IBM breakthrough in light beam processing
The era of light computing may be upon us. IBM unveiled today a prototype transceiver that can transmit and receive data by beaming light pulses through plastic fibers, The SF Chronicle reports. IBM vice president and technology guru Bernard Meyerson said that the chips could break through looming data chokepoints on the Internet. As Meyerson explained it, the idea is to reduce the amount of energy it takes to transmit data. Today it is common to send data as a stream of electrons flowing through copper wires, but that turns out to take comparatively large amounts of electricity. In addition to the cost of the electricity, large electric currents also generate heat and that puts pressure on the air-conditioning systems in data centers and demands yet more energy. By comparison, it takes far less energy to send pulses of laser light flowing through clear filaments of glass or, in this case, plastic. Meyerson said IBM's prototype transceiver chips can transmit 160 gigabits of data per second, using less power that it would take to run the sort of safety light people plug in to the hallway or bathroom at night. The cost breakthrough for this kind of performance is massive. IBM will be able to sell its 160-Gbps chipsets for $500 to $600, while today's 40-Gbps transceivers cost about $25,000, according to one technology analyst. Further down the road, the technology could move from routers and switches to PCs, speeding up download times exponentially, from, say half an hour for...[Read Full Article]

Intel to open $2.5bn chipset factory in China
Intel will open a $2.5 billion wafer fabrication plant in China, the first major production facility there, according to the New York Times. Labeled Fab 68, the new plant will join just seven other plants in the world capable of producing Intel 300mm wafers when it opens in 2010. But Fab 68 will produce only chipsets. Microprocessors themselves will not be produced in China. That's a distinction that won US government approval for the plant. The move is a huge win for China, which is trying to become a high-tech center. “The Intel plant is very symbolic,” said Li Ke, a senior analyst at the Semiconductor Industry Research Center in Beijing, a government body. “It is inspiring and will help to expand the production scale of the industry.” Private industry has been relucant to move to China because of weak protection for intellectual property and the federal government is very concerned about China getting a hold of private sector technology that it can use for military operations. But by the time Intel opens its facility in the northeastern city of Dalian, the company will have opened production lines of at least two generations of more advanced equipment, Intel officials said. While other companies have assembly facilities in China, Intel stands alone in the size of the investment and the nature of the operation. It's just Intel's third 300mm wafer facility outside the US. The others are in Ireland and Israel....[Read Full Article]

WSJ: Rave reviews for Apple TV
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret ran a review of Apple TV on Friday and it's a rave review. Bottom line: It rocks. This silvery little $299 gadget is designed to play and display on a widescreen family-room TV set all the music, video and photos stored on up to six computers around the house -- even if they are far from the TV, and even if they are all Windows PCs rather than Apple's own Macintosh models. In our tests, it worked great, and we can easily recommend it for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped on their computers. We tried it with various combinations of Windows and Mac computers, with movies, photos, TV shows, video clips and music. And we didn't even use the fastest wireless network it can handle. It performed flawlessly. Mossberg and Boehret say Apple's design brilliance is in not trying to do too many things. Apple TV does one thing: It takes content from your computers and it plays them on your TV. So it's not a "mess of complexity." Although it would be nice if it did a bit more, like stream content from the Net. Apple is hoping that, just as the iPod trumped earlier, but geekier, rivals, Apple TV can do the same by making a complex task really simple. Compared to the Xbox 360, Apple TV is limited: you can't use it to purchase content...[Read Full Article]

With campaigns spinning on YouTube, GOOG smells a market
Even before the explosion of the anti-Hillary Vote Different parody, Google had gotten the idea: Political campaigns are using YouTube as an advertising medium. Google wants to make sure they maintain their platform - and, of course, find a way to monetize, the LA Times reports. A newly formed political sales team made a sales pitch to some 80 politicios in Washington earlier this month, pitching not just YouTube but how to get sites appearing higher on Google's search engine. "They're more keen to the desires and the needs of the political campaigns," Eric Anderson, online marketing director for the Republican National Committee, said after attending the company's seminar. Elliot Schrage, the company's vice president of global communications and public affairs, said the company is "now recognizing that this is a segment that we have to pay attention to in a way that we hadn't." Of course, many net companies like to dress some properties up in political clothing - MySpace launched a channel featuring pages from 10 campaigns and Yahoo launched a mini-portal, election.yahoo.com. But Google is the most aggressive with its political marketing. "There's probably a lot less (money) than they think initially, but Google plays for the long term and they're smart to be there," said Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, a site that provides Internet tools and strategies for campaigns. "The Internet and politics is a revolution, and Google and these guys are not going to lead the revolution, but they don't want to get...[Read Full Article]

Child Online Protection Act invalidated
A federal judge in Philadelphia invalidated the Child Online Protection Act, which makes it a crime for websites to allow anyone under 17 to access sexual material, saying that the government failed to show that filters are ineffective and that the law infringes on free speech, The Washington Post reports. "Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed said in issuing the permanent injunction, noting his "personal regret" at having to reject an attempt to protect children from harmful material. The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit on behalf of website owners. ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said: "The courts have ruled, once again, that speech on the Internet is protected." "Had the decision gone the other way," ACLU staff attorney Chris Hansen said, "the Web would have had to dumb down. It would have made the entire Web homogeneous and bland so that a 6-year-old could read everything on the Web without anyone objecting." A large part of the judge's decision was an analysis of the effectiveness of web filters. he said that filters were widely available and often free. Even the government's own expert witness concluded that software filters are effective, most blocking at least 95 percent of sexually explicit Web pages. The law is overly broad and vague, Judge Reed said. Requiring a credit card system wuld be...[Read Full Article]

MSFT shutters Soapbox for copyright upgrade
Microsoft has shut down the MSN Soapbox video site for 30 to 60 days while it implements Audible Magic's technology for detecting copyright-violating video, PaidContent says (in a typo-laden post). The move isn’t directly prompted by the announcement today that MSN will be a launch distribution partner of NBCU-News Corp.’s new video network but that was one factor. But copyright — and showing allegiance to it - has been on Microsoft’s agenda for some time. Spokesman Adam Sohn said: "“We’ve been thinking of filtering for a long time. It’s the right time to pull the trigger. It’s the right thing to do for the long term.” The whole business doesn't give a lot of confidence in Redmond's ability to combat YouTube, says Mashable: I understand why they’re doing it: no point having all the legal liability of YouTube with none of the traffic. And one major court case would be ruinous to the project. But the series of events doesn’t reflect well on Microsoft either: declare you’re launching a new video platform, launch it after many months of testing, get no traction because it’s useless, re-enter closed beta so that you can open up again with even less content and users than before. Microsoft can only hope it becomes the Steven Bradbury of online video: become the last man standing as all the others are sued into oblivion. Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna happen....[Read Full Article]

Gates to get his Harvard degree
Bill Gates will be commencement speaker at Harvard and finally receive his (honorary) degree from Harvard, IDG reports. Gates arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1973 and while there got to know Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, who lived just down the hall. Gates had already discovered his interest in software, having programmed computers since the age of 13. While at Harvard, Gates helped develop a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair. He dropped out to found Microsoft. The only interesting question is what subject Bill will get his degree in. Harvard doesn't announce that choice in advance....[Read Full Article]

Papers charging readers would be death-knell of industry
Tom just pointed out a study from a publishing conference that found that only one publisher - magazine powerhouse Meredith - was profiting from their online operations. And in the Chronicle, David Lazarus' column today follows up on an earlier one in which he asserted that newspapers should bite the bullet and charge for their websites. Right now, only the Wall Street Journal is principally behind a paywall and the New York Times locks up most of its big-name columnists. In his earlier column, Pay-to-play is one way to help save newspapers, Lazarus offers a cockamamie scheme for industry collusion, in which the entire industry would agree to charge for content. He means not just charging for some content, but charging for everything. Since industry collusion is illegal, he thinks Congress should offer the industry an antitrust exemption. The industry would never agree to this because it would destroy the newspaper business, as I explain below. Even if the industry wanted it, it would never happen. Newspapers have already had their asses pulled out of the fire that is economic reality by joint operating agreements. The Chronicle and the Examiner co-existed for many years by that antitrust exemption. In recent years, Hearst managed to take over the Chron, foist the Exam onto the Fangs and degrade the quality of SF's morning paper. Granting that an antitrust exemption ain't gonna happen, he likes the Viacom model: Sue Google. "Maybe newspapers should follow Viacom's example," said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media...[Read Full Article]

Studios, MySpace take on YouTube - one more chance to 'get it'
In the aftermath of Viacom's $1 billion suit against Google, News Corp. and NBC Universal announced plans to build their own online video site to compete with Google's YouTube. In a sign of somewhat getting it, the plan includes distribution deals with Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, as well as MySpace, the LA Times reports. Naturally the odds of this working are weak, mostly because the studios will screw it up by trying to control it too much. But the participation of MySpace makes it more likely that something will stick. Making videos available on Yahoo, etc., though is less than enthralling. This will be just one more Yahoo licensing deal for which they will create some boring portal. The thing about net video is that it is part and parcel of the texture of the blogosphere. It is YT's sharing and embedding features that make it possible not merely to point to a specific video but to include it in your own work, in the moral equivalent of <blockquote>. The key thing the content owners should understand is that "The Daily Show" gets uploaded to YouTube not so that people can avoid paying cable bills but because they want to tell their friends (broadly defined) about, say, Jon's Net Neutrality segment. We say that blogging is a conversation. Video is part of the conversation. When someone does something great, or witty or stupid, we want to be able to talk about it and to show it. We've always talked about...[Read Full Article]

'Vote Different' creator had ties to Obama, is fired from his design job
Ariana Huffington was about to out Philip de Vellis - a designer with the firm that created Barack Obama's website - as the creator of the infamous Vote Different YouTube video, which mashes up Apple's 1984 ad with Hillary Clinton's own campaign imagery to create a compelling online ad for Obama, the Chronicle reports. So de Vellis came forward and wrote a post for Huffington in which he admits to authorship and says that he has resigned from his employer, Blue State Digital. I made the "Vote Different" ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process. There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it--by people of all political persuasions--will follow. The campaigns had no idea who made it--not the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign, nor any other campaign. I made the ad on a Sunday afternoon in my apartment using my personal equipment (a Mac and some software), uploaded it to YouTube, and sent links around to blogs. ... This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed. He says that he decided to resign even though the company had no knowledge of the ad not did its clients - "so as not to harm them, even by implication." The company, wanting to maintain its credibility as a trustworthy...[Read Full Article]

