Business & Technology » General News

Oil Spill May Not Have Huge Impact On Economy

Bob Chiore — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:16:38 +0000

It’s too early to predict the economic damage of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. However, preliminary indications are encouraging. Mike McKee of Bloomberg TV reports that the impact could be relatively modest if the spill continues to drift away from the coast.

The fishing industry could take a hit, and there may be a sharp rise in seafood if Louisiana is heavily impacted. (About 80% of the Gulf’s output comes from Bayou State fishermen). Real estate and tourism could also be impacted. But the impact on global oil prices looks to be slight.

So we can go back to worrying about Greece and the Euro.

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Microsoft and HTC

Doug Welch — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:10:51 +0000

Microsoft and HTC signed a patent deal for mobile phones.

EDMOND, Wash. — April 27, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. and HTC Corp. have signed a patent agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for HTC’s mobile phones running the Android mobile platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will receive royalties from HTC.

The agreement expands HTC’s long-standing business relationship with Microsoft.

“HTC and Microsoft have a long history of technical and commercial collaboration, and today’s agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercial arrangements that address intellectual property,” said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft. “We are pleased to continue our collaboration with HTC.”

Microsoft’s Commitment to Licensing Intellectual Property

The licensing agreement is another example of the important role intellectual property (IP) plays in ensuring a healthy and vibrant IT ecosystem. Since Microsoft launched its IP licensing program in December 2003, the company has entered into more than 600 licensing agreements and continues to develop programs that make it possible for customers, partners and competitors to access its IP portfolio. The program was developed to open access to Microsoft’s significant research and development investments and its growing, broad patent and IP portfolio. More information about Microsoft’s licensing programs is available at http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing.

—-Microsoft

(via Mashable)

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Apple seeks return of lost iPhone prototype

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:10:54 +0000

Customers line up to purchase the Apple iPhone 3GS at the 5th Avenue Apple store in New York June 19, 2009. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A wayward prototype of Apple Inc’s next-generation iPhone has dominated the chatter in Silicon Valley over the past few days, and the company has moved to recover the device after it was apparently lost in a bar.
The unreleased iPhone unit later resurfaced on Gizmodo, a popular gadget website, which promptly splashed photos and details of it all over the Web and touched off a storm of publicity and speculation in the technology blogosphere.

The device featured some noticeable improvements on the current generation model, including a front-facing camera for video chat and an improved version of its standard camera, among other goodies.
Apple has released a new iPhone for each of the past three summers. Although the company has not formally announced its plans for this year, it is widely expected to launch the fourth-generation model this summer.
There was plenty of online discussion on Monday about whether the device was the genuine article. But a consensus emerged among the bloggers who track Apple’s every tic that it was, in fact, a next-generation iPhone prototype.
Then Apple, famously secretive and protective of its trade secrets, moved to get the device back.
Gizmodo late Monday posted a letter from Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell to Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam. The letter said: “It has come to our attention that Gizmodo is currently in possession of a device that belongs to Apple.”
The company asked that the iPhone be returned, and Gizmodo said it would do so.
Apple did not return a call seeking a comment.
According to Gizmodo, the iPhone was left in a bar in Redwood City, California, on March 18 by a young software engineer. The device was found on a stool by an unidentified person, the blog said.
Nick Denton, head of blog network Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, said in published reports that the site paid $5,000 for the iPhone prototype.
(Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Undersea telecoms cables face growing risks: report

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:06:27 +0000

By William Maclean, Security Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) – Investors should urgently diversify the web of undersea cables that serve as the world’s information and banking arteries to address soaring demand and piracy concerns and reduce the risk of catastrophic outages.
So says a report by a multinational research project that calls for the building of global backup routes for the submarine network that carries almost all international communications, including financial transactions and Internet traffic.
The report’s main author, Karl Rauscher of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an international professional body, told Reuters changes should be made “before we have to learn the hard way.”

