way since this program began and...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Apple's iPhone Sales Sluggish in Europe
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57082
After five days of sales, French wireless carrier Orange has sold 30,000 iPhones, the company announced Wednesday. Louis-Pierre Wenes, Orange's executive director for France operations, said the number was "a very good score," and added that half of the iPhone sales are accompanied by a new Orange subscription.
Orange's parent, France Telecom, had set a goal of selling 100,000 iPhones by the end of the year. Considering sales volume is typically higher immediately after a product launch, Orange will be hard-pressed to hit those goals in the three weeks remaining in December.
In Germany, T-Mobile said it sold 10,000 iPhones on the first day. And in the UK, O2 said the iPhone was its fastest selling unit ever, but refused to provide numbers.
Even accounting for the difference is size between the U.S. and France, "30,000 units seems sluggish," Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence, said in a telephone interview. "The iPhone is having a tougher time in Europe."
In its first weekend, AT&T and Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the U.S., which is five times the size of France. Thus, even accounting for the population difference, the French launch was half as strong as it was in the U.S.
The reason might be that wireless in Europe is more advanced than in America, Sterling said. The iPhone offered "a quantum leap in quality in the U.S. that doesn't exist in Europe," he noted.
Another factor is the dominance of Nokia in Europe, Sterling said. "Nokia is the dominant handset maker and has a lot of devices, a lot of smart devices. They're pretty entrenched in Europe, so Europeans may be more blasé about the iPhone."
France is a unique situation for Apple, because French law requires Orange to sell unlocked phones in addition to the ones tied...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Nielsen Intros Video Watermarks for the Web
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57081
On Wednesday, Nielsen and Digimarc launched a new service aimed at helping media companies, social networks, peer-to-peer services, and user-generated content sites monitor and manage media distribution across the Web.
Dubbed Nielsen Digital Media Manager, the service uses digital watermarking and fingerprinting to help assure copyright compliance on sites such as YouTube.
David Calhoun, chairman and CEO of Nielsen, predicted the service would stimulate the growth of online video distribution. He said he is convinced that Digital Media Manager will benefit consumers, content providers, and distributors, and now he's trying to convince the world.
"Until now, the lack of an independent, industry-accepted identification and tracking service has limited the transactions that allow the delivery of media content over the Internet," Calhoun said in a statement.
"Now with our new media identification and management service's unique ability to identify content throughout the Internet, both content providers and distributors can protect and monetize the value of online media."
The new services will focus initially on the online distribution of television content in the U.S. The companies said they expect the new services to be available in mid-2008.
Nielsen and Digimarc also said they plan to work with the media industry to watermark DVDs, movies, music, video games, and other content in subsequent phases of the rollout.
The type of service Nielsen and Digimarc are proposing will become increasingly important to the digital media landscape, predicted Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. Even copyright owners who don't make a living on content, he said, still want to get paid for the content they generate.
"This not only applies to entertainment companies, but also to authors who might begin developing instructional multimedia text that's available in print and online," Leigh said. "The online version might have lots of hyperlinks in it....
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Verizon Wireless Plans Support for Google's Android
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57080
When it comes to cellular networks, "open" is clearly the new black. Hot on the heels of the recent announcement that Verizon would open its network to third-party devices and applications, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam told BusinessWeek that Google's open-source mobile operating system, codenamed Android, is part of the company's future.
"We're planning on using Android," Lowell was quoted as saying. "Android is an enabler of what we do."
Phillip Redman, research vice president, mobile and wireless telecommunications for Gartner, said he believes that the announcement is consistent with Verizon Wireless's overall efforts to broaden its network.
"I think they're open to whatever could be popular on their network," Redman said. "They've been criticized in the past for being too closed, so they're trying to change that. It's early yet to know how they want this to develop, but I think they like the idea of working with Google."
Beyond his provocative statement to BusinessWeek, Lowell offered no specifics about how Verizon Wireless might use the new operating system or integrate it into the company's own handsets and applications.
Last month, when Google announced the new operating system and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a coalition of hardware and software manufacturers developing Android, Verizon Wireless was conspicuously absent.
According to Jim Gerace, a spokesperson for Verizon Wireless, no decision has been made as to whether Verizon will join the OHA. "We specifically did not say we were joining the OHA (we haven't)," Gerace said, "but did say we are not ruling it out." Gerace added that it was premature to discuss exactly how Verizon Wireless might use Android in the future.
