Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » juillet 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Firefox total downloads: millions

Firefox has hit its milestone billionth download of all time. To celebrate the occasion, Mozilla will be launching onebillionplusyou.com on Monday, a hub for information about the achievement, and a place for Firefox users to show their love for the browser by uploading pictures of themselves representing Firefox across the globe (though they'll have a tough time beating this guy.)

Firefox 1.0 launched in November 2004 as the secure, open source alternative to market dominating Internet Explorer, which held nearly 90% market share at the time. One year later, Firefox had already attained 10% browser share. Since mid 2008, Firefox has held nearly 30% of the market, while Internet Explorer has dropped to around 60%.

Last year, Mozilla aimed at setting a world record for downloads with the release of Firefox 3.0. and set it with more than 8 million downloads in 24 hours.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

A British hacker who broke into 97 military and NASA computer systems -- looking, he claims, for evidence about UFOs -- will be tried in America, where if convicted he may face a sentence of up to 70 years. Gary McKinnon has been appealing in the British judicial system to avoid extradition to these shores.

Mr. McKinnon doesn't deny that he hacked into the computers in 2001-02, but has stated that he wasn't attempting to compromise US security but to find secret information on unidentified flying objects -- a particular obsession for the 43-year-old man, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. He asked instead for trial in the UK, stating that trial and incarceration in the US could be highly debilitating due to his condition.

Mr. McKinnon's activities began in February of 2001 and continued until March of the following year, when he was first questioned by law-enforcement officials about his hacking efforts. Several of his incursions caused significant trouble, including a hack that knocked several hundred computers at a naval station in New Jersey offline immediately after 9/11. A New Jersey district court issued a warrant for Mr. McKinnon in October of 2002, and extradition efforts began in late 2004. In February of this year, UK officials announced that they would not pursue charges against Mr. McKinnon in Britain.

The Free Gary web site, which has ben the locus of much of the anti-extradition effort, was offline as of Friday morning. Meanwhile, Janis Sharp, Mr. McKinnon's mother, is reported to have made a personal appeal to President Obama to intercede.

A poll of 550 IT professionals conducted over the past two months by Sophos, the anti-malware firm, finds that 71% of those asked do not think that Mr. McKinnon should be extradited. That's up from just 52% three years ago.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

A Michigan teen has filed suit in Seattle against Amazon, maker of the Kindle eReader, for deleting a copy of 1984 on which he was keeping notes for his AP English coursework. Justin Gawronski is suing in order to impress on Amazon the importance of not simply deleting purchased texts -- whatever their copyright or licensing status.

The suit, which seeks class-action status for those affected by the deletion several weeks ago, also names Antoine J. Bruguier, a Kindle owner from Milpitas, California. KamberEdelson is the Chicago-based legal team handling the suit.

Readers who purchased the disputed copies of Animal Farm and 1984 were given refunds by Amazon, and after several days of outrage they also got an apology from CEO Jeff Bezos, who called his company's handling of the problem "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."

But apologies don't feed the bulldog -- or, in this case, Mr. Gawronski's teacher, who's expecting multiple written reports on the text from students. Mr. Gawronski had been reading and, as he went along, dropping a note into the text where something caught his eye. His notes were not deleted, but with the text to which they referred gone, they're not particularly useful now.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Thursday was a far more lively day in the Joel Tenenbaum copyright infringement case, as the defendant admitted that he had downloaded -- and that he had not been forthright in his written discovery responses about having done so. Mr. Tenenbaum also took responsibility for uploading and downloading from multiple peer-to-peer services, confirmed that he'd listened to all 30 now-no-longer-contested songs (nuking his own legal team's earlier assertion that some of the 30 might have been spoofed files), and suggested that his mom -- a lawyer -- might have given him some shaky advice on how to answer RIAA fact-finding efforts.

It was, in other words, defeat-- defeat to such a degree that the Joel Fights Back group blog run by the defense team is currently headed by a post titled "Joel FOUGHT back." In that post, Debbie Rosenbaum, one of the students who stuck with the case to its bitter end, writes that "Although we could not win this case, we are proud to have highlighted the abuses and the inefficiency with which the music industry burdens the court system."

Judge Nancy Gertner, considering a motion from the plaintiffs for a directed verdict in their favor (since, hey, the guy just admitted it), ruled that the jury will no longer be faced with debating whether Mr. Tenenbaum infringed the copyrights.

Instead, when the jury gets the case mid-morning on Friday -- the defense plans to call a computer scientist and Mr. Tenenbaum's mother, who might face some interesting questions about advice she might have given her boy -- they'll be looking at liability and willfulness, the two issues that will dictate the amount of damages to be awarded.

If there was any portion of Mr. Tenenbaum's testimony that didn't harm him today, it might be his expressed fondness for the artists whose music he shared, and his original perception of Napster as essentially a "giant library in front of you with all sorts of songs... It's all up there... It's like the Google of music." The legality of peer-to-peer sharing, he noted, "wasn't foremost in [his] mind" then.

His mental state might actually matter here. Though the defense team had hoped to instruct the jury to consider whether Mr. Tenenbaum meant to profit commercially by his actions, Judge Gertner will instruct the five men and five women to consider willful infringement that which is "committed with knowledge of or 'reckless disregard' for the plaintiffs' copyrights." It's not much to pin one's hopes to after a yearlong legal effort, but it's the difference between the minimum ($750/song) and maximum ($150,000/song) awards levels for damages -- but after Thursday's testimony, it's just about all Mr. Tenenbaum has left.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, even if they're very much alive and only dead in the business sense of the word. But it's super easy these days to look at Yahoo's co-founder and ex-CEO Jerry Yang and laugh out loud at how he squandered tens of billions of dollars --and his company's very future as an Internet powerhouse-- because he thought he knew better.

The short strokes of this week's Microsoft-Yahoo Internet search partnership must make Mr. Yang sick to his stomach: What Microsoft was willing to spend upwards of $45 billion for barely 18 months ago it has now won for…nothing. Sure, Microsoft didn't swallow the company whole. It's just a partnership, after all. But that matters little in a search market where the two players were doomed to an eternity of irrelevance if they didn't get together at some point. Living together, marriage, whatever we call it, Microsoft figured out a cheap way to gain access to a much larger search audience, and Yahoo had no choice but to sign the papers and move in.

Hail to yesterday's Goliath

That's what happens when you're an also-ran. And let's not mince words, Yahoo was and is an also-ran. While I admit 20% of the U.S. search market isn't shabby, the company is a mere shadow of the brash organization that in 1995 took a stab at categorizing the then-new-to-regular-folks Internet with its index-based approach to navigation. It may be hard to remember what life was like B.G. (Before Google) but Yahoo WAS search back then. And while a relatively static, category-based, manually updated index was doomed to fail the Internet changes too fast for something so inflexible. Yahoo, not Google, has the distinction of being the first verb of the commercial Internet era: Anyone remember "Do you Yahoo?"

Didn't think so.

So when Microsoft first came calling, first chatting amiably about hooking up in 2005 and then, a year ago February tabling the gigabuck offer that would trigger Mr. Yang's ultimate departure, Yahoo's first response should have been akin to the 30-something never-been-dated woman who still lives at home with her parents: Yes. When the market has slowly squeezed the life out of you and rendered you a distant second fiddle with no hope of imminent recovery, the last thing you should do when so many zeroes after the dollar sign are flashed in your face is respond with defiance.

Yahoo had no options in 2005. It had even fewer in 2008, and it had none earlier this week when current CEO Carol Bartz finally did the deed. That Yahoo had no choice is obvious. That it took so long for it to personally and corporately reach that conclusion cost countless shareholders vast amounts of money, and thousands of employees their jobs. Any company that so ignores doing the right thing in favor of a CEO's need to project hubris deserves to die, so it was good to see Yang's successor pull some salvation out of an otherwise unmitigated disaster.

Abandoning a dead brand image

Kudos to Ms. Bartz for doing the right thing for Yahoo's remaining shareholders and remaining employees and, frankly, for anyone who still uses the company's mostly second-rate online services. Like AOL before it, Yahoo had long since slipped from the public consciousness as an innovative leader. Allow me to use e-mail loyalty as an analogy: If people with gmail.com e-mail addresses are somewhat more tech savvy power users of Google's leading edge Web services and hotmail.com users are mostly kids and mobile-addicted teenagers, Yahoo users were --and presumably still are-- the older folks who couldn't be bothered to switch to something better or hipper. This kind of brand awareness is not how future business success is created, and Ms. Bartz finally admitted it as such in signing the partnership deal.

Thanks to this long-overdue change of direction at Yahoo, the search -- and more importantly, search-based advertising-- market looks markedly different than it did at this time last week. Sure, no one without three shots of Tequila in him could claim that adding Microsoft's 8% share of the U.S. search market to Yahoo's 20% share will cause Google, with 65%, to run for the hills. When you own almost two-thirds of any market alongside near-bulletproof brand ubiquity and end-user entrenchment, it'll take more than a zero-dollar partnership by your two closest and much weaker competitors to knock you off your throne.

Forget the percentages for a sec

But this is a case where psychology matters more than numbers. Where the market previously had only one viable alternative for most online advertisers - if they didn't go with Google, they often didn't advertise at all-- it now has two. As the combined entity approaches 30% market share, it's suddenly large enough to attract the attention of advertisers interested in exploring whether there are other cost effective ways to reach consumers through search. Up until now, there weren't. But something shifted below the landscape when Yahoo said yes, and we now finally have a horse race.

And a race of any kind is good for everyone. It encourages real competition by putting the heat on market leaders to maintain high levels of innovation and, more critically, keep things fair on a pricing and customer service front. I'd never accuse Google of being anticompetitive (that's the European Union's job, apparently) or customer service challenged. But it's easy to conclude that the incentive to play more nicely with everyone else in the playground just increased by an order of magnitude.

Which brings me to Microsoft. The legacy operating system and productivity app vendor that so many wrote off as unable to transition into the Internet economy managed to prove them wrong with a search product (Bing) that continues to impress. The Yahoo deal now exposes Bing to an audience 2.5 times its original size and opens up another lucrative revenue stream for Microsoft, which kinda matters while the rest of us debate the future of those legacy categories it's dominated for so long.

Google's already questioned the deal (big surprise) and antitrust regulators will doubtless get their shot. But for the first time in years, search is fun again. Game on, and thanks, Microsoft, for being so persistent despite Yahoo's ongoing stupidity.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

January's Consumer Electronics Show books up fast, as would-be congregants know well. But it seems that one potential attendee is still not committed as we roll into August -- interesting, since the world already knows what the fellow won't be attending in early 2010.

The erstwhile guest is Steve Jobs, of course, and with Apple already declining to take part in MacWorld next January, speculation has been rampant that Apple and its rock-star CEO would make the jaunt to Vegas. That speculation seemed to be strengthened by a post by Ben Charny for the Wall Street Journal, which claimed that Mr. Jobs would be not just attending but speaking.

Pandemonium! The Apple head has of course been asked repeatedly over the years, but in the true Cupertino fashion has often not even bothered to respond to the invitation, let alone committed to attending. What might have happened to change his mind?

Nothing, it turns out. The WSJ blog post in question became distinctly top-heavy with corrections as the story unfolded -- Mr. Jobs has been asked but has not yet responded; moreover, Apple itself may or may not be exhibiting, despite this year's addition of the 12,000-square-foot iLounge, which will feature developers for the iPhone and iPod lines.

It's rather late in the CES process for a major player such as Apple to insert itself in that process, by the way; Ryan Kim at the San Francisco Chronicle asked Gary Shapiro, the head of CEA (the organization that runs CES), and Mr. Shapiro said that the only available spaces at this point would be rather small -- less than a few thousand square feet.

An ugly reporting misfire, to be sure, but the comments below the piece from angry, disappointed readers indicate that the Apple fan contingent was sorely let down by the news and, as they will, chose to share with the world the pain caused by their spiritual wedgie (sample quote: "this kind of journalism turns [the WSJ] into a gossip site more on the level with Perez Hilton").

But cheer up, Macolytes. The currently scheduled CES keynoters, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Intel's Paul Otellini, attract hideous lines to attend their talks, and we're used to those two; the queue for a Jobs keynote would have had to start convening right about... now.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a little more information to financial analysts than perhaps he planned. There are two versions of his slide presentation -- one with a slide he didn't present this morning. I downloaded the PowerPoint file, and then noticed it had disappeared from Microsoft's investor website. That was so Microsoft could remove the errant, and quite revealing, slide.

The slide is surprising counter-commentary to Ballmer's opening presentation. He spent much of the early portion of his talk explaining why Microsoft cut the search deal with Yahoo, and why the costs were minimal to both companies. He told financial analysts:

"Economics is where people get even more confused. What happened? What happened? Nothing got bought. Nothing got sold. People expected something to get bought. Nothing got sold yesterday, and nothing got bought yesterday. But, the partnership in and of itself creates economic value. And not just on the future promise, not just on the future promise of improved product, improved share, and improved revenue, it creates an immediate opportunity, essentially, for synergy."

But the slide explains: "We will lose money in first 2 years ($300m total), then start making decent return ($400m steady)."

The slide reveals some information "context -- not for disclosure" that can be seen below. Microsoft expects $600 million to $700 million transition costs, with as much as $200 million in fiscal 2010, which ends June 30. The non-disclosure column breaks down the costs by category.

Click for Full Slide

I won't do analysis on the content today. While Microsoft probably wouldn't want the information released, it's not a disastrous disclosure. I suspect financial analysts will gain more from the disclosure than, say, competitor Google.

Caveat: The slide is working from assumptions that may or may not be true as Microsoft and Yahoo begin to merge search operations. Losses could be considerably less -- or even more.

I believe that Seattle Times reporter Brier Dudley was first to post the slide.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Mozilla is counting down as Firefox rapidly approaches its billionth download of all time.

Firefox 1.0 launched in November 2004 as the secure, open source alternative to market dominating Internet Explorer, which held nearly 90% market share at the time. One year later, Firefox had already attained 10% browser share. Since mid 2008, Firefox has held nearly 30% of the market, while Internet Explorer has dropped to around 60%.

Last year, Mozilla aimed at setting a world record for downloads with the release of Firefox 3.0. and set it with more than 8 million downloads in 24 hours.

Today, Firefox is hovering around 20 downloads per second, and has less than a million downloads to go before it hits the billion marker.

If people continue to download at their current rate, Firefox will pass a billion downloads in just over 12 hours.

Firefox total downloads: millions

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Stephen Elop and Bob Muglia delivered two of the more difficult presentations during Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting. Elop runs the Business division, which had been a consistent performer until fiscal fourth quarter, when revenue fell 13 percent year over year. Server and Tools did better, but still took a revenue hit in fourth quarter.

The two divisions share several important attributes, and the businesses are highly entwined. With the 2003 release cycle, Microsoft started aggressively increasing integration along the vertical applications stack between Office and server software. The integration creates sales pull for Office and newer server software, like SharePoint Server. I leave out Exchange Server, since Microsoft long ago established applications stack integration with Outlook.

This vertical integration also relates to sales changes that Microsoft announced in May 2001 but didn't fully bring to market until summer 2002: Annuity licensing. Under annuity licensing, businesses pay Microsoft upfront annually under two- or three-year contracts. Microsoft had long sold software under volume-licensing contracts, but the change added what the company calls "Software Assurance," and upgrade pricing included with the contract price. (Enterprise Agreement had been this way, but not other licensing plans.)

Together, annuity licensing changes and increased integration along the vertical stack changed how businesses bought desktop software, particularly. As revealed at FAM today, for both divisions, annuity contracts contribute about 60 percent of revenue.

The contractual commitments are important to Microsoft:

• The contracts are like money in the bank; they're assured sales.
• Customers are less likely to switch to competing products, seeing as how they've already paid Microsoft.
• Annuity licensing smoothes out Microsoft revenue, so there are fewer highs and lows between product releases.
• Microsoft revenue is somewhat cushioned against economic slowdowns, since customers already have paid or committed to pay Microsoft.

Not surprisingly, this last benefit has proved really important to Microsoft during the global session. "We are cushioned somewhat" by annuity licensing, Muglia, Server and Tools president, told financial analysts this afternoon."What you have in essence is a shock absorber to the business."

For Server and Tools, annuity licensing potentially averted sales disaster. Muglia noted that at the start of fiscal 2009, IDC predicted 6 percent server hardware growth. But starting in October, server sales plummeted, stabilizing at about a 15 percent year-over-year decline at the close of fiscal 2009, on June 30.

Microsoft's Client division is by comparison hugely exposed to declining hardware sales. OEMs account for about 80 percent of Windows sales. By comparison, for Server and Tools, "40 percent of revenue is of a transactional nature," Muglia said.

Muglia asserted that during the recession Microsoft server software sales continued to exceed industry hardware growth, and that "our annuity sales have remained fairly strong during this period."

By comparison, Business division absorbed more pain during the recession so far. In fiscal fourth quarter, Business revenue and income fell 13 percent and 16 percent, respectively, year over year. By comparison, Server and Tools revenue and income declined by 6 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

Elop was clear and concise about the Business division's problems, which really started after the late-September stock market crash. Elop explained how the Business division derives its revenue:

• Annuity licensing -- 60 percent
• Non-annuity sales -- 20 percent
• Consumer -- 20 percent

Slowing PC sales hit both consumer and non-annuity revenue. Non-annuity sales are to businesses, such as boxed copies of Office. Consumer revenue declined about 30 percent during fiscal 2009 and non-annuity by about 35 percent, Elop said. By comparison, annuity licensing increased 5 percent.

What Elop didn't say, but other Microsoft executives have explained during earnings conference calls with financial analysts: Many customers renewing annuity contracts are doing so at lower levels, because of downsizing and layoffs.

Strangely, the econolypse has exposed a weakness in Microsoft's annuity contract strategy -- and one likely to come around only under the rare economic crunch. The annuity licensing strategy assumes growth, that customers will renew contracts and at higher levels. That's true, as long as there aren't massive layoffs.

Both divisional presidents expressed optimism for the future, but warned second half 2009 would still prove to be challenging.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Time Warner will become the next Clearwire WiMAX reseller, CEO Glenn Britt said in the company's second quarter earnings call on Wednesday, making the cable company the third major reseller of Clear 4G wireless.

Time Warner invested in Sprint and Clearwire's consolidation into the Clear 4G wireless network along with Intel, Google and fellow cable companies Bright House Networks and Comcast.

At the end of June, Comcast announced that it would launch its own WiMAX subscription plans under the name "Comcast High Speed 2go" in Portland and continue in Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia as their WiMAX deployments are completed.

Time Warner, on the other hand, mentioned that its first 4G networks will be set up in four U.S. markets including Dallas, Texas and Charlotte, North Carolina, two cities whose WiMAX deployments are expected to be complete by the end of 2009. The company did not disclose the other two cities in which the service will launch.

Since there are only four major WiMAX deployments in the United States at present --Portland, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Las Vegas-- there would only be one option for Time Warner if it were to launch its WiMAX business immediately. Comcast has claimed Portland and Atlanta, and Sprint is the reseller in Baltimore, which leaves Las Vegas, the newest WiMAX network which launched just two weeks ago.

However, the company did not go into detail about the timeframe of its WiMAX launch, so it is possible that it could set up in any of the 15 new markets expected to launch in the next year.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research & strategy officer, is charged with anticipating the future and the computing technologies people will need in the future. Early this afternoon, during Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting, Mundie spoke about the importance of natural user interfaces. He described one user interface I would never have imagined -- or perhaps you won't.

The successor to the PC is "a room," Mundie told FAM attendees. Apparently, Microsoft's big-ass Surface computer is even too small for Microsoft's vision leader. He demoed the room, too. Mundie described his desktop as a Surface computer, but the real user interface was the wall.

I describe the room like this: A cubicle with living post-it notes and pinned-up papers -- meaning real time and digital. I suppose it's clutter turned off with a switch, if you wanted to use the room as a, well, room.

Oh, yes, and there's a resident digital assistant. He reminded me of a modernized, stylized and handsomer version of Max Headroom. Craig asked the assistant about the day's appointments -- postponing one -- among other questions.

Another way to describe the room, which responds to the person, is that house in Syfy series Eureka. The one with the sultry voice and fussy character.

I had been thinking that computers would get smaller, not larger. My smartphone and laptop are plenty of computers for me. But a room?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Last night, the UK's Inquirer announced that Windows Mobile will be changing its name to "Windows Phone". Microsoft confirmed the Windows Phone branding to Betanews today, but said that "Windows Mobile" is not going anywhere.

"Microsoft started using the term, Windows Phone, within the industry at Mobile World Congress on February 16, 2009," a spokesman noted today. "It is a simple way for consumers to identify the new generation of Windows phones that will be available this fall through our mobile partners; and will include new services on them such as My Phone and Windows Marketplace for Mobile."

The operating system will still be known as Windows Mobile, it's just the platform with all of the new bells and whistles that will be called "Windows Phone." This unification of OS, hardware and brand is similar to what RIM and Apple have done with BlackBerry and iPhone.

"Consumers will start to see a change in marketing communications including retail with the Windows Mobile 6.5 launch," the spokesman said. "We will still use the term 'Windows Mobile' to identify the operating system releases (e.g. - 6.1, 6.5)."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in surprisingly good form this morning, as he kicked off the company's annual Financial Analysts Meeting. His presentation was one of the best in years. The economy may be cool, but Ballmer is hot.

Perhaps his most piercing comments were about Apple, a competitor that has nipped away Windows PC market share and proved to be a formidable opponent in mobile devices markets.

Ballmer dismissed Mac shipments of "10 million" units a year as being meaningless. He described Mac market share gains as "a rounding error." Ballmer emphasized: "Apple's share globally cost us nothing."

But what he didn't say: Microsoft gained much. In a later presentation, Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices division, touted the revenue contribution from Microsoft consumer software, which Macintosh Office is the largest component. Increased Mac sales do benefit Microsoft.

Some advice to Ballmer: Perhaps FAM attendees should receive some Windows 7 netbook swag. Too many attendees -- or at least too many for Microsoft's CEO -- use Mac laptops. "We have lower share in the investor audience." he said looking out at attendees. "Don't hide them. I've already counted them," he joked. "Feel free, as long as you're using Office."

Ballmer laid out the philosophic differences between Microsoft's approach to personal computers compared to Apple. Microsoft's focus is high volume, high value and low price. By comparison, Apple focuses on high price and low volume. What he didn't say: High margin. Apple commands some of the highest, perhaps the highest, hardware margins in the computing industry.

High volume is essentially important to Microsoft's Windows business strategy, Ballmer explained. "You can't be high priced. That doesn't get us to the high volume that we aspire to." Value and volume are longstanding Microsoft corporate principles, which go back to the IBM PC era. Clearly, Microsoft has no plans to abandon value and volume principles.

Apple justifies higher pricing by asserting that "'at the end of the day we have the coolest hardware,'" Ballmer claimed. For holiday 2009, Windows PC manufacturers will release new hardware -- and that will wipe away Apple's hardware design justification, he asserted. "New PC designs -- boom -- we're going to have a heck of a Christmas."

COO Kevin Turner followed Ballmer and made a separate competitive attack. Turner reiterated Microsoft's "Apple Tax" claims, asserting that consumers pay more for Macs than PCs. He used an ad circular comparing Windows PC and Mac configurations and pricing. Typically this is true: Comparably configured Windows PCs often do cost less than Macs.

That said, there are hidden features not alway obvious on either side, such as extra-long battery life in new MacBook Pros or Blu-ray playback in some Windows portables.

The question I'd like to pose to commenters: Are Mac market share gains "a rounding error?"

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Microsoft's support for a public "eager to begin using Windows 7" has now extended to Technical beta testers, who will be getting a free full version of the operating system. Earlier this month, word got out that Windows 7 tech beta testers would actually not be receiving a free copy of Windows 7 as testers of Vista did, which elicited the expected amount of criticism.

However, official Windows blogger Brandon LeBlanc, who made that announcement announced today that he was wrong, and that members of the invitation only Windows 7 Technical Beta program will be able to download free English language copies of Windows 7 Ultimate on August 6, or have a boxed copy shipped on October 22, the day it is released in stores.

This offer does not involve those who tested the Windows 7 public beta and release candidate versions, and instructions and forms for obtaining the free copy of the OS will be put up on Microsoft Connect on Monday, August 3.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices division, today told Wall Street analysts that the company's mobile strategy would improve. He laid out Microsoft's go-forward mobile strategy during the annual Financial Analysts Meeting.

Bach acknowledged that Windows Mobile had "a challenging year," with market share declining even as unit numbers increased. The company is ramping up for Windows Mobile 6.5's official release in October. Whoa, Bach asserted that the browsing experience on Windows Mobile 6.5 would be better than iPhone.

"We have to do a better job executing...and operating our business," Bach said. Is that an understatement. I have repeatedly criticized Microsoft's mobile strategy as being weak.

Bach's presentation lacked a critically fundamental element: Software platform. Apple's App Store platform is hugely popular -- with over 1.5 billion applications downloads -- and gaining. He simply ignored the importance of mobile applications.

Bach laid out the broader mobile strategy in four areas: Choice and selection; end-user experience; cloud services; and brand marketing.

Choice and selection is Microsoft's response to Apple's single-vendor, hardware-software approach. Earlier, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made clear that Microsoft planned to innovate with mobile software rather than make a phone. Google has similar strategy with Android.

The E&D president observed that Windows Mobile delivers a good business experience, but Microsoft has work to do for consumers. He rightly explained that converging lifestyles makes focus on both markets -- business and consumer -- essential.

"Our experiences are very good in the business space," but "our experiences are not as rich as they should be" in the consumer space, Bach said. Microsoft's mobile priority: "Taking our success in business...and expanding that across consumer scenarios."

But I'm troubled by his timing: "This is something that is going to play out over the next 3 to 5 years." Years? Apple has stormed the cell phone market in less than two years, and Google has made surprising gains in about one year. Microsoft doesn't have 3 to 5 years.

Bach also put the mobile strategy in context of "three screens in a cloud" -- PC, mobile phone and TV -- across social services. "Apple is very strong on the device side," but not as much in services. Google is stronger in the cloud, but not services. Microsoft can deliver in both areas, Bach asserted.

I'm rather stunned by the assertion. Apple has a surprisingly strong three-screen strategy with iPhone/iPod, Apple TV and Macs or Windows PCs. For example, movies purchased from the iTunes Store sync across the three screens, and resume play wherever stopped on whatever device. Then there is Google's Android, which offers strong cloud-to-mobile integration, certainly better than Windows Mobile today.

Bach simply ignores App Store, which is the preeminent mobile applications platform based on number of mobile apps available or downloaded. Surely, Microsoft knows that applications are fundamental to the success of any platform. So if Microsoft has a cloud-to-mobile device strategy, where are the applications? Once a mobile applications leader, Microsoft now trails recent upstarts. Once again, I strongly recommend that Microsoft embark on a mobile OS and browser Manhattan Project. The 3-to-5 year time horizon is way too long.

The E&D CEO ended by talking about branding, and this is encouraging. "We are going to invest and build on the brand" -- Windows Phone. That will happen with carriers and retailers and through actual marketing. My take: Windows Phone as a single brand is sensible.

"We're excited about Windows Mobile 6.5," he boasted during the first Q&A session.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

BREIN has won its suit against the Pirate bay, and now the troubled torrent indexing site has 10 days to block all traffic coming from within the Netherlands.

Anti-piracy group Stichting BREIN (loosely translated as "the BRAIN Foundation,) took The Pirate Bay to court in Amsterdam last month for copyright infringement and demanded that the site block all Dutch visitors. The court announced its ruling today that the Pirate Bay's operators must "both separately and together permanently stop the infringements on copyright and related rights of Stichting BREIN in the Netherlands." Every day the site remains up will earn the owners an additional €30,000 fine.

Now that the "big case" is over, which resulted in the Pirate Bay's founders being sentenced to one year in prison and fined 30 million Kronor each, other cases against the Pirate Bay have focused on individual issues.

A group of Hollywood studios, for example, took the site's founders to court in Sweden this week with a cease and desist order for indexes of 100 or so individual films and television programs. The service frequently receives legal threats from copyright owners.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Nate Mook, Betanews

After being rumored in April, Apple has taken the wraps off a new version of its Time Capsule with 2 terabytes of integrated storage. The device functions as a router and network storage appliance for automated backups using Mac OS X's Time Machine feature.

The 2TB Time Capsule looks to be the same internally aside from the bigger hard drive, and sells for $499. The 1TB model is priced at $299, while the original 500GB Time Capsule has been discontinued.

Separately, Apple has released a long-awaited iDisk application for iPhones. The free app enables MobileMe users to access documents stored on the service, although it only supports certain file types and cannot upload or download. TUAW has posted a review of the app and concludes, "if you've already shelled out the cost for MobileMe, this is a pretty good free alternative if uploading, downloading and a few other features aren't on your list of must-haves."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In late June and early July, Dell's Taiwanese Web shop accidentally created some outlandishly cheap deals on Dell hardware which resulted in a huge influx of orders that Dell could not fill. The company is now facing fines from Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission and Fair Trade Commission for misleading customers.

From about 11pm on June 25 until 7am the next day, Dell mistakenly had a 19" LCD monitor on its site listed as costing NT$500, or roughly $15. In that 8 hour period, deal-crazed consumers ordered more than 140,000 of the cheap monitors only to later be told that it was a mistake. Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission reported 471 complaints, and then recommended that Dell give each customer one monitor at the $15 and then offer the rest (since everyone ordered multiples) at a discount.

Dell Taiwan later compensated monitor buyers with an NT$1,000 discount coupon, but naturally the consumers were upset.

As if that wasn't enough, a second glitch happened on July 4 at midnight that offered a certain configuration of the Latitude E4300 notebook --valued at NT$60,900 ($1,855)-- for only NT$18,588 ($566). More than 49,884 notebooks were reportedly ordered during that mishap.

The company offered coupons to those who placed orders, but the NT$20,000 ($600) discount was again not good enough to smooth over the costly mis-labeling.

So today, in addition to the discount vouchers Dell is offering for both products, Taiwanese authorities say the computer company must pay one million Taiwan dollars ($30,500) for failing to fully honor the online offers, and The Fair Trade Commission has launched an investigation into whether Dell was misleading consumers on its Web site, which could result in a further fine of up to 25 million Taiwan dollars ($770,000).

It's actually quite a small price to pay. If Dell were to fill all the orders it received both times, it would amount to a loss of more than $76 million.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

[Editor's note: This was a live document starting around 11:56 am until 1:03 pm EDT.]

Microsoft's annual Financial Analysts Meeting opened under a fog -- a cloud of uncertainty not seen since the company went public in 1986. For most of fiscal 2009, which ended June 30, Microsoft offered Wall Street no guidance on earnings. During fiscal fourth quarter, net income plummeted by 29 percent and revenue for all five product divisions fell year over year. Microsoft also reported its first annual revenue decline ever. When will the fog clear, and what will it reveal?

Financial analysts have reason to hope. Yesterday, Microsoft cut a long anticipated search deal with Yahoo, smart marketing got the new Bing brand off to a surprisingly good start and important -- some exciting -- new products will ship during fiscal 2010, such as Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010, Azure Platform Services and Office 2010.

This morning, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stepped through the fog to stand before Wall Street's finest on the FAM stage. Once again, he harkened about the global economic collapse -- the econolypse -- leading to a "reset." Recovery will be at a lower level. But he also swept his hand, and with typical booming voice cleared away some of the fog. Microsoft will not only survive but excel. Microsoft will spend $9.5 billion in research and development during fiscal 2010. "We have to innovate," Ballmer said. To "grow on a "sustained basis," Microsoft must look to the long term, he emphasized.

During FAM 2008, "We were living in a very different world economically," Ballmer said. "The economy really slowed down, but we did not slow down at Microsoft." He spoke about the importance of Azure and Windows 7 and other products coming during fiscal 2010.

Microsoft's CEO acknowledged that Microsoft had stumbled with mobile phones. "Will we succeed in phones?" Ballmer asked. "It was a tough year in executing in phones." He asserted that "for-profit-only software" -- not a phone from Microsoft -- is the way to get 40 percent to 50 percent market share.

Ballmer said that there was no plan for Microsoft to announce the Yahoo search deal the day before FAM. He described the agreement as a "win-win deal" and win-win partnership" for both companies. He said the biggest benefits would come in North America and the few other Microsoft and Yahoo have combined reach. "Google has about 90-percent paid search market share in Europe," Ballmer said. "

Ballmer described the search deal as "a tool for product improvement." With scale, Microsoft can make the search experience -- of which advertising is an important part -- better. "Product improvement is the key to market share," he asserted.

"For the last 12 months, I've been running our Windows business," Ballmer said. That is why Steven Sinofsky, who was recently promoted to president of the Client business, didn't give the Windows presentation. Ballmer spoke about the importance of integration -- what Ballmer called a "vibrancy" -- with other products, such as Office 2010. Some of that vibrancy will in the future come between Bing and WIndows. This vibrancy is important to Windows continued success. "We're going to come under competitive attack," he asserted.

Ballmer boasted: "New PC designs -- boom -- we're going to have a heck of a Christmas." He reviewed something that most financial analysts should already know: "The bulk of our Windows business comes with the sale of new PCs" -- about 80 percent.

Ballmer spoke about the super-hot netbook category, which -- he didn't say -- has sapped Windows profits during fiscal 2009. He made clear that Microsoft sees netbooks as evolving to larger screens: "Ultrathin -- it's a high-end netbook." Ballmer didn't mention the Dell Adamo, but that's the kind of portable he referred to. Clearly, a high-end netbook would be attractive to Microsoft. "We need an expensive netbook," he said while describing Windows revenue for 2010.

Ballmer made clear that Microsoft's official netbook license is for smaller screens. But with respect to netbooks that OEMs could put Windows "XP on the machine at one price," Windows 7 Starter Edition would be available at a higher price and Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional at even higher prices.

Microsoft's CEO briefly spoke about Apple competition. He described Apple's market share gains as "a rounding error. He emphasized: "Apple's share globally cost us nothing." But he did observe where Microsoft needs to do better: "We have lower share in the investor audience." He joked about the number of Mac laptops at FAM: "Don't hide them. I've already counted them. Feel free, as long as you're using Office."

Ballmer made clear that Microsoft's business is different from Apple's, which is high-priced, low volume. Microsoft is going for high-volume, high-value and low price. "You can't be high priced. That doesn't get us to the high volume that we aspire to," he said.

Apple justifies higher pricer by asserting that "'at the end of the day we have the coolest hardware," Ballmer claimed. He repeated that for holiday 2009, Windows PC manufacturers will release new hardware -- and that will wipe away Apple's hardware design justification. It's possible to make cool computers, with hardware and software coming from different companies, he asserted. Cool doesn't have to come from an end-to-end provider.

Microsoft will continue to "invest in Windows marketing," Ballmer said. He put up a slide showing how Microsoft's brand improved against Apple's following the "I'm a PC" advertising campaign, which includes "The Rookies" and "Laptop Hunters" sub-campaigns.

Ballmer described Windows 7 as "the flagship" and "the hub." He emphasized Windows' importance to all Microsoft's lines of businesses.

Microsoft's CEO got on fire, and went way, way, way over his alloted time. He concluded by talking about how Microsoft is investing in the future and whether "the company is well run," which he posed as a question to financial analysts.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

A California company has announced that it has been awarded a patent for a "Method for Providing Episodic Media" on Tuesday. US Patent 7.568,213 was described by the firm as a "patent for podcasting," but company founder Murgesh Navar says the scope is actually broader than that.

Podcasting is generally thought of as RSS-based -- sign up and the episodes flow to your reader of choice. The patent doesn't specify RSS delivery, meaning that in theory other methods would fall under its purview.

Needless to say, patent observers jumped on the announcement with many feet. Several cited a 2001 post by Dave Winer concerning "payloads" (enclosures) for RSS feeds, which he put together after sustained nudging by Adam Curry to get right with high-quality video over the Internet. VoloMedia's application was filed in 2008, though it is based on a 2003 filing concerning "Personalized Episodic Download Media Service."

In a post on Wednesday, Winer acknowledged that he has heard about the filing and said, "I'm certainly not a lawyer or an expert in patent law, but it seems the work Adam Curry and I did in creating the format and protocol for podcasting, in 2001, may have inspired their "invention." It certainly predates it."

In a post to VoloMedia's blog, Mr. Navar notes that various companies already have contractual arrangements with the firm, including ABC News, MSNBC, Fox News, and PRI (Public Radio International). He says, "The impact of a strong growing IP portfolio is such that we would expect new entrants into the podcasting arena to have a collaborative relationship with VoloMedia, just as do many of the current players."

NewTeeVee reports that VoloMedia is already in talks with Apple and various TV networks about working together, and that Mr. Navar says actual content providers won't be affected by the ruling.

VoloMedia has been keeping busy while it waits on patent approvals -- there are apparently more applications in the pipeline at USPTO -- by providing "dynamic advertising insertion, targeting, measurement, reporting and campaign management within RSS-based portable video and audio," as their site puts it. CEO and president Brian Steel is an old Yahoo hand from the era of their Overture (nee GoTo.com) acquisition.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, both Nintendo and Sony reported substantial declines in video game revenue and console sales for the quarter ending on June 30. While much of the decline stems from the strengthened Yen which is causing huge currency exchange losses for all Japanese electronics companies, video game spending has hit a brick wall.

Nintendo, which has spend most of the current console generation far ahead of competitors Sony and Microsoft, sold approximately half as many consoles as it did in the previous quarter. Wii unit sales were down 47% in Europe, 60% in Japan, and 65% in the Americas. Globally, Nintendo's popular DS handheld sold 6 million units, or a decline of 20% over last year. This drop in sales, accompanied by the exchange problem with the Yen amounted to a 61% decline in profits year over year, or ¥42 billion ($443 Million.)

Sony's sales decline was a little less dramatic than Nintendo's, but no less serious. In total, Sony sold 32% fewer PlayStation 3 consoles and 65% fewer PlayStation Portables than it did in the same quarter last year. Sony's Networked Products unit, which includes Sony Computer Entertainment, Vaio, and Walkmen lines posted a loss of ¥39.7 billion. In its overall business, Sony experienced its second straight losing quarter, chalking up a net loss of ¥37.1 billion ($390 million).

Earlier this month, NPD reported that the total U.S. gaming market fell 31% with only a few blockbuster titles released in the quarter. But as Nintendo noted in its earnings call this time around, non-console games are beginning to have an effect on sales. Apple's iPhone, for example, is starting to seriously cut into the handheld market, and iPhone games that can be produced comparatively quickly and cheaply are competing with games that take much longer to produce and release.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

In the festivity and fun that is the annual Black Hat gathering (confidential to D. Tangent: okay, I give up, how did you manage to get it as warm in Seattle this week as it in in Vegas?), it's easy to miss some of the small but telling talks that frame the discussion. I'm the first to admit that I'm all atwitter waiting for Thursday's pwn-any-iPhone vulnerability reveal, but on Wednesday I'm sitting with Qualys's report on the state of vulnerabilites out in the world, enjoying it much as one enjoys the Up series of movies.

The Up documentary series, for those who haven't Netflixed it, is following 14 British kids through their lives, interviewing them at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, and 49 so far. (The series started in 1964.) The concept is based on the old Jesuit saying, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," and the filmmakers are watching to see if that's true -- if the rich kids stay rich, if the kids in unsettled homes grew up to have unsettled homes of their own, and so forth. If potentials are pronouncements, in other words.

It's good stuff, and though the Qualys report has a long way to go to replicate that sort of long-arc data accretion -- the company released its first report in '04, and this is the second, covering 2008 -- it's interesting to ask what sort of progress we've made on coping with bugs and what sort of creature the security industry is turning out to be.

Of course, the kids in Seven Up actually grew up. Vulnerability management... not so much.

The Laws of Vulnerabilities 2.0 (PDF and PowerPoint available) documents progress, as measured by Qualys' vulnerability SaaS, on four aspects of vulnerability management: the time it takes to reduce occurrences of a vulnerability by half, the turnover rate on the "top 20" vulnerability list in the course of a year, the lifespan of vulnerabilities, and the time elapsed between the announcement of an exploit and the first attack spotted.

Bluntly put, we've made no progress. The half-life of a vulnerability is unchanged at about 30 days, with some industries (service industries, finance, wholesale/retail) doing a bit better and some (healthcare, manufacturing) doing even worse at applying the patches necessary to knock down those occurrences. Persistence is also unchanged: Simply put, a vulnerability lasts forever; they do not die; they are never fully patched into oblivion; you will never be done patching old holes. The report estimates that even critical vulnerabilities eventually stabilize at a 5-10% infection rate.

And that's the good news. The prevalence of vulnerabilities big enough to make the top-20 list has increased, with 60% of vulnerabilities spotted lasting through the one-year period of the study. Worst of all, the time-to-exploit for new vulnerabilities has crated, happening in less than 10 days on average compared to 60 days in 2004.

The authors of the study noted that there have been some sea changes from 2004 that admittedly make certain comparisons over time tough. Research focus has changed in large part from server-side vulnerabilities to those found in desktop apps, a far larger field of play; that could have something to do with why the number of vulnerabilities reported has more than doubled in the past five years. Some of the apps that seem to hold down a permanent place in the top 20, however, aren't that new to anyone: Microsoft Office, Sun Java, and Adobe Reader. (Windows 2003 Server SP2 also makes the unfortunate list.) 'This list proves," the report dryly notes, "that there are applications that are not receiving enough attention by IT administrators."

Qualys derived its number from 104 million scans done by approximately 3,500 organizations last year.

At this point, if the security industry were one of the kids from the Up series, we'd shake our heads and consign it to being no better, no more capable of improving its lot, than the most dismal interpretations of "and I will give you the man" might have predicted -- a pessimistic outlook that meshes fairly well with the reality of fighting back threats, network weirdness, and endless new attack surfaces on a daily basis. But there are slivers of good news in the report too; for instance, Qualys points to good progress on shrinking exploitation windows by sorting applications into priority and non-priority update rosters, and making sure net-facing apps such as browsers are in the high-priority group. And Chrome and Firefox developers merit praise in the report for using update mechanisms to aggressively push patches. In other words, it may be tempting to give up on vulnerability management even at this early stage of the game, but as with the kids of the Up series, the ultimate answer is just not that simple -- nor that inevitable.

And then there's this: As I finish this column late Wednesday night, I'm wondering what Facebook's next privacy debacle will be, now that they've managed to demonstrate that data-sharing settings on certain applications can be hamstrung with the greatest of ease. (Facebook's not talking at the moment, but if they were my first question would be about whether some glitch has surfaced as we near the launch of those more-granular privacy controls we've all been promised.) How do they top dumping all one's tweets onto one wall -- auto-launch of webcams on user machines, reverse the block-user functionality, post everyone's PII in the main feed? Facebook is already one of those companies that gives privacy nerds the heebie-jeebies. Foolishness like this, especially when it seems that every affected service BUT Facebook has indicted that it's aware of the problem, does not help.

And also: Apple partisans can find an excuse for everything their pet company does, so I'd like to invite the fanboi contingent to explain how it is that Cupertino is Good And Just And Sweet Like Puppies with this claim to the Copyright Office that allowing iPhone owners to jailbreak their handsets could endanger the nation's mobile-phone infrastructure. The rest of us are going to just stand by and feel sorry for you while you do that. But I'll give the company credit: The claim is the one of the damnedest advances in the field of Security Theater that I have ever seen. Always innovating, Apple.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

An apparent glitch in Facebook's settings has taken to pulling in updates from users' other services -- FriendFeed, Twitter, Mafia Wars and perhaps others -- whether or not it has been authorized to do so. Only uninstalling the relevant Facebook applications seems to quell the flood.

Aghast users were reporting late Wednesday that feeds from multiple services were appearing on their Facebook walls no matter what the current privacy settings might be. It's a potential privacy nightmare for users such as Kyle Sellers, who commented on a message board that "I specifically keep my accounts separate so I don't overwhelm my family with my political rantings. I have never been so furious with a web service before. I understand a service failing, but this seems both sinister and dishonest."

Facebook has offered no comment as of early Thursday morning; meanwhile, "Twitter Overwhelms" is currently the #1 trending topic on that service.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Nate Mook, Betanews

In the more than two years since the iPhone has been available, Apple has largely remained quiet about "jailbreaking," in which users modify the device's software to run third-party applications. Now that the EFF is pushing to make this practice officially legal, Apple is finally speaking up, but is it too late?

In a support article published late Wednesday, Apple for the first time discussed jailbreaking, calling it "hacking" in order to make "unauthorized modifications" to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

What does jailbreaking lead to? If you listen to Apple, it sounds quite dangerous.

The company warns of, "Frequent and unexpected crashes of the device, crashes and freezes of built-in apps and third-party apps, and loss of data." More ominously, Apple says, "Security compromises have been introduced by these modifications that could allow hackers to steal personal information, damage the device, attack the wireless network, or introduce malware or viruses."

Perhaps the strangest claim, however, is that jailbreaking can lead to the iPhone OS being "damaged" like a cracked egg such that it is "not repairable." In turn, iPhones or iPods that have been jailbroken risk "becoming permanently inoperable."

If the practice is so dangerous, why is Apple only publicly raising concern now, when customers have been jailbreaking their iPhones since 2007? The answer to that question likely lies in a recent effort by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to officially legalize jailbreaking through a DMCA exemption.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, states that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." However, the United States Copyright Office makes exceptions to this rule every 3 years -- the last one in 2006 and the next one this year. The EFF has petitioned the Copyright Office to make jailbreaking exempt under fair use laws.

"Jailbreaking an iPhone in order to run lawfully obtained software does not constitute copyright infringement. Nothing in the Apple iPhone Software License Agreement changes this conclusion," EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann wrote in a letter to the Copyright Office dated July 13 (PDF from Wired).

Of course, Apple had an entirely different opinion on the matter. "Jailbreaking constitutes copyright infringement. Because jailbreaking involves unauthorized modifications to Apple's copyrighted bootloader and OS programs, it is a violation of 17 U.S.C. § 106(1) & (2), unless such modifications are either within the scope of the license granted under the IPSLA (which they are not), or are covered by the statutory rights under 17 U.S.C. § 117 or by the fair use doctrine (again, which they are not, as detailed below)," the company wrote (PDF from Wired).

"More pernicious forms of activity may also be enabled. For example, a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data," Apple told the Copyright Office.

The weakest link in Apple's arguments, as the EFF's von Lohmann points out, is that millions of iPhones have long been jailbroken and none of the dire risks raised by the company have materialized. Apple also has largely been tolerant of those with jailbroken iPhones, admitting that it hasn't excluded them from warranty coverage (although, Apple indicates it will be forced to deny warranty coverage if jailbreaking becomes legal and thus more widespread).

Now, Apple can point to the support article that publicizes its position on jailbreaking as proof of the risks (it can't be made up if it's in an official document!), as well as its position that the practice violates the DMCA and should not be made exempt:

"It is also important to note that unauthorized modification of the iPhone OS is a violation of the iPhone end-user license agreement and because of this, Apple may deny service for an iPhone or iPod touch that has installed any unauthorized software."

What do you think: Should jailbreaking an iPhone or iPod Touch to run third party software be legal?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

There's an irony about the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. At one time, Yahoo provided search services to Microsoft. Now Microsoft is returning the favor. Well, if anyone could call the outsourcing of Bing search to Yahoo a favor. It's not. I predict that the deal will create two losers, with Google lapping up more search share -- at least in North America.

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal is a strange one. It's the difference between two people living together and getting married. Microsoft and Yahoo will share common residence, but within somewhat separate confines, work schedules, belongings and bank accounts. This isn't even a marriage of convenience. I wouldn't even call it cohabitation. Microsoft and Yahoo are roommates who share space but different, often conflicting, priorities.

There's a screenplay in this deal, another sequel to movie "Dumb and Dumber." But which CEO, Microsoft or Yahoo, should play which role? The deal is "dumberer" for both companies, and for different reasons.

Search cannibalization. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has long wanted to combine his company's search share with Yahoo's. The idea: Bring Microsoft search share closer to Google's. According to ComScore, Google's US share search share was 65 percent in June, followed by Yahoo at 19.6 percent and Microsoft at 8.4 percent. Conceptually, combined Microsoft-Yahoo would be 28 percent, which is a lot closer to 65 percent than is 8.4 percent.

Microsoft's reasoning, as first explained during the failed Yahoo takeover in 2008: Combined search share would give Microsoft enough reach to build out the customer and advertiser experience. I think everyone should have dreams, so, please, pardon my chucking black paint onto Steve Ballmer's rainbow.

Microsoft's math doesn't add up. Bing is proof of that. Microsoft search share was up 0.4 percent month on month in June, while Yahoo receded by 0.5 percent. Search share for the other top five providers, including Google, was flat month over month. By all appearances, Bing cannibalized Yahoo search during the new engine's first full month of service.

Further cannibalization is inevitable, and there is likely to be heaps of it. Matters would have been worse had Microsoft bought Yahoo and consolidated all search under a single brand. My prediction: Combined Microsoft-Yahoo share will be less than 20 percent within 12 months of the deal's closing -- and that's my being somewhat generous so that I don't get totally flamed in comments.

Crown jewel. Yahoo is giving up its core asset to Microsoft. Yahoo essentially has three crown jewels: Its popular and hugely valuable brands, search and banner advertising. Search is the core around pretty much everything revolves. Yahoo wants to give that up to a competitor? Exactly what incentive does Microsoft have, then, to help Yahoo?

Microsoft and Yahoo are competitors by most every measure other than PC and server software. Other than search, their areas of competition include: small business hosting and services, Web e-mail, instant messaging, portals and online finance, mapping, travel, health and music, among many other products and services. Yahoo's online reach, in terms of branding and time people stay online, is greater than Microsoft's.

It's inconceivable to me that Yahoo would give up something so valuable for limited gains:

• $700 million -- $500 million operating revenue and $200 million cost reduction
• $250 million increase in cashflow
• From Microsoft, 88 percent TAC, or traffic acquisition cost, at an initial rate of 88 percent of search revenue

It's like Yahoo has sold its soul to the devil under separate five- and 10-year terms. Yahoo started as a search company. Search is still core to the company's business, strategic and technological identity. Overture, which Yahoo bought in 2003, pioneered the keyword business model that Google made mighty profitable. Yahoo search share is more than double Microsoft's for good reasons. Search is Yahoo's soul.

The crown jewel Yahoo gives up today is another it loses tomorrow. Future search technology development will come from Microsoft, not Yahoo. What is smart about Yahoo giving up search technology development and essentially abandoning its research and development investment in the Panama ad system?

Something else: Bing search share gains, as widely reported by many news sites, are overrated. Those weekly search gains cited after Bing's launch aren't yet sustainable, as shown by more granular search data released by ComScore. There were 1.02 billion searches at Bing in June. Windows Live/MSN racked up 1.19 billion searches in May, 1.25 billion in April and 1.19 billion in March, according to ComScore. From that perspective, Bing search declined month on month in June compared to Windows Live/MSN in May. So let me see if I understand. Yahoo wants to swap out something that works for something unproven? It's another reason to wonder about Yahoo losing share once Microsoft controls search.

Missing mobile. Microsoft has been chasing Google for way too long. I would dare call Steve Ballmer obsessed with catching Google. Microsoft is distracted from more important matters, such as developing a solid mobile strategy, which includes search. I keep wondering how much of this Google obsession is about pride. It's like Microsoft executives are trying to recapture 2001-2002, when Microsoft led Google in search.

Two events catapulted Microsoft to US search leadership, starting in late 2001: Internet Explorer pushed "404" page not find errors to MSN Search; Windows XP launched. Microsoft not Google was the search leader. But by the end of 2002, Microsoft had fallen to third rank behind Google and Yahoo. MSN Search kept steady, while Google and Yahoo gained users. According to what was then ComScore MediaMetrix: Between March 2002 and May 2003, MSN Search grew by about 1 percent, as measured in number of visitors, compared to about 25 percent growth for Google.

Microsoft might regain some glory days, if the company spent more time on mobile, which is the future of search. But Google has won the desktop and is rapidly gaining on mobile devices. Cell phones are captive devices, meaning most people carry them -- and increasingly use them for more than telephony. In June, ComScore reported on March-to-March mobile search usage: Up 51 percent, in the United States. Something else: ComScore said that mobile Web browsers are the "leading access method for seeking local information."

Meanwhile, mobile advertising is in its infancy, but growing. Google doesn't have to dominate mobile the way it does the desktop. Last week, the Kelsey Group released its forecast for mobile search and advertising revenue in Europe. Between 2008 and 2013, revenues are predicted to increase from 39 million euros to 2.3 billion euros (or US $55.49 million to $3.7 billion, at today's exchange rate). The European mobile market is larger than the United States -- 499 million handsets versus 266 million, respectively, at the end of 2008, according to Kelsey Group. The analyst firm sees smartphones as being a major driver of mobile advertising. The number of smartphones in Europe is predicted to increase from 32 million last year to 149 million by 2013.

Microsoft needs a mobile operating system and browser Manhattan Project a lot more than it needs a Yahoo search deal. If Steve Ballmer must obsess about Google, he should focus on where the rival isn't yet entrenched and where also is the future of computing.

The antitrust quandary. The Microsoft-Yahoo deal is subject to regulatory approval. Those trustbusters must have their say. Some lawyer surely will argue that the deal could lead the market to consolidate around two search engines: Bing and Google. The other two major search leaders, AOL and Ask, had 7 percent combined search share in June, according to ComScore. Their share will recede, someone will tell trustbusters.

Now here's a strange thought: What if regulators reject the deal not because Microsoft-Yahoo would be too big but because search cannibalization would make Google too big? That's not typically how antitrust law applies, but there is an argument for the deal making Google a bigger monopoly. Strange as it might sound, Google lawyers could use this argument against the deal. It is not typically how companies argue antitrust -- that a deal should be prohibited because a dominant third-party would gain more market share. Nevertheless, the logic is sensible.

Google already is a bigger monopoly. AOL's search share was 3.1 percent in June. But, technically speaking, that's really untabulated Google search share; Google still provides paid and unpaid search to AOL. So, Google's real US search share nips 70 percent, and paid search is nearly 80 percent. Do trustbusters really want to risk making it more?

Now, I suppose that Microsoft could seek to steal away AOL, which deal with Google is up for renewal. Then Microsoft would get that untabulated search result. Such circumstance would be good for Bing, I predict, even pushing total search share over my predicted less-than 20 percent.

I'll end with that. I could write a short book on why this deal is bad for Microsoft and worse for Yahoo. Well, damn, I gave away which is Dumb or Dumber.

By the way, as is typical of this kind of announcement, the analysis is my own. I reviewed the announcement material and the BetaNews "need-to-know" bullet-points story. That way, no one else's thinking influences my opinion.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally and Nate Mook, Betanews

As to be expected, Microsoft responded to news today that Windows 7 activation had already been cracked by telling Betanews that customers should not pirate the operating system. But the company also said it was happy to hear that people wanted to install Windows 7.

Following the publication of an activation crack for Windows 7 mere days after it was released to manufacturing, we contacted Microsoft to hear its take on the issue, which appears to be a repeat of the Windows Vista crack from 2006. Windows XP activation was also cracked not long after its launch.

"Microsoft strongly advises customers not to download Windows 7 from unauthorized sources. Downloading Windows 7 from peer-to-peer Web sites is piracy, and exposes users to increased risks -- such as viruses, Trojans and other malware and malicious code -- that usually accompany counterfeit software. These risks can seriously harm or permanently destroy data and often expose users to identity theft and other criminal schemes," the company told us.

Nonetheless, Microsoft actually seemed flattered by the crack, a surprising admission that probably has more to do with making Windows desirable again than piracy.

"We're pleased that customers are eager to begin using Windows 7!" a Microsoft spokesperson added.

Decades ago, the anecdotes go, Microsoft actually liked people pirating Windows, because it helped spread the operating system and eventually establish its dominance across the PC market. It may be "strongly advising" people not to pirate Windows 7, but it's clear the company desperately wants customers to want the upgrade.

Is this a sign of lowered expectations after Vista's painful launch, which was delayed by more than nine months and then saw only a lukewarm reception?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In anticipation of AOL's spin off from parent company Time Warner, Google has sold its 5% stake in AOL back to Time Warner for almost 75% less than it paid for it in 2006.

According to an SEC filing released today, Time Warner paid $283 million for Google's 5% share of AOL on July 8, which Google spent a billion dollars on in 2006.

The deal brought mutual strength to AOL and Google's advertising platforms and outsourced AOL's searches to Google, but at the end of last year, Google wrote down $726 million of the investment.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

As a run-up to the Windows Mobile Marketplace launch, Microsoft has officially opened submissions for the Race to Market developer challenge in 29 countries.

The contest will begin when the Marketplace opens and continue until the last day of 2009, at which time four apps will be selected to win a Developer Edition Microsoft Surface table each. Registered Windows Mobile devs and independent software vendors can now upload their apps for certification in the Marketplace and expect them to be ready within around 10 business days.

The winners will be free app that is downloaded the most, the for-pay app that is most valuable (number of downloads x price), and the "most playful," and "most useful" apps as determined by a panel of Microsoft judges.

"Our strategy for all of this is pretty straightforward; we want to create a global marketplace for Windows Phones where developers and users meet to sell and buy high quality and high value applications that make work easier and life more fulfilling," said Todd Brix, senior director for Mobile Platform Services Product Management at Microsoft. "We're creating a clear process and new opportunity for developers and ISVs to make money from their investment in innovation."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The Australian Federal Government's controversial plan to install ISP-level content filters has managed to make it to the widespread testing phase, and challenging the long-held criticism that such filters would slow down Internet speeds as much as 75% percent, ISPs testing the filters now report minimal slowdown.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority began testing the filters in February 2008 in Tasmania before open testing was slated to begin. In these tests, one of the filters tested registered 2% "network degradation," while three registered under 30% and two degraded network performance by more than 75%.

One year later, five of the nine major ISPs participating in the government's tests (iPrimus, Netforce, Nelson Bay Online, WebShield, and OMNIconnect) say the filtering solutions do not present any significant slowdowns or improper blocks of acceptable content. The remaining ISPs in the test did not comment.

"From a technical perspective we're more than confident that if the government decided to roll out a mandatory Internet filter based on or around an Australian Communications and Media Authority [ACMA] blacklist or subset thereof, then it can be done without any impact whatsoever to the speed of the Internet," WebShield managing director Anthony Pillion told ARN.

The controversial "clean feed" plan mandates this filtering technology for all ISPs, and these tests will likely be used to refute the opposition that use slowdowns as a cornerstone to their anti-filtering campaigns.

But now that speed is no longer an issue, the accuracy of the filters will be. Unfortunately there are no parameters for just how accurate the filters have to be, and the Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy Steven Conroy refuses to set them up until after the tests are finished.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In its "State of the Mobile Web" report, which analyzes aggregated information from Opera Mini's servers, browser company Opera Software today said that in June 2009, 26.5 million users viewed more than 10.4 billion pages. In annual performance, that represents a 143% increase in users and a 224% increase in pages viewed.