Cerf, VP dismiss gPhone rumors
Google's Vint Cerf and its Southeast Asia VP of marketing both came out and said Google won't be entering the cellphone hardware business (as I predicted), according to Newsfactor.com. The comments are so similar as to indicate that both are speaking "on message" and that the rumors have gotten far enough out of control that Google needed to speak up. I don't read this as Steve Job-style subterfuge. Vinton Cerf dismissed reports that Google is collaborating somehow with Apple on new handset hardware. Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet and Google's chief Internet evangelist, said that "[b]ecoming an equipment manufacturer is pretty far from our business model." However, Cerf added, Google is "quite eager" to be part of the growing mobile sector, and "is very interested in the platforms other people are building." Richard Kimber, Google's South-East Asia managing director of sales and operations, told attendees at the Search Engine Room conference in Sydney that the company is currently focused on mobile applications and not hardware. He added that Google is very interested in finding ways to bring its search technology and other applications to all mobile devices....[Read Full Article]

GOOG unveils Pay Per Action advertising
Don Dodge has a wrapup of Google's new Pay Per Action advertising plan. Under this model, advertisers only pay when users actually do something on the site, like filling out a form, providing email, etc. It's a natural step in targeting advertising. PPA will be attractive to the highest cost CPC advertisers. My guess is that the very top of the CPC market will gravitate to PPA ads. Mortgage loan companies and automobile advertisers now pay the highest CPC rates, sometime $4 to $10 per click. These are very expensive clicks to get someone to read your ad. Why not filter out the curious ad clickers and just pay for the serious ones that actually fill out a form? These advertisers might be happy to pay $40 for a PPA that fills out a form. Multiply this by the millions of people every day looking for a loan or new car and you can see why this will be a very big business. Spammers and Click Fraudsters will attack. Wherever there is money fraudsters are soon to follow. They will figure out ingenious ways to trick people into taking actions so they can collect the PPA revenues. The Spammers "cat and mouse" game has also just been taken to another level. There will need to be systems in place to verify the data entered into a form to make sure it is a valid action. They will need to verify that email addresses are valid or IP addresses for downloads...[Read Full Article]

If 'Vote Different' was made independently, it changes everything
In the 2006 election, the big YouTube story was George Allen's "macaca" video. That is, the mode was campaign staffers and volunteers tailing their opponents, running video on everything they said and waiting for campaign gold. Already in 2007, it's clear that the 08 election will be the mashup campaign. That's because of an amazing piece of net video: "Vote Different" is a mashup of Apple's iconic "1984" commercial with Hillary on the big brother screen, her words of conversation and collaboration taking on ominous tones. The subtext of the video is that "conversation" equals "dictation" in Orwell-speak. The woman who hurls the Big Sister-bashing hammer wears an Obama t-shirt. We read about the video in Sunday's Chronicle. The Chron quotes among other ad consultants Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network. [The video has] "changed the zone" between political campaigns, their followers and the Internet, said Rosenberg. With presidential campaigns now poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising that will blanket television before November 2008, this seemingly home-produced video -- created with software and a laptop, and likely without the benefit of a team of expensive political consultants -- opens a new window, Rosenberg said. The ad is proof that "anybody can do powerful emotional ads ... and the campaigns are no longer in control," Rosenberg said. "It will no longer be a top-down candidate message; that's a 20th century broadcast model." Some say the mashup is proof that VoN opens a wide new path for...[Read Full Article]

NPR, DiMA ask for relief from new royalty rates
At the urging of the RIAA-associated SoundExchange organization, the Copyright Royalty Board earlier this month assigned a per-song royalty rate for internet broadcasting and a $500 minimum per-channel fee. Now webcasters big and small are going to court to contest the ruling, AP reports. Under a previous arrangement, which expired at the end of 2005, broadcasters and online companies such as Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit could pay royalties based on estimates of how many songs were played over a given period of time, or a ``tuning hour,'' as opposed to counting every single song. Jonathan Potter, the executive director of the Digital Media Association, which represents major online companies affected by the decision, asked that the judges specifically allow a per-tuning-hour approximation measure for paying the royalties. Potter also asked the judges to clarify a $500 annual fee per broadcasting channel, saying that with some online companies offering many thousands of listening options, counting each one as a separate channel could lead to huge fees for online broadcasters. NPR said the new rules would have ``crippling effects'' on public radio's ability to serve the public. Clear Channel was among the companies complaining about the new rules. NPR says they will appeal the ruling, even as it asks the board to reconsider....[Read Full Article]

Schmidt: GOOG is not a content company (and the datacenter is king)
Two Stanford biz students, Matt and Julio, have been interviewing some of the biggest names in the Valley on a podcast called iinovate. They posted an interview with Eric Schmidt yesterday, in which they tell Eric that Google is becoming more of a content company. To this he takes exception: You used the term content company. We don't use that term. Google is an infrastructure company that enables content. Google is not in the content business. We have many partners that produce content. We are a distribution mechanism and a monetization mechanism for our partners. This is an important line that we've decided not to cross. Any questions? Now to the Google Grid, as David Scott Lewis terms it (see comments on this post). Schmidt describes it in terms of datacenter (which I think is the same thing as David's Grid): Google is much more capital-intensive than our competitors and we're much further along in the datacenter. We have a competitive advantage because we have the cheapest and most scalable architecture. We hope that in the course of innovation, we will be able to build products that are impossible for our competitors to replicate. Virtually all of our capital expenditures go into the datacenter. Not a lot of technical detail there, but it gives a good sense of why Google will become the Microsoft of its generation (not in the sense of anticompetitive practices but in the sense of "owning the stack"). Just as nobody could write Windows apps like...[Read Full Article]

Here come the Tubies
YouTube announces the YouTube Awards for best videos created in 2006, says AP. YouTube Video Awards to recognize the best-user created videos of 2006. The awards will be handed out in seven categories: most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy, musician of the year, best commentary and "most adorable video ever." The nominees, picked by YouTube, are compiled in a gallery at http://www.youtube.com/YTAwards. YouTube community members can vote on their favorites beginning Monday and concluding on Friday. The winners, as chosen by the community, will be announced March 25. Each will be prominently featured on YouTube and receive a trophy, the design of which will be revealed later....[Read Full Article]

Apollo alpha: We have a launch
The first public alpha version of Adobe's Apollo is out, the company announced today. Apollo allowed developers to create "rich Internet applications" that run on the desktop, leveraging HTML, JavaScript, Ajax and Flash. Arrington is excited: I honestly believe that entirely new classes of companies can be built on this platform, which takes Flash, HTML and javascript completely outside of the browser and interacts with the file system on a PC. Photos, music, email and many other everyday tasks make a lot of sense in a single environment that is both local and in the cloud simultaneously. There is going to be a lot of creativity coming off of this platform over the near term. Early developer feedback is decidedly underwhelmed, however. Posting on The Ajaxian, András Bártházi writes: rogramming in Flash what I’m not really interested in. It needs a quite different setup that I have now for web development, the tools are not free and are just a few of them, they’re not really platform independent, too. As I see, more or less running Flash applications natively was possible earlier, too, it’s nothing really new. The interesting thing would be writing desktop programs with HTML or other ML, JavaScript, without compiling. If it will be possible, and won’t be hard, I’ll be interested in this environment. And a reader names Shuan writes (sic is default): in apollo, u have the runtime layer, and the html/flex application built on top. everything runs within that window… like a normal browser....[Read Full Article]

Google (secretly) to Viacom: 'Bring it on'
On her Lawgarithms blog, Denise Howell picks up the thread that Google is not exactly averse to this Viacom suit, which may mean that it won't settle as quickly as some may think. She cites Katie Hafner's October 06 look at Google's legal eagles: Michael Kwun, a senior litigation counsel at Google, ... said that establishing a body of precedent was a priority for Google, especially as legal interpretations continued to evolve. “If we don’t at least litigate to the point where we get rulings on the issues that matter to us, we’re left with less clarity in the law,” he said. And EFF's Fred von Lohmann, as interviewed by John Battelle: I've thought for some time that the first lawsuits against YouTube (and other video hosting services) will be from small copyright owners (like LA News Service), not from major media companies. That's good news for YouTube (and Google). Small timers tend to lack the resources to bring top-drawer legal talent to bear in these fights. As a result, they often lose, creating useful precedents for the Google's of the world. In fact, Google has already been successful in securing good precedents against unsophisticated opponents who thought that they could squeeze a quick settlement out of Google (Field v. Google, Parker v. Google). What the small-timers don't appreciate is that Google would much rather spend money on setting a good precedent than on settling. So I think the YouTube acquisition may well represent a legal opportunity for Google (and...[Read Full Article]

MS Research: Search spam originates with a few 'rogue actors'
Microsoft researchers say they've tracked down all those search engine spam pages to a small group of "rogue actors" acting in collaboration with advertisers, The Times' John Markoff reports. The report is online here (PDF). The researchers uncovered a complex scheme in which a small group, creating false doorway pages, works with operators of Web-based computers who profit by redirecting traffic passed from search engines in one direction and then sending advertisements acquired from syndicators in the opposite direction. Surprisingly, the researchers noted that the vast bulk of the junk listings was created from just two Web hosting companies and that as many as 68 percent of the advertisements sampled were placed by just three advertising syndicators. As suspected blog services are a huge reason for the explosion in the problem, and ironically, it's Google's own Blogger that is the most wide open to abuse. The Microsoft research findings, based on a survey in October, also determined that much of the spam ad traffic was being funneled through the Internet addresses of just two Web-hosting companies. Phillip Rosenthal, chief technology officer of one of the companies, ISPrime, an Internet services company based in New York, said the activity had been traced to a single customer and violated the company’s acceptable-use policy. He said the company’s relationship with the customer, whom he would not identify, had been severed after the company was notified about the Microsoft paper by a reporter....[Read Full Article]

Scoble: MSFT in it "to win?" Hardly.
Robert Scoble has as they told the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Global Summit) Robert thinks it would all be quite funny, if it weren't pathetic. The words are empty. Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that’s “in it to win” then I don’t get it. ...Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative Oh, and Ballmer, if I ran Google your speech at Stanford yesterday would be plastered on every door on every campus Google has. Why? It’ll motivate Google employees the same way a coach will motivate an opposing team during the Superbowl by taking trash in the press. You’re up against a formidable competitor and one you’ve never seen before that has some real, significant weapons that you can’t deal with (and YouTube isn’t even close to it). Google’s secret weapon? It controls the entire stack in the datacenter. Google writes its own hard disk drivers. It has its datacenter hardware built to its spec. Ever wonder why Live.com is slower than Google? Hint: it’s cause Google is out executing Microsoft in the datacenter....[Read Full Article]