Redman agreed that it is difficult to predict how Verizon Wireless or any cellular company might use Android. "There is still a lot of development to be done...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Adobe Updates Flash Media Server Apps
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57079
Adobe announced its Flash Media Server 3 family of products on Tuesday, adding new features to its growing ecosystem of interactive and linear media tools.
As Flash continues to be a highly popular format for the Web-based video explosion, the company is promoting Server 3 as providing "a more efficient instant-on video experience virtually anytime, anywhere."
That ubiquity includes delivering to a wide variety of desktop and mobile devices, and the ability for Flash-based products to "work consistently across multiple browsers and operating systems."
The new offering has two components -- the Flash Media Streaming Server 3, which is used for live and on-demand video streaming, and the Flash Media Interactive Server 3, for social media applications as well as "customized scalable video streaming services."
The company said new features include almost twice as many streams per server, support for higher-quality H.264 video and HE-AAC audio, upgrades for delivering copy-protected content, and better live video support.
With Streaming Server 3, both prerecorded and live video streaming can be sent to mobile devices that have Flash Lite 3, and there are no license restrictions on bandwidth or the total number of connections. Interactive Server 3 combines the capabilities of Flash Media Server 2, Professional, Edge, and Origin Editions.
Streaming Server 3 can stream to Adobe AIR, which is the cross-platform runtime that enables rich Internet applications to run on the desktop. In early 2008, Adobe is expected to release Adobe Media Player, which will be built on AIR. The company said that the Media Player will enable "high quality broadcast television both online and offline" in a customizable experience.
The positioning of this updated product family highlights Adobe's strategies as it tries to expand on its Flash empire. Broadcast-quality video, sent to any current-generation device, has emerged as one...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Continental Pilots Phone-Based Boarding Passes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57078
You receive your airplane boarding pass on your cell phone or PDA, display the bar code on your device, and have it scanned as you enter the plane.
This vision of paperless, personal-device boarding took a step closer to reality on Tuesday when the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Continental Airlines announced the launch of a pilot program which they said will improve security.
This is the first test by a U.S. carrier of paperless boarding passes. Carriers in other countries, such as Spain, Germany, Canada, and Japan, have tested similar systems for as many as three years.
In October, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) adopted a global standard for bar codes used as boarding passes. American airlines have also adopted the standard, but TSA approval is still required. The Continental pilot is, according to the TSA, "consistent with the global standard" of IATA.
Security is a motive, but so are economics. IATA officials have said that they expect the worldwide industry will save about half a billion dollars annually from such a system.
The barcode that is displayed on the cell phone or mobile device is not the familiar box of vertical lines that accompanies virtually every product sold at retail, from cereal to computers. Instead, it uses a pattern of squares to offer a greater level of information.
Passengers with compatible devices receive a text message bearing the barcode or instructions on how to download it. Because the pass is encrypted, TSA officials have said it is more secure than ordinary paper boarding passes in that it increases the ability to detect fraud.
This pilot program is only the latest incarnation of a wave of new, transactional uses for mobile devices. Sean Ryan, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, noted that such devices are being used...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
DOJ Backs Landmark RIAA File-Sharing Victory
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57077
It looks like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) might finally get its payday. The U.S. Department of Justice has decided a $222,000 damage award in a digital music copyright infringement case the RIAA won in October is constitutional.
On Tuesday, Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholtz filed a 20-page brief in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota indicating the jury-assessed damages against Jammie Thomas, a single mom from an Indian reservation, were not excessive.
"Given the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause" of the Constitution, the brief noted. The damages were not "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense...."
The brief was the government's response to Thomas' motion challenging the constitutionality of the $222,000 a judge ordered her to pay for infringing the copyrights of six music labels: Virgin Records, Warner Bros., UMG Recordings, Sony BMG, Capitol Records, and Interscope Records.
The plaintiffs, which claimed that Thomas distributed copyrighted audio files on file-sharing network Kazaa in 2005, asked for $3.9 million, plus legal fees, from the jury in the U.S. District Court in Duluth, Minnesota. The case was the first of its kind in the nation.
The jury did not give the RIAA everything it wanted, but decided Thomas should pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs highlighted in the case. Statutes allow damages ranging from between $750 and $30,000 per infringement. The maximum monetary penalty for each willful violation is $150,000.
