Microsoft Vs. Apple: 5 Reasons the Outcome will be Different this Time

Back in the day Apple Computers unveiled the Apple Macintosh a personal computer that was a revolutionary innovation in terms of User Interface and Usability. Microsoft responded to it not by creating its own PC but just by developing (they actually got it from somewhere) an Operating System, Windows. What happened next is history and is taught in the CS curriculum around the world.

Fast forward 2 decades, Apple launches iPhone a phone that is atleast a decade ahead of its time when it comes to usability and interface design. Microsoft is targeting it once again, not with a phone of its own but once again a piece of software, DeepFish.

Deepfish is a mobile browser that preserves the layout of documents on the small screen and makes Web Navigation easier, enabling users to zoom in and out of a page, downloading only the pages users are interested in. The browser uploads a thumbnail of pages initially and keeps navigation menus, search results, news headlines etc in tact.

The question is “Can Microsoft do it yet again ?“. The answer is plain and simple NO, and here are the top 5 reasons why 2007 is not like 1984.

1. Microsoft Itself: Microsoft is no longer the underdog that no one knows about. After spending 2 decades in the industry every kid in town knows about the anti competitive, innovation grabber machine called Microsoft fair well.

2. IBM does not make mobile phones: IBM does not make mobile phones, on which the browser could be pre installed like the windows was done on IBM PC’s 2 decades ago. So In order for the browser to gain market share Microsoft will need to have partnerships with Nokia, Samsung and other mobile manufacturers. Keeping in view Microsoft´s reputation this ain’t gonna happen this time.

3. iPod: This reason might sound whack, but this time its Apple itself in the boots of IBM. Apple now enjoys the same status in the mobile portable music world which IBM enjoyed in the PC world. The tremendous success of iPod has build Apple´s brand and has made it a household name, far beyond the geek only world.

4. Blogosphere: Apple generated millions worth of PR without spending a dime on the launch of iPhone and not only this it single handedly eclipsed the entire electronics world gathered at CES for Tech Glitz and Buzz. This is made possible because of a new form of publishing called blogging, a place where Apple enjoy huge and loyal following.

Compare this to the billions Microsoft is spending on Vista marketing and PR and yet i don’t even know how many editions it has, or how is live mail and live messenger different from hotmail and msn messenger.

5. Open Source: As if all the above were not enough, we now have competition in the form of Open source Mozilla project, Minimo. Minimo boasts faster access, support for modern web standards like Javascript and AJAX, social bookmarking, tag browsing and RSS support (much of which Deepfish lacks).

http://startupmeme.com/2007/03/29/microsoft-attacks-apple-iphone-top-5-reasons-the-outcome-will-be-different-this-time/

It’s Google’s World, We Must Live In It True or False?

Rivals are mad as hell and they’re not gonna take it anymore.

It's the year 2014, and Googlezon, a fearsomely powerful combination of search engine Google Inc. and online store Amazon.com Inc., has crushed traditional media to bits. Taking its place is the computer-generated Evolving Personalized Information Construct—an online package of news, entertainment, blogs, and services drawn from all the world's up-to-the-minute knowledge and customized to match your preferences. And it's all collected, packaged, and controlled by Googlezon.

This is the future according to EPIC 2014, a faux documentary posted to the Web in late 2004 by young journalists Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan. Thanks to their slightly tongue-in-cheek, Twilight Zone-inspired tone, the short video drew as many chuckles as gasps of dismay from the media types who viewed it. Today, nobody's laughing.

That simple little search box we all use every day? As the place nearly 400 million people each month start on the Internet, it's the No. 1 gateway to the Net's vast commercial potential. With more data on what people are searching for, Google can serve up the most targeted and relevant advertisements alongside the results, drawing more clicks, more cash, more users—you get the idea. Consumers love Google's simplicity and results, which is why it draws 56% of all searches. No wonder eager advertisers shoveled some $10.6 billion into Google's coffers last year, up an astonishing 73% from 2005. If you can believe it, Google's $144 billion market value tops that of Time Warner, Viacom , CBS , ad agency giant Publicis Groupe , and the New York Times Co. combined.

To the consternation of many of those companies and more, Google is now using that market cap, along with its $11 billion hoard of cash and investments, to storm a wide range of traditional markets. It's selling ads in newspapers, magazines, radio, and, in a trial program, television. In February it fired a torpedo at the software industry with a suite of online office software it is selling for a small fraction of the price of Microsoft Corp.'s Office. It's spooking the telecom industry with fledgling efforts to provide free wireless Internet access. Google's phenomenal ad machine, in short, has the potential to vaporize the profits of any industry that traffics in bits and bytes and to shift the economics to the advantage of Google, its users, and its cadre of partners. "It's Google's world," shrugs Chris Tolles, vice-president of marketing at Topix Inc.. "We just live in it."

Googlezon, GoogleWorld, just plain Google—whatever you call it, it's scaring the wits out of everyone from the power lunchers of Hollywood to Madison Avenue ad moguls to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Now, after years of hand-wringing and thumb-twiddling, some of them are pulling out the heavy artillery and firing one round after another on the Googleplex, the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The latest salvo: On Mar. 22, NBC Universal and News Corp. announced big plans for a rival to Google's enormously popular YouTube video site that will run not only television show clips but even full-length movies on Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft's MSN, MySpace.com, and other partner sites.

Just the week before, Viacom sued Google for a headline-grabbing $1 billion, charging YouTube with willfully infringing on copyrights by allowing users to upload clips of The Colbert Report, South Park, and other TV shows. A couple of weeks earlier, Copiepress, a group representing Belgian and German newspapers, won a copyright case that could sharply limit Google's usefulness if it sets a precedent. And get this: In the Valley and Washington, D.C., there's even cocktail party chatter about whether the search giant's power needs to be reined in by antitrust regulators. It's unlikely to happen but is an indication of rivals' growing trepidation about Google. Says Paul Martino, chief executive of the search service Aggregate Knowledge Inc.: "We're beginning to see the Anything But Google' backlash."

And something bigger. Google is ground zero in a battle among traditional media and tech industry leaders and startups alike for the hearts and minds of the world's consumers—or at least their eyeballs and wallets. To an extent that none of the first generation of dot-coms did, Google has come to represent all our hopes, dreams, and fears about the disruptive promise and dangers of the Internet.

The question now: Does the pushback against Google mark that turning point when a successful company's power starts to work against it? Could be. "

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_15/b4029001.htm

Apple's iPhone will be released on June 11

Ever since The Jerkoff's keynote at the Macworld Expo in January, we've known that the iPhone is being released sometime in June. But we haven't known exactly when.

Now Cingular is confirming that the release date will be June 11. A customer service manager at Cingular (we called 800-947-5096 and were transferred to sales) gave us that date late Thursday, but, alas, said he didn't have any additional information beyond that.

That date is no coincidence. It's the first day of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled to be held in San Francisco from June 11 through June 15. (Incidentally, the agenda includes a focus on Leopard, the next generation of OS X that's supposed to be released sometime in the second quarter of 2007.)

Rumors have been swirling about the iPhone release date. One blog pointed to a release date of June 15 based on alleged documents filed with the FCC, but those have been shown to be a hoax.

http://news.com.com/2061-10801_3-6171953.html

Jobs Gives Microsoft a Big Wet Sloppy

Apple has released a new update to its Boot Camp software that will now support Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.

The latest 138MB download of the Boot Camp 1.2 beta is now available through the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's Web site.

The Boot Camp software allows Intel-based Macs to run Windows. In addition to having an Intel-based Mac, beta requires the user to have at least Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.6 or a later version of the company's operating system.

The full release of Boot Camp will come with Apple's newest OS, called Leopard, which several analysts claim could be released sometime in April, although Apple has not announced a specific date.

