Pc News

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Intel to Build $2.5 Billion Chip Plant in China

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini Monday confirmed the company plans to build a $2.5 billion chip plant in China. The plant, to be built in Dalian, on China's northeastern coast, will enter production during the first half of 2010.

Intel hopes the Dalian plant, which will be used to initially produce chipsets, and not the company's flagship microprocessors, will help drive down manufacturing costs.

"One of the things we want to learn in China is how to do very low-cost manufacturing," Otellini said during a press conference in Beijing, which was carried live over the Internet by Chinese media.

Incentives from China
While China has lower labor costs than the U.S. or other developed countries, this is only a fraction of the cost involved in building a chip plant. Most of the costs involved with building such a plant come with the expensive machinery and equipment required to manufacture chips.

These capital expenditure costs are generally the same around the world, Otellini said, indicating that financial incentives and support from the Chinese government played a major role in the company's decision.

Intel's goal is to take advantage of these incentives and then run the plant at maximum efficiency to get the lowest manufacturing costs, said company spokesman Chuck Mulloy.

Construction in 2007
Construction on the new Dalian plant, called Fab 68, will begin later this year and is billed as the largest single investment by a foreign company in northeastern China, an area hit hard by the decline of the country's state-owned heavy industries over the last decade. The impact of this decline has been less severe in Dalian, which is home to a thriving software and outsourcing industry.

The widely anticipated announcement of the Dalian plant is a coup for the Chinese government, which spent years pushing Intel's top executives to set up a manufacturing plant in China as part of wider plans to make the country a semiconductor manufacturing center.

Despite the fanfare, Intel's planned Dalian plant will not be among the company's most advanced when it enters production.

Intel now has an export license from the U.S. government to use 90-nanometer process technology at the plant in 2009. As process technology advances, Intel will have a strong case to obtain a license to use 65-nanometer process technology at the Dalian plant when it enters production in 2010.

The U.S. government carefully regulates the transfer of semiconductor technology to China and other countries because of concerns the technology can be used for military purposes.

[Rasputin]

Google, Yahoo May Not Highlight The Good Stuff

Researchers are trying to figure out how to make more of the good stuff float to the top of Internet search engines and keep more of the bad stuff buried.

At Queensland University of Technology in Australia, Professor Audun Josang is trying to come up with a system through which search engines would rank Web sites based on their reputation, based in part on input from the broad Internet community of users. Sites that try to hook visitors via phishing scams, for instance, could be outed by users in a "social control" system and search engines could be notified, he said.

"Just because a Web site ranks highly on a search engine doesn't mean it's a good Web site," he said in a statement. "In fact, highly ranked Web sites can be malicious."

The current Web page rankings are too easily manipulated, he said.

"I think in the future reputation systems, integrated into search engines, can be used to weed out such Web sites by giving them a low ranking and thereby making them invisible to unsuspecting users," Josang said in a statement.

Where's the science?

One effect of having so many dangerous and junky Web sites at the top of search engine results is that the good ones are harder to find.

Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute in England say key science sites are failing to show up in the top 30 Google search results, depending on the topic. Their study is looking at sites on topics such as HIV/AIDS (where online resources tend to be more structured), climate change, terrorism (where online resources tend to be more dispersed) and the Internet. They have used 'webmetric analysis" to plot on graphs how resources are linked to one another across the Web.

One of the researchers' basic observations is that Google and other search engines play a key gatekeeper role and that the Internet isn't just a fair-playing field when it comes to information distribution. They are urging policymakers and educators to pay close attention to this situation and work to make the Web a more useful source of information on important topics. Researchers too need to think about more than just tossing their information onto the Web, but make sure that people will be able to find it.

Check out Network World's Alpha Doggs blog for the latest in networking research at universities and other labs.

[Rasputin]

Zoom Your Way to Mobile Content with ZenZui

Let's be honest: No one who's ever used a cell phone browser has come away impressed by the experience. At best, Web sites intended for big screens look ugly and disjointed on tiny ones; at worst, they become unusable because handsets don't support their technology.

ZenZui, a new company formed by former Microsoft researchers and others, promises a slicker, quicker way to access and interact with Web content--but only from sites that buy into the company's technology and business models.

