The week in video-game news

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By LOU KESTEN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 32 minutes ago


News from the virtual world:

_SECOND GEAR: The one big announcement at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco came as a surprise to absolutely no one: Epic Games is working on "Gears of War 2," the sequel to its 2006 smash. Lead designer Cliff Bleszinski promised it will be "bigger, better and more bad-ass" when it comes to the Xbox 360 in November.

Otherwise, GDC was all about smaller games. Frankly, I'm more excited that D3 has a sequel to "Puzzle Quest" — a sci-fi version called "Puzzle Quest: Galactrix" — in the works. And fans of Valve's "Portal," the surprise winner of the GDC's game of the year award, were delighted when designer Kim Swift, during an interview with the G4 cable network, let slip that a follow-up is being developed.

The conference is also home to the Independent Games Festival, which honors innovative, low-budget games created outside the studios of the big publishers. Top prize, a check for $20,000, went to Kloonigames' 2D puzzler "Crayon Physics Deluxe."

___

_LET'S GET SMALL: The creativity displayed by independent game developers has gotten the attention of Nintendo and Microsoft, who are trying to attract low-budget designers to their platforms. "The time has come for the games industry to open its doors to all game creators, enabling anyone to share their creations with the world," Microsoft Vice President John Schappert told an audience at GDC.

Microsoft's initiative, called Community Games, will allow smaller studios to publish their games on Xbox Live. A prospective designer will have to download Microsoft's XNA Game Studio software and join the XNA Creators Club, which costs $99 per year. Once a game is ready, a peer group will evaluate it for quality, appropriateness and potential copyright conflicts; if it survives the gantlet, it'll be sold on Xbox Live.

Nintendo describes its WiiWare, coming May 12, as "a virtual laboratory that serves as a breeding ground for new games." Companies of all sizes have been invited to create low-budget software for the online service. One of the first titles announced is "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King," from role-playing game colossus Square Enix, but smaller studios like Telltale Games ("Sam & Max") and Frontier Developments ("Thrillville") are also on board.

___

_MAKING THE BAND: The most common complaints I hear about "Rock Band" are that it's too expensive and it's not available for the Wii. Electronic Arts and MTV Games will eventually deal with both issues; in the meantime, Disney Interactive Studios is hoping to fill in the gaps with the forthcoming "Ultimate Band."

The distinguishing feature of "Ultimate Band" is that it won't require the purchases of a separate guitar, microphone and drums. Instead, you'll use the Wii controller and nunchaku to simulate acting as the "frontman" and playing instruments. There will also be a portable version for the Nintendo DS.

Disney has become a powerhouse in the music industry over the last few years, topping the charts with "High School Musical" and Hannah Montana. But Disney Interactive's Graham Hopper said the "Ultimate Band" set list will be broader, with "music kids love and parents love." The first two samples: "My Generation by The Who and "Fell in Love with a Girl" by the White Stripes (finally!).

___

_ADIOS, HD: Toshiba has pulled the plug on HD DVD high-definition video format. That means victory for Sony, whose competing Blu-ray technology is built into the PlayStation 3. But it's bad news for Microsoft, which bet on Toshiba by marketing an HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360.

Over the weekend, Microsoft announced it would stop making the HD DVD player. It will still provide standard warranty support for the device — but if you bought one, you're probably going to have a hard time finding anything new to play on it.

___

_NEW IN STORES: PlayStation Portable owners get some off-the-wall treats in Sony's "Patapon" and Majesco's "Blokus Portable: Steambot Championship." ... War breaks out in Codemasters' "Turning Point: Fall of Liberty" (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and THQ's "Frontlines: Fuel of War" (360). ... More mysteries await the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 in Ubisoft's "Lost: Via Domus" (360, PS3). ... The Wii has a little something for everyone, with the Adventure Co.'s "Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None," THQ's "Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed" and "Sega Bass Fishing."



Full Coverage: Year in Review 2007

    News Stories

  • Bloody year in Iraq ends with hopes of growing calm 
    McClatchy Newspapers via Yahoo! News, Dec 28
  • Top Country Music News of 2007 at CMT, Dec 26
  • Best films of 2007 were sprinkled throughout the year , Dec 26
  • The 10 best recipes of 2007 at The Los Angeles Times, Dec 26

    Feature Articles

  • 2007: The Year's Top Videos at ABCNEWS, Dec 31
  • Faces of the year - the women at BBC, Dec 31

    Opinion & Editorials

  • The New York Times: 2007 The Year in Pictures at The New York Times, Dec 31
  • The Top Ten Douche Bags of 2007 at blogcritics.org, Dec 26

Apple's Mac OS X Vulnerable To Networking Exploit

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By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek



The most recent version of Apple's Mac OS X (10.5.2) appears contain a security vulnerability that could allow an attacker to crash computers on a local or remote network.


Security researcher Neil Kettle of Digit-labs.org on Tuesday posted a proof-of-concept exploit that takes advantage of a flaw in the way the Apple implements IPv6 support.


Most networks use the IPv4 networking protocol; IPv6 is slowly being deployed to provide a larger number of available network addresses, improved security, and other features.


In an e-mail, Kettle explained that the bug isn't likely to put home users at risk because few of them will be using IPv6 networks.


"In the case of office environments, the bug is more serious since it's more likely IPv6 will be supported on the local network," said Kettle. "One can easily imagine a single user crashing much (if not nearly all) employees' machines at, let's say, Apple Inc."


The bug is also an issue for Mac OS X Server, as more servers provide native IPv6. A single user, Kettle said, could significantly affect server reliability.


The bug resides in the open source KAME Project's IPv6 implementation, which may not properly process IPv6 packets that contain an IP payload compression protocol (IPComp) header. Mac OS X is built atop BSD Unix, which contains KAME Project code.


Kettle observes that the bug was identified in November and that Apple has not acknowledged that Mac OS X is vulnerable. The "very existence of this bug is quite indicative of Apple's patching and security practices," he said.

See original article on InformationWeek

DreamWorks waiting for cue from Toshiba on Blu-ray

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By Sue Zeidler


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc
(DWA.N) said on Tuesday it was locked in an exclusive deal to
distribute DVDs on Toshiba Corp's (6502.T) HD DVD format even
though the Japanese electronics maker plans to quit the
technology.


"We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation
to see this through," DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey
Katzenberg
said on Tuesday.


"As you know, we have been well-compensated for our
support. It really is in their court at this point to really
declare what the next step will be. We're poised either way to
jump into the marketplace when the conditions are right to do
so," he said


Toshiba, which began selling HD DVD players in March 2006,
has sold 1 million players and recorders. But this month it
declared it would quit the technology after a bitter battle
against Sony Corp's (6758.T) rival Blu-ray, which won more
studio and retail support.


In August, Viacom Inc's (VIAb.N) Paramount Pictures and
DreamWorks signed exclusivity deals to distribute
next-generation films on HD DVD for the next 18 months.


Shortly afterwards, the New York Times reported Viacom
executives with knowledge of the deals said Paramount and
DreamWorks would get a combined $150 million in financial
incentives for their commitment to HD DVD.


DreamWorks plans to release the DVD version of "Bee Movie"
next month and is waiting to hear back from Toshiba on how to
proceed.


"We said, we have a release coming up on 'Bee Movie.' What
would you like us to do?," Katzenberg told Reuters in an
interview.


JP Morgan analyst Barton Crockett said the Blu-ray market
was still small although he expected DreamWorks would like to
have the issue settled by the 2008 holiday season.


"It might mean they'll lose the opportunity to sell 'Bee
Movie
' on Blu-ray, although the market for Blu-ray is still
pretty small and the offset is that they'd get money from
Toshiba, which may in fact be more," Crockett said. "But I'm
sure they'll like to have this settled by Christmas."


Other HD DVD-backing studios like General Electric Co's
(GE.N) Universal Pictures said this month they will switch to
Blu-ray after Toshiba officially pulled the plug on HD DVD.


