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Jobs unveils iPhone to 4,000 drooling fans

2007-01-09T13:44:00.002-08:00

Ending months of rampant speculation and anticipation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled plans for the iPhone, a svelte and sexy device that melds the features of an iPod, a smart phone and an internet communicator.

Tuesday's announcement at the annual MacWorld conference in San Francisco ends months of rumors and prognostication about Apple's quest to expand its lineup with the introduction of a full-featured phone. While plenty of pundits have pooh-poohed Apple's prospects of catching up to Nokia, Motorola and other device makers, Jobs said his goal was to capture one per cent of the market by 2008.

(Jobs cited figures that showed 957 million cell phones were sold last year. He didn't list sales of smart phones, which is a small fraction of that number.)

The iPhone ships in the US in June and in Europe in the fourth quarter. Asia will have to wait until next year. A 4GB iPhone will cost $499 and the 8GB will be $599. Cingular has entered in to a "multi-year" exclusive partnership in the US. Jobs didn't identify what carriers it planned to work with overseas.

Jobs also announced the availability next month of Apple TV, a living room device for stereos and wide-screen televisions that Apple first teased in September. It will will connect to computers throughout the home to make it easier to consume pictures, music and video.

The unveilings came as the company formally changed its name from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. to signal its expansion from computers into consumer electronics.

(True to MacWorld's roots as an annual pilgrimage for geeks and the reporters who love them, attendees at this year's event lined up before it began like so many teenyboppers at a Justin Timberlake concert. The scene once the doors opened resembled the running of the bulls.)
Revolutionary

During a two-hour keynote filled with thousands of ogling fans, Jobs made liberal use of the world "revolutionary" in describing the iPhone. Based on the demo, he probably wasn't exaggerating.

The device offers a wider, 3.5-inch screen with touch controls that vastly improve upon the iPod's scroll wheel. To scroll through a list of artists, contacts or photos a user runs a finger down the screen. A faster flick will move further down the list than a slow one. The iPhone also features an improved menu structure that makes it faster to find playlists, artists and albums.

The screen is also improved, allowing the viewing of video and pictures in either portrait or landscape mode. Switching from one to the other requires a flip of the fingers.

The phone offers random-access voicemail, enabling users to listen to messages in the order they want, rather than in the order they were left. It offers SMS messaging and a 2 megapixel camera.

Jobs, who has been under scrutiny for backdated stock options issued to employees and executives, showed how easy it was to access voice mail. One message left on his phone came from former Vice President Al Gore, who was part of an internal task force that recently absolved Jobs of any wrongdoing in the scandal. (Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth got a plug later when Jobs used the iPhone to browse movie titles.)

It also allows seamless access to IMAP and POP3 email, and Yahoo will offer the free pushing of IMAP messages. Web browsing benefits from the availability of Safari, the ability to zoom in and out with a tap of the finger and the iPhone's wide-screen capacity.

Jobs demonstrated a feature that integrates Google Maps into the device, allowing him to locate a Starbucks a few blocks away and order 4,000 cups of coffee to go by phone simply by tapping the number listed on the browser. (He canceled the order before hanging up.)

The iPhone comes with plenty of other goodies, including sensors that control screen brightness, adjust the picture when the device has been rotated from portrait to landscape, and measure how close the user is to the phone.

It supports quad-band GSM, EDGE, Bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n.

Jobs didn't say if Apple had to pay for the rights to the iPhone name. Recent disclosures showed that Cisco Systems held the rights to the brand.

Yahoo Adds Web Search to Mobile Suite

2007-01-09T13:44:00.001-08:00

Yahoo Go 2.0 beta includes a new search app designed for mobile devices.
Marc Ferranti and Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service

LAS VEGAS -- Yahoo has released a test upgrade of its suite for mobile devices, which includes a new search application, as the company keeps trying to extend its products to cell phones.

A beta version of Yahoo Go 2.0, unveiled here on Monday, can be downloaded to more than 70 mobile devices from various vendors worldwide. Handset makers supporting Yahoo Go 2.0 include Research In Motion, Motorola, Samsung, and Nokia. The suite can be used on "most" wireless networks, Yahoo officials said.

By the end of the year, Yahoo expects users to be able to download Yahoo Go 2.0 onto more than 400 devices, according to Marco Boerries, senior vice president for Yahoo Connected Life.
Get Facts Instead of Links

A key feature of Yahoo Go 2.0 is oneSearch, a new search engine designed specifically for mobile devices that, instead of returning a list of Web sites, provides facts related to the query term, according to Boerries. For example, if a user enters the name of a sports team, oneSearch will display relevant game scores, team information, photos, news articles and the like.

In a demonstration, Boerries showed how, if a user types in pizza, local listings for pizza restaurants will be displayed automatically.

"Consumers want an experience optimized for mobile," Boerries said. "No matter how good the screen gets, no matter how fast it gets ... the mobile phone is different from the PC."

Yahoo Go 2.0 also features local maps, news tickers, a mobile version of the Flickr photo management service, and e-mail.

Yahoo will provide the Yahoo Go 2.0 software for free and make money from advertising and sponsored search results, Boerries said. Ads and sponsored results will be clearly distinguished from results generated by search algorithms, Boerries said.
Mobile Search Market Taking Off

The mobile business generated by Internet search companies such as Yahoo and Google is currently dwarfed by PC-based search revenue, according to Takami Kono, vice president of equity global research at Nomura Securities International. But Yahoo is taking necessary steps to make sure it is well positioned in the mobile market, he said.

"Mobile advertising is less than 5 percent of all search advertising revenue, but it should grow at two or three times per year for the next few years," Kono said. "Google makes more money from search advertising, but Yahoo's content is better," he said. Yahoo Go is a good way for the company to leverage its strength, he said.

Yahoo also announced at CES that Opera Software chose it as the exclusive search engine provider for its Opera Mini and Opera Mobile Web browsers, and that Opera plans to adopt oneSearch this quarter.

Sling TV offering comes to Palm phones

2007-01-08T14:24:00.002-08:00

Mobile device maker Palm Inc. on Monday said owners of its third-generation Treo smartphones will soon be able to watch television using software from Sling Media Inc.

The SlingPlayer Mobile software, which lets smartphone users watch live and recorded television from their home cable box, satellite receiver or digital video recorder, is already available for devices that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system.

Sling Media and Palm said they expect to release the Palm OS version for Treo 700p devices sometime in the current quarter.

Shares of Palm were unchanged at $14.69 in morning trading on the Nasdaq.

CES 2007: 200 GB Blu-ray discs, 16.5 GB Mini discs in the works

2007-01-08T14:24:00.001-08:00

Las Vegas (NV) - While we are just noticing a greater adoption of the first-generation high-definition media formats and a new wave of 50 GB Blu-ray will be shipping in the first quarter of this year, we have spotted the next generation of Blu-ray at CES.

TDK previewed a massive 200 GB Blu-ray disc, which the company claims has enough room to store approximately 18 hours of high-definition video (encoded at 24 Mbps). The company did not say when such media may be commercially available.

Also on display are 8cm Mini Blu-ray discs, which have a capacity of 16.5 GB by using a single-layer recording material structure. The Blu-ray minis will be available in BD-R and BD-RE formats. Complementing the TDK lineup are thermal and inkjet printable BD-Rs that will begin shipping in the second quarter of 2007.

Living room new Internet battlefield: Apple vs. Microsoft

2006-12-30T17:05:00.001-08:00

Peter Nowak, Financial Post
Published: Thursday, December 28, 2006

There's a battle going on to connect your living room to the Internet, and it is about to intensify as two tech titans -- Microsoft Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. -- gear up for the next round of their decades- long rivalry.

But it's not just the next chapter in this classic feud. The fight for the connected living room -- in which television, movies, games, music and the Internet will all be downloaded to your TV screen -- looks to forever change the way people consume entertainment at home.

"It's really going to be a Goliath battle," says John Ruffolo, national leader for Deloitte & Touche's technology, media and telecommunications practice. "Whoever wins, it's going to be the great big business opportunity for the next number of years."

The main driver of the Internet's move from the den to the living room is video, in the form of paid television and movie downloads. It's a trend that started in 2006 and is expected to blast off in 2007, with retailers including Amazon.com and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also getting in on the trend.

A report last week by U.S. market research firm NPD Group expects paid video downloads to double or triple in the next year. Strategy Analytics sees the market growing to US$1.4-billion in 2007 from US$298-million in 2006, and rising to nearly US$6-billion by 2010.

"2007 will be remembered as the year in which online sales of pre-recorded video finally became a real business," says Martin Olausson, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics' broadband media and communications service. "Just like with music, online delivery of video content is now emerging as a viable and increasingly important distribution channel for content owners."

While such video services are typically available only in the United States so far, they are expected to migrate north once the business models prove themselves over the next year.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is in the driver's seat with its Xbox 360 video-game console and associated online subscription service, Xbox Live. The console, launched a year ago, is aimed primarily at gamers, but Microsoft is increasingly talking it up as a full, Internet-connected multimedia machine. It is capable of wirelessly connecting with a person's PC and streaming the media on it to the television.

Xbox Live, meanwhile, has been offering online gaming for some time, but this year added television downloads in the United States for between US$2 and US$3 an episode, along with other video content, including free music videos and movie trailers. Two weeks ago, Microsoft took the long-expected step of adding movie rental downloads in standard and high-definition formats, ranging from US$3 to US$4 each, to Xbox Live's U.S. offerings.

The company says Xbox Live has four million subscribers worldwide (it does not break down numbers by country) and is projecting six million by the end of June. Microsoft expects to have sold 10 million Xbox 360 consoles by the end of this year, with about two-thirds of those connected to Xbox Live. So far, more than 70 million pieces of content have been downloaded since the 360 launched, a number Microsoft expects will grow significantly in 2007.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Computer also got in on the action in 2006, and plans to accelerate its move into the living room in the coming year. In May, the iPod maker introduced television episodes for US$1.99 each to its online iTunes store and in September added full movies for US$12.99.

Chief executive Steve Jobs also in September announced a device tentatively called "iTV," to be released in the first quarter of 2007. The device will wirelessly connect the television in the living room with the computer in the den and is expected to allow users to access iTunes from their TVs.

Apple says it has sold more than 1.5 billion music tracks and tens of millions television episodes and movies through iTunes. Analysts estimate it has about 90% of the paid video download market and is therefore well-positioned for the coming boom.

Yet, dozens of telecommunications and technology companies have for years tried and failed to connect the living room to the Internet, so why is it taking off now?

NPD says increased levels of broadband access, powerful and fast computers with DVD writers, portable video devices and file-sharing services are combining to make Internet video consumption easier. Better wireless broadband connectivity is also saving consumers from having to run wires between their den and living room.

Microsoft is one of those firms guilty of trying and failing with its Windows Media PC, which came out before the technology was ready, Mr. Ruffolo says.

"They were coming out with this concept, but the basic infrastructure wasn't really there. Everything is now ready from a technological perspective, whereas five years ago Microsoft was premature."

The original Xbox, the predecessor to the 360, was the software company's first real attempt at cracking the living room. When the Xbox was released five years ago, it was obvious it was about more than just video games. It differed from its peers by virtue of having a hard drive and broadband port, meaning it was designed to connect to the Internet, download content and store it. The Xbox was instantly dubbed a "PC in disguise."

Its successor, the 360, has a wireless broadband connection and high-definition graphic ability, which means it's tailor-made for downloadable video content, Microsoft says.

"People are on their couches looking to be entertained. Gaming is a big part of that, but it can be so much more," says Jason Anderson, marketing manager of Xbox Canada. "It's time to broaden."

Despite Microsoft's head start, however, it's Apple that is being seen as the force that will drive the explosive growth of the Internet in the living room. While the Xbox 360 requires some technical know-how to connect wirelessly, Apple has built its reputation on making easy to-use, aesthetically pleasing products, a fact that is particularly obvious in its dominance of the music-player market with the hugely successful iPod. If Apple's iTV is as easy to use as the iPod, consumers could flock to downloading television episodes and movies from iTunes.

Apple is a secretive company that rarely comments about its future products, and declined to talk about its iTV device for this article.

It's not all Microsoft and Apple, however, as Sony Corp. also wants a piece of the pie. Its recently launched Play- Station 3 video game console has all the same features of the 360 -- hard drive storage, broadband connectivity and high-definition graphics -- and in addition lets users surf the Web and check their e-mail. Sony also says it has two advantages over Microsoft and Apple: the Japanese company has its own extensive movie and music content, and it can offer interactivity with its Play Station Portable handheld device.

"The ace we have up our sleeve at this point is that they can't replicate our 10- year heritage of making great games," says Matt Levitan, marketing manager of Sony Computer Entertainment Canada. "So although [Apple]may be able to provide something that can download or view movies or songs, we also have the game-play element on [the PSP], which is something they can't really address."

Sony's online presence is in its infancy, but the company plans to integrate its various offerings. For example, consumers will be able to download movies or music from Sony's online store to their PS3, then access the stored media with their PSP from any wireless Internet hotspot in the world.

Analysts tend to discount Sony as a serious player, despite the fact it is still the market leader in video games, and peg it as a company in disarray. Its content ownership and diversity as a company

could also actually prove to be a disadvantage.

"I don't think it's provided any sort of cost or business advantage to Sony," Mr. Ruffolo says. "Frankly, the evidence is there that it might actually be a liability. It's not in their core competency. If you speak to the folks at Sony in Japan, do they really know how to run a movie business? Can they run a music studio?"

Another serious player could be San Jose, Calif.-based networking company Cisco Systems Inc., which currently makes digital television receivers through its Scientific Atlanta subsidiary for cable firms. The company is planning to release a cable bypass box that will allow consumers to download television and movies. Cisco's advantage is that it actually builds and understands the broadband connections necessary for the delivery of all the content, analysts say.

"Cisco actually might be the scariest of the three. They are a scary company because they get the critical aspect of this -- it's the pipe," says California based technology analyst Rob Enderle of The Enderle Group. "Cisco is heavily versed in that back-end infrastructure and they know how to tune that."

Mr. Enderle says Cisco is not likely to go it alone, however, and will more probably market its service as an enhanced broadband offering in partnership with telephone companies.

Ironically, the Internet-connected living room is a competitive threat to cable and telephone companies alike. Both types of providers are increasingly getting into offering on-demand, digital, high-definition video over their high-speed Internet networks. Phone and cable providers are finding it disingenuous that companies such as Microsoft and Apple are using their own networks to compete against them, so they are taking steps to slow them.

BCE Inc., for example, recently announced its broadband subscribers will be billed according to how much they download, a move analysts say is clearly designed to slow Internet video consumption.

In the end, the battle for the Internet connected living room will come down to whoever has the best business model, Mr. Enderle says.

Pay-per-view services generally have not done well, and some sort of all-you can-eat download subscription services are sure to emerge over the next year. Microsoft may have the early advantage, he says, but "it's not an extreme advantage."

Mr. Ruffolo, meanwhile, says it's a bad idea to give too much credit to Apple based on its success with the iPod.

"People have been dismissing Microsoft in the last year or two, but I never count those guys out."

pnowak@nationalpost.com

Next-gen turns on ‘Gears,’ Wii

2006-12-30T17:04:00.003-08:00

In the accompanying stories, our most frequent video-game reviewers name their favorites of the year.

1. “Gears of War” (Xbox 360). The best next-generation game to date. Extraordinary graphics and strong enough to ease the wait for Halo 3.

2. “Superman Returns” (Xbox 360, Xbox, PS2, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance). For no other reason than it’s the first Superman video game to not completely stink. The graphics on the next-gen version could be better, but it makes up for it with fun gameplay and easy use of all of Supe’s powers. Just flying around Metropolis is a game in itself.

3. “Madden 07” (Xbox 360, Xbox, PSP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, PS2, Nintendo GameCube, PC). For football gamers, it will always be a must-have. The current-generation version outshines the next-gen version with better controls, gameplay and more options.

4. “NHL 07” (Xbox 360, Xbox, PS2, PSP, PC). The Xbox 360 version is the first sports game on a next-gen console that is, hands down, better than its current-gen counterpart. The game speed is fast and realistic (unlike most next-gen sports games).

5. “MVP 06 NCAA Baseball” (Xbox, PS2). The best baseball game on the market, period. Gameplay is quick; controls are smooth. Even the ping is authentic. It’s a shame EA lost the rights to make MLB games, because this game outshines any pro baseball game competition, current or next-gen.

– David Betancourt

1. “Oblivion” (PC, Xbox 360, PS3). Easily the best role-playing game ever and possibly the best overall title, Oblivion is the only game to create a massive living world that looks gorgeous to boot. The non-player characters are so real; it’s almost like a massively multiplayer game, only without all the idiots breaking character. In fact, my only complaint is that having all the responsibilities to the game’s various factions comes a little too close to mirroring the stresses of real life.

2. “Hitman: Blood Money” (PC, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360). Most shooters rate you by the body count you rack up, but the ideal assassin here can slip past electronic security efforts and an army of guards, eliminate the target and leave without anyone noticing. Part MacGyver and part murderer, antihero Agent 47 raises killing to an art form, but only in the hands of an intelligent player. And three words describe the ultimate assassination mission the game closes with: the White House.

3. “Company of Heroes” (PC). This gets my nod for best real-time strategy game this year. Excellent voice acting, beautiful graphics, a fully destructible environment, difficult missions, a great World War II setting and exciting gameplay make every level thrilling as you push Able Company from the beaches of Normandy to Berlin.

4. “DarkStar One” (PC). A big fan of non-linear gameplay, I was overjoyed to find this simulation game, which opens the universe for exploration in a spaceship that you can upgrade in different ways, making it anything from a speedy fighter to a lumbering battle cruiser. DarkStar One lets you set your own career path as well, from a peaceful trading merchant to a bloodthirsty mercenary.

5. “Star Wars: Empire at War” (PC). Considering LucasArts has tried for years to make a real-time strategy game based in the “Star Wars” universe, this deserves special mention because the creators finally got it right. Forget “Rebellion,” “Force Commander” and “Galactic Battlegrounds” (all failures), and jump right to “Empire at War.” A great mix of beautiful fleet space combat and ground missions, the game will have you conquering planets and trying to rule or liberate the galaxy. The recently released “Forces of Corruption” expansion pack adds pirates as a playable army and further expands the game world.

– John Breeden II

1. Nintendo Wii. No gaming system is likely to expand video games to the mass market more than Wii. Despite the weird name, it’s the most accessible game platform out there, thanks to its motion-sensor controls that entice gamers to get off the couch and physically get into the games. The included Wii Sports games alone make this $250 system worth the price.

2. “Guitar Hero II” (PlayStation 2). A game aimed at the non-traditional gaming audience, this sequel allows anyone to become a virtual rock star. The key to this rhythm-based game’s success is the guitar controller, which is just plain fun to use. The soundtrack of more than 55 hard-rocking songs and two-player cooperative support is like selling out Madison Square Garden.

3. “Gears of War” (Xbox 360). There are many reasons to buy an Xbox 360, but none better than Epic’s sci-fi shooter Gears of War. This game introduces a new franchise for Bill Gates’ company and revolutionizes online multiplayer gaming with four-on-four skirmishes that include guns with chain saws on the tip.

4. “Brain Age” (Nintendo DS). This game franchise has been helping sell Nintendo’s dual-screen gaming device to both hard-core and casual gamers. These games train your brain to think better in fun and innovative ways. Play these and you will get smarter.

