All About Tech

Yahoo provides 400.000 Official Song Lyrics

2007-06-11T04:03:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANSISCO - Yahoo will extend the online music business by providing around 400.000 Official song lyrics. This is done to provide official lyric from various record producer to the music lover. This effort at the same time opens eye of the Internet users, that location of song lyrics at various sites without approval of song maker and also song producer technically is illegal action.

What done of many lyric sites clearly differs from song lyric which available in Yahoo. Because Yahoo will become authorized song lyric site under agreement with loaded song producer. Yahoo will share the advantage along the length of the lyric still be presented.

Around 400.000 song lyrics which available in Yahoo come from around 9.000 different artists, starts from The Beatles and Bob Dylan till the stars like Radiohead and Beyonce. Almost around 100 music companies contributes their lyrics at Yahoo Lyrics, counted among the big companys like BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music. Yahoo cooperates with Gracenote which has owned the license to overspreading song lyrics from various record producers.

Other sites might possibly have number of song lyrics far bigger than Yahoo. But, Yahoo believes, library of the lyric will be enthused because free of advertisement pop-up which can be exploited by spyware or computer virus to infiltrate to computer when user downloading the lyric.

"Yahoo will become new earnings source for artist and song producer by watering down people to remember or differentiates song that is ordinary they hear in radio or in website," said Phil Leigh, music observer from Inside Media Digital. Yahoo hopes its new service can generate new enthusiasm for industrial development of music.

AP

Online Music Bright Future

2007-06-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

After Apple with the iTunes make online music shop. Some similar services also always pop out. Amazon.com, Digital Beat Store Indonesia, even now payplay.com presenting more competitive song price compared to Amazon and Apple.

Possible Apple is still lucky. By the Big name, they can hold mutually EMI music lable for song content. But Payplay has not as lucky as Apple. Lot of they songs content are band without lable or indie label. While Digital Beat Store, even has not applied online system payment, but is the first online music shop which capable to accomodate Indonesia indie song. Amazon till now has just sold music in the Album form by online, but the rumor said they will launch music retail this year.

Apparition of online music shop more or less is influence to the change of industry music distribution. At the same time is first step to eliminate the useless of Digital Right Management (DRM) protection. Initially DRM is expected able to depress number of piracy song but in the reality, piracy always happens. Moreover with the cheap price of download song indicates that DRM only add charges only. The proof, online store its gives the song price that competitive and cheap enough.

Online store is believed to have excessive appreciation pattern to someone masterpiece. Till now song creator or music singer must divide their advantage with the record lables which work as publisher. Hence no wonder if more bands and artist without lable joining in sale of online music that advantage gotten from sale also bigger.

Apple has own selling system. US $1,29 for songs without DRM, while for song with DRM is esteemed by 99 cents only. While Payplay, what claims has 1,3 million song lists, only sell 88 cents for one song.

Microsoft cheap Software at the price of US $3

2007-06-11T03:36:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE - Microsoft have ambition to reachs two billions computer user by the end of 2015. One of its way by providing software packages at the price of 3 dollar US. This cheap package will be distributed through education subsidy program.

Package which called Student Innovation Suite consisted of Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 30, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office and Windows Live Mail desktop. The package is not sold in the free market but can be bought by developing country which had computer sale subsidy program for student or middle and elementary schools.

This big discount is part of Partners Indium Learning (PIL) program which go on during 5 year. Microsoft is allocated US $ 250 million for program with aim to assist the teachers and educator exploits information technology in the school activity.

Supply of cheap software and training to all teachers is only one of Microsoft strategy to promote technological using and computer overspreads in developing countries. "Unlimited Potential" strategy which targeted by Microsoft also done with work training program and computer supply.

In consequence, besides the cheap software, Microsoft plans to opens 90 new Innovation Center in 35 countries to the end of 2009. Now, Microsoft has built 110 Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) in over the world which providing training class and technology access for academician user and local software community developer. MIC is expected able to increase the ability of information technology practitioners, pushs creation of product, and new employment.

AP

Blog Scandal makes Apple Stock Unstable

2007-05-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

San Francisco - A famous and trusted gadget blog, Engadget.Com, present the information that Apple will delay their two new product launch: Apple iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard. Only six minute after that news spread, Apple stock go down.

Like reported from Tech Crunch, Apple stocks go down at 11:56 till 12:02 PM period, 17 May 2007 local time. The decrease from US $107.89 to $103.42 is referred same as loss of market capitalization fund equal to US $4 billion.

Latter, Engadget is correct the news. That news in fact came from a fake e-mail, even though that fake e-mail looks original because coming from inside of Apple network. Apple stocks get restored in about 20 minute after the correction.

The news source represents an internal memo about the delay of iPhone and OS X Leopard launching. Michael Arrington, observer of 2.0 web sites, confessing that source in the internal memo form is a "gold farm" that usually wrong rarely. But in this time, that e-mail content is spurious although mentioned come from Apple server.

Even cannot be blamed, Engadget blog estimated will experience of the crisis belief from the reader. "In future if Engadget present the news kind like this, people will make the speculation concerning its truth. Need some time before its recover," said Arrington.

On the other side, Arrington noticed, Apple exactly can be blamed if the e-mail correctness comes from the internal network of Apple Company. "Other mistake from Apple is not immediately response the rumor after engadget post the news," Arrington enhance.

20/5/2007

Sony PlayStation Architect Resigns

2007-05-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The chief architect of Sony Corp.'s flagship PlayStation game console will leave in June as the company struggles to retain supremacy in the video game industry and revitalize its flagging reputation as an electronics and entertainment pioneer.

Ken Kutaragi, 56, an icon among gamers, will resign as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s chairman and group chief executive, Tokyo-based Sony said Thursday. He will be replaced by Kazuo Hirai, who is now president and chief operating officer of the division.

Kutaragi's most new brainchild, the PlayStation 3 console, came out in November but was marred by embarrassing production shortages and a $600 price tag that some Sony fans said was too precipitous. For the past some months, Sony has resorted to giving away free game titles and other marketing gimmicks to stimulate sales.

Sony has also struggled to enlarge beyond the young, male demographic of so-called "hardcore" gamers. Investors have been upset for several quarters that Sony has unsuccessful to magnetize women, young children and older gamers to its products, and its market share has shrunk as a result.

Problems connected to Sony's limited demographic came into sharp focus late last year, when Nintendo Co. launched a rival game console, the Wii, for about $250. The device which includes a diminutive, wrist-mounted controller and a console that's skimpy on realistic graphics has grow to be a surprise hit among girls, suburban mothers, senior citizens and other people who have never considered themselves gamers.

Sony shipped 1.84 million PS3s worldwide through Dec. 31. In the same time, Nintendo sold 3.19 million Wiis.

The defeat to competitor Nintendo prompted Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer to rocket his turnaround effort. In November, the Welsh-born executive — the first foreign-born CEO of a major Japanese electronics company — demoted Kutaragi by stripping him of day-to-day management tasks.

The leaving of Kutaragi — dubbed the "Gutenberg of Video Games" by Time Magazine in 2004 — will be effective June 19. After that, he'll be honorary chairman of the entertainment division and will serve as Stringer's senior technology adviser.

Although Kutaragi will stay an adviser, some U.S. gaming experts said the leaving may have been a face-saving firing and an effort by Stringer to recover from the failed PS3 launch.

AP

$100 Laptop Project goes to U.S. Schools

2007-05-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

CAMBRIDGE - A project that aims to distribute low-priced laptops with string pulleys to the world's poorest children may have a new marketplace: U.S. schools.

The nonprofit "One Laptop per Child" project said on Thursday it might sell versions of its kid-friendly laptops in the United States, reversing its earlier position of only distributing them to the poorest country.

"We can't ignore the United States. ... We are looking at it very seriously," Nicholas Negroponte, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology academic who founded the project, told analysts and reporters.

Once notorious as the $100 laptop, the lime-green-and-white devices are inching up in price. In February, the laptop projected said they would sell for $150 each. Negroponte now puts their price tag at $176 apiece.

They would go at a upper price to U.S. schools, he said, because more income are invested in American education than in developing nations, even in the poorest U.S. states.

The laptop features a string pulley to charge its battery, a keyboard that switches between languages, a digital video camera, wireless connectivity and Linux open-source operating software customized for remote regions.

Reuters

MP-3 Barbie Girls

2007-05-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK - Mattel Inc. is using technology to surface with a new twist on a toy launched in 1959 to appeal to today's Web-savvy, multimedia girl shoppers.

Mattel revealed Barbie Girls, a doll-shaped MP3 player that turns into a live character at BarbieGirls.com, a Web site where girls can relate with each other in a style reminiscent of Second Life, the virtual world for adults.

The company expects the new toy, which takes together Web surfing, shopping and music downloads, will cool require for rival MGA Entertainment's sassy Bratz dolls -- a line of big-headed, skinny dolls with scant, trendy clothing.

The world's major toy maker is also taking aim at Apple Inc.'s iPod music players and Ganz's Webkinz, wooly animal toys that come alive online.

The official launch of BarbieGirls.com came a week after the company gave it a public test run.

Toy analysts say this latest addition to the 48-year-old Barbie line should be a hot seller, helping the brand overturn nearly five years of declining sales.

MUSIC AND FASHION ONLINE

Revitalizing the Barbie brand has been a most important priority for Mattel, who has seen her former target audience defect not only to Bratz, but also to flashier, modern items such as iPods and video games.

The Barbie Girls music players, which can hold up to 120 MP3 or 240 WMA-file songs, come up to market in July and will cost $59.99, Mattel said.

At BarbieGirls.com, users can modify their characters' looks and styles. They can also go to the online mall and shop for clothes, accessories and furniture for their online room. Users can even adopt a pet.

But further importantly, Rice added: "I think parents are going to like the safe online portal."

To ensure girls' security in public chats, Mattel planed a limited vocabulary of 2,000 words the girls can use on the site, designed to prevent use of sexual language, vulgarity or upsetting words such as "stupid" or "hate."

Filters also stop users from giving out private information including names, phone numbers or even the cities where they live. Only in private chats with a "best friend" can a girl tell personal information.

reuters

Apple Get Jumped of Sale

2007-05-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple's (AAPL) profit flied 88% on strong sales of its flagship iPod music players and Mac computers, pushing its shares over $100 in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Shipments of iPods raised 24%, to 10.5 million, in the quarter. A cellphone version, called iPhone, is due in June.

Mac shipments jumped 36%, to 1.5 million - three times the industry increase rate, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a report.

The results come a day after two former Apple executives were charged with offensively handling the backdating of stock options. Apple earned $770 million, or 87 cents a share, in its second quarter. Revenue soared 21%, to $5.3 billion.

It was Apple's most gainful March quarter, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in a conference call.

Investors have mostly ignored Apple's stock-options problems, although there are remaining questions about Jobs' role.

USA TODAY

Google Website Improvements

2007-05-01T21:44:00.000-07:00

One Seattle Company using a new site optimization service from Google Inc., introduced in beta to choose users in October and to all AdWords customers earlier this month, is already seeing advances on its site.

Bag Borrow or Steal Inc., a self-described Netflix for handbags, used Google's free Website Optimizer service to try to enhance the amount of people signing up for a newsletter.

"For our company, that's the foundation for our leads that we'll market to," said Mark Belanger, director of direct marketing for Bag Borrow or Steal.

Website Optimizer allows Web designers test different components of pages, including different elements such as headlines, images and calls to action. The optimizer automatically makes different mixtures of those elements and serves up the variations live. It then tracks how each page does.

"You can test two to 10,000 combinations, it depends on how ambitious you want to get and how much traffic you get," said Tom Leung, product manager for Website Optimizer at Google.

Google developed the service precisely to remove such deduction from site design, Leung said. "The problem we're trying to solve is really to sort of take Web page development out of the dark ages," he said. Typically, designers and marketers work together to come up with pages, using a "lot of guessing and a lot of intuition, which is often wrong," he said.

Beta users for Google Website Optimizer ranged from the very small corporation to larger organizations, including PC World, said Leung.

IDG News Service

MySpace in China

2007-04-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

BEIJING - MySpace publicized its launch in China Thursday, following months of rumor about the Rupert Murdoch-controlled social networking site's plans for the nation's 137 million Internet users.

MySpace China introduced itself as a "locally owned, operated and managed company" in which News Corp-owned MySpace Inc was only one among several shareholders.

"Our team here will have the sole right to decide the operation model, the technology platform as well as the product strategy," said MySpace China CEO Luo Chuan, a former Microsoft executive.

"It's very unlike the other multinationals you might have heard about or seen in the Chinese market."

MySpace China may have been spurred to emphasize its local uniqueness by the fact that international Internet companies' goes to enter China have so far tended to end in collapse, observers said.

Despite MySpace China's hard work to differentiate itself, MySpace Inc will be signified with three board members.

They include Murdoch's wife, Wendy Deng, as well as MySpace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, Luo said.

Investors in MySpace China also consist of International Data Group and China Broadband Capital Partners, an investment company founded by former China Netcom Group Corp chief executive Edward Tian.

Luo refused at a briefing to give specific details about the size of the investment or the share that MySpace Inc accounts for. Analysts have said that it was essential for MySpace Inc to enter into a partnership with local companies in order to increase access to China's tightly controlled Internet.

MySpace is one of the world's most famous websites, but the MySpace China community is still in its test phase, custom-made from the US version, and will gradually be developed to meet the needs of Chinese users, the company said.

Negotiations have been in improvement since News Corp Chairman Murdoch announced last October that he would bring MySpace to China, according to earlier reports.

afp

Japan Old Man Addicted on Internet

2007-03-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

TOKYO - Internet enthusiasm not only infect teenage people and adult. The Nikkei Research Survey in Japan report, the old man of Japan in fact is also infected by Internet fever.

Same thing that also happened in Europe. Nikkei Research Survey say, Japan citizen which have age more than 50 year is often equal with the youngster which surfing at the cyber world. In average old man citizen in Japan use the Internet to arrange traveling and read the news. "Citizen of Japan between 50 till 69 years old which familiar by Internet in average spending 2,4 hour/day for online," said Nikkei Research.

That Number is not far differ from the online average of the entire age group, there is 2,5 hour/day. The old man of Japan, man and woman, using Internet to read the news, opening map, exercising eat manner and restaurant guidance, and also to order the air transport ticket, train, and hotel. Some old woman of Japan say, they also enjoy the surfing to learn about life style and trend, like fashion, cosmetic, and food. But, citizen of Japan in 50 till 69 year age not so interested by blog and online community site.

On the contrary, young man of Japan very interested in blog and online community site. Japan old man also not so interested to buy recent technological device, music, and multimedia content which can be ordered online. This also quite contrary with the habit of online expense of young man of Japan.

Youtube Immediately have Competitor

2007-03-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK - Switchover of world Attention from television to Internet generate the separate worries for television world. To shift the domination of Youtube site, News Corp and NBC Universal have plan to launch the free online video site this summer.

The Site not only present the cutting of film and television show, its also play the film and show for full time. News Corp Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin say, News Corp will own to access to almost all US Internet consumer in the moment of site launch. The television program that will presented in the site, for example Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. Others some newest film from 20th Century Fox also will come up, like The Devil Wears Prada and Borat. In this time Youtube considered as a threat for Media Company because have taken their audience, especially teenage segment.

Teenage all the world in this time more opting in front of the computer screen than watch television. Besides Youtube is also involved by a conflict with one media company, Viacom Inc. The company which direct MTV and Comedy Central claim the Youtube main company, Google Inc, equal to USD1 milliard with the accusation conduct the copyrights collision by presenting Viacom television program in the video sharing site.

For smoothly the way of launching plan, NBC Universal and News Corp also cooperate with Google three biggest competitor, Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp, and Time Warner Inc. Both media company will supply entertainment program to the third site. Beside cooperate with the big company, NBC And News Corp is also doing approach with the other Internet company.

Intel Cheap Notebook First time to Brazil and Mexico

2007-03-31T17:06:00.000-07:00

Rio de Janeiro - Intel Corporation announce the attendance of Classmate PC for the first time. Classmate PC is computer notebook build by Intel in reached price. The development of Classmate PC represents part of Intel World Ahead program as part of the commitment and dedication to push the children education in all over the world.

Brazil and Mexico become the first hand that accepting Intel Classmate PC in big amount and will distribute it to some school in their country. By cheap PC, thousands of student in the country expected can access the technology and Internet from their class room.

This year, Intel is also have a plan to run the Classmate PC programs in more than 25 developing countries include of Chile, China, India, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, and Vietnam. This Year, Intel have plan to provide its application with eight language there is English, Arabic, Chinese (simplified), Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and Turkish.

Classmate PC that powered by Intel is part of Intel plan to use the power combination from technology, curriculum, and teachers to increase the education developed country. Intel will cooperate with the country to specify the plans like offer of professional training for teachers about how to use the technology effectively to increase teach program under the program of Intel, developing local content according to education curriculum, and work with local industry to provide the Internet connection.

28/03/2007

Microsoft: Google is Insane

2007-03-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer give comment to the strategy of Google in the plan of amazing Google employees growth. In this time, the giant of search engine machine have recruited 10.678 employees. The number show the improvement equal to 88% from previous year.

According to Ballmer, this Google action is insane. "We are (Microsoft) walk from 24.000 becoming 75.000 employees in 27 year. That is a long year and very consistent. According to me, with them (Google) try to duplicate the number in one year, that's insane," comment of Ballmer from Softpedia, Sunday ( 18/3/2007).

Besides commenting about the growth of employees number, Ballmer also highlights the Google business which only focus at searching machine. " Google have build very good business. But they only have one main matter (that is search engine), the other only sweetener," said Ballmer.

Ballmer explicitly that his company, Microsoft, exactly reverse from the Google. There is experiencing multi business, start from desktop, server, online and entertainment.

Internet Replace Gardening

2007-03-31T16:46:00.000-07:00

According to a survey in England, people who have entered the retired phase start to look for other alternative to fill the time, besides gardening and traveling. The alternative is surely explore the Internet. The Survey conducted by AXA insurance company find that all pensioner in England, spend six hour mean time in every week for online, to going shopping, browsing, and also send the e-mail to friend or relationship.

About 41% pensioner chosen surfing in Internet, while 39% pensioner chosen to gardening and setting right house.

Traveling and take the air is become the third choice to all the pensioner with the percentage about 28%. Most activity is often conducted by all pensioner in Internet is send the e-mail with the percentage of 84%, and also look for the information as much 83%.Almost half from surveyed pensioner is had ordered the travel ticket through the Internet and one from three of pensioner have tried the Internet banking.

About 28% pensioner in England use the Internet to read the online news . About two from three pensioner routinely communicate with its son or daughter through the Internet. And, four from ten England pensioner use the Internet to communicate with their grandchild.

Intel Build Chip Manufactures in China

2007-03-31T16:29:00.000-07:00

Beijing - US Giant Chip Intel tell say that they will build a $ 2,5 billion factory in China, a big potential moment in way of the Asian giant to become the high technological manufacture power. The integrated Wafer factory, named Fab 68, will become the first factory which of kind from Intel in Asia, bringing sophisticated technology to country that famous with low end factory status in the world.

" We possibility will produce the most sophisticated technology under our license policy from US government in this time," president And CEO of Intel, said Paul Otellini in Beijing.

The factory at begin, in north-east town of China Dalian, will focus at standard chip for the computer even Intel do not close the possibility step by step will going to more sophisticated technology.

" Opportunity to do the other product is wide opened so we will learn it when market and various governmental regulation is change ," said Otellini.

" Our Target is to make the factory as cheapest chip manufactures in our network and able to test-drive the new technology and new manufacture technique to degrade our expense."

Build of Fab 68, that will produce integrated 300 millimeter wafer, scheduled will start in this year and will be start productive in first semester of 2010, said the company.

It is the first times since 1992, when Intel build the Fab 10 in Ireland, where the company start build the fab from early in location which really new, like reported by AFP.

Video Games Good For Eyes

2007-03-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

New York - Play Video Games like “ Gear Of War,” “ Lost Planet,” “ Halo,” and other game type using fire arm exactly can improve the eyesight. Not kidding?

Based on the research result, like reported by Livescience.Com, Friday ( 16/3/2007), type of video games which is not ‘show action’ like “ Tetris” do not show that matter.

According to Daphne Bevelier from University of Rochester, based to the compare between one who play and do not play at video game in 30 hour spanning time, the result show one who play the video game had ability to recognize the object more accurate.

According to the research that publicized in Psychological Science journal, the video game player is able to recognize very small object. Because, the game of video game train the brain speed to catch the object which look in eyesight.

Even believed, by playing the video game will assist to heal the people who have an eyesight problem. The study also show by playing video game, people would protected from stroke attack.

Saudi Arabia Apply New Cyber Law

2007-03-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

Riyadh - Country that famous as the center of Islam civilization nowadays progressively tighter the regulation of cyber world. The government plan to apply 1 year serve a sentence custody and fine equal to $133.000 for who proven do the Internet crime and abuse of camera phone.

In the statement, cabinet minister of Saudi Arabia agreeing the draft of Information Technology Cyber Law which have been proposed by the kingdom parliament.

This approval, like reported on Reuters.com, Tuesday (27/3/2007), used by Saudi Arabia kingdom to get the authentication to execute the penalization.

This law applicable to arrest all site criminal or enter the site without permission with an purpose to change the layout or damage it. Others, its also affirm the enjoinment of hand phone abuse which equiped by the camera and dissimilar appliance used to impinge other people privacy, for example with making a picture without permission.

Hand phone technology in Saudi Arabia in fact have been opposed by conservative Saudi Arabia police union with the existence of hard Islam law. During some month in 2004, the state also prohibit the hand phone sales transaction. unfortunately, enjoinment to discontinue the decrease of technology new trend have been failed.

Country with the youth population which rapidly grow also very tight in observing the user of Internet with always following to consumer footstep. Not only that, sexual problem and political content is blocked and also some forum which followed by liberals and Islam extremist also forcibly discontinued.

IPod Help Doctor to Recognize Heart Problem

2007-03-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

IPod not only good as entertainment media to play high quality digital music. All doctor nowadays also can use it to train its ability recognize patient heart problem. Its way by listening the record of heart beat sound in the peripheral by repeatedly.

Research which have been done previously show the mean mount accuracy of a doctor to recognize the heart beat that showing problem in heart only about 40 gratuity. But, the ability proven to twofold mount after exercising with iPod. In that research, 149 internist doctor listening five variation of heart beat during 400 times in 90 minute.

" Efficiency of using the stethoscope and ability to recognize abnormal heart beat are the important skill to identify heart disease and minimize the depending of costly equipments," said the chief research Dr. Michael Barrett, doctor and cardiology professor from Temple Doctor and Hospital University . Detection appliance like echocardiogram, he said, unnecessary often weared and use only at attack moment of acute condition.

Barrett so sure by the way to improving the ability is true depended by exercising continuously. Not from the study in class or demonstration in laboratory. With other digital music player, besides iPod, this ability perhaps also can decrease even not yet been proved.

Two last year, radiologist from California University Los Angeles Dr. Osman Ratib and Dr. Antoine Rosset also use the iPod with big capacity to save the scan result image. By Osirix open source software which been developed by him, all radiologist can share the video and image in iPod which incircuit with the desktop computer base on Mac through the teleconfrent. Nowaday all doctor can so easily share the medical information.

Wii Liked by Grandma

2007-03-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

One of game console, Nintendo Wii, able to make a grandma becoming so addictive. A woman called Ruth Ebert incured by Wii fever like another children and adult in all over the world in this time.

