Pc News

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Toshiba Lays Out Plans For Mobile Cell Chip

The Cell processor sits at the heart of the PlayStation 3, the most powerful game console yet developed, and a high-performance computer from IBM and now Toshiba wants to put that power into mobile devices and cell phones.

A roadmap for the processor on display by Toshiba at this week's Ceatec show in Japan shows a more powerful version of the chip under development for 2007. While details of the chip were not available, a source close to Toshiba said that the new device will be manufactured using more advanced 65-nanometer production technology. The current chips are being made on a 90-nanometer line and the switch will mean lower power consumption and increased performance.

Several Applications
The Cell chip is the product of a joint development project by Toshiba, IBM, Sony and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI). Each chip contains a main processor and eight sub-processors to deliver about 200G floating point operations per second (FLOPS) of power.

It will make its consumer debut next month when SCEI puts the Playstation 3 on sale in Japan and the U.S. but Toshiba has plans for the chip in other parts of the living room.

"As the first application we are focused on the consumer electronics area such as media servers or something like that but Cell itself is not restricted to that area," said Mitsuo Saito, chief fellow at Toshiba's semiconductor company and one of the key creators of the chip, in an interview at Ceatec.

"Maybe other partners are going onto the very high-end. We are focusing on the low power area. One is for more mobile types of applications such as small games or some mobile phone-like systems," he said.

Software Collaboration
When the Cell partners disclosed details of the chip in 2004 both Toshiba and Sony said they planned to put the device into consumer electronics products by 2006. Toshiba said its plans have been delayed but remain very much in-place while Sony said it is currently concentrating on getting the Cell into the PlayStation 3 and will look at other uses once the games console is launched.

Toshiba's Saito said the three partners are also collaborating on the software side so that Cell-based software won't end up tied to specific versions of the chip.

"Also, maybe the most important thing is to have collaboration, he said. "Each type of Cell has to have the same basis of software so for this purpose we are doing a lot of effort to centralize software from the very small Cell to the very large one to have a uniform world. It's our plan to expand to that kind of area. That is a very important aspect so we are collaborating together, three companies, to enhance the Cell world."

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US, EU Agree To Share Air Passenger Data

BRUSSELS - European Union and U.S. negotiators have reached agreement on how to share information about passengers flying to the U.S. from Europe, a Finnish government spokesman said today. The new deal allows many more U.S. government agencies to access the data, which includes details such as a passenger's name, address and credit card details.

The agreement replaces one that was thrown out on a technicality by Europe's top court in May.

Previous Agreements
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has complained that the old agreement, which barred government agencies outside the customs and immigration offices from gaining access to the data, was hampering the U.S. in its fight against terrorism.

Major Disruptions Averted
Finland, holder of the six month rotating presidency of the E.U., helped broker the deal after the two sides reached an impasse at the end of last week.

Failure to strike a new deal would have left airlines in legal limbo, facing major disruptions, fines and the possible loss of landing slots in the U.S. if they didn't provide the information the U.S authorities want, and data protection lawsuits in Europe if they did hand the information over.

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Vista Disc Will Contain All Versions

In an effort to simplify the distribution of Windows Vista and make it easier for customers to upgrade, Microsoft will include the various retail versions of the operating system on one DVD instead of having separate discs for each Vista edition.

In the past, Microsoft distributed each version of the Windows client OS on its own disc. However, in a move it is calling "Windows Anytime Upgrade"--which cuts costs for Microsoft as well as making it easier for customers to upgrade--the version of Windows Vista that a customer buys will be activated by his or her product key and will be on a disk with the other editions of the OS.

For example, if a customer buys Windows Vista Home Premium from a retail store, he or she will get a DVD that also includes Windows Vista Ultimate, but the product key for the purchase will only activate Home Premium and its features and functionality, said Mike Burk, a Microsoft spokesperson.

"With Windows Anytime Upgrade, the idea is to provide customers with the most convenient user experience possible by enabling them to more easily and directly upgrade to a higher edition of Windows Vista from within their current edition," he said.

Choice of Versions
Consumers will have their choice of several versions of Windows Vista when it becomes available, which is scheduled for January 2007. Microsoft plans to release Windows Vista Ultimate, which will cost $399; Windows Vista Business, which will cost $299; Windows Vista Home Premium, which will cost $239; and Windows Vista Home Basic, which will cost $199.

Microsoft has said it plans to urge customers to purchase premium versions of Vista in favor of Windows Vista Home Basic, the entry-level version for U.S. consumers.

