SMS Still Earns Most In Mobile Messaging




By Marin PerezInformationWeek




In a recent report titled "Mobile Messaging Services," the research firmed found that SMS will provide $177 billion in global revenue in 2013.


This represents about 83% of the expected $212 billion in revenue mobile messaging will reach in five years. For the study, ABI divided the market into five segments: SMS, MMS, voice mail, instant messaging, and e-mail/unified messaging.


The research firm noted that regional differences will be key in the success of messaging expansion into the Web, advertising, and mobile social networking.


"Innovative companies are exploring opportunities for expanding mobile messaging access to Web sites as well as targeting customers with content and ads," principal analyst Dan Shey said in a statement. "To be successful with these enhanced services, companies that supply mobile messaging products and services must understand the regional distributions for customer type, payment preferences, message delivery method, and usage."


The research firm also noted that these regional difference could cause established players to re-evaluate their business models.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Microsoft Adds Windows Live Search To Facebook




By Paul McDougallInformationWeek



searchFacebooknetworking


Under the agreement, Microsoft will provide Facebook with an application programming interface that will add Windows Live Search directly into the Facebook environment. Facebook users' Web queries will produce search results and paid search ads generated by Microsoft's search engine.


"We're excited about even using that as an opportunity to further extend the Live Search reach," said Microsoft senior VP Satya Nadella, who spoke Thursday at Microsoft's annual meeting with investment analysts at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters.


Financial details of the arrangement were not released. Nadella said the service would launch in the fall.


Facebook, which claims more than 90 million active users, could help Microsoft increase its share of the market considerably.


On Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said an acquisition of Yahoo would have simply been a "tactic" and "not a strategy" to help the company grow its search business. Indeed, beyond the Facebook deal, Microsoft has made other moves recently to build out its search offerings.


Earlier this month, Microsoft acquired Powerset for a reported $100 million. The company specializes in an esoteric form of Web querying called semantic search. The technique uses a variety of linguistic tools to interpret the meaning of search phrases to produce the most accurate results. The method has been in development for more than 10 years.


In January, Microsoft reached an agreement to acquire enterprise search company Fast Search & Transfer for $1.2 billion.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Samsung Handset Sales Up, But Expects Slowdown




By W. David GardnerInformationWeek



Samsung Electronics


The diversified company posted earnings of $2.12 billion on sales of $18 billion.


Citing the worldwide economic slowdown and increased competition, Samsung said it anticipated tough business months ahead.


"We posted very strong results," said investor relations executive Chu Woosik, according to media reports. But "it's unlikely that we will be achieving a sharp recovery [in the next quarter]." Samsung stock was down about 4% in early trading on Friday.


Handset sales were a bright spot for Samsung as the company reported total handset sales of 92 million for the first two quarters; that represented a 20% increase from the same period in the previous year.


In recent months, Samsung's Instinct smartphone has taken off like a rocket for Sprint, which reported that more units of the smartphone were sold in one week for EV-DO users than any other phone in that category.


Samsung, which is also the largest maker of DRAM memory chips, said it expects the sector to remain challenged in the coming months, following the second quarter's 5.9% operating profit margin. Samsung has been upgrading the equipment in its memory unit.


Earlier this month, Samsung began mass production of 128-GB solid-state drives; the company also said it plans to begin production of 256-GB solid-state drives by the end of this year.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Tableau Takes on Geospatial Analysis




By Doug HenschenIntelligent Enterprise



Google MapsTableau Software


"For the average worker or business analysts, the 'where' questions often aren't complicated enough to require a GIS tool and knowledge of cartography and map layers," says Elissa Fink, vice president of marketing. "At the other end of the spectrum, MapPoint and Google Mashups are great ways to display data, but they're not intended for analytics. We wanted to make maps part of the analytic workflow within Tableau."


Tableau 4.0 is said to marry data and geospatial analysis so users can click to create insightful analytic maps (see samples below). Data elements such as city, state and country are now automatically recognized as mappable dimensions, and users can also assign geospatial rules to selected dimensions. Once maps are created, users can also change the way data is presented and drill down into the underlying information without a need to understand map layers or complex geographic parameters.


Other upgrades in Tableau 4.0 include support for embedding visualizations within Web applications, Web sites and portals such as Microsoft SharePoint. Conversely, Web applications can also be embedded into Tableau.


Usability enhancements in 4.0 include a new drag-and-drop user interface that lets you grab analyses by looking at thumbnails as well as file names. In addition, logos and custom shapes can be added to maps and scatter plots, and Web-based users can customize and share their data views with colleagues.


Tableau 4.0 will be released on August 7. The desktop software starts at $999 per named user.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Carnegie Mellon 'Last Lecture' Professor Dies




By ReutersInformationWeek




Pausch died at home of complications from pancreatic
cancer, Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught for 10
years, reported on its Web site.



The computer science professor was best known for his "last
lecture," entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,"
which he gave in September 2007 just weeks after learning he
was suffering from terminal cancer.


Footage of the poignant and inspirational lecture became a
hit on the Internet, viewed by millions of people.



A book based on the talk, "The Last Lecture," was
translated into 30 languages and became an international
bestseller, Carnegie Mellon, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said
on its Web site.


In the lecture, Pausch spoke about the dreams he had
achieved, such as writing a World Book Encyclopedia entry and
experiencing zero gravity. But he said he learned more from the
dreams he had not achieved, such as his desire to be a
professional football player.



He said he delivered the lecture as a guide for his three
young children.


"I'm attempting to put myself in a bottle that will one day
wash up on the beach for my children," the university quoted
him as saying.



In the field of computer science, Pausch created an
educational software tool known as "Alice," which lets students
create three-dimensional computer animations.


He is survived by his wife Jai and their children Dylan,
Logan and Chloe as well as his mother and his sister.



The family plans a private burial in Virginia, where Pausch
and his family moved last fall. A campus memorial service also
is being planned, the university said.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Vicki Allen)


Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for Restrictions



As per UBM LLC's agreement with Reuters, this story will be removed from this site after 30 days.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

AOL shutting 3 services to cut costs, focus on ads




By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer



AOL

AOL Pictures, the year-old media-sharing site BlueString and the online backup service Xdrive will likely shut down by year's end, though the company is looking to sell at least Xdrive, which AOL bought in 2005 for an undisclosed fee.

Company officials denied speculation Friday that the closures were meant to prime AOL for a sale. AOL parent Time Warner Inc. has been in continual discussions with both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., though the talks have been preliminary.

"The decision to sunset these products is 100 percent part of a strategy that began last year to focus on the areas where we can win and to move away from products or features that are not contributing to our growth," AOL spokeswoman Trish Primrose said.

AOL began taking a hard look at its portfolio following a 2006 decision to fully shift the company into an advertising business and pare down its legacy Internet access services.

AOL Pictures began in 1998 as You've Got Pictures and came at a time Internet users had few options to share their digital photos. Since then, services like Yahoo's Flickr and Google Inc.'s Picasa have emerged, joining offerings from Eastman Kodak Co. and others.

BlueString launched last year as a repository for other media files such as video and music as well, but it never gained much traction.

Nor did Xdrive, which offers 5 gigabytes of free storage for backing up files.

All three services suffered from the fact that while data-storage costs have come down, those costs still add up, and the services contribute relatively few opportunities to display advertising.

Transition details are still being worked out. AOL likely will give existing users a way to migrate files to a competing service. It also plans to let users order a DVD of files for a fee and give instructions for downloading copies of individual files. AOL plans to formally inform its users of the changes in September.

