Silicon Valley Watcher - reporting on the business of technology and media

[Matt Grimshaw offers a weekly roundup of news affecting the largest US tech industry.]

By Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future-Fab International

Change seems to be the only constant left in this age of double caffeinated, taurine infused hyper-communication. Icons seem to be a thing of a bygone era, now the world is populated by sharks; to stop swimming is to die. The Chip industry in particular is facing several key infliction points in parallel.

We’re entering an age of exponential change, in everything we know and take for granted, and the chip industry is no different. In fact it’s the chip business that is the catalyst for most of the changes; well what do you think runs your gadgets, laptops, TV’s and the like?

Well you haven’t seen anything yet – if some of the Star Trek Tech that I see coming from Universities is anything to go by prepared to not only accept change, but have that change happen to your physical being – for an idea of that which I speak take a look at this presentation by Juan Enriquez speaking at TED.

The News This Week…

[Matt Grimshaw offers a weekly roundup of news affecting the largest US tech industry.]

By Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future-Fab International

It’s been a whirlwind of a week… you know the sort; you wake up on Monday go to work and then it’s like some sort of Hollywood blur/FFWD cut scene…then POW it’s Friday and you’re left with a distinct sense of “what the hell just happened??”.

During the blur, flashbacks of memorable occurrences stand out; things like distinct conversations and hanging out in a bar with three PR gurus (names omitted to save them) mid week to discuss that favorite subject of Tom Foremski’s – the emergence of New Media and the struggles of Old.

The Semiconductor industry is not immune to the effects of this trend. Although it isn’t what you’d call a trend setter, hell it’s not even a fast follower being more akin to an arthritic tortoise plodding along in the dust cloud of a rather speedy hare muttering things like “pesky kids…when I were a lad we did things differently” etc.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Microsoft's John Schappert coming back to EA -SFGate

The return of Schappert is the latest in a number of EA-Microsoft moves. Peter Moore, the former head of Microsoft's Xbox business, left Redmond in 2007 to become president of the EA Sports label. Don Mattrick, a former EA president, made the jump to Microsoft earlier that year and eventually replaced Moore.

Ballmer: We Should Have Built Search Sooner -WSJ

“In our industry, the No. 1 mistake that people make is that they quit too early,” Ballmer said during comments to the Executives’ Club of Chicago. “If you look back at any great technology business, it took a while to build up.”

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

U.S. wireless providers debate about competition -Reuters

The issue of exclusive agreements among some of the biggest companies like Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone and service provider AT&T Inc (T.N) is at the center of some lawmakers' concerns about whether such practices hinder competition and innovation.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Stanford scientists discover a possible successor to silicon -SiliconValley.com

The researchers found that electrons in a chemical compound called bismuth telluride have a unique property: They can travel without resistance, losing no energy. This suggests that there might be a new way to carry more information than silicon-based chips can handle.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Use Their Work Free? Some Artists Say No to Google -NYTimes

“When a company like Google comes out very publicly and expects that the market would just give them free artwork, it sets a very dangerous precedent.”

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Hanging on for dear life -TechCrunchIT

With Oracle swallowing Sun, the enterprise dynamics have swung hard to right, past cloud computing, and directly into the mobile identity landrush. It’s easy to pigeonhole smart phones as the latest version of Studio 54 society politics, but in fact our identities are being consolidated around the SIM chip, with our social graph around the Follow/Track architecture of Twitter and its subsidiaries.

[Matt Grimshaw offers a weekly roundup of news affecting the largest US tech industry.]

By Matt Grimshaw, Editorial Director, Future-Fab International

It seems as if the chip industry is working its way through the procedure to recover from a heavy night….It woke up with a bad hangover, memory loss and for some strange reason; random street furniture on or around it’s bed (take your pick; traffic cone, street sign, car tyre etc).

Then it had its black coffee, whilst sifting through broken memories of the night before and now feels strong enough to face some food…

Nervously picking through a pile of eggs & toast hoping that it can hold it down long enough to get its blood sugar levels back to something nearing the standard classification of ‘alive’.

I’m not sure why, but this week seemed to indicate a sense of normality (if there is such a thing in this business) returning, an emergence from the fog of earnings (or lack of) announcements and a recommencing of the usual lunacy surrounding the tech business that allows all other tech businesses to exist in the first place…

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Reconciling social computing with the enterprise -ZDNet

Jeff Jarvis and Michael Arrington made similar points over the weekend about process vs. product, ostensibly about their particular industry (journalism) and how social processes are competing — often more effectively, though very differently — with traditional, non-social “product” creations, namely news stories.

Henry Blodget was the poster boy Internet analyst that everyone loved to hate during the Internet mania years. He could and did move markets with his analysis. He often chose outrageous targets for companies such as Amazon and he was often right.

But when the dotcom boom turned into a dot bomb he became the most visible target for the backlash to all the Internet hype and tears of many broken investors. And he also became a target for an army of lawyers.

Mr Blodget was barred from the securities industry and forced to pay a $4 million fine.

A lot of people took pleasure in his downfall. The British love to use a German word "schadenfreude" to describe that peculiar aspect of human nature.

Yesterday, that whole affair came to a close. The fines that Mr Blodget and top Wall Street firms had paid into a fund had been paid out to qualified plaintiffs, and there was money left over.

Mr Blodget wrote about this on Silicon Alley Insider, a New York based news site that he founded and that is very successful. (The site is a testament to Mr Blodget's continued analytical prowess.)

As most of you know--and as some of you are fond of observing when I say something you disagree with--back in 2003, I was named in a civil fraud complaint the SEC brought against Wall Street after the dotcom research and investment-banking scandals. As you may also know, I paid $4 million (oof) to settle my share of that charge, and I got booted out of the securities industry.

There follows an interesting account of what happened to his $4 million (plus $200K interest - the headline gives it away :) Blodget's SEC Fine To Reduce National Debt By $4.2 Million

But it's the comments that added a lot to his post. People are sharing how they were trading in those heady days and the huge effect of Mr Blodget's words on the market -- and on their fortunes

For example:

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Free broadband won't entice all -BBC

Some 42% of adults said that they had no interest or need for the internet. This so-called self-excluded group tended to be older or retired, with 61% confessing to never having used a computer.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

U.S. Presses Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Book Settlement -NYTimes

The Justice Department has sent the requests, called civil investigative demands, to various parties, including Google, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and individual publishers, said Michael J. Boni, a partner at Boni & Zack, who represented the Authors Guild in negotiations with Google.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Apple unveils faster iPhone with new features -SFGate

Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, said Apple is migrating the iPhone even more toward becoming a true mobile computer, in the process distancing itself from rivals who are having trouble keeping up.

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Ozzie at the Bat -TechCrunchIT

Ozzie knows this is the line in the sand Google is trying to draw with Wave, Chrome, and Android: that open standards will force Microsoft to comply with standards-based technologies that will reduce IE’s control of the browser landscape. Yet throughout his Valley sojourn, Ozzie reflected a confidence

Intel Exec Points Up Quirks In the Mobile Market -WSJ

Rather than always relying on a wireless router or access point as a shortstop for making Wi-Fi connections, Intel is backing software to make it easier for laptops to communicate directly with Wi-Fi-equipped cameras, electronic picture frames, printers–and even a robot that appeared on stage with Eden.

Hacking Traction: The Dark Side of Marketing Optimization -GigaOM

Multivariate testing and other optimization schemes can be a great way to make a good product even better, and they are underutilized by many companies. But too many startups have begun misusing such traction techniques as a strategy rather than as a tactic, inadvertently destroying the feedback needed to build a great product.

Search (and Destroy) Engines -h+

It has been suggested that this recent rise in online vigilantism was unique to China, partially because so many involved are educated but underemployed. For thousands of years, China was the source of social innovations, and with the world's biggest crowds and a new focus on crowdsourcing "justice"; China may again have generated a civilization-wide advance in governance.

Microsoft exec sees lower margins from "cloud" -Reuters

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Suspense builds ahead of Apple extravaganza -Reuters

While many analysts believe Apple has a variety of new gadgets in the pipeline -- from new iPhone models to a long rumored, so-called tablet mini-PC -- the company has said the conference will focus on important but less sexy software operating system upgrades.

Bain & Company released its 12th "Bain’s Management Tools & Trends Survey." One of the findings was that tech and telecom execs were the least concerned about long-term impact from the recession and are the most focused on innovation. 70% said they could "dramatically" boost innovation through collaboration.

Financial services execs were the most pessimistic about their outlook, believing the recession will alter consumer behavior for at least three years.

Here's a few more findings from the Bain survey of 1400 top executives worldwide:

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

U.S. Video Views Up 16% in April to New High -NYTimes

While the number of U.S. video viewers continues to hold at something like 78 percent of the country’s Internet population, the number of videos they’re watching continues to soar.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Oracle CEO wants more Java on netbooks, devices -Reuters

"You'll see us get very aggressive with Java, and developing Java apps for things like telephones and netbooks," he told programmers attending a Java users conference in San Francisco. "There will be computers that are fundamentally based on Java."

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

APNEWSBREAK: US military tweets -AP

Many military commands and individual troops have long used social networking sites. The Air Force and Army have Facebook pages, as does Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq. But the new effort in Afghanistan is the first in an active war zone to attempt to harness the power of social networking sites as a primary tool to release information.

Microsoft, with its new Bing search service should get some cheer from Nielsen Online. It surveyed "heavy searchers" the top 20 per cent of users that generate 80 per cent of all searches. It found that 72 per cent use 3 or more search engines per month.

Nielsen also found that nearly one third (30 per cent) of those using Google, also use MSN/Windows Live. The company says that this "disloyalty" means Microsoft could have a smaller hurdle in getting users behind Bing. It also likes MSFT's focus on key verticals such as travel, shopping, health and local search as being a good strategy rather than "simply trying to make a better Google."

Foremski's Take:

There's nothing "simply" about making a better Google. Nielsen doesn't say anything about who are the heavy searchers and why they do so many searches.

Heavy searchers are not necessarily heavy spenders. MSFT needs to convince a large number of the 80 per cent of regular searchers to use its search services. And that's tough because it must become a user habit rather than an occasional foray to find cheap travel deals.

The Deal Pipeline reports that the Department of Justice is investigating a possible pact between top US tech companies not to poach each other's top executives. If true, it would be a violation of the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Cecile Kohrs Lindell, reports :

According to Washington antitrust lawyers, the Department of Justice antitrust division's networks and technology section, led by chief James Tierney, has sent letters to at least a dozen major computer hardware and software companies. Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Apple Inc. are believed to be among the recipients, as is at least biotechnology firm, Genetech Inc.

. . .The letters suggest that antitrust division lawyers suspect that some of the targeted companies have agreed not to poach each others' employees. Such an agreement, if DOJ lawyers can prove it exists, could be a violation of the nation's oldest antitrust law, the Sherman Act of 1890, which prohibits agreements among competitors that result in restraint of trade.

Foremski's Take:

The DOJ, under the new leadership of Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, seems to be determined to find some type of anti-trust behavior by top US tech firms, especially Google. But this investigation seems to be clutching at straws. Even if true, it would probably not result in a criminal prosecution. The Deal Pipeline reports that the letters are in the form of a Civil Investigative Demand.

Critics of large companies such as Google are quick to accuse it of violating anti-trust because of its dominance in online advertising markets and its role on the Internet. However, there is no law against success. Anti-trust laws are designed to prevent criminal business activities.

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Does Social Media Need an ROI? No and Yes. -elites tv

Just as a consumer will “tune out” interruption marketing that is too company-centric, corporations will eventually fatigue of soft programs that can’t be tracked to something: improving reputation, increasing awareness, and ultimately driving sales).

