Newsfactor Technology

Fri, 26 Sep 08
T-Mobile's Android Phone Has Limits Outside Google
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62095
Now that analysts are getting their hands on the T-Mobile G1, talk is beginning about what the first Android-powered phone doesn't offer. T-Mobile launched the HTC-made device Tuesday, complete with full touchscreen functionality and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for a mobile Web experience largely driven by Google products, including Search, Google Street View, Gmail and YouTube.

The phone is making the intended splash. In fact, Neil Mawston, director of Wireless Device Strategies at Strategy Analytics, is forecasting a major Android impact on the 10.5 million smartphones to be sold in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2008.

"We estimate smartphones with Google's Android operating system, led by HTC of Taiwan, will reach 0.4 million units in the quarter, for a four percent market share," Mawston said. "Android is a relatively late entrant and it will join an increasingly crowded market alongside Blackberry, Microsoft, Apple, Palm, Symbian and LiMo."

Limited Synchronizing

The T-Mobile G1 synchronizes e-mail, calendar and contacts from Gmail as well as most other POP3 or IMAP e-mail services. The device multitasks, so you can read a Web page while also downloading e-mail in the background. And it combines Instant Messaging support for Google Talk, as well as AOL, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. But there is no connection to the desktop.

"If I have my contacts in Outlook or my Calendar in iCal, I have no easy way of synchronizing that content onto my device without figuring out some way of getting it up to a Google service," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "That's fine if I am a Google user. If I am not a Google user, then I have to sign up for that service, and I have to figure out how to export and maintain my content. In some cases it...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
MySpace Offers Free Music Downloads -- with Ads
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62094
Users of the popular social-networking site MySpace can now listen to and download music from several music companies, including Sony, EMI and Warner.

Starting Thursday, users will have free access to hundreds of thousands of songs from hundreds of record labels -- but there's a catch. MySpace's 120 million users who want to use the free service need to deal with the advertising that comes with it, and they will only be able to access the service using a PC.

Users in the U.S. can also purchase the digital rights management-free MP3 music downloads using MySpace's e-commerce feature. Users can download and buy MP3s on all digital music devices, including Apple's iPod.

Chris DeWolfe, chief executive at MySpace, said the deal is the beginning of a new chapter in modern music. "Millions of die-hard music fans and artists already call MySpace Music home. By partnering with these industry leaders, our vision for MySpace Music as the definitive platform for unlimited artistic expression and unrestricted user experience is finally being realized," he said.

The good news is that users will not be limited to how many times they download a song to playlists, each of which can hold 100 songs.

MySpace Music's e-commerce feature will allow artists to sell tickets and merchandise to fans and generate commercial revenue. Currently, the service is supported by ads and sponsorships. In fact, McDonald's, Toyota, Sony Pictures, and State Farm are sponsoring the service.

Time to Listen

Users have been anticipating the new service since MySpace and the music companies first announced the service in April.

Users were greeted with this message from MySpace President Thomas Anderson: "MySpace Music has gotten a big upgrade. Today you'll find that some of the world's biggest bands have added their entire discography to MySpace -- all the albums and CDs they've ever recorded!"

Anderson went on to...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
RIAA Award in P2P File-Sharing Verdict Overturned
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62093
Last year, the Recording Industry Association of America scored its first-ever legal victory in court when a federal jury awarded the group $220,000 for copyright infringement of 24 songs by Jammie Thomas. The crux of the RIAA's complaint against Thomas was that she had made the songs (and roughly a thousand others) available to others on the Kazaa peer-to-peer (P2P) network.

However, on Wednesday U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis overturned the verdict, telling the parties he had committed a "manifest error of law" during the trial. Specifically, Davis said he was wrong to instruct the jury that it could find Thomas liable without any proof that "actual distribution" of copyrighted material had taken place.

"Jury Instruction No. 15 was erroneous," Davis said, "and that error substantially prejudiced Thomas' rights. Based on the court's error in instructing the jury, it grants Thomas a new trial."

The RIAA will now have to decide whether to pursue its claim against Thomas again or negotiate an out-of-court settlement. So far, the Thomas case is the only P2P infringement case to go to trial; according to a study by Wired magazine, most of the 30,000 lawsuits filed by the RIAA against individual file sharers have been settled out of court.

What Proof Is Required?

The issue troubling Davis is one that courts have wrestled with repeatedly. Is it sufficient for the RIAA to show that a defendant made copyrighted materials available for P2P users to access, or should the RIAA be required to show that an actual transfer of copyrighted music took place?

As proof of actual distribution, RIAA offered evidence that its investigator, Media Sentry, had downloaded copyrighted materials from Thomas' computer. However, Davis rejected that evidence, stating that a copyright owner (or its agents) cannot violate its own copyrights.

The RIAA was unavailable for comment and has not issued...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
Is IT of the Future Firmly Rooted in the 'Cloud'?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62061
Yes, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "Cloud computing is the story of our lifetime. Eventually all devices will be on the network," he told an audience of software developers at a conference of IBM's business partners.

Upstart Google and old-line IBM are forging an alliance to alloy their pioneering traditions in software and hardware in the cause of revolutionizing the acquisition and delivery of information technology. Gartner, which has studied and issued technical notes on the state of the concept, defines cloud computing as "a style of computing where massively scalable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered 'as a service' to external customers using Internet technologies." Basically, the hardware is pooled together and shared by all.

Microsoft, widely viewed as an arch competitor to both Google and IBM, has also joined the cause with systems for bringing cloud computing to the desktop. Addressing a technical audience last June, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates outlined his vision of applying massive web-based computing power to enterprise software as a service: "We're taking everything we do at the server level, and saying that we will have a service that mirrors that exactly. . . For SQL, we'll have SQL Server Data Services, and so you can connect up, build the database. It will be hosted in our cloud with the big, big data center, and geo-distributed automatically. Today we have, in our data center, many hundreds of thousands of servers, and in the future we'll have many millions of those servers." This lets Microsoft become "very radical" in thinking about the kinds of software products it can offer, Gates adds.

Already Google, IBM, and Amazon are doing just that. "The robust computing platform that has been built and refined over the years by Amazon is now available to anyone, anywhere, who has access to the Internet," is how...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
D-Link's Pitch: We're Cheaper Than Cisco
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62058
D-Link Systems Inc. wants to sell more to businesses that have tighter purse strings these days.

The Fountain Valley-based maker of networking gear, part of Taiwan's D-Link Corp., is pitching its routers and other products as a cheaper way for budget-conscious businesses to expand their networks.

The company's selling point: We're cheaper than Cisco.

D-Link's less expensive prices could appeal to small and midsize companies that have seen their businesses slow this year, crimping their ability to spend on technology.

They also appeal to resellers-tech shops that sell and install computer gear at businesses-which keep more of the profits on D-Link sales.

Targeting businesses is a bit of a switch for D-Link, which is better known for selling to consumers and home-based businesses.

"We have two different models we are running now, two different faces," Chief Executive Steven Joe said. "D-Link is well known in the consumer sector, which we started here in Fountain Valley a dozen years ago. But we've actually been involved hi the business sector for 22 years."

D-Link's Taiwanese parent got its start selling to businesses through resellers, according to Joe.

The Business Journal estimates D-Link's local operation, which has some 300 workers, sees about $1 billion in sales a year.

The bulk of D-Link's U.S. revenue comes from switches, routers, modems and network adapter cards sold at electronics stores and by online retailers.

Products aimed more squarely at businesses -- network switches, extra data storage and security cameras -- are a small, growing part of D-Link's sales, Joe said.

