Sponsoer by :

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Review: Disconnecting in a too-connected world (AP) : Technet

Sponsored

Review: Disconnecting in a too-connected world (AP) : Technet

Review: Disconnecting in a too-connected world (AP)

Posted: 25 May 2011 12:23 PM PDT

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Wed May 25, 3:23 pm ET

FRANKLIN, N.Y. – The knowledge that I'd be cut off from Internet and cellphone service in just a few hours started to relax me long before I reached the secluded, serene site of a two-day yoga retreat in upstate New York.

For 43 magical hours, chirping birds replaced car horns and sirens. Two-hour yoga classes, hammock-lounging and hot-tubbing replaced sitting at my desk in Manhattan.

The best part: Absolutely nothing replaced my iPhone. It sat powered off at the bottom of my backpack all weekend save for a brief stint as an alarm clock to wake me from a nap.

I readily admit that I am powerless. Without a forced break from email, text messages, Facebook and an endless stream of online news and blogs, I am an information addict. Spending a few days without mobile service in an age where smartphones have become like limbs for many, I found immense value in disconnecting from our always-on, always-connected world.

It wasn't easy. During the three-hour ride upstate, I clutched my phone and reloaded Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail every 10 to 15 minutes. I followed our route on Google Maps, checked in to Route 17 on Foursquare and scanned the app for The New York Times for news updates for the fourth, fifth, sixth time.

As we neared the no signal zone, I called my husband to say goodbye for the second time and left a message for a friend to wish him well on medical-school admission tests that he was taking that weekend. I checked email once more.

Should I have called my mom? Posted one last update on Facebook about the looming Rapture? See if I missed any tech news by taking Friday off?

My goodness, what have I become?

Then, "No Service" appeared in the top left corner on my phone, and that was that. I took a deep breath, turned off the phone and turned to my surroundings and later, inward.

Facebook came up at least twice during the retreat at Heathen Hill. Both times, our yoga instructor was leading the 18 of us through relaxation techniques. Forget about work, she said, forget about your children at home, for a moment, and forget about Facebook. We lay on our mats, listening to the softly tapping rain and chirping birds and complied. We breathed.

It's become an increasingly rare treat to disconnect from "real world" while on vacation. For many people, work and family left behind require constant email and phone contact. Wireless access through Wi-Fi is plentiful and often free, as I have discovered in the Irish countryside, in the outskirts of my hometown of Budapest, Hungary, and in parts of the Catskills, notwithstanding the pocket where my yoga retreat took place.

Like many people, I have also developed a bit of an unhealthy attachment to my iPhone in the past couple of years, though it's not to the point where that I sleep with it under my pillow.

Convenient as it is, there are plenty drawbacks to the constant ability to check in — to friends, strangers, work, news, gossip and whatever else my phone gives me instant access to. Sometimes I don't even notice when I subconsciously reach for my phone when there's a lull in a conversation over dinner or when I want to avoid awkward small talk in the elevator.

Then there's the type of information I'm getting. Sure, some of it is valuable, but more of it is on the caliber of cute animal stories and incidental Facebook updates from friends or casual acquaintances. After coming back from the retreat, I extended my Facebook ban, so it's been five days already. I'm not sure I've missed much, except perhaps a few laughs or headshakes at friends' posts.

So what did we do, without news, Twitter and email in the Catskill Mountains? Yoga, and lots of it.

Our teacher instructed us to turn inward. That's especially difficult to do in the age of social media, when many of us seek validation even for the most minute actions and passing thoughts of our lives. Why do I need to tell my Facebook friends that it's raining again? And when someone responds, why do I feel weirdly validated in my existence?

I won't call it addiction, but for the first few hours of the retreat, I found myself regularly reaching for my iPhone — for what, I don't know. It was like a phantom limb, unnerving in its absence.

By the second day, the feeling was gone, thanks to vigorous exercise, yogic breathing and our beautiful surroundings. We dined on homemade vegetarian dishes, another break from my regular days as an avid carnivore. I also brought a book with me, printed on real paper. It's called "Living Dead in Dallas," part of a series about Southern vampires that is now a show on HBO. It helps me relax, OK?

At night we sat by the campfire, roasted marshmallows and drank wine. Then sleep, breakfast and more yoga.

I don't advocate disconnecting forever from the Internet or social media, and I admit a weekend was just enough. We needed GPS to find our way back to the city, for one thing. Some email addresses were exchanged, too.

And, as we left, we promised our newfound yoga friends: "I'll find you on Facebook."

Yahoo CEO vows to clean up Alibaba mess in China (AP)

Posted: 25 May 2011 05:03 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Wed May 25, 8:03 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc. CEO Carol Bartz found herself in a familiar position Wednesday: assuring stock market analysts that she will clean up a mess damaging the long-slumping Internet company's market value.