(Editing by Braden Reddall)

iBank finance software adds iPhone support

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Peter Cohen



IGG Software on Tuesday announced the release of iBank 3, a new version of its financial management software for Mac OS X. iBank 3 costs $59.99; upgrades from previous releases are $29.99. A demo is available.


iBank helps you keep track of checking and savings account, cash, credit cards, loans and other assets and liabilities, as well as investment accounts, You can use debt management tools to track interest and capital, variable interest rates and payment schedules, develop "Smart Accounts" that dynamically view transactions according to account, payee, memo, amount or category information, work in multiple currencies and more.


iBank 3 can now connect to your bank and import account data for you "behind the scenes" without requiring your assistance. It features an overhauled graphics engine with new graph support, supports Cover Flow for transactions, features new loan management capabilities, and can let you check your portfolios on the road using your .Mac account.


iBank 3 also sports stock performance graphs, new drag and drop capabilities for transactions, tax support with export to TurboTax and other tax software and new standard reports.


iBank 3 lets you synchronize data with your iPhone or iPod touch, as well. You can view historical transactions and create and edit ones using Web 2.0 technologies and synchronization via .Mac.


System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.5, 512MB RAM, 1028 x 640 resolution minimum.

PS3 DualShock 3 controller coming in April

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Peter Cohen

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) on Tuesday announced plans to release its DualShock 3 wireless controller for its PlayStation 3 video game console in April. The new controller will cost $54.95.


Since the PlayStation 3 has shipped, the system has used what Sony calls a "Sixaxis" game controller. It looks almost identical to the gamepads that Sony makes for the PlayStation 2, but features internal gyroscoping capabilities so users can tilt the controller up, down, left and right to control the game.


The interactive capabilities of the Sixaxis controller drew criticism from some game reviewers and analysts because the controller lacks the distinctive "rumble" feature that was present in earlier generations of Sony controllers marked as "DualShock" products. Those devices utilized force feedback technology which would cause the controller to buzz and shake in the user's hands based on in-game actions, such as being hit or punched, or causing explosions.


Sony axed rumble capabilities from the Sixaxis controller after the company became involved in a lawsuit with haptics manufacturer Immersion Corp., which claimed that Sony violated its patents. In 2004 Sony paid Immersion $82 million in damages but then appealed the decision.


Sony initially dismissed rumble as a feature of older game systems that didn't need to be in the PlayStation 3. The company quickly changed its tune after Sony settled with Immersion once and for all in March of 2007. At that time, Sony President Kaz Hirai announced that Immersion and Sony were working on "exciting new ways" to incorporate rumble into PlayStation 3 games.


The DualShock 3 controller looks the same as the Sixaxis controller and retains Sixaxis capabilities. The new rumble feature in the DualShock 3 will work with more than 100 games already out for the PlayStation 3, according to Sony.

iPhone 1.1.4 update now available

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Peter Cohen

Apple has released iPhone software version 1.1.4. It's now available for download and installation through iTunes.


Apple isn't offering any specific details on what's changed in this new release, except to say that the 1.1.4 release "includes bug fixes and supersedes all previous versions."

Beta Watch: Circos, Sosius, and Blist

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Edward N. Albro, PC World

Have you ever used Microsoft's SharePoint, which lets you create shared workspaces for long-distance project collaboration? Neither have I. Among the top reasons most people don't: It's expensive and it requires a server. The free Sosius, which hosts your workspaces, addresses both objections. You can invite coworkers to join your team and share calendars, divvy up tasks, collaborate on documents, hold discussions, and more. I found some of Sosius's customization tools clunky, but the service could be a boon to smaller companies with remotely situated workers.

Blist: Databases With Pretty Faces

You can certainly find online database-creation services that are more powerful or more sophisticated than Blist (one is Zoho DB & Reports), but you'd be hard-pressed to find one that's more attractive to look at and work in. Unfortunately, though Blist's Flash interface is filled with attractive icons and glowing buttons, this free Web app feels particularly beta-ish. When I tried it, lots of the buttons were grayed out, apparently because the features weren't functional yet. Though setting up a simple, flat database was fairly easy, neither running filters nor creating charts was clear to me. And the help section is nearly nonexistent so far.

    Veoh aims to be one-stop shop for Net TV viewers

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    By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY


    LOS ANGELES - Dmitry Shapiro wanted to start a website that promised to be the CBS, NBC and ABC of the Internet, a one-stop shop for TV programming on the Web.

    Shapiro wasn't the first to come up with such a lofty concept. At the time of his brainstorm, 2005, many others had similar notions. Shapiro's Veoh competes with YouTube, (GOOG) Fancast, (CMCSA) Joost, Blip.TV and at least 250 other video websites, according to researcher the Yankee Group.

    But former Disney (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner thought Shapiro was onto something. So did two former top Viacom (VIAB) executives, Jonathan Dolgen and Tom Freston. They've all invested in Veoh, which has quietly become the top independent U.S. video site on the Internet, attracting 2.1 million visitors a month, according to Nielsen Online.

    "Companies like AOL, (TWX) Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) have all defined a space," says Eisner, who now runs the Tornante investment firm. Google-owned YouTube aside, he says, "I think Veoh has the potential to define the space. They want to marry the Internet to the TV set, and that's the real deal."

    While YouTube specializes mostly in amateur video clips, Veoh showcases both homemade clips and full-length TV shows. CBS (CBS) has many of its prime-time shows on Veoh, as do NBC (GE) and Fox, (NWS) via their Hulu joint venture. There's also programming from PBS. Next month, Viacom's cable networks, which include MTV and Comedy Central, will join the stable.

    "Our goal is to give consumers the broadest collection of video available anywhere," Shapiro says.

    A key selling point for Veoh, Yankee Group analyst Anton Denissov says, is a download feature that lets you save shows to watch later. The Veoh TV application aggregates full-length shows from all over the Web and lets you save them if downloading is an option.

    Shapiro says that once you connect your computer to a television, Veoh TV can act as a TiVo-like guide. For now, download availability tends mostly to be made-for-the-Web productions such as Goodnight Burbank and Prom Queen. So far, CBS, Viacom, NBC and Fox aren't offering downloads of their TV shows, but PBS and the Time Warner-owned Cartoon Network are.

    Yankee says the average consumer watches about five minutes of Internet video a day. That's projected to jump to 45 minutes a day by 2011.

    Dolgen, a former top executive at the 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Columbia (SNE) movie studios, says what attracted him to Veoh was the "one-stop shop" concept. "Back in the old days, you had to turn on three TV sets to see everything from CBS, ABC and NBC," he says.

    Quincy Smith, who runs CBS' new media division, says the size of the audiences on Veoh are getting close to what some shows are receiving on broadcast television. While he declined to cite specifics, he said the post-apocalyptic drama Jerichohas a bigger online audience than it does on traditional TV.

    Veoh says its most-viewed TV show is Fox's Family Guy, which attracted 200,000 viewers, but that pales next to Prom Queen, a made-for-the-Internet production from Eisner's Vuguru production company. The debut last summer attracted 1.2 million viewers, Veoh says.

    Family Guy isn't even hosted on Veoh. The website picks it up from Hulu, the NBC/Fox joint venture that puts their shows on many websites. Much of the content on Veoh is found elsewhere on the Web, but viewable on Veoh TV.

    Veoh showcases videos in higher resolution than competing sites such as YouTube. The service uses peer-to-peer technology, the same concept that put the original Napster (NAPS) on the map - tapping into its users' computers to broadcast higher-quality video. Still, it's far from high-definition. Ads surround most shows.

    Pitching Eisner

    Shapiro, a Russian immigrant who moved to Atlanta at age 10 and worked in the cellular industry after graduating from Georgia Tech, got the idea for Veoh while on his honeymoon. At the time, he was running a software security company he'd founded in San Diego. His first successful sales call for Veoh was with Art Bilger, who runs Los Angeles-based Shelter Capital. He agreed to invest $2.25 million and helped open the door to other investors. All told, some $40 million was raised, and Bilger owns 25% of the company.

    "Dmitry had a good vision, and a great ability to actually explain it to people with far less sophistication," Bilger says. "To be able to communicate was very important."

    Shapiro's title is chief innovation officer, while the CEO mantle has been handed to an experienced manager, Steve Mitgang, a former Yahoo senior vice president.


    Since joining in July 2007, "We've gone from having no monetization to having dozens of really happy advertisers," Mitgang says.


    Veoh is currently unprofitable, but the big backers involved expect that to change in the near future.


    Eisner is one of the biggest names in Hollywood. How did a guy from Russia with a penchant for loud T-shirts and jeans with odd pockets end up getting in the door to see him?


