Bill Gates shows next Windows

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, gave software developers a preview of the next version of the Windows operating system yesterday in an effort to build support and enthusiasm for the new program.

The New York Times reports (14 September) that the commercial release of the program, known as Windows Vista, is not expected for another year, but Mr. Gates and legions of Microsoft employees are already working with developers to create software applications that will work with the new Windows.

Mr Gates promised attendees that Vista would usher in a "big wave" of sales when it was introduced, the newspaper reports.

Microsoft executives said Vista would have better connectivity with corporate servers, improved graphics and more advanced search capability to allow users to find files more easily on their hard drives.

The new version will be the first major upgrade to Microsoft's core product since the release of Windows XP in 2001.

The newspaper said that, today, Windows runs on nearly 90 percent of the world's computers and accounts for about a third of Microsoft's revenues.

In June, Microsoft said it would release Vista in the second half of 2006, and yesterday the company reaffirmed its intent to meet that schedule.

Nokia plans rival to BlackBerry

Nokia, the leading maker of mobile phones, announced Tuesday that sales were improving and that it was introducing a mobile e-mail product to compete with BlackBerry and others.

The New York Times reports (14 September) that Nokia's revenue and earnings faltered a year ago when it mismatched its products to the market, but it said sales for the three months that will end 30 Sept. should be 8.4 billion euros (US$10.3 billion) to 8.5 billion euros, compared with its previous expectations of 7.9 billion euros to 8.2 billion euros. Nokia predicted earnings of 18 to 19 cents a share, up from an earlier estimate of 14 to 17 cents.

The newspaper reports that, while the sales forecasts were not greatly different, analysts and traders reacted more to Nokia's statement that prices for its phones had been "relatively firm" since July.

For corporate customers, Nokia announced it was getting into the potentially lucrative market for business e-mail messages via cellphone. Bob Brace, Nokia's vice president for mobile enterprise solutions, said the company intended to "bring mobile e-mail to the masses."

The NYT reports that Nokia said its e-mail product, called Nokia Business Centre, is meant for workers without access to company e-mail when they are away from their office computers, a market that comprises most of the 650 million company in-boxes Nokia estimates exist around the world.

The newspaper says that mobile access to e-mail has been the successful stock in trade of the BlackBerry device made by Research in Motion. Nokia, which has been working with the mobile e-mail specialist Good Technology, also faces competition from Microsoft, Visto, Seven Networks and others in wireless corporate messaging.

Bang & Olufsen and Samsung to sell top-end phones

Danish up-market electronics firm Bang & Olufsen and Samsung Electronics will launch a jointly made mobile phone this year, with typical B&O design and high-quality sound, the firms said on Wednesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (14 September) that the phones will have basic communications features and little in the way of high-tech extras, Bang & Olufsen's chief executive told Reuters, adding they would target the high end of the market in terms of price and quality.

Bang & Olufsen are known for their expensive, sleekly designed art-house type televisions and home stereos.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the handsets will be launched in 17 European countries in the fourth quarter, the companies said in a joint statement.

The report adds that while most mobile phone makers are focusing on launching third-generation (3G) phones with features like video calls and downloading music, B&O said the joint venture would stick to tried-and-tested technology.

South Korea's Samsung is the world's third largest mobile phone maker after Nokia of Finland and US Motorola, and its announcement follows comments earlier this month that it aimed to become an elite brand name.

Yahoo launches test of e-mail upgrade

Yahoo on Wednesday will begin testing a sleeker version of its free e-mail service, shifting to a more dynamic design that mimics the look and feel of a computer desktop application like Microsoft's Outlook.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (14 September) that the company plans to invite a ''sizable'' portion of its current e-mail accountholders to experiment with the retooled service, said Yahoo spokeswoman Karen Mahon, who declined to be more specific.

The AP report says that if the test goes well, all of Yahoo's e-mail users -- an audience that spans tens of millions -- eventually will be converted to the new system.

Yahoo imported most of the changes from Oddpost, an e-mail startup the company bought for an undisclosed amount last year.

According to the AP/NYT report, the overhaul, described as the most extensive since Yahoo began offering free e-mail accounts eight years ago, represents the latest salvo in a technological tug-of-war for online traffic.

AP says that for the past two years, Yahoo and its main internet rivals -- Google, AOL and Microsoft's MSN.com -- have been unveiling a series of upgrades aimed at attracting and retaining their web audiences so they remain appealing outlets for advertisers.

Google, which runs the Internet's most popular search engine, shook things up in the e-mail market last year by introducing a free service that included 250 times more storage than some of its rivals. Yahoo and MSN subsequently matched Google, which responded by more than doubling its e-mail storage limit to 2.5 gigabytes, reports AP.

Microsoft Xbox 360 aims at Sony's hold on Japan

Microsoft is making an unprecedented effort to woo Japanese gamers with its new Xbox 360 game console, but analysts say it will be lucky if it can put a dent in Sony Corp's PlayStation following.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (14 September) that even before the release of the Xbox 360, Sony has created more market buzz in Japan for its next-generation PlayStation 3 console, due in the spring.

Microsoft Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach dismisses surveys showing interest in his new console is still low.

Reuters says that Microosoft commented in the NYT report that the lack of success in Japan with the first Xbox was due to lack of compelling games for Japanese, not relations with retailers or even the bulky design of the first Xbox.

Analysts expect the Xbox 360 to sell better than its previous version, but they don't expect it to seriously challenge Sony's dominance of the gaming market in Japan.

US-based research firm IDC estimates that Microsoft will sell 3.5 million Xbox 360 units in Japan by 2009, compared with 8 million PlayStation 3 units.

Microsoft and Sony dominate the US$25 billion video game hardware and software market.

Google gains researcher, Microsoft wins limits

Google and Microsoft each claimed victory on Tuesday in the latest round of their bitter court dispute over a top researcher's defection to Google.

The New York Times reports (14 September) that for Google, though, the victory claim was backed by one clear-cut result: the researcher, Kai-Fu Lee, will be at work there on Wednesday.

The newspaper says that, ruling on Microsoft's request to extend a restraining order, a Seattle judge said Dr. Lee could proceed with helping to create a Google research centre in China. But the judge, Steven C. Gonzalez of King County Superior Court, restricted him from working on some of his specialties - search and language technologies - or using information acquired while a Microsoft vice president.

According to the NYT, the dispute is an extension of the companies' increasing rivalry on each other's software turf, with Google offering a growing array of software programs and utilities that impinge on Microsoft's monopolies and Microsoft trying to gain ground in the search engine market.

Their animosity has grown more acute, or at least more evident, since Google announced in July that it was hiring Dr. Lee, a Chinese computer scientist who established a Microsoft research center in China and more recently worked at Microsoft headquarters on speech recognition technology, says the newspaper.

The NYT report says that the judge's ruling does not end the legal battle. A trial is scheduled to begin in Seattle in January in a Microsoft lawsuit seeking broad application of a noncompete clause in its contract with Dr. Lee.

IBM bulks up integration line

IBM is expected to expand its server software line with a handful of integration and workflow-related products.

The New York Times reports (13 September) that the company plans to introduce two integration servers, called WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and WebSphere Process Server. The software pulls data from various sources and tracks different steps in a business process, according to a company representative. ESB is a loosely defined term to describe integration servers that rely on industry standard messaging formats.

According to the newspaper, in addition, IBM plans to introduce a development tool geared specifically for writing programs that move data between systems, called WebSphere Integration Developer. IBM's Global Services division has also developed professional services for building software that conforms to a service-oriented architecture, or SOA, an increasingly popular software design approach that relies heavily on standards-based integration tools, the report says.

The NYT report says that analysts expect corporate customers to spend tens of millions of dollars on infrastructure software for building and running SOAs.

In the battle to win over customers, IBM is competing against other large providers, including Oracle, BEA Systems, SAP and Microsoft, which is detailing its SOA strategy at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles this week, said the NYT report.

Nokia taking mobile e-mail to corporate masses

Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, said it was launching a corporate e-mail system to allow workers at almost any level to send and receive mail from their mobiles.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 September) that Nokia Business Centre, as the new e-mail system is to be known, seeks to bridge the gap between the world's 650 million corporate e-mail accounts and the elite of about 10 million who have mobile access to their business e-mail inboxes.

The Finnish group, long expected to push into a market which brought success to Research in Motion's (RIM) Blackberry devices, said it wanted to make e-mail more cost-effective and available on a wider range of phones.

Reuters says in the NYT report that firms from software giant Microsoft to e-mail management groups Visto, Seven, Good Technology, and Intellisync are jumping in to the market pioneered by RIM.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, Nokia's e-mail system comes in two modes. A standard version gives office staff basic read/write access to e-mail.

A professional version integrates directly into a company's corporate network directory, giving people direct access to their e-mail on their mobile device in the same way they would expect to use it on their office computer. It also allows the mobile worker to handle hefty e-mail attachments.

Reuters says that the standard version comes free when a company purchases a server license, according to the company. Each server license covers 400 people and is priced at 1,800 euros.

The professional version requires a company to pay an additional one-time fee, per user, of 55 euros, giving them a perpetual license for each office worker. The cost per user for Blackberry licenses ranges from two to four times as much.

Nintendo's new Game Boy Micro's solid debut

Nintendo's new mobile phone-sized game console, Game Boy Micro, attracted better-than-expected orders on its debut on Tuesday, though less than Game Boy Advance SP had done, retailers said.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 September) that Nintendo, known for software titles featuring characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Pokemon, launched what it said was the world's smallest console in Japan a week before the US launch with a price tag of 12,000 yen.

Nintendo dominates the portable game industry with a market share of about 94 percent, and aims to strengthen its grip with the Micro as it goes up against Sony's PlayStation Portable.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Sony will introduce new white consoles in Japan on Thursday in an effort to boost sales. Previously the consoles were only available in black.

Nintendo, based in the western Japan city of Kyoto, hopes to draw women, casual gamers -- those unwilling or unable to spend hours playing games -- and older players with the new compact and stylish device.

Local retailers, including Japan's biggest discount home electronics retailer, Yamada Denki Co., said the Micro was enjoying solid orders. An electronics store clerk in Tokyo said it received advance orders for 70 percent of its Micro stock, mostly for the limited edition.

Orders were brisk but less than when the Game Boy Advance SP made its debut in 2003, the clerk said. The store sold all of the SP consoles through advance orders at the launch.

According to Reuters, Japan's video game hardware and software market has shrunk 30 percent to US$4 billion since 2000, according to the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association.

Nintendo aims to sell 4 million units of the Micro worldwide by the end of its business year to next March.

Nintendo plans to release the Micro in Europe on 4 November in silver, pink, green and blue, at a recommended price of 99 euros, while US versions, due on 19 September for US$99, will be available in black and silver with three removable faceplates.

Reuters reports that Nintendo said in May it expected to sell a total of 10.2 million Game Boy Advance devices worldwide this business year, including Game Boy Micro.

Wallet phones for Asia

Japanese and South Korean mobile operators are betting future revenue growth on wallet phones -- handsets with embedded chips that allow electronic payments -- but the technology may be slow to take off in the rest of Asia.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (12 September) that whether the service enjoys the same demand as in Japan and South Korea will depend on the level of security and degree of participation by retailers, banks, content providers and the public transport system, according to one analyst.

DoCoMo, Japan's largest cellular operator, was the first to launch a wallet phone in June last year.

The handset contains Sony's FeliCa radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that enables electronic money transactions, identification and ticketing.

DoCoMo, whose name is a play on the Japanese word for ''everywhere,'' has sold over 5 million wallet phones, and over a quarter of users have used the service at least once.

The Reuters/NYT report says that about 20,000 stores have installed the equipment to allow customers to make payments using their phones, and DoCoMo hopes to increase this figure to 1-2 million eventually.

Smaller rivals KDDI and Vodafone K.K. are also expected to offer wallet phones later this year.

According to Reuters, East Japan Railway plans to launch a service on 1 January that would allow users to enter fare gates by passing their handsets embedded with smart chips over a scanner.

SK Telecom, South Korea's top mobile operator, offers a range of so-called MONETA services, where chip-mounted cell phones are used for credit card transactions, transport fee payments, cash withdrawals and stock trading. As of August, SK Telecom had sold 4.9 million MONETA-enabled handsets and its subscriber base stood at more than 19 million.

Reuters says that South Korea's second-largest mobile operator, KTF Co., which offers similar financial transactions for its subscribers, expects monthly revenues of US$2 million from its mobile commerce services in 3 years.

Matsushita to sell more displays to rivals

Matsushita Electric Industrial plans to sell more of its plasma displays to other TV makers next year, a senior executive said on Tuesday, as it aims to boost display output and take market share from rivals.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 September) that Matsushita is the world's largest seller of plasma TVs through its Panasonic brand, but it trails Samsung SDI in panel shipments because its South Korean competitor sells more panels to other TV manufacturers.

The company said it currently supplies a little more than 10 percent of its panels to other companies, but would like to see that percentage above 20 percent when a new plant at Amagasaki is up and running at full capacity next year.

Reuters reports that Fujita said the new factory in Hyogo prefecture, western Japan, would start production by the end of September. Matsushita had previously said the start could be in September or October.

Fujitsu's robot on wheels going on sale

Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu is bringing a robot to market which is equipped with voice recognition capabilities, cameras and sensors. The 4-foot tall robot on wheels will go on sale for 6 million yen (US$54,000) each in Japan in November.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (13 September) that Tokyo-based Fujitsu plans to sell about 20 or 30 of the robots, called ''enon'' (pronounced EH-nohn), which stands for ''exciting nova on network,'' and already has received 10 orders. The price tag covers just the machine, and software programs cost extra. Fujitsu refused to estimate software costs.

The AP report says that Enon can find itself around in an office or store, based on a map programmed inside its computer brain, move at a slow pace of up 1.86 miles an hour, and picks up things as heavy as 1.1 pounds. Its mechanical arms have paws at the end that can grip objects.

According to the AP/NYT report, Japan boasts one of the most advanced robot industries in the world. Industrial robots are widely used in plants, including those of automakers Toyota and Nissan. Toyota and Honda are also developing robots for entertainment and robotics research.

Fujitsu is among a burgeoning number of Japanese makers counting on a market for service robots like enon, where software solutions will drive the business rather than sophisticated machinery, AP adds.

The report says that Fujitsu foresees the worldwide service robot market as growing to 100 billion yen (US$907 million) by 2010. It wants enon to become a mass-produced product in a year or so, and hopes to lower its price to 2 million yen (US$18,000).

CNN and Time magazines combine web sites

CNN and Time, both units of the Time Warner media conglomerate, said Monday they would combine their business and financial web sites and relaunch them next January under a single banner.

The Associated Press reports (12 September) the new site will keep the name www.cnnmoney.com, which currently features business news from CNN and from Money magazine, one of Time's magazines.

Beginning in January, the combined site will also carry material from Time's other business-focused magazines -- Fortune, Fortune Small Business and Business 2.0. The freestanding web sites of those magazines -- Fortune.com, FSB.com and Business2.com -- will also be rolled into the new site.

AP reports that the site will carry daily business news as well as market coverage and analytical stories by staff. It will also carry material produced by the CNN and Time business-related magazines.

14,000 Telstra jobs at risk

The Regiaster in the UK reports (13 September) that there are fears that as many as 14,000 telecoms jobs could be axed in Australia following the privatisation of incumbent telco Telstra.

According to The Register report, The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has called on Telstra management and the Government to release a confidential 104-page document which it says details the job cuts and other cost cutting measures.

The union is concerned that in a bid to cut overheads and maximise profits for shareholders, the quality of Telstra's service will dip especially in rural areas. It has also raised concerns about whether other jobs will be offshored to countries such as India and China.

The Register says that the matter is deemed so serious the Australian Stock Exchange is now investigating following the intervention of opposition politician Senator Stephen Conroy.

The publication also reports that, in a statement the telco said: "Telstra has not taken any decision to cut 10,000 jobs as stated by Senator Conroy or 14,000 as reported in the media."

Intel cans US$700m Indian plant-report

Intel will not be building a US$700 million wafer-testing plant in India, a local newspaper has claimed.

The Register reports (13 September) that, according to Indian business-oriented daily, the Business Standard, Intel put the plans for the plant on hold after it failed to gain tax concessions from the Indian government.

The paper attributed the claim to an unnamed Intel official, who said:

"The company conveyed to the government last week that it would not be able to make the investment as the project would not be viable without the tax concessions. The company, however, said it would explore opportunities in the future."

The Register reports that negotiations between Intel and the Indian government emerged in March, when Dayanidhi Maran, India's minister for information technology and communications, claimed Intel was close to a decision on siting the facility in India. The country has been on Intel's list of possible plant sites for some time, as former CEO Craig Barrett admitted in November 2004. The chip giant already has a number of software development and R&D facilities in the sub-continent.

According to The Register, in July the Business Standard claimed, however, that the talks were faltering. Citing government sources, the paper claimed Intel had asked India to fork out US$100m up front - a payment the nation appears unwilling to make. Intel is also negotiating for tax-beaks and other incentives, all of which are part and parcel of major plant plans.

News Corporation on web buying spree

The News Corporation has been giving new meaning to the term e-commerce: the company has been on an online buying spree, spending nearly US$1.5 billion on three internet companies in just the last seven weeks.

The New York Times reports (9 September) that its swiftness in agreeing to pay US$650 million to buy IGN Entertainment, an internet game and entertainment site, in a deal announced yesterday, underscored just how serious - one of his executives says "obsessed" - the chairman, Rupert Murdoch, is about replicating in cyberspace the kind of power he has in media arenas like British newspapers, Hollywood and cable television news.

According to the newspaper, executives involved in the deal said that as of Tuesday, Mr. Murdoch and Peter Chernin, the News Corporation's president, were informed by the head of their newly created interactive media division that IGN, with whom they had held intermittent talks since March, was on the verge of being sold to Viacom. (A Viacom spokesman declined to comment.)

The newspaper says that Mr. Murdoch was told that he would have only a short time to come up with a counterbid, but if he agreed to pay US$650 million the company would be his. Within 36 hours, he and Mr. Chernin had met with Mark Jung, IGN's chief executive, in New York, brought in bankers and lawyers, and agreed to the terms. "They got wind that we had been in other conversations, and moved heaven and earth to get a deal done," said Michael A. Kumin of Great Hill Partners, IGN's largest shareholder, who handled the negotiations.

According to the NYT report. Mr. Murdoch has said he is willing to spend up to US$2 billion on internet acquisitions, and in addition to IGN has recently acquired Intermix Media, the parent of the popular social networking site MySpace.com, for US$580 million and Scout Media, a sports site, for US$60 million. This weekend, Mr. Murdoch is holding an internet meeting for his top managers from around the world near his ranch in Carmel, California, where he is expected to discuss the progress the company has made since a similar gathering in February.

The newspaper says that what they will hear is that the purchases of MySpace and IGN in particular represented the best opportunities the company identified for quickly bolstering its presence online, when measured in terms of internet traffic. Mr. Murdoch has been particularly concerned about younger audiences spending less time reading newspapers and watching television, while spending more time online and embracing such features as interactivity and virtual communities.

The NYT says that when the deals close, traffic across all of News Corporation's internet properties - which include the web sites of dozens of newspapers and scores of TV stations it owns - will have increased to nearly 70 million unique monthly users from fewer than 25 million. According to Merrill Lynch, the estimated 12 billion monthly page views News Corporation will generate with IGN will rank it fourth among all companies online, behind Yahoo, Time Warner and MSN, but ahead of eBay and Google.

The company's challenge now, Mr. Chernin said, is figuring out how to integrate its new online businesses with one another as well as the huge amount of content the company owns and produces.

The newspaper reports that both Mr. Chernin and Mr. Murdoch are now spending much of their time on internet strategy, though the internet represented a small fraction of the company's US$23.8 billion in annual revenues last year.
News Corporation's online strategy this time around differs from its previous efforts. Rather than taking small stakes in promising start-ups, it is focusing on buying companies outright that are somewhat proven and generating operating earnings.

The Internet strategy is being handled by a new division called Fox Interactive Media, based in Los Angeles and led by Ross Levinsohn, a former executive at Foxsports.com. Mr. Levinsohn said Mr. Murdoch tapped him several months ago to come up with an online strategy and advised him to "think about where we should be in 10 years and work your way backwards."

Mr. Levinsohn came up with a list of eight internet companies that he believed could be potential acquisition targets or partners; with IGN, the company has acquired three of them, reports the NYT.

EBay in talks to buy Skype

EBay is in negotiations to acquire Skype Technologies, the internet phone company that has been the object of much merger speculation, for US$2 billion to US$3 billion, two people involved in the negotiations said yesterday.

The New York Times reports (9 September) that the talks are highly tentative and could fall apart, these people said, speaking on the condition that they not be identified because the talks are continuing. These people also noted that Skype has wavered about selling or pursuing an initial public offering and has held merger discussions with the News Corporation and Microsoft only to abandon those talks.

According to the newspaper, an acquisition of Skype would enable eBay to enter the rapidly growing market for internet-based phone service. Cable providers and Bell companies are expanding quickly into that field, as are eBay rivals like Microsoft and Google.

Skype allows users who download its software and register for its service to talk to one another free over the internet through their PC's. About two million Skype customers have signed up for a premium pay service that allows them to use their PC's to make calls to regular phone numbers as well as receive calls from regular phones.

The NYT reports that last month, Google announced a service similar to Skype's free service called Google Talk, and Microsoft said it was acquiring Teleo, a San Francisco company that allows users to call conventional phones from their PC's. The discussions between eBay and Skype were first reported in The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal yesterday.

According to the NYT, an acquisition of Skype would be eBay's biggest purchase since it bought the Internet Auction Company of South Korea in 2004 for US$4.3 billion. EBay has been aggressively acquiring companies, many of them overseas, as it reaches beyond its core online auction business.

China Telecom seeks to block VoIP

China Telecom, the nation's largest fixed-line operator, is looking at ways to block phone calls made over the internet such as the popular service offered by Skype, according to media reports.

The Associated Press reports (9 September) that Skype Technologies SA's free software lets people talk for free over the internet using computers and microphones. It can also be used to call land lines for a fee. Such services threaten the business of fixed-line phone operators.

According to the AP/NYT report, China Telecom wants to prevent users in China from logging on to Skype's server, the newspaper Beijing Business Today reported on its web site.

It is also trying to monitor and control online data volume, so if someone is making a phone call over a China Telecom broadband connection it will be disconnected, the report said.

The report says that China Telecom expects these controls will be ready in 2006 or 2007, it added.

An operator at Shenzhen Telecom -- a branch of China Telecom in the southern city of Shenzhen -- said Saturday that downloading software for voice over internet calls is not allowed by Shenzhen Telecom.

Operators at Beijing Telecom and Shanghai Telecom -- other China Telecom branches -- said they had heard of no such restrictions., reports AP

Sony takes on iPod with new Walkman

Sony said Thursday that it would sell advanced Walkman portable music players this year, aiming to move out of Apple Computer's shadow in a market that Sony created a quarter of a century ago.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 September) that the announcement came hours after Apple introduced the pencil-thin iPod nano digital player and a long-anticipated mobile phone that plays music in a bid to extend its domination of the market.

Sony, which created the portable music market with its cassette-playing Walkmans, has lost out to Apple in the portable digital era as it focused on its mainstay CD and Mini Disc players.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Sony will offer two music players based on hard disks - one with a storage capacity of 20 gigabytes and the other with 6 gigabytes - and three flash- memory-based players that will keep the existing models' perfume bottle appearance.

The 6-gigabyte model is Sony's first hard-disk player with a small capacity. Apple's iPod nano comes in 2- and 4-gigabyte capacities.

According to the Reuters report, Sony's new models will add the ability to select and play the songs a user listens to most, and also to pick songs released in a certain year - a function Sony calls the "time machine shuffle."

The models will go on sale in Japan on 19 November and overseas by the end of the year.

Reuters says that Sony aims to sell 4.5 million hard-disk and flash-memory portable music players in the year to next March, up from 850,000 a year earlier.

Apple has sold about 22 million iPods worldwide in four years.

13 nations urge open technology standards

In a report to be presented today at the World Bank, a group that includes senior government officials from 13 countries will urge nations to adopt open-information technology standards as a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation.

The New York Times report (9 September) that the 33-page report is a road map for creating national policies on open technology standards, and comes at a time when several countries - and some state governments - are pursuing plans to reduce their dependence on proprietary software makers, notably Microsoft, by using more free, open-source software.

The newspaper reports that the project, begun by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, gathered government officials from China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere at a three-day meeting in Silicon Valley in February to discuss technology standards and economic development. The meeting was followed by e-mail exchanges, conference calls and postings on a shared web site.

The group defines an open standard as technology that is not owned by a single company and is openly published. Still, there is a huge debate in industry and among policy makers about how far openness should go.

According to the NYT, the report makes clear that government policy should "mandate technology choice, not software development models."

It also points out that open technology standards - the digital equivalent of a common gauge for railroad tracks - are not the same thing as open-source software. Open source is a development model for software in which code is freely shared and improved by a cooperative network of programmers.

But, says the NYT, even so, the spread of open-source software in recent years has probably been the most striking example of the benefits of openly sharing information technology to reduce costs and make it easier for users themselves to innovate.

The newspaper says that even though the report did not name any companies, Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, has been the prime target of open-source advocates. And the Berkman Center sought support from IBM and Oracle, two Microsoft rivals, to help pay for the three-day conference. Both are champions of Linux, the popular open-source operating system that is an alternative to Windows from Microsoft. (Microsoft is a corporate sponsor of the Berkman Center.)

The report adds that in the last few years, Microsoft has been an active participant in internet and web groups that have developed standards so that data can be shared by different software programs. That allows the information - about a person or bank account, say - to be exchanged, but the digital equivalent of the envelope carrying the information can be proprietary.

The newspaper says that at the World Bank, the interest in open standards mostly involves using them as a tool to help stimulate economic growth in developing countries.

Intel: strong chip demand causing tight supplies

Intel, the world's largest semiconductor maker, reported yesterday that demand for its chips remained strong and that last year's problem of excess inventory had now become one of short supply.

The New York Times reports (9 September) that the company said it continued to see double-digit growth, driven primarily by demand for notebook computers based on its Centrino chips. It also said it expected to fall short of meeting chip demand through the fourth quarter.

According to the newspaper, in its midquarter update, the company said revenue for the quarter ending 1 October would be US$9.8 billion to US$10 billion. The forecast was squarely in line with that of analysts, who projected sales of US$9.92 billion and earnings of 36 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call. Intel does not provide earnings guidance.

The NYT reported that Intel also narrowed its forecast for gross margin slightly, to about 60 percent for the third quarter, plus or minus one percentage point.

The newspaper says that the report was in stark contrast to Intel's situation last year, when it was swollen with inventory and faced a host of technical problems. These days, Mr. Bryant said, the company was constrained by its manufacturing capacity, and was selling as many chips as it makes.

Intel's report came just as Texas Instruments, the largest supplier of chips used in mobile phones, also reported strong demand for its products. The company raised estimates for the third quarter, saying it expected third-quarter profit to be 36 cents to 38 cents a share, compared with its previous estimate of 31 cents to 35 cents a share.

The company predicted revenue would be US$3.48 billion to US$3.62 billion, up from its previous forecast of US$3.29 billion to US$3.56 billion.

HP to cut 6,000 jobs in Europe

US computer giant Hewlett-Packard will shed 6,000 jobs in Europe with more than half the cuts in France, Germany and Britain, a union official said on Friday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 September) that an HP spokesman said some 1,250 to 1,300 jobs would go in France and 145 in Belgium.

A spokesman for HP in California said the company had no comment. The group has a total of around 151,000 employees.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the news emerged as European finance ministers were meeting in Manchester, England, where Britain's Gordon Brown urged action to make Europe a ``high growth, low unemployment'' area instead of a continent plagued by low growth and high unemployment.

The report says that Hewlett-Packard has plants or offices in Grenoble, Isle d'Ableau and Sophia-Antipolis in France, Boebingen, Herrenberg and Ratingen in Germany and Bracknell, Bristol, Erskine, Glasgow, Reading and Swindon in the UK.

It also has sites in Brussels, Amstelveen in the Netherlands, Milan, Barcelona and Dublin and Galway in Ireland.

Reuters reports that Hewlett-Packard said in July it would slash about 10 percent of its work force in a sweeping move by new Chief Executive Mark Hurd to cut costs by US$1.9 billion a year and compete better in cutthroat computer and printer markets.

PalmSource stock price skyrockets

Shares of PalmSource, maker of the Palm operating system for handheld computers, surged 78 percent on Friday on news that the Japanese software company Access Co. had agreed to pay US$324 million for it.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (9 September) that the news had some analysts wondering how PalmSource, which has failed to excite investors since Palm spun it off two years ago, could draw such an offer.

The AP/NYT report says that Access was offering US$18.50 for each share of PalmSource common stock, an 83 percent premium to the stock's Thursday closing price of US$10.09 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

According to the report, PalmSource has seen its market share erode since its separation from Palm Inc., a darling of the tech investors in the high-flying 1990s. Microsoft and Symbian have in recent months gained in handheld operating systems.

Nevertheless, more than 45 companies worldwide have licensed PalmSource software. More than 39 million mobile devices run on the Palm OS.

New Google 'evangelist' to spread applications

The New York Times reports (9 September) that with a billion users and counting, the internet hardly seems to need an evangelist.

Yet "chief internet evangelist" is precisely the title chosen by Vinton G. Cerf for his new job at Google.

The newspaper says that Google announced on Thursday that Dr. Cerf would be leaving MCI, where he is senior vice president for technology strategy, to be one of a dozen or so vice presidents working closely with Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, as the company continues to move beyond its roots as an internet search engine.

According to the NYT, Dr. Cerf, 62, is best known for the early work he did on the internet, and its precursor, the Arpanet. Together with Robert Kahn, a fellow computer scientist, Dr. Cerf in 1973 sketched out a set method, or protocol, for allowing different, isolated computer networks to talk to one another. The protocol, which paved the way for today's internet, is called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP.

Dr. Cerf spent 11 years at MCI, with an eight-year break to work with Dr. Kahn on internet infrastructure issues at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives. While at MCI in the early 1980's, Dr. Cerf devised MCI Mail, an early e-mail program.

The newspaper says that his hiring is the latest in a string a successful high-profile recruiting efforts on Google's part. Rob Pike, a high-level software engineer, was recruited from Bell Labs in November 2002. Louis Monier, who oversaw research and development at eBay, went to Google this summer. And Kai-Fu Lee, a former Microsoft vice president, joined Google in July, prompting Microsoft to file a lawsuit that is now in court.

Yahoo founder explains China e-mail move

Yahoo had to comply with a demand by Chinese authorities to provide information about a personal e-mail of a journalist who was later convicted under state secrecy laws and sentenced to 10 years in prison, the company's co-founder Jerry Yang said Saturday.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (10 September) that Yang, responding to questions during an internet forum, said he could not discuss the details of the case involving Shi Tao, a former writer for the financial publication Contemporary Business News.

Overseas-based human rights groups disclosed days earlier that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd., part of Yahoo's global network, provided e-mail account information that helped lead to Shi's conviction.

Yahoo earlier defended its move, saying it was obliged to comply with Chinese laws and regulations.

AP reports that the demand for the information was a ''legal order'' and Yahoo gets such requests from law enforcement agencies all the time, and not just in China, Yang told the forum.

According to the AP/NYT report, despite government information sharing requirements and other restrictions, Yahoo and its major rivals have been expanding their presence in mainland China in hopes of reaching more of the country's fast-growing population of Internet users, which now number more than 100 million.

Yahoo paid US$1 billion for a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.com, host of the Hangzhou conference, last month.

The Reuters report says that the case is the latest instance in which a prominent high-tech company has faced accusations of cooperating with Chinese authorities to gain favor in a country that's expected to become an Internet gold mine.

Yahoo and two of its biggest rivals, Google and Microsoft's MSN, previously have come under attack for censoring online news sites and web logs, or blogs, featuring content that China's communist government wants to suppress.

US rejects Cisco plan on options

The Securities and Exchange Commission threw cold water yesterday on a plan being pushed by Cisco Systems to value employee stock options by selling similar securities to institutional investors. But the agency said other market-based approaches might work.

The New York Times reports (10 September) that Christopher Cox, the new chairman of the commission, announced the conclusions of the staff but sought to encourage further private- sector efforts to value options. The effort has taken on new urgency since an accounting rule on the issue went into effect this year requiring companies to report the value of options granted to employees as an expense, the newspaper adds.

According to the newspaper, the commission's economists suggested two ways of using markets to value the options, but Donald Nicolaisen, the commission's chief accountant, said he doubted that those methods would be embraced quickly by any companies. Cisco said it would keep looking for such a plan, but a spokeswoman said the company would not comment on the plans suggested by the SEC.

One such plan would involve finding buyers who would, in effect, agree to accept the same returns that options holders as a group receive. Such investors would not have the ability to time when the options were exercised, and would suffer by having options forfeited, as some of the employees with options quit before they could exercise the options, reports the NYT.

The NYT report says that the other plan backed by the economists would essentially involve a company paying a third party to take on its risk of having to issue shares to employees who exercise options. That is unlikely to be embraced because it could be highly costly.

The commission's Bureau of Economic Analysis rejected the idea of selling restricted options to institutional investors, as Cisco had proposed, and using their value to estimate the value of the options issued by the company.

Former HP chief dies

Lewis E. Platt, who rose from an entry-level engineer to become the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, died on Thursday at his home in California. He was 64.

His death was announced by the company, which did not give a cause.

The New York Times reports (10 September) that during his tenure as chief of Hewlett-Packard from 1992-99, Mr. Platt was known for his low-key management style, straightforward manner and an engineering attitude applied to the executive suite.

The newspaper says that under Mr. Platt, Hewlett-Packard, the computer and printer company, prospered in the 1990's, but it seemed slow to recognise the rise of the internet and did not benefit as much as most of its competitors from the resulting investment boom. To try to make Hewlett-Packard a more nimble company, Mr. Platt spun off the medical instruments business, which is where he began his career.

Court rules barcode scanner patents invalid

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court ruling that struck down barcode scanning patents claimed by the estate of late inventor Jerome Lemelson.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 September) that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with a federal judge in Nevada, who concluded in January 2004 that the patents held by Lemelson Medical, Education & Research Foundation LP were invalid and unenforceable.

The report says that the appeals court ruling is a victory for a consortium of companies, led by barcode technology companies like Symbol Technologies (SBL.N), who mounted a legal challenge to the Lemelson patents.

Apple unveils a new IPod and a phone music player

Apple moved on Wednesday to extend its dominance over the digital music marketplace, introducing a compact iPod called the nano and confirming a widely reported digital music partnership with Motorola and Cingular.

The New York Times reports (8 September) that, with his usual showmanship, Apple's chairman, Steven P. Jobs, saved the introduction of the new solid-state version of the iPod for last, slipping it from the change pocket of his blue jeans at the end of a press event at the Moscone Convention Center here.

The iPod nano, which stores either 500 or 1,000 songs and is priced at US$199 and US$249, is intended to replace an existing model, the iPod Mini. The new device will be available in the United States, Japan and Europe this week.

The newspaper reports thhat, in an interview after his presentation, he called the new player, which is one of the industry's smallest, a "bold gamble."

By replacing the Mini, which accounts for more than half of all iPods currently sold, the company risked a huge revenue shortfall if the new product had been delayed, Mr. Jobs said. Despite that risk, he said, the nano reflects several innovations.

The NYT reported that Mr Jobs focused on the shift away from the small disk-drive storage device used in the iPod Mini to the solid-state flash memory at the heart of the nano. He said the custom chips and the miniaturized circuit board used in the nano had also been potential stumbling blocks.

Several analysts said that Apple had moved the introduction of the nano ahead to ensure it would be widely available for the holiday season.

The newspaper adds that most of the event on Wednesday was devoted to the unveiling of a Motorola cellphone called the Rokr E1 (pronounced rocker), which will incorporate Apple's iTunes music software and be capable of storing 100 songs. The phone, long anticipated, will be available exclusively on the Cingular Wireless network in the United States.

The phone, which will sell for US$250, has a color display, but requires that songs be downloaded from an iTunes-equipped personal computer by a U.S.B. cable. Cingular will not offer an iTunes service for buying songs directly over a cellphone connection.

The NYT reported that, in what appeared to be a direct challenge to the music industry, which has been struggling with him behind the scenes over Apple's growing influence in the music world, Mr. Jobs outlined in detail the strength of his digital music business.

He said Apple had sold half a billion digital songs and had 85 percent of the world market for digital music sales. The iTunes music service is now available in 20 countries, he said.

The newspaper said Mr Jobs noted that Apple had sold 6.2 million iPods of all models in the third quarter, comparing that figure to Sony's PlayStation Portable game machine, which sold two million during the same period.

Sony to offer advanced Walkmans to tackle iPod

Sony said on Thursday it would sell advanced Walkman portable music players later this year, aiming to move out of Apple Computer's shadow in a market the Japanese company created a quarter of a century ago.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (8 September) that the announcement comes hours after Apple unveiled the pencil-thin ``iPod nano'' digital player and a long-anticipated mobile phone that plays music in a bid to extend its domination of the market.

Sony, which created the portable music market 26 years ago with its now-legendary cassette-playing Walkmans, has lost out to Apple in the portable digital era as it focused on its mainstay CD and Mini Disc players, reports Reuters.

Sony will offer two hard disk-based music players -- one with a storage capacity of 20 gigabytes (GB) and the other with 6 GB -- and three flash memory-based players that will keep the existing models' perfume bottle appearance.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Sony's new models will add the ability to automatically select and play the songs a user listens to most, and also to pick songs released in a certain year -- a function Sony calls the ``time machine shuffle.''

The new models will go on sale in Japan on November 19 and Sony, which introduced the first Walkman in July 1979, aims to launch them overseas by the end of the year.

According to reuters, Sony aims to sell a total of 4.5 million hard disk and flash memory portable music players in the year to next March, up from 850,000 units a year earlier.

Apple has sold about 22 million iPods worldwide since their introduction in October 2001, making it by far the most widely used player in a market that research firm In-Stat expects to nearly quadruple to 104 million units a year by 2009.

Ruling in Microsoft, Google case expected

A Washington state judge said he would rule on Tuesday whether a top Microsoft executive who defected to rival Google can perform the job Google hired him for until his case goes to trial in January.

The Associated Press reports (7 September) that Kai-Fu Lee, who joined Microsoft in 2000, joined Google in July to lead Google's expansion into China.

Microsoft has sued Lee and Google, contending that Lee's job at Google would violate the terms of the noncompete agreement, which prohibits him from doing similar work for a rival for a year. Microsoft also accuses Lee of using insider information to get his job at Google.

The AP/NYT report says that, in a hearing that concluded Wednesday, Microsoft asked Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez to restrict what work Lee can do for Google until its lawsuit goes to trial early next year.

Google's immediate, stated reasons for hiring Lee were to have him create an engineering office in China, but Lee is also an expert in computer recognition of language -- an important field for search engines such as Google, reports AP.

Texas Instruments will offer a video technology platform

The New York Times reports (8 September) that Texas Instruments succeeded in transforming itself from the best-known maker of calculators to the largest seller of chips for cellphones, and now it wants to repeat that success in the market for video chips.

The newspapere says that the company plans to announce an all-in-one video chip technology that will make it easier for electronics producers to design and manufacture video products including digital cameras, video phones and portable media players.

According to the NYT, Texas Instruments' chief executive, Richard K. Templeton, said in an interview that digital video products are now limited by short battery life, long development time and high price. Texas Instruments' new video technology, called Da Vinci, aims to solve those problems by providing manufacturers with an integrated set of chips, software and development tools. This approach, it said, could help keep production costs down while ensuring that devices are compatible.

As the third-largest semiconductor company, Texas Instruments supplies nearly 60 percent of the chips for cellphones. It expects to have Da Vinci technology, including processors, software and tools, ready to market by the end of the year.