AOL said it has already shut down about 50 products, projects or brands since 2007, mostly older or little-used products like its AOL Communicator mail software.

In a July 14 memo to employees, Executive Vice President Kevin Conroy said the company now had an obligation to ensure that "every product makes a direct impact on our bottom line."

"There was a time at AOL when the strength of our aggregate portfolio of products more than compensated for the weakness of an underperforming product," Conroy said. "The realities of the industry and market shifts in online advertising no longer make that possible."

Conroy said AOL saw greater opportunities in areas like its video search engine Truveo and its browser toolbar, which drives traffic to search.

The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, was published earlier on the blog TechCrunch.

Separately, AOL said it would rein in costs for its Weblogs unit, which runs specialty blogs such as Engadget and Autoblog. The blogs generally pay freelancers per post. Although the unit's budget has been increasing, so have the number of posts — such that costs have spiraled. The company is asking bloggers to post less often for now.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Hasbro Sues Creators of Scrabulous Game on Facebook




Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor



HasbroScrabble


Hasbro also sent Facebook, which hosts Scrabulous, a notification of copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hasbro wants the social-networking site to remove the game in the U.S. and Canada as soon as possible.


"Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro's general counsel. "We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand."



Hasbro's Underlying Motive


The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, names Scrabulous creators Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla and RJ Softwares as the defendants.


The timing of the suit is hardly coincidental. Hasbro has a strategic alliance with video-game giant Electronic Arts to create digital games based on a wide selection of Hasbro's intellectual properties. Hasbro is the company behind Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers and other well-known gaming brand names.


As part of its alliance with Hasbro, Electronic Arts launched a legitimate version of Scrabble for Facebook earlier this month. This represents the first of many Hasbro game properties slated to launch on social-networking sites later this year, according to the company.


"After playing with EA's version of Scrabble on Facebook, I have no doubt that Scrabble players in the U.S. and Canada will absolutely love the authentic game play and overall experience," said John D. Williams Jr., executive director of the National Scrabble Association. "I am particularly pleased that EA's version of Scrabble offers such a simple and intuitive interface which will allow players to jump right in and start playing."



Will Facebook Get Slapped?


While the fate of Scrabulous remains to be seen, the bigger question is whether Facebook could wind up the target of a separate lawsuit. Legal experts doubt that will happen, but it is a possibility.


Hasbro will probably not name Facebook as a defendant because the game maker doesn't want to get into the bigger question of whether Facebook's actions in enabling Scrabulous amounts to contributory infringement or whether Facebook is vicariously liable for the activity, according to Todd Hardy, a trademark attorney with Greenblum & Bernstein, P.L.C.


"On one hand, it does not appear that Facebook has assisted or contributed to the copying or infringement itself, but on the other hand they are now on notice of the claimed infringement," Hardy said. "Facebook could also be vicariously liable if it could be shown that they have the ability to control the infringing act or activity and profited from the activity."

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Get Ready For Google Gadget Malware




By Thomas ClaburnInformationWeek



iGoogle


In two weeks, at the Black Hat Conference on Wednesday, Aug. 6, Cenzic senior security analyst Tom Stracener and security researcher Robert Hansen, better known as "RSnake," plan to demonstrate a zero-day vulnerability that affects Google Gadgets.


"At the core of the talk is the concept of Gmalware, which is basically a malicious gadget," said Stracener. "The idea is that gadgets are supported by the gmodule domain and security architecture. And with the current security architecture, it doesn't protect individuals from malicious gadgets very well. Nor does it protect gadgets from one another."


Google Gadgets, said Stracener, are vulnerable to information theft, deceptive practices, content spoofing, and authentication issues.


A Google Gadget, for example, can log you into an account without your knowledge and monitor your Google Search queries, Stracener explained. It can also be made to attack another Google Gadget and steal information.


No malicious Google Gadgets have been spotted in the wild yet. Once details about the vulnerabilities emerge, however, that may change.


Google has been alerted to the researchers' findings but hasn't yet publicly acknowledged whether or not it sees a problem. The company did not respond to a request for comment.


"We alerted them to that and what they came back with was this is the expected behavior of this domain," said Hansen. "Both Tom and I found that to be a fairly contentious attitude. We alerted them to it and they decided not to fix it and now we're just demonstrating what we found."


Hansen said that the underlying problem is that Google's security architecture allows an attacker to put pretty much whatever he or she wants inside Google Gadgets. Likening the issue to a SQL injection vulnerability, he said that an attacker could put malicious Flash, HTML, or scripts into a Google Gadget.


Google has some measures at the perimeter to prevent bad gadgets from being introduced. "But there are some tricks that we've come up with to get the Google Gadget subversively added to somebody's iGoogle page," said Hansen.


Google also tries to sandbox the gmodules domain, where Google Gadgets operate, from Google. "The problem is that protects you from two or three very specific attacks but it leaves you open to a huge number of other attacks," said Hansen. "What we're outlining is everything else that's wrong with this model."


Google tries "to separate that into a different domain, the gmodules domain," said Hansen. "That protects you from two or three very specific attacks, but it leaves you open to a huge number of other attacks. What we're outlining is everything else that's wrong with this model."




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

NASA Unravels Mysteries Of Northern Lights




By K.C. JonesInformationWeek




Five NASA satellites helped researchers pinpoint how sudden brightening and rapid movements of the aurora borealis take place. NASA said this week that researchers believe stressed magnetic field lines suddenly snap to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far, during a process called magnetic reconnection.


"We discovered what makes the Northern Lights dance," Vassilis Angelopoulos, a principal investigator for the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission (Themis) at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.


Substorms change the auroral displays at the North and South poles, causing the lights to flicker. The substorms also frequently occur with space storms that disrupt radio communications and GPS signals and cause power outages, NASA said. Scientists hope the new information helps them improve substorm models and forecasts.


"As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field lines stretch far out into space," said David Sibeck, Themis project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth's atmosphere. They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles."


The satellites, launched in February 2007, and a network of 20 ground observatories in Canada and Alaska allow scientists to observe the beginning of substorms. Every four days, the satellites line up with the Earth's equator to gather and record data showing where, when, and how substorms develop.


Synchronized ground stations also point a magnetometer and camera skyward to determine where and when an auroral substorm will begin. NASA explained that research instruments measure auroral light through particles that flow along Earth's magnetic field and the electrical currents they generate.


Recently, the satellites observed an isolated substorm beginning in space, as the observatories recorded the lights and currents over North America. That lent support to the theory that magnetic reconnection causes substorms, NASA said. The theory is that when a substorm begins, it follows a pattern that includes reconnection, rapid auroral brightening, and rapid expansion toward the Earth's poles. That, in turn, redistributes electrical currents flowing in space and around the Earth.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Prof whose 'last lecture' became a sensation dies




By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer



Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist

Pausch died at his home in Chesapeake, Va., said Jeffrey Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer who co-wrote Pausch's book. Pausch and his family had moved there last fall to be closer to his wife's relatives.

Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.

In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.

"The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful," Pausch wrote on his Web site. "But rest assured; I'm hardly unique."

The book "The Last Lecture" leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists after its publication in April and remains there this week. The book deal was reported to be worth more than $6 million.

Pausch said he dictated the book to Zaslow by cell phone, and Zaslow recalled Friday that he was "strong and funny" during their collaboration.

"It was the most fun 53 days of my life because it was like a performance," Zaslow told The Associated Press. "It was like getting 53 extra lectures." He recalled that Pausch became emotional when they worked on the last chapter, though, because that to him was the "end of the lecture, the book, his life."