5. “Resistance: Fall of Man” (PlayStation 3) Insomniac Games’ first-person shooter shows the potential of the PlayStation 3. Set in an alternate-universe 1952, players engage aliens and hybrid enemies using World War II-era weapons and high-tech gadgets.

– John Gaudiosi

1. “Gears of War” (Xbox 360). With its breathtaking visuals, hard-core action and brilliant multiplayer option, Gears of War is the reason to own an Xbox 360. After you let your chain saw rip through your first bad guy, it’ll make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

2. “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas” (Xbox 360). This latest in the venerable franchise takes tactical shooters to the next level. Don’t let the game’s difficulty deter you; you’ll get better as you go. Saving hostages has never been this much fun.

3. “Need for Speed Carbon” (Xbox 360 and PS3). Once again, EA has created the ultimate in racing games. New cars, new tracks and new competition – it’s all about speed, baby, and Carbon takes it to you. Canyon races are the bomb!

4. “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” (Nintendo Wii). Our hero, Link, is back, and his magical land of Hyrule has never looked so good. Coming to the Wii brings new control dynamics that put players right smack into the action. This truly is a magical title.

5. “Resistance: Fall of Man” (PS3). Easily the best game on the PS3, Resistance has players taking down the evil chimeras that have overtaken Europe. Fantastic graphics, superb audio and multiplayer games with more than 40 players – that’s right, 40 players. Good times.

– Tom Ham

Google Blog Search outpaces Technorati

2006-12-30T17:04:00.001-08:00

Technorati may have been crowned king of blog searches ever since blogs started to make it big, but new market share numbers suggest that the popular blog search site could be taking the back seat to Google's Blog Search. Web market share analysis firm Hitwise says that, according to their numbers from last week, Google Blog Search has finally surpassed Technorati in web traffic—Google Blog Search now accounting to 0.025 percent of all web traffic and Technorati accounting for 0.023 percent.

Google launched its Blog Search service in September of 2005 and has been running it alongside Google's own Blogger Blog Search ever since—the latter of which was sharing roughly the same amount of traffic as Technorati for much of this year. That was up until October, when Google Blog Search got linked up with the popular Google News service, causing a 168 percent surge in market share for Google Blog Search. Google Blog Search now receives about 60 percent of its total traffic from Google News, according to Hitwise.

Although the difference in market share is currently rather small, the difference in demographic between the two is not. While only 10 percent of Technorati's audience is composed of 18-24 year olds, it seems that a whopping 34 percent of Google Blog Search's audience is made up of the highly-coveted age group. Google News's overall audience, by comparison, is only 15 percent 18-24 year olds. "This could indicate that the younger users of Google News are much more likely to click on the 'search blogs' link than the older users," said Hitwise's LeAnn Prescott.

Since the surge in October, Blogger Search's market share lost out to Google's fairly quickly (as would be expected). Now, with Technorati's drop in traffic, Google Blog Search has eked out its first win—for now. With such frequent ups and downs in traffic, it wouldn't be too surprising to see Technorati overtake Google (and Google overtake Technorati again; wash, rinse, repeat) a few more times over the coming months before one emerges as the clear leader once again. However, if a recent rumor is to be believed about Technorati and PR firm Edelman splitting up in the near future, Technorati could in fact see some difficult times ahead.

Ford US cars to get bluetooth, Microsoft operating system

2006-12-30T17:03:00.001-08:00

DETROIT (MarketWatch) -- Ford Motor Co. (F) will unveil next month a hands-free Bluetooth wireless system and in-vehicle operating system developed by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) as an option for its entire Ford brand lineup. The system will integrate some of the features of a personal computer into a car's cockpit, according to sources familiar with the auto maker's plans.
The move is Ford's latest attempt to spruce up its U.S. product portfolio and follows the company's recent decisions to expand satellite radio offerings and introduce features such as connection jacks for Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL) iPod music player. The new system, to be dubbed "Sync," will allow for hands-free cellphone communication and other wireless information transfers inside the car, including the ability to receive email.
In many cases, the technology will be integrated into a navigation system. The technology is based on Microsoft's automotive operating system, which has been under development in recent years.
Ford's Sync system will debut next year as an option on at least two Ford brand models that are to be refreshed in 2007 - the Focus and Five Hundred sedans, according to one source briefed on the company's plan. The auto maker plans to offer the system as an option on the entire Ford brand lineup, including trucks, starting in the 2008 model year, according to that source. Eventually, the Lincoln and Mercury divisions are expected to have the option.
Ford and Microsoft will jointly announce the Sync initiative at the Detroit auto show and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas during the week of Jan. 10, according to multiple sources. A source said Ford views the announcement on the same scale as a new vehicle announcement and sees the availability of the Sync system as a major competitive advantage over close rivals.
Ford spokeswoman Sara Tatchio declined. Microsoft spokesman Chris Elliott said the company has been working with Ford on certain technologies and will have an announcement at the Detroit auto show. Elliott declined to discuss specifics.
While the Sync system is complex, it will share attributes with Bluetooth wireless technology that is integrated in Ford products built in Europe, where certain hands-free phone use laws are enforced. Various Ford competitors also utilize Bluetooth.
Microsoft started an automotive unit 10 years ago and in 2004 struck a broad development deal with Italy's Fiat SpA (FIA) related to in-car computing. A source close to Microsoft said the company has turned in a spotty performance when it comes to Bluetooth technologies and that the Ford deal could help spur Microsoft's efforts.
The drive to install more and more electronic features in cars has sparked debate in the auto industry concerning the amount of distraction that drivers encounter in the cockpits of their cars.

Digital downloads hit the charts

2006-12-30T17:02:00.000-08:00

The singles chart, once an essential fixture in every teenage life, is poised to undergo one of the most significant transformations in its 40-year history.

From tuesday, chart position will no longer be pegged to the existence of a physical product in the form of a CD single or seven-inch vinyl release.

Instead, digital downloads, which outstripped physical sales for the first time earlier this year, will dictate the risers and fallers in the Top 40. This means that any song available on the internet - including "golden oldies" - could top the charts.

Experts said that old tracks revived for television advertising campaigns and films but not re-released could well appear in the charts again - such as the post-punk soundtrack to the Sofia Coppola movie Marie Antoinette which included New Order, Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure.

The aim is to make the charts more representative of what consumers are actually buying and re-inject a sense of excitement into an institution that was looking past its sell-by date after years of declining single sales.

While downloads have been included in the chart make up since 2005, they have only been counted if there was also a physical product.

But the success of artists like Gnarls Barkley, Lily Allen and the Arctic Monkeys, who built chart success on the back of their internet popularity, has convinced the Official UK Charts Company (OCC) to act.

From Tuesday, all download sales will count - including album tracks and even old numbers given a new lease of life by use in advertising or a film. It should mean the charts are less dominated by the tastes of teenage girls.

Steve Redmond, the OCC's director, described it as a dramatic development in the history of the official charts.

"For the past 54 years, a single was a track selected by a record company to be pressed on plastic and distributed to stores on a particular date.

"From now on, a single can be any track currently available as a download - even an album track or a golden oldie - as well, of course, as the established physical formats of CD, DVD, seven and 12-inch vinyl."

The new ruling changed the nature of a single and put the consumer in the driving seat, he said.

"Literally any track can be a hit - as long as it sells enough."

The bid to boost the market comes after a turbulent few years for the music industry.

From the 1970s until the end of the century, sales remained relatively static at around 70m, with new movements generating such as punk and Britpop generating their own excitement and sales spikes.

But the singles market went into free-fall at the end of the century. Between 1999 and 2004, it crashed to around half the total of its heyday, because of illegal downloading and filesharing sites.

The industry fought back, offering a range of new, legal and paid-for digital services. As a consequence, legal downloads have risen from 5.8m in 2004 to 50m in 2006, accounting for 60 per cent of the overall market and 80 per cent of back catalogue sales, although the decline in physical sales looks set to continue.

Gennaro Castaldo, of the record store HMV, said they believed that every track should be accessible to customers. But they feared that the shift to downloads would mean some singles would not be available and some labels might want to phase out physical sales altogether.

However, the resurgence of the seven-inch market, up to 2m this year, showed there was demand.

"One reason we don't believe that physical sales will disappear is because enthusiasts continue to want to own a single or album."

Steve Kincaid, of Virgin Megastores, said they believed the changes were "a positive move forward, as they clearly reflect consumers' buying habits".

It was important that the charts moved with the times. But he said: "There is still an incredible demand for a physical single when the right artist comes along. Leona's X Factor single is the most obvious and recent example of this, but there have been others throughout the year and it is important that the physical market is catered for."

Microsoft to Special Bloggers: Freebie Vista-Loaded Laptop

2006-12-30T17:01:00.004-08:00

I looked on the front door porch. Nada. Ditto for the back door. I was looking for the Acer Ferrari laptop loaded with Vista and Office 2007 that Microsoft was sending to a long list of select bloggers.

Bass's Special List
With all my bad-mouthing of Microsoft, you might not be surprised to hear that I'm not on any of its lists--except that very special one that starts with a capital "S" and ends with a "t." I was put on that list in 1995 after making what were called "disparaging" remarks. It happened at PIBMUG, the users group I ran. Microsoft was there to show off Win 95 to the group's 2000 members. I was on stage doing the intro. The microphone wasn't working and a Microsoftie fiddled with it for a few minutes. When I got sound, I glibly said, "wow, that's the best tech support I've ever had from Microsoft." Wrong comment, I know, but I couldn't help myself. I've happily remained on the list ever since.

The Laptop Deal
The free laptops, according to 18-year old Long Zheng, a blogger living in Australia, aren't gifts, but review units to help bloggers become familiar with Vista. Recipients have options: Keep the computer, return it, or donate it to charity.

I don't know any of the bloggers on Zheng's list except for Ed Bott. Ed worked here at PC World eons ago. I know Ed and he's an ethical, by-the-book, straight arrow kinda guy. He has a different (and lengthy) take on the laptop business.

Ed's bottom line is the same as mine: We can't be bought or influenced.

My Vista Plan
While you're partying and watching football games, I'm going to take my time and install Vista on my old production PC.

I thought it would be good to install Vista on a squeaky clean machine. So I also asked TigerDirect if I could use a brand-new Venture VX2 Systemax PC for a little over a month. (FYI: It comes with an invoice. I have the option to ship it back in 45 days or pay the invoice.) It's a $2000 machine with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66-GHz 1066FSB, Intel D975XBX 2KR S775 ATX motherboard, 2GB PC6400 800-MHz DDR2 RAM (see PC World test report), a 500GB RAID 0 Stripe SATA drive, and an ATI Radeon X1950 512MB video adapter (see test report).

I'll give you my impressions after I get back from the Consumer Electronics Show in a few weeks.

Quick aside: I've used lots of Systemax PCs in the last few years as a result of TigerDirect's annual Build Your Own PC Race. I compete with 25 other journalists to build the PC the fastest; win or lose, the fully loaded computer is handed over to a school of their choice. They've all been top-notch computers, ones I'd be happy to own. I know these rigs intimately, because for the last seven years, I've been the support person for the organization receiving the PCs.

I have to run. I think I hear the dogs barking at the DHL truck.

Today's kids: NASA is irrelevant

2006-12-30T17:01:00.003-08:00

Saw this story about modern kids, who happen to think NASA isn't very cool. But there weren't any actual survey results in the story, so I dug a little deeper. Here's a report on the survey with more findings.

They're not good for the space agency:

• 51 percent of 18-to-25 year-olds regard NASA as "irrelevant or very irrelevant"

• 72 percent believe that money spent on NASA would be better spent elsewhere

• 27 percent expressed some doubt that NASA went to the Moon, with 10 percent indicating that it was "highly unlikely" that a Moon landing had ever taken place.

• Only 28 percent were able to answer basic questions about the International Space Station, including information about its location (Near Earth Orbit), the number of crew aboard (two at the time of the survey) -- and 32 percent were completely unaware that there is an ISS.

What's NASA going to do about it? Spin. Spin. Spin.

At an October workshop attended by 80 NASA message spinners, young adults were right up there with Congress as the top two priorities for NASA's strategic communications efforts.

Tactics encouraged by the workshop included new forms of communication, such podcasts and YouTube; enlisting support from celebrities, such as actors David Duchovny (X-Files) and Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation); forming partnerships with youth-oriented media such as MTV or sports events such as the Olympics and NASCAR; and developing brand placement in the movie industry.

I can already see it happening: NASA will have a reality TV show to select the first lunar and Mars astronauts. Bleh.

I honestly could care less about NASA's public image in regards to funding. As evidenced above, today's kids don't know much about space. Moreover, the money's going to continue to roll in because the agency's centers are so widely distributed that politically the funding pressure will always be there.

But if NASA's not a cool place to work — and clearly it isn't right now — then the bright young minds are going to continue to go into biomedicine and the private sector, rather than build tomorrow's rockets.

Samsung announces new, thinner microchip

2006-12-30T17:01:00.001-08:00

Samsung Electronics Co. said in a statement Wednesday it has developed a one-gigabit mobile DRAM chip that is 20 percent thinner and uses less power than its predecessor.

Samsung said the new mobile memory chip stacks up two 512-megabit chips and uses about 30 percent less power.

"Samsung plans to mass produce the new device beginning in the second quarter of 2007 at a time when demand for high-density 1-gigabit mobile DRAM is expected to be very high," said the press release.

The new semiconductor can be utilized for a wide range of advanced handset applications as well as for digital still cameras, portable media players and portable gaming products, the company said.

DRAM stands for dynamic random access memory. DRAM chips are most widely used in personal computers.

Samsung is the world's largest memory chip maker and a top producer of consumer electronics, including flat-screen televisions, mobile phone handsets, MP3 players and laptop computers.

Geeks need video games

2006-12-30T16:59:00.000-08:00

A REPORT prepared by a bunch of shrinks claims that people find computer games addictive if they have a deep-rooted psychological reason to play.

According to the journal Motivation and Emotion, shrinks at the University of Rochester said that people enjoy video games because they are satisfying at a fundamental psychological level.

The best games are those that relate to the real world. The driving force that draws people to games was not fun but instead a sense of achievement, freedom and even social connectedness.

University of Rochester motivational psychologist Richard Ryan said gamers felt the best about their experience when the games they played produced positive outcomes in scenarios related to the real world.

Too much fun and fantasy and they will get bored apparently.

More here.

TOP ONE: Protecting polar bears: Your e-mails

2006-12-29T16:39:00.001-08:00

(CNN) -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says polar bears are no match for global warming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has proposed listing polar bears as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, but a decision on the listing isn't expected for a year.

We asked CNN.com readers if they thought the government's plans go far enough to protect polar bears. Here is a selection of their responses, some of which have been edited for length and clarity.

Denise Daly of Manteca, California
I firmly agree that polar bears should be on the threatened species list. Yes, I believe global warming is a danger to polar bears. It is hugely our fault that global warming is melting their home away. The government's plans do not go far enough. We all need to tackle this global warming issue.

Pam Lewis of Lincoln, Nebraska
I think the public and the government need to do whatever it takes to protect all of the wildlife that is threatened by global warming, development, etc. As a nation, we are encroaching on land that is native to wildlife, with the animals suffering. These animals are God's creatures and have just as much right to be here as we do. We need to protect their land and quit taking over it, so they will survive and be here for future generations to enjoy.

Barbara Waters of Arlington, Texas
Polar bears, arctic fox, seals -- all Arctic wildlife will lose if our politicians don't come to grips with the stark reality that global warming is real and not a democratic political agenda. There are signs everywhere of global warming. The polar bears will definitely take a hit, as will all other Artic wildlife.

Joanna York of Los Angeles, California
Global warming is a definite danger to polar bears (as well as our entire planet) and their habitat is melting. Some have drowned due to the icebergs being too soft to hold them and their cubs. Our government's plans are inadequate; we must do more to ensure the polar bears' existence for the decades to come.

Ed & Barbara Swanson of Northbrook, Illinois
Our unwillingness to sacrifice, even to the smallest degree, to protect our natural, priceless and irreplaceable gifts will eventually rob our children and generations to come of much of the grandeur of nature. This latest threat to a seemingly indestructible master of its domain is a stunning example of what is at the end of the road we are now traveling.

Linda Fedele of Victor, New York
It is unconscionable to allow the earth's environment to degrade to the point of a serious threat to any of earth's creatures. For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to say that "the broader aspects of global warming are beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act" and that they therefore can't address this problem sounds like bureaucratic baloney to me. Please do something to save the polar bears. Surely our world is more important than profits for government and corporate interests.

Mireia Naharro Martin of Aberdeen, New Jersey
Indeed, I am always very sad when watching news or learning that our natural habitat is threatened. I think that people and the political environment are not aware of that at all. It is very sad that in the United States the cause and purpose is measured against the economic impact that doing the right thing can have. But what if finally human beings destroy our precious world? Ultimately, we are destroying ourselves!

Gary Lefko of Nunn, Colorado
Humanity is finally waking up to the effects of global warming. I am saddened and disheartened it has taken this long for us -- the "intelligent" species -- to realize. Let's hope we have the time to reverse the fortunes of the beloved polar bear and many other species (including human) to save them and us from our foolish actions.

Paul Reinstein of Los Angeles, California
Yes, I'm afraid the train has left the station, and the caps are going to melt, and in a hundred years, the only large animals left are going to be in zoos, behind bulletproof glass, or in farms being prepared to be cooked and put under glass. The average person will be eating rats and cockroaches and drinking very questionable water from lakes and springs with names that don't Google very well. The good news is that SUVs will continue to be available and that human body parts with genetics custom matched to your specifications will enable those who can afford it to live longer than your wildest dreams.

Jeff Blowers of Fort Worth, Texas
To not save some of the most majestic creatures on this planet is horrible. We have demonstrated that we can do it with the bald eagle, now it should be the polar bears' turn. And, the byproduct of this is that we might also save our planet by helping to stop the global warming, which contributes to the death of our polar bear population.

Carolyn Flint of Joyce, Washington
The reality of global warming and the human contribution to its progress are now almost universally accepted. We only have one planet that is able to sustain the kind of life we know about. I hope we learn to take care of this one before we learn how to travel to another. If we cannot keep this one clean and safe for the ecosystems necessary to sustain life, we don't deserve to use our current poor stewardship on another one.

Susan Lafferty of South Pasadena, California
There is irrefutable evidence that global warming is drastically changing the Earth's environment. We're heading toward a mass extinction if nothing is done, and soon. The polar bears are just the first of what could be many species, including our own, who will suffer.

The PlayStation 2 Still Rocks

2006-12-29T16:38:00.000-08:00

Sony's PS2 is likely to outsell newer consoles such as the PS3—not just this year but next

by Kenji Hall

In December video game maker Square Enix Co. began running prime-time TV ads in Japan featuring battle scenes from its new adventure game Seiken Densetsu 4, or Legend of the Sacred Sword. Every 30-second spot ended with a familiar logo: PlayStation. But the game isn't played on Sony Corp.'s (SNE) new PlayStation 3 console. It's for the PlayStation 2.

