The Internet Herald: August 2008

Want IE8 Beta 2? You May Have To Jump Through Hoops

Posted by Blogger Saturday, August 30, 2008 at 11:26 PM

Mark Long, newsfactor

MicrosoftInternet Explorer

For Windows XP users with IE8 Beta 1 already installed, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and IE8 Beta 2 would become permanent, said Jane Maliouta, the deployment product manager for IE8 at Microsoft. "You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won't be able to uninstall them," she said.

Incompatibility Issues

Developers will need to be careful because IE8 Beta 2 will not work with several key services, applications and add-on programs, including certain versions of the Windows Live Mail. IE8 Beta 2 users also are currently unable to view movies on demand from Netflix, though Microsoft said the two companies are working to resolve the compatibility issue as quickly as possible.

Maliouta strongly encouraged those who have already downloaded IE8 Beta 1 to follow several steps before installing the new Beta 2 version. First uninstall the Beta 1 version and SP3 for Windows XP, followed by reinstalling SP3, and only then install IE8 Beta 2.

"If you have IE8 Beta 1 installed, the IE8 installer will automatically uninstall any earlier versions and then install the latest version of IE8 Beta 2 for you," Maliouta said. "You will be prompted to reboot twice. The first reboot is to remove IE8 Beta 1 from your machine and the second one to complete the IE8 Beta 2 installation."

According to Microsoft, IE8 Beta 1 was only intended for use by developers. Consumers running Windows XP need not worry about downloading IE8 Beta 2 so long as they did not install Beta 1.

However, consumers testing IE8 Beta 2 on their Vista-enabled machines must jump through a few hoops should they decide to revert to IE7. According to Microsoft, they'll have to click the Start button, type "Programs and Features" in the Start Search box, and click Programs and Features in the Programs list. Then in the Tasks pane, they'll need to click "View installed updates," select IE8 Beta 2 and then click "Uninstall."

Dueling Releases

The relatively unpolished state of IE8 Beta 2 is not all that unusual. Early versions of Firefox 3 likewise were subject to various compatibility issues and performance limitations.

Both Mozilla and Microsoft are doing all they can to gain browser market share. For example, Mozilla's recent release of its "experimental" Ubiquity plug-in is an attempt to steal some of the thunder from some new features destined for IE8, called Accelerators and Web Slices. For its part, Microsoft has already added several new capabilities to IE8 Beta 2 that mimic what Firefox 3 already has on tap, including the rival browser's so-called "AwesomeBar."

Mozilla's campaign to set a world software-download record for Firefox 3 earlier this year has increased the pressure on Microsoft to turn the tide. Though the software giant has stabilized its market-leading share of the browser market in the last three months, Microsoft's numbers have fallen seven percentage points in the past 12 months, and 24.5 percentage points since August 2005, according to a new global survey conducted by Janco and the IT Productivity Center.

Comcast Limits Homes To 250GB in New Public Policy

Posted by Blogger at 11:26 PM

Steve Bosak, newsfactor

Comcastnetwork congestion

The new policy was posted on Comcast's Web site early Friday, and the meter starts running on Oct. 1.

Charlie Douglas, director of corporate communications for online services, said, "The amount of data measured is aggregate monthly usage of uploads and downloads."

The amended service policy states in part: "It's no secret we've been evaluating a specific monthly data usage or bandwidth threshold for our Comcast High-Speed Internet residential customers for some time." The threshold is high for the majority of Comcast users.

Examples of what a 250GB limit equates to are cited in the amendment, such as sending 50 million e-mails, downloading 62,500 songs, 125 standard-definition movies, or uploading 25,000 high-resolution digital photos. The policy says the median monthly usage for residential Comcast customers is 2GB to 3GB per month.

Bandwidth Hogs

Some observers say Comcast has a reasonable argument. The company has expanded rapidly into business and residential phone service, meanwhile maintaining its large cable-television enterprise. There is only so much available bandwidth at any given time.

Comcast is moving data, voice and television and high-definition video over the same pipes. It only takes a few peer-to-peer file-sharing applications to cause unexpected congestion.

Making Policies Public

Comcast's previous efforts to address the problem brought a rebuke from the Federal Communications Commission. Comcast was caught throttling down the connections of BitTorrent P2P users on its network without their knowledge.

When the matter came before a congressional subcommittee, Comcast admitted to the practice and was ordered to stop gating individual connections. The FCC and Congress felt the targeting of individual accounts without notification was the main issue.

In its new policy Comcast is not limiting bandwidth on the sly, nor is it keeping its policies private. In fact, the company is posting a banner ad on its home page and sending flyers detailing the new policy to each of its customers in September. The company has also posted suggestions for using download-metering software that will track usage, much like the minute counters on cell phones.

Douglas emphasized, "This does not affect our commercial customers." Comcast has been aggressively moving into unified data services for commercial accounts, and some, especially those involved in backup and disaster recovery, could go over the 250GB limit, but that service is separate from residential accounts, said Douglas.

"We need to remember that the amount of usage we are talking about, more than 250GB a month, does not apply to more than 99 percent of our customers. So the less than 1 percent who are notified today receive a phone call from Comcast asking them to moderate their usage, which the vast majority of them do voluntarily," Douglas said.

Other broadband providers are also likely to publicize limits.

Microsoft buys ciao.com to boost e-shopping search

Posted by Blogger at 11:26 PM

By Georgina Prodhan

MicrosoftciaoEurope

"We call it 'instant answers'," said John Mangelaars, head
of Microsoft's consumer and online business in Europe. "I hope
it's getting very clear that we've very serious about EMEA," he
added, speaking to Reuters by telephone.

Internet search is dominated by Google, which has 62
percent of the global search market and 79 percent in Europe,
according to Web usage tracker ComScore.

Microsoft has a 2 percent market share in Europe and 9
percent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo. In Europe,
Microsoft is also outranked by online auction site eBay and
Russia's Yandex.

But Mangelaars said buying ciao was an important step
in Microsoft's attempt to distinguish itself by providing
search results more useful to consumers, particularly shoppers,
than those thrown up by a Google search.

For example, results of a Microsoft search for a particular
camera model could include which prices were available from
which retailers, and maps of where those retailers were, rather
than just links to the manufacturer's and retailers' websites.

The acquisition follows those of Norwegian enterprise
search company Fast for about $1.2 billion early this year and
shopping-and-auction site jellyfish for an undisclosed sum
last year.

CASH BACK

Caio is active in seven European countries and attracts
19.6 million unique visitors per month in Europe, more than
twice as many as rival kelkoo, according to ComScore,
thanks to its large network of members who contribute product
reviews.

To attract more users, Microsoft also plans to reward
consumers who buy products through its shopping sites by giving
them cash back, extending a trial started in the United States
a few months ago.

"Google's trying to do all your search needs. What
Microsoft is doing with this kind of acquisition is saying:
'We're going to be very good at the commercial side of search,
the shopping'," said Forrester principal analyst Rebecca
Jennings.

Herve le Jouan, ComScore's managing director, Europe,
agreed. "Doing this shopping thing, I think, is a good move,"
he said, but cautioned that acquisitions alone would never
bring Microsoft close to Google's market share in search.

"Nobody is able to compete right now with Google so there
is nobody to buy to compete with Google," he said.

Microsoft's Mangelaars acknowledged the distance Microsoft
had to cover, especially given the commercial edifice rapidly
being built by online advertisers whose models depend on
Google's particular view of the Web.

"It's a race," he said, "but we also believe it's very
early days in search technology."

Microsoft's offer of $17.50 per share betters an earlier
proposal by media-focused U.S. buyout firm Quadrangle Group to
acquire the company for $15.50 a share, and represents a slight
premium to Greenfield's closing price of $17.25 on Thursday.

share pricemarket researchers

(Additional reporting by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty in
Bangalore; Editing by Quentin Bryar and Sue Thomas)

Veoh Decision May Not Let Google Off the Hook

Posted by Blogger at 11:26 PM

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor

IO Group's suit is not unlike Viacom's $1.6 billion lawsuit against Google-owned YouTube. In fact, MySpace, MP3tunes, Hi5, Stage6 and several other sites are facing similar battles over user-generated content.