At Carnegie Mellon, Pausch was a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design, and was recognized as a pioneer of virtual reality research. On campus, he became known for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor.

The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called "The Last Lecture," where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk. The name of the lecture series was changed to "Journeys" before Pausch spoke, something he joked about in his lecture.

"I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it," he said.

He told the packed auditorium he fulfilled almost all his childhood dreams — being in zero gravity, writing an article in the World Book Encyclopedia and working with the Walt Disney Co.

The one that eluded him? Playing in the National Football League.

"If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you," Pausch said.

He then joked about his quirky hobby of winning stuffed animals at amusement parks — another of his childhood dreams — and how his mother introduced him to people to keep him humble: "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind that helps people."

Pausch said he was embarrassed and flattered by the popularity of his message. Millions viewed the complete or abridged version of the lecture, titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," online.

"I don't know how to not have fun," he said in the lecture. "I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there's no other way to play it."

Brown UniversityCarnegie MellonDr. Randy Pausch Scholarship Fund


Pausch's lecture: http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Vonage May Get Fresh CEO Along With Financing




By W. David GardnerInformationWeek



VoIPFriday's Wall Street Journal


Vonage said it has a commitment with Silver Point establishing the terms and conditions for up to $215 million in private debt financing. Silver Point will provide $125 million in the deal, the company said.


"Refinancing our existing debt has been a key priority for the company," said John S. Rego, Vonage's executive VP and CFO, in a statement. "We believe this new financing will provide Vonage with the solid financial foundation to continue to grow our business profitably."


Vonage had been negotiating to do the deal for weeks to refinance $253 million in convertible debt redeemable in mid-December.


The company has had a stormy existence as it pioneered much of the VoIP industry, signing up more than 2.5 million customers along the way. At one point, just as its future looked bright, telecommunications companies including Verizon Communications, AT&T, and Sprint instituted a series of patent suits against Vonage and extracted heavy levies against it.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Microsoft Becomes Official Apache Sponsor




By Paul McDougallInformationWeek



Softwareopen source


"This sponsorship will enable the ASF to pay administrators and other support staff so that ASF developers can focus on writing great software," said Sam Ramji, senior director of Microsoft's platform strategy, in a blog post from the OSCON open source conference in Portland, Ore. Ramji did not disclose financial details, but the arrangement makes Microsoft a Platinum sponsor of Apache.


Apache officials welcomed the move, despite the group's sometimes rocky relationship with the world's biggest commercial software developer.


"We thank Microsoft for their generous sponsorship that goes towards supporting The Apache Software Foundation and the over 60 top level projects in use and development within the ASF," ASF chairman Jim Jagielski said in a statement.


Microsoft also pledged to make more of its own code available to open source developers.


"Microsoft is putting a wide range of protocols that were formerly in the Communications Protocol Program under the Open Specification Promise (OSP). This guarantees their freedom from any patent claims from Microsoft now or in the future, and includes both Microsoft-developed and industry-developed protocols," wrote Ramji.


In his blog post, Ramji added that the company is donating code to the open source community. "Microsoft is contributing a patch to ADOdb, a popular data access layer for PHP used by many applications," said Ramji. "The patch enables support for SQL Server through the new 'native driver for PHP' built by the SQL Server team. ADOdb is licensed under the LGPL and BSD. This is our first code contribution to PHP community projects but will not be the last."


By cooperating with open source developers, Microsoft may be hoping to ease pressure from U.S. and European regulators, who have charged the company with using monopolistic practices to protect its software franchise.


The European Commission, which already has imposed more than $1 billion in fines on Microsoft, earlier this year said it's eyeing the possibility that the company is still violating monopoly laws by failing to make its products interoperable with competitors' offerings and by illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser with the Windows operating system.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Italy prepares to charge Google execs: sources




By Silvia Molteni



Italian


The video shows a teenager with Down syndrome taunted by
other youths.


Prosecutors have concluded an inquiry that could lead to
the executives being charged with defamation and failure to
exercise control over personal data, said the sources, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.


Under Italian law, the conclusion of an inquiry is usually
preparatory before the case goes to a judge to decide whether
charges should be filed. The story was first reported by the
Wall Street Journal on Friday.


The former and current Google executives include the top
legal representative and chairman of Google's Italian unit at
the time, a now-retired Google Italy board member, an executive
responsible for Google's privacy policies in Europe, and the
then-head of Google Video for Europe.


An Italian advocacy group for people with Down syndrome,
Vividown, and the boy's father lodged a complaint over the
video in November 2006.


The video was filmed from a mobile phone in late May or
early June 2006. It shows four male high school students in the
Italian city of Turin humiliating the youth with Down syndrome.


The four teens face charges in Turin over the case. Charges
could be dropped if they show a judge they have straightened
themselves out, Vividown attorney Guido Camera told Reuters.


A Google spokesman said the company would continue to
cooperate with Milan prosecutors "to show that all Googlers
under investigation have no involvement in the Vividown case."


(Additional reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore,
India; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

NextWave Sells $150 Million Of Spectrum To T-Mobile, Others




By W. David GardnerInformationWeek



Wireless


Pending FCC approval, the company will sell 599 million MHz-pops of its AWS spectrum to T-Mobile USA, MetroPCS, ACS Wireless, and Atlantic Wireless. NextWave originally acquired all of its AWS licenses for about $115 million at the FCC auction in 2006.


The AWS spectrum is coveted by wireless operators because it can be used to provide mobile voice and data services, as well as video and messaging.


"The sale of our AWS spectrum is just the first step in maximizing the value of our spectrum portfolio," said Allen Salmasi, CEO and president of NextWave Wireless, in a statement. "We will continue to monetize our remaining spectrum assets in the United States and are working with Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank to achieve our spectrum sale objective."


The sale still leaves NextWave with a significant amount of spectrum in the United States, particularly in California, Florida, and New England. The company also owns spectrum in Europe, Canada, and South America.


In April, the company announced it planned to sell its 154 AWS licenses, 30 Wireless Communication Service licenses, and additional Educational Broadband Service and Broadband Radio Service licenses. Taken together, the company's spectrum could create a network that covers most of the United States.


For T-Mobile, the move gives the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier more options to potentially expand its 3G network. The company had previously spent more than $4 billion to acquire AWS spectrum during the 2006 auction and began rolling out its high-speed mobile network earlier this year.


NextWave's stock has jumped up more than 35% in the last few days because of news of the sale and other developments.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Netflix 2Q profit up 4 pct, beats analyst views




By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer



Netflix Inc.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company said Friday that it earned $26.6 million, or 42 cents per share, from April through June, up from $25.6 million, or 37 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

The average earnings estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was 40 cents per share.

Revenue climbed 11 percent to $337.6 million to match analyst estimates.

Netflix shares gained $1.12, 4.2 percent, to close at $27.85 Friday.

The company ended June with 8.4 million subscribers, and probably would have had even more if it had advertised its service as vigorously as it usually does.

But management has decided to sacrifice some of its growth opportunities to ensure it keeps Wall Street happy with higher profits, Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings said during a Friday conference call.

As a result, Netflix trimmed its marketing expenses by $5 million, or 11 percent, from the same time last year.

Despite the cutback and a slowing economy, Netflix had far more success luring new subscribers than last year when it lost 55,000 customers during the spring — the only quarter that the company's service has shrunk during its nine-year history.

"We appear to be substantially unaffected by the negative economic climate," Hastings said.

Netflix could afford to spend less on advertising because its biggest rival, Blockbuster Inc., has been promoting its online rental service less aggressively during the past six months.