This one surprised me: Chas Edwards, a co-founder of Federated Media Publishing, an ad network pioneering "conversational marketing," announced he is leaving to join Digg, one of FM's clients.

Recently, John Battelle, another co-founder said he would step down as CEO but remain on staff. These top level changes come during tough economic times but most ad networks seem to be growing and doing well. (Please see: Adify: Everything Is Hunky Dory In Online Advertising.) It is not clear if the changes at the top have anything to do with FM's performance since it is a private company.

Mr Edwards was considered by many in the industry to be FM's most valuable asset because of his long experience in online advertising markets, especially his work at CNET.

Here is his farewell note:

In the coming weeks I’ll be joining some old friends and business colleagues at Digg, to be its publisher and chief revenue officer.

Time for a New Adventure

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

RumorMill: Amazon to Open Web Services API's? _CloudComputing

From a legal standpoint this would help negate some of the concerns around API liability. Amazon is known to have an extensive patent portfolio and in past has not been afraid to enforce it. A clear policy regarding the use of their API's would certainly help companies that up until now have been reluctant to adopt them.

News Corp hopes for broader ad deal with Google -Reuters

According to recent media reports, Google is seeking to renegotiate the deal at a significant discount to the current terms, which popular IT blog Tech Crunch pegged at $300 million a year.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: Bing! -AllThingsDigital

Does Bing mean that your interest in Yahoo (YHOO) is waning? Ballmer jokingly recites the standard bullet points. “I think there’s a lot that can make sense in terms of a search partnership, not an acquisition,” he says in a monotone. “Whether such a thing will happen I don’t know.”

Bloodied by Google, Microsoft Tries Again on Search -NYTimes

The stakes for Microsoft could not be higher. Search has become the central tool for navigating the Web, and ads tied to search results are becoming an ever more important piece of the advertising market.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Free as in Android -TechCrunchIT

Streaming video servers will become the gas stations of the near future, parking enough bits to finesse the look-ahead of new video as it hits the network, perhaps caching your favorite sites or follows based on your and your affinity cloud’s behavior.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

What if the new name for Microsoft Live Search is ... Yahoo? -ZDNet

Microsoft quietly registered a limited liability company (LLC) last week, which points to the company being poised to make an acquisition or joint venture.

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

The Coming Superbrain -NYTimes

The concept of ultrasmart computers — machines with “greater than human intelligence” — was dubbed “The Singularity” in a 1993 paper by the computer scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge. He argued that the acceleration of technological progress had led to “the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.” This thesis has long struck a chord here in Silicon Valley.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Microsoft: No defense hearing in EU case -AP

"We believe that holding the hearing at a time when key officials are out of the country would deny Microsoft our effective right to be heard and hence deny our 'rights of defense' under European law," said Dave Heiner, Microsoft's deputy general counsel.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Ray Ozzie Asserts Microsoft’s Position In The Cloud -TechCrunchIT

...every company, every ISV is going to have some blend of software that runs on-premises and some that runs in the cloud, and everyone wants tools that they can use to in essence deploy some apps to part of their organization that might be in the cloud, another part of their organization that might be on-premises, to do that on an application by application or region by region by region or program by program basis.”

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Is there any ‘turning it off’? -SiliconValley.com

Ironic that Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, exhorted University of Pennsylvania graduates in a commencement speech yesterday to turn off their computers and phones to “discover all that is human around us.” Google has many of us so deeply invested into its offerings that some of us are practically paralyzed when we can’t access its services for a few hours.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Google CEO urges grads: 'Turn off your computer' -AP

"Turn off your computer. You're actually going to have to turn off your phone and discover all that is human around us," Schmidt said. "Nothing beats holding the hand of your grandchild as he walks his first steps."

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

A want to break free -FT.com

Charging for consumer media content "may work for specific niches of content and consumers", Mr Lancefield argues, "but it can't be just repackaged and repurposed. To tip people into the fee-paying world, it will have to be distinctive and new". Yet making more distinctive content will be hard for companies simultaneously cutting costs in reaction to plunging revenues.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Apple sets tech conference date -Reuters

Apple has said it expects Jobs to return in late June, meaning investors and the media will be looking for any update to that timetable at the June 8 conference.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Sun Had Another Interested Suitor Besides IBM and Oracle -WSJ

Sun Microsystems wasn’t just courted by IBM and Oracle before the latter agreed to buy the computer maker. A new regulatory filing by Sun also describes a mysterious “Party B” that remained in the bidding–though an apparent longshot–until Friday, April 17, two days before Sun and Oracle signed the purchase agreement.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Radio Tunes Out Google in Rare Miss for Web Titan -WSJ

...media-buying agencies, fearing Google's technology would put them out of business, were a tough audience. Google refused to create bundles of spots and negotiate prices ahead of time, which was how radio was generally sold, say people familiar with the discussions.

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

EU to find Intel anti-competitive: sources -Reuters

The European Commission is set to decide on Wednesday to fine the world's largest chipmaker and order changes to its business practices for what the EU executive sees as "naked restrictions" to competition, the sources said.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Google CEO doesn't see problem with his Apple role -SFGate

Walker told reporters that Google is "comfortable" that it doesn't generate enough revenue in the same markets as Apple for Schmidt's and Levinson's dual roles on the companies' boards to violate antitrust law.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Rest in Peace, RSS -TechCrunchIT

Today, RSS is a shell of its former self, casually subsumed as the transport for 140+ content into the social stream. There, RSS items are fed into aggregators and husked for their behavioral signals, packaged as Tweets and sold for pennies on the whuffie dollar. The mainstream media, once cowed by the fulltexters, now masquerades as blog sites and competes for shortened URLs alongside the bloggers they deride under their breath.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Disney looks beyond traditional studio model -Reuters

Disney said on Tuesday it will continue to reposition itself for a changing marketplace as industrywide DVD sales slump and as more and more consumers look online for content, even though a clear business model for online distribution has not yet emerged.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Apple and Google Ties Investigated -NYTimes

Antitrust experts say that investigations of interlocking directorates rarely lead to major confrontations between companies and the government. Executives typically choose to resign from the board of a competitor if it poses a problem rather than face a lengthy investigation or a bruising legal fight.

E.U. to Hear Proposal for Cross-Border Net Copyright -NYTimes

Depending on how the commissioners seek to have the license granted, a single E.U. license would force collecting agencies to make themselves a more attractive place to do business or else lose the copyright fees to another country.

Google Aims to Woo the Enterprise With Its Cloud -GIGaom

The premise of these platforms is they take away the complexity of managing a bunch of actual machines (even if they are in the cloud), but still allow developers to build customized programs. However, with that simplicity comes a loss of control. Some developers dislike the way App Engine requires them to handle data and have complaints over the proprietary nature of the standards Google uses, which means that apps built in App Engine won’t easily port to another platform.

Tech companies object to Obama's plan to crack down on overseas tax havens -MercuryNews

While not eliminating deferral, Obama would change the law that lets companies take an immediate deduction on their U.S. income tax for business expenses tied to overseas operations, such as interest on a loan to build a foreign factory. According to a White House fact sheet, the proposal would raise $60 billion over nine years by requiring companies to defer those deductions until they pay U.S. taxes on the income from those operations.

Hulu and YouTube compete for online video audience -MercuryNews

"Generating revenue from user-generated content is very, very difficult, and that's probably being generous," said Josh Martin, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group, a technology research firm. "The reason Hulu's been successful is that it's providing the content that people want."

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

An invention that could change the internet for ever -The Independent

Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.

Cyber chief needs to be in White House: experts -Reuters

Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said his group had urged that the task of ensuring cybersecurity be given to the Department of Homeland Security, not the National Security Agency, or NSA, which is responsible for breaking codes and electronic spying.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Apple building chip design capability: report -Reuters

An Apple spokesman confirmed the company has hired both Bob Drebin, former chief technology office of the graphics products group at chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices and Raja Koduri, who previously held the same position.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Time Warner Is Moving Closer to AOL Spinoff -NYTimes

In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Time Warner said it was nearing a decision to spin off America Online, and put an end to the travails that began with the merger in 2000 of the two companies, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

The Perfect Strategy for the Cloud -CloudComputing

With the evolution of the cloud, it's not hard to see why so many young startups are jumping into the arena. The key for many companies looking to implement effective cloud computing/storage solutions is how to differentiate one from another within a crowded space. A hot button topic within the market place is the debate of public vs. private clouds, which is better? Which is more cost-effective?

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

FTC says Internet firms near "last chance" -Reuters

Companies that track consumer behavior on the Web for targeted advertising without proper consent are near their "last chance" to self-regulate, the head of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Monday.

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit -NYTimes

Web companies that rely on advertising are enjoying some of their most vibrant growth in developing countries. But those are also the same places where it can be the most expensive to operate, since Web companies often need more servers to make content available to parts of the world with limited bandwidth. And in those countries, online display advertising is least likely to translate into results.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

IBM plans cloud computing services for 2009 -Reuters

In addition to the service for developers, the company also plans to introduce clouds that allow businesses to run business applications and virtualize personal computer networks, Sims said. Much of the technology was developed using know-how that IBM developed through a partnership with Google to develop cloud services for academic computing that dates back to 2007, she said.

MySpace co-founder DeWolfe to step down -SFGate

DeWolfe is expected to move onto a new startup, following the path of several executives who left MySpace last month including former Chief Operating Officer Amit Kapur.

Former Facebook Exec Van Natta Set to Take Over at MySpace, as Founder DeWolfe Prepares to Step Down -AllThings Digital

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Another year of handwringing on cybersecurity -SFGate

Security vendors say they are not doing enough and government officials say they are not doing enough because attacks are getting worse

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Internet upstarts left Sun in the dust -SFGate

The demise of Sun Microsystems as an independent company closes the book on one of Silicon Valley's brashest upstarts and shows how great ideas get copied and commoditized in an era of relentless technological change.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Cash in Hand, Technology Giants Go Shopping -NYTimes

As the computer business has matured, companies that handcraft products for top performance face a harsh reality: Standard equipment can now handle most business tasks, and what matters most to customers now is large scale — and the low prices that come with it.

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

As Costs Fall, Companies Push to Raise Internet Price -NYTimes

Comcast told investors that the hardware to provide 50-megabits-per-second service costs less than it had been paying for the equipment for 6 megabits per second.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Google's Youtube clinches deal with studios -Reuters

The move underscores Google's efforts to ramp up content on YouTube to attract more advertising dollars. On a blog post, YouTube said only that it was announcing a new destination for TV shows and an improved page for movies, without elaborating.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Spam is a big polluter in more ways than one -SFGate

According to a study released Wednesday by McAfee Inc., the security technology company in Santa Clara, the amount of energy it takes annually to transmit, process and filter spam from around the world is estimated to be equal to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes in a year

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

AOL asks court to rule Yahoo patents not violated -Reuters

According to the complaint, attorneys for Yahoo have alleged in emails and letters sent over the past several years to AOL and Quigo that up to seven Yahoo patents are being infringed.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Ebay Skype sale unlikely: report -Reuters

A proposed buyout of eBay Inc's Skype led by private equity, including Warburg Pincus and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the Web telephone company's co-founders is unlikely to be completed, the Wall Street Journal cited sources as saying on its blog on Monday."

Monday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Skype Founders May Seek to Buy It Back -NYTimes

Selling Skype would solve a number of problems for eBay, including generating cash for its United States operations. EBay had $3.19 billion in cash at the end of last year, but $2.8 billion of that money is overseas and would be subject to repatriation taxes if the company were to invest it in its ailing United States e-commerce marketplace, according to analysts.

