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Verizon Wireless Offers Touchscreen Samsung Omnia
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63274
On Wednesday, Verizon Wireless and Samsung Telecommunications America brought the Samsung Omnia to market for the holiday shopping season. The newest Samsung device offers a touchscreen, a customizable user interface, and Windows Mobile 6.1 capabilities.
"The Omnia is an interesting device that further demonstrates the tremendous set of choices for consumers looking for high-end or high-feature phones for the holiday season," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "It also demonstrates the diversity of the Windows Mobile device ecosystem."
Verizon is billing the Omnia as an all-in-one smartphone with state-of-the-art features, including Samsung's TouchWiz user interface. TouchWiz offers widgets that let users customize and personalize the way they use the phone by using icons to offer one-touch access to customers' favorite and most commonly used applications and features.
The Omnia also has a full on-screen QWERTY keyboard for text messaging, mobile IM, and e-mail messages. The haptic feedback on the touchscreen provides subtle vibrations to confirm selections. And an optical mouse provides easy navigation with finger swipes. It supports the Opera 9.5 Mobile browser.
A true multimedia phone, the Omnia has a 5.0-megapixel camera with digital zoom and power LED flash, a camcorder, stereo Bluetooth wireless, and Wi-Fi. An FM radio is built into the device.
While the BlackBerry Storm, the T-Mobile G1 Android-based phone, and Apple's iPhone 3G may be the ultimate winners this holiday shopping season, analysts said there is room for Windows Mobile-based devices like the Omnia.
With Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Omnia users can tap into Microsoft Outlook Mobile to stay connected to e-mail, schedules and contacts that can be synchronized over the air. Office Mobile enhances productivity with the ability to manage Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on the smartphone.
Windows Mobile 6.1 also enables access to Verizon's VZAppZone, where consumers can download games,...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Google Releases Another Beta for Chrome Browser
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63272
Google has just unleashed a new Chrome update that includes notable performance improvements for its fast Web browser. Current Chrome beta users will automatically receive the new beta release over the next few days, Google Chrome Program Manager Mark Larson said.
Beyond introducing a number of fixes the company previously rolled out to its development channel, Chrome beta 0.4.154.25 adds features such as a new bookmark manager. Users will be able to "search bookmarks, create folders, and drag and drop bookmarks to new locations," Larson added.
Other notable Chrome changes are intended to give users better control of Web privacy. A new privacy section is accessed by opening the wrench menu, clicking on "options" and selecting the "under the hood" tab. "It groups together all of the configuration options for features that might send data to another service," Larson said.
Google also has improved Chrome's pop-up blocker, which had minimized pop-up windows on the lower right corner of the browser window, creating one "constrained" window for each pop-up, Larson said.
"Now Google Chrome displays one small notification in the corner that shows the number of blocked pop-ups," Larson explained. "A menu on the notification lets you open a specific pop-up, if needed."
Additionally, the latest beta release fixes a design flaw that allowed downloaded HTML files to read other files on the user's PC, and even send them to sites on the Internet. "We now prevent local files from connecting to the network and also prompt you to confirm a download if it is an HTML file," Larson said.
This week's beta upgrade is Google's latest step toward preparing Chrome, which currently runs only on Windows, for an official release in early 2009. Last week, Google Vice President Sundar Pichai told The Times newspaper, based in London, that...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Sun Debuts New Data-Erasure Service for Data Protection
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63269
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced the Sun(TM) Data Protection Services, Data Erasure, a new on-site service to help enable customers to remain compliant with internal corporate data erasure policies during the removal, redeployment or relocation of equipment containing sensitive data. The service also empowers customers' to become compliant with the ever increasing policies of regulatory agencies for the removal or destruction of data, by providing a global, audit-ready solution that erases data at the platter level.
Data security is an issue IT administrators must address, and the topic is as pertinent as ever due to increasing pressure from government regulations being put in place to protect privacy and prevent fraud. Company security policies must ensure that businesses remain competitive and compliant with government requirements. In response to this, Sun's new Data Protection Services, Data Erasure provides a scalable, global solution for eradicating non-critical data from customers' hard disks, Sun Data Protection Services, Data Erasure meets or exceeds the requirements of most company security policies by standardizing on the stringent DOD 5220-22M policy for data erasure. In addition, Sun's software enabled service can scale to match the policies of up to 14 different erasure standards to satisfy both public and private security regulations.
"An effective data destruction policy can create a competitive advantage for businesses," said Michelle Dennedy, chief data strategy and privacy officer, Sun Microsystems. "It frees you up to focus on today and the future and to stop worrying about yesterday's inventory. Holding on to old data not only opens you up for undue risk of loss, it allows old technology to lie around and exposes you to vulnerabilities that you may not even be able to track."
During the life cycle of datacenter equipment it can be relocated due to corporate change, redeployed in eco-recycling efforts, returned...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Live Web Suicide Shows Dual Nature of Forums
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63261
For a 19-year-old community college student in Pembroke Pines, Florida, the message boards on BodyBuilding.com were a place to post messages, at least 2,300 of them, including more than one about his suicidal impulses. In a post last year, he wrote that online forums had "become like a family to me."
"I know its kinda sad," the student, Abraham Biggs, wrote in parentheses, adding that he posted about his "troubles and doubts" online because he did not want to talk to anyone about them in person.
Last Wednesday, when Biggs posted a suicide note and listed the drug cocktail he intended to consume, the Web site hardly acted like a family. On BodyBuilding.com, which includes discussions of numerous topics besides bodybuilding, and on a live video Web site, Justin.tv, Biggs was "egged on" by strangers who, investigators say, encouraged him to swallow the antidepressant pills that eventually killed him.
Biggs's case is the most recent example of a suicide that played out on the Internet. Live video of the death was shown online to scores of people, leading some viewers to cringe while others laughed. The case, which has prompted an outpouring of sympathy and second-guessing online, demonstrates the double-edged nature of online communities that millions of people flock to every day.
Online communities "are like the crowd outside the building with the guy on the ledge," said Jeffrey Cole, a professor who studies technology's effects on society at the University of Southern California. "Sometimes there is someone who gets involved and tries to talk him down. Often the crowd chants, 'Jump, jump.' They can enable suicide or help prevent it."
On blogs and forums last week, some people wondered whether Biggs had hoped that by broadcasting his suicide, he would attract attention and cause someone to intervene. Viewers eventually called the police, but only...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Beware New Holiday Spam Scams
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63256
The holiday season and the poor economy are bringing out all kinds of e-mail spam scams. Here are the latest you may receive or will soon receive -- don't respond to them:
Survey and Gift Scam: An e-mail comes from a financial institution stating, "You've been selected to take part in our quick and easy eight-question survey. In return, we will credit $80 to your account." You're directed to an online survey page where you're asked innocuous questions and then asked for your bank account information. Don't do it -- these scammers will simply use that information to drain your account of cash.
Investment Proposal Scam: The e-mail writer urgently needs your help in getting a person's money out of a country by using your bank account as a place to electronically deposit the money. They'll need your account access information, of course, to set up the transfer. And there will, indeed, be a transfer: All your money transferred from your account to the scammer.
Get Quick Cash Scam: Money's tight, and these scammers know it. They entice you with seemingly quick and easy loans, transferred immediately into your account. "All applications accepted. No credit check," the e-mail promises. Click the application link or call and, once you're approved (you always are), give them your account info. Don't fall for this scheme.
Remember: As a rule of thumb, unsolicited e-mail schemes are never legit. Free offers that are made to look like they come from legitimate businesses and institutions you've never dealt with are almost always scams.
Times are tough -- don't let e-mail scammers make them harder for you.
Don't forget the lesson of the good-natured woman who simply wanted to help someone in need and responded to an e-mail plea for help. She lost $400,000 to heartless thieves.
These scammers didn't care that they cleaned...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Twitter Appears To Have Declined Facebook Acquisition
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63250
A social-media giant that has been wooed by the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft is now looking at an emerging social-networking play. Facebook recently held acquisition talks with micro-blogging phenom Twitter, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The Times cited people familiar with the matter who confirmed that Facebook offered to acquire Twitter in an all-stock deal.
Twitter is a service that lets users stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one question: What are you doing? It's a real-time messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices, including PCs and smartphones. And Facebook would reportedly love to add it to its social-networking services.
Last year, Microsoft offered Facebook $15 billion to become part of Redmond's growing Web 2.0 assets. Facebook declined, and now it appears that Twitter is offering the same response to its social-networking elder.
Despite the rebuff, there is lingering conversation over Twitter's value. Twitter isn't reporting any revenue just yet. The two-year-old company is still building its user base, yet this darling of Silicon Valley has reportedly been valued at $500 million.
"There certainly is a natural fit between Facebook and Twitter, but it does seem like the price was the issue," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Of the recent startups in the past couple of years, Twitter has broken out from the pack in terms of success and adoption. But Twitter hasn't figured out a good business model."
Twitter insists it has many opportunities to generate revenue. A statement on its Web site, though, indicates the company is holding off on implementation for now because it wants to focus on building the service and researching the best business model.
"Twitter could certainly do something with its mobile usage in terms of location-based advertising or brand advertising. There are...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Despite Economy, 'Tis the Season for LCD TVs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63244
Against the backdrop of an economy that grows more precarious by the day, the outlook for holiday gift spending is bleak. Even so, consumers will be buying gifts, and consumer electronics will be high on their shopping lists, even if spending will be lower this year.
Amid the diminished expectations, some product categories will hold their own this season, industry and retail analysts say. An early November survey of consumer intentions by the Consumer Electronics Assn. found that U.S. shoppers expect to spend an average of $1,437 on gifts this year, less than the $1,671 they spent in 2007. Still, consumers say they'll allocate a larger percentage of their spending -- 28 percent vs. 22 percent last year -- to consumer electronics. The idea is that families will opt for at-home entertainment rather than travel and dining out.
And despite what you may have heard about video entertainment migrating to the Web, the TV set is still the king of the home entertainment universe. Prices are coming down quickly. In September, the average price on a 32-inch LCD TV was $858, a drop of about $100 from the same period in 2007. Now, it's possible to buy a 32-inch LCD set for as little as $399.
One reason, says iSuppli analyst Riddy Patel, is that there is an oversupply of LCD panels, so manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, and Sharp can pass favorable component pricing on to consumers. "The prices are suddenly very attractive on these sets," Patel says. "The only question is how consumers will react." Her firm recently slashed its 2008 forecast for LCD TVs by 5 million units, to 94 million. It also trimmed its 2009 forecast to 112.5 million units, from 124 million units, meaning the market is growing, though more slowly than before.
Consumers may also be...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Consumers Hit the Net, Not Stores, for Holiday Shopping
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63243
With an unstable economy and the biggest holiday shopping season of the year upon us, many consumers are expected to stay at home, using their computers and wireless devices to do their holiday shopping. More people are expected to shop online this holiday season to do comparison shopping, take advantage of free shipping, and search for gifts using search engines instead of driving from store to store.
Total online shopping sales in the United States is expected to reach $44 billion this year, a 12 percent increase from last year, according to the Forrester Research Online Holiday Retail Forecast 2008 report.
Twelve percent is not a huge increase compared to previous years, but considering the economic conditions, retailers will be happy with any increase. Offline holiday shopping sales are expected to increase only 2.2 percent from 2007, according to the National Retail Federation's September 2008 report.
As holiday shoppers become more comfortable with using online e-commerce systems -- and more savvy with technology -- they are also getting comfortable with the advantages and perks of shopping online.
While some shoppers will not break away from their traditional shopping -- fighting the crowds for the hottest gadgets and newest toys and smelling, touching and holding that perfect gift -- others are using their fingertips to find the best deals.
Free shipping has always lured online shoppers, and this year will be no different. More than 50 percent of online holiday buyers and 33 percent of overall online users said that getting free shipping will motivate them to buy more online during the holidays, according to Forrester's report. As a result, free shipping offers are expected to become ubiquitous among retailers and will not be a differentiator for retail competitors.
Forrester suggests that retailers use other differentiators, such as...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Plentitube: Your Agent for Online Video
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63239
In the age of YouTube, online video has opened a world of possibilities for artists like James and Tyler McFadden. Over the last two years, the duo has produced a collection of quirky, short, animated films with their Web-based production studio, GoPotato TV. But all the technology in the world hasn't changed one thing for the McFadden brothers. "Making money is not an easy thing to do with online video," says Tyler McFadden, 27, who heads up business development for the company.
Sure, Big Media is starting to see the Web as a source of high-quality video talent; on Nov. 24, Fox Interactive Media unit IGN.com said it reached production and distribution deals with a dozen independent Web producers, including Black 20 Digital Studios, CollegeHumor, and ScrewAttack.com. But for every indie producer that lands a deal, scores are struggling to get noticed.
That's where Plentitube comes in. An online talent scout, Plentitube is trying to become a middleman of the new media, a matchmaker for the YouTube generation. In the 1950s, a leggy blonde would get discovered while waiting tables at Chasen's restaurant in Los Angeles. But in the Digital Age, Plentitube founders Jon Labes and Talia Pulver believe the future of talent discovery will happen increasingly in online venues like the one they are building. "We are creating new types of matchmaking services," says Labes, 25, who is also Plentitube's CEO.
Before they signed on with Plentitube, the McFadden brothers managed to license a few shorts with Viacom's Comedy Central and with Web players such as Atom.com. They've pulled in some revenue from advertisements shown on their videos on Google's YouTube. And they have been trying to break into the big leagues by working on an informal basis with UTA Online, the division of Hollywood agency United Talent that represents...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Business Strategy: Cutting Costs To Increase Profits
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63238
Thanks to some timely tailoring, shares of Gap jumped 27 percent on Nov. 21 even as the retailer's sales fell 8 percent.
The reason for the favorable reaction was another round of successful cost-cutting at Gap, which boosted profits despite the reluctance of consumers to spend at Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy stores.
Across the economy, corporate executives are looking to follow a similar strategy. As a potentially nasty recession sets in and revenues drop, firms are forced to cut their way toward higher profits.
Some analysts predict the Gap can continue boosting profits next year even as revenues decline. But eventually, many analysts say, Gap must find a way to draw more shoppers' dollars -- not just cut costs through inventory controls, shrinking real estate holdings, or other measures.
"While expense management has been impressive, we continue to wonder how sustainable earnings growth is longer-term with deteriorating sales and given a bleaker economic outlook in '09," wrote Banc of America analyst Dana Cohen. (BofA handles banking services for Gap.)
Many other firms are taking similar cost-cutting steps, which often involve large rounds of layoffs. Dell was also able to increase profits last quarter despite falling sales. The computer maker said it has cut 11,000 jobs in the past year.
"It's a necessary strategy, but it's a short-term strategy," says Dan Genter, chief executive and chief investment officer at RNC Genter. After a certain point, you're no longer cutting fat from your budget, he says -- you're cutting bone.
For some firms, cost-cutting can be a healthy process that repositions them for future growth. Greg Estes, portfolio manager at Intrepid Capital Management, cites Starbucks, which is shutting down less profitable coffee shops after "growing too fast" for several years. "If and when a positive environment returns, they'll be in a better position (with) better...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
What's in a Typo? For Shoppers, Maybe a Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63234
Looking to save money on a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes this holiday season? Try searching for Manolo Blahnicks.
A handful of new Web sites with names like Typo Bay and Typo Buddy are out to help shoppers save money by searching eBay for misspelled brand names. Such items often have fewer bidders because they do not appear in search results for people who spell the items correctly, and therefore they can be bought at a lower price.
It's a well-known strategy among longtime eBay shoppers, but one that owners of these sites are hoping will translate into big business -- relatively speaking -- as shoppers look to save money this holiday season.
Typo Buddy started about six months ago and has as many as 80,000 visitors on its top days, said its president, Jonathan Lieberman, an Internet entrepreneur in San Diego. "I expect in this market, where people are ever more vigilant for deals, that we'll do really well this holiday season," he said.
Joseph Mantha, the co-creator of Typo Bay, which started in 2007, said October had been the site's busiest month. (A big month for Typo Bay means about 4,000 visitors -- and about $500.) He said he expected traffic to grow in the weeks before the holidays.
Apparently there are deals to be found. Heather Guinther, a customer service representative from Newport Beach, California, recently used Typo Buddy to find an $850 pair of "Manolo Blahnick" shoes for about $350.
"I knew I could find some Manolos on there because it's not an easy name to spell," she said.
Abercrombie & Fitch, Louis Vuitton and Banana Republic are among the most misspelled brands, Lieberman said. (It's the word "banana" that gets them.) There are misspelled categories, as well: eBay is host to a thriving marketplace for "jewlry."
Visitors to these sites enter the...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Hands-Off Hackers: Crooks Opt for Surgical Strikes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63199
Internet criminals have been getting more "professional" for years, trying to run their businesses like Big Business to get better and more profitable at selling stolen data online. Now the bad guys of the cyber-underworld are exhibiting other unexpected traits: remarkable patience and restraint in stalking their victims.
A new report by antivirus software vendor Symantec Corp. details a startling trend that highlights the inventive ways criminals are figuring out ways to make money online.
Hackers are sometimes breaking into online businesses and not stealing anything. Gone are the bull-in-the-China-shop days of plundering everything in sight once they've found a sliver of a security hole.
Instead of swiping all the customer data they can get their hands on, a small subset of hackers have concerned themselves with stealing only a very specific thing from the vendors they breach -- they want access to the compromised companies' payment-processing systems, and nothing else, according to the "Symantec Report on the Underground Economy," slated for release Monday.
Those systems allow the bad guys to check whether credit card numbers being hawked on underground chat rooms are valid, the same way the store verifies whether to accept a card payment or not.
It's a service the crooks sell to other fraudsters who don't trust that the stolen card numbers they're buying from someone else will actually work, and it's good business.
The bad guys hardly touch anything. The customer data for that store's clientele remains intact. They don't install malicious software that turns the compromised machines into spam-spewing robots.
Think of it like taking a used car to a mechanic for an inspection before buying. Only in this case the mechanic's a squatter who's holed up illegally in some other guy's shop and using his tools when no one's around at night. And he cleans up spotlessly once he's done.
"They treat...
Sat, 29 Nov 08
Web 2.0 Security: Getting Collaborative Peace of Mind
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63130
Web 2.0 applications have opened up a lot of communication channels -- and opportunity -- for business professionals. They can, more than ever before, reach out to individuals from across the globe and share content and web applications. Through blogs, wikis, and social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, people are becoming more and more electronically intertwined. "There's a sense of security in a Web 2.0 world where people trust their personal information to others," says Jordan Frank, VP of sales and marketing for Traction Software. "They trust these sites." Frank points out that some people trust such systems just because their friends do, and because sites such as Facebook haven't let people down -- yet. He cautions that a breach could cause a backlash against such networks. "Ensuring success in Web 2.0 means that trust doesn't get broken," says Frank.
Most companies don't want to inhibit the collaborative flow that Web 2.0 has brought with it; they don't want it to hinder their overall operations and they want to continue to build on their Web 2.0 platforms. A Gartner Executives Programs survey of 1,500 CIOs from across the globe revealed that half of the respondents expected to invest in Web 2.0 technologies for the first time in 2008.
Internet experts agree that part of that investment must include security measures to protect organizations' intellectual property. One reason that Web 2.0 garners more attention for security safeguards than its predecessors is that its open nature makes it naturally more vulnerable to breaches. "The fact that security is becoming an issue speaks to the growth that Web 2.0 applications are having in the business world," says Isaac Garcia, CEO and co-founder of Central Desktop, which offers a web-based business collaboration platform.
Companies need to recognize the fact that the benefits that new technologies...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Intel, Micron Chip To Boost Storage for Small Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63248
A joint venture between Intel and Micron Technology is preparing to mass-produce a 32-gigabit memory chip featuring Intel's multi-level cell memory technology. The new NAND chips to be manufactured by IM Flash Technologies will go up against similar products from rivals Samsung and Toshiba, beginning next year.
Developed and manufactured using low-power 34-nanometer technology, the industry's only monolithic 32Gbit NAND chip fits into the industry's standard 48-lead packaging and represents the smallest NAND geometry on the market, the companies said.
"We have made great strides in NAND process capability and are now in a leadership role with 34nm production," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's Memory Group. "The tiny 34nm, 32Gbit chip enables our customers to easily increase their NAND storage capacity for a number of consumer and computing products."
Less than the size of a thumbnail, IMFT's 32Gbit chip is expected to cost-effectively enable high-density solid-state storage in small form factor applications such as digital cameras, personal music players, and digital camcorders. For example, a single 32Gbit chip could be used to store more than 2,000 high-resolution digital photos, more than a thousand music tracks, or about 20 hours of high-definition video.
The partners said the new chip also will enable the creation of more cost-effective solid-state drives for netbooks and other portable computing devices, dramatically increasing their current storage capacity. When stacked, the chips could even drive PC memory capacities beyond 256GB, they noted.
Unlike standard single-level cell products, IMFT's flash-memory chip employs multiple levels per cell to enable more bits of information to be stored. The use of a denser storage method also means the chips will be cheaper to produce.
The chips will be manufactured on 300-millimeter wafers, each of which will produce approximately 1.6 terabytes. The partners say they expect to begin sampling...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Blockbuster Eyes Netflix with MediaPoint Player
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63247
Blockbuster is finally making an aggressive move against Netflix. The perennial movie-rental chain has partnered with 2Wire to launch the 2Wire MediaPoint digital-media player. It's Blockbuster's version of an on-demand video solution that gives movie watchers instant access to Blockbuster OnDemand content through their television sets.
Blockbuster is pulling out all the marketing stops to gain traction in the marketplace. The MediaPoint digital-media player is available free with the advance rental of 25 Blockbuster OnDemand movies for $99. After the initial 25 rentals, movies are available for as little as $1.99 each. The players will begin shipping in time for the holiday season.
"The MediaPoint digital player, featuring Blockbuster OnDemand, is entertainment made easy. We are bringing Blockbuster, and the thousands of movies in our digital library, straight to customers' televisions," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster's chairman and CEO. "The player is simple to use, delivers DVD-quality video, and there's no monthly subscription commitment."
As Keyes stated, there is no monthly subscription commitment -- an important consideration, considering that Netflix does charge a monthly fee for movie rentals. Blockbuster is also touting newer movie releases than its competitors, making some titles available within weeks after they stop showing in theaters.
"Blockbuster's offer looks like a marginally better deal than what Netflix offers," said Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "If you subscribe to 25 movies you get the box for free, whereas at Netflix you have to buy the Roku box for $100. At the same time, Blockbuster doesn't tell you exactly when they are going to ship it, other than to say before Christmas."
While the uncertain ship date may cause some would-be buyers to hold on to their money -- or spend it somewhere else -- this holiday season, 2Wire does have a solid track record in the industry. Leigh...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
TiVo Launches Mobile Site for TV Junkies
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63246
TiVo on Tuesday launched a mobile version of its Web site that aims to give people the ability to record their favorite programs.
TiVo Mobile is a free mobile phone-optimized Web site that allows subscribers and non-subscribers to browse, search and discover television shows regardless of mobile platform, carrier or browser.
Consumers can access the site with any Internet-enabled phone through any network. The company expects TiVo Mobile to open up the service to millions of cell-phone owners.
"TiVo started out making television a more convenient, personal experience, and this is the next step to give television lovers total control over their media," said Jim Denney, vice president of product marketing at TiVo. "Whether you are standing in line at the bank or talking about a new show with friends at dinner, you can now find and record shows whenever, wherever -- a perfect tool for everyone."
The new mobile site is located at m.tivo.com. TiVo Mobile will let television viewers stay in touch with their TiVo DVR when they are away. Specifically, TiVo Mobile users can schedule recordings directly to their TiVo box from a mobile phone.
The TiVo Mobile site is optimized for use on a small screen. Visitors can search for programs by actor, title, director and keyword and tap into additional features, such as daily recommendations and most popular.
The TiVo Mobile site also leverages TiVo's recommendations engine through the "If you like this ..." tool to help users find new shows. Anyone can browse, search and discover television shows whether they have a TiVo DVR at home.
"What TiVo really does is show us what the other companies are going to do 12 months from now," said Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "So look for the other companies to do this in 12 to...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Jurors Deliberate MySpace Suicide Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63245
Jury deliberations were under way Tuesday in the landmark case against Lori Drew, a suburban Missouri mother charged with conspiracy and computer fraud in a MySpace hoax that led to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier.
After three days of testimony by more than a dozen witnesses, including Megan's mother, Tina Meier; Drew's assistant, Ashley Grills; and computer forensic experts, the case went to the jury of six men and six women ranging in age from the mid-20s to the 70s.
Drew is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of computer fraud. If found guilty on all four counts, she could receive a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors painted an ugly picture of Drew, her daughter, and Grills in the torment of Meier, who was taking antidepressants and was vulnerable. Prosecutors said the Drews and Grill had knowledge of Meier's mental-health issues, but continued a six-week ruse.
U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien portrayed Drew as the master puppeteer behind the plan to humiliate Megan by inventing a fictitious boy who would court her on MySpace.com, then be revealed as a person who did not exist. O'Brien in his summation that Lori Drew wanted to humiliate Meier and the only way she could was through the use of a computer, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Mark Krause provided additional ammunition, saying Drew instructed her daughter Sarah and Grills what to write and, in doing so, violated the MySpace terms of service. Krause told the jurors that MySpace rules are simple and say users should not lie, not pretend to be another person, and not use the Web site to harass others, according to the Associated Press.
The defense stressed to jurors that the case against Lori Drew is not homicide and...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
EMG Sues Apple over iPhone Browser Technology
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63223
EMG Technology has filed a patent suit against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The suit alleges that Apple is infringing on U.S. Patent No. 7,441,196 in the way the iPhone navigates the Internet. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages against Apple.
"Web sites are just beginning to develop their mobile sister sites for fast and easy navigation," said Stanley Gibson, an intellectual property expert and partner at the law firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of EMG Technology.
Gibson offers the example of NBC. To access NBC on a computer, the URL is NBC.com. For the mobile site on the iPhone, the URL would be m.NBC.com. EMG's patent, he explained, covers the simplified interface of reformatted mobile content to provide optimum viewing and navigation with single touches on a small screen.
EMG's Elliot Gottfurcht is one of the named inventors of five U.S. patents for navigating the Internet on mobile devices and Internet Protocol Television. Gottfurcht is also a real-estate developer in West Los Angeles.
The patent was issued on October 21, 2008, and includes 76 claims supported by specifications filed in 1999 by Gottfurcht and others, according to the plaintiff's law firm.
Gibson explains that the "patent claim covers the display of Internet content reformatted from HTML to XML on mobile devices -- the industry standard currently displayed by the iPhone. Additional patent claims include the technology for manipulating a region of the screen for zooming and scrolling."
Gibson has a good track record in IP litigation. He was one of the lead attorneys who successfully prosecuted the patent-infringement lawsuit of Gary Michelson, M.D., against Medtronic. That suit resulted in a $570 million verdict. Dr. Michelson received a $1.35 billion payment from Medtronic.
Despite Gibson's winning record, it may...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Facebook Wins Big Against Canadian Spammer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63222
Facebook's leaders are smiling as the company announced an antispam victory. The popular social-networking Web site was awarded more than $873 million in damages Friday against a Canadian spammer who was sending sexually explicit images to Facebook users.
Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital were ordered to pay Facebook the damages by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremey Fogel in San Jose, Calif. And Guerbuez can no longer access Facebook. The ruling came after four months of court arguments.
Guerbuez and Atlantis were ordered to pay $436.6 million in statutory damages and $436.6 in aggravated statutory damages, according to court documents posted on Justia.com.
The award is the largest judgment awarded under the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003).
"This judgment is the result of the tireless effort of our security experts, legal team, and other significant resources we've devoted to finding, exposing and prosecuting the sources of spam attacks," wrote Max Kelly, Facebook's director of security, on his blog.
Guerbuez runs the crazypricks.com Web site, according to Neil Schwartzman, executive director of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), a consumer-advocacy group formed to fight for antispam laws which now works to defend Internet users. "He is a Nazi skinhead who was videotaping homeless people beating each other up," Schwartzman said.
The court found Guerbuez illegally accessed Facebook's user-profile data to launch his spamming activities. He sent Facebook users four million messages and conned some into providing their log-in details. Each violation under CAN-SPAM can be punished by a $11,000 fine.
CAN-SPAM covers e-mail that is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service.
The Federal Trade Commission is the enforcer and the Department of Justice handles criminal violations.
Other federal and state agencies can enforce the law against organizations under their jurisdiction, and companies...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
T-Mobile's G1 Gets Visual Voice Mail, Opera Browser
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63221
A new visual voice-mail application and the Opera Mini browser were made available Monday for T-Mobile's Android-based G1 smartphone.
The Opera Mini 4.2 mobile browser, released as a beta earlier this month, is now out in a free final version. It includes a performance increase of up to 30 percent over the beta, thanks to a farm of U.S.-based servers that preprocess and compress Web requests. It also includes skins, syncing with notes, support for multiple languages, and other features.
Opera Software describes the browser as "the world's most popular mobile Web browser," with more than 20 million users. Other features include staying in touch with friends via Facebook, searching with Google, and secure online banking,
The browser is also available for the Samsung Instinct and newer Sony Ericsson and Nokia phones. It offers browsing of full Web pages, with the user being able to zoom into a page whose text has been formatted correctly for the small screen.
The Opera Mini browser is available from the Opera Software site, as well as the Android Market, a Google app store comparable to Apple's iPhone App Store. The Android Market is also offering the beta version of Fusion Voicemail Plus from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based PhoneFusion.
Voicemail Plus lets users centralize voice-mail boxes they may have at home and at work, in addition to the one on their mobile device, and see a list of messages in one place. They can also see information about the messages and play the voice mail from the device.
PhoneFusion, which describes its voice-mail application as "iPhone-like," had previously released the product for BlackBerries and smartphones with Windows Mobile 5 and 6.
The availability of the two popular software products could help propel the already growing sales estimates for the G1, manufactured by...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Are You Ready for Mobile Banking (Again)?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63210
Mobile banking is a "twice new" trend in the retail banking industry. It first came onto the banking scene five years ago, but after a few years with slow to no consumer adoption, most institutions abandoned mobile banking efforts.
Reasons for its failure to successfully launch were varied, but industry experts point to consumer hesitation and uncertainty and a lack of full commitment from the banking industry. Consumers simply weren't ready to trust cell phones with sensitive financial data like money transfers, account balances and bill pay -- after all, text messaging hadn't yet taken off. Fast forward to 2008: the number of cell phone users and text message subscribers has increased exponentially, giving rise to the popularity of mobile platforms -- a precursor to mobile banking adoption.
Another factor partly responsible for the market's readiness is the maturation of Generation Y, which ranges in age from 14 to 27 -- the prime demographic for all things mobile. According to Celent, a research and advisory firm, four in 10 Generation Y-ers say that mobile banking services are a factor in their choice of bank.
Studies show that bank executives are right to target this customer base: The Deloitte Center for Banking Solutions reported that Generation Y has more than 75 million members and a collective annual income of $1.89 trillion. Deloitte predicts Gen Y earnings will increase by 85 percent over the next 10 years to $3.5 trillion, exceeding Baby Boomers' earnings by some $500 billion.
This segment of the population is accustomed to real-time, self-service transactions and demands instant access to information -- all tenants of a mobile banking offering. The uptick of smart phone use, which makes banking via phone easier, has also contributed to its increased adoption and rising popularity.
Experts at the Mercator Advisory Group predict that 33.1...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Dell's Earnings Slip but Exceed Forecasts By Wall Street
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63209
Dell, one of the world's largest makers of personal computers, reported better-than-expected earnings as the company's cost-cutting efforts, including the elimination of 8,300 jobs over the past year, blunted the pain from falling revenues in the early stages of the world economic slowdown.
With most economists predicting that the deepening slump would hammer corporate technology spending over the next year, Dell said Thursday that it intended to keep slicing costs and would be cautious with its $8.9 billion cash hoard, even as it realigned its business model from direct sales to one that relies more on retailers to sell its laptops and desktop personal computers.
Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, reported revenue of $15.16 billion in the third quarter, which ended Oct. 31. That was a 3 percent drop from the same quarter a year earlier and more than a billion dollars shy of the $16.22 billion that analysts had expected, according to Thomson Reuters.
But the company's profits greatly exceeded Wall Street's forecasts, largely because of the company's strong emphasis on cost cutting and a gradual shift toward more profitable products.
Dell posted net income of $727 million for the third quarter, a 5 percent drop from the $766 million it earned a year ago. However, stock buybacks reduced the number of shares outstanding by 14 percent over the past year, so on a per-share basis, net income for the quarter rose 9 percent to 37 cents, compared with 34 cents a year ago. Wall Street analysts expected net income of 31 cents a share.
Dell's shares, which have tumbled from $28.40 over the past year, closed at $9.81 in regular trading Thursday, down 54 cents. The stock recouped those losses in after-hours trading as investors digested the earnings report, which was released after the market closed.
Over the past two years, Dell's earnings...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
Thrifty Viewers Look to Shows Online
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63201
Matthew Bowers of Chicago has been paying to have HBO piped into his home every month for nearly two decades. He tunes in for the occasional episode of "Entourage" and every couple of months orders a movie on demand. Recently, the whole family watched "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."
But when his company laid him off in September, he started to think about the value he was getting out of the premium cable channel. "It's ridiculous to pay for this service I rarely use when I can get the same stuff online and save a lot of money," he said. The result? HBO is losing a customer.
Does an economy in tatters slow down or speed up the shift to watching TV shows and movies on the Web and mobile devices? The entertainment industry does not like the answer that is rapidly becoming clear: A global economic crisis almost certainly means a sharp acceleration in the move to new ways of consuming content, setting the stage for a new clash between consumers and studios.
Historically, the movie factories haven't been terribly afraid of tough economic times. In fact, they have almost welcomed them. During the Great Depression, people continued to turn to the movies for escape. VHS rentals boomed during the recession of the early 1980s, while DVDs got a lift from the downturn earlier this decade.
An HBO spokesman said he was sorry to see Bowers go, but he dismissed the notion that many other people would be joining him. "No industry is recession-proof, but pay television has performed very well in previous downturns," said the spokesman, Jeff Cusson.
But the current gloom has the Hollywood establishment rattled. DVDs are now where the industry makes its money, and Nielsen VideoScan reported a 9 percent drop in DVD sales in the third...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
The Venerable Computer Mouse: Soon To Be Extinct?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63197
The computer mouse may someday become an endangered species.
Instead of rolling a mouse around to move a cursor around on the screen, more and more users will gesture with their fingers on touch screens and multi-touch track pads, analysts say.
Or they will tilt or shake the phones or other hand-held devices themselves to manipulate them, said Steve Prentice, vice president and fellow at Gartner, a market-research firm based in Stamford, Conn.
Apple's iPhone, Nokia and other smart phones are already undergoing such a transformation with touch screens, he said in an e-mail, and the switch "will accelerate over the next two to three years."
On an iPhone or iPod touch, a user can scroll through album covers by flicking a finger across the screen, or tilt and turn the device to control actions in a game.
Prentice, based in Egham, England, said it is likely users will stop connecting a mouse to their laptop computers within the next five years, if they haven't already. And the use of a mouse will diminish on office desktop computers after that. The new track pads are seen as offering more versatility.
"The demise will be hastened by the move toward 3D environments, which encourage a more complex range of movements to move around, and by the growth of multimedia applications and manipulation, which encourage a more natural user interface," he said.
Already, Hewlett-Packard makes a TouchSmart personal computer with a touch-screen monitor. Apple's new laptop computers have track pads that support gestures with two, three or four fingers. And the upcoming Microsoft Windows 7 will also support multi-touch.
Not so fast, says Logitech International, the Swiss maker of mice and other peripherals. Touch screens will continue to develop, but, "I don't see a world where it would override the effectiveness of the mouse and keyboard," said Erik Charlton,...
Wed, 26 Nov 08
In-Flight Net Access Takes Off on Virgin America
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63191
Today, Virgin America plans to become the latest airline to offer in-flight Wi-Fi Internet, a service with a problematic past that still promises far-ranging flexibility in entertainment.
The San Francisco-based carrier has scheduled the service for one Airbus A320 aircraft, joining American Airlines as the only carriers in the world to offer full Internet access.
Dubbed Gogo, the service lets passengers browse the Web, use e-mail and instant messaging, download video and connect to secure networks through three wireless access points on the plane. Voice calls over the Internet are not allowed. The cost is $9.95 to $12.95 a flight, depending on route length.
If Virgin America's test flight is deemed successful after about a week of flying, the airline will expand the service to 24 other planes in its fleet by mid-2009.
With two carriers offering the service commercially, in-flight Internet is making a serious comeback after a two-year period of dormancy.
The previous generation of in-flight Wi-Fi, operated by Connexion by Boeing, was shut off at the end of 2006. Its satellite-based system proved to be too expensive for domestic carriers, and Connexion couldn't find enough passenger demand for the $30-a-flight service.
Still, customers and airlines' interest in affordable in-flight Wi-Fi persisted, leading to several technology companies vying for the business. Working with its entertainment subsidiary, LiveTV, JetBlue introduced a text message/e-mail service last year on one aircraft as a trial.
In June, Chicago-based Aircell began offering its Gogo Internet service on 15 of American Airlines' Boeing 767 aircraft. LiveTV and Aircell rely on existing cell towers to beam transmissions. While this "air-to-ground" technology is less expensive for airlines to install, it limits access to flying over land.
"The speed was comparable to my home DSL," says frequent traveler David Ralph, music director of Webster Hall in New York who recently tried American's Internet.
"You can put...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Police Probe Roles in Live Online Video of Suicide
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63220
A South Florida teen committed suicide last week as a Webcam audience watched in real time. The Pembroke Pines teen died of a lethal drug overdose 12 hours after he shared his intent to kill himself on a blog, according to investigators.
A toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, a drug used to treat insomnia and depression, killed Abraham Briggs. The 19-year-old man died Wednesday, the Broward County medical examiner's office confirmed. Briggs had a prescription for the antidepressant, but authorities are unsure how he obtained the others.
It's not clear how many people watched the suicide, but police are investigating the Web site moderator's role in the live video streaming of the suicide on Justin.tv. Investigators are also looking at comments on the discussion board at bodybuilding.com that linked to the streaming video.
Police reports indicate some of the people watching Briggs at Justin.tv encouraged him to end his life, while others tried to talk the teenager out of it. Some were discussing whether or not it was a hoax, or whether he took enough pills to actually kill himself. Briggs had reportedly threatened to kill himself on the bodybuilding.com site previously.
The debate soon ended as a visitor to the forum notified the moderator about Briggs' post and the moderator called the police. Law enforcement traced Briggs' location to Pembroke Pines near Miami. But when they arrived at his house at 3:30 p.m., they discovered he was dead. Briggs started blogging at 3 a.m.
"There seems to be a lack of control as to what people put out on the Internet," Abraham Biggs Sr., the young man's father, told ABCNews.com. "There's a lot of garbage out there that should not be, and unfortunately this was allowed to happen."
Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel commented on the situation in a formal statement: "We regret...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Underground Economy Thriving Online, Report Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63219
As politicians, Wall Street, and retailers watch economic indicators with a hopeful eye, Symantec has offered insight on a different economy.
Symantec on Monday released its Report on the Underground Economy. The overarching takeaway is that the online underground economy has matured into an efficient, global marketplace in which stolen goods and fraud-related services are regularly bought and sold. It estimated the value of goods offered by individual traders in the millions of dollars.
"As evidenced by the Report on the Underground Economy, today's cybercriminals are thriving off of information they are gathering without permission from consumers and businesses," said Stephen Trilling, vice president, Symantec Security Technology and Response. "As these individuals and groups continue to devise new tools and techniques to defraud legitimate users around the globe, protection and mitigation against such attacks must become an international priority."
Symantec observed trading in advertised goods with a potential value of more than $276 million in a yearlong period from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008. Symantec determined the value by the advertised prices of the goods and services and measured how much the advertisers would make if they liquidated their inventory.
Credit-card information is the most advertised category of goods and services in the underground economy, accounting for 31 percent of the total. The potential worth of all credit cards advertised during the reporting period was $5.3 billion, according to Symantec. The security firm suggested that credit cards are the most popular because they are regularly used for online shopping and it's difficult for merchants to identify and address fraudulent transactions before goods are delivered.
At 20 percent of the total, the second most common category of goods and services advertised was financial accounts. While stolen bank account information sells for between $10 and $1,000, the average advertised stolen...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Ballmer Ordered to Testify in 'Vista Capable' Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63218
The advertising and marketing company hired to create Apple's commercials poking fun at Microsoft's Vista operating system might get new material to work with. After Microsoft tried to protect its top brass from testifying in a case involving "Windows Vista Capable" PCs, a judge has ordered CEO Steve Ballmer to give a deposition.