Under oath, Thomas denied a folder on the Kazaa network belonged to her. But experts testified that the Internet address used by "tereastar," the name of the Kazaa user who infringed, belonged to Thomas. Thomas appealed the ruling.
Thomas' grounds for appealing the verdict?...
Wed, 5 Dec 07
Old School Check Fraud Thrives Online
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57070
Check schemes are spreading across the USA as scamsters exploit the popularity of online auction, dating and social-networking sites to find victims.
The scams have grown so prevalent that the Postal Inspection Service has launched a TV and print campaign -- its largest-ever anti-fraud drive -- to alert consumers.
Overseas investigators, working with U.S. postal inspectors, have arrested 77 people this year and intercepted $2.1 billion in counterfeit checks headed for the USA. And the Federal Trade Commission sued two Canadian companies in October, accusing them of using fake checks to bilk U.S. consumers.
Even as consumers reduce their use of checks, the creation of fake checks is booming. Fraudsters are using them to pay for goods advertised online or to convince people that they've won sweepstakes prizes.
"Fake checks seem to have really peaked in the last couple of years," says Steven Baker, head of the Federal Trade Commission's Midwest region. "When (fraudsters) find something that works, the word spreads."
If customers lose money because of check fraud, their banks won't bail them out. But if those customers can't repay, the banks get stuck with the losses.
No one knows how much money customers have lost from bogus checks. But last year, banks alone lost $271 million from fake checks -- a 160% jump from three years earlier, according to the American Bankers Association.
Customers are likely losing much more than that from check fraud, according to the National Consumers League, because some consumers present checks at check-cashing centers as well as at banks. All types of check-related fraud cost banks $969 million in 2006, the ABA says.
Counterfeit checks have become the second-most-common Internet fraud and the top telemarketing fraud reported to the National Consumers League since it began tracking such scams in 2003. On average, victims lose $3,000 to $4,000 per scam, the league...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
Facebook's Beacon Reignites Debate on User Privacy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57062
The hits just keep coming on Facebook's Beacon advertising program. Beacon not only tracks the activities of Facebook users on partner sites even when they are not logged in, but also reports back to Facebook on activity by non-Facebook users, a Computer Associates security researcher revealed Monday.
In a positive light, Facebook is starting to provide more accurate information about the workings of the program, says Stefan Berteau, a security analyst with Computer Associates.
"If you prevent a certain partner site from publishing stories about you through Beacon, the information about the action is still sent to us," Facebook told Berteau. "However, if your options are set such that the story won't be published, we discard that information almost as soon as we receive it."
"We hope that they will take steps to mitigate these issues in the near future, because while the statement that this data is not currently being stored or used is reassuring, the fact that the data continues to be sent to facebook.com continues to pose a risk to users' privacy until a binding, public mechanism is in place to assure that the above policy stays in place, and that users are notified if it ever changes," Berteau wrote on a CA blog.
On Friday Berteau reported that Beacon alerts Facebook about user activity on partner sites, even when the user is not logged in. "Despite the fact that I was not logged in, Facebook just received enough information to tie the activity I took on their affiliate to my individual account, which combined with the social data they already have, such as circles of friends, level of education, communication patterns, and geographic locations, would allow them to profile individual consumer behavior on a nearly unprecedented level of detail," Berteau wrote.
In an interview on Monday, Berteau...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
T-Mobile Wins iPhone Battle in Germany
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57060
Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telephone company, has emerged victorious in the iPhone-locking suit that Vodafone filed against it in Germany. A German court ruled on Tuesday that Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile can block consumers who purchase an Apple iPhone from using the mobile device on competing wireless networks.
The Regional Court of Hamburg issued a statement indicating it has removed the injunction that prohibited T-Mobile from selling the iPhone with a two-year exclusive contract. That officially overturns an injunction Vodafone won in late November.
"This ruling underscores the impact the iPhone has had on the market," said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. "In the past, you typically didn't see companies filing injunctions over other cell phones. The fact that Vodafone brought this suit to begin with is indicative of the fact that the iPhone has changed the game in many ways."
T-Mobile bowed to the demands of a German court's first ruling, changing its marketing campaign for Apple's iPhone. In response to the court's injunction, T-Mobile changed the terms of the exclusive contract it forged with Apple.