Friday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Phone service restored after vandalism shuts it down in Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Santa Cruz County - SiliconValley.com

...it was as if time turned back a generation. No landlines. No cell phone service. No Internet connection or working ATMs. If people had emergencies, they were told to run outside and flag down passing patrol cars or drive to the nearest fire station.

Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Google’s Schmidt Explains Ranking Results To Publishers; Hint: Not The Answer They Wanted

Newspaper publishers eager to have their results show up as more authoritative than others got a lesson in ranking results from Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, who told them Google News already does that.

- Google Insists It’s a Friend to Newspapers - NYTimes

Newspaper publishers do not want to cut off the traffic they get from Google’s search and news services and from other search engines. It is technologically simple for any newspaper Web site to keep content off Google and Google News, but few if any newspapers have chosen to do that.

Harris: Venture capitalists feeling less gloomy - SiliconValley.com

"On the one hand, it's like a Roach Motel: There's no exit market, so money comes in but it can't get out," Shomit Ghose of Onset Ventures told Cannice. "On the other hand, innovation and entrepreneurship continue to barrel along in sixth gear: There's a lot of disruptive investing opportunities out there."

Boston Globe Surprised by Size of Demand for Cuts - NYTimes.com

...employees reacted with a mix of resignation and anger Wednesday on learning of the pay and benefit cuts and the lost job security that The New York Times Company wants them to accept...

Applied Materials' $1.9 billion solar panel deal trimmed back to $250 million - SiliconValley.com

...believed to be one of the biggest such agreements ever signed — has been trimmed back to just $250 million because of the soured economy.

Why Facebook and Twitter are glad they're getting older | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

In just the last two months, the number of Facebook members over 35 has doubled. And the biggest demographic grouping isn't 12-18. It's 35 to 44.

Does AP know how its YouTube channel works? | Digital Media - CNET News

The AP recently sent a letter to WTNQ-FM in Tennessee--an affiliate of the Associated Press, by the way--accusing the country music radio station of copyright violation for embedding videos from the AP's official YouTube channel on its Web site...

- Google releases upgrade to its App Engine -MercuryNews.com

In the new platform, developers will be able to write their programs in Java and deploy them directly to the Web using the Google Web Toolkit. And they will be able to move those programs more easily to other application servers.

- O'Brien: Venture capital needs transparency, not regulations -Siliconvalley.com

Venture capital remains way too clubby and secretive. That's out of step with the times. We are living in the age of transparency, where businesses and governments of all stripes are going to be pushed to accept that sharing more information is crucial to building and maintaining trust. I'm not sure VCs get that.

- WiMax coming to the Valley -MercuryNews.com

WiMax has been partly bankrolled by Intel and Google. And in an effort to jumpstart WiMax in Silicon Valley, the Intel and Google corporate campuses will get access to a limited version of the system covering about 20 square miles beginning in late summer.

- Will Wright to leave Electronic Arts -AP

Wright, 49, co-founded Maxis Software in 1989, and Electronic Arts bought it eight years later. He is behind some of the game company's biggest hits, most notably "The Sims," hailed as the best-selling PC game of all time, with more than 100 million units sold around the world.

- Patent suit targets Apple's multi-touch technology - SFGate

Elan, known for providing touch-pads on Asustek Eee PCs, has been down this road with touch-pad maker Synaptics of Santa Clara. The two signed a cross licensing agreement last year after Elan reportedly won an early preliminary injunction.

- Lost in the Real World, Found via Cyberspace

The Internet may allow bad guys to stalk people or steal their identities. But it also makes it easier to give something back, because of sites and tools that can help people reunite strangers with lost valuables like wallets, cellphones and cameras.

- Time Warner Cable Profits Will Grow With Broadband Caps -NYTimes

...the question of what is “fair” is somewhat more abstract than just saying someone who uses more should pay more. After all, people who watch more hours of cable television don’t pay more than those who don’t.

- Cable's answer to online's ad success: targeting -AP

Cable TV operators are taking a page from online advertising behemoths like Google Inc. (GOOG) to bring these so-called "addressable" ads onto the television.

- Cal team uses puppets to demystify nanotech -SFGate

The arcane world of nanotechnology has a chance to become transparently clear to the uninitiated, thanks to a troupe of UC Berkeley science and engineering researchers who in song and puppetology explain it all in a video that has won a national award from the American Chemical Society.

- Era of personalised medicine awaits -BBC

Complete Genomics has published its first genome, in what is called a proof of concept trial, and now plans to scale up its sequencing programme.

- Dashboards meet the 21st century -msnbc.com

LCD displays that can show any image or information the car’s computer can conjure are beginning to appear in some new models, and the first car with a video-only instrument panel is due to debut later this year.

- YouTube's Fred is first online video star to break 1M subscribers =LATimes

YouTube's Fred Figglehorn, the screechy, chipmunk-voiced Internet star, has become the first person in the history of online video to amass 1 million subscribers.

Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Google CEO Calls for New Web Journalism

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called on newspaper executives to create a "new format" for online journalism, including new delivery models that give consumers personalized content they want to read.

Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Sun CEO Faces Pressure Over IBM - WSJ.com

Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO, is under pressure to come up with an alternative for the struggling computer maker if talks with IBM can't be revived.

I've been experimenting with a sister site, Silicon Valley Newswire. I get sent a lot of information. Some of it I follow up with interviews and write stories for Silicon Valley Watcher. But there is a lot that I don't have time to cover and it usually it goes to waste. But sometimes the information can be interesting enough on its own.

What I've done is color-coded the content to identify the source. If it is in black type, it is written by me. If it is in red, the content is directly quoted by the person or company that sent it to me. If it is in green, then I have a money relationship with that source or the content was included for a fee (no green content yet). If it is in brown then I might be brown nosing :)

Hopefully this provides some transparency and the reader is better able to judge the content by knowing the source and my motivation. Please let me know if you think there is value in this approach.

Here are some news links:

News Links for Silicon Valley and beyond...

As much as the tech industry would prefer not to mention the economy there are huge problems out there . . .

FDIC Faces Mortgage Mess

Mervyn's Fights to Keep Stores Open

Businesses Pinched by Tighter Lending

Venture Financing Drops for Youngest Companies As Older Ones Suck Up More Cash

Fair Game: Borrowers and Bankers: A Great Divide

Uncomfortable Answers to Questions on the Economy

Wall Street Journal:

Qualcomm, Nokia Head to Court Over Fees

AT&T Profit May Suffer

Taking Control of Digital Lives

“Wi-Fi Squatting” a Crime – By the Victim

New York Times:

In Egypt, a Thirst for Technology and Progress

News Flash From the Cover of Esquire: Paper Magazines Can Be High Tech, Too

Protest Blog Aims at Tribune Boss

Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project

Everybody’s Business: Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics

News.com

Linus Torvalds on the "four-letter word" called "innovation"

Microsoft's online gamble: Smart bet?

Waterproof tech: Gadgets that like to swim

Nikon nirvana: Which digital single-lens reflex camera?

Breaking taboos in the tech fishbowl

Highbrow social site Spire hits the scene

Mitnick shows how social engineering is done

San Francisco Chronicle:

That's Not So 'Funny' -Online hangouts proving fruitful for prosecutors, who have used damaging photos of defendants to nail them in court.

Venture Funding Declines

California Is The 32nd State For Spam

San Jose Mercury:

Blogs:

Tech Is Boring Me — It's time for me to expand.

Hello Goodbye

- - -

Rave reviews find out why! - Order the The Amazon Kindle Electronic Book Reader!

You need video services! Creation, Distribution, Attention. Contact Aron Pruiett at SF Media Collective- 415 533 4487 - Here is a demo reel.

Silicon Valley Watcher Consulting services - call Tom at 415 336 7547

News Links for Silicon Valley and beyond...

The Making Of A Behemouth

Since its incorporation 40 years ago today, Intel Corp. has exemplified the culture of Silicon Valley. Tom Abate

Wall Street Journal:

Google Buys Russian Online Ad Firm

Tech Firms Rise Above Turbulence

Sony Ericsson Hurt by Weak Sales

Police Arrest, Try to Hire Computer Hacker

Russian Billionaire's Yacht Makes Waves

Ledger Dazzles in Suffocatingly Dark 'Knight'

A Cloud Over the U.S. Solar Push

New York Times:

Bits Blog: Google Deliberately Sells Fewer Ads — and May Have Gone Too Far

Wikipedia Tries Approval System to Reduce Vandalism on Pages

Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows

City Room: What a Pimp Reads

Everybody’s Business: Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics

News.com

Legg Mason: We're backing Yahoo

AMD CEO discusses plan to compete with Intel Atom chip

Is Al Gore Nuts?

Torvalds attacks IT industry 'security circus'

New Yahoo filing. A lot like the old Yahoo filing

Yahoo gives prime Net real estate to Icahn-bashing site

AT&T mistakenly announces free Wi-Fi for iPhone users...again

San Francisco Chronicle:

TECH CHRONICLES BlogHer conference starts today in S.F. with a global presence Ladies, start your laptops. The BlogHer 4 convention is rolling into...

San Jose Mercury:

A chat with Yahoo's David Filo

You’re looking for a “TV”? Oh, you mean a living-room monitor with the entertainment interface

Cypress Semiconductor rides the sales power of SunPower

Silicon Valley set to lose yet another public company

Polish exchange for start-ups? No joke.

Advanced Micro Chief Steps Down After Another Loss

Google Earnings Are Below Forecasts, and Shares Fall

I.B.M. Income Rose 22%, Beating Forecasts

Microsoft Profits Are Hurt by Big Expenses

Yahoo's Latest Filing Knocks Icahn Agenda as Risky

Microsoft Posts Gains, Tempers Outlook

Google's Net Jumps, But Disappoints

- - -

Rave reviews find out why! - Order the The Amazon Kindle Electronic Book Reader!

You need video services! Creation, Distribution, Attention. Contact Aron Pruiett at SF Media Collective- 415 533 4487 - Here is a demo reel.

Silicon Valley Watcher Consulting services - call Tom at 415 336 7547

News Links for Silicon Valley and beyond...

Why Most Online Communities Fail

One of the hot investments for businesses these days is online communities that help customers feel connected to a brand. But most of these efforts produce fancy Web sites that few people ever visit. The problem: Businesses are focusing on the value an online community can provide to themselves, not the community.

Wall Street Journal:

SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices

EBay Net Rises Amid Worries

Microsoft Revs Up Talks With AOL

U.S. Worried About China's Hackers

Former Samsung Chairman Found Guilty

San Francisco's Inside Job

New York Times:

Little Interest in Buying AOL as the Unit Is Shopped Again

Apple Sues Psystar to Block Macintosh Clone Sales

Bartering Expands in the Internet Age

Nintendo and Sony Unveil Games

Profit Rises 25% at Intel on Strong Global Demand

San Francisco Chronicle:

Fun And Games

Shine Is On Lower Costs

Rebates Mean More Go Solar

San Jose Mercury:

Microsoft-Yahoo quarrel plays out in Senate

Hi, I’m coordinating the NASA Urine Drive this year. Cup of coffee?

Apple apologizes for MobileMess

Coming up!

Interview with Sam Whitmore- what's going on in media? Sam's Media Survey keeps track of everything...

Also: Kevin Maney and Don Clark, they're competitive journalists but they are in tune - live and on stage at the Rockit Room!

News Links for Silicon Valley and beyond...