Did pretexters get off too lightly?
The Chronicle's David Lazarus says the state's failure to prosecute Pattie Dunn or her pretexting henchmen sends a message that business as usual is just alright. He quotes a few privacy consultants: "It's a mixed message," said Ray Everett-Church, a Silicon Valley privacy consultant. "On the one hand, we're being told that this is illegal. On the other, we're told that this is apparently a standard business practice." "This seems to be a slap on the wrist for something that's pretty serious," said Christine Rosen, an associate professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "For other companies, the message seems to be that these sorts of practices are going to be treated as a trivial thing," she said. Lazarus says that Dunn and Mark Hurd managed to adequately shield themselves from the chain of command. "The lack of a clear chain of command in the corporate probe is what seems to have derailed much of the state's legal case." Still, there are other investigations to come. Both the SEC and the US Attorney's Office are also pursuing charges against Dunn and other players....[Read Full Article]

gPhone confirmed?
Elinor Mills at News.com says a European Google executive let slip that a Google phone is in fact in the works. The head of Google in Spain and Portugal has confirmed that Google is working on a mobile phone. "Some of the time the engineers are dedicated to developing a mobile phone," Isabel Aguilera is quoted as saying on the Spanish-news Web site Noticias.com. A Google spokeswoman in the United States released this statement when asked for comment: "Mobile is an important area for Google and we remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce." Google stateside has repeatedly declined to comment on rumors of a Google Phone, but the smoke has been rising lately. Earlier this month, Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners wrote in his blog that an inside source told him the Google Phone will be a BlackBerry-like device running C++ at the core with an operating system bootstrap, or loading program, and optimized Java, and that it would offer voice over Internet Protocol....[Read Full Article]

3.15.07 Cisco buys WebEx
The purchase price is about $3.2 billion, according to the press release. WebEx is a market leader in on-demand collaboration applications, and its network-based solution for delivering business-to-business collaboration extends Cisco's vision for Unified Communications, particularly within the Small to Medium Business (SMB) segment. "As collaboration in the workplace becomes increasingly important, companies are looking for rich communications tools to help them work more effectively and efficiently," said Charles H. Giancarlo, Chief Development Officer at Cisco. "The combination of Cisco and WebEx will deliver compelling solutions accelerating this next wave of business communications. Cisco believes the network is a platform for all forms of communications and collaboration, and WebEx's technology and services portfolio complement Cisco's leadership in the Unified Communications and collaboration market, while providing Cisco with a new and unique business model to expand its presence in the fast-growing SMB market," Giancarlo continued. Om Malik says the buy is part of a strategy to compete head to head with Microsoft in SMB services. For the price of two YouTubes, Cisco just bought a company that had sales of $380 million, and a net income of around $47 million. The move, a smart one, is actually part of a bigger chess game the company is playing against Microsoft. Microsoft with its communications efforts is increasingly competing with Cisco in the VoIP business. The two companies will continue to butt heads as the worlds of computing and communication collide and become COMMputing....[Read Full Article]

3.15.07 Viacom suit is an assault on Silicon Valley
So I finally read Viacom's complaint against Google and from a legal perspective I find it strange. The complaint is completely based on the Copyright Act and completely ignores the DMCA's Safe Harbor provisions. This section of the DMCA essentially says that "service providers" will not be liable for user-submitted content if it's posted in an automated process. The other major part of the law provides that the content owner can provide a "take down" notice; if the service provider doesn't comply, then it becomes liable for the infringement. While Viacom doesn't attack the Safe Harbor directly, it strongly suggests the law is unfair to content owners. Even though Defendants are well aware of the rampant infringement on the YouTube website, and YouTube has the right and ability to control it, YouTube's intentional strategy has been to take no steps to curtail the infringement from which it profits unless notified of specific infringing videos by copyright owners, thereby shifting the entire burden - and high cost - of monitoring YouTube's infringement onto the victims of the infringement. In other words, YouTube is accused of doing exactly what the DMCA says it should do - wait for a take-down notice. Google will claim the Safe Harbor provisions in their defense and, as I see it, Viacom will need to show that Google was not in compliance with those provisions, that they in some way encouraged or selected or promoted copyright-infringing material. Thus, they should lose. Which will suit them fine,...[Read Full Article]

3.15.07 Charges against Dunn dropped, Hurd wins battles with retirement funds
California has dropped charges against Pattie Dunn, and charges against the three other defendants will be dismissed once they complete their community service. NYT: Charges Dismissed in HP Spying Case Good timing for Mark Hurd, who for the first time since the fiasco broke, was facing shareholders at the annual meeting. “Let me assure you that no one is proud of what happened last year,” Mr. Hurd told shareholders. “We need to transform our board the same way we transformed the company.” Exactly how that transformation takes place was the subject of investor debate. CALPers and other big investors wanted to be able to appoint some directors. Hurd was against that - and again, Hurd got his way. They voted to re-elect all eight members of the current board, and voted down a proposal to allow stockholders to nominate up to two board candidates, leaving the responsibility with Mr. Hurd and the other directors. That proposal, which gained about 39 percent of the shares voted on Wednesday, was fiercely opposed by H.P. executives, who said the board already accommodated shareholder input. While there are still other investigation under way (notably at SEC), HP was escaped the storm. No one is going to jail, although a few people lost their jobs. Hurd is firmly in control and investors big and small must simply trust that HP culture has changed on a dime and it's smooth sailing ahead....[Read Full Article]

3.14.07 Dylan Hears a Who
Everyone should listen to these tracks. Is it a mashup or a damn good impersonator. I can't believe it's a mashup, it would be too timeconsuming and the tracks are too smooth for me to believe it's cut together. But he sure does sound like Highway 61-era Dylan. In any case, it's a great tribute. Dylan Hears a Who The best little touch: if you stop the music you hear the crackle of a needle on a vinyl LP. And click the link for album art....[Read Full Article]

3.14.07 Cuban: Google doesn't know how big Viacom suit really is
In a long post in which he explains the Entertainment Business to addle-brained Web 2.0 junkies, Mark Cuban drives his point all the way to ultimate meaning of the Viacom-Google lawsuit. Laws that currently protect Internet companies will quickly be changed. First, as to why Viacom is justified in their $1 billion suit against Google/YouTube: HBO charges a monthly fee to subscribers. If someone can watch an HBO show on Google Video or Youtube, even if its divided into 1, 3 or 6 parts and reassembled into a playlist, they have far less incentive to subscribe or retain their subscription(s). HBO in turn, syndicates those shows to cable networks. As an example, A&E paid a reported $2.2 million dollars PER EPISODE of the Sopranos. If the content is available online, do you think maybe it might reduce the value to A&E and HBO of the Sopranos ? And thats before we even get to overseas syndication. Then of course there are DVD sales. Youtube downloads every video right to your PC. Google Video not only downloads to your PC, it provides the option to convert it into a PDA format including the Ipod. So tell me why it makes good business sense for HBO to let users post the content they sell for a ton of money ? Normally, you'd figure that Viacom settles this suit for money and the implementation of more find-and-destroy technology and some kind of licensing deal. But of course there are many more content producers...[Read Full Article]

3.14.07 Is Slacker competing against iPod or XM/Sirius?
Even as XM and Sirius have conceded there's not enough users for two sat radio services, some industry execs are launching Slacker, sort of Satellite 2.0, Matt Marshall reports. They announced a web-based service today and are releasing PC software shortly, which will provide a free (with ads) alternative to iTunes. And they're coming out with their own player as well. It's a satellite service that lets you teach it what songs you like and which you never want to hear again. The company is aimed at the vast majority of iPod users who don't keep constantly updating their playlists. You just turn it on and you get music you like - limited, however, by the universe of music the company has licensed, currently about 2 million songs. So you can't pull up the music you want to hear immediately, don't get to own it and can't use it on your computer, you can't listen to podcasts, can't put your own music on it. On the plus side, you don't have to think about it, don't have to transfer music from PC to device, and don't have to buy music, just pay $7.95 a month for the ads-free version (the with-ads version would surely be unacceptable.) The device is about the size of a blackberry. So you can carry it around like you do an iPod. However, Slacker’s servers will communicate with your Slacker device constantly. It uses commercial satellites, and WiFi, refreshing your device’s drive with new songs when...[Read Full Article]

3.13.07 Eisner offers up lessons from Content 101
Michael Eisner has a few words about content. His new webshow production company, Vuguru is launching with a series of 90-second long shows about high school competition gone to extremes, Prom Queen. (Read Eisner dives into Web TV.) He's working with Veoh, a company in which he's a major investor, to deliver his production value shows. In an interview with News.com, Eiser has a few choice words for marketers who think it's all about strategy and platform - and he lets it be known that user-created content has a long way to go to meet his standards. Here's the absolutely best line in the interview and it applies to journalism and all other "content" as well: We come from a place about story. It is story, story, story. It is emotion, it is humor, it makes you laugh, cry, whatever. We do not come from a technology platform, and we are not interested in a technology platform for anything other than to get it out there any more than I would have been interested in slow motion as the end product of sports coverage. What's interesting in a sport is the game. How you shoot it, and how you use technology, just makes it more attractive. But the game is the answer, and we're interested in the game, not the camera. Other answers carry a similar theme. You come up with what you think is a good idea that interests you, and you put it out there. If it happens...[Read Full Article]

3.13.07 MSFT, GOOG in coalition to deliver Internet over TV airwaves
Internet, online and on the air Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel and Philips say they can deliver Internet over TV airwaves - and they're pushing the FCC to give them the green light, says the Washington Post. The coalition has come up with a device that would make TV-spectrum Internet work in homes. After a few months of testing, they're hoping the agency will approve the device and that it could be sold in stores by 2009. "These devices have the potential to take the success of the WiFi phenomenon to another level," said Jonathan S. Adelstein, an FCC commissioner. That would mean a little competition for the cable companies and telcos, which of course also control massive amounts of content. And really the greatest use of TV Internet would probably be in rural areas, where it's hard and expensive to get wired net and wireless solutions have proven too flaky. IMO, it should also work in urban areas where underprivileged can't afford to pay $60 a month for cable Internet. In any case, it could have a positive effect on municipal wireless networks. In urban areas, a TV Internet system might somehow be combined with phone- or cable-provided Internet service to redirect signals through every wall of a house or office -- without replacing the phone or cable company as the provider, said a person affiliated with the coalition. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about such possible uses....[Read Full Article]