Previously Ebert have never been interested with the video game. " In this time i'm allready 82 years old. So i passed that era in our culture. First soap opera ,yes i'm . Game Video, i'm not," said Ebert. The grandma recently start to play Wii console in Greenspring Retirement Community, Springfield, where is considered to be her own home.

" Very funny, because usually I am not the one who ordinary do things like this. I play the tennis if can be called like that, when becoming high school student. I get the fun doing it," said Ebert. Ebert sway the Wiimote like tennis racket and in the end of game , Wii defeat her.

Ebert say, playing the game remind her at the feeling like in the past time. Nintendo plan to extend the video game global market which in this time equal to USD 30 billion. The market expected not only fulfilled by children and adult who is becoming the main customer of Nintendo. New Nintendo Console, named Wii succeed to reach popularity exceed the Sony Corp console, Sony Playstation 3, and Microsoft Corp console, Xbox 360.

One of factor why Wii more interesting because Nintendo focus to make easier game to be played and more spontaneous, and also more interesting the market. While the competitor is more focus at the graphic improvement and sophisticated technology. 77 years old grandpa, Ted Cambell play Wii for the first time in Greenspring Retirement Community.

" I think Wii is very impressive," said Cambell. Entire dweller in the place not yet decided the place for keep the Wii, though Ebert have offered the chamber apartment, whereabout wide screen television is located. Wii fever also have knocked over the oldman in Chicago region. 71 years old Woman called Flora Dierbach even have interesting idea. she want to perform Wii boling tournament.

Microsoft Office 2007 Less Click and More Feature

2007-03-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

For the improvement of competitiveness, company claimed to improve the efficiency and operation productivity. Biggest software producer of world Microsoft attend the application of productivity Office 2007 to assist the customer improve the competitiveness.

Office 2007, improving efficiency and productivity of customer, for example by lessening click amount in the operation.

Exclusive Feature of Office 2007 is radical change at productivity application of Office 2007 compared to previous Office version. Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface that's conducive Office 2007 operated with less click. With its technology, consumer of Office 2007 can be easier swiftly reach for best job result. Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface fiture at tend to replace the traditional and toolbar menu that becoming the control feature of previous Office version.

Microsoft present Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface technology at Office 2007 after taken having exploiting study and extensive research into the consumer. When application of Office 2007 becoming progressively strong, user challenge is how to find and know the way of exploiting the immeasurable application type feature. Input from the customer then push the Microsoft to present the new user interface (UI) which enabling consumer to explore all the Office 2007 benefit.

Microsoft have four main design target in serve the Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface. There is facilitating exploiting of a number Office 2007 application, lessening complicated design and interupt of UI, facilitating the consumer to search and find the useful tool and feature, and also support the creation of quality, functional, and nice looking documents.

Wanted Death: CD Tracker Dogs in Malaysia

2007-03-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian film hijackers offered the big present for head of two tracker dog that exposed the network of pirated DVD that resulting confiscating of 3 million dollar value pirated CD , the local media and the officials said on Thursday.

Lucky And Flo, two black Labrador dog used by Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri dan Hal Ehwal Pengguna (KPDNHEP) Malaysia in eradication operation of DVD film and CD music pirate , executing first big operation those who are successful in Johor, on Tuesday.

New Straits Times Newspaper reporting, all syndicate boss have offered the big present for the death of two tracker dog.

"As effect of big loss experienced by piracy syndicate, we hear from Ministry of Commerce that Johor syndicate mean to kill Lucky and Flo, said of Neil Gene, a manager of Association of Malaysia Film.

"Authoritative of Malaysia look seriously of this threat and security in dog location is now improved," he said to Reuters.

In last Tuesday raid, two dog assist to confiscate about million piece of pirated DVD film and game which hidden in Johor Baru, city in South Malaysia which neigbour with Singapore. At least six people been arrested.

Dog undertake during one month in the effort between police and Association of Malaysia Film, mustering six big company of Hollywood.

Previously the dog especially only undertake to check container in cargo warehouse.

AMD Finally Open the Office in Indonesia

2007-03-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

Jakarta - AMD , global producen of procesor for the computerize market, graphic and electronic, step seriously to Indonesia market by opening office in Jakarta after more than 10 year the prosesor product been used in Indonesia.

According to Dommy Arnanta, AMD Country Manager of Indonesia, in the opening of AMD office in Indonesia,"AMD truly had a plan to open the office in the last year but because some barrier is finally delayed and newly this year can be launched".

AMD assume the office opening in Indonesia its not something that to late even more than 10 year the product of prosesor been used in Indonesia. The Office opening represent the effort of AMD to more improving its marketing as well as fulfilling the desire of all procesor consumer.

With the office opening, he hope the selling of AMD product in Indonesia can reached more than the last year, that is equal to 12 %. But Dommy evade to mention how much the sale value of AMD procesor in Indonesia.

AMD remain to be principled to always fulfill the consumer request, its meaning their product will always adapted by consumer desire, its from the price and also the technology.

For the early step, AMD will be more focussed the marketing in Java. With this step non meaning AMD only just keep silence for the market outside Java, because in fact market outside Java can be so prospective.

" By this way we can more focus," he said.

We also will be non-stoped educated to all AMD consumer in Indonesia because during the time a lot people think that AMD procesor is easy to get high temperature. " In fact its not like that and we try to change the image," she said

For that purpose AMD Indonesia will do the road show to some town in Java, besides to introduce the opening of AMD office in Indonesia, the road show also conduct education to the customer.

In this time AMD have four channel partner in Indonesia that is PT Berca Cakra Teknologi, PT Data Benua Persada, PT E Media Devices, dan Rajawali Cipta Komputindo. For a while for the Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) that is PT Berca and PT Metrindo Supra Sinatria.

China Rehabilitate Games Addict

2007-03-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

DAXING - Rehabilitate Center generally builded to heal the drugs and alcohol addict. But,China make the unique breakthrough. China recently announce the opening of games addict rehabilitate center.

Named Internet Addiction Treatment Center ( IATC), the games addict rehabilitate center located in Daxing Province. The rehabilitate center main target is the teenage. IATC mix the therapy with the military discipline to heal the patient. Mostly patient in IATC is the youngster with online game addictive problem, internet pornography, cybersex, and chatting. Li Yanlin, One of the patient said, slowly he start obsessed by Internet game.

Yanlin which still noted as sudent had experience of mark decrease after becoming games addict. But, after experiencing treatment during some week in IATC, 18 years age young man have realized the mistake, its play online game. The Rehabilitate Center is funding by the governmental of China. IATC are manage by military colonel under observation of Beijing Military Hospital. IATC Patient mostly is 14- 19 year teenage. They placed in same hostel and obliged to wakeup at 6 in the morning to do gymnastic and practice military march.

Staff center of IATC say, two sides approach which conducted by IATC to overcome the Internet addiction in China is realy unique.”This approach is required by a state which is 2 million teenage suffer by internet addiction ,” said IATC staff. ”A lot of internet addict in rehabilitate center is careless with the others feeling. Military practice assist them to give empathy of and sympathize as a team member. Others, the practice also assist the body cure and strengthen to patient mentality,” said IATC psychologist.

US : Spam, Phising and Malicious Code Top Maker

2007-03-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

California. Compared to the other country, United States noted as country that mostly produce the computer attacker program. The researcher from Symantec Corp. computer security solution company finding, one of three from the entire of world computer attack during second semester 2006 are coming from United State.

Symantec perceive, US become the fertile farm of various program and intruder action like spam, phising and malicious code. Penetrating of spam estimated to reach 59% of all e-mail traffic. Decrease 5% from previously period. Spam Mostly contained of lure photograph and scheme of financial deception .

After US, country that noted become the spreader of lot garbage program is China. At same period, noted 10% of security threat come from Chinese.

Next, Symantec mention the Germany with 7% of attacker program totalizeing from the existing attack.

America also lead the " boot" activity, which capable to control the computer from long distance so can trigger the appearance of spam and other bother various action. Computer which infected with "boot" is mostly in China, with 27 percentage from totalizeing of world boot infection.

This Research is the Symantec first time to check the attack based on its state origin. Research focussed at attack that happened in second semester 2006, more than 120 million computer running made in Symantec antivirus software.

Too Vulgar, Youtube Claimed to Delete The Medical Video

2007-03-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

Youtube, most popular video site are in problem again. This time, relate to the medical world and famous doctor in English.

Dr.Christ Steele, one of famous doctor in English reported have claimed Youtube to delete some video that displayed method of breast cancer and testicle prevention. Its reason, the video too expose stimulus parts. The Observer report, the video clip present kind of interesting tips around of breast and testicle cancer and also its prevention. Others, the video destined for 18 years old member.

" It's so ridiculous," said Steele in Softpedia.Com, Tuesday ( 20/3/2007). In Steele confession, he have seen the breast and testicle cancercous medication process in television before 9 PM. And now Youtube have to conduct the demarcation whom which may access the the cancer video.

" In this time a lot of young girl are interest in breast cancer because famous artist Kylie Minogue have experienced it, and also testicle cancer is attacking lot of young man. But posed at Youtube do not be sensible because continuous show the stimulate parts," say the Steele

Recently, Google which own the Youtube express to free its member to use the Youtube based on member purpose.

To known, pandemic video and medication non just this time available in Youtube. Times before, a woman which is struggling againts cancer decide to spread the life story video in Youtube with an purpose to advise people about the cancer disease. The video get reat feedback, visitor supporting the woman to struggle againts cancer. Visitor also ask she to tell the story around its disease healing.

Dog Tracking Pirated CD in Malaysia

2007-03-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

Kuala Lumpur - Dog which can track drugs or track the criminal footstep ? it can be found anywhere?. But, dog which can smell CD that contain with pirated music or film, up to now is new in the world. They are Flo and Lucky, two dog of Labrador type.

They are own by Motion Picture Association of America ( MPAA) which based in Los Angeles, USA.

Since yesterday, the two black dog reside in Malaysia. Both loaned by MPAA to Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri dan Hal Ehwal Pengguna (KPDNHEP). During one month they will tracing for the pirated CD, VCD, and also DVD which step into the Malaysia. KPDNHEP intentionally invite the two dog after look at them show off in Hongkong and Dubai.

Next, Flo And Lucky will run the operation that called as Double Trouble. Both have been trained in North Irlandia to recognize polycarbon or dissimilar chemicals which usually used in CD. The two dog it's true can't differentiate the original CD with the fake one, but its ability can exploited to track the container contain the CD which is not reported legaly. Usually, incoming CD by illegal is pirated stuff.

Flo And Lucky have demonstrated its ability in International Airport of Kuala Lumpur yesterday. When the cargo plane unload the goods, the dog will sniff around the packet. Both will turn around and sit in front of a box that assumed compromising. As reward, accompanying officer directly give them tennis ball to be played.

" This is first in the world, dog used by a government to look for the pirated CD," said the Mica Ellis, director MPA for the of Asian Pacific area.

India : Internet make the lack of social life

2007-03-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

Concerned because bad impact of the internet, Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT) start to limit its use to student which live in Mumbai, India hostel. According to Prakash Gopalan, assistant of dean in student area, student of IIT it's to overbusy doing surfing (the internet) till do not have time again to have socialization with its friends in hostel.

"This time student don't even know who omit two door in side its room. Hostel culture, like night of friendship and socialization among the student, have losed. This very indisposed," say the Gopalan yesterday.

Others, because preoccupation play the internet, a lot of student spending the night till early morning. As a result, a lot of them do not come in morning class or attend but sleep in class.

During the time, IIT Mumbai give the unlimited internet access for its student which live in the hostel to facilitate they to do the shool duty. But, a lot of student use the the facility for chatting or play game. In consequence, start yesterday, at 23.00 AM, the internet access is shutdown . Its purpose, student immediately go away from the computer and start to associate with its friend. Or except that, they can sleep earlier.

IIT Mumbai is one among seven IIT campus which exist in India region. IIT known as one of best technic university in the world. But because the intense of emulation and difficulty of curriculum, IIT student often experience of the depresion and abnormal life style. In the last two year, two student of IIT Mumbai is reported being suicide. Not to mention, some other attempt suicide.

New policy of ITT Mumbai direct protested by the student. " Wait until they oblige student to hear the "sleep baby"song before sleep,"said Rajiv, one of the IIT student.

Anyway, protest which emerge do not make the IIT manager backward. Oppositely,they also had a plan to apply the same order in other IIT hostel in India.

any

U.S. firms invest in Chinese Web site

2007-03-07T04:59:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - A group of U.S. venture capital firms, including Disney's investment arm, was set to announce Wednesday that it had invested $23.5 million in UUSee, a major Chinese site for Web video.

UUSee distributes live and on-demand TV from CCTV, China's largest TV broadcaster; CSAT, China's largest satellite TV company; and Beijing TV. The content includes subtitled U.S. shows like "CSI: Miami" and "24."

The investment round was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Highland Capital Partners. It included Steamboat Ventures, the venture-capital vehicle of The Walt Disney Co. Two other firms, Sequoia Capital and Susquehanna International Group, invested in UUSee in a previous round and joined in this one.

The site has 36 million registered users, making it China's largest Web TV operator, according to Dan Nova of Highland.

"It really is the country's and the world's largest Web TV operator," Nova said. He will join UUSee's board along with DFJ's Barry Schuler, the former chief executive of America Online.

There's no close equivalent to UUSee in the U.S., where the TV shows and movies that are available online are spread out among several sites owned by TV networks and online titans like Google Inc.

"There's no one leading Web TV operator here in the United States," Nova said. "In many ways I think China is a lot more advanced, when it comes to the organization and distribution of video content."

UUSee distributes the videos from servers, but to reduce long-distance Internet traffic, it also has a feature that uses viewers' computers to distribute video to other, nearby viewers. It's the only peer-to-peer network approved by Chinese telecom regulators, Nova said.

"When you look at the government approval, the content relationships, the management team, and the growth and acceptance by the Chinese community, one could conclude that they're in a pole position to capture the Web TV market," Nova said.

UUSee makes money from ads and from premium text-messaging services used to vote in contests.

Nova expects UUSee to have revenue of at least $10 million this year, and to become profitable on a quarterly basis by the end of the year.

PETER SVENSSON
www.ap.org

India, China lead strong growth in Internet users: survey

2007-03-07T04:44:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The number of Internet users worldwide increased 10 percent over the past year amid a surge in India, China and Russia, a survey showed Tuesday.

The report by US market research firm comScore Networks found that 747 million people aged 15 and up used the Internet worldwide in January 2007, a 10 percent increase from January 2006.

The United States still held the largest number of users with 153 million, but growth was just two percent, comScore found.

China was second overall with 86.7 million, according to comScore, but growth was 20 percent. The figure differs from the official Chinese estimate of 137 million, which includes users in cybercafes and other public locations.

The strongest growth was seen in India, where the number of users increased 33 percent to 21.1 million. That placed India with the eighth largest Internet population, just behind France.

Russia saw its number of users up 21 percent to 12.7 million.

In terms of overall Internet users, the highest numbers after the United States and China were, in order, Japan, Germany, Britain, South Korea, France, India, Canada and Italy.

"The importance of the worldwide Internet population continues to grow," said Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe.

"Internet users outside the US now account for 80 percent of the world's online population, with rapidly developing countries experiencing double-digit growth rates year-over-year."

Canadians spent the most time online, with the average user on the Web for 39.6 hours each month. That was followed by Israel, South Korea, the United States and Britain, which all have high broadband penetration.

www.afp.com

Dell may offer Linux as alternative to Windows

2007-03-07T04:30:00.000-08:00

BOSTON (Reuters) - Dell Inc. (Nasdaq:DELL - news) is considering offering the Linux operating system as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows on its personal computers, a Dell spokesman said on Tuesday.

The PC maker said it received more than 100,000 customer requests for Linux in a "suggestion box" posted on Dell's Web site less than three weeks ago.

"We are listening to what customers are saying about Linux and taking it into consideration," said Dell spokesman David Lord. "We are going forward. Let's say, 'Certainly stay tuned."'

Linux is an open-source operating system that is generally available for free and can be used to run most computers, including Dell's PCs.

Dell does not break out how much it charges for Windows when it calculates the cost of a computer system, but a basic upgrade version of the software generally retails for $99.

The only operating system that Dell currently offers on its PCs is Windows, with one exception, Lord said. It sells high-end Linux desktops designed specifically for use in oil and gas exploration, he said.

Making Linux available on other Dell PCs has been the top request since the Web site was launched on February 16, according to data posted on the site, as of Tuesday evening.

The second most popular request was that Dell offer another popular free software title, OpenOffice, which competes with Microsoft Office programs including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

www.reuters.com

Internet-taught militants are new Singapore security threat

2007-03-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

SINGAPORE (AFP) - A breed of "self-radicalised individuals" who absorbed militant ideas through the Internet have emerged as a new security threat to the city-state, Singapore's interior minister said in remarks published Saturday.

Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng said the government has investigated "a few" Singaporeans who have been influenced by radical Islamic ideas they read from the Internet, local media quoted him as saying in parliament on Friday.

There are about 6,000 websites in cyberspace promoting militant ideologies, a situation that is breeding a group of "self-radicalised individuals" who can pose a danger to their societies, said Wong, one of two deputy prime ministers.

"The Internal Security Department has investigated a few Singaporeans who had become attracted to terrorist and radical ideas purveyed in the mass media, particularly the Internet," he said.

One of them was a young Muslim who came to believe that it was permissible to wage a "holy war" in the name of religion regardless of the origin of the fatwa, or Islamic decree, the Straits Times quoted the minister as saying.

The young man even grew to admire Osama bin Laden, leader of the Al-Qaeda militancy blamed for the September 2001 attacks on the United States.

Another Singaporean was investigated after he developed an interest in radical ideology while studying overseas.

When he returned to Singapore, he was in contact with other like-minded persons on the Internet, "eventually even communicating with foreign individuals involved in terrorist recruitment and financing," Wong said.

The report did not say what the conclusion of the investigations were.

With the help of local religious leaders, the government is also going online to counter these ideas on the Internet, the minister said.

"Taking the counter-ideology effort online is a significant direction since it is impractical to try to shut down all terrorist websites," he said.

As part of Singapore's ideological battle, Wong cited Muhammad Haniff Hassan, a research analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies here who has created an Internet blog to refute extremist ideology and also published a book.

www.afp.com

$100 laptop sports truly innovative UI

2007-03-04T21:43:00.000-08:00

The so-called $100 laptop that's being designed for school children in developing nations is known for its bright green and white plastic shell, its power-generating hand crank, and for Nicholas Negroponte, the technology futurist who dreamed it up and who tirelessly promotes it everywhere from Bangkok to Brasilia.

What has not received much attention is the graphical user interface — the software that will be the face of the machine for the millions of children who will own it. In fact, the user interface, called Sugar, may turn out to be one of the more innovative aspects of a project that has already made breakthroughs in mesh networking and battery charging since Negroponte unveiled the concept two years ago.

Sugar offers a brand new approach to computing. Ever since the first Apple Macintosh was launched in 1984, the user interfaces of personal computers have been designed based on the same visual metaphor: the desktop. Sugar tosses out all of that like so much tattered baggage. Instead, an icon representing the individual occupies the center of the screen; "zoom" out like a telephoto lens and you see the user in relation to friends, and finally to all of the people in the village who are also on the network.

Child-centric

It's the first complete rethinking of the computer user interface in more than 30 years. "We're building something that's right for the audience," says Chris Blizzard, the engineering project leader for Sugar. "We don't just take what's already there and say it's good enough. You can do better."

The audience he and his colleagues have in mind is the hundreds of millions of poor kids all over the world. Negroponte came up with the nonprofit "one laptop per child" idea when he was chairman of the MIT Media Lab and observed the failure of standard attempts to use computers in education to improve the lives of underprivileged children.

Typically, a handful of computers, designed for business applications, are installed in schools; students only use them in special computer classes and are forced to share. Negroponte's idea was to give a laptop to each student that he or she could take to every class and bring home at the end of the day. "OLPC is child-centric, designed to be a seamless part of their lives at home, at school, and in play," he says.

Nearly a dozen countries, including Brazil and Thailand, have committed to buying the computer, now officially called XO. The UN Development Program will administer the program locally. About 2,500 beta test machines ran off assembly lines in Taiwan in February and are now being shipped to participating countries so they can kick the tires on the technology. The final version is supposed to be ready by August.

'You just do it right'

While XO has been greeted warmly by many, some technologists criticize Negroponte and his colleagues for not testing out their new ideas on underprivileged school children earlier in the process. And that goes for the user interface as well. Jakob Nielsen, a user interface designer and principal in the consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group, falls into the critical group. While familiar with the design of Sugar, Nielsen’s criticisms focus on the process. It’s only in the coming weeks that they’ll begin to get feedback from kids.

“It’s always dangerous to release any product without the safeguard of user testing,” says Nielsen. “But it’s outright reckless in a case like this.”

But XO developers defend their approach, which grew out of a core philosophy of the MIT Media Lab known as "demo or die." Researchers are encouraged to build new things, critique them, and then make improvements—rather than doing a lot of concept-testing up front. They're backed up by John Maeda, a user-interface design guru from the Media Lab who has been watching the XO development process from its beginnings. "They're using the Steve Jobs method," he says, referring to Apple's famous chief executive and design whiz. "You don't use focus groups. You just do it right."

www.businessweek.com

Japan mixes robotics with tea time

2007-03-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

TOKYO - Japan is pretty serious about robotics. If the droids are going to fit in, they probably need to learn the Japanese custom of serving tea.Fortunately, researchers at the University of Tokyo are exploring just that. In a demonstration this week, a humanoid with camera eyes made by Kawada Industries Inc. poured tea from a bottle into a cup.

Then another robot on wheels delivered the cup of tea in an experimental room that has sensors embedded in the floor and sofa as well as cameras on the ceiling, to simulate life with robot technology.

"A human being may be faster, but you'd have to say 'Thank you,'" said University of Tokyo professor Tomomasa Sato. "That's the best part about a robot. You don't have to feel bad about asking it to do things."

Sato believes Japan, a rapidly aging society where more than a fifth of the population is 65 or older, will lead the world in designing robots to care for the elderly, sick and bedridden.

Already, monitoring technologies, such as sensors that automatically turn on lights when people enter a room, are becoming widespread in Japan. The walking, child-size Asimo from Honda Motor Co. greets people at showrooms. NEC Corp. has developed a smaller companion robot-on-wheels called Papero. A seal robot available since 2004 can entertain the elderly and others in need of fuzzy companionship.

Sato says his experimental room is raising awareness about privacy questions that may arise when electronic devices monitor a person's movements down to the smallest detail. On the bright side, the tea-pouring humanoid has been programmed to do the dishes.

www.ap.org

BBC signs deal to set up YouTube channels

2007-03-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

The British Broadcasting Corp. began showing excerpts from its news and entertainment programs on the YouTube video-sharing Web site Friday, becoming the first international broadcaster to ink a major deal with the Google Inc.-owned portal.

In an agreement that analysts described as a key step for both the BBC and YouTube, the British broadcaster is offering three branded channels on the site, including one showing up to 30 news clips a day. The deal gives the BBC access to millions more viewers and gives YouTube the credibility of the venerable British broadcaster.

“It’s an easy win-win,” said Chris Lake, an editor at E-consultancy, an Internet marketing firm.