The company's main competitor for consumers is Jjvine-based Cisco-Linksys LLC, an independently run division of Cisco Systems Inc. that sells through electronics retailers.

For sales to smaller businesses, D-Link also competes with Linksys but more so with Cisco itself, as well as with Marlborough, Mass.-based 3Com Corp.

"As for the technology, we've been working on it to meet business...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
SimpleFeed Helps Clients Boost the Value of RSS Feeds
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62056
Here's a high-tech company that offers a solution for companies who want an effective way to reach their customers.

After seeing an XML button on The New York Times Web site a few years ago, Mark Carlson started thinking that companies such as The New York Times could benefit greatly from such a service. "I knew a lot about XML from other start-ups and I played around with it and figured out that they could offer RSS feeds of their content for customers," says Carlson, who co-founded Los Altos, Calif.-based SimpleFeed with Alik Eliashberg (the company's executive vice president and CTO) in June 2004.

"The fundamental thing was that you can subscribe to content without providing an email address," says Carlson, SimpleFeed's CEO. He previously served as CFO at First to File, an enterprise software company. He was also the founder and CEO of Walk Softly, Inc., an Internet privacy firm. "[Walk Softly] offered some of the first software that allows you to control your cookies," says Carlson. "We positioned it as Internet protection software. So maybe it was that privacy bug that made me look at RSS and how you didn't have to provide an email address."

Startup Facts

SimpleFeed was created as a solution for companies that wanted an effective way to get their messages to customers. Ensuring customers' privacy was an added bonus. "I looked at it and thought it was going to be a great way for companies to get their information out to customers directly, and that it would work well because not having to provide an email address makes it a lot easier for people to opt-in for information," says Carlson. He and Eliashberg took their idea on the road and pitched it to potential customers. The first to show an interest was VMware, which was on...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
Radio-Frequency ID Technology Takes Off
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62054
Federal agencies have deployed radio frequency identification technology to manage their assets, tracking everything from seagoing containers to paper medical files, and even to determine how fast a letter moves through the international postal system.

RFID technology uses readers that beam a radio signal to gather information from data tags, which come in two flavors-active and passive. Active tags, used by the Defense Department to track large containers, are powered by an internal battery, allowing them to initiate communication and hold data that can be rewritten or modified and transmitted over a distance of about 300 feet. Passive RFID tags have a shorter range, about 30 feet, and get their operating power from the reader. Data on a passive tag typically is read-only, which means the tag cannot be modified.

In January the Homeland security Department's Customs and Border Protection directorate awarded a $62 million contract to Unisys to equip 380 traffic lanes at 39 of the nation's busiest border crossings, which process an average of 850,000 travelers a day with RFID technology and license plate readers. It's one of the largest passive RFID projects in federal government.

As of June 1, 2009, U.S. citizens crossing land or sea borders will be required to carry an RFID travel document issued by the State Department as part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Kelly Klundt, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, said the agency has launched an aggressive construction and deployment schedule to meet the deadline.

As of mid-June, State had received 350,000 applications for RFID-equipped passport cards, which look like driver's licenses. And two states, Washington and New York, have started issuing enhanced driver's licenses equipped with RFID chips for border crossings.

The new travel documents are designed to tighten security at U.S. land borders, but that's not the only benefit. "Deploying RFID will be...

Fri, 26 Sep 08
Nvidia Turns to Chips for Industrial Imaging
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62052
Figuring out the best way to transform a frozen pizza into a perfectly warmed pie, gooey on top and crispy on the bottom, is as much a computer problem as a work of culinary art.

General Mills, maker of the Totino's and Jeno's brands of pizzas, would prefer not to whip up a thousand combinations of mozzarella cheese, tomato paste, crust and chemicals and blast them with microwave radiation. It's a lot less expensive and easier to model different pizzas using a sophisticated computer and only cook up the best candidates.

To speed up the task, General Mills turned to computers containing high-powered graphics chips from Nvidia, a Santa Clara company best known for making video games look more realistic on game consoles and personal computers.

Energy exploration companies, clothing designers, medical companies and financial services have also bought systems running on Nvidia chips. All of these companies share a common problem: They need hardware that can analyze a vast quantity of data and do it much faster than standard computers.

Nvidia, which dominates the market for stand-alone graphics processors, has a clear lead over competitors to provide this kind of industrial data crunching, thanks to a risky bet the company made several years ago.

Deliberately giving up some of its graphics performance, Nvidia created a new interface, released in 2006, that lets computer programmers easily tap the hundreds of processing engines on a graphics chip to handle other tasks that require a large number of simultaneous calculations.

"A couple of billion dollars in R&D later, scientists and researchers around the world have come out to thank us," said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia's co-founder and chief executive.

If the expensive gamble pays off, Nvidia could break out of its graphics niche and become a far more significant player in the computing landscape. "Once you have lots and...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Skyfire Browser Ready for Windows Mobile Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62071
Silicon Valley startup Skyfire is giving Windows Mobile smartphone users an opportunity to take the latest beta version of its mobile Web browser for a test drive. First unveiled in January, Skyfire brings many of the latest Web 2.0 innovations to mobile handsets, the company said.

"We don't like to think of ourselves as a mobile Internet browser," said Skyfire CEO and cofounder Nitin Bhandari. "Skyfire is a full-feature Internet browser on the mobile device."

A Real Web Experience

The 0.8 beta of Skyfire is now available for smartphones running Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0. A Symbian version for Series 60 phones is slated for release in the near future, the company said.

A key feature that differentiates Skyfire from other mobile Web browsers, Bhandari said, is that it enables users to experience the Internet on phones the same way as on PCs.

"For too long consumers have been promised the 'real Web' on their phones, only to be disappointed by slow rendering, error messages, no Flash support, watered-down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite site," Bhandari said earlier this year. "Skyfire has remedied those ills at a speed not seen before on the mobile platform."

Skyfire's latest release features a SuperBar that streamlines the search process by suggesting the most commonly used search keywords as a user types. Search results from Google and Yahoo are presented in easy-to-read tabs, such as Web, images and maps. "Users can now find content more quickly with SuperBar, and can now easily share that content with anyone in their address book," said Skyfire's Adam Sexton.

Skyfire supports many of the latest multimedia innovations for the Web, including Flash, Silverlight and QuickTime. "Our users love media-rich sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and ESPN on Skyfire, and based on their input we added the most requested...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Google's Transit Helps New Yorkers Find Their Way
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62068
Search giant Google and New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority have launched Google Transit for New Yorkers, giving Google users and New York's public-transportation riders access to station and schedule information for the nation's largest transit system.

Google Transit, a feature of Google Maps, provides point-to-point public-transit trip planning. Users now have access to information about New York's Long Island Rail Road, Long Island Bus, Metro-North Railroad, and the MTA Bus Company. The feature will also include itineraries for regional connecting services, including New Jersey Transit services, the Port Authority's AirTrain and the Staten Island Ferry.

Itineraries will feature station locations, schedule times, and trip-length times.

MTA officials say the Google Transit service complements existing MTA trip-planning services, including its Trip Planner and Trips 123. Trip Planner allows users, in three steps, to plan their trip by entering their start location, destination and expected arrival time. Trip 123 gives users information on bus, ferry, train and subway schedules.

"We are excited to welcome Google Maps for Transit to New York City," said Edward Skyler, New York City's deputy mayor. "One of the keys to increasing mass-transit usage is making it easier for people to understand how to use the system. This partnership between Google and the MTA does exactly that."

Key Features

Google provides searchers with information about a destination, such as the subway, train or bus stops serving the destination; scheduled departures from the station or stop; and nearby businesses, restaurants, attractions and amenities. Still-photo entries for popular destinations and icons for Wikipedia entries for places of interest are included.