This might seem an odd time to launch an ad blitz for a game designed for the PS2, which has been around since 2000. The PS3, after all, was just introduced this fall and offers richer graphics with more lifelike action. But despite all the hype surrounding the PS3, its predecessor is likely to outsell it for two more years. "The PS2 will have legs well into 2008," says Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. And while Nintendo Co.'s Wii console is getting most of the industry buzz, and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has racked up big sales in its year on the market, some say the PS2 might even beat out each of those offerings in 2007. "The PS2 probably has the capacity to sell more than any other gaming" console, says Simon Jeffrey, chief operating officer at game maker Sega of America (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/28/07, "Sega Games the Systems").

The PS2 already owns the industry's all-time sales record. As of last March, Sony had shipped more than 103 million units worldwide. In the year ending in March, 2007, Sony expects to sell an additional 11 million—and just 6 million PS3s. In the following year, Sony will likely ship another 11 million PS2s vs. 7 million PS3s, according to research by rating agency Standard & Poor's (MHP).

The PS2's direct rivals, Microsoft's original Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube, are no longer in production. So why is the PS2 doing so well this late in life? For starters, it's cheap. Sony has cut the PS2's price to about $130, down from a high of $300, to entice casual gamers and kids. And with continuing sales and so many PS2 consoles in living rooms worldwide, there's plenty of demand for new titles. "All the media focus is on next-gen consoles and games, but a lot of the software companies will make a substantial portion of their earnings by selling [older] games," says Erik Whiteford, marketing director at California game maker 2K Sports.

FAMILY FARE

To keep sales growing, software makers are tweaking their PS2 efforts. In the console's early days, hard-core gamers were its main audience, but those diehards are now moving on to the PS3. So makers are beefing up offerings of family-oriented titles, kids' games, and movie tie-ins. Square Enix next spring plans to sell Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix Plus, a collaboration with Walt Disney Co. (DIS) Around the same time, Paris-based Ubisoft will unveil Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to coincide with the release of a film in that series. And Sega (SGAMY) is working on a game based on a film from Philip Pullman's story The Golden Compass, due before the holidays in late 2007. While some of these will be available for other platforms as well, game makers have no plans to discontinue PS2 titles.

Nor is Sony in any hurry to kill the PS2. The launch of a new console always puts game makers in the red, and the PS3 is no exception. With delays and production snafus for the machine, Sony's game unit is expecting a $1.7 billion loss this fiscal year. The PS2, meanwhile, long ago turned profitable as component prices have plunged and development costs have been written off. Even at $130 a pop, Sony earns about $8 on each PS2 it sells, compared with an estimated loss of $250 per PS3. (Nintendo is believed to break even on the Wii, while Microsoft takes a loss on the Xbox 360.) And Sony will rake in some $1.4 billion this year from license fees paid by game makers and sales of its own game titles for the PS2 and its predecessor, the PSOne, Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS) estimates. So it's clear Sony will want to milk the PS2 for all it's worth.

Demand Surge Slowed iTunes Site During Holiday Rush

2006-12-29T16:37:00.001-08:00

A massive surge in traffic Free How-To Guide for Small Business Web Strategies - from domain name selection to site promotion. to Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple iTunes Music Store, driven by sales of new iPods bogged down the store's performance on Christmas and the following day.

Users reported slow downloads and other issues with the music store on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Some single songs reportedly took as much as 20 minutes to download -- compared to a few seconds under usual circumstances -- and others requests to buy songs could not be fulfilled at all.
Popular Gift

The surge in traffic was driven by new iPod owners and those who received gift cards to the iTunes store.

Apple did not return a call seeking comment on the store's performance, but it is possible the site bogged down because of a four-fold increase in traffic.

Web research firm Hitwise said Wednesday that traffic to the iTunes store was up 413 percent on Christmas Day compared to the same day a year ago. Traffic to the Apple Store, where the company sells iPods as well as computers, was up 110 percent. The store was the fourth most-visited site on Christmas Day, Hitwise said.

"For the third holiday season in a row, the iPod has been the must-have Christmas gift," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise. "Competitive offerings have not yet succeeded in capturing the attention of music listeners, and the surge in visits to the Apple Store shows that iPod owners are also engaged in filling and accessorizing their new devices."
Too Zune to Tell

The increase in traffic to the iTunes and Apple sites is more remarkable given that overall, Hitwise is reporting just a 5.9 percent increase in visits to retail sites during the holiday season.

Apple's newest iPod rival, Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Zune, saw its own traffic surge, with visits to Zune.net increasing more than 1,000 percent on Christmas Day compared to a week before. Still, Hitwise said the iTunes store had 30 times as many visitors as Zune.net.

If its site was briefly overwhelmed by traffic, Apple can take some solace in knowing it was far from alone this holiday season. On the Monday after Thanksgiving, so-called Cyber Monday, a site set up by the online arm of the National Retail Federation was deluged with hits. A few days later, Overstock.com Latest News about Overstock.com was hammered with traffic when it put the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" movie on sale for $9.99 for a limited time.

For many retailers, such delays can be deadly. "If one store can't deliver a positive online shopping Free Download - Look Who's Driving the Next Generation of e-Commerce experience, then a competitor's site is just a click away," said William Agush, vice president of marketing Email Marketing Software - Free Demo at Web performance monitoring firm Gomez. He added that shoppers would abandon a site offering poor performance for a rival even if prices were higher and even if it had positive associations with the brand.
Captive Audience

For Apple, however, the stakes are likely not as high as for other retailers. Whereas customers at Overstock can click to eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) Latest News about eBay or Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) Latest News about Amazon.com for similar merchandise, Apple has a captive audience in its iPod user base.

The only digital downloads that can be played on iPods -- without hacking or workarounds -- are those purchased at the iTunes Music Store, though users can rip songs from CDs to add to their iPod-friendly libraries.

"Apple shows no signs of losing momentum," JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg told MacNewsWorld. Even with the Zune and other challenges, such as a growing number of MP3-playing smartphones, he added, "the iPod should not lose significant market share in the next 12 to 18 months."

Longer-range, many analysts still believe newer models will emerge that will challenge Apple's pay-per-song and device-specific approach. For now, however, the captive audience will likely take any short-term delays in stride. By Wednesday, the iTunes site appeared to be bug-free again.

Media, tech cos probe possible high-def DVD hack

2006-12-29T16:35:00.000-08:00

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The companies behind an encryption system for high-definition DVDs are looking into a hacker's claim that he has cracked the code protecting the new discs from piracy, a spokesman for one of the companies said on Thursday.

A hacker known as Muslix64 posted on the Internet details of how he unlocked the encryption, known as the Advanced Access Content System, which prevents high-definition discs from illegal copying by restricting which devices can play them.

The AACS system was developed by companies including Walt Disney Co., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. to protect high-definition formats, including Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray.

Muslix64 posted a video and decryption codes showing how to copy several films, including Warner Bros' "Full Metal Jacket" and Universal Studios' "Van Helsing," on a popular hacker Internet blog and a video-sharing site.

The hacker also promised to post more source code on January 2 that will allow users to copy a wider range of titles.

A spokesman for one of the AACS companies, who declined to have the company identified, said they were aware of it and were looking into the claims, but would not elaborate.

The vulnerability could pose a threat to movie studios looking for ways to boost revenue as sales of standard-format DVDs flatten. In 2005, U.S. DVD sales generated some $24 billion for the movie industry.

If the encryption code has been cracked, then any high-definition DVD released up to now can be illegally copied using the Muslix64 "key," according to technology experts.

Jeff Moss, organizer of Defcon, the world's largest hacking convention, said in an interview that Muslix64 appears to have found a real breach in the encryption system.

"Everybody is talking like it worked, and apparently it's not that hard," said Moss, whose annual convention draws thousands of security researchers, government workers and hackers. "This will be the first trial run of how this (AACS) is going to work whenever a compromised player comes out."

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, a UK-based technology expert and author of Internet blog PC Doctor, wrote in a Thursday posting on technology site ZDNet.com that Muslix64's source code "seems genuine enough."

He said the hack would not necessarily make much of a difference in the battle for supremacy between the new HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.

"What's interesting here is that while this hack might give HD-DVD a temporary advantage amongst enthusiasts who want to backup discs ... in the long run it won't give either format an advantage because both HD-DVD and Blu-ray use the now cracked AACS," he wrote.

Warner Bros. is a unit of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. and Universal Studios is part of NBC Universal, controlled by General Electric Co..

TOP NEWS: Top Searches For 2006

2006-12-29T16:28:00.000-08:00

Google: Bebo, MySpace, World Cup, MetaCafe, RadioBlog, Wikipedia, Video, Rebelde, Minonova, Wiki

Yahoo: Britney Spears, WWE, Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, American Idol, Beyonce Knowles, Chris Brown, Pamela Anderson, Lindsay Lohan

MSN: Ronaldhino, Shakira, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Harry Potter, Eminem, Pamela Anderson, Hilary Duff, Rebelde, Angelina Jolie

AOL: Weather, Dictionary, Dogs, American Idol, Maps, Cars, Games, Tattoo, Horoscopes, Lyrics

Poor Britney Spears. First the criticism of her parenting skills. Next, the divorce. Then the chastising by her fans for her wild antics with Paris Hilton.

And now, for the first time in 5 years, her dominance over the top search terms for the year has ended. The pop star only appeared in Yahoo and Live Search's top lists. She was nowhere to be found on Google, Ask.com or even AOL! In 2004, she topped every list, with Paris Hilton (who only made 2 engines this year as well) hot on her trail. So what happened? What changed? And what can we learn from it for our marketing efforts in 2007.

For many marketers, this is our favorite time of year. Aside from the holiday shopping blitz and the major campaigns, the end of the year gives us a chance to reflect on last year's trends and to predict trends for the new year. And search terms are a great tool to help in this task; search is the perfect cultural barometer. It not only tells us what people were interested in the past year, but how their interest manifested. It paints a detailed picture of user behavior online, and how it's changed from previous years. It illustrates how the internet itself has evolved over the year-and lets us know what direction to expect for the next year.

This year we have top search data from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, AOL, Live Search (formerly MSN) and Lycos -See Chart-. Overall, the data shows a new and developing internet; comparatively, the data explains the growth of each engine-and migration of users to and from each.

Take Google. According the most popular search engine, 2006 was the Year of the Brand. Six of their tops ten terms were the names of major web sites: Bebo, MySpace, MetaCafe, RadioBlog, Wikipedia and Mininova. While this data certainly verifies the popularity of the above sites, it illustrates much more. The Google search bar has finally replaced the address bar as the navigation tool of choice for the average internet user. The browser is more likely to type your company name into Google-the default search engine on many new computers-instead of using your full URL. Some users even enter your entire URL into the search bar instead of the address bar.

To many advertisers, this isn't new; witness the rise of "dot-net" TV ads for gambling sites and the controversy over bidding on competitor names in Pay Per Click advertising. Google's Top Gainers for 2005 also included brand names for six out of ten terms. Google Suggest top words for the each letter of the alphabet reveals 16 brands out of 26 letters. To marketers to whom this comes as a surprise, take note: Control your brand. When a potential client or customer is looking for your company, make sure they get to your site instead of a competitor's or-worse-a complaint site. Don't assume that because the users know who you are that they will get to you.

Google's list reveals a couple more interesting notes. The emergence of terms outside of the U.S. mainstream, like World Cup and Mexican soap opera Rebelde, points to the power of non-U.S. searches and the Spanish-speaking internet population. The change in terms over the past two years also reveals a lot. In 2004, Google's top terms were made up entirely of celebrities and basic internet activities, like chat, mp3s and games. In 2005 and 2006, the list started to fill up with brands-with the exception of two internet activities: wiki and video. Neither activity is a surprise considering its popularity this year, but the fact that those two remained (and others like chat and games dropped out) points to a more and more technical crowd. After all, these searchers weren't just searching for Wikipedia, but for other wikis as well.

The lack of basic internet activity terms also shows that more basic internet users are moving away from Google to other engines. And the engine that seems to be picking the most of those users up, possibly due to its smart TV advertising campaign, is Ask.com. Ask.com's top search list is dominated by basic internet activities and needs, including dictionary, games, cars, food, song lyrics, poems, baby names and music. AOL search, which is powered by Google, also had a top search list comprised of basic internet activities: weather, dictionary, dogs, maps, cars, games, tattoo, horoscope, lyrics. This was a big departure for AOL, which usually has a list filled with celebrity and entertainment-related searches.

Entertainment searchers, it seems, migrated to Yahoo, where they have always held the top terms, and to Live Search (formerly MSN), which hasn't before released U.S. yearly search data. Both were dominated, as usual, by attractive female singers: Britney Spears, Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton (she did become a singer this year), Hilary Duff and Beyonce Knowles. Actresses Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie and Lindsay Lohan also made the two lists-though none, I surmise, for their actual acting ability (no offense intended). Male singers Eminem and Chris Brown edged their way in as well.

There were some differences between Live Search and Yahoo! The engine formerly known as MSN skewed a bit Spanish this year, with searches for Shakira, soccer star Ronaldhino and Rebelde topping the list. American Idol popped on Yahoo vs. Harry Potter on Live Search, ostensibly identifying MSN Live users as somewhat more literary. Notably missing from all search engines were any U.S. sports, which usually feature in Yahoo's list. Lycos, a minor search engine still holding on, showed the broadest (and least interesting) list of top terms, including brands, basic internet activities and entertainment. This nice mix means no real grouping of users at the engine, just some stragglers still using the dying engine.

So what did happen to Britney Spears? Did she become less popular? After all, she did top Yahoo's list-and she was one of the top "People Searches" in all the other engines. No: people still searched for her; what changed was how and where they did. 2006 became the year that fully defined the engines. New users splintered off from Google to Ask.com and the new, free AOL. Live Search, the default home page in Internet Explorer, picked up the non-technical, entertainment oriented crowd from AOL. Yahoo stayed the same, catering to entertainment, celebrity and music junkies, although they seem to be losing ground in sports and news, possibly to dedicated portals. Live Search and Google showed the important of globalization and the Spanish-speaking internet public.

Google has transitioned from search engine to something else: a start page for the internet, a new form of navigation. URLs came about so that users wouldn't have to remember strings of numbers. In the Google age, all you have to remember is the brand and Google does the rest.

So Britney is fine-and popular-online. Searchers wanting celebrity news are finding her on Yahoo and Live Search. Searchers learning how to buy her mp3s for themselves (or, more likely, their children) are finding her through Ask.com and AOL. Google users already know what they want; they are listening to 163 of her songs on RadioBlog.

Until December 2007, Happy New Years and Happy Searching.

Microsoft Says No Favorable Coverage Expected In Laptop Giveaway

2006-12-29T16:27:00.002-08:00

Recipients encouraged to disclose receiving the expensive computers, which were intended to solicit "valuable feedback" from the influential tech bloggers, says company

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek

Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices sent expensive laptops as gifts to select bloggers who review technology as part of an effort to solicit "valuable feedback" from the influential writers in the blogosphere, not to encourage favorable coverage, Microsoft says.

The giveaway, which started last week, has sparked a debate among tech bloggers as to the motive for handing out the top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops, valued at more than $2,200. While some called it a bribe, others believed it was OK to receive the expensive gift, as long as the blogger disclosed receiving it.

Microsoft said in a statement e-mailed late Thursday that the recipients were told they could keep the computers, give them away, or send them back. They were also encouraged to disclose receiving the gifts, which were pre-loaded with Windows Vista and were powered by an AMD Turion 64-bit processor. Vista, a major upgrade of Microsoft's operating system, is scheduled to ship to consumers late next month.

"Microsoft sent out machines loaded with Windows Vista to bloggers to encourage them to experience the product and to solicit their valuable feedback, offering full disclosure that no editorial commentary was expected as a condition of acceptance," the company said.

Microsoft chose recipients based on their level of influence within the blogosphere, a company spokeswoman said Friday. Some of the bloggers receiving the laptops wrote on technology related to specific areas that were a focus of Vista, such as online video or photography.

Blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick, director of content at pre-launch startup SplashCast, reported Thursday that Microsoft and AMD were asking recipients to send back the laptops following the negative publicity. The Microsoft spokeswoman, however, said that wasn't the case, explaining that an e-mail sent to recipients from a company employee had been misinterpreted.

The giveaway was first reported by Microsoft blogger Long Zheng. The report was later posted on the popular technology Web site Slashdot under the headline, "Microsoft Bribing Bloggers With Laptops."

Because of the controversy, San Francisco blogger Scott Beale said he would sell the laptop on eBay and donate the proceeds to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group focusing on privacy and free speech on the Internet.

"I'm not really the right person to do a proper review of Windows Vista, and at this point, it is still unclear why I was even selected to receive it," Beale said in his blog.

However, blogger Mauricio Freitas, who lives in New Zealand, saw no problems with keeping the machine. "I maintain my independence by making it clear which companies are sponsoring this review unit," he said.

Microsoft's Vista: New operating system, same flaws

2006-12-29T16:27:00.001-08:00

New York (dpa) - Computer security experts in California and Russia have found a series of flaws in Microsoft's Windows Vista, undercutting the software giant's claims that the new operating system is the company's most secure ever.

The most serious flaw involves a faulty piece of software underlying Internet Explorer 7 that could allow hackers to take over any computers that visit a rogue website set up to exploit the flaw.

Another security breach centres on code that allows users to upgrade their privileges on a computer, potentially allowing them to install unauthorized programmes.

The reports come just a month after Microsoft first released Vista to corporate customers. It is due to release the next generation operating system to consumers next month.

In a posting on its website, Microsoft said it was aware of the vulnerabilities but believed that there was only a low probability that they would be exploited.

"Currently we have not observed any public exploitation or attack activity regarding this issue," wrote Mike Reavey, operations manager of the Microsoft Security Response Centre. "While I know this is a vulnerability that impacts Windows Vista, I still have every confidence that Windows Vista is our most secure platform to date."

What were we looking for online in 2006?

2006-12-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

CELEBRITIES, SAYS YAHOO! The giant search engine’s list of the top 10 search terms in 2006 included Britney Spears, Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Lindsay Lohan, Chris Brown…

Social networks and Mexican soaps, according to Google, Bebo and MySpace, two of the fastest growing social networking sites of 2006, topped Google’s list of searches.

Music/ video searches and other web 2.0 stuff came in close behind—MetaCafe (video), Radioblog (streaming radio), Mininova (audio, video, photo downloads; a great BitTorrent site), with both Wiki and Wikipedia on the list in testimony to the world’s most popular unofficial encyclopaedia. The World Cup showed at number three, and Mexican soap opera Rebelde popped up at number eight in the Google rankings.

The weather, dogs, maps, cars, tattoos, horoscopes and other human-type stuff, according to AOL. Their list featured no celebrities, unless you count the hit music talent-spotting show American Idol and nothing related to web 2.0. The classic AOL user is clearly a do-loving dictionary user fixated on the weather.

What the world wanted to watch, according to Clipblast!, were videos about croc hunter Steve Irwin, Borat, the World Cup (with Zidane’s notorious head-butt lending itself to a hundred mashups), Al Zarqawi, bad stand-up comedy and Mel Gibson videos.

Dogpile, my favourite maverick search engine, had a brilliant search list for 2006. Dogpile users were interested in Prehistoric Web stuff like e-cards, game cheats, music lyrics, but also in web 2.0 phenomena like MySpace. They were the only users to have “poetry” up there in the top 10 list.

Why do these lists vary so much? It makes sense that Google users would be more plugged into the technical side of the web, but why wouldn’t AOL’s wholesome, middle American demographic be interested in the same celebrities who apparently obsess Yahoo! users?

