Harrr!

The job and computer graphics community’s iphone

As of June, Apple said it had sold six million iPhones. Last Friday
was Apple’s biggest iPhone push to date, with the phone available in
21 countries, many for the first time.

Chief executive Steve Jobs has said he plans to offer the device in 70
countries in the coming months, bringing him closer to his goal of
selling 10 million iPhones this year.

But if the stubby eyeball voiced by Billy Crystal owed an unpaid debt
to a cartoon artist best known for his Grateful Dead album covers, the
company that launched the character was indisputably the first of its
kind. It may seem a bit premature to write a history of a business
barely more than 20 years old, until we consider that in the span of a
single decade Pixar has utterly overtaken the list of top-grossing
animated films. “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,”
“Ratatouille”: Anyone who has been around kids in the past decade is
well aware of the company’s runaway, inimitable success.

Books about the high-tech business have become a genre unto themselves
in recent years, with multiple titles devoted to Apple, Microsoft,
Google, and plenty of other computing success stories. Though Price
mostly stays out of the way of his subject, telling the Pixar story
briskly and with great clarity, the author has the benefit of focusing
on a company of computer nerds who happen to churn out oversize works
of mass appeal.

Lasseter’s 2 1/2-minute short film “Luxo Jr.,” about an
anthropomorphized desk lamp and its “son,” received an Academy Award
nomination in 1987. More important, it captured the imagination of the
computer graphics community. When Lasseter was approached by a
colleague after a screening, he braced for an arcane technical
question. “John,” the programmer asked, “was the big lamp the mother
or the father?”

When Rockport native Andrew Stanton made a long pitch to Lasseter
about his idea for a film called “Finding Nemo,” about a clownfish and
his journey to find his missing son, Lasseter listened politely to the
hourlong monologue, then joked, “You had me at ‘fish.’ ” By this point
in the book, the tales of the making of each new Pixar feature
(stopping short of “WALL-E,” the company’s latest instant classic)
begin to feel similarly overwrought.

But the intrigue of the merger with Disney, featuring a blood feud
between Jobs and Disney chairman Michael Eisner, resolves that problem
handily. Upon finalization of the long-gestating agreement, Lasseter
addressed an audience of several thousand Disney shareholders. His
speech, reports the author, unfolded in much the same way as a classic
Pixar script: “stretches of adventure narrative and comedy punctuated
by moments of disarming earnestness – all capped by the inevitable
happy ending.”

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Brad Stone at All Things Digital, Mr. Lyons will be moving to Newsweek
as a technology columnist in the fall.

and only a year and a half too late. It was mildly amusing for the
first six months. After that it was just an ego trip. Best of luck but
you won’t be getting any clicks from me.

Sat., 11:35 PM Fri., 5:20 PM User Friendly Blog by Ted Landau – 5:15
PM StrangeCharm – 5:15 PM iPodObserver – 4:50 PM iPodObserver – 4:30
PM 3:25 PM iPodObserver – 2:55 PM User Friendly Blog by Ted Landau -
2:50 PM iPodObserver – 2:20 PM iPodObserver – 12:30 PM iPodObserver -
12:25 PM 11:30 AM 10:50 AM iPodObserver – 10:20 AM iPodObserver -
10:05 AM iPodObserver – 7:30 AM iPO Quick Tip -
The Mac Observer Reader Specials

Lyons played up some of the well-known traits of Jobs and Apple, such
as the CEO’s preference for mind-altering substances earlier in his
life and the company’s obsession with secrecy, to great comic effect.
But he also wrote withering posts about other tech companies and
executives from Jobs’ point of view. The anonymous nature of the blog
sparked a in August 2007.

by July 9, 2008 4:10 PM PDT I stopped being interested once he was
unmasked. Part of the fun was not knowing who he was.
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To me, these are all the hallmarks of a journalist. But he might have
been a doctor, I supposed.

“Most journalists become famous by sucking up to people. You know,
that Bob Woodward, he even sucked up to Bush. But I became famous .
Pissing off one of the only people in the world even more powerful
than Bush.”

“I never thought of it that way, but yeah. I suppose it was. I mean,
the tech world doesn’t always have a sense of humor,” whispered the
man who called himself Dan. “They think they’re changing the world,
but they don’t stop to experience the world at all. They don’t stop to
enjoy it. Some of them are so unfriendly. Especially to us
journalists.”

“That’s it. That’s it,” he said, spilling his scotch onto his crinkly
chinos. “They’re afraid you’re going to screw them. But, at the same
time, they’re afraid you’ve got something, something that they really,
really would like to have. You know, like information. Or charisma. Or
the address of a really good, cheap lapdancing club.”

No one with the remotest humanity in tech can allow Mr. Lyons to
suffer the remainder of his days being a mere journalist.

And, from my one encounter with his depressing, narcissistic,
depressive, downtrodden being in that New York bar, this would not be
a good idea at all.

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The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs has quite likely seen the last entry as
former Forbes Magazine journalist Daniel Lyons announces the death of
his cult online persona. But will a new blog under his own name have
the same impact as the satirical postings of the Fake Steve Jobs?
Running for two years, the blog has become that rare thing: a bona
fide Internet sensation. Written by Daniel Lyons, whose day job was as
a journalist at Forbes Magazine, the blog took the form of a diary
expressed through the voice of Steve Jobs. Not the real Steve Jobs, of
course, but this hugely funny fake one instead.

The iPhone 3G doesn’t officially go on sale in the U.S. until
tomorrow, but has a hands-on review today. How? They sent a reporter
to a location where the iPhone 3G is already available. Now there’s an
iPhone 3G (Australia version) review on Engadget’s Website. What’s
more, Apple had to release the iPhone 2.0 software to customers buying
the new phone in Australia and other countries hours (or more) before
it launches here in the U.S. So, someone simply mirrored the original
download site and now iPhone 1.0 owners around the country are
updating their phones and accessing an AppStore that they weren’t
supposed to see for another 24 hours.

It really could be the end of an era. Steve Jobs will find it harder
and harder to hop on stage in his blue jeans and black turtleneck and
surprise people. His announcements will become yawners because
everyone will already know everything anyway. There’ll be no more “one
more thing”�just the one, two, and three things you were expecting.

Get more from and (plus tons more on the latest tech products, news
and solutions) in the all-new !

Adobe Flash plug-in: Adobe’s (ADBE) is no secret. To be most
effective, the Flash animation/video software would need to display
Flash content in-line with Web pages. So it would need to be a plug-in
for the iPhone’s MobileSafari browser. But Apple doesn’t let companies
make plug-ins for the browser, and might never. And even if Flash
animations/videos were to open in a separate Flash player app, it’d
still need to take a cue from Safari. Which means Adobe and Apple have
some negotiating to do.

Wi-fi hotspot creator: An app that would hijack your 3G signal and
turn it into wi-fi for your MacBook, iPod touch, or other machine to
use. If “tethering,” as this is called, is ever allowed, it’ll
probably be an add-on service that AT&T charges $30-50 a month extra
for.

Jukebox software: Which either replaces or complements the iTunes
software on the iPhone. This means that Justin Smithline — – won’t
be able to officially distribute “Instinctiv Shuffle,” a “smart
shuffle” app, which he says some 70,000 people have already downloaded
to use on hacked iPhones.

Artman, it’s worth pointing out that iPhone 2.0 is short on media apps
for two reasons: 1) It would be one thing if Apple offered customers
chance to buy songs ota from its own store. But so far, no dice. 2)
iPhone frequently described as a computer, or computing platform, that
makes calls. But standard for any computer or OS to allow any third
party to create apps – not just non-competitors.

The ePocrates Rx application for medicines is a Palm OS killer. The
fact that they’ve given it away for free will get thousands of doctors
and medical professionals to switch to OS X and pay for the ePocrates
Essentials application coming out later. Wow. Palm is really
screwed.

Maybe the death of Fake Steve Jobs has previously been exaggerated,
but the satirical blog may finally have ended with a post that says :
Just FYI, I’ll be launching a new site under my own name in the near
future. Should be next week. I’ll announce it here as soon as it’s
ready and provide a link. I hope you’ll come check it out. Meanwhile
I’ve compiled a “Greatest Hits” book for anyone who’d like a small
keepsake of the FSJ blog.

Shouldn’t that be ‘bails out again’? Didn’t he stop it before? Also, I
read that one reason he was stopping was because RSJ was looking a bit
ill, and it might be beyond the pale to make fun of someone in that
position. Can’t say I’m interested in reading RDL without his USP.

Please note: In order to post a comment you need to be registered and
signed in for guardian.co.uk blogs.

Don’t worry if you aren’t getting an O2 iPhone – nobody else is
either. Especially if they haven’t sent their passport. (Updated;
again)

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008 Registered
in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: Number 1 Scott
Place, Manchester M3 3GG ·

In his final blog, the Fake Steve writes “I’m sorry that the blog is
fizzling out. I know you’ll miss FSJ. So will I. But rest assured,
Fake Steve is not really going away. He’s just taken on a new form. As
Jimi Hendrix once said, ‘If I don’t see you no more in this world,
I’ll meet you on the next one, but don’t be late’.”

This is dot.life – a blog about technology from BBC News. is the BBC’s
technology correspondent. .

The Oyster system used on London’s transport network is hit by a
fault, rendering the cards inoperable on Saturday morning.

Steve Jobs struck it rich early in life, and bought himself a mansion.
But he kept it nearly empty because he couldn’t bear substandard
furnishings. He slept on a mattress on the floor and hung a few
photographic prints on the wall.

He was booted from the company he founded for, among other things,
becoming a pain in the neck; then, was brought back for an unusual,
glorious second act, when he pioneered the iMac, iPod and iPhone,
which took Apple into new fields, dominating the music industry and
edging into cellphones and handhelds.

But he is also an enthusiast for consumer devices – an elitist who can
put himself in the shoes of average people who will use his gadgetry,
and figure out exactly what they will need (and, just as importantly,
what they don’t need, which is stripped away, in favour of the
simplicity he craves in their honour).

“Jobs has carefully designed this ‘unpacking routine’ for each and
every Apple product. The iMac packaging was designed to make it
obvious how to get the machine on the Internet and included a
polystyrene insert specifically designed to double as a prop for the
slim instruction manual,” Mr. Kahney writes.

The book is not laid out as a management guide. It has a few themes -
focus, despotism, perfectionism, elitism, passion, and inventive
spirit – that interweave, as each gets a chapter with lots of
anecdotes to make them come alive. It’s pleasurable reading, and Mr.
Jobs’ style will spur all of us to question what works and doesn’t in
our own approach.

Just In: Tribal Business School (Jossey-Bass, 138 pages, $37.99) looks
like National Geographic rather than a leadership manual as social
entrepreneur Jo Owen goes on a series of journeys to tribes in Papua
New Guinea, Tuareg in the Sahara, Saami in the Arctic, and nomads in
Mongolia looking for the secrets to survival and success – and how
that translates to business.

) 2 comments (Page 1 of 1) by July 9, 2008 4:47 PM PDT On the AMD-
Intel issue, I think that Intel has the upper hand now in its line of
processors and is trying to secure this hold by expanding to the
mobile graphics market. I really think that solar cells need just a
bit more efficiency to get it over the edge where everyone will want
(virtually) free power. More than anything,we need better battery
technology. We need more power storage and preferably in a non-
exploding package (we all remember the Apple/Dells/Sony exploding
laptops.)P.S. I like how you refer to your XBox as “she” as in “she
died.” Reply to this comment by July 11, 2008 2:02 PM PDT Further on
the MD-Intel issue. People have to agree that Intel currently has the
upper hand. But I can not agree that you definitevely say that the
game is over. AMD came from nothing to have the lead in for a time.
They have the opprotunity to do it again, BUT IO have to agree that
they need to get new management to do it. In order to keep Intel
honest and keep their prices down, and we all know Intel prices have
always been higher, you need someone like AMD there to keep the
pressure on. Reply to this comment

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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything
from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work
with CNET, Don’s work has been featured in a variety of other
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New 3G iPhones capable of downloading applications will be available
on July 11 starting at USD 199

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Biofuels account for a 75% rise in the cost of food – report (20
Comments – Jul 8, 2008)

New York (NY) – Daniel Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs
blog, is hanging up his keyboard and heading to bigger and better
things. In his last post, titled “I’m sailing away”,
Fake Steve says Real Dan was given administrative access to the blog
and has now locked out fake Steve. But Lyons assures loyal fans that
Fake Steve isn’t completely going away.Started in 2006, the FSJ
blog has become immensely popular and Lyons has become somewhat of a
web personality. The former senior editor for Forbes started the blog
to stay busy and now sells FSJ-branded shirts and books through the
site. Some people may remember Lyons as the staunch defender of SCO in
its patent battle against IBM. He later aplogized and told readers
that he was duped by SCO executives.By all accounts the blog was doing
great until everyone discovered the real identity of Fake Steve. The
site’s last big hurrah was when Fake Steve was
‘served’ with a fake lawsuit from Apple. For a few days,
other blogs were speculating whether lawsuit was real or just an
elaborate stunt to draw more readers. Even now, people are wondering
if Fake Steve is really quiting, but that’s the price you pay for
writing a multiple-personality, Jekyll and Hyde website.Lyons admits
that he may have overstayed his welcome and says that he’s sorry
for the blog “fizzling out”. However he assures readers
that Fake Steve isn’t really going away. “He’s just
taking on a new form,” Lyons said.
Comments (0)

Steve Jobs is the archetype of the guy who thinks of the obvious and
gets rich from it. From the Mac to the iPhone, the great products seem
so self-evident once they are released that some personal technology
enthusiasts can’t help but say, “I wish I had thought of that.” For
people who write about Apple, at least this one, I wished I had
thought of . Since 2006, Dan Lyons has been writing in the caricatured
persona of Steve Jobs, often seeming to channel the iconic CEO.

With the iPhone 2.0 software and the introduction of the iPhone 3G,
users can now geotag their photos. Unfortunately, Apple has apparently
made a little bit of a boo-boo and is sticking everyone on the
opposite side of the world. Hello from Asia, also known as Chicago!

Many are sure to miss Daniel Lyons’ work but it is just a matter
of time before he’ll start growing tired of the rather boring
technology news and come up with a new and exciting character.

Copyright � 2003 – 2008 AHN – All rights reserved.Redistribution,
republication. syndication, rewriting or broadcast is prohibited
without the prior written consent of AHN.License AHN news for your

Really need to acquire a sense of humour, set yourself up as a guru of
technology and you are going to get a few brick bats thrown at you, if
not the whole rotting vegetable stall, and deservedly so. Grow up and
deal with it.

Technology News Computer Reseller News IT News Gadget News Information
Science News Search Engine Optimisation News Online Marketing News

The secret diary of the Fake Steve Jobs has reached its final page.
Author Dan Lyons announced real plans to give up on the blog, as he
prepares to move away to a new job.
Lyons, currently working at Forbes, is getting ready to move on to
Newsweek starting this fall. He could’ve taken with him as well, but
it seems he prefers to elave the charatecter behind:

In addition, Lyons is currently working on a new site as well. At
present time, RealDanLyons is still on its default settings, but
should be up and running in the very near future:

Copyright © 2008 Silicon Alley Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our .

Shoppers were lined up at Apple stores in KC and around the nation to
buy the latest version of Jobs’ iphone. The cost: $199. But wait a
minute.

The first iphone sold last year was $499. That price was so outlandish
that Jobs a few months later felt obliged to offer what were
essentially rebate checks to the saps — I mean “customers” — who
bought the first version.

Note that your two favorite pieces of trailer trash used campaign
money to buy two of the what you call outlandishly priced versions of
the Iphone for themselves.

Lyons will be taking most of the summer off to spend time with his
family, including his young twins, and will start work at around Labor
Day. He told me that Newsweekwas initially very excited about Fake
Steve Jobs coming to the newsweek.com site, and were disappointed to
hear that he had decided to shut down FSJ — but are still supportive
of his decision.

Comment: *
Respectful debate is welcome, but comments that are defamatory,
indecent, abusive, or in violation of any law will be removed.

When Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone back in June, he
promised us that the upgraded version would be in Jobs’ claims about
the new phone’s supposed superiority.

Yes, the new iPhone will cost half of what the old one did. But to get
the $199 discounted rate, you have to sign a two-year contract with
AT&T;—which is fine, except that the carrier has jacked the
monthly fee for unlimited data by $10 bucks a month. Do the math and
you find that you end up spending $240 more over the course of the
contract, or $40 more than the $200 Apple slashed off the front end.
Throw in text messaging—a necessity these days, and not included
in the unlimited data plan—and you’re even deeper in the hole.

yes, you should buy it. you should always base your purchases on the
opinions of random strangers encountered while spamming websites.

Federal and state authorities have thus far declined to prosecute
Jobs, or any current members of Apple, after an internal investigation
cleared the CEO, but the , Apple’s former general counsel, for
allegedly covering up the backdating.

by July 2, 2008 2:15 PM PDT Microsoft paid for their crimes of heavy
handed business tactics, how come Jobs gets a free ride from his
Crimes. He’s more corrupt then Gates and Ballmer combined!!! Reply to
this comment by July 2, 2008 5:31 PM PDT What about CNet’s own stock
option backdating scandal. Maybe *thats* the reason for the kit-glove
handling of this news. Option backdating is in many cases simply
fraud, saying that it is not illegal as long as it is not disclosed
oversimplifies the underlying problem of this practice. Reply to this
comment by July 2, 2008 6:02 PM PDT I just don’t understand!”Vogel and
Mahoney claim that the disclosure chopped $7 billion worth of
shareholder value from Apple’s stock”With this, they just make more
harm, than good and they saying they doing this for the
shareholders.Somebody should sue them, because they push done the
share price with this! Reply to this comment
by July 2, 2008 7:03 PM PDT This is amazing…it’s makes no sense!
Backdating is not illegal!!!! We went through this 2 years ago. Let’s
get this straight…these idiots are suing because when it was
announced that they backdated, they lost some value and they sold
their stock. Well, friends, if you can’t stand to lose money, stay out
of the stock market! If they were doing something illegal, then that’s
a problem. But the SEC already cleared them. But then again, why not
sue? The upside for the lawyers is huge, but they only have to spend
comparatively little money to prosecute the suit. Apple’s lawyers will
be busy, so the system feeds itself and basically keeps the lawyers in
business.
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At the start of the 21st century, there’s no tech outfit more
influential than Apple. CNET News.com’s Tom Krazit will attempt to
make sense of the rumors, hype, products, and people that will shape
the future of the company. But Apple’s not the only game in town, as
the established cell phone companies strike back against the iPhone,
and chipmakers try to figure out how to move past PCs and slip into a
little something more comfortable. Email Tom at .

Dan Lyons, the man behind Fake Steve Jobs is shutting down the blog:
“I know you’ll miss FSJ. So will I. But rest assured, Fake Steve is
not really going away. He’s just taking on a new form. As Jimi Hendrix
once said, If I don’t see you no more in this world, I’ll meet you on
the next one, but don’t be late.” Valleywag has a bit of speculation ]

Does anyone else think that he doesn’t strike much similarity to
Steve? Maybe it’s the lack of the 5 o’clock shadow and black
turtleneck…

@LindsayJoy’s MBP is into S+M: Ignore him -> bobdobbs “If it’s okay
with you, I’m going to continue to worship you for your body”: I may
have to appreciate that you have a mind — No slight intended….

updated . Attorneys involved in defending various participants said
the Justice Department concluded no charges should be brought against
Jobs or anyone else invovled in the backdating. The Securities and
Exchange Commission, however, is still pressing a civil complaint
against former Apple lawyer Nancy Heinen.

AMD to take huge charge: in the second quarter to write down the value
of goodwill for its acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI
Technologies. The write-downs amount to more than $800 million in lost
goodwill, and are an addition to a $1.6 billion goodwill write-off AMD
took last year. You could say that AMD paid a little too much when it
bought ATI for $5.4 billion in 2006. AMD will report its second
quarter results next Thursday.

Rambus adds to Nvidia’s headaches: that its results for the
second quarter would be weaker than expected, and it took a $150
million to $200 million write-off for product defect problems.

reported that Thomas, who has not been involved in the company since
2004, was disraught and his family hasn’t heard from him since
June 30. Meanwhile, the company appointed Frederick Ball as its chief
financial officer.

After months of speculation and anticipation, the Apple iPhone 3G is
finally out. New Zealanders had reason to rejoice as a fellow citizen
became the first owner of the latest avatar of the iconic product,
well the first one from the stores, that is. One can be sure that
Apple CEO Steve Jobs already has one, since he unveiled it to an
adoring audience on 9 June. (See: )

A visibly excited Johnny Gladwell, after buying the first iPhone 3G
sold, said, “I’m going to put this on charge, have a play around with
it, and have a nice long sleep.” His desire for sleep is
understandable, considering he had spent more than 60 hours camping
outside the Vodafone store in freezing temperatures before he could
get his hands on the object of his desire.

In its home country, the phone was available as the clock struck eight
across different time zones. Apple plans to sell its 8-gigabyte iPhone
for $199 in the US and the 16-gigabyte version for $299.

The company, based in Cupertino, California, says it has sold about 6
million iPhones since last year. It has said its goal is to sell 10
million by the end of 2008.

-On Friday, Rogers’ registry networks crash simultaneously with
Apple’s iTunes registering system after the new iPhone is unveiled.
Outage lasts into the afternoon at some locations.

) 1 comment (Page 1 of 1) by July 10, 2008 10:18 PM PDT Hi Nicole
–Thanks for covering the WordPress for iPhone app.Quick thing re: the
embedded screencast in this post. Since it?s a 16:9 video, if you
change ?fmt_dvd? to ?fmt_std? in the embed code, the video will look
much better. cheers. Reply to this comment

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At ten to midnight, Jonny Gladwell folded his chair and put away the
things that had kept him busy over the last two and a half days.

After two and a half days queuing up in front of the store, the 22
-year-old Devonport student’s long hours of waiting were close to
being over.

‘It was a good idea that we had the security guards but I
don’t think we needed them. There was one incident but it was
nothing serious. I never feared for my life although there might have
been times when I had to stand up for myself’, commented Evert
Bruyns, the second person in line.

The first person to enjoy Evert’s generosity was Harrison
Gulliver, a 15-year old boy that went to the Vodafone store on
Thursday with his pocket money determined to get the latest Apple
gadget. Thanks to Evert’s kindness, Harrison can keep his pocket
money and took home a free iPhone offered by someone he had never seen
before.

Cheerleaders, a DJ from George FM broadcasting live, free chocolates
and ice cream were on hand in Auckland to make people forget about the
cold temperatures.

McCulloch, 23, who was among the first in the world to own the new
generation device, started the queue for the iPhone outside Vodafone’s
Colombo Street store at 8am yesterday.

Hours earlier, a lone figure outside the shop, she said: “I’ve had a
few people ask me if I was waiting for the iPhone but some people have
asked me if I was protesting or something.”

She had been planning to buy one of the phones since the new-
generation model was announced by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs
about a month ago.

A spokesperson for Vodafone said that they were unable to provide
specific numbers of how many phones were made available for the first
night but added that the stocks were “strictly limited”.

So much for a competitive telecommunications market. Lets hope others
comming in Nov/Dec have a more realistic approach to servicing their
customers, this includes Telecom… Disappointed really

What people, waiting for a phone for 16 hours… spend that time in
work you get some money to pay for your bread and petrol….

I thought Apple wanted a large market share before Google Android is
released? Maybe someone forgot to tell Vodafone NZ.

To the “yawn” and “boring” comments; If this is how you feel why are
you even bothering to read these articles? Let alone reply to them.

I think I was the first to purchase in New Zealand; I bought mine at
12:00am on the Vodafone online shop, and have the reciept to prove
it…..and did not have to stand outside for two days….!

the phone is worth it weight in gold but best on an open plan , all
the best to iphone buyers out there, you will love the phone

how stupid to sit in the cold and wait till the shops open to buy a
phone the bit that makes me laugh they cant wait to spend 3000 dollars
a year to run the stupid thing more money than sence

I can’t believe people are actually willing to fork out a tone of
money for the iPhone 3G. Pretty overrated! I’ll stick with my ipod
touch and laptop thanks! Congrats to anyone who got the phone today
but hopefully you won’t be getting any regrets when your bills start
coming in! lol…..

This is silly, what a waste of money. In 6mths this thing will be
worth half the price and there will be so many better “I” like phones
available. I imagine a lot of people buying these can’t actually
afford them (just want the latest gadget….), just adds to the huge
amount of NZ debt.

It was a nice atmosphere in the Queen Street queue. Vodafone supplied
coffee, burgers and soft drink.

If it was practical to use you could see the whole webpage at once
without zooming in. What burning need would someone have to internet
browse on a pathetic small sceen at a cost of $250 per month ?. Mabey
for business purposes but then youd have a laptop. iPhone is for poser
simple,ooooooooooooooo look at my iPhone, look how pretty it is.

Man I’m soooo behind. I haven’t even bought an i-pod yet. Although i
would have i-lost or i-washed it by now anyway.

Iphone is just an average smartphone that Nokia have made ages ago
although it isn’t touch screen but hey its not worth lining up just to
buy it.

Costing so much on the vodafone plan and lining up to buy one.Are
people thick or something?

What a joke about prices. Vodafone Australia has the phone $69 a
month, gets $310 credit, 250mb, other extras and the phone costs $199.
I heard in NZ to get the phone for aroudn $199, you have to be locked
into a plan that costs $250 a month.

I was considering buying an iPhone, but as I have an aversion to
having my eyeballs ripped from their sockets, I’m just going to wait
and see.

It’s a shame really, because if Vodafone really understood the product
and the market, they could have made a killing.

I see the sales frenzy for the iphones towards snaging customers into
premium prices, I was one of the first people to crack a iphone 3G in
the world so the iphone can work on pre-pay/contract/anything that
supports GSM/CDMA/EVDO/TRI-BAND/3G-4G.

LoL i don’t see what is so good about the iphone – Nokia make a better
phone that does more. I’m holding out for the iToaster!.

Steve & Barry’s LLC, the New York-based discount seller of clothing
lines by celebrities, listed debts and assets of $500 million to $1
billion in Chapter 11 documents filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy
Court in Manhattan.

Yoneda said the store had a successful grand opening, is doing
extremely well, and continues its promotion of $9.98 or less for every
item in the store, including the new Wonderwall surf-and-skate
collection by Hawaii waterman Laird Hamilton.

Steve & Barry’s founders and CEOs, Steve Shore and Barry Prevor,
opened their first store in 1985 with the mission of providing
affordable, quality clothing.

“This mission has grown beyond our wildest dreams, providing our
customers with 80 million units of affordable clothing and accessories
during the past year alone, including products designed and endorsed
by celebrities who have believed in our vision,” Shore and Prevor said
in a statement.

Since mid-2007, difficult credit markets caused delays in store
openings and landlord reimbursements for store-opening expenditures
advanced by the company, creating cash shortages.

Steve & Barry’s has opened 276 retail stores in 39 states. All are
still open and doing business as usual, according to a company
statement.

In particular, its exclusive branded lines of merchandise created with
high-profile entertainers and athletes have performed exceptionally
well.

Peering into the tea leaves, Troubleshooter predicts two lines forming
at Sydney’s new House of Apple worship. The first will consist of the
Steve Jobs faithful eager to receive the blessed sacrament of iPhone
from July11.

The other will be lost sheep of the flock, doubters of the faith,
clutching Apple products that have lost their shine and hoping for a
miracle healing by a laying of hands from the company’s experts – or
at least an explanation of why their tech toy went toes up.

The latter line will include people such as Jonathan Ogilvie, who
wrote in response to last week’s tale of Jon Biddell and his G4
PowerBook laptop. Biddell’s PowerBook was one of many plagued with
vertical coloured lines on the screen after the 12-month warranty
expired. This seems a common problem for 43cm PowerBooks with serial
numbers beginning with 45. They are built by a Shanghai subcontractor.

Ogilvie also has a question that our own audience of genius readers
may be able to solve: that on the new drive he can change the player’s
DVD region coding only a handful of times. “Given that my work
requires me to buy a lot of DVDs that have been mastered overseas,
this is a real problem. Any advice on how to get around this issue
would be appreciated.”

“She examined the service history of the laptop and was ’shocked’ that
the customer-service agent who took my original call back in January
didn’t offer to repair the laptop immediately due to its less-than-
stellar service history. She asked me to take it to the Apple service
centre of my choice where Apple would arrange a complete repair at no
charge.”

Can’t get satisfaction from your ISP? New laptop on the fritz? Mobile
phone provider driving you nuts? Tell us your problem and we’ll try to
help: email troubleshooter@smh.com.au or see
www.smh.com.au/troubleshooter.

In watching a Webcast of the iPhone introduction I heard Steve Jobs
mention the “cloud” when talking about the new Mobile Me service Apple
is rolling out. When he says the data is pushed from the cloud what
exactly does that mean?

It became common to talk of pushing data “into the cloud” to represent
using the internet to send files to and from servers and Web sites.

Companies like Apple that sell storage “in the cloud” might not even
own the storage servers. They can lease the storage from large data
centers in more than one place. That way, adding more capacity is
quite easy. All those storage facilities can be combined into one
“virtual” server that grows as demand dictates.

IBackup is the preferred online storage and backup service of choice
for SMBs for its ease of use, security and value. Offers automated
backup and restore, file selection and securiy.

For a period of nine months, between September 2007 and the end of May
2008, Steve Wilhite, the man who brought us the “Drivers Wanted”
campaign in 1995 at VW and the “Shift_” ad platform at Nissan, was
without a daily job. His name was part of the rumor mill, of course,
some having him packing up for Dearborn, Mich., to handle the Ford job
that Jim Farley eventually landed as head of marketing. Others had him
going to General Motors to shore up its marketing. Instead, Wilhite
confounded many in May by accepting the job as president of Jumpstart
Automotive Media, an automotive interactive agency that works with
automakers and third party auto Web sites with the goal of maximizing
their Web marketing. The 1998 Brandweek Marketer of the Year came to
the job at San Francisco-based Jumpstart still smarting from a rocky
13 months as COO of Hyundai, during which he failed to meet U.S. sales
goals that some experts regarded as improbable. After stepping down at
Hyundai, Wilhite spent some time at a home he owns in New Zealand,
“decompressing and relaxing,” he said. He read books, hiked, swam and
lived a marketing-free life. Wilhite met withBrandweeksenior reporter
Steve Miller last week to talk about his gigs, old and new, as well as
the state of the auto industry as a whole. Brandweek: What made you
decide to go with Jumpstart? Steve Wilhite:I had been in touch with
Mitch [Lowe, CEO of Jumpstart] for some time. When I left Hyundai, the
second call I got was from Mitch to talk about a role for me at
Jumpstart. But I wasn’t ready. He sent me e-mails every couple of
weeks and finally I just thought that this was a pretty interesting
opportunity. I’ve worked in some very big environments and I was not
sure I wanted to go back to that. The online place is where people are
headed and need to be. BW:An eMarketer study last month noted that the
automotive category has dropped to No. 2 in overall ad spend, behind
retail. Are some auto marketers still reluctant to plunge into
digital? SW: There are three dynamics at play in this drop. One, there
is this constant pressure at the auto companies to reduce spending and
to migrate from communication to incentives, like just advertising the
money off on the hood. Second, automakers and their agencies haven’t
been as strategic as they could be in balancing their marketing
portfolios. That has to do with a number of things. There are prior
relationships in place for one thing, and there is a higher level of
comfort with traditional media that is hard to overcome. Finally, you
have to see that retail is a huge category and more people in retail
marketing are hip to interactive. BW:New auto sales this year are
headed for their lowest total in over a decade. Some of it is a
function of the economy, some is that vehicles are better built and
last longer. But some of it has to be the fault of marketing. What is
the biggest marketing mistake being made collectively by the auto
industry? SW:The auto industry used to be the most powerfully branded
category in the world. Each company had different characteristics and
communicated those at every opportunity. The tipping point came when
Lee Iacocca said, ‘Buy a car and get a check,’ [the rebate] promotion
in the early ’80s. The whole focus of marketing resources changed. The
money went to deal-oriented advertising, and then we began to see the
erosion of brand loyalty and the commoditization of brands. I mean,
really, for God’s sake, stop discounting products and extending these
low financing terms. BW:Who are some auto brands that are still
keeping their image upright today? SW:BMW, ‘the ultimate driving
machine’, still works. Mini still has a powerful position. They
changed agencies and still maintained incredible clarity. Porsche is
still a strong brand. Honda has managed to stay ahead with its brand.
When everyone was making SUVs and bigger engines, Honda was out with
4-cylinder engines, an environmentally friendly image and fuel
economy. That has always resonated, and now look at what it’s doing.
It has a bigger buyer group than ever. Toyota has stood for quality,
durability and reliability for a long time. Then they bring out Prius
and, in addition to the brand’s other attributes, it now has social
responsibility and engineering innovation. BW:So in building a brand,
what role does online play? And how do you envision the perfect way to
use online ads when someone is buying a car? SW: I’m not arguing the
effectiveness of TV and it is true that every marketer has a limited
budget. And we are fighting for our share of the portfolio. But online
has the most potential to reach the engaged buyer. I recently bought
an Audi A3. Now what should happen is that I go to Edmunds.com and
look at the car and get my information. But I got there and all I saw
were three ads that took me to Audi USA’s Web site. But I’m already
deeper into the buying funnel than that, a consumer doesn’t want to go
back to the home page of Audi. What can be done is an Audi factory ad
at the top of the page with maybe three cool factoids about the A3.
Then on one side a regional dealer association ad, maybe talking about
lease programs and a map showing some dealerships. Then one more ad
from a local dealer near me. That’s how it should work. But it
doesn’t, at least not right now. BW:You’ve had a number of high
profile jobs at some of the top companies in the U.S. and abroad. Any
of them you still think about? SW:Apple was the one I lingered over
leaving. But it was tough to be the marketing guy under Steve Jobs. He
would work on a particular curve to the iPod for three days straight,
no sleep. He was the smartest and most inspiring guy I ever worked
with.

Face time is quality time… That’s why more and more brands are
adding or increasing the use of events in their marketing mix.

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Happy news for Apple, CEO Steve Jobs (shown above in mid-victory
dance) and former Apple CFO Fred Anderson and former general counsel
Nancy Heinen, who’ve all managed to dodge quite a legal bullet.
Presumably it will be quite a bit more difficult for the civil suits
filed against them to succeed with no criminal charges being filed.

John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the
personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote
the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for
the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s daily newspaper.

It is with great self-interest that I ask you to accept this letter as
my official resignation from Yahoo! My last day here will be the best
day of my life …

D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D
has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital
revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way.

In a letter to Yahoo shareholders, Icahn said: “Steve (Ballmer) made
it clear to me that if a new board were elected, he would be
interested in discussing a major transaction with Yahoo, such as
either a transaction to purchase the “search” function, with large
financial guarantees or, in the alternative, purchasing the whole
company.”

Microsoft could if it were to go directly to Yahoo’s investors with a
tender offer and work in tandem with Icahn’s proxy battle.

There might be an apples-and-oranges vibe when it comes to comparing
social-platform developers with iPhone developers, but the money
factor could easily make some of them willing to bridge the gap. For
small-time developers, it’s become increasingly tough to make a buck
or two from applications on Facebook’s platform, where the easiest
route to cash is ad impressions.

While the launch of the new iPhone App Store went fairly smoothly, the
migration of Apple’s .Mac service to the new MobileMe service
apparently . The scheduled changeover of users’ .Mac accounts to
MobileMe, or .Me accounts, was scheduled for 6 p.m. to midnight PDT
Wednesday. The migration was then pushed back to 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.

But Thursday at 11 a.m. PDT, neither service was accessible, at least
to several people in San Francisco. Reader Deidre Wyeth also
complained that .Mac account photos were inaccessible Thursday, and
instead the site redirected to the Apple.com/MobileMe page.

If you aren’t like the throngs of shoppers with iPhone fever, there
are plenty of alternatives that offer similar style and features. And
they may even be easier on your wallet in the long run.

Kaminsky decided to gather the affected parties and discuss it with
them first. Without disclosing any technical details, he said, “the
severity is shown by the number of people who’ve gotten onboard with
this patch.” On March 31, Kaminsky said 16 researchers gathered at
Microsoft to see whether they understood what was going on, as well as
what would be a fix to affect the greatest number of people worldwide,
and when they would issue this fix.

Google is battling a similar specter by using an e-mail authentication
technology to in order to steal usernames and passwords. The
technology, DomainKeys, uses cryptography to verify the domain of the
sender of an e-mail. It allows e-mail providers to validate the domain
from which an e-mail originates, and it enables easier detection of
phishing attempts by helping identify abusive domains.

