Well,well, well: Microsoft puts own software to the test

Microsoft has signed up a key beta tester for the next generation of its server operating system: itself. In recent weeks, the company has switched 79 of 80 servers that power Microsoft.com over to Windows Server 2008, a new version of its server operating system still in testing. The company is intentionally leaving one box to run the existing server OS, Windows Server 2003, so it can compare versions.

"To deploy a new operating system and new Web server into an environment like this without compromising performance or reliability is quite a feat," Microsoft Technical Product Manager Eric Woersching said on his blog.

For those really interested in how Microsoft went about this, the company posted a 38-minute video with Woersching talking to two of Microsoft.com's operations managers.

Microsoft released a third beta of the software in April and this week offered technical beta testers an updated test version. The company has said it aims to finalize the code this year, though a formal launch of the product may not come until next year.

Web server tracking firm Netcraft spotted the Microsoft.com switchover earlier this week. The firm said, by its count, that there are already around 2,600 sites being powered by Windows Server 2008.

"Whilst some of the servers running Windows Server 2008 are at Microsoft itself, the majority are not," Netcraft said in a posting on its Web site. It noted that Microsoft has a "Go Live" program that allows Web sites to use the beta software in a production Web site.

Despite the advance start, Netcraft said it doesn't expect Windows Server 2008 to become the standard for Web sites all that quickly.

"It took several years for the installed base of Windows Server 2003 to overtake Windows 2000, and there are still some 5 million sites running on Windows 2000 even today," Netcraft said.

http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1016_3-6193843.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

One iPhone per person at AT&T stores

If you're planning to stand in line for an iPhone at an AT&T store, or if you're already there, understand that you can only buy one of those babies this weekend.

AT&T will only be selling one iPhone per person this weekend at this downtown San Francisco store, according to AppleInsider.

AppleInsider received an e-mail from AT&T informing potential customers that it's one-and-done for iPhone purchases starting this Friday at 6 p.m., at least at the onset. Apple is also expected to limit purchases, but the company hasn't said how many devices you'll be allowed to take home. Neither company's Web site appears to have that info at the moment.

That could be bad news for anybody planning to flip an iPhone on eBay or Craigslist this weekend for a profit--that is, assuming you actually wanted one for yourself. At either $499 or $599, that's quite the upfront investment, but several folks tried to do the same thing with PlayStation 3s last winter. Since the iPhone isn't actually activated until you take it home and hook it up to the Internet, it should be easy to sell a deactivated iPhone, assuming there's no purchase contract that would preclude you from doing that.

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9736087-7.html?tag=nefd.only

Body that spawned the internet wants to rebuild it

Broke or not, DARPA's fixin' to fix it

DARPA*, the US military's occasionally eccentric death-tech hothouse, is often lauded as having created the internet. Under its old name ARPA, the agency oversaw development of the so-called Arpanet, forerunner of today's IP net. Now, however, DARPA reckons the internet needs to be reinvented.

This week the Pentagon's radical-boffinry specialists issued a request for "revolutionary ideas".

They say that they want "methods to re-think and potentially redesign some of the basic concepts that have shaped today's internet technology. The goal ... is to improve transfer speeds, network-routing efficiency, reliability, simplify network configuration, and reduce cost ... DARPA is interested in ideas that will lead to the development of new addressing schemes (eg, a structured hierarchical addressing system) to supplement the current IP scheme."

DARPA says that when the present protocols were set up, memory and processing power were big limiting factors. At least in Pentagon networks, they say that's no longer the case and it's time for a rethink.

If any of that sounds like your bag, there are full instructions on how to submit position papers at the link above. DARPA aren't fixing to cough up any cash as yet, but they say they might well if any promising notions turn up

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/28/darpa_wants_to_revolutionise_t_internet/

A New Genre on Wall St.: The Bailout Blog

Over the weekend of June 17, executives at Bear Stearns scrambled to avert the collapse of two hedge funds.

Officers at other Wall Street banks that had provided billions of dollars in loans to the funds began to question why Bear Stearns was not stepping in to bail them out.

In the midst of the turmoil, Richard Marin, the head of the Bear unit that ran the troubled funds, “stole away” from the “crisis-hedge-fund-salvation-workaholic weekend” to see the new Kevin Costner thriller “Mr. Brooks.”

His advice on the film? Take a “pass,” Mr. Marin wrote in a review he posted that day on his blog, whimofiron.blogspot.com.

“I had been working 24-7 on this thing. Taking a small amount of time to clear my head seemed reasonable,” Mr. Marin said yesterday. The blog was personal, he said, intended for his friends and family. It let him talk about movies, life on Wall Street and his efforts to lose weight.

Still, the episode — and Mr. Marin’s blog — offer some insight into Bear’s response to the near collapse of the funds. An embarrassing hit to the bank’s reputation, the incident has forced Bear to pledge up to $1.6 billion in secured loans to bail out one of the hedge funds. It is not providing any financing for the second, much more heavily leveraged fund, which was started in August and has suffered much bigger losses.

But Bear Stearns’s troubles are far from over. The Securities and Exchange Commission has started an informal inquiry into issues surrounding the Bear hedge funds and how the industry is valuing mortgage-related securities like those that Bear holds.

In addition, Bear Stearns has temporarily shifted its top mortgage trader, Thomas Marano, over to the unit, Bear Stearns Asset Management, to help with the funds, say people who were briefed but were not authorized to speak for attribution. They added, however, that assets in the two funds have already been reduced by 90 percent through sales and agreements with creditors.

Standing in the middle of this firestorm is Mr. Marin, a Wall Street veteran who spent 25 years at Bankers Trust, where he helped develop and build its derivative business.

When Mr. Marin joined Bear Stearns Asset Management four years ago, the unit was considered a sleepy backwater inside the bank, largely overlooked for faster growing, more profitable businesses.

“When I joined Bear, Bear had not run the business as aggressively as they wanted to. The way they put it to me was, ‘Bear wants to succeed in whatever it does and that includes asset management,’ ” Mr. Marin said yesterday.

He set a course to bolster the unit’s profit and its stature by shedding unprofitable businesses — like its retail mutual fund distribution arm — and focusing on adding products with richer fees, like hedge funds and structured credit securities for institutional and wealthy clients.

“If you want to stay alive in the asset management business,” said Richard Bove, an analyst with Punk, Ziegel & Company, “you have to go into unique products and go out on the risk spectrum. You have to do the things that Bear Stearns did. Until as of late, the strategy was working out beautifully for them.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/business/28bear.html?ref=technology

WSJ’s Mossberg: iPhone is a magnificent piece of consumer electronics!

According to none other than the Wall Street Journal, one of the most important trends in personal technology over the past few years has been the evolution of the humble cellphone into a true handheld computer, a device able to replicate many of the key functions of a laptop. But most of these "smart phones" have had lousy software, confusing user interfaces and clumsy music, video and photo playback. And their designers have struggled to balance screen size, keyboard usability and battery life.

WSJ's Walt Mossberg says Apple's widely anticipated iPhone raises the bar for all other smart phones.

We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

The Apple phone combines intelligent voice calling, and a full-blown iPod, with a beautiful new interface for music and video playback. It offers the best Web browser we have seen on a smart phone, and robust email software. And it synchronizes easily and well with both Windows and Macintosh computers using Apple's iTunes software.

It has the largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone we've seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim. The phone is thinner than many smart phones. It feels solid and comfortable in the hand and the way it displays photos, videos and Web pages on its gorgeous screen makes other smart phones look primitive.

The iPhone's most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt -- who did most of the testing for this review -- was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.

But the iPhone has a major drawback: the cellphone network it uses. It only works with AT&T (formerly Cingular), won't come in models that use Verizon or Sprint and can't use the digital cards (called SIM cards) that would allow it to run on T-Mobile's network. So, the phone can be a poor choice unless you are in areas where AT&T's coverage is good. It does work overseas, but only via an AT&T roaming plan.