A key problem is that search engines filter out the two things that humans online consistently search for—porn, and other search engines. The real top 10 videos of 2006 are churned out by people like BigMama_Houston2006 or KinkyChickenTales in Ludhiana (yes, he exists) or Robothumping17 from Tokyo.

Many search mavens speculate that one of the most frequently searched for terms on Google is Yahoo! (and vice versa). Once you filter out porn and search, everything else that appears on your list is highly speculative.

What’s really wrong with these top 10 search lists, though, is that they’re in English. Take Google’s admittedly cool list, for example, allow for the inclusion of the top searches in China — and the picture changes.

“Translation software”, “machinima” (the use of computer game imagery in film and art, at its simplest) and “website for Chinese novels/ video and audio” skew the “normal” Google stats, while “censorship” rates much higher than Chinese female singer Zhou Bhichang and Britney Spears combined.

Add Indian searches to Yahoo!’s list, and watch Sania Mirza and Salman Khan knock Paris Hilton and co off the charts. We also searched for “wikipedia”, “cricket” and “go air”, incidentally.

Perhaps it’s best to stick with Dogpile’s list of the least popular questions on search in 2006: “What do snails eat?” (not fish poop, the Net tells me helpfully) and “Why is the sky blue?” It also includes the plaintive “Why can’t we be friends?”

I pity the poor soul who keyed this in; his responses include Amazon’s page on war music, a gung-ho article on employee management and communication and free ringtones. No wonder we’re still out there at a dozen search engines, searching in vain for the keys to our very own kingdoms.

Lotus Notes 7.0.2 finally out for OS X

2006-12-29T16:25:00.002-08:00

We're not really sure how many of you were waiting with bated breath for that Universal Binary version of Lotus Notes (actually, for any version of Lotus Notes) for Mac OS X, but if you have, your wish has finally been granted. IBM has released Lotus Notes 7.0.2 this week, just days before the end of the year (just like they promised).

This release of Lotus Notes will finally bring the age-old (and we really mean that... age... old) enterprise app to the Mac once again, allowing OS X users to IM, use RSS (*gasp!*), and e-mail with the monster application. 7.0.2 comes with an "improved" user interface, calendaring, and collaboration controls.

Lotus Notes 7.0.2 for OS X is priced at $101 per user and now runs natively on both Intel Macs and PPC-based machines. I've been avoiding writing this post for almost an entire day now because of the incredible dryness of Lotus Notes, so maybe some poor, lost Lotus users out there will find some joy in it and make my life worthwhile again.

New Samsung Fuel Cell Dock Powers Laptop for a Full Month

2006-12-29T16:25:00.001-08:00

Fuel cell-based notebooks are nothing new to frequent readers of DailyTech. In early June, we reported on Toshiba's early efforts with a fuel cell notebook dock that was able to power a Portege notebook for 10 hours. In October, the company showed off an updated version of its fuel cell dock -- this time with a smaller fuel cell stack that was confined within the footprint of the host notebook.

Samsung is taking fuel cell technology for notebooks to the next level by showcasing a new DMFC (Direct Methanol Fuel Cell) dock that can power a Q35 ultraportable notebook for 8 hours a day for a full month. According to Samsung press release, the fuel cell has an energy density of 650Wh/L and total energy storage of 1,200Wh.

Samsung has also made many improvements to its fuel cell system that reduces noise levels. The new systems has noise levels comparable to current notebook computers which gives Samsung an edge over competing fuel cell designs.

Fuel cell technology has come a long way during the past year. Just last month SAIT and Samsung SDI showed off a prototype fuel cell battery charger that weighs just 5.3 ounces. Likewise, Nokia envisions that fuel cell-powered mobile phones are just a few years away.

Microsoft patent claim sparks firestorm of controversy

2006-12-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

On June 21, 2005 when the Redmond, WA based Microsoft filed for a patent on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) it is likely they did not expect such a backlash 18 months later when the claims, published on the US Patent and Trademark Office website, were noticed by thousands on the web.

Related or not, the date of the patent filing is just three days before the company announced it planned to build support for RSS into Internet Explorer 7, and into what we now know as Microsoft Windows Vista.

Once word of the patents spread users, and the techno-elite alike, began to call for their removal and denouncement of the filed claims. Dave Winer one of the inventors of RSS as you know it today made this comment on his site Scripting News, “Today I received a link to a patent granted to Microsoft, where they claim to have invented all this stuff. Presumably they're eventually going to charge us to use it. This should be denounced by everyone who has contributed anything to the success of RSS.”

That is exactly what happened, as blogs around the web took aim and ranted about the false claim. The comments on most blogs center on how Microsoft stole the rights to RSS and are attempting to claim them as their own. Not true said Nick Bradbury on his blog, “But before the geekosphere goes into "patent attack mode," let's take a breather and think about why this patent was filed. For example, quite often companies file patents just to protect themselves from lawsuits. There are plenty of sleazebags who file patent applications on obvious ideas, and then wait for someone like Microsoft to infringe those patents.” He goes on to say, “So I'm not going to jump on the "Microsoft is evil" bandwagon about this (yet). However, Microsoft clearly did not invent all the ideas claimed in this patent, so some clarification would be appreciated from Microsoft's RSS team (several of whom are listed in the patent as inventors).”

In response to the story and the controversy, that surrounds it, Sean Lyndersay Program Manager Lead for RSS at Microsoft made these comments; “First, these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions) -- they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS. We have always fully acknowledged the innovators and supporters of RSS, like Dave Winer, Nick Bradbury and many others, and I can say, without hesitation, that I and my colleagues personally have the deepest respect for their invaluable contributions.” As for the filing of the patent and why it was the right thing to do he mirrors Nick Bradbury by saying, “Finally, as a number of commenters have noted, we are far from the only company to apply for patent protection in this space. Other companies, including Apple and Google, have apparently also applied for patents. Applying for a patent on your innovation is common industry practice, and one which, by incenting and protecting the companies and people involved, encourages everyone to contribute to the community.”

Users took notice on his wording with the use of “your innovation” meaning that the improvements were infact built on what was already property of Microsoft. The patents filed claim that Microsoft did not invent RSS, but only the related technology. Users worry, with the patent approval and the shape of the US Patent office that Microsoft will one day start to charge users to use RSS.

No matter how you look at it, the scope of the patent is broad, and the wording is shifty at best, with claims to technology and code that have long existed before the patents were filed. No word yet on how this will affect the RSS community and open source community concerning the code and technology used. Microsoft has made no further comments and a spokesperson from them said Microsoft does not generally make public statements about pending patents.

Windows Vista security flaw uncovered

2006-12-27T22:29:00.001-08:00

However, many security analysts say the possible threat from the glitch is low, as it would require a hacker to have physically had access to a system before he could exploit the security hole. In other words, a widespread remote attack would be very unlikely, according to the results of an investigation from Microsoft.

The flaw would normally not even be newsworthy, but has significance becuse "it's the first reported vulnerability that also affects Vista," said Mikko Kypponen, chief research officer for security firm F-Secure. The glitch could also potentially affect older Windows operating systems, and is the kind of thing that is fixed with Microsoft's monthly security updates. No legitimite attacks have yet been reported as a result of the new flaw.

Windows Vista, which Microsoft touts as the most secure operating system it has ever released, was released to business consumers on November 30. It had originally planned to be available for everyone for the holiday shopping season, but internal problems caused the consumer release to be pushed back to 2007. Many consumers who purchased a Windows PC in the last two months of 2006 are eligible for a free upgrade to Vista.

The mass market release of the software is currently scheduled for January 30, 2007, with various versions ranging in price from $200 to $400, or $100 to $260 for upgrading customers.

Console yourself these holidays

2006-12-27T22:28:00.002-08:00

Before the buying spree gets seriously curbed by Uncle Tito, check out the latest advances in console technology, coming to a retailer near you soon. Or in the case of the Xbox 360, right now…

Every Christmas there has to be some sort of must-have which is foisted upon the unwitting world. As things get more technology-oriented, and as we become more accustomed to being connected, it’s not a bicycle, a scale-electric or Airfix which is dominating the minds of our kids (it’s always handy to blame these fixations on the kids). No, this holiday, it’s console wars that we have to look forward to.

The contenders are Microsoft with its Xbox0, on which it got first-mover advantage with a pre-holiday launch, Sony with its long-awaited Playstation 3, and Nintendo with its bizarrely monikered Wii. (I’m just popping out for a Wii, darling).

Which to choose may depend on your (I mean your KIDS, of course) existing collection of games, your affinity or lack thereof for the vendor, and of course, on the vitals of the console. That includes specs, pricing and capability for connectivity.

PlayStation 3:

Sony was ‘the Boss’ with the PlayStation 1 and 2. PlayStation 3 moves closer to being a proper PC, with the premium edition equipped with an internal 60 GB Serial ATA 2.5" hard drive (20 GB in the standard package), IEEE 802.11b/g and Bluetooth connectivity and wired gigabit Ethernet.

As implied, this means online gaming to snaffle up yet more bandwidth. It is powered by a Cell processor, developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, which is vaunted as a leap forward for supercomputing. Since Sony is advocating its Blu-Ray DVD technology, PS3 includes this as well.

It is also backwards-compatible, able to handle your old favourites from the PS 1 and 2, and has at present, some 15 new titles to choose from. Pricing on release in some (mainly Asian and Pacific) countries in November was around US$800; expect the PS3 here around March 2007. This, then, is some consolation for the post-party blues.

Microsoft Xbox:

Microsoft has a habit of making lucrative markets its own, or trying to in any event (with the notable exception of the information security field, to date.) So it is that it entered the console market with its Xbox, which is Khoisan for ‘Watch Out Sony’.

While PS3 has just been launched, The Beast of Redmond has already sold over 10 million consoles and has reached our shores well in time for the madness of the holidays. It is specced with a 20GB HDD, a serious 3-core processor also made by IBM, packs a progressive scan DVD drive, a 100 Mb/s RJ45 Ethernet port and three USB 2.0 ports.

Being Microsoft, the Xbox is supported by Xbox Live Marketplace, where you can download plenty of additional stuff, while the machine integrates nicely with your MS-powered home PC network for video or audio streaming. Doing that wirelessly will require the purchase of an additional adapter, though – but you can buy the Xbox today for around R3500.00. A fair library of titles is available.

Nintendo Wii:

Wii aren’t too sure when this console will arrive, but as of now it seems it is a case of ‘coming soon’ to South Africa – suffice to say, it is, ahem, all systems go in most other parts of the world.

The Wii follows on from the GameCube; the intention with Wii Willie Winkie is that it will ‘break down the barriers between the gamer and the non gamer.’ – so it promises easier to play and more generally appealing games. It’s a lot cheaper than the Sony and Microsoft consoles at around US$250, has around 33 titles available at present (and most games are priced around $50..).

Spec-wise, the wee (it is the size of three DVD boxes) Wii shows that it is in a different market segment to the heavyweights – it packs a processor which, again, is from IBM, takes proprietary 8 or 12 cm disks and does not have a hard drive. It does offer Wifi connectivity, however, and two USB 2.0 ports.

Do you care who will ‘win’ the console race? Probably not as much as you care that you will have some super cool options for your, ahem, for Sonny Jim’s stocking.

Wikipedia-like search engine in development

2006-12-27T22:28:00.001-08:00

The founder of Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, is developing a Wiki-based search engine to compete with established commercial search engines from Google and Yahoo.

Jimmy Wales announced plans to develop the search engine, to be named “Wikiasari,” or “Wikia,” for short, in a Dec. 23 online posting.

The Wikimedia Foundation of St. Petersburg, Fla., which manages the Web site Wikipedia.com, emphasizes that the search engine project is not associated with the foundation.

Wales said that current search engine technology, using complex algorithms to complete searches, is “broken.”

“It is broken for the same reason that proprietary software is always broken: lack of freedom, lack of community, lack of accountability (and) lack of transparency. Here, we will change all that,” Wales wrote.

Wales promotes Wikia as “a new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot.” He invited members of the Wiki community to help design the Wikia search engine, which he described as “an open-source alternative for Web search.”

He cited open-source search projects as Nutch and Lucene as related efforts that can help in the development of Wikia.

Wikipedia is maintained with donations from users. The foundation filed its first financial statement Nov. 21, listing just over $1 million in assets for the year ended June 30.

While Wikipedia began mostly as a resource on technology issues, it has expanded to cover more general topics. And although its populist mission is to let users edit content, it has had to correct some embarrassing inaccuracies. Most notably, it let stand for four months in 2005 a posting identifying newspaper publisher John Seigenthaler Sr. as involved in the assassinations of President John F. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the 1960s. It removed the posting only after Seigenthaler objected.

Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.

Christmas iPods Lead To iTunes Delays

2006-12-27T22:27:00.002-08:00

So many Americans got iPods during the holiday season that owners had to put up with delays on the iTunes Internet store as they searched for new music.

As people across the United States rushed online to fill up their new iPods with music from the Web site, they encountered delays up to 20 minutes, the Detroit News reported.

Macworld magazine editor Dan Frakes said such delays are typical of the busy holiday season. He recommended new iPod users draw from their current musical collection in the meantime.

"Three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year iTunes works fine, but you had tens of thousands of people who just got new iPods, all trying to connect to the iTunes store and download songs at the same time," he said. "Your best bet is to rip CDs from your own collection now and wait a few days to download from iTunes."

Customer service operators at Apple, which makes iPods and operates iTunes, has also experienced heavy demand, the newspaper said.

Microsoft patent claim sparks firestorm of controversy

2006-12-27T22:27:00.001-08:00

Linksys announces iPhone family of Voice Over IP solutions

2006-12-27T22:26:00.002-08:00

The iPhone family of handheld devices harnesses the power of the Internet to enhance voice communications, integrate compelling information services, and deliver access to multimedia. In short, Linksys iPhones voice solutions and products give consumers the ability to do more with their phone than talk.

'As the next generation of handheld devices, Linksys iPhone voice solutions and products are changing the way people communicate with their friends, family and colleagues. They enable compelling internet services, allow consumers to know when their contacts are available for calls, and offer access to personal content like music, movies and live video cameras.'

said Mohammad Hoda, Regional Manager for Middle East and North Africa. 'The development of the iPhone family demonstrates our flexibility in selecting the right partnerships, feature sets, and product designs to exceed the demands of even our most connected customers to whom the Internet is no longer a destination, but an inextricable part of their lives.'

Enhanced Communication
Voice applications are at the core of the iPhone family. However, with iPhone handheld devices, consumers can do more than just dial a phone number and wait to see if someone answers on the other end. Products in the iPhone product line integrate popular communication clients, like Skype and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, to help enable real-time presence features that can allow consumers to see when their friends and family are online and ready to receive a call. With products in the iPhone family, callers can toggle between the free VoIP calling options available from Skype or Yahoo! and traditional landline service with the click of a button.

Information Services
As the first product to couple Yahoo! Messenger with Voice and access to Internet services like Yahoo! Local Search and weather forecasts, the Dual-Mode Cordless Phone for Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (CIT310) has given consumers access to information in a convenient and timely manner. They no longer have to pick up a printed phone book, or go to their computer to find a phone number. By programming the phone with a local zip code, people can search for local business information directly from their phone and then effortlessly place a call to the business with one click. In addition, a weather search setting permits quick access local weather forecast.

'Providing consumers the ability to use Yahoo! services to search for local businesses, check weather and have full access to their Yahoo! Messenger Contact List on the Linksys dual-mode iPhone was an important step as the convergence between Web services and handsets continues to advance,' said Jeff Bonforte, senior director of Real Time Communications, Yahoo!, Inc.

Multimedia Content
The iPhone product family also includes products like the Wireless-G IP Phone (WIP330) that integrate the popular standards-based SIP VoIP protocol. Consumers can use the WIP330 to access music, photos, and streaming video from sources on the Internet so they can combine the product with wireless video cameras like the Linksys Wireless-G Compact Video Camera (WVC54GC), to create a real-time home monitoring solution.

Freedom from the PC
Launching today, the latest iPhones products help free consumers from the requirement of an always-on PC to make calls over the Internet. The iPhone Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype (CIT400) embeds the popular communications client into a cordless phone base station that is attached directly to the home network via Ethernet, making it easy to place calls to other Skype users, mobile phones, or landlines without turning on a computer. The iPhone Wireless-G Phone for Skype (WIP320) makes Skype portable by integrating it into a Wireless-G handset, allowing consumers to place calls from anywhere they can connect to a wireless access point.

Both new iPhones products allow free or inexpensive voice calls in addition to real-time contact list access and presence information that lets the user know if the intended call recipient is available. The new phones also support popular Skype calling services, such as SkypeOut, SkypeIn, and Skype Voicemail.

"Each generation of phone offerings from Linksys has offered Skype users increased flexibility in how they make calls," said Gareth O'Loughlin, director of hardware product management for Skype. "We're thrilled to work with Linksys and give users even more options to use Skype off the PC - whether at home, at work or on the move.'

Korean-Developed Fuel Cell ‘Can Run Laptop for a Month’

2006-12-27T22:26:00.001-08:00

Korean experts have developed a new fuel cell allowing laptops to remain up and running for a month without external power source. Samsung Electronics on Wednesday announced it developed a 1,200-watt-hour fuel cell for notebook computers in collaboration with Samsung SDI and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and installed it in its Sense Q35 model. Assuming a laptop runs for eight hours a day five days a week, the fuel cell can operate it for a month.

Fuel cells use state-of-the-art energy-generating technology that sparks a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen won through the electrolyzation of water to produce electricity. Samsung Electronics also developed a small fuel cell that enhances the portability of laptops. The cell can operate a laptop for 15 hours with around 100 cc of fuel, less than the size of a paper cup. Kim Heon-soo, Vice President of Samsung's Computer Division said the development has advanced the time to commercialize fuel cells for a notebooks by a year, adding the firm will spearhead efforts to introduce fuel cells into the market by the end of next year, when all safety standards are established.

Jimmy Wales, founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is planning to build an online commercial search engine that would compete with Google and Yah

2006-12-26T18:05:00.001-08:00

Wikipedia Founder Plans Search Engine

2006-12-26T18:04:00.001-08:00

Jimmy Wales, founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is planning to build an online commercial search engine that would compete with Google and Yahoo.

The search engine, code-named Wikiasari, would combine open source technology and human intervention to deliver more relevant results than the algorithm-based systems used today, Wales said Tuesday. "Human intelligence is still the best thing we have, so let's let humans do what they do best, and computers do what they do best." Wikiasari combines the Hawaiian word for quick, "wiki," with the Japanese word "asari," which means "rummaging search."

Relevance remains a challenge in online search, since machines can only take a roundabout approach in determining the ranking of results delivered to people's queries. For example, Google's automated system considers the number of links to a Web site in determining whether it's closer to the top or bottom of results.

Wales plans to combine the user-based technology behind nonprofit Wikipedia with open source Web-search software called Nutch, which is part of the Apache Lucene project. The latter has developed a full-featured text search engine written in Java.

Wales doesn't know how his search engine would combine human intelligence and technology. "We really haven't determined how all of this is going to work," he said.

However, Wales believes the time is right, given the availability of what he considers solid open-source technology. "The time is right, because we actually have some tools available to start building something interesting," he said.

Wikipedia depends on user contributions in building an online encyclopedia. Registered users can add any item or edit items already posted. The site works on the idea that the collective knowledge of the masses is better than a system run by editors and expert contributors. Wikipedia, however, has had its problems with erroneous postings, which are corrected as soon as site operators are notified.