But some analysts believe that is about to change now that Blockbuster has abandoned a takeover bid for electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. and is preparing to expand its Internet presence with a pay-per-view online video service acquired last year from Movielink. In a sign that it could be gearing up for more growth, Blockbuster hired a new chief marketing officer just a few weeks ago.

Hastings, though, said he doesn't expect Blockbuster to derail Netflix this year. Underscoring management's confidence, Netflix still expects to end the year with 9.1 million to 9.7 million subscribers — the same guidance issued three months ago.

The company also affirmed its previous profit projections for the year.

Holding the line on advertising costs will be important to Netflix because the company is spending more to develop a service that streams movies and TV shows over high-speed Internet connections.

Netflix still isn't charging more money for unlimited use of the streaming service, even though its costs for licensing movies are rising as the service becomes more appealing to subscribers because of a recently introduced $100 device that automatically shows the video on TV sets instead of computers.

Hastings declined to comment Friday on unconfirmed reports that nearly 100,000 of the TV streaming players made by Roku Inc. had been sold during their first two months on the market.

Xbox 360


Netflix also is facing higher costs to buy high-definition DVDs for subscribers with Blu-ray players, but the company has already decided to raise its prices for that luxury. Hastings said Netflix will begin testing different prices for Blu-ray DVDs during the current quarter.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Yahoo To Reimburse Customers Of DRM-Protected Music




By Antone GonsalvesInformationWeek



Yahooportal


Yahoo recently notified customers by e-mail that it would shut down the servers that manage the copyright-protection technology embedded in the music files on Sept. 30, the tech news site Ars Technica reported. As a result, those files would no longer play if the user moves them to another computer or to a portable music player, or makes changes to the operating system in the original computer.


Carrie Davis, spokeswoman for Yahoo Music, confirmed that the digital rights management servers would be taken down, severely limiting the use of the files. However, Yahoo did not intend to abandon its customers.


"You'll be compensated for whatever you paid for the music," Davis told InformationWeek. "We haven't said exactly what we will do, but we will take care of our customers."


The company planned to reimburse customers on a case-by-case basis, and has posted an FAQ page that includes a "contact customer care" button at the bottom for former Yahoo Music Store customers. Davis said customers could be reimbursed in several ways, including getting back the money they paid for the music or receiving MP3 versions without DRM technology, which means they can be imported into any music playing software.


Yahoo said in April that it would close its store and music subscription service and migrate the operations to RealNetworks, which operates the Rhapsody music service. Only people who bought music from Yahoo would be eligible for reimbursement. Customers of its music subscription service would be transferred to Rhapsody, which offers the same service at a similar price, Davis said.


Yahoo has not said how much music it sold from its store, but it was a minor player in comparison to market leader iTunes from Apple. The portal's subscription service had only about 400,000 customers when Yahoo announced that it was closing the service, market research firm Inside Digital Media told USA Today.


Yahoo's experience with shutting down its music store highlights the problem DRM technology can have on consumers. While Apple still uses the technology to ensure music can only be played easily on its iPod player, others have switched to selling DRM-free music, including Amazon, RealNetworks, and Napster.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Microsoft Challenges Google's PageRank Technology




Mark Long, newsfactor




"The more visits [to] the page made by the users, and the longer time periods spent by the users on the page, the more likely the page is important," the paper's authors noted. The goal is to "leverage hundreds of millions of users' 'implicit voting' on page importance," they said, "in accordance with the concept of Web 2.0."



Missing the Mark


"Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results," Google said. "We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the Web to determine a page's importance."


Gauging the relevance of Internet searches is extremely important to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft because it allows the search engine leaders to more precisely target their placement of ads on behalf of clients. But Microsoft and its collaborators claim that PageRank misses the mark because it allows the importance of pages to become artificially inflated.


For example, Web sites such as Adobe are ranked very high by PageRank because Adobe has millions of sites linking to it for Acrobat Reader and Flash Player downloads. "However, Web users do not really visit such Web sites very frequently, and they should not be regarded [as] more important than the Web sites on which users spend much more time, like MySpace and Facebook," they explained.



Giving Users a Vote


Microsoft and its academic collaborators say their new method is superior because it is based on a user-browsing graph that is generated from data that reflects actual human behavior. "User-behavior data can be recorded by Internet browsers at Web clients and collected at a Web server," they said.


BrowseRank's user-browsing graph can more precisely represent the Web surfer's random walk process, and thus is more useful for calculating page importance, the collaborators claim. Furthermore, the amount of time spent on the pages by users is also included under the BrowseRank method.


"In this way, we can leverage hundreds of millions of users' implicit voting on page importance," researchers explained. "Experimental results show that BrowseRank indeed outperforms the baseline methods, such as PageRank and TrustRank, in several tasks."


For its part, Google notes that PageRank, which is based on a Stanford University patent, is not the only method it employs to rank search engine results. Instead, Google said it relies on more than 200 different signals to examine the entire link structure of the Web and determine which pages are most important.


"We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted," Google explained. "By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we're able to put the most relevant and reliable results first."

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Google Counts More Than 1 Trillion Unique Web URLs




Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service




In a discovery that would probably send the Dr. Evil character of the "Austin Powers" movies into cardiac arrest, Google recently detected more than a trillion unique URLs on the Web.

This milestone awed Google search engineers, who are seeing the Web growing by several billion individual pages every day, company officials wrote in a blog post Friday.


In addition to announcing this finding, Google took the opportunity to promote the scope and magnitude of its index.


It had been a while since Google had made public pronouncements about the size of its index, a topic that routinely generated controversy and counterclaims among the major search engine players years ago.

Those days of index-size envy ended when it became clear that most people rarely scan more than two pages of Web results. In other words, what matters is delivering 10 or 20 really relevant Web links, or, even better, a direct factual answer, because few people will wade through 5,000 results to find the desired information.


It will be interesting to see if this announcement from Google, posted on its main official blog, will trigger a round of reactions from rivals like Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.

In the meantime, Google also disclosed interesting information about how and with what frequency it analyzes these links.


"Today, Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day. This graph of one trillion URLs is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States. Except it'd be a map about 50,000 times as big as the U.S., with 50,000 times as many roads and intersections," the officials wrote.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Software Group Contemplates Suing eBay




By Antone GonsalvesInformationWeek



eBaysoftware


The Software & Information Industry Association said eBay has refused to take several steps recommended by the group to help reduce sales of illegal software. Despite a few years of discussions, eBay refuses to do more than just take down auctions of software that the SIIA has identified as pirated.


"Once notified, they will do something," Keith Kuperschmid, senior VP of intellectual property policy and enforcement for SIIA, told InformationWeek. "What they won't do is what we consider pre-emptory, proactive measures."


Those measures include placing a notification in the buyer feedback section that the seller has had pirated items removed from the site; penalize sellers of illegal software, even if it's their first offense; and develop technology to try to find repeat offenders who use multiple identities on eBay.


The reason the SIIA wants eBay to do more is because so much pirated software is sold on the site that the group can't identify all the offenders, Kuperschmid said. The SIIA estimates that 75% of the software sold on eBay is illegal.


EBay's refusal to take these steps has led to SIIA discussions of taking eBay to court. The latest talks among members were in May. SIIA members include many big names in software, such as IBM and Oracle.


"It continues to be on the table," Kuperschmid said of suing eBay. "Does that mean we will be suing anytime soon? No. But it's definitely being discussed by SIIA and its members."


