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Scrabble owners to sue Scrabulous makers

Hasbro Inc., maker of the Scrabble board-game, sued the creators of ''Scrabulous,'' an online version found on Facebook.com, claiming it violates the company's copyrights and trademarks.
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

The Celtic Tiger is alive and well - in cyberspace

There was a time when kinky toys and naughty knickers were the only things that red-faced shoppers had smuggled to their doorstep through the secrecy of online shopping.
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

Just the medicine for ailing health system

Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

Could video really be the saviour of the radio stars?

If someone had to save the music industry from itself, it seems fitting that the city which brought the world U2 and Thin Lizzy is the place to start arresting the steep decline the industry has allowed itself to fall into.
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

Online spread betting tipped to even the odds for novice investors

SPREAD betting, a form of gambling that has its origins in the Seventies, is big business in 2008. As markets around the world rise and fall, the genre has been seized by one of Ireland’s largest betting firms as a way to allow punters to gain using the internet, whether stocks rise or fall.
Publication date: 2008-07-25 more

Mind games: Harnessing the power of your thoughts

The year is 1983 and, in a Tokyo suburb, man (well, one man) is evolving a new use for his opposable thumbs. His tool: a strange lump of plastic attached, via cables and a bigger lump of plastic, to his television.
Publication date: 2008-07-24 more

Nintendo Wii passes Microsoft Xbox as top console in U.S. homes

Nintendo Co.'s Wii, the machine that plays games by swinging a motion-sensing controller like a bat, overtook Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 as the leading console in U.S. homes among the latest generation of video-game players.
Publication date: 2008-07-19 more

Time to start getting personal with the PC

The senior vice-president for global marketing with HP’s personal systems group, Satjiv Chahil, discusses how the computer company came to rethink and redesign the personal computer.
Publication date: 2008-07-17 more

NUI Maynooth’s road trip to technology success

Last week, while many Irish college students were enjoying their summer holidays and still sleeping in, three National University of Ireland (NUI) Maynooth lads were zooming towards the Channel Tunnel to Paris, smelling faintly of chip oil with a few hungry seagulls hovering overhead.
Publication date: 2008-07-17 more

Innovative businesses emerge as true heroes of the Irish internet

Irish firms are more innovative online and one firm has created a ‘Facebook for foodies’
Publication date: 2008-07-17 more

Icahn claims Yahoo! 'distorted facts'

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said Yahoo! distorted the facts in explaining why directors rejected a proposal for Microsoft to break up the internet company and urged shareholders to help him oust the board.
Publication date: 2008-07-17 more

Digital Dickens

In a one-bedroom flat above a noisy San Francisco street, Scott Sigler is plotting a revolution in the world of books. Sigler is a science-fiction writer with a host of fans, who are described as "junkies" on his website. His work is gripping, pacy, and often stomach-churningly violent. He tells stories that are, as the saying goes, hard to put down.
Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

New Wii gadgets go on show

Nintendo Co., maker of the top- selling Wii video-game console, introduced accessories that will enable users to talk to each other during play and simulate musical instruments through its motion-sensitive controller.
Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

Xbox to focus on social gaming

Microsoft Corp. will add new features to its Xbox Live online network, including games that let users put themselves in cartoon-like videos, in a bid to attract a broader audience.
Publication date: 2008-07-16 more

A trinity of biotech, nanotech and IT will define 21st century

THE first half of the 21st century will be defined by advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology. And scientists will be pressed into networks of editors responsible for managing vast amounts of knowledge, an acclaimed scholar and economist told siliconrepublic.com.
Publication date: 2008-07-11 more

Irish firms leave themselves wide open to data thieves

Devices like the new iPhone 3G are being hyped as the business tools of tomorrow. But firms don’t realise that employees are losing devices with valuable information to eagle-eyed, opportunistic thieves.
Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

Carphone Warehouse plans some big buys

In recent months, US electronics retailer Best Buy paid $2.5bn for a 50pc stake in Carphone Warehouse. This may result in Ireland’s first 4,000sq m Best Buy store this year, says Stephen Mackarel, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse Ireland
Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

Meet the brave new wave of Irish technology start-ups

What makes the current crop of technology start-ups in Ireland so different from their predecessors like Iona? It’s the unusual dichotomy of wisdom and hindsight, mixed with an appetite for somewhat risky business.
Publication date: 2008-07-10 more

Energy exceeds property costs

Irish data centre energy costs are to exceed property costs by 2010, according to a study carried out by market research firm iReach.
Publication date: 2008-07-09 more

ISPs key to beating the botnets

DELETING reams of spam from email inboxes is, for many people, as much a part of the daily routine as a morning coffee or chatting by the office water cooler. Despite the industry’s best efforts, the problem hasn’t gone away; if anything, it’s worse. Last month, spam accounted for more than three quarters of all email traffic worldwide, according to MessageLabs.
Publication date: 2008-07-07 more

Google seeks to keep YouTube user information private in Viacom lawsuit

Google Inc., owner of the YouTube video-sharing Web site, said it's seeking to remove users' login information from a database of all videos viewed on YouTube that it must turn over to Viacom Inc.
Publication date: 2008-07-04 more

Impact Earth

A century ago this week, an asteroid fireball exploded over Siberia with the power of 185 Hiroshima bombs. Steve Connor asks how we can prevent a similar catastrophe in a major world city
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Yahoo! goes full circle as shares drop to pre-Microsoft bid levels

SHARES in Yahoo! plunged below the $20 (€12.6) mark earlier this week, coming close to its trading level before Microsoft launched its failed buyout attempt in February.
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Live movie-making takes to the streets as Qik cuts to the chase

Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Launch of iPhone 3G sets stage for mobile revolution

The iPhone has changed mobile forever, says chief executive of O2 Europe, Matthew Key
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Digital real estate player is powering up

Backed by a Californian pension fund, Digital Realty Trust has being buying 13 million sq ft of data centres around the world, including two centres in Dublin. Chris Crosby is senior VP of the company.
Publication date: 2008-07-03 more

Yahoo! defends strategy to shareholders

Yahoo! Inc., battling billionaire investor Carl Icahn for control of its board, told shareholders that a partnership with Google Inc. was a better choice than a deal with Microsoft Corp.
Publication date: 2008-07-01 more

New 3G iPhone arrives starting at €45

THE much anticipated, nextgeneration iPhone has been announced by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, with an 11 July release date set for Ireland and the UK.
Publication date: 2008-06-30 more

Online bingo poised for growth

For most people, bingo brings up images of elderly ladies in smoke-filled halls. But many online gambling executives say it's the next big growth area.
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Fear and loathing online

Every step you take in today’s digital world, every credit card transaction, every email and every phone call reveals something about you.
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Gathering the data to green the machine

Daniel Tinkiel, COO of Data Electronics, talks about his firm’s new data centre in Ballycoolin which is using a combination of green technologies to reduce its carbon footprint
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Planting the seeds for growth on the campus

After a slow start, there are promising signs that efforts to turn ideas from Irish universities into products or companies are having some success.
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

The time of sleeping satellites is over

Earth-orbiting satellites may be mankind’s current monument to our state of evolution, but they haven’t always had good press. They’ve been cited as expensive failures, shot out of the sky by ballistic missiles or are simply viewed as an expensive method of communication.
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Product Review: Ultra-light laptop

Pros: Light but sturdy and powerful Cons: Old-fashioned appearance Price: From €1,995
Publication date: 2008-06-27 more

Facebook turns to Visa

Facebook Inc., the biggest U.S. social-networking site, will host a program run by Visa Inc. to support small businesses and attract more advertising.
Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Nokia to buy remainder of Symbian for $410 million

Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, offered to buy the 52 percent of Symbian Ltd. it doesn't own for about 264 million euros ($410 million) to create royalty-free operating systems for handsets.
Publication date: 2008-06-25 more

Google's reputation ranked highest by consumers

Google Inc. has the best reputation among large corporations in the eyes of U.S. consumers, helped by a perception that it treats employees fairly, a research firm found.
Publication date: 2008-06-23 more

Yahoo introducing two e-mail domains to lure users

Yahoo Inc., operator of the most popular Web e-mail program the U.S., is introducing two new domains so users can choose names already taken on the main site.
Publication date: 2008-06-21 more

'Computers and phones can combat climate change'

Telecommunications and computers can be used to help cut carbon-dioxide emissions and save more than $1 trillion worldwide by reducing electricity and fuel use, the Climate Group said.
Publication date: 2008-06-21 more

Yahoo faces exodus of top managers after ending Microsoft talks

Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang faces an exodus of top managers, challenging his effort to turn around the Internet company.
Publication date: 2008-06-21 more

Microsoft buys Navic to add television ads to online campaigns

Microsoft Corp., the third-largest seller of Internet ad space in the U.S., will add television spots to its advertising system by acquiring Navic Networks, stepping up competition with market leader Google Inc.
Publication date: 2008-06-19 more

The geek's guide to netiquette

Social networking is a minefield for manners - should you poke your boss? Can you have too many friends? Rhodri Marsden shares his golden rules
Publication date: 2008-06-19 more

Ireland is facing the threat of a data tsunami

Currently the amount of data worldwide is doubling every 11 months – but by 2010 it will double every 11 hours.
Publication date: 2008-06-19 more

Viewers will call the shots in TV revolution

Ireland is emerging as a force in the evolution of home entertainment, where viewers can be their own producers
Publication date: 2008-06-19 more

Product Review: HP personal digital assistant

Pros: Google Maps and GPS nav combo is pretty cool Cons: Screen is far too small Price: From €399
Publication date: 2008-06-19 more

Interview: Supply and demand for the internet economy

Google’s Dublin base, which employs over 1,300 people from 40 nations, has a unique role in the search giant’s operations. Nelson Mattos is vice-president of engineering for Google EMEA.
Publication date: 2008-06-19 more

Spy satellite will monitor illegal logging across six African countries

A spy satellite is to be trained on the vast rainforests of central Africa as part of a British project designed to protect them from illegal logging under plans to be unveiled today.
Publication date: 2008-06-17 more

Hewlett-Packard repackages high-powered server in blade format

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest maker of server computers, cut the price of its most powerful model and changed the design to deliver twice as much performance in half the space.
Publication date: 2008-06-16 more

Yahoo shares drop after Yang's new deal

Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang's five-month conflict with Microsoft ended at the wekkend, but the outcome may not be good for him or for the internet company's investors.
Publication date: 2008-06-16 more

Grief of the gadget geeks

Yes, that strange noise you heard this week, a cross between cursing and crying, came from the people who bought the first iPhones. Ed Power reports
Publication date: 2008-06-15 more

Google admits it still can't make money from YouTube

Almost two years after it paid $1.65bn (£848m) for the YouTube video-sharing site, Google still has not worked out how to make money from the business, its chairman and chief executive conceded, even though hundreds of millions of people visit it every day.
Publication date: 2008-06-13 more

Yahoo 'damaged goods' after Yang fails to revive Microsoft deal

Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang's five-month conflict with Microsoft Corp. ended yesterday. The outcome may not be good for him or the Internet company's investors.
Publication date: 2008-06-13 more

Crisis? What crisis? Flower power to fuel students' continental trip

As truck drivers consider plans to mount blockades in protest at soaring fuel costs, three intrepid university students are planning to drive to Paris powered by rape seed oil.
Publication date: 2008-06-13 more

Keeping IT directors at the boardroom table

$400m-a-year business software player ASG employs 20 people in Belfast and plans to create 10 new jobs in Dublin. Tulin Pledger is director of marketing, EMEA.
Publication date: 2008-06-12 more

Tourism sector needs to go site seeing

Ireland’s hospitality sector spends just 1pc of its marketing budget online and is now falling behind global standards.
Publication date: 2008-06-12 more

Product Review: TomTom GPS navigator

As someone who spends too much time in his car due to Ireland’s notoriously clogged-up road networks, a device that helps navigate around traffic jams ought to be a godsend.
Publication date: 2008-06-12 more

Internet ads account for just 2-3pc of total ad spend

After petering out during the last dotcom bust, as well as struggling to get accurate figures on online ad spend in 2003, the Irish branch of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has re-emerged and has already received the support of 60 media bodies and ad agencies in Ireland.
Publication date: 2008-06-12 more

Does the new iPhone satisfy expectations?

Even if you're an Apple devotee, you still might not know that the new iPhone - announced a couple of days ago - will have a minuscule power adapter, will come in white as well as black, and its headphone jack will no longer be slightly recessed.
Publication date: 2008-06-12 more

Apple's jobs may unveil faster iPhone to lure business users

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs may unveil an iPhone that works with faster wireless networks in a bid to lure business users from the BlackBerry and reach more international customers.
Publication date: 2008-06-07 more

Are you all stuffed up?

It's that time of the year again. Aaaaacccchhhhoooo!
Publication date: 2008-06-05 more

Yahoo lines up a date in August for showdown with Carl Icahn

Yahoo! has set August 1 as the date for its shareholder meeting, starting the countdown to an epic battle with billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
Publication date: 2008-06-05 more

A registrar who reigns as king of his domain

In recent weeks, the IE Domain Registry (IEDR) passed the 100,000 mark in the number of .ie domains registered. David Curtin is chief executive of the IEDR.
Publication date: 2008-06-05 more

Irritated consumers could turn the air blue

Ads via Bluetooth herald a new era in mobile marketing. But will consumers be up in arms over its intrusive nature?
Publication date: 2008-06-05 more

Product Review: Touch-sensitive mobile phone

It’s all about touch these days, isn’t it? The very stylish Samsung Soul mobile phone makes a good compromise with two screens: a large upper screen and a smaller, touch-sensitive one called the ‘Magic Touch’.
Publication date: 2008-06-05 more

Silicon Valley Insider

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Robert Scoble has circuitry in his veins and the credentials to carry on the legacy.
Publication date: 2008-06-05 more

Meet mobile’s maker

From a fledgling start-up in 1996, Oliver Coughlan transformed O2 from a voice and text network to a full broadband provider
Publication date: 2008-05-30 more

Product Review: Nintendo Wii Fit

Pros: Gives a surprisingly solid workout Cons: Set-up is really time-consuming Price: €80 from PC World
Publication date: 2008-05-30 more

Setting the security trend

Dave Rand, chief technology officer for Trend Micro, talks about the scale of security threats and what can be done to stop them.
Publication date: 2008-05-30 more

Perception gap fuels skills shortage

Ireland’s IT sector has many well-paid job opportunities for skilled graduates – so why are they going unfilled?
Publication date: 2008-05-30 more

Blog Digest

The FaithArts Blog: THERE are a few things one must not bring up at a dinner party: the dinner itself, politics and religion. Assuming you have managed to keep the dinner down, I find discussing taboo topics to be an effective if somewhat fiery digestive.
Publication date: 2008-05-30 more

My new dream

Chad Hurley has been called the world's greatest cyber-nerd — but that's an underestimation of the man.
Publication date: 2008-05-26 more

Capcom is in talks with studios on movie investments

Capcom Co., publisher of the ``Resident Evil'' video-game series, is in talks with Hollywood studios to jointly produce movies based on its software, President Haruhiro Tsujimoto said.
Publication date: 2008-05-23 more

Orange to pilot world's first e-newspaper next week

The world's first entirely electronic newspapers will go on trial in France next week, offering not only morning headlines but automatic updates every hour throughout the day.
Publication date: 2008-05-22 more

Picture is rosy for Andor as profits soar

Pre-tax profits at Belfast- based digital camera firm Andor Technology climbed 22pc to £800,000 for the six months to the end of March.
Publication date: 2008-05-22 more

Product Review: Canon digital camera

When I was a child, I would crawl around my parents’ garden in search of insects, spiders, ladybirds and any interesting plants and weeds that caught my attention, examining them intently for hours and pretending they were a part of my imaginary zoo.
Publication date: 2008-05-22 more

Turn on, tune in, brownout

Chief technology officer for Nortel EMEA, Dave Quane (pictured), talks about the increase in high-definition video on the web and whether this demand will kill the network.
Publication date: 2008-05-22 more

Ireland sits on a wireless gold mine

As it’s an island nation, has low population density and is not a military power, in comparison to its European neighbours, Ireland is sitting on an abundance of wireless spectrum that could be worth a fortune to the economy in the years ahead.
Publication date: 2008-05-22 more

Irish gamers go pro

For many people, shooting aliens, playing virtual golf or driving cars on their PC is strictly recreation, but for a select few, computer gaming offers rewards of a more tangible kind.
Publication date: 2008-05-22 more

Microsoft's gaze turns to Yahoo! partnership

Microsoft, the software maker which scrapped a $47.5bn bid for Yahoo! this month, may forge a partnership with the internet company on search advertising to challenge Google.
Publication date: 2008-05-20 more

Microsoft revives talks with Yahoo and proposes new deal

Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, revived the possibility of a deal with Yahoo! Inc. to challenge Google Inc. after failing to agree on a merger.
Publication date: 2008-05-20 more

Tullow executives strike it rich

While most Irish stocks have been taking a long and cold bath, Aidan Heavey's Tullow Oil has been soaring up towards the sun. For a company that once upon a time couldn't find its way out of a paper bag, Tullow now seems to be hitting gushers with every drill bit.
Publication date: 2008-05-18 more

Don't be caught in Aer Lingus tale spin

ON the surface Aer Lingus has enjoyed a better week. It eyeballed Siptu. And Siptu blinked. So it's back to work as normal. Well, as normal as it gets at Aer Lingus.
Publication date: 2008-05-18 more

Taxman's on-trust expenses

WITH businesses across the country having to account for every last cent ahead of spiralling numbers of Revenue audits, it has emerged that Revenue Commissioners staff are entitled to expenses without having to show receipts.
Publication date: 2008-05-18 more

Icahn pressures Yahoo! over talks

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn threatened to seek control of the Yahoo! board if the internet company doesn't revive takeover talks with Microsoft over its failed $47.5bn bid.
Publication date: 2008-05-16 more

Microsoft to put Windows on non-profit group's laptops

Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, agreed to make its Windows operating system available on computers bound for poor children in developing countries, part of a test with the One Laptop per Child group.
Publication date: 2008-05-16 more

Powering consumer electronics

Intel wants to do to home entertainment what the Pentium processor did to the PC business over the past 30 years
Publication date: 2008-05-15 more

Framing the future of digital cameras

General manager of Canon Consumer Imaging Ireland, Philip Brady, discusses how the mobile phone and picture sharing sites like Flickr have impacted on the digital camera market
Publication date: 2008-05-15 more

Game Review: Grand Theft Auto IV

There aren’t many games that let you steal cars, get involved in a cop chase and punch passing pedestrians, all in between picking out a spiffy new shirt and bringing your date to the local bowling alley.
Publication date: 2008-05-15 more

Avoiding business blogging blunders

Establishing a successful business presence on the web can be tricky but if you fake it, the online community is unforgiving
Publication date: 2008-05-15 more

Jobs screams, sows terror to make Apple magic

Steve Jobs is a narcissistic perfectionist with a volcanic temper who considers most people to be ``bozos.'' Apple Inc.'s chief executive officer is also among the greatest business leaders of all time.
Publication date: 2008-05-14 more

Accused spammers ordered to pay MySpace $236.8 million judgment

Sanford Wallace, known as the King of Spam in the 1990s, and another man accused of sending unsolicited e-mails to MySpace users must pay News Corp.'s social-networking Web site $236.8 million in damages.
Publication date: 2008-05-14 more

IBM uses PlayStation 3 chips to build business supercomputers

International Business Machines Corp., the largest computer-services provider, is making lower-cost supercomputers for Wall Street firms and movie studios using chips designed for video-game consoles.
Publication date: 2008-05-13 more

ITunes starts selling `Sopranos,' `Sex and the City'

Apple Inc.'s iTunes started selling ``The Sopranos'' and ``Sex and the City'' from Time Warner Inc.'s HBO, helping the pay-television network reach fans of the shows outside its subscriber base.
Publication date: 2008-05-13 more

Research in Motion unveils speedier BlackBerry, beating IPhone

Research In Motion Ltd. unveiled a BlackBerry phone with quicker Web browsing and more room for songs and videos, getting a jump on a faster iPhone that analysts expect next month.
Publication date: 2008-05-12 more

News: Keyboard nasties

UK researchers have discovered that computer keyboards can carry more harmful bacteria than the average toilet seat.
Publication date: 2008-05-10 more

Keyboard nasties

UK researchers have discovered that computer keyboards can carry more harmful bacteria than the average toilet seat.
Publication date: 2008-05-08 more

Irishman spearheads invasion of Mars

Until recently, Limerick man Mike Hinchey was director of NASA’s software engineering lab. He has been appointed as professor of software engineering at University of Limerick (UL) and will co-direct the nationwide Lero project
Publication date: 2008-05-08 more

Getting business out of social connections

Social networking can be used by companies to bring their relationships with consumers to the next level
Publication date: 2008-05-08 more

Film studios awarded $110.9 million in piracy case against TorrentSpy

Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and other studios were awarded $110.9 million by a U.S. judge in a case over pirated films distributed through the Dutch file- sharing Web site TorrentSpy.com.
Publication date: 2008-05-08 more

McAfee says malicious code outbreak biggest in years

McAfee Inc., the world's second-biggest maker of security software, said it uncovered the most widespread infection in three years by ``Trojan horse'' programs that get into computers and steal personal information.
Publication date: 2008-05-08 more

Gates says Microsoft to pursue `independent strategy'

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said the world's biggest software company will pursue an ``independent strategy'' after Yahoo! Inc. rejected its $47.5 billion takeover bid.
Publication date: 2008-05-07 more

Product Review: Nokia music phone

Pros: Looks great, sounds great Cons: Inscrutably short earphones Price: Available from Vodafone for €199
Publication date: 2008-05-06 more

Firms learn that nothing ventured, nothing gained

Tech start-ups are examining alternative routes to raising cash and are by-passing venture capital
Publication date: 2008-05-06 more

Sage advice on the shifting business landscape

From eight people in 1999, through a strategy of acquisition, Sage has grown to employ 300 people in Ireland with revenues of 433m per annum. Liam Mullaney (pictured) is managing director.
Publication date: 2008-05-06 more

Game, set and ? sell!