The latest challenge to confront Bartz in her nearly 2 1/2 year-tenure emerged two weeks ago. That's when Yahoo jarred investors by informing them of an abrupt change affecting the value of its 43 percent stake in Alibaba Group, one of the leaders in China's rapidly growing Internet market.

Alibaba had spun off a potential jewel — its online payment service Alipay — into a separate company controlled by its CEO, Jack Ma, without giving Yahoo anything in return.

Yahoo's stock price has plunged by 13 percent since the May 10 revelation, leaving Bartz little choice but to place the issue at the top of the agenda for a meeting that Yahoo had scheduled to provide an update on its turnaround strategy. The Associated Press monitored the San Jose, Calif. meeting through a webcast because Yahoo wouldn't allow reporters to attend.

Although she provided few specifics, Bartz spent most of the first hour trying to reassure analysts that Yahoo will be "appropriately compensated" for the loss of Alipay from its investment portfolio.

Bartz made her points flanked by Yahoo's chief financial officer, Tim Morse, and company co-founder, Jerry Yang, who also is a member of Alibaba's board of directors. Both men flew to Asia last week to discuss the Alipay matter with Alibaba's major shareholders, who include Ma and Japan's Softbank Corp. Bartz said all the key shareholders have committed to negotiating a fair payment for the Alipay spinoff and preserving the value of another Alibaba asset, online auction site Taobao.

"This is a very complex situation," Bartz said. "We have approached this thoughtfully and methodically. We think this is the right path to protect shareholder interests."

Bartz wouldn't predict when the Alipay issue would be resolved.

Yang, who spent 19 months as Yahoo's CEO before being replaced by Bartz in January 2009, said the Alipay spin-off was necessary to ensure Chinese regulators license the service. The licensing wouldn't have been possible if Alipay wasn't wholly owned by Chinese citizens, Yang said.

Yahoo said Alibaba notified it about the change in Alipay's ownership on March 31. None of the executives explained why Yahoo waited nearly six weeks to disclose it.

"We believe our disclosure was timely and appropriate," Bartz said.

Later in the day, Morse said Yahoo is still exploring ways to enable shareholders to get their money out of another closely watched Asia investment, Yahoo Japan Corp. As has been the case since last year, Yahoo is still considering spinning off its 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan or transferring the holdings into a tracking stock.

"We are pursuing some attractive alternatives, but it's not a quick and easy process," Morse said of the Yahoo Japan situation.

Investors seemed largely unmoved by what they heard Wednesday. Yahoo shares added a penny to close at $16.15.

Bartz, 62, and her top lieutenants spent most the meeting trying to show Yahoo is finally headed in the right direction after years of misguided decisions and aimless execution.

The bumbling has undercut Yahoo's revenue and stock price at a time when other major Internet companies like Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook are thriving.

"We have rolled up our sleeves and we have done the hard work that Yahoo needed to do to be positioned as a premier digital media company," Bartz said Wednesday.

Yahoo remains one of the Internet's top destinations with more than 600 million users, an audience that Bartz boasted would be the envy of once-powerful media barons such as newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.

But Yahoo's popularity hasn't carried over to the stock market, largely because the company has been stuck in a financial malaise for most of the past five years. During that time, Yahoo has lost nearly half of its market value under three different CEOs — Bartz, Yang and former movie studio boss Terry Semel.

Although Bartz has been able to boost Yahoo's earnings by trimming about $2.1 billion in costs, the company isn't keeping pace with the growth in the Internet ad market that generates most of its revenue.

Yahoo's net revenue — a number that reflects the money that Yahoo keeps after paying ad commissions — has dropped from the previous year in all nine quarters completed so far during Bartz's reign.

Part of the trouble stems from a disappointing start to Yahoo's Internet search partnership with Microsoft Corp. To save money, Yahoo is relying on Microsoft's technology to power the search results and accompanying ads on its website.

But Microsoft so far hasn't delivered the search advertising revenue that Yahoo envisioned, prompting the companies to delay expanding the 10-year partnership outside of the U.S. and Canada until the financial performance improves. Bartz is confident that will happen by early next year.

If Yahoo doesn't rebound soon, BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said he thinks Bartz might be replaced before her four-year contract expires in January 2013. He said he believes Yahoo brought in a potential successor when it named David Kenny to its board last month.

Kenny, 49, is an online advertising veteran and currently president of Internet networking services provider Akamai Technologies Inc.

Bartz has the "unequivocal support" of Yahoo's board and any speculation about her job being in jeopardy is false, according to a person familiar with the board's thinking. The person asked not to be identified because the board has chosen not to publicly discuss its feelings about Bartz's performance.

Bartz still hasn't been able to reach the goals that the board set for Yahoo's stock price when she was hired. Her contract awarded her 5 million stock options that won't vest unless Yahoo shares close at average prices ranging from $17.60 to $35.19 for at least 20 consecutive days.

It looked like Yahoo's stock might hit the first vesting threshold until the disclosure about the Alipay spinoff wiped out roughly $3 billion in shareholder wealth in two weeks.

