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No Vulnerability in Windows Media Player, Microsoft Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63799
Microsoft on Monday denied reports of a critical vulnerability in its Windows Media Player. Redmond said the security researcher who reported an exploitable bug is mistaken.
Laurent Gaffie reported the bug on Christmas Eve via the Bugtraq e-mail list. Gaffie said Windows Media Player fails to handle an exceptional condition when parsing a malformed WAV, SND or MID file, and this flaw could lead to a remote integer overflow. Gaffie then offered proof-of-concept code. The bug reportedly affects all versions of Windows Media Player.
"The security researcher making the initial report didn't contact us or work with us directly, but instead posted the report along with proof-of-concept code to a public mailing list," said Christopher Budd, a spokesperson for the Microsoft Security Response Center. "After that report, other organizations picked the report up and claimed that the issue was a code-execution vulnerability in Windows Media Player. Those claims are false."
According to Budd, Microsoft found no possibility for code execution in this issue. Although the proof-of-concept code does trigger a crash of Windows Media player, he said the application can be restarted immediately and doesn't affect the rest of the system.
"Unfortunately, the researcher chose not to come to us with this initial report. If he had, we would've done the exact same investigation we just completed," Budd said. "When we were done, we would have let [him] know what we found, asked him if he thinks we might have missed something, continued the investigation if there was more information, and ultimately closed the case if we didn't find a vulnerability. This is how we handle all of the cases we investigate with responsible researchers every year."
Even when people choose not to report issues responsibly, Budd said Microsoft follows the same process: Launch an investigation to fully research the claims and...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Macworld Rumor Mill Is Humming with Dreams Again
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63798
Macworld wouldn't be Macworld if it didn't stir up the rumor mill just days before the much-anticipated event. Apple fans enjoy thinking up fun devices and gadgets that Apple engineers should be developing, and this year is no different.
"As always, the more out the rumor is, the less likely it's going to come to pass," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia.
High on the rumor list is the iPhone nano, a wishfully more affordable version of the iPhone. Already manufacturers have posted photos of silicone cases and other accessories.
Not far behind is a rumor that a new iPhone 3G with more storage capacity is in the works. In fact, the rumor has Apple engineers working on a 32GB iPhone. An old rumor that Apple's inventory of 8GB iPhones would be sold at a low price has come true. AT&T is selling a version for $99 while Walmart has one for $150.
Picasa, anyone? Another rumor has Google coming out with a Mac version of Picasa, a photo storage, editing and organization program. Jason Toff of Google's Mac team increased expectations with a recent blog post.
"At any given time, there will be plenty of Googlers at our booth available to answer questions about any Google software made for Mac or iPhone," Toff wrote. "Demo stations will be placed throughout the booth so that attendees can try out Google software on their own and, in many cases, talk to the people who helped create that software."
"I'd look at things such as a 32GB iPhone or a Picasa as things that are certainly probable," Gartenberg said.
Upgrades, more storage -- how about an all-out fantasy iPhone? Some iPhone owners have been dreaming up their own ideas -- the iPhone Pro or iPhone Elite, which would have 60GB of...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Windows 7 Leak Helps Microsoft Focus Beyond Vista
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63797
A trial version of Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system has leaked to the Internet. The blogosphere is buzzing about several sites where tech enthusiasts can download the beta Build 7000 version of the operating system.
Specifically, the operating system can be found on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, and it has been downloaded thousands of times. A second BitTorrent site, Mininova, also has a beta version of Windows 7.
Microsoft wasn't immediately available for comment, but the company had not planned to officially release beta copies of Windows 7 until the MSDN conference in January. A final version of the post-Vista OS is scheduled for release in late 2009 or early 2010.
A software build leaked from a company is no big deal, according to Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. Nor is it the first time Windows 7 has leaked from Microsoft's testing pool. Last October, just hours after Microsoft released the alpha edition at its Professional Developers Conference, the software showed up on the Internet.
Microsoft may not be too upset about the leaks. Gartenberg said having so many journalists and bloggers writing about the Windows 7 posting is actually good for Microsoft as it tries to overcome negative Vista publicity.
"Microsoft should be pleased that this build is getting as much attention as it has, because when people stop talking about your products is when you have a problem," Gartenberg said. "What's even more gratifying for Microsoft is it seems most people who are using this leaked software seem to be fairly impressed with its capabilities and performance, which bodes pretty well for Windows 7 going forward."
As Gartenberg sees it, Vista may be the most successful product deemed a failure by observers. Microsoft spent millions on a campaign to realign consumer perceptions about the controversial...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Ailing AMD Ups Restructuring Charges, Expands Layoffs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63796
Advanced Micro Devices told the Securities and Exchange Commission this week that it will be recording a $70 million charge in the year ahead due to its implementation of a new restructuring plan that includes the termination of 600 employees -- 100 more than it had previously envisioned.
Moreover, the chipmaker's financial woes are far from over. Earlier this month, AMD warned investors that it expected a 25 percent fall in revenue for the fourth quarter this year "due to weaker than expected demand across all geographies and businesses, particularly in the consumer market."
What's more, AMD said it expects to incur an investment-impairment charge of approximately $20 million related to its investment in flash-memory manufacturer Spansion. And the company said "further cost-reduction actions will result in additional charges in the first half" of next year, "which the company cannot estimate at this time."
AMD also told the SEC that the long-term financial outlook for its ATI Technologies business has further deteriorated, and it expects to record an unspecified material, noncash impairment charge in the new business year. AMD already racked up an $800 million impairment charge in the company's June quarter for the graphics chipmaking business it bought for $5.4 billion in October 2006.
Just last month, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer promised investors that the struggling chipmaker would make progress toward sustainable profitability. "In 2009, we plan to remain focused on executing our new product road maps, extend our leadership in graphics technology, refresh all our existing computing platform offerings, and introduce innovative new platforms targeting key growth opportunities like ultra-portable notebooks," Meyer said.
According to AMD, the company's new 45nm quad-core Opteron processor, formerly code-named Shanghai, delivers up to 35 percent more performance with up to a 35 percent decrease in power consumption at idle. AMD said it...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Researchers Show 'Secure' Sites May Not Be Safe
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63795
The small image of a padlock in the corner of your browser may not accurately indicate that a Web-site connection is secure, according to new research. A team of U.S. and European researchers used a computing grid of more than 200 Sony PlayStation 3 video-game machines to create fake certificates and fool a browser into thinking it had a secure connection with a trusted site.
Researchers from California, teams from the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and teams from the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland presented a paper Tuesday at the 25C3 security congress in Berlin. They showed that they were able to generate two messages with one digital signature, similar to the process of an older digital-certificate system, using an algorithm called MD5.
A user who visits a Web site whose URL begins with https usually sees a locked padlock in a browser corner, indicating that the site employs a digital certificate issued by one of several trusted certificate authorities. The browser verifies the certificate, using one of several algorithms, including, for some sites, MD5.
The MD5 digital-certificate system is still in use by many sites, and could enable third parties to create fake certificates and fool a browser into thinking it was visiting a secure site. A more modern and secure digital-certificate system is used by many sites.
The vulnerability was first identified four years ago by Chinese researchers, who had created a collision attack by generating two different messages with the same digital signature. But the amount of computing power needed to generate a fake certificate was considered a huge obstacle to anyone attempting to take advantage. By one estimation at the time, a desktop computer would need more than 30 years to generate such a fake...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
iPhone Nano Speculation Grows Stronger
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63794
It wouldn't be a good ending to the year without speculation about yet another new Apple product. Rumors of an Apple iPhone nano have run rampant in recent months and resurfaced as silicone-mold cases designed for iPhone nanos have appeared on the Internet.
Vaja, a case manufacturer, listed the iPhone nano on its Web site among products for which it provides accessories. Since reports of the listing hit the Internet, however, the iPhone nano listing has disappeared.
While it remains only speculation, cases made by XSKN in China also seem to confirm the rumors. On its Web site XSKN lists the iPhone nano as a product for which it manufactures cases. When a user clicks on the link, however, it goes to a registration page.
Other accessories have also been surfacing, such as the iPhone dock developed by North Carolina-based Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO), which produces a line of computer and digital-music accessories, including for the Apple iPod and iPhone. Requests for comment from DLO were not answered in time for publication.
"The iPhone nano rumor has been around for a while, but with two case vendors now advertising cases for a nonexistent and non-announced device, the rumor does get stronger," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "Like the iPod, it's likely the iPhone will fragment into a family of devices at different price points and features at some point in the future."
Some believe the rumors have no truth, and manufacturers are simply rolling out products in anticipation of the device; others say it's safe to presume that these manufacturers would not be working on accessories they didn't believe would be bought by consumers.
"Presumably, they need specs from Apple," Gartenberg said. "Prior to the last revision of the nano, there were similar leaks of pending cases that proved accurate,...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Microsoft Files Patent for Pay-As-You-Go Computing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63774
Microsoft has unwrapped a present for thrifty business users -- a patent application for pay-as-you-go computing that could present new dimensions for software as a service. The application applies to both PC hardware and software that could be rented by actual use.
A "metering agent" would keep track of the charges, and a security module would create a verifying digital signature.
Microsoft already uses subscription agreements for a variety of enterprise products, but this approach adapts the concept to individual users as well as companies. It covers charges per minute rather than an annual fee, and prices set by variables such as an option within an application or a level of performance.
Ironically for a company that has been accused of stuffing its products with unused features, the patent application notes that today's users might purchase a computer and applications with capabilities and performance that are only used on occasion.
As Microsoft's products have reached saturation levels in some areas, such as the widespread use of Office and the lessening need to upgrade, the patent application points toward new business models. Instead of a one-shot sale, the rental model offers what it describes as a "more granular approach." Users would not need to make purchase decisions based on total expected use, but on the "need of the moment."
To make occasional use more appealing, Application #20080319910 describes a computer that has "scalable level components" as well as scalable software and service options. Software and services could include word processing, e-mail, browsing and database access, among other things.
Microsoft's patent intention is not limited to desktop or laptop computers. For instance, it notes that renting could be useful for a "mapping and directions appliance" that someone might only need when venturing into unknown territory, but not for a normal day.
To...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Sony Nears Breakeven on Manufacturing Cost for PS3
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63773
Sony could soon break even on manufacturing its PlayStation 3 video-game console, thanks to a new reduced-cost design. A teardown study by iSuppli found key changes in components from the last generation of PS3s.
Based on pricing in October, the latest version of the PS3 carries a combined bill of materials, manufacturing and box-content cost of $448.73. That's a 35 percent reduction from the $690.23 it cost to build the last-generation model, iSuppli reported. Of course, the firm added, the totals do not include other costs, such as software and royalties.
While Sony sold the previous-generation PS3 at a significant loss -- recouping its costs through game sales -- the new version may help Sony get out of the red, according to iSuppli.
"With its new-generation PS3, Sony has come closer to breaking even, although it probably hasn't quite reached that mark yet," said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst of teardown services for iSuppli. "With iSuppli's estimated PS3 cost at $448.73, the product retailing in the United States at around $399, and taking into account other expenses, the PS3 may be able to break even in 2009 with further hardware revisions."
At least part of the cost decline is attributed to a normal learning curve and supply-demand factors that cut component prices over time. A more significant factor, however, is Sony's integration of discrete components into the core silicon of the PS3, which dramatically reduces the component count.
The new generation PS3 contains about 2,800 individual parts, compared to about 4,000 in the previous-generation model with a 60GB hard drive. This also dramatically reduces the overall cost of the console, iSuppli said.
What's more, the key integrated circuits in the new PS3 are very different, employing more advanced process geometry. These key parts, which include Nvidia's Reality Synthesizer, IBM's Cell Broadband Engine, and...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Will Work for Praise: The Web's Free-Labor Economy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63759
It's dawn at a Los Angeles apartment overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Laura Sweet, a graphic designer in her early 40s, sits at a computer and begins to surf the Net. She searches intently, unearthing such bizarre treasures for sale as necklaces for trees and tattoo-covered pigs. As usual, she posts them on a shopping site called ThisNext.com. Asked why in the world she spends so many hours each week working for free, she answers: "It's a labor of love."
Later this morning, a half-hour's drive to the west, a serial entrepreneur named Gordon Gould strolls into the Santa Monica offices of ThisNext. Gould has managed to entice an army of volunteers, including Sweet, to pour passion and intelligence into his site for free. Traffic on ThisNext is soaring, with unique visits nearly tripling in a year, to 3.5 million monthly. What's in it for the volunteer workers? "They can build their brands," Gould says. "In their niches, they can become mini-Oprahs."
Here's how it works. Entrepreneurs like Gould build meeting places that provide visitors with tools to express themselves, mingle with friends and strangers, and establish their personal "brands." The result, when it works, is an outpouring of creativity. It has produced not only ThisNext, but also YouTube and even American Idol.
You might think that with the economy crashing, the free-labor business model would be crashing, too. Will people continue to invest in their personal brands during hard times? Gould is betting they will. Between investor visits during a late November trip to New York, he sips a soy latte and speculates. During the downturn, he says, firings are sapping loyalty to companies and steering people toward goals of self-sufficiency. In Gould's acerbic phrasing: "The only person I can rely on not to screw me -- hopefully -- is myself."
Beyond...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Cost of Text Messages Is Subject of Scrutiny
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63750
Text messaging is a wonderful business to be in: about 2.5 trillion messages will have been sent from cell phones worldwide this year. The public assumes that the wireless carriers' costs are far higher than they actually are, and profit margins are concealed by a heavy curtain.
Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and chairman of the U.S. Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carriers from 2005 to 2008, during a time when the industry consolidated from six major companies to four.
So in September, Kohl sent a letter to Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, inviting them to answer some basic questions about their text messaging costs and pricing.
All four of the major carriers decided during the past three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents. The decision could not have come from a dearth of business: the total of 2.5 trillion sent messages this year, as estimated by the Gartner Group, is up 32 percent from 2007. Gartner expects 3.3 trillion messages to be sent in 2009.
The written responses to Kohl from AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile speak at length about pricing plans without getting around to the costs of conveying text messages.
Attempts to speak with representatives of all three about their costs and pricing were unsuccessful.
The carriers will have other opportunities to tell us more about their pricing decisions: Twenty class-action lawsuits have been filed around the United States against AT&T and the other carriers, alleging price-fixing for text messaging services.
T-Mobile and AT&T contended in their responses to Kohl that the pay-per-use price of a message was relatively unimportant because most messaging was done as part of a package. With a $10 or $15...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
A Chance for Europe To Unite on Wireless Broadband
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63748
For seven years, AirData, a small wireless operator in Stuttgart, did something the largest German mobile operators, including T-Mobile, were unwilling to do: It delivered broadband Internet to consumers in remote corners of the country.
But at the end of 2007, AirData's license to use the 2.6 gigahertz band expired after the country's regulator, Bundesnetzagentur, deemed AirData's service inappropriate for the frequency, which it wanted to reserve for mobile phone, not broadband, services.
Legal challenges by AirData in Germany and Brussels have kept the company operating, but its fight for survival underlines a major hurdle to pan-European broadband coverage.
"When it comes to obtaining a broadcast license, it is very, very political," said Christian Irmler, the chief executive and founder of AirData, which has about 7,500 customers. "We spend most of our time just defending our right to keep our tiny presence in the German market against much larger, more influential competitors."
Political obstacles have kept broadband Internet out of reach for 50 million to 100 million people throughout the European Union, according to the GSM Association, a group based in London that represents mobile operators. Most Europeans without access live in Eastern Europe, but tens of thousands also live in rural Britain, France and Germany.
Since 2000 and 2001, when the first frequency licenses for high-speed mobile service were sold in government auctions, most EU countries have refrained from selling new licenses. The tight control over frequency allocation makes it difficult for alternative operators, like AirData, to serve parts of Europe where bigger operators are unwilling to invest.
"The big issue around all of these markets is politics," said Tom Phillips, GSM's director of government affairs.
But the switchover from analog to digital television broadcasting is giving Europe a rare opportunity to break the bottleneck and get on the same wavelength, at least in wireless...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
For the Gadgets Santa Delivered, a Little Tech TLC
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63747
Lucky you. Santa delivered a new computer, digital camera, iPod or cell phone under your Christmas tree.
Now for the reality check. How are you going to care for and maintain this shiny -- and expensive -- device to help ensure years of trouble-free use?
We asked the experts at Yahoo! Tech, CNET.com, Geek Squad and the Virginia-based electronics retailer Crutchfield. We also checked the Internet.
We found loads of advice, including general words of wisdom.
Denver-based Geek Squad agent Nathan Ziehnert suggested people read the "quick start" guide that comes with a new device. They're often one to four pages.
"It's typically the best way to get familiar with your new equipment really fast," said Ziehnert.
Our experts said tender loving care also is in order. And there is one accessory that is quite helpful for this -- especially for gadgets you bring with you, including cell phones, iPods and digital cameras.
"Cases are a good idea," said Yahoo! Tech columnist Chris Null. "The more mobile a product, the more subject to injury it is going to be."
Here are more tips for four tech products:
* Download iTunes software at Apple.com, if you don't have the latest software on your computer. It's free.
* Avoid dropping your iPod. You may scratch it or break the screen. Use a protective case or sleeve. "I like a sleeve, personally," said Dan Ackerman, senior editor for CNET.com.
* Clean your iPod with a damp cloth. Don't get water inside the device.
* Avoid leaving your iPod in the car, where temperatures can be exceedingly hot or cold.
* Avoid leaving it in direct sunlight for extended periods.
* Charge the battery every 14 to 18 days when not in use. Even when an iPod is turned off, according to Apple, it's in a sleeping state that requires juice.
* Delete sample shots that...
Wed, 31 Dec 08
Review: Samsung Omnia Phone Is Tops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63714
Frequent readers of this space may recall I frequently dislike PDA cellular phones, especially ones with terrible battery life. I have tested a dozen phones over the years and carried a half-dozen and really liked none of them much.
Now, I am in love.
No, really. The Samsung Omnia from Verizon Wireless is just breathtakingly good. It has everything I want in a Smartphone (actually, more than I expect) and at about half of the price I expect to pay. It's really the first touch-screen phone I can see myself using for a long time. After an hour with one, I shelled out the money and bought it.
The big question you are expecting: Is it better than the iPhone? For me, it's just as good. I need a Windows Mobile device (which Apple is never going to be) and something that works seamlessly with Exchange corporate mail. The Omnia is the phone I have been waiting for.
First, the good news. It includes Wi-Fi connectivity, something Verizon is rather famous for disabling when it launches a new device. This gives you the best of both worlds when it comes to browsing the Web or using other data features.
Secondly, it has a glorious touch-screen interface with tactile feedback. You can use the device in portrait mode as a phone or landscape mode when reading mail or sending text. I was a confirmed user of a real QWERTY keyboard on my Motorola Q and my Blackberry before that, and I wondered if a touch-screen would be my thing, but honestly, in an hour or two, I was hooked. Because it has no slideout keyboard, the Omnia is sleek and thin.
The battery life is just great. Even with my Exchange sync set to 15 minutes, I get more than two days between charges.
In terms of features,...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Acer Launches Extreme Gaming Aspire Notebook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63772
In a move to attract more gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, Acer America on Monday introduced the Aspire 8930G-7665 notebook PC. The notebook taps into the power of the new Intel Core 2 Quad mobile processor Q9000, designed for extreme mobile performance and speed for gaming on the go.
"By incorporating the latest capabilities of Intel's Core 2 Quad mobile processors into the Aspire 8930G-7665, Acer is delivering a perfect combination of mobility, innovation and extreme gaming capabilities," said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing for Acer America.
Acer promises groundbreaking performance for multimedia applications and 3-D gaming with its latest notebook. It relies on four processing cores, 12MB of shared L2 cache, a 1066-MHz Front Side Bus, and clock speeds of up to 2.53 GHz. According to Acer, the 8930G-7665 brings unprecedented swiftness and realism to 3-D games.
"Gamers and enthusiasts who enjoy HD multimedia entertainment will find the performance benefits of quad-core mobile performance in the Aspire 8930G unrivaled to other multimedia notebooks on the market," Agnihotry said.
Along with new quad-core power, the Aspire 8930G-7665 offers gamers and multimedia enthusiasts high-definition functionality. The notebook PC features an 18.4-inch HD CineCrystal widescreen 1920x1080-pixel display, with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
High-definition entertainment is provided by Blu-ray Disc technology, Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT graphics, and Dolby audio. Acer said the new notebook gives users a true cinematic experience for movie watching, playing games, and listening to music.
The Acer Aspire 8930G-7665 is available now for $1,799. That's an extremely aggressive price for what the notebook offers, according to Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. That pricing strategy has allowed Acer to rapidly gain market share in the PC industry, but the audience for this new model is somewhat limited.
"With a large gaming notebook that's priced above $1,000,...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
HP Will Offer Home Multimedia Server for PCs and Macs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63771
Hewlett-Packard has unveiled a consumer-oriented multimedia server designed to interact with home computing machines running Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Mac OS X. Slated to ship in February, the HP MediaSmart Server automatically aggregates music tracks, photos, videos and other media often distributed over multiple PCs and other computing devices.
The goal is to provide households with a central repository for both accessing and backing up a wide variety of digital content, which then becomes accessible by means of a secure, personal Web address.
"A growing number of digital-savvy households have both Windows and Mac computers, with hundreds and sometimes thousands of media files and documents scattered across these devices," noted HP Vice President Jason Zajac. "The HP MediaSmart Server protects, stores and organizes this content from anywhere on a network so consumers can access and share it any place they are connected."
HP Photo Publisher software on the server gives users a new way to effortlessly upload snapshots to photo-sharing Web sites such as Facebook, Picasa Web Albums, and Snapfish. Moreover, iTunes music libraries can be centralized on the home's server to enable playback on any networked Mac or PC.
Both Windows and Mac OS X machines have the ability to back up files and folders to the server as well as restore files and folders through their backup/restore applications. On the downside, Mac OS X machines will not be able to remotely access any of the PCs connected to the home network.
The server can be commanded to stream photos, music tracks, video clips, and downloaded movies to a networked home entertainment center, Xbox 360, or any HP MediaSmart TV. The different kinds of streaming that the server supports include Windows Media
Connect, iTunes and Packet Video's TwonkyMedia server.
To protect crucial household files against a hard-drive failure, the server's...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
British Culture Minister Pushes for Internet Ratings
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63770
If Britain's culture minister has his way, the Internet could soon see a rating system akin to the movie industry.
Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph that new standards of decency need to be applied to the Web, and announced plans to negotiate with President-Elect Barack Obama to devise international rules for English-language Web sites.
While Burnham's plans could amount to censorship in the eyes of some free-speech advocates, he nonetheless plans to encourage Internet service providers to find ways to offer "child-safe" Web services.
"If you look back at the people who created the Internet, they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now. It's true across the board in terms of content, harmful content, and copyright. Libel is [also] an emerging issue," Burnham told the Telegraph.
"There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."
While a cinema-like rating system is not the only option, Burnham is pushing for clearer standards online. A father of three, Burnham is worried about children. Leaving them for two hours completely unregulated on the Internet is not acceptable, he said, and there need to be stakes in the ground to help people navigate their way safely around what he describes as a potentially "dangerous world."
Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia, wonders exactly what a cinema-like rating system would accomplish.
"It's not like kids will go...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Verizon Fights Cybersquatters, Wins $33 Million
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63769
Verizon to cybersquatters: Can you hear me now? Verizon Communications sent a clear message this week after the telecom giant won a lawsuit against OnlineNIC, a San Francisco-based domain-registration company.
OnlineNIC, which has more than 1.18 million domains registered, had more than 663 domain names identical or similar to Verizon trademarks, the company said.
A judge in the Northern District of California found that OnlineNIC tried to take advantage of Verizon by tricking its customers into going to OnlineNIC domains and misrepresenting them as Verizon Web sites.
OnlineNIC managed Web pages such as myverizonwireless.com, iphoneverizonplans.com, and 123verizonphones.com.
As a result, OnlineNIC must pay $50,000 per domain name, or $33.15 million, Verizon's largest judgment ever in a cybersquatting case, according to the company. Ironically, OnlineNIC is registered with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit formed in 1998 to keep the Internet secure.
"This case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers," said Sarah Deutsch, Verizon vice president and associate general counsel. "Verizon intends to continue to take all steps necessary to protect our brand and consumers from Internet frauds and abuses."
Cybersquatters register domain names confusingly similar to others' trademarks.
This isn't the first time Verizon has fought to protect its business and trademarks.
In fact, Verizon has won several similar cybersquatting cases. In each case, the courts granted injunctions against three different companies for violating Verizon's trademarks.
Verizon is also one of the main organizers behind the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), a group formed in 2007 to take action against cybersquatting.
Together with Yahoo, Dell, Eli Lilly, Marriott International, and others, Verizon has been working on new efforts to stop cybersquatters through CADNA.
The practice of cybersquatting continues to grow. In fact,...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Facebook Stirs Furor After Pulling Breast-Feeding Photos
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63768
Facebook has found itself at the core of a heated controversy after the popular social-networking Web site removed photos of breast-feeding mothers. The company threatened to close the account of 23-year-old Heather Farley after she posted two photos of herself breast-feeding her infant daughter.
The move has launched protests by Facebook members and pro-breast-feeding groups. Facebook officials told The Washington Post they are not against breast-feeding and refer to it as "beautiful," but photos that show nipples violate its terms-of-use policy.
Facebook's policy specifically states that obscene or sexually explicit photos will be removed from the Web site, and the company says photos of full breasts fall in that category.
This isn't the first time Facebook has pulled a photo of a breast-feeding baby. Last year, the company pulled a photo of a mother breast-feeding her baby, which resulted in the mother forming a group called "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene."
Farley, along with the group behind Hey Facebook, the Mothers International Lactation Campaign, organized both a virtual and live nurse-in, which took place Saturday in front of Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
"For many years, the World Health Organization has emphasized the need for mothers to breast-feed and has set minimum standards that many countries, including the United States, still have yet to meet," Farley, a Provo, Utah, mother, wrote in a letter to Facebook. "They have set these standards to help prevent the significant number of deaths of infants in our world. By removing pictures of breast-feeding, the message is sent that it is something shameful, something that should be hidden and not seen."
Farley also said Facebook is discriminating against breast-feeding mothers.
"Like issues such as pregnancy, breast-feeding discrimination is a gender issue," she said. "When pictures are removed of breast-feeding and not of artificial feeding, breast-feeding mothers...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Internet Tops Newspapers as a Source of News
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63744
Just by reading this online story, you are part of a groundbreaking trend. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released last week, the Internet has passed newspapers as the most popular source for news.
Only television surpassed the Net, with about 70 percent of Americans saying they get most of their national and international news from the ubiquitous box. About 40 percent say they get most of their news from the Net, an increase of 16 percent from September 2007. Newspapers are the main source for about 35 percent.
This is the first time the Net has surpassed newspapers as a source of news.
As in so many other trends, younger people are the key driver. For Americans younger than 30, about 59 percent get their news online, a dramatic increase from just a year ago, when the figure was 34 percent. The percentage of those under 30 who cited television as their main news source declined 10 percent in the last year.
But television remains popular among the under-30s, with 59 percent also citing television as a primary news source. The wording of the survey allowed respondents to name more than one source for most of their news.
Newspapers actually gained a bit among young people in the last year, going from 23 percent to 28 percent.
Although the Pew study did not cite reasons for the rise of the Net as a news source, some observers have speculated on the causes. These include the ability to find any news source quickly on the Net, at any time, without waiting for its rotation on TV or flipping through a printed newspaper.
Additionally, cutbacks in some areas, such as CNN's recent decision to eliminate its science, technology and environment unit, have driven subject-specific...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Walmart Sells iPhone, But AT&T Offers $99 Price
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63743
Walmart began selling Apple's iPhone 3G at nearly 2,500 of its stores on Sunday. The news came just before AT&T announced Monday that it will sell refurbished iPhone 3Gs for just $99.
Walmart is offering the black 8GB iPhone 3G for $197 and the 16GB black or white model for $297. Those prices are contingent on a new two-year service agreement -- or a qualified upgrade -- from AT&T.
"We are delighted to bring customers this groundbreaking mobile technology," said Gary Severson, senior vice president of entertainment for Walmart stores. "Our electronics associates have been preparing for many weeks for the arrival of iPhone 3G. We are excited to now help new customers learn more about the features and services that make the iPhone unique."
Like the iPhone 3Gs sold through AT&T, Walmart is offering the latest model that combines all the features of the iPhone plus 3G networking, built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, and iPhone 2.2 software with support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and the ability to run more than 10,000 third-party applications available through the App Store.
"You can't discount the fact that the iPhone is now sold at Walmart," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "The breadth and distribution reach of Walmart is so incredibly important that this might become one of the more interesting parts of the story in terms of long-term retail distribution for the iPhone. Getting yourself into that Walmart space is very significant, even if you are only talking about essentially a $2 discount."
Walmart is doing more than selling brand-new iPhones for the cheapest price on the market. It also offers a price-match policy that allows stores to match the price of any local competitor's advertised price. It seems Walmart will not be undersold on the iPhone --...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
A Primer on Cloud Computing and the Enterprise
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63738
What's the biggest headache you face when working with your computer? The answer may very well be "the computer itself." System crashes, data loss, hard drive failure -- there's a never ending parade of problems. There's a new movement afoot in the tech industry that promises to take some of those headaches away, and it's called "cloud computing." By now, many people have heard that term being bandied about, but questions are rife regarding what cloud computing is and what it means to the future. Read on for some answers.
Q: What is cloud computing?
A: In essence, cloud computing refers to a model in which the applications you use and the files you save are stored on remote servers. You access those applications and files with your PC, over a network, and in many cases, that network is the Internet.
Cloud computing is actually not a new concept -- it's an old one that's been made relevant again by the increasing availability of computer networks, particularly the Internet, and by the spread of "always on" broadband connections.
Q: What are the advantages of cloud computing?
A: There are many. As a computer user, you would no longer be dependent on one particular computer to access and work on your data. So long as you have a connection to your data through a network -- whether it's a local area network or the Internet -- you can retrieve your files and pick up where you left off. That's becoming increasingly important today, as people crave more mobility and often use more than one computer in the course of a day.
You also wouldn't have to worry about maintaining your applications or your files, and your concerns over the health of your local hardware would be lessened. The safety of your data is less dependent upon the...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Subsidizing 'Silicon Saxony': A Short-Term Fix?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63726
Dresden is one of the great success stories of German reunification. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the capital of the East German state of Saxony remade itself as the center of European semiconductor production, becoming home to major facilities operated by U.S. chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices as well as Munich-based Infineon Technologies. When a 1998 Time magazine article dubbed the region "Silicon Saxony," locals embraced the label and even founded an organization by that name to promote industry interests.
But the mood in Silicon Saxony these days is anything but exuberant. On Dec. 21, Infineon's separately listed Qimonda unit, the region's largest private employer, narrowly escaped bankruptcy when it received a rescue package that could total more than $800 million. "We have achieved a breakthrough," Saxony's Economic Affairs & Labor Minister Thomas Jurk said in announcing the deal.
The bailout includes a $208 million loan from the Saxony state government as well as $104 million from Infineon, which holds 77 percent of Qimonda's shares. A further $140 million comes from an unidentified bank in Portugal, where Qimonda is expected to develop a research and development center. In addition, Germany's federal government and the Saxony state government are offering $390 million in loan guarantees.
It's a major reprieve for Qimonda's 3,200 employees in the region and for thousands of other workers at nearby suppliers and research operations. Yet the long-term outlook for Dresden's high-tech industry remains cloudy. "This may give a chance for Qimonda to sail through the storm but not guarantee the outcome," Nicolas Gaudois, UBS's London-based semiconductor analyst, wrote in a research note on Dec. 22.
Qimonda's New York-listed shares bounced more than 60 percent on the news, to about 49 percent apiece. But the stock is far below its price of more than $8 a year...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
CrossLoop Fills in for Your Busy Techie Friend
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63723
Trying to help a less-knowledgeable friend or family member solve computer problems can be very frustrating especially if you can't sit with him or her in front of the PC. It can be slow and awkward merely explaining the steps you'd like the other person to perform to diagnose and solve the problem.
The best approach is to control the distant computer remotely with the owner's consent during the problem-solving session. That way, you can directly manipulate the machine while explaining what you're doing over the phone.
There are a variety of services and software that allow such remote control. Tools for doing so are even preinstalled in obscure corners of the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. But many are too complicated for average users even those with enough knowledge to help solve common problems. Others cost money, or require you to establish an account with a service, or are aimed mainly at folks seeking unattended access to their own remote computers.
This week, I tested a remote-control product designed specifically for collaborative help sessions solicited by the person seeking help. It is free, simple and can be used without setting up an account. And it also has an added dimension: If you have a problem and lack a tech-savvy friend or relative who can help, the company that makes the software maintains a directory of thousands of geeks who can help you, usually for a fee.
The product is called CrossLoop and can be downloaded at crossloop.com. It currently works only with Windows computers, but the company plans to release a Macintosh version in a few months.
To use CrossLoop, both you and the person you are helping must download and install the free program, a quick and simple process. When you run the program, you are invited to create a free account, which...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
iPhone Game Becomes Stage for New Music
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63715
A start-up company called Tapulous has turned a simple game for the iPhone into an Internet-age mobile stage for musicians.
"Tap Tap Revenge," a free game that challenges players to keep up with catchy tunes by tapping in the right spots on the phone's screen, was available in Apple's iPhone application store when it opened in July.
It quickly climbed the store's charts. More than three million downloads later, Apple declared it the most popular free iPhone game of the year.
"We went to No. 1 in three days," said Bart Decrem, co-founder and chief executive of Tapulous. "Within a week, artists reached out to have their music featured in the game."
Many software companies have jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, seeing promise in the popularity of the phone and the demand for programs for sale or free download through the App Store. They include Smule, a startup that created a program that turns iPhones into flutes; and giant game publishers like Electronic Arts, which recently released a version of its classic "SimCity" game for the iPhone.
Tapulous, based in Palo Alto, California, was founded in January after Decrem, a Belgian software executive, and his business partner, Andrew Lacy, came across an iPhone game called "Tap Tap Revolution." They sought out its creator, Nate True, and brought him on board as a developer. (A third co-founder, Mike Lee, was forced out in August after the men disagreed over the company's direction.)
For Decrem, who earlier helped create a social Web browser called Flock, the low cost and fast pace of making software for the iPhone made it feasible to create a company that focused exclusively on the device.
"It took two years and north of $5 million to bring Flock to market," he said. "In this case, the longest you spend building an iPhone application is three...
Tue, 30 Dec 08
Enabling Excellence with IP Recording
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63658
IP recording is coming into its own as a QA tool, with what users report are high quality and functionality. IP applications have lower costs and can more easily support value-added solutions. Their suppliers have also incorporated features that may not be present in older legacy TDM software, such as agent self-monitoring and screen capture. Going to an IP environment, whether conversion or new installs which has driven IP recording, has also allowed contact centers to benefit from these new tools.
While there have been in a few instances some bugs to be worked out with IP recording, which there is with any new technology, its features, benefits and the functionality, along with the strong support of the suppliers have outweighed them. Here is a just a few of the many successful experiences contact centers have had in employing IP recording solutions:
Call recordings can capture more than just contact center customer service, support, and sales. They are extremely valuable tools to obtain, for further review and action, interactions with other departments and not just by phone either.
The Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA), which serves the Canton, Ohio area, offers an excellent example. SARTA has four small networked contact centers. Three handle customer service inquiries with one agent each per shift and are located at regional transit centers. The other books rides and provides customer care for SARTA's ProLine paratransit service with three agents per shift, and is situated at the agency's head office. There are two separate ACD queues for the general customer service and for ProLine.
SARTA records these calls as well as for the bus dispatch center, its head office, on a wireless conference call phone also used for recording meetings, and for radio transmissions between dispatchers and drivers. Calls and transmissions are...
Mon, 29 Dec 08
Microsoft Acknowledges Critical SQL Server Flaw
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63733
Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability that could allow remote-code execution on systems with supported editions of its Microsoft SQL Server products.
Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine, and Windows Internal Database are affected. Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue.
"Microsoft is aware that exploit code has been published on the Internet for the vulnerability addressed by this advisory," Microsoft said in its security advisory. "Currently, Microsoft is not aware of active attacks that use this exploit code or of customer impact at this time."