In-game advertising represents an exciting new frontier for the online advertising world. But is anyone ready?
Publication date: 2008-05-06 more

Yahoo! stock plunges after Microsoft about-turn

Yahoo! fell the most in almost two years on the Nasdaq yesterday after Microsoft abandoned its $44.6bn takeover of the internet search company because executives couldn't agree on a price.
Publication date: 2008-05-06 more

Apple sells online movies on same day as DVD release

Apple Inc., maker of the iPod media player, will sell movies through its iTunes online store the same day they are released on DVD, building on its success as a music retailer.
Publication date: 2008-05-03 more

Musk makes rockets for stars as Tesla taunts Ferrari on Earth

Elon Musk, co-founder of payment giant PayPal Inc., was flying back empty handed from Moscow for a third time in November 2001, when the idea for his new company hit him.
Publication date: 2008-05-03 more

Microsoft may be running out of time on Yahoo deal

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer may be running out of time to clinch his proposed purchase of Yahoo! Inc. as the Internet company forges tighter ties with Google Inc.
Publication date: 2008-05-02 more

Microsoft fails to reach decision on Yahoo takeover

Microsoft Corp. directors failed to decide on the next step in the pursuit of Yahoo! Inc. yesterday, leaving open the debate over whether to walk away from the $44.6 billion bid or fight to replace the Internet company's board.
Publication date: 2008-05-01 more

Wii: More than just a game

Believe it or not, a Wii handset can help with everything from making music to cleaning the house
Publication date: 2008-05-01 more

Take-Two's 'Grand Theft Auto' may break game records

``Grand Theft Auto IV,'' the latest version of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.'s top-selling video game, is forecast to break industry sales records after it arrives in U.S. stores today.
Publication date: 2008-04-29 more

Nokia readies its iPhone killer

THE N95 may have been touted as a clear competitor to Apple’s web-friendly, bigscreen iPhone but Nokia has this month confirmed it is working on a direct rival with similar functionality and design: the Nokia Tube.
Publication date: 2008-04-28 more

Microsoft's shares fall by 6pc as Windows sales slump

Microsoft Corp, whose Windows software dominates the personal-computer market, fell as much as 6.4pc in Nasdaq trading after sales slumped, casting doubt on whether PC demand can hold up in a slowing economy.
Publication date: 2008-04-26 more

It's time to face the music

The entertainment nirvana that is digital life in 2008 seemed impossible just a few years ago. Today, thanks to broadband entertainment, consumers can view trailers, cartoons and music videos on YouTube, play the latest blockbuster games on their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 and buy and download entire albums and movies on sites like iTunes. Sounds perfect? Well, not quite.
Publication date: 2008-04-25 more

Irish firms to benefit as satellite project takes off

The EU has finally given the green light to the over-budget and behind-schedule Galileo satellite navigation project.
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

Google bounce back to answer their critics

Last week Google announced financial results that, for the time being at least, have put critics back in their boxes.
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

News to you: Dublin HQ to deliver worldwide

Google's European HQ in Dublin has begun a project to localise the search engine's popular online news service for a number of different countries as it seeks to expand it throughout the globe.
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

Techsploitation

Cyber bullies and sex predators are not the only web worries as advertisers charm money away from children
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

Product Review: Sony Blu-ray player

If anyone remembers the old battle between the video standards VHS and Betamax, they will recall that when the porn industry rowed in on the side of VHS, the prime backer of the Betamax standard, Sony, was vanquished.
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

The number’s up for mobile market movers

Samsung has supplanted Motorola at the No 2 spot in the global mobile market and is making strides in the consumer electronics space. Gary Twohig is the new country manager at Samsung
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

Technology to help public services perform better

Like business, Government should publish an annual report to show its stakeholders – ie citizens – the progress being made
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

Nintendo forecasts profit will rise 26% this year

Nintendo Co., the world's biggest maker of handheld game players, forecast profit will rise 26 percent this year as its Wii console outsells rival machines.
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

Microsoft tests product that lets different devices share files

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software developer, will begin testing a program that lets users share computer files from different locations and devices using the Web.
Publication date: 2008-04-24 more

A matter of education

Education is the aim of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project but will infighting and competition muddy the waters?
Publication date: 2008-04-19 more

Product Review: Samsung laser printer

In the gadget family, printers are seen as the boring uncle who talks in a monotonous voice about how Tayto cost 2p when he was a lad. So it’s inevitable that buying a new one to meet your business needs can seem like an unsavoury task – but what if your office printer looked like it had been designed by Darth Vader from Star Wars?
Publication date: 2008-04-19 more

Living on the ledge delivers just rewards

BalconyTV.com, a daily internet music show broadcasting from a balcony high above Dublin’s Dame Street, has just been nominated for a Webby Award. Stephen O’Regan is one of its three founders
Publication date: 2008-04-19 more

Keep on workin’ in the free world

The net is the new workplace and tools can be downloaded in seconds. Is this the beginning or the end of software?
Publication date: 2008-04-19 more

Google soars after profit blows past estimates

Google Inc. surged as much as 18 percent in European trading after profit trounced analysts' estimates, spurred by overseas growth and a bigger-than-predicted jump in the number of users clicking on text advertisements.
Publication date: 2008-04-19 more

The 'Net Prophet

As you walk through MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, there is a yellow hazard sign erected by students at an intersection of walkways. 'Nerds x-ing' it warns, under a stick man with glasses, rucksack and satchel.
Publication date: 2008-04-19 more

Irish internet start-up touted as serious threat to Google

A start-up company founded by Louth man Tom Costello, which is being already being touted as a serious contender to Google, has received €25m in equity financing from an American private equity house.
Publication date: 2008-04-16 more

Workers flout rules over internet usage

Three-quarters of employees with internet access flout company rules by surfing the web for personal use. A new survey reveals that workers are spending as much as an hour a day online at their jobs taking care of personal business.
Publication date: 2008-04-16 more

Million-song MP3 players on way

A NEW generation of MP3 players could provide music lovers with millions of songs at their fingertips.
Publication date: 2008-04-16 more

Eircom seeks 'sweetener' to fast-track broadband

Eircom has told the Government it can provide 50pc-55pc of the Irish population with broadband which is as fast or faster than what is available anywhere else in Europe.
Publication date: 2008-04-15 more

JNIR research

The JNIR (Joint National Internet Research) was published on 9th April. The objective of the JNIR survey is to provide reliable estimates of audiences to Ireland’s key Internet sites, search engines and email providers as a basis for the planning of advertising schedules.
Publication date: 2008-04-15 more

The Blog Digest

Welcome to the Blog Digest where we take a weekly look at the best of the blogosphere
Publication date: 2008-04-10 more

Knocking hot spots off mobile broadband

Alex French, author of Irish internet guide DOT ie and chief operating officer of Wi-Fi network provider BitBuzz, talks about the Irish, the iPhone and the internet.
Publication date: 2008-04-10 more

Product Review: Dell Laptop

These days technology is as much about lifestyle and self-expression as it is about functionality and nowhere is this more apparent than in Dell’s latest TV advertisement for its range of Inspiron Colours laptops.
Publication date: 2008-04-10 more

Getting Irish firms to the top of the pods

Podcasting is an easy way for Irish firms to broadcast online and as a result influence their market and drum up sales
Publication date: 2008-04-10 more

Yahoo, fighting Microsoft, agrees to test Google ads

Yahoo! Inc., seeking to scuttle Microsoft Corp.'s $44.6 billion acquisition bid, plans to run some Internet search advertisements from Google Inc. as a way to resuscitate revenue growth.
Publication date: 2008-04-10 more

Carbon trading can raise billions of dollars to save forests

Using carbon trading to help save trees could generate billions of dollars a year for tropical forest conservation, said Johannes Ebeling, a senior consultant with emissions-credit developer EcoSecurities Group Plc.
Publication date: 2008-04-08 more

888 net falls 54% after U.S. online-gaming crackdown

888 Holdings Plc, the second-largest U.K. online gambling company, said profit fell 54 percent in 2007 after a crackdown on Web gaming forced the company out of the U.S.
Publication date: 2008-04-08 more

Bridging the digital divide no easy task

THE prospect of a deepening digital divide isn't just a preoccupation in Ireland.
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

Slowly getting up to speed

In a country that pitched itself as a European technology hub, Ireland's broadband infrastructure has been akin to the dotty family relative that shouldn't really be mentioned at the dinner table.
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

Change is the only constant for Dell man

Computer giant Dell is transitioning from being a direct PC seller and is now including retail. Dermot O’Connell is the new country manager driving this change in Ireland
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

Product Review: MP3 player

You know the score: you’re listening to a great song on your MP3 player, tapping your feet and bopping your head. Then, your friend or partner asks if they can listen in too, resulting in one pair of earphones stretched between two people and literal head-banging.
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

Virtualisation means no more bare metal cheek

Employing 80 people in Dublin, Citrix’s $607m acquisition of XenSource is key to it becoming a $5bn-a-year IT giant. John Glendenning is European server virtualisation vice-president at Citrix.
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

How Irish firms are winning the tech war

Military and peacekeeping forces alike have technology requirements and many Irish firms are filling this niche
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

U.K. to pass e-mail addresses of paedophiles to Facebook, Bebo

The U.K. government plans to pass the e-mail addresses of people convicted of sex-related offenses to social-networking Web sites as a way of protecting children from paedophiles, Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

Apple tops Wal-Mart as leading music retailer in U.S.

Apple Inc., the maker of the iPod media player, said its iTunes online store has surpassed Wal- Mart Stores Inc. as the biggest music retailer in the U.S.
Publication date: 2008-04-05 more

Ubisoft shares jump as video-game sales beat forecast

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ubisoft Entertainment SA, Europe's second-largest video-game maker, jumped as much as 10 percent in Paris trading after saying fiscal 2008 sales and profit beat previous forecasts on games including ``Assassin's Creed.''
Publication date: 2008-04-01 more

Google lets YouTube video creators track popularity of clips

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.'s YouTube, the biggest video Web site, added a feature that lets users and advertisers track viewers, part of an effort to attract more ad spending.
Publication date: 2008-03-31 more

Google's clicks on sponsored links slow as economy deteriorates

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the most-popular Internet search engine, saw slower growth in the number of clicks on text advertisements, adding to concern that a sputtering economy is hurting sales.
Publication date: 2008-03-31 more

Google search might lead to fewer ads, less profit: David Pauly

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Do a thorough job of googling Google Inc. and you discover its business is advertising -- hardly an endeavor to justify the lofty stock prices the company has enjoyed since it went public in 2004.
Publication date: 2008-03-31 more

Last-minute festive tech toys

Gaming: This year has been the year of the gamer. No longer the domain of teenage boys, now toddlers, grandparents and everyone in between have been joining in on the casual gaming craze.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Crowning Ireland’s queen of the internet

Now in its 11th year, the Irish Internet Association (IIA) has grown to 900 organisations — from SMEs to public-sector bodies. Maeve Kneafsey is the new chair of the IIA
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Local heroes become video game All-Stars

In the past, kids dreamed of being rock or movie stars and lately perhaps celebrities famous for nothing more than being famous.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Research and riches are a two-way street

In 1999, before the term ‘knowledge economy’ became an abused form of political rhetoric of present-day Ireland, Dr Kevin McDonnell of University College Dublin (UCD) was working on a project for the Department of Agriculture.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Can Magnet man make opposites attract?

Broadband provider Magnet has a €70m capital expenditure plan for Ireland and last week unveiled a 12Mbps business service. Mark Kellett is the company’s new CEO
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: Mobile Skype phone

Voice over IP technology’s ability to make cheap or free phone calls to anywhere in the world presents the classic opportunity/threat dilemma for mobile operators.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Is VOD the tonic for Irish viewers?

My first taste of video on demand (VOD) was back in 1997 when I ordered a movie from the TV in my hotel room
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Stay in tune with the latest must-have music players

Come Christmas time, buying an mp3 player for a loved one used to be such a cinch.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Irish broadband users rise by 8pc this year

The number of broadband users in Ireland rose by approximately 8pc in the last quarter to more than 705,000, according to figures released yesterday by telecoms regulator Comreg.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Liquidations soar in Q4

The number of liquidations of Irish companies hiked significantly in the last quarter of 2007 -- the first time ever this trend has been recorded at the end of the year.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Not just any old web trader

New research from Webtrade shows that 65pc of Irish firms view the internet as important to their business. Patrick Bates is Webtrade’s managing director
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Is business finding the value in Vista?

It was supposed to be Microsoft’s latest and best operating system, rich with the promise of more productive workers, less stressed IT managers and, by extension, better performing businesses.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: Sony Ericsson P1i

It seems like a long time since Sony Ericsson has brought out a business smart phone device. Everything else has been for the consumer market and despite its edge with a 3.2-megapixel camera – and lately a five-megapixel camera phone – it’s about time it got back into this market.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Star trekking and the next generation

Not content with having been a Topgun fighter pilot, part of the US Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor programme, or an astronaut with NASA, Joe F Edwards Jr is using his retirement to tour the world.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Crowley sees FL pullout kill off €20m windfall

Irish technology entrepreneur Norman Crowley has seen a potential €20m windfall evaporate after Icelandic private equity firm FL Group officially shelved takeover plans for British-based Inspired Gaming.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Irish firm wins Emmy award for gaming effects

AN Irish software firm has won a prestigious award in the United States for its work in making computer games more realistic.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Manufacturers still drive a hard bargain

Laptop prices are coming down, but you should still expect to pay over €500 for even the most basic model from each manufacturer.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Hanafin scorns 'laptops for all' schools plan

Fine Gael's plans for solving the maths and science problem in Irish schools just don't add up, it was claimed last night.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: Sony Walkman NWZ-A816

Sometimes simplicity is the top priority when looking for a new gadget and as a digital media player the 4GB Sony Walkman NWZ-A816 couldn’t be easier to use.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Struggling with New Year broadband blues

Are Irish firms paying too much for broadband services that are too slow? Seen through the lens of experiences in other European countries, the answer unfortunately is yes.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

What is Nokia playing at?

This year represents a shift in focus for Nokia, first with the introduction of ‘Comes with Music’, a new subscription service offering unlimited music downloads and now with N-Gage, which launches officially in early 2008.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Keeping the identity thieves at bay

Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes on the internet. Tom Ilube is CEO of Garlik, a new consumer company helping people to protect their online identities
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Apple walking on air with world's thinnest laptop

The US computer company Apple has announced it is to launch "the world's thinnest" laptop.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Now you can download the movie at home

THE days of leaving the house to rent a video could soon be over after Apple announced a new online rental service with the backing of all six of Hollywood’s "major" studios.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Tech stocks enter rough waters

Intel Corporation dropped the most in more than five years in Nasdaq trading after forecasting sales that fell short of analysts' estimates, heightening concern that earnings from technology companies will disappoint investors.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Facebook in talks to set up Irish base

SOCIAL Networking website Facebook is in talks to set up its European base in Ireland.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Online gaming section in €1m Lotto overhaul

THE National Lottery has awarded a €1m contract to an interactive agency to transform their website to include such new features as online gaming.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

UK police are given a get-out-of-jail card

Dublin firm Saadian has given 18 UK police forces a prisoner intelligence system and has generated €1m in revenue. Cliodhna McGurk is founder and CEO.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Mobile software stars on top of their game

With €180m in turnover in 2007 and 70 indigenous companies, the mobile telecoms sector in Ireland is healthy to say the least but more than that, a certain few are beginning to emerge as global leaders in the area.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: Lenovo desktop tower PC and monitor

Is it my imagination or is it that as notebook computers become slimmer and lighter and less business-like, their desk-bound brethern are getting larger, more serious, even menacing. Lenovo describes its M57p ThinkCentre Tower as a "workhorse". Just don't go dragging this workhorse to water or you'll do your back in.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Balancing the books on e-government

Three weeks ago I paid for my motor tax over the internet on the www.motortax.ie website. Three days later I received my tax disc in the post and no longer had to fear the long arm of the law.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Multimedia to inform, educate and empower

Technology to equip would-be volunteers for the developing world will be the centrepiece of the new €2.2m Irish Aid Volunteering & Information Centre, which will open on Dublin’s O’Connell Street this week.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Xbox queen says it’s ‘game on’ for a nation of gamers

Xbox Live is set to increase the number of movies Irish people can download from 40 to 400. Orla Sheridan is country manager at Microsoft Ireland's entertainment and devices division.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Can Steve Jobs keep walking on Air?

Under the watchful eye of CEO Steve Jobs, Apple Inc manages to be an industry powerhouse pulling in annual revenue of US$240.1bn, yet commanding consumer respect and cult status with iconic products like the iPod.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product Review: Sony Ericsson multimedia phone

For a mobile phone to be ultimately successful in the mass market, there are three things which need to be achieved. First, good, attractive, design – it must have the wow factor. Secondly, the device must have an operating system people will find easy to use. And thirdly, it must sport nifty technology that sets it apart from the pack.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Computer giant's frustration at rival's dominance behind the audacious offer

THE call came on Thursday afternoon. From his office in Seattle, Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, picked up his phone to tell Jerry Yang -- the head of Yahoo! based further down the US west coast in Sunnyvale, California -- that he had just launched a $45bn hostile takeover bid for the search engine.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Microsoft targets Google with $45bn bid for Yahoo!

MICROSOFT, the computer giant founded by Bill Gates, has launched an audacious bid to buy the online search engine Yahoo!. The multi-billion dollar deal could challenge Google's dominance of the internet.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Google could rise or fall as Microsoft eyes Yahoo

IF you'd bought shares in internet firm Google when it went public in 2004, there's a chance you might have been planning an early retirement, or at least making a down payment on an old Tuscan farmhouse.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Shaking up the Airwaves

The champagne will start flowing at 11 o'clock this morning, figuratively speaking at least. One hour before their first broadcast, team iradio are hosting a glitzy launch of the classic media variety.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Does Facebook hold up to EU privacy laws?

200,000 Irish people are members of popular social networking site Facebook. But are we really sure what Facebook is planning to do with our personal data?
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: USB broadband modem

Pros: Very solid, resilient connection Cons: Speeds seem standard Price: €149
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

How Irish technology built Hollywood

Meet the former RTÉ technician who has shaped the global video entertainment industry as we know it
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

On the lookout for the next big thing

With a fund of €100,000, Eircom is hoping to attract the tech world’s bright young things, perhaps cultivating an Irish Google or Facebook. Dervilla Mullan is head of online at Eircom.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

'Poison pill' may not prevent Microsoft takeover of Yahoo

Yahoo, the internet company which rejected a $44.6bn bid from Microsoft, may find a so-called 'poison pill' in its bylaws isn't enough to defend against a hostile takeover.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Ringing up a storm on phone lines

At 11.00 yesterday morning two Australians and a Frenchman walked into finance minister Brian Cowen's Merrion Street offices. The delegation represented Eircom and Babcock & Brown Capital, the Australian venture capitalist which controls Ireland's largest telephone company.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

After 10 years, John Breslin’s online forum on everything from personal relationships to motors and mustard, Boards.ie, is still blazing a trail
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product Review: MacBook Air

My mother always told me it’s the little things in life that count. She probably didn’t mean to extend this to one of the lightest and slimmest laptops on the market but when I set eyes on the MacBook Air I knew she was right.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

On the hunt for this year’s killer app

Few technologies bar email and mobiles have changed the workplace. What new killer apps are on the horizon?
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Local firms need to grow up and act global

Irish software firms employ 16,000 people and are responsible for annual revenues of €1.4bn. Shane Dempsey is the new director of the Irish Software Association.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Computers 'to match human brains by 2030'

Computer power will match the intelligence of human beings within the next 20 years because of the accelerating speed at which technology is advancing, according to a leading scientific "futurologist".
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Toshiba to pull plug and admit defeat in battle with Blu-ray

Sony is to declare victory in the bitter war for the next generation of DVDs, as talk intensifies that Toshiba is preparing to pull the plug on its rival format.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Even better than the real thing?

With the release of U2’s new 3D movie, Hollywood studios are now showing greater interest in 3D technology than at any other time since the Fifties
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product Review: AeroGarden

The further technologically advanced we become the more we can feel that we are moving away from nature but sometimes a gadget can bring Mother Earth, or in this case a selection of her herbs, right into our lives.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Counting the cost of IT failure

A ‘culture of chaos’ around business and IT needs means only 10pc of private and public sector IT projects succeed
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Setting the standard for the mobile web

Dublin-based DotMobi has sold over 800,000 mobile domains to brands that include Rolls Royce and Hilton Hotels. Norbert Grey is vice-president of finance
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Pure genius: The inventors' hall of fame

This spring, America's National Inventors' Hall of Fame will confer its greatest honour on the men and women whose ingenuity has changed our lives. The creations may be familiar, but how much do we know about the people who gave them to us?
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Ryanair appeals for patience as new site fails to take off

Ryanair last night appealed for passengers' "patience" as the airline's newly revamped website continues to endure "bedding-down problems" in the coming days.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Microsoft fined €899m for ignoring EU ruling on 'abuse' of dominance

Microsoft was fined a record €899m by the European Commission yesterday as it received its third financial penalty for failing to comply with a landmark antitrust ruling issued four years ago.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Sound Wikinomic theory?