    "He called me," Shapiro says. "It was the most amazing thing. He saw the site and liked it."


    Eisner invited him to visit at his Bel Air mansion, where Shapiro made his pitch. Eisner was impressed. "They were taking this technology created for illegal uses of expanding copyright, and turned into a legal business, which I thought was brilliant," Eisner says. "I figured they're either going all the way, or will be over in 10 minutes. And 'all the way' seems to be where they're headed."

    Google ad drop may not signal problems

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    Dan Nystedt
    1 hour, 21 minutes ago


    San Francisco - A report by Internet market researcher ComScore detailing a 7 percent decline in the number of times U.S. consumers clicked on ads next to Google search results in January sent analysts scurrying to explain the decline.

    Some analysts say the decline, the second straight for Google, shows that business on the Web is slowing down.

    The news certainly hit Google's stock, which fell 4.6 percent, or $22.25 on the Nasdaq to end trading at $464.19 Tuesday. The shares fell further in after-market trading, to $463.

    But rival Internet number cruncher Hitwise says there may indeed be no problem at all, and pointed to different data to support the idea that the amount of Web traffic going from Google to retail sites continues to rise.

    "Google traffic to retail, on a monthly basis, is on the increase compared to previous years. If we focus in on daily data (year-over-year comparison) we see that Google traffic to retail is also up on a daily basis when we compare January/February 2007 with 2008," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, in a blog posting.

    If economic troubles in the U.S. are really affecting Internet search, then the amount of traffic going from Google to retail sites should show a decline, he said. Instead, Hitwise data shows a 13.3 percent rise over the past three years, and a steady increase in January over the same time last year.

    Microsoft to Google: You Owe Us

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    Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service
    1 hour, 1 minute ago

    Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie said Tuesday that competitor Google owes its business in part to Microsoft, and that his company is not concerned about losing its position as an innovator in the technology market to the search and advertising leader.

    "If we didn't succeed at the PC, they wouldn't have a business," Mundie said of Google, in comments made via Webcast at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

    He said Google was able to grow so quickly because it introduced a new business model for the Web at just the right time. "It wasn't that many years ago that Google didn't exist," Mundie said. But now that the industry and competitors like Microsoft are catching up to Google's online advertising strategy, "I don't think they can do anything we can't do," he said.

    In fact, Microsoft's longevity versus its relatively new competitor gives it a substantial advantage long term over Google, Mundie said. "I'd like to think we're strategically open-minded, we've made adjustments [to our business model]," Mundie said. "I'd like to see Google and someone else come up with something that really threatens our business model."

    Part of that business model is to combine forces with Yahoo to compete with Google in the advertising market. Microsoft is currently in the middle of what could end up becoming a hostile takeover of Yahoo, after the company rejected the software giant's US$44.6 billion cash and stock offer. Microsoft is now rumored to be mounting a proxy fight for Yahoo.

    While Mundie acknowledged that he couldn't discuss much about the ongoing Yahoo proceedings publicly, he did concede that Microsoft is eager to acquire the company and move ahead on the Web. "Right now we'd just like to close the Yahoo deal," he said.

    Moreover, Microsoft has a multiyear lead on Google in providing software in mobile phones, another area where the Internet company aims to compete. "They're sort of late to the cell-phone thing," Mundie said, noting Microsoft's success with its Windows Mobile OS, which powers millions of smart phones worldwide.

    Is Google Ad Traffic Really Dropping?

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    Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service
    53 minutes ago


    A report by Internet market researcher ComScore detailing a 7 percent decline in the number of times U.S. consumers clicked on ads next to Google search results in January sent analysts scurrying to explain the decline.

    Some analysts say the decline, the second straight for Google, shows that business on the Web is slowing down.

    The news certainly hit Google's stock, which fell 4.6 percent, or US$22.25 on the Nasdaq to end trading at $464.19 Tuesday. The shares fell further in after-market trading, to $463.

    But rival Internet number cruncher Hitwise says there may indeed be no problem at all, and pointed to different data to support the idea that the amount of Web traffic going from Google to retail sites continues to rise.

    "Google traffic to retail, on a monthly basis, is on the increase compared to previous years. If we focus in on daily data (year-over-year comparison) we see that Google traffic to retail is also up on a daily basis when we compare January/February 2007 with 2008," said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, in a blog posting.

    If economic troubles in the U.S. are really affecting Internet search, then the amount of traffic going from Google to retail sites should show a decline, he said. Instead, Hitwise data shows a 13.3 percent rise over the past three years, and a steady increase in January over the same time last year.

    EU fines Microsoft record $1.3B

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    By AOIFE WHITE, AP Business Writer
    1 hour, 25 minutes ago


    BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union fined Microsoft Corp. a record $1.3 billion Wednesday for the amount it charges rivals for software information.

    EU regulators said the company charged "unreasonable prices" until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.

    The fine is the largest ever for a single company and brings to just under $2.5 billion the amount the EU has demanded Microsoft pay in a long-running antitrust dispute.

    Microsoft immediately said the issues for which it was fined have been resolved and the company was making its products more open.

    The fine comes less that a week after Microsoft said it would share more information about its products and technology in an effort to make it work better with rivals' software and meet the demands of antitrust regulators in Europe.

    But EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes remained skeptical and said Microsoft was under investigation in two additional cases.

    "Talk is cheap," Kroes said. "Flouting the rules is expensive."

    Microsoft's actions have stifled innovation and affected millions of people around the world, Kroes said. She called the record 899 million euro fine "a reasonable response to a series of quite unreasonable actions."

    "We could have gone as high as 1.5 billion euros ($2.23 billion)," she said. "The maximum amount is higher than what we did at the end of the day."

    Microsoft fought hard against a March 2004 decision that led to a 497 million euro ($613 million) fine and an order that the software maker share interoperability information with rivals within 120 days. The company lost its appeal in that case in September.

    Microsoft was fined $357 million in July 2006 for failing to obey that order.

    The EU alleged that Microsoft withheld crucial interoperability information for desktop PC software — where it is the world's leading supplier — in an effort squeeze into a new market and damage rivals.

    The company delayed compliance for three years, the EU said, only making changes in October to the patent licenses for companies that need data to create software that works with Microsoft.

    Microsoft had initially set a royalty rate of 3.87 percent of a licensee's product revenues for patents and demanded that companies looking for communication information — which it said was highly secret — pay 2.98 percent of their products' revenues.

    The EU complained last March that the rates were unfair. Under threat of fines, Microsoft two months later reduced the patent rate to 0.7 percent and the information license to 0.5 percent — but only in Europe, leaving the worldwide rates unchanged.

    The EU's Court of First Instance ruling that upheld regulators' views changed the company's mind again in October when it offered a new license for interoperability information for a flat fee of 10,000 euros ($14,900) and an optional worldwide patent license for a reduced royalty of 0.4 percent.

    Sony to Introduce New Blu-Ray Players

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Sony Corp.'s first Blu-ray disc player that can download bonus materials like trailers and games from the Internet will debut this summer, the company announced Tuesday.

    It will be the first new player from Sony, the inventor of Blu-ray, since the format beat out the other technology that vied to become the high-definition replacement for the DVD.

    Toshiba Corp. announced last week that it would stop making players for the HD DVD, the disc it invented, mainly because Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would drop the format to focus on Blu-ray discs.

    The BDP-S350 player Sony plans to introduce this summer for "about $400" will be the company's first to feature an Ethernet port, allowing it to connect to a home broadband connection. However, it won't be able to access Internet content when it ships — a software upgrade will be available later to enable that feature, known as BD-Live.

    A second player, the BDP-S550, will be available this fall for "about $500" and will be BD-Live-capable when it ships.

    Both players can show picture-in-picture content and will be the first Sony Blu-ray players to do so, apart from the PlayStation 3 game console, which gained this feature via software update last year.

    The picture-in-picture feature, called Bonus View, can be used to show director or actor commentary in a small window while the movie plays.

    Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the parent of the Panasonic brand, introduced a Bonus View player late last year and has announced it will ship a BD-Live player this spring.

    In these respects, Blu-ray players are playing catch-up to HD DVD players, which have had Internet- and picture-in-picture capabilities since they first came out in 2006.

    Waiting-Room Computers Offer Web, Info

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    NEW YORK (AP) — For many parents-to-be the excitement and nervousness is often difficult to contain. For Kyle Piechucki, the wait was decidedly boring.

