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| Oct 2008 | Sep 2008 | Aug 2008 | Jul 2008 | Jun 2008 | May 2008 | Apr 2008 | Mar 2008 | Feb 2008 | Jan 2008 | Dec 2007 | Nov 2007 |Sat, 28 Jun 08
Hackers Hijack, Redirect IANA and ICANN Web Sites
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60525
Hackers calling themselves NetDevilz temporarily hijacked the sites of key organizations that control routing of Internet traffic and redirected them to a taunting page.
Visitors to the sites for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) were temporarily redirected Thursday morning. The sites affected were iana.com, iana-servers.com, icann.com and icann.net, according to researchers at Zone-h.org, which monitors attacks.
A message at the bogus site said, "You think that you control the domains but you don't! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don't you believe us?"
IANA is responsible for managing the domain-name root system that translates domain names like newsfactor.com into IP addresses. ICANN oversees IANA.
The sites were redirected to the same IP address used last week in an attack on Photobucket.
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Bill Gates Retires Amid a Legacy of Growth, Controversy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60524
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates "retired" at 52 Friday from the company he cofounded to spend more time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization that has given more than $16.5 billion in grants worldwide.
He is known as the person who pushed the computer industry to unprecedented success with his goal of a PC in every home. But in 33 years of building Microsoft, Gates has also been characterized by some as a merciless competitor and a monopolist, and even accused of appropriating other people's ideas.
Starting in 1980, Gates turned an obscure operating system called QDOS into MS-DOS, which some techies have derided as the "retarded little brother" of open-source UNIX, since it basically consisted of flopped slash marks and similar commands with slightly different names.
IBM paid for the development but didn't retain the rights to MS-DOS because it was certain its bread-and-butter big mainframe computers would always be dominant and PCs were just a passing fad. Big mistake. Gates supplied MS-DOS and later Windows to thousands of entrepreneurs who assembled PCs with off-the-shelf parts and sold them for much less than IBM.
Along the way, Gates added other software, sometimes buying out competitors or adding their features as Microsoft Office and other software programs grew to dominate the industry. Some claimed the Windows code was manipulated to cripple competitors, and that became an issue in the company's antitrust battles along with Microsoft taking over the Internet browser market by making Internet Explorer free.
The European Union has also objected to Microsoft's tactics, leading to some changes in the company's behavior toward competitors.
Add that behavior to Microsoft products that often didn't work well on the first release, notably Windows Vista, and the critics have been hard on Gates and Microsoft. Some in the industry...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Virgin Mobile USA Buys Helio for $39 Million in Equity
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60523
Virgin Mobile USA on Friday said it has agreed to acquire Helio, a joint venture between SK Telecom and EarthLink, for $39 million in equity.
Strategically, the Helio acquisition allows Virgin to add a set of data applications to its suite of products and services. Entering into the postpaid market will also give Virgin access to about 140 million prospective new customers.
Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA, characterized Helio as an asset that adds to the company's scale and allows it to reduce network costs.
"This strategic acquisition integrates Virgin Mobile USA's brand recognition, scale and extensive distribution with Helio's accomplishments in advanced handset and content offerings," Schulman said. "It provides us with a firm foundation to create a truly holistic, leading-edge product suite to service all of our existing and prospective customers."
With the acquisition, Virgin will gain an established postpaid billing and customer care platform. Virgin expects acquiring Helio's 170,000 customers and expanding its portfolio will increase the company's volume. That, the firm said, will drive down the company's cost per minute under an amendment to its Personal Communications Service agreement with Sprint Nextel.
On the consumer side, Helio has made headway on social networking. The company has developed data services in partnership with YouTube, Google and MySpace. Virgin said it will use this to strengthen its competitive position in the prepaid, hybrid and postpaid markets while moving its handsets upmarket.
"With about 20 percent of our disconnects currently going to postpaid products, we believe this new platform will be a powerful retention tool as we offer a unique and desirable postpaid alternative to our customers," Schulman said.
JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg is somewhat surprised Virgin is buying Helio. The Helio concept was struggling as a high-end Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) targeting...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Sony Will Offer News, Weather, Video Through PlayStation
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60522
In addition to keeping up with battles on alien planets, PlayStation 3 will soon be able to help you stay current with planet Earth. On Thursday, Sony Computer Entertainment President Kazuo Hirai announced both Life with PlayStation, a service that allows users to see current news and weather around the world through a spinning-globe menu, and a PS3 download service for movies, music and TV shows.
Life with PlayStation will "bring unique content centering on two axes, place and time," Hirai said.
The interface includes a globe that the user can spin, showing different parts of the planet. News headlines and weather conditions related to indicated cities can be accessed via the globe, and Sony reportedly has said the globe will also feature weather-satellite images of cloud patterns. No release date for Life with PlayStation was set.
Hirai also said Sony intends to add the capability for users to store their own photos and movies according to where and when they were recorded, and then also use the globe -- plus some sort of selector for time -- to find them.
But personal movies are not the only movies PS3 intends to offer. Hirai also confirmed that the long-expected movie-download service for PS3 will be launched this summer in the U.S., with later dates in Japan and Europe.
An official announcement is expected at the big E3 trade show in July. The service would compete with Video Marketplace on Microsoft's Xbox 360, Apple's iTunes Store movie service, and others. At the moment, no agreements have been announced with any major studios -- other than an expected deal with the company's own Sony Pictures.
The download service is also expected to roll out to other consumer-electronics devices, including computers, Bravia LCD TVs, mobile phones, and portable video players. There are some reports indicating...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Ballmer May Buy PowerSet Search, Tighten Microsoft
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60521
As Bill Gates enjoyed his last day as a Microsoft employee Friday, rumors swirled that CEO Steve Ballmer was ready to make a powerful move to improve search capability. An unconfirmed report in VentureBeat said Microsoft will acquire semantic-search start-up PowerSet for $100 million.
At the same time, Gates told NBC's Tom Brokaw that it's unlikely Microsoft would cut a deal with Yahoo. Microsoft sought to acquire Yahoo, the No. 2 search and advertising company behind Google, for $47.5 billion. Ballmer walked away from the deal after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang refused a sweetened offer and cut a deal with Google to share search revenues.
Powerset, founded in 2005 by artificial-intelligence technologist Barney Pell, focuses on natural-language searches. On its Web site, the company says its strategy is to "improve the way we find information by unlocking the meaning encoded in ordinary human language."
The first implementation of Powerset's technology is a Wikipedia search engine, which it says "gives more accurate results, often answering questions directly, and aggregates information from across multiple articles."
The approach is fundamentally different than Google's, which delivers what most users consider excellent results by analyzing the frequency of words typed into the query box and ranks results in part on the number of inbound links to a given page. Microsoft's rumored acquisition of Powerset is intriguing, then, because it would not only raise in-house search technology but do so in a fundamentally different way than Google.
If Powerset's technology can be made to work across the Web, as opposed to the rather limited and well-structured Wikipedia, it has the potential to make a Microsoft search more useful than a Google search.
But the technology has risks, Venture Beat's Matt Marshall noted. Getting computers to understand language in any meaningful way has long been an elusive goal of...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Yahoo Shakes Up Its Management Team
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60520
Yahoo Inc. is setting up a new chain of command amid the turmoil triggered by the embattled Internet icon's snub of Microsoft Corp.'s $47.5 billion takeover bid.
Under the new pecking order announced Thursday, Yahoo executive vice presidents Hilary Schneider and Ash Patel are being given expanded responsibilities over the Sunnyvale-based company's products and sales teams.
Schneider, a former newspaper executive, has been moving up the ranks since she joined Yahoo in September 2006. Patel has played a key role in developing many of Yahoo's most popular products, including its finance section and instant messaging service, since joining the company 12 years ago.
Yahoo also is reorganizing its technology division in an effort to use its computing power more effectively and improve the coordination between its product developers and engineers.
This is the third time in 19 months that Yahoo has redrawn its management chart as it tries to snap out of a financial malaise that has ravaged its stock price, jeopardized its independence and demoralized employees.
In the other two shake-ups since November 2006, chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig and Chief Executive Terry Semel resigned.
This time, both of Yahoo's top executives -- co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang and President Susan Decker -- are staying put despite shareholder unrest about the company's recent decisions.
Decker said in an interview with The Associated Press that she and Yang had been working on the latest changes for several months as part of the company's efforts to become a one-stop destination for online advertisers and build an even more appealing Web site for consumers.
The overhaul comes as the company tries to fend off a shareholder mutiny led by activist investor Carl Icahn and to fill a leadership vacuum created as dozens of senior managers and top engineers have headed for the exits during the past year.
The exodus has accelerated...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
RIM Shares Hammered, Despite Healthy Profits
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60509
Fighting Apple comes with a heavy cost. Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of the popular BlackBerry devices, continues to sign up new subscribers at an impressive clip, even in the face of growing competition from Apple's snazzy iPhone and other devices. But in a first-quarter earnings report on June 25, the company disappointed investors by saying it would sacrifice profits in the short term to improve its competitive position in the future. Its stock plummeted 12 percent on June 26, as the overall stock market slid.
On the surface, RIM's earnings appeared plenty impressive. The company reported revenues of $2.24 billion, up 107 percent from the year-earlier period. And it generated $483 million in net income, or 84 percent a share, compared with net income of $223 million in the same quarter last year, or 39 percent a share. It also said that wireless operators added 2.3 million new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter, bringing its industry-leading total in the smartphone market to more than 16 million subscribers.
But RIM fell short of the financial community's high expectations. Analysts were expecting the company to report $2.27 billion in revenue, and 85 percent a share in net income, according to a poll by Thomson Financial. Profits were light because operating expenses came in higher than expected. RIM is ramping up its investments to capture more market share, with operating costs rising 22 percent, instead of the expected 17 percent.
"The quarter was good but it wasn't better than expected," says Ken Smith, senior portfolio manager of Munder Capital Management, which owned 90,000 shares of RIM as of the end of March. "There was no positive surprise."
On a conference call following the announcement, analysts expressed concern about RIM's growing expenses. The company attributed the rise to an increase in prices of components...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Customized Domains May Not Help Businesses Much
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60506
ICANN on Thursday moved closer to allowing a range of customized domains to become part of the Internet's addressing system. Web addresses like ABCCompany.dealer, though, won't happen overnight.
The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization responsible for coordinating domain names, still has to approve a final version of the implementation plan. ICANN expects to see the new names come online in early 2009.
The proposal paves the way to expand domain-name choice and opportunity, according to Dr. Paul Twomey, president and CEO of ICANN. But not everybody is convinced that more domain suffixes will benefit businesses.
"The potential here is huge. It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the Net," Twomey said. "It's a massive increase in the 'real estate' of the Internet."
