FTC's antitrust inquiry turns up heat on Google (AP) : Technet

FTC's antitrust inquiry turns up heat on Google (AP)
AP EXCLUSIVE: Power grid change may disrupt clocks (AP)
Brazen, publicity-seeking hackers on attack spree (AP)
TechLife on a $100,000 lava-proof razor, how to sneak Facebook at work, Obama’s tweets, and more (Yahoo! News)
Artist turns old motherboards into colorful works of art (Yahoo! News)
The Battle for Yahoo's Future (Mashable)
US regulators investigating Google over search (AFP)
Nokia Phone 7 'Leak' May Have Been Planned (NewsFactor)
New lawsuit hits Sony, says company ignored security warnings (Digital Trends)
Hands-on with Intel's line of Atom-based tablets, including the MeeGo WeTab (Digital Trends)
Has Renren suffered enough from China stocks phobia? (Reuters)
Wesco shareholders approve $545M sale to Berkshire (AP)
As Color fades into irrelevance, we look back at other inglorious tech busts (Appolicious)
Top techs eye Nortel patents (Investor's Business Daily)
Apple confirms: ICloud will get rid of iDisk, iWeb (Digital Trends)
Hands-on with Intel's Ultrabooks, a stopgap toward the next generation of laptop (Digital Trends)
Opera Co-Founder von Tetzchner to Leave Company (PC Magazine)
Nimble Offers Social Relationship Manager for Teams (NewsFactor)

FTC's antitrust inquiry turns up heat on Google (AP)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 05:13 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writers Michael Liedtke And Joelle Tessler, Ap Technology Writers – Fri Jun 24, 8:13 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Google may be entering a make-or-break phase in its colorful history now that U.S. regulators have opened an investigation into whether the company has been abusing its dominance of Internet search and advertising to stifle competition.

The probe by the Federal Trade Commission, confirmed by the company Friday, will require Google to convince regulators that its closely guarded recipe for search results is designed to give people the best recommendations, not bury links to its rivals.

If you search for a local business, for example, Google might highlight its own listing, from a service called Google Places, instead of one on Yelp, a popular review site and Google competitor.

Requests for directions may turn up Google Maps, and queries for a video might point to the company's own site, YouTube. Or if you type "mortgage" in Google's main search box, the top ad might be for Google Advisor, which lists the lowest interest rates.

The inquiry also is expected to peer into Google's financial engine: the advertising links tied to the subject of each search request. Some of these commercial messages appear, shaded in color, at the top of the results page, while others are stacked in the right-hand column.

Even as Google has expanded into video, mobile phones and television, the text advertising that pops up alongside search results and other Web content generates most of Google's revenue — an amount expected to exceed $35 billion this year.

Some websites contend Google has rigged its system in a way that drives up the ad prices, even though Google says the rate is determined by bids submitted in an auction. Others say Google purposely blocks their ads from appearing because the company views them as competitive threats. A coalition of Internet travel companies, including Expedia, Hotwire and Kayak, have welcomed the investigation.

The FTC is following the lead of European regulators who launched a similar investigation last November. The Texas attorney general has been looking into Google's business practices, too.

The search engines for Microsoft and Yahoo also sometimes feature their own services in search results. The big difference: Google processes about two-thirds of all search requests in the U.S. and handles an even larger volume of advertising. Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the market.

Danny Sullivan, who follows the industry closely as editor-in-chief of the trade journal Search Engine Land, said what Google is doing is not unlike a newspaper running an ad to promote one of its products.

"From what I have seen so far," he says, "Google doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong."

Melissa Maxman, an antitrust attorney in Washington, said the FTC wouldn't have opened its inquiry unless it thought the complaints were credible.

"There is smoke if not fire," she said.

The FTC's investigation threatens to put Google on the same course as nemesis Microsoft, which was the target of a Justice Department lawsuit that began in the 1990s and dragged into the next decade. That case alleged that Microsoft used its dominant Windows operating system to kill competing software makers.

"It's right out of the same playbook," Maxman said of the FTC's probe into Google.

Although Microsoft thwarted an attempt to break up the company, it was distracted for years, and the company has never been quite the same. The investigation may have made Microsoft more vulnerable to companies such as Google during the late 1990s as the Internet emerged as an important new platform on computers.

Now, Google faces some of the same threats as it tries to figure out how to counter the rising popularity of services such as Facebook.

In an extreme scenario, the FTC's inquiry could be the first step in a long process that ends with Google having to spin off YouTube and some of the other pieces of the empire it has built for 13 years. Although it doesn't have to, the FTC could hand its case off to the Justice Department, as it did in the Microsoft inquiry.

"Inevitably, if we get to the point where Google is found to have abused its power, we are going to be talking about divestiture because divestitures are always a better way to go than trying to regulate something like this," said Gary Reback, an antitrust lawyer in Silicon Valley who is representing some of the companies complaining about Google's practices.

Other antitrust attorneys think the investigation could result in less radical solutions, such as prohibiting Google from featuring its own services at the top of its search results. Google could also agree to periodic audits of how it programs its search engine, much as did earlier this year in a settlement of an FTC investigation into its privacy practices.

Google is expected to put up a fierce fight. The investigation is aimed at the heart of its business, its formula for ranking the quality of websites and ads, which has evolved since Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on it at Stanford University. The company views the recommendations that it produces as a matter of opinion protected by the First Amendment.

"It's still unclear exactly what the FTC's concerns are, but we're clear about where we stand," one of Google's top search engineers, Amit Singhal, wrote Friday on the company's blog. "Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow."

Google has been preparing for this battle since it was almost sued by the Justice Department over a proposed Internet search partnership two and a half years ago. The Justice Department drew up a complaint alleging Google had built a monopoly in Internet search, but never filed it because Google scuttled its agreement with Yahoo to avoid going to court.

