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Friday, January 28, 2011

In future, cars might decide if driver is drunk (AP) : Technet

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In future, cars might decide if driver is drunk (AP) : Technet

In future, cars might decide if driver is drunk (AP)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 08:36 PM PST

By BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press Bob Salsberg, Associated Press – 1 hr 2 mins ago

WALTHAM, Mass. – An alcohol-detection prototype that uses automatic sensors to instantly gauge a driver's fitness to be on the road has the potential to save thousands of lives, but could be as long as a decade away from everyday use in cars, federal officials and researchers said Friday.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited QinetiQ North America, a Waltham, Mass.-based research and development facility, for the first public demonstration of systems that could measure whether a motorist has a blood alcohol content at or above the legal limit of .08 and — if so — prevent the vehicle from starting.

The technology is being designed as unobtrusive, unlike current alcohol ignition interlock systems often mandated by judges for convicted drunken drivers. Those require operators to blow into a breath-testing device before the car can operate.

The Driver Alcohol Detection Systems for Safety, as the new approach is called, would use sensors that would measure blood alcohol content in one of two possible ways: either by analyzing a driver's breath or through the skin, using sophisticated touch-based sensors placed strategically on steering wheels and door locks, for example.

Both methods eliminate the need for drivers to take any extra steps, and those who are sober would not be delayed in getting on the road, researchers said.

The technology is "another arrow in our automotive safety quiver," said LaHood, who emphasized the system was envisioned as optional equipment in future cars and voluntary for auto manufacturers.

David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, also attended the demonstration and estimated the technology could prevent as many as 9,000 fatal alcohol-related crashes a year in the U.S., though he also acknowledged that it was still in its early testing stages and might not be commercially available for 8-10 years.

The systems would not be employed unless they are "seamless, unobtrusive and unfailingly accurate," Strickland said.

The initial $10 million research program is funded jointly by NHTSA and the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, an industry group representing many of the world's car makers.

Critics, such as Sarah Longwell of the American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association, doubt if the technology could ever be perfected to the point that it would be fully reliable and not stop some completely sober people from driving.

"Even if the technology is 99.9 percent reliable, that's still tens of thousands of cars that won't start every day," said Longwell. Her group also questions whether an .08 limit would actually be high enough to stop all drunken drivers, since blood alcohol content can rise in people during a trip depending on factors such as how recently they drank and how much they ate.

"It's going to eliminate the ability of people to have a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a ball game and then drive home, something that is perfectly safe and currently legal in all 50 states," she said.

LaHood disputed that the technology would interfere with moderate social drinking, and said the threshold in cars would never be set below the legal limit.

In Friday's demonstration, a woman in her 20s weighing about 120 pounds drank two, 1 1/2 ounce glasses of vodka and orange juice about 30 minutes apart, eating some cheese and crackers in between to simulate a typical social setting, said Bud Zaouk, director of transportation safety and security for QinetiQ.

Using both the touch-based and breath-based prototypes, the woman registered a .06 blood alcohol content, Zaouk said, so she would be able to start the car.

Laura Dean Mooney, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the technology could "turn cars into the cure."

While she did not foresee the alcohol detection system ever being mandated by the government, Mooney, whose husband died in an accident caused by a drunken driver 19 years ago, said she could envision it someday becoming as ubiquitous as air bags or anti-lock brakes in today's cars, particularly if insurance companies provide incentives for drivers to use those systems by discounting premiums.

Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 05:17 PM PST

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Jan 28, 8:17 pm ET

NEW YORK – In its effort to silence protesters, Egypt took a step that's rare even among authoritarian governments: It cut off the Internet across the entire country.

The nation's four main Internet providers all went dark, and cell phone service was suspended in some areas. But the drastic move did not stop demonstrators Friday, and it could backfire by fueling anger and chaos in the streets of Cairo and beyond.

Until now, Egyptians have had nearly open access to the Web.

"This is night and day," said Robert Faris, research director at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "They have gone from open Internet to no Internet, and that has got to be a big shock."

Protesters are angry about the government of President Hosni Mubarak, so severing Internet and cell phone access only adds fuel to the fire, Faris said.

"This just calls into further question the government's legitimacy," he said. The political cost of acting so aggressively will make it "difficult for them to recover. But those are the tradeoffs."