In September, Ballmer tried to avoid being pulled into the suit and having to go through the discovery process, but U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman has denied a motion to exclude Ballmer, according to the judge's order posted on SeattlePI.com's blog.
The plaintiffs showed evidence that Ballmer had personal knowledge of the situation, according to court documents.
"We will, of course, comply with the court's order," said David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesperson, in an e-mail. "Mr. Ballmer's knowledge about the Windows Vista Capable program comes from the executives he empowered to run the program and make decisions, and two of those executives already testified in this case."
Bowermaster is referring to two former Microsoft executives, Jim Allchin and Will Poole. Allchin retired in Jan. 2007 on the same day Microsoft officially released Windows Vista to consumers while Poole left Microsoft last month "to pursue other interests."
Microsoft thought the former executives' testimonies would take the pressure off Ballmer. Instead, Pechman ruled that Ballmer would have to testify based on several pages of e-mail correspondence in which he was included.
Ballmer will have to testify about his knowledge of Microsoft releasing "Windows Vista Capable"-labeled PCs that weren't powerful enough to run all Vista's features and could only run a stripped-down version.
In 2006 Microsoft, a year before the company released the Vista operating system, authorized original equipment manufacturers such as Dell and Sony to place a sticker on PCs indicating that the PC was certified as Windows Vista...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Google Kills SearchMash as SearchWiki Emerges
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63217
While there is plenty of buzz around Google's new SearchWiki, another Google experiment is quietly disappearing: SearchMash. Once located at SearchMash.com, the service was Google's experimental search interface, a non-branded search engine that Google used to test new technology.
SearchMash let users search the Internet in different ways. Specifically, it let searchers reorder results and see the top three image results next to Web results. SearchMash also recognized classes of proper nouns and displayed refinements for them and adjusted for spelling mistakes.
Google wasn't immediately available for comment. But Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, could only speculate on one reason Google made SearchMash extinct: It was no longer needed.
"SearchMash was a fairly low-visibility site where Google experimented with search technology," Sterling said. "Google must feel they can get those experiments in a different way through more effective methodology."
Could that methodology be Google's new SearchWiki?
Google announced the new service last week that aims to give users more control over search experiences. SearchWiki lets users add, delete, resort or comment on search results for any query to create customized search results.
Google is marketing the new service as a way to "mark up" Google search results. For example, if a searcher is an avid skier whose favorite ski-gear site is in the fourth or fifth position, SearchWiki allows moving it higher. Or if the favorite site isn't included, SearchWiki can add it and even add some notes about any site. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users.
"These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. We store your changes in your Google account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Bay Area Cities Unveil Electric-Car Initiative
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63216
The mayors of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, Calif., have joined with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Bay Area Council, and mobile network-technology provider Better Place to foster the development of plug-in electric vehicles and other elements of green infrastructure.
"This initiative will help to put the Bay Area in the forefront of developing the science, engineering and public-policy innovations that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lead us to the next economic boom -- the clean energy century," said Dan Kammen, director of the transportation sustainability research center at the University of California, Berkeley.
Better Place has already deployed an open model for both fixed-battery and battery-exchange electric vehicles to operate on mobility networks in Israel, Denmark and Australia. The company estimates that a $1 billion investment will be required to fully deploy this model for the Bay Area.
Infrastructure deployments are slated to begin in 2010, with the goal of having electric cars available as mass-market offerings in 2012. This should make the Bay Area a proving ground for how the nation can move to a sustainable mobility model, the plan's promoters say.
"The green-technology industry is going to boom, and it is our job is to ensure it booms here, in the Bay Area and California," said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council. "We have the venture capital, we have the research universities, we have management talent, and, perhaps most importantly, we have the visionary elected leaders [to] clear the field for green-tech companies, like Better Place, with progressive public policy."
The Bay Area plan is in sync with Google CEO Eric Schmidt's recommendation that the nation put millions of plug-in electric vehicles on the road and fuel them with green electricity. The goal is to cut oil use for cars by...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Rumors Have Microsoft Live Search Becoming Kumo
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63189
The Web's rumor mill kicked into overdrive during the weekend, with speculation that Microsoft is preparing to rebrand its Live Search service. Several sites noted that the software giant has taken control of a domain that could be the new Live Search -- Kumo.com.
The question of whether Live Search will become Kumo is being debated among those who follow the attempts by Microsoft to better position its search engine. According to LiveSide.net, "Kumo means 'cloud' or 'spider' in Japanese."
LiveSide, noting that there has been speculation for months among industry observers about a new branding and positioning for Live Search, said ownership of the Kumo.com domain was hidden behind the registrar, but it's pointing to an internal Microsoft test site.
In October, newlivesearch.blogspot.com posted "Windows Live Search Secrets," with screenshots of a possible new interface for the search service. The images had the brand of Windows Live Search. The site also quoted a comment on a Microsoft company blog by Group Marketing Manager David Beaupariant that the company recognizes "there is a brand issue across Windows Live."
LiveSide also reported that it had received a tip from a reader in the United Kingdom who said he had been shown new computers at a store and, in the process, was also shown a video touting Windows Live services, "coming in 2009." He sent the site some shots from his camera phone.
Like Beaupariant, Microsoft officials have, from time to time, expressed interest in organizing the various Live services into a more easily understood and differentiated set of services, especially since the company is continually adding new ones.
A new Microsoft manta, "software plus services," has been expressed frequently by the company, but even some industry observers have noted confusion at sorting out the different services and their names. Live.com has a variety of...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Obama Privacy Breach Common, Advocates Say
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63188
Verizon Wireless has apologized to President-Elect Barack Obama after several employees took a peek at his cell-phone records, but privacy advocates say what happened to Obama is just an example of what is happening to thousands of Americans.
Verizon, which has 71,000 employees nationwide, said it learned last week about the access. Obama's device was a basic flip phone and did not include e-mail or other features. The account had been inactive for several months.
"We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day," said Lowell McAdam, president and chief executive at Verizon Wireless. Verizon said the information was not shared outside the company.
"If that information was disclosed, there would have been an investigation by the FBI to find out if any federal laws were violated," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and a teacher of privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center.
"As the circumstances of each individual employee's access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions," McAdam said. "Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action."
Verizon spokesperson Jeffrey Nelson declined to answer any of our questions and referred to a prepared statement. Later in the day, Verizon reportedly fired some employees involved in the incident.
The peek into Obama's cell phone records is just one example of how Obama's privacy has been breached.
Obama's passport information was accessed earlier this year by snooping State Department employees who also took a peek at passport information for Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
"The larger point here is the privacy problems (Obama) is experiencing is what is being...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
LittleBigPlanet Revitalizes a Stale Genre
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63179
The platform game has fallen on hard times. Maybe it's that name, which came about in the 1980s when Mario was actually jumping on moving platforms in "Super Mario Bros." But the genre needs a catchier title, like "running-jumping-bouncing-super-fun-action-adventure." There has to be a Japanese word that encompasses all that.
Platform games used to represent a huge chunk of the video-game market, but now they're largely restricted to the kiddie market. There's the occasional gem like Nintendo's "Super Mario Galaxy," but platformer addicts usually have to settle for media tie-ins like the new "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" game.
Still, a few developers are keeping the faith. Insomniac Games' superb "Ratchet & Clank" series has upped the ante with an amusing assortment of bizarre weaponry. The independently developed "Braid" added mind-bending puzzles. And Sony's "LittleBigPlanet" could inspire a rush of fresh, creative approaches to the genre.
_"LittleBigPlanet" (Sony, for the PlayStation 3, $59.99): The most innovative game to appear yet on the PS3 is an old-school, 2D platformer at heart. Just about anyone who's played a video game will understand that the goal is to move its hero left to right (and occasionally up and down) from the beginning to the end of each level.
That hero, Sackboy, is one of the most endearing game characters in recent memory. He looks like a doll that's been sewn from a burlap sack, but developer Media Molecule has created a delightfully expressive character from limited facial features and body language. You accumulate more wardrobe options along the way, and can even make a Sackgirl if you like.
Sackboy's universe is equally appealing. The levels in "LBP" are built from 3D objects that appear to have real texture; for example, Sackboy can grab onto cloth objects but slides right across glass. The settings are drawn from around the world,...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Dell To Keep Investing in Asia Even as China Slows
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63177
Dell Inc. plans to keep investing in Asia even as its sales growth in China slows, the computer maker's regional president said Friday.
"We will continue to invest" in Asia, said Steve Felice, president of Dell Asia Pacific and Japan, adding that Dell would likely expand its research and development and call center facilities in the region, but currently has no plans to expand manufacturing capacity.
"We're going to have to see how the world grows. That will determine where we put resources," he said in a conference call with reporters.
"There could be opportunities to shift activity to Asia," Felice said. "Outside the U.S. our business is growing faster than it is in the U.S."
The Round Rock, Texas-based company, the world's second-biggest PC maker, has been on a cost-cutting campaign, eliminating 2,200 jobs in the quarter, and slashing about 9 percent of its workforce over the last year. But Felice said cost-cutting in Asia would be "minimal."
Felice acknowledged that the company's sales growth in China has slowed, but declined to be more specific. Felice said spending by small and medium-sized companies in China has been squeezed by the credit crunch, but he believes the government's $586 billion stimulus package will help reinvigorate IT spending.
Indian companies are also spending less, he said, but he sees room to grow Dell's market share, especially in the small and medium enterprise and consumer markets, which have powered four quarters of "hyper growth" for Dell in the country.
Despite the global slowdown, Asia has remained a bright spot for Dell.
Dell said Thursday that its third-quarter profit fell 5 percent, to $727 million, as businesses around the world cut back on technology spending. Global sales slipped 3 percent, to about $15 billion.
But revenues in the quarter grew 18 percent in China and 48 percent in India, Felice said. Revenues...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Engineers Face Jail in Economic Espionage Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63174
Two engineers from China who pleaded guilty to the rare charge of economic espionage against the U.S. are facing sentencing Friday, in a case that highlights national security threats surrounding sensitive technologies.
Fei Ye, a U.S. citizen, and Ming Zhong, a permanent resident of the U.S., admitted in 2006 that they stole computer chip designs from their Silicon Valley employers and tried to smuggle the secrets to China to launch a government-backed startup there. The engineers each face a maximum of 30 years in prison.
Their guilty pleas represented the first convictions for the most serious crime under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. Unlike garden-variety industrial espionage -- the theft of a trade secret -- economic espionage alleges that someone acted to benefit a foreign government.
Only a handful of cases have been filed under the law, mostly because it's difficult to prove someone was trying to benefit a foreign nation, even if investigators suspect it. Prosecutors say the trail of evidence often goes cold because of a lack of cooperation by other countries in investigations.
The case against Ye and Zhong stretches back seven years, when they were arrested at San Francisco International Airport trying to board a flight to China. Their luggage was allegedly stuffed with sensitive documents on chip designs stolen from four tech companies they had worked for.
Other papers seized from the men allegedly showed they were trying to solicit funding from Chinese government agencies to help get their startup going. Prosecutors say the documents showed that Ye and Zhong were promoting the startup as something that would elevate China's chip-making smarts and help China compete better against other countries in microelectronics.
Those documents were critical to federal prosecutors' assertion that Ye and Zhong were trying to help China -- but the papers say nothing about whether anyone in the...
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Study: Call Centers Not Properly Aligned With Web Sites
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63043
With the proliferation of the Internet, consumers have discovered the ease and fun of shopping online. No longer is it necessary to burn gas and precious time to find the latest fashions, food or device. Consumers only need a way to connect to the Web.
The result of this influx in eCommerce is not all roses, however, as recent research has shown that adults are experiencing problems completing transactions online. For a channel that can serve as an excellent deflection of contact center traffic, the reality is that many contact center agents are now busy trying to defuse frustrated consumers.
Yet the results of the 4th annual survey of online consumer behavior conducted by Harris Interactive for Tealeaf found that nearly 9 out of 10 online adults in the UK who have conducted an online transaction in the past year have experienced problems doing so.
Another 41 percent of online adults who experience problems transacting reported that they would switch to a competitor or abandon a transaction entirely if they experienced an online transaction problem. In addition, four in five online adults who experienced problems -- or 84 percent -- share their experiences with others both online and offline.
This represents a $57 billion potential impact to revenue on shopping sites alone, which is a huge opportunity for companies to harness, simply by ensuring their Web sites work.
A recent Forrester Research report cited that 91 percent of business decision-makers revealed that customer experience is either very important or critical to their 2008 efforts.
While customer service is increasingly important to businesses, this survey highlights that companies need to take immediate steps to ensure they understand the experience of their customers who are transacting online.
These studies have highlighted that there is a lack of integration between the contact center and Web channels of these businesses....
Tue, 25 Nov 08
Speech Analytics Market Experiencing Strong Growth
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63041
DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics research, market analysis, business strategy, operations and technology consulting services, has published the 2008 Speech Analytics Market Report. A comprehensive and timely guide to this growing market, this report examines this technology and its impact on the market and customers. According to this report, the speech analytics market grew by a significant 106 percent in 2007, producing a four-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 268 percent.
DMG has forecasted continued market expansion at a rate of 70 percent in 2008 and 50 percent in 2009, regardless of the challenging economic conditions. The market is growing rapidly and there are now 22 competitors as well as many new entrants that are planning to introduce solutions within the next few months.
A great deal of attention has been placed on speech analytics as it has a proven ability to provide enterprises with insights into customer needs and wants. This ability is translating into significant productivity savings for contact centers, as well as increased customer retention and revenue for enterprises.
"The incredible growth in speech analytics usage is evidence of the growing realization that enterprises need more insight into their customers' preferences and behavior," says Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting, in a company statement.
"A better understanding of customer behavior will help enterprises enhance the customer experience and improve customer loyalty. Speech analytics solutions deliver quantifiable benefits that improve productivity, customer retention and loyalty, yielding one of the more rapid and compelling ROIs among contact center applications."
Contact centers are growing in importance for organizations around the world as customers are demanding more in terms of customer service. The challenge is that these centers also cost money and in slower economic times, the organization must be able to extract more from this division than just...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Google Wants to Preinstall Chrome Browser on PCs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63187
As in the real-estate market, a key factor in the browser wars has been location, location, location. In the virtual space that browsers inhabit, the most valuable location is to be preinstalled on the computer you buy -- and Google wants that choice location for its Chrome browser.
According to news reports, the search giant will try to convince computer makers to preinstall the Chrome browser. Google Vice President Sundar Pichai told The Times of London that the company will "probably" do some distribution deals, including working with original-equipment manufacturers to ship PCs with Chrome already installed.
Chrome could certainly use a boost. Currently, its market share is less than one percent of Web users, with Microsoft's Internet Explorer at more than 70 percent, Mozilla's Firefox about 20 percent, and others, such as Opera, making up the difference.
Pichai said that Google will launch a major marketing effort to support Chrome, which could encourage computer makers to come on board. "We will throw our weight behind it," he told The Times.
"We've been conservative because it's still in beta," he added, "but once we get it out of beta we will work hard at getting the word out, promoting to users, and marketing will be a part of that."
First launched in September, Chrome is still in its testing phase. Pichai told The Times that the beta phase will end in January.
Observers have noted that Microsoft's preinstallation of its Internet Explorer browser on millions of desktops gave it an insurmountable lead over its first major browser rival, Netscape's Navigator, and a positioning that no amount of features or performance could overcome. This positioning of IE, in fact, was a major factor in the U.S. government's subsequent antitrust complaints against Microsoft, a history that might help Google because any blocking efforts...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Florida Teen Commits Suicide in Front of Webcam
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63186
A Florida teenager died of a lethal drug overdose in front of a live online webcam audience 12 hours after he started blogging about his plan to commit suicide, an investigator said Friday.
Abraham Biggs, 19, died Wednesday from a toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, a drug used to treat insomnia and depression, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner's office. At least one of the drugs was prescribed to him, but it was unclear how he got the others, Crane said.
Some of those watching encouraged Biggs, others tried to talk him out of it, and a few were debating whether the dose he took was lethal, Crane said. It's unclear how many people were watching.
Biggs stated his intentions on a forum at bodybuilding.com, where some users said they did not take him seriously because he had made previous statements about killing himself, Crane said. Biggs posted a link from there to Justin.tv, a site that allows users to broadcast live videos from their webcams.
Someone finally notified the moderator of the body building site's forum, who traced the teen's location to Pembroke Pines and called police, Crane said. Biggs was dead by the time they got to his house in midafternoon on Wednesday, Crane said. He had started blogging about 12 hours earlier.
"He was just seen laying on the bed at that point," she said.
Condolences poured into his MySpace page, where the mostly unsmiling teen is seen posing in a series of pictures with various young women.
A woman who answered the phone at Biggs' home and identified herself as his sister said the family was still dealing with his death and declined immediate comment.
Biggs' father, Abraham Biggs Sr., told ABCNews.com that he was not home when his son died. He said his son struggled with depression...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
One More Update, Then IE8 Will Be Final in 2009
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63185
Microsoft has announced that its final update of the current beta Internet Explorer 8 browser will be released in next year's first quarter -- after which it will launch the final release. Some observers had been expecting the final update to be released this year.
After one more update of beta IE8 early in 2009, the next public release is "typically called a 'release candidate,'" Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch explained earlier this week on a company blog. The release candidate, he noted, indicates the end of the beta period.
"We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in Web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done," he added. "They should expect the final product to behave as this update does."
Practically speaking, he noted, this means testers should feel comfortable testing sites and services with the early 2009 beta release, he said, making changes if needed for customer experience and reporting any critical issues back to Microsoft. The final release, Hachamovitch said, will be delivered after the company responds to any feedback on critical issues.
He added that "we will be very selective about what changes we make between the next update and final release."
However, a posting by a Microsoft technical manager earlier this year noted that IE 8 will be more favorably disposed to Internet standards, rather than proprietary Microsoft standards, as in the past. So browsing with the default settings could cause problems for pages and services designed for earlier IE versions.
The default mode will include greater compatibility with W3C Internet guidelines, CSS 2.1, and HTML 5, as well as improved support for AJAX techniques. An upcoming add-in from Microsoft can be used by developers so their pages are displayed according to IE7.
Hachamovitch reported that...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Google Offers SearchWiki Custom Search Tools
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63184
Google has added SearchWiki tools that will enable Web surfers to create customized search results by adding, deleting, re-sorting or commenting on query results. The program's development team said SearchWiki is a good example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic.
"We have been testing bits and pieces of SearchWiki for some time through live experiments, and we incorporated much of our learnings into this release," said Product Manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Corin Anderson in a blog. "We are constantly striving to improve our users' search experience, and this is yet another step along the way."
Search aficionados can now add, remove and rearrange results as well as comment on individual listings, noted the program's lead engineer, identified only as Amay.
"Every time you do that search while logged in to your Goggle account, you'll see your custom-tailored search results," Amay explained. If the user is unsure about being signed in, he or she can check by noting if the appropriate user name appears in the upper right-hand area of the page, he said.
Click on the up or down arrows that appear next to individual search results to move a listing to the top or bottom of the page. The arrows for moved individual entries are subsequently displayed in green.
Listings that do not specifically pertain to the user's search requirements can be removed by clicking on the delete box located to the right of the entry. The deleted listings, which the user can hide by clicking on the tab provided, will be displayed at the bottom of the list.
To make a favorite site always show up for a particular search term, the user can enter its URL in the "add a result" box at the very bottom of the page. To see all the changes that have been...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Apple's iPhone Update 2.2 Adds Multiple Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63183
Features galore are included in Apple's new 2.2 software update for the iPhone, which became available a day earlier than expected. Apple released the new software one day before Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm hit store shelves, but analysts say it was just a coincidence.
One of the major features of Apple's iPhone update includes the ability to download the millions of free podcasts available on the iTunes Store over both a Wi-Fi connection and a cellular network connection, according to Apple.
The 2.2 update also includes enhancements to the Maps and Mail apps, and improvements to the performance of Safari and visual voice mail. It also rids the iPhone of problems with dropped calls and failing call setup. iPhone owners can now press the Home button from any Home screen and be greeted with the first Home screen. iPhone users can also now turn off the auto-correction feature on the virtual keyboard.
Enhancements to Maps include the Google Street View feature, which takes the user on a virtual walking tour while navigating street-level photos of places the user has located in Maps. Also included in the Maps update is walking directions, public-transit schedules, and information on fares and travel times. And if an iPhone user is meeting someone who cannot quite find the meeting place, there is a Share Location feature that sends an e-mail to the person with a Google Maps URL.
Apple also thought of those iPhoners who have been lagging behind on updates. By implementing the 2.2 update, iPhone owners also get all the features that were available in the 2.1 and 2.0 updates.
Lately, every move by Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple is being analyzed under a microscope and turned into a conspiracy theory, and the 2.2 upgrade didn't escape the scrutiny.
"When it comes to Apple, it...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Microsoft Lets Zune Music Subscribers Keep Tunes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63181
Microsoft Corp. is giving an early holiday gift to people who pay for all-you-can-listen access to the Zune digital music store: 10 songs to keep each month, included in the $14.99 monthly subscription fee.
The decision may appeal to people who have been reluctant to test out the subscription model, preferring to own their music instead of rent it. Microsoft's Zune Pass, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody and others give users unlimited access to millions of songs in exchange for a monthly fee. But as soon as the user stops paying, the music stops playing unless he or she forks over extra money to buy each track.
With the new Zune Pass perk, subscribers can use the Zune desktop software as usual to buy individual songs, and the service keeps track of how many free ones remain for the month. In most cases, the song will come in the MP3 format, which can be freely copied to multiple devices and computers.
"I think the 10 free tracks is going to be a huge accelerant" to subscriber numbers, said Adam Sohn, Zune's marketing director. "People will enjoy owning that music, and I think they'll be more apt to transact more in the store."
The company did not disclose how many subscribers it has.
Microsoft's Zune is a minor player compared with Apple Inc.'s line of iPods. Apple snagged 71 percent of MP3 player sales from January to September of this year, to Microsoft's 3 percent, according to market researcher NPD Group.
Microsoft and Apple both sell digital tracks for 99 cents, but so far, Apple has resisted the idea of a subscription service while Microsoft has tried to use it as a way to stand out.
The Orchard, a large independent music distributor who signed onto the new plan, said it hoped the offer...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Witness Recalls Last Messages in MySpace Hoax Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63175
A Missouri woman knew her 13-year-old neighbor was depressed and suicidal when she sent cruel Internet messages to the teenager, her former assistant testified. The girl killed herself after being told the world would be better off without her.
Ashley Grills, 20, told jurors Thursday she helped Lori Drew set up a fake MySpace profile of a 16-year-old boy to lure Megan Meier into an online relationship. Testifying for the prosecution under a grant of immunity, Grills also said she sent the last message from the fictitious "Josh Evans" to Megan in October 2006 on the day the girl hanged herself.
When she learned of Megan's death, Grills said Drew told her, "We could have pushed her overboard because she was suicidal and depressed.'"
Testimony was to resume Friday in the case against Drew, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing computers without authorization. Each count carries a potential sentence of five years in prison.
Prosecutors say Drew, 49, her then-13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and Grills created the MySpace alias in September 2006 to befriend Megan to find out if she was spreading rumors about Sarah.
The case is believed to be the nation's first cyberbullying trial. Its results could set a legal precedent for dealing with the issue of online harassment.
Defense attorney Dean Steward told jurors that Drew did not violate the Computer Use and Fraud Act -- used in the past to address computer hacking -- and reminded them that she was not facing charges dealing with the suicide. Steward has repeatedly asked U.S. District Judge George Wu to exclude testimony about Megan's suicide and twice sought a mistrial.
Grills, who helped Drew with her coupon magazine business, testified that she told Drew they might get in trouble for the scheme, but that Drew replied, "It was...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Study Finds Online Activities Help Teens' Development
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63168
Online games, social-networking Web sites, and chat rooms are empowering and motivating for teens and help with their development, according to a study released Thursday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation at the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting. The study covered three years and 5,000 hours of observing teens online.
The report is part of a $50 million initiative to investigate how digital media affect the way teenagers learn and socialize. Twenty-eight researchers conducted the study.
"When adults look at teens today, they think what they are doing is different and seem to be wasting a lot of time online hanging out with their friends or playing video games, and these are activities that can seem quite foreign," said Mizuko Ito, the report's lead author and a researcher at the University of California Irvine. "But when we look closely at what kids are doing, it's not much different than what their parents did. They are hanging out with their friends, finding romantic partners, and trying to identify their status and identity."
Ito added that today's teens are being raised with technologies that allow them to pursue self-directed learning on their own terms, on their own time, and without the restrictions of a classroom setting. This gives the teens a feeling of freedom and autonomy.
"This is very different from how kids learn in school when they are handed a set body of knowledge they are asked to master and the expertise really resides in the teachers," Ito said.
"Our feeling after spending time with kids was that a lot of the worries about predators are overblown given what kids are really doing online," Ito said in a phone interview. "When kids are engaged in friendship-driven (interactions online), they are communicating with kids they already know. They actually think it is...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
IBM, Partners Aim To Build Brain-Like Computer Systems
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63167
IBM, in collaboration with five universities, announced plans Thursday to create computing systems that simulate and emulate the brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition while rivaling its low power consumption and compact size. The goal is to solve the problem of information management.
IBM and its collaborators -- Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, Columbia University Medical Center, and University of California-Merced -- have been awarded $4.9 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the first phase of DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) initiative.
According to IDC, digital data is growing 60 percent each year, giving businesses access to incredible new streams of information. But without the ability to monitor, analyze and react to this information in real time, most of its value may be lost. Until the data is captured and analyzed, decisions or actions may be delayed.
Cognitive computing offers the promise of systems that can integrate and analyze vast amounts of data from many sources in the blink of an eye, allowing businesses or individuals to make rapid decisions in time to have a significant impact.
"Exploratory research is in the fabric of IBM's DNA," said Josephine Cheng, an IBM fellow and vice president of IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. "We believe that our cognitive-computing initiative will help shape the future of computing in a significant way, bringing to bear new technologies that we haven't even begun to imagine. The initiative underscores IBM's capabilities in bold, exploratory research and interest in powerful collaborations to understand the way the world works."
Big Blue offers some examples of cognitive-computing benefits. Bankers, for instance, have to make split-second decisions based on constantly changing data that flows at a fast pace. And monitoring the world's water...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
BlackBerry Storm Rolls Out, But It's Not an iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63166
All eyes were on Research in Motion Friday as the BlackBerry Storm rolled out across the United States with Apple-like fanfare. The phone is available exclusively through Verizon Wireless.
The smartphone boasts an innovative touchscreen that actually depresses slightly when the screen is pressed. That means the user can feel the screen being pressed and released with a gentle "click," similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The "clickable" touchscreen gives the user positive confirmation that a selection has been made.
"The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives -- whether in their communities or around the globe," said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless.
In addition to the familiar navigation keys common to other BlackBerry smartphones, the Storm adds support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touchscreen gestures, so customers can easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom for smooth navigation. The Storm also features a built-in accelerometer that allows its touchscreen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset.
The Storm is a multimedia BlackBerry. It comes preloaded with DavaViz Documents to Go, which allows users to edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset. It has a 3.2-megapixel camera with variable zoom, autofocus and a flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video. It also makes room for built-in GPS to support location-based applications and services, as well as geotagging of photos.
A media player can play movies smoothly in full-screen mode, display pictures and slideshows quickly and manage an entire music collection. Playlists can be created directly on the handset and there's an equalizer with 11 preset filters -- including Lounge, Jazz...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Retail Web Sites Wage Pre-Holiday Price Wars
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63154
As deserted malls and department stores struggle to court cash-short consumers with steep discounts this holiday season, a similar and even more ferocious price war is being waged online.
Internet retailers, trying to navigate what is shaping up to be the first truly dreary holiday shopping season on the Web, are engaging in price-cutting and discounting so aggressive it threatens their profit margins and, in some cases, their survival.
For example, Sony introduced its HDR-SR11 high-definition digital video recorder in April with a suggested retail price of $1,200. This week, Dell.com was selling it for $899, and the electronics retailer Abe's of Maine had it on its site for $750 -- and both were throwing in free shipping.
At Lori's Designer Shoes, a Web site that sells women's accessories, a brown leather Hype tote bag started at $338, fell to $246 and is now available with a 20 percent discount coupon for $196.80 . Lori Andre, the owner, said she generally tried to avoid online promotions "because then you train the customer and they'll expect that, and you're not going to make any money." But last week, traffic hit a wall and sales on the site fell by nearly a quarter. "We've been in business for 25 years and never seen the bottom drop out like this," she said.
Traditional retailers are facing the same problem, and discounts are proliferating from suburban malls to Fifth Avenue. The price-cutting, though, is fiercest on the Web, where customers can easily shop for the best price with a quick search on Google or on specialized shopping engines such as Shopping.com. Online, the competition is only a click away. For many Web sites, the discounts and price cuts are the only way to hold on to customers as online buying unexpectedly plummets. The research company comScore reported...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
A Yahoo Acquisition Is Out, Microsoft CEO Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63150
Microsoft Corp. is no longer interested in buying all of Yahoo Inc., CEO Steve Ballmer said Wednesday, though he told shareholders that the company would still be "very open" to a collaboration on Internet search. His comments sent Yahoo shares diving more than 20 percent.
"Let me be clear," Ballmer said at Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting. "We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo."
Yahoo spurned a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft in May, and later rejected Microsoft's bid to buy only its search engine. Ballmer has said repeatedly of late that the buyout remains off the table, though a search-related deal is possible.
But Wednesday marked the first time he had renewed that stance since the resignation announced this week by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who had resisted Microsoft's overtures. Yahoo shares rose when Yang said he would step aside, because investors hoped it meant a deal with Microsoft would now be more likely.
Ballmer said the companies are not currently talking about a search deal.
Yahoo shares plummeted $2.41, or 20.9 percent, to close at $9.14, its lowest level since early 2003, on a split-adjusted basis, and well below the $33 per share Microsoft offered in May. Microsoft shares tumbled $1.33 cents, 6.8 percent, to end the session at $18.29, a 10-year low.
Michael McDonald, a shareholder who flew from Atlanta to attend the meeting, blames Microsoft's run at Yahoo for depressing its share price and hopes the software maker doesn't try again.
McDonald, a retired advertising executive, called the race to win in Web search and advertising "the dot-com bubble all over again. The economic period we're in now is going to prove the questionable value of search."
Instead, he'd rather see Microsoft cut employees and expenses, or spend cash to buy business software companies.
"We don't need three Googles," he said.
Some analysts...
Sat, 22 Nov 08
Apple's Superlative Sequel: The Latest iPod Touch
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63149
They say sequels often fail to live up to the original. That's not so with the second generation of Apple's iPod touch. Apple has managed to make the touch look better, work better, and deliver more features -- all for a $229 starting price, significantly cheaper than the previous entry-level $299 version. The changes, while subtle, are so significant that I give the second-generation touch a rare perfect score.
The touch, while an iPod, is close to the iPhone in lineage. It has the same touchscreen, plays music and videos the same way, and includes a wireless Internet connection that lets you access the Web from your home network and wireless hotspots, such as those set up by AT&T in Starbucks.
Apple tweaked the look of the touch, too. It's a lot thinner than the previous touch, measuring 4.1 inches by 2.4 inches by 0.33 inches, and weighs a scant 4.05 ounces. The back sports a contoured stainless steel casing, whereas the updated iPhone switches to glossy black or white plastic.
A year ago, when I reviewed the original touch, many readers took me to task for complaining that there was no dedicated volume button for music and no built-in speaker for listening to music without headphones. In the new generation, Apple's engineers addressed both complaints by adding a rocker volume button on the left side and speakers on the bottom. The also added software to let you fetch e-mail and use other applications previously limited to the iPhone.
Perhaps the biggest shocker is Apple's decision to sell $29 headphones with a built-in microphone. The upshot? Users can download third-party applications from iTunes that will turn a Web-connected touch into a Skype phone. In effect, the combination of features turns your touch into a poor man's iPhone, letting you make cheap calls anywhere...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
IBM Extends Lotus Notes to Millions of Nokia Phones
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63163
Nokia and IBM on Thursday launched IBM Lotus Notes support for Nokia's S60-based mobile phones. That means millions of Lotus Notes users will be able to access their e-mail on Nokia devices in December.
Lotus Notes has almost 140 million licensed users. The announcement opens the door for more than 80 million Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices to connect to corporate e-mail accounts through Lotus Domino Server software known as Lotus Notes Traveler. The software provides real-time access to e-mail, calendars, address books, journals and to-do lists.
According to Soren Petersen, senior vice president at Nokia, the deal with Big Blue is another affirmation of the company's business mobility vision: To establish partnerships with the world's leading enterprise vendors.
"This collaboration means nearly 90 percent of business e-mail can be mobilized with Nokia devices, without needing to purchase additional servers, middleware or licenses," Petersen said. "With the presence, position and technology that IBM has in the corporate e-mail market, they are an essential partner for us in enterprise."
According to IBM's Institute for Business Value, this year, for the first time, more people in the world will have a mobile device than a landline telephone. In fact, Big Blue predicts one billion mobile Web users by 2011 and a significant shift in the way the majority of people will interact with the Web over the next decade. Mobile devices already outnumber television sets, credit cards and personal computers.
While Nokia casts the announcement as affirmation of its vision, IBM calls it a major development in its efforts to expand mobile support for the Lotus software portfolio. Secure connection to e-mail is an example of IBM's Tomorrow at Work, an initiative
that examines a changing work environment and anticipates trends in technology, business, society and culture.
Lotus Sametime for instant messaging...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Glitches Reported as BlackBerry Storm Nears U.S. Debut
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63162
The BlackBerry Storm has been debuting around the world, but rumors are spreading about a possible shortage in the U.S. News reports also indicate Research In Motion discovered a security flaw in the Storm that has left Verizon Wireless scrambling to update the firmware in the final hours before its U.S. release on Friday.
Neither RIM nor Verizon were immediately available for comment. The much-anticipated BlackBerry Storm will be available exclusively from Verizon in the U.S.
"The BlackBerry Storm is big deal for Verizon Wireless customers," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. "There's pent-up demand for a touchscreen BlackBerry and there's pent-up demand for a touchscreen smartphone at Verizon, especially since AT&T has the corner on the iPhone."
The Storm was designed to appeal to both consumers and businesses. Ir combines the communications features, global connectivity, and productivity tools expected from a BlackBerry with a touchscreen technology to make typing easier and more precise.
RIM is billing the BlackBerry Storm as having the world's first "clickable" touchscreen. It does qualify as RIM's first attempt at an iPhone-like experience. The company said it responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.
"The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touchscreen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touchscreens," said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. "Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface."
BlackBerry Storm customers can tap into a full HTML high-performance browser that works in either portrait or landscape orientation. Users will navigate Web sites with the touchscreen interface that lets them double-tap to zoom in and slide...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Hewlett-Packard Intros Notebook with Multi-Touch Screen
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63161
Hewlett-Packard has taken the wraps off the TouchSmart tx2 -- the PC maker's first convertible notebook screen to include capacitive multi-touch technology.
The machine's touch-sensitive screen and MediaSmart software work together to recognize and execute commands based on motions such as pinch, rotate, arc, flick, press and drag, as well as single and double taps. The technology combo enables users to more naturally select, organize and manipulate photos, music tracks, video clips and other Web content by touching the screen -- including content from 10 cable-TV channels and online brands owned by MTV Networks.
"With the introduction of the TouchSmart tx2, HP is providing users with an easier, more natural way to interact with their PCs," said Ted Clark, the manager of HP's notebook group.
Empowered by Windows Vista Home Premium, the tx2 sports an AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile processor, a built-in Webcam with integrated microphone, and a rechargeable digital ink pen. The laptop's convertible design also incorporates a twist hinge that enables the machine to be configured in three different modes: PC, display and tablet.
Users can transform the tx2 into a tablet PC in order to write, sketch, draw, take notes or graph right onto the screen, with handwriting automatically converted into typed text. The tx2 also ships with a notebook stand that elevates the unit while stationary, which enables the user to put the machine in an upright position to allow for full interactivity with the device's touchscreen.
Rival Dell blazed a trail in the multi-touch notebook field late last year with the introduction of the Latitude XT -- a convertible tablet PC priced at $1,829 that features both pen and capacitive touch capabilities. However, HP's TouchSmart tx2 is available now at a base price of $1,149.
With its release of the tx2, HP has...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
NASA Successfully Tests 'Interplanetary Internet'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63160
Although the crew of the spacecraft Endeavour experienced a glitch in the first space walk when an astronaut accidentally let her tool bag float away, NASA had a lot to celebrate as it announced success with a high-tech space program.
NASA, along with Vinton Cerf, a Google vice president, successfully tested a deep-space network modeled after the Internet. Engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., have transmitted dozens of images to and from the spacecraft located 20 million miles from Earth using disruption-tolerant networking (DTN) software.
DTN, which sends information differently from the TCP/IP protocol used by the Internet, was developed a decade ago by NASA engineers and Cerf, who is known to many as the "father of the Internet" and is a visiting scientist at JPL.
"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," said Adrian Hooke, team lead and manager of space-networking architecture at NASA.
The month-long experiment is the first of many planned tests to qualify the technology for use on future space missions. If NASA continues to succeed with DTN, astronauts on manned missions will be able to communicate with researchers worldwide. NASA is planning its next round of testing next summer, using DTN software on the International Space Station.
"We have been doing this test for a month and it has been working well and it's exciting getting the word out that we had a good round of testing," said Leigh Torgerson, manager of the DTN experiment operations center at JPL, in a phone interview.
"We needed some way of automating and routing this process in a standard way so any other space agency can pick up the protocol and use it," Torgerson said. "The more nodes you have, the more paths you have to get data back and...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
T-Mobile's Web2go Will Use Yahoo's oneSearch
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63147
Yahoo has won another wireless carrier for its mobile Internet search tool. The company joined T-Mobile in announcing Thursday that oneSearch will be the search utility for T-Mobile's web2go service.
Yahoo said more than 70 mobile operators worldwide are now using its mobile search tool.
T-Mobile said oneSearch will provide web2go users a better Web-browsing experience "by making it easier to view and navigate the Web through a customizable home page," as well a simplified shopping and download experience.
oneSearch enables users to search for a variety of information on the Web. It also allows users to find content on the T-Mobile store, including ringtones, wallpaper and games.
The search results will place relevant ads at the customer's fingertips, with either sponsored search results or display ads.
Since a mobile user's display space is limited, the Yahoo tool has been designed to provide results grouped around a given search term. For instance, a search for a movie title returns theaters with show times, reviews, information on the actors, and related articles. Or a search on a sports team returns relevant scores, schedules, profiles for teams, news, and a link to the team's Web site.
The basic idea is that, rather than having to use a mobile device to drill down into search links as one might do on a computer, the most common collection of related data comes to the top on the first search. This approach, said T-Mobile USA Chief Development Officer Cole Brodman, "delivers a more intuitive mobile experience that places the most relevant information at the fingertips of T-Mobile customers."
Sean Ryan, an analyst at industry research firm IDC, noted that efforts have been ongoing to determine the most useful way to search on a mobile device. "It's limited, of course, by the small screen, alphanumeric...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
MySpace Hoax Trial Resumes After Mother Testifies
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63146
The trial of a Missouri woman charged in a tragic MySpace hoax resumed Thursday. Testimony began Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in the controversial trial of Lori Drew, who is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of computer fraud.
The charges stem from her alleged participation in a MySpace hoax which may have caused the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Drew is being tried under the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act.
Tina Meier, Megan's mother, took the stand on the first day of the trial. She told the court her daughter, who was battling depression and had attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, took her own life after reading a message from a fictitious boy on the social-networking site named Josh Evans, according to the Associated Press.
"Josh Evans" was not who he said he was for the six weeks he and Meier communicated on MySpace.com. Instead, he was a fictitious person allegedly created by Lori Drew, her then-13-year-old daughter, and her then-18-year-old personal assistant, Ashley Grills.
The case involving Drew has drawn much attention from families in the Missouri town where Drew and Meier live and across the nation as families learned about the cyberbullying that may have caused Meier to hang herself in her bedroom closet.
Attorneys for Drew and the judge have made it very clear that Drew is not on trial for homicide. Drew, however, faces charges that she broke MySpace's terms, which prohibit users from creating false identities. The case is being tried in California, where MySpace's servers are located.
Grills admitted on live television that she created the online account, but added that Drew and her daughter participated in the six-week-long ruse.
As a result of Meier's suicide, Missouri has passed a cyberbullying law. That law defines harassment as knowingly communicating with another person...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Microsoft's Morro Could Challenge Security Giants
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63145
McAfee and Symantec could be affected as Microsoft moves to provide free antivirus software. If the software, code-named Morro, successfully protects against viruses, analysts said, it could mean an exodus from well-known security brands.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a security offering focused on protecting against malware. The software giant is addressing what it sees as a growing need for a security solution that meets the unique needs of emerging markets and smaller PC form factors.
