Microsoft gives Yahoo three weeks

Yahoo said Microsoft's original offer undervalued the firm

Computer software giant Microsoft has given Yahoo a three-week deadline to respond to its offer to buy out the internet company for $44.6bn (£22.3bn).

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said his company would take its case directly to Yahoo's shareholders if Yahoo's directors did not respond by 26 April.

Google helping with US spy work?

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:03:33

US intelligence agencies have recruited search engine giant Google to help its agents share information about their suspects.

Under the partnership, Google is helping intelligence organizations like the National Security Agency, CIA and FBI to deviate from their current archiving systems by offering them the latest, easy-to-use technologies and supplying the necessary software and hardware.

The three intelligence agencies have reportedly created a secure internal government intranet to share data about their targets that can be accessed by colleagues on a system similar to Wikipedia called Intellipedia.

Agents have clearance to log on to the site, which is closed to public users, and access three levels of data, top secret, secret and sensitive, and sensitive but unclassified.

Google's transactions with the intelligence community have irked bloggers who criticize it for collaborating with spy agencies more closely than simply selling search equipment.

CS/FH/BGH Courtesy Presstv

Nano-controlling chemical brain invented

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:17:02

Scientists have produced a tiny chemical 'brain', able to control nano-machines and boost the processing power of future computers. The molecular device, which can control eight microscopic machines at one time, has raised new hopes in treating diseases. The machine is made of 17 chemical duroquinone molecules, each sitting at the centre of a ring formed by the remaining 16. The chemical duroquinone molecules known as 'logic device' are connected by hydrogen bonds and a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) switches the state of the control molecule at the centre. The STM system enables the nanotechnologists to change the central molecule's state and switch the states of the surrounding 16 at the same time, BBC reported. Experts believe the device could be used during remote operations by guiding the nanobots through the body and controlling their functions. TE/HGH

Asus Already Looking to USB 3.0

USB 3.0 could take off fast. We believe that the connectors were shown for the first time publicly at this year's CES, and at least one manufacturer is already working the spec into their laptops. Eagle-eyed scouts at The Register spotted two USB 3.0-like ports in the Asus' M50 laptop.

But it's sort of complicated. The transition of USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 will increase the number of wire contacts from 4 to 5. The Register spotted ports that made room for the fifth wire contact but still sported only four, meaning that Asus was framing their system for USB 3.0 even though they weren't technically adopting the spec just yet. Given that USB 3.0 will bring data transfers up to 4.7GB/sec, we're fine with companies pushing this technology onto us.

Linux defenders go after more alleged GPL offenders

November 20, 2007 11:15 AM PST

Posted by Martin LaMonica

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) said it has filed suit against two companies for allegedly violating the General Public License, which covers usage of Linux and thousands of other free and open-source products.

The suits are the second and third time that the nonprofit foundation has filed suit, signaling a willingness to use the court system to enforce the GPL.

The plaintiffs are two programmers--Erik Andersen and Rob Landley--who wrote BusyBox, software covered by the GPL version 2 often used in conjunction with the Linux operating system in embedded devices.

The suit was filed against Xterasys and High-Gain Antennas; both companies manufacture wireless communications hardware.

The SFLC said it had contacted the two companies to notify them about the alleged violations but were forced to file suit because they received no response.

In October, it settled a similar case with Monsoon Multimedia filed on behalf of the same plaintiffs over use of the BusyBox software.

Under the terms of the GPL version 2, people who make additions to software covered by the GPL have to make the source code of that program available.

"We let companies do what they like with BusyBox on their hardware, and what we asked in return was that they let us reproduce what they've done with BusyBox on our hardware. That's the deal embodied in the GPL," said Rob Landley, in a statement.

EU will investigate Google deal

Other advertisers are worried Google could dominate the internet
European Union regulators have launched an in-depth investigation into Google's $3.1bn (£1.5bn) takeover of online advertising firm DoubleClick.

The EU Commission said its initial probe had shown the deal would raise competition concerns.