Many Egyptians, especially young people, have grown accustomed to using the Internet to discuss local issues, economic conditions and politics. The government has been able to censor traditional media, such as major newspapers, but small local publications and independent groups have enjoyed a vibrant presence online.

The shutoff is an "enormous regression for a country that has always had a very strong and very engaged civil society," said Cynthia Wong, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Project on Global Internet Freedom. The Egyptian government "just can't cut off the entire nation forever, even if it does serve short-term goals."

Egypt is not the first country to shut off Internet service to quell dissidence and prevent the spread of embarrassing images.

Myanmar did it in 2007. Iran disrupted Internet service in 2009 to try to quell protests over disputed elections. That same year, China, which already censors the Web, suspended international phone service and cut off the Internet in the far western Xinjiang region after deadly riots.

Iran blocked access to social sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and slowed the Internet to a crawl, but did not cut it off completely.

"What's notable is that Egypt has gone farther than even Iran," Faris said. "We always thought of Egypt being a more moderate regime. In this particular instance, apparently they are not."

Although the protests in Iran did not topple the government, they drew an outpouring of international support, much of it expressed on social networks. A video of a young woman's death from a gunshot wound — captured on cell phones — become a symbol of that uprising and the government's brutal crackdown.

In Egypt, authorities have gone after individual bloggers. But until Thursday, the government has typically permitted access to Twitter, Facebook and other sites, Faris said.

The information revolution has helped people in the Middle East organize in ways that were impossible just a few years ago. No longer do they need a formal political or social organization to protest.

"The Egyptian government understood that very quickly in moving yesterday to put limits on social media," Shibley Telhami, professor of international relations at the University of Maryland, said Friday. "Some of it worked. Some of it didn't."

Although relatively few Egyptian homes have Internet access, cybercafes and cell phones are prevalent. Mobile phones outnumber fixed phone lines, as is the case in many developing countries.

At the end of 2010, an estimated 80 percent of Egyptians had a cell phone, according to research firm Ovum. About a quarter had access to the Internet as of 2009, according to the International Telecommunications Union, an arm of the United Nations.

So it was notable that the government shut down not just Internet connections but also mobile service. Unable to use their cell phones, some people muttered angrily about what the cutoff would mean for reaching emergency services. As of Friday, at least eight people had died in the protests.

Going from open Internet to no Internet is more shocking to people than losing it piece by piece, or not having access to it in the first place, as is the case in Cuba and North Korea.

"One of the things China is particularly good at is offering alternatives to media they are blocking," Faris said. "For most Chinese Internet users, that's enough. They are probably fine with that."

That said, shutting down Internet connections in a country with limited infrastructure, like Egypt, is not technically complicated. If an Internet service provider turns off its "routers" — powerful computers that relay Internet data — then traffic is halted. Egypt has just five major providers, according to Renesys Corp.

When Iran's protests erupted in 2009, the state started filtering the country's Internet connections, blocking some types of communications and slowing the overall network.

By shutting down nearly all Internet connections, the Egyptian government is wielding a much blunter instrument, possibly because it was caught by surprise and did not have time to put an elaborate filtering system in place. And they might have acted too late.

"People protested before there was Internet, and people protest when there is no Internet," Faris said. "A lot of the organization that went on online has already occurred."

___

Associated Press writers Michael Weissenstein in Cairo, Peter Svensson in New York, Jessica Mintz in Seattle and Joelle Tessler in Washington contributed to this story.

The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark (AP)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 04:29 AM PST

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Jan 28, 7:29 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO – About a half-hour past midnight Friday morning in Egypt, the Internet went dead.

Almost simultaneously, the handful of companies that pipe the Internet into and out of Egypt went dark as protesters were gearing up for a fresh round of demonstrations calling for the end of President Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule, experts said.

Egypt has apparently done what many technologists thought was unthinkable for any country with a major Internet economy: It unplugged itself entirely from the Internet to try and silence dissent.

Experts say it's unlikely that what's happened in Egypt could happen in the United States because the U.S. has numerous Internet providers and ways of connecting to the Internet. Coordinating a simultaneous shutdown would be a massive undertaking.

