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Air Your Security Gripes on TSA Blog
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58138
Frustrated by long airport-security lines? Certain those screeners aren't paying attention? Wondering why your grandma always gets frisked? The federal government wants to hear -- or at least read -- your gripes at the "Evolution of Security" blog the Transportation Security Administration introduced Wednesday. And it promises those complaints and suggestions won't vanish into thin air.
The blog, at http://www.tsa.gov/blog, is getting a rather "blah" response from aviation analysts and passengers advocates who say it will do little to improve process or perception.
"This will just make it easier for them to receive complaints for them to ignore in the name of national security," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.
In the blog's initial post, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said the goal is to provide a forum for the agency to explain why travelers must go through certain steps at checkpoints since interaction at airports is often harried and halted, resulting in "feedback and venting ... circulating among passengers with no real opportunity for us to learn from you or vice versa."
"We will incorporate what we learn in this forum in our checkpoint process evolution," Hawley wrote. "Our postings from the public will be reviewed to remove the destructive, but not touch the critical or cranky."
Terry Trippler, a Minneapolis-based airline expert, applauded the idea but said TSA "was in the right church, just not the right pew yet."
And that church could become anything but sacred. Trippler said he envisions the blog quickly degenerating into an online vacuum where a handful of habitual complainers force TSA officials to respond to them, while other self-appointed security "experts" pontificate on the best ways to improve the process.
Even worse, he said some travelers will avoid the blog for fear of retribution from the government.
The TSA already is fighting an uphill battle in the court...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
Mock Disaster Drill: Trains, Planes, Bloggers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58134
It is the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro subway trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found in the Tube, London's subway.
And that was just for starters.
The fictitious international calamities were among dozens of detailed, mock disasters confronting officials in rapid succession in the U.S. government's biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the America's hacker defenses, with help from the State, Defense and Justice departments, the CIA, the National Security Agency and others.
The laundry list of fictional catastrophes, which include hundreds of people on "No Fly" lists arriving suddenly at U.S. airport ticket counters, is significant because it suggests what kind of real-world trouble keeps people in the White House awake at night.
Imagined villains include hackers, bloggers, even reporters. After mock electronic attacks overwhelmed computers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an unspecified "major news network" airing reports about the attackers refused to reveal its sources to the government. Other simulated reporters were duped into spreading "believable but misleading" information that worsened fallout by confusing the public and financial markets, according to the government's files.
The $3 million, the invitation-only war game simulated what the United States described as plausible attacks over five days in February 2006 against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalization hackers. The government is organizing another multimillion-dollar wargame, Cyber Storm 2, to take place in early March.
"They point out where your expectations of your capabilities may be overstated," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the AP. "They may...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
Web Video Company Tackles YouTube
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58133
One of Big Media's most controversial executives is back after a
period of quasi-forced retirement.
Stephen Chao was fired from a top position at News Corp. after,
in separate incidents, he hired a male stripper to disrobe at a
company meeting and nearly drowned Rupert Murdoch's dog at a party.
Now he is forming a Web video company that he hopes to build into
an educational alternative to YouTube.
The site, WonderHowTo.com, aggregates how-to videos, from the
mundane, (like "how to tie a tie" and "how to market your lawn-care
business in the winter") to the strange ("how to do Criss Angel's
vanishing toothpick trick") and the off-color ("how to train your
cat to use the toilet") and beyond.
Chao says the business melds his two primary interests: a
fascination with the bizarre -- he worked as a National Enquirer
reporter after graduating from Harvard -- and the media frontier.
"I'm a video freak and I love turning over rocks and finding
stuff," he said by telephone in advance of a formal announcement
Wednesday. "What I started to notice is that there is a lot of how-
to information out there that is fabulous but kind of hard to find.
We set out to make it easy."
Chao's resume includes his high-profile stint at the News Corp.,
where he helped create "America's Most Wanted" and "Cops" for Fox,
as well as time at media companies run by Barry Diller. But Chao,
52, is perhaps best known for one of corporate America's most
spectacular flame-outs.
In 1992, Murdoch fired Chao, considered a gifted but quirky
executive, after Chao engaged a man to remove all of his clothes
during a speech being delivered at a company management retreat.
The purpose was to drive home a point about decency, but Murdoch,
seated in the audience next to Dick Cheney, then the U.S. secretary
of defense, was not amused.
Now, after spending the better part of the last decade doing
consulting work and surfing near...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
It's a Phone! A GPS! It's Nuvifone, Not iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58132
On Wednesday, Garmin International unveiled the nuvifone, a slim, all-touch-screen device that combines a 3.5G phone, a Web browser and a personal navigator with an appearance similar to Apple's iPhone.
"The Nuvifone is an all-in-one device offering unmatched integration of utility and function in a single mobile device," said Cliff Pemble, Garmin's president and COO. "This is the breakthrough product that cell-phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for -- a single device that does it all."
When powered on, the 3.5-inch screen displays three primary icons -- Call, Search and View Map. Users initiate a call by tapping the Call button and selecting a name from the contact list or using the on-screen keypad.
When the Nuvifone is docked onto its vehicle mount, it automatically turns on the GPS, activates the navigation menu, and enables hands-free calling so the user can begin routing to a destination.
The nuvifone's personal-navigation features include preloaded maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe, or both, and allows drivers to find a specific street address, an establishment's name or search for a destination by category using the nuvifone's built-in database with millions of points of interest.
Turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions guide the user to a destination. If the user misses a turn along the route, nuvifone automatically recalculates a route and gets the user back on track, speaking the names of streets along the way.
The nuvifone includes Google local search capability. Nuvifone users can search for locations like "coffee shops" and Google will sort the results based on the user's current location and relevance. The nuvifone also provides e-mail along with text and instant messaging.
A "Where am I?" feature lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
Gateway's New PCs Pack a Lot of Power
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58130
Gateway has two new quad-core computers -- and one of them features a dual HD/Blu-ray optical drive and a terabyte drive.
The GM5664 and GT5662 will bring AMD's Phenom processor, as well as DirectX 10 Technology, to the company's GM and GT series. Just as the high-definition DVD format war may be winding down, the GM5664 offers what the company calls a Hybrid-SuperMulti drive so users can enjoy either Blu-ray or high-definition (HD) DVDs. It also can write any kind of DVD or CD.
Glenn Jystad, Gateway's senior manager for consumer desktops, said the new quad-core machines marry "high-performance with affordability." The new models are designed as entertainment hubs for watching live TV and offer heightened realism for video games. Both machines feature the ATI Radeon HD 2400XT graphics card with HDMI high-definition output, and both ship with the Windows Vista Home Premium operating system.
The GM5664 is being touted by Gateway as an entertainment powerhouse for extreme gaming, digital photo and video editing, watching TV or movies, and storing media assets. Sporting an AMD Phenom 9600 Processor at 2.3 GHz, 3GB of memory and a 2MB L3 cache, it also contains an integrated TV tuner with remote control and HD capability. It can act as a TV or digital video recorder with viewing, pausing and recording.
A standard one-terabyte hard drive gives even the biggest collector a lot of space to fill up, and a SmartCopy button enables easy photo filing and transfers.
The GT5662 isn't exactly a slouch, either. It has an AMD Phenom 9500 at 2.2 GHz, 3GB of memory a 2 MB L3 cache and a half-terabyte SATA II hard drive running at 7200 RPM. Both Phenom processors are part of the AMD LIVE series designed for entertainment.
With the GT5662 retailing at about $750 and the...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
Amazon.com Acquires Audible's Bookstore for $300M
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58129
On Thursday, Amazon.com said it inked a deal to acquire Audible, the leading online digital audio bookstore.
Amazon.com will purchase all of Audible's outstanding shares for $11.50 per share and assume Audible.com's outstanding stock-based awards. That values the deal at $300 million.
"Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry," said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com's senior vice president for worldwide digital media. "Working together, we can introduce more innovations and bring this format to an even wider audience."
Audible has made a name for itself in the digital world by peddling digital audio editions of books, newspapers and magazines, television and radio programs and original programming. Its Web site, Audible.com offers more than 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from well-known authors such as Stephen King, Thomas Friedman and Jane Austen.
The company also offers spoken-word audio content from sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Fresh Air and Charlie Rose. Audible is a major provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple's iTunes Store. Content from Audible is downloaded and played on personal computers, CDs or AudibleReady computer-based and wireless mobile devices.
"Audible has done a good job. Audible has got some good licenses. The company is trusted by the publishers to avoid situations that would result in piracy of the content," said Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "But the problem is Audible is a small part of what people have on their iPods. Most people really want music."
Amazon.com's recently introduced Kindle, a wireless portable reader that provides instant wireless downloads of more than 90,000 books, blogs, magazines and newspapers to a high-resolution electronic display, could be the difference maker for Audible.
"Amazon already sells Audible content, but now Amazon can be more aggressive about integrating the...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
Cut Cables Slow Internet in India
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58128
Fallout spread Thursday from a cut in two undersea Internet cables off Egypt's coast, with India waking up to half of its bandwidth disrupted and widespread outages still hampering a wide swathe of the Mideast.
Officials said it could take a week or more to fix the cables, in part because of bad weather. Officials in several countries were scrambling to reroute traffic to satellites and to other cables through Asia.
In all, users in India, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain were affected. Israel was unaffected by the outages because its Internet traffic is connected to Europe through a different undersea cable, and Lebanon and Iraq were also operating normally.
The biggest impact to the rest of the world could come from the outages across India -- where many U.S. companies outsource back-office operations including customer service call centers.
The outage also raised questions about the system's vulnerability. A Gulf analyst called it a "wake-up call" while an analyst in London cautioned that no one, including the West, was immune to such disruptions.
They could have a "massive impact on businesses," said Alex Burmaster, from Nielsen Online in London, and ordinary people "probably couldn't imagine" a life without the Internet.
Large-scale disruptions are rare but not unknown. East Asia suffered nearly two months of outages and slow service after an earthquake damaged undersea cables near Taiwan in December 2006. That repair operation also was hampered by bad weather.
So far, most governments in the region appeared to be operating normally, apparently because they had switched to backup satellite systems. However, the outages had caused slowdown in traffic on Dubai's stock exchange Wednesday.
In India, major outsourcing firms, such as Infosys and Wipro, and U.S. companies with significant back-office and research and development operations in India, such as IBM and Intel, said...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
The Doc.Com Revolution Begins
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58123
Sit down, plug yourself in, look at the screen. The virtual
doctor will see you now.
The future face of healthcare was unveiled yesterday, a virtual-
reality doctor's office in a box -- a dramatic breakthrough in
telemedicine, currently being trialled in a Scottish hospital, which
is set to revolutionize the delivery of healthcare.
Within the next few years the diagnostic booth could be fully
functioning and serving Scotland's remotest communities,
transforming the way that patients in the country's most isolated
areas can be assessed by both doctors and specialist consultants
without ever seeing each other face to face.
Using the latest advances in computer and medical technology,
doctors will be able to examine and diagnose the conditions of
patients living hundreds of miles away -- monitoring a patient's
heartbeat, their temperature, blood pressure, and carrying out a
number of detailed medical examinations without having to leave
their surgeries.
And eventually it is hoped that the virtual-reality surgeries
could be housed in dedicated booths available for use by the public
in community hospitals, community centers, and even supermarkets -
improving the triage assessments currently being made by the out-of-
hours NHS 24 service.
The system, known as "Health Presence", has been developed by the
leading American technology company Cisco and is being assessed in a
series of world-first patient trials at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in
partnership with the Scottish Center for Telehealth and NHS
Scotland.
Currently the system is being tested in a small room within the
accident and emergency center at the Royal Infirmary with the
"virtual-reality" doctor in a separate room only a few yards away.
The first fully fitted booth is expected to go on trial at a more
remote location later this year -- probably within a dedicated
medical facility in Aberdeen -- but eventually it is hoped that
hundreds of virtual-reality GP pods could be used to cover
the country .
Mr James Ferguson, an emergency consultant and a leading
specialist in telehealth,...
Thu, 31 Jan 08
Startup Snags LinkedIn Names, Email Addresses
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58121
Jim Ambras tried to keep his expectations reasonable. Ambras, a veteran of Web companies including search engine AltaVista, was preparing to unveil a company called NotchUp at the DEMO conference in Palm Desert, Calif. His goal was to have 1,000 people signed up in time for his Jan. 29 presentation at the annual showcase for new products and services. NotchUp takes a novel approach to online job search, matching potential employees who are willing to be paid for a job interview with companies willing to pay.
A week before taking the DEMO stage, NotchUp had attracted a meager 200 users. Pressure to add to those ranks was high in the runup to DEMO, the storied launchpad of such tech legends as the original PalmPilot and Salesforce.com. It didn't help that the company was only just emerging from so-called stealth mode, the phase when startups try to stay off the radar screen of potential copycats. The site is password protected, and the only way to join NotchUp was to get invited by a member. "Our goal was obviously too high," Ambras says.
So NotchUp came up with a quick, seemingly easy, way to boost its membership: enabling users to instantly recruit contacts from business social network LinkedIn. The membership drive underscores the benefits and pitfalls of doing business in an online arena where, with a few mouse clicks, a Web surfer can instantly share information, some of it unwanted, with scores of fellow Netizens. Fallout from the move has generated media buzz and lured investors' interest -- but it could also tarnish the company's reputation and incite a row with LinkedIn.
NotchUp had its membership "Aha" moment after a former colleague of Ambras' joined, then proceeded to invite 100 of his own friends. The new member complained at having to type in...
Wed, 30 Jan 08
Yahoo Plans 1,000 Layoffs, Sees Growth as Profits Fall
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58097
Yahoo said it will cut 1,000 jobs in February as it announced profits fell 23 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter.
It said Tuesday that net income for the quarter ended Dec. 31 fell to $206 million, or 15 cents a share, from $269 million, or 19 cents a share, for the year-ago period. Stock-based compensation and other expenses contributed to the decline. Operating income for the quarter fell 38 percent to $191 million from $308 million a year ago.
Revenues climbed 8 percent to $1.8 billion from $1.7 billion a year ago. Marketing services, which includes online advertising revenue, climbed 7 percent to $1.6 billion from $1.5 billion. And revenue from Web sites owned by Yahoo grew 23 percent as sales on affiliate sites rose 13 percent.
Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang said this is a pivotal time for the business, and the company has an opportunity to make investments that will help it capture a significant piece of the growing ad market and create long-term value for its shareholders.
"We are executing aggressively against Yahoo's three big strategic priorities and that hard work is starting to bear fruit, as evidenced by the 20 percent year-over-year growth in O&O marketing services we achieved in the fourth quarter," Yang said. "While we will continue to face headwinds this year, we believe that the moves we are making will help us exit 2008 stronger and more competitive and return to higher levels of operating cash flow growth in 2009."
Yahoo President Sue Drucker said the steps Yahoo has taken over the the past year represent fundamental changes to virtually every aspect of Yahoo's business. She expressed confidence that they will drive Yahoo's growth.
"Even as we increase investment in key areas of our business, we're making tough but necessary decisions to streamline...
Wed, 30 Jan 08
EBay Announces Incentives, But Sellers Want More
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58096
While a University of Maryland study reports eBay saved buyers $19 billion in 2007, the online auctioneer's PowerSellers want more savings.
EBay announced this week it would lower fees for listing items, raise minimum selling standards and offer its best sellers incentives and discounts.
On the heels of eBay CEO Meg Whitman's retirement announcement, John Donahoe, president and CEO-elect, announced the changes during his keynote address at the company's third annual eCommerce Forum.
"Consumers have more choices than ever, and they expect more when they shop online today," Donahoe said. "We're serious about making eBay easier and safer to shop."
EBay is making changes in three major seller areas: fee structure, seller incentives and standards, and feedback. The fee changes, which vary by country, aim to encourage sellers to list more items and use more pictures. Starting Feb. 20 in the U.S., eBay is reducing its fees to list items by 25 to 50 percent.
EBay is balancing that change by increasing the fees it charges when an item is sold. Sellers prefer this structure, eBay said, because it lowers their risk if an item doesn't sell. Donahoe said, "Put simply, we will make more of our money when sellers are successful."
The company is also eliminating fees in the U.S. for its Gallery option, which it expects will spur sellers to include more photos of the item for sale.
Coupled with the fee changes, eBay is shifting the way it works with sellers. The company said it is making its minimum standards more stringent for sellers, primarily to discourage behavior that causes buyer dissatisfaction, such as excessive shipping fees or not describing items accurately.
To this end, eBay will begin decreasing search exposure for the listings of sellers who have high rates of customer dissatisfaction. The company also...
Wed, 30 Jan 08
Valentine's E-Mails Ruin Lovin' Feeling
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58093
Two new computer worms are making their way through cyberspace,
using Valentine's Day messages to infiltrate the systems of
unwitting users. The self-replicating worms, dubbed Nuwar.OL and
Valentin.E, send copies of themselves to other computers and
drastically slow operating systems.
"Year after year, we see the appearance of several malware
strains that use Valentine's Day as bait to attract users," said
Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs Security, based in
Glendale. "This indicates that cyber-crooks are still reaping the
benefits of this technique and many people still fall into the
trap."
Nuwar.OL reaches computers by e-mail with subjects like "I Love
You Soo Much" or "Inside My Heart," according to PandaLabs. The text
of the e-mail includes a link to a Web site that downloads the
malicious software.
Valentin.E is similar, with subject lines like "Searching for
True Love" and an attached file called "friends4u."
If the targeted user opens the file, a copy of the worm will be
downloaded. The malicious code installs on the computer as a file
with the .scr extension. If the user runs it, Valentin.E shows a new
desktop background to trick the user, while it makes several copies
of itself on the computer. Finally, the worm sends out e-mails with
copies of itself from the infected computer to spread and infect
more users.
Corrons warned users not to open e-mails from unknown sources or
click to links included in e-mail messages, even from reliable
sources. Instead, type them in the address bar.
PandaLabs Security offers several free tools for scanning
computers for malware. You can use them from www.infectedornot.com.
Wed, 30 Jan 08
Voyager: LG's Second-Place Smartphone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58090
My problem with touch screens is they're not like buttons. They are, of course, much better looking than buttons, especially on cramped devices such as cell phones, but when I'm typing, be it on a computer keyboard or a handheld, I like the sensation of pressing something solid. Without that tactile feedback, I just don't feel my device and I are communicating.
LG Electronics seems to understand. The designers behind LG's Voyager VX10000 clearly took pains to make this touch-screen phone not only beautiful, but delightfully user-friendly. At $300 with a two-year Verizon contract, the Voyager is fairly pricey compared with most cell phones. But it's also more wallet-friendly than many BlackBerrys, Treos, and iPhones -- devices with higher-end features the Voyager also offers.
When you press Voyager's external touch screen, which measures nearly 3 in. diagonally, it vibrates slightly beneath your finger. This reaction from LG's VibeTouch technology lets you know the device has registered your tap in the same way you've been conditioned to expect from any keyboard or keypad -- by feel. It's a little thing. But for high-end phones, it's the little things that matter.
Voyager has plenty of features that make it easy for push-button people to join the minimalist, mobile future. In particular, this device opens like a clam to reveal a pearl of a keyboard. This full QWERTY board's keys are big and not jammed together. There's also a mini-mouse for scrolling and clicking on the large inner screen's commands and links.
The keyboard is particularly important in this device because the touch screen has some frustrating failings. For starters, it doesn't share the multi-touch capability of Apple's iPhone, which lets you swipe a finger across the screen to see the other side of a Web page or the lower half of...
Fri, 25 Jan 08
Virus Found in Some Best Buy Digital Frames
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58040
You can add to the growing list of things you need to do to keep your computer safe -- scan the digital picture frame.
Best Buy has confirmed that some units of its Insignia 10.4-inch Digital Picture Frame, purchased over the holidays, had a computer virus. Last weekend, the retailer noted an advisory from its private label, Insignia, which stated that "a limited number" of the frames, model number NS-DPF-10A, were "contaminated with a computer virus during the manufacturing process."
According to news reports, Best Buy is not recalling the frames, but it has pulled the remaining units. It said this was the only Insignia frame product affected, and the product has been discontinued.
The company said that once it was informed of the contamination, it "immediately" withdrew the product from stores and Web sites "as a precautionary measure to protect our customers." Best Buy did note that "some affected units" were purchased from either its brick-and-mortar stores or from the retailer's Web site before the virus was detected.
Best Buy reportedly learned of the infection after customer complaints, but there is no indication of how the virus was acquired during manufacturing, or what the consequences may have been for customers.
The company pointed out that the virus can only get to a computer if the digital frame is connected. The frames connect to PCs as well as cameras so photos can be downloaded for display. But Best Buy said cameras, USB drives and memory cards cannot be infected by the virus.
Even if a consumer does attach a contaminated frame to a computer via a USB cable, Best Buy said, any up-to-date antivirus software, such as Norton, McAfee or Trend Micro, should be able to detect and remove the infection. It added that the units contained "an older virus...
Fri, 25 Jan 08
Gates Calls for 'Creative Capitalism,' Pledges Farmer Aid
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58039
Bill Gates, who will formally resign from Microsoft later this year, took the spotlight at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday as he pledged $306 million to improve agriculture in Africa.
In announcing the grants, Gates called on wealthy companies to engage in "creative capitalism."
"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said. "The challenge here is to design a system including profit and recognition to do more for the poor."
Gates told the summit, "Thirty years, 20 years, 10 years ago, my focus was totally on how the magic of software could change the world." But he said technology innovation is not enough to solve problems and change lives in the third world. "If we are going to have a serious chance of changing their lives, we will need another level of innovation. Not just technology innovation -- we need system innovation."
Noting that capitalism tends to benefit people in "inverse proportion to their need," he offered a refinement of the capitalist model, one that reflects the human desire to help others as well as the drive to make money. In the current schema, wealthy nations donate money to poor countries, but there's never enough money to meet the need.
"Such a system would have a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives for those who don't fully benefit from market forces. To make the system sustainable, we need to use profit incentives whenever we can," he said.
Since profits are hard to come by when serving the very poor, Gates suggested another "market-based incentive" -- recognition. Because recognition for good work attracts customers and employees, it "triggers a market-based reward for good behavior," he said.
Gates described...
Fri, 25 Jan 08
Google's Big Mobile Move in Japan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58030
Google is on a roll in Japan. On Thursday, the 800-pound gorilla of Internet search joined NTT DoCoMo onstage to announce plans to wed elements of Google's search technology and other online services with the No. 1 Japanese wireless operator's i-mode mobile Net service. The deal is the second major partnership with a carrier since the Mountain View [Calif.] company formally launched its Google Mobile services in Japan with KDDI back in July 2006.
By cozying up to the two carriers, which combined account for 80 percent of Japan's 100 million cell-phone users, Google improves its chances of being the leader in mobile search. Though not everyone in Japan has a handset that works on the fast third-generation, or 3G, wireless broadband airwaves, more than 70 million DoCoMo and KDDI subscribers do.
It's obvious Google's brain trust isn't just trying to rack up more search queries and e-mail traffic. Ultimately, they want a huge audience of cell-phone users they can target with online advertising relating to their searches. There's lots of earnings potential in that: Worldwide mobile-search ad revenues could top $1.1 billion by 2010, growing seventeenfold from around $63 million last year, according to researcher eMarketer's estimates.
And Japan will be a key early battleground. Consumers in Japan are just as likely to surf the Net from a cell phone while riding a train as they are from a PC on a desk at home. DoCoMo Executive Vice President Kiyoyuki Tsujimura told journalists one of the goals of the tie-up with Google was to boost DoCoMo's shared search-related ad revenues to $94 million "as soon as possible." [Executives from neither company would say how the bounty would be divvied up.]
Brace yourself for every e-mail, map and Web page to be clogged with ads, right? Not so fast. Google takes...