People who download the free ZenZui application when it ships later this year will be able to customize their experience by choosing a lineup of "tiles"--clickable squares, each from a different ZenZui partner site, that are displayed on a grid. In the prototype version, the default launch view (which ZenZui calls a Zone View) shows 4 tiles, or one quadrant of the full ZenZui ZoomSpace, which consists of 16 tiles.

Zoom In, Zoom Out
You navigate between tiles and to content by zooming in and out using your phone's keypad (numbers are helpfully displayed in small, floral-looking clusters). Thus, if you're in the ZoomSpace, you can get to the top-left Zone View by hitting the 1 key.

Similarly, you access a tile by pressing the key that points to it--in the sample ZoneView, you'd access the Stewie tile by hitting the 7 on your keypad.

Once you drill down to a specific tile, options change depending on the site. Amazon.com's is meant to facilitate e-commerce and is tied into ZenZui's transaction processing technology; the Stewie tile, which promotes Fox's Family Guy animated series, also has e-commerce links, but additionally has keys labeled "Amuse" and "Belittle."

The goal of ZenZui is primarily to help sites monetize their content by making it easier for people to access that content from cell phones. Content providers and site operators who wish to reach people using ZenZui will strike deals that either depend on transactions or ad support: For example, a developer could come up with a tile that performs an application, such as a tip calculator, and advertisers would bid for the right to support it. ZenZui officials say they will provide for some public service announcements in lieu of ads for worthy sites.

While the tiles look good, one potential problem for ZenZui is the highly proprietary nature of its technology. Some potential partners might also object to the extent to which ZenZui maintains control of all data passing through the service. All tiles must be written using ZenZui's proprietary markup language and all tile content must be synchronized through ZenZui's servers using ZenZui's synchronization architecture.

"Every tile lives in our data center," ZenZui cofounder John SanGiovanni explained.

SanGiovanni helped develop some of the design and interface concepts involved in ZenZui while working at Microsoft Research. Microsoft maintains a minority interest in the company and has assigned some of the relevant Microsoft Research patents to the company.

ZenZui is being announced at the CTIA Wireless 2007 show here, but is currently only in alpha trial with "100 friendly users" on Windows Mobile devices. An invitation-only beta pilot is planned to begin this summer, concurrent with the launch of a Java (J2ME) version of the service. ZenZui expects to add BREW support and to provide general availability later in the year.

[Rasputin]

Code Posted for IE Attack

New software has been published on the Internet that could be used to exploit a known flaw in Internet Explorer.

The code, which was posted Monday to the Milw0rm.com Web site, exploits a recently patched flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s browser. It could be used to run unauthorized software on a computer that was not updated with the latest Microsoft patches, security experts warn.

The vulnerability was first discovered by security researcher HD Moore who posted code last July that could be used to crash the browser. Microsoft patched the flaw in February, but some security researchers say that it will get more attention from criminals because of this latest exploit code.

"This type of vulnerability has been very popular with malicious attacks in the past and we expect to see its usage increase substantially, now that exploit code is publicly available," security vendor Websense Inc. warned in a note published Monday.

Researchers at eEye Digital Security Inc. say the Milw0rm code works on IE6, but not on the latest version of Microsoft's browser.

"We've tested it against IE 7 and haven't got it to work yet," said Andre Protas, director of eEye's Preview research service.

Protas said that more reliable exploit code likely will be published in the future.

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Mozilla Finally Renovates Firefox add-On Site

Six weeks after it first promised a revamped add-ons site for its Firefox browser, Mozilla Corp. Tuesday officially launched a streamlined version that touts a beginner's list of extensions.

Mozilla did not, however, cull the more than 2,200 extensions offered by the site to the "couple hundred" as it pledged to do early last month.

The revised add-ons site was supposed to go live Feb. 12, but the launch was stymied numerous times by bugs and an inability of Mozilla's back-end infrastructure to handle the projected load. Several rolling release dates came and went last month and this month, but each time Mozilla failed to pull the trigger, citing poor server performance in several cases.

"Most of the issue is that we simply have a difficult time reproducing the massive amount of traffic that comes into the site on a daily basis," Mozilla engineer Justin Fitzhugh said last Friday on a blog. "This, coupled with the complexity of a complete application rewrite, has kept us from formally releasing."