Wales hopes to launch his search engine within two years. Development would be funded by his for-profit company Wikia Inc. Its investors include Bessemer Venture Partners and Amazon.com.

Wales hopes to make money with his search engine through online advertising. Text ads related to search queries and delivered with results have become a multibillion-dollar market, with Google the clear leader.

However, whether Wales can capture even a thin slice of the market against tech leaders like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, or even smaller search engines like Ask.com, remains to be seen.

2006 in review: Videogames

2006-12-26T18:03:00.002-08:00

Bret Dawson
Special to the Star

Today is Boxing Day and you are spending the morning reading the paper instead of braving the crowds at an electronics superstore, so presumably a) you found everything you were hoping for under the tree, or b) your children did, or c) you found a way to opt out of this year's orgy of videogame consumerism. Congratulations to you.

Opting out of videogame consumerism is tough most years, but in 2006 it was nearly impossible. This was the year when the young Xbox 360 finally began showing up in stores in significant quantities, and it was the year when the PlayStation 3 and the Wii made their public debuts. Ever since the eruption of hype that was the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) trade show in Los Angeles in May, the Battle of the Consoles was the videogame story of the year.

Here's the funny thing. a business story about a horserace for market share – in the entertainment section. Sorry about that. In fact, we spent nearly the entire year talking about whether the PS3 would win, or whether the Xbox 360 would win, or whether the Wii put Nintendo back in first place. Why?

"It's a high-interest category. It's like having a favourite flavour of soft drink," says Ron Bertram, Nintendo of Canada's vice-president and general manager. "Gamers invest lots of hours playing. They have strong opinions."

"I was a gamer long before I worked in the industry," says Matt Levitan, marketing and PR manager for PlayStation Canada. "First I was an Atari guy and then I was a (Sega) Genesis guy. That's what makes our industry so unique: people are passionate. It's easy to get carried away."

Yes, it is easy to get carried away. But you are not allowed to find that sort of talk interesting unless you hold stock in one of the console makers, and even if you do, you are still not allowed unless you know the material and marketing costs behind each machine.

Seriously, you are not allowed. Three large electronics companies have game machines for sale. Chances are very slim that any of them is headed for bankruptcy. So what if we forget about the market-share horserace for a while, and instead talk about what happened in gaming itself in 2006?

Well, many new games arrived in stores. A few were inspired. Several were good. Many of them were boring and stupid. Unforgivably many were sequels. That much has been standard every year for more than a decade.

So, okay, maybe games themselves are no place to go looking for trends. Maybe the horserace really was the story of the year. But why should you care about who wins the fight for market share?

"Market share is important," says Jason Anderson, head of marketing for Xbox Canada, "because that kind of critical mass affords us the ability to offer great exclusive games."

An exclusive game is one that is available for one machine but not for the others. Halo is an exclusive, and so are all the Mario titles, so is Gran Turismo.

A really great exclusive is called a "system seller," because its appeal is powerful enough to make gamers buy a $300-plus machine they would have otherwise ignored, just for the privilege of a 12-hour play experience.

So, to paraphrase Anderson, market share is important because if you have it, you can persuade a hot game developer to make titles exclusively for your system, which will give you a library that persuades more people to buy your system. It is a virtuous circle, at least as far as a console maker is concerned. It also makes the horserace more important than you might think.

This holiday season, each of the three console makers insisted it was above the horserace. Microsoft told us the Xbox 360, with its global install base of nearly 10 million machines, already had an unstoppable lead. Sony said the PlayStation 3, with its built-in high-definition Blu-ray movie player, would be the centre of digital entertainment in the networked home and far more than just a game player. Nintendo said it was bowing out of high-tech competition and would instead concentrate on selling the Wii to the majority of the population that currently believes videogames are for weenies.

Most of that was insincere. All three horses are galloping as fast as they can.

Nintendo's Bertram: "Our strategy is to compete in the existing gamer market. But also to expand that market."

Sony's Levitan: "First and foremost, the PS3 has to be a games player. You never want to alienate the gamer."

Microsoft's Anderson: "For the consumer who only buys one (console), our goal is to be that one."

Behind the counter at Game Shack in the Atrium on Bay, Luigi Vaccaro has the perspective of someone who has seen many races like this one, and is still interested. He currently owns an Xbox 360 and a Wii.

"I'm into shooters and I like to play online (on the 360)," he says. "The Wii is almost like virtual reality. In Rayman, you have to throw a cow by swinging the remote around above your head." He says he hasn't yet found a reason to buy a PS3. Still: "I have to try everything. I'm one of those spenders who can't stop.

"Back then, it was Nintendo versus Sega. Today it's the same. I'll just be happy if neither Nintendo nor Sony goes bankrupt."

The key thing here, and what makes the horserace important, is that each console maker has a point of view: a brand image that informs everything it does. The Xbox 360 is good at high-definition pictures and it does play DVDs, but its real selling point is online play. The PS3 is a beast of a computer and will probably boast the best visuals of this generation, along with the smartest virtual enemies. The Wii is a party machine that works best with eight friends and a keg.

The console that winds up leading the pack will make its parent company rich, certainly, but it will also have the power to shape gaming at large. A win for the 360 will mean a win for online play and trash-talking into a headset at opponents half a continent away.

A win for the Wii will mean smaller development budgets and fewer titles that appeal to the hardcore and more titles about swinging cows over your head.

A win for the PS3 will be a win for the status quo: gaming as a largely solitary activity that pits players against ever more sophisticated artificial intelligence.

The horserace mattered because everybody talked about it, sure. But it really mattered because all that chatter was really a conversation about the future of the medium. The creative (and maybe even artistic) choices game developers will make over the next five years hang on it. Maybe it's okay if you couldn't help picking a side.

2006: The year in Apple

2006-12-26T18:03:00.001-08:00

It was clear as early as June 2005 what the biggest news for Apple would be in 2006—that was the month when Steve Jobs announced Apple was jettisoning the PowerPC chip for new processors supplied by Apple. And while the Intel transition obviously dominated Apple’s maneuverings this year, it wasn’t the only news to come out of Cupertino.

Intel (finally) inside

Apple used the spotlight of Macworld Expo in January to launch its Intel era, unveiling an updated iMac line and the newMacBook Pro laptops. Both of the new machines ran on Intel Core Duo chips, which promised better performance and less power-consumption. For the most part, the chips delivered, with the lone disappointment being the performance of apps that hadn’t been recompiled to run natively on Intel-based computers. Those programs needed Apple’s Rosetta emulation technology to run on Intel hardware, though particularly processor-intensive software suffered a performance hit. (Mac OS X 10.4.8, released in September, dramatically improved the performance of Rosetta apps, however.)

In short order, Apple’s entire line of desktops and laptops swapped out their PowerPC processors for Intel offerings. The Mac mini got its Intel makeover in February, followed by the May release of the MacBook, a consumer-level laptop that replaced the iBook and 12-inch PowerBook G4. Finally, at its August developers conference, Apple rolled out an Intel-based Xserve and the Mac Pro, a dual-core dual-processor successor to the Power Mac G5. A little more than a year after Steve Jobs first announced Apple’s plans to change its processor supplier, the Intel transition was complete.

What did the move to Intel processors mean for Apple? Besides the immediate performance benefits from the new chips, the switch to Intel also opened up new possibilities for the Mac platform. Consider the arrival of software that lets Mac users install and run other operating systems on their Intel-based hardware (including Apple’s own Boot Camp beta.) Suddenly, the Mac is seen as a viable option in settings that had always been Windows-only operations.

Core Duo: The sequel

After wrapping up its Intel transition, Apple didn’t wait long to keep advancing its hardware offerings. Intel took the wraps off its next-generation Core 2 Duo processors in July, and Apple immediately took advantage. It upgraded the iMac to the Core 2 Duo chip in September; the MacBook Pro and MacBook soon got updates of their own. The result? Performance gains of around 10 percent over their Core Duo predecessors in Macworld Lab tests, thanks to the better-performing Core 2 Duo chips and increased L2 cache.

OS X changes its spots

Since the April 2005 debut of Tiger, things had been fairly quiet on the OS X front. And that had been by design—as far back as 2004, Apple indicated it planned to slow down the pace of OS X development from the major-update-per-year cycle seen since the operating system’s 2001 debut.

While not much was happening publicly with OS X, there was plenty of activity going on behind the scenes. And we saw just how much in August when Apple previewed the next major version of OS X at its annual developers conference. Dubbed Leopard, OS X 10.5 features modified versions of Spotlight, iChat, Dashboard, and other existing features. Additions to the operating system include a built-in backup feature called Time Machine and Leopard’s Spaces virtual desktops capabilities.

We’ll learn more about OS X 10.5 as we get closer to the update’s spring 2007 release date. Look for Leopard to dominate the Mac universe in the coming year.

Taking stock

In what was otherwise a stellar financial year for the company, Apple’s practices came under scrutiny with a voluntary investigation into stock option grants given to senior executives. In June, Apple disclosed that it found problems with some of the stock option grants made between 1997 and 2001. While the three-month investigation found that Steve Jobs was aware that favorable stock grants had been given, the Apple CEO was absolved of any wrong-doing by the probe because he was not aware of the accounting implications. The probe resulted in former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson resigning from Apple’s Board of Directors.

Apple was sued by stockholders as a result of the stock-option scandal. The company also delayed filing required financial reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and ultimately requested a hearing with the NASDAQ stock exchange Listing Qualifications Panel to address the issue. In a filing in mid-December Apple said that it was unable to meet the December 14 deadline for filing its annual report, raising the possibility that this issue could continue to dog Apple into 2007.

I’m going to Disneyland

Pixar has always had a loose affiliation with Apple—it’s Steve Jobs’ other company, after all. But the ties between Cupertino and Emeryville became a little more transparent this year, after Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion. The move not only gave Jobs a seat on Disney’s board of directors, but made him the single-largest individual shareholder of Disney stock.

Perhaps that’s why, when Apple Apple added movie downloads to the iTunes Store, Disney was the first Hollywood studio to sign on. The movie studio was rewarded for being first on iTunes with full-length features: it sold 125,000 digital movies in one week.

‘i’ on TV

Once you start offering digital movies for purchase, what’s the next logical step? According to Apple, it’s a set-top box that will stream movies, music, and other multimedia files from your computer to your TV. Code-named iTV, the $299 device has been positioned by Steve Jobs as “completing the package” of Apple’s multimedia offerings when it ships in 2007. Apple’s first order of business, though: coming up with a final name for the product.

Happy anniversaries

The past year saw Apple hit a pair of milestones. October marked the fifth-anniversary of the iPod—the musical player that has dramatically improved Apple’s fortunes since its 2001 debut. The more significant milestone came in April, however; that was when Apple celebrated its 30th anniversary as a company. Whether you work with a Mac or use it at home, there can be no doubt as to Apple’s impact in an industry that changes faster than most of us can keep up. From technology innovations to industrial design and its award-winning commercials, Apple has changed the way we think of computers and what they can do for us.

Elpida begins mass production of DDR2 on 70nm

2006-12-26T18:02:00.001-08:00

Elpida Memory announced that it has begun mass production of DDR2 SDRAMs in 1Gbit and 512Mbit density on 70nm technology at its main fab facility, Hiroshima Elpida Memory. First product shipments are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2007, the company said.

Elpida offers the DDR2 chips in 800MHz and 1GHz frequency. The Japanese memory maker highlighted that 70nm technology has made possible the world's smallest chip size for a 512Mbit DDR2 SDRAM.

Elpida indicated that its DDR2 can be used in many applications, including high-end servers that need to process large amounts of data, high-performance mobile equipment, high-definition TVs (HDTVs), next-generation DVD recorders, digital single-lens reflex cameras and other digital consumer equipment that must have advanced image processing capabilities.

Real robots

2006-12-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

Researchers move ever closer to making mechanical versions of us
December 26, 2006
Jen Gerson

From the moment the robot walked on screen in Lost in Space one question has haunted the watchers of bad science-fiction television dramas: When do we get our robots, our mechanical soulless friends?

They're getting closer.

Japan leads Korea in producing the most realistic, human-like robots. A World Robotics Survey published in 2004 said that 600,000 household robots were in use by 2003 across the globe – most being simple robots like the automatic vacuum Roomba. Four million robots are expected to be in service around the world by the end of 2007.

But don't expect to be able to purchase one on sale today. When assistant androids will hit the mainstream market is still anybody's guess as robototics is in its pre-Atari stage. We can make a robot that moves and talks and walks. But it cannot yet function in the intuitive, unpredictable human world – except as a sideshow act.

Yet most researchers can envision functional robots within a decade, even if they're only available to the very rich. They'll be able to open our doors, prepare our meals, answer the phone. They'll be able to care for the sick, clean up toxic waste, fly military aircraft and search for mines. They'll work for us.

"We need a robot that can truly be useful in our world," says California's Stephen Keeney, one of the project leaders for Honda's cutting edge ASIMO project (more at the website world. honda.com/ASIMO).

ASIMO is a stout robot that looks like a bipedal midget astronaut. It can walk slowly, recognize and react to faces and postures, shake hands, climb stairs and even run – albeit at a leisurely 6 km per hour.

The idea behind ASIMO is to create a robot that can make life easier for those confined to a chair or a bed, says Keeney. The company is also working on a version that can fight fires or clean up toxic waste spills.

Though the robot has no facial features, it moves like a human. ASIMO has to be able to handle curbs, doorknobs and light switches. "It needs to be designed like we're designed," Keeney says.

ASIMO is still an imperfect being. At a recent public showing, the robot took a misstep on a flight of stairs and did a nosedive – much to the delight of YouTube video bugs.

"Now we're working on making it smarter."

The bot costs about $1 million U.S. right now. While it may someday be more affordable, the average family should not start pinching its pennies just yet.

Robots still face a few major technical obstacles.

"You can tell it to go to an X and Y co-ordinate on a map and it will understand. But ask it to `Go to my left' and it won't," says Maria Bualat, leader for the intelligent robotics group at the NASA Ames Research Centre California. Bualat is working on a robot-human interface, something that can help man and machine work together in hostile places like the surfaces of Mars or the moon.

Bualat is working on helping robots make that cognitive leap. She's trying to make robots function in our world, rather than force us to adapt to theirs.

"Getting the robots to gauge intent is still a bit of a leap," she says. "The robot has to be able to gauge where the human is, and to understand what we want it to do next."

Though the mechanics of a walking, talking robot have come a long way in the last two decades, their athletic prowess doesn't exactly compete with the Terminator just yet. And we haven't quite come up with a power source that will keep the robots functioning for more than 6 to 7 hours.

"I think they will revolutionize society. They already have," says Michael Jenkin, professor at York University. He was one of the lead researches on a team that created AQUA in 2004, a robot that looks similar to a six-legged turtle and can swim. But, he agrees the robot revolution is still at least 10 years away.

"They have to become much more self reliant than they are. Most of them have to be plugged in, so you have to wait 6-7 hours for the battery to run down. That would put an end to the robot revolution pretty quick. Also, most of them use wheels, so you could stop them with a flight of stairs."

Another step involves making the leap across what robot-makers have deemed the "Uncanny Valley." The valley theory states that the more a robot looks like a human, the more humans empathize with it – up until the robot looks almost human, at which point it becomes repulsive, eerie or uncanny.

For work that requires face to face time with humans, androids are better suited to the task. Rudimentary androids – or robots that look like humans – already exist as technological showpieces, museum guides and fancy puppets. Last spring the Korean Institute for Industrial Technology in Seoul introduced EveR-1, an android that resembles a pretty, polite Asian woman in her early twenties. The name is from the biblical Eve plus the letter R, for robot.

EveR-1 can't walk, but her silicone-skinned face can express basic emotions, anger, happiness and pleasure. She has a vocabulary of 400 words, can interpret faces and hold a basic conversation. Japanese company Kokoro has released the Actroid DER2, another young Asian female who can serve as a tour guide. Actroid, incidentally, is available for rent for about 400,000 yen (almost $4,000) for five days.

Then there's China's singing robot Dion – a creature of limited vocal range and lip movement who sings in Mandarin. It's odd that a company in China would release a robot that's blonde and sporting a midriff- bearing, curve-clinging tank-top decaled with a U.K. flag and very perky nipples. She's not alone: Many of the androids look like they were designed by a basement-dwelling barely post-adolescent robotics fanatic.

According to Chris Willis, president of Texas-based Android World, a company he says is building a robot for domestic duties, designers seem to prefer women because they're less threatening. "It's certainly not a sex doll kind of thing."

More roboticists are working on mechanical brains over silicon beauty. And as our understanding of our own intelligence develops, researchers are finding ways to make our robots smarter and more useful.

Roboticist David Hanson of Texas says that giving robots human features is necessary, for our sake and for the sake of the souls of our creations.

For baby boomers, who will soon be requiring quality nursing care and will also have the added income to purchase help around the house as they age, the picture of a human-friendly robot can't come soon enough.

"The computational and software capabilities (of robots) are going to be beyond human capability by 2025," Hanson predicts. Robots now may be idiot savants, but "20 years from now, they're going to be a very effective member of the human family."

His company, Hanson Robotics, re-created the head of Albert Einstein out of rubber and put it on the body of a walking robot. Einstein can walk, talk, guide and educate. Like the other robots, Einstein possesses tiny motors in his head that move the structures on his face, creating the illusion of emotion.

But one day, Hanson says, robots will be more than just an illusion of humanity. Mechanical or artificial intelligence, he argues, is an inevitability. Friends of Data, heed the call. But fans of the Terminator need to beware, Hanson argues.

"If we don't give them faces, if we don't teach them how to be a part of the human family in the future, then they will be cold and faceless and they will be scary. They'll jeopardize our existence on this planet," he says. "We need to start planting the seeds in the technology of compassion and wisdom.

"Otherwise they will just be ruthless."

Why Microsoft/Novell is good for Linux

2006-12-26T17:59:00.003-08:00

Being aware, as I am, of Microsoft's monopolisation endeavours, coupled with working in a Linux world inherently mistrustful of the software giant, it may seem strange that I believe the Microsoft/Novell agreement will be great for Linux. But I do.

Why? Interoperability between Microsoft and Linux has been one the greatest challenges for software publishers and system integrators in the Linux world. The Microsoft/Novell agreement will no doubt help to bridge the gap and make it easier for software buyers to run both Windows and Linux-based systems. But it is not only integration ? vital though it is ? that I believe will propel Linux further into the mainstream. It is Microsoft's endorsement of Linux, their yielding 'if we can't beat them, join them' attitude that floods Linux in limelight. The market's gaze has never been so drawn to Linux and now is our time to stand and be counted.

The Linux world has always been a very volatile and dynamic one. Until 2002, in the early years of commercial use, Linux was seen as anarchic. It was followed by the techno geek with the same enthusiasm that we saw in the adoption of Unix, before its commercialisation by each of the hardware vendors.

That all changed with the release of Enterprise versions of Suse and Red Hat. These industrial-strength platforms with their hardware and software vendor certifications, regular updates and extended lifecycles provided a Linux platform to which many companies felt secure in trusting their server infrastructure.

So began the mass adoption of Linux ? at least, in the Unix world. Enterprise Linux has made significant gains as a replacement for ageing Unix systems, but then so has Microsoft.