The latest update to Boot Camp will support all versions of Vista, which includes Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. The software continues to support both XP Home and XP Professional.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2109329,00.asp

Dell pricks up its ears: Coming soon to a desktop near you: pre-installed Linux

Hot on the heels of Dell news yesterday, the computer maker has announced plans to release PCs and laptops that ship with the Linux operating system.

Desktoplinux.com was given the nod by Dell yesterday, which indicated its intention to provide home users with pre-installed Linux on a select range of its PCs and laptops, which could include both the Inspiron and Dimension models.

What this means for its partnership with Microsoft is not yet known, but given the concerns expressed on various forums since the release of Vista, it seems Dell has finally decided to sit-up and listen to its customers.

Hardware support is expected to be the same as Windows-based systems, but Dell said users will have to rely on the Linux community for software support, according to Desktoplinux.com.

Dell carried out a survey earlier this month to find out if it was worth getting on board the Linux ship. The results garnered from over 100,000 people were positive, with more than 70 per cent in favour of the operating system for use both at home and in the office.

A Dell statement on its Ideas in Action website reads: "Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today."

Dell's Linux software architect, Matt Domsch, said on his blog that the company plans to focus on an open source driver strategy to give users a wide choice of Linux distributions.

Said Domsch, "We will work with our hardware partners to develop, test, and maintain free drivers and continue to make progress towards that goal for all drivers," but added: "There's no way to please everyone." No shinola, Sherlock.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/29/dell_linux_systems/

Microsoft to snap up DoubleClick

Microsoft wants to buy New York-based online advertising firm DoubleClick, according to the Wall Street Journal. DoubleClick, which is majority-owned by private equity firm Hellman and Friedman, is said to be exploring options and working closely with Morgan Stanley to secure a possible sale with Microsoft.

A $2bn price tag has been placed on DoubleClick by the private equity firm. DoubleClick, which was founded in 1996 and went private in 2005, has seen revenue of $150m in the last year.

But what's in it for Microsoft? Sure, Redmond could find a cheaper way to build or buy some ad-serving software. And paying $2bn to replace Atlas GMT, Microsoft's current ad-serving software of choice, for an inhouse service looks somewhat weird.

Which means that Microsoft would be paying a big premium to extend hooks into ad agencies and publishers, giving it some more clout in its struggle against Goliath Google.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/28/microsoft_double_click/

Tech Alert! Patent Overhaul now on D.C. Agenda

Think this has nothing to do with you? Think again.

When Dems took control of Congress last election, the lobbyists for all the big technology and telecom companies in Washington pulled out their wish lists, ripped them up, and re-arranged their legislative priorities.

The push for sweeping telecommunications legislation, hemispheric-wide free-trade agreements and limitations on Internet taxes was so over. Only a Republican Congress and White House could agree upon those. A new priority has emerged: overhauling the nation’s patent system. Seemingly out of nowhere, it is suddenly all the talk of Washington’s political-corporate machinations.

For the big boys of the technology industry – Apple, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft and Intel – swatting down patent litigation has been a steadily increasingly nuisance. Just last month, Microsoft defended against an infringement claim against AT&T at the U.S. Supreme Court.

But why should so-called “patent reform” rocket to prominence with Democrats in power? Two words: Big Pharma.

Drug companies have been never been chummy with the Democrats. In the past two decades, pharmaceutical manufacturers and their employees have given more than twice as much — $29.9 million versus $14.8 million – to Republicans than to Democrats. Democrats have returned the favor by pushing for re-importation of prescription drugs, lower drug prices, and other anathema topics. Changing patent laws fits into the same category.

Computer and software companies pride themselves on their even-handedness. They dispensed $31.5 million, versus $30.2 million, for Republicans over Democrats during a similar period. And the high-tech camp cannily plays to the vanities of those who govern, whether that is bridging the digital divide or keeping stock options from being listed on balance sheets.

Now the big tech titans have a new best friend: California Democrat Howard Berman, the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Berman has been a patent skeptic for years, having sponsored legislation to limit the validity of “business method” patents. Last month Berman called patent legislation his panel’s “highest priority.” And he blasted Big Pharma, which is content with the status quo, for using their Republican ties to kill legislation last Congress.

With Democrats in charge, the big tech players love to frame the patent issue as one of Big Pharma versus Silicon Valley. They’ve formed a Coalition for Patent Fairness, and they say that patent law must adapt to the more inter-dependent nature of innovation.

Now, however, an increasing minority of tech companies are kvetching, crying foul and fighting back. Led by Qualcomm in a new lobbying force called Innovation Alliance, these chip-design companies see a thinly veiled ploy by dominant tech incumbents. “Patent reform,” they say, would hobble their disruptive technologies and their business model. It is centered on licensing, not manufacturing, their intellectual property.

http://gigaom.com/?p=8546&akst_action=share-thi

Apple, Dell and Sony Sucked into Bluetooth Slugfest

Apple Inc., Dell Inc., Sony Corp. and five other tech companies were added to a lawsuit over patents covering Bluetooth, threatening their use of a wireless- communication standard that's in millions of devices.

The nonprofit Washington Research Foundation sued Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and Nokia Oyj over Bluetooth in Seattle federal court in December. Apple, Dell and Sony were added as defendants March 15, along with Logitech International SA, Motorola Inc., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Toshiba Corp. and Plantronics Inc., court papers show.

The suit threatens the ability of the computer and device makers to deliver wireless capabilities to customers. The companies are accused of infringing four patents covering technology that lets users exchange data among mobile phones, personal computers and other devices without using cables.

The Seattle-based foundation, which has generated more than $150 million for the University of Washington, is asking for money damages and a court order barring the sale of products that use the patented technology. More than 1 billion devices worldwide are equipped with Bluetooth technology, according to the Bellevue, Washington-based Bluetooth Special Interest Group.

Apple incorporated Bluetooth into the Mac operating-system software to let users link to devices with the wireless standard. Dell, the world's second-largest personal computer maker, built Bluetooth into its machines and offers Bluetooth wireless keyboards.

Bob Pearson, a spokesman/lickspital for Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation. Cupertino, California-based Apple also doesn't comment on pending lawsuits, said spokeswoman Susan Lundgren. Ann Morfogen, a spokeswoman for Sony in the U.S., didn't immediately return a call.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aba7x1sdhmOg&refer=japan

IBM jumps on board sinking mortgage ship

As everyone else jumps off The Good Ship Lollipop... Why ask why?

Just as the US mortgage biz flushes itself down the toilet, Big Blue has said it will offer software and computers that will help process wannabe homebuyers' applications.

Based in North Carolina, IBM Lender Business Process Services Inc will include consultancy, mortgage processing, and management of home loan paperwork on behalf of lenders. The technologies on offer include digital imaging products and optical character recognition, which IBM hopes will help ease the burden of paperwork for mortgage lenders and borrowers.

It will also outsource loan processing services with IBM employees gathering up documents from the time a loan completes into one package for underwriters to review.

New technology has been fingered as one of the drivers of the soaring US housing sector in the first half of this decade. The problem is the wheels now seem about to come off, with the housing market feeling the bite of a slowing economy, and a brewing scandal over over-enthusiastic lending to customers with questionable credit histories.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/03/27/ibm_mortgage_service/

Is Apple pulling a Microsoft over Leopard?

Unless you’ve bee hiding under a nearby rock, you know there were reports over the weekend that Apple's newest OS X release named Leopard would be pushed back to October. Well, some Apple insiders took note of these reports and went right to the source. The original report said, “…the launch delay is not due to software design problems with Leopard but instead is attributed to Apple's plan to have its new OS support Windows Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp.”

