Pc News

[Rasputin]

Google Corrects Checkout Glitch

Google this week temporarily attached Google Checkout icons to ads from companies that haven't signed up for the online transaction system, a glitch that caused some confusion among advertisers.

"For a short period last night [Tuesday], the Google Checkout icon was inadvertently assigned to ads for U.S. AdWords clients who are not Checkout users. We resolved this very quickly and do not expect it to impact ad performance," a Google spokesperson wrote via e-mail on Wednesday.

Glitch Noticed
Merchants don't have to be Google AdWords advertisers to offer Google Checkout as a payment transaction option on their Web sites. However, merchants that are AdWords advertisers get a break on Google Checkout fees. Specifically, for every dollar that merchants spend on AdWords, they can process $10 in sales through Google Checkout at no charge.

These merchants' ads also appear with a Google Checkout icon, to let potential shoppers know that they'll be able to complete the transaction using that Google system. This week's bug was noticed by various users and commented on in discussion boards and blogs.

Reprise Media, a provider of search engine marketing services, wrote about the problem in its SearchViews blog after officials noticed on Wednesday morning an overabundance of Google Checkout shopping cart icons in AdWords ads.

"To see whether this truly was an explosion in the use of Checkout or just a weird glitch, we Googled ourselves, and sure enough ... the little blue cart denotes Reprise Media as a certified Google Checkout merchant, along with two other sites. We're not," the blog posting reads.

Over on ThreadWatch.org, others commented on the proliferation of Google Checkout icons and wondered if it was a bug or a sign of broad adoption of the service.

Checkout: Still New
Google Checkout, which launched in June and is seen by many as a potentially serious challenger to eBay's PayPal, has been criticized recently by some merchants and shoppers that feel Google sometimes takes too long to review and approve sales orders.

[Rasputin]

Blu-ray To Be Compatible Across Countries

Blu-ray Disc players and movies expected on sale later this year in Japan and the U.S. will share the same region code, Sony said Thursday.

Current DVD discs and players on sale in the two countries use different region codes so that software bought in one country will not work on players purchased in the other country. The system was designed to allow content producers to better manage release and sale of content around the world.

Targeting (and Missing) Pirates
The theory is that a movie can go to DVD in the U.S. before it hits movie theaters in Japan with little impact on Japanese box-office takings because the U.S. discs won't play in Japan. In practice, the system has proved easy to hack, and multi-region players that accept software from any region are readily available and popular among consumers.

In all, there are six DVD regions but content producers and hardware makers have been discussing changes for the new Blu-ray Disc system, which is being positioned to replace DVD for high-definition content. Backers of the competing HD DVD format are waiting on a decision by the Blu-ray Disc Association with the idea of using the same region coding system to avoid confusion among consumers.

[Raiden]

I've already posted this...Anyway urs is a bit more detailed

[Rasputin]

First Look: TomTom One Makes GPS Easy, Portable, and Affordable

The TomTom One is the portable GPS unit that a lot of people (myself included) have been waiting for. What makes it superior? Start with first-rate maps and crystal-clear driving instructions (in your choice of voices and languages). Then have the device work right out of the box and be as easy to use as tapping a finger. Now throw in a large, bright display, and fit everything in a case that's not much larger than a tin of mints. Finally, slap on a $499 price tag and get it on store shelves in time for the holiday buying season.

The new device improves on the company's popular Go 300 entry-level GPS in nearly every way (TomTom will continue to sell the more expensive Go 510 and 910 models, as well). First and foremost is the smaller size: The One isn't much taller or wider than its 3.5-inch touch display, and because it's only about three-quarters of an inch deep, it fits unobtrusively in your pants pocket. Making the device easier to tote also means people are less likely to leave it in their car, where it is a target for thieves and susceptible to heat and cold.