Meanwhile, Microsoft issued a security advisory warning about in the
ActiveX control for the Snapshot Viewer in the Microsoft Access
database management system.

Basically, an attacker would have to lure a victim, via a link in an
e-mail or IM for instance, to a specially crafted Web page that could
exploit the security hole to allow remote code execution. This would
provide the attacker with as much access to and rights on the computer
as the logged-in user has.

The ActiveX control, which allows a user to view an Access report
snapshot without having the standard or run-time versions of Microsoft
Office Access, ships with the standalone Snapshot Viewer and with all
supported versions of Microsoft Office Access except for Microsoft
Office Access 2007.

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I have read a few of the FSJ things recently, but I thought it was
pretty funny!

Our campaign saw Jobs outlining Apple’s environmental policies. He
also unveiled the greener MacBook Air this year which is free from
mercury and arsenic. He has also promised to get rid of PVC and BFRs
by the which he should have done starting with the iPhone 3G launched
today. Apple has missed this golden opportunity and we’re going to
keep a close watch on what Apple does to keep its promises.

Apple Inc. shares fell for a third consecutive day on Friday, not long
after the technology company unveiled to great fanfare its new-and-
improved iPhone. So why the setback?

But bloggers have been quick to point out that Mr. Jobs battled
something far more serious – pancreatic cancer – in 2003,
and did not disclose his condition until nine months after the
diagnosis. This has fed concerns that he is, once again, concealing
something once again, and these concerns appear to be affecting
Apple’s share price now.

Submitted by on Mon, 06/16/2008 – 2:10pm.
The pop culture site is a great way to kill an hour online. Among
features such as “Commies and Russkies and Arabs,Oh My! Tracking ‘the
enemy’ in Hollywood” and “The Daily Video: The Gratuitous Profanity
Song,” you will find the oh-so-important Fame-o-Meter. The
Fame-o-Meter is Radar’s “real-time buzz index.” It determines a
person’s fame by measuring how many times the person’s name appears
online.

In the “i” world (where “i” stands for, take your pick: IT, Internet,
information technology, iPhone), rich boys Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
are battling it out for top honors. Jobs was beating at Gates at 3:42
p.m. ET on Monday but by 5:52, Gates had pulled out in front. As of
the time of this post, in the past 7 days, online references to Gates
have totaled 496 million and references to Jobs trail a little at 397
million. In the past 30 days, despite iPhone mania, Gates tallied 1.95
billion references online with Jobs coming in at 1.56 billion. But
Jobs popularity is surging and Radar seems to think that Jobs will
usurp the Gates for the No. 1 spot, and soon.

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industry doesn’t have a practical one as of now.

In any case, I did a particularly jumpy video of the doings at one of
Apple’s most famous stores, as legions of New Yorkers waited in
line for their cheaper, faster, prettier iPhone.

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street
Journal’s San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown
column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-
hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.

AllThingsD.com is a Web site devoted to news, analysis and opinion on
technology, the Internet and media. But it is different from other
sites in this space. It is a fusion of different media styles,
different topics, different formats and different sources.

Thursday, July 03, 2008 – 10:12 AM EDT
“Pity whoever has to follow Steve Jobs at Apple,” Brian Caulfield
writes for Forbes. “Not every great company stumbles into oblivion
after the departure of a visionary founder. The problem: Jobs has left
once before, and until he came back, it looked like Apple would be one
of those companies.” “Whether a leadership transition takes place 12
months from now or two decades from now, picking a Jobs successor is a
tricky task. ‘When you’re dealing with someone who really is a genius,
it’s not like you can say, ‘Let’s go find ourselves another genius,”
says Patrick Sweeney, executive vice president at Caliber, an
organizational consulting firm,” Caulfield writes. “The first time
that Jobs tried to share leadership of Apple was a disaster. Pepsi
President John Sculley, whom Jobs had picked as a mentor, ousted him
in 1985–and the company began to crumble. Only when Jobs returned,
about a decade later, was Apple able to surge from a computing also-
ran to an innovator able to crank out products that shattered the
status quo,” Caulfield writes. “Books have been written about why that
happened. But here’s one intriguing thread: Sweeney says Jobs is the
ultimate ‘ideational’ personality–someone able to find the links
between seemingly unrelated ideas fluidly. The result is a company
that has transitioned from strength to strength, moving from the Mac,
to the iPod, to the iPhone.” Caulfield writes, “Sculley could not
create products that Apple customers didn’t know they wanted. Nor did
Apple succeed under the sort of sharp-penciled manager able to turn a
troubled company into a booming business. Gil Amelio, who cut costs
and ground his way to profitability at National Semiconductor.”
Caulfield writes, “Apple will need much more than a skilled manager.”
Full article, in which Caulfield reports that “Jobs seems to have
assembled a smartly functional team,” .
Apple Store Advertisements: • • • • • •
• • [MacDailyNews and iPodDailyNews are ads, we will receive
an affiliate percentage from Apple. There is no extra cost to you.
Thank you in advance for your support.] Related articles: – June 24,
2008 – June 21, 2008 – June 18, 2008 – June 13, 2008 – June 13, 2008 -
June 13, 2008 – June 12, 2008 – June 10, 2008 – June 10, 2008 – August
08, 2006 – August 14, 2006 – August 03, 2004 – August 01, 2004

Message: I saw this story on MacDailyNews and thought you should see
it. MacDailyNews.com article summary: Pity whoever has to follow Steve
Jobs at Apple… Read the full article:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/17748/ MacDailyNews
“Where Mac News Comes First” http://www.macdailynews.com/

What? Jobs is being fired because he has cancer? OMG!!! RUN IN
PANIC!!! DUMP ALL YOUR STOCK SHARES!!! SOMEBODY CALL JIM CRAMER!!!
HURRY BEFORE THE STOCK PRICE GOES ANY HIGHER!!!

Team? Team? Who’s leading the team? No “team” ever succeeded without
leadership. Caulfield points out the obvious – there is no one able
and willing to assume the position of Great huckster and Tyrant (i.e
CEO Steve Jobs). I suppose Caufield believes that a CEO at Apple is as
obsolete as a PPC-based Sno’ Leopard. Apple has nothing left when Jobs
dies but design by consensus and innovation by popular vote from the
Keystone cops of Cupertino. Talk about lack of direction, purpose, and
motivation. Since the link supplied by MDN does not work, I reckon the
one person Caufield did not interview was Jobs himself. Still, I doubt
that Jobs would reveal his choice for CEO, that would take all the
attention away from him an his ego could not stand for someone else
getting more press than himself. That would make Jobs as irrelevant as
System 9.

NCIceman, Either way I’m sure Jobs will pick and train someone
eventually. “Will”, future tense fanboi, eh, fanboi? Keep clickin’ yer
heels, Dorothy. If Plan A doesn’t work, there’s always . Maybe one of
you fanbois would want to be a “donor”.

Love how they check out their facts “Apple Chief Operating Officer
Phil Schiller” isn’t that Mr Cook?? Mr. Schiller is in charges of
sales and marketing “while Jobs was out in 1994 for cancer surgery. “
I thought he was out running Next in 94?

@ha ha ha Really? To believe a large corporation has a plan in place
to eventually replace it’s CEO? That seems unlikely to you? Doesn’t it
seem like wishful thinking on the part of a mindless troll to dream
that a company will just dissolve once it’s CEO leaves? Nothing but
memories? Who is to say the person who they are grooming to be the
next CEO isn’t as good or better than Jobs? Or do you think that he
actually does all the work at Apple? Poor, sad little troll, you’ve
made my day. LOL

@ Denny The smell of troll fear was just too much for me to resist.
Poking them with sticks is awfully fun!

twodales, Ah, the consummate fanboi. “Please, please, MDN, only give
me tripe, only feed me the sweet syrup of irrationality, the gooey
goodness of wishful thinking, the succulent dessert of mindless
propaganda, the detectible edibleness of nonsense, the mind-numbing
flavor of foolishness.” You really don’t have to read my posts, but
you seem inexorably drawn to them. Why?

@ Ha,Ha,Ha, Another Microsoft troll. They keep crawling out of the
woodwork. “Team? Team? Who’s leading the team? No “team” ever
succeeded without leadership. ” So, how do you explain why Microsoft
keeps cludgeing on. ??? They have been missing leadership for years
now. LOL en

@ Ha Ha Ha, “Ah, the consummate fanboi. “Please, please, MDN, only
give me tripe, only feed me the sweet syrup of irrationality, the
gooey goodness of wishful thinking, the succulent dessert of mindless
propaganda, the detectible edibleness of nonsense, the mind-numbing
flavor of foolishness.” This boy is talking about Microsoft and its
“next” operating system??? I am so confused. LOL “You really don’t
have to read my posts, but you seem inexorably drawn to them. Why?”
Like watching an impending train wreck, we are all drawn to things
like watching Microsoft implode in slow motion. Ever read the articles
lately.??? More and more of the writers are leaving the “sweet syrup
of irrationality, the gooey goodness of wishful thinking, the
succulent dessert of mindless propaganda, the detectible edibleness of
nonsense, the mind-numbing flavor of foolishness.” that is dribble
that Microsoft puts out to hide its slow but steady crash into
meaninglessness. en

“”I actually have a photographer’s loupe that I use to make sure every
pixel is right. We will argue over literally a single pixel.” – Scott
Forstall” He’s going to be out of a job if resolution independence in
OS X ever becomes reality. Hey Loupe Boy, go get me some coffee and
donuts.

Better late than never department: Fake Steve Jobs has posted that
he’s :
Stay hungry, my friends. Stay foolish. I love you all. I really do.
I’m super-excited about the fact that I’ve been able to change the
world and restore a sense of childlike wonder to your empty,
meaningless lives. I honor the place where your disposable income and
my sleek, gorgeous, super-exciting products have become one, and I
wish you peace and happiness and all the joy in the world — oh Christ
now I’m crying. Dammit! Will someone please get in here with a box of
Kleenex? . Okay. I’m okay. So look. To keep you from getting lonely,
I’ve published the photo above so you can print it out and keep it on
your desk and gaze at it while reciting our mantra — Steve is fine,
Steve is God; Steve is fine, Steve is God — and you’ll be able to
keep yourself hypnotized until I get back.

Dan Lyons/Fake Steve has not stopped his ‘Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
Blog’. (http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/). As the entry quoted explains
other technology characters will appear over the Summer with
occasional appearances by ‘Steve Jobs’. Today an entry appears
authored by (a fictional parody of) Jerry Lang, of Yahoo. I don’t see
that the Alf Garnett comparison is very appropriate. Lyons is a self
confessed Mac fan and the appeal of the blog is its ambiguity as it
shifts between 1. A parodic narcissistic control freak tantrum
throwing Steve Jobs 2. Criticisms of Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Sun
and other technology companies which while delivered by the parodic
Jobs persona clearly reflect Lyons’ own views. 3. Attacks on Hillary
Clinton which are clearly reflect Lyons’ own views, and refer to Jobs’
support for Obama Barack . That is where some weirdness emerged in the
comment section as some posters appear to seriously believe that
Clinton would have Barack murdered if she became Veep. Since the blog
itself is constructed around a parodic bad tempered and hyperbolic
Jobs, it’s difficult to know sometimes if posters are genuinely
bizarre or are just extending the joke. 4. A parody of Apple fans
which is also highly complicit with the fans, since the message of the
blog is that computers which aren’t Macs, smart phones which aren’t
iPhones, digital music players which aren’t iPods and technology
companies which aren’t Apple are second rate or worse. That is even
after filtering out the parodic Jobs egomania. 5. Tech journalists in
general, and particularly those who criticise Apple are lampooned.
While the joke is partly about the Jobs persona the joke is also about
those journalist, including links to videos and news sites so readers
of the blog can enjoy the unintentional self-parody of the lampooned
journalist.

After a piece here in April suggesting advertising is waning, Thinkbox
is here to tell you it isn’t. But do you agree?

O2 customers may have to wait until the end of August to get their
hands on Apple’s new iPhone, even though the device goes on sale
tomorrow.

O2 said today that initial supplies of the new iPhone would be limited
for several weeks, and that many customers hoping to get hold of one
by the weekend were likely to be disappointed.

When the operator began taking pre-orders on Monday, its website
crashed within an hour. “We are experiencing unprecedented demand for
the device, and whilst we are confident that all customers who want
iPhone 3G will get one by the end of the summer, initial supply is
limited and will be for some weeks,” O2 said today.

Some O2 stores will open at 8am tomorrow, but others not until 9:30am.
There are more details on opening times on O2’s website. Customers
wanting to buy the device in store are advised to bring two forms of
ID, a valid credit card, and proof of address.

When Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, unveiled the new iPhone last
month, he admitted that many customers had been turned off by the high
price tag.

The Apple iPhone 2.0 software update will be with us all in the coming
hours today, we checked in the last few minutes and its still not
available but will be very soon.

I think it’s a disgrace Apple are charging iPod Touch users for
an update that essentially allows users to buy Apps from the iTunes
store.

All that was then, the iPhone is now old news. What is in the news
however is its rejuvenated version – the .

The 3G model is yet to be released (a week from now to be precise) and
I know tons of folks who can’t wait to get their hands on this beauty.
Yours truly included, I mean after all it does fall within my “all
things sexy” category.

Besides all the new features such as the two colour options
(Black/White), 16 GB option, 2 megapixels camera, 3G wireless
technology, GPS mapping, App store and Microsoft Exchange, the most
attractive bit of all is its marketed price; $199 for 8 GB model &
$299 for 16 GB model. Now when converted into Indian rupees, the
amount sounds easy on the ears and the pocket.

The iPhone 3G will be free in the UK as it’s subsidised by O2, a
service provider; it’s 1 Euro (Rs 70) in Germany, again subsidised by
T-mobile and costs US$ 199 (Rs 8,557) in the USA, thanks to AT&T. The
phone costs US$ 350 (Rs 15,050) in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and
the Philippines. It is not available in Dubai. []

And for my buddies in US of A who are jumping with joy (and mocking us
poor souls back home) thinking about the dream figure; here’s a news
flash for ya.

(Only) if you’re “upgrade eligible” ( to see if you are), you’ll be
able to buy the new iPhone for the discounted price of $199 for the
8GB version or $299 (INR 8,584.86) for the 16GB (INR 12,898.86) model.
(AT&T is somewhat vague about the eligibility criteria, although your
credit history and the time remaining on your contract are factors.)
You’ll also have to pay an $18 “upgrade fee.”

If you’re not eligible for the discount, you’ll have to fork over
extra for an “early upgrade”-$399for the 8GB iPhone 3G or $499 for the
16GB model. Ouch.

AT&T also says that a “no-commitment” (read: no contract) iPhone 3G
will be available soon, at $599 for the 8GB version and or $699 for
the 16GB handset. Pricey, but hey- no two-year contract.

Sakshi, When you say ‘The iPhone 3G will be free in the UK as it’s
subsidised by O2, a service provider; it’s 1 Euro (Rs 70) in Germany’
I hope you realise that the logic you extended to US AT&T contracts
also extend to UK and Germany where you have to lock into a contract
with the provider. If it’s 20k in India, and without a contract, I
would be mighty surprised and immediately buy it. Methinks, it’s gonna
be much more…probably 25k easily.

#10, sri, fine lets assume that the author is dumb, can you please
educate her and others @ DC about the facts and other nitty gritties
that you are talking out. are you ready to make a corrective fact
filled post on apple iphones ?

� On by Ritu:@ Temporal: Thanks for that extremely constructive
criticism. After your input I went back and s…

� On by commonsense:Morris, I totally agree with you that there are no
ultimate solutions! Society does not work that…

Published: 07:00 PM EST
Some of Apple’s top executives, including Steve Jobs, have once again
been accused of bad faith in backdating company shares.
Simultaneously, Mac web share is nearing eight percent in one report,
K-12 educational material has reached iTunes U, and Microsoft has
shipped the second edition of Remote Desktop Connection for Mac. Apple
faces backdating scandal once again Some of Apple’s key senior
officials are once again being taken to task for alleged stock
manipulation. Although Apple has successfully had its most high-
profile case after a combination of internally-run and US Securities
and Exchange Commission investigations, Apple shareholders Kenneth
Mahoney and Martin Vogel late last week filed a new lawsuit that
charges co-founder Steve Jobs, executives, and board members with
damaging the company’s share value through backdating, triggering a 14
percent drop in the company’s stock value during 2006 that wiped out
about $7 billion of Apple’s worth on the market in just two weeks.
By knowingly dating stock options for executives to dates that weren’t
revealed to shareholders and falsifying records, the Apple officials
were aware of fraud and what the manipulation could do to other
shareholders, according to the claim. While Apple ultimately
adjusted its income to address the questionable actions, the move is
said in the lawsuit to have given Jobs “instant paper profit” of more
than $83.8 million in 2000, and $20.3 million in 2001, that wasn’t
properly accounted for. In addition to Apple’s CEO, the suit also
brings further action against former chief finance officer Fred
Anderson and general counsel Nancy Heinen, both of whom were directly
blamed for the irregularities that prompted the earlier US government
action. The long-serving board members accused in the suit include
Intuit chief William Campbell, J. Crew head Millard Drexler,
Genentech’s Arthur Levinson, and Harwinton Capital’s Jerry York. Mac
web share seen nearing 8 percent Continuning its upward climb, Mac
share on the web is now at 7.94 percent, according to June 2008 from
Net Applications. The group’s over 40,000 tracked websites showed
Mac OS X gaining a full tenth of a percentage point from month to
month while Windows declined two tenths to 90.89 percent of all
visitors. A significant gain by Linux from 0.68 to an even 0.8 percent
of all web views is also credited with the shift. iPhone web share
remains flat at 0.16 but is still at an all-time high, and is the most
successful mobile or console operating system in the rankings. K-12
school material reaches iTunes U Previously reserved just for
college and university material, iTunes U is now opening its doors to
content suitable for students between kindergarten and grade 12 as
well as their parents and teachers. Like the post-secondary
material, the iTunes material for K-12 includes audio and video
podcasts as well as text that gives students additional course
material and adults more information about school programs. The
initial launch lineup includents content from school departments in
Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Utah.
Microsoft ships Remote Desktop Connection Client 2 Microsoft on
Wednesday released , its long-awaited update to its utility for
connecting to and controlling Windows PCs. The new version is more
Mac-like and includes several crucial additions, including the ability
to reach multiple Windows systems at the same time, to create custom
shortcuts for common actions, and to print content from the Windows
system through the Mac’s existing printer management interface. The
7.7MB download is free and requires an Intel or PowerPC Mac running
Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later with 128MB of RAM.

Everyone knew the new iPhone would have 3G networking for faster
Internet access. We also assumed the phone would run the previously
announced iPhone 2.0 software that included full Microsoft Exchange
support and support for thousands of newly created applications. Those
are features I’ve really been anticipating.

I was hopeful some of the other rumors would come true – namely
a forward-facing camera for live video chats. I wanted to be able to
have a face-to-face chat with my wife using my iPhone.

Heck, I want The Dallas Morning Newsphotographers to be able to
transmit live video back to our Web sites from their 3G iPhones.

Along with video iChatting, I also wanted the iPhone to record video
clips, even if they’re limited to 30 seconds or a specific amount of
the onboard memory.

The largest iPod touch has 32 gigabytes of memory. I suppose Apple
wanted to emphasize the low price point instead of bringing the high-
end iPhone up to the level of the high-end iPod touch.

I really think the iPhone is going to change the way we live. I
haven’t yet decided if I’m going to camp out with the crazies –
probably not.

About 100,000 people directly involved in the industry are set to lose
their livelihoods, the association said, with 150,000 more threatened
if conditions worsen.

Research by Cambridge Econometrics during the last housing recession
put total job losses in the region of 100,000 on the basis that
100,000 fewer houses were built each year. “We are heading in the same
direction again,” Humber said.

However, Humber warned job losses would not stop at 100,000. “The
housebuilding industry has a huge multiplier effect on employment and
the wider economy,” he said.

“Many more thousands of self-employed tradesmen and sub-contractors,
building materials producers, manufacturers of white goods, carpets,
curtains, DIY, estate agents and solicitors would be affected.

Many industry insiders fear that once the housing market picks up
again, the sector won’t be able to fulfil demand if it continues to
make more redundancies.

Pena is one of nearly 200 Latino high school students from around the
state taking part in the fifth annual Maryland Hispanic Symposium, an
initiative of the Washington-based Hispanic College Fund that aims to
keep Latino students on the college track. The program, which ends
today, invites students to spend four nights on the campus of Towson
University to get a feel for college life. Daylong workshops offer
advice in crafting a college application essay, applying for financial
aid and winning scholarships. Organizers keep the setting intimate,
dividing students into small “familias,” and pairing them with mentors
who will track their process throughout the coming school year. The
program also gives scholarships of its own to the winners of
competitions in categories such as speech and art. “Our ultimate goal
is to create the next generation of Hispanic professionals,” said
Idalia Fernandez, president of the Hispanic College Fund. “What we are
doing is capturing young people at the right age to be able to get on
a higher trajectory. At the end of the day, they will be aspiring for
a career, rather than just a job after high school.”The program, which
began in Washington in 2004, expanded to Maryland three years ago.
This year, workshops are planned in seven cities around the
country.Nationwide, Latinos are the least likely ethnic group to earn
a bachelor’s degree. In 2005, 12 percent of Hispanics age 25 and older
had a bachelor’s degree or higher, while that figure was 17.7 percent
for blacks and 30.5 percent for whites, according to the U.S.
census.The workshop didn’t focus on the challenges faced by Latino
teenagers who are in the country illegally. Rather, organizers tried
to inspire students, regardless of their circumstances, to see college
as a possibility.Too often, students lack the confidence to apply to a
four-year-college, even though they have excellent grades, Fernandez
said. Others are intimidated by the costs. Fernandez said that as a
high school student she was accepted to Boston University but was
taken aback when she learned that tuition exceeded what her parents
earned in a year. She ended up attending, paying with a combination of
scholarships, loans and part-time jobs.”So many times, just knowing
the cost will make them stop and say, ‘I’m never going to get in
there’,” said Fernandez, who came to the United States from Honduras
when she was 9 years old. “Other times, they aspire to be only what
they see in their communities, like a social worker or a policeman,
which is good. But some have the talent to be a

Add comment July 13, 2008

The job and grateful dead album’s pixar films

Apple’s technical difficulties also affected owners of the original
iPhone, whose devices froze when they tried to update the software.

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a CompanyBy David A. PriceKnopf,308
pp., illustrated, $27.95We’ll set out the disclaimer straight away: In
the computer-animated Pixar film “Monsters, Inc.,” the character of
James P. “Sulley” Sullivan is in no way based on this reviewer. My
middle initial is not P., I’ve never used an “e” in the nickname, and
I’m not 8 feet tall and covered in blue fur. But Sulley’s sidekick, a
one-eyed, lime-green bowling ball with pipe-cleaner limbs named Mike
Wazowski, may well have taken some cues from a preexisting character.
In 2002 a San Francisco-area poster artist sued Pixar for copyright
infringement, claiming that the concept for Mike had been cribbed from
one of his stock characters.

Art, as journalist David A. Price points out in his well-crafted book
on Pixar, the brain trust that revolutionized animated film, is “never
created in a vacuum chamber.” Pixar films have paid homage to “The
Magnificent Seven,” Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” Marcel Proust’s famous
madeleine, and, in “WALL-E,” a cultural heap that ranges from “2001: A
Space Odyssey” to “Hello, Dolly!”

By bringing animation into the 21st century with state-of-the-art
computer programming, Pixar effectively controls the cartoon colossus
of the last century, Disney, which absorbed the younger company in a
2006 megadeal. As part of the agreement, Pixar investor Steve Jobs is
now Disney’s largest shareholder; director John Lasseter has taken
over as chief creative officer; and Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull is
president of the combined companies.

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Brad Stone at All Things Digital, Mr. Lyons will be moving to Newsweek
as a technology columnist in the fall.

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by July 9, 2008 5:59 PM PDT ALL the fun was not knowing who it was.
Once he was unmasked, he should have ended it. It was funny, but a key
element of the humor was not knowing the true author’s identity. Reply
to this comment

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I was in a bar in New York last weekend and the man next to me looked
vaguely familiar.

“Because he’s not funny, so someone had to be on his behalf,” he said
with a large sip. Of scotch.

“Not at all,” he insisted. “All good things come to an end. Then other
good things begin.”

The real Dan Lyons would surely want to have kept going. Wouldn’t he
have wanted to develop the Fake Steve Jobs character? Wouldn’t he have
wanted to keep on loving his readers to the point of pant-wetness?

Which is why Fake Steve Jobs must continue. For Dan’s sake as much as
the whole tech industry’s.

And, from my one encounter with his depressing, narcissistic,
depressive, downtrodden being in that New York bar, this would not be
a good idea at all.

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This may not be a big deal, but I think we have to look at the big
picture. If this kind of leak can happen, then it’s likely that Jobs’
information control problem will only get worse. Every subsequent
software update could be leaked if Apple and Jobs allow it to show up
early in, say, Norway or Japan.

I don’t care what kind of rock-solid document Jobs has them sign. I
bet someone will talk.

What sort of stuff are we missing? Programs that shouldn’t be that
difficult to build, but that Apple doesn’t want on its machines –
unless it’s the one controlling it. Some of these apps could include:

Amazon MP3 Store: One thing we don’t think we’ll ever see on the
iPhone: A music buying/downloading shop that competes with Apple’s
iTunes store.

Skype: Or a similar Internet phone app that could be used over AT&T’s
(T) 3G network. Apple wouldn’t screw its partners that make money
selling airtime.

Unlocker: Which would allow you to unlock your phone from its official
carrier to use with a different GSM SIM card. Like T-Mobile in the
U.S., for example.

Nintendo emulator: Or anything that would let you play pirated games.
This is already available for hacked, or “jailbroken” iPhones. But
it’s not in the app store, and probably won’t be.

One iphone app you should check out – the new Bloomberg. Blows the
yahoo app out of the water…

Dan: I think your whole premise is silly. AAPL wants to make a profit
for AAPL and for the carriers. Why support AMZN or NBC, or anything
“illegal”? After all AAPL and the carriers are capitalists.
Capitalists want to optimize profits. If AAPL did any of the things
you suggest, they would not be optimizing profits. You got a problem
with that?

Peter: 1) “buy songs ota from its own store” Be patient. That may
come. So you have to buy songs when you are tethered to your computer.
Hooped-de-do. 2) “allow any third party to create apps” AAPL wants to
control the OS. Why let possible malicious software in. Wait for the
android Peter. That sounds like your cellphone. Lots of software, lots
of carriers, lots of manufacturers. Lots of cooks to spoil the broth.
The android is the disaster you have been waiting for.

I have to say, I hope the reason is not Steve Jobs possible illness.
yet, at the same time, I hope it’s not legal pressure by Apple. Fake
Steve was hilarious. Honestly, it made me like Jobs and Apple even
more.

Considering FSJ jumped the shark a long time ago, and has a history of
“faking” Apple’s “concerns” with his blog for publicity, you’d think
stories like this, would just be left to rot.

Don’t worry if you aren’t getting an O2 iPhone – nobody else is
either. Especially if they haven’t sent their passport. (Updated;
again)

After a piece here in April suggesting advertising is waning, Thinkbox
is here to tell you it isn’t. But do you agree?

As well as moving onto pastures new, the real Dan Lyons will get the
chance to shine through with a column under his own name. So it was
those developments on the horizon that prompted the affable Dan to let
the Fake Steve put down his weed and hippy mantras and call it a day.

But if you just can’t face the future without the musings of the Fake
Steve, then you won’t have too long to wait because a book of his bon
mots is out very soon and Dan is also working on a script to put his
creation on the silver screen.

It isn’t always pretty. “Jobs is a control freak extraordinaire. He’s
also a perfectionist, an elitist and a taskmaster to employees. By
most accounts, Jobs is a borderline loony,” Mr. Kahney writes.

His concern extends even to shipping. When he sold the original Mac in
1984, it had the first computer mouse. It was packaged in its own
compartment so that the user would be forced to unpack the device and
plug it in, making the mouse a little less alien when it came time to
be used.

In Addition: In Tough Love at the Table (Sextant Publishing, 224
pages, $24.95), Toronto-based corporate counsellor Allan Bonner
gathers together war stories from his behind-the scenes work with
companies in crisis situations and critical negotiations; not to
mention his draft-dodging friend’s experiences after moving to the
Maritimes from New York – those cultural clashes are unrelated but
fun, and that summarizes the book. Nothing really hangs together (the
opening is academic, the bulk of the book’s anecdotes often without
lessons), but it’s an enjoyable read, and you can learn something
about how to test yourself before a crisis hits and you need the likes
of Mr. Bonner to help you out.

The title Executive Stamina (John Wiley, 306 pages, $29.99) will call
out to those who are overwhelmed with their unrelenting burden.
Executive coach Marty Seldman – teaming for some chapters with his son
Joshua, a cycling and fitness coach – takes executives through
work/life alignment, building stamina, optimizing job performance,
career management, and personal relationships. You’ll learn how to
enjoy surreptitious yoga in the office, develop a new fitness training
program, and avoid career-limiting moves. That’s a broad vista, and
most readers will find they already know a lot in the book from
general reading. If your concern is stamina and energy, you would do
better with The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony
Schwartz, which came out in 2003, but if you want a broader career
approach or can’t get that book this will give good pointers,
particularly on exercise programs.

Consultant Dan Kennedy shows how to get to the really rich in No B.S.
Marketingto theAffluent (Entrepreneur Press, 428 pages, $19.95), which
comes with a CD.

In the first segment, Don Reisinger tackles Apple, AT&T;, Video games,
and much much more. After that, he sits down with Sharp’s Solar
Solutions chief to discuss solar power and the future of it in (and
on) your home. Finally, he ends the show off with a quick rant about
first-party video games. Check it out! Listen now: Download today’s
podcast

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Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, has revealed that over 160 games will be
available to download for the iPhone upon launch of the devices App
Store, in a phone call with the .

In total 500 applications will be available when the store launches in
the US today, 25 per cent of which will be free, 90 per cent will be
sold for less than USD 9.99 and one third of the applications will be
games.

1d, 13hago
- Animation specialist displaying cinematic contributions to Alpha
Protocol, Mercs 2 and Destroy All Humans: Path of Furon.

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Albatron demonstrates first Windows 7 multi-touch LCD Nvidia’s open
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Biofuels account for a 75% rise in the cost of food – report (20
Comments – Jul 8, 2008)

Coverage from the PMA 2008 (January 31 – February 2). Get a first-hand
look at JVC’s and Samsung’s new 1080p camcorders, the
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More Event Coverage

I know you’ll miss FSJ. So will I. But rest assured, Fake Steve is not
really going away. He’s just taking on a new form. As Jimi Hendrix
once said, if I don’t see you no more in this world, I’ll meet you on
the next one, but don’t be late.

Fans can pick up a bound collection of the best posts of FSJ, The
Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: THE SHORT VERSION,but it won’t be the
same. Every Apple fan wants to know what Steve Jobs is thinking, and
if you can’t have that, then at least you had Fake Steve, but no more.
Why, Fake Steve, why?

After being known for close to two years as Fake Steve Jobs, Daniel
Lyons, a former Forbes magazine journalist, writing on a blog page
entitled The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, decided on shutting down the
popular page, moving to Newsweek as a technology columnist and
starting a brand new blog Web page under his real name.

“I tried transitioning to other voices, like Jerry Yang’s,
but it just didn’t work,” Mr. Daniel Lyons said, referring
to Yahoo’s chief of operations. “It seems clear that
people reading the blog wanted to read Fake Steve or nothing.”
He explained that he grew a bit tired of the fictional creation and
also, more relevant, were his worries about cracking jokes at the
expense of a person with alleged heath issues. The speculations about
Mr. Steve Jobs’ health were started by a report in the New York
Times, covering one of last month’s conferences, where he
appeared changed.

The medical world has lost a great man on Friday night in the person
of Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, a renowned heart surgeon whose
professionalism and medical utensils (he created) has helped many
people…

Cases of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, are rising among
young women, according to a study by the National Institute of Cancer.
Not the same thing can be said about melanoma cases among…

Despite sailing up the nasal passages of the Sultan of Smug, Steve
Jobs, Lyons decided to kill off his creation. He said he will not be
continuing the column, although he has flogged the movie rights to
Hollywood middlemen Media Rights Capital, and it’s possible that the
character could show up in other formats. µ

AMD Apple ATI DELL Google Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Motorola Nintendo
Nokia Norton Novell Nvidia Sandisk Sony Sun Microsystems Symantec
Toshiba Yahoo

So long as Mr.Cox is the SEC man, there will be no pain for the BS
gang…..but I-Gwad will save us all. Free Apple Kool-Aid for
everyone.

Copyright © 2008 Silicon Alley Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our .

Shoppers were lined up at Apple stores in KC and around the nation to
buy the latest version of Jobs’ iphone. The cost: $199. But wait a
minute.

Now, a little more than a year later, a faster and better iphone is on
sale. Geeks who have to have the latest versions of everything were
rushing to buy it on Friday.

At this rate, though, the fourth or fifth iteration of the iphone will
be around $50. That will be just about the right price for buying
something I will use to make phone calls.

Fake ,” Lyons didn’t want to get stuck blogging during a possible
cancer relapse, or any other health issue, Lyons tells The Standard.
Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer several years ago, but was
given a clean bill of health after treatment.

Comment: *
Respectful debate is welcome, but comments that are defamatory,
indecent, abusive, or in violation of any law will be removed.

When Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone back in June, he
promised us that the upgraded version would be in Jobs’ claims about
the new phone’s supposed superiority.

yes, you should buy it. you should always base your purchases on the
opinions of random strangers encountered while spamming websites.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: MANAGING EDITOR: CONTRIBUTORS: , , and others Email
us at: tips@radaronline.comor IM: TipRadar Charles Kaiser on Obama’s
risky move toward the center Radar introduces you to the next
president’s relatives New York’s biggest gossip source is just an
average schmo from Jersey A helpful guide from the forthcoming
handbook Hot Chicks With Douchebags Charles Kaiser on standout
journalism in the latest New Yorker and this week’s winners and
sinners We’re totally okay with Matthew reproducing Yeah, boyee Just
Say No But not the one you’re thinking of Here’s to firecrackers,
beer, hot dogs, and, um, breasts

Current and former members of Apple, including CEO Steve Jobs and
several directors, have been sued again over their role in the
company’s stock options-backdating affair.

by July 2, 2008 1:50 PM PDT I’m glad someone is suing Apple. In
addition, Steve Jobs should go to jail for stock options backdating
both at Pixar and at Apple. He has a history of doing this and should
go to jail.
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Valleywag seems about right. Dan said he’d be surprised if Jobs were
still running Apple in a year.

Ah me. Well, perhaps I’ll tell you. But I’m not gonna type it all out
here! But mostly I love to listen and enjoy other’s stories.
Surrounded by a family of over-achievers with their own best-selling
books and Forbes cover stories, perhaps it rubs off. But there is more
then that. Here on Giz you only see my silly outlandish side. And why
not? I’m pretty silly in real life, but I’m retardedly over-educated
and I love knowing what makes people tick and what drives them to
their greatness.

There was a chapter “Working Through Pain”, where Bruce Wayne goes to
try to find a way to work through his pain. He finds an Indian woman
who tries to help him. She then concludes that he can not be helped
because his pain leads him to something he desires (implying his pain
drives him to fight crime to avenge the death of his parents). So this
of course was my favorite part, for it showed what drives Batman to
his “purpose”. Two other people also watched this and did not get what
was implied and found that chapter “weird”. I read books about Physics
for fun. But you’d never know how geeky I truly am by looking at me or
talking to me at first.

At any rate, nice to know that you loved and will miss FSJ. I want
Options V2!. But I agree with Dan that he would not want to parody
Steve if he is ill, because we all want real Steve to be healthy.
Anyways, keep up the amazing work Brian.

@LindsayJoy’s MBP is into S+M: If that’s his real job he should do a
Fake Dick Karlgaard Jr- I mean “Rich” Karlgaard blog. Unless… he
already does?? IT ALL MAKES SENSE!!!!!

Citizen journalism 2.0: has officially launched a new citizen
journalism site that weaves together traditional media and new media,
creating a forum for sharing news, videos, images and blogs. It will
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There has been some grumbling about prices in New Zealand, where
Vodafone, the only mobile provider selling the iPhone there, is
charging between NZ$199 ($151) and NZ$549 ($416) for the new iPhone
unit and NZ$250 ($190) a month for a minimum two-year plan.

The company, based in Cupertino, California, says it has sold about 6
million iPhones since last year. It has said its goal is to sell 10
million by the end of 2008.

-In June, Rogers sets the iPhone’s debut for July 11, and is quickly
met with criticism about the data pricing plan.