Currently, users have a limited range of 21 top-level domains to choose from -- familiar names like .com, .org, .info. The proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. The present system only supports 37 Roman characters.
ICANN expects applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community, as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere. There are already consortiums seeking to establish city-based top-level domains, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris.
"One of the most exciting prospects before us is that the expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world," ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said. "This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Russia."
If past experience is any indicator, there...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Review: Strong, Innovative Web Browsers Emerge
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60485
With all the recent attention on the new Firefox 3 Internet browser, it's easy to miss two strong, innovative rivals. Add it all up, and Microsoft Corp.'s market-leading Internet Explorer has some impressive challengers.
Opera 9.5, for instance, lets you share bookmarked Web pages and notes among several computers. And another browser, Flock 2, brings Firefox 3's improvements to an already strong system for sharing photos and blog entries and linking friends on social-networking sites like Facebook.
Developed by the Mozilla open-source community, mostly volunteers, Firefox 3 showcases the "awesome bar." Start typing anything into the address bar, and you'll find letters and words jump around as Firefox 3 attempts to suggest up to 12 sites, with priority given to those you most recently visited or manually typed in.
Some people find the choices annoying, preferring how Firefox 2 limits matches to the start of previously visited Web addresses.
But I like that the new browser also looks at the entire address, the Web page's title, bookmarks and the descriptive tags added to them. The way recommendations instantly change with each keystroke reminds me of the powerful desktop search feature built into Apple's Mac computers.
I wouldn't call it "awesome," but it's quite impressive and useful.
Firefox 3 also brings speed and security improvements. Sites known to engage in "phishing" scams or the distribution of malicious software are now automatically blocked. The address bar turns partially green for sites that have passed vigorous background checks by outside parties.
The new browser also lets you launch Web-based e-mail rather than a standalone desktop program when clicking on basic "contact us" links within Web pages, though only Yahoo Inc.'s service is supported for now.
Firefox 2 users will do well to upgrade, and others should consider a switch.
Those drawn to Firefox 3's "awesome bar" may also want to consider Opera...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Hey, Is This Site Down? The Toll of the Shaky Web
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60480
Alex Payne, a 24-year-old Internet engineer, has devised a way to answer a commonly asked question of the digital age: Is my favorite Web site working today?
In March, on a whim, Payne created downforeveryoneorjustme.com, as in "Down for everyone, or just me?" It lets visitors type in a Web address and see whether a site is generally inaccessible, or whether the problem is on their end.
"I had seen that question posed so often," said Payne, who perhaps not coincidentally works at Twitter, a Web messaging service that is itself known for frequent downtime. "Technology companies have branded the Internet as a place that is always on and where information is always available. People are disappointed and looking for answers when it turns out not to be true."
There is plenty of disappointment to go around these days. Such technology stalwarts as Yahoo, Skype and Research In Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry, have all suffered embarrassing technical snafus in the past few months.
Three weeks ago, a surge of visitors to Payne's site began asking about the normally impervious Amazon.com. That site was ultimately down for several hours over two business days, and Amazon, by some estimates, lost more than $1 million an hour in sales.
The Web, like any technology or communications medium, has always been susceptible to unforeseen hiccups. Particularly in the early days of the Web, sites like eBay and Schwab.com regularly went dark. But since fewer people used the Internet back then, the stakes were much lower. But the Web is now an irreplaceable part of daily life, and Internet companies have plans to make us even more dependent on it.
The companies are promoting the idea of conducting their business and relationships in the "cloud" -- a set of interlinked, geographically dispersed and theoretically disaster-proof servers housed in...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
ISPs Are Still Considering Tracking Web Use
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60478
Although a large Internet service provider has backed away from technology that tracks subscribers' Web use in order to deliver personalized advertising, two other broadband companies said Wednesday they are still considering whether to deploy it.
Phone companies Embarq Corp. and CenturyTel Inc. have both completed trials of the same tracking system, from online advertising company NebuAd Inc., and are now considering whether to proceed.
The largest U.S. Internet provider that had been actively looking at Web tracking, Charter Communications Inc., announced Tuesday that it had canceled its planned test because customers had raised concerns.
The technology gathers data on the interests of Web surfers by looking at the sites they visit. It passes the information to online advertising companies, without revealing a surfer's identity, so they can display more relevant ads on Web sites. For instance, a surfer who visits sites about dogs might see more banner ads for dog food.
The system has been criticized by privacy advocates and legislators. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, wrote to Charter asking it to put the test on hold to give time for discussions. Markey chairs the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
"We are not currently using behavioral targeting tools and have not decided whether to move forward with them, either through NebuAd or with any other vendor," said Debra Peterson, spokeswoman at Embarq.
The Overland Park, Kan., company is the country's ninth-largest ISP, with 1.34 million broadband lines at the end of March.
Tony Davis, the head of investor relations at CenturyTel, said it was his understanding that the reaction to Charter's proposed test had to do with cable-industry regulations that don't apply to a phone company.
"So at this point it's not affecting our thinking," Davis said.
Monroe, La.-based CenturyTel had 586,000 broadband customers at the end of the first quarter.
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Twitter Gets Investment Help from Amazon's Bezos
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60473
When the news broke on June 24 that microblogging sensation Twitter picked up new venture investors, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the company -- as luck would have it -- was suffering a service outage. "Twitter is stressing out a bit right now, so this feature is temporarily disabled," read the message.
Trouble is, that message and others like it have become all too common on Twitter. The site, a tool that lets some one million people exchange brief 140-character messages, seems to be as unreliable as it is popular. In fact, it's the surging traffic, in part, that leads to failures.
The new investments, from Bezos and Boston's Spark Capital, will give the company "some runway and breathing room" as it invests in a big technology upgrade, says Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder. He would not disclose the dollar or equity amounts of the investments. The goal, he says, is to rebuild the architecture "piece by piece." The process is already underway and "will take months," Stone adds. Existing Twitter backers Union Square Ventures in New York and Tokyo-based Digital Garage also participated in the most recent round.
Bijan Sabet, a partner at Spark who landed a Twitter board seat through the investment, says the "highest priority is providing rock-solid service." He envisions Twitter becoming "a global communication utility system," though he didn't elaborate on what that will look like. Bezos didn't respond to a phone call seeking comment.
More crucial to Twitter's future than deep-pocketed investors and dependable machines are its throngs of users around the world. And it's not clear these devotees will stick around through months of hiccups. Some are tempted to bail for rivals and related offerings, such as Plurk and FriendFeed, which appear to suffer fewer outages. As blogger Rafe Needleman asked on FriendFeed on...
Sat, 28 Jun 08
Typhoon Hits Apple with Touch-Technology Lawsuit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60471
Typhoon Touch Technologies added Apple, Toshiba, Palm, and several other companies to a lawsuit on Monday that alleges the companies are infringing on touch screen technology patents it owns. The case was originally filed in December 2007 against Dell and could, according to Typhoon, extend to "millions of devices" already on the market.
"The addition of these defendants is a further step in protecting Typhoon's IP from being unfairly exploited," said Craig Weiner, Director of Legal Affairs and Licensing for Typhoon. "Hopefully, the world of potential infringers will take notice that it is the company's intent to aggressively protect its intellectual property."
Typhoon holds two patents it claims the companies are using without proper licensing. Patent 5,379,057 was issued in January 1995, and patent 5,675,362 was issued in October 1997. Both are titled "Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computer System Employing Same," and the company claims that devices like smartphones, PDAs, and tablet PCs with touchscreen interfaces fall under their scope.
Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, and soon to be released iPhone 3G all use touch-based interfaces. Palm has been using touch technology ever since the release of its first PalmPilot PDA in 1996. The other companies named in the suit, including Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, Nokia and LG also sport devices with touch-based interfaces.
Typhoon has already reached out of court settlements with Motion Computing and Electovaya.
Considering the growing trend toward touch-based computing interfaces, Typhoon's patent suits could have a significant impact on the adoption of the technology. What is more likely, however, is that the cases will be settled out of court and the real impact will an increase in Typhoon's profits.
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Microsoft Releases Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60505
Microsoft on Thursday released Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, its virtualization technology for Windows servers.
Nearly 1.5 million copies of the beta version of Hyper-V have been distributed. The technology is based on hypervisor, a virtualization platform that allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on a single host computer.
By switching from a one-server-per-box model to running multiple servers on a shared hardware box, virtualization helps IT departments reduce their server footprint, conserve energy and maximize technology investments. It also makes systems more flexible and easier to change as business conditions dictate.
"Customers who buy Windows Server 2008 are not only getting the scalability benefits, the high performance and reliability," but "as of today they can benefit from integrated virtualization with Hyper-V," said Bill Hilf, general manager of Windows server marketing and platform strategy.
To illustrate the benefits, Microsoft cited Land O'Lakes, an early adopter of Hyper-V. With tremendous growth from acquisitions, the Minnesota-based company's data center was strained by aging servers and a utilization rate of just three percent. "We faced a combination of underutilized and aging hardware, applications running on outdated operating systems, and rising data-center power and cooling costs," said Jason Nord, the company's server administrator.
The Land O'Lakes solution was an initial rollout of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 with four physical servers, each hosting 10 to 13 virtual machines, and each virtual machine running one application. This year, the company will migrate to Hyper-V and move an additional 10 to 15 new applications onto virtual machines.
To manage changing data centers, Microsoft's System Center family provides tools to allocate both physical and virtual resources. "To truly see the full benefits of virtualization, it is critical to have the right processes and tools in place," Hilf said. "That's why management tools are so important -- they are the glue that...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Panasonic Releases Rugged Ultra-Mobile PC
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60489
Rugged, small and ultra-mobile. That could be the description of a unit of miniature commandos, or Panasonic's new Toughbook CF-U1.
The CF-U1 is the first ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) with the new low-power Intel Atom processor in this line of handheld computers that prides itself on being more rugged than the other guys.
Rance M. Poehler, Panasonic's president, pointed out the number of firsts that Panasonic has had in the UMPC category. He said the company was the first to deliver rugged notebooks in a standard form factor, as well as the first to create a rugged convertible tablet.
"The mobile rugged U1 is another example of how we take advances in mobile technology and make them reliable advances," he pointed out. The company says the new product -- at 2.2 inches high by 7.2 inches wide by 5.9 inches deep -- allows remote workers to connect to critical information and applications in real time, in the field.
The U1 features an LCD touch screen that allows sunlight viewability with low power, a solid-state drive, and an optional fingerprint scanner for user authentication. There is data capture using 1D and 2D barcode and RFID readers; a two-megapixel camera; a full-shift battery life; and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G mobile-broadband connectivity.