Now it's well known that Opera is one of the most widely ported browsers in the mobile device realm, with more than 40 million phones shipping with the software built in, but where is it being used the absolute most, and on what devices?

The top ten countries in terms of usage in June were Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland, and Nigeria.

Opera is most commonly used on Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices the world over, but the device most commonly used to access the Web with Opera Mini is the Nokia 6300, a 2G Series 40 handset which tops the Russian, Indonesian and Ukrainian charts. Only in the U.S. (BlackBerry Curve 8330), U.K. (LG Renoir), and South Africa (Samsung E350) do different brands beat Nokia and Sony Ericsson to the top of the rankings.

And what are Opera Mini users accessing on their Nokia phones? Google and Facebook of course, except in Indonesia, where users prefer Yahoo, and Russia and Ukraine where users prefer Yandex and Vkontakte.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

A week in the blogosphere without a teapot-sized tempest is a week without... well, probably electrical power if not gravity. Last week's target for tumult was the Associated Press, which announced Thursday that it would implement a new system to detect unlicensed use of its content and promptly fell into a swamp of blogger fury, with all parties eventually screaming "fair use!" -- to the amusement and edification of absolutely no one.

The AP's news registry project, which is slated to roll out in November, will add an "informational wrapper" to its material, designed to alert the service to wholesale grabs by other web sites. Text content will be wrapped first, followed by photos and video.

AP's own Michael Liedtke did a pretty decent writeup of the announcement, flagging potential privacy concerns and getting a quote from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society's John Palfrey to the effect that too much tracking could backfire on AP if readers got nervous -- "A potential third rail."

What Mr. Palfrey didn't mention was the danger that the announcement could be interpreted by certain quarters of the blogosphere as ZOMG AP GONNA GETCHA!!! Still smarting from earlier AP efforts to clamp down on overexuberant excerpts and sites that jumped a little too quickly on breaking news coverage, media bloggers lumped the announcement in with those issues and framed it all as another example of AP Just Doesn't Get It.

According to an interview with Associated Press CEO Tom Curley, AP believes that even minimal link to AP content online -- a headline-link combination, for instance -- required a licensing agreement with the organization that produced it. That is by any measure a rather aggressive stance to take online (as multiple legal challenges, dating back to the conflict between Microsoft and Ticketmaster over "deep links", have shown), but a significant challenge to concepts of fair use.

Multiple bloggers jumped on the situation, in one case calling the AP "the RIAA of news." (And at least one writer shrugged that, like all DRM, such a wrapper is probably made to be broken.)

It fell tot he old-line media outlets -- in this case the Columbia Journalism Review -- to go back to AP and ask what the heck they were thinking. Ryan Chittum asked himself, as he puts it, "is AP really that stupid?" -- and concluded after a talk with Jane Seagrave, AP's senior vice president of global product development, that "they're really not that stupid."

Seagrave told Chittum that the target of the effort isn't Google (with whom AP already has an arrangement, of course) or individual bloggers -- "that's not our intent" -- but wholesale appropriation by news aggregators who are "copying and pasting or taking by RSS feeds dozens or hundreds of our stories."

A wise observer would ask if Seagrave and Curley maybe shouldn't spend some time getting their story straight rectifying discrepancies between how the system might be used and how it will be used; as it is, Seagrave seemed mainly annoyed by the controversy, which she said was caused by people trying to make Ap "look silly."

However, she did say something more interesting about the system, about which tech details are currently scant and likely to stay that way until the hackers lay hands on it. According to Chittum, Seagrave said the new wrapper system "is not digital-rights management that says no you can't... It says this is how you can." What does that mean? Metatagging? A ssytem of notices in the style of the Creative Commons copyleft effort? It's all foggy for now, but until all parties agree to operate on a fact-based system rather than throwing around fair-use claims and random loss amount allegedly due to content piracy, perhaps the best onlookers can hope for is a convenient lighthouse.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Nine years ago, the Office of Management and Budget issued a directive banning Federal agencies from dropping cookies on visitors' computers. On Friday, the White House called for public discussion about whether that policy should continue. Whether you see that as a nod to improved privacy protections and a smarter userbase, or sigh at the encroachments tracking tech has made in a decade, is perhaps a matter of perspective.

The announcement, blogged on the White House site by federal CIO Vivek Kundra and OMB associate administrator for information and regulatory affairs Michael Fitzpatrick and reproduced nearly verbatim in the proposal's listing in the Federal Register (PDF available), says that the point of the policy review is "to develop a new policy that allows the Federal Government to continue to protect the privacy of people who visit Federal websites while, at the same time, making these websites more user-friendly, providing better customer service, and allowing for enhanced web analytics."

The proposal describes a three-tiered system for deploying Web tracking tech on Federal sites -- one single-session option and two multi-session options, one focused strictly on analytics and one with a broader scope. The proposal acknowledges that the more comprehensive option may have higher privacy risks and states that there would be other, more stringent restrictions on those tracking mechanisms.

On the OMB blog (where the piece is cross-posted) the high level of discourse indicate that someone's probably moderating (at least lightly) the comments on this proposal. That said, response there is varying.

Some commenters within government have questions about first- and third-party trackers. (Respondents seemed to be fairly negative about the latter possibility.) Other commenters want to know if the analytics data might be made public, in the spirit of transparency. One noted that opt-in, not the proposal's opt-out, is preferable to many privacy-conscious folk.

Commenter "Paul Kincaid," who identifies himself as a security professional, raises the question of authentication. Meanwhile "Jeffrey Chester," speaking for the Center for Digital Democracy, asks why the comment period is so short and calls for a "serious public debate" on the matter, and dismisses persistent cookies out of hand -- drawing some ultra-polite heat from respondent and federal consultant Kochukoshy Cheruvettolil, who suggests that perhaps "the Center for Digital Democracy can provide some positive input on this issue rather than raise the usual concerns which I admit are valid but for which solutions need to be found."

Comments will be accepted through August 10, and may be submitted via email or fax, or through either of two sites listed in the Federal Register.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Sun Danyong, the 25-year old employee of Apple contractor Foxconn who committed suicide after losing a prototype iPhone reportedly had a history of misplacing secret prototypes, Foxconn told reporters yesterday.

After a prototype next-gen iPhone that was Sun's responsibility went missing, he became the target of an investigation that allegedly involved physical violence and humiliation. Shortly thereafter, Sun plunged off of a twelve story apartment building to his death. Investigators said there were no other suspicious markings on his body and determined that it was suicide.

Apple issued a public apology, and Foxconn has given monetary compensation to Sun's family, reportedly including more than $44 thousand and a free Macbook.

But it is still unclear if Sun was engaged in industrial espionage or if Foxconn used unduly harsh techniques to question him. General manager of Chinese operations at Foxconn James Lee, however, claims Sun Danyong actually lost track of secret prototypes in the past and that his explanations for this one were not convincing.

"Several times he had some products missing, then he got them back...We don't know who took the product, but it was at his stop," Lee said.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Western Digital today announced its new terabyte storage solution in the 2.5" category, the WD Scorpio Blue SATA drive.

The 5200RPM 3Gb/s, 8MB Cache WD Scorpio Blue comes in both 750GB and 1TB capacities for $189.99 and $249.99 respectively. They feature three of Western Digital's trademarked technologies, WhisperDrive sound dampening, ShockGuard shock tolerance technology, and SecurePark technology, which reduces the time the record head is in contact with the spinning disc surface, ostensibly lengthening the lifespan of the drive.

Western Digital was able to increase the amount of storage in 2.5" line by increasing its height to the 12.5mm factor, so not all drive bays will accommodate them. They are available through WD's online shop immediately.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Telecommunications company Verizon will be eliminating 8,000 positions in the next six months, said CFO John Killian in the company's earnings call this morning.

"Although we are taking steps to mitigate the negative impacts of the economy in the short-term, we also need to more significantly reduce the wireline cost structure over the next 12 to 18 months...As part of our ongoing program to resize and reduce the cost structure, we reduced headcount by more than 8,000 over the last 12 months. We plan to do more than 8,000 in force and contractor reductions in the second half of this year," Killian said.

These cuts come quickly on the heels of the Verizon's sale of wireline assets to Frontier Communications. The $8.6 billion deal turned control over to Frontier in fourteen U.S. States. Union telecommunications workers and the state legislature of West Virginia worried the deal would adversely affect workers.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

AT&T reportedly blocked sections of message board 4chan, the popular wellspring of memes and clearinghouse for humor of questionable taste. For a short time yesterday, AT&T was blocking image boards (/b/ and /r9k/) with no explanation to its DSL and U-Verse customers or to 4chan's admins. Later in the evening, AT&T restored network access, but the site remained under a large-scale denial of service (DDoS) attack which continued into the morning.

While AT&T's blockage of img.4chan.org was confirmed, the relationship between the blockage and denial of service attack remains unconfirmed. Some reports (and some posters on /b/) claim that the DDoS attacks were coming from AT&T customers.

Of course, any ISP-level action taken against the popular site is sure to elicit retaliation from its users, no matter what the ISP's motive. In a matter of hours, users already began planning actions against AT&T.

For example, an article saying "AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was found dead in his multimillion dollar beachfront mansion, say official sources..." was posted to Digg, and has received almost a thousand votes by this afternoon, and a campaign to boycott AT&T has been put up.

On Encyclopedia Dramatica, under the heading "The Gameplan," a PR war is discussed as one option for retaliation. It says, "Make it absolutely abundantly clear that this is NOT acceptable to American consumers and this WILL NOT be allowed to happen, or else face financial and political suicide. Acting like an idiot and trying to DDoS them will only end with you being persecuted, and your actions being used as a justification. Fight with what works: this is David and Goliath. this is the little man and the big evil corporation. this is the honest consumers fighting back by being consumers: by stop giving them money, by making them look horrible, by causing a PR sh*tstorm. By having the consumerist press have headlines disparaging AT&T."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In the vinyl age, the packaging of a record album was integral to the overall experience that album gave the listener. A good cover could help sell more albums, and detailed liner notes could serve as an enhancement to listening. As packaging shrunk with changing formats, most of the impact of the album packaging was lost. Meanwhile, album purchases have been on a steady decline for years as digital consumers favor single songs over whole albums.

Apple and the "big four" major record labels are hoping to change that by re-inventing the packaging of the MP3 album. In a project reportedly codenamed "Cocktail," Apple, Sony, Universal, Warner, and EMI are working on packaging interactive content with digital albums. Albums packaged with song lyrics, production and liner notes, video clips and photos could be the next new type of bundle in iTunes.

Users will be able to enjoy the interactive components while listening to the music, in very much the same way listeners would use the packaging of record albums to enhance the listening experience of that format. The record companies hope that the added value will spark interest in the album as the preferred format again.

According to Neilsen SoundScan, , digital downloads constituted 32% of all music purchases last year, and over 1 billion individual tracks were sold. Only 428 million albums were sold during the year, a decline of 14%.

"Cocktail" is expected to launch in September, and there is currently no word on the effect it could have on album prices.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Just released figures from research firm NPD seem to suggest that Apple has a firm handle on the rich and famous.

In June, Apple owned 91 percent of the so-called premium computer market -- machines costing $1,000 and up. That's up three points over May's figures. Way back in early 2008, it was a mere 66 percent. Apple is clearly doing something right to attract the well-heeled.

Historically, Apple has been happy to maintain the status quo, to remain in the upper registers of the market and avoid slugging it out in the cheap seats. Even as netbooks seemed to take the computing world by storm, Apple steadfastly refused to bow to calls to dive into the low end of the computing pool. Just last week, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook reinforced his company's position, saying, "Our goal is not to build the most computers, it's to build the best. Whatever price allows us to build the best computer, we'll build it there...We can't build a great $399 computer."

I agree. The average netbook makes a rusted out 1988 Toyota Tercel liftback look luxurious in comparison. Flimsy keyboards, snap off-but-not-back-on parts, and squeaky and creaky plastic everywhere else promise a mercifully short and sad service life. You get what you pay for, which in the case of the average netbook is relatively little. Relatively elevated return rates and online forums and blogs filled with nasty comments suggest I'm not alone in my disdain for this vision of uber-cheap computing.

Apple, for good reason, is steering well clear. This is where bottom feeders live, and presumably go to die. Introducing a full-on netbook at this price point would surely kill its carefully cultivated brand.

But if you read into Tim Cook's careful choice of words, you may notice something else: Namely that they can't build a $399 computer, but they'd be happy -- and absolutely able -- to build a $399 something else. They already make an even less expensive device that possesses many of the attributes mobilenauts hold dear. Depending on where you buy it and what your particular needs are, it's either an iPod touch or an iPhone. With a little stretching and tweaking, it's not out of the realm of possibility that something based on iPhone/iPod Touch bones might make a great $399 something.

Of course, that's not what the rumor mill is saying. The latest word (which, as you know, I've already bet my next mortgage payment on) is that Apple's bringing a $799 tablet-based device to market sometime in 2010. Apple, which has been defining and redefining form factors since the day it was founded, has never been content to simply follow anyone else's lead. So whatever it has in store, count on it not being a me-too product. And while all this speculation grew tiresome months ago, it still begs two key questions that don't seem to be getting much air time:

• Should it be a downsized Mac or an upsized iPhone/iPod Touch?
• Will it cannibalize existing Mac sales in either case?

Let's look at them in order:

Downsized or upsized? I'll apologize in advance for not having a set answer for this. Wait, I lied. I do: It depends. Our one-size-fits-all understanding of mobility needs to be replaced with something a little more flexible. For some folks, mobility is the ability to quickly look up stuff online, send relatively short e-mails, and maybe do some light editing. For them, the average iPhone or BlackBerry may be enough. For users who take their machines into meetings and remote offices and need to create larger volumes of work, a keyboard-equipped form factor with a real screen and Actual Microsoft Office, or something like it, are critical. An upsized iPhone -- complete with non-standard productivity apps and the need to sync and translate files -- may be just the ticket for lighter mobile needs, while a downsized Mac may suit the road warriors among us. Notice I didn't say Windows XP-powered netbook. Would you honestly want to crack one of those open in your next business meeting?

Cannibalize the Mac? It sounds like heresy to deliberately sell a less expensive product that knowingly cuts into sales of existing, more expensive, and higher margin offerings. The heresy issue is something that's seemingly dogged Apple forever. Indeed, other Tier 1 vendors that have gone down the netbook route have experienced it first-hand as their early netbook offerings shifted some revenue away from their existing low-end conventional laptops. So it's entirely fair that Apple, whose brand image is arguably more polished than those of its competitors, is afraid to even open up that Pandora's Box. But no company can afford to ignore its market. And if Apple fans expect a something that offers reasonable mobility and workflow support and costs in the high three figures, then it unnecessarily assumes major risk by ignoring the growing calls for too long.

In the short term, such a device may indeed siphon away some dollars from folks who would have purchased a full-on MacBook or MacBook Pro. In the long term, however, it'll attract additional attention and customers to the brand and prevent existing customers from looking elsewhere when they want something smaller than a conventional laptop. Erosion of existing customers is the biggest danger Apple faces by delaying the inevitable.

As much as Apple would like to maintain its current product roadmap and ignore what's happening in the lower end of the market, it can't afford to sit still. The world is changing around it, and the company must adapt its product line to suit customers' evolving needs. That may mean iPhones on steroids, MacBooks struck by shrink rays, or both of the above.

History is filled with examples of companies that, content to occupy their niche, missed the higher order changes outside their little islands that eventually swallowed them whole. While I'm hardly accusing Apple of keeping its head in the sand, it needs to accelerate its ability to adapt to global trends that redefine what hardware looks like and how it works.

Nothing snobby about that.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

It's a very big slice of a shrinking pie. As the netbook form factor serves as a much-needed lifeboat for most PC manufacturers, driving average selling prices (ASPs) lower across-the-board, premium PC maker Apple is left with almost complete command of the higher end of the market. Those are the findings of research firm NPD earlier this week, as first reported by Betanews blogger Joe Wilcox. He computed the numbers NPD delivered, and concluded that in terms of revenue (not unit sales), more than nine of every ten dollars spent by Americans on computers whose prices are $1,000 or greater, are collected by Apple.

For the Apple faithful, being able to quote any Microsoft-like market share number in their favor is like Christmas come early. It means there's a genuine market segment where Apple is in complete control. But as those who know Apple very well are saying -- folks like NPD Vice President of Industry Analysis Stephen Baker, who is responsible for the numbers Wilcox cited and who spoke with Betanews this morning -- Apple has a little secret: It doesn't really care about market share.

"I just don't think that the state of the economy in the long run matters a lot to Apple, or impacts them one way or the other," said Baker. "They have a pretty stable market, [and] they're able to continue to sell into that market...Let's not forget that Apple is really, on the hardware side, two different companies. The MacBook computer company is a premium company that has no interests in being #1 in market share, has really no interest in volume. It has an interest in building great products and managing the business to the right profit margins at the right prices."

While Apple is by no means immune to the ill effects of the bad global economy, it is clearly not suffering. Late last month, the company posted quarterly results showing net sales rising 11.7% over the year-ago quarter, and margins rising just over a point to 36%. But even though those are overall margins -- which also takes into account iPhones, whose cost of production continues to decline -- they're still not ideal, especially for a company that essentially owns the premium computer market. And even though Apple is selling 4% more Macs now than it did at about this time last year, it's reaping 8% less net profit from those sales.

"Their notebook sales have struggled so far in 2009, their overall sales in the first six months were negative versus 2008. So they've struggled, they recognize that in a more recessionary economy, they need to be a bit more price competitive," Baker told us. "[With] the last MacBook Pro upgrade, they definitely reduced their prices; and certainly at the entry level price points, their products are pretty competitively priced when you do all the math."

So is Apple's firm stake to the premium market actually a tenuous position to be in, given the state of this economy? Illuminata Senior Analyst Gordon Haff told Betanews this morning that he believes there's a danger in folks overstating Apple's case, even on the company's behalf.

"There's something to be very careful of with respect to those numbers. They are specifically Apple's share of >$1000 PCs in US retail," said Haff. "That's not at all the same thing as overall share when you consider that Apple has a fairly substantial network of their own retail stores; and many of the premium PC models, such as the Dell Adamo and HP Blackbird, aren't commonly available at retail outlets such as Best Buy, if they're available at all. That's not to contradict the basic point that Apple has a much bigger slice of the high-end market than they do overall, but those numbers do somewhat overstate the case." But does that mean Apple's 91% isn't really much of an island to stand on after all? Stephen Baker says no:

“This is where Apple, like every other vendor that has traditionally sold conventional form factors like laptops and desktops, needs to be very careful about cannibalizing its existing line.” Carmi Levy, independent analyst and Betanews contributor

"I think the short answer is, look at their earnings. I don't think there's any question that Apple knows what they're doing, and they're in a position that they're very comfortable with. Not everybody has to sell a zillion units to be profitable or be successful, and I think from Apple's perspective, given -- as they continually say -- that they could make crappy computers the same way other people do, but they wouldn't feel comfortable doing that, and they feel comfortable where they are...they're certainly viable as being positioned as a more premium brand."

To remain competitive, all the other players that lack Apple's unique ability to stake claim to premium PCs, have had to rush to the "value" side of the market in order to eke out a profit. The netbook form factor has saved the rest of the PC economy. Meanwhile, Apple plays this game as though it doesn't need a netbook and doesn't want one. As I argued to NPD's Baker, maybe market share really doesn't matter to Apple -- maybe it's just fine where it is.

"You know what? I think you're not incorrect, but I do think that even in these economic times, Apple needs to find some ways to be more accessible to a bigger range of consumers. In the PC side of their business, they likely need to do some kind of permanent SKU, permanent product at about a $799 price point, to make sure that their customer base stays focused on that. Because they are a little separated from the rest of the PC market, they really do need to offer a little bit better in terms of value. They don't need a $399 netbook in their MacBook line, clearly; nor do they need something [MacBook] at $599, none of those things are a benefit to them.

"They need to do something around the $399 - $599 price point that is netbook-like, but that re-invents the concept of what the netbook has been thought of," Baker continued. "I think there's a huge opportunity for them there in what Intel and others have called a Mobile Internet Device."

Next: Analysts debate the merits of the "iPhone-Plus-Plus"

Here is Stephen Baker's proposition: Apple has positioned itself perfectly to create and produce a high-level device with a larger screen than an iPhone, that appeals to some of the same consumers who would be considering netbooks, but which isn't (like some other netbooks) a cheap computer. And it can afford to take that gamble, and maybe break even at the outset, because of its firm stronghold in the premium side of the PC market. MacBook, in other words, is the fountain from which new upper-level iPhones may flow.

This new product that Apple would produce, as Baker describes it to Betanews, "would be more of...a step up off the iPod Touch, that would offer a bigger screen, offer a little different experience, than what you get from an iPhone or from an iPod Touch, but still not be associated with what is going on in their PC business. Those margins, and the way they manage that business, really needs to be carefully nurtured, and they have to be careful about how aggressive they can be in price without really destroying the margin structure there. But there are opportunities in a category like the iPod segment where clearly the market is saturated -- they need a new paradigm in there to kind of revisit and reinvigorate that segment."

Are we talking about what ARM and Qualcomm have advanced as something called a "smartbook?" No, says Baker: "If it's got a clamshell and a keyboard, then that's a computer in my mind.

“I don't think there's any question that Apple knows what they're doing...Not everybody has to sell a zillion units to be profitable or be successful.” Stephen Baker, Vice President of Industry Analysis, NPD

I think what the alternative to the netbook really is, is an on-the-go, always connected kind of device, the way Intel has described the Mac, actually, but without the baggage of the carriers, necessarily; without the baggage of voice; and clearly without the issue [that netbooks have] of being a clamshell, and being not pocketable and not really convenient to use when you're on the go. [It would have] a bigger screen because the limitation on the iPhone is that it needs to be in your pocket and it needs to be small, and with you all the time. That really negates your doing a great Internet device...because really no matter what they do with a three-and-a-half-inch/four-inch screen, it's never going to be a great experience."

In other words, Baker's "Super-Duper-iPod/iPhone-Plus-Plus," as he referred to it (probably a temporary name) doesn't really have to be the greatest Internet computer on the planet, because it's not a computer. More importantly, it's the $799 device that Apple needs in its arsenal, without being the netbook that it doesn't want to be associated with.

This afternoon, I ran that proposition past another of Baker's friends and colleagues, our own Betanews contributor and independent analyst Carmi Levy. Carmi sees the appeal in Apple's being able to address a certain mobile professional with an iPhone that's a little something more. Such a device, he says, would address that buyer's need for "instant-on" functionality, followed by the ability to catch up with, and produce small batches of, work.

"It makes a lot of sense for Apple to extend the form factor of a device that already offers a fairly well-evolved mobile user experience, which is the iPhone or the iPod Touch," Carmi told me this afternoon. "These things are far more effective as mobile workflow than a netbook running Windows XP, that needs to boot every time you simply want to check your mail or update your blog or check the weather while you're out."

It's difficult to define just what this device would be. Illuminata's Gordon Haff this morning tried to pin it down on the low end of the MacBook scale: "[Apple] can't be oblivious to pricing realities. It may well make sense for them at some point to introduce a low-priced notebook if they can do something interesting and distinctive with the design. But a flat-out, cost-focused system like most netbooks? No, it doesn't really make sense for them." So certainly not a netbook; but Carmi Levy adds to that, it can't really be another notebook either:

"Apple's go-forward strategy needs to be not mimicking what's already gone before. And Apple's never done that anyway; it's not like they're about to start. They've made it very clear they're not going to ape the existing netbook form factor, and that's the smartest thing they could possibly do. They've also indicated that they can't create a computer for $399. Doesn't mean they can't create another device for $399; the iPod Touch sells for a lot less than that. So you have to reach into the language: Apple will introduce devices both above and below that $399 price point, but they certainly won't look like a netbook."

Here's the problem: Baker's new "super-iPhone" would have to work unlike a netbook. It would have to work like something more than an iPhone. And yet it cannot, and perhaps should not, work like a MacBook -- especially not if Apple wants to maintain that 91% stronghold for very long.

"We are at the very early stages of figuring out what it is that we like to do while we're on the go. The concept of mobile workflow means something different to everybody depending on how they define it," remarked Betanews' Carmi Levy. "So because this is a relatively new market, and it's quite likely the only bright spot in an otherwise devastating consumer electronics market these days, vendors are rushing into it, in some cases without giving a whole lot of thought to what those end user needs will ultimately be. They're simply hoping that what they throw at the wall sticks.

"This is where Apple, like every other vendor that has traditionally sold conventional form factors like laptops and desktops, needs to be very careful about cannibalizing its existing line. It's a challenge that's been faced by every tier-1 vendor; certainly HP has faced it. There is an acceptance and understanding that a certain percentage of their netbook buyers are in fact buying netbooks instead of laptops."

NPD's Baker believes Apple's solution to this problem is simple: Clearly distinguish, with branding and appearance and capability, that this new device is in the iPhone line and not the MacBook line.

“At the end of the day, Apple is a relatively high-end brand and they've done pretty well with that strategy to date. They can't be oblivious to pricing realities.” Gordon Haff, Senior Analyst, Illuminata

"If it's positioned as an iPod or as an iPhone, it has no impact on the MacBook business, it has no impact on the MacBook ASPs, it has no impact on the MacBook profit margins," said Baker. Arguing that such a distinction would help prohibit cannibalism of Apple's existing products, he added, "If the iPhone or the iPod Touch hasn't driven people out of the MacBook and into those platforms, then I don't think what we're talking about here will do the same thing."

But how would such a distinction be maintained? Apple's tool of choice to date in distinguishing the iPhone and iPod Touch from what should essentially be a small Macintosh, has been control: specifically, control over the level of functionality that these small devices are allowed to attain. Carmi Levy perceives that it would not be beneath Apple to use this same tool to control its $799 device.

And there may be the rub, where the entire plan could potentially backfire: "What [Apple] can't afford to do is deliberately hobble the device such that it does not provide the workflow that a mobile professional requires," Carmi said. "Apple may be afraid of cannibalizing the sale of a $1,300 MacBook Pro; but at the same time, if the market expects that that capability should be available at $799 and Apple fails to deliver it, Apple runs the very real risk of having that mobile professional look at another vendor. Apple may not want to cannibalize its own lines, but it may not have a choice to at least do that to a certain extent, if it wants to keep those potential buyers in the family."

One alternative that Apple may consider, Carmi suggests, is to build up the MacBook rather than tamp down this "super-iPhone." "Then what it does is, it opens up an opportunity to continue to add value to their top-line product," he said. "What Apple needs to do -- if in fact they're going to blow up the iPhone platform into a closer-to-full-sized form factor, at the $799 price point -- is ask themselves, if someone paying that much for that kind of device will be willing to jump through hoops to pay for his or her applications, and get at his or her data.

"And we all know the answer will be, no. The iPhone, as wonderful as it is, is not a workflow device. The challenge, obviously, is marrying the seamless workflow capability and cost-effectiveness of a full-on platform, with the instant-on mobility and seamless, on-the-go use of something based on an iPod Touch or an iPhone. Unfortunately, it's the convergence of capabilities that is not very easy to pull off, because if it was easy, then we would have seen it already...If it [can't], then essentially, it will be nothing more than an expensive iPhone that will languish as a niche, luxury product."

If anyone can pull this off, however, it's probably Apple. As Gordon Haff told us, "Apple just has more cachet as a company, and that's hard for someone who just makes the PC hardware to compete with."

As Stephen Baker believes, Apple's entire business model is geared toward doing just this very thing: "I think their whole business model surrounds the fact that they throw off an awful lot of money out of the MacBook business, and set that money to strategically invest in products and technologies that drive their brand, and drive the awareness of them, to higher levels. Otherwise they wouldn't have 300 stores, they wouldn't be spending all that money on the iPhone, and they wouldn't have bought a semiconductor company. They have a lot of freedom because of the kind of cash flow and profit margins that the MacBook throws off."

Carmi Levy advises anyone who disagrees with Baker's reasoning to check out not only Apple's track record, but Baker's. "If you look back at Apple's history, Mr. Baker's perspective bears out, because they essentially use their position as owners of an island, so to speak, in Macs, in the late '90s, to fund the development of the iPod. The fact that the iPod exists is largely due to the fact that Apple has sufficient cash flow from its supposedly niche operations in desktop and laptop computers. So essentially, Apple is simply reinventing history with that strategy in 2009. It's worked for the company before, and it's going to work for it again."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a public memo this afternoon, the European Commission has stated that Microsoft has offered to include a "ballot screen" with choices of Web browsers, including Internet Explorer 8 and others, as a way for the company to comply with the EC's directives. Last month, the company decided that it would remove IE8 from Windows 7 for European customers only, though that move alone was initially met with skepticism by the continent's legislators, who claimed that the move by itself would not restore choice to consumers.

Microsoft formally acknowledged the proposition minutes ago. Its public statement, given by General Counsel Brad Smith, includes the following: "If this proposal is ultimately accepted, Microsoft will ship Windows in Europe with the full functionality available in the rest of the world. As requested by the Commission, we will be publishing our proposal in full here on our website as soon as possible. While the Commission solicits public comment and considers this proposal, we are committed to ensuring that we are in full compliance with European law and our obligations under the 2007 Court of First Instance ruling."

While today's follow-up move is apparently being welcomed, it has not yet been sanctioned.

"Under the proposal," reads today's statement from the EC, "Windows 7 would include Internet Explorer, but the proposal recognizes the principle that consumers should be given a free and effective choice of Web browser, and sets out a means -- the ballot screen -- by which Microsoft believes that can be achieved. In addition, OEMs would be able to install competing Web browsers, set those as default, and disable Internet Explorer should they so wish. The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness in terms of ensuring genuine consumer choice."

Although October 22 remains GA-day for Windows 7, its relative availability to European customers on any day close to that date, may now depend on how long the European Commission takes to examine this proposal. Certainly it should already have had plenty of time to consider the idea of a ballot screen, as it was proposed long before Microsoft made its removal decision last month, and was backed by European manufacturers such as Opera Software.

A mechanism for letting installers choose their Web browsers may be easy enough to implement; what may be difficult is effectuating the upgrade procedure. The first versions of Windows 7E for Europe, at least at the outset, will not be able to upgrade over existing installations of Windows Vista or XP, Microsoft has previously informed Betanews. Enabling the ballot screen, which would in turn enable the installer to trigger third-party browser installation (perhaps through the installation procedure, perhaps over the Web), may for upgraders require the installer to effectively uninstall older Microsoft Web browsers such as IE7 or IE6 -- processes which, at the time, Microsoft engineered (perhaps intentionally) to be difficult. That is, unless Microsoft has worked out a way to use its operating system imaging platform (the same one that enables network-based installation of Windows Vista to multiple clients) to overwrite older OS installations with effectively "blank" Windows 7 installations that are then ready for third-party browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, or Safari.

Smith's statement this afternoon appears to imply that Microsoft has already worked out those technical details, and that full upgrading capability is indeed possible, if and when the EC gives the company the go-ahead.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Yesterday's introduction of Google Latitude for iPhone could have been a big deal if the product being announced was actually an application. Instead, Google's social Geolocation product is a Web app that must be run from inside Safari. As such, it's being described as toothless, crippled and worthless by reviewers all over the Web today.

Why was it released as a Web app when it has been available as a standalone app on all the major mobile platforms for five months? Google has been quite upfront about that, saying, "We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a Web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles."

Google's announcement of this Web app was almost apologetic, with Google Mobile Product Manager Mat Balez saying, "Unfortunately, since there is no mechanism for applications to run in the background on iPhone (which applies to browser-based Web apps as well), we're not able to provide continuous background location updates in the same way that we can for Latitude users on Android, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. Nevertheless, your location is updated every time you fire up the app and then continuously updated while the app is running in the foreground. And, of course, you can check in on where your friends are, so we think there's plenty of fun to be had with Latitude."

Skyhook Wireless -- the company that developed the iPhone's Wi-Fi location system -- said that as of July 10, there were more than 2,800 location-aware apps for the iPhone. Unfortunately, without true multitasking, most of these will remain unable to provide location data as accurate as the rest of the mobile world.

As PC World blogger David Coursey said today, "My smug iPhone superiority has been pierced and now I have to make excuses to my friends who use Latitude on platforms that support it properly."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The software maker with the ability to rectify everything for the open source community in the field of free video is Google. Right now, its YouTube division relies upon Flash video, whose codecs require Web browsers including Google's own Chrome to have plug-ins installed. If YouTube merely had the option of supporting an open source standard such as Ogg Theora -- a standard supported by sites including France-based DailyMotion -- in one fell swoop, the balance might shift in favor of Ogg's being adopted, as was originally planned, as the basic codec for HTML 5's <VIDEO> element.

But that project was suspended late last month by HTML 5's principal caretakers, who perceived a stalemate between the proprietors of online videos including Google, the manufacturers of Web browsers who are also interested in maintaining high performance levels, and the rights holders to the various technologies that still underlie modern video codecs. Now Mozilla, whose Firefox 3.5 is the biggest browser so far to include built-in HTML video support, says in a statement to Betanews last night that it will press on with its support of Ogg Theora despite the setback, perhaps in hopes that online video services may come to adopt the codec as a de facto standard.

"While the video element and affiliated API are very useful in their own right without the formal specification including a codec requirement, Mozilla will continue to lobby for the inclusion of Ogg Theora as part of the normative part of the HTML5 specification," Mozilla standards evangelist Arun Ranganathan told Betanews. "Theora is free and of high enough quality-per-bit for use within Web applications. It has been adopted by large-scale websites including DailyMotion.com, Wikipedia.com, and The Internet Archive (archive.org). The emergence of a common video format on the Web will allow developers to really use the power of the Video API, and it is absolutely part of Mozilla's standards advocacy to ensure a free and reliable video format becomes a part of the Web platform."

Last month, in online discussions with other members of the W3C's WHATWG working group, Google's representative made the case that if YouTube were to switch over to Ogg Theora, its servers would not be able to manage the bandwidth requirements. The Theora codec used within the Ogg wrapper is based upon technologies that were originally proprietary, developed by a company called On2 Technologies, but then donated to the open source community in 2001. Since 2004, its bitstream format was frozen, in an effort to ensure future renditions remained downwardly compatible.

But some see that move as possibly also ensuring that the format remained non-competitive against H.264, the family of ITU-supported standards that now includes MPEG-4. H.264 includes many standards that require license fees, administered by the MPEG LA authority, and that fact alone ensures that its codecs cannot be distributed in a free and open source browser, whose licenses would forbid it.

In light of that stalemate, Mozilla will concentrate its efforts on advancing the use of the <VIDEO> tag in Web pages, as a sort of vigil on the part of Web developers with interests in royalty-free media development. "The <VIDEO> tag and the video JavaScript API allow developers to treat video as a first-class citizen of the Web," said Ranganathan. "There is great value in the <VIDEO> tag and API, but we are keen to see a common video codec emerge on the Web that is both free to use and of a high quality for Web applications."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Thanks to Apple's well-publicized complaint about Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" advertisements (Kevin Turner, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer called it "the greatest single phone call in the history that [he'd] ever taken in business,") the ads have been changed.

Apple's legal department called demanding that Microsoft change the "Laptop Hunter" ads because they are factually inaccurate. In response, Turner said, "We're just going to keep running them and running them and running them."

The ads showed consumers looking for laptops, and ultimately deciding on Windows-based PCs because of their value for the price. The series famously opened with a young woman declaring, "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person," and continued with a number of spots echoing the same theme, shoppers forgoing Macs for Windows computers over value issues.

Despite Turner's claim that Microsoft wouldn't change the ads, the latest in the series has reportedly been edited to mollify Apple.

The one minute "Lauren and Sue" spot originally had a girl and her mother shopping for a laptop, and the daughter said, "This Mac is $2,000, and that's before adding anything."

The mother then asks, "Why would you pay twice the price?"

"I wouldn't!" Lauren replies. Ultimately, the girl leaves with a sub-$1000 Dell XPS notebook. According to Advertising Age, this segment has been replaced by Lauren simply saying, "It seems like you're paying a lot for the brand."

Microsoft confirmed that it had updated the ad to reflect the new lower price of the particular Mac they showed in the commercial, but said it does not reflect a broad change in the campaign.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Only nine days ago, Palm Inc.'s flagship touchphone, the Pre, lost its unofficial compatibility with iTunes when Apple updated the media management software to fix "an issue with Verification of Apple devices." After users updated the software, and plugged in their Pres, they found the software no longer recognized the device for syncing.

Already, an over-the-air WebOS update (v1.1) has been made available which renews the device's ability to be paired with iTunes. The update includes new feature support in Exchange ActiveSync, the ability to include emoticons in e-mail, MMS, and SMS, and the new NFL Mobile Live app from Sprint. As an additional jab at Apple, when Palm's Vice President of Business Products, John Traynor announced the update in the company's blog yesterday, he listed all of these features, but saved the iTunes fix for last, and prefaced it by delivering Steve Jobs' now trademark line: "Oh, and one more thing..."

Of course, diehard Apple fans see no humor in Palm's behavior. Blog MacDailyNews said today, "This is what parasitic Palm does while they twiddle their thumbs waiting for a buyout bid," while others see it as a simple game to keep the Palm Pre in the news for as long as possible.

Whatever the case, the next move is Apple's.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

This episode of Recovery is brought to you -- literally -- by the free Wi-Fi at the Sacramento Amtrak station. Isn't it funny how the train station can offer it but most airports don't. Funny. Ha.

I spent some time this week bopping around Prosper, the peer-to-peer lending site. I'd signed up with them several years back, intending to test the system for a write-up at Another Publication. I liked what I saw so much so that I stuck with it until economic events last year caused the service to go temporarily dormant. They're back now and I thought I'd see how my people were doing.

"My people" are the two-dozen-plus Prosper borrowers to whose loans I have contributed. The idea behind Prosper was and is that the service can match potential borrowers with relatively small loan needs with lenders willing to fund some or all of their loan based on whatever criteria made sense to the individual with the money -- a good cause, a good rate of return, or a good story.

I was strictly a Prosper lender (technically a loan buyer; the actual loans are three-year fixed items offered by regular lending institutions), treating the loan process as both a fun educational tool and a way to invest without touching the stock market, which I regarded then and now as dangerous id-driven hoodoo. (And that's why I write all those earnings reports for Betanews, kids.)

I put in $1,000 and spent several hours each month on the site reading loan applications and throwing in $50 here, $75 there. Not all the loans to which I contributed received full funding, which meant I could pick another loan and try again. The service has proven popular, with just under $180 million in loans made between over 840,000 members in the first three years.

Until the middle of last year, my little stake was doing all right. Then came the housing collapse. Then came the everything collapse. Then a nervous SEC started wondering if Prosper and similar peer-to-peer loan services weren't actually selling securities, and the site began a nearly nine-month quiet period and registration process. I could look at my current loans (for which borrowers were still on the hook, of course) or withdraw my money but not make new bids; I chose to wait until the service had squared away its regulatory situation for Washington State lenders.

The new Prosper's actually a better beast in certain ways. In particular, there's a new Trading Platform, which lets me buy (or sell) notes -- chunks of loans another Prosper investor already funded but now needs to cash out of for whatever reason. There's also a hard bid floor for lenders, closing up a quirky little gap in the Reverse Dutch Auction process whereby a return rate could slide to weirdly low levels -- especially for pretty girls. (Nice for the pretty girls, maybe, but tricky for my own risk management.)

The service has lowered the minimum bid on any loan from $50 to $25, which is nice if you like to spread your money around. (The largest loan I ever made was $200, on which more anon.) And -- clarifying things for novices such as myself -- it's now clearer that one is bidding on yield, not the interest itself. (One pays a 1% servicing fee on interest earned, which answers your inevitable question, "From this they make money?")

It's all swell, but there was one change I wasn't thrilled to see: There's now a minimum 640 credit score for new borrowers. Prosper relies on a fine-tuned risk rating that takes into account performance on similar prosper loans, but the usual credit rating is a big part of that score, and the new rule stood apart from any other criterion.

The Irish operate at an intrinsic handicap when presented with a good story, and like a true daughter of the hibernian horde I have been inclined to overlook -- or even in certain moods seek out -- deserving folk whose numbers seemed more reflective of hard luck than of bad money-management skills. My tendenciers could have been worse; an early study showed that as I mentioned a number of Prosper lenders were more inclined to, as Slate's Ray Fisman put it, issue cheap loans for pretty women, and expensive loans for black folk.

My Prosper portfolio, therefore, balanced some very conservative A- and AA-level loans (I'm also of Scottish heritage; I dare you to make a joke here) with a few that were by any standard high-risk.

According to Prosper, they "believe it is easier to accurately price these higher quality listings resulting in healthier lender returns" -- in other words, part of the risk in this situation can be related to unpredictability. So I looked in on my loans -- to see if the high-risk folk were less reliable than others, to see if default rates were stratospheric under the current circumstances, and to see if My People were all right.

So what can I tell you about my people, my people? First, yes, I lost some money, though not as much as I'd feared. Twelve of my loans are current and active; three are paid off, and the rest are in various states of collections, debt purchase, or bankruptcy. And I'm down right now by about $150 -- wince-inducing, but nothing compared to the smoking ruin I see when I look at my 401-K.

Second, to heck with credit grades. Two of my A-grade loans were charged off, one through bankruptcy. My largest loan -- that $200, to a servicewoman -- went to collections as well. Two of the business owners in my roster have declared bankruptcy, one with (again) an A rating previously and one, sadly, just a couple of years before retirement and handing off the business to his kids.

On the other hand, my B-, C- and D-rated folks are for the most part still plugging away. Even more significant to me, the only three of my loans to be fully paid off so far are two D-grade loans and an E. Every last one of my B-rated loans is current, compared with just 50% of my A-rated loans.

So is this a win for throwing away all Prosper's cautious new metrics and just going with one's shamrock spidey sense? Not so fast, my loaning leprechauns. My AA-rated loans, all both of them, are doing just fine, thanks. And though I may miss the give-a-guy-a-chance aspect of Prosper Version One, the service is a monument to applying openness to financial statistics -- Prosper made the API available early on, and thanks to a healthy developer community you can slice and dice Prosper statistics 'til even the most non-Irish among us feels good about his picks. That just might have something to do with the service's returns still beating the S&P.

And the single best indicator of payback among "my people?" It appears to be an engineering degree. Sure, those tech-support folk can be a little shifty, but it looks from here like giving money to needy nerds is a lot smarter than giving it to just gifted storytellers.

Let your geek flag fly and have a good weekend.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Afternoon of July 23, 2009 • David Letterman's comments about Twitter being "a waste of time" earlier this week gave fans of the service a good laugh, but the 62-year old chat show host who doesn't "know anything about the Twitter" actually posed a sound question. When posting a message, where does it go?

This kind of question probably wouldn't even occur to a regular user of the service, but to those unfamiliar with feeds, status updates, live blogging, and the like, Twitter offers very little to grab onto. Getting started is not as easy as it could be.

This is why Twitter will be unveiling a new homepage next week, co-founder Biz Stone said in a BoomTown interview yesterday.

"We need to do a better job of explaining ourselves to people who hear about us and then have no idea what do to," Stone said.

A primary target in this change looks to be the business sector, for which Twitter 101 has been opened, a site which contains resources for businesses looking to use Twitter for their communications.

On the site's blog yesterday, Stone explained, "We coordinated with business students and writers to surface some interesting findings, best practices, steps for getting started, and case studies. The results demonstrate how customers are getting value out of Twitter and suggest techniques businesses can employ to enhance that value."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Nate Mook, Betanews

Nearly a week after it deleted illegal copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from customers' Kindles without warning, Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos posted a personal apology to the Kindle user forums. Bezos called the company's handling of the decision "stupid," and said it would learn from the mistake. But he didn't say what would change, if anything.

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos Founder & CEO Amazon.com

As we reported last week, Amazon was able to remove the titles because the Kindle is configured to automatically sync up with the user's Bookshelf via the electronic book reader's WhisperNet wireless service. When the company removed the unauthorized books from customers' accounts, they also disappeared from the Kindle.

The media quickly jumped on the juicy and ironic news, often leaving out relevant information, such as the fact that the Orwell books were not authorized and were sold for only $1. It was also not the first time illegal books had been deleted from Kindles.

Amazon had already said in a press statement late last week that it would no longer delete copies of books sold to customers, even if they were found to be illegal. However, many people were still irked with the idea of Amazon having such control in the first place, as well as its poor communication about the situation, so a personal apology from Bezos should help smooth things over.

Customers quickly responded to the forum posting with positive comments. "I appreciate the admission; to be fair, I thought it was a matter of a lapse in judgment and counter to your company image. I'm happy with the resolution," wrote Geoffrey Snyder.

Many customers actually expressed no problems with how the situation was handled, but still appreciated the personal comment from Bezos. "If I unwittingly purchase an illegal copy of an ebook, I see no problem with Amazon deleting it from my Kindle as long as I get a straightforward explanation and an immediate refund. I have no desire to own stolen merchandise," wrote Peter Craine. "A lot of people seem to think an apology was necessary. I don't, but thanks anyway. Good for you."

"Your apology is deeply appreciated. However I take issue with your description of Amazon's actions as being "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. " I'm not sure that I would not have handled the situation any differently," wrote Ceres.

But missing from Bezos' apology (and Amazon's PR statement before it) is any information on how Amazon would avoid such problems in the future. Bezos acknowledged that Amazon had sold people "illegal" books that were published through the Kindle Store's self-serve system, yet didn't say this system would be changed.

One reason for this may be liability. If Amazon strictly moderates what content gets published, it could be held liable for copyrighted material being sold illicitly. For example, J.K. Rowling or Scholastic could theoretically sue Amazon for selling illegal copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price last week; the e-book was pulled after about an hour. However, Amazon can currently claim that it doesn't decide what books get published, much like an ISP doesn't control what its users upload and download, which places the liability on the company submitting the material.

So will Amazon continue selling illegal books? It looks that way, at least for the time being. But Kindle customers can now rest easy knowing that they won't disappear mid-read.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Microsoft closed fiscal 2009 with a whimper -- feeble performance not seen since the last recession in 2000-2001. Microsoft's fiscal year ended on June 30.

For fiscal fourth quarter, revenue fell -- often double digits -- for every Microsoft division: Client, Server and Tools, Business, Online Services and Entertainment & Devices. I can't recall the last time, if ever, there was such an occurrence.

Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, described the quarter's results as "disappointing," during a conference call late this afternoon. "Market conditions were certainly difficult in the quarter." That said, "there are some signs we have seen the worse," he said. Microsoft saw sequential Windows and Windows Server shipment gains for the first time in a year.

Actual Quarter and Year Results
For 2009 fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft reported revenue of $13.1 billion, for a 17 percent year-over-year decline. Operating income: $3.99 billion, down 30 percent. Net income: $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share. Net income fell by 29 percent and earnings per share by 26 percent year over year. If not for one-time charges, earnings per share would have been 4 cents higher.

Full fiscal 2009 fiscal year revenue was $58.44 billion, down 3 percent from fiscal 2008. Operating income reached $20.36 billion, down 9 percent. Net income fell 18 percent to $14.57 billion. Earnings per share fell 13 percent to $1.62.

Wall Street consensus was $14.37 billion revenue for the quarter, or expected 9.3 percent year-over-year decline. Earnings-per-share estimate was 36 cents, for a 21.7 percent consensus decline. Wall Street consensus for fiscal 2009: $59.66 billion revenue, down 1.3 percent; $1.70 earnings per share, down 9.1 percent. By pretty much every measure, Microsoft missed analyst consensus for fiscal quarter and year.

Fiscal 2009 started off strongly but went to hell in the second quarter, following the late-September 2008 stock market crash. Uncharacteristically, Microsoft stopped giving guidance to the Street, starting in second quarter. The company also announced its first-ever layoffs during the second quarter earnings announcement, in late January. Layoffs continued in fiscal third quarter.

Today, Microsoft continued its recent trend of not offering guidance for upcoming quarters. Clearly, the company still sees the sales situation, exacerbated by the global recession, as too difficult to forecast. Microsoft did offer fiscal 2010 operating expense guidance of $26.6 billion to $26.9 billion.

It's Not Over Yet
Microsoft remains challenged. The CFO warned that the economic climate would remain difficult for at least the rest of the calendar year, which would be the first half of fiscal 2010. Liddell sounded more chipper on today's conference call than the last few. He told analysts of seeing "signs now of the bottom" of the economic crisis.

As I explained last week, Microsoft has not turned the corner. There are simply too many obstacles tearing away at its core business:

• Sluggish PC sales (which hurt both big revenue products)
• Tightened IT budgets (corporate and state-and-local government)
• Smaller volume-license renewals (because of corporate downsizing)
• Credit crunch (small-and-medium business loans for new technology)

That said, fiscal 2010 is chock full of new Microsoft products or services. During fiscal 2010, Microsoft expects to launch, among other products:

• Windows 7 (October 22)
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• Azure Services Platform (during November developer conference)
• Exchange Server 2010
• Office System 2010

Whenever there is economic recovery, Microsoft will have a strong product portfolio to offer enterprise customers. However, Microsoft's strategy bets almost solely on businesses and the continued success of the Office-Windows-Windows Server stack. The company's mobile strategy is weak, as newcomers Apple and Google make dramatic smartphone sales gains and a newer mobile-to-cloud applications platform gains momentum.

Segment Results
Once again, sluggish PC sales hurt big revenue products Office and Windows, but the operating system much more. Microsoft estimates that global PC sales declined 5 percent to 7 percent year over year.

Client. There is little good news coming from the Windows division in fourth quarter. Windows OEM unit growth fell 10 percent -- inconceivably by 3 percent to 5 percent more than PC unit declines. Increased piracy and stronger sales of PCs shipping with other operating systems, such as Mac OS, are likely factors. Microsoft identified another: OEMs buying fewer Windows licenses as they clear out excess PC inventory. Microsoft won't likely see a restocking boost until Windows 7 ships.

But bad news is worse. The mix of premium OEM SKUs fell 13 percent to 59 percent. OEM revenue fell 31 percent to $1.1 billion. OEM licenses account for about 80 percent of Windows revenues.

I blame netbooks, which I've described as a "menace" to Microsoft and Windows OEM margins. Microsoft said that non-netbook PC sales fell 16 percent to 18 percent. Microsoft estimates that netbooks made up 11 percent of PC sales. Netbooks are also pulling down average selling prices. According to NPD, at US retail, the Windows notebook ASP for June was $569 without netbooks but $520 with them.

For fiscal 2010 first quarter, Microsoft plans to defer between $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion in revenue until second quarter as part of the Windows 7 technology guarantee program. Liddell is hopeful about Windows 7. "We could see Client revenue grow faster than PC shipments by the end of the fiscal year," he said.

Server and Tools. For the second quarter in a row, the division's revenue exceeded Client. Server and Tools is Microsoft's most resilient against the econolypse. The division's quarterly year-over-year declines were less than most other product groups.

Server and Tools is somewhat insulated from slowing hardware sales, because of the high percentage of annuity license sales to businesses. That said, sluggish server hardware sales sapped revenue gains.

Business. The Office division had until this quarter largely resisted the downward pull of global recession. Major reason: Businesses buying annuity licenses. But revenue from businesses fell 10 percent, or by $413 million, largely because of volume-license agreement declines. These declines don't necessarily indicate fewer renewals. Corporate downsizing and layoffs mean many businesses will renew fewer licenses.

Consumer revenue plummeted 30 percent, or by $289 million. Microsoft blamed the sluggish PC market. Businesses account for about 80 percent of the divisions' sales and consumer 20 percent. Office accounts for about 90 percent of Business division revenues.

Online Services. Online advertising revenue declined by 14 percent, or $86 million, to $529 million. Microsoft said that the number of unique visitors has increased 15 percent since Bing's launch. Bing Shopping increased by three times and Bing Travel by 90 percent -- both since the new search engine's launch.

Entertainment & Devices. Microsoft reduced the division's losses mostly through cost containment rather than sales gains. For example, Microsoft reduced sales and marketing expenses by 30 percent, or $107 million.

The division shipped 1.2 million Xbox consoles during the quarter, down slightly year over year. Mediaroom and Zune primarily contributed to a 42 percent, or $291 million, decline in non-gaming revenue. PC gaming revenue, also affected by the sluggish PC market, fell 12 percent, or by $110 million.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In case there was any doubt of the momentum Netflix has been able to build as video stores continue to cede market dominance to on-demand streaming and by-mail and kiosk-based rentals, the company today announced that it has 40% more subscribers, 21% higher revenue, and 22% higher profits than last year.

"We believe that the inclusion of streaming in our service has broadened the appeal of Netflix and is driving growth...essentially, both Netflix and Redbox are growing at the expense of video stores." said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in the company's earnings call this afternoon.

Netflix beat Wall Street estimates, posting earnings per share of 54¢ instead of the 50¢ expected by analysts. The company also bumped up its outlook for the rest of the year, anticipating between $1.65-$1.67 billion in revenue (from the previous $1.63 B - $1.67 B) and between 11.6-12 million subscribers (from 11.2-11.8 million).

"In our most highly penetrated market, of the San Francisco Bay area where 20.7% of households now subscribe to Netflix versus 9.1% nationally, the tech innovation factor around streaming is very high, and high-speed cable broadband is widely available. Because of all of that, growth in our subscribing households in the Bay Area is increasing at about 2% points per year. We believe the Bay Area is a leading indicator of Internet behavior elsewhere in America," Hastings said.

"We are on pace to have more and more CE products include the Netflix (streaming) client every quarter," Hastings continued. "We're excited in particular by two big improvements to streaming coming in Q3. Microsoft is rolling out version 3 of Silverlight...and in Mid-August, Microsoft's Xbox is rolling out a new Experience, which includes a new Netflix client where subscribers can choose movies right on the Xbox, rather than go to their laptop to add to their Queue."

But Xbox 360 users won't be the only Netflix subscribers reaping the benefits of improved streaming. Hastings said, "We are continuing to push up our Streaming content spending, consistent with our goals next year of maintaining 10% operating margins and strong subscriber growth."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Analysts had been settling on 13% as the average earnings hit that a company in the IT sector should take in this down economy, which some believe may be finally on the mend. But the early report from Microsoft, minutes in advance of its quarterly conference call Thursday, was not good by comparison: Net income was down 29% year-over-year to $3.05 billion, on revenue that was down 17% from the year-ago quarter to $13.1 billion.

It could be Microsoft's first genuinely bad quarter since the year terrorism struck the US, and it has managed to drive its full-year net income down 18% over fiscal 2008.

Three years ago, Microsoft deferred some revenue from a relatively good quarter, on account of early coupon sales of Windows Vista. That deferral helped the company boast record earnings during a later quarter in 2007. This year it deferred some revenue again, but just $276 million. That might help come fiscal Q2 2010, but not much.

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A check of today's 8-K report delivered to the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveals one very troubling number Microsoft execs will have to answer for today: Earnings from the Client division (meaning, Windows Vista and XP) dropped 33% on the quarter and 17% on the year, to just $2.17 billion, on 29% lower revenue year-over-year.

For reasons that may be chocked up to rumors that the company would confirm further job cuts of up to 5,000 -- a downsizing move analysts tend to applaud -- the bad news triggered a bit of a rally in Microsoft stock this afternoon, up a half of one percent over yesterday's close on the NASDAQ.

7:10 pm EDT July 23, 2009 • The argument from Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell this afternoon goes like this: The entire information technology economy, from Microsoft's vantage point, contracted by as much as 25% over 2008. That means that once businesses' reduced expenditures are factored in along with reduced consumer trends, the IT economy is only 75% the size now that it was last year.

So any weakness, any at all, in Microsoft's general business performance can be attributed to the economy, not to reduced demand for products.

Here's how Liddell put it, in a response to a Merrill Lynch analyst during this afternoon's quarterly conference call: "It depends on whether you're talking about Client, Server & Tools, or [Microsoft Business Division]. It's in the 20 - 25% contraction if you do all of those combined. So if you think about overall PCs down in sort of that 16 - 18% [range], you see...server hardware down 24%, then the transactional businesses really follow those quite closely, adjusted for things like inventory...So if you think on average that our underlying hardware shipment decreases were in the 20 - 25% range on average, then that's what the transactional business was as well, plus or minus a little bit."

Is that as bad as things can possibly get? In other words, can we expect to see "deltas" of 25% in the coming quarters, or will they be less? Liddell's response was sobering: We've reached bottom, he says, but we won't lift from bottom for awhile.

"Do I think that's the bottom? Yes, I do think that's the bottom, but...I think it's probably going to continue to be tough for a quarter or two. So I wouldn't necessarily promise that it's going to be significantly better, but if you look at a combination of the first and second quarter [of fiscal 2010], that's the first half of the year, then that's probably a good surrogate for the transactional business for the second half of the calendar year, the first half of the fiscal year."

During that time, Liddell also warned analysts to expect gross margins to stay around the low- to mid-30s, which is not exactly great news.

The Server & Tools side of the business reported declining revenues by 6% on the quarter, but operating income just about flat for the quarter. That helped Microsoft to maintain a plus sign for the division's entire year, with operating income up 17% over 2008. Though SQL Server has been a perennial bright spot for the company, Windows Server and SharePoint are also showing good performance. And as CFO Liddell kept reminding analysts, this was despite a 24% year-over-year decline in business' overall spending on IT equipment.

By losing less this quarter than in previous quarters, the Entertainment & Devices division ended up being a (relatively) bright spot, dropping $130 million this quarter versus $171 million for the year-ago quarter. Xbox 360 console sales dropped a bit, but outperformed the rest of the gaming market. It was the decline in Zune sales that hurt that division worst, but the word "Zune" didn't even crop up on Liddell's radar during the call.

The Online Services business continued to lose money, but that was expected on account of investment in the Bing relaunch. So with the Business Division dropping only 16% in earnings, it's the Client business that was left as the shock of the day, down 33% on the quarter year-over-year. Anticipation of Windows 7's launch could be one reason -- translated, that means the market was ready to kick Vista off of its radar. Microsoft expects to defer as much as $1.3 billion in revenue from coupon-based pre-sales of Win7 for another two quarters, until the end of this calendar year, Liddell said.

Even then, he added, he doesn't expect businesses to invest too heavily in Windows 7 just yet, not until the overall IT spending trends begin to trend forward again. And although Office 2010 is another big new brand on the horizon, Liddell literally and quite frankly warned analysts not to expect much positive impact from Office on the Client division.

"Given that it's going to launch in the fall of next year," Liddell said, "I don't really see a significant impact in 2010 as a result of it. In fact, it could be a headwind for the first half, then start to turn around in the second half, and you start to see a very good situation in terms of 2011. But if you're trying to model 2010, it's not going to be a significant positive. It'll certainly help in terms of annuity sales, and help mitigate some of the negative transactional impact that we're seeing."