Could this ruling be a boon for these sites? Or is the ruling merely an isolated incident in a California trial court? Google and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are betting on the former.

Web 2.0 Required Reading

EFF Legal Analyst Fred von Lohman said the ruling should be required reading for the executives of every Web 2.0 business that relies on user-generated content. The key to Veoh's victory, he said, was its scrupulous attention to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbors.

"Veoh responded to compliant DMCA takedown notices on a same-day basis, it notified users of its policies against copyright infringement, it registered a copyright agent with the copyright office, it terminated users who were repeat infringers and blocked new registrations from the same e-mail addresses, it used hashes to stop the same infringing videos from being uploaded by other users," von Lohman wrote in the EFF blog.

As von Lohman sees it, Judge Lloyd's ruling debunks some of the favorite arguments of entertainment-industry lawyers and gives YouTube a boost in its billion-dollar battle against Viacom.

YouTube's Repeat Infringer Dilemma

But the Google case is a little different. While the California court did spell out that there is no affirmative obligation for service providers to track users or police their sites, the context of that quote was based on tracking down repeat infringers.

To qualify for safe harbor, Web sites are required to cancel the accounts of users who repeatedly submit infringing content. The court did not address to what level a Web site is required to affirmatively look for repeat infringers.

User-generated content sites could terminate a user's ID, but that user can simply register under a different screen name. Untangling the issue can be difficult, according to Mary Jane Frisby, a partner in the Indianapolis, Ind., office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP and a member of the firm's intellectual property department.

But there is a dividing line in safe-harbor provisions.

"If infringement is rampant right and left and anyone ought to be able to see it, but you don't do anything about it, then maybe you don't have safe harbor," Frisby said. "These clips on YouTube are from 'South Park' and 'Saturday Night Live.' Things that one can simply look at and say 'that must belong to somebody'."

Microsoft to drop $486 million for European shopping site

Posted by Blogger at 11:26 PM

By Mike Ricciuti, CNET

Update at 5:58 a.m. PDT:Ciao is based in Munich, Germany. Greenfield Online is based in Wilton, Conn.

Microsoft said Friday it has reached a deal to acquire Greenfield Online, the owner of consumer shopping sites, for about $486 million.

Greenfield's properties include Munich, Germany-based Ciao, one of the leading price-comparison and online-shopping sites in Europe. Ultimately, Microsoft said, Ciao's technology platform, online community, and merchant relationships will be integrated with Microsoft's Live Search.

Ciao features consumer reviews and ratings. Microsoft said that, according to ComScore, Ciao has more than 26.5 million unique visitors per month across seven countries, who have generated more than 5 million product reviews.

The deal calls for Microsoft to commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Greenfield for $17.50 per share, or roughly $486 million.

Wilton, Conn.-based Greenfield, which acquired Ciao in 2005, also owns an Internet survey business, which Microsoft plans to sell off. Microsoft said it has already secured an unnamed buyer for that unit.

Both transactions are expected to close during the fourth quarter.

Microsoft's offer for Greenfield trumps an earlier deal. In June, Greenfield said it was in takeover discussions with the Quadrangle Group and had secured an agreement to be acquired for $15.50 per share.

In a press release issued on Friday, Greenfield said that "immediately prior to entry into the merger agreement with Microsoft it had terminated its previously announced merger agreement with affiliates of Quadrangle Group LLC."

In connection with the termination of that deal, Greenfield said it is required to pay Quadrangle a $5 million fee.

Comcast to make monthly Internet use cap official

Posted by Blogger at 11:25 PM

Comcast CorpInternet service provider

On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site.

Comcast has already reserved the right to cut off subscribers who use too much bandwidth each month, without specifying exactly what constitutes excessive use.

"We've listened to feedback from our customers who asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive," the company said in a statement on its Web site.

Customers who go over the limit are contacted by the company and asked to curb their usage.

"We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily," the company said.

Comcast floated the idea of a 250 gigabyte cap in May and mentioned then that it might charge users $15 for every 10 gigabytes they go over, but the overage fee was missing in Thursday's announcement.

Curbing the top users is necessary to keep the network fast and responsive for other users, Comcast has said.

Comcast stressed that the bandwidth cap is far above the median monthly usage of its customers, which 2 to 3 gigabytes.

Very few subscribers use more than 250 gigabytes, it said. A user could download 125 standard-definition movies, about four per day, before hitting the limit.

The cap is also above those of some other ISPs. Cox Communications' monthly caps vary from 5 gigabytes to 75 gigabytes depending the subscriber's plan. Time Warner Cable Inc. is testing caps between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes in one market. Frontier Communications Co., a phone company, plans to start charging extra for use of more than 5 gigabytes per month.

Microsoft to buy Web-comparison shopping sites

Posted by Blogger at 11:25 PM

Microsoft Corp

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker says the acquisition of Greenfield Online Inc., which owns Ciao, a collection of European price-comparison, shopping and consumer reviews sites in seven countries and languages, will boost its search presence in Europe.

The company says the Ciao sites get more than 26 million unique visitors a month and so far has generated more than 5 million product reviews.

Greenfield shareholders will get $17.50 a share, Microsoft said Friday. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2008.

Microsoft lags market leader Google Inc. in search traffic and Web advertising revenue. In recent months, the company has focused on improving its sites for searches that lead to shopping and travel.

Millions of young Chinese addicted to 'unhealthy' Internet games: report

Posted by Blogger at 11:25 PM

online games

"Internet-addicted teenagers" account for around 10 percent of China's Web users under the age of 18, the Beijing Times said, quoting Li Jianguo, a vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress, or parliament.

The committee has called for stricter monitoring of Internet games that have illegal or inappropriate content, the report said.

It has also said games should include technology that automatically logs players off once they exceed a set number of hours of continuous play.

"Unhealthy" games by Chinese government standards could refer to those featuring violence and pornography as well as "unpatriotic games" that make Chinese soldiers or agents the enemy.

The government has tried various measures to regulate the booming online gaming market and curb teenagers' use of Internet games.

In 2006, it ordered all Chinese Internet game manufacturers to install technology in their games that demands players reveal their real name and identification number.

Lindsay Lohan lashes out at father on blog

Posted by Blogger at 11:24 PM

Lindsay Lohan

The 22-year-old actress lashed out at father Michael by calling him a "public embarrassment" and a "bully" in a MySpace blog entry posted Thursday. Earlier in the week, Michael said in an interview with E! that Lohan gal pal Samantha Ronson was "using" his daughter.

Lohan's publicist, Leslie Sloane-Zelnik, confirmed the post by Lohan was legitimate.

"If you have something to say to me, say it to my face — that's what I have believed my whole life — don't be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world," Lohan wrote.

The father and daughter have publicly quarreled for years. Lohan said in the dash-happy blog post that she tried to make things work in hopes "of having a father again" and "wanting things to change" despite what her mother and siblings have gone through with him.

Lohan continued: "Having said that — the people were right, and he is yet to change — but this time, without his daughter by his side — he has become a public embarrassment and a bully — to my family, my co-workers, my friends and a girl that means the world to me (it's obvious who that is)."

The "Mean Girls" star went on to say that she believes her father is addicted to fame, and if he really cared about her, he would respect her wishes. She also said than Ronson and Lohan's mother Dina would never "sell me out." Lohan ended the post by saying that she had a therapist and it's not a cameraman at x17 (the celebrity photo agency and Web site).

In a separate post, Ronson said she was angry when she first heard about Michael's attack on her and called him a man "who is so desperate for attention that he goes to the media whenever possible." Ronson went on to say she felt "no need to publicly defend my role in Lindsay's life — I'm just sorry that she likes me more than him."

After the blog entries were posted Thursday, Michael told OK! magazine in an exclamation point-heavy statement that his concerns about Ronson were all generated by ex-wife Dina, who stars alongside their 14-year-old daughter Ali in the E! reality series "Living Lohan." Michael called Dina a "money-loving, fame-seeking, self-serving deceiver."

"All I want is for Lindsay to be healthy and in a good relationship," he also said in the statement. "I want her to use the gifts she has in the best ways and to help others! I said it from the very beginning: Show me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are! People may deceive us, but our eyes and facts don't! OPEN YOUR EYES!!!"