On the Road in Minutes
The TomTom One goes right from the box to your dash: Attach the small-but-sturdy windshield mount, slide the device into place, plug it into your car's 12-volt terminal (aka its cigarette lighter port), and press the power button. It then prompts you to insert the 1GB SD memory card that stores the company's map databases. The data takes about 5 seconds to load; afterward the device guides you through initial setup, requesting your preferences in a few areas, such as left- or right-handed, and use of miles or kilometers. You can opt to hear driving directions in any of 22 languages and several male and female voices, including choices with U.S. or UK accents (once you've registered, you can download more voices from the TomTom site).

After you enter your home address at the prompt, the TomTom One offers a tour of its features. Usually such canned descriptions are a waste of time, but this product is so packed with customization and other options that I found the demo to be can't-miss viewing. For example, the 'Find Alternate' feature lets you see your route options with a single click. You can also set your route manually or designate areas you want to avoid on your routes. The latter feature allowed me to instruct the device to calculate its routes around a major highway construction site near my home. Route preferences include fastest, shortest distance, walking, bicycling, and 'muted' speed, which I assume avoids highways.

Setup took me just 20 minutes from powering on to seeing my location plotted on the map. Impressively, the device latched onto enough GPS satellite signals to show my position while my car was still parked in the garage; most of the GPS units I've tested require a clear line of sight to the sky before they're able to map your location.

Fingertip Control
To start navigating, you just tap the screen with your finger to open the options screen. You can enter an address with the on-screen keyboard (arranged A to Z rather than in QWERTY layout), choose an entry from the device's points-of-interest database, or select from a list of recently entered locations. Alternatively, you can simply tap a spot on the map and then the Cursor button to be directed there. You reposition the map by "dragging" it with your fingertip, and you zoom in and out via a slider control.

The TomTom One took just a few seconds to calculate my test routes, the longest of which was 60 miles. After you click the Done button to accept the route the device has selected (which it previews on a zoomable map), the screen shows your route in red, with your next driving instruction overlaid in green. You're also shown a five-bar GPS receiver indicator, the distance to your next turn or stop, the distance remaining to your destination, and your estimated time of arrival. I usually pay no attention to such travel-time estimates, and I scoffed when the TomTom One indicated that I would arrive much earlier than I would've guessed--but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the GPS nailed my arrival time from a good 35 miles out.

For multistop trips you can add waypoints to a destination, but I found it just as easy to enter each stop manually and then choose the next leg from the list of recent locations. The routes that the One presented were spot-on, with one big exception: For some reason the device wanted me to travel from Sonoma County to San Francisco via two bridges rather than over only one. Perhaps it wanted to save me $1 on tolls, but the added travel time makes that no bargain. Otherwise the routes the device calculated were the ones I would've taken. It even knew when to avoid major arteries in the city, choosing faster alternatives on surface streets by default.

If you've been postponing a GPS purchase until the devices became portable enough, accurate enough, easy enough, customizable enough, and--most important--cheap enough, the arrival of the TomTom One may be the end of your wait.

[Rasputin]

Google Adds Overlay Feature to Mobile Maps

Google will tweak the mobile version of Google Maps to allow developers to layer information over the application, a feature that it hopes will lead to new uses.

The search company released on Thursday a subset of its keyhole markup language (KML), which developers can use to create place markers to highlight points of interest on the version of Google Maps accessible by mobile phones and handheld devices.

Gummi Hafsteinsson, product manager at Google, sees a wide variety of uses for the technology for mobile users. For instance, a hotel could create a KML overlay that flags the location of restaurants and stores providing special offers on food or goods. Another application could be a KML overlay that provided real-time information on gas station prices, he said.

Annotate Google Maps
Google hasn't made any assumptions on exactly how people might use the new mobile capability, according to Hafsteinsson. "We want them to try it out," he said. "We're going to lay low and listen to their feedback before we decide on future directions."

KML was originally developed for Google Earth, the company's online view of the globe consisting of navigable digital satellite images, to manage three-dimensional data. Google acquired the technology behind Google Earth and KML when it bought digital mapping company Keyhole in October 2004.

Developers can use the full-blown capabilities of KML to add a variety of different annotations to Google Earth's images of the countries of the world, including the ability to render three-dimensional buildings. Users can also add data to the Web-based version of Google Maps via KML.