BBC Director General Mark Thompson said the broadcaster hopes to drive extra traffic to its own Web site and bring in commercial revenue to supplement the license fee levied on British taxpayers.

“It’s essential that the BBC embraces new ways of reaching wider audiences with non-exclusive partnerships such as these,” he said.

Datamonitor analyst Chris Khouri said that the move showed the BBC was becoming “a more commercially focused organization.” Lake added that the deal would provide the BBC with crucial information about viewer habits that it could then use on its own Web site. The BBC has already announced plans to set up its own video player on a new international portal.

One of the new YouTube channels, “BBC Worldwide,” will show clips from hit BBC programs including motor show “Top Gear,” spy drama “Spooks” and nature documentaries presented by David Attenborough.

A second entertainment channel, simply called “BBC,” will show clips like trailers and short features such as video diaries of actors on the popular “Dr. Who” TV series or blogs from reporters working abroad.

The third channel, “BBC News,” will show snippets from the BBC’s commercially operated international news channel of the same name.

The deal is also well-timed for YouTube and may ease the company’s prickly relationship with large entertainment companies that allege that YouTube violates their copyright.

The site is filled with film and music clips uploaded by individual members. Viacom Inc. recently forced the company to take down more than 100,000 video clips and instead set up a distribution arrangement with a new video service, Joost.

“As the BBC has acknowledged, I think it’s better to embrace it and jump in,” Lake said. “That way you can monitor the quality and the content.”

Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, said the BBC would not hunt down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members, but would reserve the right to swap poor-quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand.

“We don’t want to be overzealous,” he said. “A lot of the material on YouTube is good promotional content for us.”

But the arrangement is also likely to raise political concerns in Britain because two of the channels, BBC News and BBC Worldwide, will carry advertising. Advertising remains a thorny issue for the taxpayer-funded BBC, and the YouTube deal comes as the BBC Trust, the corporation’s new governance body, debates whether to allow the broadcaster to carry ads on its own international Web sites.

The BBC separates its commercial activities, such as its international broadcasting operations, from its domestic, license fee-funded services, but a series of government-commissioned reports have urged the corporation to separate those activities more clearly.

The BBC News channel will not be available to British viewers because of the commercials, but BBC Worldwide will be available in the United Kingdom, advertising and all.

The broadcaster insisted that was not a departure, pointing out that BBC magazines like “Top Gear,” and TV channels like “BBC World” and “UK Living” already carry advertising.

www.ap.org

Australian state bans YouTube in schools

2007-03-04T21:14:00.000-08:00

MELBOURNE, Australia - An Australian state has banned the video Web site YouTube from government schools in a crackdown on cyber-bullying, a minister said Thursday.

Victoria, Australia's second most populous state, banned the popular video-sharing site from its 1,600 government schools after a gang of male school students videotaped their assault on a 17-year-old girl on the outskirts of Melbourne.

The assault, which is being investigated by police, was uploaded on YouTube late last year.

Education Services Minister Jacinta Allan said the schools and their Internet service providers already filtered the Web sites that were available to students, and YouTube had been added to a list of blocked sites.

The state government "has never tolerated bullying in schools and this zero tolerance approach extends to the online world," Allan said.

"All students have the right to learn in a safe and supportive learning environment — this includes making students' experience of the virtual world of learning as safe and productive as possible," she said.

YouTube is a free video-sharing site that lets users upload, view, and share video clips.

www.ap.org

IBM not ready to say Oracle's Linux compatible

2007-02-25T12:39:00.000-08:00

BOSTON (Reuters) - IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) is not ready to guarantee that its computer programs are compatible with Oracle Corp.'s (Nasdaq:ORCL - news) recently launched version of the Linux operating system, an IBM spokesman said on Friday.

This means that if IBM software programs turn out to be incompatible with Oracle Enterprise Linux, then it will be up to Oracle -- and not IBM -- to resolve the issue, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon.

Oracle, which started selling Linux in October, has said its product is identical to one from Red Hat Inc. (NYSE:RHT - news), the No. 1 vendor of the popular open-source operating system, and will seamlessly run software written for the Red Hat system.

But financial and industry analysts have said that software buyers want outside assurances to back up that claim before they will switch to Oracle.

IBM may one day support Oracle Linux. "We are going to wait and see if there is traction in the marketplace," McMahon said. "If clients want it (Oracle), then we will support it."

IBM guarantees its products will work with Red Hat's version of Linux.

"What Red Hat is selling to the customer is peace of mind. Oracle cannot do that because it is unable to certify comparability," said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research.

Red Hat provides such a guarantee in the form of certifications from the makers of some 2,755 business software packages, which say that their products are completely compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger declined to say if any software makers have certified that their products are compatible with Oracle Enterprise Linux.

She wouldn't say how Oracle would respond if its Linux customers were to have problems using other software programs on the operating system.

Linux is an operating system, or the basic group of software programs that run any computer. Other software that is loaded onto that computer must be compatible with that operating system for it to work properly.

Analysts say the compatibility certifications from other software makers rank among Red Hat's key selling points.

The certifications from IBM are important because it sells widely used programs that companies use to run large computer networks. Those titles include the DB2 database, Tivoli software for managing computer networks and Websphere middleware.

Oracle has declined to say how many customers have purchased its new Linux product since its launch in October, and it has yet to announce any customer wins.

Red Hat said it added more than 12,000 customers in its third fiscal quarter, but it does not disclose its total number of customers.

www.reuters.com

Microsoft ordered to pay $1.5B to Alcatel

2007-02-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal jury Thursday ruled Microsoft (MSFT) must pay $1.5 billion in patent-infringement damages to telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent in what patent attorneys call one of the biggest judgments ever.

Microsoft says the patents involve converting audio into digital MP3 files on PCs. It plans to appeal.

The news came before markets closed. Shares of Microsoft closed 4 cents higher at $29.39 on Thursday. Alcatel-Lucent's U.S. shares were up 7 cents to $13.14.

"This verdict is completely unsupported by the law or facts," Tom Burt, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said in a phone interview.

In 2002 and 2003, Lucent, which was acquired by Alcatel last year, filed 15 patent claims against computer makers Gateway (GTW) and Dell (DELL). Microsoft sued Lucent over the claims and was countersued by Lucent. A judge has tossed out two of Lucent's claims and set six trials to consider the remaining patent disputes.

Microsoft says it properly licensed the MP3 technology from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a German research company, for $16 million, in 1997 and 2004.

"We are concerned that this decision opens the door for Alcatel-Lucent to pursue action against hundreds of other companies who purchased the rights to use MP3 technology from Fraunhofer, the industry-recognized rightful licensor," Burt said in an earlier statement.

"We made strong arguments supporting our view, and we are pleased with the court's decision," said Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Joan Campion. She declined to discuss details of the decision.

The software giant, meanwhile, says damages were determined by multiplying Windows sales and average PC sales prices worldwide since May 2003.

The same federal court in San Diego will consider the next of the patent lawsuits, this time covering speech coding, in March and April, Microsoft said. Also at issue is video coding on both Microsoft's Xbox video game console and the Windows interface.

"This case could bode ill for the other five patent cases still in the pipeline," says Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

While the verdict is a public-relations blow to Microsoft, it isn't necessarily a financial one, patent attorneys and software analysts say.

Large jury verdicts on patent-infringement cases are typically appealed, and damages can be reduced significantly or reversed, says Jeff Berkowitz, a software-patent attorney.

"This thing is far from over," says analyst Matt Rosoff of Directions on Microsoft. He notes Microsoft successfully appealed a $521 million patent-infringement award in 2003 for Eolas Technologies, which developed a Web-browser patent. The case is still in court.

www.usatoday.com

Cisco, Apple settle over right to iPhone name

2007-02-24T11:19:00.000-08:00

SAN JOSE, California - Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. said Wednesday they have settled the trademark-infringement lawsuit that threatened to derail Apple’s use of the “iPhone” name for its much-hyped new iPod-cellular phone gadget.

The companies said Apple will be allowed to use the name for its sleek new multimedia device in exchange for exploring wide-ranging “interoperability” between the companies’ products in the areas of security, consumer and business communications.

No other details of the agreement were released, and representatives from both companies declined to comment beyond their short joint statement.

The companies both said they would dismiss any pending legal actions regarding the trademark.

The showdown between the Silicon Valley tech heavyweights erupted last month when Cisco sued Apple in San Francisco federal court claiming that Apple’s use of the iPhone name constituted a “willful and malicious” violation of a trademark that Cisco has owned since 2000.

Cisco’s Linksys division has been using the trademark since last spring on a line of phones that make free long-distance calls over the Internet using a technology called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

The lawsuit was filed a day after Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled his own company’s iPhone, a multimedia device that operates over the cellular network instead of the Internet.

Apple initially called the lawsuit “silly” and argued that it was entitled to use the name because the phones operate over different networks and would not compete with each other.

Cisco maintained that in an era of “convergence” — where increasingly intelligent networks and devices can handle a variety of different types of voice, video, data and other transmissions — the two companies’ phones could eventually take on different features and wind up competing head-to-head.

The result would be “confusion, mistake and deception among consumers,” according to the lawsuit.

Negotiations between the companies broke down just hours before Jobs’ dramatic unveiling of the product Jan. 9 in San Francisco.

The sticking point apparently was Cisco’s demand that in order to use the iPhone name, Apple would have to open up its famously closed products to communicate with some of Cisco’s offerings.

Neither company would discuss what future products might come from the collaboration. But analysts said the deal could help both companies strengthen their positions in the increasingly fierce battle to deliver video and other applications through the network directly to consumers’ homes.

Zeus Kerravala, a network infrastructure analyst with Yankee Group, said there are ample opportunities for the companies to dream up collaborative projects to win over consumers.

One possibility, he said, could be the creation of a Linksys device that users call into to record podcasts that are then automatically uploaded to iTunes, which would make the creation and dissemination of such programs easier.

However, he cautioned that both companies need to be willing to share in order to make the partnership work.

“If the two actually can work together, then the combination of the two is obviously more powerful than the two butting heads,” he said. “There’s no company out there that understands network service like Cisco. And you could argue no other company understands user experience like Apple.”

The dispute highlights the shifting business strategies for both companies.

Cisco, which is Silicon Valley’s most richly valued company with a market capitalization of $166 billion, makes most of its money by selling the routers and switches that direct data traffic over computer networks.

However, the San Jose-based company is also making an aggressive push into the consumer market and toward products that help deliver content, such as cable set-top boxes, wireless broadband routers for the home, and equipment for playing digital music.

Cupertino-based Apple is also expanding its business range from beyond primarily a Macintosh computer and software maker as it capitalizes on the demand for digital music and the soaring popularity of its iTunes and iPod products.

Legal experts said Cisco’s argument that the phones could eventually compete seemed like an unlikely scenario. They added that the products and markets they serve are currently so dissimilar there’s little likelihood of future trademark tangles.

“Although Cisco is making the point that we don’t know what the future brings, it just strikes me that their markets are plenty distinct, and there’s probably room for them to find peaceful cooperation,” said James Pooley, an intellectual property litigator and adjunct law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “They’re not naturally going to be stepping on each other’s toes very much, so cooperation makes a whole lot of sense.”

www.ap.org

Virtual worlds offer real-world healing

2007-02-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Do virtual-reality worlds such as Second Life have healing powers?

We're not just talking about video-game "hit points" here — but about real-life maladies ranging from cerebral palsy to post-traumatic stress.

The evidence is still tentative, but experts on virtual worlds as well as health care say they see a lot of promise in virtual worlds as a forum for addressing real-world woes in a kinder, gentler environment.

Researchers explored the therapeutic value of virtual worlds during sessions last weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in San Francisco.

In computer-generated worlds such as Second Life, each user is represented by an "avatar" figure who may or may not resemble the user's real-world persona. That avatar can interact with others in the virtual space — and even buy and sell items, building up a store of possessions that exist only in that space.

Thomas Malaby, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, said Second Life isn't a video game in the strict sense of the word, since the experience isn't necessarily aimed at producing winners and losers. But Second Life does provide an environment where users can achieve success or failure, just like real life, he said.

"What we're really noticing in places like Second Life is the legacy of games, what games can contribute to creativity, and to open-ended thinking, where learning can take place, where therapy can take place," said Thomas Malaby, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Virtual Iraq

Albert "Skip" Rizzo, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, has researched the use of virtual reality as a therapeutic distraction for children undergoing chemotherapy, and to add a gamelike thrill to the often-boring routines for motor rehabilitation.

Lately, he's been focusing on post-traumatic stress disorders among combat veterans returning from the war in Iraq.

Rizzo adapted a video game called Full Spectrum Warrior to create a "virtual Iraq" — an environment that lets veterans relive and talk through the stresses they went through in real life. The patients wear virtual-reality goggles with a video-game view of a desert or urban environment — and there's even lab equipment to duplicate the smells or vibrations that would be experienced during a Humvee ride.

The principle is basically the same as that used to counter a fear of heights or a fear of flying, Rizzo told reporters. The patients are guided through scenarios that start out with the least threatening elements of their experience — say, standing beside their Humvee on a desert road. As they progress, they become less anxious about reliving the experience, and eventually work their way up to more stressful events such as roadside bombings or sniper attacks.

Although Rizzo's studies so far are based on only a handful of patients, followed over three- or six-month periods, he said some veterans have shown "clinically significant declines" in the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as nightmares, jumpiness vigilance or a tendency to avoid talking about their experiences.

"Those are just the cold, clinical descriptions," he said. "This translates into being able to leave your house, being able to go to work, being able to carry on a relationship with your wife or loved one."

Going forward, Rizzo said a virtual world like Second Life probably wouldn't be suitable for the kind of focused therapy provided in the clinic, but could play an important support role: "I could see there being a 'virtual barracks' — and there probably is one in Second Life," he said. Such a gathering place could provide an outlet for veterans who suspect they may be facing a tough time ahead, he said.

Virtual support

More than once, virtual worlds have provided a safe haven for those dealing with real-world problems, said John Lester, community and education manager at San Francisco-based Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life.

"Some of the interesting things that we're seeing in Second Life mirror what you see happening on the Web," he said. "You see people with cerebral palsy or stroke survivors who are doing the physical mobility thing. In virtual environments like Second Life, they're free from the physical limitations they're dealing with."

That sense of freedom from the physical world is almost as old as the World Wide Web itself. After all, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog — or a patient with a disability. But Lester said the fact that users create online avatars that walk, talk and interact adds a dimension to the experience.

"The special thing about Second Life and virtual spaces in the world in general is that you have a great deal of emotional bandwidth — much more than just text on a screen," he said. "You have a sense of place, you have a sense of identity."

www.msnbc.msn.com

Japan launches its 4th spy satellite

2007-02-24T09:34:00.000-08:00

TOKYO - Japan launched its fourth spy satellite Saturday, completing its capabilities to monitor activities worldwide and bolstering its ability to observe neighboring north Korea's nuclear program.

The satellite, along with a smaller test prototype, was launched from the country's space center on a remote southern Japan island atop an H-2A rocket, the workhorse of Japan's space program.

Japanese space agency spokesman Satoki Kurokawa described the liftoff — which had been postponed three times due to poor weather — as a success. Television footage showed the rocket racing up through cloudy skies.

The launch of the radar satellite enhances a multibillion dollar, decade-old plan for Japan to have round-the-clock surveillance of the secretive North and other areas Japan wants to peer in on.

But weaknesses in the satellites' capabilities have led to criticism that the program is a waste of money and, with better data available on the commercial market, that Japan will continue to be dependent on Washington for its core intelligence.

The launch also comes just a month after China demonstrated its ability to shoot satellites out of orbit with ground-based missiles. Japan and other countries, including the United States, have strongly protested Beijing's anti-satellite test.

China has defended the test as peaceful, and said it presents no country with a threat.

Japanese space officials say the satellites provide an important means for the country to independently collect intelligence, and say improvements in the satellites' capabilities are in the works.

The prototype launched Friday, for example, features higher-resolution optics that can be used in the future to improve the quality of the satellites' photographs from orbit.

Japan launched its first pair of spy satellites into orbit in March 2003. The program grew out of concern following North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile over Japan's main island in 1998.

The government's original plan was to put a total of eight intelligence-gathering satellites into orbit through 2006. However, it suffered a major setback in November 2003, when a rocket carrying the second set of spy satellites malfunctioned and was destroyed in mid-flight.

Officials say they are back on course now.

"Our crisis management has improved substantially," said Yasuhiro Itakura of the Cabinet office in charge of the program.

Though Japan's intelligence-gathering satellites are not under military control, Japan's ruling party proposed late last year that the military be allowed to use the country's space program. The proposal still needs to be approved by Parliament.

Since 1969, Japan's space program has been limited by a parliamentary resolution committed to peaceful uses. The new proposal would restrict military use of the program to self-defense, officials say.

www.ap.org

Bill Gates keeps close eye on kids' computer time

2007-02-21T18:41:00.000-08:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Just because you're the daughter of Bill Gates does not mean you get to play on your computer all day long. The Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) founder said his 10-year-old daughter, his oldest child, was not a hard-core Internet and computer user

until this year, when she started at a school where the students use tablet computers for almost everything.

"She became very avid and discovered a lot of computer games, including one that runs on the Xbox 360 called Viva Pinata, where you take care of your garden," he told a business audience in Ottawa.

"She could spend two or three hours a day on this Viva Pinata, because it's kind of engaging and fun."

Gates said he and his wife Melinda decided to set a limit of 45 minutes a day of total screen time for games and an hour a day on weekends, plus what time she needs for homework.

Microsoft's new Vista software enables parents to control the Web sites their kids go to but also includes an audit log that records sites they have visited and whom they've been Instant Messaging.

"Up to some age, to be determined, it's very appropriate for a parent to get a sense of what they're seeing out there and be able to have conversations about it," he said.

"My son said, 'Am I going to have limits like this my whole life?', and I said, 'No, when you move away you can set your own screen limits'," Gates recounted, to audience laughter.

www.reuters.com

First woman honored with Turing Award

2007-02-21T18:32:00.000-08:00

One of the most prestigious prizes in computing, the $100,000 Turing Award, went to a woman Wednesday for the first time in the award's 40-year history.

Frances E. Allen, 75, was honored for her work at IBM Corp. on techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs that translate one computer language into another. This process is required to turn programming code into the binary zeros and ones actually read by a computer's colossal array of minuscule switches.

Allen joined IBM in 1957 after completing a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. At the time, IBM recruited women by circulating a brochure on campuses that was titled "My Fair Ladies."

When Allen joined Big Blue, an IBM team led by John Backus had just completed Fortran, one of the first high-level programming languages.

The point of Fortran was to develop a system that could operate a computer just as efficiently as previous "hand-coded" approaches directly assembled by programmers. Allen recalled Wednesday that her task at IBM was to replicate the achievement on multiple kinds of computers.

"I had the good fortune to work on one big project on good machines after another," she said.

Her work led her into varied assignments, including writing intelligence analysis software for the National Security Agency. More recently she helped design software for IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer.

She retired in 2002 but has stayed active in programs that encourage girls and women to study computer science.

"It's a very tough problem overall," she said. "Constant attention to it is important."

Since the Turing Award was first given in 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery, previous winners have included luminaries in encryption, artificial intelligence, hypertext, networking and other vital elements of modern computing. All were men, including Backus, the 1977 winner.

Allen called it "high time for a woman," though she quickly added: "That's not why I got it."

BRIAN BERGSTEIN

www.ap.org

Robots could soon be calling the shots

2007-02-21T18:20:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Someday you could be taking orders from a robot ... but in a nice way. For example, imagine a body suit with sensors that can guide you through a golf swing like Tiger Woods'. Or a robo-birdwatcher that can tell you where to look for that rare ivory-billed woodpecker. Or an android gardener that can show you where to plant your seeds.

Those are just some of the examples of robot-human interaction sketched out by experts in the field — examples that may well become reality in the next 10 years.

The next big trends in human-robot interaction were among the topics covered here last weekend during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, featuring such pioneers as Cynthia Breazeal from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Breazeal has worked with Hollywood types for years to create friendlier, more socially aware robots, and one of her projects involves the development of therapeutic robo-toys that could improve a patient's outlook. But she told MSNBC.com that the robots of the next decade may not always match the stereotypes of robotic people (think C-3PO from "Star Wars") or animals (such as the cuddly Teddy from "A.I.").

"The technology is becoming virtually ubiquitous," she said. "Before, when the first computers came out, there were rooms and rooms of computers. ... Now, they're [embedded] in the doorknobs. Robotics is going to be the same way. You're already seeing robotics integrated into your car today."

Robotic coaches and companions

The voice-enabled, GPS-based navigational systems in cars are arguably one type of robot. Another type could be built right into your clothing. Breazeal is already working on the concept of a sensor-equipped suit that would enable a robot to read your mood based on whether you're slouching or sitting up straight. She said the concept could also be applied to sports instruction — say, for tennis or golf. The robo-suit could read how your arms move through a swing, and even give you slight nudges to improve your form, she said.

That's not to say robots will take control of your life. Rather, they're more likely to serve as artificially intelligent advice-givers, assistants or companions, Breazeal said. As baby boomers become older, they'll still want to lead active lives — but they may well welcome a little robotic help to do it.

"If i want to cook a meal, and I can't do it by myself but I could do it with a robot ... if I want to garden but I have a hard time getting down and the robot can help me do that ... that's where I would find value, as opposed to just saying, 'Go do my gardening' or 'Go cook my meal,'" Breazeal said. "As we design technology, we have to respect the human life cycle."

Robots on the watch

Robots would also make good sentinels: Ken Goldberg of the University of California at Berkeley described his robotic camera system, ACONE, which has been set up in the remote Arkansas woods to look for signs of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. ACONE sifts through a stream of video imagery, hanging onto the pictures that appear to show birds in flight. After three months of continuous operation, the system has identified birds such as red-tailed hawks and blue herons, Goldberg said.

"The next level is to determine what is a woodpecker as opposed to another bird," he said.

The video-sorting system could be used for other applications as well, ranging from traffic monitoring to border patrol. "The other thing we can look for is UFOs," Goldberg added.

Robotic sentinels may be watching closer to home as well. Even now, a rudimentary form of nanny-bot is on the market, capable of keeping an eye on the human nannies who are supposed to be watching the kids, said David Calkins of the Robotics Society of America.

"They've already been proven effective in terms of [seeing] nannies who are shaking babies or nannies leaving the house," he said. "In the future, I think that will be taken many steps farther. Instead of just checking in on the nanny, the robot can become the nanny. The robot can actually watch the children — to make sure the children don't leave the house, or that there are no fires, things like that."

Robots on the march?

The anticipated rise of the robots in everyday life already has sparked worries that automatons could someday become overlords rather than underlings. Prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil projects that computers will match the capability of the human brain by the year 2029, leading to a socio-technological "singularity" that cannot be anticipated.

The fears have fueled literature ranging from the seminal essay "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" to the tongue-in-cheek guide "How to Survive a Robot Uprising."

Breazeal said progress would likely come more slowly than anticipated. "There are a lot of hard problems that all have to come together," she said.

But Calkins predicted it was just a matter of time before the various technologies that go into robots — including humanlike mobility, artificial vision and machine intelligence — were combined in new breeds of robots.

"I think that singularity is inevitable," he said.

Alan Boyle

www.msnbc.msn.com

Skeletons in flight: 3-D video chronicles birds

2007-02-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

Scientists are filming alligators as they trot along treadmills and pigeons on the fly in wind tunnels. But rather than a view of flesh and muscles, a new 3-D video technique peeks beneath the skin to show skeletons on the move.