Michael, a former Wall Street broker, married Dina in 1985. They settled a long-simmering divorce in August, though they returned to court in New York earlier this year over custody issues. Michael was released from prison in March 2007 after serving nearly two years for attempted assault and driving while intoxicated.

In New York, meanwhile, one of Lindsay Lohan's uncles, Paul Sullivan, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison after fraudulently claiming that his company lost business because of the Sept. 11 attacks. Sullivan also was ordered to repay the $646,000 loan that he had defrauded the Small Business administration.

___

On the Net:

http://celebrity.myspace/

Comcast to limit customers' broadband usage

Posted by Blogger at 11:24 PM

By Yinka Adegoke

Comcast Corp

Comcast said it was setting a monthly data usage threshold
of 250 gigabytes per account for all residential high-speed
Internet customers, or the equivalent of 50 million e-mails or
124 standard-definition movies.

"If a customer exceeds more than 250 GB and is one of the
heaviest data users who consume the most data on our high-speed
Internet service, he or she may receive a call from Comcast's
Customer Security Assurance (CSA) group to notify them of
excessive use," according to the company's updated Frequently
Asked Questions on Excessive Use.

Customers who top 250 GB in a month twice in a six-month
timeframe could have service terminated for a year.

Comcast said up to 99 percent of its 14 million Internet
subscribers would not be affected by the new threshold, which
it said would help ensure the quality of Internet delivery is
not degraded by a minority of heavy users.

U.S. Internet subscribers are typically not aware of any
limit on their Internet usage once they sign up to pay a flat
monthly fee to their service provider.

As Web usage has rocketed, driven by the popularity of
watching online video, photo-sharing and music downloading
services, cable and phone companies have been considering
various techniques to limit or manage heavy usage.

But Comcast has come under fire from a variety of sources
for its network management techniques.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission investigated
complaints by consumer groups that it was blocking peer-to-peer
applications like BitTorrent, and earlier this month ordered
Comcast to modify its network management.

Comcast has said that by the end of the year it will change
its network management practices to ensure all Web traffic is
treated essentially the same, but has also been exploring other
ways to prevent degradation of its Internet service delivery.

One consumer group said while Comcast's new 250 GB limit
was "relatively high," it could eventually ensnare customers as
technology progresses.

"If Comcast has oversold their network to the point of
creating congestion problems, then well-disclosed caps for
Internet use are a better short-term solution than Comcast's
current practice of illegally blocking Internet traffic," said
S Derek Turner of Free Press, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer
advocacy group that filed a complaint about Comcast's network
management practices earlier this year.

The Philadelphia-based company is not alone in trying to
come up with ways to limit heavy Internet usage.

Time Warner Cable Inc, the second-largest U.S. cable
operator, said in January it would run a trial of billing
Internet subscribers based on usage rather than a flat fee.

Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said Comcast was also
considering so-called consumption-based billing, but no
decisions had been made.

(Editing by Braden Reddall)

IE 8 Beta 2 not without its faults

Posted by Blogger at 11:24 PM

By Robert Vamosi, CNET

Microsoftsecond public beta for Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft acknowledges some of this. In a blog on Wednesday, Microsoft IE developers explain how IE 8 users running Windows XP SP3 will not be able to downgrade back to IE 7 without uninstalling the service pack first. Indeed, depending on which version of Windows a person has, 32-bit or 64-bit edition, it will require specific steps to either install or remove the browser. For example, Windows Vista users must be running SP1 before installing IE 8 Beta 2.

Known issues with Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 can be found in knowledgebase article 949787 and include problems with ClearType, exiting out of Windows Live Mail (Hotmail), and various problems when using search.

Among the more embarrassing user-reported problems is one using Windows Live Meeting 2007 with IE 8 Beta 2 installed. CNET News has confirmed that Live Meeting, both using the Web-based and client download version, does not run under Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. Nor does the built-in compatibility feature within IE 8 Beta 2 correct the glitch.

Another user-reported problem accessing Netflix "Watch Now," an online streaming feature.

Are there other significant services that will not run within this new browser? Share your comments below.

For those wanting to test Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 themselves, CNET Download has the link.

MySpace overtakes Yahoo in display ad views: report

Posted by Blogger at 11:24 PM

Yahoo Incdisplay advertisingMySpaceFox Interactive Media

Fox Interactive's collection of sites, led by MySpace, drew
56.8 billion advertising views in June, compared with Yahoo's
group of sites which had 53.1 billion, according to data from
Web audience measurement firm comScore this week.

But while the statistic marks the rapid growth of MySpace
in terms of advertising viewership, analysts say the social
network site has struggled to draw top-dollar ad rates relative
to Yahoo, known for attracting premium advertising rates.

"Social media gets all these ad impressions but not
necessarily get the dollars," said Colin Gillis, analyst at
Canaccord Adams. MySpace's cost per thousand (CPM) page views
are significantly lower than that of Yahoo, he said.

A MySpace executive said it is closing the gap with rivals
such as Yahoo, Time Warner's AOL and Microsoft Corp's MSN after
the revamp of its home page in June, which has drawn in
big-name sponsors such as Sprint and Wendy's.

"Our CPMs have grown significantly," Jeff Berman, MySpace
president of sales and marketing, said of June's growth spike.
"Category by category, year over year, we're up double digits."

According to comScore data for advertising impressions,
June was the first month that Fox Interactive has surpassed
Yahoo, which saw ad views dip by around 12 percent from May.

While it may be too soon to say that MySpace has overtaken
Yahoo for good, comScore data shows that Yahoo's share of the
display market has been trending down since July of 2007.

Yahoo questioned comScore's measurement methodology.

"We believe there could be issues with the measurement that
could be misrepresenting Yahoo and we are reviewing comScore's
methodology and working with them to resolve these issues,"
Spokesman Adam Grossberg said in a statement.

ComScore spokesman Andrew Lipsman countered that Yahoo's
month-on-month drop in display ad view was an "organic decline"
unrelated to any changes in the firm's measurement methods.

Richard Greenfield, analyst at Pali Research said the
redesign of the MySpace home page earlier this summer created a
more compelling advertising proposition for brand marketers
such as Sprint and Wendy's.

"It shows how the redesign is allowing MySpace to reach far
beyond the 'social media' advertising category and to target
far larger portal advertising budgets," said Greenfield in a
blog posting for investors. He said this was a negative omen
for big portals like Yahoo as well as MSN and AOL.

Google CEO: Internet spurred Obama's nomination

Posted by Blogger at 11:24 PM

By Declan McCullagh, CNET

GoogleChief Executive OfficerEric Schmidtpresidential candidate Barack Obama

Schmidt showed up at the Democratic convention here on Thursday to field questions about politics, how Google is influencing online journalism, and the company's policies on privacy.

During an appearance at the literal and figurative Big Tent, a blogger workspace sponsored by Google and Digg, Schmidt said that Web sites like YouTube allow politicians to connect more directly with voters.

Here are some highlights of Schmidt's nearly hour-long conversation on stage with Rachel Maddow, a liberal talk radio and MSNBC host:

* Privacy: "We do worry that as this information gets collected it becomes a treasure trove. You can imagine that in the worst possible case... we know everything you're doing and the government tries to track you." Schmidt said that some solutions are a judicial system that limits government overzealousness, the ability to discuss the topic openly that didn't exist a few decades ago, and his company's policy of limiting what data they collect beyond 18 months.

* Ted Stevens: The recently-indicted Republican senator, who previously headed the committee that drafted Internet-related laws, became famous for his mangled description of a "series of tubes." Schmidt said, in response to a question about what he thought of Stevens: "There's always a person who's first. And there's always a person who's last. And we found him."

* Recruiting: Google studied the way its recruiting process worked for male vs. female engineering hires, and made changes. It turned out that the male rating of possible hires was predictive of future performance, but the rating for women wasn't. "We had actual data that showed a bizarre bias that existed in our system. We changed it to correct that." Schmidt indicated in response to a question that Google engages in affirmative action for racial and sexual minority hiring.