Toward the end of the call came the inevitable question of whether Microsoft foresaw any negative impact on account of the forthcoming Google Chrome OS. CFO Chris Liddell handled it by characterizing Chrome OS as only half an operating system:

"We've been fighting free OS in the client area for quite some time, as you all know, and I would point to the general value that we think Windows has, and in particular, around Windows 7, which we think is going to be our best-ever operating system," Liddell remarked. "And we still believe that a very, very large majority of people are going to want both a client and an Internet-based experience on their PCs. So of course, people want to surf the Internet and access it -- they can do that quite freely with Windows and all the Internet Explorer and [other] choices that they have. So a browser-only-based light software may have applicability, as it does with Linux-based systems already, but we don't see that significantly changing just because of Chrome OS coming out."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Earlier this year, Craigslist came under fire from several different parties for its "erotic services" section. First it was singled out by Cook County Illinois Sheriff Thomas Dart in March, and then in May, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster did the same.

McMaster sent Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster a letter demanding that he remove sections of the South Carolina Craigslist site "which contain categories for and functions allowing for the solicitation of prostitution and the dissemination and posting of graphic pornographic material" within ten days of receiving his letter or face criminal investigation and prosecution.

Buckmaster didn't succumb to the political pressure, and filed federal suit against the Attorney General seeking both declaratory relief and a restraining order against any further legal threats.

At the time of filing the suit, Buckmaster said, "Mr. McMaster has persisted with his threats despite the fact that Craigslist is operating in full compliance with all applicable laws, has earned a reputation for being unusually responsive to requests from law enforcement, has eliminated its 'erotic services' category for all US cities, has adopted screening measures far stricter than those Mr. McMaster himself personally endorsed with his signature just 6 months ago, has far fewer, and far tamer adult service ads than many mainstream print and online venues operating in South Carolina, has made its representatives available to hear Mr. McMaster's concerns in person, and has politely asked Mr. McMaster to retract and apologize for his unreasonable threats."

The suit complained that McMaster was violating Craigslist employees' personal liberties and right to free speech.

Now, McMaster is asking for these complaints to be dismissed on the grounds that "Neither [Craigslist] nor the users of its Web sites have a constitutionally protected right to post such advertisements." McMaster says his office's investigations are continuing, and that charges against the site can only be issued if local law officials determine that the site is in violation of the law.

McMaster still maintains that Craigslist "is the vehicle of choice for prostitution in this country."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

For most of the world, WiMAX resides in the 3.5 GHz block of spectrum, but in the U.S., it encompasses the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz frequencies. The most famous WiMAX deployments -- those by Clearwire and Sprint -- are all licensed in the 2.5 GHz block of spectrum. But there have been very few deployments in the 2.3 GHz frequency. Even though it has been allocated to Wireless Communication Services (WCS) since 1997, buildouts in that range have been very limited because of a major conflict with Sirius and XM satellite radio.

Satellite radio employs thousands of terrestrial repeaters which were FCC compliant, but due to uncertainty in technical requirements in FCC regulation, were found in 2006 to have serious potential interference problems in 2.3 GHz WiMAX transmissions. Companies such as AT&T, BellSouth, Comcast, Sprint, and NextWave had 2007 construction deadlines on their 2.3 GHz licenses, which the FCC then pushed back to July 2010 after hearings with the WCS Coalition and Sirius and XM.

Following the hearings, the FCC said, "We find that WCS licensees have demonstrated that they face factors beyond their control that have limited their options in providing service, but that new technology solutions may be available in the near future. We agree with the WCS Coalition that limited deployment attempts using available equipment have been marred by technical problems or proved to be economically infeasible."

Today, just short of one year ahead of the latest 2.3 GHz construction deadline, the WiMAX Forum has announced that validation testing has begun on the profile in the 5/10 MHz and 8.75 MHz channels, and that the first products certified for use in that frequency should be ready as early as next quarter.

Additionally, this block of spectrum is used in 29 commercial WiMAX deployments worldwide in countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Georgia. The WiMAX Forum today said that 13 companies have submitted base station and subscriber station equipment to be tested and validated.

Ed Agis, co-chair of the WiMAX Forum Certification Working Group, said, "At the start of the certification program, it took about nine months to get the first batch of test cases complete. Now it only takes two to three months to validate the test cases before we start certifying devices...Certification profiles for 2.3 GHz also pave the way for WiMAX Forum Certified tri-band devices in 2010 which will increase the opportunities for true global roaming across networks in the 2.3, 2.5, and 3.5 GHz spectrum bands which make up a global WiMAX footprint today."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

If you've got your cell phone or smart phone handy, I'd like to ask you to pull it out of your pocket or off your desk and give it a long, hard look.

By any definition, it's a pretty impressive piece of technology. You can call anywhere in the world, surf the Web, IM your parents, and even orchestrate meetings with far-flung team members you'd rather not meet in person. When you're done working, toss a stereo Bluetooth headset on and take in a movie without the hassle of overpriced theatre popcorn or whining kids kicking the back of your seat.

Modern day slavery?

By any definition, what we can do in the palm of our hand is nothing short of mind-blowingly magical. But how would you feel if you knew someone had died in the process of bringing this modern marvel to you? If you knew the modern-day equivalent of slavery was being used to produce your slickly capable wonderphone, would you be as likely to pull it out at the next party and demo it to your friends?

Of course not. Not consciously, anyway. And no one's saying slavery is prevalent within the global supply chain that keeps a flow of increasingly capable technologies flowing into our hot little hands. But the recent suicide of a worker for Apple subcontractor Foxconn raises questions about the unseen pressures that boil below the surface of the glitzy display at your local electronics store, and the role we play in keeping that pressure on.

Some background: Sun Danyong, 25, worked for Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company that manufactures the iPhone for Apple. The company, corporately known as Hon Hai, is one of the world's largest electronics and components manufacturers. Sun, who lived in Shenzhen, China and worked at the factory there, had been responsible for 16 prototypes of the upcoming fourth-generation iPhone. As you can well imagine, any leaks related to this super-secret device could be hugely damaging to Apple.

Unfortunately for Sun, one of the prototypes went missing. After Foxconn's Central Security Division allegedly detained him for questioning, then abused him in the process, he jumped to his death from his 12th floor apartment window a week ago today.

To its credit, Apple has been up front in its response. Its statement leaves little doubt about where the company stands:

Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible.

Apple says it's currently investigating working conditions at Foxconn's plant to ensure compliance with its supplier code of conduct. And Foxconn itself has apologized to Sun's family, suspended a security official, and spearheaded a police investigation.

That's all well and good, but Apple's been down this road before. In 2006, Apple investigated claims of employee mistreatment at Foxconn, and concluded the company was largely compliant with its employee treatment practices. Although Apple found evidence of some minor violations, including excessive hours of work and the occasional denied vacation day, these were deemed minor enough for Apple to keep Foxconn as a key supplier. Three years later, obviously not a whole lot has changed. Apple's code of conduct states that suppliers "must uphold the human rights of workers, to treat them with dignity and respect as understood by the international community." I'm wondering if excessive interrogation qualities as dignified.

Demanding companies. Demanding consumers.

As upsetting as all this is, it begs the question why companies are so sensitive about stray prototypes in the first place. I lose stuff all the time. Usually, it ends up being little more than an annoyance to me and a reason for my wife to jokingly needle me for my absent-mindedness. I get that a next-generation iPhone prototype is worth a lot more to the world than my beat up BlackBerry. But how much more? And why?

First answer: Lots more. Second answer: Because we demand it. We are so addicted to having the latest and greatest thing in our hands as soon as it is humanly possible that we're willing to ignore what it takes for companies like Apple and Foxconn to deliver the goods. While the moral thing for Apple to do would be to find another supplier that truly respects its workers' dignity and human rights, that would likely mean major delays in bringing new iPhones -- and iMacs and AirPorts and iPods, etc. -- to market. As the Cupertino company weighs its options, backing away from its role of providing fashion forward consumer products to an adoring public probably isn't among them.

Sadly, we'll forget about Sun Danyong's death in a blink without ever having had the chance to learn about the kind of work environment that drove him to his unthinkable end. And by this time next year, the final versions of the product he seemingly lost track of will land in Apple Stores across the land. Consumers, blind to the supply chain machinations that make such achievements possible, will once again hand over their money and thank their lucky stars that home-grown American companies can deliver such iconic American products like the iPhone.

But we live in a global world where Fords are built in Mexico, Chevys come from Korea, and Toyota Camrys built in Kentucky and Indiana are judged to have the most American content of all. There's no going back to the quaint old notion of local manufacturers using local suppliers whose kids played baseball with your kids. These days, workers halfway around the world work for companies that don't always follow the same workplace standards we do. These companies also operate within societies that don't always define human rights in ways that would make sense to us. And as long as we push consumer products companies to bring ever more capable products to market at an ever accelerating pace, stories like Sun Danyong's will continue to happen.

I'd like to suggest never buying anything from a company whose suppliers aren't completely above-board in treating employees with absolute respect. But then we'd never buy anything again, which leaves us with an invisible problem tied to an impossible solution.

Suddenly, that wonder-device in my pocket doesn't seem so wonderful after all.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In the wake of reports that malicious users have found a way to trick Adobe Reader 9 into triggering an exploitable crash in Adobe Flash 9 and 10, the US Dept. of Homeland Security's CERT cybersecurity team is asking users and administrators everywhere to turn off Flash video in their Web browsers.

This prompted Adobe, which has recently been seeing perhaps the onset of a deluge of security issues, to update its security advisory, now rating the exploitable issue as "critical." Adobe is not advising users to take such drastic measures as disengaging Flash in their browsers (which would make it very hard to watch YouTube). What it's suggesting instead is that users manually delete the file %ProgramFiles%\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\authplay.dll, which is a library that Adobe Reader and Acrobat use to trigger embedded Flash and Shockwave videos.

Doing so might cause a crash when a user tries to launch a PDF document with an embedded video, though Adobe is indicating that this particular crash may not be an exploitable one.

The nature of Adobe's recommended workaround tells you almost everything you need to know about the exploit: It's another case where a maliciously crafted handoff between two interpreters triggers a crash in the one that's supposed to receive the proverbial baton. That crash leaves behind a situation where leftover code in the handoff can be executed without privilege.

It's a problem which may have existed for several days, though Adobe's security blog indicates the company had just gotten wind of the problem on Tuesday. What might have been holding the team up is another security problem, which Adobe currently rates as "moderate:" an active exploit of the Adobe Reader installer, where certain installation files may be replaced with malicious code. While the security team is already working on a fix for that problem, a fix for this newer "critical" issue may only be available by this time next Thursday.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, Apple's professional video and audio production suites entered their next generation, with Final Cut Pro 7 and Logic Pro 9.

In keeping with Apple's latest price-cutting trend, the newest version of Final Cut Studio is $300 cheaper than its predecessors, and includes more than 100 new feature upgrades and support for more high quality output formats, including AVC-Intra, XDCAM 422, and ProRes 4444.

Motion, Final Cut's 3D graphics, titling, filtering and effects application, has been improved to include 3D shadows and reflections, and lets editors create new depth of field focus effects (like racking focus) on their rendered graphics.

Soundtrack now features Voice Level Match, a tool which automatically balances the audio levels between video clips with different voice volumes. Users can also target specific frequencies in their audio tracks to bring out details without effecting the overall dialogue.

Apple's music composition and production suite Logic Studio did not get a price reduction like Final Cut Studio, but it includes more than 200 new features, and the second generation of MainStage, Apple's live performance package that premiered with Logic Studio last year.

The major additions to Logic Studio are the new Amp Designer and Pedalboard plug-ins and "Flex Time." The new plug-ins emulate classic amplifiers and speaker combinations as well as the various vintage stompbox effects, and Flex Time is a new tool that quantizes recorded audio, sort of like the rhythmic equivalent of auto-tune.

Since the laptop has become an accepted tool on the performance stage, Apple's MainStage sought to be a live, on-the-fly setup where the musician sets up all the tools he'll need for a given song and can call them up on playlists. The first version of MainStage was ideal for DJs, enabling various synths and plug-ins to be set up alongside the Ultrabeat drum machine (or any virtual drum machine) in an environment with very few intrusive menus.

This version of MainStage introduces Loopback, a sampler and looper which lets users quickly capture live samples and build songs off of them, an integral tool in a DJ's setup.

Both Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio are available immediately from Apple.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Apple flambé? Exploding iPod reports hushed up

July 23, 2009 • They got that boom boom OW! -- After years of trouble and seven months of investigation, a report by KIRO-TV reporter Amy Clancy unearthed an 800-page Consumer Product Safety Commission report detailing a disturbing number of iPods that overheated and either burst into flames or started smoking.

"At first I thought, how in the heck did I get burned? Right there?" she told Clancy, while pointing to a penny-sized, round burn on her chest. "Then I remembered that I had my iPod right there."

Balderas says her brand new iPod Shuffle overheated while she was running days before, leaving her with a small burn right where the iPod was clipped to her shirt, next to her skin. "My skin started burning really bad, like it was a bee sting that wouldn't stop."

Worse, Apple knew and chose to file exemption after exemption with the CPSC, putting its corporate image ahead of consumer safety. Clancy got the runaround from Apple's PR on this story (welcome to my world, darlin') but the information she's uncovered indicates that a recall still isn't out of the question. Public floggings for Apple's legal beagles and PRejects were not mentioned.

Apple backs off legal threats against Bluwiki

July 22, 2009 • In more Apple legal news, its legal team has decided to stop bullying Odioworks, which hosted a Bluewiki conversation about ways of syncing one's iPod or iPhone without using iTunes, for alleged DMCA violations. It took a slap from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to convince Cupertino that the iTunesDB pages, which did not discuss anything illegal or condone illegal circumvention, shouldn't be hectored by lawyers.

In its statement concerning the end of litigation, the EFF's Fred von Lohmann hinted that Apple might not want to get too self-satisfied about doing the right thing slowly and under duress: "Because Apple continues to use technical measures to lock iPod Touch and iPhone owners into -- and Palm Pre owners out of -- using Apple's iTunes software, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more discussions among frustrated customers about reverse engineering Apple products. We hope Apple has learned its lesson here and will give those online discussions a wide berth in the future."

Your reporter agrees and adds an impromptu recommendation of Red Chair Software's Anapod Explorer, a perfectly legal piece of software that's been protecting her iPod from iTunes for years.

Yahoo to acquire photo-sharing Xoopit

Evening of July 22, 2009 • Yahoo, already strong in the online-photos department thanks to Flickr, has agreed to acquire Xoopit, a site that bridges gaps between one's e-mail inbox and one's social-networking presence.

Saying it hopes to move users past the "massive digital shoebox" stage of rampant online photo sharing, Yahoo's Bryan Lamkin said Xoopit, which already works with the larger company on the My Photos app in e-mail, "will bring phenomenal photo organization, improved photo sharing, and the serendipity of discovering forgotten photos to Yahoo Mail."

Qualcomm, eBay earnings have a case of the meh; Sandisk surprises

5:00 pm EDT Tuesday, July 22, 2009 • Earningsapalooza continues with Q3 results from Qualcomm and Q2 numbers from eBay, both reporting losses. The auctioner's earnings fell 29% but managed to land above Wall Street's estimate; the marketplace continues weak, but things are looking good at both PayPal and Skype. The mobile-chipset firm, on the other hand, did not meet its own predictions, even though sales were down just 1.5% year-over-year and up from the previous quarter. They returned an EPS of 44 cents, down a penny from last year's Q3 but up 62 cents from last quarter's 18-cent loss.

Meanwhile, Sandisk surprised analysts with a Q2 profit after four quarters of losses; the firm says they made $53 million (EPS of 23 cents) in the quarter just ended. Chairman and CEO Eli Harari said the company is "cautiously optimistic" about the second half of the year.

Microsoft, Amazon release earnings reports

Thursday afternoon, 5:30 pm EDT and 5:00 pm EDT, respectively > Rain City's two highest-profile high-tech firms both drop their earnings reports on the same day. (Thanks, guys.) Expect decreased year-over-year results from both, chatter about Win7's status from Redmond, and a few notes on Zappo's from Beacon Hill.

Google Wave to begin crashing through this fall

September 30, 2009 > If you're still wondering what a Google Wave is or could be, there's a possibility you might find out later this fall, especially if there's an invasion of the things. During one of Google's first development conferences devoted specifically to the new technology, the company announced that 100,000 members of the general public will be invited to join an expanding "Wave Sandbox."

The Wave concept is more of a platform than an application -- in fact, no one's all that certain what the applications are or will be. But the idea is that both human beings and programs will be able to use this platform to communicate with one another, both using IM-like text and (here is the clincher) remote procedure calls. Those calls will follow an explicit protocol, but the Wave programs themselves can be written using scripting languages like Python, so the big (huge) (colossal) watchword here will be security.

How much will you pay to watch ABC?

Perhaps Q1 2010 > Just two months after ABC Television made a U-turn in its online TV roadmap plans, resuming its original plan to invest in and join TV replay service Hulu, the Disney division's CEO made statements at a Fortune Magazine conference indicating he may turn his company back around and resume his pre-Hulu plans.

"At some point," ABC President and CEO Robert Iger is quoted by the Hollywood Reporter as saying, he wants his network to deploy a subscription service to watch programming. He can't understand, he told the audience, why consumers are so willing to spend $5 per hour to watch a movie in theaters, but can't spend more than a quarter per hour to surf the Internet.

Thursday's tech headlines

Wall Street Journal

• Geoffrey Fowler explains for WSJ types the difference between buying a book and licensing its use on the Kindle. You probably already know, but the quotes he got for this piece are worth your time anyway. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Trachtenberg notes that USA Today is now including Kindle sales on its bestseller lists.

• Got kids? Got angst about whether little iMiley or Rickroll is up to snuff academically? Joseph de Avila reports on a host of Web sites providing supplemental homework excuses to park 'em front of the computer educational opportunities for the young ones.

• What do you do when the head of your company is revealed to be a big phony? After B. Ramalinga Raju, head of Hyderabad's Mahindra Satyam, admitted in January that he'd falsified the books -- a $1 billion fraud -- employees and acolytes were left to pick up the pieces. Eric Bellman reports.

New York Times

• Saul Hansell chats with Time Armstrong, the newish CEO of AOL. He's a former advertising guy, so though Hansell never uses the exact phrase "gunning for Yahoo," it's not a difficult concept to grasp.

• Claire Cain Miller reports that mom-and-pop outfits are making good use of Twitter.

• The digital divide is still real, but African Americans are bridging it in one area at least: mobile Internet use.

The Register

• A piece The Reg is posting from out-law.com asserts that the EU's upcoming tracking and monitoring system for transport is apt to violate the privacy rights of travelers.

• Hands up anyone stunned to hear that legal concerns over the GPL were the impetus for Microsoft to release that Hyper-V code. Anyone? Anyone? Gavin Clarke says that's the only reason it happens. One may disagree with his assertion that "the rest was theater," but he makes a reasonably good case.

Ars Technica

• The sky is blue, eating and sleeping are good habits to have, and end users can be complete idiots about security when they want to do something fun like social networking. Jacqui Cheng fleshes out what you already knew to be true.

• It's not available for the likes of you yet, but FCC staffers now have reboot.fcc.gov, a site to kickstart the process of improving the Federal Communications Commission by gathering good ideas from the employees. Matthew Lasar has details.

• Disney is about to start selling DVDs with copies of the movie on a MicroSD card for portable-gadget usage. (Portable gadgets that are not the Pre, anyway.)

CNET

• David Carnoy has been looking at that Apple earnings reports from Tuesday and worries that the sales numbers spell the end for the iPod Classic.

• Ina Fried hung out at the Fortune Brainstorm: Tech conference on Wednesday and filed an assortment of nifty little reports on what the poohbahs were discussing.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Move over Microsoft. Apple can claim big, big market share numbers, too. According to NPD, in June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more went to Apple. Mac revenue market share in the "premium" price segment was 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May.

By the way, Apple's command of the premium market is way up from first quarter 2008, when, according to NPD, Mac revenue share was 66 percent. Gee, and it seemed so high when I broke that story.

Microsoft executives had better study Apple's success -- and well -- as they prepare to bring Windows 7 to market. The new operating system released to manufacturing today and launches on Oct. 22. But some people will get Windows 7 sooner. Microsoft might want to reconsider its marketing, too. Apple's premium sales success means that from one perspective, Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" commercials are a failure.

Market Share 101
Microsoft and OEMs measure success in unit market share, which for combined Windows PC shipments is over 90 percent, according to Gartner and IDC. In the United States, Mac market share was a paltry 8.7 percent in second quarter, according to Gartner. The bulk of PCs sell for less than $1,000.

According to NPD, in June, average selling prices for all PCs sold at US retail was $701, or $690 for desktops and $703 for notebooks. But the ASPs get more interesting when comparing Macs to Windows PCs. For all Windows PCs, ASP was $515 in June. For Macs: $1,400. Desktop Windows PC ASP: $489. Mac desktops: $1,398. Windows notebook ASP was $520, or $569 when removing all those nasty, margin-sucking netbooks. Mac laptops: $1,400.

Mac ASPs have been higher for a long time, because Apple chooses not to compete at lower prices. The real entry price for Apple computers is $999 for the white MacBook and $1,199 for either the low-end iMac or MacBook Pro. By comparison, Windows netbooks sell for as little as $199, unsubsidized, and even some fuller-sized laptops don't cost much more. For example, HP laptops start at $349.99 after rebate.

Apple's starting prices put nearly all Macs in the premium category -- but A (higher pricing) doesn't necessarily lead to B (greater sales). All major Windows OEMs sell PCs in the premium category, too. Apple's charging more isn't necessarily recipe for people paying more for Macs, or their capturing big revenue share.

Among the things working for Apple:

• Mac OS X, iLife and hardware design differentiate Macs from PCs
• Most households have Windows PCs -- so a Mac is something fresh, new
• Most Windows PCs come with Vista, which has gotten lots of bad press
• Apple retail stores offer a singular purchasing experience
• Apple excels at lifestyle marketing; there is a Mac lifestyle
• Sales halo effect from satisfied iPod and iPhone customers help Mac sales
• Design priority: Apple emphasizes different features, such as super long battery life for MacBook Pro, than most Windows OEMs

Despite these advantages, US Mac retail sales slowed for about six months.

The Macolypse Hits Apple
From about November 2008 to April 2009, Mac year-over-year US retail sales declined, even as Windows PCs dramatically gained. There was kind of a numbers reversal, following the late-September stock market crash. For example, in October 2008, following release of new aluminum, unibody laptops, US retail Mac revenue grew 25.5 percent, while Windows PC sales fell 4.2 percent, according to NPD. By January 2009, Mac retail revenue was down 10.4 percent from a year earlier and Windows PC revenue was flat.

The unit changes were dramatic, too: in January, Windows PCs were up 16.7 percent, and Macs were down by 5.4 percent. In February: Windows PC units sales rose 22 percent year over year and Macs fell 16.7 percent.

Several factors accounted for this dramatic turnabout:

• The post-September economic collapse chilled consumer spending -- higher-priced PCs among the harder-hit categories.
• In September, Microsoft started its "I'm a PC" marketing campaign, which, according to the company and analysts, boosted Windows perceptions and PC sales over several months.
• Apple took a four month break from airing "Get a Mac" commercials.

By April, Mac sales started to turn around, as the economy improved and new "Get a Mac" ads started airing.

Laptop Hunters Miss the Game
In March, Microsoft's ad campaign entered another phase, with "Laptop Hunters" commercials, which sought to demonstrate the value of Windows portables compared to Macs. Many Apple and Microsoft pundits or analysts have said the Laptop Hunters commercials are about price -- meaning PCs costing less than Macs. That's simply not true. The commercials are about value, and at premium prices.

Six Laptop Hunters commercials have aired in the United States. For four of the commercials, the shoppers had budgets between $1,500 and $2,000. Budgets for the other two: $750 and $1,000. If the commercials were about contrasting Windows laptop lower pricing to costlier Macs, Microsoft wouldn't feature shoppers with so much money to spend. Consider that at retail, where all the people in the commercials shopped, Windows laptop ASP was $703 in June, according to NPD.

Microsoft marketers sought to compare and contrast Windows laptops in the same premium price ranges as Mac portables. That's the market segment where Microsoft and its OEM partners need to gain share against Apple and where PC hardware margins are richer. The commercials were supposed to show Windows' laptops greater value against Macs in similar price range.

By that measure, the Laptop Hunters campaign is a failure. Clearly, more US retail buyers see more value in Macs in the premium price range, which is evidenced by Apple's ridiculously high revenue share and gains reaching it. I'm a fan of Laptop Hunters and consider it be one of Microsoft's very best advertising campaigns. Laptop Hunters campaign has boosted Microsoft's brand and, by analysts numbers, helped boost Windows sales in a soft market. But the campaign apparently didn't boost Windows laptop value perceptions against Macs.

Apple Calms the Stormy Economic Seas
Apple must be doing something right to go from, in the US retail premium PC market, 66 percent revenue share in first quarter 2008 to 91 percent at the end of second quarter 2009. The company has masterfully navigated the stormy economic waters that battered so many other companies. While competitors slashed prices to protect market share and to pull sales, Apple sought to preserve the perceived value of the Mac brand.

Rather than lower entry-level pricing and move big time into the sub-$1,000 PC market, as some analysts recommended, Apple chose to do something else, in early June:

• Lower 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros by $300
• Replace 13-inch MacBooks with Pro models for $100 less
• Effectively lower the Pro entry price to $1,199 from $1,999

Based on data from NPD and other analysts, including Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple's price cuts at the high end significantly boosted Mac sales, which at US retail were up 16 percent year over year in June. Rather than aim low, Apple chose to make the high lower, in a segment where Macs already commanded overwhelming market share.

Yesterday, the company revealed that it had shipped 2.6 million Macs during second calendar quarter, beating analysts estimates.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Apple has once again defied the economic gravity pulling some tech companies' earnings into a black hole. For fiscal 2009 third quarter, the company posted, again -- isn't this getting tiresome -- strong year-over-year revenue and earnings growth.

Strong Mac and iPhone shipments contributed to a quarter that surged past Apple's guidance and Wall Street analysts' inflated estimates. Apple described the results as being its best for a non-holiday quarter. That's a remarkable claim given that second calendar quarter typically is the slowest for PC shipments and economic recession afflicts all Apple's major sales market.

During today's earnings conference call, Apple revealed supply shortages for iPhone 3GS and some MacBook Pro models. The company didn't reveal whether or not the shortages impacted sales for the quarter. Apple released new iPhone and MacBook Pros in June.

For fiscal third quarter, Apple reported 8.34 billion revenue and net profits of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 a share. A year earlier, Apple reported revenue of $7.46 billion and $1.07 billion net quarterly profit, or $1.19 per share.

Three months ago, Apple forecast revenue between $7.7 billion and $7.9 billion, with earnings per share ranging between 95 cents and $1 a share. Analyst estimates were much higher than Apple guidance: $8.2 billion average revenue consensus and $1.17 earnings per share.

For fiscal fourth quarter, Apple forecasts between $8.7 billion and $8.9 billion in revenue, with earnings per share ranging between $1.18 and $1.23 a share. Apple projects gross margins to be about 34 percent. In the comparable 2008 quarter, Apple revenue was $7.9 billion and $1.14 billion net quarterly profit, or $1.26 per share.

Apple's forward guidance reflects:

• Slower-than-typical educational sales
• Tough year-over-year iPhone comparison
• Lower MacBook selling prices (following June cuts)
• Timing of new MacBook models (in fiscal third quarter)

Macs Defy Gravity
Apple shipped 2.6 million Macs during the quarter, a near record number. As viewed separately, Mac desktop shipments declined 10 percent year over year, while laptops increased 13 percent. Combined, Mac shipments grew 4 percent year over year, or about 100,000 units.

Last week, analyst firms Gartner and IDC split on Mac shipments. In the United States, Gartner said that Apple shipped 1.422 million Macs, up 2.5 percent year over year. Market share rose to 8.7 percent from 8.4 percent a year earlier. By comparison, IDC said that Apple shipped only 1.213 million Macs, a 12.4 percent year-over-year decline. IDC put Apple's US share at 7.6 percent, down from 8.5 percent a year earlier.

I contacted both analyst firms earlier today, but have yet to receive answers on how they measure shipments. One plausible explanation for the difference: One firm measures sales going into the channel, while the other measures sales out to customers. Right before Apple announced earnings, I heard back from Gartner analyst Mika Kitagawa: "Our PC sales figure is based on sell-in shipments to the channel, and some to the end user directly."

Regardless of the differences, there is another measure that portends well for Apple: Sequential market share gains. In some ways, given the global recession, sequential share better reflects sales performance. Quarter to quarter, Mac shipments were flat, at 7.6 percent, according to IDC data. But Mac market share rose 1.3 percent sequentially, according to Gartner data. Keep in mind with the Gartner data -- and as of posting I don't know about IDC -- that the measure is mostly sales into the channel. During first calendar quarter, many PC manufacturers reduced shipments into the channel because of global sales malaise, according to both IDC and Gartner.

The Price is Right
From one perspective, Apple's strong Mac shipments are perplexing. To enter the Mac club, consumers must pony up at least $999 for a Mac laptop or $1,199 for an iMac. By comparison, a cellular carrier subsidized Windows netbook costs as little as $99. Price entry is significantly higher for Macs than PCs.

That said, in early June, Apple cut 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro prices by $300. Additionally, the company rebranded and updated existing aluminum MacBooks as Pros, also cutting prices by $100. The change reduced the entry cost of MacBook Pro from $1,999 for the older 15-inch model to $1,199 for the newer 13-inch MacBook Pro.

"It's just jaw dropping," Apple COO Tim Cook said during today's earnings conference call about what he described as a $800 MacBook Pro price cut.

Since the price drop, I have made weekly visits to the three San Diego, Calif.-based Apple Stores. Christmas crowds is how would describe the number of shoppers. I could stand outside any store and count the new MacBook Pro owners walking by. NPD did an official count, putting Mac US retail sales up 16 percent in June. The analyst firm released data to customers on July 20. A day earlier, in a research note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said that NPD data would need to show 5 percent growth for Apple to meet Wall Street consensus of 2.45 million units.

Perhaps Apple has a different perspective on the economic gloom. The news media is seemingly obsessed with describing how bad is the US recession, or what some call the econolypse. But there's another way to look at things:

• US employment is more than 90 percent
• For most people, a Mac is a first-time purchase
• Four out of five US home owners hold good mortgages
• Most NetGeners have discretionary income to spend on Macs and iPhones

The point: There is still plenty of spending power among American consumers. Apple has chosen to tap that spending power through higher prices that preserve gross margins. Not everyone shops at Wal-Mart (which sells iPhone, by the way).

Pocket Computers Come of Age
Macs accounted for about 40 percent of Apple's fiscal third quarter revenue, but iPhone made a strong contribution -- more than desktops. The iPhone accounted for about 20 percent of revenues, up from 5.6 percent a year earlier. Combined, iPhone and iPod accounted for 38 percent of revenues. Apple's pocket computers may soon exceed Mac revenue -- that's without factoring services revenue the company must defer.

Apple doesn't disclose the breakdown of sales among standard iPods from iPod touch, but executive comments over several quarters indicate increasing iPod touch sales. Today, Apple revealed that, combined, it had sold 45 million iPhones and iPod touches. The number is significant for what it means for Apple's emerging smartphone platform.

Deutsche Bank analysts Brian Modoff and Jonathan Goldberg predict that this year, Apple and Research in Motion will sell between 5 percent and 10 percent of all mobile phones shipped worldwide, but account for substantially more of the profits -- 31 percent and 35 percent, respectively. But the analysts don't count iPod touch, which is the other leg holding up Apple's App Store platform.

App Store is rapidly emerging as Apple's biggest differentiator for all other mobile devices. With more than 1.5 billion application downloads, in about a year, the store has gained unquestionable momentum. Fiscal fourth quarter could bring more fortune to the platform, if iPhone 3GS sales gain even more after Apple resolves supply problems and iPod touch get its typical quarterly sales boost from back-to-school promotions.

In other news for the quarter, Apple retail stores performed surprisingly well, considering the global recession. The stores sold 492,000 Macs during fiscal third quarter, up from 476,000 a year earlier. Apple opened six stores during the quarter for a total of 258. However, revenue per store fell year over to $5.9 million from $6.8 million. That said, overall retail revenue grew 4 percent to $1.496 billion.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

In her company's earnings report on Tuesday, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz declared herself not to be in the economic-indicator business: "Overall we are seeing less fear in the market, but it's too early to call... We'll leave the economic predictions to others." The company is busy, they explained, being "Internet kingmakers and the center of the online ecosystem."

Big talk? It got bigger. Bartz said on the call that Yahoo is the largest online media company in the world, with one out of two Internet users using one Yahoo property or another. When news breaks, "our home page continues to be the big dog. And in that kingmaker role, Bartz (relating a recent event in which a link on the Yahoo front page drove nearly 9 million viewers to a story on the New York Times in under three hours) "in the end we work with [news] publishers, not against them" -- a not-so veiled reference to Google News' ongoing conflicts with news outlets that feel that that service's aggregation goes too far.

Earnings for Q2 -- $1.34 billion, for an EPS of ten cents -- were up both sequentially and year-over-year. That's less about revenue than about fairly aggressive management decisions, such as reducing headcount and tktk. Analysts had expected an EPS of eight cents. It's especially interesting considering revenues were down 15% to $1.57 billion, with finance, travel and entertainment posting the most significant declines. Health, travel and telecom were up, and newly minted CFO Tim Morse threw out the intriguing data that the automotive sector, of all things, may be stabilizing.

The new home page, rolling out to US users today, was something Bartz wanted to talk about. She discussed work in progress on the company's APT ads platform and, repeatedly, mentioned that Yahoo was getting serious about getting rid of certain incredibly obnoxious ads. (No names, of course, but anyone who uses Mail would have a good idea of what constitutes an obnoxious display ad.) She said that the company is "doubling down" on Mail improvements, and is continuing efforts to restructure, including some aggressive moves to dump unneeded real estate. Both Bartz and Morse repeatedly used words like "simplify" and "focus" -- figure out what the customers like and work on that, a theme Bartz has been sounding now for three earnings calls and, without a doubt, every possible staff meeting.

Surprises? Well, there was no discernible swearing, though your constant reporter couldn't help but notice the remarkable change in tone on these earnings calls in just three quarters, from nearly robotic to practical and enthusiastic -- a Carol Bartz call sounds nothing like a Jerry Yang call. She mentioned that the company is "closing in" on a decision concerning a head for their international operations.

Bing was mentioned, and Bartz was complimentary, calling it "a good product" and offering "kudos." And that's as close as any of the analysts speaking on the call got to asking about an imminent partnerships with Microsoft -- not a peep, not a hint, not a whisper of whether the rumors ads deal is really in the works.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In Apple's earnings call today, it became a little more obvious why iPhone user disgust over AT&T's network has become so much more prevalent: because there are 700% more iPhones out there to complain about.

In addition to Apple's near record-breaking Mac sales last quarter, iPhone sales jumped an astronomical 736% over last year. In the third quarter in 2008, Apple sold 717,000 iPhones for a total of $419 million; this year it sold 5.2 million and pulled down $1.6 billion in total iPhone revenue.

Of course, much of the huge disparity in sales year over year can be attributed to the timing of the iPhone 3G and 3GS launches. In 2008, the iPhone 3G launched in the second week of July, after the third quarter had ended. This year, the iPhone 3Gs launched in the third week of June with eight days to sell before the quarter ended. At the end of the first weekend, over a million 3GS units sold.

But even more important to the sales explosion is the addition of the untold number of $99 iPhone 3G units that were made available on June 8th. Unfortunately, in today's earnings call, Neither COO Tim Cook nor CFO and Senior Vice President Peter Oppenheimer could comment on the exact iPhone sales mix for "competitive reasons."

What was repeated several times was the fact that Apple is having difficulty keeping up with the demand for the 3GS in the 18 countries where it's sold. The iPhone 3G, on the other hand, is available in 80 countries. Cook said the device will be shipping in the majority of those countries by the end of the year.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Apple has posted its earnings for the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year, which amounted (once again) to the best non-holiday quarter in Apple's history. The company's revenue grew 12% over last year to a total of $8.34 billion, with a net profit of $1.23 billion.

During the quarter, Apple saw record-setting adoption of Macs and iPhones by consumers, thanks in large part to the price cuts on the lower end of both lines. Wall Street anticipated a 3% contraction in Mac sales, but the company actually grew by 4% over last year, with a surge in sales taking place after the WWDC price cut announcements. During the quarter, 2.6 million Macs were sold, nearly meeting the company's all-time quarterly sales record.

While Apple did not speak specifically about which Mac was the best-selling, COO Tim Cook said the new $1,199 13-inch Macbook Pro attracted a lot of customers who would otherwise have bought the $999 13" Macbook. Indeed, Mac's "most affordable line ever" is coming extremely close to becoming its best selling line ever.

Just because cheaper looks to be selling better, that absolutely does not mean they will be joining the netbook "race to the bottom" any time soon, as rumors had suggested. Cook said, "Our goal is not to build the most computers, it's to build the best. Whatever price allows us to build the best computer, we'll build it there...we can't build a great $399 computer."

When asked about the possibility of an Apple netbook, Cook said, "I never want to discount anything in the future....[but] they're not robust, they lack horsepower, they have small displays, and cramped keyboards. Many people won't be happy with that. We're only going to plan things that are very innovative that we can be very proud of."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In an announcement late Tuesday afternoon, Microsoft product evangelist Brandon LeBlanc did not reveal the precise date in which Windows 7 would release to manufacturing. He did state, however, that the first availability of the final code will come Thursday, August 6, for independent software and hardware vendors, and also for MSDN and TechNet subscribers (English language version only).

Volume license customers will be next to see availability the following day, if they subscribe to Software Assurance (SA), said LeBlanc. Those without an SA license must wait until September 1 to download their copies.

Gold certified partners will be next to download Windows 7 on August 16. Non-English language copies will be available on October 1. This news does mean that Microsoft's analysts' meeting scheduled for July 30 will likely be devoted to the Windows 7 RTM, which will very likely have happened by that date. OEMs will receive their copies of images for installation to new PCs beginning two days following RTM date, said LeBlanc, again without revealing the precise date.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The Pirate Bay's $7.8 million acquisition by Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory could fall through after all, reports are now saying.

When the acquisition was announced in late May, Global Gaming Factory said it intended to re-launch the Pirate Bay under new business models "that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners." Last week, a little more depth was given to the Pirate Bay's potential revenue model by former Grokster CEO Wayne Rosso, who called it the "Resource Supported Model."

But details on this model are still scarce, even though they're being called for in the Dutch civil court case brought about by the anti-piracy group Stichting BREIN (lit: "BRAIN Foundation"), which is demanding an outright ban on The Pirate Bay.

BRAIN's director Tim Kuik doesn't think there will ever be an end to the illegal file sharing on The Pirate Bay, which has more than 20 million users worldwide and indexes more than 2 million torrents, so he has led BRAIN's suit against both The Pirate Bay's founders and Global Gaming Factory.

GGF's lawyer, Ricardo Dijkstra said the entire purchase depends on whether the new model can be used "in a legal manner." According to Dijkstra, it is still "very much the question" of whether the transaction will ever be completed.

Because of their opposition against sites such as The Pirate Bay and Demonoid, Kuik and BRAIN are frequent targets of hacking and ridicule. BRAIN's site has been regularly unreachable due to constant DDoS attacks.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Microsoft's scaling back of its social media initiatives continues, with the news today first reported by paidContent.org, learned during an interview with Corporate Vice President Erik Jorgensen, that MSN Video's Soapbox service will be shutting down completely. Soapbox has been its portal for user-submitted videos, but Jorgensen indicated to Fried that sponsorship for those videos -- which constituted about 5% of MSN Video's content portfolio -- was too low for the service to be sustained in the present economy.

In an interview with CNET's Ina Fried last month, Jorgensen stated then his team's intentions to scale back Soapbox, though he was careful at that time not to reveal the extent. The paidContent.org interview indicates that user-generated content may still be feasible on a revised MSN Video service, or whatever it should be called, although Microsoft is unlikely to give that content its own portal.

Soapbox began its journey to nowhere in September 2006 with a closed beta test, that was opened up to public testers the following February. At no time in its history did it ever actually have a unique angle, no particular reason why someone wishing to share a video would upload to Soapbox rather than to another YouTube competitor, such as Europe's DailyMotion. Reliable metrics estimate that DailyMotion received just under 4.9 million unique visitors last month, and HD video sharing service Vimeo serviced just over 3.2 million unique visitors. Soapbox barely escaped 48,000.

It's widely known that MSN has been working on another makeover, with the objective being to concentrate on a handful of more popular services. Last month, Microsoft discontinued sales of its Money Plus software, which had been tied in with its MSN Money Web site. Both were more popular when they were linked with CNBC, which struck out on its own once again in December 2006.

Followers of Microsoft in the business world will recall that the company began constructing Soapbox after the bidding for then-independent YouTube grew too rich for Microsoft's tastes. Google ended up the winning bidder the month after Soapbox's first private beta tests began.

The fate of MSN should be among the subjects when the company holds its regular quarterly earnings call this Thursday. An extra analysts' meeting is scheduled for the end of the month, although most expect that particular meeting to focus on Windows 7, which by that time is expected to have released to manufacturing.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The iPhone crowd has turned into an anti-AT&T mob. Spend 30 seconds on Twitter or perform even the most basic search for iPhone and AT&T information and you're sure to run into some serious rancor from disgusted iPhone users across the country. While the exclusive partnership between Cupertino and the Dallas teleco has never been perfect, user hostility has lately been at a fevered pitch.

In February of this year, prominent blogger Om Malik announced he was "breaking up" with his iPhone. "I love my iPhone -- but AT&T's network has failed me. Apparently I'm not alone. If you follow me on Twitter, then you know how often I complain about it; my complaints always result in me receiving similar messages of frustration from other iPhone users. A status update on my Facebook page on the topic unleashed a flood of messages from people expressing abhorrence of AT&T's service."

The severe downturn in users' feelings towards Apple's carrier of choice appears to have begun with the debut of the iPhone 3G S in June. The device launched without its promised MMS and tethering features because of issues with AT&T, and now a weeks-long failure of the iPhone's visual voicemail system, publicized by a scathing TechCrunch article, may have brought the matter to a turning point. The dogs have been unleashed.

"The iPhone is an incredible piece of hardware unacceptably shackled to and hamstrung by the broken pile of s*** that is AT&T's so-called service," one user wrote after learning of the visual voicemail outage.

In addition to the thousands of tweets in the hashtags #ATTSUCKS, and #ATTFAIL searching Twitter with "AT&T NYC" reveals the special flavor of hatred New Yorkers bear against AT&T.

And it's not limited to Twitter, either. Where AT&T turns up in social media, so too will angry New Yorkers. On the company's YouTube page, a user wrote, "I live in NYC and I left Verizon for the iPhone 3G last year, and I get an amazing phone with horrible service. I have to turn my 3G off in order to make a call, if I don't I get nonstop dropped calls or "call failed"...but I have more bars in more places, I guess having more bars doesn't really measure reception! And don't even get me started with no MMS (love the vague "late summer" answer) If Verizon does get the iPhone in 2010 I will be jumping ship so fast!!"

It seems like the Mid-Atlantic, AT&T's densest patch of 3G coverage outside of California, is where users are complaining the most. And the major complaint is one that has been common to the iPhone all along: that AT&T is simply not Verizon.

AT&T's reliability in New York is reputed to be so bad that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has "repeatedly" called AT&T President and CEO Randall Stephenson to complain, and also discussed the problem with his "old friend," Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

While some are still sounding the trumpets over Google's proclamation that its Chrome Web browser technology will be elevated to the role of operating system sometime next year, there are some Web applications engineers who wonder why it isn't one already. Once Chrome 3 is proclaimed fully functional on Linux, it will essentially make the same Web applications accessible from the desktop that Chrome OS plans to do. And if you don't mind the fact that the Chrome 3 Web browser is in the development stage, whether you're running Linux or Windows XP on your netbook, it does that right now.

Though I've made the point before that most businesses and a majority of consumers today still prefer Microsoft Office, there will be a small, though potentially beneficial, market of consumers who appreciate the flexibility and versatility that a Web application may offer. If they can suffer through the bugs, users will have the opportunity to produce some respectable, if not altogether spectacular, documents. But what is there for users to gain by installing these Web apps on their desktops, and use them like software installed on their computers, as opposed to simply running them in their browsers?

If "the Web is the platform," as Google likes to say, then Chrome 3 provides that platform with a front door. For Mozilla Firefox 3.5, it's more of a side door, but a door nonetheless: The organization offers a plug-in called Prism that enables Firefox users to convert any active Web page into a browser-less application.

With the understanding that Google Apps, one of the most prominent Web application suites, might have an automatically easy time running in Chrome, and that Microsoft's Web applications are geared around Internet Explorer (and require separate downloads), we decided to test both Chrome and Prism with Web apps produced by groups other than Mozilla and Google, and other than Microsoft. Specifically, we chose: Zoho, a complete suite that uses Google Gears but was not built with Google's direct assistance; Buzzword, part of Adobe's Acrobat.com online suite; and Pixlr, an online photo editing tool that uses filters and layers.

Getting the browser out of the way

One refreshing option offered by both Prism and Chrome 3, to both manufacturers' credit, is the option to frame the Web app with nothing other than a plain window. At this most basic level, you're given no clue as to whose platform is hosting the app -- nothing on the window, no "About" box, nothing to right-click to see a trademark. The application appears to own the window without any obstruction from foreign manufacturers, and that's as it should be. For testers, though, it merely poses the minor problem of forcing them to remember which platform they launched each app in.

It's worth noting here that Chrome doesn't display converted Web apps in a "Chrome window" -- in other words, it's not sensitive to the new "snap-to" events that premiered in Chrome 3, and that are part of the basis for Google's claim to a wholly new windowing environment. So you can't bump a Web app window alongside a Chrome window, for instance, and have it hug the side of it, as you can with two Chrome windows. This is to Chrome's credit; in fact, Web app developers would probably prefer their hosting platform to be as neutral as possible.

The Web app "installation" process

The concept of "installing" a Web application is not self-evident, and for the market that most Web apps serve (novice and everyday computer users), it should be. It's a bit of a problem, because Web app producers such as Adobe and Zoho will be looked to by users to provide the necessary step-by-step instructions -- no one would expect Microsoft to provide instructions for installing, say, Photoshop Elements. But Adobe and Zoho cannot provide those instructions because they're not the ones making the browser; and even if they tried by providing a "Firefox," "Chrome," or "Safari" page, the browsers themselves change rapidly and without notice.

Mozilla knows that folks who intentionally install the Prism add-on for Firefox will probably have the good sense to read its online instructions, and from there learn what they need to do to "install" Web apps on the desktop. But Chrome's Web app installation ability is built-in, which means it's up to Chrome's online documentation not only to inform the user as to how to do this, but to alert the new user as to the feature's existence. To Google's credit, its online docs do a good job of this, making "Web Applications" a top category on Chrome's Help page.

Chrome's method of making a Web application into a stand-alone app is, like much of Google, characteristically understated -- so much so that finding out the proper metaphor Google chose to use is a lot of needless guesswork. Chrome portrays the job as an "application shortcut to the desktop," which many users won't immediately recognize as any different from making a Web page shortcut to the desktop. If an app runs via shortcut, then one might conclude that dragging the app's URL to the desktop -- which does create a shortcut -- would make the right kind of shortcut. No, this creates a URL that launches the browser, just as with any Web page in the past.

But the act itself is not difficult. First, you run the app in the regular browser. Next, click on the Page icon near the address bar, and from the menu, select Create Application Shortcuts. This brings up a dialog box marked Gears, from which you select whether shortcuts are to be placed on the desktop, the Start menu, or a Quick Launch toolbar. It would be nice here if Chrome could recognize whether or not it was running in Windows 7 (if the developers can't Google it themselves, they might try looking it up on Microsoft's developers' site, so that it might give users there the option of pinning the Web app to the taskbar instead of the Quick Launch toolbar (which goes away in Win7). But you can still pin it there eventually, after creating an icon for it first on the desktop.

The moment you create the shortcut, Chrome transfers the Web app to its stand-alone window. And just as Chrome doesn't give the person installing the browser many options, like where to stick the Start Menu entry or whether to even make one, Chrome doesn't stop to ask what the desktop shortcut should be called. So you often have to rename it the old-fashioned way, which isn't difficult, but it does leave you feeling sometimes that the Google way of doing things is to force the user to fall into the default mode, and correct it later if that's wrong.

Firefox/Prism's installation method is precisely what and where a long-time Firefox user would expect it to be: Once the Prism add-on is installed, and you're running the Web app you want to install in the browser, in the Tools menu, you'll find Convert Website to Application. From there, you'll get a dialog box letting you choose how much or how little of Firefox's normal browser components you want displayed, as well as where you want shortcuts to appear (same problem here with not detecting Windows 7). You'll also get an opportunity to change the icon, and you might want to do that. By default, the icon given to a Web app is the "favicon.ico" graphic that normally appears in the browser's address bar, which doesn't look all that swift magnified on the desktop -- often like a Commodore 64 sprite.

Once that job is done, Prism leaves open the Web app you launched in Firefox, so the "conversion" process isn't actually complete, even after the shortcut appears on the desktop. I've had a bit of a debate with myself over whether this is the behavior an everyday user would expect, or rather the complete transfer of the app to a separate window that Chrome provides...and here, I think Chrome's final behavior makes the most sense. In this particular instance, I think Chrome exhibits the behavior most users would expect.

On the other hand, Chrome's commands are a little less intuitive than Firefox's, and Prism gives the Firefox user more self-explanatory choices up front. So thus far, I would give the edge overall to Firefox/Prism, although it would be nice if Prism gave the user a check box enabling her to relocate the running Web app to that separate window instantly.

Next: Managing the behaviors a browser can't control...

Download Firefox 3.5 Final for Windows from Fileforum now.

The behaviors a browser can't control

Officially, Zoho does not support Chrome, and says so up front in a bright red warning box. Zoho does support Google Gears, and Google actually does credit Zoho for doing so. Acrobat.com doesn't officially support Chrome either. So we were prepared for bugs on the part of the apps themselves, and we've cautioned ourselves not to blame Chrome for those bugs once we find them. Here's one: In Zoho Writer running in Chrome, when you paste a URL into a document and it makes it into a hyperlink by default, you can then have it remove the hyperlink and just leave the text. But once you've done that, the document is no longer editable -- not until you save it (which you can still do), back out of the app, and re-enter it.

For Acrobat.com, on occasion, a command will necessitate the opening of another window -- for example, the Document > Open command. Here, Adobe wishes to use its own exclusive window rather than rely on the operating system. In a regular browser, the document opening window shows up in a separate page; but in Prism, that window will appear separately, making it work like a File > Open dialog box. Chrome's lack of support for Flash-based apps like Acrobat.com means that when a document is already open, in one window, Chrome will try to open the dialog box in a tab, inside Chrome. If a regular Chrome window isn't already open, the browser launches one -- and thus the identity of this particular platform provider is inadvertently revealed.

Now, you have to wonder a bit why Chrome 3 (at least for now) is not taking account of the context of the Web application. When a Web app runs in Prism, any new page the app runs is launched in a separate window -- and since this is an application we're talking about, that's the behavior the user should expect. The browser should step aside at this point and give the Web app the stage.

On a similar note, when you launch a Web app hosted through Chrome, the Windows Taskbar registers the app as Chrome, not under its own identity. That's another behavior the user might not expect. It's also not convenient for when the user is running both the Web app and Chrome; Windows 7 will bunch both windows together under the single Chrome icon.

Meanwhile, a Web app like Pixlr that does rely on the operating system for its document opening dialogs (an Explorer window, in Windows) operates in both Prism and Chrome the way you'd expect, so choosing a file from local storage looks just the same as for any other application.

One of the biggest problems any browser-based Web applications platform (as opposed to, say, Java or Flex/Flash or Silverlight) will face is the fact that it cannot effectively marshal the behavior of each Web app. Whereas an operating system like Windows or a runtime interpreter like Java can provide an application with resources in such a way that using those resources makes the app follow the rules, a bare-bones browser platform cannot provide that luxury.

As a result, cross-platform Web apps will not interoperate effectively with the operating system. For example, neither Zoho nor Buzzword nor Pixlr recognize the Windows system clipboard, so you cannot cut and paste between Windows applications, such as from Buzzword to Word. This category of Web app remains one step removed from the user's world; and sometimes, their manufacturers will take advantage of this extra layer of obscurity to compel their users to save documents in their version of the cloud. For Buzzword and Zoho, there's an easier step, but you just have to know it's there: You can export the entire file you're trying to copy from, which makes it into a download. Of course, this means you're exporting the entire file and not an excerpt.

It's when initiating a download that the platforms start behaving like Web browsers again. Firefox brings up a dialog box asking you whether you want to open the incoming imported file in its native application, whereas Chrome places its familiar download button along the bottom rim of the window, and animates a blue arrow pointing to it.

Pixlr, however, goes a different route. Since it's designed to let you edit local images, you're never using remote or cloud-based storage. So there's no "export" necessary, only saving. And here the File > Save dialog box comes up quite naturally, in Chrome or Prism/Firefox. So you know it's possible for a Web app to save local data locally without the need for this download process; it's therefore not the browsers' fault that they have to behave like browsers to bring files into the user's local namespace.

Is there an indicator of efficiency?

Pixlr, unlike the other two apps we chose, does support Chrome, so we looked for any obvious sign of performance difference between the Prism and Chrome platforms. Even the performance indicator that Pixlr provides its users, in the lower right corner of its window, registers a peak of 100 FPS for both platforms. But that performance indicator also registers memory consumption. And it's here that we noticed that, when we load Pixlr with the exact same image from our local storage, Chrome consumes 91.5 MB of memory, climbing with each task we perform. Every brush stroke consumes an entire megabyte.

Meanwhile, Prism starts Pixlr at 13.7 MB, and every brush stroke adds 0.7 MB to that number and climbing. Not that 700,000 kilobytes for tapping an airbrush tool is impressive memory consumption under any circumstances (assuming Pixlr is being honest about its numbers), but it would appear for now that Prism has the edge on memory efficiency.

That's important, because slower and less capable systems than our test platform (for example, a netbook) will not have as much system resources. So even though the relative usability differences of an app like Pixlr in Chrome and Prism are negligible, if they're even detectable, right at first, over time we can expect performance to degrade -- and this indicator suggests that it's Chrome's performance that will degrade first.

The verdict

While the whole business of running a browser-based app outside a browser is fast-moving, unpredictable, and volatile, the big surprise from my vantage point is how far Mozilla has come in this department in just over a year's time. With regard to providing the user with a platform that works and behaves the way she should expect it to, Firefox 3.5 with the Prism add-on is just a little ahead of Chrome 3.

But I mean very little. The differences here are mostly minor ones, although one difference that matters more than most is that Prism appears to be less resource-intensive than Chrome. This might not matter much for folks with 4 GB desktop systems and wired broadband connections; but if Google's entryway into the operating system market is going to be through netbooks, it needs to pay attention to this fact and do some tuning up. It's the fact that Prism, for the most part, behaves as per general user expectations, plus the fact that the speed demon Chrome could squeeze in a lot more miles per gallon, that we give this heat -- one where I thought Mozilla would be left eating Chrome's dust -- to Mozilla.

And that makes our running tally very lopsided for now: Firefox 3.5 (4), Google Chrome 3 (0). But Chrome 3, still being very much in beta, could clear up several of these issues at any time. And when that happens, we'll be the first on the scene with a correction of our own.

KEEP SCORE ALONG WITH BETANEWS:

• Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 1: How private is private browsing?: Firefox 3.5 (1), Chrome 3 (0) after 1 heat
• Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 2: Are bookmarks outmoded?: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (0) after 2 heats
• Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 3: Finding a place for more tabs: Firefox 3.5 (3), Chrome 3 (0) after 3 heats

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Right on schedule, the latest Clear WiMAX network has launched, bringing 4G wireless coverage to 638 square miles of Sin City. Clearwire detailed its plans for Summer launches in Atlanta and Las Vegas in early May. Today, Clearwire recapitulated its goal to have more than 80 markets covered by the end of 2010, which will include Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle before 2009 is out. Networks planned in 2010 include New York, Boston, Washington DC, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Coverage in Las Vegas is provided from more than 300 Motorola access points throughout the city and blankets an area with about 1.7 million residents, which balloons by more than 100,000 every January when CES rolls around.

But today's is more than just the latest WiMAX deployment, as it includes the launch of new Mac connection software and the final launch of the United States' first WiMAX MID.

Mac users will be able to connect to the Clear network with USB modems on August 17 when the Clear Connection Manager for Mac is launched. The software will be available for download on Clear.com and will only work with Clear's WiMAX-only USB modems. Clear says support for dual-mode USB modems will arrive some time in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The Samsung Mondi was confirmed last March, and Samsung announced today that it will be available for purchase on the first of August in Clear markets. The 4.3" (800 x 480) touchscreen slider runs Windows Mobile 6.1, has 4 GB of internal memory expandable via SD to 32 GB. In addition to its built-in WiMAX radio and Wi-Fi capability, it offers GPS with turn-by-turn directions from Route 66.

Neither Samsung nor Clearwire has disclosed the price of the Mondi.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

The most vivid headline on yesterday's news that Microsoft is releasing various Linux kernel modules under the GNU Public License may not have been the most accurate. That would be InfoWorld's "Linux slips into Microsoft's warm, deadly embrace," which cast an agreeable horror-movie glow over the proceedings.

Fun stuff, but despite Randall C. Kennedy's fine and impassioned argument that this is all an embrace-and-extend plot to allow Hyper-V to feast on the blood of the open-source movement, that's probably not where things are heading.

Kennedy makes the case that it happened to IBM and Novell, and it sure did -- but you'd have to unearth that Microsoft to trigger than behavior. And a combination of antitrust avalanches and the quick silty accumulations of the open-source software movement have buried that casket... maybe not irretrievably deep, but deep enough.

Recapping the news: Microsoft announced on Monday that it would release the Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC) kernel drivers, 20,000-odd lines of code that let Linux recognize and optimize for running on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform, under the GNU General Public License, version 2. The code is currently part of Novell's SUSE Linux 10 and RHEL 5.x; the GPL decision will make the code more widely available. The action was identified in Microsoft's press release as "a break from the ordinary" and by some Linux partisans as a sign of imminent apocalyspse.

Sam Ramji, senior director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, had a snarky little quote in the press release that, however obliquely, addressed members of the community who might have been taken by surprise with all this: "Many people are surprised when they hear how much open source community and development work is happening across Microsoft. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that we're focused on getting the work done, and engaging with communities on a one-to-one basis, rather than promoting it."

Ouch, and maybe a little disingenuous, but far more believable coming out of Microsoft '09 than it might have been from Microsoft '99. Ten years ago Microsoft was feeling the brunt of US antitrust investigators; just a few years before, it had heaved itself into the Internet Age in one of the more impressive sea changes in recent business history. Even those who prefer sleeker, more agile organizations -- the yacht that is Apple, Linux's speedy cigarette-boat mentality -- have to admit that turning around a barge like Microsoft circa 1994 takes some fancy navigation.