Yada…yada. Copy this onto your browser and read the rest for yourself

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118289311361649057.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today

Beware the Magical IPhone

Is it Steve Jobs or is it….Satan!

There's been a lot of media attention directed at the iPhone recently. Some of it has been positive, some negative, but none have come forth to acknowledge the obvious, sinister context of Apple's latest toy. This device, portrayed as a harmless product of science, is obviously designed to introduce our children to witchcraft and sorcery.

The central pentagram in Apple's vile altar of temptation takes the form of "gestures," hand movements used to control the device. Wiggle your fingers at the iPhone and it does your bidding. Does that not sound familiar? Is that not one of the main ingredients in the blasphemous bisque of sorcery?

Keep in mind as you consider this dire news that Apple is also one of the main proponents of so-called "voice recognition" technology. Every Macintosh computer they ship includes this "feature," allowing you to command your computer using the power of your voice, much as Harry Potter commands demons to do Satan's work.

Another feature provided by the iPhone is the ability to play videos from anywhere in the world. Think of your child gazing into this device, viewing events taking place elsewhere on the planet and even looking back through time. The device itself has a "friendly" rounded look to it. Is this Apple's way of introducing children to the concept of a crystal ball? Will the next iPhone be a perfect transparent sphere? Very likely.

In addition, the iPhone has the ability to sense the environment around it. For instance, it can tell when you've turned it on its side. No doubt you're thinking, "You move it? Like a magic wand?"

It's worse than that, much worse. Certainly there is a similarity to that obscenely phallic symbol of a sorcerer's Satan-fueled power, but it goes much further. The iPhone's ability to sense motion, proximity and light is clearly designed to make it seem less like an object and more like a "familiar spirit," a sort of witch's helper explicitly banned by Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Not convinced? The iPhone also includes a built-in web browser, one that has no limitations on the sort of filth it can access. The internet is well known for being willing to answer any question posed to it, at least from an atheist perspective. Right-thinking people realize that knowledge should be limited to that which is healthy for the mind and soul, but the internet does not agree.

And finally, what do iPhone users and witches have in common? Contracts. The iPhone requires a two-year contract with a cellular-phone company, while witchcraft requires an eternal contract with the Devil, but the parallels are clear.

Now consider the implications of all this. A child growing up in this secular age is introduced to a little technological "friend" that it can control with gestures and words, one that lets it look at other places and times, one that is happy to answer any question, especially if the "correct" answer denies God and the Bible. Shortly thereafter the child -- your child -- is approached by a witch or wizard with similar "devices" like magic wands and crystal balls, which require nothing more than the signing of a contract. Is there any reason the child would resist these overtures?

This is no coincidence! Apple is not working alone under some sort of cloak of secrecy. This has been planned for decades, if not centuries! Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, a noted secular humanist, gloated over this sort of "innovation" when he revealed that future advanced technologies would make people unable to distinguish them from magic.

The media are not the watchdogs of these evil devices that are being shoved down our throats and the throats of our children, they are Satan's salesmen!

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/alttext/2007/06/alttext_0627

Google claims against Microsoft should go to Justice, judge says

A U.S. judge rebuffed complaints by Google Inc., owner of the world's most widely used Internet search engine, that Microsoft Corp. isn't doing enough to make its new operating system more accommodating to rivals.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who oversees the 2001 settlement of the federal government's antitrust suit against Microsoft, told Google's lawyers to take their complaints to the Justice Department. The judge said she will rely on U.S. government lawyers and state attorneys general to tell her if the company isn't meeting its obligations.

And government lawyers reiterated that they're satisfied with a compromise reached last week.
In a court filing Monday, Google said changes announced last week may not go far enough to address its complaints that Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system hinders Google's desktop search engine. The changes resulted from a compromise between Microsoft and state and federal antitrust officials involved in the case.

Google argued that Microsoft's current approach to Windows Vista violates an agreement that bars it from impeding rival desktop software.

Kollar-Kotelly didn't officially rule on Google's request, but her comments highlighted the challenge Google faces in seeking to have its position considered directly by the court.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/321411_googlemsft27.html

Google Helps Non-Profits

Google Inc. launched an initiative to help charities and other non-profit groups use maps and satellite images to raise awareness, recruit volunteers and encourage donations.

The Google Earth Outreach program represents a formalization of ad-hoc partnerships with organizations using the free software to publicize their works.

Already, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has been using Google Earth to call attention to atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. When users scan over Darfur, they see icons of flames representing destroyed villages and of tents for refugee camps. Clicking on one opens a window with details and links on how to help.

The U.N. Environmental Program, meanwhile, has used the software to show areas of environmental destruction. The Jane Goodall Institute shows locations of its research on chimpanzees and African deforestation. A Brazilian Indian tribe is working on ways to help stop loggers and miners from deforesting the jungle and digging for gold.

"There's nothing like the power of information to make people understand the urgency of action," said Kathy Bushkin Calvin, executive vice president for the U.N. Foundation.

Edward Wilson, chief executive of Earthwatch Institute, said the maps help people understand that "what they are reading is not happening some place out of sight, out of mind. Those places become places you can visit, you can actually see."

The launch party at Google's New York office, chosen for its proximity to leading philanthropic groups, came complete with beach balls sporting globe designs. Video monitors showed Google Earth's software in action.

By turning these individual efforts into a formal program, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search company hopes to make its tools more widely available to non-profits around the world. The resources will be available on an open Web site, so technically individuals and corporations can tap into the program as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/
AR2007062600730.html

The Messiah phone cometh

This week Apple's highly anticipated iPhone will hit US shops, arriving in Europe at the end of the year. Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, announced the 'revolutionary' handset back in January at the Macworld Conference & Expo. Ever since its unveiling the iPhone has generated an unprecedented level of media coverage for a mobile phone, impressively picking up nicknames such as the Messiah phone, the Jesus phone and even the God phone.

Unlike any mobile phone touchscreen you may have used before, the iPhone's touchscreen is far more finger-friendly, letting you tap it, brush it sideways and simultaneously touch it with two fingers, expanding or contracting images using a pinching motion. Turn the screen on its side and it automatically changes the screens layout from portrait to landscape, which is particularly useful when you want to view content in widescreen.

While the majority of mobile phones claim to have music players, Web browsers and other similarly useful apps, the iPhone appears to deliver on this promise. The on-board iPod app, for example, which you can listen to using a standard pair of headphones, has all the features associated with a standalone iPod but integrates iTunes' Cover Flow feature, and lets you search through tracks by flicking your finger up and down an album or track list on the screen. Other noteworthy applications include Google Maps that lets you find directions and obtain location based information. If the iPhone has a 'killer app', it may be YouTube. Given how popular the video hosting site is and how good the videos look on the iPhone's large screen, Apple may find that 'Tube-addicts' lap this product up. If you want to send a friend a link to a funny video, then you can do it via the iPhone's email client. The email client supports POP3 and IMAP accounts, including Google Mail and Yahoo.

Let us not forget that this is also a mobile phone and compared to other phones it offers some pretty impressive services. The user interface is geared towards making calling and messaging straightforward. There's the option to set up a favourite contacts list, giving you quick access to your nearest and dearest. Conference calling is a cinch and you can go through your voicemails in a list format, selecting the specific one you want to listen to rather than have to listen to them all.

In an attempt to appease any pre-launch doubts, Apple recently released a tour-guide-style video on its site that shows how easy the touchscreen is to use, and announced that the display will be protected by optical-quality glass, which should lessen the chances of it getting defiled. They have also put up a battery life chart that shows the iPhone's battery life supersede that of several major competitors and expressed confidence that their pricing plan is fair, comparing any raised eyebrows with the reaction to early iPod price plans.

Whether or not any potential problemos get in the way of Apple taking over the mobile phone market, as they did the MP3 player market, has yet to be seen. If there are any major problems with the iPhone, people and in particular journalists will be quick to raise the alarm. But if the iPhone fails it won't break Apple, it will just tarnish its clean and fresh image. Judging by how excited people have got over a product they have never seen in the flesh, the Messiah phone should find itself rich in disciples.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2007/06/26/nosplit/dlphone26.xml

Google Seeks Ruling on Microsoft Oversight: The Death of a Thousand Cuts

Google is pressing for an extension to the Justice Department’s oversight of Microsoft’s business practices, which for the most part is set to expire in November, according to a court filing Monday.