According to Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, the vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server product is highly critical. Database administrators, he said, should immediately review and implement the workarounds Microsoft offered as soon as possible.
"MS SQL Server is a highly popular product as we have seen in April of this year, when [an] SQL-Injection vulnerability that specifically targeted MS SQL Server-driven Web sites was used to redirect users to Web sites serving malware," Kandek said. "The effects of this attack are still out on the Internet, as we can still see sites that have fallen victim to the attack and that have not been restored to an exploit-free state."
Kandek said the potential exists for private data leakage, as well as major disruptions in critical Microsoft SQL-driven applications, such as e-commerce and HR. On the positive side, Qualys believes companies have aggressively firewalled off their Microsoft SQL Server from being accessible directly on the Internet after the traumatic Slammer worm in 2003. That, Kandek said, should provide some protection from direct attacks....
Mon, 29 Dec 08
BlackBerry Storm Hasn't Yet Rained on iPhone's Parade
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63713
Apple's iPhone 3G is surviving the Storm, according to a new study. ChangeWave Research reports that sales of the iPhone line have not been dramatically affected by the launch of the BlackBerry Storm from Research in Motion (RIM).
The Storm, released in November, is the first touchscreen smartphone from RIM, potentially Apple's largest competitor. Many observers have touted it as RIM's answer to the iPhone. The survey, taken December 9-15, queried nearly 4,000 current smartphone owners about their phones.
According to the survey, the iPhone's current market share is 23 percent this month, an increase from the 17 percent market share shown in a similar survey in September, and more than twice its share when the 3G model was launched in June. BlackBerry's market share, including all models, is 43 percent in December, compared with 40 percent in September.
This compares with figures from last January, when the iPhone registered a six percent market share and BlackBerry was 43 percent.
Some observers have noted that Apple's rise is apparently coming at the expense of other handset makers. Palm had an 18 percent market share in January 2008, but this month it's down to nine percent. Motorola's dropped from seven percent in January to four percent this month.
Going forward, though, the Storm may yet make waves for the iPhone. For survey respondents who planned on purchasing a new smartphone in the next three months, 39 percent intended to buy a BlackBerry, an increase of nine percent over September's numbers. About 30 percent intended to buy an iPhone, down four percent from September.
However, the same survey found that only about 33 percent of the Storm's owners were "very satisfied" with their purchase, while 77 percent of the purchasers of the original iPhone had been. The comparison was made...
Mon, 29 Dec 08
The Net Generation Takes the Lead
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63703
In the second half of the 20th century, baby boomers set the stage for how we live and work. The medium that boomers grew up with, broadcast TV, helped to create our consumer culture. The fixtures of suburban life -- the SUVs, the expanding floor size, the family room off the kitchen -- were created by and for boomers. The many ways that we organize ourselves at work and in our civic lives are based on models that were defined or reinforced by the dominant demographic, the boomers. Their influence is so powerful we hardly notice it.
But now, these old ways are starting to be shattered by the new Web and this new generation. The new Web, which lets people contribute to knowledge and not just consume it, is revolutionary. The great powers, such as the titans of broadcast TV, no longer control the distribution of knowledge. People no longer have to follow the leaders and do what they're told. Now they can organize themselves, publish themselves, inform themselves, and share with their friends -- without waiting for an authority to instruct them.
What's more, this new generation, the biggest ever, knows how to use this awesome tool. They've grown up digital. The Net Generation, as I call Americans ages 11 to 31, has been trained since early childhood to collaborate, to hunt for information, to move fast.
With reflexes honed to use the Web effectively, the Net Generation will change the world in unprecedented ways.
They are already challenging the way business should be conducted -- by suggesting that business leaders look outside the company for fresh ideas rather than burrow inside the "silo," a business cliche that is revealing because of its origin, in the bulk storage of grain. They're challenging the assumption that work should take place at...
Mon, 29 Dec 08
On the Net, Hulu Is Web Site of the Year
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63698
In the Wild West that is online video, Hulu.com has proven to be a trailblazing answer to how professional content can thrive on the Web.
It's this year's pick for Web site of the year.
"This is period of great experimentation in regard to media, in regard to online video," said Hulu chief executive officer Jason Kilar in a recent interview. "You've seen a lot, you're probably going to see even more in terms of various business models, various interface designs. I personally love to operate in moments of time like that."
Hulu officially launched March 12, a result of the unlikely collaboration between News Corp. and NBC Universal. Normally, such corporate fusion in new mediums doesn't pan out.
The blogosphere was, to say the least, doubtful. Before its name was announced, bloggers derided the project as "Clown Co."
"Boy, did we have to eat crow," recently wrote Michael Arrington of the influential blog Techcrunch.com. He added: "I was wrong. Hulu rocks. Despite ridiculous odds, the company was able to pull of a joint venture between two humongous parent media companies and provides users with a compelling, sexy product."
Hulu hosts more than 1,000 shows, from "Family Guy" to "Saturday Night Live." There are more than 130 content providers, not only NBC and Fox, but Sony Pictures Television, MGM Studios, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures and PBS. The site's database of full-length films also has grown.
ComScore pegged its unique monthly visitors for October at 24 million. On average, a visitor watches 10 videos on Hulu in a month, which is good enough to chart Hulu sixth in videos viewed online.
That only garners Hulu about 2 percent of the online video market, far below the leading Google sites -- of which Google's YouTube is the big draw. But many believe Hulu is more appealing to advertisers than YouTube, and...
Mon, 29 Dec 08
Business Blogs Are a Good Start
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62931
Are you building a business -- or thinking of starting one? Especially if you're a corporate army of one, it pays to be in the "you" business.
That means promoting yourself and telling people what you can do as a potential goods or services provider -- or an employee, for that matter.
And increasingly the online world is the place to hang your shingle with dedicated Web pages and social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.
One of the easiest and best ways to market yourself or your business is by creating a blog.
The way a blog organizes information and presents it on the Internet is so clever and useful, it's a wonder that more business people aren't tapping this technology as a way to connect with customers past, present and future.
In the technology business, savvy CEOs already know that blogging gives them an unfiltered link to customers, employees, the media and even competitors.
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz blogs at http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan, and he encourages each and every employee to join him and create their own blogs on the company's site.
Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, whose Ubuntu Linux operating system is going directly after Red Hat's server business, has his own blog at www.markshuttleworth.com.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, blogs at www.cnewmark.com. If you want to know what he's thinking, this is as good a place as any to start.
But business-oriented blogging isn't just for high-profile CEOs. Starting and maintaining a blog is a great way to let people know that you're in business and what you can do for them.
And the best part is that you don't have to pay a Web programmer or hosting company anything at all.
Free services like the Google-owned Blogger (www.blogger.com) and the increasingly popular WordPress (http://wordpress.com) are...
Sat, 27 Dec 08
What Products Made Tech Fans Celebrate in 2008?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63636
There was no landslide winner as the most important tech product of 2008. But amidst the most challenging economic storm in decades, you could make a case for viable candidates.
Smartphones, especially Apple's iPhone 3G, got smarter, buoyed by the brand-new iTunes App Store.
Portable and inexpensive laptops, dubbed netbooks, got smaller, cheaper and more ubiquitous.
There were innovative, if imperfect, new Web browsers from Microsoft (Internet Explorer 8), Mozilla (Firefox) and, most notably, Google (Chrome).
And Netflix, the company that built a business shipping DVDs by mail, began letting you instantly stream movies on a whole bunch of hardware components -- from a clever $100 box from Roku to certain Blu-ray players.
Blu-ray itself was something of a story, if only because 2008 began with Hollywood choosing it as the preferred format for next-generation high-definition DVDs. For all the predictions about digital distribution of entertainment winning out long term -- Netflix being one example -- physical media will stick around for a while. By the end of the year, Blu-ray players were heavily discounted. I found one for less than $200 on Black Friday and would like to see prices drop even further.
This is the time of year when pundits reflect on the previous 12 months. I've been poring through a year's worth of products I tested for my Personal Technology columns. I'm also paying homage, if not quite breaking into a sweat, over some of the influential products I didn't actually review. For example, the Wii Fit exercise board from Nintendo helped the company continue to bulk up sales for its widely popular Wii video game system. I've also been gazing into my crystal ball. At least two tech stories are likely to dominate headlines in 2009.
On Feb. 17, television as we've known it since Howdy Doody will be altered forever. That's when...
Thu, 25 Dec 08
Notebooks Ascend to PC Supremacy: First Time Ever
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63742
Over the past quarter, PC makers shipped more notebook PCs than desktops for the first time ever, marking a major milestone in the industry, according to market research firm iSuppli. While the number of units shipped worldwide during the third quarter looks relatively close -- 38.6 million notebook PCs vs. 38.5 million desktop PCS -- sales of notebook PCs experienced far more growth.
Figures released by iSuppli indicate notebook PC shipments rose almost 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007. In contrast, desktop PC shipments dropped by 1.3 percent for the same period.
Matthew Wilkins, who is principal analyst for computing platforms at iSuppli explains that, "Momentum has been building in the notebook market for some time, so it's not a complete surprise that [notebook] shipments have surpassed those of desktops."
At the same time, he points to the third-quarter news as a significant event in the PC market because it marks what he calls, "the start of the age of the notebook."
The notebook PC, he says, is no longer a tool only for the business market, or for well-off consumers; "it's now a computer for everyman."
Further data from the iSuppli report show no major changes among the relative rankings of the Top-5 PC makers during Q3, although Acer experienced significant growth.
U.S.-based Hewlett-Packard retained the top spot, with shipments of 14.9 million units, and an 18.8 percent market share. Fellow U.S. PC-maker Dell maintained second place, shipping just under 11 million units, netting a market share of 13.9 percent.
Taiwan-based Acer remained in third place with a market share of 12.2 percent resulting from shipments of 9.7 million during the quarter. The iSuppli report called out Acer, in particular, for its "standout performance" during the...
Thu, 25 Dec 08
PC Add-Ons Can Be Good Last-Minute Gifts
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63740
There's nothing like the thrill of last-minute holiday shopping. Some consider it frustrating, but I prefer to think of it as a challenge. If the person stuck on your list has a computer, you're in luck. This week we'll toss up a bevy of last-minute gift ideas guaranteed to please.
It definitely helps to know a little about the person in question -- in this case, his or her computer wants and needs. You can spend a little or a lot to get something useful or just fun.
Computer maintenance isn't festive, but it is essential. Every PC can use a can of compressed air, keyboard and monitor cleaner. Other supplies include printer paper, ink or toner, and blank CDs or DVDs. When buying blank discs, be certain whether the recipient has a CD or DVD burner. The former works only with CDs, and the latter works with CDs and DVDs. Get the R variety for widest compatibility, and avoid generic brands.
New mouse pads make thoughtful gifts. They come plain or printed, hard and soft, rubber or gel, in almost any design. Get one with a built-in wrist rest for long-term use. Everyone makes mouse pads these days, but for style and comfort, you can't go wrong with pads from Belkin or Fellowes.
How about a mouse to go with that new pad? If the recipient's current mouse is a hunk of junk, you can get by with a replacement of equal or better quality. But if the mouse works, you should shop for an upgrade in function and comfort. Remember, mice are personal, so what looks and feels right to you might not work well for someone else. Avoid generic mice, but you can't go wrong with Microsoft or Logitech. Get an optical mouse with programmable buttons.
Other safe bets include desktop speakers,...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Carriers' Android Options To Grow in 2009
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63709
New media reports suggest that Samsung handsets based on Google's Android platform will reach the United States beginning in the second quarter of 2009, with Sprint being cited as the most likely wireless reseller. To accelerate the development process, Samsung recently added 30 experts in Linux and Java to increase its Android team to 80 developers, according to the Korean publication ETNews, citing an unnamed Samsung official.
Though IDC forecasts that cell-phone demand will slow down dramatically next year overall, converged mobile devices are expected to remain a much-sought-after option for many consumers, noted Ramon Llamas, an IDC senior analyst.
"Take a look at how gaming, mapping and location, entertainment, news, and social networking applications for converged mobile devices have taken off, allowing users to do much more than just make phone calls," Llamas said. In response, handset vendors have been building their product and applications portfolios "to catch this wave of opportunity."
The worldwide release of Apple's iPhone 3G raised the profile of converged mobile devices as a whole, Llamas observed. "Add on top of that the attention generated by the Google-powered G1, and the converged mobile device suddenly finds itself as the device sought by both seasoned and first-time users."
Despite the ongoing economic crisis, HTC CEO Peter Chou predicted last month that T-Mobile would sell one million G1 handsets in the United States and Europe by the end of 2008 -- up from an initial analyst forecast of 400,000 units. HTC is also expected to release a follow-up Android product called the G2 in the first half of next year.
Sprint clearly needs to launch a new handset capable of countering T-Mobile's G1 and Apple's red-hot iPhone, for which AT&T has an exclusive U.S. distribution deal. The overriding goal is to induce current customers to remain with...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Warner Pulls Plug on YouTube Negotiations
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63708
In the wake of stalled contract negotiations, Warner Music Group on Saturday demanded that YouTube remove its music videos from the popular video-sharing site.
Warner Music has posted thousands of video clips from artists like rapper TI and the Red Hot Chili Peppers on YouTube. Warner reportedly wants a larger share of the revenue YouTube is generating from its visitor traffic. According to comScore's October data, YouTube has more than 100 million viewers in the United States.
"We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide," Warner said. However, it is not clear what terms Warner is demanding.
Warner has a long and supportive history with YouTube. Warner Music, Sony Music and Universal Music bought small stakes in YouTube before Google acquired the company for $1.65 million in October 2006. The three major labels buying into YouTube gave the then-fledgling site legitimacy, and the relationship appears to have been profitable.
In addition to the revenues Warner, Sony and Universal gained when Google purchased YouTube, the labels are beginning to see the promise of revenue streams from allowing their videos to be posted on the site. In fact, Universal Music has reported revenues of nearly $100 million on YouTube since 2005.
"Universal has a huge presence on YouTube," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "It's not purely promotional. It's a significant revenue-generating channel for them. So Warner's announcement is striking against that story."
Reuters cites a source familiar with Warner Music's talks as saying the amount the music label has been receiving from YouTube is "staggeringly low." YouTube was not immediately available for comment, but the company has posted a statement on its blog about the difficulties of music licensing.
"Despite...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
New Lenovo ThinkPad Sports Dual Built-In LCD Screens
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63707
If your laptop doesn't give you enough screen space, Lenovo may have a solution. On Friday, the company announced the release of the first laptop with two LCD screens.
The ThinkPad W700ds laptop, with a 17-inch main screen and a 10.6-inch second screen, is called a "mobile workstation" by Lenovo and is meant to appeal to power users who are accustomed to two screens when they sit at a desk.
The mobile workstation offers either an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, or Core 2 Extreme processor, as well as Nvidia Quadro graphics technology, a palm rest digitizer and pen, Intel Turbo memory 4GB module support, and a 4GB memory DIMM.
The 17-inch main display is a backlit WUXGA with 1,920x1,200 resolution, while the second screen is WXGA, also with backlighting, and provides 768x1,280 resolution. The smaller screen can be tilted up to 30 degrees.
But that second screen and other features come at a cost -- an expected $3,600, as well as nearly 11 pounds -- more than twice the weight of, say, an average ThinkPad laptop.
The double-screened unit will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show next month in Las Vegas, with an expected release at about the same time. There have been reports that Lenovo was intending to wait until CES to announce the W700ds, but a page announcing the new model went live early on IBM's site, and the computer-oriented blogs noticed.
The double-screen model is targeted at photographers and graphic designers, as well as developers, and Lenovo is emphasizing the attention to visual quality. The company pointed out that the main screen has been rated brighter than any notebook available, with integrated color calibration and an X-Rite Pantone color sensor and software for color consistency.
To emphasize...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Google Still Dominates Ad-Serving Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63706
Google maintained its search market share in November. The news has given new life to talks of Microsoft making acquisitions to rival Google.
Google owns 57 percent of the ad-server market, according to content-tracking firm Attributor's December 18 report. Microsoft and Yahoo combined have only 15 percent. That means even if Microsoft and Yahoo agree to merge their search-advertising businesses, the combination would not come close to displacing Google on the ad-serving front -- at least not in the short term.
Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, doesn't expect to see a significant shakeup in those numbers, either. "I don't see how Microsoft could immediately catch up," he said. "Microsoft could acquire some smaller firms, but that wouldn't do a great deal, and I don't think Microsoft has an incentive to make smaller acquisitions just to get boosted share in the ad-serving market."
When examining these numbers, analysts said it's important to bear in mind that the data refers only to ad serving. Display advertising is not included in the analysis. If Microsoft and Yahoo were to do a full merger, the company would be positioned to compete more effectively with Yahoo on the overall advertising front, thanks to Yahoo's strong position in display advertising. Yahoo has 10.5 percent of the display market, according to comScore, while Google has only 1.5 percent.
"Our analysis of ad server calls across 75 million domains shows that both Yahoo and Microsoft lost significant share compared to our March report and now make up less than 15 percent of the total market," the Attributor report said.
Google gained a marked advantage with the DoubleClick acquisition. DoubleClick led the ad-server pack with 30.7 percent of the market, while Google's popular AdSense gained 25.8 percent.
According to the Attributor report, Google's AdSense is dominant on...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
The Consumer Electronics Inventory Glut
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63702
Automakers aren't the only ones halting production as inventories pile up. The consumer electronics industry is also coming to grips with rising stockpiles of unsold goods that are likely to result in price pressure and falling profit.
Recent evidence of growing inventories came Dec. 15, when SanDisk, a maker of memory cards and storage drives, said it will temporarily stop production at two Japanese plants for two weeks through Jan. 12. After that, the factories will resume work at 70 percent capacity. SanDisk hopes the cutbacks will help it whittle away at the piles of unsold devices in warehouses and on retailers' shelves.
The inventory glut that's afflicted chipmakers such as Hynix and Micron for months has now spread to makers of finished goods including computers, cell phones, and flat-panel TVs. In what's typically the strongest quarter of the year for many tech vendors, recession-weary consumers have cut spending on everything but the essentials. "There's probably too much inventory given sales levels," says Stephen Baker, an analyst at researcher NPD Group.
Not only are rising inventories a sign of dwindling demand, but they're often a harbinger of profit-slashing moves such as price cuts aimed at moving items off shelves and writedowns of goods that aren't expected to be purchased. The glut is sure to worsen fourth-quarter results for manufacturers and retailers that have already been bracing for a slow holiday sales season. The malaise may linger into 2009, analysts say. "January looks really bad," says Randy Giusto, an analyst at researcher IDC. Some tech manufacturers may need to follow SanDisk in tapping the brakes on production, analysts say.
PC makers are likely among the casualties. The percentage of computers shipped this quarter that won't be sold could rise into the double digits, Giusto says. Desktops and traditional notebooks are piling...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Cloud Computing Looms Larger on Corporate Horizon
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63696
Todd Pierce recently put his job on the line.
To meet the computing needs of 16,300 employees and contractors at Genentech Inc., Pierce took a chance and decided not to rely entirely on business software from Microsoft, IBM or another long-established supplier that would have let Genentech own the technology. Instead, Pierce decided to rent these indispensable products from Google Inc.
The Internet search and advertising leader will run Genentech's e-mail, as well as some word processing, spreadsheet and calendar applications, and it will do it over an online connection -- an unconventional approach called "cloud computing."
The decision has turned Genentech, a biotechnology pioneer, into a lab rat for Google and other alternative software services trying to convince skeptical corporate decision makers that cloud computing is more than a pie-in-the-sky concept.
In the process, Google Inc. hopes to bleed revenue from Microsoft Corp. and surpass its biggest rival in the race to control the gears of computing.
Genentech's chief executive, Arthur Levinson, sits on Google's board of directors, but Pierce insists those ties didn't propel his leap of faith.
After lengthy internal testing, Pierce became convinced that Google can be trusted to provide critical software programs for Genentech as adeptly as it deciphers Internet search requests to sell ads.
"You don't want to get caught clinging to the past," said Pierce, Genentech's chief information officer. "I feel like we are surfing in front of the wave instead of the back of it."
Cloud computing has already swelled into an estimated $36 billion market this year, representing roughly 13 percent of global software sales. The big question now is whether it can turn into a technology tsunami that sweeps Microsoft and other software industry staples into obsolescence.
Yet for all the potential and hype surrounding cloud computing, breaking old habits won't be easy -- particularly with business-software powerhouses Microsoft,...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
It Hasn't Been a Fun Year for Public Wi-Fi
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63695
For proponents of citywide Wi-Fi projects, this has been a tough year -- and one of fresh promise.
The idea of setting up networks to beam wireless Internet access across entire cities and towns has been touted for years as a spur to economic development. It also has been promoted as a way to help bridge the digital divide -- the gap between those who have access to the Internet and other digital technology and those who don't, mainly because of lower income.
Progress on such networks has been halting, however, because of financial, technical and political hurdles. Over the past year or so, there has been a string of reversals. The companies that built and maintained some of the most prominent municipal Wi-Fi networks abandoned them, and other projects stalled or were scaled back.
At the same time, though, a handful of communities have applied lessons learned from the first round of failed projects and are developing Wi-Fi networks that are more realistic in their ambitions and business models.
"This was about a business model that simply didn't work," said Rolla Huff, chief executive of EarthLink, after the Internet service provider announced in May that it would stop serving the Wi-Fi network it had built in Philadelphia, a project that inspired communities across the country to initiate similar efforts.
"It was a great idea," said Huff. "It wasn't a great business."
EarthLink put itself in a financial hole from the start by setting up the network at its own expense, and then the service didn't attract enough users to offset that investment and the costs of operating the network. In the meantime, other cities followed Philadelphia's example, getting Internet service providers to cover most or all of the cost of setting up Wi-Fi networks.
"That's where all of these cities got into trouble," said...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
E-Book Banned from App Store for Obscene Content
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63691
Whether it is an application about passing wind or an application showing you are rich, Apple's App Store has guidelines in place, and does not hesitate when deciding which app makes the cut -- and which app lands on the cutting-room floor.
This week, another application was cut from the App Store, and it has some questioning how the Cupertino-based company decides what is accepted and what is not.
David Carnoy's book, entitled Knife Music, was rejected twice by Apple. Yesterday, Apple deemed some of its content objectionable, saying the book does not follow the company's guidelines in its software-development kit, according to Carnoy (who is also the writer behind CNET's Fully Equipped electronics column).
One line in particular, where a teenage girl uses expletives during a romantic encounter, is at the core of Apple's objections.
"The app was resubmitted last week, and the only reason cited for the rejection was because of the obscene content," Carnoy said.
The book was first rejected because it had a few bugs that needed fixing. "So, the book has been rejected twice now," Carnoy said. "Both the developer and I don't think this is fair simply because Apple has allowed 'mature' apps to appear."
The author is referring to applications such as Pull My Finger and iFart Mobile, which are allowed in the "mature content" section of the App Store. Pull My Finger was at first rejected by the App Store, but has since made a comeback.
"And furthermore, there's 'explicit' content all over iTunes, with lots of rap music (they have the 'explicit' bug on those items). And obviously, Apple does serve up some R-rated movies," Carnoy added. "Beyond that, Apple sells audiobooks through iTunes that feature profanities. It has plenty of best sellers that are in the same genre as my book (Michael Connelly's Brass...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Windows XP's Death Sentence Postponed -- Again
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63690
Like movie hero Indiana Jones, Windows XP has once again come back from near-certain death. The venerable Microsoft operating system had been destined to become unavailable to PC makers beginning in February, but now Microsoft will extend its life until the end of May.
Microsoft's intention has been to compel users to adopt its newer operating system, Vista, but many have preferred to stay with the tried-and-true XP.
The new policy is not a total reprieve, however. It allows resellers to order licenses for XP before January 31, but now they can receive those licenses up until May 30.
Some PC makers have been using a downgrade clause in their licenses with Microsoft to satisfy user requests for the older OS. It lets PC makers sell computers with Vista installed, but users can downgrade the OS to XP if so desired.
Vista's replacement, Windows 7, would presumably address the issues that have fueled users' resistance to Vista. Recent reports indicate that Microsoft may begin its release of Windows 7 late in 2009, although there are also indications that some netbooks with Windows 7 could be available as early as mid-2009.
Laura DiDio of Information Technology Intelligence Corps recently conducted and released a survey of more than 700 corporations on various technology and business topics. The report found resistance to deploying Vista, continuing acceptance of XP, and a willingness to wait for Windows 7.
Only 10 percent of the respondents, including small, medium and large businesses, said they have deployed Vista as their main desktop OS. For 88 percent, XP remains the primary desktop OS.
Forty-six percent said they were going to skip Vista and go directly to Windows 7, because of cost and because of the feeling that XP still met their needs.
But, for the 10 percent of...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Despite Tech Slump, Oracle Hits Its Mark
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63684
During the tech industry's last big slump, software and hardware vendors were slow to cut costs as falling demand pummeled profits.
This time around, Oracle isn't taking chances. Oracle, the world's No. 2 software company, hit Wall Street's earnings target when it reported fiscal second-quarter results on Dec. 18, by aggressively cutting research and development, travel, and other costs as its customers curtail spending.
Amid a global economic slowdown that's sapped business demand for computers and software, Oracle widened operating margins in the quarter ended Nov. 30 to 46 percent, compared with 41.3 percent a year earlier. While the software maker missed Wall Street's estimates for total sales and new software bookings, its earnings of 34 percent a share, excluding certain items, met analysts' projections. Better still, Oracle issued a third-quarter earnings outlook roughly in line with Wall Street estimates.
Shares of Oracle gained 4 percent in extended trading, after closing Dec. 18 down 13 percent, or 0.8 percent, at 16.61. The shares have lost 2.4 percent in the past month, compared with a 4.7 percent gain for the Nasdaq Composite Index.
Oracle displayed a knack for slicing costs while offering customers a wide range of products that it's assembled through a slew of acquisitions the past four years, analysts said. "This company can hold the bottom line better than anyone," says Brent Thill, Citigroup's software research director, who rates Oracle's stock a buy.
Analysts said Oracle has cut expenses in sales and marketing, and overseas R&D, and reduced sales and back-office expenses from its January acquisition of BEA Systems. A wide breadth of products lets Oracle salespeople zero in on where customers are still spending. "It all goes back to the all-you-can-eat buffet at Oracle," Thill says. "You can pick one thing or everything, and they have something they can...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Button Down Security Amid the Festivities
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63676
Companies with a physical location and Internet presence should make sure security policies and procedures strictly are enforced during the holidays, because criminal social engineers are out shopping for others' confidential data, cautions Halock Security Labs, Chicago.
Offices particularly are vulnerable in times of increased social activity like the holidays since employees are accustomed to seeing new faces and vendors, receiving many e-mail solicitations, and disclosing personal financial information online while shopping. Halock specializes in ethical hacking and social engineering -- at a client's request -- to test a company's physical and Internet vulnerabilities.
In one instance, a Halock employee was able to enter the corporate headquarters of one of the country's largest financial institutions and gain almost complete access to the company's sensitive data simply because he was carrying a cake. "When asked what he was doing, our man simply said, I have cake,' and nobody wants to impede the progress of a nice looking cake -- right?" observes Jeremy Simon, Halock's chief technology officer.
"Social engineering is typically defined as the skillful exploitation of the natural human tendency to trust," relates Terry Kurzynski, chief executive officer of Halock. "This engineering can come through an actual physical interaction, through an e-mail, as in phishing schemes, or online, through falsified Web sites. The criminal social engineer is out to con someone into giving up credentials that can ultimately be used to generate or gain access to sensitive information and, during the holidays, companies are inundated with strange names and faces in the form of guests, delivery people, greeting cards, special offer Web sites -- the list is endless."
Here are a few techniques companies can employ to ensure a safe and secure workplace:
* Stick to policies and procedures; carefully track visitors coming and going into the facility. If you do not recognize...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Contact Centers Unprepared for Disasters, Disruptions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63657
A new and disturbing study by DMG Consulting, "Business as Usual? A Benchmarking Study of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for Contact Centers," sponsored by Empirix, reveals that contact centers are ill-prepared for disasters and for equipment failures, while preventing or minimizing them could save millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The report documents contact centers' readiness to adapt to disruptions caused by internal system and process changes and benchmarks how contact centers handle disaster recovery/business continuity strategies, plans, and testing. Here are the highlights:
* Less than 37 percent of companies are confident that their operations can withstand a disaster or business disruption
* 60.2 percent of firms are not routinely testing their core contact center infrastructure. This leaves them open to unexpected but avoidable failures
* Only 4.7 percent of firms test their disaster recovery/business continuity (DR/BC) plans monthly, leaving 95.3 percent at risk of a serious meltdown in an emergency situation
* 20 percent of contact centers do not even have a disaster recovery plan
The most common DR/BC approach, used by nearly 31 percent of survey participants, was to conduct business as usual at a less ambitious service level agreement (SLA) levels. The most common tactic to achieve this goal, selected by 40 percent, was to failover to a remote site. Meanwhile 18 percent prioritize sales and customer service transactions, but hold off on handling other types of transactions while just over 25 percent provide only basic coverage for calls.
"Unfortunately, the majority of companies surveyed have not made adequate investments to prevent disruptions to their mission critical service infrastructure, " states Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting. "They run the risk of alienating customers in their time of need."
"It seems surprising that companies would have an evacuation plan in place, but not one that details how to keep business operations running...
Wed, 24 Dec 08
Cell Phones: Text Beats Talk on Inauguration Day
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63626
Going to the inauguration next month? Planning to send a photo from your cell phone to your friends back home at the moment Barack Obama takes the oath of office?
The nation's wireless providers hope you'll reconsider.
Providers are boosting capacity in and around the National Mall to try to meet the demand of a crowd that is expected to exceed 1 million and may be much higher. But the industry warns that some dropped calls and delayed transmissions will be inevitable.
"If 4 million people show up on the Mall, absolutely expect delays," said Joseph E. Farren, a spokesman for CTIA, which represents the wireless industry.
Sprint said Tuesday that it plans to increase wireless capacity by 40 percent for cellular service and 90 percent for its walkie-talkie like feature. T-Mobile's preparations exceed those of any single-day event in the company's history, according to company spokesman Peter Dobrow.
Verizon Wireless, a big local player, referred questions to the industry association.
CTIA is suggesting that people avoid sending videos and photos from the scene, and send text messages instead of phone calls when possible to place less strain on the network.
While tourists may encounter some difficulties, wireless providers say they are taking steps to ensure that emergency personnel will have no service disruptions.
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Take-Two Interactive Extends Rockstar Agreement
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63664
Take-Two Interactive Software is on the move this holiday season. Earlier this week, the company announced a release date for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and on Wednesday it inked a deal with the developers of the series. But its earnings report gave investors cause for concern.
The company signed a new long-term employment agreement with Rockstar Games, the studio behind the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto video-game franchise. That deal, which runs through Jan. 31, 2012, means key Rockstar executives Sam Houser, Dan Houser, and Leslie Benzies will continue to develop new titles for the smash series under the umbrella of Take-Two.
Take-Two also agreed to fund the future development of new intellectual property to be owned by a newly formed company that key Rockstar Games team members will control. The new games will be published exclusively by Take-Two. Financial terms were not disclosed.
What was disclosed is the release date for the much-anticipated Take-Two title Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. Chinatown Wars will be available for the Nintendo DS on March 17 and 20, 2009, in North America and Europe, respectively.
"Rockstar Leeds [has] once again created a game that far exceeds our standard for deep and innovative entertainment," said Houser, founder of Rockstar Games. "We are incredibly excited to share this enormous and uncompromising Grand Theft Auto experience with DS fans."
The reviews are already flooding in. Edge Magazine asked, "How does Rockstar follow Grand Theft Auto IV? By rebuilding Liberty City from the ground up on DS -- and not compromising its vision one iota." And Nintendo Power added, "... it's undeniable that Chinatown Wars is doing something no other DS game has come close to: Creating that living, breathing world the Grand Theft Auto games are known for."
Although Take-Two Interactive...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
SimCity and Rolando Come to the iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63663
The iPhone is attracting more developers to what has become a popular mobile-gaming platform. The latest entrant, EA Mobile, on Thursday announced the availability of SimCity for the iPhone and iPod touch.
SimCity is known to be somewhat addictive. In the game, players construct, manage and even destroy their own dream city, all in the palm of their hand. Now SimCity lovers can do all this with Apple's touchscreen technology.
"SimCity for the iPhone and iPod touch takes mobile games to a whole new level," said Adam Sussman, vice president of publishing Americas and Asia for EA Mobile. "Easy to learn, a lifetime to master, it's one of the largest mobile games ever produced, providing our customers with hundreds of hours of great game play."
With SimCity, iPhone and iPod touch owners can build an entire metropolis right on the device -- from budgets to bulldozers and taxes to tornadoes. Gamers can incorporate contemporary landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Washington Monument into the city skylines.
Gamers can also strike a balance between industrial and residential zones to keep their city thriving, manage utilities like water and garbage, and control traffic. When iPhone gamers are ready for a change, they can tap the screen to call in a disaster or watch UFOs rain destruction upon their city.
"Look at the games that are appearing on the iPhone, not only iconic titles like SimCity and Tetris and Scrabble, but new titles that are optimized for the platform," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "You have to wonder how much pressure this is going to put on Sony and Nintendo going forward, particularly Sony."
Ngmoco's game Rolando also made its debut in the App Store on Thursday, and is one of the...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Sprint Nextel Plans More Devices for WiMax Network
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63662
Earlier this week, Sprint Nextel made good on its promise to introduce a device featuring dual-mode 3G/4G capability on Clearwire's fledgling WiMAX (4G) network, which is up and running in Baltimore and slated to go on line in Portland, Ore., early next year.
"We promised the market that we would have a dual-mode device by the end of this year, and that's what we delivered," said Sprint spokesperson John Polivka.
But the new dual-mode U300 modem is merely the first device to come out of the wireless carrier's long-range plans for a device portfolio that will consist of single-mode 4G devices, embedded 4G laptops, and dual-mode 3G/4G devices. The advantage of the latter products, which will all be capable of delivering WiMAX downlink speeds of two to four Mbps, is that they can "fall back on 3G whenever they are beyond a WiMAX service area," Polivka said.
To make dual-mode devices a reality, Sprint runs an application-developer program for software that runs on all its networks, and it operates a technology lab in Kansas City. Sprint also has launched a hardware partner development program to produce the products Sprint intends to run on Clearwire's infrastructure.
"It is still in the early stages and we are not at liberty to disclose the names of the program's partners at this time," Polivka said. However, he pointed out that Sprint's new U300 modem was made by Franklin Wireless and the telecom operator expects to develop its entire WiMAX-capable product portfolio in cooperation with other companies.
Polivka also said he isn't worried about Sprint's 4G thunder being stolen by competing technologies such as the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard championed by Ericsson, Nokia and Qualcomm, among others. "WiMAX, which works in the 2.5-GHz spectrum, is here and now" whereas other 4G technologies "are several years...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
IDG Says Macworld Will Continue Without Apple
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63651
Apple is pulling out of the Macworld Conference & Expo and several other conferences, stirring debate about whether that is a good move for Apple and the hundreds of third-party vendors who participate each year.
The announcement not to participate after the January conference and to pull CEO Steve Jobs as the keynote speaker comes after two very successful years. Macworld 2007 set a record for attendance, and Macworld 2008 topped it.
In January 2007, show organizer IDG said Macworld attracted 45,572 attendees, compared to 38,441 in 2006, an increase of 19 percent. The number of exhibitors hit nearly 400. The increase in exhibitors and attendance could easily be attributed to the then-much-anticipated launch of the iPhone.
By 2008 the number of attendees increased 10 percent and the number of companies participating hit 475. The momentum was strong, with Apple showcasing the MacBook Air, iPod touch applications, iTunes Store and Apple TV movie rentals, and the Time Capsule, an automatic wireless backup for the Mac.
So why end what has proven to be such a success? That's the question posed by many bloggers and analysts, who say there's no Macworld without Apple.
Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia, said once Apple pulled out of Macworld in Boston, the show ended there. Macworld moved from New York to Boston in 2002, and that was when Apple decided to no longer participate in the East Coast event. With Apple gone, attendees dropped substantially to about 8,000 while the West Coast event drew about 36,000.
Gartenberg said Apple has developed a strong following and no longer needs a mega-conference to announce new products. Instead, Apple uses its Web site, Apple.com, and its retail stores to reach both new and existing customers, he said.