Microsoft Disputes Yahoo's Account

Which Way Is Up? Yahoo, Microsoft and Icahn Can't Agree

From the Inside, Jerry Yang Looks Out for Yahoo

Microsoft says Yahoo misrepresenting latest offer

I’m sorry, Mr. Yang, there are no “do-overs” in roulette

Wall Street Journal:

Intel to Unveil New Centrino

Netflix Comes to the Xbox 360

EBay Decision Shows the Fragmented State of Internet Law

Tech Departments Cutting Back on Big Projects

PCCW Seeks $2.5 Billion for Stake in HKT

Dish to Retry Satellite Orbit

New York Times:

At the Uneasy Intersection of Bloggers and the Law

A Million New iPhones Sold in the First Weekend

As Sold by Google, Ads on Yahoo Could Cost 22 Percent More

Hazards: ID Tags Interfering With Medical Care

Take Two Prozac and E-Mail Me in the Morning

Sales Expected to Fall 20% in Semiconductor Equipment

San Francisco Chronicle:

E3: Shane Kim talks about Microsoft's grand ambitions

Big Strokes Of Mischief

San Jose lab will put solar panels to the test

San Jose Mercury:

Paper's weight: Technology has added to the load

Cell phone companies scramble to halt trafficking

IPhone 3G goes platinum in first weekend

News Links for Silicon Valley and beyond...

SJM: Female CEOs at top Silicon Valley tech firms down to zero

Wall Street Journal:

Intel, Others Back DNA Sequencer

Nvidia Aims to Ease PC Maker Issue

Intel's Hard to Copy

A Web Page of One's Own

Nvidia Aims to Ease PC Maker Issue

New York Times:

In House, Tweets Fly Over Web Plan

In Bid for Yahoo, Microsoft Turns More Aggressive

Advertising in Europe Softens, and More Goes to the Internet

Buy.com Deal With EBay Angers Sellers

Older E-Mail Users Favor Fast Replies

Anticipating What’s New at Video-Game Trade Show

News.com:

Yahoo to MS: Drop the nudnik, maybe we do a deal

Do Flickr's APIs protect its users enough?

San Francisco Chronicle:

A Free Tool To Make Web Pages More Interesting

Google's best friend

San Jose Mercury:

O'Brien: Icahn will prevail in Yahoo struggle

Drilling deeper: Niche 'vertical sites' refine Web searching

Rambus sues Nvidia over patent infringement claims

Former HP exec pleads guilty in trade secrets case

Blogs:

Psst. Have you heard? SEC on the prowl to catch rumor mongers

A tidal wave of iPhone stories Thursday swept away many other news stories. I hope the iPhone mania will die very soon but it probably won't. Here is some of the iPhone coverage plus a few stories not about the iPhone.

eBay's iPhone app now out of the box

Twitterrific for the Apple App Store

iPhone OS 2.0 Unlocked (YES!)

Searching on an iPhone can be fun

Microsoft's first iPhone app--Tellme?

Apple Imposes Gag Rule on iPhone Application Makers

Wall Street Journal:

Semiconductor Suppliers Hit by Downturn

EBay Drops PayPal Plan Down Under

Microsoft Ready to Hit Back at Mac Guy

Most Workers Aren’t Satisfied With Their Tech Departments

Tech Diary: Hooked on Chinese Phonics - Video

New York Times:

Apple's Latest Opens a Developers' Playground

Yahoo Is Inviting Partners to Build on Its Search Power

Senators Weigh Possible Rules for Advertising and Online Privacy

SF Chronicle:

You are not reading enough Has the Internet killed the joys of sitting...

Have Highbrow Porn, Will Travel Violet Blue investigates CineKink, the...

Armed man shot to death during raid on marijuana farm near Saratoga

Samsung Instinct breaks Best Buy sales record

Solar PV bulks up

News.com:

Whole Foods CEO: Bill Gates should consider "conscious capitalism"

Going thin on Road Trip 2008 with the MacBook Air

Blogs:

Put Meebo IM on your desktop with Meebone

Amid the App Store fanfare, Apple releases significant update for AppleTV

Yahoo Patents Anchor Text Relevance in Search Indexing

NxE's Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers

New York Magazine Buys Restaurants Menu Site Menupages

Dan Lyons, the former Forbes writer and soon-to-be Newsweek writer, announced Wednesday in a rambling post that he's shutting down the tech industry phenomenon known as The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. After it launched in 2006, the blog quickly became a must-read for anyone intrigued by Apple, its mercurial founder, and Silicon Valley in general.

Dan Lyons should outsource the diary there must be a lot of people that would want to be Fake Steve for a day. That's still a lot of work. I don't know how the Real Steve does it. Day after day.

Fake Steve Jobs calling it a day

The ‘Fake’ Steve Jobs Is Giving Up Parody Blog

NYT:

Yahoo Is Inviting Partners to Build on Its Search Power

Apple’s Latest Opens a Developers’ Playground

Verizon to Pay $21 Million to Settle Suit Over Fees

Sun Valley: The Old-Media Death-Watch Continues

Advertisers Bite Back at Regulators, and Microsoft Snipes at Google-Yahoo Deal

News.com:

Yahoo seeks ad revenue by fueling others' search innovation

Last.fm's indie-music royalty program goes live

Forbes: iPhone App Store could launch Thursday

San Jose Mercury:

Comcast to work with Vonage on Internet traffic management

Sycamore, 3 ex-executives settle SEC charges

Study finds addictive drugs easily ordered online

SF Chronicle:

Flickr, Getty In Photo Deal

Boom In Online Classes

You're Not Reading Enough

Microsoft, Google push for broad Web privacy laws Users should control how...

Blogs:

The Pirate Bay Wants to Encrypt the Entire Internet

Windows is collapsing under its own weight, Gartner analysts charged this week. (TechNewsWorld)

It takes Microsoft too long to introduce new versions of Windows, and once a new version is released, it takes significant time for the ecosystem to support it and for the release to stabilize. Organizations need to wait for that support and stability and then deal with the enormous task of deployment and management for increasingly nebulous benefits. For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable.

Accepting all that, empires don't really collapse, they just kind of buckle and groan, News.com's Ina Fried says in a meandering sort of way. After all it took the Roman Empire about 150 years to finally call it a day in 476 AD.

It might not take that long for the Redmond Empire, though, because the grounds are rapidly shifting out from under Microsoft's entire model. Applications are moving to the browser, operating systems are moving to non-PC devices. While Apple is leveraging OS X for the iPhone, Microsoft can barely get 6 percent of customers to adopt Vista. Google is readying Apps and Docs for a serious push against Office.

All of which means, says Arrington, that Microsoft really, really needs that Yahoo deal. "Online advertising revenue is their only real hope of long term survival."

YHOO's Flickr announced today that the original Photo 2.0 site now features video. But it's only for Pro users and only 90-sec. clips. The idea seems to be that it's not competing with YouTube but offering video as "long photos."

This works for Arrington, who was originally skeptical but after a demo now thinks the vids are "a perfect compliment to event photos."

FlickVid beta tester Paul Stamatiou says the 90-sec limit was a compromise between Flickr's original 60-sec concept and testers' requests for three minutes. Long enough to do something – in the sense that you can do something with Twitter – but not appealing to the illegal TV sharing crowd. Paul's only gripe: no support for HD video

But 90 seconds is really short Dan Farber point out at News.com. He shot a brief (156-second) video of his interview with Flickr PM Kakul Srivastava and then had to go through the pain of editing it down to 90 seconds. How much easier to upload to YT instead! "I expect that the Flickr team and community will think seriously about raising the limit on playing time," Dan concludes.

Revving up App Engine. Google is launching a preview release of App Engine, a way for developers to run applications on Google's infrastructure, using the Google's own GFS and Bigtable. Google provides an environment including dynamic webserving, persistent storage, scaling and load balancing, APIs for authenticating users and a fully featured local environment. Act now: only 10,000 devs admitted for now. (Google App Engine Blog via Slashdot)

WiiBox 360? Microsoft, never one to let somebody else's good ideas unexploited, is set to release an imitation Wii remote for Xbox 360, sources say. An unidentified source says Microsoft's Rare studio will design the interface and look of the controller. This is marketing-driven MSFT development at its worst, MTV News' source says: "This is pure clusterfuck."

Above Europe, there is no peace. The EU has approved the use of cellphones on flights above Europe. Now imagine those all-important sales guys and product managers with their Blueteeth meeting away nonstop in coach. At least for Americans flying in Europe, there's a certain charm in the melange of Dutch, Italian, French, German. But one imagines that gets old fast, especially if you can understand the languages. In any case, the US won't following suit, the FAA says. (AP

Facebook ready to settle with ConnectU. Mark Zuckerberg's buddies at Harvard were mad when he left their ConnectU project -- possibly with code the hired him to write -- to go off and form Facebook. Last year they sued. Now it looks like Facebook and ConnectU are ready to settle the case, an anonymous source the Times.

Imeem buys Snocap. Snocap -- that was life after Napster for one Shawn Fanning. Now social/music net Imeem (which has a tendency to crash FF/Mac, btw) is snapping it up. Sounds like Imeem can use struggling Snocap's music registry technology to identify copyright-infringing media on its site and cut it down to a permitted 30-sec clip. Snocap also offers tools for artists to sell their music directly to fans. That could be a good fit with Imeem's music focus, as well. (LA Times)

Death, blog not proud. The Times points to the recent deaths of ZD bloggers Russ Shaw and Marc Orchant as a sign that blogging is bad for your health. And since you need three facts to support a trend story, as Larry Dignan points out, throw in Om's non-fatal heart attack, too. The fast-paced worlds of Gawker and TechCrunch are thrown in there, too. Media is definitely moving towards hiring bloggers for piece work rather than staff reporters for life ... but plenty of us are creating balanced lives that revolve around family, not our computers.

MSFT: You have three weeks. Steve Ballmer slapped Jerry Yang around some, delivering an ultimatum letter. In essence: Give in now or face a proxy fight – for less money. Lose control of your company and have no place in ours. And enjoy those shareholder lawsuits, too. Microsoft Press Pass.

YHOO details AMP!. The new system, formerly Apex, is expected to make ad-buying across Yahoo sites and partner sites simple and powerful. Its development is partly behind YHOO's reluctance to accept MSFT's offer. (Reuters)

Judge doubts RIAA legal theory. A key issue in RIAA cases is whether the existence of files in share folders is proof of infringement of whether the RIAA has to show. Last week, two judges came to opposite conclusions on that issue. If the RIAA has to show actual downloading, it could put quite a crimp in their litigation strategy. (AP)

iTunes is No. 1. For the first time, a seller of online music has surpassed any seller of plastic CDs. Apple's iTunes store passed Wal-Mart for the first time. Rolling Stone reporter: "People have long talked about the shift to digital music sales but this seems to be a symbol it is actually happening." (Reuters)

GOOG raised its own bids in auction. GOOG blog includes this revelation: "In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee."

Mortgage crisis? Don't tell Zillow. You enter your finances but not your contact information. You get offers based on the numbers and make the call, not vice versa, as with Lending Tree. That's a good thing. (VentureBeat)

UK ISP to labels: Take a hike. British ISP Talk Talk says it's not its job to police networks for illegal content, despite the please of the recording industry. (BBC)

MySpace Music: Free streaming, no DRM, plus ringtones and concert ticket sales. That's Rupert Murdoch's idea of a music service. Interestingly, EMI is the only major not to come on board – and EMI recently hired away Douglas Merrill as CIO of Google. What's the connection? (News.com)

Emerging markets said no to OOXML. While many are asserting that Microsoft backroom dealing turned European no votes into yes votes on the election of OOXML as an ISO standard, developing nations held firm against. Gartner analyst: "These are areas where open source has more strength and more advocates." Compare the population of Brazil, India and China to Europe (728m). (InfoWeek)

Ask your phone a question. YHOO's OneSearch 2.0 features an open API so phones will bring up results from any sites that support OneSearch when users say a question or term. Previously, only results from Yahoo partners came up. Call it more de-Semelization of YHOO.

