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."

Little radiation from a wireless mouse -SFGate

When you're sitting in your home office, you're also getting minute doses of radiation from the computer screen and the wireless router, so what's a little more from the wireless mouse or keyboard.

Newspaper saving Kindle coming this Wednesday -SFGate

The new Kindle, said to be backed by the New York Times, is not the only device in the works. The Chronicle's parent company Hearst, News Corp. and Plastic Logic are also working on big-screen readers.

The Cost of a (Private) Cloud -cloud

Before you get your IT guys working on building your cloud, I’d suggest you to read this white-paper by Albert Greenberg, (ex Microsoft, working for Amazon) James Hamilton, David A. Maltz and Parveen Patel - “The Cost of a Cloud: Research Problems in Data Center Networks“. Remember, at the end of the day you’re building a data center.

Backing Up Virtual Machines -eclipse

Virtualization has the same single point of failure as some cluster technologies and services: shared disk. What happens to your virtual infrastructure if you lose connectivity to your primary storage unit? The entire virtual host becomes unavailable and that can put upwards of 8-10 production workloads at risk, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle -WSJ

Some publishers also are focusing their portable-reading efforts on devices people already use. The new iPhone applications store rolling out this summer will support subscription prices, spurring the Financial Times, Time Inc. and other publishers to tinker with ways to offer subscriptions on the iPhone. Last week, Amazon bought a small startup that makes free e-book reading application Stanza for the iPhone

EU hearing on Microsoft antitrust case in June -Reuters

European Union antitrust regulators have set a hearing next month for Microsoft to respond orally to EU charges that it sought to stymie rivals by tying the firm's Web browser to its Windows operating system.

Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks -WSJ

Dozens of newspaper and magazines subscriptions for Kindle are sold through Amazon, but some publishers have concerns about the arrangement. Amazon controls the relationship with subscribers and dictates pricing. In addition, the current version of the Kindle doesn't display ads, which newspaper and magazine companies rely on for revenue.

Skyline Solar mixes old technology with new -SFGate

Despite the current gloom, most analysts say the solar industry will grow again. President Obama's economic stimulus package included $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable power projects and tweaked existing programs to benefit solar and wind companies. Once the loan guarantees and grants start flowing, companies like Skyline should see their fortunes improve. If they make it that far.

Yahoo Video Gets “Streamlined” -NYTimes

Yahoo’s various video projects have not fared particularly well. Recently, it shut down live-streaming service Yahoo Live as well as web video-editing service Jumpcut, which it had acquired in 2006. Its original content initiatives have been stop-and-go. Flickr held off on adding video until only a year ago, and restricts video uploads to the point they can only be an afterthought to photos.

California judge blunts Internet false advertising law -Reuters

Adler ruled that Hypertouch's claims -- that its customers were barraged by 45,000 emails containing false claims -- were preempted by the federal CAN-SPAM Act because the company had not demonstrated actual fraud or deception by the defendants.

Do You Know Anyone Still on MySpace? -NYTimes

When I reread the article I wrote in 2006 about the high hopes News Corporation had for MySpace, I see a litany of ideas that didn’t pan out. The company wanted to make the site a portal for its own video; Hulu fills that need. It wanted to create a marketplace for person-to-person commerce, a more social eBay

Comments on news stories a double-edged sword -SFGate

The ability to comment on news stories at Web sites for established newspapers, such as The Chronicle, USA Today and the Washington Post, has invited a wave of input from would-be pundits, class clowns, provocateurs and regular Joes.

Live Streaming Coming to iPhone? Apple Submits New Spec to IETF -NYTimes

The big question is, what does this really mean? Is a future version of iTunes going to support streaming music and video from our PCs to our iPhones and iPods, or will we be streaming directly from an Apple server instead?

Intel’s Andy Grove Wades, Briefly, into Patent-Reform Debate -WSJ

Grove, stating that he had negotiated for three minutes of time, questioned whether the current environment would generate comparable innovations. “I’m dubious,”