"This could be third-time lucky for Microsoft in regards to an antivirus product," said Graham Cluley, a senior security consultant at Sophos. "They tried with MSAV in Windows 3.11/MSDOS 6.2, which wasn't terribly successful -- especially when it detected Windows 95 as a virus."
The secret sauce for Morro is in the architecture. It will offer comprehensive protection from various forms of malicious software, including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans, by focusing on a smaller footprint that uses fewer computing resources.
Microsoft said Morro is ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less-powerful PCs. By targeting the core anti-malware features that most consumers don't keep up to date, Microsoft said, Morro will provide the essential protection that consumers need without overusing system resources, and provide better protection against online threats.
As Morro comes on the scene, Microsoft will discontinue retail sales of its Windows Live OneCare subscription service, effective June 30, 2009. OneCare was Microsoft's second attempt at security. Although it was much better at detecting malware, Cluley said, it didn't capture a large home-user audience.
"Anything which encourages more home users to defend their PCs has to be encouraged, provided innovation and competitiveness is not stifled," Cluley said, "but consumers will have to wait until next summer to find out how good the product actually is."
Microsoft is moving early to educate the market about the product. Morro is...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Sprint Affiliate Backs Down on WiMAX Suit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63141
A wireless affiliate of Sprint Nextel Corp. has pulled its request that an Illinois judge block the planned spinoff of Sprint's new broadband network.
Schaumburg, Ill.-based iPCS Inc. said Monday in a regulatory filing that it withdrew its motion for a temporary restraining order preventing Sprint's WiMax network from being combined with Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire Corp. The decision came after Clearwire said it didn't plan to offer high-speed wireless Internet service in iPCS's markets before July 1, 2009.
Clearwire shareholders are scheduled to vote Thursday on the merger. The new Clearwire company, which will deploy a network based on WiMax technology, will also include billions of dollars in investments from Google Inc., Intel Corp. and a group of cable companies.
IPCS filed suit against the plan this year, claiming it would violate an exclusivity agreement it has with Sprint in its territory. The company covers parts of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.
While iPCS has now abandoned its hope for an injunction, iPCS said its original lawsuit challenging the merger will continue. Clearwire has agreed to give iPCS 60 days' notice if it plans to enter the iPCS territory before the court enters a final ruling on the lawsuit.
IPCS and Sprint are fighting a similar legal battle over Sprint's 2005 acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc. The Illinois Supreme Court last week refused to consider an appeal of a lower court's decision that the purchase violated the iPCS exclusivity agreement. The court did extend the 180-day limit for Sprint to sell Nextel assets in iPCS's territory to 360 days.
Sprint faced similar lawsuits from most of its affiliates after the Nextel acquisition and ended up buying most of those companies. It has not said whether it would consider buying iPCS.
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Upgrading Your Wireless System
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63140
Years ago, I set up a wireless system for my laptop. This worked great at the time, but now that the speeds of everything else have increased, I realized recently that the time had come to upgrade the wireless system.
When wireless systems first came out, you had to buy something called a "wireless access point," which was basically a transmitter/receiver that plugged into your existing cable or DSL modem or network router.
This was pretty straightforward and simple, as there were few choices since wireless technology was in its infancy. Now, two or more generations later, there are dozens of choices: Wireless-G, Wireless-N, gigabit networks, integrated wireless/wired routers, and even combo modem/wireless/wired network boxes.
Obviously, a combo unit would simplify installation; but for people like me, who have several devices on the network and a router that has more ports than most all-in-one boxes, that won't work.
I purchased a Netgear WNR854T, a 4-port wired and Wireless-N router for $45 (on sale), with the hopes of just installing it in the same way as my old access point since no one offers "just" an access point anymore.
Boy, was I wrong. These new devices are designed to be easy-to-install, integrated network solutions. They give you a high-speed combination of Wireless-N and four wired ports, all in one box.
Searching the web for solutions only turned up suggestions for a couple of older models. I tried these and found they worked with limited function. I was able to access the web but not the other devices on the main router; it was almost like a separate network.
A quick email to the Netgear tech support team got me detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to do exactly what I needed. It took me about 15 minutes to install it as an access point with full functionality.
One of the...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Firefox Extensions Add New Functionality
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63137
Mozilla Firefox is the second most-popular browser on PC and Mac platforms (after their respective default browsers, Internet Explorer and Safari) for a few reasons. First, it is secure and blocks pop-ups. It is also free and open source, so a large community is always working to improve it.
My personal favorite reason is its extensibility: The open source code lets users develop extensions (or add-ons) that add new functionality to the browser. [In this article], we'll take a look at two useful Firefox extensions. If you don't use Firefox and these features sound good to you, maybe it's time to switch.
(https://addons.mozilla.org/ en-US/firefox/addon/7661)
What is it? A Firefox add-on that simplifies bookmarking Web pages to read later.
Who cares? Overwhelmed info addicts and anyone using Firefox.
How does it work? Read It Later adds a checkmark icon to the end of the browser's address bar that can be clicked to add a page to your To Read list. It also adds a button to the toolbar that can be configured to open the To Read list or to simply load the next unread page. If you right click on a link, a context menu item called Read This Link Later lets you add the target Web page to your list. When you're finished reading a page, click on the checkmark icon again for a list of options, including Mark as Read & Add to Delicious, Mark as Read & Digg, and just Mark as Read.
What makes Read It Later most useful is that To Read lists can sync across multiple computers. So when you are at work and glance at the news, you can add the stories to your To Read list and then read them in their entirety at home when you have more time.
I've found using Read It...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
P&G, Google Team Up To Swap Jobs, Trade Knowledge
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63122
The world's largest consumer products company and the online search leader are working together to learn more about each other and about targeting customers.
Procter & Gamble Co. said Wednesday it has done job swaps with Google Inc., and Google employees have been at P&G's Cincinnati headquarters helping with training.
P&G spokeswoman Allison Yang said the company wants to reach more consumers who are increasingly online.
"This is all about learning," she said. "It's about putting consumers in connection with our products in the right spots."
The Wall Street Journal reported in Wednesday's editions that discussions on an employee swap began last year between P&G and Google executives.
The swaps began in January, with two Tide detergent brand managers visiting Google and a pair of Google officials coming to Cincinnati.
P&G, the largest U.S. advertiser with a global advertising budget of nearly $9 billion, has been emphasizing value in marketing that says products such as Charmin toilet paper and Tide laundry detergent get more done with less than other brands.
The company also has been expanding its online reach, including offering digital coupons.
Yang said an early project with Google was drawing more attention to online video of Tide to Go's "Talking Stain" commercial, which made its television debut during the Super Bowl. Pampers diapers managers and a digital marketing manager were next to participate, and some 15 P&G employees from different areas spent time with Google last month.
She said P&G has shared information with Google visitors about its consumer research, planning and operations.
"The relationship will certainly continue, and we'll continue looking at what the opportunities are," Yang said.
A message for comment was left with Google, based in Mountain View, Calif. Analysts have predicted slower revenue growth for Google in the worsening economy, amid signs that Internet users are growing less likely to click on advertising links.
P&G, meanwhile,...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
Cloud Computing: No Longer Pie in Sky
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63069
Failed technology trends tend to be recycled every five or so years in hopes that businesses and consumers eventually will be ready to adopt what surely is a great idea.
The idea of the "thin client" -- a processor and monitor setup that loads all files and even the operating system from a central server -- has been trumpeted as the next big thing at least three times since I replaced my baseball mitt with a keyboard and mouse.
The latest incarnation of the thin client finally is starting to gain a hold as a "netbook," an incredibly portable notebook.
Perhaps more than netbooks, the idea of storing data and applications on the Internet rather than on your hard drive has failed time after time. Whether it's call "on-demand computing," "grid computing" or "software as a service," many consumers have not been quick to give up boxed software for Internet applications. They especially had no interest in saving documents on a remote server.
That was then. The idea now is called "cloud computing," and it's starting to gain traction.
Storing data "in the cloud" means no longer having to transfer a file from desktop to laptop via a thumb drive, network connection, disk, etc.
Also, while a failed hard drive means an afternoon of reinstalling the operating system, you're files are safe on some big server in the sky.
What's not to love?
File storage is only half of the cloud computing equation. Applications, too, are being shifted from the hard drive to the Web.
The first wave was the transition from mail programs to Web-based services, such as Gmail or MobileMe.
The second phase has been pushing applications, such as word processors, spreadsheets and news readers, to the cloud.
For 90 percent of the Microsoft Office-using world, Google Documents or Microsoft's upcoming online version of Word will suffice. Neither is...
Fri, 21 Nov 08
File-Based vs. Image-Based Backup Software
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63005
[Q] I'm getting a new computer for my family and want software to back up whatever we put on it. What's the difference between file-based backup and image-based backup software?
[A] File-based backup software generally works like this: The program saves copies of files and data on the computer to an external hard disk, recordable disc or removable drive after someone tells it what files to back up. Many file-based programs aimed at home users can be set up to automatically back up just certain files and folders or all the files on the drive, but usually do not back up installed programs and the actual operating system itself.
Image-based backup software makes a snapshot or "disk image" of the computer's entire hard drive and everything on it, including programs, settings and the operating system. An image-based backup can come in handy if the computer's hard drive completely dies, for example, because the backup can be copied into a brand-new hard drive and the computer's contents are fully restored.
Backup sessions with file-based backup software tend to be faster because not as much overall data is being backed up. Online backup services usually use file-based software for size and speed. Image-based backup software may take longer and need more room, but there's no worry about possibly forgetting to mark a file or folder for backup since everything is copied to the disk image.
New Windows and Macintosh systems include file-based backup software. Microsoft has information for Windows Vista (and XP) at www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/data/backup.mspx, while Apple's instructions for using the Time Machine backup program in Mac OS X 10.5 are at support.apple.com/kb/HT1427.
If the built-in offerings aren't satisfactory, there are plenty of other software choices out there. PC Magazine has a roundup of backup software reviews at snipurl.com/56l3n and About.com has several Mac backup programs are listed...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Microsoft Will Replace OneCare with Security Software
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63144
Microsoft plans to stop accepting paid subscriptions to Windows Live OneCare in mid-2009. The security software is slated to be replaced by a free offering code-named Morro, which will focus on providing consumer PCs with core protection from viruses, spyware, rootkits, trojans and other forms of malware.
"We know that there are still some 60 percent of consumers in developed markets -- and even more in emerging markets -- that don't have up-to-date security protection on their PCs, and we want to help provide that core level of protection," said Amy Barzdukas, senior director of product management at Microsoft's Online Services and Windows Division.
Morro will deliver the essential protections that consumers need by "shifting the focus onto the core anti-malware features that most consumers still don't keep up to date," Barzdukas said. The platform also will be available in a smaller footprint that will use fewer computing resources, she said.
One goal is to make Morro "ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less-powerful PCs," Barzdukas said. The other is to remove the cost barriers that have slowed security software adoption in emerging markets -- where low-cost mini-notebook and netbook devices are becoming popular.
"By offering such basic protection at no charge to the consumer, Microsoft is promoting a safer environment for PCs, service providers and e-commerce itself, since it is through unprotected PCs that the worst threats are introduced to the system as a whole," said Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.
Morro will integrate the same core malware engine that Microsoft uses across its line of anti-malware products. However, the new platform will not incorporate the same set of features that Windows Live OneCare currently provides.
For example, Morro will not offer or support multi-PC "circle" management and printer sharing, Barzdukas said....
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Jury Selection Begins in MySpace Suicide Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63143
The trial of the closely watched case involving a Missouri mother who allegedly started a hoax on MySpace resulting in a teenage girl's suicide is set to start as the court begins jury selection.
Lori Drew will be on trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. She is being prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Drew's daughter, a minor, and her now-19-year-old employee Ashley Grills are also accused of participating in the hoax.
The much-publicized case has sparked recent controversy for attorneys representing Drew, specifically H. Dean Steward, who said Drew will not receive a fair trial because potential jurors know about the case.
The judge in the case said jurors will be instructed to determine if Drew broke Internet laws, and not whether she is to blame for the teenager's suicide.
Drew is being accused of masquerading as a boy named Josh Evans and creating a false-identity account on MySpace. The fictitious boy befriended Megan Meier on MySpace and allegedly had an online friendship with the girl over the course of six weeks -- but then turned on her, saying, "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you," according to the Meier family.
After reading the last message from the MySpace "boy," Meier hung herself in her bedroom closet.
Drew was indicted in May on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing computers without authorization, according to published reports. (Each count carries a sentence of five years in prison.) Drew is pleading not guilty to each of the counts, claiming that although she knew of the ruse, she had no part in it. Drew said Grills and her daughter opened the fake...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Google Will Make Life Photo Archive Searchable
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63142
Google on Tuesday announced a deal with Life magazine to bring more than 10 million of its archived photos online in a public display. The mix of iconic and never-before-seen photos is searchable through Google Image Search.
The archives include famous images and films, including the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, The Mansell Collection from London, Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s, and the entire works left to the collection from Life photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen.
"This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Google software engineer Paco Galanes wrote on the company's blog. "This collection of newly digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by Life dating all the way back to the 1750s."
According to Time Warner, 97 percent of the photographs have never been seen by the public. They've been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings and prints.
"We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time," Galanes said. "Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire Life archive -- about 10 million photos."
All keywords are translated into 16 different languages. Life's photo archive will be scanned and available on Google Image Search free for personal and research purposes. The copyright and ownership of all images will remain with Time.
"For 70 years, Life has been about one thing, and that's the power of photography to tell a story," said Andy Blau, Life's president. "Life will now reach a broader audience and engage them online with the incredible depth and breadth of the Life photo archive...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
New Xbox Experience Launched To Battle Sony's Offering
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63113
Microsoft launched its New Xbox Experience on Wednesday, expanding the existing service to compete with Sony in turning the video-game console into an entertainment hub.
Don Mattrick, senior vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, said the New Xbox Experience is the future for home entertainment. "It's on-demand, it's high-definition, it's always social, it's all in one place," he said.
The Xbox experience includes the instant-streaming availability of Netflix movies and TV episodes in high definition from such studios as Disney, MGM, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros. To use the Netflix service, Xbox LIVE Gold members also need to be Netflix subscribers.
Live Party will allow a user to create a virtual party with up to seven friends. Users can employ voice chat while playing games and share photos in real time. "Personality plus" is a feature in which an animated avatar can be created, becoming a user's "face" for games, parties or other interaction.
There's also a "personal game room" where users can play classics like Pac-Man Championship Edition, Galaga Legions, and Portal: Still Alive. Other games, such as A Kingdom for Keflings, UNO, Hardwood Hearts, and Hardwood Spades -- which are only available for downloading from the Xbox Live arcade -- allow the user to put his or her avatar into the game action.
The Xbox is also opening to community-created games. A Community Games channel on Xbox Live will offer titles from third-party creators.
Microsoft is also touting its relationships with a variety of major studios that will offer feature films on the Xbox in the U.S., Canada, Italy and Spain. The company said this will transform "Xbox 360 into the world's largest online entertainment center."
The New Xbox Experience is also launching two new games.
One is Lips, which the company said "is the only singing...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Yahoo Could Thrive -- or Be Swallowed by Microsoft
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63112
It comes as little surprise to analysts who have been watching the Yahoo drama unfold over the past six months. CEO Jerry Yang, 40, is stepping down and the company is hunting for a new chief who can pull the Internet company up by its billion-dollar bootstraps and compete with Google.
Yang, Yahoo's cofounder, will return to his former role as chief yahoo and continue to serve on the board. Right now, he seems to be a scapegoat for Yahoo's woes -- but are those really his fault, or was Yang set up from the start?
"It wasn't that long ago that Jerry Yang was adamant that he was exactly what the company needed to drive Yahoo through turbulent times. But he was also adamant against the merger with Microsoft that would have brought in millions of dollars to shareholders," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "When that didn't materialize, in no small part to your influence, it's a problem."
That wasn't Yang's only problem. Yahoo's search-advertising deal with Google that went up in flames was perhaps the fatal blow. Despite Yang's quarterly promises that positive results were forthcoming, Gartenberg speculated, eventually the market said "enough." Whether Yang realized it himself, or the board helped him see it, Gartenberg said someone finally decided Yang was not the best person to run the company.
"It was a strange fit to put Yang in as CEO in the first place. He's done some amazing things in his life, but presiding over a multi-billion organization as a chief executive was not something that his background would have suggested that he was going to be capable of," Gartenberg said. "I think history will prove that correct."
Yahoo board Chairman Roy Bostock, however, doesn't see Yang as the scapegoat -- at least...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
IBM To Buy Virtualization-Software Company Transitive
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63111
IBM plans to buy Transitive to help its customers cut costs. Big Blue announced Tuesday that it will acquire the Los Gatos, Calif.-based virtualization-software company for an undisclosed amount.
Since January, IBM has been using Transitive's technology in its IBM PowerVMTM software, which consolidates customers' Linux workloads onto IBM systems.
"IBM is focused on helping customers achieve the most pressing goals of today's environment, reducing costs, streamlining infrastructures, and quickly integrating the merging entities," said IBM Systems and Technology Group spokesperson Richard Bause. "Being able to move workloads onto IBM systems without recompiling allows customers to save on energy costs due to hardware consolidation and reduced TCO."
IBM has no current plans to relocate Transitive employees located in California and in Manchester, United Kingdom, Bause said. After closing the deal, however, the company will likely move the California personnel to one of IBM's local sites while its research and development team remains in the U.K.
Transitive has sold more than 10 million copies of its cross-platform virtualization technology and has 48 patents. Its product, QuickTransit, allows software applications that have been compiled for one operating system run on systems with different processors or operating systems without modifications, according to Transitive.
Transitive's technology is based on research developed at Manchester University in 1992. The company was founded five years later by Alasdair Rawsthorne, a computer-science lecturer, and a team of his graduate students to bring QuickTransit to market. In 2005 the company signed its first major customer -- Apple.
Apple and Silicon Graphics, along with IBM, are Transitive's OEM customers. The company has been providing QuickTransit technology to run Apple's Rosetta translation software and the product is shipped on all of Apple's Intel-based computers.
The acquisition of Transitive comes three months after IBM announced it would acquire France-based ILOG, a provider of optimization and...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Psystar Loses Antitrust Shield in Mac Clone Battle
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63110
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed charges from Mac clone maker Psystar accusing Apple of running a monopoly. Psystar sued Apple in U.S. District Court claiming violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act.
The Doral, Fla.-based Psystar accused Apple of forcing a tie between the Mac OS X operating system and Apple's hardware in the end-user licensing agreement. Psystar argued that Apple's EULA unlawfully restrained trade by barring users from installing its operating system on non-Apple hardware.
Psystar sells computers that run Apple's operating system for a fraction of the cost of Apple computers.
Judge William Alsup ruled that Apple did not violate federal and state antitrust laws. Psystar's claim did not meet the requirements of law, the judge said.
"Indeed, Psystar's allegations are internally contradictory. Psystar alleges that Mac OS is, by definition, an independent and unique market. That is, Mac OS, by definition, admits no reasonable substitutes," Judge Alsup wrote in his ruling.
"Psystar further avers, however, that Apple engages in the alleged anticompetitive conduct 'in order to protect its valuable monopoly in the Mac OS market and, by extension, Apple-labeled computer hardware systems from potential competitive threats,'" the judge wrote, "and that Apple's 'unreasonable restraints on trade allow Apple to maintain its monopoly position with respect to the Mac OS and Apple-labeled computer hardware systems submarket.'"
Ilan Barzilay, an intellectual-property attorney at Wolf Greenfield in Boston, wasn't surprised by the judge's ruling. The critical determination in any antitrust claim is the definition of the market, he explained. Antitrust plaintiffs want to define the market as narrowly as they can and the defendant wants to define it broadly. Psystar failed to define it narrowly.
"Psystar's only way of succeeding was to define the market as Apple products because Apple owns less than 10 percent of...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Netbook Invasion Pinches Laptop Sales
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63103
As Brian Pelowski shopped for a new computer for his wife, who's working on her doctorate in developmental psychology, he wanted a machine that was lightweight and low-priced. So he opted for a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook instead of a higher-end laptop. "She walks to school and can stick this in her big sidebag without it taking up a lot of room or killing her shoulder," Pelowski explains. "We also didn't want to spend a ton of money."
Neither do the millions of other people who this year are expected to buy netbooks, a relatively new family of inexpensive, pint-sized, Web-connected computers. Rising demand for any tech gear is welcome at a time when recession is forcing consumers to refrain from all but the most essential purchases, but the enthusiasm is tempered at the computer manufacturers whose sales will be pinched as buyers opt for a netbook in place of a full-featured laptop that can cost more than three times as much.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. PC makers surmised that netbooks would complement bigger PCs. They would appeal to weary business travelers, for example, who wanted to get online and send e-mail from a hotel room. But in many cases, consumers are opting for netbooks in place of laptops, PC manufacturers say. Jackie Hsu, president of the Americas division of laptop and netbook maker Asus, estimates that 10 percent to 20 percent of netbook buyers would have bought a more expensive laptop or desktop if netbooks weren't available.
Sumit Agnihotry, director of notebook product marketing for Acer America, places cannibalization at 8 percent to 10 percent. And since netbooks are generally less profitable than their bigger cousins, manufacturers will have to make up much of the sales difference through higher volume sales of netbooks. Users are expected...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Zune Could Lend Microsoft a Rare Rhythm Infusion
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63101
A video for the title track on hip-hop veteran Common's forthcoming album, "Universal Mind Control," begins with a digital music player pulsing to the beat. The viewer is pulled through the screen into the gadget's guts, where the cool, collected rapper lets loose an easy stream of lyrics.
It takes hitting rewind a few times to notice that the music player isn't one of Apple's slim new iPods. It's a Zune, and it's made by Microsoft Corp.
Since it first landed two years ago, the Zune has been the butt of many jokes, like how its wireless music sharing feature would be great, if only a second person would buy one. But while Apple Inc. has counted on the sex appeal of its ever-thinner devices to keep consumers turned on, the Zune team has been beefing up its software and courting artists like Common, a dashing MC with mainstream appeal who might just help make Zune -- dare we say it? -- cool.
The relationship between Zune and Common began last summer, when the rapper performed a set at a Microsoft-organized concert in Los Angeles. Zune sponsored Common's latest tour and is kicking in posters, T-shirts and other materials to promote the new album, though Microsoft says it didn't pay extra to place a Zune in Common's music video. Now, the Chicago rapper on Monday became the latest face in Zune's national TV ad campaign. Neither side disclosed financial terms.
In an interview, Common described Zune as "progressive, fresh, innovative," a far cry from critics' refrain that it's an also-ran in a race iPod has already won. When he's pressed to explain, it becomes clear that Common is hooked less on the device than the way the Zune's software makes connections between artists, turning up new sounds for him to explore.
In the Zune program...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
HP Shares Soar After Solid Fourth-Quarter Outlook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63096
Hewlett-Packard Co. surprised Wall Street on Tuesday by saying its earnings will be slightly above analysts' expectations, going against the grain as other technology bellwethers have slashed forecasts and posted weak results in the sagging economy.
Its shares climbed more than 12 percent in morning trading.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printer maker expects earnings of 84 cents per share and adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share for the three months ended in October. This is slightly better than the $1 per share, excluding items, that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are expecting.
HP forecast revenue of $33.6 million, just ahead of analysts' expectations of $33.09 billion.
The company, which plans to release full quarterly results on Nov. 24, said in a statement that it was benefiting from "global reach, diverse customer base, broad portfolio and numerous cost initiatives."
HP's $13.9 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp., completed in August, boosted the quarter's revenue, which grew 19 percent year-over-year -- or 16 percent when adjusted for the effects of changing currency exchange rates. Without counting EDS, HP's revenue grew 5 percent, or 2 percent when adjusted for currency effects.
HP's solid guidance comes as many other bellwethers in the technology sector are hunkering down because consumers are businesses are putting off spending on PCs and other equipment. Research firm IDC recently cut its prediction for growth in worldwide information technology spending to 2.6 percent in 2009, down from its earlier forecast of a 5.9 percent increase.
Cisco Systems Inc. warned this month that orders for its computer networking gear fell abruptly in October, and said it expects sales to fall in the current quarter. Intel Corp., the world's No. 1 chip maker, cut its fourth-quarter profit and revenue forecast last week because of lower demand.
Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey said HP's disclosure reflects the company's...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
China and India: New Innovation and Talent Forces
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63093
Most people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West think of China and India largely as sources for inexpensive products and services. Few know that China, India, and other developing countries are taking center stage in the global war for innovation and talent.
Consider some important benchmarks: Scientists and engineers in China, India, and Russia are now producing an estimated 150,000 scientific and technical papers annually, more than many Western European nations. According to a Thomson Reuters review of 8,700 research journals worldwide, U.S. scientists led all others with slightly more than 25 percent of the total. Japan and Germany were next, with about 6.5 percent each, followed by France, Britain, and China, at 6 percent each. Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the so-called BRIC countries, produced more than 10 percent of the total -- a number that is growing. If current trends continue, the developing countries could reach U.S. levels in fewer than 10 years.
The rapidly developing economies also now claim an estimated two-thirds of all engineers, a vital talent pool, while many Western countries face talent scarcities. Asian scientists and students are returning home from the West in record numbers -- with those numbers increasing at approximately 13 percent per year. China and India are investing heavily in research and development, with China alone spending $136 billion on R&D in 2007, second only to the U.S. and ahead of Japan.
China and India also now boast some of the world's top science and research universities, including the seven-campus Indian Institutes of Technology as well as Beijing's Tsinghua University, which has more than 2,400 alumni in Silicon Valley alone. These trends have helped many Chinese and Indian companies aggregate a critical mass of talent, which is having a profound impact on their ability to innovate and compete in the global...
Thu, 20 Nov 08
Top 10 Security Tips for Computer Users
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63014
It has been reported that U.S. consumers lost almost $8.5 billion dollars over the past two years to e-threats. In response to this, BitDefender has released its top ten tips to secure computers against spam, viruses, phishing and spyware.
1. Don't assume anything. Take some time to learn about securing your system.
2. Acquire and use a reliable antivirus (AV) program. Select one with a consistent track record. Checkmark, AV-Test.org and TuV are among the most respected independent testers of AV software.
3. Acquire and use a reliable firewall solution. Again, independent reviewers are the best sources of information. Some operating systems come with a firewall which only filters incoming traffic. Use a firewall that can control both incoming and outgoing Internet traffic.
4. Do not open emails from unknown or distrusted sources. Many viruses spread via email messages so ask for a confirmation from the sender if you are in doubt.
5. Do not open attachments of messages with suspicious or unexpected subject lines. If you want to open them, first save them to your hard disk and scan them with an up-to-date antivirus program.
6. Delete any chain emails or unwanted messages. Do no forward them or reply to their senders. These kinds of messages are considered spam because they are undesired and unsolicited and they can overload the Internet traffic.
7. Avoid installing services and applications which are not needed in day-to-day operations in a desktop role -- such as file transfer and file sharing servers. Such programs are potential hazards and should not be installed unless absolutely necessary.
8. Update your system and applications as often as possible. Some operating systems and applications can be set to update automatically. Make full use of this facility. Failure to patch your system often enough may leave it vulnerable to threats for which fixes already exist.
9....
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Nvidia To Launch Tesla Personal Supercomputer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63109
Nvidia on Tuesday announced a personal supercomputer that delivers the computing power of a cluster at 1/100th of the price and in the form of a standard desktop workstation. It is working with partners to release the GPU-based Tesla Personal Supercomputer.
Supercomputers, shared resources that consume hundreds of kilowatts of power and cost millions of dollars to build and maintain, are typically used to carry out scientific research. Nvidia is bringing this power to the desktop.
The Tesla computers are available from a number of vendors, including Dell, Lenovo, Microway, Tycrid, Unitcom, Viglen and Western Scientific.
"We've all heard 'desktop supercomputer' claims in the past, but this time it's for real," said Burton Smith, a Microsoft technical fellow. "Nvidia and its partners will be delivering outstanding performance and broad applicability to the mainstream marketplace. Heterogeneous computing, where GPUs work in tandem with CPUs, is what makes such a breakthrough possible."
At the heart of the personal supercomputer is the Tesla C1060 GPU Computing Processor, based on the Nvidia CUDA parallel-computing architecture. CUDA lets developers and researchers harness the massively parallel computational power of Tesla through industry standard C.
"GPUs have evolved to the point where many real-world applications are easily implemented on them and run significantly faster than on multi-core systems," said Prof. Jack Dongarra, director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee. "Future computing architectures will be hybrid systems with parallel-core GPUs working in tandem with multi-core CPUs."
MIT, the Max Planck Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cambridge University, and others are actively advancing research using GPU-based personal supercomputers.
"GPU-based systems enable us to run life-science codes in minutes rather than the hours it took earlier," said Jack Collins, manager of scientific computing and program development at the Advanced Biomedical Computing Center. "This exceptional speedup has the ability to...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Facebook Charges Developers for Seal of Approval
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63108
Facebook has added yet another change to the way it does business -- resulting in a slew of angry developers and users.
The social-networking Web site on Tuesday announced a new application-verification program, an optional new system that will give registered application developers a seal of approval -- for a fee.
The move has made developers angry, with some posting their disappointment on Facebook's developer forum. Many developers believe the program is genius, but the fee that comes with the seal of approval is what has them angry.
Facebook's program will give developers a way to have their applications stand out and will offer users the knowledge that an application has been verified by the company.
Verified applications will appear with a verification badge or seal of approval, signifying that the application is respectful, transparent and that it met Facebook's "guiding principles for trustworthiness" requirements.
Developers get increased allocations for requests, notifications and e-mails; increased visibility for news-feed stories; a $100 credit in Facebook advertising; and discounted registrations fees to events such as Facebook's F8 Developer Conference.
Verified applications will be popping up and made available to users early next year, according to the company.
Facebook did not return requests seeking comment in time for publication.
So what's not to like about this new system? A lot, according to developers.
Each time a developer submits an application for verification, he or she must also include a $375 payment to cover the costs associated with the review process, according to Facebook. Developers must also pay a renewal fee of $375 once the one-month seal of approval expires.
"What happened to never charging your users to access Facebook? I mean, if you're going to implement something that will hinder an app if it's not part of, I'd call that charging us to access something. Just...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
National Geographic Launches Video-Game Division
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63107
National Geographic on Tuesday announced a new twist for the science and educational organization -- video games.
National Geographic Games (NGG) will publish and develop games across major gaming console, handheld, online and mobile platforms. National Geographic also said it will work with premier game publishers and developers to create games based on its core themes and media properties.
The goal is to extend National Geographic's mission of inspiring people to care about the planet and reach a new generation of consumers and families.
"This is a combination of what I call the mainstreamization of video games," said Michael Cai, a video-game analyst at Parks Associates. "Many different types of media companies and household brands are leveraging video games to a certain degree, whether it's driving people to their portals or using video games as an advertising vehicle."
National Geographic will have some help producing games that carry its name. NGG announced partnerships with Namco Bandai Games America and Sony Computer Entertainment to publish and distribute National Geographic-branded titles on major gaming consoles and handheld devices, including the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS handheld, PlayStation 3 and PS3 Network, PCs and mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone.
"National Geographic Games has brought authenticity to the kind of family gaming we're developing with them," said Andrew Lelchuk, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Namco. "Our collaboration is enabling us to tailor the content, so we can offer games to our customers that are relevant, entertaining and that bring a unique experience only the National Geographic brand can deliver."
National Geographic is first introducing its own Herod's Lost Tomb, which highlights content from the December 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine as well as its National Geographic Channel feature broadcast on the biblical figure King Herod, architect of the ancient world. The game...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Intel Unleashes Fast Core i7 Processor for Desktops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63106
Intel has rolled out the first iterations of its highly anticipated Core i7 processor. Available at prices starting at $284, the new chips for desktop PCs sport new technologies to boost performance on demand while maximizing data throughput.
"Intel has delivered the fastest desktop processor on Earth to the most demanding users on Earth, the ones who are using their PCs for video, gaming and music," said Intel Senior Vice President Patrick Gelsinger. "When you couple what is Intel's biggest leap in chip design with other incredible innovations like Intel's solid-state drives, the Core i7 processor has redefined the computer of tomorrow."
Sporting 731 million transistors and four cores, the new processor features an 8MB, Level 3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory. The Core i7 is specifically designed to speed multimedia tasks such as video editing and immersive 3-D gaming by up to 40 percent, Intel said.
The turbo-boost technology in the new chips automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four processing cores for running single- and multi-threaded applications without demanding a comparable boost in power consumption. Desktop PCs running the new chip can now enter into power-saving sleep states formerly reserved for Intel-based notebooks.
The Core i7 also integrates a sophisticated on-die power control unit that functions in tandem with power-gate transistors placed between each core and the power supply that feeds it. The transistors function as integrated switches to bring the power consumption of each core down to zero when not in use.
Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology enables multiple computing threads to run simultaneously, effectively enabling each processor core to perform two tasks at once. What's more, new quickpath technology assigns an integrated memory controller and high-speed interconnect to each processor core so that the available interconnect bandwidth can be dynamically...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Comcast Offering 50 Mbps in Next-Generation Network
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63089
With broadband Internet access encompassing much of the country, Comcast announced Monday that it is joining a trend to wideband. The company said it will launch its next-generation DOCSIS 3.0 network in Oregon and southwest Washington with download speeds up to 50 megabits per second.
The service will be made available next month for homes and businesses. The company said the new wideband service's Extreme 50 tier will offer the 50 Mbps speed, and that, with the new system, the majority of existing high-speed Internet customers will have their regular access speeds doubled at no additional cost.
Customers currently in the company's Performance Plus tier will be upgraded to double their download speeds to up to 16 Mbps and their upload speeds to as much as two Mbps.
Curt Henninger, senior vice president of Comcast for that region, said that even these blazing speeds "are only a preview of what's to come." In the future, he said, the company will have the capability to deliver speeds in excess of 160 Mbps.
Residences will be offered two new premium speed tiers. Extreme 50, with 50 Mbps down and up to 10 Mbps upstream, will be available at $139.95 per month. The other tier, called Ultra, will provide 22 Mbps downstream and up to five Mbps upstream for $62.95 monthly.
Comcast said in the Extreme 50 tier, customers can download a 6GB high-definition full-length movie in about 16 minutes, a standard-definition movie of about 2GB in about five minutes, and a standard-definition TV show of about 300MB in seconds.
The new business-class tiers will include the Deluxe 50 Mbps downstream/10 Mbps upstream service for $189.95. Customers in this tier also are offered a variety of added features and support, such as corporate-class e-mail, calendar, document sharing, firewall protection, static IP addresses, multiple...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Google's Voice-Search App for iPhone Needs Refining
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63088
The much-anticipated Google voice-search application for Apple's iPhone, which was trumpeted to be available for download on Friday, has arrived on Apple's App Store a bit later than expected. A reviewer says the application is okay, but needs some fine-tuning.
Called Google Mobile App, it allows users to search the Web by voice and finally debuted late Monday. "Companies announce iPhone apps all of the time, and sometimes they make it through in a timely manner and sometimes it is delayed," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia.
iPhone owners need not press the touchscreen or type, just wait for a beep and say what they are searching for, according to Google. Another way to start a voice search is by tapping the microphone. If you're in a meeting and can't talk, Google Mobile App also allows you to type a search question.
The app has a personalized search-location feature which recognizes where you are when requesting a search. To use this feature, however, users must enable location services on the iPhone and allow Google Mobile App to use the location.
Glitches appeared not just in the app's availability, but also in its features.
"This is not exactly brand-new," Gartenberg said. "It mostly works, but my experience with it was that it generated errors and that voice recognition is not quite there yet, but it does show what is possible."
Asked if Google and Apple rolled out the app prematurely, Gartenberg said, "I think it is working well enough to be out and this is not a problem, but I'd expect it to be refined."
Apple and Google get a lot of attention when they roll out new products, but put the two together in the same sentence and the attention jumps tenfold. For this reason the companies gained a...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Jerry Yang Resigns, Yahoo Searching for a New CEO
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63087
Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang has resigned his role as CEO and Yahoo's board has initiated a search for his successor. Yang will return to his former role as chief yahoo as soon as the board finds a replacement. He will continue to serve on the board.
Yahoo's stock price rose with the announcement and was trading at $11.35 at mid-afternoon Tuesday, up from Monday's $10.63 close.
The 40-year-old Yang stepped into the CEO role at the board's request in June 2007 to lead the company through a strategic repositioning and transformation of its platform.
Yang said since he cofounded Yahoo and guided its growth into a trusted global brand, he has sought to do what is best for the Internet search giant. So when the board asked him to become CEO, Yang said, he accepted because it was important to revision the business for a different era.
"Having set Yahoo on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader," Yang said. "I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation."
In conjunction with the independent directors and in consultation with Yang, Chairman Roy Bostock is leading the process of vetting potential candidates and selecting finalists to become the troubled company's next CEO. The company said the board will consider both internal and external candidates and has retained Heidrick & Struggles, a leading international executive search firm, to assist.
"Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues,"...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Student's Trial Delayed in Palin Hacking Case
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63079
The complexity of a computer crime trumped the need for a speedy trial Friday in the case of the son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker charged with breaking into the e-mail account of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley agreed to a joint request from prosecutors and defense attorneys for more time to prepare for the trial of University of Tennessee student David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville.
"A lot of this is in computer language that a lot of lawyers couldn't just read and get," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle.
Kernell, charged with one count of tapping into the Alaska governor's e-mail in September, was moved from next month to April 20. The son of longtime state Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, chairman of Tennessee's House Government Operations Committee, faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
In court, Kernell was asked if he understood he was giving up his right a speedy trial.
"Yes, sir. I understand," the economics major told the magistrate.
Kernell's attorney, Wade Davies, contends the government has wrongly combined two similar misdemeanors to form a felony charge, and says because of that, the case should be thrown out.
While computer "hacking" is slang without legal definition, Davies also objects to prosecutors using it to describe his client because of the "negative connotations." He says hacking implies "the use of sophisticated means of specialized computer skills." What his client did was more like "guessing three security questions based on readily available information from public sources."
Kernell turned himself in the same day his indictment was unsealed in October. He pleaded not guilty and has been released on several conditions, including staying away from his computer except for school work.
The indictment said Kernell tapped into the Alaska governor's widely publicized Yahoo! e-mail account by correctly answering...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Once Greeted Warmly, Google Wears Out Welcome
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63065
When Google began hiring in Zurich for its new engineering center in 2004, local officials welcomed the U.S. company with open arms. Google's arrival is still bearing fruit for Zurich: 450 employees, about 300 of them engineers, work in Google's seven-story complex in a converted brewery on the outskirts of the placid mountain metropolis.
But almost five years into its expansion into Europe -- where it has a headquarters in Dublin, large facilities in Zurich and London and smaller centers in Denmark, Russia and Poland, among other countries -- Google is beginning to bump up against a web of privacy laws that threaten its growth and the positive image it has cultivated as a company dedicated to doing good -- its unofficial motto.
In Switzerland, data protection officials are quietly pressing Google to scrap plans to introduce Street View, a mapping service that provides a vivid, 360-degree, ground-level photographic panorama from any address. Swiss privacy law prohibits the unauthorized use of personal images or property.
In Germany, where Street View is also not available, the simple process of taking photographs for the service violates privacy laws.
"The privacy issue will likely become increasingly important for Google as it continues to offer new services in Europe," said Dirk Lewandowski, a professor of information sciences at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg and an expert on search engine technology. "For the moment, most consumers are not aware their data is being used by Google in some fashion. But I think as people become aware of this, there could be protests that Google will have to address."
The conflict does not end with Street View, which so far in Europe depicts only major cities in France, Spain and Italy.
Data protection advisers to the European Commission in Brussels are questioning Google about how long the company retains user...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Green at the Heart of Panasonic's Bid for Sanyo
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63061
Panasonic Corp.'s plans to take over rival Sanyo Electric Co. would create the world's second-largest electronics maker. But Panasonic already has plenty of gadgets. Instead, the crown jewels Panasonic wants from Sanyo are green.
The ability to acquire Sanyo's two green-energy pillars, solar cell technology and rechargeable batteries, are what drove Panasonic to announce this month it would negotiate a deal with Sanyo's main stockholders, Goldman Sachs Inc., Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Co. Analysts expect the price to be 500 billion to 850 billion yen ($5 billion to $8.5 billion).
"We need another engine for growth," Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo told reporters, acknowledging that plunging gadget prices were eating away at electronics profits. "We need another pillar for far greater growth. And Sanyo was that best partner."