Specifically, T-Mobile agreed to sell the device for 999 euros (about US$1,477) without mandating a two-year exclusive contract. However, the original 399 euro (US$590) deal with a contract attached remained an option. By way of comparison, the Nokia N95 sells for 199.95 euros (US$295.63) with a contract, or 619.95 euros (US$916.60) without one.
In a published statement, T-Mobile said that it reserves the right to claim damages from Vodafone, which operates the second-largest wireless network in Germany, but there is no word yet on whether T-Mobile will pursue legal action against Vodafone for lost sales.
Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T has ruffled plenty of feathers in the United States. Although other mobile carriers have not challenged the deal, consumers have attacked the company with...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
Verizon Embraces Google's Android
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57040
In yet another sudden shift, Verizon Wireless plans to support Google's new software platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. Verizon Wireless had been one of several large cellular carriers withholding support from the Android initiative Google launched in early November.
But given the stunning U-turn Verizon Wireless made Nov. 27, announcing plans to allow a broader range of devices and services on its network, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. "We're planning on using Android," McAdam tells BusinessWeek. "Android is an enabler of what we do."
Though skeptics see ulterior motives and question just how easy Verizon will make it for rival products to get on its network, the surprise embrace of an open-access model and of the Android software culminates a dramatic yearlong evolution in the company's thinking.
The effort, championed by McAdam, involved meetings with the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and late-night bull sessions with the top two executives at Verizon Communications, which owns Verizon Wireless in partnership with Vodafone.
All the while, McAdam kept focus by carrying a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket with seven bullet points defining what an open-access policy would mean to Verizon Wireless. "The paper is all wrinkled and it's got coffee stains," he says.
McAdam was more amenable to shifting gears thanks to time spent during the 1990s in Europe and Asia, where the wireless industry is more of a free-for-all. As vice-president for international operations at AirTouch Communications, now a part of Verizon Wireless, McAdam says he was impressed that European and Asian mobile carriers backed technologies that allow subscribers to switch to rivals with ease.
By contrast, Verizon Wireless has created the most profitable U.S. cellular business by tightly restricting the devices and applications allowed to run on its...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
EU Criticizes Social Networks for Privacy Flaws
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57064
According to the European Network and Information Service Agency (ENISA), the popularity of social-networking sites often leads to disclosures that are "not appropriate to a public forum." In October, ENISA issued a detailed report describing the privacy threats faced by users of social networks and offered several recommendations to minimize the associated risks.
"It's a thoughtful analysis and chilling critique," Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said in an e-mail. "It's time for both advocates and governments in the EU and U.S. to work together to develop meaningful rules to govern the data collection on these networks."
Paul Stephens, the director of public policy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, agreed that social networks pose a significant privacy problem. "Obviously, the social networking sites are set up for them to make money," Stephens said by phone. "Their primary interest is going to be making money and not protecting the privacy of individuals who provide information to the sites."
The ENISA report details several well-known privacy threats and describes some chilling new possibilities. Among the more familiar risks are the compilation of digital dossiers by third parties who download profiles from social networks; the compilation of usage data by the social networking sites; possible identity theft through the use of publicly disclosed information; cyberstalking and bullying; and corporate espionage.
But the report also raises the possibility of some startlingly new dangers. For instance, ENISA warned, the photographs that users post of themselves on social networks can be used as a facial-recognition tool to identify an anonymous profile on another site (for instance, a dating site).
Another emerging technology is Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR), in which the features of a photo can be used as the basis for other image searches or can even be used to identify where the...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
Microsoft Drops the Windows Vista Kill Switch
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57063
Microsoft is dropping a controversial antipiracy scheme in Windows Vista, replacing a "reduced functionality" mode with a guilt trip. The change is part of the SP1 update to the operating system, which also includes several security enhancements.
In the original version of Vista, Microsoft included an authentication scheme, Windows Genuine Advantage, which would largely disable the software if it appeared to be counterfeit. With SP1, Microsoft merely will make using a counterfeit copy annoying, corporate vice president Mike Sievert announced Tuesday.
In an article on Microsoft's PressPass site, Sievert said, "Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine. They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Window Vista is not genuine and they need to take action."
Sievert said Microsoft dropped reduced-functionality mode in response to user feedback and that the status-message approach, which will be part of Windows Server 2008, is an effective way to combat piracy. "Customers want to know the status of their systems, and how to take action if it turns out they were victimized," he said.