3.13.07 Viacom sues Google for $1 billion
Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion over the presence of its content on YouTube, Reuters reports. Viacom says there are 160,000 copyright clips on YouTube, which have been viewed 1.5 billion times. Here's Viacom's statement: “YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws. In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden – and high cost – of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement. This behavior stands in stark contrast to the actions of other significant distributors, who have recognized the fair value of entertainment content and have concluded agreements to make content legally available to their customers around the world. There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission and destroying enormous value in the process. This is value that rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create it and companies like Viacom that have invested to make possible this innovation and creativity. After a great deal of unproductive negotiation, and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube...[Read Full Article]

3.12.07 Eisner dives into Web TV
In Wired 1.01, Nicholas Negroponte dismissed the push to HDTV with this pithy lede: When you look at television, ask yourself: What's wrong with it? Picture resolution? Of course not. What's wrong is the programming. That was 1993. These days, the programming is clearly better, thanks to HBO and a few other cable networks. There's still plenty wrong with Web video, but YouTube has solved one big chunk - sharing and redistribution. But despite a few breakout hits like the Mentos guys and Lonelygirl, the programming mostly consists of stuff lifted from TV, hence the deep concerns over copyright. With Google in charge of YouTube, copyright owners are concerned Google will be only too happy to wrap advertising around their content investments. (There's also the problem of getting the stuff off the computer and onto the TV.) Enter Michael Eisner, who is forming Vuguru, a development company for direct-to-Web programming, USA Today reports. Vuguru also today will unveil its first show: a serialized mystery called Prom Queen that will roll out over 80 days beginning April 2 with daily installments lasting 90 seconds. It's co-produced with production company Big Fantastic, in a deal brokered by United Talent Agency. "There's a new distribution platform that's going to be ubiquitous, and that's clearly broadband," Eisner says. While sites that feature user-generated video, such as YouTube, "won the short-term sprint" to reach audiences, he says, "Winning the marathon will be professionally produced, emotionally driven story content." Check Vuguru.com and promqueen.tv to tune in....[Read Full Article]

3.12.07 Wikipedia deals with fake experts
Who's Essjay? He's not, it turns out, a tenured professor in Catholic law but rather 24-year-old Ryan Jordan. The disclosure has prompted Jimmy Wales to draft a credential verification scheme and is causing something of an identity crisis among the Wikipedians, The Times says. The details of how Mr. Wales’s system would work are still being bandied about, and include the idea of having users fax copies of their diplomas to Wikipedia’s offices, or relying on a “circle of trust,” whereby a trusted individual would be in charge of verification. Mr. Wales said he thought that some version of his proposal would begin on the site “in a week.” Florence Devouard, head of Wikimedia Foundation board, said she was “not supportive” of the proposal. “I think what matters is the quality of the content, which we can improve by enforcing policies such as ‘cite your source,’ not the quality of credentials showed by an editor,” she added. Wales concedes: “The moral of the story is what makes for a good Wikipedian is not a good credential.” But he always realizes something important: that Wikipedia will die if people perceive that it is “written by a bunch of 12-year-olds.” In general I agree with Devouard that "cite your source" is the best protection against falsity and slopppiness. As a law student, I take offense at assertions of fact that can't be backed up. It's not enough that others may correct errors. In the law, assertions require proof. Published works are best,...[Read Full Article]

3.9.07 First Blush: CSPAN video is free, Josh Wolf is not, Danny Hills puts the Web into a database
Danny Hillis launches his MetaWeb Technologies, a "semantic Web" company that strives to make the Web more like a database. (NYT) Jury orders Vonage to pay Verizon $58 million in patent infringement fees. There will be an appeal. (NYT) In the brouhaha over the cable network's ownership of Congressional hearing video, C-SPAN has come up with a Creative Commons-like license to all its video content. Bloggers, including Nancy Pelosi, can post C-SPAN video. The terms: share-alike, non-commercial, attribution. (Ars Technica) Palm has hired former Apple engineer Paul Mercer to design new phone/PDA units to compete with iPhone (NYT) Josh Wolf and the US Attorney's Office had a session with a mediator yesterday. Unless some breakthrough occurred, Wolf will probably stay in jail until July. But, Wolf's reasons for staying in jail are "less than crystal clear." (Wash Post) Gateway executives are liable for manipulating earnings and lying to the SEC, a civil jury found. ((AP)...[Read Full Article]

3.8.07 Valleywag: Red Herring on its death bed
ValleyWag says that Red Herring magazine will shutter the doors anytime now. Claims that the magazine had a $1 million infusion of cash coming in was a "lie." Staffers' paychecks arrived late and/or the magazine didn't print. The magazine has failed to print several issues. Caulfield's out. Managing Editor Eric Wahlgren is rumored to be heading out too (going to something science-related), which would leave quite a hole at the top of the masthead. Of course, the cash-starved RH keeps hiring new Editorial Assistants and promoting them to Journalists -- the perfect solution to fill the dying ranks from the bottom, i suppose. Journalist Jennifer Kho is likely heading out too, if I'm correct. There goes the energy reporter! The HR director (Kevin Lee) quit a few weeks ago too. I think that, at this point, virtually everyone is shopping their resume out... at least, I should hope they are. In true publishing industry fashion, one day the doors will just be locked....[Read Full Article]

3.8.07 Judge: Intel, AMD must determine if lost email relevant, important
The judge in the Intel-AMD lawsuit ordered both sides to work with a mediator to figure out how serious Intel's loss of email is, InfoWeek reports. Intel admitted recently that it had deleted some of the emails AMD had requested in discovery in the case. The judge gave Intel 30 days to determine whether any of the lost email was relevant to AMD's suit and how important they are. After that, AMD will have two weeks to respond and Intel will have 10 days to answer AMD's response. All of this to be done under the eye of a mediator, who will report to the judge. Intel could face sanctions for the destruction of the email. Intel in court filings on Monday acknowledged that for three and a half months after AMD filed its suit on June 27, 2005, a small number of employees whose e-mails were considered potential evidence failed to move all messages to their hard drives, which means they would have been purged automatically from Intel's system. In addition, "a few" employees believed erroneously that Intel's IT group was automatically saving their e-mails. The judge considers the deletion unintentional but AMD is fuming. "Given the obvious implications to the administration of justice, it is exactly right that Intel must now prepare a full accounting, fashion an effective remedy, and be accountable for the loss of evidence," Thomas M. McCoy, chief administrative officer and executive VP of legal affairs for AMD, said in an e-mailed statement. If the...[Read Full Article]

3.8.07 Only truly big sites deserve VC investment
(Via Tim O'Reilly) Venture capitalist Jeremy Liew says any investment needs to have potential to reach $50 million. If your brilliant idea is for an ad-supported Web 2.0 site, here's how big you'd have to get to make Liew's investment pay off. With today's CPMs, really big. 1. Be a site with a broad reach (say general social networking, communications, news). At large scale, without a great deal of targeting possible, a startup’s “run of site” or “run of network” advertising might be able to get to the $1 RPM range (Revenue per thousand impressions). To get to $50m in revenue you would need 50 billion pageviews in a year, or just over 4 billion per month. 2. Be a site with demographic targeting (say a Latino portal, or a sports site (targeted at men) or a social network targeted at baby boomers). Although in TV and in magazines, demographic targeting can generate double digit CPMs, online at scale, RPMs tend to be in the low single digit range. Lets assume a $5 RPM. To get to $50m in revenue you would need 10 billion pageviews in a year, or just over 800 million per month. (More than Microsoft.com.) 3. Be a site with endemic advertising opportunities (say a site about movies that movie studios will want to advertise on, or a site about cars that auto manufacturers will want to advertise on, or a site about travel that hotels and airlines and online travel agencies will want to...[Read Full Article]

Chinese Dissident's Wife to Sue Yahoo
The wife of Chinese dissident has come to the US to sue Yahoo for turning over her husband's emails to Chinese authorities. He was sentenced in 2003 to 10 years in prison for publishing "subversive" articles on the Internet, reports Voice of America. Speaking with VOA's Mandarin Service Wednesday after arriving in Washington, Yu Ling said Chinese police arrested her husband, Wang Xiaoning, partly because Yahoo's Hong Kong office gave Chinese authorities information about his e-mail accounts. Yu Ling said she has come to the United States to sue the company for damages and to demand an apology. Last year, Yahoo provided the Chinese with information about Shi Tao, a journalist who emailed to Western news outlets details of China's plans to handle the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen Square....[Read Full Article]

3.8.07 Glorious republic of Kazakhstan censored Borat
Among the human rights abuses chronicled by the State Department is that Kazakhstan took control of the .kz domain and deleted the Borat website there, AP reports. The government also monitored e-mail and Internet activity, blocked or slowed access to opposition websites and planted propaganda in Internet chat rooms, the State Department said. "The government limited individuals' ability to criticize the country's leadership, and regional leaders attempted to limit local media outlets' criticism of them."...[Read Full Article]

3.7.07 gPhone silliness ...
Venture Beat is reporting heavily on rumors that Google is working a cellphone, rumors that Eric Schmidt denied yesterday. It all stems from a post from Polaris Venture Partners' Simeon Simeonov (a name right out of Tolstoy), who said a source described a phone stack that would run optimized Java on a C++-bootstrapped OS. Everyone's sure that means Google is doing a Steve Jobs-like number, where Google controls hardware and software and service providers dance to their tune. That is sheer speculation, though. Consider what he told VB: Why does he think Google will want to dictate the hardware too? Look at Apple, he says. Apple’s selling point for its iPhone is that it controls both the hardware and software completely, and if you’re a partner or user, you have the option of being on board or not, he explained. Microsoft, on the other end of the spectrum, says ‘We sort of control the software, but you can mess with it in other ways — for example, by taking out the IE browser, and putting in Opera.” He said Google itself may not even be sure about where it is on the spectrum between Apple and Microsoft, because it is in a complex dance with multiple players, such as with carriers about ad revenue share and distribution. On the one hand, Google has a great brand, but it’s not like Apple, where its brand is associated with hardware. However, Simeonov says “it doesn’t feel Googlish” to forgo the hardware, and...[Read Full Article]