XP stays alive. Recognizing the growth in ultra-low-cost PC sales, MSFT continue licensing Windows XP to OEMs for that class of machines. There's no way Vista will work on those machines and without XP, many manufacturers might have chosen Linux instead. Considering the latest version of Ubuntu proved rock-hard while Vista fell in two days in a recent "hack the OS" contest, that might not be a bad choice. (News.com)

Fast Times in Twin Cities. Comcast has rolled out high-speed cable Internet in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Garrison Keilor can afford it but maybe not that many other people – it's $150 a month. But you get really fast Internet – 50Mbps and eventually as much as 160Mbps. Does that mean Comcast can stop stomping on P2P at least in the Twin Cities? Not until the new network management procedures are implemented – and even then ...

An Instinct to clone. Need a phone with a touchscreen, colorful icons and a $99 data plan? Check out Spring and Samsung's new Instinct, which is pretty blatantly an iPhone copycat. It's even locked in to Sprint's network, but unlike AT&T they offer a high-speed CDMA EV-DO Rev A network. (InfoWeek)

Realm of the absurd: Congress on Second Life. Not everything techno groovy is worth doing and it's pretty unlikely there's any particular benefit to beaming a Congressional hearing into Second Life. Tech-crazy Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is the congressional sponsor of the virtual hearing. Rather than the future of political outreach, consider this a diplomatic effort to a foreign land. (LA Times)

4.1.08: Branson dupes the wide-eyed. Must- read Register: "Speaking Tuesday at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas, Sir Richard Branson told several hundred mobile industry insiders that he and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will soon fly a solar-powered Noah's Ark to Mars. And they believed him.<

No open cell networks. FCC Chair Kevin Martin finally got back to Skype over its proposal to open cell networks to all devices. The idea was that a 1960s case that forced AT&T to open its network should be applied to Verizon and, well, AT&T. That's not necessary, Martin said. (Ars Technica)

YouTube gets Rick Astley'd. Supposedly it's an April Fool's Joke, but every featured video on the home page yesterday linked to Rick's "Never Gonna Give You Up." Some joke. At 9 pm last night, YT managed to send 6 million vid views Astley's way (embedding disabled by request). (YouTube)

Ready for Custom Time? Cool new Gmail feature: "Just click "Set custom time" from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient's inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option." And Bill Gates says Google doesn't understand business needs! Hmm, checking calendar...

MSFT buys a standard. In some very fishy voting, Microsoft's OOXML was approved by the ISO. A number of countries who had previously voted no switched to yes, after some heavy pressure and some rather odd shenanigans. Now there is a call for reform of such ISO procedures as allowing fast-tracking of standards. (ZDNet).

GOOG takes Docs Offline. Huge step forward for Google Docs/Apps: Google Gears now supports Google Docs (text doc only for now; spreadsheets and presentations in the "future"). Users will see an Offline link over the next few weeks. And more: At the Google I/O con, GOOG will show developers how to support Gears in their own apps. Gears could be the engine that drives a whole new class of hybrid apps. (PC Mag)

AAPL monitor made customers see red. But only a few shades of red. Law firm KBK has launched a class action suit against Apple for selling a monitor allegedly advertised as sporting millions of colors (8-bit color) but in fact a 6-bit device. The lawyer takes some "pleasantly cheap shots," says the Register. "Apple is squeezing more profits for itself by using cheap screens and its customers are unwittingly paying the price. Apple is duping its customers into thinking they're buying 'new and improved' when in fact they're getting stuck with 'new and inferior."

3G iPhone in June!? Bank of America says Apple will have a 3G iPhone out in June. Analyst Scott Craig calls for 3m phones in production in May, with 8 million coming in Q3. That coincides with the release date of iPhone's 2.0 software. (Reuters)

Another tedious vertical from Yahoo. As if women needed another magazine, here's Shine from Yahoo. It looks good. Better than these Yahoo verticals used to look. The lead "story" on Kate Bosworth is even a video, not a story. But for a company that has snapped up a lot of Web 2.0 companies, well this is pretty old-school Yahoo.

Adobe gets religion. Long comfy in its proprietary perch, Adobe finally has reason to sidle up to open source folks and has joined the Linux Founation. Under CTO Kevin Lynch (you will recall he came from Macromedia), Adobe has open sourced an SDK for Flex and BlazeDS. Adobe's also working on a Linux version of Air. (InfoWeek)

Most secure OS? It ain't your Mac In a contest to hack into three different operating systems, hackers at CanSecWest exploited Apple's Safari to compromise the system in two minutes. It took whole days to break through a PC running Vista SP1 (weak link: Adobe Flash). The hackers couldn't break through a Sony Vaio running Ubuntu 7.10, though. (Desktop Linux)

Memory in a flash. After some severe delays, Intel has moved forward with Europe's ST Microelectronics to create Numonyx (sounds like a new sleeping pill?) -- a new company that will manufacture NOR and NAND flash memory. Intel owns 45.1%, ST 48.6% and investment firm Francisco Partners 6.3%. AP)

Comcast makes nice with BitTorrent. There's no doubt Comcast needs to manage its network traffic. That's what happens with shared infrastructure like cable. The problem is in how it did it, who it did it on, and what it said about it. Now the cable company has made nice with BitTorrent and promised to only throttle in a "protocol-agnostic" way. Maybe that will get them a better reception at an FCC hearing at Stanford. (NYT)

Photoshop. Online. Free. Adobe is forging the path in taking a high-end software product into the hyperlinked world of web services, not only allowing users to upload, tweak and filter photos, but building in social networking with links to Facebook and its own gallery-sharing feature. (News.com)

TorrentSpy is dead. Founder Justin Bunnell: 'Ultimately the court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and international law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.' How noble. Or perhaps, having destroyed evidence, it was time to throw in the towel. (Register)

Get some data on your vids. With YouTube Insight, you can find out where your video viewers are coming from, find out how long it takes to get popular and so on. It's the world's biggest focus group, YT product manager says. (InfoWeek)

Safari: Unwanted, unsafe. So first Apple starts shoving Safari 3.1 down Win users' throats via the software update feature in iTunes, which sparks Mozilla ceo John Lilly to call them "malware" vendors, but now a security hacker has discovered two critical flaws in the browser. Weaponization is just around the corner, Andrew Storms of nCircle reported.

News of the stupid. O'Reilly hometown Sebastopol decided not to accept a local ISP's offer to create a free Wi-Fi network in the town, cowtowing to some local New Age psychosomatic fantasy that Wi-Fi causes some kind of health detriment. O'Reilly's Dale Dougherty says if this had played a century ago, the town wouldn't have electricity. (O'Reilly Radar)

Oracle profit up. $30 billion worth of acquisitions – not the least of which was BEA -- has generated some steady maintenance income and enabled the company to offer an impressive lineup of enterprise software. Even so, Wall Street drilled the share price down. (NY Times)

Did Apple dither over screens? Apple has settled a lawsuit that claims Apple didn't deliver "millions of colors" on some of their screens. Noticing the displays were grainy and banded, plaintiffs believe Apple used six-bit displays instead of 8-bit displays in MacBook and MacBook Pro machines. Apparently the plaintiffs had trouble turning the case into a class action, making them willing to settle. (Ars Technica)

10 million 3G iPhones? Is Apple getting ready to spring a 3G iPhone? Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney says he believes 10 million such phones are on order. He thinks Apple is using an organic LED display.

Cnet lays off 120 That's 10 percent of the web publishers' staff. CEO Neil Ashe says it's realigning its enterprise properties, ZDNet and TechRepublic, to "improve monetization – and centralizing IT and other core biz ops. Key to streamlining: Moving IT systems to an open API. No word about layoffs at flagship News.com. (TechCrunch)

Vietnam Wall now searchable. USA Today says family and friends no longer have to travel to DC to find their loved one's name on the Wall. Not so sure that's a good thing. The physical, real-world experience of the stillness of being with people at the Wall is what makes it such a meaningful experience. Now, is it just one more website?

Yahoo joins OpenSocial. MySpace SVP: "Yahoo is an important addition to the OpenSocial movement, and through this foundation we will work together to provide developers with the tools to make the Internet move faster and to foster more innovation and creativity." (Wired)

Surprise! Broadcasters hate white space. NAB's Dennis Wharton: Google fails to show devices won't interfere with digital broadcasts. (CRN)

11 freaking hours? Netflix's site and logistics computers went down for a whopping 11 hours yesterday. The outage started at 7 am and lasted until 6. It took down distribution centers as well, so movies will be delayed a day or two. Customers are wondering if Netflix is getting too big for its own good. Wired)

And now a service pack people really care about ... MSFT is getting closer to releasing SP3 for Windows XP. It released Release Candidate 2 "Refresh" on Tuesday, a second crack at the RC2 first released in February. The final release will happen in the first half of 08, is all MSFT will say.

Paris exposed ... Facebook privacy controls fail a test. A computer tech was able to pull up supposedly access-controlled photos, like one of Paris Hilton at the Emmy Awards, despite Facebook's privacy controls. Facebook said he had exposed a bug that was fixed immediately.

Satrad merger approved. The Justice Dept. won't stand in the way of a merger between the Sirius and XM satellite radio companies. (InfoWeek) DOJ: "The evidence does not demonstrate that the proposed merger ... is likely to substantially lessen competition." (Public statement)

GOOG amps up push for white spaces. GOOG filing with FCC: "[White spaces offer a] "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband access to all Americans.” [Opening up the spectrum would] "enable much-needed competition to the incumbent broadband service providers." (ZDNet)

Mozilla pissed at Apple. Apple has been pushing Safari 3.1 down to Windows users, even if they have never downloaded previous versions. That makes Mozilla CEO John Lilly very, very angry: "What Apple is doing now with their Apple Software Update on Windows is wrong. It undermines the trust relationship great companies have with their customers, and that’s bad -- not just for Apple, but for the security of the whole Web." (Register)

MSFT offers free SP1 support. There are enough problems out there that Redmond felt the need to give away tech support for a year. There's a two-letter solution to upgrade woes: X-P. (CRN)

Your Netflix is late.As of Monday afternoon, Netflix has been offline all day. The glitch has knocked out logistics and delivery, as well as the website. (News.com)

Small fish don't like GOOG's new search feature. Google for "new york times" and you'll get a second search box as part of your results. Searching in this field lets you search just within the Times. The same goes for other large companies like Best Buy. That is pissing off smaller companies, who say Google is using the brands to sell advertising. (NYT)

Sun's laser breakthrough. The rapidly approaching limit to Moore's Law could be blown away by a new approach to connecting chips. Rather than using tiny wires, Sun is researching a process to use laser beams instead. Sun researcher: "We expect a 50 percent chance of failure, but if we win we can have as much as a thousand times increase in performance." (NYT)

Top sites say no to networks. ESPN.com and other premium sites are starting to realize that ad networks suck off value from their brands. They're paying attention to Harris Millard's warning against selling off Web inventory like "pork bellies." (MediaWeek.)