"It can't happen here," said Jim Cowie, the chief technology officer and a co-founder of Renesys, a network security firm in Manchester, N.H., that studies Internet disruptions. "How many people would you have to call to shut down the U.S. Internet? Hundreds, thousands maybe? We have enough Internet here that we can have our own Internet. If you cut it off, that leads to a philosophical question: Who got cut off from the Internet, us or the rest of the world?"

In fact, there are few countries anywhere with all their central Internet connections in one place or so few places that they can be severed at the same time. But the idea of a single "kill switch" to turn the Internet on and off has seduced some American lawmakers, who have pushed for the power to shutter the Internet in a national emergency.

The Internet blackout in Egypt shows that a country with strong control over its Internet providers apparently can force all of them to pull their plugs at once, something that Cowie called "almost entirely unprecedented in Internet history."

The outage sets the stage for blowback from the international community and investors. It also sets a precedent for other countries grappling with paralyzing political protests — though censoring the Internet and tampering with traffic to quash protests is nothing new.

China has long restricted what its people can see online and received renewed scrutiny for the practice when Internet search leader Google Inc. proclaimed a year ago that it would stop censoring its search results in China.

In 2009, Iran disrupted Internet service to try to curb protests over disputed elections. And two years before that, Burma's Internet was crippled when military leaders apparently took the drastic step of physically disconnecting primary communications links in major cities, a tactic that was foiled by activists armed with cell phones and satellite links.

Computer experts say what sets Egypt's action apart is that the entire country was disconnected in an apparently coordinated effort, and that all manner of devices are affected, from mobile phones to laptops. It seems, though, that satellite phones would not be affected.

"Iran never took down any significant portion of their Internet connection — they knew their economy and the markets are dependent on Internet activity," Cowie said.

When countries are merely blocking certain sites — like Twitter or Facebook — where protesters are coordinating demonstrations, as apparently happened at first in Eqypt, protesters can use "proxy" computers to circumvent the government censors. The proxies "anonymize" traffic and bounce it to computers in other countries that send it along to the restricted sites.

But when there's no Internet at all, proxies can't work and online communication grinds to a halt.

Renesys' network sensors showed that Egypt's four primary Internet providers — Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr — and all went dark at 12:34 a.m. Those companies shuttle all Internet traffic into and out of Egypt, though many people get their service through additional local providers with different names.

Italy-based Seabone said no Internet traffic was going into or out of Egypt after 12:30 a.m. local time.

"There's no way around this with a proxy," Cowie said. "There is literally no route. It's as if the entire country disappeared. You can tell I'm still kind of stunned."

The technical act of turning off the Internet can be fairly straightforward. It likely requires only a simple change to the instructions for the companies' networking equipment.

Craig Labovitz, chief scientist for Arbor Networks, a Chelmsford, Mass., security company, said that in countries such as Egypt — with a centralized government and a relatively small number of fiber-optic cables and other ways for the Internet to get piped in — the companies that own the technologies are typically under strict licenses from the government.

"It's probably a phone call that goes out to half a dozen folks who enter a line on a router configuration file and hit return," Labovitz said. "It's like programming your TiVo — you have things that are set up and you delete one. It's not high-level programming."

Twitter confirmed Tuesday that its service was being blocked in Egypt, and Facebook reported problems.

"Iran went through the same pattern," Labovitz said. "Initially there was some level of filtering, and as things deteriorated, the plug was pulled. It looks like Egypt might be following a similar pattern."

The ease with which Egypt cut itself also means the country can control where the outages are targeted, experts said. So its military facilities, for example, can stay online while the Internet vanishes for everybody else.

Experts said it was too early to tell which, if any, facilities still have connections in Egypt.

Cowie said his firm is investigating clues that a small number of small networks might still be available.

Meanwhile, a program Renesys uses that displays the percentage of each country that is connected to the Internet was showing a figure that he was still struggling to believe. Zero.

___

On The Web: http://renesys.com/blog/

“Heavy Rain” coming soon to a theater near you (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 08:57 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Fri Jan 28, 11:57 am ET

A dark, atmospheric thriller that felt more like a David Fincher movie than a video game, "Heavy Rain" seemed destined for the Hollywood treatment—and indeed, the search for the Origami Killer may soon make the leap to the silver screen.