    Piechucki, now a father of two who lives in Oyster Bay, N.Y., is no deadbeat — he was ecstatic over the births of each of his children but simply grew tired of interminable waits at doctors' offices. The boredom led Piechucki, 35, to develop a computer for those trapped in the purgatory of the waiting room.

    His thin, handheld devices join a parade of efforts aimed at turning once-fallow minutes in the waiting room into productive time for patients and, of course, advertisers. The touch-screen tablets rely on wireless Internet connections to deliver basic information about medical conditions and treatments as well as Internet access.

    Advertising in doctors' offices isn't new, of course, but thanks to technology, it's becoming increasingly targeted at individual patients. The thinking goes that bored or curious patients will be eager for fresh alternatives to the waiting room doldrums.

    "People are frustrated with waiting. They're bored. They don't want to pick up a stale magazine," said Piechucki, who started distributing the computers through his company, InfoSlate, last year. InfoSlate has placed more than 250 devices in doctors' offices in several states. By year-end he expects to have about 800 tablets in operation and he expects to break even by early 2009.

    Companies that have had a presence in waiting rooms for years are also homing in on individual patients. Healthy Advice Networks, a Cincinnati company, places digital screens on waiting room walls and plans to soon introduce digital technology to connect one-on-one with a patient. The company says its existing screens, which air a mix of health information and advertising, reach 100 million patients annually.

    Smaller and cheaper computers are making it easier for companies to reach individual patients. Piechucki contends patients are drawn to InfoSlate not just because they can use the computers to complete medical histories and questionnaires, but also to check e-mail and surf the Internet. Doctors also can customize the devices to offer information such as physician biographies and office policies.

    While doctors might be weary of the idea of turning a waiting room into a scaled-down Kinko's, InfoSlate, like Healthy Advice Networks, doesn't charge for the services and instead draws revenue from advertising.

    "As a doctor one of the most common complaints you get is 'My time is valuable too,'" said Scott Zimmer, director of hand and upper extremity surgery for University Hospitals medical practices in Cleveland. He said patients appreciate having a tool that can make them feel productive while they wait.

    The information isn't designed to give patients an instant second opinion but to answer some basic questions. Doctors have used the device, for example, to show expectant mothers video on proper nursing techniques.

    "I think people feel like we're trying to give them something back," Zimmer said. He now sits on a panel of doctors that advises Infoslate on medical content. InfoSlate subscribes to services that provide basic medical information. As with Healthy Advice Networks, InfoSlate doesn't allow advertisers to have say over medical content.

    Patients looking for answers appear to have the time to do some research. InfoSlate estimates about a quarter of those waiting to see a doctor spend more than 30 minutes; users of InfoSlate's computers spend an average of 20 minutes using the devices.

    Advertisers are always looking for fresh ways to infiltrate consumers' minds and people who are content or engaged are more likely to be receptive to a message, said Dennis Roche, president of Zoom Media & Marketing in New York.

    "When you're sponsoring something compelling the customer will allow you to solicit them with something," said Roche.

    While drug makers and other medical companies have long advertised in doctors' offices, the ability to tailor ads to particular patients brings both opportunities and risks, said James Coyle, a professor of marketing and interactive media at Miami University's Farmer School of Business.

    Any advertiser would need to tread carefully, he said: "People are hypersensitive about revealing anything, even if it's rather mundane."

    Still, the prospect of at attentive patient waiting to see a doctor is appealing to advertisers.

    "We've become experts in avoiding the places where we know ads will appear," Coyle said. "If there is an interactive experience that you can participate with individually — maybe there is more likely to be a more genuine conversation."

    Piechucki said the company's handheld units don't overwhelm users with ads nor does the company dangle detailed private patient information before hungry advertisers. Still, ads can relate to a topic a patient might be researching.

    "They're going to be able to target their message more effectively," he said of advertisers. "An orthopedic office could have stuff about hip surgery, walkers, crutches and exercise equipment."

    But Piechucki said he would avoid any exploitation. After surviving stage four thyroid cancer seven years ago he feels a kinship with those facing cancer.

    He spent long hours awaiting and undergoing treatments. Anything that brought temporarily relief was welcome, said Piechucki.

    "You brought a book and you have a TV but you know in hospital beds it's not like they have 200 channels. It got boring," he said.

    The ability to pass time during cancer treatments is its own brand of treatment, he said, adding that he's pleased if he can offer any relief to these patients.

    "That's why I feel a very strong connection to the oncology offices we're in. It's getting their minds off things," he said of the patients.

    Sarkozy Says He Should Have Kept Cool

    http://mootblogger.com

    PARIS (AP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he should not have lost his cool and berated a man who insulted him — an exchange that was caught on camera and became an Internet sensation.

    "It would have been better if I didn't respond to him," the newspaper Le Parisien's Tuesday edition quoted Sarkozy as saying during a panel interview with its readers.

    Sarkozy had been shaking hands at an agriculture fair Saturday when a man in the crowd asked Sarkozy not to touch him because it would get him "dirty."

    Video of the episode showed Sarkozy telling the man to: "Casse-toi alors, pauvre con, va."

    The mildest possible translation for the phrase is: "So get out of here, you poor jerk, go."

    The video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on the Internet.

    Rival politicians have criticized Sarkozy's outburst as not befitting a president.

    Le Parisien quoted Sarkozy as telling its reader panel: "It is difficult even when you're the president not to respond to an insult ... Just because you're president, that does not mean people can use you as a doormat."

    The newspaper said the presidential office had "amended and corrected" the interview before its publication — a common practice in France.

    Presidential adviser Franck Louvrier said what was published "was similar to what was said ... in the same spirit."

    The president's popularity has fallen dramatically in recent months. Some voters have disapproved of Sarkozy's flaunting his romance with former model Carla Bruni, whom he married on Feb. 2, at a time when many are more worried about economic issues.

    Google Slips Amid Signs of Ad Slowdown

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    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. economy is wheezing so badly that even Internet power Google Inc. and its once-robust stock is looking haggard.

    The focus on Google's recent deterioration sharpened Tuesday as investors reacted to the latest evidence indicating fewer people in the United States are clicking on the Internet ads that generate most of the online search leader's profits.

    The unsettling trend, captured in a closely followed report from Internet research firm comScore Inc., shoved Google shares to an 11-month low. The drop extended a slump that has lowered the Mountain View-based company's market value by 33 percent, or about $70 billion, during the first seven weeks of the year. The tech-laden Nasdaq composite index has declined by 12 percent during the same stretch.

    The sell-off represents a sobering shift in Wall Street's sentiment toward Google, whose dominance of the lucrative Internet search market had convinced many investors that the company would thrive even in a recession.

    The ebullience helped propel Google shares to a peak of $747.24 in early November and kept it just below $700 as the new year began. The stock price closed Tuesday at $464.19, down $22.25. The shares sank as low as $446.85 earlier in the session, a level that hadn't been reached since last March.

    Disappointing fourth-quarter earnings growth and comScore data pointing to sluggish ad growth in January is causing more analysts to conclude even Google may be pulled down by the sagging U.S. economy.

    Looking ahead, some investors are worried about Microsoft Corp. becoming a more imposing competitor if it pulls off its proposed takeover of Yahoo Inc.

    "We don't see a compelling reason to buy the stock right now because we think there's going to be a rocky few months ahead for Google," said Stanford Group analyst Clayton Moran.

    Other analysts, though, say they still believe Google will deliver stellar earnings and revenue growth this year. They attribute the recent slowdown in Google's growth to deliberate changes that were made to weed out advertising links that don't conform with the company's policies or don't appeal to consumers.

    Although the revisions may hurt Google in the short term, Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marianne Wolk reasons the improvements eventually will pay off by displaying more ads that elicit consumers' interest — an upgrade that probably would spur more spending by Web surfers and marketers alike.

    "We believe there is some room for optimism on several of these issues so that the outlook may not be as difficult as the market fears," Wolk wrote in a research note Tuesday.

    Just a few weeks ago, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt tried to dispel the notion that the feeble U.S. economy had undercut the company's fourth-quarter revenue, which rose 51 percent to $4.8 billion.

    "I am happy to say we have not seen a negative impact from the rumors of a future recession," Schmidt told analysts during a Jan. 31 conference call.