“Microsoft’s hardwiring of its own desktop search product into Windows Vista violates the final judgment” in the United States government’s antitrust case against the software maker, Google said in the court document.

Over the last year, Google has complained to state and federal regulators that Microsoft’s Instant Search program, which helps Windows Vista users search their hard drives, slows down third-party desktop search programs. Google has also said that Microsoft makes it hard for PC users to choose alternatives to the built-in search, including its own free Google Desktop program.

The search company’s claims were meant to show that Microsoft was not complying with the antitrust settlement, reached in 2002 after the government concluded that Microsoft used its near-ubiquitous Windows operating system to suppress competition. Microsoft is now bound by a consent decree that requires it to help rivals build software that runs smoothly in Windows.

For Google, those changes did not go far enough. The company asked Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court to extend beyond November parts of the consent decree that govern “middleware,” or software that links different computer programs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/technology/26google.html?ref=technology

Apple iPlans keep it simple

Brace yourself

Apple and AT&T have announced three calling plans to match with the iPhone, which is all set to launch at the end of the week. The three tier plans are $59.99 for 450 minutes, $79.99 for 900 minutes and $99.99 for 1,350 minutes. It includes unlimited data (EDGE) and 200 SMS messages and other trimmings. These plans are no different than what AT&T actually offers right now on its website, except that the array of choices on their website can give any one a headache. Apple has kept it simple.

However a word of caution for heavy SMS users - unless you upgrade to the the $10-for-1500 messages (or $20 for unlimited messaging) offer you are going to be served up when activating the phone, you are in for a nasty surprise and a big tab at the end of the month. AT&T typically charges $0.05 for every message – so for extra 100 messages you end up paying $5.

And how these new plans stack up against other phone companies’ offerings? We are plowing through the details, and have found one plan that is better than the basic iPlan: Verizon’s “America Choice Select” calling plan is similarly priced AND includes unlimited messaging. Neil is right - it doesn’t include data and wifi. Sorry about that. Jeff Nolan thinks his T-Mobile plan is saving him money when compared to the iPlan, so check it out.

Update: Read the damn fine print. TUAW reports:

Can you buy an iPhone and just use the built in WiFi and iPod features? Apparently not. According to the small print on Apple’s rate plan webpage, you need to purchase a 2 year wireless service plan. This means your iPhonePod will cost you at least ($60/month * 24 months) + $500/iPhone = $1940 + $36 activation fee + tax.

http://gigaom.com/2007/06/26/apple-iphone-plans/

Murdoch explores swap of MySpace site for Yahoo! stake

News Corporation has discussed swapping MySpace, its internet social networking unit, with Yahoo! in return for a 30 per cent stake in the enlarged group.

The discussions remain tentative and could collapse after the departure of Terry Semel as Yahoo!’s chief executive and his replacement by Jerry Yang this week. Mr Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! and incoming chief executive, yesterday pledged to “dig in” to his new role, and acknowledged the difficult task he faces to arrest the decline in the internet portal’s shares.

News Corp, the parent company of The Times, is interested in a deal even if it means losing some control of MySpace because it would give the media group exposure to a far larger internet-based business.

Other News Corp digital assets, including the games network IGN, bought in 2005 for $650 million (£326 million), are also thought to have been offered to Yahoo!.

A deal would demonstrate a remarkably swift return on News Corp’s investment in MySpace, which it acquired for $580 million in summer 2005.

Yesterday Yahoo! was worth $37 billion. A quarter stake in an enlarged company would be worth $12.3 billion. It is not clear whether Yahoo! was willing to accept the terms offered, even though it has been eager to break into social networking to catch up with Google. Yahoo! tried and failed to buy Facebook, the No 2 social networking site, for $1 billion last year.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1957867.ece

'Day of silence' for US web radio

Some believe the decision could be the end of US web radio

Web radio broadcasters across the US will hold a "day of silence" on Tuesday in protest at plans to hike royalty payments when music is played online. The plan - due to come into force on 15 July - could cost webcasters around $1bn in additional administration fees, protesters claim.

The protest is being organised by the SaveNetRadio Coalition, whose members include Yahoo, Viacom and RealNetworks. It is hoping the day will raise public awareness of the issue.

The decision to impose the fees was made by a panel of judges who threw out requests to overturn an earlier ruling. The sharp rises in royalty fees could be "fatal" to the nascent industry, a coalition of web broadcasters has claimed. "These proposals will bankrupt the industry," Jake Ward, a spokesman for the SaveNetRadio Coalition told the Reuters news agency. The increases could represent a 300% rise in current payments and the plan is to eventually charge royalties every time an online listener hears a song.

Public and commercial broadcasters claim the decision will force cuts to services used by an estimated 50 million people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6240418.stm

Is Google buying a phone company?

Rumours, we hear rumours

Google is close to buying phone management company GrandCentral which provides one number for life which can be routed to various actual numbers.

Neither company is commenting but blog speculation puts a $50m value on the deal. GrandCentral offers one central number and voicemail for a variety of phones. You can change how your phone reacts to incoming calls on different numbers, with different voicemail messages or ringtones.

With Google already encouraging people to sign up to access email and VoIP services a tie-up to mobile phones would make sense.

GrandCentral launched late last year and is currently in beta, covering 47 US states.

It provides a visual inbox - which shows voicemail messages as if they were emails with information on who the caller is, when they called and the length of the message. Numbers can be blocked, sent straight to voicemail or set to hear a personalised message. You can be notified that you have a voicemail by text message or email.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/google_buying_grandcentral/

IBM forks over $7m in Dollar General settlement

Natch, Big Blue neither admits, nor denies, wrongdoing

IBM has agreed to pay $7m to settle a Securities and Exchange Commision investigation into financial statements from Dollar General in 2000. The money will go into a Dollar General general shareholder fund.

The payment is only part of the settlement, under which IBM says it neither admits nor denies wrong doing. The terms of the agreement do include IBM accepting an administrative order from the SEC instructing the firm not to break the federal securities laws and related SEC rules.

In 2004, the SEC informed IBM that it was investigating an $11m transaction with Dollar General, as part of a broader investigation into the accounting practises of the IBM client. The SEC said the transaction violated accounting rules.

IBM says Dollar General is client of its Retail Store Solutions unit, which sells point-of-sale products. IBM paid the money to Dollar General for used technology equipment as part of a deal in which Dollar General also bought new equipment from IBM. The SEC found that this deal helped a Dollar General earnings misstatement in 2000.

IBM says that it will not need to restate any earnings, since it has already dealt with any issues the SEC identified.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/26/ibm_settles_sec/

Wall Street Wonderland’s Tech Tszouris

While we know that it does no one any real good to post notices about the technical difficulties that occasionally prevent us from serving your news-related needs in a timely fashion, it nonetheless makes us feel better to let you know that a problem with the evil voodoo-box that holds our blog posts hostage until a proper offering of fresh poultry is made has hobbled us for the last three hours or so. But the required chickens have now been slaughtered, so things should again function properly, and our regular posting schedule will resume shortly.

As always, thank you for sticking by us in these trying times.

Dell Gives Users A Bill of Rights: #1 The Right to Refuse 'Bloatware'

Dell Inc. is allowing its customers to decline the unwanted software applications loaded on new PCs, after hundreds of users complained about such "bloatware" on a company blog.

Many software companies pay PC vendors to install their applications on new computers, hoping to gain new customers or persuade users to upgrade to a new version. But customers say it can take a savvy user hours to remove unwanted programs, and those who are less sophisticated may never be able to reclaim the wasted memory.