Given the limited rendering capabilities of today's mobile devices, the KML overlays developers can create for the mobile version of Google Maps mostly concentrate on place markers, Hafsteinsson said. While developers can access the KML overlays they've created for the online versions of Google Earth and Google Maps from their mobile devices, more complex overlays involving sophisticated rendering may not fully display on phones and handhelds, he noted.

Last month, Google added two features to the mobile version of Google Maps--real-time traffic information for around 30 U.S. cities, and the ability to save routes that users take on a regular basis. The popular routes feature is available in all the countries where Google Maps for Mobile is offered--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States.

Google Maps for mobile devices is free and works on over 100 Java-enabled mobile devices, including phones from Cingular and Sprint, as well as Research In Motion's BlackBerry color devices. As yet, the mapping application doesn't support Palm devices; Nextel or T-Mobile USA phones; or phones from Verizon, Alltel, and U.S. Cellular that use the binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW) application development platform.

[Rasputin]

Yahoo Tests Antiphishing Service

Yahoo is testing a security service designed to prevent Web surfers from landing on sites that look like they are from Yahoo but that are fake ones set up by fraudsters to carry out so-called phishing scams.

The Yahoo service will let users know if they have landed on a legitimate Yahoo sign-in Web page, so as to prevent them from entering their Yahoo ID and password on a phishing site.

The service currently supports only U.S. Yahoo Web sites, is still being tested, and hasn't been officially announced yet, a Yahoo spokesperson said via e-mail today.

Attacking a Big Problem
Phishing is a monumental online security problem. Scammers set up legitimate-looking Web sites from well-known companies such as banks, online stores, and Web portals, and then try to lure people to them via e-mail and other methods. The idea is to trick people into entering, on these fake sites, sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers; this captured information could then be used for malicious purposes like ID theft and fraud.

The basis of the new antiphishing service is a Yahoo sign-in seal that will be associated with an individual computer; users will need to install it on every computer they use. Once installed, the seal will appear on Yahoo sign-in screens, letting visitors know that the site is genuine. Creating a seal involves either entering some text terms or uploading an image. The text or image will be displayed in the seal, which will appear only on Yahoo sign-in screens; it thus offers no protection on sites from other companies.

Yahoo cautions that there are reasons why the seal may not appear on otherwise genuine Yahoo sign-in pages. "For example, someone else using your computer may have deleted or changed your seal, your cookies or files on your computer may have been deleted, or you're using a partner or international Yahoo site," Yahoo's site reads. "To be safe, look for these other clues to make sure you're on a genuine Yahoo sign-in screen."

If the computer is shared among family or friends, it is a good idea to show everyone the sign-in seal so they recognize it. For computers in public places, like libraries, the sign-in seal should be created by the locales' administrators and not by visiting users, according to Yahoo.

[Rasputin]

Boeing Drops In-Flight Wi-Fi

Boeing will phase out its Connexion by Boeing service, leaving what it once considered a promising market for in-flight Internet access.

Connexion offers broadband Internet access via Wi-Fi, using a satellite connection to the Internet, that costs about $10 to $30 per flight on commercial airlines. It also offers high-speed Internet access on executive jets and ships.

Connexion is offered on some commercial flights in Europe and Asia but was never adopted by a major U.S. carrier. First conceived in 2000, the service was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration in May 2002 as the nation's airlines were reeling from a travel slump that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Lack of Interest Blamed
"Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected," Boeing said Thursday in a written statement attributed to Jim McNerney, CEO, president and chair. The company will work with customers on an orderly phase-out of Connexion, Boeing said.

The aerospace giant's foray into broadband has been expensive. In its financial results for this year's second quarter, Boeing said it expects to take a pre-tax charge of $320 million, or $0.26 per share, spread over the remainder of 2006.

Boeing talked to potential buyers or partners for the service beginning in June but wasn't able to reach an agreement with any of them, spokesman John Dern said. The company is no longer trying to sell Connexion, he said. The private-jet and maritime offerings will be phased out along with the commercial-airliner service.