EBay said it is doing what it can to keep pirated software off the site, but is willing to continue talking with the SIIA and consider its proposals. "We feel that we're doing enough and that it's a global issue that isn't going away overnight," an eBay spokeswoman said.


The auction site is not new to such allegations. Jewelry company Tiffany sued eBay to force it to become more proactive in removing counterfeit goods. This month, a federal judge ruled the site is not responsible for fake goods sold on its site. That decision is expected to be appealed.


Kuperschmid said the Tiffany case is different, in that the jeweler claimed the counterfeits threatened to sully its brand, since buyers believed the inferior items were from Tiffany. The SIIA allegations involve laws related to copyright protection, not trademarks.


Nevertheless, the liability of Web sites that act as conduits to goods and services from consumers or businesses remains murky, because courts have yet to fully address the issue. One high-profile case still pending is entertainment conglomerate Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube. Viacom has filed a $1 billion copyright-infringement suit against the popular online video service and its parent, Google.


Meanwhile, the SIIA has been aggressively pursuing people it identifies as pirates. The group said it initiated the prosecution of Jeremiah Mondello of Oregon, who the SIIA identified as a major seller of illegal software. Montello was convicted of copyright infringement, mail fraud, and aggravated identity theft. A federal judge Wednesday sentenced him to four years in prison.


In addition, the group said it had filed six new lawsuits against sellers of illegal software on auction sites. The SIIA has filed a total of 32 such lawsuits this year.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Mojave experiment gets a Web site




By Ina Fried, CNET



MicrosoftWindows Vista marketing


As first reported by CNET News, Microsoft last week interviewed XP users who were skeptical of Vista and showed them what it called a secret new version of Windows, "Mojave." It was in fact Vista. The results, according to Microsoft executives, were almost universally positive, with participants expressing surprise when told it was actually Vista they had been using.


For now, Microsoft has put up a teaser site, with plans to show the actual video footage next week. (As I mentioned before, Mojave was something put together in the past couple of weeks by internal Microsoft people and is not the larger advertising campaign coming from new ad agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky.)


Although the video was compelling and entertaining, at least some of the people I talked to who saw the video at Thursday's analyst meeting also stressed that early demos of Vista also looked good. The video, necessarily, doesn't show what it is like to, say, install software or hook Vista up to a home network. My guess is the participants didn't have to endure frequent User Account Control notifications either.


Still, it represents a more aggressive Microsoft that wants to go on the offensive with its Vista marketing. Earlier on Friday, Microsoft's Windows Vista Team Blog got unusually combative over this week's Forrester study that was critical of Vista's adoption among large businesses.


"Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista," read the headline of the posting from Windows team member Chris Flores.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Scrabble Sues Scrabulous For IP Infringement




By K.C. JonesInformationWeek



ScrabbleHasbro's board game


The toy and game company filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, claiming that Scrabulous creators Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla and RJ Softwares, an offshore software and Web services provider, infringed on its intellectual property. The lawsuit calls the online word game Scrabulous a "clear and blatant" infringement of Scrabble's intellectual property.


"We are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand," Hasbro general counsel Barry Nagler said in a statement.


Hasbro also tried to remove the game from Facebook before launching its original game on the social networking site in the beginning of July. The company has sent a letter demanding that Facebook remove Scrabulous from the reach of users in the United States and Canada. Mattel owns the rights to the game outside of those two countries.


Scrabble is available in 121 countries and 29 languages. The game, featuring letter tiles and point values for each letter, was invented in 1938. Scrabulous, created by two brothers in India, launched in 2006 and became popular on the Web, specifically on social networking sites, before the traditional Scrabble game was available online.


The lawsuit, filed Thursday, states Scrabulous uses "essential and original elements" of the famous board game. It also points out that the names "Scrabulous" and "Scrabble" are "confusingly similar." Finally, it states that the defendants said: "It's not really different." Hasbro said the statements amounts to a concession that they copied the board game.


The company is seeking damages, legal costs, and the elimination of the online game.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Gateway to Stop Selling PCs Through Web Site




Agam Shah, IDG News Service




Gateway on Friday said it would stop selling PCs through its Web site, instead focusing on selling PCs through third-party stores and other online retailers.

Gateway has been selling PCs through partner retail stores since 2004, but it is now cutting direct online sales to consumers in order to cut costs and align its business model with parent company Acer, the company said. Acer last year acquired Gateway for US$710 million in an effort to boost its consumer presence in North America.


The change has resulted in some staff cuts, said Lisa Emard, a Gateway spokeswoman. "These reductions have been happening in small waves as the company has methodically evaluated each department and function," she said.

The transition away from direct sales is happening over the upcoming weekend, Emard said. Consumers will be able to purchase products off Gateway's Web site until Saturday evening.


The change could help Gateway better compete with rivals Hewlett-Packard and Dell, said David Daoud, research manager at IDC. Also, since the indirect model has worked well for Acer, it may be hoping that focusing on the same model can help boost Gateway sales.

Daoud suggested that the decision to kill off Gateway's online sales could mean that Acer may replace some Gateway brands with its own.


Some of Gateway's brands, like eMachines, which has a strong consumer presence, may conflict with Acer's offerings, Daoud said. By getting rid of Gateway's online sales and potentially in the future some of the Gateway brands, Acer may be simply trying to consolidate the brands, which could increase Acer brand awareness, Daoud said.

However, Emard said that Acer is focusing different brands on different sectors, and all of Gateway's brands will continue to be offered.

"While there is indeed some crossover today, you're going to see Acer moving upstream with its product line and offering more high-performance products featuring advanced technology," Emard said.


Since the acquisition, Gateway has helped Acer boost its U.S. presence, where it was running neck and neck with Apple as the third-largest PC retailer. The combined company sold 1.3 million units, a 7.8 percent market share and a 49.9 percent increase over last year's third quarter.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Symbian Talks Open-Source Strategy




By Marin PerezInformationWeek



OSCONopen sourceoperating system


John Forsyth, Symbian's VP of strategy, said Symbian is the most widely used operating system for smartphones, and more than 200 million Symbian-based devices have been shipped. But despite its success, the proprietary nature was still holding the platform back, Forsyth said.


"If you want to get through this glass ceiling and convince people that you aren't a single point of failure, then you have to be neutral," Forsyth said during the presentation Thursday. "What it required to break through to the next level of platform success is something that is free and truly independent and neutral. There is no platform like that today, so what we are setting out to do is make one."


Additionally, Forsyth said handset manufacturers are growing wary of depending on a single source for software, and the move toward open source will increase adoption potential in many areas.


Last month, Nokia said it would purchase the remaining portion of Symbian that it didn't already own and turn it over to a new Symbian Foundation with the goal of creating an open source operating system for handsets.


The foundation will get a framework in place for providing royalty-free licenses to all members by next year, Forsyth said. The entire source code eventually will be under the Eclipse Public License, but legal and technical issues need to be sorted out.


Forsyth said Symbian's previous proprietary culture may pose some challenges during the transition, and the foundation is constantly seeking advice from the community on how to proceed.


Forsyth's presentation comes as an analyst report suggests that Symbian will combine with Google's Android operating system. Analyst firm J. Gold Associates said it expects a merger within six months because of the similar open source strategies of the respective companies involved.


Google, Symbian, and Nokia have declined to comment on the matter.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Microsoft's Answer To Google's PageRank Algorithm: Less Privacy?




By Thomas ClaburnInformationWeek



Microsoft researcherskeywordsearch


Google relies in part on its PageRank algorithm to determine what's relevant. Microsoft's answer to PageRank is BrowseRank.