* Journalism and the Internet: "We've got a major national crisis around journalism, particularly investigative journalism." Schmidt said that the three factors are higher costs of newsprint, loss of print ad revenue and effectiveness, and the shift of classified ads online (in part going to Google.) He said Google is "working hard to try things" including partnerships with media organizations in conjunction with Google News, but acknowledged that it's unclear what will work.

Alan Davidson, one of Google's Washington representatives, said the company is planning a sizable presence at the Republican convention next week as well.

New Beta of Internet Explorer 8 Ready for Download

Posted by Blogger at 11:23 PM

Mark Long, newsfactor

Internet Explorer

Microsoft's next-generation browser for 32-bit and 64-bit computing platforms is currently available in English, Japanese, Chinese and German, with additional languages coming soon, said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's IE8 development team.

"While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the Web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2," Hachamovitch said.

Real-World Browsing

Suggested Sites is one good example of the IE8 development team's commitment to streamlining Web navigation. Click on the Suggested Sites button on the toolbar to see the top recommendations, based on choices made by online users visiting the same page.

In addition, the browser's new address bar is no longer just for URLs. Simply type a keyword into IE8's new "smart" address bar and the browser immediately searches across a user's history, favorites and RSS feeds to identify all the resources accessed during past online sessions. Users also can hit the return key after inputting a word to tell the browser to display the results of a Windows Live search.

Moreover, IE8's Web Slices capability gives users the ability to subscribe, view and interact with portions of their favorite Web sites with a single click on the Favorites bar.

"We looked very hard at how people really browse the Web," Hachamovitch said, "and tried a lot of different designs in front of many kinds of people, not just technologists."

Accelerated Access

Much like the Mozilla Labs new Ubiquity plug-in for Firefox 3, IE8's Accelerators option makes it easy for users to launch a variety of online services without leaving the page currently being displayed. Simply highlight any text on a page and right-click on it to reference a map, define a word, place content in e-mails and blogs, or even translate foreign-language snippets into English.

Browser crashes have been one of the most frustrating downsides to working with Internet Explorer 7 because the user loses every tabbed page open at the time. However, the loosely coupled structure of IE8 separates the browser's frame from the tabs, and the tabs from each other.

"Crashes are more contained and affect fewer tabs than before," explained Hachamovitch. The last browsing session from the most recently closed instance of IE8 can also be reopened.

Multiple tabs are now categorized into color-coded groups that make it easier for users to navigate among a large number of open Web pages. And if a tabbed page does crash, it will be automatically reloaded and any information the user may have already entered on the page is also restored.

If you are thinking about taking IE8 for a test drive, keep in mind that this is not a final product and it will not necessarily work smoothly with certain services, applications and add-on programs. But for the most part, Beta 2 integrates a number of improvements that can help users surf the Internet in a quicker and more efficient manner.

Sector Snap: Chinese online gaming stocks

Posted by Blogger at 11:23 PM

Wall Street views

American Depositary Shares of the Shanghai-based company fell 41 cents, or 4.3 percent, to $9.24. The stock has traded between $20.46 and $8.46 since Giant began trading publicly in November.

Late Wednesday, Giant said it earned 20 cents per ADS, which analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected.

The company cited changes it made in July to the revenue model for its flagship game, "ZT Online," as the reason for not giving guidance.

In a client note, Roth Capital Partners analyst Adam Krejcik downgraded the stock to "Hold" from "Buy" and lowered his 2008 and 2009 estimates for Giant.

"While we think Giant has the ability to 'right the ship,' given our expectations for a challenging 2H08 and lackluster pipeline we no longer feel comfortable recommending shares of Giant," he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. shares of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd., which is also based in Shanghai, dipped 8 cents to $26.55.

In a client note, Goldman Sachs analyst Leah Hao predicted the company's second-quarter results will be in line with its outlook for up to 5 percent sales growth quarter-over-quarter and an operating margin of 37 percent to 40 percent. Shanda is slated to report on Wednesday.

The analyst thinks Shanda's third-quarter guidance will be seasonal and higher than in the second quarter but accounting for a negative impact from the Beijing Olympics.

Hao rates the stock "Neutral" with a $41 price target.

Elsewhere in the sector, U.S. shares of The9 Ltd., which is located in Shanghai and operates the popular game "World of Warcraft" in China, fell 23 cents to $18.40.

Beijing-based Netease Inc.'s U.S. shares fell 16 cents to $26.39.

Court dismisses video copyright case against Veoh

Posted by Blogger at 11:23 PM

By Eric Auchard

The California court dismissed a copyright infringement
suit by adult entertainment company Io Group Inc against Veoh
and granted summary judgment to the defendants. The complaint
argued Veoh had not done enough to stop site users of its site
from uploading unauthorized clips of ten Io adult sex films.

Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California found that Veoh worked actively
to protect copyright owners and so qualified for "safe harbor"
protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

"The DMCA was intended to facilitate the growth of
electronic commerce, not squelch it," the judge said in siding
with Veoh.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) limits
liability for Internet service providers that act quickly to
block access to pirated online materials, once the copyright
holder notifies a Web site of specific acts of infringement.

The ruling draws a line between Napster, the music-sharing
service that enabled a wave of music piracy early this decade,
and the new crop of video sharing services that take steps to
protect against piracy of copyrighted materials.

Io had argued that Veoh should be required to prescreen
videos to prevent copyright infringement. "The court finds no
reasonable juror could conclude that a comprehensive review of
every file would be feasible," the judge wrote.

The court rejected a technical argument used in many
Internet copyright cases in which Io claimed Veoh infringed its
copyrights by automatically converting user-submitted videos
into easy-to-watch Flash videos, a process called transcoding.

But Lloyd stressed that he does not intend his decision to
open the flood gates of Internet video piracy.

"The decision rendered here is confined to the particular
combination of facts in this case and is not intended to push
the bounds of the safe harbor so wide that less than scrupulous
service providers may claim its protection," Lloyd wrote.

Among other issues with Io's lawsuit, the judge noted that
Io had filed a lawsuit against Veoh instead of first providing
the video company with notification of infringement.

Veoh had decided to bar all adult sexual content from its
site and taken down the infringing Io videos before the suit
was filed, Lloyd noted.

"We are very happy that the judge in this case recognized
our compliance with the DMCA and our efforts to respect
copyrights," Veoh spokesman Gaude Lydia Paez said.

The Io-Veoh case featured similar arguments to those used
in two high-profile cases against Google Inc unit YouTube, the
world's most popular video sharing site.

Viacom Inc filed a $1 billion lawsuit in 2007 against
YouTube calling it a site for "massive intentional copyright
infringement" that had enabled hundreds of thousands of Viacom
video clips to be pirated. A second suit filed against YouTube
by English soccer's Premier League and more than a dozen
sports, entertainment and media plaintiffs is running in
parallel in a New York federal court.

YouTube Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine hailed the Veoh ruling
in a statement, saying that: "It is great to see the court
confirm that the DMCA protects services like YouTube that
follow the law and respect copyrights."

Veoh ranked last week as the 17th most visited U.S.
multimedia entertainment site according to Web measurement firm
Hitwise Inc. Financial backers include former Walt Disney Co
Chief Executive Michael Eisner, former Viacom and MTV Networks
CEO Tom Freston, former Viacom Entertainment Group CEO Jonathan
Dolgen and investment bank Goldman Sachs.

YouTube Cheers Dismissal of Veoh Copyright Suit

Posted by Blogger at 11:23 PM

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor

YouTube

IO Group, an adult entertainment company, had sued Veoh, alleging the site was displaying its content in violation of copyright laws. Veoh had uploaded IO Group's content without permission.

However, Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court in San Jose disagreed with IO Group's argument. The judge ruled that Veoh is protected by the safe-harbor provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That provision protects against copyright infringement if action is taken after notification of a copyright violation.

"Veoh has a strong DMCA policy, takes active steps to limit incidents of infringement on its Web site and works diligently to keep unauthorized works off its site," Judge Lloyd wrote in his decision.

Google Applauds Ruling

Google-owned YouTube was quick to praise the decision. YouTube Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine applauded the court for confirming that the DMCA protects services like YouTube that follow the law and respect copyrights. Zahavah then reiterated Google's oft-repeated statement:

"YouTube has gone above and beyond the law to protect content owners while empowering people to communicate and share their experiences online.