The newspaper says that in an era when companies are increasingly selling technology "platforms," rather than individual components, Texas Instruments' approach with Da Vinci is no surprise to analysts. Its announcement is coming two weeks after Intel announced its own new platform for digital home electronics, called Viiv. With Viiv, which will be marketed in the first half of 2006, Intel hopes to make it easier for users to share digital content over networks and make their personal computers compatible with other electronic devices.

HP chief Hurd sees "lot of work" to change company

Less than six months after taking over at Hewlett-Packard, Chief Executive Mark Hurd on Wednesday said there's still ``a lot of work to do.''

Reuters reports in The New York Times (7 September) that Hurd said that Hewlett-Packard managers need to take more responsibility for their business areas. In the past, they've turned to the chief executive to resolve conflicts, he said. ''We have got to get accountability and responsibility lower down in the organisation,'' he added.

Hurd, 48, was appointed chief executive April 1 after the company pushed out Fiorina, whose US$19 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer never produced the results she promised.

Reuters says that HP, the world's No. 2 computer maker, is shedding 14,500 jobs to cut annual costs by US$1.9 billion and boost profits.

Parental software to detect Dutch illegal file sharing

Dutch anti piracy organisation BREIN is to release free parental software on 22 September, that will detect file sharing programs such as Kazaa or illegal media files on PCs.

The Register reports (8 September) that the software will not be able to remove those files - parents have to do this manually if they wish.

According to The Register, BREIN says that the software is basically a public awareness campaign. Too many youngster do not seem to realise that it is illegal to make copyrighted music available online for others to download and that illegal file sharing is hurting the music and movie business, BREIN director Tim Kuik explains. The website where the free software can be downloaded is owned by Dutch entertainment industry organisation NVPI.

The Register reports that just recently, BREIN lost a court case against five Dutch ISPs who refused to hand over the names of 42 suspected song swappers. BREIN had hired US company Media Sentry, which monitors popular online forums and file sharing services for copyright infringement, to gather evidence against the file swappers.

However, according to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) the collection and storage of IP addresses is only legitimate if BREIN handled it themselves.

The Register says that free parental software could do this laborious job for BREIN perfectly, though the organisation insists that no information will be send back to its headquarters.

Sun tries to tempt thousands with reworked partner program

Sun Microsystems hopes to expand the number of ISVs building applications on Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris by 30 per cent before next summer following an overhaul of its iForce partner program, according to a report in The Register (7 SDeptember).

The Register says that Sun's goal is to grow its Solaris 8 partner network to 10,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) during the next year, following the diversification of the marketing, sales and development resources available to partners in the Sun ecosystem.

The company revealed its roadmap as it announced an important new tool to help it achieve the expanded number of developers - the Partner Advantage Program that replaces Sun's established iForce program.

The Register reported that the Partner Advantage Program will make 500 Sun internal training courses available, see rollout of technical readiness assessments, deliver expanded sales and marketing resources, and enable Sun's executives to participate in partners' sales engagements.

Partners will qualify for resources according to a four-tiered structure, where ISVs are categorised as either members, associates, principles or executive-level partners. Members are those who want more information about Sun products, associates are those who put their applications on just one Sun product like Solaris 10 on x64, and associates are ISVs who base their applications on multiple Sun technologies.

The Register adds that executive members are nominated by Sun based on their use of its technology, and get joint collateral along with early access to pre-release editions of Sun products.

Microsoft eyes a business niche

Microsoft said yesterday that it planned to announce today a new strategy for selling software to medium-size business, including a revamped collection of programs that would handle specific jobs. The new software programs will be released starting this fall (US) and through next year.

The New York Times reports (7 September) that Microsoft long ago identified midsize businesses as growth opportunities, but today's announcement indicates that the company sees this market as increasingly important.

The newspaper says that in the new suite of programs, called Microsoft Dynamics, the company will include features for some 50 business tasks and incorporate new technology, which has been in development for the last few years under the code-name Project Green.

A new version of the company's accounting program, Great Plains, expected this fall, will automate the processes of jobs like accounting clerk, sales manager, controller and finance manager. The software will be renamed Microsoft Dynamics GP when it is released.

According to the NYT, as existing programs incorporate the new technology, they will also be renamed, the company said. For example, the new version of Microsoft's Axapta, a human resource management program, will become Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The NYT reports that the company also said it was developing a version of its Windows Server specifically intended for "overworked generalists," the workers who provide software support, fix network problems and handle whatever else comes up. Company officials said the new technology would help companies by automating much of the work of supporting software.

Google official says frustration drove him from Microsoft

A former Microsoft executive whose defection to Google set off a legal battle testified on Tuesday that an expletive-filled tirade from the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates, was a low point before he decided to leave.

The Associated Pess reports in The new York Times (7 September) that, in testimony at a court hearing, the executive, Kai-Fu Lee, also said he had written a memo to another Microsoft executive saying he was "deeply disappointed at our incompetence in China - that we have wasted so many years in China with little to show for it."

The AP/NYT report says that Mr. Lee joined Google in July to lead the internet search company's expansion into China. He had been at Microsoft since 1998, first establishing an academic research lab in China and later working in the United States on computer recognition of language, a critical problem in search technology.

Microsoft has sued Google and Mr. Lee, contending that Mr. Lee's duties would violate the terms of a noncompetition agreement he signed as part of his Microsoft employment contract. Microsoft also accused Mr. Lee of using insider information to get his job at Google.

Google denies the allegations and has countersued Microsoft, AP reports.

Microsoft sues European Commission

Microsoft has sued the European Commission in the European Union's second-highest court over a decision against the software giant, the EU court's website showed on Wednesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (7 September) that a court official, in answer to a query, said that the filing was made on 10 August, during a summer break for the court.

It arises out of a June ruling by the Commission that sought to enforce an earlier Commission decision against the software firm.

Reuters says in the NYT report that Microsoft has previously appealed in court against a Commission ruling that the company abused the dominance of its Windows operating system.

News junkies find Wikipedia more than encyclopedia

The Wikipedia, which has surged this year to become the most popular reference site on the web, is fast overtaking several major news sites as the place where people swarm for context on breaking events.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (6 September) that traffic to the multilingual network of sites has grown 154 percent over the past year, according to research firm Hitwise. At current growth rates, it is set to overtake The New York Times on the web, the Drudge Report and other news sites.

But the rising status of the site as the web's intellectual demilitarised zone, the favored place people look for background on an issue or to settle a polemical dispute, also poses challenges for the volunteer ethic that gave it rise.

According to Reuters in the NYT, from hot topics like internet, sex and Hitler -- some of Wikipedia's most popular entries -- to obscure technical or scientific subjects, the site draws users attracted by its professed neutrality in defining controversial topics.

The report adds that Wikipedians, as avid contributors are known, have developed a set of practical policies to limit mudslinging over fighting words such as ``terrorism'' or, more obscurely, a controversial Web programing technology known as ``Ajax.'cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/). It has drawn five times more US traffic than Google News, Yahoo News or BBC, according to Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer.

Similarly, in April, Wikipedia tied with CNN.com as the No. 2 most visited after Google News, not to mention traditional media.

Mobile music buys may bring meagre carrier profit

Cell phones may become the new way for the iPod masses to download and listen to music in the coming years, but wireless companies may not see much of a boost to their profits from selling such services, according to a report by Reuters in The New York Times (7 September).

The Reuters reeport says that the biggest US mobile service companies are considering selling phones that can play songs and some have plans to deliver music to phones over the wireless airwaves, in a bid to boost revenue as phone call prices drop.

Analysts expect Cingular Wireless, the biggest US mobile service, to reveal plans on Wednesday to sell a new Motorola phone that comes with iTunes, the music store software from Apple Computer, whose iPod player dominates the portable digital music market.

The Reuters report says that, at least initially, Cingular is expected to let users transfer songs to the phone from computers rather than through wireless download services.

Despite all the excitement about wireless song purchases, such mobile music is likely to deliver much poorer profit margins than wireless carriers are used to from phone calls or other services such as ringtones, one analyst said.

Reuters says that the No. 2 and No. 3 US mobile services Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel have already said they are planning mobile music download services.

Pricing these services could require a tough balancing act between profitability and creating widespread demand since iTunes, Apple's high profile digital music service, charges only 99 cents a song, analysts said.

The report says that about 70 percent of the sale price for iTunes songs downloaded on computers goes to music industry players, according to Yankee, and the remainder is split almost evenly between Apple and transaction processors such as credit card companies,according to analysts.

Reuters reports that, in a mobile music world, operators could eliminate the credit card industry's roughly 15 percent share of the pie by charging through mobile phone bills. Yankee estimated that operators get 20 to 40 percent of revenue from ringtones.

Carriers' options could include bypassing Apple by setting up a rival to iTunes, or going with other partners such as RealNetworks or Napster, which control less of the music download market than Apple, according to Yankee'.

Group: Yahoo helped China jail journalist

A French media watchdog said Tuesday that information provided by internet powerhouse Yahoo helped Chinese authorities convict and jail a journalist who had written an e-mail about press restrictions.

The Associated Press reports in The new York Times (6 September) that the criticism from Reporters Without Borders marks the latest instance in which a prominent high-tech company has faced accusations of cooperating with Chinese authorities to gain favor in a country that's expected to become an internet gold mine.

Yahoo and two of its biggest rivals, Google and Microsoft's MSN, previously have come under attack for censoring online news sites and web logs, or blogs, that include content that China's communist government wants to suppress.

The AP/NYT report says that Reporters Without Borders ridiculed Yahoo, saying it was becoming even cozier with the Chinese government by allowing itself to become a police informant in a case that led to the recent conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao.

Reporters Without Borders said court papers showed that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) gave Chinese investigators information that helped them trace a personal Yahoo e-mail allegedly containing state secrets to Tao's computer. Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) is part of Yahoo's global network.

AP says that Shi, a former journalist for the financial publication Contemporary Business News, was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for illegally providing state secrets to foreigners. Reporters Without Borders described Shi as a ''good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out.''

Yahoo and its major rivals have been expanding their presence in China in hopes of reaching more of the country's population as the internet becomes more ingrained in their daily lives, says AP.

Intel hands Czech firm millions for virus protection

Intel Capital has taken its largest equity stake to date in an Eastern Europe outfit, sinking US$16m into Czech anti-virus company Grisoft to help it expand in business and consumer markets.

The Register reports (6 September) that the chip giant's venture capitalist arm said it was investing in Prague-based Grisoft to improve the development of anti-virus software and deployment around the globe.

Intel will help privately held Grisoft improve security on computing platforms for small- and medium-sized business (SMBs) and consumers, reach new customers and market segments, and work to optimise Grisoft's security software for different platforms. Grisoft's products, used by businesses and consumers, are deployed on 25m PCs and are distributed through resellers and across the internet.

The Register reports that Grisoft chairman Gabriel Eichler said in a statement he accepted investment from Intel to help accelerate the company's drive towards becoming a "global leader" in anti-virus software.

Intel Capital last-year invested US$130m in 110 different deals, with 40 per cent of its investments made outside the US. The company claims to have invested US$4bn in 1,000 companies based in 30 countries since 1991, reports The Register.

Samsung to play safe with dual HD DVD/Blu-ray rig

Samsung is to harness consumer confusion over which next-generation optical disc standard to back by offering a player that supports both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD).

The Register reports (6 September) that the machine will launch sometime next year, said Choi Gee-Sung, Samsung's consumer electronics chief, in an interview published by the Financial Times Deutschland.

According to The Register, with talks held between the two camps to find common ground in order to yield a unified format having broken down, consumers much now choose which format to support. Backing the wrong format could leave buyers with access to less content and, over time, more expensive hardware. That risk may persuade them simply to ignore both formats until a clear winner emerges.

The Register says that to date, Samsung has favoured BD over HD DVD, but today's statement suggest it doesn't believe its favoured format will quickly establish a clear lead over HD DVD.

India computer sales up 8.6 percent

Computer sales in India reached 1.01 million during the April-June first quarter, rising 8.6 percent on year, the country's main hardware trade body said Tuesday.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (6 September) that sales for the fiscal year to March 2006 might exceed the initial target of 4.2 million units, said the Manufacturers' Association of Information Technology.

In the April-June 2004 quarter, India sold 930,000 computers, and 3.6 million were purchased for the fiscal year that ended in March 2005.

AP reports that a MAIT spokesman said an increase in the availability of software and content in Indian languages aided the growth. The prices of faster Internet services have also been falling and fueling demand.

Earlier this year, India's state-run phone company Bharat Sanchar Nigam dropped monthly internet fees to US$6, while most service providers charge about US$22, and other service providers are expected to lower their prices.

The AP report says that despite a population of more than 1 billion people, only 16 million computers were used in India as of March 2005. But demand has risen after prices fell to US$220 for a basic computer, from US$1,000 four years ago.

Microsoft unveils new keyboards, high-end mice

Microsoft has unveiled new computer keyboards and mice aimed at users looking for easier ways to type and for high-precision gaming and photo editing.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (6 September) that, in its annual refresh of its computer input hardware, the world's largest software maker introduced two new keyboards and six new mice.

The report says that one keyboard featured a split configuration keyboard for more ergonomic typing that also includes a zoom slider bar to shrink or enlarge digital text or photographs. The second keyboard featured a new, concave design for the keys aimed at making it easier for users to type without straining their arms, fingers and wrists.

Three new mice were introduced with laser-based optical components, which allows them to track movement with more precision and more smoothly, a feature that Microsoft says will be popular for games and graphics applications. The other three mice, which use optical tracking, featured new designs and technology improvements.

Reuters reports that Microsoft said it will continue to design, build and sell hardware for users' specific needs.

Such specialisation has helped keyboard and mice sales to outpace PC sales, Microsoft said, because users tend to replace such hardware over the course of a computer's lifecycle and also because they are buying keyboards to do specific tasks.

Rivals end dispute over radio tag patents

In the US, Symbol Technologies and Intermec Technologies have said that they would settle a patent dispute over radio frequency identification technology and work to end another lawsuit over wireless communications.

Bloomberg News reports in The New York Times (7 September) that the companies agreed to license each other's technology for radio frequency tags. Symbol also agreed to allow Intermec to resume buying miniature readers embedded in bar codes that can be used to validate betting tickets or identify baggage at airports while the companies try to resolve a suit over that technology.

Intermec, a unit of Unova, filed a suit in 2004 against Matrics, a start-up manufacturer of radio tags subsequently acquired by Symbol, over patents for the technology. Radio tags allow businesses to read and write information on tags so shipments can be tracked as they move through the supply chain..

Skype signs VoIP JV in China

Skype is looking to make inroads into the potentially lucrative Chinese market after inking a joint venture (JV) agreement with wireless internet operator TOM Online.

According to a report in The Register (5 September) the two companies are already buddies having forged an agreement to develop a simplified Chinese version of Skype's internet telephony software. Ten months on and the software has attracted 3.4 million registered users and Skype reckons now is the right time to plug the service to TOM's 70 million punters.

The Register says that under the deal TOM and Skype (split 51 per cent and 49 per cent respectively) will continue to develop Skype's VoIP software for the Chinese market and do more to flog it to users.

China is the world's largest mobile phone market by users with more than 360 million subscribers. The number of net users is also expanding rapidly and is expected to hit around 150 million by 2007, according to research from IDC, reports The Register.

Last week Skype signed its first agreement with a mobile telecoms operator - Germany's E-Plus - taking its low-cost services beyond the desktop and on the road.

British music retailers begin digital war

In a clear sign the digital music revolution is here to stay, Britain's major music retailers are going head-to-head for a slice of the burgeoning -- and potentially very lucrative -- internet downloading market, reports The Associated Press in the New York Times (5 September).

The AP/NYT report says that HMV, the biggest specialist music seller in Britain, made a big splash with the launch of its new digital service Monday, employing the band Razorlight to showcase its library of around 1.3 million tracks for consumers to download from the internet.

But some of its thunder has been stolen by Virgin Megastores, the country's second biggest music chain, which signed up the Dandy Warhols for an ambush launch of its own digital service on Friday, comments AP.

According to AP, both outlets are fighting for a share of a market that, while still small in Britain, is expected to grow exponentially. A year ago, the total number of songs officially downloaded from the internet in Britain was 500,000 -- the same number is now sold every week.

The digital download market in Britain has so far been dominated by Apple's iTunes music store, which offers consumers around 1.2 million tracks, according to tyhe report, and AP says,HMV and Virgin are aiming to break Apple's stranglehold by offering services that will work with several digital music players, allowing wider download possibilities and accessibility. Apple's iTunes software works only with the iPod music player.

HMV and Virgin are both planning to offer a separate subscription service, where users pay 14.99 pounds (US$27.72) a month to download as much music as they want - the catch being that if they stop paying, they lose all their music.

The report says that HMV, which has teamed up with Microsoft for its new service, has also stepped up the competition, making a special 39 pence (72 cents) offer for tracks by some new artists. It also plans to sell recordings of gigs and is formulating a film and computer game download service.

The two retailers are banking on further growth in an already booming market.

AP says in the NYT report that about 5 percent of Britons currently own a digital music player while legal digital sales account for less than 2 percent of the market. However, analysts expect online music sales to nearly double from 34 million pounds (US$63 million) this year to 65 million pounds (US$120 million) next, reaching 261 million pounds (US$483 million) by 2010.

'Islamic Trojan' disrupts smut surfing

Virus writers have created a Trojan horse which tries to disrupt visits to pornographic websites by displaying messages from the Koran.

The Register reports (5 September) that the low-risk Yusufali-A Trojan horse monitors the websites Windows users are visiting. If the malware sees one of a set of trigger words (such as "teen", "sex" or "penis") in the url it minimises the window so the user cannot see its content and displays a message from the Koran instead. According to The Register, the message, partly written in Arabic, contains the following English text:

Yusufali: Know, therefore, that there is no god but Allah, and ask forgiveness for they fault, and for the men and women who believe: for Allah knows how ye move about and how ye dwell in your homes.

The publications quotes a senior technology consultant for Sophos as saying that unlike other malware, it appears this Trojan horse isn't trying to steal money or confidential information, but acting as a moral guardian instead - blocking the viewing of websites it determines are unsavoury.

The Sophos spokesman says that it's possible for the Trojan horse to make mistakes and block sites that are not pornographic - such as medical sites, or social sites designed for teenagers.

According to The Register, once the message is displayed the malware performs a variety of other actions before forcing infected users to shutdown.

Sony PSP sets UK console sales record

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) sold 185,000 PlayStation Portable handheld consoles in the UK this past weekend, smashing the previous three-day record, set by Nintendo's DS in March.

The Register reports (6 September) that Sony's sales, said market watcher Chart-Track, which provided the statistic, makes the PSP's UK debut the most successful console introduction in the territory yet.

The PSP went on sale in the UK on Friday, 1 September, and Chart-Track's total combines sales on that day plus those of Saturday and Sunday.

Nintendo sold 87,000 DS handhelds in the first three days' of the device's availability.

According to The Register,many of the sales had already been made, thanks to pre-order campaigns run by retailers and online suppliers once Sony formally announced the handheld console would ship on 1 September. The PSP had originally been planned to arrive in the UK at the end of March, just after the DS debut. But the demands of the US launch, scheduled to take place in the same timeframe, forced SCEE to delay the European ship-date.

The Register reports that Chart-Track said 24 games were available at launch. Twenty of them went straight into the company's Top 40, and nine entered the Top Ten. Sony's Ridge Racer took the number one slot, pushing the previous sales leader, Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 into second position.

Ashes interest could bowl over computer networks

Corporate networks could be bowled over this week as England face Australia in the final nail-biting Ashes match of the summer, according to a report in The Register (6 September).

The Register says that computer experts are worried that company networks might not be able to cope with tens of thousands of cricket fans logging on to the net to follow the action from the Oval.

According to the report in The Register, Stuart Beattie of Network General told The Daily Mail: "While every company is aware of the risks posed by computer viruses, few will have ever considered Ricky Ponting and Michael Vaughan's men a potential threat to their computer networks.

England lead 2-1 in the five match series and need only a draw to regain the Ashes

Russian phone retailers bypass distributors

Russia's two largest phone retailers Yevroset and Dixis will no longer buy electronic goods from Russian distributors in an attempt to crack down on smugglers.

The Register reports (5 September) that, according to Russian news reports, the country is swamped with illegally imported cell phones, which avoid a customs tax of 5 per cent. The International Confederation of Consumer Protection Organisations believe these phones- including Nokia and SonyEricsson models - account for approximately 90 per cent of the country's mobile phone market.

The report in The register says that in August Russian police seized about 300 tons of cellular phones and components worth more than US$10 million. Five companies who apparently front for the smugglers are under investigation. Prices on the market have gone up dramatically after the crackdown.

The Register reports that cutting out intermediaries is the optimal move right now, a Dixis spokeswoman told the Moscow Times. More than 24 million mobile phones were sold in Russia last year, with a retail value of 3 billion euro.

Napster UK touts subscriber numbers

Napster UK's 750,000 users have downloaded or streamed 55 million tracks since the service launched in May 2004, the digital music provider said today.

The Register reports (5 September) that the announcement comes on the day High Street music retailer HMV opened the virtual doors on its own digital download and subscription service. Virgin Digital went live in the UK last Friday.

To date, Napster UK's main competitor has been Apple's iTunes Music Store. But with Virgin and now HMV both targeting the same iPod-free Windows Media market in which Napster is a player they are arguably more of a threat than ITMS is, according to the report in The Register.

Hence Napster's release of subscriber figures today, the first time the company has made such statistics public, says The Register.

According to The Register's report, the company said 80 per cent of its subscribers are over the age of 25, and half of them have kids. Some three-quarters of them are male.

In a bid to stress the importance of subscriptions, Napster said its subscribers buy more music online than folk who buy one-off downloads do, though since many of them will need to do so to burn tracks to CD or transfer them to digital music players, that's not perhaps surprising. One in five of them no longer buy CDs, apparently, comments The Register.

Sony shows 8x DVD+R dual-layer drive

Sony has become one of the first DVD writer manufacturers to ship a dual-layer DVD+R that can write at 8x speeds, the company said today.

The Register reports (6 September) that, separately, Mitsubishi said it will ship DVD+R DL 8x capable media in October.

Sony's DRU-810A is an internal drive that hooks up to the host across an Ultra DMA Mode 2 ATAPI interface. In addition to 8x DVD+R DL, the drive supports DVD+R DL 4x. It also writes DVD+RW discs at 8x and DVD,DVD-RW at 6x, reports The Register.

The report says that Mitsubishi's discs, which provide 8.5GB of storage capacity, are based on a "high-sensitivity organic pigment" to support write speeds of 2.4x up to 8x and a maximum data-transfer rate of up to 209.25Mbps.

Court orders Kazaa to stop pirates

A federal judge in Sydney on Monday ordered distributors of the popular file-swapping program Kazaa to alter the software, which millions have downloaded, so it can no longer be used for music piracy.

The Associated Press in The New York Times (5 September) says that that the case was hailed as a victory by the recording industry that brought the suit, and that the decision has implications well beyond Australia, where Kazaa executives are based, because Kazaa's users span the globe.

The AP report says that, in some ways, it mirrors the US Supreme Court's June ruling that Hollywood and the music industry can sue technology companies that encourage their customers to steal music and movies over the internet.

Federal Court Judge Murray Wilcox determined in Monday's ruling that Kazaa's owners and distributors, led by Sharman Networks Ltd., took no action to rein in illegal file-sharing despite posted warnings on their web site urging Kazaa users not to swap copyright material.

AP reports that Wilcox said it had been in the financial interest of Sharman and its partners ''to maximise, not minimise, music file-sharing.''

He found six of the 10 defendants, including Sharman, its Sydney-based chief executive Nikki Hemming, as well as Altnet, a Sharman software partner, guilty of copyright infringement and ordered them to pay 90 percent of the record industry's costs in the case.

Australian court: Kazaa breached copyright

A court has ruled that popular file-swapping network Kazaa breaches copyright in Australia and gave the service's owners two months to modify their web site to prevent further piracy by its millions of users.

Although the ruling is only enforceable in Australia, the record industry hailed it as a victory that would resonate around the world.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (5 September) that the Federal Court ruling culminated a long-running court battle between Australia's record industry and Kazaa.

The 10 defendants in the case include Kazaa's owners, Sharman Networks Ltd., and Sharman's Sydney-based chief executive officer, Nikki Hemming, as well as Altnet, a company that provided some of the software for the Kazaa Web site.

The AP/NYT report says that Federal Court Judge Murray Wilcox found six of them, including Hemming, Sharman Networks Ltd. and Altnet, infringed copyright and ordered them to pay 90 percent of the record industry's costs in the case. A hearing will be held at a later date to establish damages.

Lawyers for Kazaa said they would appeal but made no immediate detailed response to the ruling. They had argued that the software is no different from a tape recorder or photocopier -- and that Kazaa could not control copyright infringement by users of the network.

But Wilcox said that they actively encouraged users to share files, the vast majority of which were copyrighted material, AP reports. Wilcox said that Sharman and Altnet should stop authorising Kazaa users swap copyright material.

AP reports that, if it wants to continue its operations, Wilcox said Kazaa's owners have to ensure that new versions of the software filters unlicensed copyright material and he ordered them to press existing users to upgrade their software to a new version that filters unlicensed material.

Not even web retailers exempt from Katrina

As the US Gulf Coast reels from Katrina's devastation, online businesses are struggling to gauge the impact of the possible loss of half a million prospective customers for weeks or months.

The New York Times reports (5 September) that, according to comScore Networks, an internet research and consulting firm, 860,000 people, on average, surfed the web from their homes or offices in New Orleans and the Mississippi towns of Biloxi and Gulfport each day in the week preceding the storm.

The newspaper says that online travel agencies like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz are no doubt feeling the pinch more than most online retailers. Not only must they cope with a deluge of calls from customers who had booked trips to the Gulf Coast and now want their money back, they must also face up to the possibility of a slump in sales as some vacationers and business executives deterred from flying to New Orleans drop their travel plans altogether.

According to the report in the NYT, with Mardi Gras just six months away and recovery estimates for the city still cloudy, agencies cannot even be sure that one of the prime travel events of February will occur. Even if the city is in a position to stage Mardi Gras events, travel companies cannot say how many travelers New Orleans will be able to accommodate.

The NYT says that Travelocity this week sent e-mail messages to 14,000 customers who had booked flights, hotel rooms and car rentals in the afflicted areas. The company has also waived the cancellation and rescheduling fees it typically charges customers, as have most airlines and other travel companies.

The newspaper reports that general merchandise retailers on the web say they have not experienced significant dropoffs in sales, at least yet. EBay, for instance, notes that it has 157 million customers worldwide.

The web's biggest online retailer, Amazon.com, is holding an undisclosed number of packages for customers in the affected areas. An Amazon spokeswoman, declined to discuss the financial impact of the hurricane on the company.

World chip sales flat but APAC up

Worldwide semiconductor sales growth effectively stalled in July, the US-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) admitted on Friday.

The Register reports (5 September) that the month's sales totalled fractionally over US$18billion, compared to just under that number in June. July 2005's tally was near enough the same as the figure the SIA published this time last year. The figures are three-month averages, intended to smooth out the spikiness of chip sales.

The Register report says that unit sales were "running well ahead of earlier projections", the organisation said, but any growth in shipments was more than counterbalanced by competition-driven price reductions.

Semiconductor sales declined sequentially in all geographic regions except the Asia-Pacific region, which grew by 8.1 per cent. The SIA said capacity utilisation continued to improve, with overall utilisation rising beyond the 89 per cent rate reported for Q2

New technology may increase identity theft

New technology could increase rather than solve the problem of identity theft and fraud, a British criminologist warned on Monday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (4 September) that identity cards and chip and pin technology for credit cards will force fraudsters to be more creative and are unlikely to alleviate the problem.

Dr Emily Finch, of the University of East Anglia in England, said dependence on technology was leading to a breakdown in individual vigilance, which experts believe is one of the best ways to prevent fraud and identity theft.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Finch, who interviewed criminals about why and how they commit crimes and the impact new technology is likely to have on them, found fraudsters were tenacious and would change their methods to elude new security measures.

Data from the US Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Survey Report released two years ago showed that 4.6 percent of 4,000 randomly selected people questioned in a poll had been the victim of some form of identity theft in the past year.

Finch said fraud and identify theft was not always done for financial reasons. Sometimes people wanted to start again with a new identity.

Reuters reports that identity cards could potentially increase fraudulent behavior, she warned. In June, the British government introduced legislation for national identity cards, saying they would counter terrorism, crime and illegal immigration. But critics say the scheme is expensive, unnecessary and intrusive.

DVD Jon hacks Media Player file encryption

Norway's best known IT export, DVD Jon, has hacked encryption coding in Microsoft's Windows Media Player, opening up content broadcast for the multimedia player to alternative devices on multiple platforms, according to a report in The Register (3 September).

The Register says that Jon Lech Johansen has reverse engineered a proprietary algorithm, which is used to wrap Media Player NSC files and ostensibly protect them from hackers sniffing for the media's source IP address, port or stream format. He has also made a decoder available.

The publication adds that Johansen doesn't believe there is a good reason to keep the NSC files encrypted, because once you open the file with Media Player to start viewing the stream, the IP address and port can be revealed by running the netstat network utility that is included with most operating systems.

The hacker hopes his move will make content streamed to Media Player more widely available to users of alternative players on non-Windows platforms, reports The Register.

According to The Register, Johansen achieved notoriety when he was tried and re-tried in a Norwegian court for creating a utility that enabled him to play DVDs on his Linux PC. Prosecutors, acting in the interests of the US Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), argued he had acted illegally by distributing his DeCSS tool to others via the internet. This, the prosecution, claimed, made it easier to pirate DVDs.

However, the court ruled in his favor, saying he had not broken the law in bypassing DVD scrambling codes that had stopped him from using his PC to play back DVDs. Earlier this year Johansen developed a work around to bypass digital rights management (DRM) technology in Apple Computer's iTunes, The Register adds.

The publicaton says his latest hack was done to make Media Player content available to the open source VideoLAN Client (VLC) streaming media player. VLC is available for download to 12 different operating systems and Linux distributions and has seen more than six million downloads to Mac. Apple is even pre-loading VLC on some Macs destined for high schools in Florida.

Germans to get iTunes phone for Christmas

T-Mobile said that it plans to sell Motorola's iTunes mobile phone in Germany by Christmas, reports Thje Register (5 September).

The Register says that Apple and Motorola are expected to announce the long-awaited phone this Wednesday.

The publication adds that the many music phones on display at the ISF show in Berlin this week include the first models to be fitted with a built-in miniature hard drive. They are competing head on with MP3 players that also have a small hard drive.

Electronic Arts loses top executives

Electronic Arts, the largest independent video game publisher, launched a big management shuffle after two of its longtime top executives said they were going to leave the company in a couple of months.

The Mercury News reportgs (3 September) that Don Mattrick, president of EA Worldwide Studios and the heir apparent to Chief Executive Larry Probst, will leave EA for other unnamed opportunities after 23 years at EA. Bruce McMillan, executive vice president of the studios, will also leave EA. Both will stay on a couple of months to wrap up current projects, Probst said in an interview.

The newspaper says that EA has had stable leadership in an industry that has seen a lot of turmoil in management ranks. But EA missed earnings targets in its most recent quarter and has warned that its lineup of games isn't going to be as strong as it originally expected. The company is also reorganising the workloads for its programmers and artists, who have complained about working too much overtime as deadlines stack up for finishing games.

Is Dell a buy for consumers or investors?

Dell, the world's largest maker of personal computers, earned its dominance by cultivating one of the most highly recognised and admired technology brands, while also being the industry's lowest-cost major manufacturer, The New York Times reports (3 September).

The newspaper saays that lately, though, the market has changed to suit the business models of competitors like Hewlett-Packard and Apple, and it shows in the performance of the three companies' stocks. Since the start of the year, Dell has fallen 17 percent and its rivals are up more than 30 percent.

According to the NYT report,the divergence is a result of several factors, including the booming sales of Apple's iPod devices, used to store music downloaded from the internet, and Hewlett's recovery, under new management, from a long period of laboring to find the right mix of activities after buying the PC maker Compaq in 2002.

Dell has been struggling as growth in computer buying has shifted from businesses to individuals, says the newspaper,putting the emphasis back on the "personal" in personal computing. The company's ability to beat the field on cost depends on marketing its products online to customers who know what they want, like corporate information technology departments. Individual computer shoppers require a bit more hand-holding and are willing to pay for it.

The NYT says that a strategy that depends on being cheapest - even when it can be carried out successfully - may be problematic now, when momentum in the PC business is slowing markedly. The technology consultancy Gartner forecasts a 12.7 percent increase this year in the number of personal computers shipped worldwide, but just 0.5 percent revenue growth.

The report says that that means prices are falling fast. Gartner projects 8.7 percent unit growth next year and a 0.4 percent revenue decline. When it comes to pricing, Dell is winning a race to the bottom - and the bottom is sinking.

The newspaper adds that Dell's ability to maintain margins through strong customer service seems to be slipping. In the University of Michigan's latest customer-satisfaction survey, Dell's lead over the rest of the industry - except Apple, which is adored by its small but fiercely loyal base of owners - has evaporated, the report says.

Skype signs-up first mobile carrier

Skype, the internet telephony software firm, has signed its first agreement with a mobile telecoms operator, taking its low-cost services beyond the desktop and on the road.

The Register reports (2 September) that Skype will next month deliver flat-rate services to E-Plus, Germany's third largest mobile operator - E-Plus has 9.8 million subscribers. Skype said it is also working with handset manufacturers, including Motorola, to offer its services on devices.

The landmark deal will give E-Plus users access to fixed rate mobile internet access for €39.95 per month and free Skype voice over IP (VoIP) calling.

The Register says that Skype's chief executive, Niklas Zennstorm, said the deal brings the "value and convenience" of Skype's global internet communications experience to millions of mobile phone subscribers. E-Plus said Skype enables its to deliver the advantages of mobile and stationary internet access.

E-Plus will expand Skype's existing worldwide subscriber base of 52 million, and comes as Microsoft this week took its first steps to rein-in two-year old Skype.

According to The Register, Microsoft bought privately held Teleo, with plans to integrate Teleo's service into Outlook and Internet Explorer for "click-to-call dialing" and to supplement VoIP in MSN Messenger. Teleo's eponymous service is currently in beta.

And last week, Google signalled its intention to become an internet phone-call player, with the beta release of GoogleTalk, a VoIP /instant messenger client

Microsoft and Google trade accusations in suit over executive

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (3 September) that Microsoft's chief executive vowed last year to crush Google, the internet search company, while a Google executive urged colleagues to pursue the hiring of a Microsoft employee "like wolves," according to documents filed on Friday in an increasingly bitter legal battle.

The AP report says that the allegations, filed in a Washington State court, came in a showdown prompted by Google's hiring in July of a former Microsoft executive, Kai-Fu Lee, to oversee a research and development center that Google plans in China.

Mr. Lee, known for his work on computer recognition of language, started at Google the day after he resigned from Microsoft.

The report in the NYT says that Google's filing included a sworn declaration by a former Microsoft engineer, Mark Lucovsky, who said he met last November with Microsoft's chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, to discuss his decision to leave the company after six years.

After learning that Mr. Lucovsky was taking a job at Google, Mr. Ballmer picked up his chair and hurled it across his office, according to the declaration.

Microsoft is suing to prevent Mr. Lee from leading Google's expansion in China, saying those duties would violate a noncompetition provision in his employment contract. Google has depicted Microsoft's lawsuit as a form of intimidation meant to thwart a fast-growing rival.

The AP/NYT report says that in late July, Microsoft won a court order temporarily barring Mr. Lee from performing the duties Google hired him to do, and at a hearing on Tuesday it will seek an extension of that order until the case goes to trial in January.

Intel sharply rebuts AMD's antitrust suit

In a sharp rebuttal to an antitrust lawsuit, the Intel Corporation on Thursday denied any wrongdoing and characterised Advanced Micro Devices, its rival and accuser, as a victim of its own mistakes.

The New York Times reports (2 September) that Intel's formal response came nine weeks after AMD accused Intel of unfair pricing and rebates, and of coercing customers to prevent them from using AMD microprocessors. At 63 pages, the Intel rebuttal was 15 pages longer than the lawsuit itself.

The newspaper reports that Intel has more than 80 percent of the unit sales and 90 percent of the revenues in the market for so-called x86 microprocessors. Intel's response describes a range of business missteps that it says AMD made, resulting in its current market position. Most notably, Intel contends that AMD did not invest enough in new plants in recent years to stay competitive and is therefore "capacity constrained" - meaning it is selling all the chips it can make - rather than being improperly limited by any actions on Intel's part.

According to the NYT report, AMD's suit also alleges that Intel used illegal tactics to persuade dozens of companies - including Dell, Sony and Toshiba - not to use AMD chips. In its response on Thursday, Intel called AMD's claims contradictory, since AMD currently does business with many of those same companies.

The NYT says that AMD's lawsuit on 27 June came after the Japanese Fair Trade Commission concluded in March that Intel had stifled competition there by offering rebates to five computer companies, including Toshiba and Sony, in exchange for their agreeing to limit purchases from AMD or Transmeta, another Intel rival. At the time, Intel said it disagreed with the outcome but would not contest it.

The European Commission is also investigating allegations of Intel misconduct there, and in July European regulators raided the offices of Intel and some of its customers in four countries, seeking evidence of illegal activity, says the NYT report.

Apple appears poised for iTunes phone launch

Reuters reports in The New York Times (3 September) that the Apple rumor mill swung into overdrive this week when the company reported it would make a big digital music announcement on Wednesday (September 7).

The report says that most observers expect Apple Computer to unveil the iTunes-compatible mobile phone that has been in development with Motorola for more than a year. Several industry sources have identified Cingular as the wireless operator making the long-anticipated device available to subscribers.

But Apple may have more in store, reports Reuters in the NYT. One analyst says Apple also will introduce a wireless interface to the iTunes Music Store, customised for Cingular. If so, Cingular would be the first US wireless operator to announce a full-song download music service.

The Reuters report also says that Verizon and Sprint each have discussed launching their own wireless full-song download services before the end of the year. Should Cingular beat them to market, it would do so with the most popular music service on the internet today.

Kazaa case reaches climax in Australia

A long-running court battle between Australia's record industry and file-swapping giant Kazaa reaches a climax Monday (today), when a judge is to rule on whether the peer-to-peer network is no different from a photocopier or is a giant ''engine of copyright piracy.''

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (4 September) that lawyers for major Australian record labels want Federal Court Judge Murray Wilcox to find Kazaa's owners liable for copyright breaches and loss of income.

''We have argued file sharing on Kazaa is a breach of copyright and unfair to all those people who try to make a living by creating and producing music,'' said Michael Speck, managing director of Australia's Music Industry Piracy Investigations, a division of the Australian Recording Industry Association, reports AP.

The AP/NYT report says that the 10 defendants in the Australian case include Kazaa's owners, Sharman Networks Ltd., Sharman License Holdings and Sharman's Sydney-based chief executive officer, Nikki Hemming.

The report says that their lawyers argued that the software used by Kazaa is no different from a tape recorder or photocopier -- and that Kazaa could not control copyright infringement by users of the network.

The case is the latest in a long line of courtroom showdowns between so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and copyright holders like record companies.

Teens charged with hacking computers

In the US, three teenagers face felony charges for allegedly hacking into their school computer system to ''fix'' grades -- not for themselves but for friends.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (3 September) that the 16-year-olds are enrolled in advanced computer classes at Bay High School, and sheriff's investigator Paul Vecker said they didn't need to change their own grades.

They mostly changed friends' grades by small increments to avoid notice. However, they allegedly made a big change for one junior, who reportedly would've failed if her grade hadn't been changed from an F to a B, investigators said.

The AP/NYT report says that one of the teens is charged with offense against intellectual property and the other two face charges of being principal to offense against intellectual property. A county juvenile detention supervisor said Saturday he couldn't say if they had been released on bail because of privacy laws protecting juveniles.