The U1 can operate either with Windows XP or Windows Vista, and it comes with a "thumb-friendly" backlit QWERTY keyboard. It also has a fanless all-weather design, and a pair of hot-swappable batteries that allow battery replacement without disruption. A magnesium-alloy chassis provides an armor that can protect the computer from drops of up to four feet.
Panasonic noted that the Atom processor has 47 million transistors on a chip smaller than a dime, and is the smallest and lowest-power consumer processor. The Atom, as befits its name, is intended by the chipmaker...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Get Ready To Surf the Net in Yo' Hot Mopar Vehicle
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60488
Mopar, Chrysler LLC's original-equipment parts manufacturer and distributor, said Thursday it will launch in-vehicle wireless Internet connectivity for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge passengers in the U.S.
Dubbed Uconnect Web, the in-vehicle system is powered by Autonet Mobile and delivers continuous Internet connectivity to all vehicle passengers for entertainment and real-time information. The service will be available in August as a dealer-installed Mopar accessory.
"With Uconnect Web, all passengers in or near the vehicle are continuously connected to the Internet," said Rob Richard, director of Mopar Part Sales and Service Marketing. "They can make dinner reservations; check directions or weather; make online purchases; surf Facebook, MySpace, Disney or Webkinz; watch the latest YouTube videos; upload photos to a Flickr account -- all at the same time."
Uconnect Web aims to transform the vehicle into a mobile hot spot, delivering unlimited and reliable Internet connectivity, Chrysler said. The hot-spot connection radius is approximately 100 feet -- making it convenient to access the Internet at a soccer field or family picnic.
"Uconnect Web goes beyond today's DVD and GPS solutions, letting passengers extend their Internet lifestyle to the car," said Sterling Pratz, CEO of San Francisco-based Autonet Mobile. "The Internet is the future of in-car entertainment."
The industry-first technology seeks to accomplish this by combining Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Wherever cellular service is available, Uconnect Web enables vehicle passengers to connect Wi-Fi devices like a laptop, iPhone, Sony PlayStation or PDA for Internet access.
"After several years of moderate growth, consumer telematics solutions are expected to become very popular in the future as drivers start to appreciate the advantages of GPS and cellular communication technology for improved safety, comfort and entertainment," said ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. "According to our latest forecasts, by 2013 OEM and aftermarket consumer telematics hardware...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Dell's Studio Laptops Offer Personalization and Simplicity
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60487
Dell on Thursday announced a new consumer product line of PCs. Dubbed Studio, the laptops take a personalized approach to high-definition mobile computing.
The Dell Studio 15 and Dell Studio 17 are the first two laptops in the new lineup. Dell opted for visual color elements and personalization options with features such as a built-in Webcam, media-control touch buttons, slot-load drives, optional mercury-free LED displays, and built-in mobile broadband.
The Studio 15 starts at $799 and the Studio 17 at $999. Consumers can purchase them directly from Dell beginning Thursday. They also will be available at Best Buy and Staples stores in a few days, the company said.
"These products are built for today's digital nomad based on the millions of conversations we have every year on dell.com, Ideastorm and community forums," said Michael Tatelman, vice president of Dell consumer sales and marketing worldwide. "With Dell Studio we're answering the call for personalization, connectivity and simplicity."
The Studios inherit design elements first introduced in Dell's XPSTM, M1330 and M1530 laptops, including a wedge-shaped profile and a drop-hinge design. Taking its cue from the Inspirion portfolio, Studio laptops also offer several personalization options that allow a customer to color-customize a laptop.
Customers may pick one of six optional color choices, including Plum Purple and Tangerine Orange, in addition to Flamingo Pink, Midnight Blue, Ruby Red, Spring Green, or standard Jet Black. Dell also offers an optional high-gloss Graphite Grey choice that can be customized with contrasting black, more vivid blue, pink or red edge trim around the display back.
"What's new is how Dell has divided its branding into targeted customer segments as opposed to form factors," said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "Each of Dell's new lines, Studio, Inspirion and Alienware, offer both notebooks and desktops in...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Sony Pledges Return to Glamor and Profit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60477
Chief Executive Howard Stringer said Sony Corp. will win back its electronic leadership by improving its Internet-linked gadgets, wiping out losses in video games and TVs and pushing services and software, not just hardware.
"This is not your father's Sony," he said Thursday at Sony's Tokyo headquarters, outlining a strategy for growth.
Stringer vowed the company will become profitable in its TV and video game businesses during this fiscal year, which ends March 2009. He said he wants to beef up networking gadgets, making sure 90 percent of Sony Corp.'s electronics products wirelessly connect to the Net by March 2011.
Stringer said Sony has rebounded from a bottom in 2005 by exiting or downsizing 15 product categories, reducing 10,000 global workers and shutting down 11 manufacturing sites.
When Stringer, a Welsh-born American, became the first foreigner to head Sony in 2005, the manufacturer of the Walkman portable player and PlayStation 3 game console had been battered by cheaper rivals, and fallen behind in key products to innovative makers like Apple Inc.
"Our job, however, is not complete," he said Thursday. "We must complete our transformation."
Stringer said Sony must come up with better software and services that match its longtime reputation for gadgets and entertainment content.
For example, in the autumn, Sony will start a U.S. service that uses the Internet to deliver feature films and TV shows directly to Bravia TVs, without using satellite or cable distribution systems. He called it an industry first.
That service will start with "Hancock" from Sony Pictures, which is becoming available before it comes out in DVDs, Stringer said.
A movie download service also will come for the PlayStation 3 game console in the summer in the U.S., said Kazuo Hirai, who heads Sony's video game unit. The service will be offered in Japan and Europe at later dates.
Koya Tabata, analyst at...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
ICANN Paves Way for Hundreds of New Domains
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60476
The Internet's key oversight agency relaxed rules Thursday to permit the introduction of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new Internet domain names to join ".com," making the first sweeping changes in the network's 25-year-old addressing system.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers unanimously approved the new guidelines on the final day of week-long meetings in Paris. ICANN also voted unanimously to open public comment on a separate proposal to permit addresses entirely in non-English languages for the first time.
New names likely won't start appearing until at least next year, and ICANN won't be deciding on specific ones quite yet. The organization still must work out many of the details, including fees for obtaining new names, expected to exceed $100,000 apiece to help ICANN cover up to $20 million in costs.
Domain names help computers find Web sites and route e-mail. Adding new suffixes can make it easier for Web sites to promote easy-to-remember names -- given that mainly of the best ones have been claimed already under ".com."
The new guidelines would make it easier for companies and groups to propose new suffixes in English. ICANN had accepted bids in 2000 and 2004, but reviews took much time, and one -- ".post" for postal services -- remains pending more than four years later.
The streamlined guidelines call for applicants to go through an initial review phase, during which anyone may raise an objection on such grounds as racism, trademark conflicts and similarity to an existing suffix. If no objection is raised, approval would come quickly.
Some ICANN board members expressed concerns that the guidelines could turn the organization into a censorship regime, deciding what could be objectionable to someone, somewhere in the world.
"If this is broadly implemented, this recommendation would allow for any government to effectively veto a string that makes it uncomfortable," said...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
As Gates Departs, Microsoft Faces Rough Waters
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60470
So this is really goodbye? Bill Gates' last day at Microsoft is Friday and tech-watchers around the globe are assessing the impact of the man responsible for the dominance of the PC, DOS, Windows and the "Evil Empire."
Such an assessment seems almost impossible. Gates and Microsoft have not only dominated the PC industry, they often dictated the computer and software choices for the home and, more importantly, defined the computing environment for businesses around the world.
Gates' claim to fame may be the storied history of DOS and how he outsmarted IBM, but "it was his creation of the first software development tools for DOS that actually gave the software industry the wings to fly," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, in an e-mail. "That can't be underestimated, as its impact was enormous. And his decision to do Microsoft Office, Exchange and eventually include the Web browser in the operating system has become the center of most of today's digital business environments."
If Microsoft is synonymous with Windows and business computing, it is also tightly tied to another moniker: the Evil Empire. As Microsoft's dominance in the industry grew, it increasingly engaged in anticompetitive behavior, including a successful effort to stomp out once-leading browser manufacturer Netscape. Such monopolistic practices led to intense scrutiny of the company from U.S. and European regulators and Microsoft has substantially changed its practices in the light of government scrutiny.
Microsoft's dominance eventually gave rise to the ultimate unintended consequence -- open-source software. As developers rankled under Microsoft's control of the computing environment, programmers volunteered their time to develop an alternative operating system, Linux, and eventually a whole ecosystem of open-source applications and tools. The open-source challenge was a "very unusual development" virtually unprecedented in business history, said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT, in...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Coalition Seeks Federal Nudge for Broadband
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60457
One of the Internet's founding fathers and a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission joined forces Tuesday in renewing calls for the U.S. government to more actively expand broadband service.
They and other members of a new coalition promised hearings across the country and set up a Web site at InternetForEveryone.org to outline principles such as universal access and competition to ensure lower prices and faster Internet connection speeds.
But the group offered few specifics, including any proposed legislation. Josh Silver, executive director of the Free Press advocacy group, said that given the complexities of broadband policy, the new coalition was focusing instead on raising awareness and establishing ideas for the next administration to consider.
By some measures, the United States lags behind South Korea and other nations in high-speed Internet access despite being the Internet's birthplace. In many rural areas, broadband services aren't available at all or come from a single provider.
Vint Cerf, a Google Inc. executive who had co-developed the Internet's core communications protocols in the 1970s, said a nudge from the government would be crucial because the Internet's benefits are so broad.
Jonathan Adelstein, one of two Democrats on the five-member FCC, said the coalition was hoping to mobilize the public to force his fellow policy makers to act.
Otherwise, he said, many Americans would be denied opportunities to remotely attend classes at a distant universities, or access resources at larger libraries and museums. Doctors wouldn't be able to confer with specialists over the Internet, and employees wouldn't be able to save energy by telecommuting.
Other members of the coalition include leading Internet scholars Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain; Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America-East, which recently battled Hollywood over online rights; and Robin Chase, co-founder of the Zipcar automobile-rental service.
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Tech Industry Takes Aim at 'Password Overload'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60451
Microsoft, Google and PayPal, a unit of eBay, are among the founders of an industry organization that is hoping to solve the problem of password overload among computer users.
The Information Card Foundation is an effort to create a single industrywide approach to managing personal identities online that promises to reduce drastically the use of passwords and create a system that is less vulnerable to fraud.
"There is such a market requirement to solve this problem," said Paul Trevithick, chairman of the new group and chief executive of Parity, an identity-protection technology company in Needham, Massachusetts, that is developing what it calls an i-card. The foundation, which also includes Equifax, Novell, Oracle and nine industry analysts and technology leaders, will try to set shared standards.