"We work every day to give content owners choices about whether to take down, leave up, or even earn revenue from their videos, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better."

What About Viacom's Suit?

Viacom could not immediately be reached for comment.

Viacom filed a suit against Google in 2006 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom called YouTube a "significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent, Google."

Google might not want to break out the champagne just yet. Judge Lloyd made a cautionary statement that could pepper the celebration with realism. He wrote, "the decision rendered here is confined to the particular combination of facts in this case and is not intended to push the bounds of the safe harbor so wide that less-scrupulous service providers may claim its protection."

Difficult Questions Remain

While the Veoh case may have some positive trickle-down effects for Google's defense, there are distinct differences between the Google and Veoh cases, according to Mary Jane Frisby, a partner in the Indianapolis, Ind., office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP and a member of the firm's intellectual-property department.

"The plaintiffs in the Veoh case never bothered to send a notice of infringing activity to Veoh before they filed suit. Of course, once Veoh was sued and realized what it was getting in trouble for, it took down all the infringing videos. So the court was sympathetic that Veoh had been taken by surprise," Frisby said. "By contrast, Viacom doesn't deny that YouTube takes down infringing content when it is notified."

One of the cruxes of Google's case is the fact that infringing videos pop up frequently. At what point does the burden of policing the content shift from the copyright owner to the Web site?

"If Viacom flags a particular user that has uploaded a Saturday Night Live sketch and YouTube dutifully takes it down, two minutes later someone else may be posting the same clip," Frisby explained. "Whether or not there's a burden shifting is a difficult question to answer."

Target.com Will Become More Accessible to Blind

Posted by Blogger at 11:22 PM

Chloe Albanesius - PC Magazine

Target has settled a class-action dispute with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) whereby the retail giant will pay $6 million and make its Web site more accessible to the visually impaired by next year, the company announced Wednesday.

Under the deal, Target has until February 2009 to implement technical changes to Target that will make it easier for those with vision problems to access the store's Web site with screen-reader software.

After the changes have been made, the NFB will conduct quarterly checks of the site to make sure the changes are still in effect. These checks will be conducted via automated monitoring tool Worldspace, as well as in-person tests of the site with 5 to 15 blind participants, according to the settlement.

Target will fund the NFB monitoring at a cost of $50,000 for the first year and $40,000 each additional year for a period of three years.

In addition to the $6 million that will be split between class members, initial plaintiff Bruce Sexton Jr. will also receive $20,000.

"This settlement marks a new chapter in making Web sites accessible to the blind," Sexton said in a statement.

Target will also pay up to $15,000 for NFB-led training sessions during which Target employees responsible for Web site coding will be briefed on the settlement details.

Target and the NFB are still working out details on who will cover attorneys' fees and costs, according to the deal.

Target must also notify the NFB of any changes it makes to its Web site template or if it identifies any concerns that might prevent the visually impaired from accessing the site.

"It is our sincere hope that other businesses providing goods and services over the Internet will follow Target's example and take affirmative steps to provide full access to their Web sites by blind consumers," Dr. Marc Maurer, NFB president, said in a statement.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the National Federation of the Blind regarding the accessibility of Target for individuals who use assistive technologies and will work with the NFB on further refinements to our Web site," said Steve Eastman, president of Target.

Sexton and the NFB first filed their complaint in February 2006 and the case was certified as class-action in October 2007. Target admits no wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.

Reborn retail site fires salvo in shipping war

Posted by Blogger at 11:22 PM

By RACHEL METZ, AP Business Writer

gas prices

Chicago-based Enable Holdings Inc. plans to launch RedTag on Friday and sell retailers' excess inventory at a fixed price. Its shipping charge will undercut a similar site, Overstock Inc., which charges $2.95 for standard ground shipping.

"We're willing to take less for shipping because we think you'll buy five more items from us — as opposed to if we got as much as we could from you, shipping this product, you may never buy again," said Enable Holdings' CEO, Jeffrey D. Hoffman.

The site is coming online a few months after gas hit $4 per gallon, a milestone that caused many consumers to see buying online as a way to make fewer car trips, said Scott Silverman, executive director of the National Retail Federation's digital division, Shop.org.

Even though fuel prices have come down, he thinks the habits consumers have adopted to save gas are still in place. Cheap or free shipping could be another way to keep them shopping on the Web.

This launch marks a revival of RedTag, which shuttered in 2004. Enable Holdings, which runs uBid, an auction site for excess inventory, bought the RedTag Internet address this spring from one of its major shareholders.

RedTag is selling items it gets mainly from retailers that have gone out of business, or manufacturers that have produced more of a product than was sold. Sometimes companies want to get an older model — a laptop, for example — off store shelves to make room for a new one.

By selling such excess goods, a site like RedTag has more flexibility than regular retailers in negotiating with manufacturers on the final price of a product, including its shipping cost, Hoffman said.

Still, he acknowledges that high fuel costs are straining everyone in the distribution chain. And RedTag's low shipping price will cost the company in the near term. After all, RedTag will need to pay more than $1.95 to ship most of its items.

Over at Overstock, Chief Executive Patrick Byrne said his company has been feeling cost pressures from shippers like FedEx and UPS, but he added that the company does not plan to raise its standard $2.95 shipping on orders. Asked about the $1.95 challenge from RedTag, Byrne noted that his site frequently offers free shipping deals and dollar shipping days. Counting those specials, Overstock's average shipping fee is a bit less than $2, he said.

RedTag's parent company is tiny next to Overstock, having reported just $43 million in revenue last year, compared with Overstock's $769 million. And both are small players next to Internet commerce heavyweights like eBay Inc. and Amazon Inc. — which generally offers free shipping on orders over $25. Amazon's sales totaled $14.8 billion in 2007, and more than $59 billion worth of merchandise changed hands on eBay's sites last year.

Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co., sees the launch of RedTag as a "worthwhile endeavor" that could pressure rivals like Overstock.

"If they continue to move down this path it may make it more expensive for others in the category," he said.

Google Outlines Plans for Android Apps Market

Posted by Blogger at 11:22 PM

Chloe Albanesius - PC Magazine

Google will house its Android marketplace on an open content distribution system similar in style to YouTube, and the first Android phone will include access to a beta version of Android Market, the search engine giant said Thursday.

"Developers can expect the first handsets to be enabled with a beta version of Android Market," Google's Eric Chu wrote in a blog post. "Some decisions are still being made, but at a minimum you can expect support for free (unpaid) applications."

Soon after the release, an update will provide support for the download of paid content and additional features like versioning, multiple device profile support, and analytics, Chu wrote.

Android Market will feedback and rating systems similar to YouTube, he said.

"Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it," according to Chu. "We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings."

Google opted to name the offering a market instead of a store "because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available," Chu wrote. "The concept is simple: leverage Google's expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers like you."

Earlier this week, Google announced that it will cut Bluetooth implementation and Google Talk from the upcoming Android mobile-phone OS, several days after it released version 0.9 of the mobile OS to developers.

Android made its public debut at February's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The first phones running on the system are expected later this year.

D.Telekom to expand broadband into rural areas

Posted by Blogger at 11:22 PM

Deutsche Telekom AG

"Thanks to investments totaling 600 million euros ($887
million) in 2007 and 2008 ... at the end of 2008, we will be
supplying 96 percent of all households with DSL," board member
Timotheus Hoettges said on Thursday in Berlin ahead of the IFA
consumer electronics fair.

"In concrete figures, this means that 400,000 more
households will be connected to the high-speed network in 2008
and a good 140,000 of them in areas that were previously
without the service," he added.

In July, the European Union's competition chief cleared 141
million euros in German public funding to boost high-speed
Internet usage in rural Germany.

The German plan provides incentives for telecoms companies
to roll out broadband networks to rural areas where investment
would not be attractive on a commercial basis.

"The digital divide between rural and urban areas in
Germany is currently one of the highest among the EU member
states," European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said at
the time.

Almost all Germans in cities can access broadband Internet
DSL networks but little more than half of people living in the
countryside could do so at the end of 2006, the Commission said
in July.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by David Holmes)

Bloomberg mistakenly publishes Steve Jobs obituary

Posted by Blogger at 11:22 PM

By Caroline McCarthy, CNET

Apple CEO Steve Jobsto gossip blog Gawker

The summary of Jobs' accomplishments, per the obituary, is that he "helped make personal computers as easy to use as telephones, changed the way animated films are made, persuaded consumers to tune into digital music, and refashioned the mobile phone."