DVD format war looms as Blu-Ray backers plan launch

Chances looked slim that consumers will be spared a DVD format war, as the backers of one standard said on Friday there was no common ground for a unified format and it was on track for a market launch within a year, reports Reutrers in The New York Times (2 September).

According to Reuters, speaking on the sidelines of the IFA consumer electronics trade fair, a spokesman for the backers of the Blu-ray standard said the Blu-ray association was ready to lay down the specifications of the higher-capacity DVD format in the spring of 2006.

The rival HD DVD camp has recently had to push back its launch into the New Year.

Reuters says that, at stake is the multibillion dollar market for DVD players, PC drivers and optical disks. Blu-ray promises higher capacity DVD disks (up to 50 Gigabytes) that can store high definition films and better interactivity and security.

The HD DVD camp, on the other hand, claims it has a cheaper technology compatible with current DVD and CD players.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Blu-ray is backed by the majority of electronics makers, including Sony, Matsushita, Samsung, Philips, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Hitachi.

The HD-DVD camp consists of Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo Electric as main hardware vendors.

The battle between the two camps has become intense after a failed attempt this spring by several of the main Japanese electronics companies to bring together the two standards, reports Reuters in the NYT.

Singapore's Creative says Japan shipments had virus

Creative Technology said some of its MP3 player shipments to Japan contained a virus worm and it was recalling affected products from stores.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (2 September) that Singapore-based Creative, which makes Nomad and Zen brand players, said in a statement late Thursday on its Japanese web site that some of its Zen Neeon devices, which started shipping in late June, contained a ``low-risk worm.''

The company estimates that fewer than 50 units were affected, out of 2,900 devices that had been shipped to Japan since 1 September 1.

Vendors tout DVD-RAM 16x gear

The Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC), the body behind the DVD-RAM specification,has announced its members have pushed the format's write speed to 16x.

The Register reports (3 September) that as part of the announcement, RDVDC backers Panasonic and Hitachi unveiled 16x DVD-RAM drives for PCs. Panasonic, along with Maxell, also demonstrated 16x media.

According to The Register, today's DVD-RAM drives and media are rated at up to 5x performance. The 16x rating is a maximum, with the new drives writing across a range of speeds from 6x up to the higher figure, with 16x discs spinning at a constant rotational speed rather than the constant linear velocity approach used in previous versions of the format.

The Register says that The upshot is that while 16x drives will read and write 5x discs, drives rated for 5x can't read or write to 16x media, the RDVDC admitted. Indeed, the 16x DVD-RAM specification has not yet been formally accepted by the DVD Forum, the body that oversees the DVD standard. However, the RDVDC said it expects approval to be grated "within the near future".

IBM gets own facts out for Linux v Windows

IBM is 'kicking some total cost of ownership dirt' in Microsoft's face, releasing a numbers survey that claims Linux is cheaper to deploy and manage than Windows, according to The Register in a 1 September report.

The Register says that an IBM-sponsored Robert Frances Group study found it is 40 per cent cheaper to buy, implement and run an application server on an x86 server running Linux than on a similar server running Windows. Robert Frances polled IT executives at 20 mid-sized and large companies with 250 or more employees.

The report says that lack of up-front licensing fee is a big factor in Linux's favor, with added savings also in skills - with Unix sysadmins crossing over to Linux - and lower support and maintenance.

The Register says that IBM's report follows a concerted, two-year "Get the facts" campaign from Microsoft; this has seen Microsoft pay analysts to produce reports that compare total cost of ownership (TCO) of Windows against Linux, in addition to the operating systems' strengths in security.

According to the publication, vendor-sponsored analyst reports are hardly new, but the level of interest generated by "Get the facts" is noteworthy. This was based mostly on concern that Microsoft tried to circulate fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about Linux through selective commissioning and reporting of data points.

And, says The Register, Microsoft's slow and steady drip, drip was bound to begin chafing IBM’s butt at some point - IBM is, after all the world's largest distributor of Linux. It seems that this point has arrived, and IBM has sponsored a report that - while it also tackles Linux versus Solaris - pits Linux directly against IBM's competitive fair-weather partner, Microsoft and its Windows operating system. The analyst's report is titled TCO for application servers: comparing Linux with Windows and Solaris.

How to make phone calls without a telephone

Internet telephone service is well on its way into the mainstream, according to a 1 September report in The New York Times.

The newspaper says that in the US, cmpanies like Vonage, using a technology called voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, offer cheap long-distance rates and features not found with conventional phone service. Cable giants, too, are taking internet phones to the masses.

According to the NYT, now a subset of VoIP services, called PC-to-phone service, is gaining momentum. With these services, users can make calls to and receive calls from regular phones on their PC's as long they have a broadband connection, VoIP software downloaded from the web and a headset.

The report says that one advantage of such services is the ability to make calls through an internet-connected laptop when cellular service is unreliable. Many people also prefer the convenience of talking while working on a PC; the services can operate while you are doing other tasks on the computer. Another advantage is price. PC-to-phone VoIP rates are less expensive than conventional phone calls and in many cases cheaper than phone-to-phone VoIP services, which route calls through broadband modems to regular phones, the newspaper comments.

The NYT says that early versions of these services have been around since the late 1990's, but the rise of Skype, a mostly free VoIP service using file-sharing technology, has increased competition in the field.

Yahoo, America Online and Microsoft have each announced plans to add new phone services to future versions of their instant messaging programs. And last week, Google introduced Google Talk, a free service that enables users to talk through their computers and could be a first step toward a PC-to-phone service.

The NYT says that Skype, a popular VoIP network based in Luxembourg, has had 51 million users register worldwide since its inception, with five million in the United States and an average of three million users logged on at any one time. To make free calls to other PC's, users simply download the Skype software from the Web site; the PC receiving the Skype call also has to be connected to the Skype network.

According to the newspaper, with the number of PC-to-phone services growing quickly, the features and choices available to consumers are certain to expand.

Toshiba may delay HD DVD player launch into 2006

Japan's Toshiba Corporation has said it may delay the year-end launch of its next-generation HD DVD players, potentially undermining its advantage as the first supplier to put such machines on the market.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (1 September) that the company added, however, any change in the launch schedule would be intended to maximise potential demand for the new products and that Toshiba remains committed to the HD DVD format as the next-generation DVD technology.

Toshiba and Sony, leading rival camps, have waged a three-year battle to have their different standards adopted for the new DVDs, which promise much greater capacity for high-definition movies, the NYT reports.

Toshiba, along with NEC and Sanyo Electric, has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial, the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been developing a technology known as Blu-ray.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, Toshiba has said it planned to launch HD DVD players in the fourth quarter of 2005 in Japan and the United States, while Sony plans to put a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation game console next year.

The NYT reports that there is also a possibility that the products' launch in Japan may not come until after December, the spokeswoman said.

The newspaper says that, at stake in the format battle is pole position in the multibillion dollar markets for DVD players, PC drivers and optical discs. The two sides tried to forge a common format earlier this year, without success, to avoid confusion and inconvenience of the kind that occurred as a result of the VHS-Beta battle over videocassette formats two decades ago.

EDonkey claims online software traffic

EDonkey, a popular software program for sharing video and other large files over the internet, now accounts for the biggest slice of online file-sharing, according to a study comparing the top four file-swapping programs.

The Associated Pres reports in The New York Times (1 September) that EDonkey eclipsed BitTorrent for the top share of online file-sharing traffic, according to an analysis of such traffic by Britain-based research firm CacheLogic.

The study, conducted over six weeks beginning in June, only looked at the volume of data moving over the eDonkey, BitTorrent, Gnutella and Kazaa's FastTrack file-swapping networks, not at how many individual users or files they had, said Nicholas Fraka, marketing manager for CacheLogic. They thus favored eDonkey and BitTorrent because of their use for larger files.

The AP/NYT report says that BitTorrent, which grew in popularity in recent years given its ability to transfer large files much more efficiently, had accounted for a little more than 50 percent of all file-sharing traffic and 30 percent of all traffic on the Internet, according to a previous CacheLogic analysis last year.

Since then, the entertainment industry has gone after operators of web sites hosting marker files used by BitTorrent to locate other file-swappers online, comments the NYT.

The AP report says that in the new study, eDonkey accounted for 51 percent of the file-sharing traffic, compared with 34 percent for BitTorrent. FastTrack, the network tapped by users of the Kazaa file-sharing program, accounted for 10 percent of file-sharing traffic, while Gnutella, popular for swapping audio, carried 6 percent, according to the study.

Google dips into the world of print advertising

Google, which built a lucrative business in online advertising, has found a new medium for its ad sales: print.

The New York Times reports (1 September) that the company is buying ad space in magazines and filling it with half a dozen ads from clients of its vast online system.

The first incarnation of Google's program resembles an old-fashioned business known as ad brokering, which has largely been shunned by major publishers, says the newspaper.

The NYT reports that Google said yesterday that the program was a test and declined to elaborate. But its executives have indicated that they see their rapidly growing online advertising business extending to other media forms. And some marketers see this as a first step.

The newspaper's report says that Google is buying ad space in several specialised publications, including PC Magazine and Maximum PC.  For now, Google is charging advertisers a fixed fee to be included in the print positions, but some in the industry predict that it may ultimately experiment with auctioning off space and perhaps set rates based on the number of responses to an ad, as measured by calls to a certain phone number or visits to a web site.

According to the NYT, Google executives have said that they believe traditional media will ultimately emulate search engines by using an auction structure to sell ads. However, the company said it expected print ad rates to continue to be based on a fee per 1,000 readers, a measure known as C.P.M.

The NYT says that Google is already expanding to include cost-per-thousand advertising online. This is a sharp contrast to its main sales plan, which charges advertisers only when a consumer clicks on one of its ads, typically consisting of a dozen or so words of text. Its new plan allows users to place text or graphic advertising on certain sites. This plan, however, is still an auction, allowing advertisers to bid a set amount for each thousand ads shown rather than a set amount per click.

Study: no link between cell phones, tumors

Mobile phone users can dial without concern after another study found no evidence of a link between the ubiquitous devices and brain tumors.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (31 August) that the study, conducted by the London-based Institute of Cancer Research, and published this week on the British Journal of Cancer's web site, found no increased risks of a rare benign tumor in the nerve that links the ear to the brain.

The AP report says that it echoed the findings of a similar study by Swedish investigators last year and of scores of other studies investigating a possible link between the use of cellular phones and brain cancer. Researchers questioned 678 patients already diagnosed with the tumor -- acoustic neuroma -- and 3,553 who did not have it, about their cell phone use. There was no increased risk of tumor associated with using the phones for at least 10 years.

''The results of our study suggest that there is no substantial risk in the first decade after starting use,'' said lead investigator Anthony Swerdlow. ''Whether there are longer-term risks remains unknown, reflecting the fact that this is a relatively recent technology,'' AP reported in the NYT.

US recording industry sues more file swappers

In the US, the recording industry on has filed its latest round of copyright infringement lawsuits, targeting 754 people it claims used online file-sharing networks to illegally trade in songs.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (31 August) that the lawsuits were filed in federal district courts across the country, including California, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

The report says that the world's major record labels, represented by the Recording Industry Association of America, have filed more than 14,000 such lawsuits since September 2003.

BBC plans to allow program downloads

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is planning to let web users download its television and radio programs up to a week after they have aired.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (1 September) that BBC Director General Mark Thompson said he hoped the ''MyBBCPlayer'' service could be active by 2006. Complete details weren't released, and Thompson did not say whether the BBC would charge users a fee for the downloads or how it would prevent piracy and circulation beyond the week.

The report says that the plan is part of the BBC's efforts to move beyond traditional forms of media.

Nokia makes the case for mobile TV

Nokia says that data from one of the world's first commercial mobile TV pilots in Helsinki, Finland shows that 41 per cent of pilot participants would be willing to purchase mobile TV services, and that a monthly fee of US$12 is a reasonable price to pay.

The Register reports (31 August) that over half (58 per cent) said that they believed broadcast mobile TV services would be popular. The trial was carried out with Digita, Elisa, MTV, Channel Four Finland (Nelonen), Nokia, TeliaSonera Finland and YLE jointly between March and June 2005 with 500 users accessing mobile TV using the Nokia 7710 smartphone using DVB-H.

According to the report, most surveys on mobile TV are with phone users that have never seen live services. They have so far concluded that the idea is a lame duck. This is the first genuine European evidence that the desire is there for consumers to buy into the idea.

The Register says that pilot participants not only wanted to watch familiar program offerings, but they would also welcome mobile TV content that is suitable for short and occasional viewing. Familiar programs, available through national Finnish television channels proved to be the most popular, followed by sports and news channels.

In general, mobile TV users spent 20 minutes a day watching mobile TV, although more active users watched between 30 to 40 minutes per session. Participants also watched mobile TV at different times from traditional TV peak hours and the services were most popular while traveling on public transport. Mobile TV also proved popular at home for entertainment and complementing main TV watching.

The Register reports that key requirements from the survey were that the service is easy to use, is reliable, that content is suitable for short period viewing and that the phone functions are not compromised by the TV application.

Microsoft to acquire internet phone company teleo

Microsoft is expected to announce that it is acquiring a San Francisco-based internet phone company, Teleo, to add features to its MSN Internet portal service.

The International Herald Tribune reports in the New York Times (31 August) that the announcement follows moves last week by Google and Skype, a Luxembourg-based internet voice company, to take business away from traditional phone companies. Competition for digital calling - from technology companies like these as well as from big cable television and satellite firms - could make prices more attractive to many consumers who have shied away from so-called voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, service.

The teleo acquisition would give Microsoft a lift in what is at least a three-way race with Google and Skype, but also includes competition from telecommunications companies like the BT Group of Britain and the internet portal Yahoo, the newspaper comments.

The newspaper says that last week, Google announced Google Talk, which, like MSN Messenger, Skype and Yahoo Messenger, allows users to send instant messages and have live voice conversations through their computers. Skype followed Google by extending its service so that portal companies and software developers could build Skype features into their web and PC products free.

The ability to call and receive calls from fixed and mobile users is a central feature of Skype, which has the largest number of registered users of any VoIP service. MSN Messenger does not allow calls from PC's to landline or cellphones.

The Teleo VoIP service has offered the ability to call traditional telephone numbers at competitive per-minute rates, as well as receive calls from traditional phones. Other Microsoft products could take advantage of the technology later, A Microsoft spokesman said, though he declined to specify if voice features would be built into the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Windows Vista to ship by November 2006

Microsoft has apparently put a date on the release of the next version of its Windows client, Windows Vista, reports The Register (31 August).

The report in The Register says users can expect Windows Vista to ship by November 15, 2006 - just in time for the 2006 holiday shopping season, according to WindowsITPro.

The Register says that Microsoft has previously pinned the Windows Vista release at the fourth quarter of 2006, while speaking at the company's annual partner conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, earlier this summer.

The Windows Vista server companion, still codenamed Longhorn Server, is expected in 2007 with a release to manufacturing (RTM) date pinned at January 10, 2007. The server is expected to fork from the Windows Vista release schedule during the summer of 2006, with a Longhorn release candidate (RC) 2 due on October 18, 2006, says The Register.

The Register says that news of the dates came as Microsoft this week slipped out the first full beta of its delayed WinFS storage subsystem, which had been billed as appearing in Windows Vista by Microsoft's chief software architect Bill Gates in 2003.

Flash memory chip demand to explode on low prices

Roaring demand for flash memory chips, popular in hot-selling music players and digital cameras, will accelerate later this year, but prices will stay weak as industry leader Samsung holds prices down.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (31 August) that Samsung Electronics, which controls nearly 60 percent of the NAND flash market, is cutting prices in a bid to woo electronics makers to use the erasable and rewritable memory chips and undermine emerging rivals.

The global NAND flash market is expected to grow by 65 percent to US$10.9 billion in 2007, according to research firm iSuppli. During the period, overall microchip shipments are likely to expand only 24 percent, industry body World Semiconductor Trade Statistics said.

The report says that most NAND chips are built into memory cards or USB memory products which consumers use to store images, video and music. NAND flash was used mainly for digital cameras, but the launch of Apple Computer's popular iPod Shuffle and other flash-based MP3 players have given the chip an additional boost.

Demand will also escalate as more mobile phone makers include MP3 features in their high-end photo-snapping cellphones.

According to Reuters in the NYT report, Apple's plans to buy as much as 40 percent of Samsung's flash memory output in the second half for its new 4-gigabyte version of the iPod Mini, to be launched this holiday season, is also expected to create an acute shortage in the NAND flash market going into 2006, said Deutsche Bank analyst D.J. Yook.

Samsung said NAND has been under-supplied for most of 2005, except for a short period at the start of the April-June quarter.

The Reuters report says that tracking market leader Samsung is Japan's Toshiba, with a 28 percent share. South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor and US-based Micron Technology also make flash chips.

Samsung has aggressively courted Apple, offering extremely low NAND prices to encourage it to switch to flash memory from hard disk drives for its iPods, iSuppli's Kim said, reports Reuters.

Reuters says that as Samsung slashes prices, rival Toshiba and new entrant Hynix will have to follow suit to keep their market shares.

Maxtor bypasses PC with home network drive

Maxtor, the world's No. 3 disk-drive maker, sees a promising new market selling hard disks that act as home-entertainment hubs whether or not they are connected to a personal computer.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (31 August) that the new system, which Maxtor is set to unveil, makes the company the first hard-disk supplier to begin marketing its product as a home-entertainment centre that can bypass PCs and allow consumers to watch movies or play music or video games.

Maxtor, based in California, is best known for making the 3.5-inch disk drives that store data on desktop computers. With the launch of its Shared Storage Plus storage hardware, the company is bypassing the personal computer, traditionally the heart of home computing.

The Reuters report says that when connected to a home network, the new drive acts as a digital entertainment media center. For example, one family member could listen to music in a room upstairs while another watches a movie in the living room and a third views a slide show of vacation photos on a laptop in the kitchen, Maxtor said.

Consumers can use the hard drive to manage different music playlists in up to 10 rooms of a house. For movies, separate family members could be watching up to four different movies at a time.

Reuters reports that about 18 million US households use home networks, Maxtor said, with another 7 million planning to own one by 2007.

South Korea discusses Google security concerns

South Korea is raising concerns with the US government over a service offered by internet company Google that displays satellite photos of sites across the globe, the president's office said Wednesday.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (31 August) that South Korean newspaper reports in recent days have noted that the Google Earth service provides images of the presidential Blue House and military bases in the country, which remains technically at war with communist North Korea.

North Korean sites such as its main nuclear research facility at Yongbyon are also displayed on the service, which was launched in June.

AP reports that presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo said that the office was planning on raising concerns with US authorities.

Apple under new patent challenge

Raising another legal threat to the iPod music player, Creative Technology has said it has been awarded a US patent for a song-navigation technology it claims is used on Apple Computer's market-leading devices.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (30 August) that the Singapore-based digital audio company did not, however, say how it would attempt to enforce the patent. And some experts were skeptical that legal action could succeed at extracting cash from the maker of the world's most popular music players.

A Creative Labs spokesman said the US Patent and Trademark Office granted the patent Aug. 9 for a user interface it developed long before the first iPods went on sale in October 2001. The technology is used, by Creative, in the Creative Zen and Nomad Jukebox MP3 players.

The AP/NYT report says that an Apple spokesman declined to comment.

PayPal co-founder readies photo-sharing service

Max Levchin's, the co-founder and former chief technology officer of PayPal has found himself working around the clock lately to launch his new internet company, Slide.

CNet reports in The New York Times (1 September) that the San Francisco company, which he started last year, is Levchin's first big plunge into an internet start-up since cashing in on eBay's US$1.5 billion purchase of PayPal in 2002.

The free service, which the 12-person company plans to open to the web-surfing public on Monday, CNET News.com has learned, combines aspects of social networking, photo sharing, web syndication and e-commerce. At the heart of Slide is a downloadable desktop program that indexes all the photos on the user's hard drive and creates a slide show at the edge of the screen.

The CNet report says that, from there, members can invite family, friends and other Slide members to view and save the member's photos and join Slide as a "friend" in the member's network. Members can also add one another's images to their own slide shows and alert one another to new albums. A set of access tools lets users publish their photos to as few or as many people as they wish, and subscribe to other people's photos.

The report adds that Slide builds on several trends du jour, including digital photography, personal publishing and Web syndication.

According to CNet in the NYT report, Levchin, who just turned 30 and has invested US$1 million of his personal funds in the company, may have hit on the right way to make Slide stand out. He claims Slide's publish and subscribe tools are easier to use than other services, which require some technical know-how and a familiarity with RSS. The general public, including people like his mom, need simpler tools, he said.

Slide's business model is another distinguishing feature. Advertising is the main source of revenue for most competitors, but Slide plans to sustain itself on commissions from facilitating online shopping.

HTC smartens up bottom line

Taiwanese smart-phone manufacturer HTC has reported Q1 FY2005 net income of TWD2.49bn (US$77m) on sales TWD15.44bn (US$475m).

The Register reports (31 August) that those figures amount to sequential gains of 16.5 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively. Year-on-year, HTC experienced income growth of 155 per cent on a 91 per cent jump in sales.

For the first six months of the year, the handset maker reported net income of TWD4.06bn (US$125m) - up 141 per cent on the year-ago period, HTC said - on sales of TWD28.69bn (US$883m).

The Register reports that HTC is also believed to be gearing up to mass-produce the next, Windows Mobile-based version of Palm's Treo smart phone. This device is expected to debut later this year.

NEC, Hitachi loosen Elpida ties

The Register reports (31 August) that Elpida is to gain a measure of independence from co-founders NEC and Hitachi. By the end of September, its parents will have reduced their shareholdings to under 20 per cent and under 15 per cent, respectively.

According to the report, the scheme will see Elpida's formal fiscal connection with both parents severed. Its results will no longer figure in theirs.

Both firms said the sale would not affect their ongoing business dealings with Elpida. NEC and Hitachi combined their memory chip division in 2000, creating Elpida.

Sprint Nextel buys affiliates to ease conflicts

In the US, Sprint Nextel said yesterday that it would buy two small wireless affiliates, resolving legal issues arising from Sprint's purchase of Nextel Communications, which operates in some of the same markets as the affiliates.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (31 August) that Sprint Nextel, an operator of mobile telephone service, will pay US$427 million for IWO Holdings, including US$208 million of assumed debt, and US$287.5 million for Gulf Coast Wireless, including unspecified debt.

Sprint Nextel said it was in talks with its remaining seven Sprint affiliates, which have exclusive rights to use the Sprint brand in markets where Sprint does not operate. It previously bought another affiliate, US Unwired, for US$1.3 billion.

An IPod cellphone said to be imminent

Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a long-awaited mobile phone and music player next week that will incorporate Apple's iTunes software, a telecommunications industry analyst who has been briefed on the announcement said on Monday.

The New York Times reports (30 August) that the development marks a melding of two of the digital era's most popular devices, the cellphone and the iPod, which has become largely synonymous with the concept of downloading songs from the Internet or transferring them from compact discs.

The newspaper reports thaqt Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst with Ovum, a market research firm, said he had been told by an industry executive that the new phone, to be made by Motorola, would be marketed by Cingular Wireless. Mr. Entner said it would include iTunes software, which helps power the iPod.

The software will allow people to transfer songs from a personal computer to the mobile phone, then listen to the songs, presumably through headphones. "

The NYT says that Apple, Motorola and Cingular declined to confirm or deny the report. But Apple did announce on Monday that it would hold a major news event on 7 September in San Francisco that it indicated was music-related. Apple is routinely tight-lipped about pending product announcements, preferring to make a splash on the day of the event.

The plans outlined for an Apple phone are consistent with recent announcements by Motorola, which said in July 2004 that it planned to develop a device that would include the iTunes software, the NYT reports.

Camera phones boosting digital camera sales

Contrary to expectations, camera phones are spurring US consumers to buy digital cameras, according to a study released on Monday by research firm IDC.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (29 August) that mobile phones equipped with tiny cameras are seen as less of a threat to replace digital cameras as camera prices fall, IDC said in its Mobile Imaging Survey. In fact the report said new phones help to introduce users to digital photography, which uses no film and allow pictures to be e-mailed.

The Reuters reports says that sharp growth in sales of cameraphones with powerful lenses was once seen as a threat to digital cameras, since most new mobile phones sold are equipped with tiny camera lenses that lets user spontaneously snap pictures in places they might not have in the past.

The study said that over 30 percent of camera phone owners plan to purchase digital cameras because they learned about digital photography through camera phones, IDC said.

One analyst said that US consumers still look to regular cameras for capturing important family or vacation snapshots.

The use of phones to take pictures continues to grow, but is still dwarfed by the use of digital cameras. Some 4 billion pictures were snapped with phones in the US in 2004, and about 7.5 billion will be shot this year. Digital camera snapshots should rise to 40 billion this year from 28 billion last year, IDC said, reports Reuters.

Google losing ground in China

A survey by a Chinese internet research group has found that Google is losing market share to its biggest Chinese rival, web search engine Baidu.com.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (30 August) that the survey, conducted by the Beijing-based China Internet Network Information Centre, reported that Baidu.com Inc. boosted its market share in Beijing by 10.8 percentage points to 52 percent.

The report says that Google's share was at 33 percent, as the American internet search engine kept its customer base steady while the overall market grew, said the survey, seen Tuesday on CNNIC's web site.

According to AP in the NYT, China's internet population hit 103 million by June, second only to the United States, according to CNNIC.

The survey found that combined, Google and Baidu held 80 percent of the market in Beijing and Shanghai, and 75 percent in Guangzhou. The three cities account for most of Chinese internet use, it said.

Six months ago, Google held the largest market share in the three cities covered by the survey, which was conducted earlier in August, the report said, without giving specific figures.

AP reports that CNNIC's survey found Baidu has a 43.9 percent market share in Shanghai compared to 38.2 percent for Google. In Guangzhou, Google's market share was 28.7 percent while Baidu's was 48 percent.

Meanwhile, US internet giant Yahoo! held only a 3.7 percent market share overall, with smaller Chinese rivals Sohu.com and Sina Corp. claiming a 4.6 percent and 4 percent share, respectively.

Google has long been popular with Chinese Web surfers, but has suffered from a lack of brand recognition. The company only recently set up an office in Shanghai in preparation for a belated expansion in China and obtained a web address under the country's China domain, www.google.com.cn

AP says that Google bought 2.6 percent of Baidu.com last year in a move outsiders thought might lead to the American giant taking over the tiny Chinese startup. But Baidu.com has stayed independent, striving to become Google's Chinese-language equivalent.

US man sells Microsoft source code

A Connecticut man known on the Internet as ''illwill'' pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court on Monday to charges relating to the theft of the source code to Microsoft's Windows operating software, considered among the company's crown jewels.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (30 August) that William Genovese Jr., 28, of Meriden, Conn., pleaded guilty charges related to the unlawful sale and attempted sale of the source code for Microsoft's Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0. The code had previously been obtained by other people and unlawfully distributed over the internet, prosecutors said.

The source code is the blueprint in which software developers write computer programs. Access to a software program's source code can allow someone to replicate the program, and industry experts expressed concern that hackers reviewing the Microsoft software code could discover new ways to attack computers running some versions of Windows.

AP reports in the NYT that a federal indictment filed against Genovese in February 2004, charged that the day Microsoft learned significant portions of its source code were stolen Genovese posted a message on his web site offering the code for sale.

Genovese was arrested when an investigator for an online security company hired by Microsoft and an undercover FBI agent downloaded the stolen source code from his Web site after sending him electronic payments for it.

Genovese faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine when he is sentenced in the fall, reports AP.

Infineon to supply Microsoft XBox components

Europe's biggest chipmaker, Infineon, said it will supply three key components for Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (30 August) that Infineon will provide a memory unit product, a wireless game-pad controller and an advanced security chip for the consoles, the company said in a statement late on Monday.

It did not give financial details of the deal.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Xbox 360 consoles containing Infineon chips and components will be on sale in the fourth quarter of this year, the company said.

Microsoft is expected to launch the new console in November, giving it a headstart in a battle with rival Sony's PlayStation3 and smaller competitor Nintendo's next-generation Revolution console, both due in 2006.

Microsoft and Sony dominate the US$25 billion video game hardware and software market, reports Reuters.

Apple plans announcement; some see new music player

Apple Computer on Monday said it will announce a new product in early September and fanned expectations it will introduce an updated iPod Shuffle music player with much more capacity.

Reuters reports in The New York Times that Apple is known for its marketing prowess and keeps new products under tight wraps before unveiling them at carefully staged events. The company is widely expected to introduce a relatively roomy four-gigabyte iPod which uses sticks of flash memory, the type of storage used in digital cameras, rather than a hard disk drive. That would hold about 1,000 songs.

In an email invitation showing a picture of a jeans pocket, Apple alluded to its original 2001 announcement for the portable iPod, saying, ``1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again.''

Apple plans a San Francisco news conference on 7 September 7.

Reuters reports in the NYT that industry analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies said the news could be a new 4-gigabyte Shuffle, which would have four times the memory of the current model.

Apple shipped 6.2 million iPods in its latest quarter.

Piracy crackdown spurs shift in online file-sharing

Traffic in the popular file-sharing network BitTorrent has fallen in the wake of a crackdown on piracy, but file sharers have merely shifted to another network, eDonkey, new data released on Monday showed.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (29 August) that popular movies like ``Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith'' have surfaced on BitTorrent before they even appeared in theatres.

A study by the Cambridge-based internet analysis firm CacheLogic found that eDonkey is now roughly on par with BitTorrent in the United States, China, Japan and Britain. It is the dominant peer-to-peer file-sharing network in South Korea, which has the world's highest percentage of high-speed internet use, and also in Italy, Spain and Germany.

The Reuters/NYT report says that last year, BitTorrent was consuming up to a third of the internet's total bandwidth as users traded huge movie and television files. Hollywood struck back with a slew of lawsuits to shut down Web sites that provided ``tracker'' links, which tell the network where to look for files.

Rio owner quits MP3 player market

Rio owner D&M Holdings is to quit the mass-market portable music player market, the company said on Friday.

The Register reports (29 August) that the announcement comes as no surprise given that it sold its Rio division's technology and people assets to SigmaTel in July.

Japan-based D&M, which also owns the Denon and Marantz hi-fi brands, has been trying to stem losses at Rio for some time. Rio - originally part of Diamond Multimedia - was a pioneer in digital music hardware. But its Flash-based products were quickly out-evolved by hard disk-based units from a number of rivals, most notably Apple.

Diamond Multimedia merged with S3 Graphics in 1999. S3 sold off the graphics chip business to Taiwan's VIA, effectively becoming Diamond Multimedia again in all but name. In 2000, it named itself SonicBlue and went on to acquire TiVo rival ReplayTV.

The Register says that the Rio product line was revitalised under Digital Networks, but despite winning reviewer plaudits, it failed to win significant customer numbers - it had simply lost too much brand equity to the iPod, iRiver and Creative's Zen line.

The report says that during its most recently completed financial quarter, Q1 FY2005, which ended 30 June 2005, D&M reported an operating loss ¥1.04bn (US$9.41m), to which the Rio division contributed an operating loss of ¥0.96bn (US$8.68m) - more than 92 per cent of the total. D&M reported a net loss of ¥717m (US$6.48m) for the quarter.

Oracle ready to save the mobile industry by reducing costs

Giant software company Oracle is making an all-out bid to take over the running of the world's mobile phone operators, by pulling all their multiple applications into a single stack.

The Register reports (30 August) that the company called a press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, to announce its support for the European Commission's i2010 strategy. Oracle said it welcomed this phase, and actively encouraged companies and telecommunications providers to establish a single European Information Space for an open, competitive and content rich market for electronic communications, media, and content.

The publication says that the claim to be able to provide support for all aspects of mobile operator software operations is probably well founded.

NDCHealth bought in 3-company deal

In the US, the NDCHealth Corporation, a health care software developer, said yesterday that it would be acquired by Per-Se Technologies, with a portion of the business spun off to the Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer in a combined transaction of about US$1 billion.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (30 August) that Per-Se will acquire most of the Atlanta-based NDCHealth for about US$665 million. Separately, Wolters Kluwer, based in Amsterdam, will buy the pharmaceutical information management business from NDCHealth for US$382 million in cash.

Early look at research project to re-engineer the internet

In the US, the National Science Foundation is planning an effort to fundamentally re-engineer the internet and overcome its shortcomings, creating a network more suited to the computerised world of the next decade.

The New York Times reports (29 August) that the new project, the Global Environment for Networking Investigations, was described for the first time by researchers and foundation officials at a technical meeting held in Philadelphia last week.

The project, which has not yet received financing and may cost more than US$300 million, is intended to include both a test facility and a research program.

The NYT says that, as described in documents circulated by National Science Foundation officials, the network will focus on security, "pervasive computing" environments populated by mobile, wireless and sensor networks, control of critical infrastructure and the ability to handle new services that can be used by millions of people.

Peter A. Freeman, assistant director of the science foundation for computer and information science and engineering, said that "simply to provide the kind of security everyone needs and carry the huge volumes of data necessary in the future, there was strong thinking that new architectures beyond the internet were going to be needed."

The newspaper reports that the National Science Foundation is looking for more participants for the project, including other government agencies and potentially other countries, Mr. Freeman said.

To begin the development of the network, the government agency provided six small planning grants this summer and then introduced the idea at an all-day meeting involving a group of leading computer scientists and network experts in Washington last Monday.

A computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles who was involved in developing the Arpanet, the network that preceded the modern internet, said it would be possible to design a network that was better able to handle traffic from the edge of the network, at the level of individual users. In the next decade, computer researchers expect an explosion of data from mobile and wireless devices as well as sensors that will vastly outnumber today's PC's.

The newspaper says that when the internet was designed in the 1970's, its engineers did not expect that the project would have to be scaled to cover much of the world's population, and security was not an important consideration.

The report adds that there are several similar experimental networks in the United States, including Internet2, the National LambdaRail and PlanetLab. There was also an earlier effort to redesign the basic internet protocols, known as IPv6.

Flaw may hide malicious software

Miscreants could hide their malicious software on a Windows PC by using overly long registry keys, security experts have warned.

CNet reports in The New York Times (29 August) that these keys are stored in the Windows Registry, a core part of the operating system that stores PC settings. Some antivirus and anti-spyware products scan the registry for malicious programs, but this new weakness allows hackers to hide the presence of their applications, according to security vendor StillSecure.

The CNet/NYT report says that the SANS Internet Storm Center, which tracks internet threats, on Thursday listed some applications that, according to reports it received, can be tricked by the longer registry keys. The list includes AdAware, Microsoft's Windows AntiSpyware, HijackThis, Norton SystemWorks 2003 Pro, Microsoft's Windows Registry Editor and WinDoctor.

The report says that of most concern are the so-called "run" keys in the registry. These keys are used to start applications when a Windows PC boots. Microsoft's Registry Editor and several popular security programs won't detect the overly long entries in the Windows Registry, yet the applications will still start, according to StillSecure's Ashley.

Microsoft is investigating the issue, a company representative said in a statement. The software maker notes that an attacker can't hide anything without first breaking into a system.

According to Microsoft, the issue is not a security vulnerability, but a function within the operating system that could be misused. Microsoft said it is not aware of the trick being employed to hide software.

The CNet/NYT report says that security monitoring company Secunia rates the Windows Registry issue "not critical." The French Security Incident Response Team also labels it "low risk."

Intelsat to acquire rival in big satellite deal

Intelsat plans to announce that it has agreed to acquire a rival, the PanAmSat Holding Corporation, creating the world's largest operator of satellites that distribute data and video programming for clients.

The New York Times reports (29 August) that Intelsat, which is a private company, will pay US$3.2 billion, or US$25 a share, for PanAmSat, executives at the companies said. It will use cash to pay for the shares, which it is buying at a price that is almost 40 percent higher than the trading price just after PanAmSat's initial public offering in March. On Friday, PanAmSat shares closed at US$19.80, down 3 cents, on the New York Stock Exchange.

Intelsat will also take over US$3.2 billion in PanAmSat's debt.

The newspaper says that the combined company will have 53 satellites - 28 from Intelsat and 25 from PanAmSat - and annual revenue of US$1.9 billion. Executives for the companies hope to receive regulatory approval for the deal in 6 to 12 months.

The two companies have complementary businesses. Intelsat has large contracts with the United States government, and about half of PanAmSat's revenue comes from providers of video programming like Disney, Time Warner and HBO, which need their shows beamed to cable companies.

The NYT says that Intelsat is particularly strong outside the United States, while most of PanAmSat's satellites hover over North America. The deal is the latest and largest in a fast-consolidating industry. A glut of satellite launchings in the 1990's sent prices tumbling and pushed several big players into bankruptcy.

But, according to the newspaper,in the last couple of years the industry has stabilised after rounds of cost cutting, fewer launchings and an upturn in demand for broadband services and video products like high-definition television and video-on-demand.

Latin fans ready to dial up ringtones

The next growth spurt in the ringtone market very likely will have a Latin flavor.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (29 August) that with few exceptions, ringtones have remained largely a medium for hip-hop/R&B music, because of the genre's popularity and the wide acceptance of wireless services within hip-hop culture. Such hip-hop acts as 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and Lil Jon regularly dominate the Billboard Hot Ringtones chart.

But, says Reuters, wireless operators are seeking new areas for growth and see the urban Hispanic market -- dubbed ``hurban'' -- as a prime target.

The Reuters/NYT report says that, while the market for ringtones has exploded in Latin America, in the United States only a few Latin music ringtones have become best sellers. They include ``Toma'' by Cuban-American rapper Pitbull and ``La Tortura'' by Shakira. But several signs indicate that a spike in sales of Latin ringtones is imminent.

According to the Reuters report, first of all, the Hispanic user base is growing right into the wireless entertainment sweet spot. The market for ringtones and other wireless entertainment services has been driven by 15- to 25-year-olds. The US Census Bureau predicts that Hispanics will be the largest teen minority group by year's end, and will account for 20 percent of teens by 2015.

At the same time, Hispanics are the most prolific consumers of wireless devices, services and content. According to a Forrester Research report, Hispanics tend to buy multimedia-capable phones much sooner after their introduction than other demographic groups and replace their handsets more frequently.

The Reuters/NYT report says that, not surprisingly, wireless operators and content aggregators are looking for a greater variety of content to appeal to this increasingly powerful consumer group. And this effort comes at a time when Latin music, particularly reggaeton, is exploding in popularity. While the music industry remains mired in an overall sales slump, Latin is the only genre showing growth, up 17 percent this year, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan.

Sirius introduces portable unit that stores music

Sirius Satellite Radio has said it will introduce a small portable device for its subscription radio service that can store 50 hours of music, news and programs from Sirius channels, a move to narrow the gap with its larger rival XM Satellite.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (29 August) that the new player, roughly the size of a deck of playing cards, is the company's first device to be used outside the confines of cars and trucks. The automotive market accounts for the vast majority of satellite radio usage. XM has had a portable device on the market since last fall.

Sirius's player, dubbed the S50, underscores the trend of the converging consumer electronics devices, specifically satellite radio with digital music players.

The Reuters/NYT report says that with the success of Apple Computer's iPod digital music player, many consumer electronics makers have been looking for ways to add digital music as a feature on other devices such as cellphones and other handheld devices. One of the key features of the S50, which will be available in October, is the ability to store digital music files transferred from PCs.

Sirius' device comes a month after Korea's Samsung Electronics said it would sell a digital music player that can receive satellite signals from Sirius' larger rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings. XM also has a deal with Napster to start a service that allows users to buy music they hear on XM stations.

Reuters says that XM subscribers outnumber Sirius subscribers more than 2-to-1, but Sirius has been investing heavily in programing, including expensive contracts with shock jock Howard Stern and the National Football League.

{mospagebreak title=Pixar faces inquiry by SEC

Pixar faces inquiry by SEC

Pixar Animation Studios, the high-flying entertainment company run by Apple Computer Chief Executive Steve Jobs, has confirmed it is the subject of an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Mercury News reports (27 August) that the studio said it has complied with the government's request for information. But spokesman Nils Erdmann declined to provide details about the nature or timing of the inquiry.