For Linux to capitalise on the exposure afforded by the Microsoft/Novell agreement, we must confront the confusion surrounding the various distributions, the perceived lack of support, and to a much lesser extent the SCO/IBM lawsuits and patent violation disinformation.

Although Red Hat certainly won the marketing battle, there has been little to differentiate between the core offerings of theirs and Suse's operating systems. Partners and hardware manufacturers, however, seem to have alternated their support unpredictably between the two; in certain cases, dropping them entirely in favour of one of the lesser distributions such as Mandriva or even a community-based system such as Debian. If the HPs and IBMs of the IT world don't know which horse to back, what confidence can the punter have?

Moreover, few customers really understood, when they purchased Red Hat or Suse, whether they were buying a licence, software subscription or support. Oracle's announcement, that it would provide a locally compiled version of Red Hat Linux with Oracle support, stripped bare the Linux commercial proposition so customers understand it. It made clear that what you got out of the box was an update subscription and operating-system support.

I don't think that the Oracle proposition is particularly viable at the moment, or that it will hurt Red Hat or Suse in the long run. It appears more of a spoiling tactic aimed at reducing the reliance of Oracle on Red Hat but, irrespective of that, it has lifted the veil on Enterprise Linux distributions and empowered the user.

Users now understand what the support from Red Hat and Suse delivers and what the options are to extend this. They are increasingly aware of the professional support organisations established to supplement the operating system support ? a network of professional services organisations akin to those in the Microsoft and Unix worlds.

Ultimately, Linux is growing up. Linux has built a foundation and extensive customer base. It has proved that it can be a player in the short term, and shown that it is a viable replacement for proprietary Unix. The Microsoft/Novell deal shouldn't be seen as a threat but a chance to shine.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Console Cost Reduction Delayed – Rumour.

2006-12-26T17:59:00.001-08:00

Chartered Semiconductor, a leading contract semiconductor manufacturer, may postpone the beginning of mass production of central processing units (CPUs) for the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft at thinner process technology. If the information is correct, Microsoft will be unable to decrease manufacturing cost of the console.

Sources with knowledge of the matter reportedly revealed to DigiTimes web-site that Chartered plans to produce CPUs for Microsoft Xbox 360 game console using 65nm fabrication process only in the middle of 2007, which is, at least, a quarter behind the original production schedule.

Both Chartered and Microsoft announced in April, 2006, that the former will manufacture the 65nm version of Xbox 360 three-core microprocessor based on the PowerPC architecture in Q1 2007.

Currently Chartered and IBM produce Xbox 360 microprocessors using 90nm fabrication process and while yields of the chip have increased greatly since the initiation of production, 65nm process technology would allow to further cut down the cost of the processor, which would provide further opportunities to reduce the cost of the console itself.

According to iSuppli’s most recent analysis, the premium version of the Xbox 360 game machine equipped with hard disk drive has a manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is $75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360. A year ago the total bill of materials (BOM) cost for the Xbox 360 Premium, including hard disk, the DVD drive, enclosures, the Radio Frequency (RF) receiver board, power supply, wireless controller, cables, literature, and packaging, reached $525, well above the retail price of $399.

Microsoft Xbox 360 console is based around triple-core microprocessor developed by IBM, high-definition visual processing unit designed by ATI Technologies featuring unified shader architecture, I/O controller engineered by SiS and some other key components. The gaming machine provides a broad set of multimedia capabilities, including high-definition movies and TV programs downloads in addition to games. Microsoft Xbox 360 core without hard drive is currently priced at $299, whereas the model featuring 20GB HDD and wireless controller has recommended price of $399 in Europe and the U.S. Microsoft also offers HD DVD add-on drive for the console for $199.

Chartered and Microsoft did not comment on the news-story.

Apple takes no. 2 in BW 'Tech Hot Growth 50'

2006-12-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek.com has awarded Apple the no. 2 spot in its 'Tech Hot Growth 50' list, comparing technology companies as they struggle to grow after the "bubble-bursting years" of 2000 and 2001. "It's no surprise to find Apple and Google at the top of our list," wrote BusinessWeek.com's Arik Hesseldahl. "Apple Computer, no. 2 on the Tech Hot Growth ranking, is the prime example of a company that has created its own opportunities." The list measures companies by sales growth, total return to shareholders, return on equity, and overall sales. Apple this year sold 39 million iPods alongside 5 million Macs, signaling "breakthrough innovation" that has made the company "an international icon."

Nintendo touts Opera browser for Wii

2006-12-24T20:19:00.003-08:00

Nintendo continues to enhance the unique functionality of the Nintendo Wii that now extends into the Internet. Wii owners can use the Opera browser similar to the way you could direct the mouse pointer with a 3D mouse - a rare variant of computer mice that typically are attached to one of your fingers. Wii users can simply point the remote at an object on the page and zoom in on that object with the "+" button. Once zoomed in, the Wii Remote allows you to pan around the page while remaining in zoom mode.

Scrolling and selecting bookmarks works in a similar way. Input of URLs or form content is done via a on-screen keyboard and predictive text feature to auto-complete words and URLs. What makes the browser especially interesting is the fact that the software can run even the most recent dynamic websites, including Flash and AJAX enabled destinations. For example, Opera supports Google Maps, which should provide a new way of planning your next vacation.

The Wii browser is available as a free "trial" download until June 30, 2007. After that, Nintendo will be offering the software via the Wii Shop Channel for 500 Wii points.

Web developers interested in creating webpages optimized for the Wii console should check their content with the W3C validator and "check that Flash content is compatible with Flash 7," Nintendo said.

Samba guru quits Novell for Google over GPL controversy

2006-12-24T20:19:00.001-08:00

Famed open-source proponent and Samba programmer Jeremy Allison has resigned his position at Novell Inc. and will join Google Inc. in protest over the company's Linux-Windows interoperability deal with Microsoft Corp.

Allison's first day at Google, where he will continue work on Samba, will be Jan. 2, he confirmed in an interview with IDG News Service on Friday. Samba is open-source file-and-print-server software; it is currently distributed as part of SUSE Linux.

Google's plans for Samba are not known, and Allison would not comment further about his resignation or new position because he said he agreed with Novell not to until Dec. 29, his last day with the company.

However, Allison did divulge that he is not pleased he had to make the decision to leave Novell. "I really liked it there," he said. "I was having a lot of fun."

Allison also confirmed that comments and a letter attributed to him posted on the Groklaw Web site are legitimate. He said he posted the comments and the letter to several internal mailing lists at Novell, but that someone else leaked the letter to Groklaw.

In the comments, Allison called Novell's deal with Microsoft "a mistake ... [that] will be damaging to Novell's success in the future." He said that even if the deal -- which involved Novell paying Microsoft for patents -- does not violate the GPL license, it violates "the intent of the GPL."

The GPL, or GNU General Public License, is a popular open-source license. Samba and other technologies that are also part of the SUSE Linux distribution are released under the GPL.

Striking a patent agreement for technology that is released under the GPL "has put us outside the community, and there is no positive aspect to that fact, and no way to make it so," Allison wrote in his letter.

Novell announced its Linux-Windows interoperability deal with Microsoft on Nov. 3. The part of the deal that spurred Allison's departure from Novell is a patent agreement in which Novell will make royalty payments to Microsoft so the company will not assert rights to patents it may hold over any technology that is or will be incorporated into SUSE Linux.

Protected under this part of the deal are individuals and noncommercial open-source developers that create code and contribute to the SUSE Linux distribution, as well as developers getting paid to create code that goes into the distribution.

Allison laughed when questioned if Novell's Chief Technology Officer and Strategy Officer for Open Source Nat Friedman, who also has criticized the Novell-Microsoft deal, also plans to find a new job.

"You might as well ask me what Bigfoot's address is," he said. However, some have speculated that Allison will not be the only open-source developer to exit Novell because the company got into bed with Microsoft.

Wikipedia founder to launch search engine

2006-12-24T20:18:00.002-08:00

The U.S. founder of the Web encyclopedia Wikipedia says his planned Internet search engine, Wikiasari, could rival Google and Yahoo!.

Jimmy Wales told The Times of London his search engine, planned to launch with Amazon.com, will use the same user-based technology as Wikipedia. The commercial version of the search engine will be developed through San Mateo, Calif.-based Wikia Inc., with a provisional launch planned for the first quarter of 2007, he said.

Wikiasari gets its name from 'wiki,' Hawaiian for 'quick,' and 'asari,' Japanese for 'rummaging search.'

Earlier this year Wales said he secured multimillion-dollar funding from Amazon.com and a separate cash infusion from a group of Silicon Valley financiers to finance Wikia projects.

Wikipedia, online since 2003, is written by thousands of contributors worldwide using free, open-source software. Wales said he wants to use the same network concept and free software to create his search engine.

Happy Holidays: Have a Database

2006-12-24T20:18:00.001-08:00

One of the goals of this blog, Post I.T., is to create more than a collection of quick hits on tech, gadgets and media, which often evaporate almost as soon as you read them, like digital cotton candy.

To be a real User's Guide to the 21st Century, we need staying power. We want you to come back again and again and become a real resource for you.

One way to do that is to create standing and updatable databases for users.

Many of these will be culled from your input. For instance, our first one: A database of user reviews of the iPod and the Zune.

When Microsoft rolled out the Zune in November, I asked to hear from folks who had bought one. Unsolicited, iPod owners happily chimed in as well. I took the best ones and created a database. Even better, we can wiki this thing: You can post your iPod and Zune (and other mp3 devices) reviews in the comment section at the bottom of the database. I'll take the best of those and add them. As players evolve, so will we.

Bonus: Maybe this database will help with your last-minute holiday shopping decisions.

Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista

2006-12-24T20:17:00.002-08:00

Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month.

On Dec. 15, a Russian programmer posted a description of a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user’s privileges on all of the company’s recent operating systems, including Vista. And over the weekend a Silicon Valley computer security firm said it had notified Microsoft that it had also found that flaw, as well as five other vulnerabilities, including one serious error in the software code underlying the company’s new Internet Explorer 7 browser.

The browser flaw is particularly troubling because it potentially means that Web users could become infected with malicious software simply by visiting a booby-trapped site. That would make it possible for an attacker to inject rogue software into the Vista-based computer, according to executives at Determina, a company based in Redwood City, Calif., that sells software intended to protect against operating system and other vulnerabilities.

Determina is part of a small industry of companies that routinely pore over the technical details of software applications and operating systems looking for flaws. When flaws in Microsoft products are found they are reported to the software maker, which then produces fixes called patches. Microsoft has built technology into its recent operating systems that makes it possible for the company to fix its software automatically via the Internet.

Despite Microsoft assertions about the improved reliability of Vista, many in the industry are taking a wait-and-see approach. Microsoft’s previous operating system, Windows XP, required two “service packs” issued over a number of years to substantially improve security, and new flaws are still routinely discovered by outside researchers.

On Friday, a Microsoft executive posted a comment on a company security information Web site stating the company was “closely monitoring” the vulnerability described by the Russian Web site. It permits the privileges of a standard user account in Vista and other versions of Windows to be increased, permitting control of all of the operations of the computer. In Unix and modern Windows systems, users are restricted in the functions they can perform, and complete power is restricted to certain administrative accounts.

“Currently we have not observed any public exploitation or attack activity regarding this issue,” wrote Mike Reavey, operations manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center. “While I know this is a vulnerability that impacts Windows Vista, I still have every confidence that Windows Vista is our most secure platform to date.”

On Saturday, Nicole Miller, a Microsoft spokeswoman, said the company was also investigating the reported browser flaw and that it was not aware of any attacks attempting to use the vulnerability.

Microsoft has spent millions branding the Vista operating system as the most secure product it has produced, and it is counting on Vista to help turn the tide against a wave of software attacks now plaguing Windows-based computers.

Vista is critical to Microsoft’s reputation. Despite an almost four-and-half-year campaign on the part of the company, and the best efforts of the computer security industry, the threat from harmful computer software continues to grow. Criminal attacks now range from programs that steal information from home and corporate PCs to growing armies of slave computers that are wreaking havoc on the commercial Internet.

Although Vista, which will be available on consumer PCs early next year, has been extensively tested, it is only now being exposed to the challenges of the open Internet.

“I don’t think people should become complacent,” said Nand Mulchandani, a vice president at Determina. “When vendors say a program has been completely rewritten, it doesn’t mean that it’s more secure from the get-go. My expectation is we will see a whole rash of Vista bugs show up in six months or a year.”

The Determina executives said that by itself, the browser flaw that was reported to Microsoft could permit damage like the theft of password information and the attack of other computers.

However, one of the principal security advances of Internet Explorer 7 is a software “sandbox” that is intended to limit damage even if a malicious program is able to subvert the operation of the browser. That should limit the ability of any attacker to reach other parts of the Vista operating system, or to overwrite files.

However, when coupled with the ability of the first flaw that permits the change in account privileges, it might then be possible to circumvent the sandbox controls, said Alexander Sotirov, a Determina security researcher. In that case it would make it possible to alter files and potentially permanently infect a target computer. This kind of attack has yet to be proved, he acknowledged.

The Determina researchers said they had notified Microsoft of four other flaws they had discovered, including a bug that would make it possible for an attacker to repeatedly disable a Microsoft Exchange mail server simply by sending the program an infected e-mail message.

Last week, the chief technology officer of Trend Micro, a computer security firm in Tokyo, told several computer news Web sites that he had discovered an offer on an underground computer discussion forum to sell information about a security flaw in Windows Vista for $50,000. Over the weekend a spokesman for Trend Micro said that the company had not obtained the information, and as a result could not confirm the authenticity of the offer.

Many computer security companies say that there is a lively underground market for information that would permit attackers to break in to systems via the Internet.

UK queen's Christmas message on podcast

2006-12-24T20:17:00.001-08:00

From its beginnings as a simple radio broadcast, the traditional Christmas Day message from the British monarch is now an elaborate production.

The Queen's traditional Christmas message is being offered as a podcast for the first time.

This year's announcement will focus on the relationship between different generations and how faiths can nurture respect for the elderly.

Embracing that theme, the Queen is reaching out to younger generations.

She's offering her message as a podcast, a video programme that can be played on portable digital media player, such as Apple iPod.

Xbox Buyers Get Extended Warranty, Repairs Paid Back Retroactively

2006-12-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

Struggling to face crushing competition from Nintendo and Sony, Microsoft rushed to extend the warranty of its Xbox 360 gaming console to one year. Microsoft initially offered only 90 days of warranty on the Xbox 360. The warranty extension applies to customers in the United States and Canada only.

The decision is also retroactive, to Microsoft customers who still are in their first year since they purchased the Xbox. If their product already needed repairs, the Redmond company will reimburse in full the servicing costs. Users should get their checks in about ten weeks from now. Reimbursements will be automatically distributed, so customers need not contact Microsoft.

Up to now, Xbox 360 buyers in the United States and Canada were at a disadvantage, because the standard one year Xbox 360 warranty was available throughout most of the rest of the world.

"Customer satisfaction is a central focus and priority for the Xbox 360 system," said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of Global Marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "In addition to jaw-dropping features such as high-definition graphics, an amazing catalog of over 160 games, and social online and entertainment experiences on Xbox Live®, the Xbox 360 system now offers this extended warranty upgrade. It is truly the industry’s most compelling home entertainment offering."

Despite the impressive number of consoles that Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft, wants to see in our living rooms by the end of this year, the Xbox platform is still lagging and it is still producing losses. And, according to the high ranked official from Redmond, it will still be a financial black hole until 2008. "To be clear, we have said that in fiscal 08, entertainment and devices makes money. That’s not exactly Xbox. We don’t break profit down by business. And there are parts of entertainment and devices that make money. Xbox doesn’t. Xbox has to make significant progress to enable E&D to get there. We feel we are on track," he said in an interview last month with the San Jose Mercury News.

He was also confident that Xbox 360 will reach the 10 million-pieces-sold landmark, thanks to... logic: "The second thing is frankly our value proposition is just better. Our console is at $299 and $399. Sony is going to have a pretty limited supply of consoles at $499 and $599. Consumers want to buy during the holiday. We're going to be a great logical choice for them."

Customers who have questions regarding this policy change or experience any hardware issues should visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/contact where they can check their warranty status, find troubleshooting information for common issues and find Xbox support contact information.

Hasta la Vista

2006-12-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

FROM the end of January any Windows-based personal computer that you buy will come with a new version of Microsoft's operating system, called Vista. Make no mistake, this is more than just a slicker, prettier version of Microsoft’s current operating system for desktop computers, Windows XP. Vista is considerably quicker, easier and more pleasant to use, and far more stable and secure, than was its predecessor. One of its particular attractions is its more intuitive way of storing, organising and locating files. Included too are better parental controls, a built-in DVD maker, and lots of other improvements. In many ways, especially in its look and feel and ease of use, Vista out-Macs the Mac’s latest operating system—the Tiger version of OS X. However, that could change when Apple releases its Leopard version of OS X in spring.

Right now, the big question for most Windows users is one of timing. If they are not about to buy a new Windows PC, should they buy a copy of Vista to upgrade a perfectly adequate machine running an earlier version of Windows? If you are running a PC with any version of Windows prior to XP (with all the Service Pack 2 updates), then the answer is most certainly yes. But if you’ve been religious about keeping your computer healthy with all the latest patches and updates released weekly by Microsoft, then the smart thing to do is to wait awhile. No matter how thoroughly the company may have tested it, the first version of Vista is going to be riddled with niggling annoyances that surface only when software confronts some of the crazy things we ordinary users do.

Many say Vista’s problem is its sheer size and complexity. All told, the program comprises some 50m lines of computer code. And as any programmer will tell you, software contains typically five to ten errors for every 100 lines of code. So, even if 90% of them were squished during the extensive testing programme, Vista will hit the shelves with at least a quarter of a million bugs in it.

That’s the price you pay for bloated software, say the legions of Microsoft critics. But hang on a minute. Vista may have a complex architecture with 50 layers of interdependent activities, but it’s not a massive program by today’s standards. Some of those quickest to accuse Microsoft of producing “bloatware” are even guiltier themselves.

In the religious wars that rage between operating-system fanatics, the worst offenders are actually to be found in the Macintosh and Linux camps. The highly praised Tiger version of the Macintosh OS X operating system contains no fewer than 86m lines of code. And while the latest Linux kernel may be only 9m lines long, the “distro” (packaged distribution ready for installing) of an important Linux variant, such as Debian 3.1, has some 213m lines of code in it.

One important difference between operating systems such as Linux and OS X on the one hand, and Windows on the other, is that the former are highly modularised. Instead of being one humongous piece of software, they are made up of hundreds of small stand alone programs, called packages. Both Linux and OS X are descended from Unix, the grand-daddy of modern multi-tasking operating systems, and share the same underlying structure.

With Linux at least, this modularity allows skilled users to strip out all the bits they don’t need—to create a robust and compact operating system tailored to specific needs. Linux can be trimmed down to run from a floppy disk, or fleshed out to manage a server farm or even a supercomputer. On the desktop, Linux works every bit as well as Windows, while offering greater security and fewer crashes. Installing any of the popular desktop distros such as Ubuntu, OpenSUSE or Fedora is a ten-minute breeze. But unlike Windows, downloading applications to run on Linux and ensuring all the necessary “libraries” are in place is most certainly not for novices.