IDG said MacWorld will continue beyond 2009. Vice...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Privacy Advocates Question Yahoo's Data Policy
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63650
Yahoo on Wednesday announced a new data-retention policy, but on Thursday privacy experts were still scratching their heads about what the policy really means.
Although it appeared Yahoo was setting an industry standard for data retention with a promise to anonymize user log data within 90 days (with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations), privacy advocates say the announcement isn't clear.
"It's subtle, but it's important. Yahoo is not slashing its data-retention policy to three months," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Yahoo is modifying the data at three months and keeping the data. So the real question is what is happening to the information that these search companies are keeping?"
Yahoo said the heads of its business and engineering units worked with the privacy and data-governance teams to review the company's data needs. The goal was to ensure that Yahoo retains data only long enough to serve its business and user-experience needs while maintaining the ability to fight fraud, secure systems, and meet legal obligations.
"This policy represents Yahoo's assessment of the minimum amount of time we need to retain data in order to respond to the needs of our business while deepening our trusted relationship with users," said Anne Toth, Yahoo's vice president of policy. Yahoo is also expanding its policy to apply not only to search-log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views, and ad clicks.
Rotenberg said he would welcome a retention policy in which data is deleted or destroyed, but that's not what Yahoo has announced. As a consequence, he said, there's more confusion about what search-engine companies are doing with the data they collect.
"Just to give an example, the IP address is a unique identifier that more often than not links a search query to an individual...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Toshiba Announces First 512GB Solid-State Drive
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63648
Solid-state drives took another step forward in competition with hard-disk drives Thursday with Toshiba's announcement of the industry's first 2.5-inch 512GB SSD.
The company also announced a family of fast read/write SSDs built around the 43-nanometer multi-level cell (MLC) NAND used in the 512GB. The drives are intended for notebooks, gaming and home-entertainment systems, and the entire line will be presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.
In addition to the 512GB SSD, Toshiba's new family includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. They come in 1.8-inch or 2.5-in drive enclosures, or as flash modules. The company said this generation of SSDs uses an advanced MLC controller to obtain higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers, and wear leveling for increased performance and higher reliability.
The new drives have a top sequential read speed of 240Mbps, a write speed of 200Mbps, faster times for booting and application loading, and AES data encryption.
Toshiba Vice President Kiyoshi Kobayashi said the new SSD family "balances value/performance characteristics for its targeted consumer applications, through use of MLC NAND and advanced controller architecture." Samples of the new drives are expected in the first quarter of next year, and mass production by the second quarter. Pricing has not yet been indicated.
SSDs are a growing product category. Toshiba has noted that market analysts expect SSDs will become about 10 percent of the market for notebook computer storage by 2010, and 25 percent by 2012.
The rapid adoption of SSDs has been projected for some time. A 2007 report from research firm iSuppli predicted that 60 percent of laptops sold by the end of next year would have SSDs.
SSDs have been more expensive per gigabyte than hard-disk drives, but, as their capacities increase, they have become increasingly attractive to road warriors and...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
LinkedIn Replaces CEO as Business Networking Changes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63635
Business-networking site LinkedIn, facing more competition as other sites court business users, replaced its chief executive Wednesday with one of the company's cofounders. Reid Hoffman took over as CEO, a position that had been held by Dan Nye.
Jeff Weiner, a former Yahoo executive vice president, will become "interim president," handling day-to-day activities and overseeing all company executives.
Nye, a former executive at Proctor & Gamble, raised $80 million in financing for LinkedIn from Goldman Sachs and others. Weiner was an "executive-in-residence" at Greylock Partners, which has invested in LinkedIn, and at Accel Partners.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn told news media that the transition was not hostile and is part of an effort to move the company forward. The site has 32 million member profiles, but reportedly few members actually use the site frequently.
LinkedIn faces an environment in which social-networking sites are looking to become more attractive to business users. In addition, networks of related social sites have been forming where users only need to sign in once to reference personal data like friends lists.
Leading the charge to connect social-networking sites are Facebook and Google, which have competing platforms. Various social sites are lining up with one or the other.
LinkedIn recently allowed third-party applications from Amazon and Google into its site, and Hoffman has said the company is working on letting its members use their LinkedIn identities on other sites.
Some observers point out that the poor economy could lead to greater use of LinkedIn by members looking for work or new opportunities.
Brad Shimmin, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said he would have expected business-oriented social-networking sites, such as LinkedIn or Plaxo, "to have distinguished themselves more from, say, Facebook."
The emphasis at those business sites, he added, has been on providing controls for...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Playing Catch-Up, Dell Looks at Acquisitions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63623
Michael Dell has grown tired of discussing his company's reinvention.
He mocks suggestions that the company he founded is taking more risks than in the past and parries questions about how Dell's culture had changed.
"It's O.K. if everyone doesn't understand what we're doing," Dell said during an interview at Dell headquarters here, just north of Austin.
With its heralded direct-sales business model and cost-squeezing supply chain management no longer giving Dell the advantages they once did, Dell has had to cut more costs and experiment with retail sales. Now, it plans acquisitions to restore growth as it tries to catch up with its rivals in one of the most difficult economic times in its history.
"It appears they are boxed in on all sides," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Collins Stewart. "I don't know how they can possibly extricate themselves from the hole they are in."
Dell will be fighting in a world that now favors well-rounded, more flexible companies. Hewlett-Packard, EMC, Cisco Systems and Oracle have spent the past several years bulking up through a steady stream of acquisitions.
HP, for example, has increased its annual revenue to a projected $130 billion for the coming year, from $45 billion in 2001. Oracle has doubled its annual revenue over a similar period to more than $22 billion. EMC traced 76 percent of its revenue to hardware in 2000, but it now derives 57 percent from software and services, thanks to acquisitions.
These companies, along with Sun Microsystems and International Business Machines, have scooped up many of the prized assets that either survived or thrived in the era after the dot-com bust, fattening their software and services arsenals.
Dell's growth, to revenue of $56 billion in 2006 from $5.3 billion in 1996, has come from within. But company executives now concede that they need to make a...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Gift Guide: Video Games with Bangs for Your Buck
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63620
Video games may seem expensive when compared with other entertainment media, such as DVDs or CDs. But when you do the math, video games are some of the most cost-effective gifts you can give.
Take a $60 game such as "Fallout 3." I've played it for about 80 hours, which works out to 75 cents per hour. Your typical DVD purchase costs about $10 an hour, so what's the real bargain?
There are two things to remember if you're new to buying video games. First, find out what kind of console the recipient owns -- Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii are the big three -- and make sure your gift is in that format. Second, pay attention to ratings: The M-rated games listed here are too intense for younger players.
The finest game released this year, Fallout 3 turns the grimmest of scenarios -- Washington, D.C., 200 years after a nuclear war -- into an invigorating role-playing adventure. You can spend dozens of hours roaming the vividly realized Capitol Wasteland, fighting mutants and helping the last remnants of civilization survive. It's disturbing, funny, violent and ultimately hopeful, and it's a can't-miss delight for adult gamers. ($60)
It's the best party game of the year, and one that uncoordinated parents can enjoy with their more nimble-fingered offspring. Rock Band 2 builds nicely on the series' addictive Tour mode, in which you can form a band and conquer the world, one club at a time. MTV now has hundreds of Rock Band-compatible tunes online, so you never run out of fresh music to play. ($50-$60, game only; guitar, drums and microphone cost extra.)
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Western Digital To Eliminate 2,500 Jobs, Cut Exec Pay
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63619
Hard drive maker Western Digital Corp. said Tuesday it plans to cut 2,500 jobs, or about 5 percent of its global work force, and will reduce executive pay in response to weakening demand for its products linked to the economic turmoil.
Western Digital said demand for the current quarter is "significantly below" what it expected when it issued revenue guidance in October. The company now expects fiscal second-quarter sales of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, with a "consequent reduction in operating results."
Its prior sales outlook was $2.03 billion to $2.15 billion. Analysts, on average, are expecting sales of $1.98 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.
The company plans to reduce compensation by an unspecified amount for its executive officers, board of directors and senior management.
Western Digital will also stop its manufacturing operations from Dec. 20 through Jan. 1, reduce manufacturing hours by 20 percent through employee attrition and trim its use of temporary workers and overtime shifts. It is also closing one of its three hard drive factories in Thailand and will close or sell one of two facilities in Malaysia.
The measures, expected to be completed by the end of March, are expected to save about $150 million a year. Western Digital expects to take related charges of $150 million in the fiscal second and third quarters.
"(We) expect demand weakness to last well into the middle of the 2009 calendar year," said President and Chief Executive John Coyne in a statement. "Consequently, we are taking additional steps to immediately reduce production capacity and operating expenses on a longer-term basis across our entire business as we approach the seasonally weaker second half of our fiscal year."
The company will also slash capital spending for fiscal 2009 to $500 million from $750 million.
Western Digital shares fell 32 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $12.18...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
The Big Promise of Cloud Computing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63601
When Damian Zikakis' laptop computer was stolen last May, he figured that was the last he would see of it. A thief had broken into the Birmingham [Mich.] offices of his employer, Boyden Executive Search. Zikakis promptly bought a new computer. He had subscribed to an automated computer backup service called Mozy, and he reconnected via his new laptop. That's when the Mozy service, which costs $5 per month for individuals, really paid off.
Zikakis noticed that some photographs and other files that weren't his were being saved by the backup system. He realized they belonged to the person who now had his original laptop. Doing a little sleuthing, he examined the photos. A teenage boy had posted images of himself mugging for the camera like an urban gangsta. A woman, who turned out to be the boy's mother, had stored a document on the laptop that included her name, address, and cell-phone number. With a little help from the police, Zikakis recovered his computer. "I'm a very happy Mozy customer," he says.
The story of the recovered laptop demonstrates the power of Mozy to do more for subscribers than its designers ever imagined, yet it doesn't even begin to show the potential that the people running the service now believe they can accomplish. Mozy comes from Decho, an independent subsidiary of storage giant EMC that was formed last month. Decho, which stands for digital echo, aims to help consumers and businesspeople store and coordinate all of the digital information, photos, and videos in the computing cloud that they now keep on their computers, handhelds, and smartphones. Decho is on the leading edge of an emerging market for information management services -- which is expected to attract giants like Microsoft and Google as well as other upstarts. "Decho is right in the...
Fri, 19 Dec 08
Network Testing and Monitoring Products
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63383
Managed High Availability Services can provide 24/7 monitoring and problem resolution, audits and scheduled switch tests to ensure stability and confidence of high- availability environments. The service can manage the environment in the customer network or through the subscription service that provides replication software, hardware and a redundant network.
Through either model, the service offers automated monitoring, as well as manual daily and weekly incident management. -- SafeData
With a visible 635 nm red laser, the Fiber-Checker can be used on fiber-optic cable lengths up to 3 kilometers to locate a broken splice or fiber, identify overly tight cable ties or isolate a damaged connector.
A break or bend in the fiber is indicated by red light escaping from the cable at the fault point, and laser output from the cable ends is clearly visible when facing a flat surface approximately six inches away. The unit can be used to test all fiber connectors with 2.5 mm ferrule. -- VPI
Comprised of installation and service tools, the MicroScanner2 Termination Test Kit includes the tools required for locating, terminating and verifying copper cabling installations.
The MicroScanner2 Cable Verifier, works with all major cable types -- coax, UTP and two-lead conductors -- and shows cable length, wire map, cable ID and distance to break or short as visual representations on a single screen. The IntelliTone Pro Probe accelerates the identification of specific wire pairs and cables on active networks.
Also included are adapters and patch cords, an impact tool, electrician D-Snips and an adjustable wire cutter-stripper. -- Fluke Networks
Thu, 18 Dec 08
French Regulators Slap Down Apple's iPhone Agreement
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63634
Regulators in France have put a stop to France Telecom's Orange being the only carrier selling Apple's iPhone in France. The Counseil de la Concurrence, the French Council on Competitiveness, acted after another carrier, Bouyges Telecom, filed a complaint.
The council asked Apple to cease its exclusivity deal with Orange and allow other carriers to offer service for the iPhone while regulators further investigate. Orange offers the iPhone in several countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and had been exclusively selling the iPhone in France since July.
Orange was offering the 8GB iPhone 3G for 149 Euros (US$214.54) with a subscription and the 16GB iPhone 3G for 199 Euros (US$286.54). After one year of its exclusive partnership, Orange would have sold more than 150,000 first-generation iPhones and more than 450,000 3G iPhones, the company said.
Orange said the regulators' decision places France in a different situation compared to other countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and the U.S., which allow exclusive agreements. The company said the decision is a huge blow since its exclusivity in France was based on an industrial partnership in which the company has invested heavily.
The decision also questions partnerships between mobile carriers and handset manufacturers, according to Orange. By limiting exclusivity to three months, carriers will no longer be able to justify investments such as Orange made to launch Apple's iPhone.
Orange said the regulators' decision was made without any in-depth examination of the situation. The decision may also impact manufacturers, subcontractors and software providers who are already feeling the economic impact, according to Orange.
Orange acknowledged the council's decision, but said it will go to the Court of Appeals in Paris.
Companies need to be sure they are doing their due diligence before doing business in other...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Firefox Issues Rash of Security Fixes
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63633
While Microsoft scrambled to issue an out-of-cycle patch for Internet Explorer on Wednesday, Mozilla did some rushing of its own.
The Firefox developer has issued updates to address "critical vulnerabilities" in versions 2 and 3 of its open-source browser.
Firefox describes a critical vulnerability as one that can be used to run attacker code and install software without user interaction beyond normal browsing.
Firefox 3.0.5 and Firefox 2.0.0.19 are now available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Firefox 3.0.5 fixes eight security vulnerabilities, three of them critical. The critical fixes include XSS vulnerabilities in SessionStore, XSS and JavaScript privilege escalation, and crashes with evidence of memory corruption.
The Firefox 3.0.5 update also fixes several stability issues and issues found in accessibility implementation, adds the ability to send OS-specific system notes in the crash reporter, and replaces the End-User License Agreement with a new "Know Your Rights" info bar on the initial installation. With Firefox 3.0.5, the browser becomes available in Bengali, Esperanto, Galician, Hindi and Latvian.
"Mozilla is not planning any further security and stability updates for Firefox 2, and recommends that you upgrade to Firefox 3 as soon as possible. It's free, and your settings and bookmarks will be preserved," the Firefox advisory said.
Firefox 2.0.0.19 fixes 10 bugs in the browser, four of which are critical. The critical patches fix XSS vulnerabilities in the SessionStore, XSS and JavaScript privilege escalation, additional XSS attack vectors in feed preview, and crashes with evidence of memory corruption.
"Also, the Phishing Protection service will no longer be available for Firefox 2 users," Firefox said. "Firefox 3 offers a free Phishing and Malware Protection service, which will continue to protect you from online scams and attacks."
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Microsoft Zips Out-of-Cycle Patch for IE Vulnerability
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63632
Microsoft has issued an emergency patch to fix a critical Internet Explorer vulnerability that puts users at risk. At least two million computers have been infected in the past week, most of them in Asia.
The out-of-cycle patch is available through Microsoft's normal update options, including Windows Server Update Services, Microsoft Update, and Windows Update.
The fact that Microsoft broke its normal patch cycle is an indication of the importance of this patch, according to Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys.
"This is a critical flaw in the most widely used browser on the planet. Internet Explorer users have been exposed for at least a week to high risk while browsing the Internet," Kandek said. "This risk includes having their computer falling under the control of outside attackers, which can then search the computer for personal information such as SSN, install key loggers that record log-in passwords to banking sites, and also use the computer for their own money-making activities."
The browser flaw was disclosed about a week ago, as a zero-day vulnerability and active exploits have been around the Internet for about that long. The exploit doesn't require users to click on links or download software from the Internet. Rather, it infects users when they open a Web page. Microsoft offered several workarounds while it was working on a fix.
"The workarounds provided by Microsoft were very technical and quite cumbersome to implement, making it imperative for Microsoft to release a fix as quickly as possible," Kandek said. One of the workarounds, however, wasn't cumbersome -- but it was a competitive downside. Microsoft, as well as many security analysts, recommended browsers stop using Internet Explorer until a fix was available.
"Given the typical requirements for developing, testing and packaging the changes to a program as widely deployed as Internet Explorer, we have seen one...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Mobile Devices Are the Future of the Internet, Report Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63631
It's the year 2020. Most people use mobile devices to connect to the Internet; voice-recognition and touch-based user interfaces are in greater use; and notions of privacy will have changed as the differences between personal and work time or physical and virtual reality become fewer.
Those are some of the findings from a new report, The Future of the Internet III, from the Pew Internet and American Life Project with Elon University in North Carolina.
The prediction that most Internet access will be through mobile devices includes an expectation that telephony throughout the world will be offered "under a set of universal standards and protocols" so users can have "reasonably effortless movement from one part of the world to another."
Al Hilwa, a program director for industry research firm IDC, agreed that the movement toward universal standards is well under way, with the rest of the world already more in sync with each other than the United States is. He predicted that access to the Net through mobile devices for most people could "very well happen" before 2020 in emerging nations. He noted that countries with fewer investments in an existing infrastructure could more easily move to a new generation of mobile access.
Perhaps that access will lead to fewer wars. The report also contends that people will be more tolerant than today because of wider exposure via the Internet and other communications technologies. This, the report predicts, will lead to lower levels of violence, including sectarian strife, and fewer overt acts of hate crimes.
The copyright wars between content owners and content holders will have calmed down by 2020, it predicts, because of strict content controls put in place by legislatures, courts, the technology industry, and media companies. The controls include automatic billing for use of copyrighted materials.
But this control will...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Apple Stock Hurt as Investors Worry About Steve Jobs
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63614
The health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is again at the core of controversy. Oppenheimer & Co. downgraded Apple's stock from outperform to perform and said it would not recommend Apple stock as a long-term investment until Apple provides information regarding Jobs' health and plans for a successor.
Apple's stock opened at $91 Wednesday and dropped to the $89 range during the noon hour.
The move comes after Apple announced that Steve Jobs will not deliver the company's keynote address at the Macworld Conference in January. The company also announced it will be the last year for Macworld as Apple cuts back on trade shows.
The news sent Apple's stock down Tuesday and ignited concern from investors already worried about Jobs.
Jobs' health has been a concern since he was first diagnosed with a rare, but treatable, form of pancreatic cancer. Jobs has appeared at recent events telling audiences that he is healthy and very much alive. But Apple's decision to send Philip Schiller, vice president of Apple's worldwide product marketing, instead of Jobs to keynote the last Macworld raised concerns.
The decision to no longer be a part of Macworld is not a huge surprise, say analysts, and so is the decision not to send Jobs.
"The day of the mega-conferences is over and, more importantly, Apple doesn't need a Macworld to get the news out and it does not have trouble attracting an audience," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile devices at Jupitermedia.
Not sending Jobs also should not come as a shock because Apple stopped sending Jobs to Macworld on the East Coast a few years ago before completely pulling out of Macworld there.
"The last time they were in New York, they sent Greg Joswiak (vice president of iPhone and iPod product marketing) instead of Steve Jobs," said Gartenberg....
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Sprint Unveils Dual-Mode 3G/4G Laptop Modem
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63613
Sprint Nextel has taken the wraps off a new dual-mode modem for laptops that switches automatically between the wireless carrier's standard CDMA network and its new high-speed WiMAX (4G) service, which is currently running in Baltimore and slated to reach other metropolitan markets beginning next year.
"This first-of-its-kind device allows our customers to take the Internet with them essentially wherever they go by gaining enhanced speed and capability in 4G markets and the nationwide coverage of our 3G network across the rest of the country," said Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse.
Manufactured by Franklin Wireless, the Sprint U300 modem is a stand-alone device that connects to the USB port of any laptop running Windows Vista, Windows XP or Windows 2000. Measuring 1.28 x 3.6 x 0.48 inches and tipping the scales at 44g, the 3G/4G device sports a rotating USB connector and an internal antenna.
The modem will connect to Sprint's 4G network at average downlink speeds of two to four Mbps. Whenever the user moves out of WiMAX range, the Sprint Connection Manager automatically switches the device to interact with Sprint's nationwide 3G network at average download speeds of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps.
The U300 modem also integrates an authentication and identification system, noted Sprint Nextel spokesperson John Polivka. "The device features standard security precautions to make sure that your transmissions are secure," he said.
Additionally, the U300 will enable GPS services on Sprint's mobile broadband network, but not on Sprint 4G. "The 4G world is not yet set up for GPS, which is something we expect to see coming later from Clearwire," which provides the infrastructure for the Sprint 4G service, Polivka explained.
Sprint's 3G/4G modem will be available for purchase at Sprint stores and select retailers in the Baltimore area beginning Dec 21. Other purchase points...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Yahoo Slashes Data Retention to Three Months
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63612
In a move to one-up its search-engine rivals, Yahoo on Wednesday announced a new global data-retention policy that far surpasses what Google and Microsoft have proposed.
Indeed, Yahoo is setting the industry standard for data retention with its promise to anonymize user log data within 90 days -- with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Yahoo is also expanding its policy to apply not only to search-log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views, and ad clicks.
"In our world of customized online services, responsible use of data is critical to establishing and maintaining user trust," said Anne Toth, Yahoo's vice president of policy. "We know that our users expect relevant and compelling content and advertising when they visit Yahoo, but they also want assurances that we are focused on protecting their privacy."
Privacy advocates, including European Union regulators, have put pressure on search engines to slash data-storage times. The current industry standard is 18 months. Microsoft last week told European regulators it's ready to cut the time it holds users' search data from 18 months to six months -- if other search-engine companies do the same.
"What we've done since April is evaluate the multiple uses of search data to ascertain if we can, in time, move to a six-month time frame," said Peter Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy strategist. "Our answer is yes, we can, but we don't believe it makes sense for us to make this change until our competitors also commit to meeting this higher standard with respect to both the method and time frame for anonymization."
Yahoo isn't waiting for other search engines to cooperate. Instead, the heads of the business and engineering units at Yahoo worked with the privacy and data-governance teams to review data needs. Their goal was to ensure that Yahoo retains...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Palm's App Store Now Available on Its Mobile Devices
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63611
As it heads toward the release of a new operating system next month, Palm has launched a version of its online store to allow direct downloads and purchases from Palm's mobile devices.
Palm's Software Store offers a catalog in excess of 5,000 software titles, including games, which Palm users can buy and download on their mobile devices. In its previous incarnation, Palm owners needed to download an app or game to a computer, and then transfer the software from the computer to the mobile device.
Palm's mobile store supports more than 25 Palm devices, including the Centro and Treo Pro, and about 20 percent of the available titles are free. Applications are available for both the current Palm OS and Palm devices that run Windows Mobile. To access the store, a Palm user must install free mobile-store software on the device.
App stores for mobile devices are all the rage. Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod is the best known, but Android-based phones have a marketplace for third-party software, and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is expected to launch one in the first quarter of 2009.
Michael Gartenberg, vice president for consumer strategy at Jupitermedia, said Apple showed with its App Store that "a direct channel between third-party developers and the consumer is a good thing." He added that the growing number of direct-channel stores will be the scene of a "huge battle in 2009" as the various platforms try to attract developers and the best applications.
Gartenberg predicted that the apps available in these stores will increasingly factor into consumers' decisions when buying a new mobile device.
The mobile version of its Software Store could help Palm reposition itself. Palm is hoping to regain at least some of its reputation for innovation as it...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
India: Toward High-End Outsourcing
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63606
In recent months articles in The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.com have postulated that outsourcing information technology work to India was losing appeal. They said that high employee turnover in Indian outsourcing companies and rapid growth had reduced work quality and upset Western customers. These same articles argued that salaries in India were rising so quickly that Eastern Europe, British Columbia, and even Oklahoma would soon become competitive with India. I've just spent two weeks in Indian speaking to top executives at some of the largest outsourcing companies and I believe reports of the demise of Indian outsourcing have been greatly exaggerated.
To the contrary, the Indian outsourcing industry has entered a new era of growth. Infosys, Satyam, HCL, and other IT outsourcing majors that once specialized in lower-value tasks such as application maintenance and business process outsourcing are seeing increasing success in providing outsourced high-value tasks such as total IT outsourcing, R&D, and business transformation services. I believe that not even terror attacks and a global recession will deter an impending revival of Indian outsourcing or a reshaping of the industry into a provider of high-value, unique services. Here are six reasons why this is true.
1. Faced with high turnover, rising salaries, and a weak public education system, top Indian companies started investing heavily in workforce education and development. As a result, since 2000, Indian industry made dramatic improvements in the education levels, productivity, and quality of its technical workforce. These companies retrained tens of thousands of low-level IT workers in advanced product design and development techniques to give them more valuable skill sets required to crack higher-value service offerings and fill managerial ranks. These investments have started paying huge dividends. A few years ago, the Indian IT industry relied on experienced managers returning home from the West to fill...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Precautions Make Online Shopping Safer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63595
Q: How do I protect myself while shopping online?
A: One of the biggest risks in shopping online is clicking on a link to what appears to be a legitimate site but is, in fact, a forgery run by criminals interested in your credit card number and other personal information.
An estimated $3.2 billion was lost to such "phishing" sites in the United States last year, according to a survey by Gartner Inc.
Watching out for fraudulent sites is the crucial first step in a secure online shopping experience. The key is to type in the Web address independently and not to follow links sent in e-mails.
Most Web browsers will alert you when you're navigating to known phishing sites or those serving up viruses, but the key word there is "known." Many harmful sites are set up and dismantled within 24 hours, so it's often a cat-and-mouse game.
Also, look for your browser's address bar to turn green; that's a sign the site you're visiting has paid for -- and passed -- an extra layer of background checks to verify it's a legitimate business. The so-called Extended Validation Secure Sockets Layer certificate is a feature that also indicates the site is sending your data securely using proper encryption.
If a site doesn't have that feature, look for the traditional SSL padlock when you get to a site's order page, and click on that if you have doubts about the site's authenticity. It will identify the site's owner and the agency that issued the certificate. The padlocks are not always foolproof, however, because scammers can spoof them.
Once you're comfortable with the site, the question becomes: How do you pay for things?
Security experts recommend you never use a debit card because if criminals intercept the information, any charges are taken directly from your account, and it takes...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Toshiba To Cut NAND Flash Memory Production
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63592
Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday that it will reduce output of NAND flash memory by 30 percent due to falling sales of electronic gadgets like digital cameras and cell phones.
"Recession in the global economy and the slowdown in consumer spending are having a significant impact on demand for semiconductors," Japan's biggest chipmaker said in a statement. "This is particularly notable in NAND flash memories, where decreased demand for applications such as memory cards and MP3 players has generated excess supply."
While the production cut is effective as of January, Toshiba will begin scaling back operations this month at its plant in Yokkaichi City, central Japan.
Two NAND flash memory production lines using 300-millimeter wafers will be suspended for 13 days from Dec. 31, and the company's two 200-millimeter wafer lines will stop for four days. Toshiba also said it would stop production during the new-year period at three additional plants that make other types of chips.
Sales of NAND flash memory fell 41 percent in dollar terms in October even as they rose 123 percent in terms of memory capacity shipped, according to data released by the Semiconductor Industry Association earlier this month.
"The slowdown in worldwide semiconductor sales that became evident in September continued in October," said SIA President George Scalise in a statement. "The worldwide financial turmoil is expected to continue to impact demand for semiconductors as we enter 2009."
Toshiba said it would continue monitoring the NAND market and review production plans as needed.
In the July-September quarter, Toshiba reported a net loss of 26.85 billion yen ($296.7 million), a sharp downturn from the 25.0 billion yen ($276.2 million) profit it booked during the same period last year.
The Tokyo-based company's semiconductor business was particularly hard hit, dragged down by an appreciating yen and steeper-than-expected price declines for NAND flash memory.
In trading on the Tokyo...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Blackberry Bold Unveiled in South Korea
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63589
Canada's Research in Motion and South Korea's SK Telecom announced Tuesday the launch of corporate service for the BlackBerry Bold smart phone, which will be available in South Korea on the country's biggest wireless network.
The two companies said the device was expected to be available on the market by the end of the month. Plans were to target both multinational and domestic companies, it said.
Use of the BlackBerry and other foreign smart phones has been hampered by a South Korean rule requiring mobile cellular devices to carry special software adapted to South Korea's wireless Internet platform.
An exception to that requirement was made earlier this year, paving the way for the BlackBerry Bold's arrival, though so far only corporate customers will be allowed to sign up for service.
The Korean Communications Commission announced last week that the rule will be abolished after April 1, which could entice foreign smart phone makers -- which have shied away because of the extra cost involved in modifying their phones -- to enter South Korea and potentially target retail customers.
"At this point there are no plans for that," Norm Lo, RIM's vice president for Asia Pacific, told reporters of the prospect of marketing to individuals. "We're certainly open to it," he added
The South Korean mobile market is dominated by Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., which also offer smart phones.
Currently, it is not impossible to use a BlackBerry smart phone in South Korea. Some foreign businesses that operate in the country have set up accounts with providers in Hong Kong and had their employees use them in South Korea by using the roaming function.
Also, Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has partnered with another South Korean company, KT Powertel, since 2006 in offering BlackBerry service for corporate customers via a radio system. Coverage is sporadic, does not allow...
Thu, 18 Dec 08
Strip-Searching Laptops Raises Privacy Concerns
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63569
Mohamed Shommo, an engineer for Cisco Systems Inc., travels overseas several times a year for work, so he is accustomed to opening his bags for border inspections upon returning to the U.S. But in recent years, these inspections have gone much deeper than his luggage.
Border agents have scrutinized family pictures on Shommo's digital camera, examined Koranic verses and other audio files on his iPod and even looked up Google keyword searches he had typed into his company laptop.
"They literally searched everywhere and every device they could," said Shommo, who now minimizes what he takes on international trips and deletes pictures off his camera before returning to the U.S. "I don't think anyone has a right to look at my private belongings without my permission. You never know how they will interpret what they find."
Given all the personal details that people store on digital devices, border searches of laptops and other gadgets can give law enforcement officials far more revealing pictures of travelers than suitcase inspections might yield. That has set off alarms among civil liberties groups and travelers' advocates -- and now among some members of Congress who hope to impose restrictions on the practice next year.
These searches, opponents say, threaten Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable search and seizure and could chill free expression and other activities protected by the First Amendment. What's more, they warn, such searches raise concerns about ethnic and religious profiling since the targets often are Muslims, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, asserts that it has constitutional authority to conduct routine searches at the border -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- to prevent dangerous people and property from entering the country. This authority, the government maintains, applies not only to...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Sprint, RIM Roll Out New Push-To-Talk BlackBerry Curve
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63610
Sprint Nextel and Research In Motion on Monday announced the availability of the BlackBerry Curve 8350i smartphone. Sprint is calling it the most advanced push-to-talk BlackBerry smartphone ever.
The 8350i taps into iDEN (Integrated Digital Enhanced Network) technology on the Nextel National Network, and offers the Nextel Direct Connect national push-to-talk service. It has a slim design with a black exterior, a full QWERTY keyboard, a trackball with intuitive navigation, and an internal antenna, as well as a two-megapixel camera and a jack for earphones to listen to MP3s.
"The BlackBerry Curve 8350i smartphone is ideal for customers who want the benefit of the popular Nextel Direct Connect service together with the power of the BlackBerry platform," said Mark Guibert, vice president of corporate marketing at RIM. "We think Nextel Direct Connect customers will be very pleased with its range of new features and stylish design."
The first push-to-talk BlackBerry smartphone to offer built-in Wi-Fi support, the 8350i lets users browse the Internet, download e-mail attachments, and send and receive e-mails while talking on the phone. It's also the first to offer Group Connect to let customers set up group conversations with up to 20 participants.
The smartphone supports integrated business solutions, including a large selection of GPS-enabled apps, and access to thousands of third-party mobile applications for tasks such as dispatch operations and fleet and workforce management.
With the Direct Connect international network, the 8350i allows connections between the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. And "Talkgroup" connects groups of up to 200 people at once within the same local market and in the same fleet.
"Because of its unique combination of push-to-talk capabilities and several other advanced features, the BlackBerry Curve 8350i smartphone is likely to appeal to both individual consumers and business customers," said David Chamberlain, principal analyst...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Doom and Gloom for the Semiconductor Industry
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63609
For the first time, revenues for the semiconductor industry are expected to drop from year to year. The industry, which analysts first expected to grow in 2009, is now expected to nosedive for the next few years, beginning with a 16 percent drop from 2008 to 2009, according to Gartner.
Worldwide, the semiconductor industry is expected to drop to $219.2 billion in 2009 from 2008 revenues, which have reached $261.9 billion -- a four percent drop from 2007.
Analysts say the turbulent economy is to blame for poor fourth-quarter sales and had a direct result on predictions for coming years.
The stiff drops are far from what analysts expected in mid-November when they predicted revenues would grow .2 percent this year and would not decline until 2009. The decline in 2009, although expected, was predicted at only 2.2 percent.
"In the month of November, we were seeing the drop in semiconductor demand and it felt like it was falling off the cliff," said Amy Leong, a Gartner research director. "People stopped ordering, and semiconductors had lower visibility."
PCs, for example, had single-digit growth predictions for 2009, and now Leong sees PC sales falling five percent. Cell phones were expected to increase two percent and are now expected to drop 10 percent in 2009. Leong mentioned consumer spending and the automotive industry as factors in the decline.
"We are seeing a reduction in all products across the board, driving production down," she said.
The number of layoffs and the economic downturn in the technology sector is leading businesses to compare this market period to the one experienced in 2001, but analysts say the two are very different.
"This downturn is broad-based, not limited to only technology; has a much different growth profile before the downturn; and has far less inventory buildup," said Bryan Lewis, research...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
AMD Introduces Dual-Core Chips For Desktops
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63608
Advanced Micro Devices quietly rolled out two new dual-core Athlon chips this week: The X2 7750 Black Edition processor, which clocks at 2.7 GHz and lists for just $79; and the X2 7550 -- a 2.5-GHz processor that appears destined for sale to desktop PC manufacturers at even lower prices.
Both new chips employ the same processor die that AMD uses to manufacture its triple-core Phenom X3 and quad-core Phenom X4 processors, but with only two of the cores activated, noted Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at iSuppli.
"The thing that jumps out at me is that they are essentially introducing two chips that are quad-core processors, but with two of the cores turned off, which is certainly an interesting way of bringing a new product to market," Wilkins explained.
Earlier this year, AMD took the same approach when it rolled out a new triple-core processor that was essentially a quad-core chip but with one of the cores turned off, Wilkins said. "The question is," he noted, "why would they do that?"
Wilkins thinks it would have been more advantageous for AMD to have released all three throttled-back chips as full-blown quad-core processors.
"If they had sold them as quad-cores, it would have generated quite a bit of movement in the market," Wilkins said. "The trouble is, the move would have caused problems" by "taking the focus away from their other new products."
AMD recently announced the widespread availability of the quad-core Opteron processor that it had formerly code-named Shanghai. The new device can deliver up to 35 percent more performance with up to a 35 percent decrease in power consumption at idle, the chipmaker says.
AMD's quad-core Opteron processor is destined for deployment in servers, not desktop PCs. Still, the chipmaker may have other products waiting in the...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Yahoo Mail Filters Communications with 'Smart Inbox'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63607
On the heels of AOL's Bebo social inbox unveiled last week, Yahoo on Monday introduced more updates to its mail service. The idea is to offer a "smarter inbox" experience. The new features will roll out in the coming months.
Call it the next generation of Yahoo Mail. It's the latest measure in the company's initiative to deliver more personally relevant starting points on the Web by integrating social functionality and opening up products to content and services outside the Yahoo network.
"Yahoo Mail users have told us that they want to be more productive when they get to their inbox, and they want help breaking through the clutter and getting to the communications that matter most to them," said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail. "We've created a smarter inbox experience to address the problem of inbox overload. We're also embedding really useful applications directly into the inbox, which should help people be even more efficient when they get to Yahoo Mail."
Yahoo said its goal with the next generation of Yahoo Mail is to address the changing communications needs of consumers. To Yahoo, that means streamlining access to the most relevant and useful information -- and helping users become more productive -- in their inbox.
A new feature is a welcome page that surfaces messages, information and activity updates from the people users care about most. There's also an updated inbox and folder view that filters messages from those personal connections. The new Yahoo mail also gives users access to third-party applications that can leverage the user's e-mail content, calendar and contacts.