    But comScore's statistics indicate Google had an unusually difficult January. The number of Google's paid clicks in January totaled 532 million, down from 533 million at the same time last year according to Reston, Va.-based comScore.

    It marked the first year-over-year decline in Google's paid clicks during the six months for which comScore has comparable data. In the previous five months, Google's paid clicks had increased by a range of 12 percent to 60 percent.

    While comScore's data isn't precise, its statistics historically have pointed in the right direction. For instance, comScore estimated Google's fourth-quarter clicks increased 25 percent from 2006, slightly below the 30 percent increase that the company ended up reporting, marking the slowest growth of 2007.

    Even if January was as weak as the comScore research suggests, RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan argued that it's too early to write off Google's first-quarter. That's because Google usually picks up large chunk of its first-quarter profit in Europe, where the economy is holding up better, and typically benefits from a surge in spending in March.

    Analysts, on average, are expecting Google to earn $4.67 per share in the first quarter, excluding expenses for stock awarded to its employees. That would be a 27 percent increase from last year.

    "We believe that investors' fear ... is overblown," Rohan wrote in a Tuesday note. He predicts Google's stock could be trading at $675 again within the next year.

    Although Google steadfastly refuses to provide analysts with financial guidance, more clues about the company's first-quarter performance could emerge March 3 when its engineering chief is scheduled to speak at an investment conference in southern California.

    Pakistan Causes Worldwide YouTube Outage

    http://mootblogger.com

    NEW YORK (AP) — Most of the world's Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours Sunday after an attempt by Pakistan's government to block access domestically affected other countries.

    The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet's vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

    An Internet expert said Sunday's problems came after a Pakistani telecommunications company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos to a "black hole." So instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

    The problem was that the company also accidentally identified itself to Internet computers as the world's fastest route to YouTube, leading requests from across the Internet to the black hole.

    The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority had ordered 70 Internet service providers on Friday to block access to YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc.

    The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

    The block was intended to cover only Pakistan, but it extended to about two-thirds of the global Internet population, starting at 1:47 p.m. EST Sunday, according to Renesys Corp., a Manchester, N.H., company that keeps track of the pathways of the Internet for telecommunications companies and other clients.

    The greatest effect was in Asia, where the outage lasted for up to two hours, Renesys said.

    YouTube confirmed the outage Monday, saying it was caused by a network in Pakistan.

    "We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again," YouTube said in an e-mailed statement.

    A YouTube spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an e-mailed question on whether the clips that offended Pakistan's government had been removed. Several clips with interviews of Wilders were still up on the site Monday afternoon.

    Two apparent errors allowed the outage to propagate beyond Pakistan, according to Todd Underwood, vice president and general manager of Internet community services at Renesys.

    Pakistan Telecom established a route that directed requests for YouTube videos from local Internet subscribers to the black hole where the data was discarded, according to Renesys. Pakistan Telecom's mistake was that it then published that route to its international data carrier, PCCW Ltd. of Hong Kong, Underwood said.

    The second mistake was that PCCW accepted that route, Underwood said. It started directing requests from its customers for YouTube data to Pakistan. And since PCCW is one of the world's 20 largest data carriers, its routing table was passed along to other large carriers without any attempt at verification.

    "Once a pretty big network gets an error like that, it propagates to most or all of the Internet very quickly," Underwood said. As he put it, Pakistan Telecom was impersonating YouTube to much of the world.

    Pakistan Telecom and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority were unavailable for comment on Monday night local time. Rex Stover, vice president of enterprise sales for PCCW Global in Herndon, Va., said the company was still trying to figure out what happened and why.

    John Palfrey, executive director for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, said that while all the facts in the case are not yet known, it appeared that the repercussions were due to Pakistan taking a relatively heavy-handed approach in trying to censor YouTube.

    "It points in many respects to the difficulty, if not the folly, in Internet filtering at the state level," he said.

    Misrouting occurs every year or so among the world's Internet carriers, usually as a result of typos or other errors, Underwood said. In a more severe example, a Turkish telecom provider in 2004 started advertising that it was the best route to all of the Internet, causing widespread outages for many Web sites over several hours.

    "Nobody ran any viruses or worms or malicious code. This is just the way the Internet works. And it's not very secure or reliable," Underwood said, adding that there is no real solution to the problem on the table.

    While most route hijacking is unintentional, some Yahoo networks were apparently taken over a few years ago to distribute spam.

    "To be honest, there's not a single thing preventing this from happening to E-Trade, or Bank of America, or the FBI, or the White House, or the Clinton campaign," Underwood said. "I think it's a useful moment for people to decide just how important it is that we fix problems like this."

    Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

    Pakistan Lifts Curbs on YouTube

    http://mootblogger.com

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's telecoms regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on the YouTube Web site that led to the knocking out of access to the popular video-sharing site in many other countries for a few hours over the weekend.

    The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 domestic Internet service providers to restore access to the site after removal of what government officials had deemed a "blasphemous" video clip.

    Pakistan ordered YouTube blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence. As a result, most of the world's Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours on Sunday.

    While a number of other videos featuring the politician, Geert Wilders, would remain visible to Pakistani Internet users, the one which was removed had been "totally anti-Quranic ... very blasphemous," said Pakistan Telecommunication authority spokeswoman Nabiha Mahmood.

    She said it promoted Wilders' upcoming movie, but provided no details of its content.

    An Internet expert said Sunday's problems came after a Pakistani telecommunications company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos to a "black hole." So instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

    The problem was that the company also accidentally identified itself to Internet computers as the world's fastest route to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc. That led requests from across the Internet to the black hole.

    Mahmood said the Pakistani regulator was not responsible for "technical hitches" that may have lead to problems elsewhere. She said it was not clear how those occurred.

    The authority, which aimed to restrict the site only in Pakistan, posted a complaint through the Web site but had not been in contact with the administrators of YouTube.

    The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet's vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

    Pakistani officials do not want a repeat of the violent anti-Western protests in early 2006 after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad regarded by many Muslims as offensive.

    Danish editors reignited the controversy earlier this month by reprinting a cartoon that shows the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

    On Tuesday, some 300 students rallied at a university in Multan, carrying banners denouncing Denmark, the United States and President Pervez Musharraf — the latest in a series of small protests held by Islamic students in Pakistan.

    Umer Abbasi, a leader of the protest, urged all Muslim countries to follow Pakistan in blocking offensive material on the Internet.

    "If you look deeply, America can be seen behind all anti-Muslim moves around the world," Abbasi told the crowd, which later burned Danish and American flags.

    Authorities wanted to prevent Islamic hard-liners from seizing on the Wilders clips, said Abdullah Riar, Pakistan's minister for information technology and telecommunications.

    "We are already in the spotlight on the issue of intolerance and extremism and terrorism," Riar said, "and this is something that somebody is doing by design to excite and insinuate Islamic sentiments."

    FCC Ready to Curb ISP Traffic Management

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    CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Federal regulators on Monday said they are ready to discipline Internet service providers who secretly favor certain types of data traffic, like Web surfing, over others, like file sharing.

    At a hearing over allegations of traffic discrimination by Comcast Corp., the Federal Communications Commission chairman said the complaints underscore the need to enforce the FCC's current broad principles intended to promote so-called "Net neutrality."

    "The commission is ready, willing and able to step in if necessary to correct any practices that are ongoing today," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in opening statements of the hearing at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

    Martin said service providers should be allowed to take reasonable steps to make efficient use of their networks at a time when consumers' growing appetite for Web video threatens to bump up against networks' capacity limits. But he said such management policies must be disclosed.

    "Consumers need to know if and how network management practices distinguish between different applications, so they can configure their own applications and systems properly," Martin said.

    Consumer groups and a provider of online video have filed complaints alleging Comcast hampered traffic between users without notice, violating the Internet's tradition of equal treatment of traffic. Two of the groups also asked the FCC to fine Comcast.

    The issue got broad attention after an Associated Press story in October documented Comcast's practices. Comcast later acknowledged that it sometimes delays file-sharing traffic for subscribers as a way to keep Web traffic flowing for everyone.

    File sharing applications, exemplified by BitTorrent and the original Napster, have been a tool for piracy of copyrighted content, but are increasingly used as cheap route for companies to distribute large files, like movies.