Not to mention some brutal lurching activity in the wheelhouse. Microsoft made their turnaround, in part, by doing the sort of things they'd done in the past to the likes of Big Blue, only doing them to Netscape. But this time the Department of Justice didn't turn its head, and the rest is history. Or not even history -- as we speak, the European Union is still wrapping up antitrust proceedings against Redmond. (It feels almost retro in the Google era.)

No one would claim Microsoft has become some sort of corporate angel in the intervening decade, not at all. But the company has in the past several years attempted, with somewhat more grace than it did last time, to turn about again and find its way in the current cloud-centric, Web-powered, milieu, so different from the alpha-to-beta-to-release-when-we-damn-well-please mentality of the '90s. (They're not the only ones, muttered a writer for a publication that used to write about beta cycles, back when beta was a distinct stage of life for tech products.) Microsoft's assets are unparalleled brand equity and enterprise reach, deep pockets, a lot of very bright people, and -- as Microsoft always has seemed to have on its side -- time.

But it doesn't have a Time-Turner; there's no going back ten years to a smaller, less self-assured, less appealing open-source movement; the Jaunty Jackalope is out of the bag. Neither Linux nor Apple may ever make great market-share inroads past where they are right now, but they're not going away either. "Embrace and extend" is still a going concern, but at this point the open source movement is simply too big for Microsoft or any other single firm to get its arms around.

But the code Microsoft contributed serves Microsoft's purposes! It only makes Linux run faster on their Hyper-V!, some cry. Well, what would you expect? And what if it does? Many companies want to optimize for Linux these days. All of them must agree to and abide by the terms of the GPL. If the rules were applied to fairly to Microsoft as to other companies -- and there's no evidence to think they were not -- there shouldn't be a problem.

And of course Microsoft wants to own the virtualization space; unlike killing open source, that's probably doable. It's rather unlikely, though, that the broader plan is to somehow drain the life force out of the GPL and kill open source. (The recent kerfuffle over FAT patents alone ought to convince skeptics that there's no overarching plan here; they're chaotic in Redmond sometimes, but not like that.)

I'm far more inclined to suspect that frustration (either in-house, outside, or both) over Hyper-V's Linux performance led to the decision to abide by the GPL-2 rules and use the kernel code to improve the drivers. It's known that some outside developers have been interested in solving that problem; with Microsoft taking up the cause and agreeing to do the right thing, it seems that legal problems would be nipped in the bud. No way is that a bad thing; we don't need yet another legal squabble between Redmond and the FOSS community.

Here's a little secret, though: Microsoft may still be trying to kill us all. If you're worried about three chunks of very specific performance-related code going into the kernel, though, don't. Instead, take a look at the barriers Microsoft throws up for people wanting to work on Wine. Ponder the pernicious, unending problems certain fonts cause in that process. Don't worry so much about the guys trying to make Microsoft look better next to Linux by improving Hyper-V's performance; give a good steady look instead at all the barriers Microsoft puts up that might make other options look worse. The efforts may be twinned, but the first is perfectly acceptable behavior from Microsoft or any other concern wanting Linux support for their wares. The latter... well, that's how bad reputations get started, isn't it?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Yahoo begins beta rollout of new front page

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 • After what feels like a Google-length testing period, Yahoo is rolling out access to its fresh-and-widgety front page redesign to US users, to be followed within a week or thereabouts with rollouts in the UK, France, and India. The design features a configurable "my favorites" bar with several dozen applications that can fly out and preview content above the main screen, improved localization, slightly smaller type, and the ubiquitous purple.

The rollout will evidently be in stages; although screenshots from the prototype are showing up everywhere, certain registered Yahoo users will be the first to be asked whether they want to make the switch. Betanews gave it a shot this morning, but to no avail. What we're anxious to learn is whether the changes will affect "My Yahoo," the component-driven page whose layout is determined by each user. There are folks who already put some time and effort into customizing their pages to look...well, like Yahoo's new homepage, frankly.

At All Things D, Kara Swisher is generally well-disposed to the changes, though she spotted a problem that'll vex certain power users: You can update MySpace status from the new front, you can update Facebook status, but you can't update Twitter. You kinda wonder why -- fear of a Google planet? Were the discussions really that close? Makes you think.

At ZDNet, Sam Diaz describes the new functionality as "where a user's two worlds -- My World and The World -- meet" Ben Parr at Mashable agrees that it's an improvement, but settles that hash: "Will Yahoo's new homepage help it rise back to prominence? Our answer: almost certainly not." Ow.

Legal beagles discuss prospects for fair use as Tenenbaum trial nears

On the road to July 27 > The final pretrial conference in the Joel Tenenbaum case is over, and one hopes Judge Nancy Gertner's getting some rest before things kick off next Monday. Among other matters decided at Monday's meeting was that this thing is running for one week only, with trail to be held all day -- morning and afternoon. According to Ben Sheffner at Copyrights & Campaigns, there's still no ruling on the request by the RIAA for summary judgment on the fair use issue, but her ruling on that could be out by midweek.

Ahh, the fair use strategy... Last week the plaintiffs ran an argument up the flagpole to the effect that even if fair use might be a reasonable defense in some file sharing trial, it's not in this case, so disallow, kthx. Meanwhile, Prof. Charles Nesson keeps on blogging even as he prepares for next week's courtroom marathon, and Joel Tenenbaum does the same.

At long last, RIM readies a Blackberry desktop for the Mac

September 2009 > What took them so long? After previewing a version of BlackBerry Media Sync for Mac back in December, Research In Motion has finally announced the nearing availability of a full desktop-sync package for the Macintosh. RIM blogger Andrey offers plenty of screenshots -- though not a lot of explanation for the delay.

Tuesday's tech headlines

New York Times

• If you're suing for libel and can't get a British court to agree you've been wronged... man, that's just pitiful. (Libel laws in the UK are pretty ferocious.) But so it was Monday for a British company that tried to sue Google for comments made by a commenter on a tech-news site that the search giant indexed. No deal, said a High Court judge.

• Matt Richtel finds evidence that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concealed information from Congress about the high rate of accidents caused by mobile-phone use behind the wheel.

• Jenna Wortham looks at Watchitoo, a service that lets you share the video-viewing experience with friends.

Wired

• The Obama Administration may be gearing up for an antitrust investigation of Google that would feel like "a repeat of Microsoft," according to Christine Varney as quoted by Fred Vogelstein.

• Laid off? Quit whining, says Paul Boutin: It's good for you and good for the industry. (Your mortgage holder will be so pleased to hear this!)

The Register

• Expect some Mac-fanboi excitement at next week's Black Hat, when Dino Dai Zovi will reveal some interesting information on writing nigh-undetectable rootkits for OS X. He says he's got multiple techniques. This ought to be interesting.

• That kernel code drop was just the beginning for Microsoft, says Gavin Clarke.

...and elsewhere...

• San Jose Mercury-News Jim Clark built Netscape and Silicon Graphics back when, but what's he up to these days? He's throwing his resources into chronicling climate change, and hopefully dodging the brunt of it. Not avoiding it, because he says that's off the table now. Scott Duke Harris interviews.

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer An eastside tech firm is working with Coca-Cola to build a soda machine that can custom-mix up to 100 different sodas on command. The Coca-Cola Freestyle machine has been in development for two years.

• Chicago Tribune The Deerfield, Illinois-based Chip Factory was manufacturing something, all right -- a fraud that allegedly relocated $40 million from Best Buy's coffers to those of Abby and Russell Cole, the company's owners.

• Wall Street Journal Marisa Taylor gives a positive review to the Pogoplug network-attached storage device for consumers -- a class of devices some segments of the industry would like folks to refer to as a "personal cloud." Clearly, some segments of the industry have no memory of Brak on Space Ghost.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

It's an odd time to launch an e-bookstore, in the wake of Amazon's Orwellian book-deletion shenanigans as we are, but Barnes & Noble is jumping in with both feet. The new Barnes & Noble eBookstore launched Monday with over 700,000 titles, leapfrogging it past Amazon's efforts.

The store allows downloads to readers for the iPhone/iPod Touch and the BlackBerry, along with Windows and Mac machines; whatever the reader, it's optimized to the .pdb and .prc file formats. (The readers are free and come with free books -- including, if you register, a Merriam-Webster dictionary, plus access to half a million public-domain books from Google.)

Down the road -- next year, if things go as planned -- the bookstore will have a relationship with Plastic Logic and its planned eReader device. The 8.5" x 11" wireless reader is due out in 2010.

We tried out the store via the reader on a Windows Vista machine, and though even 700,000 titles couldn't meet all our e-book-acquisition needs (did fine on new nonfiction, did fine on public domain fiction, but the Tolkien estate isn't interested in getting me a digital copy of Lord of the Rings through B&N) we found the selection congenial, though periodical readers are out of luck so far.

There are a few collections in place already -- BN Classics (public domain texts, some nicely annotated and hyperlinked), the Library of Essential Readings (a Five-Foot Shelf for the modern era), Twilight, Pulitzer Prize winners, and such. We're not sure how Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes, deceased this past weekend) ended up with a "Discover Great New Writers" tag, but hey. There were 902 books listed for under $5, and most titles seemed to be discounted between 30% and 60% from list.

Texts downloaded quickly, and typefaces generally looked great onscreen; images were rather pixelated. We were able to keep multiple books open with no trouble and found highlighting and adding notes simple and fun. We didn't get a chance to ask B&N to delete without warning a text we'd paid for and annotated, so results on that front remain inconclusive. (We did, however, notice that the FAQ asks readers who notice a title that has incorrectly been labeled as public domain contact Google about it.)

The reader operated mostly without incident, and we liked the option to keep multiple bookshelves for our growing collection. We noticed that once something's in the reader, it's in -- two sample chapters we downloaded couldn't be downloaded through the reader itself and didn't disappear when we deleted them on the Web site until we restarted the reader software.

Affiliates of the various booksellers' sites may, by the way, be interested in one significant difference between B&N's digital-book program and Amazon's: Barnes & Noble told its affiliates via e-mail on Monday that they'll pay out a 6% commission on affiliate-driven sales. Amazon doesn't currently pay any commission on sales for the Kindle.

Overall, it's a nice start, and partnership with Google may help to lessen the likelihood of an Amazon-style meltdown. If you're in the market for an actual standalone e-book reader, you won't have hardware in hand for months yet, but if you already have one of the supported devices and want to dip your toe in the electronic-book waters, fire this up and give it a whirl.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Adobe Systems has made two new frameworks available on opensource.adobe.com under the Mozilla Public License: Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) and Text Layout Framework (TLF),

OSMF was originally part of the Strobe initiative announced in back in May, which aimed to establish an open standard for custom Flash-based media players. It includes a plug-ins API that allows for third-party advertising and reporting metrics to work alongside the standard video player features such as buffering, dynamic streaming, and video navigation.

TLF is an extensible ActionScript library that runs on top of Flash Player 10 and Adobe Air to bring rich typographic controls more sophisticated than what is available in HTML and CSS. These text layout features are the same that were shown of when Flash 10 premiered, supporting bi-directional languages, ligatures, text wrapping around inline images, or multi-column text. Examples of what can be done with this rich text library can be found in the NYTimes.com Reader 2.0 or Boston GlobeReader applications, or on Web-book service makebook.

Both of these frameworks are designed to give developers tools to improve the value of their products, and let them create something monetizable.

"We believe these efforts will strengthen the industry and lead to the next generation of Web applications, content and video experiences," Dave McAllister, Adobe's Director of Standards and Open Source said.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

If you look at Texas Instruments' year-over-year results -- ouch, down 27%. If you look at the numbers sequentially -- hey, up 18%, breaking a five-quarter slide. So, based on what we've all been through over the last year, what would you make of TI's numbers?

Texas Instruments took an optimistic but cautious tone on its earnings call, announcing net earnings of $260 million and an EPS of 20 cents, beating expectations. In addition, the company set forth its first predictions for Q3: revenue of between $2.5 and $2.8 billion, with earnings per share of between 29 and 39 cents.

Not bad. Looking ahead, according to TI chairman and CEO Rich Templeton, the company expects sequential growth and is keeping a slightly wary eye on its inventory levels and supply chains, which have fluctuated during the quarter in slightly undesirable ways. TI in Q2 had "a few areas where lead times have stretched out during the quarter.... I'd probably characterize inventory levels as being somewhat lean" in spots, he said. Overall, channel inventory during the quarter was brought down by 10%.

Sales of analog and embedded chips led profits for TI, with analog chips up 21% -- a great deal of that due to interest in its power-management products. Embedded chips for cars didn't do so well (hint: who's buying new vehicles right now?), but overall the category was up about 9%. the company's DLP and ASIC lines, on the other hand, saw overall decreases.

There's a difference in an economy like this between rising and ceasing to fall, and Templeton sounded determinedly cautious on the call -- in other words, we are once again cautioned against assuming we're out of the woods already. While the company expects sequential growth above analysts' previous estimates, he said that since "end demand trends remain uncertain," -- specifically, the specter of high unemployment and lower consumer spending as he head into the holiday season -- "we will keep our operations flexible."

In a similar vein, Templeton commented in the earnings release that "it will likely take some time before the economy strengthens," and that the company's feeling a lack of visibility right now (leading to those broad estimates for Q3). Echoing that thinking, CFO Kevin March is on the record as saying that "We're getting close to finding the bottom of the economy although I don't think we've found it yet." So today's results -- glass half full, glass half empty, or can we even see clearly into the glass?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Fourteen months after the previous service pack (and six months after giving the world a peek at Macworld), Microsoft on Monday rolled out Office 2008 for Mac SP2. There's still no sign of the promised Entourage upgrade to Exchange Web Services (EWS), but fans of Office Live Workspace and SharePoint ought to be pleased.

Document Connection, which improves users' ability to work with documents on both of those collaboration platforms, is perhaps the biggest addition in SP2. It engendered not only a major effort to bring Microsoft's current vision of Web-based collaboration into the Mac world, but a push to get Office right with Safari 4. Those improvements are also part of SP2.

PowerPoint users made progress on issues both arcane (users can now author custom path animations) and mundane (at last, one can choose one's own default theme rather than dodging around Office's each time). The annoying PowerPoint 2008 default behavior of mirroring displays when the user jumped from Slide Show to another application can be shut off now. And -- at last -- one can double-click anywhere on a slide and simply add text.

Microsoft also claims some nice performance improvements in this edition. Writing for Mac Mojo, the Office for Mac team blog, Blair Neumann said Monday, "We took a bite out of start up and scroll speed in Word -- for example in Word's Outline View scrolling is now up to 10 times faster! We also improved calculation performance in Excel with an increased speed of up to 24%."

For Mac users not currently running Office but willing to try, Microsoft also has a 30-day trial offer going. The download is free, though users of narrower bandwidths should be advised that it's a 600 MB file.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Major US telecommunications company Qwest Communications today launched its highest speed DSL Internet service, based on the VDSL2 standard and promising maximum downstream speeds up to 40 Mbps and upstream speeds of 20 Mbps.

The service is available today in Denver, Tucson, Salt Lake City, and The Twin Cities, and the company says it will continue to roll out the VDSL2 technology in 23 more markets in such states as New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington.

Qwest's new service packages are offered to customers with a qualifying home phone line and cost $99 a month for 40 Mbps/5 Mbps, and $109.99 for 40 Mbps/20 Mbps. Customers who already have a 7, 12, or 20 Mbps connection can upgrade to the lower tier for five additional dollars a month.

VDSL2 is the newest of the DSL standards, and was approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) almost four years ago. At the time of its approval the group said, "VDSL2 is seen by many operators as the ideal accompaniment to a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) rollout, where fiber optic lines are used to link large premises like office or apartment blocks to the PSTN, and ordinary copper cables used within the building to connect tenants or residents to high-speed services."

It lets operators offer triple-play services such as HDTV over IP and VoIP over the existing copper plant. While it is a relatively inexpensive upgrade for the provider, they still must build a distributed network with smaller nodes that sit typically less than 2000 meters away from end users. This is because VDSL2 degrades quickly as it moves away from the fiber pipeline. Someone close to the source could have a much higher theoretical speed than someone 5,000 feet away. Swedish Telecommunications company Ericsson notes that one of the most important aspect of VDSL2 is that it uses Ethernet as multiplexing technology in the first mile, eliminating ATM in the first mile and simplifying the access architecture into an end-to-end Ethernet access architecture that uses virtual local area networks (VLAN) as the service-delivery mechanism across the entire access network.

The standard is DSL's response to Cable's DOCSIS 3.0, though it is considered much cheaper to deploy and generally slower. Qwest and AT&T are the only two major telecommunications companies to align with it, but AT&T has delayed its VDSL2 trials since 2007. Time Warner, Comcast, and Cox all have planned DOCSIS 3.0 deployments.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

There's a strange foreshadowing in Microsoft naming its social mashup service Popfly. In baseball, pop fly is a ball hit straight up that comes straight down, usually into the catcher's mitt and to an out. Popfly is out, with Microsoft's decision to close down the service on August 24th.

I'm really bugged about the shutdown, because of what it represents:

• The Bill Gates era really is over. In the year since the cofounder's full-time departure, Microsoft has shuttered many of its best incubation projects or consumer products.
• The closure is yet another sign that Microsoft doesn't really get social media, in part by taking design approaches too closely tied to its stuff and not extensible enough to other Web services.
• Microsoft is more aggressively trying to protect and to extend its existing Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack. There is ever increased emphasis on enterprise computing.

I believe that in 2009 Microsoft has turned a direction that is scarier than movie "Quarantine." Without a course correction, Microsoft in the 2010s will be very much like IBM was in the 1990s.

It's a Top-Down Problem
I like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. He's a heart-on-the-sleeve kind of guy who speaks his mind whenever the PR minions don't interfere. But Steve Ballmer's strength also is his weakness. As I explained last week, the chief executive is too focused on giving customers what they want instead of innovating what they need. Everything about his leadership -- and how Microsoft now develops products -- is about preserving the status quo, whether the company's existing products or enterprises' entrenched business processes.

By comparison, Bill Gates is more visionary. He may talk and walk like a geek, but he's prescient. For example, he rightly recognized, if somewhat belatedly, what the Web would mean for Microsoft, which he aptly expressed in the May 1995 "Internet Tidal Wave" letter.

Bill Gates' post-2000 impact on Microsoft really started manifesting about four years ago, after the company brought on Ray Ozzie with the acquisition of Groove Networks. Perhaps the two men are like minds about software development. After all, they shared the chief software architect title. The number of incubation projects (run by guerrilla groups acting more like internal startups) soared since early 2006.

But after summer 2008, when Microsoft's cofounder shifted primary focus to philanthropy, incubation projects started a priority decline. Since the September 2008 US financial meltdown, Microsoft has had two rounds of layoffs, pulled popular consumer software titles or services and curbed or closed most incubation projects.

In June, TechFlash's Todd Bishop chronicled the demise of many consumer products, including the Encarta encyclopedia and Microsoft Money. But the incubation groups, like Live Labs, or services, like Popfly, are more indicative of a directional shift. It's a direction I don't like seeing Microsoft go.

Microsoft's Short, Golden Age of Incubation
What a difference two years makes. In October 2007, over at Microsoft Watch, I blogged about Microsoft's state of reinvention. The company had numerous guerilla groups working on many cool and exciting incubation projects. Some of the most notable -- for example, Photosynth and Worldwide Telescope -- have brought accolades and new partnerships, with NASA being among them.

Microsoft is a middle-aging company, in an industry dominated by young upstarts. Many younger managers -- that's in Microsoft years, not necessarily physical age -- brought new ideas with these incubation projects. Younger managers and outsiders had been turning some Microsoft product groups into networks of loose startups.

I first perceived that Microsoft had entered incubation pullback mode, after the near closure of Live Labs in April 2009. Gary Flake, who founded Live Labs, describes its incubation approach in the Live Labs Manifesto: "We will deliberately not do many things that are already well-established within Microsoft. Instead we will seek to connect complementary efforts or to fill existing voids, so as to maximize impact for effort."

It's this kind of approach that could shake Microsoft's dependence on Office and Windows and open up new revenue streams along the emerging mobile device and Web applications stack.

But Bill Gates is no longer there to protect incubation project managers. Steve Ballmer has different priorities, as evidenced by recent Microsoft cutbacks and closures. Microsoft is now in state of retreat, as it grapples with the econolypse. Recent cutbacks and internal refocusing point to Microsoft making its core business market the top investment priority -- at the expense of anything else.

Retreat Before the Econolypse
On Thursday, the company will announce fiscal 2009 fourth quarter and yearly results. Wall Street consensus is for earnings per share to fall 21.7 percent year over year for the quarter and 9.1 percent for fiscal 2009. Microsoft's shortlist of problems:

• PC sales are down (although not as bad as analysts' forecasts three months ago).
• Most IT organizations have cut back technology spending.
• Most enterprises already have Microsoft software (e.g., reselling to them rather than generating new sales).

Microsoft's consumer product and incubation project cutbacks are Action A. Increased integration along the existing applications stack and refocused sales on enterprises is Action B. My contention: Microsoft is too focused on seeking to preserve existing revenue streams when creating newer ones should be a greater priority. Microsoft's self-preservation approach will compel its developers to bind new technologies to Office or Windows.

IBM followed a similar path in the 1980s, seeking to preserve its applications stack around the mainframe. While Big Blue released a PC, the company made protecting its legacy business priority. IBM and its mainframe business didn't go away, but its relevance diminished before a new applications stack. Microsoft faces similar challenge before the mobile-to-cloud applications stack.

Popfly is just the latest casualty of a status quo-preserving strategy that primes Microsoft to become the IBM of the 2010s -- unless there is a dramatic course correction.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I'll fess up now and admit I'm a space head.

I always have been and, much to my wife's chagrin, probably always will be. I've been heading into my backyard over the last few nights to catch a glimpse of the combined International Space Station/Space Shuttle Endeavour complex as it flies overhead at five miles a second. There isn't a whole lot to see, frankly. Just a white dot that moves through the sky for a couple of minutes before winking out unceremoniously somewhere near my neighbor's maple tree. The kids occasionally come along, if only to make sure I don't get lost in the thorny bushes in the corner of our yard.

All of which begs a number of questions: Why do I stare at a fast-moving dot in the sky while my puzzled neighbors look out their windows and wonder if I've lost it? Why does the thought of humans circling the planet in the world's most expensive vehicle jazz me so? What does any of this have to do with my regular existence as a technology analyst and journalist? Why is this relevant to you, my readers?

First off, I enjoy making people wonder about me. It's like sport without the risk of injury. Second, what they do up there inspires me to raise the level of my game down here. Third, space travel -- and leadership in this sector -- has everything to do with American technological leadership. By extension, that leadership sets the tone for innovation in the broader technology sector -- for regular folks like us. Lose sight of the big orbital picture and we may as well hand over our position as a world leader in tech to another country -- Russia, China, India, take your pick -- that wants it more than we do. Would an iPhone be just as sweet if a company halfway around the world built it before Apple did? Would a Chinese-owned search powerhouse be in our best interest? If we fail to stick to the space vision that made us a powerhouse a generation ago, we may yet find out.

Blind vision

And losing our vision is what we've been doing since the early 1970s, when President Nixon prematurely cancelled Apollo, gutted the follow-on shuttle program, and turned NASA from national hero to national has-been. The agency's been wandering through the woods ever since, and the longer it flails, the more likely it becomes that the next Microsoft, Google, or Apple won't be headquartered on US soil.

Although it may not be immediately obvious, there's a direct connection between our investments in space and our achievements as a leading technological nation. The space race in the 1960s not only challenged hundreds of thousands of space industry workers to push the limits of what was possible to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. It also inspired a generation of kids who would never so much as touch a rocket, let alone build one for NASA, to push their own limits in science and engineering. The space program was a halo for anyone who aspired to grow up and wear a pocket protector, who questioned the status quo and set out to make the impossible possible.

It's no wonder that the PC revolution, the commercialized Internet, broadband and wireless networking and countless other technological revolutions of our time hit critical mass in the wake of the US moon missions. That's because to a person, every Silicon Valley geek who slaved away in a garage building the Next Big Thing was probably a space geek at some point, too. Would the fires of innovation have been lit if they hadn't had a massive almost-40-storey rocket to inspire them? Doubtful.

As I write this, two of my fellow Canadians are among 13 astronauts -- the largest group ever -- on board the ISS. It's a veritable United Nations of spacefarers up there with American, Russian, Canadian, Japanese, and German representation. What they've learned in keeping a 330-ton multi-noded vehicle fully functional as it flies through space at 17,500 miles per hour is rewriting the book on how teams can successfully cross political, cultural and language barriers to accomplish common goals. The ISS is helping establish new benchmarks in project management as well as the obvious science and engineering -- all lessons that government-funded NASA is only too happy to share with the world at-large.

Spacely starvation

Yet as the shuttle program winds down to its 2010 retirement and the follow-on Constellation hardware remains mired in bureaucratic gridlock and budgetary starvation, the US will once again find itself unable to launch its own astronauts into space. As it currently stands, the gap will be five years. But increasingly, it looks like it could only widen, which makes original plans to return to the moon by 2020 look laughable indeed. Forty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on another orbital body, we live in a world where politicians dicker over budgets for NASA, debating for months over dollar figures that would barely cover a week's worth of military operations in Iraq. We cancel or scale back missions to other planets -- savings, perhaps, hundreds of millions of dollars -- while signing trillion dollar checks for golden parachute-protected financial sector leaders who wilfully ran their companies into the ground.

While this travesty of national priorities continues to play out and American's space interests starve, competing nations like China are pedal-to-the-metal on their own plans to accelerate their space programs. And as they inspire their own generations of tomorrow to pursue their technological dreams, American industry, lacking the celebrity of a globally leading space program, will continue to wrestle with falling numbers of science and engineering grads and an inability to fuel tomorrow's tech business growth.

Forty years ago, we won the moon. That we failed to capitalize on what could have been will reverberate through the technology industry for well over another 40 years. Whether we're even globally relevant by then depends on whether we're willing to finally get serious about turning past investments in space exploration into sustainable business opportunities for tomorrow.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The principal spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America -- whose name, for all who are interested, is correctly spelled Jonathan Lamy, not "Larry" -- denied telling an SC Magazine reporter, even off the cuff, that "DRM is dead," calling it a "blatantly inaccurate quote."

Lamy provided Betanews with an excerpt of his actual e-mail with the reporter, Deb Radcliff. As part of a discussion about consumers' continued willingness to bypass digital rights management schemes for digital music, for a story Radcliff was writing for SC, Lamy said, "There is virtually no DRM on music anymore, at least on download services, including iTunes." He went on to state that MP3s today tend to be sold without any DRM included anyway, with the interest of consumers being able to play tracks on any device.

But that's in the music business, which he represents. It's TV networks and movie studios that continue to use DRM for videos that are distributed through services including iTunes -- so for them, DRM is not dead.

According to Lamy, Radcliff sent a protest e-mail to Ernesto, the TorrentFreak writer who originated the misquote, demanding a retraction. "When the most vocal forefighters of DRM say so, it must be for real," Ernesto wrote yesterday.

Naturally, the misquote was repeated by multiple sources this afternoon, none of whom sought Lamy's verification.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

He would insist on the truth, so I won't embellish anything here: Walter Cronkite was not my hero growing up, but the guy playing for what I -- a boy trying to make sense of my world -- perceived as the other team. My hero was David Brinkley, one of only two other men I knew of besides myself (the other being Chet Huntley) who could command my mother's attention. As a toddler in the 1960s, my assessment of the true value of that feat alone may have actually directed me toward a career in journalism. So while my classmates' idea of a rivalry was between the Sooners and the Longhorns, or between the Beatles and the Monkees, the rivalry that gave me cause for excitement every day was between NBC News and CBS News. And Walter was the competition.

Later, as I truly studied electronic journalism, I would understand what it was that Cronkite had created and had contributed to the craft, early enough for me to use it in forging my career. Unlike most people in this business who wear the moniker "Managing Editor," Cronkite not only steered the ship of his news organization, but developed the principles by which a complete news product is expertly produced. He created the system of priorities by which news "packages" were conceived, organized, and delivered. And he would be the one reorganizing and reconfiguring that sequence, sometimes as late as seconds before air time, and on certain days literally in-between commercials. He saw his broadcast as a "front page," and he adapted it to the importance of the moment. He created the system of flexibility that should, if we were smart, be applied to the business of Internet journalism -- he knew the weights and measures that were necessary to obtain a balance between the stories people needed to know, and the stories people wanted to know.

If you think about it, not even Edward R. Murrow actually accomplished that; throughout Murrow's career, he privately expressed shame at the very fact that he did a celebrity interview show, Person to Person, as if that debased the character of a true newsman. While Cronkite will never approach Katie Couric in the category of celebrity interviews, he did at least understand why certain topics were popular, even when they were trivial compared to the Vietnam War and to America's race to the moon.

Cronkite also had an extremely keen insight as to what remained to be remedied in the business of electronic journalism. In the following excerpt from his 1996 autobiography A Reporter's Life, you can tell he saw the onset of Internet media on the horizon, but his biting assessment of the impending failure of television to do more than serve as what Murrow called "wires and lights in a box" could also be applied to the newer electronic medium 13 years later:

While television puts all other media in the shade in its ability to present in moving pictures the people and places that make our news, it simultaneously fails in outlining and explaining the more complicated issues of our day...For those who either cannot or will not read -- equally shameful in a modern society -- television lifts the floor of knowledge and understanding of the world around them. But for the others, through its limited exploration of the difficult issues, it lowers the ceiling of knowledge. Thus, television news provides a very narrow intellectual crawl space between its floor and its ceiling.

The sheer volume of television news is ridiculously small. The number of words spoken in a half-hour broadcast barely equals the number of words on two thirds of a standard newspaper page. That is not enough to cover the day's major events at home and overseas. Hypercompression of facts, foreshortened arguments, the elimination of extenuating explanation -- all are dictated by television's restrictive time frame and all distort to some degree the news available on television.

The TV correspondent as well as his subjects is a victim of this time compression, something that has come to be known as "sound-bite journalism." With inadequate time to present a coherent report, the correspondent seeks to craft a final summary sentence that might make some sense of the preceding gibberish. This is hard to do without coming to a single point of view -- and a one-line editorial is born. Similarly, a story of alleged misdeeds frequently ends with one sentence: "A spokesman denied the charges." No further explanation.

Television frequently repeats a newspaper story that is based on "informed sources." The newspaper may have carefully hedged the story with numerous qualifiers, but the time-shy newscast does not. More distortion. ...The answer to this informational dilemma in a free society is not immediately apparent...[and] is long-range, but desirable in any case. We must better educate our young people to become discriminating newspaper readers, television viewers and computer users. We must teach them that, to be fully informed, one must go to good newspapers, weekly newsmagazines, opinion journals, books and, increasingly, the Internet as well as television.

By recognizing the advantages and limitations of each medium, this educated public would go multimedia seeking to slake its thirst for more information, and it would demand a better product to satisfy that thirst. Thus, in a market-oriented economy, demand would raise the quality of both print and broadcast news.

Viewed in that light, it's impossible to argue that Internet journalism has any excuse in its defense. Without time limits, and with the benefit of literary tools, it has the capacity for reason, explanation, and education that governed most of print media while Cronkite was a UPI reporter during World War II. And with today's sheer volume of people either having been hired as journalists or having bestowed that title to themselves, you would think the odds would be in favor of the Internet's capacity to inform and educate its public. But let's be honest: No one has yet instituted the system of weights and measures, of flexibility and priority, that performs for Internet media the role that Cronkite created for The CBS Evening News.

Essentially, it boils down to this: We don't get it yet. Most of us in the business of Internet journalism like to pretend we're riding this wave of change, but nobody really has his hands on the tiller at the moment. Some of us think there's some extraordinary value in being "alternative" journalists, as if proclaiming oneself in the "Other" or "Miscellaneous" category carries some mythical gravitas -- as if the fact that we're not as square as Uncle Walter somehow makes us better. It's a lie we tell to ourselves, and it's wearing thin.

What too often determines our priorities is what makes a clever headline -- we've embraced and extended "sound-bite journalism" to the extent that now, we spend valuable hours crafting the cutest or most titillating or most offensive, pot-stirring statement we can in twelve words or less. That's mostly for the benefit of Google News or some aggregator to whom we've bequeathed the job of promoting us, for most of us are just too lazy to work that problem out for ourselves. It's not that we think it's beneath us, as Murrow did. We just don't get it, and we're too high on our own adrenaline to admit it.

The fact that we marvel at one service's capacity to flush out volumes of data, in 140-character-or-less nuggets of often indigestible tripe, with the level of trust and awe that the previous generation entrusted to a man sitting at a desk who made some modicum of sense, stands as testament to the fact that we do not have a handle on how the news can or should be delivered to this generation.

In the Internet realm, there is no equivalent of the CBS Evening News or Huntley-Brinkley Report, or for that matter no New York Times (not even The New York Times itself), because none of us in this business has stepped up to the plate where Cronkite stood. We in this modern era have not worked out a way to deliver the information an informed public requires for its survival, plus the news that interests the public, in a single, succinct package with authority, wisdom, and confidence. That is not to say it cannot be done. If those of us who would dare wear Cronkite's title were to truly do it justice, then it is our duty and responsibility to solve this dilemma. But we have a choice: We can either continue to craft nifty headlines topping 300 words of fluff that trail off with "A spokesman denied the charges" -- which, in my view, is the journalistic equivalent of flipping burgers -- or we can learn once again how to be real journalists in a real world.

Walter Cronkite left our world in peace Friday night, knowing he had accomplished what he had set out to do, and with pride in his work. He remains the model for what every true journalist should ever hope to achieve.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Nate Mook and Tim Conneally, Betanews

UPDATE: Amazon issued a statement Friday night saying, "When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances." However, the company did not touch on whether it would monitor more closely what books get uploaded as part of its self-serve system for publishers to avoid such circumstances altogether.

The press loves a juicy story, and Amazon served one up on a silver platter this morning by automatically deleting certain copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from customers' Kindles. But many facts were left out of this media frenzy, namely that the ebooks were essentially pirated copies sold for 99-cents by a company that had no rights to the material.

Amazon was able to remove the titles because the Kindle is configured to automatically sync up with the user's Bookshelf via the electronic book reader's WhisperNet wireless service. When the company removed the unauthorized books from customers' accounts, they also disappeared from the Kindle. Amazon then delivered a cryptic e-mail about what happened:

"We recently discovered a problem with a Kindle book that you have purchased. We have processed a refund to the payment method used to acquire this book. The next time the wireless is activated on your device, the problematic item will be removed. If you are not in a wireless coverage area, please connect your device to a computer using your USB cable and delete the file from the documents folder."

Naturally, the media went wild.

Amazon deleting books remotely? And the book in question being 1984, the dystopian classic where deep surveillance and censorship is the norm? It could only get more ironic if it was Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451.

David Pogue at The New York Times hopped on the story early, claiming that "the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition," and stated that Amazon "electronically deleted all books by this author." Pogue asserted that "Amazon...caved" on the matter.

The normally-reliable Harry McCracken at Technologizer wrote, "The books' publisher decided that it wasn't so hot on the idea of electronic rights after all."

TechCrunch went so far as to compare Amazon's action to burning books, writing that the retailer deleted "perfectly legal versions" of 1984 and Animal Farm. "Big Brother is in your Kindle. Watching," TechCrunch's MG Siegler wrote.

According to the NYT's Pogue, "it's like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we've been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table."

Oh, give me a break. Whatever happened to a little fact checking? I guess we don't bother with that when a juicy story can be used to drum up comments and pageviews.

I hate to be a party pooper ("Kindles" is now a top trend on Twitter with comments on this nearly every second), but let's get some facts straight before we compare Amazon to Big Brother:

The two books in question were published for the Kindle by a company called Mobile Reference, which offers public domain books for around $1. Mobile Reference did not have the right to sell Orwell's novels because 1984 and Animal Farm are still under copyright protection in the United States. They were not legitimate or "perfectly legal" copies of the books, but rather illicit copies that should not have been sold in the first place.

Contrary to what the New York Times reported, the publisher did not change its mind, nor did Amazon cave to pressure. Rather, Amazon was notified that copyrighted material was being sold on the Amazon store without permission and it removed said material.

In addition, the NYT's claim that Amazon deleted all works by this author is incorrect. In fact, there are still multiple copies of 1984 still for sale on the Kindle -- just not for 99-cents from a company that had no rights to do so. Other ebooks published by Mobile Reference that do fall under public domain are also still for sale.

This is not the first time such an event has happened. Amazon has had to perform widespread recalls from the Kindle at least two other times in the past, and the company sent out the exact same notification. Ayn Rand's books were put up on the Kindle Store without consent from the Ayn Rand Institute and had to be pulled down, while unauthorized copies of Stephenie Meyer's popular Twilight series had to be removed as well. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was reportedly offered for sale for a few hours on Monday, even though electronic versions of the books have not been authorized.

Of course, those titles don't invoke the delicious irony of Amazon lurking inside your Kindle and deleting 1984.

That's not to say that Amazon's actions were completely justifiable. The two ebooks may have been illegal copies, but they were purchased by the customer. In the real world, if you purchase stolen goods, you don't get to keep those goods, but you're also properly informed of the situation. This is where Amazon messed up.

Instead of being honest about what happened -- that it sold unauthorized ebooks and has done so in the past -- Amazon only told customers that there was "a problem." While removing such titles from a customer's Bookshelf and in turn deleting them from the Kindle may be standard policy, a lack of communication about what actually happened has led to a media firestorm that will surely last through the weekend. Amazon also could have offered customers a legitimate replacement copy of 1984 or Animal Farm and footed the difference, because in the end, this was Amazon's mistake.

Perhaps most importantly, this case and the others before it highlight a major problem with Amazon's Kindle Store. The retailer shouldn't have been selling copyrighted material in the first place, and it needs to take a serious look at its acceptance policies to prevent such occurrences in the future. By comparison, Apple has stringent reviews of all applications submitted to its iPhone App Store.

So is Amazon going to come take legitimate books off your nightstand because a publisher changed its mind, or even burn down your library as TechCrunch implies? No. But hopefully it will put policies into place on the Kindle Store so it won't need to recall unauthorized ebooks in the future.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

This episode of Recovery is brought to you by caffeine, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems (with apologies to Homer Simpson).

Fun fact: The Simpsons -- the longest-running sitcom in history and arguably one of the most formative -- has never been nominated for a Best Comedy Emmy. I've got a theory that if the television voters had done so about 18 years ago, they wouldn't currently be in the embarrassing position of nominating for their awards "shows" that don't give a damn about television. Hear me out.

Pop-culture-inclined geeks who need to raise their blood pressure now and then need go no further than the awards process for movies and television shows, which mainly give awards to things that are similar to things that have already gotten awards. Those awards are mainly given out by the kind of people who think they're geeky because they wear glasses or can operate a Sidekick without electrocuting themselves -- not our kind, in other words.

And so geek sci-fi/fantasy pop culture has grown up alongside the mainstream, awards-bedecked type. Over the years, we upgraded from heartfelt but cheesy fare (e.g., original Star Trek, original Battlestar Galactica, MacGyver, Quantum Leap, In Search Of...) to well-executed, smart productions -- Buffy, Firefly, the Battlestar Galactica do-over, Deep Space 9, the Stargate universe, Nowhere Man, 4400, and so on. We're even capable of making smart, well-executed cheese -- right, Warehouse 13 fans?

The mainstream has, in contrast, gone from forging a path -- I Love Lucy not just because Ms. Ball was incandescent but because Desi Arnaz had some amazing ideas about how TV shows should look -- to shoveling same-same dreck like "Everybody Loves The Grey Anatomy Of The King Of Queens," or whatever that mess was called. The innovation now is happening on cable and, as we see more clearly than ever before, out with the geeks on the Interwebs.

Until this week I thought that was just one of those things the people who make TV were okay with; no one's forcing me to watch The Tudors, after all. But then I took a list at the nominations for Outstanding Special Class - Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs: NBC -- which had at least a few good ideas about the Internet as far back as their site for Homicide: Life On The Street -- is represented by a project connected to The Office; Battlestar Galactica, which collected minor nominations like wheat pennies but never rated acting or best-series noms, since that would require voting actors to watch some of that icky old science fiction stuff; Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl halftime show; The Daily Show; and... what, now?

How did Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog get an Emmy nomination? And why on earth would it want one?

Alone of all the nominees above, Dr. Horrible has no direct TV connection, unless you count its genesis in the writer's strike that crippled that industry. That protracted affair put people like Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly -- genuine Emmy anathema in other words) at liberty to do a project with people like Nathan Fillon (Firefly) and Felicia Day, not only an actress but a formidable Web-series creator in her own right.

No one got paid at first for participating and no one seems to have needed an agent to hook the project up; the production length shifted from 30 to 42 minutes; it was released in 14-minute episodes over the course of five days; it was free first and then it came out on DVD with extra fan-submitted material. None of that sounds very TV-like to me -- and frankly I prefer the Web way of doing things. I got to watch the episodes repeatedly on my computer, on my own schedule, without entertainment-industry lawyers assuming I was trying to steal their content. Heck, I'm watching it right now. (Thanks Hulu, and good luck with that Emmy nomination you guys got for the Alec Baldwin commercial -- if, you know, you want it.) And I can't even imagine how Whedon would have talked TV executives into a musical about the love life of an oddly sympathetic super-villain. Jeez, he couldn't talk them into running Firefly episodes in order.

And it all goes back for me to the snub of The Simpsons. To this day there are people who dismiss the show as genre fare only because it's animated. In fact, the nomination of Family Guy for Best Comedy this year -- the first animated show to be thus noticed -- is another example of Emmy voters thinking outside the box several decades after it needs to happen to be relevant to viewers like me. Animation is a genre. Sci-fi is a genre. A genre is something the cool Hollywood kids think they ignore, or use to make money to fund non-genre stuff. Meanwhile, the rest of us are moving on.

On that timetable, they'll figure out how to reward superior science fiction and fantasy in the year I-won't-care-because-my-entertainments-are-found-elsewhere. (Seriously, do you think these voters rooted around FunnyOrDie to see if anything there merited their attention? Please.) I didn't need TV to find Dr. Horrible, I don't currently need a TV to enjoy it, and it wouldn't occur to me to look on TV to find anything like it.

I think it's the cherry on the top of the sundae that Neil Patrick Harris, our beloved Dr. Horrible, will be hosting the Emmys telecast this year. He's probably there because of How I Met Your Mother, a show I've seen exactly half of once; if I watch, it'll be because I'm hoping for a reprise of "Brand New Day." Because like the man says, the status is not quo.

And then there's this: I talk a lot about Twitter; heck, I talk a lot on Twitter. I appreciate, however, that a number of folks are still unconvinced that the microblogging service is worth watching (never mind joining). If you tested the waters and found them uncongenial, or you're one of those people who prefers to have direction as to the "right" way to do things, may I recommend a book for your speedy weekend-reading pleasure? An O'Reilly book, so you don't feel your geek cred is compromised by reading a book about Twitter?

It doesn't conform to the service's 140-character limit, but otherwise The Twitter Book, by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein, really does catch the spirit of the thing -- not only the shibboleths such as @usernames and #hashtags and RT, but the why-bother of it all.

There's a good helping of business-specific advice -- that is, how to make Twitter an asset to your business rather than a way of embarrassing yourself in a venue that is both lightning-fast and unforgiving of boneheaded behavior -- for those looking for the monetary angle.

However, the book works equally well as an guide to the sense and sensibility of Twitter culture -- the "ambient awareness" of what friends and other folk you interest you are up to, combined with the opportunity to dip into the hive-mind honey when the fit takes you. Milstein (@sarahm) has an engaging writing style and a keen ability to choose good examples, always a plus in tech books. And yes, even though the book's wisdom isn't portioned out in 140-character helpings, it's a fast read; considering the book itself is a petite 6" x 8", this would be a good choice to slip into a pocket or backpack for when you have a few minutes to kill -- if you don't do the really O'Reilly thing and get the digital edition, of course.

Let your nerd flag fly and have a great weekend.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In May, Verizon announced that it was selling its landline business in 14 U.S. states to Frontier for an approximated $8.6 billion. When the transaction closes next year, Fronter will be the largest rural triple play provider in the United States, with more than 7 million access lines in 27 states.

But all is not well in the Mountain State, West Virgina, where both the state legislature and communications union laborers are skeptical about the deal.

"Given the struggling economy, the critical importance of maintaining quality jobs, and the need to make sure that West Virginians have access to the tools of the 21st century, a complete review of all aspects of this important proposal is critical," read a letter from the West Virginia House of Delegates to the state Public Service Commission.

While Verizon had plans for a FiOS deployment in West Virginia, many fear that those plans will be scuttled now that Verizon is divesting from its wireline business.

The Communications Workers of America and The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said, "The deal calls for Frontier to take on $3.3 billion in debt; Verizon gets that amount in debt relief. That leaves Frontier saddled with debt that will lessen the potential amount available for investment in high speed broadband deployment. Similar tax-free transactions by Verizon, especially those involving the Reverse Morris Trust tax provisions, haven't worked out so well, especially for consumers in New England now served by FairPoint Communications."

To address these concerns, Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell issued a statement which said, "We believe that, at the end of the day, the commission and West Virginians will realize the many benefits of this transaction, including accelerated broadband deployment in the state."

But this is not the CWA's only concern. It has also criticized Frontier's plan to cut back workers' hours, saying "CWA believes Frontier is using the economic downturn as an excuse to cut workers' hours in advance of its deal with Verizon...This shortsighted plan should be stopped now."

Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter told the Charleston Daily Mail yesterday that West Virginia was the only state to present so much opposition to the deal.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The stable channel for Google's Chrome Web browser (Chrome 2) has not seen a lot of action in recent weeks, perhaps indicating just how stable it has been. But a pair of exploitable defects that Google's engineers rate as "high" and "critical" have prompted the company to issue an automatic update to its deployed Chrome 2 Web browsers, beginning after midnight last night.

Although code running in Chrome is supposed to be tightly sandboxed, as engineers admitted very early this morning, the possibility existed for a maliciously crafted regular expression (RegEx, used in local searches) to generate a heap overflow, creating a situation where arbitrary code could be executed without the need for privilege. That was the "high" problem, which could lead to the ability to trigger the "critical" problem: An already compromised browser could then be maliciously maneuvered into allocating inordinately colossal memory buffers, thus slowing down the computer (denial of service) and possibly crashing the browser along the way.

Betanews tested the latest version 2.0.172.37 in Windows XP Professional SP3 (which seems to be Chrome's favorite platform of late) to determine any evidence of a performance hit. Benchmarks running regular expression tests did run about 3.4% more slowly on average than for build 2.0.172.33 -- a very acceptable performance hit for added security.

At present, there's no evidence that working exploits of these conditions were ever tested in the field -- they appear to have been just as much news to folks who try cracking browsers, as to anyone else.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Now that the wireless telecommunications industry is under scrutiny by Congress and the US Department of Justice over handset exclusivity agreements and their effect on the industry, Verizon Wireless has yielded slightly to political pressure and eased up on its exclusivity. We emphasize slightly.

In a letter to congress, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said, "Any new exclusively arrangement we enter with handset makers will last no longer than six months -- for all manufacturers and all devices."

So VZW will be letting small wireless carriers have first crack at their handsets after a six-month exclusive period, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal this morning.

But the catch to this concession is that Verizon's definition of "small carriers" means those with 500,000 subscribers or less.

Just to provide a bit of perspective on that number: Most of the United States' Tier 2 wireless network operators -- the smaller, regional ones -- have well over a million subscribers. Leap/cricKet has an estimated 3.84 million, and metroPCS and US Cellular both have more than 6.1 million, even rapidly shrinking nTelos has more than 700,000 subscribers.

In fact, this is the smallest possible compromise Verizon could offer. As Fierce Wireless reported at the beginning of the year, there are only seven wireless networks with fewer than 7 million subscribers but greater than 250,000 in the US.

So the only carriers that will benefit from Verizon's concession are the smallest Tier 3 networks, the MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) who lease spectrum from the bigger carriers.

McAdam went on to say, "This new approach is fair to all sides." A statement which could indicate that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile all have roughly the same tiny amount of MVNOs in the below-500,000 subscriber range.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

"We want a Mexico without fear; we want a free Mexico," President Felipe Calderon said yesterday, regarding the dispatch of more than 5,000 armed servicemen to Michoacan.

The Mexican government is attempting to establish order over a population fraught with organized crime; and while police respond to violence, the government and its law-abiding populace has already begun its response to criminal communications by establishing a nationwide database of prepaid cell phone users.

Similar to the way every gun sold in the US must be registered, so too must every prepaid cell in Mexico. Because of the anonymity and freedom the devices afford, they are frequently used as the central tool in intimidation, extortion, and kidnapping plots and are smuggled into jails to keep imprisoned gang members connected. Kidnapping is pandemic in Mexico, and though many go unregistered with the police, some estimate that more than 70 people are kidnapped in that country every month.

By assigning an identity to prepaid devices, legislators are hoping to see a drop in this sort of criminal activity.

The Federal Telecommunications Act was amended on February 9 this year, adding the clause that all prepaid cell users will be logged in a national register known as RENAUT. There, operators must store all call logs, texts, and voice messages associated with each user for one year. The information in this database will only be made available with a court order in legal proceedings.

[Photo credit: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press, as posted to the Prison Photography blog on Wordpress.com.]

Since April 10 of this year, all new prepaid phones have had to be registered before they could even be activated. Existing phones must be registered with the RENAUT before April 10, 2010, within one year of the law's enactment. If not registered before April 10, the line will be suspended without liability for the service provider.

The Mexican Federal Telecommunications Commission (Cofetel) said this week that in the three months RENAUT has been in place, it has already collected data on 8.73 million mobile users out of the estimated 76.6 million total.

Users can register via a free text message, directly through their service provider, or through the RENAUT Web site, which demands that the user enter his name, address, and CURP (Clave Unica Registro Poblacion), the national ID number which is used in the same way a Social Security number is used in the United States. This also means if someone loses their prepaid phone, it must be immediately reported to the carrier.

Similar laws are coming into effect elsewhere in the world, such as in Greece, where Minister for Transport and Communications, Evripidis Stylianidis, said anonymous cell use by "drug dealers, immigrant smugglers and blackmailers" is hindering the police. In Greece, anonymous prepaid phones were used in an illegal wiretapping scheme during the 2004 Athens Olympics that targeted the Prime Minister.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Download Google Chrome 3.0.193.1 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Over the last few weeks, Google has been releasing development builds of its Chrome 3 Web browser in a fast and furious pace. And with each release, the browser has been leaping forward in performance, particularly in Windows XP. With yesterday's release of beta build 3.0.193.1, Chrome 3 has given Betanews reason to suspect that these performance gains are no accident.

But why would Google want to optimize its browser for Windows XP? The reason could lie with netbooks, the arena that Google seeks to invade with its own operating system, perhaps as soon as next year. Google may want to demonstrate its presence on netbooks early, and it might be able to do that by producing the best performing Web browser for netbooks in the interim.

In Betanews tests conducted yesterday, Chrome 3.0.193.1 had gained more than half a point in our performance index over the 3.0.192.1 build we tested just last week, on our physical Windows XP SP3 platform, with a record index score of 18.58. That gain alone is the equivalent of swallowing an extra 57% of the performance of Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista SP2, in just one week's time. This while the latest Chrome 3 build actually lost performance in the Windows 7 Release Candidate.

If Google is optimizing Chrome 3, it's clearly not for Windows 7. In fact, the gains it's making appear to be custom-made for XP. Specifically, Chrome 3's XP performance surged by as much as one-third over its previous build in the areas of Document Object Model management and AJAX handling, AJAX already being one of Google's strengths. There were some tradeoffs, particularly in complex math and page load speed, though they were not enough to offset these other impressive gains.

An updated word about our Windows Web browser test suite

Meanwhile in Windows 7 RC, Chrome 3 slipped from 15.85 in our index to 15.46. In Win7, the losses in math and page load speed did more than offset smaller performance gains in DOM and AJAX. And in Vista SP2, Chrome 3 overcame some earlier performance losses to regain almost a full point of performance, from 12.97 to 13.95.

A performance lead for Chrome on XP netbooks could give Google some early inroads into the netbook market, greasing its path, if you will, for a future Chrome OS onslaught. Windows XP remains the leading operating system on commercial netbooks in recent months, mainly because Vista won't fit; Microsoft promises Windows 7 will make a better fit, but OEMs may wait to see how much of a performance hit they'd have to incur. Although faster than Vista, Win7 remains slower than XP.

While Chrome 3 surges ahead, the Opera 10 Beta is trying to find its way. Yesterday Opera released the second round of its public beta 2, but without the Unite feature that makes browsers into servers. The company is saying it may not be ready for a full public beta round yet, although immediately after the public Beta 2 release, it produced a daily build of Opera 10 (build 1643) with Unite included. That's the version we tested yesterday, but we didn't notice much of a shift in Opera's performance profile: a 5.50 score in Windows 7 RC versus 5.43 for the previous daily build we'd tested.

Finally, after yesterday's early release of Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1, rushed out to address a major vulnerability that was discovered just a few days ago (let's face it people, Bugzilla tracks a zillion bugs, and just because this one was on there since July 9 doesn't mean it was exactly public knowledge), we wondered whether Mozilla had the opportunity to include some tweaks to JavaScript that it had originally planned for the 3.5.1 release.

Its logs say yes, yes, yes, but the performance profile says no, no, no. The new 3.5.1's performance profile is very much on par with the original 3.5, while our tests of earlier daily builds of 3.5.1 show measurable performance gains are still to be realized, particularly in TraceMonkey's handling of arrays in memory. Currently, the final 3.5.1 continues to post a very respectable index score of 9.08 in Windows 7 RC, a little lower than for the previous 3.5 but still sustainable in the wake of a major bug fix. Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In Microsoft's history, it was Windows 95 that had finally confirmed for the entire operating system market that Windows had "arrived," cementing its position as the dominant system for well over a decade to come. The place of Windows Home Server in the market Microsoft has been working to create for it, has been far more tenable -- it doesn't really have competition in its category, but Home Server has yet to prove that it has "arrived." That could change with the forthcoming introduction of Power Pack 3, which will incorporate support for Windows 7, and which also may restore some features which loyal users have, to their surprise, found missing in recent versions.

Early this morning, Microsoft announced the forthcoming availability of the first beta of Power Pack 3 for Windows Home Server. Its key feature is the ability to automatically back up the contents of hard drives elsewhere in the home network, using the same disk imaging system created for Windows Server 2008. The company is signing up participants now through Microsoft Connect, though Betanews confirmed Friday morning that the beta download has not yet been posted.

Windows 7 adds the capability for users to gather multiple directories into libraries, especially for networks where pictures and media are stored on multiple systems. Libraries make all these directories' contents addressable from one place, regardless of their location, and it will be one of Win7's key selling points. So Home Server support for libraries is critically necessary; inevitably, users will want a way to back up entire libraries from multiple locations in one place.

"After the Windows Home Server Connector software has been installed on a computer running Windows 7," reads this morning's announcement, "Windows 7 Backup warnings will be suppressed and users will no longer receive a notification to back up their computer."

But Home Server users to this point have been demanding the relative security of their backups, which is why the the sudden retraction of a key feature last year for Power Pack 1 was met with bewilderment. The company had planned to give users an automatic mechanism for backing up their backup databases, especially because the dropping of a single drive from a Home Server array could result in the loss of an entire backup catalog.

Microsoft had released additional documentation in the interim to help WHS users perform the process manually; but then that documentation itself was mysteriously withdrawn. The omission prompted WHS users to figure out a protection method on their own; late last year, one independent user figured out a method with the help of TrueCrypt and RoboCopy. Since then, Power Pack 2 was released last March, but even it didn't solve users' dilemmas.

The elevation of image-based backup to the top of the heap in Power Pack 3's features list is giving users hope that Microsoft may have reinserted the long lost feature, which at one time seemed to be imminent. But neither the installer nor the documentation is available just yet, so users may have to wait awhile for their concerns to be responded to.

One more new feature will come from Windows 7 itself: Its newest release of Windows Media Center, once extenders are installed, will elevate Home Server access to the home menu. There, Media Center users should have access to new Home Server features such as archiving (including transcoding) and restoring recorded TV shows.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

A data breach affecting users' contact information has been uncovered at Elance, an online contractor-gig site used by many tech professionals. A notice was sent out to various registered members and reposted to a Trust & Safety page of the site on Thursday.

According to the notice, some of the information in the pilfered data table -- which includes names, phone numbers and the like but not bank information or Social Security numbers -- has turned up on an unrelated site called outsourcingroom.com.

Elance says, "We've engaged with authorities to attempt to shut down a site named Outsourcingroom.com that publically displays some of the stolen information. Recently Outsourcingroom.com went offline, but they have since reappeared and we will continue our pursuit until they stop. We are also attempting to be as forthright as possible with updates."

A WHOIS look at outsourcingroom.com -- it was up when we checked at around 8:30 am EDT, though it fell offline again a few minutes later -- indicates that it's registered to "CyberBionic Systematics," a Ukranian firm, and is apparently hosted in the UK. A few registered users so far are getting unwanted e-mail and even unwanted text messages in the wake of the breach, and Elance cautions potential victims to respond cautiously if at all to unexpected solitications.

Elance says the vulnerability that caused the trouble has been sealed, but in the next few days users may expect to hear more about the problem -- and to get notice from the site that they'll need to choose new, stronger passwords.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Mark Loughridge on Thursday dispensed with the introductory pleasantries; the IBM CFO dived right into the Q2 earnings per share with his second sentence. Considering how that sentence panned out, analysts probably would have forgiven him for prefacing his prepared statement with booya!

IBM blasted past expectations, delivering earnings of $2.32 per share -- a company-best EPS for a first, second, or third quarter (adjusting for stock splits), and up 35 cents year-over-year. Q2 net income was $3.1 billion, up 12% year-over-year -- impressive considering total revenues were off 13%, or 7% adjusting for currency fluctuations. Public-sector spending was once again the fastest-growing business sector at 7%.

The company's got free cash flow of $3.4 billion and a cash balance of $12.5 billion. Debt levels dropped $1.6 billion over the past two quarters, to $22.8 billion. IBM returned $2.4 billion to shareholders -- $732 million in dividends, $1.7 billion in share repurchases.

In his remarks, Loughridge said it's all about the improvement in company margins, as IBM's decade-long push to drop commodity products in favor of higher-value products pays off with the highest gross margins since 1992. The company's gross profit margin stands at 45.5%, up 2.3 points; of the last 20 quarters, this is the 19th with an increase.

As margins on old-guard IBM products (printers, computers, etc.) declined through the '90s, IBM rethought its approach, says Loughridge. "We exited commoditizing businesses, including HDD's in 2002, PCs in 2005, and printers in 2007, which represent nearly $15 billion of annual revenue. In that same time, we acquired over 100 companies for about $20 billion. This has clearly accelerated our shift to higher value capabilities. This disciplined focus on shifting our business mix, and our business model, has driven this turnaround in margins."