-Rogers representatives say they expect record first-day sales, but
decline to disclose how many phones were shipped to stores or how many
they had expected to sell.

When the iPhone App Store was mentioned in Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote,
one of the many applications announced was are coming forward with
their own iPhone app plans.

People started yelling his name and, for a few moments, the AUT
physiotherapy student at the head of the 200-strong queue was a star.

The 24-year old from Auckland arrived there at 7:30pm on Tuesday to
make sure he would be “the first person in the world to give away an
iPhone”.

New Zealand was the first country to sell the 3G iPhone with three
Vodafone stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch opening at
one minute past midnight.

McCullough and the others in line braved the chill wind and the stares
of curious passers-by as they waited for its release at midnight.

After she had secured her phone, she said she was looking forward to
getting back to a warm bed.

The new iPhone was similar to the first-generation phone with its
famed touch-screen interface but it had a few improved features.

Stuff.co.nz technology editor Reuben Schwarz said the phone had the
same look as the first one but had a plastic back for better
reception.

The 3G mobile connection provided maximum download speeds of 3.6Mbps
(megabits per second) for internet and email.

There was still no zoom or video on the 2MP (megapixel) camera, and
the phone could not send pxts or video by SMS (short message service).

As official “proxy/supporter/fill-in for when Luci is getting
interviewed” on the night shift, it definitely was an entertaining way
to spend a Thursday night And an exciting ride home!

Honestly, why waste 16 hours of the day in the cold to buy a phone you
could’ve bought for cheaper on a cheaper “plan” on trademe or ebay!!??
(albeit an older generation phone) What dummies. Wow “fast” internet
on a small screen, just get a PC and broadband.

Sure Tim, a PC would be handy to make calls on and listen to music,
watch movies or surf the web, whilst being able to be carried
anywhere….

If you get a you choose plan with 120 Anytime minutes and 600 Txt, it
costs you $72.90 .. that doesn’t include the $29.95 for 200MB of 3g
data a month .. a total of $102.85.

I can think of much better things to do with $250 pm (and locked in
for 2 years, lunacy!). Definitely would not waste it on flash harry
gadgets that will be obsolete before the fixed 2 year timeframe is
complete. Luckily for Apple not everybody thinks like this.

What people, waiting for a phone for 16 hours… spend that time in
work you get some money to pay for your bread and petrol….

I thought Apple wanted a large market share before Google Android is
released? Maybe someone forgot to tell Vodafone NZ.

Am totally bored of this topic already. Kiwis had a chance to protest
against corporate greed but these losers have flushed that down the
toilet along with mummy and daddy’s money.

I’m going to guess that Tim has never used one. I have the ipod touch
with the same “small” screen and it’s actually pretty good. The UI
makes it really easy to zoom in on sections of a web page and the
extra speed takes it from being painful to use (click, wait,
wait,wait) to practical.

the phone is worth it weight in gold but best on an open plan , all
the best to iphone buyers out there, you will love the phone

Words cannot express how excited I am that this “story” continues to
get so much media exposure.

Think about it, you go out on the Ibooze and loose your
Iphone…you’ve just Ilost your Ipod too.

This is the second generation of the tech. It’s got some vastly
improved features but it still can’t send pxt or record movies.

Mobile internet devices such as Blackberrys and Iphones are damn handy
when your traveling. No need to wait around for the laptop to boot up
so you can check an address or read email.

The iphone has no zoom,no pxt,poor camera.I can stick a 16GB memory
card on my n82 or even a 32GB.

What a waste of time standing on queue. I brougth my iPhone 10month
ago from USA and unlocked it. so can be use with any prepay vodafone
card. Why you want 3g so expensive. Use cheaper iPhone and use public
wireless hotspot in town to access internet. You don’t have to pay
$200.00 to browse internet. I am doing this last 10 months. Lots of
public wireless hotspots are available in Auckland,Chch and
Wellington.

I was considering buying an iPhone, but as I have an aversion to
having my eyeballs ripped from their sockets, I’m just going to wait
and see.

LoL i don’t see what is so good about the iphone – Nokia make a better
phone that does more. I’m holding out for the iToaster!.

Steve & Barry’s has opened 276 retail stores in 39 states. All are
still open and doing business as usual, according to a company
statement.

In particular, its exclusive branded lines of merchandise created with
high-profile entertainers and athletes have performed exceptionally
well.

Wendi Kopsick, spokesman for Steve & Barry’s, said the company is
analyzing each store location, but that no decisions have been made.

“I’m also concerned that the timing of this fault seems to fall
consistently outside the standard 12-month warranty on Mac products.
When I voiced this concern to a ‘concierge’ at their new Apple Store I
was informed that that is why people pay $500 for the extended
warranty.

“Apart from the obvious reluctance of customers to pay an extra $500
on top of an already expensive piece of hardware, this kind of ‘buyer-
beware’ retail logic makes me wonder if built-in obsolescence rather
than hip, hollow aphorisms is actually the cornerstone of Apple’s
marketing strategy.”

–S. K., Arlington The cloud is a fancy term for a computer or
server in a data center somewhere other than at your house.
Apple’s new Mobile Me service lets users store files on a server owned
or leased by Apple. Those servers are accessed through any Internet
connected computer. That’s like having a big thumb drive “in the
clouds.”

It became common to talk of pushing data “into the cloud” to represent
using the internet to send files to and from servers and Web sites.

Published: 06:35 PM EST
Despite reports to the contrary, TomTom is still working on a GPS app
for the iPhone. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs’ thin look may be permanent
evidence of his cancer cure, Greenpeace is concerned about a toxic
iPhone 3G. And a growing number of would-be iPhone programers are
attacking Apple’s backlog in approving their full developer status.
TomTom iPhone still in the works Dutch GPS maker TomTom is still
very much involved in developing its own in an interview on Friday.
Contradicting unofficial reports that the company , Lafargue says that
TomTom has been developing a version of its Navigator software for the
iPhone ever since the release of the SDK and that the software works
“very well.” Whether or not it will be releasable is still up in the
air, he warns. The company could find itself blocked from offering the
software through the App Store either as a potential competitor to
Apple’s own software or else as a rival to a chosen partner of the
iPhone maker. TomTom doesn’t foresee a clause in the SDK guidelines
against real-time tracking as affecting its development: Apple is
simply protecting itself against legal threats from users who land
themselves in trouble using navigation software, the representative
claims. Jobs’ thin frame the result of treatment: report Apple co-
founder Steve Jobs’ “. Jobs is believed to have received a special
treatment, known as a Whipple, that cuts off the tumorous part of the
pancreas and reattaches the rest to the small intestine while also
connecting the bile duct and stomach in a new manner. This allows
the remaining pancreas to perform normally but has a number of
potential side effects, according to doctors, including the tendency
to lose between five and 10 percent of body mass regardless of the
patient’s diet. Crucially, however, the loss is not a sign of a
worsening condition. Proper exercise and diet can let these cancer
survivors “live a normal life,” according to Dr. Dilip Parekh of the
University of Southern California. Apple has never publicly
described how Jobs’ cancer was cured or whether it would produce
adverse reactions. Greenpeace raises concerns over iPhone 3G When
Apple pledged that it would illustrate its ZDNet France. The
activist group’s toxics campaign head Zeina Al-Hajj notes that Apple
has been curiously silent on progress (if any) made in eliminating
harmful substances in the new iPhone. It suggests that Apple hasn’t
evolved its design to be more eco-friendly, she says. A lack of
progress would be worrying to Greenpeace, as the organization found
late last year that cabling in the iPhone , albeit in small amounts.
Observers have noted that the iPhone 3G’s plastic back is a step
backwards in recyclability for the Apple handset, whose shell was
originally made of the same aluminum that Apple has touted as being
desirable for recycling. Critics blast Apple’s continued iPhone dev
program backlog Over the more than three months since Apple first
began accepting applications for its iPhone development program, the
company still hasn’t shown signs of coping with the large number of
applicants., according to by Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis. Although
his company has a longstanding history of developing for Macs, it and
“a number of other respected Mac software companies” still haven’t
been accepted as official developers and received the signing
certificate needed to test code on an actual device and thus bring the
software closer to completion. The delay would be understandable
given unprecedented demand but is simply frustrating given the
inconsistency and lack of communication from Apple, Kafasis says. The
Cupertino-based electronics maker has so far fast-tracked individual
applications while leaving teams at larger companies without answers.
Little if any communication arrives from Apple regarding the status of
the projects, leaving prospective companies wondering whether they
should continue development or back out earlier. “We don’t know if
we should invest our time in a platform for which we may not even be
allowed to release software,” Kafasis says.

IBackup is the preferred online storage and backup service of choice
for SMBs for its ease of use, security and value. Offers automated
backup and restore, file selection and securiy.

Face time is quality time… That’s why more and more brands are
adding or increasing the use of events in their marketing mix.

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First-quarter reports released this week show that Allison’s
reading activity more than doubled, to 47 percent of daily life,
spurred by significant losses in the spooning and kissing sectors.

This film is so bad that I feel compelled to make a spoiler-laden list
of its most laughably terrible parts rather than review it.

D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D
has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital
revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way.

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confirming Icahn’s remarks about Microsoft’s renewed interest in a
transaction with Yahoo: “While, of course, there can be no assurance
of a future transaction, we will be prepared to enter into discussions
immediately after Yahoo’s shareholder meeting, if a new board is
elected.”

Microsoft could if it were to go directly to Yahoo’s investors with a
tender offer and work in tandem with Icahn’s proxy battle.

Although there could be a variety of reasons why Icahn has not yet
filed his definitive proxy, ranging from addressing any last-minute
changes requested by the Securities and Exchange Commission to
unexpected delays over Fourth of July weekend, it could provide the
investor activist with an additional bargaining chip in achieving a
friendly Yahoo-Microsoft deal before he finalizes his proxy plans.

One of the new features available at the iPhone App Store is the
ability for iPhone and iPod Touch owners to . With the free,
1-megabyte application installed, an iPod Touch or iPhone can use a
Wi-Fi connection to control and search through an iTunes library
remotely, flip around on an Apple TV, and control AirTunes speakers.

CNET News’ Marguerite Reardon has that highlights key features and
points out short-comings of seven possible iPhone alternatives. She
also threw in pricing information, not only for the phone, but also
for the service plans that go with them.

Fixing a hole A major flaw in how the Internet works has by attackers.
A flaw in the domain name system (DNS), the database that matches a
host and domain name with the numerical address of a computer server,
could allow an attacker to replace the addresses of popular Web sites
with that of a malicious server, said Dan Kaminsky, director of
penetration testing for security firm IOActive.

Meanwhile, Microsoft issued a security advisory warning about in the
ActiveX control for the Snapshot Viewer in the Microsoft Access
database management system.

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USA Today spoke with Steve Jobs about the impending App Store launch
that is rumored to launch at 9 am PT on Thursday, July 10th. Jobs
reveals that 500 applications will be launching on Thursday and that
it is “the biggest launch” of his career. Apps will be available from
MySpace, Facebook, AOL, eBay, SEGA and many more companies. One called
Pandora allows you to create custom internet radio stations:
Pandora is already available on other phones from AT&T; and Sprint,
for a monthly fee. On the iPhone, it is free. That makes it “a
credible alternative to broadcast (radio),” in part because iPhones
can be plugged into car stereos, founder Tim Westergren says.

It hasn’t even been a year since “Fake Steve” Jobs
was to the world, as Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine.
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs was a parody of the Apple CEO, which
became almost required reading in Silicon Valley, at least until Lyons
was outed.

Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where
readers can share and discover new web pages.

Looks like it’s the same old stuff in new packaging. Apple has let us
down again by holding on to the toxic chemicals that we found lurking
in the original iPhone. Launch of the next generation iPhone would
have been the perfect time for Apple Chief Steve Jobs to show his
company’s commitment to the environment. You won’t find BFRs and PVC
in the Sony Ericsson in my pocket so there’s no reason why Apple can’t
follow suit.

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor’s
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option to describe the problem.

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The first type of conversation is a semi-moderated or reactively
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inappropriate language or other issues. The comment then appears on
the website.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — Apple on Thursday threw open the virtual
doors of an “App Store” brimming with independently created mini-
programs promising to make iPhones even more coveted.

The shop, accessible through Apple’s online iTunes store, opened with
five times that many mini-programs. More than 125 of the applications
are free.

Software creators are allowed to set their own prices, as long as
figures end with 99 cents.

Apple stores will open early Friday to begin selling iPhone 3G models
in more than 20 countries and analysts say sales could pass the
billion-dollar mark within days.

We’d prefer a totally opt-in system, but, as far as we know, the ad
industry doesn’t have a practical one as of now.

If you want to clean out all tracking cookies from all your Web sites,
here are links where you can download three programs that can clean
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BoomTown landed at New York’s JFK Airport this morning and, of
course, could not resist visiting the flagship Apple (AAPL) store on
Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on iPhone 3G Day.

In any case, I did a particularly jumpy video of the doings at one of
Apple’s most famous stores, as legions of New Yorkers waited in
line for their cheaper, faster, prettier iPhone.

Actually I like the “jumpiness” of the video footage. I
got a real sense of the activity and the length of the line.

It may end up a team of people rather than just one. I think they’ve
learned from ealier and other examples that you need a visionary, not
a sales guy, in the top job. Ives has the vision, but dunno about his
business acumen. Either way I’m sure Jobs will pick and train someone
eventually.

You got to remember, Ha, ha, ha (what a stupid name) gets really upset
when you remind him that his penis is orange from eating corn curls
while reading Hustler in his parents basement.

@ Denny The smell of troll fear was just too much for me to resist.
Poking them with sticks is awfully fun!

I think he’s still on this side of the shark pit, but it was a mistake
covering the elections. That really brought out the worst in everyone,
as politics is wont to do. Hopefully he’ll also have more time with
his new job so he doesn’t have to croudsource the funny.

Most posting in the comment sections is clearly by Apple fans who
enjoy the joke, and it’s difficult to get the humour of the blog
without at least pretending to be an Apple fan and sharing that point
of view for a moment.

Limited supply means that most stores will only have a few dozen
iPhones when the device goes on sale

to not show photographer information –> to not show image description
–> here with the id “dynamic-image-navigation” is used so that the
innerHTML can be written to by the JS call below. –>

Click here for the first hands-on review of the 3G iPhoneIn pictures:
the new iPhone and its competitionWhat it costs: iPhone monthly
contract fees

O2 said today that initial supplies of the new iPhone would be limited
for several weeks, and that many customers hoping to get hold of one
by the weekend were likely to be disappointed.

Initially, the new iPhone will only be available to old iPhone
customers wanting to upgrade, or new customers signing up afresh. O2
customers on contracts with other devices are obliged to serve out
those contracts before upgrading.

The iPhone has always shined in the application development area and
this kind of expandability has meant many things to different users,
with the iPhone 2.0 Software update you will be able to do even more
with the iPhone thanks to the new App Store.

All these features and more will be free in the next iPhone software
update, so if your not getting the iPhone 3G just yet then check them
out today by getting the update via iTunes. It will be officially
available today.

I think it’s a disgrace Apple are charging iPod Touch users for
an update that essentially allows users to buy Apps from the iTunes
store.

Can I ask around what time will we see the update for the old iPhone
version 2.0(GMT), and where will this happen. iTunes or apple website.

All that was then, the iPhone is now old news. What is in the news
however is its rejuvenated version – the .

And if like me you too are thinking of purchasing this baby for a
lesser price via the ever-enterprising eBay or requesting your
chacha’s wife’s grandfather’s cousin’s grandson to send you US-made
maal – well then, my darling, you are in for a disappointment.

And for my buddies in US of A who are jumping with joy (and mocking us
poor souls back home) thinking about the dream figure; here’s a news
flash for ya.

So it only seems wiser to buy an official piece, the only drawback
– can you wait for another 3 months?

Saakshi O. Juneja is an active blogger, feminist and overboard dog
lover. Currently working as a Business Development Manager for a
sportswear manufacturing company in Mumbai, India. Did graduation in
Marketing & Advertising from Sydney, Australia. As far as blogging is
concerned…is a complete Blog-a-holic.

wow! as an old fart who has completely missed the cellphone revolution
(apart from that antique heavy as a brick device for emergencies such
as blizzards), I am amazed that anyone would pay this much, just for
its sex appeal and the pleasure of twiddling thumbs and pushing some
buttons. I have always wondered about all those folks yakking away on
the phone: How DO they find someone to talk to for THAT long? All very
mysterious forms of human behaviour. But then again, I love this quote
from ole man Marx: “nothing human is alien to me”

Now…again, How did “Steve Jobs” fool you? All the “fooled” issues
you mention are caused not by Apple or Steve Jobs…but by the
carrier. AT&T is handling their prices and policies for the iPhone
just like their policies for all their other 3G smartphones. And AT&T
policies are very similar to all the other carriers and their
prices/policies on smartphones. Steve Jobs negotiated the world’s
lowest price from the carrier for unlimited use for the first
iPhone…and everyone complained and criticized it as too slow.
So…now Apple is just like all the other smartphones subsidized by
all the other carriers. Happy now? (But Jobs had nothing to do with
your issues), he’s just providing smartphones just like Nokia,
Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Palm…only better and more usable.

Wow. Fantastic response I must say. And now getting to the point, this
is what I think : If the price of the 3G iPhone is around 20-22
grand minus any sort of yearly contract with Airtel or Vodafone, I
will go for it in a jiffy. But a contract is what I will be forced
into a contract(even if the iPhone price is lesser than predicted),
then the answer is a big NO. In that case I will go with HTC Touch
Diamond. A sexy piece I might add.

� On by Ritu:@ Temporal: Thanks for that extremely constructive
criticism. After your input I went back and s…

� On by temporal:ar: How did these …get the motivation…. some of
it is inherent and some inculcalted dig…

� On by commonsense:Morris, I totally agree with you that there are no
ultimate solutions! Society does not work that…

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I’m sure everyone breathed a big sigh of relief when Apple chief
executive Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone Monday. I was certainly
caught up in the iPhone rumor tornado, and I was really ready for it
to subside.

I was hopeful some of the other rumors would come true – namely
a forward-facing camera for live video chats. I wanted to be able to
have a face-to-face chat with my wife using my iPhone.

As I recall, when the original iPhone went on sale, after the campers
got their phones and the big rush subsided, the stores were pretty
quiet at the end of the day.

Roger Humber, strategic policy adviser to the House Builders
Association, said: “We have always said one house equals one job, in
that all the components – like the plumber doing half a day and the
electrician – add up to one person per house. This year we have about
80,000 homes coming in rather than 180,000 last year, so that is
100,000 jobs lost. It is the crudest rule of thumb we can apply.”

However, Humber warned job losses would not stop at 100,000. “The
housebuilding industry has a huge multiplier effect on employment and
the wider economy,” he said.

Joey Gardiner, housing and regeneration editor at trade publication
Building, said: “For the most part, the announced job losses don’t
include the hit on temporary contractors, the brickies and roofers who
actually do the building.

Add comment July 13, 2008

The slave and sudanese slaves’s beatings

Michael was one of the first slaves to tell his tale. His eyes were
red, fatigue showed on his weathered face. Scars marked the places
where wounds from beatings have never healed. He said his wife was
stabbed to death by their master’s wives, four Arab women who were
angry she was at the water well with them. Michael was beaten
unconscious because he charged his master when he heard the news of
his wife’s death.

Some of the men had been in captivity for more than 20 years, captured
by the Janjaweed (Arab for “Devil on Horseback”) and Arab slave
raiders during the so-called civil war.

The younger slaves, children like Ahkmed, were born into slavery. His
mother was killed by her master. Ahkmed has no idea where his father
is, no clue of his age. The reddish tint in his hair shows how
malnourished he is. His clothes were ripped and dirty, barely hanging
on him.

All of these people had lost hope they would ever be free to live
their own lives and have their own families.

There are reports of tens of thousands of men, women and children
still enslaved in Darfur and Kordofan.

A group of abolitionists, under the banner of Christian Solidarity
International based in Zurich, has been working quietly since 1995 to
free the slaves in Darfur as well as provide them with humanitarian
aid.

This organized rescue of slaves was begun about 20 years ago by the
Sudanese themselves. The Arab/Dinka Peace Committee is a grassroots
organization that liberates Sudanese slaves. The covert operation
generally begins in cattle camps in the north, where the underground
network trades slaves for cattle vaccine. Each vaccine is worth about
$40, and it costs one or two vaccines per slave. Livestock is much
more valuable to the Arab slave masters than are human beings.

In Germany in the 20th century, it was the Holocaust. Some 50 years
later in Rwanda, genocide again. And now, in the 21st century, as we
talk about smart cars that can park themselves and sending people to
Mars, we still allow the barbaric treatment of humans. Genocide rears
its ugly head again. We’re a society with short-term memory and
information overload.

Sudan and slavery are invisible to the Western world. Few if any
American journalists are telling the slaves’ stories. Why does CSI go
into Sudan? Because no one else will. It’s remote, it’s hot, and it’s
desolate, with no electricity, running water or cellphone or Internet
service in most places.

And, let’s face it. These victims are black. Politically, Darfur is in
bed with China, which is in bed with the United States. Slavery in
Sudan is a three-pronged issue: race, religion and politics.

There may be tens of thousands of slaves still in captivity in Darfur.
If after you read this you decide to do nothing, then at least you can
not say you didn’t know.

Yalini, the protagonist of my novel “Love Marriage,” turns 25 this
month. “I was born in the early hours of the morning, on a day in late
July,” she says in the book. “And as I entered this new world, my
parents’ old one was being destroyed.” Moments after she is born, her
Sri Lankan father watches on television as the country he left erupts
into violence — the anti-Tamil riots known as “Black July.” With the
anniversary of those 1983 riots, Sri Lanka’s war also turns a quarter-
century old this month — and I find myself still debating how to
describe it. In practically every interview I give about the book, I
am asked an unanswerable question. This morning, in San Francisco, the
interviewer is Aimee Allison of radio station KPFA. We’re live,
talking about Sri Lanka.

“Can you lay out what the landscape is there, and what is the source
of the conflict?” she asks.

The conflict has cost about 70,000 lives, and counting. Both sides
have long been criticized for their human rights violations. On the
government side, there are mysterious disappearances and killings of
mostly Tamil civilians, journalists and aid workers and the long-
simmering but never-concluding investigations into those incidents.
Other evidence suggests that the government colludes with
paramilitaries who have conscripted child soldiers. The Tigers, too,
have a stained history: They have used suicide bombers and child
soldiers and have killed elected politicians, dissenting Tamils and
civilians. Many governments, including the United States, list them as
a terrorist group.

I first really tried to explain the situation last year, in a
graduate-level South Asian anthropology class at Columbia. I had
prepared to present a reading on a specific aspect of Sri Lankan
society, but the professor asked me to talk more generally about the
country instead. How would you explain it to undergraduates with no
knowledge? he asked.

I was completely thrown. I don’t even remember how I began. Perhaps I
picked up the chalk and drew the lumpy map of the country. (The
professor: Does it really look like . . . that?) Or perhaps I began by
trying to explain the ethnic conflict. (The professor: Who are these
different groups? How did they originate? Can you explain the
different groups of Tamils? What do you mean, Ceylon Tamil? And the
up-country Tamils, who work on tea estates? And are the Muslims Tamil?
No? But don’t they speak Tamil?) Whatever I did, it was wrong — or
not right enough, or not complete enough. When the class ended, I was
still trying to explain Sri Lanka. We hadn’t even gotten to the book I
had been assigned to discuss. I left the room stunned at my inability
to put the country’s history into brief, teachable terms. You’ll thank
me later, the professor said. Next year, when your book comes out,
people will ask you that question — and then they will dissect your
answer.

As a novelist, I should be free to write about whatever I want,
without worrying about the political significance people will attach
to it. Indeed, writing fiction means that I have license to diverge
from historical facts. It shouldn’t be my responsibility if some
readers have little knowledge of Sri Lanka beyond what they read in my
book or hear me say as a guest on a radio show. I also know, however,
that regardless of the caveats I put before what I say, my words may
carry the weight of an imagined community.

The threat followed quickly on from the announcement that Condoleezza
Rice signed a formal agreement with the Czech Republic to host the
radar for the controversial project.

Moscow argues that the missile shield would severely undermine the
balance of European security and regards the proposed missile shield
based in two former Communist countries as a hostile move.

“We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with
military-technical methods,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said
in a statement.

After 14 months of negotiations, the US is struggling to clinch
agreement with its other proposed partner – Poland – where it hopes to
locate the interceptor missiles designed to shoot down any incoming
rockets.

“There are remaining issues, but the United States has made a very
generous offer [to the Poles],” said Dr Rice.

The signing ceremony seemed to bury that idea. Addressing Russian
anxiety about the anti-missile system in what used to be its backyard,
Ms Rice added: “We want the system to be transparent to the Russians.”

In Prague, where polls consistently show a majority of Czechs opposed
to hosting the US radar, protestors from Greenpeace unrolled a large
banner proclaiming “Do not make a target of us.”

After Prague, Dr Rice will visit Bulgaria and Georgia where she will
stress US support for Tblisi’s application for Nato membership,
another annoyance for Russia.

to Gerald Baxter: not you should mention functionality of brain cells.
Modern americans are descendants of bushrangers from Europe who tried
to escape punishment for crimes in motherland and killed indians to
occupy their territories. Nothing has changed since then. There’s
nothing to do with genes.

The thing that strikes me as strange is that if this is to stop
missles from Iran why position it where they are? The US has its new
colony in Serbia. Europe tends to forget these anti missle missiles
still wont stop the warhead landing in the EU and contaminating
European soil..

This is not a MISSILE COMPLEX it is an Anti-Missile Complex. The
Russians are using this situation to gain more global influence in the
world, Why the USA does not understand this beats me. USA cannot put
this on Russian soil because it consists of technology not available
in Russia

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 :In a blatant effort to scuttle tomorrows one-
day strike by hundreds of unions, the Sri Lankan government has
mounted a terrorist scare, claiming to have information that the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) could set off bombs in the
South this week.

Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, another
member of Rajapakses huge cabinet, was also present at the media
conference. Asked about the governments response to the strike, he
would only say: It is a secret. The government has extensive powers
under the countrys emergency regulations to suppress the strike or to
detain strikers. These include the imposition of essential services
orders to ban industrial action that is disrupting or threatening the
maintenance of supplies and services also essential to the life of the
community.

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Add comment July 13, 2008

The game and ninja gaiden sigma’s mgs4

“This year, our strategy is not to sell more quantity for PS3 but to
concentrate on profitability,” said CFO Nobuyuki Oneda on Friday. “Our
plan is not to reduce the price.”

Oneda’s remarks trail that Microsoft will drop the price of the Xbox
360 by $50 this Sunday. In the last three weeks, numerous sources and
retail fliers have confirmed the news, though Microsoft says it has
nothing to announce.

Sony effectively slashed the price of the PS3 for the first time last
year, when introducing a new 40 GB model without backwards
compatibility for $399.

Japan has had the budget range of PS3 games , with Folkore,
Resistance, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight
and Ridge Racer 7 all being available at a lower price in an effort to
have a second crack at the best-selling lists.

an epic campaign weaves the narrative, Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon
Rising will give players the freedom to handle military crisis
situations on their initiative. Unscripted missions will task players
with real objectives, such as laying down suppressing fire, covering a
friendly unit’s retreat or conducting short-range recon patrol.
Players will fight as infantry soldiers in battle, drive tanks in
armoured assaults, pilot helicopters in air strikes and infiltrate the
enemy in covert special operations utilising a wide variety of
realistic military weapons from knives and rifles to machine guns,
grenade launchers and laser designators for air strikes. Whatever the
situation, players will need to balance brute force with intelligent
use of tactics in their engagement against the full force of the PLA.

Many analysts and game journalists were wondering if Metal Gear Solid
4: Guns of the Patriots would spark a significant PlayStation 3
hardware sales surge, and that question has – for the most part – been
answered. We don’t yet have exact numbers from everywhere, but if the
latest Amazon response has been any indication, MGS4 is a definite
system seller.

MENTION the games market and most attention is focussed on consoles or
the games that run on them.

Indeed, latest generation consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation 3 and
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 have long been the centre of their respective
companies’ strategies to become a dominant force in all areas of home
electronics.

Online connectivity, high-definition media players and soon, personal
video recorders are fast becoming as important to consoles as driving
wheels, guitars and microphones.

The trend towards social gaming evident in the popularity of titles
such as the SingStar and Buzz series for the PS2, and Guitar Hero for
all consoles, has generated its own new set of peripherals.

Out of the box, a standard Wii comes with two special controllers for
motion sensing – the main controller and a second one, called a
Nunchuck for two-handed play with some games.

“Our Nunchucks and controllers are huge sellers beyond what is
supplied with a core unit,” Nintendo Australia managing director Rose
Lappin says.

At the top of the line, an Xbox 360 Elite, for $649, includes the
black Xbox 360 Elite system, 120GB hard drive, wireless controller,
headset, component audiovisual and HDMI cables, an ethernet cable and
a 30-day trial Xbox Live Gold membership.

Microsoft Xbox marketing manger Jeremy Hinton says the strategy is to
make next-generation games affordable to a wider market.

“Therefore we try to make the Xbox 360 very modular, then we offer
lots of accessories so you can customise your experience.

Sony’s next-generation PS3 makes use of more third-party peripherals
from companies such as Logitech, which also produces steering wheels
and the like for the console.

Buzz TV will let players select genres, play online against anyone
around the world, and let users create their own questions.

“So we have the PS3 now being able to be targetted at a much broader
base – more so than our competitors,” Ephraim says.

Sony has been quick to capitalise. At Christmas last year it began
bundling free PS3 consoles with its Bravia flatpanel high-definition
televisions to popularise the new format. It is now repeating that
offer this month.

The company plans to go further, using the PS3 as the centrepiece of a
personal video recorder due out later this year or early next year,
Ephraim says.

The Play TV offering for the console will be an add-on to the PS3 with
dual HD tuners, allowing users to record and play free-to-air HD
content on their PS3.

“Play TV will take that further. It will introduce them to the whole
area of digital television, and the capabilities that offers.”

Australia’s premier calendar for IT managers, chief information
officers and technologists featuring product launches, technology
clinics and management sessions. Updated each Tuesday.

Roland Tellzen AS a long-term fan of the SingStar karaoke series for
the PS2, it’s perhaps surprising that this writer hasn’t so far been
in print to sing the praises of the PS3 version.

Stephen Ellis A SURPRISINGLY large number of its ideas, memes and
controversies still begin their lives as ink on dead trees – not on
the internet.

FEDERALLY-SEIZED IndyMac Bank is due to reopen tomorrow after
suffering one of the biggest bank closures in US history.

PS3 Firmware update v2.40 came and went last week. It was live for
less time than I spend doing my hair very morning, and I’m
balding. But if the rumours are to be believed, a patched version of
the Xbox Live-mimicking update is coming on Wednesday July 7th…
maybe.

released last week was meant to be the dog’s cahunas, with many
new features added which PS3 fanboys had been asking about for months.
It was finally released on July 2nd, but was promptly withdrawn after
many Playstation 3 owners reported the update had bricked their
console.

The new update is meant to have fixed all of the technical issues, and
will finally allow PS3 owners the chance to enjoy the in-game XMB, and
(not a copy of Xbox Live’s Achievements at all) Trophies.

But!, Sony is trying to catch up by releasing software updates
designed specifically to brick you machine – they added some new
features of course to cover this up.

Bourne:
you got your ps3 broke due to 2.40? gutted, the only way to get your
ps3 back is to wipe the harddrive

Matt:
@ kev…you are FUCKING RETARD..WHAT A FUCKING DUMBASS…ITs
500 for 80gb and 400 for 40gb….and you know what you are paying
for a $400 and way up for a plastic melter…dumbass

kev:
wylie – i never said the rrod was a good thing. your words, not mine.
i was simply pointing to ms committment to customer service and the
willingness to stand behind their mistakes. From what i’ve read,
sony has made no public offering to have the ps3 fixed at their
expense like ms did with the 360.

Wylie:
Kev- I was just giving you crap about the RROD being a good thing. And
yes it would wipe out everything on your hardrive and that would suck.
But if you sent it in and got a new PS3 you would also lose
everything. What I was getting at is that its not a problem that the
people will have to send in their PS3 and not have it for weeks.
However when they put the hardrive back in the PS3 I’m not sure
how they will reformat it. I don’t know if the PS3 will
automatically do it or if they have to select something. Obviously if
they have to select “format hardrive” this won’t
work and could be a bigger problem.

Spideydog:
DAVE PARRACK going bald…now thats a headline…lol Sorry to
hear that brother Kev get back under he rock you once came, you troll.
Comparing RROD to 2.40 is utterly rediculas. You really are deserate
aren’t you?

Bourne:
the ps3 does have a removable hard drive… it uses a 2.5mm laptop
hard drive. You can remove it and replace it under warranty, it gives
details how to do it in the manual. As for reformatting, there are
tutorials on playstation blogs. You can use a computer i believe

this isn’t the first psn d/l that’s proved problematic to
the $600 ps3’s. more to come for certain.

if the 360 was really such a “lemon” one has to wonder why
it’s outselling the ps3 in the largest markets. goes to show
that 1. quality isn’t paramount to gamers (proven by the
ps2’s poor quality and high sales) and 2. people would PREFER to
take a chance on a “lemon” than pay for the ps3. not good
for sony.

The fact is, Microsoft won’t release numbers on how many 360s
have died. But financial analysts stated it could have been as high as
50% judging only from the amount of money they set aside to cover
repairs.

Personally, I still assert that it has a 100% failure rate, since
I’ve never heard of anyone owning one for more than a year that
hasn’t broken. Excepting (obviously) internet fanboys, who are
known for their honesty.

it’s funny tho; i have over 30 friends on my xbox live friends
list. Only 4 had to replace their consoles. so; what’s your
gamertag?

Before picking up Top Spin 3, you might want to think about visiting a
real-life tennis court and learning to master serving, volleying and
other Rafael Nadal-style Wimbledon magic.

Top Spin 3’s difficulty is notable because tennis video games have
traditionally been pretty easy to pick up. Starting with the memorably
great 1980s Activision Tennis game for the Atari 2600, you moved a
joystick and pressed a button to hit the ball; your blocky little
yellow or blue stick man did the rest.

What if you like a challenge? Then there’s a lot to love with Top Spin
3, looks included. With just a few tiny criticisms (every fifth
spectator seems to be wearing the same blue and fuchsia argyle
sweater), the visuals are impeccable, the animations are smooth and
the athletes bear a strong resemblance to their real-life
counterparts. The little touches are especially nice, such as the
sweat stains that start spreading if your character is wearing a dark
shirt. And the create-your-own character mode ties the Fight Night
series as the best I’ve seen for a sports title. You’ve got to
appreciate a game that lets you choose the volume and pitch of your
video game doppelganger’s grunt.

Once you get used to the game – and it took two hours and two trips
through the tutorial to reach a level where I could win a set playing
the Easy mode – it does become increasingly enjoyable. Serious gamers
will appreciate the detailed Career mode (along with Xbox Live
options), which guarantees that you can pretty much play this game
forever.

The Wii version is considerably easier to learn than the Xbox 360 game
but has different issues, not the least of which is the 1950s view
that the world needs to be right-handed. Top Spin 3 for the Wii all
but includes a Catholic school nun to swat your hand with a ruler
every time you try to use your left. Nearly 10 percent of the
population is left-handed (including this reviewer), and it’s annoying
to think that Buzz Aldrin, Richard Simmons, Eudora Welty, George H.W.
Bush, Bill Clinton, Robert De Niro, Helen Keller and Jimi Hendrix
would all have a marked disadvantage when playing Top Spin 3.

If the problem persists, visit our or try the search box in the upper-
right hand corner of this page.

Oh, but I will be interested in Infinite Undiscovery. Even though it
irks me that Square-Enix seems to be abandoning the PS3 these days, I
do have a 360. And besides, it’s a promising RPG, and that’s all that
matters to me. Might have to check it out.

That’s hilarious…and so true (about the stock at Gamestop). Do you
remember when Gamestop used to be called Software Etc.?
1 up, 0 down

I cant stand Gabe Newell. He just seems like a massive prick to me.
1 up, 0 down

you should certainly give Battlefield a go.. if anything to get a
review going! lol I think a lot of people put BF in the same bag as
CoD, but imo if youre in to FPS game then you will realise that they
are two very different games. one thing I really like about BF is the
feeling your actually on a side, rather than just not being able to
kill half of the guys on the map (aka TDM). The sense of war, all
fighting for a reason.. yeh, it goes quite nicely along side CoD in my
collection. you should try it! edit: ps.. I dont think Square is
leaving PS3, just that it just seems that way. years ago Square was
mainly on Nintendo.. then PS, now a ‘few’ titles have showed up on the
360. I dont think it will last (not saying that in a fanboy way)..
but some big titles will be popping out soon. when FFXIII comes out,
and Square see’s the fan base go nuts over it, they may start
concentrating on the PS3 again. to be honest (dont flame me).. I do
wonder how many years the 360 has in it before a new model comes out.,
maybe Square is just getting in there before it reaches the end of the
line in say a few years? Last edited by dillonthebunny on 7/13/2008
1:25:26 AM
1 up, 0 down

The newest PS3 features delivered by the firmware update included: an
update to the XrossMediaBar to allow users to access menu items
without having to log out of gameplay, in-game text message support,
and a new Google Search button. A new awards system for gamers was
also included.