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Testers: Vista RC1 Appears Stable

Early feedback from testers already using Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 report that the OS is more stable than expected, which bodes well for Microsoft's plan to have Vista out according to its current schedule.

Microsoft has said since March it will release Windows Vista to business customers in November, and consumers in January 2007. Though many have suspected the release will slip further, testers now say there's a good chance the company will meet its goal if the condition of RC1 is any indication.

"Overall I think Vista is looking very good at this point. ... I think all the worries of Vista slipping went out the window," said Brandon LeBlanc, a writer for LonghornBlogs, via e-mail.

LeBlanc said that Microsoft has made performance and stabilization tweaks that testers requested after Beta 2, and the latest test version of the OS--which could be the final one before Vista is released to manufacturing--is solid enough for regular use.

"RC1 is quite usable for everyday work, as I am currently doing myself," he said.

LeBlanc said Vista is so far along in RC1, he does not think another release candidate will be required before final changes are made and the OS is sent off for manufacturing. The previous major client release of Windows, Windows XP, had two release candidates before it shipped to manufacturers.

Bugs Remain
To no one's surprise, however, there are still bugs to be ironed out before Vista will be ready for its final release.

LeBlanc said the OS needs some work in terms of its user interface, for example. The test version "does lack some of the UI polish we were expecting at this point," he said. In Vista, Microsoft has completely revamped Windows' user interface with a new 3D interface called Aero.

Another Vista tester, Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for New York consulting firm Twentysix New York, said the latest test release of Vista feels more "grown up," even on hardware that is not necessarily optimized for the OS.

"Besides the fact that it's just a really nice OS, it feels very sprightly even on hardware that wasn't designed for it," he said.

Even trivial applications such as Solitaire and Minesweeper games have a next-generation look and feel in Windows Vista RC1, Brust said. "It's a trivial example, but it shows a certain attention to detail [on the part of Microsoft]," he said.

Harrison Hoffman, another Vista beta tester and one of the writers of the LiveSide blog, agreed that the latest test version of the OS could be used as a person's main desktop OS, even though it definitely needs some fit and finish before final release.

"Although it might not be quite ready for prime time, if you really wanted to, you could use this build as your primary operating system, but be prepared for a few applications and devices to not work correctly," he said via e-mail. "The OS does not hang, lag or crash as consistently as it used to. The performance has been greatly improved."

However, both LeBlanc and Hoffman noted that Windows Vista is still lacking driver support, a particularly sore subject because Vista has been billed as an OS in which devices will work as soon as you connect them without any further hassle, Hoffman said.

"The philosophy of Vista has been to have things 'just work' when you connect them and right now, some things just do not," he said. "Obviously this issue is going to get better with time and as hardware manufacturers work closer with Microsoft to remedy these problems."

LeBlanc sized up the hardware driver situation in Windows Vista RC1 this way: "Some work, some dona??t," he said. "Heck, Microsoft doesna??t even have Vista drivers for some of their own hardware, including their new LifeCams."

Twentysix New York's Brust called driver compatibility Microsoft's "biggest impediment" to getting Vista out in time. "Driver compatibility will be key for them," he said.

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Microsoft Sets Vista Pricing, Expands Tester Base

Microsoft today released the pricing for Windows Vista, about a week after online retailer Amazon.com disclosed the operating system's pricing on its Web site.

The company also expanded the tester base of Vista to about 5 million users as it begins gearing up for Windows Vista's widespread release, which is scheduled for early next year.

Microsoft's suggested retail pricing for Windows Vista is as follows: $399 for Windows Vista Ultimate, $299 for Windows Vista Business, $239 for Windows Vista Home Premium, and $199 for Windows Vista Home Basic.

Upgrades to Windows Vista from XP are $259 for Windows Vista Ultimate, $199 for Windows Vista Home Premium, and $99 for Windows Vista Home Basic.

The prices are the same as the ones listed on Amazon.com's Web site last week, except that the online retailer listed an upgrade for Vista Home Basic as $0.95 more. Amazon.com is already taking pre-orders for Vista, and lists on its Web site that the OS will be available on January 30, 2007. Microsoft has not given a firm date for Vista's release, but is targeting sometime in January for the OS's general release. The company plans to release Vista to business customers in November.

In a related blog item, PC World Associate Editor Danny Allen compares Vista's prices and features with those in Windows XP.

Vista Release Candidate 1 Available
Microsoft late last week made available Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Vista, which means that the OS is in its final testing phases. The release was initially made available to only about 20,000 users who are in Microsoft's TechBeta and Technology Adoption Program program, but today the company said that in the next few days it will expand that release to some 500,000 members of its Microsoft Developer Network and TechNet program (for developers and IT pros, respectively).

