Pc News

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Toshiba, Matsushita Aim to Sell TV OLED Panels

A joint venture between Toshiba Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. said on Wednesday it aimed to launch TV-use organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels in three years, taking aim at a $35 billion market dominated by LCD and plasma panels.

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co. Ltd., owned 60 percent by Toshiba and the rest by Panasonic maker Matsushita, aims to start commercial production of OLED panels for flat TVs by 2009, a spokesman for the venture said.

OLED panels are said to be energy-efficient, make thin and light displays, and have strength in showing fast-moving images.

Besides Toshiba Matsushita Display, Sony Corp. develops OLED panels for TVs.

In 2007, the market for TV-use liquid crystal display (LCD) modules is expected to come to $27.4 billion, while demand for plasma panel modules will likely total $7.5 billion, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

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Apache Battles Sun Over Java License

The Apache Software Foundation is in a dispute with Sun Microsystems over a license for the Java technology compatibility kit needed for the Apache Harmony project.

Harmony is an open source implementation of Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 5.

"We've converged on two different positions [regarding the matter] and there is a big gap," said Geir Magnusson Jr, Apache officer and vice president of the Java Community Process at Apache, in an interview on Tuesday morning.

Apache posted online on Tuesday an open letter of protest to Sun, signed by Magnusson.

"The JCK [Java Compatibility Kit] license Sun is offering imposes IP rights restrictions through limits on the 'field of use' available to users of our software," Magnusson said.

"These restrictions are totally unacceptable to us," he wrote. Sun could not be immediately reached for a response on Tuesday morning.

The restrictions are contrary to the terms of the Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA), to which Sun is bound, said Magnusson. Sun's JCK license, he wrote, protects portions of Sun's commercial Java business at the expense of Apache's open software.

"Such implicit or explicit threats of IP-based aggression give one actor overwhelming commercial advantages over the other participants in the ecosystem," said Magnusson in the letter. "In an open ecosystem, it must be the case that the necessary IP to implement a specification can be secured independently from the specific commercial interests of any one actor in the ecosystem, which is the basis of our objection to your offered terms."

Sun's terms hold back Harmony and pose credibility risks to the JCP and the reputation of Java as an open technology, according to the letter.

With its terms, Sun is attempting to circumvent a requirement that a specification lead not impose contractual conditions limiting the right of any licensee to build or distribute independent implementations. Sun also must license IP royalty-free, Magnusson said.

Apache is asking Sun to offer an acceptable JSPA within 30 days.

"The license that Sun is offering us would put restrictions on how our users could use our independent implementation of Java," Magnusson said. For example, if users wanted to use Harmony to power an information kiosk at an airport or use it in an X ray machine alongside Linux, they could not, "Sun considers that a use case that would be forbidden under the license," Magnusson said.

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Skype to Test VoIP Service for the Enterprise

Skype Ltd. is in the early stages of testing an enterprise-class version of its service and is soliciting interest in an early adopter program by businesses with more than 1,000 employees.

"At this time, we are at the very beginning of testing an enterprise offering and Skype is inviting a limited number number of businesses to be part of an early adopter program," according to a statement Skype issued Wednesday. The statement was not posted on Skype's public Web site, but has been supplied to a number of bloggers and was sent to Computerworld on request, a spokesman said Thursday.

"We look forward to hearing from business users at the early stages so we can make sure that we create a really great product that people love using," the statement added.

The spokesman said that interested parties should send an e-mail to enterprisesolutions@skype.net

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Making Business Sense of Web-Traffic Data

Coradiant on Thursday announced it would couple its Web-traffic-analysis product with business-intelligence capabilities to help IT managers better understand the impact on the business of the user experience with Web-based applications.

Coradiant, which packages Web-traffic performance-analysis software in its TrueSight appliances, today added a device to its product portfolio, the Web.I WI-2100 Performance Analytics appliance. The new box plugs into the network and works with Web traffic and transaction data collected by TrueSight appliances. Web.I then adds business-intelligence analytics to show IT managers how well Web applications perform based on several criteria, such as user, geographical location or branch office, the company says.