The newspaper says that The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that the government is examining the greater-than-expected returns of ``The Incredibles'' DVD, which caused Pixar to miss its second-quarter earnings projections.

The report says that the inquiry follows a similar SEC probe of rival animation studio DreamWorks Animation SKG. The company scaled back its earnings guidance for the second quarter and for the year because of unexpectedly high returns of the ``Shrek 2'' DVD.

Shareholders filed suit against DreamWorks in federal district court in Los Angeles, alleging the Glendale-based studio had misrepresented potential DVD sales.

The Mercury reports that DVDs have emerged as the leading source of revenue for Hollywood, surpassing even theatre box office receipts. In fact, about 60 percent of a typical movie's revenue now comes from DVD sales.

However, the growth rate of DVDs is slowing, said Jan Saxton, an entertainment analyst for Adams Media Research in Carmel. Retailers, meanwhile, are dealing with a glut of DVDs on their shelves, causing them to return unsold discs sooner and in greater quantities, the newspaper reports.

Apple, digital music's angel, earns record industry's scorn

The New York Times reports (27 August) that two and a half years after the music business lined up behind the chief executive of Apple, Steven P. Jobs, and hailed him and his iTunes music service for breathing life into music sales, the industry's allegiance to Mr. Jobs has eroded sharply.

According to the newwspaper, Mr. Jobs is now girding for a showdown with at least two of the four major record companies over the price of songs on the iTunes service. If he loses, the one-price model that iTunes has adopted - 99 cents to download any song - could be replaced with a more complex structure that prices songs by popularity. A hot new single, for example, could sell for US$1.49, while a golden oldie could go for substantially less than 99 cents.

Music executives who support Mr. Jobs say the higher prices could backfire, sending iTunes' customers in search of songs on free, unauthorised file-swapping networks.

The NYT says that signs of conflict over pricing issues are increasingly apparent. This month, Apple started its iTunes service in Japan without songs from the two major companies - Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group - leaving artists like Avril Lavigne, Beyoncé and Rob Thomas out of the catalog because the companies refused to license their music to iTunes, executives involved in the talks said.

That gap in the Japanese music market, the world's second biggest, is considered a harbinger of what may await American consumers as the contracts that record companies have with Apple in the United States come up for renewal early next year, the newspaper says.

The NYT reports that Apple commands an estimated 75 percent of digital music sales, and roughly 80 percent of sales of MP3 players, with its market-leading iPod. While many still admire Mr. Jobs's touch - iTunes quickly established a market for paid downloads after the industry wasted years on misfires - he also inspires enmity or jealousy from others in the industry, which is back in a slump after a modest rebound last year.

Mr. Jobs' vision of simple, uniform pricing for songs and a policy of limiting Apple's music to Apple's devices are increasingly under attack, the newspaper adds.

The report claims that a sore point for some music executives is the fact that Apple generates much more money selling iPod players than it does as a digital music retailer, leading to complaints that Mr. Jobs is profiting more from tracks downloaded to fill the 21 million iPods sold so far than are the labels that produced the recordings.

The push for variable pricing is not uniform across the business. The Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal and the industry's biggest company, appears to support Mr. Jobs's desire to maintain the price of 99 cents a track for the time being. The EMI Group, the British music giant, has expressed a desire for more variation in prices but does not appear interested in a protracted fight, adds the newspaper.

The NYT says that the divide among the four record companies reflects a broader philosophical argument about whether the fast-expanding digital market is stable enough to bear a mix of prices, particularly a higher top end, while millions of consumers still trade music free on unauthorized file-swapping networks.

According to the newspaper, the other main battleground in Apple's coming confrontation with the industry has to do with "interoperability" of services and devices. Mr. Jobs has so far refused to make the iTunes software compatible with music players from other manufacturers, and he has prevented the iPod from accepting music sold from competing services that use a Microsoft-designed music format. As a result, songs purchased from Napster, for example, will not play on an iPod.

Novell profits vanish in Q3

Novell has reported a drop in third quarter revenue and income. The software maker posted revenue of US$290m - down from US$305m in the same period last year. Add to that a stunning fall in net income to US$2million from US$24million in last year's third quarter, and the company's financials fail to inspire, according to The Register in a 28 August report.

The Register says that Novell, however, continued to celebrate its Linux business in light of the lackluster results.

"Customers continue to embrace Novell's Linux and identity solutions," said Jack Messman, CEO of Novell. "We were particularly pleased with our initial penetration of the Chinese market where Linux is an attractive technology for government and commercial users. . . . While we were profitable this quarter, we still have improvements to make in our business which will lead to cost reductions."

The Register reports that, during the third quarter, Novell pulled in US$44m from Linux-releated sales, including US$31m off Open Enterprise Server and US$8m off subscriptions to SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). Subscriptions to SLES hit 28,000 over the three months.

The publication says that in the same period last year, Novell reported Linux revenue of US$12m on the back of 19,000 sales of SLES.

Nokia, Moto lead strong mobile growth

Falling prices of mobile handsets worldwide contributed to 21 per cent sales growth year-on year-in Q2 2005, Gartner reports. Every region except Japan saw sales rise, although hi-tech South Korea was becalmed.

The Register reports (26 August) that Nokia continued its recovery by taking 31.9 per cent of the market, up from 29.6 per cent a year ago. Motorola consolidated its strong second place, grabbing 17.9 per cent share, up from 15.7 per cent a year ago. The leading two sold 60.7million and 34milion handsets respectively.

Gartner attributes Nokia's success to the Latin American market, where it regained the top spot, and strong sales of CDMA units on the back of the Virgin Mobile MVNO.

The Register says that the gains came at the expense of third tier manufacturers and Siemens, which saw real unit shipments fall from 10.8million to 8.89million, a dramatic dip from 6.9 per cent share to 4.7 per cent share. On these figures, analysts must question the wisdom of BenQ's acquisition of the German giant's handset division.

Emerging markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa led the way. But interest in replacing trusted handsets with 3G features wasn't particularly strong, notes Gartner.

The Register says that, overall 190.5m handsets were shipped in Q2, and Gartner predicts 780m will ship in 2005.

Suspected computer worm authors arrested, FBI says

Authorities in Morocco and Turkey have arrested two men for unleashing computer worms that disrupted networks across the United States last week, the FBI said on Friday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (26 August) that Farid Essebar, 18, of Morocco, and Atilla Ekici, 21, of Turkey, are believed to have been responsible for the Zotob worm that hit the internet less than two weeks ago, along with predecessors called Rbot and Mytob released earlier, the FBI said.

Zotob caused computer outages at more than 100 U.S. companies, including major media outlets like CNN and The New York Times, but it did not create widespread havoc along the lines of previous malicious software programs like SQL Slammer and MyDoom.

The NYT says that close teamwork among the FBI, Microsoft and authorities in Morocco and Turkey was essential to the case, said FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Louis Reigel.

Reigel said Essebar wrote the malicious code and provided it to Ekici for a fee.

The newspaper says that the two men will face prosecution in their native countries and FBI officials will provide evidence. Zotob targeted a recently discovered flaw in the Plug and Play feature of Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system. Newer versions of the software were not affected.

Mobile operators face unexpected rivals

A new study from the OECD predicts that increased use of internet telephony will result in lower revenues for both fixed-line and mobile operators.

The Register reports (26 August) that, according to its latest report, the number of fixed phone lines in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries fell for the first time in 2003 as mobile operators gained market share at the expense of traditional telecoms companies.

That trend has continued into 2004 and 2005 but is unlikely to carry on for very much longer. That's because use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services is expected to increase with the result that both fixed-line and mobile operators will see a significant drop in revenues.

The publication says that a comparison of the cost of calls in OECD countries using Skype and traditional fixed-line carriers revealed an average saving of 80 per cent for users of the free software application. Although such obvious cost savings are leading consumers to ditch their landline, as yet there's been little impact on the mobile market.

According to a Gartner forecast last month, worldwide sales of mobile phones are expected to top 779 million in 2005. By 2009, it is estimated that over 1 billion mobile phones will be sold each year.

However, says The Register, there's no doubting the fact that use of VoIP services is on the rise and will at some point impact on mobile operators revenues. A recently published report from Point Topic indicated that the number or people using internet telephony more than doubled in 2004.

The publication reports that the research company found that 11 million people around the world were using retail VoIP services by the end of July, up from just five million the previous year. These figures don't include users of PC-based "soft-client" applications such as Skype, which claims to have 35 million registered users.

OECD predicts that traditional telecom companies are likely to offer new services such as Wi-Fi hotspots in a bid to maintain market share. It warns that these offerings may provide tougher competition for 3G mobile operators which weren’t expecting to have such rivals when they paid exorbitant sums for licences between five and seven years ago.

To maximise revenue, the report suggests that 3G operators may need to change their charging policies, for example by persuading customers to sign up for longer-term contracts rather than purchasing calling time on an ad-hoc basis.

The Register further reports that, in addition, OECD forecast that service operators will increasingly offer integrated video, voice and data products in a single service package. It also expects that the growing popularity of downloading video from the internet will result in a reduction in the amount of time people spend watching television, leading to a fall in both audience share and advertising revenue

High-end Unix servers resilient in Q2

Server makers enjoyed a relatively quiet and consistent second quarter with sales rising close to 6 per cent and the top seller rankings staying the same.

The Register reports (26 August) that total sales for Q2 hit US$12.2billion, which marked a 5.6 per cent year-over-year rise and the ninth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, IDC said.  The publications says that, as has been the case for years now, low-end servers drove the jump in revenue with sales increasing 11.1 per cent while midrange sales grew just 4.3 per cent and high-end sales fell 3 per cent. But, while Big Iron sales sank overall, sales of high-end Unix boxes surprised by rising.

According to The Register, the second quarter proved a disappointment. IBM maintained its lead as the top overall server vendor with 32 per cent of the market, while HP followed at 29 per cent. Sun Microsystems and Dell split the third position with 11 per cent each, and Fujitsu closed out the top five with 3 per cent of the server market. Dell continued to grow much faster than rivals, and HP and Fujitsu enjoyed healthy, double-digit growth quarters.

As usual, shipments of Linux servers grew fastest. The Penguin's presence swelled by 45 per cent in terms of revenue, outpacing the 14 per cent growth of Windows servers and the 3 per cent Unix server growth.

The publication reports that IDC did not immediately break down sales of different server processors and is often reluctant to part with such data, especially to web sites that point out minor counting misses by the firm.

Pentium 4 VT plans confirmed by Intel

IDF Intel has confirmed a report that the Pentium 4 660 and 670 will be updated soon to incorporate Virtualisation Technology.

However, 'Paxville', the 90nm dual-core Xeon MP part whose release was recently brought forward, will not contain VT, it has emerged.

The Register reports (26 August) that, according to a presentation made yesterday by Intel Digital Enterprise Group chief Pat Gelsinger, VT will appear on the P4 66x and 67x processors in H2 2005.

Intel didn't provide a precise timeframe for the VT-enabled desktop chips' release, but it will happen before VT Itanium 2 parts ship toward the end of the year. Past reports have claimed that both will ship in Q4.

BBC will let programs be downloaded

The British Broadcasting Corporation is planning a new service to let web users download its television and radio programs up to a week after they have aired.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (27 August) that BBC Director General Mark Thompson, who unveiled the plans for the company's ''MyBBCPlayer'' at the Edinburgh International Television Festival Saturday, said he hoped the service could be active by 2006.

Under the outline he presented, Thompson said the player would let web users download original BBC radio and television programming from its web site for as long as seven days after it originally aired. But complete details weren't released and any plan to make the material available for download would have to be approved by the government-owned broadcaster.

Reuters reports in the NYT that, also not disclosed, was whether the BBC would charge users a fee for the downloads or how it would protect the digital rights of such programming.

Thompson said the plan is part of the BBC's efforts to expand its operations beyond traditional forms of media. The dominant broadcaster in the United Kingdom, the BBC operates a pair of public television channels, a 24-hour news channel, and several digital channels, as well as national and digital radio networks.

Atari sells humongous to Infogrames for US$10.3 million

Video game publisher Atari said on Friday it signed a deal to sell its Humongous Entertainment studio business for US$10.3 million to Atari's controlling parent, France's Infogrames Entertainment.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (26 August) that the deal between Atari, the publisher of ``Driv3r'' and ''Dragon Ball Z,'' and Infogrames came about one month after the resignation of Atari board member Thomas Mitchell, who left amid concerns that the two publicly traded companies were too closely tied.

Infogrames owns about 52 percent of Atari, and Bruno Bonnell serves as chief executive and chairman of both companies.

Atari said the Humongous assets consist primarily of intellectual property, existing inventory and license rights.

Reuters reports in the NYT that some US$2 million of the purchase price represents prepayment of future costs that Atari will incur from platform royalty advances, manufacturing costs and milestone payments, it said.

Atari also said it has been granted exclusive distribution rights for Humongous products in the United States, Canada and Mexico through at least March 2006.

Sirius introduces portable unit that stores music

Sirius Satellite Radio on Thursday said it will introduce a small portable device for its subscription radio service that can store 50 hours of music, news and programs from Sirius channels, a move to narrow the gap with its larger rival XM Satellite.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (27 August) that the new player, roughly the size of a deck of playing cards, is the company's first device to be used outside the confines of cars and trucks. The automotive market accounts for the vast majority of satellite radio usage. XM has had a portable device on the market since last fall.

Sirius's player, dubbed the S50, underscores the trend of the converging consumer electronics devices, specifically satellite radio with digital music players.

With the success of Apple Computer 's iPod digital music player, many consumer electronics makers have been looking for ways to add digital music as a feature on other devices such as cellphones and other handheld devices, the NYT reports.

One of the key features of the S50, which will be available in October, is the ability to store digital music files transferred from PCs. But how much the S50, which has a suggested retail price of US$360, narrows the gap with XM is subject to debate. S50 cannot independently receive a satellite signal the way that XM's portable MyFi device can.

The newspaper says that Sirius' device comes a month after Korea's Samsung Electronics said it would sell a digital music player that can receive satellite signals from Sirius' larger rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings. XM also has a deal with Napster to start a service that allows users to buy music they hear on XM stations.

Nokia dominates 3G

Some 9 million 3G handsets were shipped globally during the second quarter of 2005 with Nokia claiming the top position on the vendor table for the first time.

The Register reports (24 August) that that's according to figures released by research firm Strategy Analytics, which reveal that the Finnish mobile phone giant captured 17 per cent of the 3G handset market during the three months from April to June.

According to the report, Nokia's 17 percent share of the 3G market is almost half of its global overall share in the global mobile market, which stands at 33 per cent, according to the Strategy Analytics wireless device strategies service.

Previous 3G market leaders Motorola and LG have been overtaken by Nokia.

The report in The Register says that the popularity of Nokia's 3G handset the 6680 is helping it to make an impact on the global 3G market, according to Strategy Analytics, which named the handset as the "best-in-class 3G phone in Western Europe."

The firm reports thaty while Motorola continues to make inroads in the GPRS market thanks mainly to the popularity of handsets such as the iconic V3 Razr, it is trailing behind in the 3G market. Strategy Analytics believes the US mobile phone manufacturer needs to make some improvements to its 3G handset design if it is to challenge Nokia in the segment.

Nokia sees 200 million new China mobile users in 3 yrs

Top mobile handset maker Nokia said on Thursday it expected 200 million new mobile subscribers in the rapidly growing Chinese market in the next three years.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (25 August) that the head of the Finnish mobile firm's Networks division said the company also expected huge growth in mobile use in the Asia-Pacific region, but that it would have a relatively flat effect on Nokia's revenue over the next few years.

The Reuters report says that Nokia expected three and possibly four 3G mobile licenses to be issued in China, most likely in the first half of 2006.

Nokia expects the global number of mobile phone subscribers to pass the 2 billion mark in the fourth quarter of this year and to reach 3 billion by 2010.

Public unaware of RSS

According to a report in The Register (25 August) the majority of regular blog readers are completely unaware of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and the amount of passion the technology excites.

The Register reports that a Nielsen/Netratings' survey of 1,000 regular blog readers found 66 per cent do not understand RSS and have never even heard of the technology. Twenty three per cent claimed they understood RSS but did not use it.

The publication says that's a reality check for Silicon Valley technologists and venture capitalists debating and investing in RSS.

The Register says that last week, it emerged Microsoft will re-name RSS in the next version of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser and Windows Vista operating system to make it more consumer friendly. Microsoft is using "web feeds" as a substitute name for RSS in the current IE beta.

The report says that venture capitalists (VCs) and enthusiasts from the communications industry, meanwhile, announced ambitious plans for a US$100m fund to invest in RSS in June. The fund will focus on news aggregation, blogs, search engines and applications capable of aggregating data for use in the financial and medical sectors.

The Register says,however, that the survey shows that blog traffic is up. The top fifty blogging and blog-related sites have grown 31 per cent to 29.3m unique visitors since the start of the year, accounting for one fifth of the internet's traffic. Microsoft's MSN Spaces was top with 947 per cent growth, while Fark.com and Blogger were second and third with 63 per cent and 45 per cent increases respectively.

Sony to expand Samsung link to cut LCD costs

Japan's Sony said on Thursday it would expand its liquid crystal displaypartnership with Samsung Electronics to include joint work on improving quality and cutting production costs.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (25 August) that Sony and South Korea's Samsung formed a US$2 billion joint venture in 2004 to mass-produce LCD panels. The venture, called S-LCD, began shipments of panels this April.

Sony currently procures panels from S-LCD that were based on technology developed by Samsung. Sony then adds its own semiconductors, backlights and other key components to assemble LCD TVs.

A Sony spokeswoman said its engineers would start to play a larger role in the relationship, offering ideas on how to produce a higher quality panel at a lower cost. But the basic panel technology would continue to come from Samsung.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Sony's TV division posted a quarterly operating loss of 39 billion yen in the April-June quarter, hit by sliding prices of LCD TVs and slumping demand for traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) models.

The report adds that Sony is due to unveil a new restructuring plan next month that is expected to include further steps to shore up its TV operations, which are far less efficient than rivals Sharp and Matsushita Electric.

New software makes podcasts mobile

A California company is hoping to tap into the growing podcasting craze with software that enables mobile phone users to stream audio files directly from their home computer.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (24 August) that podcasts are recorded audio files downloaded over the internet. They can be stored on computers or transferred to digital music players like Apple's iPod.

The software from Los Angeles-based Pod2Mob promises to enable mobile phone users to hear podcasts on their handsets, too, reports AP.

The AP report says that, currently available for free as a ''beta'' test download, the software runs on Windows and Mac OX computers. The software relays the audio to a mobile phone. An applet, or small computer program, that must be loaded on the handset allows users to control which podcasts they want to hear.

Motorola plans parent-monitoring phones

Motorola, the world's third-largest mobile phone manufacturer, plans to make phones that would let parents monitor their children's whereabouts and censor obscene content, Chairman and CEO Edward Zander said.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (24 August) that phones are also coming with features to attract young consumers, like next month's planned release of a phone with iTunes, Apple Computer's popular media player, Zander told reporters late Tuesday.

Motorola says it is planning models that would inform parents of their children's whereabouts and carry censorship software.

Motorola had worldwide revenues of US$31.3 billion last year and employs 2,900 engineers in India.

Microsoft signs film deal for "Halo" video games

Microsoft has signed a deal with two film studios to make a movie based on its popular space-based video game series ``Halo,'' a spokesman for Universal Pictures said on Wednesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (24 August) that Universal and Twentieth Century Fox agreed to pay Microsoft US$5 million plus a percentage of movie ticket sales. The total price being paid is capped at 10 percent of domestic box office receipts.

The deal ends months of speculation over which studio would win the right to make a ``Halo'' film, which came to Hollywood last spring highly-touted by Microsoft and its representatives at Creative Artists Agency. Messengers delivered a script to the studios wearing costumes and toting laser guns.

According to Reuters, several studios balked at an initially high asking price, which at the time published reports pegged at US$15 million plus 15 percent of box office receipts in the United States and Canada.

Intel will bring chips to entertainment media

Trying to repeat the success of its Centrino brand for notebook computers, the chip maker Intel said Wednesday that it would introduce a set of technologies designed specifically for entertainment PC's.

The New York Times reports (25 August) that computers carrying an "Intel Viiv" sticker will feature the chip maker's microprocessors along with other Intel hardware and software. Viiv systems will ship early next year, with a remote control.

The newspaper says that Intel, which is the world's largest chip maker, undertook a similar strategy of combining multiple chips into a single platform with Centrino, which includes an energy-efficient processor, chip set and wireless hardware.

Intel backed up Centrino's introduction in 2003 with a US$300 million marketing campaign. Since then, the company's share of the notebook chip market has grown steadily.

The report says that PC and software makers see the living room as a huge growth opportunity as more entertainment becomes digitised and consumers look for ways to better manage their music, video, photos, movies and television shows.

Viiv-based computers are expected to be available in a variety of forms, ranging from the size of a stereo system component to a more traditional PC tower. All will run the Windows Media Center operating system from Microsoft.

TiVo posts first quarterly profit

TiVo, the digital video recording company, reported the first quarterly profit in its eight-year history on Wednesday, outpacing Wall Street expectations.

The New York Times reports (25 August) that TiVo, whose set-top box enables users to skip past commercials, reported net income for the second quarter of US$240,000, or break-even per share. That compared with a net loss of US$10.8 million, or 13 cents a share, in the same period of 2004. Revenue for the quarter ended 31 July climbed 46 percent, to US$40.7 million, the company said.

The newspaper says that TiVo added 254,000 new subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total subscription base to 3.6 million.

Skype releases IM developer tools

Internet telephone giant Skype is now letting lets web sites and others internet applications tap into the untold millions of people using Skype's instant message feature.

CNet reports in The New York Times (24 August) that the Luxemburg-based company on Wednesday unleashed its SkypeWeb and SkypeNet developer tools. By doing so, Skype says it's opening up its platform to anyone who wants to integrate Skype Instant Messaging--a lesser-known feature of Skype--with most other versions of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software.

The report says that Skype believes it can be a significant threat to instant messaging giants Yahoo, MSN and America Online. With 51 million registered usernames, Skype IM is potentially twice the size of Yahoo's instant messaging community, and six times that of America Online, according to figures provided by Skype.

A Skype spokesman said it expects a large number of hardware and software makers to weave Skype's IM into their creations during the coming months, but wouldn't identify any companies intending to do so.

The CNet/NYT report says that the Skype moves come a few days before the second anniversary of Skype's first release. Since then, the number of people downloading Skype peer-to-peer phone software has surpassed historical numbers and rates put up by internet killers like free, web-based Hotmail e-mail or the Internet Explorer Web browser.

The report says that Skype and host of rivals are turning the telecom industry on its head using internet technology to offer more calling features for less money. In order to make a big impact, however, Skype needs to get its service off of the internet and PCs and onto familiar phone equipment via the traditional phone network that most people still use, says CNet in the NYT.

US tops poll of spyware purveyors

Spyware purveyors are expanding their distribution channels and adopting new tactics in a bid to cash-in by infesting more PCs with parasitic malware, according to a report in The Register (23 August).

The Register says that the majority of spyware is coming from the US, with Poland coming in second and the Netherlands third, according to a study by anti-spyware software developer, Webroot Software.

Legislation against spyware is now pending in 19 US states and four bills affecting spyware are pending at the federal level. Technology countermeasures are also becoming more common but Webroot's report argues that spyware developers are fighting back in a bid to preserve their business, says The Register in its report.

The publication says that Webroot's State of Spyware report states that spyware is becoming more sophisticated (the use of packing and encryption techniques are becoming more common, for example) in a bid to elude detection and removal efforts.

The number of websites distributing spyware has quadrupled since the beginning of 2005 to 300,000 unique URLs as spyware purveyors grow their distribution channels and enter new markets. Meanwhile the number of spyware traces in Webroot's spyware definition database has doubled to over 100,000 since the start of the year.

The report adds that four in five (80 per cent) of consumer and corporate PCs are infected with spyware, according to Webroot. Consumer PCs have an average of 25.4 instances of spyware per scan but since Webroot includes relatively benign cookies as well as Trojans in this same category these figures ought to be approached with some caution.

The Register says that the raw data behind the latest edition of Webroot's quarterly report comes largely from its consumer and corporate SpyAudit scanning tools and from online research culled by Phileas, Webroot’s automated spyware research system.

Google offers voice messaging

Google is set to offer its own instant message and web-based phone calling system, joining a crowded field of established rivals in a nearly decade-old computer communications craze.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (24 August) that the world leader in internet search confirmed sketchy reports on Tuesday that it plans to add instant messaging together with web-based phone calling to the growing menu of technology options it offers beyond simply trawling the Web.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Google Talk is seeking to elbow its way in among four instant messaging web communities that number more than 10 million users a piece, ranging from market leader AOL, with AIM and ICQ brands, to Yahoo, Microsoft and two-year-old European Web chat phenomenon, Skype.

The report says that the service fits within the Google Sidebar, another service the company introduced this week which is designed to help it branch out beyond pure search to help users manage e-mail, instant messages, news headlines and music.

Seeking to turn its outsider status into a strength, Google said its Talk service would allow users to communicate with other open systems such as Trillian, Apple Computer's iChat and a system under test at EarthLink.

Reuters says that analysts and Web pundits have speculated that the instant messaging service could form the underpinning for a push by Google into both mobile phone services and video search. Future versions are likely to allow users to call from computers to standard telephones or vice versa, paralleling services such as SkypeOut, a rival computer to phone service.

Nokia to expand mobile networks in India

Nokia has been awarded a US$125 million contract to expand digital mobile networks for India's leading telecommunications company Bharti Tele-Ventures, doubling its network capacity.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (23 August) that the world's biggest mobile phone maker said Tuesday the three-year contract includes Bharti's Airtel networks in the states of Maharashtra (including Goa and Bombay), Gujarat, Bihar and Orissa. It will also enable Airtel to cover more than 5,000 towns and villages across India, the world's largest cell phone maker said.

The AP report says that last year, Nokia signed a US$275 million deal to supply equipment and managed services for Bharti, which has 13 million customers in India.

To meet growing regional demand Nokia is increasingly turning its attention from Europe, where the mobile phone market is reaching saturation levels, to the growing market in Asia. In April, it announced that Chennai in southeastern India would be the site for its new mobile manufacturing plant expected to employ up to 2,000 people.

Sony to launch P2P music swapping network

In one of the most significant digital music announcements of the year, Sony BMG has partnered with British digital music outfit Playlouder MSP to make its music catalog available online.

The Register reports (24 August) that subscribers will be able to exchange licensed music freely, in any bitrate they want, since a portion of the subscription fee goes to a digital pool which is divided amongst Sony and other artists. Playlouder MSP will supply the broadband connection itself, and attempt to monitor leakages.

The report says that PLMSP will deploy watermarks and "deep packet searches" software on the network in an attempt to stem leakage. In an FAQ, Playlouder's Paul Sanders says, "We aim to prevent close to 100% of P2P traffic from going outside the MSP 'walled garden'.

The report by The Register says that the British company says it has more deals with licensees to unveil. Playlouder says launch is scheduled for next month and will go live in the UK only. However similar services are expected to launch soon using similar watermarking and counting technology such as Shawn Fanning's Snocap, and Audible Magic, which PLMSP uses. Snocap opened a digital registry to artists and labels back in June, and participants include the 800lb gorilla Universal, BMG and digital rights middleman IODA.

Intel Outlines Shift Toward Saving Energy in Processors

The New York Times, in a 23 August report, says that Intel, the world's biggest chip maker, has been struggling for a year to fend off a revitalised Advanced Micro Devices, which has a head start in "multicore" and low-power 64-bit microprocessors.

The newspaper reports that, on Tuesday, Paul S. Otellini, Intel's chief executive, sketched out a new plan to move the company forward on energy-saving computing, based on new multicore processors. To position itself for that change, the company undertook a deep reorganisation six months ago to help accelerate the development of chips with internal designs that contain two or more internal processing units.

The NYT reports that, in a speech opening the company's annual developer forum ON Tuesday, Mr. Otellini was upbeat about growth in the high-technology industries and expansion in emerging foreign markets.

The newspaper says that the Intel chief also noted that Intel had benefited from the market shift to laptop computers, which now outsell desktop machines internationally and for the first time outsold desktops in the retail market in the United States in the second quarter of this year.

Mr Otellini sais a new mobile microprocessor, code-named Yohan, which is intended to follow the Pentium M processor when it is introduced commercially in the first quarter of 2006, will double the performance of the existing Pentium M processor family on a per-watt basis.

The NYT says that, beginning in 2007, the company will begin doubling the number of cores in each processor to four.

Mr. Otellini said Intel's energy-efficiency gains would be substantial in chips for PC's and servers. He also mentioned a new ultralow-power version of the original X86 chip architecture, which would consume power equal to one-half watt.

The newspaper reports that Intel plans to combine the existing microarchitecture features of chips for desktop and portable computers in a design that will begin shipping in the second half of 2006, Mr. Otellini said.

Hitachi unveils world's first terabyte DVD recorder

Japan's Hitachi on Wednesday unveiled the world's first hard disk drive/DVD recorder that can store one terabyte of data, or enough to record about 128 hours of high-definition digital broadcasting.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (24 August) that Hitachi, Japan's largest electronics conglomerate, is still a relatively small player in the DVD recorder market, trailing industry leaders Matsushita Industrial, Sony and Toshiba.

But it hopes its new line-up, which also includes models able to store 160 gigabytes, 250 gigabytes and 500 gigabytes of data, will help boost its market share and turn its loss-making DVD recorder business profitable in October-March, the second half of the business year.

According to Reuters in the NYT report,the recorders will go on sale in Japan from next month. They are expected to retail from about 130,000 yen for the cheapest model to 230,000 yen for the one-terabyte recorder, which stores data on two 500 gigabyte hard disk drives. One terabyte is equal to 1 trillion bytes of data. One gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes.

Hitachi said it did not have concrete plans for launching the products in overseas markets, explaining that consumers in Europe and the United States were not as keen on high-end recorders.

Reuters says that Japan accounts for more than half of the global DVD recorder market and MM Research Institute predicts that Japan's DVD recorder market will grow 26 percent to 5.6 million units in the current financial year to next March, up from 4.43 million in 2004/05.

Intel, Cisco team to boost business WLANs

Intel and Cisco have announced they will co-develop a proprietary set of enterprise-oriented WLAN enhancements.

The Register reports (23 August) that the scheme, which builds on the two firms' existing wireless alliance, will improve VoIP call quality and access point selection for Centrino notebooks connected to Cisco base-stations.

According to the publication, the VoIP component essentially ensures conversations get sufficient bandwidth and routing priority to ensure calls aren't dropped and audio fidelity is maintained, the two companies said.

At the same time, the access point technology ensures the client connects to the most suitable base-station, with the choice being determined not by proximity but by available bandwidth and connection speed, says The Register.

The upshot, Intel and Cisco said, would be "more reliable and efficient roaming" within the WLAN's zone of coverage.

The Register says that both features will be incorporated into the Business-class Wireless Suite, which will ship with Cisco's Unified Wireless Architecture-enabled access points and Centrino notebooks during Q1 2006, in the 'Napa' next-generation Centrino release timeframe.

The report adds that, separately, the two companies said Cisco will support Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) initiative, while Intel will back Cisco's Network Admission Control (NAC) WLAN security initiative.

Intel expected to strike RIM deal

Intel and the Blackberry vendor, Research in Motion, will announce in San Francisco this week, according to reports, a joint development deal which will see RIM use Intel’s power-saving silicon. In addition, RIM will come out in support of Intel’s drive to establish WiMAX.

According to a report in The Register (23 August), in addition to any whizz-bang Intel technology, RIM would gain a seriously heavyweight partner. Intel would gain some credibility in the handheld comms market. In addition, Intel has been banging the WiMAX drum for some time, and the support of a high-profile company like RIM would provide some distraction from the much reported delays with the technology, says The Register.

Google revamps desktop search program

Google has updated its software for searching PC hard drives and the internet, giving the free program a new look and adding tools that deliver personalized information based on a user's Web surfing habits.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (22 August) that Google Desktop 2, available Monday as a public beta test, is the company's latest volley against Microsoft and Yahoo as all three race to expand their presence on PC desktops.

The latest Google offering includes several twists. Beyond providing search results, it monitors the user's behavior and presents relevant information in a resizable and moveable vertical window called the Sidebar, reports AP.

The report says that one module aggregates e-mail messages from a variety of accounts, including Google's Gmail service or the user's internet provider. Others display stock prices, personalised news headlines, weather reports and what's popular on the web. Another module pulls Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds from web sites that have been visited and offer that service. Unlike other feed aggregators, the user need not take any action for a feed to be added.

AP says in the NYT report that Google, which has come under fire for making private information a bit too easy to find, said it has now disabled the caching of secure web sites -- an option that can be enabled if the user desires. It also recommends against using the desktop program tool on computers in internet cafes or in cases where many people share the same operating system account.

Sony, Toshiba give up on unified DVD format

Groups headed by Toshiba and Sony offering competing technologies for next-generation DVDs have given up efforts to develop a unified format, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (22 August) that, for three years, the two groups have pushed to have their respective technology standards adopted to gain dominance in the multibillion-dollar markets for DVD players, PC drives and optical discs.

Toshiba, along with NEC and Sanyo Electric, has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita Electric, the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been developing a technology known as Blu-ray.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the two groups have held negotiations on unifying their formats to persuade consumers to shift to advanced discs and to promote growth in the industry.

According to Reuters,however,negotiations fell through as neither side yielded, and time ran out to develop a format before the launch of new products from both groups, the paper said.

A Sony spokesman said it has become harder to unify formats after failing to reach an agreement in negotiations in May. Both officials agreed, however, that a unified format is still a possibility. They said a single format would be the best way, and added they would release their products as scheduled.

Reuters reports that Sony plans to put a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation game console next year. Sony's Blu-ray technology is also backed by Dell and South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

At the core of both formats are blue lasers, which have a shorter wavelength than red lasers used in current DVD equipment, allowing discs to store data at higher densities needed for high-definition movies and television.

South Korea likely to decide Microsoft case in Sept

South Korea's antitrust watchdog said on Tuesday a final decision on allegations that Microsoft unfairly used its dominant position to shut out rivals is likely to be made as early as late next month.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (23 August) that the Fair Trade Commission has been investigating allegations raised by South Korean internet portal Daum Communications in September 2001 that the world's top software maker breached antitrust laws by selling a version of the Windows system that incorporated its instant messaging software.

Daum, which has its own messaging service, claimed Microsoft excluded rivals from internet messenger markets by using its dominant market position.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the FTC has expanded the probe since late last year when RealNetworks filed a complaint, saying Microsoft had been unfairly bundling Media Player audio-visual software and the Media Server program with its Windows operating system.

Microsoft has said that the complaint was without merit and that it would cooperate fully with the probe.

Reuters says that, in a similar case, the European Commission fined Microsoft a record 497 million euros last year and demanded changes to its business practices, which it found were an abuse of its quasi-monopoly on computer software.

Amazon.Com to offer photo service with Shutterfly

Web retailer Amazon.com on Monday said it would offer online photo developing services through a partnership with leading internet photo service Shutterfly as it targets a fast-growing market.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (22 August) that terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Amazon said the service would allow customers to design photo cards, calendars, photo books and gifts such as mugs, T-shirts and other personalised products.

The Reuters report says that privately held Shutterfly competes in the online photo finishing market with sites run by Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard and a host of others, including retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores, Best Buy Co. and Ritz.

The deal comes as Amazon, which started off as an online bookseller, has looked to expand its presence in digital media. Last month, the company bought DVD-on-demand site CustomFlix and is reportedly considering getting into the music download business, reports Reuters in the NYT.

News Corp.'s Intermix buy gets US antitrust OK

US antitrust authorities said on Monday they had approved plans by media conglomerate News Corporation to buy web site operator Intermix Media for US$580 million.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (22 August) that antitrust officials have completed their investigation of the deal without taking any action, the Federal Trade Commission said in a notice.

News Corp., home to the 20th Century Fox film studio, Britain's Times newspaper and the Fox US television network, in July agreed to buy Intermix Media, owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, reports Reuters in the NYT.

Notebooks keep becalmed PC market going

Worldwide PC unit shipments are on pace to grow 12.7 per cent in 2005 even though revenues are set to increase by only 0.5 per cent, according to a preliminary forecast by Gartner.

The Register reports (22 August) that Gartner reckon 206.6m PCs will ship in 2005 with revenues of US$202.7bilion. In 2006, worldwide PC units are expected to grow 10.5 per cent but revenues will decline 0.4 per cent due to a fall in the average selling price of PCs. Strong competitive pressures are pushing down the price of desktop and laptop PCs.

The publication says that according to the report, buyers are increasingly attracted to mobile computing because of lower prices to enjoy an enhanced wireless computing experience. Worldwide mobile PC units are forecast to grow 31 per cent in 2005, according to Gartner

Canon to invest US$188 million on new panel R&D centre

Canon said on Monday it would invest about US$188 million on a new centre in Japan to develop production technology for surface conduction electron emitter displays, a promising new type of flat panel.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (22 August) that Canon and Toshiba formed a joint venture last year to develop and make the panels, which are thinner and consume less energy than liquid crystal and plasma display panels, the two main technologies used for flat panel TVs.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Canon, the world's top copier and digital camera maker, said it would build the research centre in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, at a cost of about 20.8 billion yen.

EarthLink acquires anti-spyware company Aluria

US internet service provider EarthLink on Monday said it agreed to acquire the assets of privately held Aluria Software LLC, which makes security and anti-spyware software.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (22 August) that EarthLink said it expects the acquisitions, whose terms were not disclosed, to close in September.

Aluria, which was founded in 1999 and based in Florida, is best known for its consumer anti-spyware application called Spyware Eliminator. The product has more than 20 million users, Atlanta-based EarthLink said in a statement.

Reuters says that recently, Aluria launched its first business-targeted application, Paladin, which provides anti-spyware protection for small businesses and corporations. The company also sells a number of other security and system optimisation applications.

EarthLink counted 5.4 million internet subscribers at the end of June, Reuters reports in the NYT.

AMD: could work with infineon on flash-paper

The chief executive of US chipmaker AMD is considering cooperating with German rival Infineon on flash memory chips, he was quoted as saying in a German newspaper on Tuesday.

The New York Times reports (23 August) that flash memory chips are used to store information in devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras and MP3 music players and remember data even when the power of the device is switched off, unlike memory chips used in personal computers.

Munich-headquartered Infineon declined to comment and an AMD spokesman for Europe declined further details or comment.

The newspaper says that AMD and Infineon produce different kinds of flash memory, with AMD manufacturing a version called NOR, which is losing ground to the newer NAND type. Infineon is trying to break into the NAND market, but is still a very small player.

A cooperation would allow both companies to save on hefty chip-equipment investments, to share production process technology and to gain access to new markets, analysts said, reports the NYT.

AMD, in its Spansion joint venture with Japan-based Fujitsu in which it holds 60 percent, is the world's second-biggest NOR flash maker, only slightly behind Intel.

The NYT says that Infineon is the world's sixth biggest NAND flash maker, but has only 1.9 percent market share compared with leader Samsung Electronics from South Korea which commands 55 percent of that market, according to second-quarter statistics from US market research group iSuppli.

The report says that NAND sales overtook NOR sales in the first quarter of 2005, and NAND generated 55 percent of worldwide flash memory sales of US$4.1 billion in the second quarter, iSuppli said.

Yahoo, Verizon team up on internet service

In the US, Verizon Communications and Yahoo have teamed up to launch a cheaper high-speed internet service designed to compete against cable operators and dial-up service providers.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (23 August) that, for US$14.95, subscribers will be able to download web pages via a digital subscriber line at speeds of up to 768 kilobits and upload data at 128 kilobits. The cheaper service, which requires a one-year contract and has a price hike after 12 months, offers Yahoo premium services, such as antivirus protection, on-demand music videos and unlimited photo storage, according to an advertisement on Yahoo's site.