Senator calls for smartphone app privacy policies (AP)

Posted: 25 May 2011 02:17 PM PDT

By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer Joelle Tessler, Ap Technology Writer – Wed May 25, 5:17 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is challenging Apple Inc. and Google Inc. to require all developers that make apps for their mobile devices to adopt formal privacy policies.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., sent letters to the two companies Wednesday asking that all apps for the iPhone, iPad and devices running Google's Android software provide "clear and understandable privacy policies." Such policies would tell users what personal information the app collects and how that information is used and potentially shared. Right now, it's up to individual developers whether to spell that out.

Franken said that given the popularity of their mobile devices, Apple and Google are in "a unique position to influence the market for apps and protect users' privacy within that market."

Franken sent his letters two weeks after he held a hearing to grill executives from Apple and Google about the extent to which iPhones and Android devices track the location of their users and store detailed histories of their movements. At the hearing, Franken asked the companies to require apps to provide privacy policies, but he did not get a clear commitment from either one.

Guy "Bud" Tribble, Apple's vice president of software technology, said then that privacy policies alone are not enough and that privacy needs to be baked into products with tools such as clear on-screen disclosures that notify users how their personal data is collected. Both Apple and Google do use such disclosures to alert users and obtain consent when they are downloading an app that accesses location information, for instance.

But Franken wants more detailed privacy policies.

Apple said Wednesday that it had no further comment.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Franken held his hearing following Apple's admission that iPhones were storing the locations of nearby cellphone towers and Wi-Fi hot spots for up to a year. That data can be used to create a rough map of the device owner's movements. Apple also revealed that a software bug caused iPhones to continue to send anonymous location data to the company's servers even when location services on the device were turned off.

Google, too, acknowledged that phones running Android store some GPS location data for a short time.

In his letters Wednesday, Franken said that while all apps need to do a better job of disclosing how they collect and share personal data, that is particularly true for programs that gather information about a user's location.

Review: Google Music Beta puts your tunes in the cloud (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 25 May 2011 07:35 PM PDT

By Tecca tecca – 2 hrs 7 mins ago

Google Music is a new way to listen to your music. By uploading music to the cloud, you can then access your music anywhere you have an internet connection, without having to download it onto your computer or phone. All your music is streamed right from Google's storage system, so you won't miss a beat.

Google unveiled Google Music at the Google I/O conference that happened this May. The service is in beta testing now, and you can sign up to help test it out at the Google Music home page — it's pure luck whether or not you'll be selected as a tester, so cross your fingers. Remember that while this is a very neat piece of technology, it's still in beta. This isn't a finished product yet, so expect bugs.

Nonetheless, it's fun to take a look at what Google has cooking! The entire process of getting your tunes up on Google Music is pretty easy, and so is creating playlists and listening to the music.

Uploading music
The uploading process starts when you download and install the Google Music Manager. This is a small app that runs on your computer and constantly scans a music folder you specify (like your iTunes folder) for new songs. Whenever a new song is added to that folder, it's automatically uploaded to Google Music.

The program itself doesn't consume many system resources, and you probably won't even notice it running, although when it uploads a song you might notice your internet speed drop. If you have a fast internet connection, you won't need to worry too much about this — you'll barely notice your internet speed dip.

Even though the uploading process was easy, there are some problems. When I first installed the Google Music Manager and pointed it to a folder containing Mile Davis' Kind of Blue album, it took over 5 minute to scan the folder, and then another 5 to upload it to Google Music. That's 10 minutes for a total of 6 songs — way too long. By comparison, iTunes took about 5 seconds to scan the folder and add it to my iTunes library.

Another downside to the music uploading process is that there's no way to upload music right from your web browser; you have to run the Google Music Manager on your computer. As someone who likes to have as few programs running on his computer as possible (even though the Google Music Manager is really small), this bugs me. It's also a bit counterintuitive; you'd expect a web-based music manager to have a way to upload songs via the browser, but alas, not in Google Music.

Organizing and playing your collection
Google Music organizes your music in a few default ways. You can view your collection by album title, artist name, song title, and genre. You can also make playlists yourself (by creating a new playlist, and then dragging music from an album onto the playlist's name on the left side of the window), or let Google Music create Instant Mixes for you, which is a combination of your songs that Google thinks are a good mix with the song you've indicated. For instance, if I pick So What? from Kind of Blue, an Instant Mix playlist might have Dave Brubeck's Take Five as the next song.

The service also creates automatic playlists for songs that you've given a "Thumbs up" to indicate that you like, songs that were recently added, and free songs that came with signing up for the service.

When you double-click on a song or playlist, the music starts playing via a built-in player at the bottom of the screen. It works well enough — it has the basic player controls you've come to expect on everything from DVD players to iPods —and you can adjust the volume and turn on song shuffling right from the player. There is no quick mute button, however.