Microsoft said it will also make RC1 available to the more than 2 million members of the Windows Vista Customer Preview Program who received Beta 2, and will reopen the program to new testers. Additionally, Microsoft plans to distribute an estimated 2 million copies of RC1 on DVDs bundled with magazines. All told, some 5 million users worldwide will have access to RC1 as Windows Vista goes through its final testing, Microsoft officials said.

Feedback on RC1
Shanen Boettcher, Microsoft's general manager of Windows client product management, said the early feedback the company has received on RC1 has been positive. He said Microsoft will determine whether to make a second release candidate available based on tester feedback to RC1.

Windows XP had two release candidates before it was shipped to manufacturing. Analysts have said that if Windows Vista follows the same path, it will be a tight squeeze for Microsoft to get the OS out according to its current schedule.

Windows Vista's release has been delayed several times, and industry and financial analysts have said they think the release will slip even further into 2007. However, analysts today said that the release of RC1 and the Vista pricing announcement are positive signs that the company could be on track to release the OS on time.

Computerworld has the results of an initial test drive of this build of Windows.

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First Windows Vista Release Candidate Available

Microsoft took a big stride today toward finalizing Windows Vista by issuing a first release candidate for its next-generation operating system.

A release candidate is a near-final version of the OS that is supposed to be changed only to fix bugs and tweak performance. The arrival of Vista RC1 keeps Microsoft on track for shipping the OS in November as planned.

Jim Allchin, Windows Platforms and Services copresident, announced the completion of RC1 in a blog posting to some 20,000 business and IT users in Microsoft's Technical Beta and Technology Adoption Program. Code was made available to these testers today, but Allchin promised it would go out to the additional 500,000 IT pros and developers in the Microsoft Software Developers Network and Technet next week.

"You'll notice a lot of improvements since Beta 2," Allchin wrote. "We've made some UI adjustments, added more device drivers, and enhanced performance. We're not done yet, however--quality will continue to improve."

"The operating system is in great shape with RC1," Allchin added in his message to Microsoft's core beta testers, "but there's still a lot of testing to do. You've come through for us so far, and I'm asking you to once again put the pedal to the metal and send us feedback."

In addition to members of the technical community, some 1.5 million general users have received Beta 2 since its release last May by signing up for the Windows Vista Customer Preview Program. At the time, Microsoft said these users would have access to RC1, but there was no immediate word on how the company would be servicing them.

(For those who like to keep track of such details, RC1 is build 5600; Beta 2 was build 5384.)

Microsoft officials say RC1 will time out on May 31, 2007, meaning that people who install it will have to upgrade to the shipping OS by then. It's not clear whether they'd be able to roll back to Windows XP.

What's New Since Beta 2?
Christopher Flores, group product manager for Windows Marketing Communications, said one area in which RC1 is most visibly different from Beta 2 is in its handling of User Account Control technology, which seeks to improve system security by requiring approval, even from people logged in with administrative privileges, for software installations or settings changes.

Testers had complained that the OS popped up windows requesting approval for changes that were trivial or that clearly came from trusted sources (such as Microsoft itself, in the case of Windows updates). Microsoft eliminated some of these prompts, such as those seeking approval to view firewall settings, open the Scanners and Camera control panel, or perform Media Player's Express setup. Also, UAC requests no longer appear as windows that steal focus from applications, which can be distracting. Instead, they appear on the taskbar as flashing buttons.

The OS also now uses less system memory to run, which should speed up overall performance. And it includes support for both of the high-definition video media formats, HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Vista's underlying WinFX graphics system (now called .NET 3.0) is installed by default; previously it had to be user-installed.

Media Center viewers now recognize user-applied tags to photos and videos, and can filter content accordingly. System pop-ups are automatically suppressed when using presentation settings. Additionally, Flores says this version of Vista comes with drivers for thousands more devices than were included with Beta 2.

Microsoft still plans to release final code to volume license customers (primarily enterprises) in November. Systems with Vista preinstalled and upgrade versions of the OS at retail are slated to follow in January.

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Symantec's Norton Confidential to Ship Next Week

Symantec's new Norton Confidential identity-protection software is set to ship on Monday.

The product is designed to make Web surfing more secure by thwarting phishing and pharming attacks and disabling "crimeware or malicious applications that are designed to steal your confidential information," says Bill Rosenkrantz, director of product management with Symantec.