"Web.I can build data cubes of every end user, showing how that user experiences a Web application from a different city or office, where network and other conditions are variable," says Alistair Croll, Coradiant co-founder and vice president of products. Coradiant's products promise to capture the real -- meaning data and performance metrics based on actual, not synthetic traffic -- user experience with Web-based applications. "This product lets IT talk in terms of the business. When you start with end-user experience as opposed to network latency, IT and the business can speak the same language."

For instance, Web.I applies business-intelligence analytics to volumes of user traffic (TrueSight appliances capture thousands of Web transactions per second, the company says) in real time, and provides reports about performance issues to IT and line-of-business managers. In addition, the appliance learns from user-experience monitoring how changes to network configurations could impact performance for the client. The data collected by TrueSight can be warehoused and tapped by Web.I for ad hoc queries to spot user-experience trends over time.

Croll says although the product was designed with performance analytics in mind, beta customers have been using it to establish service-level management objectives, perform change impact-analysis and, in some cases, fraud detection.

"The tools can give IT managers insight into user activity on applications," Croll says. That can show if an application is being tapped by more users than it is licensed for, or by unauthorized users. IT managers and business managers can create role-based dashboards to view the data and analytics in relation to their responsibilities.

Coradiant competes with Compuware , HP 's Mercury Interactive , Indicative Software , ProactiveNet and TeaLeaf , among others.

Available now, Web.I comes in two models. The enterprise model, for companies with one data center, works with one to three TrueSight appliances; it starts around US$75,000. The global deployment model, designed for multiple data centers, works with as many as eight TrueSight applications; it costs about $110,000.

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Google to Buy DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion

Google has agreed to buy DoubleClick for US$3.1 billion in cash, an acquisition that strengthens Google's status as an online advertising powerhouse.

DoubleClick's network of advertisers and Web publishers, as well as its technology to serve ads and manage campaigns, is expected to boost Google's ad business, specifically for display and rich media advertising, which aren't Google's specialties.

Google generates most of its revenue from search engine, pay-per-click advertising, which are text ads that link to advertisers' Web sites, but it has lagged behind Yahoo and others in banner, graphical and video ads.

Google will purchase DoubleClick from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity and management. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Google's View
"By working together, we're going to be able to offer a variety of tools for advertisers to do better Internet targeting," said Susan Wojcicki, a vice president of product management with Google, speaking on a conference call with reporters. "Advertisers will be able to spend more and be able to make rational decisions about how they are spending their ad dollars."

The fact that there is such an "obvious alignment" between Google and DoubleClick advertising partners was an impetus for the deal, said Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt. "DoubleClick has been a partner of ours for a very long time, and some of the most important advertising partners of Google are in fact very big DoubleClick users," he said.

Google officials spoke only generally about product plans. "It's not good for us to speculate right now on what we might do," Schmidt said. "This merger is really part of a global growth strategy for Google. It's a way of solving, in an end-to-end way, problems in search and display advertising."

Effect on Microsoft
Recent rumors had Microsoft aiming to buy DoubleClick for about $2 billion, so today's announcement signals that a bidding war had erupted with Google, said industry analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence.

The deal is a clear loss for Microsoft and it stands to affect Yahoo as well, because with DoubleClick, Google gets a much-needed boost in display advertising, Sterling said.

Companies such as DoubleClick that link advertisers and Web publishers have thrived in recent years, thanks to the strong growth in online ad spending, said Clayton Moran, a financial analyst with Stanford Group Company, in Boca Raton, Florida, prior to Friday's announcement.

"The facilitators of online advertising have done very well, because demand for Internet advertising has been very strong," Moran said.

He doesn't track DoubleClick because it is a privately held company, but he does follow publicly traded competitors such as 24/7 Real Media and ValueClick. Last year, Real Media's revenue was $200.2 million, an increase of 43 percent from 2005. Meanwhile, ValueClick grew its revenue to $545.6 million, an increase of 79 percent from 2005.

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Deadly Virus Phone Threat Causes Pakistan Panic

KARACHI (Reuters) - Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones.

The rumor was so effective that some mosques in the country's biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God's wrath.

In a prank reminiscent of the plot in the hit Hollywood movie "The Ring" in which people die within a week after watching a video, the prankster warned users that a deadly virus transmitted through phones had killed 20 people.

There are more than 52 million mobile users among 160 million people in Pakistan.

Farah Hussain, a spokeswoman for Warid Telecom, said that their customer service centers had been inundated with panicky subscribers inquiring about the so-called virus.

The cellular operators moved to calm down subscribers and said in a joint statement: "These rumors are completely baseless. They do not make any sense in technological terms."

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Silicon Valley Seeks to Revamp Wireless Industry

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A start-up backed by Silicon Valley's power elite hopes to convince regulators to back a business plan that could scrap many restrictions on wireless networks and help Internet service providers like Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. into the market.

At stake is a chunk of wireless spectrum so valuable that it is being touted as the last opportunity for a new player -- such as the start-up Frontline Wireless of Greensboro, North Carolina -- to enter the $100 billion U.S. wireless market.

Just over 100 megahertz of analog airwaves are being returned by television broadcasters as they move to digital signals. Of that, about a quarter is being set aside for public safety and another portion is slated to be auctioned off by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission later this year.

Frontline Wireless wants to buy some of the spectrum and use Internet technology and a new type of software-based radio system for a network that public safety workers could share with commercial groups as diverse as traditional cellular phone providers, Internet companies and even energy utilities.

The idea is to have commercial organizations that use the network to foot the bill to build a system also designed to overcome significant problems emergency workers had talking to each other in emergencies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

"Our basic business plan is to guarantee roaming or national mobility to competitors. We are very much a story about jump-starting competition in an industry that is rapidly consolidating," said Reed Hundt, Frontline's vice chairman and a former FCC chairman.

The U.S. cellular market is dominated by four large companies -- AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile -- whose networks often do not cover sparsely populated areas and only support communication using devices that they have decided can run on their networks.

Frontline is proposing a system that can support multiple network technologies and can quickly reallocate how airwaves are shared among users, It wants to give customers more choice over devices while ensuring public safety workers get priority in emergencies.

Backers of the plan include some of Silicon Valley's biggest power brokers, such as top venture capitalists, two Google board members and Vanu Bose, a developer of software radio technology.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

Frontline's Chief Technologist Stagg Newman, also a former FCC technology official, said the company envisions three types of potential commercial customers for the service.

The first type are newcomers like Web heavyweights Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Corp. "and the companies we haven't even thought of, he said. "That's why I think Silicon Valley is enthused."

Frontline said it has had preliminary discussions with these companies, and was open to more proposals.

"Steve Jobs could come out with an iPhone and come to us and say I'd like to buy capacity," he said, referring to the Apple Inc. CEO. The iPhone launches in June.

The second type of potential clients is cellular providers looking to expand into unserved regions, such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, which is owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA, owned by Deutsche Telekom.

Thirdly, Newman said he has seen interest from utility companies that want to use wireless to remotely manage facilities such as electric substations or gas pipelines.

The challenge for Frontline, whose proposal was put forward relatively late in the bureaucratic jockeying ahead of the auction, is to convince the FCC to craft auction rules that can work in its favor, analysts said.

The agency is expected to let bidders know on April 25 what kind of services can be offered using the airwaves and how the spectrum will be divided up in the auction.

Frontline wants a block of spectrum next to the airwaves being allocated for public safety, to be designated for use by emergency workers as well as commercial customers.

It also wants the winner of that piece to commit to let any communications service lease capacity on the network.

"It would be a fairly significant change," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast. "I think Frontline has a fighting chance if it gets support from the public safety."

A tentative set of rules on how the auction will proceed is currently being circulated among the five FCC commissioners who vote on agency decisions, sources say.

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Microsoft Readies Support for Software-as-Service

Microsoft Corp. has consolidated some of its efforts to help Web hosting companies offer software-as-a-service (SAAS) into a new program tailored for offerings to independent software vendors (ISVs).

The Microsoft SAAS Incubation Center Program is set to debut Monday. The program provides both infrastructure and services that Web-hosting companies can offer to ISVs to help them turn their applications into SAAS offerings, said Michael van Dijken, a marketing manager in Microsoft's communications division.

Microsoft already gives hosting companies infrastructure and services to help them offer SAAS enablement. The new program puts some of those offerings under one umbrella for Web hosters, and tailors them specifically to turning ISVs into SAAS providers, he said.

"This is a collection of a number of efforts we've been working on ... to bring hosters and ISVs together," van Dijken said. As part of the program, Microsoft will help Web-hosting companies reach ISVs in Microsoft's partner channel to offer their SAAS-enablement services.

On the infrastructure side, the Microsoft SAAS Incubation Center includes a software bundle called the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting for Applications, as well as guidance and sample scripts to help service providers host SAAS offerings. Windows-based Hosting for Applications includes Windows Server, SQL Server, Microsoft Operations Manager and Microsoft Provisioning System.

On the services side, Microsoft will give hosting companies guidance on how to help ISVs deliver SAAS offerings from a business perspective, and help them provide business consulting and marketing for ISVs, van Dijken said.

Microsoft already has signed up eight Web hosting companies, four in the U.S. and four in the U.K. and Europe, van Dijken said. They are Opsource Inc., Affinity Internet Inc., NaviSite Inc., Wizmo Inc., NTT Europe Online, 7global, Siennax and Visionapp GmbH.

In addition to the SAAS Incubation Center Program, Microsoft is announcing on Monday the second phase of its SAAS On-Ramp Program, which offers discounted licensing for ISVs to help them become SAAS providers. This second phase gives ISVs the option of acquiring the discounted licenses not only directly from Microsoft, but also from hosting providers enrolled in the program.

Microsoft launched the SAAS On-Ramp Program in November, and it is scheduled to run through 2008.

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Adobe Ships Creative Suite 3

Adobe on Monday said it began shipping Creative Suite 3, the company's suite of applications designed for the creative professionals. Available today are Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Standard editions and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Standard editions.

Adobe is also shipping new standalone versions of Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Fireworks CS3, and Adobe Contribute CS3.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium, and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection are expected to ship in the third quarter of 2007.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium edition costs US$1799 and $1199 for Creative Suite 3 Design Standard edition. Creative Suite 3 Web Premium costs $1599 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Standard costs $999.

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Network Spending Stays Strong

Both enterprises and service providers are opening up their wallets for networks, and they'll keep it up at least until 2010, according to Infonetics Research Inc.

Sales of both telecommunications and data-network gear rose 9 percent in 2006 from the previous year, the company said Thursday. The year's total spending went over US$123 billion worldwide, and it is due to go higher, rising another 20 percent to reach $148 billion in 2010, Infonetics said.

Carriers and corporations alike are investing because they want to add voice and multimedia applications traffic to data networks, according to the Campbell, California, research company. Enterprises are also starting to add advanced capabilities for security and traffic management. New multimedia Web applications, particularly streaming video, have been cited in burgeoning Internet traffic.

IPTV (Internet Protocol television) will play a growing role in the buildout, Infonetics predicted. IPTV equipment will double its share of the total networking market between 2006 and 2010, the researchers said. IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), a technology to deliver the same services over different kinds of networks, will be another fast-growing field.