Google has been under increasing government scrutiny since then. It has prevailed in the key confrontations and won regulatory approval for several key acquisitions, including its $3.2 billion purchase of online ad service DoubleClick in 2008, last year's $681 million purchase of mobile ad service AdMob and a $700 million purchase of airline fare tracker ITA Software in April.

To prove Google abused its dominance, regulators will have to get it to turn over sensitive documents that it has resisted sharing in the past. And Google probably won't be shy about fighting for the right to adjust its search formula to deliver more useful results to its audience.

The company says it needs to fine-tune search results to weed out the sites that try to game its system and win a high ranking even though they have little to do with whatever a person was searching for.

___

Tessler reported from Washington. AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

AP EXCLUSIVE: Power grid change may disrupt clocks (AP)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 05:18 PM PDT

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Fri Jun 24, 8:18 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A yearlong experiment with the nation's electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems and some computers — and make plug-in clocks and appliances like programmable coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast.

"A lot of people are going to have things break and they're not going to know why," said Demetrios Matsakis, head of the time service department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, one of two official timekeeping agencies in the federal government.

Since 1930, electric clocks have kept time based on the rate of the electrical current that powers them. If the current slips off its usual rate, clocks run a little fast or slow. Power companies now take steps to correct it and keep the frequency of the current — and the time — as precise as possible.

The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is proposing an experiment that would allow more frequency variation than it does now without corrections, according to a company presentation obtained by The Associated Press.

Officials say they want to try this to make the power supply more reliable, save money and reduce what may be needless efforts. The test is tentatively set to start in mid-July, but that could change.

Tweaking the power grid's frequency is expensive and takes a lot of effort, said Joe McClelland, head of electric reliability for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

"Is anyone using the grid to keep track of time?" McClelland said. "Let's see if anyone complains if we eliminate it."

No one is quite sure what will be affected. This won't change the clocks in cellphones, GPS or even on computers, and it won't have anything to do with official U.S. time or Internet time.

But wall clocks and those on ovens and coffeemakers — anything that flashes "12:00" when it loses power — may be just a bit off every second, and that error can grow with time.

It's not easy figuring what will run fast and what won't. For example, VCRs or DVRs that get their time from cable systems or the Internet probably won't be affected, but those with clocks tied to the electric current will be off a bit, Matsakis said.

This will be an interesting experiment to see how dependent our timekeeping is on the power grid, Matsakis said.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. runs the nation's interlocking web of transmission lines and power plants. A June 14 company presentation spelled out the potential effects of the change: East Coast clocks may run as much as 20 minutes fast over a year, but West Coast clocks are only likely to be off by 8 minutes. In Texas, it's only an expected speedup of 2 minutes.

Some parts of the grid, like in the East, tend to run faster than others. Errors add up. If the grid averages just over 60 cycles a second, clocks that rely on the grid will gain 14 seconds per day, according to the company's presentation.

Spokeswoman Kimberly Mielcarek said the company is still discussing the test and gauging reactions to its proposal, and may delay the experiment a bit.

Mielcarek said in an email that the change is about making the grid more reliable and that correcting the frequency for time deviations can cause other unnecessary problems for the grid. She wrote that any problems from the test are only possibilities.

In the future, more use of renewable energy from the sun and wind will mean more variations in frequency on the grid, McClelland said. Solar and wind power can drop off the grid with momentary changes in weather. Correcting those deviations is expensive and requires instant backup power to be always at the ready, he said.

The test makes sense and should not cause too much of a hassle for people, said Jay Apt, a business professor and director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University.

But Tom O'Brian, who heads the time and frequency division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, expects widespread effects.

He said there are alternatives if people have problems from the test: The federal government provides the official time by telephone and on the Internet.

Brazen, publicity-seeking hackers on attack spree (AP)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 05:16 PM PDT

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER and PETER SVENSSON, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter And Peter Svensson, Associated Press – Fri Jun 24, 8:16 pm ET

LONDON – Can you be famous if no one knows your name? A new band of hackers is giving it its best shot, trumpeting its cyber-capers in an all-sirens-flashing publicity campaign.

Lulz Security has stolen mountains of personal data in a dozen different hacks, embarrassing law enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic while boasting about the stunts online.

The group, whose name draws on Internetspeak for "laughs," has about 270,000 followers on the messaging site Twitter. In an online interview via Skype with The Associated Press late Friday, one LulzSec member said the group's current hacking campaign was about attacking "the common oppressors" — which he identified as "banks, governments (and) law enforcement."

"Not all of them of course, but they know who they are," he said.

The hacker refused to reveal any personal details beyond identifying himself as male, but he proved membership in LulzSec by posting a prearranged message to the group's popular Twitter account following the interview. The hacker agreed to the online interview in response to an email request sent by the AP to the group's website registrant.

The group may cause serious damage, but its online persona often veers into wackiness. LulzSec's Twitter mascot is a black-and-white cartoon dandy that looks like a cross between Mr. Peanut and The New Yorker magazine's monocle man. Its rambling messages are peppered with references to YouTube sensation Rebecca Black, the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game and tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theories.

One of LulzSec's victims says the group sets itself apart from the rest of the hacker underground with its posturing and bragging on Twitter.

"Most of the hacker groups that are pretty well known out there ... don't really like to flaunt their findings. They'll do it among their peers, but not typically the public," said Karim Hijazi, a security expert whose emails were ransacked by the hacking group last month.

LulzSec made its name by defacing the site of the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, with an article claiming that rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive. It has since claimed hacks on major entertainment companies, FBI partner organizations, a pornography website and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, whose documents were leaked to the Web late Thursday.