Users seeking driving directions will be given an option to use public transportation as an alternative, defraying the use of automobiles and cutting drivers' spending on gas.

And for those who like to walk, Google also includes walking directions for the beginning or end of the trip,...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Oracle, Intel Partner To Boost Cloud Computing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62067
Oracle and Intel on Tuesday announced a joint effort to accelerate enterprise readiness for cloud computing and make it more efficient and secure. The companies also plan to identify and drive standards to breed flexible deployment across private and public clouds.

Cloud computing is an efficient way to run programs and store data that a large number of users can access through Internet technologies. Oracle and Intel already have common ground in the enterprise, where customers are running applications on shared infrastructure within their firewalls using Intel Virtualization Technology and Oracle Grid Computing technologies. This foundation sets the stage for private clouds of internal applications, as well as the ability to extend them to public, multi-tenant clouds, according to the companies.

"Oracle understands that enterprises would like the flexibility of choosing to run their enterprise systems in either private or public clouds, but in order to do that, cloud computing needs to be highly efficient, secure and standards-based," said Robert Shimp, group vice president of the Oracle Global Technology Business Unit. "Intel and Oracle are collaborating to make this happen."

Efficiency, Security and Standards

Oracle and Intel will cooperate in three broad areas: efficiency, security and standards.

The companies point to a 17 percent performance increase for Oracle databases running virtualized on Intel Xeon processors. Oracle and Intel will continue working together to drive additional performance and power-efficiency gains.

Security is also a hot-button issue for enterprises running software in public clouds. Companies want assurances that the environment is secure and private data is only accessible by authorized users, Oracle and Intel said. Activities also need to be tracked for auditing and compliance reporting. Oracle and Intel have pledged to work together to strengthen virtual-machine security in shared cloud environments.

Finally, Intel and Oracle will join with other industry leaders to extend standards that enable portability...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
No Charges Filed After Grand Jury Probes Palin Hacking
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62066
A federal grand jury convened Tuesday in Chattanooga, Tenn., to hear testimony relating to the hacking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo e-mail account, but ended without leveling any charges. Federal prosecutors said the investigation is ongoing.

In a closed-door session, the grand jury heard testimony from three roommates of University of Tennessee student David Kernell, 20, who is suspected of illegally accessing the Republican vice-presidential nominee's account. Kernell's father is Democratic Tennessee State Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, whose political affiliation has set the blogosphere a-twitter, but there are no credible suggestions of national political involvement.

Wade Davies, the attorney representing Kernell, issued a brief statement saying, "We are confident that the truth will emerge as we go through this process. David is a decent and intelligent young man, and I look forward to assisting him during this difficult period."

Late-Night Raid

Kernell became the leading suspect because of electronic crumbs left in cyberspace. When screenshots and a description of the break-in were posted to the 4chan imageboard, the author used the handle rubico, suspiciously similar to the Yahoo ID rubico10 associated with Kernell.

In addition, only one anonymous proxy was used to mask the hacker's IP address. Ten years ago that might have stymied the Department of Justice, but a huge amount of money has since been spent upgrading the government's cyber-investigation capabilities. The break-in was quickly tracked to the proxy Ctunnel, whose logs showed that a particular IP address accessed Yahoo mail, reset Palin's password, and then visited 4chan.

That IP address was linked to the apartment complex where Kernell lives. The FBI executed a search warrant for Kernell's apartment during a Sunday evening party. In addition to taking pictures, the FBI also seized computer equipment for forensic analysis.

Possible Federal Charges

There are at least two federal criminal statutes that could affect this...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Developers Expected To Transform First Android Phone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62065
Google is calling Tuesday's announcement of the T-Mobile G1 an important milestone in the young history of Android. The first Android-powered handset to come to market is made by HTC with a touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard.

The combination of Google's open-source Android mobile operating system, T-Mobile service, and HTC manufacturing comes less than a year after the Open Handset Alliance unveiled plans for Android.

"Software developers are key to driving innovation on the Web, and also for mobile. That's why, over the past year, we've released several early versions of the software developer kit (SDK) and worked with developers from around the world to make it better and more complete," wrote Erick Tseng, lead product manager on the Android team, in the company's blog.

Betting on Innovation

The SDK gives developers unfettered access to the G1's hardware and software capabilities to inspire innovation. The possibilities are vast, and more than 1,700 applications were developed during the Android Developer Challenge. Google engineers have also developed applications.

"Developers will soon be able to distribute their applications to real handsets through the beta version of Android Market. Handset manufacturers and wireless carriers will be able to incorporate Android innovations into their own new handsets and service offerings," Tseng said. "And users will get better handsets and more choice. We think it's another step toward realizing the full potential of the mobile phone."

When the G1 comes to market in October, legions of developers and hackers will transform the device in ways that HTC and T-Mobile can't even imagine, predicted Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia.

"It's going to be interesting to see when they start coming up with things like applications to unlock the phone so you can run it on other networks, or applications to tether it so you can use it as a modem,...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
AAI Suggests Restrictions for Google-Yahoo Ad Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62046
The American Antitrust Institute said Wednesday it thinks the ad agreement between Google and Yahoo may be blocked because of antitrust issues. Norman Hawker, a senior fellow at AAI, released a white paper pointing out several anticompetitive issues with the agreement and provided suggestions.

The paper was released after AAI met with representatives from Yahoo and Google on a number of occasions, according to Hawker.

"The risk harm to competition in this case is exceptionally great because the agreement has the potential to increase Google's market share to over 90 percent," said Hawker in an interview with us. "At that point Google would have the power to dictate prices and other terms to advertisers. Yahoo provides the most significant source of competition to Google in paid search, and the agreement has some potential to strengthen Yahoo as a competitor, but it also poses an enormous risk of either weakening Yahoo's ability to compete or causing Yahoo to exit the market entirely."

Enforceable Restrictions

The government cannot force Yahoo to stay in the paid search business, but it can insist on enforceable requirements to ensure Yahoo can continue to develop and deploy Panama, its search technology.

Yahoo has said since the deal was first announced in June that it plans to keep search as part of its core business. "We believe strongly that this agreement will strengthen Yahoo's competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher-quality Yahoo marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users," Yahoo spokesperson Tracy Schmaler said Wednesday.

Enforceable restrictions could include a decree that stops Yahoo from using Google ads on organic search results outside North America and on any third-part Web sites, according to AAI. Another restriction could prohibit Google and Yahoo from setting minimum bids or reserve pricing for ads. Yahoo may also be forced to...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Hospital Workers Fired for Posting Photos on MySpace
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62037
Two employees of a U.S. hospital have been fired for using their cell phone cameras to take photos of patients receiving treatment and then posting the images to a social networking Web site.

Sam Giammo, the director of public affairs at University of New Mexico Hospital, said Sunday the photos -- mainly close-ups of injuries being treated in the Albuquerque hospital's emergency room over the past few months -- were posted on an employee's private MySpace page.

Giammo said he's never heard of a similar incident at the University of New Mexico Hospital or any other hospital.

A few other hospital employees were disciplined and the investigation is ongoing, he said.

UNMH values patient privacy "very, very highly and we will do everything we can to protect them," Giammo said. "We just won't tolerate unprofessional actions by any of our staff. We just won't stand for that."

The photos were discovered after a hospital supervisor received an anonymous tip about them Tuesday and launched an investigation.

Hospital managers personally oversaw the removal of the photos from the Web site and from the employees' cell phones, Giammo said.

"We have to rely on the people telling us that they don't have any others," he said.

