Newsfactor Technology
Main
Technology
Army TechnologyCyberwars
Military Technology
Newsfactor Technology
Technology World
Yahoo Technology
Random Feeds
Archives
| Oct 2008 | Sep 2008 | Aug 2008 | Jul 2008 | Jun 2008 | May 2008 | Apr 2008 | Mar 2008 | Feb 2008 | Jan 2008 | Dec 2007 | Nov 2007 |Tue, 7 Oct 08
eBay To Drop 1,000 Employees, Buy Two Companies
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62307
One of the Internet's long-running success stories, global auction operator eBay, announced Monday that it is laying off 10 percent of its workforce in the coming weeks. Roughly 1,000 permanent employees and several hundred temporary employees will lose their jobs.
The company also announced that it expects its third-quarter revenues to be on the low end of previous estimates. Ebay's report will be released on Oct. 15.
John Donahoe, eBay's CEO, tried to put the best face on the company's planned firings: "While never an easy decision to make," he said, "these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth."
Over the balance of the year, eBay said, it will take a pretax restructuring charge, which it estimated at between $70 million and $80 million.
In the midst of the day's heavy losses on Wall Street, eBay's stock was down 6 percent, dropping to $16.70 and closing at $17.89 per share. That's well off the company's 52-week high of $40.73.
Not all of eBay's financial news was about restructuring and workforce reduction. The company announced it is spending $1.34 billion to acquire two companies, online-payment company BillMeLater and the Dutch classified-ad Web sites Den Bla Avis and BilBasen.
eBay executives hope the acquisitions will enable the company to reverse slowing sales growth and augment its PayPal payment system. BillMeLater allows consumers to get a nearly instantaneous loan and purchase items online. It remains to be seen how that model will work in an increasingly challenging economy.
In a video for CNBC, Donahoe stressed the importance of the acquisitions for eBay's long-term prospects.
"We are making aggressive moves to strengthen our leadership positions in e-commerce and payments to competitively position our company for long-term growth," Donahoe said. "BillMeLater is a perfect complement to our portfolio, a company that...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
New Readers, Software Heat Up E-Book Market
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62306
The battle over e-readers is heating up rapidly, thanks to new hardware entries from the world's two leading e-book manufacturers and the surprising popularity of e-book software on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. Although the total number of e-books is still well short of a single Steven King press run, the next-generation devices point to a steadily maturing market for digital literature.
On Friday, Sony announced the latest version of its e-reader, the Sony PRS-700 Reader. The device will be released next month and will cost approximately $400.
The many gadget blogs on the Web are also speculating that Amazon is about to announce the release an updated Kindle, and a few purported photos of the device have even been posted on sites like Engadget and Boy Genius Report. However, there is no word from Amazon about when a Kindle 2.0 might hit the market.
Cost continues to be one of the main impediments to widespread adoption of e-readers. According to Ross Rubin, an analyst with the NPD Group, the cost of the new Sony device will prevent any dramatic surge in sales.
"Right now," Rubin said, "the e-reader market is a fairly small one, focusing primarily on the avid readers of New York Times best sellers and frequent travelers. Any big plans for dramatic market expansion will require a substantial reduction in price."
The Sony PRS-700 offers a number of new features, but seems unlikely to get over the cost hurdle. The new reader will keep a slim profile and low weight (10 ounces, about the weight of a paperback book). However, the company is adding a reading light and the ability to turn pages by simply touching the screen, a feature that may have been inspired by the e-reader programs for the iPhone and iPod touch.
"Readers now have another choice...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
iPhone 3G Entices Mobile-Carrier Defections
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62305
The NPD Group, a market-research firm, reports that 30 percent of the U.S. consumers who purchased Apple's iPhone 3G from its release on July 11 through August switched mobile carriers in order to join AT&T, which holds exclusive U.S. sales rights for the red-hot device.