    Commissioner Michael Copps, a champion of so-called open Internet policies, called for "clear rules of the road for those who operate on the edge of the networks — consumers and entrepreneurs — and those who operate the network."

    Copps said the five-member panel "should establish a systematic, expeditious case-by-case approach for adjudicating claims of discrimination" against Internet service providers.

    The FCC heard testimony from open Internet advocates, law professors and representatives of Comcast and rival Verizon Communications Inc. to learn more about the implications of the Comcast case as they seek to write regulations. Meanwhile, Congress is considering legislation to address how much freedom Internet service providers should have to block or delay content on their networks.

    At Monday's hearing, David L. Cohen, an executive vice president at Comcast, said his firm interrupts file-sharing traffic in a neighborhood when it's so heavy that it would slow other kinds of traffic in the area.

    Cohen said the practice creates a largely imperceptible delay when a certain type of traffic — say, an upload of video — is rerouted elsewhere on the network, but is not blocked.

    "We have chosen the least intrusive method to help the vast majority of our customers avoid service degradation," Cohen said.

    "There is nothing wrong with network management — every broadband network is managed," he said. "Our customers want us to fight spam and viruses, and they want us to fight congestion," he said.

    Tom Tauke, executive vice president at Verizon, said his company does not handle bottlenecks in the same way because its network architecture is configured differently than Comcast's, making such management steps unnecessary.

    Critics said Comcast's network management policy amounts to blocking, rather than simply delaying traffic.

    "Whatever we think reasonable network management is, it should not include blocking lawful applications," said Timothy Wu, a Columbia University law professor credited with coining the term Net neutrality. "It should not include discrimination against applications, and blocking of lawful applications."

    Wu said the issue of disclosure of network practices is crucial for Internet firms — many of them startups — that must rely on venture capital funding for survival. If investors learn that major broadband providers will delay or block a particular firm's Internet transmissions, they'll take their money elsewhere, he said.

    Another speaker at the hearing, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., has sponsored legislation that would make Net neutrality the law. While acknowledging the need to manage networks, Markey warned that a failure to rein in Internet service providers could turn the Internet into a tool for powerful interests, rather than a means of free-flowing communication.

    "The beauty of the Internet is that it's got a wonderfully chaotic, evolving nature," Markey said.

    Markey chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet.

    NY AG Subpoenas Comcast on Broadband

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general's office has requested information from Comcast Corp. on the company's handling of Internet traffic.

    Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, is the subject of several complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and has been sued by customers over its throttling of file-sharing traffic on its cable-modem service.

    "We have requested information from the company via subpoena," Jeffrey Lerner, a spokesman for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, said Tuesday.

    Comcast said it was cooperating with the AG's office.

    The Philadelphia-based company has repeatedly said that its traffic management practices are necessary to keep other Internet traffic, like Web content, flowing smoothly.

    On Monday, the FCC held a public hearing on the issue in Cambridge, Mass. Commissioners signaled that they were looking for greater openness from Internet providers about their traffic management practices, and were ready to step in to enforce the agency's "open Internet" policies.

    Comcast has a minimal presence in New York state, mostly along the Connecticut border. Less than half of one percent of its subscribers are in New York, spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said.

    Dow Jones Newswires reported on New York AG's investigation on Monday.

    Allegations Fly in FCC Hearing Aftermath

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    CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Comcast Corp. on Tuesday acknowledged hiring people to fill seats before the start of a contentious federal hearing on how the company manages its broadband network, allowing its employees to take those seats when the filled-to-capacity hearing started.

    Many people were turned away before Monday's Federal Communications Commission hearing at Harvard Law School, leading critics to accuse Comcast of stifling debate over the company's practice of favoring some forms of Internet traffic over others.

    Comcast said it hired people to hold seats only after an advocacy group called Free Press urged its backers to attend.

    "For the past week, the Free Press has engaged in a much more extensive campaign to lobby people to attend the hearing on its behalf," Philadelphia-based Comcast said in a statement.

    After Free Press on Tuesday accused Comcast of using unfair tactics, Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice confirmed to The Associated Press that the company hired people to fill seats after the hearing room doors opened at 7 a.m. and before the 11 a.m. start. As Comcast employees arrived, they replaced the hired seat-warmers. Fitzmaurice declined to say who or how many were hired, how the company found them, or how much they were paid.

    The company said it "informed our local employees about the hearing and invited them to attend. Some employees did attend, along with many members of the general public."

    Free Press accused Comcast of unfairly packing a hearing that featured hearty applause — some in response to comments from a Comcast representative who testified before the FCC's five commissioners, and some in response to Comcast critics' testimony.

    The practice of hiring people to fill seats in advance of public hearings isn't unknown in Congress and other forums, but Comcast critics said this case was unique.

    "First, Comcast was caught blocking the Internet. Now it has been caught blocking the public from the debate," said Timothy Karr, director of an advocacy campaign backed by a coalition including Free Press. "The only people cheering Comcast are those paid to do so."

    FCC spokesman Robert Kenny declined to comment. A message left after business hours for the event's host, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, was not immediately returned.

    The hearing room was nearly filled almost an hour before the event, and many people who arrived later were turned away at the door. At least 300 were inside the hearing.

    The hearing came in response to complaints before the FCC that Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, hampered file-sharing traffic on its cable-modem service. The company has repeatedly said that its traffic management practices are necessary to keep other Internet traffic, like Web content, flowing smoothly.

    During the hearing, FCC commissioners signaled that they were looking for greater openness from Internet providers about their traffic management practices, and were ready to step in to enforce the agency's "open Internet" policies.

    Hollywood Writers Approve New Contract

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Members of the Writers Guild of America have overwhelmingly approved a new contract with Hollywood studios that increases payment for shows offered on the Internet, the union said Tuesday.

    The deal was endorsed by 93.6 percent of the 4,060 votes cast in Los Angeles and New York.

    "This contract is a new beginning for writers in the digital age," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the guild's western branch. "It ensures that guild members will be fairly compensated for the content they create for the Internet, and it also covers the reuse on new media platforms of the work they have done in film since 1971 and in TV since 1977."

    The term of the three-year deal runs from this Feb. 13 to May 1, 2011.

    "We're very happy with the turnout," said guild spokesman Neal Sacharow. "In all of the key votes that took place in this negotiation ... including the vote to end the work stoppage, we had terrific turnout and better than 90 percent approval from the membership in each case."

    The contract was approved through a mail-in ballot that came after members were briefed two weeks ago and agreed to end the 100-day strike.

    Under the contract, writers will get a maximum flat fee of about $1,200 for programs streamed on the Internet during the deal's first two years and then get 2 percent of a distributor's gross in year three.

    The deal also establishes guild jurisdiction for shows made for the Internet and other new media.

    The writers strike halted most TV production and took an estimated $2.5 billion toll on the Los Angeles area economy.

    The guild has about 10,500 members who were affected by the walkout.

    Jonathan Handel, an entertainment lawyer and a former associate counsel for the writers guild, said he was surprised by the relatively low number of guild members who voted.

    "I think a lot of people are not happy with the deal but realized it's the best they could get," he said.

    Still, he said, it "ties a bow on a difficult period for Hollywood labor."

    EU fines Microsoft record $1.3B

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    By AOIFE WHITE, AP Business Writer
    1 hour, 16 minutes ago


    BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union fined Microsoft Corp. a record $1.3 billion Wednesday for the amount it charges rivals for software information.

    EU regulators said the company charged "unreasonable prices" until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.

    The fine is the largest ever for a single company and brings to just under $2.5 billion the amount the EU has demanded Microsoft pay in a long-running antitrust dispute.

    Microsoft immediately said the issues for which it was fined have been resolved and the company was making its products more open.

    The fine comes less that a week after Microsoft said it would share more information about its products and technology in an effort to make it work better with rivals' software and meet the demands of antitrust regulators in Europe.

    But EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes remained skeptical and said Microsoft was under investigation in two additional cases.

    "Talk is cheap," Kroes said. "Flouting the rules is expensive."

    Microsoft's actions have stifled innovation and affected millions of people around the world, Kroes said. She called the record 899 million euro fine "a reasonable response to a series of quite unreasonable actions."

    "We could have gone as high as 1.5 billion euros ($2.23 billion)," she said. "The maximum amount is higher than what we did at the end of the day."