3.7.07 On the Hill Gates continues campaign for better education, more workers
Bill Gates continued his lobbying campaign for more investment in education and workers on Capitol Hill yesterday, saying he suffered "deep anxiety" over the state of US innovation, Computerworld reports. “America simply cannot continue along this course,” said Gates in written testimony delivered to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.“When I reflect on the state of American competitiveness today, my immediate feeling is not only one of pride, but also of deep anxiety. "Too often, we as a society are sacrificing the long-term good of our country in the interests of short-term gain." Gates said in too many areas, the U.S. is “content to live off the investments that previous generations made for us — in education, in health care, in basic scientific research — but [is] unwilling to invest equal energy and resources into building on this legacy to ensure that America’s future is as bright and prosperous as its present.” "A top priority must be to reverse our dismal high school graduation rates — with a target of doubling the number of young people who graduate from high school ready for college, career and life — and to place a major emphasis on encouraging careers in math and science,” Gates said. Gates said the H-1B program was unacceptably limited. He predicted that “for the first time in the history of the program, the supply will run out before the year’s graduating students get their degrees. This means that U.S. employers will not be able to...[Read Full Article]

3.7.07 Panama won't boost Yahoo for a while but morale is up
Yahoo's Panama - the context-based ad placement service that is supposed to return Yahoo to powerhouse glory - has been out a month, but CFO Susan Decker says Wall Street shouldn't look for an impact on Sunnyvale's bottom line until the second half of the year, AP says. But it's already making a critical change in Yahoo's culture, CEO Terry Semel says. Panama ''is now out and we are starting to smile again,'' said Semel, who is also Yahoo's chairman. ''It has changed the mood and tempo of the company.'' It needs to do both, analysts say. If Yahoo can't turn the ship around with Panama, Semel may need to start looking around for warmer waters. Either that, or an acquisition by Microsoft could be in the works. Decker predicts Yahoo will make gains at Yahoo's expense. "Our hope and expectation is we will see query share improve as our relevancy improves."...[Read Full Article]

3.7.07 Microsoft Research focused on search
Is search broken? Microsoft thinks that it is - at least, it concedes that MSN Search is not doing the trick (Google market share: 53.7%; MSN marketshare: 8.9%). So at TechFest - Redmond's three-day chance to show off to reporters and employees the neat tricks MS Research is working on - the word of the week is "search," says the Times' John Markoff. Lili Cheng, a user-interface designer for the Windows Vista operating system, showed off a new service called Mix that will allow Web surfers to organize search results and easily share them. She said Mix would be released in six to nine months. A second tool demonstrated, called Web Assistant, is intended to improve the relevance of search results and help resolve ambiguities in results that, for example, would give a user sites for both Reggie Bush and George Bush. Microsoft is not the spiffiest when it comes to product names, but these widgets are not products yet. Personalized Search compares web-search results with an index of content on the user's hard drive (that's generated by Desktop Search, quite similar apparently to Google Desktop). It does a neat trick, though. Susan Dumais, a veteran Microsoft search expert, demonstrated the effectiveness of the program by searching for Michael Jordan. By culling through local information on her hard drive, the program was able to discern that she was interested in finding the Michael Jordan who is the machine-learning expert at the University of California, Berkeley, not the basketball player. Search...[Read Full Article]

3.6.07 MS to publishers: Fear Google, solve 'orphan works' problem
Microsoft launched an attack on Google's respect for copyright today. Speaking at a publishing conference, Tom Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel accused Google of encouraging salespeople to sell keywords on pirated software and illegal downloads of music and movies. Text of Rubin's prepared remarks Microsoft was surprised to learn recently that Google employees have actively encouraged advertisers to build advertising programs around key words referring to pirated software, including pirated Microsoft software. And we weren’t the only victims – Google also encouraged the use of keywords and advertising text referring to illegal copies of music and movies. These actions bolstered websites dedicated to piracy and reportedly netted Google around $800,000 in advertising revenues from just four such pirate sites. At the end of a speech where he emphasized Microsoft's respect for copyright and castigated Google for treating it cavalierly, Rubin also told the publishing industry that it needs to update its act and make accomodations to the online world. He especially called for two industries to come up with a solution to the orphan works problem - the fact that it's virtually impossible to find owners of many copyrights. Online providers should make diligent efforts to locate copyright owners, but when they cannot locate the owner, there must be a process or a safety net by which they can move forward without risk of liability beyond payment of a reasonable royalty if the copyright holder later makes herself known." He also told the publishers they need to realize that online...[Read Full Article]

3.6.07 Online revenue up for Times
Online is looking up for the New York Times, at a time when traditional newspaper businesses are suffering, CEO Janet Robinson told a Bear Stearns conference. Online revenue growth will increase 30 percent in 2007, from $273m to $350m, accounting for 10.6 percent of total revenue. The leap comes as the Times invests more money in its online business. At the same time, it is cutting costs through plant closings, shutting foreign bureaus at the Boston Globe and outsourcing various functions at some of its other papers as print advertising weakens. In 2007, the Times expects to achieve cost savings and productivity gains of $65 million to $75 million, excluding expenses, Chief Financial Officer James Follo said at the conference....[Read Full Article]

3.6.07 Schmidt: Google working with Apple, no more YouTube-size deals
Eric Schmidt told an investors' conference that Google is working closely with Apple, noting that the two companies have "similar goals and similar competitors," Reuters' Eric Auchard reports. The two companies are doing "more and more things together," he said. The answer came in response to a question about a rumored Google phone that would compete with Apple's iPhone. Schmidt joined Apple's board in August '06. Schmidt also said that it would be "highly unlikely" for Google cut any more billion-dollar deals like the one for YouTube. "It is not obvious to me where it would go," he said referring the pile of cash Google is accumulating - more than $11 billion. Investors are anxious to see some diversification at Google. Virtually all of Google' revenue comes from advertising. Schmidt said the newest meaningful contributor to revenue will be from the company selling subscriptions to business software delivered via the Web, its so-called "Google Apps" business. "The next really big one is actually an extension of Google Apps," Schmidt said in speaking of major revenue contributors. And finally, he dismissed rumors of a Yahoo-Microsoft merger. "There are so many new areas ... where targeted advertising can be done. It does not strike me as the right time to be consolidating the whole market," he said, noting how the pace of innovation promises explosive change for years to come....[Read Full Article]

3.6.07 VC3: Ready Set Pitch
So, it's a humbling experience, making the rounds on Sand Hill, making your well-honed elevator pitch. Why not compress the whole sordid affair into a rapid-fire afternoon? That was the idea behind VC3 - part of EntrepreneurshipUSA - give budding startups three minutes to pitch and VCs three minutes to respond. Then move on. It was a humbling experience for some of the hopeful, the Mercury News reports. Eric Frenkiel, a purposeful, bespectacled 21-year-old Stanford junior, recently launched what he coyly described as a site ``in the fashion-media space.'' In a session with young venture capitalists John Vrionis and Chris Sun -- themselves Stanford alums now working at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Storm Ventures, respectively -- Frenkiel talked at a fevered clip ... At the end, Vrionis handed Frenkiel his business card, but Frenkiel took it glumly. ``Are you giving your card to everyone?'' he asked plaintively. His demeanor brightened when Vrionis said no. But it's hard to hold a VC's attention even for three minutes. In reality you probably have 15 seconds to get someone's attention. After that, it's just politeness. Brian Ong, a 24-year-old Stanford graduate student who launched an online services marketplace in December with four friends, said some VCs were: ``actually checking their BlackBerrys while I was talking. We're talking about a three-minute pitch,'' he said, incredulous. ``Maybe some of them need to see who's e-mailing them at every single minute of the afternoon, but I kind of doubt it.'' Doesn't seem like the financiers were...[Read Full Article]

3.6.07 Intel can't find emails for AMD lawsuit
Well it would be handy to AMD's lawsuit alleging anticompetitive behavior against Intel, but the chip giant just can't seem to find some of the emails AMD asked to see, the Mercury News reports. Intel told U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan that it had some "document retention lapses" in the discovery process. Intel said it has been communicating its problems with AMD and that it is doing everything it can to piece together e-mails that were inadvertently deleted by employees. It said that certain employees failed to move e-mails from their sent boxes to their hard drives, as the company asked them to do, and that they were purged automatically by Intel's e-mail system. AMD's response? In typical fashion, Intel's archrival says the "lapses" were hardly inadvertant. The Mercury reports AMD wrote in a court filing: ``Intel executives at the highest level failed to receive or to heed instructions essential for the preservation of their records, and Intel and its counsel failed to institute and police a reliable backup system as a fail-safe against human error.'' Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said, "We did not intentionally destroy anything. We are attempting to recover everything. We are leaving no stone unturned." He said Intel is spending ``millions'' on looking for e-mails, reconstructing e-mail traffic and creating a new backup system. Intel said that in July 2005, it sent a notice to hundreds of employees who, based on the complaint, were the most likely to possess relevant documents. It asked those employees...[Read Full Article]

3.5.07 Judge throws out MP3 verdict
After a federal jury handed down the biggest patent infringement verdict ever, a federal judge has thrown out the verdict, ruling as a matter of law that Microsoft didn't infringe Alcatel-Lucent's MP3 patents, CNET News.com reports. The judge dismissed all 19 of the claims made by Alcatel-Lucent, which plans to appeal and is "comfortable with our chances of success as the case makes its way through the legal system", spokeswoman Joan Campion said. Microsoft deputy general counsel Tom Burt said the ruling "reaffirms our confidence that once there's judicial review of these complex patent cases, these Alcatel-Lucent claims ultimately won't stand up." Don't worry, there's plenty more patent action. A new trial between the two over user interface patents starts May 21....[Read Full Article]

3.5.07 RIM chair quits in backdating scandal
Options scandal takes down RIM's Balsillie The option backdating scandal took down RIM's chairman, Jim Balsillie, this morning as the BlackBerry maker admitted it needed to remove $250 million from past earnings, as a result of improper accounting for the options, AP reports. The Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of the popular handheld Internet device said a special committee determined that all options granted prior to Feb. 27, 2002, were accounted for incorrectly. The company said Balsillie was directly involved in approving grants following the company's initial public offering in 1997, including grants that have been found to have been accounted for incorrectly. Balsillie's role in approving grants decreased over time as more responsibility for approving certain grants was given to Kavelman and other employees. Balsillie and CEO Michael Lazaridis both agreed to pay back $4.25 million to help defray costs. While Balsillie has resigned, Lazaridis remains on as CEO....[Read Full Article]

