Browser targeting for ads generates uproar in Britain
How can an advertising platform best target its readers without knowing something personal about them? Today in the UK, there's a growing public outcry for the details on what, from one coalition's perspective, may be a trade secret.
A cooperative advertising platform being built by three of the UK's largest ISPs, including British Telecom and Richard Branson's Virgin Media, has become the target of intense scrutiny by rights advocacy groups there, and lately by government officials. What was first presented to the public as an anonymity protection measure for ads that can be targeted to individual browsers, is now being called into question as a potential tool for spying on their users.
Six-core Intel processors coming this year
Advancing its architecture at what most independent observers would now agree is a breakneck pace, Intel offered further details today on how soon it would begin phasing out the Core Microarchitecture it introduced in the summer of 2006.
With the second phase of its 45 nm generation microprocessors -- what it calls "tock," using a metaphor that drives rival AMD mad -- Intel will move to a processor design that utilizes scalable cores, from two all the way to eight, it will introduce another new microarchitecture for processing instructions, and it will phase out the front-side bus as a component of its architecture. We've known these facts based on bits and pieces of information compiled from Intel hints over the past six months. Now we know this as absolute fact, confirmed by senior vice president Pat Gelsinger during a special presentation this morning.
US Supreme Court will not hear Microsoft appeal on Novell case
It's a very quiet ending for one of the important antitrust cases in the history of the software industry, as justices were apparently satisfied that a decision in Novell's favor on the WordPerfect matter was justified.
If Microsoft had one last chance to redeem itself after last October's decision in a 2004 court case brought against it by Novell, it was to get just four US Supreme Court justices to sign on to its writ of certiorari, or "cert petition." Would they please hear its case for an appeal? This morning, the high court dismissed the petition without even a comment.
Adobe licenses Flash Lite to Microsoft for mobile phones
What wasn't good enough for Steve Jobs seems just fine for Microsoft, as it takes this opportunity to embed a version of Adobe's streaming video technology into its future mobile Web browsers, right alongside Adobe's rival Silverlight.
More and more, Microsoft is making a very visible effort to play nice, or at least nicer, by making room for its rivals alongside its own technology. This morning, it let Adobe hail the latest move rather than horde the megaphone, announcing that Adobe is licensing its Flash Lite mobile graphics platform to Microsoft for use, apparently, in a future mobile Web browser.
House passes revised FISA reform bill minus telco immunity
Despite whatever took place behind closed doors in an unusual secret session of the US House yesterday, in open session today, the House passed its completely new version of the FISA Amendments bill this afternoon, by a vote of 213-197.
Speaking on behalf of the bill just prior to its passage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D - Calif.) took issue with President Bush's comments on the White House South Lawn yesterday, stating the Democrats' new version of the bill would, by eliminating legal protections for telecom companies, endanger the ongoing fight against terrorism.
'Windows 7' product deadline may or may not be 2010
Reports yesterday and today stating Microsoft confirmed its Windows 7 release date for 2010 appear to be very premature, as the statement those reports were based on is the same boilerplate language the company has produced for months.
An oft-repeated statement from Microsoft's spokespersons on the release timeframe for the next version of the Windows client, currently code-named "Windows 7," continues to make the case that the product remains slated for a development phase extending some three years after Windows Vista's general availability (GA) release, which was in January 2007.
House holds secret session to debate FISA telco immunity
The US House of Representatives passed its new version, largely sponsored by majority Democrats, of the FISA Amendments bill. For more on this afternoon's passage, click here.
11:42 am EDT March 14, 2008 - In an extremely rare closed-door session last night, the US House of Representatives debated whether to go ahead and approve a foreign intelligence bill that would grant prosecutorial immunity to telecom companies, or to advance another version without it.
Congress asks FCC for records on 'a la carte' debate
It was an ambitious idea: the possible invocation of a clause in the law that might have given the FCC the authority to make cable TV providers offer individual channels to their customers. Now, the US House is wondering whether it was too ambitious.
Last November, US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin surprised most everyone by making preparations to invoke a legal clause that would give the Commission authority it hadn't exercised before. Under a clause of telecom law, the FCC could direct cable TV operators to carry certain classes of programming, ostensibly as a way of ensuring diversity.
Google Ad Manager enters beta amid DART acquisition
The plan has been for Google to become the full-service advertising platform supplier on the Internet, and DoubleClick is a big piece of that puzzle. But the company's big goals have always started small, and today's new beta is just one more example.
Throughout its short history, Google's approach to the software side of its business has been to let the code fly free, and monetize that investment through the sale of services to the segment of the market that can afford them. With its DoubleClick acquisition now complete, that approach changes a bit, since that firm's DART tools for publishers represent a lucrative revenue source in both the code and services department.
Microsoft's Doug Mahugh: Inside the real OOXML debate
The Office Open XML format may or may not be ratified by the ISO, but in either event, it will still be a driving force in millions of the world's offices. So one way or the other, its senior product manager tells us, the interoperability debate will be resolved.
From the outside, the debate over whether the International Organization for Standardization should formally ratify Microsoft's Office Open XML format as international standard DIS 29500 seems almost completely political. And during last month's ballot resolution meeting (BRM), the reports on how that debate was proceeding were so wild and uncorroborated as to be almost unintelligible.
A new SDK for OOXML aims to mobilize developers
There are any number of varying definitions of "interoperability," but developers take it to mean the ability to get into the software and make it work right. So today's announcement from Microsoft of a finalized OOXML SDK could be more important than even a victory at the ISO.
This morning, Microsoft announced that the system developers' kit for Microsoft's Office Open XML document format will officially emerge from the CTP stage next month, as version 1.0. What this will enable is a high-level vernacular for the different components of the OOXML formats, similar in concept to the role that type libraries played in characterizing the old Office 2000 and 2003 binary formats for use in Visual Basic for Applications macros.
Microsoft wraps its response to IBM's 'on-demand' strategy around Office
There's still a big chance for Microsoft to make serious inroads in the Web services field for businesses. But in a field where, all things being equal, Web services tend to look pretty much equal to one another, the company is banking on Office to help it distinguish its products.
Every big or even medium-sized move Microsoft has made in the business field has been leveraged, not financially the way companies that don't have a wealth of resources tend to do, but strategically, as an extension of some pre-existing real or perceived strength. Two of those strengths today are Office, which has near-ubiquitous status on the world's business desktops, and the .NET Framework, which Microsoft now believes has a bigger place in the world's IT shops than Sun's Java.
New YouTube API opens embedded players to customization
A new set of functionality enhancements being released today to Web developers could enable them to build customized video libraries around their exclusive sites, with YouTube doing less to steal their users away.
Up to now, when you've seen a YouTube video appear embedded in a Web site (such as our own), it has had its own somewhat generic look and feel. And in recent months, you've seen that it has embedded search features which let viewers who've seen the first embedded video, go on to search for material that may be related or completely unrelated. In a way, that converts Web site users into YouTube users, albeit indirectly.
AMD appoints a former Dell exec as CIO
At the most critical time in the company's history, AMD appoints to its CIO role a veteran Dell process engineer who has already made inroads in fine-tuning the manufacturing process -- something AMD desperately needs.
One of the people who helped refine all types of processes at Dell Computer, including both online Web services and manufacturing, has joined AMD this morning as its Chief Information Officer. Ahmed Mahmoud's appointment points to renewed attention on process refinement, which is typically what that company is known for anyway, but which it finds itself doubly concerned with as it works to catch up with Intel in the 45 nm arena.
EU clears Google + DoubleClick; merger complete
The two largest players in the Internet advertising industry are now officially one this morning, as the final hurdle to their merger has been cleared, and the final lines on the papers have officially been signed, according to Google's CEO.
On the theory that display advertising provider DoubleClick wasn't really a competitor to contextual advertising provider Google anyway, the European Commission concluded this afternoon, Brussels time, that a merger of the two entities would not actually result in the elimination of competition.
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