There's an idealistic dimension and an advertising dimension to Yahoo's new inbox, according to Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.
"There's the effort to make e-mail more functional and more convenient to use Yahoo Mail so...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Australia OKs Facebook for Serving Lien Notice
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63588
You've been "superpoked" -- and served. A court in Australia has approved the use of Facebook, a popular social networking Web site, to notify a couple that they lost their home after defaulting on a loan.
The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court last Friday approved lawyer Mark McCormack's application to use Facebook to serve the legally binding documents after several failed attempts to contact the couple at the house and by e-mail.
Australian courts have given permission in the past for people to be served via e-mail and text messages when it was not possible to serve them in person.
McCormack, a lawyer for the lender the couple borrowed from, said that by the time he got the documents approved by the court late Tuesday for transmission, Facebook profiles for the couple had disappeared from public view.
The page was apparently either closed or secured for privacy, following publicity about the court order.
"It's somewhat novel, however we do see it as a valid method of bringing the matter to the attention of the defendant," McCormack said.
Despite the setback, McCormack said the Facebook attempt would help his client's case that all reasonable steps had been taken to serve the couple. A court is expected to settle the matter as early as next week.
Facebook has become a wildly popular online hangout, attracting more than 140 million users worldwide since it launched in 2004. Facebook friends can "poke" or "superpoke" each other -- terms for giving someone a playful nudge.
Lawyer and computer forensic expert Seamus Byrne said he was aware of only one similar case in Australia. A Queensland state District Court judge ruled in April against documents being served by Facebook because the option of contacting a person via a post office box had not yet been exhausted.
In the latest ruling, Master David Harper insisted that...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Apple Fixes Issues in Mac OS X Leopard and Tiger
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63587
Apple has been busy fixing several glitches for users of both its Mac OS X Tiger and Mac OS X Leopard.
On Monday Apple released a slew of fixes -- 36 to be exact -- for Mac OS X Leopard in its 10.5.6 update that fixes problems with iChat, MobileMe, and Safari. On Tuesday, the Cupertino-based company released Security Update 2008-008 for Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 users.
The update for Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 to 10.5.5 addresses several issues with iChat, including no longer logging users out of iChat when setting the iChat status to invisible, and it resolves an issue with pasting text from Microsoft Office.
Mail also received a list of fixes, including improving its overall performance, improving the accuracy of Connection Doctor, and taking junk mail out of the inbox. The update also addressed the issue of Mail quitting, the reliability of printing PDF attachments, and the issue which caused Mail to append a character to the file extension of an attachment.
For MobileMe, the fix was simple: Sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks on a Mac automatically and within a minute of the changes being made on a computer, a mobile device, or via the Web at me.com.
Apple had several fixes for parental controls, including an issue which prevented the addition of allowed Web sites from Safari via drag and drop. The update also fixed time limits and addressed an issue in which parent-controlled accounts were not able to access iTunes.
For its Time Machine backup utility, the fixes were simple: Improve reliability with Time Capsule and fix issues that could cause Time Machine to show that a backup volume could not be found.
For gamers, the update solves problems with graphics. It includes general improvements for the performance of games; graphics improvements for...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Unpatched Internet Explorer Flaw Allows Attacks
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63586
Microsoft Internet Explorer users, beware. There's a security flaw in all versions of the browser that leaves you wide open for attack. At least two million computers have already been infected.
The exploit doesn't require users to click on links or download software from the Internet. Rather, it infects users when they open a Web page. The goal is to steal passwords, according to security experts, gain access to financial data and otherwise steal the victim's identity.
"Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer," said the company in a release on its Web site. Microsoft did not offer information on when a patch might be available.
Security flaws in browsers are certainly nothing new. But the difference with this one is there is no patch. No fix from Microsoft means that millions of Internet users may be at risk of infection simply from browsing the Web, according to Graham Cluley, a senior security consultant at Sophos.
"We are seeing infections on pornographic Web sites -- and it's not clear if these have been hacked or have been deliberately set up to infect surfers," Cluley said. "Of course, Web-site attackers don't just target porn sites. We see something like 20,000 new infected Web pages every single day -- that's one every 4.5 seconds -- and the vast majority of those are legitimate sites that have been compromised by the likes of an SQL injection attack."
Some computer users may be tempted to switch, if only temporarily, to alternative browsers such as Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. Even Microsoft has suggested this as a temporary workaround.
However, Cluley cautions that all browsers have vulnerabilities and can be exploited -- and switching the browser all employees use in a corporate setting isn't a practical...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Memory Technology Improves Storage Capacity
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63577
Micron Technology has introduced a new serial NAND flash memory technology that the company said will enable easier and more cost-effective expansion of storage capacity for embedded applications in products like television set-top boxes, DVRs, printers and even automobile navigation systems.
The technology, with a chip density starting at 1 gigabit, improves on traditional NOR flash, which typically tops out at a density of 128 megabytes. Company officials said that as many embedded applications transition from merely decoding information to more sophisticated operations like managing multimedia, photos and other data-intensive content, the need for cheap and easy storage expansion is increasingly important.
"There are several embedded applications today that require 128 megabytes or more of storage, and we expect capacity to continue to grow, providing the need for a NAND-based storage alternative to NOR flash," said Kevin Kilbuck, director of NAND market development for Micron.
Micron said its serial NAND uses the same package type as its parallel NAND product but with a new type of interface that makes it easier to incorporate. Other advantages include compatibility with the industry standard Serial Peripheral Interface; the capability of storing user-generated content directly on the device, thus eliminating the need for a separate NAND chip; and, at 2.64 megabytes per/second, Micron's serial NAND provides much faster write performance than NOR flash, which falls below .5 MB/s.
The company said it expects volume production to begin in the first quarter of 2009, with even higher-density 4 Gb serial NAND flash products expected soon after.
Micron stock was valued at $2.23 in midday trading Dec. 9, up 16 cents from the opening bell and up 42 cents from its Dec. 5 close. The Boise-based semiconductor giant was upgraded by American Technology Research Dec. 5 from "neutral" to "buy."
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Mumbai Attackers More Tech-Savvy than the Police
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63576
When the attackers arrived on the shores of Mumbai last month, they had studied satellite images of the city, were carrying handheld GPS sets and were communicating with their handlers via the Internet and satellite phone.
Many of the Indian police they encountered did not even have walkie-talkies.
The Mumbai gunmen not only overwhelmed security forces with their weaponry and willingness to die, but also with their sophisticated use of technology, security experts said.
"These (terrorists) are well aware of the technology available and also know that the police are several steps behind. And a lot of this technology is extremely easy to use and to learn," said Pavan Duggal, a technology expert and New Delhi-based lawyer.
India's underfunded and poorly trained police force is simply unable to compete, experts said.
"Crimes that involve technology usually make the police very nervous," Duggal said.
To prepare for their Nov. 26 assault, militants examined the layout and landscape of the city using images from Google Earth, which provides satellite photos for much of the planet over the Internet, said Mumbai's chief police investigator, Rakesh Maria.
The 10 gunmen also studied detailed photographs of their targets on laptop computers, Maria said.
When the assailants traveled by boat from Karachi, Pakistan, to Mumbai -- stealing an Indian trawler along the way -- they used four GPS systems to navigate, Maria said. The sets could also be used as walkie-talkies.
The attackers were equipped with a satellite phone and nine cell phones. Throughout the attack, they called their handlers in Pakistan, who had eschewed conventional phones for voice-over-Internet telephone services, Maria said.
Those services route phone calls over the Internet, making it far harder to trace them. For example, a person might have a New York City telephone number, but calls made to that number are routed over the Internet, allowing a client to answer...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Software To Replace the Secretary
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63574
Shouldn't your computer know a reasonable amount about your likes and dislikes? Wouldn't it be great if it could anticipate your needs and take action without you pressing a key?
Booking travel and restaurant reservations, rearranging meeting schedules or even taking a first cut at reading e-mail messages are among the mundane tasks that have remained beyond the reach of our PCs for decades.
But a new generation of Internet technologies, coupled with the investment of more than a third of a billion dollars, may be making meaningful progress.
The concept of a software personal assistant has long captured the imagination of a generation of science fiction writers and computer scientists. Oliver Selfridge, the artificial-intelligence pioneer who died this month, is credited with coining the term "intelligent agent," as well as the idea of a computer software "demon" -- a simple software program that could monitor its environment and make appropriate responses when changes occur.
With the arrival of personal computing in the 1980s, the idea took the form of highly choreographed "vision" statements from many Silicon Valley companies. The most memorable was the Knowledge Navigator video, by John Sculley, then chief executive of Apple, in which an interactive assistant on a video display, clad in a bow tie, does research for a college professor and nags him to return his mother's phone call. But efforts to build useful computerized assistants have consistently ended in failure.
Now, a Pentagon research project and two Silicon Valley start-up companies are about to try again.
SRI International, a research group in Menlo Park, California, is approaching the end of a multiyear project called CALO, which stands for cognitive assistant that learns and organizes. CALO is financed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense and is one of the largest artificial-intelligence projects ever....
Wed, 17 Dec 08
No Need for a Map With iPhone's Ski App
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63572
A Denver company is putting itself on the map with a new mobile application called the "Snocator," a nifty piece of software that displays more than 70 maps for North American ski resorts and shows the user where they are on the map, where they're going, plus weather and on-mountain restaurant information.
"We've taken the anxiety and intimidation out of navigating the ski resort, especially for skiers who may be worried about avoiding difficult runs or getting lost," said Chris Glode, Snocator product manager for Denver-based Useful Networks, a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. "It's also very convenient, not to mention green, to never have to deal with the traditional unwieldy paper trail maps."
Snocator also provides access to daily snow reports for the resorts, which users can quickly sort by snowfall totals to find where the best snow might be. Links to webcams are also included in the current version.
An upcoming version will deliver information like how fast a snowrider is going, how much vertical has been skied and where other skiers in the group are located.
Location and GPS technology are the specialty of Useful Networks, which developed its most successful software in an application called SNIFF, a social network integrated friend finder. About 150,000 people subscribe to SNIFF in Scandinavia, where friends can find one another by sending a quick text message.
The group of 38 employees who work in the Denver office are ski and snowboard aficionados, so Snocator was a natural next step.
"We're in the location technology industry, but we also happen to be ski bums," Glode said.
Tested at Vail as a beta app last year and launched with maps of more than 800 ski resort trail maps worldwide Oct. 31 , Snocator is now the second-most popular paid sports app for iPhone, and has received...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
Impoverished North Korea Gets New Mobile Network
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63568
An Egyptian telecoms giant launched an advanced mobile phone network in North Korea on Monday, the latest attempt to introduce a global symbol of personal freedom into one of the world's most tightly controlled societies.
But analysts cautioned against reading too much into the widely publicized $400 million deal, first announced in January, for a third generation mobile network built by Orascom Telecom.
Orascom Telecom Chief Executive Naguib Sawiris said the company's aim was for a "network that will accommodate the 22 million people" in North Korea, adding he was "surprised and astonished by the quality" and "advancement of the Korean people," according to footage from broadcaster APTN.
It was not clear what controls, if any, would be imposed on the network, which will provide phone service and data capability in a country that has tested a nuclear device but relies on international assistance to feed its people.
A Pyongyang-based report by the Korean Central News Agency provided no details on the terms of service, the types of phones it might accommodate, or who would be able to utilize it.
Repeated calls and e-mails to Orascom seeking comment were not returned Monday.
Sawiris was clearly being feted at a high level. KCNA reported that North Korean Premier Kim Yong Il, one of the country's top officials, met the executive and his delegation and had a "friendly talk."
The announcement of the network launch comes amid lingering questions about the health of supreme leader Kim Jong Il, who is reported to be recovering from a stroke.
Andrei Lankov, a Russian expert on North Korea at Kookmin University in Seoul, noted previous "optimistic predictions" that cell phone use heralded a loosening of controls had fallen short.
"North Korea doesn't want its people to talk too much between themselves," he said.
Authorities restrict the population's access to all but officially sanctioned sources of...
Wed, 17 Dec 08
The Tech Trends To Expect in 2009
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63567
Don't be surprised if during the course of 2009 you opt for a bigger TV screen because you're playing more video games and going to the movies less often. You won't be alone, says a longtime watcher of tech trends in his predictions for the coming year.
Mark Anderson is chief executive of Strategic News Service, a newsletter circulated to C-level tech executives. Each year he makes prognostications concerning technology and the economy. Last year he predicted a breakout year for ultramobile PCs, and he said Apple would launch one. The computer maker's MacBook Air came close. In late 2006, Anderson predicted the launch of the first PC with solid-state hard drives, which happened in 2007.
Here's a rundown of his expectations for 2009:
With consumer spending on entertainment slowing down, consumers will happily spend more to improve their at-home entertainment experience instead of splurging on outings to restaurants, movies, and weekend getaways. That means bigger TV screens to connect to video game consoles for family rounds of Rock Band on the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, or Nintendo Wii. "People have been investing in bringing these screens into their homes for years, but very few of them are fully gamed up," Anderson says. "So I think there will be a lot of spending by people to get extra entertainment mileage out of those screens at very low cost."
Tight budgets also will foster the proliferation of free or low-cost mobile-phone applications. Case in point: Apple's iPhone App Store on iTunes, where most applications are free -- and those that aren't usually sell for $10 or less. Consumers also can get cheap online software for Research In Motion's BlackBerry and phones running the various mobile operating systems backed by Nokia, Microsoft, and Google. "In terms of innovation and investment...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Apple Fixes Problems, Adds Features in Mac OS Update
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63585
Apple posted a free download of the Mac OS X 10.5.6 update Monday with significant fixes that "enhance the stability, compatibility and security" of its Mac computers. The update is for users of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 to 10.5.5.
With more than 30 fixes in this update, Apple warned Mac users to be careful if they have modified the operating system or moved Apple applications outside the default Applications folder. The new system can be downloaded as an automatic update or in a standalone installer.
Mac OS X 10.5.6 also makes changes to Apple's Mail, iChat, MobileMe, iCal, AirPort and Safari applications. Apple said the update improves synchronization of applications and fixes an issue where users may not see printers.
The update improves the reliability of AirPort network connections and fixes some problems with the iChat application. Graphics issues are also fixed, including gaming performance.
Apple said MobileMe now synchronizes contacts, calendars and bookmarks within a minute of a change being made. A complete list of the issues the update addresses is on Apple's Web site.
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Internet Access Trumps TV and Sex for Many U. S. Adults
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63584
How important is the Internet to you every day in uncertain economic times? If you're like most U.S. adults, it ranks higher than many other activities, according to a report from Harris Interactive and Intel.
Indeed, most U.S. adults find Internet access essential to daily life in today's economic climate. Some are choosing the Internet as a "must-have" over watching TV and having sex.
A full 65 percent of adults said they don't think they could live without Internet access. An even-larger 71 percent said it's important or very important to have Internet-enabled devices, such as laptops, netbooks and mobile Internet devices, that serve up real-time updates on important issues like the state of the economy.
"It surprised me that 65 percent said they cannot live without the Internet. That's two out of three people," said Michelle Melamaud, an analyst at Harris Interactive. "The Internet is more important to most of our respondents than shopping for clothes. You need clothes -- clothes are not an option."
Clothes may not be an option, but sex apparently is. Forty-six percent of women and 30 percent of men would rather go without sex for two weeks than give up Internet access for the same period. For women ages 18-34 that figure rose to 49 percent, and for women ages 35-44 it climbed to 52 percent. For men ages 18-34, the number who would trade sex for Internet access was 39 percent.
Most U.S. adults also lean on the Internet as a tool for managing personal finances, finding discounts, and comparison shopping. Many rated access to the Internet as indispensable compared to other discretionary spending, including dining out, shopping for clothes, and gym memberships.
The Internet also trumps the TV. Sixty-one percent of adult women would choose to give up watching TV for two weeks instead of giving...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Mahalo Offers Answers to User Questions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63583
Ever wonder about the best way to remove wax from clothing, or variations on how to play with a dreidel, or how to make flavorful barley recipes?
If you have the answer, a user of the Mahalo.com search engine might be willing to pay for it through Mahalo's new Answers feature, which allows users to ask questions, offer answers, and provide monetary "tips" for the best answer.
Mahalo's founder is Jason Calacanis, the cofounder of Weblogs and former general manager of Netscape. Calacanis launched Mahalo in May 2007 with seed capital from Sequoia Capital, Elon Musk, and News Corp. When Calacanis launched the company, he did not share much about the long-term vision of Mahalo -- until now.
On his personal blog, Calacanis said Mahalo first launched its human-powered search engine, which includes the top 100,000 search terms. Next was content in the form of notes by "Mahalo Guides," as well as vertical content, including how-to articles and video-game walk-throughs.
Mahalo's latest feature, Answers, is what Calacanis describes as the piece that will thread the needle of search, content and knowledge exchange.
A user can ask a question for free, but is encouraged to set a tip amount they are willing to pay for a helpful answer. (Calacanis suggests $3 to start.) Mahalo collects a deposit via PayPal or from the user's account balance of "Mahalo dollars." Once the best answer is chosen, the user pays the tip originally offered. If no one offers the right answer, a user's deposit is fully refunded. But rescinding too many tips also sends up some red flags and leaves a mark on a user's profile.
If a user doesn't decide on the best answer within three days of posting the question, he or she loses the deposit.
Each Mahalo dollar is worth...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
FCC Cancels Vote on Free Broadband Wireless Plan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63579
A much-publicized meeting by the Federal Communications Commission later this month has been canceled. The meeting's agenda included a vote on a plan that could have provided free broadband wireless service to underserved areas of the U.S.
The FCC said the meeting for Dec. 18 was canceled following a request from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) that the agency scale down other efforts in order to concentrate on the switch to digital-television broadcasts in February.
FCC spokesperson Robert Kenny said "it does not appear that there is a consensus to move forward and the agenda meeting has been canceled."
It wasn't only Democratic legislators pressuring the FCC. The outgoing Bush administration also indicated that it opposed the plan. Last week, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin which said, in part, that the administration believes the airwaves "should be auctioned without price or product mandate."
The FCC's plan would have auctioned off some airwaves and required the winner to offer free wireless Internet access. One version of the plan would have required the winning company to make at least 25 percent of the spectrum available free to most of the nation. Another version would have given free, unlicensed access to some of the spectrum to innovators if the acquiring company didn't fulfill its promise.
Neither version of the plan was exactly receiving accolades from the cell-phone industry or free-speech advocates. T-Mobile, for instance, argued there would be interference from the free Internet into the adjacent spectrum it licensed. However, FCC engineers have told news media that there would be no significant interference.
Some consumer advocates interested in maintaining free information flow objected to a part of the plan that would have required a filter to remove adult material for under-18 users....
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Delta Is Rolling Out Internet Surfing in the Sky
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63578
Delta Air Lines is taking Internet access to the skies this week with the launch of Gogo Inflight Internet service on board six of its planes. Delta is introducing the service with a free trial that lets consumers experience the technology.
Monday's announcement highlights the first of more than 300 Delta domestic planes that will soon feature in-flight Internet, according to the company.
East Coast travelers will be among the first to experience Delta's newest amenity. The in-flight Internet services are debuting on five MD-88 aircraft flying Delta shuttle routes between New York's LaGuardia Airport and Boston's Logan and Washington's Reagan airports, plus one Boeing 757 flying throughout Delta's domestic system. The service will spread to other Delta routes as additional aircraft are introduced.
Tim Mapes, Delta's senior vice president of marketing, said in-flight Internet access is one of the most popular requests the company receives from its customers.
"Next year when Gogo is available on our entire domestic mainline fleet, our customers will have access to the most extensive Wi-Fi network in the sky, making the time they spend with us on board even more productive and entertaining," Mapes said.
The cost may be attractive to Internet-addicted road warriors. Gogo offers customers traveling with Wi-Fi-enabled devices, including laptops, smartphones and personal digital assistants access to the Internet, corporate VPNs, corporate and personal e-mail accounts, and SMS texting and instant-messaging services for a flat fee of $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.
"Unlike phones on planes -- the air phones that no one really used because of the
high cost -- it seems the prices for these Wi-Fi in-flight services are much more reasonable, particularly on cross-country flights," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia.
Some travelers will get an opportunity...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Google Says It Still Stands By Net Neutrality
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63570
Google Inc. denied that it had reversed its stance on the issue of "Net neutrality" and dismissed a story in Monday's edition of The Wall Street Journal on the subject as "confused."
Citing undisclosed sources, the newspaper reported that Google had been in talks with major cable and phone companies about getting preferential treatment for traffic to and from its sites.
That would conflict with the principle of Net neutrality, under which carriers traditionally give the same treatment to traffic from different sites. The Federal Communications Commission has voiced support for the principle, and sanctioned Comcast Corp. this year for slowing some types of file-sharing traffic. Google has been a vocal supporter of Net neutrality.
Richard Whitt, Google's Washington-based telecom and media counsel, wrote in a blog post early Monday that the Journal's report is apparently based on a misunderstanding of the company's offer to place so-called "edge servers" within the networks of Internet service providers.
Such servers store Google content frequently requested by subscribers, such as YouTube videos. When subscribers request the content from Google, it can be transmitted from the local servers rather than from Google's central servers.
That approach cuts down on network traffic and speeds response times. It is already widely employed by other companies, like Akamai Technologies Inc. and Limelight Networks Inc., which act as "edge servers for hire." Edge servers are not widely considered to violate Net neutrality.
"Google remains strongly committed to the principle of Net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open," Whitt wrote on his blog.
A Wall Street Journal spokesman had no immediate response Monday. The story's reporters did not immediately return calls for comment.
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Microsoft Launches Mobile App -- for Apple's iPhone
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63562
Microsoft on Saturday officially launched its first application for Apple's iPhone. The app, called Seadragon Mobile, is free for users who want to browse ultra-large pages on the iPhone's 3.5-inch touchscreen.
The goal of Seadragon is to change the way consumers use screens -- from wall-sized displays all the way down to cell phones -- so that graphics and photos are smoothly browsed, regardless of the amount of data or bandwidth on the network.
Seadragon promises that speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects and that transitions are smooth. It also promises that performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen and that scaling is nearly perfect -- and rapid -- for screens of any resolution.
"Seadragon Mobile brings the same smooth image browsing you get on the PC to the mobile platform," the Microsoft Live Labs blog said. "Get super-close-in on a map or photo, with just a few pinches or taps of your finger. Browse an entire collection of photos from a single screen."
Apple's App Store has had more than 300 million applications downloaded since July -- but this is the first from Microsoft. Microsoft has its own mobile operating system to bolster, so why develop for the iPhone?
"It's not shocking that Microsoft is developing for the iPhone. Microsoft is a software company and it will develop applications for whatever platform makes sense. If there is a popular platform and they can exploit it to their own end, they'll certainly do so," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "People forget sometimes that Excel first came to Macintosh, not to Windows, and was a breakthrough product there."
Microsoft has optimized Seadragon for the iPhone. It comes preloaded with bookmarks to deliver content from the...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Car-Key Jammer Stops Phone Use While Driving
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63561
A startup in Utah has found a way to stop drivers from using cell phones to talk and text while driving. Key2safedriving has developed a jamming feature for the car key that stops a cell phone when the car is in drive mode.
The key, which wirelessly connects to the cell phone with Bluetooth or RFID technology, goes into drive mode when placed in the ignition. Once the car stops and the key is removed, a signal is sent to the phone to restore normal use.
If the driver attempts to use the cell phone while the key is in the ignition, the driver receives this message: "Stop. Your vehicle is currently in driving mode. Please do not talk while driving."
Nearly one million passenger cars are driven in the U.S. each day by people using cell phones, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Using the cell phone degrades driving performance, resulting in slower reaction times, slower driving speeds, and increased instances of attention lapses, according to research by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Inventors Wallace Curry and Xuesong Zhou developed the product after Curry's experience led him to do the research. Curry, a urologist, said his interest came from two factors -- the hospital always contacting him while driving and because he saw a teenager texting while driving, which reminded him of his own teenage daughters.
"I thought, this is crazy, there has got to be something to stop this, because not only is she putting people at risk, but so was I," Curry said. "It struck me pretty hard that something should be done."
Curry and Zhou, a specialist in intelligent transportation systems, came up with the idea to block cell-phone use with an ignition key.
Several states already prohibit cell-phone use while driving, including California,...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Palm Will Show New Operating System in January
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63560
There's a Nova in Palm's future. In January, the famed-but-faded mobile-device maker will unveil a new operating system with that code name at the Consumer Electronics Show.
According to Business Week and others, Palm's hiring last year of ex-Apple engineer Jon Rubinstein has led to a new team that hopes to guide the company back to the ranks of mobile innovation.
The maker of the original Palm PDA and the Treo smartphone has fallen behind its competitors in recent years. Observers have been waiting for Palm to unveil a new operating system based on Linux, since the existing platform hasn't been updated in years.
A lot is riding on this launch. At the beginning of this month, the company said its sales would be half what analysts were projecting for the quarter, and laid off about 10 percent of its workforce.
The Nova OS will be shown at the CES show Las Vegas on Jan. 8, as will initial releases in a forthcoming family of products. Reports indicate that the launch will include a new user interface and possibly one or more new devices.
Nova is expected to be on the market by the middle of next year. Curiosity is running high as observers try to gauge what the company could offer that would put them back in the game with such major innovators as Apple's iPhone, Research in Motion's BlackBerry, and devices using Google's open-source Android mobile platform.
Some observers have speculated that Nova will be designed to be more of an intelligent assistant, such as reminding you of weather reports in a city to which you'll be traveling, as indicated on your calendar. Others are suggesting it will take the mobile Internet to new levels.
Avi Greengart, an analyst for industry research firm Current Analysis, said the challenge for...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Noble System's Web-Based Agent Tools
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63556
Noble Systems Corporation recently introduced the Noble Composer Web Agent, an agent workflow design and desktop unification tool for Web-based agent environments. The company believes the solution can help companies improve agent productivity, reduce training costs, increase customer service quality, and leverage technology investments.
In 2006 Noble Systems released the original Noble Composer product which allowed users to create customized scripts, using WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) tools to build scripts and agent desktops with on-screen layout, drag-and-drop, and point- and-click features; add fields, labels, text, pictures, and buttons; or link to tables, launch external programs, generate screen pops, and more. The Composer also featured enhanced program launch capabilities, to support direct access to third-party applications from the agent desktop.
Well, Noble Composer Web Agent leverages the desktop design tools that were introduced in the Noble Composer product and expands them to add more functionality for use in browser-based applications. This latest offering from Noble is designed using the Microsoft Windows .NET framework and offers support for multiple browsers and multiple operating systems.
I had the opportunity to pose several questions to Chris Hodges, the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Noble Systems. His responses appear below.
RT: What will Web-based agent desktops do for contact centers?
CH: Noble's Web-based agent desktops allow contact centers to deploy new seats rapidly without having to invest in expensive desktop hardware or Windows licensing. Noble's web-based agent desktops also enable the "contact center without walls," so that agents can be located anywhere, on any platform (which supports web), for any type of transaction.
What specifically does programming using Microsoft's .NET allow Noble Systems to do?
The Microsoft .NET framework allows Noble Systems to utilize die newest code base available from Microsoft, and to use more efficient technologies such as Serialized XML and ASPX. This...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Virginia Seeks Reinstatement of Anti-Spam Law
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63549
Virginia's attorney general asked the nation's highest court Thursday to revive a state anti-spam law struck down by a lower court as unconstitutionally overbroad.
Virginia's Supreme Court ruled in September that the law violates the free-speech protections of the First Amendment because it prohibits anonymously sending any type of unsolicited bulk e-mail, including political and religious messages. Most states have anti-spam laws, and there is a federal statute, but Virginia's is the only one that is not limited to commercial e-mails.
In asking for a reversal of the ruling, Attorney General Bob McDonnell said that the state court erred in its conclusion that some "imaginary spammer" could be unfairly prosecuted for sending political or religious e-mails. The justices "invalidated a statute on its face based on a hypothetical application that occurs very infrequently, if it occurs at all," he wrote in his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
McDonnell said he expects a decision on the petition early next year.
The ruling invalidating Virginia's law also overturned the conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, who once was considered one of the world's most prolific spammers. Jaynes bombarded Internet users with millions of pieces of spam, all of it commercial.
Jaynes' attorney, Thomas M. Wolf, said he doubts the Supreme Court will hear the case because the lower court's unanimous ruling was so clear-cut and the statute's constitutional infirmity could be easily cured with an amendment restricting its application to commercial spam.
"As Justice (G. Steven) Agee said in the court's opinion, if the Federalist Papers were written today and disseminated by e-mail, the sender would be guilty of a felony under Virginia's anti-spam statute," Wolf said.
The Federalist Papers were essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay under the pseudonym "Publius" urging ratification of the Constitution.
Lawyers for the state had argued that the First Amendment doesn't...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
From YouTube Hobby to Lucrative Online Gig
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63546
Making videos for YouTube -- for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers -- is now a way to make a living.
One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become "partners" and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the Web site. For some, like Michael Buckley, the self-taught host of a celebrity chatter show, filming funny videos is now a full-time job.
Buckley quit his day job in September after his online profit had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company. His thrice-a-week online show "is silly," he said, but it has helped him escape from under his credit card debt.
Buckley, 33, was the part-time host of a weekly show on a Connecticut public access channel in the summer of 2006 when his cousin started posting snippets of the show on YouTube. The comical rants about celebrities attracted online viewers, and before long Buckley was tailoring his segments, called "What the Buck?" for the Web. Buckley knew that the show was "only going to go so far on public access."
"But on YouTube," he said, "I've had 100 million views. It's crazy."
All he needed was a $2,000 video camera, a $6 piece of fabric for a backdrop and a pair of work lights from a hardware store. Buckley is an example of the democratizing effect the Internet brings to publishing. Sites like YouTube allow anyone with a high-speed connection to cultivate a following, simply by posting and promoting material online.
Granted, building an audience online takes time. "I was spending 40 hours a week on YouTube for over a year before I made a dime," Buckley said. But, at least in some cases, it is paying off.
Buckley is one of the original members of...
Tue, 16 Dec 08
Need Help With Math? YouTube Has Answer
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63543
When University of Central Florida junior Nicole Nissim got stumped in trigonometry, she checked out what was showing on YouTube.
Nissim typically scours the video-sharing Web site for clips of bands and comedy skits. But this time she wasn't there to procrastinate on her homework. It turned out YouTube was also full of math videos. After watching a couple, the psychology major says, she finally understood trig equations and how to make graphs.
"I was able to watch them at my own pace, and if I didn't get a concept, I could easily rewind it," Nissim says. "It was a lot clearer once I watched the video."
YouTube is perhaps best known for its cavalcade of homemade performances and TV clips, but many people like Nissim are turning to it for free tutoring in math, science and other complicated subjects.
Math videos won't rival the millions of hits garnered by laughing babies, but a YouTube tutorial on calculus integrals has been watched almost 50,000 times in the past year. Others on angular velocity and harmonic motion have gotten more than 10,000 views each.
The videos are appealing for several reasons, says Kim Gregson, an Ithaca College professor of new media. Students come to the videos when they're ready to study and fully awake -- not always the case for 8 a.m. calculus classes. And they can watch the videos as many times as they need until they understand.
Viewer comments reflect that. On tutorials posted to YouTube by the not-for-profit Khan Academy, for example, reactions include: "Now why couldn't my calc instructor explain it that simply?" and "I was just about to leave my physics course. You saved me." One viewer went as far as to declare to the man behind the videos: "You are god of mathematics!!!"
What's creator Salman Khan's trick? Keeping it simple, he...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Apple Tweaks App Store Interface After Complaints
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63559
Within days of a well-publicized open letter from a developer complaining about how the dominance of free and 99-cent applications in Apple's iPhone App Store was hurting software development, Apple has made some changes.
The store has added the 20 top free and top paid lists in each category. Apps can be sorted by the user according to popularity, release date, or price. Previously, Apple listed the top free and paid apps on the home page. The rankings are based on the number of downloads.
Earlier this week, Craig Hockenberry, a principal at Greensboro, N.C.-based IconFactory, posted on his blog, furbo.com, an open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "As an iPhone developer who's been in the App Store since its launch," he wrote, "I'm starting to see a trend that concerns me." This trend, he continues, is that "developers are lowering prices to the lowest possible level in order to get placement on iTunes," and the "proliferation of 99-cent 'ringtone apps'" is affecting product development.
The problem, he said, is funding the development of products. Instead of working on "cooler (and more complex)" ideas, he wrote, which require more development time, they're working on 99-cent titles "that have a limited life span and broad appeal."
Bigger projects, he noted, can take up to nine person-months, cost up to $225,000 and require sales of more than 300,000 units at the 99-cent rate. "Unless you have a white-hot title, selling 10-15k units a day for a few weeks isn't going to happen," he said. But raising prices meant the product wouldn't reach the top of the App Store charts, Hockenberry added.
Hockenberry said one basic issue is how iPhone users are assessing whether to buy new apps. He noted that it appears "people are buying our products sight unseen," with only a screenshot to evaluate...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
FSF Slaps Cisco with Its First-Ever Licensing Suit
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63558
The Free Software Foundation filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit Thursday against Cisco Systems in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The FSF alleges Cisco violated its copyrights, including for GCC, binutils and the GNU C library, in various products distributed under the Linksys brand.
In doing so, the FSF said, Cisco denied its users their right to share and modify the software. Cisco acquired Linksys in 2003.
"Our licenses are designed to ensure that everyone who uses the software can change it," said Richard Stallman, president and founder of the FSF. "In order to exercise that right people need the source code, and that's why our licenses require distributors to provide it. We are enforcing our licenses to protect the rights that everyone should have with all software: To use it, share it, and modify it as they see fit."
Most of the programs named in the complaint are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The rest are under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Both encourage everyone to modify the software and share it with others -- under certain conditions.
One of those conditions says anyone who redistributes the software must also provide the source code=. The FSF said it has documented many examples of Cisco distributing licensed software without providing the source code.
The FSF started working with Cisco in 2003 to help the company establish a process for complying with the software licenses, according to Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer for the FSF. Smith said the initial changes were very promising, but said Cisco never put in the effort necessary to finish the process.
"Five years later we have still not seen a plan for compliance," Smith said. "As a result, we believe that legal action is the best way to restore the rights we...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Sony BMG Fined $1 Million for Child Privacy Violations
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63557
Sony BMG Music Entertainment has agreed to pay $1 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the commission's implementing rule.
COPPA prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in connection with the collection, use or disclosure of personally identifiable information from and about children under 13 on the Internet. The law requires operators to notify parents and obtain their consent before collecting, using or disclosing children's personal information.
The FTC's complaint alleges that Sony BMG violated COPPA through its music-fan Web sites. It's the largest civil penalty the FTC has ever levied in a COPPA case.
Sony BMG operates more than 1,000 Web sites for its musical artists and labels. In order to register for these sites, Sony BMG requires users to submit a range of personal information, including date of birth.
On 196 of these sites, Sony BMG knowingly collected personal information from at least 30,000 underage children without first obtaining their parents' consent. The result: Children were able to interact with Sony BMG fans of all ages, including adults.
"Sites with social-networking features, like any Web sites, need to get parental consent before collecting kids' personal information," FTC Chairman William E. Kovacic said. "Sony Music is paying the penalty for falling down on its COPPA obligations."
The FTC's complaint alleges that Sony BMG violated COPPA by failing to provide sufficient notice on its Web sites of what information the company collects online from children, how it uses such information, and its disclosure practices.
The complaint also blames Sony BMG for failing to provide direct notice to parents of the information practices, failing to obtain verifiable parental consent, and failing to provide a reasonable means for parents to review the personal information collected from their children and to block its...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
November Wii Sales Soar to Two Million Units
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63555
If Nintendo has a sales alarm at its headquarters for the Wii, it is ringing off the wall about November. According to a report from the NPD Group consumer-research firm, Nintendo sold more than two million Wiis last month, doubling its numbers from the same time last year.
And the Wii's little brother, the DS handheld game unit, also had a boffo month, with more than 1.56 million units sold. Nintendo systems are driving the industry, accounting for 59 percent of all console sales and 79 percent of all portable game devices.
But Sony's PlayStation 3 did not have a happy November. Its sales were down about 19 percent from the same month last year -- 378,000 sold versus 466,000 in 2007. Microsoft's Xbox 360 was up a bit, with 836,000 units sold compared to about 777,000 a year ago.