Fri, 25 Jan 08
Database Will Mine 9 Federal Sources to Assist Police
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58027
A massive new database program that culls information from more than nine federal sources will help law-enforcement agents link possible terrorists or other suspected criminals with associates whose records are in the system, federal officials say.
The program's goal is to close gaps in information-sharing identified in The 9/11 Commission Report, which chided law enforcement for failing to piece together the hijackers' terrorist cell. Critics say it raises privacy and accuracy concerns.
"The system will make connections for us," says Jason Henry, who runs the information-sharing program at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Other federal, state and local law enforcement will be able to access the ICE Pattern Analysis and Information Collection System, dubbed "ICEPIC." It will collect information from databases that track foreign students, visitors and immigrants as well as criminals and suspected terrorists.
Among the databases is the government's terrorist watch list. More than 15,000 people have appealed to have their names taken off that list, saying it contains incomplete or inaccurate information.
ICE declined to identify all the databases "because that becomes a road map for a terrorist or a member of a criminal organization," Henry said.
Investigators previously searched 10 to 15 databases manually for people who met "suspicious criteria," a process that could take as long as three days per person, Henry said.
Civil liberties and privacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union say they worry investigators will arrest innocent people based on information from flawed databases.
"The difficulty is if you have bad data," ACLU attorney Tim Sparapani said. "Then that bad data migrates from one database to another database. You end up with all sorts of innocent people getting stopped or tagged as being suspicious."
James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy & Technology said if the agency builds in safeguards to protect innocent people, the data can be...
Thu, 24 Jan 08
Yahoo Considers Online Music Service
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58022
Yahoo is in early discussions with major record labels about offering unprotected MP3s either for sale or for free as part of an ad-supported service, two record company executives familiar with the talks said Wednesday.
The talks, held as recently as last month, were preliminary because Yahoo is still working out the details, said the executives, who requested anonymity because the discussions were confidential.
Yahoo hopes to launch the service this year, they said.
Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI Group PLC have in recent months begun licensing their music for sale as MP3 files online through retailers like Amazon.com.
Unlike music files that come with copy protections embedded, MP3 files are compatible with most portable music devices, including Apple Inc.'s market-leading iPod media players, Microsoft Corp.'s Zune and mobile phones that play music.
Carrie Davis, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, said the company has often said it wants to offer music without copy protections and the subject has been part of its ongoing talks with record labels.
But Davis denied that discussions with record labels on the matter have stepped up in recent weeks or that anything is imminent.
Representatives for the labels declined to comment.
Yahoo offers free streaming audio, music videos and Web radio. It also operates a music subscription service and a premium Internet radio service.
The company's management said last fall it had begun to de-emphasize its subscription model in favor of an advertising-supported music service. Yahoo also expanded its online music pages by adding song lyrics.
The Internet pioneer recently announced plans for a multiyear restructuring plan that calls for the elimination of some of its existing areas of business.
Last fall, the company inked a licensing deal for user-created video content with Sony BMG that calls for the record company to receive a share of advertising...
Thu, 24 Jan 08
Digital Sales Up, But Global Music Drags Down
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58021
The world music market fell 10 percent in 2007, faster than in 2006, but digital music sales continued to soar, rising 40 percent, according to figures released by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The association represents the recording industry in 75 countries.
The strong global sales of digital content might be good news for Apple, the dominant purveyor of online music, but it wasn't enough to offset the rapid fall in CD sales, the IFPI said.
Online sales now account for 15 percent of the global market, the IPFI said, up from 10 percent a year ago and zero in 2003. Even more impressive, digital sales make up 30 percent of the U.S. market.
"Apple is clearly one of the main beneficiaries of this trend. But piracy is clearly still rampant and has had an effect on CD sales," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies.
The industry responded to the numbers by focusing on piracy, as it has since P2P (peer-to-peer) networking first appeared with Napster a decade ago. The latest strategy is to try to defeat piracy at the network level by calling on Internet service providers to take action against customers who repeatedly violate the law.
The industry was encouraged recently when French President Nicolas Sarkozy moved to block Web access to frequent illegal downloaders.
"It is hard to persuade anyone to be a pioneer, but what we have with the French government is a very energetic government understanding how important the French music industry is to French business and culture," IFPI Chief Executive John Kennedy told Reuters. "That leadership shows that it's not as dreadful or as problematic as people think."
And in Belgium, a court ordered a service provider to block illegal file sharing; that decision is on appeal. In the United States, AT&T...
Thu, 24 Jan 08
eBay Policies May Change with New CEO
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58010
Wednesday marked the beginning of the end of an eBay era. The online auctioneer announced that Meg Whitman will step down as president and CEO on March 31. She will remain on the company's board of directors and John Donahoe will become president and CEO.
Whitman joined eBay in March 1998. At the time, eBay was a U.S.-only, auction-based trading site with 500,000 registered users, 30 employees, and $4.7 million in revenue. Today, the company has hundreds of millions of users worldwide, more than 15,000 employees, and nearly $7.7 billion in revenue.
Whitman led eBay to become one of the fastest-growing companies in history. Over the last 10 years, she has built a portfolio of brands and a thriving business that enables millions of people to trade, pay and communicate online.
"Meg's passion for all things eBay changed the world," said Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay and chairman of the board. "With humor, smarts and unflappable determination, Meg took a small, barely known online auction site and helped it become an integral part of our lives. We're all enormously grateful that Meg dedicated herself to stewarding eBay through its 10 most formative years."
eBay's board of directors voted unanimously to make Donahoe president and CEO. Donahoe came to eBay in February 2005 from Bain & Company, where he had served as worldwide managing director since 1999.
For nearly three years, Donahoe has been president of eBay Marketplaces, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the company's global revenues. In this role, Donahoe has been responsible for the growth of eBay and its other e-commerce businesses around the world, and during the time he has managed this business unit, both revenues and profits doubled.
"During the last three years, John and I have worked very closely together to arrive at this day,...
Thu, 24 Jan 08
New IBM Tools Enhance Mashups, Social Networking
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58009
Several Web 2.0 tools unveiled by IBM have advanced the growing options for business-based social networking and data mashups.
On Wednesday at the Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla., the company showed its Lotus Mashups application and updated versions of Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr 8.1.
First previewed last fall, Lotus Mashups allows nontechnical users to "mashup," or combine, various data in ad hoc ways. Using a browser, out-of-the-box widgets, a catalog for finding and sharing widgets and mashups, and a builder for accessing enterprise systems, Lotus Mashups enables what the company described as visualizations that can blend enterprise and Web-based data "to solve real business problems."
"We're seeing a real trend happening," said Oliver Young, an analyst with industry research firm Forrester. He noted that Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies have also been releasing mashup tools for consumers and businesses, and now "a lot of companies are seeing value in mashups."
The value, Young said, is in enabling knowledge workers to create their own dashboards, where "they can see lots of different data sources in one view." Lotus Mashups is interesting, he said, in that it enables the user to connect the portlets (views), so that data changes in one portlet affect the data in another.
For many people, mashups mean data overlays on maps, such as all the pizza shops in your city overlaid on a Google map. Young noted that this is only one type of mashup, and that the term means taking multiple data sources and combining them so they can be viewed at the same time.
Eventually, he predicted, we're going to see mashup tools widely adopted, because "the business value is tremendous," but he expects that won't happen for at least a year.
Young pointed out that social-networking tools for business, such as Lotus Connections,...
Thu, 24 Jan 08
AT&T to Raise Internet Speeds
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=58003
HOUSTON -- AT&T announced Wednesday that it will boost Internet speeds for customers of its phone, television and Internet service, and will start offering free access to the company's 10,000 wireless hot spots to nearly all of its broadband customers.
Starting next month, for $55 a month as part of a bundle that includes its U-verse TV service, customers will have a 10 megabit-per-second download option. The speed increase better positions AT&T in its ongoing battle with cable companies, which have made similar announcements recently, independent telecommunications industry analyst Jeff Kagan said.
"The speeds customers are using online are getting faster and faster," Kagan said.
As of October, U-verse was available to about 400,000 homes in the Houston area. AT&T has added more to its footprint but declined to give updated numbers. Earlier this year, the company began marketing standalone DSL Internet access, but the new 10 Mbps service is not offered without the U-Verse package.
As traditional phone companies have started offering television service, and cable companies have added phone service, the two sides are racing to sign up customers for so-called "triple play" bundles of phone, TV and Internet.
Comcast, which has about 750,000 customers as the cable provider for most of the Houston area, and AT&T offer various service tiers with different pricing. The cable company's closest comparison to AT&T's new offer is 8 Mbps for $60 a month. With Comcast's PowerBoost feature, which increases speeds when the network isn't busy, speeds can reach 16 Mbps.
"We welcome competition, but the fact is we deliver more speed to more customers at a better value than any other company in the U.S.," Comcast spokesman Michael Bybee said.
Comcast also is on the verge of rolling out new wideband service over the next two years with speeds of 100 Mbps, he said.
"The high-speed connections are not...
Thu, 24 Jan 08
Book Probes Web as Moneymaking 'Machine'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57995
Could wiki-wisdom be wrong? Maybe the Internet isn't about freedom, information and community. Maybe it's really about entrepreneurs making money. And could our frantic clicking simply be an attempt to distract ourselves from the limits of being mortal? Inescapable stuff like loneliness, sexual rejection and death?
In his new book, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, cultural critic Lee Siegel casts an aggressively contrarian eye at some of the mythology surrounding the Web. The author of two earlier books, he accepts that the Web makes life marvelously convenient. And he's not a Luddite, living off the power grid. The former art critic for Slate.com, Siegel was suspended from The New Republic for posting anonymously about his own articles on the magazine's Web site. (He explains his actions.)
The best aspect of this well-argued book is the pugnacious Siegel's willingness to be labeled a change-hating elitist by pointing out certain unpleasant realities. Yes, there are more than 70 million blogs in existence today. But, he writes, "Not everyone has something meaningful to say. Few people have anything original to say. Only a handful of people know how to write well."
And there's more: Self-expression isn't art. Online anonymity allows people to behave in destructive ways, with the Web resembling a cruel digital high-school slam book obsessed with popularity. He also argues that living online lets people become more isolated and narcissistic, less engaged with messy reality and the satisfactions of actual human contact. The Web also allows instant and unprecedented access to pornography.
Others have raised these issues. What makes Siegel's book so thought-provoking is the way he delineates the economic forces behind the Web. Its visionaries are businesspeople. They want to make money. That's fine.
But Siegel exhorts readers to recognize that the Web is primarily about creating consumers,...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
Where's Your Kid? Check the GPS
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57983
Though I try to keep close tabs on my family, it's sometimes hard to know exactly where they are when. For example, when my daughter is on a play date or school trip, or my husband is traveling for work. For those who find moments like these unsettling, there are a growing number of services and devices that use satellite GPS signals and wireless networks to track the exact locations of your loved ones more closely. Many of these products are being integrated with cell phones, while others are stand-alone tracking devices.
One of these new devices, the AnyTrack GPS-100, is a lightweight pager-like device that fits in the palm of your hand. AnyTrack says the $229 device is designed to track people, pets, packages, cars, boats and other items. My family agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to let me track them over a recent weekend.
On Friday afternoon, my daughter was invited to play at a friend's house and to then go to Lovejoy's Tea Room in San Francisco for hot chocolate, scones and jelly sandwiches. The mother supervising the outing -- someone I trust implicitly -- said it was OK to track the play date. Getting started was incredibly simple. I just charged the AnyTrack GPS-100 by plugging it in, and it was ready to go after several hours. In addition to satellite signals, AnyTrack uses cellular signals to calculate locations so the device can be tracked indoors as well.
When I logged onto www.anytrack.net, the site displayed the map I would use to track where the device was located -- or presumably located, that is. After pressing the "locate now" button, the map showed the device to be located about a mile from my home in San Francisco. About half an hour later, the map finally placed the device...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
BlackBerry Gets Enhanced Communication Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57976
Looking to keep its position in an increasingly competitive landscape, Research in Motion (RIM) announced Tuesday new e-mail and other features for its popular BlackBerry device.
The company based in Waterloo, Ontario, said the new features, unveiled at the Lotusphere 2008 conference in Orlando, Fla., and scheduled for release throughout the first half of this year, will "enable organizations to increase mobility, productivity and return on investment." The features include enhanced messaging and collaboration, simpler management, enhanced security, and expanded application development support.
The features require updates to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and device software, and offer new capabilities for document downloading and editing, remote searching for messages, easier calendar lookup, HTML and rich-text e-mail, and advanced instant messaging. RIM has also announced that it will preview today a native application for providing access to Lotus Connections social software for businesses, offering the same access that is currently available on the desktop.
For documents in formats such as Microsoft's Word, PowerPoint and Excel, the integration of the DataViz Documents to Go software will enable editing on a BlackBerry smartphone. E-mail searching has been enhanced to allow users to search and retrieve messages from the server, even when they are no longer available on the smartphone.
With the new calendar functionality, users can check colleagues' availability before requesting a meeting. For instant communications, companies running IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Live Communications Server can have improved address-book integration, "click to call" functionality and more emoticon support.
New BlackBerry administration features include an enhanced Monitoring Service as part of the next release of the company's Enterprise Server. A new Web Desktop Manager simplifies software upgrades, the company said, by allowing users to install software on their computer and manage their device via a browser. In addition, software updates to the device can be handled...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
Apple 2Q Outlook Spooks Investors
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57975
As investors pummeled Apple Inc.'s stock over a disappointing financial outlook, a key question remained about the results: Just how badly will the company be hurt by slowing economic activity in the United States and fears of a recession?
Wall Street interpreted the Cupertino-based company's guidance for the current quarter, released after the market closed Tuesday, as a sign that weakening consumer spending will hurt Apple in 2008 and that even a hot company like Apple isn't immune from the broader economic pressures weighing on the stock market.
Apple executives noted, however, that the company's forecast for the fiscal second quarter calls for sales growth of 29 percent, which is faster than in previous years, even if it is slower than Wall Street was expecting. The company said that because of booming holiday sales, Apple notched the highest quarterly revenue and earnings in its history.
"Our business performed very well in the December quarter, and we remain very confident in our products and our strategy," said Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer.
Still, disappointed investors punished Apple, sending its shares down $17.71, or more than 11 percent, to $137.93 in after-hours trading Tuesday.
Apple's stock, seen as a refuge from the market's turmoil during the second half of 2007, has declined sharply, wiping out more than $40 billion in shareholder wealth since the end of December, when shares hit their 52-week high of $202.96.
Shareholders had hoped Apple's first-quarter results, which cover the last three months of the year, would be a high point in a market otherwise marred by bad news. Instead, the company became emblematic of Tuesday's broader market tumble, which saw the tech-laden Nasdaq composite index fall 2 percent.
Some analysts said fear about slowing consumer spending was overblown in response to Apple's results and the company may have been a victim of its...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
Symantec Reports Real Drive-by Pharming Attack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57972
According to Symantec, the first drive-by pharming attack has become reality. Symantec warned of the concept almost a year ago, and now has reported such an attack against a Mexican bank.
In a drive-by pharming attack, victims only have to view a web page or open an e-mail. Embedded malicious code could change the DNS (Domain Name System) settings on a victim's router. From that point on, Symantec reports, all future URL requests would be resolved by the attacker's DNS server, which means the attacker effectively controls the victim's Internet connection.
"At the time we described the attack concept, it was theoretical in the sense that we had not seen an example of it in the wild. That's no longer the case," said Symantec security expert Zulfikar Ramzan.
In one real-life variant that Symantec researchers observed, the attackers embedded the malicious code inside an e-mail that said it had an e-card waiting at the Web site gusanito.com.
However, the e-mail also contained an HTML IMG tag that resulted in an HTTP GET request being made to the victim's router. The GET request modified the router's DNS settings so that the URL for a popular Mexico-based banking site, as well as other related domains, were mapped to the attacker's Web site.
"Now, anyone who subsequently tried to go to this particular banking Web site -- one of the largest banks in Mexico -- using the same computer would be directed to the attacker's site instead," Ramzan said. "Anyone who transacted with this rogue site would have their credentials stolen."
Symantec said the first real-life instance of drive-by pharming was even more devastating than the researchers' original concept because the particular brand of router involved has a substantial vulnerability that makes the attack far more potent.
"In its original incarnation, the drive-by pharming...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
World of Warcraft Hits 10M Subscribers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57992
Blizzard Entertainment announced today that subscribers for World of Warcraft, its award-winning MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), have continued to climb, passing 10 million worldwide. Interest in the game has remained high in all regions, with thousands of new and returning players signing up through the holiday season.
World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia.
"It's very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We're always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we're looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead."
Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the best-selling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.
In addition to being the best-selling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month. Development is underway on World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which was unveiled at the company's BlizzCon gaming festival in August 2007.
World of Warcraft is currently available in seven languages, with a Russian version in development and scheduled for release later this year. In addition to North America and Europe, World of Warcraft is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
Apple's iPod Touch May be the Future for Mobile Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57990
Despite the hammering Apple's stock took because iPod sales did not meet analysts' expectations, its new iPod Touch may have a bright future.
iPod sales for Apple's year-end quarter totaled 22.1 million, below Wall Street's estimate of 24.7 million. Unit sales increased just 5 percent, which is practically flat compared to historical growth in iPod sales.
However, iPod revenue rose 17 percent to $4 billion, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said during the company's quarterly conference call Tuesday. The difference was largely due to higher prices for the iPod Touch, "the most expensive iPod we've introduced in some time," Oppenheimer noted.
If the iPod Touch is skewing revenue numbers that much, Apple must be racking up some substantial sales for the top-of-the-line model. Despite the name, it's clear the Touch is not an iPod in the traditional sense.
With Wi-Fi capability, a touch screen and the ability to browse the Web and run applications -- but no requirement that customers be locked into an exclusive carrier contract -- the iPod Touch is a multimedia-rich PDA (personal digital assistant).
"We view the iPod market as bigger than the market for simple music players," Oppenheimer said. "We believe one of the iPod's future directions is to become the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform."
"The iPod Touch is really just an iPhone without the AT&T requirements," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research. "That's a weakness as well as a strength, because there's no widely available Wi-Fi network you can just tap into."
As long as the iPod Touch is limited to Wi-Fi, it will have limited appeal, Sterling said. He added that while Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T may preclude offering a data plan from, for instance, Sprint, such a deal could make the iPod Touch a "ubiquitous mobile device."
"Touch is the iPhone...
Wed, 23 Jan 08
Microsoft Prepares To Push Windows Mobile for Phones
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57987
Microsoft is ready to expand its marketing for Windows Mobile. On Wednesday, the company said it has hired Todd Peters as corporate vice president of marketing for its Mobile Communications Business (MCB). Peters will be responsible for marketing Windows Mobile, as well as other mobility brand offerings.
Peters most recently was a vice president at the office-supply company Staples, responsible for brand management and all U.S. retail technology marketing. He was behind the development of the Staples "easy" brand concept that was instrumental in driving sales. It was also Peters' idea to create the Easy Button, which was sold through retail outlets to raise money for charities.
Before joining Staples, Peters spent six years at Intel, where he was responsible for setting global brand strategy. He developed the brand architecture for the Intel family of processors that helped upgrade the company's market image. Before Intel, Peters spent 11 years in advertising agencies, including Hal Riney & Partners in San Francisco, where he led the launch of Sprint's PCS service.
"Microsoft is gaining a real foothold with its mobile products and services in the consumer world," Peters said, adding that he is looking forward to helping make Windows Mobile a brand that people not only recognize, but that they seek out when choosing the phone that's right for them.
Avi Greengart, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis, declined to comment on the move. However, he did note some opportunities and weaknesses for Windows Mobile that Peters may address.
In terms of sales, Windows Mobile has been growing at a healthy clip. In terms of mindshare, however, Microsoft has been somewhat eclipsed by Apple and Google.
There's no question, Greengart said, that drawing more attention to the success that Microsoft has had will be the key to moving forward.
"Microsoft absolutely needs to keep...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
Yahoo's Biggest Purge in Seven Years
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57967
After seven months as chief executive, Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang has concluded hundreds of employees will have to be fired to help the slumping Internet icon recover from years of misguided management.
The Sunnyvale-based company's biggest purge since the dot-bust most likely will be announced next week, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The person asked not to be identified because the exact number of jobs to be cut is still under discussion.
Yang and his management team already have committed to jettisoning at least several hundred jobs to help boost Yahoo's profits and placate investors demanding more action to reverse a steep decline in the company's stock price.
Securities analysts are betting Yahoo will trim its 14,000-employee payroll by about 5 percent -- or 700 workers. If that many people are dumped, Yahoo could save about $100 million (EU69 million), JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan estimated in a Tuesday note.
Besides trimming Yahoo's expenses, job cuts could help buy Yang more time to carry out his strategy to re-establish Yahoo as a main entry point to the Internet and create a more compelling online advertising network.
Many investors had been questioning whether Yang was too emotionally attached to the company that he started in 1995 to make the tough decisions needed to turn it around, said Standard and Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler.
"A lot of what drives the market comes down to perception and, rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that Yahoo needs to be repaired," Kessler said. "To gain credibility, you need to make hard choices like this."
From Wall Street's perspective, the layoffs are long overdue. Through September, Yahoo generated just under $364,000 (EU251,138) per employee, well below an average of nearly $565,000 (EU389,816) per employee at six other major Internet companies, including Google Inc. and eBay Inc., Khan...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
EMC Offers Secure Online Backups
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57965
Companies such as Salesforce.com have been delivering software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for customer relationship management and other business needs for years. And while some I.T. professionals have been cautious about relying on such hosted applications, that could soon change.
On Tuesday, EMC announced EMC Fortress, described as a secure development platform, and its first application, an online backup service called MozyEnterprise. The release follows EMC's acquisition of Berkeley Data Systems last October.
"Our strategy is focused on bringing new software-as-a-service offerings to market, powered by EMC," said Tom Heiser, senior vice president and general manager of EMC's new SaaS unit.
EMC said MozyEnterprise automates secure online backup and recovery over the Internet for "consistent and reliable" offsite data backup.
The release indicates a "growing acceptance of software-as-a-service offerings," Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, said in a telephone interview. "Salesforce.com has turned the corner on the traditional reticence."
The cornerstones of SaaS adoption are expense and simplicity, King added. "Software as a service plays well where there's an enterprise-class product that's easier to use and more cost-effective than running the solution in-house," he said.
The timing of this product intersects with the rapidly expanding amount of storage available in employee laptops and desktops. "EMC really hit the note here," King said, "because business employees are storing more and more data on laptops than ever before."
Most businesses, King went on to say, realize that the "information being stored on employee laptops constitutes valuable corporate data and that adequate backup is important."
King expects MozyEnterprise to conquer lingering concerns about storing corporate data offsite. "There have been some issues around whether businesses are willing to store data in a data center with other businesses' information," King said. With MozyEnterprise, though, "not only is data encrypted on backup, it's also stored in an encrypted...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
New Mobile Phone Has a Foldable Screen
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57946
If mobile phones are getting too small for your fingers or eyes, a Dutch company called Polymer Vision has a unique solution. It announced a phone with a foldable screen that offers a display larger than the device itself.
Called Readius, the device has a five-inch, black-and-white display that unfolds and folds. The screen can display only 16 shades of gray, but the company says it is twice the surface area of the largest mobile-phone display. When closed, the device is the size of an average mobile phone.
Polymer Vision is a spinoff from electronics giant Philips, and the Readius will be available by the middle of this year. No price has been announced.
Polymer said the Readius introduces a "whole new mobile-phone category," combining the "'reading friendly' strengths of e-readers with the 'high mobility' features of mobile phones." The Readius can run for up to 30 hours on a single battery, is a HSDPA tri-band phone with standard POP3 and IMAP support for e-mail, and has microSD High Capacity storage.
Users do not want to deal with problems that result from the small device-versus-screen size tradeoff, said Polymer CEO Karl McGoldrick in a statement. Such devices have either small screens or are too bulky to carry in a pocket, he said.
To solve the problem, Philips spent years working on foldable displays. In 2002, after more than 10 years of research into what it called organic electronics, Philips announced the world's first flexible display. In 2004, Polymer, which was then part of Philips, announced the first rollable display that was as thin as paper. The first prototype of the Readius was presented in 2005.
Chris Hazelton, an analyst at industry research firm IDC, remembers when the prototype was announced. "It sounds like a very innovative device," he said, adding that he...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
Are IP Addresses Personal Information?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57941
IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said Monday.
Germany's data protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others comply with EU privacy law.
He told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP, or Internet protocol, address "then it has to be regarded as personal data."
His view differs from that of Google, which insists an IP address merely identifies the location of a computer, not who the individual user is -- something strictly true but which does not recognize that many people regularly use the same computer terminal and IP address.
Scharr acknowledged that IP addresses for a computer may not always be personal or linked to an individual. For example, some computers in Internet cafes or offices are used by several people.
But these exceptions have not stopped the emergence of a host of "whois" Internet sites that apply the general rule that typing in an IP address will generate a name for the person or company linked to it.
Treating IP addresses as personal information would have implications for how search engines record data.
Google led the pack by being the first last year to cut the time it stored search information to 18 months. It also reduced the time limit on the cookies that collect information on how people use the Internet from a default of 30 years to an automatic expiration in two years.
But a privacy advocate at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, said it was "absurd" for Google to claim that stripping out the...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
Microsoft Takes Virtual Step Forward
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57940
Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced several moves it says will help its business customers take advantage of a technology called virtualization, and in the process help the software maker catch up with VMware Inc., the frontrunner in that area.
Virtualization allows one physical computer to house multiple "virtual machines," each one acting like a separate computer with an operating system and all the software that runs on top of it.
For office workers, virtualization might mean that "their computer" is actually a virtual machine running on a server -- not the actual hardware on their desks -- and can be accessed from any work station. That, in turn, could make it easier for IT workers to install new applications across an entire company network or back up an individual's computer with all its settings, and would make losing a laptop much less disastrous. What's more, older hardware that would have been replaced can have a longer life connecting to virtual desktops housed on more powerful servers.
To help move the virtual desktop scenario forward, Microsoft said Monday it plans to acquire Calista Technologies Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based startup founded in 2006. Calista's technology makes logging on to a virtual desktop feel more like working on a physical Windows computer, Microsoft said. No financial details of the agreement were disclosed.
Microsoft also said it will expand an alliance with another virtual desktop computing company, Citrix Systems Inc., that will help their respective products work well together.
Redmond-based Microsoft also announced it will cut the cost of licensing Windows for use on virtual machines to $23 from $78 per year for its big business customers.
Reversing its previous policy, the company said all versions of Windows Vista, including the least expensive Vista Home Basic, can be virtualized.
Microsoft is set to launch the next generation of its...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
A Warm Welcome for Google's Android
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57936
Nikita Ivanov and his 14 employees are working on an application that would harness the processing power within millions of cell phones to create one big supercomputer. The idea is to enable companies and government agencies to exploit all the idle computing power in their employees' mobile phones and perhaps even handsets belonging to non-employees who have agreed to lease that spare capacity.
To create this "grid" computing application, Ivanov's startup firm has chosen a mobile software platform that doesn't yet run on a single commercially available phone. Rather than Windows Mobile or the Symbian operating system, GridGain is using Android, a platform spearheaded by Google that has drawn scores of software developers with its promise of flexibility to create unusual applications.
GridGain is one of thousands of Android-based projects in the works. Another would enable users to record and share audio tours of museums or galleries. One is a music player that can connect a cell-phone user with people who have similar musical tastes and happen to be nearby. All underscore the ways that developers hope to use Android to take phones in new directions with greater ease than today's prominent wireless platforms. To succeed, though, they, along with Google and its partners, will need to work some kinks out of the system.
It's telling that Android, first unveiled by the Google-led Open Handset Alliance in November, is spurring all this interest among developers even though no wireless carriers have definitively agreed to allow such handsets on their networks. Or that Android is still missing many key capabilities such as support for Bluetooth wireless connections to headsets and other devices.
Nearly 200 industry movers and shakers recently surveyed by Chetan Sharma Consulting said they believe Android-based mobiles won't make even a small dent during 2008 in the smartphone market, which...
Tue, 22 Jan 08
Apple's iPhone Gets Ready for Work
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57933
The iPhone is getting ready for work. On Monday, AT&T announced business plans for Apple's popular touch-screen device, and there are reports that IBM soon will announce Lotus Notes e-mail for the iPhone.
When the iPhone first was released in June, the criticisms leveled at it centered around its lack of support for enterprise requirements. For instance, anyone who was already a business customer of AT&T and wanted to get an iPhone had to get the consumer plan.
The new business plans, announced on AT&T's Web site, require a two-year commitment -- as does the consumer version -- either as a new service agreement or as a renewed agreement for existing customers.
Three plans are available: the Enterprise Data Plan for iPhone 200, the Enterprise Data Plan for iPhone 1500, and the Enterprise Data Plan for iPhone Unlimited. All three offer unlimited data access and visual voicemail in the U.S.
The plans differ in the number of short message service (SMS) communications that are allowed. The iPhone 200 plan, for instance, offers 200 SMS messages monthly for $45, the iPhone 1500 is $55, and the Unlimited plan is $65. There are also step-ups for global data plans, which cover 29 countries.
The next step toward welcoming the iPhone into corporate I.T. departments, according to an Associated Press report last week, could be an announcement from IBM that will come later this week. IBM reportedly will offer Lotus Notes e-mail for the iPhone, free to users with a current Lotus Web-access license, and $39 a year for new users.
"Right now," said Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, "the iPhone is still a consumer device." No matter what functionality or plans are added to it, he said, it has been designed to be the best entertainment...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
New Dell Blades Offer Management Tools
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57918
On Monday, Dell sharpened its blades, so to speak, with the launch of all-new PowerEdge M-Series blade servers.
Dell boasts 30 industry patents in its latest design that taps Dell Energy Smart technologies to help customers deal with environmental concerns in the data center.
The new M1000e blade enclosure sells for $5,999 and other blades start at $1,849.
According to Brad Anderson, senior vice president of the Dell Business Product Group, blade offerings have been long on promises and short on helping customers address the growing costs and complexity in their data centers.
"The PowerEdge M-Series delivers on those promises with unmatched energy efficiency, flexibility, performance and manageability," Anderson said in a statement. "It enables customers to achieve the computing performance they need while lowering their overall power consumption and reducing data center complexity and server sprawl."
Anderson's boasting is not all puffery if Dell's numbers hold up. The server maker reports its PowerEdge M-Series consumes up to 19 percent less power and achieves up to 25 percent better performance per watt than the Hewlett-Packard BladeSystem c-Class1.
Compared to the IBM BladeCenter H, the M-Series consumes 12 percent less energy and achieves up to 28 percent better performance per watt. The M-Series also provides lead-free configurations, delivering a "green IT" solution that aims to help customers minimize their environmental impact.
The PowerEdge M1000e, a 10U-sized enclosure, supports 16 blade servers. It is optimized for Dell's PowerEdge M600 and M605 blade servers and supports up to two quad-core Intel Xeon and quad-core AMD Opteron processors, respectively.
Dell's PowerEdge M-Series incorporates FlexIO switch technology, making it the only blade solution providing snap-in scalability all the way down to the switch interconnects. Dell said this feature helps protect and maximize a customer's server investment by eliminating the need for wasteful "rip-and-replace" upgrades.
"I wouldn't...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
HBO Goes Beyond TV with Downloads
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57916
For years, HBO has been saying it's not TV. Now, with reports that it will be offering downloads of many of its movies and shows, many viewers may not even watch the cable-channel's offerings on that device.
According to news reports, the pioneering pay-cable channel will launch HBO On Broadband on Tuesday with about 400 hours of downloadable movies and original TV series. The download service will be available only to HBO subscribers, and initially only to those in the Milwaukee or Green Bay, Wis., areas. There will be no extra charge for the service beyond the cable-channel subscription, and it will be marketed through cable companies.
Eric Kessler, HBO co-president, told news media that the new service will enhance the value of a subscription. In 2001, HBO offered a video-on-demand service for movies and original series, which the cable service has said helped retain subscribers. HBO On Demand reaches about one-third of HBO subscribers.
Some technological barriers for the download service may restrict its adoption. It will be PC-only, is not compatible with Apple's iPods, and cannot be offered to subscribers who receive HBO through satellite transmissions. Downloaded content cannot be transferred to another device, and the user has a four-week window in which to view the content.
But there are some added values as well. The download service will enable users to set their computers as they would a digital video recorder, including automatically downloading new movies or series episodes, and user accounts can be established for different family members. There is also parental control by rating, and viewers in the Eastern time zone will be able to watch a live feed of the service.
The service will require a separate application, which will be distributed to subscribers in Wisconsin via CD-ROMs from the Time Warner cable operator. The...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
Novell Suit Against Microsoft Cites Decline of WordPerfect
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57915
WordPerfect, a once-popular software program, is making something
of a comeback -- this time as Exhibit A in Novell Inc.'s
multibillion-dollar antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp.
The lawsuit is a byproduct of the U.S. government's landmark case
against Microsoft that was settled more than six years ago, after
the world's biggest software maker was declared an illegal
monopolist. A handful of other private suits against Microsoft still
await resolution, and no claim is bigger than Novell's.
Novell briefly owned WordPerfect in the mid-1990s and says
Microsoft's anti-competitive tactics undermined the product.
WordPerfect's share of the word-processing market fell to less than
10 percent in 1996 from almost 50 percent in 1990.
While Novell no longer owns WordPerfect, it is pursuing the
lawsuit in what experts say is a long-shot bid for a big windfall.
The company, whose revenue has fallen 18 percent in the past five
years, is struggling to develop its business as a seller of Linux
operating system software.
"Novell felt they had a lottery ticket they didn't want to rip up
until they knew how much it was worth," said Bill Whyman, head of
technology research for International Strategy and Investment, a
Washington-based investment advice firm.
Microsoft asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week to quash the
lawsuit.
In the aftermath of the federal antitrust suit, Microsoft has
paid almost $5 billion to settle claims it damaged competitors such
as Sun Microsystems Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and
RealNetworks Inc. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., also agreed to
issue more than $2.7 billion in vouchers for software to end claims
it overcharged consumers for the Windows operating system that runs
95 percent of the world's personal computers.
Microsoft says Novell's claims, filed in 2004, lack merit because
the company was neither a competitor nor customer in the operating-
software market when it owned WordPerfect.
Novell, based in Waltham, Mass., doesn't comment on pending
litigation, said John Dragoon, a senior vice president for
marketing.
While the government suit against Microsoft in the United States
was...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU Tries To Get Its Members Together Online
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57910
Once a year, Kresimir Alic walks to one of 50 stationery stores in Zagreb where Croatians can buy the forms needed to file their income-tax returns.
Two years ago, the Croatian Finance Ministry updated its Web site to let citizens download spreadsheets to calculate their taxes. But taxpayers like Alic, a 31-year-old research analyst, still cannot download all the necessary forms or file a return online.
"We could really use an online filing system," said Alic, who works for International Data Corp., a research company.
"EGoverment options have improved over the last two years, but as is the case in most Eastern European countries, there is still a long way to go."
A decade after some of the first government Web sites went live, the quality of eGovernment in Europe varies greatly, experts say, with some countries, like Sweden and Denmark, already providing many services to citizens and businesses online, while others, especially in southeastern Europe, are still creating Internet portals.
But regardless of the level of national wealth or political commitment, one problem still affects nearly every European eGovernment initiative, experts say: The sites built by the governments tend to use different technical and organizational standards and usually cannot communicate with each other.
Part of the problem is the patchwork of software standards, a result of competition between proprietary software makers like Microsoft and makers of open-source software, which some EU governments are beginning to use to avoid reliance on a single supplier.
Software vendors spend considerable time and money courting government clients. Microsoft, for example, is holding a two-day seminar for European government executives in Berlin, beginning Tuesday. The keynote speeches Wednesday will be delivered by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
But often, the obstacles to seamless eGovernment, experts say, are not with software but are more basic. For example, governments...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
Oracle, Sun Deals Muddle Middleware Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57908
The tech world is still buzzing about announcements by Sun Microsystems that it will acquire MySQL AB and by Oracle that it will acquire BEA Systems. The deals muddle the middleware market, according to some analysts.
Sun's acquisition is front and center, and Sun believes it has two strategic advantages. First, it accelerates the company's position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database market. Second, it gives Sun a stake in the popular LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/Python/PHP) open-source software stack.
"MySQL's employees and culture, along with its near ubiquity across the Web, make it an ideal fit with Sun's open approach to network innovation," said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun CEO and president. "And most importantly, this announcement boosts our investments into the communities at the heart of innovation on the Internet and of enterprises that rely on technology as a competitive weapon."
With millions of global deployments, including Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile, Sun is confident MySQL will bring synergies that will change the software industry by driving new adoptions of MySQL's open-source database in more traditional applications and enterprises. Sun is betting that integrating MySQL into its offerings will extend the commercial appeal of the open-source database.
MySQL is already widely deployed across all major computer operating systems, hardware vendors, geographies, industries and applications. More than 100 million copies of MySQL's high-performance database have been downloaded, and an additional 50,000 copies are downloaded daily.
According to Oracle, the addition of BEA's products and technology will significantly enhance Oracle's Fusion middleware software suite. By acquiring BEA assets, including its WebLogic application server products, Oracle looks to enhance its position as a provider of unified middleware solutions for enterprise data centers.
Anyone who thought 2007 was the high-water mark in IT acquisitions and industry consolidation may...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
Vendors Hope To Extend Adobe's AIR Bridge
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57840
Vendors are preparing wares designed to capitalize on the arrival of Adobe's AIR system that builds a bridge between online and offline applications.
Supporters say AIR, expected to arrive in the spring, will provide a flexible working platform that takes advantage of collaborative Web capabilities when connectivity is available, while letting work continue when it is not. Other advantages are the ability to have rich-media capabilities and scope for very small applications that can be regularly updated.
The attractions of AIR have led to firms from eBay to AOL, Nasdaq and Nickelodeon developing applications. Enterprise software developers including Business Objects also plan to support AIR.
U.S. startup Instacoll is preparing an AIR-based suite of productivity applications that can be accessed from users' desktops or via the Web.
Instacoll chief executive Sumanth Raghavendran said he envisages smart Web-enabled clients that allow users to seamlessly switch between the desktop and browser versions while automatically taking care of synchronisation and version-control aspects without requiring any manual actions.
"We see our AIR app as providing an alternative to users who want to collaborate from the desktop, running any OS, and use the app in offline mode without requiring any Microsoft software," he said.
Raghavendran added that the AIR suite will also provide improved usability through capabilities that would not be possible within a browser, such as access to the local file system, clipboard support and file drag-and-drop.
Much of AIR's success will depend on Adobe's ability to distribute the AIR runtime very widely, as it has done with Acrobat readers and Flash players.
"We are counting on Adobe's proven record of being able to push out their runtimes to a ubiquitous level," said Raghavendran.
Gartner analyst Toby Bell said, "Given the investment by Adobe in its development and promotion, I would have to bet on strong initial interest from the developer community. Enterprises...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
Utilities at Risk for Cyber Attacks, CIA Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57924
The nation's utilities are at risk for cyber attack, the CIA's top cybersecurity expert, Tom Donahue, told a gathering of utility security experts, The Washington Post reported this weekend. Attackers have hacked into utility companies' computer systems overseas, in one case causing a power outage that affected multiple cities.
"We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet," Donahue said at a trade conference in New Orleans. "We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of the attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge." The hackers are using the attacks to demand money from utilities.
Security experts said the CIA's acknowledgement of the problem indicates how seriously they are taking it. CIA policy had been not to disclose such things. "The CIA wouldn't have changed its policy on disclosure if it wasn't important," Alan Paller, research director at the SANS Institute, told the Post. "Donahue wouldn't have said it publicly if he didn't think the threat was very large and that companies needed to fix things right now."
"These statements of threats and risks to the nation's infrastructure are not
new," Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Network Security, said in an e-mail. "In private meetings with the CIA and FBI, information-security personnel have heard time and time again that the nation's utility systems are at risk and are a likely target by cyber attackers."
The key concern with utility security is centered on so-called SCADA devices, Storms said. A SCADA system is a computer that monitors real-time controls for utility systems. "These are the computers that acquire data and control the physical workings of damns, power plants, water-treatment systems and almost every modern manufacturing plant," Storms explained.
The problem is that utilities aren't applying best-practices network security to these highly networked...
Mon, 21 Jan 08
Does Google Really Want To Buy Prime Spectrum?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57923
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission will auction off what industry observers call the "sweet spot" of the wireless spectrum -- the 700-MHz block formerly occupied by television broadcasters. Among the bidders are some 214 companies, including Verizon, AT&T and, most famously, Google.
Since Google announced last year that it intended to participate in the auction -- which the FCC estimates will rake in about $10 billion -- technology watchers have speculated about what Google would do with the choice spectrum. Would it really compete directly with the cell-phone carriers? Partner with a carrier? Or use it to blanket the nation with wireless Internet?
The latest speculation comes from Jeff Lindsay, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein, who wrote in a research note over the weekend that Google may be "bidding to lose" the auction. He noted that with estimates of $10 billion for the auction and $5 billion a year to build a network, plus the fact that running a wireless network would be a radically different business, it may be too much for Google. Thus, he said, Google may be participating mostly to push the issue of openness.
Other observers disagree. "They're as serious as anybody," said Mark Gibson, senior director of operations at spectrum consultancy Comsearch, in a telephone interview. "Most of us don't believe they'll build the network themselves; they'll partner with a provider who's not participating, such as T-Mobile."
In any case, the auction price may be overstated, Gibson said. With the collapse of Frontline Wireless and its plan for a universal public-safety network, some observers think the FCC won't get $10 billion.
Google's participation in the auction is intriguing because of the company's commitment to open networks. Google pushed the FCC to adopt open-access rules that were weaker than Google proposed, but strong enough to generate opposition...
Fri, 18 Jan 08
Sprint Nextel Cuts 4,000 Jobs, Closes 125 Stores
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57901
As part of its effort to turn its fortunes around, wireless phone company Sprint Nextel announced today that it will "streamline its business" by cutting 4,000 jobs and closing 8 percent of its stores.
The company, third among U.S. mobile-phone services, has been battling a continual loss of subscribers.
In addition to the cuts in company positions, which include both management and non-management positions, Sprint Nextel will reduce its utilization of outsourced services and contractors, and eliminate more than 4,000 third-party distribution points out of a total of 20,000. The 8 percent reduction in stores is about 125 company-owned retail locations, out of a total of nearly 1,400.
The employee reductions are expected to be completed in the first half of this year. Employees will be offered a voluntary separation plan, with separation pay and outplacement services.
The company expects the cutbacks to save as much as $800 million through the end of this year. The cost-cutting measures are intended to reduce the company's losses, even as it reported a net loss of 683,000 post-paid subscribers, considerably more than observers had predicted. The company also has had a variety of customer-service woes and bad press.
In the summer, for instance, the company came up with a unique way to handle customers who made too many calls to customer support -- it fired them. At the end of June, it sent letters to about 1,000 subscribers, saying their service had been terminated because of the number of inquiries they made to customer service.
Sean Ryan, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said this belt-tightening "has been a long time coming." He added that Sprint Nextel had issues of customer service and network quality that were causing it to lose customers while its competitors were adding them.
Bill Ho, an analyst...
Fri, 18 Jan 08
Stocks Rise After Strong Outlook from IBM
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57882
Wall Street rose sharply Friday as a strong outlook from IBM encouraged investors to buy back into stocks after their huge drop this week.
The market remains extremely skittish, however. The Dow, having suffered its worst three-day plunge in over five years, has fallen to levels not seen since last March.
Some companies are weathering the economic slowdown well -- like International Business Machines Corp., which told Wall Street late Thursday to raise its 2008 profit estimates for the tech company, and General Electric Co., which posted a fourth-quarter profit rise Friday.
But others are struggling. Washington Mutual Inc. reported a steep loss late Thursday for the fourth quarter, just as Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch did earlier in the week. With the banking industry trying to fix its shrinking portfolios and preparing for more distress in consumer debt, the economy may only have the government to fall back on.
Federal Reserve monetary policymakers meet Jan. 29-30, and the market widely expects them to lower the key interest rate, perhaps by a half-point. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said Friday that more rate cuts are "quite possible."
And at 11:50 a.m. EST (1650 GMT), President George W. Bush is expected to speak on the U.S. economy and discuss a plan to stimulate the economy through tax rebates and other strategies. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday on NBC's "Today" show he was confident a temporary stimulus package can be agreed upon quickly.
In the first hour of trading, the Dow shot up 122.34, or 1.01 percent, to 12,281.55.
Broader stock indicators also rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 10.44, or 0.78 percent, to 1,343.69, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 19.65, or 0.84 percent, to 2,366.55.
Government bonds fell as stocks rallied. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite...
Fri, 18 Jan 08
Europe Might Cut Cost of Mobile Data
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57878
Europeans are paying high prices to send cell-phone text messages or use mobile Internet services outside their own country, the European Union's telecoms chief said Thursday, just months after the EU capped roaming charges for calls.
The charges that tourists and traveling executives pay for making cell-phone calls outside their home countries have dropped by as much as 60 percent since the European Commission capped fees last September.
But no such price limit exists for the 202 billion text messages that were sent in western Europe last year, according to research firm Gartner, nor for business travelers who check e-mail on a BlackBerry from a foreign airport.
EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said she was concerned about the high level and wide range of prices for text messages and data roaming listed in a report from the European Regulators Group, which collected data from 150 European operators from April to September last year.
"We will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008," she said.
These words are similar to the early warnings she gave phone companies to reduce their call fees, saying their roaming charges for voice calls were unjustifiably high and discouraged people from using their phones when they crossed the border.
Citing telecom firms' refusal to budge, she eventually won EU government and European Parliament backing to introduce a Sept. 1 ban on charging more than 49 euro cents (67 U.S. cents) a minute for making calls, and 24 euro cents (32 U.S. cents) for receiving calls, outside travelers' home countries.
The EU price ceilings will drop further by 2009.
Before the EU price cap, a four-minute call from France across the border to Germany would cost a traveler 4 euros ($5.92) even though a similar call made within France over a much longer distance could cost just a few cents.
Telecom...
Fri, 18 Jan 08
UK Wants To Ban Extremist Content from Web
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57877
Britain's top law-and-order official wants extremist content off the Web, saying Thursday she intends to deny Islamist ideologues the use of a key recruitment tool.
But Internet service providers and experts say they could be accused of corporate censorship and face a spate of lawsuits if they carry out any government order to aggressively police the Internet.
British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, giving the keynote speech at a conference on radicalization and political violence, said "the Internet is not a no-go area for government." She compared her government's plan to counter extremism on the Internet to its long-standing campaign against pedophiles and child pornography online.
"If we are ready and willing to take action to stop the grooming of vulnerable young people on social-networking sites, then I believe we should also take action against those who groom vulnerable people for the purposes of violent extremism.
"Where there is illegal material on the Net, I want it removed," she said.
But how? And who would do the removing? Smith did not go into details, saying only that she was working closely with the communications industry.
Service providers, for their part, were not enthusiastic.
Britain's Internet Service Provider Association, which represents major service providers such as BT Group PLC and the U.K. arms of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and Yahoo Inc., said the most troublesome Web sites were hosted abroad, beyond the government's legal reach in any case.
And even if sites suspected of inciting terror were hosted in Britain, the ISPA said its members had neither the competence nor the desire to rule on whether a particular site was illegal.
Attempts to do so, the group said, would amount to corporate censorship and would subject service providers to lawsuits and accusations of breaking free-speech laws.
Unlike the case with child pornography, which is often easily recognizable by sight, policing terror-related Web...
Fri, 18 Jan 08
Nintendo Tops Game Sales in 2007
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57875
Fueled by the success of Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Microsoft's "Halo 3," more video games were sold in the U.S. in 2007 than in any other year, with retail sales hitting $17.94 billion, according to the NPD Group.
The market researcher said total video game sales grew 43 percent, up from $12.53 billion in 2006. In December, historically the industry's strongest month, Americans spent $4.82 billion on video games, up 28 percent from a year earlier and up 83 percent from $2.63 billion in November.
Video games sold well during the holidays even as jittery consumers were cutting back spending on clothes and other items.
Hardware sales jumped 54 percent to $7.04 billion in 2007, while software sales climbed 34 percent to $8.64 billion. In December, hardware sales rose 17 percent to $1.83 billion, and software sales grew 36 percent to $2.37 billion.
"I think the industry has become much more generally accepted as a mainstream form of entertainment over the last couple of years, and that sets it up well for future expansion," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in an e-mail.
Much of this growing acceptance has been attributed to the Wii, groundbreaking when it launched in 2006 for its motion-sensitive controller that lets players mimic movements for bowling, tennis or sword-fighting.
Even so, the portable Nintendo DS was by far the year's best-selling gaming system with 8.5 million units sold, 2.5 million of them in December. In short supply all year, the Wii still sold 6.3 million units, 1.4 million of them last month.
Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said the company expects to sell more Wiis this year than it did in 2007. To deal with the high demand, Nintendo raised Wii production twice since last April, the last time to 1.8 million units a month. Though the consoles are still selling out...
Fri, 18 Jan 08
Google Philanthropy Targets World's Ills
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57874
Google Inc.'s philanthropic arm is making more than $26 million in new grants and investments in organizations and companies devoted to causes that the Internet search leader believes will help make the world a better place.
The financial commitments announced Thursday are the largest made by Google.org since the Mountain View-based company launched its altruistic effort with $90 million in funding in 2005.
Pasadena-based eSolar Inc., a startup specializing in solar thermal power, is getting the most money from Google.org so far -- $10 million investment.
Google.org also is contributing toward fighting health and environmental threats, improving public services and supporting small businesses. The foundation also plans to back efforts to accelerate the use of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which can be recharged from a regular home socket.
The philanthropic arm evolved out of a commitment made by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they took their company public in August 2004.
The men, now both 34, committed to creating a foundation that "may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems."
Google has pledged to donate 1 percent of its prized stock and 1 percent of its steadily rising profits to Google.org. Those assets are currently worth about $2 billion.
Other foundations are much larger, but Google.org has attracted tremendous attention because of its connection to one of the world's most powerful companies as well as an unusual structure allowing it to operate as a corporate division rather than a separate nonprofit entity.
The hybrid approach lets Google.org make money off investments like the one it made in eSolar, as well as lobby politicians.
Fri, 18 Jan 08
Upbeat AMD Report Pleases Investors
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57873
Considering the devastating two years Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has endured, investors braced themselves for more bad news in the fourth quarter after rival Intel Corp. disappointed Wall Street with lackluster results.
The slowdown they feared didn't materialize.
Instead, Sunnyvale-based AMD managed to post a much narrower loss than analysts expected, jolting its stock on signs that AMD is driving down costs and protecting its share of the microprocessor market from an Intel onslaught.
"Obviously, they turned in a truly excellent quarter," said JoAnne Feeney, senior research analyst with FTN Midwest Securities Corp. "They've continued the progress they began making a couple of quarters ago. It should assuage the fears of a lot of investors about the company's ability to execute."
Still bleeding from the costly acquisition of a graphics chip company, AMD absorbed heavy charges connected to the deal in the fourth quarter that dragged down its results.
However, AMD executives stoked shareholder optimism by reiterating their pledge to return the company to profitability by the second half of this year. In addition, they said the flaws plaguing AMD's new line of server chips have been fixed and samples will ship to customers in two to three weeks.
AMD's new Opteron server chip, critical to its financial recovery, launched in September. But technical glitches delayed a full release.
In after-hours trading, AMD shares rose 26 cents, or more than 4 percent, to $6.60. During the regular session, before the results were released, AMD shares closed down 23 cents at $6.34.
AMD's losses in 2007 were staggering, capping a brutal two-year stretch in which the company's market value has plunged from more than $20 billion to $3.5 billion today. The stock has fallen from over $40 a share in early 2006 to nearly $5 in recent weeks.
For the full year, AMD lost $3.38 billion, $2 billion of which...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
Scrabble Makers Lose Points in Online Fuss
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57865
"C-E-A-S-E" and "D-E-S-I-S-T" aren't particularly high-scoring Scrabble words -- just 7 points each -- but in the real world they carry some clout.
Last week, game companies Hasbro and Mattel, who own the rights to the venerable board game Scrabble, sent legal notices to Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, the developers of an online version of the game called "Scrabulous." The corporations believe Scrabulous violates their copyrights and want the game taken down.
"We are not surprised that fans have thoroughly enjoyed playing Scrabulous on Facebook.com," Hasbro and Mattel wrote. "What consumers may not realize, however, is that Scrabulous is an illegally copied online version of the world's most popular word game."
There's little question about the similarities between the two games. Both use letter tiles with numerical values and a game board with squares containing bonus values. The rules and colors used by Scrabulous are identical to the board version. If the Agarwallas had simply printed a copy of Scrabulous and sold it as a board game, there would be little controversy about whether it constitutes a copyright violation.
But in the age of the Internet, as Hasbro and Mattel are discovering, the legal principles may be the same, but the public-relations challenges are far different.
Last June, the Agarwallas created a version of Scrabulous that can be embedded as a Facebook application. In just six months, Scrabbulous has become one of Facebook's 10 most popular apps, with an estimated two million people playing it each day. The application's elegant simplicity and compelling game play have given rise to a number of Facebook groups that sound more like advertisements for 12-step programs: "Help I cannot stop playing Scrabulous!," "Scrabulous Is Crack and I am a Junkie," and "Scrabulous Anonymous (well, until you join!)."
Hasbro and Mattel, however, are not amused, and...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
HP Trumps Dell in 2007 PC Sales
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57864
Two new reports by leading industry research firms, Gartner and IDC, show the PC market is still strong, following a good fourth quarter.
The report from Gartner, released Wednesday, that Hewlett-Packard had regained its first-place position for computers shipped worldwide in 2007, with Dell coming in second. In 2006, both companies had been in a virtual tie for first.
HP landed at No. 1 with nearly 50 million units shipped, which accounted for 18.2 percent of PC shipments -- a result of a 30 percent growth over 2006. HP had a "solid No. 1 position" and the strongest growth among the top five PC vendors in the fourth quarter, Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner's Client Markets group, said in a statement.
Dell posted a 14.3 percent market share, and Acer, in third place, had 8.9 percent. The next two positions in the Gartner report were occupied by Lenovo, with 7.4 percent, and Toshiba at 4 percent.
The Gartner report noted that Dell's growth was only 1.7 percent for 2007, in part because of the company's reorganization, but by the fourth quarter Dell's worldwide PC shipment grew by 17 percent. The report said the fourth-quarter results were driven by Dell's retail and channel partner expansion.
Acer's growth, notably in consumer mobile PCs in the combined Europe-Middle East-Africa region and the United States, was boosted by its acquisition of Gateway's consumer business. The Gartner report cited Lenovo for a "relatively good performance" despite a weak consumer market presence. Lenovo has embarked on a campaign to increase its market presence and brand recognition.
PC shipments overall grew by 13.4 percent in 2007 over the previous year, and about 271 million units were sold during the year. Nearly 76 million units shipped in the fourth quarter alone accounted for a 13.1 percent increase over the...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
Will Antitrust Probes Spread Beyond Microsoft?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57863
The European Union is challenging Microsoft on antitrust laws again, but legal experts warn the ongoing investigations against Redmond could trickle down to other U.S. companies.
European Commission regulators on Monday said they have initiated two formal antitrust investigations against Microsoft. The investigations fall under two separate categories of alleged infringements of European Commission treaty rules. The first case deals with interoperability. The second relates to tying separate software products together. Specifically, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office have fallen under scrutiny.
Microsoft's initial reaction was a statement of full cooperation with the commission's investigation. The company said it plans to provide any and all information necessary. Microsoft pledged its commitment to ensuring the company is in full compliance with European law and its obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling. But do Microsoft and other technology companies have reason to be concerned about how the EU is interpreting and enforcing antitrust law?
The First Instance ruling seems to have left European regulators with new boldness. European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes made a statement last September that could hint at the EU's future plans for dominant companies.
After the court ruling against Microsoft, Kroes noted that the software giant holds 95 percent of the market for desktop operating systems and said she would like to see that number reduced. "You can't draw a line and say exactly 50 percent is correct, but a significant drop in market share is what we would like to see," she said.
Another example is Google's intent to acquire DoubleClick, which is also under scrutiny by the European Commission. The BEUC, Europe's top consumer group, wrote a letter to the EC in December, warning, "The Google-DoubleClick merger would harm consumer welfare by creating a structure that almost certainly...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
Products and Politics Mix at Macworld
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57849
Amid iPod upgrades, movie deals and Apple TV price cuts, there was a tinge of politics at the Macworld Conference & Expo.
But it didn't come from Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs. The man electing to wade into political waters Tuesday was the musical guest, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Randy Newman.
Newman and his piano were rolled out on a moving stage and he quickly launched into his song, "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country."
"I'd like to say a few words in defense of our country, whose people aren't bad, nor are they mean. Now the leaders we have, while they're the worst that we've had, are hardly the worst this poor world has seen," Newman sang to a packed conference hall.
His performance briefly injected a serious tone to an otherwise upbeat presentation by Jobs, and the audience of Mac faithful applauded -- though not quite as loudly as they had for the unveiling of Apple's new online movie rental service.
Out on the exhibitor floor, political messages were few, though a small startup called Budclicks, a Poway, Calif.-based company, jumped in.
To the snap-on charms it makes to gussy up the ubiquitous iPod earbuds, it has added nuggets bearing the names of presidential candidates -- at least the ones still in the game. Right alongside skulls, daisies and pink pineapples.
"They're dropping out like flies right now. Currently we've got Obama, Mitt, Hillary, Ron Paul," said Budclicks owner, Brian Johnson. "All the candidates want to get to the youth, and all the youth have the iPods. They're kitschy."
Not to mention catchy.
Thu, 17 Jan 08
PC Shipments Post Double-Digit Rise
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57845
The rapid growth curve for computer shipments in last year's third quarter extended into the year's final months, two technology research firms reported Wednesday.
The U.S. growth rate beat predictions, countering recent forecasts that spending growth in the broader U.S. technology sector would slow this year, and eventually hurt overseas tech markets.
And Hewlett-Packard Corp. maintained its slight edge over Dell Inc. as the world's largest computer maker, with little change in market share.
The fourth quarter's increase in computer shipments was roughly in line with the third quarter, when shipments rose at the fastest rate in nearly two years.
Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm IDC said shipments in October through December rose 15.5 percent, to 77.4 million units, up from 67 million a year earlier.
Gartner Inc., of Stamford, Connecticut, pegged the growth at a slightly slower 13.1 percent, with 75.9 million units shipped, up from 67.1 million in last year's fourth quarter.
The two firms use slightly different measurements.
In the third quarter, IDC also reported year-over-year growth of 15.5 percent, while Gartner estimated 14.4 percent.
IDC said U.S. computer shipments grew at a stronger-than-expected 8.8 percent in the fourth quarter, while Gartner put the U.S. gain at 7.2 percent.
IDC said U.S. and global gains were driven by growing popularity of mobile computers as well as shifts into new sales channels by Dell and Taiwan-based Acer Inc. Dell has recently begun selling through large retail chains such as Wal-Mart and Staples, in a departure from its direct-to-customer business model.
"Fourth-quarter results show a very healthy PC market," said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's worldwide quarterly PC tracker. "There is a lot happening with vendors repositioning their channels and going after new markets, while falling prices and portable adoption continue to drive volume."
The U.S. economic downturn has triggered predictions that U.S. technology spending won't grow as fast as it...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
The Rise of Gadget-Buyback Services
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57843
We think a lot about getting new gadgets, but not so much about getting rid of old ones. The result: old cell phones, defunct laser printers and Pentium III computers gathering dust.
A couple companies want to help us clear out those old gadgets, while feeding our upgrade habit, helping the environment and making a buck for themselves.
Instead of being hit up for an extended warranty next time you buy a gadget, you may find yourself hearing a pitch from TechForward Inc., a Los Angeles-based company selling a "guaranteed" buyback plan for electronics.
For a fee paid when you buy a device -- $9 for an iPod, for instance -- you get the right to sell it to TechForward at a predetermined price that depends on how long you keep it. If you sell an iPod after a year, for example, you would get $40; after another year, $20.
In the financial world, this is known as a "put option" -- the opportunity to sell a certain number of shares at a certain price at a certain date in exchange for an upfront fee. But Jade Van Doren, TechForward's chief executive, said his inspiration came from traveling in Asia, where gadget worship is even more pronounced and some consumers buy new cell phones every few months.
"I just started thinking about ways that you could build a company around ... encouraging people to live that lifestyle of temporary ownership," he said.
The trade-in prices don't look competitive with eBay auctions, but TechForward offers the convenience of free packaging and shipping. Its prices assume the item is in good condition. The company won't pay for an item that's broken, though it will supply packaging, pay for shipping and arrange to recycle it.
In addition to trades TechForward accepts from customers its retail partners sign up when they...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
Time Warner Ending Unlimited Broadband?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57842
Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing structure for high-speed Internet access later this year, charging customers based on how much data they download, a company spokesman said Wednesday.
The company, the second-largest cable provider in the United States, will start a trial in Beaumont, Texas, in which it will sell new Internet customers tiered levels of service based on how much data they download per month, rather than the usual fixed-price packages with unlimited downloads.
Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads.
Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.
Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.
It was not clear when exactly the trial would begin, but Dudley said it would likely be around the second quarter. The tiered pricing would only affect new customers in Beaumont, not existing ones.
Time Warner Cable is a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media company.
Thu, 17 Jan 08
Betting on Jobs' Keynote a Risky Affair
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57839
It's funny how perceptions can vary so widely. After spending a day at San Francisco's Moscone Center on Jan. 15 covering Steve Jobs' keynote address and attending Macworld Expo, I was taking a break and watching CNBC. One of the CNBC commentators, Pete Najarian, called the Jobs keynote "disappointing" and went on to rip the company. Everything the chief executive revealed was expected, he said. With no surprise product, there'd been no upside possible for the stock.
I had seen how the markets initially reacted to Apple's announcements. At one point, Apple stock had dropped by nearly 8% during the session, down almost $10 a share, to 164.66. By the close, it had recovered somewhat to 169.04, but still lost more than 5% for the day.
Watching Najarian, I chuckled. Here was one who doesn't get it. And there appeared to be many more like him out there. More than 83 million Apple shares changed hands on Jan. 15, not a record, but unusually high. Many clearly opted to sell on news they judged to be disappointing. For those who bought before Macworld in hopes of cashing in on a keynote bounce, I have only one word: suckers.
Apple's stock has been a huge wealth-generation machine over the last few years. If you had bought it five years ago when shares were worth about 7.50 on a split-adjusted basis, and held it until now, you'd be staring at a gain of more than 2,000% over five years. But that's called investing. By contrast, betting on a short-term gain from a Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld has always been fraught with peril.
Yes, on the surface it might seem a good bet. Going back to 1999, Apple's stock price has gained an average of 4.7% on the day of a Jobs...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
SAP Seals Business Objects Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57837
A weak dollar, a looming U.S. recession, and a sagging stock market may foreshadow a gloomy new year for the tech sector, but don't try telling that to German software maker SAP.
"This is the most exciting time ever to be in information technology -- at least in software," says SAP Deputy Chief Executive Leo Apotheker, who was in Silicon Valley on Jan. 16 to announce the successful conclusion of the company's $6.8 billion acquisition of French business intelligence software maker Business Objects.
Apotheker claims a U.S. recession won't change that. "Our core business is growing at a fast pace and is actually generating higher and higher margins, and there is no reason why it won't do the same in the future," he says. "All regions are growing in the double digits, and that gives us the confidence that we can weather storms here and there."
Despite such bullishness, SAP's share price has taken a hit. It closed at 33.44 ($49.72) in Frankfurt trading on Jan. 16, up 1.8% for the day, but it's still down 20% from its 52-week high of 42.08 set last September, before the company announced plans to acquire Business Objects.
By all rights, SAP's share price ought to be at least 40, argues Dresdner Kleinwort software analyst Adam Shepherd, even factoring in concerns that the company overpaid to add business intelligence to its product portfolio. "They just had a great quarter where they blew out all of the numbers and their core business is in very strong health," Shepherd says.
Indeed, according to preliminary results announced Jan. 14, SAP's total revenues for the fourth quarter are expected to be $4.8 billion, up 10% over the previous year. Total revenues for the full year are expected to be $15.25 billion, an increase of around 9% over...
Thu, 17 Jan 08
Apple Security Risks Surface During Macworld
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57836
With Apple fans focused on the buzz surrounding Macworld this week, news of vulnerabilities and attacks that could wreak havoc on Apple users may be falling on distracted ears.
Security researchers are reporting two issues that Apple users need to hear about. The first is a Microsoft security advisory warning of a vulnerability in several versions of Microsoft Office Excel. This affects both Windows and Mac OS users. The second is a scareware program targeting Mac users.
For all the news about Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, Apple fans, along with Windows users, may have a separate Office issue to deal with this week. Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000 and Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac are affected by a new vulnerability.
The attack depends on a maliciously crafted Excel file that contains malformed header information. When a user attempts to open the file, either as an e-mail attachment or through a Web browser, the malformed header could corrupt system memory. That opens the door for an attacker to execute remote code on the victim's machine or to get elevated user privileges.
"In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker would have to host a Web site that contains a specially crafted Excel file that is used to attempt to exploit this vulnerability," Microsoft said in an advisory.
"In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability," the advisory said. "An attacker would have no way to force users to visit these Web sites. Instead, an attacker would have to persuade users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or...
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Sun Buys the 'M' in LAMP -- MySQL
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57831
Sun Microsystems announced Wednesday that it is buying MySQL AB, a major provider of open source database solutions. The total price, including $800 million cash and an assumption of about $200 million in options, is about $1 billion.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said in a statement that its purchase accelerates its position in enterprise solutions "to now include the $15 billion database market," and reaffirms its role as the largest commercial open source contributor.
The MySQL database, the most popular open source database software, is widely used by millions of customers globally, with more than 100 million copies downloaded and 50,000 copies downloaded each day. Although many small businesses and nonprofit organizations use MySQL, both Sun and MySQL noted that it is also used in a variety of high-volume environments, including Facebook, Google, Nokia, China Mobile, Yahoo, Alcatel-Lucent, YouTube and others. The flagship product, MySQL Enterprise, includes a set of production-tested software, monitoring tools and support services.
The acquisition by Sun and its integration into the company's portfolio "will greatly extend the commercial appeal of MySQL's offerings and improve its value proposition with the addition of Sun's global services organization," the company said, including new distribution through Sun's OEM relationships with Intel, IBM, Dell and others.
"MySQL's employees and culture, along with its near ubiquity across the Web," said Sun CEO and President Jonathan Schwartz in a statement, "make it an ideal fit with Sun's open approach to network innovation."
In announcing the acquisition, MySQL CEO Marten Mickos agreed that Sun's culture complements his company's, because it shares the ideals of "software freedom, online innovation, and community and partner participation." Mickos will join Sun's senior executive team.
MySQL is a key part of the Web's growth, and is the "M" in the often-used LAMP software platform that consists of...
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Apple TV: The New HD Format?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57830
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at last year's Macworld conference, there was no question that it would be an industry-altering development. Manufacturers have rushed to introduce their own touch-screen technology, Google has accelerated development of its smartphone platform, and the concept of mobile Web browsing has received a significant boost.
Jobs' announcements yesterday in the 2008 edition of his keynote address were less immediately groundbreaking, but in the long run may prove just as significant. Certainly, the MacBook Air will influence laptop designers and accelerate Apple's push to eliminate storage drives. But the development that will be most disruptive is Apple's success in negotiating downloadable movie deals with every major Hollywood studio.
The news that version 7.6 of iTunes allows users to rent recently released Hollywood movies has focused a lot of attention on Netflix and Blockbuster, two companies that rent DVDs by mail. Despite the fact that both also offer downloadable movies, the two companies saw their share prices drop yesterday, as investors nervously eyed the huge iTunes user base (roughly 52 million, compared with 7 million Netflix subscribers).
It will be a bit before iTunes competes on a level playing field with either Netflix or Blockbuster. The iTunes store currently offers slightly more than 100 movies for rental, with another 900 expected to come online soon. But as more movies become available, Apple's promise of portability from computer to iPod will grow increasingly attractive. As Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director for emerging technologies at Jupiter Research said, "For many people, if it can't be put on an iPod, then it doesn't exist."
But the real boost, Gartenberg predicted, will be to Apple TV, Apple's device for storing and displaying video content on televisions. Owners of Apple TV units will be able to rent high-definition versions of...
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Europe Goes for Microsoft's Jugular
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57828
European antitrust officials are set on investigating Microsoft for anti-competitive market moves once again, but this time the European Commission could be going for Redmond's jugular.
This round of investigations falls under two separate categories of alleged infringements of European Commission Treaty rules. The first case deals with interoperability. The second relates to tying separate software products together. Specifically, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office have come under scrutiny.
"Recent press reports suggested Microsoft reached a grand settlement with the European Commission, and we expected it to be quiet for a while. Then we look up and a new investigation is under way," said Keith Hylton, a professor of law at the Boston University School of Law. "I was surprised to see a new investigation so soon."
In one of the two EC antitrust investigations, Opera Software has complained that Microsoft illegally ties Internet Explorer to its Windows OS. The EC also cited antitrust allegations that Microsoft shackles other software products to its OS, including desktop search and Windows Live.
This is similar to the settled complaint over Microsoft tying its Windows Media Player to Windows, giving Opera precedent. The remedy in the first round of litigation was to require Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player.
The version of Windows without the media player has few sales.
"I don't know what the European Commission is aiming to get out of this. The remedy in the media player case simply imposes cost on Microsoft without providing any benefits whatsoever to consumers in Europe," Hylton said. "I thought the notion of competition law was to benefit consumers."
Still, it's the Office suite investigation that could be a potentially costly fight for Microsoft. According to the complaints, Microsoft has illegally refused to disclose interoperability information across a broad range of...
Wed, 16 Jan 08
'Stevenote Plus One' -- How Shiny Are Apple's Latest?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57827
Today is "Stevenote Plus One" -- the day after Apple CEO Steve Jobs's much-awaited annual keynote speech at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, during which he unveils new products from the hot consumer technology company. While reaction is not quite at the fever pitch that greeted last year's iPhone announcement, the media response has been largely positive -- with some reservations.
The two biggest announcements were movie rentals from the iTunes Store and the thin, small and new MacBook Air laptop. Although they were major announcements, Business Week noted that Apple's shares fell 5.5 percent yesterday, which it attributed to the fact that no product as dramatic as the iPhone was shown.
The biggest announcement of the Stevenote is usually preceded by Jobs saying "just one more thing," but that phrase was not uttered in yesterday's address. Rory Cellan-Jones, writing in BBC News online on Tuesday, noted the phrase's absence and characterized the announcements as leaving him "just ever so slightly underwhelmed. A solid range of new products -- but this was not an iPhone year."
Nevertheless, Apple is clearly hoping that its movie-rental plans have a big impact on online video, like its online music store helped redefine that industry.
"The risk for Apple," said John Markoff in today's New York Times, "is that consumers may not like the limits placed on their movie viewing." Those limits include 30 days in which to view a movie, once rented, and a 24-hour-window to watch the movie as many times as you want after you click "play."
Apple TV is also being revitalized, with a new capability to easily rent films via iTunes. Peter Burrows, writing in Business Week online, noted that the new Apple TV and iTunes rentals are similar to what is now available through a cable or...
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Data Satellite Launched from Ocean Platform
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57821
A Boeing-built satellite for mobile voice and data services was placed in orbit Tuesday by a rocket launched from a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean.
The 11,381-pound Thuraya-3 satellite took off early Tuesday from a spot on the equator as part of a mission to expand Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co.'s coverage in the Asia Pacific region.
Thuraya CEO Yousuf Al Sayed said in a statement that the launch will allow the company to begin major expansion plans in the first quarter of 2008.
The company, based in the United Arab Emirates and founded in 1997, serves 110 countries.
The launch by Long Beach-based Sea Launch Co. was "perfect," said Sea Launch spokeswoman Paula Korn. Boeing, which built the satellite in El Segundo, Calif., said it was "healthy and operating as designed."
The satellite separated from the booster over the Pacific north of New Zealand and first signals were received by a station in Fillmore, Calif.
Unusually strong currents that affected Sea Launch's oceangoing launch platform foiled the first attempt in November. The self-propelled platform and the command ship had to return to home port in Long Beach, resupply and sail back to the launch site.
The Sea Launch system takes advantage of a principle of physics that allows a rocket launched at the equator to carry a heavier payload into orbit than it could from elsewhere on the Earth's surface.
The mission was the first for the Sea Launch international partnership since an explosion moments after ignition in January 2007 destroyed a satellite intended for Netherlands-based SES New Skies.
An investigation found the blast was caused by debris in turbopump in the rocket's main engine section. Sea Launch has carried out 25 missions since 1999.
Sea Launch is owned by Boeing Co., RSC-Energia of Moscow, Aker ASA of Oslo, Norway, and SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Oracle Buys BEA Systems for $8.5 Billion
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57816
Oracle Corp. said Wednesday it's secured a definitive agreement to acquire BEA Systems for $8.5 billion. Net of BEA's $1.3 billion in cash on hand, the deal is worth about $7.2 billion, Oracle said.
The transaction calls for BEA stockholders to receive $19.375 per share, a premium of roughly 24.4% from Tuesday's close at $15.58.
Oracle expects the deal to add at least 1-2 cents a share to earnings on an adjusted basis in the first full year following its completion.
The acquisition has received the unanimous approval of BEA's board and Oracle expects the transaction to close by mid-2008.
Oracle shares finished Tuesday at $21.31 and were changing hands at $20.92, down 1.8%, in premarket action. BEA's stock was up 19.1% to $18.56 ahead of the open.
The definitive deal comes after the two companies almost got together back in October with Oracle making an unsolicited bid of $17 per share.
The talks at that time were fairly contentious, as BEA repeatedly rejected the $17 per share offer, finally letting the proposal expire on Oct. 28.
BEA was holding out for a $21 per share bid, a price Oracle called "impossibly high."
Carl Icahn, who holds nearly a 13% stake in BEA and had been pushing management for a deal, said he will vote his shares in favor of the merger.
"This transaction is an excellent example of the great results that can be achieved for all constituencies when the shareholder activist is able to work cooperatively with management," Icahn said in a press release.
On Nov. 15, BEA, an enterprise infrastructure software maker based in San Jose, Calif., reported an adjusted profit of $78.9 million, or 19 cents a share, for the third quarter ended Oct. 31.
Revenue for the period totaled $384.4 million, up 11% from last year.
Oracle reported its fiscal second-quarter results on Dec....
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Low-Cost Service Challenges BlackBerry
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57807
A forthcoming mobile messaging service is set to offer businesses similar capabilities to RIM's BlackBerry but at a fraction of the cost, and will also support standard mobile handsets. However, unlike BlackBerry, it will not integrate with existing infrastructure such as Exchange servers.
Simdesk's SimMobile provides workers with messaging and collaboration, secure file sharing and mobile printing, and is compatible with over 600 phone handsets, according to the firm. The service will be launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, and is expected to be available from early April.
Initially, SimMobile will be available as a hosted service provided by carriers, but in the future the company aims to let enterprise customers operate a server behind their corporate firewall. It can operate on any handset that is Java J2ME compatible or supports the SyncML protocol, and the firm supplies a SyncML client for Windows Mobile devices. Users can also access their account via a desktop browser.
Simdesk said it is initially targeting small-to-medium organizations or public sector bodies, which may have held back from mobile messaging because of the cost. But it also expects that BlackBerry customers may see it as an attractive way to mobilize e-mail across more of their workforce. The service may cost as little as $5 per seat per month, compared with $60-$80 for BlackBerry, according to the firm.
"I've yet to see a company that's willing to give a BlackBerry to all its employees, yet all of them want their employees to be able to keep in touch," said Simdesk president and chief executive Louis Waters.
The service offers more than just mobile e-mail, enabling users to upload files to online folders for sharing with colleagues, and the ability to send files for output to shared printers in their organization.
But enterprises may not find the service to...
Wed, 16 Jan 08
Breakthrough Could Mean 40-Hour Laptop Batteries
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57832
Imagine running your laptop nonstop from New York to Tokyo -- crunch some numbers, work on a memo pop in a few DVDs -- and then do a full day of meetings, using your machine throughout the day and into the night. Imagine doing all this without ever plugging in your computer to recharge its battery.
This scenario may become reality in the near future, if Stanford University scientists succeed in commercializing a breakthrough in the laboratory. Assistant Professor Yi Cui and associates at Stanford's Department of Materials Science and Engineering said they have developed a method to increase the life of rechargeable lithium ion batteries to a whopping 40 hours.
Publishing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the Stanford researchers have shown that by using silicon nanowires as the battery anode instead of today's graphite, the amount of lithium the anode can hold is extended tenfold.
"It's not a small improvement," Cui said. "It's a revolutionary development." And Cui means to move the development out of the lab as soon as possible. "We are working on scaling up and evaluating the cost of our technology," Cui said. "There are no roadblocks for either of these."
Cui has filed a patent on the technology and is evaluating the formation of a company or licensing the technology to a battery manufacturer. Potentially two-day batteries could be on the market within "several years," he said.
Silicon anodes are not a new idea. Researchers have known for some 30 years that they have the "highest theoretical charge capacity," but, until now, they haven't been practical because they change volume by 400 percent as lithium is inserted and extracted, the journal said. Cui's solution: a sponge-like network of tiny silicon nanowires, each of which expands but doesn't fracture.
"Nanowires grown directly on the current collector do...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
Macworld: Jobs Wows Crowd with World's Thinnest Notebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57803
Apple CEO Steve Jobs stepped up to the plate today -- and the fans went wild. At his annual keynote address at Macworld in San Francisco, Jobs introduced the rumored MacBook Air, which he called "the world's thinnest notebook"; a revitalized Apple TV and movie rentals through iTunes; updates to the iPhone and iPod Touch; and wireless backup.
The MacBook Air, weighing three pounds, features a 13.3-inch display, a built-in iSight camera, and a backlit "full-sized" keyboard. It is also heir to the multi-touch interface made famous by Apple's iPhone, with a trackpad that, for instance, allows the user to expand a photo with an "expanding," two-fingered gesture.
Jobs said the Air has a 1.8-inch 80-GB hard drive, and an option for a 64-GB solid-state drive. Inside, it features an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 1.6GHz. Paul Otellini, Intel CEO, was invited to the stage to take credit for accomplishing Jobs' request for a smaller-than-normal Core 2 Duo package -- reportedly 60 percent smaller.
The MacBook Air is priced at $1,799 in the standard configuration, and begins shipping in two weeks.
Jobs' other big Macworld announcement was movie rentals from Apple's iTunes Store. Library titles will rent for $2.99, new releases will cost $3.99, and rentals can be watched on Macs, PCs, iPods, iPhones and Apple TVs. High-definition titles are available for a dollar more, Jobs added in his Macworld keynote.
When a movie is rented, it starts downloading from the iTunes Store to your local iTunes or Apple TV, and users with a fast connection can start watching it immediately. The movie can be watched any time within 30 days of its rental and, once a customer has started to watch it, the customer has a 24-hour window to finish it or watch it over and over. Feature films from...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
iPhone Traffic Data Puts Apple at Center of Mobile Web
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57798
Something big is happening with the iPhone. No, it's nothing Steve Jobs will announce today at Macworld. Rather, it's how iPhone customers are using their phones. On Christmas, iPhone traffic to Google surpassed traffic from all other mobile devices, The New York Times reported Monday.
That's extraordinary because iPhones represent 2 percent of global smartphones while Nokia's Symbian platform represents 63 percent. A few days later, iPhone traffic dipped below Symbian traffic but continued to exceed traffic from devices running Microsoft Windows Mobile with 11 percent of the market and Research in Motion's BlackBerry system with 10 percent.
Google's findings are borne out by other Web metrics. Yahoo also said a substantial amount of its mobile traffic was coming from iPhones, and mobile advertising company AdMob said iPhone traffic surged around Christmas.
The data establishes "without question that the iPhone is the pre-eminent mobile device," Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research, said. Case in point: In conjunction with Macworld, Google released a revamped version of its Grand Prix applications for iPhone, making the apps faster and easier to use.
So what's behind the spike in iPhone traffic? For one thing, the inclusion of Apple's Safari browser fundamentally changes the mobile Web experience. For another thing, iPhone service includes an unlimited data plan. So there is no incremental cost to use the Web on the iPhone, and for the first time, using the Web on a phone is actually enjoyable.
"The introduction of the iPhone was a seminal event and now we're seeing the fruits of that when it's in people's hands," Sterling said. He believes that a substantial part of Net usage on the iPhone comes from people who didn't buy the device intending to use it for Web browsing but discovered just how useful mobile Web...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
Bidders Start Engines for FCC Spectrum Auction
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57795
There will be 214 bidders at the much-awaited spectrum auction later this month by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), but the recent demise of Frontline Wireless has raised questions about a national public-safety network.
In a statement released Monday, the FCC identified the applicants who are qualified to bid in the 700-MHz band auction, set to begin Jan. 24. The bidding itself, for about 1,200 licenses, will be conducted over the Internet and phone.
The approved applicants include some expected names, such as Google (called Google Airwaves in the list), AT&T, Cox Wireless, Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless.
But it also includes some less-discussed applicants, such as Chevron USA, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Spectrum Management, and a variety of small-to-midsize companies.
Frontline Wireless is still in the approved applicants list, although it announced last week that it was ceasing operations, reportedly because it was unable to complete its financing.
Headed by a group of executives that included former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, Frontline had been expected to be the leading bidder for a national wireless network that would provide communications among public-safety agencies during an emergency. The spectrum for that network will be offered at a discount, but it will require a private company to share those airwaves with police, firefighters and other public personnel during emergencies.
Bill Ho, an analyst at Current Analysis, said the question now is whether other major companies will bid in the FCC spectrum auction. Ho expected Frontline would outsource the operation to a carrier, and noted much of the spectrum in the FCC auction is composed of regional blocks, which could mesh well with certain bidders' objectives.
As one example, Ho noted that "Chevron has oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico," and a block of spectrum in that area could support its operations.
The auction,...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
Enterprises Begin To Embrace Web 2.0
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57779
Your company is more likely to attract the brightest and keep them if your own internal communications reflect the slick, collaborative informality of Web 2.0, with its blogs, wikis and social-networking sites. So there's a good case for going with the techno-flow rather than clamping down on personal e-mail and Internet use.
There was a brief kerfuffle over the summer about the pernicious effects on office efficiency of Facebook and other social-networking Internet sites. It was all sparked by some rather dodgy research published by a recruitment law firm, which asserted that British businesses were losing 233 million hours every month because feckless young folk were whiling away their working hours e-mailing their mates and swapping amusing videos.
Calls to ban such vile abuse of office equipment were met with outrage from the TUC, which insisted on every worker's inalienable right to do a bit of cybersocializing on the boss's time. Shortly afterward, research by Sophos, a company involved in I.T. security, found that half of all businesses actually ban the use of social-networking sites from the workplace.
So should businesses ban all this technical trivia and get staff to knuckle down to their jobs? Or is there a case for going with the flow, and trying to harness the new technologies to the benefit of the business? How you answer might well be determined by your age, but there's a growing body of opinion favoring a wholehearted adoption of these new collaborative technologies. And much of the I.T. industry sees it as potentially one of the next big growth areas.
It has come about with the rise of Web 2.0, an amalgam of Internet technologies that share a common thread -- they all hand over control to the consumer or user to supply material and manage their own networks of...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
Details of the EU's New Microsoft Probe
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57778
European Union regulators said Monday they were again investigating software giant Microsoft Corp. this time on suspicion of abusing its market position by squeezing out competing Internet browsers and software rivals dependent on Microsoft programs.
The European Commission opened two formal probes, the first move against the company since a court four months ago backed the EU in a long-running legal battle over Microsoft's actions in using its ubiquitous Windows operating system to elbow into new software markets.
Microsoft said it would cooperate fully with the Commission's investigation and provide any and all information necessary.
"We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling," it said in a statement.
EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said he could not put a time frame on how long it would take regulators to decide whether they would file formal charges against the company, saying this usually depended on "how complicated the issues are and the level of cooperation that we receive from the company under investigation."
Although regulators did not specifically name Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista, they will look at some of its features such as desktop search.
The EU is also wading into a row between Microsoft and open source developers backed by International Business Machines Corp. by looking into Microsoft's open format for archived documents -- Office Open XML.
The first new probe -- triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA -- will look at whether Microsoft illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows. Opera had called on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers.
The investigation will check also if "new proprietary technologies" held other browsers back by not following open Internet standards. Regulators...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
Inside the MySpace Safety Initiatives
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57775
Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace agreed Monday to take steps to protect youngsters from online sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to better verify users' ages.
The hugely popular online hangout will create a task force of industry professionals to improve the safety of users, and other social-networking sites will be invited to participate. "We must keep telling children that they're not just typing into a computer. They're sharing themselves with the world," said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.
The deal comes as sites such as MySpace and Facebook have grown exponentially in recent years, with teenagers making up a large part of their membership. This has created a new potential venue for sexual predators who lie about their age to lure young victims and for cyber bullies who send threatening and anonymous messages.
The only state not joining the agreement was Texas, where the attorney general said he cannot support the effort unless MySpace takes action to verify users' ages.
"We do not believe that MySpace.com -- or any other social-networking site -- can adequately protect minors" without an age-verification system, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said. "We are concerned that our signing the joint statement would be misperceived as an endorsement of the inadequate safety measures."
Monday's announcement was short on specifics about how improvements would be carried out. Skeptics doubt MySpace and similar sites can eliminate online predation because age-verification technology is difficult to implement and predators are good at circumventing restrictions.
Parry Aftab, executive director of Wiredsafety.org, a children's Internet safety group, said the agreement was a good first step but could have unforeseen consequences.
"There's no system that will work for age verification without putting kids at risk," she said. "Age verification requires that you have a database of...
Tue, 15 Jan 08
FCC Asks Comcast About Internet Filter
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57774
Comcast Corp. Monday said it has received letters of inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission regarding complaints that the company actively interferes with its subscribers' Internet traffic.
A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against the sharing of certain types of Internet data among subscribers.
Two groups also asked the FCC to fine the nation's No. 2 Internet provider $195,000 for every affected subscriber.
And Vuze Inc., a company that distributes video using BitTorrent file-sharing technology, later filed a separate complaint, asking the FCC to clarify how much power Internet service providers have in controlling traffic on their lines.
In an investigation last year, The Associated Press found that Comcast in some cases hindered file sharing by subscribers who used BitTorrent. The findings, first reported Oct. 19, confirmed claims by users who also noticed interference with other file-sharing applications.
Comcast denies it blocks file sharing, but acknowledges milder interventions to improve the flow of traffic for the majority of its customers.
"We look forward to responding to the FCC inquiries regarding our broadband network management," said David L. Cohen, an executive vice president at Comcast, in a statement.
"We believe our practices are in accordance with the FCC's policy statement on the Internet where the Commission clearly recognized that reasonable network management is necessary for the good of all customers," he added.
Peer-to-peer file sharing is a common way to illegally exchange copyright files. But many businesses also are rushing toward it for legal distribution of video and game content.
Tue, 15 Jan 08
Amazon.com's Preemptive iTunes Strike
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57773
Come Super Bowl Sunday, Amazon.com will get a leg up in the digital music race it's running against Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store. And not just any leg: Justin Timberlake's leg.
The boy band heartthrob turned Grammy-winning R&B singer will appear in a spot for Pepsi, kicking off a yearlong $1 billion giveaway of MP3s, CDs, videos, consumer electronics and other items on Amazon.
Back in 2004, PepsiCo Inc. and Apple forged a similar partnership, which started with an iTunes Super Bowl commercial promoting legal music downloads, to the tune of Green Day's version of "I Fought the Law." The companies gave away 100 million free iTunes downloads that, with rising iPod sales, helped push Apple to the forefront of the digital music industry.
Working with Amazon this year is big deal for Pepsi, which said it will spend more on its "Pepsi Stuff" advertising campaign than on any past marketing effort.
For Amazon.com Inc., the arrangement could mean even more.
In September 2007, Amazon launched a digital music store and committed to sell only MP3-format tunes, which can be copied to multiple computers, burned onto an unlimited number of CDs and played on most portable devices, including Apple's iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.
Thousands of independent music labels signed deals with Amazon, but EMI Music Group PLC, which already offered songs without digital rights management coding on iTunes, was the only major label to agree to DRM-free sales on Amazon.
But as a rise in sales of digital tracks in 2007 failed to offset the overall decline in album sales, the three big labels have rapidly begun retooling their digital strategies. When Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG signed on to sell DRM-free songs, they chose to do so on Amazon and not iTunes, where more than 70 percent of digital music...
Mon, 14 Jan 08
IBM Q4 Earnings Soar Despite Economic Woes
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IBM gave skittish Wall Street investors reason to cheer with its prerelease of fourth quarter earnings data that exceeded analysts' expectations. The high-tech industry bellwether said it racked up $28.9 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, a 10 percent year-over-year increase from the prior year. Even better, EPS (earnings per share) grew by 24 percent to $2.80.
For full year 2007, IBM said earnings rose 18 percent to $7.18 per share on $98.8 billion in revenue. However, the upbeat announcement was tempered by CEO Samuel Palmisano's explanation that the outstanding results were primarily driven by "the broad scope of IBM's global business -- led by strong operational performance in Asia, Europe and emerging countries."
"IBM is well positioned as we begin 2008 as a result of our global business reach, solid recurring revenue stream and strong financial position," Palmisano said in a statement.
IBM's huge pile of cash on hand, which amounted to $16 billion at the end of last year, will enable the company to continue its strategy of buying the applications and related services it needs to fill holes in its own software portfolio. For example, IBM closed out 2007 by announcing its acquisition of Solid Information Technology and Solid's impressive in-memory database software, and then rang in the New Year by announcing its deal for privately held storage technology company XIV.
IBM said it was particularly impressed by XIV's Nextra architecture, which features the capability to scale dynamically, heal itself in the event of failure, and self-tune for optimum performance. The technology is a good fit for enabling Big Blue to deliver technologies and solutions at every layer of the datacenter, including storage, servers, software and services, said General Manager of IBM System Storage Andy Monshaw.
"The ability for almost anyone to create digital content at any time has...
Mon, 14 Jan 08
Samsung Chief's Office Raided in Corruption Probe
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Investigators probing alleged corruption at the massive Samsung conglomerate raided an office of Chairman Lee Kun-hee, an official said Monday, as part of a special probe reluctantly approved last year by South Korea's president.
Kang Dong-ju, an official with the team carrying out the probe, would say only that a total of eight locations associated with Samsung Group executives were raided. South Korean media said Lee's home was part of the sweep, though Kang only mentioned an office.
Lee, who late last year marked 20 years at the helm of Samsung, is widely reported to mostly work from his residence. Photos and television footage showed what appeared to be prosecutors entering and later leaving his hilltop Seoul home.
Yim Jun-seok, a Samsung spokesman, said earlier that he could not confirm media reports of the raid and could not be reached later.
Samsung, a conglomerate spanning dozens of companies with interests ranging from construction to shipbuilding, is anchored by Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea's biggest corporation.
Lee, an iconic business figure in South Korea and a member of the International Olympic Committee, is widely credited over the past decade and a half with turning Samsung Electronics into a global technology force through an emphasis on quality.
The company is the world's largest manufacturer of computer memory chips, and plays a leading global role in a range of electronics products including flat screen televisions. It ranks No. 2 in mobile phones behind Finland's' Nokia Corp.
Investors were mostly unfazed by the raids, pushing shares in Samsung Electronics 1.7 percent higher to 525,000 won ($560), though stock prices of some other group companies fell.
South Korea's National Assembly in November passed legislation authorizing the independent counsel investigation, which was subsequently signed into law by President Roh Moo-hyun.
The probe, which started last week, came after Kim Yong-chul, a former top legal affairs...
Mon, 14 Jan 08
Introducing the First Google Android Prototype
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57735
A small software developer today plans to unveil a suite of applications -- browser, camera, games and more -- based on the new Google-endorsed operating system, Android.
A La Mobile, based in San Ramon, Calif., a start-up dedicated to Linux-based "open" systems for mobile devices, says the demonstration proves that Android can deliver on its promise of making it easier for consumers to get access to all sorts of applications.
The open nature of Android means, "There can be a lot more customization, reducing the cost of devices as well as development time," says Pauline Lo Alker, A La Mobile's CEO.
A La Mobile installed its applications on a smartphone from HTC, the Qtek 9090. They include: a Google browser, phone dialer for making voice calls, audio player, Google maps, camera, games, calendar, contacts manager, calculator and notes. A La Mobile plans to pitch this prototype -- a first for Android, according to Alker -- to handset makers.
HTC is among 34 companies in Google's Open Handset Coalition, which aims to create a Linux-based wireless phone that makes it easy for consumers to use any application. A La Mobile, which isn't a coalition member, is one of many hoping to get a piece of the Android pie, says John Jackson of Yankee Group.
Google has thrown its backing to the coalition, with the goal of extending its reach from the desktop into the wireless zone.
Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms, says the coalition is on track to roll out an Android-based phone in the second half of this year. Only after the device is perfected and selling commercially, he says, will Google will release Android's source code (technical data critical for manufacturers). "We want to get a couple of (Android) phones carefully and well-built with participation from Google first."
T-Mobile and Sprint are coalition...
Mon, 14 Jan 08
Microsoft Releases Vista SP1, Admits to Glitch
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57732
Microsoft users are facing good news and bad news. The bad news: Microsoft had issues with its update process again as it prepared to launch the final version of its first Service Pack for the Windows Vista operating system. The good news: After addressing the glitch, Microsoft turned on a dime and made SP1 available to the public on Friday.
The drama began early last week when Microsoft accidentally sent a patch to some users running the Windows operating system. Specifically, Microsoft issued a Vista update to prepare PCs for a future release of Vista Service Pack 1.
The update marked one of three prerequisites for SP1 and was intended for delivery only to Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate machines. The update targeted BitLocker, a full-drive encryption technology Microsoft bundles with premium editions of its latest operating system. However, the update was also delivered to PCs running Vista Home Basic and Home Premium.
"We had a small number of early customer reports, that in some cases, this update was being offered for installation on all Windows Vista editions versus just Ultimate and Enterprise," an unidentified poster wrote on the Microsoft company blog authored by the Windows Update development team.
"For systems set to download and install updates automatically, the update will not install even if it has already downloaded, so most people will not be affected by this," the post continued. "Customers who installed the initial release of the update on editions other than Ultimate or Enterprise should not be concerned as the update will have no negative impact on their systems."
Although none of the Home users have reported problems, this is not the first glitch Microsoft has seen in its update system. In September, Windows users watched as update code was automatically updated on their PCs without their instruction....
Mon, 14 Jan 08
Soft Launch of Sprint WiMAX Under Way
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57731
The trademark "SprintSpeed" could take on a whole new meaning in 2008, as the telecommunications firm moves ahead with plans to deploy its long-awaited WiMAX service, known commercially as Xohm. Yesterday, the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that a soft launch of the service to Xohm employees in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., is now under way.
The show in Las Vegas has been a busy time for Sprint. In addition to the soft launch, the company has announced a number of new Xohm agreements for portal services and WiMAX devices.
The promise of WiMAX technology is remarkable: data transmission speeds as fast as 70 Mbps over distances as great as 50 kilometers. Transmission speeds do drop over distance, however, and it is a shared-bandwidth technology, so actual mileage may vary. A more common metric for the service is 10 Mbps over 10 kilometers. Nonetheless, WiMAX offers the potential for significantly faster and far-reaching wireless Internet than cellular data transmissions or the more well-known WiFi.
Preliminary estimates also suggest that WiMAX will also offer cost savings to consumers. High-speed cellular data services currently cost approximately $60 per month. Sprint reportedly is hoping to offer the Xohm mobile Internet service for between $30 and $40 per month. The company reportedly has committed $5 billion to developing and implementing the new data service.
"We see mobile data services as a rich new revenue source," said John Polivka, a company spokesman in the Sprint Nextel Xohm public relations department, "and the wireless enablement of currently unconnected consumer electronic devices as the next device innovation frontier. YouTube is but one example of customer desire for social networking tools."
Access to high-speed wireless Internet across the United States is intriguing, and WiMAX may also quickly be available overseas as well. Not...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Microsoft Gains Foothold in Business Intelligence
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57646
Microsoft bought one of the world's top makers of business-intelligence software Tuesday for its expanding stable of deluxe, high-end programs aimed at large corporations, agreeing to pay 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner for Fast Search & Transfer of Oslo.
The $1.2 billion purchase of Fast will give Microsoft its first search engine designed specifically for large companies, which are increasingly using so-called intelligence software to analyze their vast internal databases.
The purchase of Fast's Enterprise Search Platform line of products, analysts said, will give Microsoft a professional-level search engine to complement search software like Web engine MSN Live Search or Microsoft Search Server and SharePoint Server for small businesses.
"What this purchase will do is allow Microsoft to go to the largest companies in the world and say, 'We can handle every search need you ever dreamed of,'" said Whit Andrews, an analyst at the research firm Gartner in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. "I would not be surprised also if Microsoft did not incorporate Fast's search technology into some of its broader consumer search programs."
Microsoft's offer for Fast, which was founded in 1997, represented a 42 percent premium to the company's share price. The bid sent shares of Fast's publicly traded competitors, like Autonomy, of Cambridge, England, soaring on speculation of possible bids for other search engine specialists.
Mike Davis, an analyst in London at the research firm Ovum, said Microsoft's acquisition could herald a wave of future takeovers by large software integrators like International Business Machines, SAP, Oracle, Adobe and EMC.
Davis said Fast, Autonomy and Endeca, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is privately owned, dominate the burgeoning field of business-intelligence software, which help companies harvest digital text, audio and video archives to spot business trends and sales leads. Gartner estimates the global market for business-intelligence software will grow 12 percent this year from $815.5 million to $913...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Apple Intros Eight-Core Mac Pro, Xserve
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57644
Without waiting for next week's Macworld conference, Apple announced a new eight-core Mac Pro and Xserve server. Both machines, the company said, are twice as fast as their predecessors.
The Mac Pro, targeted at creative professionals, digital content creators, and scientists, offers up to 4 TB of internal storage and two of the new quad-core Xeon processors from Intel, at speeds up to 3.2 GHz.
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president, said that the new Mac Pro is not only the fastest Mac ever made, but also "uses the fastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market."
Apple is highlighting the Mac Pro's 1,600-MHz frontside bus and the ability to run up to 32 GB of 800-MHz memory. An ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256 MB of video memory is standard, and, with support for up to four graphics cards, the Mac Pro can drive as many as eight 30-inch displays.
The new Xserve, targeted at small businesses with limited I.T. resources, features up to two 3.0-GHz Xeons, as well as a new architecture, faster frontside bus, and up to 3 TB of internal storage. Schiller said that the new machine is ideal for supporting Macs and mixed-platform workgroups.
The Xserve, much like the new Mac Pro, features dual-independent 1,600-MHz frontside buses and up to 32 GB of memory. The Xserve can be remotely turned on and off from anywhere on the network using Apple's Server Monitor, and each of its three drive bays can accommodate a 300-GB SAS drive or a 1-TB SATA drive.
The new server also offers two PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots, with up to four times the I/O bandwidth of the previous Xserve, and can support 4-Gbps Fibre channel and 10-Gbps Ethernet cards.
I.T. personnel, even at smaller companies, are increasingly aware of power needs, and...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Apple Agrees To Reduce iTunes Prices in UK
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57643
Music fans in the UK have reason to celebrate. Apple announced it will lower the prices it charges for music on its UK iTunes Store within six months. The decision marks the end of a European Commission antitrust probe into Apple's pricing practices.
The prices will match the standardized pricing on iTunes across Europe. Consumers in the UK have been paying about 10 percent more for digital music downloads than consumers in other European nations.
Apple said it must pay some record labels more to distribute their music in the UK than it pays them to distribute the same music elsewhere in Europe. The company said it will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the UK to the pan-European level within six months.
"This is an important step towards a pan-European marketplace for music," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We hope every major record label will take a pan-European view of pricing."
The European Commission launched an antitrust probe into Apple's iTunes, its method of selling music over the Internet, and its agreements with record labels in April 2007. The Commission said the distribution agreements Apple has inked with record labels to sell their music on iTunes in European Union countries "contain territorial sales restrictions" that violate its competition rules.
The Commission took exception to the fact that consumers were restricted in their choice of where to buy music and consequently what music is available, and at what price. For example, in order to buy a music download from iTunes in Belgium, a consumer must use a credit card issued by a bank with an address in Belgium.
If Apple had been found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules, it would have faced fines up to 10...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
FCC Stands Firm on Digital TV Deadline
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57641
In a little over a year, any consumer still using a television set that relies on analog signals might be startled to see the signal fade permanently to black.
Two years ago, in an effort to free up portions of the broadcast spectrum for new wireless applications and better emergency communications, Congress and the FCC decreed that all TV broadcasts must be completely digital as of February 17, 2009.
In his annual interview at the Consumer Electronics Show, FCC Chair Kevin Martin told attendees that the FCC will not postpone the digital transition deadline.
"It is a hard deadline," Martin told Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro. "After all of our efforts," he added, "we couldn't just turn around and say 'We're kidding.'"
Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, said he thinks the upcoming deadline, even though it is still 13 months away, will catch some consumers by surprise.
"Some people will be pretty upset by this," Sterling said. "I think that many consumers are unaware of this deadline, so there needs to be a pretty aggressive public interest education campaign by the government and television broadcasters. Since the FCC and Congress have set a hard deadline, it's their responsibility to disseminate information so that consumers have enough time to upgrade their equipment."
During his interview with Martin, CEA's Shapiro said that approximately half of the homes in the U.S. currently have digital TVs. To help ease the cost of the transition from analog to digital, Congress announced a program to help subsidize the cost of the devices that can convert digital signals to analog so that they can be viewed on older TVs.
The coupon program is being administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which announced this week that over one million consumers already have requested vouchers.
"The idea...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
The Blu-ray/HD-DVD Soap Opera: Behind the Scenes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57640
In our last episode of the high-definition DVD soap opera, Warner Bros. last week shunned a former good friend, the HD format, in favor of Blu-ray. There were gasps from the audience, as HD clung desperately to its last remaining industry friends. But, wait, there's more....
Reuters reported Tuesday that Warner's newfound monogamous love for Blu-ray was driven by falling DVD industry sales and "fears of a deteriorating U.S. economy." DVD sales, which can account for as much as half of a feature film's profits, declined last year. Citing a "top executive," the news service said Tuesday the company decided it needed to stop the format war before the economy tanked and DVD sales worsened.
According to published reports, Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in America, said that consumers were "gravitating towards Blu-ray -- particularly in the U.K. and Japan." Counting PlayStation 3 videogame consoles, which include a Blu-ray player, 80 percent of the high-definition disc players on the market are reportedly Blu-ray.
In order to convince consumers of their love for Blu-ray, Reuters said, the Blu-ray consortium -- which now numbers five of the seven major Hollywood studios -- is considering spending half a billion dollars in 2008. That's more than was spent on both formats combined over this past holiday season.
Meanwhile, HD's parent, Toshiba, is presently in what is technically known as a funk. It canceled a press conference scheduled for Sunday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and has refused to talk to the media about its dilemma.
But this melodrama of changing relationships may be nearing its climax. According to published reports, Paramount is ready to drop HD in favor of Blu-ray.
Paramount has denied the claim, and said it expects to continue being HD's friend. But one report said Paramount can...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Sprint Shows Off New WiMax Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57631
With just a few months to go before the launch of its next-generation wireless network, Sprint Nextel Corp. has a distinctly modest lineup of compatible devices.
At the International Consumer Electronics Show here this week, Sprint showed only two computer modems that will definitely be available in April, when its WiMax network becomes available outside current trials in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington.
One of the promises of WiMax, a service Sprint will be providing under the Xohm brand, is that receivers for it can be built into a variety of devices like cameras and Web tablets that usually don't have a built-in Internet connection or rely on Wi-Fi, a short-range technology.
"We fully expect an explosion of consumer devices," said Antone Porter, a product manager at Sprint.
The relative dearth of early WiMax gadgets isn't necessarily a sign of trouble for Sprint. Gemma Tedesco, an analyst at In-Stat, said the coverage area will be relatively small this year anyway, and Sprint's main task will be to build out the network.
"Unlike Wi-Fi, users' satisfaction will be dependent on the network coverage, and so Sprint really needs to have their metro areas well covered, to get users motivated; even this may take time, going into 2009 and beyond," she said.
Unlike Wi-Fi, WiMax signals reach for miles, and unlike cellular broadband, it's designed from the ground up for data. That could make WiMax cheaper than current cellular broadband, or 3G, which often costs around $60 a month for laptops.
Sprint hasn't disclosed pricing plans, but Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at the company, said he suspects "it will be more affordable than 3G."
At launch, the two devices that will be able to connect to the network are a modem for homes or small-offices from ZyXEL Communications Corp. and a laptop modem from ZTE Corp.
The...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Storm Brewing Over Internet Privacy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57624
Web surfers aren't just mad about online privacy violations. They're getting even. Consumers are speaking out publicly against companies they say have gone too far in tracking their Web surfing patterns, creating public relations nightmares.
They're also heading for the courts, seeking millions of dollars in damages. Before long, companies will need to pay more than lip service to privacy protection or they may end up being forced to pay up -- period.
The latest alleged corporate breach involves Sears Holdings, parent of department stores Sears and Kmart. On Jan. 8, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research program at Harvard Law School, released a report accusing Sears of violating the privacy of users of its online community site.
To join, customers download a program that tracks their online purchases and other activity. Sears failed to sufficiently explain what the software does, according to the study's authors. "It is pretty clear that they were doing some things that were not adequately disclosed to the users," says John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center.
The report follows a class-action lawsuit filed Jan. 4 in Cook County, Ill., that accuses Sears of exposing its customers to identity-theft risks by sharing individuals' purchase histories to anyone who searched for a particular user's name or address on the Sears ManageMyHome Web site. The suit, filed by New Jersey resident Christine Desantis and on behalf of other Sears customers, seeks $5 million in damages. Sears declined to comment, citing the lawsuit.
The report and lawsuit reflect growing unease over efforts by companies to make use of the mountains of data they collect on customers who use the Web -- and the rising stakes for corporations thought to trample consumer rights. Companies are eager to harness information they collect on a person's interests, purchases,...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Microsoft Releases Two Security Updates
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57621
Microsoft issued two new security updates to fix three Windows vulnerabilities in the year's first Patch Tuesday update. Microsoft rated one of the bugs -- a TCP/IP vulnerability -- critical.
The TCP/IP bug affects Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. This vulnerability does not require any user interaction to exploit and could potentially result in a remote compromise of the attacked computer. The other two flaws are rated important and moderate.
Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager of Symantec Security Response, said the TCP/IP vulnerability could be a significant issue, depending on the user's firewall settings.
"This issue is compounded by the fact the user's computer may automatically reboot upon a failed exploit attempt, giving the attacker multiple opportunities to compromise the computer," he explained. "Users should utilize firewall best practices, such as blocking IGMP packets, so their computers will not be at risk."
The severity of the issue is underscored by the fact that no user interaction is required to exploit the vulnerability, said Amol Sarwate, manager of the Vulnerability Research Lab at Qualys.
"The user does not have to do anything -- open an e-mail, browse a malicious Web site, or even be present at the machine," Sarwate warned. "As long as the target machine is running, an attacker could send a maliciously crafted packet through IGMP, ICMP, or MLD protocols and execute any code of their choice and take control of the system."
Some of the applications that could be compromised or serve as attack vectors include any live broadcast video or audio streams, such as IP-based teleconferencing or collaborative online environments, warned Don Leatham, director of business development at Lumension Security.
"Attackers may even be able to use live video feeds from security cameras or other 'interactive' video services," Leatham said. "We suggest...
Wed, 9 Jan 08
Microsoft Bids $1.2B on FAST Search
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57620
Microsoft made a $1.2 billion bid on Norwegian enterprise search vendor, Fast Search and Transfer, or FAST, a company that could boost its Office product suite and compete with Google.
"Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly," Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, said in a statement. "Until now organizations have been forced to choose between powerful, high-end search technologies or more mainstream, infrastructure solutions."
Microsoft said FAST brings complementary strengths that advance a shared vision for helping businesses deliver worker productivity and improved business results. FAST is already used by some of the world's largest enterprises, employes a talented staff, and has gained respect for its expertise in high-end search solutions. For its part, Microsoft offers worldwide customer reach and an extensive partner network.
FAST technology will bolster Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, which combines collaboration, business intelligence, portal and content management capabilities. Beyond beefing up Microsoft's enterprise search efforts, Redmond said its latest acquisition increases its research and development presence in Europe, augmenting existing research teams in England, Denmark and Norway.
Arild Nysaether, a partner and equity analyst at Fondsfinans ASA in Norway, isn't surprised Microsoft targeted FAST, because the company offers attractive technology to efficiently search large and diverse enterprise databases -- a capability that will become increasingly important in coming years.
"Microsoft will be much better able to serve large enterprise clients with FAST technology and be less dependent on third-party search plug-in modules for its software," Nysaether said. "In addition, Microsoft can potentially incorporate the technology in mass-market products like Windows itself or Exchange Server."
Despite the optimism, some analysts are pointing to the challenges of integrating FAST into SharePoint. Industry observer Stephen Arnold has tracked FAST...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Many Disappointed by Wikia Search Debut
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57618
The long-awaited and much-hyped Wikia Search, a project of Jimmy Wales' Wikia empire, launched on Monday to a chorus of jeers from Web 2.0 advocates and search experts.
Wales, the cofounder of Wikipedia, had expressed optimism for a community-built search engine that could beat Google by allowing people to provide context, content, and ratings that no computer algorithm could match.
"Search is part of the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet," Wales wrote on the Wikia Web site. "And we are making it open source. Wikia Search will start to change search from being proprietary, top-down, and closed."
The results delivered Monday didn't quite live up to expectations. A Wikia search for "George Bush" yielded as the top result "George Bush is a Crackwhore!" and several Bush joke sites. The top hits on Google, by contrast, were two Wikipedia articles and the official White House site.
When Business Week did a test search for "Abraham Lincoln," three of the top four results were for schools named after the president, while on Google the top result was ... a Wikipedia page.
On the TechCrunch blog, Michael Arrington called the alpha launch of Wikia Search "one of the biggest disappointments I've had the displeasure of reviewing." He said Wikia was "barely a search engine at all," and added that "the search results are poor and thin" and "absolutely no one is going to use this to search the Web, until (and if) it is greatly improved."
Arrington said that Wikia boasts hardly any of the much-touted human aspects. The only personal aspects to the service is a profile, to which users can add keywords, and user-written mini-articles, which are displayed at the top of relevant results pages. While each result has stars for user ratings, a la Amazon and Netflix, those stars "don't actually do anything...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Intel Banks on Ultramobile Computing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57616
Intel Corp. is betting on a big expansion of "ultramobile" computing, an idea that could hinge on how many gadgets people are willing to tote around.
In an interview Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said energy-efficient, Web-connected computers with full keyboards and screens in the 4-inch (10.16-centimeter) neighborhood can give people more of what they want from the Internet than cell phones can.
To help stimulate the technology, Intel plans in the next few months to begin shipping processors and associated "chipsets" that demand relatively little power and are smaller than standard PC processors, allowing them to be crammed into tinier devices, which would be built by other companies.
Eyeing a similar market, wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc. also has built prototypes of little Web devices. Its chief operating officer, Sanjay Jha, said he expects manufacturers to take up the blueprints and begin selling what he calls "pocketable computers" by the end of this year.
So far, so-called ultramobile computers, smaller than average laptops but bigger and more fully featured than most cell phones, have gotten a tepid response.
With the devices' prices often beyond $1,000 (EU679), many potential buyers have found little reason to scale down from their notebook computers or up from cell phones that have been improving their Web browsing experience.
"How do you make people realize that this is something advantageous to them and different from the notebook experience?" said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC, a market research firm. "That's the trick. Nobody's been very good at that yet. ... It's not as widely compelling as it needs to be if they want it to compete on the level of a phone or a PC."
But Otellini said such distinctions will cease to matter, especially since small Web devices can incorporate cell phone functions. And he...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Skype Comes to PlayStation Portable
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57615
In a week of consumer electronics madness, Sony announced it is introducing Skype features to its recently refreshed PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld entertainment system.
Skype offers free VoIP services and boasts more than 246 million members. The PSP-Skype partnership will offer gamers free voice calls between Skype users, presence features that let them see which friends are online and available to talk, SkypeOut calls to make calls to landlines and mobile phones anywhere in the world, and other standard Skype services.
"We don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt if Skype will be successful on a PSP," said Michael Goodman, a Yankee Group analyst. "We do know there has been some success with Skype on mobile devices. The PSP is a mobile device."
Typically, Goodman explained, people who use Skype on mobile devices are power mobile users who access the service while traveling, particularly internationally.
The Skype-PSP deal is the first time the VoIP service has been crossed with an entertainment device. Of course, the PSP isn't just any entertainment device -- or at least Sony isn't positioning it that way. To understand Sony's motivation for partnering with Skype, Goodman said, you have to take a step back and look at Sony's aspirations for the PSP.
According to Goodman, those aspirations were not to develop just another handheld gaming system. Sony has positioned the PSP to be a full-fledged media player. Goodman said the device does a good job at playing music and showing videos. Now, Sony is adding applications that will enhance the value of the PSP.
"Is Skype going to enhance the value for everybody? Absolutely not. But for a segment of the marketplace, it will. It will be interesting to watch over time how large of a user base it wins and who adopts it," Goodman said. "If it is easy...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Will DRM-Free Movement Bite Apple?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57614
Nearly a year ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs boldly called for the music industry to abandon its practice of using digital rights management (DRM) software to protect its content.
"Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats," Jobs wrote in a post on the Apple company blog. "In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."
Jobs pointed out that most music sold is DRM-free, because no effective system was ever developed for audio CDs. But he argued that the major music companies were unwilling to license their content to Apple for download without the implementation of a DRM system.
Apple developed FairPlay, a proprietary system that allows iTunes downloads to be played on Apple iPods, but not on other MP3 players.
Recent events suggest that the music industry might eventually abandon its efforts to restrict the portability of downloaded music. Napster (which ironically played a large role in the music industry's adoption of DRM in the first place) recently announced that it will start selling protection-free MP3s in the second quarter of 2008.
And just yesterday, Sony BMG -- the world's second-largest music company -- announced the launch of Platinum MusicPass, a series of cards that consumers can purchase to download DRM-free versions of full-length albums.
The retail program will start on January 15 with an initial list of 37 artists, ranging from Elvis Presley to Alicia Keys.
"Sony has joined the move to offer DRM-free content," said Zippy Aima, an industry analyst of digital media for ABI Research, "but the reason they are offering only limited number of titles is to see...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Coming to a TV Near You: The Internet
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57611
Matsushita is joining the companies who are trying to find the "missing link" that will connect the Internet with your living room TV. On Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show, the company announced what it is calling the industry's first IP-enabled plasma display, which is capable of displaying online video through one-click access to YouTube.
Matsushita's Panasonic Viera HD PZ850 will come in four models with screens ranging in size from 46 to 65 inches; it will be available in the spring.
The PZ850 not only includes "quick and easy access" to YouTube, the Web site where a few zillion user-supplied videos reside, but also "seamless access" to Picasa Web Albums for photos. Both YouTube and Picasa are owned by Google.
Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of Panasonic AVC Networks, said in a statement that this is the first time mainstream consumers "will be able to easily enjoy YouTube from the living room with the enhanced quality of a fully integrated widescreen TV experience."
The Internet-connected and YouTube-optimized Panasonic models are by no means the only televisions at CES designed to become the living room's missing link. Sony has launched an add-on module for its Bravia LCD line that it calls the "Internet Video Link." And the company has announced content partnerships with CBS and others.
Sharp has a new service called Aquos Net, so that owners of its Aquos LCD TVs can receive customized Web-based content through content deals Sharp has lined up.
Of course, users also can watch Internet-based video content that has been downloaded to iPods or other portable media players that have video-out capabilities. JVC is shooting for that market with a CES-announced, flat-screen TV that sports an iPod dock.
TVs that are connected to the Internet and portable devices are a hot area, said James McQuivey, an analyst...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Yahoo Spruces Up Mobile Net Platform
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57601
After losing some of its luster on the personal computer, embattled Internet icon Yahoo Inc. is hoping to outshine Google and other rivals on the mobile phone.
In a move announced Monday, Yahoo opened its mobile platform so outside programmers can develop new applications for Yahoo pages accessed on mobile handsets. Yahoo hopes the mini-applications, known as "widgets," will help attract more on-the-go users, which will bring the company more money from advertising.
The Sunnyvale-based company also unveiled a redesigned home page for mobile phones that includes more content and enables visitors to designate material they want highlighted.
And it released an upgrade to its "Go" software that is supposed to facilitate Web surfing on mobile phones and enable Yahoo to show ads with graphics.
Jerry Yang, a Yahoo co-founder who took over as chief executive nearly seven months ago as part of the company's turnaround efforts, discussed the changes Monday during an address at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
"We're committed to creating the best and richest mobile experience for all consumers," Yang said.
Yahoo believes its Go software, introduced at the same Las Vegas convention two years ago, gave the company an early advantage in a high-stakes battle to deliver more advertising and Internet services to the 3 billion mobile phone subscribers around the world.
But Yahoo is a step behind rival Google Inc. in the push to persuade programmers to develop applications for its mobile platform.
Mountain View-based Google began wooing outside programmers two months ago when it announced a long-anticipated mobile software package called "Android" that is expected to hit the market during the second half of this year.