Norton Confidential will warn users when they are visiting suspected phishing sites and will verify that legitimate Web sites are trustworthy by displaying a "Trust Mark" icon on the browser's toolbar. It also will detect keystroke loggers and prevent password information from being sent to unauthorized Web sites.

Built Into New Norton Security Suite
The product will be of particular interest to people who have already been the targets of identity theft, says Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis with the NPD Group. "If an identity thief captures their personal information while they're shopping online, or enters their PC because they don't have a firewall, this limits that type of abuse," he says. "What it doesn't protect the customer from is the bank or the university whose server gets compromised."

A subset of Norton Confidential has been shipping in Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2007 product, and it will be built into the upcoming Norton 360 security suite.

Norton Confidential has a list price of $50 for a one-year subscription, but it is available for purchase from Symantec's Web site for $35 per year. A shrink-wrapped version of the product will ship in November.

[Rasputin]

How Do You Spend Time on Your PC at Work?

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Employees at the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) spend significant time on sexually explicit and gambling Web sites and even more time shopping and playing online games while at work, according to a report released this week.

Employee time spent at Internet auction and gaming sites cost the agency an estimated 104,221 hours in lost productivity in a year, according to the report, released by the agency's Office of Inspector General. The estimated cost in lost productivity to the DOI is more than $2 million a year, the inspector general's report said.

In reviewing one week of computer-use logs at DOI, the inspector general found more than 4700 log entries to sexually explicit or gambling Web sites, which are prohibited in the DOI's Internet use policy. In addition, the inspector general found more than 1 million log entries from 7763 DOI employees who accessed online gaming and auction sites, the report said.

The continued access to porn and gambling sites is "due to a lack of consistency in department controls over Internet use," Earl Devaney, DOI inspector general, wrote in the report.

Dangerous Time Wasters
Surfing porn and gambling sites not only wastes time but also could expose the agency's computers to malware such as viruses or keystroke loggers, says Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of Web security firm Finjan. Porn and gambling sites "usually are the first ones to distribute malicious code," he says.

A DOI spokesperson didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the report. The agency sent a memo to all employees last week, reinforcing its Internet use policy.

The DOI, the agency that focuses on protecting U.S. natural resources, does not expressly prohibit employees from going to online auction and gaming sites, the report said.

How Much Time?
One employee computer had spent close to 14 hours at two Internet gaming sites during the week, another had spent about 12 hours at one gaming site, and a third had spent nearly 10 hours at a gaming site, the report said.

Despite three recent cases in which child pornography was found on DOI employees' computers, the agency has no systemwide infrastructure for Internet monitoring and blocking, the report said. Four of the agency's six bureaus surveyed in the report are using monitoring and blocking software programs "to varying degrees and with some success," the report said.

In the Bureau of Reclamation, the value of the blocking and monitoring software is "questionable," the report said. The inspector general found 148 computers in the bureau that had accessed sexually explicit Web sites during the week.

In the DOI's Office of Surface Mining, Internet-use reports are apparently generated only when a supervisor requests one, "rendering the system useless for any real proactive measures," the inspector general said.

Little Risk
The DOI has taken only 177 disciplinary actions against employees for inappropriate Internet use since 1999, the report said. "The low number of disciplinary actions reportedly taken ... compared to the thousands of hits we found indicating user activity at inappropriate sites suggests that employees are not being held accountable," the report said.

The DOI should develop a unified approach to address inappropriate Internet use, including a more consistent use of disciplinary action, the inspector general recommended.

[Rasputin]

Hands On: Windows Vista Release Candidate 2

The changes in Windows Vista Release Candidate 2 amount to refinements rather than significant innovations. Build 5744 of Vista contains no laundry list of new features and functions, but the release is significant nonetheless.

The new Media Center improves on its predecessor's ease of installation and performance, and reduces its bugginess. The new Sleep power management mode is another welcome enhancement. Vista continues to be exceptionally stable. There's no question that this new Windows is more reliable than XP.

Setup Certainty
I installed RC2 on three test machines--one Windows XP Pro upgrade and two clean installs. One upgrade installation screen notes that your "upgrade could take several hours" to complete. Mine didn't, though it did run a little over an hour and a quarter. The two dual-boot clean installations were swifter than with Release Candidate 1 and showed some minor visual changes.

The results of RC2's setup process were a tad cleaner than RC1's. My three test machines were manufactured in different years--2003, 2005, and 2006. The two newer models are laptops that have proprietary software for controlling hardware. Though all three systems have hardware for which Vista was unable to provide drivers, the new operating system quickly accepted legacy drivers designed for XP, with just a couple of exceptions.

