Pc News

[Rasputin]

Lawsuit Highlights Complaints of Angry Dell Customers

Laurie Earhart, of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, takes good care of her credit rating. So she wasn't surprised when Dell offered her zero-percent financing on the $1063 Dell 1500 Inspiron laptop she was planning to buy.

"The salesman and the Web site stated, 'pay no interest for 12 months'," says Earhart. With no interest to worry about, she recalls, spreading payments over 12 months would have had little impact on her family's tight budget. She took advantage of the offer, and she says the Dell laptop was everything she could have hoped for. But soon, Earhart's honeymoon with Dell ended.

In January 2007, Earhart received her third monthly statement from Dell and was shocked to see $162 in finance charges. The company had applied a 12 percent interest rate to what she still owed on the notebook.

When she called to notify Dell of what she was sure must have been an error, the representative told her it was no blunder. The company now believed Earhart's credit rating to be insufficient, according to the rep. "I told them I had excellent credit and it must be a mistake," Earhart says. But, she adds, the rep insisted she would have to pay the higher interest rate.

Earhart was steaming mad. She paid off the entire laptop to avoid further finance charges and complained to the Better Business Bureau in Texas, where Dell is located.

With the help of the BBB, Earhart later received a refund from Dell on all financing charges.

Lawsuit Targets Dell Customer Beefs
Earhart wasn't the only customer to see a promised zero-percent interest rate jump overnight.

Casey Henry of New York City saw the interest rate on her $1150 Dell desktop leap from zero to 27 percent. When she complained, the company offered her $200, but refused to reduce her interest rate. Henry declined the $200 and returned the PC she'd bought months earlier. With the help of the BBB, she received a full refund from Dell.

Last month, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a suit (PDF file) against Dell and its financing arm, Dell Financial Services, alleging fraud and false advertising. The suit, filed May 14 in Albany County Supreme Court, alleges that, in addition to raising interest rates, Dell repeatedly failed to provide timely on-site repair to consumers who purchased "on-site" service contracts. It also charges Dell with perpetuating numerous other deceptive business practices, such as failing to make good on rebate offers.

In many of the complaints to Cuomo's office and to the BBB and in PC World's interviews with unhappy Dell customers, a similar story emerges: When people asked Dell what happened to their promised zero-percent financing, the company offered no initial apology, claiming either that the low interest rate given to them was a mistake or that the low rate was available only for a few months--not for the year or longer some customers say they were promised.

[Rasputin]

iTunes Goes International

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Apple's iTunes Music Store is introducing a new original programming feature designed to promote foreign-language music in its stores around the world, Billboard has learned.

The program is called Foreign Exchange. Under the initiative, two artists from different countries translate and cover each other's music in their native tongues.

iTunes is launching the program with German electronic act Wir Sind Helden and +44, an American rock act featuring Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, formerly of Blink-182. Wir Sind Helden is covering +44's "When Your Heart Stops Beating" and +44 is covering Wir Sind Helden's "Guten Tag."

iTunes, which has a presence in 22 countries, is offering the covers and the original versions from both artists. The covers will be available exclusively on iTunes.

"The idea is exposing people to bands they may not listen to," Hoppus said. "In America, we don't really listen to music in other languages. I think it's a cool idea to get people to open their ears to music from different parts of the world."

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Plans Music Promo

Microsoft is introducing an initiative on Monday to promote emerging music acts across its entire digital footprint, Billboard has learned.

Called Ignition, the program is designed to expose new artists and their music to consumers for an entire month by featuring exclusive content through Microsoft's multiple services -- including MSN, Xbox Live and Zune.

The first participating act is U.K. band Maximo Park (Warp Records/Caroline Distribution). Microsoft is providing the group's first single as a free exclusive download via the Zune Marketplace, making the music video available as a free download from the Xbox Live Marketplace and streaming the video on MSN.

The company will host online listening parties of the act's current album on MSN Music and provide a custom Web site dedicated to the band and its activities on the zune.net site. And Microsoft is working with the band to produce custom content -- such as artist-created playlists and "behind-the-album" commentary featuring track-by-track insights and observations by band members -- all available via the Zune service.

Microsoft is demanding exclusive content and hands-on participation from the artists involved. "We don't want the same thing that is going out on MTV," Microsoft director of music marketing Christina Calio said.

Ignition is the cumulation of several artist promotional efforts that Microsoft has offered during the past year. Following the Zune launch, Microsoft began sponsoring artists' tours. Xbox Live offers an Artist of the Month program that includes free music video downloads, interviews and monthly "Game With Fame" sessions where gamers can compete online with artists. It was an exclusive partnership with Epic Records until March.

The new Ignition program doesn't replace existing initiatives -- and in fact some artists may participate in several at the same time -- but it is designed to be the flagship offering.