A growing networking industry doesn't necessarily mean an expanding vendor base, however. Infonetics' report came just as Avici Systems Inc., launched in 1997 as one of several would-be rivals to Cisco, closed down its routing business. Avici and others hoped to take a chunk of the market for big routers that sit at the core of service-provider networks and have to be installed or expanded as traffic gets heavier. Cisco and Juniper Networks Inc. dominate that market today.

In the total world telecommunications and data-networking market studied by Infonetics, Cisco is the biggest vendor with 20 percent, followed by Alcatel-Lucent SA.

The fastest growth in spending is happening in the Asia-Pacific region, which made up 28 percent of worldwide revenue in 2006. Meanwhile, 32 percent was from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 30 percent was from North America, and 10 percent of spending came from Central American and Latin America.

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Tech Vendors Seek Profits in Recycling

Technology vendors have long used Earth Day as an excuse to polish their environmental records every April, but in 2007 many companies are finding they can generate revenue through the practice.

In the past year, PC vendors like Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Apple Inc. have expanded their programs to take back their customers' obsolete computers for free recycling. And cell phone vendors like Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp. this week offered their customers greater incentives to return old equipment.

This is not just charity work, analysts say. In addition to improving their public relations, those companies can also generate new cash.

Some PC vendors earn growing revenue by selling parts, as they see rising global demand for plastics, components, scrap and refurbished PCs, according to a report from David Daoud, an analyst with IDC. Some vendors also use take-back programs as a way to convince customers to buy new PCs more often.

One of their biggest challenges is finding a better way to collect the flood of obsolete hardware. Just 7 percent of consumers put their used PCs into municipal recycling, while 34 percent donate them to friends and family, and 35 percent store them in an attic or garage, IDC said. The corporate world is nearly as bad, recycling only 30 percent of their PC assets through official channels, compared to donating 70 percent of them to nonprofit groups and employees.

In 2006, that picture started to change, Daoud said. The percentage of recycled PCs rose significantly, as companies cut the number of computers they tossed in the trash and saw a tight shrink in the demand for donated obsolete technologies.

One reason for the shift is greater awareness of other options, supported by Web sites like MyGreenElectronics.org, which lists the location of nearby recycling centers sorted by zip code. And the EPEAT government IT procurement site helps institutions buy PCs that are manufactured with less of the lead, copper and cadmium that fills up toxic landfills.

Another reason is the growing realization in corporate boardrooms that companies can combine profit with social responsibility, said Bob Houghton, president of Redemtech Inc. of Columbus, Ohio., a firm that helps connect companies disposing of their old IT assets with recyclers seeking raw materials.

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Could Digg APIs Invite Phishing Mashups?

Digg is just the latest in a raft of Web 2.0 darlings to open their data doors to developers by way of APIs. The Digg API -- announced Thursday at a party to celebrate Digg's 1 millionth registered user -- will allow developers to expose Digg story, comment, and user data to mashups of their own making.

So entrenched is the trend of exposing APIs to the developer community that John Musser -- whose ProgrammableWeb catalogs dissect the growing mashup phenomenon -- declared APIs a must-have checklist item during a presentation on APIs Tuesday at the Web 2.0 Expo

"It's going to be almost like a decade ago. Do you have a Web site? Check," Musser said. "That's how it will be with APIs."

The logistics of leveraging APIs in an effort to transform a Web offering into a bona fide platform remain in their infancy, however, with myriad complex issues quickly arising -- not the least of which is a tried-and-true means for monetizing the model.

The biggest issue surrounding APIs is identity," Musser said. "What's the standard? Is it OpenID ? I don't know. The whole area is vague. Most of the major API vendors have their own authentication APIs. Each is similar, but in the end, they're all different."

The result of this ambiguity will be a new form of malware.

"In 2007, we'll see phishing mashups," Musser said.

The rampant availability of personal data across the Web is another problem with wide-reaching implications, Musser added, demonstrating a mashup that mapped addresses of library patrons who had checked out copies of George Orwell's 1984.