In the interview, the hacker promised more embarrassing leaks, saying LulzSec was already sitting on at least 5 gigabytes of government and law enforcement data from across the world, which it planned to release in the next three weeks. The claim couldn't be independently verified. In the past, the group has targeted U.S. and British government sites.

Many past attacks have yielded sensitive information including usernames and passwords — nearly 38,000 of them, in the case of Sony Pictures. Others appear to have been just for kicks. In a stunt last week, LulzSec directed hundreds of telephone calls to the customer service line of Magnets.com, a New Jersey-based manufacturer of custom refrigerator magnets.

LulzSec uses a similar technique to temporarily bring down websites, flooding them with bogus Internet traffic. This is an old hacker standby that doesn't require much sophistication. Members also break in to sites to steal data. That requires more skill and often involves duping employees into revealing passwords.

LulzSec's actions against government and corporate websites are reminiscent of those taken by the much larger, more amorphous group known as Anonymous. That group has launched Internet campaigns against the music industry, the Church of Scientology, and Middle Eastern dictatorships, among others.

An Anonymous member told the AP that he believed LulzSec was formed by people from the group who got tired of the time it took to reach consensus and launch hacking projects.

"They wanted to go on more adventurous, brazen hacking adventures and really get their names out there," he said. He spoke on condition that his name is withheld given the pressure being put on Anonymous members by law enforcement.

In the interview, the LulzSec hacker acknowledged that members of his group had participated in Anonymous operations in the past, such as attacks on Tunisian government websites during the country's revolution earlier this year. He said that there were six members of LulzSec altogether, working eight-to-10 hours a day, but declined to go into detail when pressed.

"We'd prefer not to be waterboarded, so for the foreseeable future we'll try our best to remain as anonymous as possible," he joked.

Authorities — and rival hackers — are trying hard to strip that anonymity away, although the hacker claimed not to be worried. On Tuesday, 19-year-old Ryan Cleary was arrested as part of a joint FBI-Scotland Yard investigation into hackings linked to both LulzSec and Anonymous. British Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson described Cleary's arrest as "very significant," but the hacker insisted he wasn't a member of the group.

"He hosted an IRC (a kind of chat room) we used, yes. But it wasn't our official meeting place, it was just a place for fans to gather," the hacker said.

The hacker declined to be drawn on the content of the material he said his group was planning to release, except to say that it was all related to "governments and law enforcement."

He added that, behind the scenes, the group's hacking attacks were ongoing.

"Every day our stash increases," he said.

___

Peter Svensson contributed from New York.

TechLife on a $100,000 lava-proof razor, how to sneak Facebook at work, Obama’s tweets, and more (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 07:25 PM PDT

By Mike Wehner, Tecca mike Wehner, Tecca – 1 hr 46 mins ago

Welcome everybody to TechLife on Tecca TV, where we give you the top 5 technology-meets-lifestyle news stories in only 5 minutes. We hope to bring a little Friday Fun to you every week! If you missed last week's edition, be sure to check it out!

This week, Techlife discusses a $100,000 lava-proof shaving razor, an app specially designed to hide Facebook from your boss, a massive "10,000 year" clock built into a Texas mountainside that will outlive us all, an old-school phone booth equipped with Skype and an iPad, and President Obama's decision to tweet in his own words.

Show Notes:

Would you buy the world's priciest razor? Made of rare metals, this insane shaving device could live through a dip in lava.
Excellbook makes Facebook look like a spreadsheet: This program is designed to let you hide your social media addiction from your boss at work.
Clock to tick for 10,000 years: This clock built into a Texas mountainside will outlive us all...and it's got a cuckoo that chimes every millenium!
The most modern old phone booth ever: A professor had the idea to bring a classic red phone booth up to speed in the era of the iPad.
Obama to tweet for real: The president will begin issuing some of his very own tweets, signing them "BO".

The Battle for Yahoo

"The hard-won progress that we have made is why this board is very supportive of Carol and the management team," Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock stated at Thursday's investor meeting. "I want to make it very clear about that support. We are confident that Yahoo is headed in the right direction."

It's no surprise that Bostock came out strongly in favor of his company's CEO, especially given the rumors that Yahoo is quietly looking at replacements. He really can't say anything else if he wants to keep the confidence of Yahoo's employees, executives and shareholders intact.

Two factions are beginning to form at Yahoo though, despite Bostock and Bartz's upbeat tone at Thursday's investor meeting. One side advocates staying the course (or at least not changing captains in the middle of a voyage). The other demands an immediate change at the top so that new ideas can be infused into the momentum-less company.

Let's be clear: unless Yahoo suddenly collapses, Bartz's job is safe. She's approaching the fourth year of a four-year contract, giving Yahoo's board the opportune time to either retain the often-bombastic CEO or give her the boot. Multiple reports confirm that Bartz is probably safe for now.

Yet as long as Bartz is in charge, there will be two camps battling for the future of Yahoo: the group that wants to give Bartz a chance, and the faction that wants change now. This internal battle will only create more friction and distractions for the company, unless Bartz can find a dramatic way to silence the growing chorus of critics.

Neither side seems to have an answer to a more fundamental question, though: how Yahoo becomes "the world's premier digital media company," the company's recently stated goal? Bartz had better find an answer to that question soon, before Yahoo's shareholders start looking to someone else for the answer.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

US regulators investigating Google over search (AFP)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 06:48 PM PDT

by Chris Lefkow Chris Lefkow – 2 hrs 43 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US regulators have launched a probe into Google's lucrative search and advertising business in a move that could pose the most serious legal challenge yet to the Internet giant.