The broadband system, which gave passengers with Wi-Fi-equipped devices full access to the Internet, worked well, Dern said.

"This was not a technology issue. It was a market issue," he said.

On an average flight, only a few passengers were using it, and even they weren't using it very much, Dern said. "We were seeing penetration numbers that were in the low single digits, and that was after the service had been out there for more than two years."

Alternatives May Emerge
Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, who has used the service, said it wasn't advertised well. And in business and first-class cabins, many passengers on night flights sleep instead of working, he pointed out.

Airlines that offer Connexion, such as Lufthansa and All Nippon Airways, could be left in a bind, he said. Despite what Boeing says, Dulaney thinks the assets will be sold.

"Somebody will buy it for a fire-sale price and keep it going," Dulaney predicted. Boeing took a financial beating because it took on the high cost of building the system in the first place, he said.

The next trend for in-flight communications may be cellular, with new technologies emerging to make it feasible. But that would put a burden on passengers to carry the right type of device, because airlines wouldn't pay to put every cellular technology on board each plane, Dulaney said.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Patches Vista Beta

Microsoft has released two patches for its Vista operating system, saying that it too is affected by flaws that were disclosed during the company's August 8 security updates.

The patches, which were released earlier this week, fix critical flaws described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-042 and MS06-051. They fix bugs in Internet Explorer and the Windows kernel, and were described Tuesday in a blog posting by Vista Product Manager Alex Heaton.

Patch Vista Beta, Too
Vista is not affected by the most scrutinized vulnerability in this month's patches, a Windows Server service flaw that is already being exploited by some hackers. This bug prompted a rare warning from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last week.

The latest patches raised some eyebrows because Microsoft had not previously acknowledged that these bugs also affect Vista.

Microsoft has issued this type of patch for beta software in the past--it released a January security update for Windows Vista Beta 1--but the company does not provide information about beta products in its regularly scheduled monthly updates, said Stephen Toulouse, security program manager with Microsoft's security response center.

"Beta products are not listed in the security bulletins as they are still under development and not intended to be used in production environments," he said in an e-mail interview.

Vista, however, will be "the first major Microsoft product release that will be serviced with security updates throughout the beta process," Heaton wrote.

New Tactic for Beta Software
One Microsoft observer was cool on the idea.

Microsoft is setting a bad precedent by agreeing to these security updates, because it muddies the difference between supported products and those in beta test, said Russ Cooper, a senior information security analyst at Cybertrust.

He believes that Microsoft is "dead wrong to commit to providing patches of any kind for Vista beta testers, in any forum other than official beta tester channels," he said.

The updates do provide Microsoft with one benefit, however, Cooper said. They preempt reports on security flaws in Microsoft's beta software like those issued by Symantec Corp. over the past weeks. "They're avoiding more of that stupid Symantec publicity that says that Vista has security holes," he said.

[Rasputin]

Dell Announces AMD-Powered Desktops

Dell is extending its relationship with Advanced Micro Devices by launching Dimension desktop computers with AMD processors in September and introducing a two-socket and multiprocessor server using AMD Opteron processors by the end of the year.

Until now, Dell has looked solely to Intel to supply its chips. The company surprised the industry in May by revealing it will begin selling two-processor servers with AMD chips by the end of 2006, a move predicted by analysts earlier in the year. Now Dell will extend that product family to include four-processor servers and Dimension desktop PCs.

"Customers want certain price, performance and heating characteristics that arena??t possible with the Intel chips. Dell has always been very customer-responsive and sometimes that goes beyond exclusivity," said Rick Doherty, an analyst with The Envisioneering Group.

The move to AMD could have drawbacks, too, analysts warn. Accustomed to Intel, Dell will have to hire or train its engineers to design PCs with the new chip technology, and that could cause a "hiccup" in some product development plans, Doherty said.