Copies of Vista still require activation, Sievert said, and the system will continue to check activation status periodically. "What is changing with SP1 is the nature of the experience for those systems that are never activated or that fail validation," he said.
Reduced-functionality turned out to be a big problem because users with legitimate copies of Vista found the OS shutting itself down. For instance, one user reported that an online game called MapleStory caused Vista to identify itself as counterfeit. "If using software you haven't paid for is 'theft,' as Microsoft likes to say, then is preventing someone from...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
Nokia Details Mobile Strategy Shift
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57061
Nokia executives told investors this week that the company's increased focus on Internet-based services and software would provide the world's No. 1 cell-phone maker with the extra edge it will need to continue to grow its commanding share of the handset market in 2008 and beyond.
"We are at the dawn of a new era in mobile communications driven by the rapid convergence of the Internet and mobility, and Nokia is setting the pace of change," said CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. "We estimate that in 2010, the total Internet services market will be approximately 100 billion euros," Kallasvuo added.
Nokia forecasts that mobile device volumes will grow by approximately 10 percent in 2008 -- up from an estimated 1.1 billion units this year. However, the highest unit shipment increases are expected to occur in the Asia-Pacific, China, Middle East, and Africa regions, where low-end phones are outselling their high-end counterparts.
Nokia predicts that industry-wide handset average selling prices will decline somewhat next year, but the company intends to mitigate falling prices by leveraging the power of the Internet in ways that will make it more compelling for mobile subscribers to upgrade to the very latest advanced handsets. For example, Nokia is targeting the lion's share of the 180 million music-enabled devices it expects the entire industry to ship next year -- up from an estimated 145 million units in 2007.
To help counter rival music strategies, the handset-maker has just unveiled a new "Comes With Music" program that will give buyers of Nokia's next-generation music devices one year of unlimited access to Universal Music's portfolio. "Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we're making available," said Anssi Vanjoki, an executive vice president...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
FCC Spectrum Auction Will Be Silent
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57059
The eagerly anticipated government auction of the wireless spectrum won't start until January 24, 2008, but the intrigue and speculation already is well underway. At stake are various slices of the 700-MHz band of the broadcast spectrum, the frequency currently used for the transmission of analog television signals.
By order of Congress, those transmissions are scheduled to stop on February 17, 2009, when all television stations are required to convert their signals to digital television. The move is opening up what some are referring to as electronic "beach front property," in recognition of the spectrum's potential for supporting a national wireless broadband network.
It's pricey property: The FCC set the opening bid for the coveted spectrum at $4.6 billion, and many analysts predict the final cost will be much higher. So far, only a handful of companies, including Google, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and Frontline Wireless, have indicated that they intend to participate. Two of the largest cable companies, Comcast and Time Warner, have said that they will not be bidding.
Monday night at 6:00 p.m. was the deadline for prospective bidders to register their interest with the Federal Communications Commission, which is running the spectrum auction. Any company that has registered for the auction is barred from discussing its participation until the entire auction is completed.
Following a review process, the FCC will announce the names of eligible bidders in late December or early January. The actual auction, conducted entirely online, will begin on January 24; a series of bidding rounds will be held until a winner is determined for each of the 1,079 spectrum licenses being offered by the FCC.
At the end of each round, the FCC will announce the amount of the current high bid, but will not announce the name of the high bidder. That information...
Tue, 4 Dec 07
Apple, AT&T Sued over Visual Voicemail Patents
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57058
On Monday, Klausner Technologies filed a patent lawsuit against AT&T, Apple, Comcast, Cablevision, and eBay. The allegation: a violation of its visual voicemail patents.
The suits were filed in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. In suing AT&T for selling the Apple iPhone with its visual voicemail service, Klausner is seeking damages and future royalties estimated at $360 million.
Klausner is suing Apple for the same violations and the same amount. According to the suit, the iPhone violates Klausner's intellectual property rights by allowing the user to retrieve voice messages selectively via the iPhone's inbox display, the suit alleges.
In addition, Klausner claims Cablevision's Optimum voicemail, Comcast's Digital Voice voicemail, and eBay's Skype voicemail each violate Klausner's intellectual property rights by allowing users to retrieve and listen to voice messages selectively via message inbox displays.
"We have litigated this patent successfully on two prior occasions," said Greg Dovel of Dovel & Luner, counsel for Klausner Technologies. "With the signing of each new licensee, we continue to receive further confirmation of the strength of our visual voicemail patents."