Google confirmed the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) inquiry in a blog post and a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and expressed confidence it could withstand the scrutiny.

"Yesterday, we received formal notification from the US Federal Trade Commission that it has begun a review of our business," the Google blog post said.

The Mountain View, California-based company, which controls around 65 percent of the US Internet search market and earns billions from search-related advertising, said it was "still unclear exactly what the FTC's concerns are."

But in the SEC filing, Google said it had received a subpoena from the FTC "relating to a review by the FTC of Google's business practices, including search and advertising."

"Google is cooperating with the FTC on this investigation," it said.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the FTC is looking into whether Google is abusing its dominance on the Web and if it "unfairly channels users to its own growing network of services at the expense of rivals."

As it has grown from a scrappy startup into an Internet titan, Google has branched out into various businesses including online mapping, shopping and travel and providing operating systems for mobile phones and tablet computers.

But Google makes most of its money from search-related advertising and that is why an FTC investigation targeting its core business is seen by analysts as a potentially serious risk to the company.

Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle compared it to the anti-trust troubles of Microsoft in the 1990s over its dominance of the personal computer industry.

"They're on that non-enviable Microsoft path to being regulated," Enderle said of Google.

"They're the kingmakers," he said. "If you play well on Google search then you're going to get the advertising revenue and if you don't then you won't.

"And that kind of control makes anybody very nervous," he said.

According to digital marketing firm eMarketer, Google's share of US search advertising revenue will grow 38.9 percent this year to $10.92 billion, giving Google a 75.9 percent share of overall US search revenue.

In the blog post, Google's Amit Singhal said the company is "focused on putting the user first" and stressed that "the competition is only one click away."

"Using Google is a choice -- and there are lots of other choices available to you for getting information," Singhal said.

He said Google's business principles will "stand up to scrutiny" and that the company was more transparent than other search engines about the algorithms that determine a Web page's ranking in search results.

"We make hundreds of changes to our algorithms every year to improve your search experience," Singhal said. "Not every website can come out at the top of the page, or even appear on the first page of our search results."

Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said the CCIA supports the FTC probe but has "not yet seen the type of credible evidence that would support a charge of abuse of market power" by Google.

Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro called for a quick FTC inquiry and said "the fact that any given company is big or successful does not inherently make it bad."

"We urge the FTC to conduct its investigation narrowly and swiftly, and let Google get back to the critical business of innovation and job creation," he said.

Google has drawn increasing scrutiny from US and European regulators as it has grown over the years into an Internet powerhouse.

European Union competition watchdogs opened an investigation in November into whether Google is abusing its power in online search and the US state of Texas is conducting a similar probe.

Two US senators this month announced plans to hold a hearing on competition issues in Internet search and are seeking to have Google chief executive Larry Page or executive chairman Eric Schmidt come to Washington to testify.

In April, the US Justice Department approved Google's entry into the online travel sector with its $700 million purchase of flight data firm ITA Software but it insisted on a number of concessions.

In late March, the FTC reached a settlement with Google over Google Buzz, the social networking tool rolled out last year which spawned a slew of privacy complaints.

In 2008, Google abandoned a plan to forge a joint search advertising partnership with Yahoo!, citing a desire to avert a "protracted legal battle" with US regulators.

Google shares closed at $474.88 on Wall Street, down 1.11 percent.

Nokia Phone 7 'Leak' May Have Been Planned (NewsFactor)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 01:55 PM PDT

Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com – Fri Jun 24, 4:55 pm ET

Nokia and Microsoft's first collaboration generated a substantial amount of buzz this week after a video of the smartphone appeared on a Hungarian web site -- the kind of buzz Windows Phone 7 will need to gain traction in the smartphone market. The device, code-named Sea Ray, was unveiled at a Nokia Connections event in Singapore by CEO Stephen Elop and Jukka Kiiskinen, a Nokia sales manager.

"This is something that is super-confidential and we don't want to see it out on the blogosphere," Elop said.

Really?

Someone in the audience had other ideas.

A crystal-clear video with clear sound from what seems to be a fixed high-quality camera found its way onto Technet.hu, and then quickly made its way to tech sites around the world.

Struggling to catch up to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android-powered devices, Nokia and Microsoft, who recently announced a major collaboration, can use all the publicity they can get to create a bigger market for the Windows Phone 7 devices they will release this fall, observers say.

"One thing Apple fans do for Apple and Android fans do [for Google] is create publicity," said Strategy Analytics wireless analyst Alex Spektor. "It would serve Microsoft well and serve Nokia well to build similar buzz since those are the ecosystems they are trying to fight in that space."

Photos of, and details about, Apple and Android products are routinely leaked to tech blogs. The most famous recent example is the iPhone 4 prototype that ended up on Engadget and Gizmodo last year, months ahead of release. The companies involved routinely decline to comment on "rumors," but in this case there is no disputing the leak since Elop is seen holding the phone in the video.

While Nokia may not have deliberately leaked the video, it clearly didn't make a serious effort to keep the device under wraps, Spektor said.

"They're all intelligent people," he said. "They know that anything you share with the general public, whether its developers or any group, unless they are under a direct [nondisclosure agreement], it is liable to leak out. So they did this either knowing the risk or wanting to build some buzz."

The Sea Ray demonstrated by Kiiskinen is almost identical to the MeeGo-powered Nokia N9 smartphone launched earlier in the week, with a slim form and pillow-shaped back, except for three mechanical Windows Phone buttons on the bottom of the 3.9-inch screen and a side button that apparently will control the eight-megapixel camera. Much of the demonstration was of features already seen in the release of the MeeGo operating system update last month.

Other specs of the phone, such as the processor speed, weren't disclosed, nor were details on price, release date, or carrier partners.