The academic paper, "BrowseRank: Letting Web Users Vote for Page Importance," was co-authored by Microsoft researchers Bin Gao, Tie-Yan Liu, and Hang Li; Zhiming Ma of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Yuting Liu from Beijing Jiaotong University; Shuyuan He from Peking University; and Nankai University's Ying Zhang.


PageRank treats Web links as votes for relevance. The paper's authors say PageRank can generate inaccurate results "because links can be easily added and deleted by Web content creators."


BrowseRank, Microsoft claims, can deliver better search results by measuring user behavior: the Web pages Internet users visit and the amount of time they remain at those pages.


"The more visits of the page made by the users and the longer time periods spent by the users on the page, the more likely the page is important," the paper states. "With this graph, we can leverage hundreds of millions of users' implicit voting on page importance."


The paper mentions that the data set used to test BrowseRank was cleansed to protect user privacy. "All possible privacy information was rigorously filtered out and the data was sampled and cleaned to remove bias as much as possible," it says.


And that's the only mention of privacy in the document.


But privacy almost certainly would be an issue for Microsoft, if it tried to implement this technique without some means of anonymization. Keeping records of every Web site that every Internet user visits, as a way to determine relevant search results, would have huge privacy implications.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Online services tearing down walls, sharing content




By Antony Bruno




Take the first lesson: Share everything.


It's right there at the top of the list, but only now is
the digital entertainment industry taking notice. Once littered
with walled gardens and content silos, the digital landscape is
beginning to sprout a customer-friendly ecosystem of shared
content and traffic.


Fueling this newfound spirit of interoperability are
technologies that enable the sharing of content between sites.
They include the Open Social initiative and Facebook's open
development platform, both driving the "widgetization" of the
Web.


It's also a reflection of the surging "mash-up" movement
online. A mash-up is a Web application that combines content
and features from multiple sources for a specific purpose that
none of the contributors do individually. The most commonly
used applications are those with easily embeddable content or
open APIs (programming information available to all), such as
Google Maps, Twitter and Last.fm.


But in the past year, mainstream services have taken the
bait. In 2007, Music-based social network MOG added YouTube
videos as part of its MOG TV service. Yahoo's FoxyTunes
originated as a mash-up that combined artist bios, lyrics and
news from Yahoo; related artist recommendations from Last.fm;
and links to buy tracks from Amazon.


The list goes on. TiVo users can now stream YouTube videos
and Rhapsody's music. MTV is using its partnership with
Rhapsody to let fans stream music heard on its TV shows. AT&T
Mobility subscribers can choose between Napster Mobile or indie
haven eMusic as their mobile music provider.


RETAILERS REVAMP


Digital music retailers are getting with the program, too.
eMusic will soon incorporate relevant content from other sites
into its online music subscription service. For instance, a
pending revamp of its artist pages will pull in music videos
from YouTube, artist entries from Wikipedia and fan or other
photos from Flickr.


And in the spirit of sharing, eMusic is reciprocating by
unshackling much of its exclusive editorial content and making
it available in widget form. That includes features like the
eMusic Dozen, as well as Q&A profiles and Spotlight articles.
Its new album-page features enable users to post their favorite
albums to Facebook, Twitter and more than a dozen other social
networking sites and services.


"The days of building some big, monolithic, walled-garden
digital music store that people will come to and you never let
them out of are gone," eMusic CEO David Pakman says. "We
(haven't been) making it easy for fans to embed their favorite
eMusic finds, so this is really a recognition of behavior that
already exists."


Even Apple, that bastion of rugged individualism, is
starting to play better with others. Hand in hand with the
recent iPhone launch was the introduction of iTunes' App Store,
made possible by Apple's decision to give developers access to
the iPhone platform (at a price). The result is a host of
programs that take advantage of one-click iTunes sales, as well
as the integration of such iPhone partners as YouTube.


Rather than competing with these readily available
services, it's proving easier and faster to just incorporate
them.


"Tear down the walls," Pakman says. "Let's bring stuff into
the site that people are already using, and let people take our
stuff out."


It's early days, to be sure. But if successful, these
forays could pave the way to an interoperable future where,
rather than trying to guess how fans want to enjoy music
online, services will simply let them create their own
customized experiences using their favorite tools.


Reuters/Billboard

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Broadband Innovations, Part 4: The Doctor Isn't In but Can Still See You




Kajsa Linnarsson, PC World




"Broadband Innovations" is a four-part series that highlights groundbreaking broadband uses, and the people who employ the technology to preserve the past, reshape the future, and fulfill their dreams. This final story in the series focuses on residents of Washington State who receive medical and psychiatric care via video over the Internet.

Timothy Moon's 48 years have been colored by violence. At 16, he was shot. In 1989 he received his first prison sentence. Diagnosed as a manic depressive, Moon finally made a decision about a year ago to get help in dealing with all the anger inside him.


Typically, obtaining medical care would mean transporting Moon, accompanied by two guards, from his cell at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell, Washington, to a caregiver in Spokane, 100 miles away. A second option would be to have a psychiatrist drive all the way from Spokane to the penitentiary for every consultation.

However, thanks to the Northwest Telehealth network, which uses broadband to provide health care to remote locations, Moon undergoes videoconferencing sessions with his psychiatrist without ever leaving the penitentiary. And he likes it better than meeting in person.


"When I'm in a room by myself, there is less pressure. It's like talking to the camera, which works for me since I find it more difficult to talk about my problems in person," he says.

Moon initially tried confiding in his fellow inmates, but found that it did more harm than good. "You can't just express yourself to anyone. They'll interpret it as weakness and take advantage of it." Having been in a couple of fights, he now tries to stick to himself.


"But it's important to have someone to talk to," he says.The Benefits of Telehealth

About 50 of the 620 inmates at Coyote Ridge use the network for their health-care needs. Aside from saving tax dollars and improving safety by minimizing the transport of prisoners, the system also discourages prisoners from feigning symptoms to break the monotony of prison's daily routine.


"In my experience, 50 percent of the inmates that come to the ER don't need to be here," says Gram McGregor, emergency department manager at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

His ER department is another one of 65 sites throughout eastern Washington and northern Idaho that are connected to the Northwest Telehealth network by broadband speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. Besides penitentiaries, his ER provides rural hospitals and other sites with remote consultations.

The Rest of the Series

    Part 1: "The 21st Century Athlete" Meet gamer Patrick O'Day, doing his best to represent the U.S. in Digital Games 2008.Part 2: "Fiber Optics Reaches the Tipi" A Canadian aboriginal community uses broadband to save its native language and culture from extinction. Part 3: "The Film Editor's Dream" A well-known Swedish film editor fulfills his dream of working remotely while living in a rural area, thanks to a superfast fiber-optic broadband connection.

Prison Saved My Life


Jorge Martinez had lost 145 pounds for no reason that he could pinpoint. He was always tired, but didn't suspect that something was seriously wrong. It was not until Martinez was incarcerated at Coyote Ridge for a narcotics crime that he found out that he was a diabetic.

"Prison saved my life. The way I was eating and drinking, I wouldn't have lasted long," says Martinez, who also says he has been able to turn his health around through hard work and guidance from regular consultations via the telehealth network.


By exercising, Martinez has been able to decrease his insulin dependency by more than half. Through diabetes education in a group over the network, he has also learned how to care for his body and skin. Next he hopes to have a teleconsult with a dietician to work out a meal plan.

Diane Benfield, the dietician at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, saves 3 hours of travel per visit due to remote consultations with the inmates at Coyote Ridge. She says this setup allows her to schedule many more appointments with prisoners.