Indeed, the Klausner patents in question already have been licensed to various other companies that provide visual voicemail services, including Time Warner's AOL and Vonage Holdings.
Klausner Technologies was founded by Judah Klausner. Apple's original PDA, the Newton, was covered under a patent license granted 20 years ago by Judah Klausner under U.S. Patent 4,117,542, according to Dovel.
The companies named in the suits could not immediately be reached for comment. But Ilan Barzilay, a member of Wolf Greenfield's Litigation Practice Group who litigates a variety of intellectual property cases, said Klausner has zeroed in on its alleged infringers and is looking for a payday.
"Klausner has a couple of settlements under its belt with big players, which is always key....
Mon, 3 Dec 07
Billionaire Invests $60 Million in Faceboook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57034
Just when some people were beginning to doubt whether Facebook was really worth $15 billion, the richest man in Asia has made an investment in the social-networking site that appears to back up that valuation. The move has fueled speculation that more Asian investment in the company is coming soon.
Li Ka-shing, the head of a Hong Kong conglomerate with some 250,000 employees, invested $60 million in Facebook for a .04 percent share of the company, the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog reported Friday. That puts Facebook's valuation on track for $15 billion. Li also has an option to invest another $60 million in Facebook.
Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook recently for 1.6 percent of the company, generating the $15 billion valuation. Neither Li nor Microsoft received a seat on Facebook's board.
According to Forbes, Li's companies, Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa, cover a diverse range of industries, including real estate, cell phones, retail, electricity, and container terminals, making Li the richest man in Asia and the 10th richest person in the world.
The Journal's Kara Swisher reported that Li made the Facebook investment through his private foundation, not through any of his companies. Li is the major investor in Hong Kong's Tom Group, and that fact -- plus one line in Swisher's report -- appears to have sent shares in Tom Group soaring Monday. TOM ended the day up 23 percent, even though it denied making any investments in Facebook.
Li's investment in Facebook "might give Tom a leg up in possible partnerships with Facebook in China," sources told Swisher. If the deal does materialize, it could be a boon for Tom's online media portal, one of the top Internet sites in mainland China.
Tom's businesses also include outdoor advertising, television, and book and magazine...
Mon, 3 Dec 07
Microchip Tech: Faster, Better, Cheaper
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57030
According to the latest report from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), chip sales growth was driven in October by strong demand for the processors used in PCs and consumer electronics, pushing worldwide semiconductor sales to $23.1 billion in October -- a 5 percent rise in comparison with the same month last year.
Despite rising energy costs and other concerns, consumers continue to spend money on the latest electronics products, noted the trade association's president, George Scalise, who pointed to the strong "Black Friday" sales reported by U.S. retailers for the first shopping day after Thanksgiving.
"At this point, it does not appear that reported declines in consumer confidence or other concerns have affected sales of electronic products," Scalise noted. "We will be closely watching consumer sales of electronic products through the holiday season."
October's healthy year-over-year growth came to pass in spite of the negative effects of chip price cuts, which are most dramatic in memory chips. Though RAM shipments have climbed by 55 percent so far this year, RAM pricing has risen only by 5 percent, Scalise noted.
A similar story has been unfolding in the processor segment due in large part to the intense price war between AMD and Intel. The SIA reported that revenue from microprocessors has risen only by 4 percent in the year to date, even though unit shipments are up by 15 percent. "Consumers are reaping huge benefits from continued rapid price attrition in key sectors of the semiconductor market," Scalise said.
The SIA said chip sales for all of 2007 continue to track the trade association's annual prognostication, which calls for 3.8 percent year-over-year growth. "This year the worldwide microchip industry will produce 900 million transistors for every man, woman, and child on earth," Scalise claimed.
Continuous advances in microchip technology have made "faster, better, cheaper"...
Mon, 3 Dec 07
Behavioral Ad Targeting Comes of Age
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57021
Based on the weather reports and restaurant listings you check out online, Yahoo Inc. has a good idea where you live. Based on searches you've done, the Web portal might also know where you want to go.
Don't be surprised then to suddenly see an advertisement on flight deals between those two places. It's what United Airlines did with an ad on Yahoo earlier this year as people browsed for something completely unrelated to travel.