Carrying Innovation

"They are trying to show that the innovation that Nokia is bringing with the [MeeGo] form factor will carry over into the Windows space," Spektor said.

MobileTrax analyst Gerry Purdy also wonders if the video on the Hungarian site is really an unplanned leak.

"They need all the help they can get," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they leaked it. Their focus is on the European market, to begin with. This gets them publicity about the fact that Nokia Phone 7 is now becoming real."

The challenge for Microsoft and Nokia is to show that their collaboration is a good marriage, Purdy added. "Nokia knows how to make good phones better than anyone, and Microsoft is good at software. They have to leverage that into a product people will want to use. The market adoption looks promising. We'll have to see how it goes."

New lawsuit hits Sony, says company ignored security warnings (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 08:29 PM PDT

Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes – 42 mins ago

Sony just can't catch a break. The company is being hit with another class action lawsuit over the Playstation Network breach in April.

The three men suing Sony say that the network problems centered around laid-off security employees. According to the documents, Sony knew that its security systems were ill-prepared for cyber attacks and this negligence led to the theft of customers' personal information as well as the month-long PSN blackout.

This new lawsuit was filed earlier this week in the San Diego US District Court and was brought forth by Jimmy Cortorreal, Felix Cortorreal and Jacques Daoud Jr. on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated v. Sony Corporation Inc. et al, No. 11-1369.

The suit, unearthed first by Reuters earlier today, says that Sony Online Entertainment laid off a substantial portion of the workforce just two weeks before the great PSN blackout. This included a bunch of employees in the Network Operations Center who are the ones responsible for resolving security breaches and keeping the security technology sharpened.

The three men also cite confidential witnesses who say that the customer data protection was inadequate. According to the documents, Sony was told repeatedly about security flaws and small-scale attacks before the big breach but the company chose to ignore these warnings.

The lawsuit casts Sony in quite a harsh light by saying, "Sony took numerous precautions and spent lavishly to secure its proprietary development server containing its own sensitive information … but recklessly declined to provide adequate protections for its Customers' Personal Information."

The lawsuit claims that after all these problems, there was little surprise when the security breach happened. The men are asking to be reimbursed for their consoles, network fees and more. The free downloads and apology don't seem to be enough.

Hands-on with Intel's line of Atom-based tablets, including the MeeGo WeTab (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 05:18 PM PDT

Jeffrey Van Camp Jeffrey Van Camp – Fri Jun 24, 8:18 pm ET

The cellphone revolution of the last 10 years has been amazing and the influx of smartphones and tablets that now crowd our shelves are challenging the ways we compute. Unfortunately for Intel, all of these new devices are powered by ARM processors, not Intel chips. Sure, Intel is still dominating when it comes to PCs, but PCs aren't the growing market anymore. At Computex in May, Intel debuted 10 new tablets, all running on its Atom chip architecture. Some of these tablets were on display in at the CE Week Line Show in New York yesterday, where I took a gander at Intel's best stab at tablets. The most notable manufacturers in the bunch are Fujitsu and Viewsonic, followed by Motion with its CL900, which was a bit thicker than I remembered, though its built for the outdoors. Sadly, I don't think having Intel Inside will save many of these tablets.

I am fairly convinced that none of the 10 tablets shown will make a big splash in North America. Perhaps elsewhere, but not here. If Intel's goal was to show off the range of devices that can run on its chips, then mission accomplished. Devices ranged in size from tiny 7-inch models to the monstrous 11.6-inch WeTab. Operating systems also varied. Android, Windows 7, and MeeGo tablets were shown. One of them can even dual-boot Android and Windows, if that's the kind of thing you think you might be into.

The MeeGo WeTab is particularly interesting. MeeGo can take many shapes, but this one is different from any other operating system I've seen. Like Windows Phone, it has a square grid of tiles that you can scroll through. These aren't Live Tiles that animate and show relevant information; they're just static square shortcuts, but there are a lot of them. The tablet is designed for two-handed use. You can scroll through the icons by sliding your right thumb down the right sidebar, which has a miniature version of the homepage on it. Other buttons for the Internet, Keyboard, Manual, and other options are also on the sidebar.

Once you enter an application, its custom controls appear on the left side of the screen. It's a very neat idea, but the overall execution is lacking. The screen was unresponsive and the experience felt almost too flat. Everything I would ever want to do was on the screen. It was a strange feeling. There's no such thing as digging through this computer. Everything is on the surface. Or that's how it appears at first use, at least. The Intel representative goes through some of the MeTab use model in the video below.

More and more manufacturers keep trying to add a keyboard to the tablet and the example to the right is the latest attempt at this. Both the screen and tablet come snapped together as one piece. To start typing, you must unsnap it from its keyboard, find a hard surface for it to sit on, and twist its left side which turns into a kickstand. Unfortunately, the keyboard is too large and the setup is far too awkward. The point of having a tablet (or a laptop, for that matter) is that you can just use it on your lap or hold it. All these snaps and hinges defeat the purpose. Acer and Asus have had similar issues with their transforming tablets.

It appears that Intel's chips are finally capable of saving enough energy (most devices got around 7 hours) that they are functional in tablet-like devices. What it needs to do now is get major manufacturers to sign onboard, like it did with the Ultrabooks. Intel can have a thousand mobile-capable processors, but if nobody is buying them, well, what does it matter?

Below is a quick video rundown of Intel's tablet selection at the CE Line Show in New York.

Has Renren suffered enough from China stocks phobia? (Reuters)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 05:22 PM PDT

By Clare Baldwin Clare Baldwin – Fri Jun 24, 8:22 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Renren Inc was hyped as the "Facebook" of China, a company that had access to the world's largest Internet market, and a good way to ride the buzz surrounding social media IPOs -- but investors who believed the story are nursing big wounds.