The AP/NYT report says that Yahoo was expected to announce formally the Verizon launch Tuesday, but an advertisement found on the company's web site Monday night detailed the DSL offering. John Reseburg, a Yahoo representative, confirmed the accuracy of the ad.

The AP report says that when it comes to transmission speed, Verizon is far behind SBC Communications, which launched a US$14.95 DSL service with Yahoo in June. SBC transmits data at up to 1.5 megabits, twice as fast as Verizon's.

Verizon and other telephone companies in the US are cutting prices to stave off cable companies, which can offer faster data delivery and at greater distances than DSL. For Yahoo, the partnership is another chance to collect a share of monthly subscriber fees as well as increase its profile as an internet-service provider, says AP in the NYT report.

SAP lures ex-PeopleSoft customers

SAP says that it will provide support for PeopleSoft applications for half the price quoted by Oracle, hoping to gain from uncertainty among PeopleSoft clients, reports The Register (22 August).

The Register says that Oracle, the biggest rival to the German business applications company, bought PeopleSoft last December for US$10.6 billion. By mid-January of this year Oracle had announced more than 5,000 redundancies, with the brunt of the layoffs taking place at PeopleSoft.

The publication says that Oracle has also announced a massive integration project - known as Project Fusion - to integrate PeopleSoft and JD Edwards products with Oracle's business applications. Oracle got JD Edwards, another significant business applications company, as part of the bargain when it bought PeopleSoft, says the report.

The Register reports that Graham Kingsmill, managing director of SAP UK & Ireland, said that only half of the cost of a PeopleSoft or JD Edwards support contract goes towards support, while the remainder is allocated to the development costs of new products. He said that Kingsmill said that if PeopleSoft users buy support from Oracle then the future development portion of the money will be invested in the development of Oracle products, which may be of no benefit to PeopleSoft customers.

According to The Register, SAP plans to build a network of channel partners (throughout the UK), who will sell SAP's products to companies who only need between two and ten SAP licences.

Google has plenty of projects in mind

In all the speculation that followed the announcement from Google on Thursday that it planned to raise an additional US$4 billion by selling stock, no one seemed to recall the space elevator.

The New York Times reports (22 August) that the elevator - a fanciful alternative to rocket boosters to reach earth orbit - is one of the dozens of business ideas that have been considered by the company's wide-eyed founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. It also is one of the ideas that the company's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, has taken pride in keeping "below the line."

The newspaper says that, this week, in two product introductions, Google will both reinforce its central mission and give an early hint of how it is planning to broaden its business strategy beyond advertising-supported internet searches.

Google is planning to introduce a second-generation version of its downloadable computer search tool, Google Desktop. It will come with both personalisation and software "agent" features - learning capabilities - plus an invitation for independent programmers to develop small programs to extend the capability of the system.

The NYT says that both capabilities are likely to be seen as further competitive threats by Microsoft, which is focusing on similar information retrieval and organisation advances in its long-delayed next-generation operating system, Windows Vista.

The newspaper also reports that Google executives say they plan to unveil on Wednesday a "communications tool" that is potentially a clear step beyond the company's search-related business focus. While executives would not disclose what the new software tool might be, Google has long been expected to introduce an instant messaging service to compete with services offered by America Online, Yahoo and MSN from Microsoft.

Canon to invest US$188 million on new panel R&D centre

Canon said on Monday it would invest about US$188 million on a new centre in Japan to develop production technology for surface conduction electron emitter displays, a promising new type of flat panel.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (22 August) that Canon and Toshiba formed a joint venture last year to develop and make the panels, which are thinner and consume less energy than liquid crystal and plasma display panels, the two main technologies used for flat panel TVs.

Canon, the world's top copier and digital camera maker, said it would build the research centre in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, at a cost of about 20.8 billion yen.

Sun Micro announces open-source DRM project

Sun Microsystems, weighing in on the fractious issue of protecting copyrighted digital content, on Sunday announced a project it calls the Open Media Commons initiative aimed at creating an open-source, royalty-free digital-rights management standard.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (21 August) that the issue of digital-rights management, or DRM, has spurred a number of plans to protect content, ranging from standards for mobile phones, digital music players, CDs, DVDs and other media, available from InterTrust, Microsoft, Apple Computer, Sony and others.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Sun is now throwing its hat in the ring, and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz argues that the growing number of rival DRM standards that are incompatible with one another could stifle innovation and economic growth.

But analysts said the project is ambitious, citing the need for content owners, software developers and device makers to be on board. Open-source software is that which is made freely available so programmers can modify and improve it.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Schwartz said he planned to call for a cross-industry collaboration in developing what he argued would be an open and business-friendly approach to the free creation, duplication and distribution of digital content.

To lay the foundation for the Open Media Common initiative, Sun will immediately share its internal Sun Labs program Project DReaM, what it calls ``DRM/everywhere available.''

Google revamps desktop search program

Google has updated its software for searching PC hard drives and the internet, giving the free program a new look and adding tools that deliver personalised information based on a user's web surfing habits.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (22 August) that Google Desktop 2, available Monday as a public beta test, is the company's latest volley against Microsoft and Yahoo as all three race to expand their presence on PC desktops.

The AP report says that the latest Google offering includes several twists. Beyond providing search results, it monitors the user's behavior and presents relevant information in a resizable and moveable vertical window called the Sidebar. One module aggregates e-mail messages from a variety of accounts, including Google's Gmail service or the user's internet provider. Others display stock prices, personalised news headlines, weather reports and what's popular on the web.

Google Desktop 2 also offers the ability to encrypt -- or scramble -- the index to protect it from being read by unauthorised parties. The software works on computers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Mac OS X is not supported.

Exploit for unpatched IE fuels hacker fears

Microsoft is investigating an IE security bug amid fears that a hacker attack based on the vulnerability is imminent. A flaw in Microsoft DDS Library Shape Control COM object (msdds.dll) is at the centre of the security flap.

The Register reports (19 August) that security researchers warn that msdss.dll might be called from a webpage loaded by Internet Explorer and crash in such a way that allows hackers to inject potentially hostile code into vulnerable systems. The publication says that's because IE attempts to load COM objects found on a web page as ActiveX controls, as is the case with msdds.dll. A programming object is not supposed to be used in this way. So hackers might be able to take control of systems by tricking users into visiting a maliciously constructed web site.

According to The Register, no patch is available but Microsoft has posted a bulletin detailing possible workarounds. These include disabling ActiveX controls, setting the kill bit for msdds.dll and unregistering msdds.dll. Use of an alternative browser (such as Firefox, Opera) is also an option.

Once a booming Market, educational software takes nose dive

In 2000, sales of educational software for home computers reached US$498 million, and it was conventional wisdom among investors and educators that learning programs for PC's would be a booming growth market. Yet in less than five years, that entire market has come undone, according to a report in The New York Timews (22 August).

The NYT says that by 2004, sales of educational software - a category that includes programs teaching math, reading and other subjects as well as reference works like encyclopedias - had plummeted to US$152 million, according to the NPD Group, a market research concern.

The newspaper says that what happened was an explosion of new, often free technologies competing to entertain and teach children. Young children have long been a primary audience for computer learning games. But with free games and learning sites now available all over the internet, parents are finding that they do not need to buy software that can teach the A B C's. And the spread of broadband connections has made playing online games far easier, adds the NYT.

Analysts and executives said that parents' frustration at installing new programs and the nearly universal availability of computers in classrooms have made using home PC's for learning less appealing.

The result in business terms has been a downward spiral. Only 222 educational programs for PC's sold more than 10,000 copies in 2004, down from 447 in 2001, according to NPD. As sales began to decrease, retailers devoted less and less shelf space to these titles, making recovery for the industry more difficult.

The NYT report says that to regain their footing, some companies are starting to create programs that can connect to the internet and cater to parents' interest in measuring their children's academic progress.

Google to raise more funds

Google has said in a surprise move that it would raise a US$4 billion war chest with a new stock offering. The announcement stirred widespread speculation in Silicon Valley that Google, the premier online search site, would move aggressively into businesses well beyond web searching and search-based advertising.

The New York Times reports (19 August) that Google, which raised US$1.67 billion in its initial public offering last August, expects to collect US$4.04 billion by selling 14,159,265 million Class A shares. The newespaper says that, in Google's whimsical fashion, the number of shares offered is the same as the first eight digits after the decimal point in pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which starts with 3.14159265.

The company, which had nearly US$3 billion in cash as of the end of June, said little about how it would spend the proceeds from the new sale, and it did not say how it would conduct the sale.

The NYT reports that Google's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission stated only that "we may use proceeds of this offering for acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies or other assets."

Some analysts said Google might be poised to match Yahoo's recent US$1 billion investment in Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce site. Others said it could reach into telecommunications with a deal for a company like Skype, a provider of internet-based phone service.

The newspaper also says that, with perhaps US$7 billion in cash, Google could also consider acquisition of a media or digital content company, analysts said.

Many analysts also saw Google's new stock offering as preparation to take on its main competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo, which are involved in a far broader range of businesses and investments. Microsoft currently has US$37.7 billion in cash, and Yahoo US$3.4 billion, the NYT adds.

To date, reports the newspaper, Google has preferred to invest in internal growth and has made only a handful of small acquisitions, frequently to gain technologies and talent.

The NYT says that earlier this week, it quietly acquired Android, a mobile computing firm founded by Andy Rubin, a former Apple Computer engineer who had been a founder of Danger, a maker of a portable wireless data handset.

As part of the deal, Mr. Rubin has joined Google. Google also recently acquired Dodgeball, a social-networking site. In the last year, it purchased Keyhole, which developed a digital satellite imagery program; Picasa, which developed software for editing and sharing digital photos, as well as Applied Semantics, Blogger and Urchin.

Game makers aim for new users at Europe games fair

Europe's biggest computer games fair got under way last Thursday with game publishers looking to woo more customers in Germany with the same excitement that has gripped markets like the United States and Japan.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (19 August) that organisers of the Games Convention said Germans spent 466 million euros on video games last year, 15 percent more than in 2003 but still a tiny proportion of the estimated US$25 billion spent globally on games software and hardware each year. Thursday saw some 28,000 visitors -- 75 percent more than last year's first day, and organisers expected a record 110,000 or more by the fair's end on Sunday.

The NYT reports that only around one in 10 households in Germany, Europe's biggest but slowest-growing economy, has a games console -- compared with around one in three in the United States, the world's largest video-games market.

One of the fair's hits on the first day was Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP), which launches in Europe on 1 September with a recommended price of 249 euros.

Sony counters iPod Shuffle with the Bean

Sony has launched a curvy, palm-sized portable music player dubbed, not inappropriately, the Bean, reports The Register (18 August).

More formally monikered the NW-E205, the 512MB Flash-based Network Walkman Bean supports Sony's own ATRAC3 Plus format and MP3, The Register reports. It's available in four colours: blue (aka 'Tropical Ice'), pink (Cotton Candy), black (Licorice) and white (Coconut).

The Register reports that the Bean has its own, integrated USB connector for both song transfer and battery charging. The built-in Lithium Ion cell yields 50 hours' playback time, Sony said.

In addition to the 512MB NW-E205, Sony is offering the 1GB NW-E207, with the same choice of colours. Both models are due to ship mid-September, The Register reports.

PluggedIn: portable media players may struggle to find market

Reuters reports in The New York Times (19 August) that manufacturers, keen to create the next iPod, are starting to flood the market with a bevy of electronic devices that play movies, music and display photos.

The report says that even Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs, who has repeatedly pooh-poohed the notion of a video iPod, may be getting into the act, if speculation on Apple rumor web sites is to be believed.

According to Reuters in the NYT report, the iPod was a stunning, runaway success. But it's not clear the next wave of media players will have the same appeal.

Ranging from devices from Archos, Creative Technology, Epson and the Sony PSP and others, the players range in cost from about US$200 to about US$800. And, for the most part, they aren't small enough to drop in a pants pocket, analysts said, who question whether, in their current incarnation, they'll take off.

Even so, says Reuters, web sites that traffic in rumors about forthcoming products from the notoriously tight-lipped Apple have been buzzing for more than a year about a video iPod.

The Reuters/NYT report says that what Jobs may have up his sleeve is a music video download service or the like that is seamlessly integrated into the iTunes online music store and the iTunes digital music jukebox software, analysts said.

Microsoft winning big in local government

Microsoft seems to have been the main beneficiary of the UK government's drive to put council services online, according to a reoport in The Register (19 August).

The Register says that research from the Society of IT Managers (Socitm) reveals that local authorities are increasingly opting to use Microsoft Windows applications, particularly in new installations. The research also revealed that contracts for applications specific to local government are concentrated in the hands of a select circle of companies.

The Register adds that, although it doesn't name names, the research reveals that just two companies supply 85 per cent of local authorities with Client Systems for Social Services. Four account for 91 per cent of Council Tax systems and three for 79 per cent of Electoral Registration systems.

The report says that the increase in Microsoft deployments seems to be largely due to a shift from away mainframes to a Windows environment. In 2000, 43 per cent of General Ledger systems were run on mainframes, 50 per cent on Unix, and just 7 per cent on Windows.

According to The Register, the latest figures indicate that now, just nine per cent of these systems are still on mainframes. The number on Unix systems has increased slightly to 52 per cent, but the Windows OS has been the main beneficiary, now accounting for 29 per cent of installations.

Sun opens open source office

Sun Microsystems is coordinating all of its open source activity, consisting of more than 20 projects, through a centralised office to help drive best practices.

The Register reports (18 August) that Sun has created an Open Source Office (OSO) under chief open source officer Simon Phipps to bring greater consistency to the company's growing open source workload.

The publication says that the OSO follows commitments by Sun's president Jonathan Schwartz and software executive vice president John Loiacono to open source all of Sun's software.

The report adds that Loiacono last month announced OpenSSO, the open sourcing of Sun's web single sign-on technology in the Java Enterprise System (JES) while the company has released 1,600 APIs and millions of lines of code from its Solaris operating system to create Open Solaris.

The Register says that Sun believes open sourcing its software can build communities of developers around its technologies, helping drive innovation and improving its own products. Sun claims there are now 70,000 registered participants in Open Solaris who have contributed nine patches to the Solaris code base with a further 17 in the wings.

One key best practice the OSO will drive is in ensuring projects use existing Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved licenses rather than creating new licenses, The Register reports.

Symbian toasts threefold leap in handset shipments

Smart-phone operating system developer Symbian has lauded figures that indicate a big jump in demand for devices based on its software. But the company signalled a need to drive sales in the wider handset market if it is to continue to deliver strong growth.

The Register reports (18 August) that some 7.8m Symbian-based handsets shipped in Q2 FY2005, the three months to 30 June 2005, Symbian said - three times the figure for Q2 FY2004, 2.6m. Shipments were up 16.4 per cent sequentially.

For the first six months of the privately held company's financial year, 14.5 million devices were shipped by Symbian licensees - an increase of 190 per cent on H1 FY2004 and more than the total for FY2004 as a whole.

Symbian is owned by Nokia, Ericcson, SonyEricsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung, in order of the size of their shareholdings. Nokia dominates, with 47.9 per cent of the company in its portfolio, and it's largely Nokia's own handset shipments that have fuelled Symbian's success, The Register reports.

Record label hopes to sell phone service to music fans

A major record label, the Universal Music Group, said on Friday that it had entered into a strategic alliance to sell a music-oriented cellphone service.

The New York Times reports (20 August) that the phones will include features that make it easier to download snippets of songs, and, eventually entire songs, according to the Universal Music Group's strategic partner, Single Touch Interactive, which works with companies to develop and package branded phone service.

The newspaper says that Universal Music, a unit of Vivendi Universal, becomes the latest to get into the affinity phone business, joining the likes of ESPN and Walt Disney in trying to carve out a niche of customers by selling phones that focus on providing specific content.

The companies buy mobile minutes wholesale from a major US national carrier, like Sprint or Cingular, and then resell that as prepaid time to their own customers. In the case of Universal Music, the company will not be operating the service, but plans to provide content to Single Touch, and to share in the revenue from minutes sold.

The NYT report says that the emergence of a music-oriented phone service comes as the record labels, and cellular carriers, are trying to profit from selling music over mobile devices. Already, major carriers accrue tens of millions of dollars in revenue selling ring tones and short clips of songs for, typically, US$1.50 to US$3 a download.

This week, Sprint said that it planned to offer a music download service by the end of the year that would allow consumers to buy full songs. An executive briefed on Sprint's plans said two companies, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and EMI, had signed agreements with Sprint to sell songs for mobile download, The New York Times reported.

Toshiba spending US$1.8 Bln to lift NAND uutput- paper

Japan's Toshiba is expected to spend about 200 billion yen to boost output capacity of its flash memory chips by 150 percent in three years, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily said on Sunday.

The New York Times reports(21 August) that he Japanese newspaper reported that Toshiba, the world's seventh-largest chip maker, competes with industry leader Samsung Electronics in the fast-growing market for NAND flash memory, widely used in digital cameras, photo-snapping phones and portable music players such as Apple Computer's iPod shuffle.

According to the report, Toshiba is likely to boost processing capacity at its NAND flash plant handling 300-mm silicon wafers to 100,000 wafers a month by as early as the year to March 2008 from a planned 10,000 wafers in September 2005, the newspaper said.

Combined with Toshiba's NAND output capacity at its 200-mm wafer plant, total NAND flash production capability will rise to the equivalent of 150,000 300-mm wafers per month, up from 60,000 wafers next month, it said.

Announcing its medium-term business strategy earlier this month, Toshiba said it planned to allocate resources heavily to growth areas including semiconductor operations, reports the NYT.

The electronics conglomerate, which offers products ranging from nuclear power systems to notebook PCs, plans 1.1 trillion yen of capital expenditure in the three years to March 2008, with half of it earmarked for its microchip business, the report adds.

Amazon.com selling digital 'shorts'

Amazon.com started selling new works of short literature and nonfiction Friday from authors who write them exclusively for the internet retailer.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (20 August) that it won't be offering printed editions, just digital copies of short stories that can be e-mailed, downloaded or printed from a Web site for 49 cents a pop.

About 60 authors have signed up so far, including novelist Danielle Steel, who writes about her life in a 13-page short titled ''Candy for the Soul.''

The newspaper says that the top selling title late Friday afternoon was: Harry S. Dent's ''Bubble After Bubble in The Ongoing Bubble Boom: Oil Bursts, the Housing Bubble Fades and Now Stocks Emerge Into a Greater Bubble that Finally Ends in 2010.''

Amazon.com started out as an online bookstore 10 years ago and now sells everything from bird feeders to brake fluid. The new ''shorts'' range from 2,000 to 10,000 words.

Microsoft working to fix browser flaw

Microsoft was working last Friday to come up with a fix for a flaw in its Internet Explorer browser that could let hackers gain remote access to computer systems through malicious web sites.

According to an Associated Press report in The New York Times (19 August), a patch was not immediately available, though security experts played down the risk.

One software maker, Security Response Center, said the component that's the root of the problem does not come standard in the Windows operating system.

In an update to a security advisory the company had issued the day before, Microsoft said Friday that machines running Visual Studio 2002 without the Service Pack 1 update, or Office 2003 with Service Pack 3, could be vulnerable, reports AP in the NYT.

Microsoft said it knew of no customers who had been attacked.

The AP report says that the company urged internet users to be careful about opening up web links in e-mails and said it would release a security update once it had completed its investigation.

The disclosure came just days after a series of computer worms, programmed to take advantage of a flaw in Microsoft's Windows operating system, caused delays in operations at big companies and government offices.

Windows Vista P2P engine causes concern

Windows Vista comes equipped with its own, under-the-hood P2P networking system, it has emerged, according to a report in The Register (20 August).

The UK online publication says that the code's presence was detected after a number of beta testers spotted unexpected levels of network traffic coming in and out of machines loaded with the preview code Microsoft released last month, News.com

According to The Register, the P2P sub-system uses Microsoft's Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP) and is used to link machines in much the same way applications like Limewire, BitTorrent and the various instant messaging programs do. The software giant's goal is the ability to provision network services without the need for a server.

The Register says that, ironically, PNRP has been around since Windows XP Service Pack 1 - it's part of the Advanced Networking Pack. However, while the feature is disabled by default in the production software, it's enabled by default in the Vista public beta. When the operating system formerly known as Longhorn is booted, the system automatically signs on to the distributed P2P network.

Microsoft said the feature will be turned off when users install the finished version of Vista, due sometime next year, the Register reports.

Yahoo! keeping music prices low

Yahoo! has confirmed it will maintain its low music subscription charges as its Yahoo! Music service moves out of its testing phase.

The Register reports (19 August) that, in an interview with the Reuters news agency, Yahoo! marketing chief Cammie Dunaway said the trial pricing plans would stand.

YM was launched in May, and offered monthly unlimited-download subscriptions for US$7. Subscribers who made a 12-month commitment to the service paid only US$5 a month.

The Register says those figures compare with the US$15 a month services like Napster charge for the same package, which includes full support for portable MP3 players.

The report says that Yahoo! last week unveiled an aggressive advertising programme to promote its music service. The scheme includes TV advertising during the MTV Awards show on 28 August, along with ads integrated into upcoming video games, the company said.

New 'arms race' to build next supercomputer

A global race is under way to reach the next milestone in supercomputer performance, many times the speed of today's most powerful machines, reports The New York Times (19 August).

The newspaper says that beyond the customary rivalry in the field between the United States and Japan, there is a new entrant - China - eager to showcase its arrival as an economic powerhouse.

The NYT says that once the exclusive territory of nuclear weapons designers and code breakers, ultrafast computers are increasingly being used in everyday product design. Procter & Gamble used a supercomputer to study the airflow over its Pringles potato chips to help stop them from fluttering off the company's assembly lines.

The newspaper says that, today, driven by advances in so-called parallel computing - with software making it possible to lash together arrays of tens or even hundreds of thousands of processor chips - the speed of future supercomputers is limited only by cost, adequate electricity and the ability to cool the systems, which now sprawl over thousands of square feet.

According to the newspaper's report, China now has 19 supercomputers ranked among the 500 fastest machines, and recent reports in Chinese newspapers stressed the importance of developing high-performance computing technology not dependent on the United States.

Currently the world's fastest computer is a machine installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory late last year - and still growing - that has reached more than 136 trillion operations a second, or 100,000 times the speed of a fast desktop personal computer. IBM built the machine, Blue Gene/L, and plans to double its speed before the end of the year, reports the NYT.

In the United States, Cray, IBM and Sun Microsystems have begun work toward reaching a petaflop by the end of the decade, supported by a development project financed by the Pentagon.

The newspaper reports that, last month in China, Lenovo Group, which acquired IBM's personal computer business last year, said it would join in a Chinese effort to build a petaflop machine by 2010 as part of a five-year government plan to advance the country's computer technology. Separately, two other Chinese companies, Dawning and Galactic Computing, have indicated they intend to develop petaflop-scale systems.

Infection rates in new Windows worm low

Malicious hackers unleashed new variants of a computer worm that attacks a vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system, but infection rates appeared to be relatively low and damage minor Wednesday.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (18 August) that the latest ''War of the Worms'' stands in contrast to previous outbreaks that brought networks and millions of PCs to a crawl in recent years.

It's a sign, security experts say, that computer users are heeding warnings to quickly install patches as they're released. It also indicates that Microsoft's efforts to batten down the hatches of its ubiquitous software is paying off.

The AP/NYT report says that administrators of infected computers in the US scrambled Wednesday to clean their machines. In Massachusetts, the worm blocked e-mails and slowed internet connections at state government offices and caused delays at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Across the country, San Diego County officials said 12,000 computers needed to be ''fixed'' after the outbreak.

Several media outlets -- including The New York Times, CNN and ABC -- reported that the worms had invaded their networks. San Diego County was cleaning the bug from 12,000 computers. The worm blocked e-mails and slowed internet connections in Massachusetts state government and caused delays at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

AP says that, besides sluggish network connections caused by their spread, the worms -- Rbot, Zotob and variants -- also opened a backdoor that could be used to install additional programs. Some infected PCs also reboot repeatedly without warning.

The report says that Microsoft will further ratchet up security with its next-generation operating system, Windows Vista, which is set for release next year.

Still, few expect the number of attacks to diminish. Running on an estimated 90 percent of PCs, Windows offers malicious programmers the opportunity of wide exposure and the potential of great damage should an attack succeed.

Two choices for Xbox

When Microsoft's new Xbox video game console comes out, consumers will be able to choose between a fully loaded system and a more basic version without a hard drive or wireless controller.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (18 August) that the premium Xbox 360 console will sell for US$400 in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and 400 euros in Europe, Microsoft announced Wednesday.

The scaled-back version, called the Xbox 360 Core System, will sell for US$300, and 300 euros in Europe.

The AP/NYT report says that the original Xbox was introduced in 2001 at US$300 but now costs half that, paralleling the decline in price of the top-selling game console, Sony's PlayStation 2.

Microsoft said it planned to ship the new Xbox to stores in North America, Europe and Japan for the holiday season, ahead of Sony's PlayStation 3, which is scheduled to replace the PlayStation 2 next spring.

Nokia: no deal with Apple on new music phone

Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia said on Thursday it had no agreement with Apple Computer for the iTunes music service to be included on its upcoming N91 multimedia phone.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (18 August) that Nokia said that because of the design of the new N-series phones, software developers could readily produce programs to allow the gadgets to use services like iTunes.

Finnish daily Taloussanomat had earlier reported that Nokia would bring iTunes to the N91 model.

The AP report says that music phones produced by Nokia, the world's No. 1 handset maker, have so far been seen as competitors to Apple's successful iPod device and iTunes service. Motorola's long-awaited iTunes mobile phone will start selling at major telecom operators by the end of September, the US cellphone maker said last month.

Nokia unveiled in April its N91 multimedia phone which will have a 4-gigabyte hard drive to store thousands of songs. The phone, which will also run on high-speed 3G and wireless LAN networks, is due to hit the shelves by the end of the year.

Qualcomm buys Elata for US$57 Million

Wireless technology company Qualcomm on Wednesday said it bought British software company Elata for US$57 million to help it expand its product offerings for European wireless operators.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (18 August) that Qualcomm, which sells technology licenses and chips for mobile phones, said privately held Elata's software would let operators deliver different types of software and content to mobile phones using one software system rather than several.

The Reuters report says that Qualcomm dominates the chip and license market for phones based on CDMA, the dominant US wireless technology, but it has been trying to expand into versions of GSM, the world's most popular phone standard which is used throughout Europe.

Mobile operators around the world are starting to deliver everything from music, video and internet services to phones with an aim to substituting revenue from falling call prices. Qualcomm said it wants to make such services easier to sell, Reuters reports.

For example, says Reuters, operators could use Elata to manage phone software based on Brew, a Qualcomm mobile data technology, as well as software based on rival technologies such as Java, according to Gina Lombardi, a marketing executive at Qualcomm.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the deal follows Qualcomm's agreement last week to buy privately held Flarion Technologies for about US$600 million.

Seller of AOL data sentenced

A 25-year-old former employee of America Online was sentenced to a year and three months in prison yesterday after admitting that he became a cyberspace "outlaw" when he sold the screen names and e-mail addresses of 92 million subscribers to spammers.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (18 August) reports that the soft-spoken and teary-eyed former employee, Jason Smathers, appearing in the Federal District Court in New York as he apologised for a theft that resulted in spammers sending up to seven billion unsolicited e-mail messages.

Earlier this year, Mr. Smathers had pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in a plea deal that had called for a sentence of at least a year and a half in prison. The judge imposed the reduced sentence of one year and three months, saying he recognised Mr. Smathers had cooperated fully but lacked information to build other criminal cases.

AP reported that Mr. Smathers was fired by AOL in June 2004. The authorities said he used another employee's access code to steal the list of AOL customers in 2003 from the company headquarters.

Germany video games fair opens amid image problems

Europe's biggest computer games fair opened its doors to the public on Thursday, with its German hosts expecting more visitors than ever but still fighting an image problem in the country.

Reuters reports in Times (18 August) that, as they prepared to welcome at least 110,000 video games enthusiasts in the German city of Leipzig, exhibitors scratched their heads as to why they were still unable to crack the gaming market in Europe's biggest but slowest-growing economy.

Organisers said Germans had spent 466 million euros on video games last year, 15 percent more than in the previous year but still a tiny proportion of the estimated US$25 billion spent globally on games software and hardware each year.

Germany, with a population of more than 80 million, lags far behind not only the United States and Japan but also smaller European neighbors Britain and France in terms of the proportion of households that have games consoles.

Reuters reported in the NYTY that the world's biggest games software publisher, Electronic Arts, said a battle still had to be fought against the perception that computer games made young people stupid.
warning that Germany could otherwise find itself in a cultural backwater.

The Games Convention's Organisers are trying to ensure not only that the German market opens up but also that the German economy will benefit. Currently, there is no major games software or hardware company in the country.Germany's population -- has the world's biggest video-games studio in Vancouver, and the hit Grand Theft Auto games were developed in Scotland.

Reuters reports that, alongside the Leipzig games fair, organisers are trying to foster a games-creation hothouse with a three-day developer conference, which this year attracted more than 450 participants from 14 countries.

Samsung plans more MP3 players to raise mkt share

South Korea's Samsung Electronics will roll out six new models in the MP3 music player market in the second half of 2005 and plans up to 10 more next year in a bid to catch up with leader Apple Computer, an official said on Thursday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (18 August) that Samsung Electronics, the world's most valuable technology firm outside of the United States, introduced six new additions to its eight-model range of Yepp players in the first six months, in an effort to treble its annual sales to more than 5 million units.

But the target is still a sixth of the expected 2005 sales of rival Apple Computer's iPod player.

Reuters says that the thumb- to pocket-sized gadgets of both Samsung and Apple also face growing competition from mobile phone makers who are adding MP3 music functions to high-end models.

Samsung, also the world's third-largest mobile phone maker, has been striving to win market share in the fast-growing and profitable MP3 market, which the South Korean company estimated at 45 million units in 2005 and to grow to 60 million next year, reports Reuters in the NYT.

Samsung and big Asian brands Sony and Creative Technology, as well as PC heavyweights Dell and Gateway have their sights set on Apple's dominant position.

Singapore cracks down on music file - sharing offenders

Three internet users have been arrested in Singapore and charged with distributing digital music files in the city-state's first crackdown on illegal file sharing, Singapore police said on Thursday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (18 August) that the three young men who were arrested, between the ages of 16 to 22, had shared more than 20,000 files in internet chatrooms.

It was the first time Singapore police have clamped down on web surfers who download pirated music and films since new copyright laws came into effect in January this year.

Reuters reports in the NYT that, under the amended Copyright Act, anyone who illegally downloads files on a ``commercial scale'' could face criminal charges, including five years in jail and fines of up to S$100,000.

Police were tipped off by the Record Industry Association of Singapore (RIAS), an association representing local and foreign record companies. The suspects used an internet chat program as well as a music-sharing program to distribute the music files, a police statement said.

The Reuters/NYT report says that industry analysts say the rollout of high-speed broadband internet in Asia, particularly in countries with high piracy rates like China, India and Indonesia, has sent the number of people downloading free music off the web spiraling up by millions a month -- and recorded music sales to tumble.

Singapore has one of the world's highest internet penetration rates, with over 60 percent of its 4.2 million people living in homes wired to the internet.

Lawmakers fear software use for terror

Two members of the Dutch parliament have questioned whether a free mapping program from Google may help would-be terrorists by providing aerial photos of potential targets.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (17 August) that Google Earth, launched this year, uses overlapping satellite photos to simulate the experience of flying from the stratosphere down to any spot on earth.

The photos come from a variety of sources. Though not all areas are highly detailed, some are so good that people can see details of their own homes, such as a pool or garden shed.

Lawmakers Frans Weekers and Aleid Wolfson read about the software in a Dutch newspaper article that raised the possibility that terrorists could use the program to study government buildings or nuclear reactors. So Weekers and Wolfson demanded answers from the administration.

Google said benefits of the software ''far outweigh any negatives from potential abuse.''

AP says that similar fears in Australia were quelled after officials said they doubted the program pssed any special threat to national safety.

Hewlett-Packard quarterly revenues rise

Hewlett-Packard continued its turnaround in the third quarter, with the giant computer and printer maker announcing that its revenue rose 10 percent, beating analyst expectations.

The New York Times reports (17 August) that profit in the quarter fell sharply, though, largely because of a one-time tax charge of roughly US$800 million resulting from Hewlett's desire to repatriate billions of dollars in cash to the United States.

The company posted net income of US$73 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with US$586 million, or 19 cents a share, in the same three-month period last year. That represents an 88 percent decline in net income.

The newspaper reported that HP posted revenue of US$20.8 billion for the three-month period that ended 31 July, up US$18.9 billion from a year ago.

The NYT says that HP's upbeat quarterly report came at a time of concern for the overall health of the personal computer market. Last Thursday, Dell, the world's largest computer maker, reported that its revenues fell several hundred million dollars short of analyst expectations because of weak federal government orders and aggressive discounts on PC's sold to consumers.

HP is second only to Dell in the global personal computer market.

Virus attacks Windows computers at companies

A handful of digital worms that exploit vulnerabilities in some Microsoft Windows computers spread on Tuesday, hindering internet access at some major companies.

The New York Times reports (17 August) that the worms, called Zotob and Rbot, and variants of them, started emerging Saturday, computer security specialists said, and continued to propagate as corporate networks came to life at the beginning of the week.

Symantec Corporation, which makes anti-virus software, said a growing number of worm writers apparently tried to exploit Microsoft's vulnerability after it was discovered. The phenomenon of worm and virus creators turning en masse to a new vulnerability is increasingly common, reports the newspaper.

The NYT reports that some corporations, including The New York Times Company, temporarily took some computers off the internet and installed security patches to protect computers. Among those hit was CNN, which reported that hundreds of computers were brought down late Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta and New York. The Associated Press reported that its computers were affected, and there were reports in the US of problems at General Electric, United Parcel Service and Caterpillar.

The newspaper says that Zotob, Rbot and their variants fall under the classification of worm, a kind of infection that automatically probes for weaknesses inside individual computers, then installs itself where there is such a weakness.

The worms in this case exploit a vulnerability inside computers, particularly those running Windows 2000.

A week ago, Microsoft first called attention to the vulnerability in a part of the operating system that controls plug-and-play functions and put out a security patch.

Nortel, LG Elec target Asia with telecom venture

Canada's Nortel Networks and LG Electronics have signed a deal to create a US$295 million telecom equipment joint venture in South Korea, aiming to grab a bigger slice of fast-growing Asian markets.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (17 August) that LG's strengths in mobile phones complement Nortel's network infrastructure expertise and wide marketing reach, analysts said, while the venture could also be a springboard for the Canadian firm to expand into the rest of Asia, especially China.

Nortel, the world's third-largest telecoms equipment provider, will pay US$145 million for 50 percent plus one share in the venture, with LG owning the rest, the two companies said in a statement.

The Reuters/NYT report says that LG-Nortel will combine LG's relatively low-margin telecoms gear business, ranging from optical to wireless and next-generation network products, with Nortel's distribution and service business in South Korea.

According to reuters, the combined entity had aggregate revenue of 600 billion won in 2004, according to the joint statement.

LG could be entitled to payments over two years if the venture met certain business goals, the statement added, although analysts have previously said the deal was likely to have a limited impact on LG's earnings given the sector's low margins.

Nortel said LG's infrastructure products would boost Nortel's offerings as it competes with key rivals like Cisco Systems in selling wireless gear and communications equipment to large enterprises in Asia.

The venture, which would have 1,200-1,500 staff, is expected to start operations in October, LG Electronics'said.

Lions Gate expected to support Blu-ray discs

Lions Gate Home Entertainment is expected to announce today that it plans to produce next-generation digital video discs using Blu-ray technology developed by Sony and others.

The New York Tmes reports (16 August) that the decision could give the supporters of the Blu-ray format an edge in its continuing battle against backers of HD-DVD technology, who are supporting a competing format for new high-definition discs.

Lions Gate, which controls about 4 percent of the DVD market, is the latest studio to declare its allegiance in the format contest. The Blu-ray technology is being developed by Sony, Panasonic and others, while the HD-DVD standard is backed by Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo.

The report in the NYT says that Sony's movie studio, as well as Disney and Fox, have also said they will produce Blu-ray DVD's, which will include high-definition video, enhanced audio and stronger copyright protections. Lions Gate, Sony, Disney and Fox sell about 45 percent of the DVD's in the United States.

MGM, which was sold to an investment group led by Sony, controls another 4 percent of the DVD market. Many industry analysts say MGM's movies are likely to be produced in the Blu-ray format as well. Paramount, a division of Viacom, and Warner Home Video and Universal Studios Home Video plan to release more than 80 titles in the HD-DVD format starting as early as the fourth quarter this year.

Microsoft hires third Co. to build Xbox 360

Microsoft, which has used two companies to build its Xbox game console, said on Tuesday it is expanding that roster to three for its next-generation Xbox 360 due out later this year.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (16 August) that the software giant said Toronto-based Celestica will join Xbox manufacturers Flextronics International and Wistron.

Microsoft said Xbox 360 remains on track for a launch this holiday season in North America, Europe and Japan. It is widely believed Microsoft will release the product in November.

According to Reuters, plants for each of the three companies building Microsoft's newest game console are located in the Pearl River Delta region in southern China.

Approval of '.xxx' domain for porn delayed

The Internet's key oversight agency agreed Tuesday to a one-month delay in approving a new ".xxx" domain name after the US government cited "unprecedented" opposition to a virtual red-light district.

The Associated Press reports in The new York Times (16 August) that the Commerce Department had stopped short of urging its rejection, but called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to "ensure the best interests of the internet community as a whole are fully considered."

The AP/NYT report says that the department received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails expressing concerns about the impact of pornography on families and children and objecting to setting aside a domain suffix for it.

The chairman of ICANN's Government Advisory Committee, Mohd Sharil Tarmizi, also wrote ICANN officials last week urging delay and expressing "a strong sense of discomfort" among many countries, which he did not name, the AP report says.

ICANN's board rescheduled the matter for 15 September.

The AP/NYT report says that two in five internet users visited an adult site in April, according to tracking by comcore Media Metrix. The company said 4 percent of all Web traffic and 2 percent of all surfing time involved an adult site.

AP adds that ICM proposed ".xxx" as a mechanism for the US$12 billion online porn industry to clean up its act. All sites using ".xxx" would be required to follow yet-to-be-written "best practices" guidelines, such as prohibitions against trickery through spamming and malicious scripts.

San Francisco moves forward on wi-fi plan

In the US, the city of San Francisco wants ideas for making the entire 49-square mile city a free -- or at least cheap -- Wi-Fi zone.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (16 August) that,taking a step toward bridging the so-called digital divide between the tech-savvy and people who can't afford computers, the city government on Tuesday issued guidelines for a plan to ''ensure universal, affordable wireless broadband access for all San Franciscans.''

The AP report says tha the invitation, extended to nonprofit groups and businesses that could eventually bid on the project, puts San Francisco among a handful of major US cities tackling the technological and political challenges of offering internet service to its residents on such a wide scale.

The report says the city is soliciting ideas for an ambitious system that would put Wi-Fi in the hands of people whether they are working in a high-rise office tower, riding on a cable car or living in a low-income housing project. Dell and other computer makers already have pledged thousands of computers that will be given to residents of poorer neighborhoods.

AP says in the NYT report that Philadelphia, the first big US city to work on extending wireless internet service throughout the city, is poised to choose a vendor to design, deploy and maintain a system that will cover the city's 135 square miles. Portland, Minneapolis, Charleston, and Orlando also are at various stages in the same process.

The report also says that a number of small US cities have created citywide wireless networks that are accessible to the public either for free or for a lower fee than is available commercially.