In a prepared statement, CEO Samuel Palmisano (not on the call) looked ahead. "We have continued our strategic investments in Smarter Planet solutions, business analytics and next generation data centers. As a result we are optimistic about how IBM is positioned to make the most of current growth opportunities as well as those that emerge as the economy recovers. We are well ahead of pace for our 2010 roadmap of $10 to $11 per share." For full-year 2009, the company raised its EPS from $9.20 to $9.70.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Twitter, Google Apps, TechCrunch -- Why can't everyone be to blame for that hack?

The morning after the morning after... • Watching TechCrunch spool out those 300-odd documents lifted from Twitter has been fascinating; the two companies have been talking throughout the process about what is and isn't reasonable to reveal. Very socially-networked of them, as TheNextWeb points out. (Or, says Biz Stone, not.) Now, whom shall we keelhaul for all this?

Writing for PC World, Seth Weintraub blames Google Apps, and he's trailed by a cloud of people blaming cloud computing. Jack Margo at eWeek tried to drag Chrome OS into this. Sam Diaz at ZDNet would like everyone to not start blaming Google or the cloud.

The victim's blaming itself, sort of. InformationWeek's Michael Hickins thinks we should blame TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, arguing that he went too far by publishing the material, and that he should step down. Ryan Tate at Valleywag says Arrington hasn't gone far enough. Lori MacVittie at Web 2.0 Journal blames that pre-Web tech, e-mail (and account self-service options).

Your reporter's suggestion? Blame the person who hacked in and stole the files -- but freakin' fire the nitwit who allegedly made the password "password" -- truly, conduct unbecoming a techie. (Why be crueler to the employee than the hacker? Philosophers and Megadeth fans are directed for further explanation to the tale of the frog and the scorpion.)

Symbian gets in on the mobile-apps fun

Thursday, July 16, 2009 • Why should Apple and Palm and RIM and Nokia and Samsung and... well, it must have looked to Symbian like everyone else really was having all the fun, so it has announced a program to encourage applications development and a more orderly system of distribution. It's actually a middleman project of sorts -- the Symbian Horizon program will evaluate programs offered unto it and decide which are good enough to be offered to existing Symbian apps stores.

Are Microsoft and Yahoo finally on the cusp of an ads deal?

Week of July 20, 2009 • Rumors come and rumors go, but the rumors about an imminent advertising deal between Microsoft and Yahoo were especially thick on the ground Thursday. Neither side's talking to anyone, not even Kara Swisher at All Things D. But various sources (including Swisher) say Microsoft would hand responsibility for the search advertising business to the smaller firm (along with several billion dollars for foster-care expenses). And if this attempt at nuptial bliss fails, as so many have? That's it, forget it, no mas... just as they always say.

R.I.P. Popfly: Not social enough

August 24, 2009 > Back in 2006, Microsoft thought it was on to something with a concept called the mashup -- an online application made up of bits and pieces of other online applications fit to suit one another, whose purpose was...well, a bit of a mashup, for lack of a better word. Perhaps the "community" would come up with a great purpose.

The following year, the company launched Popfly, with the idea of inciting developers to create interesting...things that would be distributed to a multitude of computers using the Silverlight platform (and the Mono platform on Linux). For example, maybe an app could monitor a Twitter feed for things that looked like addresses, and the app could display their location on a map using Virtual Earth. Sounds like a start of something.

What Popfly ended up being notable for was games, making it a Silverlight counterpart to the Flash-based Miniclip.com. Here in one of the more noteworthy efforts of the past few years is the Popfly game "Sarah Palin Moose Hunt," where all the targets are defenseless wildlife, and your choice of weaponry is pretty much infinite. (Kind of an understandable pastime for Microsoft employees.)

But in a sad little announcement yesterday, Microsoft's John Montgomery announced the Popfly service would be shutting down in August, without much explanation. Evidently it was one of those mashups that just could not solidify enough to withstand the current economy.

Friday's tech headlines

The Register

• Is the hardware out to get you? Sadly, it's possible -- as Dan Goodin reports, all these peripherals and gadgets with embedded Web interfaces are insecure as heck. (We're slated to learn more at Black Hat, but this is great reading while we wait.)

• Martin Sutherland, the guy selling data-mining tech to MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, thinks anyone framing the debate over personal data privacy in terms of collections is "immature." Don't just sit there feeling sorry for the Brits on this one; Sutherland's firm, Detica, is looking to get into the US market.

• The state treasurer of Arizona claims that his name magically showed up on the TSA no-fly list after his old boss, Janet Napolitano, took over the agency. Revealing the gentleman's name would deprive Reg writer Austin Modine of a magical moment of snark, so you'll just have to go see for yourself.

TechCrunch (absolutely no Twitter-related content edition)

• Google is promising a "brand new shiny interface" for Google Docs in the near future, and while they prep for launch some features could behave a little strangely. MG Siegler is just positive the timing has nothing to do with Microsoft's Office 2010 plans.

San Jose Mercury News

• Mike Cassidy's column tells the story of HopeLab, a nonprofit tech incubator that hit the big time recently with an invitation to the White House to tell its story. One of the outfit's main product testers took his daddy with him to meet the President -- fair enough, since he's 12.

• The San Mateo Coroner's Office has released its findings concerning the drowning death of Rajeev Motwani, Stanford computer science professor and inspiration to, among many others, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Sadly, alcohol was a contributing factor.

Mashable

• Leah Betancourt from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a thought-provoking guest editorial on whether crowd-funded news is the future of journalism. (Confidential to N. Mook: The redesign would look dreadful with tip jars. Forget it.)

• Google Health would be pleased to store a copy of your advance directive for you. (Your advance directives, though I'm sure you're smart enough to have made yours out already, are the instructions as to what to do if you're in medical straits such that you can't communicate your wishes re treatment and so forth.) Adam Ostrow wants to know if you'd feel comfortable giving Google that data.

• Spymaster, not content to clutter up Twitter, went live on Facebook last night. Your reporter is hoping for some sort of crossover with the equally ubiquitous Mafia Wars -- and no survivors.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

A patent war that stretched over two continents and over three years is set to conclude this week as Research in Motion, purveyor of the BlackBerry, agreed to settle a long-running case originally filed by Visto, a wireless e-mail firm based in California.

According to a (rather terse) jointly issued press release, "The key terms of the settlement involve RIM receiving a perpetual and fully-paid license on all Visto patents, a transfer of certain Visto intellectual property, a one-time payment by RIM of US $267.5 million, and the parties executing full and final releases in respect of all outstanding worldwide litigation."

Visto has licensing arrangements in place with Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Sprint Nextel Corp. It filed its case against RIM two months after that company settled with NTP Inc, a five-year legal jihad that nearly cut off BlackBerry service in the US. Visto's choice to shop the case to a Texas jurisdiction notorious for extravagant, often fantastical patent-suit awards, as well as the suit it filed against Microsoft five months earlier, led many observers to accuse the firm of troll-like behavior. Subsequent suits and countersuits were filed in California, Canada, and Europe.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Since Apple terminated iTunes' compatibility with the Palm Pre this week, there have been a number of services that have rushed to the forefront to make sure users aren't left with an unsyncable Pre for too long. This morning, Web-based syncing service Dazzboard announced its support for the Pre.

"We feel it is very unfair of Apple to penalize Palm and its growing Pre community, and we hope our free application will provide a solution for users are now left in cold due to Apple's decision," said Dazzboard CEO Tera Salonen.

Dazzboard does not require any desktop application to be installed, but does use a browser plugin which works with IE7, IE8 and Firefox 3.0 in Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 RC. The service does not yet support Mac OS.

Dazzboard supports a substantial list of devices, which is not limited to phones, it also includes Mp3 players by Sony, Phillips, Sandisk, and Creative, Digital Cameras, select PNDs by Garmin and TomTom, and the PlayStation Portable.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Admitting after that the fact that "a quarter ago we had no idea where the bottom was," Google said on Thursday that the bottom was apparently a quarter ago. The company reported its lowest ever growth rate for revenues in its recently ended second quarter, expanding just 3% year-over-year.

The company reported revenues of $5.52 billion for the second quarter. Operating income (GAAP) was $1.87 billion, up about $290 million year over year, but representing a larger percentage (34% vs 29%) of revenues compared to the previous year. Net income (again, GAAP) was $1.48 billion compared to $1.25 billion in Q2'08. And EPS was... insert drum roll here... $4.66, compared to $3.92 last year, and about 25 cents/share above analysts' predictions.

CEO Eric Schmidt, CFO Patrick Pichette, SVP for Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg, and President of Global Sales and Business Development Nikesh Arora were all present for the earnings call, which spilled over into a second Q&A phoner later in the afternoon. Most of the questions presented touched on ad sales, which Pichette characterized as improving now that the larger advertisers are edging back into the game. (Business from smaller advertisers, he said, was steady throughout the worst of the downturn.)

The company confirmed that 378 jobs, mainly in the sales and marketing departments, were dropped during the previous quarter; some headcount reductions were expected after the Q1 call in April. (They want you to know they're still hiring, though -- "check the listings!") The company has $19.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term marketable securities available, and like many of the larger tech firms right now, Google "expect[s] to continue to make significant capital expenditures."

The company made a point of saying positive things about high-profile, negative-profit YouTube, which Schmidt sayd Thursday "is now on a trajectory that we're very pleased with." Views of ads-supported video have tripled in the past year, according to Rosenberg, and new ad models such as "pre-roll" (a short ad before the video) are on tap. Those changes are mostly slated for professionally shot videos, for quality control and other reasons. (Rosenberg correctly pointed out that most users can easily tell the difference between professionally shot videos and the rest of the YouTube universe.)

And Chrome OS? There were questions, of course, many asking how Google intends to make money from the endeavor. Schmidt said the the world "needs a faster operating system for the same reason it needs a faster browser -- everyone is doing everything on the Web." For now, though, the focus is on getting the OS ready for chipsets -- Rosenberg confirmed that talks are underway concerning both ARM and Intel -- and, as he put it, "building something truly new." As far as specific revenue models connected to the OS, "we won't really know for a year or two."

The market, perhaps distracted by IBM's more surprisingly sunny call held at the same time (1:30 pm PDT), was underwhelmed, with prices trending down in after-hours trading.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Earlier this month, the first sampling data from Web researcher StatCounter suggested that Microsoft's new Bing search service was gathering momentum, albeit slowly. Today, the first broader-based data analysis from ratings service comScore closely confirms what the early samples were saying: During the month of June, Microsoft-hosted searches including Bing for US customers numbered just 30 million more than for Microsoft-hosted searches including Windows Live the month before. This is during a month when just over 14 billion general searches were processed by the nation's top five providers.

The news looks a little better for Microsoft when you consider that June was a slow month for searches overall -- down by 2% among the nation's top 5 providers, and flat overall when advanced searches and the sites that facilitate them, are entered into the picture. So while Google's general search traffic declined by 2% in keeping with the general trend, its US usage share overall stayed flat at 65%. Bing gained 0.4% of usage share over Windows Live last June -- better than flat, but not the "Bing Boom" that some made it out to be.

While Bing gained 30 million general searches over its predecessor in June, Facebook gained 16 million expanded searches (for specific classes of data) in the same period. Google processed 13.1 billion (with a "b") such searches over that period.

What had been perceived as a gulf between the early sampling statistics produced by services such as StatCounter and NetApplications, and the more conventionally processed broad base of data from services such as comScore, may actually be closing. Early StatCounter numbers suggested Bing was processing as much as 8.23% of US queries, with a share increase of 0.42%. Today's comScore tabulation shows Bing with 8.39% of general US queries, and 4.7% of advanced queries where the competition is broader, this time right in line with StatCounter.

Today, the latest sampling data from NetApplications shows Bing processing an estimated 5.31% of worldwide queries, although Live Search is curiously still showing up in the statistics with an extra two thirds of one percent.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, Palm finally made its Mojo SDK available to the public more than a month after the release of the Pre, and more than five months of the Early Access Program, a sort of beta program for devs.

Now, Palm's app store is open to submissions from all developers, and apps submitted after today's SDK launch will start to appear in the app catalog this fall. In the meantime, submissions from the Early Access Program are "already in the pipeline" for release, according to Palm.

With the launch of the SDK, Palm has also launched the WebOS Developer Portal, and the Pre Virtual Device Lab. In the portal, developers can acquire the SDK, read reference guides, help docs, and associated FAQs, or post in the developer forums and blogs. With the Virtual Device Lab, developers can load their app onto a virtual Pre for remote testing.

It's fantastic news for owners of the Pre, who have up until now only had a very limited number of apps to play with.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Imagine a peer to peer model where you got paid to seed a torrent, and had to pay every time you leeched. That's what the Pirate Bay could become, and it appears it could be a case of history repeating.

In an article published first in The Music Void, Wayne Rosso, former president of notorious P2P service Grokster and founder of Mashboxx says he has begun working with Global Gaming Factory X, the Swedish firm that recently bought the Pirate Bay, to turn the service legit and legal without changing the user experience at all.

Rosso said, "I'm calling this new model 'resource supported'. In short, the more computer resources the user contributes to The Pirate Bay, the more his content consumption is subsidized. I won't drill down any further due to commercial confidentiality, but it can actually work. And if it does, it will be huge."

If the model actually works the way Rosso makes it sound, not only could it become huge, but it could also solve the problem frequently encountered with Torrents, where the ratio of hosts to downloaders is extremely unbalanced, resulting in painfully slow file transmissions.

What's more, Rosso says the group has been in talks with major labels, and enthusiastically said, "Every one has been supportive and, dare I say, excited. They see that it could really work. I left a label meeting Tuesday unlike any I have ever had. They were fantastic! They are real partners and want to do what they can to actually help us keep all of the Pirate Bay traffic and not tie us up in Gordian knots that would drive all the users away."

Rosso's history in P2P litigation is eerily similar to the situation with the Pirate Bay. He was president of illegal peer to peer service Grokster, which was fined $50 million and forced to close down in late 2005 after the US Supreme Court ruled that P2P services could be held responsible for the illegal actions of its users. After Grokster was shut down, NPD reported illegal fire sharing dramatically dropped in the US, the same way groups reported that Swedish piracy legislation resulted in a global decrease in traffic (an issue also greatly overstated.) Months later, Rosso opened legal P2P service Mashboxx, which strove to be similar to Grokster, iMesh, and KaZaa, and also had major label participation.

But that's where it ended. The service never closed; it just never fully got off the ground, and now Russo looks to be working with the owners of the Pirate Bay to pick up where he left off.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1 for Windows from Fileforum now.

After yesterday's discovery of a serious security hole left open by Mozilla Firefox's new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, the organization chose not to wait until next week -- as had been its plan on Tuesday -- to open up availability of its version 3.5.1 bug fix. Instead, the completed build showed up on Mozilla's FTP servers late Thursday morning, although access to that build through HTTP had been sporadic throughout the early afternoon.

Mozilla's intention was to use 3.5.1 as a vehicle for tweaks to TraceMonkey that did not make the final cut when it came time for the organization to finally release version 3.5. Betanews tests to earlier private builds of 3.5.1 showed that some of those tweaks did appear to produce slight speed gains over and above 3.5. What we don't know at the moment is whether all those tweaks actually did make it to the 3.5.1 version that's being made available today. Since the "Shiretoko" developers track will now effectively be shifted to 3.5.2, evidence of which code got the final tweaks may only be determined through testing.

The organization is also going ahead, as planned, with beta tests of a security build for the older Firefox 3 series, to be called 3.0.12. Today's release comes as Opera unveils its public Beta 2 for version 10 of its Web browser, and Google continues fast and furious with another Dev Channel update to Chrome 3, this time as a bug fix for crashes occurring in its V8 JavaScript engine.

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Microsoft couldn't pay for counter marketing as good this. Twitter has officially admitted to a security breach, via personal e-mail account, and the pilfering of confidential documents stored in Google Apps. Can you say, "On-premise computing?"

Based on the cycle of renewals, an unusually large number of Microsoft volume-licensing subscribers must re-up by July 31 or not at all. Given the econolypse's impact on IT spending and, because of layoffs, number of seats to renew, those license renewals may come harder than ever. Then there are all those newfangled hosted applications, some from Microsoft, and Google's push into the enterprise with Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft talks about the "Apple Tax," but I've heard plenty of IT managers complain about the "Microsoft Tax" in reference to Software Assurance fees or CALs (client-access licenses). They see that off-premise hosting can cost loads less per employee, provide immediate software and feature upgrades and reduce management costs. It's to these businesses considering hosted services -- and not from Microsoft or one of its partners -- that the Twitter/Google Apps data breach could be used as effective counter marketing. Microsoft sales people can spin the story to emphasize the importance of on-premise software and to call out new security features coming in Windows 7.

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone blogged "Twitter: Even More Open Than We Wanted" yesterday. Sorry, I'm a day late putting perspective on this one. In fairness to Google and Twitter, there wasn't an overt security breach but pilfering of passwords that allowed unauthorized access. But details like that don't much matter in counter marketing, particularly when the audience is receptive, even if unsure about whether to stay with the Microsoft software they've got or embrace the next new thing.

Many enterprises -- some bound by regulatory obligations -- are wary of letting information outside the confines of the firewall. Hosted services are scary to them, because they don't want to lose control over data -- the corporate crown jewels. Yet off-premise hosting appeals to some businesses, for the aforementioned reasons.

Letting information outside corporate confines is really a fear factor thing, anyway. Major businesses let terabytes of data leave the firewall every day, on laptops, BlackBerries and other mobile devices. These are high-theft items that also are often used for personal and professional purposes. There is commingled personal-professional behavior and data. which creates huge risk of data loss or password pilfering.

Twitter's security breach really may be a woeful tale of what can happen when commingling goes awry. Biz Stone blogs:

"About a month ago, an administrative employee here at Twitter was targeted and her personal email account was hacked. From the personal account, we believe the hacker was able to gain information which allowed access to this employee's Google Apps account which contained Docs, Calendars, and other Google Apps Twitter relies on for sharing notes, spreadsheets, ideas, financial details and more within the company. Since then, we have performed a security audit and reminded everyone of the importance of personal security guidelines."

The red warning in that paragraph is "personal account." He continues:

"This attack had nothing to do with any vulnerability in Google Apps which we continue to use. This is more about Twitter being in enough of a spotlight that folks who work here can become targets. In fact, around the same time, Evan's wife's personal email was hacked and from there, the hacker was able to gain access to some of Evan's personal accounts such as Amazon and PayPal but not email. This isn't about any flaw in web apps, it speaks to the importance of following good personal security guidelines such as choosing strong passwords."

Evan refers to Twitter's CEO, Mr. Williams. Biz Stone doesn't reveal how the personal e-mail accounts were hacked. He doesn't have to. It's clear from the brief explanation that the hacker got access to passwords, some of which were likely the same across multiple accounts.

For Microsoft, the sales spin is obvious:

• Hosted applications are yet unproven compared to on-premise software. You get the security that you pay for.
• Microsoft software is the safer, known choice. You're in control of employee access and passwords, not some administrative assistant or unpaid summer intern.
• Windows 7 and Microsoft server software provide tools that allow IT organization to control who has access to what.
• Windows Vista and 7 encryption tools can protect information leaving the corporate confines from theft or loss.

Bottom-line sale pitch: Renew your contracts now.

Microsoft couldn't ask for better timing, right at the close of a big volume-licensing renewal cycle. There's fear in the air, or there will be plenty if Microsoft's sales force stirs up some marketing FUD -- fear, uncertainty and doubt -- around the security of hosted apps served up by Web companies without rich heritage of software development; or business model (e.g., not Microsoft or its partners).

Is it fair counter marketing? Well, no. Microsoft has got its own software security problems, and there was no hacking of Google Apps or Twitter -- just the pilfering of passwords. Marketing isn't about fairness but selling more stuff. Twitter's data loss is premo marketing ammo. Fire away, Microsoft.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I tune, you tune, we all tune to iTunes.

Except if you own a Palm Pre.

Or anything without an Apple logo, for that matter.

When Palm announced earlier this year that its spanking new Pre smartphone would be able to sync with Apple's iTunes, it raised eyebrows for tweaking the nose of the mighty fruity company. After all, Apple has spent years -- and likely huge amounts of money and countless souls of lawyers and judges alike -- setting the standard for zealously protecting its intellectual property. One doesn't cross Apple lightly, or expect to get away with it for too long.

The other shoe drops

So it comes as no surprise that barely a month after issuing a support note containing a thinly veiled warning against the practice, Apple has officially and concretely responded to Palm's opening move by releasing an update to iTunes. Known as version 8.2.1, the new code specifically kills the ability of earlier versions of iTunes to sync content on non-Apple devices. Palm Pre users with a particular addiction to iTunes now face a short list of inelegant alternatives: They can either elect to never upgrade iTunes beyond 8.2, or revert to dragging and dropping their music files onto their device. If they're feeling really adventurous, they can always pull out that scuffed up first-generation Shuffle from the junk drawer and go to town. Either way, the Pre's days as a wannabe-iPod are over.

Of course, Apple is free to do whatever it wants with its software. It built iTunes as a value-add to its iPod -- and later iPhone -- franchise and in doing so taught the rest of the industry that you needed more than a cool device to dominate the media player market. The resulting troika of hardware, software and online store set the bar for seamless acquisition, management and use of content, and now most other players in this space are rushing similar software/store combinations to market. But Apple was the first, and it remains the gold standard against a fleet of half-hearted competitors.

Apple rightfully owns the digital music market, and since all's fair in marketing and war, the company is completely justified in protecting its interests when at least one of the legs of its painstakingly built triad comes under threat. We may not have liked the kid at the playground who took his ball away from us and went home in a snit. But it was his ball, after all.

Because iTunes is an OS

What's good for the company, however, may not be good for the rest of us…and that playground kid always ended up with no friends, anyway.

Apple's move to cut Palm off begs the question of how closed we want our operating systems to be. And don't doubt it for a second: ITunes has evolved into an operating system in its own right, an ecosystem within which developers and content creators bring productions to market, and within which consumers consume those productions and fuel significant revenue streams for all involved. Like any good OS, iTunes is now the focal point of a large, vibrant marketplace within which a wide range of stakeholders interact almost constantly as they build increasingly sustainable businesses within it.

We may dismiss iTunes' claim to OS status because it's "only" music and video, but there's no denying how influential Apple's once-modest playground has become. And given the broader world's slow and inevitable move toward more open platforms that invite diversity in, Apple's decision to maintain its walled garden suggests it's nowhere near comfortable giving up even the slightest bit of control.

Apple's core values have long revolved around tight integration of hardware and software, and rigid control of the resulting environment. By keeping third-party hardware vendors out, Apple avoids the kind of billion-iteration challenge faced by Microsoft, which devotes vast resources to ensuring Windows runs on every combination of system board, video subsystem and disk controller known to humankind. Apple's short-lived experiment with clones in the mid-90s ended for precisely that reason: The company's culture simply couldn't accommodate a big, wide interface with third-party providers. Back then, Apple decided it would be easier to design an experience around a small number of its own designs. That fanaticism holds true today whether it's a Mac or an iPod/iPhone, and will probably remain true in virtually everything Apple brings to market for the forseeable future.

But it's publicly unfair

While this may be good for Apple, it makes me wonder how this serves the public's interest. Do we want one company exerting such tight control over something that's so instrumental to so many of us? Is it fair to consumers that the now-mainstream capability of iTunes can only be had on Apple-branded devices? And does barring access from competing hardware ultimately harm Apple's ability to grow its market? You may laugh at that last one -- after all, Apple's done pretty nicely for itself thus far. But you've got to wonder whether revenues would grow more quickly if iTunes could be used seamlessly on a wider range of devices.

Want more heresy? Should Apple's App Store be open to other hardware platforms aside from the iPhone and iPod touch? Would the iPhone universe be a happier, or more profitable, place if iPhone apps ran on non-Apple hardware? It's fair to speculate given the slowly growing open source influence in the mobile market as Google's Android OS is joined by offerings from the Nokia-backed Symbian Foundation and LiMo. While it's preposterous at this point to assume any of these new entrants will render Apple's model obsolete overnight, it's not much of a stretch to conclude the open source trend is being watched carefully in Cupertino. But will that be enough to convince Apple to voluntarily play nice with Palm and any other vendor that wants sanctioned hooks into its software?

We may never know, because hell will probably freeze over before Apple pulls down the walls to its various gardens. From where Steve Jobs and Co. sit, it ain't broke, so they have no intention of fixing it.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Our continuing Linux-vs.-Windows series turns now to the absolute basics -- the most universal, and occasionally most important, task you will undertake with any computer. Whatever software and OS you use, whatever you do with the machine, sooner or later you're going to install, update or upgrade something. How does the process compare on the two platforms?

(Again, Mac OS folk, you're not the topic of discussion here. If you want to comment on the .dmg experience or other aspects of tending your Apple orchards, please do so in comments, civilly.)

There are two classes of people who shudder at the prospect of maintaining their machines: Civilian users like your mama (or mine, who happily ran Windows Me for years rather than go through the XP install process), and sysadmins who have to handle matters for multiple users, whose machines may or may not be physically present for it. We'll try to address both in our comparison.

Breaking it down task by task:

Installing applications

Windows applications these days, whether downloaded or installed from optical disc, tend to include installation wizards; at the very least, there's likely to be a setup.exe program in there. Click and go (or just "go" if it's an autorun).

Linux packages come in a few different wrappings, depending on your preferred flavor. The installation process for *nix packages used to be rather tedious. Many experienced users are familiar with .tar balls, which are similar to .zip files under Windows. The .tar, .gz, and .tgz extensions all indicated that you had before you an archive, which had to be unpacked and the readme or install file sought in the collection within.

Fortunately, we're past all that now, thanks to package management -- a development that brought Linux installation management on an ease-of-use par with other operating systems by making the install process part of the operating system, not part of the individual package. The first iteration of the genre was given the unfortunate name "pms" (package management system). Perhaps in deference to the greater needs of humanity, it was followed quickly by RPP (Red Hat Software Program Packages), Red Hat's first essay in the field. Red hat later turned to RPM (RPM Package Manager, thank you Unix recursivity fiends), still a going concern for the Red Hat/Fedora/RHEL contingent. Yum (YellowDog Updater Modified) is one of the most popular package managers for that crowd.

The Ubuntu project (which is based on Debian -- the full family name is actually Debian Gnu/Linux, so you know) focused especially on making the install and upgrade process pain-free -- and in doing so actually provides a model that closed-source OS vendors would do well to follow. Like its progenitor Debian, Ubuntu uses the APT (Advanced Package Tool)-based Synaptic package-management tool to handle installations (and, as we'll see, updates and upgrades). APT, which is one of the centerpieces of the Debian/Ubuntu usability philosophy, is the interface to the wide world of DEB packages; instead of every individual package toting its own installation, the smarts for the process lie in the OS itself. Specifically, APT manages and resolves problems with dependencies -- a ticket out of the dreaded "dependency hell," in fact. APT sits atop dpkg, a Debian package manager.

To APT, a repository looks like a collection of files, plus an index. The index tells APT (and, therefore, Synaptic) about a desired program's dependencies, the additional files required to make the thing run. (Windows users, think "dynamic link library" here.) Synaptic checks the local machine to see if any of the listed dependencies need to be retrieved along with the program itself, and it tells you before installation if it will retrieve those for you.

More importantly, APT handles problems in which a package's dependencies conflict with each other, are circular to each other, or are otherwise out of control. Windows users will easily recognize that mess: It's DLL Hell by another name -- and if Windows' Add/Remove Programs function (Programs and Features in Vista) behaved nicely, it would actually do this sort of dependency tracking rather than simply enquiring of the setup.exe files it finds on the computer.

Jeremy Garcia, founder and proprietor of LinuxQuestions.org, notes that "the newer repository-based Linux distributions have gone to great lengths to mitigate the dependency hell issue... it's something I rarely hear complaints of anymore."

For our purposes, let's look at how the process works in Ubuntu. When installing a new app, the easiest method is to fire up Synaptic Package Manager and type in the name or even just a few description terms concerning what you want: "yahtzee game," for instance. Synaptic knows of several software repositories -- collections of software that are carefully maintained and checked for malware and such -- and users can add third-party repositories to check if they choose. By default, all repositories signed their packages, providing a level of quality assurance.

Some people find the Linux package management tools and repositories confusing, and some of that is due to the creative (and sometimes silly) naming of the tools. When the rubber hits the road, though, it's not that complicated. RPM, YUM, RHN, and several others all relate to management of packages in RPM format. APT, Synaptec, Ubuntu Update Manager, Canonical's commercial package manager -- all of these relate to management of packages in the Debian DEB format. And if you happen to want a package that's only available in RPM format for your Debian system (or vice versa) you can use a utility called Alien to translate between the two package formats, and keep everything on your system under the watchful eye of your chosen package manager.

There are four types of repositories in the Ubuntu universe: main, restricted, universe and multiverse. Main repositories hold officially supported software. Restricted software is for whatever reason (local laws, patent issues) not available under a completely free license, and you will want to know why before you install it. ("Free" in this case doesn't mean free-like-beer but free-like-speech; if a package may not be examined, modified, and improved by the community, it's not free.) Ubuntu has sorted matters out in this fashion, but once again it's a wide Linux world out there, and you're apt to encounter other terminology if you choose other flavors of the OS.

Software in the "universe" repository isn't official, but is maintained by the community; sometimes particularly popular and well-supported packages are promoted from universe to main. And many "multiverse" wares (e.g., closed-source drivers required to play DVDs on an open-source system) are not free-like-speech; you'll need to be in touch with the copyright holder to find out your responsibilities there. Many repositories of any stripe are signed with GPG keys to authenticate identity; APT looks for that authentication and warns users if it's not available.

To the end user, all this looks like: Open Synaptic. Type in search term. Select stuff that looks cool. Click "Apply." Done. Because the default repositories are actively curated, there's very little danger of malware; because the packages themselves must conform with Debian's install rules, the end user needs to do little to nothing to complete the process; because APT manages every files and configuration component completely, every package can be updated or removed completely without breaking the rest of the system. The applications are even sorted appropriately; my new Open Yahtzee game (I really do knock myself out for you people, don't I) appeared under Games with no prompting from me at all.

If you're determined, you can still do old-style installs in Debian, circumventing APT. If you're compiling your own software or installing some truly paleolithic code, you can end up scattering files and such all around your system, none of it tracked by APT. But you've really got to try.

Next: Updating and backing up Linux applications...

Updating applications

Microsoft some years ago combined its two main update services -- Windows Update and Office Update -- into one big Microsoft Update service. (For administrators, there's WSUS, which gives sysadmins greater control over updates.) And then the other programs folks use on Windows often have their own update processes of greater or lesser frequency and persistence.

Linux offers a few choices for managing your updates, but in Ubuntu, again, the method of choice is Synaptic. The system periodically checks online for updates to all the applications it sees on your system. Updates fall into four categories: critical security updates, recommended updates from serious problems not related to security, pre-released updates (mmmm, beta), and unsupported updates, which are mainly fixes for older, no longer generally supported versions of Ubuntu. Most users will automatically update only those patches falling in the first two categories.

The process is otherwise identical to install -- click and go. It is recommended, by the way, that users always do updates before upgrades to either individual programs or the OS.

Backing up applications

Windows users installing from optical disc are wise to keep those in case they're needed later (along with any required license keys, of course). Because the repository model works as it does, Linux users may choose to simply rely on those servers. However, the program APTonCD makes it quite simple to create discs with backup copies of the packages installed on your system. The Ubuntu system must, however, be told about the specific disc from which you wish to install. That's a three-step system-administration process, and you will need to have the actual disc in hand and ready to drop into the machine. (It can also help you burn discs of packages you don't have on your system -- if you wanted to hand someone a nice clean install disk, for instance -- as Jeremy Garcia points out, "There are many corporate environments where Internet access in not available, for a variety of reasons.")

Or, if you like, on the basic Synaptic menu, there's an option to export a list of every blessed item on your system that APT is tracking. Take that list to another machine, import it, and Synaptic will install everything on the list, including appropriate updates, from the repositories.

Rolling back applications

Though the Internet often provides little recourse when one seeks an earlier version of a Windows program one didn't have the sense to back up before an ill-advised install, both Linux platforms have a wide range of rollback ease, depending on which applications you're dealing with.

Debian / Ubuntu leaders made a decision that new packages would not automatically uninstall older versions. This may or may not present tidying-up challenges for tiny-disked systems -- in my own experience I find that the Computer Janitor utility does an adequate job of keeping things in check -- but it certainly makes it easier to revert to an earlier version of a particular program.

Updating the OS

Minor updates to Windows are pushed out about once a month, or more often when Microsoft chooses to release an out-of-cycle patch. Major updates -- the Service Packs -- are less frequent. Desktop systems are often configured to automatically install updates when they become available, while Windows servers are typically configured to notify (but not install) updates so that proper testing can occur.

In Linux, the operating system and the kernel are constantly being updated. That doesn't mean you need to update every time something changes, and as with Windows there are perfectly good reasons to wait -- as with other operating systems, an upgrade can occasionally cause confusion with dependencies and break third-party software (especially, Murphy's Law being what it is, on production machines). On the other hand, tiny performance improvements, support for newer gadgets, and assorted bug fixes may mean you find the prospect of frequently freshened kernels appealing, especially if you're not doing the installation for any machine but your own. And many sysadmins would in any case like to automate the update process as much as possible for civilian users.

One good reason to update your kernel is to prepare for a larger upgrade; while a major version installation itself can't be easily rolled back once installed, the kernel, modules or specific applications all can. A cautious or curious sysadmin could get a preview of how a newer version of the OS treats an older application by upgrading the kernel, checking its behavior, then testing individual applications to see how they behave, rather than upgrading the whole shebang and hoping for the best.

In related thinking, smart Linux users make their /home/ -- the directory for data and documents -- on a separate partition from the OS installation. That way, changes to the OS -- up to and including switching to an all-new Linux distribution -- don't necessarily require you to reconfigure all applications and reload all your documents, photos, and other user data.

Upgrading the OS

Late October is going to a big time for you no matter which OS you use; Windows 7 is expected for release on the 22nd, while Ubuntu is expected to level up to Karmic Koala (did we mention the amusement factor in Ubuntu's naming system?) on the 29th.

Whether or not you think Windows or Linux has the edge here is perhaps dependent on what you expect from a large install process. With Windows, the process goes relatively well if you remember to do your BIOS upgrades before you start the process (and are sure your current version can be upgraded to the new one). Linux upgrades must be done in lockstep, and if you're more than one version behind you'll have to install all the intervening versions until you're up to date. On the other hand, upgrades for Linux can be done over the Net if you like; when upgrading Windows, on the other hand, you're wise to get offline completely.

Backing up the OS

Windows users who purchase their machines with the OS pre-loaded used to be supplied with rescue disks in case of disaster; these days, it's on a partition on the hard drive itself (and heaven help you if the drive fails). Various good options exist for backing up one's Registry and system files in case of trouble. But things can get a little awkward (or expensive) when it's time to start absolutely fresh with a clean install. (And every machine needs to do that now and then.) Did you save your license key? If the Debian / Ubuntu effort made nothing else simpler, the "free" part ensures a lot less drama when chaos strikes.

Rolling back the OS

It happens: You need to be where you were, not where you are. In Windows, you're hosed; format and start again. In Linux... you're still hosed. You can, however, roll back the kernel as mentioned. (In fact, you're not really rolling back the kernel itself; the upgrade process leaves the old kernel in there, available from the boot loader just in case. They're only about 10-15 MB, after all; you have room.) That's rather helpful for testing purposes, and can save you some unpleasant surprises with individual applications; careful use of the testing technique described above may well spare you the need to roll back at all. (Also, this is an excellent time to have done that /home/ partition we mentioned.)

I am fairly sure RPM supports rollback, although I think it's disabled by default. I'm not sure about dpkg. It's also possible to force install an older version of the package you're having issues with in many cases.

So what's the verdict? For maintenance of applications and the operating system with minimum pain and maximum control, the answer to this Can Linux Do This question is YES, and well enough that Microsoft and other closed-source shops ought to be taking notes.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Speaking with Industrygamers about the state of the Video Game business, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said it's "natural" that Apple could convince a large number of iPod and iPhone gamers to buy a game-enabled AppleTV, similar to the way it has drawn users to the Mac platform through the iPod.

Pachter, however, doesn't think it will be a full-blown gaming machine like Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PlayStation 3, but that it will instead be more Wii-like." We'd get cool stuff like World of Goo or Geometry Wars," Pachter said, "but probably not super cool stuff like Gears of War until they bought a few developers."

The tail end of this statement refers back to the position that Apple needs to produce first-party game software by acquiring an existent studio. When rumors began to circulate last May that Apple was eyeing game studio Electronic Arts for acquisition, Pachter pointed out that while it was unlikely at the time, Apple did not own any entertainment content.

But Apple's rapid growth as a handheld gaming company is not only about the availability of a multitude of content. It has long been suggested that the iPhone would make a perfect controller for AppleTV. With the iPhone OS 3.0 update, new APIs were opened that enhance the device's ability to be used as a controller, and drawing it even closer to AppleTV, the recent AppleTV Remote 1.3 update included new gestural controls in addition to the simple on-screen button and menu interface.

"The 'Trojan horse' is that the device would be an Internet access hub, and that they could then sell movies and other products," Pachter continued. "What Apple cares about is getting into the living room, and an Apple TV with games has a higher likelihood of succeeding than an AppleTV without."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Nokia earnings sequentially up, at least

Morning of Thursday, July 16, 2009 • One of the most wince-inducing earnings calls for reporters in recent months has been Nokia's, but things seem to be a tiny bit brighter at the Finnish phone firm as sales rose 7% in Q2 from the previous three months. They're still down 25% year-over-year, of course, but company officials Thursday said they believe the market for mobile devices to be "bottoming out." (The company still chose to revise its earlier target of raising its market share; now the company says it aims to maintain that share at 2008 levels.) Earnings per share were likewise down year-to-year (65.5%) but up sequentially (233.3%).

Nokia said it has sequentially increased its shares of the global mobile device and smartphone markets to, respectively, 38% and 41%; in a similar vein, the company says it estimates industrywide device volumes to be up sequentially about 5%, to 268 million gadgets. (It's down 12% year over year.) Looking ahead, Q3 may see some slight industry improvement in sequential sales numbers, but full-year sales results for 2009 will show a decline of around 10% from 2008 levels.

Amazon bows to Kindle-replacement pressure, but getting sued anyway

Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 1:18 pm PDT • Two ears and a tail to Brier Dudley, tech columnist at the Seattle Times, whose persistent reporting appears to have pushed Amazon to make right on all those cracked Kindles that one hears about. But the class-action suit is still on; as the lawyer for the lead plaintiff puts it, "If they would like to resolve the matter I think the way to do it is through a court-approved process." (A cynical observer might suspect that that particular Seattle-based barrister is familiar with the Amazon way of doing business.)

Facebook tops 250 million users, gets a little creepier

July 15, 2009, 9:08 am PDT • It was inevitable that Facebook would break the quarter-billion barrier, and it took only three months to get that last 50 million, according to a post by Mark Zuckerberg yesterday morning -- not the most exciting post, really (what? he only had three months to write it, people! how much can you expect from a Harvard man?), but the video showing the service's pandemic-style propagation was kind of fun. In all the [*yawn*] hubbub, though, no one seems to have noted an afternoon post on Facebook's developers' blog mentioning that advertisers can now target people based on which applications they're running. Slightly unnerving.

MySpace, a place for...who knows?

July 14, 2009 • See if this sounds familiar to you: A Web site that's been around for a good number of years is desperately seeking to define itself. And in desperation, it looks to its users, and well, they haven't got a clue either. Sure it does. Same song, thousandth verse.

Well, in one of the bigger demonstrations of that same plague affecting a major player, TechCrunch this morning has the Quote of the Week by a long shot: It has obtained a company memo from MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, summing up the problem that...well, maybe his site always had:

We consider our diverse content offering a strength but t oo many logos and disorganized verticals makes the site difficult to navigate and creates confusion about our brand identity. Our users don't know if we're a social portal, a music site, or an entertainment hub. In the last week, we've made some small but meaningful site changes that will lay the groundwork to provide more clarity on our brand and business. Unifying MySpace is critical to how we define ourselves to the world.

Bill Gates eyes hurricane management

January 3, 2008 • An assortment of recently noticed patent filings indicate that the Microsoft alumnus has some ideas about "dampening" hurricanes by pulling warm water deeper into the ocean beneath the storms. IPWatchdog digs in on the filings, while InformationWeek explains why we're just noticing these filings now and Daily Kos goes into O NOES HE IS PLAYING TEH GOD!!!1 mode. Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation quietly dropped another $6.5 million on computer upgrades for 800 public libraries Thursday, just like that.

Is it the economy, or is it Dell?

Q4 2009 > Global PC shipments for the second quarter of this year would have declined by only four tenths of one percent over the same quarter last year, had it not been for the sudden and precipitous decline of Dell. IDC's Quarterly PC Tracker numbers released yesterday show Dell and only Dell in a calamitous freefall, with shipments declining 17.1% to just 9.1 million units.

On Tuesday, Dell was actually straightforward about its troubles. Even though the general press categorized the company's out-of-cycle earnings warning as another sign of the bad economy, alongside General Motors and "More to Love," CFO Brian Gladden made it clear that everyday market factors such as competitive pricing and low margins were pretty much to blame here. By IDC's numbers, Dell is very much in danger of losing its #1 position in US shipments -- only 40,000 units separated Dell from US #2 HP in the second quarter. And Acer's strength, which now reflects all of its consolidated brands including Gateway, is a clear sign that the global economy is no longer so terribly unstable.

Contrast that to iSuppli's report yesterday, which indicated single-digit growth for the entire PC industry into the foreseeable future. Take Dell out of the picture and suddenly that doesn't seem to be the case; and if Dell keeps performing the way it has been, including losing over five points of market share in the states, then it could be out of the picture in just a few short years. At this rate of decline, Acer could become the undisputed global #2 player by the end of the year, and conceivably the leading consumer PC brand in the world.

IBM, Google release earnings reports today

After the markets close > Mark Loughridge, senior vice president and CFO, steps up to the mic for Big Blue; SVP and CFO Patrick Pichette (along with presumably some other folk) step up for Big Goo. Both are expected to announce profitable quarters, with IBM up an estimated 4 cents per share year-to-year and Google sailing along with a 45-cent per-share increase.

Thursday's tech headlines

Wired

• Plans for health-care reform may backfire if the system relies on current her (electronic health records) software, reports Brandon Keim. And we're not just talking paperwork snafus, but deaths.

• The Obama administration really wishes the EFF would shut up about electronic surveillance dragnets, asking a federal court on Wednesday to toss the EFF's ongoing lawsuit.

• Twittering behind the pop-culture curve? Checking out porn at work? BitTorrenting movies or music you can't buy online? Wired's cover story on The New Rules for evolved humans is full of useful guidelines, plus advice from that inglourious basterd Brad Pitt.

Ars Technica

• The debate over whether to block mobile-phone signals in and around prisons continued at a Senate Commerce and Science committee hearing on Wednesday. Read Matthew Lasar's writeup and see if you can't find good arguments on both sides of the conversation.

• The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides the underpinnings for three indictments unsealed this week against three men connected to the Viewsat satellite receiver. Looks like one of them managed to get himself recorded saying "I don't want no traces or records" concerning the group's decryption efforts. Oops.

The Register

• Sorry, Symbian friends: Researchers have spotted the first spambot known to target your phones. YXES-B isn't widespread yet, but it sounds like a nasty piece of work if you get hit.

• As John Ozimek puts it, you know your "child-protecting" net filter is a loser when even children's charities say it is, as they're doing in Australia these days.

LA Times

• So what happens when -- not if -- AT&T loses its exclusive iPhone deal? David Sarno reports that the telco should expect a significant defection to "faster, more reliable networks."

• Zookz.com, an Antigua-based site, believes it has the legal right to offer unlimited music and movie downloads for $18/month based on its interpretation of a 2007 WTO ruling. The RIAA and MPAA just might have another interpretation. (This ought to be entertaining.) Jon Healey reports.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Apple is a company known for good design -- meaning also that appearances matter beyond just the products. Apple's legal department may have done something that appears simply laughable. Even if untrue, it's a helluva good story -- and a Microsoft executive tells it. Well.

Apple has a reputation for issuing legal take-down notices. The practice is a byproduct of the company's penchant for secrecy. Many Websites posting leaked Apple product pics have felt the burning ire of Apple lawyers. Today, at Microsoft's annual partner conference, COO Kevin Turner described receiving what could be characterized as the ultimate take-down notice.

"Two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey -- this is a true story -- saying, 'Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.' They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I've ever taken in business."

"I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, 'Is this a joke? Who are you?' Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we're just going to keep running them and running them and running them."

In June, Apple introduced 13-inch MacBook Pros for $100 less than the MacBooks they replaced and cut $300 off 15-inch and 17-inch laptops. Assuming the story is factual as told, Apple legal actually has a point about the price comparisons in most "Laptop Hunters" commercials. That said, the prices were correct when Microsoft first aired the ads.

Is there a little tit for tat going on here? Of course. I had noticed that in recent weeks Microsoft started airing older Laptop Hunters commercials more frequently, after a hiatus. I didn't make the connection until today that these same commercials also call out the higher Mac notebook prices.

Is that unfair? In marketing there is no love between competitors. Just war. Microsoft took the marketing two-by-four to Apple's head. Whack. Whack. That's what effective marketing is for.

It's no wonder Kevin Turner cartwheeled around the office. For nearly three years prior to Laptop Hunters, Apple dominated PC purchasing messaging with "Get a Mac" commercials, which brilliantly use two people -- Mac and PC -- to simply communicate complex ideas about computer buying. KT told Microsoft partners about reactions a year ago:

"Gosh, when I went home for the holidays, brothers, sisters, cousins -- hey, hope you don't have anything to do with marketing over there at Microsoft. What are you guys going to do about those Apple ads?"

Apple and Microsoft are both readying new operating systems for autumn release. I expect Microsoft to all but literally cover the planet in advertising. According to KT:

"When we put Windows 7 in there, which we've got coming out in October, what an incredible opportunity for us to fight back. And it feels really good to be on the offensive here. And we know we've got plenty of work to do. We don't have it all figured out."

Laptop Hunters commercials have proved to be a surprisingly effective response to Apple marketing. "I'm a PC" ads were OK and "The Rookies" spots were much better. The Laptop Hunters series is the big home run. The commercials have improved perceptions about Microsoft and Windows PCs. The company stated so during its earnings call three months ago. By the way, the Bing commercials are even better -- some of best tech ever run on TV.

I suspect Apple's sensitivity is more than about Laptop Hunters. Microsoft has played up value by highlighting what it calls the "Apple Tax" -- the price premium paid for Macs compared to Windows PCs. In fairness to Apple, that premium is in the market under $999, which is the entry price to join the iMac, MacBook Pro or Mac Pro clubs.

Microsoft plans to expand the "Tax" concept. Apple is one target. VMware is another. Kevin Turner told Microsoft partners: "Just like we did with Apple...we're going to get this virtualization tax, the VMware tax out there and start driving people crazy with the value proposition."

Given the econolypse, Microsoft has picked a good time to reemphasize value in its marketing.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The question has been asked, who really needs to use Microsoft Office these days? The answer is, anyone who is in the business of professionally generating content for a paying customer. Word 2010 may not be the optimum tool for the everyday blogger, and Excel 2010 maybe not the best summer trip planner, just as a John Deere is not the optimum vehicle for a trip to the grocery store. But in recent years, Microsoft is the only software producer that has come close to understanding what professional content creators require in their daily toolset.

So far, the improvements we've found from actually using the Office 2010 Technical Preview released Monday (as opposed to the ones Microsoft told us about) can mainly be described as usability enhancements -- tools that appear to be responses to how people actually use the products. Compared to Office 2007, which threw out the old instruction manual with regard to how applications should work, Office 2010's changes are subtler, slicker, and less ostentatious. Of those we've noticed in our initial tests, here are five which we feel will make compelling arguments for at least some users to upgrade:

5. Embedding Web videos in PowerPoint presentations. Technically, it's possible to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint 2007 presentation, but you need a third-party plug-in to pull it off. Otherwise, PowerPoint is only geared to play locally accessible files, essentially using a Media Player component.

One of the very few functional changes to PowerPoint 2010 is the addition of a mechanism that enables you to embed YouTube and other videos into a presentation the same way you'd embed them into a Web page: by copying the HTML <EMBED> code directly in. PowerPoint 2010 (gauging from the Technical Preview) will allow you to preview the video in-place without having to view the presentation as a slideshow first, which demonstrates the depth of functionality Microsoft truly intends for this component -- apparently an in-place Adobe Flash object. It will be even nicer when this feature works; in our tests, the new component often did not locate the video online and looked for it in the "My Documents" directory instead.

4. Restrict Editing command in Word 2010. Many publishing organizations use Word as their principal tool for editing textual content, which means collaborators shuttle multiple documents between authors, editors, and proofreaders. Microsoft's collaboration tools are supposed to enable only certain parties to make changes. But in the publishing business, formatting codes are the keys to the final formatting of a production document, and if someone who has access rights can change those paragraph formats, even accidentally (which is easier to accomplish than you might imagine, thanks to customizable document templates belonging to each user), the entire production process can be held up, sometimes for days, while formatters work out the kinks.

This simple tool may go a long way toward preventing these kinks from popping up. On a per-user basis, Restrict Editing (located in the Developer panel, which is not displayed by default) can prevent named individuals from making certain types of changes to a document, even if he's generally permitted to make changes. Among the available restrictions are changes to styles, which creates the possibility for a safeguard that publishers can use to prevent authors from changing manuscripts willy-nilly to suit their tastes. (Can you tell I've been in the editing business?)

Next: Does Scott get his #1 Office 2010 wish?

3. Document properties at a glance. In the old days of Word, the Document Properties dialog box was what editors used to maintain control over versioning -- which version of a document was being edited based on how many editing cycles it had passed through, and when it was last modified and saved. Versioning control in Word has improved dramatically since then, but many publishers' control and validation processes have not. For editors who have to work with these publishers, it was a pain to discover that the designers of Office 2007 had buried Document Properties in an odd location: in the Office menu (the big round button, which has been replaced in Office 2010), under Prepare, followed by Properties and then Advanced Properties. (Nothing advanced about them, really, it should be "Basic Properties.")

With the BackStage feature in all Office 2010 components, a document's basic properties shows up on the front page -- no excavation necessary, no "advanced" dialogs. You'll also find there the most basic and necessary features that Office 2007 buried under its little-used Prepare menu; in fact, I'm fairly certain that many folks will think the "Check for Issues" feature is new, when it actually premiered in the 2007 version.

2. The Share menu takes center stage 'BackStage.' Office 2007 introduced something Microsoft was fairly excited about at the time, called the Publish menu (under the big Office button). Its projected purpose was to enable any number of possible options for preparing a document to be received by multiple people, whether through SharePoint or Microsoft's Document Management Server, or to a blog post someplace. But Microsoft's "Johnny Appleseed" approach to the notion of publishing (a blog post and DMS are pretty different things) meant this menu became another of the 2007 version's buried treasures.

In Office 2010, BackStage's new Share menu replaces Publish with a full and richly self-documented selection of functions you can perform to enable the active document to be consumed by someone else, typically without using Office. This is Microsoft's acknowledgment, at long last, that Office is not the universe which binds together all intellectual property.

The Change File Type menu is particularly interesting and useful here, as it presents well-explained options for doing the kind of thing we used to call "exporting." Here is where you'll find one of the multiple places where Office now supports OpenDocument format, both as an alternate default file save format and as a vehicle for sharing files with others. The concept of "share" makes more immediate sense to new users than "export," and it has a more open and positive connotation: It doesn't mean to move data out of one universe to warp it into another.

While I'm on the subject of BackStage: When Office's designers first premiered the ribbon for the 2007 version, they claimed one of its principal benefits was to get options and commands out of the way of the document being edited. Nothing in the ribbon drops down, and the document is obstructed by dialog boxes only when vitally necessary. But BackStage runs completely contrary to that design ethic. When you're about to save a document or print it or see what it will look like on your printer or in SharePoint, the BackStage screen totally occludes the document you're working on, although in some cases it leaves a thumbnail open in the upper right corner as a reminder.

And yet it works surprisingly well. Because it uses all that space, there's all that space for it to use, and it gets used for explaining the user's options in clear and concise language. Here is where Microsoft finally learns a lesson from Web page design. Notice also the construction of the menus, in a three-tier fashion with the categories running top to bottom, and subcategories expanding to the right. Little left-pointing arrows align the commands to their respective categories like notations in an open book. It's very legible, very attractive, and yet in runs in stark contrast to the very design decisions that gave rise to it.

1. Fully customizable ribbons. The ability to customize Office completely, to make it into the application you need it to be, is something I've not only treasured but cashed in on. Two of the 17 books I've published under one of my two names, including this one, were exclusively about the subject of Office customization.

So when I learned that you needed Visual Studio to customize Office 2007's ribbons, I was a taken aback. I heard a number of various excuses, one of which being that the everyday end user was not familiar enough with the principles of ribbon design to be making a ribbon for himself (it's too dangerous, boys and girls!). And the bone that Microsoft threw for us customizers in the meantime, the "Quick Access toolbar," is not only too trifling to be fully functional or adaptable, but also (as its name clearly suggests) contrary to the ribbon design ethic -- it's a toolbar!

This glaring omission in Office's long-established functionality -- perhaps the most prominent regular Office feature ever to be omitted from a successor version for lack of readiness -- will be fixed in Office 2010. I would like to say it's fixed now, but in early Betanews tests, adjustments I've made to the ribbons in Word and Excel did not stick -- for some reason, components revert to their default layouts. (We're legitimately testing Office 2010, so when I discover the reasons, Microsoft will most certainly hear from me.) Nonetheless, you can see where in the new Options panel, there are separate tiers for the Quick Access toolbar and the complete ribbon.

Everything here can be changed, including the order and names of the menus themselves, and you can create completely new menu categories on your own -- you don't need Visual Studio or a lesson in "line-of-business applications." The background programming language for Office remains Visual Basic for Applications, which isn't altogether bad -- it means older macros remain compatible -- but it does forsake the enormously powerful possibilities of opening up access to the .NET CLI, and letting the user choose her language (VB, C#, F#, IronPython, IronRuby). While VBA is, on the whole, slower and based on an older Windows component model, it still has access to the complete Office type library, and that's the most important feature for developers. Now it's possible once again to re-engineer Office into a sophisticated information management system exclusively for global publishers. And yes, you're sensing a huge smile on my face.

We can debate the monolithic nature of Office applications until Steve Ballmer stops repeating the word "tenacity." It's almost a moot argument until anything the Web can deliver enables the degree of productivity, and the level of flexibility, as Microsoft Office. There remains no equal in the applications field, and that's actually a shame because there appears to be ample opportunity and talent out there quite capable of engineering a better and more efficient way of working. Until then, we Office users may have even less reason to complain for at least the next three years.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

I have a test of nerves for you. I want you to go grab $200 in twenties and some plastic wrap. (Look in the kitchen for the plastic wrap; you're on your own for the cash.) Wrap the cash in the plastic. Now find a kid, preferably one of about elementary-school age. An assortment of kids of various ages is better, if you have multiple instances of plastic-wrapped bills, though the ease of finding extra cash around the house is of course inversely related to the number of kids present.

Each child should come naturally equipped with a backpack, which they use to haul stuff to school, playdates, and the homes of other family members as well as for random covert storage purposes. Now, I want you to reach into each backpack (don't be scared!) and place a plastic-wrapped bundle of money in there. Tell the child that the money is her responsibility from now on; it must be present and accounted for at all times; they will spend much of every day looking at it but will not be allowed to use it as they please; damaged money or plastic will get the child into trouble.

And oh yeah -- if anything bad happens to this money, no homework for the kid.

Ri-i-i-ight.

The proposal released yesterday by the Democratic Leadership Council entitled "A Kindle In Every Backpack" (PDF available here) is a fine example of why many of us (yes, conservative friends, even on the left) still have a hard time using the words "democratic" and "leadership" in sequence without flinching. Lack of electronic books is the core problem facing our public schools, really? I would have guessed... I don't know, disintegrating facilities or disastrous testing mandates or vanishing funding for staff and programs or lack of money for basic supplies or even creepy security theater, this being a security column.

But since this is a security column, let us view the proposal through that lens. Because honestly, someone should have before this "just a concept, an idea" piece was ever released to a nation that needs serious thought about fixing its schools, rather than dreamy-eyed drooling over a gadget.

• A Kindle, really? I appreciate that the title "A Kindle in every backpack" was a ploy to get our attention. But the very fact that Thomas Z. Freedman and his co-writers could name-check a single dominant device in the space points to problems with both a potential monoculture and with intellectual property issues as DRM enters the classroom.
• And in a backpack? The report frets about the high incidence of back pain among kids currently hauling masses of textbooks around. But I corralled a child in my vicinity, and found that the weight of the back in question (held together by duct tape, by the way, and suggestions that it may be due for replacement are screaming-fit fodder) isn't just books but Pokemon cards, random pieces of vaguely steampunk-looking debris, an extra roll of duct tape, various papers I assume he was supposed to have shown his parents (dating from the previous school year)... you get the idea.

  I'm pretty sure there's no current e-book reader suited to that high-test environment. I'm also sure that any other environment -- separate bag, hand-carry, world's largest belt holster -- presents some seriously enhanced loss opportunities, not only when kids mislay the device (because they're naturally focused on the treasures in their backpacks) but when devices are taken accidentally by classmates, or not-so-accidentally by bad people of any age.

• And with DRM? Printed textbooks, once they're sold, undergo a brutal and hyper-extended lifespan -- the report notes this and so say we all. However, they have the added advantage of staying bought once they're bought -- in other words, publishers aren't known to swoop down and remove books from the classroom once they're paid for.

  The report cites the potential convenience of publishers being able to push new content to textbooks as the world changes; that implies an ongoing financial relationship. (Or did you think that publishers and authors were just going to update all that stuff free? If so, let's pause here while you think back to college textbook purchases and how often a "new edition" -- required for your coursework! -- was all but identical to the previous edition the bookseller was selling for half the price.)

  The specter of digital content management (digital rights management, DRM) in the classroom is chilling, not least for one of the very things the report says it would help: curriculum flexibility.

  Students of copyright history will recall Basic Books Incorporated v. Kinko's, in which the publisher sued the copy shop for photocopying materials for educational purposes -- a practice Kinko's argued constituted fair use for non-profit educational purposes. (No, Kinko's was not an educational facility; that was part of the problem with the case.) In the aftermath, most schools got very, very nervous about photocopying "packet" materials for students, often requiring them to buy an entire textbook in order just to acquire one or two pages of relevant content.