The idea is to bring the concept of an identity card, like a driver's license, to the online world. Rather than logging on to sites with user IDs and passwords, people would gain access to sites using a secure digital identity that was overseen by a third party.
In addition to simplifying online shopping, such information cards would reduce the number of phishing incidents -- that is, the fraudulent use of someone's identity to gain access to financial records, according to Robert Blakeley, a research director at the Burton Group, a consulting firm that is participating in the effort. "You don't have to depend on a password, so there's no phishing opportunity," he said.
One of the biggest tasks facing the group is getting the millions of Web sites to support the system, a process analysts estimate would take a few years.
"The technology is available today, but what is not available today is a lot of sites that will accept information cards," Blakeley said. "The mission of the group is to assure everybody that the industry is working...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Russian Company Has Big Plans for the iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60445
Will VimpelCom be the first wireless operator to sell the iPhone in Russia? If Chief Executive Alexander Izosimov has his way, it will. "Nobody's struck a deal with Apple yet, but we would love to," he says. Izosimov says no negotiations are taking place, and he has no idea whether his company will win the rights to sell Apple's coveted device.
But in a wide-ranging interview with BusinessWeek, the CEO makes it clear that he's looking at many avenues to maintain the rapid growth his company has seen in recent years, from adding new devices like the iPhone to expanding into the broadband business.
VimpelCom, which operates under the Beeline brand, is Russia's second-largest wireless provider, with 52 million subscribers. In early June, it reported a $601 million profit in the first quarter, up 117 percent from the year-earlier period, as revenues increased 42 percent, to $2.1 billion. This follows an 80 percent increase in net income for 2007, to $1.46 billion, as revenues rose 47 percent, to $7.17 billion.
Despite the strong performance, Izosimov has reason to be concerned about VimpelCom's growth. Virtually all of the company's revenues come from providing wireless service in Russia, and that business is showing signs of maturing. After years of rapid expansion by VimpelCom and its two major rivals, most Russians have mobile phones. One research report by UralSib Financial puts the penetration rate at more than 100%, though it cautions the figures may be skewed by unreliable data. VimpelCom's stock has slid from a high of nearly $45 last year to about $30 now.
Izosimov has a number of ideas for keeping up growth. At the top of the list is international expansion. VimpelCom now operates in six countries beyond Russia -- Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Armenia -- and Izosimov would...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
New-Age Data Protection: Pre-Fab Structures
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60431
Jerry Lyons says bring on hurricane-force winds, smoke and gas, explosions, high-pressure water, leaking water pipes or a disgruntled employee: His modular structures can take them.
Lyons, 49, is the idea man behind iFortress in West Paterson, designers and developers of metal-based assembled panels used to build multimillion-dollar computer data centers, the heart of a company's computing and telecommunications operations.
"We needed to create this technology that was comprehensive and [could withstand] multiple threats," said Lyons, such as fire, rain and smoke.
Since the company was formed in 2001, Lyons has been designing and testing panels that, when assembled as a room, would protect the equipment against a collapsing roof, water-pipe bursts, gas, fire and wind.
He came up with the idea while he was setting up stock-trading desks in Manhattan in 1999 when he realized everyone's job depended on computers often housed in a building's most vulnerable places: basements, closets, under bathrooms and kitchens, where plumbing and fires occur, or against exterior walls.
Lyons talked to his trading customers about their companies' data centers and discovered that events such as leaking toilets caused extensive computer damage and downtime losses. He also found other weak points in the construction of data centers: light switches that let in smoke and gas from a fire; dry wall that could be cut through.
Data centers use high-tech devices such as advanced retinal scanners, backup generators and digital firewalls to safeguard and protect the critical equipment inside. Lyons believed the center designers overlooked the outer structure.
To describe what iFortress has developed, Lyons trademarked the phrase "structural security" to market his modular panel structures and took his idea to company executives and data center designers.
"It'd be the 'Aha!' factor," said Lyons, "like we invented shoes when the whole world was barefoot."
Lyons' timing...
Fri, 27 Jun 08
Review: Apple's Time Machine Travels in Wrong Direction
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60415
Apple's Time Machine, a way-cool device designed to be a simple backup device for your gleaming new Apple computer, is appropriately named, in my experience.
That's because installing one reminded me of hours (if not days) wasted installing my first floppy disk drive to a Commodore 64. Sure, it was supposed to work. Sure, everyone said it would work. But why didn't it work? (And why were we all changing to floppy disk, when cassette-tape storage was so darned reliable?)
But I digress. The Time Machine, which comes in 1TB and 500GB flavors, is typical Apple Way Cool. It has a built-in wireless AirPort that theoretically can extend an existing wireless network (it didn't play nicely with a Netgear router on the network I was using) or create another wireless network altogether.
You are supposed to be able to plug it in, run a configuration utility, and then your Apple is miraculously backed up each day without your intervention. If you need a file that you accidentally deleted, head to the Time Machine and get it back. Need to restore your entire computer after a hard-disk crash? Put in the new hard disk and run your Time Machine to put your machine back where it was.
It's all very nice if you can get the Time Machine to work in the first place. (This is the point in the column, if not before, where the Apple faithful call up the e-mail pitchforks and simply point out that it is all user error, and Apple hardware or software can never, ever be at fault.)
However, a glance at the Time Machine forum at Apple.com points out I am not alone in my frustration. (My favorite post is one from a gentleman who suggests he is going to buy a handgun for the only purpose of putting...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Charter Stops Tracking Internet Users for Targeted Ads
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60468
Charter Communications on Wednesday abandoned plans to deploy NebuAd's user-tracking system after objections from Congress and privacy advocates. Its stock dropped slightly after the announcement.
The NebuAd system places tracking cookies and sells users' Internet data to advertisers for targeting ads. Charter had been testing the system that privacy watchdogs Free Press and Public Knowledge called a "classic man-in-the-middle attack."
While NebuAd has worked with small Internet service providers, Charter is the country's fourth-largest ISP as well as a cable-TV and phone-services provider. That attracted the attention of Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, who sent Charter a second letter expressing concerns and asking it to wait while Congress looks at the technology. The congressmen had also asked Charter to desist when it announced plans for the testing in May.
Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, said he was "pleased to hear that the company has decided to delay implementation of this program, which electronically profiled individual consumer Web usage." He added, "I urge other broadband companies considering similar user-profiling programs to similarly hold off on implementation while these important privacy concerns can be addressed."
That warning could effectively hamper plans by NebuAd and United Kingdom-based Phorm to expand their tracking technologies in the U.S. So far, their attempts have not progressed beyond testing.
Charter began testing tracking this month in Ft. Worth, Texas; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Oxford, Mass.; and Newtown, Conn. Charter Senior Vice President Joe Stackhouse had assured high-speed Internet subscribers that targeted ads "will better reflect the interests you express through your Web-surfing activity. You will not see more ads -- just ads that are more relevant to you."
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Symbian Foundation Could Unleash Mobile Innovation
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60464
On Tuesday, Nokia not only moved to acquire Symbian for $410 million, it also partnered with mobile-industry giants to launch a foundation to provide royalty-free software and accelerate innovation.
Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DoCoMo said they intend to unite the flavors of Symbian and create a single, open mobile-software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone, the mobile giants are establishing the Symbian Foundation.
Nokia will make the foundation possible by acquiring the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that it doesn't already own, then contributing its Symbian and S60 software to the foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola will contribute technology from UIQ, and DOCOMO has indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. This lays the groundwork for a platform with a common framework and a royalty-free license.
"Ten years ago, Symbian was established by farsighted players to offer an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole mobile industry," said Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian. "Our vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and, indeed, today Symbian OS leads its market by any measure."
Contributions from foundation members will be integrated to further enhance the platform. The foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch. It will then work to establish the most complete mobile software in open source. This will be made available over the next two years and is intended to be released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0.
Symbian powers more than 200 million phones across 235 models offered by multiple vendors. Tens of thousands of third-party applications are already available for Symbian-based devices.
"Establishing the foundation is one of the biggest contributions to an open community ever made," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's CEO. "Nokia is a...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
At $10, T-Mobile Turns Home VoIP Into a Loss Leader
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60463
While the big cable and telephone companies -- along with Vonage -- are charging roughly $25 a month for Voice-over-Internet Protocol phone service, T-Mobile has made VoIP a loss leader.
T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, announced T-Mobile@Home on Wednesday, a new plan for cell subscribers to get unlimited VoIP service for $10 a month using traditional wired or wireless phones. A $50 router is required, as well as home broadband service and T-Mobile cell service.
T-Mobile's offering allows subscribers to keep existing phone numbers, with home and cell service accessible on the same handset. Subscribers can also use cell features -- like personalized ringtones -- on home lines. By virtually giving away home service, T-Mobile hopes to hopes to retain and attract subscribers.
The move aligns T-Mobile's service with the lifestyles of many young, urban users, where T-Mobile's coverage is strongest. Many such customers say they have given up a home phone line, relying completely on cell service. For young people on the go, home service is of limited utility but cell coverage is flaky enough that not having a backup service can be problematic.
Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of T-Mobile USA, said the @Home service is targeted at families who aren't ready to go all-mobile. The company tested @Home in Dallas and Seattle, where 97 percent of customers with a traditional landline phone dropped the service after adopting T-Mobile@Home.
At $10 a month, the service isn't making big bucks for T-Mobile. Rather, the service is about reducing subscriber churn, Sims said.
T-Mobile USA President Robert Dotson said the new service is taking on the big telcos. "For years the traditional landline companies have been great at consistently delivering one thing to their customers -- a high monthly bill," he said. "T-Mobile is now delivering the...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Subsidy Puts Apple's iPhone Margin Above 50 Percent
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60462
Two weeks ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the much-anticipated iPhone 3G. Now iSuppli is sharing how much it costs Apple to build the mobile device -- and the company's profit.
Apple's second-generation iPhone will have an initial hardware and manufacturing cost of $173, according to a preliminary "virtual teardown" by iSuppli. The new iPhone 3G goes on sale July 11.
"At a hardware bill of materials and manufacturing cost of $173, the new iPhone is significantly less expensive to produce than the first-generation product, despite major improvements in the product's functionality and unique usability due to the addition of 3G communications," said Dr. Jagdish Rebello, director and principal analyst for iSuppli.
In advance of the iPhone's release, iSuppli used insights from its analysis staff to develop estimates of iPhone content, suppliers and costs.
The original 8GB iPhone cost $226 after component price reductions, Rebello explained. That figure doesn't include other costs like software development, shipping and distribution, packaging and miscellaneous accessories included with each phone.