The two million Wiis are a sales record for consoles for any month except December, pointing to a possibly very happy holiday season for Nintendo.
Cammie Dunaway, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America, said the record-breaking sales in November came because consumers are looking for the best value, "not only among video games, but also among all entertainment options." She added that shoppers are looking for gifts that the whole family will enjoy. The Wii's price of $250 is also seen as relatively cheap in the game-console market.
Michael Gartenberg, vice president for consumer strategy at Jupitermedia, agreed with Dunaway, noting that people still spend money in a bad economy, but with even more of an eye toward long-term value.
He said video games in general, and the Wii in particular, have a perceived long-term value. He added that the Wii "is seen as being for the whole family, not just gamers," which also increases the...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
White House Opposes FCC's Free Internet Plan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63554
A debate between the Federal Communications Commission and the outgoing Bush administration centers on the FCC's plan to make broadband available for free at government-mandated speeds.
In a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said providing free broadband services would be counterproductive, result in a congested and inefficient broadband, and be inconsistent with the Bush administration's stand that the service should be allocated by the markets, not the government.
Gutierrez asked the FCC to reconsider its business model that would include offering 25 MHz of the wireless spectrum in the 2155-2180 range to citizens without broadband access. The FCC is expected to vote on the move on Dec. 18.
Gutierrez said the administration believes the Advanced Wireless Services-3 Spectrum should be auctioned without price or product mandates and that the FCC should rely on the market to determine the best use of the spectrum.
If the FCC approves its AWS-3 rule, the auction winner would have to provide free wireless broadband to 50 percent of the population in four years and to 95 percent of the nation within 10 years.
Adopting broadband would increase the gross domestic product while keeping 61,000 jobs per year over the next 19 years and 1.2 million additional jobs in a single generation, according to a January report by the Congressional Research Service.
Seven percent broadband adoption would have $134 billion per year in direct economic impact, according to a study by Connected Nation.
Coming to the defense of the FCC is Menlo Park, Calif.-based M2Z Networks, which plans to bid on the AWS-3 spectrum and build the free nationwide broadband network.
"We made strong policy arguments about why 100 million people don't have broadband and about 45 percent of those people say they cannot afford it," said John Muleta, founder...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
RadioShack Offers $99 Acer Netbook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63538
Acer, AT&T and RadioShack have teamed up to offer a deal that brings the Acer Aspire netbook to market for only $99. Netbooks are mobile computing devices with a screen size of five to 10 inches that run a full version of a client operating system, such as Windows XP or Linux.
The Acer Aspire, with integrated 3G wireless technology, usually sells for $500. AT&T is subsidizing the cost of the device, but customers have to sign up for a two-year AT&T DataConnect mobile-broadband service agreement. Plans start at $60 a month.
"Many people internationally are already enjoying the portability, on-the-go connectivity and affordability of this emerging new technology," said Peter Whitsett, RadioShack's executive vice president of merchandising. "We are proud to introduce this concept in the U.S. by offering a netbook with integrated 3G functionality in addition to full Wi-Fi capability."
Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, called the Acer-AT&T collaboration a good deal for consumers. Netbooks, he confirmed, have taken off more quickly in Europe than in the U.S., but the timing is ripe for U.S. adoption.
"I expect to see a rising demand for netbooks over time," Kay said. "It's a development that's despite the recession. This market is rapidly attracting attention, and it's one of the growth spots; the problem is it comes at the expense of some notebooks."
Netbooks, also called mini-notebooks, are on pace to reach 5.2 million units in 2008 and eight million units in 2009, according to Gartner. The market is expected to experience strong growth. There could be as many as 50 million mini-notebooks shipped in 2012.
Several factors will drive the demand for netbooks, including a small form factor and small screen, light weight, price, ease of use, and basic but sufficient PC functionality, according to...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Google Chrome Emerges From Beta Test Phase
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63537
Google's Chrome 1.0 has emerged from beta testing. The change to a final release came just 100 days after testers began submitting feedback about bugs and other outstanding issues, noted Google Vice President Sundar Pichai.
"Some of the areas where we've made great progress include better stability and performance of plug-ins," with video and audio glitches "among the most common bugs fixed during the beta period," Pichai said. "If you had problems watching videos with Google Chrome in the past, you should be pleasantly surprised with the performance now."
Chrome's ability to start up fast and load pages quickly has already attracted a small but loyal following. Chrome's share of the browser market recently rose to 1 percent for the first time since the days immediately following its early September launch, according to Net Applications.
"One cause of this rise is that Google is leveraging its dominant search engine by intermittently placing a nine-word link on their home page advertising Chrome," the Web metrics tracker said.
Google hopes to build on Chrome's reputation for speed by promising more turbocharges. "Since the first beta, the V8 JavaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster on the SunSpider benchmark and 1.5 times faster on the V8 benchmark -- and there is more speed to come," Pichai said.
Chrome's development team has also made it easier for users to control their browsing data. "All of the features in Google Chrome which affect user privacy are now grouped in one place with detailed explanations for each one," Pichai said.
Chrome beta users made better bookmark features one of their top requests, and Google responded. "It's now easier to switch between another browser and Google Chrome with the bookmark import and export features, and we added a new simple way to manage large numbers of bookmarks,"...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
More Research Needed To Study Risk of Nanotechnology
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63530
There are more than 700 products on the market today that are touched, worn and used -- ranging from cosmetics to electronics -- that involve nanomaterials. In the next decade a number of products, including food and medical therapies, will also be derived from nanomaterials.
There's not enough funding, leadership and research being conducted to study the health and environmental risks that might come with products made from nanomaterials, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Research Council (NRC).
Nanomaterials are materials made at the nanoscale, or at 100 nanometers or smaller. Nanotechnology is the science of making matter at the atomic or molecular scale.
The NRC said a plan developed by the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) does not show a clear understanding of risks associated with the development and use of nanomaterials and products, nor does the NNI's plan include goals to ensure that nanotechnologies are developed and used as safely as possible, according to the report.
"The current plan catalogs nano-risk research across several federal agencies, but it does not present an overarching research strategy needed to gain public acceptance and realize the promise of nanotechnology," said David Eaton, chairman of the NRC committee and professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.
For electronics, nanotechnology is used to increase the capabilities of consumer-technology products, while decreasing weight, power and consumption.
Display technologies for laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and other devices are made of nano-structured polymer films known as "organic light emitting diodes."
Computer hard drives contain giant magnetoresistance heads with nano-thin layers of magnetic materials that enable a huge increase in storage capacity. And researchers are developing memory chips using nanotechnology.
Motorola is working on nano-emissive displays; Intel is working on integrated circuits with nano-sized features; and California Molecular Electronics...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Babelgum Launches Free Video to Mobile
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63527
Free video to mobile phones became reality on Wednesday in cell phone-crazy Italy, where Vodafone users with certain late-generation smart phones can now watch video content from Internet TV operator Babelgum, free of data charges.
The twinning of Babelgum's content with Vodafone's service is a next step toward realizing the full promise of smart phones, which integrate the Internet with the mobile phone.
The Italian launch will be followed by the rollout in Britain on Thursday, with other countries, including the United States, to follow, Babelgum said.
The Babelgum-Vodafone alliance will offer Babelgum's content free with no additional data charges to Vodafone clients with an iPhone 3G, Nokia N95 or 6210, and will eventually be supported by advertising.
Bocconi media professor Carlo Alberto Maffe said the Babelgum project is well adapted to European tastes, where mobile broadcasting never took off the way it has in places like Korea and Japan.
"It's a video snack," Maffe said, noting players like YouTube already are attracting mobile viewers in Europe. "It is time for a new kind of Internet access and content, the fruition of the process (being pursued) by all major media and technology companies."
Babelgum, launched by the founder of the Italian telecommunication company Fastweb as a Web site that streams video for free, has set itself apart from sites like YouTube that are partially outlets for amateur video by providing only professionally produced content. Its mobile offerings will be generally shorter videos, including comedy, music videos, short independent films, animation as well as selections from its on-line film and video festivals, and will vary by country, depending on copyrights.
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Yahoo Tells Workers Who's Being Laid Off
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63518
Yahoo on Wednesday began notifying employees who are among 1,500 to be laid off this year.
The struggling Internet company, which announced the 10 percent workforce reduction in October, notified a majority of those affected. The rest will find out by the end of the month, Yahoo says.
Yahoo plans on consolidating offices in North America and closing a handful of offices in northern Europe. It says it will hire aggressively in lower-cost locales such as Eastern Europe, India and Southeast Asia.
If the economy continues to falter, Yahoo is prepared to cut more jobs and other expenses in 2009, Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen has said.
"The reductions we're making are very hard, but they are also very necessary -- as we focus on the long-term health of our business," Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said in a blog post Wednesday.
The highest-profile personnel change is who will replace Yang, who in November said he would step down.
On Tuesday, one name surfaced as a possible successor: former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin.
Sarin is one of several candidates being considered by Yahoo's 11-person board, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources. USA TODAY could not independently confirm that Sarin is under consideration.
A Yahoo spokesman had no comment. Sarin couldn't be reached for comment.
Whoever is picked to guide Yahoo faces a grueling task.
The Internet icon is mired in a prolonged slump, during which it has lost market share and sales to rival Google.
The new Yahoo CEO must transform its search, media and communications properties, says Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities.
One of the company's largest investors, Ivory Investment Management, is urging Yahoo to pursue a sale of its search unit to Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said he's open to such a deal.
Yahoo rejected Microsoft's $47.5 billion takeover offer...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Australia To Test Filter for Internet Content
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63512
The Australian government plans to test a nationwide Web filtration system that would force Internet service providers to block access to thousands of sites containing illegal content, prompting cries of censorship from online advocacy groups.
The proposed filter is part of a $82 million "cyber-safety plan" started in May with the goals of protecting children online and stopping adults from downloading content whose possession is illegal in Australia, such as child pornography or terrorist materials.
But the plan has sparked opposition from online advocacy groups and industry experts who say it would slow browsing speeds and do little to block undesirable content.
Last month, the minister of communications, Stephen Conroy, invited Internet service providers, or ISPs, and mobile phone operators to participate in a live trial of the program, which is set to begin this year.
The proposed filtration system consists of two tiers.
Under the first , all Australian service providers would be forced to block access to around 10,000 Web sites on a list maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the federal monitor that oversees film classifications.
The second tier would require service providers to provide an optional filter that individuals could apply to block material deemed unsuitable for children, like pornography or violence.
The government says the list, which is not available to the public, includes only illegal content, mostly child pornography. But critics worry about the lack of transparency and say the filter could be used to block a range of morally hazy topics, like gambling or euthanasia.
"Even if the scheme is introduced with the best of intentions, there will be enormous political pressure on the government to expand the list," said Colin Jacobs, the vice chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a technology advocacy group. "We worry that the scope of the list would expand at a very rapid rate."
The...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
A Faster, Quieter and Cooler Wave of Disk Drives
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63510
Sherman Black, a senior vice president at Seagate Technology, the leader in hard disk drives, lies awake at night worrying that his teenagers are part of a new generation of computer users who don't care if their data is stored locally or on the Web.
It matters to Black's industry because a growing number of consumers are eagerly eyeing a new wave of solid-state disk drives. Made from arrays of flash memory chips, these new drives are smaller and many times faster than the traditional hard disk disks that read and write magnetic ones and zeroes on a rotating platter.
They are also, of course, more expensive. Small solid-state drives, with capacities of 2, 4 or 16 gigabytes, are already standard components of the "netbook" laptops being sold by Dell and Hewlett-Packard, and a 128-gigabyte drive now sells as a $500 upgrade to the MacBook Air from Apple.
This shift in storage technology is now possible because of the growth in flash chips. They are now ubiquitous in handheld devices like digital cameras and MP3 players. The other reason the shift is happening now is that these solid-state drives (so called because, unlike magnetic disk drives, they have no moving parts) are being designed to fit in the same space in laptops currently used by industry-standard 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch hard disks.
There are many benefits to this newer technology. Like hard disks, information can be stored permanently in flash chips even when power is turned off, and the chips can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. They make no noise, give off little heat and consume far less power, while transferring data on average many times faster than hard disks.
Of course, there are caveats. While solid-state drives can read information more quickly than hard disks, some models write information more slowly. That means that,...
Sat, 13 Dec 08
Alcatel-Lucent CEO Faces Tough Test
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63509
New Alcatel-Lucent chief Ben Verwaayen faces a difficult job Friday as he tries to convince shareholders he can turn around the troubled French-U.S. telecommunications equipment maker the way he did BT Group PLC.
Verwaayen, credited with transforming the British telecoms company into a broadband Internet powerhouse, will be expected to pull off similar results at Alcatel-Lucent SA, a company still beset by integration problems two years after its creation in a giant trans-Atlantic merger, analysts say.
Better integration of the company's two halves, a robust response to Asian challengers, and a clear strategy to cut costs are all elements of the plan that analysts hope to see detailed at the special meeting Friday, a little over three months since Verwaayen took over from departed CEO Patricia Russo.
"What I'd like to see is how Alcatel-Lucent is going to better integrate its businesses," especially its long-suffering North American operations, said Julian Watson, an industry analyst at London-based research firm IHS Global Insight.
Analysts agree the main problem facing Verwaayen is Alcatel-Lucent's wireless business.
Its main difficulty in North America has been the sharp slowdown in sales of a wireless technology known as CDMA. That technology was a money spinner for Lucent in North America but in recent years has lost the battle of standards to the European-developed GSM technology.
This led the company to slash its sales outlook and take a EU810 million charge in its second quarter accounts.
Asian competitors such as Shenzhen, China-based ZTE Corp. and another Chinese company, Huawei Technologies Co., have grown in strength and are increasingly proving fierce rivals for Alcatel-Lucent and other European equipment giants like LM Ericsson AB and Nokia Siemens Networks.
"Asian competitors are pressing in at all levels," Ovum RHK analyst Julien Grivolas said. "Especially in mobile, over the last two years there's been very strong pressure from Asian equipment...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
AOL's Bebo Collects Social-Networking Info in One Place
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63505
AOL purchased Bebo, a social-media Web site, for $850 million in March. Now Bebo is looking to gain market share against rivals Facebook and MySpace by making it easier to manage communications.
AOL on Wednesday said Bebo is now giving users a one-stop "social inbox" that combines e-mail, social networking, and media recommendations in a single interface.
Specifically, Bebo's social inbox offers one-click access to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, and user-selected media favorites such as videos, music and photos. More than 100 million AOL and AIM users can log into the Bebo service using existing screen names. The inbox aggregates feeds and updates from Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube, AIM and others, so users can see what's happening in their online world.
"People want the ability to stay in touch with their contacts in real time wherever their friends may be across the Web," said Joanna Shields, president of AOL People Networks. "The current fragmented social-networking environment makes keeping up to date with others increasingly difficult. Bebo's new social inbox is our first step in solving this problem."
AOL further identified the problem as a "cluttered social-networking experience" with friends scattered across the Web on multiple sites that require too much time and effort to access. By letting users pool key updates and information from multiple sites in one place, AOL said, Bebo builds on the foundations of social networking to offer an all-in-one destination.
"A lot of people subscribe to a lot of social-networking sites," said Jeff Zabin, a social-media analyst at the Aberdeen Group. "The ultimate goal is to cut down on the information overload people experience. Anything that tames information overload with the busy worker nowadays should be well received and appreciated. It all depends on how this is executed, how intuitive it is and how...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Sony Opens Its PS3 'Home' for the Holidays
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63504
After much delay, Sony Computer Entertainment is opening its Home on Thursday. The Home virtual community, originally scheduled for a 2007 launch but hit with several delays, will be available to PlayStation 3 owners worldwide free of charge.
PS3 users will be able to download and install the Home software, create three-dimensional avatars to represent themselves in the community, and communicate with others. The company said the main activity will be creating friends as avatars visit virtual bowling alleys, arcades, game- and movie-related spaces, and homes.
Sony says Home, which has been in a closed beta stage for months, will leverage the power of the PS3 and deliver "overwhelming visual graphics and rich gaming social experiences only possible on the PS3 platform."
Susan Panico, senior director of the PlayStation Network, called Home "a social gaming service unlike anything else on the market."
Users will also have access to mini-games, videos and special events, and will be able to create their own communities via the Club*2 feature. Players can also launch into their favorite online games with friends in the Home community, and communicate through text or voice chat.
PS3 owners in North America will be able to explore high-definition virtual environments, such as Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Far Cry 2 spaces, as well as upcoming Warhawk, Resistance, Guitar Hero, and SOCOM. In these spaces, users can discuss specific strategies and get access to content or clues related to that game.
Sony Computer Entertainment is partnering with various game publishers to create virtual environments and other content. The publishers include Activision, Disney Eidos, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, THQ and Ubisoft.
There will also be tie-ins with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, which will provide "original intellectual property" in specific spaces, sponsorship of events, virtual items, and exclusive media viewings....
Thu, 11 Dec 08
HP Will Offer 'Green' Boston Power Notebook Batteries
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63503
Boston Power, staying true to its goal of developing products that respect the environment, has developed a new "green" battery for notebooks. It is working with Hewlett-Packard to put the lithium-based battery in both new HP notebooks and in existing notebooks.
HP and Boston Power have been collaborating on the Sonata battery for the past three years to give customers a reliable battery friendly to the environment. HP customers purchasing new notebooks will be able to add Sonata as an upgrade, and existing notebook owners will be able to buy Sonata batteries to replace their existing batteries or as a spare.
The environmentally friendly batteries are expected to cost more.
"Consumers depend on their notebook computers as much as they do because they enable mobility -- whether being used for leisure or work activities," said Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and chief executive of Boston Power. "To truly empower users with that type of flexibility, batteries have to last longer and provide more dependable performance."
HP has been considering the environmental impact of its products since 1992 when it launched its Design for the Environment program to reduce the energy needed to manufacture and use HP products, reduce the amount of materials used, develop products with less environmental impact, and design equipment that is easier to upgrade and recycle.
Tapping Boston Power's batteries is part of that effort. Boston Power competes with Sony and Panasonic batteries, but its focus on the environment may have made HP's choice easier.
"HP is known around the world for delivering breakthrough technologies and meaningful innovation to consumers," said Jonathan Kaye, director of consumer notebooks at HP. "By partnering with Boston Power, we are able to offer our customers batteries with a longer lifespan and help reduce the amount of technology waste in landfills."
Boston...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Acer Grabs World's Top Mini-Notebook Slot
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63502
Acer outdueled Asus in the third quarter to become the world's No. 1 seller of mini-notebook PCs, according to DisplaySearch and Gartner.
Though Asus essentially created the mini-notebook segment in late 2007, DisplaySearch reports that Acer was able to capture more than 35 percent of the market globally in the third quarter, stripping market share from its main rival. Gartner confirmed that the rivals have swapped market-share slots.
The so-called "mini-note" segment grew at more than a 160 percent clip in the third quarter, observed John Jacobs, DisplaySearch's director of notebook research. Demand was "especially evident in certain geographies where vendors are partnering with telecom providers to subsidize mini-note PCs, much like they do mobile phones."
Overall, third-quarter PC sales were punctuated by strong mini-notebook shipment growth on a global basis, led by robust shipments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), observed Mika Kitagawa, a principal analyst at Gartner. She cited the popularity of mini-notes as a major reason why Acer succeeded in moving past Hewlett-Packard to become the EMEA's No. 1 PC maker in the quarter.
"EMEA PC market performance was largely dictated by vendors that shipped mini-notebooks and those that did not," Kitagawa said. Acer bolstered its PC shipments in the region by delivering a significant number of units "into the telco retail channel across Western Europe."
Both globally and within the EMEA region, Acer also benefited from the Taiwan-based company's acquisitions of Gateway and Packard Bell since the end of 2007.
"The last year has been crucial to us," said Walter Deppeler, a senior corporate vice president at the Acer Group. "The results achieved in EMEA are eloquent -- we are market leaders in 10 different countries for the total PC market, and for the notebook segment we are the top vendor in 16 countries." ...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Sony Ericsson Joins Growing Google Android Group
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63484
More companies are adopting Google's Android mobile operating system and joining the Open Handset Alliance. Sony Ericsson is one of the more than a dozen new members, the alliance announced Tuesday.
"We believe Sony Ericsson can bring a wealth of experience in making consumer-focused multimedia handsets with new user experiences to the alliance, drawing on the successes of Walkman and Cyber-shot sub-brands," said Rikko Sakaguchi, Sony Ericsson's head of creation and development.
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Sony Ericsson "will expand its portfolio strategy to include support for the OHA," said spokesperson Drew Crowell. "Among other things, this means that Sony Ericsson will develop a handset based on the Android platform."
Bringing Sony to the table was a big move for Google, but it doesn't come without risk, according to analysts.
"By getting Sony Ericsson you now have one of the premier handset vendors -- a company noted for doing extremely beautiful designs now committing to bring an Android handset to market," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile devices for Jupitermedia. "The challenge that Google faces is going to be getting people to deliver on their promises."
"It is important and a powerful step to get people to sign on to the Open Handset Alliance, but at the end of the day they have signed on to a piece of paper and the real challenge is to get carriers and vendors to ship these devices and get these handsets on to carriers and into consumers' hands in 2009," Gartenberg added.
The alliance gained steam after releasing the first Android-powered smartphone along with carrier T-Mobile and maker HTC in September. And now it is gaining additional strength by adding companies such as Softbank Mobile, Teleca AB, Toshiba and Vodafone to its growing list of 47 members.
The new members will add Android devices, provide...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Microsoft Issues Largest Number of Patches Since 2003
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63483
Microsoft released eight security bulletins and one security advisory on Tuesday. It scored six of the bulletins critical and two important.
December's list of 28 vulnerabilities is the largest Microsoft has addressed since it first designated the second Tuesday of each month Patch Tuesday in late 2003. All the critical issues are client-side remote-code execution vulnerabilities, meaning any attacks would require user interaction -- as little as viewing a compromised Web page.
Besides the bulletins, Microsoft's security advisory notes it is investigating reports of a vulnerability in WordPad Text Converter for Microsoft Word 97 files on Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, and Windows Server.
"The sheer number of vulnerabilities being patched is what grabs my attention. They all have the potential to be dangerous if not patched," said Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager for Symantec Security Response.
"While Web-based attacks seem to be the main choice for opportunistic attackers, targeted attacks are often carried out via malicious Word and Excel files attached to e-mail messages. While both of these vectors have vulnerabilities patched by today's release, the number of vulnerabilities in Word and Excel provides attackers additional means to carry out these kinds of attacks."
According to Greenbaum, the ActiveX, GDI, Windows search, and Internet Explorer vulnerabilities will be targeted on sites that users trust -- including social-networking sites, forums and media-sharing sites. Attackers try to get users to click on links that take them to corrupted or inserted content that includes the attack.
"This month's updates have a single message: Client-side attacks. Vulnerabilities affecting Office, search, and ActiveX Controls all scream phishing attempts and data mining, especially the sheer number of vulnerabilities affecting Office this month," said Tyler Reguly, a security research engineer at nCircle.
MS08-077...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Google Adds Print Magazines to Book Search
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63482
As print magazine circulation drops in the face of an economic downturn -- and as more magazines and newspapers roll out online-only publications -- Google is indexing old magazines.
Google on Tuesday took another step in its mission to index the world's information, releasing digital copies of more than one million articles from magazines that were on the newsstand decades ago. The announcement follows a recent move to index classic photos from Life magazine.
"Since Daniel Defoe published the world's first English magazine back in 1704, millions of magazines catering to nearly every imaginable taste have been created and consumed, passed from person to person in cafes, barber shops, libraries and homes around the world," Google software engineer Dave Foulser wrote on the company blog.
Google is partnering with publishers to put a sampling of the diverse mix of magazines online. The plan is to digitize millions of articles from titles such as New York magazine, Popular Mechanics, Ebony, Popular Science, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and more.
"If you're wondering what cars people drove in the eighties or what was in fashion 30 years ago, there's a good chance that you'll find that answer in a magazine. Yet few magazine archives are currently available online," Foulser said.
With Google Book Search, that is changing. If you're a baseball history fanatic, you can now search for "Hank Aaron pursuing Babe Ruth's record." Among the results, Google will turn up a link to a 1973 Ebony article about Aaron that was written as he closed in on Ruth's record for career home runs.
"You can read the article in full color and in its original context, just as you would in the printed magazine. Scroll back a few pages, for example, and you'll find a two-page spread on 1973's...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Cloud Computing Is No Pipe Dream
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63473
Tech pundits and practitioners alike have spilled lots of ink to hype cloud computing. They'll encourage you to think of it as IT infrastructure on demand -- like plugging into the power grid to get electricity, or turning on a faucet to get water, but getting raw computing power instead. To boot, you'll get access to storage capacity and software-based services -- and it can scale infinitely, proponents point out.
If this all sounds too good to be true -- like so much cold fusion, the now-debunked tabletop nuclear fusion reactor in a bottle -- don't be fooled. This time, getting more for less is real. And with the economy of its currently parlous condition, businesses have never needed cloud computing more.
To understand why, consider the historical perspective:
It has been nearly 15 years since Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, then chief technology officer of Sun Microsystems, articulated a simple proposition: "When the network becomes as fast as the processor, the computer hollows out and spreads across the network."
Well, guess what. Today's networks are able to move data as fast, or faster, than semiconductors can process it. All that late-1990s overinvestment in high-speed fiber-optic networks has given us communications networks that are lightning fast, relatively inexpensive, and remarkably robust -- capable of transforming how we access, organize, and share computing resources.
Schmidt's vision is becoming reality. And consumers, for their part, embrace it with gusto. From Facebook apps to Apple's iTunes, from Yahoo! Mail to AOL Instant Messaging, from Flickr photo sharing to YouTube video viewing, cloud services have taken hold. Hundreds of millions of consumers are computing in the cloud, with more users and more offerings added every day. That's just on the PC.
There are nearly 4 billion mobile phones in use around the world, and each phone, especially...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
LG Develops Handset Chip for Fast Downloads
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63470
LG Electronics Inc. claimed a step forward in the commercialization of the next generation of Internet capable handsets, demonstrating a modem chip with a download speed eight times that of the fastest mobile phones currently on the market.
The South Korean company unveiled the chip, created for a technology standard known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, at a research lab in Anyang, just outside Seoul, on Tuesday.
The so-called fourth generation technology, still under development, is vying with the rival WiMax standard to usher in super-fast Web browsing and downloads over mobile phones and other wireless devices.
"Now that LG has developed and tested the first 4G handset modem, a commercially viable LTE handset is on the horizon," Paik Woo-hyun, LG's chief technology officer, told reporters.
LG's claim to be first could not immediately be verified.
The company said that mobile carriers have built test networks and the first mobile phones using the technology will probably be available to consumers in 2010.
LG said it achieved wireless download speeds of 60 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 Mbps. The fastest phones on the market use a different technology, known as HSDPA, and download at a maximum speed of 7.6 Mbps, according to LG.
The company said that with the technology a 700 megabit movie file can be downloaded in less than one minute at speeds of 100 Mbps.
LTE also allows consumers to stream high definition movies without needing a buffer, which ensures smooth play.
LG said that companies such as Qualcomm Inc., Vodafone Group PLC, Verizon Wireless and Japan's KDDI Corp. are supporting and contributing to the development of the long-term evolution standard.
The rival WiMax, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, technology is similar to the WiFi signals available at coffee shops and airports but provides wireless data over long distances and is already in use...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Life, Liberty and GPS: Advances Have Limits
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63468
Among international outrages, depriving citizens of personalized maps seems far down on the list.
Still, that was the condition put on the introduction of iPhone 3G in Egypt. The government demanded that Apple disable the phone's global-positioning system, arguing that GPS was a military prerogative.
The company apparently complied, most likely taking a cue from the telecommunication companies that sell the phone there, said Ahmed Gabr, who runs a blog in Egypt, gadgetsarabia.com, and wrote about the iPhone's release there. "The point is that using a GPS unit you can get accurate coordinates of any place, and thus military bases and so on could be easily tagged," he wrote in an e-mail message.
I met Gabr last summer in Alexandria, Egypt, at the worldwide conference for Wikipedia. He was typical of the young Egyptians in attendance -- hungry for new technology, hopeful about what it would mean for their country.
As much as any country, however, Egypt illustrates the push-me-pull-you nature of technology under an oppressive government.
Young people flock to Facebook, in a way I never could have imagined. In the largest Arab country in the world, Facebook was a way for the educated elite to reach out to one another and to those who had left the country for an even more elite education.
Andrew Bossone, an American in Cairo who writes about technology, said that despite its expense, the iPhone in Egypt was "really popular -- everyone knows the iPhone." In addition to editing a technology magazine, he teaches at the American University in Cairo. "One of my students who comes from a wealthy family has the iPhone, and one of my designers, who is not rich, bought it on credit," he said.
Bossone said he thought the government would relent on issues like GPS because it would side with business even at the...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
Laptop Searches at Border Might Get Restricted
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63448
Mohamed Shommo, an engineer for Cisco Systems Inc., travels overseas several times a year for work, so he is accustomed to opening his bags for border inspections upon returning to the U.S. But in recent years, these inspections have gone much deeper than his luggage.
Border agents have scrutinized family pictures on Shommo's digital camera, examined Koranic verses and other audio files on his iPod and even looked up Google keyword searches he had typed into his company laptop.
"They literally searched everywhere and every device they could," said Shommo, who now minimizes what he takes on international trips and deletes pictures off his camera before returning to the U.S. "I don't think anyone has a right to look at my private belongings without my permission. You never know how they will interpret what they find."
Given all the personal details that people store on digital devices, border searches of laptops and other gadgets can give law enforcement officials far more revealing pictures of travelers than suitcase inspections might yield. That has set off alarms among civil liberties groups and travelers' advocates -- and now among some members of Congress who hope to impose restrictions on the practice next year.
They fear the government has crossed a sacred line by rummaging through electronic contact lists and confidential e-mail messages, trade secrets and proprietary business files, financial and medical records and other deeply private information.
These searches, opponents say, threaten Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable search and seizure and could chill free expression and other activities protected by the First Amendment. What's more, they warn, such searches raise concerns about ethnic and religious profiling since the targets often are Muslims, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
"I feel like I don't have any privacy," said Shommo, a native of Sudan who has been in the U.S. for...
Thu, 11 Dec 08
China Irks U.S. with Computer Security Review Rules
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63443
The Chinese government is stirring trade tensions with Washington with a plan to require foreign computer security technology to be submitted for government approval, in a move that might require suppliers to disclose business secrets.
Rules due to take effect May 1 require official certification of technology widely used to keep e-mail and company data networks secure. Beijing has yet to say how many secrets companies must disclose about such sensitive matters as how data-encryption systems work. But Washington complains the requirement might hinder imports in a market dominated by U.S. companies, and is pressing Beijing to scrap it.
"There are still opportunities to defuse this, but it is getting down to the wire," said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a Beijing technology consulting firm. "It affects trade. It's potentially really wide-scale."
Beijing tried earlier to force foreign companies to reveal how encryption systems work and has promoted its own standards for mobile phones and wireless encryption.
Those attempts and the new demand reflect Beijing's unease about letting the public keep secrets, and the government's efforts to use its regulatory system to help fledgling Chinese high-tech companies compete with global high-tech rivals. Yin Changlai, the head of a Chinese business group sanctioned by the government, has acknowledged that the rules are meant to help develop China's infant computer security industry by shielding companies from foreign rivals that he said control 70 percent of the market.
The computer security rules cover 13 types of hardware and software, including database and network security systems, secure routers, data backup and recovery systems and anti-spam and anti-hacking software. Such technology is enmeshed in products sold by Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and other industry giants.
Giving regulators the power to reject foreign technologies could help to promote sales of Chinese alternatives. But that might disrupt foreign manufacturing,...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
OpenCL Ratified, Set for Mac OS X Snow Leopard
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63481
The Khronos Group on Monday announced that its OpenCL 1.0 specification has been ratified and publicly released. Apple proposed the spec six months ago.
OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is the first open, royalty-free standard for cross-platform, parallel programming of modern processors found in personal computers, servers and handheld/embedded devices.
"The opportunity to effectively unlock the capabilities of new generations of programmable computer and graphics processors drove the unprecedented level of cooperation to refine the initial proposal from Apple into the ratified OpenCL 1.0 specification," said Neil Trevett, chairman of the OpenCL working group, president of the Khronos Group, and a vice president at Nvidia.
OpenCL is a way to program for highly parallel environments. Currently, C is the supported language in Nvidia's parallel-computing architecture. According to Khronos, OpenCL improves speed and responsiveness for a wide spectrum of applications in numerous market categories, from gaming and entertainment to scientific and medical software.
"OpenCL is the entry point for developers who want low-level APIs. OpenCL is a grittier language that's closer to the actual commands for folks that are really into optimizing their programming," said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "Having the endorsement of Apple is pretty important since they are pretty advanced in the visual space. That's a good endorsement from that platform."
OpenCL was developed and ratified by industry-leading companies, including 3DLabs, Activision Blizzard, AMD, Apple, ARM, Barco, Broadcom, Codeplay, Electronic Arts, Ericsson, Freescale, HI, IBM, Intel, Imagination Technologies, Kestrel Institute, Motorola, Movidia, Nokia, Nvidia, QNX, RapidMind, Samsung, Seaweed, Takumi, Texas Instruments and Umea University.
"We are excited about the industry-wide support for OpenCL," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. "Apple developed OpenCL so that any application in Snow Leopard, the next major version of Mac OS X, can harness an amazing amount...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Novatel Debuts MiFi Modem for Mobile Hot Spots
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63480
Novatel Wireless on Tuesday unveiled a line of what it calls Intelligent Mobile Hotspots, or MiFi, modems. With the MiFi line, Novatel hopes to drive a new ecosystem of broadband connectivity.
Novatel's solution works differently than existing router solutions that require an external broadband modem and serve only to provide connectivity. The MiFi line creates a personal cloud of high-speed Internet connectivity that can be shared between multiple users and Wi-Fi devices such as laptops, cameras, gaming devices, and multimedia players.
According to Novatel, MiFi products are capable of hosting advanced software applications and are flexible enough to address the continued evolution of mobile broadband.
"Our carrier partners will now be able to provide new wireless solutions and bundles for consumer and enterprise users," said Peter Leparulo, chairman and CEO of Novatel. "This will contribute to the continued growth of the addressable broadband market and create a unique opportunity for carriers to generate additional revenue per user through the deployment of innovative value-add applications and services."
The MiFi modems feature an internal battery that provides more than 40 hours of standby power and up to four hours of active use per charge. The modems allow users to access high-speed Internet from anywhere there is a cellular connection, including moving vehicles where multiple passengers may need Internet access.
"Mobile broadband is evolving, and with the large number of Wi-Fi-enabled electronic devices coming to market, there is a growing consumer need for Internet-ready devices and applications to stay connected while on the go," said Christopher Collins, senior analyst with the Yankee Group.
With MiFi, consumers can consolidate and personalize their mobile Internet services through a landing page whether at home, in the car, or on the go, according to Novatel. For the wireless operator, the MiFi landing page provides a window to the...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
House Report Finds Leadership Breakdown at FCC
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63479
In a scathing report released Tuesday, congressional investigators outlined a pattern of mismanagement, dysfunction and abuse of power at the Federal Communications Commission under the agency's Republican chairman, Kevin Martin.
The report -- the result of a nearly yearlong, bipartisan investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee -- accuses Martin of manipulating data and suppressing information to influence telecommunications policy debates at the agency and on Capitol Hill.
The report also charges that the commission has become politicized, failed to carry out some important responsibilities under Martin's leadership, and blames him for undermining an open and transparent regulatory process.
Martin also is accused of micromanaging commission affairs, demoting agency staffers who did not agree with him and withholding information from his fellow commissioners. "Chairman Martin's heavy-handed, opaque, and non-collegial management style has created distrust, suspicion and turmoil among the five current commissioners," the report says.
Martin's legacy at the FCC will be "a blueprint of what not to do," said Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who chairs the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
"The findings suggest that, in recent years, the FCC has operated in a dysfunctional manner and commission business has suffered as a result," said Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who will be relinquishing the reins of the panel to California Democrat Henry Waxman next year.
Robert Kenny, a spokesman for Martin, said the committee "did not find or conclude that there were any violations of rules, laws or procedures." Martin is widely expected to leave the commission after the White House changes hands.