Mozilla actually took the add-on site -- which offers Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and Sunbird extensions, themes and other tools -- live Monday without an announcement. New features include improved search, user reviews and ratings for add-ons, additional developer tools and support for nine non-English languages, including French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

In February, Mike Shaver, Mozilla's technology strategist, said the site overhaul would include a dramatic winnowing of the 2,000-plus extensions then included in the database. "We're trying to tighten up the extensions," Shaver said at the time, "especially for new first-time users."

The original idea was to offer only a few hundred proven and up-to-date extensions for download from the main site, then shunt all the rest to a so-called sandbox where they would remain until promoted by users' recommendations. New extensions would also appear first in the sandbox.

However, Firefox's new site does feature a "Recommended Add-ons" page that includes 24 of the most popular browser extensions. Last month, Shaver said one of the revamp's goals was to make it easier for Firefox beginners to find the most worthwhile and useful add-ons. Among the recommended: ChatZilla, Download Statusbar, FoxyTunes and Greasemonkey.

In other Firefox news, Mozilla released the Alpha 3 version of Firefox 3.0, Gran Paradiso, last Friday. The update, which adds several new back-end functions, including support for animated PNG images and a new optional warning that will alert users when a Web site tries to redirect the browser to another URL, can be downloaded from the Mozilla site.

Like the two previous Gran Paradiso alpha builds, this one doesn't sport any of the planned interface changes for Firefox 3.0, which will ship before the end of the year.

[Rasputin]

Survey: Most Desktops Not Vista-Ready

A majority of desktops in enterprise companies today won't be ready for a Vista upgrade, at least not without quite a bit of work.

So say the results of a recent survey conducted by software-as-a-service desktop management vendor Everdream.

Everdream conducted the survey by running reports on existing system attributes against Microsoft's recommended system requirements across 145,000 desktops in 1,000 of Everdream's installed base of customers. The results show that about 80 percent of machines did not meet at least one of Microsoft's four criteria for optimal systems targeted for Vista upgrades.

"The cost of getting computers into compliance with Microsoft's requirements will likely be a huge obstacle to Vista adoption. IT managers will need to plan the work that needs to be done before they can upgrade to Vista," says Ed Mueller, Everdream chief marketing officer. "Understanding the requirements they aren't meeting yet will be instrumental in making a move to Vista."

The operating system vendor defined recommended requirements for "Pentium-ready PCs" as 1GB of RAM, 1 GHz processor, 40GB hard drive and 15GB free hard drive space. Microsoft also defined minimum requirements against which Everdream also tested the desktops. Microsoft requires machines to have a minimum of 512MB of RAM, 800 Mhz microprocessor, 20GB hard drive and 15GB of free hard drive space.

Among the challenges Everdream notes in future Vista upgrades are evaluating and identifying which machines don't meet the recommended hardware requirements, fixing software incompatibilities and backing up data from machines before the upgrade.

The survey shows the biggest hurdle companies will face upgrading to Vista is the amount of RAM on desktops. While Microsoft requires a baseline of 512MB of RAM, the company recommends 1GB -- a requirement just 30 percent of the desktops met.

When compared against the recommended requirements, about 70 percent of machines don't have the required RAM, more than 60 percent don't have the required hard drive, about 20 percent don't have the required free hard drive space and about 7 percent don't have the required processor speed. According to Everdream, more than 90 percent of companies have at least one machine that doesn't measure up to Microsoft's recommendations.

The surveyed desktops fared better when it came to meeting minimum requirements for a Vista upgrade. About one-quarter of the desktops surveyed didn't have the minimum required RAM, another 24 percent didn't have the minimum free hard drive space, some 15 percent did not have the required hard drive and some 5 percent of machines didn't have the adequate processor speed, the survey found.

[Rasputin]

Bluetooth SIG Unveils Bluetooth 2.1 Spec

On Tuesday the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) unveiled Bluetooth core Specification version 2.1 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR), a new version of the Bluetooth spec that it says improves the Bluetooth connection experience.

Bluetooth is a Personal Area Networking (PAN) wireless technology that enables electronic devices to communicate with each other. The technology has been included (or available as an option) on Macs for quite some time, and has seen extensive adoption by cell phone makers, where it's used to bridge a connection between wireless headsets and phones. It's also used by some mice, keyboards, printers and other peripherals.