Boot Camp is software from Apple that allows the installation of Windows XP on computers using Apple's OS X. Another reported rumor is the statement, “The company hopes with support for Vista, Mac computers using the new OS can grab more market share, according to the sources.” That statement is up for debate and Apple has made no official comment.

What Apple did say was that the reports of the delay in Leopard were false. Jupiter Research analyst, Michael Gartenberg, seen these reports and called Apple to confirm them, on his blog he reports the conversation.

“Reports coming in that Leopard’s delayed until sometime in October. Just spoke with Apple who confirmed the reports are wrong and Leopard is still scheduled to ship in this spring as they previously announced. The rumor mill is wrong again.”

When the story was moving across the web reaction was mixed, many called foul almost instantly and others still could not believe that Apple would worry over Vista when most of Vista still has issues working with Apple.

“No way Apple will delay Leopard to support Vista. That is just a ridiculous speculation. If it really wanted, it would just release a PATCH months later to support Vista. No way would they delay the ENTIRE OS for Vista support,” said one comment on DigiTimes and another, “Vista doesn't even have Vista support. No need to delay, that's what patches are for once the kinks are ironed out,” hit the air of disbelief home.

There were other comments and various opinion segments on the subject and at first many of them attacked Apple which was weird considering the loyal following that Apple has. So for now Leopard is on track and more information can be located at http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/

http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1283163.php/Rumors_over_Leopard_delay_false_says_Apple

Vista's long goodbye

Deleting files can take till the end of time

Windows Vista suffers from a bug that causes many machines to stall while deleting, copying and moving files, a flaw that has provoked consternation in online forums.

"I've seen this bug in action, and trust me, it's as if you're copying over a 64k link using only 256mb of RAM," one Reg reader complained. "To add to the problem, you can't cancel or anything."

According to a thread on Microsoft's TechNet site, Microsoft has issued a hotfix for the problem, but it has failed to quell the outrage. For one thing, individual users must get Microsoft's approval before the fix can be downloaded, according to our tipster. And for another, hotfixes are more of a pain to install than patches.

We've contacted a Microsoft spokeswoman, who promised to see if a patch for the problem in the works. Meanwhile, Vista users continue to grumble.

"I simply can not believe that I updated to a new computer and put windows Vista on it to find that it's not even capable of moving and deleting files in an efficient manner," one disaffected user posted in the Microsoft forum. "Microsoft must be kidding! The most basic of features that I use all the time is a slow train wreck."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/vista_copying_bug/

Can Google find the pot of gold?

Google's purchase of YouTube last fall seemed like a no-brainer to the search engine's execs.

Online video had exploded and YouTube, the most popular video-sharing site, was streaming more than 100 million clips a day featuring everything from pet tricks to pirated TV.

"We bought YouTube because of the traffic and because of the community," Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told investors at a San Francisco conference earlier this month.

The site was losing gobs of money, but that didn't bother Google. Traffic was climbing, and still is. Since the deal, YouTube's audience has grown 40 percent. According to comScore Media Metrics, YouTube's 136 million monthly visitors made up 18 percent of the global Internet audience in January.

One definition of an Internet URL is "Ubiquity first Revenue Later," Schmidt joked at the Bear, Stearns conference. But the joke could end up being on Google, which paid $1.7 billion for YouTube's URL on the bet that it could turn reruns into revenue.

Viacom, the New York-based entertainment conglomerate, recently filed a billion-dollar suit against Google for "massive copyright infringement." Then, last week, NBC and News Corp. announced a partnership in which they would distribute television shows, video clips and movies through large portals such as Yahoo!, MSN and AOL — an effort that would compete to some extent with Google.

Between lawsuits, drawn-out licensing negotiations and other developments, YouTube has become an increasingly expensive distraction for Schmidt and other top execs.

Meanwhile, YouTube is still groping for an effective business model. User-generated content may be popular, but it is not easy to make money off of. And professional content is finding audiences elsewhere on the Internet. Just before it filed the lawsuit against YouTube, Viacom announced a deal with Joost, which promises closer control of copyrighted material.

Google and YouTube have agreed to install filters that can flag copyrighted material as part of deals with several major record companies. The filters, however, haven't been turned on. This illustrates yet another challenge for Google: Will users stay around after the site goes legit?

"I think Google may have underestimated the amount of challenge all this copyright problem was going to cause," said Josh Bernoff, a vice president of Forrester Research.

Google is holding 12.5 percent of YouTube's purchase price — around $200 million — in escrow to cover legal liabilities.

If the court finds Google liable for infringement, would it be enough? Brian Pitz, an analyst with Bank of America Equity Research, calculated that advertising revenue for the 1.5 billion copies of Viacom clips streamed by YouTube would have amounted to just $30 million. But a guilty verdict could lead to other lawsuits. Already there are several copyright suits pending against Google in addition to Viacom. "Copyright damages could really start adding up," warned Randy Broberg, a copyright attorney at Allen Matkins in San Diego.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003636086_gootube26.html

How green is my vendor?

Probably not very

Environmental issues are becoming a big concern for those involved in managing IT and communications. You can tell this because just about every other supplier is talking up their green credentials.

Often they have only reduced their power consumption by a fraction of a megawatt, run an electric shuttle bus to their out of town business park location, or have just switched to "low energy" drinks in their staff cafeteria, but it's presented as being green.

It might make good marketing sense for vendors to make every effort to boost their green credentials, but is it really making a difference to customers, the vendors, or perhaps more importantly, the environment?

There are of course many green issues that might have an influence on the IT department, some directly affecting budgets, others involving relationships with other parts of the business.

The amount of power and cooling needed to run computers is often a first thought, then the chemicals and paper consumed by high speed laser printers and the legal requirement to re-cycle old desktops, laptops, and mobile phones (sometimes via the junior members of the departments). Marketing and personnel departments in many companies are starting to ask "how green can we say we are?"

While vendors are keen to tout how they might help slap a little spot of green paint, this generally only addresses one or two environmental issues and does not take a sufficiently broad view. The wider environmental challenge is about more than reducing power usage in one area, and has to encompass commercial impacts on the environment across the organisation, rather than just simplistic green ROI calculations.

It also needs to take into account the entire supply chain from component vendor to end of life, especially considering the legislative directives around waste and hazardous substances (WEEE and RoHS), and whether resources being used are sustainable or not.

These legal pressures will only increase as governments attempt to tackle the green issues further. So, for businesses of all types it is an organisational "lifestyle" change that has to be applied in a commercially sustainable business context.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/green_vendors/

Oracle Says SAP Ripped Off Its Software

Oracle sued its rival SAP yesterday, accusing the big German software maker of intruding into its computer systems to carry out “corporate theft on a grand scale.”

SAP is the industry leader. But Oracle, the leading maker of computer database software, has moved quickly to become No. 2 in the business-applications market, mainly through an acquisition spree, spending about $20 billion in the last three years to buy two dozen companies.

The Oracle suit states that SAP repeatedly stole copyrighted software and other confidential information in a campaign to undermine Oracle and grab corporate customers that came to Oracle as part of its two largest business software acquisitions: PeopleSoft, for $10.3 billion in early 2005, and Siebel, for $5.85 billion, a purchase completed in 2006.

According to the suit, workers at an SAP subsidiary in Texas logged into an Oracle customer-support Web site, posing as current or recent Oracle customers like Merck, Honeywell, Bear Stearns, Abbott Laboratories, Smithfield Foods, the Texas Association of School Boards, and many others.

Then, from September 2006 to January 2007, SAP proceeded to make more than 10,000 illicit downloads of Oracle software and technical support documents, the suit states.

Both Oracle and SAP have aggressive campaigns to try to persuade corporations to switch to their products, offering big price discounts and technical assistance.