The combined traffic of the MSN, Xbox and Zune properties totals about 30 million regular users, making Ignition the broadest such program available by far.

[Rasputin]

Wiki Host Adds AnalysisTool

Wetpaint.com Inc., a Seattle startup, is making it easier for anyone using its free wiki service to better track use of their sites.

Wetpaint lets anyone create a Web site for free that can be altered by anyone. While the company started out by attracting consumers with an easy-to-use service, some large corporations such as CBS Corp., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Food & Wine magazine now offer their customers wiki sites from Wetpaint.

Within the next couple of days, Wetpaint will begin to let users track activity on their sites using Google Analytics. The free Google tool allows site owners to track where visitors come from in the world, how many people visit the site and how visitors reach the site, including directly and from search engines.

Wetpaint is also working with Google so that in the future its customers can use Google Webmaster Central, a set of free services from Google that lets webmasters analyze the way Google's search engine regards their Web site and learn ways to improve the site's search ranking. For now, Google only allows a limited number of users per domain. Because Wetpoint customer sites all use the Wetpaint domain, they can't all use Google Webmaster.

The Google Analytics support will be attractive mainly to Wetpaint consumer users, said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. "We found that when someone starts a site about something they care about, like dogs, they love the feeling they get when someone else joins," he said. Google Analytics will let them track site traffic.

Currently, Wetpaint has more than 400,000 sites. Customers go through a simple setup process, choosing their homepage name and, if they want, setting different levels of editing rights for different users. Once the site goes live, anyone can visit and easily add or change the content on the site.

Corporate customers choose Wetpaint because it means they can launch their new sites very quickly, sometimes in a matter of days, Elowitz said. In addition, they're attracted by how easy it is for consumers to use Wetpaint, he said.

Examples of Wetpaint sites offered by large companies include CBS's CSI site, T-Mobile's Sidekick site and Food & Wine magazine's wiki site.

Wetpaint earns revenue from advertisements that run on the Web sites. With corporate customers, Wetpaint shares that revenue.

Wetpaint argues that using a wiki, which lets anyone edit Web sites, is a better idea than a blog. A blog allows one person to get their voice heard but isn't ideal for collaboration, Elowitz said. "It just brings a megaphone to one person's voice," he said.

JotSpot, another company that hosts wiki sites, was recently acquired by Google. It currently isn't accepting new users.

[Rasputin]

New Tool Tests for Vista Compatibility

Microsoft has released the beta of a tool that will test business PCs to see if they are compatible with Windows Vista.

Users can download the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 Public Beta online now. The application helps business users see how much effort it will take to migrate desktops in a company to Vista by testing the hardware and device-driver capability of PCs against the OS, and issuing reports about those results, according to Microsoft's internal Windows Vista blog.

In addition to testing hardware for Vista, the software also will check to see if a PC is compatible with the Office 2007 suite, according to Microsoft.

To download the beta, users need a Windows Live or Passport log-on so they can first register for the beta program.

Since making Windows Vista available to business customers last November, Microsoft has offered a host of tools to help customers with the deployment of the new OS, with two more coming earlier this week at its TechEd 2007 conference in Orlando. Released at the show, the Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs helps IT administrators set encryption policies for laptops in an enterprise using the encrypting file system and new BitLocker features of Windows Vista, while the Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) Test Drive allows enterprises to run a virtual version of Vista on PCs to see how it will interact with existing applications.

[Rasputin]

Symantec Revamps Corporate Antivirus Tool

Symantec Corp. will kick off its annual Symantec Vision conference next week with the first public release of its next-generation corporate antivirus software, called Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0.

Under the code name Hamlet, the product has been available to a select group of beta testers since March, but next week it will be released in a public beta, according to Symantec. Company representatives declined to reveal Hamlet's official product name, but it's listed on the Vision conference Web site. Hamlet will be a follow-up to Symantec's AntiVirus Corporate Edition, version 10.

The new software is a major advance for Symantec, which has been working for more than a year to integrate firewall, zero-day protection and network access control features into its antivirus product.

"This is the next major version of the code base," said Brian Foster, senior director of product management with Symantec's end point security group. "With this release, we're really focused on changing the game for antivirus."

In addition to performance improvements, Hamlet will be easier to use and to manage, Foster said.

Hamlet includes code from two recent Symantec acquisitions: It will include firewall capabilities based on the Sygate Enterprise Protection software Symantec acquired in 2005. Another new feature will be SONAR, (Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response), based on code that Symantec acquired as part of its 2005 purchase of Whole Security.

Although Hamlet is a step forward, antivirus vendors like Symantec are playing catch-up in the fight against malware writers, who are increasingly evading detection with a large number of low-circulation variants of their code, said Andrew Jaquith, an analyst with Yankee Group Inc.

"They still have work to do," he said. "I don't think Symantec is quite cognizant of the degree to which these variants are making their [research] labs a lot less effective."