"The inmates are positive and don't seem to mind not meeting in person," she says. "I'd love to see the whole statewide system connected." How Telehealth Works

In 2003, the TelePharmacy service also became available on the network. It enables nurses in 12 remote hospital sites to access approved prescription medicine through a secure vending machine.


Medication orders transmit via the network from rural hospitals to a pharmacist at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. The pharmacist reviews the prescription and confirms it on the computer. After swiping an identification card and typing in a password, the nurse at the remote site can take out the drug from the dispenser.


"Many rural communities may have a pharmacist who comes by twice a week, but they can't afford or aren't able to recruit someone full-time," says Fred W. Hoefler, manager of the TelePharmacy program at Sacred Heart.


Ronda Golladay has worked as a nurse for 30 years. Her current employer, the Othello Community Hospital, participates in the TelePharmacy program to provide pharmacy service 24/7. Under its guidelines, nursing staff must be monitored via videoconferencing when performing activities such as restocking the medicine dispenser.


"People are always apprehensive about letting other people watch them in a Big Brother way. We've tried to overcome that by educating them well in how to use the equipment," says Brian G. Hoots, telehealth analyst at Northwest TeleHealth.


In 2007, nearly 300,000 prescription orders went through the system, a number expected to increase as the TelePharmacy program adds two more sites.


(Series author Kajsa Linnarsson is a visiting reporter covering global developments in broadband for PC World. A graduate of Stanford University's Innovation Journalism program, she lives in Hudiksvall, Sweden, in a region known as Fiber Optic Valley for its concentration of cutting-edge communication technology companies.)

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

FCC poised to punish Comcast over Web blocking




By JOHN DUNBAR, Associated Press Writer



Federal Communications CommissionComcast Corp

Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, was accused of violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet.

Three commissioners have voted in favor of an order reaching agreement with the finding, enough for a majority on the five-member commission. But the decision will not be final until all five members have cast their votes. The commission is scheduled to take up the issue at its Aug. 1 meeting.

The three votes in favor were Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein and Republican chairman Kevin Martin, who recommended the company be found in violation, according to the official, who asked not to be named because the vote was not yet final.

The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint against Comcast that the company had blocked Internet traffic among users of a certain type of "file sharing" software that allows them to exchange large amounts of data.

The text of the order is not public. But Martin has said it will not include a fine. He also said it will require Comcast to stop its practice of blocking; provide details to the commission on the extent and manner in which the practice has been used; and to disclose to consumers details on future plans for managing its network going forward.

"I continue to believe that is imperative that all consumers have unfettered access to the Internet," Martin said in a statement released early Saturday morning. "I am pleased that a majority has agreed that the Commission both has the authority to and in fact will stop broadband service providers when they block or interfere with subscribers' access."

The FCC approved a policy statement in September 2005 that outlined a set of principles meant to ensure that broadband networks are "widely deployed, open, affordable and accessible to all consumers."

The principles, however, are "subject to reasonable network management."

Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice in a statement released Friday night said the company's network management practices are "reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services."

The action is the first test of the agency's network neutrality principles. Members of both the House and Senate have sponsored network neutrality bills, but they have never come close to becoming law.

Large Internet service providers have fought against such regulation, arguing that it is a solution in search of a problem and that companies that spend billions on their networks must be free to manage traffic.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Top Handheld GPS Devices




Rich Owings




With a device that automatically gives you the distance to the green on each hole, it's no wonder that GPS is becoming very popular on the links. Maps of more than 18,000 golf course are available and the GolfLogix, built on Garmin's eTrex platform, also identifies up to six hazards per hole. Other GPS units for golfers are SkyCaddie, and Sonocaddie.


Cycling
Garmin Edge 705
Weight: 3.7 ounces with internal battery
Screen: Color
Battery life: 15 hours
Price: $499.99
Link: Garmin Edge 705


While the Garmin Edge 705 has some navigation features, this device really shines as a training partner. Mounted to your handlebar or stem, the Edge can provide heart rate, cadence, and power data, along with a virtual partner to race against. Ride data can be uploaded for analysis and shared with others. Cyclists who are more interested in navigation features, may find the Magellan Triton 2000 or Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx to be a better choice.


Group Outings
Garmin Rino 530HCx
Weight: 10.3 ounces with li-ion battery pack
Screen: Color
Battery life: 14 hours
Price: $535.70
Link: Garmin Rino

Hiking, Climbing, Backcountry ExpeditionsSpot Satellite MessengerWeight: Screen: Battery life: Price:Link: triathletesPolar RS800G3DeLorme Earthmate GPS PN-20Good for:Weight: Screen: Battery life: Price:Link: DeLorme Earthmate GPS PN-20electronic compassbarometric altimeterSome Final AdviceRich Owings is the editor of GPS Tracklog, and the author of .All-Purpose Handheld GPS UnitsGarmin eTrex Venture HCGood for:Weight: Screen: Battery life: Price:Link: cable Magellan Triton 2000



Good for:Use with detailed maps
Weight: 8.0 ounces (with batteries)
Screen: Color, high resolution, touch screen
Battery life: 10 hours
Price:$499.99
Link: Magellan Triton



The Magellan Triton 2000 distinguishes itself from other handheld units with its touch screen interface and ability to load National Geographic bit firmware release will help these units live up to their promise. At any rate, Magellan won an innovations design and engineering See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Screen Actors board backs negotiators on new media





1 hour, 12 minutes ago



In talks that reached a stalemate this month, negotiators
for the Screen Actors Guild, representing 120,000 performers,
have demanded that work distributed on the Internet be covered
by a SAG contract, and late on Saturday SAG's national board
voted 68-0 in favor of a resolution reaffirming that idea.


"We have been telling the industry how important it is for
all new media productions under our contract to be done union,
and how important residuals (fees) for made-for new media
programming are when programs are re-run on new media," SAG
National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Doug Allen,
said in a statement.


"I am very pleased that our National Board today
unanimously confirmed these essential principles in support of
our National Negotiating Committee," Allen said.


SAG's National Board of Directors adopted the resolution
stating a "core principle" of the guild is that "no non-union
work shall be authorized to be done under any (SAG) agreement
and that all work under a (SAG) contract, regardless of budget
level, shall receive fair compensation when reused."


The statement said the resolution "represents guidance"
from the National Board to the contract negotiators.


Those negotiators came under fire last week when a rival
faction within SAG launched a campaign to wrest control from
leaders they blame for the stalemated contract talks.


A bloc of SAG members calling itself Unite for Strength
unveiled a slate of candidates who will seek to gain a majority
on the national governing board in elections set for September
18.


Industry watchers said the challenge meant the roughly
four-week-old standoff between the union and studios would drag
on, and the board's vote strengthened that idea.


The old SAG contract expired hours after the studios,
represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television
Producers, presented SAG with a "final" offer on June 30. SAG
countered with a new proposal on July 10, but the studios
refused to budge, insisting they were done negotiating.


Late Saturday, the AMPTP issued a statement saying the
refusal of SAG's negotiators to accept AMPTP's final offer
means "actors will continue to work indefinitely under the
expired contract."


A SAG spokeswoman said there were no new developments on
Sunday, while the AMPTP posted on its Web site a tabulation of
wages lost by SAG members because they have not taken the
AMPTP's final offer, which calls for some wage increases.