Earnings Slip
Even if Della??s foray into AMD-powered servers is successful, it would have a limited effect on the companya??s earnings. Server sales accounted for just 9 percent of Della??s revenue this quarter, compared to 35 percent for desktops and 26 percent for laptops.

The remaining revenue came from software (16 percent), services (10 percent) and storage (4 percent).

Dell officials blamed the companya??s strategy of cutting prices in a slow market for a profit of just $502 million in the second quarter, 51 percent below the same period last year.

The company also revealed it is being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for issues of revenue recognition and financial reporting in certain periods prior to fiscal year 2006.

In the face of these results, Dell executives promised change for the next quarter.

"In the future we will be more circumspect about pricing," said Kevin Rollins, Dell CEO.

Company chairman Michael Dell went even further, saying, "We are exploring all sorts of ways to accelerate new releases and cost improvements."

Neither man would add any details about the SEC investigation.

Tough Quarter
The news of Della??s embrace of AMD would usually attract flocks of happy investors to the company. But Dell has had an epically bad quarter.

On Monday, Dell announced it would recall 4.1 million laptop batteries after a series of failures led to the lithium ion cells overheating and even catching fire.

After missing its earnings target in May, Dell had hustled to turn its results around by spending $100 million to improve customer service by hiring new call center employees, beefing up service packages, and simplifying cost structures.

But in July, Dell offered a rebate to customers in China who had received the wrong processor in their laptops, a cheaper version of Intela??s Core Duo chip than they had been promised.

Then on Wednesday, PC-selling rival Hewlett-Packard announced strong earnings, casting doubt on Della??s excuse of a soft market. The results could also push HP to draw even closer to Della??s number-one position in the market.

[Rasputin]

Back-to-School Desktop Deals You'll Want to Avoid

Well, it's back-to-school-time again, which means every retail outlet under the sun is pushing hard to sell PCs. And with Intel's extremely fast Core 2 Duo chips starting to take over the desktop market and push down prices on older, slower tech you'd think that the retail outlets would have some pretty sweet deals. Unfortunately, that's not what I'm seeing.

One of my coworkers here mentioned she was looking at new PCs and wondered if this season's retail deals were worth pursuing. I took a quick look through the Sunday ads for Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot--all the usual suspects--and found some pretty unimpressive results.

Retail PCs around the $1000 mark shared a pretty common set of specs: 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, integrated graphics, a 17-inch LCD, and either an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ or a Pentium D 915 chip. That's OK, I guess. Problem is, in a month or so, you'll be able to buy a much faster low-end Core 2 Duo system for the same price. How do I know that? Simple. You can get one online right now.

See here's the interesting thing about Intel's Core 2 Duo line: It's already available across most of the price spectrum. NewEgg has the low-end Core 2 Duo E6300 chip for $203. That's cheap enough to provide the backbone for a respectable $1000 system. And sure enough, HP Shopping, or CyberPower, and pretty much any other build-to-order vendor will let you configure a $1000 PC with everything you'll find from a retail box, plus the much faster CPU.

While it's hardly news that boxed, retail configurations lag behind build-to-order machines in adopting the latest technology, it's rare that a next generation CPU would target the mainstream PC market so quickly. In this case, Core 2 Duo just happened to roll out a little bit too late to make it into mainstream retail PCs for the back-to-school crowd.

So if you're shopping for a new PC for yourself or your college student, do yourself a favor: Shop online or wait until mainstream Core 2 Duo systems show up in retail. For the same money you'll get a much faster system.

[Rasputin]

Google Adds Overlay Feature to Mobile Maps

Google will tweak the mobile version of Google Maps to allow developers to layer information over the application, a feature that it hopes will lead to new uses.

The search company released on Thursday a subset of its keyhole markup language (KML), which developers can use to create place markers to highlight points of interest on the version of Google Maps accessible by mobile phones and handheld devices.

Gummi Hafsteinsson, product manager at Google, sees a wide variety of uses for the technology for mobile users. For instance, a hotel could create a KML overlay that flags the location of restaurants and stores providing special offers on food or goods. Another application could be a KML overlay that provided real-time information on gas station prices, he said.