Vista's driver pack support for recently released hardware continues to be a weak point. I had expected that with this release the driver pack would be better than it is. For example, Vista RC2 lacks a driver for the Linksys EG1032 Gigabit Peripheral Component Interconnect network interface card. The OS also was unable to locate a driver for SoundMax audio cards on my oldest and newest machines. SoundMax audio is widely distributed, so there's no excuse for this omission. However, I was able to easily find and feed Vista my reseller-provided XP drivers for these devices.

Not so easy to get around is the fact that Vista lacks drivers for Lenovo's UltraNav built-in pointing devices (which have been shipping with ThinkPads for years). Nor was Vista able to run these XP drivers, even when I tried using some of Vista's compatibility tricks.

Since Windows XP shipped five years ago, many more laptop PCs have been sold. Therefore, Microsoft needs to include drivers for laptops or make the drivers available via Windows Update. If this product is going to ship in January--especially if there's truth to the rumors about Vista-upgrade coupons being distributed for the holidays--proprietary-driver support is key. History teaches that relying solely on resellers to provide this support doesn't get the job done.

What Works
No previous 32-bit desktop version of Windows has shown the stability that Vista offers. I'm not basing that statement on comparative testing, of course, which is impossible at this point; months of real-world use and tracking of reliable uptime will be required first. But the Vista code base, which took life from Windows Server 2003, is absolutely solid when properly installed. XP offered a significant stability improvement over the 9x-based versions of Windows. Since Vista Beta 2, I've noticed an additional improvement over XP.

Boot times and the speed with which dialogs, menus, program windows, and folders open under Vista are also better than in XP--as long as you're running modern hardware with Vista-class video.

In all previous versions of Windows Vista, I had at least some sort of problem with the Media Center features. In RC2, finally, everything works the way it's supposed to. I didn't need to update the video driver to a beta Vista driver from ATI Technologies. In fact, there were no glitches at all. I prefer the latest Media Center changes to what the XP iteration offered, though overall the differences seem pretty minor.

In the three RC1-era builds that I examined previously, a problem with the new Vista Sleep mode caused my Dell Inspiron E1505 dual-core laptop to crash. The PC would go to sleep and never wake up, requiring a hard power-down. Readers reported similar problems in connection with various other laptop hardware and with earlier builds of Vista. I'm happy to report that the problem is cleared up in RC2.

Imperfect User Experience
The User Account Control (UAC) security feature, which seeks your confirmation before it will allow various programs to run or dialog boxes to open, still rankles. Here are a few of the operations that require such confirmation: opening Disk Defragmenter, System Restore, Task Scheduler, or Windows Easy Transfer; connecting to a Network Projector (twice); and opening the Add Hardware, BitLocker, Device Manager, iSCSI Initiator, Parental Controls, Advanced System Settings, System Protection, and Remote Settings control panels. Having to confirm the control panel settings seems reasonable, but other demands for confirmation do not. Also, why do the Windows SideShow and Tablet PC Settings control panels show up on computers that don't have that hardware?

Finally, although RC2 tweaks file-permissions problems related to UAC, people who install Vista in a dual-boot arrangement are going to find that some folders they created on their XP drives may not be accessible from Vista without complex security-permissions changes.

Since its introduction in Beta 2, UAC's user experience has been improved. But it's still onerous enough that a significant number of people will either turn it off or be frustrated by it. During testing, I have left it on. And I'll probably continue to advise the average user to do so. But I'm pretty sure--if and when I move to Windows Vista--that I'll turn UAC off on the machines I use most frequently.

You can read what I think about Vista's Software Protection Platform and the evolution of WGA antipiracy functionality in my recent blog item on the subject, "Microsoft Places Its Vista Antipiracy Concerns Above User Security." I hear a lot of people expressing distaste for the digital rights management (DRM) features baked into Vista. Microsoft, of course, has not talked at all to reviewers about these features. It's as if the DRM features don't exist.

With Windows XP, you have 30 days to activate the operating system using Windows Product Activation. If Vista RC2 is any indication, you will have only 3 days to activate Vista before "automatic activation" occurs.

Finally, software compatibility still has a way to go--and this late in the development cycle, that could be a problem. During the upgrade process, the setup routine required me to uninstall Eset's Nod32 antivirus program, Symantec's Norton Ghost 9, and the Toshiba software that provided the Bluetooth stack.