(Editing by Todd Eastham)

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

An un-American feel aids expanding US Web firms




By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago


IndiaMySpaceJapanGoogleKorean

As major U.S. Internet companies stake their ground abroad in anticipation of the next billion people coming online — and the advertising revenue they might generate — the flags they are planting aren't the Stars and Stripes.

Companies are trying to expand globally without seeming to, designing market-specific services with customized features that reflect differences in connection speeds, payment options and attitudes toward sex or violence.

The stakes are high as the United States faces a weakening economy and a slowing of online ad growth.

And the opportunities are large. People in two populous countries, India and China, are just getting online. The research firm IDC projects worldwide Internet ad spending at nearly $107 billion in 2011, compared with $65 billion this year.

But getting it right will be tough. American companies that merely translate their U.S.-focused sites into other languages risk losing to homegrown businesses that can better respond to cultural nuances.

Google Inc. discovered that in South Korea and China, where it initially held its minimalist approach, only to see local rivals thrive by acknowledging their users' preference for sites rich with entertainment and visual complexity.

"A lot of times, the U.S. companies, because they were successful in the U.S., they tend to repeat their current business models," said Tian X. Hou, a Pali Research analyst who follows China. "Most of the time, that doesn't work."

Cho Ko-un, 29, a graduate student sitting in a cybercafe in Seoul, South Korea, finds Google good for English and academic research, but local portals like Naver and Daum better for Korean-language information. Naver, for instance, has forums for users to answer one another's questions, which proved helpful when Koreans couldn't find a site in their native tongue.

"I feel amazed and surprised when the exact question I am trying to ask ... the proper answer on that is already uploaded," said Kim Seung-ho, a 32-year-old government employee.

Tom Anderson, co-founder of MySpace, said dominance in one market means nothing as the company expands to nearly 30 other countries and regions. He said local incumbents have a key advantage because "it's difficult to get people to change their behavior."

MySpace is nonetheless trying.

In South Korea, MySpace offers an exclusive "minilog" feature for youths to jot down everyday thoughts and feelings. In mobile-heavy Japan, people can sign up for an account directly from a phone; elsewhere, you need a desktop computer. MySpace tweaked its Chinese site to generate new windows with every click, in deference to local user preferences.

The News Corp.-owned company also is exploring low-bandwidth versions — perhaps with fewer graphics or less audio — for India and Latin America, where connection speeds tend to be slower.

AOL, meanwhile, has launched about two dozen international sites over the past 18 months. As the one-time Internet access powerhouse transforms itself into an advertising business, executives decided to push into several emerging markets that they knew wouldn't pay off for another few years.

"Our goal is to plant the flag, to be present, said Maneesh Dhir, AOL's India-based international chief. "Then you work to grow that business."

In each market, AOL partners with local content providers.

Lindsay LohanAustraliaAsiaMicrosoft CorpMicrosoftGoogleChinaAmazoneBay IncEuropeeBayJapanYahoo Inc.MySpaceFacebookGoogleOrkutBrazilBeboBritainFriendsterDenmark


Associated Press Writers Joe McDonald in Beijing and Jae-hyun Jeong in Seoul contributed to this report. Didi Tang in Beijing also contributed.

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Yahoo's top U.S. sites get traffic help from Google search




By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET



YahooHitwise




Such a question is rather important to Yahoo investors, given the Internet search pioneer has given a cold shoulder to Microsoft, which has previously expressed interest in buying Yahoo's search assets. Yahoo, however, rebuffed the offer, noting in its investor presentation that selling its search assets, including its algorithmic search, would:



Jeopardize the Yahoo user experience and make it difficult for Yahoo to maintain search and display volume.


But Heather Hopkins, vice president of research for Hitwise, noted in her blog that Yahoo's valuable sites would not necessarily fair poorly without Yahoo's search engine.


Hopkins took Yahoo's top 20 U.S. Internet properties for the month of June and ranked them, based on user traffic.


As expected, Yahoo Mail represented a 37.5 percent slice of the traffic pie, followed by the main Yahoo site with 30.6 percent and Yahoo search with 12.l percent.


Yahoo Answers showed the disparity the most, with 49 percent of its U.S. traffic coming from Google in June, while only 20 percent was from a Yahoo search.


Hopkins made this observation in her blog:


Whether Yahoo is better kept whole or split up I can't say. What I can say is that the parts of Yahoo are quite valuable and wouldn't necessarily be lost without the search engine.


Wonder if Yahoo has read Hopkins' blog?

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Google Talk Revamped For Apple's iPhone




By Thomas ClaburnInformationWeek



AT&TGoogleGoogleinstant messaging


The new Google Talk is designed specifically to run in Apple's Safari browser on the iPhone and iPod Touch.


In order to accommodate the restrictions that Apple placed on iPhone apps to conserve system resources, this version of Google Talk shuts down if you launch another application.


"[I]n order to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser," explains Google engineer Adam Connors in a blog post. "When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to 'unavailable' and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return."


The reason that AT&T grumble about Google Talk, not to mention other IM clients for the iPhone like Meebo's Web-based IM app, is that it could reduce text messaging revenue.


Under AT&T's current iPhone plans, text messaging isn't a major source of revenue. The phone company charges $20 per month for an unlimited data plan that includes 200 text messages.


Because text messages will be billed separately from the $30 per month 3G data plan, iPhone users will have a more obvious incentive to forgo the expense of text messages for instant messages, which don't cost anything beyond the flat data fee.


The impact of IM isn't likely to be immediate because text messaging is easy to use and works across carriers, whereas not all mobile phone users have instant messaging accounts or use compatible IM clients. But sooner or later, iPhone users are likely to realize that paying $1310 per megabyte for text messages isn't such a good deal.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Nvidia Stock Falls On Lowered Revenue Forecast




By Antone GonsalvesInformationWeek




Nvidia stock fell about 30% to less than $13, as investors showed little confidence in the company following its negative reports.


The dive started late Wednesday when Nvidia lowered its second-quarter sales estimate to between $875 million and $950 million. The forecast was lower than the $1.1 billion expected from analysts polled by Thomson Financial.


Nvidia blamed the lower estimate on a drop in demand and on competitive pressure that forced the company to lower pricing. Nvidia's main rival is Advanced Micro Devices, which makes the ATI line of graphics cards.


In addition, Nvidia said it suffered from a delay in production of its next-generation media communication processor, which is designed specifically for the creation and distribution of digital media.


Also weighing heavily on investors was Nvidia's disclosure that it would take a one-time charge of $150 million to $200 million in the second quarter to cover warranty, repair, return, replacement, and other costs and expenses related to a "weak die/packaging material" in versions of its previous-generation graphics processing units and MCPs used in notebooks.


The problem was related to excessive heat that appeared to be caused by the notebook design, Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang said. To correct the problem, the company switched production to a better die/package material and was working with computer makers to develop system management software that would provide better heat management to the GPU.


"Today's high-performance notebooks are highly complex systems with extreme thermal environments," Huang said. "The combination of limited thermal management and frequent power cycling is particularly challenging for complex processors like the GPU."


In the future, Nvidia plans to head off such problems by working more closely with notebook system designers and its chip foundries "to ensure that the GPU and the system are designed collaboratively for the best performance and robustness," Huang said.


Further details would not be available until Nvidia reports quarterly results Aug. 12, the company said.


Competition between Nvidia and AMD is fierce because of the growing importance of graphics, as PC makers offer an increasing number of products focused on video and photos. At the same time, Intel is making its own play in the market by boosting the performance of its integrated graphics processors in chipsets that accompany the company's general-purpose CPUs.




See original article on InformationWeek

This content was originally posted on http://mootblogger.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog