Verizon Wireless femtocell launches yesterday, AT&T plays catch-up
Right on schedule, the nation's largest carrier is rolling out the first deployment of cellular signal-boosting femtocell equipment on private premises, using high-speed Internet as the backbone.
In perhaps one of its more radical experiments -- at least for Verizon Wireless -- the carrier is offering its Wireless Network Extender device for a lump-sum payment of $250. It's not a service, you don't subscribe to it, but you also don't need Verizon's wireless Internet service to use it either.
Free Vista promotions may not be free after all
It's hard to complain when someone offers you his top-of-the-line operating system for free. But it's hard not to complain when you're all ready to install it and you discover, surprise, it may not be free after all. That's the situation facing perhaps hundreds of recent recipients of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, as gifts for attending the company's MSDN seminar tours.
To ensure that recipients register their copies and only use them once, Microsoft printed a promotional code inside the jacket, which is not the usual product key. By visiting the Web site www.registerwindowsvistasp1.com and entering the promotional code, recipients are given the full product key, and that way they will also be registered with Microsoft. Perhaps as part of a plan instituted months earlier, Microsoft set the Web site to discontinue operations after December 31, 2008.
Analysis: After yesterday, it's time to reset
Among the comments we received yesterday after our all-day, wall-to-wall coverage of the deluge that struck the technology industry, was a complaint asking, why we didn't pick some happier news?
One of the many things I've always appreciated about the movie Apollo 13 is that penchant for its historical accuracy enabled it to introduce the world, by way of actor Ed Harris, to one of the 20th century's greater heroes, former NASA flight director Gene Kranz. Sure, after the movie, folks everywhere had adopted one of Kranz' true-to-life catch phrases, and what had been emblazoned on my wall as a teenager: Failure Is Not An Option. But there was another Kranz phrase used in the movie that is applicable to yesterday, a day which revealed for us the wide extent of the damage incurred during this ongoing, global economic failure.
Google cuts the ribbon on its AJAX Playground
Having written three books on programming in a series that was called "By Example," I know first-hand that sometimes several hundred pages of written text doesn't really beat the ability to see something for yourself, tweak it, and find out what happens.
Not that Google has ever really been that big on documentation anyway; but this morning, it's unveiled something that's perhaps several hundred times better: Its new AJAX API playground lets JavaScript programmers not only sample all the major API calls in Google's toolbox in the context of functions, but tweak those samples and see the results live.
Obama picks Copps to temporarily chair the FCC
Until President Obama's nominee for the next FCC chairman, replacing the departed Kevin Martin, is confirmed, current Commissioner Michael Copps will assume the temporary role of chairman of a temporarily four-member panel, the White House announced yesterday.
Copps had earlier been reported to be the only Democrat on Pres. Bush's list to replace former chairman Michael Powell. He is generally liked on both sides of the aisle, and yesterday, generally outspoken Commissioner Robert McDowell added his support for the appointment.
US' brightest hope for DRAM competitiveness files for insolvency
It has been a hard uphill battle for memory maker Qimonda ever since parent company Infineon began its plan to spin it off in 2006. Today, that battle may have come to a premature end.
If America is ever to regain its footing in the field of microprocessor production outside the CPU, it needs a leg up from international leaders in that field. Three years ago, German memory producer Infineon gambled on producing an innovative DRAM subdivision called Qimonda, with a state-of-the-art production facility in Richmond, Virginia. Infineon would gradually spin off Qimonda, and retain a minority stake as the producer came into its own.
Live from the AMD Q4 earnings call
In the first test of its strategy of divesting its foundries and concentrating on developing IP assets, AMD reveals the extent to which an historically negative chain of events is impacting the already ailing CPU manufacturer.
3:00pm PT: Call wraps up.
US unreadiness for DTV declines to 5%, says Nielsen
In its latest month-by-month analysis of the relative state of readiness of US citizens for the DTV transition, still scheduled for February 17, analysis firm Nielsen now estimates that based on its analysis of 37,000 metered households, about 5% of US households remain unprepared -- down from 6.8% in December, 7.7% in November, and 8.4% in September. Nielsen's numbers were revealed this morning by Broadcasting & Cable
So the trend is positive, generally speaking. However, legislators remain concerned that some 6.5 million Americans remain unprepared. On the other side of the picture, the National Association of Broadcasters believes Nielsen's numbers may be exaggerated. An NAB spokesperson told Betanews this afternoon that it believes Nielsen's estimates "do not count customers who have yet to set up their converter boxes, or who are waiting for coupons."
Former Netscape attorney may be named DOJ antitrust chief
A name floated this morning by The Wall Street Journal as a likely choice by President Obama to head the Justice Dept.'s antitrust division, may not exactly be the choice Microsoft would have preferred.
Christine Varney, a former Federal Trade Commission member in the Clinton administration, and an attorney in the high-visibility firm of Hogan & Hartson in Washington, DC since then, appears to be the leading candidate for appointment to a deputy attorney-general's post in the Justice Dept.'s Antitrust Division, according to a WSJ report this morning. During the US Microsoft antitrust trial, but following her tenure with the FTC, Varney was an outspoken critic of Microsoft, especially since she was on the team representing Netscape, the company that was most wronged by Microsoft's actions at that time.
Try, try again: Seagate issues a second fix for 7200.11 hard drives
Seagate Technologies spokesperson Michael L. Hall gave Betanews an update this afternoon on the company's situation with its Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives, which have been failing in record numbers. Hall acknowledged that some units manufactured up until last month do have an issue where data is rendered inaccessible after power-up, and went on to acknowledge that the company's initial fix for the problem only made matters worse.
"While we believe that the vast majority of customers will not experience any disruption related to this issue, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade to proactively address those with potentially affected products," Hall stated. "This new firmware upgrade corrects compatibility issues that occurred with the firmware download provided on our support Web site on Jan. 16. We regret any inconvenience that the firmware issues have caused our customers."
Live from the Microsoft Q2 earnings conference
The lack of guidance in Microsoft's accelerated earnings report this morning triggered a selloff in stocks on the NASDAQ and NYSE exchanges, and there are indications that the company has suspended trades.
8:57am PT: Call wraps up.
Windows weighs down on Microsoft, which will cut jobs now
The news from Redmond is actually worse than analysts estimated, with sharply lower revenue from the Client segment (Windows Vista) triggering one of the most substantial layoffs in its history.
Choosing not to wait until its originally planned time of 5:30 pm this afternoon, Microsoft held true to its new policy of corporate transparency, letting the world know as it informed its own employees that as many as 5,000 jobs will be cut from its payroll over the next 18 months, 1,400 of those immediately.
Intel to close some plants, thousands could be affected
In a filing with the SEC this afternoon, the company revealed it will streamline some older operations in order to focus on the 32 nm transition.
A US Securities and Exchange Commission filing this afternoon cites Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy as reporting that his company will shut down assembly two assembly test facilities in Malaysia and one in the Philippines, along with a once-valuable 200mm wafer production facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. Some 700 employees are currently stationed there, according to local reports.
Zoho prepares for an exodus of former Google Notebook users
One of the canceled projects on Google's list last week was a surprise: a cloud application with at least the hope to become ubiquitous. It was called Google Notebook, and it was essentially a way for individuals to jot down notes in a way that they could be retrieved from multiple locations.
We learned today that Zoho, a cloud application provider that began deployment of some of its services on Google's App Engine just last month, is more than happy to pick up the slack. A Zoho spokesperson told Betanews today that the latest beta of its Zoho Notebook, which includes a plug-in for Firefox, will feature an interesting kind of on-screen interface that will let users who are logged onto both services simultaneously export their Google Notebook content (while that service is still active) directly into the plug-in, hopefully without change of format or function.
Microsoft is not expected to meet fiscal Q2 2009 guidance
The game of lowering expectations continues for Microsoft this morning, as financial analysts fear that the company's fiscal second quarter numbers will fall shy of expectations, when it reveals its performance numbers tomorrow afternoon.
That's actually a pretty safe bet. Last October, the company targeted $17.3 billion in revenue as its low end of its guidance target. CFO Chris Liddell told analysts at that time that the company would be able to squeak through that number based on a lowering of its operating expenses.
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