“This will be like having X-ray vision — you'll be able to see through skin and muscle and watch a skeleton move in 3-D," said lead scientist Elizabeth Brainerd of Brown University. “Imagine animated X-ray movies of flying bats or flexing knees."

The final movie-maker is still in the design phase, but scaled-down versions of it are already proving a success.

Two Brown University scientists, Stephen Gatesy and David Baier, are using this approach to understand how the biomechanics of flight evolved. To trace flight back in time, Baier has made skeletal movies of alligators — the closest living relatives of birds — as they walked along a moving treadmill.

Then at Harvard University, Baier and his colleagues had to familiarize the crocodilians with their new exercise platforms for about two weeks. Some treadmill trekkers were more cooperative than others, the researchers found.

“Some of them really took to it, and others just didn’t want to walk," Baier told LiveScience. "They would just lie down until you stopped the treadmill. Some would try to jump and turn around and go the other way.”

In a recent study, Baier discovered a flight-helping ligament that transformed as winged birds evolved. Now, he and his colleague Ken Dial of the University of Montana are gearing up to study birds as they toddle up steep inclines while flapping their wings. By comparing the skeletal movies from the walking birds with those in flight, the scientists expect tease out other key features needed for flight.

The technique also will breathe life into fossil bones from extinct animals like theropod dinosaurs. Three-dimensional images of the brittle bones can be fitted with moving skeletons from modern-day relatives.

“The CTX technique will align those 3-D bones frame-by-frame to match what we’re seeing in the 2-D X-ray movie,” Brainerd said in a telephone interview. “So we need to understand precisely how the skeleton of living animals moves so we can try to reconstruct how the skeletons of extinct animals might have moved.”

Some other blockbuster applications:

* Measuring the forces applied to each joint as a person runs or a frog jumps.
* Testing new theories of biomechanics such as muscle-tendon interactions.
* Studying the evolution of joints, from the cartilaginous joints in most mammals to the “more advanced” joints in humans, which are bonier.
* Planning orthopedic surgeries and comparing the effectiveness of different approaches.
* Creating better treatments for shoulder, wrist, knee and back injuries.

Called CTX, the final system will be able to whip out 1,000 frames per second of a moving 3-D skeleton. The system will be designed and built with a $1.8-million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, and is expected to be complete by 2010.

www.livescience.com

Entrepreneurs profit from free Web names

2007-02-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - It's not often you can compare Internet addresses with clothing, but a growing practice comes close, contributing to a global shortage in good names.

Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample millions of domain names, keeping the relative few that might generate advertising revenues and dropping the rest before paying.

It's akin to buying new clothes on a charge card only to return them for a full refund after wearing them to a big party.

The grace period was originally designed to rectify legitimate mistakes, such as registrants mistyping the domain name they are about to buy. But with computer automation and a burgeoning online advertising market, entrepreneurs have turned the return policy into a loophole for generating big bucks.

Experts believe spammers and scam artists are also starting to use the grace period as a source of free, disposable Web addresses.

With up to 6 million names tied up at any given time through a practice known as domain name tasting, individuals and businesses are having even greater difficulty finding good names, particularly in the already-crowded ".com" space.

"The system really doesn't work to the advantage of people who have legitimate reasons for wanting names," Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer with MarkMonitor, a brand-protection firm. "It allows people with criminal or speculative intent to dominate."

Cybersquatting has been around for more than a decade, and scores of entrepreneurs have made thousands and even millions of dollars reselling names they had bought for as little as $6 each. With tasting, entrepreneurs generally aren't grabbing names to resell but to generate traffic and share in online advertising revenues.

The Internet's key oversight agency for domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has for years required operators of major Web suffixes such as ".com" to refund cancellations within five days. Tasting became more practical about two years ago when automation allowed newly available ".com" names to go live almost immediately, providing an additional half-day for sampling.

Millions of domain names daily

The practice has spiked, with an average tasting of 1.2 million names each day in December, compared with 7,200 two years earlier, according to data from Name Intelligence Inc., which analyzes domain name patterns. Legitimate registrations made up 2 percent of the registrations at the end of 2006, down from about half in 2004.

In an e-mail statement, one company that engages in tasting, Wang Lee Domains, said the practice was "perfectly legal" and brings "customers to the companies that advertise."

Moniker Online Services LLC, which lets customers try out domains for a small service charge it keeps, said companies can identify the right names to buy and not overspend for ones that don't matter. Monte Cahn, Moniker's founder and chief executive, said many leading brands do it, although he would not name them.

"Tasting is similar to test driving a car before you buy it or doing a walkthrough of a house before you buy," Cahn said.

The loophole works this way:

Speculators write software to automatically register hundreds or thousands of names. Some are variants of trademarks or generic keywords that Internet users are likely to type — or mistype. Others are names grabbed after their original owners fail to renew.

During the grace period, the entrepreneur puts up a Web page featuring keyword search ads and receives a commission on each ad clicked. Services like Google Inc.'s AdSense for Domains and Yahoo Inc.'s Domain Match help large domain name owners set them up, even as the search companies officially oppose abuses in tasting.

Addresses likely to generate more than the $6 annual cost of domain name are kept — not a high threshold given how lucrative search advertising is these days.

The rest are thrown back into the pool on the fourth or fifth day, only to be grabbed by another group of domain name tasters.

"Everyone's trash is someone else's gold," said Jay Westerdal, president of Name Intelligence. "You'll see this with three or four companies that keep going through the trash of everybody else."

And because the process is automated — the names are grabbed as soon as they are let go — legitimate registrants barely have a chance, Westerdal said.

The department store chain Neiman Marcus Group Inc. even filed a federal lawsuit last year accusing the registration company Dotster Inc. of tasting hundreds of names meant to lure Internet users who mistype Web addresses. At one point, the lawsuit said, the misspelled NeimuMarcus.com featured ads for Target, Nordstrom and other rivals.

David Steele, an attorney representing the retailer, said Neiman Marcus could have placed ads on those sites as well, but "should Neiman Marcus have to pay ... for directing people back to their Web site?"

The two parties recently agreed to settle, though Steele said details won't be announced until at least this week (Dotster declined comment). He said his law firm, Christie, Parker & Hale LLP, also was preparing litigation against other tasters.

Operators of the ".org" database have tried to strike back, winning approval in November to charge a restocking fee.

But VeriSign Inc., which runs ".com" and ".net," has not publicly backed one. The oversight agency ICANN said it was still studying the extent of the problem.

Critics of the system say VeriSign and ICANN both benefit from the thousands of names that are tasted and kept, collecting fees proportional to the number of names sold.

VeriSign said decisions should follow community-wide discussions.

"The risk is you don't want to necessarily move too fast or have a knee-jerk reaction without understanding the ramification," said Michael Denning, general manager with VeriSign's Digital Brand Management Services, which encourages companies to register additional domain names before tasters can get to them.

The 'kiting" variant

The practice, meanwhile, shows no signs of waning.

A newer variant, sometimes called "kiting," involves the same company reregistering the same name every fourth or fifth day to hang onto it in perpetuity, without ever paying for it.

Anti-spam experts also suggest that spammers and scam artists are turning to the loophole to register new names every couple of days to avoid detection.

"We see them using hundreds and hundreds of domains, and even at $5 a domain, that's costing them thousands of dollars, which they probably don't want to be losing," said Matt Sergeant, senior anti-spam technologist at MessageLabs Ltd.

Steele, the Neiman Marcus lawyer, said many of the dispute-resolution rules written for the pre-tasting days are no longer effective.

"By the time you expend the time and effort to track and figure out who's going after what names, they have moved on," he said. "A day where 100 Neiman Marcus names get registered is not an uncommon day."

www.ap.org

Google said ready to buy Adscape

2007-02-17T05:45:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) has agreed to acquire in-game advertising company Adscape Media Inc. for $23 million, according to technology site Red Herring, which cited sources familiar with the matter in a report late on Thursday.

A Google spokesman declined comment, saying the company's policy is not to respond to "rumor or speculation."

Video game industry analysts said the acquisition, if successful, could give a boost to the nascent in-game advertising market.

Adscape competes with advertising start-ups Double Fusion and IGA Worldwide, which have already inked deals with major publishers.

It also has a rival in Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), which last year paid $200 million for in-game ad company Massive Inc. -- lured by Massive's agreements to place ads in online games from UbiSoft Entertainment SA (UBIP.PA), THQ Inc. (Nasdaq:THQI - news) and Take- Two Interactive Software Inc. (Nasdaq:TTWO - news)

"My take on this probable deal is that it doesn't make a lot of difference to Google ... but it does provide significant credibility to the game marketing space," Forrester Research Inc. analyst Shar VanBoskirk told Reuters.

An Adscape spokeswoman previously told Reuters the company struck deals with video game publishers, but that for strategic reasons, is not revealing names or commenting on the Google acquisition speculation. A company representative was not immediately available for comment on Friday.

While Adscape is seeking deals with virtually all major publishers, its value is expected to be based largely on its team and its technology that places dynamic ads on billboards, or vending machines that appear in video games.

Adscape, which has received funding from HIG Ventures in Atlanta, is poised to be the big winner if a deal is struck because Google built its multibillion-dollar Web search advertising business with a huge roster of large and small marketers and now has a large, experienced ad sales staff.

Google is the king of search advertising, but its success in the video game advertising market is not guaranteed, said Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming at Parks Associates.

"Whatever they have in terms of search expertise may not apply to video game advertising ... It's a different dynamic," said Cai.

He said Google's ad expertise may be a better fit for Web sites and game makers that focus on quick, skill-based casual games like "Solitaire," "Bejeweled" or "Diner Dash" than for more complex online and console games that bring in the lion's share of the $30 billion industry's revenue.

Through Microsoft, Massive has an in with the maker of the Xbox 360 video game console. Rival console makers Sony Corp. (6758.T)(NYSE:SNE - news) and Nintendo Co. Ltd. (7974.OS) have not outlined their in-game ad strategies.

Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq:ERTS - news), Activision Inc. (Nasdaq:ATVI - news) and other large players in the global video game industry are eyeing in-game advertising with interest, but are cautious about setting expectations too high, too soon.

Parks Associates said 2005 revenue from dynamic in-game ads was $80 million in 2005 and forecasts it could grow to $605 million.

Right now, there is more space available for ads -- or inventory -- than advertisers willing to take a risk on the new genre, video game publishers said.

"Advertisers have been a little shy to try games as an advertising vehicle," said VanBoskirk.

But she said, having Microsoft and Google in the market should help convince hesitant marketers that video games are a viable advertising medium.

"Google's challenge (like everyone in the game marketing space) will be to show that games work for advertisers outside of the 'obvious' fits like those in the media and entertainment space," VanBoskirk said.

Lisa Baertlein
www.reuters.com

High-tech cars predominate at Daytona 500

2007-02-17T05:29:00.000-08:00

In the 49th annual Daytona 500 Sunday, NASCAR fans will see some of the most high-tech, finely tuned aerodynamics at work anywhere on or off the planet.Aerodynamics has always been important to racing. But it has become more crucial as cars have become faster, given that drag caused by air friction is proportional to the square of the speed

NASCAR rules do not allow a car's shape to be streamlined by much. Still, engineers will alter the body a quarter-inch here, a smidgeon there, to get a slight advantage. The Car of Tomorrow, NASCAR's new body type being used in some races this year, will limit a lot of this aerodynamic tinkering. But teams will still go to the wind tunnels to test tiny alterations.

"Aerodynamics will continue to be a major player at any place where the cars are going over 150 mph," said John Fernandez, managing director of the NASCAR operation for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, which owns three cars in the Nextel Cup series.

Certain courses require more attention to aerodynamics than others. The super speedways at Daytona and Talladega are long, fast tracks where cars get up close to 200 mph. Daytona is 2.5 miles long, with the backstretch a whopping 3,000 feet without a turn. This is where aerodynamics—both in the shop and on the track—becomes one of the many keys to winning.

"If a car at Talladega suffers damage to the body, it can just kill that team's chances," said Jerre Hill from University of North Carolina Charlotte's motorsports and automotive engineering program.

Engineers carefully design their car's bodies to reduce drag and to increase the aerodynamic "downforce" that helps the tires stick to the ground in a turn. And during a race, drivers draft behind each other to experience less wind.

These three aerodynamic elements: drag, downforce and drafting, are not separate. Increasing downforce means more drag, while cars with a lot of downforce are not as good to draft behind.

Drag is commonly divided into two kinds: friction drag—due the wind breaking over the car's surface, and pressure drag—coming from the low-pressure wake that develops behind a car and sucks it backwards.

Teams make tiny tweaks to the body shape to make the air flow more smoothly, thereby reducing both friction and pressure drag.

But "there's not a whole lot of wiggle room," said Gary Eaker, whose Aerodyn Wind Tunnel in Mooresville, NC, runs tests for NASCAR teams 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

"Teams have to become more and more creative," Eaker told LiveScience, just to get a half percent or so reduction in drag. But they are willing to do it because it can help them get a better qualifying position.

Reducing drag is often secondary to increasing downforce, which allows cars to go faster through the turns.

"Drivers always say they need more downforce," Eaker said.

Downforce is also called "negative lift" because the physics is basically the same as the lift on an airplane wing, except it is turned upside down.

The average downforce on a stock car is between 1,650 and 1,750 pounds, Fernandez said. With this air-induced weight, tires have a tighter grip on the road, allowing drivers to maintain high speeds through the turns at Daytona and Talladega. But the drawback is that downforce adds to the drag.

"If you had your druthers, you'd have maximum downforce in the corners but little downforce on the straightaway," Fernandez said in a telephone interview.

Downforce can't be throttled back and forth like that. In fact, NASCAR teams are barred from changing the shapes of their cars during a race.

One way they get around this is by adding tape to the front grill. This increases downforce on the front of the car by causing more air to flow over the hood. But it also diverts air away from the radiator, so too much tape can cause a car to overheat.

On the racetrack, both drag and downforce are affected by the air flow off nearby cars. In a common drafting situation, a lead car blocks much of the incoming wind, reducing the friction drag for a trailing car.

Drafting is important in many other sports, like bicycling. Roughly 90 percent of biking power is used to overcome drag, Hill said, so bike racers often ride in a pack, which can go 20-30 percent faster than a single rider.

Drafting bikers take turns in the lead position to block the wind for the others, so each can pedal furiously while at the front while relaxing somewhat when back in the pack. In car drafting, the lead car is also getting a benefit. Trailing cars fill in the lead car's low-pressure wake, thereby cutting down pressure drag. "The decrease in work for the lead car is substantial," Hill said.

With less drag for everybody, drafting lines can go about 5 mph faster than a single car. "On the super speedways you really need a drafting partner to get to the front," Fernandez said.

For Indy and Formula One racing, drafting is less effective. These open-wheel cars generate a huge amount of downforce, resulting in "giant-rooster-tail wakes that are less conducive to drafting," Hill said.

This year NASCAR will start using the Car of Tomorrow in certain races. The new design is primarily meant to improve safety, but it will also change the way that air flows over the car.

"It's a boxier car, so it has more drag," Hill said.

Two new components will be the main aerodynamic "knobs": a rear wing (replacing the spoiler) and a front splitter (a thin sheet under the front bumper that provides most of the front downforce).

Teams will be allowed to adjust the angle of attack on the wing and the position of the front splitter, Fernandez said.

"Everybody is going to be on a steep learning curve," he said.

The rest of the body shape will be more standardized, but Eaker doesn't believe this will hurt his wind tunnel business.

"It doesn't mean teams won't be changing things, it just means they will be nibbling off smaller and smaller effects," Eaker said.

LiveScience.com

Child-watching gadgets gain foothold in Japan

2007-02-17T05:20:00.000-08:00

Akiko Fukami's anxiety level shot off the charts two years ago when a 7-year-old girl at an elementary school in a neighboring prefecture vanished and was later found stabbed to death in a forest in Tochigi Prefecture, about 99 miles north of Tokyo.

Ever since, she has insisted her kids walk with a group of other children to and from school, and carry a security buzzer alarm the school supplied even before the dreadful incident in 2005. "It is scary because the murderer hasn't been arrested," says Fukami, adding that she feels there have been so many murder cases involving children in the last few years in Japan that "I can't even remember all of them."

The need to supply kids with security gadgets and mobile handsets with global positioning systems is a sad reality of contemporary Japan, though the country remains one of the safest in the world. Unlike their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe, Japanese kids often walk or commute to school on public transportation systems at a very tender age. That makes them vulnerable to predators—and makes their parents eager to keep tabs by whatever means possible.

So perhaps it isn't surprising that a sizable market has emerged for security firms and major Japanese handset makers such as NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank. Japan's birthrate may be falling, but not the market for personal security gadgets and services aimed at children.

This market has more than tripled since the start of the decade and sales last year hit $212 million, according to figures compiled by Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute. "This trend suggests a changing consciousness in Japanese society about safety and security," the research group concluded in a recent report.

Though no system is foolproof, companies have come up with creative approaches for parents to track their children's whereabouts—and sound the alarm if they encounter any serious trouble. For instance, Japanese school-bag maker Kyowa sells one model equipped with a GPS terminal that costs about $330. The company has sold 10,000 of the GPS-enabled bags in the last two years, and the product now represents about 5 percent of its total annual sales.

For a $60 start-up fee, plus about $7 per month, parents can then contract out for a service called Coco-Secom, developed by leading Japanese security firm Secom, that will track the school bag using a network of GPS satellites and cellular-telephone base stations that will pinpoint a child's exact location.

If the little one is running late, a parent can either call the Coco-Secom operation center or send an e-mail to trace the child. Within 30 to 40 seconds, a subscriber will get a map marking the location of the child. For an additional cost of $82 per request, security guards can be dispatched to the location to retrieve the child. So far, the Coco-Secom service has attracted 135,000 subscribers.

Wireless handset companies are also trying to develop products that appeal to security-anxious parents with a lineup of mobile phones—keitai in Japanese—aimed at kids.

Last month, KDDI's "au" unit released its Junior Keitai and Sweets Cute phones. The company has sold a mobile phone for children under the name of Junior Keitai since January 2006, but this third model is equipped with a movement tracking system.

When a child hits a crime-prevention buzzer attached to the phone or the mobile phone is turned off by somebody, the handset's camera will turn on, take photos, and store the images for later use, and GPS will track the location of the phone and relay that data to a parent's mobile phone or PC. At the end of this month, Softbank will launch its own youth-oriented handsets, called Kodomobile, that have an alarm function to transmit the child's location to parents.

NTT DoCoMo has sold its Kids Keitai since March 2006. When a warning buzzer is triggered, a recorded emergency phone message will be automatically directed to parents. The parents are then patched into their child's mobile phone to talk—or if they can't get through, they can immediately notify police.

One challenge is coming up with cool phone designs that motivate the kids to use them regularly and keep them within easy reach, rather than buried deep down in a school bag or left at home. DoCoMo recently held a contest that drew 13,000 participants to suggest appealing new colors for its Kids Keitai lineup, and introduced cherry- and lime-hued ones as a result.

GPS tracking systems are practically a standard feature on these phones. However, Secom also provides additional security services. "Cell phones equipped with GPS merely provide alarm and location functions," says Minoru Yasuda, head of public relations at Secom. "With our Coco-Secom service, as we have 2,100 emergency takeoff bases around the country, we can dispatch security guards almost everywhere around the clock," says Yasuda.

Secom also developed a tracking service in December that connects to integrated circuit tags using radio frequency identification technology as well as GPS. One private elementary school in Tokyo recently instituted a program in which kids were given handheld devices that work with scanners at the entrance of the school. That way, there was a record of when kids checked in and out of the school's property. That data was then transmitted to the school's internal computer network and e-mailed to the parents.

Of course, nobody is kidding themselves that any of these products or services can truly prevent something awful from happening. "There is no perfect device," realizes homemaker Fukami. Yet in an uncertain world, such gadgetry can provide parents with a modicum of comfort.

Hiroko Tashiro
bussinesweekonline

Obama backers find voice on Facebook

2007-02-17T05:01:00.000-08:00

Late on the day that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee, Farouk Olu Aregbe logged on to Facebook.com, the popular online community where college students post profiles, share photos and blog. On a whim he created a group called "One Million Strong for Barack."

"I remember thinking, there's got to be more supporters out there," said Farouk, 26, who advises student government at the University at Missouri at Columbia.

Farouk's group had 100 members in the first hour. In less than five days, 10,000. By the third week, nearly 200,000. Yesterday, a month after he created the group, it clocked in 278,100 members.

There are more than 500 Obama groups on Facebook. One of the first, "Students for Barack Obama" was created on July 7 by Meredith Segal, a junior at Bowdoin College who first heard of Obama when he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Instead of starting "a petition or something" to encourage the freshman senator to run for president, she turned to her Facebook page, created a group and invited people (first her friends, later strangers) to join.

Now it's a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members and chapters in 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots student movement -- there's a director of field operations, an Internet director, a finance director and a blog team director -- in the presidential campaign so far. "Young people are on the Web," said Segal, 21. "That's how we're organizing."

At the center of a virtual community Obama's Facebook supporters post photos of Obama on their pages alongside snapshots of birthday parties, nephews and girlfriends. They link to the latest Obama news ("Gov. Kaine of Va. to endorse Obama"), talk about their favorite Obama quotes ("I think mine is, 'I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse' ") and engage in a 24-hour conversation about their candidate ("I told you guys sometime back that once Obama announces his candidacy, the sharks are going to come biting . . ."), linked to one another in the kind of community reserved for longtime players of the video game World of Warcraft or incessant "American Idol" fans.

A few weeks ago, Segal's group staged a rally at George Mason University that drew an estimated 3,000 students -- and an appearance from Obama himself. This past Sunday, her group's Iowa State University chapter helped promote a rally that attracted more than 5,000.

But will they rock the vote? While the Illinois senator's presidential campaign has outpaced his rivals in the enthusiasm it has generated on Facebook and other social networking sites such as Friendster.com and MySpace.com, no one knows whether such online excitement can translate to votes.

Ask Howard Dean, the Web candidate of 2004. The former Democratic Vermont governor raised millions of dollars on the Web, generated huge amounts of buzz and then learned during the Iowa caucuses that online excitement did not guarantee offline foot soldiers -- or the right foot soldiers in a state that likes its volunteers homegrown.

Meetup.com helped energize the Dean campaign, but more sophisticated social networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster and MySpace were not a factor during the 2004 election. A recent Pew Research Center poll, however, reported that 54 percent of 18-to-25-year-olds have used them. And Joe Trippi, who spearheaded Dean's e-campaign, is among those who believe they will play a significant role in the current race.

"It took our campaign six months to get 139,000 people on an e-mail list," Trippi said. "It took one Facebook group, what, barely a month to get 200,000? That's astronomical."

Feeding a hunger among young voters Peter Levine, deputy director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a nonpartisan research center at the University of Maryland that studies young voters, predicts what he calls "the Facebook Effect."

"Everybody -- the pundits, the online strategists -- have been waiting for the first candidate to really hit a home run with the social networking sites," Levine said. "Obama's message is attractive to a certain type of young person. He's saying, 'You have a role to play. This is about you. About your role.' There's a real hunger for that kind of message."