About half of AT&T's new iPhone 3G customers elected to switch from Verizon Wireless, while 24 percent came from T-Mobile defections, and 19 percent abandoned Sprint, noted Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD.
"The launch of the lower-priced iPhone 3G was a boon to overall consumer smartphone sales," Rubin said. "While the original iPhone also helped win customers for AT&T, the faster network speeds of the iPhone 3G have proven more appealing to customers that already had access to a 3G network."
Even before the release of the iPhone 3G, AT&T's wireless business unit had been on a roll. The company said in July that its wireless revenues in the second quarter amounted to $12 billion -- a 15.8 percent increase over the prior-year period. The wireless carrier's service revenues, which exclude handset and accessory sales, grew 14.8 percent to $11 billion.
AT&T's iPhone exclusive should give the carrier a competitive edge over its rivals. "The current economic environment continues to negatively impact the market, limiting consumer spending and replacement purchases in general," said Roberta Cozza, a principal analyst at Gartner.
Despite the economic downturn, smartphones in general -- and the iPhone 3G in particular -- are expected to continue to attract a lot of consumer attention.
"As they become inexpensive gateways to the Internet from practically anywhere, smartphones are delivering a better consumer value than ever before," Rubin said. "However, more must be done to show the advantages of their operating systems to keep them ahead of increasingly sophisticated feature phones."
Tue, 7 Oct 08
Ask.com Boasts Semantic Search Enhancements
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62287
In a move to compete against Google, search engine Ask.com on Monday launched a new version of its site. The latest iteration claims significant boosts in relevance, user interface, and speed.
Ask.com is betting on proprietary technologies like DADS, DAFS and AnswerFarm to break new ground in semantic search, Web extraction, and ranking. The company said Monday's announcement marks the first of several new search-technology innovations it will introduce in the coming months.
Initial feedback from customers testing the new site has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Jim Safka, Ask.com's CEO.
"By listening to our customers and giving them what they want, we've already seen a 14 percent increase in customer satisfaction," Safka said. "Ask.com is well on its way to accelerating growth with an improved product, expanded distribution, and an emotionally resonant brand."
Ask.com said its latest search-engine improvements rely upon a combination of recent enhancements to its proprietary search technology. Specifically, the company pointed to significant advancements in its core relevance capabilities since this time last year.
Site-download speeds, for example, are 30 percent faster today than they were a year ago. These improvements, Ask.com says, have already demonstrated a 16 percent increase in customer retention.
"On average, it takes consumers three clicks to find what they are searching for online. Ask.com's goal is to reduce this to one click of the search box," Safka said. Ask hopes to achieve this goal by going deeper into the highest-volume categories, including entertainment, health and nutrition, jobs and reference.
The company said its latest enhancements give it the ability to deliver more direct answers on the results page, which lets consumers avoid back-and-forth clicking between Web pages. Ask.com said it will drill down deeper into additional categories this year.
Here's an example: Consumers doing entertainment-related searches such as "Is COPS on TV...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
IBM Shifts Focus To Cloud Computing with New Services
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62286
IBM is getting in the cloud. After a string of announcements over the past few weeks from Citrix, Red Hat, VMware, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard, Big Blue is launching an initiative to extend its traditional software delivery model toward a mix of on-premise and cloud-computing applications with new software, services and technical resources for clients and independent software vendors (ISVs).
As IBM sees it, businesses face a unique set of challenges as they look to grow in a globally integrated economy. The company described a perfect storm of data deluge, a fluid regulatory environment, and widening gaps in IT skills that add more cost pressures to resource-strapped organizations. Part of the answer, IBM says, is cloud computing.
"We are moving our clients, the industry, and even IBM itself to have a mixture of data and applications that live in the data center and in the cloud," said Willy Chiu, vice president of high-performance on-demand solutions at IBM.
Chiu said feedback from the business world inspired IBM's four-pronged cloud strategy, which includes delivering its own cloud-services portfolio; helping ISVs design, build, deliver and market cloud services; helping clients integrate cloud services into their business; and providing cloud-computing environments to businesses.
