With the DOJ expressing skepticism over Yahoo's agreement to sell search ad space to its biggest competitor, a letter from a key US senator urging action could be preaching to the choir. What's interesting is that senator's theory.
In a letter to the Justice Department's antitrust chief yesterday, Sen. Herb Kohl (D - Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Antitrust Committee, advised the Dept. to maintain a close watch over Google and Yahoo as they initiate their search advertising deal, for two reasons: The first is something discussed quite often, that the deal could be used to drive up the price of contextual search advertising.
Good news: Steve Jobs did not have a major heart attack this week. Bad news: A serious "citizen journalism" misfire may have caused several heart attacks for investors anyway.
The "Steve Jobs heart attack" rumor, which started with a single post on the iReport site owned by CNN and spread rapidly through the blogosphere and parts of the mainstream media, illustrates the downside of throwing the doors of a news site open to anyone -- even as the week's financial and political news showed how effective and intelligent reader news gathering and commentary can be when it's done right.
In what is supposed to be a fast-moving industry, a security hole in an encryption system for global banking has been open for seven years. Yesterday, finally, a standards body mandated that the hole must be closed by 2010.
In its latest amendment to its security standards document, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council has agreed to finally discontinue the promotion and use of an encryption standard for wireless communications whose integrity was shown by security engineers to be easily penetrated seven years ago.
Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have approved a bill that will give all cellular customers coverage in the Washington DC Metro transit system.
Several years ago I lived in Washington, DC, and relied exclusively on the Metro (DC's equivalent to New York's Subway, Boston's "T", and Chicago's El) for transportation to and from Northern Virginia for work. While it always seemed like I had a wireless signal in New York's subway, any time I was underground on the DC Metro, either on trains or in stations, I would be without signal. Those scant moments when the Blue Line trains were above ground while heading into Springfield, VA were the only times I could use my phone.
In defending itself against antitrust allegations, Apple has filed a motion in US District Court denying counterclaims by Doral, FL-based Psystar that Apple is a "monopolistic power," and seeking a dismissal.
As previously reported in BetaNews, in the David vs. Goliath legal case, Apple has accused clone maker Psystar of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract. Apple charges, too, that Psystar made modifications to the Mac OS code that allowed the software to run on Psystar's hardware.
3:46 pm EDT October 2, 2008 - In a move reminiscent of a different CEO named Steve, Microsoft's chief Wednesday expressed the idea of a future service for deploying applications "in the cloud." But perhaps speculators are confused by the "Windows" name.
Until the Professional Developers' Conference convenes in a little over four weeks' time, Microsoft will very likely say nothing of consequence about a concept its CEO publicly called "Windows Cloud" during a developers' meeting in London yesterday. That's by design, of course; Steve Ballmer is, for once, successfully deploying a Steve Jobs tactic of tossing a new concept to the masses like fresh meat to the wolves, and occupying their attention up until the final date of revelation.
Skype's Josh Silverman admitted yesterday that a security breach enabled Chinese Skype users' instant message conversations to be recorded and made accessible on public Web servers.
"It is common knowledge that censorship does exist in China and that the Chinese government has been monitoring communications in and out of the country for many years," said Silverman. He went on to cite Skype's public disclosure in 2006 of putting text filters in place to block certain words the Chinese authorities found "offensive."
While Motorola is engaged in device development for the Android platform, the company's Good Technology Group software arm has now garnered US Defense Department certification on a secure e-mail system for Windows Mobile devices.
What's happening right now at Good Technology Group (GTG), the Motorola division formed through Motorola's buyout of a RIM rival called Good Technology, Inc.? For one thing, Good's Secure S/MIME technology has now jumped the last hurdle for becoming the first secure mobile message system deployed among US Army troops, said Ravi Iyer, group product manager at Good.
The recording industry's efforts to compensate for lagging CD sales by promoting hikes in royalties rates, suffered another serious setback yesterday in the US as a panel of judges ruled mechanical royalties rates should stay put.
Apple's threat earlier this week to shut down its iTunes service cast a brighter spotlight on the Copyright Review Board's royalties review process than at any time since 1909. As of this morning, the CRB hasn't actually publicly announced its decision yesterday, although the Associated Press learned from sources who participated in the meetings with the three-judge panel that it decided not to raise the rates for mechanical reproduction royalties above the current base rate established in January 2006.
"Big Four" music label EMI and fourteen affiliate labels sued MP3Tunes as a company and its CEO Michael Robertson personally last year for alleged copyright infringement. A judge has tossed the personal lawsuit.
On Thursday, New York Southern District Court judge William Pauley III dismissed EMI's personal suit against Robertson, who is most frequently remembered as co-founder of MP3.com.
Music site Imeem has undergone a redesign that premiered yesterday evening, streamlining the service as its OpenSocial comrade MySpace chews up headlines with MySpace Music.
Imeem has been delivering social playlisting for nearly two years, and has finally reworked its site to be more friendly to the new user. To assist in the discovery of new music, a spotlight page with streams of new artists has been added. A new "Discover" page gives personal recommendations based upon browsing habits on the site, growing the lists as the user uses the site more.
NPR's got people, as in "NPR people" -- listeners whose fondness for National Public Radio is shorthand for who they are. Now they have their own social network.
An intensely loyal fan base is a great place to start a social network, but that didn't necessarily speed up the launch process for NPR's latest venture, which appears on its Web site under the Community banner.
You can't keep a good Dell down. After having paid the price two years ago for surrendering its leadership position, it's now clearly rejoining the battle with HP and is inching its way back toward market leadership, according to iSuppli.
It's fair to say that the resurgence of Hewlett-Packard under the leadership of CEO Mark Hurd has been one of the more incredible success stories in the emerging annals of 21st century American business. There were other prospective leaders who could have taken the helm when Hurd did, who might not have led the company away from what seemed certain catastrophe.
Apple's iPhone isn't the only device to get new support from an IBM division this week. Enterprise users of Windows Mobile, RIM, and Symbian devices can now get more businss intelligence capabilities from IBM's Cognos division.
Two days after IBM's Lotus division rolled out new software for accessing Notes mail from Apple iPhones, IBM's Cognos division has introduced more functionality for using its business intelligence (BI) software on other devices, including Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry, and Symbian handhelds.
On the same day Nokia releases its audio-centric XpressMusic 5800 touchscreen smartphone, LG sees the Finnish company's bet with its own camera-centric handset of similar styling.
Named the Renoir, this device combines an 8 megapixel xenon flash camera with unique touchscreen-enhanced features, with a result similar to a tactile viewfinder on a point and shoot camera. A special feature known as "Touch Shot" allows the user to select the area of focus by touching it on the screen, and the shutter fires upon release. It also includes 16x digital zoom, auto- and manual focus, image stabilization, face and smile detection, geotagging, and Schneider-Kreuznach optics.