While Sanyo's solar panels are being used to generate electricity for homes and businesses -- and are presumably going to enjoy higher demand because of climate-change fears -- Panasonic does not have a solar panel operation.
Sanyo also leads in rechargeable batteries, widely used in laptops and mobile phones. Their uses are expected to grow in cars, such as hybrids and electric vehicles, as emissions standards tighten. Panasonic makes batteries for Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles, but picking up Sanyo would be key because it supplies batteries for Volkswagen AG, Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co.
About half of Sanyo's revenue in the first half of this fiscal year came from a category it calls components, including semiconductors, rechargeable batteries and solar technologies. Yet about 94 percent of its operating profit came from that sector. Sanyo lost money in its consumer electronics division.
Credit Suisse analyst Koya Tabata cautions that the green business is a long-term investment. But he sees it as the main positive reason for Panasonic to buy Sanyo, because it is still a...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Netbooks Are Coming into Their Own
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62984
Somewhere between the laptop and the smart phone, the computer industry has long believed there could be a small, low-cost device that would please consumers and sell well.
The device would be more versatile than, say, an iPhone, but much cheaper and more portable than, say, a ThinkPad. The trouble is, every attempt to create such a category of computer has met with failure - until now.
This year, that in-between type of computer now called a "netbook" has finally caught on. Since I reviewed a pioneering model, the 7-inch, $300 Asus Eee PC in January, the market has been flooded with new and better, if somewhat more expensive, netbook models. Nearly every company - from big names such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, to obscure ones such as MSI - has jumped into the fray.
Netbooks still constitute a smaller niche than laptops and the exploding smart phone, or hand-held computer, category. But they are threatening to break into the mainstream in a big way, especially in an economic climate in which a low price and fewer bells and whistles are suddenly more attractive.
They are much more portable than most standard laptops. They are easier to use on a plane or carry around town. And they are way cheaper, between $300 and $500, than the lightest, thinnest standard laptops, which often top $1,000.
Compared with even an amazingly powerful pocket device, like the iPhone, the Google G1, or the forthcoming BlackBerry Storm, a netbook, at about twice the price, offers a much larger keyboard and screen. And they can run far more sophisticated software and perform a much wider variety of computing tasks.
But netbooks come with serious compromises. While they are great for light use on the go, their cramped screens and keyboards, and slow processors, make them...
Wed, 19 Nov 08
Georgia Town Advances Cell-Phone Parking Payments
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62983
Mayor William Floyd pulled up to a parking space, dialed a number into his cell phone and watched as two hours of paid time flashed on the meter in front of his car.
And with that, the Atlanta suburb launched one of the nation's first pay-by-phone parking systems, part of a strategy designed to encourage more turnover and ultimately more revenue.
For the last year, Decatur has used a system from StreetSmart Technology LLC that uses sensors to detect whether a car has moved. This blocks drivers from plopping in more coins when the two-hour time limit runs out. It also connects parking attendants to a database that alerts them when meters expire -- or points them toward drivers parked in spaces without paying.
Decatur ramped up its efforts Tuesday with the pay-by-cell system, which let drivers call a local number plastered on each meter. After entering the parking space number, they get a text message with a Web site address to create an account using a credit card. Once an account is created, drivers can just call the number each time to draw down their account.
A handful of other cities around the nation employ similar systems. But Decatur is the first that uses technology that flashes the time bought on a meter instead of, say, a printed ticket, said Eric Groft, a StreetSmart project manager.
To entice drivers to use the system, the city is offering the first two hours of pay-by-cell parking for free. After that, it will charge cell phone users an additional 25-cent transaction fee.
About 50 of Decatur's 385 meters are outfitted with the pay-by-cell equipment, which costs an estimated $200 per meter. Each is outfitted with radios that can transmit data and sensors for detecting cars. It also lets drivers pay the old-fashioned way using change.
Parking monitors seem especially...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Mark Cuban Charged with Insider Trading
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63086
The anything-but-average Mark Cuban is in the spotlight -- again. But this time, it's not for his vocal behavior during basketball games.
The serial entrepreneur and business tycoon, who currently owns the Dallas Mavericks and is one of the finalists to buy the Chicago Cubs, is in hot water for insider trading, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has filed a civil lawsuit against Cuban.
Cuban, a billionaire who started his career selling local-area network and connectivity products, may be ending his career because he tried to avoid $750,000 in stock losses. The SEC is charging Cuban with insider trading based on knowledge he had about Internet search company Mamma.com (now Copernic).
In June 2004, Cuban was contacted by Mamma.com's chief executive and told in confidence about a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, offering, according to court documents. Cuban was angry about the PIPE offering and said, "Well, now I'm screwed, I can't sell."
The information was supposed to be kept confidential by Cuban, but he sold all his shares the next day.
Scott Friestad, deputy director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said Cuban promised to keep the information private, but instead, four hours later, he sold all his shares.
"As we said, it is our position that it is fundamentally unfair for people to use their access to nonpublic information for personal gain," said Friestad.
Cuban sold 600,000 shares in the company and would have lost $750,000 if he had not sold the stock, according to Friestad.
Cuban responded Monday on his official blog. "I wish I could say more, but I will have to leave it at this and let the judicial process do its job," he wrote, and then referred to a prepared statement: "I am disappointed that the commission chose to bring this case...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
AT&T's Samsung Eternity Supports Mobile TV
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63085
AT&T and Samsung on Monday introduced the Samsung Eternity, yet another touchscreen phone. The differentiator is that the phone supports AT&T Mobile TV, and the wireless carrier is offering a 30-day free trial for new subscribers.
The black-and-chrome device has a 3.2-inch touchscreen and haptic support that vibrates to confirm selections on the touchscreen.
Three dedicated keys on the lower portion of the device streamline navigation. The phone also supports an accelerometer that automatically detects the device's motion and the orientation. That makes it possible for users to tap into capabilities like autorotation of the display, motion-sensing games, and photo scrolling by tilting the device.
"Eternity can provide endless entertainment options for AT&T customers," said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices for AT&T's mobility and consumer operations. "Our customers are looking for mobile phones to be a remote control for their life, bringing music, the Internet, GPS navigation, and even TV with them on the go."
Samsung characterizes the Eternity as a multimedia-rich device. It offers a full QWERTY keypad that lets customers tap into the mobile broadband Web on AT&T's 3G network. Customers can also wield the AT&T Navigator, listen to AT&T Mobile Music with Napster Mobile, and take pictures with a three-megapixel camera.
"This is a touchscreen feature phone -- it is not a smartphone," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. "That means while it has a great mobile-TV features it won't synchronize your calendar or contacts and it can't be expanded to do new things in the way that the iPhone or the G1 or even a Windows Mobile smartphone can be."
Eternity users will get instant access to continuous streaming television content and sporting events from top networks, including programming from leading entertainment brands CBS Mobile, CNBC, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX News, FOX Mobile,...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Gadget Glitches Frustrate Technology Consumers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63084
It's no longer about homeowners frustrated with simple things like stringing up lights during the holidays. Instead, problems with the latest technology devices are perplexing nearly half of consumers.
According to a Princeton study commissioned by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, nearly half of all consumers -- 48 percent -- need assistance with a new technological device, such as a cellular phone or the Internet. The study surveyed more than 2,000 individuals over the age of 18.
From the time we wake until we settle in for the night, we have our hands on technical devices. In the morning, we may start our day using an iPod while at the gym. Later, we use the Internet to check our e-mail from iPhones, BlackBerry smartphones, laptops or home computers. Throughout the day, we use some of these same devices while at work or at our home office, and then again at the end of the evening.
Although fixing these products was frustrating for 59 percent of those surveyed -- and 48 percent felt discouraged, while 40 percent felt confused -- a whopping 72 percent felt confident that they were on the right track when fixing whatever problem was upsetting them at the time, according to the report.
While most of these devices are "wired" differently, the study also found differences in how males and females are wired.
While a high percentage of men (33 percent) were more likely to fix their gadgets themselves compared to women (22 percent), more women (18 percent) compared to men (12 percent) asked for help.
Seventy-six percent of male respondents were more likely to be confident about the problem, compared to 68 percent of women. Still, men were no less likely than women to report being confused, discouraged or impatient during the time...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Adobe Will Launch Upgrades To Flash Platform
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63083
Adobe Systems is poised to launch several key enhancements to its Adobe Flash platform in San Francisco this week at its MAX 2008 conference.
Any major upgrade to Flash is significant because 81 percent of worldwide online videos are viewed with Flash technology, making it the number-one format for video on the Web, according to comScore. Adobe's Flash Player is also installed on 98 percent of Internet-connected desktops and a growing number of mobile devices.
"Adobe Flash technology has empowered the developer community to revolutionize the Web and how we interact with it," said Adobe Vice President David Wadhwani. "The Adobe Flash platform continues to evolve, providing everything companies need to rapidly design and develop compelling business-critical applications, interactive Web content, and dynamic video that will reach users across the entire Web."
Flash has been tightly integrated with Creative Suite 4 -- Adobe's popular design and development software for handling creative work flows. Developers use the enhanced platform's upgraded tools, frameworks, clients and servers to develop Web applications, content and video that run consistently across operating systems and devices.
Available immediately in a preview release, the platform's Flex Builder upgrade provides designers with data-centric capabilities for creating rich Internet applications. Moreover, Flex Builder's capabilities are further enhanced by Flash Catalyst, which Adobe intends to release as a public beta in early 2009.
Previously code-named Thermo, Flash Catalyst will enable artwork from Creative Suite 4 to be imported with full fidelity and quickly converted into dynamic components such as buttons, scroll bars, and input fields. When used in tandem with Adobe Flex Builder, Flash Catalyst will enhance developer productivity by enabling design and development work to proceed in parallel.
Flash Catalyst will permit developers to publish projects that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems. Finished projects are published directly to...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Video-Game Consoles Weather Economic Storm
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63082
The economy may be slowing, but the video-game industry seems to be wearing its bulletproof vest -- with the notable exception of Sony.
According to the NPD Group, sales of U.S. video games and hardware rose 18 percent from the year-ago period. Specifically, hardware sales were up five percent to $494.7 million.
"In the U.S., third-quarter total industry unit sales grew eight percent versus 2007, even as the economy showed accelerating signs of recession," said Anita Frazier, an NPD analyst.
"As would be expected at this point in the console life cycle, games sales are starting to take the spotlight even as the average retail prices of games increased slightly," she continued. "Heading into the critical fourth quarter, the U.S. game industry is on solid ground."
In down markets, video-game consoles tend to maintain their sales strength, largely because gaming consoles are perceived as high-value purchases, according to Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia.
"When there is a downturn in the economy, often that's when consumers spend their money on in-home entertainment," Gartenberg said. "It's for the same reason that game consoles sell well in lower-income households."
Nintendo led the way once again with its Wii console. Nintendo sold 803,000 Wii units in October, up from 687,000 in September. In all, Nintendo has sold more than 13 million units since it debuted in November 2006 -- and might have sold more if it hadn't seen widespread shortages of the console.
"With the Wii, the perception is that this console is not only going to be valued by the gamer in the family, but it's going to have appeal to lots of family members beyond the hard-core gamers," Gartenberg said. "That helps drive adoption."
Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console sold 371,000 units in October, just...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Asian Pirates Are Producing Counterfeit Blu-ray Movies
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63077
Asian pirates are producing counterfeit copies of copyrighted Blu-ray Disc videos. A recent raid on counterfeiters in southern China has prompted the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to warn consumers about counterfeit movies.
Pirates are using software to create imitation Blu-ray disks with a format called AVCHD, which allows both high-definition and standard-definition recording. The format is used in tapeless camcorders that record onto DVD and Blu-ray disks. For high definition, all major variations are supported, including 720p, 1080i and 1080p.
Victims may not be able to tell the difference between real Blu-ray disks and the counterfeit versions.
The Blu-ray Disc Association added several layers of protection to disks, but some hackers claim to have cracked the codes. Last year, an employee at Slysoft Software said he had cracked BD+ and posted this message: "Note to Twentieth Century Fox: as you can see, BD+ didn't offer you any advanced security, it just annoyed some of your customers with older players."
The association's Advanced Access Content System (AACS) helps control the use of digital media and is more advanced than the encryption for standard DVDs. Blu-ray disks also use BD-ROM mark and BD+ layers of protection. The ROM mark embeds a unique mark and undetectable identifier and can only be copied with equipment licensed to BD-ROM manufacturers.
In 2007 alone, the MPAA assisted authorities in the Asia-Pacific region in investigating more than 36,000 cases of piracy. It also helped in 13,000 raids resulting in the seizure of more than 31 million illegal optical disks, 40 factory optical-disk production lines, and nearly 7,000 disk burners, according to the MPAA. Around the world, the MPAA seized 118 million illegal optical disks.
The MPAA estimates that member companies, including Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers, lose about $1.2 billion each year in potential revenue...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Google's Voice-Search App Is Slow in Arriving
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63060
The hype machine was churning Friday when The New York Times and others noted that Google had offered its voice-recognition technology to Apple's iPhone before its own Android mobile platform.
While Google employees even posed for photos showing an iPhone running its voice-search app, the free application the world expected to appear on Apple's App Store still hadn't shown up as of Monday morning.
So instead of reviews about Google's app, there's speculation about what's taking Apple so long to get the app posted so iPhone users can begin downloading and using it.
"We're seeing so much talk about the application not being available partly because Google got so much press," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia. "But Google is the one that said it was going to be available on Friday. Apple's process moves as fast as Apple's process moves."
Apple wasn't immediately available for comment. Presumably, Apple didn't complete its review of Google's app in time to meet hyped expectations.
"What I think is interesting about all of this is that it doesn't make a difference if you are Google or a small developer," Gartenberg said. "You still have to go through the certification process before the application gets put out there to ensure it's going to do what it's supposed to do."
Some news headlines have suggested that Apple "forgot" to add the Google application to the App Store. Gartenberg, however, doesn't subscribe to that theory. "At the end of the day, Apple wants as many cool and interesting applications for the iPhone as possible because those applications help sell the iPhone," he said.
With Google's app, an iPhone user asks a question, such as "Where's the closest hardware store?" or "How tall is the Empire State Building?" The user's voice is converted to a...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
One-Laptop Group Gets Support From Ads, Amazon
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63059
With the holiday season approaching, the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child is looking to use advertising and an alliance with Amazon to provide more low-cost laptops for children in developing countries.
To promote this year's version of its Give One/Get One (G1G1) program, the Cambridge, Mass.-based OLPC has arranged for donations of television time, billboards and magazine ads by such major media companies as the News Corporation, CBS and Time Warner, according to a story in Sunday's New York Times.
The TV ads running in donated airtime feature children who benefit from the technology. One shows a young girl sitting in front of a glowing screen in a dark room in a South African township. Another says children will learn the tools they need to survive, whether a semiautomatic weapon or an XO, as the laptop is called.
The media donations will be used to raise the visibility of G1G1. A customer in a developed country pays $399, and gets two XOs. One machine is for the customer, and one is donated to a child in a target country. Alternatively, the customer can just donate the $199 needed to give the XO to a child.
Last year, the G1G1 program resulted in orders for more than 160,000 units in less than two months, but there were reports of issues with delivery. OLPC has said the problems arose because fulfillment was being handled by different vendors.
To solve that problem, OLPC this year will work with Amazon in the U.S. and United Kingdom to provide fulfillment at cost. U.S. customers who order this holiday season can get their machines in 2008, although U.K. customers will receive their machines next year. Amazon said it would begin taking orders Monday.
Having created a highly innovative, rugged laptop that could be used in remote villages and elsewhere, OLPC...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
RIM Positive About BlackBerry in Weak Economy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63035
Research In Motion's co-CEO acknowledged Thursday that the economy is going through tough times but said he does not expect businesses and consumers to abandon their BlackBerrys.
Jim Balsillie told investors at an RBC Capital Markets conference that this is most intensive economic period he has ever known.
"There are more variables, more need to navigate, more need for hands on the wheel and eyes on the road right now. If you don't, you do it at your peril," he said.
The BlackBerry maker's shares closed Thursday on the Toronto Stock Exchange at C$53.59 ($44). Shares were at a 52-week high of C$150.30 (US$124) last May and dropped to a 52-week low of C$51.21 ($42) in October.
The BlackBerry is dominant among business users, who prize its secure e-mail that automatically downloads into the device. It has moved increasingly into the consumer space and faces competition from other smartphones including Apple's new and faster iPhone.
Balsillie said RIM is better at what it does now than five years ago when the company's stock leapt from under the equivalent $10 to over $15 in a single day.
He was upbeat about RIM's expected performance.
"I am really quite excited by what we think we can do coming into this season. What I think we can do throughout the rest of this year and the next year," adding he doesn't believe that people will give up mobile phones in a tougher economy.
Despite Balsillie's optimism, some analysts were more pessimistic.
UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan said RIM will be affected by the slowing market.
"Although consumers are unlikely to get rid of cell phones, they may be more cautious about adding incremental monthly data fees, which could slow sales. We expect replacement cycles to continue to lengthen," said Fan.
Early adopters of the high-end BlackBerry Bold and the BlackBerry touchscreen Storm should help in...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
AMD Makeover Moves Show Limited Choices in Slump
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63034
Many of the problems facing Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are of its own making. But the limited choices the chip maker has for solving its troubles are symptoms of an affliction sweeping through Silicon Valley.
Slumping sales, big layoffs and devastated stock prices are becoming the norm, resurrecting memories of the malaise that gripped the Valley for years after the dot-com meltdown in 2000.
Chip makers delivered the latest installment this week in what is becoming a litany of bad news from the technology sector. Intel Corp. and National Semiconductor Corp. both slashed their sales guidance, and National Semiconductor and Applied Materials Inc. said they will cut a combined 2,130 jobs. Intel imposed a hiring freeze.
Semiconductor companies' fortunes say a lot about the health of other tech industries, because slowdowns in chip sales can reflect slumping demand for everything from personal computers to cell phones.
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley icons Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. are also suffering. Shares of Yahoo, which is cutting 1,500 jobs, are trading around $11 per share, a third of the price that Microsoft Corp. was willing to pay to buy the company last May. Google's shares sunk to a 52-week low of $287.76 this week after trading above $700 a year ago.
Poor execution and a heavy debt load at AMD have allowed Intel to inflict severe damage on its smaller rival since 2006. The world's No. 2 maker of microprocessors, AMD has lost $5.6 billion over the past eight quarters.
AMD's story about how it plans to reverse course offers a look at the drastic moves other struggling companies might have to consider if their problems worsen, from hacking off parts of the business in an effort to save costs to re-pricing employee stock options that are now worthless.
"We've had enough of losing money," the company's new CEO, Dirk...
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Web Tracker NebuAd Sued over Privacy Claims
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63033
Angry online subscribers who had their Web surfing habits tracked in detail are suing a Silicon Valley startup that created the technology and six Internet service providers that briefly used it.
The 15 customers who filed the lawsuit in federal court here Monday demand more than $5 million in damages and are asking a judge to turn the case into a class action representing tens of thousands of Internet subscribers.
The lawsuit targets Redwood City, California-based NebuAd Inc., which developed a way for Internet service providers to scan the content of their customers' Web traffic. The idea was that the ISPs could use the technology to deliver advertisements specifically targeted to individual subscribers' interests.
"Like a vacuum cleaner, everything passing through the pipe of the consumers' Internet connection was sucked up, copied and forwarded," stated the lawsuit, which accuses NebuAd and the ISPs of breaking federal and state privacy laws.
Several U.S. ISPs tried the technology before withdrawing as privacy advocates and members of Congress raised concerns over the summer.
The six ISPs named in the lawsuit each told Congress over the summer that it had dropped NebuAd's technology after only a few months. The ISPs are: Bresnan Communications LLC, Cable One Inc., CenturyTel Inc., Embarq Corp., WideOpenWest and Knology Inc.
"We are reviewing the complaint, which we intend to defend against vigorously," said NebuAd spokeswoman Janet McGraw, who declined further comment.
Tue, 18 Nov 08
Mitek Gives Camera Phones Check-Deposit Feature
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63027
Mitek Systems, producer of image recognition software, has released its latest version of ImageNet Mobile Deposit, an application for the iPhone that allows owners of Apple's runaway hit to deposit checks at participating banks.
Mobile Deposit scans checks and relays payments into bank accounts using the camera on the mobile phone.
From an enterprise standpoint, "We're using the other part of the phone that practically no one else is," says company CEO Jim DeBello. "It's a natural fit for mobile banking providers."
The iPhone release earlier this month was designed to push Mobile Deposit into the consumer realm.
The software's inaugural release was unveiled in January for the BlackBerry smartphone, enabling sales and delivery personnel to deposit customer checks into their business accounts rather than heading to a branch or ATM.
"It's a game changer for the distribution industry," said Chris Cramer, CEO of Karl Strauss Brewing, local beer crafters.
The company's drivers are equipped with BlackBerrys and have been using the software since the beginning of summer. First and foremost, Cramer said, company accountants no longer contend with lost or bounced checks.
A third party makes sure that there is enough cash in an account to cover the value of the check.
Cramer emphasized the product's simplicity, noting that it took "about 30 minutes to train drivers how to use it.
The process takes four steps initiate the banking session by logging in enter the deposit amount; photograph the front and back of the check; and press "submit."
"Instantaneous recording of transactions multiplies efficiency" for accountants and the chief financial officer, he continued. "This will be the standard. It's something we're all watching in the industry." Cramer, whose company banks with Wells Fargo, declined to comment about banking fees.
DeBello says Mitek is in talks with major banks and is not ready to announce which ones would...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Online Microsoft Store Opens for U.S. Customers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63058
Microsoft on Friday opened an online store for U.S. customers. The company already has online marketplaces in the United Kingdom, Germany and Korea.
The home page for the Microsoft Store features the Microsoft Xbox 360 hit Gears of War 2, but also offers various flavors of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Microsoft also features the Zune and a small ad for Vista Ultimate.
"With this launch, our customers in the U.S. are able to buy first-party software and hardware directly from Microsoft, offered in a comprehensive online catalog," Trevin Chow, Microsoft's senior program manager, wrote on his blog. "On our store, you'll find products from many categories, ranging from Office 2007 Home and Student and Zoo Tycoon 2 to Xbox 360 wireless controllers and the new Zune with that cool Buy from FM feature."
Microsoft customers have two options: Order products online for shipment to their home or business, or, when the products are software-oriented, buy them on the spot and download them immediately.
Microsoft customers can pay for an Electronic software distribution (ESD) product the same way they would purchase orders for delivery online. However, once the payment is confirmed, they can download and install ESD products in minutes.
"There is no longer any need to pay for shipping costs and waiting for the big brown truck to drive across the country," Chow said. "You'll be able to enjoy your software almost immediately -- all it takes is the download time of the product, which will vary depending on the size of the digital download."
Buying and downloading digital files is not a foreign concept in the software market or the digital-music market. However, with software some consumers fear not having a backup on physical media to reinstall if the system crashes. Microsoft said its answer is re-downloads.
Microsoft lets customers...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Google Offers Search By Voice, and iPhone Gets It First
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63057
Google is pushing its voice-recognition technology to Apple's iPhone first, before devices running its own Android mobile platform.
The New York Times offered photographs of Google employees Vic Gundotra and Gummi Hafsteinsoon using an iPhone for a voice search. The free application was expected to be available on Apple's App Store on Friday. Google reportedly will soon offer the technology for other devices, presumably including the T-Mobile G1, which uses Android.
"This is an expansion of types of applications Google has already been developing," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Google has GOOG411, which is the underlying technical engine. They also have a voice-search client for the BlackBerry which is limited to maps. So this is an evolutionary step."
Here's how it works: The iPhone user asks a question, such as "Where's the closest Burger King?" or "How wide is the Grand Canyon?" The user's voice is converted to a digital file and transmitted to Google's servers.
Google Search then serves up the results -- in a matter of seconds if the user has a fast wireless network, the Times reports. The search results always include any local information.
"The question with these types of technologies is how good is the speech recognition? It's getting much better, and that's why Google feels this is the right time to introduce this," Sterling said. "Google has confidence now that voice recognition is good enough to open it up to the full Web search as opposed to the much more structured search on GOOG411."
Google is playing catch-up, in a sense. Yahoo and Microsoft already offer a voice-recognition option for mobile phones. Microsoft's Tellme service offers users information in specific categories, such as movies, maps or directions. Yahoo offers voice services through its oneSearch platform.
"In one sense this is new, but...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Guitar Hero Compatibility Chart Is Music to Gamers' Ears
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63056
Guitar Hero and Rock Band users may have been dealing with their own mangled music mess when trying to figure out which controllers are compatible with which instruments.
Guitar Hero officials want their users to stop worrying about compatibility and focus on unleashing their inner rock star, so they have released a compatibility chart.
"The Guitar Hero team has noticed that there has been a great deal of conversation regarding the entire family of Guitar Hero instruments, and their compatibility across various titles," said an official post on the Guitar Hero Community Web site. "To answer your call, they have put together a user-friendly compatibility chart to make your Guitar Hero experience even more enjoyable."
Users can to the Guitar Hero Community Web site and download a JPEG of the chart, which lists MTV Rock Band controllers and instruments, and whether they are compatible with Activision's Guitar Hero devices. The two charts outline each release for both series and their instruments, along with which systems and competing games they work with. Game systems listed include Wii, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
The compatibility chart also includes a disclaimer that certain game functionality may not be available with all controllers, and continued compatibility with any non-Guitar Hero controller is not guaranteed. Activision also makes it clear that its customer service is available only to answer questions about and support for Guitar Hero controllers.
This is not the first time issues of compatibility between MTV and Activision music games have surfaced.
When Wii came out with its Rock Band release, many questioned whether it would be compatible with Guitar Hero III's guitar. It was clear where Harmonix and MTV stood on the issue. Harmonix Music and MTV Games said they believe in an open standard for hardware and game compatibility.
They also said...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Senator Plans To Enforce Net Neutrality with Law
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63051
A lawmaker is bringing the issue of net neutrality back into the spotlight. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) plans to introduce a bill in January that would stop Internet service providers from blocking and managing certain Internet content.
The planned legislation follows a long battle between the Federal Communications Commission and cable-TV and Internet service provider Comcast. It would have the Internet Freedom Preservation Act bar cable and telephone companies from being Internet "gatekeepers" and keep the Internet open and free, according to Dorgan, who has introduced previous bills on net neutrality.
"He was the lead sponsor of net-neutrality bills for this session of Congress, which is about to end, and he will be introducing a bill in the next session of Congress," said Justin Kitsche, a spokesperson for Dorgan's office.
"We don't believe legislation is necessary in this area and could harm innovation and investments," said Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast's senior director of government affairs and corporate communications, in a phone interview. "We have consistently said that all our customers have access to content available on the Internet."
Dorgan has been outspoken on the issue, saying ISPs such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon Communications are trying to block or manage what has always been a free Internet.
"What is happening in our country today is we have big interest, increasingly big interest, from cable and telephone companies and others who want to be gatekeepers and want to have toll charges on the Internet," Dorgan said in a video message on his Web site. "Some have said they would like to say to content providers: If you want to go on a superhighway, you'll have to pass extra money. If not, you'll have to pass on a gravel road somewhere on the Internet, to use a metaphor."
Doing so would be...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Microsoft Says Live Search Cashback Met Goals
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63050
Microsoft says it has realized several key metrics it set for the Live Search cashback program it launched in May. The program was designed to help merchants maximize their advertising investments and drive more sales by providing consumers with a cash incentive to buy online.
Under the program, the money that participating merchants would otherwise pay to Microsoft for online advertising is instead passed to online purchasers. Microsoft's payoff is the additional search-advertising traffic the program generates.
Microsoft says 20 of the top 50 online U.S. retailers and 140 of the top 500 listed by Internet Retailer are participating in the program, including new advertisers such as AT&T, Drugstore.com, Kmart and Saks Fifth Avenue. The software giant also reported a 30 percent increase in the number of product offers available through the program.
"We have seen an average of 4.5 million unique users per month visiting cashback who have conducted more than 68 million commercial queries," said Brad Goldberg, general manager of Microsoft Live Search. "We believe this early traction speaks to the differentiated and unique value proposition of Microsoft Live Search cashback for both consumers and advertisers, especially in these tough economic times."
In the second quarter, Microsoft Live Search referred almost 12 percent of total U.S. commercial online transactions and about 13 percent of total U.S. online spending among key retail categories, according to a custom survey by comScore. Live Search also placed among the top two U.S. engines in five key commercial categories: Computer hardware, movies and videos, home and garden, music and travel.
Live Search also ranked as the top search engine by a large margin in dollars spent per buyer, across all top 10 key commercial categories. The challenge for Microsoft will be to convert these statistics into market-share growth at a time when worried...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Sun will Lay Off Up To 6,000 Workers in Restructuring
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63026
Sun Microsystems on Friday said it will lay off 15 to 18 percent of its workforce. The announcement comes as part of a series of changes the company is making as it continues an uphill struggle.
Beyond laying off up to 6,000 employees, Sun will also break up its software into new business groups -- Application Platform Software, Systems Platforms, and Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms. Sun's intention is to boost its open-source momentum and attract new sectors of the market that view technology as a competitive weapon.
Sun expects the changes to align its costs with the global economic climate and accelerate the introduction of compelling open-source innovations. But some analysts are skeptical that these changes will fix the internal problems.
"Today, we have taken decisive actions to align Sun's business with global economic realities and accelerate our delivery of key open-source platform innovations, from MySQL to Sun's latest Open Storage offerings," Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said.
Sun's board of directors has approved a restructuring plan that aims to reduce costs by approximately $700 million to $800 million annually. That includes a workforce reduction of 5,000 to 6,000 employees around the globe.
While the full benefits of the dramatic cuts won't be realized until the third quarter of its fiscal year 2009, Sun said it expects a substantial benefit in its first fiscal quarter.
"This is more of a continuation of Sun's downward spiral that has been going on for a while -- and it seems to be accelerating. Another 18 percent on top of the last round of layoffs is way beyond just trimming fat. We are well into muscle and bone and maybe some vital organs," said Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions.
Sun's organizational realignment seeks to leverage what the company sees as strengths in its software...
Sat, 15 Nov 08
Three LCD Firms Plead Guilty in Price-Fixing Scheme
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63018
Three Asian electronics firms have agreed to plead guilty and pay $585 million in fines for conspiring to drive up the prices of LCD screens used in computers, TVs, cell phones and other electronic devices.
In a plea deal filed Wednesday, LG Display Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. agreed to cooperate in an antitrust investigation headed by the U.S. Justice Department. The plea agreement was filed in federal court in San Francisco.
LCDs, or liquid crystal display monitors, are the glass display screens on many laptop computers, cell phones and new TVs.
Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett said the scheme cost not only consumers, but also Dell Inc., Motorola Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. He did not have a cost value for the losses, and said the investigation is continuing.
"These price-fixing conspiracies affected millions of American consumers who use computers, cell phones and numerous other household electronics every day," Barnett told reporters at a Justice Department briefing. "By conspiring to drive up the price of LCD panels, consumers were forced to pay more for these products."
There is a $70 billion worldwide market for LCD screens. Regulators in Asia and the European Union also have opened investigations into LCD pricing.
The Justice Department said LG Display, a South Korean company, and its LG Display America Inc. unit agreed to pay a $400 million fine for participating in a conspiracy to fix the price of certain LCD panels from September 2001 to June 2006. That is the second highest criminal fine ever imposed by the Justice Department's antitrust division.
Chunghwa, a Taiwanese company, agreed to pay $65 million for participating with LG and other unnamed companies in the price-fixing conspiracy between September 2001 and December 2006.
And Sharp, a Japanese company, agreed to pay $120 million for participating in separate conspiracies to fix...
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Today's LCD Monitors Trump Ancient CRTs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63016
Today's LCD monitors and plasma displays are a substantial evolution from the monochrome CRT relics of PC antiquity. High brightness, support for more than 1 billion colors and sharp resolution are just a few of the latest improvements.
Based on HP's DreamColor Engine technology, the LP2480zx Professional Display features support for more than 1 billion active colors -- 64 times the colors traditional LCDs support. Innovative 30-bit LCD panel technology and a tri-color LED backlight create rich color fidelity, CRT-quality blacks and programmable whites across its 24-inch wide-aspect screen. Seven custom color space presets achieve accurate rendition of sRGB, Adobe RGB, Rec. 601, Rec. 709, and DCI-P3 (97 percent), all at the touch of a button.
Inputs include analog, DVI-I (2), Display Port 1.1, HDMI 1.3, component (YPbPr), S-video and composite. HDCP support for protected content and an integrated USB hub (4 USB 2.0, rear) also come standard. 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 40 cd/m^sup 2^ minimum typical brightness (250 cd/m^sup 2^ maximum) ensure a crisp, bright display. Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif.
www.rsleads.com/811ht-240
The Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP 24-inch widescreen flat panel TFT active matrix LCD monitor provides excellent color accuracy and uniformity from a 3000:1 contrast ratio and 400 cd/m^sup 2^ brightness. Additionally, its 1920 x 1200 resolution and TrueColor technology provide sharp and brilliant images. The 2408WFP features a response time of 6ms that helps prevent smudging and ghosting.
VMware's Lofty Cloud-Computing Goals
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63013
As the No. 3 executive at Microsoft, Paul Maritz presided over the company's Windows juggernaut, turned aside threats from Netscape and Sun Microsystems, and pressed the company to embrace the Internet. Now, the longtime software executive is looking down Microsoft's barrel from the other end, trying to help his new employer, VMware, triumph where past Microsoft competitors fell short.
In his new role, Maritz is leading VMware's charge in the mounting battle over cloud computing, the trend that's leading companies to shift computing power away from their own machines and into the hands of tech powerhouses such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com, and Salesforce.com. VMware wants to be a player in cloud computing, too, and Maritz, CEO since July, is undertaking a major engineering project to try to get there. "That says to Microsoft, 'We're coming right after you,'" says Jason Noland, an analyst at Robert W. Baird who has a neutral rating on VMware.
VMware needs some victories. In less than a year, VMware has gone from hypergrowth business success story and stock market darling to a company whose slowing growth and plummeting shares led to the ouster of its former CEO and co-founder Diane Greene. Shares of VMware slumped 1.22, or 5 percent, to 22 on Nov. 12.
VMware held 2007's most successful initial public offering by specializing in virtualization software that helps companies cut costs by making more efficient use of their computers. Now, VMware needs to show customers and investors that it can move beyond virtualization and remain worthy of a chunk of companies' tight tech budgets while avoiding a competitive onslaught from Microsoft. "If VMware just coasts on its past achievements and lets Microsoft catch up, it will have a problem," says a former Microsoft executive, who asked not to be identified as he maintains ties to Maritz. "But...
YouTube Is Going Live To Stay Fresh
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YouTube will venture into Webcasting this month in an effort to take the site's popularity to a new level by showcasing the talent behind its most-viewed videos.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has matured from a Web start-up to a site with loyal fans. But as any good television industry executive will say, it needs fresh content to keep its audience.
On Nov. 22 in San Francisco, it is introducing "YouTube Live," a show featuring well-known stars like the rapper Will.i.Am and the singer Katy Perry, as well as YouTube sensations like Esmee Denters.
Denters posted videos of herself on YouTube covering popular songs and became a star on the Web.
YouTube executives said Wednesday that the show would feature performers who are popular with the site's users, a community that has already held unofficial events and whom the company wants to keep.
"The value of YouTube is we've created this platform that's been driven by the community, so this is in reaction to that," said a YouTube spokesman, Chris Di Cesare.
Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has been a repository for all kinds of Internet videos.
But as other sites have found, Web surfers can be fickle, and keeping them on a site -- which is what advertisers pay for -- is daunting.
Taking cues from the television industry, AOL, MySpace and Yahoo have offered Webcasting of original programing in recent years. What seems to work best, so far, has been the streaming of live music.
Yahoo Music has landed Nissan as a sponsor of its tape-delayed concert series, called "Nissan Live Sets," with the average concert receiving two million streams, the company said.
YouTube said videos posted by the roughly 50 entertainers and other talent on the bill for "YouTube Live" had been viewed online more than two and a half billion times.
"These are the...
Hughes Communications: Boondocks Broadband
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When Debra and Lee Sherbeyn first moved to rural Virginia 14 years ago, they didn't own a computer, much less fret over access to the Web. It wasn't long before they had a machine and were logging onto the Internet using a dial-up modem. The arrangement suited them fine until family members started sending pictures by e-mail. It became downright untenable in 2004 when Lee entered the real estate business in their home in Bealeton, Va., about 58 miles southwest of Washington. "You can't wait all day for a picture of a house to download," Debra says.
Nor can you get a Digital Subscriber Line or cable modem service in their part of Bealeton. So the Sherbeyns settled on a satellite broadband connection from Hughes Communications. At $69 a month, it costs more than comparable services from phone and cable providers, but the Sherbeyns don't mind. "It's been totally worth it," Debra says.
While most urban and suburban U.S. households have access to cable modem service from a cable TV company or DSL from a phone carrier -- or both -- the majority of residents of rural areas have neither. According to a July study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, only 38 percent of rural American households have access to high-speed Internet connections, compared with 60 percent for suburban dwellers.
Cable and telephone companies usually build their networks in areas where the population is dense enough that they can expect a profit on their investment. Those like the Sherbeyns, who live outside cable or phone service areas and eschew dial-up service, often look to satellite. More often than not, they buy it from Hughes, the biggest provider of satellite broadband services, a small but surprisingly healthy sliver of the broadband business.
Hughes traces its roots to 1971, when it was...
Review: Dell's Impressive Studio Hybrid PC
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As it turns out, Dell's new Studio Hybrid PC has little in common with Toyota's thrifty Prius sedan. No high-end batteries. No carpool lane privileges. And I'm pretty sure it won't do much to improve fuel economy on your daily commute.
Instead, this "hybrid" PC is a small computer that puts a dual emphasis on energy efficiency and design. Dell is trying desperately to break from its past reputation as a maker of mind-numbingly beige PCs. The Studio Hybrid is one of its first products to have been styled by former Nike design whiz Ed Boyd.
Like all Dell computers, the Studio Hybrid is available in a dizzying array of configurations. The most basic model features a zippy Intel Pentium Dual Core processor, DVD burner, generous amounts of RAM and hard drive space, and it costs just $499. But while a wired Ethernet port is standard, that price doesn't include a wireless card, so plan on adding another $70 for that vital accessory.
As with similar small form factor computers such as Apple's Mac mini, ASUS's Eee Box, and Hewlett-Packard's Slimline series, the Studio Hybrid comes without a monitor. Such computers are generally aimed at college dorms, living rooms, or as second family computers. To that end, the Studio Hybrid is small enough to sit on a crowded desk or be tucked underneath a television. Lying flat, it's about the size of a Thomas Pynchon hardback.
Still, when I first heard about the Studio Hybrid, I was a bit skeptical. Dell? Design? Yeah, right. But if Dell wants to swim in Apple's pool, so be it. Still, as a pretty dedicated Mac user, I was more than a little shocked to find that the Studio Hybrid gives the Mac a run for its money -- both in terms of hardware and...
Windows Live Update Will Provide Single Data Location
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Microsoft has lifted the veil on its forthcoming rollout of updated interactive services for Windows Live that will make it easier for the service's users to communicate, collaborate and share information.
Windows Live users maintain contact with friends and associates who typically communicate through many unconnected Web services and would benefit from having access to everything from a single location without worrying about how it's done, said Microsoft Corporate Vice President Chris Jones.
"Now Windows Live takes care of that, with an integrated personal communication service that works across the Web with optimized experiences on the PC and mobile phone," Jones added.
The primary goal of Microsoft's Windows Live revamp is to convert the service into an online home base from which consumers can chat with IM, e-mail, share photos and files, and connect to others, particularly for social networking. "Think of Windows Live as the single place where people using our e-mail, messaging and photo-sharing services can stay connected," Jones said.
Microsoft's next iteration of Windows Live will include an updated profile and a "what's new" feed of activities across the network and Web, together with extensive photo-sharing and printing capabilities. The revamp will also give Windows Live users the added convenience of having a central place to store, organize and manage information.
To help expand the reach of its offerings, Microsoft is currently collaborating with more than 50 other Web sites to ensure that the latest activities at sites such as Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp can also appear in a Windows Live feed.
"As Windows Live customers share photos, update their profiles, and write reviews, these activities will automatically publish to their Windows Live network, enabling new experiences for users that would not otherwise be possible," said PhotoBucket President Alex Welch.
Microsoft intends...
AT&T, Nokia Launch Smart Flip Phone with Symbian
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AT&T and Nokia on Thursday brought the Nokia 6650 to market to compete against other devices launching in time for the holiday shopping season. The small folding device runs on the Symbian-based S60 platform, which lets users personalize their mobile experience with third-party application downloads, themes and profile settings.