Added Todd Zeigler of the Bivings Group, a D.C.-based Internet communications firm that works with Republicans: "The key point here is that the support for Obama on these social networking sites is not being driven by the campaign itself. It is something spontaneous as opposed to something the campaign itself is orchestrating. This shows a real enthusiasm for Obama's candidacy among young people that you aren't seeing for any other candidates at this point."

Borrowing from the experts Obama's main Democratic opponents, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.), have also used the Web to speak directly to voters, sidestepping mainstream media. But the Illinois senator's campaign seems to have taken some of its cues from sites such as Facebook. The campaign Web site, launched last Saturday, allows visitors to blog, keep tab of their fundraising contributions, make a list of events and so on. And there is a Facebook link on the bottom of his home page.

K. Daniel Glover, who edits National Journal's Technology Daily, said that for candidates, "it's all about using the Internet to connect to people," the same way candidates connect with the local precinct chairmen and state party officials. But Glover cautioned against expecting too much from the Internet, especially when it comes to younger voters. "I don't think anyone is going to be elected because he/she is all the rage on Facebook," he said.

Clinton has about the same number of sites as Obama, but the largest has only about 3,000 members, and many of the sites are maintained by opponents. For every group called "African-Americans for Hillary Rodham Clinton" (95 members), there is a group called "A second Bush was bad enough, don't give me a second Clinton" (55 members). Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has some presence on the site; a group called "John McCain in 2008" has 1,617 members. And though Obama himself has a few detractors -- a group that calls itself "Anybody That Would Support Barack Obama for President is a Moronic Liberal" has 424 members -- no one comes close to his overall popularity.

Jose Antonio Vargas
washingtonpost.com

$1 million prize awarded for water purifier

2007-02-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

FAIRFAX, Va. - A professor who developed an inexpensive, easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic from well water has won a $1 million engineering prize — and he plans to use most of the money to distribute the filters to needy communities around the world.

The National Academy of Engineering announced Thursday that the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability would go to Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor at George Mason University in Fairfax. Hussam's invention is already in use today, preventing serious health problems in residents of the professor's native Bangladesh.

After moving to the United States in 1978, Hussam got his citizenship and received a doctorate in analytical chemistry. He has spent much of this career trying to devise a solution to the arsenic problem, which was accidentally caused by international aid agencies that had funded a campaign to dig wells in Eastern India and Bangladesh.

The wells brought fresh groundwater to farmers and others who previously had been drinking from bacteria- and virus-laced ponds and mudholes. But the aid agencies were unaware that the groundwater also had naturally high concentrations of poisonous arsenic. As infectious diseases declined, arsenic-related skin ailments and fatal cancers began to increase — a problem that attracted much attention in the 1990s.

"I myself and all my brothers were drinking this water," Hussam told The Washington Post. He added that his family did not get sick — possibly because they had a good diet, which can help stem the effects of digesting arsenic.

Can’t taste it or smell it

Allan Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said arsenic poisoning affects millions of people worldwide and it has been difficult to convince people that what seems to be good water might be toxic.

"You can't see it or taste or smell it," Smith said. "The idea that crystal-clear drinking water would end up causing lung disease in 20 or 30 years is a little weird. It's unbelievable to people."

Hussam spent years testing hundreds of prototype filtration systems. His final innovation is a simple, maintenance-free system that uses sand, charcoal, bits of brick and shards of a type of cast iron. Each filter has 20 pounds of porous iron, which forms a chemical bond with arsenic.

The filter removes almost every trace of arsenic from well water.

Prize will purchase more filters

About 200 filtration systems are being made each week in Kushtia, Bangladesh, for about $40 each, Hussam said. More than 30,000 have been distributed.

Hussam said he plans to use 70 percent of his prize so the filters can be distributed to needy communities. He said 25 percent will be used for more research, and 5 percent will be donated to GMU.

The 2007 sustainability prize is funded by the Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Ill., and the contest was set up to target the arsenic problem. Among the criteria for winning was an affordable, reliable and environmentally friendly solution to the arsenic problem that did not require electricity.

Hussam's award will be presented Feb. 20 at Union Station in Washington.

www.ap.org

Hackers attack every 39 seconds

2007-02-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

The study, which investigated how exactly hackers crack computers, confirms those regularly issued warnings about password vulnerability. Experts advise longer passwords, regularly changed and not based on users' biographies, that mix letters and numerals and are hard to guess.

“Our data provide quantifiable evidence that attacks are happening all the time to computers with Internet connections,” study author Michel Cukier of the University of Maryland said. “The computers in our study were attacked, on average, 2,244 times a day.”

Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three computers that help manage global computer traffic on Tuesday.

To test how hackers break into computers, Cukier’s team set up weak security on four Linux computers connected to the Internet and monitored hacker attacks.

Unlike the sophisticated hackers portrayed on TV and in films, these hackers weren’t targeting specific computers.

“Most of these attacks employ automated scripts that indiscriminately seek out thousands of computers at a time, looking for vulnerabilities,” Cukier said.

The hackers used a type of software called a “dictionary script” that runs through lists of common usernames and passwords to break into the computer.

Some of the most commonly guessed usernames in the study were “root,” “admin,” “test,” “guest,” and “user." Cukier advises against using any of these as passwords.

When guessing passwords, the software tried to reenter or guess variations of the username. Following the password with the numbers “123,” guessing “password” or “123456” were also common guesses.

The study’s findings, presented at the 37th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, support the continual warnings of security experts to never use identical or related usernames and passwords.

After gaining access to the computers, hackers usually quickly changed passwords, checked hardware and software configurations, and downloaded, installed and ran a program.

These programs established the computer as part of a botnet, a collection of hacked computers that can be run by the hacker remotely to perpetrate fraud or identity theft, disrupt other computer networks, or damage computer files.

“The scripts return a list of ‘most likely prospect’ computers to the hacker, who then attempts to access and compromise as many as possible,” Cukier said. “Often they set up ‘back doors’ — undetected entrances into the computer that they control — so they can create ‘botnets,’ for profit or disreputable purposes.”

To protect against hackers, security experts advise choosing longer, more difficult passwords with combinations of upper and lowercase letters.

LiveScience.com

Blogs transform Mideast social dialogue

2007-02-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

CAIRO, Egypt - Wael Abbas hasn't been arrested by Egyptian police, but the blogger fears it could happen any day. A democracy activist who never leaves home without a camera, he has drawn the attention of state security by posting videos that show what many Egyptians only talk about behind closed doors — police brutality and male harassment of women on the street, such as fondling.

Abbas is just part of a wave of Middle Eastern bloggers who are eroding tight government control on information and thus drawing intense scrutiny from police.

Egyptian authorities arrested a string of prominent bloggers last year, including one who remains jailed and is on trial for allegedly defaming Islam by posting criticism of Islamic institutions on his Arabic-language blog.

"I might be next," Abbas said at a Cairo coffee shop. He said his family has received anonymous phone calls asking about him, which he suspects come from state security.

"I think there is a campaign against the bloggers here," he said. "We are exposing what all Egyptians know but weren't talking about."

Mideast governments for decades have dominated the media, trying to keep a monopoly on information and deter criticism of authorities. But bloggers are chipping away, writing about everything from human rights to the region's rulers to the most taboo topic — Islam.

Weblogs — or blogs for short — started taking off in the Mideast a few years ago as access to the Internet and technology for creating sites grew. There are now hundreds of Arabic- and Farsi-language blogs posted from the Middle East.

Many of the blogs are just personal musings. But many others strive to tackle political and social issues, and their authors are increasingly getting into trouble, with governments blocking their sites and throwing them in jail.

"I firmly believe that blogs now with normal people using them have become the fifth estate. They watch the watchers, especially in this area of the world, because there are no controls over them," said Mahmood al-Yousif, a Bahraini blogger.

Al-Yousif said his blog was blocked by authorities briefly last year after he published articles about an election-related scandal on the Persian Gulf island kingdom.

Reporters Without Borders has five Mideast countries — Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Syria — on its list of the globe's 13 worst Internet freedom enemies that block Web sites and detain bloggers.

Governments defend their Web regulations, saying they are protecting citizens from "immoral" and "defamatory" content. But rights groups and bloggers say officials are really trying to retain their media control.

"Five years ago, authorities didn't care about bloggers because the Internet's reach was less," said Julien Pain, head of Reporters Without Borders' Internet Freedom Desk. "Now, what is most interesting is the Weblogs in the local languages. You look at what the authorities censor — they censor content in local languages."

Rights groups have been especially critical of Iran, where there have been some arrests of bloggers. Iran has also blocked some Web sites critical of the government — even shutting down access to the video-sharing forum YouTube.com, where Iranian opposition groups abroad have posted videos.

Hamed Mottaghi, an Iranian freelance journalist, blogs in Farsi about human rights from the Iranian holy city of Qom. But Iranians can't view his Web site inside the country — authorities blocked it last year.

That hasn't stopped Mottaghi. He and another Iranian blogger recently won awards from Reporters Without Borders for taking strong stances on freedom of information.

"The number of bloggers is increasing in Iran since people cannot express themselves easily in the society, which lacks freedom. Young people especially are looking for a different place to open dialogue," Mottaghi said.

But some say the jury is still out on whether online opposition will transform into social and democratic reform in the Middle East. Though the number of Internet users has grown nearly fivefold since 2000, only about 10 percent of the region's people have access to the Internet, according to the online Internet World Stats, which monitors Web usage around the world.

A mass pro-democracy movement has not emerged, said Jesse Sage, of the U.S.-based civil rights organization Hands Across the Middle East Support Alliance, which has worked with activists including bloggers in the region.

"Blogging is about venting, and the challenge is whether we can move from venting to acting, and that remains to be seen," Sage said.

But Saudi Arabian blogger Ahmed al-Omran, a pharmacy student who runs one blog in English and another in Arabic, believes the blog movement will make a difference.

"It's a good chance now for bloggers here," he said. "Saudi Arabia is changing, and the margin for freedom of expression is getting bigger and bloggers are taking advantage of this."

www.ap.org

Computer experts warn of viruses in Valentine messages

2007-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Security experts are warning PC users to be on guard against viruses masquerading as Valentine's Day messages, which could damage computers. "Computer users should keep a wary eye on any romantic messages received by e-mail, as many of them could contain malicious code," said US security firm PandaLabs after detecting an increase in a worm it dubbed Nurech.A.

The worm hides in e-mails with subjects like: "Together You and I," "Til the End of Time Heart of Mine."

People who open an attached file such as postcard.exe can end up infecting their computers.

Security firm Symantec said it had detected "large-scale spamming" of e-mails including a Trojan horse, a program that contains or installs a malicious program.

Symantec said the malware was a new version of Trojan, Peacomm or the "Storm Trojan."

"With Valentine's Day approaching, this time around the authors are attempting to tug on the heartstrings of unsuspecting users with romantic subject lines such as 'My Heart belongs to you,' said Symantec's Orla Cox.

"The Trojan is much the same as we've seen before, the only difference being that the authors have used a modified packer in an (unsuccessful) effort to evade detection by antivirus vendors."

"As a general rule, don't open any suspicious e-mail, regardless of what is says it contains," said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs.

"Instead of going on instincts, let a security solution decide whether it's safe to open it or not," he said, urging users to scan any suspicious messages with an antivirus program.

Corrons said events like Valentine's Day and Christmas are often exploited by cyber-criminals to try and spread their creations by disguising infected e-mails as e-greeting cards.

This use of "social engineering" was used in the LoveLetter virus, which caused one of the biggest epidemics in computer history.

www.afp.com

YouTube founders reaped fortunes from sale to Google

2007-02-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - YouTube founders received more than a half-billion dollars in Google stock when the search engine bought the video-sharing website last year, regulatory documents revealed.Google bought YouTube in November in a 1.65-billion-dollar stock deal that marked the search engine's most expensive acquisition and crowned the young start-up an enviable success story.

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley received 694,087 shares, valued at nearly 328 million dollars on Thursday. Hurley got another 41,242 shares of Google stock, valued at 19.5 million dollars, which were placed in a trust fund.

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen received 625,366 shares valued at 295.5 million dollars and another 68,721 shares worth 32.47 million dollars that were placed in a trust fund, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Google's third founder, Jawed Karim, received 137,443 shares of Google stock with a market value of 64.9 million dollars.

Sequoia Capital, which financed YouTube to the tune of 11.5 million dollars, got a payoff of 941,027 shares worth 444.64 million dollars, the SEC filing indicated.

Chen and Hurley met in 1999, while working at PayPal, three years before the online financial transaction service was bought by Internet auction site eBay for 1.5 billion dollars.

Hurley left PayPal to work for himself as a consultant. Chen remained at PayPal and worked on the company's expansion into China.

The friends first discussed wanting an easy way to share home videos online while at a dinner with other former PayPal employees in January 2005.

Hurley, Chen and former PayPal colleague Karim launched YouTube in April 2005.

www.afp.com

Viacom asks YouTube to remove 100K clips

2007-02-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - Media company Viacom Inc., which owns the cable networks MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and the Paramount Pictures movie studio, asked YouTube on Friday to remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its hugely popular video-sharing site.

Viacom said in a statement that after several months of talks with YouTube and its corporate parent, the online search leader Google Inc., "it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users."

Viacom said that YouTube and Google had failed to deliver on several "filtering tools" to control unauthorized video from appearing on the hugely popular site.

The company was now asking YouTube to take the clips down, but stopped short of filing a lawsuit.

Under federal copyright law, online services such as YouTube are generally immune from liability as long as it responds to takedown requests such as these, which YouTube often does. Less clear legally is what happens when another user posts the same video, something commonly done on the free video-sharing site.

YouTube said in a statement that it would comply with the request from Viacom and said it cooperates "with all copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content as soon as we are officially notified."

The company also said it was "unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube's passionate audience which has helped to promote many of Viacom's shows."

In November, YouTube agreed to delete nearly 30,000 files after the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers complained of copyright infringement.

Some media companies such as CBS Corp. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal have made deals to allow YouTube to use video clips from their programming, but others have yet to agree with the site over ways to get compensated for the use of their copyrighted material.

Universal Music Group, a division of French telecommunications giant Vivendi SA, had threatened to sue YouTube for copyright infringement, saying it was a hub for pirated music videos, but later reached a licensing deal with them last year.

Despite Viacom's problems with YouTube, the company's MTV Networks division reached a licensing deal last year with Google that allows the search company's video service to use clips from MTV and its sibling networks under a revenue-sharing agreement.

SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer
www.ap.org

Finally, Vista: Microsoft's new Windows

2007-02-01T23:38:00.000-08:00

After delays, betas, new operating system finally takes center stage. Microsoft's Windows Vista, the operating system replacement for Windows XP, has been a long time in the making. It's been five years since Windows XP was introduced — eons in computer years. It also took a lot longer than Microsoft had originally promised. And a

late January release means that nearly the entire computer industry missed the 2006 holiday sales season.

But, Vista is finally here and it has some great new features. Vista changes the way you access your data and changes the way you find documents, music, videos, pictures and everything else you use a computer for. Be prepared to spend time learning how it works.

The operating system's new graphical look is called Windows Aero and brings Vista's look and feel into the 21st century. Think in terms of clean, clear and very user-friendly. There are lots of 3D effects and modern typefaces for the user. In its own way, it's Microsoft's answer to Apple's OS X. Vista's new interface is very, very slick.

A streamlined Start menu makes finding applications and documents easy. I wish, though, that they didn’t hide your computer's turn-the-machine-completely-off shut down button. It’s now buried in the right-hand scroll-out Start menu. Microsoft prefers that you put your computer into the new "Sleep" mode (that's "hibernate" in Windows XP) rather than shut down completely all the time. They say Sleep uses less power, helps protect your data and can wake up within 2-3 seconds. For short periods I agree. For long periods of non-use I prefer turning my computer off completely.

The new Instant Search feature is located in every Explorer window and can help users quickly find information anywhere on the computer. The Search Pane lets you organize information by author, date, or type of document.

Windows Sidebar is a set of user-configurable tools that puts frequently used information (particularly RSS feeds) and tasks right on the desktop. I tend to ignore it — except for when I need to glance at the large analog clock. This feature is similar to Apple's OS X full-screen tool bar called Dashboard — only it sits to one side.

The completely new Network Explorer puts all network connections — like printers, other computers, and devices — into one centralized location. This is somewhat different from the controls in Windows XP, where each peripheral has a separate place. Network Explorer is one feature that has a definite learning curve. Once you understand the differences (like one icon for all live network connections instead of many in XP’s taskbar) the new system begins makes a lot of sense. In the same vein, the new Vista Sync Center helps users manage all their devices from a one place.

Depending on the age and complexity of your hardware — and which version of the new operating system you're trying to install — getting Vista onto your hard drive should take you about an hour. Beta installations took me anywhere from 40 to 75 minutes to get up and running.

I’ve been able to play with the final version of Vista that had been pre-installed on three different machines: a Dell XPS M1210 Media Center laptop, a very pretty, white Toshiba Portege R400-S4931 tablet computer running Vista Ultimate. I also got to try Vista on a pre-production OQO model 02 handheld.

It would take seven pages or more to tell you everything new and different that I’ve discovered while using Vista but here are a few highlights:

* Tablet PC functionality: This is integrated into most versions of Windows Vista. This is for hardware that lets you use it as a tablet computer.
* Windows Media Center: This comes standard on Window's Vista Home Premium and Windows Ultimate. It provides a full entertainment experience, including live and recorded television, music, photos, and videos.
* Improved Windows Media Player: Sleek and cool, it worked well on my computers.
* Power management: New power management features for mobile computers enable users to optimize battery life performance. I didn’t see much difference here, but Vista computers seem to get a very usable amount of time from each battery. It was difficult, though, to make a direct comparison to similar XP laptops.
* Security: Windows Defender helps protect computers with regular scanning and the removal of spyware and other potentially unwanted software. I found Defender and the rest of Vista’s protection software very intrusive. Turning it off was no better — I would constantly get little pop-up warnings that I had turned off these programs and might be jeopardizing my computer’s security.
* Games. There are the classic Windows games, plus several new ones including Chess Titans, InkBall, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place.

Overall, I found Windows Vista was a good operating system. In my tests, Vista runs faster on the new computers I’ve been using — definitely faster than the latest version (with constant upgrading) of Windows XP running on a year-old ThinkPad Z60t. I realize that’s like comparing apples and oranges — but Vista really does seem to zoom along at times.

The test OQO handheld computer was loaded with both XP and Vista. Although I couldn’t run both operating systems at the same time, Vista seemed to open a few test Office documents a touch quicker than when I tried it with XP Pro.

Vista is a lot more graphic-intensive than XP and overall a bit closer to OS X than to previous version of Windows. Both are very competent operating systems and both will have their rabid supporters and foes. I'm not interested in getting involved in that endless discussion.

If you’re currently using Windows XP, you can’t go wrong with upgrading to Vista — but be forewarned: to appreciate all of the new features, you'll need a high level of hardware horsepower — lots of memory (think 2GB, 1GB minimum) and a fast, modern processor. Otherwise, Vista will just be forced to disable some of the cool, new features that your computer can't handle.

Windows Vista is the latest, most up-to-date and most improved version of the Windows operating system. It will help you get the most from your current computer — and your next computer. But if you decide to stick with XP, have no fear — your next computer will have Vista installed on the hard drive. Soon it will be nearly impossible to avoid.

After using Vista extensively for the past two months, I found the new operating system to be stable and easy to use. Make no mistake, with all the new features there will be a learning curve when you first sit down and play. But that’s because there’s so much there.

Gary Krakow
www.msnbs.msn.com

Blog Traffic Grows, and It’s Mostly Male

2007-02-01T23:24:00.000-08:00

Over the last few years, as newspaper Web sites have started to maintain blogs, there have been plenty of setbacks. A Washington Post blog was shut down last January after commenters flooded it with vitriol, and the author of a Los Angeles Times blog was caught commenting on his own posts under a pseudonym.

But there is no sign that newspapers are turning back: just last Wednesday, The Washington Post announced that it would be adding three new blogs.

Numbers recently released by Nielsen/NetRatings, the Internet traffic measurement firm, suggest that such blogs are picking up readers. NetRatings said that traffic to newspaper blogs had more than tripled over the last year, reaching 3.8 million in December. (The total unique visitors to newspaper Web sites in December was 29.9 million.) Slightly more men than women read online newspapers, and that trend is more pronounced on newspaper blogs, 66 percent of whose readers are male.

“News and information is generally a male-skewing appetite,” said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics for NetRatings, “and blogs are really getting a lot of the most engaged consumers.” ALEX MINDLIN

ALEX MINDLIN
www.nytimes.com

Nintendo video games winners with fans and critics

2007-02-01T23:17:00.001-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Japanese video game giant Nintendo Co. Ltd. was the top winner at the 2006 People's Choice 1UP Awards hosted by the Ziff Davis Game Group in San Francisco on Wednesday. "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" for Nintendo's new Wii console was voted game of the year and best adventure title by users of the 1UP Network of video game fan sites.

"Wii Sports," also for the Wii, was named most innovative and best sports game.

1UP Editors voted "Zelda" console game of the year. "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" from Bethesda Softworks and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (Nasdaq:TTWO - news) took home the award for PC game of the year.

www.reuters.com

Google defuses 'link bombs'

2007-02-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - US President George W. Bush is no longer Google's top response to Internet searches for "miserable failure." Queries for French military victories no longer take one to "defeats."

Links to web pages about Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva no longer pop up in searches in Portuguese for "drunken despot."

And Russian Internet users that type "enemy of the people" into Google are not directed to a biography of that nation's leader,
Vladimir Putin.

The Mountain View, California-based search colossus says it has finally defused such "Googlebombs," search term results rigged by clever outsiders to make comic or critical commentary.

"By improving our analysis of the link structure of the Web, Google has begun minimizing the impact of many Googlebombs," Ryan Moulton and Kendra Carattini of Google wrote in a company weblog.

"Now, we will typically return commentary, discussions, and articles about the Googlebombs instead."

Google described the programming change as "pretty small," saying there were fewer than 100 well-known Googlebombs, also referred to as "link bombs" because they provide links to unrelated websites under the guise of answering the query.

For example, a Google search for French military victories had prompted a replica of a search engine page and the question "Did you mean military defeats?" as though the searcher's original quest was in vain.

Searches for "failure," "fiasco," and "miserable" in various languages resulted in links to various countries' current or former leaders.

A search in Danish for "primitive troll" provided a link to an official page for that nation's prime minister, while the query "mouton insignificant" (unimportant sheep) led searchers to a biography for the premier of Quebec, Canada.

"Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven't been a very high priority for us," Moulton and Carattini explained in their blog.

"But over time, we've seen more people assume that they are Google's opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That's not true."

Rather than deactivating Googlebombs by hand, Google engineers developed a search algorithm to neutralize them.

"Computers can process lots of data very fast, and robust algorithms often work well in many different languages," Moulton and Carattini wrote.

"That's what we did in this case, and the extra effort to find a good algorithm helps detect Googlebombs in many different languages."

Google ranks search results based on a mathematical model that factors in key words and popularity of websites.

While Google has known about link bombs for years, it had previously expressed reluctance to defuse them individually because it didn't want to tinker with the objectivity of its Internet search model.

Google cautioned that some link bombs will slip past the algorithm net, which will be tightened based on feedback from searchers.

Glenn Chapman
www.afp.com

Boot to Linux From Your Media Player

2007-02-01T22:54:00.000-08:00

Japan's Turbolinux will begin selling its Wizpy Linux-based multimedia player in February. As a bonus, the device can also be used to boot a PC into the Linux OS, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC. The Wizpy will be available first to customers in Japan via the company's home page on February 23 and then in shops in March. It will come in two models: a 2GB version will cost $245 and a 4GB version will cost $281.