In the two months since its IPO, Renren's stock has lost more than half of its value. The company and its owners sold shares at $14 apiece in early May but since then the stock has sunk to close at just $6.23 on Friday.

Whether the IPO price was too high, or investors are now being unduly cautious, remains an open question. Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. have plunged amid growing concerns about alleged accounting fraud and whether the companies' claims about their businesses stand up to scrutiny.

Renren has been mostly free of that taint, but it still faces concerns about competition, censorship and a sudden resignation by a key board member before the IPO.

"It's being caught up in the Chinese stuff. If you look at all of the recent Chinese IPOs they've all traded pretty badly in the past few weeks," said Nick Einhorn, a research analyst at Renaissance Capital, an IPO research and investment house in Connecticut.

"There are a lot of investors and portfolio managers that are reducing their exposure to Chinese stocks, especially relatively unproven ones, like IPO companies."

Renren did not respond to requests for comment.

The questionable accounting showing up in some companies could be a sign of a broader slowdown in China, prominent Asia-based investor Marc Faber told Reuters Insider on Friday.

"One of the most reliable indicators you are in a bubble stage is the emergence of fraud on a massive scale and that we had in Chinese companies very clearly," said Faber, who is also editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.

One pre-IPO investor in Renren has indicated it thinks the sharp decline in the stock price is due to investor concerns about China and has nothing to do with Renren specifically, or the e-commerce sector, said a person who had been briefed on the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity.

Certainly, the previous world in which investors bought Chinese stocks to chase turbocharged growth has been largely replaced by a perception that everything from China needs to be treated with some suspicion. Any sense of balance has been lost -- the baby is going out with the dirty bath water, bankers say.

"There is no question in my mind that there is growth in China," Rodman & Renshaw head of investment banking John Borer said at a conference in Los Angeles last week, but added: "Today, tactically, the market of investors, have capitulated. They've thrown in the towel."

Rodman & Renshaw has historically worked on smaller transactions.

Renren is not the only Chinese stock that has fallen sharply since its IPO. Other recent IPO companies that have struggled include NetQin Mobile Inc, Trunkbow International Holdings Ltd and E-Commerce China Dangdang.

CLIENTS NOT LOST

Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse took lead roles in bringing Renren public. When the IPO finally priced, it did so at the top of a range that had been increased by 30 percent, and traded up as much as 57 percent during its first day. Since then, it has been almost all downhill.

Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley declined comment. Credit Suisse was not immediately available for comment.

Even though some bank clients lost money on Renren, it is unlikely that they will stop doing business with the banks who sold them the deal, former equity capital markets banker Bruce Foerster said.

"If you've got a hot deal, you don't have to call them. They'll call you," he said.

Indeed, there is not much in the way of angry phone calls coming in to the banks that worked on the IPO, sources familiar with the situation said.

That may be partly because many probably sold the stock at a hefty profit when it soared on the first day -- leaving the mainly retail investors who are thought to have picked it up to lose their shirts.

Who got Renren shares in the IPO is not public information. A partial list of major investors will become public on July 1.

"Investors, U.S. investors especially, tend to underestimate the risk in Chinese IPOs because they believe it's the next Baidu Inc -- and that's just not the case," said Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based IPO research and investment house IPOX Schuster.

Chinese web search engine Baidu came public on the Nasdaq in 2005 and rose 354 percent on its first day of trading. Its shares remain more than 300 percent above their IPO price.

When people think of Chinese stocks, it's that iconic deal that many reference.

BOTTOMING OUT

In Renren's case there is a long list of issues in regulatory filings that could catch investors' attention -- questions about its internal financial controls and the tight control and censorship of the Chinese government, for example.

And while Renren has not been accused of any accounting shenanigans, it probably isn't helping that the chief of its audit committee, resigned just before the IPO. The official, Derek Palaschuk, was also chief financial officer of Longtop Financial Technologies -- a Chinese IPO company that was hit by the resignation of its auditor and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe amid allegations of fraud.

Even so, some investors are buying into Renren now, hoping the discounting of Renren's stock has been overdone.

"All of my friends say that I am crazy because it is probably just another Chinese fraud," declared Adrian Sciberras, a Malta-based accountant and trader who said he bought about $10,000 worth of stock when it hit $7.50.

"You have to have the guts to buy and close your eyes, then in a few months time it's fine," he said. Sciberras says he believes that the company has good growth potential and a lot of cash.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin, editing by Martin Howell)

Wesco shareholders approve $545M sale to Berkshire (AP)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 05:15 PM PDT

By JOSH FUNK, AP Business Writer Josh Funk, Ap Business Writer – Fri Jun 24, 8:15 pm ET

OMAHA, Neb. – Shareholders in Wesco Financial, a conglomerate that Warren Buffett and his sidekick Charlie Munger first took control of in 1973, voted Friday to sell the remaining 20 percent of the company's stock to Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Berkshire will buy the more than 1.4 million shares it doesn't already own for $385 per share, or $545.4 million.

A special Wesco shareholder meeting was held Friday near the company's Pasadena, Calif., headquarters. About 64 percent of the shares not held by Berkshire and about 93 percent of the shares overall supported the deal. Wesco's board recommended the deal to shareholders in February.

Wesco shareholders will get a combination of cash and Class B shares of Berkshire stock as part of the deal.

Wesco is a conglomerate owning insurance businesses and an eclectic mix of operating companies, similar to Berkshire but smaller and less diverse. Berkshire announced its intent to buy the outstanding Wesco shares last September, but the deal wasn't formally announced until February.