AT&T has a board seat on the Symbian Foundation that oversees development of the open-source mobile-phone platform.
The phone taps into AT&T's 3G network and pushes AT&T's mobile services, including video and mobile music. The 6650 will be available Nov. 14 in red and silver, and offers up to four hours of talk time.
"AT&T's reputation of offering the best and broadest choice of mobile phones is strengthened with the addition of the Nokia 6650," said Carlton Hill, vice president of consumer devices and product development for AT&T's mobility and consumer markets. "Adding another Symbian-based device to our lineup underscores our commitment to customer choice."
The Nokia 6650 gives consumers access to tens of thousands of applications from gaming to productivity. The S60 platform also has the most expansive set of developer languages available, thanks in part to its open-source nature.
The Nokia 6650 also offers all the multimedia and entertainment bells and whistles consumers expect from a smartphone, including a two-megapixel camera, 2.2-inch display, a dedicated key that allows customers to access AT&T Navigator with one click, AT&T video-sharing services, and AT&T Mobile Music.
"Nokia created this device for the thriving consumer appetite for navigation, multimedia and entertainment essentials in one stylish, affordable package," said Ian Laing, vice president of sales at Nokia.
The Nokia 6650 doubles as a portable entertainment device with external audio-playback keys. The 6650 also offers a 1.36-inch display that allows customers to capture photos, control music and change profile settings without having to open the flip device.
Google Adds On-Demand Indexing to Site Search
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In another move to gain traction in the enterprise, Google on Thursday launched a new feature to help businesses that use its Site Search service instantly add and update Web pages.
Google Site Search serves all Web site content as search results with the aim of offering relevant and comprehensive coverage of a Web site. Google does this by creating special indexes that supplement pages already searched by Google.com.
"Customers today demand speed. Waiting around is so, well, yesterday -- as so many of the things we used to have to wait for are now at our fingertips online," said a blog posting by Google's Nitin Mangtani and Tom Duerig. "For a business running their own Web site, this means that visitors who turn to search expect to have access to the newest products, pages and announcements a site has to offer."
That's why Google launched what it's calling On-Demand Indexing for Google Site Search. The Google duo likened On-Demand Indexing to a turbocharger for Site Search, ensuring that the newest pages appear in search results on a company's Web site fast.
"Whether you're promoting a new line of products, sharing breaking news or reports, or updating your site in time for the holiday season, On-Demand Indexing puts businesses in control with an 'Index Now' button, giving them the flexibility to quickly update search results whenever they have new content to update or add," wrote Mangtani and Duerig.
Google Site Search builds on the Google Custom Search Engine by adding business-integration features, the option to turn off ads, and a more customized look and feel, along with e-mail and phone support.
Google hosts Site Search on its network, as opposed to the Google Search Appliance, which was designed for companies that want to keep search services contained to their own data...
IBM Servers Feature New AMD Quad-Core Processors
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IBM on Thursday announced two blade servers that will feature the new quad-core Opteron Shanghai processor from Advanced Micro Devices. The announcement was synchronized with AMD's release of the 45nm processor.
Shanghai delivers up to 35 percent more performance with up to a 35 percent decrease in power consumption at idle than previous AMD processors. AMD promises its new Opteron product will drive data-center efficiencies and spur virtualization performance.
In concert with its OEM and solution-provider partners, AMD is addressing the need for enterprises to focus on the bottom line while giving them the innovations they need to build for the future, according to Randy Allen, senior vice president at AMD's Computing Solutions Group.
"This enhanced AMD Opteron processor represents the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt increases for AMD products since the introduction of the world's first x86 dual-core processors by AMD nearly four years ago," Allen said.
IBM is among the first OEMs to announce Shanghai-based products, its Bladecenter LS42 and LS22.
The IBM BladeCenter LS22 is a two-socket blade server that targets financial-services firms, universities and research labs, along with oil and gas companies that run high-performance applications. IBM said clients can purchase the LS22 with a memory booster that gives it 96 percent faster memory for improved application performance.
IBM said the BladeCenter LS42 consumes up to 16 percent less power than comparable blade offerings. It also provides 20 percent faster memory, the company said, so it is well suited to run memory-intensive applications like virtualization and databases.
"Memory is something that gets impacted significantly when a business decides to aggressively virtualize systems," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "You can have all the processor performance you need, but if you don't have the memory to support the applications, then performance can get whacked pretty badly."
EA Sports Active for Wii Targets Women and Fitness
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Electronic Arts wants to be part of the Wii magic for women interested in getting fit. The publisher of popular game series under its EA Sports label, including Madden, NASCAR and NBA Live, has developed EA Sports Active, a game exclusively for Nintendo's Wii game console. The game will be available in the spring.
Electronic Arts is touting EA Sports Active as a fun alternative to getting in shape without having to use any exercise equipment. It includes several interactive activities that are combined into a circuit routine that targets both the upper and lower body. It also includes cardio exercises.
"EA Sports Active and our entrance into the fitness space is an exciting and groundbreaking milestone for EA Sports," said Peter Moore, president of EA Sports. "As we continue to expand our brand, we have a real opportunity to redefine the home-fitness experience with a more Western cardiovascular approach and exercises that will appeal to a diverse audience, getting people off the couch and into shape while interacting with our products in a way never before possible."
The $59.99 game, developed with several fitness experts, including the popular Bob Greene, Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer, has real-time feedback, including how many calories the user burns. It also allows users to adjust workouts based on the desired intensity.
Users can also use the game's 30-day challenge, described as a fitness road map for players to reach their fitness goals. Users are guided along the way with a virtual trainer. Each time a user exercises, she gets a new 20-minute workout along with instructions and feedback on the routine. Users can also customize their workouts, choosing both the intensity and duration of the workout.
EA Sports Active comes with leg straps that hold the Wii's nunchuck controller to track lower-body movements. Also...
Security Alliance Slashes Spam, Closes Malware Host
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The Internet is a little less jammed with spam after a cybercrime group blew the whistle on one of the biggest offenders. HostExploit, an alliance of volunteers who work at Google, McAfee and Arbor Networks, has been tracking and documenting cybercrime activity and its latest effort slashed worldwide spam by 50 percent and junk e-mail by 75 percent.
The alliance this week released its Cyber Crime USA report pointing to McColo, a San Jose, Calif.-based Web hosting service, as one of the biggest spam offenders. The company used servers which depend on U.S. transit peers, according to HostExploit, and beyond spam, McColo was also sending malware and hosting child-pornography sites.
HostExploit tracks cybercrime using several measurements, according to spokesperson Jart Armin. "We came up with the world's biggest spam botnets were hosted by McColo," Armin said in a phone interview. "Of course, what we came up with was 24 botnet links and lots of malware and loads of Trojan horses."
The group found that 40,000 visitors per day were lured to fake Web sites and paying for antivirus software that didn't exist. While downloading this fake software, the sites would steal information from computers, including credit-card numbers and other identifying information.
"We also found 40 child-pornography Web sites and payment systems for those," Armin said. "It's a lot of work to put this together and expose it." But it was worth it when McColo's Web site was shut down by its two Internet service providers, Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing, Armin added.
This isn't the first time HostExploit has come to the rescue. In its first report, the group focused on Activo/Interchange, which resulted in a 10 percent drop in spam and malware worldwide.
The group said it's the members' duty as Internet security specialists to be responsible and blow the whistle...
Verizon To Offer BlackBerry Storm for $199.99 After Rebate
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The Storm is coming Nov. 21. Verizon Wireless announced that Research in Motion's "clickable" touchscreen BlackBerry Storm will be available online and at its retail stores on that date for $199.99 after a rebate.
The $50 rebate will require a two-year commitment. The Storm has been generating a significant amount of media buzz -- and, according to Verizon, customer interest -- because of unique features that Verizon and RIM hope will provide some shelter against Apple's popular iPhone 3G.
There had been speculation that the Storm might be offered for free, as Vodafone said last month that it will do in Great Britain. To get the free Storm, British customers also have to sign up for a two-year contract.
Vodafone has exclusive rights to the device in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, while Verizon has the U.S.
The Storm is the first BlackBerry touchscreen model. But it's a unique kind of touchscreen, called SurePress, which provides a "tactile click response" when pressed.
This approach, which RIM has described as "revolutionary touchscreen technology," is intended to enhance user interaction and typing. To make a selection, the user pushes down the screen in an action described by RIM as "much like a physical keyboard." The screen also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestural interaction.
The Storm is packed with features, including a media player for movies and music, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a full HTML browser, and the ability to view and work on Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. There are also tools for easy connectivity with Facebook and Flickr, and the Storm supports Verizon's EV-DO Rev A network.
It also has a built-in accelerometer so the screen can automatically switch between landscape and portrait orientation as the device is turned -- similar to the iPhone. Double-tapping allows users to zoom in, while sliding fingers...
Obama Brings Cyber Sensibility to Office
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Barack Obama's Internet-fueled campaign has transformed the way Americans choose a president. Now, the president-elect's administration plans to change the way Americans use technology.
If Obama gets his way, all Americans will have broadband Internet access, whether they live in big cities or remote villages. Online life will be safer, with better defenses against cybercriminals. And there will be greater access to government, with online services to let anyone question members of the president's Cabinet or track every dime of the federal budget.
"I think it's not going to happen in the first hundred days, but I think a lot of this can happen in the first term," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a media reform organization based in Washington, D.C.
Judging by the campaign's position paper on technology policy -- calls and e-mails to the Obama transition team were not returned -- the president-elect believes Internet technology should be as thoroughly integrated into federal agencies as it was in his campaign, where the Web was used to communicate, raise money, and get out the vote in a way that was unprecedented in US politics. A large Internet presence boosted his prodigious fund-raising, helping to collect a record-breaking $150 million in September alone, and such online innovations as the campaign's "Project Houdini," which tracked voters in real time on the day of the election, were the first of their kind. He is in the process of choosing the nation's first chief technology officer -- a post that's long existed in most corporations, but never in government.
Phil Bond, a former undersecretary of commerce in George W. Bush's administration who now heads the industry lobbying group Information Technology Association of America, praised Obama's plan to bring online innovations to the federal government. Obama wants to put YouTube-like videos of government meetings online,...
IBM Will Bring Broadband Access To Rural America
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IBM has been tapped by International Broadband Electric Communications to bring broadband access to rural areas. In a deal worth nearly $10 million, Big Blue will team up with IBEC to install Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) networks at electric cooperatives throughout the Eastern United States, the companies said Wednesday. Electric co-ops are private, independent electric utilities owned by the members they serve.
The deal between IBM and IBEC is first of its kind and comes after IBEC received a $49.2 million loan from the Department of Agriculture on top of $19.2 million it received in 2005.
"Americans in rural areas of the country trail their urban and suburban counterparts in broadband availability," said Scott Lee, IBEC chief executive. "This capability will play a critical role in rural health, education and economic development, while closing the digital divide that exists between well-served and underserved America."
By tapping IBM, IBEC will be able to work with the more than 900 electric co-ops in the U.S. that provide 45 percent of the electric grid and cover 75 percent of the nation's geography.
These co-ops power Alaskan villages and dairy farms in Vermont and the suburbs in between and provide service to 40 million Americans, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), which has representatives from 47 states that have an electric distribution cooperative.
Rural consumers will get high-speed access to the Internet instead of dial-up service, which is significant to businesses, schools and hospitals and levels the playing field with their urban and suburban counterparts, according to IBM.
IBEC will provide the BPL equipment for the rollout and serve as the Internet service provider for rural residents. Before taking this step, IBEC needed to scale up to handle installations at more than one cooperative at a time and turned to IBM....
Obtaining Help for an Ailing Computer
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Obtaining help for an ailing computer can be a daunting task. For many people, just getting a straight answer can be a chore, especially when you're not sure which questions to ask in the first place.
Long before the age of the Internet, computer hobbyists formed clubs called user groups, where nerds and newbies alike would gather to share information, trade files and do other geeky things. I almost hate to admit this, but back in the mid-'80s, I actually belonged to a user group for Commodore enthusiasts, and the meetings often were quite helpful. Similar clubs formed for users of other computer brands -- such as Apple and IBM -- but they didn't have as much fun.
These days, computers are as common as almost any other household appliance. Widespread Web access also has contributed to the decline, if not total elimination, of homegrown user groups. Although computers have become easier to use, they also are a lot more complicated because they can do so much more. You'd think that would translate to a greater need for user groups, but that's not the case, and it's kind of a shame.
On the positive side, the Web is capable of reaching out to more people, beyond regional boundaries. It imparts a sense of community that truly is worldwide, and that's fantastic because it expands the level of involvement and vastly increases the available knowledge base. It also allows people to virtually participate in something they might not physically be able to before.
On the other hand, the social aspect of meeting face to face is lost. Computer hobbyists are, by nature, not tremendously social creatures, so any excuse to get them out of the house and in the physical company of other human beings is a good thing. Attending meetings via webcams isn't the...
Google Search Tracks Spread of Flu Across U.S.
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What if Google knew before anyone else that a flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in?
That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a Web tool that Google.org, the company's philanthropic unit, announced Tuesday, just as the flu season was starting.
Google Flu Trends is based on the idea that people feeling sick are likely to turn to the Web for information, searching on Google for phrases like "flu symptoms" or "muscle aches." Google Flu Trends tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions across the United States.
Google.org said this first version of Google Flu Trends "is just a start" and it hoped to "explore other countries, languages, and diseases in the future."
Early tests suggest that the service might be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu between a week and 10 days before they are reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some public health experts say that could help accelerate the response of doctors, hospitals and public health officials to a nasty flu season, reducing the spread of the disease and, potentially, saving lives.
It could also offer a dose of comfort to stricken individuals in knowing that a bug is going around.
"This could conceivably provide as early a warning of an outbreak as any system," said Lyn Finelli of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza," Finelli said.
Between 5 percent and 20 percent of the population of the United States contracts the flu each year, Finelli said,...
Staples Offers Free Dell PC Recycling
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Dell Inc. and office-supply vendor Staples Inc. are working together to offer free recycling for Dell computers, printers and other products.
Under the partnership announced Wednesday, people can drop off any amount of Dell-branded PCs, monitors, keyboards, printers, mice and other accessories at any of Staples' 1,500 U.S. stores for recycling, without having to make a purchase.
Framingham, Mass.-based Staples started selling Dell computers last year as part of Dell's expansion from made-to-order sales on the Web into retail stores.
Staples logs the incoming equipment, then hands it off Eco International, a recycling company that has worked with Staples and Dell rival Hewlett-Packard Co., in the past.
Eco International picks up the PCs and other devices and brings them to one of its regional recycling facilities. It breaks everything down into parts and resells ones that still work. Then, it shreds what's left over and sells those materials to manufacturers that can reuse them.
Electronics are laden with plastics, heavy metals and toxic chemicals, which often end up in dumps in China and other developing countries. Staples and Dell said Eco International does not export waste to other countries or send hazardous chemicals to landfills.
Staples and Dell are both investing in the program but did not disclose financial terms. Dell said the joint effort will operate at a loss in the short term, and that the goal is to make it a break-even operation.
Dell and Staples both operate other recycling programs. Staples offers free cell phone recycling and charges $10 per piece to accept non-Dell computers, printers and other PC-related items. Since 2007, Staples said it has collected 2 million pounds of electronics recycling.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell has a smaller partnership with Goodwill Industries in some regions. The PC maker also lets people ship Dell-branded items back to the company for recycling without charge.
U.S. Patent Office Stifles Innovation
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Information Age innovators need not apply. At least that's the implied message being stretched like police tape across the door of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). The agency seems fixated on eliminating the last, true, sustainable American advantage: our capacity to innovate.
Recent moves by the USPTO have resulted in a precedent-setting legal victory that now threatens software patents with extinction, putting companies like Apple and Google at risk along with the U.S. economy.
Software is key to modern innovation. But more important, it's among the last strongholds in American economic might. Open the box on a new Apple product, and you'll see a note saying "Designed by Apple in California." It leaves out the implicit "made in China." That's what America does. It innovates. It designs. It conceives and invents. Today, America makes ideas. And then we outsource the manufacture of our ideas, and sell those to the world. Indeed, in just a few decades, the U.S. has gone from a country that largely produced tangible goods to one that produces blueprints for intellectual property. And one of the greatest areas of intellectual property production in the U.S., as noted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, is software.
Notably, during Apple's recent quarterly report, Jobs commented about the iPhone: "The traditional game in the phone market has been to produce a voice phone in 100 different varieties. [W]e approach it as a software platform company, which is pretty different from most of our competitors."
Now, it appears the USPTO is hell-bent on destroying such intellectual property rights. The most recent evidence came from an Oct. 30 ruling by an appeals court that could narrow what's patentable and make it much more costly to obtain patents, particularly for newer companies. Some fear the decision also leaves many innovative software technologies in...
AVG Antivirus Update Mistakenly Deletes System File
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An update for the AVG 8 antivirus software for Windows 2000, XP and Vista released Saturday mistakenly warned that the Windows system file user32.dll was a Trojan horse. The problem affected the Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish versions.
AVG Technologies immediately corrected the problem for both free and paid versions of its software. If users acted on the update's warning, the user32.dll file was deleted, leaving Windows XP systems endlessly rebooting or unable to reboot.
The Czech-based AVG posted details of the problem and a method to fix it on the AVG Web site. The fix involves disabling AVG services and copying the user32.dll file from the Windows installation CD -- but only if the PC was not rebooted.
The effect on Windows Vista systems, if any, was not clear.
A company representative said, "AVG is actively working to remedy the problem some users are experiencing related to the most recent update to commercial and free versions of AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 in some languages. A number of users who installed the update mistakenly received a warning that the Windows system file user32.dll product version 5.1.2600.3099 was infected with a Trojan virus and were prompted to delete a file essential to the operation of Windows XP."
Cray's Jaguar Outruns IBM's Roadrunner Supercomputer
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Move over IBM Roadrunner, the Cray XT Jaguar supercomputer just outran you.
The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has boosted the computing power on its Cray XT Jaguar to a peak 1.64 petaflops. That makes Jaguar the world's first petaflop system dedicated to open research. Scientists have already used the newly upgraded Jaguar to complete an unprecedented superconductivity calculation that achieved a sustained performance of more than 1.3 petaflops.
"Jaguar is one of science's newest and most formidable tools for advancement in science and engineering," said Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, the DOE's undersecretary for science. "It will enable researchers to simulate physical processes on a scale never seen before, and approach convergence for dynamical processes never thought possible. High-end computation will become the critical third pillar for scientific discovery, along with experiment and theory."
Oak Ridge said the upgrade marks a major milestone in a four-year project, begun in 2004 when the DOE's Office of Science launched a sustained effort to upgrade supercomputing capabilities for unclassified research at its complex of national laboratories.
Jaguar is the fruit of a partnership among the DOE, ORNL and Cray that has pushed computing capability to the modern extreme. The current upgrade is the result of an addition of 200 cabinets of Cray's XT5 to the existing 84 cabinets of the XT4 Jaguar system.
Jaguar uses more than 45,000 of the latest quad-core Opteron processors from AMD and boasts 362 terabytes of memory and a 10-petabyte file system. The machine has 578 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth and input/output bandwidth of 284 gigabytes per second.
The DOE said Jaguar is in high demand by scientists who are honing their codes to take advantage of the machine's speed. The Jaguar petaflop system is unique in the balance it represents among speed, power and other...
Parallels 4.0 Runs Windows, Linux Inside Mac OS X
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Parallels has unleashed the latest version of its desktop virtualization technology for the Mac, which already enables more than 1.5 million users to run Windows, Linux and other operating systems inside Mac OS X. Called Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac, the new platform is designed to perform computing tasks at speeds up to 50 percent faster than earlier versions.
Desktop virtualization technology from Parallels and others is one factor driving the adoption of Mac desktops and laptops, with shipments jumping 46.6 percent during the first half the year, compared to the year-earlier period, noted IDC Analyst Michael Rose.
"The growth, in both performance and ease of use, of desktop virtualization software is making it easier for Windows users to adopt Macintosh computers," Rose said. "Those users leveraging virtualization software on their Macintosh hardware will find that many of the new capabilities in Parallels Desktop 4.0 represent another step forward."
The new virtualization platform features a redesigned user interface that provides quick access to all virtual machines. Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac also improves upon earlier iterations by introducing support for video boosters such as DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0, and OpenGL 2.0.
Even better, Desktop 4.0 for Mac incorporates a new virtualization engine. Called the adaptive hypervisor, it consumes 15 to 30 percent less resources than previous versions. "The adaptive hypervisor gives our users the resources they need on the fly," said John Hermes, chief technology officer at Oklahoma Christian University.
Laptop users will find that Desktop 4.0 for Mac now sports a power-saver feature that can reduce the platform's drain on battery life by up to 20 percent. The new platform is also specifically designed to take advantage of the capabilities inherent in the latest dual-core and quad-core processors from Intel.
Security and backup are two more areas in...
Dell Squashes Rumors About New MP3 Player
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Dell is not hearing the music. The Round Rock, Tex.-based computer maker is squashing any rumors reported in recent weeks about plans to release an MP3 player.
The speculation has centered on Zing Systems, a California-based startup Dell acquired last year. Observers suggested Dell might use Zing to release a new version of its DJ Ditty, a music device offered in 2006.
"As we said a few months ago, our strategy focuses on content offerings and delivery platforms that mix Zing software, remote access, and preconfigured media bundles across all of our devices, including licensing agreements with entertainment distributors," said Jay Pinkert, Dell's consumer group representative, in a Dell blog post Monday. "It has never been about a music player."
It isn't clear what Dell's plans are for Zing, which had supplied technology to companies like SanDisk and Sirius Radio. Zing shipped in SanDisk's Sansa Connect mobile music player. Zing connected with Sirius on its Stiletto 100 and Stiletto 2 products, which allow users to record and listen to live Sirius Satellite Radio shows.
Dell had a prototype of a mini-MP3 player based on Zing entertainment software and was in the midst of testing the prototype, reported The Wall Street Journal, basing its story on someone "familiar with the matter." Dell was also said to have delayed the anticipated fall release of the MP3, but then decided to scrap it, according to the Journal.
Pinkert did say that the music and movie bundles Dell launched a few weeks back are examples of what's going on inside Dell on digital entertainment.
"We're very proud of our emerging role as a change agent, so stay tuned as we continue to generate new ideas and new approaches to personalization," Pinkert wrote.
While Dell quells rumors about an MP3 player this holiday season, it's also broadcasting that it has...
EMC's Atmos Tackles Cloud-Storage Challenges
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EMC on Monday announced its first cloud-infrastructure offering. Dubbed EMC Atmos, the offering is a multi-petabyte information-management solution that aims to help customers automatically manage and optimize the distribution of rich, unstructured information across global, cloud-storage environments.
As EMC describes it, Atmos makes a way for Web 2.0 and Internet providers, telecommunications, media and entertainment companies to securely build and deliver cloud-based information-centric services and applications on a massive scale by providing the capabilities of centralized management and automated information placement on a global scale.
Combined with the growth of user-generated content on the Web, Web 2.0 applications, including video and photo-sharing services, are creating billions of new documents, videos, digital images and music. The need to serve that content to hundreds of locations and millions of users around the world demands global-scale information management. Enter cloud optimized storage (COS), a term used to describe current and future global-scale information-management architectures.
"The explosive growth of user-generated content is driving the need for an information infrastructure solution that can efficiently and effectively manage petabytes of information," said Mike Feinberg, senior vice president of EMC's cloud infrastructure group. "We are witnessing a revolution in the way large customers manage their information globally and deliver new cloud-based services to market."
Analyst Benjamin Woo of IDC agreed with Feinberg's assessment. The cloud-computing model, he said, helps companies capitalize on the rapid growth and increasing value of unstructured digital assets by providing an efficient infrastructure that leverages many highly distributed resource acting as a single, local entity.
"A new class of information infrastructure, like EMC Atmos, is therefore required to help expose the business potential that can be gained from information mobility through an 'any-to-any' architecture," Woo said. "Organizations that leverage this architecture with a highly flexible and granular policy engine will gain a significant competitive advantage."
EMC...
Microsoft Partners with Rival Sun To Push Search Tool
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While the world waits to see if Microsoft will take Yahoo up on its invitation to make another acquisition bid, Redmond on Monday announced another search deal with a different rival: Sun Microsystems.
Microsoft is chasing both Google and Yahoo on the search front. According to comScore, Google owned 63 percent of the U.S. Web search market in August. Yahoo grabbed 19.6 percent, leaving Microsoft with a mere 8.3 percent.
While some analysts think Microsoft will eventually purchase Yahoo, the company is making search deals for its MSN property. A search-distribution deal with Sun will offer the MSN Toolbar, powered by Microsoft Live Search, to U.S.-based Internet Explorer users when they download Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
The deal means Internet Explorer users downloading JRE can opt for one-click access to Live Search features on the toolbar, as well as news, entertainment, sports and other MSN network content. Users would also gain direct access to Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.
Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the online audience business at Microsoft, called the agreement with Sun another important milestone in Redmond's strategy to secure broad-scale distribution of its search offering. The potential, he explained, is significant.
"With the vast array of Java software-based Web applications that are downloaded every month, this deal will expose Live Search to millions more Internet users and drive increased volume for our search advertisers," Mehdi said.
With more than 6.5 million Java software developers around the globe, Java is one of the most widely available and popular software platforms. It is already present on 91 percent of Internet-connected PCs worldwide. JRE is one of the highest-volume consumer downloads on the Web, with tens of millions of downloads each month.
Rich Green, executive vice president of software at Sun, said his company's goal is to provide...
Businesses, Consumers Expected To Cut Tech Spending
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While companies are tightening their software budgets, consumers are also expected to delay buying the latest technology devices.
Businesses plan less software spending in the next 90 days, according to a survey last month by ChangeWave, a research company. The survey found that the nation's recession is affecting software purchases across all categories.
Forty percent of corporate purchasers said they will spend less on software, down 15 percentage points from a July survey. A slowdown in business and capital budgets was cited by 23 percent. Another 31 percent said their companies don't need any new software.
While spending on security software has historically avoided budget cuts, that category will also be affected, according to ChangeWave. Security spending will increase for 13 percent of the respondents, but 20 percent say their budgets for security will be affected by the declining economy.
Business intelligence software has historically shown negative growth in purchasing surveys, and the most recent results show it spiraling downward.
"With companies slashing their spending budgets in an attempt to salvage their 2008 bottom lines, software purchases have been landing in the expendable column," said Paul Carton, research director at ChangeWave's Alliance Research Network. "All of this points to a very soft future for corporate software spending for the next 90 days, and probably for much longer."
"Moreover, our findings pointed to a big downturn in overall consumer spending -- with consumer electronics taking the biggest hit -- just as the crucial holiday season is getting under way," Carton said.
Those consumers who do plan to open their wallets will be sparing Apple because of its iPhone, but sales of its Macs will not be so lucky.
A recent cell-phone survey showed that for respondents planning to purchase a new smartphone in the next 90 days, 34 percent said it...
Apple's iPhone 3G Now Most Popular Mobile Phone
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Apple's iPhone 3G can add another trophy to its crowded shelf. On Monday, The NPD Group reported that the popular smartphone surpassed the Motorola RAZR in the third quarter as "the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S."
The RAZR had reigned as the top-selling consumer handset for the past 12 quarters. The report by the market researcher is based on more than 150,000 online consumer surveys each month, projected to represent all U.S. consumers 18 years and older.
Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis, said "the displacement of the RAZR by the iPhone 3G represents a watershed shift in handset design from fashion to fashionable functionality." In the third quarter, he noted, four of the five best-selling handsets were "optimized for messaging and other advanced Internet features."
Based on unit sales in the third quarter, the top five handsets, in order, were the iPhone 3G, all models of the RAZR V3, all models of the RIM Blackberry Curve, the LG Rumor, and the LG enV2.
The emphasis on "fashionable functionality" is reflected in the key motivations of U.S. consumers in making their selection. According to the NPD report, the need for a camera was cited by 43 percent of the respondents, and the need to send and receive text messages by 36 percent.
Rubin noted what he called a "growing data divide" in cellular handsets. Some users are justifying their investment in data plans because they see the need for wireless access to the Internet, while other consumers are more "voice-centric" and see little need for data plans.
Mobile phones are also seeing some features becoming more common. For instance, 30 percent of handsets sold in the third quarter had a QWERTY keyboard, resulting in the greatest year-over-year increase yet in sales for devices with that feature. A year...
Court Orders Papermaster Off the Job
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Former IBM exec Mark Papermaster won't get to start his new job as a senior VP at Apple right away now that a court has ordered him off the job for potentially violating a non-compete agreement with his former employer. The order came from a U.S. District Court judge that felt his position at Apple was too similar to his job at IBM, according to Reuters.
Apple announced on November 4 that it was hiring Mr. Papermaster as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering. At IBM, he served as vice president of Blade Development, and the company called him the "top expert in 'Power' architecture and technology."
IBM, however, doesn't want to see its former employee on Apple's payroll because it's concerned he might share trade secrets with his new bosses.
"Mr. Papermaster has access to confidential know-how and other sensitive information that the company uses to manufacture its 'blade' servers," the company said in its court filing.
Apple is complying with the court order, but isn't giving up on Mr. Papermaster without a fight. A new hearing is set for November 18 for his objections on the ruling.
An Apple spokesperson commented "We will comply with the court's order but are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles."
Analysts Expect Market for Cell Phones To Weaken
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A wave of economic gloom is expected to hit mobile phone buyers next year, and more and more analysts predict the once-buoyant market will shrink for the first time since the 2001 crash, a Reuters poll shows.
On average, analysts expect global growth to be 3 percent in both the fourth quarter and in 2009, compared with well above 10 percent in recent years. Eight out of 22 analysts said they expected the market to contract next year.
In a similar poll just a month ago, only one analyst out of 23 expected 2009 market sales volumes to fall, and then only slightly.
For the fourth quarter, analysts expect the market to grow 11.6 percent from the third quarter, less than the 13.5 percent estimated by Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker. The fourth quarter has traditionally been a bonanza for cell phone makers as consumers snap up phones for holiday gifts.
The $190 billion cell phone market, which was born in the 1980s and became a major growth industry after a surge in the late 1990s, had a brief shock in 2001, when the market fell for the only time.
Cell phone makers have prepared themselves for the market slowdown over the past several months, avoiding the build-up of large inventories that hurt the market in 2001. Also, some distributors have been held back from building up phone inventories because of the credit crisis, analysts said.
The first indications of future demand, however, are not promising. Qualcomm, which makes chips for wireless devices, issued a disappointing profit outlook for the current quarter and year ahead Thursday, indicating that the economic crisis could have a prolonged effect on cell phone demand.
Paul Jacobs, the company chief executive, said the credit crisis and economic uncertainty meant sales of wireless gadgets would probably be slower in 2009 than...
SNL and Palin Take Online Video to the Next Level
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It's all over but the inauguration. Barack Obama has swept to victory, and Sarah Palin can go back to moose hunting in Alaska. It was an election that broke all kinds of barriers, and few of us will soon forget it. Here's one barrier smashed you may not have noticed: Online video finally went mainstream, thanks to Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, and, of course, Sarah Palin.
You had to be living in a cave somewhere south of where Osama Bin Laden is hiding not to know that one of the high points of Election 2008 was the weekly spoof-fest served up by SNL that featured zingers so dead-on that they became watercooler fodder from coast to coast. Ratings for the 33-year-old show jumped by 76 percent this year, to 9.8 million late-night comedy watchers. But folks who didn't [or couldn't] stay up that late could watch the bits on NBC.com, Hulu, or any number of places where videos can be ogled online.
That audience could finally turn online video into a big business. Until now, the 146 million or so online video viewers recorded by comScore Media Metrix each month have been mostly the under-30 crowd drawn to consumer-generated dreck, shorter professional stuff, and the odd sitcom or two. That will change now, I am willing to wager, with old fogies like me developing a taste for TV shows at the click of a mouse. For me, the light bulb went on when NBC.com put a promo for the Christian Slater show My Own Worst Enemy on the same page as SNL highlights from the week before.
What online video has needed from its beginning is a major cultural event that would focus attention on the abundance of TV shows -- and all kinds of other material -- available online. The last...
Device Offers On-the-Go Peek at E-Mail
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Robbie Hitchcock of San Ramon didn't want to shell out big bucks and spend hours learning to retrieve e-mail with an iPhone, so he bought a gadget about the size of a pack of cigarettes and the thickness of a matchbook, the Peek.
Fumbling with complicated technology is not a Peek experience. The slender device, created by the founders of Virgin Mobile, makes it supremely easy to send and receive e-mail almost anywhere. And that's all, folks; no games, camera, calendar, videos or any of the other myriad services offered by gadgets like BlackBerries or iPhones.
Peek also spares its users the $200 or so initial fee and approximately $70 monthly cost of those devices, not to mention their mandatory contracts. It's about $100 upfront and some $20 a month thereafter, and you can opt out anytime without penalty fees.
"You can set up on a Peek in less than a minute," said Peek's founder, Amol Sarva, in an interview at the 25-employee firm's Oakland office.
Peek was planned in Walnut Creek "in the cell phone aisle of Target," Sarva said, and had its first office in Walnut Creek. The company then moved to its Oakland office, which has about 15 staffers, and three of its cofounders and principals live in the Bay Area. It does have a New York office, which is technically its headquarters.
Sarva launched his company in September, unfazed by the battering the economy is currently undergoing. His device can be bought at Target stores nationwide or at www.getpeek.com.
"In a tough economy, this is a good alternative," Sarva said. While people want to get their e-mail anywhere and everywhere, they're not wild about spending prodigious amounts of money in times like these, he said. Sarva and his cofounders are banking on this.
The startup has $11 million in funding from...
Miniature Projector Brings the Big Screen to Your Pocket
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Come on, admit it. Is there anything more awesome than miniaturization? The Walkman put a stereo system in your pocket and changed the game forever. A modern digital watch has the computing power of a whole roomful of 1950s computer gear. And people are watching TV shows these days on iPods about the size of a business card.
Enormous feats of shrinkage like that don't come along very often, though. So when they do, you sit up and take notice -- as you will the first time you see the Optoma Pico Projector. It's a long-awaited, much-rumored projector about the size of a cell phone: 2 by 4.1 by 0.7 inches (5 by 10 by 2 centimeters), weighing 4.2 ounces, or 119 grams. Its list price is $430. It premiered at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin in late August and it will be available in electronics stores worldwide later this month.
A pocket projector? Are you kidding? This isn't just a new product -- it's a whole new product category.
Regular projectors, of course, are big, heavy, expensive, sometimes noisy machines. They are standard equipment in corporate boardrooms where PowerPoint jockeys hold sway, in classrooms or auditoriums, or mounted to the ceiling in home theaters, where they provide extra-large movie-watching goodness.
But there are lots of times when a 100-inch screen is overkill -- and yet a 2-inch iPod screen doesn't quite cut it. Those are the times when you need something in between. In those situations, a completely silent, ridiculously simple microprojector like the Pico really shines.
You would have to be a jaded gizmophile not to be impressed the first time you turn on this tiny, shiny black box. In the center of one end, there is a very bright LED lamp. Inside, there is a miniaturized Texas Instruments digital light-processing,...
Navigon 8100T Directs Drivers with 3-D Views
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Navigon has just taken the wraps off the 8100T -- a personal navigation device that adds a three-dimensional perspective to a company's fleet of GPS-enabled navigation products for automobiles.
Sporting a silver brushed-metal housing, the 8100T integrates a 4.8-inch color touchscreen with a panoramic 16:9 aspect ratio. The extra-wide screen is particularly useful for displaying the contours and elevations of nearby geographic features such as lakes, rivers and rolling hills, helping drivers realistically see what lies ahead.
By introducing real 3-D views to the market, the Navigon 8100T "raises the bar on innovation and design in the personal navigation device category," said Michael Roach, Navigon's president for the Americas.
Measuring 5.3x3.3x0.9 inches and tipping the scales at 9.4 oz, the Navigon 8100T is equipped with a 533-MHz processor from Samsung; a SiRF StarIII GPS chip; 512MB of ROM; 128MB of RAM; and a SD card preloaded with software and maps. Additionally, the product integrates a special traffic receiver and antenna; dual microphone input for noise cancellation; and a nonremovable 1500 mAh lithium ion battery.
According to Navigon, the 8100T's touchscreen is capable of displaying local street and speed-limit signs for virtually every highway interchange and exit that drivers can expect to encounter. Lane alerts are displayed well in advance to prevent users from missing their freeway exits.
The extra-large display window also portrays color-coded visual alerts about real-time traffic conditions across 95 markets in the U.S. and Canada. To avoid a potential trouble spot, the user can simply touch a button on the unit to obtain the best available rerouting around the problem area. Both features are available for the lifetime of the product right out of the box with no additional fees or extra hardware required.
The device's built-in voice destination entry technology makes...
Circuit City Files for Bankruptcy in U.S. and Canada
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In a last-ditch effort to keep operating, consumer-electronics giant Circuit City has filed for bankruptcy protection in both the United States and Canada.
Just days after the Richmond, Va.-based company announced it would close 155 of its 770 retail stores and cut 20 percent of it U.S. workforce, Circuit City on Monday said it has faced significant financial challenges and needs to file for Chapter 11 protection in the United States, while seeking protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada.
"Despite our aggressive efforts to address [financial] issues, our company filed a voluntary petition for reorganization," said James Marcum, Circuit City's acting CEO. "This filing will give us the time and resources to address our financial challenges while continuing to provide you, our guests, with consumer elect products and services you want for the holiday season."
Circuit City has also asked the U.S. bankruptcy court in Virginia to grant it the authority to continue operations and move forward with its guest services, which includes accepting exchanges, returns and gift cards from customers. The company has also asked the court for approval to continue providing benefits and wages to its employees.
Also part of its bankruptcy effort is a request to negotiate a $1.1 billion debtor-in-possession revolving-credit facility to supplement its working capital in replacement of its $1.3 billion asset-based credit facility. This will help the company pay off vendors and partners for services received after the bankruptcy filing.
Since early 2007, Circuit City has been moving in a downward spiral. Store closings began in February 2007, when the company shuttered dozens of stores in Canada as well as several domestic superstores. In the same month, Circuit City's chief financial officer, Michael Foss, left the company. In March, the company announced that it would lay off 3,400 people.
In April 2008, Blockbuster...
Music Headphones Pose a Risk To Pacemakers
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People with pacemakers could be at risk listening to music with headphones. If the headphones for music players are placed within an inch of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD), they may interfere with the medical devices, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Medical Device Safety Institute.
"For patients with pacemakers, exposure to the headphones can force the device to deliver signals to the heart, causing it to beat without regard to the patients' underlying heart rhythm," said Dr. William Maisel, senior author of the study and director of the Medical Device Safety Institute. "Exposure of a defibrillator to the headphones can temporarily deactivate the defibrillator."
Millions of people with abnormal heart rhythms have pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators. A pacemaker produces electrical impulses that start a heartbeat, according to the American Heart Association. The impulses then flow through tiny wires to a person's heart and are timed to flow at regular intervals.
An ICD is a device that has wires implanted into the heart tissue and can deliver electrical shocks, detect the rhythm of the heart, and pace the heart's rhythms as needed.
A report by the Food and Drug Administration released in February found that interactions between MP3 players, such as Apple's iPod, and implanted cardiac devices are unlikely. The report, however, did not include the headphones used with the MP3 players.
"We became interested in knowing whether the headphones, which contain magnets -- not the MP3 players themselves -- would interact with implanted cardiac devices," Maisel said.
Although the MP3 players themselves do not pose a risk, the magnets in the headphones do.
Neodymium, a magnetic substance found in the headphones, is what caused the pacemakers and ICDs to react to 14 different MP3 headphone models.
Although patients can use the headphones on their ears without...
VMware Brings Virtualization to Mobile Phones
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VMware on Monday announced plans to bring virtualization to mobile phones through its new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP).
Built on technology it acquired from Trango Virtual Processors in October, VMware MVP aims to help handset vendors reduce development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster. What's more, end users will be able to run multiple profiles -- for example, one for personal use and one for work use -- on the same phone.
"By abstracting the applications and data from the hardware itself, we expect that virtualization will not only enable handset vendors to accelerate time to market, but can also pave the way for innovative applications and services for phone users," said Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMware. "We look forward to working closely with our partners to bring new mobile solutions to market faster."
VMware describes MVP as a thin layer of software that can be embedded on a mobile phone to decouple the applications and data from the underlying hardware. The company says MVP will be optimized to run efficiently on low-power-consuming and memory-constrained mobile phones.