The patients in the photos could not be notified that their pictures had been taken because their faces and personal identifying features had been removed from the photos, Giammo said.

Giammo said the MySpace page could only be accessed by the employee's online friends, not the general public.

Giammo said the employees who were fired violated a hospital policy that bans the use of cell phone cameras in patient areas. The other employees were disciplined for not bringing the photos to the attention of managers, he said.

The hospital is treating the matter as an employment issue and law enforcement has not been involved, Giammo said.

The use...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Microsoft To Issue Debt, Buy Back $40B in Stock
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62036
Chaos in the money markets gave Microsoft Corp. an opening Monday to announce it would take on debt for the first time, launch a new $40 billion stock buyback plan and raise its dividend.

The moves indicate that for all the credit problems plaguing the financial sector, cash-laden technology companies with good credit ratings are still borrowing money on favorable terms and otherwise enjoying flexibility.

The largest information-technology company, Hewlett-Packard Co., approved an $8 billion buyback plan Monday. And Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett told The Associated Press that the chip maker -- which boasted $11.5 billion in cash and $2.1 billion in debt at the end of the last quarter -- was feeling no squeeze from the credit crunch.

"I don't see any slowdown in our technology investment or R&D investment or manufacturing investment going forward," he said. "When you've got 10, 15 billion dollars in your bank account, short-term credit is not a significant issue."

Microsoft, which benefits from having $23.7 billion in cash and short-term investments on hand as of June 30, historically has avoided taking on debt to fund day-to-day operations, acquisitions and stock buybacks, even as many of its peers, including IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp., have done so.

Oracle, for one, has accumulated $11.2 billion in debt in recent years while buying up dozens of its smaller rivals, while sitting on $13 billion in cash as of Aug. 31. The business software maker indicated recently that much of that money would go toward acquisitions or buybacks.

Microsoft did plan to borrow money for its $47.5 billion run at Yahoo Inc. this year, but the proposal fell through before the company issued any debt.

Now, as investors are growing increasingly risk-averse, blue-chip companies like Microsoft are finding interest rates on commercial paper -- short-term loans that range from overnight to nine months...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
For Computer Security, Know Thy E-Mail Sender
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62034
My secretary recently walked into my office and asked with some trepidation, "Did you send me an e-card?" When I told her I hadn't, she confessed, "I thought it was from you and I clicked on it and..." I walked to her computer, saw the screen and knew we had a virus. The message indicated that if we purchased some new software the virus could be cleaned.

I'm familiar with these scams and figured I could just delete the message, run an alternate virus scanner and clear her computer. My virus scanner automatically updates the definitions every day. I confirmed that it was working, disconnected her computer from the office network, grabbed a pad of paper to write down all the text on the screen and started a full scan. But the virus scanner wouldn't work. I ran an alternate virus scanner program, but that didn't remove the virus either.

Next, I rebooted the machine, thinking that starting in Safe Mode might let me get behind the virus. I thought I was getting close until an error message popped up stating that a fatal error had occurred and the computer would automatically shut down in 60 seconds.

Three hours later, I called in a professional colleague for assistance. First, we had to address the fatal error which shut down the computer 60 seconds after it appeared. "Shutdown/a" took care of that. Now that we could keep the machine running we ran a virus scanner from a CD. To our amazement, none of the tools worked.

At this point I had to make a decision. Was it worth it to keep trying? In this case, the machine was old and should have been replaced last year. I decided to cut my losses and headed to the local store for a new computer....

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Voter Registration Fraud Could Lead to Identity Theft
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62033
The presidential election is nearly upon us, and with interest in the race peaking, both political parties will be pushing for maximum voter registration in the coming weeks. While many Americans are showing their civic pride and engaging in the political process, scammers and ID thieves see an opportunity to ply their trade. Your Better Business Bureau is warning Americans to be extremely cautious with their personal information this election season to avoid phony voter registration drives that are designed to steal their identities.

The New York Times puts the potential number of new voters in the millions and, according to the Pew Research Center, if the current level of voter engagement continues up to the election, the nation could experience historically high voter turnout this November. Unfortunately, a projected increase in voter turnout also means there will be a lot of people registering who are unfamiliar with the process, and who may be easy prey for ID thieves.

While pundits are concerned about voter fraud and its potential to skew election results, ID thieves are taking voter fraud in a different direction by trying to get their hands on new voters' personal information, such as Social Security or bank account numbers. Voter registration laws vary by state and changes take place regularly, which creates the confusing environment that ID thieves thrive on.

ID theft under the guise of voter registration can be perpetrated through e-mail, on the phone, and even in person.

Younger voters and first-time registrants need to be especially wary. According to the 2008 Identity Fraud Survey Report by Javelin Strategy and Research, those in the 18- to 24- and 25- to 34-year- old age demographics have the highest incident rates for ID theft in America. All voters, though, need to be aware of the following ways ID...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
Hunting for a House? Try Searching With Cell Phone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62032
If you ride around in the car on weekends trying to find open houses while balancing a map on your lap, it might be time to use your mobile phone instead. A display of properties for sale -- and even open houses -- could be as close as the screen on your wireless device.

Despite the housing market slowdown, many Americans are still house hunting, and they helped send sales of smart phones and wireless devices to nearly 21 million units in North America last year, according to research firm Canalys.

Big companies and startups alike are scrambling to provide what could be described as the ultimate tech novelty for home shoppers and lookey-loos: searching for homes from a phone.

New mobile services allow users to search for homes for sale, see pictures and details about the properties, get driving directions and call or e-mail the real estate agents handling the sales.

Here are a few of the companies delivering real estate listings to mobile devices:

Trulia: The San Francisco company, a self-described listings "search engine," two weeks ago announced its new downloadable Trulia Mobile, an application for iPhones and other smart phones, including some BlackBerry, Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung models.

Because the devices can pinpoint your location, you can search for open houses and listings nearby without typing in a city or street address.

You can see one picture and a few details about the listing, phone or e-mail the agent, and get driving directions. Listings come from Trulia's database, which is extensive but not as complete as most local multiple-listing services' data.

Terabitz: The Palo Alto, Calif., company that builds Web sites and customer management systems for realty brokerages has also developed mobile listings search for some of its clients, including Intero Real Estate Services and Frontdoor.com, the listings...

Thu, 25 Sep 08
EU Says Text-Message Charges Should Be Slashed
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62026
Sending a text message home to boast about a beach vacation should cost less than half of what it does now, EU regulators said Tuesday.

The European Commission wants to set a price cap for text messages of 11 euro cents (16 U.S. cents), far below the current EU average of 29 euro cents (43 cents).

The EU's top telecom official, Viviane Reding, said she was putting the new rules forward because telecommunications companies had not responded to her call for them to lower the roaming charges for sending or receiving mobile phone text messages outside a user's home nation.

"There is no reason or justification in a normal functioning market for so excessive prices," she said.

The effort builds on an EU campaign last year to slash the cost of voice calls made and received outside a user's home nation. And it comes as the cost of text messages also has come under scrutiny in the U.S., where a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the nation's top four wireless carriers to justify why prices for individual text messages have doubled since 2005.

The European action was met with disapproval from companies that say the EU is interfering in the market without proving its claim that lowering prices would drive up text-message usage. The companies said their lost revenue could harm their plans to invest in future technology.

The EU regulators will also ask for a stricter cap on voice calls. The plan would bring prices from the current level of 46 euro cents (68 cents) per minute to 34 euro cents (50 cents) per minute for a cell phone call made abroad. Receiving a call on a mobile phone internationally would incur charges of 10 euro cents (15 cents) by July 2012, down from 22 euro cents (32 cents) now.