Annotate Google Maps
Google hasn't made any assumptions on exactly how people might use the new mobile capability, according to Hafsteinsson. "We want them to try it out," he said. "We're going to lay low and listen to their feedback before we decide on future directions."

KML was originally developed for Google Earth, the company's online view of the globe consisting of navigable digital satellite images, to manage three-dimensional data. Google acquired the technology behind Google Earth and KML when it bought digital mapping company Keyhole in October 2004.

Developers can use the full-blown capabilities of KML to add a variety of different annotations to Google Earth's images of the countries of the world, including the ability to render three-dimensional buildings. Users can also add data to the Web-based version of Google Maps via KML.

Given the limited rendering capabilities of today's mobile devices, the KML overlays developers can create for the mobile version of Google Maps mostly concentrate on place markers, Hafsteinsson said. While developers can access the KML overlays they've created for the online versions of Google Earth and Google Maps from their mobile devices, more complex overlays involving sophisticated rendering may not fully display on phones and handhelds, he noted.

Last month, Google added two features to the mobile version of Google Maps--real-time traffic information for around 30 U.S. cities, and the ability to save routes that users take on a regular basis. The popular routes feature is available in all the countries where Google Maps for Mobile is offered--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States.

Google Maps for mobile devices is free and works on over 100 Java-enabled mobile devices, including phones from Cingular and Sprint, as well as Research In Motion's BlackBerry color devices. As yet, the mapping application doesn't support Palm devices; Nextel or T-Mobile USA phones; or phones from Verizon, Alltel, and U.S. Cellular that use the binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW) application development platform.

[Rasputin]

Yahoo Tests Antiphishing Service

Yahoo is testing a security service designed to prevent Web surfers from landing on sites that look like they are from Yahoo but that are fake ones set up by fraudsters to carry out so-called phishing scams.

The Yahoo service will let users know if they have landed on a legitimate Yahoo sign-in Web page, so as to prevent them from entering their Yahoo ID and password on a phishing site.

The service currently supports only U.S. Yahoo Web sites, is still being tested, and hasn't been officially announced yet, a Yahoo spokesperson said via e-mail today.

Attacking a Big Problem
Phishing is a monumental online security problem. Scammers set up legitimate-looking Web sites from well-known companies such as banks, online stores, and Web portals, and then try to lure people to them via e-mail and other methods. The idea is to trick people into entering, on these fake sites, sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers; this captured information could then be used for malicious purposes like ID theft and fraud.

The basis of the new antiphishing service is a Yahoo sign-in seal that will be associated with an individual computer; users will need to install it on every computer they use. Once installed, the seal will appear on Yahoo sign-in screens, letting visitors know that the site is genuine. Creating a seal involves either entering some text terms or uploading an image. The text or image will be displayed in the seal, which will appear only on Yahoo sign-in screens; it thus offers no protection on sites from other companies.

Yahoo cautions that there are reasons why the seal may not appear on otherwise genuine Yahoo sign-in pages. "For example, someone else using your computer may have deleted or changed your seal, your cookies or files on your computer may have been deleted, or you're using a partner or international Yahoo site," Yahoo's site reads. "To be safe, look for these other clues to make sure you're on a genuine Yahoo sign-in screen."

If the computer is shared among family or friends, it is a good idea to show everyone the sign-in seal so they recognize it. For computers in public places, like libraries, the sign-in seal should be created by the locales' administrators and not by visiting users, according to Yahoo.

[Rasputin]

Boeing Drops In-Flight Wi-Fi

Boeing will phase out its Connexion by Boeing service, leaving what it once considered a promising market for in-flight Internet access.

Connexion offers broadband Internet access via Wi-Fi, using a satellite connection to the Internet, that costs about $10 to $30 per flight on commercial airlines. It also offers high-speed Internet access on executive jets and ships.