Overall, the playlist and general organizing features are not yet up to par with those of iTunes and other music players. At times, the user interface seems to have hidden away things you'd expect — like an easy way to see what playlist you're listening to and what's coming up next, or a way to sort your albums. Future versions of Google Music will need to make a lot of improvements in this area.

The Android app
The Android app is pretty straightforward. It loads up a scaled-down version of Google Music and lets you select which song, album, or playlist to listen to. The app works with both the Google Music service and other MP3s you might have stored on your device, so it's not a bad thing to have around even if you're not testing Google Music.

One bonus of the app is the ability to save songs, playlists, and albums right to your Android device, so you don't necessarily need an internet connection while on the go. This turns out to be a key feature for people who have restrictive bandwidth caps on their phone plans — no need to worry about how much data you'll use when you can grab the album while connected to your home wifi network.

The downsides to the app is that it's currently a little slow and has been known to crash. This should be expected though, as it's still in beta. Google is aware of this, and it's a safe bet that these bugs will be corrected over the next few months.

A bright future ahead
Google Music has a lot of potential. The building blocks are there for it to become an amazing tool that will let you digitally access your music from anywhere with an internet connection. As fast internet connections become less expensive and easier to access, Google Music will be able to do amazing things. But as it stands now, in this early beta test, it needs a bit of work. The service is sluggish at times, the interface is not nearly as advanced as that of iTunes, and the decision to limit Google Music only to computers and Android devices leaves iPhone and BlackBerry users in a sore spot.

But again — Google Music is still in beta. That means improvements are coming, and we've not seen the final product yet. Google has a proven track record of delivering some amazing technology, and Google Music could be its next big thing. Only time will tell.

Post by Adam Holisky

More from Tecca:

Happy Birthday YouTube: The streaming video site turns 6 (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 25 May 2011 07:17 PM PDT

By Taylor Hatmaker taylor Hatmaker – 2 hrs 24 mins ago

It's difficult to imagine a life without the viral internet oddities that YouTube serves up on a daily basis. This month YouTube turns 6, and the site synonymous with web video has crossed some impressive milestones. The site currently boasts a whopping 3 million views per day, which according to the company, equates to "nearly half the world's population watching a YouTube video each day."

In November, YouTube found that users were uploading 35 hours of video every every minute. The numbers today? According to YouTube's blog, more than 48 hours of video every minute, a whopping 37% increase over just 6 months ago. Now that the company is pushing the bounds of its own identity with original content and video rentals, we can only expect that number to shoot up even further.

When it comes to explaining the winning formula behind the web's foremost hub of user-made video, the company's own blog puts it best: "YouTube is successful because it's a reflection of you and your world." And while that reflection might sometimes be a bit weird, it never ceases to be interesting.

When you've had your fill of YouTube's veritable smorgasbord of cute cat videos, you should tune into TeccaTV — you might even learn something!

More from Tecca:

Social networks power Spain protests (AFP)

Posted: 25 May 2011 08:04 PM PDT

by Virginie Grognou Virginie Grognou – 1 hr 37 mins ago

MADRID (AFP) – Spain's anti-crisis protesters reject serious comparison with the Arab Spring popular revolts but they do claim a common weapon: online social networks.

Known as the "indignant", or "M-15" after the protest birth date, the activists began May 15 with a few hundred people camped in Madrid decrying Spain's parties for an economic crisis.

Now, even as nightly rallies diminish at their sprawling plastic tent encampment in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square, they count nearly 150,000 "friends" on Facebook alone.

Indeed, the social network is at the heart of a slickly organised logistical operation.

One activist, a 28-year-old translator who identifies himself only by his nickname Zulo, is dedicated to updating the Facebook page of "Spanish Revolution."

Connected via wifi antennae set up by neighbours and businesses and powered with solar panels, a dozen laptops are hooked up in the camp's "communication" stand.

Whether it is requesting supplies, giving advice in case of police intervention or linking to other city centre protests across Spain, social networks are "an essential tool for us", Zulo said.

"At first we were stunned, we were overwhelmed by the scale of the mobilization on the Internet, we received so many messages of support," said Zulo, his hair bunched up in a tail of dreadlocks.

In the first days after the creation of the Facebook page Spanish revolution -- https://www.facebook.com/SpanishRevolution -- the account had 1,000 supporters registering every hour. Now it has more than 146,000.

On micro-blogging site Twitter, the hash tags #acampadasol (Sol encampment), #notenemosmedio (we have no fear), #nosquedamos (we are staying) or #spanishrevolution have been among the most popular in Spain. Twitter account acampadasol had more than 50,000 followers.

According to Jose Feliz Tezanos, sociologist at Madrid's UNED university, social networks provided young protesters with a new meeting place.

"There are eight of us updating social network accounts with our computers or smartphones," said Zulo, sporting a green T-shirt emblazoned with the words "social networks".

"Even if you cannot compare our situation to that of Arab countries, like them the role of social networks has been fundamental," he said.

"But all that is virtual. And we are asking those who support us on the Internet to come down into the streets with us."