NetSols shuts down anti-Islam film site. Network Solutions has blocked the site for a soon-to-be-released film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders that attacks Islam. NS spokeswoman: "In this situation with the dialogue that’s happening throughout the world we’ve made the choice to suspend the site as of last night." (a href="http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3730">ZDNet)

MSFT investigates Word hack. The risk is limited because users have to go through several steps for the hack to be successful. (News.com)

Verizon wins C block. The names are finally out on the winners of the exciting 700MHz spectrum auction. Big winner: Verizon, who not only won the nation-wide C block but also picked up a grand total of 108 licenses for $9.6b. AT&T picked up another 227 for $6.6b. Now it will be interesting to see how all this spectrum gets built out, especially with the Google-authored open access rules. (New York Times)

Comes with EMI. Nokia is negotiating with EMI to take part in its Comes with Music program, in which phone buyers can download unlimited amounts of music with a one-year subscription. Nokia reportedly pays Universal $80 per device. (Beta NewsFT) Politely, but apparently unenthusiastically. (News.com)

SP1 upgrade bugs. The "small number of device drivers" that are incompat with Vista SP1 includes a widely used Intel chipset used by HP, Gateway, Lenovo, etc. And for a host of reasons, there are reams of stories screaming about the upgrade. (InfoWeek)

Oh, look, I've got Safari. I took a quick look at my program list on Windows XP and was surprised to see that I had a brand spanking new copy of Safari 3.1. Where'd that come from? "It now appears that the Cupertino-based company aspires to use the advantage presented by the Software Update mechanism to muscle its way further up the browser charts at the expense Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other third-party Windows browsers." (Apple Insider)

Would you like music with your iPod? Apple is negotiating with music labels to offer unlimited access to the iTunes music library when consumers pay a premium for a new iPod. Apple is thinking about copying Nokia's "Comes with Music" plan but the negotiations are foundering, as usual, with how big a cut of iPod sales Apple will share with the labels. Music exec: "It’s who blinks first, and whether or not anyone does blink." (FT)

Who won the spectrum? The betting money says Google is out of the running on the 700MHz spectrum, but who won? Altogether, the FCC netted $20b – $4.75b for the C block, but nothing for the D block, dedicated for public safety agency communication. (AP)

Spreadsheet Gadgets. Google has unveiled several Gadgets for spreadsheets in Google Docs. Gadgets are more than a way to distribute the data; they're a data source themselves. "If I'm collecting census data and putting it into a spreadsheet, I can also make that data available to statisticians" through the Visualization API, says product mgr. Jonathan Rochelle. (News.com)

iPhone Flash? Adobe wants help. Statement: "To bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone Web-browsing experience, we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it."

EU net: faster, cheaper. Increased competition is improving broadband speeds and cutting costs in Europe, but former monopolies still need to let go more. (AP)

The Grand Master passes. Arthur C. Clarke, most famous for 2001: A Space Odyssey but the author of dozens of novels, hundreds of stories and quite a few screenplays, died at the age of 90. Clark's three laws: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Wikipedia.)

SP 1 is here. After a lot of back and forth, with quite a few buggy bumps along the way, MSFT made SP1 available to Windows Vista users through Windows Update and as a standalone installer package from the Microsoft Download Center. (Ed Bott.)

The return of Wintel. MSFT and INTC are hooking up to spend $20m on parallel computing research at UC Berkeley and U. of Ill. Champagn-Urbana. "Twenty-plus years ago, the research space in parallel computing was looking toward the end of Moore's Law, and so there were bases that were built there to exploit parallelization," MSFT dir. of multicore computing Dan Reed said. "The challenge has been that long-term research had been required to support this. There is no silver bullet there. Some of it is going to be incremental advances; some is (sic) going to be new languages." (InfoWeek.)

Privacy ... on Facebook. Facebook announced its very own IM system plus new privacy controls. Says News.com: Most notable about the new privacy controls is the fact that Facebook members will now be able to choose how much of their profiles are visible to those on their friends list. There's also Facebook Chat, which is intended as a lightweight ease-of-use feature, not competition to AIM. VP Matt Cohler: "We want Facebook to be part of your experience all over the Web. Our business is not to make Facebook an island."

AAPL numbers. Wow, people really are buying Macs. The cooler PC accounts for 14% of the US market, as of Feb. 08, compared to 9% in Feb. 07. NPD analyst: ""The MacBook and MacBook Pro did pretty well and made a smooth transition to the Penryn. And Apple got a nice bump from the MacBook Air." But it's not just the machines: the Apple Store experience is key. "Apple's stores are key to what they do." (ComputerWorld.)

More numbers. iPhone users love the Web. Some 85% of them regularly check mail and websites on their phones, compared to 58% of all smartphone owners and 13% of all phone owners.

OK, Steve, we'll make Flash better. To Steve Jobs, Adobe is just another engineering group to kick around. When he told the world that Flash wasn't good enough for the iPhone (/.), you could just imagine him screaming "THIS SUCKS!" behind closed doors. Anyway, Adobe sheepishly is skulking back into the room, announcing it will work on a Flash that meets with the boss's approval. Flash Light might not be good enough for iPhone but apparently it is good enough for WinMob, Silverlight be damned. (Eric Zeman.)

Intel roadmap. Intel announced that Dunnington, its six-core server processor, will ship in the second half of 08, and will be socket-compatible with the Caneland server/work station platform. The microarchitecture Nehalem will go into production in Q4 with a 45nm process. A 32nm version codenamed Westmere is scheduled for 09. (CRN) "The single biggest feature" in Nehalem will be a memory controller that speeds up data access from memory. (WSJ). But don't expect quad-core in your laptop anytime soon. Says analyst Roger Kay: "I've always used the adage, the hardware is ahead of the software is ahead of the user. I can imagine a small niche [of adopters] on the notebook side, but I still think it's going to be three to four years before [quad-core laptops] become mainstream." (Wired.)

Sad state of media. We know the media, especially newspapers, are in bad shape. But the Project for Excellence in Journalism's new report, State of the Media 2008, offers some room for hope among the ruins. Most importantly, journalists are still ready and willing to adapt to the new media, learn new skills and devise new ways of telling stories. Unfortunately, the business side is seriously lagging. "People used to think that the people on the business side would save journalism, but it's turning out to be the other way around in a lot of cases," PEJ director Tom Rosenstiel said. (Chronicle).

Don't call us dept. Almost everyone who downloaded the iPhone SDK got a nice 'thanks but no thanks' letter from Cupertino, reading, "As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period." (Fortune) "I’m not surprised at Apple’s 'greet and toss' tactic - greet the high-profile big-name commercial companies and invite them in under the velvet rope, and toss out the riff-raff who were going to make their products available at a price (or lack of a price) that would mean that Apple wouldn’t be making money off the products." (Adrian Kingsley-Hughes).

MSFT, YHOO execs meet
[AP] Microsoft Corp. met with Yahoo Inc. to discuss the software maker's unsolicited takeover bid earlier this week, a breakthrough that could be the first step toward a friendly deal between the two rivals. The meeting occurred Monday near Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Lou Reed wants better sound
[Billboard] Lou Reed is lashing out at new modes of audio technology, saying that "people have got to demand a higher standard" than current MP3 music files.

Whitman joins McCain campaign
[Merc] Retiring eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman is joining the presidential campaign of John McCain as a national co-chair. Whitman, who steps down from her eBay job at the end of the month, had been a major fundraiser for Mitt Romney.

Verizon unveils tech to speed up P2P
[AP] Verizon Communications Inc. has broken ranks with the industry and announced Friday that it plans to help its users share files faster — at least those who do it legally. With researchers at Yale University and a group of companies that make file-sharing software, Verizon collaborated to enable faster downloads for consumers and lower costs for participating ISPs.

iPhone: the new gaming platform
[Chron] "We are very enthusiastic about the iPhone as a platform and we think Apple has done it right on the hardware and the delivery platform," said Michel Guillemot, president and CEO of mobile gamemaker Gameloft. "We think from the consumer point of view, it's going to very successful and we are eager to participate in this."

FCC handling of complaints criticized
[Reuters] A study by the Government Accountability Office concluded that about 83 percent of the complaint investigations conducted by the FCC between 2003 and 2006 were closed without any enforcement action taken by the agency, and that it was impossible to determine why because the FCC did not collect enough data to follow up.

EA makes hostile bid for Take-Two
[AP] The heat is on: Electronic Arts Inc.'s $2 billion bid for "Grand Theft Auto" maker Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. turned hostile Thursday as EA took its $26-per-share offer directly to Take-Two shareholders.

Gates, Mundie makes pitch for white space
[ZDNet] “We’re hopeful [white spaces spectrum] will be made available so that Wi-Fi can explode,” Gates said.

Congress probes FCC complaint-handling
[Reuters] A study by the Government Accountability Office concluded that about 83 percent of the complaint investigations conducted by the FCC between 2003 and 2006 were closed without any enforcement action taken by the agency, and that it was impossible to determine why because the FCC did not collect enough data to follow up.

AAPL dev conf: June 9-13
[MacObserver] Apple announced on Thursday that it will be hosting its World Wide Developer Conference on June 9 through June 13, 2008. The event will be at Moscone West in San Francisco, and Apple is dubbing it "A landmark event. In more ways than one."

GOOG unveils free ad manager
[ZDNet] After winning approval for the DoubleClick acquisition from regulators, Google wasted no time introducing a new free service called “Ad Manager” that gives companies a powerful way to manage their ad inventory.

MSN exec leaves for SpotRunner
[WSJ] Joanne Bradford, vice president and chief media officer of Microsoft's MSN online service, will leave the software maker after seven years to join Spot Runner Inc., a privately held Los Angeles firm that uses the Internet to help companies create advertisements for television.

AAPL sued over iTunes
[BetaNews] ZapMedia holds patents on sending music from a server to multiple players. The company applied for the patents in 2000, however the first one wasn't granted until March 2006, and the other on Tuesday.

MPAA calls net neutrality assault on intellectual property
[ZDNet] MPAA's Glickman: "Today MPAA and all of our studios are standing up in opposition to broad-based government regulation of the Internet. We are opposing so-called "net neutrality" government action. And, in the process, we are standing up for our customers, for our economy and for the ability of content producers to continue to create great movies for the future."

Hackers jailbreak iPhone 2.0
[Wired] The iPhone Dev Team said yesterday (thanks, Gizmodo) it has figured out a way to hack into the iPhone's bootloader by taking advantage of the way the iPhone authorizes code that can be written to memory

TiVO, YouTube deal to deliver web vid to TV
[NYT] “TiVo’s strategy is to bridge the gap between Web video and television and make as much content available as possible for our subscribers,” said Tara Maitra.

Japan says iPods spark up
[InfoWeek] Japanese government officials are investigating a possible defect that caused an Apple iPod to shoot out sparks while it was being recharged, it was reported Wednesday.

Hulu goes live
[Reuters] At launch, Hulu will offer full-length episodes of more than 250 TV series, from current hits such as The Simpsons to older shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It also will offer 100 movies, including The Big Lebowski and Mulholland Drive.

Our rapidly expanding digital universe
[WSJ] as consumers and companies create more emails, legal documents, photos and videos, the digital universe is growing at 60% a year. The study was commissioned by storage company EMC, so take the results with the appropriate grain of salt.

Excel security hole
[PCW] This Trojan is circulating through email messages that contain attached Excel files," US-CERT said in an advisory. "Known file names for these attachments are OLYMPIC.XLS and SCHEDULE.XLS. These files may also contain Windows binary executables that can compromise an affected system."

MSFT submits IE7 for antitrust review
[PCW] Microsoft has submitted the follow-up to Windows Vista to the committee that oversees its U.S. antitrust compliance, to ensure the operating system is meeting the terms of the company's agreement with the government.

YouTube hit OK Go stumps for NN
[ZDNet] “If people wonder whether the music industry will benefit from Net Neutrality they can look no further than us,” said OK Go’s lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash in testimony today before the House Judiciary Committee.