One of the key benefits to handset vendors is reducing the time to market. Vendors spend significant time and effort getting new phones to market because they are dealing with multiple chipsets, operating systems, and device drivers across their product families. For example, the same software stack doesn't work across all phones and, therefore, must be ported separately for each platform -- a slow and expensive process.
VMware MVP aims to quicken time to market by virtualizing the hardware, enabling handset vendors to develop a software stack with an operating system and a set of applications that is not tied to the underlying hardware. At the same time, by isolating the device drivers from the...
MGM Movies, TV Shows Come to YouTube
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YouTube, the biggest online video Web site, has been missing much of the action as studios move full-length TV shows and movies to the Web. But this may be changing: YouTube announced Monday that movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) will show some of its archive on the popular video site.
The fare will be free for viewers, accompanied by ads. Initial titles from MGM include episodes of the American Gladiators TV series, full-length films such as Bulletproof Monk and The Magnificent Seven, and clips from movies like Legally Blonde.
MGM copresident Jim Packer said the studio will roll out new content slowly, with no more than 30 to 40 movies on YouTube at once.
YouTube, owned by Google, has a huge viewership -- more than 80 million visitors in September alone. And it has become part of the culture, in that clips of the most outrageous and memorable moments from television's hundreds of channels almost instantly show up on the site. It's also famous for countless clips of odd pet tricks, homemade diatribes, and everything in between.
But the site has also gotten into hot water because users post legally protected material without permission. Viacom, for instance, is suing YouTube because of copyright infringement. YouTube has implemented a VideoID system that now enables media companies to determine if there are unauthorized uses of their protected materials on the site, and, if so, studios can either remove the clips or attach ads to them.
Because of illegal use of their protected material, and because of the general free-for-all in terms of the quality of video clips, many studios have not looked at YouTube as a reliable venue for their properties.
Meanwhile, Hulu.com, a joint venture of NBC and Fox, among other sites, has begun to attract viewers, and is illustrating how TV...
Seagate and Dell Offer Self-Encrypting Hard Drives
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Seagate on Monday announced what it called "sweeping advances" in its efforts to secure laptop information. Its solution is self-encrypting laptop hard drives with up to 320GB of capacity. The company said 500GB models are coming soon.
Dell will be the first computer maker to ship a laptop with Seagate's 160GB self-encrypting hard drive. And McAfee will provide software for enterprise-wide management of laptops with Seagate secure hard drives.
"Delivering easy-to-use notebook security that also is cost effective requires leading partnerships and technologies," said Tom Major, vice president of the personal compute business unit at Seagate. "Seagate is pleased to be teaming with industry leaders to simplify security management for our customers and providing our OEM and channel customers with the world's fastest self-encrypting hard drive."
Laptop data security is becoming more important in the midst of rampant global adoption of mobile PCs, especially considering a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds and 97 percent are never recovered, according to the FBI. Laptops often contain sensitive personal and business information, and lost or stolen laptops can cost companies millions of dollars in compromised proprietary information and threaten consumers with identity theft.
Seagate's new Momentus FDE (full-disk encryption) laptop hard drives, 5400- and 7200-rpm models with capacities of up to a half terabyte, aim to guard against unauthorized access to information. The Momentus FDE drives feature government-grade encryption.
McAfee is providing its ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) management system and endpoint encryption client to Seagate for its Momentus FDE hard drives. The companies said this integration will give customers user-rich features and enterprise management capabilities that IT administrators need to secure laptop computers.
"McAfee provides leading enterprise-class, powerful encryption and strong access-control technologies," said Tony Jennings, vice president of strategic partnerships at McAfee. "By teaming with Seagate on its new...
Nortel Loses $3.4 Billion, Plans To Cut 1,300 Jobs
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Nortel Networks on Monday announced it lost $3.41 billion in the third quarter and plans to eliminate 1,300 jobs amid an economic downturn trickling through the tech sector. Nortel also plans salary and hiring freezes, fewer management positions, and a suspension of certain preferred-share dividends.
"In September, we signaled our view that a slowdown in the market was taking place. In the weeks since, we have seen worsening economic conditions, together with extreme volatility in the financial, foreign-exchange, and credit markets globally, further impacting the industry, Nortel and its customers," said Nortel President and CEO Mike Zafirovski." We are therefore taking further decisive actions in an environment of decreased visibility and customer spending levels."
Zafirovski said Nortel's performance in the third quarter is in line with its Sept. 17 expectations. Operating expenses for the quarter are down significantly, partly, he said, as a result of immediate actions taken by the company to cut costs by $100 million.
"It is important to note that, despite the business environment, we continued to see important, multiyear customer wins in key areas of our business, validating the value and innovation that Nortel delivers to customers," Zafirovski said.
Nortel said reducing costs and preserving cash are priorities. The moves to cut jobs and dividends while consolidating executive management and freezing salaries and hiring are expected to reduce annual gross costs by approximately $400 million in 2009.
Zeus Kerravala, a vice president at The Yankee Group, said he's not surprised at Nortel's stiff losses. Nortel, he said, typically sells to companies looking for an alternative to Cisco Systems. "In tough economic times, buyers tend to go with the vendors they know and the vendors they trust," he explained. "An alternative vendor that may be cheaper has some appeal, but it's just a much tougher sell in a...
Employers Learn: Blog on Cuts, or Others Will
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During past downturns, layoffs were mostly a private affair. Big companies tended to issue vague news releases filled with jargon about "downsizing," and startups often gave people the pink slip without telling the world anything at all.
Not anymore. In the age of transparency, the layoff will be blogged.
Elon Musk, chief executive of the electric-car company Tesla Motors in San Carlos, California, said he had no choice other than to blog about the Oct. 15 layoffs at the company, even though some employees had not yet been told they were losing their jobs.
Valleywag, a Silicon Valley gossip blog owned by Gawker Media, had already published the news and it was being picked up by old-media reporters, Musk said. "We had to say something to prevent articles being written that were not accurate."
Blogging about staff cuts is particularly prevalent in Silicon Valley, where tech gossip sites pounce on every rumor and Web-savvy employees broadcast their every thought on personal blogs and Twitter feeds. Companies feel pressure to break bad news on their own blogs so that they can control the message better.
However, experts in human resources and public relations say it is only a matter of time before companies of all sizes and in all industries will feel compelled to blog about painful news.
Every industry has Web sites that cover its companies and eagerly publish rumors, from the Starbucks Gossip blog to DealBreaker for the financial industry and BlueOvalNews.com for Ford Motor. Web sites like Glassdoor.com and JobSchmob.com also encourage workers to vent about their bosses.
"Today, whatever you say inside of a company will end up on a blog," said Rusty Rueff, a former human resources executive at Electronic Arts and PepsiCo. "So you have a choice as a company -- you can either be proactive and take the offensive and...
Collapse of Yahoo Deal Puts Google in Regulators' Sights
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Google offered its rival Yahoo a marriage of convenience this past summer: an advertising partnership that would have given Yahoo an alternative to selling all or part of itself to Microsoft.
That proposed marriage fell apart Wednesday in the face of opposition from government antitrust regulators, leaving a jilted Yahoo under growing pressure to devise a new plan for growth.
The agreement also thrust Google, which dominates the most lucrative business on the Internet, squarely into the sights of regulators. That could force the company to rein in its ambitious goals for expansion.
"It puts Google on notice," said David Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. "But it does not necessarily have serious implications today. If there is a pattern of government interventions in Google deals, there are negative implications."
The U.S. Justice Department notified Google and Yahoo early Wednesday that it was planning to file suit to block the deal, which called for Google to place ads alongside some of Yahoo's search results. Shortly afterward, Google said it would walk away from the agreement. Regulators had been investigating the deal since June, and it was opposed by Microsoft and several large advertisers.
"Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, wrote on the company's blog. "That wouldn't have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement."
Google and Yahoo had insisted that they devised the deal to ensure that it would not reduce competition in the market for Web search advertising. Last weekend, the companies proposed to limit the scope of the agreement substantially in a last-minute attempt to salvage it, but even that proved insufficient.
"The arrangement likely would have denied consumers the benefits of competition -- lower...
Cisco Reports Big Drop as Credit Crisis Spreads
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Cisco Systems warned that a sharp drop in sales could push quarterly revenue down by as much as 10 percent.
The computer networking giant, the first major technology company to report earnings that include October, when the credit crisis spread beyond financial companies, said Wednesday that its sales had fallen 9 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Cisco expects sales for its current quarter to drop 5 percent to 10 percent from the $9.8 billion reported in the same period a year ago.
"The environment has changed dramatically in the last two months," John Chambers, Cisco's chief executive, said in a conference with Wall Street analysts.
At times, Chambers sounded flummoxed by the state of the economy and growing pessimism among customers. "I think we are in a little bit of uncharted waters," he said. Revenue dropped 15 percent in its fiscal 2002, compared with 2001, when technology spending on the Internet collapsed.
The company's executives stressed that Cisco's experience with the boom-bust nature of technology had prepared it to emerge from the downturn unscathed.
"We have been through this four or five times," Chambers said. "Each time we have done this, we have come out in very strong financial shape."
For its first quarter, which ended Oct. 25, the company, based in San Jose, California, reported net income of $2.2 billion, flat against $2.21 billion a year ago.
Cisco's first-quarter sales rose 8 percent, to $10.3 billion, from $9.55 billion.
The company has now joined fellow technology giants -- Intel, Microsoft and Dell -- in issuing apprehensive forecasts for sales in 2009.
"There was a completely different environment as we got into October," Cisco's chief financial officer, Frank Calderoni, said in an interview.
Cisco had been expected to increase second-quarter revenue by about 7 percent, so the revelation that Cisco expected a decline, possibly in the double digits,...
IBM Chief Offers Plan for Tech-Based Recovery
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IBM's chief executive, Samuel Palmisano, is proposing a technology-fueled economic recovery plan for the United States that calls for public and private investment in more efficient systems for utility grids, traffic management, food distribution, water conservation and health care.
Recent technology advances make this possible, and the need is apparent, Palmisano said in a speech he delivered Thursday to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Sixty-seven percent of electrical energy, for example, is lost because of inefficient power generation and grid management. Congested highways cost $78 billion a year in squandered working hours and wasted gasoline.
Palmisano never mentioned IBM in his speech, but his proposal has a self-serving side. IBM is increasingly playing the role of lead contractor in these so-called smart infrastructure projects around the world, from a traffic management network in Stockholm to electric grids in Texas.
Some economists and policy experts say similar projects are a good way to improve the long-term health of the economy, potentially providing a foundation for innovation and growth across a range of industries.
Applying more computing intelligence to help transform fields like transportation, energy and health care will be "critical to solving an array of pressing public problems," said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan research group.
"The countries that take the lead in this area will be the nations that enact the best public-private partnerships," said Atkinson, who has seen the text of the speech.
Palmisano compared today's economic challenge, in broad strokes, with that faced by the United States as it struggled to emerge from the Depression or after World War II. In the 1930s, he said during an interview, the New Deal programs, among other things, brought electrical service to much of country -- not only to rural homes, but also to factories, which...
Sprint Nextel Losing Subscribers and Money
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Sprint Nextel Corp. watched another 1.3 million wireless subscribers head for its competitors during the third quarter, leading the company to post a loss that sent its stock skidding Friday.
Dan Hesse, the Overland Park, Kan.-based company's chief executive, told analysts that Sprint Nextel plans to work harder to attract new customers during the upcoming holiday season but acknowledged "we have yet to turn the corner."
"We made good progress on our operational priorities in the third quarter and resolved some key issues," he said. "Still, subscriber losses are too high."
The nation's third-largest wireless provider said it lost $326 million, or 11 cents per share, for the three months ending Sept. 30. It had earned $64 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
Excluding one-time items, Sprint Nextel said it would have broken even during the quarter. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of 3 cents per share.
Sprint Nextel's revenue fell 12 percent to $8.81 billion. Analysts expected $8.85 billion.
Sprint Nextel shares fell 28 cents, or 7.6 percent, to $3.40 in morning trading Friday.
Since its 2005 acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc., the company has struggled with technical problems, unfocused marketing and difficulties integrating operations. Despite heavy investments to correct those problems, Hesse said the company still suffers from poor perceptions in the market.
Competing devices, such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone being sold through AT&T Inc., haven't helped, although Sprint has fought back with the Samsung Instinct and other comparable smart phones.
Sprint Nextel's wireless business reported a 13 percent decline in revenue to $7.5 billion as its subscriber base fell by 1.3 million. That included 1.1 million valuable "postpaid" customers who have contracts. That was worse than in the second quarter, when Sprint Nextel lost 901,000 subscribers, including 776,000 postpaid customers.
Postpaid churn, or the...
User-Generated Content: It's Quality, Not Quantity
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Let's face it, customer publishing is not the most fashionable communications medium. Prejudices and myths abound -- many of them anchored in the past, others misguided, and a few that are just plain wrong. Let's discuss them.
With all the talk about Web 2.0, you might assume that the only content that matters is the user-generated stuff. Technology has enabled a new wave of content creators, but more content is not necessarily better. Because there is so much content around, only the very best stands out from the clutter.
User-generated content is far more effective at some things than others, great for entertaining us with opinion and telling us which hotel to stay at, but if we had to decide whether to sell our shares in a company, who are we more likely to trust: a blogger or The Wall Street Journal?.
Your media consumption is driven by content, most of which will be professionally created. Take this one step further and you get to our space professionally crafted branded content. We call it editorialized content, by which we mean it's selective, tonal, expert and entertaining.
That's not to say that professionally created content is all people want. Some consumers expect a dialogue with brands, and value peer-to-peer conversation. You can see this in action on The Guardian Web site or in Everywhere, an American travel magazine created by a community of like-minded travelers.
You do not have to choose between professionally crafted content and user-generated editorial. In many ways, the most powerful option can be to blend Web 2.0 and branded content.
Customer publishing is an obsolete definition of our business that ties it to one traditional platform: magazines. The enduring strength of editorial is that it is flexible and can work across channels. 'Create...
Google and FCC Tout Promise of White Space
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If the past week is any indication, Americans may soon enter the era of always-on, always-available Internet. While the full rollout of new broadband technologies may be two or three years away, the nation is closer to catching up with its access-rich Asian counterparts than ever before.
The big news, of course, was the Federal Communication Commission's Election Day decision to open the unused white-space portions of the electromagnetic spectrum between television channels for a national broadband Wi-Fi system. At the urging of Google and other technology companies, the system will be open to unlicensed devices that pass FCC muster.
The lack of licensing control and fees, the technology companies argue, will spur innovation. In addition, the remarkable reach of the low-frequency television signals will mean less expensive infrastructure capable of reaching deep into the nation's now-underserved rural areas.
"Making access cheaper and more available in more places is probably the most important thing we can do," said Larry Page, cofounder and president of products for Google. He was speaking at the Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI) conference in San Jose, Calif.
In an address earlier in the day to the WCAI, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he plans to propose new rules to expand the availability of high-speed mobile broadband service from satellites.
The proposal will attempt to strike a balance between mobile broadband and existing satellite services licensed under the Wireless Communications Services (WCS) system. As with the white-space development, the FCC will be looking closely at ways to minimize or prevent interference with existing services.
Greg Sterling, founding principal at Sterling Market Intelligence, agreed with Page about the significance of the development.
"I think the FCC approval of use of white space does have the potential to be a game-changer," Sterling said. "Part of that is because there are no 'license...
Panasonic Talking To Rival Sanyo About Buyout
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Panasonic and Sanyo are discussing a buyout. The Japanese consumer-electronics rivals started talks Friday that could create one of the biggest electronics companies in the world before the end of the year.
Sanyo's top shareholders include Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking. The three banks would double their 2006 investment if Panasonic pays the $6.2 billion analysts estimate Sanyo is worth. The acquisition would be the largest ever in the Japanese consumer-electronics industry.
Panasonic offers a range of products, systems and components for consumer, business and industrial use. The company, which changed its name from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. last month, is the leading manufacturer of flat-panel TVs, DVD players, and digital cameras. Sanyo would add its solar-cell operations to the mix. Together, they would rival Hitachi Ltd.
"Panasonic and Sanyo will start discussions with the aim of maximizing both companies' corporate values by pursuing synergies between both companies and further strengthening initiatives to achieve potential revenue and profit growth through this alliance," the companies said.
By combining Panasonic's electronics business with Sanyo's environment- and energy-related products, the companies believe they can become an indispensable element in the lives of people all over the world. It's a big vision for what would be a big company.
"Gathering together the accumulated technologies and manufacturing knowledge of both companies, we believe that we will evolve to a corporate group which will be highly admired globally by enhancing the quality of life for the people worldwide and coexisting in harmony with the global environment," the companies said.
The companies said they would accomplish these goals by sharing management know-how and business resources while collaborating with each other. The result, as they see it, is a global competitive foundation that will maximize the corporate values of Panasonic and Sanyo, and bring benefit for both companies' shareholders and...
Tethering Part of AT&T's Vision for Apple's iPhone
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Before you wake up in the morning, your iPhone downloads your news and tells your coffeemaker to start brewing. Then when you're up and you wave the device at your TV, the news feeds get transferred to your TV.
That's how AT&T's iPhone chief Ralph de la Vega envisions the popular Apple device in the future, according to a public discussion Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
After you drink your coffee and read your news on the TV, de la Vega envisions you'll use your iPhone to lock your house door, start your car, and, as you drive, the device's text-to-speech function reads you the news you haven't yet read.
At the office, the ubiquitous device coordinates a conference call and, since the call is with non-English speakers, it translates your English into their spoken language and vice versa, acting as the voice for both sides.
De la Vega also said AT&T Labs is working to integrate the iPhone with its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service, U-Verse. One function would be to use the smartphone as a remote control for the programming service and for its digital video recorder, with the resulting TV programming playing either on the TV or on the iPhone.
Al Hilwa, a program director at industry research firm IDC, noted that such all-in-one automated uses have also been projected in past years for computers. "But most people find this kind of extreme automation to be more trouble than it's worth," he said.
He noted that a PC is much more capable than an iPhone, and "we don't use a PC to start a car." The key to what the future iPhone will do, he said, is solving problems where mobility has been a problem or is an asset. "The litmus test is mobility,"...
Hardware Engineers Get a Look at Windows 7 Features
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Microsoft showed off new Windows 7 innovations at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this week. The focus was how the upcoming version of Microsoft's flagship product will make it easier for hardware partners to create new experiences for Windows PC customers.
Windows senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan rallied hardware partners, encouraging them to begin testing their current products and building new products on the application programming interface (API).
"We've done a great deal of work in Windows 7 to enable new scenarios with our hardware partners, and we are excited by the partner innovation we have shown today," said DeVaan, who heads Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System Division. "Windows 7 presents tremendous opportunities for hardware developers. This innovation will enable our hardware partners to provide customers with even greater choice in rich computing experiences."
Among the new Windows 7 features Microsoft demonstrated are technologies that aim to optimize how customers interact with Windows PCs, manage devices, access broadband, and use wireless.
For example, in efforts to make it easier for customers to interact with all their devices on a Windows PC, Microsoft has created a new feature dubbed Devices and Printers. It offers a single place for customers to interact with devices, browse files, or manage settings. Devices can be connected to the PC using USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, with setup wizards.
Device Stage is another new feature, designed to help Windows 7 customers take advantage of advanced device features. For example, Device Stage provides information on the status of mobile phones, portable media players, cameras and printers connected to a Windows 7 PC and runs common tasks in a single window customized by the device manufacturer.
Windows 7 also promises to deliver a simpler and more reliable way to connect to the Internet using wireless modems. The process is similar...
Microsoft's Ballmer Says Phooey To Yahoo Buyout
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If an ancient writer was alive today, he might post something like this to his Twitter account: "Hell hath no fury like a software giant scorned."
For much of the year, it looked like a proposed advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo would bring vitally needed liquidity of about $800 million to Yahoo. The economic downturn hit Yahoo particularly hard, with online advertisers moving away from banner ads to Google's more cost-effective text-based ads.
Late last week, however, the U.S. Department of Justice said it opposed the advertising deal because it would hurt consumers by reducing competition between the largest online advertising companies. Google and Yahoo tried to restructure the deal to placate federal officials, but when they were unable to do so, Google dropped the partnership idea.
The collapse of the deal with Google shone a harsh and unflattering light on the decision by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang in May -- after three months of courtship -- to reject the advances of Microsoft and CEO Steve Ballmer. At the time, Microsoft was willing to pay $33 per share for Yahoo, $6 more than the stock's high price in 2007. Yahoo's share price was around $12 on Friday.
Not surprisingly, Yang has a renewed interest in a buyout by Microsoft. Speaking at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Yang made an open-ended offer to reopen negotiations with the folks in Redmond.
"To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo," Yang said. "I don't think that is a bad idea at all -- at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company. We were ready to negotiate, we wanted to negotiate a deal, and we felt that we weren't that far apart. But at...
Apple's iPhone Tops BlackBerry as Smartphones Soar
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Apple's iPhone is emerging as king of the corporate world as global shipments of smartphones reached a new peak. Defying speculation about a global recession, worldwide smartphone shipments climbed to just shy of 40 million units in the third quarter, according to the latest estimates from Canalys. That means smartphones now represent about 13 percent of the total mobile-phone market, up from 11 percent in the second quarter.
The iPhone 3G's introduction in July led the charge.
Apple's expansion into many countries around the globe helped the company scale to second place worldwide, outshining Research In Motion in the quarter and boasting higher shipments than all Microsoft-based smartphones combined. Nokia remained the market leader despite a sales decline.
It was expected that Apple would figure among the smartphone leaders for the quarter, with a huge initial new-product shipment; it was just a question of how high it would be, according to Pete Cunningham, Canalys senior analyst. Despite RIM being nudged into third place, he said, its growth of more than 80 percent shouldn't be overlooked.
"This is also a tremendous performance, especially considering the delays it experienced in rolling out the BlackBerry Bold," Cunningham said. "Some customers will also have been waiting for the Storm to arrive. With these new products and the clamshell Pearl 8220 available in Q4, it is quite feasible that RIM will return to the number-two position."
Apple has done well in its efforts to unseat entrenched players like RIM and Microsoft Windows Mobile solutions that have owned the business market for years, said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. But one of the most interesting aspects of the iPhone is J.D. Power's recent report that the device had the "highest satisfaction of any business device."
"There's a keyword in there: Business device," Gartenberg...
Craigslist To Crack Down on Prostitution Ads
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Under the watchful eye of law enforcement in 40 states, Craigslist pledged Thursday to crack down on ads for prostitution on its Web sites.
As part of Craigslist's agreement with attorneys general around the country, anyone who posts an "erotic services" ad will be required to provide a working phone number and pay a fee with a valid credit card. The Web site will provide that information to law enforcement if subpoenaed.
Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, said the deal will allow legitimate escort services to continue advertising, while providing a strong disincentive to companies that are conducting illegal business.
"We don't view it as a penalty, we view it as raising the accountability," he said. "A legitimate business should have no problem with that. They should have no problem providing a phone number or credit card credentials."
Craigslist filed lawsuits this week against 14 software and Internet companies that help people who post erotic service ads to circumvent the Web site's defenses against inappropriate content and illegal activity.
Craigslist, which posts 30 million ads every month for everything from apartment rentals to jobs in hundreds of cities, will also begin using new search technology in an effort to help authorities find missing children and victims of human trafficking.
Police across the country have been arresting people for using Web sites like Craigslist to advertise the sexual services of women and children.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who brokered the agreement, said his office contacted Craigslist after receiving several complaints from users late in 2007 about photographs depicting nudity on the site. He said Craigslist cooperated fully and there was never a need to threaten legal action against the company.
"The dark side of the Internet must be stopped from eclipsing its immense potential for good," Blumenthal said.
He added: "I am fully convinced that Craigslist wants to stop this...
NeatDesk Helps Tidy Up Receipt Piles and Such
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Reach into your pockets after a business trip. You've got business cards, crumpled receipts and perhaps other scraps of paper with information needed for databases, expense reports and tax time. Dealing with this mess of paper is as much fun as visiting the dentist.
The new NeatDesk desktop scanner I've been testing can help you through this drill. It combines a speedy sheet-fed scanner with digital filing-system software called NeatWorks 4.0 that neatly sorts and organizes the information. For now, the scanner works with Windows only; a Mac version is expected in 2009.
The machine arrives care of Philadelphia-based The Neat Co., which only recently changed its name from NeatReceipts. That's also the name of the clever mobile scanner that put the company on the map.
Alas, organization and clutter reduction are costly. The NeatDesk hardware-software combination commands $500, a shock to anyone who sees scanners these days advertised for as little as $100.
Of course, NeatDesk is a specialized scanner that should appeal mostly to small-business owners or folks like me who methodically track expenses with Quicken or Microsoft Money. You can also export data to Excel, Word, TurboTax or QuickBooks accounting software. You can sync contacts with Outlook or the Plaxo online address book.
Let's take a closer look.
*The basics. The new scanner isn't designed to be easily portable like NeatReceipts. It weighs just over 4 pounds and is about the size of a bathroom scale. It's white, black and handsome propped up on a desktop.
Any scanner can convert paper into electronic images: The NeatDesk scanner makes it a breeze at the press of a single button. Actually, there are just two physical buttons on the front of the machine, either for a regular scan or to create a searchable Adobe PDF file from a scanned document. The on/off switch is in the...
The Vote: A Victory for Social Media, Too
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The 2008 contest for the White House may go down in history as the first social media election. How else to explain the unprecedented role the Web played in this year's Presidential contest, an influence scarcely imaginable just four years ago? In 2004 many social networking sites were just getting off the blocks. YouTube, for example, was introduced early the following year. And microblogging sites like Twitter wouldn't emerge until the 2008 Presidential campaign was getting under way.
It's not just that individual voters had access to a wider range of information about candidates and their positions on issues. Unlike in any other Presidential election, the electorate could harness a panoply of social media tools -- blogs, social networks, photo and video sharing sites -- to broadcast to the world their thoughts about the candidates and their experiences of the electoral process.
Voters' willingness to bring the democratic process to the Web was made most plain on Nov. 4. While the act of voting has traditionally been considered a private activity, on this Election Day voters enthusiastically parted the voting booth curtain to share their experiences on the Internet. Some wanted to advertise their support of a particular candidate or ballot measure. Others saw it as a chance to shine a light on flaws inherent to the election process. Whatever the reason, phone cameras and other multimedia devices were common at polling places, as many voters felt compelled to make a record of their experience in pictures and video and then upload and share them through sites like Flickr and Google's YouTube, both of which hosted special pages for election content.
Many of their images recorded the unique characteristics of the 2008 election: huge numbers of young people and minorities casting ballots -- some for the first time. Voters also encountered...
Location, Location, Location -- and Broadband
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Adam and Anita Paulk had a nice home outside Temple, Texas, with a big yard and a 10-minute commute to his job. But in Internet terms, the house was on Slow Lane. There was no high-speed Internet connection available.
So the Paulks pulled up stakes in 2005 and built a home in a new subdivision. It was a little further from his job, but at least it could get broadband.
"It was worth it, not to hear my husband bitch about the connection anymore," Anita Paulk said.
In less than a decade, broadband has gone from a luxury to a must for many people, and for some of them, it's started to influence their real-estate decisions. Homes that have broadband are winning out over more remote ones that don't. Areas with better and faster broadband are becoming more desirable than ones with slower access.
Edward Redpath, a real estate broker in Hanover, N.H., said he has seen deals fall through once the buyer realizes a home doesn't get broadband. Across the Connecticut River in Norwich, Vt., only the center of the village has cable.
"We have a lot of people that don't go into the rural neighborhoods or consider the rural neighborhoods because they need the broadband," Redpath said. "Our lifestyle demands speed."
There are several intersecting trends at play. One is that our reliance on broadband is increasing. About 55 percent of Americans have broadband at home, according to a recent survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project -- although more people have service available to them and don't buy it.
But the spread of broadband is slowing down. Getting the last 10 percent or so of homes connected is an expensive proposition, because they're in small communities or far from other homes. Over time, the lack of universal broadband, along with higher gasoline...
Tech Companies Greet Obama with Cautious Optimism
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Barack Obama's presidency could spell major changes for the technology industry after years of limited White House attention.
According to Ed Black, president and chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Tuesday's election outcome is good news for technology companies since the Obama camp has many tech-savvy advisers who understand the sector and its users. That was reflected in the Obama campaign's innovative use of technology and the Internet to organize volunteers, raise money and communicate with voters.
"There has not been much leadership on technology issues in Washington over the past eight years," Black said. "We don't want special favors. We just want people to understand us."
Paul Gallant, a telecom analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group, believes Obama could take on at least one big priority for the industry: extending the concept behind network neutrality principles -- which prohibit broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against online traffic traveling over their networks -- into the wireless arena.
The Federal Communications Commission's existing net neutrality principles have focused on high-speed Internet access delivered over wireline systems. But Google Inc. and other big technology companies as well as consumer advocacy groups have called for rules that would require wireless networks to be similarly open to all devices and applications.
Today, most wireless services operate as walled gardens that allow subscribers to use only approved handsets and devices and access only certain Web sites and online applications.
Gallant believes Obama would also be more likely to tap the federal Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes telephone service in rural and low-income communities, to bring broadband to underserved parts of the country. Universal broadband is also top priority for technology companies.
Yet tech companies have reason to be cautious, too. For one thing, said Christopher Hansen, president and chief executive of the American Electronics Association, Obama has not...
Ex-Employee Allegedly Stole $1B Intel Secrets
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A former Intel Corp. engineer has been charged with stealing trade secrets worth $1 billion from the chip maker while he worked for its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts alleged this week in a five-count indictment that Biswamohan Pani, 33, illegally downloaded more than a dozen confidential documents from Intel's computer system in California during a four-day stretch in June. He had already resigned from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, but remained on the payroll and still had access to the company's computers while he burned unused vacation days.
What Pani's supervisors didn't know then is that instead of taking the time to investigate a hedge fund job Pani claimed he was considering, he had actually started working for AMD and for a brief period was on both companies' payrolls.
Prosecutors say AMD had no knowledge of Pani's actions and did not benefit. But they say the information Pani downloaded was worth more than $1 billion in research and development costs, and included details about methods for designing microprocessors.
The indictment alleges that Pani "planned to use this information to advance his career at AMD or elsewhere by drawing on it when the opportunity arose, whether with his employer's knowledge or not."
Pani told investigators he had no intention of harming Intel, and was going to give the information to his wife, who also worked for Intel.
Pani's lawyer, Brad Bailey, declined to comment on specifics of the case. He said that Pani denies the allegations and that they plan to take the case to trial.
AMD said Pani is no longer an employee. The company is cooperating with investigators.
"AMD has not been accused of wrongdoing, and the FBI has stated that there is no evidence that AMD had any involvement in or awareness of Mr. Pani's alleged actions," the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company...
CNN's Fake Hologram Could Become Real in Future
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CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin's virtual visit to the network's New York studio from a trailer outside President-elect Barack Obama headquarters in Chicago may not have been a hologram, as dozens of bloggers have spent the last 48 hours pointing out, but it was a tantalizing glimpse of the future.
On Tuesday night, during CNN's election coverage, host Wolf Blitzer warned viewers that "I want you to watch what we're about to do, because you've never seen anything like this on television."
On cue, Yellin appeared to materialize in the New York studio, in a fashion similar to the fabled Star Trek transporters. In this case, of course, Yellin was not recreated atom by atom; instead, 35 high-definition cameras were used to capture her image. Twenty cameras in Chicago crunched the image data and transmitted it to the New York studio, where additional computers synced camera movements there with the shots of Yellin in Chicago. Further processing power was used to mesh Yellin's image with the feed from one of two New York cameras.
Although CNN dubbed the image of Yellin a "hologram," it really wasn't. But experts suggest it may not be long before a host like Blitzer could in fact see a holographic image in the studio.
According to researchers at the University of Arizona, it may only be another decade before it will be possible to purchase holographic television sets that will bring life-sized, 3-D scenes into the home, or make it possible to watch a holograph of Monday Night Football on a tabletop.
In a recent interview with CNN, Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian, chairman of photonics and lasers at the university's optical sciences department, told the network that scientists have succeeded in creating a 3-D display that can be erased and rewritten within minutes.
In order to be commercially...
Intel's New Nehalem Processor Is 'Mind-Blowing'
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Intel has big plans for its little chips. The chipmaker is looking to the future with its Intel Core i7 microarchitecture, code-named Nehalem, which is being described as "mind-blowing" by some observers after it was offered for review earlier this month.
Nehalem, the successor to Intel's Core microarchitecture, spans a range of products, but the first group of products will include the Intel Core i7 processor.
More than 100 of the first reviews have come in, according to Intel, and reviewers from all over the world are touting its performance. Computer Shopper said the Intel Core i7 represented huge performance jumps over previous generations, while Techgage said some of the performance gains were simply mind-blowing.
Intel plans to launch the Core i7 in San Francisco on Nov. 17, according to Intel spokesperson George Alfs. "Third-party reviews have hit the Web, and they are extremely positive," he said. "This is an entirely new architecture, with new high-speed infrastructure. We feel this is the fastest processor on the planet."
Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's Server Platforms Group, shared some details of the high-end desktops powered by the Intel Core i7, and echoed what others are saying about its top-notch performance for gaming and content-creation applications.
The Intel Core i7 processor comes with interesting features, including QuickPath Interconnect, which provides communication between chips and replaces the Front Side Bus. Moving on to its more energy-efficient features, Intel also previewed its Turbo Boost technology, which turns off unused processor cores and uses active cores more efficiently. Power is not wasted, while performance increases.
Intel has also introduced a new Overspeed Protection feature. By monitoring both core voltages, Intel effectively caps the maximum power at 130 watts.
"It's a ground-up design, and we started from scratch looking to create the highest-performance processor on the...
Will Congress Scuttle FCC White-Space Decision?
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The decision by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to open up white space -- the unused frequencies between television channels -- to unlicensed Wi-Fi devices is being hailed by technology companies as the dawning of a new era in broadband Internet access.
But the ruling is also being harshly criticized by various trade groups, including the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which argues that both the FCC's procedure and the concept are flawed.
"By moving the white-space vote forward," said Dennis Wharton, NAB's executive vice president, "the commission appears to have bypassed meaningful public or peer review in a proceeding of grave importance to the future of television."
A statement by NAB suggests that the group may be considering asking Congress to either reverse or substantially alter the FCC's white-space decision. According to NAB, a large number of lawmakers "publicly expressed opposition or concern over the FCC's proposed white-space action."
Among the more notable names listed by NAB are House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
"There was and continues to be immense concern from a large bipartisan group of lawmakers," Wharton said, "who recognize the important role that free television broadcasting plays in the daily lives of all Americans. Whether it is for emergency information, AMBER Alerts or news and entertainment, free TV is a service used more than eight hours per day by more than 100 million American households."
However, it remains to be seen just how receptive the new Congress will be to NAB's concerns. A number of the lawmakers listed in NAB's statement will not be returning to Washington in January. Moreover, the incoming Barack Obama administration is likely to be far more tech-savvy and tech-friendly than the...
Researchers Crack WPA Security for Wireless Networks
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Two researchers have opened a new can of worms that could let hackers wreak havoc on network managers.
Erik Tews and Martin Beck say they have found a way to crack the widely used Wireless Protection Access (WPA), a standard supported by the Wi-Fi Alliance and currently used to secure wireless computer networks. The researchers say they have specifically cracked the Temporal Key Integrated Protocol (a set of algorithms used by WPA), a feat that had been considered nearly impossible.
"We were able to write up both attacks about one month ago in a research paper we submitted to WISEC 2009, which is currently under review," said Tews in an e-mail interview with us from Germany. "Very experimental implementations of these attacks are ready and available in the aircrack-ng public SVN server."
The duo took only 12 to 15 minutes to complete their feat and will share their findings at the PacSec conference in Tokyo next week. PacSec presenters focus on technical security details as they relate to current issues and best practices in information security. Their findings are shared with a multinational group of security professionals.
"We will demonstrate two attacks; one of them is a little improvement in WEP key recovery, the other one is on WPA," Tews said.
"In a nutshell, the WPA attack allows an attacker to decrypt packets with a rate of one byte plaintext per minute or a little bit more," Tews said. "For short packets, this can be 15 minutes or so. After that, you will be able to send some packets, but only seven to 15. You need to decrypt another packet to send more packets."
Tews first discussed his work with a London newspaper, The Register, where he told the paper that the attack had a success probability of 50 percent with 40,000 packets and...
SanDisk SSD Tech Could Boost Write Speeds 100 Times
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Solid-state drives with random write speeds as much as 100 times faster than existing systems. That's the promise of a "next-generation patented flash management system" unveiled Wednesday by SanDisk.
The company said the system, called ExtremeFFS and announced at the WinHEC 2008 trade show in Los Angeles, will ship in SanDisk products next year.
Rich Heye, senior vice president and general manager for SanDisk's SSD Business Unit, said SSDs used with Windows Vista require a large number of random writes instead of sequential access.
To get the best performance out of such random writes, SanDisk created ExtremeFFS. The company said the system operates on a page-based algorithm, which means physical and logical locations can be separated. The SSD can write data to wherever is most convenient and efficient, which results in a performance improvement of as much as 100 times.
ExtremeFFS also uses all the NAND (not and) channels independently, so some can write while others deal with what the company called "garbage collecting." The system can also learn user patterns because it has usage-based content localization. After many uses, it knows where to place data for better performance and endurance. "This feature might not show up in benchmarks," Heye said, "but we believe it is the right thing to do for end users."
Because of the new ways that ExtremeFFS tackles the performance issue, SanDisk has suggested that new metrics are needed to measure the improvement, especially in comparing SSDs with hard disk drives.
Heye said that, since hard-drive performance is measured in revolutions per minute, or RPMs, SSDs need a comparable metric, such as virtual RPM or vRPM. He added that vRPM answers the question, "How fast would you have to spin a virtual HDD to achieve the level of performance seen by an SSD in a...
Obama, McCain Used in Malicious Spam Attacks
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Security research firm Sophos on Wednesday discovered attackers have launched their own presidential campaign. Attempting to exploit President-elect Barack Obama's historic victory, the spam attack sends e-mails with the subject line "Obama win preferred in world poll" and a return address of news@president.com.
Clicking a link in the e-mail takes victims to a Web page that insists on downloading Adobe Flash 9 to view a video of the first African-American president's "amazing speech." The scam is this: It's not really Flash. It's dangerous malware.
Victims who download get a Trojan horse that Sophos has labeled Mal/Bahav-027. PC users infected with this malware could find their data compromised or have their identity stolen.
Sophos has identified some key characteristics of the Trojan. The malware contains rootkit technology that allows it to remain hidden. It's designed to steal information from an infected computer. And it has a general backdoor functionality.
If that doesn't sound bad enough, this malware also has the ability to record keyboard and mouse inputs and can take screenshots. It looks for passwords, and it submits the information to a Web server in Kiev, Ukraine.
This isn't the first time attackers have tried to exploit Internet users during the presidential race. In September, hackers targeted Windows users with an e-mail claiming to contain a sex video of Obama.
It's not surprising that cybercriminals take advantage of the world's biggest news stories as an obvious trigger for people to open e-mails or click links, according to Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.
"In many ways, this campaign is identical to past attacks which have pretended to link to sexy videos of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Angelina Jolie," he said. "It's just that this time they chose the next leader of the USA -- who is probably the biggest...
Once-Defiant Yahoo Now Wants a Microsoft Takeover
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In the wake of shattered hopes for an advertising agreement with Google, Yahoo wants Microsoft to rescue it from its financial woes.
Google on Wednesday terminated its agreement with Yahoo following an indication that the Department of Justice would seek to block it. Yahoo was counting on the agreement to accelerate investments in its top business priorities through an infusion of cash.
Now Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is willing and even eager to resume negotiations to sell his company to Microsoft. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith testified against the Google-Yahoo ad deal before Congress on Oct. 1. Microsoft has not yet responded to Yahoo's off-the-cuff invitation to bid again for the company.
"To this day, I believe the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo," Yang said Wednesday evening at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco. While Yang said Microsoft and Yahoo haven't been talking since hostile takeover negotiations ceased earlier this year, he and the board "remain open to everything."
Yahoo rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid -- twice. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent what amounted to an ultimatum letter to Yahoo's board in early April. The letter made clear that Microsoft's goal in making "such a generous offer" was to create the basis for a speedy and ultimately friendly transaction.
The deal died, along with all talk of it, until mid-October. That's when Ballmer said a Yahoo acquisition would still make sense for both companies at the Gartner technology conference in Orlando, Fla.
Ballmer insisted that Microsoft had no interest in acquiring Yahoo and was not holding any discussions with Yahoo. He did say the companies could consider a partnership on search engines in the future. Microsoft also issued a statement at that time saying it had no interest in acquiring Yahoo.