The movement rallied 60,000 mostly young people across Spain at its peak on the eve of Sunday's local elections, protesting a jobless rate of more than 22 percent, political corruption and welfare cuts.

On April 7 thousands of young people had already protested in Madrid under the slogan "Youth without future." The unemployment rate among under-25s in the workforce in February was 44.6 percent.

In the latest protests that began March 15, thousands came into the streets in response to calls by Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) spread through social networks.

In Puerta del Sol, protest numbers had declined somewhat on Wednesday.

"Now the role of the social networks is to let us carry on getting our message out, so the movement can continue beyond the Puerta del Sol encampment," said a spokesman, Pablo Prieto.

"Communication is instantaneous and more direct than via the traditional media," he said.

A new Twitter account, takethesquare, has just been created to send the message of the "indignant" worldwide. On Wednesday it had 2,711 followers, and counting.

Yahoo says makes headway in Alibaba talks (Reuters)

Posted: 25 May 2011 04:56 PM PDT

By Alexei Oreskovic Alexei Oreskovic – Wed May 25, 7:56 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc said it has made significant progress in resolving a dispute over the online payments unit of Alibaba Group, a Chinese Internet search company whose founder took control of the prized business.

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse flew to Asia last week to thrash out the issue with Alibaba, which is 43 percent-owned by Yahoo. Another Alibaba investor, Japan's Softbank, also participated in the meeting.

The revelation this month that Yahoo's Chinese partner had abruptly handed Alipay -- one of Alibaba's crown jewels -- to a company controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma sent the U.S. company's shares tumbling 12 percent.

"There're a lot of moving parts but we're making progress," Chief Executive Carol Bartz told investors at an annual analysts' meeting on Wednesday. "We're not going to get into a public back and forth."

Investor attention has focused squarely on Yahoo's Asian assets. Yahoo also owns 35 percent of Yahoo Japan Corp.

Yahoo and Alibaba have sported a somewhat turbulent relationship. Observers say Yahoo has bristled at the way it has been sidelined on major decisions -- the surprise move to separate off Alipay being the latest example -- while Ma's company has been rebuffed by Yahoo in attempts to buy back some of the U.S. company's invested stake.

Some investors believe those assets could potentially be worth as much as Yahoo's entire current market value and are betting that an IPO by privately held Alibaba, or one of its subsidiaries, could boost Yahoo's valuation. In the past, investors have also called for Yahoo to sell off part of its investments and buy back its own shares.

Yahoo's stock rose as much as 5.3 percent, or 85 cents, on Wednesday but ended the regular trading session up a penny at $16.15.

ALL ALIPAY, ALL THE TIME

Yahoo executives spent the first 45 minutes of the company's annual analyst day event addressing the Alibaba situation before proceeding to planned presentations about the strategy for Yahoo's core, U.S.-based Internet business and its efforts to revive stalled revenue growth.

Bartz, who joined Yahoo as CEO in 2009, said the company had made progress in its efforts to revitalize the Internet pioneer.

"I know it's somewhat very popular to say Yahoo is not turning around. But we have 14,000 people and a management team that's working very, very hard to do just that," Bartz said. "I would insist that you give us some credit for turning this company around," she later added.

Still, executives conceded that problems with a partnership with Microsoft were crimping search advertising revenue and weighing on the company's long-term financial targets.

CFO Morse said Yahoo could achieve its targeted 7 percent to 10 percent revenue growth range in 2012 and 2013, even though he acknowledged that Yahoo was behind on its goal of hitting the target growth rate this year.

The revenue shortfall means that Yahoo is also not making as much progress as it expected toward its target of 27 percent to 33 percent adjusted operating margins by 2013, even though margins have expanded in recent years.

Yahoo is one of the most popular destinations on the Web and the No. 1 provider of online display ads in the United States, but the company is facing increasing competition from social networking service Facebook and continuing pressure from search leader Google Inc.

Morse also said the company was making progress with plans to "unlock value" from its stake in Japan, noting that Yahoo was exploring three scenarios: creating a tracking stock, spinning off its investment and an unspecified "other" option.

Executives described the process as complex, echoing separate negotiations under way with Alibaba.

Alibaba has said that the Alipay transfer was done to meet Chinese regulations regarding foreign ownership of online payment companies.

Yahoo executives repeatedly stressed that all parties in the negotiations agreed on basic principles, particularly to ensure that Alipay would continue to be a driving force behind auctions site Taobao -- Alibaba's key strategic asset -- and that the payments system would be among the first to win an operating license from the Chinese government.

Bartz also said all agreed that the Alibaba Group -- and hence Yahoo -- would receive adequate "compensation" for Alipay.

Feeling the pressure from complaints that Yahoo was too slow in announcing the asset transfer, Bartz said its disclosure was "timely and appropriate."

And she stressed, with a hint of exasperation in her voice, that Yahoo was genuinely trying to resolve the "problem" with its various Asian assets.

