22
April
2009
|
19:55 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Newswatch: Interactive Targeted Ads to Appear on TV Screen -AP

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



Microsoft judge says oversight process at "much better place" -Reuters


The Justice Department and states involved in the antitrust suit said that the May 2011 deadline may give them enough time to assess whether Microsoft had removed all the errors from the technical information it is required to give potential licensees who write programs for Microsoft's Windows.


Congress to hold hearing on cable advertising -AP


"We have recently called on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate cable's new interactive targeted TV ad system on both antitrust and privacy grounds," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.


Yahoo’s Bartz Rewrites the Script on APT -WSJ


On Tuesday’s earnings call, Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz struck a different tone. Instead of positioning APT as a monolithic product with a one-off debut, she referred to it as lots of different pieces of technology, many of which still need to be built. “There is no such thing as a rollout of APT,” she said. “APT is a product that will be ongoing for a long time.”


Mapping a Human Genome, via an eBay Auction -NYTimes


Scientists envision that in a few years it will cost only $1,000 to determine the sequence of virtually all 6 billion chemical units of DNA in a person’s 46 chromosomes. Someday, such personal genetic blueprints could be used to predict people’s risk of disease and what drugs might work best for them


Booming iPhone Sales Slow Profit Decline for AT&T -NYTimes


The real surprise was AT&T’s success in cutting costs in the wireless business, Mr. Moffett said. Still, AT&T reported significant declines in its traditional wireline business. Revenue from voice lines dropped 12.2 percent.


Why AT&T Wants to Keep the iPhone Away From Verizon -NYTimes


Put another way, if the company gets 2.5 million new customers a year because of its iPhone exclusivity, the deal represents at least $700 million a year in operating profits — profits that it could lose if Verizon sold the iPhone, too.


Faster Bluetooth chips coming early next year -AP


While Bluetooth 3.0 with the high-speed option is 10 times faster than current Bluetooth, it's about 20 times slower than a USB cable, so it will likely be less than ideal for a complete music library or a long movie.


Amazon, Google, Microsoft - Big Three Cloud Providers Examined -CloudComputing


I wanted to take a crack at that one, but from a completely different perspective. I want to frame the discussion centered on the motivations of the platform providers, and let that be a guide to understanding the delivered product.


Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing _CloudHosting Journal


The great diversity of services offered via cloud computing requires careful analysis to understand the risks and mitigation appropriate in each case. At the same time, we see enormous potential for the cloud model to eventually simplify many difficult security problems.


The Old Streetlamp of the Past Gets Updated for a Green Future -WSJ


The test in San Jose coincides with a broad push by federal and state agencies to modernize the nation's lighting infrastructure. Many homes and businesses have replaced incandescent bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescent lights. Now cities, faced with tighter budgets, are looking for ways to cut street-lighting costs and to reduce emissions from power plants.


Confused Teens Choose ‘Less Expensive’ over ‘Green’ -MC


Janis Gaudelli, SVP and head of Generate Insight suggests that brands that present easy, yet effective ways for Millennials to reduce, reuse and refresh will empower this generation to both put their extensive green knowledge to use and make more purchasing decisions based on that information.


Google’s Black-Box Social Network -NYTimes


While some people may well want to do anything they can to hide from the prying eyes of surfers around the world, many more in this narcissistic era will want to ascend to the stage Google is offering them.


Bay Area firms recognized for green innovations -SFGate


The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund of New York published a list of 20 firms that have, for example, produced "smart irrigation" systems to save water, changed food menus to cut down on beef or are renegotiating building leases to include electricity saving goals.


Net tool tracks carbon footprint by ZIP code -SFGate


San Francisco is the first city in the world to take advantage of the ecomap technology. Amsterdam and Seoul will follow sometime this year. The maps will be updated regularly as part of a 12-month pilot project paid for by Cisco, which plans to transform the site to nonprofit status sometime in 2010.


AT&T to shut CallVantage Internet phone service -SFGate


The shutdown of CallVantage was not unexpected. AT&T stopped signing up new subscribers last summer. In January, Verizon Communications Inc. said it would shut down its corresponding service, VoiceWing, at the end of March.


PBS Brings Bugs, Presidents and Soufflés to the Web -NYTimes


Public television may be nonprofit and government-sponsored, but it has many of the same problems as commercial broadcasters when it comes to the Web.


Craigslist Safety: Using Craigguard.com -WSJ


“Because Craigslist.org does not offer a rating system for their users or any mechanism for its users to be notified of good and bad users, this lack of advisory has undoubtedly contributed to the scammers and criminals thriving on Craigslist.org,” she said. Craigslist does enable users to mark postings that are clearly fraudulent, but often cases aren’t so clearly black and white, said Brock.



Rumors and Musings on the new iPhone 2009 -i4u


Whether or not a new iPhone is unveiled this year is any ones guess, but some of the rumors make more sense than others. One of the rumors that will certainly make it into the next generation iPhone will be support for HD video playback and output. With the variety of HD content on iTunes, this would be a no brainer for Apple. Apple is already clearing stock of its composite and component AV cables to make room for a new cable, presumably HDMI lending weight to this rumor.