It's not out of the ordinary at all that Bloomberg would have this written; all major news outlets have notable persons' obituaries prepared in advance so that only minor changes need be made at the actual time of death. That way, the news can be reported almost immediately and can be updated with further detail.

When Jobs appeared onstage at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2008, his thin appearance led some bloggers and company critics to speculate that he was ill again, and some of them pushed the bounds of decency in demanding that Apple reveal the state of the executive's health to shareholders.

Bloomberg released a retraction later on Wednesday that made only the vaguest of reference to the content of the gaffe. "An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today," the retraction read. "The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted."

Judge: Veoh's Transcoding Is Not Piracy

Posted by Blogger at 11:21 PM

Chloe Albanesius - PC Magazine

Online video site Veoh was handed a victory Wednesday when a California judge dismissed a copyright infringement case filed by adult entertainment company IO Group.

IO filed suit in 2006 after it discovered clips from 10 of its films on Veoh. Rather than notify Veoh of the possible infringement, however, IO immediately filed suit against the company.

Veoh, which has since banned adult material from its site, argued that it has adequate copyright protections in place and is protected by the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Judge Howard R. Lloyd with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed.

"The record presented demonstrates that, far from encouraging copyright infringement, Veoh has a strong DMCA policy, takes active steps to limit incidents of infringement on its Web site and works diligently to keep unauthorized works off its Web site," Judge Lloyd wrote in his decision.

"We are very pleased that Judge Lloyd has recognized Veoh's strict compliance with the DMCA and our dedication to providing a valuable service for users that respects the rights of content owners," Steve Mitgang, CEO of Veoh Networks, said in a statement.

Judge Lloyd pointed to Veoh's terms of use, which require users to register with the site and provides them with several warnings about copyrighted material during the upload process. Users can also flag videos which they believe infringe on copyrights.

"The court does not find that the DMCA was intended to have Veoh shoulder the entire burden of policing third-party copyrights on its Web site," Lloyd wrote.

When Veoh receives a complaint about a user after a first warning has been issued, Veoh deletes the account and all videos uploaded by that user, blocks their e-mail address, and bans them from uploading the same video via digital fingerprinting, according to the suit.

Veoh has terminated about 1,096 accounts since its inception.

IO argued that Veoh does not police repeat infringers in a reasonable manner. Though the DMCA does not address what constitutes a reasonably implemented copyright system, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that a system is reasonable if it has a working notification system and a policy for handling complaints, the judge said.

IO said there is nothing stopping an infringer from signing up with a different name and e-mail address and re-uploading the offending content, but the court found that IO had no real proof that that was actually occurring.

Malaysia blocks anti-government news Web site

Posted by Blogger at 11:21 PM

By SEAN YOONG, Associated Press Writer

Malaysia

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, the government's industry regulator, ordered local Internet service providers on Wednesday to cut off access to the Malaysia Today site, said a commission official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The site was deemed to have broken the law, the official said, adding that the commission would issue a formal statement with details later.

The site — which remains accessible through an alternative link — is run by one of Malaysia's feistiest online commentators, Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin, who has published numerous claims about alleged wrongdoing by government leaders.

Raja Petra was charged with sedition in May for allegedly implying the deputy prime minister was involved in the killing of a young Mongolian woman, and his trial begins in October. Government officials have repeatedly accused him of spreading malicious falsehoods.

"Blocking my site is a move by a desperate government that is trying to silence me, but it's not going to stop me," Raja Petra told The Associated Press. "It only reveals that the government does not know how to handle the Internet."

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar defended the move, saying, "Everyone is subject to the law, even Web sites and blogs."

But the crackdown on Malaysia Today drew criticism from bloggers and journalists who accused authorities of seeking to deter dissent.

Wong Chun Wai, group chief editor of The Star, Malaysia's leading English daily, said the order to block Raja Petra's site was "myopic and ridiculous" and clashed with the government's promise not to censor the Internet.

"If it can happen to (Raja Petra), it can also happen to other bloggers," Wong wrote on his blog. "In a democracy, we don't have to agree with each other but we must defend the right of everyone to speak up — including (Raja Petra) and other voices of dissent."

Some of Malaysia's most popular Web sites and blogs offer fiercely anti-government commentaries, presenting themselves as an alternative to mainstream media, which are controlled by ruling political parties or closely linked to them.

Syed Hamid said the government does not "intend to curtail people's freedom or right to express themselves."

"But when they publish things that are libelous, slanderous or defamatory, it is natural for (authorities) to act," he was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper on its Web site.

Product review: WARP your WAN for performance and reliability

Posted by Blogger at 11:21 PM

Phillip J. Windley

Comcast cable Internet connectionWARP

WARP is a 4U, rack-mountable network appliance that allows up to three WAN connections to be aggregated without the need for complicated BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) routing configurations. The unit provides traffic load balancing over these connections, allowing both inbound and outbound traffic to take advantage of them. Being able to handle connections of varying speeds from different providers makes WARP a great choice for businesses seeking to add extra bandwidth and increase the reliability of their connectivity.

Quick setup
Within an hour of cracking the shipping box, I had both of my WAN connections providing bandwidth to the house. WARP is configured using a Java applet-based management console from the device's LAN port. I'm always glad when I don't have to drag out the serial cables to configure a piece of networking gear.

Configuring the device is straightforward. Beyond the usual administrative functions such as administering users, configuration backup, and system setup, WARP offers a host of basic and advanced configuration options.

Among the basic options, you can choose from three different load-balancing algorithms: round robin, response time, and fastest route. Round robin simply rotates sending packets down each WAN. Response time allows traffic to be spread unequally over WAN connections so that faster connections serve more requests. Fastest route uses a particular WAN connection for each destination after determining which WAN has the fastest route.

Options in, options out
WARP also supports several advanced configuration options, including policy-based routing, static routes, and a DNS feature called SmartDNS that provides redundancy and load balancing to internal servers. SmartDNS allows internal hosts to have different IP addresses for each WAN connection and automatically maps them to the right internal addresses.

Using the advanced options requires some knowledge of networking concepts. For example, WARP supports inbound and outbound policy routing that changes how the device treats traffic. The outbound policy routing came in handy: I had to pin the ports used by my Vonage VoIP ATA (analog telephony adapter) to a single WAN to make it work reliably. The VoIP traffic didn't respond well to packets being transmitted over different networks.

I also took advantage of outbound policy routing to limit my son's World of Warcraft traffic to the cable WAN. This gave him a better experience and had the benefit of saving the fiber bandwidth for me.

I found WARP's traffic logging useful for debugging connection issues and watching where traffic was going. I also appreciated being able to monitor traffic graphically in real time for visual confirmation that the policies I created were having the desired effect.

Easy, not cheap
There were a few features I didn't have a chance to test. The unit can be ganged with other WARP devices to provide fail-over protection, and it supports SNMPv2 for device monitoring and logging. The WARP device can be configured to use VPN tunnels with any IPSec VPN peer.

I'm impressed with the reliability of the device. I've been using WARP for more than six months with nary a hiccup. With a list price of $14,500 for the 50Mbps device, the WARP isn't inexpensive, and if you want QoS, site load balancing, or VPN capabilities, the cost is higher still. But if you need the reliability and bandwidth capacity of multiple WAN connections, it's a great value compared to buying BGP-capable routers and hiring the expertise to set them up.

Intuit Brings QuickBooks To Blackberry and iPhone

Posted by Blogger Monday, August 25, 2008 at 5:21 PM

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor

IntuitiPhoneQuickBooks

"A growing number of small businesses are looking to mobile technology to run their business," said Rick Jensen, senior vice president of Intuit's Small Business Division. "Our goal with these new mobile services is to give QuickBooks Online users the edge they need to compete and manage their busy lives by keeping tabs on their business even when they are out of the office."