  The Kinko's case took years and many lawyers to get the publisher's desired result -- that is, shutting down the practice. With an electronic book, the process could be as simple as flipping the proverbial switch. Amazon has already run into controversy for locking Kindle users out of their accounts (and thus their purchased texts). What happens when a school can't pay for "updates" and the publisher decides to pull access entirely? For that matter, what happens when some kid messes with the settings on her e-book reader and the device decides it hasn't got any of the textbooks it's supposed to have?

• Who's protecting these devices? The paper claims that students want electronic textbooks because they want (among other things) podcasts and videoconferencing and Google Earth. You may well ask yourself exactly how many podcasts have to be playing in one classroom before the teacher might as well just leave for a coffee break, but from a security point of view, I wonder who's managing anti-malware efforts on these devices -- which, as I mentioned, would likely be a monoculture, which all the trouble that implies.

A nation full of kids using Net-enabled devices in a [*yawn*] classroom setting looks to me like a gorgeous target for a sliver of social engineering backed up by a fat malware payload, as we just saw with Neopets. Make sure those machines have a nice load of personally identifiable information on them, and we're off to the races. Do you want to be the guy in charge of protecting those machines? Ask the sysadmins in the Julie Amero case how that might play out in a classroom setting.

TechFlash today is reporting on a spate of cracked Kindles -- by which they mean actual cracks in cases -- owned by grownups who simply used a certain leather cover case for the gadget. Look into your kid's backpack and ask how long a Kindle would survive in there; look at the Kindle and ask if the best use for your local school's budget is to divvy it up into piles of $200, wrap it in plastic, and throw it in the bottom of a duct-taped backpack.

And then there's this: We're all still getting to the bottom of the horrific home-invasion murders of Byrd and Melanie Billings, but something about today's report caught my eye: Apparently some other accomplice was supposed to disable the Byrd's surveillance system, but failed to do so. The sheriff investigating the mess hypothesized that perhaps the unknown disabler had an attack of conscience. I'm not sure simply neglecting to do evil is a moral action equivalent to, say, telling someone about an imminent double murder, but it does remind us that, as with passwords or sensitive files, one is careless with access to one's physical-security plant at one's peril.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

With the latest version of iTunes (8.2.1), Apple has addressed what it calls "an issue with verification of Apple devices," that is, it now verifies that the Palm Pre is not one.

It was bound to happen. Both Palm and Sprint warned Pre owners of a possible rejection, and Apple last month issued an a report saying, "Newer versions of Apple's iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players."

Now, when a user with the newest version of iTunes selects Media Sync on his Pre, the device will show up as a USB mass storage device on the desktop, but not in iTunes. For these folks, third party media sync tools like doubleTwist and The Missing Sync are the only option for iTunes syncing.

California software company Mark/Space Inc, makers of The Missing Sync, were quick to remind the public today that its software "utilizes APIs provided by Apple to properly and validly access music and pictures in iTunes and iPhoto," and can be purchased for $39.95.

For those aware of the change, simply hanging onto the last version of iTunes seems to be the immediate and most commonly employed solution.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Last Month, Betanews' Scott Fulton asked "What will become of MySpace after a 30% headcount reduction?" None other than the highest man in the MySpace architecture, parent company News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, answered that question this week.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Murdoch said the fading social network will need to refocus itself as an entertainment portal.

It's not a surprising response from the executive, as the site has regularly tried to shift the emphasis off of its social network and make itself more of a portal. In 2008, MySpace Music debuted as an improved way for the multitude of bands and musicians on MySpace to connect with fans and sell their music through Amazon and ringtones through Jamster, the MySpace Impact Channel premiered as a news portal for the young adult sector, linking to MSNBC content among others. In mid-2007, Myspace launched its own social news aggregation site like Digg and Yahoo Buzz. The site's recent past has been peppered with portal-esque ventures.

While not a total shock, it is an unusual goal. Portals really have not been an attractive design since the so-called "portal craze" of the dot com era. As Burst Media CEO Jarvis Coffin said yesterday, "Mr. Murdoch's comments stopped me because I haven't seen anyone reportedly aspire to build a portal in years."

But the portal is, after all, a state that a lot of good services have entered to retire. After six years, MySpace been overtaken by Facebook in unique visits, it's laid off a huge number of its staff, replaced its chief executive, tweaked its name, and dropped its "A place for friends" slogan.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

"On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées." -- Victor Hugo
Literal translation: "One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas."
Often paraphrased: "Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come."

Web-based operating system/platform is an idea whose time has come, whether or not Google succeeds with Chrome OS. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can deny it. He can march his Office 2010 and Windows 7 armies into the enterprise. But, elsewhere, the Web platform is turning from idea to practical reality -- in large part because of mobile handsets.

Yesterday, on the one-year anniversary of App Store, Apple announced that iPhone users had downloaded 1.5 billion mobile applications. It's a momentous achievement for a relatively new platform. That's one sign of big changes coming. A new applications stack is emerging, from mobile device to the cloud. Steve Ballmer doesn't get it, even as Microsoft embraces cloud computing tied to the dominant Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack.

BetaNews has transcribed portions of his comments from Microsoft's annual partner conference:

"What we really do understand is that the model of the future brings together the best of today's rich client Windows-style applications and some of the things that people consider the best of the Web. People like the deployment model, you click on a link and you get your application deployed. People like the notion that, kind of, the globe from an information perspective, and a people perspective, is built in. And people like the richness and visualization and responsiveness and offline characteristics of the Windows applications."

"So as we talk about where we're going, we don't need a new operating system. What we need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows applications, IE [Internet Explorer], the way IE works in totality with Windows, and how we build applications like Office, like the stuff we showed here, and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us."

The people who download applications from Apple, BlackBerry, Google, Nokia or Palm mobile stores are not getting "Windows-style applications." These applications are lightweight and many are Web connected. Widgets running on my Nokia N97 keep persistent Web connections.

Microsoft's CEO will never understand the real power of the Web platform, but deny it, because:

• He's a salesman who makes customers the top priority. The approach his commendable. But what his enterprise customers tell him they want today holds Microsoft back from reaching tomorrow.
• Microsoft corporate culture is fixated on building up from existing products into new areas. This integration brings sales leverage for future products, which are chained to existing ones.
• Related: Next to security and extended integration, Microsoft's top design priority is backward compatibility. So, for the benefit of customer satisfaction, Microsoft looks too much behind while trying to move ahead.

Steve Ballmer has interesting ideas about where most people spend most of their time. He told Microsoft partners, yesterday:

"The truth of the matter is, there's good data that actually says that about 50 percent of the time, somebody's on their PC, at least 50 percent they're not doing something in the Web browser. So what we need is an operating system that brings local richness together with the Internet, and Windows is the operating system for the job."

Really, now? Fifty-percent of the time in a Web browser is a helluva lot. There is the other 50 percent. How much of that is in applications connected to the Web? I currently have five applications open, other than Web browser, and all are connected to the Internet. Meanwhile, I have seven browser tabs open to Web services, including the blogging platform for this post. So I'll ask you: How much of what you regularly do on a computer (or even smartphone) is connected to the Web? Please answer in comments.

Steve Ballmer's statement about an OS bringing "local richness together with the Internet" could as easily describe Android, iPhone OS, Mac OS, any Linux distribution or Chrome OS. Even Google's new operating system will have to run something locally.

Microsoft's CEO is right to be perplexed about Google bringing to market two operating systems: "The last time I checked, you don't need two client operating systems. We tried it before -- Windows 95 and Windows NT. It's good to have one. So I can't, I don't really don't know what's up at Google." Nor do I. Android or Chrome OS should be enough. Not both.

That said, Chrome OS, or something like it, is an idea whose time has come. Netscape wanted to bring a Web-based OS to market in the late 1990s. It wasn't the right time, Microsoft outmaneuvered Netscape with Internet Explorer and Internet Information Server bundling and Netscape wasn't the right company. By comparison, the time is right, Microsoft's responsiveness is hampered by European and US antitrust oversight and Google is the right company. Or Apple.

Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 were about the PC. Web 3.0 is about the mobile device and the cloud. In a future post, I'll explain the major factors that make Web 3.0 about the mobile device-to-cloud applications stack. Two for now: Ubiquitous and fast Internet connectivity; search utility and potential third-party profitability.

Wrapping up, Steve Ballmer's emphasis on customers shouldn't be a liability, but it is for Microsoft. Innovation isn't about listening to what customers want, but giving them something they didn't realize they needed. This is the fundamental difference between how Apple and Microsoft develop new products. Microsoft caters to enterprises and their fickle and risk-adverse behavior. That's good for Office, Windows and Microsoft server products today. Tomorrow is an idea whose time already is passing.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Yesterday, in a Windows 7 for Developers blog post, Microsoft revealed more details about the special version of Windows 7 for the European Union. The company isn't ripping out Internet Explorer 8 so much as using the "Turn Windows on or off" tool to disable the browser. For all practical purposes, IE8 won't be available to end users or third-party applications. However, Internet Web Applications components will remain.

About 30 days ago, in a brilliant solution to a troubling problem, Microsoft announced plans to release an "E" version of Windows 7 sans the browser. Windows 7 E will be exclusively distributed in the EU, where the European Competition Commission is nearly ready to officially rule that Microsoft's bundling Internet Explorer with Windows is an anticompetitive act. The European Commission is currently entertaining remedies, which are rumored to include a proposal for presenting Windows users with a choice of browsers to set as default during installation.

Microsoft's decision to offer Windows 7 E in Europe makes loads of sense. The company made a tough call, but a good one. The European Commission and Opera can complain, but Microsoft is thinking business, which is the right priority.

I'm not defending Microsoft's tactic of bundling -- in legal parlance tying -- Internet Explorer to Windows, nor am I reproaching it. I encourage people to stake out their opposing positions in comments. But I do commend Microsoft's pragmatic solution -- and one that clears the way for Windows 7's worldwide launch.

European regulators can whine and complain about how oh-so terrible is IE, but that contention ignores that:

• Many businesses depend on Internet Explorer
• The new browser war is on mobile phones, where neither Windows nor IE is dominant
• Desktop browser competition is fiercer than ever (Firefox usage surpasses IE in some European countries)

Lots of European businesses, consumers and developers will be sorry to lose IE from Windows. Some will feel slighted, like they're being treated second rate compared to people in every other region in the world. Surely there will be backlash -- some pointed at Microsoft for making the decision, but perhaps more to European regulators for creating the situation.

Windows 7 E is a brilliant business maneuver, because:

• Microsoft can comfortably plan on launching Windows 7 worldwide on October 22nd, regardless of the EC's remedy.
• The solution is reasonable enough that the European Commission will have a tougher time imposing a tougher, alternative remedy.
• By shipping IE on a separate disc, Microsoft also can offer Windows Live Essentials and other software -- all technically unbundled but easily accessible.

Each of these business goals/benefits needs further explanation.

Windows 7's Launch. Microsoft is most vulnerable to competitor interference right before launching a new operating system. The company also is most likely to make concessions about Windows in the months before launch. In early 2001, Kodak complained to the New York attorney general about Windows XP's new, bundled photo features. At that time, Microsoft hadn't yet settled its US antitrust case and was under strict scrutiny form the Justice Department. Microsoft made changes that allowed Kodak's software to be a default option. Microsoft made other concessions -- some of them preemptive -- such as ceding control of desktop icons, ahead of Windows XP's launch.

Competitors also circled around Windows Vista, pointing fingers and crying out for Daddy Trustbuster to do something about Microsoft. Google complained about Internet Explorer 7 search defaults, which the Justice Department decided were flexible enough -- certainly as much as Firefox. Nevertheless, Microsoft modified search after Google also complained to the European Commission. Security competitors/partners also called on the EC, leading to other Windows Vista changes.

The newer situation is considerably more problematic for Microsoft, because the European Commission is likely to reach a decision after Windows 7 is certified gold and before its release to volume-licensing subscribers on September 1. The EC is taking suggestions from many parties, including Microsoft competitors, now.

Limiting EC's Options. Even if the European Commission demands more or something different, Microsoft has established a framework that should allow a stay of any remedy for appeal. No one should doubt Microsoft's primary objective: The simultaneous worldwide launch of Windows 7 in October. Last month, Dave Heiner, Microsoft's deputy general counsel explained in a blog post:

"The worldwide launch of Windows 7 is fast approaching, but a pending legal case raises concerns about the sufficiency of competition among the Web browsers that are available to Windows users in Europe...We're committed to making Windows 7 available in Europe at the same time that it launches in the rest of the world, but we also must comply with European competition law as we launch the product...this is a big step for Microsoft. But we're committed to launching Windows 7 on time in Europe, so we need to address the legal realities in Europe, including the risk of large fines."

Microsoft's approach clears way for Windows 7's launch, while also drawing a line before the European Commission. But the EC can still sock Microsoft, because of the extent of IE8 removal and the ease with which it could be restored.

Competitive Landscape. Microsoft also unexpectedly is getting some help from Google, which last week announced plans to release Chrome OS for netbooks. Microsoft can argue that Windows 7 E removes the browser at a time when Google is preparing a browser-based operating system. Surely, given this potentially market-changing move, Microsoft can assert that it has offered the European Commission remedy enough.

Then there is Opera, which immediately and unsurprisingly complained about Windows 7 E. The EC's proposed plan would assure Opera free distribution with every copy of Windows sold in Europe. Microsoft's alternative actually gives nothing to competitors, Opera in particular. Taking something away doesn't give something instead. By the way, Opera filed the complaint that started the EC's browser investigation.

Microsoft is planning to ship separate application discs with Windows 7 E retail versions. By distributing CDs with IE and other Microsoft software, the company gets some bundling benefits without tying software to Windows. It's a brilliant business response to companies practicing competition by litigation.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In the final scenes of Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977), which history may yet restore to its rightful place as one of the dumbest movies ever made, the President of the United States (Charles Durning) learns from a renegade general-turned-prison escapee (Burt Lancaster) that the whole point of the Vietnam War was a geopolitical bluster intended to convince the Soviet Union that the US was crazy enough to engage in World War III if it had to. After the President is told this Earth-shattering information by his kidnapper, his own cabinet conspire to assassinate him to prevent the information from being revealed in a press conference. This despite the fact that the real world was already entitled to The Pentagon Papers in paperback for several years, though readers clearly preferred Jaws and The Exorcist.

It is no "eyes-only" confidential secret that bluster is a very effective political and marketing tool at the disposal of anyone who can afford to use it. So you're safe from any assassination attempts from the likes of Joseph Cotten or Richard Widmark. Meanwhile, anyone reading Betanews on a daily basis over the last few weeks might get the impression that World War III is about to be triggered by the volatile mix of Google and Microsoft, or that at least some of us here who may have stayed up too late to watch Twilight's Last Gleaming on AMC may think so.

That ol' Steve Ballmer tenacity

In listening to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's often-extemporaneous comments yesterday before the Worldwide Developer's Conference (for a moment, you can just see Ballmer substituting for Charles Durning), I was reminded by one of the all-time masters of bluster and bombast that not every project in the software industry is entirely "user-focused." Sometimes a company is willing to undertake a crazy, risky, costly, and perhaps fruitless project for an indefinite period, simply to demonstrate to its competitor that it's willing to go the distance.

I came to that realization when Ballmer made the following remarks late in yesterday's talk to the company's development and production partners, when he began alluding to his competitor the way AMD typically alludes to Intel:

The day we can't turn our great ideas and tenacity...into success, you'll go sit at somebody else's partner conference. So you can count on us for that. If ever there was evidence for that, it's the Bing itself. Man, oh man, have we taken a lot of abuse. And we're still just an itsy, bitsy little piece of the market. But man, we've got a little mojo. We've got a little innovation, we'll keep goin' and goin' and goin' and goin' and goin' and goin'.

And you might say, "Steve, what does this have to do with us?" This isn't...Bing search, it's not the center of most of our partners' worlds. But it has two things to do with you: Number one, it's as good a demonstration of our tenacity and commitment as anything you've ever seen, including Windows 1.0...and number two, it's my chance to tell you you should set your default search provider to Bing.com.

When Steve Ballmer gets worked up, he's like Joe Biden: Nothing stays secret, and nothing is held back. In making his "interesting" comments about Google Chrome OS later in the keynote, he went on to say that folks who use PCs only use Web browsers 50% of the time or less. Very sincere, very direct, probably even correct...but not necessarily what his colleagues may have wanted him to say right that moment.

A few years ago, when Microsoft premiered its Zune MP3 player, I asked NPD analyst Ross Rubin what market conditions Apple's iPod would have to present for Microsoft to give up the chase. He responded that Microsoft wouldn't give up. It doesn't have to, he said -- Microsoft doesn't need to "win," to win. It could maintain third place or even worse indefinitely; all it needs is a toehold against Apple, nothing more. Simply remaining a factor, staying in the conversation, will mean both success and profit for Microsoft.

If you use that case as a template, Microsoft doesn't need Bing as a tool to conquer Google (at this rate of growth, Bing could match Google's usage share in nine years). Ballmer said it himself, and very plainly: All Microsoft requires is to be able to demonstrate its tenacity against a major market player.

What's his objective? Google's business model is centered around online advertising, and every business it has organically grown or successfully grafted onto itself, extends that business model outward. It's based on the (unproven) theory that advertising alone can float an enterprise -- a theory which doesn't seem to be working for print media concerns that were too slow to adopt new media. As long as Google's model continues to expand, its existence threatens Microsoft, whose business model is based around more conventional sales and subscriptions. Google's expansion absorbs portions of Microsoft's base.

So Microsoft needs a stopgap, a way to convince advertisers that Google isn't the only game in town. But it can also use a diversion, a way to keep Google fighting a limited battle that it may eventually win anyway, but at less of a detriment to Microsoft. The existence of Bing gives Google an irresistible objective, something it can expend its resources to eradicate. Microsoft cannot afford Google continuing to expand the viability of the revenue stream for what will effectively become ad-supported software -- a game changer with Microsoft as the victim rather than the instigator.

Another old rerun

With that template still in hand, it's easier to come to the realization that Chrome OS, announced last week, has a certain Bing-ness to it. Any practical analysis will tell you that even Google has a slim chance, if any, in gaining serious traction against Microsoft in marketing a real operating system. As many Betanews readers have already commented, just how successful should one expect yet another flavor of Linux to be?

But perhaps like Bing, Chrome OS doesn't need to "succeed" to succeed, and maybe that's the whole point of it -- the real reason for its creation. All through history, Microsoft has been able to change the game, and thus change the rules, to its advantage -- tying the Web browser to the operating system when it was useful to do so, divorcing it from the OS later for the same reason. It's by changing the game that Microsoft throws competitors off theirs. As long as Microsoft has this kind of clout, it threatens Google whose business model could teeter off its delicate balance the moment Microsoft reorganizes the underlying principles of operating systems and PCs. It's through its strong partner ties that Microsoft, more than anyone else, is capable of doing so.

So Google needs Microsoft to stay the same, to not change Windows, to make Windows 7 into "Vista II," and to stay conventional so that Google's fruitful, if precarious, business model can continue its growth unimpeded. One might think Microsoft would threaten Google more if it were to capture more advertising revenue; but in a way, even Bing validates Google's principle that advertising can be the stream from which all good things flow. It's the competitive business model which diverts revenue from that stream.

Thus Google ekes out a toehold in operating systems, if in name only. Its objective is to keep Microsoft on its regular course. And if something else Ballmer said yesterday reflects how he truly feels, Eric Schmidt and other Google executives may have reason for their own optimism:

We're going to invest in continuing to attract new customers, despite the economic downturn. And we're going to keep what I would call the Same Old Microsoft Approach, long-term, tenacious, and partner-centric. Long-term, Lo-ong-term, Lo-o-ong-term! Look, you [partners] come here, and I know what you have to do. You have to sit there and say, "On anything they're doing well, are they going to keep it up? And on anything where they're not doing well today, are they just going to keep at it 'til they get it right? Or are they going to go home?" We don't go home. We just keep coming and coming and coming, tenacious, tenacious, tenacious, tenacious.

Google's continued success as an online advertising generator requires Microsoft to direct that redundant tenacity towards staying the same, not changing the game. Bing can be tenacious if it wants to be, but at this rate, it's no game changer. So Chrome OS is Google's bluster, an irresistible objective for Microsoft's resources and Steve Ballmer's testosterone.

By that logic, there's no revolution going on here at all. Five years from now, Betanews will be talking about #1 Windows and #5 (or greater) Chrome OS. Ten years from now, Windows and Chrome OS bringing up the rear. But both companies will be essentially where they are now, no matter how much the economy has scaled up or down. And when that happens, I'll happily remind you that this really is like a very late, very old, slightly bad movie. And I won't be looking over my shoulder for signs of a sniper.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Google today released apps for BlackBerry and Android that allow the still-in-invite-only-beta Google Voice service to be accessed directly through users' smartphones.

The app lets users make outgoing calls or send texts from their Google Voice number through their BlackBerry or Android device. To place a call before the app existed, users had to dial their own Google Voice number from their cell or use the "Quick Call" button from the Web-based component. The app also handles voice mail duties by recording the messages from missed callers and transcribing them into text.

Google Voice assigns a single phone number to a user's various lines (home, work, mobile, etc.) and makes them all equally accessible. Marcus Foster, product manager of Google Voice posted in the official Google Mobile Blog today, "We had a thought - it's great that our friends and family only need to use one number to reach us. But it's weird that our outbound calls and messages are shown as coming from the phone's underlying number, rather than from the Google Voice number that they're used to, causing confusion. So with that, we're excited to release the Google Voice app for Android and BlackBerry."

The app can be downloaded over the air from the Google Voice mobile site at m.google.com/voice, through the Android Market, or by scanning the QR code below with any Android barcode scanner.

Google Voice is still only available to U.S. customers, and even then it's only for those who have a Google Voice Account, which are still in scarce supply.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Developers on the "Shiretoko" track for Mozilla's new open source Firefox 3.5 Web browser now have very good reason to expect a ship date for the first round of bug fixes and vulnerabilities. A very big vulnerability has turned up in just the wrong place: a public site for posting exploits.

The problem is a new permutation of an old exploit technique that, ironically, was first brought to prominence in 2006 by a package called "Internet Exploiter." It's called a heap spray, comprised of shellcode that's set to be distributed into an area in blocks, a bit like spraying bricks into a wall. The resulting pattern may contain executable code that can be triggered through an overflow; and in this case, it's version 3.5's embedded font support, using the <FONT&gt tag, that's the trigger.

A check of the Bugzilla database this morning does not indicate the issue as an active security bug among Mozilla testers. However, security firm Secunia rates the vuln "Extremely Critical," as the published exploit is believed to be in use in the wild.

In its proof-of-concept distribution, the exploit triggers CALC.EXE in Windows, though it's an academic matter for someone to make that trigger run other code, perhaps an arbitrary payload. Though this exploit is not a "virus" per se, despite how some local TV newscasts may portray it, certainly the arbitrary payload this trigger may enable could be infectious.

Though a general planning meeting for next-stage Firefox development was scheduled for yesterday morning, and security problems were scheduled to be on the agenda, apparently this latest exploit had not yet cropped up at the time developers met. Meeting notes published yesterday concerning the bug fix schedule for 3.5.1 read, "Contrary to some reports on the Internet, this is the usual process for Firefox and software releases; the 3.5 release was strong, stable and solid, and feedback has been extremely positive. Near the end of the release we become extremely conservative about patches to accept; the 3.5.1 release is a quick update to fold in some patches that came up late in the 3.5 release cycle."

Candidate builds of 3.5.1 were scheduled for next week, though today's discovery may accelerate the release process.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Last night, Apple released the second iPhone OS 3.1 beta to developers, roughly two weeks after the first beta was released, adding several new features to the growing list of iPhone 3.1 features, but also terminating the popular IPCC tethering hack.

While the first SDK beta introduced a handful of new, but only moderately noteworthy features, such as Voice Control over Bluetooth, the second beta gives developers running Xcode the ability to wirelessly connect to their iPhones for development and testing purposes.

This will give the developer wireless access to all the same features he would have if connected to the iPhone via USB, and will be especially useful for developers who need the iPhone's serial port for other external add-ons while testing.

Unfortunately, this upgrade also breaks the IPCC hack that allows AT&T customers to tether their iPhones, despite the carrier's lack of support for the feature. This hack will work in OS 3.0 and the first beta of 3.1, but beta 2 locks it out.

For this reason, many users are opting to avoid the upgrade until another workaround is devised, and take this opportunity to further denigrate AT&T in the forums. A Macrumors poster iPhoneNYC said, "Only one thing stands in the way of the iPhone being fantastic in every way -- and that is ATT. Why ATT needs to hold back on tethering when iPhone users in many other countries can use it is anyone's guess but it is clear that ATT is the weak link in the iPhone chain."

Aside from the broken hack, APIs that give the ability to overlay graphics over live video (a la Augmented Reality) have reportedly also been included in this version, and video editing has been made non-destructive, letting users safely roll back changes they may have made.

The list of known new features is still fairly brief, so Betanews will post updates as more features are uncovered in the SDK.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Ballmer ... reacts ... to Chrome OS

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 • During yesterday's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made his first public comments about Google's Chrome OS -- and to no one's surprised, he's not really moved by it, at least not to any degree he wants people to know about.

Here is a complete transcript of Ballmer's comments as presented in Microsoft's video of the conference:

First of all, I will be...what's the right word?...I will be respectful. Who knows what this thing is? To me, the Chrome OS thing is highly interesting. It won't happen for a year and a half, and they already announced an operating system. I don't know if they can't make up their mind or what the problem is over there, but the last time I checked, you don't need two client operating systems. We tried it before -- Windows 95 and Windows NT. It's good to have one. So I can't, I don't really don't know what's up at Google.

Let me comment, though, about our own situation: What we really do understand is that the model of the future brings together the best of today's rich client Windows-style applications and some of the things that people consider the best of the Web. People like the deployment model, you click on a link and you get your application deployed. People like the notion that, kind of, the globe from an information perspective, and a people perspective, is built in. And people like the richness and visualization and responsiveness and offline characteristics of the Windows applications. So as we talk about where we're going, we don't need a new operating system. What we need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows applications, IE [Internet Explorer], the way IE works in totality with Windows, and how we build applications like Office, like the stuff we showed here, and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us.

The truth of the matter is, there's good data that actually says that about 50% of the time, somebody's on their PC, at least 50% they're not doing something in the Web browser. So what we need is an operating system that brings local richness together with the Internet, and Windows is the operating system for the job.

This last comment is from the company that at one time professed the "fusion" of the Web browser with "everything you do."

You can't possibly be surprised that Ballmer's no fan of Chrome, so shall we take a tour of the best verbs used to describe Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comments at the Worldwide Partner Conference?

CNET's Ina Fried went with the mellow "shrugs at." Nick Farrell at the Inquirer chose "mocks" and got a smile out of a weary reporter with his lede concerning the "shy and soft-spoken Microsoft CEO." At PC World, Jeff Bertolucci liked "badmouths," and Reuters found some levity with "laughs off." Sensing a theme?

ITunes Apps Store passes 1.5 billion downloads; reporters seek fresh angle on story

July 14, 2009 • AppScout had the straight-up news item: The iTunes Apps Store passed 1.5 billion downloads on Tuesday according to Apple. So what's a reporter eager for those Apple-fan pageviews but unwilling to post yet another numbers story to do?

Yukari Iwatani Kane at The Wall Street Journal had a nice look at how apps developers hustle to make a splash in the ever-larger pool, while Ryan Kim at SFGate.com tells the story of I Am Poor, the little app that could, by which Kim means, "could withstand Apple's inscrutable approval process."

Google graduates one from Labs, builds another lab

June 14, 2009 • It's almost as amazing to have a Gmail applet graduated from Labs status as it is to finally have Gmail out of beta, but there it is: Tasks has done its time and is now released into the general population. According to the posted announcement, that doesn't mean that it won't continue to get improvements. Meanwhile, the Google crew has found the Labs experiment so congenial to product improvements they've gone and expanded it to Calendar. Google Calendar Labs launches with six options for your enjoyment.

Sun beams out final earnings forecast

Afternoon of June 14, 2009 • (And your reporter gets out one last pun on the company name.) In what is almost certainly one of its last important financial communications before slipping under the Oracle waves, Sun Microsystems warned Tuesday that revenues for the fourth quarter just ended were down a bit year-over-year -- down 30%, to be specific. The Wall Street Journal's coverage was distinctly elegiac, while the San Jose Mercury News made a point of saying that Oracle's still looking forward to bringing Sun into the fold. The shareholder vote on Oracle's acquisition offer is scheduled for 10:00 am PDT on Thursday.

Analysts: PC industry growth to stay slow into 2013

Q4 2013 > It's the first sign from a major PC industry analyst firm that the double-digit growth the PC industry enjoyed since 2003 will not be enjoyed again for quite some time to come, and that double-digit linear growth is not a "foundation element" of the industry (as other analysts liked to say prior to 2008): In a report yesterday afternoon, the hardware analysts at iSuppli predicted that global PC unit shipments would resume a growth pattern, but limited to 7% in 2012 and even tapering downward.

Though it is not a long-term down trend in the market, it is limited growth that iSuppli is predicting, in keeping with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's theory -- repeated again at Microsoft's Partner Conference yesterday -- that the economy is resetting and that the world will need to become accustomed to a slower growth pace.

The "reset button" for the market was confirmed: a likely 4% negative growth in PC market shipments by the end of the year, not as bad as the 2001 downturn but still a bad speed bump. As trends normalize, iSuppli believes that notebook PC shipments will continue to surge -- and if that were the basis of the market, it conceivably could regain double-digit growth. But apparently the continued descent of the desktop form factor will play a counteractive role.

Wednesday's tech headlines

TechCrunch

• Michael Arrington's shop had an exciting day yesterday after an anonymous tipster handed the site a bundle of 310 documents that turned out to be corporate and personal documents from Twitter and various of its staffers. Arrington's original announcement of the "gift" triggered a lively discussion of the ethics of publishing such material, or even using it as guidance for future stories. Arrington has a habit of finding himself in these conversations about disclosure.

• In other Twitter news, TC and Valleywag spent the day lobbing posts back and forth about the rumors of a secret government backdoor "firehose" of tweets, much to Biz Stone's vocal annoyance.

• And in other other Twitter news, author Matt Stewart is publishing his 480,000-character novel about the French Revolution on the service, 130 characters at a time. MG Siegler somehow manages not to use the phrase "Chinese water torture" in this article, which must have been difficult.

The Register

• John Ozimek reports that New Zealand is on the verge of instituting a rather broad Net filter "service" for its citizens. Those Kiwis never struck your reporter as nanny-state types, but...

• A BlackBerry update pushed out to users of the Etisalat network in the United Arab Emirates contained a hefty dose of spyware. Bill Ray says that the prevailing theory right now has UAE authorities whipping up some code to try an end-run around BlackBerry's architecture, which makes surveillance certain kinds tough.

• Andrew Orlowski has the sad duty of writing an obit for blade-computing pioneer Chris Hipp, who has passed away unexpectedly at 49.

New York Times

• Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic-surgery firm that had employees giving a "facelift" to online customer comments about its services, will be paying the State of New York $300,000 for being sleazy like that.

• The Democratic Leadership Council wants to give every schoolkid a Kindle. "A Kindle in every backpack" -- have any of these think-tank types looked into the average schoolboy's backpack lately? (And wouldn't it be swell if we could get every schoolkid an actual backpack first, and pencils and paper and all the other supplies schools are having a hard time buying?

Ars Technica

• We've heard from Microsoft, but what do the instant-on Linux shops make of the Chrome OS announcement? Ryan Paul talked with Phoenix Technologies and DeviceVM.

• The RIAA's case against Joel Tenenbaum is still two weeks away from the starto of the trial, but the pre-trial motions are flying fast and furious yet. Now the RIAA wants the judge to hand down a limited summary judgment saying that Mr. Tenenbaum wasn't engaging in "fair use" when he accessed the P2P networks. If the group gets their wish, things could get sticky for the defense.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III and Tim Conneally, Betanews

Yesterday, in a go-for-broke strategy which could very well snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, satellite TV systems manufacturer EchoStar (partner and former owner of Dish Network) filed a motion in US District Court in Marshall, Texas, asking the court to suspend proceedings until the outcome of EchoStar's federal appeal is heard, in the patent infringement case brought against it by DVR manufacturer TiVo. An injunction against EchoStar is being stayed pending that appeal.

That's not a big deal in itself. What is big is EchoStar's assertion that sanctions being sought against it amount to as much as $1 billion -- the first time the proverbial math has alluded to TiVo's potential jackpot. This in addition to the $104 million that the Supreme Court decided EchoStar was liable for, in its refusal to hear EchoStar's first appeal.

Marshall, Texas is known as the intellectual property suit capital of America, mainly because juries there have been more generous with damages awards than anyplace else. A billion dollar grand prize, which is apparently what TiVo may seek in sanctions, is not outside of Marshall's ballpark at all.

EchoStar's worst-case-scenario argument to the Marshall, Texas goes like this: Should TiVo prevail on appeal, then the fact that the Appeals Court stayed the EchoStar injunction would mean that the formula for determining damages would have to be reworked, to take into account the intervening appeal.

"Even if TiVo prevails on appeal, aspects of the Federal Circuit's ruling could affect the appropriate remedy," reads EchoStar's motion filed Monday. "TiVo's sanctions motion relies on specific findings that may not remain intact even if the Federal Circuit affirms this Court's conclusion that EchoStar did not comply with every provision of the injunction. If so, any briefing, argument, or ruling on the issue of sanctions in advance of the Federal Circuit's decision would need to be revisited. Deferring sanctions proceedings until after resolution of the expedited appeal would avoid such inefficiency."

TiVo is one of the pioneers of the digital video recorder (DVR) which is, at its most basic level, a cable box that can record TV shows according to programming guides and schedules. One of TiVo's patents related to DVR design, commonly referred to as the "Time Warp patent," covers the way TiVo units could simultaneously record one program whilst playing back one that was already recorded.

Dish Network, which was owned by EchoStar Communications, debuted a similar function in some of its satellite receiver boxes in 2005. It is estimated that about four million of these units were sold when TiVo sued EchoStar for infringing on nine different aspects of the aforementioned Time Warp patent. A Texas jury ruled in TiVo's favor and ordered EchoStar to shell out nearly $73 million in damages. But as Hoefer & Arnett analyst April Horace said at the time, "This is the first inning in a long ballgame. Looking historically at this, the cable industry fights patents and does not just roll over and license technology."

And a long battle it became indeed. Echostar issued a software update to the infringing DVRs which the manufacturer claimed made them legal non-infringing. TiVo TiVo disputed that claim, asking for an injunction on the DVRs. The court again ruled in TiVo's favor and ordered Echostar to disable all DVR functionality on the infringing boxes.

To make a long story short, EchoStar continued to develop workarounds without informing the court, and when these workarounds became known some months later, TiVo moved to hold EchoStar in contempt of court for violating the court's terms of the injunction. Thus the case grew another metaphorical arm: the issue of whether EchoStar was acting in contempt of court when it employed these workarounds. The other arm of the case remained focused on the actual infringement.

The longer this case has gone on, the bigger the payout for TiVo has become. The next hearing on this issue in District Court could be scheduled as early as November.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Dell may be in the doldrums, but Intel for one doesn't share that particular vendor's gloom. The chip giant on Tuesday turned in Q2 results that caused audible smiles from analysts participating in the company's quarterly earnings call.

Granted, the company did post its first quarterly net loss since 1986 for the quarter that concluded on June 27 -- a GAAP operating loss of $12 million, a net loss of $398 million, and a loss per share of 7 cents. But that's the European Union, not the market, at work, as the company's results absorbed a $1.45 billion antitrust fine from that quarter. Excluding that, the firm earned $1.4 billion in operating revenue, $1 billion in net income, and earnings per share of 18 cents.

And here comes the holiday season. Intel on the call offered a Q3 revenue outlook of between $8.1 and $8.9 billion, up a bit from Q2's $8.0 billion (which was itself up 12% sequentially). The uptick reflects the usual seasonal demands, but does not reflect increased demand for new machines to run new corporate installations of Windows 7.

The company says it doesn't expect to see much sales impact from Windows 7 until next year, in fact. "We're not counting on Windows 7 driving much in the way of sales yet," said CEO Paul Otellini during the call. He said that he expects that IT departments will begin evaluating Windows 7 during that quarter with an eye to making new purchases in the new year -- a normal buying pattern whatever the economic weather.

Otellini said that the numbers confirm the company's previous expectation for a seasonally stronger second half, and that first-to-second-quarter growth was the best it has been since 1988.

Analysts had questions about inventories -- too much, too little? Otellini says that channel, distribution and internal inventories are all at "very good" levels, maybe even a bit lower than expected. Revenues from Atom processors and chipsets were up 65% sequentially and in fact accounted for $362 million in revenue, even though the average selling price for microprocessors was down from the previous quarter.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

It's unusual for me to disagree with Microsoft's most infamous, anonymous employee blogger. Mini-Microsoft says that "Microsoft has turned the corner." In his dreams, or perhaps some Xbox 360 role-playing game, Microsoft has turned the corner and found a hallway and door to the outside sun. But in this universe, if Microsoft has turned the corner, it's into a wall.

Microsoft has got big problems for which there are no easy solutions; I'll get to those later in the post. Mini rightly identifies some things that Microsoft is doing right, and they are certainly commendable. They're just not enough. I'll give his shortlist with my perspective:

"Windows 7": The version that should have been Vista is soon releasing to manufacturing. It's a great day coming. But volume-licensing customers won't get the software until September 1, and the official launch isn't until October 22. Meanwhile, Google is talking about forthcoming Chrome OS, and Apple is preparing Snow Leopard for September launch. The only sense I can make out of Microsoft making volume-licensing subscribers wait another six weeks to get Seven is PR bang against Apple's operating system. Cute, Microsoft.

"Bing": Google search is still better, by leaps and bounds. College Humor's "Googling with Bing" video aptly identifies the huge branding problems Microsoft must surpass. That said, Bing shows how Microsoft user-interface design is improving by huge strides. The UI changes foreshadow a future where more Microsoft products make tasks -- that is getting things done quickly -- a top user priority. Microsoft will probably get more search share gains from Bing marketing than it would have from buying Yahoo -- measured over the long term.

"Silverlight": Version 3.0 officially launched on Friday. If Mini's measure of turning the corner is H.264 support but no real mobile application, Silverlight 3.0 turns the corner.

"IE EU chutzpah": Microsoft's approach to the European drama is quite novel, and shows that somebody in Redmond really is smart. By proactively removing Internet Explorer from EU distributions of Windows 7, Microsoft has effectively taken the loaded gun from the European Competition Commission's grubby hand. Problem: The European Commission has got a knife in the other hand and a smaller pistol strapped to a leg.

"Award worthy, coherent ads that aren't a demonstration of how best to destroy millions of dollars quickly": Here's the one I agree most with Mini. Microsoft advertising is way better in 2009 than anything seen since the launch of Windows 95. Good, effective marketing will be crucial to successfully launching Windows 7 and building brand awareness for Bing. I'm a huge fan of marketing as a tool for selling products.

But advertising can only go so far. Products must deliver the right priorities. Based on early financial analyst assessments, Apple 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro sales are shockingly strong, considering the economy. Among the reasons for MacBook Pro: New battery design that delivers hours more performance. Battery life is the laptop's killer application. Microsoft must get back to "killer application" basics. Can you name any Office 2010 or Windows 7 killer applications? Please answer in comments.

Microsoft Must Break Through the Wall
Here's what is hugely significant about Mini's post -- and perhaps where Microsoft has turned one corner: Employee sentiment, assuming other employees share Mini's hope and enthusiasm. Companies fail or succeed sometimes more based on morale than actual business strategy.

But these inspired employees must still contend with harsh realities, which is where Mini and I hugely disagree about "that corner." I'll condense Microsoft's problems into what I see as the three biggest challenges:

The econolypse: Simply put: Businesses aren't spending much on new technologies and US consumers are in debt. PC sales are way down, including emerging markets, even as Microsoft readies Windows 7. For Microsoft's third fiscal quarter, Windows Client revenue fell 16 percent year over year to $3.4 billion, while income plummeted 19 percent to $2.5 billion. Windows performed below expectations in both reported quarters since the late September 2009 economic collapse.

Microsoft reports fiscal fourth quarter and yearly results on July 23. I expect Business and Client divisions to report continued sales weakness tied to slower PC sales and tightening IT budgets. Microsoft's position would be better if:

• Still frozen credit markets weren't keeping businesses from financing needed to buy new technology.
• The threat of layoffs and actual furloughs weren't making technology managers fearful of making buying decisions that might risk their jobs.
• Corporate downsizing hadn't reduced business eagerness to renew volume-licensing contracts, or, if doing so, for fewer seats because of layoffs.
• Microsoft's core business was growing, rather than reselling new software versions to enterprises that already use the company's products.

Microsoft is ill-prepared for the econolypse because so many customers already own its software. Situation would be much better if emerging markets had more spending power. Bit of hope: Businesses and consumers in most emerging markets took on much less debt during the boom than their counterparts in the European Union and United States. Recovery should be much quicker in emerging markets.

Antitrust oversight: Microsoft has agreed to yet another two-year extension of oversight in the United States. Meanwhile, the European Commission is ready to slap around Microsoft over Internet Explorer bundling with Windows. While Microsoft's IE removal -- Windows 7 E -- was bold, the EC will still have final say. Competitors like Google and Opera are lined up behind the European Commission. Even if the EC were to agree that Windows 7 E is remedy enough, antitrust oversight would continue. Microsoft would have to second guess different bundling and other product strategies, even as Google cranks up the competitive pressure with Chrome OS.

My analogy: Grown-up Microsoft suddenly must get permission from daddy before going out for the evening. Daddy sets the curfew, too. By comparison, teenager Google needs no permission and is bound by no curfew. Who do you think is going to be the better party animal?

Mobile computing: Microsoft controls the last-generation application stack, which also is being whacked by the econolypse: Office-Windows-Windows Server. Microsoft has by the most generous of measures a tenuous foothold on the rapidly emerging, next-generation application stack: Mobile device to cloud. Microsoft's major problems:

• Windows Mobile is a train wreck. In 2005 and 2006, Microsoft was on track to winning the mobile market through the enterprise. For example, Exchange sync threatened BlackBerry's e-mail dominance. But Windows Mobile development languished, and more recently hardware partners are deserting to rival operating systems. such as Google's Android.
• Upstarts deliver the goods. Mobile OS newcomers Apple and Google are storming the cell phone market. Apple had nothing to offer before mid 2007 or Google before late 2008. Yet they're wooing customers, developers and partners. Windows Mobile is where? Who's talking about it? Who's deploying it?
• Windows Mobile has no scale. Apple, Google and Nokia have operating systems that can run on handsets and netbooks and, for Apple, notebooks. Windows Mobile doesn't currently scale up from handsets to larger form factors. This fragmentation of Windows versions works against developer adoption, continued hardware partnering and future enterprise deployments.

As carriers open up more 3G and 4G bandwidth, business users and consumers will be able to do more with mobile handsets. In a December report, Pew Internet predicted that "the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet for most people in the world in 2020." I disagree. The transition will happen much faster, easily by 2015. The mobile device is better suited for the cloud and light, Web-connected apps than heavy applications like Office. Then there is mobile search, which right now plays more to Google's strengths than to Microsoft's.

Microsoft is a hugely successful company, and it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. But Microsoft also faces continued challenges -- many outside its control -- that will continue to block some endeavors.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Last night, I watched the 11 Microsoft videos introducing various Office 2010, Office Mobile and Office Web Applications features. I kept thinking: Microsoft is living in the past. The reaction was about the same for each video. Office 2010 will come five years late.

The past ultimately derives from Microsoft's application stack -- Office-Windows-Windows Server -- that the company desperately is trying to preserve. The new stack goes from mobile device to the cloud, which Microsoft cautiously embraces for fear of upsetting lucrative revenue streams tied to its established applications stack.

Microsoft's applications stack will remain lucrative for years, like IBM's mainframe monopoly did. But change is inevitable because of cycles of growth and maturity that affect businesses as much as people or other living things. Microsoft might slow down change through business tactics, but the move to a new applications stack is inevitable. Microsoft would have done better for its successful stack by better embracing the new one. But let's put that topic aside for a few paragraphs.

I'll sum up Office 2010 this way, based on information Microsoft disclosed yesterday: If you are someone who habitually uses applications like Word or PowerPoint -- who feels safe with them -- Microsoft has extended you a lifeline to smartphone and to the Web; user-interface and other tweaks should improve productivity. If you're someone like me who rarely, if ever, uses Office applications but creates content on the Web or for the Web, you may not want Office 2010 (I want to say "won't," but that's unfair without testing the software suite).

Let me ask a simple question for which I encourage answers in comments: How much do you really use Microsoft Office? Stated differently: How much do you need to use Office? For me the answer is rarely. I don't even have Office installed on my laptop, although I guess the Office 2010 Technical Preview will be obligatory if I'm going to write about it.

Peruse the Word 2010 video. Ayca Yuksel highlights new, gasp, formatting features for "creating a lengthy report for work or invitation to our office's open house." Other changes include new print or print preview features. No disrespect, but printed reports are oh-so five years ago.

Microsoft's idea of collaboration and social networking is Word and other Office documents shared via SharePoint. By appearances, Microsoft packs in good tools for online presence, but within confines. What? No Facebook or YouTube integration? New school, rather than old school, thinking would mean features for social networking across the Web for collaborating or sharing anytime, anywhere and on anything. Such an approach would resonate with Microsoft's so-called "Interoperability Principles."

According to the PowerPoint 2010 video, inserting and formatting photos is easier than ever. Oh, yeah? Why is there no dedicated photo editor or manager? (OK, there is a slick looking photo manipulator.) Why is there no dedicated video editor or manager? Static, text presentations are old school. They won't come alive with arrows or buttons but by audio and visual elements that tell stories. Videos should be just as easily posted to YouTube as inserted into the slide deck. Photo and video slideshows are the new PowerPoint. There's a reason for cliche "A picture is worth a thousand words." A good slide deck should be a talking point not a jumble of bullet points and graphics.

The Outlook 2010 video is like an invitation to sign up for another three years wearing a ball and chain. Desktop e-mail is oh-so old school. If most e-mail sent over the Internet is either spam or unwanted, what value is any desktop e-mail client? I don't mean to appear like a Google apologist, because I'm not. But something like Google Wave, which incorporates real-time connectivity across services, is more forward looking. Instead, you get Outlook 2010 conversations grouped together.

I'm not exactly pining for Office Web Applications. Already, I've read punditry about Office Web Applications being the end of Google Apps: Microsoft's response to Google free is free, all extended from familiar Office. Oh, yeah? Too many people make too much of a big deal about Google-Microsoft productivity suite competition. The emerging applications stack of the future isn't about productivity suites. It's about the creation and consumption of other content types -- raw information (for search) and audio and video, among others.

Office Web Applications might be more exciting if Microsoft better supported the kind of content that already dominates the new, emerging applications stack -- mobile device to cloud. Same goes for Google Apps. But Google aims to pick off low-hanging Microsoft customers. Office Web Applications seeks to hold onto them. Neither productivity suite is the future of anything. They're all about the past.

Something else: There are dwindling numbers of office workers -- at least the kind Office appealed to five years ago. Most people don't need to produce information in Office, even if they might cling to all habits or business processes. If you agree or disagree, please say why in comments.

I'm starting to think Googlers are really smart at business, after all. Last week's Google OS announcement suddenly has bigger context, because of Office Web Applications. Office Web Applications conceptually could complete the Google productivity applications stack, from Chrome OS devices, depending on how many features really do require Office 2010.

Linux is a desktop PC loser because there's no Microsoft Office. Linux has perpetually stalled on the PC because there is no Office equivalent (Please, let's not debate OpenOffice in comments). The applications stack was incomplete. Macs have done better in enterprises -- and still not that great -- in part because of Office for Macintosh. For many businesses, Microsoft's Web suite could be the best thing running on Chrome OS.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

When the iPhone 3G S debuted in June, Apple simultaneously announced that the iPhone 3G, the new device's year-old, 8 GB predecessor would be dropping to a scant $99. What the Cupertino computer maker didn't announce was that the price for refurbished iPhones (i.e., phones that were previously owned, but returned within 30 days) would also be dropping to a price less than 15% of the 3G device's original cost.

AT&T is now offering refurbished 8 GB iPhone 3G for only $79 with a two-year contract, a considerable drop from the $150 price tag from six months ago.

While it is the lowest priced 3G iPhone thus far, the $20 "Refurb discount" is by far the smallest offered by AT&T. A refurbished Samsung Blackjack II, a BlackBerry-style 3G device which was also replaced this spring, has $90 taken off its price. And the HTC Fuze, yet another year old touchscreen 3G device has $100 knocked off its price.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Tomorrow, Microsoft has a Patch Tuesday collection slated to include a fix for a hole known to Microsoft and outside security researchers for nearly a year and a half. Today, Redmond's got another, newly revealed, major flaw to contend with.

The vulnerability in Office Web Components' ActiveX implementation, versions 10 and 11, is currently known to be under attack, according to a post by Fermin J. Serna of Microsoft Security Response Center's Engineering team. If a user running Internet Explorer goes to a malicious Web site that hosts the exploit, the attacker could gain whatever rights the user has (translation: owned) and execute malicious code in the usual fashion.

Neither version 10 nor 11 is part of the default install for anyone's setup. But those who have installed Office XP SP3, Office 2003 SP3, Office XP Web Components SP3, Office 2003 Web Components SP3, Office 2003 Web Components for the 2007 Microsoft Office System SP1, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Standard Edition SP3, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 Enterprise Edition SP3, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 Supportability Update, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 SP1, or Office Small Business Accounting 2006 may be vulnerable. (The Serna post offers directions for figuring out if your machine is in danger.)

MS Security Advisory 973472, the official TechNet epistle, has the overview, but the associated KnowledgeBase article has something quicker: A one-click workaround that will stave off disaster until the patch is ready.

Disaster, seriously? Well, as mentioned the vulnerability is attracting 0-day attacks; according to a post by Vanja Svajcer of Sophos, that anti-malware company is already hearing of sites in China that exploit the hole as part of a larger exploit kit. Sophos's analysis rates the vuln as "critical," while Secunia gives it an "extremely critical" label.

The vulnerability lies in a spreadsheet ActiveX control. The Office Web Components allow users to see spreadsheets (or databases or charts) over the Web. The architecture of the new Web applications being built for Office 2010 will render it completely unaffected by this exploit, because they will not use the same ActiveX controls.

In terms of clear and present danger, however, that's really neither here nor there: Experts agree that if you're on a currently vulnerable installation, using the workaround and patching as soon as a patch is available are priority projects for your afternoon.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Now that the latest chatter coming from the UK surmises that streaming music services such as Spotify are hot among teenagers, while p2p-based music sharing is not, Microsoft is reportedly about to debut its own contribution to Britain's music streaming boom.

The Telegraph reported today that Microsoft's UK Web portal MSN will be launching a streaming music service this month that is "similar in principle to Spotify."

It would follow Microsoft's recent behavior in the Isles, where at the beginning of the year, the company launched MSN Mobile Music, a mobile browser-based music store vending protected .WMA downloads for £1.50, .WMV files for £2, and ringtones for £3. Subscription-based and ad-subsidized streaming services have long been a favored format among music industry professionals, but it has taken years for the concept to gain traction. Even the most popular streaming services seemed to be on borrowed time with continuing legislation over royalties, and consumers didn't have a chance to get comfortable with the monetary value of a stream since the industry really hadn't laid that value down.

However, with royalties discussions approaching a veritable Pax Musica, Microsoft may be able to put last year's Musiwave acquisition to good use. The Telegraph report did not specify how this Microsoft streaming service will be delivered, but there was mention of integration both with Xbox Live and with Zune.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Welcome back, Microsoft. After a few years of getting your butt kicked by Google, it's nice to see you waking up from your monopolistic slumber. You seem to finally get it that both Windows and Office don't have indefinite or guaranteed futures, and you're willing to hang yourself out over the edge a bit to keep them both relevant.

This week, Office 2010, the new version of Microsoft's productivity suite, is being shown to developers and media this week at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. It includes browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that should forever banish bitter memories of Microsoft's initially half-hearted online productivity efforts.

Beyond the cosmetic

Microsoft has apparently moved on from making change for change's sake [cough, Office 2007, cough], and now seems to finally recognize that the way we work is changing in an increasingly mobile, broadband-enabled, and collaborative world. The company's three-screens strategy that dictates seamless integration across desktops, browsers and mobile devices signals a merciful break from its historic adherence to the PC.

I'll reserve final judgment until I bring home my spanking new copy sometime next year, but if early indications mean anything, Microsoft is digging beneath the surface and giving us something more fundamental than the software equivalent of a fresh coat of paint.

I like that. There's nothing more yawn-inducing than another evolutionary introduction of an evolutionary product that simply mimics design decisions made 15 or 20 years earlier. In shaking up the very foundation of Office, Microsoft holds out hope that the way we string words together, crunch numbers, inspire others, and stay connected to them will evolve beyond the PC era paradigm of categorized apps on a hard drive and toward truly integrated services wherever they're needed.

Facing new competition

This seeming reawakening couldn't come a moment too soon. Google's gotten a ton of great press for getting the Web services zeitgeist, and for delivering a suite of online apps that, if they don't approach Office for outright functionality, provide a decent subset of features for the right price -- namely, free. Other no-cost alternatives, like OpenOffice.org and Zoho, have also garnered headlines for delivering a near-Office experience without the licensing headaches.

Headlines are one thing, reality is quite another. If these alternatives were as perfect as some claim, we'd all be using them now. Much to the freebie vendors' chagrin, that's not quite how it's worked out. Despite looking like a sleeping, elderly uncle, Office continues to rake in the cash ($16 billion per year) and remains the preferred productivity toolset for at least 80% of businesses. We all may play around with Google Docs, using it for some lightweight note-taking and archiving. But we're still doing the heavy lifting in Office, and sharing the final results as attachments. Web-based tools are a nice complement to the tried and true Office suite, but in their present state of evolution, they're hardly ready to take Microsoft on. Like it or not, the world runs on Office, and slowly growing competition from freebie and Web competitors notwithstanding, this isn't about to change anytime soon.

Of course, it's entirely possible that Microsoft will pull another Vista and dump an under-performing chunk of code on the world. But if it lives up to the early hype, Office 2010 could rank alongside Windows 7 as an example of a leaner, meaner, more relevant Microsoft than we've seen in years.

Last month, I shared a few wishes for Office 2010 in an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. I'm under no illusion that either Mr. Ballmer, a team of his developers in Redmond, or even the Microsoft campus janitorial staff tracks my every published word and integrates every last suggestion into each subsequent release. But I'm still encouraged to see the suite heading in more or less the same direction I had hoped. Which means a Web interface that recognizes the need to move data seamlessly between environments -- desktop, Web, and mobile -- and a recognition that today's Office alternatives fail miserably in that regard.

Bottom line: The alternatives suck

Which likely explains why I haven't switched my own workflow exclusively over to Google Apps, and have no intention of doing so. Please don't get me wrong: I'm all for collaboration. My Kindergarten teacher taught me how to play nicely with others, and to this day I spend much of my time working interactively with clients and colleagues as we collectively -- and almost always remotely -- work together to turn ideas into finished and publishable products.

To be fair, Google Apps is a decent collaborative toolset that I'd love to use more. Unfortunately, Corporate America hasn't drunk Google's Kool-Aid. So every time I start a new project with enterprise clients and colleagues, I end up talking to myself because corporate IT has no intention of dumping Office, tossing its corporate data into the cloud and having its employees work exclusively within the browser.

Even if I were working alone, I'd expect to get laughed out of the room if I submitted an article as a Google Docs document. Until the world evolves beyond Microsoft's productivity world view, I'm pretty much in a world of my own if I choose to live exclusively in a non-Microsoft, Web app world. Even if more companies and individuals come on board (and there's no sign that they're shifting en masse) I'm also not too keen on having other folks make live changes to something I've worked on for weeks. Call me a Luddite, but there's something comforting about keeping an archival version of a document on a local drive that only I can access and modify. Collaboration is a great way to unleash the power of the collective, but there are limits.

Unlike its wannabe productivity suite competitors, Microsoft has lived both sides of the equation. It wrote the book on desktop-based workflow, and is better positioned than any player (yes, even Google) to marry the way we've always worked to the way we'll work in future. Say what you want about Microsoft, but don't call it irrelevant anymore.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Perhaps it was an accident that Microsoft released a series of Office 2010 preview videos this morning, instead of another chapter in its non-revealing "Office 2010: The Movie" theatrical trailer. The videos themselves were pulled down from Microsoft's servers, along with the micro-site that accompanied them, but not before search engine caches everywhere captured them, and not before blogger Long Zheng gathered them in one place.

This morning, these Microsoft-produced videos show extensive screen shots and demos of each primary Office 2010 component at work, although the appearance of the early code-name "Office 14" in a few of those shots indicates that videos may not necessarily be depicting the most recent build, being distributed to Technical Preview participants as soon as today.

None of the changes we see from these videos depict dramatically new features, especially when compared to the startling differences for many users between Office 2007 -- the first to include Microsoft's "Ribbon" front-end model -- and Office 2003. There are multiple noticeable tweaks, and there's an obvious effort by designers to make these applications cleaner looking, a little more like the 2003 edition.

Of the changes that Microsoft is willing to take credit for and claim this morning, here are the five we noticed that could impress customers gauging whether the upgrade is worth the money:

5. 3D rendering model in PowerPoint. Many companies' marketing divisions in recent years have taken to editing videos using an application specifically for that purpose, just to get 3D effects and transitions into a presentation that may then be imported into PowerPoint. The 2010 edition shows that more of the features of Windows Presentation Foundation (including some that were previewed for Office 2007, but which didn't make it in time) are now opened up for availability directly through PowerPoint.

The Application Painter feature, demonstrated here, is derived from the Format Painter feature first created for Word before the turn of the century, and then carried over into Excel. The idea is that the paintbrush tool is "loaded" with the last animation effect used on an object, so that same effect may then be applied to new objects entering a scene without having to create some explicit style for them, or to repeat all the steps used in formatting the first one.

4. Search integration with Document Map in Word 2010. Document Map was a feature that was actually created for Office XP over a decade ago (in this excerpt, my wife was one of the first to document it). The original idea was to create some means for the author of a long document to build a meaningful, useful table of contents. Up to now, one of the key reasons this feature has gained so little use in business environments is because, once a document already becomes long, it's too late to spend time sectioning it into a map -- all the convenience and time you gain from having the map is wasted in actually creating it.

Finally with Word 2010, there appears to be some genuine effort to make Document Map useful in a real-world setting. Yes, only now can you use a search line (instead of Find-and-Replace) to locate an area in a document that may be worth mapping. Here, the search process is instantaneous, even more so than the 2007 version's old fashioned Home > Editing > Find feature, and hopefully it's also now indicative of the way search and replace will also work in Word.