"Deadwood" creator David Milch has signed on to adapt last year's PlayStation 3 exclusive, according to Variety, with developers from Quantum Dream (the company that designed Heavy Rain) slated to pitch in.

Of course, it's not like video games turning into movies is anything new, as anyone who's seen "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," "Price of Persia: The Sands of Time," "Resident Evil," and "Max Payne" knows.

But "Heavy Rain" is something else—a game like no other game I've ever played. Indeed, the developers at Quantum Dream billed "Heavy Rain" (correctly, if you ask me) not as a video game, but an "interactive drama."

Rather than starting with a bang, "Heavy Rain" begins slowly—too slowly for some—with scenes of everyday family life, a father and son, and a marriage that's showing subtle signs of strain.

Instead of the typical heads-up display (HUD), floating icons prompt you to, say, get out of bed, brush your teeth, open the fridge, play catch with your son—or, later on, leap from one balcony to the next. You can also pull a trigger on the PS3's DualShock controller to see the thoughts swirling around in your character's head.

Yes, some found the experience dull and pointless (and no question, "Heavy Rain" is one of those games where it either works for you or it doesn't); for me, though, it became strangely engrossing, and by the time something finally does happen—in a Hitchcock-worthy set-piece in a shopping mall—I was totally hooked.

Besides its realistic, carefully rendered graphics, "Heavy Rain" boasted a quartet of compelling, sympathetic lead characters, top-notch voice acting (well, at least I thought so), a moody, Howard Shore-like soundtrack, and—best of all—a real page-turner of a plot.

Overall, playing "Heavy Rain" felt like watching—strike that, being in—a video game version of "Seven." Indeed, I had such a strong reaction to the game that I penned an open letter to Mr. "video games aren't art!" himself, Roger Ebert, about my experience. (Nope, I never heard back.)

So it comes as little surprise that Hollywood's come calling, although it's still curious (in a recursive kind of way) that a game so heavily influenced by the movies will now, if all goes according to plan, become a movie.

Related:
David Milch adapting 'Heavy Rain' game [Variety]

— Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News.

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Amazon: Kindle books now outselling paperbacks, too (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 07:36 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Fri Jan 28, 10:36 am ET

Well, that didn't take long. Barely six months after crowing that its Kindle e-books were outselling its selection of hardcover books, Amazon has announced that sales of Kindle titles are now outpacing paperbacks, as well.

The news came as Amazon announced its (disappointing, for Wall Street) earnings Thursday, with online retailing giant noting that since January 1, U.S. customers have bought 115 Kindle editions for every 100 paperbacks sold.

Meanwhile, Kindle e-book sales opened up an even bigger lead over hardcover sales, with Kindle titles outselling hardbacks by an eye-opening three-to-one margin.

Amazon noted that it didn't count free Kindle volumes in its statistics, which would have bumped up the Kindle e-book figures even higher. On the other hand, the tally includes hardcover and paperback books that don't have Kindle editions, Amazon said.

Amazon continues to keep sales figures for its Kindle e-reader hardware close to its vest, saying only that it had sold "million" of its third-generation Kindle device.

The latest Kindle was unveiled last summer and went on sale in August, with the cheaper Wi-Fi-only version selling for $139. The 3G-enabled model goes for $189.

About 810,000 Kindle e-books are currently available on Amazon, the company said, versus 630,000 volumes last July.

Amazon crowed that more than 670,000 Kindle books are selling for $9.99 or less; that said, many e-books on the New York Times bestseller list are priced closer to the $15 mark.

— Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News.

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RIM May Take a Cautious Approach in Making PlayBooks (NewsFactor)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 02:29 PM PST

Barry Levine, newsfactor.com Barry Levine, newsfactor.com – Fri Jan 28, 5:29 pm ET

Research in Motion may have modest targets for its new PlayBook tablet. According to news reports, the Canadian BlackBerry maker is manufacturing only 150,000 to 200,000 PlayBooks per month.

The reports are based on sources at component suppliers in Taiwan. RIM's PlayBooks are being built at Quanta's plant on that island and are expected to be available as early as next month.