–> Report: Flagship Studio Closes, Loses All IP Update: Flagship
community manager Taylor Balbi has denied Voodoo Extreme’s report that
he confirmed… 99 12hrs 48mins ago

–> MTV Reponds to Konami’s Rock Band Patent Lawsuit; Claims Surprise,
‘Substantial Defenses’ MTV has chimed in on Japanese publisher
Konami’s recent lawsuit, which alleged that MTV subsidiary H… 9 1day
7hrs ago

Copyright 1996-2007 Shacknews LTD, All rights reserved. Shacknews
logos, lols, rofls, lmaos, and possibly also wtfs are service marks or
trade marks of Maarten. He will try to bathe with you. Watch out!
User-posted content, unless source quoted, is licensed under a
Creative Commons Public Domain License.

Same here. Not buying anything from Valve. Am I the only one who felt
Half Life Episodes 1Last edited by Fabi on 7/11/2008 12:44:29 PM
1 up, 0 down

I bought it…but didn’t open it because I read some stuff about it.
Apparently the PS3 version was “ported” bad and has glitches and
freezing throughout the game. So I returned it.You might want to rent
it.Last edited by matrixkurt on 7/11/2008 1:36:43 PM
0 up, 0 down

yea man, TF2 is awesome… bt i’ve only played on the PC version where
it is absolutely nuts with minor glitchesLast edited by blitz30952 on
7/11/2008 6:12:44 PM
1 up, 0 down

sounds like it may not be as bad as some reviews said…plus it’s only
like 29.99 at wal-mart….which is why my cheap A$$ just might swoop.
Thanks for the info!
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is there any place where you can watch the first R2 trailer that was
on spike TV?
0 up, 1 down

that guy delete his post so it makes mine not make sense. thank you
infekt
0 up, 0 down

. The deal, coupled with its announcement today to do in-game ads for
Yahoo Games, is an important victory for Double Fusion and the
fledgling in-game ad industry.

Both Sony’s U.S. and European game divisions will use Double
Fusion to insert ads into Sony’s games for the PS 3 game
console. Beyond supplying the technology to either insert ads into
games or add video ads to games at convenient spots, Double Fusion,
based in San Francisco, will also help the game publishers find
advertisers and work out the brand messages for targeting gamers.

Landing Sony is a big deal because the electronics giant is launching
its for its PlayStation Network this fall. The world, which has the
3-D avatars and scenery that resemble Linden Lab’s Second Life,
is a major social network aimed at keeping gamers entertained while
they’re not playing games. It will be chock full of in-game (or
in-world) ads.

Now that the Dual Shock 3 is available everywhere – it hit Europe
last, finally becoming available on July 4 – many PS3 owners are
wondering: which current and future titles support the good ol’ force
feedback?

Well, you probably know most of the major games that do, but we
stumbled upon a very interesting list from the . As you can see, it’s
a very large list of titles that support the rumble feature, and there
are several names on there that should catch your attention. See,
there’s Eternal Sonata, an RPG that has not been confirmed for release
in either the U.S. or Europe (as far as we know). And there are a
bunch of other titles we’ve never heard of, including Punisher: War
Zone and Cinnamon Beats. We also see more than a few upcoming PSN
titles, which are worthy of our future attention.

^No..No it wouldn’t be cool. I despise Advertisements when I watch TV
and internet let alone a

At least with the PC there will be options to “mod” or “hack” the ads
from appearing. Certainly worked with Hellgate ($hitty game that it
was).

This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was
edited on 11 July 2008 13:44

This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was
edited on 11 July 2008 14:02

Think I’m going to ask a couple of game devs I know for comments about
how these ads work, and how they are put wherever they are on the
display. I’m really quite interested in the background technology
now..

This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was
edited on 12 July 2008 0:03

Get the latest headlines delivered directly to your favourite RSS
reader or content aggregation service by using the links below.

Sony Computer Entertainment’s European and American divisions have
announced an agreement now in place with in-game advertising firm
Double Fusion to pipe ads directly into consumer’s PlayStation 3
games.

This agreement comes only one month after Sony revealed a similar
contract with Double Fusion rival IGA Worldwide, a firm also poised to
bring ads to the PlayStation 3.

The company has yet to reveal when these ads will begin appearing in
PlayStation 3 titles, though with two of the world’s largest dedicated
firms as well as their in-house branch working on inundating players
with advertising, expect to see some results in short order.

I have a feeling the in-game advertising will be a little more
tasteful than that. I feel like it will make the atmosphere more
realistic. I think nothing kills the mood of a futuristic sci-fi more
than seeing a decripit fast food joint named Johnny’s Burgers and
Fries. Tell me you wouldn’t mind seeing a McDonald’s there instead.

Man this sucks. This is just like when the god damn ad intustry ruined
TV by putting commercials in it.

If they’re jumping on a cash cow and getting paid oodles to have ads
in the games I’m paying for, then I want them cheaper to purchase. I
refuse to BUY advertising. They’re making more money for the games so
they should lower their profit margins.

I see virtually no advertisements on web sites I visit thanks to
Firefox and ad block plus. I see no advertisements when I watch
television thanks to my advanced DVR. I hear no advertisements on the
radio because I’ve not listened to a radio station since day one of
the original Napster.

I completely support advertisements in media, but only if the media is
therefore provided free or heavily discounted.

Corporate greed is at it’s worse when it comes to intellectual
properties such as game software and video media.

I have to agree with Matt and Alex. So long as they don’t pop up and
don’t affect my bandwidth, I don’t care.

I don’t care if there are ads in my games (They would add impossibly
more realism to GTA games.), as long as they are in the right place.
For example, I don’t want a billboard in the middle of the desert.
WTH? Why is there a billboard in a desert? And for those people who
say “I don’t buy a game to see ads!”, I must say I don’t switch the
channel to Spike to see ads either. But I do.

Adding realism is great. Being able to shoot/bomb/destroy ads like
billboards in game would make it ok. And if these ads were in an
online environment, maybe it would be even helpful for the advertisers
to know which of their ads are blown up more than others. Just a
thought.

Psst! Ever wondered who’s behind all of AVReview’s brilliant content?
Well, click here for the lowdown on our writers…

The British Video Association has announced that sales of Blu-ray
discs are up an enormous 506 per cent against the equivalent period
last year, which equates to around one million units shifted. It also
represents 1.2 per cent of the total market, which itself is up by 3.3
per cent, driven primarily, it is thought, by the success of Blu-ray.

The EMA has also commented that it though Blu-ray was ‘a goner’ back
in 2006, with the PS3 arriving just in time to save the day.

The console is also expected to drive sales well into next year before
finally being overtaken by sales of standalone BD spinners, which at
the moment account for a pitiful slice of the market thanks to
ludicrous pricing and the fact that the manufacturers are still
finalising features and performance.

hahaha i think these kinds of conversations are meant for shady
backalleys rather than the PSXtreme comments section
0 up, 0 down

The ps3 has been around for 2 years and is supposedly going to be
around for another 8.Sony can’t go down too soon because they’ll have
no where to go down in the future.
1 up, 1 down

IMO Sony should drop the price, Sony needs to compete a little
stronger, forget about profit margins on the system and market the
hell out of it. This Gen feels sloppy compared to the last gen.
0 up, 0 down

Hopefully the cool surprise is that they were just kidding when they
said the game wouldn’t have trophies.

Crime stories! Read the latest cop and court coverage from London and
area in The Free Press

But now a fantastic new rumour is gushing through the Intertubes:
Could Microsoft be preparing to take the wraps off Halo 4 at E3? If
the online scuttlebutt is to be believed, the Softies might announce a
new Halo series game, sans Master Chief. Could be wishful thinking,
but it would easily be one of the biggest surprises of the show if it
comes to pass.

RESISTANCE NOT SO FUTILE: Among their promising-looking slate of E3
2008 titles, Sony’s got a pair of shoot-em-ups that we’ll get to go
hands-on with for the first time: Killzone 2, infamous for the 2006
CGI trailer that Sony claimed at the time was gameplay footage, and
Resistance 2, the sequel to the PlayStation 3’s stellar launch game,
Resistance: Fall Of Man.

But Sony is also set to unveil an as-yet unannounced new PSP game
based on one of their highest-profile franchises. We’ve already seen
PSP versions of God Of War, Ratchet & Clank, Jak And Daxter and even
Killzone, so what does that leave? MotorStorm? Possibly, but unlikely.
Lair? Surely you jest.

Speculation has run wild, ranging from a Wii version of Donkey Kong
(umm, ok) to a new Pilotwings (hell yeah!) to Animal Crossing Wii (all
but confirmed in a teaser in the UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine.)
Though we could just as easily get stuck with something like Super
Luigi Bocce Ball or Kirby Takes Manhattan.

That puts the glitter ball firmly in the court of EA and MTV Games,
who will be showing off Rock Band 2 at E3. Question is, will Rock Band
2 be able to match the drool-inducing new features being promised by
Guitar Hero World Tour? And the bigger question: where the heck are we
supposed to store all these plastic instruments?

AND THE REST: Could we see the rumoured Wii-like motion controller for
the Xbox 360? Will PS3’s God Of War III be shown, or the new ICO game?
Is now the time for another revamp of the Nintendo DS or PSP hardware?
Will Diablo III be playable on the show floor? And most importantly,
is it possible to survive for four days on two hours of sleep per
night?

All rights reserved. Proprietor and Publisher – The London Free Press,
P.O. Box 2280, 369 York Street, London Ontario Canada N6A 4G1

Amazon tossed up a listing for the third Battlefront on Tuesday, and
it showed six scheduled platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP and
DS. Now, those have all been removed (probably at the request of the
publisher, or possibly because they weren’t correct), but “two
independent sources” confirmed to IGN that Battlefront III is indeed a
reality. Furthermore, it’s most certainly coming to the PS3 – that
much wasn’t a typo – and the team behind it? Free Radical Design, who
are responsible for the critically acclaimed TimeSplitters franchise.
Of course, they also did Haze, which many of us would just as soon
forget, but hey, all good developers have hiccups every now and then.
And this information does seem accurate; Free Radical announced two
years ago that it had cemented an agreement with LucasArts to start
work on a “top-secret property.”

Cool. Star wars Battlefield was a great idea.I’ll definitely be
getting this one.
2 up, 0 down

Treyarch is developing the game for Activision, the first game they’ll
publish after securing rights to the Bond franchise last year.

11.07.2008 The hoopla surrounding the release of the latest iPhone
might not be as big as when the first one came out…

Gadget Review: You’ve heard the hype, now judge for yourself. Get a
hands-on tour of the new .

The 40GB PS3 is not on the market very long, so, as Engadget points
out, the new model may not necessarily be bumped up to 60GB or 80GB
but rather have some new addition or a fresh redesign.

While the hardcore gamers will be on the edge of their seats awaiting
news of these possible console upgrades, Apple iPhone fans are
crossing their fingers for an early opening of the iTunes Apps store.
This could open for business at 5pm US time tomorrow, instead of at
the same time as the Friday morning launch of the 3G iPhone.

Subscribe to Marketing Age today. It’s easy and you can save up to 20%
off the newsstand price when you subscribe online.

The basic formula for Quiz TV is exactly the same as previous Buzz
games. The show is hosted by a character named Buzz (with Australian
soap star Jason Donovan reprising the voice), and it still includes
around 5,000 questions. The buzzers have received an upgrade and the
game comes bundled with four of the new wireless controllers. They
work incredibly well, and you’ll probably wonder how you put up with
those tangle-prone tethered remotes in the past. The only downside is
that the wireless remotes require two AA batteries each, but you can
use the original PlayStation 2 buzzers with the new game if you
prefer. As a bonus, the new wireless buzzers also work with all of the
old games.

Quiz TV has three main modes: a solo mode that pits you against the
clock, a local multiplayer mode you can play with up to seven friends,
and an online mode that pits you against players from around the
world. Sadly, though, only one person per console can play the game
online at any given time. Single-player mode is a rather dull
experience, a bit like playing a board game by yourself. You can’t
play against AI opponents, so instead you compete against yourself and
the clock to get the highest score possible within a limited time.
Buzz is designed to be a party game, and it’s a lot more fun when you
have a few companions to play with you.

You can head over to mybuzzquiz.com and create quizzes using your
PlayStation Network ID. You’re able to set the privacy options on your
quizzes so that everyone may play them, or limit them so that only you
or your PS3 friends are able to see them. Quizzes can be tagged as
mature, and sorted into one of the predefined question categories such
as lifestyle, as well as subcategories such as video games. Each set
requires eight questions, and once entered, they’re scanned for
offensive language and submitted to the system. It takes only a matter
of minutes for them to be available to play in the game. Popular
topics include movies and TV, sports, general knowledge, and even
Chuck Norris. Once you’ve played a set, you can then rate it and
report offensive quizzes if any questionable material makes it
through. MyBuzz is one of the most compelling parts of the package,
and there’s already a burgeoning community around the game.

The contestants themselves are particularly well drawn and incorporate
some of the same stereotypes from previous Buzz games. Some of the
choices in Quiz TV include a cheerleader, a mime, a rocker, an Elvis
impersonator, a superhero, a Darth Vader-esque villain, and even a
Japanese schoolgirl who bears a close resemblance to Chun-Li, complete
with giggling, celebratory jumps. Quiz TV’s sound effects, background
music, and dialogue are all spot-on, despite being corny, cheesy, and
repetitive at times, and Buzz himself still has a certain cringe-
worthy charm. The lines delivered by the illustrious host are more
polished this time around, and he comes across almost as smooth,
smarmy, and schmaltzy as any real-life daytime TV host.

Trivia gurus may still find Buzz! Quiz TV a walk in the park, but it
nevertheless serves up an interesting array of questions for the party
crowd. At its core it’s just more of the same, but the series’ PS3
debut offers a few unique, new peripheral features that make it worth
the upgrade. If you didn’t like previous iterations, it’s unlikely
that you’ll enjoy Quiz TV, but if you’ve yet to pick up a copy of
Buzz, this version is the best yet.

Sony’s game division saw a 26 percent sales spike last quarter, a
trend they expect will continue on the strength of strong exclusives
like the recently released Metal Gear Solid 4 and the upcoming sequel
Resistance 2.

: Get your next AT&T; phone at 1800mobiles.com
Idiot Proof Way To Lose 9 Pounds Every 11 days safely.

Fathers Day may be over, but our five reasons to get Dad a Sony
Playstation 3 are still valid. .

Google and Yahoo have , leaving Microsoft out of the game completely.
For some readers this is welcome news? but others aren’t so happy.
Would you have preferred Google or Microsoft? Join the discussion.

Orion7 says: The Playstation 3 is the best console on the market, no
doubt. The PS3 has everything that you have to buy as option for the
Xbox 360. Just wait and see that the PS3 will have more exclusive
games than Xbox 360 in the next one or two years. With the PS3, you
can watch Blu-ray movies, which look elegant on a 1080p HDTV. There is
nothing to argue: The Playstation 3 is the best console without a
doubt.

Flashorn says: Here in my area (Ottawa, Canada) we have had caps for
about 2 years. We are with Bell Canada and have a DSL connection. The
imposed caps are of 60GB per month and anything above is $1.00 a
gigabyte. I think this is justified. It kind of holds the abusers in
check but at the same time gives us the freedom to rent movies or
download music online without violating the imposed caps.

Savagesteve13 says: They basically are handing over their business to
DSL by implementing caps. Nothing new here. Cable companies have
oversold their bandwidth for years and have targeted who they consider
“heavy bandwidth users,” hoping to run them off.

With an iPhone and the right app, you can sync your e-mail and
calendar, use voice search, play games, and more.

Think only the big boys can afford the best database solutions? Think
again. Learn about low cost systems that have proven time and time
again to outperform legacy UNIX vendors on a dollar for dollar basis.

Recognized as the undisputed industry leader, Sony Computer Entertainment
America Inc. markets the PlayStation family of products and develops,
publishes, markets and distributes software for the PS one game console, the
PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, PLAYSTATION 3 and the PSP system
for the North American market. Based in Foster City, Calif., Sony Computer
Entertainment America Inc. serves as headquarters for all North American
operations and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Advertisers interested in opportunities within the Double Fusion Network;
and developers and publishers interested in increasing their per-title
revenues through integrated and dynamic ad placement opportunities should
visit

PlayStation, PSP and the PlayStation logo are registered trademarks of
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property of their
respective owners.

Article : Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Computer
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i luv how theres sum 360 fanboys on a ps3 article… mgs4 is
perfect!!!! by maaac from usa on 16/06/08 02:03 PM

Im glad my 360 broke down on me. It took 2 months to get it fixed and
i sold it just to get a ps3 for MGS4. PS3 sh*ts on xbox. by aLBi’ from
Cypress, CA on 16/06/08 04:13 AM

Xbox360 Are the same as PS3 BUt XBOX LIVE IS WAY BETTER Even for 50
Bucks. Besides.

This is the greatest game I have ever played, everything is…
perfect! Buy it. now! by thepentagon from London on 15/06/08 09:21 PM

ps3 users better love this game, it will be the only one till next
year! hahaha this game along with splinter cell sux! stealth games
suk. by johnson from wilmatuky on 15/06/08 02:31 AM

360 SUckers – go on play HALO, u dont deserve to play great games like
these by Anonymous from jo on 14/06/08 12:51 PM

This doesn’t necessarily mean anything big is coming – it could be a
new anything, really. Perhaps they’re throwing in a DualShock 3.

What’s going on here? Are we talking about a new bundle, slight
hardware-changes, a complete new model, nothing at all? Time will
hopefully tell.

–> Plunder Renamed Age of Booty Once known as Plunder, Certain
Affinity’s donwloadable hex-based pirate strategy game has now been
r… 16 1day 7hrs ago

July 09, 2008
Online retailer Amazon.com is spinning a geared towards putting a Blu-
ray player into a few more homes.

owners will find an update available for their console’s firmware
today. According to Sony, version 2.36 will offer increased “system
stability when playing select PlayStation format software titles.”
It’s not the most specific description we’ve ever heard, but we’ll
take any upgrades we can get.

) 34 comments (Page 1 of 3)
by June 18, 2008 1:04 PM PDT When is PSP’s 4.00 is releasing????
Reply to this comment View reply Hide reply
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by June 18, 2008 6:49 PM PDT The 2.4 update for the PS3 will finally
be the final blow to the Xbox 360. So far, in game messaging and
achievements were the only reasons to justify paying for the Xbox and
Xbox live. Soon the PS3 will have these same features and don’t forget
that the Playstation Network is FREE. There will be no reason for
people to purchase the 360. Lastly, we have heard talk of the 360’s
avatars which will look extremely childish (as the Wii) in comparison
to the PS3’s virtual online community- HOMEThe PS3 momentum is
building and will soon be unstoppable.
Reply to this comment View reply Hide reply
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by June 19, 2008 3:47 AM PDT i would like to see all ps3 platforms be
able to play ps2 games.
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The name says it all. Crave is our blog about gorgeous gadgets and
other crushworthy stuff. If you would like to contact Crave with a tip
or comment, please write to:

Infosys likely will be looking for a lot of consumer use, but the
company also expects to target government and other official users.
Anyone from building inspectors and accident investigators to
emergency crews and doctors could find good uses for such a
technology. And they could play those dandy 3-D games during downtime.

DualShock 3 combines the motion sensitivity of the SixAxis feature
with the vibration mode included in older PlayStation controllers.

The key word here, though, is “rumor.” Obviously none of this has been
confirmed, so it’s all just speculation at this point. Will
speculation become fact once E3 begins next week? Stay tuned to find
out.

Phew. I thought when I read the title of article that Sony was
bringing a new (maybe slimmer) PS3. Then I would be pissed.
1 up, 0 down

That would be good, even if it was bumping the price back up.
1 up, 0 down

A few friends of mine have said that they’d get a PS3 if a backwards
compatible model was available. If Sony released such a model i’m sure
it would increase sales enough to me worth it.
0 up, 0 down

Well I agree with the Wii…considering you just buy a Wii and your
set without having to buy any more wires or hard drives etc. But the
360 being harder to buy than the PS3…meh maybe. I’m just saying that
there are MORE choices with the PS3 than necessary in my opinion. Like
someone has mentioned before, confusing consumers with too many
different models isn’t the greatest idea. Back in the day, Snes,
Sega,Nintendo,Atari, they were all 1 console per company or however
you wanna put it. So if you wanted to play a Snes game…you get a
Snes and snes games…no need to worry about which model you need to
get to make sure your playing the right one cuz there was only 1 to
pick. Sega same thing, only things you had to worry about is why
certain cartridges were taller with a yellow plastic thingy attached
vs a smaller black cartridge. btw…remember the game genie? lol I
just thought about it…what a hideous device!
0 up, 0 down

I did the same thing, except with a 200 gig HDD.Took fuckin ages tho,
with all the music and game demos I had to transfer. Worth it tho.I
saw somewhere with a 350gig 2.5inch SATA HDD, for only like 60 quid.
Pretty awesome.
0 up, 0 down

Hey guys I need help, I cant update Gta4. For some reason i get signed
out of playstation network when i finish playing a game, when I try to
update GTA it doesn;t update it just sits there at 0%.
0 up, 0 down

July 09, 2008
On July 29, Namco Bandai will release Soul Calibur IV on Playstation 3
and Xbox 360 in standard and premium edition sets. The next-gen
fighting games will feature classic Soul Calibur fighters in addition
to a trio of Star Wars icons: Darth Vader, Yoda and the “Secret
Apprentice” from the upcoming Force Unleashed videogame.

Contest Rules Simply complete and submit the entry form below to us
with your name, physical and e-mail address where we can send the
prize if you win.

This contest is open to all residents of the United States and Canada,
and will close on August 06, 2008 at 9:59 pm PST.

While last week’s v2.40 PS3 firmware update was intended to bestow
consoles with both functionalities, it was quickly pulled following
reports of freezing consoles. On the official PlayStation Blog,
PlayStation Network director Eric Lempel also said that Sony “had to
take it offline temporarily because, for a limited number of users,
the XMB wouldn’t display after the update was installed.” Today’s
v2.41 update–which Lempel promised would arrive “shortly” after his
post–has been adjusted to prevent such issues.

Another problem was encountered by some PS3 owners installing the
v2.40 software while their controllers were physically plugged into
their console–a problem which prevented said controllers from
syncing. According to Sony customer support, anyone encountering said
problem should perform a hard reset of the controller by pushing a pin
or paper clip into a small hole at the controller’s bottom.

@Nineball2112 – atleast u understand meI understand it’s a reality,
but that’s why it’s alarming and concerning for me. Sony has seen
these features on plenty other consoles, and it’s been YEARS now. To
me it seems every person who is satisfied or content with Sony’s
update I run across tells me to just “wait, it’s just the beginning”
but i’ve been waiting a long time now….. other things i’ve heard of
course are the patent and the “online is free” argument – which should
definitely not be an excuse, and if that is, then I’ll gladly pay a
measily $5 a month for a better full-service, I spend $7 a day on
lunch alone….Like I said, it’s not that the update isn’t a good
thing in general, but I can’t understand why people praise it like it
has brought Sony’s OS/ features up to speed. I’m just not impressed by
it in any way shape or form.

Ok, so I’ve got the update… but I still have 0 trophies?? Do I need
to load one of the games that I’ve completed first for it to recognize
it, or do only SOME games have trophies so far… if so….. which
ones??

This new addition of 2.41 is great. thankyou sony for the great
service. Keep up the good work.

@ShadowMasterX1 and Nineball2112look, almost all updates are good
(except if it bricks my biatch, and it has already froze and made me
sync my controller). I wasn’t saying the update isn’t good, I’m just
saying nothing has really changed, after all this time, and yes it
does feel rushed. you just can’t expect much from Sony’s updates I
guess (U said it urself). As far as legal issues, yeah, i hear people
saying that, but has Sony said anything about it? i saw ur patent
page, that’s wonderful and all, but Sony can do it, I want to hear
SONY say why some of these features weren’t added…… I like my PS3
and blu-rays and all the rich media features, but it seems like people
really defend Sony like they are part of their family. C’mon peoplez,
we payed $400 to $600 for this thing, shouldn’t we have a right to
expect some cool (small) things out of it? I know the PS3 has the
power to do it… and I’m getting sick of people saying some of us are
spoiled or are not true gamers. I happen to like a seamless integrated
experience, I like priv chat and music when I’m mashing on deathmatch,
and when ur comrade jumps online you can talk to them while swapping
out games or just go about ur biz while you plan with them. I know
Sony can do it, so I have a right to expect more from them. I’m sorry.
I own many consoles, and it started with an Atari 2600, but this is
here and now….

@ Flavour666. Yeah, I know the first link was stating it as a RUMOR,
hence why I clearly put in the link title the word “RUMOR” or did you
miss that?And are you a patent lawyer? No, then how do you know
whether it is applicable in this case or not? Companies are sue-happy
when it comes to their intellectual property and if you followed
gaming news, you’d know that suits are dropping left and right. I am
also not a patent lawyer, so it’s possible that this patent doesn’t
have any impact on what Sony is doing, but you asked for a link and I
provided one. AND, when I do… you come back with… But… but…
it’s not applicable!Like the first link stated… the KEY points are:
1. A method comprising: – receiving a request to launch a game in a
gaming system; determining whether the game has a user-associated
soundtrack; – if the game has a user-associated soundtrack: launching
the game; and playing the user-associated soundtrack. – if the game
does not have a user-associated soundtrack: allowing a user of the
gaming system to select a soundtrack to play while the game is
executed; and playing a default soundtrack if the user of the gaming
system does not select a soundtrack. You wouldn’t be satisfied until I
produced the person who actually filed the patent and got a signed
affidavit from him stating what his intentions were. And it’s obvious
that you have MS up your **** if you think that Sony can’t match it’s
features. On the contrary, there are features that Sony has that MS
can’t match (either from the feature itself or from a pricing
standpoint).

@Nineball2112The first link is a RUMOR posted on April 1st (of all
days).The second link is a bona-fide patent, but not applicable in
this case. The whole patent claim is about “automated” playback. In
short: a system that memorizes for which game you want to play which
tracks and then auto-play those tracks when you start said game.The
360 doesn’t have that feature and nobody is stopping Sony from
implementing it the same way 360 has it since it’s launch.You should
learn to read and understand these patents. They have to be *very*
specific in their claims.You can’t patent the manual start of a
soundtrack from the consoles menu. That’s like patenting hitting
“play” on the CD-player.The 360 has been out for over two years now
and Sony can’t surpass, let alone even match, it’s features. It’s
incompetence, nothing more. They under-estimated demand for that
feature, same as they under-estimated demand for online-play and
rumble.

@ShadowMasterX1:MS having a patent on playing music? How about some
proof? How about a link to the patent?You’re a troll trying either to
bad-mouth MS or trying to find excuses for Sonys’ incompetence.

hey everybody i installed the v2.41 but the XMB doesnt comes out in
the game welll i tried it in CoD3, somebody know if the XMB bar is
available in all the games please answer

Hi all.Bad NewsI tryed to update my Playstation 3 tonight and it
failed and bricked it.The update download the 2.41 update fine and
then it tryed to install it. Went all the way to 99% then got stuck.I
left the PS3 on for about 15-20 mins to see if anything would happen.
Nothing did so I had to turn it off at the mains.Tryed to turn on the
PS3 again and it will not boot up. The green light comes on ok but no
picture. Ive tryed the holding down the on/off button but this does
not work.i didnt have the 2.40 update installed.Any body have any
Idea’s of how to fix this. I have / had60GB Playstation 3

2.40 worked fine for my 80gig, 2.41 is working well currently–no
problems. However I mainly use my PS3 as a BluRay player. I own about
5 PS3 games but honestly the majority of games I like are found on the
360. Both systems have served me well. I own 2 360’s -Premium and 1
Elite-and they have not given me problems.If you are looking for an
all-round do anything system- the PS3 is where you want to place your
money. If you are looking for a Gaming system with plenty of titles to
choose from, and a touch better graphics, then the 360 is where you
want to place your money.I patiently await for better online features
in the PSN store and the release of God of War 3 then you can bet I
will be gaming plenty on the system. Kudos to Sony for implementing
some great features!

Ya that is true dark ride and this is definitely the year of sony. let
it be known that 08 is the age of sony.

combatsoldier commented “They have lost 3 billion dollars on ps3 and
continue to make it a quality product.”Don’t forget that this has
always been the plan. By selling the system at a loss it enables them
to build their installed user base and then reap the rewards with
software/Blu-Ray sales. This investment to build the user base up and
deliver a quality product certainly served them well with the PS2, and
I understand now the PS3 production costs have come down the console
itself is slated to become profitable this summer/fall – months ahead
of schedule. I wouldn’t consider this planned expenditure a loss
unless they had no hope of making their investment back in the future.

I had no problems and feel sorry for those that did. I did notice 2.41
is running smother than 2.40. The XMB was slightly slower and things
like external hard drives were taking a bit longer to boot up. 2.41
really does make the PS3 more community friendly. .

I only feel sorry for those that have their console bricked when 2.40
came out,that stinks is understandable. probably not enough beta
testing of Sony’s part.but give Sony some credit,they could off kept
their mouths shut and not say anything,but they didn’t, they made a
mistake, it happens. at least 2.41 is good,good job Sony. my PS3 runs
great no complains here, keep up the good work!!.

Hot rumor from gossip rag says 31-year-old Milo Ventimiglia is
shopping for ring for 18-year-old Hayden Panettiere.

–> The Video Game Release List of 7/13 – 7/19 Football and monkeys
dominate this week, with an extra side golf and rocking. Scope out the
full li… 28 13hrs 13mins ago

–> Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe Media Features Superman, The Flash,
Catwoman, Others Midway has released its E3 media for Mortal Kombat vs
DC Universe (PS3, X360) in the form of seven n… 107 20hrs 46mins ago

–> Plunder Renamed Age of Booty Once known as Plunder, Certain
Affinity’s donwloadable hex-based pirate strategy game has now been
r… 16 1day 7hrs ago

Crime stories! Read the latest cop and court coverage from London and
area in The Free Press

Amanda Bennett, 18, and Caleb Bridgeman, 16, enjoy a game in the new
console room at Head2Head Games on Dundas Street downtown. (Sue Reeve,
Sun Media)

Pat Heenan steps out of the troop transport ship, machine gun in hand,
and opens fire, spraying enemy troops with deadly accuracy.

The storefront haven for gamers will see a lot more of that kind of
carnage today when it opens its new “console room,” dedicated to the
hardcore gamer, with a day of free play, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and
again from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Today, for the free day of play, the store will have eight Xbox 360s,
three Wiis and four PlayStation 3s in the console room alone. Upstairs
it will still offer its usual complement of 42 computers, 18 for
Internet use and 24 for gaming.

“If you go into a store like EB Games, 80 per cent of the stock is now
console games. We are moving toward a multi-console gaming
environment,” she said.

“A lot of people work until 11 or 12 and they will be up for hours
after, so they come in here,” she said.

And when they do, they will have a host of new console games to choose
from, to create their very own kind of carnage.
Business Headlines

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P.O. Box 2280, 369 York Street, London Ontario Canada N6A 4G1

Following last October), Midway announced Tuesday that the unlicensed
football sequel will be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this
fall.

Copyright � 2002-2008 All Rights Reserved. 1UP and the 1UP.COM logo
are a trademark of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. Reproduction in
whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. is prohibited. Use
of this site is governed by our and .

Midway has brought in former ESPN “Playmakers” writer, Peter Egan, to
pen an all-new story mode full of on and off the field antics. LT, aka
Giants great Lawrence Taylor, returns to serve as the game’s
spokesperson and head badass.

Check out the first screens from Blitz: The League II below and keep
an eye out for our hands-on impressions from E3 next week.
July 8, 2008

2K Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software
(), will now be assisting Digital Extremes to optimize BioShock for
the PlayStation3 (PS 3) computer entertainment system. Both companies
have recently signed a mutual agreement on this.

With this agreement, Digital Extremes joins the team of 2K Marin, 2K
Boston, 2K Australia who are already into the job of developing this
version to PS 3.

Digital Extremes is a development studio in the interactive
entertainment industry. The Canadian based developer is best known for
its co-creation of Epic Games’ Unreal.

TMC’s Customized Keymail Alert and RSS Service –> To receive daily
e-mail alerts and RSS URLs of stories posted on TMCnet.com, please
enter keyword terms to match and your e-mail address.

So I got the 2.40 update, which seems to be working ok, but what is
the deal with the trophies? (ok now Jerry Seinfeld is a fanboy”What’s
the Deal with that!?”)I mean how do you get a trophy? Whats the
biggest one and where do I get it?

@: That’s odd. When I replaced my HDD on my 60GB PS3 for a bigger one,
and did a restore from my backup it restored everything, including
PSStore games and PS2/PS1 saves.

Can someone confirm if 2.40 update fixed the mp4 streaming issue? I
can’t believe that Sony pulled the 2.4 update because a few PS3s got
bricked while it won’t even acknowledge the fact that there are so
many of us out there that lost the ability to stream mp4s from the
stupid 2.2 update.

Haven’t used my PS3 since I ran the 2.4 update just before they pulled
it. I got a “?” where the trophy icon should be, so I figured that I
should just wait for the patch beofre playing anything or trying to
use the in game XMB. If it hits this week I would say that’s a pretty
decent turn around time.

Im sure that the first one wasnt that swift either because of it being
the first firmware update and the first time being released so im
guessing that sony will in end with the next update will make it run
smoother.

@bmw5: You can’t believe that Sony pulled a firmware that was KILLING
RANDOM SYSTEMS?? The reason why is simple:

yea, i’ve upgraded my ps3’s hdd a few times now and have done several
backups; all of my data is there after i did my complete backup /
restore on the new harddrive.

a backup is the only way to be able to backup your gamesaves that are
‘copy protected’. you can’t backup your rockband saves to an sd card
or usb hdd; you have to do a full backup (just like a few other games,
so annoying!!)

Players new to the series can now shoot, pass and check with ease. NHL
09 features Be A Pro, a game mode that will put you on the ice with a
dynamic new 3rd person camera that allows you to play the role of one
player. With a performance tracker grading your progress in more than
50 categories, you will know exactly where you need to improve to
become the next NHL superstar.

Ascaron Entertainment, one of Europe’s leading game developers, today
announced that the PlayStation 3 version of their upcoming action RPG,
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel will hit retail shelves this autumn.

“Role-playing game enthusiasts have always been strongly represented
on the PlayStation platforms, and we are delighted to offer a version
of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel for the PlayStation 3,” said Heiko tom
Felde, Managing Director of Ascaron Entertainment.

This version of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel will feature enhanced graphics,
5.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound and support drop-in cooperative play,
as well as other multiplayer gaming modes via the Internet.

Players can save their characters and use them in all game modes -
allowing the same character to be used both in single-player or
multiplayer modes, accumulating experience and loot seamlessly.

Once you have logged in and you have tracked a story, by clicking on
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If you want to track a story, you need to log in to the Sky News
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Get the latest SKY NEWS headlines on Sky News Active. Press the red
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Subscribe to Shacknews or for the scoop on all of your favorite games
on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and PC/Windows.

“Our top priority is delivering the best SOCOM online experience
possible,” Luisi wrote. “We just had to face the facts and do what is
best for the title. Rather than sacrifice features, quality and
stability, we had to do the right thing and re-adjust our schedule.”

3. “The World Ends With You” (Square Enix, for the Nintendo DS): This
adventure set in modern Tokyo is the most innovative RPG in years.

_ENCORE: In May, Activision announced its strategy to maintain its
lead in the rhythm game competition: “Guitar Hero World Tour,” which
adds a microphone, drums and a virtual recording studio to the best-
selling franchise. But no one is expecting MTV Games’ “Rock Band” to
fade out.

_NEW IN STORES: “Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution” (2K, Xbox 360,
PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS) brings the popular PC strategy series to
consoles. … Warm up for the Olympics with Sega’s “Beijing 2008″
(360, PS3). … Wii goodies this week include Square Enix’s “Final
Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon” and Majesco’s “Wonder World
Amusement Park,” while 2K returns to the midway with the DS version of
“Carnival Games.”