According to an annual ranking compiled by chip maker Intel, San Francisco already ranks just behind Seattle as the nation's most ''unwired city'' in America, thanks to a ubiquity of cafes and restaurants that offer Wi-Fi.

Kodak lead grows in digital-camera market

Eastman Kodak is stretching its lead over Japanese rivals Canon and Sony in the US digital-camera market.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (16 August) that Kodak shipped 1.25 million point-and-shoot digital cameras to domestic retailers in the April-to-June quarter -- 51 percent more than in the second quarter of 2004 -- and its market share rose to 23.8 percent from 18.3 percent a year ago, according to research firm IDC.

According to AP, Canon solidified its second-place ranking with 1.15 million shipments in the second quarter, and its slice of the US market surged to 21.9 percent from 15.2 percent a year ago, IDC said.

Sony, a longtime front-runner, was in third spot with 980,000 shipments, or an 18.6 percent share. Olympus barely hung on to fourth place, shipping 335,000 cameras as its market share sank to 6.4 percent from 10.9 percent a year ago. Next were Hewlett-Packard with 6.2 percent, Fuji Photo Film with 5.3 percent and Nikon with 4.5 percent.

News Corp. in talks for Blinkx search service

The News Corporation is in discussions to acquire Blinkx, a service that scours the world wide web for video and audio clips and organises them automatically in folders.

The New York Times reports (16 August) that Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation's chairman and chief executive, has made clear that his company is eager to build its presence on the internet. He said in a conference call last week that the company was "in very advanced negotiations to buy a controlling interest in what we think is a wonderful search engine."

But, the newspaper says that the talks between the companies are not as advanced as Mr. Murdoch indicated, a person briefed on those discussions said yesterday. The source asked not to be identified because the talks were confidential. Spokespeople for the News Corporation and Blinkx declined to comment. The talks were first reported by The Los Angeles Times.

The NYT says the value of a potential deal is unclear, but Mr. Murdoch had said he did not contemplate spending nearly as much on a single company as the US$580 million he recently agreed to pay for Intermix Media, which operates the popular site MySpace.com. Mr. Murdoch has said that he is willing to spend between US$1 billion and US$2 billion to acquire web businesses through Fox Interactive Media, a new division of the News Corporation. In addition to Intermix, the company recently paid US$60 million for Scout.com, which helps people follow athletes and sports teams.

The newspaper says that Blinkx, a closely held private company, is a newcomer in the surging search business, which is led by the portals Google and Yahoo and includes such relative veterans as AskJeeves.com and Lycos.com. But Blinkx is focused on a medium - video - that is expected to attract both audiences and advertisers as the number of homes with broadband internet connections grows.

Agilent to return to core businesses

Agilent Technologies has said that the sale of its semiconductor business to a private equity partnership for US$2.6 billion was part of a strategic realignment intended to let the company focus on high-margin products.

The New York Times reports (16 August) that Agilent expects to cut costs by US$450 million in the effort, which will include eliminating 1,300 jobs. Agilent executives said the company would use the cash from the sale to help finance a US$4 billion repurchase of its shares.

The company, a maker of electronic testing and measurement equipment with 28,000 employees worldwide, also reported third-quarter earnings on Monday that were at the high end of Wall Street estimates, as cost-cutting measures adopted during the quarter helped outweigh a decline in sales.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners, two private equity firms, said they would purchase Agilent's chip business to create the largest privately held semiconductor company in the world. The two companies will be equal partners in the venture, which will continue to design and manufacture semiconductors used in fiber optic networks, medical devices and mobile phones, reports the NYT.

AMD-IBM agreement

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and IBM have broadened a three-year-old technology development agreement to cover new research areas and have extended it through 2011. The companies are expected to announce the deal this week.

The New York Times reports (16 August) that the extended agreement will focus on exploratory research into areas like designing smaller and more powerful computer chips. The companies will also work on developing new transistors, lithography and packaging, among other things.

For AMD, the extension can help it reduce development time and get its products to market faster, says the newspaper, adding that for IBM, the agreement is its first for working with an outside partner to develop technology that is still many years from being marketed, according to the company.

In Silicon Valley, a debate over size of the web

How big is the World Wide Web? Many Internet engineers consider that query one of those imponderable philosophical questions, like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

A report in The New York Times (15 August) says that the question about the size of the world wide web came under intense debate last week after Yahoo announced at an internet search engine conference that its search engine index - an accounting of the number of documents that can be located from its databases - had reached 19.2 billion.

The newspaper says that, because the number was more than twice as large as the number of documents (8.1 billion) currently reported by Google, Yahoo's fierce competitor and Silicon Valley neighbor, the announcement - actually a brief mention in a Yahoo company web log - set off a spat. Google questioned the way its rival was counting its numbers.

Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, suggested that the Yahoo index was inflated with duplicate entries in such a way as to cut its effectiveness despite its large size.

But, says the NYT, Yahoo executives stood by their earlier statement and repeated that he number of documents in their index was accurate.

According to the newspaper, the scope of internet search engines, and thus indirectly the size of the internet, has long been a lively area of computer science research and debate.  Moreover, all camps in the discussion are quick to note that index size is only loosely - and possibly even somewhat inversely - related to the quality of results returned. The major commercial search engines use software programs known as web crawlers to scour the Internet systematically for documents and index them.

The NYT says that, on Sunday, researchers at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications attempted to shed light on the debate by performing a large number of random searches on both indices. They ran a random sample of 10,012 queries and concluded that Google, on average, returned 166.9 percent more results than Yahoo. In only three percent of the cases did the Yahoo searches return more queries than Google. The group said the Yahoo index claim was suspicious.

Japan's biometric security firms see demand booming

Firms providing the latest in biometric security, using systems that can identify an individual's face, hand or fingerprint, are enjoying a boom in Japan amid an increase in forgery and cybercrime.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (15 August) that the technology includes ways to combat credit card fraud and internet offences such as identity theft by avoiding the need for PIN numbers, as well as doors that dispense with conventional locks and instead rely on face recognition.

The Reuters report says that some analysts say technology vendors including Fujitsu-Frontech have great potential in the biometrics security market which, although expected to grow sharply, is still in its infancy.

Private firm Yano Research Institute says Japan's biometrics market hit 8.76 billion yen in 2004, soaring 39 percent in two years. It is expected to grow to 27.22 billion yen in 2010, as the technology is adopted for mobile phones, personal data assistants (PDAs) and ATMs.

Reuters says in the NYT report that interest in biometrics technology for access control or personal identification is growing around the world, with the global biometrics market expected to top US$4.6 billion in 2008 from US$719 million in 2003, according to the International Biometric Group, an industry body.

In Japan, demand for the technology has been spurred by the introduction in April of the Personal Information Protection Law, which calls for companies and organisations to establish and manage company-wide information security. Japan's second-biggest bank, Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group, is receiving over 2,000 applications a day for a credit card launched last year that identifies users by the veins in their palm. It has installed an authentication system, developed by Fujitsu-Frontech, in half of its 3,000 ATMs.

DVD software maker Intervideo sues Dell on patents

InterVideo, the top maker of DVD playback software used in personal computers, on Monday said it had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Dell, the world's No. 1 PC maker.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (15 August) that, separately, InterVideo reported a quarterly loss, weighed down by a write-off of research and development costs tied to its acquisition of a controlling stake in Taiwan's ULead.

The patent complaint, the latest case InterVideo has pursued against major PC makers, was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against Dell, the company said in a statement.

The Reuters report says that InterVideo alleges Dell violated its US Patent No. 6,765,788 that covers the integration of certain PC and electronic device functions. The company's software allows a DVD disk to automatically start playing a movie when a user inserts a disk into a computer running an InterVideo program.

Last year, InterVideo filed two patent infringement suits against Taiwan's Acer, one in US. federal court and the other in a Taiwanese district court, for infringement of patents tied to its ``InstantON'' technology. InterVideo said in a statement that it resolved these cases with Acer to its satisfaction.

Online travel companies affecting industry jobs

Across corporate America, dot-coms known for selling leisure travel - including Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity - are moving in to grab a piece of the US$91 billion market for managed business travel.

The New York Times reports (16 August) that about one-third of all corporate trips will be purchased online this year, according to projections by the research firm PhoCusWright. Together, the three major online agencies now claim a bit less than a 10 percent market share, a number that PhoCusWright expects to grow to 15 percent by 2008.

The newspaper reports that online travel management companies, which say they save companies money by introducing more automation to the travel booking and reporting process than traditional agencies, have already snagged big-name clients like Aetna, McDonald's, Harvard and Starbucks. One US company, Akamai says it has reduced its cost for each travel purchase to about US$5 from US$50 to US$80 and cut air fare expenses by 30 percent.

The NYT says consultants say technology in general, and online travel management companies in particular, are pushing some travel managers out of their jobs altogether. The most vulnerable are those who are slow to adapt.

Travel managers at medium-size and smaller organisations are probably the most vulnerable, according to Scott Hyden, the general manager for Travelocity Business.

The National Business Travel Association plays down the threat, says the newspaper,insisting that where there is a managed travel program, there will always be a need for a travel manager.

The newspaper says that the numbers seem to support the travel association's contention that the profession is in good shape. It has 1,615 members, an increase of 237 from 2001. But other statistics are less sanguine. A survey by the American Society for Travel Agents found that 30 percent of its members' business came from corporate travel last year, down more than five percentage points from 2000.
Amazon.com unveils photo-mapping service

Hoping to become a more popular internet destination, a small search engine owned by web retailer Amazon.com is testing a mapping service that will display street-level photos of the city blocks surrounding a requested address.

The Associated Press reports in The new York Times (16 August) that the A9.com service, which became available Monday, joins the increasingly crowded field of online mapping. Other major players include America Online's Mapquest.com, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft's MSN.com.

The AP report says that A9 is counting on an index of 35 million photographs spanning the neighborhoods of 22 US cities to distinguish its mapping service from the rest of the pack.

New partner for Yahoo a master at selling

At a time when Microsoft, Google and eBay are seeking to expand their operations in China, Yahoo agreed to the largest internet investment ever made in China when it bet US$1.7 billion on \the future of Alibaba.com and its founder, Mr. Ma.

The New York Times reporets that Yahoo's far-reaching deal with him on Thursday has turned his company, Alibaba.com, into the largest online operation in China, where internet use is growing at an explosive pace.

Everything you hear about Jack Ma is improbable. But today, he looks like one of China's smartest high-tech entrepreneurs, says the newspaper.

Acccording to the NYT, Jack Ma is only 40, and he started out teaching English. But he is now called the "grandfather of the Internet in China," even though he claims not to know much more about computers than how to send and receive e-mail.

The newspaper says his admirers and detractors both call him a clever salesman and savvy marketer who knows how to attract foreign money. But few expected him to pull off a deal that now values his company at more than US$4 billion. Yahoo said on Thursday that it would invest US$1 billion in the privately held Alibaba.com, which operates not only its namesake, a business-to-business auction site that mostly purveys Chinese goods to a worldwide market, but also the consumer auction site Taobao.com, a strong rival here to eBay.

The NYT says that, in exchange for a 40 percent stake in Alibaba, Yahoo also agreed to hand over control of its Yahoo China operations, valued at US$700 million, putting great confidence in Mr. Ma and his management team.

In an expected revamping, Agilent plans buyback

Agilent Technologies plans to announce a major reorganisation, including the sale of its semiconductor business, a spinoff of its chip testing unit and a major share buyback program, executives close to the company said.

The New York Times reports that Agilent, which was spun off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999, was working out the details of an agreement to sell the semiconductor business to two private equity firms, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners, for about US$2.66 billion, the executives said.

THe newspaper says the deal would be one of the largest purchases of a technology business by private equity investors. The company also plans to spin off its chip testing business as a separate company and buy back US$4 billion of its shares, the executives said.

According to the NYT, Agilent was spun off from Hewlett-Packard as part of a corporate reorganisation. But the company has about 28,000 employees worldwide, is close to the roots of the original Hewlett-Packard, which was founded by two Stanford graduates in the 1930's to make testing and measurement equipment for the electronics industry.

New internet worm affects Windows users - Trend Micro

A new Internet virus has been detected that can infect Microsoft's Windows platforms faster than previous computer worms, said an anti-virus computer software maker.

Reuters reports in the New York Times (15 August) that the ZOTOB virus appeared shortly after the world's largest software maker warned of three newly found ``critical'' security flaws in its software, including one that could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the latest worm exploits security holes in Microsoft's Windows 95, 98, ME, NE, 2000 and XP platforms and can give computer attackers remote access to affected systems, said Trend Micro.

The report says that the latest virus drops a copy of itself into the Windows system folder as BOTZOR.EXE and modifies the system's host file in the infected user's computer to prevent the user getting online assistance from antivirus web sites, Trend Micro added.

More than 90 percent of the world's PCs run on the Windows operating system and Microsoft has been working to improve the security and reliability of its software.

Philips buys lighting firm stake for 765 million euros

Dutch group Philips Electronics said on Monday it would buy Agilent Technologies's 47 percent stake in lighting firm Lumileds for about 765 million euros in cash.

Reuters reports in The New York Times that Philips, the world's biggest lighting maker, also said in a statement it would buy back up to 1.5 billion euros of its own shares in a new share buyback program over the next 12 months.

The report says that Philips, Europe's biggest consumer electronics producer and the region's number three in semiconductors, had been expected to announce a further share buy-back in the second quarter. In the first half of the year, Philips bought back about 500 million euros worth of its own shares and canceled them.

The Lumileds Lighting acquisition will give Philips 96.5 percent and control of the company.

Sun to shed around 1,000 jobs

Sun Microsystems' UK workforce will be hit by its plans to shed around 1,000 jobs worldwide over the next year, as part of the company's drive to reduce costs.

The Register reports (12 August) that as many as 100 of the job cuts are rumoured to be from the UK's Client Solutions division, sources have claimed.

The company has confirmed that some of the job losses will be in the UK, but said it was too early to comment on exact numbers.

The Register says that the company issued a statement from UK president and managing director, Trudy Norris Grey, saying that the restructuring was about ensuring Sun has "the right resources available in the right places".

Dell revenue forecasts push down stock price

Wall Street analysts have cast doubt on Dell's pricing strategies on Friday after the world's largest computer maker gave a disappointing quarterly revenue forecast, triggering the biggest one-day drop in its stock in nearly four years.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (12 August) that analysts shaved earnings estimates and pared price targets for Dell stock, which fell more than 8 percent in heavy early Nasdaq trading Friday.

Dell forecast revenue growth of 13 percent to 16 percent year over year in the third quarter, lower than the 17 percent growth that had been expected by analysts, according to Reuters Estimates.

The Reuters/NYT report said that Dell also reported second-quarter revenue that fell short of analysts' expectations, and said both earnings and its forecast were hampered by weakness in US government sales and the low-end of the consumer PC-market, where it had been too aggressive in cutting prices in a bid to boost market share.

F-Secure sees mobile security as mainstream by 2008

Finnish security software maker F-Secure expects its mobile security business to turn profitable during 2006-2008 and also aims to reach a 25 percent group operating margin by then, its chief executive said on Friday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (12 August) that the company expected F-Secure's mobile operations, in which the firm has invested extensively over the years, would start generating profits during that period. F-Secure is the global market leader in mobile security and has won five of the eight deals announced with operators globally.

US security software maker McAfee was slightly more bullish last week, saying it expected mobile-device security products to add fractionally to its earnings per share next year, and more in 2007.

Reuters says in the NYT report that very few users of advanced mobile phones, which give access to the internet and e-mail, currently use security software. This is seen as promising fast growth for years. Mobile antivirus downloads from F-Secure's Web site have grown seven times since March, the company reported.

The Reuters/NYT report says that research firm IDC believes the market for mobile security software will grow to US$993 million in 2008 from US$70 million in 2003, growing on average 70 percent annually.

iTunes to yield 5% of Apple's revenues in 2006

Apple will have sold 1.365billion songs through the iTunes Music Store by the end of 2006, investment house Piper Jaffray calculates.

The Register reeports (12 August) that, according to a note send by a PJ analyst to investors this week, relayed to the rest of the world by iLounge.com, that's 55.6 per cent more than the company had previously forecast.

The revenue realised will account for five per cent of Apple's sales next year, the analysts reports.

The Register's says its back-of-an-envelope estimates, based on the Apple's iTunes sales announcements to date, suggest ITMS will sell just under 1.12billion songs during 2006 for a grand total of 2billion songs through to mid-January 2007. It should pass the billion-song mark February/March 2006, a few months after we previously forecast, but still an impressive growth rate, says The Register.

Google library database delayed

Google has said that it would temporarily halt its program to make searchable, digital copies of the vast contents of three university libraries to give publishers and other copyright holders the chance to opt out of having their protected works copied.

The New York Times reports (13 August) however, that a publishing trade association called the opt-out offer inadequate, saying it did not address the main concern of its members: the belief that the entire program, the Google Print Library Project, is built on a foundation of purposeful copyright violation.

Google said it would go ahead with plans to digitise, and make searchable, works that are in the public domain, that is, those whose copyrights have expired. But in response to discussions with publishers, authors and others who hold copyrights, Google said it would wait until at least 1 Novembert before beginning to scan works that are still under copyright.

The newspaper says that, in the meantime, Google will allow publishers and others to tell it which of their works they do not want included in its searchable database of printed material.

Man guilty of stealing 1.5 billion data files

In the US, a Florida man who ran a bulk e-mail company was convicted on Friday of stealing more than 1.5 billion data files from Acxiom in what federal officials said was one of the largest recorded cases of data theft.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (12 August) that Scott Levine, 46, of Florida, will be sentenced 6 January after a US district court jury found him guilty on 120 counts of theft by computer, two counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice.

The Reuters/NYT report says that each theft count carries a possible sentence of five years and a US$250,000 fine while each fraud counts could result in 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine. The obstruction count could bring a 20-year sentence and a US$250,000 fine.

Prosecutors said Levine, during a 16-month period that ended in August 2003, exploited a security weakness in Acxiom's system to steal the files, which he hoped to use to inflate the value of Snipermail.com Inc., his bulk email company, which is now out of business.

Acxiom, one of the world's largest creators of consumer databases, has said it has tightened security for its file transfer protocol server.

TiVo tests internet download service

US company TiVo has just joined other companies trying to wed the internet to television. The digital recording company will soon allow customers to download TV shows to their set-top boxes via the internet -- even before the shows air on TV.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (13 August) that TiVo has struck a deal with the Independent Film Channel to transmit several of the cable channel's shows through a broadband connection as part of a trial program. Participating customers will begin receiving the shows next week, said a TiVo spokesman.

The report says that Tivo confirmed that the company sent messages to its customers -- later posted on the technology web log Engadget.com -- offering to transmit three IFC shows beginning 19 August, before they aired on the cable channel.

The AP/NYT report says that content on demand has long been a holy grail for internet and cable companies as they hunt for the next generation of television. No one yet has found a way to overcome the considerable technological hurdles, such as finding a speedy way to pump two-hour movies through broadband, or convince Hollywood that its content won't be pirated and that it can profit from Internet broadcasts.

But, the report says that, still, internet connections are picking up speed and moving closer to a reliable delivery method for broadcast-quality video. AP says that should the day come that video is downloaded at the touch of a button, some stakeholders foresee a vast video universe of endless variety.

According to AP in the NYT report, TiVo has offered its 3.3 million customers a form of watch-what-they-want, when-they-want-it luxury since it launched in 1997, but the service remains restricted to broadcast schedules, and customers must program their set-top box to record shows.

The AP report asks the question - why would any studio with a hot show want to hand over its content to TiVo?

After all, TiVo's service cuts networks out of advertising revenue by making it easy for viewers to skip past commercials. And then there is the question of money, says Rob a media analyst with American Technology Research, AP reports in the NYT.

Qualcomm buying Flarion for US$600 million

Qualcomm has said that it would buy the wireless broadband technology firm Flarion Technologies in a bid to expand its own wireless technology. The cash and stock deal is initially worth US$600 million, and the company could eventually pay US$205 million more.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 August) that shares of Qualcomm, which dominates the market for wireless chips based on CDMA, the dominant cellphone standard in the United States, rose more than 2 percent after it said it would buy Flarion, a high-profile private technology firm.

Many mobile operators tested Flarion's gear in their search for high-speed wireless technology, but it has had little success so far as most operators are building networks based on Qualcomm technology.

The Reuters/NYT report says that Qualcomm said it expected the deal to dilute its fiscal 2006 per-share earnings by about 3 cents. Upon closing the deal, it expects US$10 million in one-time charges related to in-process research and development.

Online ad agencies merge

In the US, ValueClick, an online advertising agency, has said that it had agreed to buy Fastclick for US$214 million in stock to create the largest online advertising-network company.

Bloomberg News reports in The New York Times (12 August) that Fastclick will provide ValueClick with more than 9,000 web sites reaching more than 112 million internet users, and the combination will provide about US$4 million a year in savings, the companies said.

Yahoo announces US$1 billion payment for 40% stake in Alibaba

Stepping up its presence in China, Yahoo has announced that it will pay US$1 billion in cash and hand over its operations in China to Alibaba.com in exchange for a 40 percent stake in China's largest e-commerce company.

The New York Times reports (10 August) that the deal is expected to create the largest and most diversified internet company in China. It will also create a fierce rival for Google and Ebay, which are also trying to expand their operations in China.

The newspaper says that the deal, which was being announced Thursday afternoon in Beijing, also is the largest foreign investment ever made in a Chinese technology company.

And it comes at a time when some of the world's largest technology companies are racing to get a foothold in China's fast-growing Internet business.

The NYT report says that after the deal is completed, Yahoo will become the largest shareholder in Alibaba.com, a privately-held company that also operates the popular online auction site Taobao.com.

Executives at Yahoo said that the strategic investment was modeled after the company's investment in Yahoo Japan and that it is a long-term plan to strengthen the company's position in China by offeringbusiness-to-business and consumer auctions, online advertising, search engines and electronic e-mail messaging.

The newspaper reports that Alibaba.com was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, an English teacher turned tech entrepreneur. Some of the US$1 billion that will be used to capitalise the new company.

Analysts say the deal could significantly increase Yahoo's fortunes in China. The Silicon Valley internet giant was widely believed to be trailing its biggest competitors in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

China already has about 100 million Internet users, second only to the United States. And by 2010, some forecasts project that China will surpass the United States.

Jury deliberates in computer theft trial

In the US, a federal jury has began deliberations in the trial of an accused computer data thief in one of the largest federal computer theft cases.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (10 August) that Scott Levine, former chief executive of the bulk e-mail firm Snipermail.com, faces 144 counts from a July 2004 indictment in what prosecutors described as one of the largest computer crime cases ever. Levine is accused of stealing 8.2 gigabytes of information from Acxiom, one of the world's largest database companies. The violations occurred from around April 2002 to August 2003.

The AP/NYT report says that the 1.6 billion records included names, home addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, bank and credit card numbers involving millions of individuals. But prosecutors determined that no identity fraud was committed. There was, however, a sale of information to a marketing company, prosecutors say.

IBM: Desktop is next Linux frontier

IBM has told Linux developers the desktop is the next frontier, but they must avoid employing the same tactics used against Unix on servers to conquer it.

The Register reports (11 August) that IBM executives told Linux developers they need a new value proposition on the desktop. One option is the "managed desktop", something that - unsurprisingly - looks a lot like IBM's Workplace, says The Register.

Speaking at LinuxWorld on Wednesday, an IBM spokesman noted that IBM has seen an enormous number of Unix migrations to Linux. The key driver for this is customer desire to replace expensive, under-used Risc-based servers, with cheaper x86 systems.

The IBM spokesman also took issue with Microsoft, who has been waging a war against Linux by arguing Windows provides better value through improved cost of ownership, reports The Register.

Pointing to large growth rates in revenue and unit shipments for Linux servers, IBM said the next opportunity for Linux is on the desktop. The market for Linux desktops is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 37 per cent between 2003 and 2007, with 10 million desktops installed by 2004.

US Gov funds VoIP tracking research

The US government is to fund research into how to trace IP telephony calls. Researchers at George Mason University will get a US$307K grant from the National Science Foundation to develop surveillance tools that can pinpoint the destination of a VoIP call even if it passes through an anonymising service.

The Register reports that a CNet report (10 August) says that the grant will fund the development of a prototype VoIP-tracing application to provide a "critical but currently missing capability in the fight on crime and terrorism.

The report says that the research into a possible successor to the FBI's Carnivore system is geared towards identifying the parties involved in a call using services such as Skype rather than eavesdropping on the contents of a conversation.

According to the report, news of the grant comes days after US regulators approved wire tapping rules for VoIP service providers that provide an alternative to conventional circuit switched telephony services. These providers must be able to accommodate wiretap requests in the same way as conventional rivals, the Federal Communications Commission ruled.

Red Hat pushes Microsoft for patents statement

Red Hat has called on Microsoft to resist threatening developers and customers with prosecution over possible infringements of patented technologies in Linux

The Register reports (11 Aughust) that Mark Webbink, Red Hat’s deputy general counsel, on Wednesday called on Microsoft to make a written pledge not to threaten developers with infringement claims.

The report says that, in the event of disputes, Microsoft should approach Linux distributors with complaints and avoid SCO Group’s tactic of prosecuting customers.

Speaking at LinuxWorld in S, Webbink proclaimed: “If Microsoft has IP that needs to be respected, [then] come to the companies… leave our customers out of the middle – it’s the civil thing to do.”

Creative Q4 loss

Creative Technology, whose Nomad and Zen music players aim to compete with Apple's iPod, swung to a wider-than-expected quarterly loss after price competition sapped margins, sending its shares down 5 percent.

The New York Times reports (10 August) that the Singapore-based firm said on Thursday it expected to return to the black by year-end with the launch of two new MP3 players with photo and video capabilities, despite market concerns of tougher competition and ballooning inventory.

The newspaper says that the Nasdaq-listed Creative posted a net loss of US$31.9 million, or 38 US cents per share, in its fiscal fourth quarter ended 30 June, against a net profit of US$6.6 million, or 8 cents per share, a year ago.

The shortfall was larger than an average net loss forecast of US$7.2 million from six analysts polled by Reuters. Excluding an investment gain of US$9.3 million, Creative said it had a quarterly loss of US$41.2 million, or 49 cents per share.

The newspaper reports that while Creative continues to struggle, industry leader Apple Computer beat Wall Street's forecasts last month with a five-fold jump in net profit for its third fiscal quarter ended 25 June to US$320 million. Sales surged 75 percent to US$3.52 billion.

Japanese musicians trying to join ITunes

Japanese musicians under contract with Sony and other labels that haven't joined Apple's iTunes Music Store are starting to defy their recording companies and trying to get their music on the popular download service launched last week in Japan.

The Associated Press reports in The New Yiork Times (10 August) that, at least one artist has already gone against his label to offer his songs on iTunes. And a major agency that manages Japanese musicians said Wednesday it was interested in a possible deal with Apple Computer, regardless of the recording companies' positions.

Online music stores had not taken off in Japan until iTunes' arrival last Thursday, which opened with a million songs from 15 Japanese record labels, the NYT reports.

The AP/NYT report says that in just four days, customers downloaded 1 million songs -- the fastest pace for the service's launch in any of the 20 nations it's become available, including the US. Most songs cost 150 yen, or US$1.35, to download, and only 10 percent cost 200 yen, or US$1.80. The service costs 99 cents in the US.

But Sony's music division, Sony Music Entertainment, has not signed up to join Apple's service. The companies say they're in talks but there's been no agreement.

AP says that Apple and Sony have emerged as major rivals in the portable music player business. Apple's iPod music player, which stores music on a hard drive, has hurt Sony, which is pushing its own Network Walkman, some of which have hard drives.

Iran hard-liners move against European mobile deal

Influential Iranian conservatives on Wednesday said Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens were unfairly awarded a US$750-million mobile phone equipment deal in the Islamic Republic.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 August) that Parliament's research group, which has already reduced the foreign investment stake in a major mobile phone deal with Turkcell, said Iranian contractors should be preferred because they had offered lower prices in the tender.

No comment was immediately available from the state-owned Telecommunications Company of Iran or from the three European telecoms equipment makers.

Reuters says in the NYT report that it was not immediately clear whether the parliamentary research group's statement on Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens would translate into action by parliament, as happened with Turkcell.

World space market seen at US$158 Bln by 2010

The slump in the global space and satellite market is over, and government and commercial sales should reach US$158 billion by 2010, up from $103 billion in 2004, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 Aughust) that the report, compiled each year since 1997, said governments and businesses around the world spent more than US$18 billion a year on development of space systems, and India and China had joined the United States, Europe, Russia and Japan with fully independent capabilities.

Other factors behind the market's reemerging strength were the US$40 billion satellite-to-consumer television market, strong and growing demand for satellite radio and Global Positioning Satellite and tracking capabilities, it said.

Reuters says that in terms of the larger market noted by the ISBC, including direct TV, the report said it was clear China and India would dramatically increase spending over the coming years.

Yahoo to give US$1b, China ops for Alibaba stake

Chinese e-commerce operator Alibaba.com is in the late stages of talks to sell a 35 percent stake to Yahoo in return for US$1 billion and Yahoo's entire China operations, a source close to the discussions said on Wednesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 August) that the deal is in the final hours of discussions, the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The report says that the combination would create an e-commerce giant by bringing together Alibaba's business-to-business and consumer online auction sites with Yahoo's search operations, China's second largest after leader Baidu.com.

A spokesman from Alibaba and a spokeswoman from Yahoo both had no comment.

Reuters says in the NYT report that a deal would mark an end to Yahoo operating a venture in China on its own, swapping its country operations in exchange for a structure more similar to Yahoo Japan, in which the US search giant holds a 33 percent stake while Japan's Softbank holds a controlling 42 percent.

Businesses may not report cyber attacks

In the US, most businesses do not report cyber attacks to law enforcement authorities, fearing the disclosure would harm their image and benefit rivals, the FBI has said.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (10 August) that this reluctance has become especially important at a time when identity theft is growing rapidly and terrorists are increasingly using the internet,according to the FBI.

The AP/NYT report says that business leaders last month announced an education campaign to better protect sensitive client information from hackers and other thieves, after a string of high-profile data thefts and losses.

In June, CardSystems Solutions disclosed that a breach of its system that processes transactions between merchants and credit card issuers exposed 40 million accounts to possible fraud.

According to AP, the FBI's comments were based on an annual survey conducted by the FBI and the private Computer Security Institute that found just 20 percent of businesses reported computer intrusions last year, a figure that has held steady for several years. The reasons cited most often for keeping the incidents quiet were loss of business to competitors and potential damage to a company's image among consumers.

S.Korean man dies after 50 hours of computer games

A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an internet cafe, authorities said Tuesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 August) that the 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing on-line battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said.

The report said that Lee had planted himself in front of a computer monitor to play on-line games on 3 August. He only left the spot over the next three days to go to the toilet and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, they said.

Lee had recently quit his job to spend more time playing games, the daily JoongAng Ilbo reported after interviewing former work colleagues and staff at the Internet cafe.

Reuters reports that South Korea, one of the most wired countries in the world, has a large and highly developed game industry.

India adds 2.49 million mobile users in July

India's booming wireless sector, the world's fastest growing major mobile market, added 2.49 million new users in July, taking the total number of customers to 60.366 million, industry bodies said on Tuesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 August) that the Cellular Operators' Association, representing nine carriers offering mobile services based on the widely prevalent Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication, said 1.954 million customers signed up for its services.

Overall, GSM carriers had 46.874 million customers at the end of July, up 4.35 percent over June.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the strong growth in the past month came despite heavy monsoon rains that wreaked havoc in Bombay, a top market for cellular services, the Cellular Operators' Association said.

The report says that local mobile call tariffs of as low as 2 US cents a minute are driving cellular usage in India, where less than six people in 100 in the more than a billion-strong population use mobile services.

India's top mobile services firm, Bharti Tele-Ventures, added 533,218 GSM wireless users, taking its customer base to 12.789 million subscribers.

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam, the second-ranked GSM player, had a mobile user base of 10.724 million customers. It added 494,469 subscribers in July.

Reuters also reports that Hutchison Essar Telecom, the Indian wireless operation of Hong Kong's Hutchison Telecommunications International, added 494,469 mobile users last month. The firm's user base stood at 8.844 million customers.

Apple pledges to refund users hit by Canada iPod tax

Apple Canada is to allow consumers who bought an iPod between December 2003 and December 2004 to claim a refund for a government tax on MP3 players.

The Register reports (9 August) that the announcement follows a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that invalidated a levy placed on iPods to compensate the music industry for revenue lost to piracy and illegal copying.

Copycat Novell opens SuSE development process

Novell is turning to the community to help develop the next version of the SuSE Linux distribution and drive uptake of Linux at the grass roots level.

The Register reports (9 August) that the company announced on Tuesday it had posted code for SuSE Linux 10 online for review and testing by community based developers.

Announcing the SuSE Linux project at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, Novell said it would "provide a place where developers can advance the state of the art of Linux." The project mirrors Red Hat's Fedora Project.

Linux said the SuSE Linux project meant Novell was opening up the front end of its SuSE Linux development process. The first SuSE Linux 10 release candidate is scheduled to appear on 9 September, according to Novell.

The Register also reported that Novell also used LinuxWorld to announce an expanded reseller and joint-support agreement with MySQL AB and a joint development and delivery deal with VMware.

The report says that under its agreement with MySQL, Novell will sell subscriptions to the MySQL Network, which provides certified MySQL software, updates, upgrades, alerts and access to the MySQL knowledge base. The VMware deal will see the companies develop server consolidation, migration and maintenance offerings for Novell users.

Group launches new DVD security features

One of the two groups vying to produce the next generation of DVDs rolled out new security features Tuesday to entice entertainment and electronics companies to adopt its technology.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (10 August) that the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a partnership of electronics manufacturers and Hollywood studios including Hewlett-Packard. and 20th Century Fox, said it plans to fight piracy by embedding an identification mark on movies, music and video games that can only be read by equipment that carry its technology.

The new security features are the latest volley in the battle between Blu-ray and a competing group, HD-DVD, which is backed by such companies as Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Toshiba and Sanyo Electric.

The AP/NYT report says that, in addition to the security measures that HD-DVD and Blu-ray are devising as they compete for support in Hollywood, both are promising increased storage capacity and resolution superior enough to get the most out of high-definition television sets.

Current DVDs are easily hacked, allowing them to be pirated at a cost to the movie industry of more than US$3 billion annually, according to Blu-ray.

Cisco's 4th-quarter meets Wall Street expectations

Cisco Systems, the internet equipment maker, has said that fourth-quarter sales rose 11 percent and profit increased 19 percent, returns that essentially met estimates of Wall Street analysts.

The New York Times reports (10 August) that for the quarter, which ended 31 July, the company reported sales of US$6.6 billion, compared with US$5.9 billion for the same period a year ago. Net income, excluding one-time gains and losses, was US$1.6 billion, or 25 cents a share, compared with US$1.5 billion, or 21 cents a year earlier.

For the fiscal year, Cisco reported sales of US$24.8 billion, compared with US$22 billion for fiscal 2004.

The newspaper reports, that in a conference call with analysts, Cisco said investors should expect revenue to grow 10 percent to 12 percent in the next year. The projections are unusually forward-looking for a company that has been guarded about projections after the collapse of the internet bubble.

Microsoft's spam settlement

Scott Richter, who was once accused of being one of the world's top three spammers, has agreed to pay US$7 million in a settlement with Microsoft.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (10 August) that the money from Mr. Richter and his company, OptInRealBig.com, is to be used to expand efforts to combat the illegal sending of unsolicited and misleading e-mail messages and other computer misuse, Microsoft's chief counsel, Bradford L. Smith, said in a statement Tuesday.

"After covering our legal expenses for the case, Microsoft will then reinvest every penny from this settlement," he said. "We'll dedicate US$5 million to increase our internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcement address computer-related crimes."

The company also pledged US$1 million to expand computer access for the poor at community centers in New York State.

The AP/NYT report says that "Spam traps" set by Microsoft in May and June 2003 netted 8,000 messages containing 40,000 fraudulent statements, and Mr. Richter was described by a Microsoft spokesman as "one of the three biggest spammers in the world".

Consortium to pool radio-tag patents

In the US, a consortium of companies that make radio-based identification tags, scanners and related software have said that they planned to pool their patents in a venture that would provide one-stop licensing and royalty management.

The New York Times reports (10 August) that the effort to stimulate adoption of what is known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, will be closely modeled on licensing organisations that have aided the growth of the DVD industry and the development of products that use the MPEG-2 standard for encoding audio and video programming.

RFID supporters are expecting the technology to supplant bar codes eventually because it allows goods to be identified without the need for them to be scanned item by item. Wal-Mart and the Defense Department are among those pushing for the technology's adoption.

The newspaper says that the group plans to incorporate this fall and hire a specialist to evaluate who owns the most important patents and the potential royalty structure for its members. It is unlikely to begin offering licenses before next year.

There are more than 3,000 RFID patents, said Erik Michielsen, a RFID analyst in New York for ABI Research.

Former WorldCom exec gets a year and a day in jail

Former WorldCom Director of Accounting Buford Yates was sentenced to a year and a day in prison on Tuesday for his role in the US$11 billion business fraud at the company.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 August) that Yates, 48, pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court nearly three years ago to conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from his part in a scheme to defraud investors by falsifying the financial condition of WorldCom.

Yates, who is to surrender to a US federal correctional facility on 10 October 10, was also fined US$5,000 and given three years probation by the US District Court.

While Yates did not testify at the trial of former Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers, Jones took into consideration that he did not receive anywhere near the salary or the stock options of other executives at the company and that he was pressured by superiors to falsify the telecommunications company's books to help it profit expectations.

Ebbers was found guilty in March and sentenced to 25 years in prison last month after being found guilty of orchestrating an US$11 billion accounting fraud that resulted in WorldCom's collapse.

The WorldCom fraud precipitated the company's descent into bankruptcy in July 2002 and massive losses for investors. It now operates as MCI.

HP wins Gateway PC import ban

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled that Gateway had indeed violated a pair of patents held by HP, and ordered the company not to import PCs containing the disputed technology.

The Register reports (9 August), however, the ban does not take effect until February 2006, giving Gateway plenty of time to appeal against the decision - and to hear the effects of its own request that the ITC investigate HP, a number of newswire reports claim.

The report says that the long-running dispute between the two PC vendors stretches back to March 2004 when HP sued Gateway, alleging the smaller company had violated six of its patents covering power management, keyboard-password functions and cursor-generation, among other technologies.

Open source comes long way since first LinuxWorld

SiliconValley.com says in a 8 August report that the success of Linux, the free computer operating system created in the early 1990s by Linus Torvalds and developers around the world, has paved the way for a growing open-source ecosystem.

According to the online publication, open-source software, once primarily associated with computer operating systems, is now being used by companies for critical functions and software applications such as storing data, managing customers and analysing business information.

SiliconValley.com cites comment from resaearch firm IDC analysts that "the technology is evolving very rapidly".

As more than 10,000 software developers and other tech workers gather in San Francisco this week for the twice-a-year LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, the focus will be on this new era of open-source software, says SV.com.

The publication says that numerous web sites, such as Google, are now operated on open-source software. Mozilla Firefox is an open-source web browser that has been downloaded more than 75 million times. OpenOffice is a suite of desktop applications, including word processing and spreadsheet, popular in developing countries, such as India and Brazil.

The report says that a worldwide community of developers write and contribute to creating open-source software. That in turn can make the software cheaper and better than proprietary products, open-source advocates say, because the developers don't charge for it and collective brains are constantly improving it.

According to SV.com, IDC forecasts that worldwide sales of open-source applications, tools and system software running on Linux -- while just a slice of overall software sales of more than US$200 billion this year -- will increase from US$5.4 billion in 2005 to nearly US$17 billion in 2009.

However, according to the SV.com report, open source still faces some major hurdles.