The new 2.1 specification improves the pairing process, according to the Bluetooth SIG, by reducing the number of steps involved. Users pairing Bluetooth 2.1 devices together don't have to generate their own PIN, for example. The process can also improve security to reduce the likelihood of a "man in the middle" scenario, where an unwelcome visitor intercepts communication between two paired Bluetooth devices.

What's more, the 2.1 spec also allows for lower power consumption -- by up to five times. Sniff Subrating increases battery life in devices like mice, keyboards, watches, home sensor networks and medical devices, according to the Bluetooth SIG.

Devices that employ the new spec will be backwards-compatible with older versions of the Bluetooth specification, said the SIG. The group added that they're continuing to work with the WiMedia Alliance to develop ultrawideband technology into the next major version of the Bluetooth spec, to create a high-speed Bluetooth channel.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft, not Apple, Releases Vista iPod Fix

Microsoft Corp. Tuesday released several fixes for Windows Vista bugs, including one involving the ubiquitous iPod music player that Apple Inc. didn't fix in an iTunes update three weeks ago.

The most prominent of the five-pack of patches is the one that prevents data on iPods from being corrupted if users select Safely Remove Hardware from the system tray to eject the player. That command is what most Windows users call on before unplugging a USB device.

Earlier this month, Apple updated iTunes to Version 7.1.1 to patch several Vista-related problems, but left others -- including the Safely Remove Hardware bug -- unfixed. At the time, Apple said it was "actively working with Microsoft to resolve a few remaining known issues." It had also recommended that users select the Eject iPod option on the iTunes Controls menu to remove an iPod from a Vista PC's USB port.

Other patches unveiled Tuesday included one that keeps Vista from ruining raw images taken with Canon EOS-1D or EOS-1Ds cameras, one designed to solve a video quality problem that arises when users configure Vista to display on a TV, one that stops Vista from abruptly going to sleep when a dial-up PPP connection is active, and one that updates Microsoft's Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).

That last fix is for the opt-in program that Microsoft tucks into its operating systems and other software, including Office. CEIP collects information about how users work with Vista, as well as data about problems users encounter. That information is routinely transmitted to Microsoft.

However, the support document outlining the CEIP patch lacked details of the changes. "This update improves the quality of the software information that is sent to Microsoft by configuring existing Windows Vista CEIP settings," the KB931174 document states. "These configurations settings also enable Windows Vista to use the Problem Reports and Solutions item in Control Panel to provide additional solutions for problems that you encounter."

All of the new Vista patches require users to validate their copies of the operating system as legitimate before they can be downloaded.

[Rasputin]

Intel Promises Fast Penryn Chips in 2007

Intel Corp. will begin producing its next-generation "Penryn" processors by the end of 2007, using greater power efficiency to push improved Core 2 and Xeon chips to speeds over 3GHz, the company said Wednesday.

The new chip family marks a crucial step in Intel's "tick-tock" product strategy, the company's schedule for delivering either a new chip architecture or smaller chip design every year, said Pat Gelsinger, general manger of Intel's digital enterprise group, during a press conference in San Francisco.

On March 5, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini apologized to investors for slacking off the development pace, and pointed to the tick-tock model as Intel's method for regaining some of the market share it has lost to competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) in recent years. Now Intel plans to make a big splash in the market with the new product family as it begins production of six Penryn processors: dual-core and quad-core desktop chips, a dual-core notebook chip, dual-core and quad-core server chips, and a high-end server chip.

The Penryn design calls for shrinking Intel's current Core microarchitecture from chips using 65-nanometer feature sizes to 45nm. To prevent electricity from leaking between transistors packed so closely together, the chip will use novel "high-k, metal gate" materials to provide better insulation. IBM Corp. has also announced plans to use a version of high-k, metal gate design, but has not announced plans to bring it to market as fast.

The Penryn chip will also have better power management than previous Intel processors, with deeper sleep states than Core 2 Duo chips. Thanks to that efficiency, Intel plans to run its new chips faster than 3GHz for desktop and notebook versions, reversing an industry trend of scaling back the processor speed in order to add more cores without creating too much heat.