    Microsoft fought hard against a March 2004 decision that led to a 497 million euro ($613 million) fine and an order that the software maker share interoperability information with rivals within 120 days. The company lost its appeal in that case in September.

    Microsoft was fined $357 million in July 2006 for failing to obey that order.

    The EU alleged that Microsoft withheld crucial interoperability information for desktop PC software — where it is the world's leading supplier — in an effort squeeze into a new market and damage rivals.

    The company delayed compliance for three years, the EU said, only making changes in October to the patent licenses for companies that need data to create software that works with Microsoft.

    Microsoft had initially set a royalty rate of 3.87 percent of a licensee's product revenues for patents and demanded that companies looking for communication information — which it said was highly secret — pay 2.98 percent of their products' revenues.

    The EU complained last March that the rates were unfair. Under threat of fines, Microsoft two months later reduced the patent rate to 0.7 percent and the information license to 0.5 percent — but only in Europe, leaving the worldwide rates unchanged.

    The EU's Court of First Instance ruling that upheld regulators' views changed the company's mind again in October when it offered a new license for interoperability information for a flat fee of 10,000 euros ($14,900) and an optional worldwide patent license for a reduced royalty of 0.4 percent.

    Pakistan's YouTube Blockage Caused Outage

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    John Ribeiro, IDG News Service
    2 hours, 15 minutes ago


    Many users around the world could not access the YouTube site for about two hours on Sunday. The company blamed the outage on erroneous routing information introduced by a Pakistani Internet service provider. Pakistani authorities ordered ISPs there to block the site on Friday.

    Traffic to YouTube was misrouted for around two hours, rendering the site inaccessible for many users around the world, YouTube said on Monday.

    "We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan," the company said, adding that it is still investigating the problem to prevent it from happening again.

    The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered the country's ISPs to block users access to YouTube on Friday because of an inflammatory anti-Islamic video on the site, Wahaj us Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers said in a telephone interview on Monday.

    If the video is provocative, then it is better it is removed, rather than provoke unrest in Pakistan, said Siraj who added that he did not know the contents of the video.

    Access to YouTube is still blocked in Pakistan while the ISPs work with the PTA to narrow its order to block a single URL (Uniform Resource Locator) pointing to the video, Siraj said. He expects the PTA to make an order to that effect later on Monday.

    Steven Schwankert in Beijing contributed to this report.

    Electronic Arts offers $2B for Take-Two

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    By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer


    SAN FRANCISCO - Electronic Arts Inc. is pushing ahead with a bid to take over upstart gaming rival Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., despite rebuffs from the smaller company.

    EA said in a statement Sunday that it was making an all-cash bid of $26 per share, or about $2 billion, for New York-based Take-Two, known for its "Grand Theft Auto" franchise.

    EA, the world's largest independent video game publisher, said it was releasing details of the proposal to get the attention of Take-Two shareholders after Take-Two's board turned down its second bid in two weeks.

    The offer represents a 64 percent premium over Take-Two's closing stock price of $15.83 on Feb. 15, the last trading day before Redwood City-based EA made its proposal. Take-Two shares closed at $17.36 Friday.

    "There can be no certainty that in the future EA or any other buyer would pay the same high premium we are offering today," EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello wrote in a letter to Take-Two released Sunday.

    Riccitiello added that Take-Two's quick acceptance of the offer would mean EA could put its marketing muscle behind the eagerly awaited release of "Grand Theft Auto IV," set for April 29.

    In its response, Take-Two called the EA offer a "highly opportunistic" attempt to take advantage of the game's upcoming release.

    "Electronic Arts' proposal provides insufficient value to our shareholders and comes at absolutely the wrong time," Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a statement Sunday.

    Zelnick said EA rejected Take-Two's offer to resume discussions of the takeover bid the day after "Grand Theft Auto IV" hit store shelves.

    EA said it offered $26 per share Tuesday after Take-Two rejected a $25-per-share bid earlier this month.

    The offer comes as Take-Two works to regroup following a rocky year. Shareholders threw out most of the company's top leadership last spring over poor results as well as accounting troubles and controversy surrounding violent and sexual content in the company's games.

    Several former Take-Two executives, including Chairman and CEO Ryan A. Brant, pleaded guilty in 2007 to falsifying business records in connection with a probe into backdated stock options.

    Also last year, the British Board of Film Classification refused to certify "Manhunt 2," a gory game which received an Adults-Only rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board in the U.S.

    EA, which publishes the "Madden NFL" and "FIFA Soccer" series among its popular sports franchises, has been working recently to beef up its product lineup with a wider variety of titles.

    In January, the company closed its acquisitions of BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, known for their action, adventure and role-playing games, in an $860 million deal, the largest in EA's history.

    Earlier this month, the company announced that "Spore," the highly anticipated game from "Sims" creator Will Wright, will go on sale on the weekend of Sept. 7 amid likely stiffer competition in the $18 billion video game market.

    In a deal expected to close in the first half of this year, French media and telecom giant Vivendi SA plans to combine EA's chief rival, Activision Inc., with its own games unit to form Activision Blizzard. The merged company will own the wildly popular online game "World of Warcraft" and the "Guitar Hero" franchise.

    Microsoft Dumps HD DVD Drive for Xbox 360

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    Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
    2 hours, 33 minutes ago

    Microsoft will stop making external HD DVD drives for its Xbox 360 game console, but won't say whether it will offer a Blu-ray Disc drive instead.

    The company will continue to provide warranty and product support for existing HD DVD players, it said.

    The Xbox 360 has a standard DVD drive built in: support for high-definition content came only with an add-on. Sony's Playstation 3 console, however, has a Blu-ray Disc drive built in, which helped grow support for the rival high-definition format.

    Microsoft's announcement comes barely a week after HD DVD's main backer, Toshiba, said it will stop making the drives in the face of declining support for its high-definition format from retailers and studios. HD DVD's other supporters included Microsoft, Intel, HP and Universal Studios. Blu-ray also had the support of Panasonic and Samsung.

    Warner Bros., which initially supported HD DVD, said early this year it would switch to Blu-ray Disc, a decision widely seen as a mortal blow to the format. Retailer Wal-Mart also recently said it would no longer sell HD DVDs.

    Initially, Microsoft said Toshiba's announcement would have no effect on its Xbox plans.

    A Microsoft spokesperson said Monday morning that the company is taking the long-term view that support for specific high-definition drives is less important as people increasingly look to download movies and content from the Internet.

    Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace lets people download content to their Xbox or PC from major studios such as Paramount Studios and Warner Bros., with recent titles such as "Ocean's Thirteen."

    That movie, which costs US$39.26 to download from the site, lets a user keep one copy on their PC and one copy on their mobile device. The movie is encoded in Microsoft's Windows Media Player format.

    Microsoft to stop making HD DVD players for Xbox

    http://mootblogger.com

    2 hours, 4 minutes ago


    NEW YORK (Reuters) -
    Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) will stop
    making video players based on the HD DVD standard for its Xbox
    360 game
    system, a move that comes days after Toshiba Corp
    (6502.T) pulled the plug on the high definition movie
    technology.


    The move, announced on Saturday, follows recent decisions
    by Hollywood studios such as Time Warner Inc's (TWX.N) Warner
    Bros
    and retailer Wal-Mart (WMT.N) to exclusively back Sony
    Corp
    's (6758.T) Blu-ray, a high-definition video technology
    rival to HD DVD.

    Microsoft had been one of the biggest backers of HD DVD
    along with Intel Corp (INTC.O), but the tide turned against HD
    DVD after Warner Bros, which had supported both, defected to
    Blu-ray last month.


    Microsoft said it does not see the decision having any
    material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or its position in the
    market. It pledged to continue product and warranty support for
    all Xbox 360 HD DVD players that it has already sold.


    Microsoft, in a statement on its GamerScoreBlog, posted by
    marketing executive John Porcaro, said it did not "believe this
    decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform
    or our position in the marketplace."


    The bundling of movie players is a key added feature in the
    battle for dominance in the next-generation video game console
    market, where players like Microsoft and Sony see their devices
    as hubs for delivering games, movies and Web content to living
    room television.


    Sony's PlayStation 3 has a Blu-ray player built in.


    "HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high
    definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give
    consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high
    definition movies and TV shows directly to their living
    room...," Microsoft's statement said.