Mass collaboration using blogs and wikis could result in the greatest change in the architecture of business since the industrial revolution
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product Review: Wi-Fi media player

My apartment complex has a ‘no pets’ rule so I viewed the Nabaztag as an opportunity to own an electronic pet that not only happily eschews the usual pet habits of eating and excreting but can connect to the internet and do useful things like read me my email.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

The man who wove the web

Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, believes today’s internet needs to get smarter and more social.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

A shop window into the world of science

Trinity College Dublin recently opened its new Science Gallery, which is the first of its kind in the world. Dr Michael John Gorman is the gallery’s director.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

In a state of surveillance

By the end of March 2008, the Irish Government will begin mass digital surveillance, noting when we log on and log off the internet, as well as every email we send and who we send it to. We have entered into a new democratic state where our entire digital footprint is recorded and stored for up to two years by our internet service providers (ISPs).
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Google currently recruiting 200 jobs in Dublin

Search giant Google is in the process of recruiting 200 new workers at its Dublin European headquarters, where it already employs 1,500 people, siliconrepublic. com has learned.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

€500m boost for Irish R&D

Three years into the Government’s strategy for Science , Innovation and Technology (2006-2013), a new scheme has begun which will pour e500m into R&D through Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and various job creation agencies over the next six years.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

PeopleSoft founder buys Cape Clear

Workday Inc, the new venture of billionaire founder of PeopleSoft, David Duffield, has acquired Irish web services technology company Cape Clear for an undisclosed sum.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

26 tech jobs as Kerry web firm raises 1.2m

Some 26 new technology jobs are due to be created at a Tralee-headquartered technology company after it emerged it has attracted e1.2m in seed funding from Enterprise Ireland and the AIB Seed Capital Fund.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Why don’t we do digital dinner?

Some may ask that if male bias is a problem in the tech sector, why widen the chasm by creating a girls-only club?
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product Review: Touchscreen phone

Your mobile phone says a lot about you; in fact it is viewed by some as a status symbol akin to what car you drive or where you holiday. The LG Prada phone is for those who want to discreetly say: I have money and style.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Closing the gates on a man named Bill

Halfway through a concert, Irish rock star Bono goes backstage to take a call from one of the world’s most powerful individuals. He mutters the F-word before whining: "We’re full up in the band. We can’t just replace Edge because you got a high score on Guitar Hero, Bill."
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Intelligent firms know ‘who dares sells’

Business intelligence (BI) gives MDs a digital dashboard on every aspect of their firm’s performance. SAS Group client director John Farrelly is spearheading this trend in Ireland.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

The perfect storm

When notice of a new malware threat surfaced on 17 January last year, few outside the IT security community paid it much heed and few within could have guessed its impact. Like many attacks before it, this piece of code tried to trick people into clicking on an email attachment containing code designed to hijack their computer.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

How dream of reading someone's mind may soon become a reality

The ability to read someone's mind and even to visualise their dreams has come a step closer with a study showing that it is possible to predict accurately what someone is seeing by analysing their brain activity with a medical scanner.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Murdoch has no plans to compete for Yahoo

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said he isn't going to challenge Microsoft's attempt to buy Yahoo, narrowing options for the second-largest internet search engine.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

And your host for the internet is …

Home-grown data centre firm Hosting 365 is to create 20 new jobs as part of a €2m expansion. Stephen McCarron is the company’s chief executive.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Holy smokes, it’s the silver surfers!

In their rush to be all things cool and trendy, mobile networks and broadband providers are overlooking an important market, the over-55s, with the result that a digital divide continues to widen across sectors of our society.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: Tablet PC

It occurred to me when the PC industry came out with a new type of computer that it was no small irony it had been called the ‘tablet’.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Pleased to meet you, virtually

Recently, 240 employees of the Revenue Commissioners from 11 regional offices attended a seminar on VAT. In the past, this would have involved a mass exodus of staff to a central location such as Dublin, an administrative hassle trying to accommodate the numbers in one room and thousands of man-hours lost as workers made the journey.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

AOL to buy Bebo networking site for $850m

Internet group AOL has agreed to buy Bebo for $850m, in the latest in a string of multi-million deals designed to tap into the boom in popularity of social networking sites.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

iCaramba!

It's not every day that I'm the subject of admiring glances from four attractive women. I'm sitting on my own in a bar, waiting for my friend to arrive, and the girls to the left are getting increasingly excitable.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Nintendo's Wii holds lead in U.S video-game consoles

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Nintendo Co. kept the lead in U.S. video-game console sales with 432,000 Wii players purchased in stores last month, according to NPD Group Inc.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

New iPhone fails to create buzz at launch in capital

THEY sparked scenes of mayhem when they were launched in the US and the UK. But the debut of the Apple iPhone on the market was something of a damp squib in Dublin today.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Google loses bid for EU-wide trademark protection on Gmail name

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the world's most-used Internet search engine, lost its bid to get European Union-wide trademark protection for ``Gmail,'' the name of its Web-based e-mail service.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Ireland's broadband rate rises to meet EU average

Ireland's broadband penetration rate increased to just over 20pc at the end of the last quarter, putting the country just in line with the EU average, but still behind other member states such as France, Belgium, the UK, Estonia and Sweden.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Customers hit by 300 phishing attacks a day

CUSTOMERS of Irish banks are being hit by up to 300 phishing attacks a day, where crooks try to trick people into giving them their online bank security codes so they can steal from their accounts.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Toshiba cuts profit target 31% on chip prices, HD DVD

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Toshiba Corp., Japan's largest chipmaker, cut its full-year profit forecast by 31 percent because of falling prices for flash memory and costs to withdraw from the HD DVD business.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Sony Ericsson earnings hurt by lower phone sales

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., the smallest of the world's four main mobile-phone makers, said first-quarter earnings and revenue will fall on slower handset sales, higher research costs and a component shortage.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Innovation for a new world order

In 16th-century Italy, the political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli wrote: "I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it."
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product review: Apple iPhone

Several friends (and taxi drivers who were listening in on our heated conversations) have dismissed the iPhone as a glorified iPod ‘with a phone bit stuck on’, which made me wonder if it really is the revolutionary communications device it has been touted as.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Firms need to open up to laptop theft

Laptop loss or theft is greater than firms admit. With the consumer losing out, is mandatory reporting the answer?
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Digital Renaissance man to bridge research gap

The Government’s €25m National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) replaces the failed Media Lab Europe and recently put out a €7m call for proposals. Ben Hurley is the centre’s director.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Only printing can save banks

THE near-collapse and bail-out of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns raises fundamental questions about the value of bank shares.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Life is tweet for connected professionals

A new messaging craze that combines the best elements of online communications is sweeping the professional world, even the politicians are in on it
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Product Review: 3G broadband stick

Let me start by saying that mobile broadband, when it is working, is a wonderful thing. Enjoying a sturdy internet connection no matter where you are, be it in your home, on a train or while out and about, is becoming almost indispensable for the modern worker.
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

You can always count on the web for answers

Young tech entrepreneur Aodhan Cullen talks about the growth of his global web analytics firm StatCounter and how the iPhone is faring as a web browser
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Health concerns over takeover trend

Amid market turmoil local IT stars Iona and Horizon are about to be acquired. Is this bad news for the Irish IT sector?
Publication date: 2008-03-27 more

Google Sees Rise in Mobile Internet Use

Google has reported an acceleration of Internet activity among cell phone users since introducing faster Web services on some phones, fueling confidence that the mobile Internet era is at hand. Early evidence showing sharp increases in Internet use on phones, not just computers, has emerged from services that Google began offering in recent months on the Blackberry, the iPhone and Nokia devices for business professionals and creators of multimedia pictures and videos, Google said Tuesday. "We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage," Matt Waddell, a product manager for Google Mobile, said in an interview. "We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating. The growing availability of flat-rate data plans from phone carriers instead of per-minute charges that previously discouraged Internet use, along with improved Web browsers on cell phones and better-designed services from companies like Google, are fueling the growth, Waddell said. Google announced the findings as it introduced a software download for cell phones running Microsoft Windows Mobile software that conveniently positions a Google Web search window on the home screen of such phones. Similar versions of the search software, which Google introduced for Blackberry users in December and certain Nokia phones in February, have sped up the time users take to perform Web searches by 40 percent and, in turn, driven usage. The software shortcuts the time it takes for people to perform Web searches on Google by eliminating initial search steps of finding a Web browser on the phone, opening the browser, waiting for network access, and getting to Google.com. By making a Google search box more convenient, cell phone users have begun using the Internet more, the company said. "We are actually seeing a 20 percent increase in the number of searches by people," Waddell said. Google's mobile plug-in software lets users...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Dell Plans New PCs for China, India

Dell Inc., the world's No. 2 PC maker, is developing new models aimed at Chinese and Indian consumers to drive sales in fast-growing Asian markets, CEO Michael Dell said Thursday. Personal computer makers increasingly are designing products with Chinese buyers in mind. Both Dell and China's Lenovo Group unveiled low-cost PCs last year for rural and novice users. "This year, we plan to introduce 50 percent more notebook platforms than we introduced last year, including exciting new products aimed exactly at Chinese customer needs," Dell said at a news conference. New models are meant to meet "specifically the requirements that we see in countries like China and India," he said. Dell says its consumer sales in China grew by 54 percent last year, more than three times the industry average of 17 percent. "When we look at the potential for expansion, we do see enormous opportunity ahead," Dell said. "As far as the U.S. goes, I think the U.S. will be OK, but not the fastest-growing. We expect more growth in Asia." The company last month reported its fourth-quarter profit fell 6.4 percent and cautioned that more cautious spending by U.S. customers could hurt its business. Dell says it has about 18 percent of China's market by revenue and 10 percent by number of units sold. Worldwide, it has a 16.1 percent market share, according to consulting firm Gartner Group. In a bid for a bigger share of China's market, Dell broke with its Internet sales model and struck a deal in September to sell PCs through the country's biggest electronics retailer, Gome Group. Dell's retail presence in China will expand to 1,200 cities by the end of this year, up from just 45 in 2007, said Amid Midha, Dell Greater China president, who appeared with Dell. "By this summer, we will have more unique products coming to China," Midha...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Hackers Send Thousands of Fake Calls to Deaf People

A Utah company whose videoconferencing technology is used by tens of thousands of deaf people to communicate is trying to figure out who would be base enough to hack into their system and flood tens of thousands of deaf customers with fake conference calls. Officials with Sorenson Communications say since October they have dealt with a plague of prank calls to its point-to-point video calling service. The company provides videoconferencing calls to the deaf free of charge to allow deaf people to communicate via sign language to others. Sorenson public relations director Ann Bardsley said on one day, tens of thousands of false calls were sent to Sorenson videophones. On the user end, deaf customers think they have missed a call and that their unit is somehow malfunctioning. The unknown hackers have affected some 30,000 videophones installed in the homes and workplaces of deaf customers across the United States, according to the company. Ron Burdett, vice president of community relations for Sorenson Communications, said deaf customers who use sign language rely on his company's service for daily communications. Such interruptions he called "inconvenient and distressing." Company officials say they do not know what is motivating the unknown group of hackers but they do figure it is a malicious reason. Mitch Moyers is the technical program director for the Robert G. Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Taylorsville. He said the center, which provides training and acts as a social hub, has several Sorenson video relay phones that people can use for free. "I'm disappointed. I feel like this is a great use for technology and to have people like that make life difficult for other people, that's disappointing," Moyers said. Moyers said the system allows the deaf to use their "natural language" of signing without having to use a slow and sometimes inaccurate...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Review: Internet Explorer 8 Eases Web Sharing

Many people now create and share content on the Internet or blend services from various sites in their daily tasks, reflecting the medium's clear evolution from a place for simply consuming Web sites. The upcoming version of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, version 8, embraces those trends by adding an "Activities" feature that makes all that easier for PC users. Although it's still in a "beta" test mode meant mostly for Web designers to try out, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. Internet Explorer's main competitor among browsers for PCs, Firefox, also has been testing an update, although the most promising features await implementation by Web sites. More on that later. With Activities, one of several new Internet Explorer features, Web services like Facebook, eBay and Yahoo can write tools that users can install with just two clicks. For example, Microsoft links a slew of Activities to its e-mail, blogging and news services, among others. Yahoo Inc. has one for maps, and auction site eBay Inc. has one to search its listings. The online hangout Facebook, of which Microsoft owns 1.6 percent, offers tools for finding friends or sharing content on its site. Say you are reading a news article you'd like to e-mail to friends. Simply right-click and choose Microsoft's Hotmail, and the e-mail service opens in a new browser tab with that item already added to the subject line and message body. If you'd rather blog about the item, simply right-click and choose Microsoft's Live Spaces. Mapping is initially the only service where there is choice of providers: Yahoo or Microsoft. In either case, you also get a thumbnail image of the map if you select an address and right-click. You can expand the map in a new tab with another click. Other uses for Activities include looking up definitions of selected words or translating...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

U.S.-Swedish Carrier Spat 'Breaks' Net

President Bush famously spoke of "the Internets" in 2004. Well, they're here. Since March 13, customers of two large Internet providers, Cogent Communications Group Inc. and TeliaSonera AB are unable to contact each other through the Internet, unless they have backup connections from other companies. This means, for instance, that some U.S. Web sites hosted by Cogent customers are inaccessible to surfers in the Nordic countries, where Sweden-based TeliaSonera is the largest telecommunications operator. It's like Cogent and TeliaSonera customers are on different Internets. "Basically, parts of the Internet can't talk to each other," said Earl Zmijewski, general Manager of the Internet data division at Renesys Corp., which keeps track of how carriers route traffic over the Internet. It's not the first time this has happened: Now and then, Internet companies indulge in what Zmijewski calls playing "chicken." If they're fighting over a contract, they disconnect each other, and wait to see who blinks first. The number of irate customers each company faces will probably determine who does. David Schaeffer, chief executive of Washington-based Cogent, said the two companies had a "peering" contract, under which they exchanged traffic from each other's customers, with neither company paying the other for access. But TeliaSonera continuously breached the terms of the contract by not exchanging traffic in certain locations, and refusing to upgrade connections that were saturated, Schaeffer said. That forced Cogent traffic to take long detours, according to Schaeffer. For instance, it sometimes had to carry data from a Cogent customer in Europe across the Atlantic to the U.S., then hand it over to TeliaSonera, which carried it back across the Atlantic to its European destination. Cogent cut its direct links to TeliaSonera on March 13. For a while, customers of the two companies were still able to connect indirectly, through intermediaries connected to Cogent and TeliaSonera, but that...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

PlayStation 3 Update Will Bring Interactive Blu-ray

Sony on Thursday said the next firmware update for the PlayStation 3 video-game console will add Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0. The update is due out late this month. Known as BD-Live, the update will offer PS3 players interactive features, such as downloadable video content, ringtones and games. Beyond BD-Live, the update will make room for photo and music playlists on PS3 to be copied to a PSP handheld device. It's all part of Sony's attempts to evolve the PS3 as a home entertainment hub. Regular updates like this one and future-proofed technology make the 10-year life cycle of PS3 possible, according to Scott Steinberg, vice president of product marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America. "With Blu-ray established as the high-definition optical disc standard, more consumers are ready to jump in and take advantage of everything the format offers," Steinberg said. "Whether you want to download movie extras, send ringtones to your phone, or play interactive games, BD-LIVE will offer exciting new ways to enjoy a Blu-ray movie." BD-Live Possibilities BD-Live offers plenty of possibilities, but Sony said the benefits will vary by movie title. For example, movie studios could deliver bonus scenes, shorts, trailers, subtitles and ringtones that can be sent to mobile phones. On the gaming side, interactive movie-based games can pit players sitting in the same room or across the world. In conjunction with the firmware update, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced two BD-LIVE-enabled titles to be released on April 8 -- Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and The 6th Day. Both titles will include exclusive downloadable content that goes beyond what is available on the Blu-ray discs, Sony said. These initial releases preview some of the developments that will soon be available from BD-LIVE. Downloading BD Profile 2.0 requires an Internet connection and at least 1GB of storage space. BD-Live aside,...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Verizon, AT&T Are Big Winners in FCC Auction

The Federal Communications Commission auction for the 700-MHz wireless spectrum is over, and the winners are known. One obvious winner is the FCC itself, which exceeded its initial estimate of $10 billion with a $19.59 billion total. Among the bidders, Verizon Wireless and AT&T won big portions of the available spectrum, which is being vacated as U.S. television stations move to digital transmission. Google a Big Winner, Too Verizon took 108 licenses for $9.6 billion, and AT&T bagged 227 for $6.6 billion. Observers say Verizon's purchases will help it narrow a gap in coverage as it competes with AT&T. One potentially big winner is Google, even though it didn't win any bids. It bid $4.7 billion for the C-block frequencies, which triggered an auction requirement that any third-party compatible device or software must be able to operate on the bandwidth. That was one of the open-network provisions that Google, as head of an alliance of consumer organizations and businesses, was able to have adopted by the FCC. Verizon, which backed an open-network position shortly before the auction, bought the C-block license. Dish Network took 168 wireless licenses for $711 million, although it was not immediately apparent what it intends to do with them. Some observers are speculating it might be for a video service of some kind, but the company is prohibited from discussing its plans until it makes the down payment on April 3. One setback for the FCC was the auction of the upper 700-MHz D block. Earlier this week, the agency separated that block from the rest of the auction and said it will "consider its options for how to license this spectrum," since bids did not meet the $1.3 billion minimum. The D block was established to create a public-private partnership that would guarantee public-safety agencies bandwidth access in emergencies. Impact on Consumers The...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Intel To Offer Low-Cost Laptop

Intel said Wednesday that laptops costing $300, initially designed for poor children, would soon be available to U.S. and European consumers, a development that could further push down computer prices. Computer makers in the United States and Europe will sell a second-generation version of the Intel-designed Classmate PC for $250 to $350, said Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel's group for emerging market platforms, during an interview with Reuters. Laura Didio, an analyst with Yankee Group, called Intel's announcement "a very big deal." While the machines are intended for children, analysts said their arrival on the market would add momentum to the low-cost computing movement -- and would probably mean that bargain-basement laptops available this year would have more power than previous generations. "Particularly in a recession year, quality low-cost products are going to move well," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "But the key is for them to be quality." He said consumers would probably be able to get "a pretty decent" laptop for less than $600 and perhaps for less than $500. Didio said retailers might throw in another $50 to $100 in rebates or other incentives. Laptop prices have been under particular pressure since last year, when Asustek Computer of Taiwan introduced the $399 Eee PC, which has flown off store shelves from Asia to North America. The movement toward low-cost computing was also spurred by the XO laptop, the brainchild of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child Foundation. The foundation began producing a laptop running on the Linux operating system at a cost of $188 in November. They sold them in the United States and in Canada for $400 through a charity drive that also provided one machine to a poor child in developing countries. The Eee machine also runs on the Linux operating...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Novell Announces SUSE Linux Enterprise 11

Novell has announced plans for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11. While the actual launch won't happen for another year or so, Novell is highlighting the key themes of the new release to let developers in the open-source community know the feedback the company has gotten from customers and what the new release needs from developers. Justin Steinman, director of product marketing for Novell's Linux & Open Platform Solutions, told us the "core tenets," such as focusing on mission-critical data-center technologies and "green IT," won't change between releases. There are three areas of critical importance to small and midsize businesses (SMB) on which Enterprise 11 will focus, he told us: interoperability, Unix migration, and virtualization. Interoperability Novell has made efforts to build a successful partnership with Microsoft, and Steinman said Enterprise 11 will expand this relationship. "I would suspect that the majority of SMBs have Windows in some shape or form inside their organization," Steinman said, "so one of the things we want to continue to deliver in Enterprise 11 is extending our interoperability leadership in working with Windows. We like to say that SUSE Linux Enterprise is Linux that's been optimized to work with Windows. We think that's a core differentiator and also a core benefit for customers who are trying to make a Linux decision." One example of Windows support is Novell's plan to include the Mono 2.0 development framework, which allows .NET applications to run on Linux, in Enterprise 11. A Mono migration analysis tool will also be included in the new release; Novell said this tool "helps customers determine the readiness of their .NET applications for migration to Linux." Unix Migration Another key theme of Enterprise 11 is Unix migration. "For SMB customers, Unix is an expensive platform that's not very flexible, and you're really tied in to an expensive [Sun] SPARC server," Steinman...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

University Bans Vista SP1 Upgrades as Problems Continue

Microsoft's Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is hitting more bumps in the road and institutions are beginning to weigh in. As one example, the University of Pennsylvania's IT department has reportedly issued a bulletin to faculty and students not to update with SP1, at least for the time being. The department has said it will support users who have Vista with SP1 preinstalled, however. Major Driver Problems Drivers are becoming a major issue. One of the reasons Microsoft delayed SP1's release was because of problems with drivers. New reports indicate that, while the actual number of problematic drivers may be small, as Microsoft indicates, their impact is not. The drivers include those in a common Intel chipset, the 945G Express series, used in PCs from Gateway, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and others. Microsoft has recommended that all drivers be updated before installing SP1. One central location for SP1 complaints, as well as some favorable comments, is Microsoft's Vista blog. A commenter called rikki-UK sarcastically described Microsoft as "GENIUS at work" because it released the update two days before a long holiday weekend, thus limiting access to support. According to rikki-UK, the company issued advice to some users to replace an Ethernet card or a router, even though the same hardware worked fine on XP machines. One user going by the name of bowlman posted Friday that he has had SP1 installed for two days and the "only problems" are that e-mail opens slower, Vista wants to do an error report when it closes, and the documents folder "wants to lock up and takes 10 minutes to close it down." Exorcist Needed? "Sometimes," posted a user called Microsoft News Tracker, "I think what Microsoft's Vista operating system really needs is an exorcist" because of the number of "unnatural occurrences plaguing it." Laura DiDio, an analyst with industry research firm Yankee Group, noted...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

SlySoft Offers Blu-ray Copy-Protection Cracker

SlySoft is at it again. The Caribbean firm says it has broken the copy-protection technology used on some Blu-ray discs to prevent consumers and bootleggers from copying movie content. SlySoft is offering a 20 percent discount on its latest version. Last year SlySoft launched HD-DVD-cracking software designed to let consumers decrypt HD-DVD movie discs and copy them. AnyDVD HD software cracked the Advanced Access System, a specification for managing content stored on HD DVDs. SlySoft also produces several other copy-protection software tools, including CloneDVD to burn copies of DVDS, Game Jackal Pro, which burns CD games to the hard drive, and Virtual CloneDrive, which is virtual drive software. SlySoft could not immediately be reached for comment. Focusing on Blu-ray Now that Blu-ray is the clear winner in the high-definition format battle, SlySoft has turned its attention to the Sony format. The latest version, AnyDVD HD 6.4.0.0, promises to crack Blu-ray copy protection. SlySoft is peddling the program on its Web site for $47. SlySoft's claims about its software appear to be accurate. The company has a track record for its ability to hack CD and DVD copy protection and let consumers clone the files. But Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering Group, said the program may not work with all Blu-ray discs. "We don't have the package to know whether this works with a handful of discs or would work with the latest Blu-ray discs with Sony and Fox, but we are doing tests," he said. "We should have more information to report next week." A Slew of Crackers "AnyDVD HD comes with the same functionality as AnyDVD, but with additional features for full Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD support, including decryption of Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies," the SlySoft Web site says. Specifically, SlySoft is cracking BD+, a technology Macrovision developed. According to Macrovision, more than 20...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Apple Uses iTunes to Put Fast Safari on Windows PCs

Windows users perfectly happy with their Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers have been surprised to find a new Web browser on their hard drives -- Apple's Safari 3.1. The browser was originally only for Apple's Macintosh computer. The new browser arrived via Apple's software update feature, which is included in its iTunes software. iTunes boasts impressive penetration on Windows as well as Mac computers. Apple normally uses software update to deliver updates of the QuickTime media player, iPod software and iTunes. But Apple confirmed Thursday that it is now delivering Safari through iTunes. "We are using software update to make it easy and convenient for both Mac and Windows users to get the latest Safari update from Apple," said Bill Evans, a company spokesperson. Aggressive Stance At last June's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs reported that users were downloading one million copies of iTunes per day, half of them to Windows machines. Jobs said at the time that he was interested in increasing Safari's market share, which was then at about five percent. "We know how to reach those users," Jobs said. The new strategy indicates Apple is taking a more aggressive stance to leverage the broad success it has had with its iPod. Apple says the new Safari is 1.9 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari 3.1 also supports new video and audio tags in HTML 5, and so-called CSS animations -- created through the Cascading Style Sheets Web standard. It also supports CSS Web fonts. Standards-Compliant Support for standards, rather than proprietary tags, appears to be in vogue. Microsoft recently said IE 8, its next-generation browser, would shift to favor Web standards over Microsoft's proprietary technologies. There is a "concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Wells Fargo Offers Online Safe-Deposit Box

If you're security minded, you might keep your important paper documents in a safe-deposit box at your local bank. If those documents are digital, you can keep them in a virtual safe-deposit box so that they're not only secure, but also available from anywhere. Wells Fargo Bank will soon offer its retail banking customers a personal online safe-deposit box that it calls "a natural extension" of the company's 156-year security legacy. The Wells Fargo vSafe service is the first online storage solution offered by a financial services company, according to Katherine McGee, senior vice president of Wells Fargo's Internet Services Group. Like other online storage solutions, vSafe offers accessibility from any computer with an Internet connection. Documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, and even media files can be stored. McGee told us that the bank did extensive research with its consumer and small-business customers and honed the product to match their needs. The offering is integrated with the Wells Fargo Online Banking service so that customers can have account statements automatically added each month "It's secure online storage with an easy-to-use interface built for customers based on their needs," she said. The company offers a set of boilerplate folders to help customers get started quickly; there's also an option to create unique folders and subfolders. McGee said that online forms simplify the procedure of consolidating data from a plethora of sticky notes into one safe place (such as a PDF document). Users can add folders and upload files from any computer. Security a Priority With sensitive documents being uploaded and stored, security is naturally a priority to customers. According to McGee, vSafe "offers secure storage, and it's available through the Wells Fargo online banking session, so we leverage all the security we use for online banking," as well as additional measures that encrypt information as it crosses the Internet...
Publication date: 2008-03-23 more

Next-Generation Computer To Be Unveiled

After seven years in development, Salt Lake City-based ISYS Technologies is ready to introduce its next-generation computer, designed to replace the typical desktop computer with a small, 3.5-inch cube that has the versatility to adapt to a changing computer world without the user having to buy a new computer system. Created by Jason Sullivan, the Xi3 Processing Control Unit is a new modular computer platform created for the computer's core processing technology that is adaptable for all types of computing. "This is a computer that will never become obsolete," Sullivan said. "Anything that a typical computer can do, this can do." The difference, however, is that the Xi3 PCU has no moving parts, no fans and no hard drives that can crash and lose data. It can function as a workstation, a server or desktop computer through a series of interchangeable parts called backplanes -- a circuit board containing sockets into which other circuit boards can be plugged -- that can be interchanged by any user. The Xi3 processing core allows multiple processing units to be added or subtracted as dictated by application or user demands. Additionally, units can be hooked up to work together with the original cube to increase functionality in a network-like environment, allowing additional processing capability to be added to the processing core or subsystems to satisfy the new processing requirements. The ability to strip out the same units to create additional workstations provides the elusive flexibility to a successful infrastructure. According to Sullivan, the unit can also be hooked up to multiple monitors so that users can multi-task as needed for both work uses and entertainment purposes. "If someone wanted to watch a movie while doing work in another program, they can do that, all from one cube instead of having to have multiple systems operating at the same time," Sullivan...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

New Features Coming for Blu-ray Format

The high-definition-video war may be over now that Toshiba has conceded defeat for its ailing HD DVD format, but those interested in buying a high-def Blu-ray player still might want to wait for new features coming in the fall. Sure, existing Blu-ray machines can play the nearly 500 Blu-ray discs available. They can deliver gorgeous, top-of-the-line 1080p resolution on compatible high-def televisions. But the next crop of Blu-ray players will be compliant with the upcoming Profile 2.0 standard, which adds Internet connectivity to the machines via a feature called BD-Live. "Imagine being able to download high-definition trailers to current theatrical releases right to your TV, or selecting additional language tracks or other online bonus materials," says Josh Martin, a senior analyst at consulting firm Yankee Group. Depending on the disc, BD-Live will also let people chat in real time during films, type in their mobile phone numbers for free movie-related ring tones, play online multiplayer games or upload custom-made audio commentary. Sony has announced two upcoming Blu-ray machines with Profile 2.0 support: the BDP-S350, available this summer for $399, which can be updated to the latest profile over the Internet when it's available; and the BDP-S550 ($499), which will ship with Profile 2.0 in the fall. "Technology always evolves, and new features are added to platforms continually, whether it's a Blu-ray machine or other consumer electronics products," says Chris Fawcett, vice president of home video at Sony Electronics. The new Sony players will include extras such as built-in or expandable memory and multiple audio technologies, including Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio or DTS-HD Master Audio decoding, depending on the model. The Sony PlayStation 3 ($399) video game system, which also has Blu-ray playback functionality, offers a future-proof solution. Sony says the Internet-connected console can download an update for the Profile 2.0 standard. For now,...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Microsoft Wants Wireless Consumers, Too

Spurred on by Apple's pursuit of the wireless mass market, Microsoft is redoubling efforts to court mobile-phone consumers. Despite long-standing attempts to widen the appeal of Microsoft's Windows Mobile, the operating system for cell phones is popular mainly with business users looking for a way to view documents, spreadsheets, and corporate e-mail on a handheld device. Luring the less-business-minded has taken on added urgency in light of Apple's success with the iPhone, introduced in June, 2007. "We've always been going in this direction, but we feel it's time to move in more aggressively now," says Scott Horn, general manager of Microsoft's mobile communications business, though he denies the push has to do with Apple. In 2007, the Windows Mobile share of the U.S. smartphone market slipped to 28 percent, from 30 percent, reflecting inroads by the iPhone, which uses Apple's OS X operating system, according to researchers at IDC. While Windows Mobile has gained global share and almost doubled shipments, to 11 million units, in 2007, Apple has made remarkable gains too, selling 4 million iPhones in less than half a year on the market. "Apple has gotten more attention in the first six months than Microsoft has gotten in the first five years," says Richard Doherty, director at consultancy Envisioneering Group. Focus on Mobile Browsing To make Windows Mobile more appealing to the masses, Microsoft is trying to improve its Web browsing capabilities. On Mar. 17, Microsoft announced it has licensed Adobe Flash Lite, which will let Windows Mobile users view certain Web sites, such as e-commerce and video game pages with animations. Microsoft has also licensed another piece of Adobe software that makes it easier to view e-mail attachments, and it's working on a mobile version of its own Silverlight code, designed to enhance the appearance of mobile Web sites. The company is...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Nokia Invites Users to Shape Products

A popular video on YouTube shows a so-called concept phone that can bend to fit a user's wrist. The phone, the Nokia Morph, shows how the world's largest mobile phone maker wants to change. As more people use mobile devices for the Internet, and companies like Apple and Google find more ways to embrace this move, Nokia is rewriting its product development rule book. Instead of working in secrecy, it wants to start sharing. "For Nokia, this is probably the biggest throw of the dice since they entered the cell phone business," said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight, who has followed the company since 1994. In addition to using video-sharing sites to post futuristic ideas -- like the Nokia Morph concept, which imagines a stretchable, flexible, solar-powered, self-cleaning device which also has a sense of smell -- the company has invited bloggers and tech-savvy media specialists to brainstorm on future mobile products. "We realized in early 2005 that if we only focused on innovation from within, we were limiting our scope for real breakthroughs," said Nokia's chief technology officer, Bob Iannucci. "We want more wild ideas." At stake is a share of the next phase of growth in the Internet. Forrester Research expects the number of mobile Internet users to triple over the next five years in Western Europe alone, to 125 million, while Nokia expects its double-digit margins on handsets to shrink. To make its move into Internet services, Nokia plans to use its large base of customers as consultants. The market for Internet services is approaching euro 100 billion, or $156 billion, and Nokia is the first big cell phone manufacturer to embrace the Internet media business. Close rivals like Samsung and Sony Ericsson could follow, but they are a couple of years behind. Change is normal for Nokia. It was founded in 1865...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Digital Certificates Key to iPhone Development

Apple will require iPhone developers to digitally sign their applications. The result is that any application can be traced back to the developer and the digital signature can be used to prove the app has not been altered, according to Dan Dilger at Roughly Drafted on Tuesday. That creates a native application development system that also creates a new kind of software market. Apple holds the keys to that certificate, and the developers ability to distribute software can be terminated by Apple if they do something questionable in terms of the best interests of the users. "Apple can also vet software as it is submitted, and rapidly respond to user complaints by terminating the distribution and revoking the run rights of signed software. With such a system in place, there's no need for iPhone anti-virus software. Our children will never know why Symantec and Norton ever existed," Mr. Dilger explained. In quite natural way, the certificate and security system will also help the developers' bottom line. "All iPhone apps will similarly be wrapped by FairPlay, again making it easier for users to buy a legitimate copy than to find a stolen version," Mr. Dilger observed. "This will result in two positive effects: first, developers will be able to price their software lower to entice volume purchases. Second, users buying software will get a better overall experience, with automatic update notifications and records of their purchases." The mobility of cell phones and their greater exposure to influences outside the home and office makes this new metaphor necessary. "Apple's ability to both give out signing certificates to developers and to revoke those certificates afterward gives it the same kind of control over developers that the DMV holds over drivers," Mr. Dilger noted. "If drivers faced no threat of losing their license, there would be no way...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Sony Ericsson Says Slowing Sales Will Hurt Income

Sony Ericsson said slowing growth in mobile-phone sales will hurt its sales and income for the current quarter. The joint venture between Sony and Ericsson cited component shortages and a sales slowdown in the world's more mature markets, which some analysts warn are on the verge of saturation. "This has been more pronounced in the mid- to high-end replacement sector of the market in Europe, where Sony Ericsson has stronger than average market share," said Sony Ericsson President Dick Komiyama. Slowing Growth Ahead IDC Senior Research Analyst Ryan Reith said it would be unreasonable to expect the global handset market to maintain the high growth levels it has seen over the past three years. "We expect growth to be in the single digits throughout 2008 and most likely for years to follow," Reith said. Other industry analysts agree that handset sales growth will be more moderate this year than in the past. "We expect the growth in sales of mobile devices to end users will decelerate in 2008 and fall to about 10 percent growth as mature markets become more saturated," Garter Research Director Carolina Milanesi said earlier this month. "The mature Western Europe and North America markets are driven by operator contract terms and replacement cycles and will account for just 30 percent of the global mobile-devices market in 2008." Handset makers had been counting on 3G phone sales to help lift sales in mature markets. But mobile chipmaker Texas Instruments recently scaled back its first-quarter growth estimates because of a decline in demand for the latest 3G handsets. Targeting New Markets Up till now Sony Ericsson has enjoyed the most success from sales of its higher-priced Cyber-shot and Walkman models. But as Milanesi pointed out, handset growth over the past several quarters has been driven primarily by sales in emerging markets such as...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Dell Offers New Servers for SMBs

Dell launched two new servers for small and midsize businesses that the company claims perform as much as 51 percent faster than comparable IBM servers. The two new PowerEdge servers offer high-availability features as well as larger memories, and come in rack- or tower-server configurations. The rack server, the PowerEdge R300, uses the Intel Xeon x5460 quad-core processor. Dell says tests show its performance is as much as 26 percent better than the comparable server from HP, the DL320 G5p, and as much as 51 percent better than the IBM System X 3250 server. The new tower server, the T300, similarly beats comparable HP and IBM systems, according to Dell. (Performance data was published with the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, or SPEC, a nonprofit organization that sets benchmarks for high-performance computers.) "The R300 and T300 are the industry's fastest one-socket quad-core servers," a Dell spokesperson told us. "Because of the way we've designed the systems, we've made it possible for a processor typically used in higher-performing two-socket servers to be used in a one-socket server." Made for SMBs SMBs often rely on memory-intensive applications, such as Web serving, to run their businesses, and slow performance can hurt productivity. Dell says the R300 and T300 help address this pain point by delivering three times the memory capacity of a typical one-socket server; better memory scalability means they can better handle memory-intensive applications. "These servers take the performance, memory capacity, and high-availability features previously available only in more expensive, higher-end systems and make them available at a small-business price," the spokesperson said. "Because of these features, the R300 and T300 can help increase uptime and productivity for SMBs. They also help simplify [information technology] for SMBs by helping to reduce cost and complexity, enabling customers to focus more on innovation, productivity, and growing their businesses." "We're delivering...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

FCC Wireless Spectrum Auction Nets $19.6 Billion

The Federal Communications Commission netted $19.592 billion from its auction of wireless spectrums, including its "crown jewel," the 700-MHz spectrum being abandoned by broadcast television. The auction for that spectrum, Auction 73, ended Tuesday afternoon, the FCC reported. "There were no bids, withdrawals or proactive activity rule waivers placed in Round 261. Therefore, Auction 73 has closed under the simultaneous stopping rule," a posting on the agency's Web site said. The take for Auction 73 was $4.75 billion. "The $19.6 billion generated by the auction nearly doubled congressional estimates of $10.2 billion," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said. "All other 68 auctions conducted by the FCC in the past 15 years collectively generated a total of only $19.1 billion in receipts. Even with open-platform and aggressive build-out obligations, each of these blocks sold for more than AWS-1 (Advanced Wireless Service) blocks with comparable bandwidth and license areas." Verizon a Likely Winner The television spectrum is valuable because it can travel over long distances and penetrate walls and structures. That makes it very valuable to wireless providers. Google succeeded in pushing the FCC to adopt open-access rules for the spectrum if the bidding cleared the $4.6 billion level. Most analysts believe Google and Verizon were competing for the spectrum, but the FCC will not announce the names of the winners for several weeks yet. Observers believe Google only bid to the point where open-access rules would apply and that Verizon and AT&T have likely acquired licenses to the spectrum. "When it finally came time to go into the auction, I think they (Google) were pretty firm about wanting to enforce the open-access conditions as much as it could be enforced, but also being firm on not really being interested in becoming a network operator," said Rebecca Arbogast, a principal telecommunications analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. "I think they...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Facebook Offers New Options for Private Information

Facebook rolled out new privacy features on Wednesday to give users more control over who sees the information they share. It made two changes: a standardized privacy interface and new privacy options available through this interface. "In theory, this is good. But Facebook has had situations in the past where they've announced things that sound good in theory, but in practice have not worked out," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "We have to see how the controls actually work and test them out." Friends of Friends Facebook added a "Friends of Friends" privacy option that allows users to share information with more people to whom they are connected through their friends. "We thought this provided a much-needed option for people whose strongest social connections are not through the networks they've joined, but through the friends they've added," Naomi Gleit, a product manager at Facebook, wrote on the company's blog. The second new option is the ability to share and restrict information based on specific friends or friend lists. "Now, in addition to messaging and event and group invitations, friend lists can help you communicate by choosing what information you share with certain groups of people." For example, you can upload your family vacation photo album and share it only with your mom and dad, or only your "Family" friend list. Alternatively, you can restrict loved ones from seeing a photo album that may not be so family-friendly by excluding your "Family" friend list. Facebook has also redesigned its privacy section to make it simpler and easier to use. "We're always building more ways for you to control your information on Facebook, so stay tuned for more in the future," Gleit promised. Facebook's Conundrum Schwartz said Facebook is facing a conundrum. The social-networking site wants to make more information open. But at...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Adobe Says Apple's SDK Blocks Flash on iPhone

Flash on Apple's iPhone has been on and off several times in the last few weeks. On Wednesday, Adobe Systems dampened expectations following a report that it would build a Flash player for the smartphone. The report, first cited in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, said Adobe had begun work on a Flash player for the iPhone. The Journal cited remarks by Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen, who reportedly made the comments during a conference call with investors. He said Apple's recent release of a software developers kit (SDK) gave his company the tools it needed to create a media player for the popular iPhone. The Fine Print According to news reports, Narayen said Adobe had evaluated the SDK and "we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves." Adobe said Wednesday it has "evaluated the iPhone SDK and can now start to develop a way to bring Flash Player to the iPhone." But it added, "to bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone Web-browsing experience" the company needs to work with Apple for capabilities beyond what the SDK allows. One of the problems is the SDK's fine print, which is being interpreted by many observers as prohibiting the kind of plug-in capabilities offered by Flash. To use the SDK for those purposes, Adobe would need cooperation and permission from Apple. Earlier this month, following persistent reports on various Web blogs that Flash on the iPhone was imminent, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the current Flash mobile player is not ready for the iPhone. He said Flash Lite, designed for mobile devices, is not powerful enough, and regular Flash, designed for full-featured computers, runs too slowly on the iPhone. "There's this missing product in the middle," he told the Dow Jones news service. Developers Looking Elsewhere? Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst with industry...
Publication date: 2008-03-20 more

Botnet Scams Are Exploding

Two days after actor Heath Ledger died, e-mails began moving across the Internet purportedly carrying a link to a detailed police report divulging "the real reason" behind the actor's death. Ledger had been summarily drafted into the service of a botnet. Bots are compromised computers controlled by profit-minded crooks. Those e-mails were spread by a network of thousands of bots, called a botnet. Anyone who clicked on the link got instantly absorbed into the fast-spreading Mega-D botnet, says security firm Marshal. Mega-D enriches its operators, mainly by distributing spam for male-enhancement pills. Largely unnoticed by the public, botnets have come to inundate the Internet. On a typical day, 40 percent of the 800 million computers connected to the Internet are bots engaged in distributing e-mail spam, stealing sensitive data typed at banking and shopping Web sites, bombarding Web sites as part of extortionist denial-of-service attacks, and spreading fresh infections, says Rick Wesson, CEO of Support Intelligence, a San Francisco-based company that tracks and sells threat data. "It's like a disease you can't even feel," Wesson says. "The mechanisms we use to protect our networks simply are not working." The botnet problem shows no sign of easing. Security firm Damballa pinpointed 7.3 million unique instances of bots carrying out nefarious activities on an average day in January -- an astronomical leap from a daily average of 333,000 in August 2006. That included botnet-delivered spam, which accounted for 91 percent of all e-mails in early March, up from 64% last June, says e-mail management firm Cloudmark. The upshot of this deluge is profound, if not immediately obvious, says Adam O'Donnell, Cloudmark's director of emerging technology. Telecoms and Internet service providers must absorb the cost of carrying botnet traffic; they can be expected to pass that expense onto companies and consumers, he says. Meanwhile, tens of millions of...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Net Video Ads: Attention Vs. Annoyance

Frank Harper is well aware that all those free video clips on the Internet come at a price: advertising. But that doesn't mean he sits idly as short video ads precede many of the dozen or so clips he watches each day at sites like Microsoft Corp.'s MSN. "For the most part, I just mute the volume," said Harper, 55, who runs a security consulting firm in Sterling, Va. "Or I just look at something else, look at another headline ... or go to another site while the thing is playing." Marketers and Web sites alike are struggling to bring to the Internet ads that resemble television without turning off viewers the way TV ads often do. Spending on online video ads represents less than 4 percent of all Internet advertising and just 1 percent of the amount spent on TV, according to eMarketer. But growth is expected -- with the research firm forecasting U.S. spending more than tripling to $4.3 billion in 2011 -- especially as more viewers embrace full-length TV episodes and other video online. The challenge is finding the right formula -- in the creative approach, the format or the frequency with which the ads appear -- so visitors notice the pitches without getting so annoyed that they never come back. "Users love free content and advertisers love to fill up every minute and pixel with the messaging, and publishers do have to find that balance," said Geoffrey Coco, an advertising executive with Microsoft, which has a video news partnership with The Associated Press. "There's been a lot of innovation but I don't think we've settled down yet." The results so far have been mixed -- even when sites force viewers to watch video ads by making them impossible to skip. Viewers "are grabbing the status bar, trying to click it ahead or further along,...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Card Numbers Stolen During Authorization Process

A large East Coast supermarket chain is the latest victim of a major data breach, with as many as four million credit- and debit-card numbers exposed. Hannaford Bros., based in Maine, announced the "containment of a data intrusion into its computer network" that resulted in the theft of data, but added that "no personal information, such as names and addresses, was accessed or obtained." The company said it is "aware of fewer than 2,000 cases of reported fraud related to this crime." Hannaford operates 165 stores along the East Coast and, under the name of Sweetbay Supermarket, another 106 stores in Florida. The company is owned by the Delhaize Group of Brussels, Belgium. Also affected by the breach are an unknown number of independent retailers in the Northeast that sell Hannaford products. According to a statement from Hannaford, "data was illegally accessed from Hannaford's computer systems during the card-authorization transmission process." A statement from Hannaford CEO Ron Hodge said that the stolen data "was limited to credit- and debit-card numbers and expiration dates," not names or addresses, and that the company "doesn't know or keep any personally identifiable information from customers." Attacks on Data in Transit "What showed up here was a new trend where criminals are going after data in transit, as opposed to data at rest. I think everybody was caught off-guard by that," Avivah Litan, a security analyst for Gartner, told us. Payment Card Industry standards from credit-card issuers mandate that retailers take security measures such as protecting stored cardholder data and encrypting the transmission of data across open networks. Despite the breach, Litan said Hannaford could possibly have been in compliance with PCI standards. "When you swipe a card, it should be encrypted immediately," she said, but often it's not until the data gets to the cash register that encryption happens; in...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Apple's Icarus Effect

Just as those living in shiny houses of self-righteous glass often end up surrounded by shards of their former sanctimony, so Apple Inc. now finds itself the increasingly appealing target of software hackers. For years, Apple's marketing has consisted of accentuating the positive and ignoring everything else. As hackers pillaged Microsoft's Windows operating system, Apple stressed that its computer platform was relatively virus-free, most notably in that snarky ad campaign, "I'm a PC. I'm a Mac." There was Windows, groaning under the weight of its security apparatus, like some knight of yesteryear packed in heavy armor who, once he fell off his horse, couldn't get up again. And on the other side, there was Apple strutting about, smacking its gloves together and posing for the crowd. But now Apple is becoming a victim of its own success, and the irony is just too great to miss. Anyone with a mild sense of history is keeping track. The main reason Apple had been left alone by hackers was not by virtue of any superior security technology, the company's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Software is, after all, eminently hackable. Only sufficient motivation is required. And now that Apple's platforms have become more popular, hackers are getting motivated. Target: iPhone Apple sold nearly 7.8 million Mac desktop and laptop computers in 2007. That's a 37 percent gain over the number sold in 2006 and well more than double the 2001 volume. It's little surprise then that reports of Mac viruses have been rising steadily. Even more than the Mac, the iPhone makes for an attractive target. Apple tried to keep tight control on the iPhone platform, which is also based on the Mac OS. But iPhone-philes had other ideas. Hackers went to town on the iPhone from day one, opening it for service with nondesignated wireless providers...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Consensus Grows on Eventual Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo will most likely succeed, but it may not be the best use of the company's ample cash reserves, according to a poll of analysts. The standoff between Microsoft and Yahoo has stretched six weeks since the proposal was announced. Yahoo rejected the offer, which now values the company at $41.4 billion, saying the takeover bid "substantially undervalued" it. The Reuters poll found that Wall Street brokers who follow either company remain convinced that Microsoft will prevail. All 8 Microsoft analysts surveyed and 14 of 15 Yahoo analysts said they believed that Microsoft would eventually acquire Yahoo. "Yahoo's options are becoming more limited, and it makes Microsoft's offer look better," said Andy Miedler, an analyst at Edward Jones, who has a "hold" rating on Microsoft. Twenty-one brokerage companies responded. Seven brokers have analysts who follow both companies, and their votes were counted separately. In total, 33 financial analysts follow Yahoo and 40 analysts track Microsoft. Analysts at three companies -- Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers -- are restricted by their companies from publishing research on the merger as their investment banking arms are working on behalf of either Microsoft or Yahoo. There is disagreement, however, over whether Microsoft must raise its half-cash, half-stock bid to succeed. A majority of analysts say they believe that Microsoft need not increase its bid beyond the current $31-per-share offer, although some analysts argue that it may need to improve the bid by making it an all-cash offer. Twelve said they believed that Microsoft would not alter its bid and succeed, while four said they expected it to keep the price at $31 but make it a more lucrative all-cash offer. "The change in deal terms to all cash could be the next step in this ongoing mergers and acquisition dance in our view," UBS analysts said...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Student Claims to Have Cracked Smartcard Encryption

A University of Virginia graduate student and two fellow hackers say they have cracked the encryption code used to protect millions of wireless "smartcards" in use across the globe. With readily available equipment that cost under $1,000, Karsten Nohl, 26, and his two Germany-based partners say they dismantled a tiny chip found inside many smartcards and mapped out its secret security algorithm. With the cryptographic formula in hand, the hackers were then able to run it through a computer program that tried out every possible key. It broke the encryption after a few hours. If they were to try again, Nohl said, it would take a matter of minutes. "I don't want to help attackers, but I want to inform people about the vulnerabilities of these cards," said Nohl, a doctoral candidate in computer engineering at U.Va. who is originally from Germany. Wireless chips, which employ technology known as radio-frequency identification, or RFID, are found inside most modern credit cards, car keys, security keycards and subway passes. The chips send an encoded numeric signal to the reading device, which allows the user to wave their card to gain access to secure buildings, remotely unlock a car, pay for public transportation and much more. The popular chip that the trio "dissected" is called the MiFare Classic RFID chip and is manufactured by NXP Semiconductors, a Netherlands-based company. Nohl and his colleagues found that it was fairly easy to crack the RFID chip's code. The three computer whizzes announced their findings at the Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin, an annual worldwide convention of hackers. They are not releasing the details of how they beat the chip's security code. But, Nohl added, it is possible that criminals might also have done so. Manuel Albers, director of regional marketing for North and South America for NXP, disputed that Nohl and his compatriots...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Yahoo Releases Rosy Forecast

Yahoo Inc. has released a rosy outlook for the next two years, hoping to give investors a better understanding of why the Internet pioneer isn't willing to sell to Microsoft Corp. unless its suitor raises its bid above $45 billion (EU28.5 billion). Analysts interpreted Tuesday's unscheduled disclosure of Yahoo's internal projections as a sign that the Sunnyvale-based company's attempts to find an alternative deal to Microsoft's 6 1/2-week-old offer aren't bearing fruit. With its options narrowing, Yahoo appears determined to remain independent unless Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft boosts its unsolicited bid, originally valued at $44.6 billion (EU28.28 billion), or $31 (EU19.66) per share. Microsoft so far hasn't wavered from the offer, which it has described as fair. But the two sides signaled they might be ready to negotiate last week when senior executives from Yahoo and Microsoft held their first face-to-face meeting in Silicon Valley. No investment bankers attended that icebreaker. Stanford Group analyst Clayton Moran called the release of Yahoo's revenue forecasts through 2010 "another step in the public negotiation between these two companies. We believe this deal is turning friendly." Yahoo's move appeared to hearten investors as the company's shares rose $1.70 (EU1.08), nearly 7 percent, to $27.55 (EU17.47) during Tuesday's afternoon trading. As the company warned in late January just before Microsoft made its bid, Yahoo has modest growth expectations this year after a streak of declining profits in 2006 and 2007. Yahoo still anticipates its revenue, after subtracting advertising commissions, to total $5.7 billion (EU3.61 billion) this year, in line with analyst expectations. But Yahoo assured investors its plans to grab a bigger piece of the online advertising market will kick into high gear after this year, with revenue climbing by about 25 percent in 2009 and 2010. By 2010, Yahoo projects its revenue, after ad commissions, will total about $8.8 billion (EU5.58 billion),...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Vista SP1 Updaters Report Problems, Successes

Rarely has a service pack received as much attention as SP1 for Microsoft's Windows Vista, officially released Tuesday. And while some users are reporting smooth installation and better performance, many are reporting problems. Vista SP1 was completed in early February, correcting a variety of bugs or performance issues in the Vista operating system. Shortly after its completion, it was shipped to computer makers, beta testers, big customers and subscribers to Microsoft's TechNet and Developer Network services. The software giant had said the full release of SP1 was delayed because of problems with some hardware-device drivers, and it needed time to provide new drivers or to block systems with bad drivers from installing SP1. Available Manually A notice on the Windows Vista blog Tuesday reported that it is now available through Windows Update -- if the user opens Windows Update and selects SP1. But if automatic downloading and installation through Windows Update is preferred, a user will need to wait until mid-April. SP1 is also beginning to be available through retailers. Regardless of the method to obtain SP1, updaters are reporting both problems and successful fixes. A poster named huddy reported on a bit-tech.net forum that, after installing SP1, his X-F1 sound card caused his computer to crash. "At least neighbors are happy," he reported. Another user, moshpit, said his post-SP1 computer now "runs butter smooth and has been problem-free," while someone named Akava said there were problems just downloading SP1. Even the Vista blog has reports of problems. A user named butters286 said that, after the SP1 installation, there's now no sound and the DVD drive doesn't work. A commenter named SeppDietrich said that installing SP1 was not, "in retrospect, my finest decision," calling it "a disaster" with all the Nvidia drivers being exiled to "the Bermuda Triangle" -- that is, vanished. Afterward, SeppDietrich...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Microsoft, Intel Fund Parallel-Computing Research

In an effort to turbocharge progress in mainstream parallel computing, Intel and Microsoft announced funding Tuesday for two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers. They said the centers are the first joint industry-university efforts of this scale in parallel computing. The software developed will be made available to the public. Berkeley and Illinois One center will be at the University of California, Berkeley, and the other at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Intel and Microsoft have committed $20 million over the next five years to fund the centers. UIUC will put up another $8 million, and Berkeley has applied for an additional $7 million from the state of California. Multicore computer processors are common now, and the number of cores is steadily increasing. Intel research director Andrew Chien noted that Intel has already shown an 80-core research processor, and the centers could develop "dramatic new applications." These new apps could involve visual interfaces, statistical analyses, search functions, mobile applications, computer sensing, and new forms of computer-human interfaces. Richard Shim, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said parallel computing for even regular consumers and business users "is the future, and it's only a question of how far out." He added that the challenge is how to use the powerful, multicore systems available on regular computers. "Hardware has definitely gotten ahead of software," he said. Expertise Tapped In evaluating where to locate the centers, Microsoft and Intel said they considered 25 top-tier institutions involved in parallel-computing research. They selected UC Berkeley and UIUC because of "their outstanding reputation in computing" and their specific expertise in parallel computing. Berkeley's center will be directed by David Patterson, a professor of computer science described by the companies as a pioneering expert in computer architecture. Fourteen members of the UC Berkeley faculty will also be involved as well 50 doctoral students...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Apple Considering 'Free' Access to iTunes Library

Apple is talking with the major record labels about a change in the iTunes Store business model that would give customers free access to the store's complete music library, according to the Financial Times. The catch is that consumers would pay a premium for Apple's iPod and iPhone devices. The rumored model is akin to the "Comes with Music" deal Nokia inked with Universal Music last December. Apple could not immediately be reached for comment, but the British newspaper reported the negotiations hinged on a dispute over the price Apple would pay for access to the labels' libraries. "Rumors of Apple getting into the 'all you can eat' music business have been around almost as long as the iPod itself," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch. "The real challenge that Apple would face is taking this from something that appeals to music aficionados to something the mainstream could appreciate." Paying an iPod Premium One of the major sticking points with shifting the iTunes Store model, Gartenberg said, is the challenge of formulating price schemes that make sense to consumers, Apple and the record companies. The Financial Times cites executives familiar with the matter whose research shows consumers would pay a premium of up to $100 for unlimited access to music for the lifetime of the device. "If it costs $100 more to buy an iPod, but that money buys you access to the entire iTunes music library, then that's going to be an acceptable value proposition to a lot of consumers," Gartenberg said. A Subscription Model? However, the Financial Times reports, the "all you can eat" model is not the only one Apple is considering. The company is also reportedly exploring a subscription model, which is more common to the industry. A subscription, the report indicated, would come with a monthly fee of $7 to $8. "Consumers...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Are Handset Sales Set for a Fall?

On Mar. 10, Texas Instruments, a leading supplier of semiconductors for cell phones, set off shock waves in the multi-billion-dollar mobile industry by lowering its first-quarter growth estimates for sales of wireless chips. TI pinned the blame on weakening demand from a major customer for high-end chips used to power third-generation phones. Investors made the assumption that the client might be Finnish giant Nokia, which accounts for nearly one-third of TI's wireless chip business. On Mar. 11, investors drove down shares in the world's top handset maker by as much as 4.75 percent. The key question: Did TI's warning signal a broader industry slowdown? Consumers Curb Spending Financial analysts clearly are worried. Although part of TI's retrenchment is likely due to a first-quarter inventory correction, there's growing concern that the handset market -- especially for pricey high-end models favored in the U.S. and Western Europe -- may be feeling the effects of economic downturn and slower consumer spending. Consider Said Nafea, a Parisian shopper in his 30s checking out new handsets at the FNAC electronics emporium on Paris' Champs-Elysees. He has a three-year old Samsung that fits nicely in the front pocket of his jeans. And while he'd like something newer, with more bells and whistles -- especially an Apple iPhone -- he has decided to wait until he can afford it. Customers like Nafea are what worries experts. The typical pattern in first-quarter mobile-phone sales includes a relatively weak January and February, following fourth-quarter holiday purchases, and then a sharp uptick in March. All indications from sales channels in recent weeks were that everything was going as expected. So, TI's slowing chip orders in March hinted at deeper problems in the market. Analysts Aren't Surprised That's why "there was a heck of a lot of drama" after TI's announcement, says Mark McKechnie, an analyst at American...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Iomega Likes New EMC Takeover Bid

Iomega Corp., a data storage company best known for the Zip drive, said Monday it considers a revised $205.5 million takeover offer from EMC Corp. to be superior to a proposed all-stock transaction with a stockholder. San Diego-based Iomega said EMC's revision to its earlier, unsolicited offer would increase the offering price for Iomega's 54.8 million outstanding shares to as high as $3.75 per share. An offer from EMC that Iomega disclosed a week ago proposed a price of $3.25 per share, or about $178.1 million. While EMC's offer is nonbinding, Iomega said its board "has determined that the revised acquisition proposal from EMC would reasonably constitute a superior proposal" to an agreement reached in December with other parties. Under that deal, Iomega agreed to acquire China's ExcelStor Group from a shareholder of the California company in an all-stock deal that would more than double the number of its outstanding shares. Had that deal closed, Great Wall Technology Co. Ltd. -- an Iomega shareholder and parent firm of ExcelStor -- would have held a majority stake in Iomega, and ExcelStor would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Iomega. Financial terms were not disclosed. Iomega had considered EMC's initial, lower offer inferior to the other transaction. With the higher offer, Iomega said will enter into discussions with EMC that could lead to a definitive acquisition proposal. Dave Farmer, a spokesman for Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC, said in statement, "We're encouraged by Iomega's decision to move ahead with EMC discussions, and look forward to next steps." EMC's storage services are largely geared toward corporate clients, and acquiring Iomega would expand EMC's business with small businesses and consumers. Iomega, a 28-year-old company with about 300 employees, is best known for the more than 50 million Zip storage drives and 300 million Zip disks it has sold since 1995. But Zip products now make...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Thanks to Internet, Starting Your Own Business Never Easier

The prospect of starting out on your own in business should not be a decision made on a whim. And it is usually not. But despite the "allure" of being an entrepreneur, many people never take the plunge. However, with today's economy, technology and conditions, there has never been an easier time to start your own company. I am amazed every single week at the sheer number of ideas that are floating around out there -- many of which have the makings of a serious business waiting to happen. I've recently been reading Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More." Anderson makes the point that today's technology allows virtually anyone to be a publisher, distributor or retailer. There are so many goods and services that can be made available today at a profit that one decade ago would have been a failing business model. There are so many possibilities here, it would be impossible to mention them all. But here are a few ideas: -- Publishing: In literally minutes, you can have an Internet presence by starting your own blog, an online, interactive newsletter. This kind of online forum is critical to telling your particular story. -- Advertising: If you have a site with a decent number of visitors, this can be monetized by becoming an advertiser. Google, Microsoft and many others offer ad programs you place on your site and make money every time someone clicks on the ad. -- Retailing: Launching an online store has never been easier, nor have more options been available. You can let other companies like Amazon.com do most of the work for you, you can have your store hosted on Yahoo Stores, or you can run the entire site yourself with free software on your own server. If you aren't a...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Security Concerns Dog Mobile P2P Payments

More and more vendors are rolling out technology that will allow consumers to use cell phones to do their banking. They're just waiting for customers to start using these technologies. While it will eventually happen, these companies should have some patience, because consumers are still wary about the perceived risks. A study from Javelin Strategy & Research, a financial-services payment research company, reveals that customers are interested in the idea of mobile P2P banking, but are not yet confident that these technologies are safe to use. James Van Dyke, Javelin's president and founder, says that companies still need to make security a priority. "A full third of our report is devoted to security simply because we find that industry companies so often get security issues wrong. It's so unbelievably misunderstood," Van Dyke said. "We'd like to see more authentication measures where people are asked to remember key phrases and things like that." Risky Behavior, Not Technology Still, Van Dyke said that security concerns were more a matter of perception than actual risk. "What's interesting is that we don't see significant security features going in, but we don't expect to see widespread actual security risks. We expect to see widespread security fears, yet we don't see [mobile P2P banking] as a particularly risky thing to do," he said. One reason the security risks will be lower than for desktop PCs is that there is a wide range of mobile platforms in use rather than one monolithic platform, he added. He noted that dangers are more likely to arise from behavior by users -- particularly young people -- rather than security flaws. Young people "take undue risks with personal technology," he said. Some reasons for that, he surmised, are that they "typically don't have as many financial assets, and they tend to be haphazard [with...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Peer-to-Peer Networks Go Legit

The technology best known for pirating movies, music and software online is increasingly being adopted by businesses as a cheap way to get video content to customers. A number of startups are embracing so-called peer-to-peer technology and have convinced some big-name media companies to use them to deliver legal content. "In 2005 when we met with content owners, 'peer-to-peer' was a dirty word," said Robert Levitan, chief executive of file-sharing company Pando Networks Inc. "In 2007, finally, content owners came and said 'Yeah, we think there's a role for P2P.'" Levitan was speaking Friday at the first "P2P Market Conference" of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, a trade group with more than 100 members. Pando is prime example of mainstream acceptance: It's providing the means for NBC to provide DVD-quality downloads of its shows, including "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. But 90 percent of P2P downloads are still of illegally copied content, according to David Hahn, vice president of product management at SafeNet Inc., which tracks the networks. Hahn said 12 million to 15 million people are file-sharing across the world at any one time, mainly on the BitTorrent and eDonkey networks. The attraction of file-sharing is not just that it's free -- there's also content available that can't be had by legal means, like TV shows that haven't aired in Europe. The BitTorrent software was invented and set free on the Net in 2002 by Bram Cohen. He later started a company to profit from the technology. In 2005, BitTorrent Inc. stopped providing links to copyright content in 2005 and now helps studios distribute movies. Overall, acceptance of P2P technology is higher in Western Europe, where piracy using the technology also happens to be especially rampant, according to SafeNet. The British Broadcasting Corp. uses P2P technology from Verisign Inc. for its iPlayer, which streams some of its...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

CBS Offers Local Sites News Widgets and Revenue

CBS Television Stations on Monday launched a local ad network with blogger and social-media sites. Dubbed the CBS Local Ad Network, the partnership is the first between a major media company's television stations and localized social-media mavens. The network initially launched in Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Francisco, Denver and Chicago. CBS will continue to roll out the program over the next several weeks in other major markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Jonathan Leess, president and general manager of the CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group, is inviting local social-media sites and bloggers to share in the ad revenue. Leess said the network "opens up exciting new avenues for our advertising partners to efficiently extend their reach to valued local audiences while associating themselves with our CBS brands and content." The Network in Action CBS-owned stations across the country are syndicating local news widgets to blogs and hyper-local sites in the communities they serve. Each widget will feature top local headlines and images with links to the video and text stories on the CBS station's site. Included in the widget is a companion banner advertisement. The CBS stations will deliver real-time news feeds to the widget, allowing the content on the local partner sites to update 24 hours a day. CBS stations can offer marketers the ability to reach a local audience while remaining attached to CBS station brand and content, the company said. Owners of the local sites will receive a portion of the advertising revenue generated by the CBS stations, which will be responsible for selling the ad inside each widget. AT&T, North Texas Honda Dealers and Liberty Mutual Insurance are early adopters of the network. CBS did not say what percentage of the revenue bloggers and social-media sites will receive. How Much Revenue? The concept of content on geo-targeted widgets is...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Intel Details Plans for Dunnington, Nehalem Processors

Intel revealed more details Monday about its plans for upcoming microprocessors, including the Dunnington server chip and the much-touted, next-generation Nehalem processor family. The products build on the company's 45nm high-k metal gate manufacturing technology, featuring new chips with four, six, eight or more computing cores. Dunnington, Tukwila, Nehalem Intel Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger described the Dunnington six-core processor for expandable, or multiprocessor, servers. He said Dunnington, available in the second half of this year, will be the first Intel processor with six cores. Featuring large share caches, Dunnington also offers FlexMigration, which enables a single virtualization pool to support both 65nm and 45nm-based servers. Gelsinger described FlexMigration as "investment protection" for evolving data centers. He also discussed Tukwila, the code name for the company's new Itanium processor. As the world's first two billion-transistor microprocessor, Gelsinger said it will deliver more than twice the performance of the current Itanium processor. It will have four cores, 30MB total cache, QuickPath Interconnect, dual integrated memory controllers and mainframe-class RAS features. Nehalem, a scalable microarchitecture for a family of processors, will have anywhere from two to eight cores, and its simultaneous multithreading will enable four- to 16-thread capability. Compared to current-generation Xeon-based systems, Nehalem quadruples the memory bandwidth and it can be utilized on a variety of devices, from notebooks to high-performance servers. 'Visual Computing' Platform For demanding consumers and visualization professionals, Intel is also promoting what it called "next-generation techniques" for visual computing. The company said its new technologies will enable new levels of performance for such processing-intensive visual tasks as ray tracing for accurate shadow and lighting effects, game-based physics, or human motion in medical imaging. It will also support new levels of interactivity, such as game controllers that can "understand human motion" and that enable users to "become characters in their favorite games." Intel...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Apple's New Safari Runs Faster, Supports Windows

Apple released a 3.1 version of its Safari Web browser on Tuesday with several improvements. Apple said the new version loads Web pages 1.9 times faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than the open-source Firefox 2 browser. It also said Safari 3.1 runs JavaScript up to six times faster than any other browser, and it is the first to support new Web standards. Apple said the speed benchmarks were based on VeriTest's iBench Version 5.0 with default settings, running on an iMac 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with Windows XP and 1GB of memory. For Mac and Windows The browser is available as a free download at www.apple.com/safari, and works on both Mac OS X and Windows operating systems. For Mac, the browser requires either the Tiger 10.4.11 version of Mac OS X, or Leopard, with at least 256MB of memory on any Intel-based Mac or any Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor. For Windows XP or Vista, at least 256MB of memory is required and at least a 500-MHz Intel Pentium processor. Apple Senior Vice President Philip Schiller said Safari 3.1 is "blazingly fast, easy to use" and features an "elegant user interface." Best of all, he added, the newest Safari supports audio, video and animation standards needed for the next generation of Web 2.0 experiences. In particular, Apple noted that Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support new video and audio tags in HTML 5, as well as the first to support CSS animations. It also supports CSS Web fonts that offer new design choices. Support for MacBook Air The interface includes drag-and-drop bookmarks, easy-to-organize tabs, and an integrated Find that shows the number of matches in a page. A built-in RSS reader enables the user to scan and view news and information from feeds....
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

China Blocks Internet News on Tibetan Crackdown

China has succeeded in blocking the flow of news about its crackdown on Tibetan protesters. While China has traditionally exerted strong control over traditional media outlets such as television, radio and newspapers, this week's developments are notable for the country's effective control of YouTube, blogs and other Internet communications. While Western news outlets are getting information out to the rest of the world, many Chinese remain in the dark. The Wall Street Journal reported that Baidu.com, China's largest search engine, turns up no news in a search for "Tibet" (the fifth most popular search term on Baidu Monday), while searches for "Tibet riot" produce hits to pages that have been removed. In addition, China's major Internet portals, Sina and Sohu.com, are devoid of news of the uprising and repression. And Chinese Internet video sites Tudou.com, Youku.com and 56.com -- the Chinese equivalents of YouTube -- are similarly vacant. YouTube Blocked Of course, YouTube itself has many videos of the protests, but China has blocked the Google-owned site. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company is looking into the reports of blocking. Observers are not completely sure how China is blocking all the news, the Journal reported. In some cases, entire domains are blocked; in other cases, only certain pages. While editors of state-run media frequently avoid controversial topics, independent Internet companies also cooperate with censorship; they are required to monitor user-supplied content and delete pornography, as well as a list of forbidden topics. The censorship raises a challenge to the much-vaunted claim that the Internet views censorship as network damage and routes around it -- a claim no less a technology luminary than Bill Gates repeated last month. "I don't see any risk in the world at large that someone will restrict free content flow on the Internet. You cannot control the Internet," the Microsoft...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Supreme Court Opens Door to Microsoft Antitrust Suits

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court's ruling that Novell can proceed with an antitrust suit against Microsoft. The justices declined to hear Microsoft's appeal, with Chief Justice John Roberts recusing himself because he owns Microsoft stock. The court did not offer a reason for declining the case, its standard practice. The suit dates back to 2004. Novell sued Microsoft, claiming the software giant "deliberately targeted and destroyed" its WordPerfect word-processor and Quattro spreadsheet applications because they are compatible with operating systems besides Windows. Plaintiffs Could Multiply Microsoft has reason to be concerned, according to Mark Ostrau, co-chairman of the Antitrust and Unfair Competition Group and a partner in the Intellectual Property and Technology Transactions Groups at Fenwick & West LLP, a Silicon Valley law firm specializing in high technology. "As soon as you make it possible for people who have ancillary products or applications like WordPerfect to sue based on Microsoft's monopolization of the operating system, it opens up a larger class of potential plaintiffs than Microsoft has had to face before," Ostrau said. "So this case with Novell is a big issue." Microsoft settled a similar case with Novell in 2004 when it paid $536 million to resolve Novell's claim that Microsoft set out to run its market prospects for the Netware operating system. Ostrau said Microsoft could probably also settle this case. Killing the Antitrust Weeds Microsoft may have to look over its shoulder to see what other applications it allegedly crushed as it made market moves to protect its operating system. "Everywhere Microsoft looks it's trying to put all these antitrust issues behind it. But try as it might, new issues keep popping up," Ostrau said. The European Commission assessed Microsoft a record $1.35 billion antitrust fine just last month because, the watchdog group said, the company wasn't living up...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

EU Adopts DVB-H as Mobile-TV Standard

The European Commission has added the DVB-H mobile-TV specification to the European Union's list of official standards. Tailored to the specific requirements of handheld, battery-powered receivers, DVB-H is an offshoot of the terrestrial DVB-T system already employed by digital-TV broadcasters in Europe. The EC believes deployment of a single technology across EU nations will give wireless operators the market scale they need to launch mobile-TV services in time for this year's broadcasts of the European Football Championship and the Summer Olympic Games. The EC "is firmly convinced that 2008 is the right time to create conditions favorable to the rapid takeoff of mobile broadcasting," said EU commissioner Viviane Reding. "Without this certainty and predictability, it will be impossible to invest with confidence in new innovative technologies." The Next Steps Spearheaded by Nokia and backed by Motorola, Philips, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, DVB-H is the world's most widely used mobile-TV spec. Services based on the spec are currently between trials and commercial launches in 16 countries. A commercial service is also in the works for Russia. However, several key steps are still needed to put DVB-H on the high-growth track. Reding said the main patent holders still need "to finalize an agreement over the licensing terms and conditions and the constitution of the patent pool." Digital-rights management systems based on open technologies also need to be finalized, Reding said. "We also cannot allow commercial launches to be delayed because of legal vacuums or overly burdensome regulation," she added. A Global Opportunity Europe's move to embrace DVB-H is a setback for rival technologies such as Qualcomm's competing MediaFLO technology, which has already been embraced by U.S wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless. However, the EC's adoption of DVB-H as a standard is not compulsory, so EU nations still have the option of permitting...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Microsoft Releases Service Pack for Windows Vista

Microsoft Corp. posted a major package of updates and security fixes for its Windows Vista operating system for download starting Tuesday. People whose PCs run the newest Microsoft operating system can use Microsoft's Windows Update tool or visit its Download Center Web site and download the free Service Pack 1. In some cases, computer users may need to download older updates before they'll be able to install SP1. Many of the fixes contained in SP1 have already been released as part of regular monthly updates in the year since the operating system went on sale to consumers. Microsoft has said SP1 improves Vista's reliability, security and performance. Before SP1 was made widely available, Microsoft had determined that a handful of programs will fail in some way after SP1 is installed. On Tuesday, a Windows team blog said PC users with some drivers installed will "temporarily" not be able to get SP1 at all. Microsoft said SP1 will block several applications from running for "reliability reasons." The list includes BitDefender Antivirus and Internet Security, version 10; Fujitsu's Shock Sensor hard drive protection for rugged laptops; two versions of Jiangmin KV Antivirus software and Check Point Technologies' Zone Alarm Security Suite. The company said a few programs won't run on SP1, such as Web application design program Iron Speed Designer, while others will stop working well, like The New York Times Reader application. Certain device drivers from RealTek AC, Intel and Symantec are among those Microsoft said would prevent an upgrade to SP1. The software maker said PC users can seek out updates from most of the makers of those devices to fix the problem. Industry analysts offered mixed reports on whether Vista SP1 makes a noticeable difference on the way their computers run. Michael Cherry, of the research group Directions on Microsoft, said that after installing SP1, the time...
Publication date: 2008-03-19 more

Bush Pushes for Better Cybersecurity

A sudden spike in the number of successful attacks against federal government information systems and databases has led President Bush to propose a multi-billion-dollar response. The number of incidents reported to the Department of Homeland Security rose by 152 percent last year, to nearly 13,000, according to a new government report. The security breaches, more than 4,000 of which remain under investigation, ranged from the work of random hackers to organized crime and foreign governments, says Tim Bennett, president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance. The increase and severity of data breaches prompted Bush to recommend a 10 percent increase in cybersecurity funding for the coming fiscal year, to $7.3 billion. That's a 73-percent increase since 2004. "The president's put a lot of emphasis on this recently," says Robert Jamison, undersecretary for national protection and programs at the Department of Homeland Security. "We're concerned that the threats are real and growing. ... We're more vulnerable as a nation." Members of Congress and experts in the private sector say the government's new initiative is overdue. "There are more and more bad guys out there," says Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who chaired a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee hearing this week on government information security risks. In 31 percent of the infiltrations, he says, "agencies do not know who took the information or how much information was taken." Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee with jurisdiction over the issue, says the Bush administration "has not paid nearly enough attention to cybersecurity" until this year. Now, he says, "they're at least trying to move in the right direction." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has made improving cybersecurity one of his top four goals for 2008. "It's the one area in which I feel we've been behind where I would like to be," he told reporters here...
Publication date: 2008-03-18 more

Microsoft Licenses Flash Lite for Windows Mobile Users

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said Flash isn't good enough, but Microsoft disagrees. In a move against Apple's iPhone, Microsoft is licensing Flash Lite technology -- even as it promotes its own Silverlight platform as an alternative to Flash. Adobe Systems announced Monday that Microsoft will license Flash Lite for its Internet Explorer Mobile browser in Windows Mobile phones. The deal also includes licensing of Adobe Reader LE for viewing PDF documents sent as e-mail attachments or made available as Web downloads. 'Vibrant Web Experiences' John O'Rourke, general manager of the mobile communications business at Microsoft, said bringing Flash Lite to Windows Mobile users will provide the "vibrant web experiences and access to entertainment" that users want from the Web. The move also provides access to a technology that Apple is refusing for the iPhone. Earlier this month, Jobs told news media that Flash technology is not yet ready for the iPhone. At Apple's shareholder meeting, he said Flash Lite is not powerful enough, and that regular Flash, designed for full-featured computers, runs too slowly. "There's this missing product in the middle," Jobs told Dow Jones news service. His dissing of Flash disappointed consumers and developers encouraged by blog reports that it was only a matter of time before Flash landed on the revolutionary iPhone. 'Big Win for Flash Lite' "This is a big win for Flash Lite," said Sean Ryan, an analyst with industry research firm IDC. He added that even though Apple has decided against Flash Lite, the iPhone still offers a high level of entertainment, including playing YouTube videos. He also noted that Apple's recently released software development kit will enable third-party developers to create new applications for the iPhone. But the bigger problem for video and other full-feature entertainment on the iPhone, he said, is the same as for other devices -- bandwidth. He pointed...
Publication date: 2008-03-18 more

Print Media Popular Online, But Money Is a Problem

Despite years of hype about the impact of bloggers and the so-called Long Tail on the news business, traditional media sources are increasingly popular online even as their offline businesses continue to go south. The idea of "The Long Tail" was that a great multiplicity of blogs and citizen journalism sites could match or exceed the value of traditional news gathering. But the reality is "more complex," says the Project for Excellence in Journalism's new report, State of the News Media 2008. "Looking closely, a clear case for democratization is harder to make," the report said. "Even with so many new sources, more people now consume what old-media newsrooms produce, particularly from print, than before." Advertising Woes Indeed, traditional media, derided by some as "mainstream media," represents more of an oligarchy online than in print. According to researcher Matthew Hindman, the top 10 news sites represent 29 percent of all Web traffic but only 19 percent of newspaper circulation. In the newspaper sector, circulation fell 2.5 percent and overall advertising revenue fell 7 percent in 2007. Even online advertising grew just 20 percent, compared to 30 percent growth in previous years. "For 2008, the hope is that a collaboration of more than 400 daily papers with Yahoo will generate a kick of as much as 10 percent to 20 percent in online advertising because it will be much easier to buy and place ads under the new arrangement," the report said. Hope in Innovation Newspaper Web sites are much improved -- with "a 24/7 diet of breaking news, an array of multimedia features and a wave of redesigns" -- but they have yet to figure out how to adequately monetize the efforts, the report said. The New York Times killed its online paid subscription service, which had 200,000 subscribers, and Rupert Murdoch announced plans to unleash much...
Publication date: 2008-03-18 more

Apple Launches 802.11n Mobile Base Station

Apple is keeping up with the wireless times. On Monday, the company updated its AirPort Express mobile base station with 802.11n, the latest standard approved by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The new model delivers up to five times the performance and twice the range of the previous model, according to the company. Priced at $99, the AirPort Express can be plugged directly into the wall for wireless Internet connectivity and USB printing at home, or it can be taken on the road and used wherever there is an Internet connection. The AirPort Express features AirTunes, which works with iTunes to let users wirelessly stream iTunes music from a PC or Mac to any room in the house. No big surprises with this Apple product release, according to Michael Gartenberg, a wireless analyst at JupiterResearch. "Apple has migrated almost all of its wireless efforts over to 802.11n. It makes sense that the AirPort Express would to go there [too], as the ultra-mobile wireless device with the ability to stream music and content using AirTunes," he said. "It made sense for Apple to get that device over to the n specification to match up with the rest of the product line." A Portable AirPort The AirPort Express features a single-piece design with portability in mind. The unit weighs 6.7 ounces. PC and Mac users alike can use AirPort Express to share a single DSL or cable broadband connection with up to 10 simultaneous users. Users can also wirelessly share a printer that is connected to the USB port. The product's advanced security features are designed to safeguard data on networked computers with support for Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA2), 128-bit WEP encryption and a built-in firewall. Apple now includes 802.11n as standard in its entire line of AirPort base stations and Mac...
Publication date: 2008-03-18 more

Japanese ISPs To Block Online Pirates

Against the backdrop of Comcast's blocking of the popular peer-to-peer program BitTorrent, a Net neutrality bill in Congress and a Hollywood call for Internet service providers to stop illegal file-sharing, comes this news from Japan: Service providers are set to block Internet service to heavy users of peer-to-peer software. The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reports that Japan's four major ISP organizations plan to form a working group with copyright groups representing authors, composers, publishers and software developers to establish guidelines for disconnecting users who download from Winny and other popular P2P programs. Under the agreement, copyright organizations would identify the IP addresses of users who are downloading their content and provide the information to the ISPs. The providers would then send a warning e-mail. If the downloading continued, the ISP would disconnect the user temporarily, or even cancel the account entirely. No Privacy Concerns It is a bold move that ISPs have been cautious about making thus far. Two years ago, a Japanese ISP proposed cutting off users detected using Winny and other P2P software, but backed off after Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry regarded that as illegal Internet snooping. The current approach is different, says technology blogger George Ou, because copyright holders merely need to download the P2P system, search for their content and obtain a list of IP addresses serving the content. "This method doesn't involve any of that politically dreaded DPI (deep-packet inspection)," Ou wrote. Indeed, it is now impossible for ISPs to examine the content of P2P transfers, since the latest programs are "already fully encrypted at both the protocol and data level," according to Ou, an outspoken opponent of Net-neutrality legislation. Bandwidth Problem Solved If content owners lurk as users on the systems, searching for and downloading their content, they automatically get a list of IP addresses that provided the content....
Publication date: 2008-03-18 more

Microsoft CRM Takes on Salesforce.com

Microsoft offered a sneak peek of the newest version of its CRM application, Dynamics AX 2009, at Convergence 2008, a meeting of Microsoft Dynamics users. The release, due in the first half of this year, is aimed at small and midsize businesses with what analysts say is extremely aggressive pricing. One major focus of the new release is managing compliance obligations, providing what Microsoft calls a "one-stop shop for compliance-related information." AX 2009 also includes enhanced global capabilities (such as multiple language support) that will give international businesses real-time visibility into operations such as overseas inventory of global locations. Chris Alliegro, lead analyst with Directions on Microsoft (an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy and technology), said that Dynamics offers a big advantage over competing products: a familiar interface. "If you're a Microsoft shop, it's an interface you're already familiar with. Having your CRM functionality visible, accessible, and built into Outlook is a huge selling point for Microsoft." Salesforce.com: The One To Beat Alliegro told us that Microsoft is directly challenging Salesforce.com with its new hosted CRM service, which is in beta testing now and should be launched for general sign-up in the middle of this year. All indications are that Microsoft will launch a full-scale attack. "They're coming at the market very aggressively," particularly in terms of pricing, Alliegro said. One version of the hosted product is expected to be $44 per month per subscriber, and $15 higher for the more enhanced version. (The main differences between the two versions, he said, are storage amount and the ability to support offline synchronizations.) He said that Salesforce.com's similar offerings cost about 50 percent more. "It's fair to ask if Microsoft can even make money at that price point. That's something they're going to learn. I think that companies getting into...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

Bush Pushes Cybersecurity

A sudden spike in the number of successful attacks against federal government information systems and databases has led President Bush to propose a multi-billion-dollar response. The number of incidents reported to the Department of Homeland Security rose by 152 percent last year, to nearly 13,000, according to a new government report. The security breaches, more than 4,000 of which remain under investigation, ranged from the work of random hackers to organized crime and foreign governments, says Tim Bennett, president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance. The increase and severity of data breaches prompted Bush to recommend a 10 percent increase in cybersecurity funding for the coming fiscal year, to $7.3 billion. That's a 73-percent increase since 2004. "The president's put a lot of emphasis on this recently," says Robert Jamison, undersecretary for national protection and programs at the Department of Homeland Security. "We're concerned that the threats are real and growing. ... We're more vulnerable as a nation." Members of Congress and experts in the private sector say the government's new initiative is overdue. "There are more and more bad guys out there," says Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who chaired a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee hearing this week on government information security risks. In 31 percent of the infiltrations, he says, "agencies do not know who took the information or how much information was taken." Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee with jurisdiction over the issue, says the Bush administration "has not paid nearly enough attention to cybersecurity" until this year. Now, he says, "they're at least trying to move in the right direction." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has made improving cybersecurity one of his top four goals for 2008. "It's the one area in which I feel we've been behind where I would like to be," he told reporters here...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

February Video Game Sales Up 34 Percent

U.S. video game sales -- including hardware and software -- jumped 34 percent in February to hit $1.33 billion, even with two top-selling consoles in short supply, according to data from market researcher NPD Group. Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 have been in such high demand stores are having a hard time keeping them in stock. Microsoft spokesman David Dennis said the company moved up shipments during the holidays and hasn't been able to catch up since. He added "we should be in good shape" by the time Grand Theft Auto IV, the highly anticipated latest installment of the Rockstar Games franchise, hits store shelves April 29. The game, which will be available on the Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, is expected to boost sales of both consoles. Pre-orders have been better than expected, according to its publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan, expects the game to sell about 9 million units during the company's fiscal year, which ends in October. Roughly 6 million of this, he added, will be to Xbox 360 owners. February is normally a slow month for video game publishers coming off holiday highs, and consumers have also been cutting back spending amid economic worries. Still, with "several marquee titles still to come in the front half of the year, the industry is poised to achieve another year of record-breaking sales despite difficult economic conditions," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in an e-mail. The sales figures surpassed what many analysts were expecting. Game hardware sales rose 19 percent during the month to $480 million, NPD said late Thursday. Of this, the portable Nintendo DS was the best-seller with 587,600 units, followed by the Wii at 432,000. The Xbox 360 sold 254,600 units even amid supply constraints. "It appears that Wii and DS shortages...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

Microsoft To Buy Web Ad Analysis Company

Microsoft Corp. plans to buy Rapt Inc., plugging a hole in its suite of tools for Web publishers and advertisers, the software giant said Friday. Microsoft did not say what it will pay for the privately held San Francisco company. Rapt's software and consulting services help Web site publishers tweak how they package and price display-ad space. Scott Howe, a general manager in Microsoft's advertiser and publisher solutions group, said Rapt's system is similar to the one airlines use to set ticket prices and track available seats. Microsoft plans to add Rapt's programs to the Web publisher tools it gained when it acquired aQuantive last year for $6 billion. The move "puts us way ahead of what other offerings are available in the market," Howe said in an interview, likening Microsoft plus Rapt to a jet plane -- and competitors, including Google Inc., to a bicycle. Microsoft has had hands-on experience as one of Rapt's customers. Tom Chavez, Rapt's chief executive, said in an interview that his company's technology helped boost MSN's ad revenue 15 percent to 20 percent, a typical improvement. Rapt, which employs about 85 people, plans to remain in California. Microsoft expects the deal to close in the next month or so. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker has bought several companies to fill out its digital ad offerings, including AdECN, a stock market-like exchange where networks representing Web sites buy and sell ad space, and Massive, which inserts ads into video games. Display advertising hasn't gotten as much attention as search ads, thanks to Google's unparalleled ability to turn search queries into billions of dollars in revenue. But that may be about to change with Google's first big push this week into display advertising as it closed its $3.1 billion acquisition of online ad services company DoubleClick. Microsoft, for its part, is waiting for Yahoo Inc. to respond...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

Sprint Nextel Fate Source of Speculation

Sprint Nextel Corp.'s plummeting stock price and the expected exodus of millions of subscribers this year have yielded a fresh round of speculation about the company's future. But analysts disagree whether the nation's third-largest wireless carrier is ripe for a takeover, is likely to begin selling parts of its operation to generate cash and make itself more agile, or will soldier on as-is. "Any time you have a stock that's down as much as this one is and with management departures and things like that, people start speculating on all kinds of things that the company may or may not do to improve things," said Todd Rethemeier, an analyst with Soleil Securities. So far neither Sprint nor its prospective suitors will comment on the rumors. In the meantime, investors seem skeptical of a turnaround: Sprint's shares have lost more than half their value since the beginning of January. They lost 23 cents to close at $5.99 Thursday. Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kan., has struggled since acquiring Nextel Communications Inc. in August 2005. Two weeks ago, it announced it had lost 683,000 wireless subscribers with annual contracts and expected to lose another 1.2 million in the current quarter and a similar amount in the second quarter of 2008. A Merrill Lynch analyst speculated this month that Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of No. 4 wireless company T-Mobile, might consider buying Sprint to bulk up and prevent an escalation of flat-rate pricing in the industry. But the two carriers' technologies are incompatible, a challenge Sprint has already seen enough of in the merger with Nextel. The Wall Street Journal has surmised that Mexico's Carlos Slim, who operates the dominant wireline and wireless networks in that country, might see Sprint as a way to get into the U.S. wireless market. "We do note that it still has compelling assets that could...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

FCC Defends Its Complaint Handling

The Federal Communications Commission processes 95 percent of the citizen complaints it receives but does a poor job of tracking how it resolves them, congressional auditors reported Thursday. The Government Accountability Office said the agency "needs to improve how it collects and analyzes data on complaints received, investigations conducted and enforcement actions taken to better manage its enforcement program." In response, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said "the GAO put forward valuable recommendations" and that prior to the report's release, the commission had "identified these issues and is already in the process of implementing measures to address them." Martin also said that since he became chairman, the commission has been responding to 100 percent of consumer complaints and has collected a record amount of fines, forfeitures and consent decree payments. The GAO analysis examined data encompassing 454,000 complaints between 2003 and 2006. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said the FCC processed about 95 percent of the complaints it received, opened about 46,000 investigations and closed 39,000. About 9 percent of the closed investigations resulted in an enforcement action, while 83 percent resulted in no enforcement. The GAO said it could not determine why the investigations were closed without action because "FCC does not systematically collect these data." The agency did its own analysis and said the vast majority of closures were due to a lack of information or a determination that no violation had occurred. The report criticized the agency for failing to set performance goals which prevent it from "assuring Congress and other stakeholders that it is meeting its enforcement mission." The investigation was sought by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce telecommunications and the Internet subcommittee. Markey used the results to push for state enforcement authority over the wireless industry. "The GAO's report makes clear that any legislation establishing national consumer protection...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

Microsoft Licenses Flash Lite Against iPhone and its own Silverlight

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said Flash isn't good enough, but Microsoft disagrees. In a move against Apple's iPhone, Microsoft is licensing Flash Lite technology -- even as it promotes its own Silverlight platform as an alternative to Flash. Adobe Systems announced Monday that Microsoft will license Flash Lite for its Internet Explorer Mobile browser in Windows Mobile phones. The deal also includes licensing of Adobe Reader LE for viewing PDF documents sent as e-mail attachments or made available as Web downloads. 'Vibrant Web Experiences' John O'Rourke, general manager of the mobile communications business at Microsoft, said bringing Flash Lite to Windows Mobile users will provide the "vibrant web experiences and access to entertainment" that users want from the Web. The move also provides access to a technology that Apple is refusing for the iPhone. Earlier this month, Jobs told news media that Flash technology is not yet ready for the iPhone. At Apple's shareholder meeting, he said Flash Lite is not powerful enough, and that regular Flash, designed for full-featured computers, runs too slowly. "There's this missing product in the middle," Jobs told Dow Jones news service. His dissing of Flash disappointed consumers and developers encouraged by blog reports that it was only a matter of time before Flash landed on the revolutionary iPhone. 'Big Win for Flash Lite' "This is a big win for Flash Lite," said Sean Ryan, an analyst with industry research firm IDC. He added that even though Apple has decided against Flash Lite, the iPhone still offers a high level of entertainment, including playing YouTube videos. He also noted that Apple's recently released software development kit will enable third-party developers to create new applications for the iPhone. But the bigger problem for video and other full-feature entertainment on the iPhone, he said, is the same as for other devices -- bandwidth. He pointed...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

Red Hat Will Buy Systems Integrator Amentra

Red Hat will acquire privately held Amentra, a provider of systems-integration services to smooth the transition to service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) projects. "We are now focused on expanding further into the enterprise," said Red Hat Vice President Craig Muzilla. "The depth of solution-oriented consulting services provided by Amentra will help enterprises begin deploying JBoss Enterprise Middleware products with confidence." Strong SOA Growth Ahead The acquisition is intended to complement Red Hat's recently announced Enterprise Acceleration Initiative, which targets the delivery of products, programs and services to help enterprises accelerate IT deployments, particularly in SOA and BPM. It comes amid an accelerating IT drive to adopt SOA, according to the latest survey from Forrester Research. "A year ago, our data highlighted a general slowness in moving from SOA planning to actual use of SOA," said Forrester Research Vice President Randy Heffner. "This slowness disappeared in 2007's data, with strong growth in current use of SOA across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions." Even better, "a strong majority of current SOA users plan to do more SOA," Heffner noted. "... more and more SOA users are seeing its role for enabling strategic business transformation." Heffner pointed out that the most critical aspects of SOA are business-oriented. "SOA technology is merely a foundation for business-oriented restructuring of IT's processes and deliverables," he added. An Open-Source Middleware Play Amentra has more than 140 employees at its offices in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Tampa, Richmond and Washington, D.C. When the deal is final, Amentra will function as an independent Red Hat company, with existing customers continuing "to receive the benefit of Amentra's model, as they do today, with the breadth and depth that comes from the many synergies that Red Hat and Amentra bring to each other," said Amentra CEO Matt Ernst. Red Hat spent $350 million...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

'Spam King' Could Get 26 Years, $625,000 in Fines

They call him the "Spam King." He was one of the world's most prolific e-mail spammers, allegedly responsible for sending millions of spam e-mails. And he plead guilty on Friday to federal charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and failure to file a tax return. His name is Robert Alan Soloway. Soloway, 29, was arrested last summer after being indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Seattle. His trial was scheduled to begin in two weeks, but that changed when federal prosecutors dropped 37 counts, including all of the identity-theft cases, in a plea bargain. The charges against Soloway could send him to prison for up to 26 years. He also faces up to $625,000 in fines. "We believe that there were extensive losses to thousands of victims," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Warma told The Seattle Times. U.S. District Court Judge Marscha Pechman will decide Soloway's fate. False Promises According to the indictment, between November 2003 and May 2007, Soloway operated Newport Internet Marketing, which offered "broadcast e-mail" software and services. These consisted of high-volume commercial e-mail messages with false and forged headers, relayed to recipients using botnets (infected computers). According to prosecutors, Soloway and his company made several false and fraudulent claims about the products and services. Among them was a claim that the addresses used for the bulk e-mail were opt-in. The Web site promised a satisfaction guarantee with a full refund to customers who purchased the broadcast e-mail product. However, according to the prosecutors, customers who later complained about the goods and services they had purchased or who asked for refunds were threatened with additional financial charges and referral to a collection agency. Stop Buying Spam-Advertised Goods Sophos's Security Threat Report research reveals that 95 percent of all e-mail is spam, of which 32 percent contains links to adult or...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

AT&T Continues Rolling Out IP-Based Phone Service

AT&T continues to roll out Internet Protocol-based voice services through its U-verse network, announcing Monday the availability of the service in Sacramento, Calif. This is the fourth market for such a service, following launches in Michigan, Connecticut and Kansas. The IP voice service fills out the company's triple-play offering with cable TV, high-speed Internet, and now voice on one bill. AT&T's 'Fiber-Rich Network' AT&T said its U-verse voice service is a "managed IP-based service that is delivered over AT&T's fiber-rich network, unlike many Voice over IP (VoIP) providers that offer best-effort digital phone services over the public Internet." AT&T said its service provides better sound quality, reliability and calling features. The advanced features that AT&T is highlighting include a single voice mailbox that can be reached from any phone or PC, and an online management portal so users can manage call preferences, contacts, call history and other preferences. It also highlighted Call History, for viewing the most recent incoming or outgoing calls online, and Click to Call, which allows the user to dial any number in the Call History by clicking with a mouse or using the U-verse remote TV control. There is also an online Address Book, a Locate Me feature so an incoming call can ring on up to four wireless or landline numbers, and traditional calling features such as screening or blocking. Focus on Price Bruce McGregor, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, noted that U-Verse voice was first announced in January, and the company is now rolling it out and adding more services. He called it a "compelling" offer to customers compared to similar triple-play bundles from other phone and cable companies. AT&T has noted that it has features to differentiate itself from cable, including the AT&T U-bar, with customizable weather, news and traffic information; a YellowPages.com for searching;...
Publication date: 2008-03-17 more

Google Rolls Out Ad Manager from DoubleClick

Google isn't wasting any time leveraging its newest asset. After officially closing the $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition earlier this week, the company rolled out a new product: Google Ad Manager. Ad Manager is a free hosted ad- and inventory-management tool that publishers can use to sell, schedule, deliver and measure their directly sold and network-based ad inventories. The new tool is currently in beta. Google Senior Product Manager Rohit Dhawan said the tool helps publishers address the challenge of effectively managing their inventory and ensuring all their clients' ads appear on time. Google Ad Manager is looking for a niche with publishers who have small sales teams. Different From AdSense "Google Ad Manager effectively complements the DoubleClick Revenue Center, which is focused on publishers with larger sales teams ... we're committed to the continued development and enhancement of DoubleClick's offerings," Dhawan wrote in the Google blog. Ad Manager is different from putting AdSense code into a site. The new tool is based on DART, the platform that powers DoubleClick. Ad Manager's tagging process lets publishers spend more time working with their advertisers and less time on their ad-management solution, Dhawan said. By providing detailed inventory forecasts and tracking at a small level, he wrote, Ad Manager helps publishers maximize sell-through rates. Dozens of publishers have been using Ad Manager successfully in early trials, according to Google. But since the product is still in beta, it is available to publishers by invitation only. DoubleClick customers will not be affected. Advance Planning The technology world has been so focused on the regulatory issues surrounding the DoubleClick acquisition that there hasn't been much talk about the products Google might roll out after the merger. Ad Manager is the first of what advertisers may see come out of the DoubleClick integration, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT...
Publication date: 2008-03-16 more

AT&T Offers Broad Coverage with BlackBerry Pearl 8120

AT&T has become the latest wireless carrier to offer enterprise customers the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 from Research In Motion. The svelte sapphire-blue smartphone, which features a built-in Wi-Fi radio, will give subscribers the broadest domestic and international wireless data coverage of any U.S. carrier, AT&T said. "The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 combines AT&T's leading domestic and international coverage footprint with its position as the world's leading provider of BlackBerry services to create a compelling global solution for business customers," said AT&T Vice President Michael Woodward. A Triple Play Measuring just 4.2x2.4x0.5 inches and tipping the scales at 3.2 ounces, AT&T's Blackberry Pearl is equipped with a 240x260-pixel 65K-color display, a two-megapixel camera/camcorder, a multimedia player, and a microSD/SDHC memory card slot. The Pearl also makes a triple play with EDGE and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) radios and a Bluetooth 2.0 chipset for wirelessly connecting to compatible stereo headsets, car kits, and other accessories. The smartphone offers RIM's popular BlackBerry e-mail and messaging capabilities along with the company's SureType word-completion software, a built-in spell checker and a user-customized dictionary. The Pearl also offers support for AT&T's Mobile Music subscription and unlimited Push to Talk services. In addition, the Pearl can deliver simultaneous access to both data and voice calls whenever the user is connected to a public hot spot, corporate wireless network or home Wi-Fi network. RIM's Pearl, which is available to AT&T's business customers for as low as $199, also keeps overseas travelers connected to e-mail, Internet access and other mobile applications through data services in more than 145 countries, AT&T said. It added that Pearl users will be able to make or receive voice calls in more than 200 nations. Full Steam Ahead The Pearl's adoption by carriers in more than 20 countries since March 2007 is a strong indication that the popularity of RIM's...
Publication date: 2008-03-15 more

Google Rolls Out Ad Manager From DoubleClick

Google isn't wasting any time leveraging its newest asset. After officially closing the $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition earlier this week, the company rolled out a new product: Google Ad Manager. Ad Manager is a free hosted ad- and inventory-management tool that publishers can use to sell, schedule, deliver and measure their directly sold and network-based ad inventories. The new tool is currently in beta. Google Senior Product Manager Rohit Dhawan said the tool helps publishers address the challenge of effectively managing their inventory and ensuring all their clients' ads appear on time. Google Ad Manager is looking for a niche with publishers who have small sales teams. Different From AdSense "Google Ad Manager effectively complements the DoubleClick Revenue Center, which is focused on publishers with larger sales teams ... we're committed to the continued development and enhancement of DoubleClick's offerings," Dhawan wrote in the Google blog. Ad Manager is different from putting AdSense code into a site. The new tool is based on DART, the platform that powers DoubleClick. Ad Manager's tagging process lets publishers spend more time working with their advertisers and less time on their ad-management solution, Dhawan said. By providing detailed inventory forecasts and tracking at a small level, he wrote, Ad Manager helps publishers maximize sell-through rates. Dozens of publishers have been using Ad Manager successfully in early trials, according to Google. But since the product is still in beta, it is available to publishers by invitation only. DoubleClick customers will not be affected. Advance Planning The technology world has been so focused on the regulatory issues surrounding the DoubleClick acquisition that there hasn't been much talk about the products Google might roll out after the merger. Ad Manager is the first of what advertisers may see come out of the DoubleClick integration, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT...
Publication date: 2008-03-15 more

Bill Gates Asks Congress for More Tech-Worker Visas

Retiring Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates ventured inside the Beltway this week, calling on Congress to issue more visas for high-tech workers, then issuing a call for Federal Communications Commission approval of so-called white-space devices, and finally rhapsodizing on the future of computing to a local technology group. High-Tech Visas "It makes no sense to educate people in our universities, often subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, and then insist they return home," Gates told the House Science and Technology Committee at a hearing Wednesday. Gates has been a leading proponent of dramatically increasing the number of H-1B temporary visas issued to foreign computer scientists, allowing them to work in the United States. During Gates' testimony, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) pushed back, saying those foreign experts will take jobs away from Americans. "If we bring [in] more people from the outside, will it not also depress the wages in our own country that people like yourself would have to pay your employees?" "No," said Gates firmly. "These top people are going to be hired. It's just a question of what country they are hired in. When we bring in these world-class engineers, we create jobs around them. The B and C students are the ones who get those jobs around these top engineers. And if these top engineers are forced to work in India, we will hire the B and C students from India to work around them." Push for White Space Then it was off to the Northern Virginia Technology Council, where Gates and Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie made a push for adoption of technology to deliver wireless Internet over white space -- the vacant frequencies that provide buffers between television broadcasts. "White-space activity today is sort of our last hope to get some good spectrum," Mundie said. "The only way to do it...
Publication date: 2008-03-15 more

Is the Internet Slowing Down?

Caution -- Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible. For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment -- video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games. Moving images, far more than words or sounds, are hefty rivers of digital bits as they traverse the Internet's pipes and gateways, requiring, in industry parlance, more bandwidth. Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000. In a widely cited report published in November, a research firm projected that user demand for the Internet could outpace network capacity by 2011. The title of a debate scheduled next month at a technology conference in Boston sums up the angst: "The End of the Internet?" But the traffic surge represents more of a challenge than an impending catastrophe. Even those most concerned are not predicting a lights-out Internet crash. An individual user, they say, would experience Internet clogging in the form of sluggish download speeds and frustration with data-heavy services that become much less useful or enjoyable. "The Internet doesn't collapse, but there would be a growing class of stuff you just can't do online," said Johna Till Johnson, president of Nemertes Research, which predicted the bandwidth crunch by 2011, anticipating that demand would grow by 100 percent or more a year. Others are less worried -- at least in the short term. Andrew Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota, estimates that digital traffic on the global network was growing about 50 percent a year, in line with a recent analysis by Cisco Systems, the big...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Oracle's Mobile Sales Assistant for Road Warriors

Sales professionals are the original road warriors, so it makes sense that they should have mobile tools that will keep them up-to-date on customer data and other information that could help them close sales. Oracle's new Mobile Sales Assistant may be a valuable weapon for these warriors. Mobile Sales Assistant gives customers access to Oracle CRM On Demand by leveraging the BlackBerry wireless platform from Research in Motion. The mobile application is designed to allow sales reps to more efficiently manage appointments, collaborate with colleagues, and connect with customers on the road. The assistant features a simple interface that makes it possible to manage frequent tasks with a single click such as setting appointments, calling colleagues, text messaging, and even getting driving directions. Automated prompts at the end of calls remind users to enter notes so that important information isn't lost or forgotten. Java Client A Java client rather than a browser-based CRM solution, Oracle says Mobile Sales Assistant supports offline usage while leveraging the BlackBerry Enterprise Server's security and push-based architecture. Since it's delivered as a service, small and midsize businesses can benefit from predictable costs and ease of deployment and management. "We connect a sales professional to CRM data and CRM services and also connect them to other services in the context of their day," Anthony Lye, senior vice president of CRM at Oracle, told us. "We connect them to location services, mapping services, PIM [personal information management] data, and use SMS and Vcard standards for social networking." Web 2.0 for Sales Pros The application highlights the growing importance of Web 2.0 to sales professionals. Access to social-networking groups and blogs enables sales professionals to keep up-to-date on news and events that may affect their customers. On its Web site, Oracle calls collaborative applications, social networking, and mobile the "driving forces behind Web...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Report Says Microsoft, Yahoo Discussed Merger