The EU...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
OOXML Fuss Leads IBM To Scold Standards Setters
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62045
Last spring, the International Organization for Standardization voted to certify Microsoft's Office Open XML format as an international standard. The decision came at the end of a long and contentious worldwide vote, a process that featured complicated rules, confusing proposals, and last-minute vote switches by delegations from Denmark, Britain and South Korea.

Microsoft's efforts to win certification for OOXML were strongly opposed by IBM, which backs a rival standard called the Open Document Format used in suites like OpenOffice and StarOffice. IBM has been a longtime supporter of ODF, which was earlier certified by ISO, and objected to what it described as strong-arm tactics by Microsoft to obtain fast-track OOXML certification.

In a press release announcing a new IBM policy for participation in the adoption of open technical standards, Bob Sutor, IBM vice president of open source and standards, stressed the qualities that IBM expects from standards groups.

"Common, open and consensus-based technology standards from reputable standards bodies help ensure that each of us can easily purchase and interchangeably use computing technology from multiple vendors," Sutor said. "The ways in which they are created and adopted provide reasonable assurances that disparate products will work with one another, and withstand the test of time."

Are Standards Organizations Open?

The controversial decision and the manner in which OOXML certification was approved inspired IBM to sponsor and facilitate a "Standards Wiki & Discussion" during the summer. The company invited 70 experts from around the world to debate "whether standard-setting bodies have kept pace with today's commercial, social, legal and political realities."

In the summary of the Wiki comments published by IBM, there was a mixture of opinion about just how open the international certification process should be.

Don Purcell, cofounder and chairman of The Center for Global Standards Analysis at the Catholic University School of Law, argued that some confidentiality...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Intel Targets SMBs With Revamped vPro
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62044
Intel has rolled out the latest update to its vPro technology, which is designed to give IT enterprise managers the ability to remotely manage all the PCs in the enterprise.

Targeting small businesses with little or no in-house IT management capabilities, Intel's 2008 vPro release now includes several automated features pertaining to PC maintenance, repair and security. Moreover, all the original vPro features that have delivered good performance within the firewall "will now work outside the firewall as well," noted Peter Kastner, vice president and research director at the Aberdeen Group.

"No matter where in the world the device is, the corporate laptops that workers take home or on business trips are all now manageable, fixable, and diagnosable," Kastner explained. "As long as you can get to a network, vPro and related technology can help to solve the problem."

Huge Savings

One of the primary goals of Intel's revamped vPro, which combines the chipmaker's quad-core or dual-core processors with a new Intel chipset and gigabit network controller, is to enable small businesses to keep their PCs up and running while minimizing downtime and reducing the total cost of ownership, Kastner noted.

Five years ago, major service companies told Kastner that the TCO outcomes they saw were in the range of $700 to $3,000 per PC per year. On the low end, Intel's vPro technology has cut that down "to under $500 per PC per year, and that's not all that much more than just the device itself," Kastner said.

On the high end, the vPro has pushed the cost to less than $2,000, Kastner noted. "So that the not-quite-so-efficient companies have whacked out $1,000 per employee per year," which is a "huge savings that can go right to the bottom line," he explained.

The technology's new IT Director "dashboard," which is specifically...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Google Book Search Opens Pages to Readers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62043
Google took another step toward its vision of bringing more books online with the Monday launch of free tools that let retailers, publishers and Web site owners embed books from the Google Book Search index.

As part of its latest push to digitize the world's books, Google has partnered with booksellers, libraries, publishers and social book networks to enable preview functionality for their sites. That means consumers may see more sites with features like Amazon's "Search Inside" function as they shop online for new reading material.

"We are also providing new ways for these sites to display full-text search results from Book Search, and even integrate with social features such as ratings, reviews, and readers' book collections," Alex Diaz, a product manager for Google Book Search, wrote on the company's blog. "By providing tools that help sites connect readers with books in new and interesting ways, we hope publishers and authors will find even wider audiences for their works."

Reading Around the World

Here's how the preview functionality works: You visit the Books-A-Million site -- one of Google's new partners -- to look for a book on the history of your hometown. When you see a book that looks like it might fit the bill, you can click on "Google Preview" to browse through the book in much the same way you would at a bricks-and-mortar store.

Just like on Google's Book Search site, consumers can search within the book, zoom in and out on the page, and browse up to 20 percent of the book's content for free. As Google sees it, because Google Previews are supported by the same infrastructure as Google Book Search, publishers and authors gain benefit from a larger distribution platform without having to offer any additional content to consumers.

In addition to Books-A-Million, Google has also signed on retail partners...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Chrome Users Return to Internet Explorer, Firefox
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62042
They're back. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox lost some users with the debut of Google's Chrome browser, but they are returning. Just three weeks after its launch, Chrome is seen as not so polished and is losing some users, according to Net Applications, an Internet tracking company.

Net Applications tracked 40,000 sites and found that Chrome made up .77 percent of the browsers visiting the sites, down from .85 percent last week. And down substantially from 1.4 percent in the first week of its release, according to Nielsen Online.

Chrome's numbers, like those of Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari, increase after working hours and then fall as employees hit their desks the next day.

When Chrome debuted on Sept. 2, Google described it as a browser that "combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the Web faster, safer and easier."

Not Reaching Its Goal

Web browsers, which were developed before there was a demand for video and music content, are evolving. Google wanted to be part of that evolution and set out to give users a faster and secure browser, but instead was hit with concerns from privacy advocates.

Just days after its launch, privacy advocates were warning users about Chrome. They said keystrokes were being collected with the browser's auto-suggest feature.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronics Privacy Information Center cited Chrome's Omnibox, which collects and stores user data on its servers. One way around that is by turning off the auto-suggest feature or using a search engine other than Google.

To address the situation, Google began anonymizing its data on Sept. 12. But Google may need to do more to make Chrome shine.

Competitors Shine

A report Tuesday from Net Applications showed Internet Explorer commanded 72.15 percent of the browser market, Firefox followed with nearly 20 percent, and...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
T-Mobile's G1 Android Phone Comes with Goggle Apps
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62040
T-Mobile on Tuesday gave the world a sneak peak of the highly anticipated, first-ever Android-powered mobile phone. Dubbed the T-Mobile G1, the phone touts touchscreen functionality, a QWERTY keyboard, and a Google-centric mobile Web experience.

Specifically, the G1 is loaded with Google Search, Google Maps Street View, Gmail, YouTube and other popular Google software that PC users are familiar with. The phone will be available in the U.S. on Oct. 22 for $179 with a two-year voice and data agreement, undercutting Apple's iPhone 3G through AT&T by $20. Customers can preorder the phone on T-Mobile's Web site.

"The Internet and the mobile phone are both indispensable tools for our hectic lives, but only a fraction of us access the Web on our phones. The T-Mobile G1 is our opportunity in the U.S. to accelerate the mass adoption of the mobile Web by unleashing Google innovation with a unique software experience that mobilizes the Google services [that] hundreds of millions of consumers rely on every day," said Cole Brodman, chief technology and innovation officer at T-Mobile USA.

'Most Important Platform'

The G1 builds on the promise of the Google mobile operating system, which gives users access to the Android Market. There customers can find and download applications to expand and personalize the HTC-made handset. Google pushed its developer-friendly theology at the launch.

"Increasingly, connectivity does not just mean a phone call, but rather access to the world's information," said Andy Rubin, senior director of mobile platforms for Google. "Today's news signifies an important first step for the Open Handset Alliance: With Android, we've opened the mobile Web not only for millions of users, but also to mobilize the developer community that understands the next most important platform in the world rests in the palm of our hand."