PlayBook + BlackBerry

RIM reportedly has insisted that its tablets be built entirely in Taiwan, in order to protect the device from being cloned on the Chinese mainland. Apple's category-defining iPad has fallen victim to knockoffs in China, and RIM doesn't want a repeat.

Earlier this month, RIM was rumored to have planned for one million PlayBooks by March, so the new reports appear to confirm the company's move into a more cautious launch. RIM's PlayBook is being compared to Motorola's Xoom tablet, which is also about to roll out.

RIM is expected to release the PlayBook with Wi-Fi before a 3G version. Motorola's Xoom will be launched with both Wi-Fi and 3G in the first quarter. A 4G LTE Xoom, released through Verizon Wireless, is expected in the second quarter. Some reports indicate that Motorola will manufacture 700,000 to 800,000 units for launch.

RIM plans a U.S.-first launch, with international markets later. If RIM is indeed taking a cautious approach, it may be in part to assess reactions to the PlayBook's requirement of a BlackBerry for cellular connectivity.

More than a few observers have noted that this required coupling isn't inviting to the consumer market. But it could be welcomed by IT managers, allowing better management of a fleet of tablets. Undoubtedly, RIM wants to find out which market really wants this arrangement.

The Tablet Race

The jockeying among many new tablet devices is in full flight as a variety of companies try for second place against the iPad. About a hundred new tablets were showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, including ones from Lenovo, Dell, NEC, Acer, Toshiba, ASUS and others, in addition to Motorola and RIM. Hewlett-Packard's event to unveil its webOS tablets is in early February, and there is a significant amount of anticipation.

If there is a second-place holder at the moment, it would be Samsung, whose Galaxy Tab has sold about two million units in three months.

When unveiled at CES, Motorola's Xoom sported dual-core processors, compatibility with 4G, HDMI-out, a two-megapixel camera in front and a five-megapixel in the back, and a 10-inch screen. It also has Android 3.0, known as Honeycomb, which has been optimized for tablets. It also has a secret asset -- a built-in barometer for measuring atmospheric pressure in case you want to predict your own weather.

RIM's PlayBook contains a one-gigahertz ARM processor, a seven-inch screen, 1GB of memory, HDMI-out, and two cameras -- a three-megapixel on the front and a five-megapixel on the back. There's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and, for 3G connections, the device connects through Bluetooth to a BlackBerry smartphone.

Google to Hold Android Honeycomb Event Next Wednesday (Mashable)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 10:35 AM PST

Ben Parr Ben Parr – Fri Jan 28, 1:35 pm ET

Google will be holding a press event next Wednesday, February 2, at its Mountain View headquarters to show off Android Honeycomb, the company's tablet-optimized OS.

The invitation, which just landed in our inboxes, asks us to join the search giant "for an in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news and hands-on demos." The stage presentations will begin at 10:00 a.m. PT. Google is calling it the event "A Taste of What's New from Android."

Google is also sharing the Android love with the rest of world; the event will be live streamed at YouTube.com/Android.

Honeycomb, Android 3.0, is the first Google OS built specifically for the tablet form factor. It features a revamped interface, faster plane switching, deeper multimedia integration and a slew of redesigned Android applications. We've had the chance to play with Android Honeycomb during our Motorola Xoom demo, even sneaking in some time to play with some of its yet-to-be-announced features.

We'll be at Google's event next Wednesday to bring you all the Android news live. In the meantime, check out the demo video, and in the comments, let us know what you think this Android press event might reveal.

Samsung posts record year, with help from Galaxy Tab (Appolicious)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 01:35 PM PST

LinkedIn eyes $175 million IPO; investors eye financials (Reuters)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 05:45 PM PST

By Clare Baldwin and Brenton Cordeiro Clare Baldwin And Brenton Cordeiro – Fri Jan 28, 8:45 pm ET

NEW YORK/BANGALORE (Reuters) – Investors are closely examining the financial details disclosed in LinkedIn Corp's IPO filing, trying to determine how much the company is worth.

LinkedIn, which filed on Thursday to raise up to $175 million in an IPO, is attracting significant interest as the first social networking company to start the process of becoming publicly traded. But exactly how attractive it is, is an open question.

"It's only recently that their earnings have turned positive," said Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida.