Oracle’s suit contended that stolen software and expertise were in SAP’s Safe Passage program, which sought to lure former PeopleSoft and Siebel users. “This theft,” the suit states, “appears to be an essential — and illegal — part of SAP’s competitive strategy against Oracle.”

A spokesman for SAP said the company received the complaint just yesterday afternoon and would have no comment until its lawyers studied the details.

An Oracle spokesman said his company would not elaborate beyond its 43-page suit, filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco.

The suit says the losses to Oracle cannot be established “without an accounting of the income and gross profits the defendants have obtained through their wrongful and unlawful conduct.” It seeks an injunction against use of any software or confidential information gained through intrusions, as well as unspecified punitive damages.

In its Safe Passage program, SAP offered continuing support for PeopleSoft products at 50 percent less than Oracle’s price for annual software maintenance, even though SAP did not have access to PeopleSoft intellectual property or engineers, the Oracle suit noted. Later, after Oracle purchased Siebel, a leader in sales automation software, SAP made the same offer to Siebel users.

SAP, the suit stated, “purported to add full support for an entirely different product line — Siebel — with a wave of its hand.”

“The economics, and the logic, simply did not add up.”

“Oracle has now solved this puzzle,” the suit added. “To stave off the mounting competitive threat from Oracle, SAP unlawfully accessed and copied Oracle’s Software and Support Materials.”

The illegal downloads, according to Oracle, were conducted from computers at an SAP subsidiary in Bryan, Tex. SAP bought the unit, called Tomorrow Now, in January 2005, just as Oracle’s acquisition of PeopleSoft was closing.

Tomorrow Now, renamed SAP TN after the purchase, was founded by a pair of former PeopleSoft managers. Its business was to offer cut-rate maintenance and support fees for business software, by focusing only on support instead of investing in research and development for future versions of the business applications software.

In the suit, Oracle described in detail a few cases of suspected theft. In one case, Honeywell, a former Oracle customer that switched to SAP TN, had averaged just over 20 downloads a month from Oracle’s customer support Web site before switching. In less than two weeks last January, soon after the switch, a user employing Honeywell’s log-in identification code downloaded more than 7,000 software programs and support documents from the Oracle site, the suit stated.

In its investigation, Oracle traced the computer downloading the files to an Internet protocol address at SAP TN and, later, to an SAP TN employee, Wade Walden, whom the suit described as “a former PeopleSoft employee now employed by SAP.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/technology/23oracle.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Google, gird your loins. News Corp., NBC pull together to sink YouTube

Several media giants are teaming up to challenge Google Inc. and its YouTube video-sharing service, seeking to blunt their incursion into the entertainment business. News Corp. and NBC Universal plan to announce as soon as today that they are creating an online video site stocked with TV shows and movies, plus clips that users can modify and share with friends, according to people close to the negotiations.

The two companies enlisted help from some of Google's biggest Internet rivals. The News Corp.-NBC Universal partnership has deals with Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and News Corp.'s MySpace to place videos in front of their collective audience of hundreds of millions.

Despite Hollywood's dismal track record in creating successful joint ventures, these players see little choice but to band together to compete against Google and Apple Inc., which are becoming powerful distributors of entertainment.

News Corp. and NBC Universal want to control how their shows are watched online and to hold onto advertising dollars migrating to the Web. Google is expected to gobble up nearly a third of all online advertising revenue this year, according to research firm EMarketer Inc.

"You're just pooling resources in the face of the most disruptive force your business has seen ever," said Eric Garland, chief executive of market researcher BigChampagne.

The new venture, which could launch this summer, is envisioned as an advertiser-friendly destination for some of TV's most popular shows, including NBC's "Heroes" and "The Office," and "Family Guy" and "24" from News Corp.'s Fox. The companies also plan to sell downloads of Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox movies.

But the companies see the service as more than just another video site struggling for an audience. They are also packaging their material and sending it to Yahoo and other sites where millions already gather.

"The media companies don't want to be forced to only work with one distribution entity, in Google," said UBS Warburg media analyst Aryeh Bourkoff. "I don't think it's too late.”

Of course, that depends upon you ask.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-youtube22mar22,0,326504.story

Who will snap up the Palm tomorrow?

Nokia, Moto among possible new owners

Nokia is on the verge of buying Palm, with an announcement said to be due tomorrow, the day the PDA pioneer is due to report its latest quarterly financial results. Or maybe the buyer's Motorola. Or venture capitalist Texas Pacific Group. Or maybe Silver Lake Partners.
Those are the scenario suggested by website Unstrung.com based on comments from an unnamed source.

Not so long ago, Reuters claimed it had been told Morgan Stanley had been hired by Palm management to find a buyer. Since then Nokia has been rumored to be interested in acquiring the company, presumably for the brand since it would seem there's little Palm's engineers could tell the mobile phone giant's own hardware designers.

The same is likely true of Motorola, which probably explains why Unstrung's source said Palm prefers a deal with a private equity firm.

Palm's last figures, reported back in December 2006, saw profits and sales down during the three months to 2 December 2006. Since then, Apple's announcement of the iPhone has sent shockwaves through the smart phone world, causing plenty of turbulence for Palm.

Earlier this month, it announced it had hired one-time Apple staffer Paul Mercer. Mercer's company Pixo worked on the software for the original iPod.

A sign, perhaps of developments to come. Certainly Palm needs to spruce up its software the better to differentiate its Windows Mobile-based devices from all the others out there and perhaps to bring its Palm handhelds' look and feel into the era of Mac OS X and Windows Vista.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/21/palm_purchase_imminent_site_claims/

Is Redmond the next Detroit?

There is more talk about the deals Microsoft recently brought to the public to increase market share for its Windows Live search product. The slump, or depending on whom you ask outright failure, of the Windows Live brand comes from several sources. One is marketing. Microsoft spent millions on marketing, but the services of Live cannot compete with Yahoo and Google. Both Google and Yahoo are making changes and adding new aspects to their search offerings. They are expanding to the mobile markets; the advertising is also geared to results that are more relevant to the context of the entered search.

Another aspect is user expectations. Search engines are a major part of how things are done on the web. Robert Scoble, of Scobleizer, demonstrated how the different search leaders handle related content and results. He searched for a simple term “Palo Alto notary” to locate a notary in his local area. Google gave the correct information needed, and both Google and Yahoo added maps to show the exact location of the notary needed. Windows Live was not even close according to Scoble.

Scoble also points out that the advertising shown on the results pages were different for each of the three engines. Yahoo and Google had slightly different results, but both gave not only relevant search results but also the advertisements on the results pages were focused to the search. Searching on Windows Live shows no local hits, as Google and Yahoo did, and the advertisements are not even remotely close to the search term. The example from following the same search shows this. The top sponsored link in the Windows Live result, actually points to another search site. The other sponsors are hotel related.

Users of search engines demand that results be relevant, and marketers who pay to have advertisements shown, will only pay if the ads shown will actually give them a chance to earn clicks and business. When ads are sporadic, and have little in relation to the results, marketers see this as wasted money. This could be one reason why Microsoft is loosing the “search wars."

To combat this, they have recently signed a deal with Lenovo that will place its Windows Live offerings on all new laptops sold by the company. This OEM deal will help Microsoft gain users, but only if they actually use the pre-installed software. Another deal is one that is causing some backlash for Microsoft. The “bribe” like offerings that will pay companies in Microsoft credit for using Windows Live on their entire network as default for searching and browsing is another way Microsoft is hoping to leverage their user base and convert them in to potential consumers for their advertisers.