With one-click contextual search, users can search with the touch...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
SanDisk's slotMusic Goes Against Digital Music Trend
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62039
Will a small microSD card save the album/CD music format? That's the provocative question raised by SanDisk, which announced Monday that it has struck deals with music-industry leaders to release DRM-free MP3 music on slotMusic cards.

The cards, which will begin selling in time for the holiday season, will each hold up to a gigabyte of music, or roughly the same amount as a traditional CD. According to SanDisk, four music-industry giants -- EMI Music, SONY BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group -- have agreed to provide content. Retailers Best Buy and Wal-Mart will stock the cards, as will online stores.

The company says the capacity of the microSD will enable musicians to include a variety of old and new media content, including liner notes, videos, album art, and so on. Consumers will also be able to add their own content.

Unanswered Questions

The new music format raises a number of questions, including: 1) are consumers interested in preserving the album/CD format for music, and 2) will consumers be interested in purchasing physical copies of music (even DRM-free) when there are so many digital delivery options?

SanDisk obviously thinks the answer to both questions is yes. The company's announcement featured a brief analysis by Danielle Levitas, vice president of consumer, broadband and new media for the market-intelligence firm IDC.

"slotMusic offers consumers an immediate, tangible and high-quality alternative to CDs and digital delivery," Levitas said. "This year, more than 1.2 billion mobile phones will ship globally, outstripping portable media players by nearly an order of magnitude -- and this trend is accelerating."

Zippy Aima, an industry analyst of digital media for ABI Research, acknowledged that individual track downloads are growing in popularity, but he thinks the new format may offer a useful option.

"Yes, I do agree that the trend in the market is a bit...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Adobe's CS4 Includes Nearly All of Adobe's Design Tools
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62038
In the likely event that you haven't yet mastered everything in Adobe System's massive Creative Suite 3, take a breath. On Tuesday, the company announced CS4.

Adobe said the new version delivers "radical work-flow breakthroughs that bring down the walls between designers and developers." Adobe added that CS4 is "packed" with new features.

All Adobe in One Box

Creative Suite 4 comes in several editions, including Design, Web, Production Premium, and Master Collection. The suite will ship in October at prices ranging from $1,799 to $2,499.

Adobe said the suite includes "virtually all of Adobe's design and development applications in one box." These include Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver CS4, After Effects CS4, and Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe president and CEO, said CS 4 offers powerful tools "whether you're creating a rich Internet application, a video, or a best-selling magazine."

The simplified work-flow Adobe is touting allows users to work across media more efficiently by making it easier to finish common tasks and switch between media without exiting a project.

Among other features, Adobe noted that a new Live Preflight tool in InDesign CS4 allows users to catch production errors, and a customizable Links panel allows files to be placed more efficiently.

In Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended, a new content-aware scaling tool can automatically recompose an image as it is being resized to new dimensions. In the Production Premium suite, a new version of dynamic link allows a user to move content between various applications, including After Effects, Adobe Premium Pro, Soundbooth and Encore.

Previously, a 'Rubber-Band Suite'

The company also cited increased 3-D capabilities in CS4 and noted that Flash Pro now allows a creator to apply tweens on objects instead of keyframes, and a new Bones tool provides for more realistic animation...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Grand Jury Ponders Fate of Politician's Son in Palin Hack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62020
A federal grand jury was to convene Tuesday to consider evidence in the hacking of Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account. The prime suspect in the case is David Kernell, the son of Democratic Tennessee State Rep. Mike Kernell.

Meanwhile, the Web site of Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, was reportedly hacked. O'Reilly had been expressing anger about the Palin case, and the hackers posted a list of subscribers to BillOReilly.com on the Wikileaks site. Wikileaks said there was no security on the O'Reilly site.

On Sunday morning, the FBI served a search warrant on Kernell's apartment in Knoxville, Tenn., near the University of Tennessee, where he is a student, apparently interrupting a party. Kernell's roommates have been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, television station KBIR reported. The station also reported that Kernell and friends fled when the FBI arrived.

Not an Activist

Wade V. Davies, managing partner at the Knoxville firm of Ritchie, Dillard and Davies, has been retained to represent Kernell. In a statement, Davies said, "I have been asked by the Kernell family to represent their son, David. This is a difficult time for David and his family."

"The Kernell family wants to do the right thing, and they want what is best for their son. We are confident that the truth will emerge as we go through the process. David is a decent and intelligent young man, and I look forward to assisting him during this difficult period."

Davies is skilled in computer forensics -- he authored an article on how to obtain and analyze electronic evidence -- a specialty that likely will be important in Kernell's defense.

In an interview with KBIR, a friend of Kernell's, Devon Holbrook, expressed concern for his well-being. He said Kernell had never been known as an activist. "I...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Advertisers Want Google-Yahoo Deal Blocked
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62019
Advertisers are not happy with a proposed ad partnership between Google and Yahoo, and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has asked for the agreement to be blocked.

Since announcing the agreement to partner on advertising, Google and Yahoo have been dealing with opposition from advertisers. The agreement allows Yahoo to run ads supplied by Google alongside Yahoo's search results on some of its Web sites in the U.S. and Canada.

The WFA is asking the European Commission's directorate-general for competition to block the agreement because it would have a global impact on advertising. The WFA said the deal will reduce the options available to advertisers, result in price increases, and have a devastating effect on competition.

"We feel this deal between Google and Yahoo in North America will have a detrimental impact on how they compete with each other around the world -- as they do today," said WFA spokesperson Robert Dreblow.

This is the second time the WFA has had an issue with Google. In 2007, the WFA opposed Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick.

Google and Yahoo say their ad deal is limited to Web sites in the U.S. and Canada. But the WFA -- which represents 55 national advertising associations, including the U.S. Association of National Advertisers and the Association of Canadian Advertisers -- said it believes that such advertising would reduce their competition worldwide.

Yahoo disagrees. "Although the World Federation of Advertisers did not seek any information from us about this agreement, we have made clear from the beginning that it will strengthen Yahoo's competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher-quality Yahoo marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users," said Yahoo spokesperson Tracy Schmaler. "Furthermore, advertiser demand will continue to drive prices -- up or down -- and advertising performance will drive...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Lehman Lifeline Was Critical to Chipmaker AMD
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62013
With Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s cash reserves dwindling and the chip maker's overall financial health deteriorating to dangerous levels last year, the company was thrown a lifeline by Lehman Brothers, the investment bank now in bankruptcy.

The $1.5 billion in AMD debt that Lehman scooped up in August 2007 demonstrates the important role that banks like Lehman and other investment firms play in helping prop up wobbly companies by pouring money into them when they're down.

The banks profit from the investment in so-called "convertible senior notes" through interest payments and the conversion of the debt into either cash or favorably priced shares delivered at some point in the future. Healthy companies also use the debt offerings to raise money on favorable terms to buy back stock or pay for other general expenses.

The Lehman-AMD deal is a snapshot of a common type of partnership that could be harder to come by with Lehman's bankruptcy and the disintegration or consolidation of other banks.

In AMD's case, Lehman's problems won't affect the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's balance sheet, which at the end of June showed AMD holding about $1.6 billion in cash while carrying $5.3 billion in debt.

That's because AMD has already spent the proceeds, and its debt offering was sold off by Lehman to other banks or held by its subsidiaries that are now being sold to other firms.

There were no clauses that required anything further of AMD other than paying interest on the investment and fulfilling the contracts when they reach their maturity date.

AMD declined to comment.

AMD used the cash infusion to pay down debt from its $5.6 billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies and for other corporate expenses.

