Yahoo: Lower Page Views Due to AJAX
Yesterday's comScore Media Metrix report, exclaiming that estimates of page views for social networking site MySpace at 38.7 million for the month of November topped those for Yahoo by 600,000, came with some small print that should have generated at least an asterisk beside today's headlines: Yahoo has recently moved to an AJAX-driven page model, which probably reduced the number of complete page refreshes per user.
Web analytics software used by comScore and other services treat "page views" as complete refreshes of an entire page. But Web sites that use more modern approaches to layout have recently adopted Asynchronous JavaScript to enable browsers to refresh select portions of the page when necessary, reducing bandwidth and improving layout. Yahoo is one of the more recent inductees to the roll of sites embracing this technology.
Conflicting Reports on iTunes Sales Declines
A New York Times story published yesterday cited a report from Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff, which inferred that since the ratio of iTunes songs sold per iPod sold has been steadily rising, a disconnect could be occurring between the two products in a changing portable media market.
"The numbers suggest that iPods are not driving iTunes sales as much as early supporters may have expected," the Times' Alex Mindlin wrote.
HP Offers Free Vista Upgrades to Some Customers
Customers who have purchased an HP Pavilion or Digital Entertainment Center PC, or a Compaq Pavilion PC -- all desktop models only -- on or after October 26, with Windows XP pre-installed, will be eligible for upgrade kits for corresponding editions of Windows Vista next month, HP announced this morning
The upgrade plan addresses the "coupon" problem that PC vendors are facing this season: having to sell computers to customers with the promise of their being able to run a "full Vista experience" they can't yet see for themselves.
Java SE 6 Tries Smaller Footprint, JavaScript Support
Having just emerged from a public beta process that began in the spring of 2005, and especially now that Java is an open-source project, developers will find little to be surprised about in Sun's newest Java SE 6, released yesterday. But one sign that even Java is adapting with the times - besides its smaller size, which early adopters are applauding - is its new support for external scripting engines, which adopters might not be aware of.
For the first time, Java is "aware" of the presence of scripting languages, including JavaScript - which recently became part of the Java bundle. With scripting languages like Asynchronous JavaScript (AJAX) rapidly becoming common in the creation of browser-based front ends, Java SE 6's new recognition for scripting engines like JavaScript that follow a standard API to provide scriptable, server-driven functionality.
AMD Chasing Intel to 45nm by 2008
In an announcement before semiconductor engineers in San Francisco this morning, AMD and IBM put forth proof of what could be their breakthrough process - their response to Intel in the race to reduction. It could pull AMD back even with Intel by 2008, if Intel doesn't respond in the intervening months.
In terms of semiconductor production process advancements, Intel's catapult to 65nm, culminating in last July's release of the first Core 2 Duo processors, put competitor AMD years behind, after it had enjoyed a comfortable lead for many months. For AMD to remain competitive, analysts believe it needs to catch up within no more than two product cycles.
Next Stage of HP Restructuring Begins as CFO Wayman Retires
In a security analysts' conference this morning, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd's message did not exactly follow the holiday spirit. Another round of cost-cutting at what can now be called the world's #1 PC manufacturer will be under way.
During the first stage, which began in July 2005, the company let go of 15,300 employees; thus far, layoffs have not been mentioned for the next round, though it's not unlikely.
Yet Another MS Word Flaw Surfaces
On Sunday, Microsoft acknowledged the existence of another vulnerability in Word 2003, though declined to release details on the nature of this new find, other than to say it's different than the discovery of a heap overflow trigger last week by security research firm eEye.
While Microsoft referred to "reports" of a second vulnerability, it did not credit anyone specifically with those reports, leaving news sources with only the requisite news that a problem does exist - which is often enough to chew on.
Qualcomm Patent Infringement Ruling Upheld by ITC; Broadcom Wins
In what could be the final word on the subject from a patent authority, the International Trade Commission has upheld a ruling last October stating that networking technology supplier Qualcomm did indeed infringe upon a critical patent held by technology developer Broadcom.
Specifically, the "'983" patent covers a portable communications device with transceivers for both wired and wireless networks. The upholding could pave the way for a possible injunction against the sale of infringing technology by Qualcomm in the US.