The Pocket-Sized Accountant

Intuit said QuickBooks Online gives mobile customers views of their finances by checking current bank and credit-card balances, tracking who owes them money and who they owe, and finding vendor and customer contact information with addresses through Google Maps. The program also lets them run balance sheets and profit-and-loss reports.

Laura Olcott, treasurer for Twin Cities Co-op Preschool in Corte Madera, Calif., said QuickBooks Online is perfect for her company because there is no "office," just volunteers working from home or work offices.

"Given the virtual nature of our interactions, iPhone support helps us be more productive," Olcott said. "While waiting for an appointment, I was able to check QuickBooks Online using my iPhone to look up parents with open balances and send them an e-mail reminder to pay their bill."

Will Mobile Accounting Take Off?

Is mobile accounting a concept ready for prime time? Jaimee Steel, a vice president at M:Metrics, offers data that show the possibilities.

Fifteen percent of smartphone users traded stock or accessed financial accounts online in June, according to M:Metrics.

What's more, 31 percent of iPhone users and 12.6 percent of Blackberry users said they traded stocks or accessed financial accounts online. Specifically, 668,000 iPhone users reported trading stock or accessing financial accounts in June compared to 808,000 Blackberry users.

Overall, the number of people trading stock or accessing financials grew from 3.3 million in June 2007 to six million in June 2008. That's an 81 percent growth rate in one year.

"Generally, we are seeing greater penetration of smartphone users in the United States. People who have smartphones do a lot more on the mobile Web," Steele said. "Banks are becoming more aggressive, launching mobile access to their services. So there is a demand for a service like QuickBooks Online for mobile."

QuickBooks Online is available starting at $9.95 per month at www.qboe. The iPhone and BlackBerry Web-based applications are free to QuickBooks Online users.

Facebook cuts off Scrabulous after legal complaint

Posted by Blogger at 5:21 PM

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

Facebook

Facebook said Monday it was forced to disable Scrabulous after one of Scrabble's rights owners, Mattel Inc., made a formal removal request and the developers of Scrabulous took no action themselves.

The Scrabulous application remains available in India, where its developers live and where Mattel has filed a lawsuit claiming violations of intellectual property. Facebook isn't blocking Scrabulous there for now, considering the question of ownership still a matter for Indian courts to resolve.

In deciding to block Scrabulous on Friday, Facebook risked antagonizing a community of software developers it has been trying to nurture and promote. But had it done nothing, it could have faced liability for copyright and trademark infringement.

The company initially skirted that quandary after Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the brothers in Calcutta who created Scrabulous, agreed to withdraw the program in the United States and Canada following a legal threat from Scrabble's North American owner, Hasbro Inc.

Facebook had hoped for a similar resolution when Mattel, owner of Scrabble's rights elsewhere, sent a similar notice, but the Agarwalla brothers refused.

In a statement, Jayant Agarwalla said he found Facebook's action "astonishing" given the site's "claims to be a fair and neutral party."

The bulk of his criticism was directed at Mattel, however.

"It surprises us that Mattel chose to direct Facebook to take down Scrabulous without waiting for the (Indian court's) decision," Agarwalla said. "Mattel's action speaks volumes about their business practices and respect for the judiciary."

Mattel representatives did not respond to e-mail and phone messages Monday.

Both Hasbro and Mattel have been trying to promote an authorized version of Scrabble for Facebook — made by Electronic Arts Inc. in the United States and Canada and by RealNetworks Inc. elsewhere.

The Agarwallas, meanwhile, have released an alternative Scrabble-like word game called Wordscraper, which was not affected by Facebook's latest action. They are hoping that with new rules and circular tiles instead of square ones, Wordscraper can withstand legal challenges.

Newegg reverses practice of charging New York sales tax

Posted by Blogger at 5:20 PM

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET

New York customersConsumerist

The move by Newegg reverses action the online retailer took in June, in which it began to charge applicable sales tax for all shipments to New York, following passage of a new state law that required certain companies to charge sales tax on shipments to New York state.

Effective August 21, however, Newegg discontinued the practice and is leaving it up to New York residents to pay that sales tax themselves. That policy basically returns the responsibility of paying sales tax for online purchases back to the New York consumer, which was the case prior to the New York legislature passing its law earlier this year.

Newegg is not the only retailer taking a stand against the change in law. Earlier this year, Amazon filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming its law was "invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional." And online retailer Overstock has taken similar legal action. Amazon, however, has since said it will abide by New York law and collect the taxes.

Calls to Newegg were not immediately returned.

Microsoft and WPP to swap advertising assets?

Posted by Blogger at 5:20 PM

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET

Advertising Age

Microsoft reportedly has restarted talks with ad giant WPP Group to sell its Avenue A/Razorfish agency to the advertising behemoth, but with a new twist, according to the report.

Advertising Age, citing sources familiar with the talks, said discussions now involve an asset swap, as opposed to an outright buy of Microsoft's Avenue A/Razorfish operations:

Microsoft unloads the agency in exchange for a WPP package that includes 24/7's Open AdStream publisher ad-serving tool plus cash. While Avenue A's price would be higher than most agency deals, very few interactive agencies with that kind of scale are available for acquisition.

Microsoft acquired interactive advertising agency Avenue A/Razorfish last year, as part of its $6 billion acquisition of Aquantive. That deal also included Atlas Media Console and Drive Performance Media, which were the core of the acquisition. Atlas provides digital marketing technologies, while Drive Performance Media buys online advertising inventory in bulk and resells it to advertisers based on their target markets.

For WPP, an asset swap would allow the ad giant to shed itself of an ad-serving tool to publishers, a line of business that it apparently is less critical to its main operations, according to Advertising Age.

Such a transaction would not be surprising, given Microsoft has been on the prowl for ways to bolster its search and advertising platform efforts, following the failed buyout talks earlier this year for Yahoo.

Netflix Outage Blamed on Hardware

Posted by Blogger at 5:20 PM

Chloe Albanesius - PC Magazine

Faulty hardware is to blame for a glitch that took Netflix shipping systems offline for several days earlier this month, according to a blog post from the company.

"With some great forensic help from our vendors, root cause was identified as a key faulty hardware component," according to Mike Osier, head of IT operations at Netflix. "It definitively caused the problem yet reported no detectable errors."

Problems started on Monday, August 11 when Netflix monitors flagged a database corruption in its shipping system. "Over the course of the day, we began experiencing similar problems in peripheral databases until our shipping system went down," Osier wrote.

Netflix suspected a hardware issue and moved its system to an isolated environment until normal shipping resumed on Friday. The company initially said it hoped to have things back to normal by the middle of the week, but the problem delayed shipping until the weekend.

"We've taken steps to fortify our shipping system with the acquisition of additional equipment and worked with our vendors to verify we're in good shape elsewhere," according to Osier.

Netflix will provide a 15 percent credit to all affected customers.

Obama and Biden team makes public debut

Posted by Blogger at 5:20 PM

By Caren Bohan

Democratic
presidential candidate Barack ObamaJoseph BidenRepublican John McCain

Outside the Old State Capitol in Illinois where Obama
launched his historic bid for the White House in February 2007,
Obama said Biden "won't just make a good vice president, he
will make a great vice president."

Obama tapped the Delaware senator, a leading voice on
international affairs, as his vice presidential running mate
earlier on Saturday.

"This man is a clear-eyed pragmatist who will get the job
done," Biden said of Obama.

He repeatedly linked McCain to President George W. Bush and
said the Arizona senator would be more of the same in the White
House. "The times require more than a good soldier, they
require a wise leader," Biden said.

Obama ended days of speculation about his No. 2 with a
middle-of-the-night announcement on his Web site, featuring a
photo of the two, and his campaign sent a text message and
e-mail to supporters.

Biden, a Roman Catholic originally from the battleground
state of Pennsylvania, will bring not only foreign policy
expertise to the ticket but strong working-class roots.

That could help Obama connect with the blue-collar voters
he has failed to attract in the run-up to the November 4
election against McCain. Obama and McCain are neck and neck in
opinion polls.

Biden's 2008 presidential bid fell flat but he was a
forceful and aggressive debater, firing off some of the
toughest criticisms of Bush.

The choice of Biden, who was first elected to the Senate in
1972, indicates Obama was more interested in filling gaps in
his foreign policy experience than in finding someone who could
reinforce his message of bringing change to Washington.