"The original 2G phone was sold at an unsubsidized price of $499," Rebello noted. "However, at a retail price of $199 for the low-end 8GB version of the new 3G model, wireless communications service carriers will be selling the product at a subsidized rate, using a common business model for the mobile-handset market."
The subsidy the wireless carriers pay to Apple will be about $300 per iPhone, iSuppli estimates. That means that with subsidies from carriers, Apple will be selling the 8GB version to carriers at an effective price of about $499 per unit, the same as the original product, iSuppli said.
For the first version of the iPhone, Apple received a portion of the wireless carriers' revenue from service subscriptions. With the second-generation version, Apple will not receive service revenue, making a profit...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Yahoo's Stock Revives on Reports of Revived MS Talks
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60456
Yahoo Inc.'s steadily sinking stock pulled out of its descent Tuesday on reports that the Internet pioneer is reconsidering its recent decision to fall into the arms of online search leader Google Inc. instead of Microsoft Corp.
The prospect of Yahoo spurning Google in favor of an alternative deal with Microsoft cheered investors still disillusioned with Yahoo's rejection of a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft.
Yahoo shares climbed 59 cents, or 2.8 percent, to finish Tuesday at $22.04 -- the stock's largest one-day gain in two weeks. The shares have been shriveling since Yahoo announced it will use Google's superior technology to show some ads on its Web site in the United States.
When it embraced Google, Yahoo terminated talks with Microsoft about a sale of the entire company as well as a more limited deal focused on Yahoo's search engine. That led to a 16 percent drop in Yahoo's market value, making it even harder for Yahoo board's to justify its decision to turn down Microsoft's last takeover offer of $33 per share. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang had sought $37 per share.
Yang is now under intense pressure to prove Yahoo is worth as much as he thinks while also trying to fend off a shareholder revolt being led by activist investor Carl Icahn.
To make matters worse, Yahoo is facing a leadership vacuum created by the departures of several top executives and engineers. The Sunnyvale-based company is expected to address the exodus in a reorganization to be announced this week.
The backlash to the Google alliance may have prodded Yahoo to rekindle talks to sell its search operations to Microsoft as part of a $9 billion deal.
Technology news site CNet.com and the blog Silicon Alley Insider both reported Yahoo and Microsoft are once again exploring a more limited deal, perhaps at a higher...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
American Airlines To Test In-Flight Internet Access
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60455
American Airlines says customers will be able to test in-flight Internet access on two flights beginning Wednesday, with broader service expected to begin in the following couple weeks.
Facing record high fuel prices, airlines are looking at entertainment and information services as ways to make a few more bucks per passenger.
American's technology partner, Aircell LLC, will charge $9.95 to $12.95 for Internet service, depending on flight length. Aircell and American share the revenue, officials said.
The test will begin on one flight from New York's Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles and one return flight, said Doug Backelin, American's manager of in-flight technology. The test service will be free, he said.
The airline would not say on which flights it would conduct the test.
American is among several companies preparing to offer in-air Internet service.
Aircell is also working with Virgin America, and JetBlue Airways Corp. started testing free e-mail, instant-messaging and some Amazon.com services aboard one of its planes in December.
American will begin charging for Internet service soon on its Boeing 767-200 jets that fly from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.
Passengers will be able to use e-mail and instant messaging and to download video and connect to secure networks on notebook computers or other wireless devices such as smart phones through three wireless access points on the plane, said Dave Bijur, an Aircell executive.
Bijur said Aircell's networks can handle a planeload of Web surfers.
Besides the paid service, passengers will be able to connect free to American's Web site, Frommer's travel guides and limited news headlines, Backelin said.
American won't filter any Internet content. Backelin said attempts to block pornography, for instance, could disrupt legitimate Web sites.
"We already have policies and procedures to deal with inappropriate material that people bring on board, including magazines and DVDs," he said, adding it will be up...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Panasonic Adds Ultra-Mobile PC to Toughbook Series
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60450
Panasonic's latest PC offering is small enough to cradle in one hand, yet strong enough to handle the rough and tumble of extreme environments.
Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., whose Toughbook series of rugged laptops is used by U.S. police, military and utility workers, on Wednesday unveiled a compact, "ultra-mobile" version that is practically as easy to handle as a PDA but with all the features of a standard PC.
And like other Toughbook models, it's made to survive.
The CF-U1 mini-tablet emerged unscathed after demonstrators Wednesday dropped the device 120 centimeters (3.9 feet) face down, then dunked it in four quarts of water.
Its batteries last 10 hours, in part because it runs on Intel's new, low-power Atom microprocessor. It measures 184 mm (7.2 inches) wide, 151 mm (5.9 inches) tall and 57 mm (2.2 inches) deep.
Shigeo Okuda, general manager of Matsushita's marketing group, said the CF-U1 broadens the reach of rugged laptops, which have been too bulky thus far to carry directly on site to warehouses and construction zones.
The tablet features a 5.6-inch touch-screen display, a thumb-operated keyboard, Bluetooth and wireless Internet. With a handstrap in the back, the CF-U1 is held like a flat camcorder.
"This will be used in different ways than the Toughbook now," Okuda said. "This is a completely new category of rugged PCs."
Through its Panasonic brand, Matsushita holds a leading 61-percent share of the rugged-PC market worldwide, according to the company. It sold 574,000 units in 2007, and hopes the CF-U1 will extend its dominance.
The company will launch overseas sales of the 2.3-pound device in August, and begin sales in Japan in October for an unspecified price. It aims to sell 90,000 CF-U1 units overseas and 10,000 units in Japan in a year.
Matsushita's strategy in the competitive PC market has been to focus exclusively on business- and field-use...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Pornographer Uses Google to Argue 'Everybody Does It'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60444
What's obscene? Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, "I know it when I see it." If Stewart were around today, he could see a lot more of it on the Internet. And in a way, that's what the defense is arguing in the Florida trial of a pornographer.
Stewart's comment, of course, is not the current constitutional standard for obscenity. That is defined by the Miller standard, which defines obscenity as appealing to the prurient interest, being patently offensive, and lacking substantial artistic, political or scientific merit.
Prurient interest is defined by "prevailing community standards," according to the Supreme Court. So the defendant in the case, Clinton Raymond McCowen, is arguing that thanks to Google and the Internet, local community standards aren't what they used to be.
Using data from Google, defense attorney Lawrence Walters intends to show that people in Pensacola, Fla., search more often for "orgy" than for "apple pie," The New York Times reports.
"Time and time again you'll have jurors sitting on a jury panel who will condemn material that they routinely consume in private," Walters told the Times. Using the Internet data, "we can show how people really think and feel and act in their own homes, which, parenthetically, is where this material was intended to be viewed," he added.
It's not clear if the strategy will work. The prosecutor in the case said he will argue that locally based Internet searches are not necessarily a proxy for community values. The definition of community values is not necessarily what people do or watch behind closed doors, but what they think is appropriate in public.
Jeffrey J. Douglas, chairman emeritus of the First Amendment Lawyers Association, tried a similar strategy in a federal obscenity case involving another Florida pornographer. He set up a computer in the...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Google Grapples with Its Runaway Success
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60440
Google may be widely admired for its technical wizardry and its quick, accurate search engine, but one of the company's most impressive accomplishments has been its ability to grow as powerful as it is while still remaining, in the minds of most Americans, fundamentally likable.
The company today is a behemoth, with more than 15,000 employees and a market value as big as Coca-Cola and Boeing combined. Its search engine is the tool of first resort for expert researchers and schoolkids alike; for suspicious employers, first-daters, long-lost friends, blackmailers, reporters, and police investigators -- in short, for seekers of any and all sorts of information. In April, the most recent month for which it compiled statistics, Nielsen Online found that 62 percent of all U.S. Internet searches were done using Google. Yahoo, the next largest player, had only 17.5 percent of the market.
Despite its size and dominance, Google has avoided the public suspicion and vilification that have plagued powerful companies from Standard Oil to Microsoft. Instead, protected by its reputation for innovation, its famed "Don't Be Evil" mantra, and the ever-improving precision of its search engine, Google has remained for the most part a trusted, even a beloved, brand.
But as Google's influence grows, a number of scholars and programmers have begun to argue that the company is acquiring too much power over our lives -- invading our privacy, shaping our preferences, and controlling how we learn about and understand the world around us. To counter its pervasive effects, they are developing strategies to push back against Google, dilute its growing dominance of the information sphere, and make it more publicly accountable. The solutions range from programs one can install on one's computer to proposed laws forcing Google to reveal parts of its proprietary search algorithm. A few experts and privacy activists...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Technology: It's Where the Jobs Are
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60437
Here's a hint for high school graduates or college students still majoring in indecision: Put down that guitar or book of poetry and pick up a laptop. Study computer science or engineering, and plan to move to a big city.
A new survey out this week from AeA, the group formerly known as the American Electronics Assn., reports that jobs in the technology industry are growing at a healthy clip, especially in large cities. The organization's Cybercities 2008 survey says that 51 cities added high-technology jobs in 2006, the most recent year for which data were available. The survey tracks new jobs related to the creation of tech products, including fields such as chip manufacturing and software engineering. It is the AeA's first such survey since 2000, which was taken before the crash of the tech bubble that created so many jobs in the late 1990s.
And while slowing economic conditions have dulled the pace of growth since the 2006 data were collected, AeA researcher Matthew Kazmierczak says it's far from turning south. "Nationally, there are some data that show the rate of growth has slowed since 2006, but it hasn't gone negative," he says.
The leader in number of jobs gained is Seattle, home to such tech companies as Amazon, RealNetworks, and software giant Microsoft, based in nearby Redmond, Wash. Seattle added a net 7,800 jobs during the period surveyed, followed by the New York and Washington [D.C.] metro areas, which added more than 6,000 jobs apiece. The fastest-growing area on a percentage basis was the combined metro area of Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., which saw its tech-employment figures grow by 12%. Riverside-San Bernardino benefited from higher costs of living in nearby Los Angeles and Orange County.
The highest concentration of technology workers -- 286 for every 1,000 workers -- was in, no...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Designing a Successful Web Community
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60428
"Community" continues to be the buzzword for businesses looking for a meaningful online presence. Everywhere you look there's another company bragging about its online social network, either to embrace clients or consumers or even to unite employees. As membership in social networks such as Facebook and MySpace continues to grow, brand-sponsored apps that tap into some network somewhere, somehow, have become common. But vibrant, successful communities are difficult to design and implement.
Online communities are not only expensive to build, they're expensive to maintain -- and they're not even always appropriate, warns Maria Giudice of San Francisco design company Hot Studio. Giudice has been involved in Web design since the days of 1.0. She has built a number of community sites for clients, including the Open Architecture Network [OAN] for Architecture for Humanity [AfH], a nonprofit, humanitarian-focused architecture charity. "All clients start out saying they want a community, but who's going to manage it once it's built?" she asks. "You can't just put up a community and expect that it'll magically run itself."
For Giudice, the key to successful community design -- and Web design as a whole -- lies in research. That means the designers take a step back to question clients' expectations and needs. For instance, Hot Studio ended up recasting the Open Architecture Network from its initial brief as an open-source community for architects. "Through research we realized that it wasn't a Web site they needed, it was an ecosystem of sites," says Giudice. "There was a bigger vision that wasn't just about a community, but about accomplishing discrete goals for different people in a holistic way."
In other words, the design and tools of OAN should provide an online hub for involved parties, from designers to administrators to project managers working on the ground at disaster...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Data Breaches Top the Agenda at RSA Conference
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60412
Data breaches remain a significant problem for any company that manages information about personal identity. In recent weeks, widely publicized data breaches have hit Lending Tree, Hannaford Bros. Co., and the Bank of Ireland. Past data breaches at ChoicePoint, TJX Cos., and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have resulted in large, class-action lawsuits with claims for or settlements in the millions of dollars in some cases.
At the April RSA Conference in San Francisco, a number of speakers addressed the technical and legal aspects of the data breach problem. The conference, sponsored by data security company RSA Security, Inc., was attended by more than 17,000 people and featured 200-plus sessions on information security issues, including data security technology, strategies and compliance challenges, and legal and governmental issues. This latter issue was the focal point for a number of speakers who addressed the data breach challenge.
Many of the data breaches reported in the media have been the result of outside forces against a data company. This has taken the form of criminals hacking into database files, stealing portable devices (laptops or hard drives) containing data, or using fraudulent means to gain access to data. According to the "2007 E-Crime Watch Survey" -- conducted by Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Program, and the U.S. Secret Service and originally published in CSO Magazine 49 percent of survey participants reported that some form of electronic crime had been attempted against them. In nearly 40 percent of those cases, the crime involved attempted access to customer or credit card records.
Researchers from the CERT Program presented a longer, more detailed analysis of this data at the RSA Conference. They noted that insiders (people within the organization) were responsible for more than one-third of the e-crimes, according to the 2007 survey. The crimes ranged...
Thu, 26 Jun 08
Chubb's Security Firm Demos High-Tech Protection
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60411
In September of 1965, a new comedy series called Get Smart aired on television. Satirizing the spy movie genre then the rage -- Secret Agent, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., etc. -- Get Smart was the brainchild of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and starred Don Adams as a secret agent named Maxwell Smart.
As a running gag, whenever it was necessary for Smart to contact headquarters, he would enter a telephone booth and take off his shoe, the heel of which contained a telephone dial. He then used the dial to call the head of his secret agency. (He could have used the phone in the booth, but that wouldn't have been as funny.)
The show was filled with any number of "gadgets" such as the shoe phone and other gags spoofing all of the electronic "toys" that were especially part of the early James Bond movies. Of course, these gadgets didn't really exist. Not then.
Today, however, is a whole different story. These communications and listening devices and minuscule cameras do exist and are being used by industrial spies who want to get a leg up on corporate decision-making, or by thieves and sexual predators who want to enter
your house and endanger your family.
Recently, Risk Control Strategies (RCS), Chubb Corp.'s personal security consulting firm, held special "demonstrations" in New York to describe how the privacy of homes and commercial organizations can be breached and what RCS security experts can do about it. RCS executives described how their people can gather intelligence, design security architecture for estates, conduct a lifestyle diagnosis, protect clients from cybercrime and mitigate corporate and personal espionage.
These services, of course, are for Chubb's upscale, well-to-do insureds who face particular exposures because of their financial positions. For VIP Chubb insureds the services are...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
House Leader Questions Yahoo-Google Search Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60391
When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped his bid to buy Yahoo, he took pains to point out that Yahoo's search-sharing arrangements with Google were likely to bring intense antitrust scrutiny for any company acquiring Yahoo. Given Microsoft's lengthy history with antitrust enforcement, Ballmer found that particularly unappealing.
This week, his prediction started to come true. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang expressing concern over "how this collaboration will impact competition" in online search.
Barton noted that, according to the latest comScore results, Google accounts for 60 percent of online searches, followed by Yahoo at 20 percent. Microsoft trails distantly at a mere nine percent.
Barton referred to a Department of Justice guideline on collaborations among competitors, which notes that even though collaborations may be intended to benefit competition, "they may in practice reduce competition."
"I am also concerned about how the relationship between Google and Yahoo will affect the collection, storage, and use of data relating to an individual's online activity," Barton said. He added that between Google's acquisition of DoubleClick and Yahoo's purchase of advertising exchange RightMedia and ad network Blue Lithium, both companies are collecting "a great deal of data about people's online activity and behavior." The collaboration thus raises the "potential for the data to be shared or merged, and perhaps used by Google and Yahoo" in ways consumers don't understand.
Barton posed eight detailed questions to Yang, including which company made the first move in forming the collaboration, how Yahoo will determine which search queries will be routed to Google, how Yahoo arrived at its estimate that the deal will generate $800 million in revenue for Yahoo, how Yang figures that the collaboration will not have an anticompetitive effect, what investments Yahoo...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
eBay Boosts Fraud Protection for PayPal Transactions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60390
In preparation for this year's holiday shopping season, eBay and PayPal on Thursday announced improved protections for buyers and sellers on eBay.com.
For the first time, buyers who pay with PayPal will be protected on eligible transactions for 100 percent of an item's purchase price, with no cap on coverage. In addition, all U.S. eBay sellers will receive improved seller protection for eligible transactions when they are paid through PayPal.
"We're combining the power of eBay and PayPal to give all buyers and sellers more confidence and trust," said Lorrie Norrington, eBay's president of marketplace operations. "Buyers who pay with PayPal on eBay will be covered, with no limits, on most transactions. Any seller who gets paid with PayPal will be covered on most transactions, too, and can ship to 190 countries worldwide where PayPal is accepted."
Norrington introduced the protections at the company's seventh eBay Live! community conference this week. Currently, 97 percent of eBay.com listings offer PayPal and more than 90 percent of active eBay users in the U.S. have PayPal accounts.
PayPal Buyer Protection covers eligible transactions on eBay.com for items that aren't received and for items that are significantly not as described. Beginning this fall, PayPal will remove the coverage limit, giving buyers more confidence when they pay for eBay purchases with PayPal.
PayPal's improved seller protection covers sellers against claims, charge-backs and reversals due to an unauthorized payment or an item that was not received. Under this improved protection, sellers can ship to buyers in markets worldwide where PayPal is accepted and be eligible for protection. PayPal's seller protection is provided without any additional cost, and beginning later this year, PayPal will remove the annual coverage cap.
PayPal's increased buyer and seller protections take effect this fall.
"Today's announcement makes it simple for our customers -- we're...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
FCC Extends Date For Sprint Wireless Channel Swap
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60388
The Federal Communications Commission has granted Sprint Nextel a one-year reprieve to relocate its iDEN mobile customers to new channel assignments on the same 800-MHz frequency band.
The FCC wants to reconfigure its allocation of all communication channels at 800 MHz so commercial wireless services will cause less interference to spectrum slices assigned to firefighters, police, emergency responders, and other public-safety workers. However, the majority of public-safety licensees are not ready to retune their 800-MHz radios from current channels, leaving Sprint Nextel with nowhere to go.
"More than 60 percent of all NPSPAC (National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee) licensees have had to file waiver requests seeking more time to finish retuning their systems," Sprint Nextel noted. "Retuning nearly 1,000 NPSPAC licensees has proven to be more complex than anticipated and continues to challenge the resources of vendors, consultants, engineering companies, and public-safety agencies."
The FCC was also expected to rule against Verizon on Friday after cable companies Bright House Networks, Comcast and Time Warner Cable complained that Verizon used private information to lure back landline customers who planned to switch to VoIP on cable.
Sprint said it would face customer disruptions if it surrendered all of its current channels in "flash-cut" fashion without access to an adequate number of replacement channels in the 800-MHz band. Moreover, moving its customers to alternate channels in the 900-MHz band is not a viable option. "There are not enough 900-MHz channels available to make up for the channel-based capacity shortfall Sprint Nextel will suffer at 800 MHz," the company said.
Additionally, if it vacated all its 800-MHz channels prematurely, Sprint said it would face limitations in its ability to provide service to several public-safety agencies that have already advised the FCC that they rely heavily on Sprint's iDEN network.
"Sprint Nextel needs a...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
iTunes Store Dominates Music, and Movies May Be Next
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60387
On Thursday, Apple passed yet another significant milestone at its iTunes Store. The company announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than five billion songs. Movies could be the next digital medium to realize those numbers.
The iTunes Store is the largest music retailer in the U.S., according to the NPD Group. And iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing more than 50,000 movies every day, according to Apple.
Analysts said Apple's decision to give consumers the ability to turn previously purchased tracks into complete albums at a reduced price, and seamless integration with iPod and iPhone, has helped its cause.
"This is just further evidence, if any is needed, that the recorded music business is headed toward Internet distribution," said Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "Apple is already selling more music than Wal-Mart."
In addition to its more than eight million songs, the iTunes Store peddles more than 20,000 TV episodes and more than 2,000 films, including more than 350 in high definition.
iTunes features movies from all the major movie studios, including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.
Apple is working to make it easy for consumers to access digital movies with initiatives like iTunes Movie Rentals, integrated podcasting support, and iMix playlist sharing.
Users can rent movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods and iPhones, and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Store customers can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.
"As far as movies are concerned, it's as certain as fleas on a yard dog that movies are going to the Internet,"...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
As Executives Leave, Yahoo Considers a Reorganization
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60386
With executives leaving Yahoo at a steady pace, the company is contemplating a major reorganization. According to a report in Friday's Wall Street Journal, Yahoo's management is considering a plan that would centralize various product groups into a single global-product organization, instead of the current, separate divisions for mail, search and home page.
The Journal said the change is being sought by Yahoo President Susan Decker as a means of improving communication between product teams and overseas sales units.
The reorganization follows the announcement this week that Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's network division, will exit the company. No successor has been named.
Weiner's exodus is only the latest in a series. The senior vice president of search, Vish Makhijani, is leaving to work for a Russian search company. The executive vice president for search and advertising technology, Qi Lu, has also said she's leaving.
Executive Vice President Usama Fayyad and two people involved in the creation of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, have also left or are in the process of doing so.
And Brad Garlinghouse, senior vice president for communications and communities, has said he's quitting. His position covers e-mail, messaging, Yahoo Groups, and Flickr.
One of Garlinghouse's claims to fame is something he wrote called the Peanut Butter Manifesto. Originally penned as an internal memo, it was released to The Wall Street Journal. It criticized Yahoo for spreading itself too thin across too many products, as peanut butter might be spread on bread.
That diluting of the Yahoo brand was seen by outsiders as one of the reasons that cofounder Jerry Yang assumed the position of CEO. Like Steve Jobs coming back to Apple, Yang's top leadership role was seen as possibly providing a...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
Student Charged with Hacking into School Computer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60367
An 18-year-old high school senior is scheduled to be arraigned today on charges alleging he and a schoolmate hacked into their school's computer in a scheme to improve their chances of college admission.
Tanvir Singh, 18, of Ladera Ranch, is expected at the Newport Beach courthouse at 1:30 p.m. to answer to one felony count each of conspiracy, burglary, computer access and fraud, as well as attempted altering of a public record, said Farrah Emami of the Orange County District Attorney's Office. He faces up to three years in prison if convicted, she said.
Omar Khan, 18, of Coto de Caza, will face 34 felony counts when he is arraigned at 9 a.m. on Thursday in Harbor Justice Center. Khan, who should have graduated today with the rest of his class at Tesoro High School, is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail and faces up to 38 years and four months in prison, Emami said.
Between Jan. 23 and May 20, Khan allegedly broke into locked rooms at the Rancho Santa Margarita high school, where he was a senior, on several occasions late at night and on weekends to access school computers and change his grades, as well as scores on Advanced Placement tests and school records from previous semesters, Emami said.
Khan changed grades of "C," "D," or "F" to "A," she said.
Khan also stole personal log-in information from teachers to gain access to their computers and grades, primarily changing his own grades, but also altering the permanent transcript grades of a dozen other students, Emami said.
On April 18, Khan allegedly cheated on an English class on a test, leading his teacher to seize the test and give Khan a failing mark, Emami said.
The test was turned over to the assistant principal, and that...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
YouTube Opens Screening Room for Indie Filmmakers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60364
Google Inc.'s YouTube is setting up a virtual screening room to bring the work of independent filmmakers to a global audience.
Struggling filmmakers already use YouTube to kick-start viral marketing campaigns. The new feature, which debuts Wednesday, gives them an easy-to-find home -- and makes them partners in drawing new ad revenue.
"Hopefully as they see thousands of people watching their films, it's going to be a very eye-opening experience," said Sara Pollack, YouTube's film and animation manager.
The screening room will highlight four new films a week, picked by a YouTube editorial panel.
Submissions are welcomed. The panel also will scour film festivals and work with partners such as the Sundance Channel to identify prospects.
Among the first eight titles to be showcased are "Love and War," a stop-motion puppet movie by a Swedish director; the Oscar-nominated short "I Met The Walrus," about an interview with John Lennon; and "Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?" by performance artist Miranda July.
Filmmakers can choose to have a "Buy Now" button attached to their work for sales of DVDs or digital copies. They will also collect a majority share of ad revenue generated from views of their work.
YouTube said people whose clips regularly attract a million viewers can make several thousand dollars a month.
The bigger prize can be exposure.
When YouTube featured the nine-minute short "Spider" by Nash Edgerton in February, it became the fifth-best selling short on iTunes, Pollack said.
The creators of the full-length feature "Four Eyed Monsters," Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, got their break when more than a million YouTube views helped land them a TV and DVD distribution deal, she said.
"They ended up doing really, really well, ironically by putting their film online for free," Pollack said.
Sat, 21 Jun 08
Firefox Leads Surge of Web Browsing Competition
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60362
Your new Internet browser is ready -- several of them, actually.
They're all free, so take your pick.
The Mozilla Foundation, whose Firefox browser has already snared over 18 percent of the world's Web surfers, has just introduced its latest upgrade, Firefox 3. For a nonprofit outfit, Mozilla can really sling the hype. The foundation practically dared us to visit getfirefox.com on Tuesday and download the new browser, in an effort to set a world record for the most file downloads in a single day. Suckers that we are, at least 7 million of us fell for it.
And what did we get in return? A darn good browser.
Firefox caught fire in 2004, when Microsoft Corp. hadn't upgraded its Internet Explorer browser in three years. IE 6, as techies called it, was so famously buggy that the federal government's data security experts began urging people not to use it. Suddenly, Firefox looked especially attractive -- free, feature-rich, and far more secure than Explorer. Within a year, users had downloaded 100 million copies. By including a search window linked to the popular Google search engine, the Mozilla Foundation began raking in millions in advertising revenue. Microsoft's near-monopoly on browsers was gone.
Still, Firefox wasn't perfect. In 2007, security software maker Symantec found twice as many security bugs in Firefox as Microsoft's newest browser, IE 7. Firefox 3 aims to squash the bugs and to deliver a bunch of new features.
Best of the lot is a new address bar that begins searching for Web sites even as you type. Start typing an address you frequently visit and Firefox 3 will display links to pages from that site that you viewed in the past.
Firefox 3 has also buffed up its file download system. New files are automatically scanned for viruses, and you can see the Internet domain...
Sat, 21 Jun 08
Investor Carl Icahn Hits Web as Billionaire Blogger
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60361
For months, billionaire investor and shareholder activist Carl Icahn has been threatening to launch a blog so he could vent about corporate governance issues of the day.
Now, it appears, that day is nigh. Icahn said Wednesday that his new blog, The Icahn Report, would go live this afternoon. "We're finally getting it together," Icahn said.
Although he announced the blog in January, and even reserved the domain name (www.icahnreport.com), Icahn has yet to weigh in with any entries.
For the past month, at least, he's been otherwise engaged, firing public salvos at the board of directors and CEO of Yahoo, criticizing it for not accepting Microsoft's recent takeover offer.
In an interview, Icahn said his first post wouldn't involve his battle with Yahoo, but would be concerned with the larger issue of accountability in the boardroom. "The question of accountability in this country is very, very important, and corporate democracy is a bit of a myth," he said. "Right now, the system is not really working."
Icahn may be a new presence on the Internet, but he's a familiar voice in the ongoing debate over corporate governance. Over an investing career that has spanned three decades, Icahn has consistently criticized do-nothing boards of directors and overpaid CEOs.
Most recently, he has complained about the amount of money made by Yahoo board members ($10,000 a week) and the severance negotiated between Blockbuster's board and former CEO John Antioco.
"The blog will be terrific if he uses it to advance the discussion on these topics," says Nell Minow of The Corporate Library, who has her own corporate governance blog.
Sat, 21 Jun 08
More Airport Alerts Sent to E-Mail, Cell Phones, PDAs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60360
Need some last-minute travel information? A growing number of airports are sending messages and alerts to e-mail, BlackBerry and cell phone users.
Travelers need to sign up, but the service transmits information about flights, parking, ground traffic or security waiting times electronically for free. It's also available at many airports' Web sites.
Boston Logan airport's Flight Alert service made its debut last week. Seattle-Tacoma airport began providing flight information to cell phone users last month. San Diego airport says it is considering a similar service, and Oregon's Portland airport may begin looking into it, says Port of Portland spokeswoman Karen Fisher.
Seattle-Tacoma airport gets its flight information directly from airlines, while Logan uses airline and Federal Aviation Administration data, Logan spokesman Matthew Brelis says. Subscribers to Logan's service receive messages for cancellations, or delays or diversions greater than 30 minutes.
Frequent business traveler David Mazzotta, of Salt Lake City, regularly uses Seattle-Tacoma airport's alert service and says all airports should have it.
"I think it's great, and it helps me immensely," says the vice president of a marketing and advertising consulting company. "It allows me to stay longer with a client when a flight is delayed."
Many business travelers already rely on airline e-mail messages to stay abreast of flight changes.
American Airlines' electronic message service, for example, "has made travel much easier," says software salesman Ted Mitchell of Dallas. Among other things, he uses the service to confirm departure and arrival times and gate and baggage-claim information.
But frequent flier Vincent Greenlee of Chicago says airline alert services can fail when flights are pushed back by weather delays. "The updates are not sent accordingly," says Greenlee, who works in the information technology industry.
Airlines say their own e-mail alert services are the best for travelers, because no one knows their operations better than they do. An airline's alert...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Downloads From Apple's iTunes Store Top Five Billion
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60374
Apple reported Thursday that more than five billion songs have been downloaded from its online iTunes Store.
That milestone confirms a MusicWatch survey from NPD Group that found the iTunes online store is the top music retailer in the U.S., selling more music than retailing giant Wal-Mart. As recently as the third quarter of 2005, the iTunes Store was ranked seventh among major music retailers.
The iTunes Store offers more than eight million songs and more than 2,000 movies, plus 20,000 episodes of TV shows. More than 50,000 movies are rented or purchased every day, Apple said, making it the most popular online movie store as well.
Sales of Apple's iPods and iPhones continue to grow and may be a factor in its online dominance of both music and movies. This is particularly true as consumers have shown a growing preference for buying just the songs they want instead of an entire CD like those available at Wal-Mart.
As an added feature, the iTunes Store gives customers the ability to turn previously purchased music into albums at a reduced price.
Apple's store offers movies from all the major movie studios, including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Rented movies can be viewed on Macs and PCs, iPods, iPhones and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV.
In addition, iTunes Store customers can buy new movie releases on the same day they are released on DVD.
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Chinese Agency Denies Microsoft Monopoly Investigation
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60372
China's State Intellectual Property Office has denied a flurry of media reports suggesting the government agency was investigating Microsoft for discriminatory software pricing. In a statement briefly posted at its official Web site, according to media sources, the SIPO noted that it has never undertaken any market-monopoly investigations before, and has no plans to do so because its mandate from Chinese government agencies is "to investigate and research domestic piracy issues."
The statement was intended to contradict a report by Shanghai Security News in which an unnamed source had suggested to the Chinese financial newspaper that Microsoft would be vulnerable to a lawsuit following the debut of China's forthcoming anti-monopoly law, which becomes effective Aug. 1. Microsoft quickly responded by telling western media outlets it was unaware of any antitrust investigation by Chinese authorities.
The Shanghai Security News article was given coverage by the worldwide media, which deemed the news to be credible because SSN is wholly owned by the Xinhua News Agency -- the official voice of the People's Republic of China. SSN also promotes itself by saying it serves as "the China Securities Regulatory Commission's government-designated channel for disclosure for Chinese-listed companies."
According to a joint study conducted by the Business Software Alliance and IDC, 82 percent of all PC software in China was pirated in 2007 -- down from 92 percent in 2003. Under such circumstances, a Chinese investigation of Microsoft would have been most ironic, given that the software giant has suffered huge losses from lax anti-piracy regulations in China over the past five years.