Connexion is offered on some commercial flights in Europe and Asia but was never adopted by a major U.S. carrier. First conceived in 2000, the service was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration in May 2002 as the nation's airlines were reeling from a travel slump that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Lack of Interest Blamed
"Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected," Boeing said Thursday in a written statement attributed to Jim McNerney, CEO, president and chair. The company will work with customers on an orderly phase-out of Connexion, Boeing said.

The aerospace giant's foray into broadband has been expensive. In its financial results for this year's second quarter, Boeing said it expects to take a pre-tax charge of $320 million, or $0.26 per share, spread over the remainder of 2006.

Boeing talked to potential buyers or partners for the service beginning in June but wasn't able to reach an agreement with any of them, spokesman John Dern said. The company is no longer trying to sell Connexion, he said. The private-jet and maritime offerings will be phased out along with the commercial-airliner service.

The broadband system, which gave passengers with Wi-Fi-equipped devices full access to the Internet, worked well, Dern said.

"This was not a technology issue. It was a market issue," he said.

On an average flight, only a few passengers were using it, and even they weren't using it very much, Dern said. "We were seeing penetration numbers that were in the low single digits, and that was after the service had been out there for more than two years."

Alternatives May Emerge
Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, who has used the service, said it wasn't advertised well. And in business and first-class cabins, many passengers on night flights sleep instead of working, he pointed out.

Airlines that offer Connexion, such as Lufthansa and All Nippon Airways, could be left in a bind, he said. Despite what Boeing says, Dulaney thinks the assets will be sold.

"Somebody will buy it for a fire-sale price and keep it going," Dulaney predicted. Boeing took a financial beating because it took on the high cost of building the system in the first place, he said.

The next trend for in-flight communications may be cellular, with new technologies emerging to make it feasible. But that would put a burden on passengers to carry the right type of device, because airlines wouldn't pay to put every cellular technology on board each plane, Dulaney said.

[Rasputin]

Apple Still Leads Music Player Sales

Apple Computer continued to lead the U.S. digital music player market in the second quarter with a 75.6 percent share, according to the NPD Group.

"Apple has done a great job of focusing consumers' attention on digital music in their products through millions of dollars in advertising," said Ross Rubin, analyst at the NPD Group, via e-mail.

New Challenges
But it's hard to tell if Apple will be able to maintain its sizable lead as mobile phone companies continue to put out handsets with built-in music players. A number of analysts have warned that the digital music player market could go the way of the personal digital assistant (PDA), which saw growth drop off once mobile phone companies introduced smart phones, handsets with PDA functionality.

Rubin says that companies focused on standalone digital music players should remain competitive against the mobile phone industry because their devices have greater capacity, better user interfaces, better integration with online music services, and stronger digital rights management (DRM) support.

U.S. mobile phone service providers have also hindered the popularity of using mobile phones as music players because they have been charging more for purchasing songs online than their rivals in the standalone music player business, Rubin said. Carriers have also in some cases been reluctant to enable music file exchange with PCs via memory cards or Bluetooth, instead preferring that consumers rely on their networks for purchases, he added.

But he noted that mobile phone companies are getting better at the music business, especially in recent handset models from companies such as Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, LG Electronics, and Nokia, indicating that the fight is still in its early rounds.

Other Leaders
SanDisk followed Apple in the second quarter ranking with a 9.7 percent market share, according to the NPD Group, while Creative Technology took third with 4.3 percent of the U.S. digital music player market.

Following were Samsung Electronics with a 2.5 percent share and Sony with 1.9 percent, according to The NPD Group.

The NPD Group does not include mobile phones with built-in music player functions in its figures.

[Rasputin]

The HDTV Juggernaut Gathers Steam

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA -- The HDTV market is growing by leaps and bounds as prices for high-definition sets continue to tumble and programming options expand. That was the rosy industry outlook at opening sessions of the annual DisplaySearch HDTV Conference here.

In June, an NPD survey of major retailers found that 41 percent of all TVs sold in the United States were HDTVs, compared with 25 percent a year ago. (NPD, a research firm that tracks sales of technology products, owns DisplaySearch, a research company specializing in all aspects of the display industry.)