Biden's record includes outspoken opposition to U.S.
government support for South Africa's apartheid system in the
1980's, agitation from the Senate for stronger U.S.
intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s and close involvement
with U.S. policy on Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.

Biden voted in 2002 for a resolution that authorized the
invasion of Iraq after failing to secure support for another
resolution to that would have allowed military action only
after diplomatic efforts had been exhausted. Obama was not in
the Senate then, but spoke out against the invasion.

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, beaten by Obama in a
bitter struggle for the Democratic nomination, welcomed the
selection of Biden, who she described as "an exceptionally
strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant."

"Senator Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic vice
president who will help Senator Obama both win the presidency
and govern this great country," she said.

HEADING FOR DENVER

Democratic presidential candidatesDemocratic Party conventionPennsylvaniaArmy National GuardIraq

(Writing by John Whitesides; additional reporting by Jeff
Mason and Vicki Allen; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

CNET's Kara Tsuboi prepares for political conventions

Posted by Blogger Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 6:55 AM

By Kara Tsuboi, CNET

Tom Merritt

I have yet to dig deeply into any of these sites, but now I know what my weekend homework is looking like. Sunday afternoon, I'll be boarding a plane to Denver for the week-long Democratic National Convention. As a newbie to the national political scene, it'd be a complete understatement to say I'm excited. But as someone who has attended plenty of big-scale conferences and media events, a small knot begins to form in my gut as I picture the crowds, chaos, and logistical juggling that will define the next week.

My primary role at the DNC (and also at the RNC the following week in St. Paul, Minn.) is to help launch Katie Couric's live Webcast airing on CBSNews immediately following her traditional TV broadcast from 10 to 11 p.m. EDT. This step to increase her online presence is so necessary for her and the rest of the CBS News team to be taking, and I'm excited to witness the kind of dialogue that can happen when the show is not limited to "TV time" or commercial breaks. Part of the Webcast will also include addressing viewer comments and questions about the convention itself, the candidates and the issues, so please submit your queries!

Besides helping out on the production end for CBSNews, I plan on blogging the entire experience for CNET News and borrowing a CBS cameraman when I can to capture some of the experience on video. There's no shortage of great technology stories to be mined at the conventions, and I look forward to bringing them to light. Haven't you always been curious who makes up Sen. Barack Obama's tech team and how they decide on exactly what he should be twittering? Or what about the increasingly large presence from major tech companies like Google and YouTube?

On second thought, the crowds, chaos, and logistical juggling is starting to sound more and more exciting.

Google making SSL changes, other sites quiet

Posted by Blogger at 6:55 AM

By Elinor Mills, CNET

Googlesecure Web sitesFacebook Yahoo Mail Hotmail

Mike Perry, a reverse engineer and developer at Riverbed Technology, says he announced on the BugTraq e-mail list a year ago a common flaw with the way Web sites implement the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol that is designed to protect people's data when they surf the Web. Typically, they only use SSL for encrypting communications during the log-in stage, he says.

There are actually two problems with SSL implementations. The first issue is that many sites do not use SSL past the log-in page, and thus expose their users' cookies to theft via sniffing by someone else on the network. A tool exploiting this flaw was released last year by Robert Graham of Errata Security, at the same time Perry announced his flaw.

Nothing was done to fix the SSL problems until a month ago when Google announced that people can set Gmail to automatically encrypt communications between a browser and Gmail servers by default, instead of having to type in https://mail.google, Perry says.

However, accessing the site via https://mail.google does not automatically preserve the "secure" session and the cookies can still be stolen, Perry says.

He says he has contacted security representatives at Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Facebook about the fact that their sites remain vulnerable to a so-called "man-in-the-middle attack" in which someone on the same Wi-Fi network hijacks the session cookies that are transmitted between a user's browser and a Web site. As of Friday afternoon, he hadn't heard back from them, he said.

Representatives at Microsoft and Yahoo said they were working on getting comment, while representatives at Facebook did not respond to e-mails or a phone message from CNET News seeking comment.

Amazon encrypts communications related to payment but not purchase history and recommendations, according to Perry. An Amazon spokeswoman said the company does not comment on security measures.

"The motivation is to raise awareness and try and encourage these sites to adopt SSL and do it properly," he said in an interview on Friday.

Delaying release of the tool
But, Perry said he has decided to delay releasing the tool for an undetermined time after talking to Google.

Google is the only one of the major Web sites to offer users the option of setting auto-encryption for all the communications with the site and not just the log-in page, as well as to properly set the "secure" property of its cookies, Perry says.

Google says it is rolling out the option not just for consumer Gmail users, but also for Google Apps enterprise users and has launched it for the premier edition of Google Apps so that communications with Google Docs, Calendar, and other included Google sites are encrypted.

It is also very possible that Google will make it so that the "always encrypt" mode is automatically enabled when people first log in via "https://gmail.google" instead of having to go into settings and enable it manually, Perry says.

"Just about everyone but Google simply does not want to spend the money to invest in the security of their users, and will continue to ignore this issue, just as they have for the past year," Perry wrote in an e-mail.

The vulnerability affects people using unsecured wireless networks and would require the attacker to be using the same network at the same time. However, it could affect people on other types of networks if it were to be combined with other attacks, such as ones taking advantage of a recently discovered domain name system hijacking exploit that any Web surfer could be exposed to, or more elaborate attacks involving modified DSL or cable modems, which were also discussed at Defcon, Perry says.

Perry goes into more details about the problems and his plans on his blog.

Olympics set the stage for emerging Web tech fight

Posted by Blogger at 6:55 AM

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

BeijingMicrosoft CorpAdobe Systems Inc

Microsoft's Silverlight technology and rival Adobe's Flash
format are currently locked in a race over who delivers the
world's online video, but the ultimate prize may be who powers
the next generation of Web software.

Using Silverlight, the NBC site offers a glimpse of what is
possible with future Web applications because viewers are able
to watch up to four videos at once or follow the action with an
online commentary that runs alongside the video.

More than 40 million U.S. viewers have gone to NBC's
Olympics site to watch some of the 2,200 hours of live footage
from the Beijing games. All those viewers need is a Silverlight
player on their browser if they do not have one already.

By building up Silverlight's user base, the world's largest
software maker is looking to win over developers who see Web
platforms such as Silverlight and Flash as a new way to deliver
powerful Web-linked programs incorporating rich graphics.

Currently, those platforms are mainly reserved for
multimedia applications such as Google Inc's popular YouTube
site, which runs on Adobe's Flash technology.

"It's quickly becoming a very popular way to build next
generation applications. There's a lot of interest in capturing
the hearts and minds of developers," said Jeffrey Hammond, an
analyst at Forrester Research. "It'll be a big business."

Microsoft, which said nearly half the visitors to NBC's
site did not have Silverlight, plans to expand its reach to
close the gap on Flash, which is already running on most of the
world's Web-connected computers and powers over 80 percent of
the video on the Internet.

For Microsoft, keeping outside developers loyal is
especially important at a time when there is a major shift in
how people buy software.

After years of selling licenses for software that runs on a
computer's hard drive, Microsoft is facing a new batch of
competitors providing software free as a service through the
Web browser in exchange for online advertising.

Like other Web applications, RIAs are cheaper to deploy and
maintain than traditional software, but they differ from more
simple Web programs by employing rich graphics, running faster
and creating a seamless experience that does not require the
application to constantly reload or refresh.

For example, a financial institution may use Flash or
Silverlight to build a program to instantly chart stock prices
or receive a steady stream of stock prices that do not require
a trader to repeatedly hit refresh on his browser.

But those applications have yet to gain momentum with large
corporate technology customers.

ADOBE VS. MICROSOFT

Gartner analyst Ray Valdes said 90 percent of the top
global 1,000 companies have yet to deploy any sort of RIA,
while 90 percent of the top 100 consumer Web sites have already
done so using the nonproprietary and more simple AJAX format.

That opportunity has Microsoft eyeing current leader Adobe
for business that extends beyond Silverlight and into the sale
of design tools along with server and database software to
enable these new applications.

traditional software developmentAdobe
Integrated Runtimeubiquitous Windows operating systemgroup product manager

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

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