Yahoo is betting more programmers will be interested in working on its mobile platform because it has the potential to reach billions of phones, said Yahoo spokesman Cory Pforzheimer. Google's Android software is expected to be...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Blu-ray Triumphs at Electronics Show
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57598
The International Consumer Electronics Show is turning out to be a celebration party for Blu-ray, the high-definition format that Sony Corp. backed, and a wake for a rival movie disc technology pushed by Toshiba Corp.
Just two months ago, Sony CEO Howard Stringer said the fight between Blu-ray and Toshiba's HD DVD was at a "stalemate," and expressed a wish to travel back in time to avert it.
The impasse was broken Friday by Warner Bros. Entertainment, the last major studio to put out movies in both formats. It announced it was ditching HD DVD, and from May on, would only publish on Blu-ray and traditional DVD.
The decision puts a strong majority of the major studios, five versus two, in the Blu-ray camp.
Asked Monday at the show if the Warner announcement decides the format war, Stringer said: "I never put up banners that say 'Mission Accomplished.'" But his cheerful delivery belied his words.
By contrast, the main media event scheduled for the show by the North American HD DVD Promotional Group, which includes Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., was canceled because of Warner's defection.
"We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps," the group said in a statement.
The shift in the format struggle isn't a reason to run out and buy Blu-ray players, however: today's players can't take advantage of the features planned for future Blu-ray discs.
On Monday, Panasonic parent Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. demonstrated prototypes that can handle the new interactive features coming to Blu-ray.
This spring, Panasonic plans to introduce a player for the so-called BD-Live standard. It will be able to connect to the Internet to download movie trailers, and will be able to play simple games.
At the Blu-ray booth at CES, a prototype Panasonic player was showing an...
Tue, 8 Jan 08
Feds Look To Fudge IPv6 Mandates
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57551
U.S. federal agencies have six months to meet a deadline to support IPv6, an upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol known as IPv4. But most agencies are not grabbing hold of the new technology and running with it, industry observers say.
Instead, most federal CIOs are doing the bare minimum required by law to meet the IPv6 mandate, and they aren't planning to use the new network protocol for the foreseeable future.
"The huge majority of federal networking is still going to be IPv4-based in June," predicts Doug Junkins, vice president of IP development for NTT America's Global IP Network business unit. NTT has offered commercial IPv6 services in the United States for five years.
"The vast majority of agencies will meet the mandate, but I don't think it's going to change how they operate their networks on a day-to-day basis," Junkins says. "They'll find the easiest way to meet the mandate. I don't think the mandate will be the driver for them to start using IPv6 on a regular basis."
Only 10% of federal agencies are buying services to run IPv6 traffic on their backbone networks, carriers estimate. The other 90% of federal agencies will likely meet the IPv6 mandate by upgrading their core routers to be IPv6 capable without running IPv6 traffic over them, carriers predict.
For the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) IPv6 mandate, agencies "didn't really have to deploy it. They only have to be capable of it," says Dave Siegel, director of data services product management at Global Crossing, which has one federal customer of its IPv6 service.
"To meet the OMB mandate, all they have to do is enable IPv6 on their backbone routers and then they get the check mark. And that's nothing," agrees Diana Gowen, senior vice president and general manager...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Intel To Announce 16 New Low-Power 45-nm Notebook Chips
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57586
In a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Monday, Intel chief executive officer Paul Otellini will make a small announcement: the introduction of the chip manufacturing giant's tiny but powerful new processors (codenamed Penryn) for notebook computers. Otellini will also introduce the company's new Menlow platform, which is designed to dramatically reduce power consumption without sacrificing processing capabilities for ultra-mobile devices (UMDs) and mobile Internet devices (MIDs).
According to a pre-CES news bulletin issued by the company, the Penryn processors and their mobile counterpart, Silverthorne, both use a new 45-nanometer "Hafnium-based, Hi-k metal" transistor gate that delivers improved performance and significantly longer battery life.
Intel executives are particularly excited about the potential for delivering the complete Internet experience "in your pocket." Earlier this week, Gary Willihnganz, Director of Marketing for the Intel Ultra Mobile Group, demonstrated some Menlow-based prototypes for GottaBeMobile.com video blogger Warner Crocker, and talked about Intel's vision for the future of mobile computing.
Holding up a tiny processor, Willihnganz said "This is Silverthorne, the CPU complex for the Menlow platform. It's built on our 45nm Hi-k manufacturing processes. That means it's going to be fast! It combines with our Poulsbo chipset, and together, that makes up the Menlow platform.
Intel's news release said that both Silverthorne and Poulsbo have been designed from scratch to work in low-power devices, and that the company has been successful in marketing the Menlow platform to a variety of handset manufacturers.
Full-scale production of the 45-nanometer chips is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2008.
A successful launch of the Menlow platform could significantly boost Intel's position in the Open Handset Alliance, the coalition of hardware, software, and online service companies working to develop the Android platform for mobile devices.
In his video interview, Willihnganz said that one...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Sears Faces Legal Risks from Spyware Program
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57581
Last week, security researchers revealed that Sears was installing spyware on the PCs of consumers who signed up for Sears' "community" program, MySHCCommunity.com. Then Thursday, a Computer Associates analyst detailed that another Sears site, ManageMyHome.com, revealed the shopping history of customers using just a name or address.
Sears disabled the feature by Friday, indicating that incompetence rather than malfeasance was responsible. CA analyst Stefan Berteau searched the site using his parents' names, address and phone number and got back "a list of their major Sears purchases running back almost two decades to when they first moved in to that house."
That security glitch, which represented a "real and immediate threat" to consumers' privacy, was quietly fixed the next day, and Berteau said he was "happy to see them reacting so promptly" but hoped they would take "similarly responsible actions" regarding MySHCCommunity.
CA analyst Benjamin Googins last month revealed that Sears' community program involves the distribution of spyware onto consumers' computers. "Sears.com is distributing spyware that tracks all your Internet usage -- including banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage -- all in the name of 'community participation,' " he wrote.
"If you have installed Sears software on your system, all data transmitted to and from your system will be intercepted. This extreme level of user tracking is done with little and inconspicuous notice about the true nature of the software." The registration process makes "very little" mention of the tracking software, and once installed, the software's presence is not apparent to the user, he added.
Sears Vice President Rob Harles responded twice to Googins' revelations, defending the program. Harles said that "the overwhelming majority of members are not tracked, nor invited to be tracked;" Sears gives prominent notice to users it invites to be tracked; the process...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Bill Gates Delivers Final Keynote at CES
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57580
Fourteen years ago, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates gave a keynote address at a Las Vegas technology show known as Comdex. In a speech entitled "Information at Your Fingertips -- 2005," he offered a vision of how Microsoft would reshape computer technology a decade into the future.
"By the year 2005," Gates said, "people will use technology to make it easier to learn, work, shop, socialize, and even consult a doctor. Kids at school, parents at the office, cops at the crime scene -- everyone will benefit from the wealth of tools and information available at our fingertips."
Yesterday, Gates gave delivered a new keynote -- this time at the Consumer Electronics Show, which, in the intervening years, displaced Comdex as the biggest tech show in the U.S. -- and offered an upbeat assessment of both computing's history and its future.
"The trend here is clear," Gates said. "All media and entertainment will be software driven. The first digital decade has been fantastically successful. There's nothing holding us back from going much further and much faster in the second digital decade."
Many of Gates' early predictions have come true, but not necessarily in the way that he imagined all those years ago. When he walked onto the stage at the Aladdin Hotel in 1994 for his Comdex keynote, the World Wide Web was just beginning to enter the public consciousness.
Since that keynote, the Internet has become a major economic and social force that is reshaping entire industries, and, in the process, making it possible for people to communicate in all the ways Gates once predicted. But unlike the personal computer, Microsoft is not at the center of this revolution, and its role in the future is unclear.
In his keynote address yesterday, Gates conceded as much. "The second digital decade will be...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Analyst: Wikia Search Fails To Deliver
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57568
Jimmy Wales, cofounder of Wikia, launched a new project to address what he says are the shortcomings of current search engines. But one analyst said he isn't so sure Wales' efforts do much to improve the current model.
The much-hyped Wikia Search debuted on Monday in alpha phase. The search platform, founded on open source and human collaboration, is now open to contributions from everyone.
Wikia Search lets users engage in traditional social-networking activities, such as creating a personal profile, adding friends, sharing photos, and managing privacy settings. Any user can discuss and rank search results, and write or edit "Mini Articles," among other activities.
The Wikia Search project's infrastructure is fully open, meaning that anyone -- from home hobbyists to entrepreneurs to startups -- can use the technology to build a new search engine. The infrastructure includes open access to indexes and downloads of compressed crawl data.
According to the company, the Wikia Search community is devoted both to transparency and to privacy -- meaning every ranking decision is open to the public and absolutely nothing is automatically stored about any user's executed search queries.
"We believe that a completely open foundation must drive the future of search, following the same principles as the Internet and Web that it builds upon," Jeremie Miller, a Wikia Search Architect and founder of Jabber, said in a statement. "Search is becoming one of the most powerful tools humankind has ever created -- only transparency and open participation will protect these tools from abuse."
Wales has a solid track record for shifting paradigms on the Internet. Since Wikipedia's launch in November 2004, for example, more than 800,000 articles on 3,000 topics have been created and edited by over 200,000 registered users in 70 languages. However, some analysts aren't so quick to jump on the Wikia Search...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Microsoft Simplifies Office File Format Fix
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57565
Microsoft Corp. changed course on an update to Office 2003 that blocked certain older file types from opening, after receiving a flurry of criticism from users and online publications.
Office 2003 Service Pack 3, a free package of updates and fixes released in September, blocked users from opening files created by older versions of Word, Excel and Power Point -- mostly programs launched in 1995 and earlier. The change also kept users from opening some files made in Corel Corp.'s CorelDraw.
Microsoft said opening the legacy file formats poses a security risk, and shut down easy access to the same older file types when it launched Office 2007.
For people who wanted to read the old files, the software maker built a workaround into Office 2007 that lets them open files they have stashed in a specific folder.
But the software maker devised a more complicated workaround for Office 2003 SP3 that involved modifying a user's PC's registry -- a crucial directory of settings the average computer user rarely deals with.
On Slashdot, a technology news and discussion site, more than 500 people logged comments about the issue this week. Some railed against what they saw as a way for the software maker to force people to spend money on new software, while others complained that Microsoft's security explanation wasn't accurate.
Microsoft took heed, and Friday unveiled a simpler way for people to unblock the older file types.
The new procedure -- which involves clicking on a series of links -- is detailed on the blog of David LeBlanc, a senior software development engineer for Microsoft Office.
"We did a poor job of describing the default format changes," LeBlanc wrote.
LeBlanc said Microsoft botched its explanation of the security issue. The code that reads file formats is what might open a user's PC to hacker attacks, but the file...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
GM Envisions Driverless Cars in 2018
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57560
Cars that drive themselves -- even parking at their destination -- could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say.
GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles.
"This is not science fiction," Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
The most significant obstacles facing the vehicles could be human rather than technical: government regulation, liability laws, privacy concerns and people's passion for the automobile and the control it gives them.
Much of the technology already exists for vehicles to take the wheel: radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital mapping. And automated vehicles could dramatically improve life on the road, reducing crashes and congestion.
If people are interested.
"Now the question is what does society want to do with it?" Burns said. "You're looking at these issues of congestion, safety, energy and emissions. Technically there should be no reason why we can't transfer to a totally different world."
GM plans to use an inexpensive computer chip and an antenna to link vehicles equipped with driverless technologies. The first use likely would be on highways; people would have the option to choose a driverless mode while they still would control the vehicle on local streets, Burns said.
He said the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018.
Sebastian Thrun, co-leader of the Stanford University team that finished second among six teams completing a 60-mile Pentagon-sponsored race of driverless cars in November, said GM's goal is technically attainable. But he said he wasn't confident cars...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Red Hat's New CEO Targets Oracle, Microsoft
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57554
Software maker Red Hat Inc. CEO Jim Whitehurst said Friday -- his fourth day on the job -- that he is angling for a showdown with much larger Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp. over leadership in open source products.
Moving beyond defending a company as he did as an executive at Delta Air Lines Inc., Whitehurst is ready to go on the offensive as he builds Raleigh-based Red Hat.
"A lot of work at an established company like Delta is about preserving market share and defending against incumbents," said Whitehurst, who helped guide the airline out of bankruptcy before leaving in August.
"Here, we are the attacker. If you listen to all the squealing that Microsoft and Oracle do about us, clearly they're worried about us."
Microsoft has put its weight behind the open-source software platform peddled by Novell Inc.
Oracle has been even more aggressive, announcing more than a year ago that it would sell maintenance service for Red Hat's product -- essentially copying the company's business and offering a lower price.
Whitehurst said anything short of success in the skirmishes with Oracle and Microsoft would endanger the open-source industry and the free flow of information -- though he acknowledged that competing against those two "very large and very wealthy" rivals will be difficult.
"We are working to democratize information," Whitehurst said. "A lot of people don't see the importance of that. But, ultimately, it is about information freedom and making sure information's accessible.
"If we don't fight those battles now, our entrenched competitors will lock up file formats, force you to use their software or force royalties," he added. "Then the information stored in those formats will no longer be free."
Unlike Microsoft, which keeps the code for its Windows operating system and its software secret, Red Hat collaborates...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Spam King Indicted for Stock Scheme
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57548
The jig may be up for the "spam king." A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted Alan Ralsky, his son-in-law, and nine others with running a spamming pump-and-dump scheme.
"Today's charges seek to knock out one of the largest illegal spamming and fraud operations in the country, an international scheme to make money by manipulating stock prices through illegal spam e-mail promotions," U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy said in a statement.
The spam messages promoted Chinese penny stocks and drove up their prices before they were sold for profit, the government charged. Prosecutors described Raksly as a "prolific spammer."
As an experienced spammer, Ralsky apparently had created ways to bypass many of the spam filters out there. The indictment claims that Ralsky used various illegal methods to evade filters and "tricked recipients into opening, and acting on, the advertisements in the spam," the Justice Department said.
The illegal activities identified in the indictment include using falsified headers in e-mail messages, using proxy computers to relay the spam, using falsely registered domain names to send the spam, and making misrepresentations in the advertising. The indictment states that Ralsky and his gang used botnets -- networks of infected PCs -- as part of the scheme.
The indictment alleges that the conspiracy earned Ralsky and his partners some $3 million in the summer of 2005 alone.
Three people have been arrested, including Ralsky's son-in-law Scott Bradley and How Wai John Hui, a dual national of Canada and Hong Kong. Ralsky is believed to be in Europe and is expected to surrender, according to his lawyer.
"Mr. Ralsky intends to fight these charges, which are brought under a new federal statute that has not been interpreted by the courts," his lawyer said.
"The flood of illegal spam continues to wreak havoc on the...
Mon, 7 Jan 08
Intel Break-Up a Wake-Up Call for OLPC?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57585
Tempers flared as Intel and One Laptop Per Child representatives traded accusations regarding the end of the chipmaker's involvement with what was once known as the $100 laptop project.
On Thursday, Intel announced its representative had resigned from the OLPC board, and spokesperson Chuck Mulloy told the Wall Street Journal that the problem was OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte's demands that Intel stop selling the Classmate PC in developing countries.
On Friday, Negroponte was telling a different story. He told the Journal that he had been ready in November to kick Intel off the board due to Intel's aggressive marketing of its low-cost Classmate computer, which included disparaging OLPC's XO.
After a personal appeal from Paul Otellini, in which Intel's CEO promised to accelerate development of an Intel-based version of OLPC's XO laptop and stop its salespeople from criticising the XO, Negroponte relented. But, the New York Times reported, the last straw came when Intel tried to convince Peru, which had agreed to buy 275,000 XO laptops, to change its order to Classmates.
The Intel salesperson tried "to scare us" by claiming the XO power adapters didn't work, Oscar Becerra Tresierra, general director for educational technology at Peru's Ministry of Education, told the Journal. "I don't feel very happy about it," he said. "We wouldn't like the project to fail because somebody is spreading gossip about the machines that doesn't turn out to be true."
The break-up was probably inevitable, Wayan Vota, editor of OLPC News, suggested in a telephone interview. "When I heard Intel had joined the board of OLPC, I was surprised," he said. "Negroponte believed he could convince Intel to change its ways. In doing so he forgot Intel is a very competitive chip seller."
Intel wants to sell chips on every platform, said Vota....
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Meraki Gives Free Wi-Fi to San Francisco
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57546
Meraki, a wireless-networking startup, announced plans on Friday to deploy a citywide wireless network that will provide free Internet access for every neighborhood in San Francisco.
The company also announced receiving funding of $20 million from Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, Northgate Capital, and other investors.
Meraki is essentially picking up where Google and Earthlink left off, both of which had abandoned similar wireless plans for San Francisco. Sanjit Biswas, CEO and cofounder of Meraki, called the initiative the "largest real-world test network of its kind."
Meraki launched a "Free the Net" program last year in San Francisco in selected neighborhoods. That program will be the model for the new citywide initiative.
Meraki's technology creates a wireless network by combining signals from hundreds or thousands of solar-powered radio repeaters installed on rooftops, balconies, and windows, extending Wi-Fi access to city residents in their homes and businesses.
Meraki plans to fund the entire cost for establishing the free network across San Francisco, as part of an effort to showcase for other communities how the company's technology can allow the creation of citywide networks at a fraction of current costs.
No public funds will be used to build the network. Meraki said it expects to have every neighborhood in San Francisco up and running by midyear.
It is important that people realize Meraki is not making this service available for free elsewhere, according to Craig Settles, an Oakland-based wireless consultant. Individuals have to step up to provide DSL or some other high-speed landline access for some of these repeaters, he explained.
"Meraki is doing what EarthLink should have done -- use the big, high-profile city as a marquee account, but sell the service to everyone else," Settles said. "Don't get sucked in to the 'free' hype."
Still, Settles added, municipalities have to realize that...
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Office 2003 SP3 Disables Old Files
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57545
Office 2003 users are being advised that some of the security enhancements contained in Microsoft's latest major update to its business productivity suite come at a price.
Once users install Office 2003 Service Pack 3, some older files in Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Corel Draw formats will be blocked, warned Microsoft's Viral Tarpara.
"Some older file formats, including some from Microsoft, are insecure," Tarpara wrote in a recent blog posting. "The decision to block the formats is strictly to protect your machine from being compromised."
Tarpara recommended that users convert their documents to Microsoft's OpenXML file format through the use of the Office Compatibility Pack. A command-line tool called Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM) is available for batch-converting a large number of files to the new format, he said.
"OMPM is great because it doesn't overwrite the original files at all," Tarpara explained. "It simply makes a copy of the file in the new file format so there is no risk." For those comfortable with Registry editing, modifications can be made in the Registry to unblock certain file formats.
For many Office 2003 users, the changeover should not be a problem, said Michael Silver, research director at Gartner Client Computing. "The number and percentage of files being exchanged in Microsoft formats like Office 95 or Word 6 is minute," Silver noted.
Nevertheless, he said, a small number of I.T. shops might be concerned about the older file formats that are still in use. "I don't know what the latest versions of 1-2-3 and Quattro files are, so I don't know how old the file types removed are," Silver added. If they are fairly old, they may cause a big problem for very few people."
One user complained on Tarpara's blog that Microsoft is making "security so hard that people...
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Big Blue Restructures Hardware Group
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57544
IBM Corp. is restructuring its hardware division around customer types rather than individual products, marking the biggest such realignment in the unit in 15 years.
In an internal memo sent to the hardware group Thursday, the head of the division, William Zeitler, said the changes would strengthen IBM's ability to sell technology to small and medium-sized businesses and to design products specifically for them.
IBM gets most of its business from big corporations and governments, but it has been trying to improve sales of services, software and servers to smaller companies because their technology purchases are growing at a faster rate.
Although IBM will still report hardware revenue by product category as it traditionally has, the realignment will create four client segments, including one governing hardware for large organizations and a separate one for small and mid-sized customers.
The third segment will focus on "industry systems" in retail, telecommunications and health care, and the fourth on microelectronics, serving buyers of IBM's custom microprocessors.
Analyst Bob Djurdjevic of Annex Research said the realignment should help IBM move quicker and more in tune with the needs of smaller customers. While IBM's chairman and chief executive, Sam Palmisano, has been talking about "lowering the center of gravity of the company," that has been "mainly rhetoric" until now, Djurdjevic said.
Palmisano said in 2007 that sales to small and medium customers might soon become IBM's single largest customer segment, surpassing the financial-services industry.
IBM claims small and medium businesses accounted for $17 billion of its 2006 revenue, while financial services rang up $25 billion.
However, that figure is not entirely as it may appear: It represents revenue reaped by IBM sales teams other than the ones who sell into the world's very largest organizations. As a result, companies with many thousands of people can get touted as small and medium business...
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Predictions for Jobs' Macworld Keynote
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57542
What will the upcoming "Stevenote" bring? For the uninitiated, the Stevenote is the keynote speech Apple CEO Steve Jobs will deliver at the MacWorld Expo later this month. The Web is rife with rumors.
For Arik Hesseldahl of Business Week, the most likely new product will be a subnotebook Mac that possibly uses the new low-power Silverthorne chips from Intel. Joining CNBC and others, Hesseldahl surmised that a new MacBook Mini might feature a flash drive instead of a hard disk.
"Already the world's largest consumer of NAND flash memory after SanDisk," he wrote, "Apple is in a better position to popularize solid-state storage in mainstream computing devices than any other vendor."
As the iPhone was announced at last January's MacWorld, few observers would be shocked if Apple sought to keep the popular device's momentum going with the announcement at MacWorld of a 3G iPhone.
Jobs and Apple's U.S. partner, AT&T, already have indicated that it is on the drawing board. The addition of GPS functionality to the iPhone is another possibility.
Chris Hazelton, an analyst with IDC, said there is a good chance a 3G iPhone will be announced at MacWorld. In addition to citing word from AT&T and Apple that a 3G version is on the way, he pointed to reports that carriers in Japan, where 3G is big, are interested in launching the iPhone.
A major guessing game has been where Apple will choose to deploy its multitouch interface technology, which allows users to make images larger, for instance, just by moving two fingers apart on the device's surface.
Some observers say that Apple is intending to release a tablet computer with a multitouch interface. CrunchGear.com is reporting that the migration of multitouch functionality will happen first on the trackpad rather than on the screen, and that a...
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Intel Turns Its Back on OLPC Project
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57541
Intel has pulled out of the One Laptop Per Child initiative to sell millions of low-cost laptops to developing nations. The chip giant cited disagreements with OLPC's founder, former MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, according to a report published in the Wall Street Journal.
Reportedly, Intel and the OLPC have been bickering over Intel's initiatives to sell its own low-cost laptop, the Classmate, in many of the same countries OLPC has targeted.
AMD provides the chips for the OLPC machines, but Intel appeared to be getting a piece of the action through an OLPC-designed laptop the Journal reported was to be announced at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Instead, according to the Journal, Intel's representative quit the OLPC board and the hardware has been nixed.
Negroponte launched the OLPC nonprofit in 2005 to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops to every child in the world. The Linux-powered XO machines are engineered to withstand the harsh environmental conditions found in developing countries -- from the dust and heat of the Libyan desert to the daily downpours of the Brazilian rainforests.
Negroponte's original goal was to get the device to as many as 150 million children by the end of 2008. The machine currently on the market costs more than the initial $100 target price and has not come close to the OLPC's sales goals.
In September, OLPC made a move to kick-start its momentum with a program called "Give 1, Get 1" designed to persuade individuals from the United States and Canada to support the OLPC and its work by paying for two XO laptop computers -- one to give, one to get.
That program reportedly has done well and was extended beyond its initial two-week run to the end of December 2007.
"We've reached a philosophical impasse with OLPC,"...
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Gadgets Go Green at This Year's CES
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57529
Consumer electronics aren't exactly easy on the environment -- they consume electricity that contributes to global warming, and toxins leach out of them when they end up in landfills.