(The second reason Document Map isn't as well utilized as it could be is because many businesses, including attorneys and publishers, prefer to maintain long documents in multiple files, especially if they're already divided into sections and chapters. Imagine how difficult it would be for many collaborating parties to edit a book, if the entire book were on a single document. Now, Microsoft would say the answer to that is SharePoint, but my experience tells me that the way you would motivate a business to use SharePoint is to take the time to demonstrate it to its employees directly.)

Next: Little cell-sized Excel charts, and a whole new "File Save"...

3. Little cell-sized Excel charts. With the latest Office 2007 Service Pack release last April, the charting features that had already been added to Excel were finally extended to Word 2007. In Office 2010, we're seeing some curious additions to Excel's charting abilities, including one we're not so sure a lot of folks may even have asked for explicitly.

Excel 2007 saw the first stable use of in-cell graphics, specifically to enable things like "temperature charts" (hot/cold) and conditional background formatting. In Excel 2010, that in-cell engine is being extended to enable a feature its product manager is calling sparklines.

Here, the system is capable of rendering a single line or bar from a chart (whether it renders a single pie slice remains to be seen) inside a cell rather than in a chart of its own. You set up sparklines in a manner reminiscent of how you enter an array formula: First, you highlight an area of the worksheet where you'd like columns of sparklines to appear, then you designate the range of cells from which Excel is to ascertain trends. You can stylize these lines and bars very similarly to how you apply styles to chart elements in Excel 2007.

Now, just how far this new feature goes will require some hands-on testing. For instance, what we don't know yet is whether formulas and sparklines may cohabit the same cells, though our initial guess is that they may not. Sparklines aren't exactly a shot in the dark -- the concept is credited to layout artist Edward Tufte. In his own book on display concepts, Tufte writes, "When placed in a relevant context, a single number takes on additional meaning." Though you can't really use the sparkline as a chart, he goes on, at least it provides indications of a trend's range and current direction. (It will be interesting to discover whether Microsoft gives Tufte credit for the idea.)

Excel Sparklines is pictured here alongside another "new feature" being called slices. It may need to be renamed since "Web slices" for Internet Explorer means something else entirely. Here, it's actually a relocated version of table filters, with the filter range appearing in a flyaway palette rather than a drop-down menu. You use it to conduct live queries of table data, filtering for specific content -- another feature that Excel has actually had since the early days of Windows, only now repackaged.

2. Quick Steps customizable ribbon in Outlook 2010. "Office 14" was already delayed once. When its predecessor, the former "Office 12," experienced a similar delay in March 2006, it was reportedly to finalize some new features that weren't getting finished on time. Some of those features still didn't make it, and as a result, both Outlook 2007 and OneNote 2007 ended up lacking the Ribbon UI.

As widely anticipated, the ribbon for Outlook 2010 will make its debut appearance over four years later than originally planned. But in a curious move, the first official evidence of which was made public only today, Outlook's ribbon will have its own customizable function bay, being called "Quick Steps" -- a bay which we're not seeing yet in any other Office 2010 apps.

As described by Microsoft, the bay will store functions which the Outlook user will find himself doing often -- like accepting a meeting or broadcasting a group "OK" -- which should only require a single step. This was the original purpose, over two decades ago, of Office's customizable toolbars, especially for Excel users who wanted one-click access to macros. In Office 2007, though ribbons are officially "customizable," it's done using XML which is about as inviting to regular, everyday users as REGEDIT. With Quick Steps, customized commands appear with simple icons and text...almost the way you'd see them on a custom drop-down menu, except without the dropping down.

If Quick Steps becomes popular, as I suspect it might, there could be a movement to bring the feature to the other Office apps via a service pack.

1. BackStage. When the first glimpses of Office 2007 were revealed in early 2006, the most obvious visual feature -- like a giant ruby in a belly-dancer's naval -- was this prominent "Office button." It's the giant round button with the Office logo in the upper left corner, whose functionality replaced the old File menu. At the time, Microsoft engineers told us it was made bigger...so folks could find it easier.

No, that probably wasn't the real reason. In any event, for Office 2010, the button is no longer giant. It is prominent, but it cohabits the ribbon menu, resuming its rectangular shape as originally seen in the Office 12 prototypes. Behind it is a feature that Microsoft is calling BackStage. Essentially it's designed to gather together all the file and document management functions in one complete, large window. The File > Open and File > Save functions are relocated here, and the previews are large enough that they're not really "thumbnails" any more.

Perhaps most importantly, BackStage incorporates the long neglected feature known as Print Preview. There has been a technical reason why Print Preview in all Office applications behaves like a 1986 model application: For downward compatibility reasons, Print Preview has had to rely on the old GDI framework, mainly because so many customers continue to use old printers whose drivers required GDI. It was the only way older printers could provide renderings of previewed contents on-screen, and even though Microsoft itself came up with the replacement for .NET Framework years ago, there were still too many customers hanging on to old devices.

Let's face it: It's 2010, almost. It's time to let go. The new Print Preview features will be incorporated directly into BackStage, so users aren't effectively launching separate applications (which is literally what happens now) every time they want to preview what they're about to print. Instead, print previews will show up like document load previews, and controls will be much richer and more functional. For many businesses that rely on Word, the new Print Preview may be the feature which justifies the upgrade.

Elsewhere in BackStage, there's plenty of room now for the program to explain, using common languages such as English, the options available to users for managing their documents. That's important, because if you ask even the everyday Office user what the "Protect Document" function does, he might not be able to explain it to you. Borrowing the same textbook that inspired the design of Action Center for Windows 7, BackStage reports what each function does, without the user having to press F1.

Some of those functions, it's worth pointing out, may end up requiring SharePoint access -- for instance, broadcasting files for collaboration -- so BackStage also ends up being a handy tool for Microsoft to push its server tools and Web apps for Office as well. No doubt the ability to save a file to Microsoft's cloud will be explained here in detail as well.

None of these new features are particularly "barn-burners," with the possible exception of the revamped Print Preview for some users. And since Office 2007 had the distinction of being one of Microsoft's most stable model years, there's very little in Office 2010 that can be considered a "bug fix," in the same way Windows 7 is being described as a "fix" for Vista.

The biggest improvements Microsoft could possibly make to Office overall are in creating consistency for the Ribbon. Although the old drop-down menu scheme derived from Common User Access was often cumbersome, redundant, and multi-tiered, the one thing you could say about it is that it was consistent. Once you understood the methodology behind where an app placed its functions, you could remember it. The Ribbon in Microsoft Office has a problem with not communicating its intentions well -- while some users pick up on it right away (my wife, for instance, truly appreciates the ribbon), others (including her husband) don't. If Office 2010 improves in the consistency department, then for me, it will justify the upgrade. Because right now, in terms of pure functionality for everyday operations, Office 2007 already left its competition in the dust years ago.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Beloved Japanese role playing game franchise Dragon Quest has enjoyed frenzied launches for more than twenty years, with lines that make Apple's launch queues look piddly by comparison.

Last Friday, Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito, the latest installment in the series was launched for the Nintendo DS, and long lines of customers shelled out their ¥5,980 for a copy of the game.

This morning, two market research companies, Enterbrain and Media Create, released their tallies of the game's weekend sales, both of which exceeded 2.3 million units. This made Dragon Quest IX the fastest-selling video game in Japanese History, a feat not quite so surprising, considering the title it outsold was actually the last Dragon Quest game.

All the previous titles in the Dragon Quest series were launched on home consoles, and followed up with ports to handhelds. This is actually the first non-spin-off Dragon Quest title that was launched on a handheld, and the Wii version will follow.

Even with a launch week truncated into a weekend, sales of over 2.3 million units make this one of the top 5 biggest video game launches of all time. Fans had been waiting for more than four-and-a-half years for it.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Adobe Systems today released the public beta of ColdFusion 9, the company's application development platform and has unveiled the Eclipse-based ColdFusion Builder Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Adobe went for three simple categories of improvement with this release: Increase user productivity, improve integration with popular enterprise software, and simplify the workflow between Adobe products.

To increase user productivity, server administration has been simplified in this version, with the Server Manager application, which lets multiple ColdFusion servers be managed centrally through an AIR-based app. New tools seek to simplify the development process, such as ColdFusion-as-a-Service which gives access to ColdFusion services through AMF (Action Message Format) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) without having to write ColdFusion Components (CFCs). Also, integration with Hibernate's object relational mapping (ORM) lets developers build database-independent applications without the need to write any SQL.

In the interest of making ColdFusion 9 more valuable in the enterprise space, applications built in ColdFusion 9 can now be tightly integrated with Microsoft SharePoint services, allowing access to SharePoint's repositories and document libraries. Furthermore, support for Microsoft Office and OpenOffice have been added, letting ColdFusion 9 applications interact with spreadsheets, presentations, documents and charts made in those productivity suites.

David Wadhwani, General Manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe said in a statement today,"ColdFusion adoption has accelerated since we introduced support for Flex, AJAX, and PDF with ColdFusion 8. The increased integration with everything from Adobe AIR applications to enterprise-based Adobe LiveCycle ES software enables companies to meet critical business needs quickly, while ColdFusion Builder provides developers with an enhanced workflow between ColdFusion and the Flash Platform for RIA development."

ColdFusion Builder, formerly known as "Bolt," is the new IDE that integrates ColdFusion 9 with Flash Builder 4 (a.k.a., Flex Builder) and AIR for simpler creation of rich Internet applications. It was built in Eclipse, just like Flash Builder, and can be used for development in Java, HTML, CSS, MXML, and PHP.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

First rollout of Office 2010 code due today

Morning of July 13, 2009 • If you're feeling a bit damp this morning, look around you, because there could be a leak going on. Yes, as fully anticipated, there's clear evidence of a leak in the latest build of Office 2010, which is expected to be officially shipped to certain select Microsoft partners as soon as today. The leak indicates that shipment has already begun, and that Microsoft's "friend" is not cooperating.

This morning, in advance of the company's Worldwide Partner Conference, a Microsoft engineer tried to filter the leak by creating a little rumor: that perhaps the leaked copy of Office 2010 may be 1) incomplete, and 2) infected with a little virus.

"As a heads up, because we want to ensure our customers are safe, we have been monitoring various torrents and already detected quite a few that were infected," writes Microsoft's Reed Shaff. "As a reminder, the Win 7 leak was used as a vector for attack and it's not surprising to see this being used the same way. So, please be aware that if you download this torrent there is a very good chance you are also getting some unexpected malware with it."

This morning, Microsoft unveiled a whirlwind of marketing videos showing peeks of the new software, and Long Zheng's blog may be the only place to see them all in one place today, since Microsoft's own Web site for these videos appears to be offline. (Ah, the wonders of server virtualization!)

AMD set to deliver low-, high-power six-core Opterons

Morning of July 13, 2009 • Last month, AMD began rolling out perhaps the most critically important line of CPUs in its history, the first six-core Opteron server processors. AMD must regain respect in this segment of the market, even if it doesn't regain market share leadership, because it will not (no CPU maker today can) earn enough from just the consumer sector to stay above water.

This morning, stage 2 of that rollout process begins, with three new models in the HE series and two in the SE. The HE is AMD's "somewhat lower power" line-up; only AMD, not Intel, is gambling that there are two facets to the low-power side of the market, with the larger slice of that market preferring to balance power and performance, with a smaller percentage (the "EE" side) wanting low power at all costs. The SE side of the market is meant to attract the opposite market segment, seeking high performance at all costs, including some supercomputer builders. But in an interview with Betanews you'll see later today, AMD admits up front that side of the market is shrinking. Or at least that may be AMD's excuse at the moment for keeping its processors clocked under 3.0 GHz once again.

Report: Intel 'Core i7' brand to reach notebooks by Win7 launch

October 22, 2009 > Back when Microsoft and Intel were officially cooperating on getting their products launched in sync with one another (new operating system + new CPU = Your Computer's Too Old Already), they ended up at loggerheads regarding such issues as timing. Privately, it's those closed-door arguments that have been blamed for Windows Vista's infamous 2006 commercial rollout delay. Now that the two companies appear to be on their own schedules, however, there's a strange synchronicity to them.

Case in point: Intel's rollout of its new Core i7 and i5 brands, which motherboard manufacturers are now telling the Taiwanese industry daily DigiTimes should be right on schedule for Windows 7 -- certainly not later than October, perhaps as soon as September. The mid-range model in its "Clarksfield" mobile processor series, clocked at 1.73 GHz, should be ready for shipment during this timeframe, which may mean that a Core i5-based CPU may be ready for what we'll call the "just-back-in-school" market (Intel missed the "back-to-school" window already) by the end of October.

An alternate scenario for Chrome OS emerges: a backup OS

August 2009 > DigiTimes has the edge on looking ahead this morning, citing a Chinese-language Apple publication as saying global #3 PC producer Acer has plans to produce netbooks with both Windows XP and Android OS for next month.

Now, why would anyone want that? Think about this: Linux has a toehold in the emerging "instant-on" operating system market, as evidenced by the growth of Phoenix' HyperSpace OS. That's an instant-on system that provides a full suite of applications, such as an office apps suite that uses OOXML, and the Opera Web browser. In Acer's new contraption, Android can fulfill that role, getting the Linux OS in front of more pairs of eyes without sacrificing the traditional role of Windows XP. Of course, this won't drive the price down either (the XP licensing fee remains one of Acer's biggest expenses), but it could actually help clear the way for certain other Linux distros to find their way to netbook desktops, and Google's Chrome OS would be one of them.

LG has apps store, Android phone on tap

July 14, 2009 > South Korea will be the initial home of the LG's new apps store, slated to open Tuesday. But what about the rest of us? Reuters' coverage doesn't mention any wider rollout plans, which they covered in conjunction with the Korean rollout of the Arena 3D-touchscreen smartphone. Rafat Ali at mocoNews.net is more forthcoming, however, saying the store will roll out globally by the end of the year.

Surveymeisters can't get their Win7 story straight

Q4 2011 > Because a new operating system doesn't sow sufficient confusion on its own, we have analysts to further muddy the waters. Today's example: On the one hand, we have IDC claiming that Windows 7 will account for 49.5% of Windows operating systems purchased by corporations, with 75% running 7 by the end of 2011. On the other hand, we have ScriptLogic, a Windows network-management company that asked its clients and found that 6 out of 10 have no plans to deploy Win7. Hmm.

APC happened to notice both surveys and got a good chuckle (and a great photo) out of it. TechWhack picked up on the ScriptLogic numbers, Network World's John Fontana (writing for PC World) went with the IDC numbers, and the rest of us are left to remember that there are lies, damn lies, statistics, and pre-release BS-ing.

Monday's tech headlines

New York Times

• Hiroko Tabuchi has an oddly affecting story about the many Japanese robots sitting idle in the global recession. Better the machines than the humans, of course, but all this has implications for innovation down the line.

• It's hard to take the Times seriously when they say which outlets break the news first, since the paper is notorious in certain circles for using information previously appearing in other publications without proper credit. (Which, I suppose, is what it perceives as "payback.") Still, Steve Lohr is only reporting on a Cornell study -- underwritten by, among others, Google and Yahoo -- that says the traditional news media moved an average of 2.5 hours faster than the blogosphere on key stories during the 2008 election cycle. In Cornell we trust.

• Twitter has absconded with Alexander Macgillivray, deputy general counsel for products and intellectual property at Google. He will serve as general counsel for the microblogging service. No, he will not have to keep contracts under 140 characters.

Federal Computer Week

• The inspector general at DHS recently took a look at how the department has handled an assortment of security vulnerabilities spotted back in 2007, and -- surprise! -- he was impressed, says Ben Bain.

• An overhaul -- some would say a long-overdue overhaul -- of management of the radio-frequency spectrum allocations here in the US is at hand. There are two slightly different bills working their way through Congress, both called the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act. William Jackson has details.

Network World

• This ought to be good: Tim Greene has advance word on a Black Hat seminar explaining how an attacker intent on keylogging can grab the data from either an electrical socket near the computer or a cheap laser pointed at a shiny spot on or near a laptop.

• Rackspace's CEO would like to explain how the company managed have two power outages in a co-location facility inside two weeks. Jon Brodkin is listening.

Washington Post

• The Post's pair of Sunday tech columnists both delivered the goods yesterday. Mike Musgrove speaks with Mark Espinosa, the number-one citizen-reviewer on Amazon... and to Harriet Klausner, who has written 19,463 reviews and counting.

• Meanwhile, Rob Pegoraro -- clearly having something other than fun on the social networks of late -- goes into some detail about the malware situation on Twitter, Facebook and the like.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

If only the French government had had this much determination against the Nazis. The French Senate last week once again passed a version of the HADOPI online copyright infringement bill, this time adding a step after the three accusations in which a judge may choose among three penalties: a ban from the Net, a two-year prison sentence, or a $415,000 fine.

Those accused of "allowing" illegal downloading -- if a third party used their connection to do so -- would face a $2,075 fine or a month's cutoff from the Net.

HADOPI has been championed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy (and his wife, Carla Bruni) and has been supported by Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party. The UMP party has a higher proportional representation in the French Senate than it does in the lower-house National Assembly.

One supposes that the shift -- the final cutoff decision previously rested with the newly formed HADOPI agency that gave the bill its nickname -- would both denature the nickname and give the bill better traction with those who objected to its provisions. However, there's still no provision for the accused to challenge accusations, and if doesn't appear from a reading of the bill that the judges can actually toss out cases; all they can do is choose from among the three penalties.

Gerald Sédrati-Dinet, an analyst for the Francophone Quadrature du Net, said (if we may trust Google's translation services), "The vote of the senators of the majority is simply outrageous: cannot totally dispense with the judiciary, they have validated the ploy of the government reducing the courts to simply rubber stamp. [The decision] is mocking the Constitutional Court, citizens and values-based democracy."

The revised bill is scheduled for debate on July 21.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

The creative end of the music industry is drawing ever closer to a nexus: a point where composing, recording, distributing and publicizing music meets. You could be holding it in your pocket right now, and it's not the same point of convergence sold by the ounce that drove the industry in the past. It's the ubiquitous, lionized, and oh-so-lucrative iPhone.

Recording tasks that were once executed by huge studios are being accomplished in smaller and smaller settings: the demo studio was supplanted by the home studio, which was in turn replaced by the even smaller PC/laptop studio. Indie pop band The 88 made the next step down and recorded with just an iPhone. The band recently released a single called "Love is the Thing" that was recorded entirely on the $9.99 iPhone app by Sonoma Wireworks called Four Track. The group recorded sixteen individual audio tracks entirely with the iPhone's standard mic and dumped them to Pro Tools for mixing via the software's Wi-Fi export feature.

While The 88 are nowhere near the esteem of the Beatles in 1967, they've certainly crossed the Sgt. Pepper four-track threshold.

The 88 has snagged the title of first major label single to be recorded entirely on the iPhone, but there are now at least four videos on YouTube claiming to be the first music video shot entirely with the iPhone's camera. This week, musicians BJSR , Ryna Perez, and XFYA have all thrown their hats into the ring as the first iPhone 3GS music video. Last year, a rapper going by the name of GoshONE went for the title of first iPhone video altogether and apparently has no contenders.

Like the 88's musical composition, the aid of talented performers and a healthy dose of post-production go a long way to make BJSR's video stand out from the rest.

Since the iBand viral video broke last year, showing what could be done with iPhone apps Pianist and Pocketguitar (and the help of the spacey sounds of Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS), there have been hundreds of musical instrument apps, and several groups making a sincere attempt at giving the iPhone credibility as an instrument.

On one end, there's the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra with Ge Wang, designer of the ocarina app, that creates improvised musical compositions with its own software. On the other end, there's pop group The New Mentalists, a London-based all-girl band that put their iPhones to the test by performing a live cover of MGMT's "Kids".

The video of The New Mentalists is really quite entertaining because it hearkens back to the confusing live shows from electro-pioneers Kraftwerk, where four musicians must perform on instruments where there is no precedent for rockstar posturing and no pre-defined emotive gestures. It's awkward, but still inspiring.

Where artists used to have to print up thousands of flyers, send out mailers, and take out ads to keep the world informed of their activities, now they just release an iPhone app. Last year, for example, established Indie band Death Cab for Cutie released their own app to stay in constant touch with fans to let them know of their show dates, song releases, and show exclusive photos and video.

Now, this template is being used to acquaint the public with artists who haven't quite hit it as big as Death Cab. Twenty-year old UK electro-rapper Master Shortie has released an iPhone app as a run-up to his debut album where users can play with him like an action figure, dressing him up and playing his catchphrases. The app also comes with exclusive videos and a direct connection to his tweets. Similarly, singer-songwriter Alana Grace is using a new iPhone app to give fans a look into her touring life as she supports her second album, which can be both purchased and listened to on the iPhone.

There really hasn't been anything like this in the music business before. Louis Armstrong couldn't use his trumpet to call his manager and publicize his upcoming shows, and Eddie Van Halen could not play a finger-tapping solo on the camera rig that he mugged in front of for the Jump video. The nucleus of this iPhone/music industry convergence will be the band that does all of this at once. They will play iPhones, record on iPhones, shoot their videos and talk to their fans all on iPhones. They'll probably be scoffed at as a novelty, and won't last for more than a couple of years, but ten years down the line, they will be the next Silver Apples.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

This episode of Recovery is not brought to you by unfortunate war-and-revolution metaphors for what are, in the end, simply disagreements over operating systems, professional sports, reality television competitions, or other non-combat-related features of life in the developed world. May these be as close as these metaphors' creators ever get to enduring actual warfare.

Even if neither you nor I are ever apt to be invited to a TED gathering -- which brings together leaders from Technology, Entertainment, and Design -- the TED organization's Web site has a marvelous collection of video of presentations made at its conference over the years. It's a great way to spend ten minutes or so when YouTube's leaving you feel a little slimed and Hulu is... look, you cannot keep re-watching the Warehouse 13 premiere. They'll air another episode next week. Until then you will simply have to calm down, and I'm suggesting that you're better off with TED, and not least because it's... applicable.

Take, for instance, this clip of Steven Johnson discussing the events covered in his book The Ghost Map. Johnson told the story of Dr. John Snow, who used data analysis and social networking to pinpoint the source of a nasty cholera outbreak in London, and by doing so changed civil engineering, the nature of urban life, and... well, let's let him tell it. I'll meet you beneath the video in ten minutes.

Mr. Johnson believes, as you heard, that what we can take away from all this is that good ideas eventually prevail over bad ones. I love Mr. Johnson's completely unwarranted optimism. But I took from the story a number of different, more practical lessons, which any geek might readily apply to her or his own circumstances as we all make our way past the potentially infectious cesspools that line life's path. (See? Completely picturesque and overwrought metaphor that has nothing to do with warfare. Really, how hard was that?)

1. Collect that data! Collect it! Dr. John Snow had a theory long before the August 1854 cholera outbreak: He suspected that the disease was not airborne but waterborne. He'd pitched the theory to other scientists and been essentially ignored, but that did not stop Dr. Snow -- he just kept amassing data points, looking for his opportunity.

2. Carpe the damn diem. Most of us, when presented with an outbreak of a disease that kills you by explosive diarrhea in under a day, would head at great speed in the other direction. But Dr. Snow went right into that presumably appalling Soho neighborhood to talk to the locals. (There's some faith in his data right there; if he was wrong and cholera was airborne, now he's got all these possibly sick people breathing on him.)

3. Don't decline to use your social network. Snow didn't have Twatter or Faceplant or MySpazz (with thanks for two of those to a commenter early this week, BTW). But he had the Rev. Henry Whitehead, the assistant curate of the parish church, one of nature's natural connectors of men, and that most exquisitely rare of resources -- a person who's willing to change his mind when presented with superior data. Whitehead originally believed in the airborne (miasma) theory of cholera contagion. Before Snow convinced the scientific community, he convinced Whitehead, who could introduce him to the people to whom he needed to speak in the neighborhood.

4. Learn how to present your data. Geeks, PowerPoint is not persuasion, but neither is a huge pile of raw data. The reason Mr. Johnson's book is called The Ghost Map is that Dr. Snow had the wit to put his data into an amazing, easily understood map that shows where the deaths occurred -- specifically, where they were located in relation to a particular water pump. He presented his data and his map to local community leaders, and eight days after the beginning of the outbreak, they ordered that the handle be removed from that pump. The epidemic subsided very soon thereafter.

Those of you who have attended Edward Tufte's seminars on visual presentation of information can find a detailed account on pages 27-37 of Visual Explanations, and I'm happy to give you the excuse to crack those books again. (The rest of you must now figure out how to convince your bosses or significant others to pay for the daylong Tufte seminar, but I promise you'll be glad you did.)

If you are not currently possessed of your Tufte collection, the map is available as a PDF from Mr. Johnson's site. Look carefully at the area near the pump. The black stacked bars represent deaths at each address along the block, and it's one thing to read stats saying "one dead here, two next door, etc." and to see a stack of eighteen bars next to three next to four across the street from two next to three next to one next to four. Numbers make me want to do arithmetic; the map makes me wonder what life on that block must have been like with so many dead so suddenly. Proper presentation is powerful.

I don't think that good ideas necessarily triumph over bad ones; if they did, there would be at least a chance of me typing this in on a cutting-edge Commodore computer. But Mr. Johnson's ten-minute talk gives you a heck of a chance of improving your odds, and isn't that a finer use of your time this weekend than another viewing of "Play her off, keyboard cat?"

And now for something almost completely different: I mentioned Dave Carroll today in Now|Next, And it's possible that you've had "United Breaks Guitars" stuck in your head ever since. In case you don't:

Fun, right? But take a moment to visit his site and read the whole sorry saga. I'm glad for him that everything's working out, with fame and maybe fortune accruing from his highly entertaining response to the mess, but once again you've got to wonder if these companies ever really learn from this sort of thing. United Airlines says they have, but does anybody who's flown United in the past 15 years buy that? And what happens to dissatisfied customers (of United or any other customer-service-averse firm) who aren't witty singer-songwriters with video charisma? Mr. Carroll has, probably quite unconsciously, followed Dr. Snow's good example above. I don't, however, think that his excellent presentation of the facts will fix the current plague of bad customer service.

Let your geek flag fly and have a great weekend.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Download Microsoft Silverlight 3 from Fileforum now.

After going live just a little bit early, Silverlight 3 is now an official release. The third iteration of Microsoft's rich internet application platform largely viewed as the chief competitor to Adobe Flash (but really an AIR rival) was officially launched this morning at a Microsoft event in San Francisco alongside Expression 3, the latest version of the company's design and development studio.

In the short time that it has been around, Microsoft said today that nearly one-third of all Internet-enabled devices have Silverlight 2 installed, and today's launch ushered in several new big-name customers. NBC Sports, for example, which used Silverlight to stream the Beijing Summer Olympics, will not only use Silverlight for the 2010 Winter Olympics as was previously expected, but for all of its online video moving forward.

NBC Universal and the rest of the companies using Silverlight will be able to capitalize on the latest developments to the platform, which Microsoft premiered incrementally this year after Silverlight 3 was released in beta at MIX 09 in March.

Smooth Streaming, for example, is Silverlight 3's ability to provide variable streams up to 1080p based upon the seamless detection of the user's connection speed and CPU power. A user's conditions are determined so that a feed can be set up that will not buffer or stutter in mid-stream. This feature is enabled when Silverlight 3 is combined with IIS 7.0 Media Services.

Silverlight 3 offers an improved audiovisual experience overall, with better 3D rendering and animation, higher resolution video, and MPEG 4-based H.264/AAC audio.

The feature known as "Out-of-Browser" is the ability for Silverlight 3 apps to run outside of the browser window without any additional plug-ins, and without necessarily needing an Internet connection.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Mobile network operator and ISP Orange UK announced that it has begun to offer DRM-free downloads in the Orange Music Store. Content is available from major labels Universal Music and EMI initially, as well as "a number of independent labels," filling out the catalog with more than 700,000 tracks.

Like Verizon's V Cast with Rhapsody in the United States, Orange Music Store downloads are delivered simultaneously to the mobile handset and PC, and can be transferred and burned at will. Verizon's parent company Vodafone went from protected WMA to unprotected MP3, last March.

Though "DRM-free" is getting a bit long in the tooth as a notable feature in downloadable music stores, Orange Music has also employed the variable pricing model, which only took hold in the music selling business about three months ago. Apple's iTunes began to offer tracks for prices other than 99¢ per song, and within days all of iTunes' major competitors had done the same. Orange's DRM-free tracks start at 79p.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Research in Motion's BlackBerry Tour world phone will be released this weekend on both Verizon and Sprint for $199, and while the device has been received warmly by reviewers and BlackBerry fans, a point of consistent criticism has been the device's lack of Wi-Fi.

A report from Sprint has arrived, saying that Wi-Fi is a necessary feature in major devices, but the Tour was actually rushed out. Bringing the new BlackBerry to Sprint in a timely fashion outweighed the carrier's desire to wait for Wi-Fi, according to the report. Consequently, a version of the BlackBerry Tour will be released next year equipped with 802.11.

Verizon would not directly confirm that it will also be offering a Wi-Fi enabled Tour next year, but it did say it was working with RIM to bring Wi-Fi to future BlackBerry models. This statement could actually refer to the BlackBerry Storm upgrade, which will reportedly endow Verizon's exclusive touchscreen BlackBerry with Wi-Fi connectivity next September.

Research in Motion has not officially announced the device yet, but CEO Jim Balsillie confirmed to Reuters last May that a next-generation Storm was in the works.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Microsoft has known about 0-day vulnerability for months

Since spring 2008 • Really, Microsoft? All the work you've put into getting right with the security community, and this is the result? Computerworld's mighty Gregg Keizer leads the charge on the news that Redmond has known about the recently publicized DirectX vulnerability for years. Years.

Keizer gets some great quotes about wanting to "give customers a complete solution" and lets the facts -- years? -- speak for themselves. Elinor Mills at Cnet has follow-up and the official non-information from a Microsoft "spokesperson" (actually their PR firm, operating as usual several gears below the in-house blogs). Meanwhile, CNET's Ina Fried reports that Microsoft thinks it would be cute to resurrect, of all things, the loathsome Clippy in ads for Office 2010. Way to walk away from that history of fail, Redmond.

iPhone still making some users cranky

Afternoon of June 9, 2009 • As new iPhone 3G S users settle in with their devices, there are have scattered reports of trouble, but Thursday was a banner day for beefing about problems and disappointments. PC World's Bill Snyder, apparently dealing with a nasty case of Chrome Envy, led the charge with a spritied rant about "Why I Should Not Have Bought the iPhone 3G S."

CNET's David Martin covers the uproar over those discoloring white-case 3G Ss and Apple's handling thereof, and Jason Mick at DailyTech asks what the heck is up with battery life (one of Snyder's many concerns, by the way.) Elsewhere in the Apple cart, pressure from Korea has convinced Apple to recall its first-gen (that is, 2005-vintage) Nano MP3 players, which appear to have gotten into the habit of occasionally exploding.

Kindle catches a nice niche (and some complaints)

June 9, 2009 • Seriously, is the entire industry in need of fiber or something? Though The Wall Street Journal had some happy news for the Kindle -- the Practising Law Institute, a continuing-education nonprofit for lawyers, will make its materials available on the flat plastic platform -- not even Amazon's cult-fave gadget escaped the general crankiness online.

Nicholas Deleon at CrunchGear agrees: "We're starting to see more and more 'hate' being thrown Amazon's way," looking at the rising unease many book publishers have at the prospect of Amazon locking up the digital-book market. And ZDNet's ever-amusing Jason Perlow lobs the grenade many would-be buyers would like to land in Jeff Bezos' lap: Surely $299 is enough to buy PDF capability, for pete's sake.

Jack White forges a digital path

July 9 Techdirt looks at the announcement that Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, the restart of Loretta Lynn's career) is launching a digital subscription service for fans of his work. For subscribers, The Wall Street Journal's John Jurgensen has a nice piece on Mr. White's burgeoning media empire; frankly, Mr. White (who turned 34 on Thursday) has a better handle on the business than anyone we're heard from at the RIAA or the big labels.

Software developers learn Mono is not a danger to humankind

Fall 2009 > Could Java be displaced as the principal runtime package distributed with Linux? And by a product whose origins are the dreaded "M" word?

Certainly Microsoft has given the open source community cause for skepticism about any market move it makes, searching for rugs that can be pulled out from under them and secret trap doors that could be sprung at any moment. But ever since Microsoft's move last Tuesday to open up the C# language and its underlying .NET CLI to community licensing, even the best journalists have been unable to find real evidence of a trap this time around.

In LinuxPlanet yesterday, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols speaks to Ubuntu's technical board, which is comparing Sun Microsystems' Java to Mono, the independent implementation of .NET funded by Novell. Ubuntu is telling Steven that it plans to distribute the best software it can, and that it finds Mono to qualify in that category. Some very popular Linux apps, including the Banshee music player, are built on the Mono platform. This despite the warnings of GNU leader Richard Stallman, who has perennially warned open source advocates of the dangers, dangers I tell you, of trafficking in any code which has been touched by the unclean hands of C#.

On the other side of the argument, some guy named David Worthington (gee, that name has a familiar ring to it!) writes for SD Times that it's far too soon to write off Java as a major player, citing its well-established development community around Eclipse. But developers whom David spoke to appear to agree that it's been Mono, not Java, that in recent months has attracted the most developers.

Friday's tech headlines

Los Angeles Times

• Dave Carroll trusted United Airlines to ship his guitar without destroying it, and not only did they fail to complete the task, they gave the Sons of Maxwell guitarist the runaround for months about it. So he made a video about it, and... well, the story has an ending. Check it out, especially if you've ever flown that nasty ORD-OMA leg:

• Alex Pham interviews Sun co-founder Andreas Bechtolsheim, who explains that most of us are already operating in the cloud whether we realize it or not.

• If this journalism thing doesn't pan out, thinks your reporter, maybe the thing to do is go join KGB's merry band of fact-finders. Matt Milian finds out what the workday is like at the human-powered 99-cents-per-query service. (Though he doesn't answer my biggest question about KGB: Isn't this a service for people who don't know their local library is probably set up to do this sort of thing free?)

TechCrunch

• Slapfight! Bing Travel has recovered from last Friday's data-center fire, and they Twittered Thursday that they'd appreciate it if Google would freshen their data to reflect current events, kthx.

• Data portability among the social networks makes the news again, as Jason Kincaid reports that Power.com has counter-sued Facebook for restricting users from moving their info around. Facebook continues to press its suit against Power.com for scraping the site and storing user credentials, both of which are forbidden by the Terms of Service.

Adweek

• Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to buy Twitter and doesn't want to sell MySpace. And he thinks Facebook is "like a directory." Zillionaires: They are not just like us.

• Ever wondered how Bob Geldof might have done the Live Aid charity project differently if he'd had the Web at his disposal back then? Keep an eye on his new endeavor, tck tck tck.

• Elena Malykhina recaps that #moonbat Twitter deluge last week, which some called a marketing blitz and others found more akin to 140-character spam.

New York Times

• Riva Richmond covers claims by Danah Boyd, a social-media researcher who claims that preferring Facebook to MySpace is equivalent to "white flight" and other class divisions. Your reporter seems to recalling rolling her eyes about this theory when she first heard it floated years ago.

• European newspaper and magazine publishers have once again demanded that the EU expand copyright regulations, saying that it's the way to get said publishers to innovate their business models. Hmm.

All Things D

• Megastores Unclear On The Concept: Twitter messages are generally under 140 characters long. Wal-Mart has taking to tweeting... and their "terms of use" for the compiled set of micro-messages is 23,105 characters long. Charming.

• Kara Swisher likes the ubiquitous, super-simple Flip digital videocamera, but as she notes, seeing news producers using them at Michael Jackson's funeral to get footage of those poor shell-shocked kids was just... eww.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Download Google Chrome 3.0.192.1 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Just a few months ago, Apple Safari 4 could stake a claim to being the fastest Web browser available for Windows. But although its speed has improved even since then, especially in the second update since its official launch released late Wednesday, Safari is now as much as 30% slower than the latest beta of Google Chrome 3, released the following morning. This according to Betanews tests completed late Thursday.

Since the report of last week's score following the release of the first stable Mozilla Firefox 3.5 browser, we've seen a security update for Safari 4 Beta, three updates to the Opera 10 beta, and two major improvements to Chrome 3. The first of those two releases saw major improvements to window handling routines -- the first clear indication that Google is working to build a windowing environment of its own. The second, released this morning, brings a revised layout to the default "New Tab" window (an alternative for the user's home page), allowing more thumbnails in the frequented sites list.

Also we've seen some updates for Windows Vista. Installing those actually improved our Internet Explorer 7 scores in Vista SP2 by a slight amount, forcing our Betanews index scores for the stable Opera 9.64 and Safari 3.2.3 browsers down slightly (our index compares all Web browsers' performance to that of IE7 in Vista SP2).

After these latest updates, both Safari 4 and Chrome 3 posted slower index scores in Windows 7 RC (slower than the Vista speed adjustment would mandate), but faster index scores in Windows XP Professional SP3. Chrome 3 posted a record index score of 18.01 in XP, running real-world benchmark tests at 2123% (no, readers, there's no missing decimal point in that figure) the speed of IE7 in Vista. That's 46% faster than Chrome 3 in Vista SP2, whose score is 12.97. As of now, the average Web browser runs 29% faster in XP SP3 than Vista SP2.

The latest Safari is also showing impressive speed gains even over its immediate predecessor, scoring 16.16 in XP and 11.77 in Vista. The gap between those two platforms is about the same as for Chrome 3, at 45%. Meanwhile, the development tracks for the first bug fix of Firefox 3.5 and the experimental build of 3.6 appear headed in opposite directions. While the bug fix could conceivably make 3.5 almost 2% faster, the indications from the 3.6 Alpha 1 nightly build are that developers there are trying stability improvements as opposed to speed. Thursday's nightly build of 3.6 continued heading south in the speed department, now at 7.01 on the index in Windows 7 RC versus a 9.21 score from the stable 3.5 on the same platform.

An updated word about our Windows Web browser test suite

We'd like to be able to accurately test nightly improvements to the WebKit rendering engine being produced for Safari 4. WebKit's nightly builds are designed to install on top of an existing Safari installation, replacing just the rendering and processing components while keeping Apple's front end. In the tests we have conducted, we've seen clear evidence that Safari's math and string processing speeds could catch up with and even exceed those of Chrome, as some of the WebKit nightly build's benchmark scores are notably faster.

Some. The problem is, the renderer in the WebKit nightly builds appears to be a temporary solution, so its DOM and AJAX scores are too slow to be counted as legitimate -- far slower even than IE7 in Vista. The results would render the WebKit build's final index scores irrelevant, though there does appear to be fragmentary evidence that Safari could eclipse Chrome's speed at some point, perhaps soon.

We've also taken a suggestion from a few readers and started investigating the V8 benchmark suite, which Google assembled for testing the relative performance of Chrome. (Some of our readers, in response to our calling the SunSpider benchmark suite "independent," note that it was developed for the WebKit renderer used most prominently in Safari.)

As expected, Chrome performs better in the V8 suite than every other browser. But the speed gap it records of almost exactly two-thirds between Chrome 3 Beta and Safari 4, and the 951.5% performance gap between Chrome 3 Beta and Firefox 3.5 (again, there's no loose decimal point in that last score), seem to us uncorroborated by real-world experience. Chrome just isn't ten times faster than Firefox. We suspect that the speed gaps registered by the V8 suite, rather than linear in nature, are actually exponential, such that higher scores are more...shall we say, pronounced. For now, we're comfortable with the performance suite we're currently using, though we continue to investigate possible alternatives and improvements.

Download Apple Safari 4 Build 530.19 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

To put a bigger dent in Apple's growing command of the US mobile phone market, T-Mobile USA will start to use weapons ranging from hardware diversity to "usability," improved customer service, and new software applications, according to Cole Brodman, CTO for the mobile carrier.

"IPhones are great, but Apple's vision isn't as wide," Brodman contended, during an interview with Betanews at a New York City press event on Thursday.

The HTC myTouch 3G -- the first of three Android phones eyed by T-Mobile for 2009 -- is a more "powerful device for the mobile Internet" than the iPhone, according to the CTO. In contrast to Apple's iPhone, Android devices will become available in a much larger variety of hardware form factors, he added.

China-based HTC, the maker of the myTouch, already produces several other Android phones, including T-Mobile's first entry into the Android space, the G1, plus the Magic and the new Hero, both of which are already distributed by overseas wireless carriers.

In a presentation at the event, Brodman foresaw a plethora of Android-based phones, netbooks, and CE devices from other manufacturers. But in comparison to other US mobile carriers now eyeing devices built on Google's Android platform, T-Mobile enjoys a "first mover advantage," he maintained.

As previously reported, Eric Lin, HTC's online community manager, told Betanews yesterday that HTC expects to deliver the Hero to the US later this year, but through a different provider than T-Mobile.

Among the four major US mobile carriers, that leaves Sprint and Verizon Wireless as the most likely candidates for the Hero, with AT&T Wireless still enmeshed in an exclusive US contract for the iPhone. Sprint, however, recently rolled out the Palm Pre, another competing smartphone.

Yet T-Mobile, at least, seems to see no problem with supporting smartphones built on rival platforms. "We will also continue to sell Windows Mobile phones, of course," Brodman said during the interview.

With the three new Android phones eyed for 2009, T-Mobile will hone in on the consumer space, rather than the corporate market where Microsoft just so happens to focus.

But T-Mobile's devices will also support some "crossover applications," according to Brodman. As an example, he pointed to a client application for Microsoft's own Exchange mail system. T-Mobile is adding the client to the myTouch to let consumers carry out their "work e-mail" from anywhere.

Moreover, to help T-Mobile broaden its reach against Apple and other players on the consumer side, the myTouch will be "less tech-centric" than the earlier G1," and "far more intuitive," according to Brodman. The myTouch will also be "holdable," more along the lines of the feature phones that consumers are already accustomed to toting around with them.

In a presentation at the event, Brodman and Denny Marie Post, T-Mobile USA's chief marketing officer, sketched out some new customer service policies the carrier will institute to boost the comfort levels of new Android phone users. For one thing, T-Mobile will make sure that every phone is working before it leaves the company's doors, the executives vowed. But if an Android phone does turn out to be a lemon, the consumer will be able to exchange it for a replacement directly at the phone store.

T-Mobile's new emphasis on "usability" will extend across Android software. The myTouch is based on the Hero, but it contains new software applications and features devised by T-Mobile. Like HTC's Hero, the myTouch will be user-customizable. In fact, there will be "boundless possibilities as to how to personalize," according to Post.

For its part, the Hero includes a feature called "scenes," which lets users create custom content profiles for "specific functions or times in your life."

But apparently, customization of the myTouch will be simpler, since it will revolve largely around the user's choice of software applications; "backgrounds," or wallpapers; and "skins," or exterior shells. Some of the shells will come with coordinating accessories such as wrist straps and ear buds.

Brodman cited the army of developers working on Google's Android platform as another tool in T-Mobile's arsenal against the iPod. With the launch of the myTouch, T-Mobile announced Sherpa as one new application that will soon land on Google's online Android Market.

With the "search-less search" application from third-party developer Geodelic, consumers won't even need to type anything into the search bar if they want to scope out the local area for restaurants and other points of interest (although a search bar is there as an option).

Users will be able to view the places pinpointed by Sherpa (and the new phone's GPS mechanism) in a choice of three ways: Google maps, a list, and a graphical "carousel," said representatives of Geodelic at a product showcase during the event. Sherpa is designed to not only know where you are, but to learn your preferences. The app also provides restaurant reviews and other linked information.

Also at the showcase, T-Mobile reps displayed the apps, backgrounds and skins that might be chosen by different categories of end users, such as athletes, musicians, and "news hounds," for instance.

To help undecided new Android users determine which apps they want to download from the Android Market, the myTouch will include a new recommendation engine dubbed the App Pack.

T-Mobile started taking pre-orders yesterday from existing customers for the myTouch, a phone priced at $199.99 with a two-year contract. The pre-ordered phones are slated to ship in late July.

To support its new competitive strategy for Android phones, T-Mobile is now devising a new ad campaign, Post said. The new ads will start in August, and the myTouch is scheduled to enter general availability that same month.

Features of T-Mobile's new Android phone include a 3.2-inch HVGA touch-screen display with enhanced video capabilities and a virtual keyboard; a 3.2-megapixel camera; a music player with a pre-installed 4 GB microSD memory card; built-in wireless communications through Wi-Fi and T-Mobile's 3G network; a Microsoft Exchange client; GoogleTalk, MMS, and Microsoft LiveTalk messaging; and one-click access to a number of different online apps, including Google Maps, YouTube, Picasa, and Yahoo.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Download Microsoft Silverlight 3 for Windows Final from Fileforum now.

A day earlier than expected, though not without precedent, Microsoft's servers began reporting to Silverlight users today the availability of version 3 of the company's portable media runtime for Web applications.

The big change that we expect Microsoft to officially make tomorrow is the introduction of a more stand-alone aspect to the Silverlight runtime. While Web apps today may technically be "installed on the desktop," they still require some type of browser intervention -- and by default (or by design, depending on your point of view), this means Internet Explorer.

There may not be an Internet Explorer for at least some users of Windows 7E in Europe come next October; at least, we're told to expect, folks installing that system will be given options enabling them not to choose Internet Explorer. So a browser-independent Silverlight isn't just a design innovation but an urgent necessity.

Formally introduced last March at MIX '09, Silverlight is also expected by developers to contain support for 720p HD video playback using H.264 codecs, and the first runtime support for 3D graphics.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a speech delivered this morning in Brussels before the Lisbon Council, the European Commissioner for Telecoms and Digital Media, Viviane Reding, raised a point she's made before: that one reason piracy is so rampant on the Internet is because rights holders and media publishers have yet to produce a viable, desirable alternative for media consumers. This time, the phrase Comm. Reding used to describe piracy was "sexy."

But in a novel addition to her ongoing effort to produce a policy she calls Digital Europe, Reding suggested that her government could assist rights holders and publishers, enabling them to spend more time and resources developing that "sexier" alternative. Specifically, she proposed a system whereby the EU government could serve as the online clearinghouse for intellectual property rights covering the entire continent.

"We could facilitate the licensing of intellectual property rights for online services covering the territory of all 27 EU Member States," the commissioner stated this morning. "Today, right holders and online service providers need to spend far too much time and money on the administration of rights, instead of investing this money in attractive services. And consumers often cannot access online content if uploaded in another Member State. For online content in a single market of 27 Member States, economies of scale and consumer-friendly solutions will require a much simpler and less fragmented regulatory framework than the one of today. We had a similar problem when commercial satellite TV started more than 30 years ago. As right clearance for this per se cross-border service became increasingly complex, Europe developed the Cable and Satellite Directive and introduced a simplified system of rights clearance for the whole of Europe. I believe it is now time to develop similar solutions for the evolving world of online content."

Reding acknowledged the widening extremity of the gap between both sides of the intellectual property argument, between rights holders who compare downloaders to terrorists and pirates who flaunt their ability to pilfer terabytes of IP without consequence.

"In my view," she remarked, "growing Internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should be a wake-up call for policy-makers. If we do not, very quickly, make it easier and more consumer-friendly to access digital content, we could lose a whole generation as supporters of artistic creation and legal use of digital services. Economically, socially, and culturally, this would be a tragedy. It will therefore be my key priority to work, in cooperation with other Commissioners, on a simple, consumer-friendly legal framework for accessing digital content in Europe's single market, while ensuring at the same time fair remuneration of creators. Digital Europe can only be built with content creators on board; and with the generation of digital natives as interested users and innovative consumers."

Reding's history of legislation has been to give private interests a mandate to obtain a key business objective, wait for business to meet that objective, and then step in and take over the job if business takes too long -- to "take the thing in hand," as the Commissioner herself puts it. That was certainly the case last year when the EC pushed through the DVB-H standard for mobile broadcasting, despite European technology companies that were losing faith in that standard.

"It is...regrettable that we currently have an extremely polarized debate on the matter: While many right holders insist that every unauthorized download from the Internet is a violation of intellectual property rights and therefore illegal or even criminal, others stress that access to the Internet is a crucial fundamental right," stated Commissioner Reding this morning. "Let me be clear on this: Both sides are right. The drama is that after long and often fruitless battles, both camps have now dug themselves in their positions, without any signs of opening from either side."

With respect to the IP debate, the problem Reding faces is that member states continue to assert their respective patent and copyright systems, often making it impossible for an online service to negotiate the licensing red tape. This is often the case, for instance, when the publisher of a song is in one state, the rights holder in another, the performer in another, the Web site making the song available in yet another, the ISP in still another, and the Web user being anywhere else in the world. In a best-case scenario for rights management services, that could amount to seven transfers, all of which could legally be eligible for royalties transactions.

From Reding's vantage point, it's no wonder that some services such as The Pirate Bay flagrantly bypass the entire IP rights system -- not even legitimate services can make sense of it. A single live clearinghouse may give publishers the opportunity to try workable business models that may actually be affordable for legitimate consumers, while being innovative enough to compete.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Both Sony Bravia connected HDTVs and the Sony Bravia Internet Video Link module now have access to Netflix on Demand, the popular service which has already found its way onto the Xbox 360, TiVo HD DVRs, LG Blu-Ray players and HDTVs.

Netflix will reside in the Bravia Internet Video platform alongside Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube, Sony Pictures, Sports Illustrated, Crackle, Slacker, Epicurious.com, Concierge.com, Style.com, and Dailymotion. Unfortunately, Sony's PlayStation 3 is not yet compatible with this service, and today's announcement did not mention the video game console.

Bravia HDTVs compatible with the Internet Video Link platform range in price from $1,799-$3,299, and the DMX-NV1 Internet Video Link module costs $199.99 and supports HD resolution depending upon the stream. A minimum connection speed of 2.5 Mbps is required, and a 10 Mbps connection is recommended for HD content.

As with all the other platforms supporting Netflix Streaming on Demand, a Netflix subscription is required.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

I feel old. Looking at AOL's new Lifestream service, which lets you see all your pals' Facebook and Twitter and FriendFeed status updates in addition to whatever they're up to on AIM, I'm thinking, isn't this how we got those services in the first place, when we all decided that status messages were the most useful aspect of instant messaging clients?

I'm pretty sure that's how it all came to pass, and thus AIM Lifestream is giving your reviewer a nasty case of the deja vu. Or are those just flashbacks to the Flock sidebar? The new functionality -- available as a Web application or in AIM 7 for Windows, AIM for Mac 2.0, and AIM Windows Mobile, just released as beta -- allows you to monitor Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, and YouTube activities amongst your cronies. Some of the most popular functions on those services has made the leap; for instance, Facebook's "Like" option for flagging other people's updates makes an appearance in the Web version.

We chose to test the Web version of Lifestream. Adding our Twitter information was in theory as simple as permitting an OAuth confirmation, but we found some weirdness in the system afterward, when clicking the Twitter option under My Profiles took us to a mysterious Twitter account we've never seen before for "Laina Bibb." Who is she and why hasn't she tweeted since mid-April? We have no idea. As for Facebook, our installation process in Chrome simply gave up the ghost midway through; we had to switch over to Firefox to complete that process. The My Profiles link for Facebook worked fine.

Once that process was complete, updates and those of our friends were retrieved with no trouble, though we noticed a 30-minute lag in updates; anything over 15 minutes is, frankly, unacceptable for following a service that updates in real time. We saw no way in settings to control the frequency of updates. Time stamps were a bit disconcerting as well; for various reasons AIM thinks your review is on the East Coast, and there's no way to convince Lifestream otherwise.

A simple set of tabs differentiates between your updates and everyone else's, and though one can't currently pass updates back to Twitter or the other services, the update from those sites to our Lifestream seemed to be fairly thorough, though slow. It's unclear at this time whether Lifestream might be prone to dropping tweets, a notorious problem with some of the third-party readers for that service. Overall, as a status monitor it's very similar to that offered by Flock, without the annoying Flock default of showing only the most recent update from each person you follow.

AOL's been looking to regain its footing in the messaging realm -- for the purposes of discussion here, let's treat Twitter and other status-update services as forms of messaging -- ever since they picked up the lifestream-and-social-networking-aggregator socialthing in 2008 and Bebo (big in Europe!) the year before that. In the broader picture, the need for some reliable, comprehensive social-network aggregator is clear, and AIM just might have the reach to accomplish that.

But Lifestream's got a lot of beta-ism to work through for now. AOL learned long ago that simply flinging its users into the maw of the Internet is dangerous for both them and the net. One hopes that tech glitches such as the lack of timely updates will be addressed even before cool-but-optional such as two-way updates between Lifestream and the non-AOL services, however crucial those might seem to the brass at AOL who very, very much want to be back on top of the status-message heap.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Google goes for the OS gold chrome

9:37 pm PDT Tuesday, July 8, 2009 > Google's Sundar Pichai (VP of Product Management) and Linus Upson (Engineering Director) posted an announcement that the search giant will be launching a Chrome OS, geared toward netbooks.

"Speed, simplicity, and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the Web in a few seconds," reads last night's post. "The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the Web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware, and security updates. It should just work."

Did everyone hear that okay? Back in the back, Apple, did you get the part about "just work?" How about that "don't have to deal with viruses" part -- way back in the back, is that Mr. Walt Disney rising from the dead? Sir, did you get that message? The nirvana part?

Our Scott Fulton appears to have had some thoughts on the matter in the can, ready to run (just add water!), whenever Google made such an announcement.

As Technologizer's Harry McCracken puts it, "one of those breaking stories that's stunning at first -- until you think about it, whereupon it feels like it was always inevitable." McCracken has eleven questions about the announcement, and he's posted them publicly because Google itself isn't answering any more questions (at least it says it won't) until sometime i the fall.

BusinessWeek's Rob Hof has scrutinized the post and thinks that the new OS isn't necessarily a shot directly at Microsoft. (No, of course not.) Barron's Eric Savitz, writing for Tech Trader Daily, begs to differ.

Sustained DDoS attack vexing US, South Korea

Since July 4 • Reports of its severity are either widely underreported or wildly exaggerated, but everyone agrees that various US and South Korean government targets have been under DDoS attack for the past several days. US-CERT hasn't posted anything on its site yet, but spokespersons in various government agencies say the department is on the case.

Reporting for The Register, Dan Goodin writes that 26 agencies in the two nations have been hit, though a source familiar with the attacks characterized them as "mostly modest." Choe Sang-Hun at The New York Times says that a few sites are still affected as of Wednesday morning.

Blogs-on-paper project folds

July 7, 2009 • He gave it a heck of a shot and a good six figures of his own money (and credit), but serial entrepreneur Joshua Karp on Tuesday had to lay to rest the dream of The Printed Blog. Posting to the site, he says that the project to make best-of-breed blog posts available to print reasons has been suspended "due to a lack of outside investment capital." But he learned a lot, and he still believes that "the next few years will be among the most exciting times in the history of journalism."

Not all the eulogies were as upbeat as Mr. Karp's. At TechCrunch, John Biggs described the project as "in a word, ludicrous -- it was akin to pressing MP3 podcasts onto vinyl for those who still used a Technics turntable." Claire Cain Miller at The New York Times compared The Printed Blog's troubles to those of newspapers in general, and Podcasting News' James Lewin shrugs, "It's getting harder and harder to see what value print can bring to new readers."

La Russa drops suit against Twitter

June 26 St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has withdrawn the suit he filed against Twitter after an impersonator pretended to be him (@TonyLaRussa). Most observers think that was probably a good choice considering the weakness of the case: As Zusha Elinson put it at law.com, "Tony La Russa, the famed baseball manager known for his charity work with injured pets, apparently knows when he has a dog on his hands." According to Knox Bardeen at MLB Fanhouse, previous reports that Twitter would pay La Russa's court costs and donate to his animal-shelter charity were unfounded.

Wednesday's tech headlines

The Register

• Oracle's quick post-acquisition execution of Virtual Iron's products presents a pretty opportunity for VMware's efforts to steal away those customers. But since VMware's hypervisor and server management tools aren't exactly compatible with VI's offering, the company's had to be a bit creative with their "safe passage" courting strategy.

• A recently released Linux patch gets Tom Tom's GPS around the Microsoft VFAT patent.

• "More junk in the trunk," carps the dek writer on Timothy Prickett Morgan's piece concerning the launch of PostgreSQL 8.4. That was set to launch on June 29, but a "showstopper" bug delayed it for a few days.

Engadget

• Lockheed Martin and Microvision are working on a heads-up eyepiece display for "non-line-of-sight command and control in distributed urban operations for dismounted warfighters" based on Microvision's PicoP technology, says Joseph L. Flatley. The illustration alone is worth the click, hinting as it does that a cyborg Iggy Pop is the wave of the warfighting future.

• The iSaw USB-powered chain saw may be a hoax, but your reporter will be needing one anyway. Also, a boom stick.

New York Times

• Acer's Gianfranco Lanci thinks that PC makers would be a lot better off if some of the smaller players would disappear, as profits would rise. Nice to know the CEO's got his eye on keeping that high-quality, consumer-centric vibe alive at Acer.

• Watch out for email with shortened URLs a la bit.ly, is.gd, and TinyURL, warns Brad Stone; spammers have been abusing the system to dodge the filters.

• Jenna Wortham suggests that dedicated GPS systems are going the way of the cassette deck thanks to improved smartphone capabilities.

Washington Post

• Brian Krebs reports on the latest wave of low-tech fraud -- less computer work, more phone-transfer skill.

• Emma L. Carew takes a look at the virtual-assistant phenomenon. It's a nice job option for those facing long-term unemployment, but no one's getting rich.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Well, this answers the question about why no Android for netbooks. In a stunning announcement late Tuesday evening, the company that for years had been suspected of developing an operating system but which had never entirely denied the claim, has come out with it: Yes, Google is making a Linux; yes, it's for netbooks (at least for now); no, it's not Android.

"Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android," reads yesterday's company blog post from VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Upton. "Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the Web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google."

At this point, what we know for certain is in that blog post, and it's not much: Chrome OS is being designed for not just x86 processors but also ARM processors, getting into the embedded devices field, or what ARM itself calls "smartbooks." Initial sales will be through OEMs who are expected to pre-install Google OS on their netbooks. With Acer's contentious history with Microsoft and its already having embraced Android for smartphones, that manufacturer stands perhaps the biggest chance of benefitting from this news. "Acer Aspire Two," anyone?

As a software platform, though, Google's play is bolder than just netbooks: Its aim is clearly to leverage the whole Chrome idea, including the existing Windows-based Web browser, as a foundation for a Web-based software platform to challenge both .NET and Java.

"For application developers, the Web is the platform. All Web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite Web technologies," reads yesterday's post. "And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform."

This explains why Google has been strengthening Chrome's windowing capabilities at the expense of work on other features. It's developing a way for windowed applications that are more functional than Microsoft's, to run cross-platform inside Microsoft's OS, and still have the virtue of running on Mac OS and Google's new brand of Linux. This solves the whole issue of "base" for Chrome OS developers, which is analogous to "audience" for media developers -- it's the perceived group of people for whom software authors write. Historically, a software firm doesn't have much to gain if it writes for the base with the smallest niche, which has been Macintosh's problem since 1984, and Linux' perennial problem on the desktop for commercial software players.