Microsoft has been making a huge public-relations effort to rehabilitate its reputation as a monopoly. The software giant issued an interim status report this month that sought to show it is making progress in resolving U.S. antitrust issues...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Competition Looms as Verizon, Comcast Boost Services
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60371
For the first time in years, consumers may be getting real competition in telecom services. Verizon Wireless announced Wednesday that it will speed up its super-fast fiber-optic service in 10 new states.
The expanded network will be available to 10 million consumers beginning next week and will reach 18 million people by 2010, Verizon said. FiOS will be available in various configurations ranging from 50 megabits per second downstream and 20 Mbps upstream to 10 Mbps downstream and two Mbps upstream.
The expansion upgrades FiOS customers in parts of California, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Those customers previously were limited to a range of 30 Mbps downstream and 15 Mbps upstream to five Mbps downstream and two Mbps upstream.
Verizon sees ever-increasing demand for bandwidth as users download and upload large media files like video and high-resolution photos. "As our customers shoot and send their own photos and movies, work at home more often, and expand their home networks, they love the faster speeds FiOS delivers," President and CEO Denny Strigl said.
The announcement came as Comcast announced a slowdown in rolling out its faster cable network, based on DOCSIS. That network will offer 80 Mbps downstream and 30 Mbps upstream.
Verizon's announcement doesn't reflect any new investments in the network. "This is not an infrastructure upgrade; it's a loosening of the speed caps by Verizon," said George Ou, senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in an e-mail. "Verizon fundamentally has a lot more bandwidth than any DOCSIS 1.1 or 3.0 network," the technology on which cable networks are based. "We're talking many times more bandwidth," Ou added.
"The first DOCSIS 3.0 implementations are 76/27 Mbps down/up shared amongst a cable node consisting of anywhere between 200 and 400 users," Ou said. "So...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Firefox 3 Vulnerability Rains on Mozilla Download Parade
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60370
For all the hype over how many people downloaded Mozilla's Firefox 3 open-source browser in a five-hour period, there is now hype about how long it took security researchers to disclose a flaw.
Five hours after Mozilla officially released the much-anticipated update, Tipping Point confirmed a vulnerability. Tipping Point's Zero Day Initiative program received notification about a critical vulnerability affecting both Firefox 3 and Firefox 2.
"We verified the vulnerability in our lab, acquired it from the researcher, then promptly reported the vulnerability to the Mozilla security team shortly after," Tipping Point wrote in its Digital Vaccine Laboratories blog.
"Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code," the company said. "Not unlike most browser-based vulnerabilities that we see these days, user interaction is required, such as clicking on a link in e-mail or visiting a malicious Web page."
Mozilla is working on a fix, and Tipping Point isn't saying much else until a patch is available. So just how serious is the threat? It's difficult to say for sure, according to Carole Theriault, a security researcher at Sophos, because there's not much detailed information on the threat.
However, she said, it would be sensible to take the normal precautions that people are advised to take: Visit only reputable Web sites, patch security vulnerabilities, and put this patch in place as soon as Mozilla makes it available.
"Companies that are concerned that their users are dashing out and installing the new browser should consider controlling what browser and version can be used in the company," Theriault said. Tools like Sophos' Application Control allow administrators to control browser usage within the network, ensuring that the network is not at unnecessary risk.
It's not unusual for bug reports to emerge in the wake of newly released software, especially...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
DontLikeUrName? U Can Get a New Yahoo Address
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60357
Yahoo on Thursday announced two new e-mail domains for Yahoo Mail users worldwide. The domains are ymail.com and rocketmail.com.
The search-engine provider is billing the new domains as a way to give users a chance to register for the e-mail address or Yahoo ID they really want. For some, that could mean abandoning early selections, such as CutiePie4Ever80 or mattclark1977@yahoo.com for a new image.
"We recognize that people want an e-mail address that reflects who they are, whether they are signing up for an e-mail address for the first time, or simply updating their e-mail pseudonym to reflect the stage they are at in life," said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.
Despite the rise of Google's Gmail, Yahoo Mail is still the number-one Webmail service in the world with more than 260 million users, according to comScore Media Metrix.
Because it has so many users, the most desirable e-mail addresses have been taken for the yahoo.com domain, as well as for localized versions in countries around the world. With the new domain choices, Yahoo will make millions of new e-mail addresses available.
Yahoo may also be trying to put some juice into its brand, according to Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.
"Some people may perceive, in some sense, that the Yahoo brand is not be as edgy or cool as it once was," Sterling said. "The Yahoo brand is still very across the board, but groups of people may not think it's quite as buzzworthy."
Yahoo recently commissioned a survey conducted by Harris Interactive to determine what online adults look for when choosing an e-mail address. The study found that the majority of online adults (59 percent) consider the most important attribute of an e-mail address to be that it is easy to...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Microsoft Buys Digital TV Ad Provider Navic Networks
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60356
Microsoft's aggressive campaign to increase its position in digital advertising took another step this week as it announced the acquisition of Navic Networks, a television advertising provider. Terms were not disclosed.
The deal, announced Tuesday, will give the software giant ownership of Navic's sophisticated campaign-management tools for digital advertising. Those tools optimize where and when interactive television ads are placed. One tool, called Admira, offers a unified ad network so that selected audiences can be targeted across all ads in a campaign.
The Waltham, Mass.-based Navic has about 80 employees.
Microsoft said Navic's tools will allow its own advertising platform to "facilitate enhanced digital advertising across online and offline environments," integrating online and on-air. With Navic's system, users can click on an ad to see a video or a phone number for a product.
Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of the advertiser and publisher solutions group at Microsoft, said TV advertising has the largest percentage of major advertising budgets. With Navic as a wholly-owned subsidiary in his group, McAndrews said Microsoft will be able to "deliver addressable television advertising solutions" to increase advertisers' reach and return on investment.
Navic's addressable technology was primarily built to serve the cable and direct-broadcast satellite industry. Navic's tools use real-time audience measurement data and target addressable interactive TV and advertising applications that live on more than 35 million digital set-top boxes in the U.S. and Canada.
Microsoft's collection of businesses and tools, some home-grown and some acquired, encompasses 42 markets globally and 21 languages. It includes digital advertising for such platforms as MSN, Windows Live, Microsoft Office Live, Xbox, Microsoft Live Search, Facebook, and tools that include Atlas, AdECN, Microsoft adCenter, DRIVE pm, Massive and ScreenTonic.
When Microsoft was rebuffed in its efforts to buy Yahoo, company executives reportedly told employees it would...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Venture Capitalists Are Betting on LinkedIn
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60347
Four venture capital firms are betting Internet startup LinkedIn Corp. is worth $1 billion, highlighting the lofty hopes riding on online services that connect people with their friends, family and business associates.
The 10-figure valuation is implied by a $53 million investment being announced Wednesday from Bain Capital Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.
The investors received a combined 5 percent stake in Mountain View-based LinkedIn, whose 5-year-old Web site helps people use the Web to advance their professional careers.
It's one of the richest appraisals for a Silicon Valley startup since Microsoft Corp. paid $240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook Inc. late last year. That deal valued Palo Alto-based Facebook and its online hangout at $15 billion.
The Facebook financing in turn helped several other startups that promote online socializing to promote themselves.
Ning Inc. and Slide Inc. wrangled implied valuations ranging between $500 million and $560 million when investors poured more money into them earlier this year, while RockYou was valued between $200 million and $300 million in a deal completed last week.
Venture capitalists are counting on the services to mine more advertising revenue from their rapidly growing audiences even as much of the U.S. economy is withering.
But finding an effective advertising approach has been tricky for the top social networks.
Privacy complaints prompted Facebook to rein in a marketing tool that tracked its members' activities on other Web sites. Even Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. has had trouble peddling products and services to denizens of the Web's largest social network, News Corp.'s MySpace.
LinkedIn believes its emphasis on connecting executives, other ambitious employees and deal makers gives it a demographic edge over more recreational Internet networks that cater to students and other less-affluent consumers.
"If LinkedIn is able to achieve its goals and objectives in the coming years, this...
Fri, 20 Jun 08
Gather.com Connects with Over-35 Crowd
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The online social networking trend seems destined to get together somehow with the handheld, GPS-equipped device.
Gather.com founder and Bethel Park native Tom Gerace envisions this. He's mapped out a relationship, in fact.
By year's end, Gerace said his Boston-based networking site will allow owners of the upcoming iPhone 3G to share their locations with friends, former co-workers -- anyone with whom they keep in touch -- via the phone's global positioning system feature. Apple will start selling its latest iPhone July 11.
Gather is fine-tuning other ways to continue building what has become a leading social networking site for adults, with a half-million registered members and twice as many "unique visitors," or casual viewers, each month.
Gerace, Gather's CEO, spent last week in Pittsburgh working on details for the redesigned Web site, to launch in mid-July.
Gather Inc.'s local office in Gateway Center, Downtown, employs 18 people and is where product development and design work take place. Overall, Gather's full-time work force totals 42.
"Every time we go out to talk to adults, they want simpler, simpler simpler," Gerace said. The redesigned site will be rooted in four main areas -- My Gather, Groups, People and Explore -- where visitors can find the content and contacts they're seeking related to their interests.
Janet Loraine, 52, found Gather through a promotion on another Web site.
"I just loved it. It's like a MySpace for adults," said the Mt. Washington resident, who posts her games, stories and photos on the site, and communicates with friends and relatives.
Gerace, 37, got the inspiration for Gather while working in the travel industry, as vice president of marketing for National Leisure Group in Port Washington, N.Y. He envisioned an online community where informed adults could share ideas about travel and related topics, such as food and wine....
Fri, 20 Jun 08
EU Missing Its Mark on Software Diversity
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The European Commission, a thorn in Microsoft's side for its antitrust campaigns against the software giant, is falling short in its own internal attempt to promote competition in the technology sector.
The European Union executive has so far not followed its own policy of purchasing office software and operating systems with open standards, as well as Microsoft products.
"For the moment we are working in a Microsoft environment," said Christos Ellinides, director of corporate IT solutions and services, who recommends software for the commission.
Last week, Neelie Kroes, the European competition commissioner, noted the commission's pledge to buy open-standard software. "This policy, adopted last year, needs to be implemented with vigor," she told an audience.
The policy requires that all future procurement should promote software using "open, well-documented standards" that operates freely with other software, essentially in desktop and laptop machines. By using open-standard software, the commission would signal it was practicing what it preached in terms of promoting competition in computing.
Ellinides said that studies showed the costs of moving to open source outweighed the benefits. He said it might be time for a new study.
Commissioner Siim Kallas oversees procurement.
"There is a decision that we will explore the possibility of initiating this study on an institutional basis," he said.
He said the commission could already read and