Yahoo's shares closed...
Software Provides Low-Cost Unified Communications
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Alternative to hardware can eliminate the need for expensive networking upgrades. Organizations need inexpensive unified communications (UC) solutions that can integrate with their existing IT, telephony and mobile environments. Such tools are now beginning to appear, offering the ability to leverage the existing infrastructure, a minimal impact on available bandwidth and simple, straightforward policy-based administration. This new generation of UC solutions streamlines the task of providing on-demand access to people and information in order to encourage collaboration, accelerate the flow of information and deliver better and faster decision making at all levels of the organization.
The key problem is bloated offerings that require significant investments in hardware and software hinder UC adoption. Today's UC solutions offered by the major vendors can be complex and expensive, and lock an organization into specific infrastructures.
The key elements of a UC solution include:
* Presence. The cornerstone of any UC application, this provides real-time notification of users' current availability.
* Secure instant messaging (IM). Colleagues can enter into timely sessions to collaborate faster, but with the security and privacy that are not offered by public IM services.
* Video. Desktop videoconferencing offers anytime, spontaneous convenience over traditional videoconference or telepresence approaches where employees have to book conference rooms in advance.
* Conferencing and collaboration. UC is about bringing together groups of people who can see and edit information together.
* Mobile integration. People want to collaborate anytime, anywhere. Teleworkers and business travelers can fully participate in UC sessions from laptops and mobile devices.
The new generation of UC is available as a software application that can be immediately deployed onto a standard server within the corporate network and leverages existing videoconferencing and communications infrastructures. UC software can eliminate the need for expensive networking upgrades by utilizing IT-defined controls, user-specified adjustments and real-time adaptive bandwidth management to deliver a positive experience on...
The Appeal of Web Retailing Grows
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The Gap company's stores have hardly been the hottest spots at the mall in recent months -- or even years.
In a market where most retailers are posting single-digit monthly losses, its brands -- Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic -- had a combined double-digit drop in September, and Old Navy's sales that month were down a startlingly bad 24 percent.
But view Gap Inc. through the prism of the Internet, and a different picture emerges. Its online sales are soaring. They were up 50 percent from 2005 to 2007, more than doubled in the last five years, and are expected to hit $1 billion this year, accounting for about 6 percent of total sales.
How can putting the same merchandise in a different environment produce such different results? The answer lies in the increasing appeal of the Internet and the steps Gap has taken to capitalize on it. There's more of a democracy in decision-making when a shopping search site or Google is doing your browsing. When people rely on retail preconceptions and feet to find what they want, they might never stop at Gap or Kohl's. But online, it's all there for the perusing.
That's a big reason, along with gas prices and the Internet's attraction to bargain hunters, that Web sites may offer retailers their only cheer this holiday season. And it's why retailers are paying unprecedented attention to the Web.
"It's the only place you can go for an optimistic outlook" for retail this year, says trends expert Nita Rollins of digital marketing agency Resource Interactive.
Forrester Research predicts online retail sales will grow 12 percent this holiday season, the slowest growth to date but more than five times the tepid 2.2 percent increase the National Retail Federation predicts overall in November and December.
"The brick-and-mortar retailers who haven't made online a priority...
Digital Television Comes to the Desktop
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The way we watch television has evolved a lot over the years, with even bigger changes to come.
On Feb. 17, over-the-air TV stations will cease broadcasting analog signals, after which any TV viewers who depend solely on legacy NTSC tuners will be left in the dark. You can, of course, continue using these devices if equipped with digital converter boxes or if you have satellite or cable service.
Contrary to rumors, this change isn't going to force people to subscribe to cable or install a satellite dish to continue watching TV. Those affected are the millions of people who still rely on set-top "rabbit ears" or rooftop antennas. To help, Congress passed a bill to subsidize the purchase of ATSC converter boxes to allow viewers to receive over-the-air digital broadcasts on analog sets.
It's a hassle, to be sure, not to mention an expense many people don't need right now. But, like it or not, it is coming. The good news is you can use your existing antenna -- although an upgrade might be necessary -- while enjoying more channels and better picture quality.
Computer users can get a jump on this new technology, called digital terrestrial television, or DTTV, by adding a digital tuner to their existing system. Increasingly popular, these tuners come in a wide variety of formats, from internal cards to external devices using USB, Firewire or eSATA connections.
I've recently had the pleasure of testing Pinnacle Systems' PCTV HD Mini Stick, a highly portable digital tuner that's as compact and easy to use as a USB flash drive. Just install the software, plug it into any desktop or notebook PC USB 2.0 port, and you've got instant access to over-the-air high-definition TV.
The first time I fired this device up, my jaw about hit the floor. I've used many PC-compatible TV...
Microsoft Looking to China To Create New Products
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Microsoft Corp. expects its Beijing research center to start producing breakthroughs that could lead to global products in health care and other areas, the software giant's chief research officer said Wednesday as the center marked its 10th anniversary.
Microsoft is part of a wave of companies that are expanding research and development in China to serve its fast-growing market and take advantage of a huge Chinese talent pool of scientists and engineers.
Microsoft says its Beijing center, one of six, already has exceeded expectations, producing 260 innovations that have been added to products sold worldwide. The center is Microsoft's biggest outside the United States, with 350 researchers.
"They are increasingly poised to produce technical breakthroughs that may in fact be the basis of a whole new business for the company," said Craig Mundie, the company's chief research officer.
Mundie said the lab is expected to take the lead in developing business-oriented products for developing countries and possibly health care-related software.
Microsoft's Beijing team is best known for its role in developing an electronic tablet that recognizes handwriting. It also has worked on speech recognition and advanced graphics used in video games. The company says its researchers have been awarded 1,000 patents in China and abroad.
Dozens of other companies also operate research and development centers in China, including Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., General Electric Co., German's Siemens AG and Nokia Corp.
In Beijing, Microsoft has relied on Western-trained Chinese researchers but the country's own universities are starting to produce "highly capable" specialists, Mundie said.
"It is a very good source of talent. Particularly at the K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) level, China is probably doing a better job than either Europe or the United States in preparing young kids for jobs in engineering and science," Mundie said. "There is more vitality in science, technology, engineering (and) math-type of...
Saving Money on Your Next Computer Purchase
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It's time for my annual fall PC buyer's guide. As always, this guide covers what average consumers doing typical tasks should look for in a desktop or laptop PC. That excludes heavy-duty gamers, corporate buyers, techies or enthusiasts.
But this autumn, we find ourselves in a serious global economic slowdown. So I will focus this edition of the guide on how folks whose PC budgets have shrunk can still get something adequate for light use.
The guide below applies to both desktops and laptops, since the latter, at least in the consumer market, has achieved rough parity in performance and versatility, and is now more popular than desktops.
I consider the Mac operating system, Leopard, to be faster, easier and more stable than Windows XP or Windows Vista. It isn't susceptible to the vast majority of malicious software that circulates on the Internet. Macs also include Apple's superb built-in iLife multimedia suite. Macs can even run Windows, though that costs extra.
Apple has consciously chosen not to offer machines in the bargain category, however. The cheapest Mac desktop, the Mac Mini, which doesn't even include a monitor, speakers, keyboard or mouse, costs $650 for a model with a hard disk I consider adequate. The cheapest Mac laptop, the base model of the prior-generation MacBook (which Apple has retained in its lineup) is $999.
Both are good values, mainly because of the software. Macs also can save you money over time. But if the lowest upfront cost is your objective, you can pay hundreds less for desktops and laptops from Windows PC makers.
Windows Vista is too often slow and incompatible with older peripherals, such as the printers you might not want to replace in this economic climate. It also can cost more because it demands beefier, and thus costlier, hardware to run...
Uh, Wolf, That CNN Election Image Wasn't a Hologram
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Did Jessica Yellin really get beamed into the studios of CNN as a hologram, or was it some fancy camera maneuvering? A holography expert says the latter.
CNN focused more than 35 high-definition cameras on Yellin to get multiple views from Grant Park in Chicago for the look of a 3-D holographic image Tuesday. That made it appear as if Yellin was in the studio talking with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
The cameras zoomed on Yellin in Chicago were in sync with the cameras used in New York, according to CNN.
CNN provided a preview of the technology to some press people in advance of the presidential election and said it would have 44 cameras and 20 computers in each remote location to capture a 360-degree image of the person being interviewed. CNN wanted to give users a better view by giving them a virtual person in a real set rather than a real person in a virtual set, David Bohrman, CNN's senior vice president, told USA Today.
During Tuesday's election coverage, instead of viewers seeing a split screen featuring Blitzer and Yellin, viewers got to see Yellin's image in a different way.
Jason Sapan, a commercial holographer for more than 30 years and founder of Holographic Studios, said CNN's image of Yellin was not a hologram.
A hologram is a photographic image that is three-dimensional and appears to have depth. They work by creating an image composed of two superimposed pictures of the same object, but seen from different points.
"Oh this is so phony. What they are doing at the very best is a series of flat images grouped together giving a separate view," Sapan said. "It is a standard, high-definition recording using a bunch of images, but they are not doing holography."
Sapan said the image gives the feel of dimension...
Google Kills Search-Advertising Deal with Yahoo
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The search-advertising marriage between Google and Yahoo has been called off. A flurry of press releases from the two search-engine giants and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice made it clear that Google wasn't willing to go forward with the deal in the face of possible DOJ action. The whooshing sound you hear is $800 million in ad revenue disappearing from Yahoo's bottom line.
According to a statement by David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer, Google continues to believe the deal would be good not just for Google and Yahoo, but for users, advertisers and publishers as well.
"However, after four months of review," Drummond said, "including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it's clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn't have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement."
In the past week, both Yahoo and Google have proposed changes to the advertising partnership to reduce or eliminate DOJ concerns. However, Justice made it clear Wednesday that it planned to file an antitrust lawsuit if the deal went forward.
"The companies' decision to abandon their agreement eliminates the competitive concerns identified during our investigation and eliminates the need to file an enforcement action," said Thomas O. Barnett, assistant attorney gneral in charge of the antitrust division. "The arrangement likely would have denied consumers the benefits of competition -- lower prices, better service, and greater innovation."
The DOJ went on to say that Yahoo provides an alternative to Google in the Internet search-advertising and search-syndication markets. If the deal went forward, the department said, Yahoo would...
Microsoft BizSpark Supports Software Startups
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Microsoft is giving startup software companies an early holiday gift by offering access to Microsoft software and development tools, marketing and technical support, and industry experts.
Microsoft launched its BizSpark program to help early-stage companies that need software and server products -- such as Windows Server 2008 or SQL Server Enterprise -- but don't yet have the capital to purchase it. Microsoft also launched BizSpark DB, a Web site where it will promote startups working on innovative software, the company announced at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
The software behemoth said there are no upfront costs to join the program, but companies need to first meet eligibility requirements: They must have a software-based product or service, be in business less than three years, be privately held, and have less than $1 million in revenue.
"Entrepreneurs play a vital role in driving innovation and creating the kinds of new jobs that are essential to sustainable economic growth," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "Microsoft BizSpark is an exciting way for us to help provide business startups with the development tools, advice and exposure they need. We look forward to working with organizations and development agencies around the globe to foster entrepreneurship and help new companies succeed."
Those who agree to join the program will have access to a three-year Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Professional subscription; access to new cloud technologies, including Azure and Live Framework; and access to a group of supporters from the National Venture Capital Association, the Indus Entrepreneurs, and the European Business Angel Network.
Companies first need to contact a BizSpark Network partner -- there are 300 -- to get a code to join the program. Entrepreneurs are asked to choose from a list of network partners based on their location preference. Once a list is generated, a Microsoft...
AT&T Tests Limits for Internet Bandwidth Usage
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AT&T has become the latest Internet service provider to test limits on bandwidth usage, with a trial this month of caps for subscribers in Reno, Nevada.
The company -- the largest Internet service provider in the United States -- said about five percent of subscribers use about 50 percent of capacity.
Most of AT&T's high-bandwidth service is DSL and, at the slowest rate of 768 kilobits per second, the company will limit downloads to 20 gigabytes per month. That limit is raised as speed level is raised, with a top limit of 150 gigabytes per month for users with the 10-megabits-per-second plan. Downloads in excess of the limit will be charged $1 per gigabyte.
The Reno test may be extended to other markets. The usage structure will be implemented for new customers, or for any customers who exceed 150 gigabytes per month.
A user will be considered to have exceeded the set limits if he or she downloads at the top rate for a sustained period of time. Customers will be able to determine how much they are downloading by checking the AT&T Web site. Additionally, AT&T said it would let customers know once they reach 80 percent of their limit.
Initially, the company said, customers will be given a pass for exceeding the limit during a grace period while they get used to the new system.
Movies are the key bandwidth hogs, especially high-definition films. According to Larry Hettick, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, standard-definition movies generally run from four to six gigabytes, while high-definition movies, especially in the highest resolution of 1080p, can be seven to 10 times as much.
At the moment, he said, there aren't a lot of 1080p movies available over the Net, but there are certainly lots of movies in other definitions...
Firefox 3.1 will Have a Private Browsing Mode
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Mozilla is adding a private browser feature to its forthcoming Firefox 3.1 release. Private browsing aims to help users make sure their Web browsing doesn't leave traces on their computers, said the function's developer, Ehsan Akhgari.
"It is very important to note that private browsing is not a tool to keep you anonymous from Web sites or your ISP or, for example, protect you from all kinds of spyware applications which use sophisticated techniques to intercept your online traffic," Akhgari said. "Private browsing is only about making sure that Firefox doesn't store any data which can be used to trace your online activities -- no more, no less."
According to new data from Net Applications, Firefox increased its global market share to about 20 percent last month. Since private browsing capabilities are heading to Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla decided it needs similar capabilities to maintain its growth.
To start a private session in Firefox 3.1, the user selects private browsing from the browser's tools menu. Not much is different in the Firefox window in private browsing mode other than an unobtrusive text notification added to the title bar at the top of the window, Akhgari said.
"After all, if you're doing something online that you don't want your coworkers to know about, you don't want to raise their attention with a big sign saying 'private' as they pass by and glance over your shoulder," Akhgari said.
To close a private session, the user unchecks the same item in the tools menu. "This action discards all of the data from your private session, and will restore your nonprivate browsing session, just like it was before entering the private browsing mode," Akhgari said.
Private browsing is already available in the nightly builds that Firefox developers use to...
Apple Botches Staff Shifts, Needs To Calm Angry IBM
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62848
There's more shaking in the world of high technology than budgets and IT workers. Apple lost two vice presidents to personal issues and gained an IBM executive to lead the iPhone and iPod charge. But IBM is suing Apple's new employee in a New York court.
Apple on Tuesday announced that Mark Papermaster will join the Mac maker as senior vice president of devices hardware engineering and report directly to CEO Steve Jobs. Papermaster brings 25 years of product and technology experience from IBM, where he served as an engineering executive.
"Mark is a seasoned leader and is going to be an excellent addition to our senior management team," Jobs said. "[Vice Presidents] Tony [Fadell] and Dani [Lambert] have each made important contributions to Apple over the past eight years. We're sorry to see Dani go, and are looking forward to working with Tony in his new capacity."
Apple's goal for Papermaster is to ensure a smooth transition in its critical iPod and iPhone teams in the wake of Fadell stepping aside.
According to Apple, Fadell, Apple's senior vice president of the iPod division, and his wife Danielle Lambert, vice president of human resources, are reducing their roles within the company to devote more time to their young family. Fadell will remain at Apple as an adviser to Jobs. Lambert will depart the company at the end of this year after a successor is in place.
"Other than CEO Steve Jobs, it is difficult to think of an executive in the firmament of Apple computer with more public recognition than Fadell," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "Not only did he bring the original concept of the iPod to Apple, which essentially changed both the company's face and its business model, but he was also part of the executive team...
FCC Opens TV White Space for Wireless Broadband
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The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to allow long-range Wi-Fi service using white space, the unused portions of the electromagnetic spectrum between television signals.
"The rules adopted today," the FCC said, "will allow for the use of these new and innovative types of unlicensed devices in the unused spectrum to provide broadband data and other services for consumers and businesses. The rules represent a careful first step to permit the operation of unlicensed devices in the TV white spaces and include numerous safeguards to protect incumbent services against harmful interference."
How quickly the benefits of what proponents call "Wi-Fi on steroids" will be available to the public is uncertain.
"It is difficult to predict when products will move into the marketplace," said Ginny Terzano, a spokesperson for Microsoft. "Companies need to review the rules closer and there are a multitude of factors that will determine when a product will be developed. But generally we might start seeing the benefits of yesterday's FCC ruling with products in the marketplace within 18 to 24 months or so."
The FCC's decision was praised by both Microsoft and Google, which have been lobbying hard to open up white space. Although the two companies are increasingly competitive on a variety of fronts, they teamed up to lead a broad coalition of tech companies and public-interest groups advocating for the change under the banner of Free the Airwaves.
"This is a clear victory for Internet users and anyone who wants good wireless communications," said Google cofounder and president of products Larry Page in a company blog.
Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, agreed. "Today's vote makes possible new ways to connect people and devices to each other and to Internet-based services, helping boost American productivity," he said. "And it will create opportunities for American companies to remain...
Adobe Reader Patch Fixes Remote-Control Vulnerability
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62831
Adobe Systems has released a security fix to address eight major vulnerabilities in version 8.12 of its free Adobe Reader application. The flaw was first reported to Adobe five months ago.
Core Security Technologies on Tuesday issued an advisory disclosing the vulnerability, which could affect millions of individuals and businesses that use the popular PDF file-viewing software. Specifically, CoreLabs engineers discovered attackers could exploit Adobe Reader to gain access to vulnerable systems by using a specially crafted PDF file with malicious JavaScript content.
"As with many of today's ubiquitous client-side applications, the sheer complexity of Adobe Reader creates a broad surface for potential vulnerabilities and, in this case, Adobe's inclusion of a fully fledged JavaScript engine introduces the same types of implementation bugs commonly found in such sophisticated client-side programs," said Ivan Arce, Core's CTO.
Core discovered the Adobe flaw while investigating the feasibility of exploiting a vulnerability previously disclosed in Foxit Reader. Researchers concluded that Adobe carried the same flaw.
Researchers initially thought the flaw was not exploitable in Adobe Reader because the software maker used two structured exception handlers. However, further digging uncovered the possibility of exploitation by bypassing a command to the print function.
"It's worth noting that the bug was discovered while investigating a previously disclosed and similar problem in another PDF-viewer application, highlighting the manner in which common implementation mistakes are frequently shared among multiple vendors," Arce said.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability requires that users open a maliciously crafted PDF file. When a victim opens the file, he or she also unknowingly opens the door to attackers to gain access to vulnerable systems and assume the privileges of a user running Acrobat Reader. Adobe Reader version 9, released in June 2008, is not vulnerable to the problem.
In addition to the security update Adobe released, users...
Apple: Soon To Be a Mobile-Gaming Force
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62823
I didn't expect much from games on the iPhone. I had visions of casual games, perhaps a fancy take on solitaire or a version of poker that takes advantage of the handset's touchscreen. Surely not a true mobile gaming experience.
Boy, was I wrong. For the last few days I've been sampling some of the games available from the iTunes Store on the iPod Touch, and I've been stunned at how elaborate and involved they are. On the iPod Touch I've played a version of Gameloft's Real Soccer 2009 that rivals the version of the game on the Nintendo DS, and I didn't even miss the buttons. I've seen demonstrations of Sim City, forthcoming for the iPhone and the Touch from Electronic Arts, that look more elaborate and sophisticated than any versions I've played before on a desktop PC or console.
They're immersive, addictive fun. And it's now readily apparent to me that the iPhone and iPod Touch are well on their way to becoming an important force in handheld gaming. When you consider the ease and reach of Apple's online method for distributing games, Apple could do in this category what it did in online music, causing big headaches for the genre's established players, Sony and Nintendo.
Apple's come a long way in short order. In the three months and change since the iTunes App Store opened for business, it's already home to some 1,500 games, compared with fewer than 300 titles for Sony's PlayStation Portable and about 600 for Nintendo's handheld console, the DS.
The iPhone maker is also holding its own when it comes to units sold. Based on sales data and analysts' projections, Apple is on track to sell an easy 40 million devices or more a year that are capable of playing games.
Nintendo sold 42 million DS...
Laptops vs. Desktop PCs: What's the Better Bargain?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62820
So you want to give a desktop computer to a kid? [In a past article], I wondered whether to go used, new from a major manufacturer, or new (and relatively easy to assemble) from parts.
Before I go any further, it's worth pointing out that the price of laptop computers has fallen so low that you really don't save much money -- as used to be the case -- by opting for a desktop system.
If you're buying new, by the time you add a flat-screen monitor to your desktop PC box, you're taking about $450 minimum from Dell, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard or Acer.
There are plenty of laptops in the $500 range, and those little netbooks like the Asus Eee PC 900 ($350), Acer Aspire One ($400-$450) and HP 2133 Mini-Note ($300-$500) can put a smaller and tougher-than-usual laptop in the hands of children whose fingers are actually small enough to use the downsized keyboards of this new breed of notebook PC.
Full-size laptops are also coming down in price. During any given week there are more than a few to choose from for $450-$500 (after the inevitable rebates) from retailers such as Office Depot, Staples and Best Buy.
This time, I'm not thinking laptop. Even a rugged netbook is no match for a desktop PC when it comes to durability and repairability.
In contrast, laptop repairs are almost always difficult and expensive.
As far as desktops go, I've been looking hard at Dell's Inspiron 530 line (starting at $425-$450 with monitor), but I really like the new and ultra-compact Dell Studio Hybrid. Unfortunately, the Studio starts out at $749 with monitor.
What I like about Dell is that you can order online and customize your PC with your choice of parts, applications and more. Of course, the more you...
Old Media Learn Some New-Media Lessons
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62810
After Colin Powell endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president on NBC's "Meet the Press" last month, the video was published online within minutes. In this case, it wasn't posted on YouTube. Rather, the network's online sister, MSNBC.com, showed the video hours before many television viewers could watch the interview for themselves.
Even the old media, apparently, can learn a few new-media tricks.
Just as Fox News changed the country's ideas about cable news in the 1990s, this election may go down as the one in which new technologies and platforms forever changed the ways campaigns are fought and consumed.
When viewers sit down to watch the returns, they can also check text messages for alerts, surf polling sites for exit results and watch video sent to them by the campaigns. For many, the dividing line in the 2008 election between online and off, broadcast and cable, pop culture and civic culture was all but obliterated.
But as shown by NBC's decision to post the Powell clip quickly, the networks have not sat still. Instead, they have made specific efforts to engage audiences with interactive features, allowing their content to be used in unanticipated ways and breaking out of the boundaries of the evening newscast.
"Old media outlets -- the networks, the newspapers -- learned a lot of lessons from the last cycle and didn't allow others to own the online space this time," said Rick Klein, a senior political reporter for ABC News.
Some of those lessons have been painful ones. Consider what has changed since the last presidential election. Four years ago, the network news operations were still the go-to source on election night, with a total audience of 38 million, compared with 17 million for the three cable news channels.
This year, Fox News and CNN outperformed two of the broadcast networks during...
Safeguarding Laptop Data Is No Easy Task
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62788
Travelers lugging laptop computers worry about losing them -- with good reason. The hardware is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, and lost or stolen data could be priceless.
But safeguarding your machine is no cinch.
Just ask Luke M. Ford, founder and chief executive of My Computer Works Inc., a tech-support company in Scotts-dale, Ariz.
On a recent jaunt to San Diego, he stashed his $1,400 laptop under a desk in his hotel room. When he returned 30 minutes later, it was gone. His traveling companion had left the door open.
Fortunately, Ford had encrypted his data and backed up his files on a remote Web site. He bought another laptop, and "by 9:18 a.m. Monday, my office team had my new computer working with all the data."
It takes just a moment to lose your laptop, but by taking precautions, you can reduce the chances and minimize your loss.
Here are some tips from several experts, including Ford and the Transportation Security Administration, on keeping your laptop safe:
Tie it up and lock it up: Would you leave your wallet or purse in full view in a hotel room? So why do that with your laptop?
If Ford had secured his laptop to the desk with a security cable, which many newer computers have fittings for, he might have it still.
Travel incognito: Carry your computer in an inconspicuous bag, not one that screams, "I have a $2,500 piece of machinery in here!"
But don't go entirely undercover. TSA employees suggest taping a business card, or at least your name and phone number, to the bottom of your laptop. That helps anyone who finds your lost computer to return it.
Take care at airport checkpoints: Many laptops get lost or stolen there. To thwart thieves, walk through the metal detector before your computer goes through the scanner. Retrieve it...
Scam Plays on Users' Fears About PC Viruses
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62768
How much money can criminals make scaring naive computer users? Try $5 million a year.
That is how much a marketing associate of one Russian operation appears to be earning from its sales of fake anti-virus software through an elaborate scheme that relies on e-mail spam and indirect control of thousands of unprotected PCs, according to internal company files posted online by a Russian hacker.
The company is Bakasoftware, a clandestine effort based in Russia that markets what it claims is an anti-virus program strictly to English-speaking computer users.
The program, whose name has recently been updated from Antivirus XP 2008 to Antivirus XP 2009, lodges itself on a victim's computer and then begins generating a series of pop-up messages warning that the user's computer is infected. If the user responds to the warnings, he is urged to buy a $49.95 program for disinfecting the machine.
Although tens of millions of Windows PC users have seen these irritating programs, which purport to warn against malware infections, there are few details about the operators who develop and distribute the software, known as scareware.
Financial details of the operation came to light recently after information posted by a computer hacker identifying himself as NeoN was discovered on a Russian electronic bulletin board by an American computer security researcher.
The researcher, Joe Stewart, who is director of malware research at SecureWorks of Atlanta, has tried to understand the nature of the fake anti-virus software and the way it is sold through a second tier of "bot-herders" -- people who redistribute the program through illegal "botnets" or networks of Internet-connected PCs.
The scheme was partly unmasked, Stewart said, after NeoN broke into one of the computers used by Bakasoftware for accounting. Stewart said he believed the hacker posted the results of just one week's operations.
Stewart also discovered that when the Bakasoftware...
No More Mac Upgrades This Year, Apple Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62830
Call it upgrade fatigue, or perhaps Apple's fondness for teasing its die-hard fans, but the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer manufacturer has announced it will not introduce new Mac computers this year.
In a statement first published by Macworld, Apple spokesperson Bill Evans said, "Our holiday lineup is set." The stark statement (the Apple press office offered no elaboration) puts to rest persistent rumors on Mac-related blogs that the company planned an event in November to announce upgrades to the Mac Mini and its iMac desktops.
Although the news may disappoint some fans, it's hard to accuse Apple of being a corporate slacker. Over the past year, the company has held a number of high-profile events to announce significant upgrades to its product lines.
The year got off to a bang at the Macworld Expo in January, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs slid a glistening MacBook Air out of an interoffice envelope. In June, Jobs introduced the iPhone 3G, which attracted long lines when it went on sale the following month. In September, a completely revamped iPod nano, available in a dazzling array of new colors, headlined an upgraded iPod product line.
And just last month, at a widely hyped event, Apple introduced impressive new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, including models with the solid-aluminum manufacturing technique that Apple pioneered with its ultraportable MacBook Air.
Thanks in large part to its myriad product enhancements, Apple had a very good year. As widely reported, the company had a profit of $1.14 billion in its fourth quarter alone, a 26 percent increase from the year before.
Even more impressively, the company hit its target of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008 a full two months before the end of the year, and showed little sign of slowing down.
However, Apple executives -- including Jobs -- have expressed concern about...
Amazon Offers Easier-To-Open Packaging
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62829
It may not be one of the burning social issues of our time -- neither presidential candidate made it part of their stump speech -- but Internet retailer Amazon.com has announced that it is taking a stand on "wrap rage."
Amazon is launching "Frustration-Free Packaging" (FFP), an initiative to reduce the use of plastic "clamshell" packaging and plastic-coated wire ties that are often used to secure unopened toys and electronics.
"I think we've all experienced the frustration that sometimes occurs when you try to get a new toy or electronics product out of its package," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "It will take many years, but our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging. We'd like to thank Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend for working with us in this effort -- we truly appreciate it."
The comments posted on Amazon about the new packaging initiative were overwhelmingly positive. "Amen Amazon!! It's about time some of the leading providers of consumer products start actually listening to their frustrated customers," wrote Atlanta resident Pamela East. "I HATE all that ridiculous packaging! I'm so glad to see the simple and intelligent designs you guys have come up with, and I hope it spreads like wildfire."
Austin, Texas resident Kathy Grace went even further: "If Amazon can get [manufacturers]to get rid of clamshell plastic packaging (you know, the kind guaranteed to drive you to tears and then slash your hand open when you finally wrest it open), I will just give up my bank account completely and have my employer deposit my paycheck directly to Amazon."
The company is hoping that its new program will not only reduce consumer irritation, but also give Amazon a greener profile by reducing the amount of packaging used in its products.
To illustrate the...
Research In Motion Makes Bold BlackBerry Move
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62827
RIM on Tuesday introduced the BlackBerry Bold smartphone through its carrier partner, AT&T. Analysts say the device is poised to become the mobile-phone maker's flagship corporate product.
The BlackBerry Bold smartphone offers several ways for business consumers to connect, including global 3G capabilities, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi. The phone also comes preloaded with AT&T Navigator, YellowPages.com Mobile, selections from the AT&T Mobile Music service, and popular video clips from its CV service.
"Quite simply, the BlackBerry Bold is the best BlackBerry smartphone ever," said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices for AT&T's wireless operation. AT&T has an exclusive agreement with RIM to sell the new model.
The BlackBerry Bold smartphone dons a black exterior, satin chrome-finished frame and a leatherette backplate with a half-VGA color display, along with a newly designed full QWERTY keyboard.
"RIM has done a fantastic job with Bold. This phone has probably the best mobile keyboard on the market. RIM increased the screen size and the clarity of the screen, and the overall performance of the device is much better. Bold just has a richer and more elegant feel to it than BlackBerry's other models," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia.
On the inside, a new 624-MHz mobile processor provides more storage memory than ever before -- 1GB on board and up to 16GB via its expansion slot -- and multimedia capabilities, including an advanced media player for music, videos and photos; a two-megapixel camera with built-in flash, zoom and video recording; and an optimized Web-browsing experience with desktop-style depiction.
The BlackBerry Bold smartphone gives users the industry's leading mobile-messaging solution. It works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which enables advanced security and IT administration within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise environments, as well as BlackBerry Professional Software for small...
Fujitsu Mini-Notebook Targets Mobile Workers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62826
Fujitsu has rolled out three new notebook PCs, including a mini-notebook that is squarely aimed at field workers and mobile sales teams.
Powered by Garmin's Mobile PC navigation software, the LifeBook U820 arrives preloaded with maps of the U.S. and Canada, together with data covering millions of destinations and points of interest. Weighing just 1.32 lbs, the mini-notebook delivers turn-by-turn, voice-prompted navigation that eliminates the need for workers to carry a separate navigation device, according to Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product management at Fujitsu.
"Full GPS navigation in a mini-notebook not only makes sense, it also reduces the number of devices mobile consumers and professionals need to carry while on the road," Moore said.
Under the hood, the LifeBook U820 sports an Atom Z-series Intel processor featuring low power consumption; Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/draft-n) radios; a pivoting 5.6-inch touchscreen with support for 1080-pixel high-definition video; a 1.3-megapixel Webcam; and the user's choice of a maximum 120GB hard disk drive or a 64GB solid-state drive. The mini-notebook also integrates several security features, including a fingerprint sensor, a BIOS lock, and a Kensington lock slot to deter physical theft.
The LifeBook U820 is capable of delivering up to 3.5 hours from the machine's standard two-cell battery or up to 7.5 hours from a four-cell battery option that increases the product's weight to 1.6 lbs. The mini-notebook ships with the user's choice of Windows Vista Business or Home Premium.
With the launch of the LifeBook U820, Fujitsu hopes to benefit from the recent popularity of mini-notebooks worldwide, driven in part by deals between PC manufacturers and system operators in the Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) region and elsewhere overseas.
"Mini-notebooks saw a surge during the back-to-school season with IDC estimating over two million units shipped in EMEA in the third...
Apple Hires IBM's Papermaster Despite Noncompete Suit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62825
Apple has hired Mark Papermaster, a 26-year IBM veteran, to lead its hardware engineering team and work directly under Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Papermaster will direct Apple's iPod and iPhone engineering.
Papermaster, a server expert in charge of Big Blue's Blade development unit, is also the subject of a lawsuit filed by IBM.
"Mark is a seasoned leader and is going to be an excellent addition to our senior management team," Jobs said. Papermaster has a bachelors' degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas and a masters from the University of Vermont.
In an effort to stop Papermaster from working alongside Jobs, IBM filed a lawsuit Oct. 22 in U.S. District Court in New York.
IBM listed several reasons for its suit, including protecting the company's intellectual property and its trade secrets, and Papermaster's noncompete contract, which bars him from working for any competitor up to one year after his IBM employment ended. Papermaster, in agreement with the noncompete document, agrees that going against IBM's covenant would cause irreparable harm to IBM.
The 26-year veteran's involvement in IBM's Integration and Values Team, a group of more than 300 senior managers, is also a basis for the lawsuit. The IVT group is responsible for IBM's most significant and challenging issues, according to court documents.
"The confidential information to which Mr. Papermaster has become privy based on his membership in the IVT and employment with the company represents the product of IBM's substantial investment in research and innovation and is critical to IBM's competitive success," court documents say.
Papermaster's noncompete agreement also says that he will not for two years after leaving IBM attempt to lure any IBM employees for employment.
If Papermaster breaks any of the covenants listed in his agreement, he acknowledges responsibility for IBM's request for attorney fees, equitable relief,...
Salesforce.com Extends To Facebook, Amazon Services
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62822
Salesforce.com continued developing as "the enterprise cloud computing company" Monday with announcements that it is extending its Force.com platform to Facebook and Amazon Web Services.
The announcements are part of a series of recent moves that include the unveiling this week of Force.com Sites, enabling businesses to utilize the Force.com platform and applications in the creation of public Web sites.
The alliance with Facebook, a popular social-networking site, includes a new suite of tools that Salesforce.com said will "marry next-generation business productivity applications to the interpersonal power of social networks." By creating a development community that leverages Facebook's 120 million users and Salesforce.com's 100,000 developers, the arrangement is designed to make Facebook more "enterprise-friendly" and give Salesforce.com a leg up on business applications for social computing.
Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com chairman and CEO, said "we are seeing social meet CRM and the enterprise for the first time." Force.com for Facebook is free to developers and utilizes Facebook APIs to integrate social data with database, logic and work flow functionalities.
The end result, according to Salesforce.com, will let Facebook users do corporate work inside Facebook, such as managing sales data, organizing business events, automating marketing decisions, participating in recruiting efforts, and collaborating on projects. Facebook users could also share business-related activities with friends, such as a job opportunity or collaborating on an event or project.
An example given by Salesforce.com is an online tool called Get Stuff Done for Facebook, by a company named Apps-O-Rama. The company developed this "next-generation project management tool" to allow Facebook users to share files, create and assign to-do lists, manage projects, organize events or trips, and track what happened while they were offline, all within Facebook.
Salesforce.com is also linking its cloud to Amazon's by extending Force.com to Amazon Web Services. This enables its users to access the...
Study Confirms Kids Affected by Video-Game Violence
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62802
New evidence is emerging about the cross-cultural impacts of video-game violence, but analysts are skeptical about the findings.
Apparently, it's not just American kids who show aggression after playing violent video games for a three- to six-month period. Japanese kids are manifesting similar behaviors, according to a study sponsored by Iowa State University's Center for the Study of Violence.
In the study, published in the November issue of Pediatrics, researchers linked an earlier ISU study of 364 American children ages nine to 12 with two similar studies of more than 1,200 children between the ages of 12 to 18 from Japan.
The conclusion: Exposure to violent video games was a risk factor for aggression and violence in those children.
"Basically what we found was that in all three samples, a lot of violent video-game play early in a school year leads to higher levels of aggression during the school year, as measured later in the school year -- even after you control for how aggressive the kids were at the beginning of the year," said Craig Anderson, president-elect for the International Society for Research on Aggression.
ISU researchers assessed the children's video-game habits and their level of physical aggression against each other at two different times during the school year. The studies varied somewhat in the length of time between what Anderson is calling time one and time two -- that is, times between the reports of video-game use and physical behavior. The shortest duration was three months and the longest was six months.
"Each of the three samples showed significant increases in aggression by children who played a lot of violent video games," Anderson said. He began collaborating with Japanese researchers several years ago when he visited Japan to give an address at the International Simulation and Gaming Association convention. Japan's cultural differences...
Google and Yahoo Delay Search-Advertising Deal
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62801
Yahoo and Google have delayed the start of their search-advertising arrangement and are reportedly back at the table revising the initial deal made in June. That deal has spurred much controversy in the advertising community in the past four months.
The two Internet giants shortened their existing ad agreement from 10 years to two and put a 25 percent sales cap on Yahoo's revenue in an effort to get approval by the Department of Justice, according to The Wall Street Journal. The revision also reportedly allows Google advertisers to opt out of having ads displayed on Yahoo sites.
"We are continuing to have cooperative discussions with the Department of Justice about this arrangement and agreed to a brief delay in implementing the agreement while those discussions continue," said Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesperson, in an e-mail. "We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process."
Tracy Schmaler, spokesperson for Yahoo, said she would not comment on published reports but added, "Our discussions with the DOJ are ongoing."
The Department of Justice is thoroughly examining the deal and was expected to have made a decision on the agreement by early October, but those familiar with the situation said the DOJ needs to take its time because the deal would have a massive impact on search advertising.
At stake is the current price of search advertising and whether Yahoo will continue to operate in the search business.
The DOJ hired well-known attorney Sanford Litvack to lead the review. Litvack has been described by some observers as a tough litigator when it comes to antitrust issues.
Several advertising groups and companies have objected to the deal. The Association for National Advertisers, the World Federation of Advertisers, and the...
The Net Generation Comes of Age
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62797
The Nov. 4 election will be a spectacular display of the power of a new generation of Americans. I call them the Net Generation because they're the first to grow up digital, and in this election year they've shown that their revolutionary model of working collaboratively online can topple powerful leaders and, if the polls are right, even make history.
Around the world this generation is flooding into the workplace, marketplace, and every niche of society. They are bringing their demographic muscle, media smarts, purchasing power, and new models of collaboration. While some dismiss them as "screenagers," with short attention spans, low IQs, and zero social skills, they are a remarkably bright generation that has developed revolutionary new ways of thinking, interacting, working, and socializing. They are an unprecedented force for change.
Consider how they helped Senator Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination and, most likely, the Presidency.
It's no surprise that Obama has captured most of the youth vote. They overwhelmingly disapprove of President George W. Bush, and they're leaning harder to the Democratic side than their Gen X predecessors. Their attitudes toward social and economic policies put them in sync with the Obama campaign. Inspired by Obama, they been politicized this year. Youth turnout in some primaries tripled from 2004. Although only half of the youngest American voters turned out for the 2004 Presidential election, it's likely they will vote in unprecedented numbers this time.
But their true power as a force for change in politics stems from their ability to organize themselves online, without waiting for instructions from the head office. Obama, unlike his more powerful rivals in the Democratic primary race, tapped into this phenomenal power. In 2007, Chris Hughes, then the 23-year-old co-founder of Facebook, took over as director of the Obama online organizing effort. He...
Smartphone Users Say Devices Increase Productivity
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62786
As Internet-enabled cell phones, called smart phones, are embraced by the corporate world, users say the devices allow them to be more productive by giving them access to their e-mail, business contacts, and even corporate data anytime, anywhere.
They also, however, represent a security challenge for corporate IT departments, and a "leash" for executives who can't seem to get away from their jobs with such a device hooked to their belts or resting in their purses, observers here say.
While there is little agreement about what constitutes a smart phone, the devices generally are regarded as cell phones that also have some feature more typically associated with a personal computer, including the ability to access e-mail, calendar, and contact information, browse the Internet, and run applications that tap into corporate data back at the office. Some also play music and provide GPS data.
BlackBerry and Palm have been the stalwart players in the market, but Apple's iPhone and others are aiming to steal some of that market share.
Christy Prest, an agent with Keller Williams Realty Spokane [Washington], says her smart phone, a Palm Centro, automatically downloads new real estate listings every morning via the Spokane Multiple Listing Service, and she can view the listings -- and get updates to them -- from the field all day.
"If I'm with a client and we see a house that's not on the list, we can call the listing up on the phone," Prest says.
She also uses the device to organize her address book and sales leads, and the phone's loan-calculator application comes in handy for estimating loan payments for prospective home buyers, she says.