Zuckerberg: Lacy asked interesting questions
[News.com] "We may have not talked about the things that were most relevant to the audience that was here, but I've worked with Sarah on a number of pieces, and I generally think she's really smart and didn't necessarily deserve the reaction that people gave her."

Gmail app swipes passwords
[ZD] "Every time a user adds their account to the program to back up their data, it sends and email with their username and password to his personal email box! Having just entered my own information I became concerned."

Beatles/iTunes rumors denied
[News.com] Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the joint venture owned by Sony and singer Michael Jackson has thrown cold water over reports coming out of London that the Beatles catalog would soon be available on iTunes. A spokeswoman for Sony/ATV Music Publishing told CNET News.com that the reports are "untrue."

Now the Internet knows you're a dog
[NYT] A new analysis of online consumer data shows that large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet, gathering clues about the tastes and preferences of a typical user several hundred times a month.

EU probes US prosecution of gambling sites
[Reuters] "The U.S. has the right to address legitimate public policy concerns relating to Internet gambling, but discrimination against EU companies cannot be part of the policy mix," EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said in a statement.

Apple promotes iPhone for biz
[Ars] The iPhone will offer full Exchange support, thanks to licenses from Microsoft. The iPhone will also get enterprise-friendly security features, including remote wipe, support for Cisco IPsec VPN, certificates, identities, and WPA2/802.11x support. "Enterprise customers will be pretty excited," says Schiller.

iPhone strategy promotes, stifles innovation
[WaPo] One big unknown is where Apple will draw the line on which apps they'll allow and which they won't. So far, they've stated outright that pornography and illegal apps will not be tolerated (natch). But beyond that, Apple appears to fostering innovation, encouraging developers to stretch their collective imaginations--right down to allowing developers to offer free apps as well as for-pay apps.

Pentagon bans Google
[ZDNet] The Pentagon is not feeling too friendly towards Google these days. The brass got pretty pissed off when the discovered that Google Maps Street View had some up close and personal images of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. “It actually shows where all the guards are. It shows how the barriers go up and down. It shows how to get in and out of buildings,” said Gen. Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command.

MSFT: The little engine that could?
[InfoWeek] "We're in the game, and we're the little engine that could, just working away, working away, working away," Ballmer told interviewer and former Apple employee and evangelist Guy Kawasaki. "In online, yeah, it'sGoogle (NSDQ: GOOG), Google, Google. I'd say we're the underdog." That's a far cry from as recently as last year, when Ballmer called Google "cute" and a "one trick pony."

Sprint Nextel on the block?
[NYT] Merrill Lynch analysts are suggesting that Deutsche Telekom, which owns T-Mobile, may consider acquiring Sprint to block a price war in the mobile phone industry, the Kansas City Star reported. Merrill said that the wireless carrier’s woes may force it to cut prices to attract customers. “In such a price war scenario, we think T-Mobile would face the most pressure, and Deutsche Telekom would see the increased urgency to drive market repair,” the firm’s analysts said in a report cited by The Star.

Negroponte needs a CEO
[BizWeek] Negroponte is looking for help in piloting OLPC. During an interview with BusinessWeek, he revealed publicly for the first time that he's searching for a chief executive while he continues in the role of chairman. He says the organization has been operating "almost like a terrorist group, doing almost impossible things" for three years. Now, he says, it needs to be managed "more like Microsoft."

MSFT details IE 8, offers beta
[InfoWeek] Internet Explorer 8.0 is a shift from previous versions in that it focuses heavily on complying with Web standards. "The Web gets better when developers can spend less time working through interoperability issues and more time developing," Internet Explorer general manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a keynote address. "Today, differences between browsers simply waste too much developer time."

Bank asks for dismissal in Wikileaks case
[NYT] Lawyers involved in the case said the move by Bank Julius Baer most likely ends its battle against Wikileaks, a Web site that allows people to post documents anonymously “to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.”

Jobs disses Flash, Adobe burns
[InfoWeek] Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) Flash is not yet good enough for the iPhone, prompting Adobe to respond that the smartphone isn't ready for the Web without its video-playing technology.

Otellini promises growth
[News.com] Intel CEO Paul Otellini sought to reassure major investors Wednesday that the world's largest chip maker is still poised for strong growth into new areas like mobile computers, and can maintain its current lead in PC technology. Intel is investing new products like its Atom processor and attempting to break into these new markets by reminding software developers and device makers that Intel's chips are used to run today's PC-based Internet, and are ideal for allowing tomorrow's mobile devices to access that Internet.

iPhone SDK will promote social software
[ZDNet] There has (sic) been many published rumors suggesting that a number of handpicked companies have been given early access to the SDK so that they can get a head start developing flagship applications for the iPhone - perhaps to be showcased at tomorrow’s event. Intriguingly, MySpace is said to be one of those companies.

iPod crime wave?
[AP] Researchers at a public policy institute iPods are perhaps the main reason U.S. violent crime rose in 2005 and 2006 after declining every year since 1991 _ although a close look at the findings suggests the hypothesis has holes.

D&D founder dies
[Register] Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax rolled a natural one on his fortitude save today, dying at level 69 at his home in Lake Geneva. Best known for developing D&D with Dave Arneson in 1974, Gygax helped formulate a pen-and-pencil role playing ruleset that would become a touchstone for modern gaming across its genres.

MSFT debuts Office Live Workspace
[News.com] Office Live Workspace, a Web-based extension to Office that introduces online document sharing and storage, has been in a limited, private beta test since last October. The free service, set to debut later this year, is aimed at Google's Documents and Spreadsheets, among other services, that have emerged as popular alternatives to Office.

Google Gears on WinMobile phones
[NYT] There are a couple of announcements Tuesday that point to a major technological battle: the race to become the platform for mobile applications. This is happening at two levels. There are mobile operating systems like Symbian, Windows Mobile, Apple’s mobile version of OS X and Google’s forthcoming Android.

YHOO tool for mobile bookmarks
[News.com] Tuesday unveiled a new bookmarking tool for cell phones that lets people keep track of favorite Web content--news feeds, search results, Web sites--from one place on their handheld. The technology, called Yahoo OnePlace, will be available in the second quarter of 2008.

AAPL shareholders want say in Jobs' pay
[MacObserver] In response to the vote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told shareholders on hand for the meeting, "I hope this say on pay will help me with my $1 a year." Mr. Jobs has earned US$1 per year in salary since he returned to the company in 1997, though he has also earned a not-so-small fortune in stock grants, as well as a private jet he uses for company-related travel. Apple picks up the tab for those travel expenses.

Plug your iPod into Nautilus
[BizWeek] Nike and Apple are working with several gym equipment manufacturers and the health clubs 24-Hour Fitness and Virgin Athletic Health Clubs to allow members to plug their iPod Nanos into cardio equipment. They can then track workouts, set goals and upload the information to a Nike Web site.

UC deal with Saudi university

[MercNews] UC Berkeley has finalized an agreement to provide curricular, research and faculty-hiring help to a budding Saudi Arabian university. Berkeley leaders today announced the contract with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which is expected to open in 2009.

MSFT ready for natural computing
[PCW] Ballmer: "We're pioneering technologies that can identify spoken and written words. Interacting with computers will be just like interacting with people: We may still use keyboards and mice when it's more efficient, or you may use a wave of your hand to instruct the computer what you intend."

INTC goes Atomic
[Ars] Intel announced yesterday that its upcoming low-cost/low-power CPUs code-named Silverthorne and Diamondville will be sold under a single brand once the products launch. The MID-centric product family will hereafter be known as "Atom." Consumers are obviously meant to associate the Atom brand with objects of very small size, though Intel "Quark" would have a certain ring to it.

Wikileaks back online
[PCW] In his parting shot on a troubled case Judge White was reported as bemoaning the "definite disconnect between the evolution of our constitutional jurisprudence and modern technology. Maybe that's just the reality of the world that we live in. When this genie gets out of the bottle, that's it," he said.

AAPL falls short on vow to offer 1,000 movies
[Macworld] On my Apple TV I examined the All HD area and found that Apple’s close to the promise of 100 HD movies. The total as of the morning of February 29th is 91 HD movies. Note, however, that not all are offered with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Choose All Movies on your Apple TV and you’ll find 351 titles for rent.

iPhone talks in China stalled
[AppleInsider] "We have not yet officially begun talks with Apple over the iPhone problem," China Mobile Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou told a group of reporters this week. "As long as our customers want this kind of product, we will keep all options open." In January, Reuters cited a spokesperson for the Chinese carrier as saying that the two firms had "terminated talks," a notion later disputed by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who insisted that those reports were simply untrue.

Will Apple exert extreme control over iPhone apps?
[SiliconAlleyInsider] Apple will soon be supporting third-party iPhone apps, which we'll hear plenty about during Steve Jobs' iPhone press event this Thursday. The bad news: Apple's stamp of approval could be the most restrictive in the smartphone industry. Most important, Apple will act as a gatekeeper, formally approving or denying all software releases for the iPhone. How does that compare to other smartphone operating systems?

Judge reverses ruling in Wikileaks case [Reuters] "There are serious questions of prior restraint and possible violations of the First Amendment," U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled from the bench in his San Francisco courtroom.

Vista price cuts show how badly MSFT needs YHOO
[NYT] One look at Microsoft’s high profit margins certainly raises questions about how long this business model can continue before someone creates a more efficient model. The combination of the open source movement, the Web, and the advertising-supported software model epitomized by Google are starting to have the long-predicted effect.

eBay, MercExchange settle feud
[BetaNews] As part of the agreement, eBay will purchase from MercExchange three patents which cover search, online auction, and fixed price sales.Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "We're pleased to have been able to reach a settlement with MercExchange," eBay general counsel Mike Jacobson said in a statement.

Chinese, Indian buyers send phone sales soaring
[News.com] "Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone," Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner, said in a statement. "In mature markets, such as Japan and Western Europe, consumers' appetite for feature-laden phones was met with new models packed with TV tuners, global positioning satellite (GPS) functions, touch screens and high-resolution cameras."

Google's war on IT
[ReadWriteWeb] Google is actually going about marketing to the enterprise market in a pretty ingenious way - they're not. Instead, they're bypassing the IT department (who would, in all honesty, probably laugh at the thought) and marketing their suite on the sly directly to the employees themselves: "Are the tools provided by your IT department too unwieldy to use? Is IT to slow to respond to your needs? Then forget IT and use Google Apps instead!"

AAPL fighting RIM for biz market
[CNN] The phrase "new enterprise features" in a recent Apple iPhone-related event invite was all it took for some to anoint the iPhone as the next big challenge for Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), the world's leading supplier of smartphones.

ACLU, EFF step in on Wikileaks case
[News.com] Wikileaks is receiving some independent legal support from free speech groups, including Public Citizen, the California First Amendment Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They--and some media organizations also expected to file a brief--are asking to intervene on Wikileaks' behalf.

iPhone SDK coming next week?
[TechCrunch] It’s not clear whether the SDK will actually be released on that date, or whether it will just be detailed. In either case, Apple has failed to fulfill its promise to release the SDK this February as anticipated. The event will be invite-only and will take place at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, March 6 at 10am.

Windows Server launches
[News.com] "I'm not here to write new code, to design new apps," Tom Brokaw told the crowd at the tony Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Instead, Brokaw spoke for several minutes on the radical transformation of society being brought about by technology.

EU fines MSFT $1.35b
[AP] The European Union's longest-running fight with Microsoft Corp. neared an end Wednesday as regulators imposed a record $1.3 billion fine on the world's largest software company for failing to fully comply with a 2004 antitrust order.