But the industry that's inviting us to get a new cell phone every year and toss out that old TV in favor of a great new flat panel is also trying to show that it cares.
At the world's largest trade show for consumer electronics, starting Monday in Las Vegas, manufacturers will be talking not just about megapixels, megahertz and megabytes, but about smart power adapters that don't waste as much electricity, batteries that are easier to recycle, and components made from plants.
Many of the products on display will be striking rather small blows for the environment, but the industry is realizing that even in electronics, going "green" can be a powerful marketing tool.
"Everything I've heard from folks out there is that there is going to be a lot of emphasis on green this year," said Scot Case, a vice president at consultancy TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc.
One of the 2,700 exhibitors at the International Consumer Electronics Show will be Japan's Fujitsu Ltd., which will show off a laptop with a plastic case made from corn rather than petroleum products. The company has sold such a model in Japan since 2006, but is now considering taking it to the North American market.
Environmental awareness among consumers and corporations has now reached the point where manufacturers really are taking notice, said Richard McCormack, senior vice president of marketing at Fujitsu's U.S. arm.
"They're driving manufacturers like us with their pocket book," McCormack said.
The catch with the corn-based laptop is that the material isn't biodegradable, meaning it doesn't decompose any faster than regular plastic. That's because it still contains some petroleum-based plastic in the mix for rigidity. The...
Fri, 4 Jan 08
Suit Demands Apple License Microsoft DRM
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57547
Nothing breeds lawsuits like success. And for Apple, the New Year is bringing a rash of them. Earlier this week, Apple disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that an iPod customer, Melanie Tucker, has filed a suit against the company, claiming that Apple violates antitrust laws by not allowing music bought on iTunes to be played on non-Apple music players.
Tucker is seeking class-action status and asking the U.S. District Court for Northern California to force Apple to make iTunes purchases compatible with devices other than the iPod and to pay damages to anyone who bought an iPod or iTunes track after April 28, 2003.
On New Year's Eve, another iPod buyer, Stacie Somers, filed a similar suit, also seeking class-action status. Somers is claiming that Apple illegally restrains competition by not making its music compatible with Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. Like Tucker, Somers alleges that by making iTunes music incompatible with non-iPod players, Apple violates antitrust laws.
Somers' suit contends that Apple could license WMA for 3 cents per iPod -- or a mere $800,000, a figure based on 2005 iPod sales.
Somers specifically claims that Apple's digital music preferences violate the Clayton Act, Cartwright Act, California's Unfair Competition Law, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and other antitrust laws.
The suit notes that most online music vendors, including AOL, Best Buy, MusicMatch, Napster, Yahoo, and Virgin Digital, sell music in the WMA format, but Apple "refuses" to do so and "refuses" to make its AAC files compatible with media players other than the iPod.
The suit even alleges that Apple intentionally cripples WMA-playback capabilities in the iPod. "Apple's crippleware operating system software prevents the iPod Shuffle from playing WMA files," according to the complaint.
"There is no appropriate or legitimate business justification" for Apple's actions, the suit...
Thu, 3 Jan 08
Chatting While Driving Slows Traffic
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57516
According to a University of Utah study, motorists who talk on cell phones drive more slowly on the freeway, pass sluggish vehicles less frequently, and take longer to complete their trips. The study suggests drivers on cell phones congest traffic.
"At the end of the day, the average person's commute is longer because of that person who is on the cell phone right in front of them," says University of Utah psychology Professor Dave Strayer, leader of the research team.
Strayer and Joel Cooper, a doctoral student in psychology, conducted the study with Ivana Vladisavljevic, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering, and Peter Martin, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the University of Utah Traffic Lab.
"If you talk on the phone while you're driving, it's going to take you longer to get from point A to point B, and it's going to slow down everybody else on the road," said Joel Cooper, a doctoral student in psychology. Martin said that, combined with Strayer's previous research, the new study shows cell phones not only make driving dangerous, but also cause delays.
The study, which relied on a driving simulator to conduct the tests, involved 36 psychology students. Each student drove through six, 9.2-mile trip scenarios, two each in low, medium, and high-density traffic corresponding to freeway speeds of 40 mph to 70 mph. Each 9.2-mile drive included 3.9 miles with two lanes in each direction and 5.3 miles with three lanes each way. Traffic speed and flow were designed to mimic Interstate 15 in Salt Lake City.
Each student spoke on a hands-free cell phone during one drive at each level of traffic density, and did not use a cell phone during the other three drives. A volunteer on the other end of the phone was told...
Thu, 3 Jan 08
SanDisk USB Drive Offers Web Backup
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57515
SanDisk has introduced a new USB flash drive that will back up files online whenever they are copied to the device. If you forget to bring the drive on a road trip, or if it is lost or stolen, you can retrieve the files through any device that has an Internet connection.
"This is true 'set it and forget it' data protection," noted Hezy Rotman, the general manager of SanDisk's USB division.
Housed in a rugged, crush-resistant metal case, SanDisk's Cruzer Titanium Plus comes with six months of free online backup service. When that period expires, the online storage capability can be extended for $30 per year.
If the user's computing device does not have an online connection at the time new files are copied to the drive, the Cruzer's onboard software will ensure that those files are backed up online automatically the next time an Internet connection becomes available.
Files accidentally deleted from the drive can be recovered by accessing the password-protected account on the Web. Each user's online backup capacity matches the Cruzer's 4 GB of physical storage capacity. Files deleted from the drive are kept online for 30 days, as long as the total amount of storage in use does not exceed the device's capacity.
Cruzer drive users also have the option of switching on a password-protection capability that features encryption to prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to data in the event that the drive is lost or stolen.
The online backup service for SanDisk's new device pairs backup specialist BeInSync with Amazon Web Services technology. BeInSync encrypts all downloads and uploads to Amazon's servers.
Rotman predicted that the drive's capabilities "will encourage people to use flash drives for storing important data, not just transferring files from one computer to another."
It makes sense that...
Thu, 3 Jan 08
Lenovo Launches New IdeaPad Line
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57514
Lenovo, maker of the popular business-oriented ThinkPad line of notebook PCs, entered the consumer market on Thursday with the launch of its new line of IdeaPad computers.
IdeaPads will be offered in several models in a variety of countries. In the U.S., the models will be the all-purpose Y510, the gamer-oriented Y710, and ultraportable U110, each sporting Intel Centrino chipsets and Dolby surround sound.
Lenovo said in a statement that the new models "make a bold design statement with frameless screen, touch-sensitive control surfaces, and unique textures."
Doug Bell, an analyst with IDC, pointed out that Lenovo is trying to use the halo from the ThinkPad's reputation in the commercial sphere to propel its new consumer brand.
The timing of the new line's launch is optimal, he said, because the consumer market is growing, especially in notebook sales. He predicted that Lenovo will be pushing the IdeaPad brand through its sponsorship of the upcoming 2008 Olympics.
Lenovo said that its "Ideas" marketing campaign will introduce consumers to the new PCs by illustrating the power of ideas and how the IdeaPad brand helps in capturing and transforming those ideas.
One of the newer ideas embodied in the new machines is authentication via VeriFace Face Recognition. Lenovo said that an owner's face can become a password, thanks to the VeriFace software and an embedded camera in each of the new IdeaPad laptops.
Bell said that, in general, the specifications on the new machines do not stand out. What is noteworthy, he said, is Lenovo's effort to make its brand name stand out. In fact, he noted, Lenovo's own brand has achieved enough of a reputation that it recently phased out the IBM stamp on its ThinkPad machines.
In the Y710, the brand name literally stands out, with a backlit Lenovo logo. The...
Thu, 3 Jan 08
Netflix and LG Partner on Set-Top Box
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57513
On Thursday, Netflix and LG Electronics said they are joining forces to develop a set-top box for consumers to stream movies and other programming from the Internet to HDTVs -- bypassing the need to use a PC.
The collaboration is expected to yield fruit in the second half of 2008. Netflix said the partnership supports its core strategy of offering a service that gives its more than seven million members several ways to view movies and TV shows.
"Internet to the TV is a huge opportunity," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement. He added that Netflix explored the possibility of offering its own Netflix-brand set-top box, but concluded that it would be better to offer devices from companies such as LG Electronics.
Netflix offers a catalog of more than 90,000 titles on DVD delivered through postal mail, and a growing selection of more than 6,000 movies and TV episodes for download to PCs. When the LG product becomes available later this year, Netflix subscribers will be able to watch movies streamed from Netflix on their HDTVs.
Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, called the Netflix-LG partnership an "interesting development." However, he said, consumers should keep in mind that the technology is not yet available.
It's customary for electronics companies to make major announcements around the Consumer Electronics Show, he noted, but because the product won't come to market until later this year, there won't be any immediate impact on the way Netflix members view their movie rentals.
"Netflix has decided the LG deal isn't the only deal it is going to make," Leigh said. "LG Electronics is only one example." He added that Netflix apparently has discovered that other consumer electronics manufacturers are receptive to the idea of developing products similar to what LG and...
Thu, 3 Jan 08
Get Ready for the Terabyte Notebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57512
A terabyte in a notebook. That vision of portable storage bliss arrived with Thursday's announcement that Asus will integrate two of Hitachi's new 500-GB, 2.5-inch Travelstar hard drives into its M70 laptop.
In case you are having a hard time imagining how large a terabyte is, think about having 350 feature-length movies on your notebook, or 250,000 four-minute songs.
Tony Chen, general manager of Asus Notebooks, said in a statement that the large capacity of the new drive can meet the ever-increasing demand for "digital entertainment on the go" combined with "desktop performance and features."
But the drive is not limited to mobile uses. In a statement announcing the new hardware, Hitachi noted that the 5K500 can be used in space-saving "slim" desktops.
Hitachi said the drive's rotational vibration safeguard (RVS) technology is designed to protect data by providing an "early warning system" to the drive. When the RVS detects that a vibration might be on the way, the drive takes steps to stabilize itself, the company said.
According to Hitachi, while premium speakers can enhance the experience of movies, music, and games, they can pass on vibrations that the drive notices even if the user doesn't. Another common vibration source can be the motor on another drive, in a two-drive laptop.
There are three platters in the new drive, instead of two as in previous Hitachi laptop drives. Although the drive fits into a 2.5-inch format -- the standard size for most laptops -- it's actually a bit taller than existing drives.
The arrival of a terabyte notebook is "surprising in that it's here so quickly, but it was inevitable," said IDC analyst Doug Bell. He said that the needs of some users for large media files is "definitely pushing the physical limits" of hard drive storage.
Bell said he doubts...
Thu, 3 Jan 08
Technology Firms Flourish in Clusters
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57511
Palo Alto Networks is a high-technology start-up with ample funding and ambitious plans. But despite its name, the company has no offices in Palo Alto, California, Silicon Valley's unofficial capital.
Instead, it is based about 12 miles, or about 19 kilometers, farther south, on the outskirts of San Jose. The Alviso company is developing technology to protect computer networks from hackers and misuse, so it chose to be where engineers with networking expertise are clustered: around big companies in the field like Cisco and Juniper Networks.
Nir Zuk, its founder and chief technology officer, notes that Palo Alto is synonymous with high-technology innovation, and he was living there when he came up with the name.
"But in Silicon Valley, you locate a company where the engineers are," he explained. "You would never locate a networking company in Palo Alto."
Silicon Valley, the wellspring of the digital technologies fueling globalization, is itself a collection of remarkably local clusters based on industry niches, skills, school ties, traffic patterns and ethnic groups.
"Here, we have microclimates for wines and microclimates for companies," said John Shoch, a longtime venture capitalist.
Silicon Valley, home of Stanford and other universities, has long been the model of success for a modern regional economy, and policy makers worldwide have tried to emulate it by nurturing high-technology companies around universities. There have been a few winners, like the semiconductor manufacturing hub in and around Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan.
Yet a look at the microclusters within Silicon Valley demonstrates the business relationships, the social connections and the seamless communication that animate the region's economy. It also suggests the human nuance behind the Valley's success and shows why that success is not easy to copy, export or outsource.
"These microclusters turn out to be a very efficient way to innovate, to...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Nigerian Firm Sues OLPC for $20 Million
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57496
A Nigerian company that claims the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project ripped off its multilanguage keyboard has sued the nonprofit in a Nigerian court, seeking $20 million in damages. Lancor Analysis Corp. has obtained a temporary injunction banning OLPC from selling its XO laptop in Nigeria, according to the Groklaw Web site.
Groklaw reported that, in August, Lancor demanded $20 million from OLPC to settle the suit. Adé Oyegbola, CEO of Lancor, which is now headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, with offices in Lagos, Nigeria, confirmed the information on Wednesday.
Lancor sued OLPC in Nigeria's Federal High Court, claiming OLPC reverse-engineered Lancor's technology, which is especially useful in African countries with overlapping languages.
Lancor based the $20 million figure on a previous commitment the Nigerian government made to buy one million XO laptops. With a retail price of $19.95 for a keyboard, Lancor figured it was owed $20 million.
"We didn't start the process because we're looking for the money," Oyegbola said. "It doesn't make sense for us not to protect our intellectual property."
Groklaw editor Pamela Jones called the lawsuit "cynical" and "ridiculous." She suggested the suit was the equivalent of the well-known Nigerian scams arriving in e-mail inboxes every day. "Nigeria is a hoot. 'Is this another e-mail scam?' I hear you ask. No. It's playing out in real life," she wrote.
Jones said that Lancor's proof of illegal reverse engineering is exceedingly weak. "Here's the 'evidence' that reverse engineering occurred: They say a Web site about OLPC's keyboard and development tickets 'clearly established' that it happened," she said.
In a demand letter, Lancor asserted in general terms that OLPC had violated its patents and end user license agreement (EULA). In response, Bruce Parker of the Foley Hoag law firm asked for specific patent numbers, a copy of the license agreement,...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Can Social Search Take Down Google?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57495
Jimmy Wales' Wikia Search will open to the public next week with an eye toward improving search by letting users tweak search results in a fashion similar to how users edit entries on Wikipedia.
Wales, the founder of Wikipeida, announced that the project would enter public beta on January 7. The goal, he said, is to reduce the "bottleneck of two or three firms really controlling the flow of search traffic."
The public release should be considered alpha, Wales said. "We want to run over the system with help from people to complain about what is broken."
Wikiia Search was originated in July, when Wales announced that his company, Wikia, had acquired a distributed-search project called Grub and was releasing it under an open-source license.
"The desire to collaborate and support a transparent and open platform for search is clearly deeply exciting to both open source and businesses," Wales said in July. He said Wikia would work to "free the judgment of information from invisible rules inside an algorithmic black box."
Analysts questioned whether the user-edited model that has proved so successful with Wikipedia would scale to the demands of consumer search engines. Wikia Search will launch with 50 to 100 million Web pages indexed, while Google indexes billions of pages.
"I think he doesn't really understand the scale of what Google has to handle in terms of the queries from around the world and the amount of traffic that flows to it and the attempts that are made to try to manipulate it," said Danny Sullivan, editor of the Web site Search Engine Land.
Jordan McCollum, writing on the Marketing Pilgrim blog, said the project's list of must-index sites makes the usefulness of the project dubious, as it includes such little used Wikipedia-related sites as Wiktionary and WikiNews alongside...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Report: Identity Theft Worse in 2008
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57494
According to the latest data from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), the number of publicly reported data breaches in the U.S. rose by more than 40 percent in 2007.
The ITRC cited 443 publicly reported breaches in 2007 as of December 24. That compares to 315 publicized breaches in 2006. In all, 127 million data records were exposed during 2007, compared to nearly 20 million in 2006. In 2005, the ITRC reported 158 publicly disclosed breaches exposing about 65 million records.
Identity theft continues to thrive despite efforts by governmental agencies, businesses, consumer advocates, and law enforcement. Identity thieves keep finding innovative new ways to steal, and are becoming more sophisticated and skilled at their craft.
On the positive side, there has been improved communication among businesses, consumers, and law enforcement as to the causes and possible solutions to reduce identity theft.
"Identity theft is like the never-ending story," ITRC Founder Linda Foley said in a statement. "It acts like an oil spill that spreads in yet another direction with the ocean currents and wind despite best efforts to contain it."
One need look only at news reports to see that identity thieves are getting younger and younger. Recently, two people in their early 20s were arrested. The duo was in possession of sophisticated forgery equipment, which, according to the ITRC, is a strong indicator that identity theft is becoming a lucrative career path.
The ITRC offered several disturbing predictions for 2008. For example, the ITRC predicts identity theft will continue to grow more international in scope. Scams will become more sophisticated and will be harder to detect, as thieves become more industrious and skilled at designing viruses and ways to trick people into divulging personal information.
The group also is predicting an increase in the number of data breaches due to poor...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Qualcomm Hit with New Chip Ban
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57493
U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna has ordered Qualcomm to cease the production, use, sale, and importation of certain chips that infringe on three Broadcom patents. The patents pertain to video encoding, push-to-talk, and 3G technologies for cellular handsets.
"Broadcom should not have to compete against companies that use Broadcom's own patented technology against us, and this injunction puts a stop to Qualcomm doing just that," said Broadcom General Counsel David Dull.
For its part, Qualcomm said it is reviewing the ban and expects it will require further clarification from the court on various aspects of the ruling.
"We are disappointed with the order and will continue to pursue all available legal avenues, including the appeal process," said Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs during a conference call with investors.
"Out of an abundance of caution as we continue to analyze the order," Jacobs added, "we have decided to take a number of immediate measures to ensure compliance."
As one countermeasure, Qualcomm has begun sampling new "drop-in replacement" chipsets that are compatible with the company's infringing products. "We expect that our OEMs will be able to transition over to the new chipset and we expect commercial handsets to be available by the end of the first quarter," said Sanjay Jha, chief operating officer of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.
Qualcomm's CEO admitted that Judge Selna's decision is likely have a negative impact on the company's sales in the short term due to the time required for handset customers to make the transition to the company's new designs. The court's decision is expected to impact certain Qualcomm products already in the development pipeline for the U.S. market, Jacobs said.
In the long run, Qualcomm will be challenged to make replacement components commercially available prior to January 31, 2009 -- the expiration date of the sunset provision...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Mac Tablet Makes Its First Appearance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57490
Amid rumors of a tablet computer being launched by Apple at the upcoming Macworld Expo trade show, a California company has taken the lead by launching its own Mac-based tablet.
Axiotron said that its ModBook is an aftermarket hardware modification of a standard Apple MacBook, and is intended for those times when "a keyboard only gets in the way." The device was announced a year ago, at the 2007 Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
As with other tablets, the user can write and draw directly on the ModBook screen. The new tablet uses handwriting-recognition technology that is already embedded in the Mac operating system.
The pen digitizer offers 133 position updates per second and 512 pressure levels, with three different kinds of replaceable pen tips for different drawing styles. For drawing, users can rest their hand on the screen without generating marks because the pen is radio-based. The cursor can be controlled even when the pen hovers over the screen.
In fact, Axiotron said that the ModBook offers a paper-like writing sensation, in part because the LCD screen has been acid-treated to achieve an etched surface.
The product, which starts at $2,290, also has a built-in iSight camera, built-in 802.11a/b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 2.0, and an integrated CD/DVD drive that is upgradable.
Tablets are designed for mobile use, and the ModBook is certainly built for rugged travel. Axiotron said it is the first portable Mac with optional GPS, and that its top shell and interior display frame are constructed from aircraft-quality magnesium alloy for durability.
The top shell is plated with chrome over copper and nickel layers, which the company said offers protection against scratches and oxidation. In addition, the LCD panel has a replaceable screen cover made from a chemically strengthened material that Axiotron calls ForceGlass.
The mobile market is where...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
U.S. Near Bottom of Global Privacy Index
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57489
Individual privacy is under threat around the world as governments continue introducing surveillance and information-gathering measures, according to an international rights group.
"The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country," said Simon Davies, director of London-based Privacy International, which released a study on the issue Saturday.
"Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire."
Although privacy was improving in the former communist states of eastern Europe, it is worsening across Western Europe, the report said.
Concerns about terrorism, immigration and border security were driving the spread of identity and fingerprinting systems, according to the report.
Greece, Romania and Canada had the best records of 47 countries Privacy International surveyed.
Malaysia, Russia and China ranked worst, but Great Britain and the United States also fell into the lowest-performing group of "endemic surveillance societies."
The survey considered such factors as legal protections, enforcement, data sharing, the use of biometrics and prevalence of closed-circuit cameras.
U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has come under fire for monitoring -- without warrants -- international phone calls and e-mails involving people suspected of having terrorist links.
Davies said little had changed since Democrats took control of Congress a year ago.
Britain was criticized for its plans for national identity cards, a lack of government accountability and the world's largest network of surveillance cameras.
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Will Macworld Overshadow CES 2008?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57486
Award-winning actors, musicians, comedians and sports stars all come together at the Consumer Electronics Show to experience what is being marketed as an event that features the hottest products and technologies in consumer electronics.
Yoko Ono, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, and other celebrities will be on hand at this year's CES, which runs January 7 to January 10 in Las Vegas. They'll join more than 2,700 exhibitors that hope to win a share of the $148 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry.
Exhibitors are starting to offer teasers of their new products before the show, and several convention attractions are being promoted. One of the attractions will feature live racing from the BMW Sauber F1 team.
CES will host several market-specific TechZones. These TechZones will highlight the latest innovations, technologies, and trends in consumer electronics. More than 175 conference tracks will begin Saturday, January 5.
The Digital Imaging Showcase will feature the latest digital imaging technologies from more than 30 companies. The Gaming Showcase will highlight the latest in gaming hardware and software. And Wireless World will feature the entire wireless technology value chain, from manufacturers to distribution to content and accessories.
"With touch screens, smarter smart phones, mobile broadband, open platforms, and new mobile operating systems -- 2008 is going to be an incredibly exciting year for the mobile industry," Bill Ogle, chief marketing officer for Samsung Telecommunications America, said in a statement.
In addition to Samsung making a showing, all the usual suspects will be on hand at CES, including Panasonic, Microsoft, Intel, Motorola, Mitsubishi, and Sony. Many are wondering whether a phone running Google's Android mobile platform will be introduced, or at least announced.
This year's show spans a record-setting 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space. Still, at least one analyst said he isn't convinced that the...
Wed, 2 Jan 08
Chip Sales Rise on Strong PC Demand
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=57475
Worldwide semiconductors sales during November totaled $23.1 billion -- a 2.3 percent rise from one year earlier, the Semiconductor Industry Association said in its latest report. Rising energy prices and concerns about subprime lending issues apparently had no significant impact on consumer spending for electronic products during the holiday shopping season, the industry trade association noted.
Consumer products with high semiconductor content, such as music and multimedia players, LCD TVs, and digital cameras, all appear to have enjoyed robust holiday sales, said SIA President George Scalise, who noted that the products all finished the year with very healthy increases.
Still, not all is rosy in chipland. "While total semiconductor sales continue on pace to surpass the record level of 2006, it will take very strong sales in December to meet our forecast of 3.8 percent growth in 2007," Scalise said. Final December sales figures will not be available for several weeks.
Although semiconductor unit demand was robust in 2007, the SIA noted that chip prices had declined significantly in several key product segments. For example, RAM shipments, which grew by 25 percent in the three months leading up to mid-December, were largely offset by a 20 percent decline in the average selling price during the same period.
"2007 was marked by continued strong DRAM investments, shrugging off the realities of a market sector in oversupply, slower NAND spending growth, and disappointed hopes of a foundry spending revival," said Gartner Vice President Klaus Rinnen, who also said he expects a "long overdue" capital spending correction will take place in 2008 that will remedy the current RAM glut.
Semiconductor manufacturers have added a tremendous amount of capacity over the past year, noted SEMI President Stanley Meyers. "This, combined with the overall booking trends, indicates that investments will slow in the near-term, which is consistent...