In other improvements, Intel will use 50 percent more on-chip memory in Penryn chips than Core 2 Duo, allowing them to hold more data on the chip instead of spending time and energy retrieving it from the PC's main memory bank. Dual-core Penryn chips will have 6M bytes of L2 cache while quad-core versions have 12M bytes. Intel said it also will speed Penryn front side bus speeds to 1600MHz, instead of the 1066MHz or 1333MHz options now available, granting up to a 45 percent improvement for high-performance computing applications like computational fluid dynamics.

In addition, Intel is adding a feature that takes into account a drawback of multicore chips, that they cannot boost performance unless a user upgrades from standard software to multithreaded applications. Penryn chips will recognize single-threaded applications and switch off power to the inactive core, speeding up the busy one.

Overall, the improvements will produce a dual-core chip that packs twice as many transistors into a space 25 percent smaller than Intel's equivalent 65nm processors, and uses equal or lower power, Gelsinger said. In full, Intel has 15 designs of 45nm chips now scheduled, he said. All the new Penryn chips will boast 20 percent faster transistor switching speed and lower leakage current than current chips.

Intel plans to upgrade its Core microarchitecture to a new "Nehalem" design in 2008, built first on 45nm architecture chips and then on a 32nm "Westmere" version in 2009, before giving way in 2010 to another new microarchitecture called "Gesher."

Nehalem will provide another leap in processing power by assigning two computing threads to each core, resulting in 16 threads for an eight-core chip that could deliver speedy performance for certain parallel applications.

The Nehalem design also calls for an "on-die integrated memory controller," a feature that AMD claims it used first in 2003 with its Direct Connect Architecture design that eliminates the front-side bus and integrates the memory controller. Likewise, some Nehalem chips will use on-chip integrated graphics processing, mirroring plans that AMD announced after acquiring graphics card maker ATI in 2006.

Gelsinger acknowledged the similarity but said that both companies had come to the same conclusion because they had seen the same handwriting on the wall.

"The trends I have described are natural, technology-driven trends that have driven us and other vendors to reach the same conclusion at the same time," he said.

[Rasputin]

New Slot Machines Promise More for Gamblers

Gamblers accustomed to using traditional rigid mechanical slot machines may soon be playing on a new generation of devices equipped with three-dimensional digital screens offering multiple games and more complex wagers.

One of the world's largest makers of gaming machines, International Game Technology (IGT), is designing a new slot machine that will offer a greatly enhanced display. The new machine will include LCD screen technology licensed from PureDepth Inc. last October. PureDepth has developed screen technology with multilayer displays.

To date, gamblers haven't embraced the few digital slot machines available now because they lack the handles and spinning wheels of traditional machine, said a spokesman for PureDepth.

The PureDepth technology layers multiple LCD screens into a single monitor with some distance between each screen, creating depth and the illusion that wheels are turning inside, the spokesman noted. Also, he said, a single monitor presenting multiple screens at once can offer more betting choices without confusing the gambler.

"From a consumer point of view, these are new and exciting developments," he said. "You can see a lot more information, but it's still digestible to the brain."

Such systems also offer benefits to casinos, he said. The devices can be electronically updated and reprogrammed quickly, allowing the casino to quickly change the payout or price of a machine.

This technology will also allow casinos to quickly change the face of generic slot machines for different audiences or needs for a low cost, said analyst Rob Enderle, an analyst at San Jose-based Enderle Group. "It increases flexibility and lowers cost because you don't have to change out the machines to retheme them," he said.

A spokesman for IGT declined to offer any firm details on the benefits of the new screens or their development schedule. However, he predicted that some sort of prototype would be put on display at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) industry trade show in Las Vegas in November.

[Rasputin]

CTIA Mobile Phone Show: Our Picks and Pans

Senior Editor Yardena Arar and mobile phone columnist Grace Aquino went totally mobile at this week's big CTIA 2007 cell phone and services show in Orlando, Florida. From bad bling to phone Zen to Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, here's the best and worst of what they saw.