3.5.07 CA bill would require open XML
The movement towards open document formats in government is gaining steam, as a bill was introduced in the California legislature to require state government to use XML formats, BetaNews reports. The bill would indeed stipulate that state workers must create documents using the XML-based format, not just archive them. So Microsoft Office 2003 and older versions would have to be replaced on or before January 1, 2008; and conceivably, existing documents might need to be translated on or before that time - a process which for other states generally takes far longer than twelve months. The bill says the format must be interoperable, fully published, royalty-free, sponsored by an open industry organization, and implemented by multiple vendors. A new version of Novell's WordPerfect that supports Microsoft's Open Office XML would mean that Microsoft's standard would qualify, as well as Open Office, based on the ODF format. Now Microsoft says, the format war is over, with the new MS Office and Open Office both supporting OOXML and ODF. "I think at this point we can really move onto more productive and collaborative discussion and admit that we are no longer in any sort of "file format war." If we ever were really in a war, it's now over, and both sides are winners," said program manager Brian Jones....[Read Full Article]

3.5.07 Patent Office 2.0?
I guess this is Digg.com for the Patent Office. Everyone knows it takes too long to process patent apps, that too many trivial software "inventions" win patents, and that the software industry plays a game of mutually assured destruction with patents. Still is this Web 2.0 thing going a little too far? The Post reports: The Patent and Trademark Office is starting a pilot project that will not only post patent applications on the Web and invite comments but also use a community rating system designed to push the most respected comments to the top of the file, for serious consideration by the agency's examiners. A first for the federal government, the system resembles the one used by Wikipedia, the popular user-created online encyclopedia. The project was hatched by IBM and New York Law School Professor Beth Noveck. Noveck called the initiative "revolutionary" and said it will bring about "the first major change to our patent examination system since the 19th century." "For the first time in history, it allows the patent-office examiners to open up their cubicles and get access to a whole world of technical experts," said David J. Kappos, vice president and assistant general counsel at IBM. Under the pilot project, major tech companies have agreed to have their applications reviewed online. Among the volunteers: Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and IBM. You can volunteer too. The program will start with apps from software design. Anyone who believes he knows of information relating to these proposed patents will...[Read Full Article]

3.5.07 The new power in social nets: Cisco?
So this is odd. Last month Cisco bought Five Across, not a company that springs to most people's minds when you think social networking. (I profiled Five Across' previous incarnation, Bubbler, in 2005.) This week Cisco will announce its acquiring the technology infrastructure behind Tribe.net, a social networking pioneer that has largely retrenched to the Burning Man crowd, the NY Times reports. What's going on? The Times' Brad Stone says: The deal[s] will give Cisco the technology to help large corporate clients create services resembling MySpace or YouTube to bring their customers together online. And that ambition highlights a significant shift in the way companies and entrepreneurs are thinking about social networks. And from there Stone devines a trend. MySpace and Facebook were great, awesome, as far as they went but now they are hitting a wall. The future of social networks will be community-based. Of course, the large social networks naturally splintered up into lots of little communities and advertising areas, etc. But with more focus, something better can result, Ning cofounder Marc Andreessen says. “The existing social networks are fantastic but they put users in a straitjacket,” said Mr. Andreessen, who this week reintroduced Ning, his third start-up, after a limited introduction last year. “They are restrictive about what you can and can’t do, and they were not built to be flexible. They do not let people build and design their own worlds, which is the nature of what people want to do online.” So will Cisco be...[Read Full Article]

3.5.07 Cleantech companies litter the Valley
The Chronicle ran a front-page look at the Valley's cleantech industry (or "green tech" - reporter David Baker emphasizes that the industry is so new it hasn't settled on nickname yet), profiling some of the new and more established companies in the area. There's Menlo Park's Solazyme, which is genetically engineering algae to produce oil. They recently picked up a financing round from Berkeley's Roda Group. The current interest in cleantech is a welcome change for such companies. A few years ago, Valley VCs were a lot less interested. We'd go talk to biotech VCs, and they'd say, 'This is interesting, but we know nothing about this energy business," said Harrison Dillon, Solazyme's chief executive officer. Then there are more established companies, like SunPower in San Jose, which makes highly efficient solar powers. It brought in $236.5 million in revenue last year, up 200 percent from $78.7 million the year before. Its profit hit $26.5 million. Competing with SunPower is Santa Clara-based Miasolé, of Santa Clara, which will soon start producing "thin-film" solar panels. Rather than collect the sun's energy with silicon wafers, the traditional solar technology, Miasolé uses a combination of copper, indium, gallium and selenium -- all deposited on razor-thin, stainless steel sheets. Thin-film cells don't convert sunlight to electricity as efficiently as silicon cells. But Miasolé's process for making cells will be far cheaper, said Chief Executive Officer David Pearce. If all goes as planned, Miasolé should be able to cut the production cost of solar cells...[Read Full Article]

3.1.07 Understanding Google - media company, online service, or both?
Can Google have its cake and eat it too? That's what Tom wonders in this follow-up post to my report on a federal decision that Google has the right to refuse advertising as it sees fit. Tom wrote: "An ISP can argue that it is just a pipe, a bit carrier, and therefore has the protection of the [Communications Decency Act]." But the CDA protection is much broader than this. In fact it's really aimed at user-created content, protecting "online services" from liability for what users post. In one case, a service was found not liable for some very clearly libelous things a user wrote about a starlet. And just recently, as I reported two weeks ago, the CDA was found to protect MySpace against liability for an online predator's use of the service. In that case, the court said: "To ensure that Web site operators and other interactive computer services would not be crippled by lawsuits arising out of third party communications, the Act provides interactive computer services with immunity." Liability attaches for publisher-created content (for say, running "Why I Hate Blacks"), not for user-created content (thanks to CDA.) So long as Google doesn't create any original content, it seems to me they don't have liability concerns for such things as libel. And this is not just District Court judges. The First Circuit just released a decision that Lycos and Terra Networks are immunized from lawsuits based on user postings (PDF). So, if newspapers are at a disadvantage because...[Read Full Article]

3.1.07 Perkins, Dunn lawyer in spitting match
At a venture capital event in San Francisco Tuesday, Tom Perkins issued some stinging words for Patricia Dunn, and yesterday Dunn's lawyer struck back. The HP spying scandal ranks with the Iraq war for behavior that makes no sense for the stated reasons. Perkins offered a reason for the whole pretexting fiasco: an effort by the "compliance" directors to finally oust the "guidance" directors. CNET News.com explains: In Perkins' view, HP's board was split between two types of directors: "guidance" directors like himself who wanted to spend board meetings concentrating on ways to beat Dell and IBM, and "compliance" directors who were obsessed with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, social responsibility campaigns and regulatory issues that were less germane to the company's survival. The scandal was the final act in a plan by the compliance directors to oust the guidance directors, he said. The fact that HP hired investigators to get the phone records of reporters and board members is a red herring in the whole drama, he said. Dunn was mostly after control, he added. "In spite of being indicted on four counts by the California attorney general, it is clear that former Chairman Patti Dunn won the battle," Perkins said. "I see this embarrassing public mess as a culmination of a war over the control over the board of the company." Dunn's lawyer, James Brosnahan, issued an angry email retort yesterday, sent out to major business news publications and published on PR Newswire. In its entirety, then: Yesterday, a man...[Read Full Article]

03.01.07 Oracle buys biz intel vendor Hyperion
Oracle is buying Hyperion Solutions, a top seller of business intelligence software, for $3.3 billion in cash, the companies announced. Oracle is paying $55 per share. The move makes Oracle the leader in "the high growth enterprise performance management market," said Larry Ellison. Oracle now has an "end-to-end performance management system that includes planning, budgeting, consolidation, operational analytics and compliance reporting. " Hyperion CEO Godfrey Sullivan said: ``Requirements for performance management and business intelligence solutions are increasingly converging,'' Sullivan said in the statement. ``Given the critical need for managers across the enterprise to align operational decisions with strategy, now is the right time for Hyperion to combine with a strategic partner like Oracle.'' The move is the latest incursion into SAP territory, Oracle president Charles Phillips said. "Hyperion is the latest move in our strategy to expand Oracle's offerings to SAP customers. .... . Oracle already has PeopleSoft HR, Siebel CRM, G-Log, Demantra, i-flex, Oracle Retail, and Oracle Fusion Middleware installed at SAP's largest ERP customers. Now Oracle's Hyperion software will be the lens through which SAP's most important customers view and analyze their underlying SAP ERP data."...[Read Full Article]

2.28.07 Judge: Google is a media company, legally speaking
A federal judge has dismissed a case against Google that challenged the search engine's right to refuse advertising. In his ruling (PDF), the judge handed Google, Yahoo and Microsoft a big fat juicy win, saying that search engines can refuse advertising for any reason - and they don't have to say why. The plaintiff, Christopher Langdon, was suing Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Time Warner and AOL for refusal to run his ads. The complaint focused mainly on Google and its refusal to specify the reason for the rejection. In essence, the judge answered the topic that's been tearing up these pages this week: Is Google a media company? Simply, yes. Search engines are constitutionally similar to newspapers, the decision says and they have the same limited First Amendment rights as newspapers to accept or reject advertising. Eric Goldman has an excellent review of the decision. He highlights the main points. Search engines have a First Amendment right to reject ads as part of their protected right to speak or not (see Miami Herald v. Tornillo). This opinion is consistent with the uncited Search King ruling, although that case framed Google's Page Rank as protected opinion. Search engine decisions to reject ads is protected by [the Communications Decency Act] as a legitimate decision to filter "otherwise objectionable" content. The court concludes that "Section 230 provides Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft immunity for their editorial decisions regarding screening and deletion from their network." I'm expecting the KinderStart judge to protect Google's ranking choices under...[Read Full Article]

2.28.07 GOOG leads Net stock recovery
All Internet stocks took a beating along with the rest of the market yesterday, but the free-fall has stopped and several stocks are no worse off today than they were at yesterday's close. Standing out from the crowd, again, is GOOG, up 3.45 at midday to $452. MSFT was up a quarter percent and YHOO was running just about flat with yesterday's close. AMZN and EBAY were also up slightly. AAPL was up a full percentage point to just shy of $85. Part of the bounce for GOOG must be the news from Nielsen/NetRatings that more searchers used Google last month than a year ago, up from 48.2% in Jan. 06 to 53% in Jan. 07. Yahoo searches fell an insignificant amount, from 22.7% to 22.2%. The real loser was MSN, which went from 11% to 8.9%. Even better for GOOG: A federal judge ruled yesterday that the search company has a First Amendment right to refuse advertising for any reason, just like print publications. That might settle the question once and for all to whether they're a "media company." (More coverage to follow on the decision.)...[Read Full Article]