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Vista Security Woes

In late March, when security researchers stumbled upon drive-by download attacks exploiting yet another serious Windows hole, they had an eye-opening surprise: The vulnerability--caused by the way Windows handled animated cursor (.ani) files--didn't affect just Windows XP. It also hit Vista, Microsoft's new security-centric operating system.

Security experts still proclaim Vista a major improvement over previous Windows versions, and readily say that its important new safety features--including an improved firewall, a "Protected Mode" for Internet Explorer, and User Account Control--make it much more resistant to the most common forms of spyware and malware.

However, this latest flaw (now fixed) is a major black eye for Microsoft; along with two other critical security patches issued for Vista in its first three months on shelves, the problem has tarnished Vista's security sheen (see "Vista's Vulnerabilities" for details). The new OS may be safer, but its users must still be on their guard.

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Hands On: Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite

Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite is here, and this version of the sleek game console offers more than just cosmetic improvements. The unit's bolstered specs--such as a 120GB hard disk drive and an HDMI 1.2 connector, perfect for today's high-def TVs--mean more room to store digital content, and a better way to view high-definition content.

Though I don't think this update of the current Xbox 360 makes sense for every gamer to upgrade to, the HDMI capability alone makes the Elite a more-appealing option if you're planning on buying your first Xbox. The new console goes on sale Sunday, April 29, and will cost $480, although some sites are charging a premium.

My first impressions of this new iteration of Microsoft's two-year-old game console are generally positive--particularly with regard to the dramatically improved integration of the optional Xbox HD DVD Player, and the improved image quality offered by HDMI (the differences are there, albeit not as striking as one might expect). For photos of the Xbox 360 Elite and its components, see our slide show.

Basic Black
The Xbox 360 Elite differs from the current Xbox 360 in ways beyond cosmetic finish. Black, however, really can be slimming--even in the context of an inanimate game console. The matte-black Xbox 360 Elite manages to look more svelte than its off-white predecessor.

Looks aren't everything, though. While I can appreciate that the Xbox 360 Elite will blend in better with the rest of my entertainment components, I'm more interested in the unit's bolstered specs and what those new features will let me do. I was also interested to see how the unit handled--especially with regard to high-definition movie playback.

A Mostly Breezy Setup
I found the initial setup of the Xbox 360 Elite a snap: Select the language and establish your Xbox Live account or migrate an existing one.

From there, you can select the High Definition Settings option for choosing the optimal audio and video for high definition.

This option is prominently displayed on the console's screen, and I applaud its inclusion since many users will use the Xbox 360 Elite on a high-definition TV. However, I found actually choosing this option a bit disappointing: It deposited me into the Console Settings panel, directly into the display settings; audio was just one of many console settings I could adjust below that. I had expected to go to a menu that unified setting the audio and video for high-def.

The menu showed my current, default setting for the display--1080i wide-screen. I next drilled two more levels down within the menu, so I could select the HDTV setting; I chose 1080p, to match the resolution of the Pioneer Elite Pro FHD-1 50-inch plasma display I was using. The menu also has an option to select screen format, but on the unit I tested, that option was grayed out.

I then moved back to adjust the audio settings, to select the digital output. The default setting here was for Dolby Digital 5.1; however, you can also choose digital stereo or Dolby Digital with WMA Pro. The on-screen display warns you that you can only get digital audio output through certain connectors--you must use an Xbox 360 Component HD, Advanced SCART, S-Video, or VGA HD AV cable to get digital output.

Strangely, though, the menu doesn't make any mention of the HDMI AV cable, despite the cable coming with the Xbox 360 Elite (that inclusion is a nice touch since the cable could be expensive). That omission also means that the unit's setup makes no mention of what kind of audio you can expect to recieve over HDMI. (I'm awaiting confirmation on what audio the Elite can support over HDMI; if it's limited to the same stated specs as within the menu options, though, that would be a major disappointment--especially considering that many HD DVD movie titles have shipped with multichannel Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus audio tracks.)