Munger and Buffett took control of Wesco in 1973 through one of their other investments, the Blue Chip Stamp Co., which later became part of Berkshire.

Wesco is led by Munger, Berkshire's vice chairman, but the company has been run as a Berkshire subsidiary since 1983. Munger has consulted with Buffett on Wesco investment decisions and major capital allocations, much like Buffett, as Berkshire's chairman and CEO, consults with Munger about Berkshire decisions.

The deal will likely save Berkshire money because it will eliminate the need for a separate Wesco annual meeting and separate reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The roughly 1,000 people who had been attending Wesco's annual meetings regularly in recent years will be disappointed those meetings will end, but Munger plans to hold one more meeting on July 1.

The meeting won't be a Wesco annual meeting, but Munger will spend several hours answering investor questions. The Wesco events have traditionally been one of the few occasions when investors could hear from Munger alone.

Munger and Buffett spend the better part of a Saturday answering questions together at Berkshire's annual meetings each spring in Omaha, before more than 30,000.

Wesco has a reinsurance division and it owns Kansas Bankers Surety Co., which offers specialized insurance to banks; CORT Business Services, which rents furniture to companies; and Precision Steel, which buys scrap metal, cuts it to order and resells it. Wesco itself had just 13 employees at the end of 2009.

Wesco is one of Berkshire's more than 80 subsidiaries. Berkshire owns clothing, insurance, furniture, utility, jewelry and corporate jet companies. The Omaha-based Berkshire also has big investments in companies including Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.

___

Online:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com

Wesco Financial: http://www.wescofinancial.com

As Color fades into irrelevance, we look back at other inglorious tech busts (Appolicious)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 01:40 PM PDT

Top techs eye Nortel patents (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 03:35 PM PDT

– Fri Jun 24, 6:35 pm ET

Valuable broadband and networking patents owned by bankrupt Nortel Networks go up for sale this week, with Google (NASDAQ:GOOG - News), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL - News) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC - News) heading the list of would-be buyers. The portfolio could fetch up to $1.5 bil, analysts said. Nortel is selling 6,000 patents and patent applications that cover wireless, voice, Internet and other technologies.

Apple confirms: ICloud will get rid of iDisk, iWeb (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 12:56 PM PDT

Molly McHugh Molly Mchugh – Fri Jun 24, 3:56 pm ET

Apple recently introduced iCloud, it's cloud-based storage and computing solution that would host it's new music service as well as MobileMe successor. While MobileMe can hardly be considered a success, its termination will be something of a complication for current users who will have to endure the transition process. Adding to this is the fact that iWeb, its website hosting application, and iDisk, its mass storage solution, may be wiped out along with MobileMe.

Now Apple is finally confirming what exactly iCloud will be replacing. MobileMe's Gallery feature as well as iWeb and iDisk will all be eliminated, but if it's any consolation their services will be available until June 30, 2012 whether or not you transition to iCloud. It's a small convenience, but it does mean you can get your iCloud switch going without worrying about losing any of your current iWeb, iDisk, or Gallery content.

Apple is clearly trying to make the transition as smooth as possible, detailing how to pull your photos off of MobileMe's gallery, how to download and save iDisk documents, and move your iWeb hosted material to another client. As for other confirmed details, Apple continues to say iCloud services will be available this fall (it hasn't gotten more specific than that yet) and that if users should need more storage than the standard 5 GB provided, there will be an option to purchase more.

The concern over whether or not iWeb would be available first arose earlier this month when a subscriber allegedly sent Apple CEO Steve Jobs an email asking about its future availability. The reply was a classic, Jobs-esque "No – Sent from my iPhone," and whether or not it was actually from Jobs himself, it turns out it's true. There's likely to be some frustration from current users, but MobileMe's general unpopularity and the iCloud hype will likely overshadow any criticism Apple gets.

Hands-on with Intel's Ultrabooks, a stopgap toward the next generation of laptop (Digital Trends)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 04:15 PM PDT

Jeffrey Van Camp Jeffrey Van Camp – Fri Jun 24, 7:15 pm ET

During CE Week here in New York, I had the opportunity to check out the first examples of what Intel has creatively named "Ultrabooks." Though they seem to be entirely inspired by the sleek design of Apple's MacBook Air, the three units from LG, Lenovo, and Samsung attempt to bridge the gap between the power and usability of traditional laptops and the mobility and new capabilities of tablets.

So what makes an Ultrabook so ultra? It's all inside. All of the Ultrabooks have small Solid State Drives (SSD) that, like your tablet, smartphone, or Chromebook, enable them to hibernate/sleep and resume within seconds. To accomplish this, the Ultrabooks quickly save all of your open applications and windows into the lightning-fast internal SSD drive as Windows falls asleep. This actually enables the laptop to achieve as much as a 30 day battery life while asleep, much better than the 1-10 days modern laptops get. Intel calls this "Rapid Start" and it's paired with another new technology called "Smart Connect," which attempts to mimic smartphone and tablet sleep states by periodically waking your computer from sleep for a few seconds, retrieving email or updates, and then falling back asleep. This way, when you come back to your computer in the morning, it will supposedly be all up to date. Don't expect your laptop to blink like your phone or tablet when you get a new email though. While those devices get pushed mail, Intel's solution of waking up from hibernation to demand updates is cool, but also somewhat limited.

All of the current Ultrabooks also feature thin frames (20mm thick), 11-13-inch displays, Intel's Core processors, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt connectivity. They also all achieve at least 7 hours of battery life and should run under $1,000.