Now That's (a) Service!
OMyGADs! Teragram's MyGADs.com, which lets people easily post and access information via the Web, text messaging, or Jabber-compliant instant messaging clients, could be the most innovative and powerful new service introduced at the show.--Yardena Arar

ZenZui, Ptooey: What the world needs now isn't yet another proprietary system to access Web content--even one with Microsoft's blessing.--Yardena Arar

More Camera Phone Fun: Avanquest's SendPhoto, due later this year, is a software-and-service combo that automatically sends any photos you shoot to a Web site that syncs automatically with your PC (once you install SendPhoto desktop software). Me, Inc.'s Shout Postcard is a Palm Treo app that makes it supereasy to turn images into electronic postcards with recorded voice and/or text messages. And Cingular's upcoming Video Sharing service lets people with supported phones send live video to other Video Sharing phones.--Yardena Arar

Never Run Out of Quarters Again: Visa and Mastercard are working on services that let you use phones with NFC (Near-Field Communication) chips to make small payments. No more excuses for not doing the laundry or feeding the parking meter!--Yardena Arar

TV Phone Wars: Has MediaFlo--the technology behind Verizon's V Cast mobile service delivering broadcast-style TV to cell phones--won the mobile TV contest? The New AT&T (Cingular) plans to roll it out later next year. But supporters of DVB-H (a competing technology popular in Europe) and cell-phone video pioneer MobiTV aren't giving up yet. Stay tuned.--Yardena Arar

[Rasputin]

Dell to Delay Filings, Probe Finds Misconduct

An internal investigation at Dell Inc. has found evidence of misconduct and accounting errors, forcing the company to delay filing its annual earnings report with stock market regulators, it said Thursday after the U.S. stock market closed.

Once the world's largest sellers of notebook and desktop PCs, Dell has stumbled in recent quarters, watching profits fall as the company struggled with an accounting investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In January, founder Michael Dell ousted his successor Kevin Rollins and returned as CEO in an attempt to reverse the company's fortunes.

Now Michael Dell will face an even tougher challenge. One of his first moves was to win a reprieve when the Nasdaq stock exchange threatened to de-list the company's stock because it had missed three deadlines for filing its quarterly earnings reports with the SEC. The company now says it will miss the extended date, as well. Dell will delay filing its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending Feb. 2 beyond the original deadline of April 3 and the extended deadline of April 18.

Dell did not say what sort of misconduct it had found or who had committed it. In a brief statement, the company said only that an audit committee it had assigned to investigate the SEC charges was not yet finished with its task, but had "identified a number of accounting errors, evidence of misconduct, and deficiencies in the financial control environment."

Dell management has not yet determined whether prior earnings will have to be restated to correct those errors, the statement said.

One hint to the nature of the misconduct may come from a lawsuit filed Jan. 31 by shareholders, alleging that a small circle of executives arranged for Dell to accept payments from Intel Corp. in exchange for using only Intel processors in Dell PCs. The lawsuit also said the managers had used inside information to reap multimillion dollar profits by selling stock options at auspicious times. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas.

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Steinberg Releases GarageBand Competitor

Pro audio software-maker Steinberg on Wednesday released Sequel , a new low-cost music production application at the Musikmesse music trade show in Frankfurt, Germany. Described as a "one-window music studio," Sequel is clearly going after the users of Apple's popular GarageBand software.

According to Steinberg, everything needed to create and perform music live is included -- from loops, sounds, effects, instruments to a virtual mixer and other professional "under the hood" features.

Sequel also includes 3.5GB of built-in loops and sounds covering a huge range of today's music as well as over 600 instantly playable instruments. With its Live performance mode, a Sequel song can be rearranged and remixed live and on-the-fly for performances at clubs or parties, according to Steinberg.

Sequel is shipping now and costs US$99.

[Rasputin]

All Eyes on London for Apple/EMI Announcement

A news conference in London later Monday by Apple Inc.'s Steve Jobs and EMI Group could see the announcement that the first of the four big music labels will ditch digital rights management (DRM).

Ever since invitations went out to the event, scheduled for 1pm local time (12pm GMT) at EMI's London headquarters, speculation in the media and online has centered around two possibilities: the Beatles catalog coming to the iTunes Music Store, or EMI ditching DRM. The latter is fast becoming the favorite, especially after The Wall Street Journal said such an announcement would come at the event.

DRM is applied to many downloads to prevent illegal copying or sharing of the content but it also prevents legal copying and can tie users into a certain product or technology. For example, Apple's iPod won't play DRM-protected songs purchased from anything but the iTunes Music Store, while owners of Creative Technology Ltd.'s devices aren't able to use the iTunes store because those downloads are incompatible.

