DTV broadcasters: Suddenly loss of signal could be a problem
A series of comments filed yesterday with the US Federal Communications Commission on behalf of the National Association of Broadcasters and the TV industry's technology research laboratory, the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV), came to the conclusion that educating the American consumer about the existence of the digital TV broadcasting switch (now set for June 12) is no longer a serious problem. Much more serious, they condend, is the real possibility -- one which broadcasters are apparently just now addressing -- that certain viewers including those on the outskirts of analog broadcasting signals' coverage areas may suddenly find themselves without service.
"To strike an appropriate balance, stations that are predicted to lose two percent or more of their analog viewers as a result of a change in their geographic coverage area should have the flexibility to design the best way to communicate information, over-the-air, of this potential loss to their viewers, and, importantly, how to obtain specific information," reads the comments of the two industry leading groups (PDF available here). "We would support having these stations include in weekly on-air consumer DTV initiatives of their choosing a notice, such as: 'a small percentage of current viewers using an antenna to view this analog station may have problems receiving this station's digital signal; you can go to www.AntennaWeb.org to determine this and to see what outdoor antenna type will best serve your specific geographic location.'"
Analysts: Steep decline in PC shipments still expected for H1
Last year, leading analysts including IDC gave the PC industry a baseline number on which to base its growth projections. That number, at about this time last year, ironed itself out to about 12%. By the spring, it looked like the real number would be 15%. But projections like these almost always presume that the same factors that impact the industry in the current quarter, will be carried on into the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.
As we all know now, the tremendous decline in both business and consumer orders resulted in 2008 ending up pretty much where it began, almost as if there wasn't a year's worth of data at all: flat for the year after a shipment decline of more than 11% in just the fourth quarter.
AMD gives birth to Global Foundries, which is now hiring
AMD's gamble to create the processor production foundry to which it will outsource its own projects, in an effort to scale down while maintaining some measure of control over its production methods, is now offically under way. Global Foundries is the official name of "The Foundry Company," formed by a vote of approval by AMD's shareholders last month.
Its CEO is Doug Grose, previously AMD's Senior Vice President of Manufacturing. His opening message on GF's Web site yesterday put a very thin veil over the reason for his new company's existence: "Who we are and what we do is a direct reflection of trends in the semiconductor industry. Seismic changes in the business, driven by global economics and technology, make the timing right for this new approach to the foundry business."
Firefox 3.0.7 addresses maybe more than three security issues
The latest commercial edition of Firefox, version 3.0.7, is said to address three "critical" security issues. But a close look at the list itself shows that a myriad of similar issues were grouped together as one, making the total list of high-level issues as high as six.
Download Mozilla Firefox 3.0.7 for Windows from Fileforum now.
Linux.com won't be a news site, but instead a place for Linux
As first reported by my friend and colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at Computerworld yesterday, probably the most important domain name that a Linux-associated entity could ever want, Linux.com, was sold by SourceForge, and is now in the hands of the Linux Foundation.
As a press release revealed, the Foundation's plans for the domain are quite different from a Linux-oriented news site: "The new Linux.com site will transform in the months ahead from solely being a news source to a collaborative site that will be 'for the community, by the community.' Much like Linux itself, Linux.com will rely on the community to create and drive the content and conversation. While the Linux Foundation will host the collaboration forum, the site will feature the real Linux experts -- users and developers -- and give them the tools needed to connect with each other and with Linux."
Firefox 3.1 could catch up to Safari 4 in beta speed duel
With the next -- though probably not the last -- public beta of Firefox 3.1, testers outside of Mozilla will get their first chance to see in action perhaps the number-one reason customers would want to upgrade: the browser's new TraceMonkey JavaScript execution engine. Expectations have been raised quite high over the past several months, as developers have promised orders of magnitude faster execution of functionally-driven Web pages.
But last week, it was Apple that threw down the gauntlet with its public release of a Safari browser beta, for both Mac and Windows, that tore through the speed records for JavaScript in public betas. Right now, it's Safari 4 that has the provisional pole. Yesterday, however, Mozilla managers instructed developers to start wrapping up their final check-ins, as it's nearing time for a public release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 3.
Vista SP2 RC image goes live
An .ISO file for the DVD image of the installation routine for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Release Candidate was made publicly accessible by Microsoft early this morning. As of 1:45 pm EST, however, there was no official word from Microsoft as to the release candidate's public availability. Private testers began receiving their early copies last week.
Download Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Release Candidate from Fileforum now.
Phoenix to embed an OOXML office suite in firmware
Most of us who have been in the PC business ever since there was such a thing know the Phoenix Technologies brand for having helped catalyze the PC "clone" revolution in the 1980s, as one of the first great independent BIOS producers. It's still in the firmware business, and its programs are still the first ones many PCs run after their users flip the switch. But gradually, the company is assembling a comprehensive software platform and embedding it in its latest firmware: the HyperSpace platform that embeds Linux on motherboards.
HyperSpace premiered last July with a built-in hypervisor that can run operating systems not as native, but as guest environments within a secure envelope. But since then, it's acquired some native applications of its own, including a DVD player from Corel, and just last November, the Opera Web browser. Now Phoenix is preparing to add the piece de resistance: a commercial office suite called ThinkFree Office that's designed to use the OOXML format created for Microsoft Office 2007 and now published as an open standard by Microsoft.