As part of its initiative, IBM is launching a free, open beta for Bluehouse, its Web-based social-networking and collaboration cloud service that aims to help professionals work together securely. Lotus Sametime Unyte is also on IBM's cloud to let businesses communicate in real time with a worldwide network of employees, partners and consumers.
IBM is also offering Rational Policy Tester OnDemand. Big Blue said the software helps reduce online risks by automating Web-content scanning to isolate privacy, quality and accessibility compliance issues.
Meanwhile, Rational AppScan OnDemand scans Web applications for security bugs, and Telelogic Focal Point helps product-management teams collect, analyze and...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
SEC Probes Posting About Steve Jobs Heart Attack
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62285
On Friday a report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital spawned a frenzy in Apple's stock. Now the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into whether the false report was an effort to hurt the company's stock, according to CNN spokesperson Jennifer Martin.
Apple's shares plunged Friday from $106.50 to $94.65 after a "citizen's journal" report was posted on CNN's iReport Web site.
The report said "Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven't seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it."
iReport is CNN's public journalism Web site, which allows users to post videos and photos showing news from their local towns. iReport was launched in 2006 and was bought by CNN last January and relaunched in March.
The Securities and Exchange Commission's spokesperson, John Heine, said staff members are not authorized to confirm or deny whether the SEC "is investigating or not investigating" a company. But Martin said the company has been contacted by the SEC looking for information regarding the person who posted the message.
"The SEC has contacted iReport.com and we are certainly cooperating with them," Martin told us in a phone interview. "The report was taken off (the Web site) on Friday morning and the user's, who submitted that report, account was canceled."
Apple issued a statement Friday denying the...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
Facebook Cofounder Leaving To Start New Company
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62262
The Facebook duo is no more. One of Facebook's two cofounders is leaving the popular social-networking site.
Dustin Moskovitz is leaving and forming a new duo by taking engineer Justin Rosenstein with him. Together, the two will launch another company, Rosenstein said on his Facebook page.
Rosenstein, who was recruited from Google by Moskovitz in the early stages of launching the company, said the two have had similar visions on software and what Facebook needs to do to evolve as a company.
"Leaving Facebook makes me sad, but I feel I have to follow my passion on this," Rosenstein said. "I can't say enough about Facebook and the friends I've made here, and I am enormously excited for the company's future success, a destiny I'm confident it will reach regardless of my participation."
The two will leave Facebook in about a month, Rosenstein said, and build an "extensible enterprise productivity suite" and a "high-level open-source software development toolkit." The new software will use Facebook Connect as a default option for identity and authentication, according to Rosenstein.
He said the new venture is complementary to Facebook and he hopes the new company's products will be as integral to users' professional work lives as Facebook has become in their social lives.
The decision to leave was a tough one, according to Rosenstein. "As our visions for how productivity software could work came into alignment, we thought about building it inside of Facebook," he said. "It was an attractive option in many ways, and neither of us was eager to exit a company that was in such an exciting phase of its development."
The fog soon lifted and Rosenstein said it became clear that doing so would not be good for Facebook or the duo.
"Facebook needs to continue its mission of making the world more open through...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
Apple's 'Brick' Is an Innovative Manufacturing Process
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62261
New laptops from Apple, maker of such advanced products as the iPhone, the iPod and the Mac, could be made from bricks. An aluminum brick, that is.
According to reports on the Web, the computer and consumer-products innovator is about to unveil a new kind of manufacturing that carves a solid-aluminum chassis for MacBooks out of an aluminum brick. With new MacBooks scheduled to be released next week, speculation has grown that it might include models made with the brick process.
According to the reports, the manufacturing process uses lasers and water-jet cutting tools to carve the aluminum block. Some observers have suggested that, rather than making the laptop heavier, it could lead to stronger and lighter laptops.