Jobs called for an end to the use of DRM on music files in a blog-like posting on the Apple home page in February. In it he argued that consumers would benefit because any player would be able to play music from any online music store and not be restricted as it is currently.

"This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat," he wrote.

Reaction from the big four music labels was mixed with perhaps the strongest response coming from Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman, who said the idea of DRM-free music or movies was "without logic or merit."

EMI, on the other hand, appeared the most receptive to Jobs' call. The company had already experimented with offering DRM-free music a couple of months earlier when it offered MP3 files by Norah Jones and Relient K through Yahoo's music store.

A switch to DRM-free music will certainly be good news for consumers, said Bryan Wang, an analyst with InStat in Singapore. Speaking on Monday ahead of the announcement, he said that consumers don't necessarily understand DRM and just want to be able to play purchased music on all their devices.

Taking restrictions off sharing music won't necessarily mean a big jump in piracy either, he said. While music sharing exists, it falls off as consumers enter adulthood and begin working, so that sharing of content among people over about 20 years of age is not that common, even for illegally downloaded music that has no DRM.

"We don't expect the illegal transfer of music will be that common," he said.

EMI's artists include some of the biggest names in music both past and present: The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Janet Jackson, Robbie Williams, Depeche Mode, Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones, Al Green, Moby and Queen.

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IBM Technology Helps Disabled Surf the Web

A technology called Easy Web Browsing helps the elderly, people with limited vision and the color-blind by reading text out loud and allowing users to customize the size and color of Web content.

Macy's Web page recently became one of more than 100 worldwide that use the technology, which allows users to download a tool that essentially replaces the standard Web browser when a shopper is logged onto Macys.com.

A task bar at the top of the screen allows users to zoom in and out, increase volume, or change the contrast between colors, which can help people who are color-blind. In addition to hearing text read aloud, a user can place a mouse over text and see it appear in larger format in a rectangle at the bottom of the screen.

The tool is not for people who are completely blind because it does require the use of a mouse, said John Evans of IBM Research, who demonstrated the technology Wednesday at an event called "Made in IBM Labs New England." Software such as JAWS for Windows, made by Freedom Scientific , enables the blind to surf the Internet without a mouse .

Easy Web Browser also provides sound effects for hyperlinks and can speak text in 12 languages, including Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish. Depending on the size of the installation, companies that use Easy Web Browsing on their sites pay between US$25,000 and $250,000, Evans said. Clients began using the software last year, he said.

Another IBM technology demonstrated Wednesday uses algorithms to recognize dexterity problems that prevent disabled people from properly using a mouse or keyboard. The most common problem is the inability to lift a finger off a key quickly enough, causing a keystroke to be made multiple times, said Shari Trewin, a researcher at IBM's Watson Research Center .

Invisible Accessibility, which is in development and is not yet publicly available, recognizes this problem and creates a delay allowing a person with dexterity problems extra time to take their finger off the keyboard.

"The system automatically recognizes accessibility issues and changes the settings for you," Trewin said.

People with impaired dexterity also have problems using a mouse, because their hands may shake, causing the mouse to move while they are attempting to click on a link. Invisible Accessibility uses an algorithm to figure out which actions are deliberate and which are accidental, and filters out the mistakes, according to Trewin.

"The person using the mouse doesn't have to think of themselves having a disability," Trewin said.

The program can be run both on Web browsers and with offline applications.

IBM also demonstrated Many Eyes , a Web site a few months old that allows people to upload data sets or take data sets uploaded by other users and place them in visual forms, such as pie charts and bubble charts.

One chart shows by percentage the countries of residence of Second Life users. Another shows the fuel economy of various automobiles. One visualization uses "tag clouds" to analyze the frequency of words in poems by W.B. Yeats . Scrolling over a word brings up a cloud showing the user where Yeats used the word in his poetry.

Data sets range from the statistics of a sports team to the text of the bible and "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman.

"Most importantly, this is an experiment in collaborative visualization," said Irene Greif, an IBM fellow and director of collaborative user experience at IBM Research. "People can create visualizations, they can upload data sets. ... At any point, when you find something intriguing in the visualization, you can bookmark that, comment on it and share your insights or your questions with other people, and get answers."