One obstacle, says the publication, is that open-source software can be complicated to set up and run compared with proprietary software. If a company has problems integrating the open-source software into its systems, it might spend a princely sum -- making it actually more expensive than proprietary products -- to hire outside experts.

SV.com says that the open-source industry still has to work on cultivating and expanding its community of developers. Without a community of developers willing to support its software, the open-source product will never gain acceptance, according to a spokmesperson for the Eclipse Foundation, an open-source consortium of more than 100 companies.

Yahoo reportedly in talks With China e-commerce company

Yahoo, one of the world's biggest internet companies, is in negotiations to acquire a stake in Alibaba.com, China's largest e-commerce company, several people involved in China's financial industry, said Monday.

The New York Times reports (9 August) that the companies have held discussions for months, and it is still unclear whether they will reach an agreement soon, these people say. The deal could be one of the largest foreign investments in a Chinese technology company, and would pose a strong challenge for the online auction giant eBay, which has been stepping up its presence in China, the NYT adds.

The newspaper says that Alibaba's primary business is in matching the needs of Chinese and foreign companies, for instance, in providing T-shirts or ball bearings made domestically to retailers or manufacturers overseas. But Alibaba also has a consumer-to-consumer auction site that has quickly become a contender to eBay's entrant in that fast-growing market in China. An alliance of Alibaba and Yahoo would sharply intensify that competition.

Officials at Yahoo and Alibaba.com declined to comment Monday on reports of the negotiations. But people who have been briefed on the discussions say Alibaba.com has been eager to raise more cash and find a partner before offering shares to the public; its auction site would also help create interest. Meanwhile, Yahoo has been seeking to make a larger push into China.

The NYT says that Forbes magazine, which was first to report the discussions, said on its web site late Sunday that Yahoo could spend up to US$1 billion to acquire a 35 percent stake in Alibaba.com.

The newspaper says that Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, eBay and Amazon.com are scrambling to invest money or find strategic partners in China, where there are an estimated 100 million internet users amid a population of 1.3 billion. By some forecasts, China will overtake America with the largest number of Web surfers as early as 2010.

In the last few years, reports the NYT, most of the large American internet companies have come to China to cut deals: Amazon.com acquired China's largest online bookseller, Joyo.com, for US$75 million; eBay bought the Chinese auction site Eachnet for US$180 million; and Yahoo purchased the Chinese search engine 3721.

The report says that shares of Baidu.com - which has been called the Chinese Google - soared 354 percent Friday after its initial public offering on Nasdaq. That makes Baidu China's most valuable technology company, with a market value of about US$4 billion.

Alibaba.com, which bills itself as the world's largest business-to-business web site, is considered one of the most important online franchises in China. The privately held company was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, a former English teacher turned tech entrepreneur. The site now has over 10 million registered users trading and swapping products online.

Nortel Networks: earnings nearly tripled in quarter

Nortel Networks, the Canadian telecommunications equipment maker, which is trying to recover from an accounting scandal, has said that its second-quarter profit nearly tripled as revenueincreased.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (9 August) that Nortel said its quarterly income grew to US$45 million, or a penny a share, from US$16 million a year ago. The latest results included charges of US$90 million from revamping activities and US$39 million for the sale of businesses and assets, as well as adjustments from previous quarters that reduced earnings by about US$40 million, or a penny a share.

The AP/NYT report says that revenue rose 10 percent, to US$2.86 billion, from US$2.59 billion last year, driven by a 26 percent increase in business networks revenue to US$730 million.

E*Trade buying rival

E*Trade, the online broker, has said that it would buy its rival Harrisdirect from the BMO Financial Group of Canada for US$700 million in cash.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (9 August) that E*Trade said the deal, which is expected to close by October, should increase annual earnings by 10 cents a share in the first year and 17 cents a share from the second year, when Harrisdirect is expected to be fully integrated.

E*Trade said that acquiring Harrisdirect would bring it about 430,000 active high-value customer accounts, with an average account balance of more than US$70,000, and about US$32 billion in assets under administration.

Reuters says in the NYT report that this will mean E*Trade in total will have more than four million customer accounts, about US$130 billion in customer assets and about 130,000 daily revenue trades.

Qualcomm, Connexion to test in-flight mobile calls

Wireless technology company Qualcomm and Boeing's Connexion have said they would test in-flight mobile phone calls with the aim of offering the service in 2006.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (8 August) that Connexion, which already provides wireless laptop internet services in airplane cabins, hopes to provide in-flight wireless voice and data services if regulators give the go-ahead.

The report says that the tests will be conducted through September in a specially equipped Boeing 737-400 aircraft.

In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration told lawmakers last month that substantial challenges remained to the in-flight use of mobile phones even if communications regulators eased a ban currently in place.

Boeing's archrival Airbus said last month that it was working with Germany's Siemens to develop technology that would make ordinary mobile phone calls possible for in-flight passengers by 2006.

Skype investor says firm should stay independent

A top shareholder in Skype has said it wants to see the fast-growing internet telecoms software firm stay independent after a report of failed takeover talks with media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (8 August) that an executive of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a Californian venture capital firm, which owns between 10 and 20 percent of Skype, says the company is worth much more.

Reuters says that on the internet, Skype is regarded as one of the biggest threats for telecoms operators. Founded just two years ago, it already counts more than 48 million registered users.

Britain's Independent on Sunday reported that News Corporaton had approached Skype with an offer of just under US$3 billion. The paper said talks had collapsed but added Skype could be taken over shortly, without citing sources.

Skype was co-founded by Swedish businessmen Niklas Zennstrom, who also created Kazaa, the file-sharing software that allows users to download music from the Internet for free and caused much pain to record companies.

Reuters says in the NYT report that several European telecoms groups including Deutsche Telekom , France Telecom, Swisscom and BT Group have already started adopting VoIP to retain customers and stop hemorrhaging revenue.

Yahoo expands search engine index

In a major expansion, Yahoo said Monday that its online search engine index now spans more than 20 billion web documents and images, nearly double the material scanned by rival Google.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (8 August) that Yahoo's expansion doesn't necessarily mean it produces more useful results than Google, which has long been considered the internet's most comprehensive database.

But, AP says, the breakthrough gives the company the bragging rights to a widely watched measurement for assessing the power of an internet search engine.

The report says that Yahoo said its index, boosted by a recent upgrade, covers 20.8 billion online ''objects,'' comprised of about 19.2 billion documents and 1.6 billion images.

According to AP,by comparison, Google said it tracks 11.3 billion objects. That figure consists of the nearly 8.2 billion web pages that Google proudly touts on its home page and 2.1 billion images, with the remainder of material coming from its group discussions.

The report says that until Monday, Yahoo hadn't publicly disclosed the size of its search index, but industry estimates had placed the figure somewhere between 6 billion and 8 billion.

AP reports that supplanting Google as the biggest search engine should give Yahoo a potent marketing weapon in a tense duel for industry leadership, predicted Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
The report adds that generating searches is crucial for both companies because the requests spur revenue-producing ads alongside the results. The strategy has proven highly effective for both companies, with Google earning US$712 million through the first half of while year and Yahoo earning US$959 million during the same time..

Cisco looks at buying Nokia - newspaper report

Cisco Systems is considering buying the world's top mobile handset maker Nokia in a bid to gain its wireless infrastructure technology, the Business newspaper reported on Sunday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (7 August) that the paper, which did not reveal the source of its information, said US-based Cisco had traditionally concentrated on acquisitions of niche technology players, but its Chief Executive John Chambers is believed to be interested in merging with a wireless infrastructure company.

Cisco, the largest maker of internet equipment, is worth around US$123 billion, while Nokia's market value is around US$71 billion.

According to Reuters, the paper said Cisco's mainstay networking market was fast changing with the convergence of fixed-line and wireless networks, and Cisco needed a merger to acquire the technology to create intelligent wireless applications, which Finnish-based Nokia could provide.

One million Japan ITunes downloads in 4 days

In just four days, 1 million songs have been downloaded at Apple's new iTunes Music Store in Japan, the fastest pace for the service's launch in any of the 20 nations it's now available, including the US, a senior executive has said.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (8 August) that Apple, whose iPod portable music player is a big hit in Japan, started its music download service in Japan last Thursday, and has already become the No. 1 online music store in the country. The American version of the service took a week to sell 1 million song downloads.

The AP report says that Apple has not signed a deal with Sony's music division, which has some of the most popular Japanese singers and bands under its label. Apply refused to comment on how talks with Sony Music Entertainment are going but said it hoped Sony will join soon.

According to the AP/NYT report, Sony and Apple have become major rivals in pushing competeing music technologies. Sony, which has focused on CD and mini-disk products, initially tried to push a more proprietary digital music format, and has fallen behind Apple and its iPod, which stores music on a hard drive in the more widespread MP3 format.

The report claims that the popularity of iTunes in Japan has dealt another blow to Sony because it has already surpassed the number of downloads Sony's affliated online music store gets in a month -- about 450,000.

The iTunes service accounts for 82 percent of all legally downloaded music in the United States. Apple has sold 21.8 million iPods worldwide since it went on sale in October 2001, and more than 500 million songs through its iTunes Music Store.

Success of Chinese search engine IPO

The driving force behind the spectacular market debut of shares in the Chinese search engine company Baidu.com on Friday was its resemblance and ties to Google, whose own offering created a sensation last year, analysts said over the weekend.

The New York Times reports (8 August) that shares in Baidu soared Friday on the Nasdaq stock market in one of the most successful initial public offerings since the peak of the dot-com era. The stock more than quadrupled by the end of the day, instantly creating the most valuable internet company in China. The shares were priced at US$27 but opened at US$66 and then soared to US$122.54.

The newspaper says that investors in Baidu include Google and the Silicon Valley venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and IDG Ventures.

Foreign investors are trying to cash in on an internet boom in China, where there are now estimated to be about 100 million regular internet users, reports the NYT.

Eyeing this huge market, American technology giants and venture capitalists have been rushing into China over the last few years, searching for the next Yahoo, Google, eBay or Amazon.com. A group of Chinese entrepreneurs in their 20's and 30's, many of them educated in the United States, have been busy fashioning Chinese versions of American internet companies.

According to the NYT, Silicon Valley's biggest companies are also eager to participate. Last year, Yahoo acquired 3721, another successful Chinese search engine company. Then Google bought a 2.5 percent stake in Baidu.com for about US$5 million. After Friday's offering, that stake was worth close to US$100 million.

The newspaper also reports that EBay has also come to China, acquiring an online company called Eachnet.com for about US$180 million. EBay says it plans to invest another US$100 million in China over the next few years in what the company forecasts will become its largest auction market in 10 to 15 years.

The NYT says that Baidu is a four-year-old company that had just US$13 million in revenue last year and about US$1.4 million in profit. But in China, Baidu is the search engine leader, followed by Google, according to online research consultants.

Who will buy Skype?

Rumours of a Skype valuation of US$3billion by Rupert Murdoch's News International from columnist Bob Cringeley, which have been dismissed by another columnist, Simon Edhouse of Virtusoft, are reported by The Register (8 August).

The Register says that most of the people who are likely to be interested in Skype are not yet showing their hands in the marketplace,but,specifically, two companies have leaked drips of information about their telephony plans: Google and Yahoo! are both known to be planning a complete package.

According to The Register, in the case of Google, nothing has been confirmed, but advertisements have been seen for the sort of people who are needed to manage a combined wireline, gateway, mobile and wireless IP phone network.

In the case of Yahoo! even less has been published, but again, preparations have been apparent from hirings of staff and purchases of equipment, claims The Register.

The Register says that both companies would be crucially handicapped if the other bought Skype, and really, the only reason either might fail to buy the peer-to-peer phone network, would be either that they came second in the race, or that Skype really didn't want to sell.

Software maker to share as way to fight Microsoft

VMware, the leader in the fast-growing market for virtual machine software, plans to announce today that it will share its code with partners like IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard in an effort to make the VMware technology an industry standard.

The New York Times reports (8 August) that virtual machine software is a layer of code that resides between the operating system and computer hardware. It essentially mimics a computer so that several copies of an operating system - say, Windows or Linux or both - can run on one physical computer. More recent versions of virtual machine software make it possible to juggle computing chores across many machines to increase efficiency and reduce costs in corporate data centers.

According to the NYT, the move by VMware is an attempt to defend against Microsoft before that company accelerates its drive into virtual machine software. Microsoft's push into this field, analysts say, is expected to begin in earnest with the next version of its Windows operating system to be introduced in late 2006.

The newspaper says that the VMware announcement also points to the pressure on software companies to adopt a more open approach and share their technology. VMware's big industry partners have become increasingly concerned that it is becoming too powerful, and could potentially become a crucial, proprietary layer of software in data centers, much as Microsoft's Windows rules the market for personal computer operating systems.

The report says that virtual machine technology was first used on mainframe computers, going back to the 1960's. But VMware has pioneered the commercialisation of virtual machine software tailored for lower-cost computers powered by chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

The newspaper reports that VMware plans to share the underlying engine for its virtual machine software with Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco Systems and Red Hat, in addition to IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard. Other corporate partners may join later, VMware said.
 
VMware, the NYT says, is giving up control of some of its proprietary technology to broaden its use and to stay a step ahead of Microsoft.

In December 2003, VMware was sold to EMC, the big computer storage company, for US$635 million in cash. Its revenues are running at US$360 million a year and are doubling each year.

AOL purchases wireless company Wildseed

America Online, the world's largest internet provider, has purchased a privately held wireless technology company as part of its initiative to more quickly get AOL service onto phones and other wireless devices, the company is to announce.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (8 August) that it purchased Wildseed Ltd., a privately held company founded by Microsoft veteran G. Eric Engstrom, who co-invented Microsoft's DirectX multimedia and games technology.

The Reuters/NYT report says that the deal marks the second purchase in as many weeks to find ways to expand its services ahead of the official launch of AOL.com, which will offer more of its services for free.

Last week, AOL purchased online storage company Xdrive for an undisclosed sum.

The report says that Wildseed made headlines over the last three years selling a phone marketed to teens, which let them snap on changeable faceplates that also offered new features. A baseball faceplate of a favorite team would offer game schedules for instance.

AOL, whose AOL Instant Messenger software is offered on top US wireless carriers and also built into phones, has begun to expand its influence beyond the desktop computer, where it has watched millions of users flee its paid service over the past few years.

In the second quarter, it lost 917,000 paying subscribers.

Search concepts, not keywords, IBM tells business

IBM plans to give away key search technologies for corporate data retrieval that use concepts and facts instead of simpler ``keyword'' searches relied upon by consumer web companies such as Google, the world's largest computer company has said.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (8 August) that, while simple but powerful keyword searches have revolutionised how internet users locate and retrieve information, IBM is looking to transform how office workers sift through the piles of data stored inside organisations.

IBM plans to openly offer other software developers its Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), a technology that can analyse text within documents and other media to understand latent meanings, relationships and facts.

The Reuters report says that some 15 companies, including Attensity, ClearForest, Cognos, Endeca, Factiva, Kana, Inquira, iPhrase, Inxight, nStein, QL2, SAS, Schemalogic, Semagix, SPSS and Temis plan to use UIMA as a framework for search and text analysis of unstructured data, IBM said. Factiva is a joint venture of financial information providers Dow Jones & and Reuters Group.

According to Reuters, IBM is also offering its WebSphere OmniFind software for helping users perform searches on unstructured data in a variety of formats or languages, be they located in databases, e-mail files, audio recordings, pictures or video images.

US: Spinoff of Expedia, tough time for travel sector

In the US, Expedia, the largest online travel agency, is expected to be spun off from its parent, IAC/InterActiveCorp.

The New York Timers reports (8 August) that IAC is trying to bolster its lagging stock price by separating its large travel business from its other units, which include the HSN shopping network, Ticketmaster and the Ask Jeeves search engine.

The newly independent Expedia, which will include the Expedia web site, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com and TripAdvisor.com, is at a crossroads. Over the last few years, it has gained market share in the online travel industry, which is still taking business from traditional travel agents, according to the newspaper.

But, as the economy improves and travel picks up, airlines and hotels are constantly pressing to cut the fees they pay to Expedia. And in the second quarter of this year, Expedia lost market share to Sabre Holdings, Travelocity and Priceline as it cut advertising expenses to maintain profitability.

Electronic Arts successful with sequels

Electronic Arts, the world's biggest video game maker, plans to release Madden NFL '06 today (Tuesday). It is the 18th annual version of an increasingly lifelike game that lets players be the quarterback of a pro football team, and that sells millions of copies each year.

The New York Times reports (8 August) that, in this year's edition, a slice of the field lights up to give the quarterback better vision and throwing precision when he makes a pass. It also lets players follow the athletes' off-the-field activities.

By year's end, Electronic Arts plans to release 26 new games, all but one of them a sequel, including the 16th version of NHL Hockey, the 11th of the racing game Need for Speed and the 13th of the PGA Tour golf game. The company also relies heavily on creating games based on movies like the James Bond and Lord of the Rings series, rather than developing original brands.

The NYT reports that Electronic Arts recently lowered its full-year revenue estimates to US$3.3 billion to US$3.4 billion, from US$3.4 billion to $3.5 billion, in part blaming a delay in the release of its game The Godfather, which will not be sold until next spring.

Its 2004 revenue of US$3.17 billion was more than double that of its nearest competitor, Activision, which had sales of US$1.36 billion.

The newspaper says that since 1989, Electronic Arts has sold 43 million copies of Madden, with 60 to 70 percent of those sales made to repeat buyers.

Strong showing for Chinese IPO

Shares of China's largest web search engine, Baidu.com, more than quadrupled in value in their American market debut in the most spectacular entry ever by a foreign company, overshadowing Google's share sale last year.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (6 August) that the meteoric debut of the company, based in Beijing, was reminiscent of the internet heyday, when shares of online and technology companies routinely trebled on their first trading day. Baidu.com shares surged over 450 percent, to a high of US$151.21 in intraday trading yesterday. They closed up almost 354 percent, at US$122.54.

The report says that Baidu.com's offering sparked huge interest globally, with the company described as a potential Chinese Google well placed to serve the world's most populous country, where web use is surging.

But even analysts expecting a strong debut were stunned as Baidu .com shares more than quadrupled the US$27 per American depository share pricing of its initial public offering, the first American listing of a pure-play Chinese search engine.

Microsoft gets new operating chief from Walmart

Microsoft has plucked its new chief operating officer from Wal-Mart, a kindred corporate giant that shares the challenge of finding new growth despite its size and market dominance, rfeports The New York Times (6 August).

The NYT reports that the executive, Kevin Turner, 40, had a 19-year career at Wal-Mart, where he rose quickly through the management ranks to become the retailer's chief information officer and, most recently, the chief executive of Sam's Club, the company's warehouse club division.

The newspaper says that the post of chief operating officer at Microsoft has proved daunting over the years, lucrative yet precarious. The real power at Microsoft resides with its longtime leaders - Bill Gates, the co-founder and chairman, and Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive.

The company's previous chief operating officer, Richard Belluzzo, stepped down in 2002 after having the job for little more than a year. At the time, Mr. Ballmer sent an e-mail message to Microsoft employees explaining that the job of chief operating officer would not be filled, in part to promote faster decision-making and a more entrepreneurial style in the business units.

The NYT reports that analysts say Mr. Turner was a standout at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer. As chief information officer, he was one of the world's largest corporate buyers of technology, and directed the technology strategy of a company renowned for its deft use of computing to streamline everything from global procurement to neighborhood shopping trends.

Mr. Turner will receive a base salary of US$570,000, and he will be eligible for a bonus of up to 100 percent of that.

FCC eases high-speed access rules

In the US, Federal regulators on Friday eased rules governing high-speed internet services offered by phone companies, saying they hope it will speed internet growth.

The New York Times reports (6 August) that, handing a significant regulatory victory to the Bell companies, the Federal Communications Commission said the carriers no longer had to provide rival internet service providers with access to their lines at reduced rates.

The report says that the commission said the move would foster competition by putting phone companies on an even footing with cable companies and other sellers of internet service and would provide more incentive for phone companies to upgrade their networks and offerings.

The NYT says, however, that the change was criticised by consumer groups, which asserted that it could lead instead to higher prices and reduced competition from independent suppliers.

According to the newspaper, the decision is the latest in a series of victories by the Bell companies in their regulatory march over competitors that had tried, under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to gain a stronger industry foothold through the low-cost use of the extensive Bell telephone network.

The newspaper says that, under the Bush administration, the Bells have prevailed in the regulatory battle. As they have been relieved of their obligations to offer low-cost access to their phone lines, they have pushed aside competition from local carriers as well as long-distance companies like MCI and AT&T.

The NYT says that the rule change was approved with unusual unanimity by the four members after a compromise was fashioned with the agency's two Democrats that limited some of the impact of the ruling on other areas.

The compromise set a one-year transition before the new rules take effect. It also required the telephone companies to continue their contributions to universal service funds, which pay for phone and internet services in underserved areas.

The NYT report says that, in a companion decision, the agency adopted a measure requiring providers of internet-based telephone service, like conventional phone companies, to make their systems accessible to law-enforcement authorities to monitor suspected terrorists and criminals.

Copy-protected CDs iPod - incompatible but sell well

Recent CDs by Foo Fighters and Dave Matthews Band containing new anti-piracy technology are selling well despite a backlash among some fans angry that the discs are incompatible with iPods, experts have said.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (5 August) that, aiming to curb piracy, labels like Sony BMG, which released both records, are rolling out copy-protected albums in the United States, which let users make three exact duplicates of a CD, and store files on a PC in Microsoft's Windows Media format.

The report says. howqever, that the copy-protection bars users from importing music onto iPods since Apple's Fairplay software is incompatible with protected Windows Media Audio files.

About one-third of the 252 customer reviews of the Foo Fighters' CD this week on Amazon, which prominently displays the fact the album is a copy-protected CD, complained about the copy protection.

The Reuters/NYT report says that record executives said they were continuing talks with Apple Computer to make these CDs compatible with iPods. In the meantime, Sony BMG also released versions of each album to Apple's iTunes service.

IBM joins podcast craze

IBM is the latest major company to embrace podcasting, the digital audio craze that allows consumers to take audio programming off the web and listen to it on portable music players.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (5 August) that the world's largest computer company said on Friday it plans to introduce a series of occasional podcasts on its investor relations site as part of a broader effort to communicate directly to its investors and the wider public about hot topics.

``These are insights that our consultants get from conversations with customers into emerging issues,'' spokesman John Bukovinsky said of the conversations IBM plans to feature in coming months. ``They are not IBM commercials.''

The Reuters report says that, referring to the traditional ``white paper'' technical think pieces that companies like IBM often have offered as publications or on their web sites, Bukovinsky said, ``We've killed our fair share of trees and people with white papers.''

The report says that podcasting has caught fire as a way for news and radio broadcasters to deliver recorded programming for listeners to play on their music players -- allowing for a kind of radio programming on the go, but without the radio.

According to Reuters, now major companies are joining the trend. In a recent report, technology market research firm Gartner cited automaker General Motors and soft drink maker PepsiCo as among corporate podcasters.

Apple Computer is offering a wide selection of podcasts to consumers via its iTunes online music site. Listeners can tune in and subscribe to audio updates of news, travelogues and other radio-like programming. Last week, Yahoo introduced a site that helps listeners locate and download podcast material.

Worm risk over Win2K flaw

An unpatched flaw in a core component of Windows 2000 might be exploited to launch computer worms, security researchers have warned.

The Register reports (6 August) that the flaw was discovered by security research firm eEye Digital Security. The firm is witholding details pending the release of a software patch. Microsoft is investigating the issue, which is complicated by its decision to wind down support for the operating system.

The Register says that mainstream support of Windows 2000, which is still widely used in corporate environments, came to an end at the start of July 2005. Microsoft released a final update rollup for Windows 2000 on 28 June, just two days before expiration of regular support.

EDS wins £39m prisoner profile deal

In the UK, The Register reports that government favourite EDS has reportedly won a £39m contract with the National Offender Management Service to develop technology that will be able to track offenders as they pass through the criminal justice system.

The Register says that the so-called National Offender Management Information System (NOMIS), is the underlying technology that will join the HM Prison Service and the National Probation Service (NPS) information, in real time, and is supposed to reduce reoffending rates.

The contract will initially be worth £39m, but could be extended by £40m for extra services. It will be delivered under the existing Quantum contract, EDS said, and will run until 2012.

AOL snaps up storage firm

AOL has acquired US-based storage outfit Xdrive to meet the "skyrocketing" demand from net users to save their music, pictures and video online, reports The register (5 August).

The Register reports that Xdrive manages an online, centralised storage platform that gives subscribers access to all their digital assets. The California-based company also promises Xdrive provides its subscribers with: storage safety and security; and automatic backup of a wide variety of digital assets - such as music, pictures, and video.

AN AOL spokesman said the digitisation of consumer home media is skyrocketing, with consumers and AOL members increasingly looking for easier ways to protect and manage a wide variety of important data files and digital media assets.

The Register says that the Xdrive transaction is AOL's first major corporate acquisition since Mailblocks and Advertising.com in the summer of 2004.

Internet agency reassigns Iraq domain

The internet's key oversight agency has quietly authorised Iraq's new government to manage its own domain name, allowing for the restoration of internet addresses ending in ''.iq.''

The Associated Press report in The New York Times (5 August) says that the suffix had been in limbo after the 2002 federal indictment of the Texas-based company that was running it on charges of funneling money to a member of the Islamic extremist group Hamas.

The report says that InfoCom Corp., which sold computers and web services in the Middle East and got the ''.iq'' assignment in 1997, was convicted in April along with its chief executive and two brothers.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees top-level domains, unanimously approved transferring the ''.iq'' name to Iraq's telecommunications regulator on 28 July.

The AP/NYT report says that the decision to award ''.iq'' came during a private teleconference call among ICANN board members. The approved resolution was quietly posted this week on an inside ICANN web page -- two clicks from the home page -- and got little attention until the Web journal Lextext remarked on it Thursday.

More than 260 internet suffixes are now approved, including recent additions such as ''.mobi'', targeting mobile services, and ''.jobs'' for the human resources community.

Google snubs press in privacy fury

Google has blacklisted tech news site CNET's News.com - vowing not to provide quotes or statements to the site for a year.

The Register reports: "Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story," noted reporter Elinor Mills.

The publication says that the previous story, by the same reporter and published on 14 July, drew on information largely gleaned from Google itself to note Google CEO Eric Schmidt's political affiliations and hobbies.

The Register says that the move is likely to backfire on two counts. Google isn't alone in amassing one of the world's largest databases of personal information and behaviour - as Yahoo! and Microsoft have too. But the retaliation against the news site is only likely to focus more attention to Google's often contemptuous attitude to press and analyst scrutiny (on its first ever financial analyst day the company offered its chef, but not its CFO) and puts its privacy issues firmly in the spotlight, comments The Register.

Apple starts iTunes online music service in Japan

Apple Computer has launched its iTunes online music store in Japan on Thursday, bringing its market-leading download service to the world's second-largest music market by album sales.

The New York Times reports (4 August) that Apple has sold more than 500 million songs in 19 countries since it introduced iTunes in the United States over two years ago. While iTunes by itself is not viewed as a big money maker for Apple, it has helped drive sales of its wildly popular iPod portable music player.

The report says that the company said iTunes would charge 150 yen (US$1.35) each for 90 percent of its songs and 200 yen for the other 10 percent, undercutting some existing services such as Sony's Mora, which charges 210 yen per song.

At least 15 Japanese companies including Avex Group Holdings will provide music for the iTunes store, Apple said. Columbia Music Entertainment said it would also provide songs.

The newspaper reports that Apple has sold about 22 million iPods since their introduction in October 2001, making it by far the most widely used digital music player in a market research firm In-Stat expects to nearly quadruple to 104 million units a year by 2009.

Apple controls about three-quarters of the US market for digital music players and has a top market share of about 36 percent in Japan, although Sony has started to make some inroads in its home market with a popular flash memory device, reports the NYT.

Napster's net loss widens

Napster, the online music provider, has posted a wider quarterly loss but beat Wall Street estimates through improved gross margins and subscriber growth.

The New York Times reports (4 August) that Napster posted a net loss of US$19.9 million, or 46 cents a share, versus a net loss of US$2.6 million, or 8 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue in the period, which ended 30 June, grew 167 percent, to US$21 million.
Yahoo introduces search service for music

Yahoo has introduced a test version of a new search service that it claims can comb through 50 million music, voice and other audio files.

The New York Times reports (4 August) that Yahoo is hardly the first search engine to offer audio search. Lycos, Singingfish from AOL and even AltaVista, which Yahoo bought, offer search engines that can seek out audio files.

The newspaper reports that Yahoo says its service, which is available at audio.search.yahoo.com, goes beyond the others. It will have one section that, like the other sites, maintains a broad index of audio files found by visiting millions of web sites. It has a second section devoted to specialised search for music and a third devoted to podcasts, the emerging form of radiolike programs offered on a regular basis.

Yahoo's music search service will let users find web sites, news and photos of artists, as well as information about albums and songs. It takes information from Yahoo's own music service to organize the results.

The NYT says the service will also display links to the online sites where users can pay to download a song, and most major music sites have agreed to send Yahoo lists of their songs and pay a commission

Regulators back Sprint's deal to buy Nextel for US$35 billion

Federal regulators have signed off on the Sprint Corporation's acquisition of Nextel Communications, paving the way for an expansion of the US's third-largest mobile phone company behind Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless.

The New York Times reports (4 August) that the approvals from the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission come eight months after the companies agreed to merge in a deal worth US$35 billion. The Sprint-Nextel union also comes less than a year after Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless to create the country's largest carrier, and Alltel bought Western Wireless.

The newspaper reports that antitrust regulators at the Justice Department said the combined company would not diminish competition and, unlike the Cingular and Alltel deals, the parties would not have to sell any assets.

Regulators from both agencies said that Sprint and Nextel, which will own a wide swath of spectrum that can be used for next-generation high-speed wireless services, would have the tools "to provide alternatives for customers of the merging parties."

The NYT reports that the combined company will have about 44.6 million subscribers and trail Cingular and Verizon Wireless, which each have about 50 million customers. T-Mobile is the fourth-largest wireless carrier.

Advertising.com settles FTC adware charges

Advertising.com, a unit of Time Warner's America Online, has agreed to settle federal charges that the company offered free security software without adequately disclosing that it also came with adware.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (3 August) that under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Advertising.com will be required to ''clearly and prominently'' disclose that consumers who install the program, SpyBlast, will receive pop-up ads based on their internet browsing habits.

The AP report says that the settlement also requires that Advertising.com comply with standard record-keeping and other provisions to allow the FTC to monitor compliance with the order. The proposed consent order doesn't cover AOL, which bought Advertising.com for US$435 million in 2004.

The FTC complaint charged that when consumers installed SpyBlast -- a software intended to protect against hackers -- they were not required to read the agreement alerting users about receiving potential marketing messages.

The AP/NYT report says that adware and spyware have become major nuisances for consumers. Both types of programs typically are installed with little or no disclosure. While adware is less dangerous than spyware, consumers complain adware programs bombard them with pop-up ads, slow their computers and are hard to remove.

Technology 'optimists' turn off TV - study

Broadband internet surfers in North America watch two fewer hours of television per week than do those without internet access, while those using a dial-up connection watch 1.5 fewer hours of TV.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (3 August) that the data come from a Forrester Research study just released that uses what it calls the longest-running survey of its kind, counting nearly 69,000 people in the US and Canada as participants.

The report says that Broadband internet users watch just 12 hours of TV per week, compared with 14 hours for those who are offline, according to the study, ``The State of Consumers and Technology: Benchmark 2005.''

Forrester also predicts that the number of broadband households in the US, which already soared to 31 million at the end of last year from 2.6 million in 1999, will swell to 71.4 million by 2010.

While newspapers and magazines also suffer a bit from internet competition, radio and video games do not, the study concludes.

The Reuters/NYT report says the study showed that, experiencing the most rapid growth might be digital video recorders, which will be in 42.7 million US households in 2010, up from 6.2 million at the end of last year.

In the same time frame, DVD recorders will go to 56 million from 12.1 million; MP3 players to 40.1 million from 10.8 million; DVD players to 102.9 million from 76.2 million; and video game consoles to 48.8 million from 40.1 million.

Chinese cyber-dissident jailed

A Chinese cyber-dissident has been jailed for five years for posting essays and reports - including the lyrics of a punk song - on the net.

The Register reports (3 July) that Zhang Lin has been behind bars since January this year for posting material which authorities described as "contrary to the bases of the constitution".

A court in Benghu in Anhui province, west of Shanghai, jailed him last week for "violating national security" because he "jeopardised national unity and territorial sovereignty, spread lies and disturbed public order and social stability".

The Register reports that international media rights group Reports Without Borders said it was outraged at the decision and called for his immediate release.

News of this latest crackdown comes as China last month confirmed plans to establish "a long-term mechanism" to monitor internet cafes, which are visited by some 40 million people a day.

The publication says that over the last couple of years China has closed thousands of net cafes amid fears that they can affect the "mental health of teenagers" while spreading "unhealthy online information".

AOL continues to lose subscribers

Almost a million subscribers deserted Americal Online (AOL) over the last three months as the giant ISP continues to lose customers.

The Register reports (4 August) that, as of the end of June, AOL had 20.8 million punters in the US - down 917,000 on Q1 and a massive slump of 2.6 million compared to the same period last year.

In Europe, AOL also lost customers although not to the same extent as in the US. At the end of June AOL Europe, which includes the UK, Germany and France, had 6.2 million users - down 99,000 from the previous quarter and dipping 80,000 compared to last year.

The Registyer says that the drop in numbers also hit revenues with takings from subscriptions down 9 per cent (US$168m). And although ad revenues jumped 45 per cent, overall revenues in the three months to June fell 4 per cent (US$80m) to US$2.1billion.

UK report: 2m mobiles on the blink last year

One in seven mobile phone handsets goes wrong within a year, according to UK consumer watchdog Which?.

The Register reports (4 August) that, if the survey of some 5,000 punters is anywhere near accurate, it means that at least two million of the 18 million phones sold in the UK last year could have developed faults.

And the worst offender, according to Which?, is 3G network operator 3 with one in three of its handsets developing a snag within 12 months.

But, The Register reports that, hitting back, a spokewoman for 3 rubbished the survey saying that it just wasn't representative. "Which? only spoke to 50 of our customers out of a customer base of three million," she told the publication.

According to The Register, the survey also found that Motorola and Sony Ericsson handsets were most likely to go wrong with around a fifth of owners reporting faults.

Nokia and Samsung were the most reliable, although one in ten users still had faulty phones, said the survey.

Oracle buys US$900m stake in Indian software leader

Oracle Corporation has said that it will buy a majority stake in i-flex solutions, India's biggest software company, to gain a more focused array of banking programs. The deal could be worth as much as US$909 million.

The New York Times reports (3 August) that I-flex solutions, based in Mumbai, is the world's leading seller of banking software. The sale is expected to close by the end of the year.

Oracle's purchase would include a 41 percent stake owned by Citigroup Venture Capital and up to another 20 percent stake from public shareholders.

The newspaper says that, after regulatory approval, Oracle is required under Indian law to make an open public bid for a further 20 percent stake of the company. About 39 percent of the company's stock is publicly traded.

Oracle, the software giant, and i-flex have collaborated in the last decade, but the new alliance is expected to combine the market reach of Oracle with the banking software expertise of i-flex.

The NYT report says that I-flex employs 5,500 people and has nearly 600 banking customers in 115 countries. Besides Citigroup, main customers of i-flex include UBS Securities, General Electric Capital and Deutsche Bank.

Mozilla goes for faster growth for browser

The Mozilla Foundation, developer of the Firefox web browser, is set to announce that it has created a for-profit subsidiary to pursue wider potential for the software.

The New York Times reports (3 August) that, since it was introduced in November of last year, Firefox has steadily gained market share in competition with Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer. Some industry analysts estimate that Firefox is used by as many as 10 percent of all those online. The Mozilla Foundation says more than 75 million copies have been downloaded.

The newspaper says that security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer have been blamed in part for an explosion of viruses and spyware, prompting some computer users to abandon it.

Foundation executives say they want to help Firefox gain greater use. That will require offering service and support at a fee, which are beyond the scope of the original nonprofit organisation, they say.

The NHt report says that most of the roughly 40 employees of the Mozilla Foundation will shift to the corporation, but the operations of the Mozilla project, which develops Firefox, will be unchanged. It is working on Version 1.5 of Firefox, scheduled for release this (US) fall.

Yahoo tests ads on blog sites

Yahoo is testing a system that will let it place ads on web sites of bloggers and other small- and medium-size publishers, a market that was created and is dominated by Google.

The New York Times reports (3 August) that Yahoo will invite 2,000 sites to take part in the test, beginning today, and will open the system to blogs and other publishers by the end of the year.

The newspaper says that both Google and Yahoo have hundreds of thousands of advertisers who bid to associate their small text advertisements with certain terms on internet searches. Two years ago, Google reached out to publishers - mainstream media companies and bloggers alike - with technology that can analyse the content on a given page to select related ads.

The report says that Yahoo has a much smaller program, working with a few hundred sites like CNN.com. Yahoo says its new small-site service will let a web site specify what categories of advertising it does or does not want on a given page. Moreover, Yahoo will offer a telephone number that even small publishers can call for help, something that Google does not make readily available.

The NYT says that Yahoo appears to be focusing on a weakness in Google's offering for small publishers.

New mouse for Macs has multiple buttons

Apple Computer's neglect of the humble mouse is over. It now offers a model that's nimble, reports Associated Press in The New York Times (2 August).

The AP/NYT report says that Apple has introduced its first computer mouse with multiple buttons, including four sensors and a tiny scroll ball. Although a departure from the company's traditional mouse, the ''Mighty Mouse'' looks very similar to the single-button model Apple has long produce, AP says.

The AP report says that the most obvious difference is the relatively tiny scroll ball at the mouse's head, which can move cursors diagonally as well as up and down across display screens and can be pressed to ''click'' functions.

Rolling out a multi-button mouse eliminates another important difference between Macs and PCs, says AP, adding that, in May, Apple announced that it would cease using IBM processors in favor of Intel chips, which power most PCs.

Ask Jeeves launches advertising network

Backed by a new owner known for shaking up the status quo, Ask Jeeves is launching an upstart advertising network powered by its own search engine -- a move likely to rankle its longtime business partner, Google, Associated Press reports in The New York Times (1 August).

AP says that Ask Jeeves' marketing system follows the same model that has been generating tremendous profit growth for Google and another internet powerhouse, Yahoo, during the past three years.

The report says that the expansion heralds a new era for Ask Jeeves, a 9-year-old company that survived the dot-com bust to be acquired for US$2.3 billion by InterActiveCorp in a deal completed less than two weeks ago.

Universal Music still biggest, grabs more of US market

Universal Music grabbed more of the US market to widen its lead as the world's biggest record company in 2004 despite facing a rival of similar size for the first time, data released on Tuesday show.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (2 August) that annual statistics from the trade group for the world's record companies also reveal that music consumers have aged as the industry chases more older listeners after losing younger fans to file-sharing and illegal downloading.

The report says that about 55 percent of the music sold last year was bought by people older than 30 compared with 48 percent in 1999, the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry said.

More records are being sold in mass-market retailers such as Wal-Mart and Tesco, which cater to older customers, while teenagers are more prone to download songs, which are not counted in the industry statistics.

Reuters says in the NYT report thaat Sony BMG, which had 21.5 percent of the market, is a joint venture created last year by combining the recorded music divisions of Japan's Sony and German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

The group excludes Sony Music in Japan, the world's second-largest market, which IFPI now counts as an independent. That helped keep the worldwide indie market share flat at 28.4 percent.

According to Reuters, Universal grabbed a big chunk of North American market share from its three main rivals, jumping to 32.5 percent from 27.9 percent while Sony BMG's share in the world's largest region slipped to 24.9 percent from 27.6 percent.

Real's profitable quarter

Real Networks reported a profit of US$4.7 million on income of US$82.6 million in the quarter ending 30June 30, Q2 2005, up 26 per cent year on year.