Microsoft is reported to have said they were “in it to win” concerning Windows Live being the flagship search product on the web. Steve Ballmer drew heat when speaking in his recent criticisms of Google. Ballmer spoke at Stanford about Windows Live and the business goals for Microsoft. Calling Google’s business plan to double in a year insane, raised doubt as to how he can call something that works insane when his own product is failing. Scoble had some comments on Ballmer’s Stanford talk as well.

“You’re up against a formidable competitor and one you’ve never seen before that has some real, significant weapons that you can’t deal with (and YouTube isn’t even close to it.) This isn’t Netscape you’re talking trash to, Steve. Have you really studied Google? It doesn’t sound like you have.” –Robert Scoble

So is Microsoft going to come out of this slump? Will Detroit? As they stand now the answer is a resounding no. Microsoft has yet to offer something that is on par or better than its competition. As long as Yahoo and Google keep offering what users, and marketers want, and on top of that adding new services and features to their online presence, Microsoft will always be playing a game of follow the leader. Think Ford. Think Edsel.

http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1279526.php/Windows_Live_struggles_for_market_share__Second_Roundup_

First Apple TV Units Could Be In Stores Within Days

Rots of ruck, dudes!

Apple is poised to make its first major pitch to couch potatoes with the release of a video-streaming set-top box for the television. Industry sources say the Cupertino, Calif., company will ship the $299 product, called Apple TV, on Tuesday, about three weeks later than Apple originally planned. The company hasn't confirmed a launch date.

Apple hopes to have the same success with video in the living room that it's had with music on the go with the iPod. But the Apple TV is far from a guaranteed hit, even though it doesn't face any direct competition as an Internet video device.

Analysts say it's likely to sell well initially. The company has taken pre-orders for more than 100,000 units, analysts say. But how well the product sells after that initial wave will depend on word of mouth and the ability of Apple store employees to demonstrate it persuasively.

Apple TV is a huge deal for the consumer electronics industry, says Tim Bajarin, an analyst with the research firm Creative Strategies.

"It will be the first product that really gets the mainstream consumer interested in moving PC content to the television for viewing on a TV set," Bajarin said. Other devices can do that today, but Apple has shown an ability to make simple, easy-to-use products.

With Apple TV, people can access via remote control movies and TV shows purchased from Apple's iTunes download store. The set-top box links to Apple Macintosh computers and PCs running Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows XP operating system using existing wireless and wired networks.

The device could have limited appeal beyond consumers who have bought a lot of videos off iTunes, analysts say.

"Consumers need to invest in enough video content to justify the purchase," said Josh Martin, an analyst with the Yankee Group, a research firm. "It's not like where you have 100 CDs and you can rip them (to your PC) and all of a sudden you have a cache of content for your iPod."

While copying music CDs to your PC is considered fair use, copying DVD movies to your PC is considered illegal, Martin says.

Apple CEO Jobs has positioned the Apple TV as a replacement for the DVD player. But it will take time for consumers to get used to the idea of buying purely digital versions of movies, Martin says.

Also, many consumers might find Apple TV limiting because it can play only videos purchased from iTunes. And unlike other Internet movie services, such as CinemaNow and Movielink, it doesn't let people rent videos or subscribe to an all-you-can-watch service.

"Apple lives in a closed-ended world," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research.

For the same $300 it costs to get a dedicated video-streaming device such as Apple TV, you could buy a much more capable Xbox 360 from Microsoft, he says. The Xbox 360 is a video game console as well as a video-download device. And Xbox 360 offers movie downloads in high definition, something Apple TV doesn't offer.

"Three hundred dollars is a lot to spend just to extend the functionality of your iTunes account," McQuivey said.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=17&issue=20070316

‘Microsoft sucks’, sez MS honcho blogger

New? So what else is new?

MICROSOFT’s formerly tame blogger has bitten the software company that made his name when it employed him as a “technology evangelist”.

Robert Scoble writes the Scobleizer web log, one of the most-read sources of technology commentary on the internet. He owes his status to the three years he spent at Microsoft, where he was given free rein to comment on the company’s affairs from the inside. The Economist magazine has credited Scoble with playing a significant role in softening the software giant’s former reputation for monopolistic bullying.

In the past, Scoble has tended to be sympathetic about Microsoft’s failings. However, he was provoked into stinging criticism last week after a series of triumphalist remarks, including some disparaging comments about Google made by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive.

At a “global summit” of its most-valued software developers, Microsoft repeatedly declared that it would “win” in search and other parts of its Windows Live internet strategy.

“The words are empty,” Scoble responded. “Microsoft’s internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that’s ‘in it to win’, then I don’t get it.”
He continued: “Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the inter-net? Come on.

“Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative.”

Scoble’s comments reflect wider concerns — shared by some Microsoft insiders — that the poorly understood Windows Live initiative is failing to make the impact expected when it was unveiled 18 months ago.

Windows Live was pitched as the centrepiece of Microsoft’s response to Google and other companies offering web-based services. It was seen to be a key focus for Ray Ozzie, who has replaced Bill Gates as Microsoft’s chief software architect.

Talking to Stanford University business school students in California, Ballmer said Google had built only one good business and “everything else is sort of cute” — in other words largely irrelevant.

This also provoked Scoble’s ire. “You’re up against a formidable competitor and one you’ve never seen before that has some real, significant weapons that you can’t deal with.”

LiveSide, a website that tracks the development of Windows Live, is among those who are unimpressed. “Windows Live isn’t making much of a dent in the marketplace,” it says on its Our View page. “It’s a nontopic. Market research shows Live Search to be losing share if anything, and certainly not gaining.

“What Windows Live lacks, specifically, is an identity. No one can describe it, no one from Microsoft has even tried.”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1529988.ece

GooglePhone: The Real Deal

A lousy translation from the Spanish spills the beans.

Isabel Aguilera, Chief of a main directorate of Google in Spain and Portugal, have confirmed to Noticias.com that the company is working, “among others”, in the development of a movable telephone. “A part of the time of our engineers we have dedicated it to the investigation of a movable telephone to accede to information”, has made specific Eyrie to this vestibule.

The speculations on the possible entrance of Google in the area of the design and the sale of movable telephones arose after the company recently published a use announcement in which it looked for engineers and analysts specialized in the sector of the telecommunications. In that same reclamation, Google specified that it is in phase of experimentation with diverse systems of wireless communications.

In a day on the integration of Internet in the strategy of business, organized by the Association for the Progress of the Direction of the Mediterranean Zone, Isabel Aguilera has explained to Noticias.com that although 70% of the time of the engineers are dedicated “to develop our nucleus of business, that is to say, the search and the publicity”, and a 20% to develop “products that they have enough that to see with this nucleus”, is certain that a 10% of that time are centered in the product development “that at some time could have to do with our business”.

Within this last scope, Eyrie has indicated that “it has been investigated” on a movable telephone through as can “be acceded to the information”, in addition to in “the way to less extend the society of the information in the developed economies”. In this sense, the Chief of a main directorate of Google in Spain and Portugal have aimed that although “can have products that can seem strange, all comprise of our process of innovation”.

At the moment, the motor search account with 36 products and “other 18 that are in laboratory” and, therefore, in phase of experimentation, between which would be the mentioned movable telephone.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.noticias.com%2Fnoticia%2Fdirectora-general-google-espana-confirma-que-compania-esta-trabajando-desarrollo-telefono-movil-257.html&langpair=es%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Ballmer says Google growth strategy 'insane'

And if anyone knows the meaning of that word, it's Bonkers Ballmer

Seriously, they must have changed his meds. Former chair-flinging Microsoft honcho Steve Ballmer has continued his public campaign against Google, characterizing the search firm's growth strategy as "insane."