About.com CEO to leave
[PaidContent] Scott Meyer, the CEO of About.com, part of New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), is leaving by next week, our sources say, and has been confirmed by the company. His last day will be Thursday next week. No replacement is being named now.

YHOO fails to impress at IAB

[Battelle] It's clear they are beginning to roll out a strategy, but, well, it's not clear to me what the big vision is. I see parts of it - boil the all-in-one advertising platform ocean, make Yahoo more open, create exchanges between publishers and advertisers - but I can't see the whole dern thing. And from the buzz at the IAB conference after Jerry and Sue's presentation yesterday, I ain't the only one.

Here come the YHOO shareholder suits
[WaPo] Five of the suits allege Yahoo's board breached its duty by spurning Microsoft without trying to negotiate a better deal, according to the annual report. The two other suits allege Yahoo unfairly favored Microsoft's "inadequate" bid even though the board eventually turned down the original cash-and-stock offer of $31 per share.

Apple updates laptops with multitouch trackpads
[News.com] The MacBook Pro is available with Core 2 Duo (Penryn) processors at up to 2.6GHz and up to 6MB of cache memory. Storage options have been revised to include up to a 300GB hard drive.

FCC grills Comcast, considers rulemaking
[NYT] In sharp questioning to a senior executive from Comcast, Mr. Martin indicated that the commission was considering whether to levy a fine or issue an order that would limit the company’s ability to slow down broadband traffic to consumers using file-sharing programs.

iTunes: We're No. 2!
[LA Times] Nearly half of all teenagers bought no compact discs in 2007, accelerating the music industry's painful transition from CDs to digital downloads, according to a report released today.

YHOO seeks to build some Buzz
[Wired] The site works similar to Digg and Reddit: Users "Buzz up" news stories they like, and depending on how many Buzz points the story gets, it could land on the front page of the site. The stories that receive the most Buzz points will also be submitted to Yahoo editors for possible inclusion on the Yahoo homepage. Users can simultaneously submit stories to Yahoo Buzz along with other sites including Digg, Facebook, Propeller, Reddit and Stumbleupon.

GOOG's new project: Undersea fiber cable
[Newsfactor] Google has a unique reason for investing in infrastructure, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, in an e-mail. "Google appears to be trying to vertically integrate -- my guess is so they eventually can provide a complete Internet/phone/entertainment service which is completely ad-driven," he wrote.

Pakistan lifts its ban on YouTube
[ZDNet] Having neatly knocked YouTube off the net for several hours, exposing a key vulnerability in the BRG system and creating a small tumult within Pakistan, the government has now changed course and removed the block on YouTube.

Lightweight competition: Mac Air v. Lenovo X300
[BetaNews] Unlike Apple's lightweight offering, Lenovo's latest falls into the "full-featured" category, which means it comes with an optional 7mm slim DVD burner, a feature which many users require if only for a sense of comfort. Supplied to further ease consumers' minds, the X300 comes standard with a fingerprint scanner, I/O port disablement and 32-byte password protection for enhanced security.

Fresh AIR for apps that span desktop, net
[WSJ] Someone who wants to put an item up for bid on eBay, for example, could fill out the form through the AIR software while the PC isn't connected to the Web. The software would automatically post the information to eBay the next time the computer is connected to the Internet.

Pakistan shoots down YouTube (for a few hours)
[NYT] The chain of confusion started when Pakistan's Internet tinkering was copied to an affiliated I.S.P. in Hong Kong, which copied it to other companies routing Internet requests across the world. Experts on Internet routing agreed on their mailing list that the spread of the YouTube-blocking beyond Pakistan was an accident.

Nokia previews Morph, a futuristic rubbery device
[TechNewsWorld] Morph is currently just a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might look, Nokia said, with pliable materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces. Actual, commercial devices based on the concept won't be available for a good seven years at least. "Nokia Research Center is looking at ways to reinvent the form and function of mobile devices; the Morph concept shows what might be possible," said Bob Iannucci, Nokia CTO.

'Vista Capable' lawsuit gets class action status
[InfoWeek] Seattle District Court Judge Marsha Pechman, who last year rejected Microsoft's request for a dismissal of the case, last week effectively expanded the lawsuit to potentially include all consumers who purchased a Windows XP PC advertised as "Vista Capable."

Semantic Web firm gets $13m funding
[ZDNet] Spivack says that the additional injection of cash will be used to move Radar Networks’ initial product, Twine, from its current beta status toward mainstream adoption. He suggests that the thousands of individuals already on Twine’s waiting list will gradually be granted access from next month, and encouraged to drive viral growth by passing invitations to friends and colleagues. He believes that Twine will be open to the public by early Summer.

Security hole in VMWare
[CRN] Core Security Technologies, based in Boston, Mass., announced the discovery of a flaw in VMWare's desktop virtualization software for Windows that could leave companies vulnerable to hackers. "What's most relevant about this vulnerability is it demonstrates how virtual environments can provide an open door to the underlying infrastructures that host them," said Core Security's CTO Ivn Arce.

Japan launches high-speed net satellite
[Wired] After a week of delays, Japan launched a new, experimental Internet satellite on Saturday that shows why Japan is still so much farther ahead than the United States in terms of bandwidth. The "Kizuna" satellite is designed to give extremely high Internet speeds to rural and other areas that have been left off the country's already high-speed grid.

FCC hearing on Comcast
[News.com] "What we're going to see on Monday is a trial of the Internet," said Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu. "Comcast is in the docket, accused of crimes against the public interest, and we'll see how well they are able to defend themselves."

GOOG's moon contest gets started
[NYT] Addressing the X Prize teams and journalists, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, compared his company’s support of the competition with other companies’ sponsorship of yacht races. “The idea we can help spur the return to the moon and maybe even do it more quickly than some of the national plans is really exciting to me,” Mr. Brin said.

Open source wary of the new open Microsoft
[CRN] Dominick Sartorio, president of the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), said he understands the feelings of mistrust within the open source community. "There's always been a lot of language thrown around between Microsoft and the leaders in the open source community," he said. "Obviously it has not been a good relationship, but personally I think a lot of that is behind us now."

MSFT offers SP1 early - by mistake
[ZDNet] Spokesperson: 'Today, a build of SP1 was posted to Windows Update and it was inadvertently made available to a broad group. The build was intended only for our more technically advanced testers, and was meant to only be offered to those with a specific registry key set on their PC. For general availability, we are still planning to make SP1 broadly available in the mid-March timeframe.'

DoubleTwist makes Facebook P2P

[DailyTech] the client interfaces with Facebook via a Facebook Application named TwistMe, and lets you share files with users you've befriended. The Facebook application makes file-sharing as simple as a drag and drop, and once the direct transfer is complete, it will appear in your friend's desktop client. DoubleTwist has plans to interface its client with all major social networks, creating a new revolution in P2P. It’s currently working on developing an interface for the OpenSocial platforms.

Even encrypted data isn't safe

[NYT] A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks.The technique, which could undermine security software protecting critical data on computers, is as easy as chilling a computer memory chip with a blast of frigid air from a can of dust remover.

EMC thunders into cloud computing with Pi Corp.

[Newsfactor] Enterprise storage giant EMC has acquired a small start-up that hasn't released any products. Pi Corp. was founded by Paul Maritz, a 14-year veteran of Microsoft. EMC is also hiring Maritz as president of a new Cloud Infrastructure and Services division.

Gates to China: Monopoly, not censorship is way to go
[IDG] "I don't see any risk in the world at large that someone will restrict free content flow on the Internet," he said. "You cannot control the Internet." (Good thing MSFT is buying YHOO, then, to get the message across.)

Judge: RIAA suits are A-OK
[Ars] Despite a litany of wrong doing, including trying to contact Andersen's young daughter at school and her apartment building without Andersen's knowledge or permission, the judge said the plaintiff needed more specifics. Lory Lybeck, Andersen's attorney, told Ars that he plans to refile and move ahead with the lawsuit. "The judge spent about 45 minutes to an hour discussing exactly what she was looking for in an amended complaint," Lybeck said.

P2P guy doesn't like new, improved Comcast
[Ars] Sanford Snidner says that his service will often "slow to a crawl" when using file-sharing applications and that he feels "betrayed" by Comcast's actions. "I'll bet most paying customers out there have no idea that Comcast is secretly blocking and slowing down their high-speed Internet service," Sidner said in a statement. "It cuts at the heart of the service we all purchased."

Judge didn't count on Wikileaks' Swedish connection
[NYT] The records for the site’s I.P. address indicate that it is hosted by PRQ, based in Stockholm. PRQ is owned by two founders of the Pirate Bay. PRQ has gone out of its way to host sites that other companies wouldn’t touch. It is perhaps the world’s least lawyer-friendly hosting company and thus a perfect home for Wikileaks, which says it is “developing an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis.”

DVD Jon's DoubleTwist rips away DRM
[Wired] “Every time this dude releases a hack I’m not interested in using, I end up being forced to download a new patch from Apple for my iTunes/iPod if I want to buy new music.”

More wisdom from Bill: No MSFT-YHOO culture clash
[News.com] "Yahoo wants to do breakthrough software," Gates told CNET News.com. "The engineers there want to compete very effectively against Google or any other thing that comes along, so I don't think there is really a different culture. ... "Jerry Yang to his credit has kept a lot of very top engineers that have been just doing their work and improving those things. That's why we see the combination as so powerful."

YHOO embraces Google-built software for search
[TechCrunch] Hadoop is an open-source implementation of Google’s MapReduce software and file system. It takes all the links on the Web found by a search engine’s crawlers and “reduces” them to a map of the Web so that ranking algorithms can be run against them. Yahoo is replacing its own software with Hadoop and running it on a Linux server cluster with 10,000 core processors.

Forget housing woes, HP results forestall recession
[Bloomberg] ``Their guidance was much more bullish than we thought it would be, particularly with what we've seen out of Cisco,'' Pacific Crest Securities' Brent Bracelin said in an interview. ``Their outlook suggests that things aren't as bad as people thought.''

MSFT will launch proxy fight for YHOO
[NYT] The move, expected to cost about $20 million to $30 million, was Microsoft’s alternative to raising its $44.6 billion bid and is seen as a less expensive way to put pressure on Yahoo’s board. Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s original offer as undervalued.

30 years after Betamax, Sony wins a format war
[NYT] The format battle often drew yawns from analysts and consumers, however. Many believe that the new disc format will be leap-frogged quickly by Internet-based movie downloads, just as music discs have been increasingly replaced by digital files.

Judge orders WikiLeaks offline, then backs off
[ZDNet] It seems that WikiLeaks lawyers were able to convince the judge that something was amiss here, because the second order, a TRO, provides WikiLeaks an opportunity to answer (by Feb. 20) and JB to respond to that answer (by Feb. 26.) One question is whether JB lied about there being a stipulation for WikiLeaks to go offline, since WL compained so vociferously about it and the order was so quickly amended.

Supremes reject ALCU appeal in wiretap case
[AP] "It's very disturbing that the president's actions will go unremarked upon by the court," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. "In our view, it shouldn't be left to executive branch officials alone to determine the limits."

CrackerJack to include iPod Shuffle as prize
[Macworld] At just $49, the iPod shuffle is the most affordable iPod ever,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. “The new 2GB model lets music lovers bring even more songs everywhere they go in the impossibly small iPod shuffle.”

Will students choose free MSFT over free open source?
[InfoWeek] "We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems, and catalyze economic growth," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in a statement. (Hmm, don't they already have that?)

Posted by Richard Koman on February 19, 2008 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)