Firefox 3.1 will try native Ogg video and audio, despite W3C
Should a Web browser be capable of decoding audio and video for itself? Mozilla is seriously experimenting with the notion, despite a turn of events in the open source community that may mean its experiment won't be a standard.
For years, one of the most significant debates in the field of Web browser development concerns the issue of openness versus choice. Specifically, should a Web browser support an open standard for embedding audio and video elements by default, or should it continue to enable Web site developers to include the formats of their choice, thus compelling users to download the appropriate, corresponding plug-ins?
Yahoo's agreement with Icahn fizzles the boardroom fight
What had been built up to become one of the most explosive corporate boardroom battles in history, by multiple sources (BetaNews among them...guilty as charged), ended up being a near picture-perfect example of resolve.
Last week's Yahoo shareholders' meeting, which could have pitted the forces of Carl Icahn's investment empire against some of the founders of modern Internet media, ended up as a vindication of the board's plan, announced on July 21, to pare down its existing board membership to eight, and then make room for three new members from Icahn's slate, including Icahn himself.
Has Google's relentless growth finally stopped?
The fuel that brought Google from a laboratory experiment to one of the world's industrial giants, may at last be burning itself out. That leaves Google one player among many, in a questionable economic environment. What now?
When a cartel of oil-producing nations wants to tweak demand for its product upwards, along with its per-barrel prices, one tool it has at its disposal is tightening its pipelines and reducing supply. In the online advertising space, in terms of reach and supply, you don't actually need a cartel to approach the power of Google.
Slowing PC market, another online reinvestment ahead for Microsoft
With half of 2008 having already gone by, Microsoft's online services situation today is pretty much the same: Without a Yahoo partnership, the division is still bleeding. It's a good thing Microsoft's also a software company.
If the recent economic downturn can be characterized as a "storm" for those industries in which America has a major stake, the PC industry is certainly weathering this storm very well. Analysts had expected shipment growth to rise to only 12% annually; but from Microsoft's perspective, the number is more like 15%.
Major Yahoo shareholder backs Yang in anti-Icahn campaign
12:03 pm EDT July 18, 2008 - Apparently after having read and assessed the text of Yahoo's new anti-Icahn Web site, as well as its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (detailed below), Yahoo's third largest shareholder, capital management firm Legg Mason, announced this morning that it would be backing Yahoo's current management in its efforts to retain its existing board structure and management.
"After consideration of the relevant facts and circumstances and our fiduciary duty to our clients, it is our intention to vote in favor of the slate of directors proposed by the current Board," reads this morning's statement from Legg Mason's chief investment officer, Bill Miller. "We have met with representatives of the current Board and management, including founder Jerry Yang, several times. We believe the current Board acted with care and diligence when evaluating Microsoft's offers. We believe the Board is independent and focused on value creation for long-term shareholders."
EC renews its anti-competition objections against Intel
This afternoon, the European Commission sent what it's calling a Supplementary Statement of Objections to Intel, reiterating its three-count claim of anti-competitive conduct in the European market against rival AMD.
The latest Statement from the EC, according to the Commission, adds supplemental material to its charges almost exactly one year ago, that Intel violated three counts of Article 82 of the EC Treaty. That law states that no entity that holds a dominant market position may use its influence to alter market conditions in such a way as to negatively impact trade among member states.
Latest Winamp adds access to CBS Radio stations
Who still uses Winamp? There's at least one guy at BetaNews whose desktop clutter contains the venerable music player, and today there's actually a new reason for it to stay right where it is.
Yahoo's latest plea to shareholders has a familiar political tone
It would appear one or more former managers of defeated presidential campaigns may have joined Yahoo, as it latest spin on financier Carl Icahn's plan to couple Microsoft with Yahoo's search business uses a number of familiar phrases.
"Mr. Icahn can't make up his mind about what he thinks will work for Yahoo," reads the company's latest plea to shareholders this morning, signed by Chairman Roy Bostock and CEO Jerry Yang. They tell a story of Icahn initially suggesting that Yahoo sell itself outright to Microsoft for $34.75 per share -- a price we haven't heard quoted before. But Icahn didn't really do due diligence, the statement alleges, otherwise he would have known that Microsoft had already walked away from any kind of a full takeover deal.
Microsoft's Live Mesh may or may not be open
In perhaps the most awkward launch since last week's iPhone 3G, Microsoft at least tried to start its technology preview for its Live Mesh services. But it didn't look like a preview at first, and now, it doesn't look much like a service.
This afternoon, Microsoft made testers aware it was opening its Live Mesh services suite, of services designed to be integrated into the Windows environment. But only a few hours later, the company came to realize it might have wanted to say this was a technology preview, in its initial announcement.
Intel's gains may have reached a plateau in fiscal Q2
The shift from desktop to mobile PCs is accelerating, Intel's executives warned yesterday, at a rate which has even taken them by surprise. That helped keep earnings on a nice incline, but it may mean the company's 'tick-tock' now has to speed up.
The recovery period for Intel is now well behind it, as CEO Paul Otellini's rebuilding of the company has been -- perhaps even by the measure of those Intel had to lay off -- an astonishing success. So the news from Intel yesterday on its fiscal second quarter results continued to be good, although now rather than comparing itself against a company in a financial and technological quandary, its baseline has become a resurgent company making stellar gains last year.
First Firefox 3 patch fixes a security hole linked to Safari
12:35 pm EDT July 16, 2008 - BetaNews has confirmed users' reports of Firefox 3.0.1 download attempts being met with "550 Permission Denied" errors, off and on throughout the day today. We've already downloaded and installed v3.0.1 ourselves previously, and thus far have noted no trouble with it.
In another sign that the good guys are not only becoming more clever but are cooperating more closely with vendors, a potentially serious problem with the newest Firefox was fixed before anyone could sound the alarms of impending doom.
EU parliament to debate copyright term extension this week
To high-ranking European Commissioners, it's a matter of whether a major European industry should be given the same tools for success the US currently has. For academia, it's a debate over whether copyright benefits or hurts artists.
Almost a decade ago, the US Congress passed a copyright term extension act named for the late, popular congressman, and one-time musical superstar, Sonny Bono. It extended the term of copyright in this country to 70 years beyond the life of the author, or 95 years for anonymous works -- essentially, pieces of art copyrighted by a rights management firm or agency rather than a person.
Centrino 2 platform wipes the slate clean for vendors' midrange notebooks
Intel's official go-ahead with its new mobility and connectivity platform means vendors now can overhaul their product lines. But this time they're not starting with the luxury models, instead focusing on practicality and even savings.
The success of Intel's Centrino and Centrino Pro branding has centered around reinforcing the customer's perception of reliability, perhaps more importantly than even performance. So as the Centrino 2 platform kicks off -- albeit a few weeks late -- the changes to manufacturers' product lines, to be seen next month, are being made from the middle down.
Payoff time for Intel: The Centrino 2 platform goes live
What Intel has been calling its "tick-tock" cadence almost lost its "tock." But what was expected to be a June release ended up being July, giving partners plenty of time to build up Centrino 2 inventories in time for back-to-school.
After a delay of what ended up being only a handful of weeks, Intel's Centrino 2 mobile technology platform is now debuting worldwide. It's based on the company's 45 nm "Penryn" generation processors unveiled earlier this year, including the all-new Core 2 Duo T9400; and the new Mobile GM45 Express chipset, which boosts the memory bus speed up past the 1 GHz mark.
Microsoft: Both sides in Yahoo / Icahn spat have it wrong
What was already a two-way lack-of-meeting of the minds after Microsoft's last efforts to acquire all or part of Yahoo, has evolved into a colossal three-way misunderstanding, as evidenced by Microsoft's statement this afternoon.
In one of the more bizarre responses in a three-way merger deal fracas since the Viacom/Paramount/Blockbuster deal of the early 1990s, a Microsoft statement this afternoon -- ostensibly to refute some of the details described in a Yahoo statement early Sunday morning -- also manages to separate Microsoft's point of view from that of financier Carl Icahn. Specifically, the statement characterizes Icahn as exacerbating a deal that Microsoft was trying to put together at the request of Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, not the other way around.
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