Among the findings of the 110-page report:
- Martin manipulated the findings of an FCC inquiry into the potential consumer benefits of requiring cable companies to sell channels on an individual -- or "a la carte" -- basis. The House investigation concludes that Martin undermined the integrity of the...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
MySpace Answers Google, Facebook with Open Platform
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63478
Days after announcements from Facebook and Google about their new social-networking platforms, MySpace on Monday announced the launch of the MySpace Open Platform along with a roster of partners, including Vodafone and Netvibes.
The MySpace Open Platform includes several data-portability products -- the MySpace Application Platform, MySpaceID, and the Post To MySpace sharing feature -- that are now being newly branded, expanded and combined into the platform as a suite. As with Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, MySpaceID expands on users' abilities to control their portable social identity as they move between sites online.
MySpace has allied itself with the Google camp, announcing its support for Google Friend Connect as part of MySpaceID. Google Friend Connect allows any Web site that is part of the network to provide social features, such as a single log-in or access to a user's profile.
MySpaceID, which the company said is now available on AOL, Flock, Eventful, Flixster, Yoono and others, has two main components. One is an open-standards stack, including OpenSocial, OAuth and OpenID; and the other is Google Friend Connect.
MySpaceID allows users to connect MySpace profile information to partner sites and to find MySpace friends on a partner site. Upcoming capabilities will include registering on partner sites using your MySpace info, publishing activities from partner sites to MySpace, and syndicating activities on MySpace to partner sites.
MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe said the Web has moved from "curated experiences to personalized start pages, and now we're in the age of identity management." MySpace first announced the ability for its users to take their identity around the Web about six months ago.
The new effort also moves MySpace's portable identity management deeper into the world of mobile devices. In conjunction with the mobile communications giant Vodafone, the company said the OpenSocial standard has evolved to...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Tightening Budgets Mean a Rough Ride for IT
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63477
Industry analysts say the technology sector needs to brace for a tough quarter and year. There's no longer any doubt about the U.S. being in a recession. The questions at this point are how deep it will be and how long it will last.
As consumers tighten their wallets, so will businesses tighten IT budgets. Computer sales are falling and sales of other products such as communications equipment and software are expected to slow, according to a report released Tuesday by Forrester Research.
Analysts at the research company expect the recession will last into the middle of next year. Economists expect the gross domestic product will fall 2.6 percent to 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter. Such a decline will pull down growth in U.S. business and government purchases of information technology to 1.6 percent in 2009 from 4.1 percent in 2008, according to Andrew Bartels, lead author of the report.
It was only a matter of time before the recession hit the technology sector hard. October and November brought a mortgage crisis and the ripple effect led to credit freezes. Those freezes not only hurt cash-strapped consumers, but technology companies supplying equipment to banks, auto companies, and financial-services firms.
Computer equipment purchases are already spiraling downward and growth is slowing for network equipment, software purchases, and IT consulting and outsourcing. The fourth quarter and the first half of 2009 don't look any better as software growth is expected to slow to two percent.
Computer manufacturers such as Dell, IBM and HP saw global server sales drop 5.4 percent to $12.7 billion in the quarter, according to Gartner. IBM lost 4.2 percent in server revenue, HP 3.9 percent, and Dell 5.2 percent.
Companies may be cleaning house by cutting costs, cutting back on investments, and only spending on critical technology. Some are...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 Available with New Features
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63476
Mozilla has quietly rolled out its second beta download of the next-generation Firefox Web browser, code-named Shiretoko. Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 is a public preview release primarily intended for developer testing and community feedback.
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 is available for download in 54 languages. Though the software's developers consider their latest public release to be stable, they said users of Firefox 3.0 should not expect all their browser plug-ins to work properly with Firefox 3.1 Beta 2.
The latest Firefox milestone is focused on testing core functionality, noted Mike Beltzner, director for Mozilla Firefox. "It includes many new features as well as improvements to performance, Web compatibility, and speed," he said.
Just like the alpha release of the Opera 10 browser, Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 lets Web site designers link their pages to downloadable fonts to display Unicode characters not otherwise supported and to render sites more precisely. Additionally, the Beta 2 release now supports Canvas shadow effects.
Other notable Beta 2 improvements include the default use of a considerably faster Tracemonkey JavaScript engine, the addition of speculative parsing to the Gecko 1.9.1 layout engine to speed up content rendering, and support for new Web technologies such as the W3C Geolocation API. However, Firefox 3.1 Beta 2's main claim to fame comes from its incorporation of slick privacy browsing.
"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," said developer Ehsan Akhgari. "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."
Up to now, Firefox users who want to cover their Web-surfing tracks have had to...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Google Launches Mobile Ads for iPhone, G1
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63475
Google on Monday announced a new option that lets AdWords advertisers show text and image ads formatted for PCs and laptops on Apple's iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full Web browsers. What's new is that advertisers no longer need to format ads and related Web pages for those mobile devices.
Advertisers can still deliver mobile-specific calls to action and reach mobile searchers. The ads are already running on the iPhone and G1.
"Recently, the Google mobile team launched new results pages formatted specifically for the iPhone," Alexandra Kenin, product marketing manager for Google's Mobile Ads team, wrote on the company's mobile blog.
"Now, advertisers will be able to display ads exclusively on these mobile devices, create campaigns for them, and get separate performance reporting," Kenin said. "If you prefer not to show your [regular] ads on these phones, you can opt out and show ads only on desktop and laptop computers."
Advertisers who want to target ads for the iPhone and G1 can go to the campaign settings tab in an AdWords account. Next, select "iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers" for the "Device Platform" option under "Networks and Bidding."
Kenin noted that for advertisers already running Google's mobile ads, this new option will not affect current campaigns. Advertisers can still create mobile ads that show up on other mobile devices. But now they have one more option.
"As additional devices that use full browsers enter the market, your ads will show on those phones, too," Kenin said. "If you currently have an AdWords campaign running, by default your campaign will show ads on desktop and laptop computers, as well as iPhone and G1."
Business may be slowing for many companies but there are a lot of people who are still spending money, and...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Microsoft Offers To Shrink Time It Keeps Search Data
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63469
Microsoft offered Monday to observe a European privacy panel's request to reduce the length of time it kept search queries made by individuals to six months if its rivals, Yahoo and Google, did the same.
Google and Yahoo, in separate statements, said they were unwilling for now to change their policies.
Microsoft said it made the offer in a letter to the Article 29 Working Party, a European Commission advisory panel comprised of data protection commissioners from each of its 27 member countries. In April, the panel recommended that search engines kept user logs no longer than six months before making the data untraceable.
Microsoft's MSN Live Search currently retains search data for 18 months. Yahoo keeps data for 13 months and Google for 9 months. The advisory panel was to meet Tuesday and Wednesday but its members are postponing a decision on whether to take any action against the companies until at least February, when the companies are to make presentations before the panel.
John Vassallo, an attorney for Microsoft, said Microsoft was not willing to act alone because doing so would create a commercial disadvantage.
"We support the commissioners' recommendations but are asking them to ensure these are uniformly observed," said Vassallo, who is based in Brussels. "Otherwise, to do so unilaterally would put us at a disadvantage."
Search engine practices are one area in which cutting-edge Web technology is coming into conflict with stricter European privacy rules. German and Swiss officials have also expressed concerns about the Google Street View map technology, which puts photographic street images on the Web without the consent of property owners, which violates privacy laws in those countries.
In the debate about data retention, search engines have said that they need more time to process data to enhance the performance of the search engines. Privacy advocates say the companies...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Cisco Moves To Optimize Booming Media Traffic
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63461
With video and other rich media growing by leaps and bounds on the Internet and in corporate networks, Cisco has decided it's time to optimize. On Monday, the San Jose, Calif.-based company introduced new technologies and solutions it said will better enable "medianets" in home networks, businesses and through Internet service providers.
The company said "data-based communications are being replaced by video and rich media," and this is straining networks originally designed primarily for data.
Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's Emerging Technologies group, said that "in the near future, 90 percent of consumer network traffic will be video and rich media," resulting not only in new kinds of networks but in "immersive new experiences" that combine rich media, voice and data on a single network platform.
De Beer's projection is based on a Cisco forecast for the years 2007 through 2012, which showed, among other things, that user-generated video content will triple by 2012.
To accommodate this massive wave of video and other rich media, Cisco's initiative includes a variety of announcements. The potentially largest one is a "create once and share anywhere" Media Processing platform for enterprises, designed for media conversion, real-time post production, editing, formatting and network distribution.
The Media Processing platform simplifies live and on-demand media traffic between mobile devices, PCs and other viewing devices. The first product within the platform is the Media Experience Engine 3000, which can take video optimized for one kind of device and, in real time, convert it for another device.
Additionally, the new Cisco ASR 9000 edge router, introduced last month, utilizes an Advanced Video Services Module that provides terabytes of streaming capacity, plus content caching, ad insertion, fast channel change, and error correction. Cisco said AVSM eliminates the need for stand-alone content-delivery components in the network, while moving the...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Sony Plans Worldwide Cutbacks as Recession Spreads
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63460
While the nation's top three automobile giants are trying to convince the government that they need a bailout, other businesses are doing what they can to stay afloat even if it means slashing thousands of positions.
Today, Sony joined the growing list of companies who have had to cut a percentage of their workforce to stay competitive. Sony announced Tuesday that it will slash 8,000 positions between now and March 2010 in its electronics business, cut operation costs, and cut inventory.
Cutting four percent of its 185,000 global workforce and an additional 8,000 temporary positions (not counted in its workforce number) is expected to save Sony $1 billion (92.5 billion yen) a year by the end of March 2010. Sony's consolidated annual sales for the fiscal year ending March 31 were $88.7 billion and consolidated sales in the U.S. for the same period were $29 billion.
The recession has hit the U.S., Japan and Europe and the company does not know how long it will last, Naofumi Hara, a senior vice president at Sony, told the Associated Press.
The announcement of job cuts comes after the company tapped Howard Stringer, the first non-Japanese executive to lead the company. Stringer was well on his way in helping the company, but the recession put a kink in plans to grow sales of everything from LCD TVs to the popular PlayStation gaming console.
Sony joins a growing list of companies that have recently slashed positions, including AT&T, DuPont, Viacom, Circuit City, and Adobe Systems.
The Japanese electronics maker is putting the squeeze on several things. Sony said it will reduce or postpone planned investments and outsource its planned increase in manufacturing of CMOS image sensors for mobile phones.
Televisions made by Sony will also be affected, as the company plans to stop production at...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Biggest Holiday Bargains Are Online This Season
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63445
With economic uncertainty tainting everyone's holiday spirit, consumers are bracing to stay within their budgets -- especially when it comes to holiday shopping. This year, experts say, gift-givers will find some of the best deals online.
"Online shopping will be second only to discount shopping for customers in terms of finding value for their money," said Steve Lemelin, regional leader of consumer business for Deloitte. "For that very reason, it's the multi channel retailers who are going to fare better this season."
That means retailers with both brick-and-mortar locations and a Web presence will benefit the most, especially if their online incentives include steep price cuts, cash rebates and free extras, such as shipping.
For people who abhor the holiday crowds, online shopping has always been a refuge for its speed and convenience. These veteran online shoppers should expect more competition this time around from a new crowd seeking better prices, faster comparison shopping and online-only offers -- and then some. In this season's tough economy, experts expect online consumers to be increasingly reluctant to pay for shipping and more proactive about asking for discounts, incentives and coupons. In some cases, consumers will hold off buying until they're sure prices have hit rock bottom and won't succumb to impulse buys.
"People are smarter about doing their research before heading out," said Pam Goodfellow, senior analyst for BigResearch, a consumer market intelligence company that works with the National Retail Federation.
Still, Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, said online retailers have their work cut out for them in the weeks ahead.
"Online retailers are resilient, but not immune, to the challenges of this holiday season," Silverman said.
Despite forecasts of flat to declining retail store sales this holiday season, the predictions are more optimistic for online shopping, which is expected to grow by as much as...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Hynix Semiconductor Working to Raise Cash
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South Korea's money-losing Hynix Semiconductor Inc. is making progress toward raising new capital from creditors and direct backing from the government is not being considered, officials said Monday.
Hynix, the world's second-largest manufacturer of computer memory chips after Samsung Electronics Co., has racked up four straight quarters of net losses amid a long slump in the semiconductor industry.
The Icheon, South Korea-based company is talking with creditors, which own 36 percent of its shares, said Hynix executive James Kim. Solutions available include obtaining asset-secured loans, issuing new shares and selling idle assets.
"We are discussing possible options very positively at this time," said Kim, who heads investor relations at Hynix. "But action won't be happening now."
Kim said that nothing has been decided and it would take Hynix a month or two "to select the best option for us."
The company, which is looking to raise up to 1 trillion won ($690.6 million), is in no immediate danger, but its cash position could come under pressure if industry conditions do not improve, Kim said.
Kim Eun-young, a spokeswoman for Korea Exchange Bank, Hynix's largest creditor, said nothing had been decided.
Hynix announced Sunday that it will carry out a massive cost-cutting effort to free up cash that can be used to help it recover from what it termed a "management crisis in line with the long downturn in the memory chip market and global economic slowdown."
The company said it will slash top officials' pay, cut the number of executives, encourage workers to quit voluntarily and make all employees take two weeks of unpaid leave between January and April next year.
Hynix competes with Samsung Electronics in NAND flash and DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips. NAND chips are used in digital devices such as music players and cameras, while DRAMs are used mostly in personal computers.
Semiconductor manufacturers...
Wed, 10 Dec 08
Competitors Step Up To Battle the iPhone
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This holiday season, mobile phone makers and carriers are pushing some shiny new toys: cellphones with touch-sensitive screens like the one on the Apple iPhone.
The companies are hoping to duplicate the blockbuster success of the iPhone with models that, in their glassy minimalism, end up looking a lot like it. These include the G1, powered by the Android software from Google; the Instinct and Omnia from Samsung; the LG Dare; and most recently the much-anticipated BlackBerry Storm from Research In Motion.
But with consumers keeping a close watch on their bank balances, analysts and industry experts say, most touch-screen phones will have trouble getting onto the list of must-have gadgets for this season.
The surge of touch screens has its roots in the introduction of the iPhone on AT&T's network in June 2007. That left rival carriers scrambling for comparable offerings.
"What you're seeing right now is the first wave of competitors spurred by the media juggernaut for the iPhone," said Ed Snyder, a telecommunications industry analyst with Charter Equity Research. Snyder said that when the iPhone hype hit, "no credible cell phone executive could not get a touch-screen phone started."
Since its introduction, the iPhone, which is available in the United States only through AT&T, has helped the carrier steal customers from other carriers. Wireless service operators are concentrating on retaining current subscribers as much as they are trying to get new ones, said Charles Golvin, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. Part of that strategy, Golvin said, is offering perquisites like exclusive "pre-sales" of hot new models to subscribers.
Phone shoppers say carriers and contracts have a lot of influence on their decisions about phones. "I'm pretty sure my next phone will be a touch-screen," said Vernon McIntosh, 40, a personal trainer from New York who is an AT&T customer.
McIntosh was in...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Netflix, TiVo Team Up To Stream Video Content
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63459
Netflix and TiVo on Monday took their partnership to the next level. The companies announced that consumers who subscribe to both Netflix and TiVo Series 3, TiVo HD, or TiVo HD XL can access movies and TV episodes instantly streamed from Netflix directly to their TVs -- at no additional charge.
"With so much talk focusing on the economy these days, this partnership makes more sense than ever because it brings people more movies at home, offering substantially more entertainment options than cable or satellite," said Tara Maitra, general manager and vice president of content services at TiVo.
Subscribers can browse through Netflix's library of more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes, add them to their Netflix instant queue, and then watch them on TV. The library includes titles from every genre. Netflix said both standard and HD titles are expected to grow.
"TiVo offers consumers everything they need from just one box. Not only great content from Netflix, but also movies from the Walt Disney Studios and Amazon, music from Rhapsody, videos from YouTube, and even pictures from Picasa Web Albums and Photobucket. And that's all in addition to TiVo's core functionality that made us a favorite in the first place," Maitra said. "It adds up to a one-of-a-kind value."
Movies are streamed from Netflix through TiVo DVRs via a wired or wireless broadband connection and a Netflix queue-based user interface. Films and TV shows in members' individual queues will automatically be displayed on subscribers' TVs, and are available to watch instantly through the TiVo service.
With the TiVo remote control, users can browse their queue, make selections right on the TV screen, and even read synopses and rate movies. In addition, consumers have the option of pausing, fast-forwarding, rewinding and restarting the movie or television show.
Phil Leigh,...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
UK Agency Blocks Wikipedia Image, Editing of Site
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63458
Internet users in the United Kingdom can no longer edit Wikipedia or access an article about an album by the Scorpions, a German rock band. The Internet Watch Foundation, a UK regulatory agency, blacklisted the site Saturday after a user reported the image on the album as child sex abuse. The hotline analysts determined the image was potentially illegal.
"The IWF does not issue takedown notices to ISPs [Internet Service Providers] or hosting companies outside the UK, but we did advise one of our partner hotlines abroad and our law-enforcement partner agency of our assessment," the group said on its Web site. "The specific URL (individual Web page) was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child."
On its Web site, Wikipedia said several large ISPs that cooperate with the IWF subsequently blocked the image, affecting an estimated 95 percent of residential Internet users in the UK.
"Due to the way the block was created (via transparent proxies), users from the affected ISPs now share a small number of IP addresses. This means that a user committing vandalism cannot be distinguished from all the other people on the same ISP," Wikipedia said.
"Unfortunately, the effect of this is that all users from the affected ISPs are temporarily blocked from editing Wikipedia. Simply viewing the site is not affected, aside from the blocked article and image."
According to Mike Godwin, the Wikipedia Foundation's general counsel, there is no reason to believe the article, or the 32-year-old image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world.
"We believe it's worth noting that the image is currently visible on Amazon, where...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Report Recommends National Office for Cyberspace
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63457
The Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency released a report Monday on Internet security with recommendations. The focus of the commission, part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is to provide President-Elect Barack Obama's administration with insight on cybercriminal activities.
In recent years U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, have experienced computer break-ins.
The commission was established in August 2007 to plan policy changes for the new administration. It has made more than two dozen recommendations to the Obama administration, including creating a new office for cyberspace. To create the office, it recommends merging the National Cyber Security Center and the Joint Interagency Task Force.
"We will never be fully secure in cyberspace, but much can be done to reduce risk, increase resiliency, and gain new strengths," the commission's report says. "We believe that the next administration can improve the security situation in relatively short order."
The commission, which met four times and had 30 briefings with government officials and private-sector experts, said the cyberspace war has begun and recommended that the proposed National Office for Cyberspace assume authority.
A Center for Cyber Security Operations was also proposed. The CCSO would be a nonprofit group of public and private agencies collaborating on security matters.
Security experts, including Microsoft's Paul Nicholas and McAfee's Dan Hickey, and research scientists, including Jim Gosler of Sandia National Laboratories and Clint Kreitner, president of the Center for Internet Security, advised the commission.
It's likely this will be the first step in the Bush administration's $15 billion cybersecurity initiative.
The National Office for Cyberspace would have authority to revise the Federal Information Security Management Act, oversee the Trusted Internet Connection initiative and the Federal Desktop Core Configuration, and require agencies to submit budget proposals relating to cyberspace before submission to the Office...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Google Releases Unlocked Android G1 for Developers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63456
The new Android-based G1 sold by T-Mobile is now out in an unlocked version -- for developers. Last week, Google announced on its Android blog the availability of the Android Dev Phone 1, a device that is unlocked for SIM cards and in the hardware.
The Dev Phone can use any GSM carrier's SIM card, and the unlocked bootloader will work with custom Android builds as developers try out new applications. Google noted that the bootloader in the Dev Phone is different from the retail G1, allowing a developer to access handset features with custom builds.
Any SIM card from any GSM provider worldwide can be used, enabling development in countries where T-Mobile's G1 is not offered.
The Dev Phone is available for $399, but only to registered Android developers. There's a limit of one device for each developer account, and Google noted that it's not intended for end users.
Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, noted that the release of an unlocked device for developers is a fairly standard practice, but added he "certainly hopes" we will see unlocked Android devices for the consumer market.
"That's part of the whole premise" of the Android open-source platform, he said. He expects some Android devices will be customized for wireless carriers and some will be unlocked and available on the open market.
T-Mobile is the largest of two companies offering an Android device, with the other Kogan Technology. Last week, Kogan announced the availability of its Android-based Agora and Agora Pro mobile phones for the Australian market.
The G1 from T-Mobile has had a strong reception in the marketplace, according to the company. New third-party applications are being released, and sales projections keep increasing. For instance, Peter Chou, CEO of G1 maker HTC, last month upped his sales projections...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Intel Uses Silicon for Communication Between Cores
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63455
An Intel-led research team has developed an inexpensive silicon-based device that promises to revolutionize the way that multiple processor cores communicate within computing systems.
The research team's avalanche photodetector (APD) is designed to sense and amplify optical signals and convert the light beams into electrical signals, said Yimin Kang, a senior researcher at Intel, who noted that manufacturers currently pay more than $100 for a single device of this type.
"Intel's motivation is to make a device that is very low cost" by building it "out of silicon using germanium materials," Kang said. "Silicon is not only a very cheap material," but also can be produced using "a process that is very mature, very robust."
The new silicon-based light sensor is yet another significant step in the industry's development of ultrafast data-transfer methods that will enable computing devices to be powered by greater numbers of processor cores, notes Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab.
"Today we are moving from single core to multi-core, and we see quad-core coming," Paniccia said. "If we continue to scale this in the future, we are going to have tens if not hundreds of cores" in computing devices.
The development of improved methods for moving data in and out of all those cores is a key industry requirement, Paniccia observed. "What we really want to do is connect these cores optically."
"In order to do that, though, we have to develop technology that's high-volume manufacturable and low cost," Paniccia said. "And we believe the way to do that is building optical devices and optical technology on this wonderful material we all love, which is silicon."
The new device, which integrates both silicon and CMOS processing technologies, achieves a "gain-bandwidth product" of 340 GHz, which Paniccia said is the best result ever measured for this...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Microsoft Still Wants To Acquire Yahoo's Search Assets
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63435
In the latest development in the ongoing Microsoft-Yahoo saga, Redmond is showing renewed interest in a search deal with its struggling rival. After several failed attempts to acquire all or part of Yahoo, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company should ink a deal to acquire Yahoo's search business "sooner than later," according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Ballmer wants to build a "credible competitor" to Google. In fact, if Microsoft acquired Yahoo's search assets, it would gain a 30 percent market share, about half what Google owns, according to the latest comScore figures. The search-advertising market, in effect, would be a duopoly, with Google and Microsoft together owning about 90 percent.
"I think good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly, so it would probably be better for both of us, and certainly for Yahoo, if we were to do it sooner than later," Ballmer told the Journal in an interview. "But at the end of the day, that would have to be something Yahoo would be as interested in."
Yahoo couldn't immediately be reached for comment, but a spokesperson on Friday declined to speak to the Journal about the Ballmer interview. The Journal instead cited people familiar with the matter, revealing Yahoo's board is undecided on the issue. However, Yahoo board member Carl Icahn has previously given a deal his approval.
"This is complicated for Yahoo because its shareholders and board probably want some sort of deal at this point, given everything that's going on," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "Microsoft only wants to buy the search business, which compromises Yahoo's position in advertising."
Allowing Microsoft to surgically remove the search piece, Sterling said, could potentially undermine Yahoo's display-ad business. ComScore's data backs up that assertion, demonstrating a strategic dimension...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Wal-Mart Will Sell iPhone, But Cost Could Be An Issue
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63434
An under-$100 price for Apple's iPhone remains a wish, but the buzz about the iPhone being available at Wal-Mart may be true -- for $197.
Calls to several Wal-Mart stores in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island confirmed that the iPhone will be available at the end of the month. One sales representative who handles wireless products said stores haven't been given an exact date, but the iPhone will be available by the end of the year.
At Wal-Mart's headquarters in Arkansas, however, officials remain tight-lipped. "As of right now we have no official comment on offering the iPhone at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club," said Ashley Hardie, a spokesperson.
Wal-Mart officials may not be ready to announce that it will be the second retailer after Best Buy to offer Apple's iPhone, but its ads have been touting Wal-Mart as the place to go for brand-name electronics. The company also sells more than 80 iPhone accessories on its Web site, including color cases, screen-protecting films, and iPhone chargers.
Analysts agree that the iPhone has had successful growth, and some even say Apple is the company leading the charge in the steady growth of the smartphone market, but they don't agree about an Apple price cut.
"It's the right move if people buy," said Ken Dulany, a Gartner analyst, "but the problem with the iPhone is a commitment for two years that costs $30 per month just for data. Forget the $99 (price); the typical Wal-Mart buyer is not in the upper echelon of incomes. So that's one problem."
"Then you have the fact that [the iPhone has] been reported to be a $99 4GB machine," he said. "When the original iPhone came out, it came out with a 4GB and an 8GB model. The 4GB was taken off the list because no one...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Salesforce.com, Google Enlarge Their Cloud Alliance
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63433
The cloud for enterprises is getting bigger. Salesforce.com and Google announced that they are expanding their alliance to provide Software as a Service (SaaS) for businesses.
The announcement focuses on Salesforce's connection of its Force.com development platform to Google's App Engine.
Available now in preview, Google's App Engine allows developers to quickly build and scale Web applications. Last month, Salesforce also announced a comparable alliance with Amazon Web Services, enabling the use of Force.com's database, logic and user interface together with the storage and computing capabilities of Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) services.
In the Amazon deal, Salesforce said "developers can access these services from within the Force.com platform to build applications that seamlessly span both clouds."
The expanded alliance between Google and Salesforce is expected to integrate business data on Force.com with the applications and tools offered by Google.
The announcement expands on a strategic global alliance that Salesforce and Google announced in June 2007. One of the new offerings at that time was Salesforce Group Edition, featuring Google AdWords, which provided integration of ad options with Salesforce CRM applications.
This enabled small and midsize businesses to advertise their products and services and, using Group Edition, to capture leads, track opportunities through a sales cycle, analyze growth, and mashup other business applications using Salesforce.com's AppExchange directory.
Laura DiDio, an analyst with industry research firm Information Technology Intelligence Corps, said the enlarged alliance between Google and Salesforce "makes perfect sense," since businesses want "all pertinent data right away" from anywhere, and the more kinds of applications to use the data, the better.
Such cloud computing will take a while to become fully mainstream for small and midsize businesses, she added, but economies of scale and the ability for these businesses to have such capacity...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
India Is Hit with an Unfamiliar Slowdown
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63414
After years of being blamed for job losses in the Western world, Indian high-technology companies and outsourcing firms are going through a downturn of their own. The global slowdown is forcing them to reduce hiring, freeze salaries, postpone new investments and lay off thousands of software programmers and call center operators.
While some industry insiders insist the financial crisis will benefit companies here, as Western businesses seek to cut costs by moving jobs overseas, right now the sector is gripped with an unfamiliar sense of uncertainty.
"It's certainly not irrational exuberance," said Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys, one of the best-known technology outsourcing firms in India. "There is a lot of introspection about what does this mean and when does it end."
The downturn is exposing a deeper concern: India has become the world's front office, handling customer service calls, and its back office, helping to process payments and run accounting and other systems on computers. But it has not yet become the head office -- making major new products, pioneering marketing techniques or helping to shape corporate strategy.
Rather than drowning American technology firms or work forces with a vast supply of cheap engineering talent, as some had feared, India -- and Bangalore, its Silicon Valley -- have continued to serve largely as the information economy's version of manual labor.
"Historically, when it comes to innovation, Indian companies are relatively weak compared to the IBMs and Accentures of the world," said Partha Iyengar, the head of research in India for the Gartner Group, which analyzes trends in the tech sector. "It has been their chronic Achilles' heel."
Terrorist attacks killed scores of people last week and brought Mumbai, India's commercial capital, to a virtual halt. But long before that brutal shock, India had been suffering the effects of the global slump, losing capital as Western...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
AT&T Layoffs: The Tip of a Telecom Downturn
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A move by AT&T to eliminate 4 percent of its workforce may only be the beginning of a torrent of staff reductions and spending cutbacks in the $1 trillion telecom industry.
AT&T, the largest U.S. telecom services provider, said on Dec. 4 that it will slash 12,000 jobs, citing a shrinking economy and consumer spending reductions. AT&T is also considering a reduction in the amount it spends on network upgrades next year. Verizon Communications cut 2,700 employees in the third quarter, and Sprint Nextel has laid off 4,000 people.
As customers rein in spending on communications services, more staff reductions and capital spending cuts are probably on the way for telecommunications providers, moves that would probably hurt telecom equipment makers. "Telecom will be one of those sectors of the economy that gets hurt more than other parts [of technology]," says Susan Eustis, CEO of consultancy WinterGreen Research.
As Americans lose jobs and struggle to make mortgage payments, more people are disconnecting their landlines, TV channels, and even Internet connections. Evidence of the cutback is emanating from unexpected sources, including an October study from researcher ComScore that showed that the fastest-growing segment of buyers of the Apple iPhone is people who earn less than $50,000 a year. Many in that demographic are looking for the wireless phone to replace landlines and Web connections, according to ComScore. Already, some 20 percent of Americans have done away with traditional copper-wire phone connections and the pace has accelerated as the economic crisis has worsened, according to consulting firm Farpoint Group.
AT&T didn't say what impact the economy would have on next year's revenue, but some analysts say it and other telecom companies may need to settle for minimal if any growth. Christopher King, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, says his prior forecast...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
TraceTracker Tracks Food Safety on the Net
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63410
Talk about an image problem. For weeks, newspapers around the world have carried stories about dairy-poisoned babies -- at least six have died, and 300,000 have been sickened -- and chronicled how milk, eggs, soy-based foods, and even candy bars containing ingredients from China have been contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics and fertilizers.
It's no surprise, then, that the China Daily reported on Dec. 1 that the country's milk exports had plunged by 92 percent since September, when news about the tainted milk emerged. But the damage doesn't stop there. "It has harmed China's entire food industry," says Ole-Henning Fredriksen, chief executive of Norway's TraceTracker Innovation, which is creating a global information exchange for the food industry. Based in Oslo, TraceTracker is one of 34 companies named on Dec. 4 by the World Economic Forum as tech pioneers -- companies offering new technologies or business models that could advance the global economy and enhance peoples' lives.
TraceTracker has developed an online service to identify and track each batch of every product that is merged together in the global food chain, from raw ingredients to products on the supermarket shelf. Its system is aimed at making food safer -- and preventing entire industries from being tarnished by the misdeeds of a few.
To that end, on Sept. 24 TraceTracker signed an agreement with China's Shandong Institute of Standardization, a government agency, to develop a system called ChinaTrace, to help companies in China's food industry deal with internal traceability, set up third-party verification systems, and connect to a national grid. Foreign trading partners will, in turn, be able to use the database to gain assurances about the origins, freshness, and safety of every ingredient coming from China.
Systems like ChinaTrace aim to protect consumers and help save companies and industries from huge...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
AMD Warns of a Revenue Shortfall
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Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices is among the most recent casualties of the slowdown in technology spending. On Dec. 4 the chipmaker drastically cut its sales outlook, saying fourth-quarter revenue will drop about 25 percent from the third quarter's $1.59 billion.
AMD blamed a cratering in demand for chips used in personal computers and servers, the machines that run corporate networks. The company cited "weaker-than-expected demand across all geographies and businesses, particularly in the consumer market." The company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Jan. 22. Its warning comes three weeks after a similarly dire outlook from rival Intel, which cut the low end of its revenue forecast by $1.4 billion on Nov. 12.
The announcements reflect a steep drop in tech spending by corporations and consumers that's taking a toll on the broader technology industry, forcing layoffs just this week at telecom stalwart AT&T and software maker Adobe. AMD's announcement also underscores the company's particular woes amid competition with Intel.
AMD shares dropped 2.7 percent, to 2.14, in early afternoon trading. On Oct. 16, AMD reported a third-quarter loss of $67 million on sales just shy of $1.6 billion, not including licensing revenue. The decline outlined on Dec. 4 would put this quarter's revenue at less than $1.2 billion, or about $300 million below Wall Street analysts' expectations.
AMD is hurting in part because of the new and growing product class of consumer netbooks, small and light notebook PCs that sell for less than conventional PCs. "AMD has a proportionally higher exposure to the consumer market than Intel, and the only part of the consumer market that's growing right now is netbooks, where it doesn't participate," says Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Collins Stewart.
At least one analyst was quick to revise his forecast. Craig Berger of FBR Capital Markets cut...
Tue, 9 Dec 08
Workforce Optimization: Revolutionizing Delivery?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63044
The suppliers of workforce optimization (WFO) also known as workforce management (WFM) solutions, defined as software that enables staffing forecasting and scheduling, are like those fine retailers who have been adding to their lines but who have not yet embraced the web channel. WFO vendors offer new and updated solutions that improve schedule adherence, bolster schedule management for contact center teams, add more functionality for home-based agents, and supply more support for agent activity.
These applications aggregate and integrate staff scheduling data from all sources. TDIs Encore CenterPlus holds and charts this information against actual agent login and logout times captured from PBXes, ACDs, and predictive dialers, and from HR system timecard information.
Suppliers have also made their software more affordable so that small contact centers can benefit from these tools and use them to replace awkward spreadsheets for staff management.
Some of this innovation has come about as a result of mergers. Not long after Verint and Witness Systems merged, in 2007, the new firm released Impact 360. The WFO/WFM solution includes new features such as outbound forecasting and scheduling, integrated desktop application adherence, and extended workflow capabilities across the suite.
One of the keys that suppliers have been using to create these enhancements is service oriented architecture (SOA). SOA, reports Wikipedia, is a systems development and integration methodology where functionality is grouped around business processes.
"Innovative WFO vendors are using SOA to make their solutions easier to develop, integrate, and to speed up the delivery of new functionality to the market," says Donna Fluss, President, DMG Consulting LLC.
At the same time, companies have been enriching their WFO solutions with new analytics and dashboard capabilities, integrated into other functions.
Envisions new Centricity product unifies Envisions core WFO applications and significantly expands performance management capabilities by capturing, aggregating and displaying valuable information at the agent, contact...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Apple iPhone Users Download 300 Million Apps
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63432
Apple iPhone owners have downloaded 300 million applications through the App Store. The news came in the fine print of an advertisement in Friday's edition of The New York Times.
What's more, iPhone owners appear to have downloaded a whopping 100 million apps in the last six weeks alone, based on previous Apple disclosures.
To put the phenomenon into perspective, the App Store launched on July 11. By early September, Apple was boasting about its progress: 100 million downloads.
Apple launched its App Store with more than 3,000 applications -- more than 90 percent priced at less than $10 and more than 600 offered for free. That number has since swelled to more than 10,000 applications, and numbers are growing as developers embrace the opportunity.
"This milestone demonstrates both Apple's strengths and prominence in this space as a newcomer," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. "It wasn't that long ago when the CEO of Microsoft and the CEO of Palm were basically dismissing Apple's efforts in mobile, talking about how difficult it is for a new entrant into the space."
The App Store's applications can take advantage of the iPhone's large display, multi-touch user interface, hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics, built-in accelerometer, and location-based technology.
Earlier this week, for example, Amazon released an application that lets users tap into its shopping features through the iPhone. But games and music topped the iPhone's list of most popular applications.
"Apple has really turned the App Store quickly into an extremely viable and popular platform to developers. When Apple announced the first 100 million downloads, developers noticed," Gartenberg said. "And there are something like 10,000 applications in the store right now, which is huge for a platform that's been on the market and generally available for just a few months."
So popular is...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Open-Source Symbian Has Caught AT&T's Eye
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63431
The world has been waiting for an open-source Symbian mobile operating system, but it won't have to wait much longer. The Symbian Foundation expects to have its first version ready in the first half of 2009.
The foundation is making strides and gaining more support. Symbian on Thursday announced AOL, Cell Telecom, Intrinsyc, ISB Corporation, Trusted Logic, and Xenient have added their endorsements to the 58 other companies already supporting the open-source effort.
"We are delighted with the response from the Silicon Valley community, as well as from developers around the world, to the plans for the foundation to build on the leading open mobile platform," said Lee Williams, who has been nominated as executive director of the foundation and who was a keynote speaker at this week's Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco.
Even though Symbian has a commanding lead in the global mobile operating-system market with nearly half the implementations worldwide, competition is rising. Research in Motion, Apple's iPhone, Google's Android, and Windows Mobile are all challenging Symbian on the smartphone front.
What's more, Symbian hasn't gained much traction in the U.S. Symbian could gain an advantage, though, if comments made by an AT&T executive at the Symbian event Thursday pan out as some observers expect.
Roger Smith, AT&T's director of next-generation services, told the event that the wireless carrier is considering how it might standardize on only a few mobile platforms over the next few years. He cited Symbian as a "credible candidate" to be among those platforms.
Speaking of an open Symbian, Smith said, "If done well and done right, this can be a game-changing event." It's all part of AT&T's move to take more control over its destiny in the mobile operating space.
"At the end of the day, the mobile OS platform market is going...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Microsoft Hires Yahoo Architect To Guide Search Team
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63430
Microsoft may not have acquired Yahoo's search business, but it has acquired what some may consider the next best thing. The software giant announced Thursday that it has hired Dr. Qi Lu, Yahoo's former vice president of engineering for search and advertising technology, to run its online-services group and focus on search advertising.
"I am genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead for Microsoft to make an enormous impact on the online industry," Lu said. "Microsoft has built a great foundation for its search and advertising technologies and put an amazing team of researchers and engineers in place to drive the next wave of innovation in online services."
Beginning Jan. 5, Lu will oversee several groups, including Microsoft's advertiser and publisher solutions business and the online audience, research and finance groups, according to the company. Lu will work with three top executives, including Scott Howe, Yusuf Mehdi, and Satya Nadella.
"I'm looking forward to working with them to help transform the way people and businesses use the Internet to find and share information," Lu said.
Brian McAndrews, former chief executive of aQuantive, an ad company Microsoft bought earlier this year for $6 million, is slated to leave the company after a few months of consulting with Lu and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
"I am tremendously excited to welcome Qi to Microsoft," Ballmer said. "Dr. Lu's deep technical expertise, leadership capabilities, and hard-working mentality are well known in the technology industry, and Microsoft will benefit from his addition to our executive management team."
The move comes after weeks of speculation that Microsoft would put in another bid for Yahoo's search business. Microsoft withdrew its $47.5 billion buyout offer in May after Yahoo's board and CEO Jerry Yang rejected the bid, saying it was too low.
Late last month Ballmer said Microsoft no longer was interested in...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Opera Previews Next-Generation Browser
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63429
Opera Software has just unleashed the first public preview of its next-generation browser for personal computers and Internet-enabled mobile devices.
Called Opera 10 alpha, the new release is not intended to show off the full feature set of Opera 10.0, which the software maker says is still "a while off." Instead, the download is intended to give Web designers some initial hands-on experience with significant Opera 10 improvements, especially those relating to page rendering and Web-standards compliance.
"It seems like yesterday we released Opera 9.6, and now you can all get your hands on Opera 10.0," said Adam Minchinton, an Opera Mac developer.
Opera 10 alpha gives Web designers a taste of the full power of the new browser's Presto 2.2 rendering engine, which makes the browsing experience about 30 percent faster than Opera 9.6. Moreover, Opera's new engine adds alpha transparency to its RGB and HSL color models, which will make it easier for designers to make page elements transparent.
Minchinton also said Opera 10 alpha runs "100/100 and pixel-perfect" on Acid3 -- a test developed by the Web Standards Project that expresses how well a browser conforms to Web standards such as the Document Object Model and JavaScript.
When running Acid3, the browser has to render a page exactly like the reference page in the browser. The perfect Acid3 test score achieved by Opera 10 alpha demonstrates that the new browser is primed and ready to run the next generation of Web applications, noted Johan Borg, Opera Software's vice president.
"My favorite development in this release is the support for new Web technologies, which allows people to explore new ways of using the Internet," Borg said. "Our 100/100 Acid3 test score is only a first indication of the impact these new Web technologies will have."
Opera 10...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Koobface Worm Is Targeting Facebook Users
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63428
A new virus is spreading through Facebook. The Koobface -- a worm designed specifically to spread over social-networking sites -- is blasting spam messages out to Facebook members. The motive is to enable hijacking and click fraud.
The messages offer subject lines like "You look so funny on our new video" and offer a link to a video site that pretends to have a movie clip. When the user follows the link, they are redirected to one of many different compromised hosts, according to McAfee Avert Labs. Finally, the user is urged to download or open a file named flash_player.exe. That file is a new Koobface variant.
"Facebook is already aware of this threat and is purging the spammed links from their system. But with dozens of Koobface variants known to exist, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better," Craig Schmugar of McAfee Avert Labs wrote on the company's blog. "It's important to note that spammed links leading to Koobface are likely to come from infected friends, reminiscent of early mass-mailing worms."
Is this a serious threat? It's serious in the sense that Facebook users are receiving spam messages on their wall or Facebook inbox pointing to malicious content, said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.
"A key factor which helps social-networking spam and malware succeed is that people are more prepared to click on a link or message if they believe it is from someone they know," Cluley said. "The average person is used to receiving unsolicited e-mails in their regular inbox, but believe messages have more credence when they arrive via Facebook. The message is clear -- people need to beware."
Cluley said the fact that so much regular e-mail is spam has naturally made people more questioning of messages received via that...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Rumors Have Wal-Mart Offering 4GB iPhone for $99
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63427
Rolling back prices is what Wal-Mart does best, but will the super retailer roll back prices for Apple's iPhone as part of its Operation Main Street promise to cut costs for Christmas?
Holiday shopping for hot items at a bargain price took on a new form this week as rumors flew on the Web about a 4GB iPhone to be available at Wal-Mart for $99. That phone was initially to be rolled out at a $399 price tag.
The tip about the 4GB iPhone and rumors of Wal-Mart shoppers being trained in activating iPhones was posted on the Boy Genius Report. The site also featured photos of a training manual with the Wal-Mart name and logo on the manual.
"We have made no official comment on offering the iPhone," said Kelli Cheeseman, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart.
"A $99 iPhone could be an extremely important product as Apple continues the drive to grow market share and Wal-Mart would be the perfect place for that device to land," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president for mobile strategy at Jupitermedia. "It would also set the stage for the phone to begin to fragment into devices, with different features at different price points. Much like what happened with the iPod."
Currently, the company has more than 80 iPhone-related products, including carrying cases, chargers, protective film, and antennas available on its Web site, but the products are not shown to be available at retail stores.
The rumored $99 price tag for the 4GB iPhone is expected to come with a two-year agreement, but that may not be enough even for Wal-Mart shoppers.
"Although leading mobile operators are subsidizing more smartphones to reach lower prices, they tie the device to two-year contracts with monthly data-plan rates, which remain too expensive for the mainstream user," said Roberta Cozza, a Gartner analyst.
Still,...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Google, Facebook Move Closer To a Single Log-In
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63408
Someday we may find it quaint that multiple Web sites required you to sign on separately, set up a separate profile, and act like you had no other identity on the Web. A step in this direction came Thursday when Facebook and Google continued efforts to allow their users to sign on once across a network of sites.
Other sites on the network may share components of a user's social identity, with access to profiles, ratings, friend lists, and more. The expanded networks could also include a desktop application or a mobile device.
In a posting on the Official Google Blog, Product Manager Mussie Shore said Friend Connect is now available in beta to anyone "looking to add 'a dash of social'" by just copying and pasting a few lines of code.
And Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is "transforming the Web into a more social place where Facebook's users can engage in trusted social experiences with their friends."
Facebook said more than 100 sites participated in the testing that preceded Thursday's announcements, or will join in the near future. They include CNET, CNN.com/Forum, Gawker, Joost, MoveOn, alumni associations of the University of Toronto and Oregon State, and others.
The results of the testing showed that two out of three new registrations for those sites came through Facebook Connect, and those users engaged about 50 percent more than non-Facebook Connect users.
When using Facebook Connect on other sites, users had a consistent identity across sites, could take their friends list with them, could control their privacy settings, and could share actions they took on sites with Facebook friends via a news feed.
Google's Friend Connect was first offered in a limited preview in May, and the company said it has since been working with "a handful" of...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Free Internet Access Plan Now Has Two Versions
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63402
A plan by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to provide a free national Internet network, up for a vote by the agency later this month, has turned into two versions, according to news reports.
One would require the company that won the auction for the offered frequencies to make at least 25 percent of the spectrum available for free to most of the country. The newer version would give free, unlicensed access to some of that spectrum to innovators, if the acquiring company doesn't fulfill its promise of a free national network.
The plans are not getting accolades from some in the cell-phone industry, who are protesting that offering free Internet is not a recipe for a viable business model. T-Mobile is also objecting to interference from the free Internet, since it owns spectrum next door to the proposed free network. However, FCC engineers say there would be no significant interference.
Additionally, free-speech advocates are objecting to part of the plan that would require a filter to remove adult material for under-18 users. Users over 18 could remove the filter.
There is also a comparable plan by a startup company, M2Z Networks. Backed by technology venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, M2Z is proposing that consumers buy a router that offers free, midrange DSL speeds, and then pay for an upgrade to faster speeds. The business model includes advertising for the free component, and the company has said it will bid in the FCC auction if either version of the Martin plan is approved.
The FCC's initiative is seen by some observers are a retread of an earlier plan submitted by M2Z, primarily for the 2155-2180-MHz band. The auction is intended for frequencies in the 2.1-GHz Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum, which includes 2155-2180 MHz.
Some...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
The Phone that Feels the Flu Before You Do
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63399
Did your parents tell you to remember your scarf when you went out, so you wouldn't catch a cold? Today, the advice might be: Remember your cell phone.
A maker of over-the-counter cold and flu remedies released a program this week for the T-Mobile G1, also known as the "Google phone," that warns the user how many people in an area are sneezing and shaking with winter viruses.
The "Zicam Cold & Flu Companion" will say, for instance, that 8 percent to 14 percent of the people in your ZIP code have respiratory illnesses, representing a "Moderate" risk level. To give germophobes and hypochondriacs even more of a thrill, it also says what symptoms are common, like coughing and sore throat.
Matrixx Initiatives Inc., the Arizona company that makes products under the Zicam brand, gets the information on disease levels from Surveillance Data Inc. -- which gets its data from polling health care providers and pharmacies.
Users can also ask the application about risk levels in other ZIP codes, so they can steer clear of, for instance, Atlanta, one of the five most infected cities in the nation right now, according to Zicam.
The "Companion" is available for free from the Android Marketplace, the repository of downloadable programs for the G1. Later this month, the program will be available for the iPhone, according to Matrixx.
Google Inc., which created the G1's operating system, launched its own state-by-state Web-based flu tracker recently. It's based on the number of people plugging flu-related searches into Google's search engine.
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Goodbye to the Box, but Not to the Shows
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63394
I have been called many things in my life; never, though, an urban myth. But that is what Alan Wurtzel, president of research at NBC Universal, suggested when I told him I got rid of my television set last year and started watching "30 Rock" and "CSI" on my laptop instead.
"I hear about people like you," he said, a hint of skepticism in his voice. Then he hissed what sounded vaguely like an insult.
"You probably read."
Well, yes, I do. But just because I don't have a television set, doesn't mean I don't crave "Gossip Girl."
It's just that I don't have a large television in my living room and a monthly payment to make to my cable company. I don't need one: The major American networks and many other broadcasters have made it easy to find their shows free online.
Most Americans still primarily watch shows on their television sets. I'll concede that point to Wurtzel. But there is much to suggest that watching shows online is more than just passing fancy.
The Internet has proved to be an excellent promotional vehicle. NBC says 7 out of 10 viewers were spurred to watch some shows on television only after sampling them first online. At ABC, 8 percent of viewers they track -- or about one out of every 12 people -- watch network shows solely online.
My friend Louise uses a projector hooked up to her laptop to watch "Lost" on a white wall in her living room. My 24-year-old niece never owned a television set until I gave her mine. Now she uses it for DVDs and to watch "America's Next Top Model" online.
And it's not just for kids. A 40-something executive I know watched the last presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama on his home computer.
The funny thing is, despite...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Internet Domain Creates Mobile Phone Book
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63393
A new Internet domain, .tel, that became available Wednesday has the potential to become a mobile phone book because of the way it stores and encrypts contact information, industry executives and analysts said.
A .tel domain name would allow individuals, businesses and organizations to store contact information -- telephone numbers, links to Web sites, e-mail addresses, instant messaging names and even identities for virtual games, like Xbox Live or Second Life, directly into the Domain Name System, or DNS.
Because the data is stored in the DNS rather than on a server, individual changes to a phone number or address are automatically updated in the address books of friends who have their .tel information stored on a smartphone or other mobile device.
As a result, rather than sending a note out to all of your contacts, like some contact management services, the update is seamless.
"It's a simple idea, and simple ideas are sometimes the best," said Matt Mansell, the managing director at Mesh Digital, the parent company of DomainMonster, a domain registrar. "It will just need to get some traction."
Individuals can also choose to display their location, allowing their contacts to see where they are at any given time and making location-based services like mapping easier.
A .tel name manages "all of the different ways you connect with people online," said Justin Hayward, communications director at Telnic, the operator of the .tel registry. Telnic.org offers individuals a simulator to see how their account would look. Registrants can also store keywords, which are indexed by search engines, making it easier to find.
The domain could have a greater impact in emerging markets, where people have bypassed the personal computer for mobile devices, Hayward said.
In October, Telnic opened up its infrastructure to developers to encourage the building of applications for mobile devices. The initial registration period is...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Mini-Notebooks Making a Maximum Impact
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63391
You see them on tables in coffee shops, under the arms of college students and on the laps of travelers waiting for a flight. Called "netbooks" or "mini-notebooks," these small, lightweight and relatively affordable computers are one of the hottest tech toys of the year.
Popularized by Asus Eee PCs, which start at $269, netbooks are designed for basic tasks -- Web surfing, e-mail and word processing. That's just fine for some folks.
These sleek Wi-Fi-enabled computers are usually limited in capacity, and to keep costs down, often ship with the open-source Linux operating system instead of Microsoft's Windows.
"Especially during this economic downturn, a low-cost option is very attractive," says Doug Bell, an analyst at researcher IDC. "Mini-notebooks are also a great PC option for kids because of the small keyboards."
Still, Bell says, "While the main draw is the price and compact size and weight, it is important to know what you are buying."
Price ranges and features are expanding rapidly. Some stripped-down machines offer limited solid-state storage drive capacity of 16 gigabytes or less. (SSDs are basically flash memory drives not unlike what's in a digital camera or iPod nano.) Others sport traditional hard drives of 120 GB or more. Prices can range from under $300 to around $500.
"Performance and price is all over the map," says Leslie Fiering, an analyst at Gartner. At $500, you're better off investing in a full-featured 14-inch notebook computer, Fiering says.
Fiering recommends 10-inch netbooks as the "sweet spot" for keyboard, screen size and price. In addition to Asus, major PC makers including Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer all offer mini-notebooks. Here's a look at a few models:
Now available at Best Buy, the MSI Wind U100 ($349.99) is a 10-inch netbook powered by Intel's speedy new Atom 1.6-GHz processor.
It features a comfortable keyboard that's only 20%...
Sat, 6 Dec 08
Manufacturing Tiny Parts One Layer at a Time
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63389
Conversations about innovation typically begin and end with megatrends: the invention of the microprocessor, the discovery of carbon nanotubes, Google's algorithms for Internet search. But some of the most important advances are born deep inside the manufacturing supply chain and are never seen by consumers, even though they transform products we use every day.
Arthur L. Chait, president and chief executive of EoPlex Technologies in Redwood City, Calif., is the architect of one such transformation. His company has developed radically new technology for fabricating pill-size electronic components for wireless communications, clean-energy applications, semiconductor packaging, and more. Although very small, each component is a complex sandwich of ceramic, metal, or polymer layers that perform different functions. And EoPlex can crank out these parts -- everything from tiny antennas for cell phones to key elements in pressure sensors for car tires -- more quickly, in higher volume, and in many cases, at lower cost than standard manufacturing methods.
To see how this process works, it helps to understand how components such as cell-phone antennas are normally produced. Each phone may contain a half-dozen different antennas, which allow it to communicate simultaneously with a cell tower, a Bluetooth headset, a Wi-Fi network, and also receive GPS satellite signals. Today, the metal and ceramic elements that form the antenna are stamped from sheets of materials and assembled by robots.
EoPlex's technique more closely resembles printing semiconductors on silicon. And, just as in the semiconductor business, the shift in technology opens the door to improved designs at lower cost. As Chait describes it, the process lays down whole sheets of different materials in patterns, building anywhere from 20 to 500 layers. Then the resulting substrate is baked and sintered at high temperatures into finished components. Each part, Chait says, contains "all the necessary internal...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Apple Pulls 'Old' Antivirus Software Warning
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63386
The latest commercial for Apple's I'm a Mac, I'm a PC campaign against Microsoft has been tarnished. Just days after Apple posted an article telling Mac users to run antivirus software on Mac OS X, the company pulled the article, saying it was old.
"We have removed the knowledge base article because it was old and inaccurate," said Monica Sarkar, an Apple spokesperson. "Mac is designed with built-in technologies to provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box. Since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection."
Apple had posted the article on its support site, encouraging Mac owners to run antivirus software only to turn around, pull it, and say it was a mistake.
Apple in the article had encouraged the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers will have more than one application to battle, making virus coding more challenging. In the article, Apple also suggested running three applications -- Intego VirusBarrier X5, McAffee VirusScan for Mac, and Symantec Norton Antivirus 11 for Macintosh.
Apple's article drew a lot of attention, especially since the company's latest television commercial included a person representing a PC sneezing and saying it has caught the latest virus. The person representing the Mac hands a tissue to the sniffling PC before it crashes.
Now it's Apple that might need the tissue after dealing with its own errors and after officials said no operating system is completely safe from all threats.
In fact, Apple's Web site tells consumers that no computer using the Internet is 100 percent immune to viruses and spyware. It goes on to say that the Mac is built on a solid UNIX foundation and designed with security in mind. It also says its Safari Web...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Nokia Will Let Mobile Devices Access Home Systems
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63380
Nokia is working with its partners to develop a smart home platform that will enable any mobile device equipped with a Web browser to serve as the remote control for household security, monitoring and energy-management systems.
Nokia's research has determined that consumers want control of home systems whether they are at home or on the go. With mobile devices ubiquitous, they are an ideal interface to home systems -- especially when the user is not at home, said Nokia Vice President Teppo Paavola.
"The home of today has intelligence everywhere, but to date there has not been a solution that is interoperable with the wide range of home systems that can easily be controlled," Paavola said. "We want to create an open solution where external partners can develop their own solutions and services on top of our platform."
The remote-control function will not be limited to mobile devices made by the cell-phone giant, noted Toni Sormunen, director of Nokia's smart home program.
"The APIs and protocols are open and specified as part of our software development kit and available to our partners currently," Sormunen said. "Any device with a browser can connect to the Nokia Home Control Center remotely or locally."
The initial platform, planned for release in late 2009, which Nokia is developing with Europe-based energy company RWE, will enable mobile devices to remotely access a central unit linked to thermostats installed throughout a home. Nokia and RWE also plan follow-up offerings that work with the latest smart meters.
The goal is to provide consumers with real-time information about their energy consumption and even allow them to control their energy bill remotely. Sormunen noted that smart electricity readers can deliver information in real time, which means consumers will be able to determine how much electricity their homes...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Former AOL Chief Seeking Funds To Buy Yahoo
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63379
Former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller is talking with investors about buying Yahoo, according to The Wall Street Journal. After walking away from a four-year stint as head of AOL in 2006, Miller is looking at what some observers consider an unlikely deal for an Internet property that has taken some lumps.
According to the Journal, Miller hopes to put together a deal that would give Yahoo shareholders $20 to $22 a share. That means raising about $28 billion to $30 billion to buy all of Yahoo.
Microsoft bid $44.6 billion for Yahoo in late January. Yahoo's board unanimously rejected that offer and said it would not even consider discussing an acquisition unless Microsoft anted up at least $12 billion more.
Miller has reportedly been talking with a spectrum of potential funding sources, including private-equity investors and wealth funds, for months, but the Journal's sources said it's unclear how those talks are progressing. Yahoo couldn't immediately be reached, but the company's policy is not to comment on speculation.
The effort reflects the tremendous value that Yahoo still holds, according to Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. The online advertising market where Yahoo operates is growing fast, from more than $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion projected by 2010. This market is increasingly dominated by Google, but Yahoo is second and analysts said its assets are worth more than its stock price indicates.
"Miller has been involved in the Microsoft-Yahoo negotiations, so he's an insider," Sterling said. "He also ran AOL, so he would have the confidence of potential private-equity investors."
As a partner at the investment firm Velocity Interactive Group, Miller counseled both Yahoo and Microsoft on how to come to an agreement. The controversial merger failed, and so have many of Yahoo's alternative prospects.
Most...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
YouTube Clamps Down on Sexual Content
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63354
While the Internet promotes free thought, free speech and the ability for the world to express itself, companies are attempting to find a balance between welcoming free expression and censoring inappropriate content.
YouTube is trying to find that balance. The popular online video-sharing Web site has 280 million visitors monthly, with members posting 13 hours of video every minute. With the volume of videos posted, shared and viewed on the site, the company says it is cracking down on what kinds of videos are posted.
Specifically, YouTube is putting a tighter grip on content considered sexually suggestive. Videos with sexually suggestive -- but not prohibited -- content will be age-restricted and available only to users who are 18 or older, according to the company.
Company officials say they aren't asking for the respect reserved for nuns, but want users to not abuse the service.
Videos considered sexually suggestive will also be demoted on YouTube's Most Viewed and Top Favorite pages. In testing, YouTube found that, of the thousands of videos on those pages, several each day are automatically demoted for being too graphic. Those are the videoes that get flagged by the community for being inappropriate.
YouTube, which is available in 19 regions, is being very clear about what kind of videos users can post, warning against pornographic videos even if the user is in the video. YouTube warns users that it works closely with law enforcement.
"We remain serious about enforcing these rules," a company blog posting read. "Remember, violations of these guidelines could result in removal of your video, and repeated violations will lead to termination of your account."
The crackdown does not end with porn. Users are also being told to avoid posting videos showing animal abuse, drug abuse, or bomb making. Dead bodies and gross videos are also prohibited.
Like...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
MySpace Mobile Launches Streaming Video
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63353
The mobile revolution is merging with the social-networking revolution as MySpace partners with mobile video company RipCode on a new streaming-video service. MySpace announced its latest foray on Wednesday.
MySpace Mobile will let members view videos from mobile devices. With the announcement, MySpace becomes the first social-networking portal to launch video streaming for mobile. YouTube offers a similar service.
Still in beta mode, MySpace Mobile aims to stream the highest possible video quality for mobile viewing. Members can access videos they've uploaded to MySpace or have marked as a favorite. All of a member's uploaded videos and most premium content, including branded channels such as TMZ, the National Hockey League, the National Geographic, The Onion, and College Humor, are available on mobile devices.
MySpace said its members are increasingly interested in portability and on-the-go-access, making mobile video a natural step. "MySpace will continue to grow our video library as we increase delivery channels in order to keep pace with our users' accelerating desire for video consumption," said John Faith, vice president and general manager of mobile for MySpace.
MySpace Mobile is not new. The site sees about three billion page views every month from more than 10 million unique users, according to the company. But MySpace is betting that adding video streams will give it a boost in an increasingly competitive social-networking arena.
MySpace may be on to something. According to Frost & Sullivan, streaming mobile video services constitute the bulk of current U.S. mobile video offerings. Tapping streaming video puts MySpace on the leading edge for social networks. Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, said the MySpace streaming deal is one more example of how digital video is making inroads on various fronts.
"Internet video is now on the TV, the computer, and the mobile device -- and it's...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Recession's Bad Weather Hits BlackBerry Maker RIM
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63352
Even with its hit BlackBerry Storm smartphone, mobile-device maker Research In Motion is feeling the economic storm. On Tuesday, the Canadian company lowered its outlook for the current quarter, sending its stock price down.
RIM did say that the strong demand for the Storm was expected to continue into its new fiscal quarter, which began Monday.
In September, the company had forecast earnings of between 89 cents and 97 cents per share on sales of $2.95 billion to $3.1 billion, and some analysts had been projecting even rosier numbers. But now RIM expects earnings of 81 cents to 83 cents per share on revenue of between $2.75 billion to $2.78 billion.
RIM also reported new BlackBerry accounts of about 2.6 million. While nearly 60 percent higher than last year, this was lower than the 2.9 million the company projected. RIM noted that its best day ever for new BlackBerry accounts was Nov. 21 when the Storm was released in the United States.
RIM's reduced sales projections come shortly after its successful launch of the BlackBerry Storm. The Storm offers a touchscreen that depresses slightly when the user touches and, on release, there's a click sensation comparable to a key being pressed on a keyboard. This unique feature is intended to compensate for the lack of physical confirmation that some users miss from an on-screen keyboard on a device such as, let's say, Apple's iPhone.
When the Storm first became available exclusively through Verizon Wireless, there were reports of lines out the doors of many of the carrier's stores. The demand was so great that supplies were quickly exhausted, and some observers have estimated that as many as 120,000 units were sold in the first weekend, with another quarter-million orders made on the Web or for later fulfillment...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
YouTube Symphony Launches a Global Talent Contest
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63351
Move over, American Idol. YouTube is opening the doors of opportunity for classical musicians in a new collaboration with top orchestras from around the world.
YouTube on Tuesday announced a partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Grammy Award-winning conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, Academy Award-winning and Olympics composer Tan Dun, world-renowned pianist Lang Lang, the first YouTube Symphony Orchestra global ambassador, and many other classical music stars. They will launch the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which YouTube is billing as the world's first collaborative online orchestra and summit.
"YouTube is a unique platform for musical artists to broadcast their work. Through the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, aspiring musicians can share their passion with institutions like Carnegie Hall and the London Symphony Orchestra, visionaries like Lang Lang, and the world," said Ed Sanders, product marketing manager at YouTube. "We are honored to partner with these venerable organizations and individuals to reach the next milestone for ensemble music and global collaboration."
YouTube is inviting musicians from around the world to submit videos showcasing their personal style as they perform two different programs -- their interpretation of an original Tan Dun composition, written specifically for this program, and a talent video demonstrating their musical and technical abilities. Videos will be accepted through Jan. 28, 2009.
Next, a panel of musical experts from the London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and other orchestras will prune the entries to the semifinalists. Then the YouTube community will vote on the semifinalists from Feb. 14 to Feb. 22. Musicians selected will be announced on YouTube on March 2.
In April 2009, winning musicians will be flown to New York City to participate in a three-day classical music summit with conductor Thomas and leading performers. The program culminates in...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Web Hoax Juror: Majority Wanted Felony Conviction
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63346
The jury leader in the trial of a Missouri woman accused of an Internet hoax that ended in a teenage neighbor's suicide said most panelists favored convicting the defendant of felony conspiracy.
But the jurors convicted Lori Drew only on federal misdemeanor charges because they were unable to agree on whether the MySpace hoax was malicious, forewoman Valentina Kunasz told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday.
Drew, 49, of the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, was convicted Nov. 26 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, where the case was tried because MySpace has servers in the area. Besides the conspiracy charge, jurors also rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm.
Kunasz said four holdouts believed Drew had conspired to create a fictitious teenage boy on MySpace to get Megan Meier, 13, to divulge information, not to harm her. Witnesses had testified that the aim of the hoax had been to find out whether Megan was spreading rumors about Drew's daughter, Sarah, who was also 13 at the time.
The "boy" dumped Megan in 2006, telling her: "The world would be a better place without you." Megan hanged herself soon afterward.
The defense said Drew was not present when the message was sent.
"I didn't think she intended to have this girl kill herself," Kunasz said. "But she knew she was suicidal, depressed and taking medicines and still continued to pursue this act. Whether (Drew) physically types those messages we'll never know, but she didn't make any effort to stop it, so, to me, that was malicious."
Kunasz added: "I wish that those four other jurors would have had a different opinion. But they thought what they thought and they were entitled to that."
Kunasz also told NBC's "Today" show, in a television interview...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Cost-Conscious Companies Turn to Open-Source Software
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63345
After the tech bubble burst, E*Trade's technology chief, Lee Thompson, needed to find a way to do more with less. In 2001 and 2002, the online stock trading company shrank its tech budget by one-third. "We had to go through and figure out every penny that we were spending and make alternatives to reduce those costs," says Thompson, vice-president and chief technologist of E*Trade. So he began using software that can be downloaded at no cost via the Internet. By the end of 2002, he was saving $13 million a year thanks to use of these freely available applications known as open-source software.
It's 2001 all over again. With the economy in a tailspin, companies once again are under pressure to cut IT costs. Tech spending may contract 0.9 percent in 2009, according to market researcher IDC. The end of 2008 looks particularly bleak, according to an October survey by ChangeWave Research, which noted the sharpest decline for corporate software on record. About 40 percent of the 1,841 corporate software purchasers surveyed said their companies would spend less on software in the coming 90 days.
The tightening of the purse strings is causing some companies to step up use of open-source software. "Budgets are being cut, and some companies are looking at opportunities to use open source more in the enterprise,"says Matt Aslett, an analyst at consulting firm 451 Group. While open-source software is already widely used to help businesses run their servers and database management systems, it's gaining wider acceptance in such areas as collaboration, customer relationship management, and supply chain management.
A resurgence of interest in open-source software bodes well for the companies that have invested in its development but at times have struggled to make money from it. Open-source vendors typically generate revenue from helping maintain or...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
Britney Spears Tops Yahoo Search List
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63344
She did it again: Britney Spears was the most popular search term on Yahoo for the fourth year in a row -- her seventh time topping the list.
Spears bested World Wrestling Entertainment, Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus and the online game "RuneScape" as the five most-searched terms of 2008, the Web portal and search company announced Monday, a day before the singer released her new album "Circus."
Jessica Alba, the anime series "Naruto," Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and "American Idol" rounded out the top 10 list. To compile their year-end review, Yahoo editors analyze search queries based on "absolute volume and growth versus previous periods, to see which themes and trends bubble to the surface." Users and their search queries remain anonymous.
Spears also continues to be a ratings draw on television, too. The Saturday episode of the British talent show "The X Factor," which featured an appearance by Spears, attracted 12.6 million viewers, the show's biggest audience, The Guardian reported Monday. Ratings for the Sunday premiere of Spears' MTV special, "Britney: For the Record," weren't yet available.
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YAHOO TOP 10 OVERALL SEARCHES FOR 2008
- 1. Britney Spears
- 2. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
- 3. Barack Obama
- 4. Miley Cyrus
- 5. "RuneScape"
- 6. Jessica Alba
- 7. "Naruto"
- 8. Lindsay Lohan
- 9. Angelina Jolie
- 10. American Idol
Thu, 4 Dec 08
News-Aggregator Digg: Off the Chopping Block
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63332
Over the last few years, Digg has become Silicon Valley's version of the boy who cried wolf. Like the child who warned local villagers that a wolf was about to attack his flock of sheep, potential buyers of Digg have repeatedly leaked reports that the company was about to be sold, but a sale was never consummated.
Not anymore. In an interview with BusinessWeek, Digg Chief Executive Officer Jay Adelson says the popular news aggregation Web site is no longer for sale, and the focus of the company is to build an independent business that reaches profitability as quickly as possible. That means the four-year-old startup will dial back some of its expansion plans, instead prioritizing projects that generate revenue and profit.
Among the new efforts: The company recently started to sell ads on its RSS feeds. It is on the verge of launching a revamped version of its homegrown search engine that the company hopes will produce more relevant and profitable search advertisements. And it is within a month of closing a deal with a mobile ad provider to sell more ads on cell phones. "Now I am pressured to keep costs reasonable and focus more on the top-line revenue, which we really haven't done ever," says Adelson, a 38-year-old father of three who splits his time between Dutchess County in New York, where he lives, and San Francisco, the company's headquarters.
Wearing jeans, scuffed black leather boots, and a striped, long-sleeve shirt with the tails hanging out, Adelson described how the financial crisis led him to speed up the company's tempo. In September, Digg said it had tripled revenues over the last year. In 2009, Adelson expects "another tripling if not more." Earlier this year, Adelson wanted to reach profitability within two years. Now, he says, "it will...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
FCC To Vote on Free Broadband Across U.S.
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63329
Free broadband for America has inched closer to reality: The plan, after two years of debate, is finally on the calendar for a full vote by the Federal Communications Commission.
Assuming the plan is approved at the FCC's Dec. 18 meeting, one of the agency's last before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, free broadband could become reality within a year.
First proposed in 2006, the plan calls for a chunk of airwaves called AWS-3 (now idle) to be used for wireless broadband across the USA. Under terms contemplated by the FCC, the winner of the AWS-3 auction would have to reserve at least 25 percent of network capacity for free broadband.
The winner would be allowed to charge for other services, including premium broadband that would offer faster speeds.
Assuming there are no last-minute snags, the AWS-3 auction will take place next year.
The FCC plans to impose several conditions. Among them: The winner will be required to launch free broadband with a filter that automatically blocks adult content. Users can remove the filter once they've confirmed that they are at least 18 years old.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has championed the idea of free broadband. Martin is particularly concerned about rural areas, where dial-up and satellite-based Internet still rule. Dial-up isn't fast enough to handle interactive fare, including video streaming. Satellite has the muscle, but broadband-strength speeds can cost $100 or more a month.
About 38 percent of rural households have broadband. In urban and suburban areas, where competition for customers can be fierce, the numbers are a lot higher, 57 percent and 60 percent, respectively. Martin says free broadband can help bridge the gap. "This initiative brings with it the promise of a free basic broadband service to hundreds of thousands of Americans who currently have limited or no access to the high-speed Internet," Martin...
Thu, 4 Dec 08
China Stealing U.S. Computer Data, Says Commission
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63204
A congressionally created commission has warned that China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from government and corporate computer networks in the U.S., including those of the nation's top defense contractors. This theft is part of China's preparation to outmaneuver the U.S. electronically in any future conflict, according to the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission.
The panel, established eight years ago, said in its annual report, released on Nov. 20: "China is targeting U.S. government and commercial computers for espionage."
The 10 most prominent U.S. defense contractors are believed to have been "victims of cyber-espionage through penetrations of their unclassified networks," the report said. Among them: Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman.
The commission used its own analysts and investigators to compile information on data theft, based on input from defense, military, and intelligence agencies and specialists. Its findings echo the themes of several recent articles in BusinessWeek, which over the past 11 months has published a series on high-tech security threats to U.S. weapons systems and government and defense industry computer networks. The three main installments in the BusinessWeek series were based on previously undisclosed documents and interviews with more than 100 current and former government employees, defense industry executives, and people with ties to U.S. military, space, and intelligence agencies. They are: E-spionage, Dangerous Fakes, and The Taking of NASA's Secrets.
In its report, the China security commission examined the implications of China's pursuit of dominance in cyberspace and outer space. The panel asserted that the Chinese have sought both military secrets from U.S. government networks and lucrative proprietary information from American corporations. The advantage that China has gained from this espionage could reduce current U.S. conventional military dominance in any future conflict, the commission said.
An example of Chinese espionage cited in the report involves an...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Yahoo Shares Rise on Reports of New Buyout Plan
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63350
Shares in troubled web portal Yahoo rose as much as 16 percent Tuesday after a report that former AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller was trying to raise funds to buy out all or part of the company.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Miller was talking to private equity firms and sovereign wealth fund managers to raise as much as 30 billion dollars to purchase the company at between 20 dollars and 22 dollars a share.
The report followed a strongly-denied story in the Sunday Times of London that Miller was collaborating with Microsoft to fund a 20- billion-dollar purchase of the company's search business.
The reports came weeks after Yahoo founder Jerry Yang said he would step down as CEO once a replacement had been found. Yang has been widely criticized for his handling of negotiations with Microsoft, which in May offered to buy the company for as much as 47.5 billion dollars, but withdrew after Yang demanded more.
Since then Yahoo's shares have dived from more than 30 dollars a share to just 10 dollars a share. On Tuesday they traded as high as 12.50 a share, a 16 per cent rise on its opening price.
The newspaper reported that while there had been informal contact between Yahoo and Miller, Yahoo sources were skeptical about Miller's success in raising enough funds, given the credit crunch and severe losses among private equity and sovereign wealth funds.
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Social-Networking Site Pownce Shutting Down
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63349
Megatechtronium is pulling the plug on its microblogging social-network site that allowed users to send music, photos and messages to friends using the Pownce Web site or desktop software.