Though one might think that the Ultrabook is Intel's attempt to stave off the tablet invasion, which has been eating into sales, looking at and playing around with the devices I noticed less of a tablet influence than an Apple MacBook and netbook influence. All of these laptops attempt to mimic Apple's slick designs, right down to the brushed metal, lack of ports (or hidden ports in Samsung's case), island-style keyboard, thin frame, and lightweight construction. The one feature I've always wanted in a PC laptop is also finally available. Like a MacBook Pro, you can actually lift an Ultrabook screen up with just one hand. That's right, you don't have to pry these laptops open…well except the Lenovo, but hey, it's a start. These are the kind of small details that consumers look for, so it's nice that the laptop market is finally catching up a bit.

From my first impression, Ultrabooks are little more than a band aid to stop the bleeding of the home computer market. These are honestly the kind of laptops we should have had years ago. It took a plunge in sales and an iPad to get us here, sadly. However, we're only half way there. It's becoming quite apparent that the laptop needs easier connectivity options, a touchscreen, and that Windows 7 just wasn't made for a post-PC world. Windows 8 can't come fast enough. Having said that, if I had an LG or Samsung Ultrabook, I probably wouldn't complain.

Below is a quick video explanation of some of the new features of the Ultrabook.

Opera Co-Founder von Tetzchner to Leave Company (PC Magazine)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 10:46 AM PDT

Mark Hachman - PC Magazine Mark Hachman - Pc Magazine – Fri Jun 24, 1:46 pm ET

Opera co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner is leaving Opera Software in June, the browser company said Friday.

"It has become clear that The Board, Management and I do not share the same values and we do not have the same opinions on how to keep evolving Opera," von Tetzchner said in a memo to employees, as obtained by TechCrunch.

Opera representatives declined to comment.

Von Tetzchner co-founded Opera Software in 1995 with Geir Ivarsøy, and led the company up to 2010, when he stepped down as chief eexecutive to become a strategic adviser. His last day will be June 30.

Opera said that von Tetzchner "has ideas about new projects, but is not ready to reveal any of his ideas as of right now".

Opera has traditionally trailed behind the other browser makers; the most recent estimates from Net Applications put the combined market share of Opera and Opera Mini at 3.3 percent, well behind the various flavors of Internet Explorer (54.3 percent), Mozilla Firefox (21.7 percent), Google's Chrome (12.5 percent) and Apple's Safari (7.28 percent).

"We have had a lot of fun during these years, and to say that Jon has created a great company is an understatement", said Lars Boilesen, chief executive of Opera, in a statement. "He has taught me and everyone working here a lot. He believed in, and pushed out innovation after innovation that we see our competitors constantly struggling with copying, making Opera a first mover in the technological development of web browsers as we know them today. We are very proud of Jon, and of course of the company. We are aiming at 500 million users by 2013, and we have a very positive flow right now.

In his own statement published by the company, von Tetzchner said he was proud of what he accomplished.

"It is of course a choice that brings up a lot of emotions," von Tetzchner said. "When we first started out, we were a few guys in a really small office - now we are spread all over the world, have over 740 employees and over 200 million users. I am very proud of what we have accomplished, and look forward to following the company closely also in the future."

Nimble Offers Social Relationship Manager for Teams (NewsFactor)

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 11:05 AM PDT

Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com Jennifer Leclaire, newsfactor.com – Fri Jun 24, 2:05 pm ET

Nimble, a company that leverages traditional CRM and social media with its web-based social CRM platform, is trying to live up to its name with its latest CRM software launch. Nimble just rolled out the team version of its Social Relationship Manager.

As its name suggests, the software offers new functions focused on teams, including team collaboration and sales and marketing. New features aim to allow entire groups, departments and companies to listen and engage, collaborate, work more effectively, and grow the company. Those are big promises from a small software company, but Nimble's chief is confident that the old way of doing business is broken.

"Companies today cannot succeed if they behave like a castle, blocking out their customers and erecting walls between employees. The new business model is about customer-driven relationships, and small-business owners know this," said Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble. "The collaborative functionality provides small businesses with the tools to participate in transparent, customer-centric dialogs that channel social conversations into the company, allowing all employees to engage in relationships that lead to business growth."

Many Networks, One View

Practically speaking, Nimble links contacts, calendars and communication to social listening and engagement. More specifically, Nimble unifies Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, Outlook contacts, calendars and social conversations into a single web application. The idea is to eliminate the need for employees to manage relationships in six different browser tabs and three desktop apps.

These capabilities have been available for individuals in a company, but the team version of Social Relationship Manager takes the capabilities companywide. Nimble hopes to empower groups, departments and even entire companies to practice what it calls "social business."

In the social-business paradigm, as Nimble sees it, every team member can build and nurture trusting relationships, see what is pending, who is doing it, what has been done, who has done it, and all the conversations that occurred around it. Team members can also schedule, delegate and comment on activities.

"We are creating a social-business platform for our community to live in, build upon, and grow their business. We want to be the WordPress of social business by delivering the key needs of our core users without the associated costs and complexities of legacy CRM systems," Ferrara said. With the new iteration, users can extend Nimble via an API and share and sell extensions in an application marketplace.

More Nimble News

Nimble also announced plans in the coming weeks to roll out sales, marketing and customer-service capabilities to complete its social-business offering. New features include the ability to automatically capture leads off a web site into Nimble, put those leads on drip-marketing tracks, and track top prospects with the opportunity manager. A single-user version from Nimble is free and available now, and the software is getting some positive reactions in the marketplace.

"Nimble is absolutely revolutionary! Nimble is what I've dreamed of for a long time but never thought possible," said David Meerman Scott, marketing strategist and best-selling author of Real-Time Marketing & PR. "With Nimble, I can combine my Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and customer database with my calendar and to-do list into one complete Social Relationship Manager to run my business."

Technet

Friday, June 24, 2011