“I have to wrestle him in the middle of the night to get his Melbourne
jumper off him to wash it,” Ms Smith said. “He loves the Storm.”

A spokeswoman for the Make a Wish Foundation said: “Make A Wish exists
purely to bring a bit of magic to children who have been diagnosed
with a life-threatening illness.

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Milwaukee —- Harley-Davidson Inc. said Friday that it will buy
Italian motorcycle maker MV Agusta Group for about $109 million to
boost its presence in Europe. MV Agusta makes a line of premium sport
motorcycles under its name brand and a line of lightweight motorcycles
under the Cagiva brand. The deal will help Harley-Davidson expand into
the European market as sales slump in the United States, where
consumers are pulling back on spending.

Scientific Games Corp., the biggest U.S. maker of instant lottery
tickets, had $60 million of sales in China last week, suggesting about
$3 billion in annual revenue from the country, Chief Executive Lorne
Weil said Friday. “Things in China look great for us,” Weil said in a
telephone interview. “Right now, we’re selling in more than 50,000
retail locations.” Scientific Games began selling Olympic-themed
lottery tickets in China in the first quarter, capitalizing on
publicity for the Games, which start next month in Beijing. Demand in
China will hold up after the games as Scientific Games sells tickets
in more stores, said Weil. In the United States, the slowing economy
isn’t hurting sales because states are expanding the use of lotteries
to boost revenue. “So far, the business seems to be holding up quite
well,” Weil said. The company plans to start printing tickets at a
factory in Beijing in the fourth quarter to increase profitability. It
is currently shipping products by air to China from Alpharetta, Weil
said.

Pittsburgh —- Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. said Friday that it
plans to cut more than 1,200 jobs in Mexico and Honduras because of
weak demand in the North American auto market. The company is
restructuring its electrical and electronic systems unit because of
“economic and structural changes in the North American light truck and
SUV market demand.”

San Jose, Calif. —- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. suffered another
setback Friday when the chip maker disclosed that two businesses it
acquired in a pricey acquisition were underperforming. AMD said the
businesses’ values would have to be reduced by $880 million. It’s the
second time AMD has had to slash the value of businesses it absorbed
as part of its acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies
Inc.

Washington —- As oil prices soared to a record high Friday, the
nation’s airlines and shipping companies stepped up calls for a
crackdown on financial speculation in energy markets, which they blame
for pushing up fuel costs. The Stop Oil Speculation coalition of
nearly 40 airlines, trucking companies and unions said at a news
conference that lawmakers must close loopholes that allow traders to
skirt federal restrictions on the purchase of contracts for oil and
other commodities. “This crisis deserves the full attention of
Congress —- now —- not next week, not next month or next
year,” said James May, president of the Air Transport Association of
America. The airline industry’s main trade group expects companies to
lose $10 billion this year —- on par with their worst combined
loss ever —- solely because of soaring fuel costs.

U.S. airports’ fiscal condition is “stable but threatened with little
likelihood for improvement” as airlines struggle with high fuel costs
and a weak economy, Standard & Poor’s said. Airport operators can draw
on the experience following the last decline, in 2001, to deal with
the new challenges, S&P; analyst Kurt Forsgren said in a conference
call Friday. The industry outlook won’t likely change for the next six
to nine months, according to a recent S&P; report Forsgren helped
compile. “We have already seen, as we would expect, many airports
prudently slowing their capital spending, deferring projects and
preparing to implement other cost corrections,” Forsgren said. Some
airports have postponed projects until market conditions improve,
Forsgren said.

Continental Airlines Inc. said Friday that it would record a number of
special accounting charges and gains for the second quarter totaling
an after-tax gain of $22 million. The Houston-based airline also said
it expected to take further charges —- which it didn’t estimate
—- in the third quarter and beyond.

United Airlines’ parent, UAL Corp., said Friday it will record second-
quarter costs of as much as $2.7 billion to reduce the value of its
assets and pay employee severance. The cut in goodwill will produce a
noncash charge of as much as $2.3 billion, UAL said in a regulatory
filing Friday. Elsewhere, United offered voluntary buyouts to ramp
workers and customer service employees to trim as many as 400 jobs as
it cuts seating capacity.

The first two Battlefront games on PC, PS2 and Xbox were developed by
Pandemic Studios. Rebellion handled the PSP edition of Battlefront II
and the PSP-only Renegade Squadron entry.

–> The Video Game Release List of 7/13 – 7/19 Football and monkeys
dominate this week, with an extra side golf and rocking. Scope out the
full li… 28 13hrs 13mins ago

FIFA 09 will feature over 250 additions and enhancements and promises
to deliver an authentic football simulation that will enable players
to customise the game to suit their style and ability.

That means you
Sony’s looking for members of the PlayStation community who’d like to
take part in beta tests for upcoming PS3 titles. According to the
company, “you do not need to technically minded”; they’re looking for
a variety of people with differing amounts of technical expertise to
help them test the games. That..kind of sounds like you need to be
technically minded. But anyway, they do require flexibility. No,
contorting yourself into a pretzel will not help you with this, they
simply mean you’ll have to give up some evenings to help out with
certain “Test Nights” and general testing.

See, this is why PlayStation Home needs to make its way here as fast
as humanly possible.

Of course, the Sony conference can be seen via live streaming video at
a variety of websites, but Home will include a bunch more content for
those lucky Euro users. The potential is there, that’s for certain.

I had your exact thinking before I actually watched the video of it on
PSN.Download it and watch it…it will change your opinion and get you
excited for its release.
0 up, 0 down

Arnold is. I’ll be here to take care of the news updates as they come;
he’s mostly going for hands-on previews.
0 up, 0 down

Add comment July 13, 2008

The google and yahoo google’s obfuscation

Viacom’s first line of defense when the negative press hit was
obfuscation. “Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any
personally identifiable information of any YouTube user. The
personally identifiable information that YouTube collects from its
users will be stripped from the data before it is transferred to
Viacom.”

But not really. Everyone involved in the lawsuit (except the users,
who weren’t asked) agreed that a YouTube login ID isn’t personally
identifiable. The original Stanton order summarized: “Defendants do
not refute that the ?login ID is an anonymous pseudonym that users
create for themselves when they sign up with YouTube? which without
more ?cannot identify specific individuals?.”

Google’s self imposed is “Don’t be evil.” It doesn’t say “don’t be
evil unless there’s important litigation at stake.” Google’s
reputation is on the line, and how they respond will show their true
character. They’ve shown they’ll go to bat for employees, now it’s
time for them to show they’ll go to bat for their users.

Top legal counsel for Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft will address a
Congressional hearing Tuesday, as lawmakers examine the and its
potential anticompetitive effects on the future of Internet
advertising.

by July 12, 2008 1:19 AM PDT @JCPayne: Nonsense! AT&T/Bell South don’t
even come close to dominating 90% of the cell phone market ( In fact
Verizon alone has nearly as many phone users as AT&T/Bell South, and
we haven’t even mentioned T-Mobile, Sprint etc). By contrast,
Google/Yahoo will have 90% of the search market. Any pact that ends up
with 90% of any market power, concentrated in the hands of 2
companies, has to be stopped by the DOJ. I don?t care how ?non-
exclusive? the pact is. Who the heck else is Yahoo going to form a
pact with, outside this ?non-exclusive? pact with Google, given that
since Yang is barely on speaking terms with Microsoft, and outside
Microsoft , there is only another 1% or so search market left. Reply
to this comment by July 12, 2008 8:19 AM PDT Back@Kwasiowusu: For one
thing I wasn’t talking mobile phone service. I was talking the regular
old POTS system. (And fiberoptics system that it is rapidly becoming
instead.) The reason the national system was broken up into regional
units was to remove domination of the whole national telephone system.
Now, to allow Bellsouth and the former parts of SBC to merge together
(albeit changing their name to AT&T) that does very little to preserve
the competitive atmosphere in the United States when it comes to
telecoms and high speed Internet even…As far as Google-Yahoo
cooperation…. What monopoly??? They have a technology that every
other company and individual on the net has access to. **Pixels on a
website** is not proprietary. Anybody can come up with an onlinead
network …. You may have to be creative in getting sites to adopt
yours along with Google or Yahoo but none the less it can be done if
you’re smart enough.Clearly with all the resources Microsoft has–
they are admitting that they aren’t smart enough to put together an ad
network. Hence why they want to buy a ready-made one. (Yahoo’s)…..
So now we basically have Microsoft which launched a battle to take on
Google. They decided they would take Yahoo’s assets and try to
dominate Google, so Google went in cut a deal with Yahoo themselves
and Microsoft ends up as the odd-man out crying all those big
crocodile tears and wants to launch a big court case to win back their
plan of domination. BS I say… Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008
11:09 AM PDT Agreed w/ JCPayne. I strongly suspect that MSFT’s only
role in this is to act as a spoiler. Given that MSFT is mostly on the
defensive nowadays (when they should be busy trying to build core
products that are actually worth something), I suspect that they’ll
lose this one too. Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 3:13 PM PDT
If Ballmer gets to address the committee, the company will be doomed.
Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 4:21 PM PDT @JCPayne, It
doesn?t make any difference whether you were talking about POTS or
about wireless. An AT&T hookup with Bellsouth still doesn?t even come
close to controlling 90% of the phone market, POTS or wireless. As at
today, cable companies like Time Warner, offer full phone service , as
well as broadband internet, in direct competition with phone companies
like AT&T, not to mention, millions of Americans don?t even bother to
sign up for wired phones anymore, simply preferring to use their cell
phones for all their phone calls, saving themselves the extra expense
of paying for a wired phone they hardly use. The old POTS phone lines
are increasingly irrelevant. Revenues for both AT&T and Verizon, from
wired POTS lines have been going down sharply for years. You simply
can?t compare the dying POTS business to a Google/Yahoo pact that end
up putting control of 90% of the very fast growing internet search in
the hands of just 2 companies Reply to this comment
by July 12, 2008 4:31 PM PDT @JCPayne, this bit by you is even more
laughable As far as Google- Yahoo cooperation…. What monopoly???
They have a technology that every other company and individual on the
net has access to?.You clearly have no idea what a monopoly is. Anyone
can use Google/Yahoo search, so therefore its not a monopoly? Will you
excusing me while I laugh? Unless you are gonna tell me that Google
gives away the source code of their highly secret search algorithms to
anyone to use as they like, then you are simply blowing smoke.
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The “Explore More Google Products” button brings you to a
page that shows all of Google’s Apps on one screen. Touching one
of those App icons results in Safari launching and bringing to that
application.

Once you’ve logged into the MySpace application you are
presented with your own personalized home screen. You have immediate
access to your mood settings, profile, Friends Status and Mood,
Friends Updates, Comments, bulletins, and the ability to search for
other people. The interface feels a bit cramped on the iPhone’s
screen. Along the bottom you’ll find a row of five buttons that
immediately jump to home, mail, requests, friends, and photos.

AOL’s Radio App for the iPhone and iPod touch is a native
streaming application that is also location aware. Once you confirm
access to your location it reveals local radio stations that provide
streamed radio programming in your area. In the Houston Bay Area, the
app revealed four stations: 100.3 KILT, CNN 650 Radio News, HOT 95.7
and Sports Radio 610. Other locales like Atlanta, Baltimore,
Cleveland, Los Angeles, etc. are offered.

The Favorites button opens up a screen that will either display your
favorite streaming radio stations or individual songs you’ve
marked as favorites. Songs are added by touching the magnifying glass
next to the album art. You can find the song in iTunes or on AOL
Music. A “Remember This Song” feature allows you to add a
song to your favorites. Finally, there is a Recents button that does
exactly what it says – tracks your recent stations you listened to.

Yahoo also takes a portion of its press release to call out Icahn for
being contradictory. It quotes him as saying previously that Yahoo
selling its only search business to Microsoft would be
“crazy.” Now he is a major force in trying to make such a
deal happen.

This dispute is the reason the two companies and lawyers representing
a group of other copyright holders suing Google, have failed to reach
a final agreement on anonymizing personal information belonging to
YouTube users, according to two sources close to the situation.

YouTube’s employee information could prove crucial to Viacom’s case
against Google, as it could go a long way to proving how much
knowledge YouTube has about piracy on the site.

Critics dispute that and point out that records show the judge in the
case only ordered YouTube to hand over information asked for by
Viacom. As for the employee records, Google said Saturday that it
isn’t willing to talk about anything else until that matter of user
privacy is resolved.

“Viacom and other plaintiffs never should have demanded private
viewing data in the first place,” a Google spokesman said in an
e-mail. “They should have agreed a week ago to let us anonymize it. We
are willing to discuss the disclosure of viewing activity of all the
relevant parties. But the simple issue of protecting user information
should be resolved now. Our users’ privacy should not be held hostage
to advance the plaintiffs’ additional litigation interests.”

It’s safe to say that many copyright owners are skeptical of these
claims. For years, rumors have circulated in the technology sector
that some of YouTube employees salted the site, especially in its
early days, by posting clips from popular TV shows in order to bring
attention to the site. No evidence of this has ever surfaced.

) 11 comments (Page 1 of 1) by July 12, 2008 12:11 PM PDT I did not
follow with detail this V-G affair but it seems to me that it is
following the SCO-IBM Unix affair in which SCO made a complain that
IBM should prove innocent… just the inverse of common law: you are
innocent up to the moment that you are proved guilty.Am I right? Am I
too far in understanding Viacom/RIAA/etc. lawyers? Reply to this
comment by July 12, 2008 1:54 PM PDT This kind of looks like “Viacom”
is scrabbling, a bit, to continue its, unfocused, IP-lawsuit (and
vicarious responsibility for the actions of others) claims.I also
notice that a totally unproven accusation (that Youtube employees,
allegedly, knowingly allowed, and/or encouraged, copyright-
infringement)… is actually being used to further justify an
apparently, otherwise, clearly dubious- attack.Can you say RED-
HERRING..? But, you know how corporations work… once they start down
a path, no matter how insanely-asinine, they will simply NEVER back-
down (even if… it ends-up tearing them apart, and costing their
stock-holders enormously). Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 2:54
PM PDT I’d like to see the reverse, that is, the uploading habits of
anyone from a Viacom IP, or using a Viacom (or viacom property domain,
such as comedycentral.com). Did anyone on The Daily Show, or any
staffer of those shows, or any other Viacom company, ever upload
something copyrighted to YouTube? Reply to this comment by July 12,
2008 5:11 PM PDT Relax. Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 7:49 PM
PDT Viacom just wants to destroy the progression and the future of the
internet because they have LOST to the internet. They are old media,
like newspapers, old like oldy moldy Sumner Redstone. You can’t stop
the new wave, the new generation, Web 2.0, 3.0 what have you. You
either roll with it or it rolls right over you. Have you looked at
Viacom’s stock price lately. That’s a reflection of where they’ll
continue to head which is down, down, down if they don’t get with the
NEW! Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 7:50 PM PDT Viacom just
wants to destroy the progression and the future of the internet
because they have LOST to the internet. They are old media, like
newspapers, old like oldy moldy Sumner Redstone. You can’t stop the
new wave, the new generation, Web 2.0, 3.0 what have you. You either
roll with it or it rolls right over you. Have you looked at Viacom’s
stock price lately. That’s a reflection of where they’ll continue to
head which is down, down, down if they don’t get with the NEW! Reply
to this comment by July 12, 2008 7:50 PM PDT Viacom just wants to
dessstroy the progression and the future of the internet because they
have LOST to the internet. They are old media, like newspapers, old
like oldy moldy Sumner Redstone. You can’t stop the new wave, the new
generation, Web 2.0, 3.0 what have you. You either roll with it or it
rolls right over you. Have you looked at Viacom’s stock price lately.
That’s a reflection of where they’ll continue to head which is down,
down, down if they don’t get with the NEW! Reply to this comment by
July 12, 2008 7:51 PM PDT Viacom just wants to dessstroy the
progression and the future of the internet because they have LOSSST to
the internet. They are old media, like newspapers, old like oldy moldy
Sumner Redstone. You can’t stop the new wave, the new generation, Web
2.0, 3.0 what have you. You either roll with it or it rolls right over
you. Have you looked at Viacom’s stock price lately. That’s a
reflection of where they’ll continue to head which is down, down, down
if they don’t get with the NEW! Reply to this comment
by July 12, 2008 7:53 PM PDT Viacom will lose to the future of the
internet if they don’t get with the new.
Reply to this comment View reply Hide reply
Processing

by July 12, 2008 11:30 PM PDT Chad and the team knew about SNL content
being on YouTube. It’s what made YouTube popular, showing copyrighted
clips from comedy shows off TV. The whole YouTube thing was based on
being an archive of video from all sources. Viacom, NBC Universal,
Disney, Sony, Fox and others should sue YouTube/Google for every
infraction. Basically YouTube is the Napster of video and should be
accountable for theft of copyrighted material. Reply to this comment

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Strangely, in the US, the nation that has created a whole new plane
for commerce, ads in movie theaters are still something of a surprise.

Even in the last couple of years, I have heard US movie audiences hiss
the very presence of ads, as if by clutching their popcorn and putting
their feet up on the seat in front, they have suddenly become a VIP
audience at the Cannes Film Festival.

Talk of pre-roll being their only choice reflects the fact that
perhaps 95% of all online video advertising is actually pre-roll.

Google, on the other hand, in the search for something a little more
clever, a little more Google, has slipped into cultural quicksand.

It will find it very hard to expect its devotees to watch an ad before
every video. (tmz offers a series of videos daily. You only have to
watch one ad. And the one I just looked at was for Herbal Essences,
which promised to treat my non-existent hair to a luscious fragrance.)

Register to submit a comment Already have an account? Log in now Join
the CNET communityTo continue, we ask that you first complete the free
registration.

Demand for public transit is on the rise and the has taken a step to
simplify the effort of getting from Point A to Point B.

Google Maps Transit, which is in use at 48 domestic bus systems and in
17 cities outside the United States, is easier to use than COTA’s trip
planning tool and is expected to help conquer a perennial hurdle to
building ridership – confusing routes, said COTA chief Bill Lhota.

“There is no question about it, the Google system is better,” he said.
“It’s got some great features and user-friendliness.”

If you are already a Business First subscriber please create or sign
into your bizjournals.com account to link your valid print
subscription and have access to the complete article.

The U.S. Small Business Administration armed Joey Johnson with the
money and motivation to step out and launch her graphic design
business. Johnson formed Graphic Mechanic Design Studio in October
2006, after running the company on the side for nearly a decade.

Various theories made their way around. A blogger named Dan at a site
called “tdaxp” noticed the strange phenomenon. “The swastika is a
traditional Chinese good-luck character, the Olympics are coming up
and good luck is on the Chinese mind.”

Meanwhile, there was the other, perhaps thornier issue of why the
swastika suddenly disappeared from Google’s Hot Trends list.
Generally, when a term is searched by enough people to shoot it to the
top spot, it takes hours for it to fade from the list. An initial
inquiry to Google on what might have happened to the swastika was met
with a cagey reply. Instead of saying why it vanished, Google
suggested its own theory of why it had appeared.

Enter 4chan, one of the Internet’s most trafficked “image boards”
— a place where members congregate to chat and swap photos and
images — many of them related to Japanese anime cartoons. One
particularly well-known section of 4chan is called “b” — a rowdy
back channel filled with obscene images and profanity-riddled
discussion.

At some point on Thursday, a member of 4chan’s “b” channel posted a
simple two-part instruction. First, Google “卐”. Second, enjoy.

Obviously, there is no character for the swastika on the standard
keyboard. But Internet browsers can display many, many characters
— the trick is knowing the short code (called html) that
represents each. In this case, the code a 4chan member posted was the
shorthand for the swastika. Once the code is processed by a browser,
it shows up as the symbol.

The flurry of searches for the swastika code — most of which, it
seems, were by people who did not know what the code represented
— shot the swastika itself to the top of the Trends list.

“We have an automated system to identify and remove inappropriate or
offensive material in Hot Trends,” it read. “In rare cases, when such
material is missed, we manually remove these results.

joc1985 writes “An after a few hours of playing around. It seems to be
a bad copy of Second Life. Somehow all the rooms are crowded, and porn
has made its way in there already”

Are you kidding me? Porn the ultimate mark of success. The fact that
Lively has it before it has even taken off properly makes it like an
uber stamp of approval. Yes yes.

Besides the fact that guy obviously isn’t a native English speaker,
“several” and “maybe a dozen” seem pretty in line to me. His point
seems to be that Google isn’t being as tight with it as they are with
YouTube, which is certainly true (although I’d suspect that’s a result
of pre-takeover YouTube policies being carried on by Google). It’s not
a matter of any concern to me, but its his opinion. And it’s not like
adding keyboard shortcuts would eliminate mouse usage, as you seem to
think.

I’ve wondered if there could be a market for “Christian porn” that
addresses all the issues they have with it.

Actually, calling it a beta is being generous. There are a lot of
interface quirks and bugs to work out, and the content (as far as
avatars, furniture, clothes, etc.) definitely feels more like a sample
of what will be available. Once they open it up to user created
content, I imagine there will be no shortage of “stuff”. FWIW, I
didn’t really have the connection problems the reviewer had. The whole
thing thing gets a little laggy in a crowded room, especially if the
room is full of junk, but I didn’t have any problems getting in. As
far as the sex themed rooms, they seemed pretty tame to me, at least
for now. (Uh, not that I checked them out or anything.) You’re limited
to streaming videos from YouTube, so you can’t show anything that
wouldn’t pass muster there. You can also display static images in a
“picture frame”, but the frames seems to be pretty broken at the
moment. They seem to only display a small portion of the image,
regardless of the resolution. So, at least for the moment, it’s pretty
much impossible to display anything pornographic. I imagine once they
open it up to user created content, though, it will become yet another
haven for furries.

I looked at this the other day and it seemed to claim to be a “Windows
only” service. My Windows system was busy at the time, so I didn’t
investigate further and it was unclear if they planned on supporting
other platforms in future. That’s a non-starter in my book.

It could be a good thing if it was an antimatter copy of Second Life,
which was then brought into contact with the original Second Life.

He who loses, wins the race, And parallel lines meet in space. — John
Boyd, “Last Starship from Earth”

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their
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1997-2008 , Inc.

UPDATE: After spending some time with it I’m also frustrated with the
local search. Right now the local search only provides Search for “x”
near me in the results when the word matches common local search terms
in a whitelist. If I want to use the app to find a place by name, I
have to switch specifically to a Local search only search to get the
“near me” option—and ultimately that’s about two clicks too many
to make it as useful as it could be.

you in the US, Jono? I tried to see that google mobile thingie from
the swiss app store, but not to be found there, so I switched over to
the US store, and presto, there it was

@: not sure if my first msg went thru, jono, are you located in the
US? if not, well, that’s the culprit, didnt see google mobile in the
swiss app store myself, then switched over to the US store, and
presto, there it was

, Jul 11, 2008 07:24 PM
On Thursday evening, Google threw open the doors of its San Francisco
office to members of the media and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Though Google’s San Francisco office has been , the dust has cleared
and Google wanted to celebrate.

The view — looking east toward Treasure Island, the surrounding water
and the Bay Bridge — is to die for.

But don’t look up: The FBI and the Secret Service, in the form of the
, maintain a regional office in the Hills Plaza building on the floor
above Google.

Having set up his answer, Newsom then posed a question: “What makes
Google so much better than its competitors?”

Of course, Google’s brand and business model both count for a lot,
too, nowadays. But the praising people always goes over well when
addressing those very same people.

I mean, how much applause do you think Newsom would have received had
he said its all about patents, servers, lack of competent competitors,
and consumer inertia?

According to Google’s official blog, Gmail users will no longer have
to worry about fake messages pretending to be from PayPal or eBay.
Google displays a message to its Gmail users above the email warning
that the message may not be from the sender that it claims. However,
if the message sender claims to be eBay or PayPal, will now
automatically check to see if the message has a DomainKey signature.
If the message doesn’t, the message will just disappear, leaving users
with a clean Inbox and the security of knowing that the ones that did
make it through really are from eBay and PayPal.

It’s about time, though. eBay (which owns PayPal) announced plans for
adopting DKIM in October 2007. Making an announcment and actually
implementing on every single one of its servers is not the same thing,
though, and until there was some assurance that eBay really was using
DKIM, there was no way to accurately and thoroughly figure out what
was fake eBay and what was real. Thanks to this agreement with Google,
other ISPs also scanning DKIM now have a way to get rid of all the
fake eBay and PayPal messages. If only more major companies would do
it from their end. It would be nice to see those Bank of America
messages disappear from my inbox.

Copyright © 2008 Silicon Alley Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our .

Internet giant Google yesterday defended plans to photograph millions
of British homes and publish the snapshots online.

Google has confirmed it is now in the process of photographing Britain
as part of the Street View project.

Windows Server Catalog: Certified Servers. Search the Windows Server
2008 catalog to find servers you can deploy with confidence.

For most organizations Extensible Markup Language, or XML (), is the
lingua franca for data interchange. Apparently XML alone isn’t fast
enough for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), so Google went off and developed its
own data format, called Protocol Buffers.

Currently Google is using Protocol Buffers for its internal Remote
Procedure Calls, or RPC(), protocols and file formats.

, Google’s program manager for open source, noted Google encodes
almost any sort of structured information that needs to be passed
across the network or stored on disk using this protocol.

As to why after years of in-house development Google is now making
Protocol Buffers open source, Varda said it’s just a question of time.
“We have wanted to release protocol buffers for a long time,” he said.
“The only limitation was finding enough engineering time to get it
done.”

The potential for Protocol Buffers could well be large. Google is not
currently using Protocol Buffers as a replacement for XML-based Web
services — at least not yet. In response to a question from
InternetNews.com about whether Protocol Buffers could be leveraged to
create some kind of smaller, faster Web services/SOA alternative,
Google developer Varda noted, “That sounds like a possibility, but we
have no firm plans at this time.”

“We welcome participation from the open source community,” Varda
commented. “Managing broad participation in development of such a
critical piece of Google’s infrastructure will be tricky, but we’re
going to try.”

Cloud computing, in which software runs not on PCs or company servers
but instead on computers on the Internet, requires something of a leap
of faith both technologically and culturally. Those making the move
must get accustomed to a reliance on somebody else’s computing
infrastructure, and that can be scary.

Google, for example, offers a promising that Gmail, the online e-mail
component of its overall Google Apps service, will be available 99.9
percent of the time, with service credits extended to paying customers
if Gmail dips below that level.

“We don’t have an SLA yet for Google Calendar or Google Docs, but it’s
something we’re moving quickly toward,” said Rishi Chandra, product
manager for Google Apps. Google wants “to get the same level of
reliability for all of Apps,” he said.

There are two broad categories of cloud computing. First are online
applications such as Google’s Apps, on which customers can run their
own applications.

Companies are working to address this side of the equation, too. One
prime example is the site, which shows the response time for a
Salesforce.com server transaction. It also details when problems
happened, what they affected, and what caused them.

“We’ve found working with our customers they want transparency. They
want to know exactly what’s going on all the time,” said Bruce
Francis, Salesforce.com’s vice president of corporate strategy. “If
there’s an issue, they’re not furious; they just want to know exactly
what’s going on.”

Amazon.com, too, offers a . “A service dashboard is something our
developers asked us for, and we made the service available to them as
soon as possible,” said spokeswoman Kay Kinton.

“Own your own risk” And some others are even trying to make a business
out of reducing the uncertainties of cloud computing. One is open-
source monitoring and management software company . The company is
working hard to extend its monitoring service to other sites, too,
including Google App Engine, said Stacey Schneider, senior director of
marketing.

“With the docs outage, we posted immediately in the administrative
console that there was an issue. We posted to the help center and the
phone line system that we were working quickly to resolve it,” Chandra
said.

Risks of non-cloud computing, too Much ado can and should be made of
the risks of cloud computing, but it should be noted that even the
much more mature business of computing without a cloud has its risks.
Downtime, either with ailing or stolen PCs or with overtaxed or faulty
servers, is a serious problem there, too.

) 8 comments (Page 1 of 1) by July 11, 2008 1:01 PM PDT If could
computing can be standardized. I believe it will be a great benefit to
Business operating online. Could computing is probably less risky than
managing your own hardware. Especially, if you don’t have resources to
manage large servers and configurations. Google has the talent the
scale like few others do. Reply to this comment by July 11, 2008 1:47
PM PDT It will depend who’s going to own the data and what right the
provider when go out of business be forced to hand over data. Reply to
this comment
by July 11, 2008 3:31 PM PDT What’s the point of having a PERSONAL
computer when you are 100% reliant on a server? Haven’t we gone a full
circle now and arrived right back at the mainframe model that we SO
badly wanted to get away from? Let’s just bring all of the VAX’s out
of retirement and say that the last 15 years were a waste of effort!
Reply to this comment View reply Hide reply
Processing

The term cloud computing started when network architects started
drawing diagrams for their presentations. The architects had symbols
for computers and servers and hard drives and switches, but they
didn’t have a universal symbol that represented “the Internet.”

It became common to talk of pushing data “into the cloud” to represent
using the internet to send files to and from servers and Web sites.

Users of Google’s Google Docs service are really using the cloud. Not
only are the files stored on Google’s servers, the applications
themselves are stored there.

The big exception is the U.S., which buys vastly more stuff than it
sells, and has done so for decades.

Why does this matter? Well, in order to buy those shirts, you need
money. And if you are buying more shirts than you’re selling shirts,
you’re losing money. If you’re a business, you won’t be in business
much longer.

Well, because the U.S. has been buying a lot of stuff from China for
many, many years, China holds a lot of U.S. dollars. If China were to
sell those dollars on the market at some point, well, it wouldn’t be
very good. The U.S. dollar’s value would fall — making imports and
traveling abroad much more expensive.

Trade deficits are usually a good thing, because it shows that the
global economy is working. It’s just when a trade imbalance gets too
high where economists and investors start to become concerned.

LAS VEGAS, July 11, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/
—-Columbus Geographic Systems (GIS) Ltd. (“Columbus”) (Pink Sheets:
CGSE) today announced it has reached an important understanding with
DigitalGlobe, world leader in high-resolution commercial imagery.
DigitalGlobe also supplies the popular Google Earth website with its
images. According to the understanding, Columbus will have access to
DigitalGlobe’s digital image bank for use in the Ranger navigation
system.

Dutton Associates Announces Investment Opinion: General Steel Holdings
Strong Speculative Buy In Update Coverage By Dutton Associates

The internet giant’s StreetView website will allow anyone in the world
to type in a UK address or postcode and instantly see a 360-degree
picture of the street.

It will include close-ups of buildings, cars and people. Critics say
the site is a ‘burglar’s charter’ that makes it easy for criminals to
check out potential victims.

However, the paper’s influence and its spittle-spewing rage are new
additions to the mix – and there’s an extra political angle, too.

I’d trust Google more than most governments, particularly ours and the
US, anyway – which in itself is very worrying. I have big issues with
our surveillance society, but as you say this is a snapshot and not
rolling film like the 300+ CCTV cameras that supposedly capture us
each day. I love using the US one to show people around where I used
to live so although it goes against some of my issues with privacy I
have to admit that I’ve been looking forward to this announcement and
can’t wait to use it.

It’s thoroughly legal for anyone to take photos of anything or anybody
in the street. Lots of Community Support Police Officers might think
otherwise, but it is. Likewise, anybody can put a CCTV camera on the
front of their building and video what they like. So it’s a quid pro
quo.

Also it isn’t perfectly legal to set a camera up on your house and
film anything. If you camera looks onto anothers property you would be
breaching privacy rules and even filming past your own borders and
into the public space could be challenged.

As for the whole Streetview thing – it’s the same thing as Public
Space CCTV as far as I’m concerned. By being in the Public Space you
expect to be seen. Does it really matter if it’s by the bloke selling
The Big Issue or a bored office worker in Arizona?

But the reality is that I can point my camera into the public space in
front of my building and record it to my heart’s content. And I don’t
suppose that there’s anything to stop me putting it online or sending
it in to one of those “People do the funniest things..” type shows.

‘By being in the Public Space you expect to be seen. Does it really
matter if it’s by the bloke selling The Big Issue or a bored office
worker in Arizona?’ Surely one difference is that you expect to be
able to see the people who can see you, or who are photographing you?
Part of the fear surrounding privacy debates – leaving aside actual
losses like identity theft or someone getting your bank details – is
that you just don’t know who’s accessing your details.

But seriously – I agree in part as I am as concerned with how our data
is circulated. That said I have far more fear of the private sector
than the public.

Slander is when you make a wrongful comment about an individual,
defamation is when you make one about a company or organisation, I
believe. Although that might be wrong!

For some time the facility known as Google Earth has allowed us to
call up our own address – or anyone else’s address, for that matter -
and to home in on a photograph of our – or their – house.

Now the facility has been brought down to street level, and at the
press of a key on your computer, you will be able to summon up the
image of any street. An arrow on the picture will direct you to your
own door – or indeed to anyone else’s door

Aren’t invasions of personal privacy by commercial companies every bit
as indefensible as similar intrusions into our lives by a Big Brother
state?

However much you feel ‘got at’ by advertisements, at least the
shopkeeper is not literally tugging your elbow.

Other companies, wishing to peddle their wares, can learn from these
Google profiles your tastes and likely areas of purchase.

His arguments are based on what he perceives to be the dangers of the
State keeping ever more watchful-tabs upon us. His fears ranged from
the potentially very serious – the holding of suspects without trial
for 42 days – to the comparatively trivial – local councils spying on
what rubbish we put into our wheely bins.

And most of us would think that some element of discreet intrusion by
the State was legitimate.

The matter of Google is of a quite different order. This is a computer
company which is spying upon us for the sole purpose of exploiting us,
controlling us and making money out of us.

Identity theft is one of the growing crimes of our age. A clever
manipulator of computers can reconstruct from a single electricity
bill, or one credit card, a huge raft of information about us,
including our bank account numbers and even our medical records. Such
thefts are rightly regarded as crimes.

. Schilit, Yang, and McDonald propose something called activity
monitoring, in which a smart home would watch your movements, helping
with such mundane tasks as reminding you to take medication that you
missed, or feed the cat. That’s a level of making life easy that I
just don’t want Google to be involved in.

The researchers’ proposal includes mining activity data to make
suggestions for activities, from what to watch on television to
finding your favorite songs on your MP3 player and playing them in the
room with the best acoustics. At the point at which Google is
proposing the idea of thinking for people as well as mining their
data, it might be time to worry about more than whether a link to the
company’s privacy policy is on its front page.

Google is already thinking of easing the commutes within the office. A
slide is planned that will whisk workers between floors, in what is
perhaps the ultimate throwback to the Internet bubble years.

So, it’s only natural that Google should eventually open an office
here, the mayor and proclaimed Thursday night in officially welcoming
to his city the company with the “don’t be evil” slogan.

After all, nearly every other mayor in the country boasts a Google
office, Newsom joked. And Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey
Brin are the .

Gavin Newsom is a fruitcake and an embarrassment to America, as is San
Francisco. Google should be ashamed of itself to ally itself with a
guy like this.

Michelle Quinn covers computers and digital music. She has chronicled
the digital revolution since 1993, when she wrote for the first issue
of Wired magazine about how computers were changing Hollywood special
effects. She covered Netscape’s 1995 public offering for the San
Francisco Chronicle and rode the roller coaster of the dot-com boom
and bust for the San Jose Mercury News. In the evenings, the Delaware
native can be found at home watching TV shows and movies on her
laptop, with another nearby to surf the Web. michelle.quinn @
latimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo Inc. has rejected Microsoft’s latest
attempt to buy its online search operations in a “take or leave it”
proposal that Yahoo said would have dismantled its Internet franchise.

Without providing many specifics, Yahoo said Microsoft renewed an
earlier bid to buy the company’s search engine and proposed turning
over the remaining pieces to a board controlled by Icahn.

“It is ludicrous to think that our board could accept such a
proposal,” Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said in the statement. “While
this type of erratic and unpredictable behavior is consistent with
what we have come to expect from Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned
into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our
stockholders.”

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment late
Saturday. Efforts to reach Icahn were unsuccessful.

Yahoo said it unsuccessfully reiterated its willingness to sell the
entire company to Microsoft for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share
— a bid that the software maker dangled in early May before
withdrawing it in a pique over Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang’s
demand for $37 per share.

The breakdown of those takeover negotiations infuriated many Yahoo
shareholders who fear the company’s stock price would plunge back
below $20 — a threshold reached just before Microsoft made its
initial bid in early January. Yahoo shares finished Friday at $23.57.

Yahoo’s squandered opportunity to sell to Microsoft in May prompted
Icahn to lead a rebellion aimed at removing Yahoo’s entire board so he
could fire Yang and try to revive sales talks with Microsoft.