Megatechtronium, a San Francisco-based company created by Digg founder Kevin Rose along with Leah Culver and Daniel Burka in June 2007, says Pownce will disappear on Dec. 15, less than a year after its service was made available to the public.
Culver, along with developer Mike Malone, will join the engineering team at Six Apart, a San Francisco-based provider of blogging software and the company behind Vox, Movable Type, TypePad and Blogs.com.
"We're bittersweet about shutting down the service, but we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009," Culver wrote on the company's blog. "We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all."
"We are really pleased to have Leah [Culver] and Mike Malone joining Six Apart, as they are super-talented and we know will contribute great things," said Jane Anderson, Six Apart's spokesperson. "It's too early to talk about what they'll be doing, but they have already begun work here in San Francisco."
Anderson said Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will join the company as advisers.
On Six Apart's blog, Chief Executive Chris Alden said he has a lot of respect for what the Pownce team has accomplished, adding that the two companies share a common vision on making the Internet more social. "The Pownce team and Six Apart share the same passion for social blogging, and we're really proud to have them onboard," Alden wrote.
Six Apart had a good year, hiring 90 people and growing the company to more than 200 employees. But the company took a hit from the economy and had to let go eight percent of its workforce in November. The company also took some...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Apple Encourages Antivirus Software for Mac OS X
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63348
Running antivirus software on your Macintosh is a good idea, Apple says. In a knowledge-base article on its support site, Apple is encouraging users to run security software on Mac OS X.
While no computer connected to the Internet is immune to viruses and spyware, Apple noted that Mac OS X is built on a UNIX foundation and designed with security in mind. Apple also pointed to the security of its Web browser, Safari, which alerts users whenever they are downloading an application. But Apple is nonetheless recommending security software.
"Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus-writing process more difficult," the article says. Apple specifically recommends three security apps: Intego VirusBarrier X5, Symantec Norton AntiVirus 11 for Macintosh, and McAfee VirusScan for Mac.
While there's plenty of chatter on blogs and forums, security researchers warn not to take Apple's suggestion as some sort of prophetic insight into the state of Mac OS X security.
"The bottom line is Apple is encouraging the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that it makes it more difficult for antivirus actors to have success. It's not like Apple is saying there is a big problem and it needs to be subverted right away," said Ken Dunham, director of global response for iSight Partners. "Apple is saying this is a best practice everyone should have in place."
Noteworthy is the fact that although Apple is known for a safe and secure virus-resistant platform today, in the 1980s and early 1990s the Mac was among the top platforms for spreading malicious code. That changed with the introduction of Windows 95 and the Internet.
"We do see some attacks against Macintosh operating systems, but they are...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Microsoft's Xbox 360 Outsells Sony's PS3 on Black Friday
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63347
Microsoft's cashback program may have been a bust on Black Friday, but its Xbox 360 sales broke records -- and outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game console by a margin of three to one.
Indeed, the Xbox 360 kicked off the holiday shopping season with sales on pace to beat previous years. Microsoft estimates a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales in 2007.
"We entered into the Black Friday sales period with cautious optimism, knowing that dollar for dollar, Xbox 360 offers more social entertainment value than any other console on the market," said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft.
Xbox 360 sales have surged worldwide since the September price drop, outselling the PlayStation 3 week over week across Europe. Console sales in Europe are up as much as 400 percent, with sales nearly double year over year and reaching seven million consoles sold this generation.
"Microsoft has a $199 Xbox 360 Arcade console, which is the cheapest of all three consoles. The entry-level Xbox is $50 cheaper than the [Nintendo] Wii and $200 cheaper than the [Sony] PS3," said Michael Cai, a video-game analyst at Parks Associates. "So if the majority of the units Microsoft sold were from that price point, then obviously it's not surprising. In this economy people want in-home entertainment -- but they also want cheaper entertainment.""
Traditionally, Cai said, video-game consoles reach mass adoption when the price drops below $200. Microsoft is the first to achieve that goal, in part, because the Xbox 360 was the first console released in the current generation.
"In this economy you do have a lot more bargain hunters and the price tag for the PS3 is likely to scare away some of the potential buyers in this environment than in a normal economic...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Intel, Hitachi GST Partner on Solid-State Drives
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63331
Intel and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies are teaming up to produce solid-state drives for servers, workstations and storage systems. The partners plan to deliver enterprise-class products equipped with Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Fibre Channel (FC) interfaces.
The jointly produced offerings will be exclusively sold and supported by Hitachi GST, beginning in early 2010.
"Intel and Hitachi GST share a common objective in delivering SAS/FC products based on solid-state technology that will help enterprise customers meet the skyrocketing demands for performance while reducing space, power and cooling costs," said Randy Wilhelm, the general manager of Intel's NAND Solutions Group. "The new solid-state drives for the enterprise include a number of architectural breakthroughs and improved performance and energy-usage models that will change enterprise computing."
Though the enterprise market for solid-state drives is still in its infancy, SSD technology is poised to become the most exciting innovation in system and storage design in more than a decade, said Sun Microsystems Executive Vice President John Fowler.
"This technology will completely change how server and storage infrastructure is designed and deployed in enterprise data centers," Fowler said earlier this year. "By mid-2009, it will be in the majority of servers and deliver more capacity than DRAM and far greater overall system performance and energy efficiency."
When stored on solid-state drives, enterprise data becomes immediately available and therefore can be processed more efficiently. Intel and Hitachi expect their forthcoming SSD products to be used in storage applications that require extremely high input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance.
SSD technology also delivers improvements in system utilization and scalability that promise to enable enterprises to reduce server and storage sprawl in data centers. Even better, deployment within data centers promises to deliver substantial savings on energy costs compared to traditional FC hard drives.
"We understand...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Privacy Advocates Wary of Facebook Connect
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63316
Facebook is walking a fine line again by rolling out Facebook Connect, a feature the company first talked about in May. Facebook Connect allows one log-in to easily share content across other social networks and Web sites.
The convenience of no longer having to type in profile information on multiple Web sites may be valuable to users, but at what risk to users' privacy? The popular social-networking site said the new feature will let a user connect a Facebook account with a Web site, using a trusted authentication process.
As the user moves around the Web, privacy settings will follow so the user's information and privacy settings are up to date, according to Facebook. Already the company said it will roll out the service to Discovery.com, Digg and Hulu in the next few weeks.
When Facebook first announced the new feature, company officials said they would work with identity providers to develop the best policies and standards to protect information.
The key with Facebook Connect is the disclosure of user data to third parties, according to Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). "Facebook needs to put in place clear privacy rules that limit the disclosure of user data," Rotenberg said. "Only information that is necessary for authentication should be made available."
"There should also be transparency obligations so that Facebook users know the information that is being disclosed and how it is being used," he added.
"Facebook has run into trouble with similar arrangements in the past when data became available to advertisers and then to application developers," Rotenberg said. "Facebook needs to do a better job as it considers the disclosure of user ID to third parties."
Rotenberg referred to Beacon, an ad-based service Facebook rolled out last year. The company announced last November that 44 Web sites...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Nokia Calls N97 an 'Advanced Mobile Computer'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63315
Nokia on Tuesday released its N97 smartphone, describing it as "the world's most advanced mobile computer," which will "transform the way people connect to the Internet and each other." Jonas Geust, a Nokia vice president who heads up the N series, called the N97 "the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence."
Certainly the new device from the market leader is stocked full of features, including a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the screen, a large 3.5-inch, 16:9 touch display, and 32 gigabytes of onboard memory, expandable by another 16GB with a microSD card. There's also a five-megapixel camera with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics and video capture that Nokia describes as "DVD quality."
Nokia is touting "social location" features for the phone, or "So-Lo." An integrated A-GPS and an electronic compass help the device figure out where it -- and you -- are. This means the device can update your approved friends with your location.
Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, agreed that, from an international perspective, the N97 is "rather spectacular." The form factor alone, he noted, with the QWERTY keyboard and a screen that tilts toward the user, is not unique but "exceptional and feels good."
"They really nailed the form factor," he added.
And he described the long feature list as definitely "drool-worthy," including a substantial battery, Wi-Fi, 3G, a tested and stable operating system, and other features. The N97 will readily integrate with Nokia's N-gage gaming platform, its Ovi service, and its Music Store. Out of the box, Greengart said, the device is ready for Microsoft Exchange e-mail and, at a suggested retail price of 550 Euros (US$699), it isn't "insanely priced."
But Greengart downplayed Nokia's hype about the N97 being a game-changer. He described So-Lo as a "nice acronym," but,...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Microsoft Admits Cashback Outage to Irate Users
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63314
Microsoft has rolled out a partnership with eBay to give consumers instant cash rebates. But the software giant is still reeling from a major outage that left Black Friday shoppers frustrated with its program.
Microsoft announced the cashback concept in May, hoping for an edge in the search-engine wars through ad-funded cash rebates for customers who find and purchase products using Live Search. The program partners with brands like eBay, Barnes & Noble.com, Overstock.com, Sears and Zappos.com, and includes more than 10 million product offers from more than 700 merchants.
Black Friday was to be a big day for Microsoft, but the software giant ended up with a black eye when the cashback server went down as consumers looked to cash in on specials like a 40 percent incentive from HP's online store.
In the wake of frustrated user comments, Rajat Taneja, general manager of worldwide commercial search, responded early Monday evening. He confirmed the unexpected outage on Black Friday and apologized for the inconvenience.
"A significant spike in traffic caused the system to go down for several hours on Friday. The downtime was partly related to investigating the issue and partly to rebuilding and redeploying the databases and indexes that support Microsoft Live Search cashback," Taneja wrote on the Live Search blog. "The issues that caused Friday's problem have been resolved. We're confident we won't have further problems."
Users who completed a purchase that day, he said, can follow up on a cashback rebate by contacting Microsoft's Live Search support with an order number and e-mail address used in the transaction.
Microsoft's stated goal with cashback is to make Live Search the most rewarding commercial search destination on the Web. Chairman Bill Gates is sure cashback will help advertisers drive more online sales while giving consumers a new way to stretch their dollars....
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Keeping Your Laptop and Data Safe and Secure
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63308
It's no wonder that laptop computers are popular among college students -- the devices are portable, and you can use them for everything from taking notes to wireless Internet surfing.
But the same factors that make laptops so appealing to students also can make them a hot target for thieves and cybercrooks.
"Particularly in the case of laptops, they're so easy to put into a backpack or any type thing (to steal)," said Harold Matthews, director of safety and security at the University of Evansville [Indiana].
And even if your laptop is never stolen, it's vulnerable to threats including viruses, spyware, worms and bad guys attempting to steal your personal information electronically.
The good news? There are several steps you can take to help keep your computer safe.
It's almost too simple to mention, but the experts agree you never should leave your computer unsecured.
"Don't just leave it lying around," said Steve Woodall, director of security at the University of Southern Indiana.
In 2007, Woodall said, USI students reported nine laptop thefts. Most of the computers were stolen from student dorm rooms or apartments, and all of the stolen computers were unsecured.
In a dorm room or apartment, Woodall recommends using a security cable to tether the computer to an immovable object, or locking the computer inside a drawer or cabinet. Another option is a motion-sensitive alarm that goes off if someone tries to move the computer.
If you have your computer with you in a public place, don't walk away and leave the computer, Woodall says -- either take it with you or ask a friend to watch it.
Carry the laptop in a nondescript bag or a briefcase, Matthews advises.
"Don't advertise that you've got a laptop... You can attract attention that you don't want to have"
Consider marking your computer with your initials or an identifiable...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
iPhone App Helps You Make Up Your Mind
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63304
Jason Crawforth wants to help you make up your mind. Earlier this month, he and four fellow software developers at Boise, [Idaho]-based MobileDataForce unveiled iMakeDecisions -- an application for Apple's fanatically popular iPhone and iPod touch that provides users with a suite of virtual decision-making tools to help them navigate through any situation.
"I started looking at some of these (decision-making) applications that people were writing and there were a ton of similar things," Crawforth said. "I thought, 'OK, these are weak, these are what I'd call iPhone app 1.0. We need to make one that combines several of these tools.'"
Programmed part-time over four months, iMakeDecisions sells on Apple's online App Store for $2 and includes 10 different tools -- from the classic coin flip (picking from a host of international currencies) to "Will it Stick?" (throwing a range of things from pickles to slime at a wall to see what stays).
The app -- designed by MobileDataForce programmers Dave Carter, Pete Fransen, Will Hannold and Devin Parsons -- is lighthearted but represents the firm's first foray into a growing and lucrative new market.
"When Apple came out with the iPhone there was nothing like it; it's a brand new space," said Crawforth, MobileDataForce's chief strategy officer. "It's a whole new area, everyone's pouring into it. It's exciting."
No matter how you slice it, pretty much anything related to the Apple iPhone is big business. When it hit the market in July, users snapped up about 1 million units in the first three days; after a month that figure had climbed to about 3 million. In late October, Apple announced it had sold 6.9 million of the sophisticated, touchscreen smartphones in the quarter ending Sept. 30, and had already far exceeded its goal of moving 10 million by the end of 2008....
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Review: The Aspire One A110 Netbook
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63302
After one month of using the Aspire One A110, I have to say that it's pretty good. This little netbook, an ultra-portable category product, comes with Intel's latest high-power-efficiency CPU called Atom, which is clocked at 1.6 gigahertz and comes with HyperThreading.
The A110 features one gigabyte of RAM, of which 512 megabytes is soldered on. Other than the 8GB solid-state drive (SSD), the machine uses three USB ports and two SecureDigital card slots for storage, giving users an option of carrying either flash drives or memory cards to hold the files they download from the Net.
It has an LED-backlit LCD, which is bright and clear. text on Web pages is legible from typing distance. The body is painted with scratch-resilient coating that gives it a rather sexy look.
The A110 offers about 2.5 hours of battery life, but you can buy a larger battery pack to get over five hours.
Just how does the A110 hold up against the regular laptops? Well, when used with pre-installed Linpus Linux, it does live up to its advertised claims. On a cold boot, the machine fully logs into the Linpus Desktop in about 20 seconds. Wi-Fi connection is about 10 seconds (free hotspot).
You can access all your e-mail accounts (maximum of six) from Acer's One Mail. Instant messaging is not a problem, too.
Linpus Linux also comes with OpenOffice Suit, Firefox 2 and various other multimedia software that allow you to do some quick work on the go.
Another feature is the ability to expand the storage of your SSD with a special SD card slot. Once an SD card is inserted, Linpus Linux will automatically add its capacity to the SSD's capacity.
But Linpus Linux is a closed platform. This means that to add software or update drivers, you will have to use Acer Live Update. It...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Plugging into Technology on the Cheap
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63294
Americans spent $129 billion on consumer technology last year, but it's a good bet that number could fall in 2008, thanks to the slow economy.
If you're pondering a reduced gadget budget, though, don't despair.
There are many ways to reduce your expenses without going cold turkey on tech.
Whether it's piping free Internet video to your TV rather than paying for cable, selling your old gizmos to retailers for store credit on new gadgets or just shopping smarter on the Web, there are plenty of low-cost ways to keep yourself in the digital life to which you've become accustomed.
Here are some tips on how to save in big and small ways on the tech toys that make life fun and productive.
If all you watch is the local networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.), don't pay for cable or satellite service. A traditional antenna will do (go to www.antennaweb.org to see what over-the-air stations are available where you live). You can even get high-definition network broadcasts over-the-air free with plain rabbit ears. However, this will only work until Feb. 17, when all U.S. televisions will transition to an all-digital system. Those who own TVs with rabbit ears will have to get a converter box to change digital programming into analog. For more details, see www.dtvtransition.org.
If you want to dump your cable bill but still want to watch cable shows and movies, you have several options: There are free, legal sites such as Hulu.com and YouTube (MGM recently announced it will post full-length movies on YouTube, and other studios are expected to follow) and paid services such as iTunes and Netflix's free streaming video service for its traditional mail subscribers.
Even if you don't want to deal with scouting for free videos across the Web and would rather keep your cable service, you can...
Wed, 3 Dec 08
Internet Searching Stimulates Brain, Study Says
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63286
Can Googling delay the onset of dementia?
A new UCLA study, part of the growing research into the effects of technology on the brain, shows that searching the Internet may keep older brains agile -- it's like taking your brain for a walk.
It's too early to conclude that technology will help vanquish Alzheimer's disease, but "our study shows that when your brain is on Google, your neural circuitry changes extensively," said psychiatrist Gary Small, director of UCLA's Memory & Aging Research Center.
The new study, which will be published next month in the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, comes at a time when medical experts are forecasting that Alzheimer's cases will quadruple by 2050. In response to such projections, "brain-gyms" and memory-building computer programs have proliferated.
The subjects in Small's nine-month study were 24 neurologically normal volunteers ages 55 to 76, with similar education levels.
They were assigned two tasks: to read book-like text on computer screens and to perform Internet searches.
While doing so, their brains were scanned inside a specially equipped magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. Half the group was familiar with Internet searching; the other half was not.
Subjects viewed simulated Web pages through goggles, then, using a finger pad to approximate an online search, pressed one of three response buttons to control the cursor. For the book reading task, they pressed a button to advance text pages.
To increase their motivation, subjects were told in advance that they would be assessed for their knowledge of the topics they researched. Topics included the benefits of eating chocolate, planning a trip to the Galapagos and how to choose a car.
The MRI results showed that both text reading and Internet searching stimulated the regions of the brain controlling language, reading, memory and vision. But the Internet search lit up more areas of the brain, additionally activating the...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
MySpace Conviction Could Have Dangerous Ramifications
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63313
The prosecution celebrated a partial victory as Lori Drew was found guilty of three of the lesser charges she faced stemming from a MySpace hoax that resulted in a 13-year-old girl's suicide.
While most of the attention was focused on the drama that ensued because of the suicide of Megan Meier, the outcome of the landmark case may have lasting effects on how people use Web sites.
Drew was found guilty of accessing a computer without authorization and may serve up to three years in jail -- and could pay up to $300,000. The jurors could not reach a verdict in the felony conspiracy charge against Drew, and U.S. District Court Judge George Wu declared a mistrial, according to the Associated Press.
If Drew was found guilty, what does this mean for others out there who create accounts under false names?
Legal experts say it means users can face the same charges that were brought against Drew if they violate a Web site's terms-of-service agreement.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other public-policy groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and 14 Internet law professors, argued against the criminal charges in August, calling them a dramatic misapplication of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with "far-ranging consequences."
The CDT filed a motion with the court, warning that using the law to prosecute Drew had dangerous ramifications for Internet users.
The groups are not happy with the guilty verdict.
"This really is a lose-lose situation," said John Morris of the CDT. "The users have to pay much more attention to look at what the terms are, and this decision decreases the ability to protect their own privacy."
Companies will also get more push-back on terms-of-service agreements, Morris said. "I think some people will avoid sites because of terms-of-service agreements, and it would...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Black Friday Promos Drive Gadget Sales Online
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63312
Online sales on the day after Thanksgiving -- known as Black Friday among retailers -- were unexpectedly strong, raising hopes among Web-based vendors that this year's holiday shopping season may not turn out to be the total disaster that some analysts have been predicting.
ShopperTrak, which provides a nationwide benchmark of retail sales -- both online and offline -- estimates that Black Friday sales totaled $10.6 billion, a three percent rise from the year-ago date. Though the company's cofounder, Bill Martin, notes that Black Friday is not always the best predictor of total holiday season performance, he thinks retailers of all stripes have reason to be cautiously optimistic.
"Retailers truly experienced what we've dubbed the 'perfect storm' over the last few weeks, with the financial markets melting down, the presidential election which typically slows retail traffic and relatively high gasoline prices -- all of which slowed both retail traffic and spending," Martin explained. "Under these circumstances, to start off the season in this fashion is truly amazing and is a testament to the resiliency of the American consumer, and undeniably proves a willingness to spend."
Black Friday shoppers flocked to their PCs in order to snap up hot holiday gifts, such as Nintendo's Wii gaming console, GPS navigation gear, and the iPod touch, according to eBay. The online shopping giant said its Shopping.com Web site sold a GPS unit every nine minutes and an MP3 player every 11 minutes.
The latest data from PriceGrabber.com also demonstrates that plenty of consumers also took advantage of promotional deals on LCD and plasma TV sets, Blu-ray Disc players, digital SLR cameras, and laptops.
"Thanksgiving and Black Friday traffic shows that value drives consumer spending," said Ron LaPierre, president of PriceGrabber.com. "Consumers are responding to aggressive promotions and price drops on popular electronics."
PayPal enjoyed a...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Facebook Connect Tracks Friends Across the Web
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63311
Facebook is looking to resurrect its Beacon platform, this time with a little less controversy. Dubbed Facebook Connect, the company describes the new service as the next iteration of the Facebook platform that allows users to connect their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site.
This opens the door for third-party Web sites to implement and offer more Facebook features, such as showing a user which of their friends also have accounts on a site.
"In a certain way, this is the return of Facebook Beacon," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "The difference is Beacon was an advertising program. If you took some sort of action on a third-party site while you were signed into Facebook, that action would be broadcast back to your friends. People got upset about it because they weren't fully aware they were exposed in that way."
Indeed, Facebook drew the ire of thousands of its users just a year ago with Beacon. Fifty thousand Facebook members signed a MoveOn.org petition over a 10-day period asking the site to respect user privacy.
Like Connect, Beacon was positioned as an option to share actions on other sites with friends on Facebook. But Connect does not have an advertising component.
Here's how it works: Members can log onto other Web sites using their Facebook username and password and see what their friends are doing on those sites. Connect also lets users keep their friend network up to date about what they are doing on those sites. Facebook's initial lineup includes the Discovery Channel, the San Francisco Chronicle, Digg, Geni and Hulu, according to a report in The New York Times.
"Connect remedies the issues with Beacon in the sense that you would use your Facebook log-in on the other sites, so you are presumably conscious that...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Power.com Combines Multiple Social Networks
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63310
A Brazil-based startup says it has a solution for users of multiple social networks like Facebook, MySpace and others who want to access the Web sites on one portal. Power.com, which has backing from veteran technology investors, has been operating in stealth mode for users in India and Brazil, but now wants to woo U.S.-based users.
The Web site synchronizes friends, messages, photos and updates from multiple social-network, e-mail and instant-messaging accounts, according to Steve Vachani, chief executive of Power.com. The site, which does not charge for its service, supports users on Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, MSN Messenger, Orkut and YouTube. Future support will include LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and Skype, according to the company.
"We're taking down the boundaries between social sites, so users can keep in touch and even synchronize friends and photos automatically," Vachani said. "Social is about people, not about place. So we're making the virtual 'where' irrelevant."
While Power.com's leaders have quietly grown the user base to five million and their employees to 70, the current plan is to expand that user base beyond Brazil and India. Looking at its current growth rate, the company expects to have more than 30 million registered users by the end of 2009.
Power.com is reaching out to users by placing ads on messages sent through the service, inviting users to ask their friends to join, and adding links to members' social-network profile pages.
Vachani may have to prove the strength behind Power.com to potential users, but it has already captured the attention of investors and technologists who have provided the first round of funding.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Draper Fischer Jurvetson, which has backed companies like Hotmail and Skype, has invested $6 million in Power.com. Private investors, including Esther Dyson, have backed the company with another $2 million. Dyson's...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
CyberMonday, Mobile Tuesday Lure Online Shoppers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63309
Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and now CyberMonday. Launched several years ago by shop.org, an organization that promotes online retailers, CyberMonday features special sales and free shipping to complement the discounts in brick-and-mortar retailers on Friday.
After much trepidation about Black Friday -- so called because it's the day that stores aim to be in the black for the year -- there were reports that crowds were substantial but, because of large discounts, profits were thin. Some retailers reportedly offered discounts up to 70 percent going into the weekend. Additionally, some observers have noted that the crowds fell off throughout the weekend, and that there was more interest in lower-priced items than in big-ticket ones.
In other words, sales on Black Friday were neither as good nor as bad as they could have been.
Online shopping over the weekend did not fare much better. Internet industry research firm ComScore reported Sunday that weekend online spending was up only two percent for the Thanksgiving and Black Friday period, compared to a year ago, but that includes many heavily-discounted items.
The basic idea behind CyberMonday is to ride on the coattails of Black Friday's shoppers, many of whom might want to give their feet a rest and avoid crowds by having their fingers do the walking online.
Best Buy, for instance, offered a two-day, online-only sale for Sunday and Monday, in addition to other specials. The Apple Store and Overstock.com offered free shipping, and Sears offered CyberMonday specials such as tools up to 50 percent off.
Just as Black Friday begat CyberMonday, so CyberMonday may beget Mobile Tuesday.
A mobile marketing firm named Mobigosee is planning to launch Mobile Tuesday. Mobigosee founder-CEO Tanya Penman told news media that, since the Tuesday after Thanksgiving is a slow shopping day, the company will encourage mobile-based shopping on Tuesdays...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Spam Volumes Rising Despite McColo Shutdown
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63299
Spam is on the rise again, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Spam dropped two-thirds in November after Silicon Valley-based McColo, a major spam network, was shut down. At the time, Symantec correctly predicted little long-term effect on spam levels.
"Symantec cautions users to continue to be on guard against spam and malicious code attacks as attackers have traditionally tried to leverage festive session and topical global events to lure users into opening and responding to their messages," said Vincent Weafer, senior director of the Symantec Antivirus Research Center.
Symantec warned that control systems would be reestablished and the McColo shutdown would drive spammers toward peer-to-peer botnets, which are more resilient. It also warned that the end of the year sees a large increase in spam volume, often driven by holiday spending. The profit motive encourages spammers to find a way to get their messages to victims.
Indeed, while the McColo shutdown was a significant blow to spammers, volumes will probably continue to rise in time for Christmas, according to Graham Cluley, a senior security consultant at Sophos.
"The spammers guys are back in business with their unwanted e-mail campaigns," Cluley said. "The spam levels may not have yet returned to their pre-McColo-shutdown heights, but the bad guys have been working hard ramping up their infrastructures in readiness for their Christmas campaigns."
Now, Srizbi, one of the largest botnets on the Internet, has new life. Asprox, Mega-D and Rustock are also up and running again. This time, spammers are looking to Internet service providers hosted outside U.S. borders, making them more difficult to shut down. For example, security firm FireEye is reporting at least 50,000 Srizbi machines are hosted on Estonian-based servers.
"The hackers who run the botnets will change the infrastructure of their botnets, adopting a...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
New Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Called 'Total Fiction'
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63285
A report in the Sunday Times [of London] that Microsoft Corp. is in talks with Yahoo Inc. to buy the U.S Internet company's online search business for $20 billion is "total fiction," according to a key executive cited by an influential U.S. blog.
The Sunday Times, which did not cite its sources, said the proposal under discussion involves a complex transaction that would see the U.S. software giant support a new management team to take control of Yahoo.
The team would be led by ex-AOL Chairman and CEO Jonathan Miller and former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, the report said.
But the AllThingsDigital blog, affiliated with the Wall Street Journal, quoted Levinsohn as saying the report was "total fiction." Top sources at Yahoo and Microsoft also scoffed at the report, the blog said.
Yahoo spokesman Brad Williams said: "We don't comment on rumors, and all this is is a rumor."
A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment.
Microsoft withdrew its $47.5 billion buyout offer for Yahoo in May after Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and his board rejected the bid as too low.
Bid speculation was sparked again earlier this month when Yang announced he was stepping down. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ruled a bid out at the time, but said he was "open" to talks on a deal for Yahoo's search business.
Activist investor Carl Icahn -- who sits on Yahoo's board and increased his stake in the company to 5.4 percent last week -- reiterated he favored the sale of the search business, according to an interview in the Dec. 1 edition of Barron's.
"Microsoft has said publicly that they are not interested in buying the whole company, and I believe them. But they are interested in doing a deal on search, and we should pursue that," Icahn was quoted by Barron's.
Earlier this year, Icahn threatened to...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Web Escapes Can Keep Us Sane
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63227
When the reality of the world gets to be too much for Jana Ogletree, a waitress from Elgin, Idaho, she turns to -- puppies.
Six puppies, to be precise -- romping, rolling, sleeping, yelping and playing.
Ogletree doesn't own the six furry shiba inu puppies. And she has never touched them. Instead, the puppies are being raised by an anonymous couple in San Francisco, and Ogletree -- along with about 4 million others around the world -- watches them live, online via video feed on Ustream.tv three to four times a day.
"The economy is tanking. There's going to be a new change in the administration," says Ogletree, 42. "Everything happening in the outside world right now is just completely overwhelming.
"What's a better little island in the midst of a giant sea of angst than six little puppies in San Francisco?"
Watching the puppies "is really a relaxing way to spend a couple of minutes during the day," she says.
When the going gets tough, the tough are turning to the Web, whether it's to take a break from a busy day, escape a nasty boss or forget about the state of the world.
Some spend five minutes between meetings to learn to talk like a pirate (talklikeapirate.com). Some sneak away for a moment to peek at Cute Overload (cuteoverload.com), a blog that features all things cute, including of course, lots of baby animals. Others take five for the irreverent bite of humor at The Onion (theonion.com) or find stress relief with I Can Has Cheezburger (icanhascheez burger.com), which features pictures of animals (mostly cats) set to funny captions of what they might say. There's the one of a picture of a big dog licking a kitten saying, "Baftime in one lick."
"Everybody needs comfort and escape," says Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo. "In the past, you...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Revenues Rise, Data Center Becomes Hospitable Host
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63203
For a few years, Norman Jester ran a colocation data center in name only.
Clients hired him to house their computer equipment, but he had no place of his own to put them. So he rented space from competitors.
"We were a customer of many, many data centers across the United States," said Jester, CEO of Otay Mesa Data Center [outside San Diego], which, until recently, was called Suavemente.
Jester started the business in 2004. In 2006, he decided to build out his own self-standing data center in Otay Mesa and spent about two years and $1.4 million renovating the facility, adding environmental systems, waterless fire suppression, server racks and wiring.
"I did it slowly out of my own pocket. I cash and carried the whole way through because I don't like owing anyone money," he said.
Data centers are essentially large, air-conditioned warehouses -- connected by multiple Internet lines -- that provide a place for clients' servers. They save customers headaches associated with running an in-house computer operation.
"They come to the data center and we provide the connection," Jester said.
Clients can also rent equipment from the data center.
Typical customers pay $5,000 to $10,000 a month. Smaller ones pay $500 a month, and the largest customers will pay as much as $75,000, he says.
OMDC has 22 employees in the United States and seven in Mexico. U.S. revenues were $1.2 million in 2007 and are on pace to reach $5 million this year. Revenues from a smaller data center in Mexico average about $1 million a year, says Jester.
The 22,000-square-foot facility is the only data center in Otay Mesa. It's near state Route 905 and the U.S.-Mexico border to serve South County clients and Mexico businesses, more and more of which are hosting their Web sites in the United States, Jester says.
"I live in Chula...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Where Would You Relocate for a Job?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63172
Imagine you were offered a dream job that required you to relocate to your favorite city. Which city would it be? And why?
If you're like most Americans, you might select New York, San Diego, or San Francisco, according to a soon-to-be released survey of 2,500 employees and entrepreneurs across the nation by the Human Capital Institute, a Washington-based think tank and professional association largely made up of human resources professionals.
As the economy softens, this becomes more of a pressing issue because many Americans will find that they may be forced to relocate to find work. But even though some workers may not have the luxury of choice, some cities remain more desirable than others.
Interestingly, New York, which seems to evoke strong feelings in people, also topped the list of America's least favorite places to live and work. Survey-takers who like the Big Apple gave it high marks for entertainment options, professional and personal opportunities, and ease of transportation. Workers who don't like it overwhelmingly point to the high cost of living.
Detroit, which has seen its image only worsen with the collapsing auto industry, was the second-least appealing city, followed by Los Angeles [also No. 5 on the best cities list] and New Orleans.
"People have a love-hate relationship with New York," said Allan Schweyer, the industry group's executive director. "There are still people who think New York isn't part of the United States. There are people who might think that even if they were offered their dream job in New York, they don't want to go from a 3,000-square-foot house in the suburbs to a 1,200-square-foot apartment."
The survey is part of the professional organization's 2009 National Talent Markets report, which is meant to help cities determine how to improve and properly market...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
How a Firefox Add-On Can Get You on the Plane First
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63134
It was the day before my flight back to New York from West Palm Beach, Fla. Since I was flying on Southwest Airlines, which has no reserved seating, and since I was reluctant to take the word of the airline attesting that families with small children would have priority, I had to form a plan quickly. I wanted to be first in line on our flight back to New York.
As some of you know, Southwest allows its customers to log in 24 hours ahead of time and "reserve" a spot in line. The faster we were able to reserve the spot (or four spots in case), the earlier we could board and the less anxious my wife and I would be. With a little more than 24 hours to go, I still didn't have a plan. Sure, I could manually refresh the page by continually pressing F5 every half-second to make sure I would be first to sign up. (We needed to get to a landing page after plugging in our confirmation number, and I was now on that page, and it was telling me that I couldn't reserve our spaces yet.) But my kids were hounding me, and I needed to let the browser play this waiting game on its own. And I wanted to be first in line.
Then I remembered a new Firefox add-on that I had installed a few weeks before the trip. I had wanted a certain page (my FriendFeed friends page) to refresh itself automatically so that I wouldn't have to do it. The add-on, called ReloadEvery (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/115), reloads a page at any time interval you set up. I asked it to reload the tab with my FriendFeed friends every 2.5 minutes. In fact, you can set it up to...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
Mobile CRM: Are We There Yet?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63042
Getting the mobile channel to where enabling CRM through accessing applications or web sites a.k.a. mobile CRM is as seamless from desktops is akin to taking young children on a long ride who then inevitably ask: "are we there yet?" The answers will depend to some extent on the nature of the journey being taken. If the trip is for work, such for field sales staff and support reps, the destination is in sight.
CRM suppliers have been releasing new editions that have been customized to fit hot multichannel smartphones. FrontRange Solutions' GoldMine Mobile 3.0 supports the BlackBerry platform, is integrated with its e-mail and phone mechanisms, has offline access to data, and has been designed to utilize the popular device's navigation and security management.
There are also tools such as OpenSpan that can mobile-enable legacy CRM solutions like Clarify. Their functionality can be accessed by simple web applications on devices.
Maximizer Software recently launched a mobile CRM brand to strengthen its market presence. Angie Hirata, director of worldwide marketing and business development, says that workforces are now enjoying robust CRM functionality directly on their smartphones. These include opportunity and account management, client e-mail, call logging and mapping.
"The days with a field sales rep or technician having to go back to the office to get on the desktop for updates and additional information, are over," says Hirata.
If the travel is for everyday business, such as banking, buying products, and obtaining service via the Internet or accessing data-rich content like videos, i.e. mobile commerce or "m-commerce" then there is a little more ways to go.
Emmett Higdon is a senior analyst at Forrester Research who wrote a recently published report on financial services e-commerce. He identified a lack of commerce and-CRM-enabling mobile applications such as user authentication, payment methods for banking, or tools that leverage...
Tue, 2 Dec 08
The Do Not Call List -- Five Years Later
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=63040
October 2008 [marked] the fifth anniversary of the often controversial U.S. federal Do Not Call (DNC) registry, though individual state had started DNC lists several years before and many continue to have them. DNC compliance is enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). So we asked direct marketing and teleservices leaders what has been the impact of the DNC on compliance, complaints, operations, demand for teleservices, and on outbound campaign costs and effectiveness. We wanted to find out from them if they could change the legislation what aspects of it would they modify, and why. Finally we sought to find out where they saw the DNC going from here, going forward.
Here are their responses:
Tim Searcy, Chief Executive Officer
The impact of the DNC has been dramatic. Campaign costs have remained stable because of the increased costs of compliance. However, more campaigns have been deemed profitable because average conversion rates have improved by 20-30 percent on average. The DNC has clearly decreased the overall pool of available numbers, and the resulting decline in overall program size has resulted in a decrease of about 1.2 million jobs. It appears that the DNC is effective in cutting the consumer complaint pace, and we have seen a slowing of traditional complaints to the FTC. But fraudulent use of the channel and confusion about compliance requirements are still issues which need to be addressed through education and enforcement every day.
It is difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. The DNC legislation has a few flaws that over time are being worked out, but without a doubt, the issue of exclusive jurisdiction is the biggest problem. Currently states view teleservices regulation related to DNC and all other aspects of the channel to be fair game...