Utilities, especially apps that relate to files, are often incompatible with new versions of Windows; and I suspect that such software incompatibility could be a problem with this operating system. Most of my business software works, but the revised namespace alone could cause problems. Windows Vista expects data files to reside in specific places so that it can protect them better. Security is a good reason for the change, but user preference and software compatibility may suffer initially.

[Rasputin]

IBM Cranks Up Its Server Chip

IBM plans to crank up the speed on its Power6 server chip to 5.0GHz, far higher than competing processors from Intel and Sun Microsystems.

Despite its high frequency, the chip will avoid overheating through its small, 65-nanometer process geometry, high-bandwidth buses running as fast as 75GB per second, and voltage thresholds as low as 0.8 volts, IBM said.

When it ships the chip in mid-2007, IBM will target users running powerful servers with two to 64 processors, said Brad McCredie, IBM's chief engineer for Power6. He shared details on the chip at the Fall Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California.

Different Approach
By doubling the frequency of its current Power5 design, IBM is swimming against the current of recent chip designs that sacrifice frequency for power efficiency. Instead, IBM cut its power draw by making the chip more efficient, with improvements like computing floating point decimals in hardware instead of software, he said.

The company hopes the Power6 will help it reach new customers in commercial database and transaction processing, in addition to typical users of its Power5 chip in financial and high-performance computing such as airplane design and automotive crash simulation, McCredie said. To win that business, IBM will have to compete with chips like Intel's 'Montecito' Itanium 2 and Sun's high-end SPARC processors.

Server Competition
If this chip works as promised, IBM could be successful in that effort, analysts say. IBM is one of the few remaining alternatives to Intel in the market for 'big iron' servers used in high-end jobs like scientific computing, image processing, weather prediction and defense, said Jim Turley, principal analyst at Silicon Insider, in Pacific Grove, California.

IBM upgraded its current midrange Unix servers in February from 1.9GHz to 2.2GHz Power5+ processors, targeting users of large databases, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management). The company will ship several versions of the Power6 chip, ranging from 4.0GHz to 5.0GHz in frequency.

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It's Official: Google Buys YouTube

Google Inc. has laid speculation to rest--it will buy YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock transaction.

YouTube operates a wildly popular Web site where original videos appear in a range of quality from amateurish to professional. It will continue to operate independently after the Google acquisition "to preserve its successful brand and passionate community," Google said today. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Though YouTube CEO and cofounder Chad Hurley had previously insisted that YouTube wasn't for sale, his view changed when Google agreed to allow YouTube to operate independently, Hurley said during a conference call that included Google and YouTube executives this afternoon.

'A Better Experience'
Bringing YouTube into the ever-growing Google empire will mean that users have a "better, more comprehensive experience" when they upload, watch, and share videos, Google said. It will also give professional content owners more opportunities to get their work out to a wider audience, Google and YouTube executives said during the conference call. Rumors of the purchase first surfaced last week.

The two companies share a commitment to users first and also to innovation, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said. "Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service," he said.

The deal is "an exciting next step" for Google, Schmidt said, adding that the company expects to make other deals related to providing video over the Internet. YouTube has "built a remarkable team" that is "a perfect example of the kind of people we like to work with," he said in the conference call. YouTube's business is "extraordinary," both as a financial success story and in its vision of serving users, Schmidt said.

Backscratching
YouTube will benefit from Google's global reach and technological know-how, Hurley said. "We're excited by this announcement and thrilled to join forces with the Google team," he said. The acquisition will boost YouTube's new video content platform, which is expected to launch in the next month, he said.

The companies will merge Google's search expertise with YouTube's video expertise, pushing what executives believe is a hot emerging market of video offered over the Internet. Google Video will continue to operate, executives said, calling that service "a very valuable aspect of the Google experience." The aim is that it will improve as a result of the acquisition, Google executives said.

The number of Google shares to be issued will be based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days before the deal is completed, Google said.

Reaction
The deal is a good move for Google, said analyst Aram Sinnreich, founder and managing partner with Radar Research, a Los Angeles technology and media research firm.

"$1.65 billion is certainly a lot, but for a company like Google who will be using it as part of an integrated cross-media advertising strategy it may actually pay off," said Sinnreich. "There aren't a whole lot of companies left to acquire with this kind of reach online," he added.

Analysts also noted the similarities between the corporate cultures and how the companies developed and have grown. "Google has become a huge brand without advertising--same with YouTube," said David Hallerman, a senior analyst at Emarketer in New York.