Since it dropped its bid to buy all of Yahoo, Microsoft had focused
its overtures on Yahoo’s search engine — the second most used
on the Internet behind Google Inc.’s.

As Google has become more successful, both Yahoo and Microsoft have
been regressing, a dynamic that many analysts believe make it
imperative for the two companies to put aside their differences and
combine forces.

Google has quietly ventured into the virtual worlds space with a web-
based 3D chat application called Lively. Does it matter?

Lively will allow online conversations to become realistic as users
’sit down’ with one another in a virtual environment

The second unique advantage is Google Earth. This is already an
amazing creation, a mirror world of incredible richness available free
on most PCs. You can already see the planet from space, dive down to
the street level and see incredible detail in 360-degree panoramas.
You can already build your own 3D buildings and add them to Google
Earth, and Google continues to add more content to this remarkable
piece of software.

Solid-state notebooks use electronic memory rather than a disk drive,
making them lighter and faster to start up

While the iPhone’s Safari browser is no doubt a powerful tool, native
applications would be better. Just about every photo-sharing site out
there has a new application for the iPhone, including Flickr and
PhotoBucket. Google’s Picasa? Nowhere to be found.

Of course, there are the browser-based versions of Gmail, Calendar,
Docs, Talk, News, Notebook, and iGoogle. Don’t get me wrong, these are
all usable and work fine … in the browser. I get that Google is all
about the cloud, but having native clients to make accessing some of
these services faster or better would be great.

Blogger and Picasa are probably the two that make the most sense to
have available in a standalone form. But what I was really hoping for
was an application that lets you compose Google Documents on the
iPhone and then sync them with Google’s Docs online. Now that would
have been a very useful app indeed.

Tomorrow’s CIO: Do you have what it takes? Find out at the 2008
InformationWeek 500 Conference Sept. 14-16, St. Regis Resort, Monarch
Beach, Calif.

I can see Lively being implemented into Android, Apple and other
mobile platforms before too long.� Why send a boring old text message
to someone, when you can chat them up on the roof of a high-rise or in
the middle of the jungle?� Bring a handful of your friends in and
spend time debating the latest episode of The Hills or whatever kids
are watching these days. It would be easy to open the program or point
your browser to the chat rooms and talk away.

Andy on :
I suppose Lively does have potential, but definitely needs a lot of
work to be the sort of app I’d like it to be. The biggest
problem with it, currently, is all the sexually oriented rooms that
are popping up all over the place, when this is a service meant for
those as young as 13. Either Google needs to do a better job with
blocking, or removing unsuitable content or they need to separate them
out (i.e. have 13 & older rooms and 18 & older rooms that are in a
separate location). For now I’m staying away until they have
some sort of legitimate solution figured out.

In addition to updating the popular Twitter and facebook service, it
can also tie in to your Google calendar and import from TripIt and
Doplr… cool. The tie in to Google Calendar is very powerful and
something that users are going love! See video demo below (source:
http://vimeo.com/1313233) – I can’t wait for a mobile client!

Learn to address security risks in wireless handheld computing systems
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- Users from more than 120 countries come to learn new skills, share
information, and discover best practices, tips, and tricks that they
can use instantly. Be part of this extraordinary experience August
4–8, 2008, in San Diego, California.

- September 9-12, 2008, Moscone West, San Francisco, CA – Wireless
Data… it’s how you use it.

Google has released as open source a web application assessment tool,
Ratproxy, that was designed to root out potential security flaws.

The proxy works passively by analysing existing, user-initiated
traffic, and is particularly tuned for complex Web 2.0 environments,
Zalewski said in a blog post.

“We decided to make this tool freely available as open source because
we feel it will be a valuable contribution to the information security
community, helping advance the community’s understanding of security
challenges associated with contemporary web technologies,” Zalewski
wrote. He added that Ratproxy is intended to complement active
crawlers and manual proxies, as well as other passive proxies.

What was achieved there is recognised to be of fundamental importance
to both winning the war (Churchill visited to say ‘thank you’ to them)
and the development of the computer. Maybe Bill Gates doesn’t want to
support this museum because it underlines where electronic computing
started i.e. here, not the U.S.

He said: “It may mean burglars get a bit fatter because they can
sit at home and scope out people’s houses rather than have to go
walking up and down the street.

“Obviously, it’s not going to make it harder for someone
planning a burglary to have access to this.”

A spokeswoman said: “Google works hard to make sure our products
respect both users’ expectations of privacy, and local privacy laws,
in each country in which they are launched.”

Campaigners fighting plans to build four 335-ft high wind turbines at
Carsington Pasture have criticised claims that they would not affect
local views ,

Special options are available to registered members. for the member
login page or to register as a member.

Copyright © 2006, Lee Publications Inc. Magicvalley.com is an on-
line division of the Times-News, published daily at 132 W. Fairfield
St., Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary
of .

Your pages should have a clear hierarchy and relevant internal links.
We also recommend creating a Sitemap and using Google’s
Webmaster Tools. These tools are useful, user-friendly and will
provide information such as where your backlinks come from or which
queries visitors used to reach your site.

We have an automated system to identify and remove inappropriate or
offensive material in Hot Trends. In rare cases, when such material is
missed, we manually remove these results from our Hot Trends list. We
apologize to any users who were offended by this situation.

On a separate note: Google also clarified that “we were just
speculating” in an earlier statement about the origin of the search.
(That statement said, “In this case, it appears that the html code for
this query was posted on a popular internet bulletin board, which led
to quite a few people searching to find out more about this symbol.”)

It’s truly pathetic that David Sarno believes that the question of
whether or not a swastika is offensive is “debatable”. Despite the
ancient origins of the symbol, most folks today don’t recognize it as
a symbol of Hinduism — its primary meaning has been its association
with the murderous racism of the Nazis. When Sarno brightly refers to
the swastika as a symbol with a “multifacted history”, you’d think he
was referring to the peace sign.

And yes, David, please update us in your keen investigation into those
nefarious Israeli Google employees and their insistence on considering
the swastika offensive. I’m sure you’d happily wear it on your
t-shirt, but most people have a slightly less ambivalent view of
symbolized evil.

“Svasti” is a Hindu (Sanskrit) word that translates as “well being.”
The svastika (swastika) was a sacred symbol to Hindus and Buddhists
alike, and one can find temples and homes adorned with it throughout
South Asia. Sadly, when Hitler appropriated the swastika as the symbol
of his National Socialist (Nazi) Party in the early 1930’s, it came to
represent evil and genocide. Thus, modern Western civilization abhors
it. When a Buddhist temple in LA decorated its fences with wrought
iron swastikas, many people became offended, because average Joe
America is simply not ready for a return to the original, peaceful
meaning of svasti (the memories of WWII and Bergen-Belsen are still
too fresh). The monks wisely decided to remove the symbols rather than
attempt to explain the sacred meaning to the clamoring crowds.
Ironically, the local Jewish community, well aware of the many
meanings of the swastika, came to the defense of the temple, declaring
that they had the right to display the swastika in its context as a
symbol of goodness.

The Hindu ( and American Indian, etc.) swastika runs counter-clockwise
- facing the left. The swastika adopted by the Nazis faced to the
right. In addition, the swastika has been used as a graphic
representation of positive energy by numerous cultures for centuries.
I’m sure there are now links here, via Google or elsewhere that make
this info redundant, and I don’t mean for my input to be condescending
or insensitive, but since I remember a few things from high school I
leave the research to the bleeding hearts. Swastikas for Dummies,
anyone?

Gosh Adina, are you serious? You might as well just say “white people
are all honkies”. You know, because some of them are, therefore they
all are. The symbol known as a “swastika” has a deeper history that
what you seem capable of recognizing. Its a bunch of lines in a
pattern. It wasn’t just a part of Hindi culture and German oppression.
Heck, it was even represented in some Native America tribes. But that
doesn’t mean folks have to “wear it on their t-shirt” to acknowledge a
simple fact – symbols can be easily distorted by groups of people.
Regardless…they are still symbols, meaningless to many as their the
cultural significance isn’t readily translatable. But they are still
symbols, and have different meanings.

Sounds more like one of those viral emails going about that promise
good luck if you send it on to your ten closest friends within the
next five seconds. Maybe it triggers a Google search by having the
recipients click on a link. Have you checked out the serps when you
google for whatever the html code is?

Thank god. Now that that’s out of my system I see I am not alone after
reading others’ opinions on Adina’s comment.

I suppose this means the “most folks” who live in Europe or the US? Oh
wait, surely those millions who live in India and other parts of Asia
don’t count! What if they don’t see it as a hateful symbol? What if it
means something completely different to them? Oh of course, that
doesn’t matter, does it! This Eurocentric world view makes me sick.

Obviously, this symbol became popular in the early 20th century as a
symbol of good luck (often pre WWI air forces would use the symbol for
just that, ie Finland). Then it was high-jacked by the NSDAP for their
international symbol and evil, horrendous crimes against humanity
ensued across Europe under fascism.

If the sight of the swastika does offend you, then I may suggest no
traveling Asia east of Pakistan, because you can’t miss it. I think
the most blatant clashing of East and West, in regards to the
swastika, I’ve encountered was in Kochi in the Jewish Quarter, where a
simple spice shop, owned by Indian Jews is named ‘Swastik Spices’. And
the swastika is proudly displayed on their sign, windows, business
card and labels, right facing. i would gladly post the picture from
that establishment, if I could here.

The Hindu swastika runs counter-clockwise – facing the left. The
swastika adopted by the Nazis faced to the right.

Sounds like this is a lose-lose situation for Google. They shouldn’t
have taken it down. Since they issued a statement anyway, they should
have just explained the many OTHER different (and usually positive)
meanings of the symbol.

This week, Google jumped into the battle against Bell Canada’s anti-
BitTorrent practices, this time through the country’s equivalent of
the FCC, and on different legal grounds than privacy advocates.

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any
reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul
language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

It’s about time that a more powerful company steps in to help out with
this fight. BT Throttling is just BS and we all know it. DPI is also
something that shouldn’t be implemented. The number of ways an ISP can
manipulate this technology is too overwhelming.

In 1999, the Internet was largely e-mail and alpha-numeric services.
It was not a world where our telecom, cable and satellite companies
controlled more than 70 per cent of Canada’s Internet service provider
traffic. Moreover, it was not a world with TV distributed by Internet
protocol technology. So the Internet is already being “regulated” – by
boardrooms – except when giants such as Google draw attention.

Since 1999, more than half of Canadians have downloaded video from the
Web, and about a quarter of Canadians do so at least once a week. So
the CRTC’s “broad investigation into the way Canadian ISPs manage the
flow of traffic” is extremely timely. Better to have some Internet
oversight urging Canadian content on the Web. The alternative is to
have our telephone, cable and satellite bills subsidizing commercial
appetites that hope to bypass the Canadian system altogether.

Google Inc. says Bell Canada and other telecommunications companies
that slow or restrict certain types of Internet traffic are violating
Canadian law and is calling on federal watchdogs to put a stop to the
process.

“Protecting end user choice is the central issue in this proceeding,
but also a much larger issue. It goes to the heart of the Internet and
how it acts as an extraordinary platform for innovation and fair
competition.”

Bell Canada – a division of Montreal-based BCE Inc. – has faced harsh
criticism from CAIP and other proponents of “net neutrality” over its
policies regarding the flow of content on its network. CAIP is
alleging that Bell is illegally managing their subscribers’ traffic.

Net neutrality supporters argue that all Web traffic must be treated
equally and that slowing down any data is both undemocratic and should
be illegal.

Last month, however, the head of the commission said a broad
investigation into the way Canadian ISPs manage the flow of traffic on
their networks is likely.

“The CAIP complaint is really only the tip of the iceberg,” CRTC
chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told a telecom conference last month.

He logged onto LinkedIn, a 5-year-old professional networking site,
and cast out a call for help to his stable of online colleagues.

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769 comments
, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing
Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on
YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday. Although Google argued that turning
over the data would invade its users’ privacy, the .

and why not keeping them in a country where privacy still means
something, so that no US judge can touch them.

That didn’t mean much to one European BitTorrent tracker site who was
ordered by U.S. judges to turn over all access logs where the site
didn’t even keep logs to start with. The judge said in his infinite
wisdom that because the data existed in RAM at some instant that the
logs were required to be created and then turned over.

While I respect the USA law within the USA, I despise when judges
attempt, often with too much success, to enforce it outside of the
USA. And not just data laws. We enforce US sex laws in other countries
to criminalize behavior completely legal there. This Is Wrong!

And for google to “request all the records” from their separate
company formed to hold the records would be an operation requiring
special permission, extensive justification, and full disclosure,
regarding reasons for the request, which the board of the other
company would have to vote on (after researching to guarantee that
Google is not possibly under any kind of duress in making the request,
to release information).

The US-based Google would have half the information; the foreign “data
storage” company would have the other half — and no individual
record could be obtained without bitwise XOR’ing all pieces together.

If they really wanted to, they could still manage this.. encrypt the
logs with your youtube account password, and then then using the
Ajax/Zero Knowlege App ideas that we had an article about the other
day (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/30/1416238), ensure
that decryption of that data in done at the user end…

To cover themselves legally. The issue of whether YouTube and other
similar sites are responsible for the gazillion copyright violations
that occur there is legally still up in the air. This Viacom lawsuit
should hopefully clear it up but until then Google’s position is that
they are doing everything they can to prevent copyrighted materials
from being posted. Keeping the logs helps them keep up that pretense -
they can cooperate if need be and identify the violators etc. They
have no legal requirement to g

Chances are that Google themselves has never had to follow-up on an IP
address to identify a user for anyone except the Chinese government
and/or the NSA, neither of which are our friends. The first poster who
asks why they keep this at all, let alone weren’t anonymizing it long
ago has it right. This is hardly the first time Google has had to turn
over access records so they certainly know that it can and will
happen.

I would also like to know how the judge has completely ignored the
[privacilla.org]? If it’s on the Internet suddenly all privacy concern
automatically goes away, even if you’re engaged as a customer of a
company with a published privacy policy offering you many protections?

As for Google, their lawyers should have IMMEDIATELY said to the judge
“Our client cannot do that, on privacy grounds. Google’s duty to
protect the privacy of millions cannot be dismissed by a legal
ruling.” Judges are not omnipotent, even when some of them think they
are.

But the problem isn’t Google, it’s us. We keep using Google, though we
knew about the risks and problems. The day a company risks significant
revenue over privacy, is the day they will pay attention to it.

Why do I feel like I’m the only person that takes “don’t be evil” with
a grain of salt. Google has been a great corporation because they
understood people on the Internet and how they wanted to be treated.
But, they also use that knowledge when they calculate how far they can
push the envelope. “Don’t be evil” has translated into webmail
accounts with massive amounts of space, web ads that’s don’t flash or
pop-up, and a search engine who’s front page maintains the very bland
basic HTML feel. Now people dream of Google being the great fixer in
any industry that has annoyed them over the years.

It is a mistake to think you can anonymize this data. Sure, you could
strip everything out of the data, but then you would just have public
information, since youtube will tell you how many views each video has
already. So I presume the people who want to “anonymize” think they
will, like the AOL logs, give pseudonyms to people.

I can think of many problems. For example, there are tons of videos on
youtube that are never accessed except by the uploader and a few
friends. Pretty easy to identify who the likely uploader is from the
records, and thus identify a user. Or even if you never upload, a lot
can be learned. For example, somebody looking for my records could
first see what youtube videos have me in them. Most people have
probably searched for their own name, and as such this is a clue as to
which user is probably me.

Of course, I’ve never posted, so maybe that’s why.
I guess my IP address does ID “me”, however. My DSL address changes a
lot, but I assume the telco keeps those records… too.

My cable IP address doesn’t change often, I had one IP address for
almost 10 years without changing… just when I did a router upgrade
it switched.

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There probably aren’t many people who have made money betting against
Google; the company repeatedly tops Wall Street expectations and
generally knocks the socks off investors. What’s not to love?

But as an economic downturn looms, deteriorating ad spending will
likely cramp Google’s style — if it hasn’t already. While Wall Street
largely anticipates a dandy second-quarter — the — we suspect the
economy has finally caught up with the search monstrosity.

The aborted hotel deal doesn’t represent the full extent of Google’s
penny-pinching, either — the company recently closed a

Or maybe it’s positively a sign that the company is finally getting
pinched by an economic slowdown.

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Google
headquarters, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View.

This is a “big piece of chicken” question…but what are those
children holding? I think I see legs and fur… but beyond that I
can’t identify the mystery meat. I can only assume, at such a food
event, that the “petting zoo” comes with a very realistic ending?

To protect our readers from malicious comments SFGate asks that you
login or register to post a comment.

PITY Bombay’s poor billionaires. No sooner have they invested in
an executive jet than the taxman comes knocking for his share.

Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, found himself in a
humiliating situation when customs officers impounded two executive
jets belonging to his Reliance Industries, claiming he had failed to
pay an estimated £12m in tax on them.

We expect it will be quite empty if the taxman continues to do his job
with such vigour.

I DON’T wish to spoil Michael Grade’s Sunday, but imagine
how different his job would be if ITV owned Google.

And, who knows, he might even be in sunny California right now playing
with a new Google toy rather than fretting about the next instalment
of Dancing on Ice.

A clever banker pitched the idea but Green didn’t much care for
the plan and instead opted to buy a 25% stake in Ask Jeeves —
Google’s punier rival.

The $2 trillion industry put in its worst performance during the first
half of the year since most credible records began

In February, Austin cyclist Peter Smith launched a website, to promote
a petition requesting that Google allow users to search for safe
bicycle routes along with driving routes.

Others have tried to create Google Maps mashups that offer bicycle
directions. The site offers bike directions for Portland, Ore., and
Milwaukee.

People who walk places rather than drive tend to be more active,
right? Well why don’t those over-active people who don’t
like to drive to the end of their driveway to get the morning paper
walk down to a gas station and use the money that they saved by
walking on a map. Then they’ll be able to put that map in their
fanny-pack, walk out of the gas station, walk their over-active bodies
home and flip through the map and figure out a route on their own?!

If you’re going to bike somewhere, you’d imagine that it
wouldn’t be much more than 40 kms (24.85 miles or a little over
an hour bike ride) away, right? Cause any more than that and
you’ll have a 3+ hour bike ride there and back. So why
wouldn’t you know how to get to a destination on your bike
that’s only an hour bike ride away? Get a life.

A future of poisoned oceans, withered crops, and irate polar bears is
nobody’s idea of a good time. It’s clear to anyone who is paying
attention that our civilization is due for an upgrade. Bright Green
covers the news, ideas, opinions, and trends littering the road to an
environmentally sustainable future.

Andrew Brown, founder and CEO of New Amsterdam Project, a Cambridge
company that hauls cargo via industrial tricycles.

Several large agencies in California have signed up with Google,
including OCTA in Orange County, the largest transit agencies in the
Bay Area including BART and Caltrain and the MTS in San Diego. The
Burbank bus system is also featured on Google Transit.

Metro has been talking with Google for months and the blog even
reported in April that Google Transit was imminent. Well, not so fast.
“We’re still talking to them,” Marc Littman, a Metro spokesman, told
me yesterday afternoon. “There is no contract.”

Two sources, speaking on background, said there are several issues
that need to be resolved. One is boring and involves data formatting.
The other is not and involves whether Google intends to make money
from advertising placed on the maps. Like all transit agencies, Metro
is cash-strapped and looking for new revenue and apparently doesn’t
want to give proprietary information to a firm that may profit.

As for Google Transit, I spent some time playing around with it
yesterday and came away mostly impressed. It’s quick — quicker than
the Metro trip planner. And to have all that information housed on one
website is pretty convenient.

And that means what exactly? Catch a bus at the Metrolink station
that’s going to the Metrolink station?

In addition, Google does not display bus/rail disruptions or other
alerts related to your trip. It does not give users options to plan
trips by Walking Distance or Minimize Trips by Transfer Time, Walking
Distance or Transfers. Furthermore Google doesn’t recognize as many
locations as the transit provider’s tripplanner and may have outdated
data.

Google needs some grown ups who remember when transit systems were not
government funded. They are usually 2-4 generations away from
actualization of producing industrial strength software.

Try communicating with one of them on a personal level they are so
insular it’s incredible. They have receptionists that have graduate
degrees just to swish the public away..

Google Maps is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s not Google’s
fault that Apple is dumb and only allows limited bits of AJAX to work
on their phones.

BTW is Google (or Metro) even thinking about a real-time bus/train
locator by GPS, an extension of the marginally-helpful TransiTV?

Steve Hymon is The Times’ Road Sage. He covers traffic and
transportation in a region united by a confounding network of freeways
that frustrate drivers daily. The Bottleneck Blog is Steve’s website
home, where he breaks transportation news, reports on traffic tie-ups
and brings a critical but humorous eye to commuting in Southern
California. You can reach Steve at steve.hymon@latimes.com.

Google makes the vast majority of its revenue and profit from
advertisers whose text ads appear next to search results. Advertisers
bid for the words, and their ads appear based on a formula involving
how much they’re willing to pay and the quality of the ads themselves.
As of mid-June, . Advertisers pay only when searchers actually click
on the ads.

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Excerpts from the blog After spending Friday morning playing with an
iPhone 3G, I can see why Apple enthusiasts lined up again for Steve…

After spending Friday morning playing with an iPhone 3G, I can see why
Apple enthusiasts lined up again for Steve Job’s latest wonderful
device.

The browser is a bit faster — it took about 25 seconds to load
with three bars of 3G reception showing here in South Lake Union.
Having GPS brings the device up to par with other high-end phones, but
Apple’s interface is a step above.

In the settings menu, you have the option to add a mail account.
Exchange is the top of the list, above Apple’s MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo
mail and AOL.

My tip of the day: Check with your IT department to be sure it has
authorized iPhones. Otherwise, you may get a message saying that it’s
unable to verify a certificate and the sync won’t work.

A few little quirks: Just because the 3G phone uses a faster network,
don’t expect blinding speed over the wireless network.

You also can’t connect to iTunes over the network — you must be
on a Wi-Fi network to connect to the store.

So is the iPhone 3G worth the $2,000 you’ll spend owning and operating
one for the next two years?

Think carefully before taking the plunge. Not because of any
shortcomings with the phone. It’s lovely, and continues to define a
well-designed phone/mobile Web device.

A range of amazing handheld computers will appear using new mobile
chips from Intel and new software platforms from Google, Microsoft and
Nokia. For instance, the first “Google phone” built on its Android
platform should be available from T-Mobile USA by the end of the year.

The iPhone software will continue to get better and it may stay ahead
of the competition, but the phone hardware may seem dated soon,
especially the wimpy 2 megapixel camera that can’t take video.

As I mentioned in the comments yesterday, I’m getting ready to depart
this space; I’ll have a fuller explanation tomorrow, sometime before
or after I get in line to buy the new iPhone.

It was thrilling not only for the splendor of the place — even their
commodes are computerized — and the welcoming attitude of my hosts at
the Authors@ program (the company buys your books and hands them out
to employees for free), but also because Googlers seemed to
intuitively grasp my argument and posed many penetrating questions.

Google records these things and posts them up on YouTube, so if you’re
looking for something to watch while eating a sandwich at your desk,
have at it:

Another thing on the book: I’ll be reading and signing at Book Passage
in the San Francisco Ferry Building next week — 6 p.m. on Thursday,
July 17.

If you’d like to talk about facts, rumors, conspiracy theories, and
spin in the digital age, do stop by.

Copyright ©2008 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material
from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly
prohibited. SALON® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.

The owner of “Obama’s Chocolate Nuts” is feeling
like “the luckiest person on Earth” in the wake of the
Rev. Jesse Jackson’s crude remarks about Sen. Barack Obama.

Jesse Jackson is no more than a vicious Black thug that fantasizes
about castrating other Black Liberal males.

Are we the sexiest blog ever? You better believe it, people. Even Amy
Adams (above) says so. And if she didn’t actually say it, you can bet
she’s thinking it.

SIC WILSON … talk to the hand, cause the volleyball ain’t listening.
THE FITS GIRLS … somebody’s gotta be the brains of this operation.
SIC WILLIE … not sweating but protecting the technique.

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I guess the main difference here is that their “compiler” can generate
the actual language-domain classes off of the descriptor files, which
is a definite advantage over “classic” IDL.

Well, let’s also not forget that the meaning of the expression “an
order of magnitude” depends strongly from the numeric base you’re
using.

I drink the XML kool-aid plenty — but there are things it’s good for,
and things it’s not. Serializing and parsing truly massive amounts of
data is part of the latter set.

We wanted to give an idea of the speed without trying to boast too
much or look like we were directly challenging anyone. Of course every
news outlet has chosen to highlight the speed comment — including the
numbers which were intended to be ballpark figures — more than was
intended, but I guess that isn’t surprising.

I agree that the tiny “person” example is not a good benchmark case.
It was intended as a usage example, not a speed example, but I stuck
the speed numbers in there just meaning to give people a vague idea of
the difference. The “20-100 times faster” comment is based on testing
a variety of formats — both unrealistic ones and real-life formats
used in our search pipeline — against programmatically generated XML
equivalents (which may or may not themselves be realistic, though they
contain the same data with the same structure). libxml2 was used for
parsing XML. I don’t really know how libxml2’s speed compares to other
XML parsers, but I didn’t have a lot of time to investigate. The 20x
faster number comes from the largest data set (~100k-ish) while the
100x number comes from a very small message. The most realistic case
was about 50x. Sorry that I cannot provide exact details of the
benchmark setup since many of the test cases were proprietary internal
formats.

It looks like Google has taken some of the good elements of CORBA and
IIOP into its own interchange format.While CORBA certainly is bloated
in a lot of ways, the IIOP wire protocol it uses is vastly faster and
more efficient than any XML out there.. and yes it is just as “open”
(publicly documented and Freely available for use in any open source
application) as any XML schema out there. J2EE uses IIOP as well and
its is technically possible to interoperate (although the problem with
CORBA is that different implementations never really interoperated as
they were supposed to). As a side note, I’d rather write IDL code than
an XML schema any day of the week too, but that’s another rant.

both really from the same design sheet, but thrift has been
opensource’d for over a year, and has many more language bindings. its
been in use in several opensource projects (thrudb comes to mind), and
has much more extant articles/documentation.

I’m actually a game developer, not a web developer, so I’ll speak to
XML’s use as a file format in general. Here’s a few points regarding
our use of XML:

* We only use it as a source format for our tools. XML is far too
inefficient and verbose to use in the final game – all our XML data is
packed into our own proprietary binary data format.* We also only use
it as a meta-data format, not a primary container type. For instance,
we store gameplay scripts, audio script, and cinematic meta-data in
XML format. We’re not foolish enough to store images, sounds, or maps
in a highly-verbose, text-based format. XML’s value to us is in how
well it can glue large pieces of our game together.* All our latest
tools are written in C# and using the.NET platform (Windows is our
development platform, of course). It’s astoundingly easy to serialize
data structures to XML using.NET libraries – just a few lines of
code.* Because it’s a text-based format and human readable, if a file
breaks in any way, we can just do a diff in source control to see what
changed, and why it’s breaking.

Since they’re Google people will clamor over this (as we’re doing
here) and the result will be at least a handful of folks will learn
and use it. Google’s key to success has always been finding fresh
talent and removing barriers from their contributing and advancement
so what I’ve seen they’ve done is A) help train potential employee’s
on how they’re tech and thought process works, and B) provide
themselves a filter by which to gauge the ability for a potential
employee to understand they’re system.
And as a bonus, they help undermine opponents who use competing
technologies by helping train the workforce away from their practices.
Overall I think it’s very intelligent and well done strategic move.

The point of this isn’t so much that it’s faster than XML (so is
everything else), it’s that google took everything that a real person
needs in a IDL and cut out everything else. Most IDLs have a serious
case of second system effect, where features are added that nobody
uses but seriously complicate the API. Even XML suffers from that
(have you ever seen the kind of data structure you need to store a
DOM, or what that does to library APIs for manipulating XML)? I’d use
it because 95% of the time all I need is something simple like this,
and the other 5% of the time I should go back and rethink my design
anyway. That said, there is still a case for XML, especially the self
documenting and human readable nature of the document, but there are a
lot of cases where it is used today where it only adds unnecessary
complexity and actually makes your code more difficult to maintain
instead of simpler.

4. Either communicating between programs that have the same knowledge
of message semantics, or preparation of pretty human-readable
documents.

The advantage of using the protocol buffer format instead of JSON is
that it’s smaller and faster, but you sacrifice human-readability.

Modify JSON so unquoted attributes are ‘type labels’ and define the
type of an attribute by giving a label or a default value. For
instance:

You’ve also missed that they’ve just told the world how the majority
of their systems talk, something most people would find interesting
given how much Google does and the fact that one of Google’s strong
points is mangling huge amounts of data in a relatively quickly
manner.

PS. Your format stinks and is horribly slow and unscalable when it
comes to adding to the library. Genre’s are so unbelievably grey
defined that you might as well just sort them by the dominate color of
the cover. Google would have done better.

You think? Take BigTable. Wikipedia describes it as: ‘”a sparse,
distributed multi-dimensional sorted map”, sharing characteristics of
both row-oriented and column-oriented databases’. Sounds, to me, like
a specialized solution to a very specialized problem, a problem that,
I presume, didn’t fit with any existing solution. Same goes with GFS.
After all, do you really think they didn’t evaluate existing solutions
before embarking on building an entirely new distributed filesystem?
Do you really think they’re that stupid?

He who loses, wins the race, And parallel lines meet in space. — John
Boyd, “Last Starship from Earth”

Whitepaper: Virtualization from the Data Center to the Desktop. Meet
evolving demands more effectively as you transform your IT
infrastructure from a cost center to a strategic business asset.

The company also recently donated $350,000 to Oregon and Portland
State Universities in support of open source development. Google open
source projects and efforts are documented at the Web site.

Q: Were there any real standout projects from Summer of Code that just
made you say “Wow”?

What that means is if you put in cancer or a certain kind of cancer
you can find out what genes in the human genome express that disease.
Or you can put in a gene and find out which proteins and genes it’s
connected to.

For instance we have an article in there from a fellow who is applying
the concepts behind open source into biology. It’s sort of like,
here’s this core open source advance on how it’s been done over the
last six years, and then there are also people who have learned from
open source and what they’re doing, too.

Q: So there isn’t going to be a Google open source license? It’s just
the GPL and OSI-approved licenses for Google?

Q: Is there any chance that Google would ever use one of the new ,
such as the Community License, that may well be free software-
compatible licenses?

For instance, when we release code we often just want people to be
able to use it and we don’t really care how. We just want them to see
the code and get out of it what we do, and the ASF license lends
itself quite well for that.

I love working at Google. It’s been fantastic. Not just the people I
work with but the depth of resources.

: woarhex etbdml
: My Lonely Planet book said that if you want to stay with a family
instead of the hotel you need to register…

: No info on that. As far as I heard from friends in Bukhara,
everything seems to be more or less ok now….

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where
readers can share and discover new web pages.

But with your data encrypted, why do you need to trust anyone? For you
it is the state of your browser, passwords etc, but for anyone else it
is random bits.

I can’t imagine a company that actually does what the public asks?
They must have a secret agenda!

Well, I’d disagree, I think we’re doing fine from a kernel release
perspective. We could do more, and in time, we will, but we only
really started a concerted effort to release changes 3 years ago,
so…not so shabby. Red Hat has been more important than Google or any
linux -user- in the development of the kernel.

That’s not too shabby, in my book. I also would point out that it is
disingenuous to equate linux use with some license fee savings. If
linux had initially charged a license fee, then the world of linux
users would be using bsd. Linux is successful because it is free of
charge and free to use and free to modify. I think it is important
that we give back and the rest, and we do that, but to multiply the
number of machines running linux on the internet and consider that
money as having been stolen is antithetical to the whole idea behind
free software and open source.

If they’re not going to develop it any further, they might as well let
someone else have a go. Now all we have to do is convince Microsoft to
release the source code to Windows ME.

I’m sure there have been other examples, but this is the first and
possibly only example I can think of of a company *actually
responding* to requests for a discontinued product to be open-sourced.
Let alone actually going ahead and doing it.

my settings is set to give trolls +1 and flamebait +2.It’s often some
of the most humerous and insightful comments. At other times it’s just
gay fiction.

The angle places the user at street level and allows for complete
360-degree panning and zooming. Google said that the aim of the
project was to offer a perspective similar to that of a cyclist in the
race.

The map will cover all 21 stages of the race, which began on Saturday
in the coastal town of Brest and ends on 27 July in the Champs
Elysées in Paris.

Q: I enter events into AOL’s calendar and program it to send me e-mail
to remind me. Unfortunately, a few months ago, I stopped receiving
e-mail reminders, and AOL has not been able to correct this problem.
Do you know of any other software programs that will let me enter
events into a calendar and receive e-mail to remind me?

When you’re adding an event in Internet Explorer, scroll down to the
reminders tab to send a reminder to your e-mail inbox, mobile phone or
Yahoo Messenger. You can schedule reminders from five minutes to two
weeks before the event.

Mark your calendars for a day full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing: Reps from Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) :
As everyone has noted, the irony is that this time, the Microsoft guys
aren’t the ones under antitrust scrutiny.

Institutional investors are mostly not tuned into the Google ()
Creative Suite. For Google and other SaaS-styled companies, it’s
not about product cycles. New products, particularly strategic ones,
do have a role to play and bear watching closely.

In fact, one might speculate as to whether this sort of closed-to-open
strategy could become more formalized and popular. Suppose Google knew
in advance that this was their plan: they could have escrowed a copy
of the source code with some reliable third party, along with a
covenant to release on a certain date unless the covenant was revoked.
Such a plan might ultimately bring us more open source software, by
encouraging innovation with slightly lower risk.

By scrutinizing the traffic Google searches produce, Internet analysis
firm Hitwise in January . So what’s next?

) 2 comments (Page 1 of 1) by July 9, 2008 2:54 PM PDT Google has a
specific music search function already Reply to this comment by July
10, 2008 11:32 AM PDT google also has a specific government search
function already.it’s under the “Topic-specific search engines” Reply
to this comment

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Psychologically, it’s well-known in risk analysis circles that people
feel more comfortable with risk if they feel in control. Thus people
are often more comfortable driving a car on a congested freeway
compared with being flown somewhere in a commercial jet, regardless of
the relative safety of the two forms of transport.

“You can’t get away from owning your own risk. This is slowing the
adoption of the cloud,” she said.

Google is trying to communicate better with users and customers,
Chandra said, though he stopped short of revealing what the uptime is
for Google Docs or detailing why exactly it had problems earlier this
week.

The software, AVE Video Fusion, “combines Google Earth-like features
with live camera videos projected on a 3D model” the video caption
says. “This program is NOT Google Earth. It is written from scratch
using C++ and OpenGL.” It runs on PCs and requires no custom hardware.

The El Segundo, Calif.-based company was founded in 2005 by computer
science and electrical engineering professors at the University of
Southern California.

This screenshot shows a live USB camera and 18 live TV feeds projected
onto monitors in a lab in Hong Kong.

With so much fairy dust in the air over Apple’s day-early for a ride
to test out some of these apps. Be forewarned that the firmware has
not yet been Apple-approved for wide release and cannot be vouched
for.

Amit Agarwal from blog today outlining how anyone can use the service
as a live blogging tool. The writing format, which has become an
increasingly popular way for bloggers to cover events as they’re
happening (mainly useful for things like Apple keynote speeches), but
also manages to work for smaller conferences and events, too.

Agarwal’s suggestions are to either set it up as a special page on
compatible blogging platforms so that your writings will show up like
a regular post, or to simply embed it on the page as I’ve done here.
One of the platform’s strong suits is that it lets several people work
on a document at the same time, which your standard blogging platform
likely won’t allow.

By scrutinizing the traffic Google searches produce, Internet analysis
firm Hitwise in January . So what’s next?

That extra foresight chronicling which stores will soon be going
under, even if their closures have not yet been announced.

The most interesting element of the , a Google fellow who oversees the
area, is a discussion of why the company doesn’t manually elevate
particular search results to obtain the right order. However, the
company does of course hand-tune the algorithm that ranks the results,
so you can consider manual intervention still relevant at a higher
level.

Google gives two reasons for its prohibition against manual
intervention. First is its belief that its own individual judgment is
never as good as the collective judgment of the Internet overall,
whose hyperlink structure forms part of the basis for Google ranking.

Second, fixing the algorithm rather than a specific result, if done
right, helps more than just one particular search. “Often a broken
query is just a symptom of a potential improvement to be made to our
ranking algorithm. Improving the underlying algorithm not only
improves that one query, it improves an entire class of queries, and
often for all languages,” Singhal said.

Though the company has talked earlier about how it doesn’t hand-tune
specific search results, Singhal went into a little more detail. Not a
lot, though: the post is more of a teaser that lays some groundwork,
but Singhal promised more later.

The DomainKeys technology is covered by a patent assigned to Yahoo.
The company released it under a dual-license scheme that allows the
companies to use it royalty-free under the GNU General Public License
(GPL 2.0), which enabled the Internet Engineering Task Force to
approve it as a proposed Internet standard.

It looks like it’s available to select users in select locations for
the time being, and indeed, I can’t access it from my Google account
yet. It’s also unclear whether this will get expanded to the mobile
version of Google Maps, where the availability of walking directions
would certainly help.

This sort of feature can be very useful in cities with lots of one-way
streets, like New York, or with parks and thoroughfares that
accommodate pedestrians but not cars. Currently, Google Maps
directions may suggest an extremely roundabout route when a much more
direct one is possible by walking or biking.

The July 1 date was viewed months ago as a catalyst for the Time
Warner board of directors to speed discussions to spin off or sell AOL
to any interested party, including Yahoo, Microsoft or News Corp.

Renewed hopes for an AOL sale or merger sent Time Warner shares rising
as much as 2.6 percent on Monday after Citigroup named the company its
top pick within large cap media and entertainment stocks on the
conviction that AOL would be sold or merged into either Yahoo or
another company.

Jason Bazinet, a Citigroup analyst, estimated that the merger of AOL’s
advertising business and Yahoo would generate $900 million of annual
cost reductions.

After Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s offer to buy its search business and
struck a search ad deal with Google in June, the momentum for Internet
mergers has slowed, analysts said.

David Pogue looks at the Eye-Fi memory card, which stamps photos with
the location where they were taken.

David Pogue talks about how to save your old photo prints, cassette
tapes and vinyl records from the dustbin o…

David Pogue on the new $100 movie player from Netflix, which sends
movies from your computer screen to your TV…

Add comment July 13, 2008

The google and google yahoo’s merger

Sounds good, right? The mentioned it in their article on the issue and
quoted Viacom. A number of other publications then followed, saying
that Viacom wasn’t going to collect all the data they were entitled to
under the order.

So Viacom didn’t abandon any of their data rights, but they sure went
out of their way to suggest they did. And anyone who watched the will
know that users were absolutely identified based on nothing more than
a list of the search terms they entered. Does anyone really believe
that a motivated plaintiff couldn’t identify individuals based on a
user selected ID (mine is “TechCrunch”), IP address and a list of all
watched videos?

Lawmakers, as well as the , should it team up with the industry’s No.
2 player Yahoo in the third-party advertising agreement.

) 12 comments (Page 1 of 1) by July 11, 2008 6:41 PM PDT If an
AT&T-BellSouth could merger could get the OK of the government….
Then so could a Google-Yahoo team up….. Microsoft has no case. Reply
to this comment
by July 11, 2008 8:54 PM PDT It seems pretty ironic for microsoft to
testify against anyone in an antitrust hearing
Reply to this comment View reply Hide reply
Processing

by July 12, 2008 4:49 PM PDT @JCPayne , you also claim that: ?with all
the resources Microsoft has– they are admitting that they aren’t
smart enough to put together an ad network?Yeah? You mean like how
Google tried their own video sharing network, failed at it, and went
and bought Youtube so they could dominate web video sharing ? Earth to
JCPayne, companies regular buy other companies. Google has bought
plenty of companies even in their short life span as a company. As for
Microsoft launching a strong protest against a Google/Yahoo pact, it
sounds very good to me. After all, Google has virtually taken
permanent residence at the DOJ and at the EU Commission, constantly
whining against non-existent ?crimes? that they claim Microsoft
thinking of committing, its only fair that Microsoft strongly hit back
against the very real danger of Google?s rabid monopolistic maneuvers,
while at the same time giving Google, the same thing Google has been
giving Microsoft in the last 5 years at least. Reply to this comment
by July 12, 2008 8:27 PM PDT Where is the lock in that keeps customers
dependent and keeps out competitors?All this proves is what everyone
already knew: MS can not succeed on a level playing field. Reply to
this comment

The My Friends section allows you to see your top friends, all of
them, those that are online, new friends, and friends with birthdays.
You also have complete access to your MySpace email. You can visit
your inbox, compose messages and even see your sent, saved and trashed
emails. The Mail icon at the bottom of the Apps screen notifies you
when you have new messages by displaying a white plus-sign inside of a
red circle.

Photo access is accomplished via the Camera Photo icon at the bottom
of the Apps screen. You can touch the “Add Photos” button
and add them directly from the iPhone’s camera or from your
iPhones photo library. Basic editing allows you to delete photos from
your MySpace profile.

When a call is received while audio is streaming in AOL Radio, the
music fades and your call rings through. If you decline to answer AOL
Radio starts up where it left off with out a hitch. However if you
accept the call and subsequently finish that call you have to re-
launch AOL Radio. It does not automatically restart. This follows the
rules Apple has for apps developed for the iPhone.

I’m not sure which classic rock song best describes the latest
in the Microsoft / Yahoo battle: “The Song Remains the
Same” or “Saturday Night’s All Right (For
Fighting)”? Both apply in their own right as yes, yet again.

Yahoo also name drops its new search advertising partner (and major
Microsoft rival), Google, quite prominently. Point number one of why
Yahoo rejected this latest deal reads:

1. Yahoo!’s existing business plus its recently signed
commercial agreement with Google has superior financial value and less
complexity and risk than the Microsoft/Icahn proposal.

Viacom wants to know which videos YouTube employees have watched and
uploaded to the site, and Google is refusing to provide that
information, CNET News has learned.

Google has been accused of encouraging massive copyright violations by
Viacom and by a group of copyright holders represented by the
Proskauer Rose law firm. The group in Britain and France, and U.S.
television journalist Robert Tur.

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But the cinema companies were very clever in encouraging agencies to
create ads for movie theaters that the TV authorities wouldn’t accept.

Those sites that incorporated it early have the benefit of advertising
already being part of their culture.

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the CNET communityTo continue, we ask that you first complete the free
registration.

Chris Matyszczyk brings a fresh and irreverent perspective to the tech
world in his CNET blog, Technically Incorrect.

But Christophe Maximin, a 20-year-old French Web developer and
frequent 4chan user, said by phone from his home in London that he was
monitoring 4chan and watched the following scenario unfold:

At some point on Thursday, a member of 4chan’s “b” channel posted a
simple two-part instruction. First, Google “卐”. Second, enjoy.

joc1985 writes “An after a few hours of playing around. It seems to be
a bad copy of Second Life. Somehow all the rooms are crowded, and porn
has made its way in there already”

Are you kidding me? Porn the ultimate mark of success. The fact that
Lively has it before it has even taken off properly makes it like an
uber stamp of approval. Yes yes.

I’ve wondered if there could be a market for “Christian porn” that
addresses all the issues they have with it.

Goatse I guess I can understand, Rick Rolls are damn funny but really,
is there a huge endorphin rush that comes from saying ‘first post’
that I am missing? I would think that after the first thousand times
it really would not be fun for even the most childish of people.

It could be a good thing if it was an antimatter copy of Second Life,
which was then brought into contact with the original Second Life.

I’m pretty sure slashdoter and unbiased can’t be said in the same
sentence with a stright face either. In fact you have to work pretty
hard to find anyone who is unbiased.

Do you have a lawn, and if so, any particular thoughts on where I
should be in relation to it?

Ultimately Google Mobile is more like a first stab at universal
search, because although the contact and web integration is nice, the
only local data it searches at the moment is your Contacts. That
leaves out calendars, notes, music, email, and bookmarks, among many
others. We’d kill to see integration with the rest of the iPhone’s
local data in the future.

But don’t look up: The FBI and the Secret Service, in the form of the
, maintain a regional office in the Hills Plaza building on the floor
above Google.

Newsom referred to San Francisco as “forty-seven and a half square
miles surrounded by reality.” The city’s transcendence of reality –
the sluggish economy elsewhere — he suggested, was due to the
intellectual capital flowing into the city.

Having set up his answer, Newsom then posed a question: “What makes
Google so much better than its competitors?”

Tomorrow’s CIO: Do you have what it takes? Find out at the 2008
InformationWeek 500 Conference Sept. 14-16, St. Regis Resort, Monarch
Beach, Calif.

SPF, DKIM, and SenderID are not the cure-all for spam, and they aren’t
intended to be. But they are effective in weeding out spam in some
cases. They don’t work in the same way, but towards the same goal.

Hey nimish — maybe you didn’t read the fine print in google’s
prospectus: your common shares have 1/10th the voting power of those
held by the two founders + the CEO. Google’s “public” offering was a
complete artifice (some might say a fully-disclosed sham), something
barely *ever* reported by the financial press. They can do whatever
they want — there are no pesky shareholders to appease.

Thanks to a new feature from Google, you can now stand in Longview’s
Civic Circle, walk a portion of Lake Sacajawea, maybe even get a view
of your front door — all from your computer.Google recently
added parts of the local area to its Street View feature of Google
Maps, allowing users a 360-degree perspective from various locations
around Cowlitz County.Here’s how it works: Google drives through an
area with a special camera mounted on a car’s roof. The camera takes
360-degree photos along the way. Google then stitches the photos
together and puts them on the Web.The result: When you bring up an
address in Google Maps, a window pops up showing a photo of the
buildings, houses, people, cars and everything else that was in that
spot when Google snapped its picture. Click right, and the camera pans
right. Click left, and the camera pans left. Another set of arrows
allows you to move up and down the street, just as though you were
driving on it.What’s the point? In an e-mail, Google said Street View
can be used for “virtual tourism” checking for landmarks, or just
getting to know an area better.Some question whether the feature
raises privacy concerns. In other cities, the Google car has captured
a man walking out of a strip club, another man near an adult book
store and what appears to be prostitutes on a street corner. In one
case, a Chicago-area woman flashed the camera.The feature has been
limited to mostly large cities since it launched last year. Google
said it added Street View for Cowlitz County June 10, along with the
Portland area. By the time the photos make it onto the Web, they’re
typically between a few months and a year old, Google said.Street View
isn’t included for all of the area. Downtown Longview is conspicuously
absent. Google also skipped a lot of residential streets. It’s unclear
when, or if, the Google car will return to flesh out the rest of the
map.To check it out, visit . Type in an address and click “Street
View.”

As part of a planned UK launch of Street View – a tool which allows
users to navigate using 360-degree street level pictures – the search
engine has deployed a fleet of camera cars to log details.

Campaigners have attacked the move as an invasion of privacy but
Google defended its actions, stating that it employs face-blurring
technology.

Google has confirmed it is now in the process of photographing Britain
as part of the Street View project.

The letter states that unless these fears are addressed, the campaign
group will be forced to lodge a complaint with the UK Information
Commissioner “with a request that Street View deployment be suspended
pending a formal investigation”.

Google’s just-debuted virtual world is clunky right now, but expect it
to grow into a monster success � and play a leading role in business
as well a social networking.

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[July 3, 2008] Gartner revises Q1 numbers after getting some new
information on HP selling prices, while iSuppli has better news for
AMD. [July 3, 2008] While text messaging leads consumers’ must-have
features, signs point to good news for advancements being pushed by
handset makers, carriers and developers. [July 3, 2008] New research
finds overall broadband use spreading, but suggests that economic
squeeze might be slowing uptake among certain segments. [July 2,
2008] IDC did some counting on the rising cost of storage worldwide.

This effort has been in since 2001. It’s now available as an open
source project Google hopes others will use and contribute toward.
Protocol Buffers could ultimately replace XML in some cases as a
speedier format for data interchange.

Google’s documentation on Protocol Buffers noted that the new format
has numerous advantages over XML. Among the advantages cited by Google
is the fact that Protocol Buffers could be 3 to 10 times smaller and
20 to 100 times faster than XML for serializing structured data.

Currently Google is using Protocol Buffers for its internal Remote
Procedure Calls, or RPC(), protocols and file formats.

Digg Del.icio.us furl StumbleUpon BlinkList Newsvine Magnolia Facebook
Tailrank Slashdot Technorati Google Bookmarks Yahoo Favorites Windows
Live Ask

A large number of . But the glitch illustrates not just the troubles
with cloud computing, but also the gradual progress in making the
concept palatable.

There are two broad categories of cloud computing. First are online
applications such as Google’s Apps, on which customers can run their
own applications.

Taking the plunge into the cloud Service level agreements are the kind
of contractual guarantees that appeal to CIOs making cost-benefit
analyses. But there’s a gut-level factor at play here, too.

“You can’t get away from owning your own risk. This is slowing the
adoption of the cloud,” she said.

Asked whether Google plans its own status dashboard, Chandra wouldn’t
share details but promised better help for users. “We’re trying to
find even more ways to be more transparent about reliability,” he
said.

That might not be five nines, and it’s for Gmail only today, but
Google chooses to see the glass as half full.

“We talk to customers, and 99.9 percent is mostly much higher than
most organizations with their internal service today,” Chandra said.

by July 12, 2008 7:05 AM PDT 99.9% available? What’s the use of online
storage when it’s not available? Reply to this comment by July 12,
2008 8:18 AM PDT Interesting that we don’t hear reporting about the
daily or weekly brief outages at most of the fortune 1000 companies.
The Amazon cloud is running at 99.9993 from the time we started using
it at DigitalChalk in 2006. I’d like to see that beat in a do-it-
yourself data center. Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 5:14 PM
PDT Maybe. Reply to this comment by July 12, 2008 7:37 PM PDT If you
ask me, the scariest part of the growing trend of cloud computing and
storage is that if a big part of the system shuts down for long time,
it could be catastrophic to more than just individuals, or companies,
or even industries, but entire economies and whole populations. If we
ALL depend on the cloud, which in time I think we will, we will all be
at risk of cyber-terrorism, super-viruses, or just a simple breakdown
(ok, not simple, but old fashioned I guess). Reply to this comment

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here

You can open a word processor in your Web browser, create, edit and
save the text file and copy it to your computer all without installing
any software. It all happens over the Internet “in the cloud.”

For example, if the entire United States (all 300 million of us) made
only 100 shirts this year, and if all of China made 100 shirts, some
of those shirts would be traded between us- we would sell a few to
China, and vice versa. But a trade deficit happens when one country
sells more shirts than another. China, in this example, could sell 85
shirts to America. The U.S. could sell 55 shirts to China. So, in this
trade, China sold more shirts to the United States, 30 more in
fact.Most businessmen and economists believe that most trade deficits
aren’t a bad thing; it’s just part of trade, and at some point trade
between two countries should balance out eventually.

DigitalGlobe operates three imaging satellites: Worldview I, Worldview
II, and QuickBird. These satellites collect the highest resolution
commercial imagery of the Earth, and offer the largest image size, and
greatest on-board storage capacity and resolution compared to any
other commercial satellite imagery available today.

“High-quality mapping images are an essential component of any
effective navigation system. Access to DigitalGlobe’s advanced images
will enable us to dramatically improve the scope and quality of the
Ranger,” says Columbus CEO, Tsvika Freidman. “We are determined to
maintain our position as a leading player in the world of navigation
systems and are very excited to partner with DigitalGlobe to enable us
to maintain and enhance this position.”

Columbus Geographic Systems (GIS) Ltd. is a rising player in the field
of geographic information systems (GIS) and navigation applications.
The Company brings advanced software capabilities to a wide range of
users and devices, previously only accessible to trained professionals
on dedicated devices.

– Highly-effective off road, outdoor GPS navigation tools, working on
a full range of devices including Car PC, PDA, and Personal Navigation
Devices (PND), with options for 3D imaging.

Certain statements in this news release may contain ‘forward-looking’
information within the meaning of the Federal securities laws. All
statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release
may include forward-looking statements that may involve risks and
uncertainties.

Just as David Davies standing on a civil liberties platform, so the
Mail continues to support the Tory leader, David Cameron.

I must admit that I find it more scary that people stop me taking
photos outside in public places rather than me stopping Google from
doing the same. We all have cameras on our mobiles and happily snap
away anywhere.

“But now, thanks to Google, we would be wrong to think that. Because
of the profiles built up by Google, we are now pursued every day by
cold- call telephone sales, and by online intrusions.

If you search for a homeopathic cold cure, for example, on the Google
search engine then you will soon be bombarded by every quack medicine
man in California. Every single time you ‘Google’ something, the fact
is automatically recorded.”

Finally – thank god they cry – this Information Commissioner doesn’t
take many prisoners. The rules are there – they just need sticking to.

Given a choice I would rather have Google in my front bed room than
the Daily Mail any day of the week. I would have thought that the well
read Daily Mail folk would know that Google ”don’t do evil.” Keep
the good work up Google!!

@CharlesArthur. Daily Mail have removed it, but it is still available
in a cache form, if you type “invasion almost criminal” into Google,
and click the second, indented link.

@lb001 @Charles. Bizarley the Mail seems to have left a text version
of the “almost criminal” (almost insane?) words of AN Wilson. So just
to ensure they are not lost for posterity:

This is good news for snoopers, stalkers, peeping Toms and burglars.
But are its advantages to the rest of us really going to outweigh the
obvious disadvantages?

Aren’t invasions of personal privacy by commercial companies every bit
as indefensible as similar intrusions into our lives by a Big Brother
state?

Many of us have visited the souk in an Arab or North African town and
been exhausted by the vendors who pursue us down the alleys, tugging
at our elbow and begging us to buy a carpet, or some other object of
merchandise.

If you are used to European habits of shopping, it is a vaguely
threatening experience, and it is nice to get home, and to feel that
shopping in the ‘civilised’ world is all a little different.

However much you feel ‘got at’ by advertisements, at least the
shopkeeper is not literally tugging your elbow.

But now, thanks to Google, we would be wrong to think that. Because of
the profiles built up by Google, we are now pursued every day by cold-
call telephone sales, and by online intrusions.

How else could terrorists be apprehended in times of peace or war? How
else would it be possible for the Inland revenue to detect tax fraud?

The matter of Google is of a quite different order. This is a computer
company which is spying upon us for the sole purpose of exploiting us,
controlling us and making money out of us.

After a piece here in April suggesting advertising is waning, Thinkbox
is here to tell you it isn’t. But do you agree?

“I didn’t know there was this much drinking,” Newsom told the crowd of
Googlers, leaving unsaid his own .

In opening an office in the city, Newsom said that Google has saved
some its workers from a long commute down the 101 to the company’s
Mountain View headquarters. Granted, he conceded that San Francisco’s
public transit system faces challenges, ticking off several MUNI lines
that frequently run late or not at all.

Turning civic booster, Newsom called San Francisco a city of dreamers
and entrepreneurs while touting its economic strength amid a
nationwide downturn.

Although adding Google is a coup, it hardly makes San Francisco
unique, given Google’s opening of offices across the globe. These
days, every mayor can say that they’re happy to have Google move in,
Newsom acknowledged in jest.

To protect our readers from malicious comments SFGate asks that you
login or register to post a comment.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom assured the magazine that San
Francisco was the model of 21st century urbanism, a place that draws
people from all over the world, not for Coit Tower or the cable cars,
but for its values.

The open house was attended by employees from all facets of Google’s
massive organization, including Google.org and the newbies from the
Doubleclick acquisition. Headlining the event was one of Google’s top
executives and public faces, Marissa Mayer.

If you are under 13 years of age you may read this message board, but
you may not participate.
Comments are moderated, and will not appear until they’ve been
approved.

Chris Gaither oversees technology coverage as an assistant business
editor. He joined the Times in 2004 as a reporter covering the big
Internet companies and the changes they wrought on traditional media.
Before that he covered Silicon Valley, general technology news and the
occasional Southern California wildfire for the Boston Globe as its
only West Coast correspondent. He also has written for the New York
Times, the Miami Herald and Wired.com. He is still grappling to
comprehend a world in which his Red Sox have won two recent World
Series. chris.gaither @ latimes.com

Joseph Menn covers technology privacy and security issues, Microsoft,
the wireless industry and L.A.-based tech companies (yeah, he’s busy).
He has handled virtually every tech beat – and a few entertainment
ones – since joining the Times in 1999. Originally from New England,
he wrote “All the Rave,” that book about Napster you’ve been meaning
to read. Before he had kids, he surfed more. joseph.menn @ latimes.com

Without providing many specifics, Yahoo said Microsoft renewed an
earlier bid to buy the company’s search engine and proposed turning
over the remaining pieces to a board controlled by Icahn.

Backed into a corner, Yahoo lashed out in a blunt manner likely to
inject even more bad blood into its already venomous relationship with
Microsoft and Icahn.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment late
Saturday. Efforts to reach Icahn were unsuccessful.

Since it dropped its bid to buy all of Yahoo, Microsoft had focused
its overtures on Yahoo’s search engine — the second most used
on the Internet behind Google Inc.’s.

Lively reminds me of something like IMVU, an instant messaging program
that enables 3D avatar chat, in that it provides off-the-shelf avatars
with teen appeal for socialising. It’s a pretty simple: it’s about
chatting in rooms that can be customised to reflect your taste, and is
nothing like as grandiose as something like Second Life or There. It’s
not a single persistent world, but a bunch of ad hoc virtual spaces
that let people come together and show off their avatar identity
through chatting and flirting.

For now, Lively is what we’ve got: that’s the science fact. However,
given Google’s extraordinary scale and the immense possibilities
created by its huge web audience, I can’t help thinking more along the
lines of science fiction, imagining where Google could take this
technology and do something really interesting with it.

, Jul 10, 2008 05:27 PM
Sure, Google may have offered up a for the iPhone in the App Store
today, but what about applications for its vast number of services
other than search? I am seriously disappointed.

Thomas Claburn for the iPhone in his post from earlier today. He also
points out that the application points you to other Google products.
But they are browser-based applications, and not on-board native
applications. I was hoping for much more.

TypePad rolled out its blogging application for the iPhone. Google’s
Blogger received no such special treatment. There was at least one RSS
product available from the App Store, but Google’s Reader wasn’t one
of them. The list could go on.

It could be that Google is reserving its best for Android, and it
probably should. Given Google and Apple’s love affair with each other,
though, I was expecting more.

Looks like Peter and the gang at SpatialNetworking have a new release
in the works to include facebook and Twitter integration…

Serves the decision makers responsible for networking, voice data, and
video communications technologies at enterprise and service provider

Google has released as open source a web application assessment tool,
Ratproxy, that was designed to root out potential security flaws.

Last month, Google said it would terminate support for Browser Sync,
and this week the company open sourced the code for the product’s
client software in order to allow the developer community to continue
to use and improve it, said Google developer Aaron Boodman in a blog
post. “It would be great to see the server ported to Google App
Engine, or support for Firefox 3 implemented,” Boodman wrote.

Ratproxy is an audit system written internally and introduced last
week by Michal Zalewski, a respected security researcher hired by
Google almost a year ago to help lock down the company’s own websites.
The tool has been used at Google for unearthing problems such as
cross-site script inclusion threats, insufficient cross-site request
forgery defences, caching issues, cross-site scripting candidates,
potentially unsafe cross-domain code inclusion schemes and
information-leakage scenarios, according to Zalewski.

The proxy works passively by analysing existing, user-initiated
traffic, and is particularly tuned for complex Web 2.0 environments,
Zalewski said in a blog post.

It was not so long ago, April 1, 2004, when Google mail first
appeared. In 2005 there were 5.4 mln subscribers and 51 mln in early
2007. Do you know how many Gmail accounts were registered…

This extremely short post appeared following a meeting with a decision
maker of a potential client. During the conversation I realized that
this highly respected and well paid top manager…

Users finding email apparently from eBay or PayPal in their inboxes
can thus in future be sure that it isn’t a phishing attempt. Users
will of course still have to be on their guard against other phishing
tricks, such as entering the sender as ‘poypal.com’. According to
Taylor, eBay and PayPal have worked hard on the solution of signing
absolutely all their email with domain keys. Google has apparently
been carrying out successful tests on the method for some weeks, with
no problems or complaints encountered, indeed few users have even
noticed the change. Google is hoping to set a good example for others.
The team behind DKIM is also that other companies will follow suit.
Uptake at present remains slight.

South Derbyshire MP Mark Todd said: “Taking photos of people
outside their homes leaves an opportunity for those images to be
misused.

The web company has responded by saying faces in the pictures will not
be identified and it will follow British laws on privacy.

Special options are available to registered members. for the member
login page or to register as a member.

Story published at magicvalley.com on Saturday, July 12, 2008Last
modified on Saturday, July 12, 2008 12:24 AM MDT

By Cassidy FriedmanStaff writerThe people at Google first felt obliged
to capture images of the boring U.S. cities in their virtual tour of
America.Places like Manhattan, San Francisco and Los Angeles.But Twin
Falls locals say they’ve spotted the Internet company’s distinctive
camera car in their town, a sign the company must be planning to add
this town to the ranks of the big cities.The company can’t actually
say for sure – the cars now traversing the nation operate
independently. But a Google spokeswoman said it’s likely the car -
which shoots 360-degree street-level photographs of all public roads
where it travels – cruised through Twin Falls earlier this
month.Chances are, the car spotted in Twin Falls was first deployed to
a larger metropolitan area like Boise, before it expanded its trip
east through Twin Falls, said spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo.”We have
over 60 metropolitan areas,” Filadelfo said. “And within each of those
metropolitan areas we really try to include the surroundings. We think
everywhere can benefit from this. We think everybody, whether they
live in New York or Twin Falls can benefit.”Filadelfo said each car in
Google’s large fleet is armed with a sophisticated camera mounted on
its roof that shoots still photographs at and between
intersections.The photos, to be added to Google Maps at some
unspecified date in coming months, allows an on-screen visual tour.One
reason for the StreetView effort is to allow users the novelty of
taking a virtual drive through most American cities and a dozen or so
national parks. But the program also satisfies practical needs,
Filadelfo said.In one Midwestern state, department of transportation
officials use the program to identify dilapidated roads they need to
pave, Filadelfo said. It saves gas and time, they said. Viewers can
check out a restaurant’s ambience – at least exterior – before they
dine there. They can see a neighborhood before they rent a home on the
block.”We’ve seen a lot of really great uses of it and heard some
great feedback,” the spokeswoman said.It’s unclear how long the photos
will be of use, however. The company is unclear on when it might make
subsequent passes and update the street scenes.Google hit a patch of
rough road when some members of the public caught in StreetView’s
frames complained the photographs posted online invaded their
privacy.Viewers could request their face or private property be
blotted out.When shooting Manhattan in May, Google blurred all the
faces in its imagery, Filadelfo said.By June, despite having the clear
legal upper hand to shoot photographs of what takes place in public,
Google began blurring faces in all its shots. So don’t expect to be
famous for anything but your shirt and shoes, Twin Falls.”We thought
the focus was on business and geography and it just seemed a way to
preserve that,” Filadelfo said.Cassidy Friedman may be reached at
208-735-3241 or .

Who, exactly, are “most folks”? Obviously Adina is being a bit racist
herself to discount the views of over a billion people (Indians), and
others, whose primary association of a swastika is not murderous
racism but something quite the opposite. Why does the negative
association that white western culture has with the Swastika
(presumably what is meant by “most people”) trump the beautiful
symbolic meaning held by southeast Asians?

Google has refused to comment on whether their position is that a
swastika is offensive. They expected to be honest. Why don’t they
comment if swastika is obscene, or objectionable and HOW.??

If “most” people fail to realise that it is an integral part of
Hinduim, then they are clearly ignorant. Worse, they are not prepared
to learn either.

Moreover, in antiquity, this symbols was not only found in North
American Indian cultures and Sub-Continental and Buddhist, but also in
Persian, Greeco-Roman, Celtic, Baltic, Germanic and Slavic cultures,
in both left and right facings.

In a submission this week to the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunication Commission (CRTC), Google urged that it take action
against Bell Canada’s P2P throttling activities on grounds that the
ISP is violating Canada’s telecommunications law.

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any
reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul
language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Idiot. You really shouldn’t comment on something you obviously don’t
have a clue about….. You seem to have missed this section, or did
you actually bother to read the article? “As previously reported in
BetaNews, in May, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Internet
Clinic (CIPPIC) asked another agency, the Canadian Privacy Commission,
to investigate whether Canadian privacy law is being broken in Bell’s
use of deep packet inspection (DPI) technology to find and limit the
use of P2P applications.” Its NOT the government, but a corporation
that is limiting rights, like what is happening even more so in
America right now…. Canadians have more rights and freedoms than the
average American does now. We have better privacy laws. Canada is a
democracy. The USA isn’t and never has been. Its a Constitution-based
federal republic with a strong democratic tradition.

Toronto — Re Google Raises Fuss Over Bell’s Speed Bumps (Report on
Business, July 9): Bell Canada and other telecommunications companies
have been slowing, shaping and restricting Internet traffic for some
time. In addition, the line between traditional television and new
media has been getting blurrier every day. Because of this, the CRTC
is set to revisit its 1999 decision to exempt the Internet from
regulation.

“The Internet is simply too important to allow [Bell and other
broadband Internet access services] to act as such a gatekeeper; the
Internet’s myriad benefits can only be fully realized when Canadian
carriers allow end users to choose the applications and content they
prefer,” Google says in its filing.

A spokesman for Bell declined to comment, saying the company would be
filing its response with the CRTC tomorrow.

John Beck, founder of Gist Design, shows off his LinkedIn page. He
used the site to find a software developer for his firm.

“It’s becoming more of a front-line resource for us,” Beck said. “Our
(online) network has proven to be very valuable.”

Because it doesn’t matter where the logs are housed as long as Google
does business in the U.S.. Housing them elsewhere does not make them
immune to a court order.

For example, the records in the “safe” country would be owned by an
independent subsidiary, such that the related company (Google)
wouldn’t have direct executive authority to force the other company to
release the records.

Because they’re independent companies and Google has no legal
authority to force an outside company to do anything.

Because the use and manner which the records could be accessed would
be spelled out by some binding agreement.

Also, the company in the foreign country could be prevented from
illicitly disclosing records, by having each log line independently
encrypted.

Personally, I like to be able to find a video which I watched
yesterday to send link to a friend.

We just have this compulsion to hang onto everything because we can,
and perhaps with the faint hope that somewhere down the line we’ll be
able to show extreme cleverness to our PHB’s when they ask some inane
question like, “Duh, how many unique IP addresses have accessed our
website since 1991?” and we’ll be able to say, “Give me 10 minute and
I’ll let you know (wag tail).”

The judge says it’s speculative? I say remove the judge for willfully
violating the privacy of millions of citizens and foreign nationals.

oh yes, exactly. Google is zee devil. They are out to kill us all.
Seriously, do people thrive on having enemys? Do they find no
happyness simply in a group being what they are? Protip; “The Man”
isn’t out to get you, and all the companys aren’t working for him. And
shall we stop using every service out there, because somewhere, deep
down in their closet, is something we disagree with? If so, I’m going
to assume you’re posting to/. from your wooden cottage on a privatly
owned island that you fo

…if you don’t have a Google login name. Google search works just
fine without one. It even works fine without any Google cookies.

Of course, I’ve never posted, so maybe that’s why.
I guess my IP address does ID “me”, however. My DSL address changes a
lot, but I assume the telco keeps those records… too.

My cable IP address doesn’t change often, I had one IP address for
almost 10 years without changing… just when I did a router upgrade
it switched.

If privacy is to have any meaning, then we need a right to protect our
personal information. Well, actually we already have the right, though
it’s a bit scattered around the Bill of Rights. (Speaking for
Americans, and only in theoretical terms as regards the current
administration.)

So what’s the strongest form of protection for our personal
information? The famous “possession is 9 points of the law”. We should
possess our personal information and we should have to right to say
who can see it, and when.

Concretely in Google’s case, they should offer privacy options whereby
all of your personal information would be stored only on your machine.
They could still access it, but they’d have to respect your privacy
preferences–and you could always change your mind. (Of course the
data should be signed to prevent you from tampering with it, but
that’s a relatively trivial aspect.) I feel like this approach is the
only thing that would really give meaning to privacy in the computer
age.

We may THINK there’s no reason for Google to have to keep logs for 18
months, but these days I wouldn’t be surprised to find there’s some
hidden provision of the Patriot Act, or possibly some law we’ve never
heard of, which it’s illegal for us to hear of or read in the first
place. So maybe there IS a law requiring them to keep it for 18
months, it’s just not one the public is allowed to know of until it’s
used to prosecute them.

I believe that this *IS* the answer to the problems of network
neutrality. Force the powers that be to accept that they cannot
regulate private networks by building our own outside of their useless
understanding of how things work. When they finally discover that they
cannot regulate, things will change a bit. I’m all for calling it a
patriot network… might be over the top a bit, but we all need to
start creating them.

The aborted hotel deal doesn’t represent the full extent of Google’s
penny-pinching, either — the company recently closed a

If you want to give your kids a little more exposure to cooking and
nutritious food, and you’d enjoy the chance to snoop around Google’s
Headquarters, you might want to head to Mountain View this Saturday
for .

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Google
headquarters, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View.

WOW! Sounds like a great time. WOW! The cost of admission. With gas,
and admissions we would be looking at a cost of over $150 for our
family. We’ll just wait for the show,and in the mean time visit the
local farmers market ( met the farmers, food samples, education
stations, and shopping for the weeks meals at far less than $150).

Hmm I read the nytimes article too. It seems that the highly paid
Google employees were asked to pay $2500/mo, up from some $1400.
Outrageous, except that the company was still kicking in over $3000/mo
per child. That’s $66,000/yr per child just for daycare. Apparently,
the cheaper daycare Google was providing before wasn’t good enough for
the Google parents who demanded and got the highest quality care
possible – the best food, the best teachers, the most teachers, the
best facilities – for pretty much whoever needed it at whatever cost.
For those who find the inhouse childcare too pricey, Google is
apparently going to also subsidize outside childcare. There’s some
controversy that Brin compared childcare to free food, but I wonder
how the childless employees feel about their coworkers getting the
equivalent of a Stanford education for less than half price while they
are being offered free M&M;’s. As someone who gets no subsidized
childcare, watching the Google drama is like watching people taking
turns at beating the goose that lays the golden eggs.

To protect our readers from malicious comments SFGate asks that you
login or register to post a comment.

PITY Bombay’s poor billionaires. No sooner have they invested in
an executive jet than the taxman comes knocking for his share.

The share price, I suspect, would be a touch healthier. That whole
decline in TV advertising would be nicely offset by the surge in
digital spending.

And, who knows, he might even be in sunny California right now playing
with a new Google toy rather than fretting about the next instalment
of Dancing on Ice.

This dream nearly happened. You see, another Michael — Green,
the former head of Carlton, which with Granada formed ITV in 2004
— had a chance to buy Google for a mere £400m (it was a
long time ago).

A clever banker pitched the idea but Green didn’t much care for
the plan and instead opted to buy a 25% stake in Ask Jeeves —
Google’s punier rival.

The $2 trillion industry put in its worst performance during the first
half of the year since most credible records began

The luxury hotel group wants to buy Island off Guernsey that spent
much of the Second World War under German occupation

Mr. Smith asks that the feature take into account bicycle lanes from
the area being mapped. The says that such a feature would:

Google Maps currently offers a option for a number of cities in the
United States and around the world (but not Boston, for some reason).
Smith envisions that the link to “Bike There” would sit
next to the transit link.

Google Maps already offers a check box for those who wish to avoid
highways, but as Smith points out in his site’s FAQ, the feature
that are unpleasant for cyclists.

It’s almost like cars are the sea within which we live and we’re so
attached to them, it’s so habitual. . . We are trying to lead the way,
to set an example about how to get away from cars altogether.”

First, the news: Google Transit and Metro are still in talks to bring
the popular online service to Los Angeles County. but a feature that
some people say Google does better.

One of the most fascinating ongoing stories in the world of
transportation, I think, is the use of technology to relay real-time
information to users. This runs the gamut from trying to give
motorists immediate information on freeway accidents to using cell
phones to tell someone the bus he’s waiting for has broken down.

As part of that effort, transit agencies around the world have been
trying to create web-based tools that help riders — and potential
riders — figure out how to get from Point A to Point B using buses
and trains. It’s a big deal, especially in big regions such as the
Southland where many people (including me) couldn’t begin to tell you
exactly which buses go where.

Metro, the largest transit provider in Los Angeles County, has for
several years had a trip planner on its website. In fact, it’s the
most popular feature on the website, according to the agency. There’s
also a stripped down version of the planner that works on cell phones.

The web search and advertising giant Google has recently jumped into
the game with a feature called Google Transit. In some areas, if you
do a search for directions on Google maps, you will also get
directions to reach your destination via mass transit.

Some quibbles: I thought the directions were sometimes less than
clear. For example, I asked the site to provide bus directions from
Magnolia Boulevard and San Fernando Road in downtown Burbank to the
Burbank airport. The directions were to take one bus to the Burbank
Metrolink station and switch to the “Empire Building” bus line, which
was followed by this odd note: “Direction — Arrive at Metrolink
station.”