But the real difference between Unix-like operating systems and Windows is their design philosophies. Windows may squander computing power through its clumsy architecture. But by favouring simplicity of use over simplicity of design, Microsoft has been able to leverage cheap but powerful commodity hardware, to provide cost-effective software solutions. These may be complex in design—and full of bugs to boot—but, boy, are they easy to use and maintain. That’s a winning formula in anyone’s book, and the reason why Windows rightly rules the world.

Grant funds open-source challenge to Google library

2006-12-23T14:52:00.002-08:00

The nonprofit Internet Archive announced Wednesday it has received $1 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to continue its effort to scan public domain works for open online accessibility.

The archiving organization's Open-Access Text Archive is an open-source alternative to book-scanning efforts like the ones from Google and Microsoft. Internet Archive, perhaps best known for its WayBack Machine archive of Web pages by date--is also an online digital library of text, audio, software, images and video content.

"Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive are pioneers in this exciting and historic opportunity to create a universal digital library that is both open-access and non-proprietary," said Doron Weber, who overseas public understanding of science and technology at the Sloan Foundation, in a statement.

Kahle was one of the inventors of Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), a text-based search system that searched database indexes on remote servers before there were Internet search engines. After WAIS was sold to AOL in 1995 for several million dollars, Kahle founded the Internet Archive, which works closely with the Open Content Alliance (OCA). The OCA developed a set of principles dedicated to a "permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content" for free and open access.

The grant from the Sloan charitable trust will enable Internet Archive and the OCA to scan collections from several major institutions, including the entire collection of publications from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as several thousand images from the museum; John Adams' personal library of over 3,800 works at the Boston Public Library; and other collections from The Getty Research Institute, Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley.

The announcement comes just after the San Francisco-based Internet Archive reached the milestone of scanning 100,000 books. That may not sound like a lot compared to Google Book Search's claim of millions within a decade, but the OCA has ramped up its scanning recently to about 12,000 books a month. According to its own statistics, the organization has also archived 65 billion pages from 50 million Web sites.

"Google is so good at the media being their PR machine, that you would not know there was an alternative out there," Kahle said. "We have brand name institutions going open and foundations like the Sloan are funding (us). It shows that the Open Content Alliance is viable, that there is support for public interest. We don't have to privatize the library system."

Google has begun to offer full-text, printable PDFs of public domain works with plans to add more as it scans more books. But its platform is closed, and its PDF pages have a "Digitized by Google" watermark. The company is not planning to share its scanned material with the OCA or Internet Archive, according to Kahle.

"We think they (Google) are doing great stuff. If the materials would be made available for broad public search and educational use we'd be all for it, but in my discussion with the founders (Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) they aren't going to," said Kahle.

Google did not respond to requests for comment about its book scanning project.

Google scans and indexes both public domain and copyright works, an issue that has raised legal concerns. The Google Book Search engine restricts full access to copyright works while still offering snippet views, instead of excluding the work from its search feature altogether, according to the Google Book Search Web site.

"This whole Google Book Search looks like Amazon's Search Inside the Book," said Kahle. "Let's go open with these collections...These are beautiful books."

Yahoo is a supporter of the OCA and has helped the OCA index some of the scanned content, but its project is smaller than those of Google and Microsoft, according to Gregory Crane, a classics professor and digital library expert at Tufts University.

Microsoft was an early supporter of the OCA and in June worked with it on a project scanning and indexing materials from the University of California and the University of Toronto libraries as part of its Windows Live Book Search project. But Microsoft has become more proprietary in recent months, Kahle said.

"We continue to work with Microsoft, but the results going forward are not strictly OCA principles," Kahle later added in an e-mail. "To their credit, they are interested in helping get more scanning done in the open, of course because they can use the books as well, but still, this is more than other projects.

Jay Girotto, who heads Microsoft's Live Book Search selection team, further explained his company's position.

"We support the fundamental mission of the OCA, and hope that many more partners like the Sloan Foundation will step forward and contribute significant resources to scan public-domain materials under the OCA principles," he said in a statement.

Research impacts

Tufts' Crane thinks the companies are reluctant to share for fear of helping the competition.

"My impression is that both Microsoft and Google don't want the other benefiting from their investment, he wrote in an e-mail. "Now each is hoarding. Ideally, each would split the cost of digitizing content and then make the public domain material available in the OCA. At the moment, Google is well ahead, and I would think that they would feel that Microsoft would benefit too much."

A lack of open-source access, Crane explained, impedes research that requires access to multiple groups of works in bulk, and prevents researchers from applying more nuanced OCR (optical character recognition) searches to those texts.

"We are evaluating OCR on classical Greek. Google runs OCR on all its texts--that's how it generates searchable OCR. The Google OCR, though, doesn't know Greek and produces no usable text as far as we can tell. Google says that you have to get permission to run OCR, etc...on its PDF books," Crane said, further explaining, "Even if the PDF books are good enough quality to support OCR--they might be lower than the archival resolution.

"I am sure that Google would be open to us doing this work, but that means (for each academic project) getting their attention, writing letters, and a lot of hassle," Crane said. "I think it's easier and better in the long run to open the library up and let the world have at it," he said.

Wii: Internet Telly for Dummies Now Available

2006-12-23T14:52:00.001-08:00

That’s right folks, the Wii’s Internet Channel is finally here and it’s freely available to download in the Wii Shop Channel right now.

Though why everyone is so keen to flag the fact that an Internet browser is free is slightly beyond some of us tight-arses here in the SPOnG office, but more of that anon. First let’s take a look at what Opera on Wii actually does.

Firstly, many of you may not have heard of or used Opera in the past as most normal people tend to use Internet Explorer and most geeks opt for the Open Source staple that is Mozilla Firefox. So why has Nintendo chosen to partner with Opera? Well, the reality is that both IE and Firefox would most likely use more resources than the Wii has to offer.

Opera has, of course, already been used with the DS – ergo, Nintendo has an ongoing relationship with the company.

Also, in the case of IE, there is also the minor issue that Microsoft would probably have shied away from partnering with Nintendo!

Whatever your desktop browser of choice though, Opera on Wii is a pretty different experience to what you are used to. Once you have downloaded the browser (with a nifty little Mario skipping across the screen to keep you amused as it comes up your pipe!) you see the immediate difference. Navigation is via the Wii Remote so you simply point and click to go to a Web page, select a link or input text.

If you want to surf and check out multiple pages it’s very slow to use and, if you are a competent typist (which most modern corporate drones are) then you will be itching to get back to keyboard-input. SPOnG suspects that older users (retired people and those not chained to their keyboard and PC screen 40 hours a week) will feel immediately much more comfortable with Wii Opera. But for us having to click text fields via the cursor and the on-screen keyboard was a bit of a pain, so we checked with Nintendo to see if they had any plans for a wireless Wii keyboard.

“No plans at this time to bring a wireless keyboard to Wii,” it promptly informed us. Okay, that’s that then. (Hint: bring a wireless keyboard in, Nintendo!).

However, input gripes aside, after a few minutes of getting use to the Wii Remote to choose and move around websites, you realise that it’s pretty nifty to have instant Internet access on the TV – for those moments when you might need to do a quick Google or news check and just can’t be bothered to get up of the sofa.

So, instead of a mouse , the [A] button on the Wii Remote works as "left-click" and [B] is used to scroll vertically and horizontally around the viewing area (hint: also bring a wireless mouse in Nintendo - a nice white one like those nice ones that Apple make!).

The plus (+) and minus (-) buttons are used to zoom in and out for a better view of the page, which is a superb feature, particularly if you are short-sighted! The [1] button pulls up your favourites list and [2] reformats the page into massive text which is particularly handy if you are very short-sighted.

Most pages we have checked out so far are rendered pretty much exactly as they would be in IE or Firefox, with basic options at the bottom of the page to go back, forward, refresh, home or to your favourites. Beyond that, there are few features to play around with, although bear in mind this is the beta version.

Nintendo plans to introduce the full version of the browser next March, which will be free to download until June, when it plans to start charging end-users 500 Wii points (around £3.75) to download it.

SPOnG is not entirely convinced by this strategy of passing on what is surely a marginal licensing cost (of Opera) to the end user. Let us know your thoughts on the matter in the forum.

Microsoft plans showy consumer intro for Vista, Office software

2006-12-23T14:51:00.002-08:00

Microsoft is heading back to New York City to blow the lid off Windows Vista and Office 2007 again.

The event planned for Jan. 29 marking the broad availability of these two flagship products looks to be more lavish than the Nov. 30 launch for business customers.

"The 'Wow' starts Now" reads an invitation released to the news media late Friday. Microsoft plans a luncheon at Cipriani, a landmark banquet room on 42nd street in Manhattan and afterward there'll be a "launch celebration" at 1515 Broadway in Times Square.

For the business launch, Microsoft rang the opening bell of the Nasdaq Stock Market and CEO Steve Ballmer gave a presentation to media at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square.

The late-January consumer launch date matches what Microsoft executives have been saying for months — since the last of several delays in the development of Vista pushed its release past the holiday shopping season.

Microsoft appears to be pitching a big tent to thank those inside and outside the company who had a hand in Vista and Office 2007.

"Millions of people — Microsoft employees,developers, valued customers,bloggers, families, media,the entire industry — have come together like never before and added their own individual imprints to help make Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office system the most tested products in Microsoft history," the invitation said.

Over Chairman Bill Gates' signature another passage suggests the company's ambitions for these products: "Because of the immense personal contributions of so many, we hope you will help us celebrate a new digital lifestyle and a new era in personal computing."

Microsoft extends Xbox 360 warranty to 1 year

2006-12-23T14:51:00.001-08:00

Just in time for last-minute holiday shoppers, Microsoft has extended the Xbox 360's warranty from 90 days to one year, bringing it in line with the warranty lengths of rival game consoles from Sony and Nintendo.

The extension is retroactive, meaning that someone who bought an Xbox 360 in the United States or Canada and paid for repairs within the last year is eligible for reimbursement. In many other countries, a one-year warranty already is standard.

"Customer satisfaction is a central focus and priority for the Xbox 360 system," Jeff Bell, a marketing vice president at Microsoft, said in a statement Friday.

Microsoft also said reimbursement checks for repairs done in the last 12 months will be sent out automatically in about 10 weeks. Contact information for warranty questions is available on the Xbox support site.

Microsoft has been the target of an online petition--with 3,382 signatures as of Friday--calling for a retroactive warranty extension to one year. The petition claims that Xbox 360 systems frequently failed after the original 90-day warranty and that customers were unreasonably required to pay between $50 and $129 for repairs.

Nintendo's Wii comes with a standard one-year warranty, with a free 90-day extension if customers register their consoles on the company's Web site. Sony's PlayStation 3 comes with a one-year warranty.

Some credit cards, including American Express and Visa, extend the manufacturer's warranty if a product is bought using that card.

Dirty air doesn't worry experts

2006-12-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

Scientists are finding that the air around city dwellers is teeming with microbes, thousands of them in every breath, from thousands of species.

Microbial ecologists already knew dirt was rich in germs.

There are trillions of bacteria, archaea and fungi in the average teaspoonful of soil and at least hundreds of thousands in the same amount of pond water.

Ordinary urban air is almost as full of living bacteria, according to a report in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The report is by Eoin Brodie and colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, who used high-tech gene chips to survey the air in San Antonio and Austin, Texas.

They found that germs can take to the winds as much from the dirt underfoot as from desert storms half a world away, and that the weather determines what kind of microbial zoo is airborne at any particular moment.

Warm, windy days stir up lots of actinobacteria, full of antibiotic resistance, but calmer days fill the air with campylobacteria and germs that tend to come from fecal sources, such as a sewage treatment plant or dog park.

But there is no cause for major health concerns, the researchers say.

"People shouldn't be concerned that they're breathing in bacterial particles,because it's really a very tiny percentage that's pathogenic," says Berkeley lab molecular biologist Gary Andersen.

The emerging picture of air and its inhabitants, according to Andersen, is complicated and changing constantly.

"It suggests to us it's a product of local reservoirs of different types of organisms, depending on what kind of air-conditioning ducts you have, what kinds of plants and landscaping, as well as long-range sources like the Saharan dust storms," he said.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists found years ago that dust storms boiling out of the Sahara Desert can carry germs across the Atlantic Ocean and cause spikes in meningitis and asthma cases in Eastern states.

For that research and most other microbial sampling of the natural world, scientists relied on culturing the germs. But most microbes will not grow in a Petri dish.

No one had conducted a comprehensive genetic census of airborne microbes until the federal government began sniffing the air in major U.S. cities and got false alarms for potential bioterror agents.

If instruments installed for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's BioWatch program were to be believed, Houston and Washington already have had small-scale attacks in 2003 and 2005 with Francisella tularensis, the weaponizable germ that causes rabbit fever and is named in part for the California county — Tulare — where it was first discovered.

Los Alamos scientists tested soils and water near Houston and found that close, nonpathogenic cousins of the tularemia bacteria had tripped Homeland Security Department alarms. Federal officials realized they needed to know more about the natural level of airborne microbes.

The Berkeley scientists had Affymetrix, a Santa Clara-based gene chip maker, create a chip with around half a million DNA signatures for germs, all based on a single gene that varies considerably across the 200,000 or so main species of bacteria and archaea.

What they found were startlingly rich and diverse communities of invisible bugs in the air. Air is home to as many different types of germs as soil but at about one-millionth of the density. As a result, the air of a sizable city building might contain about as many germs as in a teaspoon of soil.

"No one's really been able to do this," said microbial biologist Christina Kellogg, a USGS researcher in Florida. "It's something none of the rest of us can touch."

The findings could be a first step toward a global map of microbial flows and perhaps new understanding of early development of immune systems in humans and other species.

"We did detect bacteria that haven't been detected in the air before, and if you think about it, we're breathing this air from the moment we're born," said Brodie, the lead researcher.

It could be that infants' lungs are filled with germs from Day One, and this constant exposure to tiny quantities of germs helps train young immune systems to ward off more serious infectious agents, he said.

In fact, Andersen said, no more than 1,000th of 1 percent of microbes cause disease.

"We're evolved to breathe bacteria in air," he said. "A much greater percent might be the opposite, might be beneficial to humans."

Google overtakes Yahoo in user visits: Industry Tracker

2006-12-22T15:28:00.001-08:00

Slightly more than 736 million people around the world traveled the internet last month, with 475,713 of them visiting Google websites and 475,262 going to Yahoo Online Properties, according to industry tracker Comscore.

Websites of Redmond, Washington-based software giant Microsoft were visited by 501,720 people, the rating tally revealed.

Hot video-sharing website Youtube placed tenth in the Comscore media metrix rankings but showed the largest surge in visitors, with the number catapulting by more than 2,000 per cent to 107,944.

Google`s results did not include visits to Youtube, which it bought in October.

The popularity of Google websites was up 9 per cent from the same month a year earlier, while visits to Silicon Valley rival Yahoo grew by 5 per cent and to Microsoft by 3 per cent in the same comparison.

Online auction pioneer Ebay was ranked in fourth place, with the number of visitors slipping by one per cent from November of 2005 to 250,848. Time Warner network site visits also notched down one per cent, tallying 222,107.

The number of people going to the communally-edited internet encyclopedia site Wikipedia more than doubled to 171,945 in November as compared to that month last year.

Living with (or without) Internet Explorer 7.0

2006-12-22T15:27:00.002-08:00

Like a lot of people, when Microsoft Corp.'s latest browser was released, I installed it right away. In fact, I installed it on about half a dozen machines. As the days have turned into weeks (soon to be months) since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7, what has become clear to me and many others is that some Web sites and many Web applications just aren't ready for this new version of the browser. On my computers, that has meant a return to IE6, until the Web and Web-based applications catch up with IE7.

I've received reports from many Computerworld and "Scot's Newsletter" readers about compatibility problems between IE7 and, especially, Web-based ASP products and proprietary or customized enterprise apps. It's been a five-year run for IE6, and the Web developers who serve the business world appear to have moved in for the long haul.

My best advice at this point is to stick with IE6 for a while if you're a confirmed IE user, or switch at least temporarily to Firefox 2 or Opera 9. If you've made the switch to IE7 and don't want to go back (and I can't blame you -- I prefer IE7 too), the compatibility issues emphasize a key drawback of the new browser you should think through. By upgrading to IE7, you've lost a key safety net that Windows-based Firefox and Opera fans enjoy: They can always fire up IE6 when they hit a site or attempt to run a Web-based app that doesn't react well to their browser. But if you're using IE7, you're stuck.

I talked to Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of IE product management, about this issue. Microsoft has an answer that lets you keep IE6 at your beck and call while you run IE7. I've tested it, and it works fine.

Microsoft made its desktop virtualization tool, Virtual PC 2004 SP1, free for download earlier this year. It's not my favorite virtualization tool, but it works fine.

The key part of the equation is a virtual machine appliance supplied by the IE7 team that consists of Windows XP Service Pack 2 with IE6. It's a 495.8MB download that will work until April 1, 2007. Schare says the IE7 team hopes to renew the program with a new virtual image. There's no charge at all for the use of Windows XP, by the way. This is a pretty good deal.

For more information, check out the Microsoft IE development team's IEBlog: IE6 and IE7 Running on a Single Machine.

Problems uninstalling IE7?

So I'm recommending that people either grab this IE6 on XP/Virtual PC trick or uninstall IE7. Here's some straight talk about uninstalling IE7.

First, let me pass along that I have had excellent success uninstalling IE7 from my PCs -- both the betas and the final version. I'm also not hearing from readers and other sources about any problems with the process of removing IE7.

There is one thing I am hearing about, though: A dialog box pops up as part of the IE7 uninstall that warns you that some of your applications might in some vague way be affected by uninstalling IE7. People who frequently install new software on their systems are especially likely to encounter this dialog. I asked Schare whether this should be a concern right now to people looking to install IE7, and he quite honestly said no, IE7 users can ignore it.

The mysterious dialog is actually part of the Windows Package Installer, the tool that supports incremental installation of system files for Windows Update and many other Microsoft software-updating processes. Update.exe, the primary file behind the Windows Package Installer, exists in a version-control nightmare (once referred to as "DLL Hell"). A big part of what it does is identify and manage dependencies among different software elements and their versions.

Because Internet Explorer is installed directly into Windows' system files, the Windows Package Installer is the designated tool for managing IE7 install, update and uninstall processes. So, doing what it's supposed to do, Windows Package Installer fires up a dialog that shows you all the products that have been installed in Windows since you installed IE7. It's listing possible dependencies. For there to be any threat at all to the more recently installed programs, they would have to require a specific IE7 system file in order to operate properly. That's a pretty unlikely scenario no matter what -- and it's especially unlikely since IE7 hasn't been out very long. But even a year or two from now, Schare's belief is that you may safely ignore this dialog.

One thing I will warn you about is that some people who ran the betas of IE7 and who installed the final code over any of those betas are having trouble uninstalling IE7. I've probably written this piece of advice to Windows users more frequently than any other over the years since Windows 95 emerged: Don't install beta software over beta software. Don't install the final code over a beta installation. Always, always uninstall a previous beta version before you install any newer version.

Schare reports that all your important settings, Favorites, Links bar and so forth will be preserved when you uninstall IE7 and reinstall IE6. The only gotcha he could think of is that the default IE7 Favorites will remain in your Favorites, but you can easily delete them.

Back to Internet Explorer 7 -- if you're going the other way and are about to install it for the first time, this software does affect your Windows system files. I recommend taking a System Restore point, or better yet, making a backup of your Windows installation or entire drive prior to the installation.