Because YouTube has registered users, Google over time will know more about user behavior, which will enable the company to target advertising, he said.

Although Google executives adamantly said otherwise, Hallerman doesn't think there is a future in the YouTube brand name. "YouTube is a silly name," he said. "Google will get rid of it over time."

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Music Videos Come to Google, YouTube

Several recording companies signed deals with YouTube and Google for displaying music videos online, in moves that could avoid the type of copyright infringement litigation that has dogged the digital music industry.

On Monday, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group both signed deals with Google to include their music videos on the Google Video Web site. Internet users can watch the videos for free and Google and the record companies will share revenue from advertising.

In addition, the companies will allow other Web sites that use Google's AdSense advertising platform to display videos on their sites. As an example, Google imagines that a fan site dedicated to a particular band can run ad-supported videos from the group on its site. Google, the music company and the Web site publisher will split the revenue.

Google will also sell Warner videos for download from Google Video in the U.S. for $1.99.

On Monday afternoon in Europe, many Sony videos were available to view for several seconds after which users were asked to pay $1.99 to download the video. Advertising wasn't apparent on the site and many videos opened to a screen that read: "This video is currently not available. Please try again later."

Google also said it is working with both record companies to develop a system to allow users to access record company content for use in their own video creations.

YouTube Cuts Deal
Separately, Sony and Universal Music Group (UMG) both announced agreements on Monday with YouTube to make their music video content available on the popular video-sharing Web site.

The companies said that new YouTube technology, announced recently, will filter out content from UMG and Sony that is not authorized to appear on the site.

The record companies and YouTube also said that they'll license content to YouTube users who may want to include it in their own content creations.

The deals appear to address recent record company complaints about unauthorized content on YouTube. Some onlookers, including Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff, have suggested that record companies will sue YouTube for copyright infringement and win, similar to the way early digital music companies have lost suits to the same record companies.

While Monday's announcement would appear to avoid the potential of such lawsuits, the deals aren't without a downside. In a blog posting two weeks ago, Bernoff warned that deals like those made today that remove copyright content will make sites like YouTube far less interesting to users. He also suggests that while some media companies will make such deals, they all won't and the remaining companies could pursue legal action.

Labels Expreiment
The agreements also show that the record companies are interested in trying different models for selling their content in an attempt to find which earns them the most money.

"It's indicative of the larger experimentation we're seeing online," said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research. The music companies, for example, sell pieces of content individually, on a subscription basis or in an advertising supported model. "I don't think any of them know which will work. Everyone is making sure when this all starts to generate real money, they know what they're doing," he said.

Late last week rumors surfaced that Google is negotiating to buy YouTube for $1.6 billion. The Google Video site has lagged compared to the widely popular YouTube.

[Rasputin]

Former HP Execs Blame VC for Troubles

SAN FRANCISCO -- Former Hewlett-Packard chairs Patricia Dunn and Carly Fiorina each cited board member Thomas Perkins as an instigator behind their ousters from the technology company, according to interviews the two gave on a TV news program Sunday night.

Dunn and Fiorina made their comments in separate segments on the CBS News program "60 Minutes." Dunn responded to felony charges filed against her and four other defendants in a California court last week for the alleged use of illegal tactics to probe boardroom leaks to news media. Fiorina commented about her book on her HP tenure, "Tough Decisions: A Memoir," which is being published this week.

Dunn: Perkins Led Charge
Dunn told correspondent Lesley Stahl that Perkins, of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, launched a campaign to force Dunn off the board over how she conducted an investigation of boardroom leaks. "It was a classic disinformation campaign and he set the mindset for basically everything that's believed about this [case] right now," Dunn said.

Dunn initiated an investigation of leaks to the media in 2005 and a second one in 2006, in which HP hired outside private investigators who allegedly used false pretenses to gain access to phone records of HP directors, some employees and journalists who cover the company.

Perkins did not comment for "60 Minutes," but Stahl reported that a spokesperson for Perkins said Perkins talked to people with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice and the California Attorney General's office to complain about the tactics used in the leak investigation.

Dunn claims that Perkins turned against her when she wanted to identify Perkins board ally George Keyworth as the director who leaked news of board deliberations to a reporter in January. She says Perkins wanted the identity of the leaker kept confidential but she wouldn't agree to that. Perkins, Keyworth and Dunn have all since resigned from the board of the company.

Fiorina, who was fired as chairman, president and CEO of HP in February 2005, told Stahl she believes Perkins and Keyworth were behind her ouster as well.