2.27.07 Hack saves House webcasts to the Web
After reading that C-Span owns the copyright to the House and Senate hearings it tapes, Carl Malamud whipped up a little hack. It seems that the floor debates that Congress records with its equipment is public property and the hearings C-Span tapes are its property. But what about the hearing that Congress webcasts? They're clearly public since they are recorded and transmitted by public equipment, but since they are just webcasts they're unusable for research or just time-shifting. Enter Carl, as he explains on Boing Boing: The U.S. Congress provides webcasts for many of their hearings. In all cases, the hearings are streaming only, in many cases they are "live only" (no archive of the stream). In some cases, the committees even put a "copyright, all rights reserved" notice on the hearings! This is really dumb. So, I've started ripping all congressional streams starting with the house and posting them in a nonproprietary format for download, tagging, review, and annotation at Google Video and another copy at the Internet Archive (just to prove this is a nondenominational issue :). This is a Tom Sawyer hack, a la "painting this fence is *loads* of fun!" I intend to prove to the Congressional webmasters that it is so much fun doing their web sites for them that they'll want to do it themselves so that I go away. Until then, look for "Carl Malamud on behalf of the U.S. Congress" for official news....[Read Full Article]

2.27.07 Tech Policy Summit: Is patent system broken?
Patent reform is Topic One at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose this week. One camp wants to see software patents flat-out obliterated. From InfoWorld: "Patents are not a driver of innovation, they are an impediment to innovation," said Mark Lemley, a professor of law at Stanford University Law School, speaking at the summit. [Often] one company asserts a patent right against another company and forces that company to stop production until the patent issue is resolved. "The patent holdup forces the company to settle for more money than the patent is worth," Lemley said. Part of the problem is the backup. There's something like a million-application backlog and it routinely takes three years to get final approval. The Patent and Trademark Office plans to hire 1,200 more examiners. But don't look to USPTO to dismantle the patent system. At ZDNet, Dan Farber reports that a top official said the patent system is far from broken. John Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, said the idea that patents are "fundamentally broken" is just plain wrong. "I have traveled around the world, and every nation is thinking how it can model [intellectual property governance] after the U.S," Dudas said. "It's a proven system, over 200 years old. The Supreme Court, Congress and policy makers are involved [in cases and legal reforms] not because the system is broken. It's not perfect, and we should be having the debate on how to improve." Dudas...[Read Full Article]

2.27.07 Firefox 3 promises offline web apps and more
It might not be Monster Garage, but at Mozilla, the geeks are under the hood, furiously remaking the Firefox browser into a souped up monster browser. According to InfoWorld, Firefox 3.0 will be released later this year with such features as offline support for Web apps. From a platform perspective, FF3 will also be laying the foundations for FF4 and JavaScript 2. So far, engineers have made Firefox work with Zimbra, an open-source email, messaging, and VoIP application. With a bit of code from Google and Microsoft, it would be possible to integrate with Gmail and Hotmail and other e-mail services. To do offline support, engineers have overcome the hurdle of how to store data locally on the computer, VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer said. The feature will make it into Firefox 3.0, although the user interface is still under development, he said. There are ideas for bookmarks - people should be able to display by popularity, for instance. Seems like a local version of delicious-style tagging still makes the most sense. FF3 will include a SQL Lite database, which would allow features like full-text search of history, for example. "The advantage of the database is that we can search your cache," Schroepfer said. And FF4 will support JavaScript 2, a revamp of the language designed to make it easier for people with less coding experience to write Web applications....[Read Full Article]

2.27.07 Ning: Both a platform and easy-to-use site tool
Judging from Ning.com's response time this morning - which is to say, no response - I'd say Marc Andreessen's social networking company either has a bright future because so many people are interested or a dim one because their servers are so unprepared for news-day stress. So we must trust in reviewers who got a look at it last night. Michael Arrington must be relieved because he so hates to dis Web2 apps and just a month year ago he was forced to call it DOA. But amazing things have happened: Ning relaunches tonight with new functionality and an interface that allows even the most novice of web users to create their own highly customized social network in moments. ... I’m now willing to offer a full mea culpa. The new Ning is an impressive and useful service. Om says the new service is focused, simple and streamlined. Today’s social networking services are fantastic, but they are very similar in approach to AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy in the early nineties. They have a fixed and rigid view of what people can do,” says Marc Andreessen, co-founder and CTO of Ning. The analogy is apropos, for there are some of us who believe that the social networks are getting rapidly commoditized, and becoming what amounts to being a feature. That is not necessarily a bad thing – since it means the focus is squarely on the vibrancy of community. In the TechCrunch comments, a user named Drama 2.0 raised this issue:...[Read Full Article]

2.27.07 Gates says US needs better education, more H-1B visas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301697.html In an op-ed piece for the Washington Post Sunday, Bill Gates calls on government to pay attention to the importance of innovation in economic health. He highlights two areas he says are critically important: math and science education and H-1B visas. Gates notes with dismay that on an international math test in 2003, U.S. high school students ranked 24th out of 29 industrialized nations surveyed. Our schools can do better. Last year, I visited High Tech High in San Diego; it's an amazing school where educators have augmented traditional teaching methods with a rigorous, project-centered curriculum. Students there know they're expected to go on to college. This combination is working: 100 percent of High Tech High graduates are accepted into college, and 29 percent major in math or science. Contrast that with the national average of 17 percent. To remain competitive in the global economy, we must build on the success of such schools and commit to an ambitious national agenda for education. Government and businesses can both play a role. Companies must advocate for strong education policies and work with schools to foster interest in science and mathematics and to provide an education that is relevant to the needs of business. Government must work with educators to reform schools and improve educational excellence. Until America starts producing the number of computers scientists and hard scientists that industry needs, there will be a crying need to import more foreign high-tech workers. But with H-1B visas limited to 65,000, there...[Read Full Article]

2.26.07 Who owns video of Congress? A crack in the C-Span business model
Is it possible that video of the hearings and floor debates of the US Congress are actually private property? The issue exploded when Nancy Pelosi launched a blog, The Gavel, featuring video of House floor debate. As The Times reports, Republicans rushed in and accused her of copyright infringement, claiming that Pelosi lifted the videos from C-Span. Shortly after the news release was distributed by e-mail, C-Span corrected the record to say that House and Senate floor debates are "government works," shot by government-owned cameras, and thus in the public domain. The Republican committee promptly sent out a news release to withdraw the accusation against Pelosi's office. As it turns out, though, one of Pelosi's videos was C-Span property, shot by C-Span cameras at a House committee hearing where Pelosi testified. Although C-Span carries public domain material from the House and Senate floors, C-Span itself shoots hearings. "We are structurally burdened, in terms of people's perception, because we are the only network that has such a big chunk of public domain material," said Bruce Collins, the corporate vice president and general counsel of C-Span. He estimated that 5 percent to 15 percent of C-Span's programming is from the House and Senate floor, and thus publicly available. "It is perfectly understandable to me that people would be confused," he said. "They say, 'When a congressman says something on the floor it is public domain, but he walks down the street to a committee hearing or give a speech and it is...[Read Full Article]

2.26.07 Green Grid announces board, releases papers
The Green Grid, a consortium of major computer and power companies dedicated to lowering power consumption in data centers, announced its board of directors today and released three white papers on energy-efficient data centers, CNET News.com reports. The board is composed of Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Rackable Systems, Spraycool, VWware and American Power Conversion. The white papers are: "The Green Grid Opportunity," which identifies both short-term and long-term objectives to increase the energy efficiency of datacenters and IT infrastructure equipment. "Guidelines for Energy Efficient Data Centers," which provides a framework for improving the efficiency of both new and existing data centers. "The Green Grid Metrics: Describing Data Center Power Efficiency," which explains the use of the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric, along with its reciprocal the Data Center Efficiency (DCE) metric....[Read Full Article]

2.26.07 Google cuts video deal with Dow Jones, Conde Nast
If you want proof that the center of media power is in fact moving to Silicon Valley, look no further than this morning's news that Google is syndicating video content from Dow Jones, Conde Nast and other companies on whose very souls are written "New York City." NYT: Google in Content Deal with Media Companies Google is working with Dow Jones & Company, Condé Nast, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other large content companies to syndicate their video content on other Web sites. The videos appear inside Google ad boxes on sites that are relevant to the content of the videos, and advertisements run during or after the content. Google shared the ad revenue with the video provider and with the sites that show the videos. The ads are part of Google’s larger initiative to gain traction with consumer goods companies who spend billions on brand advertising. Founded as a text-based search company, Google’s early advertisers were smaller companies and advertisers who bought ads to generate direct sales rather than to build brand recognition. Large brand advertisers still spend the bulk of their money on television advertising, but Google sees potential for them to spend more online through the use of video ads. It's a substantial expansion of Video AdSense, where there's a real value to sites to run Google's video advertising. Aside from the pennies paid on click-throughs there is no editorial value to adding AdSense text ads to your site. And adding a video commercial is either just...[Read Full Article]

2.26.07 BitTorrent brings P2P to Hollywood
If you went to BitTorrent.com last night you saw this message: BitTorrent will return in a few hours as an entirely new entertainment experience. Today, BitTorrent launches its "entertainment network," 3,000 new and classic movies, thousands of TV shows and, of course, tons of user-uploaded content. From the Times: The programming comes from studios, including Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Brothers, that previously announced their intention to work with BitTorrent. There is also a new partner: the 83-year-old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which will take part by making 100 films available on the site from its 4,000-movie library. "Somebody once said you have to embrace your enemy,” said Doug Lee, executive vice president of MGM’s new-media division. “We like the idea that they have millions of users worldwide. That is potentially fertile, legitimate ground for us.” BitTorrent EN of course has lots of competition, not only Apple's iTunes but Walmart, Amazon, studio-owned MovieLink, etc. And with the sound of Steve Jobs' call for an end to DRM ringing in Hollywood's ears, BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen says: “We are not happy with the user interface implications” of digital rights management, or D.R.M., Mr. Cohen said. “It’s an unfortunate thing. We would really like to strip it all away.” This is the big-time for P2P. As more users sign up, there are more sources for the chunks of data that make up a movie, so theoretically at least, BitTorrent could offer much faster download speeds than traditional competitors. The Times tested BT against Walmart...[Read Full Article]