Senior executives from Microsoft and Yahoo powwowed this week to discuss Redmond's $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo, according to The Wall Street Journal. The reported gathering could bring the companies closer to agreement. Executives from the companies had not met to discuss Microsoft's Jan. 31 offer since Yahoo rejected it in February. Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Journal reported that Monday's meeting wasn't a negotiation, and no bankers attended. Instead, Yahoo allowed Microsoft to present its vision of a merged company at a location near Yahoo's Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters. Yahoo executives reportedly listened, but further talks were not scheduled. It remains unclear, the Journal reported, whether Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were present at the meeting. A Well-Timed Talk? The talks come a week after Yahoo amended its bylaws to extend the deadline for nominating directors to its board from March 14 to 10 days after the public announcement of the date for its annual meeting of stockholders. The amendment gives stockholders who want to nominate one or more directors, including Microsoft, more time. The extension also lets Yahoo pursue alternatives to a Microsoft takeover. When Yahoo's board unanimously rejected Microsoft's offer, it said it would not even consider discussing acquisition possibilities unless Microsoft anted up at least $12 billion more. Microsoft will not offer more money, the Journal reported, unless it gets a closer look at Yahoo's books. That's when talk of a hostile takeover began, and Microsoft seems determined. The company hired Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz, along with Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group, to help it acquire Yahoo. Meanwhile, Yahoo began holding talks with other potential buyers, including News Corp. and Time Warner. News Corp. said earlier this week that it would not wrestle with Microsoft for Yahoo. Is Yahoo Worth the Price? Even at with the...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Verizon Reports P4P Can Slash P2P's Impact on ISPs

With the ongoing debate over Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic as a backdrop, Verizon on Friday released a study that shows new technology can dramatically reduce the impact of peer-to-peer (P2P) systems on Internet service providers. Yale University and Pando Networks worked with Verizon and Telefonica to test so-called P4P technology, which localizes P2P downloads. The results: the impact of P2P on Verizon's network was reduced 50 percent. Current versions of P2P systems speed up downloads of large files by breaking the files into small bits and distributing them among users. When a BitTorrent user requests a file, machines all over the world respond by each sending off a little chunk of the file. But the software doesn't check where the machines are located. Localizing Traffic P4P works by favoring machines closer to the requesting user, which has an outsize impact on network efficiency because P2P packets represent a huge amount of the traffic that passes over an ISP's network. Verizon senior technologist Douglas Pasko reported that 58 percent of P2P traffic remained local with P4P, compared to six percent with plain P2P. On average, P4P cuts the number of hops traffic takes to a destination from an average 5.5 hops to a mere 0.89 hops, Pasko said. That means not only substantial cost savings to Verizon but also much faster downloads for users. Pasko said users of Verizon's all-fiber Fios network downloaded movies twice as fast as normally, and in some cases six times as fast. So will other ISPs jump on the P4P bandwagon to cut costs and deliver improved performance? It's not likely, said Cynthia Brumfield, president of Emerging Media Dynamics, in a telephone interview. "You have to really be able to allow outside platforms to know something about your subscribers," she said. To implement P4P, Verizon communicated this information with select...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

SaaS Data Storage Partnership Announced

Iron Mountain Digital and N-able Technologies are working together to provide backup and archiving services using software as a service (SaaS) technology. The alliance will help SMBs to monitor and remotely manage server-data backup and recovery. N-able provides SaaS platforms that provide managed service providers (MSPs) with remote monitoring, management, and desktop support technology. In this co-marketing relationship with Iron Mountain Digital, the technology arm of storage giant Iron Mountain, the two companies will introduce channel partners to the other's services to educate the market on the benefits to SMBs of using managed services for backup and storage. "We monitor and manage devices," looking at the network and its assets, and monitoring how much backup space is available, explained Elias Diamantopoulos, chief operating officer of N-Able. Iron Mountain's services, which address both immediate backup needs and offline backup, will be integrated into the N-able platform. That hasn't happened yet, but will soon. The theory, Diamantopoulos said, is that corporations will identify the data to be retained and create retention policies. N-able software will monitor how much storage is available for the backups, and then key data will be automatically moved offline and archived via Iron Mountain Digital. "The positioning is that end users can enable software to ensure that their networks and devices are managed and protected properly, and the content equivalently is managed and protected properly with Iron Mountain software," he said. Outsourcing Trend The partnership highlights the growing trend of SMBs to outsource as a way to save money, while getting a predictable amount for budgeting IT expenditures. "All these products can be delivered in a way that's cost-effective for SMBs. Once it's cost-effective for them, why not outsource it? You don't have to manage the day-to-day maintenance and management of the system," Diamantopoulos said. Outsourcing also helps ensure that IT...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

iPod Touch: The Future of Handheld Devices

Some see the iPod touch as just an iPhone without the phone. Others see it as a taste of things to come: Truly portable tablet computers that deliver features only Apple can bring to the table. Apple's touch screen iPod is about to take a serious leap forward in capabilities come June when the App Store launches and third party developers can start offering their programs for the palm-size computer. It appears that Apple will be doing little to limit the applications developers can release, which means the iPod touch will be limited only by coder's imaginations. Even Apple refers to the super-slim touch screen iPod as a "mobile Wi-Fi platform," and not as a media player, making a clear distinction between the touch and its other iPod products. Right now, the iPod touch offers a subset of the features found on its cousin the iPhone. It doesn't include a cell phone, and Bluetooth is clearly missing, too. While Apple won't add cell phone features to the touch, it may well roll in Bluetooth at some point, which could potentially open the door to a wide range of wireless peripherals like keyboards, mice, and stereo headsets. BusinessWeek pointed out that one feature missing from the touch is an e-book reader like Amazon.com's Kindle. The touch's current display size is fine for Web surfing and email, but it might be a bit small for reading books, which means if Apple is considering e-book support, it might also be considering a larger screen version of the device -- which could be the birth of a true Apple table-like computer. E-book support could also lead to a new feature at the iTunes Store: Electronic versions of books, magazines, and other periodicals. "All that's needed are willing content suppliers for the iTunes Store, which could become a central distribution...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

No Flips, No Folds -- Just a Phone

It looks a bit like a child's toy, a walkie-talkie circa 1975, a cheap plastic throwback to the good old days when telephones were made for talking. But to Spice Ltd., a telecommunications company in the world's fastest-growing phone market, this new product embodies the latest, greatest innovation in cell phone technology today: a handset priced at less than $20. Spice, which is based in Noida, India, unveiled what it is branding "the People's Phone" at a wireless industry conference in Barcelona last month. The handset is an anomaly among mobile phones today: The number keys are big and bold. It is chunky and has no color screen -- in fact, it has no screen at all. Nothing about it flips, folds or slides. It is, as Spice's chairman, Bhupendra Kumar Modi, described it, "just a phone." Yet if sales unfold according to Modi's plan, Spice could sell as many of the People's Phone as Apple sells of its iPhone, which sits at the other end of the coolness -- and price -- spectrum, with a price tag of $399 in the United States and more in some other markets. Both companies are aiming for sales of 10 million phones in their first year, which would be about a 1 percent share of the global market in 2008. "There is a massive need for these phones," said Arun Kapoor, chief executive of Spice. "We are targeting an area from Iraq to Indonesia, and that area has a population of 2.5 billion." India alone could keep the company in rupees. With more than 7 million handsets sold each month, the country accounts for more mobile phone sales than any other. Combine that with the fact that only 17 percent of the population now uses a mobile phone, and the potential is huge, analysts agree. For now,...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Is the Web Slowing Down?

Caution -- Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible. For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment -- video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games. Moving images, far more than words or sounds, are hefty rivers of digital bits as they traverse the Internet's pipes and gateways, requiring, in industry parlance, more bandwidth. Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000. In a widely cited report published in November, a research firm projected that user demand for the Internet could outpace network capacity by 2011. The title of a debate scheduled next month at a technology conference in Boston sums up the angst: "The End of the Internet?" But the traffic surge represents more of a challenge than an impending catastrophe. Even those most concerned are not predicting a lights-out Internet crash. An individual user, they say, would experience Internet clogging in the form of sluggish download speeds and frustration with data-heavy services that become much less useful or enjoyable. "The Internet doesn't collapse, but there would be a growing class of stuff you just can't do online," said Johna Till Johnson, president of Nemertes Research, which predicted the bandwidth crunch by 2011, anticipating that demand would grow by 100 percent or more a year. Others are less worried -- at least in the short term. Andrew Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota, estimates that digital traffic on the global network was growing about 50 percent a year, in line with a recent analysis by Cisco Systems, the big...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

New Sales Program Pays Facebook Members

Facebook Inc.'s popular online hangout so far has proven to be a better place for promoting fun and games than peddling products. But a new application aims to inject more commerce into the social playground by paying Facebook members who help merchants sell to their friends. The program, called Market Lodge, revolves around the notion that consumers are more likely to buy merchandise or services recommended by someone they know and trust. Market Lodge, made by a startup called bSocial Networks Inc., will pay Facebook members a 10 percent commission on all sales made on their recommendations. Facebook tried to capitalize on the bonds of friendship last year by introducing a marketing system that includes broadcasting product endorsements among people who know each other. The strategy hasn't paid off yet, largely because many of Facebook's users rebelled against a feature called "Beacon" that tracked and shared information about their purchases and other actions made on other Web sites. Spurred by the backlash, Palo Alto-based Facebook now allows its users to turn off Beacon. Conifer, Colo.-based bSocial is betting that Facebook's roughly 67 million users will be more receptive to an approach that dangles a financial incentive for participating. Facebook members who decide to use Market Lodge can customize their own stores, selecting from more than 1,200 products sold by about 50 different merchants. Once the personal store is set up, Facebook users can then invite others in their network to check out the stuff they're recommending. Market Lodge users can make purchases from their own stores and still qualify for the 10 percent sales commission. All the inventory, order processing and delivery arrangements are handled by the merchants -- just as they would be for any other sale. "We think this could be very lucrative for Facebook's members," said bSocial co-founder Sue Spielman. More than 100 people have signed up for Market...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Acer To Launch 6-Speaker Movie Laptop

Acer Inc., the Taiwanese computer maker that bought Gateway last year, said on Tuesday that it now aims to take laptop users as close as they can get to the high-definition home theater experience. The top model of the new "Gemstone blue" line of laptops has a screen with the same resolution as an a top-of-the-line HDTV, at 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels, and will have six speakers, including a subwoofer, for so-called "5.1" surround sound. The computer will go sale next month in the U.S. for $1,999. A model with three speakers and a smaller screen (but still HD resolution) will cost $1,699. Both will have built-in Blu-ray disc drives. The computer industry has long had its set of standard screen resolutions, while the consumer electronics industry has standardized on different ones. Acer's Blue line effectively adopts the consumer-electronics standard, which means that many movies and all HD TV shows will fill the screen, without black bars. Acer said the laptops would be the first with 1,920-by-1,080 screens, and the top model is the first laptop with six speakers. The $1,999 model has an 18.4-inch screen, placing it in the "desktop replacement" category of heavy laptops that aren't meant for more than occasional travel. Even with six speakers, the laptop isn't capable of true surround sound, since that requires speakers on either side of the listener at ear level. Some current laptops use two speakers to simulate the enveloping experience of surround sound. Acer's laptop will do the same, but the simulation is better with six speakers than with two, said Acer senior vice president Jim Wong. At the presentation in New York, Acer president Gianfranco Lanci said the company plans to keep the Gateway and eMachines brands it acquired last year and use them to meet its goal of selling 300 million units worldwide this...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Gates Seeks More High-Tech Visas

More investment in math and science education and a more liberal policy toward skilled foreign workers are crucial if America is to avoid losing its competitive edge in the world, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told Congress Wednesday. The shortage of scientists and engineers is so acute that "we must do both: reform our education system and our immigration policies. If we don't American companies simply will not have the talent to innovate and compete," Gates said in testimony to the House Science Committee. Gates got a good reception from the committee, which was holding the hearing to mark the 50th anniversary of the panel's founding following the Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. "We are on the cusp of another Sputnik moment," said committee chairman Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn. "I fear that our country has coasted on the investment made in the last 50 years." Gates outlined four goals he said the country must pursue: improving educational opportunities in science and technology, revamping the visa system for highly skilled workers, increasing federal funding for basic scientific research and providing incentives for private-sector research and development. The toughest sell was the position of Gates, and others in high-tech industries, that Congress raise the current cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, nonimmigrant visas that allow employers to hire foreign nationals with specific skills. The program also allows another 20,000 visas for foreign nationals receiving masters or doctoral degrees from U.S. universities. Current limits, he said have led to a "serious disruption" in the flow of talented science, technology, engineering and math graduates to U.S. companies. Gates said Microsoft and other firms have been forced to locate staff in countries more open to skilled foreign workers . Last year, Microsoft was unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the qualified foreign-born job candidates it wanted...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

AOL Acquires No. 3 Social Network Bebo

Can AOL return from near-oblivion by entering the hot social-networking arena? Once the darling of Wall Street but more recently known as the burying ground for Netscape, Time Warner's AOL is throwing its hat in the ring with an $850 million acquisition of Bebo. Social networking is dominated by MySpace, owned by News Corp., and Facebook, which has a minority investment from Microsoft. AOL says Bebo -- which stands for "blog early, blog often" -- is the No. 3 social network in the U.S. and No. 1 in Ireland and New Zealand. But No. 3 is a long way from No. 1. News Corp. estimates MySpace's value at $15 billion, and Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook last year gave founder Mark Zuckerberg's company a $10 billion value. The $850 million value for Bebo barely registers in those elevations. Building on Platform-A AOL is betting Bebo will be the cornerstone of its resurgence as an advertising-based company. "Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL's personal-communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media," said AOL CEO Randy Falco. Falco said AOL was attracted to Bebo's success and its potential for further growth; its vision of a "truly social web"; and the "monetization opportunities that leverage Platform-A across our combined global audience." AOL spent $1 billion acquiring a portfolio of online advertising companies, including ADTECH, buy.at, Lightningcast, Quigo, TACODA and Third Screen Media, to create its Platform-A advertising system. Executive Departures The Bebo purchase comes just a day after AOL announced the departure of Curt Viebranz as head of Platform-A. Viebranz came to AOL as part of its purchase of TACODA and is being replaced by Linda Clarizio, president of Advertising.com, an advertising network that forms a key part of Platform-A. Two other Platform-A executives departed in the past month. Noting the executive shake-up, John...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Microsoft To Buy Virtual PC Manager Kidaro

Microsoft said it will acquire Israel-based Kidaro, which has developed desktop virtualization products for enterprise applications. The financial terms were not disclosed. Managing desktops across a large business can be complex, Microsoft executives said. Issues such as application compatibility, mobility and business continuity can be addressed with virtual PC technologies, said Shanen Boettcher, general manager of Microsoft's Windows product management team. "Kidaro's seamless user interface and management capabilities allow enterprises to more easily use and manage virtual PCs," he added. Aiding Vista Migrations Kidaro's Managed Workspace product allows enterprise data and applications to run within a 'transparent virtual machine wrapper' built upon Microsoft Virtual PC, noted Patrick O'Rourke, senior product manager at Microsoft's Windows Server Group. "The wrapper provides enterprise-class management, deployment and a clean user experience," he said. In addition to taking on Kidaro's three founders with the deal, Microsoft intends to retain Kidaro's overseas R&D team, which makes "sense since Microsoft already has an R&D center in Israel," O'Rourke said. Kidaro's products will be melded into future updates of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for software assurance "under the name Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization," O'Rourke added. The acquired products are expected to enable Microsoft's software-assurance customers with enhanced subscription to accelerate Windows Vista migrations. Moreover, enterprise managers will be able to apply IT policies in a locked-down mode that still gives end users access to the underlying host operating system. In addition, companies will be able to reduce IT investments by delivering desktop PC virtual images that are independent of hardware or local desktop configurations, Microsoft said. Future Opportunities Despite Microsoft's announcement, Gartner Vice President Michael Silver said there hasn't been much adoption of PC virtualization in enterprises. "Today, virtual machines are used by developers, help desk, and technical sales people, but not by the mainstream desktop user," Silver noted....
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Zoho Launches Web-Based HR Freeware

Running your small business just got a little easier. Zoho, which already offers a host of free software-as-a-service applications, has launched a beta of Zoho People, a human-resources management tool. Aimed at small and midsize businesses, Zoho People offers a range of HR functions that include everything from defining organizational structure to recruiting new workers. It's designed for companies with more than 30 employees -- the size at which keeping tabs on employees in ad hoc ways (such as Excel spreadsheets) becomes unmanageable, according to a blog on the Zoho site. Zoho already offers a suite of free Web 2.0 tools that compete with big-name Web applications, such as Google Apps. At the Zoho Web site, small-business owners can find integrated word processing, presentation, meeting and project-management tools. Most are free, though the company does offer some fee-based versions (for example, the Zoho CRM solution is free only for the first three users; after that, it costs $12 per month). Made for Non-Geeks Like the other Zoho applications, Zoho People is user friendly rather than tech-centric. For example, there are 28 premade forms (such as expense reports), but if you need to add or change some of a form's fields, you don't have to call in a programmer; instead, you can open another tool, Zoho Creator, and customize the form simply by dragging and dropping. HR managers can restrict access to forms and customization tools. So employees can find the forms they need and update personal information, but not gain access to compensation or other private data. In addition to forms, Zoho People has modules for recruitment, checklists, organization, self-service, and roles and permissions. Some of them are available only to an administrator, who can set access parameters for different modules. Safeguarding Your Data Though convenient, Web applications such as Zoho raise the...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Patent Suit Challenges Apple iTunes Store and iPod

On Wednesday, ZapMedia Services filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Apple. But this time it's not over the iPhone. The Atlanta-based company alleges Apple's iTunes Store and iPod music players infringe on its patented methods for distributing digital media over the Internet. ZapMedia Services sued Apple in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, a venue known for its friendly stance toward plaintiffs. ZapMedia Services claims the lawsuit comes after multiple attempts to resolve its concerns with Apple over infringement of ZapMedia Services' patents. "The complaint alleges that ZapMedia Services' property is being exploited in a manner which is unlawful, and by law ZapMedia Services is therefore entitled to a reasonable royalty on Apple's revenues related to the infringement," said Steven G. Hill, of Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, LLP, ZapMedia lead litigation counsel. Two Patents Granted Here's the story as ZapMedia Services tells it: Beginning in the late 1990s, ZapMedia, the predecessor of ZapMedia Services, created a digital media platform. As part of its strategy, ZapMedia developed a system by which it could provide hardware, software and content to consumers to allow them to gain control over their digital media assets. In 1999, ZapMedia applied for two patents, each of which is entitled "System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices." One of the patents was granted in March 2006. The other was granted Tuesday. In the course of its efforts, ZapMedia Services said it met with many major technology and media companies around the globe, including Apple, to describe its vision in great detail. Without asking ZapMedia Services for permission, the company claimed, Apple unveiled its own system. Apple announced its iPod MP3 player with an integrated iTunes software application in October 2001 and its iTunes Store in April 2003. ZapMedia Services said it...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Movie Association Opposes Net-Neutrality Bill

The Motion Picture Association of America opposed Net-neutrality legislation pending in Congress this week. Speaking at the Hollywood trade show ShoWest, MPAA chief Dan Glickman called a bill sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) nothing more than "government regulation of the Internet." Neutrality legislation "would impede our ability to respond to consumers in innovative ways, and it would impair the ability of broadband providers to address the serious and rampant piracy problems occurring over their networks today," Glickman said. Glickman emphasized that Hollywood's current business model depends on post-release revenue streams: DVD sales and rentals and, to a modest extent, legal online downloads. "The future of the theater, unimpeded theatrical production and a vibrant aftermarket all depend on an Internet that remains free from government regulation. So we are all in this together," he said. The Real 'Information Economy' In an interesting appropriation of terminology, Glickman said Hollywood is the real "information economy that will create new jobs and new opportunities for the future." "Technology increasingly is making new worlds of consumer-centric innovation possible, and it is handing us the opportunity to deal the first real body blow to online piracy, to begin to reach toward the day when we might be able to take it off the table and debug the system. It simply cannot be the policy of this country to say no to that," Glickman said. "Today MPAA and all of our studios are standing up in opposition to broad-based government regulation of the Internet. We are opposing so-called Net neutrality government action," he said. "And in the process, we are standing up for our customers, for our economy and for the ability of content producers to continue to create great movies for the future." Misrepresenting Markey While he didn't mention them by name, Glickman was clearly referring to Comcast's blocking of Internet traffic...
Publication date: 2008-03-14 more

Electronic Arts Launches Hostile Battle for Take-Two

Like a real-life financial video game, Electronic Arts has mounted a hostile takeover battle for Take-Two Interactive Software. The Redwood City, Calif.-based EA said Thursday that a wholly-owned subsidiary has commenced a tender offer for all outstanding shares of Take-Two for $26 a share in cash. EA said the offer, valued at about $2 billion, represents a 64 percent premium over Take-Two's closing price on Feb. 15. The offer expires April 11. Rejected Previous Offer The New York-based Take-Two previously rejected an unsolicited buyout bid from EA, saying it was too low and ill-timed. One factor in the timing is that Grant Theft Auto IV is due out soon. Take-Two is the publisher of the hit Grand Theft Auto video games. It has reportedly sold more than 65 million copies, becoming one of the most popular games, but it has also received heavy criticism for its use of crime and graphic violence. Other bidders have approached Take-Two, it said, although it has not revealed details. A hostile bid, which was once rare in the technology business but is becoming more common, goes around a company's board of directors by appealing directly to shareholders. Take-Two has experienced conflict between its board and shareholders on other occasions, such as the revolt by shareholders last year who threw out the management and many of the board members, and brought in ZelnickMedia Corp. to run the company. EA's 'Label' Model EA CEO John Riccitiello said the latest offer was "the best way" for Take-Two shareholders to "maximize the value of their investment," while adding additional intellectual properties to his company's portfolio. He said EA is prepared to "welcome Take-Two's talented creative teams to the great development organization we've built at EA." In an open letter posted on the company's Web site, Riccitiello said that, as development costs rise in the games industry,...
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