Europe: Microsoft's behavior has changed, interop docs already complete
In an historic, if muffled, admission that Microsoft has not only made progress in its compliance with European Commission directives but may have been making progress all along, the EC this morning, Brussels time, released a statement saying it no longer needs to directly monitor Microsoft's compliance with the terms of its 2004 Statement of Objections.
"In light of changes in Microsoft's behaviour, the increased opportunity for third parties to exercise their rights directly before national courts and experience gained since the adoption of the 2004 Decision," this morning's statement reads, "the Commission no longer requires a full time monitoring trustee to assess Microsoft's compliance. In future, the Commission intends to rely on the ad hoc assistance of technical consultants.
No kudos yet for Microsoft's Kumo
The word which perhaps best characterizes the screenshots, leaked today to The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher, of Microsoft's internal tests of a search service tentatively entitled "Kumo," is unremarkable. They show a remade version of Windows Live Search with a few new innovations -- new for Microsoft, that is -- but at least based on these samples alone, not enough to clearly demonstrate why anyone should use Kumo instead of Google or Yahoo.
The screenshots display search results for three typical types of popular searches. These results are displayed on a page with a categorical navigation bar along the left side, offering ways in which the service can display different types of results (in Windows Live Search, these categories might appear in a line along the top marked See also). Unlike in Live.com, however, results can appear automatically grouped into Yellow Pages-like categories; for example, a search for "Audi S8" returned a list which was subcategorized into "Parts," "Accessories," "Forum," and other groupings with related terms.
Web ads in Office 14? Not very likely
A Microsoft spokesperson today confirmed the text of a statement attributed to Business Division President Stephen Elop this morning, which was interpreted by bloggers including Silicon Valley Insider as meaning that the company's forthcoming Office 14 suite will add advertising as a source of alternate revenue.
"There will be ad-based revenue streams," reads the quote from Elop. "There's an opportunity to draw those pirate customers into the revenue stream. We want to draw them into the Windows family and maybe there's an upsell opportunity later."
Official: Genachowski nominated FCC chairman
The Federal Communications Commission confirmed minutes ago that Julius Genachowski, the venture capital firm director who served as counsel to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, has officially been nominated by President Obama to serve as FCC Chairman. This after an unusually long vetting process that many suspect may have been slowed down not by Genachowski himself -- whose credentials have yet to be questioned -- but by the President's recent track record of nominating candidates with clean tax histories.
"I can think of no one better than Julius Genachowski," reads a statement from the President this afternoon, "to serve as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He will bring to the job diverse and unparalleled experience in communications and technology, with two decades of accomplishment in the private sector and public service. I know him as the son of immigrants who carries a deep appreciation for this country and the American dream; and as the proud father of three children working with his wife Rachel to be responsible parents in this digital age."
Confirmed: Micron in talks with Taiwan to create new DRAM 'entity'
A spokesperson for Boise, Idaho-based Micron Technology confirmed to Betanews this morning that it has submitted a proposal to the government of Taiwan to assist that country in the consolidation of its DRAM industry. That proposal, if agreed upon and carried out, would create something being referred to as a "new DRAM entity" that would be launched with an automatic joint research and development agreement with Micron, as well as the license to use some 2,000 patents from the company's portfolio of 17,000.
"Micron has talked a lot about seeing value in the memory industry," spokesperson Dan Francisco told us today. There's certainly value in Taiwan's ability to produce, and that is what Micron is interested in fostering. Negotiations are ongoing, Francisco said, and involve other leading companies in Taiwan's memory industry, though no names are currently being included on that list.
Done deal: Good is now Visto's
In a move that some are saying may spare workers from further layoffs, Visto has already closed its acquisition deal for Good Technology, purchased from Motorola in a deal announced last week.
Visto's statement this morning gives the distinct impression that it plans to market Good Technology services as competitive against Research in Motion's BlackBerry. But analysts today were speculating on the likelihood that Visto would instead add Good to its bustling portfolio of intellectual property, and may use it instead to go on the warpath against RIM by expanding the scope of its current lawsuits.
Intel's Atom finds new homes in embedded devices, Taiwanese factories
Today, small device manufacturers that don't have their own foundries rely on components makers to provide for them a kind of mix-and-match set of technologies upon which they can base their designs. One of the largest of these components companies is Taiwan's TSMC, which licenses its own intellectual property so that unique device manufacturers can leverage that IP to build their own designs. Up until today, the question of whether Intel could break into that market, making portable handset builders rely on its Atom processor the way motherboard producers rely on Core 2 and Xeon, has been up in the air.
No more. As the result of something called a memorandum of understanding between the two companies, Intel is permitting its Atom CPU core's IP to be ported to the TSMC Technology Platform -- the portfolio of IP that TSMC licenses to smaller firms. Now, these firms can build devices using Intel's Atom as their CPU, without having to also deal with Intel. It also makes TSMC effectively a co-opted foundry for Intel's hottest product line in this lousy economy.
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