Prest says her smart phone does the job of three pieces of electronic hardware that she used to carry: a cell phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), and a device called a black...
Panasonic Near Deal To Acquire Sanyo
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62784
Will Panasonic, already the world's largest maker of plasma televisions, become the top electronics company in Japan by revenue?
A successful deal would put it in the top spot.
The heads of Panasonic and Sanyo Electric have agreed in principle to a deal that would see Panasonic take over Sanyo, three people familiar with the matter said Sunday.
Panasonic, formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial, was in talks with Goldman Sachs and two other major shareholders of its smaller rival, Sanyo Electric, during the weekend to buy a controlling stake, company and financial officials said on Saturday.
Talks with Daiwa Securities SMBC, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and Goldman are at a preliminary stage and the companies have not entered into price negotiations, the people said on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations were not public and the people were not authorized to speak about the deal.
The three major shareholders combined hold nearly 430 million Sanyo preferred shares, each of which can be exchanged for 10 common shares. That would value them at about yen621 billion, or $6.31 billion, based on the closing price Friday for the common shares.
Panasonic and Sanyo combined are expected to post yen11.22 trillion in revenue, according to their forecasts for the year ending March 2009, surpassing the projected yen10.9 trillion at Hitachi, the current revenue leader in Japan.
Acquiring Sanyo would put Panasonic in a leading position in the global market for rechargeable batteries, which is expected to grow strongly as the use of portable electronic devices and hybrid or electric vehicles expands.
Masayoshi Okamoto, head of trading at Jujiya Securities, said: "This appears to be the kind of deal where you add one and one and get three, instead of two. Their battery operations would truly be world-class. Some Japanese companies are buying overseas firms to expand their operations abroad. But...
Fujitsu To Buy Siemens' Stake in PC Maker
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62780
Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG is poised to sell its 50-percent stake in the joint venture Fujitsu Siemens Computers to Japan's Fujitsu Group, two people familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Monday.
Siemens has been contemplating a sale of its half in the joint venture at least since August. Chief Executive Peter Loescher said then that the company was in talks with Fujitsu about the fate of the unit, which makes personal computers and laptops and posted sales of 6.6 billion euros but a pretax profit of just 105 million euros last year.
While no price for the stake has been disclosed, German media have valued it at about 500 million euros ($640 million).
The Associated Press spoke to two people involved in the talks who could not be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media about the negotiations. They said an announcement of the deal could come within days but declined to provide more specific details.
Siemens did not comment. A call seeking comment from Fujitsu was not immediately returned.
Last week, Fujitsu said its profits dropped 21 percent to 4.29 billion yen ($44.2 million) in the most recent quarter as sluggish sales of personal computers and other gadgets offset growth in technology services.
The Tokyo-based company lowered its profit projection for the fiscal year, blaming an expected fall in consumer electronics purchases as the global economy slows. Like other Japanese exporters, Fujitsu's earnings have been hurt by the rising yen.
Siemens reports its third-quarter earnings later this month.
The venture employs more than 10,000 workers worldwide, among them 6,200 in Germany with plants in Augsburg, Munich, Paderborn and Soemmerda.
Dieter Scheitor, a representative for the union IG Metall on Siemens' supervisory board said that in the event of a change of owners, the union would insist that the 2,000 jobs in...
Google's Growth Makes Privacy Advocates Wary
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62778
Perhaps the biggest threat to Google Inc.'s increasing dominance of Internet search and advertising is the rising fear, justified or not, that Google's broadening reach is giving it unchecked power.
This scrutiny goes deeper than the skeptical eye that lawmakers and the Justice Department have given to Google's proposed ad partnership with Yahoo Inc. Many objections to that deal are financial, and surround whether Google and Yahoo could unfairly drive up online ad prices.
A bigger long-term concern for Google could be criticisms over something less tangible -- privacy. Increasingly, as Google burrows deeper into everyday computing, its product announcements are prompting questions about its ability to gather more potentially sensitive personal information from users.
Why does Google log the details of search queries for so long? What does it do with the information? Does it combine data from the search engine with information it collects through other avenues -- such as its recently released Web browser, Chrome?
Data gathered through most of the company's services "disappears into a black hole once it hits the Googleplex," said Simon Davies, director of London-based Privacy International, referring to Google's headquarters. "It's impossible to track that information."
Google -- whose corporate motto is "Don't Be Evil" -- generally sees such concerns as misinformed. For instance, the company says it stores the queries made through its popular search engine primarily so it can improve the service.
But whether the criticisms are valid or not, they are likely indicative of the battles Google will face as it, like Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s, moves from world-wowing startup to the heart of the technology establishment.
The September release of Chrome illuminated the budding conflicts.
To Google, the new browser is a platform on which future Web-based software applications might run most efficiently. It also is a sign that Google understands its growing power, since...
FCC Chairman Cancels Planned Phone-Rate Votes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62800
A series of important votes will take place Tuesday. In polling places around the country, millions of Americans will choose the next president of the United States. And in Room TWC-305, just five Federal Communications Commission members will gather to decide some of telecommunication's most contentious issues.
Late Monday, however, the agenda grew a little shorter when FCC Chairman Kevin Martin canceled a vote on two hotly contested proposals. One was designed to restructure the fees that phone companies pay each other to handle phone traffic, while the other would have made changes in the Universal Service Charge (USC), which applies to long-distance calls and subsidizes phone service in low-revenue areas of the country.
Canceling those votes is a political setback for Martin, a Republican appointed chairman by President George W. Bush in 2005. If Senator Barack Obama wins Tuesday's presidential election, the FCC will be urged to hold off on any significant policy moves until a new chairman is appointed.
Martin's proposals generated opposition both inside the commission and in Congress. In a relatively rare show of unanimity, the other four commissioners (two Republicans and two Democrats) told Martin they wanted more time to study the effects. They also suggested the proposals may require public comments.
In addition, nearly 20 percent of Congress wrote to Martin asking him to delay the vote to give the public a chance to weigh in. Congressmen from rural areas are particularly concerned about the impact of changes to the USC.
Most rural carriers believe Martin's proposal to change the USC to a flat rate would benefit larger telecommunications companies but reduce one of their major revenue streams.
Canceling the phone-rate vote will give the FCC more time to debate and perhaps resolve another enormously significant issue: A request by some high-tech companies that...
Motorola's ZN5 Is a Camera with Phone Functions
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Motorola has launched a new mobile-imaging handset that combines imaging, software and online storage technology from Kodak with a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone. Designed to let users click and instantly share photos in several ways, the Motozine ZN5 was to become available Monday from U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile.
"Who wants to lug around several tech devices during the holidays when one -- the ZN5 -- will suffice, making it easier than ever to snap and share photos with family and friends?" asked Travis Warren, director of device marketing at T-Mobile.
Tipping the scales at 115 grams, Motorola's GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) camera-phone integrates the company's patented CrystalTalk technology, which enables callers to hear and be heard -- even in noisy environments. The handset's 950mAh lithium battery delivers up to 330 minutes of talk time and up to 18 hours of operation in standby mode.
Sporting a 2.4-inch LCD color display (320x240 pixels), the ZN5 includes a microSD slot that offers support for an optional 4GB memory card. The handset comes with an open-source Web browser and built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/i) radio, which means it can double as a Web-surfing device when within range of an accessible wireless network. It also supports SMS, MMS, IM and personal e-mail.
The ZN5 incorporates a TV-output port that will display a slide show on a TV set using an included AV cable. Users also can employ the device's one-touch sharing capability to relay photos instantly and transfer images to Kodak EasyShare printers and other Bluetooth-enabled peripherals.
"We have worked closely with Motorola to create a device that not only delivers Kodak-quality pictures, but allows consumers to explore a wide range of options for sharing their photos with friends and family around the world," said Eastman Kodak Vice President John Blake.
Unlike many camera-phones currently shipping, the...
Netflix Opens Streaming-Software Beta to Macs
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Netflix, the popular DVD-rental company, is continuing its aggressive exploration of direct-content delivery to various devices. On Friday, the company announced it has opened up its Watch Instantly software for public beta testing on both Windows and Mac computers. Until now, the company's streaming software operated only on Windows computers.
In a posting from Netflix blogger Brent, the company said it's past the first stage of its beta testing for the player software, and is inviting everyone to join in. However, Netflix warned that there still might be some glitches.
"We are logging all errors, but if you run into problems, you can help out by posting details here in the blog comments," Brent wrote. "Not all movies are available to watch with Silverlight. You may notice errors or lower-than-normal quality when watching certain titles. Our new player works on PCs and Intel-based Macs. Windows users should be aware that if you opt in, you will need to use Silverlight on all the machines you use to watch instantly."
The new software will give Mac users access to Netflix's library of approximately 12,000 streaming videos; by contrast, DVD renters can select from among 100,000 titles.
Although the percentage of Mac users is small compared to Windows users, it's still an important market for Netflix, said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia.
"It's important for a few reasons," Gartenberg said. "While Apple's market share is still much smaller than Microsoft's, it has shown and continues to show the type of growth and momentum that developers are interested in. That's why we're seeing the effort to get the Netflix player on the Mac. Macintosh customers represent a key demographic that Netflix wants to serve, so getting on that platform was an important move."
In developing its streaming video player, Netflix elected to use...
Circuit City Will Close 155 Stores Amid Economic Woes
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Consumer electronics chain Circuit City is implementing plans for massive layoffs and closing 155 stores this week. The technology retailer is joining a list of other businesses that have had to close their doors because of a weakening economy and a less-promising holiday shopping season.
Circuit City, the nation's second-largest electronics store, said it will reduce its workforce 17 percent, close stores in 55 U.S. markets on Tuesday, and begin a liquidation process on Wednesday. Plans to open 10 new stores next year have been canceled. As of February, Circuit City had about 46,000 employees worldwide.
"We deeply regret the impact today's announcement will have on our associates, our guests, and the communities where these stores are located," said James Marcum, acting chief executive of Circuit City Stores. Marcum replaced ousted Circuit City president, CEO and Chairman Phillip Schoonover, who was let go last month after just two years at the company.
The news comes on the heels of a decision by Blockbuster not to acquire Circuit City for $1 billion.
"Since late September, unprecedented events have occurred in the financial and consumer markets causing macroeconomic trends to worsen sharply," Marcum said. "The weakened environment has resulted in a slowdown of consumer spending, further impacting our business as well as the business of our vendors. The combination of these trends has strained severely our working capital and liquidity, and so we are making a number of difficult, but necessary, decisions to address the company's financial situation as quickly as possible."
Circuit City Stores said its second-quarterly results, its liquidity position, and the poor economy led vendors to impose restrictions on payment terms and credit for the company.
Executives say the unstable financial market contributed to the company's demise by denying vendors credit insurance for Circuit City's purchases. As a result, vendors were...
IDC: Good and Bad News for Microprocessor Shipments
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For all the talk of a down economy, worldwide PC microprocessor shipments aren't feeling the pinch just yet. In fact, shipments in the third quarter of 2008 reached record levels once again, according to new data from market-research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
Consider the statistics: Worldwide PC processor unit shipments grew 14 percent quarter over quarter and 15.8 percent year over year. Market revenue grew 7.6 percent quarter over quarter and 4.1 percent year over year to $8.3 billion.
According to IDC, Intel's new Atom processor for ultra-low-cost mobile PCs -- which Intel calls netbooks -- made a notable difference in the overall market performance. When researchers removed Atom from the equation, unit shipments grew 8.3 percent quarter over quarter and 8.7 percent year over year.
"Not considering the effects of Atom, the overall market still grew at a decent pace in the third quarter," said Shane Rau of IDC. "Intel's and AMD's shipments grew at a rate only slightly slower than typical for a third quarter, and seasonal demand appeared reasonable up until September. By segment, while the mobile-processor segment grew aggressively, the server segment was soft."
Thanks in part to Atom, Intel earned 80.8 percent market share in the third quarter, a gain of 1.1 percent. AMD finished with 18.5 percent, a loss of 1.2 percent, and VIA Technologies earned 0.6 percent.
By form factor, in the mobile-PC processor segment, Intel reigns king again. Intel grabbed an 87.4 percent share, a gain of 0.8 percent. AMD finished with 11.5 percent, a loss of 1.1 percent, and VIA earned 1.2 percent, a gain of 0.3 percent.
Finally, in the PC server/workstation processor segment, Intel finished with a market-dominating 85.6 percent share, a loss of 0.6 percent. AMD earned 14.4 percent, a gain of 0.6 percent. In the desktop PC...
Attacks Through Browsers Are Rising, Microsoft Says
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Attacks on operating systems may be decreasing since last year, but attacks on applications, incidents of malware, and unwanted software are rising and account for 90 percent of vulnerabilities, according to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, released Saturday.
The amount of malware and unwanted software removed from computers increased 43 percent in the first half of the year, according to the 150-page report, now in its fifth installment. Thirty percent of that malware was Trojan-based, usually in the form of a computer worm or virus disguised as another application that erases data, corrupts files, and reinstalls itself after being disabled.
China had the highest percentage of browser-based attacks at 50 percent, with the United States following with 23 percent. China's infection rate of 6.6 percent, a 41 percent increase from the second half of 2007, was a bit lower than industry experts expected.
Security expert Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks said he thought China would have a higher infection rate than Microsoft's findings, but he wasn't surprised by the percentage of browser-based attacks. "The browser becomes the center and the nexus for the average person because it is feature-rich, and those features increase the vulnerabilities of the browser attacks," Nazario said.
While businesses and security experts continue to develop software and operating systems to withstand attacks, Microsoft's research shows the problems and threats to both businesses and people continue to evolve.
"The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report gives us a chance to share our extensive analysis of the threat landscape and related guidance with our customers, partners and the broader industry, helping ensure people are better informed and, in turn, protected," said Vinny Gullotto, general manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.
Microsoft suggests consumers and businesses check for and apply software updates on a continuing basis, enable firewalls, and install...
Salesforce.com Offers Customers an Expanded Cloud
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Salesforce.com unveiled Force.com Sites on Monday at its U.S. Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. The new tool will enable business customers to integrate Salesforce.com applications into any Web site.
Built on the Force.com platform, the tool will enable businesses to create public Web sites that integrate with -- and utilize data from -- such Salesforce.com applications as customer relationship management, database, work flow, logic, integration, customization and user-interface capabilities. Additionally, businesses can extend data and applications for use on mobile devices.
Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive of Salesforce.com, said that with Force.com Sites, "customers can run their Web sites in our cloud." He added that Force.com Sites will "unleash entirely new kinds of applications and innovations that will truly drive our vision of 'The End of Software.'"
By doing so, Salesforce.com said, businesses will be able to avoid the "cost and complexity of traditional software." Force.com Sites are currently available in developer preview at developer.force.com.
Salesforce.com said the main idea is to allow businesses to get up and running quickly. The application is first built on Force.com, with definitions of sharing models and security rules to determine what data will be public. There are currently more than 85,000 custom applications that have been built on the Force.com platform, according to Salesforce.com.
Then, a business uses Salesforce.com's Visualforce to create the public-facing pages and user interface. Part of the Force.com platform, Visualforce enables users to specify the look and functionality of pages and components, and to build user-interface behavior with logic controllers.
A Force.com domain name is then registered, and the site is published and run on the Salesforce.com infrastructure.
Some possible public sites could include consumer reviews, hotel concierge services, or event-registration sites, all of which would be integrated with a business app on Force.com. Another possible use would be...
MTV-MySpace Deal Turns Piracy Into Revenue
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The controversy around digital-media piracy could become a thing of the past if a new partnership between MySpace, MTV Networks, and Auditude bears fruit.
Instead of filing lawsuits to stop piracy, the trio is looking to help copyright holders cash in on pirated content by embedding advertising into audience-uploaded videos across MySpace.
"Auditude is opening the floodgates for users to program video on MySpace and ensure copyright holders get paid," said Jeff Berman, MySpace president of marketing and sales. "In one fell swoop, Auditude and its partners are empowering consumers and building a better business model. That's a good deal all around."
As Berman noted, MySpace is leveraging a patented technology developed by Auditude. The technology uses automatic identification to match virtually any professional video uploaded across the Internet with an ad platform that lets content owners serve targeted ads within that content.
Auditude has already indexed more than a billion minutes of professional content -- including more than 250 million videos, and four years' worth of 100 channels of television. It's a concept that could open the door to an otherwise untapped revenue stream. That, the company said, is part of its mission.
"We embrace the fact that online video is fundamentally social and created the identification technology and advertising platform to include the power of audience syndication -- fans uploading content to the Web -- as a form of content distribution," said Adam Cahan, CEO of Auditude. "We hope to grow the market for monetizing online video by simplifying ad targeting and providing scale through audience participation."
As part of the solution, Auditude announced the launch of the Attribution Overlay. The service's latest feature automatically identifies content informing viewers about shows being viewed online.
The attribution also lets content owners integrate information about the video clip being watched...
Verizon Told To Sell Assets with Alltel Merger
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The Justice Department on Thursday effectively gave Verizon Wireless the go-ahead to buy Alltel Corp. in a $28 billion deal that would create the nation's largest wireless carrier.
Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Britain's Vodafone Group PLC, already has agreed to the government's condition that it sell assets in 22 states.
"We're pleased that the Department of Justice has granted approval," said Robin Nicol, a Verizon Wireless spokeswoman. "It's another step in the right direction."
The Federal Communications Commission is slated to vote on the merger on Tuesday.
Andrew Moreau, an Alltel spokesman, said the company is "looking forward to the FCC meeting scheduled for next week."
Justice Department lawyers joined seven states in a lawsuit filed Thursday to block the merger, but also filed a proposed settlement that would require Verizon Wireless to divest assets in 100 markets. Without that action, the Justice Department said, the deal would hurt competition, drive up consumer prices and likely produce a lower-quality network.
"The divestitures required are necessary to protect wireless customers and are among the most extensive required by the department in a wireless case," Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett said in a statement.
Under terms of the deal, Verizon Wireless plans to buy Little Rock, Ark.-based Alltel Corp. for $5.9 billion plus the assumption of $22.2 billion in debt.
To win regulatory approval, Verizon must sell assets in 100 areas, including holdings in the entire states of North Dakota and South Dakota and large portions of Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. Verizon also must sell assets in Alabama, Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus, estimates the combined company will have about 78 million subscribers nationwide following the divestitures. Verizon Wireless had 70.8 million...
Motorola's Turnaround Plans Meet with Skepticism
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The latest flurry of turnaround plans for Motorola is being met with about as much enthusiasm as previous attempts to revive the company's foundering mobile-phone business: not much.
During an Oct. 30 conference call discussing the third-quarter results that included falling sales and a wider loss, Motorola (MOT) co-CEO Sanjay Jha outlined plans to reduce costs, streamline the way the company makes products, and delay a spin-off of the handset business. Along with a dour warning that sales will continue to slump, the announcements did little to shore up confidence. Motorola's already embattled shares tumbled 5.3% to 5.17. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue cut his 12-month Motorola price target to 7 a share from 8.
To trim losses and help eliminate $600 million in expenses, Motorola plans to cut about 3,000 jobs, two-thirds of them in the handset division. The company will also reduce its focus on certain markets, such as Europe, while stepping up emphasis on the Americas and China. Motorola also plans to retool products so that it makes low-end phones based on its own software and high-end phones that only run Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile operating system and the Android software developed by the Google (GOOG)-led Open Handset Alliance.
The moves are aimed at restoring the company's dwindling fortunes. In the third quarter, the operating loss at Motorola's handset division widened to $840 million from $248 million a year earlier. Unit sales dropped 32%, to 25.4 million from a year earlier, and the company's market share plummeted to 8.4% globally, down from 9.5% in the second quarter and 22.4% in 2006, when Motorola's Razr handset was all the rage. In the period, Motorola lost its No. 3 place among the world's largest handset makers to Sony Ericsson, according to Strategy Analytics.
Prospects have only worsened this quarter -- traditionally...
The Key Elements of Self Regulation in the Call Center
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As many of you know, the American Teleservices Association is creating the first self-regulatory organization for our industry that will incorporate audits and certification. The ATA represents the call centers, trainers, consultants, and equipment suppliers that initiate, facilitate, and generate telephone, Internet, and email sales, service, and support.
Call centers offer traditional and interactive services that support the e-commerce revolution, provide specialized customer service for Fortune 500 companies, and generate annual sales of more than $500 billion. From our original work on the concept of an SRO (Self-Regulatory Organization), we have been focused on creating a long term partnership with the bodies that regulate our industry. In particular, we want to become part of the overall solution for remediation in appropriate cases for the FTC, FCC, and ultimately the States. For this reason, we involved the FTC and the FCC very early in the SRO design process to make certain we were in line with their thinking as well as that of our members.
After meeting with these agencies three years ago, it became clear that the ATA-SRO will only be credible and effective if it meets the following goals:
* It must be independent, both in perception and reality, from the entities it purports to regulate. For this reason, we have gathered feedback from our members as well as created a steering committee for the design of the tools and standards. Separately, we have begun the process to train and certify third party auditors to do the actual audit work.
* It should enforce standards that are meaningful and accepted. The ATA has primarily focused on federal and state law as the source for, the standards. This may seem straightforward. Unfortunately, many of the regulations are not clear, and we have had to scour the public record and the best interpretations of...
Hammered in Past, Comcast Tries To Nail Service
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Mona Shaw drew instant fame last year after literally lowering the boom on her local Comcast office in Manassas, Va.
The 75-year-old Shaw reportedly was upset that Comcast had arrived two days late to install service, didn't complete the job, cut off her service and then left her lingering in a customer-service waiting area for hours before telling her that the manager had left for the day.
She came back later with a hammer, bashing a customer-service representative's phone and computer keyboard.
Low customer-service marks and disgruntled customers such as the "Hammer Lady" have helped prompt the cable TV giant to invest millions of dollars into mending its ways.
Today, Comcast promises to resolve problems faster and get its service people to a customer's door within a two-hour appointment window.
"The whole approach is that we're trying to be more responsive in a shorter period of time," said Comcast Colorado spokeswoman Cindy Parsons. "We want to listen to customers."
Something must be working: Media critic Bob Garfield, founder of ComcastMustDie.com, has softened his tone and is morphing his year-old site into a more general consumer-oriented venture.
Garfield still chastises Comcast as a "greedy, blundering corporate colossus," but gives it credit for no longer being "tone deaf."
"The company has heard our angry voices and taken concrete steps in the process of putting customers first," he wrote on his Web site.
Comcast's effort to focus on customers has been exemplified in a number of ways over the past year or so.
A seven-person team was formed at Comcast's corporate headquarters in Philadelphia to monitor blogs and Web sites such as BroadbandReports .com, where consumers are likely to complain about the company. Comcast staff attempt to locate the disgruntled customers and resolve their problems.
"In many cases, we engage the local (service representatives) to respond," Parsons said.
Comcast also has improved its call-center system.
For...
Google, Yahoo Ad Partnership May Falter
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A proposed partnership between Google and Yahoo for the sale and distribution of online advertisements has been a hot topic in tech circles this year, drawing scrutiny from privacy groups, European regulators and the Justice Department. Now reports are circulating that the long-delayed deal might fall apart.
In an article in the online version of the Wall Street Journal, reporter Jessica Vascellaro says that according to "people familiar with the matter," the companies might walk away from the deal as early as next week.
"The two companies met Thursday with the Justice Department, part of a series of meetings to address the concerns of regulators," Vascellaro reported. "While the parties may agree to continue the talks -- or they could reach a resolution -- there are signs they are unwilling to make compromises to address the Justice Department's objections."
Representatives of both companies said that discussions with the Justice Department are ongoing, but otherwise declined to discuss the specifics of any negotiations. Yahoo spokesperson Tracy Schmaler said that Yahoo is still hoping to resolve matters.
"We have been working with the Department of Justice regarding our agreement with Google, and those discussions are ongoing," Schmaler said. "As we have said, 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."
Without more elaboration from the principals, it is difficult to know exactly what is holding up the Justice Department's verdict on the antitrust implications of the proposed ad deal. The companies agreed to give the Justice Department four months to evaluate the proposal, but the deadline came and went earlier this month without any word from Washington.
Vascellaro suggested that one sticking point is a DOJ proposal to have the parties sign a consent...
Google Makes PDF Files Searchable
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Google has rarely included scanned documents in its search results because it had no way to determine the nature of the content, but that's about to change. The search engine giant says it will use optical character recognition (OCR) software to make it possible for Web surfers to search any Web-hosted document stored in the PDF file format developed by Adobe Systems.
Google is using the technology to convert scanned documents into equivalent text files that can be searched, indexed and returned as responses to Google search queries, noted Evin Levey, a Google product manager.
"This is a small but important step forward in our mission of making all the world's information accessible and useful," Levey said.
The company's brute-force application of OCR technology to the Web is also expected to aid Google Book Search -- the ambitious and controversial book-scanning project that the search engine giant first unveiled at the 2004 Frankfurt Book Fair. Ever since, Google has been scanning the book collections at the world's major libraries at a rate of 3,000 book titles per day.
Though the project initially raised copyright concerns, Google has just concluded an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers under which Google will be able to expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the United States. The agreement resolves lawsuits that had challenged Google's plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright owner.
Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond says the agreement is truly groundbreaking because it will give readers online access to millions of in-copyright books for the very first time.
"Second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell...
IBM Sues VP Mark Papermaster for Moving to Apple
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IBM is not letting go without a fight. The computer maker has filed a lawsuit against one of its former top-level executives who left the company to work at Apple.
Mark Papermaster, a server expert and vice president of IBM's blade development unit, is slated to start at Apple in just a few weeks but his knowledge of IBM trade secrets may stop him from joining the maker of Macs.
IBM, which spends billions on research each year, is basing its lawsuit filed in US District Court in Manhattan on Oct. 22 on a non-competition agreement Papermaster signed in 2006 which states he would not work for any competitor up to one year after his employment ended with IBM. The complaint also cites IBM trade secrets as another reason for stopping the move to work alongside with Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs.
The no-compete document, in which Papermaster signed, says the executive acknowledges that IBM engages in an intensely competitive environment and will not associate with or engage in any business enterprise for one year work for any competitor and for two years not lure any other IBM employee to a competitor.
"Mr. Papermaster's employment by Apple is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM," said IBM in a statement to CNET, who broke the story. "We will vigorously pursue this case in court."
The 26-year veteran is also a member of the company's Integration and Values Team, a group of more than 300 senior managers. The IVT group is responsible for IBM's most significant and challenging issues, according to court documents. If those issues are shared with competitors, IBM will lose its upper hand.
IBM's work in microprocessors and servers maybe the crux behind the lawsuit. IBM states in court documents that Papermaster's years working...
Google Offers SLA for Premier Apps
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In a wake of Gmail outages and buggy Apps that drew the ire of its loyal user base, Google on Thursday announced a service level agreement (SLA) for the Premier Edition of Google Apps.
Google's premium online productivity and collaboration suite now comes with a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee for Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sites and Google Talk.
Through its internal research, Google determined Gmail has been available more than 99.9 percent of the time for the past year, despite the negative headlines in August 2008. Even if you factor in the August outage, Google said there has been an aggregate 10-15 minutes of Gmail downtime per month over the last year. That 10-15 minutes per month average represents small delays of a couple of seconds at a time.
"A very small number of people have unfortunately been subject to some disruption of service that affected them for a few minutes or a few hours. For those users, we are very sorry," Matthew Glotzbach, a product management director at Google Enterprise, wrote in the company blog. "And for Google Apps Premier Edition customers, we have extended service level agreement credits to them."
According to Radicati Group, companies with on-premises e-mail solutions averaged from 30 to 60 minutes of unscheduled downtime and an additional 36 to 90 minutes of planned downtime per month.
From this research and Google's own analytics, Glotzbatch concluded that Gmail is twice as reliable as a Novell GroupWise solution, and four times more reliable than a Microsoft Exchange-based solution that companies must maintain themselves.
Gmail's reliability jumps to more than four times as reliable as a GroupWise solution and 10 times more reliable than an Exchange-based solution if you factor in the planned outages inherent in on-premises messaging platforms, Glotzbatch noted.
"Compared to the costs of Microsoft Exchange,...
Microsoft's Live Framework Left in the Shadow of Azure
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Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference set the scene for a slew of major announcements and releases from the software giant, but one piece of news--although significant--did not get the attention it deserved.
Microsofoft's announced its Live Framework platform which is a uniform way for programming Live Services from a host of platforms, programming languages, devices and applications, according to the company.
Live Framework is the backbone behind making it easier to share data and application between users, enabling Web-based solutions to be available on a user's PC and phone both offline and online, and the use of interoperable protocols to synchronize data and applications across a user's devices.
Live Framework, unveiled during a keynote speech, is the underlying layer of Live Mesh which enables file sync and sharing across devices. Live Mesh, which was announced in the spring and is now available in beta, allows people, their data and their devices to mesh together.
Microsoft designers split the Live Framework into three separate components. The first component is the Live operating environment, which is a service engine which exposes endpoints, according to Microsoft. Client endpoints include background synchronization of data and application with the cloud or simple peer to peer with other clients.
A second component includes the resource model. Designers said all resources follow a consistent discovery and allows for creating custom domain specific types that can be synchronized and shared and accessible across devices and the cloud.
The last component is the programming and application model which includes resource models for deploying, managing, and running apps.
As with Azure, Live Framework is still in its infancy and Microsoft is encouraging developers to jump in the sandbox and play.
David Treadwell, Microsoft's vice president of Live Services, in a Live Blog said Live Framework will make it easier for...
Sony, HP, Dell, Toshiba Recall 'Firecracker' Laptop Batteries
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Sony and three major PC makers are recalling 100,000 laptop batteries in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Lithium-Ion batteries used in about 35,000 Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Dell notebook computers -- as well as an additional 65,000 units sold worldwide -- are defective. Specifically, these Lithium-Ion batteries can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers.
As of Oct. 30, there have been 19 reports of the batteries overheating, including 17 reports of flames and fire. Ten of those battery failures resulted in minor property damage, and two consumers experienced minor burns.
"This is not a huge recall seeing as there were millions before from Sony's last round," said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "But we've already seen way more instances of flames and property damage than there was in the last big battery recall."
Computers with the recalled batteries were sold directly the PC makers, through computer and electronics stores nationwide, and through various Web retailers for between $700 and $3,000. The batteries were also sold separately for between $100 and $160.
HP is recalling batteries that have a barcode label beginning with A0, L0, L1 or GC that were shipped with HP Pavilion dv1000, dv8000 and zd8000 models, Compaq Presario v2000 and v2400 machines and with HP Compaq nc6110, nc6120, nc6140, nc6220, nc6230,nx4800, nx4820, nx6110, nx6120 and nx9600 computers.
Dell is recalling battery model OU091 in its Latitude 110L and Inspirion 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150 and 5160 computers. Toshiba's recall includes about 3,000 Satellite A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X and M50/M55 laptops and Tecra A3, A5 and S2 computers.
"Consumers should immediately remove the recalled battery from their notebook computer, and contact their computer manufacturer to determine if their battery is included in the recall and to request a free replacement battery," the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission...
Lower-Income Users Boost Sales of Apple's iPhone
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A new study reports that the strongest growth in purchases of Apple's iPhones comes from those earning less than the median household income.
According to the digital-media research firm comScore, iPhone adoption since June soared 48 percent among those earning $25,000 to $50,000 annually, and by 46 percent among those earning between $25,000 to $75,000. Under $25,000, the growth rate was 16 percent.
About 43 percent of iPhone buyers still earn more than $100,000 annually, but the growth rates for the lower earners is three times greater.
Jen Wu, a senior analyst with comScore and author of the report, acknowledged that "a $200 phone with at least $70 per month for phone service seems a bit extravagant for those with lower disposable income." But, he added, "one actually realizes cost savings when the device is used in lieu of multiple digital devices and services, transforming the iPhone from a luxury item to a practical communication and entertainment tool."
The $25,000 to $50,000 income demographic actually declined a bit from June to August, but the number among smartphone owners and mobile-content users grew. For mobile-content use, for instance, the number of users in that demographic grew by five percent since June, beating the overall market growth of three percent.
The demographic also showed seven percent growth in mobile e-mail usage, and five percent growth in mobile music consumption.
It's the convergence of so many previous devices and functions into one device that can make an all-in-one device like the iPhone a good deal in spite of a price tag that looks high when seen as the price of just a cell phone.
comScore senior analyst Mark Donovan noted that such mobile devices are increasingly being used to access the Net, e-mail and music collections. An iPhone also functions, of course, as a...
Election-Night News To Co-Star Latest Technology
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It's election night, and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer is in New York talking to an Obama campaign strategist in Chicago.
But instead of the split screen or window TV viewers might typically see during live remote interviews, the Obama spokesperson will be projected as a three-dimensional hologram, making it appear as if he or she is in the Manhattan studio with Blitzer. The network plans to conduct similar holographic interviews with representatives from the McCain campaign in Phoenix.
"Everyone is doing something virtual this election year," says CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman, the guy who pushed the technology. But Bohrman believes CNN is going where no network has gone before by employing Hollywood-style effects. "Virtual elements in a real set look so much better than a real person in a virtual set," he says.
Election night is like the Summer Olympics and Super Bowl for network news divisions, and each is carting out eye-popping technical toys to draw viewers.
"For the big game, you see all the bells and whistles. The real challenge this year is new stuff that will travel easily on multiplatforms," says Andrew Tyndall, publisher of TyndallReport.com, which monitors television network news. "Not only must this look good on TV, but on portable devices like cellphones."
There are plenty of reasons for the gimmicks: This year's race has been intensely followed, and is expected to draw tens of millions of voters -- and viewers -- on Nov. 4. Significantly more people are expected to watch Tuesday night's results than in 2004, when about 64 million viewed election-night results on network and cable TV, according to Nielsen.
USA TODAY got an exclusive peek at the holographic technology, which CNN hopes to unveil prior to the election on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. CNN is still fine-tuning the technology.
"It's...
Microsoft's Future Lies Somewhere Beyond the Vista
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Microsoft is a fascinating company with a storied history. No matter the market, it seems to stumble out of the gate before finally building something compelling enough to leave competitors in the dust.
The first few versions of Windows were nothing to get excited about, but as Microsoft released subsequent versions, it became something that today is on 90 percent of all desktop computers.
When the first version of Excel was released, there's no denying that VisiCalc was the superior product. But through iterations, Excel and the rest of the Microsoft Office suite took the lead as the primary solution for business and home document production.
Now, in 2008, Microsoft is at a crossroads in various aspects of its business. There are three segments it is trying to either gain or maintain holding in, but I'm not sure how successful that will be.
It's no secret Microsoft has a desire to overtake Google in the search and online advertising industry. But no matter how Microsoft tried, Windows Live Search has never gained ground.
It's not that Live is a bad search engine; it's actually pretty good. The problem is that Live doesn't offer anything compelling over Google that would entice consumers to switch.
In the digital music field, Zune has gone from being the joke of the industry to being a formidable competitor to the iPod. The first-generation Zune was clunky, poorly designed and brown. The second version improved the hardware -- slim and attractive.
The recently released Zune 3 improved the software experience to something I would seriously consider if I wasn't a Mac user.
And then there's Windows.
While Vista's shipping numbers may be good, there's no denying there's a dark cloud hanging over Microsoft's current flagship operating system.
Compared with Mac OS X Leopard, Apple's latest operating system, Vista feels as if it's stuck in the previous...
Four Former Dell Managers Claim Discrimination
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Four former human-resources managers at Dell Inc. are suing the computer company, accusing it of widespread gender and age discrimination.
Lawyers for the women filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, asking a judge to turn it into a class action covering thousands of former and current workers at Dell, which is based in Round Rock, Texas.
The former managers, Mildred Chapman, Angela Hopkins, Julia Mahaffey and Bethany Riches, accuse the company of paying men higher wages for equal work and failing to fairly promote women to higher positions.
Dell denied the accusations.
The lawsuit noted that there are no women in the company's highest tier of executives.
"This dearth of women at the highest reaches of the company sets the tone for women's poor representation in its upper-level professional and executive ranks, and helps explain the pay and promotion disparities women encounter at Dell," the lawsuit states.
Chapman, 59, also accused the company of disproportionately laying off workers older than 40 after it began cutting 9,000 jobs last year.
Dell spokesman David Frink called the lawsuit "without merit" and said the company doesn't tolerate discrimination in any form.
"We take any claim against our recognized efforts to embrace diversity and equal employment seriously," Frink said.
Dell employs about 80,000 people worldwide.
Chip Glut Leads to a Loss at Toshiba
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Toshiba, Japan's largest chip maker, reported a quarterly loss on Wednesday after the global economic slowdown aggravated a glut in the market for chips used to store data in consumer electronics.
The net loss was yen26.8 billion, or about $275 million, in the three months that ended Sept. 30, compared with a yen25 billion profit a year earlier, the company said. Sales fell 7 percent to yen1.88 trillion.
Toshiba joins Samsung Electronics and Sony among electronics makers reporting lower earnings this month.
Toshiba, the second-largest producer in the $15 billion NAND flash-memory market, after Samsung, kept its forecast for the lowest profit in four years. Also on Wednesday, Fujitsu, the biggest Japanese computer services provider, cut its full-year forecast by 40 percent as the weakening global economy depressed demand for semiconductors used in electronics.
The company said it expected net income of yen60 billion in the 12 months that will end on March 31.
Second-quarter net income was yen4.2 billion in the three months that ended Sept. 30, compared with profit of yen5.4 billion a year earlier, Fujitsu said.
Toshiba said it had yet to make a decision about possible cuts to its plan to spend yen367 billion on new lines and equipment for its chip business.
A slowdown in the global economy is muting demand for NAND flash memory chips, used in music players like the iPod and digital cameras, and Toshiba.
The trend is widely expected to slow Toshiba's aggressive plans to increase capacity to catch up with Samsung.
Toshiba is still banking on breaking even on its chip business in the October-March second half, based on its assumption that price falls in NAND flash memory will slow to a 10 percent fall in October-December, and a 5 percent drop in January-March. Prices fell 45 percent in the six months to Sept. 30, it said.
"We are...
Google, FCC, Broadcasters Fight for White Spaces
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Besides the Presidential election, there's another big political battle brewing in Washington on Nov. 4. This one is over the airwaves that are used to deliver communications signals to consumers across the country, and like the race for the White House, this contest has created a big divide.
The same day that the country is picking its next President, the Federal Communication Commission will decide whether to make available a large swath of airwaves for wireless high-speed Internet access. It would be the largest-ever contiguous chunk of frequencies, also known as spectrum, doled out by the U.S. government for free public use. Combatants on both sides are out swinging.
Proponents include FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and an odd conglomeration of tech heavyweights that includes Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Dell (DELL), Motorola (MOT), and Philips Electronics North America. The companies hope the freed-up spectrum will spur demand for wireless access and the equipment and advertising that would support it.
Martin has already lined up the support he needs from two additional commissioners, according to a person familiar with the matter. Still, opposition has gathered steam in recent days, leaving some to speculate the vote on the issue may be delayed, if not ultimately defeated.
The opposing faction comprises even stranger bedfellows -- from the National Association of Broadcasters, an industry group that represents radio and TV stations, to electronics companies such as Qualcomm (QCOM) and LG Electronics. Even Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren and performers Guns N' Roses and Dolly Parton have weighed in. "I don't know all the legalese concerning this issue, so I've had some very smart people inform me about the legalities here," Parton writes in an Oct. 24 letter that begins on a folksy note. "This industry relies on wireless technology and is in jeopardy of being irreversibly devastated by...
Apple Tops Fortune's Most Admired Companies List
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Fortune's Top 20 Most Admired Companies list is out and Apple took the top spot, beating out companies like Google, Starbucks and FedEx. The Mac and iPod maker also topped the Fortune most admired company for innovation list.
"It is a tribute to its CEO that Apple, which ten years ago seemed headed for the slag heap, is No. 1 on this list. Steve Jobs has always had a knack for weaving magic out of silicon and software," Fortune noted. "But who knew he could build a $24 billion (in sales) company on the strength of a portable jukebox and a computer with a single-digit market share?"
Fortune asked over 3,700 people from several industries to pick the ten companies they admire the most, and the businesses that floated to the top all sport strong innovation, leadership and financial strength records.
Rounding out the rest of the top ten companies were Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric, Google, Toyota, Starbucks, FedEx, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Goldman Sachs.
Apple also took the top spot on the Fortune 10 Most Admired for innovation. Coming in behind Apple were Nike, Medco Health Solutions, Procter & Gamble, Herman Miller, Walt Disney, Fortune Brands, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, McDonald's, and ProLogis.
On Apple's innovation track record, Fortune commented "iPod, iPhone, iMac. Apple is the "i" word in action. Led by Steve Jobs, the company has disrupted three different industries -- computers (the Mac), music (the iPod) and movies (Pixar)."