Elsewhere, online hangout Facebook is mining friends' buying habits, and major Internet portals have bought companies to expand their reach and capabilities for "behavioral targeting" -- all so advertisers can try to hit you with what they believe you're most likely to buy, even as doing so means amassing more data on you.
"When you are online today, you've been labeled and tagged as this type of consumer in milliseconds," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "All of a sudden you are exposed to a vast number of invisible salespeople who are peering over your personal details to figure out the best way to sell to you."
Behavioral targeting, commonly accomplished by depositing tiny data files on personal computers to keep track of surfing patterns, has raised privacy questions and, at least in the case of Facebook, user complaints.
From the perspective of Web sites and advertisers, though, behavioral targeting can bring to the rest of the Internet some of the relevancy Google Inc. and others successfully mined for billions of dollars with text-based search ads.
"Everyone's trying to find the next, best mousetrap to compete with search," said Adam Broitman, director of emerging and creative strategies with ad agency Morpheus Media LLC.
Although behavioral targeting isn't right for all advertisers, it has become increasingly important as companies try to break through the clutter. The research company...
Mon, 3 Dec 07
Report: Facebook's Privacy Promises Flawed
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57013
Researchers are claiming Facebook's Beacon online ad system is even more intrusive when it comes to privacy matters than protesters against the technology might have thought initially.
On Friday, Stefan Berteau, a senior research engineer at Computer Associates' Threat Research Group, published findings that reveal Beacon reports member activities on third-party partner sites even if Facebook users are not logged in, and even if members have declined to opt in to the Beacon program.
"It can happen completely without their knowledge," Berteau said in his report. "The bottom line is that Facebook is materially misrepresenting the privacy impact of their Beacon program, and presenting users with the appearance of control over their information when in fact they have almost none."
Beacon sends messages to Facebook members' friends about what they are purchasing online. If a member booked a trip to Japan on Travelocity.com, for example, friends on Facebook would know it. If the member purchased a ticket to "American Gangster," that would also be known among friends.
Facebook figured that adding the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to your queue on Blockbuster.com might be something you want your friends to know about. Facebook promised members complete control over the information. The only problem, as far as privacy advocates are concerned, is that members had to opt out instead of opting in.
But Facebook made significant changes to Beacon after 50,000 Facebook members signed a MoveOn.org petition over a 10-day period, asking the site to respect user privacy.
"No stories will be published without users proactively consenting," Facebook said in a published statement. "If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook,
it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories...
Mon, 3 Dec 07
LiveJournal Sold to Russian Company
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57012
Social networking and blogging site LiveJournal has a new owner. Parent company Six Apart announced on Monday that Live Journal has been sold to SUP, a Russian online media company.
SUP said that it has launched an American company, LiveJournal, Inc., for global management. Financial details of the deal were not announced.
LiveJournal and SUP are not strangers. SUP has managed LiveJournal in Russia since October of last year, and the company said that it is so popular there that "LiveJournal" has become synonymous in Russian with "blogging."
Chris Alden, CEO and Chairman of Six Apart, praised SUP. He said in a statement that, in its Russian version, SUP has "introduced new features, nearly doubled the number of users, invested in key product enhancements," and has done "justice to one of the most innovative online social networks in the world."
For users who might be worried about LiveJournal's future direction, Alden noted that SUP would be setting up an advisory board "to oversee the community's interests."
And for those developers who are concerned about new ownership for one of the leaders in open-source development for such sites, Six Apart said it will continue active investment in those technologies and LiveJournal will continue the tradition. The technologies include Memcached, Mogile, Perlbal, and OpenID, which Six Apart said have been adopted by such sites as Craigslist, Facebook, and Wikipedia.
There are many bloggers and blog readers who wonder how this acquisition will affect the state of blogs in Russia. According to an article in February of this year in The Nation, Russian "bloggers are becoming a lively alternative to mainstream media" and can make or break a politician's career.
In particular, it noted that Zhivoi Zhurnal, the "Russian incarnation" of LiveJournal, is frequently read by professional newspeople in that country, and has 12 million users....
Mon, 3 Dec 07
Motorola: The End of the Zander Era
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57009
You could sense it coming. The departure of Motorola Chief Executive Ed Zander seemed imminent as the company's bread-and-butter mobile-phone unit spiraled downward for more than a year. The market-share losses have become so pronounced that researcher Gartner recently said Motorola, long the second-largest maker of cell phones, behind Nokia, had fallen to No. 3, behind Samsung, whose 14.5% share now trumps Motorola's 13.1%.