Google is fast, easy and having all the data in one place is nice.
That said, no one can provide better itineraries and schedules than
the transit provider itsself.

Google also has the ability to infest your computer if they disagree
with you. Their google android project is 2-4 generations from
completion who really needs more from them than a search engine. One
of the grown ups probably thought of guugle ads revenue.

Google Maps is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s not Google’s
fault that Apple is dumb and only allows limited bits of AJAX to work
on their phones.

In the early days of Google Maps, my frustration chiefly arose from
the bizarre and sometimes nonsensical driving routes that the system
mapped out – with no option in place to test alternate routes. This
improved greatly with the click-and-drag feature Google Maps now uses,
although the traffic layer is still rather slow on the uptake.

I don’t bother with the map feature at Metro.net; it’s a joke. The
trip planner also suffers from constant crashes, something I don’t
*think* would carry over into Google (in the long term). I think that
Google’s interface promises a lot more user-friendliness, but I’d want
to know its flexibility: to option for Metro-only or bus-only routes,
for example. Click-and-drag for multiple-stop trips? If either Google
or Metro.net can manage that… HOT.

The move is probably smart: advertisers love quantitative analysis,
and this gives them more hard data immediately.

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Excerpts from the blog After spending Friday morning playing with an
iPhone 3G, I can see why Apple enthusiasts lined up again for Steve…

After spending Friday morning playing with an iPhone 3G, I can see why
Apple enthusiasts lined up again for Steve Job’s latest wonderful
device.

But the rest of the world’s really going to wonder what the big deal
is this time around.

Apple is heavy-handed with software developers writing iPhone
applications, but it pays off for consumers who get a consistent
experience downloading, finding and using the applications.

But the first four steps were impressive and super-simple — so
simple that those familiar with Outlook Web Access should have no
trouble syncing an iPhone to their office’s Exchange system. I’d be
relieved if I were a corporate IT person dreading a bunch of support
calls from iPhone users.

My tip of the day: Check with your IT department to be sure it has
authorized iPhones. Otherwise, you may get a message saying that it’s
unable to verify a certificate and the sync won’t work.

If you get past that hurdle, when you sync the phone in iTunes, you’re
given the option of also syncing your Outlook contacts, calendar and
mail accounts.

I also spent a long lunch tinkering with Remote, a cool and free
application from Apple that lets you use an iPhone or iPod Touch as a
wireless remote control for iTunes. This is something I’ve been
waiting for, ever since Wi-Fi came to MP3 players.

So is the iPhone 3G worth the $2,000 you’ll spend owning and operating
one for the next two years?

Think about what’s going to happen over the next two years: The
economy aside, it’s going to be a golden era for advanced phones and
mobile Internet devices.

The iPhone software will continue to get better and it may stay ahead
of the competition, but the phone hardware may seem dated soon,
especially the wimpy 2 megapixel camera that can’t take video.

In other words, before your two-year iPhone contract ends, your techie
friends will probably be carrying phones with 5-plus-megapixel video
cameras and monthly rates subsidized by Google and Microsoft —
if they haven’t already bought an iPhone 3G.

“Who would have thought anybody would use ‘Obama’
and ‘nuts’ in an actual news story?” said David
Feingold, a 30-year-old San Diego resident …

He’s right … who would have thunk it. Of course,
Obama’s nuts will never be as famous as .

Jesse Jackson is no more than a vicious Black thug that fantasizes
about castrating other Black Liberal males.

You can use the form below to send a link to this post to a friend,
just fill our their details and click send!

A number of readers have noted Google’s , with which it is most
comparable. Google’s blogger claims, “And, yes, it is very fast
— at least an order of magnitude faster than XML.”

Well, let’s also not forget that the meaning of the expression “an
order of magnitude” depends strongly from the numeric base you’re
using.

Being 10x faster than XML to work with is entirely believable: If
you’re serializing directly to binary structures, those structures can
be directly manipulated without any parsing at all… and if you need
to do some byte-swapping and alignment adjustments to get them into
and out of native form for your current processor, those are still
operations which can be performed in a matter of a few CPU
instructions, rather than through a few hundred KB of libraries.

I drink the XML kool-aid plenty — but there are things it’s good for,
and things it’s not. Serializing and parsing truly massive amounts of
data is part of the latter set.

I’m actually a game developer, not a web developer, so I’ll speak to
XML’s use as a file format in general. Here’s a few points regarding
our use of XML:

I’ll make a concession that I’ve heard of some pretty awful uses of
XML. But those who dismiss XML as a valuable tool in the toolchest are
equally as foolish as those who believe it’s the end-all and be-all of
programming (I’m not saying that’s true of you, just pointing out
foolishness on both sides). Like any tool, it’s most valuable when
used in it’s optimal role, not when shoehorned into projects as a
solution to everything.

3. Dealing with data that arrives in neatly packaged “documents” and
“requests”, as opposed to being constantly produced and consumed.

The advantage of using the protocol buffer format instead of JSON is
that it’s smaller and faster, but you sacrifice human-readability.

Perl is to programming languages what English is to natural languages:
easy to fool around with, hard to learn well, but when you do, the
expressive power is incredible. And when you mess it up, nobody
understands what you’re trying to say.

They open sourced the compiler (for C++, Java, and Python) that lets
you actually use the data interchange format. If you follow the link
you can download the code and start using it today. The code is open
source.

Seems like you are missing the code they released that allows you to
implement this in a number of languages from the ‘get-go’.

As for Protocol Buffers, given the existing solutions out there (such
as ASN.1 and CORBA) are generally ugly and/or over-engineered, it
sounds to me like they’re simply addressing a gap in the industry…
after all, XML and SOAP aren’t the end-all and be-all of generic
object-passing protocols.

Leading the open source charge at Google is Chris DiBona, open source
program manager. DiBona was well known in the open source community as
a former editor at the popular Slashdot Web site, as well as the co-
editor of the landmark 1999 book called Open Sources, which discusses
the open source revolution and included essays from Linus Torvalds,
Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Bob Young and other notables.

The company also recently donated $350,000 to Oregon and Portland
State Universities in support of open source development. Google open
source projects and efforts are documented at the Web site.

Internetnews.com recently had the opportunity to chat with DiBona
about the SoC and Google’s view on open source development.

We have it structured very carefully so that we can include people in
other countries and also not invalidate the visas of students here in
the U.S. that took part. I think that next time should we do this it
will be a lot clearer up front that this is kind of complicated.

It’s been in the works for awhile. We wanted to show how open source
has changed over the last six years and how its ideas have reached
into different realms.

Q: So there isn’t going to be a Google open source license? It’s just
the GPL and OSI-approved licenses for Google?

Q: Is there any chance that Google would ever use one of the new ,
such as the Community License, that may well be free software-
compatible licenses?

Digg Del.icio.us furl StumbleUpon BlinkList Newsvine Magnolia Facebook
Tailrank Slashdot Technorati Google Bookmarks Yahoo Favorites Windows
Live Ask

: woarhex etbdml
: My Lonely Planet book said that if you want to stay with a family
instead of the hotel you need to register…

Here are the photos of Kagan and the ammunition storage in its
suburbs. The database of Google Earth pictures is old, as of last
winter, it seems.

Dan Berlin writes “After announcing that was being discontinued, a lot
of people asked for Google to open source the code so development
could continue. Well, they’ve done just that. The code for browser
sync is now available on “

But with your data encrypted, why do you need to trust anyone? For you
it is the state of your browser, passwords etc, but for anyone else it
is random bits.

Doesn’t Browser sync already supports encrypting your data? Even if it
doesn’t I am sure this capability can be added now that it is open-
source.

Besides i can easily host my own browsersettings on my home computer,
in fact, i’ll be setting it up (or trying to) when i come home

Your comments about manipulation are weirdly paranoid. The original
list that Greg posted was 20+ companies long, and originally didn’t
include us, as he didn’t count Andrew to us. He fixed that, and the
post I sent to you was from his talk at Google. It’s part of his
presentation to call out the company he visits, which is one of the
reasons we invited him out.

Google is built on software, some of which comes from the world of
open soruce, and most of which was written here. To give back, we both
release code from the company (a significant amount >1m lines per
year), fund external code (uncountable, really) and through the summer
of code, create new developers and even more code still (2.1m+ last
year, at least 3m this).

If they’re not going to develop it any further, they might as well let
someone else have a go. Now all we have to do is convince Microsoft to
release the source code to Windows ME.

I use a bunch of machines all over the place (mostly for
development/personal interest). I use old machines, dial-up, new
machines, servers – having browser sync was a god-send. It was great
to be able to reference everything regardless of architecture and O/S.
I agree that there are concerns about what Google would/could reveal
to legislative bodies, but that’s only because they are so huge that
other factors come into play. Maybe this is their way of extricating
themselves (somewhat) from the liabilities associated with having that
much info about a person’s real interests. That said, I feel that I
was never ‘targeted’ as a result of their handling of my data, nor was
there ever any ‘push’ marketing as a result. I think that’s where you
draw the line between good corporate citizen and spammer. I hope that
someone who has the time can re-incorporate it into FireFox 3.x

Foxmarks is OK for syncing bookmarks, but GBS also synced your
history, open tabs, passwords (if you were brave enough) and cookies.
Having a synced history and cookies was very useful because you could
stay logged in to the same sites across any GBS’d computer.

There’s no clear reason given as to why it’s being discontinued, but
if it’s due to lack of interest, it was probably lack of advertising;
I wasn’t even slightly aware of this project, and it sounds like
something I would have been very interested in. I use Foxmarks
religiously and have trouble functioning without it.

Since most of us can’t head over there to watch it in person, we’re
giving you the next best thing

You can set a reminder e-mail at the same time that you’re adding an
event to your calendar. Just look for the gray box titled
“options.” Click “add a reminder” to schedule
an e-mail or pop-up reminder from five minutes to one week before the
event. By going through the “settings” link at the top
right of the screen, you can set up your mobile phone to receive
calendar notifications.

If the data were stuck on 3.5-inch disks, you could order an external
3.5-inch floppy USB drive for $19.95 from FloppyDisk.com. The store
mentions on its site that it can’t find equivalent drives for
5.25-inch disks.

However, the California outfit does offer a solution that’s probably
your best bet. For $5 per floppy, the company will transfer your data
from your 5.25-inch disk to CD. The turnaround is two business days,
and bulk discounts are available.

Most managed stock mutual funds have underperformed the market, as
measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500, an index that tracks 500 of
America’s leading companies. The problem is partly size.Imagine
running a $40 billion mutual fund. That might sound exciting, but it’s
difficult. You might keep 5 percent or so of the fund’s value in cash,
to cover people’s withdrawals. Those dollars won’t grow much. With
what’s left, you probably won’t be permitted to invest more than 5
percent of the fund’s value in any one stock. So you’ll have to own at
least 20 stocks. (Mutual funds typically invest in 50 to 200
companies.)To appreciate this overdiversification, consider Fidelity’s
mammoth Contrafund, valued at more than $75 billion. As of the end of
2007, its biggest holding was would be a great investment. Oops. Its
entire market value is just over $1 billion. You can’t buy entire
companies. If you’re limited, as many managers are, to not buying more
than 10 percent of any one company, you can spend only about $120
million on it. It’s hard to avoid spreading yourself too thin when
$120 million is merely a drop in your mutual fund’s bucket.

We encourage you to share your thoughts about our stories. However,
comments that are obscene, overly personal, racist or otherwise
inappropriate will be removed. Because the messages are posted
instantly and anonymously, Courant.com cannot vouch for their accuracy
or authenticity. Report abusive posts by clicking the link found at
the upper right of each item. — Courant.com

with a BSD-style license. The code is extensive – in addition to all
the required bits to hook it up to Firefox, you’ll find dozens of
Javascript files involved. Fortunately, the source is reasonably well-
commented, so it’s at least clear what’s happening where, if not how
to move it forward to the current version of Firefox.

If you are a member, Sign in to have your comment attributed to you.
If you are not yet a member, and help the Open Source community by
sharing your thoughts, answering user questions and providing reviews
and alternatives for projects.

In the top 20 classes of Internet sites toward which Google sent
traffic, only three have no corresponding in-house Google project,
according to Hitwise’s June 2008 research.

Taking the plunge into the cloud Service level agreements are the kind
of contractual guarantees that appeal to CIOs making cost-benefit
analyses. But there’s a gut-level factor at play here, too.

Those with high-end services boast of “five nines” of reliability,
where services are available 99.999 percent of the year and therefore
down no more than 5 minutes and 15 seconds per year. Google’s Gmail
SLA, at 99.9 percent uptime, promises downtime of less than 9 hours
per year.

The AVE Video Fusion software seamlessly blends five video streams
onto a 3D model of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington,
D.C., in this screenshot.

This screenshot shows a live USB camera and 18 live TV feeds projected
onto monitors in a lab in Hong Kong.

The app does save a fraction of time in bypassing Safari’s initial
loading of the iPhone-optimized page and works without a hitch.

I’ve embedded the original live blog after the break, which is simply
the same post as what’s seen above (sans update).

Google Autos or Google Music are the guesses that Hitwise hazarded
Wednesday. “Our thinking was that Google might want to fill natural
gaps in its portfolio of offerings based on the interests of its
users. We looked at which categories are receiving the most traffic
from Google in which Google does not have its own property,” .

In the top 20 classes of Internet sites toward which Google sent
traffic, only three have no corresponding in-house Google project,
according to Hitwise’s June 2008 research.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t check if your favorite coffee
watering hole (or office) is going the way of $2 gas. According to The
Seattle Times, employees at stores that are facing closure have been
given some extra heads-up to either find new jobs or transfer
elsewhere.

That extra foresight chronicling which stores will soon be going
under, even if their closures have not yet been announced.

The service, Google’s online productivity suite, went from having some
features not working, like the log-out button and the document
creation drop-down menu, to coming up with a 404 page.

The downtime calls into question the importance that online Web
applications play in business use, as well as how Google’s free
document services have come to replace software solutions such as
Microsoft Office for some users or teams that use Google’s real-time
collaboration features.

Update 2: Google spokesman Jason Freidenfelds tells us the problem
stemmed from the servers that control the view of the document
workspace as well as the home document listing. The data where your
documents were stored suffered no down time.

Interestingly enough, of the three services offered in Google Docs,
only the word processor and presentation tool were truly down. If you
had a link to a spreadsheet you could apparently view and edit it just
fine.

Google Maps, which recently , notes to “use caution when walking in
unfamiliar areas,” which is Googlespeak for “don’t blame Larry and
Sergey if you get mugged.”

: Google, which has a 5 percent stake in Time Warner’s AOL, now has
the right to force the media conglomerate to bring its Internet
division to the market.

But Time Warner investors should not hold their breath if they think
this is an opportunity for the media company to finally rid itself of
the legacy of its disastrous 2001 Internet merger, once hailed as the
deal of the century.

But at current market valuations, Google stands to lose an estimated
$500 million if AOL is taken to market, analysts estimate. The $20
billion valuation of AOL, established at the time by Google’s $1
billion investment, has been cut to as low as half of that in some
projections.

AOL and companies like News Corp’s MySpace have been driven to conduct
deal talks since Microsoft revealed its pursuit of Yahoo in February,
a takeover attempt that threatened to redraw the Internet landscape by
creating a more viable rival to Google.

The country’s new architecture exudes an aura that has as much to do
with intellectual ferment as economic clout.

Add comment July 13, 2008

The apple and snow white and the seven dwarfs’s passwo

Apple’s technical difficulties also affected owners of the original
iPhone, whose devices froze when they tried to update the software.

Chief executive Steve Jobs has said he plans to offer the device in 70
countries in the coming months, bringing him closer to his goal of
selling 10 million iPhones this year.

For Pixar, it was a eureka moment. Perhaps for the first time in
computer animation, the company had succeeded in rendering characters
that made the audience forget they were watching technology in action.
It would take Pixar almost another decade to convert its graphics
expertise into the seamless creativity of its first feature film, “Toy
Story,” one of only two animated movies on the American Film
Institute’s recent list of the 100 greatest American films. (The other
is “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”) Since then, however, Pixar has
charged forward like Buzz Lightyear, releasing a rapid-fire succession
of blockbusters that have sparked a true renaissance in Hollywood
animation.

Your Name Your e-mail address (for return address purposes) E-mail
address of recipients (separate multiple addresses with commas) Name
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In what is presumably his on Wednesday, Mr. Lyons, a Forbes writer,
said that he’s launching a new site under his own name.

and only a year and a half too late. It was mildly amusing for the
first six months. After that it was just an ego trip. Best of luck but
you won’t be getting any clicks from me.

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still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video
Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the
way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

Fake Steve became the main character in had already put the future of
the blog in question.

) 8 comments (Page 1 of 1) by July 9, 2008 2:50 PM PDT Ahh, let’s take
the ***** outta Dan for this.*One of his favorite New Englandisms,
apparently. Reply to this comment by July 9, 2008 2:51 PM PDT I like
the way he really put the microscope on Ballmer, Yang, and Google
during his “serious” posts. He’s quite the good writer and pretty
insightful as well. Reply to this comment
by July 9, 2008 3:28 PM PDT Well, every meme must die, even the lame
ones. I’m guessing that with nobody even bothering to read him anymore
(seriously, the guy backed SCO in SCO v. IBM, even when the most basic
read on the situation said that SCO was committing suicide). Buh-Bye,
Dan – nice try, but you can join Rob Enderle and Laura Whats-her-name
in the dustbin of credibility now.
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I was in a bar in New York last weekend and the man next to me looked
vaguely familiar.

“Of course I’ll miss it,” said Fake Dan. “But I’ve got a more serious
job now. I’m going to Newsweek. Before I was merely a soldier of
fortune at Forbes.”

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I wonder if as a truly global product, with availability in 22
countries (70 by year’s end), the need to set release deadlines across
time zones, and the existence of thousands of unwashed developers all
mean that the Apple CEO’s tight grip on information dissemination
could slip away. Take today, for example.

Of course, Jobs’ is also a victim of his own secrecy. He offers so
little information (except to his hand-selected minions) that people
have found other, not-so-kosher ways of getting the info, products,
and updates they desire. One blogger reportedly works with service
reps to raid iPhone inventories early. But global distribution and
wily reporters may not be Jobs’ biggest problem.

Get more from and (plus tons more on the latest tech products, news
and solutions) in the all-new !

Daily News Alert Inside PCMag.com PCMag.com Small Business Update
PCMagCast Update Productwire: First Looks Update Security Watch Tech
Saver Tip of the Day Utility Library Update What’s New Now PCMag
Announcements

The team insults some really bad products, celebrates great all-in-one
PCs, pits the LG Dare against the iPhone, and discusses the imminent
death of the Net.

Apple’s (AAPL) — has already been up for a day. And we’ve already
noticed that among the 500-some apps that Apple has made available,
there are some notable omissions.

Skype: Or a similar Internet phone app that could be used over AT&T’s
(T) 3G network. Apple wouldn’t screw its partners that make money
selling airtime.

These are just a few ideas. Any more? Let us know in comments below,
by email to dfrommer@alleyinsider.com, or via our .

One iphone app you should check out – the new Bloomberg. Blows the
yahoo app out of the water…

Well, I am not sure how others are faring. However, I have upgraded my
current Iphone software to 2.0 and it is taking forever in a year for
my phone to connect to the itunes store to finish the install and
reset the phone… been running for over 20 minutes, so demand must be
through the roof for either version 2.0 or the new 3G phone. Possibly,
both…. But, this is crazy waiting this long for a simple install,
verify, reboot process. Something has crashed….

AT&T; just announced Kraft foods and oracle as 3g iphone customers.
Kraft foods has 103,000 employees. Oracle has 55,000 employees. Not
every cheese maker or code writer is going to get a 3g iphone. This
just in: Many AT&T; stores across the USA are selling out their
allotment in the first 15 minutes. They will be restocked tomorrow.

Apple deliberately limited the types of iPhone software in order to to
give the whiners and haterz something to bitch about.

comments: “Apparently Apple complained about their new signing. Dan
did reveal that he understood Mr Jobs was not best pleased with the
parody that portrayed him as egocentric and autocratic.” has a direct
quote:
“I hear that I’ve been blacklisted, and that Apple reached out
directly to Newsweek to complain about my hiring” Dan tells us.
Seriously.

Please note: In order to post a comment you need to be registered and
signed in for guardian.co.uk blogs.

Considering FSJ jumped the shark a long time ago, and has a history of
“faking” Apple’s “concerns” with his blog for publicity, you’d think
stories like this, would just be left to rot.

Please note: In order to post a comment you need to be registered and
signed in for guardian.co.uk blogs.

Want to upgrade your iPhone? Only via O2’s site, which is wavering in
and out of reality… (updated) (and now they’re “gone”!)

The character, who allegedly had more than a passing resemblance to
the chief, was devised by Dan Lyons. Dan was the person who gave me
some very sage advice on starting my first blog, which was “Don’t do
it, it’s like a monkey on your back.”

Well, it seems Dan is ditching the monkey that has been on his back
for the last couple of years, despite the fact it resulted in a
certain amount of notoriety, a modicum of fame and quite a bit of
success. Oh and let’s not forget the mini witch-hunt that was carried
out to unmask the Fake Steve and find out who was behind the creation
that captivated the technology world.

1.At wrote:
If only it really was Dan Lyons who was going. Lyons’ meretricious and
ill-informed anti-Free Software screeds are well known to regular
readers of sites like Slashdot and Groklaw. The latter in particular,
as Lyons has said some particularly insulting things (
http://freerangelibrarian.com/2005/11/15/ipg-to-forbes-magazine-wake-
up-people ) about Pamela Jones, who runs Groklaw, in the past.

A glitch with the registration software for the iPhone means that many
people in the UK are unable to use their devices.

The above links are to some of Rory’s recent TV & Radio reports. You
will need Windows Media or Real Player to watch/listen ().

He tweaks design after design, until he feels his team has got it
right. He worries about everything, from the look inside – no messy
electronics for him – to the finish outside and the exact placement of
each of the features that makes it through the gauntlet of his
scrutiny.

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or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our .

Don writes product reviews for InformationWeek and is a regular
contributor to Processor Magazine. You can visit his personal site at
.

1d, 13hago
- Avalon Code DS, Rune Factory: Frontier, Little King’s Story,
Valhalla Knights 2, Populous DS, KORG DS-10 and Retro Game Challenge.

Albatron demonstrates first Windows 7 multi-touch LCD Nvidia’s open
challenge for Intel: A computer on a chip.

“Our designers tell me we need at least 12 buttons so we can have all
the numbers plus * and # symbols. I’m telling them to go back and do
it over. I want one button. No more, no less. One.”

Many are sure to miss Daniel Lyons’ work but it is just a matter
of time before he’ll start growing tired of the rather boring
technology news and come up with a new and exciting character.

Previously known to be exploiting their father’s legacy in the
past years, Martin Luther King’s children are again in the
attention of the press due to a lawsuit they are currently
involved…

San Francisco, CA (AHN) – The blog that caught the attention of
Silicon Valley CEOs is calling it quits. ‘Fake Steve Jobs’ is moving
onto a new job and Hollywood.

Lyons, who spun-off the blog into a book and now a Hollywood
screenplay, said he’s pulling the plug after rumors circulated Jobs
was in ill-health. Jobs told The New York Times his health was fine.
After failed attempts at blogging as a fake Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang,
Lyons opted to write under his own name.

About a year ago, trying to learn the identity of the ‘Fake Steve
Jobs’ blogger became a sort of Silicon Alley parlor game. Eventually,
The New York Times revealed the snarky blogger was Lyons, a Fortune
magazine technology editor.

Lyons said that when Apple heard that he was moving to Newsweek, the
outfit rang up his new bosses to complain about his hiring. He said
Apple wanted him blacklisted for penning his Fake Steve Jobs column.

AMD Apple ATI DELL Google Intel Lenovo LG Microsoft Motorola Nintendo
Nokia Norton Novell Nvidia Sandisk Sony Sun Microsystems Symantec
Toshiba Yahoo

Incisive Media, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, is
a company registered in the United Kingdom with company registration
number 04038503

“I’m sorry that the blog is fizzling out with yet more screwups
and confusion. But I suppose it’s somehow appropriate, too.

I know you’ll miss FSJ. So will I. But rest assured, Fake Steve is not
really going away. He’s just taking on a new form. As Jimi Hendrix
once said, If I don’t see you no more in this world, I’ll meet you on
the next one, but don’t be late.”

In addition, Lyons is currently working on a new site as well. At
present time, RealDanLyons is still on its default settings, but
should be up and running in the very near future:

There’s nothing more to say, except “good luck with the new
job!”. Rumor has it that the real Apple guru was not very
pleased with its fake sibling and Newsweek has already been
“congratulated” on hiring Lyons.

Now, a little more than a year later, a faster and better iphone is on
sale. Geeks who have to have the latest versions of everything were
rushing to buy it on Friday.

The Fake Steve blog will remain up for posterity, and Lyons is selling
a “, and will, of course, write for Newsweek.

Comment: *
Respectful debate is welcome, but comments that are defamatory,
indecent, abusive, or in violation of any law will be removed.

When Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone back in June, he
promised us that the upgraded version would be in Jobs’ claims about
the new phone’s supposed superiority.

Your comment will not be visible for about a minute. If you don’t see
your comment when the page reloads, do not post it again. Reload the
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Current and former members of Apple, including CEO Steve Jobs and
several directors, have been sued again over their role in the
company’s stock options-backdating affair.

Lyons is going to Newsweek, leaving Forbes. Forbes owns his current
blog, I believe. Has to ditch that blog in the transition, I assume.

And yeah, I’m going to miss him. Are his new bosses at Newsweek (is
that right?) just not going to allow him to keep it up? Do his old
overlords have control over his existing FSJ content? What’s the
skinny, Giz?

I just watched Batman: Gotham Knight and it was fantastic. Like the
Animatrix but with much more consistency. So how does this relate?

@LindsayJoy’s MBP is into S+M: If that’s his real job he should do a
Fake Dick Karlgaard Jr- I mean “Rich” Karlgaard blog. Unless… he
already does?? IT ALL MAKES SENSE!!!!!

Rambus adds to Nvidia’s headaches: that its results for the
second quarter would be weaker than expected, and it took a $150
million to $200 million write-off for product defect problems.

-Before its debut, consumers and tech watchers criticize Rogers
Wireless for being slow to bring the iPhone to Canada after hitting
U.S. shelves a year ago.

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“They told me that if I stayed here for two days and three nights they
would pay for the phone and so here I am,” he said.

The world’s first 3G iPhone owner is not even a great Apple fan
and admits that if his mates weren’t paying for it, he probably
wouldn’t buy one. “I just want to be the first in the world to
have one.”

The iPhone fans that queued in front of the Vodafone store in Auckland
had security guards making sure they were safe at night, sleeping
outside with their personal belongings, which included expensive
laptops.

The second lucky person will have to wait two weeks and will be one of
the people that went to their website and wished for an iPhone,
explaining why their wish should be granted.

New Zealand was the first country to sell the 3G iPhone with three
Vodafone stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch opening at
one minute past midnight.

McCulloch, 23, who was among the first in the world to own the new
generation device, started the queue for the iPhone outside Vodafone’s
Colombo Street store at 8am yesterday.

“It was definitely worth the wait. I got special treatment inside the
shop as well that was pretty sweet,” she said.

McCullough and the others in line braved the chill wind and the stares
of curious passers-by as they waited for its release at midnight.

After she had secured her phone, she said she was looking forward to
getting back to a warm bed.

Stuff.co.nz technology editor Reuben Schwarz said the phone had the
same look as the first one but had a plastic back for better
reception.

The other big addition was the global positioning system (GPS), which
was integrated with Google Maps and a camera, so photos could be
tagged with the location they were taken. iPhone users would be able
to download music from the iTunes store.

Well done to those brave enough to stand outside in the cold for so
long. I bought my iPhone in October last year and find it to be the
perfect business tool. Luckily I don’t have to pay the steep prices
vodafone is charging for this release. Shame really. There would have
been much longer lines of eager customers if they had been a little
less greedy.

How long before these things turn up on trademe because they are just
not worth the cash it takes to run them.

Vodafone is ripping us off! Other nations around the world don’t
charge nearly as much as Vodafone! Example: the new iPhone 3G also
launched in the Netherlands today (T-Mobile). They charge ONE Euro for
an iPhone for a compulsory two-year subscription of 44.95 Euro per
month. This includes inlimited data, 300 minutes per month and 300
text messages. Compare that with the NZ$250 per month and NZ$199 per
iPhone that Vodafone wants!

Nice! Great device – and she obviously knows how much better this is
than other phones. Looks like there are some outstanding Apps
available now too.

What people, waiting for a phone for 16 hours… spend that time in
work you get some money to pay for your bread and petrol….

I thought Apple wanted a large market share before Google Android is
released? Maybe someone forgot to tell Vodafone NZ.

Am totally bored of this topic already. Kiwis had a chance to protest
against corporate greed but these losers have flushed that down the
toilet along with mummy and daddy’s money.

The trouble is the iPhone probably costs more than its weight in gold
once you’ve taken the contract costs into account…

I got the last 16gb model from the queen street store. I think stocks
will run out quickly.

If he indeed worked for Vodafone, as you imply, would that make his
comment any more or less correct?

Iphone is just an average smartphone that Nokia have made ages ago
although it isn’t touch screen but hey its not worth lining up just to
buy it.

I would never line up for technology like the iPhone. It’s a piece of
crap. Not to mention it’s made by apple.

I bought one second hand last October from a guy on Trademe. Cost me
$600 which was a steal at the time. Judging by the prices Vodafone is
charging for the 3G plans, I feel doubly happy. I have no intention of
“upgrading” at those exorbitant rates.

Just shy of three months since the opening of its first Hawaii store,
the operator of Steve & Barry’s filed for bankruptcy protection this
week.

The company blamed a combination of factors, including the slowing
economy, credit market volatility and high costs of materials and
fuels for the downfall.

Total sales in the first five months of 2008 are up 70 percent, the
company said, with average store sales up 25 percent, and comparable
store sales up 15 percent.

At least Biddell may no longer be in the lost-sheep queue. He writes
that after Troubleshooter brought his case to the attention of Apple
Australia, he was called by Apple’s Janine Beach.

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For a period of nine months, between September 2007 and the end of May
2008, Steve Wilhite, the man who brought us the “Drivers Wanted”
campaign in 1995 at VW and the “Shift_” ad platform at Nissan, was
without a daily job. His name was part of the rumor mill, of course,
some having him packing up for Dearborn, Mich., to handle the Ford job
that Jim Farley eventually landed as head of marketing. Others had him
going to General Motors to shore up its marketing. Instead, Wilhite
confounded many in May by accepting the job as president of Jumpstart
Automotive Media, an automotive interactive agency that works with
automakers and third party auto Web sites with the goal of maximizing
their Web marketing. The 1998 Brandweek Marketer of the Year came to
the job at San Francisco-based Jumpstart still smarting from a rocky
13 months as COO of Hyundai, during which he failed to meet U.S. sales
goals that some experts regarded as improbable. After stepping down at
Hyundai, Wilhite spent some time at a home he owns in New Zealand,
“decompressing and relaxing,” he said. He read books, hiked, swam and
lived a marketing-free life. Wilhite met with Brandweek senior
reporter Steve Miller last week to talk about his gigs, old and new,
as well as the state of the auto industry as a whole. Brandweek: What
made you decide to go with Jumpstart? Steve Wilhite: I had been in
touch with Mitch [Lowe, CEO of Jumpstart] for some time. When I left
Hyundai, the second call I got was from Mitch to talk about a role for
me at Jumpstart. But I wasn’t ready. He sent me e-mails every couple
of weeks and finally I just thought that this was a pretty interesting
opportunity. I’ve worked in some very big environments and I was not
sure I wanted to go back to that. The online place is where people are
headed and need to be. BW: An eMarketer study last month noted that
the automotive category has dropped to No. 2 in overall ad spend,
behind retail. Are some auto marketers still reluctant to plunge into
digital? SW: There are three dynamics at play in this drop. One, there
is this constant pressure at the auto companies to reduce spending and
to migrate from communication to incentives, like just advertising the
money off on the hood. Second, automakers and their agencies haven’t
been as strategic as they could be in balancing their marketing
portfolios. That has to do with a number of things. There are prior
relationships in place for one thing, and there is a higher level of
comfort with traditional media that is hard to overcome. Finally, you
have to see that retail is a huge category and more people in retail
marketing are hip to interactive. BW: New auto sales this year are
headed for their lowest total in over a decade. Some of it is a
function of the economy, some is that vehicles are better built and
last longer. But some of it has to be the fault of marketing. What is
the biggest marketing mistake being made collectively by the auto
industry? SW: The auto industry used to be the most powerfully branded
category in the world. Each company had different characteristics and
communicated those at every opportunity. The tipping point came when
Lee Iacocca said, ‘Buy a car and get a check,’ [the rebate] promotion
in the early ’80s. The whole focus of marketing resources changed. The
money went to deal-oriented advertising, and then we began to see the
erosion of brand loyalty and the commoditization of brands. I mean,
really, for God’s sake, stop discounting products and extending these
low financing terms. BW: Who are some auto brands that are still
keeping their image upright today? SW: BMW, ‘the ultimate driving
machine’, still works. Mini still has a powerful position. They
changed agencies and still maintained incredible clarity. Porsche is
still a strong brand. Honda has managed to stay ahead with its brand.
When everyone was making SUVs and bigger engines, Honda was out with
4-cylinder engines, an environmentally friendly image and fuel
economy. That has always resonated, and now look at what it’s doing.
It has a bigger buyer group than ever. Toyota has stood for quality,
durability and reliability for a long time. Then they bring out Prius
and, in addition to the brand’s other attributes, it now has social
responsibility and engineering innovation. BW: So in building a brand,
what role does online play? And how do you envision the perfect way to
use online ads when someone is buying a car? SW: I’m not arguing the
effectiveness of TV and it is true that every marketer has a limited
budget. And we are fighting for our share of the portfolio. But online
has the most potential to reach the engaged buyer. I recently bought
an Audi A3. Now what should happen is that I go to Edmunds.com and
look at the car and get my information. But I got there and all I saw
were three ads that took me to Audi USA’s Web site. But I’m already
deeper into the buying funnel than that, a consumer doesn’t want to go
back to the home page of Audi. What can be done is an Audi factory ad
at the top of the page with maybe three cool factoids about the A3.
Then on one side a regional dealer association ad, maybe talking about
lease programs and a map showing some dealerships. Then one more ad
from a local dealer near me. That’s how it should work. But it
doesn’t, at least not right now. BW: You’ve had a number of high
profile jobs at some of the top companies in the U.S. and abroad. Any
of them you still think about? SW: Apple was the one I lingered over
leaving. But it was tough to be the marketing guy under Steve Jobs. He
would work on a particular curve to the iPod for three days straight,
no sleep. He was the smartest and most inspiring guy I ever worked
with.

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It is with great self-interest that I ask you to accept this letter as
my official resignation from Yahoo! My last day here will be the best
day of my life …

? ) relented on its revenue sharing policy. China Mobile spokeswoman
Rainie Lei said while the “the biggest hurdle” for the largest Chinese
mobile operator has been now been cleared, there were still some
“practical issues” to sort out before the iPhone launched. No
timetable has been given, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said before
that he hopes to launch the device in China later this year.

? Hutchison Unveils Pricing: Hong Kong’s Hutchison Telecommunications
has released details of its pricing for the iPhone, reports . The
operator will sell the 8 gigabyte iPhone for HK$2,938 ($377), with a
24 month, 500-megabyte combined data and voice plan for HK$188 ($24) a
month. An unlimited data plan with the 8 gigabyte version will cost
$64 a month on a two-year contract. Hutchison is the country’s largest
3G mobile network, with 1.15 million 3G subscribers at the end of
March.

Microsoft could if it were to go directly to Yahoo’s investors with a
tender offer and work in tandem with Icahn’s proxy battle.

Despite this significant turn of events, Icahn has yet to pull the
trigger and of dissident directors against Yahoo’s nine-member board
to take control of the company, or only put forth a partial slate to
go for less than a majority of the seats on the board. Until Icahn
files his definitive proxy, he isn’t able to distribute proxy cards
asking Yahoo investors to vote for his nominees, or to hit the
investor road-show circuit touting his candidates.

Apple than anticipated. iTunes version 7.7, available now for Windows
and Mac, includes the App Store, a method for delivering third-party
iPhone applications.

However, the download appears to have some quirks: for some, the
version number remained at 7.6.2, and no direct link to the App Store
was available, but it could still be reached by .

Kaminsky decided to gather the affected parties and discuss it with
them first. Without disclosing any technical details, he said, “the
severity is shown by the number of peop