The famously irascible billionaire, currently tenth on the Forbes' richest-people-on-the-planet list, made the remarks during a talk to Stanford Business School students on Wednesday. Ballmer studied there as a young man after a first degree at Yale, but dropped out to work for Bill Gates.

Ballmer suggested that Google was growing too fast, and had failed to make a success of efforts to diversify beyond search with ads. He dismissed Google's various other projects as "cute" to chortles from the assembled business students, and commented that "a random collection of people doing their own thing" might not add value. This was taken by many as a jab at Google's well-known practice of allowing its engineers to spend 20 per cent of their working hours on personal schemes.

The dig was mild and good-humoured compared to other episodes in Ballmer's career. (See it was the meds, what did we tell you) . The emotional exec reportedly required surgery after "blowing out his vocal cords" with repeated cries of "Windows, Windows, Windows" at a meeting in 1991, and "barked the word 'developers' 14 times until hoarse" at another function 10 years later.

The feud with Google is a long-running one, with Ballmer previously reported as shouting "I'm going to f—king kill Google" and "Eric Schmidt is a pussy" during a 2005 dust-up over an allegedly poached employee. He has also described Linux as communism.

Does the relative calm of Wednesday's episode mean the bad boy of Redmond is finally mellowing with age? Tech commentators worldwide will be hoping not.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/16/ballmer_google_insane/

The Conspiracy against Google

Americans in general love a good conspiracy. Google is faced with two lawsuits in as many weeks, from two different companies - both for massive copyright infringement; doesn't this sound like a conspiracy?

So who are the two companies? Microsoft, (known for its big heart) on behalf of a group of publishers, is suing Google for scanning hardcopy material. Viacom, the second "suer", has an actual reason for the lawsuit. Viacom is the holding company of MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon. Viacom is suing YouTube, which Google bought last year for $1.6bn, for hosting copyright material that was broadcast on some of the Viacom media networks.

YouTube has been under fire from many other media networks for hosting copyright protected content, but Viacom is the first to sue.

The stinging attack launched by Microsoft has to do with the fact that Google is scanning hardcopy documents by the truck load, some of which is not being done with the permission of the content owners. Thomas Rubin, Microsoft chief legal advisor, says in a statement published on the Microsoft website: "In my view, Google has chosen the wrong path for the longer term, because it systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works. In doing so, it undermines critical incentives to create."

In the same speech he states that Microsoft has been in the process of scanning books themselves with the knowledge and permission of the content owners. Google has been accused of not creating anything and is making money off other people's work and innovation. In my view this lawsuit is nothing but a publicity stunt from Microsoft to promote the Live Book Search service, and gain more publishing support.

Viacom, on the other hand, is suing YouTube for $1bn in damages, claiming copyright breech by allowing users to share more than 150 000 unauthorised video clips of Viacom's programs. This is a classic case of old media (broadcasting in the traditional way) and new media (internet broadcasting)

This might not be a conspiracy yet, just Google hitting a patch of bad luck. But there are two possibilities on why the Viacom, Microsoft cases - brought against Google so close after each other - can be seen as conspiracy. Firstly, Viacom knew that Google will have its hands full with the Microsoft suit and what better time to launch its own attack.

Secondly, Google's purchase of YouTube puts the latter in the money, an opportunity for Viacom to cash in. It was only a matter of time before some large media company bought YouTube, and Viacom sit back and waited.

Let's just hope Google has the foundation in place to survive this attack.

http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Nav=ns&ArticleID=1518-1522-2090_2084665

Jerkoff Jobs “Steves” educators

The Jerkoff used to have the reputation of firing people in the hallway just because he could – all you had to do was look at him wrong. It was called “being Steved.”

Not much has changed. Steve Jobs and Michael Dell were both headlining a technology forum, at which Jobs opened his big mouth and trampled on Apple's history and the life-blood that allowed it to be the only, early computer company to weather the 8, 16 and 32 bit computer processor transition war, into the robust company, now, that has taken the world with the iPod.

How did Apple lead the way to today's market? Niches. That is where Apple solidly is entrenched in the computer business. Their move into the Intel market puts them into the race with the Big Boys. This is being done on an old PowerBook 1400C and then will be transferred onto my Intel Mac Mini. I have not had one crash since I bought the Mini, and I have 4 hard drives on it. I have not installed Windows on the machine, but I could.

In the early days of "computerism," Apple owned the educational business. Apple IIe's were found in every class in every school in the United States. I own a virtual history of the Apple Computer, starting with an Apple IIe and a Macintosh KE to the MiniMac. Jobs has set the paradigm in modern computers, but I think the man is bitter about losing the educational market.

Steve needs to look into a mirror if he is blaming public education for losing his strangle hold on the education market. Jobs could have maintained the educational advantage if he had packaged with their newer computers, software made especially for classroom management and given teachers a 50% off deal.

Back in the day, the Jerkoff changed everything with Macintosh's GUI OS, which means that all a user has to do is click the mouse. With the iPod and the iPhone, Jobs is still setting the paradigm, but he doesn't know dip-stick about education. He sends his children to an expensive private school and is no authority on anything public education.

"'What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?'" Jobs asked to loud applause during an education reform conference." Sure, sure; what teachers really need in this country is to be “Steved”

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dale_hil_070314_jobs_against_jobs_21.htm

Switcheroo! Apple Patches, Microsoft Passes

While Patch Tuesday came and went with Microsoft deploying no critical security updates, Microsoft didn't leave I.T. admins sitting on their hands. Redmond released a new version of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool and several other software updates. Apple, meanwhile, released a slew of patches for Mac OS X to plug 45 holes, including several zero-day vulnerabilities.

If Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's monthly Patch Tuesday failed to grab I.T.'s attention, Apple Computer added some excitement to the security Relevant Products/Services world on the notorious day.

Microsoft typically releases security fixes the second Tuesday of each month. For the first time in 18 months, however, Microsoft canceled its scheduled security update, despite at least five zero-day software vulnerabilities that leave a back door open to hackers.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company needed more time to develop fixes for known flaws and is continuing to investigate potential and existing vulnerabilities.

"Creating security updates that effectively and comprehensively fix vulnerabilities is an extensive process involving a series of sequential steps," said the spokesperson. "All updates need to meet testing standards in order to be released. This ensures that our customers can confidently install these updates in their environment."

Although no critical patches were deployed this week, Microsoft didn't leave I.T. administrators sitting on their hands. God forbid. Redmond released an updated version of its Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, along with two high-priority, nonsecurity updates for Windows through the Windows Update and Software Update services and four high-priority, nonsecurity updates through Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update services.

http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Apple-Patches--Microsoft-Passes/story.xhtml?story_id=033001WSK8V6

Intel on sale for $20

Fans everywhere can now buy Intel by the bit.

Ex-Dell staffer and Austin resident David Weaver has started selling small containers full of the debris left over from the so-called "Intel Shell" – a never completed Intel facility destroyed last month. So, for the low-low price of $20, you can own Intel's ashes.

For the uninitiated, Intel fired up construction on a new 10-story chip design facility back in the boom days. But, when the bubble popped, Intel killed the $124m project, leaving Austin with just the building's skeleton and a painful reminder of a collapsed technology economy.

In the 2004, the government bought the site and has taken its sweet time developing a new courthouse on the property.

The Intel Shell was finally destroyed last month. So, Weaver drove by and picked up about 25 pounds of the old building. He has since been beating the debris with a hammer and sticking it in jars.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/13/intel_sale_bits/

Man sues MS after FBI uncovers smut surfing habits

Only in America: Respect my privacy, sobs bomb-making suspect Case in point: A man awaiting trial on firearms offences is suing Microsoft after FBI technicians found self-made sex videos and evidence that he frequented porn sites on his PC.