“This report is trying to have a September 10 mindset, where you actually do something about what you know on September 10 to avoid a September 11 situation,” Rauscher, who was an adviser to the U.S. government on cyber security after the September 11 attacks, said.
An executive summary of the report made available to Reuters says that the current probability of a global or regional failure of the network is very low, but is “not zero.”
“The impact of such a failure on international security and economic stability could be devastating…There is no sufficient alternative back-up in the case of catastrophic loss of regional or global connectivity.”
WITHOUT CABLES, MARKETS WOULD “FREEZE”
“Satellites cannot handle the volume of traffic — the available capacity is not even close,” the report says.
“It is unclear if civilization can recover from the failure of a technology that has been so rapidly adopted without a backup plan … Without (the network), the world’s economic financial market would immediately freeze.”
The project, managed by the IEEE and the EastWest Institute think tank, cites the “cable-dense” Luzon Strait south of Taiwan, the Strait of Malacca and the Red Sea among several “chokepoints” that funnel important cable paths together.
“A single disaster in such an area could cause catastrophic loss of regional and global connectivity,” the report says.
“Insatiable thirst for bandwidth is accompanied by an ever-growing dependence on inter-continental communications, which are nearly entirely supported by undersea cables.”
The study said it taken account of numerous trends including skyrocketing bandwidth demand, increased piracy on the high seas and “growing concerns of terrorist activity worldwide.”
“Increased hostile activity around the world requires the undersea communications cable industry to enhance its preparedness for attacks on its specialized cable ships and critical infrastructure,” it said.
Recent failures include breaks in three submarine cables linking Europe and the Middle East, which disrupted Internet and international telephone services in parts of the Middle East and South Asia in December 2008.
DEPENDENCE HAS GROWN
In January 2008, a breakdown in an undersea cable network disrupted Internet links to Egypt, India and Gulf Arab countries and a December 2006 earthquake off southern Taiwan hit cables and slowed Internet and telephone traffic across parts of Asia.
The study’s concern is not so much that the reliability of the system is declining, but that the world’s dependence has grown so great — and on a network lacking global backup.
“What would you do without connectivity for a day, a week, or a month?” said Rauscher, also executive director of Bell Labs Network Reliability and Security Office of Alcatel-Lucent.
Rauscher presented the report, entitled the Reliability of Global Undersea Communications Cable Infrastructure, to 40 ambassadors in Washington on Monday and it will be studied again at an EastWest cyber security conference in Dallas in May.
In a foreword to the report, U.S. Federal Reserve chief of staff Steve Malphrus said the financial sector’s stability was increasingly linked to its understanding of operational risk. He wrote: “When communications networks go down, the financial services sector does not grind to a halt. It snaps to a halt.”
(Editing by Lin Noueihed)

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New EU rules let brand owners block online sales

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:03:21 +0000

By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission unveiled revised antitrust rules on Tuesday allowing luxury brand owners to block online retailers without a bricks-and-mortar shop from distributing their products.
In a bid to counter criticism from online retailers such as eBay and Amazon as well as consumer groups that the provision could restrict user choice, the European Union competition watchdog said it would monitor developments.
“The Commission will be particularly attentive to concentrated markets to which price-discounters either online only or traditional may not have access,” the European Union executive said in statement.

Brand owners — often in the high-end or luxury goods market — had argued for the requirement to deter so-called free-riders, competitors who may benefit from their marketing that luxury brands carry out without bearing the same costs.
Industry body European Alliance, which represents three-quarters of global luxury brands, said the regulation showed the Commission recognized the importance of the luxury goods industry, which employs 800,000 people, directly and indirectly, in Europe.
“This new regulatory framework will allow us to continue the significant investment our sector makes for our online presence well as in our physical outlets,” Guy Salter, a spokesman for the organization said.
EBay said the updated rules did away with many unfair restrictions currently facing online companies and that it would work with EU governments to “expose any attempts to unfairly limit online sales.”
Luxury stocks were up on Tuesday but analysts said the upward move was more driven by the general market and Burberry’s
upbeat forecast and Coach’s strong first-quarter earnings.
By 1423 GMT, shares in LVMH and Hermes were up more than 1 percent, while shares in PPR which owns Gucci Group, were up 1.38 percent.
The new, 10-year “vertical restraints block exemption regulation” will go into force in June, with a one-year transitional period, the EU regulator said.
It replaces existing guidelines exempting distribution agreements between manufacturers and distributors from strict EU competition rules if they comply with certain criteria.
The Commission said approved distributors were free to sell on the Internet without limitations on quantities, customers’ location and restrictions on prices, provided both manufacturer and distributor were not overly dominant in the market.
“The rules adopted today will ensure that consumers can buy goods and services at the best available prices wherever they are located in the EU while leaving companies without market power essentially free to organize their sales network as they see best,” said Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia.
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker and Astrid Wendlandt in Paris; Editing by Rupert Winchester)