On Monday, Dell agreed to give buyers of certain PC models the option to avoid what the company calls "preinstalled software." Buyers of Dimension desktops, Inspiron notebooks and XPS PCs can now click a field in Dell's online order form that will block the installation of productivity software, ISP (Internet service provider) software, and photo and music software.

"Since we launched IdeaStorm, there has never been a shortage of conversation about 'bloatware' here! Well we've recently taken action on your feedback on this topic, and we're working toward giving customers more choice in the amount and type of software that is preinstalled on their systems at the time of purchase," Dell said on the blog.

The company has also loaded an extra "uninstall utility" program on Dimension and Inspiron computers sold in the U.S., making it easier for new computer users to remove software they don't want.

However, Dell will continue to install three applications on its new computers, including trial versions of antivirus software, Adobe Systems Inc.'s Acrobat Reader and Google Inc.'s Google Toolbar, said Michelle Pearcy, Dell's worldwide client software manager in another posting.

The company includes antivirus software because many customers expect their PCs to be protected at first boot, Acrobat because it is required to read electronic copies of system documentation, and Google Toolbar because it aids Web surfing by suggesting likely alternatives to mistyped URLs (uniform resource locators), she said.

"The end result is that customers can tailor the amount and type of software that is preinstalled on their systems to meet their specific needs at time of purchase," Pearcy said.

Many users said Dell had not gone far enough, however. Dozens of comments attached to Pearcy's blog posting pled with the company to abstain from loading any software on a new machine except for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows OS and Office tool suite.

"Would love the ability to have a clean Vista install. No AOL software, no EarthLink software, no Google software -- just a clean, original OS," said someone writing under the name "ootleman" in a Feb. 16 posting that has since received thousands of votes on Dell's site. That post helped start the idea for Dell to give users more control, since it has remained one of the most popular ideas on the company's IdeaStorm Web site since being posted on the blog's first day, Pearcy said.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,133297-page,1/article.html

My summer job? Wiping up drool puddles at the iPhone launch

Having no experience with customers climbing over each other to get into its retail stores, AT&T is taking no chances with the June 29 launch of Apple’s iPhone. The company has hired an extra 2,000 people to help with sales and security during the initial wave of demand, half of whom may stay on board if the iPhone brings in as much new business as AT&T hopes. The prized gadget will go on sale at 1,800 stores at 6 p.m. sharp next Friday, and Larry Carter, senior vice president of sales for AT&T, said, “We fully expect one or more of our stores to run out of stock on the first or second day — my guess is the first day.” Units are being allotted according to estimated regional demand, so places like California, New York City and Chicago with large iPod user bases, will have the best stock. And if you have a buy-and-resell-or-hoard plan, forget it — AT&T will limit purchases to an unspecified number. An early report that iPhone customers won’t learn the details of their calling plans until they’re standing in line next week is now being denied. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel told iLounge the separate voice and data plans will be revealed pre-launch and that “it’s not going to be anything

http://www.svextra.com/blogs/gmsv/

Business.com: yours for $400m

Party like it's 1999, multiplied by 53

A piece of prime web real estate, which set a price record at the height of the dotcom bubble, is being punted to potential buyers for up to $400m. Jake Winebaum and Sky Dayton, the two entrepreneurs who bought the business.com domain for $7.5m in December 1999, are ready to cash in, according to the WSJ.

The price tag is between $300m and $400m, the paper reports, and the auction is attracting interest from US media groups Dow Jones and The New York Times Company.

Insiders said business.com's revenues are about $15m. Having bagged that on the back of a basic link dump page, the asking price might not seem all that unreasonable to a prospective owner with decent content to hawk.

http://www.theregister.com/2007/06/22/business_com_for_sale/

iPhone as Classic Melodrama

I'm eagerly awaiting the iPhone introduction, but not just because I want one. I'm looking forward to the drama of Jobs, Apple, and cool gadgets vs. the stock market and financial analysis. I'm hoping that Apple and Steve Jobs can establish coolness as a wild-card measure of long-term health in a stock market world ruled by short-term metrics like gross margins and last quarter's earnings. It's a classic drama, complete with a hero, a fatal flaw, and, I hope, final redemption.

Some of this is standard drama of product launch. What if the iPhone comes out flawed with some problem that didn't show up in the media build-up? What if decision to hold it to the single wireless provider blows up? What if Jobs' media genius has built demand way beyond what Apple can deliver? Will the experts still like iPhone after the launch? Will they call Apple the morning (or quarter) after?

Steve Jobs really knows cool. He called it "insanely great" during the early days of Macintosh. The Macintosh, Steve Jobs' pet project, made computers cool for the first time ever in 1984. I was around Apple a lot back then, consulting to its Latin America group. The word was that Jobs wanted lower pricing. Jobs wanted market share. Jobs wanted Macintosh for everybody, which the ads called "the rest of us." And then Jobs was out.

Some blamed Apple's slide on its decision not to sell system software to other hardware makers, but that was a symptom, not the cause. The real problem, the tragic flaw, was a compensation plan at the highest level meant key decisions tracked stock prices instead of long-term strength. Almost every manager I dealt with agreed that the pricing was hurting share, and that share would be better for the long term, and that The competitors managed 30 percent gross margin while Apple stayed at 50 percent, meaning that companies like Dell, Compaq, IBM, and HP, charged about $2,000 for what cost them $1,400, while Apple charged $2,800. Apple watchers normally cite the as the biggest mistake Apple made. What they don't realize is that focus on stock prices was the real problem. The operating system decision was a symptom, not a cause. The stock price fixation was true for a long time. Apple's premium pricing gave its competition (read: Microsoft Windows) time to catch up.

Before I go on with the drama I should clarify something. I'm not one of those diehard "Apple is good, Microsoft is bad" people. I'm just watching here. My software company develops in Windows and for Windows. I don't think Microsoft is evil. I do own a Macintosh and several iPods, but I work with Windows. And I don't think Apple saves souls.

I should add that I have no objection to premium pricing as sound business strategy. It makes sense in a lot of markets. I like high-priced restaurants and expensive cars. What made premium pricing a mistake for the Macintosh, however, was that it constrained unit sales in a business that depends on a community of software developers, hardware developers, accessory makers, retail stores, and broad compatibility for its ultimate success. The iPod wouldn't have been what it is today if the price hadn't dropped after the initial surge of excitement. The Macintosh could have been the industry standard if Apple had priced it aggressively enough in those formative years. Some high tech products -- computers, entertainment devices, and cell phones among them -- depend on a bandwagon (we call it a platform) as part of their success.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-berry/iphone-as-classic-drama_b_53326.html

Swedish man gets benefits for Black Sabbath addiction

Who's next? Ozzy?

A Swedish man is to receive sickness benefits for his addiction to heavy metal music. The lifestyle of 42-year-old dishwasher Roger Tullgren from Hässleholm in southern Sweden has been classified as a disability by the Swedish Employment Service, which has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary, and his new boss has given him special dispensation to play loud music at work.

According to Swedish online newspaper The Local, Tullgren first developed an interest in heavy metal when his older brother bought a Black Sabbath album in 1971. Since then, Tullgren is a classic (albeit softly spoken) heavy metal head with tattoos and skull and crossbones jewellery. Last year he attended almost 300 heavy metal shows, while playing bass and guitar in two rock bands, including Silverland.

Tullgren says he has always had difficulty holding down a job, mainly because he is absent most of the time. Psychologists decided Tullgren's obsession is nothing less than an addiction, which puts him in a difficult situation in the labour market. Tullgren said he has been fighting for recognition for a long time.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/man_diagnosed_with_heavy_metal/

Psst. You gotta keep this news real quiet. It's only between us, you, and……

Lips sealed? Okay. Apparently, this trendy consumer electronics company called Apple (right, the maker of the iPod) is coming out with a phone in a couple weeks, and there's a good chance that the stock will jump on the day it goes on sale. Why will it jump? Because nobody is seeing this news coming. Nobody realizes that the iPhone is coming out, and when it does (and news reports show a lot of people lining up at stores), everyone will be shocked at this phenomenon. So here's your chance to get in now! Ground floor baby. Before the masses realize what's going on.

http://www.dealbreaker.com/

Yahoo Snaps Up Rivals for Sports Lineup

The much-rumored deal for Rivals.com finally took place, with Yahoo reportedly paying $100 million for the college and high school information site. People who desperately need to know who will be the fourth-string tailback for the old U coming out of spring football camp will find their Rivals.com fix has become part of Yahoo.