Michael Alan Crooker, currently on remand in a Connecticut jail on charges of selling illegally modified firearms and possessing bomb-making equipment, is inflamed that security settings on his PC failed to prevent Federal agents from finding out about his smut-surfing habits. He's suing Microsoft in Massachusetts Superior Court for privacy violations that he claims caused him "great embarrassment" in a lawsuit that seeks $200,000 in damages in compensatory and punitive damages.

Crooker bought his Compaq Presario PC, which came preloaded with Windows XP and several security utilities, at a Massachusetts branch of US retailer Circuit City in 2002. Circuit City assured Crooker that the security technology bundled with the PC would protect his privacy.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents seized the PC when they raided his home in June 2004 over allegations stemming from the alleged sale of an air rifle equipped with a silencer.

Unable to examine the PC itself, BATF agents sent it to the FBI's Cryptologic and Electronic Analysis unit, where technicians were able to take an image of the PC for forensic analysis despite protection supposedly afforded by Compaq's DriveLock security software. This analysis found video files of Crooker and his girlfriend making out along with evidence that he frequented pornographic Web sites, medical records and correspondence between Crooker and his attorneys. They also found Internet history files that showed Crooker's fondness for pornographic Web sites.

Crooker said he set Internet Explorer to delete his internet history file every five days and is upset computer forensics investigators were able to obtain data on his porn-surfing habits. "Any day beyond those parameters is supposed to be permanently deleted and is not supposed to be recoverable," Crooker said in the lawsuit, Information Week reports. He's also aggrieved that Compaq's DriveLock security software was capable of being circumvented by the FBI.

The plaintiff, filing from the slammer, cuts an unsympathetic figure and his charge against Microsoft is clearly preposterous since Microsoft makes no claims that internet history tracks are erased by Internet Explorer. Simple deletion does not put files beyond forensic recovery, as any tech-savvy reader will know.

Then again we're talking about the US of A, where everybody is entitled to their day in court and perhaps Crooker may yet win out in his legal bid. In the court papers, Crooker said he's reached settlements with Hewlett-Packard, which owns Compaq, and Circuit City.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/06/firearm_supect_privacy_lawsuit/

Piracy? Microsoft turns pragmatic on us

It’s not like there is any strong competition. For some time, big software companies have tried to make the argument that a copy of pirated software is equivalent to a lost sale This is pretty ridiculous for a couple reasons. For one thing, there's no reason to think that a given user of pirated software would have actually purchased a legitimate copy. Furthermore, the argument ignores the fact that companies actually benefit in some ways from piracy, because a user of pirated software is likely to purchase software from the same maker at some point down the road.

This latter point is something that even Bill "The Great God" Gates has admitted, even while Microsoft continues to talk tough about cracking down on piracy. Now the company is stating more clearly that it knows there are some benefits to piracy. Jeff Raikes, head of the company's business group, said at a recent investor conference that while the company is against piracy, if you are going to pirate software, it hopes you pirate Microsoft software. He cited the above reasoning, noting that users of pirated Microsoft software are likely to purchase from the company later on.

He said the company wants to push for legal licensing, but doesn't want to push so hard so as to destroy a valuable part of its user base. The company recently got a stark reminder of this lesson when a school in Russia said it would switch to Linux to avoid future hassles with the pirate police. Of course, this moderate stance seems at odds with the company's recent hyper-aggressive anti-piracy push, which resulted in many mistaken piracy accusations. Either way, Raikes' comments completely destroy the line about pirated software being equivalent to lost sales; if it actually were, Raikes would be telling people to pirate the software of Microsoft's competitors.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070312/165448.shtml

China’s Blog Police: The party is so over

China plans tighter control of blogs and webcasts under a new Internet publishing law, state media on Tuesday quoted the country's top media supervisor as saying.

"Advanced network technologies such as blogging and webcasting have been mounting new challenges to the government's ability to supervise the Internet," then official Xinhua news agency quoted Long Xinmin, the head of China's Press and Publications Administration, as saying.

The government is drafting a law to bring blogs and webcasts under Internet publication regulations to ensure a "more healthy and active Internet environment", Long said.

Long gave no details of specific measures but said the new law would "fully respect and protect Chinese citizens' freedom of speech", the agency said.

China had an estimated 20.8 million bloggers at the end of 2006, of whom 3.15 million were active writers, according a recent government report.

The agency said the need for legislation resulted from several cases last year "involving bloggers who had infringed on other people's privacy and written libelous material."

The cases had prompted the government to consider requiring all bloggers to give their full identify when they register, it said.

The estimated number of internet users soared by 23 per cent to 137 million last year, putting its online population second behind the United States.

China's internet police block hundreds of websites that are deemed politically sensitive and try to keep content broadly in line with the ruling Communist Party's ideology.

Despite the huge growth of internet use, the government maintains control through sophisticated filtering tools and cooperation with domestic and global service providers and information technology firms, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in an annual report on media freedom.

Tens of thousands of small internet cafes have been closed, with the government favouring large chains that can be relied upon to monitor and control online activity.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=117403

Ooh Baby, Baby! The call goes out for open source teledildonics work

SXSW NSFW The computational dildo liberation army (CDLA) has called out device makers for creating boring old kit that just doesn't get the job done. The dildo patrol want to see more creative devices and an influx of open source effort around sex toys.

Attendees at the SXSW conference here listened for over an hour on Sunday as so-called teledildonics experts went on a journey through "Sex and Computational Technology". A couple of the panelists reckoned that a company akin to the Microsoft of Dildos exists, which closed off its teledildonics patent stash from competitors. The end result is a bunch of clunky, latex filled gear that leaves the operator and her virtual partner feel like they're mating with an outboard motor through a fax machine.

"It's like trying to f#k your printer driver," said Kyle Machulis, a teledildonics expert, employee of Linden Lab, and editor of Slashdong.org, about the state of computerized dildos' software interfaces.

Machulis proved the most entertaining panelist by some margin, as he waved around a bowling pin-sized vibrator and then later tossed out disposable vaginas with "tight" and "tighter" settings to members of the audience. He also stood out as the most aggressive critic of current devices.

For example, Machulis went after the Talking Head Vibrator from My Little Secret, which plants an MP3 player inside of the vibrator. You can make your own sound recordings for the device or pick from My Little Secret's rather sad list of MP3s.

Here we have a MP3 of Bergen the German Mountain Man's dulcet tones. Or perhaps you prefer Wild Will and Tough Tony.

Cleary, not the stuff of which dreams are made.

Thankfully, open source types have cracked into the teledildonics field with new entries such as the Drmn' Trance Vibrator. This is an almost, er, pocket-sized device with an open software interface. "The Drmn' Trance Vibrator is a USB-controlled vibrator designed for use with Rez, an audiovisual shooter game for the PlayStation 2," you're told. " If you have some experience with C/C++ (or any computer language you can use to access a computer's USB port), you can write your own vibrator control application."

Machulis has some curious and frankly near incomprehensible ideas about other avenues.. At the moment, he's exploring the idea that you can "use waves to get patterns to get you off". Horny programmers would then also create "obfuscated macros" of sounds that satisfy them. They could upload these sounds onto their inhouse teledildonics gear and then a remote user could trigger the sounds.

"Then you can get off with the other person without them knowing what you like," Machulis said.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/sxsw_teledildonics/

Kill, Pussycat, Kill, Kill, Kill! Can Murder Be Merely a Mouse Click Away?

Slouched at a computer, the hunter perks up as a 12-point buck eases into view on his screen. Maneuvering his mouse, he swivels the rifle and focuses the cross hairs. With a click of the mouse, the rifle fires a bullet, mortally wounding the deer.

Gary Harpole, an Illinois hunter, says remote-control hunting negates what the sport is really about: "getting outdoors, experiencing nature."