At first glance the Wizpy doesn't look very different from other multimedia players on the market: A 1.7-inch organic light-emitting diode color screen occupies the top half of the front of the Wizpy and the lower half has a keypad. Within, there is software to play music in Ogg, MP3, and Windows Media Audio formats, and to show XviD and MPEG4 video files and JPEG images. It can also record sound to MP3 files and display text files, and has an FM radio.

But the Wizpy's flash memory hides another feature that differentiates it from other media players: a bootable version of Linux.

Linux and More

The operating system doesn't have to be installed on the computer, but runs straight from the Wizpy.

"The installation operation is... a high barrier of entry for users to use Linux. So we came up with this device," said Koichi Yano, president and CEO of Turbolinux.

To the computer, the Wizpy appears to be a bootable USB CD-ROM or hard drive, which means most computers will boot the Linux OS without any fuss, said Turbolinux.

For some PCs--the company estimates about a quarter of those it has tested so far--users will either have to insert a supplied CD-ROM into the computer, which will divert the boot-up sequence to the Wizpy, or make a change in the computer's BIOS settings so the PC looks to a USB-connected device for an operating system before its own hard drive. The device should work with all PCs, and on newer models of Apple's
Macintosh that are based in Intel chips, said Yano.

The Wizpy contains an updatable version of Turbolinux's own operating system, based on Linux kernel 2.6.19, the Firefox browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, Skype, CD and DVD ripping software, Turbo Media Player, RealPlayer 10, a Flash player, OpenOffice 2.1, Adobe Acrobat reader, some Ricoh fonts, and Justsystem's ATOK Japanese input system.

Its Own Little World

The OS and installed software occupies about 1GB of memory, so that leaves either 1GB or 3GB left for storing files or multimedia, depending on the model. User files can be stored in either a media folder that is accessible from the host PC when the Wizpy is connected as removable storage, or a documents folder that is only accessible from within the Linux OS on the device.

It's not possible to access files stored on the host machine's hard drive when it is booted from the Wizpy. This is intended to reassure people who lend their PCs to Wizpy owners: they will be able to do so knowing that the Wizpy user cannot ferret around in their files, a company official said.

The device will be able to connect to a network through the host PC and also access connected peripherals, if they are supported. Because Linux support for some audio hardware is patchy, the Wizpy uses its own audio output system: Users can plug speakers into the device's headphones socket to hear system sounds.

The Wizpy should start appearing outside of Japan from April, priced in the same way as in Japan, where it is aligned with local iPod prices, said Yano.

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
www.pcworld.com

Egypt bloggers reveal new torture case

2007-02-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt's politically active blogger community has brought to light another torture case against the regime's security services amid a rising tide of outrage over police brutality. On Saturday, lawyers from the Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid (AHRLA) will go to court in a last-ditch effort to keep alive the case against a state security officer accused of torturing to death a man he arrested three and a half years ago.

The case against Captain Ashraf Safwat is gaining new attention following the decision by Egypt's activist blogger community to post the details online in the wake of several other cases of police brutality in recent weeks.

"The most significant aspect of the case is this is the first state security officer to truly be put in front of a criminal court," said Mohsen Bahnasi, a member of AHRLA's board, referring to the country's feared plainclothes security service.

Mohammed Abdel Qader and his brother were summoned to a Cairo police station on September 16, 2003 by Safwat. Abdel Qader died five days later and an autopsy gave torture by electric shock combined with a weak heart as the cause of death.

More than three years later, the case continues to drag on, hampered by slow prosecutors, uncooperative security services and now the family's decision to drop the case and disappear.

In the past few months, however, torture cases have gained new prominence in Egypt as bloggers have posted videos, photos and accounts of brutality in police stations, prompting renewed investigations.

On January 20, Abdel Qader's case appeared on a blog, featuring excerpts from the forensic report and gruesome autopsy pictures showing the mangled corpse of a heavily bearded man.

"There is evidence of the application of high temperature to the right and left breast and the penis resembling the effects of electrocution with an electric wire," read an excerpt. "He was subject to those injuries hours before his death."

"The pictures have done something, because they are visual -- it is a shock," said Aida Seif al-Dawla, a veteran anti-torture activist who credits the bloggers for raising public awareness on the pervasive use of torture by security services.

Hossam el-Hamalawy, on whose Arabawy blog the pictures appear, said it comes as no surprise bloggers should take interest in such cases.

"The bloggers themselves were victims of torture during the past years," he said, referring to the case of Mohammed al-Sharqawi who was allegedly sodomised after being arrested. "We are receiving so many videos now."

Bloggers came to public attention during the political ferment surrounding elections in 2005 and then most recently when they posted the grim video of bus driver Imad al-Kabir being sodomised in a police station in 2006 -- the first of many such examples of police brutality to be publicised.

Interior Minister Interior Habib al-Adly last week lashed out at the bloggers, condemning the "intentionally unpatriotic campaign striking a national service that seeks stability in the country."

The campaign strikes at the heart of official assertions that torture is not widespread and limited to individual cases.

"The outcry has encouraged people to come forward in person and take the government at its word that it takes torture seriously and prosecutes it whenever possible," said Elijah Zarwan of Human Rights Watch.

Proving a torture case in Egypt, he added, is very difficult due to a narrow definition of torture by authorities and lengthy incommunicado detentions during which the marks often fade.

It took seven months for Safwat to answer the subpoena in the current case, and when he did it was with his own autopsy report claiming the burns came from a defibrillator used to revive the victim after a heart attack, indicating he was familiar with the case prior to the trial.

A special committee of experts then took two tries to conduct a new autopsy based on the pictures and available documents which finally concluded that there was torture, opening the way for the trial to begin in June 2006.

The repeated delays, leaking of information to defendants and allowing the suspected officers to remain free during the trial are typical of attempts to bring torture cases against police, said AHRLA president Tariq al-Khater.

"The prosecutors in Egypt are in collusion with the police," he said.

In November, the officer's lawyer suddenly produced a paper signed by Abdel Qader's family withdrawing Khater's power of attorney and dropping the civil case for damages against the officer.

Khater is convinced that state security pressured the family, which has since disappeared, by threatening their still imprisoned other son, Sameh.

With his case against Safwat threatening to fall to pieces, Khater has taken the unusual step of challenging the family's decision on the behalf Abdel Qader's three daughters on the grounds it is against their interests.

On Saturday, the criminal court will decide whether the case proceeds.

Paul Schemm
www.afp.com

Konica Minolta net profit jumps on solid sales

2007-02-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Konica Minolta has said its net profit nearly tripled in the three quarters to December as it shifted to profitable advanced electronics goods after exiting its trademark camera business. The company said it benefitted from a weaker yen, which makes its products cheaper overseas, and that its multi-function photocopy machines sold particularly well.

Konica Minolta Holding Inc said Thursday it made a net profit of 40 billion yen (331 million dollars), up 187.7 percent from the same period of last year, during the nine months to December.

The company maintained its full-year forecasts, which it raised in November to 46 billion yen after seeing strong sales of electronics goods.

For the nine-month period to December, Konica Minolta posted 70.35 billion yen in operating profit, up 6.5 percent, on total sales of 744.60 billion yen.

The company said that lower sales in the photo-imaging business were offset in the third quarter by a healthy performance in electronics products.

Despite falling prices, Konica Minolta said it was "able to offset that impact through such measures as groupwide cost reduction efforts as well as moves to increase the sales quality, primarily due to rises in sales of new products and high-added-value products."

A company statement pointed to robust sales in Europe of the Bizhub C series of high-end photocopiers.

But it said the company anticipated "considerable challenges" throughout its business segments in the rest of the financial year due to intensifying price competition.

Konica Minolta announced in January 2006 it would stop making all cameras -- selling off its high-end camera business to Sony -- and that it would slash 3,700 jobs or 11 percent of its global workforce.

www.afp.com

Oracle Announces Upgrades to E-Bus, PeopleSoft, JDE, Siebel

2007-02-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK—The historic Hudson Theatre was home to a new sort of show Jan. 31—more technology-focused than Broadway—focused—and with a little less fanfare.Oracle hosted its Applications Unlimited road show here in New York to unveil the next versions of its five major Enterprise Resource Planning suites: Oracle E-Business Suite 12, PeopleSoft Enterprise Suite 9.0,

Siebel CRM 8.0, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 and JD Edwards World A 9.1.

The presentations by Oracle co-president Charles Phillips and head of application development John Wookey were reminiscent of last October's OpenWorld discussions, particularly around Fusion, Oracle's next-generation application suite.

During his presentation on the upgraded suites—and to some degree Fusion—Wookey used some of the same examples that he did at OpenWorld last April to describe some of the Fusion development work under way.

Today's message was, essentially, that Oracle is making good on its promise to provide unlimited upgrades to its existing suites—as long as customers want them.

That's a good thing, said Robert Lieberman, senior vice president and CIO at New Plan, a commercial insurance company in New York.

Prior to Oracle's announcement that it would ditch its plan to support the five suites only through 2013, Lieberman said that's all anyone could focus on.

"The Applications Unlimited announcement that Charles [Phillips] put out last year, I don't think people heard it. Or they didn't hear him, I thought it was quite simple, that 2013 was gone," said Lieberman, who is also the director of JD Edwards' Quest user group global board.

"When Charles said [2013] was gone, not a lot of people believed him. Today was a demonstration that 2013 is gone. The World people are jumping up and down."

That message of stability with the existing suites is one that Oracle is seeking to get across, if at the very least to dispel the notion of a forced migration to Fusion (expected in 2008, Fusion will bring together the "best of" functionality from Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel applications, based on the Oracle EBS data model).

Despite a lot of education at customer events like the Jan. 31 Applications Unlimited event, some customers say they are still not sure whether they should upgrade to the next version of their current suite, upgrade to the latest version announced Jan. 31, or wait for Fusion. And there's still the lingering question of a forced upgrade.

One caller during the question-and-answer section of the event called in and said the most common question he gets from Oracle's acquired customer base (PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel) is "How are you going to protect them from costly migrations?" Many customers are looking for clarity, the caller said.

"We spend a lot of time making sure there is upgradeability," from the current suites to Fusion, Wookey said in response.

"We created a data structure and architecture that supports that upgradability—that's something we've been well on the path for some time. The other piece is the core transaction system is not the only a piece in the [Fusion] ecosystem…a large part of the strategy is we are introducing analytics, reporting, so [users] can start making that transition today. It's a much more seamless, less destructive way to transition."

In the latest version of E-Business Suite 12, Oracle has released 18 new products and 2,443 new enhancements to help companies work better globally.

It's also integrated with Siebel CRM and certified on Fusion Middleware, which will be the underlying platform for Fusion Applications.

PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0 has two new products and 1,478 enhancements, and leverages Fusion Middleware.

Siebel CRM 8 offers 10 new products and 366 enhancements, particularly around industry verticals. It also has a new task-based user interface, enterprise search capabilities, SOA-enabled CRM and embedded intelligence.

JD Edwards World A9.1 (the first new World release in 10 years) includes four new products and 1,297 enhancements, particularly around compliance support and global operations capabilities.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12, which actually came out last spring, has a new Operational Sourcing module, and three new modules for food and beverage, along with 291 enhancements.

But all this work on Oracle's existing suites may backfire on the company's massive Fusion investment.

New Plan's Lieberman says his SOA plans are much further down the line, given that his company is happy with its investment—and the functional upgrades—in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne suite.

And all those World users from Quest? "They're jumping for joy," said Lieberman. "They're like, 'OK, not only do we not have to move [to Fusion], but now we can add all these other products that work with World—getting the benefit [of SOA] without having to do all that migration."

Renee Boucher Ferguson - eWEEK
www.pcmag.com

OpenApple: Post Macworld Product News

2007-02-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

Apple made its first post-Macworld Expo product announcement on Tuesday, a modest release of four new colors of the company's matchbook-sized iPod shuffle: blue, pink, green, and orange. While in hindsight such an announcement could have been anticipated to arrive at some

point given Apple's penchant for coloring lower-end iPods, advance word of the release nonetheless escaped the media, Think Secret sources included.

Aside from the colors, Apple left the iPod shuffle alone, and the music player will continue to sell for $79 in a 1-Gbyte capacity. Whether the new colors will spur sales of the shuffle remains to be seen; the original silver iPod shuffle, which continues to be sold, fared phenomenally well during the holiday quarter, capturing the top spot on Amazon.com's Best Sellers in Electronics and contributing significantly to Apple's total iPod sales.

Apple does not break down iPod sales by model, but the company's staggering quarterly sales of 21 million iPods, a unit increase of 50 percent from the previous year, improved iPod revenue only 18 percent year-over-year, suggesting that many of the iPods sold were towards the low end of the product line. Regardless, the iPod shuffle is a key money maker for Apple, boasting some of the highest profit margins among iPods despite its relatively low $79 price tag, sources say. All told, it's a success story for a product that many had left for dead after nearly two years had passed without an update to the original white "gum pack" iPod shuffle, which debuted in January 2005.

Apple has touted brighter displays with nearly every major revision to its laptops in recent history. In announcing the MacBook last year, the company said the laptop sported a display that was "79 percent brighter" than the 12-inch iBook and PowerBook it replaced, while earlier in the year Apple boasted that the 17-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops featured displays 36 percent and 67 percent brighter than their predecessors, respectively—an improvement that arrived just three months after Apple updated its PowerBook G4 with displays "up to 47 percent brighter" than before. Apple's laptops have consistently sported the brightest displays on the market, an important consideration for customers using multimedia applications.

Sources expect that this trend will continue when the company upgrades its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks later this year. The improved display performance will arrive courtesy of a new generation of LCD that use light emitting diodes (LED) for the display's backlight, as opposed to the cold cathode fluorescent backlights (CCFL) that have long been used in LCD displays.

The benefits of LED backlights are numerous. Aside from the improved brightness, they boast lower power consumption and an even thinner profile than the already-slim CCFL backlights. For Apple, LED backlights enable the company to design even thinner laptops with longer battery life, another area in which Apple has traditionally excelled in compared to its competition. Precise real-world energy savings are hard to peg, but with a laptop's display consuming substantial power, benefits are expected to be noticeable.

At present, only two PC makers offer a laptop that features an LED-backlight display: Sony (a 13.3-inch model) and Fujitsu (an 11.1-inch model that has been available for more than a year in Japan). Virtually every other PC maker is expected to deliver at least one laptop with an LED-backlight display this year as LCD panel makers improve the technology and reduce prices.

The cost of manufacturing a 13.3-inch display with an LED backlight is currently twice that of building one with a CCFL backlight, sources say, and the price premium increases with display size because of the added difficulties of using LEDs with larger panels. Accordingly, it is likely the technology would find its way into the 13.3-inch MacBook or 15.4-inch MacBook Pro before it reaches the 17-inch MacBook Pro or Apple's iMac and Cinema Display product lines.

Sources say Apple already has systems in development with the displays, and that production could begin as soon as later this quarter or, more realistically, some time in the second quarter. Intel is expected to launch a faster Core 2 Duo processor in the second quarter, the 2.4GHz T7700, which might give Apple an added incentive to upgrade its laptops then. The Mac maker's high-end MacBook Pro currently features Intel's 2.33GHz T7600 processor, the fastest available Core 2 Duo chip in Intel's portfolio, and with laptop sales accounting for about 60 percent of Apple's computer sales, keeping its laptops fresh and at the top of the market is of utmost importance to the firm.

Nick DePlume and the ThinkSecret staff cover Apple, the Macintosh, and related software with a mixture of news and other inside information. Check them out at http://www.thinksecret.com.

Microsoft Tailors Vista to Meet EU Requirements

2007-02-01T08:18:00.000-08:00

As Windows Vista appeared in computer stores worldwide, Microsoft said today that part of the design of the new operating system is the work of theEuropean Commission. "Following discussions with European Commission, Microsoft committed to make a number of changes to the Windows Vista operating system prior to release," the software maker said in a statement, pointing to three functions of the operating system: security, search, and fixed document formats.

Default Search Settings Changed, New APIs

Windows Security Center, which looks like a dashboard, gives the user an overview of what security software is running on the system and the status of checks and upgrades of firewalls and antispyware protection.

Rival security software firms and the European Commission suspected this could give WSC an unfair advantage. Microsoft said it agreed to develop a new set of application programming interfaces for release in the first service pack, scheduled for later this year, which can be invoked by third-party security programs to turn off the alerts presented by WSC.

Similarly, PatchGuard--software that protects against the modification of the operating system kernel--has been added to Vista. Some security vendors have in the past made modifications to the kernel as part of the implementation of their security software.

PatchGuard prevents such modifications in the 64-bit version. Microsoft is now working with vendors to develop new kernel-level APIs that will provide access to the kernel to address this issue, Microsoft said.

The APIs will be available in Windows Vista 64 with the first service pack, scheduled for later this year.

Regarding search, Microsoft has changed the way default settings are made for Internet search within both Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.

"These changes now ensure for users that they are able--through a series of windows and options--to make a clear, conscious, and open decision on their default search provider. Furthermore, users will retain at all times the ability to change this and all further defaults in the operating system at will," Microsoft said.

Changes Made to XPS Licensing

Microsoft's own fixed document format software is known as XPS. "In response to the Commission's concerns, the company has made fundamental changes to the licensing structure of the XPS fixed-format technology and has committed to submit the technology to an international standards body for adoption as an open industry standard," Microsoft said.

The XPS standard will be made available under licensing terms that do not exclude any industry or licensing model including the General Public License, it said.

"In response to Commissioner Kroes' letter of March 2006, Microsoft created a single application programming interface so that independent software developers can create applications to allow users to save documents in XPS or other formats, such as Adobe's PDF," Microsoft said.

Microsoft said it has also disclosed through a licensing program the relevant information to enable the implementation of XPS technology on competing client and server operating systems.

Microsoft has also responded to a further European Commission demand to submit XPS (as well as future extensions) to a standards setting body. Microsoft will submit XPS to the Ecma International.

Microsoft said it will also enable the implementation of XPS under an open-source business model (GPL) through use of a covenant not to sue--a model that Microsoft has applied to Web services and open XML document formats and that has, it said, "been welcomed by the Open Source community."

EU Gets Vista Sans Media Player

European customers and original equipment manufacturers will be able to buy a version of Vista that has Microsoft's Media Player stripped out. This unbundled version of the operating system complies with the 2004 European antitrust ruling, which ordered the company to offer two separate versions of both the home and professional versions of the operating system.

"In compliance with the European Commission's decision of March 2004, home and professional editions of Windows Vista without Media Player functionality will be released in Europe on the same schedule as the Windows Vista general availability launch," Microsoft said.

These are called the N versions--denoting "no media player," the company said.

Paul Meller, IDG News Service
www.pcworld.com

Michael Dell takes back the CEO job

2007-02-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - After a two-year absence, Michael Dell is back as CEO of the PC maker he founded in 1984. Dell, 41, replaces Kevin Rollins, the only other person to run the $56 billion company. Rollins resigned the CEO job and his seat on the board. The company also said it will miss Wall Street revenue and net income forecasts for its fourth fiscal quarter.Rollins' ouster was long expected because of such problems, says PC analyst Samir Bhavnani at researcher

Current Analysis. Dell (DELL) shares fell 29% during his tenure.

Other problems included previous earnings misses. Dell last year lost the No. 1 PC spot to rival Hewlett-Packard, according to researcher Gartner. And the company announced a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into its accounting.

Now, Dell's board has finally acknowledged that investors "lost confidence in the guy in charge," says PC analyst Richard Shim at researcher IDC.

The news, released after market close, sent Dell shares up 4% to $25.24 in after-hours trading. Dell's board is still considering what kind of exit compensation to give Rollins, if any, spokesman Bob Pearson said.

In a statement, Michael Dell called Rollins, a 10-year company veteran, "a great business partner and friend." The two were so close they once linked their offices with a sliding glass door.

But board member Samuel Nunn said "Michael's vision and leadership are critical" to Dell's long-term health. Many tech analysts agree. "Michael Dell is an innovator," Bhavnani says. "Kevin Rollins is an operations guy."

A turnaround won't be easy, Gartner PC analyst Martin Reynolds says. Growth in Dell's core market, U.S. businesses, has slowed. Sales are up among consumers and in other countries. But Dell is weaker in those areas because it sells mainly via catalog and the Web. Many shoppers want to touch a PC before buying, Reynolds says.

The rising popularity of laptops creates a similar problem, Reynolds says. And Dell's low-cost ways of building PCs have been copied by HP and others. That means it can no longer compete on price alone, he says. Reynolds predicts that Michael Dell will eventually cede the CEO spot to an outsider who can help revamp the business model.

The leadership switch doesn't necessarily mean immediate changes in operations, Shim says. Dell is hugely profitable, and that is not expected to change.

And Michael Dell has remained very active in the company since relinquishing the CEO post in 2004. Back then, he told USA TODAY that he couldn't see himself retiring from the company he founded in his college dorm room. "I do go to the beach, but I get bored," he said.

Michelle Kessler,
www.usatoday.com

Google income almost triples; investors aloof

2007-02-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

Google's (GOOG) net income nearly tripled on soaring quarterly revenue Wednesday, a stunning report that beat Wall Street estimates. But investors, who have pushed the market value of the search giant's stock - its market capitalization - above $150 billion, were not overjoyed. Google shares dipped 1.4% to $494.69 on the news, released after the market closed.

"The stock is down because it wasn't a blow-out quarter as many of us expected," said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Global Crown Capital. "They gained share relative to Yahoo in paid search revenue, but not by a wide margin."

Fourth-quarter net income nearly tripled to $1.03 billion, or $3.29 per share, from $372.2 million, or $1.22 per share, in the year-earlier quarter. That easily beat the average analyst estimate of $2.92 per share among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Revenue, meanwhile, surged 67% to $3.21 billion, from $1.92 billion a year ago. Nearly two-thirds of Google's fourth-quarter revenue came from its own sites.

Google is venturing into new ad formats beyond its traditional pay-per-click text ad business, including radio, video, newspaper and corporate brand ads.

For the fiscal year, Google's revenue exceeded $10 billion, becoming the fastest dot-com public company to reach that mark, Pyykkonen says.

The Silicon Valley company has exceeded analysts' forecasts in all but one of its 10 quarters as a publicly held company.

The company's stock, which has been flirting with $500 a share, rose 9% in January, compared with a 1% increase for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index in the same period.

Google's market value of $153.5 billion is more than four times that of rival Yahoo. Web traffic to Google sites jumped 24% year-over-year, says Nielsen/NetRatings. About 3 billion searches were performed on the site in December - about twice as many as on Yahoo, says Nielsen/NetRatings.

Google's technology isn't considerably different from rivals such as Yahoo and Microsoft, says Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Land blog. "They simply have a good brand," he says.

"Google's biggest concern is simply getting too big," Sullivan says. "Everybody thinks of them as those wacky kids in Mountain View (Calif.), but they're not. They're a 6,000-person company."

Jon Swartz, www.usatoday.com
Contributing: Michelle Kessler, Reuters

Gates inaugurates Bucharest center

2007-02-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

BUCHAREST, Romania - Microsoft chairman Bill Gates inaugurated a technical support center in Bucharest on Thursday, saying he was confident that Romania's recent accession to the European Union would boost foreign investment and the country's IT industry."This center is very important for us. It will help our customers in Europe resolve complex problems," Gates said. "We are expecting to continue to invest in Romania. ... We collaborated well with the government and our partners."