Symantec needs to add "much more comprehensive behavior blocking," and possibly "herd intelligence" capabilities that would allow users to directly identify and share information on the latest threats, Jaquith said.

"Most of the AV labs are like fishing boats with a drift net," he added. "They are good at catching the big fish, but the bad guys are basically flooding the ocean with little minnows that are going right through the net."

Symantec competitor McAfee Inc. is planning to announce a rival product to Hamlet next week relating to the company's "Total Protection for Enterprise with ePolicy Orchestrator security management software," a McAfee spokesman said Thursday. He declined to offer further details on the announcement, however.

The commercial version of Hamlet is expected to be available later this year. Pricing has not yet been released.

Symantec Vision runs from Tuesday to Thursday next week at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

[Rasputin]

'Mobile Retailer' Role Debated

Mobile phones may become a way for customers to make purchases, receive coupons and interact with retailers, but that day won't be anytime soon, according to analysts at retail user conference.

That was the message at a roundtable discussion on "The Mobile Retailer," held in Boston during the ERIeXchange retail user conference this week.

Panelist Marina O'Rourke, director of retail technology at the Subway restaurant chain, painted a bright picture for the use of mobile phone technology in the retail industry. As the cell phone becomes more ubiquitous, there are many opportunities for retailers to use mobile phone technology to market products to customers, she said.

O'Rourke said she envisioned a customer using a cell phone's GPS to locate a Subway shop, send an order via text message to the store and then pick it up. Or the Subway shop could reply to the text-message order with a coupon offer for free chips and a Coke. Customers could pay for their purchases using a securely protected phone instead of a credit card.

Subway franchisees are interested in such mobile applications, and the company has been conducting tests, O'Rourke said. Without offering details, O'Rourke said Subway is in the "early stages of piloting some different options for mobile. We want to understand the return on investment and consumer demand and reception."

O'Rourke said the market might start taking off in 2008. She added, however, that customers must want to participate in the cell phone-based program. "They have to want to opt into the program, that's important, or you'll turn people off," she said.

There is no question that smart mobile phones will be used heavily by retailers, but the question is when, said panelist Tamara Mendelsohn, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. Acceptance of the cell phone as a medium for interaction with retailers will be mostly incremental, and so she advised moving ahead cautiously. Most companies currently are conducting small tests with mobile technology.

Ultimately, she said, customers won't change their behavior unless you show them it will save time or money. "For a New Yorker, if you can save them two minutes, they'll be willing opt in."

In a report released in March, Mendelsohn said security and privacy remain big concerns for mobile retailing. She said 57 percent of wireless device owners polled said they worried about the security of paying for goods or services by phone, while 20 percent had no fears about security or privacy. The report also predicted that younger mobile phone users would be most willing to use the technology for retail purposes.

Panelist Nikki Baird, analyst at the Retail Systems Alert Group, a retail industry research group and the sponsor of ERIiExchange, also saw mobile retail as a more futuristic technology that raises lots of questions.

"For retailers, in general, mobility and 'm-commerce' is still something that they are learning about, rather than doing. There are a lot of unknowns still. How, in the U.S., will true commerce take place on mobile phones? How will consumers actually embrace and use the technology? And what infrastructure will retailers be required to put in place in order to enable it?"

Security is a big issue, she noted, adding "What happens if a retailer unwittingly gives a consumer a virus?"

[Rasputin]

Dell Pushes E-Cycling Law

Electronics manufacturers will have to collect and recycle outdated PCs -- but not TVs -- from consumers in Texas, according to a bill working its way through the state legislature that could become a model for other states.

According to the legislation, called House Bill 2714, manufacturers would have to place a sticker on any computer or monitor they wanted to sell in the state, informing consumers that they may return the equipment to the vendor for recycling or reuse without paying an additional fee. Each manufacturer would then have to file an annual report to state regulators listing the weight of computer equipment they have recycled or reused.

PCs and computer peripherals put out in curbside trash end up in landfills, where they can leach lead, mercury and other toxins into the environment.

"Texans generate a massive amount of 'e-waste' every year -- enough to threaten to overwhelm our landfills, let alone poison our air or water. But I believe that if we partner with manufacturers who are increasingly concerned about the issue, we can find a better home for our aging computers and iPods," said the bill's sponsor, Texas state Senator ***k Watson, in a statement on his Web site.

The bill passed votes in the state Senate and House of Representatives in May and awaits a signature from Texas Governor Rick Perry. A spokeswoman for the governor's office confirmed on Friday that Perry had received the bill, but said he had not yet announced whether he would sign it by the June 17 deadline.

Despite the bill's smooth progress through the Texas statehouse, some recycling experts warn that it is incomplete.

The bill has a good fiscal structure, since it assigns environmental responsibility to the PC manufacturer instead of the consumer, the state or the landfill operator, said Ted Smith, senior strategist for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

But the bill is flawed because it focuses only on PCs and their peripherals, instead of covering a wider array of electronic equipment.