    Microsoft, which previously said it would consider
    supporting Blu-ray technology should consumers want it, did not
    say if it would make Blu-Ray players.


    (Reporting by Sinead Carew and Franklin Paul, editing by
    Dave Zimmerman)

    Fujitsu Shows 500GB Laptop Drive

    http://mootblogger.com


    Martyn Williams, IDG News Service


    Laptop computer storage is racing fast towards the 500G-byte level with Fujitsu becoming the third hard-disk drive maker to announce a drive at that capacity.

    The third platter increases the thickness of the drive to 12.5 millimeters versus most other laptop drives, which have just two platters and are 9.5 millimeters thick.

    As a result the Fujitsu drive won't fit into the drive bay on many laptop computers, so its availability doesn't mean an instant capacity upgrade will be possible for all laptop users. Hitachi's drive is also 12.5 millimeters thick, but Samsung said it has been able to keep the drive height at 9.5 millimeters on its Spinpoint M6 drive.

    Fujitsu will begin selling its 2.5-inch drive in May. It will have a Serial ATA (SATA) interface and can transfer data at up to 300M bytes per second. The average seek time for reading data on the 4,200 rpm drive is 12 milliseconds and 14 milliseconds for writing data. Fujitsu didn't announce pricing.

    Hitachi said in January that it would ship its drive this month and Samsung announced a March shipping date. Both the Hitachi and Samsung drives spin the disk faster, at 5,400 rpm.

    All three drives will also be aimed at the fast growing digital video recorder (DVR) market. Many of the DVRs use laptop drives because they are smaller and lighter than the 3.5-inch models typically made for desktop computers and servers.

    Fujitsu latest to show 500GB laptop drive

    http://mootblogger.com


    Martyn Williams
    2 hours, 44 minutes ago


    San Francisco - Laptop computer storage is racing fast towards the 500GB level with Fujitsu becoming the third hard-disk drive maker to announce a drive at that capacity.

    The third platter increases the thickness of the drive to 12.5 millimeters versus most other laptop drives, which have just two platters and are 9.5 millimeters thick.

    As a result the Fujitsu drive won't fit into the drive bay on many laptop computers, so its availability doesn't mean an instant capacity upgrade will be possible for all laptop users. Hitachi's drive is also 12.5 millimeters thick, but Samsung said it has been able to keep the drive height at 9.5 millimeters on its Spinpoint M6 drive.

    Fujitsu will begin selling its 2.5-inch drive in May. It will have a Serial ATA (SATA) interface and can transfer data at up to 300MBps. The average seek time for reading data on the 4,200 rpm drive is 12 milliseconds and 14 milliseconds for writing data. Fujitsu didn't announce pricing.

    Hitachi said in January that it would ship its drive this month and Samsung announced a March shipping date. Both the Hitachi and Samsung drives spin the disk faster, at 5,400 rpm.

    All three drives will also be aimed at the fast growing digital video recorder (DVR) market. Many of the DVRs use laptop drives because they are smaller and lighter than the 3.5-inch models typically made for desktop computers and servers.

     

    Microsoft Dumps HD DVD Drive for Xbox 360

    http://mootblogger.com


    Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
    2 hours, 31 minutes ago

    Microsoft will stop making external HD DVD drives for its Xbox 360 game console, but won't say whether it will offer a Blu-ray Disc drive instead.

    The company will continue to provide warranty and product support for existing HD DVD players, it said.

    The Xbox 360 has a standard DVD drive built in: support for high-definition content came only with an add-on. Sony's Playstation 3 console, however, has a Blu-ray Disc drive built in, which helped grow support for the rival high-definition format.

    Microsoft's announcement comes barely a week after HD DVD's main backer, Toshiba, said it will stop making the drives in the face of declining support for its high-definition format from retailers and studios. HD DVD's other supporters included Microsoft, Intel, HP and Universal Studios. Blu-ray also had the support of Panasonic and Samsung.

    Warner Bros., which initially supported HD DVD, said early this year it would switch to Blu-ray Disc, a decision widely seen as a mortal blow to the format. Retailer Wal-Mart also recently said it would no longer sell HD DVDs.

    Initially, Microsoft said Toshiba's announcement would have no effect on its Xbox plans.

    A Microsoft spokesperson said Monday morning that the company is taking the long-term view that support for specific high-definition drives is less important as people increasingly look to download movies and content from the Internet.

    Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace lets people download content to their Xbox or PC from major studios such as Paramount Studios and Warner Bros., with recent titles such as "Ocean's Thirteen."

    That movie, which costs US$39.26 to download from the site, lets a user keep one copy on their PC and one copy on their mobile device. The movie is encoded in Microsoft's Windows Media Player format.

    Microsoft to stop making HD DVD players for Xbox

    http://mootblogger.com

    2 hours, 1 minute ago


    NEW YORK (Reuters) -
    Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) will stop
    making video players based on the HD DVD standard for its Xbox
    360 game
    system, a move that comes days after Toshiba Corp
    (6502.T) pulled the plug on the high definition movie
    technology.


    The move, announced on Saturday, follows recent decisions
    by Hollywood studios such as Time Warner Inc's (TWX.N) Warner
    Bros
    and retailer Wal-Mart (WMT.N) to exclusively back Sony
    Corp
    's (6758.T) Blu-ray, a high-definition video technology
    rival to HD DVD.

    Microsoft had been one of the biggest backers of HD DVD
    along with Intel Corp (INTC.O), but the tide turned against HD
    DVD after Warner Bros, which had supported both, defected to
    Blu-ray last month.


    Microsoft said it does not see the decision having any
    material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or its position in the
    market. It pledged to continue product and warranty support for
    all Xbox 360 HD DVD players that it has already sold.


    Microsoft, in a statement on its GamerScoreBlog, posted by
    marketing executive John Porcaro, said it did not "believe this
    decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform
    or our position in the marketplace."


    The bundling of movie players is a key added feature in the
    battle for dominance in the next-generation video game console
    market, where players like Microsoft and Sony see their devices
    as hubs for delivering games, movies and Web content to living
    room television.


    Sony's PlayStation 3 has a Blu-ray player built in.


    "HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high
    definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give
    consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high
    definition movies and TV shows directly to their living
    room...," Microsoft's statement said.


    Microsoft, which previously said it would consider
    supporting Blu-ray technology should consumers want it, did not
    say if it would make Blu-Ray players.


    (Reporting by Sinead Carew and Franklin Paul, editing by
    Dave Zimmerman)

    Blu-ray Disc faces fight against downloads

    http://mootblogger.com


    Dan Nystedt
    1 hour, 31 minutes ago


    San Francisco - Blu-ray Disc may have beaten out HD DVD as the high-definition optical disc format to replace DVDs, but it now faces a new test against Internet downloads, market researchers Gartner and iSuppli said.

    The two high-definition disc formats had battled for the past few years until Toshiba last week handed victory to Blu-ray Disc by announcing an end to its support of HD DVD. The company's decision came after a major Hollywood film studio and several retailers, including Wal-Mart, said they would back Blu-ray Disc exclusively.

    But the victory for Blu-ray Disc may be short-lived if consumers choose to download high definition content from the Internet, market researchers say.

    "After years of a standards war, the major question for Sony and the Blu-ray camp is whether a physical format for high-definition still has any relevance to consumers in this era of Internet-delivered movies and video on demand," said David Carnevale, vice president of multimedia content and services at iSuppli, in a report.

    Online movie download services from iTunes, Amazon, and others have gained traction in recent years and increased their movie, TV and other video content offerings. The Internet gives consumers a choice of building a library of HD movies bought over the Internet instead of buying a Blu-ray Disc player and building a new library of movies-on-disc, said Carnevale.

    "Physical media distribution could become a thing of the past," he said.

    Blu-ray Disc could be further harmed unless prices come down quickly and more manufacturers start making players, according to Gartner. The market researcher said that most manufacturers will probably hold off on announcing new Blu-ray Disc equipment until the first quarter of 2009. In addition, consumers may also put off buying Blu-ray Disc players because DVD players that up-convert existing DVDs is already seen by some as a good alternative to making a big investment in high-definition discs.

    "Most manufacturers are still trying to persuade consumers that high-definition optical discs are worth investing in, as many consumers and industry pundits see video-on-demand services and Internet downloads as viable alternatives," said Paul O'Donovan and Hiroyuki Shimizu in a report.