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Apple says iPad 3G available on April 30

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:00:00 +0000

A customer works with an Apple iPad during an iPad launch event at the Apple retail store in San Francisco, California April 3, 2010. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The high-speed mobile version of Apple Inc’s iPad will hit store shelves on April 30, and international pricing for the tablet computer will be spelled out on May 10, the company said on Tuesday.
The popular touchscreen device has sold more than 500,000 units of its Wi-Fi model in the U.S. in the week after its April 3 launch. Demand is expected to remain high with the launch of the version that connects to AT&T’s third generation — or 3G — wireless network.

The 3G model, which also operates via Wi-Fi, will cost an additional $130, meaning that the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models will cost $629, $729 and $829, respectively.
Apple said the iPad — a flat device with a color touchscreen whose uses include surfing the Web, watching movies, playing games and sending email — will be available at the end of May in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.
(Reporting by Franklin Paul; Editing by Derek Caney)

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Facebook? Twitter? Microsoft tops social media use

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:43:59 +0000

A Twitter page is displayed on a laptop computer in Los Angeles October 13, 2009. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Twitter and Facebook are the bane of many bosses, but a new survey has found that employees at Microsoft Corp are the most social media-savvy in the world.
The survey, the first by sales and marketing contact database NetProspex, ranked the top 50 companies based on their social network membership, frequency of social media posts on Twitter and other blogs, and the friendliness or connectedness of a sample of employees for each organization.

The NetProspex Social Index was determined after an analysis of more than 100,000 business executives from the Fortune 1000 companies in the first quarter of 2010.
“This report shows that in today’s business environment, employees throughout many of the country’s largest corporations are using social networks,” Gary Halliwell, CEO of NetProspex, said in a statement.
“This presents a new opportunity for sales and marketing prospecting and lead generation, as strategies adapt to encompass the landscape of social networks.”
The survey found that almost half of companies analyzed have employees throughout their organization on social networking sites, with Microsoft leading the way.
Not surprisingly, the list was dominated by technology and software companies, while online retailers such as Amazon.com and eBay claimed two of the top five rankings.
Google and Walt Disney Corp rounded out the top 5, while Microsoft’s rival Apple ranked number 10.
Microsoft’s tech-savvy ranking comes almost a week after the company launched two new phones — the Kin One and Kin Two — aimed at the youth market and which will enable users to use Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts with ease.
(Writing by Miral Fahmy, editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Google cyberattack hit password system: report

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:29:58 +0000

The Google logo is seen on the top of its China headquarters building, behind a road surveillance camera in Beijing March 15, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Lee

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A December cyberattack on Google Inc computers hit the company’s password system that millions of people worldwide use to access almost all of the company’s Web services, The New York Times said, citing a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.
The closely-guarded program is considered a crown jewel at Google, enabling users and employees to sign in with their password only once to operate various services including e-mail and business applications, the newspaper said in its April 20 edition.
Code-named Gaia for the Greek goddess of the earth, and still in use under the name Single Sign-On, the program was described publicly only once at a technical conference four years ago, the newspaper said.