LinkedIn has posted sequentially increasing revenue in each of the past seven quarters. It has posted several quarterly losses during that period -- $2.9 million in the March 2009 quarter -- but has been profitable for the past two quarters, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

LinkedIn said that it expects its rate of revenue growth to decline and that it does not expect to be profitable on a GAAP basis in 2011 due to investments in its growth.

Some privately held shares are traded on secondary markets such as SharesPost. But their value so far has depended more on buzz than fundamental knowledge of the company's finances.

"You're talking about the secondary markets, which are like the wild west," said David Menlow, president of IPOfinancial.com, an independent research firm. "Who's to say what they are really worth?"

ZOOMING INTEREST

Investor interest in privately held Web companies such as Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, which recently rejected a takeover bid from Google Inc, is surging.

Facebook, a social networking site that has more than 500 million users, has been valued at $50 billion.

Earlier this week Demand Media Inc, which publishes articles online, saw its shares gain by more than a third.

LinkedIn's investors include Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm that has backed Yahoo Inc, Google, Apple Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Oracle Corp.

Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JPMorgan are among the bookrunners for the LinkedIn offering. The company, co-founded in 2002 by ex-PayPal executive Reid Hoffman, has not yet decided how many shares to sell or determined a price range.

(Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore and Clare Baldwin in New York; writing by Ian Geoghegan; editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Andre Grenon)

Sony MDR-XB1000 headphones pack supersized drivers, ballistic bass (Digital Trends)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 05:15 PM PST

Kelly Montgomery Kelly Montgomery – Fri Jan 28, 8:15 pm ET

For the audiophile who places bass at the utmost important level, Sony's new MDR-XB1000 headphones should please the ear. The headphones, which look about as intense as they should sound, pack whopping 70mm drivers to give listeners the ultimate in headphone bass. The headphones play music at an impressive 2-30,000 Hz frequency range. The headphones are currently only on sale in Japan, for about $377, but audio nerds should keep an eye out for imports, or suffer and wait for a U.S. release date.

Yahoo’s Interactive Bus Stops Are a Fun Way to Pass the Time (PC World)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 07:09 PM PST

Armando Rodriguez Armando Rodriguez – 2 hrs 29 mins ago

While on a field trip today to the Macworld 2011 Expo we finally found one of the many interactive bus stops that Yahoo littered the city with. After a day of looking at iPhone case after iPhone case, it was nice to kick back and play a game on the giant capacitive touchscreen (which didn't really want to work at first).

Check out the video (in which I am probably a little too excited) after the break...

Armando Rodriguez got laughed at for bringing his Palm Pilot to the Macworld Expo.

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Exclusive: U.S. asks about search fairness in Google/ITA (Reuters)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 04:54 PM PST

By Diane Bartz Diane Bartz – Fri Jan 28, 7:54 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department's review of Google Inc's planned acquisition of airline ticketing software company ITA Software is focusing on making sure ITA's products remain available, even to Google's rivals, according to a source close to the deal.

Google's proposed acquisition of ITA has sparked worries in the tech world that travel websites such as Orbitz Worldwide Inc, Kayak and TripAdvisor could be deprived of ITA's software.

Kayak, for example, is asking for assurances that Google will extend its software licenses when they expire, that the software is upgraded and that a firewall is placed around the companies' proprietary software, which operates in conjunction with the ITA software and may be in ITA servers, to protect their intellectual property.

But Google has been unwilling to give them those assurances, said Kayak spokesman Robert Birge. "We have found the conversations with Google to be frankly wanting," he told Reuters.

Google, the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, announced plans to acquire ITA Software for $700 million in cash in July.

Tom Barnett, former chief of the Justice Department's antitrust division who now represents Expedia, said it would be difficult to craft a settlement to take the licensing assurances and intellectual property protection into account.

"I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's difficult," said Barnett, a critic of the deal.

But Robert Doyle, an antitrust expert at the law firm Doyle, Barlow and Mazard PLLC, said a focus on licensing would mean that the deal would go through.

"That's a key issue," he said. "That would indicate that settlement has been proposed in some format and they're testing it."

Google has argued that since it does not compete against ITA Software, the deal would not affect competition in the online travel industry and, thus, is legal.