The announcement of the purchase said Yahoo has picked up about 2 million visitors who hit the Rivals network of sites each month. It also gives Yahoo another social network, this time one comprised of die-hard sports fans who participate in Rivals.com communities.

"For those of you wondering how our recent management changes will impact our media operations here in Santa Monica, this deal should give you an indication that we’re going full steam ahead," Yahoo Sports general manager Jimmy Pitaro said on Yahoo's official blog.

The Santa Monica operation had been implemented by ex-CEO Terry Semel, who brought in Lloyd Braun to head up Yahoo's media operations near Hollywood. Pitaro's comment indicated Yahoo isn't pulling the plug on Santa Monica yet.

Paid Content said the purchase price ended up being in the neighborhood of $100 million. Yahoo has not confirmed specific details about the price of Jerry Yang's first deal as CEO.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/06/21/yahoo-chooses-rivals-for-sports-lineup

No Vista Home on Macs, Microsoft Says

Microsoft changes its mind to allow Vista Home and Home Premium owners to run the OS under virtualization on the Mac.

Earlier this week Microsoft had planned to allow owners of Vista Home and Home Premium to use the operating system under virtualization on the Mac platform. However, before the announcement was even made, the company reversed the decision and said the planned change would not happen after all.

"Microsoft has reassessed the Windows virtualization policy and decided that we will maintain the original policy announced last Fall," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement provided to Macworld.

However, Microsoft's position earlier this week was decidedly different. In a meeting with Macworld the company said that due to customer feedback on virtualization, they would be changing the EULA (End User Licensing Agreement) to allow virtualization of the low-end Vista products.

"We are always listening to the community with regards to licensing," Scott Woodgate, director of the Windows Vista team, told Macworld. "Security is still a concern, but we are enabling the customer to make that choice."
Since Microsoft will not allow Vista Home to be run under virtualization, users are back where they started -- running Vista Business, Ultimate or Enterprise in order to comply with the licensing agreement.

Virtualization specialist Parallels said that they welcomed the decision to allow virtualization across the Vista product line and they will continue to work with Microsoft on virtualization.

"We were obviously disappointed," said Ben Rudolph, Parallels director of corporate communications. "Any annoucement from any OS vendor that makes it easier to use their technology with virtualization is a welcome one."

Rudolph said that most Parallels users are running their virtual machines with Windows XP, not Vista at this point.

"Of course, the decision to license or not license Vista for use in a virtual machine is up to Microsoft, and we will certainly respect their decision, but we will continue to advocate on behalf of our users and we'll continue to work with Microsoft on the issue," said Rudolph.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,133196-c,vistalonghorn/article.html

Blogosphere is the net spawn of Satan: official

Only 'folksonomy' inspires more fear and loathing

It's official: "folksonomy", "blogosphere", "netiquette" and "blook" are among the net-spawned terms which should be cast down into the eternal fires of hell, AFP reports.

That's the conclusion of a poll on behalf of the Lulu Blooker Prize which asked 2,091 adults to vote for the most hideous words which have escaped from cyberspace. The top five were (look away now if you have sensitive linguistic sensibilities.

1. Folksonomy

2. Blogosphere

3. Blog

4. Netiquette

5. Blook

Yup, they can all blugger off back where they came from, as can "cookie" and "wiki", which secured ninth and tenth spots, respectively.

As to what monstrosities occupy positions six to eight, you'll have to use your imaginations, because AFP is evidently too terrified to commit them to print. We phoned pollsters YouGov for enlightment, but we're still waiting for the shocking truth at time of publication. Watch this space.

http://www.theregister.com/2007/06/21/loathesome_vocab/

Safari on Windows: Why Apple is Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’

Jobs & Co. cannot beat Microsoft and Mozilla

Apple rarely competes directly — with anyone. Instead of slugging it out with other hardware and software companies on a level playing field, Apple historically creates its own playing field from scratch, then dominates it utterly.

While nearly the whole industry participated in what used to be called the 'IBM-compatible' market, with clone hardware running DOS, OS/2, Windows and, later, Linux, Apple refused to play. Instead, the company always built its own computers that ran its own operating system.

Those funny 'PC vs. Mac' ads create the false impression of direct, one-on-one, competition between PCs and Macs, but it’s a marketing sleight of hand. While a Mac is a unified, tightly controlled hardware-and-software product from Apple, a PC contains an unpredictable mixture of hardware components integrated by any number of companies, lorded over (usually) by a Microsoft operating system.

If PCs were made by Microsoft, and Microsoft didn’t allow anyone else to make PCs, then you could make an apples-to-apples comparison, as it were, between PCs vs. Macs. But they’re not, so you can’t.

While Dell competes directly with HP and hundreds of other companies in the PC space, Apple does not compete directly with anyone in the Mac market. Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t a bad thing. There are advantages and disadvantages to Apple’s approach, and the success of Apple brings welcome choice to the market.

Likewise with the iPod. The portable media player market is the House That Apple Built. The company owns the iTunes platform and largely controls digital music distribution. Steve Jobs is the most powerful man in Hollywood, and he doesn’t even live there. Apple doesn’t compete directly with anyone in the media player market because, like the Mac market, Apple created the media file management platform (iTunes), the content marketplace (digital file distribution through iTunes) and standards, and doesn’t let anyone else play.

With the iPhone, Apple is once again refusing to compete directly in the mobile phone market. While some handset makers compete directly with each other in the Windows Mobile, Symbian and other ‘open’ platform markets, companies like Research In Motion, Palm and, soon, Apple all play in their own respective, self-created sandboxes. Controlling your own platform has proved for RIM and Palm to be the way to go, and will also be successful for Apple.

Apple is once again creating its own category - call it the Mac OS-based mobile phone category - and I’m sure Apple will win 100 percent market share.

I can think of only one example in which Apple competes directly with other companies on a level, open playing field: the software media player market.

Apple’s Windows version of QuickTime competes directly with Microsoft’s bundled Windows Media Player, RealNetworks’ RealPlayer and others. Although QuickTime holds its own, Apple doesn’t dominate market share. But from a quality and usability standpoint, QuickTime is by far the superior player, in my opinion. For video quality, sound quality and ease of use, QuickTime rules in every element of the user experience.

So why do I have such a bad feeling about Safari for Windows?

By announcing a Safari for Windows, Jobs uncharacteristically entered a mature market not created or controlled by Apple. This is Sparta. The insular Apple universe is a relatively gentle place, an Athenian utopia where Apple’s occasional missteps are forgiven, all partake of the many blessings of citizenship, and everyone feels like they’re part of an Apple-created golden age of lofty ideas and superior design.

But the Windows world isn’t like that. It’s a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market.

This is no Athens. This is Sparta.

Apple sent its first emissary, the beta version of Safari for Windows (see our Safari 3.0 beta on Windows review), into the Windows world, and it was unceremoniously kicked into the well.

Hours after Jobs announced Safari for Windows (and despite Apple’s claim that Safari is “designed to be secure from Day One”) security experts published information about some 18 security holes found in the new browser. Bloggers and message board posters lunged at the news, and heaped vicious scorn and ridicule on Apple and Safari.

The browser is beta, and bugs are expected. Apple fixed the problems just three days after they surfaced.

Apple-fan bloggers are aghast at the rough treatment. But they’d better get used to it.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=9776

Apple buyout rumours circulate as iPhone launch nears

Scepticism about the launch of the Apple iPhone is growing, and it isn't helping the Apple share price. What a coincidence that exactly as things get tougher in the stock market, rumours start appearing that will "cause a 40 per cent premium on the Apple share price"!