"I would like nothing more than for you to focus on Yahoo Inc...us... because that's what this management team is working so hard for," she told the analysts at the event.

"It's very hard to come to a meeting and 50 minutes of it is Asian assets and 10 minutes is Oh yeah, what's Yahoo doing."

(Additional reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn, Bernard Orr and Steve Orlofsky)

Japan's Ricoh to cut 10,000 jobs over three years (AFP)

Posted: 25 May 2011 09:24 PM PDT

– 18 mins ago

TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese office equipment and digital camera maker Ricoh said Thursday it plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide over three years to turn around sagging business operations.

Ricoh was hit hard by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the strong yen and has struggled to recover in the face of stiff competition.

The cuts from a global workforce of over 100,000, Ricoh's first major wave of job losses, will be made both at home and abroad by March 2014.

The company currently employs 40,000 people in Japan and 68,900 overseas.

Ricoh did not go into specifics on the planned job cuts but said it would shift 15,000 workers to areas with more growth potential, such as services for corporate clients.

The company also plans to revamp or withdraw from operations where it is making losses.

Ricoh said its market was still growing in emerging nations, but added that "purchases of printing devices and paper-printing volume are expected to decline in developed countries".

It attributed the rise of a "paperless trend" to the emergence of smartphones and tablet computers.

Ricoh saw its group net profit drop sharply in recent years -- from more than 100 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in the year to March 2008 to 6.5 billion yen a year later.

Net profit for the last business year stood at 19.6 billion yen, down 29.5 percent from the previous year.

Sales came to 1.94 trillion yen, missing a target of 2.3 trillion yen.

Ricoh said in its mid-term business plan announced Thursday it aims to achieve group sales of 2.4 trillion yen in fiscal 2013, which ends in March 2014, by expanding market share in emerging countries.

It also aims at an operating profit of 210 billion yen, more than three times higher than 60.1 billion yen in the last year.

The company plans to maintain capital spending at the current level, which would be 200 billion yen over the three years.

Ricoh's stock surged 7.2 percent in Tokyo to 911 yen on the news.

"Ricoh has a strong global presence, so their labour contracts are more lax than (those of) traditional Japanese firms, and it's therefore easier for them to cut staff as a way to trim costs," Tatsunori Kawai, chief strategist at kabu.com, told Dow Jones Newswires.

He said that a 10 percent cut "is huge for Ricoh and very bold".

SoundHound sings new tune on Android with “Hound” voice recognition app (Appolicious)

Posted: 25 May 2011 09:00 PM PDT

LinkedIn eyes business opportunities in China (Reuters)

Posted: 25 May 2011 09:25 PM PDT

– 17 mins ago

BEIJING (Reuters) – LinkedIn Corp will continue to seek out opportunities in the market to capitalize on its massive user base even though it sees the market as complicated, a company executive said on Thursday.

LinkedIn, a professional social-networking-site, was briefly blocked by China in February this year.

The firm has a small presence in the country and is one of the few foreign social-networking-sites to still have access to Chinese Internet users. Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China.

(Reporting by Xu Wan and Melanie Lee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Microsoft latest security risk: "Cookiejacking" (Reuters)

Posted: 25 May 2011 03:16 PM PDT

By Jim Finkle Jim Finkle – Wed May 25, 6:16 pm ET

BOSTON (Reuters) – A computer security researcher has found a flaw in Microsoft Corp's widely used Internet Explorer browser that he said could let hackers steal credentials to access FaceBook, Twitter and other websites.

He calls the technique "cookiejacking."

"Any website. Any cookie. Limit is just your imagination," said Rosario Valotta, an independent Internet security researcher based in Italy.

Hackers can exploit the flaw to access a data file stored inside the browser known as a "cookie," which holds the login name and password to a web account, Valotta said via email

Once a hacker has that cookie, he or she can use it to access the same site, said Valotta, who calls the technique "cookiejacking."

The vulnerability affects all versions of Internet Explorer, including IE 9, on every version of the Windows operating system.

To exploit the flaw, the hacker must persuade the victim to drag and drop an object across the PC's screen before the cookie can be hijacked.

That sounds like a difficult task, but Valotta said he was able to do it fairly easily. He built a puzzle that he put up on Facebook in which users are challenged to "undress" a photo of an attractive woman.

"I published this game online on FaceBook and in less than three days, more than 80 cookies were sent to my server," he said. "And I've only got 150 friends."

Microsoft said there is little risk a hacker could succeed in a real-world cookiejacking scam.

"Given the level of required user interaction, this issue is not one we consider high risk," said Microsoft spokesman Jerry Bryant.

"In order to possibly be impacted a user must visit a malicious website, be convinced to click and drag items around the page and the attacker would need to target a cookie from the website that the user was already logged into," Bryant said.