"We're excited to inject more choice for consumers into the online travel space, and while we continue to cooperate with the Justice Department's review, we are ultimately confident that this acquisition will increase competition," said Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined comment on the investigation.

LOOKING AT MANIPULATED SEARCH RESULTS?

Early in the probe, the Justice Department's antitrust division asked questions about allegations that Google favored certain websites in searches, sources close to the deal said.

Foundem, a British price comparison website, is one of several companies that have accused Google of manipulation results so that Foundem and other rival websites show up lower in search results. Users overwhelmingly tend to click on higher results.

The Justice Department asked companies about search fairness issues before and after Google announced in August that it was going to a "second request," which essentially means that the antitrust probe of the deal would be more in depth.

Most of the questions came after the second request into the $700 million deal was announced, said one source who has been in contact with the Justice Department about the deal and asked not to be named so as not to jeopardize his relationship with that department.

"It's a theory of harm that the DOJ is looking at," said a second source, who also asked not to be named so as to not jeopardize his relationship with the Justice Department. "They treat their stuff differently than they treat other people."

European regulators are also looking into Google's search practices.

The ITA buy is part of Google's acquisitions and recruiting spree as it aims to ensure its online products remain popular as surfers turn to new services like the wildly popular Facebook and wireless gadgets.

Ex-Salesforce.com Executive Offers Cloud Security (NewsFactor)

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 02:29 PM PST

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Jennifer Leclaire, newsfactor.com – Fri Jan 28, 5:29 pm ET

Led by CEO Tod McKinnon -- the vice president of engineering at Salesforce.com from 2003 to 2009 -- Okta is moving into the on-demand identity and access-management space. The goal is to accelerate enterprise adoption of cloud and web-based apps.

Okta is trying to address a pain point in the rise of software as a service. SaaS has made it easy for companies to adopt business-critical applications, but has also introduced a new set of challenges for both IT and end users. Okta promises to centrally secure and control access to applications, provide end users single sign-on for all web apps, and give businesses insights to maximize ROI while minimizing risk.

"Enterprises everywhere are realizing the inherent benefits of running their core IT services in the cloud," McKinnon said. "But this shift fundamentally requires them to rethink their IT infrastructure and how their employees access it. Okta is the only enterprise-class, on-demand service purpose built to help customers secure and manage their entire cloud-services network and the people who need access to it, with no professional services required."

Reducing Costs, Improving Security

With Okta, IT can integrate cloud applications with existing directory services, controlling access across applications, provisioning and de-provisioning employees, and analyzing usage across all applications. For end users, Okta provides single sign-on across all applications. Analysts and enterprises are both bullish on the concept.

"As businesses shift more critical applications to the cloud, they are challenged to maintain the same degree of control that they have with their on-premise applications," said Daryl Plummer, managing vice president at Gartner. "Cloud-services brokers focusing on identity and access management who can secure and integrate multiple cloud services will facilitate more secure, cross-enterprise adoption of cloud-based services -- and that will convince a lot of enterprises to buy."

Early Okta customers include Pandora, LiveOps, Enterasys, FusionStorm and AMAG Pharmaceuticals. With Okta they have increased user productivity, reduced administrative costs by up to 85 percent, and improved security associated with application access.

"Okta helped us reduce costs, improve security, and accelerate cloud-applications adoption," said Ben Doyle, director of IT for Enterasys. "We now have one active directory integration for all of our cloud applications, users have one-click access to their web-based apps, and IT has centralized control of user access with a high degree of automation."

Application-Centric Approach

Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, said Okta is taking an application-centric, rather than security-centric, approach to the challenge.

"There are certainly businesses out there that need a greater degree of and more complete integration of security across their entire organization," King said, "but for many companies, having single sign-on capabilities tied to the applications they are either using internally or that they are planning to use in the cloud is probably going to be a very effective and cost-effective way of helping companies better secure their organizations."

King said we are at that stage in the cloud where data and apps can transparently work across applications that are either housed within a corporate data center or within a service provider's hosting infrastructure and require a significant degree of security.

"Okta offers an alternative to the all-or-nothing approach to the cloud that some people are talking about," King said. "That's the way that many companies are going to be handling their cloud deployment anyway, application by application."
at 9:59 PM

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