2.23.07 MP3 patent verdict could hurt whole tech sector
If you're rejoicing over Microsoft getting wacked with that $1.5 billion patent infringement verdict, you might want to think again. That verdict could enrich Alcatel to the tune of many billions of dollars from technology companies if its upheld, The Times notes. That's because the patents in question cover core MP3 technologies developed by Bell Labs 20 years ago. Microsoft and most other technology companies license MP3 patents from the Fraunhofer Institute, which, along with Bell Labs and the French company Thomson, developed MP3. They paid $16 million for the patents from Fraunhofer. But Alcatel-Lucent, which is a descendent of Bell Labs, claims earlier patents that were not part of the Fraunhofer patents. Microsoft is asking the judge to discard the verdict and will appeal the decision if he doesn't. If the verdict stands, Alcatel-Lucent may go after Apple and any other company that makes MP3 playback software. “Intellectual property is a core asset of the company,” said Joan Campion, a spokeswoman for Alcatel-Lucent. “We will continue to protect and defend that asset.” Without conceding that the company violated the patents, Microsoft argues that the damages are way too high in any case, given that the cost of the licensed patents was just $16 million. Alcatel valued the patent violation at .5 percent of a computer with Windows installed. “We think this is just plain wrong,” Microsoft lawyer Thomas Burt said. “They told the jury to measure damages, not on the value to Microsoft of one of the 10,000 features...[Read Full Article]

2.22.07 $1.5bn patent verdict against MSFT
A federal jury in San Diego just delivered a verdict that Microsoft infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucentand should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Reuters says. Microsoft claims the verdict is unsupported by law or facts and will seek a judgment not withstanding the verdict from the trial court and failing that, will appeal. "We made strong arguments supporting our view and we are pleased with the court's decision," said Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Joan Campion....[Read Full Article]

2.22.07 Egypt jails blogger for 'insulting Islam'
Egypt has sentenced a political blogger to four years in prison for insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak. From ITV: An Alexandria court convicted Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student, for eight articles he had written from 2004. Suleiman, who has been in custody since November, was the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for writings on the Internet. One of his article's described some of the companions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as "terrorists", and has likened Mr Mubarak to dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt. Reporters Without Borders condemned the action, calling it a slap in the face of the international community that has supported Mubarak. "This sentence is a disgrace," the press freedom organisation said. "Almost three years ago to the day, President Mubarak promised to abolish prison sentences for press offences. Suleiman's conviction and sentence is a message of intimidation to the rest of the Egyptian blogosphere, which had emerged in recent years as an effective bulwark against the regime's authoritarian excesses." Bahraini blogger Esra’a Al-Shafei launched a site, FreeKareem.org to call for his release, saying: “I was offended by some of Kareem’s blog writings. But I cannot support his imprisonment merely because he said a few things that insult my identity. Freedom of expression and open exchange of ideas must be respected.” Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin had this pithy post on the news: The verdict against Kareem is in: three years in prison for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and another year...[Read Full Article]

2.22.07 Apple, Cisco settle over iPhone name
The great iPhone squabble is over. Steve Jobs gets his iPhone after all. Cisco presumably gets some money and a (so far) vague commitment to interoperate. From the Times: Wednesday night, in a short, ambiguously worded statement, the companies said they would dismiss all legal action against each other regarding the trademark and that Apple could use the name for its device, which it plans to start selling in June. In addition, the companies said they would explore ways to make their identically named iPhone products work together “in the areas of security and consumer and enterprise communication.” "Other terms," like how much is cost Apple to buy the name Steve Jobs unilaterally decided to just take, remain confidential....[Read Full Article]

2.21.07 Google Desktop 'extremely' vulnerable to attackers
Google recently fixed a very severe security risk in Google Desktop - which left users' PCs vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks, in which hackers can place malicious software on users' computers, AP reports. The problem was reported by Watchfire Jan. 4 and reported as fixed by Google Feb. 1. The attacker uses JavaScript code to control Google Desktop functionality, Watchfire said in a press release. While evading current information protection systems, such as anti-virus software and firewalls allowing the attacker to covertly hijack sensitive local information. (For example: Office documents, Media files, emails, in many cases, even deleted emails, chat sessions and files could be accessed.) Although this vulnerability has been patched, Google Desktop's integration between Web and desktop is a malicious attacker's dream application. "Application security vulnerabilities need to be taken seriously. As the potential damage of a Cross Site Scripting attack against a desktop application with a Web interface is enormous, Web application security must be comprehensively evaluated and continually monitored," said Michael Weider, founder and CTO, Watchfire. "Industry leaders like Google continue to make strides in security but due to the dynamic nature of applications vulnerabilities can surface." A Google spokesperson emailed the AP that Google has "taken many steps to protect our users and mitigate such attacks. We've added an additional layer of security checks to prevent the types of attacks pointed out by Watchfire and future possible attacks through this vector as well."...[Read Full Article]

2.21.07 Mercury execs used 'magic backdating ink,' suit claims
The unlawful backdating of stock options and the failure to report is perhaps not the most riveting story on the business page. But when the details start to come out, what was done and what people said, it gets a little better. The details of Mercury Interactive's (now owned by HP) backdating shenanigans may not rise to the level of Enron traders' "Burn, baby, burn" comment, but they're still eye-opening. Based on a shareholders lawsuit, which was unsealed, filed in the matter, the Chronicle reports a couple of tidbits. Other lawsuits are still sealed, although several newspapers are pursuing their release. Mercury executives used WhiteOut on options documents and joked about "magic backdating ink." A finance department employee e-mailed another regarding an employee's stock option grant: "I betcha that Sharlene (Abrams, a former CFO) will overrule these types of things ... and we will use her magic backdating ink. Let's see what happens!" According to a lawsuit, Abrams and Susan Skaer (former GC), faked a letter hiring drew up a fake letter hiring Douglas Smith as CFO on May 23, 2000, a date before he was actually hired. In January 2002, three board members approved for an option grant to Skaer. But Skaer or an assistant whited out the date the fax was sent and changed it to a low-price day, Nov. 5, 2001....[Read Full Article]

2.21.07 HP profits up on PC sales
HP's earnings jumped ahead of expectations to 55 cents a share, up from 42 cents a year earlier. Net incomes for the quarter ending Jan. 31 was $1.5 billion, The Times reported. Shares dropped in after-hours on concerns about rising inventories. Surprisingly strong: PC sales, which jumped 17 percent, three times the rate of the industry. HP's printing and imaging division jumped 7 percent. But the company is not firing on all cylinders. If PC growth drops out of the picture, things look substantially worse. A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said without the computer sales, the company’s organic growth was only about 2 percent. “That’s a pretty anemic performance,” Mr. Sacconaghi said. “PCs were bailing out what was, quite frankly, a rather mediocre performance.”...[Read Full Article]

2.20.07: Security chip startup lands $18m round
Canadian chip startup Teradici closed an $18 million B series round, The Deal reports. The start up, headed by Dan Cordingley, formerly with Intel and LevelOne, is making a chip aimed at addressng security compliance disaster recovery issues around personal computers. Teradici is planning a full launch by June and has delivered prototypes to OEMs who are adding the chip to their 2008 systems. Financial services and manufacturing are the target markets. "There's a lot of issues in large enterprise IT organizations in how they deploy and manage desktop PCs," Cordingley said, including security issues with corporate data and core intellectual property, compliance issues with HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, and disaster and pandemic threats....[Read Full Article]

2.20.07: eBay fighting IRS demand for seller information
EBay is fighting a White House plan to force it to turn over sales data to the IRS, The Financial Times says. There are millions of eBay sellers not paying tax, the government says. Probably $2 billion in unpaid taxes could be collected if eBay reported sellers who make $5,000 a year on eBay. But an eBay spokesperson said: “We do not believe it is our responsibility to serve as the go-between. We believe that it is the seller’s responsibility.” The company pointed out that many users file self-employment and business tax returns based on their eBay income. Ebay especially doesn't like being singled out when Craigslist and other online services that don't use an auction format are not being asked to inform on their customers. And it's taking its arguments to Washington. Representative Rick Boucher, a member of the internet caucus in Congress, said he had been in touch with eBay and would rally opposition on Capitol Hill. Among the arguments, legalistic debates over the definition of "auction": “We do offer sellers auction-like transactions but they are not auctions,” said a spokesperson, citing technical definitions in state law that an auction has no fixed end-time....[Read Full Article]

2.20.07: Australia to ban incandescent lightbulbs
The Australian government is banning old-fashioned lightbulbs. In four years, only energy-efficient lightbulbs will be available, AP reports. Legislation to gradually restrict the sale of the old-style bulbs could reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tons by 2012 and cut household power bills by up to 66%, said Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Australia produced almost 565 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2004, official figures show. A good start, putting Australia in the company of California, which is just considering a measure to ban the sale of incandescent lightbulbs. Conservatives oppose the measure because it takes away consumers' right to choose their lightbulb technology. Environmentalists caution, though, that industry, not lightbulbs are the major cause of global warming - and Austrlia's John Howard is a steadfast opponent of the Kyoto Protocols. "It is a good, positive step. But it is a very small step. It needs to be followed through with a lot of different measures," Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Josh Meadows told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio....[Read Full Article]

2.20.07: Will Obama win the Net vote?
Writing in The Washington Post, EJ Dionne gives Barack Obama good odds to win over the Internet in the Democratic primary. Since the Internet has gone mainstream in politics, though, Hilary Clinton is sure to put up a good fight. While the Clinton-run Democratic establishment scoffed at MoveOn and the Web in '04, Howard Dean's DNC definitely gets it - and so does John McCain. "It's so mainstream now that every part of the campaign touches the Internet," said Becki Donatelli, who pioneered McCain's 2000 Internet fundraising and is working for him again. "It's the 900-pound gorilla. It's the real thing." "It's hard to have a Dean-like phenomenon ever again," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network, a progressive advocacy group, "because the Internet is not a shiny new toy anymore." Obama's campaign uses the words blogosphere likes to hear - participatory, "your" campaign, etc - and he winning among the young. But young voters have not shown up in their full numbers yet. To be truly mainstream is to reach people who don't necessarily want to create their own blogs on BarackObama.com but still want to feel part of the campaign. "You have to make people feel they're part of the campaign," MoveOn.org's Barack Obama says, "that they're not just people a candidate is trying to suck money out of." It will be harder for Clinton to make that claim since she's been widely hailed as a fund-raising machine and, Trippi says, people will conclude...[Read Full Article]

2.19.07: XM, Sirius set to merge
AP reports that XM and Sirius have agreed to merge. In other words, Sirius is buying XM shareholders out for 4.6 shares of Sirius for each share of XM, which is valued at $4.5 billion. Sirius CEO remains the chief executive of the merged company. XM chairman Gary