Gates also launched the new Vista operating system, Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 in Romania, saying that many Romanian specialists, including those working for a local company acquired by Microsoft, had worked to develop them. Microsoft bought GeCAD, which makes antivirus and mail server software, in 2003 for an undisclosed amount.

The support center in Bucharest is expected to employ up to 600 local specialists and is to provide assistance to customers in Europe, particularly in France and Germany.

President Traian Basescu said that while the country has changed its laws in recent years to fight computer piracy, many Romanians were introduced to Microsoft and computers in the early 1990s by using pirated software as they had no access to the original software.

"A bad thing, piracy, became in the end an investment in friendship toward Microsoft and Bill Gates, an investment in educating the young generation in Romania which created the Romanians' friendship with the computer," said Basescu.

He praised Gates for his support of charities worldwide, saying he hoped Romanian companies would follow his example and become more socially responsible.

"We see charitable acts here, too, but they are mostly based on mercy" and not on the idea of returning part of the wealth to help society, Basescu said.

Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu praised the opening of the Microsoft support center, saying it would boost the local IT sector and help Romania move faster into the computer age.

Tariceanu said that half of the business IT figure of about euro1 billion (US$1.2 billion) in Romania represents exports.

"I think this is the future for Romania's economy and less the classical industrial activities," he said.

www.ap.org

Oakley Thump 2 MP3 Sunglasses

2007-01-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

High-impact, UV-filtering specs have 1GB flash drives and hold 280 songs. If money’s no object because you can afford to spring for single-purpose sunglasses that have an MP3 player and stereo speakers built into the arms, then by all means, grab yourself a pair of Oakley’s updated Thump 2 sunglasses and ’board to a different beat.

For these bucks you can be darn sure Oakley didn’t skimp on the optics, which are of the high-impact, 100%-UV-filtering variety.

Oakley says the 1GB model holds 280 songs, and shuffling from one track to the next is merely a matter of tapping the soft buttons this way and that.

Not so easy when you’re fingers are staying warm in gloves, but then again, at these prices, you’ve probably got a personal valet riding shotgun to wipe your running nose and change tracks for you.

— Joe Hutsko

www.msnbc.msn.com

Asus Laptop Includes 'Splendid Video Intelligence'

2007-01-23T03:52:00.000-08:00

On Monday, AsusTek introduced its new Core2 Duo A8Jr, a new notebook series that will feature the first ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 GPU.
Designed specifically for greater graphics performance, and Certified for Windows Vista 3D, the A8Jr will make use of ATI's HyperMemory memory management technology for enhanced 'performance-per-watt' operations.

"There is an ever-increasing demand for higher graphic processing power and crisper graphics for entertainment and applications alike," said David Cummings, director of marketing for AMD's Graphics Products Group, in a statement.

"Our answer to that demand is the X2300 GPU. This GPU utilizes patented technology to increase processing power and provide the user with smooth, realistic hi-resolution graphics."

The new laptop will also offer something Asus is calling Splendid Video Intelligence Technology that allows the A8Jr to integrate different multimedia data sources in order to reduce noise and conversion rate for a sharper display and better contrast when running video applications.

Asus says the notebooks will all come with high-definition support capability, allowing for HD video playback on the go, as well as built-in WLAN 802.11 a/b/g, a 14.1-inch widescreen display, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR—a pumped up data rate that transmits three times faster than the standard Bluetooth—and 5 USB ports, a S-video TV-out port, and express card slots for data transfer and storage options.

A representative for Asus said that pricing for the A8Jr will be around $1249, depending on configuration. The company expects the laptop to start shipping in late February.

Bryan Gardiner - ExtremeTech

Google to run video ads from BMG, Warner

2007-01-23T03:40:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) said on Monday it would expand testing of its much-anticipated video advertising system by working with two major music labels to embed video ads on Web sites that make money running them.

Google said it would distribute advertising alongside videos from Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group (NYSE:WMG - news) over its AdSense online ad system to Web site publishers in a four-week test now underway.

"Over the past few months, we have run tests to figure out how we work with our partners and advertisers to combine high quality video content with ads and then distribute them (over) the Google AdSense network," Google said in statement.

The test with the two music labels follows an earlier public trial of Google's video advertising system with Viacom's (NYSE:VIA - news) MTV Networks, which provided music videos to run on a select number of Web sites running Google ads.

As part of the test, advertisements would be billed on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) model, the traditional billing method for mass market advertising as opposed to the pay-per-click billing model Google popularized with text ads.

Google has been pushing ahead in recent months to expand beyond its hugely successful text-advertising system into new advertising formats including video, radio and mobile phones.

As a example, Warner Music has defined multiple video channels along themes like "rock music" or featuring the "Divas of Pop Music." A Web site owner can select a video channel and embed it on a section of the site dedicated to running Google AdSense ads. Visitors then can click to watch ad-supported videos within the video channel on sites running the ads.

The Google advertising system splits the resulting revenue three ways to the video content owner, the Web site publisher and Google. The exact revenue splits were not disclosed.

Mountain View, California-based Google said in a statement on its AdSense customer blog that only a limited number of Web site publishers had been asked to participate.

"Over the next few weeks we'll be testing AdSense video distribution and sponsorship with a small group of publishers," AdSense product manager Christian Oestlien said in his blog post.

Sony BMG is a joint venture of Japan's Sony Corp. (6758.T) and Germany's Bertelsmann (BERT.UL).

Shares of Google fell 1.8 percent to close at $480.84 on Nasdaq.

Eric Auchard
www.reuters.com

Sun, Intel to partner on server chips

2007-01-23T03:17:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - The new alliance between Sun Microsystems Inc. and Intel Corp. joins two storied Silicon Valley companies with recent financial woes in a battle for the lucrative market for corporate servers and software. Sun, a one-time dot-com darling that has lost more than $5 billion since the tech collapse, said Monday it would begin building and shipping later this year servers and workstations that run on Intel processors.

Intel, trying to reverse plunging profits and market-share losses to archrival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., will officially endorse Sun's Solaris operating system in return.

Analysts said Intel's backing will be crucial in Sun's effort to gain more widespread adoption of its servers and software.

And Sun's embrace of Intel chips marks a timely design win for Intel, whose processors were shunted aside by Sun several years ago in favor of chips from AMD.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, has lost about 5 percent of the overall chip market to AMD over the past year, with AMD posting dramatic gains in the high-margin markets for servers and laptop computers that Intel once enjoyed nearly alone.

But Intel has revamped its product line with a new chip design to boost performance while giving off less heat, and analysts said deals like the one with Sun reflect a growing demand for Intel's new offerings.

"We see '07 as the year of Intel — everything is working in their favor now," said Larry Cao, a semiconductor equity analyst with Morningstar. "They're back on top, their product line is strong, and they're gaining customers. This is one example — they finally penetrated this one account that was purely AMD. That's a major score for them."

The CEOs from both companies, Jonathan Schwartz with Sun and Paul Otellini with Intel, jointly announced the deal in San Francisco.

Both executives stressed the collaborative nature of the partnership and said the deal is about expanding market opportunities in areas where both companies have been weak.

Otellini said the two companies agreed to try to find common ground while negotiating the terms of the new partnership.

"This is not just a commercial endeavor," Otellini said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is a deep, cooperative effort. If you look at both companies, they both have a strong legacy of technology innovation. We're now able to do that in a collaborative fashion."

The deal represents a dramatic about-face for Sun, which several years ago began relying exclusively on AMD to provide the processors for servers based on the popular x86 design. Intel used to provide chips to Sun for that type of server, but Sun phased them out over concern about their high energy consumption.

Under the new deal, Intel will again make chips for Sun for servers based on the x86 design, though Sun will continue to use AMD products as well.

Analysts said the competition is likely to bring down Sun's prices and help the company broaden its customer base.

"Sun's a company that has a strong will and oftentimes blazes its own trail," said Crawford Del Prete, a senior vice president with market research firm IDC. "This is a way for Sun to accomplish a number of things with one stroke. It broadens the product line, it attracts customers loyal to the Intel product line, and it also increases adoption of Solaris. Intel's backing is important to win the confidence of customers."

AMD said in a statement that Sun remains a "strong, strategic partner" and that the deal ultimately serves the market demand for choice by driving innovation, differentiation between competing products and increased value to customers.

Though AMD has been gaining share at Intel's expense, Intel has slashed prices and the pressure appears to have taken a toll on AMD.

AMD is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday and has warned investors that plunging processor prices would "substantially" reduce operating income for the quarter.

Investors had a muted reaction to the news of the Sun-Intel partnership.

Intel's shares were down 3 cents to close at $20.79 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, while Sun shares slipped 2 cents to $5.75 on the Nasdaq.

Analysts said part of the ho-hum reaction was because of Sun's relatively small size in the global server market.

Sun is ranked fourth in terms of worldwide server sales revenue, commanding about 10 percent of the market behind larger rivals Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Dell Inc., according to data from Gartner Inc.

However, analysts said the deal was nonetheless an important milestone in the semiconductor and server industries that could help both companies prosper.

Schwartz, the Sun CEO, said the partnership with Intel was about reaching developers who build applications on Intel microprocessors and in turn driving sales for Sun.

He also stressed the long-term technology development aspect of the deal, which he said will lead to innovations for both companies far out into the future.

"This is a tectonic shift in the marketplace," Schwartz told the AP. "This really is a landmark relationship that's about growing the market and not simply the customer-supplier relationship. This really does change the face of the industry."

JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer

Analysts: iPhone prices may go down

2007-01-18T22:50:00.000-08:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Apple Inc. will have plenty of room to eventually reduce the retail price of its upcoming iPhone, according to preliminary gross margin estimates by a market research company.
The iPhone, the combination cell phone-iPod media player that Apple unveiled last week, will yield gross margins of more than 50

percent at the current set of retail prices, iSuppli Corp. said in an analysis of presumed component and manufacturing costs.

The 4-gigabyte version of the iPhone, with a retail price of $499, will cost Apple $245.83 to make, iSuppli estimated. The 8-gigabyte version, priced at $599, will cost Apple $280.83.

"With a 50 percent gross margin, Apple is setting itself up for aggressive price declines going forward," said Jagdish Rebello, a director and principal analyst with iSuppli.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Since Apple will face stiff competition in the cell phone market, the company may need to cut into its margins to reduce pricing in the future, he said.

The Apple iPhone, which was announced by CEO
Steve Jobs last week, will be available starting in June exclusively through AT&T's Cingular Wireless. Apple has said it hopes to sell 10 million units in 2008, or about 1 percent of the market.

That goal "seems attainable," Rebello said.

www.ap.org

Take an Internet Call and Some Notes, or Just Doodle

2007-01-18T22:38:00.000-08:00

You can’t put the world in your pocket, but you can put the Web there, with Nokia’s N800 Internet tablet, which is about the size of a paperback (3 by 6 by ½ inch). Like the earlier N770, it lets you browse the Internet, send and receive e-mail and instant messages, download audio and video and get R.S.S. feeds. The N800 adds a Web cam for videoconferencing and a microphone for Internet phone calls.

As a media player, the N800 handles MP3 and Windows Media files and other common audio and video formats, displaying images on a 4.1-inch color screen and playing audio through built-in stereo speakers or a headphone. Content can be loaded from SD or MMC memory cards, streamed from the Web or downloaded through a U.S.B. connection from another computer. The tablet uses Wi-Fi networking, but it can also connect to a compatible Nokia phone via Bluetooth and use it as a wireless modem.

The tablet, available from retailers and www.nokiausa.com for $400, has an on-screen keyboard. It will recognize text written with a stylus, which can also be used for doodling.

ivan berger
nytimes.com

Botnet Gang Faces Jail

2007-01-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

Dutch prosecutors are pursuing jail terms for two men charged in a large-scale computer hacking scheme in which more than 1 million computers may have been infected with adware and other malicious programs. The case is the biggest cybercrime case prosecuted so far in the Netherlands, said Desiree Leppens, spokesperson for the organized crime branch of the National Public Prosecution Service in Rotterdam.

Evidence Offered

During a one-day trial that ended Tuesday, prosecutors showed how at least 50,000 computers were infected by the two defendants, who are 20 and 28 years old. Police have not released their names. The pair used a malicious program called "Toxbot," a worm that can be used to gain remote control of a computer and log keystrokes, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also charge that the defendants threatened an advertising software maker, 180Solutions, now renamed Zango, with a denial-of-service attack after a dispute over payment. Zango settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in November for $3 million after concern that distributors of its software were installing it on peoples' computers without their consent, often by exploiting vulnerabilities in operating systems or Web browsers.

Prosecutors also allege the pair were involved in phishing schemes, where fraudulent Web sites are constructed to harvest personal information such as bank-account or credit-card details. The two used a Trojan horse called "Wayphisher", which on an infected machine can redirect a Web site request from a legitimate bank site to a phishing site.
Fines, Jail Sought

Prosecutors want a three-year sentence for the 20-year-old and two years for the 28-year-old and and each to pay $38,000 to the Dutch government, Leppens said. A judge will return a verdict in the case on January 30.

Four others involved in the ring who are facing lesser charges will go to trial later this year, Leppens said.

The various schemes caused at least $75,000 in losses to victims, through online purchases and other actions, Leppens said.

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
pcworld.com

Online astronomers seek out new worlds

2007-01-15T11:06:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES - Amateur astronomer William Bianco doesn't huddle over a backyard telescope to hunt for undiscovered planets. He logs onto his computer. Bianco, who was mesmerized by the intricacies of the universe as a young boy, is part of a growing online community that sifts through mountains of data collected by professional scientists in search of other worlds.

While Bianco has yet to make a landmark discovery, he savors the rush of teetering on the cutting edge of research.

Never before have amateur astronomers had so much unfettered access to celestial data once available only to scientists with huge telescopes. In the latest frontier of astronomy, professionals are increasingly enlisting the aid of novices with personal computers to help pore through images and data — all in pursuit of the next great breakthrough.

"We're in the golden age of astronomy," said Bianco, who keeps his day job as a political science professor at Indiana University.

Thanks to technology, novices are effectively turning from lonely skywatchers to research assistants. Even before the rise of virtual astronomy, amateurs did everything from tracking asteroids to detecting supernova explosions to eyeing new comets.

In 1995, neophyte stargazer Thomas Bopp gained fame for co-discovering what would be known as Comet Hale-Bopp. Two years ago, in what was billed as the first such find by an amateur in 65 years, Jay McNeil of Kentucky took a picture of a new nebula — an illuminated cloud of gas and dust lit by what is believed to be a newborn star.

Since the late 1990s, virtual astronomy has boomed. One of the earliest online citizen scientist projects was SETI(at)home, which distributed software that created a virtual supercomputer by harnessing idle, Web-connected PCs to search for alien radio transmissions.

While the SETI project hums in the background as a screen saver, the newer efforts require more human thought.

Bianco belongs to an Internet project called Systemic, which boasts 750 amateur planet hunters. Astronomers have already discovered more than 200 planets in far-off solar systems using traditional methods, yet there are likely more out there.

Participants download software and rifle through data that measure the tiny gravitational wobble in a star's motions in search planets that orbit stars other than our sun. Users also try to decode simulated data of planetary systems invented by the project managers — a task that will help the professionals better understand real extrasolar planets.

To participate, users select a star — real or simulated — and adjust other variables such a planet's mass and orbital period by moving a slider back and forth on the screen. The goal is to design a planetary system that best fits the data and then publish the answer online.

So far, online users have pinpointed hundreds of potential candidates, but only about five might actually be real, said Systemic project head Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"It's not an aimless game," he said.

Although the Systemic Web site provides the search tools, it doesn't promote any of the discoveries, Laughlin said. Amateurs who want to publicize their find need to look for another outlet, such as a scientific journal to get credit.

Laughlin is no stranger to Web-based astronomy. He helped start another project in which amateurs point their telescopes at potential extrasolar planetary systems and look at dimming starlight to learn about a planet's size and composition. Unlike Systemic, users have to buy expensive equipment — including telescopes and cameras — to participate.

Before Internet-based astronomy, it took a long time for novices to report their discoveries. High-speed, always-on Internet access has blurred the line between the professionals and amateurs, said Terry Mann, president of the Astronomical League, made up of over 240 U.S. amateur astronomy clubs.

Last year, Mann signed up to analyze a repository of online images of the first-ever microscopic grains of star dust brought back to Earth by a
NASA spacecraft.

The work is painstaking. Mann and her fellow 25,000 volunteers eye hundreds of thousands of digital images in search of minuscule carrot-shaped trails left by the capture of star dust, believed to be the leftovers from stellar explosions.

Mann has submitted 40 possible examples of star dust in the images. If correct, amateurs can get their names published in scientific papers written by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, which manages the Stardust(at)home project.

"Amateurs can do real science. We can actually help," Mann said.

Andrew Westphal, associate director of the Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley, praised amateurs — it would probably take his whole life to find all the dust sprinklings, he said.

"It's stunning how good they are. I think they're better at this than we are," Westphal said.

The Internet has also benefited professional astronomers, who often have to fight for scarce telescope time at major research observatories.

Since 2001, the National Science Foundation has funded a $10 million project to create a "national virtual observatory" that compiles data from ground and space-based telescopes — including dazzling images from the
Hubble Space Telescope and X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory. The project, which is still under development, is primarily used by professionals who want to go to one source to mine archival images. High school and college students are increasingly tapping into the Web site as well, said project manager Robert Hanisch of the Space Telescope Science Institute.

As far as amateur astronomer Bianco is concerned, the more people teasing out the mysteries of the cosmos, the better.

"It's going to take some time and collective effort to find what's out there," he said.

ALICIA CHANG
www.ap.org

Internet economy passes new milestone

2007-01-15T10:58:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Americans spent over 100 billion dollars shopping on the Internet in 2006, and growth in e-commerce is likely to extend its strong pace in the coming years, analysts say.

A report by research firm comScore Networks said online retail spending excluding travel reached 102.1 billion dollars last year, a 24 percent increase over 2005.

A large chunk of that came in the holiday season of November and December -- 24.6 billion dollars, up 26 percent versus last year.

"E-commerce is becoming more mainstream," said Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at the research firm eMarketer.

"A larger segment of the population is buying online, and people are buying more things than they have in the past."

Investment firm Cowen and Co. calculated the 2006 sales figure at 108 billion dollars and sees this growing to 225 billion by 2011.

"We estimate that US e-commerce sales will grow 20 percent in 2007, driven by increasing adoption of broadband, lower prices in online channels, and the increased convenience of online shopping," the Cowen report said.

This would mean e-commerce would account for 4.7 percent of total US retail sales in five years, up from 2.7 percent at the end of 2006.

"Retailers have to take it seriously, if they don't they are really behind the boat," Grau said.

"There doesn't seem to be any end in sight as to how large it will grow. It will continue to grow above the rate for offline retail."

Grau said more consumers are comfortable with buying online, and are purchasing a wider range of goods such as jewelry, apparel, appliances and furniture.

"At the same time retailers are becoming more savvy marketers," he said.

"For people who want to purchase a diamond ring online, you may see a guide to understanding the terminology. For furnishings, you're more likely to see streaming videos, and see how it might fit in your living room."

Research by eMarketer suggests 22 percent growth in online sales in 2007 to 132 billion dollars, excluding travel.

One reason for the upsurge in holiday spending was confidence by consumers in rapid delivery, allowing retailers to extend the season into mid and even late December.

"The flow of online holiday retail spending in 2006, as compared to the previous year, demonstrated that online consumers pushed their buying later than ever," said comScore.

The final three weeks of the holiday season saw a major surge in spending as procrastinators came out in full force, driving a 31-percent increase versus the corresponding weeks in 2005, comScore said.

"The week leading up to Christmas saw the biggest surge with a 45-percent increase versus the corresponding week a year ago, as consumers showed their faith in online retailers' ability to 'deliver the goods' in time for Christmas."

Cowen analysts Jim Friedland and David Geisler argue that online sales will eventually exceed 10 percent of total US retail spending. One reason will be a shift to downloads of items like films and music as consumers become more comfortable with this practice.

"We expect a dramatic long-term shift in the media category from physical in-store purchases to Internet downloads," they wrote.

"In
South Korea, which has the highest broadband penetration in the world, e-commerce sales account for eight percent of total retail sales and are still growing three times faster than offline retail sales."

Grau said major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target are using the Internet and their own stores, giving customers the option of returning items to the store instead of shipping them back.

But Internet-only stores such as Amazon.com can often compete better on price, he said.

"The Internet channel is cheaper to operate, you don't have to have stores, you don't have to have inventory," he said.

In other cases, some Internet retailers try to compete as a "niche" player, "where they have items that you can't find at a Wal-Mart."

Rob Lever
www.afp.com

Technology: Valley of the Gadgets

2007-01-14T09:03:00.001-08:00

On the eve of the massive Consumer Electronics Show—a bacchanalia of gizmology, with 140,000 conventioneers packing Las Vegas to visit 2,700 companies spread over several football fields' worth of booths last week—Gary Shapiro sighed when he talked about who wasn't there. "We invite him every year," says the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes the show. "It would be great to have him here." But in 2007, as in the past, instead of joining an all-star keynote lineup that this year included Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Motorola's Ed Zander, Disney's Bob Iger and CBS's Les Moonves, Apple CEO Steve Jobs presided over his own conference in San Francisco. So for the first two days of CES everybody obsessed about what Steve would do. During the last two days, after Apple had introduced its iPhone, they obsessed about what Steve had done.

Of course there were plenty of things to see at CES. Electronics behemoths rolled out major products at packed press conferences, competing for mind space against innumerable cool gadgets serendipitously discovered at some obscure booth in the annex space at the Sands Hotel. In case you missed anything, an army of bloggers blasted a blizzard of postings—a "wisdom of crowds" approach that ensured that no gizmo went unnoticed. (Many bloggers hung out at an informal "Bloghaus" at the Bellagio, having more fun talking to each other than stomping the show floor.) Some people buzzed about the $249 Sansa Connect Wireless MP3 player, a Wi-Fi music device that lets you hook up to music services and recommendations from any hotspot. The cognoscenti whispered about the Sound-olier DUO Wireless Speaker Lamp, which integrates the otherwise intrusive rear speakers of a surround-sound system into a torchiere floor lamp. And for those interested in the physics of pain, there were gaily colored $300 consumer versions of Tasers, the electrical stun devices.

The big theme this year was making video utterly ubiquitous. There were 100-inch-plus LCD screens from LG, Sharp and Samsung, and there were screens as small as poker chips, running broadcast television from cell phones (check out the LG VX940 using Verizon MediaFLO). In the TI booth you could see a prototype of a system that could let your cell phone project a six-foot video image. Cingular unveiled Video Share, which lets you accompany a mobile call with a live video stream. Those who recently bought big hi-def screens might want to know about Evo, a company devoted to gorgeous mounting of those Cyclopean beasts.

You could hardly pull the lever of a slot machine without elbowing someone who had a scheme to move the Internet to the television set. Sony introduced the Bravia Internet Video System, which pipes AOL, Yahoo and Grouper (an Internet video aggregator) to your Bravia television. SanDisk announced USB TV, a sneaker-net approach where you move video content from your computer to a two-part iPod nano-size unit, then plug half the thing into a docking station hooked to your television; the other piece is a remote control. A company called Quartics was showing PC2TV that lets you stream Internet content directly on your television.