The rumours simply say that Google may buy Apple. The original idea is buried deep in a New York Magazine hagiography of Jobs by John Heilemann, mostly saying how the appearance of failing physical health actually marks his ascendance to a Higher Plane of guruhood.

The references to Google in that article are cryptic:

MySpace and Snocap are not alone. Last month, Amazon.com announced it would, at long last, dive into music retailing and open up a download store by the end of the year that will offer DRM-free MP3s. At the outset, the Amazon storefront will be stocked only with tracks from independent labels and one major, EMI. But the widespread expectation is that other majors will soon hop on the bandwagon. Universal, for one, is already experimenting with unprotected files in Europe. And the company is reportedly talking with Google about a deal to sell MP3s.

And is that all? No! there's this:

Maybe Jobs’s queasiness with thinking about legacy comes from the pancreatic-cancer scare he received, and eluded, a few years ago. Or perhaps it comes from another sort of brush with death—the Apple stock-option backdating scandal that embroiled him recently—which he also has managed to survive. Some of his friends say these close calls have mellowed him. "I see him around the neighborhood," says one. "He looks different than he did a few years ago. I think he may want to do something else."

Say what? "I think that Google is going to buy Apple," this person says. "It would be a victory for Apple; they’d get major-league partners, money, and engineers. And it would be a victory for Steve—a huge win that lets him leave the stage."

An unnamed source, a story described as "speculation" - why do people want to believe it?
You may as well ask: "Why do people want to believe that the iPhone - still not available! - has twice the battery life of other GSM phones of the same size? and is an incumbent in its market?" Just google for "iphone killer" to see how awful public perception is! Nearly a million hits!

The answer: Jobs talks to journalists who worship him.

If you want to get interviews with Steve, you won't do it by writing sceptical columns. And an interview with Jobs is gold for a publication, so don't be too surprised to find one in New York Magazine soon...

As for the suggestion that Microsoft would be a better partner for Apple, ignore it! The rivalry between Jobs and Gates is not going to end. Do business with each other? Sure! but let either of them gain ascendancy? NEVER!

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/apple_buyout_rumours/

Microsoft agrees to alter Vista desktop search

Redmond has agreed to modify its Vista operating system to resolve Google's concerns that the operating system’s design hurts competing desktop search products in violation of a 2001 anti-trust settlement. Google claimed Vista made it too difficult for a user to turn off the default desktop search and that Google's desktop search ran too slowly when users chose it as an alternate.

Although Microsoft said such claims were “baseless”, the software giant has agreed to change the search feature as part of the first service pack to Windows Vista, saying a beta version will come by the end of the year, according to a filing made jointly with the Justice Department.

Under the agreement, Microsoft will create a mechanism whereby both computer makers and individuals will be able to choose a default desktop search program, much as they can choose a rival browser or media player, even though those technologies are built into Windows.

The default search program will be launched to provide search results, however, in areas where Microsoft includes a search bar – such as the Windows Explorer – Vista will continue to display the search results using the internal Vista desktop search functionality, but will show a link to launch the default desktop search app and display the program’s results. Microsoft has also committed to provide technical details to enable rivals to write programs minimizing the performance impact of Vista's own search index.

http://www.techspot.com/news/25778-Microsoft-agrees-to-alter-Vista-desktop-search.html

Weird World News: Swedish man gets benefits for Black Sabbath addiction

Who's next? Ozzy?

A Swedish man is to receive sickness benefits for his addiction to heavy metal music.

The lifestyle of 42-year-old dishwasher Roger Tullgren from Hässleholm in southern Sweden has been classified as a disability by the Swedish Employment Service, which has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary, and his new boss has given him special dispensation to play loud music at work.

According to Swedish online newspaper The Local, Tullgren first developed an interest in heavy metal when his older brother bought a Black Sabbath album in 1971. Since then, Tullgren is a classic (albeit softly spoken) heavy metal head with tattoos and skull and crossbones jewellery. Last year he attended almost 300 heavy metal shows, while playing bass and guitar in two rock bands, including Silverland.

Tullgren says he has always had difficulty holding down a job, mainly because he is absent most of the time.

Psychologists decided Tullgren's obsession is nothing less than an addiction, which puts him in a difficult situation in the labour market. Tullgren said he has been fighting for recognition for a long time.

Many occupational psychologists in Sweden, however, are totally baffled by the decision. "If somebody has a gambling addiction, we don't send them down to the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction," deputy employment director Henrietta Stein for the Skåne region told The Local.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/man_diagnosed_with_heavy_metal/

iPhone Battery To Suck Somewhat Less Than iPod Battery

Jerkoff Jobs announced this morning that the billion dollar mobile will exceed expectations, re: only lasting 2 hours before needing to be charged and work for a whopping eight hours between charges. Of course, this estimate works under the construct that from the second you turn your phone on at make a call—one call—you can talk for eight hours. But it doesn’t take into account that you might want to make use of some of the features you paid $500 for, like sending email, listening to music-- scrolling through songs, etc.

But let’s just take eight hours at face value—are we the only cynical, OCD assholes who would just as soon listen to music on iPods and email on Blackberrys (which last 16+hours), rather than pay for a screen that'll probably go to black at the most inopportune time and that’s going to have so many finger prints on it it’ll drive us insane (and: carry 80 things at once, since most of you are contractually obligated to carry a BBerry anyway, and it’ll be a dark day in hell before the banks start issuing iPhones)? I don’t think so.

Why then, are Wall Street’s analysts calling Apple at 160 and up and predicting that the ‘Phone will sell more than 40 million in 2009, lifting revenues more than 30% and earnings by 40%? A confluence of things, including the success of the iPod and the Mac, the monetization of geekdom, a growing segment of the population united in their hate of keyboards and the fact that Jobs, despite his laid back Mock Turtleneck/sneakers/501s demeanor, is a bit of an asshole, and assholes usually get what they want.

This is neither a judgment (if you know one thing about us it’s that assholes are our heroes) nor a statement not based on fact: John Heilemann writes today in New York that the “most common descriptor applied to [Jobs], by friends and foes and even Jobs himself is ‘asshole’.” His response to the question by a Wired writer, “If you could go back and give advice to 25-year-old self, what would you say?” was “Not to deal with stupid interviews—I have no time for this philosophical bullshit.” When he was asked by US assistant attorney general Joel Klein to get involved with the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, he asked, “Are you going to do something serious? Or is it going to be dickless?”

Mouthing off to U.S. Attorney: Assholeish or Heroish, you make the call. (We pick: C. All of the Above, but you know how us girls are attracted to assholes). And does it make you want to buy that thing?

http://dealbreaker.com/

Breakthrough: Blu-ray pulls ahead in video tech battle

Blu-ray has struck a major blow in its long-running battle to become the most popular video technology. In a few years’ time all films will be released for sale on a high definition disc – offering viewers at home crystal clear quality.

However, neither the film studios, nor consumers, have chosen their favourite format.

The race between Blu-ray, backed by Sony, and rival Toshiba-backed HD DVD echoes a similar race in the 1980s between Betamax and VHS format video machines.

Yesterday film rental firm Blockbuster came out in favour of Blu-Ray, saying it is to rent high-definition DVDs in the Blu-ray format only at 1,450 of its US stores.

The move follows a trial at 250 stores where both were available – and rentals of Blu-ray disc “significantly outpaced” HD DVD.

“The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing,” said Matthew Smith, at Blockbuster. The victory for Blu-ray will be a boost for all British owners of Playstation 3, which is capable of playing Blu-Ray films.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/19/wformat119.xml

Ubuntu chief mua muas Microsoft

Dirty uncle not welcome

Leader of the Ubuntu tribe Mark Shuttleworth has no plans to invite dirty uncle Microsoft over for patent protection talks. Canonical's CEO this weekend spanked rumor mongers for suggesting that his company may go the way of Linspire, Xandros and Novell. All of these software makers have formed recent deals with Microsoft around patent "protection." Microsoft, some of you might have heard, has grumbled that Linux and related software could probably – wink, nod – infringe on its patents.