But if developers think of the Web platform on a very high level -- the plateau that Sun/Oracle Java has always hoped to reach, and Adobe Flash (now incorporating Flex) has recently aspired to grasp -- then "reach" is conceivably everyone. Should Google extend its Chrome Web browser, for instance, to Linux distributions other than its own Chrome OS, extending its windowing environment to all the other open source players; and if the Chrome browser also gets its act together on Mac OS; then that is everyone. An app built "for Chrome" would conceivably run on any x86/x64 system in the world, plus a good chunk of ARM processor-based devices. Chrome OS' blanket would extend beyond the reach of Windows and even of Java.

And if Chrome OS runs on x86, after all, what is there to prevent an everyday system owner from installing it on a desktop or notebook instead of Windows?

ADDITION: If writing a Web application is essentially writing "for Chrome," then what makes Google's intention the creation of a "Chrome platform?" After all, Chrome OS opts to be lightweight, in order to keep its profile down for netbooks.

When you see what Google is cooking up with its Chrome browser, you get an understanding of the architectural power play it's working up: Think of a "good" and "better" scenario, where everyday Web apps will run in Chrome and run in Firefox and run in Windows (IE), and everyone's happy and the European Commission is placated and all is right with the world. That's "good."

But then there's "better," a world full of Google Gears and that Chrome OS windowing environment that last night's post mentioned. It's a world where the windowing environment is directly and safely accessible at a low level through remote procedure calls (which in Windows is extremely dangerous), and Web apps that are effectively "Chrome-aware," to coin a phrase, can do more things in more ways than they can when they just run "good." That's the platform play Google is making: Sure, your Web app supports Chrome by default (if you write it "correctly," which translated into English means, "not in Flash or Silverlight"). But to make it better, you add support for Chrome that turns on when Chrome is present. And all the user has to do to make it work is install Chrome.

And when will they do that? Conceivably right when the Web app, running on a non-Chrome OS application, places a call to a resource that Google is hosting. "I see you're not running Google Chrome," says the popup. "Would you like to install it now? It's free!"

It is an extraordinary market play, a gamble for the entire pie, not just a slice of it. And Google is the only player other than Microsoft at this point with both the moxie and the resources to pull it off.

Success for Google OS, however, in any conceivable scenario, would leave a wide path of carnage in its wake. Think of it: Google would uproot Microsoft's entire value proposition for Windows: that it has the biggest platform and the strongest base, so any investment in Windows is a secure one. Google would perhaps indirectly, but certainly inevitably, challenge Apple's position as the turnkey applications distribution channel for iPhone (does anyone think that compiling a Chrome platform attachment for iPhone, if Chrome runs on Mac OS already, would be impossible?). Chrome OS would capture the latent smartbooks market that Microsoft has publicly dismissed as irrelevant, which might conceivably lower the final curtain on Windows Mobile as an embedded platform (if you're an embedded software developer, wouldn't you rather write for the platform that also works on x86?). As an applications distribution platform, Chrome OS would seek to capture the prize that Java originally made relevant, and that Microsoft's .NET sought to "embrace and extend." And as a Web browser (if anyone's still thinking that small), Chrome would leave Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox in smoking ruins after a very bloody battle.

That's assuming everything works according to Google's plan, and that's assuming Google really has a plan. As last night's blog post pointed out, Google would only provide more news about Chrome OS "in the fall," which suggests that there's nothing much for it to share with its esteemed community of devoted developers, and may not be much real code to present to them until deep into 2010.

But if Google really does have a plan (and it might), then capturing the king, the flag, the castle, and the whole kingdom -- which is genuinely the intention that Google signaled yesterday -- would require every other player in this industry to sit back and gingerly let it happen. I don't mean just Microsoft, but also Apple, Adobe, Oracle, and Mozilla. There are some who are uncertain just how much fight these old players have in them. But to assume that they will cede their respective claims to the software market without a serious counter-offensive, is to ignore history. If Google does that, then its game is already lost.

Yet it is a game, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn, Betanews

Online search engines have proven themselves a boon to topical research... and to sticky-note sales, when you finally hit the mother lode of great sites you want to remember without condemning them to the unfiltered pond that is your bookmarks list. Yahoo on Tuesday released Search Pad, a search companion meant to snip, store and annotate useful items; Google Labs last month unveiled Google Squared, which also aims to help parse and organize online information.

Yahoo Search Pad, a close spiritual relative to Yahoo's 2005-era "My Web" search-saving tool, entered beta back in February. It's designed to stand by while you search on that site and, when it detects that you're following a train of thought, to keep track of the sites you find.

Google did something like this with the now-defunct Notebook project, but at the moment it doesn't offer anything really similar. But now it has Google Squared -- an interesting idea, a potentially useful tool for certain kinds of quick-and-dirty preliminary searches, but a bit vexing in its current incarnation.

Google Squared is suited to searches that do, or should, pull up a lot of very specific facts. For instance, I decided to search for information of great royal courtesans of history. (You run the search that interests you, pal, and I will run mine.) Each courtesan has a date of birth, a date of death, at least one royal to whom she was linked, some basic biographical information, and perhaps an available image.

I started with Nell Gwynn, that pretty, witty consort of Charles II, typing just her name into a starting square. Google returned a thumbnail image and an excerpt of a longer description on Wikipedia, and suggested a few other pieces of information for which I might wish to add search columns Google might auto-populate -- date of birth, date of death, full name, place of birth, died (yes, in addition to "date of death"), spouse, profession, father, mother and religion. I also had the option to my own categories, which Google also would attempt to auto-populate.

It may be a mark of the sheer fun this tool provides that the problem that's most annoying to me at the end of my testing is the 50-row limit. (Trust me, one can name a great many more than 50 royal mistresses.) Also, this isn't a spreadsheet as one normally understands such things; the order in which I free-associated the 49 ladies and one gentleman into the system is the order in which I must keep them.

So spreadsheet-style sorting isn't Google Squared's game. Alas, search -- or, specifically, parsing search results into my tidy categories -- gave Google Squared trouble as well. Google was able to reliably pull in images for all but a couple of the most obscure subjects, and did a good job of finding general descriptions on Wikipedia and other sites. Beyond that, it was mainly a crapshoot. It located 20 dates of death, an easier datapoint than date of birth for most of the subjects, but could not parse the information available in Wikipedia even though it displayed it just one cell over. (Cells can be manually edited.)

More worrisome were the occasional errors when the system simply pulled in the wrong date. We were a bit confused a well by the system's results with "madame de pompadour" and "Madame du Pompadour" (the same woman). Google Squared managed to link both to her Wikipedia bio, but grabbed different text and photos. And it missed another duplicate -- these courtesans excel at having multiple names -- altogether. We also disliked a quirk in the system that requires you to pick your own text from a picklist after entering it in a blank cell.

The system doesn't give you many options for working with (that is, drawing information from) sources one selects oneself. The history of European royal families (including their mistresses) is well-documented on many sites; though the Wikipedia data-scrape was fairly good for basic data and great with images, it would be useful to be able to specify where Google Squared ought to be looking. We ended up chucking a lot of useful URLs into a catchall "Other sites" column of cells -- helpful for warehousing, but not even as useful as one's trusty old bookmark list.

Keeping track of masses of URLs is where Yahoo Search Pad shines. The functionality turns up on the right of the screen when you begin a search, and you can either add results to previous named-and-saved searches or start anew. The pad basically keeps a list of the sites you've visited, along with a space beneath each item for notes. Individual results are easily deleted, and can be arranged with simple dragging and dropping. We were unable to bump against any upper limit on the size of individual notes during our testing.

Each collection of Search Pad results can, in theory, be shared with its own special URL. We were unable to test this process due to multiple errors.

Perhaps the most excellent research feature in Search Pad is one that just might keep some writing from hurting themselves. If you find a site that you like, grab some text and paste it into a new note. Yahoo will examine the text and source it for you, pulling in the title and URL for the page. Considering how many writers-that-should-know-better seem to get busted for using chunks of online text without attribution, this feature alone highly recommends the Search Pad function.

Your reviewer has a sad tendency to think in spreadsheets, and her long, long list of Search Pad discoveries was less to her liking than Google Squared's boxy cells. But otherwise there's currently no contest -- Yahoo Search Pad's staked its territory and refined its approach to be a full-on tool for in-depth research. Google Squared is fun, and as promised it delivers a quick-and-dirty first pass for large search projects with lots of discoverable data points. One can easily imagine noodling around in that application until it was time to get serious about a project; after that, our final verdict is in favor of Yahoo Search Pad all the way.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The proprietors of online streaming radio, including Pandora's Tim Westergren, are finding themselves surprised today to be cheering an agreement with performance rights holders that has them paying as much as 25% of their revenue in royalties. But that's better than all of their revenue, which was a literal possibility in 2007, and better than 70% which Pandora and other services were paying at this time last year.

Under the new deal announced today, webcasters are being offered a so-called "alternative set of rates and terms" by SoundExchange, the organization responsible for managing performers' royalties in the US. Those that agree to SoundExchange's terms must adopt a new and more rigorous reporting schedule for reporting their revenues right down to the dollar -- the reporting system that SoundExchange insisted upon two years ago. It's an even more rigorous reporting system than what the US Copyright Royalty Board agreed to last January, when it made a reluctant U-turn in favor of revenue-based royalties accounting.

As the RAIN newsletter reports today, webcasters agreeing to the plan must keep complete, per-performance records of what songs were played, and to how many listeners they were played, in logs that they must agree to keep available for at least four years. In exchange, royalty rates for those willing to submit to greater transparency, will be capped at 25% of reported revenue. Those who prefer not to agree to this reporting system will continue to pay the royalties rates set by the CRB earlier in the year.

"It's a creative, groundbreaking approach that we wanted to try, and we hope it will work well for everyone involved -- the artists, labels and eligible webcasters," SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson stated earlier today. Westergren's response was a lot less formal, stating in his blog this afternoon, "Pandora is finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates. This ensures that Pandora will continue streaming music for many years to come!"

But the change will not be without cost to some listeners, it turns out: Non-subscribers who have been listening to Pandora's free, ad-supported service for 40 hours per month or more, will be asked to contribute a $0.99 fee to continue listening for the remainder of the month. "We hate the idea of limiting anyone's listening, but we have no choice but to react the economic realities of the new rates," Westergren writes.

CBS-owned Last.fm had not issued a statement by press time.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

On Independence Day weekend, I was faced with a fourteen-hour drive and a long outdated, standalone GPS unit. The Garmin Nuvi GPS that I received as a gift two Christmases prior had begun to prompt me to pay for a map update every time I started it up. Consequently, I didn't use it very much, and stuck to using Telenav Navigator or Google Maps on my phone in the frequent instances when I have become truly, hopelessly lost.

As we were packing up the car, I started to wonder just how necessary the Garmin's map update actually would be. I mean, how often do roads really change, right? Presuming the poles of the Earth don't suddenly reverse, an outdated GPS is at least going to give you useful map coordinates and tell you what direction you're driving.

This thought came to mind because we were driving from Baltimore to St. Louis; and as anyone from the area will tell you, the legendarily bad traffic in Los Angeles and Washington, DC faces some stiff competition from STL. Furthermore, to reach my destination, I would be encountering a long term renovation project that fully shuts down different sections of Interstate 64 at various times of the year. In other words, a substantial section of the straightest route from Louisville, Kentucky to Kansas City, Missouri has been in a state of total disruption since December 2008, and I really had no choice but to pick my route around it.

So instead of pre-planning a route, I decided to leave the navigating fully up to the pair personal navigation devices running side-by-side, the standalone unit that was accurate to a date before the major construction, and the trusty mobile phone with its live map data.

There is pretty much only one way to laterally bisect the United States, and that is by taking Route 70. Driving from the Mid-Atlantic to the Midwest is just as simple: you either take Route 70, or you take I-64, any other routes will show you more of the heartland but tack on a lot more time.

View Larger Map

This choice in routes manifests itself as a fork in the highway in the mountains of Maryland: go left and you are on 64, go right and you are on 70. Since the trip on 64 is actually around 30 miles shorter, both navigators told me to go on the left fork, but I went right.

Expecting both units to reroute for the equally simple trip on route 70, the Garmin repeatedly told me to make a U-turn and get back on 64. Telenav rerouted very quickly, but it took the Garmin unit 32 miles and a handful of exits before it realized what I was doing. It would be a long time before I was presented with another juncture like that.

In the meantime, I ran point of interest (POI) queries on both units: gas stations, restaurants, public parks, and so forth. As one would be silly not to expect, the phone's database of points of interest is infinitely more accurate, more relevant, and faster. The only drawback to Telenav and Google's POI database is that their accessibility is subject to mobile signal availability, and if you're driving in places such as the Great Plains region of the US, a mobile signal is sometimes hard to come by. Fortunately, coverage was strong on my trip.

I wouldn't again get to test either unit's mettle until the Poplar Street Bridge crossing the Illinois border into St. Louis. It was here, where contrary to my expectations, both units pointed me in the wrong direction. I was expecting the old PND to tell me to take I-64, and the current mobile phone GPS to take the detour on I-44. But both units said to take the highway under construction. Considering the construction was a direct obstruction between my location at that moment and my destination, I played along, and took 64 until it ended. Then the familiar rerouting problem took effect, but in full force. I was driving so closely to both navigation units' planned routes that they continually told me to get back on track without providing non-highway alternatives.

In order to switch off the highway directions, I had to drop into the options menus which is a bit hazardous while driving. Okay, hazardous may be an understatement. You know how GPS software always says something to the effect of "do not manipulate while driving" before you start using it? This is why. In Telenav, it requires going back to the home screen, then going to tools & more > preferences > navigations > route style. In Garmin, it requires the user to hit menu > navigation > avoidance. I had to pull over to perform both actions.

Eventually, both devices (and some phone calls to confirm routes) got me on an acceptable path and I reached my destination through a forced avoidance of the highway. What surprised me about this experiment was that the only major strike against the standalone un-connected navigator ended up being its out of date points of interest and its lack of traffic data, which I really had no need to use anyway.

Would I advocate shelling out the cash for a software update for your aging PND? I'd give it a tentative yes, but only if you lack a GPS receiver on your mobile phone, and plan to continue using it a lot.

Updates for Garmin devices cost $70, TomTom costs $79.95, and Magellan updates cost between $79 and $99. Services such as VZ Navigator and AT&T Navigator, on the other hand, are available for $9.99 per month or $2.99 if they're only needed for a 24-hour period.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Download Google Chrome for Windows Beta 3.0.191.3 from Fileforum now.

With Web pages having evolved into Web sites and moving on to become Web applications, we find ourselves frequently revisiting the question of what a Web browser tab should represent. In researching a topic for multiple stories during the course of a day, I often find myself with as many as a hundred tabs open at one time. And yes, I try to keep them in some kind of order, which is never easy; and when the browser crashes (as it still often does), recovering all those open tabs is becoming more difficult, it seems, as time goes on.

Improving the way one organizes tabs is part of the entire value proposition for Google Chrome; besides its impressive architecture under the hood, tab management is one of the few front-end features Google sought to perfect from the very beginning. The idea behind Google's approach to tabs is this: Perhaps in this evolving Web landscape, a tab should be whatever the user designates or needs it to be at the time. So if the user should decide it should go in a window or outside of a window or floating around on its own, for whatever reason, Chrome should enable those options. And it should enable as many options as possible.

Does that mean those options are self-evident or self-explanatory? Not at all. In typical Google fashion, unless you're reading some sort of comic-book-styled sales brochure -- or this particular article -- you have to either stumble upon these options for yourself, or read an article like this one. It's strange to note that of the major Windows Web browsers produced today, only Mozilla Firefox and Opera render their pages in typical window devices -- even Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 uses a non-standard window. For Google Chrome, this means that each tab must serve double-duty as a Web page's title bar. That actually may be a problem in cases where titles run long -- e.g., news sites whose names fall first, followed by the headline. You can still point to each tab, and in a moment see a tooltip with the full title -- a slight inconvenience, if any at all, but also an indication of one of the problems all browser architects must face. Whereas an application is easily identifiable by its icon, a Web page's icon may denote its publisher but not its purpose.

So if you don't mind your desktop looking like…well, like mine at times, then Chrome 3 presents you with a way to work out where Web pages or applications should be arranged and how they should work. While you can still drag and drop a Chrome window anywhere on the desktop and create any number of windows for collecting more tabs, you can drag a tab away from one window and into another or onto the desktop by itself (thus creating a new window). And the beta of Chrome is experimenting with a system perhaps inspired by, or inspiring (depending upon whom you ask), the Aero Snap feature of Windows 7. Though Beta 3.0.190.1 had some trouble with this feature, Beta 3.0.191.3 released this morning appeared, in Betanews tests, to have fixed its troubles:

• When you drag a Chrome tab (as opposed to a window) toward the center of the edge of the desktop, an animated symbol pops up representing the projected placement of the tab's new window on the desktop if you were to release the mouse button. If you leave this symbol alone and release the button, then the new window will be created at the mouse pointer location. But if you continue dragging on top of this symbol and release there, then the new window will be opened as indicated by the symbol. For example, if you drag to the bottom (just above the taskbar), you'll see a symbol showing a window that hugs the bottom and that's half-height, leaving the top open. If you drag to the left, you'll see a symbol for a window that hugs the left edge, that's full-height and half-width. It's a little different than Microsoft's method, introduced in Windows 7, of "bumping" the edge of the desktop, and it takes an extra step, but it's certainly sensible. I've said before that I really like this feature in Windows 7, and I must admit to really liking Google Chrome's interpretation of it.

• When you drag a Chrome tab toward the center of the outside edge of another Chrome window that has room alongside for a new neighbor, another animated symbol pops up depicting the relative location of the new window if you were to release the mouse button. This way, you can create a new window beside an existing one, hugging its edge. For example, if you drag an open tab toward the center of the left edge of an open Chrome window, the symbol will show two windows beside one another. You have to touch this symbol (bringing it from transparency to the forefront) and release the mouse button to snap the new window to the edge of the existing one.

• Inserting an open tab into any open Chrome window, even if it only has one tab open, and releasing the mouse button, results in that tab being reinserted in the open window at that location. This is how you expect things to work, but up until today's release of build 3.0.190.1, that's been a problem for Chrome.

While Google has been working since last year to show up Mozilla in the functionality department, you can't help but think this time around, it can't resist the opportunity to one-up Microsoft.

Next: What helps Firefox in one way, holds it back in another…

Since Firefox relies on a conventional window device as its homebase, there's certain limits as to how sensitive it can be to unconventional mouse events, such as those that Chrome is experimenting with now. Many of the browser's more versatile tab functions are actually provided by way of third-party add-ons such as Tab Mix Plus, ColorfulTabs (which tints tabs by group and order of spawning, like IE8), and Tab Kit (which, we note, beat Tab Mix Plus to being updated for Firefox 3.5). But that's the way Mozilla development typically works: If a feature provided by an independent developer in the community is good enough, Mozilla would rather sanction and promote that feature rather than absorb it into Firefox without accreditation.

Until Mozilla's developers get bold and try a non-standard window, however, it will not be able to compete with Chrome or any other browser in the area of desktop arrangement. So the add-ons are limited to providing functionality within Firefox windows. And since Firefox 3.5 has only now enabled the user to drag an open tab between two windows without the receiving window reloading the tab's contents, add-ons such as Tab Mix Plus have to rethink the way they work. Tab Mix Plus' biggest benefit (and Tab Kit's as well) is enabling multiple tab rows within a single window, eliminating the need for scrolling through infinite open tabs along a partial row (until you try to open more than three row's worth of tabs, that is…something I can end up doing quite easily).

For now, when you drag an open Firefox 3.5 tab outside its window, you can deposit it on the desktop. Firefox will open a new window for it, but its location appears to be designated in the old-fashioned manner determined by Windows itself. Using the window device model Microsoft conceived in the 1980s, when a window produces another window, the child's default location is just below and to the right of the parent's, leaving just enough room for both title bars. So the position of the mouse pointer when you release the button is inconsequential, since Firefox's window device doesn't have the sensitivity to record the location of the pointer at the time of release.

Arguably, if Firefox had a Chrome-like ability to let the user group open tabs in multiple locations on the desktop, Tab Kit's or Tab Mix Plus' stacks of rows might become outmoded. For example, if I could just open a small window and keep it on the lower left of the desktop, and just dump multiple pages on the same topic into that window as I find them, then break them out into categories such as "trusted" and "suspect" at will, then I might never end up with a single window full of more than three stacks of tabs.

Maybe this heat was a gimme for Google from the beginning, but given the fact that Chrome hadn't scored any points in our showdown up to now, it really needed the break. In lieu of absolute answers for the moment about how the Web should differentiate published pages from functional applications, Chrome offers a much richer tool set for the user to figure it out for himself. That leaves our running score for now at Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (1).

Download Firefox 3.5 Final for Windows from Fileforum now.

KEEP SCORE ALONG WITH BETANEWS:

• Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 1: How private is private browsing?: Firefox 3.5 (1), Chrome 3 (0) after 1 heat
• Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 2: Are bookmarks outmoded?: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (0) after 2 heats

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Mobile network operators O2 and Movistar, subsidiaries of Telefonica, will be Europe's first exclusive operators to carry the Palm Pre, the device maker announced today. O2 will offer the device In the UK, Ireland, and Germany, and Movistar will offer it in Spain, with availability some time before the holidays.

Rumors of a deal between Palm and Telefonica began to stir last week, with expectations of a price and launch date this week, but neither was supplied today.

O2 is also the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the UK and Ireland, and Movistar is is the device's exclusive carrier in Spain, meaning that Germany is the only country in the EU thus far to offer the Apple iPhone 3G S and Palm Pre on separate networks. Of course this will change soon, as countries such as Italy and France offer the iPhone on more than one network, and Palm plans to sell the Pre through multiple networks like it has done with various Treo models.

Back in North America, the Pre is expected to debut in "the second half of 2009" on Bell Mobility in Canada. Pricing and availability there are also still unknown.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

A European Commission policy review white paper released last week (PDF available here) was brought to light in the US this week by virtue of a comment from its most vocal opposition. Yesterday, press sources including IDG's Paul Meller quoted the Association for Competitive Technology's Jonathan Zuck as taking sides -- not surprisingly -- against the white paper, accusing the EC of bias in favor of open source software producers over commercial manufacturers.

"We remain concerned that the policy framework suggested in the white paper seems to favor open source software over proprietary software to achieve more interoperability," reads another citation of Zuck's statement. Ironically, Zuck's ACT Web site from which the statement originated appeared to be the victim of a crash in its open source asset management system this morning, so only second-hand citations of Zuck were available today.

Perhaps even more ironic, however, was that Zuck's comment may have completely overlooked one of the white paper's most striking, and potentially game-changing, policy directives for all players in the software industry, including favorite EC targets Microsoft and Google.

Currently, when the EC makes a decision about whether a major player is being anti-competitive or whether it may be leveraging standardization for its own proprietary gain, it relies on the opinions and contribution of something called a Senior Officials Group on IT (SOGITS). That group is made up entirely of representatives from the EU's member states. Sometimes those members may call on experts, but typically, the white paper noted, it's to support whatever case the member states want to make at the time.

Since standardization and interoperability affect more parties than just member states, the EC paper advised, it would be better if SOGITS were replaced with a permanent advisory board made up of what it calls "stakeholders" in information and communications technology (ICT), presumably including representatives of software companies and development groups.

"The Commission believes that SOGITS should be superseded by a platform representing all the stakeholders concerned," the white paper reads. "Such a platform should ensure a more coherent, transparent and consistent ICT standardization policy thus facilitating the development of high-quality ICT standards. It should also provide the Commission and the Member States with expert advice on matters concerning ICT standardization policy and its implementation."

The white paper left the definition of "stakeholders" broad, essentially enabling the reader to conclude that it includes everyone who plays a role in the development and implementation of technology.

The big problem the EC continues to face, the white paper does point out, is that the processes of standardization and interoperability are still hampered by the imposition of patent claims and proprietary rights. Fairer terms for establishing royalties (FRAND) does help, but that help becomes limited once those proprietary claims become compounded. Presumably, standardization should comb through all those claims to at least make sense of them all, but that only works if the standard is less complicated than the technology. The direct implication here is that political bureaucracy, perhaps the kind introduced by SOGITS, only makes things worse.

The solution the white paper proposes is a surprisingly friendly one for commercial interests -- one which Zuck also appeared to ignore: Patents should describe what technology is, while standards should reflect what technology does.

"Standards should whenever possible be performance oriented rather than based on design or descriptive characteristics. They should not distort the (global) market and should maintain the capacity for implementers to develop competition and innovation based upon them," the panelists wrote. "Additionally, and in order to enhance their stability, standards should be based on advanced scientific and technological developments."

If adopted, these recommendations could represent a real turning point in relations between the European Commission and software interests, which up to now have been driven by the political debate between "openness" and property rights. Under the guidance of a new "platform," as the panel suggests, representatives from the software industry itself may have a voice in guiding interoperability policy. Though the white paper does not say so explicitly, however, activist groups such as the ACT may not be qualified as "stakeholders" under the new platform, which could be the catalyst for the group's complaint today.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

After all the noise Sony made about avoiding the term "netbook" with the release of its Vaio P ultraportable, and the statements Senior Vice President Mike Abary made about the Eee PC before that, it was beginning to look like Sony was never going to release a device in the netbook/mini-note form factor. But that has changed.

Today, Sony officially launched its first netbook. The 10.1-inch Windows XP-based Vaio W runs on a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N280, has 1 GB of RAM, and a 160 GB SATA HDD. It's equipped with 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, a built-in Webcam, and offers 1366 x 768 screen resolution -- higher-than-usual for netbook screens.

Unlike many other companies who are aligning with mobile broadband chipmakers and network operators to make their products truly mobile, Sony says the Vaio W is for use in the home as a secondary or maybe even tertiary computer.

To retain the traditional Vaio emphasis on multimedia, the W comes with Vaio Media Plus streaming multimedia software, which lets the netbook interact with DLNA-compatible household devices, such as a PC, PlayStation 3, or HDTV. But since it is a netbook after all, it is being touted less as a media portal, and more as a creature comfort.

The company paints the device as an Internet companion suitable only for the most superficial tasks. Sony's introduction of the Vaio W in Europe says, "While watching TV or reading a magazine, you've probably experienced the urge to look up something on the Internet that you've just seen or read but couldn't be bothered getting up to your desktop PC..." That's where the Vaio W is useful.

It's quite emblematic of Sony's attitude toward netbooks. The $999 Vaio P offers a smaller footprint, is equipped with GPS, mobile broadband, and the same Vaio Media Plus software mentioned earlier, but is absolutely not a netbook. The W, which Sony calls a "mini-note" in English language releases, and an "Internetbook" in Japanese language releases, is stripped of most of its mobility features and is being marketed as a mostly superfluous and unnecessary device. After all, Abary did say if netbooks caught on, "We're all in trouble. That's just a race to the bottom."

If you can be bothered to get up off the couch and buy one, the Vaio W will debut in August for $499, and can be pre-ordered at Sonystyle.com.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In an announcement yesterday, Microsoft representative Peter Galli (a former ZDNet blogger) told the company's shared source community that it's decided to make its C# programming language and the Common Language Infrastructure model that makes C# programs run in the .NET Framework, available under the company's unilateral Community Promise.

As a result, it may become feasible for anyone to build a C# interpreter and a compatible CLI, or even a C# low-level compiler -- not even necessarily for Windows -- without having to pay Microsoft a fee. The implementer now need only promise in turn not to take IP infringement actions against Microsoft, essentially accepting that the technology is Microsoft's to give away. "The Promise applies to developers, distributors, and users of Covered Implementations without regard to the development model that created the implementations, the type of copyright licenses under which it is distributed, or the associated business model," Galli wrote.

Previously, C# and the CLI were only available under the Microsoft Reference License. That meant that developers could see the source code (thus the "sharing"), but could only contribute corrections or additions to the code in the context of its original distribution from Microsoft. They could not create their own derivatives or improvements and distribute them for themselves.

Back in October 2007, there was an initial wave of enthusiasm as Microsoft appeared to release the source code for its entire .NET Framework to the open source community. But that's not actually what happened; instead, it made the source code visible under the Reference License. The reason for that, it turned out, was more self-serving than a gift to the community: For Visual Studio's debugging tools to work thoroughly for .NET applications, it needed to be able to debug not just the developers' code, but Microsoft's as well -- which meant that developers needed to be able to see what was being debugged. The Reference License did permit that.

At the time, that revelation prompted blogger Robert Scoble to withdraw his initial enthusiasm, declaring Microsoft's move "lamer" than those of competitors Adobe and Sun Microsystems, which had completely opened their Flex and Java frameworks, respectively, to the open source community.

Both C# and the underlying CLI were accepted as ECMA international standards way back in July 2005. Technically, that's what enabled a team of developers led by Miguel de Icaza to produce Mono, a cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework that enables such radical implementations as a C#-based real-time gaming platform for the Mac. But in actuality, that project has been seen as enabled by Microsoft's controversial patent covenant with Novell, a principal backer of the Mono Project.

As a result, open source community members have been hesitant to redistribute Mono -- for instance, in conjunction with Linux distros -- believing that doing so may become legally interpreted as tacit acknowledgement that Microsoft originated C#'s and .NET's underlying technology...even though it's pretty clear that it did anyway.

Yesterday, in a blog post that was "overflowing with joy," de Icaza reported that Microsoft's move came at his request -- specifically, a request made to company representatives including Server and Tools Division President Bob Muglia to "clarify" the terms of the company's license. As he also made clear, however, Microsoft's move does not completely clarify everything for Mono, especially with regard to components such as its implementation of ASP.NET -- components that are still rooted to Microsoft technologies.

So the solution, de Icaza said, will be to make Mono available in split distributions: "In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + a lot more, into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Hey, guess what? Your Social Security number!

Afternoon of Monday, July 6, 2009 • Carnegie Mellon researchers have run the numbers, and with information on just your date and place of birth, they can predict with decent accuracy some or all of the digits of your Social Security number. The problem's especially severe for the 21-and-under crowd, whose numbers were uniformly assigned soon after birth and therefore conform especially closely to certain well-known numbering patterns. The authors of the survey said they were able to ID all nine numbers of test subjects' SSN in fewer than 1,000 tries for 8.5% of that population, making those numbers "no more secure than a three-digit PIN." In smaller states such as Delaware, they could guess 1 out of 20 numbers in 10 or fewer attempts. The research is available at the link above and will be presented today (Tuesday) on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors will also present at Black Hat later this month.

The political blogs are out in front with this story. (You reporter plans to tackle it tomorrow for Lockdown, by the way.) The Daily Kos goes to town on not only the SSN system but on the equally messed-up Green Card ID system, asking if we have "the political will and the administrative drive" to unscrew a system so outmoded and compromised. Randolph E. Schmidt tackles the story for Real Clear Politics, scoring a quote from a Social Security Administration official who calls claims that the code has been cracked a "dramatic exaggeration"... but says the SSA was planning to start randomizing those numbers next year anyway.

Code theft of trading-system IP could get interesting for Goldman Sachs

Since July 3, 2009 • The unfolding story of Sergey Aleynikov, Goldman Sachs, Teza and some highly sensitive trade secrets will unfold for weeks, and though tech (specifically, Goldman's powerful trading tech) is at the heart of the matter, it's the effect on the markets and the way mega-traders such as Goldman do business you'll want to watch.

For straight-up reporting, Bloomberg's David Glovin and Christine Harper have the bases covered. Zero Hedge is the go-to site for sparky commentary on the developing situation -- not the tech details, but excellent context and a great overview of how this may prove to be not just a significant breach but a matter of national security. New York's Jessica Pressler picked up the most entertaining angle: Apparently Mr. Aleynikov is a more-than-passable ballroom dancer.

Sprint and Best Buy offering a 99-cent netbook, sort of

In your Sunday circular • May Sprint interest you in some EVDO action? If you don't mind hauling to your nearest Best Buy, the telco's offering a deal: Sign up for a two-year contract, and they'll throw in a wee Compaq Mini 110c-1040DX for the price of a soft taco. Kevin C. Tofel at jkOnTheRun ("Using mobile devices since they weighed 30lbs") spotted the deal and did the math; at $60/month for service, that's a $1440 99-cent netbook you're getting. FierceWireless reminds us that we've seen a few more tentative runs at this business model already.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, RIAA make various grating requests

Monday, July 6 • Jammie Thomas, as per Ars Technica and Wired, would like that $1.92 million file-sharing judgment thrown out. The RIAA, as per the Associated Press and Home Media Magazine, would like the court to ban Ms. Thomas-Rasset from downloading or sharing any more tracks, and want the court to compel her to delete the tracks she's got. Your reporter wants all parties to fall in a deep, deep hole.

Take notes, Yahoo will make its latest comeback play today

Morning of July 7, 2009 > We're expecting Yahoo to come forth later today with the public beta launch of Search Note, a service for users to take comprehensive, sustained notes on the Web sites that users locate using Yahoo search.

Now, Google is already out there today with its usual deflating comments, saying stuff like, "We've already got that." But Yahoo is looking for a way to get back in the game, especially in the realm of public opinion -- though it's still the #2 search engine in terms of traffic, it's been #3 in terms of buzz, thanks to Microsoft's somewhat successful Bing rebranding.

So expect Search Note to be a feature that puts Yahoo more prominently in the user's face throughout the entire research session, rather than exiting once the user thinks he's found what he's looking for. Betanews will start testing Search Note later today (assuming the launch goes as planned), and we'll let you know what we find.

Nation's new top trustbuster will take the lead on cell phone exclusivity deals

July 2009 > After The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday unofficial information stating the US Dept. of Justice's new antitrust chief, Christine Varney, will spearhead a probe into cellular carriers' exclusive deals with phone manufacturers (such as AT&T/Apple), the lack of denial on anyone's part probably means the probe will happen. There's no official word yet from the Justice Dept., though we may expect a statement as soon as today.

The news comes after Congress held hearings into the matter, placing an AT&T president on the witness stand amid a largely hostile environment. There, Paul Roth testified that deals such as the one his company made with Apple for the iPhone actually drive innovation, since they enable monetary investments and guarantees that might not otherwise happen. Roth did have some backing up there, but Sen. John Kerry (D - Mass.) eliminated any hint of neutrality on the subject, heading a barrage of questions that frequently suggested an absense of a quorum. Sen. Kerry remains on point on this issue, as he will likely join incoming FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and the DOJ's Varney in a public triumvirate that may cast suspicion on a practice whose alleged negative effects on competition may be under suspicion themselves.

Dell could pay thousands for that $15 monitor

This week > The Associated Press reports this morning that a pricing error that emerged on Dell's Taiwanese Web site has placed the manufacturer in hot water with the country's trade authorities. After having marked its Latitude E4300 notebook computer at 30% of its actual retail price, and marked a 19-inch LCD monitor at the equivalent of just over $15, the Fair Trade Commission -- the same agency that fined Intel last year -- is threatening to fine Dell if it doesn't honor those mis-marked prices, at least for the customers who saw them.

Reportedly, Dell did offer misinformed customers a discount of some kind, but just not a 70% discount. The company faces possible threats of up to roughly $750,000.

Tuesday's tech headlines

The Register

• Rik Myslewski reports that we could start getting projection-capable cameraphones in our hot little hands as early as the end of the year.

• Some British police are now sporting uniform-embedded video cameras for on-the-hoof documentation of situations in which they might find themselves. But there's a problem that has nothing to do with surveillance, Lewis Page writes: According to union head Peter Smyth, "a couple of [the camera units] have caught fire, which isn't ideal." You don't say.

• A teenager in New Zealand found some nakey pictures of his mom in the garage and decided to sell them online. His mom was okay with it. It's not quite as disturbing as the guy who called a radio station here to dedicate Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" to his mom, but it's sure up there.

Mashable

• You knew it was a matter of time: "twitter" is on its way to the Collins English Dictionary.

• Jockipedia's subject matter may not be to the taste of most Betanews readers, but Ben Parr sees some excellent thinking in the wiki-slash-social-networking site.

• Why does Stan Schroeder find the iPhone "Pocket Cemetery" app morbid? It's sweet. Remind your reporter of a project or two on The Final Curtain, in fact.

• It is more Twitter-esque that there exists a game called "Die Fail Whale," or that the game itself lasts just 25 seconds?

Ars Technica

• The American Chemical Society, bowing to the inevitable, has announced that it'll switch publishing media -- print to digital -- for all but a few of its many scientific journals. John TImmer has details, and thoughts.

• So where's Mac Quicken '09? And why has Intuit removed all reference to it on its Web site? Jacqui Cheng has questions.

San Jose Mercury News

• Larry Magid hit the National Educational Computing Conference in late June.He saw some great ideas from innovative teachers, but he's worried that the kids using "back channel" chats and messaging tech during classes will end up behaving like tech professionals at other conferences he's attending -- which is to say, like children.

• Chris O'Brien profiles Marc Canter, one of Silicon Valley's true originals, and wonders whether Northeast Ohio will know what hit it when the legendary multimedia wonk relocates there for his latest project.

And elsewhere

• The Washington Post's Michael Bimbaum tells of an online-education program designed specifically for girls. Subject matter varies from calculus-level math to art and literature, and the teaching style is more collaborative as girls are alleged to prefer. (Don't look at me, pal.)

• David Strom at Datamation clearly had a fine time compiling his list of 25 innovative-but dead tech products released over the years. #24 engendered much amusement over here, but where the heck is our beloved RocketBook or the original, far superior Sharp Zaurus?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In an announcement this morning, British Telecom said it has decided to halt BT Webwise, its prospective targeted advertising platform, calling the move a cost-cutting measure as the company invests £1.5 billion in improved broadband deployments. As a result, shares in the BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media joint Venture plummeted in value by some 40%.

In early 2008, BT, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media joined forces to build a single targeted ad platform for their respective subscribers. The service would provide the ISPs anonymized user search data so they could serve more appropriate advertisements. Unfortunately, after the service had been announced, BT admitted that it had already tested the service without telling users. This was naturally met with petitions and protest from angered users and privacy advocacy groups.

BT continued to test the service on an opt-in basis under the name "BT Webwise," but the public held a degree of skepticism about the platform's impact on privacy, which European Commission policymakers shared. By the time the second battery of tests rolled around, the EC had begun an investigation into the UK data protection laws which allowed the original Phorm tests to be conducted without customers' consent.

In her public address in April, European Commissioner Viviane Reding said, "European privacy rules are crystal clear: A person's information can only be used with their prior consent. We cannot give up this basic principle, and have all our exchanges monitored, surveyed and stored in exchange for a promise of 'more relevant' advertising! I will not shy away from taking action where an EU country falls short of this duty."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

There's an old ActiveX control hanging around many Windows systems that's still accessible to Internet Explorer, whose original purpose was to tune into MPEG2 transport streams -- typically live video streams sent from a server using MPEG2 format. Yes, MPEG2 transport streams still exist, but any more, browsers including IE8 have appropriate plug-ins to handle them -- Windows Media Player is one, Apple's QuickTime is another.

But still there's this ActiveX control sitting there doing nothing, waiting to be leveraged for an attack. Earlier today, Microsoft acknowledged a SANS Internet Storm Center report saying that there's an active exploit of this disused bit of functionality published on Chinese Web sites. Apparently malicious users are utilizing it now in "drive-by" attacks that could result, say security experts including Sophos' Graham Cluley, in installation and execution of nearly any malicious payload.

This morning, Microsoft security engineer Chengyun Chu noted that in order for a Web site to use this exploit to deliver this payload, the user would need to click on a link that launches that Web site. That makes Outlook relatively safe if that link is embedded in the type of e-mail message that says, "Check this out!" just so long as the user doesn't click on that link. In other words, the code cannot be triggered automatically through Microsoft's e-mail client.

While Cluley and others are chiding Microsoft for not coming up with a patch, the sad fact is, it actually might not need to. In this morning's security advisory, the company admitted right up front that its current set of engineers have forgotten what this ActiveX control was ever needed for: "Our investigation has shown that there are no by-design uses for this ActiveX Control in Internet Explorer which includes all of the Class Identifiers within the msvidctl.dll that hosts this ActiveX Control," the security advisory reads. "For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers, Microsoft is recommending removing support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer."

In the meantime, the company is recommending that users remove support for this control themselves. It's an easy process for anyone who's ever used REGEDIT before, although it's just a little arduous -- there are as many as 45 possible CLSID numbers for this single control (which shows you how ridiculous the ActiveX control management process was in its heyday). The security advisory lists them all, although you do not need to go through Microsoft's advised steps of cutting and pasting them all individually into Notepad (talk about making something more difficult than it has to be!).

Instead, you can use our much simpler method of making certain your Windows installation is safe by doing the following:

1. Open Security Advisory 972890 and scroll down to General Information. Open the Suggested Actions tier, followed by Workarounds, and scroll down until you see the long list marked Class Identifier.

2. Start the Windows Registry Editor (REGEDIT). (For Vista, you may need to click on Continue at the UAC prompt.)

3. In the left pane, open the folder corresponding to the Registry tier \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility. The good news here is that all the CLSIDs in this segment of the Registry, and all the CLSIDs in Microsoft's warning list, are in hexadecimal numerical order, so you won't have to search each one from top to bottom.

4. Scan the Registry to see if any of the CLSIDs correspond exactly to any of the 45 Registry items flagged by Microsoft. More than one may correspond. If none correspond, you are already safe from this exploit. Betanews was unable, for example, to find any of the 45 Registry entries on our Windows XP or Vista systems, and we don't expect to see it in Windows 7.

5. If you do find an offending CLSID, then do not delete it. That actually won't change anything at all, believe it or not. Instead, choose its entry from the left pane.

6. Check the right pane for a value named Compatibility Flags. If it does not yet exist, you'll need to create it. Right-click on the empty space in the right pane, and from the popup menu, select New, Binary Value. A new listing will be created that moment, which you'll need to rename. Type Compatibility Flags and Enter.

7. Right-click on Compatibility Flags and from the popup menu, select Modify. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, under Value data, type 400, leave the Base setting on Hexadecimal, then click on OK. Repeat this process for all the remaining CLSIDs in Microsoft's list.

What this does is set the kill bit for the control. It's still registered (and it's still taking up space on your hard drive, doing nothing), but now it's at least turned off, so it can't be leveraged in an attack.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today marks the beginning of ABC's arrival on Hulu. Last April, Disney's ABC Enterprises jumped aboard NBC Universal and News Corp's increasingly popular video syndication site, and this morning, the first ABC program was rolled out for streaming.

The first ABC show available on Hulu is the drama "Grey's Anatomy," of which five episodes have been posted. For the next two weeks, more content will be added, including episodes of the network's biggest hits like "Desperate Housewives" and "Scrubs." A month before Disney and ABC arrived at a deal with Hulu, the network agreed to first bring its content to YouTube, where it would supply clips of popular shows and short-form episodic content equipped with "different monetization options" than standard YouTube videos.

Hulu, which is accepted as a higher value site for professional content, now has a the lion's share of network support with content coming from NBC, Fox, ABC, and their subsidiaries, while CBS and The CW content is syndicated on CBS-owned TV.com. Though TV.com has posted significant gains in unique views and minute-by-minute engagement for five months straight, according to Nielsen Videocensus, CBS remains the last network standing unaffiliated with Hulu.

Additionally, erstwhile competitor Joost went through several format revisions before the death knell began to sound for that service last week.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Okay, so I raised a bit of a stink with last Friday's Wide Angle Zoom. So to make sure my position on Vista, operating systems, Microsoft and the future of the technological world under President Barack Obama's leadership are completely understood, I wanted to address some of the more...ah, pointed perspectives from the Comments section. I've paraphrased the wordings to protect the innocent. Here goes:

Vista is a great operating system. There's nothing wrong with it.

Technically, this is correct. Never did -- or would -- I say that Vista sucked. If it did, I wouldn't be using it on my primary laptop.

Microsoft continues to sell it, and will continue to provide support for it per its widely known schedule. But beyond the numbers, in a somewhat more spiritual context, Microsoft has already cut Vista out of the will. Marketing strategies that worked in 1999 don't work today as new form factors and ubiquitous wireless and broadband access have completely rewritten the OS landscape. The good old days, when Microsoft's dominance of the desktop was absolute, are over. We don't exclusively use desktops anymore, and the OS as we know it won't exist in a few years.

It's Vista's lousy timing to be the OS on sale when this process began to accelerate, but it's more than a little unfair to blame the product for this. Sometimes, the world just changes and nothing you can bake into a new-and-improved product can change that reality.

Microsoft messed up in releasing an OS that only ran properly on new PCs and ignored the needs of millions of existing customers.

By a show of hands, who runs out to the Best Buy at midnight and snaps up a shrink-wrapped box of a snazzy new OS? That may have been how we were introduced to Windows 95, but these days, we upgrade when we get new hardware.

I realize Betanews readers are infinitely more likely to have the technical chops to properly upgrade an existing machine. But the vast majority of the PC-buying consumers look more like my mother-in-law. They wouldn't know an OS from an S.O.S., and I'm going to guess you've never bumped into them in line at the big box store at midnight listening to the Rolling Stones croon "Start Me Up."

With the vast majority of operating systems delivered by OEM vendors on new machines, it's more than a bit silly to castigate Microsoft for ignoring its loyal base of millions of fans. Few of them really care that they're not running the latest and greatest version of Windows, and they'll be perfectly happy to upgrade when their existing computer gives up the ghost. When they go shopping, they're buying hardware, not operating systems. So forgive Microsoft for focusing its OS development efforts on something newer than a dust-covered Pentium II.

Microsoft is rushing Windows 7 out the door to recapture its OS leadership.

News flash: Microsoft still owns the OS market. Always has, and pretty much will for the next few years. As so many of you correctly pointed out, Vista was abnormally late to market. Microsoft usually follows a three-ish year cycle, and given Vista's abnormally long six-year gestation, Windows 7 more or less gets the company back on schedule. We can debate whether XP SP1 and SP2 merited "new OS" status until the cows come home, but the reality for Microsoft is we'll likely never see such big bang projects in OS-land again. Gradual evolution is the name of the game from here on out.

There are few other OS alternatives beyond Linux and Apple's Mac OS X.

Good point. One of the reasons why Windows has been as dominant as it is for as long as it has is because it combines a relatively easy-to-use UI with an ability to play nice with pretty much everyone's hardware. It's the biggest ecosystem out there, so developers and other third party vendors flock to it.

Is it technically better than anything else out there? We can debate that one until the cows leave home once again, but the answer is irrelevant. What matters is that it's good enough, and it has been good enough since Windows 3.1 finally relegated the command line-driven world of unfriendly DOS apps to the dustbin of history in 1992.

Vista isn't dead. It will live forever because some users just won't let go of it.

In a sense, every OS lives forever. In basements across the land, there are countless old machines running every form of DOS, Windows 3.X, 95, 98, and even Windows Me. The people who own these machines generally fall into two groups: enthusiasts who ardently love their old operating systems and can't bear to let them go, and regular folks like my mother-in-law who don't know the difference, and never saw the need to upgrade because it just worked. Generations of kids have grown up on supposedly obsolete hand-me-down PCs, and that won't change anytime soon.

But OS-huggers, mothers-in-law, and basement-dwelling kids don't make up the majority of the PC market. PC buyers do, and Microsoft, Apple, and every Linux vendor worth its salt will continue to focus on the folks with actual intentions of buying new hardware.

At the end of the day, most people just don't care about their OS. As long as it makes all the important things work reliably and invisibly, they're happy. And that's the thing with Vista: While the enthusiast community rages on about how great Vista is or how much it deserves to forever burn in effigy, the rest of the world has moved on. Barring evolutionary improvements, the OS as we know it is as good as it needs to get. Form factors are changing, new players (Google, anyone?) are hedging into Microsoft's turf, and it won't be long before the OS fades from its formerly starring role in your local electronics store.

But that's a discussion for another day, and a future column.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In the roughly six months since Bitstream's Bolt mobile browser debuted in beta at Mobile World Congress, it has been installed more than a million times, its developers said today. Like Skyfire, which also reached a million installs before RTM, this cross-platform mobile browser is designed to accelerate the browsing experience on resource-constrained devices.

Bolt is compatible with any mobile handset that supports the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) 2.0, the Java spec for embedded devices. Page rendering takes place outside of the phone on Bolt's servers, and content is heavily compressed for consumption, so even 2G freebie phones can handle full Web browsing. The app itself is only 140 Kb in size. Included in the huge list of supported devices are handsets from Research in Motion, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. There are versions specifically designed for BlackBerry and for entry-level phones.

One week ago, the browser's Beta 3 (version 1.04) was released, which welcomes the Webkit 4 rendering engine to the Bolt servers, and gives the user the ability to cut and paste, to upload files directly to sharing sites such as YouTube and Photobucket, and to enter text directly in online boxes without having to drop into a blank field (a problem that Skyfire similarly had in early releases.)

To become a Bolt tester, users must first register on Bitstream's site, where they are then given instructions on how to obtain the software.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Download Norton Internet Security 2010 beta from Fileforum now.

Download Norton Antivirus 2010 Beta from FileForum now.

Last year's update to Norton Antivirus focused on creating the lightest and fastest desktop antivirus offering, although it stuck to tried and true detection and prevention methods. With the threat landscape rapidly changing, and new malware techniques being widely used (server-side polymorphism, sandbox/VM detection, etc) the old signature-based antivirus methods have been rendered inadequate just no longer effective enough. In 2008, for example, there were 1.8 new threat definitions. Not even halfway through 2009, there were already 1.25 million and more being added every day.

It doesn't mean signatures absolutely do not work, but viruses are changing so rapidly that recognition software is struggling to keep its head above water. This is why Symantec is taking a new three-pronged approach to virus protection with Norton 2010. The three additional methods are: application reputation, behavioral malware detection, and increased user education.

An application's reputation is determined by millions of Norton community users who contribute their application data, statistically determining whether a piece of software is trustworthy or not. Sort of like a reverse signature, the most commonly installed applications have credibility and are therefore not classified as threats.

Behavioral malware detection is performed by SONAR 2, Norton 2010's heuristic engine that watches the behavior of the PC and rates every file and every process according to its activity. This develops a sort of running checklist of the reliability of everything on a system at any given time.

Since the user is often the weakest link in a system's defenses, social engineering threats continue to be a major problem. If a system has been infected, Norton 2010's updated gauges describe "in plain English" what happened so novices can quickly understand what went wrong, with enough granularity for more tech savvy users to find out the origin of their infection and what activities it performed.

"This time, we said we wouldn't mess around with the main UI." Dave Cole, Symantec's Senior Director of Product Management told Betanews. "But we introduced a new side, which is not just about apps being good or bad, it's for helping users manage their resources in a visual environment. If someone's just downloaded an app, we'll make all the data we have available to them that is visible. That means reputation data or performance data is exposed for people to self-diagnose."

Norton Internet Security 2010 has finally been endowed with the Brightmail corporate anti-spam engine, which is not based simply on training a system which senders are trustworthy, but is heuristics-based. Additionally, NIS 2010's traditional parental control system can be replaced with a free subscription to onlinefamily.norton.com, the Web-based access control system which Symantec debuted earlier this year.

"Is the parental control software market so small because people don't care, or because the existing software is just no good?" Cole posited, "When we debuted Online Family, we didn't want to use the model based on spyware or restrictions or keyloggers, we wanted a product based on trust. Parents want house rules and transparency, where they are the decision-makers, not the software."

In its availability announcement today, Symantec boasted about one key feature: "Performance: We are determined never to take our eye off that particular ball again." Let's see if it means what it says. Symantec's betas are now available for Windows XP SP2, Vista, and Windows 7 RC.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Adding to the swollen category of "rumored Android device makers," Nokia was briefly rumored to be readying a touchscreen smartphone based on the Android mobile OS for Nokia World in September.

But rather than say it doesn't comment on rumors as companies often do, Nokia flatly denied the rumor, citing the "well known fact" that Symbian is its platform of choice.

And a well known fact it is. Nokia's attachment to Symbian has given that family of mobile OS over half of the market's share. However, the mobile phone market is expected to shrink by 10% overall this year while the smartphone becomes the dominant device profile; and in March, NPD found that Symbian is actually losing its dominant position quite rapidly.

Still, it seems that any company without a dominant touchphone has become the subject of similar Android rumors. LG, Motorola, Acer, and others have all been tapped to wheel out the next big Android device, yet only HTC and Samsung have completed products. Sony Ericsson, too, has joined the rumor pool with leaked mockups of "Racheal," an Android-based XPERIA device which is supposed to be equipped with a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 8.1 megapixel camera. Unfortunately, this potentially impressive device is still at the early phases of rumor and exists only in pictures.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews

Drenched with "Purple Ra1n," iPhone users caught eating "redsn0w"

Afternoon of Sunday, July 5, 2009 • If you're a Mac user and you're wondering where those fruit-punch-looking stains on your keyboard are coming from, well, it must be an outbreak of "Purple Ra1n." Last Friday, independent developer GeoHot gave iPhone 3G S users a shower of sorts with his pwnage tool for Windows, enabling iPhone users to install their own apps outside of AT&T's control. Yesterday collaborator Ari Weinstein ported that tool to the Mac, although he also acknowledged that for the "full freedom experience," users should turn to the Dev-Team's "redsn0w" tool, for unlocking their 3G S units from the AT&T network.

Andreessen co-launching new venture-cap firm

Evening of Sunday, July 5, 2009 • The founder of Netscape and his longtime business partner Ben Horowitz have looked at those other Valley VC firms and figured out a fresh angle: Two general partners, one approval process. Andreessen Horowitz will launch with $300 million and is prepared to address companies at any stage along the launch continuum.

In a statement this morning, the partnership said it is willing to commit up to $50 million at a time, to any entrepreneurial venture at any stage of its development -- in other words, not necessarily fresh startups. This could be a boon for any venture looking to make a second or third try at a good idea.

Om Malik takes a look at the firm's wide net and streamlined process, while Sarah Lacy at TechCrunch got some quality time with the ever-quotable Mr. Andreessen and pulls out five points guaranteed to stir up conversation. (Guess how many VC firms Andreessen expects will go out of business in the next decade?) And those around long enough to hear "Andreessen and Horowitz" and think wait, didn't those guys hate each other? will enjoy Kevin Maney's take for Fortune.

Browser trends amuse nerds throughout holiday weekend

July 2008 - July 2009 • StatCounter's got a lovely batch of browser-adoption stats posted to its site, and since not everyone enjoys fireworks, an assorted of tech folk poked and prodded at the numbers throughout the weekend.

There's fun for everyone in there. Your reporter, for instance, is impressed by BlackBerry's massive jump in share over the past four months, from 4.74% in March to 20.83% this month, making it a close third-place finisher behind the iTouch. (Equally impressive is Android's drop during the same period, from 6.12% to .07%. Ow.) Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch, on the other hand, notices that IE has lost 11.4% of share in that period to Firefox, Safari and Chrome. At Technologizer, Harry McCracken notes that such numbers probably aren't cheerful for Microsoft, which will have to convince folks to switch (back) to IE to rebuild market share -- something that, according to his Twitter followers, isn't likely.

ABC shows start to appear on Hulu

Over the weekend • So you missed the final episode of Scrubs? As of Saturday night, that and various other ABC shows are popping up on Hulu, the happy result of the deal announced back in April.

LucasArts to spill "awesome news for our old school fans"

Sometime Monday, July 6 > LucasArts spent Sunday whipping up excitement on the Twitter concerning the announcement of... something. One of their old-school titles is getting a fresh release. If George Lucas wishes to atone for the sins of Star Wars 1-3, it will be a DS release of Grim Fandango.

Flounder-flat CrunchPad nears launch

In a few weeks > CrunchPad, a Michael Arrington project, has announced that working prototypes of its much-awaited Linux-based Web tablet are on the way to their offices, and he'll have more to say about it at a press-and-user gathering in the Valley later this month. There's no keyboard and no hard drive, though scrutiny of images at the link above seems to reveal at least one USB port as well as something that looks a lot like a memory-card slot. (You can see plenty of the browser and the onscreen keyboard, as well as the onboard camera, in the YouTube video below.) The apparently-final prototype both slimmed down and plumped up slightly, with body depth down to a willowy 18mm and the price up a bit to around $300 (estimated).

Web 2.0-related horror film on the way for Halloween

October 13, 2009 > Like Charles Durning? Of course you do. About six years ago, he and Billy Dee Williams and some other actors made a movie called iMurders, concerning a "Facespace chat room" and the murders of various participants thereon. We know that movies with Internet hooks are generally so bad they're... well, bad. This one is going straight to DVD now. Based on the trailer I believe the words we're after are "delightfully sleazy."

Monday's tech headlines (special legal-affairs edition)

Technology & Marketing Law Blog

• Eric Goldman's fine blog has a couple of interesting case in the spotlight. First, he looks at Satterfield v Simon & Shuster, in which a plaintiff who signed up for "free ringtones from Firm A ended up having her phone number sold and resold repeatedly, and getting a bunch of unwanted text spam as a result.

• Meanwhile, it has apparently been a banner year for trials concerning one of the few bits of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that survive to this day. 47 USC 230 in a sense codifies the old "you own your own words" attitude of the Net; specifically, protecting Web sites and such from being liable as "the publishers" of content posted by someone else (generally speaking, users). In the courts, this has been working out to a lot of cases of people suing sites (eg., MySpace) for bad things that happened when users met other users offline. Fascinating stuff.

The Legal Satyricon

• The Satyricon -- known to you perhaps for its strong language as well as its great analysis -- is remarkably restrained in its coverage of last week's Lori Drew decision, choosing mainly to link back to its previous reporting on the matter, in which they fairly accurately predicted Judge Wu's assessment of the situation.

• In a similar vein, Marc Randazza has a barn-burner of a post on why the Nikki Catsouras situation is, like the Lori Drew case, one in which one's gut reaction -- eagerness to suppress some horrible, horrible photos -- is at odds with what makes for good law. If you're still furious at Drew (and if you caught her self-satisfied smirking over the weekend, I'll just bet you are), read Randazza's essay and see how you feel by the end.

New York Times

• What's Micron got to be cheerful about after ten consecutive quarterly losses? Maybe more than you realize, says Brooke Crothers.

• Symantec? McAfee? Are you running either of the two leading anti-malware packages? Ashlee vance thinks you may or may not have noticed that the two firms are in a heated competition for end users -- and that sometimes companies in battles like that do things that aren't so nice.

Engadget

• Is Sony aiming to go Nintendo's Wii one (or more) better? Paul Miller has an overview (and a diagram!) of a Sony patent application for tech that can detect ordinary objects -- not merely controllers -- and store data about them for future use.

• Is your workplace sufficiently dehumanizing? No? Talk to your boss about new technology from Japan that'll let him/her strap cameras and ankle sensors to the employees for surveillance purposes. There, fixed it for you.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009