The intruders do not appear to have stolen passwords of Gmail users, and Google quickly started to bolster security, the newspaper said.
But the theft leaves open a possibility, perhaps faint, that the intruders may find weaknesses that Google might not know about, the newspaper said, citing independent computer experts.
Google disclosed the hacking on January 12, when on its website it reported having detected “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.”
The Mountain View, California-based company said the attack appeared to target Chinese human rights activists, and that only two Gmail accounts appeared to have been accessed.
“We’re not going to comment beyond our original blog post,” Jay Nancarrow, a spokesman for Google, said on Monday night. “That remains our statement of record on the issue.”
When it revealed the attack, Google said it would stop censoring search results on Google.cn.
In March, it closed its China-based Web search service and began redirecting users to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong. That decision came amid heightened tensions between China and Washington, D.C.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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Amazon files lawsuit to block North Carolina’s data request

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:17:57 +0000

An Amazon employee receives merchandise at the Phoenix Fulfilment Center in Goodyear, Arizona, November 16, 2009 file photo. REUTERS/Rick Scuteri

(Reuters) – Online retailer Amazon.com has filed a lawsuit in a federal court to block the North Carolina state government’s demand it disclose all transaction details, including names and addresses, involving state residents, court documents show.
In the complaint, Amazon said that North Carolina Department of Revenue (DOR) is demanding that the retailer turn over the name and address of virtually every North Carolina resident who has purchased anything from Amazon since 2003.

Amazon also said in the court filing that DOR also demanded the company furnish records of what each customer purchased and how much they paid.
The company said the disclosure of such information will invade privacy of its customers.
The lawsuit comes at a time when some states, searching for ways to increase revenues in a weak economy, are mulling the option of taxing out-of-state Internet retailers, following in the footsteps of New York, which passed such legislation in 2008.
North Carolina’s DOR is auditing Amazon’s compliance with state sales and use tax laws. The company said in the filing that it is fully cooperating with the audit.
Amazon said that it has already provided voluminous information to DOR to conduct its tax analysis without violating its customers’ privacy.
“But the DOR has no business seeking to uncover the identity of Amazon’s customers who purchased expressive content, which makes up the majority of the nearly 50 million products sold to North Carolina residents during the audit period,” the company said in the court filing.
The case is In re: Amazon.com LLC vs Kenneth R. Lay, Case No. 10-00664, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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Third of U.S. teens with phones text 100 times a day

Doug Welch — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:11:06 +0000

A competitor types a text message into a mobile phone during a competition in Singapore November 12, 2006. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash

By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A third of U.S. teenagers with cell phones send more than 100 texts a day as texting has exploded to become the most popular means of communication for young people, according to new research.
The study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which offers a glimpse into teen culture and communication, found that texting has risen dramatically even since 2008, eclipsing cell phone calls, instant messaging, social networks — and talking face-to-face.

The Pew Research Center said that three-fourths of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 now own cell phones and of those that do, girls typically send or receive 80 text messages per day and boys, 30 per day.
“Texting is now the central hub of communication in the lives of teens today, and it has really skyrocketed in the last 18 months,” Pew researcher Amanda Lenhart said, attributing the rise in part to payment plans that allow unlimited texting.
The study’s authors also say that, unlike phone calls, text messaging can be quietly carried out under the noses of parents, teachers or other authority figures and, unlike computers, it can be done almost anywhere.
“We’ve kind of hit a tipping point where now teens expect other teens to respond to text messaging and to be available,” Lenhart said. “There is definitely an element of text messaging that fits so seamlessly into their lives.”
Text messaging has become so much a part of teenagers’ lives that 87 percent of those who text said that they sleep with, or next to, their phone.
Study author Scott Campbell said focus groups conducted by Pew also offer insight into the subtleties of teen communication and culture, revealing for example that, while boys don’t typically use punctuation, for girls such nuances are critical.
“If a girl puts a period at the end of a text message (to another girl) then it comes across as she’s mad,” Campbell said, which explains the prevalence of smiley emoticons.
“They have these practices because they’ve learned that texts can lead to misunderstandings,” Lenhart said. “It’s a deliberate thing and it’s also part of a culture that’s interested in differentiating itself from adult culture.”
The percentage of teens with cell phones who sent at least one text message a day increased from 38 percent in 2008 to 54 percent in September 2009, according to the study.
Meanwhile 38 percent of teens said they daily make at least one cell phone call, 30 percent said they talk on a landline phone and 24 percent said they used instant messaging.

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