(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Surf’s up! Prepare to hit the beach with these free iPhone apps (Appolicious)

Posted: 25 May 2011 05:00 PM PDT

Mobile-pay market heats up (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 25 May 2011 03:30 PM PDT

– Wed May 25, 6:30 pm ET

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - News), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM - News) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC - News) will allow customers to transfer money from their checking accounts using only a mobile number or email address, without having to provide account and routing information. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG - News) is expected to announce a mobile-payment feature Thu. that allows users to wave their phones at a terminal. The bank stocks dipped, while Google edged up.

Rumor: Facebook and Spotify collaborating on music streaming service (Digital Trends)

Posted: 25 May 2011 06:42 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – Wed May 25, 9:42 pm ET

facebook spotifyFacebook and Spotify are two weeks away from launching a new music streaming service, according to a Forbes report.

"Sources close to the deal" have told Forbes that the service is now being tested. The report says that "when launched, Facebook users will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeed, along with the usual icons for photos and events." It continues: "Clicking on the Spotify icon will install the service on their desktop in the background," thereby opening up Spotify's huge library of songs, allowing users to listen to them through Facebook.

If the two companies do announce news of a partnership, the service can only be rolled out in the countries where Spotify already has deals with music companies – namely Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Spotify is, however, planning to launch in the US, possibly this year, though no date has yet been fixed. The launch depends on Spotify's ability to broker deals with the major music companies.

Possible names for the rumored Facebook/Spotify service range from "Facebook Music" to "Spotify on Facebook."

Interestingly, the Forbes article also quotes a Spotify spokesperson as saying, "We have a Facebook integration. We're continuously working with them to make that as good as it can be. But that's the extent of our relationship." The spokesperson is referring to Facebook Connect, which lets users see what music their Facebook friends are listening to.

The report also states that "no money is changing hands" in the deal, but of course, both companies will be winners in the event of a launch. Facebook would get a music service thereby giving users one less reason to plod off to other parts of the Internet in search of content, while Spotify would gain access to millions more users – which could then lead to more revenue through sign-ups to its premium service.

The bottom line is, no official announcement has been made yet by either company. Only last month there was talk of Google partnering with Spotify for its then unannounced music service. Though those two companies may have had talks, no deal has been brokered up to now.

MacBook Laptops Get High Marks from Consumer Reports (NewsFactor)

Posted: 25 May 2011 02:26 PM PDT

Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com – Wed May 25, 5:26 pm ET

Three Apple laptops won high marks from the tough critics at Consumer Reports in the magazine's June issue. The MacBook, MacBook Pro, and ultrathin MacBook Air scored high in portability, ergonomics and display as well as overall performance against comparable models by Sony, ASUS, Lenovo, Toshiba, Dell and Samsung.

Air Soars High

The MacBook Air 11-inch model, priced at $1,000, scored an overall rating of 62, beating comparable models from Gateway and Hewlett-Packard priced at $500 and $450. And in the 13-inch range, the top five models were MacBook Pros and a top-ranking MacBook Air, with a 76 rating.

The 11-inch MacBook Air, however, gave testers 5.25 hours of battery life while running applications, compared with seven hours for Gateway's model and 6.25 hours for the comparable HP Pavilion.

On the reliability scale, Apple scored in the midrange, with 17 percent of 43,000 Consumer Reports readers reporting repairs or serious problems. The best rating, 15 percent, was a tie between Acer and Toshiba, while the worst record, 21 percent, went to Dell.

In a blog post on ConsumerReports.org, Carol Mangis wrote that the numbers don't reflect the company's latest testing. "We have a new batch of laptop ratings coming very soon, though -- within the next few days ... Stay tuned."

A company spokesperson told us the laptop ratings are constantly being updated. In fact, late Wednesday, a Samsung model, 900X-3A, was added to the top of the 13-inch list on the magazine's website, with a 78 rating.

Maintaining Quality

Consumer Reports hasn't hesitated to bite Apple in the past. The magazine, run by the nonprofit Consumer's Union, doesn't recommend the iPhone 4 due to reception problems related to hand contact with its unique wraparound antenna.

The strong laptop ratings suggest the computer giant hasn't let quality slip on its signature products as it switched focus and branched out to personal media players, smartphones and tablets in recent years.

"Actually, where you are seeing the most innovation is on the tablets and phones," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group. "Look how much those devices have changed in 12 months, then look at how little their PCs, particularly desktops, have changed in 10 years."

Enderle said much of the advances in Mac performance have been driven by upgrades in chips made by its partner, Intel, which also partnered with Apple on the Thunderbolt input/output technology.

"They are wisely maintaining quality, but clearly aren't putting their greatest emphasis on the PC, and even the iPod is drafting the iPhone," said Enderle. "They are managing the PCs as a cash cow and doing it very well, but clearly they are no longer the major focus for the company."

Consumer Reports readers gave high marks to Apple for phone and online customer support, with AppleCare scoring 86, compared to 61 percent for Lenovo/IBM. Readers also said 80 percent of their tech-support issues were resolved, compared to 57 percent for IBM and Dell, MacWorld reported.