Recused FCC Commissioner May Vote on AT&T/BellSouth
Late Friday, the Federal Communications Commission's general counsel, on prompting from the chairman, ruled that a commissioner who had recused himself from proceedings on the proposed AT&T/BellSouth merger may now participate in the vote. Commissioner Robert McDowell was formerly an employee of the lobbying group CompTel, that has been on record as opposing such mergers.
But which way McDowell will vote remains uncertain, and he could still choose to abstain. Like Chairman Kevin Martin, McDowell is a Republican and a recent appointee of President Bush; however, while Martin and fellow Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate have already expressed their support of the merger, Democrats Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps are strongly opposed.
Nintendo Retracts One Million Wiis Promise, Outsells PS3 Anyway
In a press release this morning, Nintendo issued a correction to a statement made the day before, asking readers to disregard just one sentence. That sentence, however, may have been the critical one: a promise that one million Wii game consoles would be available in the US before the end of this year.
Therefore, disregard the following sentence: "Despite spot shortages in some locations, well more than a million Wii systems will be available in the United States by the end of the year." The other part of the disregarded sentence you should regard is the characterization of possible shortages as "spot."
Heap Overflow Vulnerability in WMP
Microsoft yesterday officially acknowledged -– albeit two weeks after its discovery –- that a vulnerability in Windows Media Player found by security research team eEye Digital Security could indeed become an exploitable problem. Thankfully, no exploit seems to have turned up yet.
As an eEye report on November 22 indicated, a function that handles the XML-based ASX playlists in, apparently, all known versions of Media Player that support them (perhaps, based on our research, back to version 6.4 for Windows 95 in 1999) can be fooled into allocating too much heap memory to handle a string that should contain the URL of a media file included in the playlist. It isn’t much –- the entire overflow could be three or four bytes, maximum -– but the fact that it is an overflow could create an exploitable condition, eEye points out.
Vista Minimum Requirements Unrealistic
A white paper published this morning by hardware analysis firm iSuppli, based on its studies of Microsoft Windows Vista running on multiple grades of computer hardware, has concluded that the software publisher's stated minimum requirements for the system -- which include an 800 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a 35 GB hard drive -- may not be nearly enough.
"Despite Microsoft's claims that Vista can run on such trailing-edge systems," writes Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research, "iSuppli believes the reality is quite different."
HP Settles Civil Suit; California Will Not Pursue Board Members
As expected, Hewlett-Packard and the California state attorney general's office have reached a settlement in a civil suit pertaining to the company's methods in investigating its own board members. The company will pay the state $14.5 million, and in exchange, the state has agreed to an injunction against it pursuing any further civil matters against HP employees, executives, directors, or the company itself.
The civil settlement sets aside proceedings against HP as a company for its having allegedly hired an investigative firm that misrepresented itself in an attempt to gain telephone records for a former board member, and those to whom he may have spoken.
Office Open XML Gains ECMA Approval; IBM Votes No
Citing major collaborative contributions from a dozen companies and institutions, including Novell, Apple, Intel, the British Library, and the US Library of Congress, the Ecma International standards body today approved what will now be called Ecma Open XML - formerly Microsoft's "Office Open XML" - as an international standard for document formatting.
Suddenly, the world's top three word processors -- Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, and OpenOffice -- will all have provisions to support two XML-based formats. OASIS' OpenDocument format (ODF) will be one of them, and the Ecma Open XML format proffered by Microsoft will be the other.
NYT: Malone to Take Control of DirecTV from Murdoch
The New York Times reports this morning that a deal is imminent between Liberty Media chairman John Malone and News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, in which Malone will acquire one of Murdoch's prize assets -- satellite service provider DirecTV -- in exchange for Malone's 19% voting stake, plus 15% non-voting stake, in News Corp.
The move confirms rumors reported last September that Murdoch had fouled the nest of his satellite holdings, semantically speaking, in enticing Malone with the prospect of taking the foul-smelling property off his hands in exchange for refraining from mounting a shareholder-led takeover bid for all of News Corp.
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