Richard Lane, a fixed-income analyst with Moody's Investors Services who follows the high-tech sector, said that in today's environment, any company considering issuing long-term...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Computing Privately with Today's Web Browsers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62006
Enough about "porn mode" in Internet Explorer 8.0.

The new privacy features previewed in the recent beta 2 are a good idea.

The problem that Microsoft is addressing -- and in a serious fashion -- is mysterious to less-sophisticated computer users: In the name of convenience, computers track stuff that, if found by someone, could embarrass you, bust you dead broke or get you fired.

Forget about porn. Give me about five minutes with a PC you've been using, and I can tell most of what you've been doing on the Internet, including details of your banking transactions if you're careless.

Meanwhile, on the Internet end of things, computers routinely track your activity to create custom advertising, commissions and marketing information.

Manipulating data

Internet Explorer's 8's "InPrivate" option lets you turn off data collection for specific sites, then turn it back on again. Among the data you can manipulate are:

-- Your browsing history and address bar.

-- The disk cache, designed to speed up surfing, also records hundreds of megabytes of Web pages you've accessed.

-- Cookies, usually with no bad intent, but which do contain site-specific names that can be read locally.

-- File download history.

-- Saved form information where passwords and other site-specific data might lurk.

-- Sending of referrer headers. If you visit site A, site B can read this to tell who sent you; this is the basis of "click through" advertising referrals.

The idea is that you freeze data collection on sensitive sites. True, people who view porn sites will find this wildly useful to keep casual snoops from noticing, although most likely such sites will refuse to let people log in if they have privacy enabled.

But it also is useful for anyone who occasionally indulges private surfing at work, contrary to company policy, who uses Internet cafes or has to borrow someone else's PC.

A Big...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
New Marketing Model Tracks Web Activity, Profiles User
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62004
You've been browsing the Internet lately for information about carbon emissions to help your daughter with her climate change project at school.

You've also done a little shopping in advance of the holidays, buying that more-than-you-really-wanted-to-pay-for digital camera for your spouse.

Now, instead of that usual Staples banner ad on the online site of your local newspaper, you are getting ads about hybrid cars and high-definition TVs.

You may be the recipient of "behavioral" marketing -- the practice of examining a person's activities on the Internet, building a profile of that consumer, and then delivering ads tailored to the individual.

Such "behavioral" marketing or targeting is stirring up controversy these days, in large part because of "deep packet inspection," a relatively new technology that can be used to examine the content of Internet transmissions rather than capture just a search query or Internet address.

"What's different about the new model is that ad networks can tap into data streams that ISPs (Internet service providers) have control over and use that information to build a profile (of the person)," said Alissa Cooper of the Center for Democracy & Technology. "In theory, they could be a party to everything you do on the Internet."

The nonprofit center likens the technique to a phone company listening in on a person's calls and believes the practice may violate federal wiretapping laws. The technology theoretically can be used to collect sensitive information such as someone's medical records, religious preference or even private e-mails, although Internet providers insist that's not their goal.

Traditionally, online advertisers have used "cookies," small text files placed on the hard disk of someone's computer, to remember certain information about a customer.

For example, a bank might use a cookie to identify a customer's account log-in. The information also is used by big search engines such as Google to evaluate...

Wed, 24 Sep 08
Symantec Rewrites Security Suite to Curb Nuisances
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62001
It can be awful to have your Windows computer infected with malicious software, but it is almost as bad suffering the daily burdens imposed by the security software designed to protect you.

Too often, security programs significantly slow down the computer, causing lags in booting up the machine, launching programs and receiving e-mail. Not only that, they can be incredibly annoying, popping up frequent messages or asking questions in techie lingo.

Now, Symantec has decided to radically rewrite its main security suite for Windows to directly address these problems. And in my tests, this new product, Norton Internet Security 2009, largely succeeded. It isn't perfect, but it is the fastest, simplest and least obtrusive security suite I have ever used.

Being quick and quiet is great, but, of course, a security product also has to be effective against the vast number of viruses, spyware programs and other malicious attacks aimed at Windows. I don't have a security lab in which to test such effectiveness. But PC Magazine does, and the magazine called the new Norton suite's spyware and virus protection "extremely effective." The magazine's tests are described at http://tinyurl.com/4hc9hm.

However, I wasn't impressed with Norton's optional antispam feature, which caused the only significant problem I ran into in my testing.

The new suite costs $70, and can be purchased at www.symantec.com and elsewhere. For that price, you get to install it on three PCs and you get a one-year subscription to its updates, which cost $60 thereafter.

Symantec is including free support, even over the phone, though in my tests this support proved lousy. Norton Internet Security 2009 works only on Windows XP and Windows Vista.

I tested the new security suite on a Dell desktop running Vista and on a Macintosh laptop running Windows XP as a "virtual machine," meaning Windows and Windows programs ran...

Tue, 23 Sep 08
Google-Yahoo Ad Deal Continues To Stir Antitrust Fears
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62018
The proposed massive advertising deal between Google and Yahoo, first announced by the companies on June 12, continues to spark antitrust fears that may bring close scrutiny from U.S. and European regulators.

Under the terms of the deal, Yahoo will be given access to contextual advertising opportunities through the use of Google's Adsense for Search and Adsense for Content technology. In return, Yahoo agreed to supplement its own ads with Google ads, vastly expanding the potential reach of Google's advertising system.

By some estimates, Yahoo could earn as much as $800 million by offering Google ads alongside its own, money that the once-mighty Internet company desperately needs to fend off takeover attempts like the one recently launched by Microsoft.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft is one of the strongest critics of the proposed advertising deal. During an appearance before Congress in July, the company's general counsel, Bruce Smith, said that ""Never before in the history of advertising has one company been in the position to control prices on up to 90 percent of advertising in a single medium."

Google Denies Monopoly

In the past week, Google has gotten much more aggressive about defending its deal. In a blog posting Friday, Tim Armstrong, Google's president of advertising and commerce for North America, said the proposed advertising deal will enhance competition rather than hurt it.

"This agreement -- unlike Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo -- means that Yahoo will remain an independent company in the business of search and advertising," Armstrong asserted. "Yahoo has stated that it will reinvest the additional revenue from this agreement into improving its user services and competing vigorously against Google, Microsoft and other companies."

Armstrong also said Yahoo is committed to maintaining and operating its own ad platform, a prospect that will be enhanced by the revenues from its deal with Google. Moreover, Yahoo only plans...

Tue, 23 Sep 08
Intel Ships Dual-Core Atom for Specialized Desktops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62017
Intel has begun shipping a new dual-core Atom processor for use in "nettops" -- affordable desktop computers that are expected to be purpose-built primarily for Web surfing, e-mail and basic Internet usage. The Atom 330 is priced at $43 in 1,000-unit quantities.

Overall, Intel expects its new Atom chips to fuel an increase in the number of PC deployments per household in the more affluent urban environments worldwide and in the top-tier cities of emerging-market countries like China, said CEO Paul Otellini.

"In many households, you're going from one PC to multiple PCs with these machines," Otellini told investors in July. His view is that the new price points for the Atom -- "combined with a limited amount of features, which is required to enable the price points -- are likely to generate a new segment in the business."

Low Cache Size

This year Intel is looking for booming netbook demand to be the primary driver of Atom sales. Through the release of its Atom 330 for nettops, however, the chipmaker is clearly hoping to trail-blaze an entirely new market segment beginning in 2009.

Like their ultra-low-cost mobile netbook counterparts, nettops are expected to run the Linux operating system instead of Windows and sport a limited amount of solid-state memory instead of a hard drive. The idea is that neither of the more expensive alternatives will be required in devices dedicated to surfing the Web. The retail price of nettops based on the Atom 330 is expected to be "just under current value-desktop PC pricing," said Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at iSuppli.