The reason is that a solid chassis could mean no seams, bends, screws or other fastenings, saving a bit of weight and increasing strength. And, as with all Apple products, it could result in a visually pleasing device.
According to the Mac enthusiast site 9to5mac.com, the new manufacturing process is "totally revolutionary, a game changer," adding that it was the "biggest Apple innovation in a decade."
The site also reported that Apple has spent several years perfecting the process, and that it can now become more self-reliant in controlling the manufacture of its products, rather than farming them out to Chinese or Taiwanese factories. They point out that Apple CEO Steve Jobs built a totally automated plant in 1990 for his NeXT computers, an accomplishment that he said made him as proud as the computers from that company.
There are several advantages to making a chassis out of a solid metal block, the site said. In addition to seamless smoothness and no need for fasteners, the site said the chassis can be very inexpensive and creative in its shape.
Mark Margevicius, a research director...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
A Fog of Anxiety Invades Sunny Thinking in Silicon Valley
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62251
Ever since the credit crunch first gripped the financial world, Silicon Valley has watched from the sidelines, secure in the faith that it was insulated from the coming storm.
With the stock market in turmoil, a U.S. bailout up in the air and recession seemingly inevitable, that faith is now being seriously undermined. High-tech entrepreneurs, investors and executives now believe the question is when, not if, the financial chaos will have an impact on the cradle of innovation in the United States.
From San Francisco to San Jose, the effects are already palpable. This week, Apple, one of the Valley's high-fliers, lost 13 percent of its value as investors reasonably concluded that consumers would shun pricey gadgets over the holidays in favor of lower ticket items -- or paying down their credit cards.
On Monday, Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, traveling in Europe, conceded that financial problems would drag down business and consumer spending -- and that many technology companies, including Microsoft, were vulnerable. (Page 20)
The heart of the Valley's success is, of course, its ecosystem of start-up companies. Many claim that ecosystem remains healthy, thanks to the lessons learned and prudence gained from the dot.com crash.
Nevertheless, a dense fog of anxiety has settled over the land.
"Funding will tighten up. We are certainly going to see some ripple effects," said Ron Conway, a prominent angel investor who has invested in hundreds of Web start-ups over the last decade. Start-ups that have less than six months of cash in the bank "better reduce costs," Conway said. "I will certainly be advising my companies to do that."
Silicon Valley has recited several calming mantras to itself during the prolonged economic turbulence. As the influence of the Internet becomes even more pervasive, goes one mantra, advertising will inevitably follow. Blue-chip tech firms like Google, eBay and...
Tue, 7 Oct 08
Google Aims To Reform Energy Grid
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=62249
Google hopes to do for the power grid what it did for the Web.
Having conquered the market for Web search by first simplifying how it is done and then making sales of related advertising more efficient, Google is now funding green technology and using its brand power to lobby for policy change.
Google introduced a plan Wednesday to wean the United States off the burning of coal and oil for power by 2030 and to cut oil use for cars by 40 percent. Such initiatives could cost trillions of dollars, but Google believes they should ultimately save money.
Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the annual cost of the Google energy plan would still be less than the $700 billion being considered to bail out the financial industry. He also cited parallels between the energy challenge and the credit crisis.
"That is an unconscionable failure of system design," he said, referring to the credit crisis. "It is inconceivable to me that the sum of the financial industry would have created that as a possible outcome."
He said Google had not yet felt the economic impact of the financial turmoil, but he added that it was hard to say what would happen next.
"There is an equivalent-scale problem in energy," he said after delivering a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. His talk was titled "Where Would Google Drill?"
"I'm a computer scientist and computer scientists love scale problems," Schmidt said. "We like scale and replication and leverage in a technical way."
Through its philanthropic arm, Google.org, the company is backing start-ups designing wind, solar and geothermal technologies, which it hopes will eventually be cheaper than coal. Google invested $45 million in such companies this year.
"But that is a drop when we need a flood," Google says on its official blog.
Calls for energy efficiency and...