"We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements," Shuttleworth wrote on his blog.

And why not, Shuttle man?

Allegations of "infringement of unspecified patents" carry no weight whatsoever. We don’t think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security.

Shuttleworth then dished out the obligatory "we welcome Microsoft with open arms" statement around interoperability between Linux and Windows.

"I have no objections to working with Microsoft in ways that further the cause of free software, and I don’t rule out any collaboration with them, in the event that they adopt a position of constructive engagement with the free software community," Shuttleworth said. "It’s not useful to characterize any company as 'intrinsically evil for all time.'"

Later, however, he closed: "All the deals announced so far strike me as 'trinkets in exchange for air kisses.' Mua mua. No thanks."

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/06/19/shuttleworth_microsoft_thanks/

The Great iGod Jobs

It’s a stunning box, a wizard object with a passel of amazing features (It’s a phone! An iPod! A Web browser!). But for all its marvels, the iPhone inaugurates a dangerous new era for Jobs. Has he peaked?

He saunters out onstage, and the first thing you think is, man, Steve Jobs looks old. The second thing you think is, no, not old: He finally looks his age. Well into his forties, Jobs appeared to have pulled off some kind of unholy Dorian Gray maneuver. But now, at 52, his hair is seriously thinning, his frame frail-seeming, his gait halting and labored. His striking facial features—the aquiline nose, the razor-gash dimples—are speckled with ash-gray stubble. A caricaturist would draw him as a hybrid of Andre Agassi and Salman Rushdie. The senescence on display is jarring, but it’s also fitting. After three decades as Silicon Valley’s regnant enfant terrible, Jobs has suddenly, improbably, morphed into its presiding éminence grise.

The stage in question is at the Four Seasons in Carlsbad, California, where Jobs has come this afternoon in May for The Wall Street Journal conference “D: All Things Digital.” Dressed in his customary uniform—black mock turtleneck, faded 501s, running shoes—Jobs sits across from Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, who commences with a simple question: Having recently changed its named from Apple Computer to Apple Inc., exactly what business is the company in?

“We’ll very shortly be in three businesses and a hobby,” Jobs replies, projecting the mildest affect he can muster—yet still the crowd is goggle-eyed, as if Bono were in the house.

The cliché of Jobs as rock star is, of course, hoary to the point of enfeeblement. From the start of his career—which is to say, for his entire adult life—he has radiated a mesmeric presence, his “reality-distortion field.” But as Jobs makes clear today, Apple’s reality is no longer in need of much distortion. On the back of the first two businesses he names, the Mac and the iPod-iTunes tandem, Apple racked up $21.6 billion in sales in the last twelve months, and $2.8 billion in profits. Its stock price has doubled in the past year; last month, AAPL was named to the S&P 100, making it a bona fide blue chip. With what Jobs dubs a “hobby,” Apple TV, the company has invaded the sanctum sanctorum of living-room entertainment. Then there’s that third, impending business, which revolves around a gorgeous sliver of palmtop gee-whizzery that you may have heard about: the iPhone.

Ten years ago, when Jobs retook the reins at Apple, the suggestion that the company would be where it is today would have seemed a fantasy—or a joke. Apple was bleeding cash, bleeding talent, bleeding credibility. Its laptops were literally bursting into flames. Its war with Microsoft had devolved into a self-lacerating pathology. Today the Mac is, albeit slowly, gaining ground on Windows. And the iPod, which in less than six years has sold north of 100 million units, has Microsoft choking on its dust.

Mossberg notes this astonishing achievement and inquires of Jobs how many copies of iTunes software are in circulation. At least 300 million, Jobs answers, prompting Mossberg to follow up: “Does the scale of this surprise you?” Nodding sagely, Jobs responds, “The scale of a lot of things we’re doing surprises me.”

The Steve Jobs story is one of the classic narratives—maybe the classic narrative—of American business life. Its structure has been rigorous, traditional, and symmetrical: three acts of ten years each. Act One (1975–1985) is “The Rise,” in which Jobs goes into business with his pal, Steve Wozniak; starts Apple in his parents’ Silicon Valley garage; essentially invents the personal-computer industry with the Apple II; takes Apple public, making himself a multimillionaire at age 25; and changes the face of technology with the Macintosh. Act Two (1985–1996) is “The Fall”: the expulsion from Apple, the wilderness years battling depression and struggling to keep afloat two floundering new businesses, NeXT and Pixar. Act Three (1997–2007) is “The Resurrection”: the return to Apple and its restoration, the efflorescence of Pixar and its sale to Disney, the megabillionairehood, the sanctification as god of design and seer of the digital-media future.

The consistent thread running through all three acts is Jobs’s singular persona. His messianism has been present from the start: “He always believed,” says Wozniak, “he was going to be a leader of mankind.” Yet the most common descriptor applied to him, by friends and foes and even Jobs himself, is “asshole.” (Running neck-and-neck for second are “genius” and “sociopath.”) His abrasiveness is legendary and omnidirectional. Asked by a writer from Wired, “If you could go back and give advice to your 25-year-old self, what would you say?,” Jobs erupted, “Not to deal with stupid interviews—I have no time for this philosophical bullshit!” Given an early glimpse of the Segway high-tech people-mover, he bellowed, “I think it sucks,” then later called the company’s founder, trashed his CEO as a “butthead,” and said his marketing chief “should be selling Kleenex at a discount store in Idaho.” Implored by the government to take part in the federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, he snapped at the United States assistant attorney general, Joel Klein, “Are you going to do something serious? Or is it going to be dickless?”

And yet the respect accorded Jobs is nearly universal. The employees he’s flagrantly abused later concede that he inspired their best work. The fellow bigwigs he’s derided later admit that he was right. His obnoxiousness, Robert Metcalfe, the founder of 3Com, has said, “comes from his high standards ... He has no patience with people who don’t either share those standards or perform to them.” What’s maddening about his mammoth self-regard is that, all too often in Acts One, Two, and Three, it has been justified.

Now, however, Jobs is departing from classical structure and undertaking an Act Four. With the iPhone, in particular, he is hurling Apple into foreign waters. His motivations for doing so aren’t difficult to discern. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion cell phones are sold worldwide every year; in terms of scale, ubiquity, and relevance, it’s the mother of all consumer-electronics markets. The chance to upend this sprawling industry, bend it to his will, is one that Jobs, being Jobs, finds irresistible.

Apple’s competitors, by contrast, find the prospect of the iPhone terrifying. “The entire fucking Western world hopes that it’s a case of imperial overstretch,” says the CEO of one of the planet’s largest communications companies. “But everybody is quietly saying, er, what if people want to buy a $500 phone? What if, er, people have been waiting for a device that does all these things? What if this thing works as advertised? I mean, my God, what then?”

The emerging consensus, in fact, is that the incumbents’ dread is warranted. That Jobs is about to do it again—to unleash another object of overwhelming, consciousness-drenching, culture-shifting desire. That Apple’s past is merely preface to a period of increasing and metastasizing dominance.

But what if that consensus is wrong? What if Jobs and Apple have peaked? What if, in terms of power and influence, it’s all downhill from here? These suggestions might seem incredible, but half a century of high-tech history indicates otherwise. What that history imparts is that it’s precisely when the mighty seem invincible that their humbling is close at hand. For proof, just ask the folks at Sony. Or ask Bill Gates. Or, for that matter, ask Jobs himself—although his memory, at this moment, may be a bit cloudy on the subject…..

http://nymag.com/news/features/33524/

Microsoft vs. Google: The duel on your desktop

Just as a major episode in Microsoft's antitrust saga was winding down, a complaint from its biggest rival threatens to push the company's competitive practices back into the spotlight.
The stage was set by a New York Times report last week that identified Google as the source of a complaint to federal regulators.

Since at least last fall, the search giant has complained privately to the Department of Justice that a desktop search feature built into Windows Vista elbows out competitors and violates the terms of Microsoft's landmark 2001 antitrust settlement with the government.