The Register reports (3 August) that the result was helped along by the US$7.59 million sale of its investment in MusicNet, but even without the gain, it's close to break even. The company noted that long running antitrust litigation expenses cost it US$4.65 million in the quarter, an increase over Q1. Marketing its Rhapsody service cost US$6.5 million in the quarter.

The publication says that Real has 2 million subscribers, up from 1.55 million at the end of last year, and these subscribers contributed to more than half of its gross revenue, US$47.8m.

US: Comcast profit rises on digital tv and internet services

America's largest cable provider,the Comcast Corporation, has said that profits jumped 64 percent in the second quarter, buoyed by demand for digital television and high-speed internet services.

The New York Times reports (3 August) that the company, which has 21.4 million television subscribers, earned US$430 million, or 19 cents a share, in the quarter that ended 30 June, compared with US$262 million, or 12 cents a share, in the same period last year.

The newspaper says that Comcast is a bellwether for the industry, and like its rivals it has been trying to sign up more customers for digital television packages that provide high-definition programming, more channels and access to video-on-demand.

The report says it added a better-than-expected 284,000 digital television subscribers in the quarter. As a result, 9.1 million, or 43 percent, of its customers now have digital services. At the same time, Comcast lost 77,000 basic cable customers, about twice what analysts had expected.

The country's largest provider of high-speed Internet service with 7.7 million subscribers, Comcast added 297,000 broadband customers, which was slightly below analysts' forecasts.

The NYT said that total revenue grew 10.5 percent, to US$5.6 billion, in line with expectations of analysts. The company did not adjust its full-year targets.

BlackBerry ruling upheld

In the US, a federal appeals court has upheld most of a ruling that the BlackBerry e-mail pager by Research In Motion infringed patents, but delayed a judge's order that sales of the device in the United States be halted.

A Bloombergs News report in The New York Times (3 August) says that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington told Judge James R. Spencer of the United States District Court to rewrite a 2002 injunction to reflect decisions made on appeal.

The report says that the case stems from a lawsuit filed by NTP Inc., a closely held patent-licensing company, charging that the BlackBerry infringed NTP patents.

World chip sales slide

Global chip sales slipped again in June, falling half a percentage point sequentially to US$18 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has said.

The Register reports (2 August) that that's the same rate of descent seen in May. Then, though, sales were up four per cent year on year - in June they were up just 0.8 per cent over June 2004's total. Second quarter sales were down 2.1 per cent sequentially, from Q1's US$55.1 billion to US$53.9 billion.

The report says that for the first half of the year, semiconductor sales reached US$109 billion, up 6.5 per cent on H1 2004, the SIA said.

The publication says that in June, the organisation forecast full-year sales of US$226 billion, up six per cent on 2004's US$213 billion. Sales have to rise just 5.8 per cent year on year in H2 2005 in order to meet that target. The Register says that the SIA believes second-quarter growth will be stronger than first-quarter growth, so there's a good chance the market will deliver better full-year sales than the SIA currently expects.

According to the SIA, most major markets for semiconductors - including PCs, phones, cars and wired communications - saw unit sales substantially above expectations in the second quarter, reports The Register.

Yahoo to partner with CNN, ABC for video

In the US, ABC News and CNN.com plan to start providing video news feeds to Yahoo's news site, the companies have announced. CNN.com will offer daily video clips and ABC will offer on-demand video content, Yahoo officials said in a statement.

The Associated Press report in The New York Times (1 August) says that video will be available for free to Yahoo users and supported by advertising.

Yahoo told AP that it intends to integrate video from both ABC News and CNN.com throughout its new site, both on the front page and within story pages.

UK IT workers in demand

Demand for IT workers in the UK continues to rise according to the latest figures from recruitment outfit CWJobs.co.uk, reports The Register (2 August).

The Register report says that the number of permanent jobs on offer between March and June (Q2) rose 2.5 per cent compared to the previous three months although this rate of growth has slowed since last year.

IT contractors are also in demand, with the CWJobs/SSL quarterly IT skills index reporting a 5.6 per cent spike in vacancies during Q2, marking the tenth consecutive quarter that the total number of IT contractor jobs on offer in the UK has risen, says The Register.

CWJobs.co.uk said that the industry witnessed a very cautious start to 2005 yet, in general, the results demonstrated an increase in confidence throughout most sectors during the second quarter.

Intel to build DRAM units into desktop, mobile CPUs?

Intel is to follow AMD's lead and integrate memory controllers into its microprocessors, market watcher In-Stat has forecast, according to a report in The Register (1 August).

By 2009, says The Register, AMD reckons, 70 per cent of all x86 processors shipping will have their own memory controller.

The Register says that right now, the number's under 20 per cent, each one an AMD chip. Indeed, that figure roughly matches AMD's market share. It's possible to see AMD increasing its market share considerably, but not to the extent that Athlon, Opteron and Sempron processors will command 70 per cent of the x86 market, says the publication.

The Register says that more likely, then, that Intel will get in on the act. It's already known to be moving in that direction. Specifically, it's believed to be planning to equip future Xeon and Itanium processors with memory controllers, the better to enable a single chipset platform that can cope with both families of processors.

According to the publication, In-Stat's forecast comes in a look at the chipset market between now and 2009, at which point the segment will be worth US$10.3billionn, from US$6.9 billion today.

The researcher forecasts a contraction in the Intel side of the market as the chip giant pursues its 'platforms not processors' strategy, while the AMD chipset 'ecosystem' will grow, says The Register.

Cisco vulnerability fix

Cisco last week urged users of its networking kit to upgrade their software following the discovery of a vulnerability that might be exploited to launch denial of service attacks, reports The Register (1 August).

The Register says that the networking giant warned that malicious insiders could crash vulnerable systems running its Internetwork Operating System (IOS) software using maliciously crafted IPv6 packets.

The report in The Register says that malign packets would need to be sent from the same local network segment as targeted devices, which need to be configured to process IPv6 traffic, increasing the difficulty of mounting a successful attack. But, says the publ;ication,if these barriers are overcome compromised devices may be open to further exploitation, Cisco warns in an advisory. Security notification service Secunia rates the alert as "moderately critical".

EU Commission promises alternative data retention plan

The European Commission says it will have a draft directive for data retention laws in Europe on the table by September, but early versions are already circulating among interested parties.

The Register reports (1 August) that the lobby group European Digital Rights (EDRi), says that according to a draft it has seen, companies will be required to retain telephone data for one year, and internet data for just six months.

Both periods are significantly lower than the three years suggested in the proposal, known as a draft Framework Decision, put forward by the UK, with backing from Ireland, Sweden and France, says The register.

The publication says that the European Commission's rival proposal would need the backing of the European Parliament, and the Council of ministers if it is to become law, while the draft Framework Decision only needs the approval of Council of Ministers. However, it has been declared illegal and MEPs have threatened to take Ministers to the European Courts of Justice, if they continue to push the draft through.

The Register reports that a European Commission spokesman said that the Commission's proposal would balance the need for data protection with the provision of adequate powers for law enforcement agencies to trace and track communications.

Novell moves for sudden death in SCO case

The Register reports (2 August) that Novell has bustled a request for judgement in front of the Utah Judge responsible for hearing its defense against SCO's copyright suit. It puts the controversial question of who owns the Unix copyrights foursquare, and is well armed enough, it hopes, to deliver a knock out blow, claims the publication.

According to the report in The Register, SCO bought Unix and UnixWare in 1995 for US$100 million, and believes it also acquired 106 Unix-related copyrights as part of the deal. These were listed in a subsequent amendment, Amendment No.2. Novell denies the copyrights were transferred, and was sued by SCO in a Slander of Title Suit in January 2004. Novell has consistently denied SCO was in a legitimate position to bring this case.

Without the copyrights, much of SCO's legal claims fall apart. As SCO itself argues in its most recent Amended Complaint:

The Register says it also brings into question the legitimacy of licensing deals SCO struck with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. Novell has at last filed to have these examined and throw out - with prejudice.

Nokia names insider to succeed chief

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone company, put an end to succession questions on Monday when it named one of its top executives, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, to replace its longtime chief, Jorma Ollila, reports The New York Times (2 August).

Te newspaper reports that Mr. Kallasvuo, 52, is currently the head of Nokia's biggest group, the mobile phone business. He will become president and chief operating officer of the entire company in October, and chief executive in June 2006, the company said in a statement. A 25-year Nokia veteran and former chief financial officer, Mr. Kallasvuo has helped shore up the company's faltering market share since he took over the mobile phone business in January of last year, the NYT adds.

According to the NYT, Mr. Kallasvuo will be stepping into the shoes of one of the most influential executives in the mobile phone industry. Mr. Ollila, 54, has been Nokia's chief executive for 13 years and is credited with building the company from an electronics and consumer products manufacturer to a mobile phone giant by introducing phones at low cost.

The report says that by some measures, Nokia's position in the market is improving. The company consistently increased market share for the last three quarters of 2004, to 33 percent of all phones sold by year-end. But in the first quarter of 2005, that market share dipped to 30.4 percent before increasing again in the second quarter.

RadioShack's US wireless deals

In the US, the RadioShack Corporation has announced new long-term partnerships with the Sprint Corporation and Cingular Wireless to sell wireless telephones and service, setting off a 14 percent gain in RadioShack's share price.

A Dow Jones/Associated Press report in The New York Times (2 August) says that RadioShack said Cingular cellphones would replace those from Verizon Communications at RadioShack's stores in the United States starting next year under a 10-year contract.

Cingular is a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth.

The report by the newspapers says that, in addition, RadioShack said it had signed an 11-year extension on a contract with Sprint. The contract had been scheduled to expire next year.

NCR fills CEO vacancy

The NCR Corporation, a maker of electronic devices like automated teller machines, has named William R. Nuti of Symbol Technologies as chief executive to succeed Mark V. Hurd, who left in March to run the Hewlett-Packard Company.

A Bloomberg News report in The New York Times (2 August) says that Mr. Nuti, 41, will join NCR next Monday, taking over from the chairman, James M. Ringler, who served as interim chief executive. Mr. Nuti has led Symbol Technologies as chief executive since December 2003 and worked earlier at Cisco Systems.

Symbol Technologies, a maker of bar code scanners, reported yesterday that it had a US$30.5 million second-quarter loss.

The Bloombergs/NYT report says that Mr. Nuti took over at Symbol Technologies during an investigation of the company's 2000 to 2001 results by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department. He joined Symbol Technologies in July 2002, a month before the company disclosed the investigation. In June 2004, Symbol Technologies agreed to pay US$138 million to settle the case.

China search engine Baidu.com set for IPO

Baidu.com takes its name from a 900-year-old poem but its ambitions are ultramodern -- to become the Chinese-language equivalent of Internet search giant Google, reportas Assocviatred Press in The New York Times (31 July).

The AP report says that the little known abroad, 5-year-old Baidu.com says it already is the world's sixth most-visited internet site, thanks to a strong following from China's 100 million-plus web surfers.

Now the startup founded by two Chinese veterans of American tech firms is preparing to follow Google's example with an initial public offering in the United States, hoping to raise US$45 million.

The AP/NYT report says that Baidu.com is in the front ranks of an emerging group of Chinese companies that are trying to create internet services uniquely suited to their country's ideogram-based language and the political restrictions of its communist government

Baidu.com was founded in 2000 by Robin Li, who earned a master's degree in computer science from the State University of New York at Buffalo and worked for US search engine firm Infoseek, and Eric Xu, a Ph.D. from Texas A&M and a veteran of American biotech firms.

AP says that Google bought 2.6 percent of Baidu.com last year in a move that outsiders thought might lead to the American giant taking over the tiny Chinese startup. But Baidu.com has stayed independent.

Rating system will evaluate free software

Free software, despite the price, can be confusing and costly for corporations to use. A few freely distributed programs, like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server, have become well known, but most are still unproved, according to a report in The New York Times (1 August).

The newspaper says that companies often have to do their own testing and tweaking to see if such open-source programs - free software available for programmers to modify or enhance - work reliably. That obstacle has slowed the software's advance.

The NYT reports that to address the problem, Carnegie Mellon University, Intel and SpikeSource, a company that supports and tests corporate open-source projects, have devised a rating system intended to reduce confusion and guesswork in evaluating such software. The initiative, Business Readiness Ratings, is about to be announced at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland.

Acording to the newspaper's report, the rating system, the sponsors say, will employ an open-source model with scores determined by those who use certain programs and contribute their judgments. The idea can be seen as a software version of the Zagat survey of restaurants - rankings determined by customers.

The NYT says that the rating system has 12 categories, including functionality, usability, quality, security, documentation and technical support. Each category is to be rated 1 to 5. There will also be filtering tools so a potential corporate user can specify its most important considerations.

The planned rating system will be described at www.openbrr.org, a site to be created Monday for the purpose of gathering comments, the NYT reports.

Oakley sunglasses goes digital to lure gadget users

Oakley is jumping into the electronic age with sunglasses that play music and work with cell phones as it targets gadget lovers who want more than just protection from the sun.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (1 August) that the sports sunglasses maker plans in August to introduce its phone-ready ``Razrwire'' line, which works as a hands-free addition for Motorola's popular Razr cell phones and marks the company's latest push into electronics as a way to move into new markets.

The report says that Razrwire follows the success of the digital music-playing Thump sunglasses, which have pumped up Oakley's profits since they were introduced last year and helped drive the company's current stock price to near a three-year high.

Oakley executives say they are confident Thump and Razrwire sunglasses, which let people receive calls and dial by voice at up to 30 feet from a compatible host cell phone, are the first of many electronic styles.

Oakley, founded in 1975 and based in California, made its reputation as a sunglasses maker. But it has branched out into clothes, shoes, watches and other eyewear, reports the NYT.

The newspaper says that the company is also using the electronic products to get into stores that do not typically carry sunglasses, according to a company spokesman.

In the US, Cingular Wireless stores will sell the Razrwire line in early August for US$294.99 while retailers such as Circuit City and CompUSA carry Thump sunglasses, which run US$395 to US$545.

The newspaper says the company expects Razrwire to build on the success of Thump, which during the last holiday season generated total sales of US$20 million -- an amount that exceeded expectations.

New file-sharing techniques likely to test court decision

Briefly buoyed by their Supreme Court victory on file sharing, Hollywood and the recording industry are on the verge of confronting more technically sophisticated opponents, according to a report in The New York Times (1 August).

The newspaper says that at a computer security conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, an Irish software designer described a new version of a peer-to-peer file-sharing system that he says will make it easier to share digital information anonymously and make detection by corporations and governments far more difficult.

The NYT also reports that others have described similar efforts to build a so-called darknet that aims to shield the identities of those sharing information. The issue is complicated by the fact that the small group of technologists designing the new systems say their goal is to create tools to circumvent censorship and political repression - not to abet copyright violation.

The newspaper says that such a stand is certain to test the impact of the Supreme Court ruling in June against Grokster and StreamCast Networks, publishers of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, a number of legal specialists and industry executives said. The court ruled unanimously that the publishers could be held liable for the copyright infringement that their software enabled in the sharing of pirated movies and music.

Industry executives acknowledge that even with their Supreme Court victory, peer-to-peer technology will continue to be a factor in illicit online trading.

The NYT says that to join a darknet, a potential user must be trusted by one of the existing members. Thus such networks grow as part of a "web of trust," and are far more restricted than open systems.

As the legal consequences for file sharing become clearer, there will be a proliferation of systems with features similar to Freenet, according to a range of industry specialists, reports the newspaper.

Ask Jeeves launches advertising network

Backed by a new owner known for shaking up the status quo, Ask Jeeves is launching an upstart advertising network powered by its own search engine -- a move likely to rankle its longtime business partner, Google, according to an Associated Press report in The New York Times (1 August).

The Reuters/NYT report says that Ask Jeeves' marketing system, scheduled to debut today in the US, follows the same model that has been generating tremendous profit growth for Google and another internet powerhouse, Yahoo, during the past three years.

The report says that the expansion heralds a new era for Ask Jeeves, a 9-year-old company that survived the dot-com bust to be acquired for US$2.3 billion by InterActiveCorp in a deal completed less than two weeks ago.

New York-based IAC is controlled by iconoclastic media mogul Barry Diller, who defied skeptics nearly 20 years ago when he orchestrated the successful launch of a fourth broadcast television network at Fox.

AP says that now Ask Jeeves is invading territory that so far has been dominated by the makers of the web's two most popular search engines -- Google and Yahoo. Microsoft also hopes to grab a piece of the action with a similar advertising network revolving around its MSN.com site.

The report says that the paid search concept has mushroomed into an estimated US$5.4 billion industry, accounting for about 42 percent of the US$12.9 billion that advertisers are expected to spend on the internet this year, according to eMarketer, a research firm.

The AP/NYT report says that Google accounted for roughly 70 percent of Ask Jeeves' revenue of US$261 million last year.

In June, Google held a 36.9 percent share of the U. search engine network followed by Yahoo 30.4 percent, according to comScore Networks. Ask Jeeves stood in fifth place with a 6 percent market share, reports AP in the NYT.

Internet ad pioneer now shunning pop-ups

A pioneer of software that tailors pop-up ads to internet users' browsing habits is beginning to shun a practice that has invited much derision and plenty of lawsuits. A new service Claria is launching this month will still deliver advertising to the computer desktops of Web surfers. Only this time, they won't be annoying pop-ups, reports Associated Press in The Mercury News (31 July).

The AP/Mercurty News report says that So-called personalisation - targeting surfers with ads based on their online outings and errands - was always Claria's goal, says its co-founder and chief executive, Jeff McFadden.

The AP report says that pop-ups delivered via adware, which is often criticised as sneaky in its installation, were merely a stepping stone as Claria waited for the technology to improve and the behavioral-targeting market to ripen, he said.

The report says that some might consider that an understatement from the head of a company whose name has become synonymous with adware, which many consider a cyberparasite or worse.

AP says that the New York Times Company and L.L. Bean are among businesses that have sued Claria for delivering pop-up ads that they said subverted paid advertising or lured visitors to rivals. Claria even changed its name in 2003 from Gator, though the company insists it wasn't a response to mounting criticism.

According to AP, many of Claria's critics remain skeptical. Claria's new services will still require a software download "just like the old Claria software," said Ben Edelman, a Harvard University student who specialises in spyware research.

AP reports that the Interactive Advertising Bureau says pop-ups peaked at 6 percent of all online advertising two years ago and have been declining since. America Online stopped selling pop-up ads in 2002, and most web browsers now block them.

Even so, Claria claims it commanded 20 percent of the adware market with US$100 million in revenues last year, mostly from pop-ups delivered through software on some 40 million computer desktops, repoprts AP in The Mercury News.

HP ends deal With Apple to sell iPod

Hewlett-Packard announced in January 2004 that it would begin selling Apple's digital music player, the iPod, in a deal that was cast as a major step forward for both companies.

However, The New York Times reports (30 July) that earlier this week, Hewlett-Packard quietly retreated from that deal when it informed Apple it would stop selling the iPod. A spokeswoman for Apple suggested that the move hardly mattered given how minor a role Hewlett has played in the spreading popularity of the iPod.

The newspaper reports that in the quarter that ended 30 June, Apple sold 6.16 million iPods, said Katie Cotton, a spokeswoman for Apple. Hewlett sold fewer than 500,000 units during that three-month period, Ms. Cotton said, accounting for just under 8 percent of all iPods sold that quarter.

A spokesman for HP said that the company determined that reselling the iPod did not fit within its current digital entertainment strategy.

The  NYT says that the decision, four months into the tenure of Mark V. Hurd, the company's chief executive, represents the pulling of the plug on yet another program begun by Carleton S. Fiorina, the former chief executive who was fired by the board in February.

One HPinsider, who declined to be named given the company's decision to limit its public comments on the move, said that it was difficult for the company to earn profits on its iPod sales given the terms of the deal hammered out by Ms. Fiorina.

The newspaper reports that HP will continue to include software on its PC's that allows users to click on an icon to access Apple's iTunes online music store. And HPwill continue to sell high-definition televisions and media center PC's, among other products.

The Register reports (30 July) that Google's astronomical growth is founded on embedding targeted advertisements into web pages, and last year it launched a mail service that incorporated the same concept. So extending the format to RSS feeds, which rose from the ashes of the 1990s "Push" hype, is no great leap.

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Test version of Windows Vista released

Microsoft released the first major test version of the Windows Vista operating system on Wednesday, giving a limited number of programmers and technology professionals the opportunity to test drive the highly awaited -- and much delayed -- program.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (28 July) that the ''Beta 1'' of Windows Vista, formerly code-named Longhorn, was being delivered to more than 10,000 developers and others who will test the software and provide feedback. It's the successor to Windows XP, which launched in October 2001.

The AP report says that the beta version does not have all the features that will be in the final product scheduled to hit store shelves in late 2006. Rather, it focuses on fundamentals such as security and overall manageability. It includes new user account protection so that users are given only the privileges required to do their work. This mirrors a similar security scheme used by Apple Computer's Mac OS X and the Linux operating system.

The beta also includes data protection technology that is expected to reduce the risk that data can be viewed by unauthorised users -- even if it's on a stolen or lost laptop. The technology relies on encryption keys stored in a specialised chip, says AP.

AP says that it also ships with Internet Explorer 7 -- an update to Microsoft's ubiquitous web browser that will include protection from malicious Web sites and viruses.

Vista also comes with an outgoing firewall, as well as incoming filtering. Windows XP and Service Pack 2, a major security upgrade released last summer, only have in incoming firewall.

Microsoft also said the test version includes numerous performance improvements, including faster startup and an improved ''sleep'' state that combines Windows XP's standby and hibernate modes.

Teens using internet in record numbers

A new survey says that the internet has all but saturated the youth market.

The report compiled for the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that nearly nine out of 10 young people, ages 12 through 17, have online access -- up from about three-quarters of young people in 2000.

By comparison, about 66 percent of American adults now use the internet.

AP says the survey, completed in late 2004, included responses from 1,100 young people who were contacted randomly by phone. It has a margin of error of four percentage points. Its findings included the following:

-- Of those surveyed, 87 percent said they use the internet. About half of the young people who have online access say they go on the internet every day, up from 42 percent in 2000.

-- Three-quarters of wired teens use instant message, compared with 42 percent of online adults who do so. Teens most often reserve IMing for friends and e-mail for adults, including parents and teachers.

-- About half of families with teens who have an internet connection have speedier broadband access, while the other half still use phone lines to connect.

-- Nearly a third of teens who use IM have used it to send a music or video file.

-- While 45 percent of those surveyed have cell phones, those phones aren't necessarily the preferred mode of communication. Given a choice, about half of online teens still use land lines to call friends, while about a quarter prefer IMing and 12 percent say they'd rather call a friend on a cell phone.

-- Older teen girls who were surveyed, ages 15 to 17, are among the most intense users of the internet and cell phones, including text messaging.

Email is for older people, teens say in survey

E-mail is for grown-ups and US teenagers now prefer instant messaging to communicate with each other online, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (27 July) that internet users from 12 to 17 years old say e-mail is best for talking to parents or institutions, but they are more likely to fire up IM when talking with each other, the nonprofit Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

The report says that e-mail is still used by 90 percent of online teens. But the survey found greater enthusiasm for instant messaging.

Three-quarters of teen internet users use instant messaging, compared with 42 percent of adults, Pew said. Nearly half of teens said they exchanged IMs daily, and some said they spent more than two hours each day using instant-messenger programs.

Reuters says the report showed that half or nearly half of the 1,100 teenagers surveyed said they used IM to send web links or photos to each other, while nearly one-third said they had sent music or video clips over IM. Adults were much less likely to do any of those things, the survey found.

Nearly nine out of 10 teenagers say they use the internet, up from 74 percent in 2000. Those are who still not online are likely to be so poor that they have limited access to technology, the survey found, and are disproportionately black.

PGP inventor to encrypt net calls

The creator of a well-known tool for keeping e-mail safe from prying eyes is now working on a program that he says will help stop eavesdroppers from listening in on internet-based phone calls.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (27 July) that Phil Zimmermann, who created the Pretty Good Privacy program for encrypting e-mail traffic, planned to demonstrate a prototype of his Voice over Internet Protocol security program Thursday during the Black Hat Briefings security conference in Las Vegas.

Most internet-based phone calls are sent unscrambled, meaning it's possible for anyone to intercept the traffic and eavesdrop. Zimmermann's application scrambles the data until it reaches its destination. The recipient must be running a program using the same protocols.

According to AP, Zimmermann said the program should be ready for broad deployment within a year. He said he will make the underlying code available for peer review, though he has not yet decided on whether he will make it available as a formal open-source project.

The report says that Zimmermann's e-mail software was released for free on the internet in 1991. Federal prosecutors launched a three-year probe into whether he had violated export restrictions on cryptographic software, but the investigation was dropped without any charges being filed.

Sharp Q1 profit gain, Outlook unchanged

Japan's Sharp Corporation has reported a 0.5 percent rise in operating profit for the April-June quarter on Wednesday as strong sales of liquid crystal display TVs offset sliding flash memory chip prices.

It kept its forecast for full-year profit to grow 6 percent.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (27 July) that rival Sanyo Electric fared much worse, posting an operating loss on a slump in its semiconductor division, still struggling to recover after a major earthquake damaged a chip factory late last year.

The report says that Sharp, as the world's largest maker of LCD televisions, is in prime position to profit as consumers trade in bulky tube TVs for flat screen models. It expects the global LCD TV market to nearly double in the year to next March to 15 million units.

According to AP, Osaka-based Sharp said group operating profit was 35.6 billion yen (US$316.6 million) in April-June compared with a profit of 35.4 billion yen in the same quarter last year. Sales rose 2.5 percent to 616.36 billion yen.

That narrowly beat the market consensus of 35.3 billion yen, according to a poll of eight analysts by Reuters Estimates.

The AP report says that Sharp's results are seen comparing favorably with earnings at larger rival Sony, which is expected to announce a big drop in quarterly profit or even post an operating loss when it reports on Thursday.

According to AP, one reason for the difference is that Sony has until recently bought all its panels for LCD TVs from other firms. Sharp makes all its panels in-house, enabling it to better control costs and weather steep price falls.

But Sharp has been hurt by sliding prices of flash memory chips used in digital cameras and cellphones, and by weak demand for image sensor chips. Analysts have also warned of weaker-than-anticipated sales of small and mid-sized LCD panels for mobile phones and portable game machines, such as Sony's new PlayStation Portable device.

Yahoo wooing IBM technical talent

Yahoo plans to announce that it is recruiting scientists who pioneered an advanced search-engine technology at IBM's Silicon Valley research laboratory.

The New York Times reports (28 Jly) that, beginning in the mid-1990's, the researchers at IBM spent several years developing an internet search engine, called Clever, employing a series of algorithms to improve the quality of the retrieval results. While that project has concluded, the IBM researchers have continued other work in the field.

Prabhakar Raghavan, a computer scientist who once led the Clever effort, joined Yahoo last week as head of research. He left IBM in 2000 to become a vice president and chief scientist at Verity, a maker of search and retrieval software for corporations; he was later named chief technical officer.

According to the newspaper, Yahoo said that another search-technology researcher, Andrew Tomkins, had recently been landed from IBM, and that negotiations were under way with several others there. Yahoo executives said they expected more hiring.

With the defection of a prominent computer scientist, Kai-Fu Lee, from Microsoft to Google last week, the Yahoo recruiting is part of a rush of interest among search engine firms in acquiring research talent that will provide an edge in developing a new generation of search technology.

The NYT says that Yahoo offers one of the best opportunities to explore new ideas in search, Mr. Raghavan said. He said some of the IBM research was protected intellectual property, but added that there were many avenues still to be pursued.

Profit up at software firm

Computer Associates International has said that its first-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by acquisitions and tax credits, but the pace of new deals slowed and the company said it would cut 800 more jobs to reduce costs.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (28 July) that the company said it expected the job cuts, which represent about 5 percent of its work force, to generate savings of US$75 million a year. The latest cuts are in addition to 800 job reductions announced in September.

According to the report, Software for mainframes, or large computers that manage corporate systems, is one of Computer Associates' central businesses, but customers put purchases on hold in the quarter as they waited for IBM to upgrade its mainframes. IBM announced an upgrade earlier this week.

The company's first-quarter profit was US$94 million, or 15 cents a share, up from US$40 million, or 7 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose by 8 percent to US$920 million, reports Reuters in the NYT.

Ford CEO Bill Ford joins eBay board

EBay, operator of the world's largest web marketplace, said on Wednesday that Ford Motor Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford has joined its board of directors, effective immediately.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (28 July) that California-based eBay, best known for its online auctions, gets ample revenue from sales of used cars.

Google: Microsoft lawsuit is a 'charade'

In a simmering legal tussle, Google is asking a judge to reject Microsoft's bid to keep a prized research engineer from taking a job at the internet search company, saying the software titan filed its lawsuit to frighten other workers from defecting.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (27 July) that Microsoft sued Kai-Fu Lee, one of its former executives, and Google last week, claiming that by taking the Google job, Lee was violating an agreement he signed in 2000 barring him from working for a direct competitor in an area that overlapped with his role at Microsoft.

''This lawsuit is a charade,'' Google said in court documents filed before a Wednesday hearing in Seattle. ''Indeed, Microsoft executives admitted to Lee that their real intent was to scare other Microsoft employees into remaining at the company.''

AP reports that Google countersued last week, seeking to override Microsoft's noncompete provision so it can retain Lee.

Google's filings include details about a conversation Lee had with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, suggesting that the software company is becoming increasingly concerned about Google siphoning away talent -- and perhaps intellectual property.

Lee claims that Google didn't recruit him and has not encouraged him to violate any agreement he had with Microsoft. Microsoft counters that Lee's job with Google gives him ample opportunity to leak sensitive technical and strategic business secrets.

The AP/NYT report says that Microsoft and Google, along with Yahoo, are locked in a fierce battle to dominate search, both online and through desktop search programs. Google has begun offering new services, including e-mail, that compete with Microsoft offerings.

Microsoft said it paid Lee well in exchange for his promises to honor confidentiality and noncompete agreements. The company said Lee made more than $3 million during nearly five years in Redmond, and that he earned more than $1 million last year.

Judges keep net obscenity law intact

A special three-judge federal panel has kept intact a federal law making it a crime to send obscenity over the internet.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (27 July) that although obscenity is already illegal, what counts as obscenity can vary from community to community. Thus, the 1996 Communications Decency Act was challenged on grounds it is overly broad such that it can ban materials that are obscene in some communities but not others, violating First Amendment protections.

AP says that a judge from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and two district judges ruled that the plaintiffs had provided insufficient evidence to prove the law was unconstitutional.

The report says that the US Supreme Court has struck down a provision of the 1996 law that made it a crime to put adult-oriented material online where children can find it. The high court ruled that the law was too vague and trampled on adults' rights.

Studios agree on digital cinema specs

After three years of study, Hollywood studios have agreed on a technical specification to deliver digital movies to theaters.

The big question now is: Who will pay for it,questions an Associated Press report in The New York Times (27 July).

The report says that digital cinema promises crisper, clearer films for theatergoers. A digital ''print'' of a film is pristine no matter how many times it is shown, unlike traditional 35mm film prints, which develop pops, crackles and other blemishes over time.

The report also says that going digital also promises millions of dollars in savings for the studios, which would no longer have to make and distribute the costly prints.

Digital Cinema Initiatives, a joint venture created by studios, said Wednesday that it had completed final requirements and specifications that can now be used by equipment makers to manufacture compatible systems. A uniform specification levels the playing field for manufacturers, which should encourage competition and make the systems more affordable, according to DCI.

Sun earnings beat forecasts, but sales continue to slip

Sun Microsystems has reported earnings that outpaced Wall Street expectations for the quarter. But the company's revenue continued to fall, indicating that the computer maker has yet to achieve a turnaround, reports The New York Times (27 July).

One of the highest fliers of the dot-com boom, Sun's revenue has collapsed in the last five years and it has been hunting for a path to growth while waiting for a rebound in demand among its biggest corporate customers, reports the newspaper.

Sun said that revenues were US$2.98 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter, a decrease of 4.3 percent from US$3.11 billion a year ago. Net income was US$121 million, or 4 cents a share, compared with US$783 million, or 23 cents a share, a year earlier. The 2004 quarter included US$1.6 billion in revenue from a legal settlement with Microsoft.

The NYT reports that the company generally avoided offering a forecast for the coming year, though Stephen McGowan, Sun's chief financial officer, said certain aspects would be challenging. He said the company planned to reduce its work force by 1,000, or about 3 percent, over the next year.

Several analysts said that Sun appeared to have made some progress toward ending its financial slide.

The NYT reported on the success the company had had in selling its new low-end computer server line, based on Advanced Micro Devices x86 microprocessors. The company said it had sold more than 50,000 of the low-end systems in the quarter, an increase of 170 percent from a year earlier. Over all, the company sold 331,000 server processors, a growth rate of only 7 percent.

The newspaper also reported that the company said it would announce a significant agreement with General Motors. The carmaker is planning to make Solaris and Java, Sun's software operating system and programming environment, the standards for its server computers.

India's tech boom sparks recruitment rush

India's software and business service industries, from computer coding and call centers to accounting, equity research and engineering design, are expected to grow 32 percent in the year to March 2006 from US$17.2 billion last year.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (26 July) that similar growth will follow in these industries' English-speaking workforce of 1 million.

Industry officials say services like retail and telecoms will create two million jobs in India in the next two years. At the job fairs, many of these positions will be offered on-the-spot, subject only to reference checks.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, demand for workers to fill temporary jobs in India's 60 million-strong telecom services industry is also huge, with large numbers often needed at short notice for expansion or marketing campaigns.

Companies are not limiting their recruitment drive to job fairs alone. Adecco PeopleOne, the Indian unit of the world's biggest staffing group, Switzerland's Adecco SA, is displaying posters in trendy coffee bars to seek talent.

IBM introduces new line of mainframe computers

IBM has introduced a new line of mainframe computer that is not only twice as powerful as its predecessor but also intended to make it easier for corporations to encrypt vast amounts of customer information and to bundle the workloads of many smaller computers onto an IBM mainframe.

The New York Times reports (27 July) that the new line, called the z9, is the result of a three-year, US$1.2 billion development effort involving 5,000 IBM engineers. Maintaining the health of the mainframe business, which accounts for a small percentage of the company's revenues these days, is still important to IBM, according to the NYT. Sales of the big machines, which typically cost several million dollars, pulls in a lot of other business for IBM, including sales of software, services, financing and other hardware, like storage systems, analysts say.

Sustaining and, if possible, expanding the mainframe business is a vital part of IBM's strategy, analysts said, adding tha over the years, IBM has done a remarkable job of renewing the mainframe despite predictions of its demise by industry analysts and rivals because of the arrival of the low-cost computing technology of the personal computer industry.

The newspaper says that the threat from server computers, powered by inexpensive PC-style microprocessors, is increasing, and companies like Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems have sizable teams focused on getting corporate customers to abandon their mainframes.

The report says that in recent years, IBM has opened up its mainframe technology to different operating systems and modern software technology like the Java programming language and web services for handling data on any computer system. And the z9, analysts say, goes further in that direction.

The new IBM mainframe is designed to make it easier for companies to increase the security of customer information stored in their computers and to manage data security, reports the newspaper.

AOL tests cell-phone search site

America Online plans to begin testing a new service that lets wireless phone users search the internet and link to regular web pages that it will reformat for tiny cell-phone screens.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (27 July) that the test of AOL Mobile Search Services is an attempt to move away from the computer, where its position as the dominant internet provider is being undermined as users defect to cable operators and telephone companies offering high-speed Internet access.

The report says tha wireless phone service providers also have had a tough time getting US mobile users to spend more time on their phones other than for calls or text messages, analysts said. But as the next generation of wireless networks with higher speeds begin to roll out across the United States, media, technology and service providers are racing to extend the computing experience away from the desk.

Reuters reports in the NYT that AOL, a unit of media conglomerate Time Warner, struck a deal to use technology from InfoGin, an Israeli mobile tech company that makes software to translate regular Web pages to fit on phones.

Motorola sees rising margins, growing market share

Motorola is looking to sleek new devices, cost-cutting and sales in new markets to gain share and improve profit margins in the cut-throat mobile phone industry, executives said on Tuesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (27 July) that the world's second biggest mobile phone maker behind Nokia said it plans to boost business in regions such as Europe and India with a mix of phones based on its popular, thin Razr design and cheaper phones aimed at emerging markets.

The report says the company aims to raise operating profit margins to 13 percent to 15 percent in the next few years from about 11 percent in the second quarter, cutting costs partly by standardising components.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, this strategy means Motorola will depend heavily on winning over customers with variations of its Razr phones, which have become a design icon. It hopes to extend its success, despite cut-throat competition, with several updated Razr styles, including curvier shapes, new colors and built-in music players.

Nokia, Symbian boom as smart phone sales rocket

Smart phones sales surged around the world during Q2 while the pure-play PDA market continued to contract, market watcher Canalys has reported.

The Register reports (26 July) that worldwide shipments of mobile devices jumped 105.4 per cent over Q2 2004 to 12.19m units. Smart phone shipments were up 186 per cent, but PDA shipments were down 14 per cent, Canalys said.

According to The Register, Palm typified the shift. Shipments of the Tungsten and Zire PDAs for which it is best known fell 32 per cent year on year, but that decline was countered by a 200 per cent increase in shipments of its Treo communicators.

Palm was the world's biggest seller of PDAs, with a 31 per cent share. Number two placed HP saw its PDA shipments contract 21 per cent, so this month's launch of its Treo-style iPaq he6500 family clearly comes not a moment too soon, says The Register.

The Register also reports that,once again, Europe proved a strong market for PDAs, with unit shipments up 18 per cent year on year. Sales were dominated by GPS navigation and route-planning bundles, reflected by strong shipments from the likes of Acer and Mio. HP was still the European PDA market leader.

According to The Register, Palm remains the world's second most successful mobile device vendor in terms of units shipped, but its market share fell, from 18 per cent to 8.7 per cent. It Q2 shipments fell a single percentage point.

Research in Motion (RIM), the number three player, saw its share fall from 8.2 per cent to 7.4 per cent of the market despite an 84 per cent increase in unit shipments year on year.

The Register says that the big winner was Nokia, which not only retained its market leadership but increased its share from 33.2 per cent in Q2 2004 to 54.9 per cent in Q2 2005 on the back of a 240.3 per cent increase in unit shipments.

The report says that Nokia's unit-shipment growth was surpassed only by Motorola and Fujitsu, whose shipments were up 637 per cent and 259.5 per cent, respectively, year on year. Both experienced big market share gains, though their shares remain small: 4.6 per cent and 4.3 per cent, respectively.

The Register says that Nokia's success helped Symbian extend its leadership of the mobile device OS market, as a 214.8 per cent jump in unit shipments pushed the operating system's share from 41 per cent to 62.8 per cent.  Shipments of PalmSource-based devices dropped 13.3 per cent.

US report: IT jobs on the up

The majority of IT organisations in the US expect to recruit more staff in the next year but they believe any growth will be modest.

The Register reports (26 July) that the best place to look for a new job is the financial industry with 63 per cent of firms expecting an increase in IT staff. Among these firms 22 per cent expect to increase numbers by more than 10 per cent.

Gartner's annual "IT Market Compensation Study" is based on surveys from 160 organisations which cover 48, 586 IT staff.

The Register reports that the survey found IT staff enjoyed a 3.5 per cent increase in budgeted base salary in 2005, up 0.3 per cent compared to last year.

According to the survey, says The Register, the positions firms find hardest to fill are: project management, web applications programmer, security analyst, database administrator and network engineer. The most sought after skills are Peoplesoft, J2EE Microsoft.Net, Java, Oracle, Visual C#.Net, SAP, XML and XML web Services.

Firms warned over SAP flaw

Organisations running the popular SAP R/3 enterprise software package risk exposing sensitive information because of a new security vulnerability, a UK government U