So there was little surprise when Motorola announced on Nov. 30 that Zander, 60, will step down as chief executive on Jan. 1. Into the hot seat steps current President and Chief Operating Officer Greg Brown, 47, a possibility BusinessWeek noted in July.
Zander will remain chairman until the company's annual shareholder meeting in May, 2008, and then serve as a nonexecutive adviser to Brown until January, 2009. "I had a vision in my mind that four years would be it," Zander said in an interview. "I told that to the board when I joined. A couple of years into this, we started to do succession planning and identified Greg as the guy that could lead this company."
Since joining Motorola in 2003, Brown has led several of the company's key businesses, including the telecom infrastructure business and the government equipment business. He also headed the $3.9 billion acquisition of enterprise gearmaker Symbol Technologies, the company's second-largest transaction ever.
As chief of Motorola's automotive business, he returned that unit to profitability and then spun it off and sold it to Continental for $1 billion. "We gave him just about every tough assignment that there is in this company," Zander says. "He took cost out of all those groups and hired great people."
But restoring luster to Motorola's ailing cell-phone business will take more than cost-cutting skill. After the Razr's roaring debut in 2004, Motorola quickly gained share...
Mon, 3 Dec 07
PC Makers Update Holiday Hardware
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57029
Computers outranked peace and happiness for the most desired gift this year in an annual U.S. survey by the consumer electronics industry's largest trade organization.
PC vendors are happy to oblige. They have come out with desktops and laptops to cover a gamut of needs, budgets and styles. There are souped-up machines for gamers, attractive space-saving all-in-ones for home offices or kitchens, simple low-cost laptops for youths and pricey ultra-lightweight notebooks for those seeking flair and function.
More than ever, alternatives to computers running Microsoft Corp.'s long-dominant Windows operating system are also hitting the market.
A sampling of the offerings this holiday season:
The gPC stands out from the crowd like a man wearing sandals at cocktail party -- it's cheap and it's different. It's a simple desktop computer that eschews Windows in favor of Linux, the alternative operating system that's widely used by information technology professionals but has struggled for years to gain acceptance in desktops. The gPC is the first Linux computer to be sold in Wal-Mart stores (though only some of them), giving Linux another shot at the mainstream. It's designed to be easy to use and focuses on Google's Web services like Gmail and YouTube. But like some earlier Linux computers, it uncomfortably straddles two worlds: it's a low-end box for computer novices, yet considerable expertise is needed to get the most out of the software. (MSRP: $199; EU135 without monitor)
The reasons for not buying a Mac are running out. The iMac is fast, well equipped and very easy to use. It even runs Windows if you need it to. One look at the latest iMac shows you how much the line has grown up: the cutesy look of the earlier iMacs has been replaced with a chilly and professional aluminum chassis. The iMac is perfect as...
Mon, 3 Dec 07
Indian Startups Go for Web 2.0 Gold
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57007
For the past year, global networking sites have been growing in popularity among young Indians. According to JuxtConsult, a New Delhi-based online research and advisory company, 44% of Indian online traffic uses the Internet just for social networking. Google's Orkut is the most popular social networking site in India, with a 64% market share. Facebook is also winning many Indian fans, especially students.
But in the last six months, a plethora of local sites has emerged to compete with the Americans. Today, there are more than a dozen India-based and focused social networking sites with colorful Hindi names that are synonyms for community (bigadda.com) and friends (yaari.com). "I guess it's a cool thing to do," says Praveen Gandhi, managing partner of Seed Fund India, an early stage Mumbai venture capital fund. He claims in the last year he's had fund requests from over 50 entrepreneurs wanting to set up social networking sites locally.
India is as hooked on social networking as any other country. Part of the reason is easier broadband connectivity. A 2007 report by the software industry association group Nasscom estimates broadband subscribers -- currently 1 million -- will hit 20 million in three years. By 2010, the total number of Internet users in India will grow to 100 million, from 40 million now. This will surely enhance virtual hangout plays like the social networking sites.
Another big reason for the rise of social networking sites is simply the size of India's younger generation -- 54% of India is under the age of 20. That's nearly 540 million, the largest such community in the world, according to the National Council for Applied Economic Research, India. And they all want to connect to each other.
Some of the new Indian networking sites that have cropped up in the last...