Intel's new dual-core Atom 330 features a 1.6-GHz processing core and 1MB of Level 2 cache -- the temporary storage area where the PC stores frequently accessed data. Though the chip's cache is relatively small in comparison to...

Tue, 23 Sep 08
New iPhone App Teaches Japanese
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62016
The iPhone may not be selling as fast in Japan as it is in the United States, but a Japanese language application is proving to be a big hit with iPhone owners.

Until now, if you wanted to learn Japanese using technology, you'd resort to electronic dictionaries. Or, if you were running a recent version of Windows, you could download the Global Input Method Editor from Microsoft.

But if learning Japanese on the go is on your list of things to do, you're in luck. iPhone and iPod touch owners can now eschew their language dictionaries in favor of an application called, aptly enough, Japanese, from Codefromtokyo, a privately funded company founded in 2007 by Mark Gaensicke, who lives in Tokyo.

"Do you also dislike carrying a paper-based dictionary around and rather want to have one of those electronic dictionaries (denshi jisho)? Look no further, it's here," writes the Codefromytokyo developer on the company's Web site.

Using the Japanese app, available at the App Store, users can learn how to write kanji characters and pronounce Japanese words and phrases. The app is specifically designed as an aid for users learning Japanese, known to be one of the most difficult languages to learn, let alone master.

Japanese is written with three different scripts: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji, used to write nouns, adjective stems and verb stems, has thousands of characters, while hiragana, used to write inflected verbs and adjective endings, and katakana, used for emphasis on certain words, each have 50.

Using Japanese

When you start up the application, Japanese presents a user interface that resembles the iPhone's Address Book. Searching works quickly, and results appear within seconds and are sorted by relevance to assist the user in choosing the correct word, according to Codefromtokyo.

Entries are shown in their Japanese form along with a transcription for...

Tue, 23 Sep 08
Comcast Submits Its Network-Management Plan to FCC
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62015
Comcast, which has been under scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission for how it allocates bandwidth for heavy users, submitted its formal broadband management plan on Friday.

Without notification and without posting a policy, Comcast had targeted users who employed peer-to-peer file sharing. Under the new plan, the company will slow speeds for the heaviest users when traffic congestion is the greatest. This will be accomplished by creating a slower lane of traffic for heavy users at those times, a lane that will have lower priority than traffic for other users.

'Very Few Customers" Impacted

In announcing the plan, the company said the new congestion-management techniques will be in place by the end of this year, and that "very few customers will ever be impacted." It added that its "real-world consumer trials have shown that on average less than one percent of our customers will experience anything different."

If an area of the network nears congestion, the company said, the new plan will make sure that all customers have a "fair share of access to the network." Customers using the greatest amounts of bandwidth will be temporarily managed during the congestion period. Comcast said those customers' activities will not be affected, but they could experience longer times for downloading, uploading, playing games, or surfing the Web.

Comcast added that the decision on which customers to move into a slower lane "has nothing to do with aggregate monthly data usage," but is dynamic and based on current and very recent network conditions.

After complaints from consumer groups, the FCC ruled in August that Comcast had been blocking Internet traffic, and ordered the company to submit a compliance plan addressing how it intended to stop what the agency called "discriminatory management practices." The blocking was aimed at users of such peer-to-peer programs as BitTorrent. To complicate matters, Comcast...

Tue, 23 Sep 08
T-Mobile, HTC Ready for Android's First Chapter
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62014
T-Mobile and handset maker HTC are taking the cover off the first Android-based cell phone Tuesday at a press conference in New York. The Open Handset Alliance, a group that includes Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others, is billing Android as the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices.

What will a Google Android-based HTC look like? And how will it shake up the market? Here's what we can discern from leaked photos: It's a touchscreen device with a full, slide-out keyboard. Pricing rumors peg the device at $199, in line with Apple's iPhone 3G.

"Based on what we publicly have seen, it looks like it's going to be a very, very interesting offering," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "This offering is likely to have initial appeal to consumers more than business users, and particularly consumers that are already engaging with Google's services like Gmail, Calendar and Reader."

Google's Brand Power

In terms of market impact, there are already predictions. According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, the Google Android mobile operating system will account for four percent of all smartphones sold in the U.S. during the fourth quarter.

Google has the brand power in the U.S. to make a big impact at launch. The main issue will be operator subsidies, according to Chris Ambrosio, executive director at Strategy Analytics.

"As seen with the iPhone and smart devices in general, retail prices need to be well below $200 to be competitive. Longer-term success will, of course, rest on Android vendor ability to create designs with wow factor and an intuitive user interface," Ambrosio said. "Google will do its part to drive growth, and we expect Android will eventually offer a compelling range of mobile applications emphasizing Google's online assets, such as advertising, mapping and search."

Android's Present and...

Mon, 22 Sep 08
SanDisk and Music Companies To Offer Digital Music
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61993
Owners of MP3 players and microSD-enabled phones will soon be able to listen to their favorite tunes without Digital Rights Management issues, passwords, or even an Internet connection.

SanDisk, together with Sony, Universal and Warner Bros., has developed microSD cards called slotMusic cards with "more stuff in less space." The new cards will allow users to listen to preloaded music, videos and images from Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. and EMI.

SanDisk, which last week turned down a $5.9 billion acquisition offer from Samsung Electronics, has not yet made the cards or announced pricing. Carmella Lyman, a company spokesperson, said the cards will be available before the holidays in the U.S. on the Internet and at retail stores, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart. The cards will be available in Europe soon after they are offered in the U.S.

SanDisk chose two of the top three music retailers according to a consumer survey by NPD Group that included CDs and digital music downloads.

Daniel Schreiber, senior vice president and general manager of SanDisk, said the company has been innovative for decades and was at the forefront of replacing chemical film with digital film, and floppy disks with USB drives.

"Now, with billions of hosts already in consumers' hands, slotMusic launches into an install base that few formats ever achieve," Schreiber said. "Plus, its portability, openness and penetration into the mobile space are a perfect complement for the music industry."

"This form of music delivery is perfectly suited for today's mobile consumer," said Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business and U.S. sales for Sony BMG Music Entertainment. "It's unique, hassle-free entertainment that slots easily into a large number of mobile phones."

Tuning Into New Features

The slotMusic cards will include a USB sleeve so they can be used with all computers, including Windows, Linux and Mac. Also with...

Mon, 22 Sep 08
FBI Raids Apartment of Suspected Palin Hacker
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61992
What's in your mailbox? That's a question that may be much easier for a hacker to answer than most people realize, as Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin discovered last week.

Six days ago, screen shots of e-mails from Palin's Yahoo account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) were briefly posted to 4chan, a generally anonymous imageboard site. The account of the hack and the accompanying images were quickly pulled from the Web site, but not before the news of the exploit hit the mainstream media.

FBI Raid at University of Tennessee

Identifying a leading suspect in the case did not exactly tax the FBI's investigative capabilities. The post detailing the exploit was submitted to 4chan by someone using the ID "rubico." Numerous bloggers (and no doubt, the FBI), noted that the ID resembled a Yahoo e-mail address, "rubico10@yahoo.com," used by University of Tennessee student David Kernell.

In addition, the hacker apparently made relatively little effort to anonymize his or her IP address before attempting to reset Palin's password. As the hacker wrote in the 4chan post, "yes I was behind a proxy, only one ... I panicked."

The proxy in question was Ctunnel, which reported that the FBI visited to look at its server logs. The owner of Ctunnel declined to identify the IP address the FBI was investigating, but Portfolio.com reported it as owned by Pavlov Media