The NPD survey also found that HDTV sales accounted for 81 percent of all dollar revenues for TV sales in June, compared with 59 percent a year earlier. In the same time period, the survey found, the average cost of an HDTV set fell from $2223 to $1893, DisplaySearch president Ross Young said.

Prices Drop
Price declines varied somewhat depending on screen technology and size, but were impressive across the board. The biggest drops were for 37-inch LCDs, with average prices diving a full 50 percent over the last year, from $3409 in June 2005 to $1708 in June 2006.

A 50-inch plasma screen averaged $4951 last year and $3110 this year--a 37 percent drop. And price declines have slashed the once-huge difference between 40-inch LCDs and 42-inch plasmas: In June, 40-inch LCDs averaged $2321, while 42-inch LCDs averaged $2090.

Consumers are definitely interested, too: A DisplaySearch survey of people planning to buy a TV found that 63 percent wanted an HDTV-ready set, making that feature the second most-desired attribute in a new set after large screen size (68 percent).

Reasons to Buy
Young cited the coming cutoff of the analog broadcast system as a major incentive for people to upgrade their old sets. In February, President George W. Bush signed a law setting February 17, 2009, as the date when U.S. TV stations will have to stop their analog broadcasts. The law also provides funding for up to two $40 vouchers per household to help pay for digital-to-analog converters for anyone who wants to continue using an existing analog set to receive over-the-air digital programming (cable and satellite subscribers are not eligible).

You don't need an HDTV to get digital broadcasts (which many stations are already transmitting). You need only a digital receiver--either in a digital set, in a set-top box, or in a digital-to-analog converter. Also, most new analog sets on sale today (and all new sets starting next March) are required by law to have digital tuners as well. But industry experts expect many consumers to replace their older analog sets with HD sets as the analog cutoff date approaches.

The requirement to add digital tuners to analog sets (which took effect a few years ago for large sets and is gradually expanding to smaller sets) has actually resulted in price increases for most CRTs. DisplaySearch found that the smaller the screen size, the more the price rose, so that a 25-inch CRT averaged $127 in February (when the digital-tuner requirement began to apply to 25-inch sets) and $156 in June. Higher analog CRT prices can't hurt DTV and HDTV sales.

Content Gains
While prime-time network dramas and comedies are increasingly available in high definition, news and reality shows are slower to arrive at the party. However, progress is being made: CBS Engineering and Technology vice president Robert Seidel reminded the conference audience that David Letterman's late-night show went high-def last fall--and said that starting in September, CBS affiliates will begin converting their news operations to HD. Seidel said the transition would take place over the following 18 months.

HD is beginning to make inroads in syndicated programming, as well: Seidel said that Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune will be distributed in high-def to affiliates of the ABC, NBC, CBS, CW, and Fox networks.

Gamers are getting additional incentives to go HD in the form of HD-ready consoles. Sony in November plans to release two versions of the PlayStation 3, each with an integrated Blu-ray Disc player; Microsoft will have an Xbox 360 with an HD DVD player around the same time, DisplaySearch's Young noted.

Why People Don't Buy
With all this momentum, why wouldn't someone buy an HDTV? Young had survey results for this question too. By far the top reason, cited by 40 percent of those people surveyed, was that they were not clear on HD's benefits. A distant second reason (cited by 23 percent) was that while they wanted HD, it wasn't a top priority. An equal percentage said HDTV was simply too expensive. Only 3 percent said they were disappointed by the HD picture quality.

Interestingly, at least one speaker, ESPN's Bryan Burns, noted that people who own HDTVs aren't necessarily experiencing HDTV. A recent study by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing noted that only 52 percent of survey respondents who owned HDTVs were receiving HDTV service from a cable or satellite provider. (The survey didn't mention whether these HDTV owners were receiving any HD programs over the air.)

But TV makers clearly expect the HDTV naysayers to all but disappear by the end of the decade. DisplaySearch expects HDTV shipments from manufacturers in North America, which now account for 51 percent of all sets sent to resellers, to achieve 90 percent market share by 2010.