It has set itself a deadline of 2 April 2008 to reach a decision.

Google said it would work with the Commission to show how the acquisition would benefit publishers, advertisers and consumers.

"We seek to avoid further delays that might put us at a disadvantage in competing fully against Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others whose acquisitions in the highly competitive online advertising market have already been approved," said Google boss Eric Schmidt.

The European Commission is working closely on the case with the US Federal Trade Commission, which has been reviewing the deal since May.

Both Google and DoubleClick are involved in online advertising, although they have different roles.

DoubleClick helps link up advertising agencies, marketers and web site publishers hoping to put ads online and track them.

Google allows firms to target advertising at people using particular search terms and also stores information about users' internet surfing habits.

Google Big Mobilre Splash -Handicapping winners & losers

Google is reportedly rolling out its mobile operating system and one thing is clear: It’s going to make a big splash. The question is who will drown in Google’s wake?

The reports about Google’s Android phone software are multiplying at a rapid rate. The New York Times did a big profile of Andy Rubin, the guy behind Google’s mobile plans (you don’t think that access would have been granted if this launch wasn’t happening do you?). Rubin joined Google when the search giant bought his company–Android–in 2005. News.com’s Tom Krazit reports that Google will announce its mobile phone software stack Monday and has some detail on the 30 companies lined up as partners.

But once the details emerge the real handicapping begins. What’s the impact of Google’s mobile moves? Will Google really reshape the wireless industry? Here’s a look at some of the winners and losers and a few companies left on the fence:

Winners:

• Google: The search giant has managed to line up a big chunk of the wireless industry, cordoned off some mobile advertising inventory and may have found away to commoditize the wireless operating system. If reports are to believed Google’s operating system won’t appear until the middle of 2008. Couple Google’s Android plan with its OpenSocial movement and the search giant looks like it can rally partners with mutual interests.
• Sprint: The wireless carrier is struggling and needs a plan. By aligning with Google–by most counts Sprint will be on the partner roster–Sprint may give itself a much needed spark. This effect may be magnified if Verizon Wireless isn’t on board with Google. AT&T isn’t expected to get cozy with Google yet.
• Developers: Google’s mobile software stack is giving developers some open field to play with. I’ll be one of the many who will be curious to see what they do with it. At the very least, Google is giving developers another software development stack to tweak. This is part of Google’s new openness–moving away from proprietary software where it makes sense, meaning accelerating the growth of the Web overall, breaking down the old order and creating more inventory to monetize.
• Open source: Google’s Android is expected to integrate parts of Linux. This is a mobile victory for the open source movement in what remains a proprietary wireless world. The leading mobile software players are all proprietary.
• Handset makers: Google’s mobile software stack sounds like it’ll come cheap–like free. This fact enables handset makers to push the envelope on the hardware side of the equation. Add it up and you may get cheaper phones with more features and maybe even a cut of ad revenue.

Yet to be determined:

• Apple: A few folks have taken Google’s leap to surmise that Apple will be hurt somehow. There may be some potential impact, but there’s a cure for this line of thinking. Repeat after me: Apple sells hardware. Apple sells hardware. Apple sells hardware. Think about it. Apple’s game is selling Macs, iPods and iPhones. Sure software helps, but Apple lives and dies by hardware sales. With that perspective, Google’s mobile operating system doesn’t look like that big of a threat. Apple wasn’t planning for OS X to dominate the mobile world anyway. And if Google gets too much mojo Apple could just sell you iPhones with Google preloaded. After all, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on Apple’s board of directors.
• Microsoft: The open source supporters and technology’s talking heads will try to lead you to believe that Windows Mobile is toast. Don’t hold your breath. Windows Mobile is entrenched, has a big footprint in the corporate world and is a key partner to wireless carriers and developers. Whatever Google cooks up isn’t likely to change that equation overnight. Just like Windows vs. Linux it’s not a zero sum game.
• Consumers: Mobile phone users will apparently get better software out of this Google move. But if the trade off is more ads on your phone it may be a wash for some.

Losers:

• Palm: Man it gets tiring kicking Palm, but it’s clear this former high flier has major problems. Wasn’t Palm trying to cook up its own Linux based operating system? Yup. It’s late to the party and looks like Google will get any momentum that may come its way. The Palm OS is rapidly becoming a footnote to the history of the wireless market.
• Wireless carriers’ current business model: Wireless carriers have a model that is extremely controlling. These companies tell you what handsets you can buy, what you download and impose limitations. Google’s software could pry the standard wireless model open. What carriers wind up in the loser category vs. yet to be determined remains to be seen. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are entrenched and aren’t going to be immediately impacted. Sprint will be a winner. In the grand scheme of things, Google is nibbling away at the standard wireless business model.

Details Revealed :Google OpenSosial To Launch Thursday

Michael Arrington

Details emerged today on Google’s broad social networking ambitions, first reported here in late September, with a follow up earlier this week. The new project, called OpenSocial (URL will go live on Thursday), goes well beyond what we’ve previously reported. It is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.

What they haven’t done is launch yet another social network platform. As more and more of these platforms launch, developers have difficult choices to make. There are costs associated with writing and maintaining applications for these social networks. Most developers will choose one or two platforms and ignore the rest, based on a simple cost/benefit analysis.

Google wants to create an easy way for developers to create an application that works on all social networks. And if they pull it off, they’ll be in the center, controlling the network.

What They’re Launching

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language (Facebook requires use of FBML for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside of Facebook). Instead, developers use normal javascript and html (and can embed Flash elements). The benefit of the Google approach is that developers can use much of their existing front end code and simply tailor it slightly for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than on Facebook.

Applications can have full functionality on profile and/or canvas pages, subject to the specific rules of each host. Facebook, by contrast, limits most functionality to the canvas page, allowing a widget on the profile page with limited features.

OpenSocial is silent when it comes to specific rules and policies of the hosts, like whether or not advertising is accepted or whether any developer can get in without applying first (the Facebook approach). Hosts set and enforce their own policies. The APIs are created with maximum flexibility.

Launch Partners

Partners are in two categories: hosts and developers. Hosts are the participating social networks, and include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.

Developers include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.

What This Means

The timing of OpenSocial couldn’t be better. Developers have been complaining non stop about the costs of learning yet another markup launguage for every new social network platform, and taking developer time in creating and maintaining the code. Someone had to build a system to streamline this (as we said in the last few sentences in this post). And Facebook-fear has clearly driven good partners to side with Google. Developers will immediately start building on these APIs to get distribution across the impressive list of hosts above.

And they’ll do it soon, too. It’s clear that the developers who arrived early to the Facebook Platform party won easy customers. Those that came later had to fight much harder. Developers found their new gold strike, and they will soon all be there, mining away.

Open Source in the Community and Voluntary Sector

Hitachi exits personal computers

is pulling out of the sale of personal computers, saying it

Hitachi had been Japan's eighth-largest PC maker

Hitachi
wants to focus on larger network systems for businesses instead.

Analysts said the move showed Hitachi had been struggling to compete in a PC market dominated by US firms Dell and Hewlett-Packard and China's Lenovo.

Hitachi said it was now scaling back PC production at its central Japan plant.

The electronics group had been Japan's eighth-largest PC maker, with its main PC brand being Prius.

"We want to develop new computers for use in the broadcasting industry, which is becoming more digitised," said a spokesman.

Microsoft unveils unified communication

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:52:04

Microsoft, world's largest maker of PC software, has announced new software linking phones and video to the Office application suite.

The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) software runs on large server systems and allows people using Microsoft's Office software to manage voice calling from their personal computers and in combination with email, instant messaging and other communications.

The software can allow a user with a headset to make a phone call from a PC, by clicking on a name in a contact list. But it includes far more advanced features, such as being able to add people to a conference call by using a mouse to drag and drop their names across the computer screen.

In addition to the core server software, Microsoft is introducing a companion desktop product, Office Communicator, and a new version of its Live Meeting videoconferencing software. It is also making available its RoundTable videoconferencing device with a 360-degree camera and recording abilities.

Microsoft predicted within five years most offices will rely on the software.

MHE/PA

Google Inc. to launch 'Gphone'

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:18:42

The world's top search engine Google has developed a series of 'Gphones', offering mobile services, such as search, e-mail, and maps.

Wall Street analysts say the mobile phone 'to be launched as early as February 2008', will help company shares break the $700 mark.

"The mobile world has much greater reach than the wired Internet. Google sees this as the future," says Avi Greengart, a principal analyst with research firm Current Analysis.

In the short run, Gphone also threatens to dethrone the Apple iPhone as the wireless industry's newest star.

Google and Apple have worked closely in the past, but Gphone could test this cozy relationship and force Apple to make the iPhone a more open device than it is today.

The Web giant has made no secret that it believes mobile phones should be free to consumers, where revenues are generated through advertising and no single carrier has a lock on users.

Lehman analyst Doug Anmuth says the Google phone will be a "low-priced, simple form factor handset with an operating system specifically designed for Internet applications."

SBB/HGH

Yahoo Inc. upgrades search engine

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:47:40

The Sunnyvale-based Company Yahoo Inc. has upgraded and retooled its online search engine in a bid to make it more helpful and powerful. According to AP, Yahoo's new search engine provides a list of related concepts as a user types into the query box. Moreover, the engine offers more links to photos, videos and music on the main results page. The search engine also highlights local events in relevance to the request by gathering information from Yahoo's calendar service and Upcoming.org. The similarity of the new features with Google's recently introduced improvements has made many assume Yahoo is simply trying to catch up instead of taking the next technological leap. Between June 2000 and May 2004, Yahoo relied on Google to power its search engine. This transformed the once-smaller rival into a juggernaut that now fields more than half of the search requests on the Web.

LINUX ADS

Linux advertisement from IBM, released in September 2003.
"The Future is Open"

Web search giant Google saw its profits leap 46%

Google profits beat expectations

Google has seen its shares surge above $600 Web search giant Google saw its profits leap 46% in the third quarter, beating expectations as it gains market share. The firm saw profits for the three months to the end of September hit $1.07bn (£523.4m) up from 733.4m for the same period a year earlier. The latest rise comes after Google saw profits for the second quarter miss forecasts - which has only occurred twice in just over three years. Google shares recently breached the $600 mark, rising $100 over four weeks. The firm's shares ended at $639.62 on Thursday, but in after-hours trading the stock reached $642.20 - marking a rise of just over $6 or 1%. The company's revenue reached $3.01bn for the quarter, after commissions for advertising partners. Derek Brown, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald said: "It seemed like yet another strong quarter for the company, with very healthy revenue growth and strong profitability on top of that." "We are very pleased with the impressive growth we experienced across our business," said chief executive Eric Schmidt. "Our core search advertising business experienced continued momentum driven by growth in monetization and traffic," he said.

Next gen. computers to mind read

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:15:34

Scientists say the next generation of computers will be ones that can read the mind and analyze its emotional and physical health.

Researchers with the Human Computer Interaction group at Tufts have recently come up with a computer which can tell whether the user is overworked, under-worked or not working at all.

The mind reading uses the technology called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (FNIRS) to measure the volume and oxygen level of the blood in and around the subject's brain.

According to a paper sent for Association of Computing Machinery symposium, the user wears a futuristic headband which sends light of the near-infrared spectrum into the head where it is absorbed by active, blood-filled tissues.

The headband then measures how much light was not absorbed, letting the computer gauge the metabolic demands that the brain is making.

Using the new technology, the particular area of the brain where the blood-flow change occurs, can be read. It will provide indications of the brain's metabolic changes by extension workload, which could be a trigger for emotions like frustration.