All previous major iterations of Internet Explorer (6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0 and 3.0) have presented significant problems for a percentage of the people installing them. Because so many people use Internet Explorer, even a problem that affects 4% of the people is a huge number of people. I would have to say that, so far, IE7 is less problematic than many of its predecessors. But don't underestimate the power of an altered browser to create problems for you.

In the end, a product that is an absolute standard that upgrades and then is no longer a standard can be a very frustrating product indeed. The only inherent problem with IE7 is that it's not IE6. Don't let that bite you. I hope I've offered a strategy that will help you deal with it while enjoying the browser you prefer.

Open-source leader leaving Novell for Google

2006-12-22T15:27:00.001-08:00

Jeremy Allison, a high-profile open-source programmer, has resigned from Novell because of objections over its patent deal with Microsoft and is moving to Google.

In his resignation letter, Allison said Novell's patent pact with Microsoft has crippled the Linux seller's relations with the open-source community. At Google, he'll continue his work on Samba, the open-source project he helped launch. Samba is software that lets Linux servers share files on Windows networks.

"Whilst the Microsoft patent agreement is in place there is nothing we can do to fix community relations...Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs," Allison said in the letter, quoting from an earlier message he sent to Novell management. Allison joined Novell in 2005 after working at Hewlett-Packard.

Groklaw, a site that monitors open-source legal affairs, published Allison's resignation letter on Thursday. On the same day Allison confirmed the letter's authenticity, saying he had sent it to internal Novell mailing list, but declined to comment further on his departure from Novell.

Google is a major open-source software user and participates in several open-source programming projects. Andrew Morton, a key lieutenant to Linux leader Linus Torvalds, works there, though his salary is paid by the Open Source Development Labs.

Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry declined to comment on Allison's views, but said the company still employs two Samba programmers. "We wish him the best," Lowry said.

You win some, you lose some
Meanwhile, Novell has rehired another open-source figure, Hubert Mantel, a co-founder of Suse Linux. He left the company in November 2005, but returned in December of this year.

"I had more than one year of time to think about my future and came to the conclusion that the thing I'm most interested in still is Linux," he said in an interview with the online magazine Data Manager.

Mantel also defended the Microsoft deal: "I understand that many people don't like it as Novell is collaborating with the 'evil empire,'" he said in the interview. "But I don't like this way of thinking. We are not working against somebody, but we are working for Linux. Fundamentalism always leads to pain. I think it is a good thing, especially for the users."

Under the Microsoft-Novell partnership, Microsoft purchased coupons to sell 350,000 copies of Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server and agreed not to sue Suse users for patent infringement. The two companies also are working to make elements of each others' software work together. Microsoft is paying Novell a net amount of US$308 million for the five-year deal, much of it for Novell agreeing to not to sue Microsoft over patent claims.

But Allison said the Novell-Microsoft deal violates the open-source principles of giving equal rights to all users of a particular program, even if it doesn't technically violate the General Public License (GPL) that governs Samba and the Linux kernel.

"My issue with this deal is I believe that even if it does not violate the letter of the license it violates the intent of the GPL license the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally.

The deal caused rancor among open-source fans. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and original author of the General Public License (GPL), said in November that Novell's Microsoft partnership doesn't violate version 2 of the GPL but that changes coming with the version 3 under development will preclude such deals.

Linux rival Red Hat has pounced on Novell's move, as well. Mark Webbink, one of Red Hat's top lawyers for the company, called Novell's move "appeasement...the sacrifice of principles" in his blog, likening it to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's ill-fated "peace in our time" announcement that he thought would stave off World War II.

And although Novell and Microsoft have scrapped over some particulars of the deal, both companies have defended it. Last week, Novell and Microsoft touted survey results that showed most customers approve.

As of today Wii can surf

2006-12-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

Joining the Forecast channel for checking out the worlds weather, the Internet channel, as it will be known, finally gives living room surfers a slick interface to use.

Currently in beta, with a final version due at the end of March 2007 the Opera browser is available to connected Wiisters for free until the end of June. After June 2007 you will be shelling out 500 Wii points for the software. So, even though the console is currently tough to track down, get one soon if you are interested.

Scott Hedrick, Executive Vice President, Devices at Opera Software is quick to point out the advantages of this new release; “Our software brings the power and reach of the Internet to the hottest video game system available. Wii’s unique interface adds a new dimension to our browser, making it a useful tool that the whole family will enjoy operating with ease.”

It is also worth noting the great main-stream exposure this will give Opera, currently a fairly distant third in the Browser wars, behind Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Furthermore it will be interesting to see whather the Wii becomes the target for malware writers in the new year, given there will be no firewall software (apart from any installed on an in line router) to guard against nastily constructed web sites.

Nintendo is continuing to roll out the changes at a faster than expected rate, with the next Wii channel in line; the News Channel, due to go on line late January 2007

Face-Off: New Software Recognizes Faces on Web

2006-12-20T14:45:00.001-08:00

Let's say you've uploaded your holiday photos to a picture-sharing Web site, and you want to mark all the ones that include your cousin George.

Or you're doing some research, and you want to find pictures of a young Bill Gates.

Or, perhaps, you wonder about a long-lost love, and you'd like to see where he or she has gone since you broke up.

A Swedish startup company, Polar Rose AB, has now announced a face-recognition program that it hopes will make the countless millions of photos on the Web more searchable.

And it's free; the firm hopes to make money through advertising.

"Social networking on the Web is very popular, and very visual," said Mikkel Thagaard, vice president for business development at Polar Rose. "It's not usually searchable."

Finding Faces; Solving Mysteries

The solution offered by Polar Rose uses the kind of face-recognition software that, at a more detailed level, is used by law enforcement agencies and governments trying to track down terrorists.

Such software was used by Canadian police trying to solve a murder mystery that dates back nearly 40 years.

Using a face-recognition program, Ontario Provincial Police said on Tuesday that they'd identified a body that had been found in 1968 in a rural area northwest of Toronto.

Matching the body to old photos, they announced the victim was Richard Hovey, a 17-year-old musician who had disappeared from a Bohemian Toronto neighborhood in 1967.

Hovey's relatives released a statement saying they were "very relieved to be able to bring our brother home after years of anguish."

Modern-Day Uses: Making Web Pictures Searchable

Polar Rose says its software is similar, but the company will not sell it to law enforcement agencies.

"It's a tool for making photos searchable and sortable," Thagaard told ABC News. "We're very interested to see how people will want to use it."

Here's the idea: If you go to the image-search feature on Google, Yahoo, or other major search sites, you can enter words to describe what you're after, but you have to count on those who posted the pictures to label them properly.

A Google image search for "Charles Gibson," for instance, will turn up plenty of pictures of Charlie — but also a 1909 sketch of a young woman in Edwardian dress. Why?

Because it's by Charles Gibson — Charles Dana Gibson, the artist whose "Gibson Girl" drawings defined feminine beauty a century ago. Someone at the University of Houston, assembling a Web page about Charles Dana Gibson, dispensed with his middle name in a caption.

If that's what happens when you look up someone as well known as Charlie, what about your best friend from college? Or what if you're trying to cull through the pictures you've posted on MySpace or Flickr for friends to see? Most of the images on the Web don't have meaningful captions at all.

The software from Polar Rose would let you input a picture of the person you're interested in, and the software would then analyze it — superimposing a grid over the face to determine the shape of the mouth, the depth of the eye sockets, the slope of the nose, and so forth. Then, when you used it to search the Web, it would identify faces with the same attributes.

Many, of course, will be close but no cigar. The software can be thrown off by shadows, or unusual expressions, or odd angles. You'll have to go through the results, labeling the ones that were right.

"The user has a great deal of impact on the results," Thagaard said.

But once you've given the picture a label, other users of Polar Rose's program would see it as well. Web users, as a community, would help catalogue pictures.

Will it work? Mike McGuire, an analyst at Gartner Inc., a research firm, isn't sure.

"You really have to have scale," he said. "It doesn't work if you have a few thousand people using it. It only works when you have a big, big crowd."

He went on, "The wisdom of the crowd is a very powerful thing. It's not a solution for everything."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

YouTube to meet Japan media over copyright worries

2006-12-20T14:44:00.001-08:00

YouTube executives will meet with Japanese media firms that complained to the video-sharing site about copyright infringement, according to a Japanese organization.

YouTube is to send a delegation to Japan in response to a letter from the Tokyo-based Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, or JASRAC, complaining that the site allowed users to post and view copyright TV shows, movie clips and music videos, the group said in a statement late Tuesday.

In its reply, signed by YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley and Chief Technical Officer Steve Chen, YouTube acknowledged that it needed to post a notice in Japanese on its site telling users not to upload copyright content.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, removed about 30,000 video files from its Web site after receiving a demand in October from the Japanese media group and 22 other firms including public broadcaster NHK, major film studios, and Web rivals such as Yahoo Japan.

The files had been posted without the permission of copyright holders, the group said.

The date of the meeting between YouTube executives and the Japanese group has yet to be decided.

Zune can finally handle Vista

2006-12-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft has finally enabled its flagship media gismo to talk to its flagship operating system.

When the Zune hit the shops about a month ago, it had difficulties working with Vista, much to the mirth of the tech press.

However according to the Zune site, Microsoft has issued a 22MB update to make the beast compatible with Vista.

The update also improves the Zune software installation process, which has been miffing a number of Zune owners.

Punters can install it via Microsoft auto-update, or go to Zune.net to get it.

L'INQ

Free Opera Internet Browser for Nintendo Wii

2006-12-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

A trial version of Opera Web Browser for Nintendo Wii will be launched on Friday 22nd December.

Nintendo Co. Ltd has revolutionised the world of games consoles this Christmas with its innovative Nintendo Wii and it doesn’t look like they are going to stop there. On Friday 22nd December they are launching a trial version of the Opera Web Browser that will bring the Internet to your TV set. Wii users with a high-speed Internet connection will be able to download a free version of the Opera browser to activate the Internet Channel of the Wii Menu and begin surfing the Web.

“In addition to providing innovative and exciting new ways to play, Wii also offers further services and entertainment for all the family. This newest Wii Menu Channel is just the latest example of how we are doing this” says Nintendo of Europe Marketing Director, Laurent Fischer. “Wii is the perfect console for everyone to enjoy and this is being reflected in the phenomenal sales across Europe.”

“Our software brings the power and reach of the Internet to the hottest video game system available,” says Scott Hedrick, Executive Vice President of Opera Software. “Wii’s unique interface adds a new dimension to our browser, making it a useful tool that the whole family will enjoy operating with ease.”

We will have to wait until the end of March 2007 to download the full version of the Opera browser and it will be free for Wii users until the end of June 2007. After June, users will be able to buy the browser from the Wii Shop Channel for just 500 Wii points ($5).

There is no doubt that the new Opera browser for Nintendo Wii is going to change the way people uses the Internet. Families will be able to gather around their TVs and check sports scores, plan a vacation, make online purchases or visit their favourite Web sites. The revolutionary Wii Remote will make browsing the Web a very simple task, which means that even your grandpa will be able to surf the net. With the Wii Remote you can click on the links you would like to see or zoom into any part of the screen through the motion of the controller. It will also allow you to use an on-screen keyboard for text entry. Just point and click the letters you want to type. It couldn’t be easier.

But the Internet Channel is not the only channel to be launched this week, oh no. Today, 20th December, the new Forecast Channel goes live. This channel will provide current and future weather information that can be accessed by selecting a city from a list of cities or by using the Wii Remote to zoom in on a 3-D interactive globe.

The Internet and Forecast Channels will join the four already live channels: Disc Channel, Photo Channel, Mii Channel and Wii Shop Channel.

Medieval II: Total War Goes Gold

2006-12-20T00:13:00.000-08:00

SEGA announced that the upcoming epic strategy game Medieval II Total War has officially gone gold.

Creative Assembly’s grand war game is approaching in flanking positions with weapons ready. For those unfamiliar with the series, it gives players control of an individual nation in the turbulent times of the medieval era. The French can take over the world or the Byzantine Empire will finally have its due. The fate of the nation and the world rests in the hands of the player.

Warfare is the bread and butter of the series, but it is not the only means of accomplishment in the game. Spies can take care of unruly dictators or priests can influence followers to your justly cause. Players can even marry their way into power with a little persuasion.

The title features an improved campaign with a new animation system for more visceral combat and more detailed real-time battles. Players will experience events such as the Crusades, the Renaissance, the rise of professional armies and the influence of gunpowder in battle.

Medieval II: Total War for the PC is rated T for Teen by the ESRB and will retail for $49.95. The game will be released in North America on November 14 so sharpen your swords and be prepared for the attack.

Google buys mobile mash-up mapping technology

2006-12-20T00:12:00.000-08:00

Google has agreed to acquire parts of Endoxon, an internet mapping service based in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Google will acquire Endoxon's internet, mapping and data processing business units to allow the search provider to build out its Google Maps and Google Earth services across Europe.

The remaining parts of Endoxon have been spun off into a new company called Mappuls.

Endoxon's flagship product is a technology called Blue, which allows developers to create mash-ups and combine data from disparate sources.

The technology powers services such as travel sites and real estate listings for web and mobile applications.

The Ajax-based service offers detailed maps and satellite photos for Europe, but has only limited details for the US. Endoxon said that it will keep supporting existing customers, but will not sign up any new clients.

Google did not disclose how much it paid for the acquisition.

Symantec: More patched systems, fewer potential victims

2006-12-20T00:11:00.001-08:00

Symantec on Monday said that while worm-scanning activity against its corporate antivirus software had increased over the weekend, the number of infected systems had dropped.

According to the security company's own DeepSight sensor network, scanning activity on TCP port 2967 is up. That scanning, said Symantec, is thought to originate with what it calls the "Sagevo" worm, also known as "Big Yellow."

"We're seeing a decrease in the number of unique IP addresses," says Vincent Weafer, senior director with Symantec's security response team. "But we're seeing more scanning activity. That actually makes sense, because as there are fewer unpatched systems, the remaining [infected systems] send out even more scans looking for a target. It eventually reaches a saturation [point]."

The number of IP addresses associated with port 2967 scanning has fallen off 80% since late last week, Weafer said.

Friday, eEye Digital Security issued a warning that a new worm was on the loose and attacked enterprise systems that hadn't been patched for flaws first revealed in May for Symantec AntiVirus and Symantec Client Security, two of the vendor's business security products. The vulnerabilities were patched in June.

"We have received only three submissions [of Sagevo] from customers," said Weafer. "It's just not significant."

Sagevo/Big Yellow is the second threat to exploit the patched flaws in AntiVirus and Client Security. The first, "Spybot.acyr," began circulating Nov. 28. "We saw the same kind of peak two weeks ago with Spybot, but that quickly died down," Weafer says, because it ran out of possible targets.

"Product updates are made available to enterprises," says Weafer in answer to criticisms last week by EEye's chief technology officer Marc Maiffret, who said too many software developers don't take patching seriously. "But we have to give the control to them." Pushing patches on businesses is the wrong approach, Weafer says.

Instead, Symantec relies on e-mailed alerts to inform business customers of its software updates, and the corporate-only portal that the company maintains. The scheme seems to work. When Symantec touched base with its larger enterprise customers to verify that they had deployed the June patches for AntiVirus and Client Security, most had, Weafer said.

"But," admits Weafer, "there are pockets [of unprotected systems]."

ICAC issues guidelines on ID protection

2006-12-20T00:10:00.001-08:00

Database tracking systems and computer audits could soon be regular practice in NSW public sector offices, after the Independent Commission and Corruption (ICAC) agency yesterday released a report detailing strategies to help prevent the misuse of people’s identity information and documents.

The report, 'Protecting Identity Information and Documents', lists a set of trusted guidelines that help protect corporate and individual identities against common known identity threats such as identity theft, creation and use of false identification, and dishonest representation of nationality.

Additionally, the report aims to raise awareness of both physical and online identity and information security while suggesting potential treatment options.

According to Jerrold Cripps, the Commissioner of the Independent Commission (ICAC), NSW agencies have a legal obligation to protect the private and confidential information they receive as identity related fraud has serious consequences for the public and the agency.

“All NSW public sector agencies are exposed to some degree of corruption risk in relation to the identity documents and information they manage. Many agencies face internal risks such as staff who misuse their authority or computer access to assume the identity of another,” said Cripps in the report.

Information security and technological advancements are among the breakdown of risks noted by ICAC, along with physical security, authentication, staff, outsourcing and management and systems.

Furthermore, techniques such as data mining and computer forensics are listed as part of the ‘risk treatment options’. Along with helpful checklists like, biometrics, database tracking system, recorded password access attempts, locking of unattended terminals and regular audits,

The Police, Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) and Attorney Generals Departments collaborated with the ICAC to help create the document, which is available for download on the ICAC website.

Oracle's pipeline is crammed, execs say

2006-12-19T23:53:00.000-08:00

Oracle's pipeline is historically fat, executives told analysts Monday as the company reported sales in line with expectations but with some softness in Oracle's database business.

Oracle posted revenue of US$4.16 billion in its second quarter, ended Nov. 30, a 26 percent year-over-year gain helped by the company's acquisitions. Oracle's net income jumped 21 percent to US$967 million. On a non-GAAP basis, Oracle reported net income of US$1.17 billion, or 22 cents per share, meeting the consensus estimate of analysts polled by Thomson First Call.

Oracle's applications revenue reached US$1.07 billion (US$340 million from new license sales; the rest from maintenance), up 39 percent from last year's second quarter. Its database and middleware revenue, reported as a combined segment, grew more slowly, with total revenue of US$2.15 billion. New license sales for database/middleware increased 9 percent, to US$867 million.

Oracle's middleware line includes the analytics technology it acquired from Siebel, a product set that executives said has been selling well. Oracle's overall middleware new license sales growth was "exceptionally strong" during the quarter, according to President Charles Phillips. Because Oracle wraps together its database and middleware numbers, tracking exactly what's happening in its database business is a mysterious art. First Albany analyst Mark Murphy recently put out a critical note saying Oracle's decision not to break out database sales "would be analogous to Boeing not disclosing actual airplane sales."

Oracle's stock took a hit two weeks ago when Wall Street began questioning how well Oracle's database sales held up in the second quarter. One longtime Oracle partner warned that the database sales would not meet expectations: "People bought early in the quarter, then it died. It was like people thought Christmas was in September."

On Oracle's call with analysts following its results release, executives avoided directly answering questions about second-quarter sales but acknowledged some "execution" issues. "It basically came down to execution on a number of deals that didn't close during the quarter," Oracle President and CFO Safra Catz said. "We think that additional focus and better pipeline management should result in higher conversion rates and better execution in Q3."

Oracle's pipeline has an unprecedented number of leads in the queue, executives said. New product launches, further growth from product lines Oracle has acquired, and a commitment to reducing internal overhead and freeing sales staffers up to spend more time in the field should make for a booming second half of Oracle's fiscal year, they said.

After spending Oracle's last earnings call trash-talking SAP, CEO Larry Ellison switched gears this time and instead talked up Oarcle's product catalog. Secure Enterprise Search drew special mention from Ellison, who cited it as an example of Oracle's organically driven innovations. Next month will be a big one for Oracle's applications line, as it launches five major ERP updates including version 12 of its Oracle E-Business Suite and Siebel 8.

--Additonal reporting by Barbara Darrow