Hedge fund star calls for Microsoft CEO to go (Reuters)

Posted: 25 May 2011 05:57 PM PDT

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Bill Rigby Svea Herbst-bayliss And Bill Rigby – Wed May 25, 8:57 pm ET

NEW YORK/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn has called for Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to step down, saying the world's largest software company's leader is stuck in the past.

"His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft's stock," Einhorn said in reference to Ballmer.

The comments by outspoken Einhorn, who made his name warning about Lehman Brothers' financial health before the investment bank's collapse, are the most pointed yet from a high-profile investor against Microsoft's leadership.

Microsoft shares, which have been static for over a decade, gained 0.87 percent in after-hours trading after Einhorn's comments, the most of any Dow Jones industrial average component.

The software giant, which was the largest U.S. company by market value in the late 1990s, has since been overtaken by Apple Inc and IBM in market value, and is no longer seen as a dominating force in technology after a failure to capitalize on new Internet and mobile computing markets.

The stock is down 6 percent in the last two weeks alone after Microsoft agreed to pay $8.5 billion for Internet phone service Skype, a move which mystified many investors.

Speaking at the annual Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York on Wednesday, Einhorn said it was time for Ballmer -- who succeeded co-founder Bill Gates in 2000 -- to step aside and "give someone else a chance."

Einhorn's comments echo what some investors have said for some years in private.

A Microsoft spokesman declined comment on Einhorn's remarks.

RECENT BUYER

Einhorn's Greenlight Capital hedge fund has been a recent buyer of Microsoft stock, which at under 10 times expected earnings is regarded by many as undervalued.

Greenlight held about 9 million shares in Microsoft, or 0.11 percent of the company's outstanding shares, at the end of the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Einhorn also said it was time for Microsoft to consider strategic alternatives for its money-losing online business, which has so far failed to win share from online search leader Google Inc.

The online services unit, which runs the Bing search engine and MSN web portal, had a loss of $726 million last quarter and has now lost $7 billion in four years.

Bing has made some progress, raising its U.S. Internet search market share to 14 percent from 8 percent in the two years since launch, but has not taken any share from Google, which has held on to its 65 percent share, according to research firm comScore.

Einhorn declined to comment further.

OLD FOES APPLE, IBM REVIVED

On Tuesday, Microsoft was overtaken by IBM in market value for the first time in 15 years, chiefly because of Microsoft's static share price. Apple roared past it last year to become the world's most valuable tech company.

(Graphic showing market value of Apple, IBM and Microsoft over time: http://r.reuters.com/jaw69r )

An investor who put $100,000 into Microsoft stock 10 years ago would now have about $69,000 worth.

Einhorn, the president of Greenlight Capital, which had $7.8 billion of assets as of January 1, made his name with the prescient call on Lehman's accounting troubles.

In the spring of 2008, Einhorn said Lehman -- and its then-Chief Financial Officer Erin Callan -- had understated its own problems and needed to raise capital to support a balance sheet peppered with risky assets.

Einhorn's public speeches on the matter in April and May 2008 -- including one at the Ira Sohn conference that year -- touched a nerve with other investors and are widely credited as leading to Callan's departure from the company a few months before its collapse.

Microsoft shares, which gained 4 cents in normal trading, ended up a further 12 cents at $24.31 in after-hours activity.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby, Svea Herbst and Edwin Chan; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Lisa Shumaker and Carol Bishopric)

Google's new Finland data center is cooled by Baltic Sea's water (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 May 2011 10:03 PM PDT

Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes – Wed May 25, 1:03 am ET

google data center 2Google is once again showing off its big environmental conscience with video of the new Hamina, Finland data center, due to open up towards the end of the year. The new center, much like Google's Saint-Ghislain center, will not be using chillers in its cooling system. Instead, waters from the Baltic Sea will be harnessed to keep servers cool.

Google paid $52 million for the Summa paper mill that yielded the 410 acres of land where the new data center is being built. Stora Enso, the paper-making company that formerly owned the land, closed the paper mill down in 2008 because of the drop in newspaper and magazine-paper production.

According to the video, the center collects cool water through an inlet pipe and travels through granite tunnels built by the paper mill in the 1950s. The Register has found that the pipes are two meters in diameter and "the system uses 20-year-old water pumps installed by the mill." The tunnels and pipe are kept clear of blockage by using a small submarine to explore regularly.

The water travels through four straining systems and meets a water-to-water heat exchanger. The heat exchanger cools a separate stream that carries on to the data center. Google senior director of data center construction Joe Kava says that once the water’s purpose is met, “we return the temperature that is much more similar to the inlet temperature, so we minimize any environmental impact in that area.â€

The total costs for the structure comes to roughly $260 million, including the purchase price but the money Google saves from cooling costs will be significant. The Register also reports that the Finland data center will use wind power from the wind park next to the facility.
at 9:53 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

My Blog List