Call it hunting by remote control. And though it is still more concept than trend, lawmakers in several states have set their sights on stopping the practice in its tracks.

Illinois State Representative Dan Reitz has proposed banning such hunting in his state, saying that such ready, aim, click kills, or the prospect of them, push the ethical envelope and violate the spirit of fair-chase hunts.

“I just think it’s wrong,” Reitz said, adding that the use of such technology — which features a Web camera and a .22-caliber rifle atop a remote-controlled rig — would “give all sportsmen a black eye.”

Technology that enables people to stalk online and kill real prey has alarmed hunters and lawmakers intent on pre-emptively blocking the practice. About two dozen states already have outlawed the method, which the Humane Society of the United States calls pay-per-view slaughter.

“The animal has no chance,” Arkansas State Senator Ruth Whitaker said earlier this year while introducing a measure that calls for banning potential cyberhunting in her state.

“There’s no challenge for you — except knowing how to use a computer and push a button,” she said. “You never left your tufted sofa. What’s sportsmanlike about that?”

The issue emerged in early 2005, when an entrepreneur from Texas, John Lockwood, set up a Web site that allowed subscribing hunters with a high-speed computer connection to shoot antelope, wild pigs and other game on his 220-acre San Antonio spread via remote control — from anywhere. Lockwood offered to send the animals’ heads to subscribers.

During a demonstration, a friend of Lockwood’s used a computer 45 miles away to shoot a wild hog as it fed at Lockwood’s ranch. But, according to news reports, he only wounded the animal. Lockwood, who was on site, finished the kill.

Lockwood’s venture barely got started before Texas lawmakers shot it down. Since then, other states have hustled to get something on their books barring the practice.

Even die-hard hunters are opposed, saying that shooting an animal via computer is not sporting and does not require the element of fair chase in conventional hunting through forest, field or marsh. Some states have posed similar objections to hunting big game in captivity as trophies.

“We believe sick ideas have a bad way of spreading, so we want to make sure we nip this in the bud and ban it in all 50 states,” Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, said of cyberhunting. The group is also pressing for a federal ban.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/sports/othersports/11hunt.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

Brussels is after the Jerk Again.

The European Union's Bulgarian 'commissioner for consumers', Meglena Kuneva, has hit out at the Balkanised world of digital music.

"Do you think it's fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod? I don't. Something has to change," she has told German weekly Focus.

An EU spokesperson said the quotes, to be published later this week, were accurate, but Kuneva was voicing her own opinions.

Historically, the consumer electronics industry has been able to license proprietary innovations, such as Philips' CD format. But despite clamouring to make iPod-compatible hardware, manufacturers are stymied by Apple's refusal to license its DRM. Now Apple is facing consumer legislation in four EU countries which would oblige it to open up the specification.

But is Apple's DRM really as closed as she says?

Not if you take advantage of the loophole Apple has provided.

First, grab a blank CD. Then create a playlist from the iTunes Store songs you want to burn. Then, hit the "Burn CD..." button and hope for the best. Now highlight the CD in iTunes and click import. Then, because iTunes doesn't support sync with non-Apple devices, start up your alternative music jukebox software (it might take a few days to get familiar with it, but it's worth it). Then, grab the original playlist and start typing in the Artist, Track Name, Number, and Album all over again. For each and every song you've bought. You can then load it onto your non-Apple music player.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/eu_kuneva_interoperability/

Eisner to take on the Internet

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner built his career trying to identify and shape hit movies and TV shows. Now he's at it again, this time on the Internet. His investment firm, The Tornante Co., will announce Monday the formation of a studio, Vuguru, that will acquire and develop slickly written, produced and acted Web video.

Vuguru also today will unveil its first show: a serialized mystery called Prom Queen that will roll out over 80 days beginning April 2 with daily installments lasting 90 seconds. It's co-produced with production company Big Fantastic, in a deal brokered by United Talent Agency.

"There's a new distribution platform that's going to be ubiquitous, and that's clearly broadband," Eisner says. While sites that feature user-generated video, such as YouTube, "won the short-term sprint" to reach audiences, he says, "Winning the marathon will be professionally produced, emotionally driven story content."

People will have several options to keep up with Prom Queen, billed as "a blend of love, gossip and betrayal" in the two months leading up to a high school prom.

Episodes will run on the studio's Vuguru.com and on a show site, promqueen.tv. Other content on that site will include forums and blogs. The series also will be on Ellegirl.com, which is a Prom Queen sponsor. In addition, it will be on YouTube and Veoh, a sharing site with DVD-like quality in which Eisner has a interest.

The company is working out arrangements to put it on wireless and handheld video devices.

Ads will run before and after each segment, which also will include product placements. Initial sponsors include Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful juices and Teleflora florists. But it remains tough to find friends for Web productions on Madison Avenue

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-11-eisner-vuguru-promqueen_N.htm

The iPhone gets Palm All Shook Up!

Palm Inc., the maker of hand-held computers, has hired a top Silicon Valley software designer as it seeks to respond to the challenge posed by Apple’s new iPhone.

The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago at Palm on a line of new products, a company spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment further on the project.

Mr. Mercer, 39, joined Palm with two employees from Iventor, the independent design firm that he headed in Palo Alto, Calif., but Palm did not acquire the company, said the spokeswoman, Marlene Somsak. Palm is based in nearby Sunnyvale.

Apple’s iPhone is still several months away from being available, but its flexible interface is already shaking up the cellphone industry, including Palm, which makes the hybrid phone-organizers known as smart phones.

The Prada phone from the South Korean consumer electronics maker LG offers some similarities to the iPhone, and industry analysts have said that the Apple phone will force the industry to shift its focus from hardware to software design.

Although Palm pioneered the market for hand-held computers, the company has found itself under pressure in recent years by some of the most powerful names in consumer electronics, including Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Microsoft.

Last year Palm gave ground in its struggle and adopted Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software for one version of its Treo smart phone. The company’s own Palm OS software is widely seen within the industry as aging and in need of a fundamental revision.

Mr. Mercer, a college dropout, joined Apple in 1987. While there, he was the lead designer of Version 7 of the Macintosh finder, the operating system’s graphical desktop. He later founded Pixo, a software tools firm that created a development system used by Apple software designers to conceive the first version of the user interface for the iPod music player.

More recently, as an independent designer, he worked under contract with Samsung to design the Z5, an MP3 player that has been a best seller in South Korea. He has developed a reputation for designing interfaces that have cinematographic qualities and yet perform briskly on small consumer electronics devices.

“He’s the best of the best in this space,” said Paul Saffo, an adviser to Samsung and a Silicon Valley forecaster. “The guy has a knack for designing complex systems in ways that are accessible.”

On Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that Palm had retained Morgan Stanley to explore options, including the sale of the company. Palm declined to comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/technology/09palm.html?ref=business

Wikipedia to challenge Google and Yahoo You gotta be kidding!

The on-line collaboration responsible for Wikipedia plans to build a search engine to rival those of Google and Yahoo, the founder of the popular Internet encyclopaedia said on Thursday.

Wikia, the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, is aiming to take as much as 5 percent of the lucrative Internet search market, Jimmy Wales said at a news conference in Tokyo.

"The idea that Google has some edge because they've got super-duper rocket scientists may be a little antiquated now," he said.

Describing the two Internet firms as "black boxes" that won't disclose how they rank search results, Wales said collaborative search technology could transform the power structure of the Internet.

Wales, a former futures trader who has become an evangelist for the free sharing of technology, said users could work together to improve search engines, just as Wikipedia users had tweaked and rewritten articles on the sprawling encyclopaedia.

The process of constant improvement would also make search technology less susceptible to spam, he said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKT34811320070308