Fiorna Tells Story
Fiorina said she initiated her own investigation of board leaks in early 2005 after The Wall Street Journal reported the board was considering an HP reorganization plan that would have stripped Fiorina of some of her powers. Perkins acknowledged being the second source for the Journal story, confirming information the reporter gained from another source, Stahl reported.

Fiorina said, of Perkins and Keyworth, "Both of them were aligned in how they thought I should reorganize the business."

Keyworth, other directors, and HP also declined to comment for "60 Minutes."

News reports at the time of Fiorina's firing said it happened because the merger she engineered between HP and Compaq in 2002 wasn't working and that HP's stock price had fallen. But Fiorina said she was never given any explanation by the board for her dismissal.

She also said she believes her downfall may have been due to her gender.

"I think men understand other men's needs for respect differently than how they understand it for a woman," said Fiorina, who downplayed the notion of a glass ceiling for women when hired at HP in 1999.

"I'm disappointed to have to say that but I think it's undeniably true," she told Stahl.

[Rasputin]

New Google Tool Also Handy for Mischief

Google has inadvertently given online attackers a new tool.

The company's new source-code search engine, unveiled Thursday as a tool to help simplify life for developers, can also be misused to search for software bugs, password information, and even proprietary code that shouldn't have been posted to the Internet in the first place, security experts say.

Deeper Search
Unlike Google's main Web search engine, Google Code Search peeks into the actual lines of code whenever it finds source-code files on the Internet. This will make it easier for developers to search source code directly and dig up open-source tools they may not have known about, but it has a drawback.

"The downside is that you could also use that kind of search to look for things that are vulnerable and then guess who might have used that code snippet and then just fire away at it," said Mike Armistead, vice president of products with source-code analysis provider Fortify Software.

Attackers could also search code for vulnerabilities in password mechanisms, or to search for phrases within software such as "this file contains proprietary," possibly unearthing source code that should never have been posted to the Internet.

Security experts say that the security implications of Google Code Search are noteworthy, if not earth-shattering.

Skilled hackers may already be able to do this type of search with Google's Web search engine, but Code Search is "another tool that makes it a tad easier for the attacker," said Johnny Long, a security researcher with Computer Sciences, in an e-mail interview.

Google Quiet
For its part, Google did not have much to say about possible misuse of its new product. "Google recommends developers use generally accepted good coding practices including understanding the implications of the code they implement and testing appropriately," the company said in a statement.

Google has never said much about the steps it takes to cut down on this kind of misuse of its search engine, though the issue comes up from time to time. In July, Websense used a little known binary search capability within Google's search engine to look for malware on the Internet.

While Google Code Search will probably not have much of an effect on popular open-source projects, which are already heavily scrutinized, it could help ferret out vulnerabilities in lesser known pieces of code, according to Lev Toger, a software developer with Beyond Security.

"Using Google's code search, it's much easier to find interesting code portions," he said via e-mail. "If your task is to find vulnerability in some random code, this filtering can save you a lot of time."

[Rasputin]

Networking Snafu Gums Up Microsoft Security Patches

Networking problems today kept Microsoft from distributing its latest security patches to users of its automatic update services.

The updates, released at about 11 a.m. Pacific time, fix a whopping 26 vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, and the .Net framework. Many of the flaws involved are considered critical, but the fixes were still unavailable 4 hours later via many of Microsoft's most popular update services. Late in the day, the problem was corrected.

The trouble arose because of "some network issues on the Microsoft Update platform," according to Microsoft's Craig Gehere, who wrote about the issue in a blog posting. The security updates were not available to users of Microsoft Update, Automatic Updates, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), and Windows Update, version 6, Gehere said. Later in the day, Gehere updated his blog to say that the problem had been fixed.

Microsoft Update users, for example, who tried to use the service to check for high-priority updates were told, "The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view."

Some Unaffected
Users of Software Update Services (SUS), Windows Update version 4, and Office Update were unaffected by the glitch, Gehere said.

"Technical teams are engaged and have been working around the clock to resolve this problem," he wrote.

A spokesperson with Microsoft's public relations firm could not say exactly what had caused the update services to fail.

The snafu comes at a difficult time for Microsoft users. The latest security updates address the largest number of vulnerabilities in recent memory, and hackers are already known to be exploiting three of the bugs. Over the past few weeks, observers have spotted attack code that exploits critical flaws in the Windows operating system, Word, and PowerPoint, all of which were patched Tuesday.

Customers who want to download their updates manually can go to Microsoft's Security Bulletin pages and find the links in the 11 bulletins that Microsoft has issued.