A variation on that theme was the proliferation of "media centers" and massive storage devices that let you store all your movies, photos and TV shows, and watch them around the house. Sony's weird-looking Vaio TP1—it resembles a toilet booster seat—has 300 gigs and all sorts of tuners and connectors. Microsoft, which plastered the convention center with banners touting its finally-about-to-arrive Vista operating system, has developed a Windows Home Server that promises to "simplify digital life for families."

The CES ghost man was in on this game, too: back in San Francisco, Jobs announced details of Apple TV (which he had earlier demo'ed as iTV), a scheme to wirelessly get the video, photos and music from your computer into your TV set (as well as movie trailers from the Internet): it's $299 and available in February. And not yet seen in Vegas.

Steven Levy
newsweek

Gaming industry breaks out of funk with record sales in 2006

2007-01-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

Every player in the next generation video game console battle is claiming victory after an industry-wide record-setting sales performance in 2006. A strong holiday season capped off a year that resulted in total revenues of $12.5 billion spent on games, new console systems, handhelds and accessories, according to the industry's market tracker The NPD Group. The 2006 total represents a 19% increase over 2005's $10.5 billion mark, another record.

"Everyone was fairly negative about the industry at the end of last year," says NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "And it started out rocky this year, but within a few months everything started to fall into place. It kind of breaks the conventional wisdom of what a console transition year is like in the industry."

The largest portion, $6.5 billion, went to game software, a slight increase over last year. Revenue from game console systems - including the new Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 (both released in November) and Microsoft
Xbox 360 - rose 87.5% to $2.9 billion from $1.6 billion last year.

Grabbing most of the attention in 2006 were new game systems - Sony's much-anticipated PlayStation 3 ($499-$599) and the lesser-regarded Nintendo Wii ($249). Consumers bought as many of each system as manufacturers could get to retail and demand drove the resale market on eBay and other online auction sites.

Sony, which earlier this week said that it had shipped 1 million PS3s to North America by year-end, sold 687,300 PS3s, according to the NPD Group's numbers. So far, the PS3 is selling at a faster pace than its predecessors, Sony's Jack Tretton said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Wii became a hit, too, selling 1.1 million units. "Once you get people to try it, you see them light up," says Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan .

Microsoft's Xbox 360 overcame its own supply problems by spring and sold 3.9 million units, pushing its installed base to 4.5 million - in December outselling PS3 and Wii combined. "The story as we see it is we won the vote with consumers this holiday season, due in part to the quality of our games," says Microsoft's David Hufford.

November's Xbox 360 release Gears of War is expected to surpass the 3 million sold worldwide next week and is tracking to join the industry's top selling games ever, Hufford said. With the third installment in the hit Halo series arriving later this year, "we are really right where we want to be heading in to 2007."

But quietly, two older systems, the five-plus-year-old
PlayStation 2 ($129) and two-year-old Nintendo DS handheld ($129) were plugging along successfully, selling 4.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

Overall, Sony hardware and games amounted to more than $1.6 billion in December alone - a record month for the industry. " "Not only did consumers drive records for PlayStation 3, they also validated the excellent value represented by PlayStation 2 and the entertainment versatility of PSP (PlayStation Portable, which reached an installed base of 6.7 million )," Tretton said.

Nintendo, Frazier says, "managed to make (the DS) appeal older without abandoning its core customer, the kids" landing New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day among the year's top 10 selling games.

At Nintendo, supporters of the Wii and DS feel justified by the results, Kaplan says. "As a risk-taking, innovative company we thought long and hard about bringing these kids of products out. We watched very closely what looked to be happening with players. The glimmer in their eye was not quite as bright (as in the past) and the excitement level was starting to tap out," she says. "Once the Wii and DS were finalized, we all felt like we really shouldn't be doing what we were doing if this didn't have success. It just felt really right."

Leading up to the NPD's release of its annual report, many analysts expressed concern that the performance of the lackluster PS3 could have ramifications for the industry. American Tech Research analyst P.J. McNealy offered that the system did not have many hit titles, might be priced too high and had not been marketed properly as a cost-effective high-definition movie player.

With Sony announcing earlier in the week that it had met its goal of shipping 1 million PS3s to North America and NPD's report suggesting that it had actually sold less than 700,000, McNealy said that "there is headline risk" of doom and gloom media coverage.

Arcadia Investment's John Taylor assessment had a similar tone, too. "The Wii buzz factor completely trumped the PS3," he wrote in a Wednesday report - may contribute to the slowing of the industry's expected PS3 adoption rate.

But Wedbush Morgan Securities' managing director of research Michael Pachter says that "talk of Sony's demise is premature. … Microsoft is growing their lead, but the question now is whether now that we are getting more supply, if we see the PS3 and Wii outsell it on a monthly basis."

Regardless, the situation at the beginning of 2007 appears much more promising than 12 months ago, Frazier says. "There's just a lot of good things going on," she says. "It was just much less volatile going into the transition that expected."

Mike Snider
www.usatoday.com

Cyber-squatters pounce on Beckham move to US

2007-01-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

Within minutes of the ex-England captain announcing he will join Los Angeles Galaxy after his contract at Spanish giants Real Madrid runs out in June, cyber-squatters were buying up a host of names linked to the big-money move.

Cyber-squatters buy up domain names cheaply and then often sell them to the persons or companies whose names are involved at a vastly inflated price.

Midfielder Beckham, 31, is one of the world's most marketable sports stars and his new five-year deal is worth a reported 248 million dollars.

NetNames, which manages domain name portfolios for top companies and celebrities, said that within 90 minutes, a cyber-squatter in southern England has bought www.lagalaxy.co.uk, www.lagalaxy.info and www.lagalaxy.org.

In the United States, www.davidbeckhamgalaxy.com, www.beckhamgalaxy.com and www.beckhamgalaxy.info were all registered quickly.

"This is some of the fastest cyber squatting I have ever seen," said Jonathan Robinson, chiefoperating officer of NetNames.

"David Beckham is a major international brand and there are clearly many people who have seen an opportunity to cash in.

"Securing these domain names after Beckham's announcement on Thursday was the online equivalent of the first day of the Harrods sale as opportunists fought for the domain name rights to every single permutation of the Beckham brand crossed with LA Galaxy.

He said stars are vulnerable to cyber squatters if they don't act fast to secure domains before they need them. "A domain name is easy to secure in the first place but retrieving it from a cyber squatter is easier said than done.

"The potential damage a malicious registration could do to a celebrity's brand is untold. Just imagine if one of Beckham's sponsors finds his most popular unofficial website takes surfers to a rival brand."

Former Manchester United winger Beckham's switch to Major League Soccer is being touted as a major attempt to expand football's popularity in the United States.

www.afp.com

AMD warning shows processor momentum shifting

2007-01-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - AMD's pain may be Intel's gain. Thursday's profit warning from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD - news) shows the No. 2 computer processor maker is smarting from a price war with Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) , whose all-new chips have given it the upper hand.

"The read AMD would like the world to have is that there's a price war and it hurt AMD and so it's also hurting Intel. But in truth, it's a little different," said Cody Acree, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. "I don't think it's apples to apples."

After more than a year of dramatic share gains driven by a processor design more efficient than Intel's, AMD is finding itself on the defensive.

It appears especially vulnerable in the market for server chips, where Intel is applying pressure with a line of revamped products headed by a chip with four processing cores.

AMD may have slashed server processor prices 40 percent, given that its quarterly processor revenue grew only 3 percent, despite "significant" growth in unit shipments, said JoAnne Feeney, managing director with FTN Midwest Securities.

"I think it came from Intel having very successfully come up with new processors and ramping production up much more quickly than anyone expected," Feeney said.

But while analysts say evidence is mounting that Intel is winning this round of the processor wars, they also point out there are plenty of other risks to its financial performance.

The PC industry is grappling with swollen inventories and lackluster sales as consumers wait for the broad release of Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows Vista operating system, due out this month.

"While Intel appears to be regaining market share from AMD and in our view has relatively lower risk, it is not immune to these industry factors," said Daniel Berenbaum, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group.

When Intel reports fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, Wall Street will be looking for it to show a profit before special items of $1.43 billion, or 25 cents per share.

That is a drop of 40 percent compared with a year earlier. Since then, Intel has sold off several unprofitable business units, pledged to cut 10,000 jobs and refocused on its core PC processor operations.

Revenue is expected to be $9.43 billion, down 7.5 percent from a year earlier.

For AMD, there appears to be no quick fix.

AMD is toiling away on its next-generation chips and plans to launch its first server chip with four processing cores in the middle of the year, which will take on Intel in the high end part of the market.

AMD also has a new notebook chip in the works that should help it challenge Intel's long-standing dominance in that fast- growing segment.

Even then, it may take several months before the new chips translate into fresh share gains. That is because AMD must increase output of those chips, while customers need time to evaluate them against Intel's offerings.

"If the Vista deployments begin to build some momentum and PC sales overall improve dramatically, then everyone will benefit and it could lift AMD," Acree said.

"Unfortunately, a lot of things don't change for AMD until they get new products, just like how things didn't change for Intel until they had new products."

In light of AMD's warning, Wall Street now expects it to show a profit, before special items, of $51 million, or 8 cents per share. Including the company's acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI, which closed in the quarter, AMD is expected to show a loss of nearly $500 million, or 91 cents per share.

AMD reports quarterly earnings on January 23.

Scott Hillis
www.reuters.com

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2007-01-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Apple renames itself, unveils iPhone

2007-01-10T04:27:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - First there was iPod, now there's iPhone. The next phase of Apple's plan to reinvent itself as a consumer electronics company was unveiled Tuesday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and it received a warm reception from Wall Street. The touch-screen-controlled device plays music, surfs the Internet and delivers voice mail and e-mail differently than any other cell phone.

IPhone, introduced by Jobs during his keynote speech at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, was accompanied by Apple TV, a set-top box that streams video from computers to television. the company is even getting a name change — from Apple Computer Inc. to just Apple Inc. — to better reflect its transition to a full-scale consumer electronics manufacturer and retailer. But it remains to be seen whether a $500 phone and some other gadgets will be enough for the company to remain a Wall Street darling and sustain the market dominance enjoyed by iPod, Apple's iconic digital music player. Others wonder whether the phone — despite its slim elegance and wide-screen monitor — is priced competitively. "Prospects for the new device are positive, but it is not a given that Apple can win against a slew of wireless providers, phone manufacturers, and Microsoft, all of whom are similarly motivated to raise their flag on the same territory," said James L. McQuivey, a communications technology professor at Boston University.

Even the phone's name is in contention. Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc. that makes networking equipment for the home and small businesses, unveiled its new iPhone line of Internet-enabled phones last month. Cisco has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000. Although Cisco is agitating for Apple to make a public statement clarifying use of the name, Apple executives say their cellular phone doesn't compete with Cisco's Internet phone. Despite that uncertainty — and despite the fact that Apple's phone won't be available until June

— Wall Street has initially blessed it. Apple shares jumped $7.10 to close at $92.57 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, creating about $6 billion in new shareholder wealth. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $50.16 to $93.16. Nearly 120 million Apple shares changed hands Tuesday, more than 4 times the average daily volume. Meanwhile, shares of other smart-phone makers slid: Treo-maker Palm dropped 5.7 percent, BlackBerry's Research In Motion Ltd. lost 7.9 percent and Motorola Inc. shed 1.8 percent.

Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said the iPhone appears poised to revolutionize the way cell phones are designed and sold. "This goes beyond smart phones and should be given its own category called `brilliant' phones," he said. "Cell phones are on track to become the largest platform for digital music playback, and Apple needed to make this move to help defend their iPod franchise as well as extend it beyond a dedicated music environment." Apple's iPod currently commands about 75 percent of the market for downloaded music and portable music players. The company's iTunes digital media store has sold more than 2 billion songs, 50 million television episodes and more than 1.3 million feature-length films, catapulting iTunes beyond Amazon.com for digital media sales.

Initial hopes for the iPhone are relatively modest. The company hopes to sell about 10 million units in 2008, or about 1 percent of the market. About 957 million cellular phones were sold in 2006. Apple TV, which a price tag of $300, has a 40-gigabyte hard drive and stores up to 50 hours of videos, 9,000 songs or 25,000 photos. It will be available in February. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, said Apple isn't getting out of the computer business, despite the name change. It's simply broadening its business. "We sell Macintoshes and will continue to do so and are very happy with that business," he said. The phones, which will operate exclusively on AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless network, will start shipping in June. The 4-gigabyte model will cost $499, while an 8-gigabyte iPhone will be $599. Cingular would not provide details of its financial arrangement with Apple.

But Glenn Lurie, president of national distribution for Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless, said Cingular's board agreed to the collaboration without even seeing a prototype, based on Apple's reputation for innovation. "We looked at this and said, `Apple is so good at what they do,'" he said. It's not Cingular's first foray into music-playing phones. In 2005, the company teamed with Motorola on an iTunes-enabled phone called ROKR. But the product was widely considered a flop because it only held 100 songs and required users to buy songs through a computer and download the songs to the phone — deficiencies the new Apple phone would remedy. IPhone is less than a half-inch thin — slimmer than almost every other phone on the market. It comes with a built-in, 2-megapixel digital camera, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card. The phone automatically synchs the user's media — movies, music, photos — through iTunes on computers running either Mac OS X or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The device also synchs e-mail, Web bookmarks and nearly any type of digital content stored on a PC.

The phone supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology and can detect location from Global Positioning System satellites. It also can send and display e-mail and text messages. Apple is partnering with Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) on Web-based e-mail and Google Inc. on maps. To make a call, users can tap out the number on an on-screen keypad or scroll through their contacts and dial with a single touch. To zoom in on a photo or Web site, tap twice. To zoom out, tap once with two fingers. "It works like magic," Jobs said. "It's far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped. It ignores unintended touches. It's super smart."

RACHEL KONRAD
www.ap.org

Source: Intel's Core 2 Quad to Debut at CES

2007-01-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

Looking to capitalize on its first-to-market quad-core processors, Intel plans to announce its Core 2 Quad for commercial PCs at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, an industry source told eWEEK.

The latest quad-core offering from the Santa Clara, Calif., company will join five other quad-core chips that Intel has already released for servers. Intel has also released the Core 2 Extreme quad-core QX6700 for high-end systems.

The CES show officially kicks off Jan. 8. The industry source, who spoke to eWEEK on the condition of anonymity, said the newest quad-core processor will likely be announced "sometime next week."

An Intel spokesman said the company has no comment at this time.

The Core 2 Quad will be marketed toward mainstream desktop users, and Intel will use CES to show consumers the performance enhancement quad-core chips offer versus dual-core chips, especially with downloading items such as music and movies.

Specific details about the configurations of the Core 2 Quad, such as Front Side Bus architecture, performance per watt, cache memory and price, were sketchy. However, it appears that the processors will run at the 2.4GHz speed that Intel officials described at the company's Developer Forum in San Francisco on Sept. 26.

In addition to the Core 2 Quad, Intel officials plan to release two other quad-core Xeon processors that are designed for servers in the first quarter of this year. The first chip is a low-voltage processor for ultra-dense deployments with a TDP—a term that refers to how much heat a chip has to dissipate—of 50 watts. The second chip is designed for either a single-socket workstation or server.

By comparison, the Core 2 Extreme runs at 2.66GHz and consumes about 130 watts of power.

On Nov. 14, Intel beat rival Advanced Micro Devices to the quad-core market by offering four Xeon processors that use 65-nanometter technology and offer 1.5 times the processing power of the dual-core chip.

Click here to read more about the official Intel launch of the quad-core Xeon processor.

Intel has manufactured its quad-core processors by combining a pair of dual-core chips in a single package. AMD, by comparison, has touted its design, which will combine four cores on a single piece of silicon, as the superior quad-core offering.

The AMD quad-core, code-named Barcelona, is not scheduled to hit the market until the middle of 2007.

Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates in Concord, Mass., said that any announcement by Intel at CES about a quad-core offering will help continue the momentum the company gained back in November with the original announcement.

The one drawback to a quad-core-powered desktops, Kay said, is that the software applications that could really show off the processing power have not been developed. The one benefit, he said, is if users want to run multiple tasks at the same time. For example, Kay said users could have the anti-virus software running in the background constantly with e-mail in the foreground and another application, such as a video, all running as well.

"I think the company would want to make a big splash at CES," Kay said. "It looks like they want to take something that had been scheduled for later, bring it up and then show it off for the consumer base and claim it's the hottest thing out there."

Apple's new iPod could bolster music dominance

2007-01-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO - After absolving its current management team of any wrongdoing in an ongoing stock-options scandal, Apple (AAPL) shifts its attention to next week's Macworld conference here, and the much-speculated unveiling of an iPod with cellphone-like features.
The Dash Express service to be rolled out in California in the spring and nationwide later in the year will enable users to search for local services or businesses from their car seats and then be guided to chosen destinations.

Yahoo and Dash billed the alliance as a GPS industry first.

The service will allow motorists or passengers to search by business names or related terms to glean local options from the Internet.

For example, a Dash user that types "croissants" as a search query will get a list of bakeries, cafes and stores in the area that sell the pastry.

A user could type "plumbing supplies" in the search box and be routed to nearby hardware stores.

"For the first time, drivers will be able to leave their homes knowing that they can easily find whatever they need -- right from their car," Dash chief executive Paul Lego said in a release.

"It's that simple."

Dash is located in Mountain View, California, a short distance from Sunnyvale-based Yahoo.

"Working with Dash takes us one step closer to that goal and provides consumers with another meaningful and relevant way to interact with our products," said Paul Levine, general manager of Yahoo Local.

Jon Swartz, USA TODAY.COM

Futuristic tools and toys at world's largest consumer electronics show

2007-01-03T22:41:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A mind-bending array of futuristic gadgets tailored to the Internet and home life will be unveiled this weekend at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
More than 140,000 people from around the world are expected to attend what is billed as the largest trade show of its kind and a launch pad for culture-changing innovations such as the video cassette recorder and the compact disc player.
The "hottest products" from 2,700 exhibitors are to be on display at the 40th annual International Consumer Electronics (CES) show, which runs from Saturday through January 11.
Heralded offerings include televisions that play shows or films from computers as well as handheld and desktop computers that play television programs.
The maker of the SlingBox device that enables people to tune into their favorite television programs no matter where they are has sponsored an "Anytime Anywhere TechArena" at the show for similar technologies.
"This is such a hot and growing trend that this TechArena is sure to be a can't-miss destination at this year's show," said Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro.
"Sling Media is a prime example of a company pushing the boundaries of on-demand media availability by giving consumers greater flexibility in how and where they view their personal entertainment content."
In what was seen as a confirmation that film distribution is shifting inexorably to the Internet, Walt Disney Company chief executive Robert Iger and CBS president Leslie Moonves will be among the featured speakers at the event.
Digital Hollywood seminars at the show will focus on "how movies, music, advertising, television and more are merging into a powerful new experience" and websites such as YouTube and MySpace are changing how users get entertainment.
US Internet search engine Yahoo is among the exhibitors promising breaking news at the show.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and the heads of Motorola and Dell were also confirmed as CES speakers, emphasizing the influence technology titans have on consumer electronics.
Displays of new devices are to cover as much space as 35 US football fields.
Promised innovations included technology to make remote-controlled and monitored "smart homes," intensify video game play, or operate cars from afar.
Security advances on display will including a device that acts as a credit card that can only be used with a matching fingerprint, and a palm scanner that recognizes a user by the veins in their hands.
Sony Ericsson will present a watch that not only tells time but wirelessly controls mobile devices so a user can discreetly field calls, check messages, or play music.
Sony's handheld Mylo will be shown off as a combined communication and entertainment device that allows people to stay connected at any WiFi hotspot.
Hewlett Packard is presenting a MediaSmart high-density television with wireless Internet connectivity to access songs, videos, films and other online content.
California company New Media Life is presenting "the world's first and smallest" wireless Internet television and podcasting device with satellite reception.
Technology geared to cars will include systems for viewing movies on the road, enhanced navigation, and using cameras to see behind vehicles.
Of course, there will be robots. Most of the robotic offerings were designed to tend to the chore of vacuuming, but Ugobe of California is to present a "designer species" robotic dinosaur pet named Pleo.
Honda of Japan is to return with humanoid robot Asimo made all the more lifelike with a new skill - running in circles.

Glenn Chapman
www.afp.com

Toyota creating alcohol detection system

2007-01-03T22:27:00.000-08:00

TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption, a news report said Wednesday.

Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun.

The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt, the report said.

The world's No. 2 automaker hopes to fit cars with the system by the end of 2009, according to the report. Calls to Toyota's headquarters in Nagoya rang unanswered on Wednesday, a public holiday.

Nissan Motor Co., another Japanese car manufacturer, has already been experimenting with breathalyzer-like devices that could detect if a driver was drunken. Similar technologies, such as alcohol ignition interlocks, are in use in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Concerns over drunken driving have surged in Japan following a series of alcohol-related accidents last year. In August, a drunken driver collided with another vehicle carrying a family of five, plunging them off a bridge and killing three children.

The incident prompted stepped-up roadside spot checks by police, who also plan to stiffen penalties for drunken driving.

www.ap.org

Studios OK technology for movie downloads

2007-01-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES - Hollywood studios have approved a new technology and licensing arrangement that should remove a major obstacle consumers now face with burning movies they buy digitally over the Internet onto a DVD that will play everywhere.

Sonic Solutions Inc. is introducing on Thursday the Qflix system for adding a standard digital lock to DVDs burned in a computer or a retail kiosk.

The lock, known as "content scrambling system," or CSS, is backed by the studios, TV networks and other content creators and comes standard on prerecorded DVDs today. All DVD players come equipped with a key that fits the lock and allows for playback.

But movie download services such as Movielink, CinemaNow and Amazon.com's Unbox haven't been able to use CSS because studios fear widespread DVD burning could lead to piracy.

Studios have experimented with an alternative to CSS used by movie downloading service CinemaNow, but only a small number of titles are available for such burning and some users have complained of problems with playback.

With Qflix — and its studio-backed copy-protection system — consumers should have more options. But they'll need new blank DVDs and compatible DVD burners to use it.

The system can also be used in retail kiosks, which could hold hundreds of thousands of older films and TV shows for which studios don't see a huge market. Customers could pick a film, TV episode or an entire season's worth of shows and have them transferred to DVD on the spot.

Burning a DVD will take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes using Sonic's technology, the company said.

Consumers still would be subject to restrictions placed by the movie service and studios. For instance, using the copy-protection technology in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media system, a service could specify that a given title can be burned no more than two times.

Sonic has been working for three years to develop the technology and get studios to agree to amend the CSS license to allow a "download to burn" option.

"We are pleased and encouraged to see efforts like Sonic's creation of Qflix that addresses the need for industry standard protection," Chris Cookson, chief technology officer at Warner Bros. said in a statement.

The initial companies participating in Qflix include Verbatim Corp., which makes blank discs, the movie download service Movielink, video-on-demand provider Akimbo Systems Inc. and the Walgreen Co. chain of drug stores.

Studios must still figure out pricing schemes that appeal to consumers and protect its lucrative retail business. Some retailers, such as Wal-Mart, have talked about starting their own online downloading services or installing kiosks to burn DVDs in the store.

Also, most consumers will need a new DVD burner that includes the latest software. Some burners can be updated, Sonic said, and companies such as Plextor, a Qflix partner, are expected to market Qflix-enabled DVD burners that connect with a USB cable.

GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer