ComScore to Change Web Site Metrics
Faced with the rapidly changing dynamics of the Web, including the fact that new forms of Web programming have drastically changed the definition of "page," comScore Networks - which just last week declared MySpace the page view leader over perennial champion Yahoo - quietly announced today it is changing the way it assesses pages, and intends to roll out this new system in 2007.
The change, once it comes, could immediately impact the standings of comScore's Top 50 Web properties, which are assessed primarily by number of page views, and secondarily by number of unique visitors. Since Yahoo rolled out programming changes to its home page earlier this year, its page view counts have decreased by 5% or more, according to comScore.
AT&T Merger: FCC Comm. Won't Vote
In a short but impassioned public statement this afternoon, the likes of which has rarely been seen in Washington for decades, FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell boldly reiterated his refusal to vote in the current debate over the AT&T/BellSouth merger, citing his former involvement with a legal advocacy group opposed to the merger, and at times quoting the pillars of American ethical jurisprudence.
"While I expected the legal equivalent of body armor," McDowell pronounced emphatically, referring to a memorandum from the Federal Communications Commission's general counsel, Sam Feder, authorizing him to vote despite possible conflict of interest, "I was handed Swiss cheese."
Broadcom Admits to Options Backdating, Executives Held Faultless
An independent audit committee assembled by network technology provider Broadcom in the wake of the industry-wide SEC options backdating scandal, has found that stock options granted to executives and employees for a nearly five-year period were improperly accounted for.
Last Thursday, the company stated this morning, the Securities and Exchange Commission informed Broadcom that its investigation has entered the formal stage. Apple and Dell received similar notices last week, responding by making further delays to their quarterly and annual reports, leaving investors with a fuzzier picture of the actual capital value of these companies as the weeks pass.
Linksys iPhone Announcement Gets Attention
A six-year-old registered trademark, acquired by Cisco Systems after the 2000 acquisition of telephone equipment supplier InfoGear, and which applied at the time to a device no one would want today, may just now pay off for Cisco's consumer division. Linksys today announced it's attaching the iPhone trademark to its line of VoIP and Skype phones.
Back in August 2005, Linksys demonstrated its first series of wireless Skype phones, though Engadget correctly ascertained the CIT200 model wasn't really WiFi - that it actually transmitted over the 1.9 GHz band. Last May, during what could be considered the "first re-introduction" of Linksys' VoIP equipment in the US, the company presented its first real WiFi VoIP phone, the WIP300, this time with support for SIP v2 signaling protocol.
Matsushita: Battery Overheating Solved?
The replacement of a thin plastic resin insulating layer, or polyolefin, with a new and undisclosed heat resistance layer, could prevent future incidents of lithium-ion batteries spontaneously catching fire. The battery producing arm of Matsushita, Panasonic's parent company, claims it's now ready to begin producing batteries with the new insulator.
The recent episodes of batteries overheating and even exploding that have plagued Sony and other manufacturers all year could be due to the presence of foreign metal materials that cause short circuits in batteries.
MySpace Finally Partners with Cingular
After nearly a year of testing the waters, including joint ventures such as MySpace Mobile Alert service for Cingular customers last March, and April's Cingular-sponsored ringtone generation service for independent music artists, social networking giant MySpace has at last entered into a true mobile distribution partnership with Cingular Wireless, the joint venture between would-be merger partners BellSouth and AT&T.
The deal will help create a legitimate business model or at least part of one for MySpace's corporate owner, Fox Interactive, which purchased MySpace's founder in July 2005 for $580 million. Under the new deal, Cingular customers, perhaps using a Samsung BlackJack device, will pay an extra $2.99 per month for the ability to do a lot of what MySpace patrons already do for free on their PCs.
Reversal of Fortune for AMD in Intel Case
The special master appointed to hear evidence from both parties in the AMD v. Intel antitrust case has recommended that Intel be compelled to produce documents for evidence that it had previously declined to submit. If Judge Joseph A. Farnan, Jr., agrees, Intel may be asked to produce evidence of what AMD alleges to be "foreign misconduct," and efforts by Intel to monopolize the US semiconductor market.
As Special Master Vincent Poppiti's filing with the court made clear today, he held a hearing two weeks ago to address the dispute over whether the documents AMD sought were relevant to the case. Last September, Judge Farnan had ruled that many of AMD's claims of Intel's misconduct could not be addressed by the court, since it fell outside the purview of US antitrust law.
Could Big Telecom Mergers Be Undone?
The once-certain merger process between the largest US telephone company, AT&T Inc., and former "baby Bell" and regional telephone carrier BellSouth, could perhaps be delayed further on account of a curious federal district judge. His hearings into why the AT&T/SBC and Verizon/MCI mergers were expedited by the Justice Dept. could raise skepticism about the viability of AT&T/BellSouth.
In a filing in US District Court yesterday, covered brilliantly by Anne Broache of CNET, attorneys for the Justice Dept. defended themselves against allegations that they slacked off on their reviews of the legality and competitive implications of the Verizon/MCI and AT&T/SBC mergers of 2005.
CBS Records Brand Revived for iTunes Deal
Continuing his public demonstration that a scaled-down media company can perhaps accomplish more than a single, conglomerate colossus of swallowed-up media brands, CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves is reviving one of the greatest and most storied brands in the history of all media - CBS Records - in order that his company, now separate from Viacom, can partner with music providers such as Apple's iTunes.
After CBS decided last year to partner with Time Warner in the joint management of a subsidiary broadcast network - thus merging UPN with The WB to form The CW - it acquired The WB's lucrative music publicity strategy. Popular CW shows, such as Smallville and 7th Heaven, feature musical tracks prominently, then tell viewers at the end the name of the artist and CD, along with an ad for a music vendor. With broadcast radio's influence waning very suddenly, the WB/CW strategy paid off more than anyone expected.
More SEC Filing Delays from Dell, Apple: Will NASDAQ Respond?
As Apple and Dell continue wrestling with the dregree of false value unreported options grants gave their respective companies, both announced they would be delaying their quarterly earnings filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Having already repeatedly delayed its second quarter fiscal 2007 filing from last August, and now delaying its third quarter filing a second time (the first was last month), Dell is now entering uncharted waters for a reputed technology giant. The first threats of possible delisting of Dell stock from the NASDAQ exchange came three months ago. After Dell received its first delisting notice from the exchange, it responded with an appeal, which normally gives a company a few weeks to get its accounting together.
Khronos Group to Incorporate OpenGL ES into New Draft Spec
The group responsible for enticing game developers to build their 3D assets in a new way so they can later port them to cell phones is taking the next step this week toward the development of a single, cross-platform API geared toward the creation of rich graphical applications, for displays so small that "rich" would seem impossible.
If it works as theorized, the new OpenKODE set of APIs from Khronos Group - which last year took on the caretaker role of the OpenGL ES 3D rendering API for small devices - could make it even more feasible for developers writing games and, if you can imagine this, applications for Sony's PlayStation 3, to rapidly develop small-display versions that run in a Linux-, Symbian-, or Windows Mobile-based cell phone.
Alan Shugart (1930 - 2006)
The man who led the team at IBM that engineered the first storage devices for portable disks a half-century ago, and who later founded the corporation that secured the future of hard disk technology into the coming decades, died yesterday from complications after an earlier heart surgery. Alan Shugart was probably wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts at the time.
Taking a look at the man, you come to realize how "Seagate" got its name - not just that it emerged from Shugart Technology, which is how it was christened in 1979. He was a man of the sea - or, more accurately, the shore near the sea. San Jose was the man's home, in all respects. When asked what his great accomplishments had been, he would list at or near the top his co-founding not of the first great floppy disk manufacturer (Shugart Associates) in 1973, nor the founding of Seagate, but of the co-founding of a five-star restaurant on the Monterey Peninsula. He wrote a book about this venture in 1993, which graced his shelves along the story of his quite genuine 1996 attempt to place his own dog Ernest on the ballot for Congressman.
Forrester Researcher Triggers Avalanche of ITunes Negative Press
Just in time for general press sources, including USA Today and Reuters, to run with the story that iTunes sales in the first six months of 2006 "collapsed," based on a very small piece of information from a Forrester report, the author of that report announced on his personal blog yesterday that iTunes sales "are not collapsing," calling such dire conclusions "misinformation," and stating they could not have been rationally drawn from the report's data alone.
Forrester researcher Josh Bernoff then went on to chastise certain press sources for "diving in" and highlighting only one finding of the report: specifically, that iTunes sales may have been dropping by a monthly rate of 17%, or 65% on an annual basis.
Microsoft, HP Form Joint $300m Marketing Alliance
Calling Hewlett-Packard “the most comprehensive partner we have” among a list of over 640,000 such partners, Microsoft announced this evening, along with HP, the formation of a joint marketing alliance, in which both companies would jointly market unified messaging, collaboration, content management, custom business workflow management, and other Microsoft software implemented on HP hardware.
In a press conference this evening, two HP executives and two Microsoft executives gave a sketchy, sometimes cloudy, outline of a new joint working relationship between the two firms. Their joint activities officially begin tomorrow. Neither side would describe the partnership as exclusive, though each side tended to defer to the other with regard to matters of authority or responsibility – for instance, whose customers are we talking about, and which partner will approach those customers?
International Probe Alleges 10-Company LCD Price Cartel
An unprecedented international investigation jointly announced by American, South Korean, Japanese, and European authorities, has named the world's ten top producers of LCD in a criminal probe alleging they may all have conspired to fix prices in the burgeoning LCD display market during 2003 and 2004.
Earlier today, a spokesperson for the US Justice Dept. confirmed the investigation to the Associated Press, saying only that it is looking into "the possibility of anti-competitive practices in the LCD industry," though without providing any extra detail.
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