The legal action will likely play out next in the pages of a joint report due Tuesday from Microsoft and the squad of federal and state government lawyers bird-dogging its compliance with a consent decree stemming from the settlement. The decree spells out what Microsoft must do to remedy its anti-competitive conduct with Windows, the operating-system software installed on more than 90 percent of the world's computers.

A week later, on June 26, the scene will be the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C. Even if the joint report is silent on the Google complaint, observers expect the judge to broach the issue at a regularly scheduled hearing to monitor the status of the settlement.

The stakes are high. The center of gravity in computing is shifting from the desktop — where Microsoft's Windows monopoly was worth $13.1 billion in sales last year — to the Internet. Companies are competing to attract users to their online services for search, e-mail and other tasks that used to be the purview of desktop software alone.

For Google, a prominent spot for its desktop search tool on Windows PCs can help direct millions of people to its online empire, where it makes billions selling advertising.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google filed a formal 49-page complaint with the Justice Department in April detailing its concerns with Vista desktop search. That document has not been made public. Microsoft lawyers haven't seen it, either.

Google would not comment beyond a prepared statement that gave a bare outline of its gripe.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003752031_msftgoog18.html

Apple Upgrades iPhone

Steve Jobs isn't usually one to bow to his critics, but give Apple credit for addressing two major flaws on the iPhone before it goes on sale on June 29.

Apple said Monday that the iPhone will now come with a battery that supports up to eight hours of talk time, three hours more than previously announced. Apple also said the new battery could support up to six hours of Internet use, seven hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.

Apple's battery received harsh criticism (see " Why You May Not Want An iPhone") because early indications suggest that it can't be removed and replaced with a fully charged spare, like consumers can do with competing smart phones from Palm, Motorola, HTC and Research In Motion.

Apple also said Monday that it is upgrading the iPhone's screen from plastic to optical-quality glass, which should improve durability and prevent scratching.

While the upgrades address the iPhone's two biggest flaws, critics still question Apple's decision not to support carrier AT&T's (nyse: T - news - people ) fastest "third-generation" (3G) data network, instead requiring users to access a slower, older network.

Jobs says he expects to sell 10 million iPhones worldwide by the end of next year.

http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2007/06/18/
apple-jobs-iphone-tech-intel-cx_df_0618iphone.html

Apple Upgrades iPhone

Steve Jobs isn't usually one to bow to his critics, but give Apple credit for addressing two major flaws on the iPhone before it goes on sale on June 29.

Apple said Monday that the iPhone will now come with a battery that supports up to eight hours of talk time, three hours more than previously announced. Apple also said the new battery could support up to six hours of Internet use, seven hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.

Apple's battery received harsh criticism (see " Why You May Not Want An iPhone") because early indications suggest that it can't be removed and replaced with a fully charged spare, like consumers can do with competing smart phones from Palm, Motorola, HTC and Research In Motion.

Apple also said Monday that it is upgrading the iPhone's screen from plastic to optical-quality glass, which should improve durability and prevent scratching.

While the upgrades address the iPhone's two biggest flaws, critics still question Apple's decision not to support carrier AT&T's (nyse: T - news - people ) fastest "third-generation" (3G) data network, instead requiring users to access a slower, older network.

Jobs says he expects to sell 10 million iPhones worldwide by the end of next year.

http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2007/06/18/
apple-jobs-iphone-tech-intel-cx_df_0618iphone.html

EBay Recharges Its Auctions

In 1998, eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, changed the background color of the site’s home page from gray to white. Rather than simply switching colors overnight, though, Ms. Whitman directed eBay’s engineers to bleach the gray over the course of 30 days. At the end of the month, the company asked users if they noticed anything different. No one did.

At eBay, subtle change is about to become a thing of the past. Under pressure from analysts and investors to jump-start growth in its core auctions business, eBay is making a series of upgrades intended to make the site more friendly to buyers. In so doing, it may have to endure a torrent of criticism from more than 700,000 sellers who rely on eBay for their livelihoods and who have firm ideas of their own about how best to serve buyers.

“We have to make sure our old users stay with us, but we’re going to be more bold around product changes than we’ve been in the past,” Ms. Whitman said in an interview last week in Boston at eBay Live, an annual conference for the site’s sellers. “I think people expect more from eBay.”

Certainly, analysts do. As the company has expanded beyond its auctions business into Internet telephone service (with its acquisition of Skype), event ticketing (with StubHub) and comparison shopping (with Shopping.com), auction volume has slowed considerably from years past. As of early this month, the volume of eBay’s United States listings was down by 3.8 percent compared with a year earlier, according to Citigroup.

Analysts said sellers were moving to other places on the Web in search of buyers who had grown weary of an overwhelming array of product choices on eBay. “You could go to the site looking for Star Wars items and get the same results as you’d have had in 1999 — a thousand results all sorted by what auction is closing first,” said Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Citigroup. “Are you looking for a Star Wars pendant? Poster? DVD? It doesn’t matter. You’ll see everything.”

Ms. Whitman said that chief among the changes was a new home page design. The company is testing simplified layouts that are less likely to confuse shoppers than the old version, which analysts said was among the most cluttered in the e-commerce industry.

EBay is also testing new ways to deliver search results. Instead of heading each list of results with items whose auctions are about to expire, the company will in the coming months give users the option of seeing search results headed by items the company predicts will be most appealing to buyers — a measure determined in part by how well sellers have been rated by other buyers on eBay.

The changes are still being tweaked and tested in anticipation of wider rollouts in August, Ms. Whitman said, but early results are promising.

“We’re optimistic that the changes will translate to accelerated growth and help us change the trajectory of our two largest markets, U.S. and Germany,” she said.

The company does not disclose its gross sales volume by specific regions, but net revenue in the United States market increased by just 1 percent in the latest quarter, compared with a year earlier. According to Citigroup, the listings on eBay’s German site had dropped by 16.5 percent earlier this month, compared with the similar time last year.
According to Ina Steiner, editor of AuctionBytes.com, a Web site that closely tracks eBay’s merchants, the site’s sellers will probably balk at some of the proposed changes, like the new search results formula.

“There’s always this fear among them that the company is going to favor certain sellers over others,” Ms. Steiner said. “How will they be able to trust that that’s not happening with this?”

Like it or not, though, sellers will have to expect change, Ms. Steiner said. “EBay’s really feeling the maturation of the market, and they’re desperate to bring more buyers to the site,” she said. “They have to do something.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/technology/18ecom.html?ref=technology

Linux leaders plot counterattack on Redmond

The high priests of free software have congregated at Google headquarters this week to debate the future of the movement and face down recent patent threats by Microsoft.

Leading names of Linux, the world's biggest grassroots software phenomenon, are spending three days to Friday debating whether an increasingly commercial open source community should fight or ignore the world's largest software maker.

Dressed in the alternative software movement's casual uniform of T-shirts and jeans, the group is coming to grips with internal divisions that sap at its success -- Linux is now used to power desktop computers, major Web sites, mobile phones -- since rival factions often create very similar products.

But as many of the world's top tech companies and corporate customers demand ever more from Linux, open source devotees still fight among themselves with the fervor of a tiny monastic order seeking to root out theological error in their midst.

"Guys: Be seekers of truth, not finders of contradiction," Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, organizer of the event, only half-jokingly told the 150 attendees of what is billed their "Collaboration Summit."

Linux is the best-known variant of so-called open source software -- software that is freely available to the public to be used, revised and shared. Linux suppliers earn money selling improvements and technical services. By contrast, Microsoft charges for software and opposes freely sharing its code.

Recently, Microsoft has sown dissension by claiming open source programs such as Linux violate 235 of its patents while striking deals to insulate the customers of two Linux suppliers -- Novell and Xandros -- from patent lawsuits.

On Thursday, Linspire Inc., which sells Linux-based personal computers through Wal-Mart and other retailers, became the third company to strike a patent deal with Microsoft.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1446888520070614