"We prefer the 'producer responsibility' approach rather than the consumer fee approach, so that part we like," Smith said. "However, the Texas bill only applies to computers and not to TVs -- this is a major weakness and is as a result of Dell's lobbying position. TVs are just as toxic and problematic as computers and we favor a comprehensive approach that covers both."

Dell Inc. has a major corporate presence in the state, since the world's second-largest PC vendor has headquarters in Round Rock, just outside of the state capital of Austin. On Friday, Dell denied opposing the inclusion of television sets in the law, but said that TVs do not fit easily into standard PC recycling streams because they include different components than computers and have a far longer lifecycle.

"Our focus was 'Let's make sure that IT and consumer electronics get in there, and if legislators want to put other electronics in the mix, that would be fine with us.' But what we didn't want to do was to slow or stall the process of the legislation," said Dell spokeswoman Colleen Ryan.

In fact, if the law passes in its current form, it would have no impact on Dell's current recycling policies, since the company already offers worldwide free recycling of used Dell equipment, she said.

"Our take is that the marketplace is best positioned to address recycling, and that the legislature shouldn't collect fees or create new government infrastructure for recycling. We think Texas is an opportunity to set an example for the rest of the nation."

Dell is now working with policymakers in several other states to create the same type of "market-driven" approach to recycling, including electronics recycling bills now pending in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Tennessee, she said. Those bills have a different model than existing laws in California, Maine, Maryland and Washington, which impose taxes on consumers or fees on vendors in order to fund government programs that administer the recycling programs, she said.

Despite the criticism of its lobbying efforts, Dell has announced a handful of recycling and power-efficiency iniatives in recent days. On Friday, Dell said that the EPEAT government procurement Web site awarded its highest rating to Dell's Latitude D630 notebook PC, as well as the OptiPlex 740 and 745 desktops. Dell also announced a plan on Tuesday to reduce the carbon intensity of its global operations by 15 percent by 2012, helping reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

"We ultimately think this [state bill] is the simplest, most effective way to recycle outdated electronics, and we hope the governor sees it the same way," Ryan said.

[Rasputin]

Digital Home: Big Business

The evolution of the digital home will drive a new industry in support services worth nearly one billion dollars by 2011, new research claims.

Citing research across the U.S. market, Parks Associates predicts support services for troubleshooting and repair will more than double; while installation and configuration services will yield another US$700 million

The anticipate this emerging service industry will be worth $450 million in 2007, climbing to $977 million by year-end 2011.

"Consumers have been very consistent in expressing both their frustration with the complexity of today's digital home products and services and their willingness to seek professional assistance to solve these issues," said Kurt Scherf, Parks Associates' vice president and principal analyst.

"Customer service and support are not just critical challenges for retailers, manufacturers, and service providers to overcome but also significant revenue-generating opportunities for forward-thinking companies."

[Rasputin]

Online Crime Group Logs Millionth Complaint

Online consumers in the U.S. have had a million things to complain about. Literally.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) says that it received its 1 millionth complaint earlier this week.

Launched seven years ago as a clearing house for reports of online fraud, the IC3 is jointly run by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center. It passes on information to law enforcement agencies, and keeps track of trends in cybercrime.

To date, it has referred nearly a half-million complaints representing almost US$650 million in losses to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

Crime has changed since the IC3 first opened shop, according to Donna Gregory, an FBI employee who is a supervisory management program analyst with IC3.

"Most of the complaints we saw at the beginning were your typical non-delivery auction fraud," she said. "Now we are seeing more complex schemes, involving identity theft and issues where people are using anonymizers and are being affected by keystroke loggers... everything is more sophisticated now."

Gregory couldn't say what the 1 millionth complaint was about, but she said that auction fraud and online financial scams are still the top problems. Auction fraud accounted for nearly half of the complaints received by the IC3 last year.

[Rasputin]

Space Station Computer Woes Manageable, Says NASA

As technicians from NASA and the Russian Space Agency work feverishly to fix two Russian computers that shut down Wednesday aboard the International Space Station, NASA's space station manager said he's confident the problems will be resolved.

In a news conference earlier Friday, Michael Suffredini said the problem, while vexing so far, "is a day in the life of the space station. We work on problems like this all the time."

With some 4 million lines of computer code and 60 to 70 separate computers aboard the space station and its various modules, problems will always crop up, caused by factors such as radiation and the temperature extremes of space, he said. "There's a lot of things that can affect your computers, and that's why we have redundancy. It's just the nature of the beast."

The two Russian computers, which control water and oxygen as well as spacecraft orientation failed Wednesday, but the crew is in no danger because there are backup computers and other systems onboard, according to NASA.

The latest theory is that the problem may have been caused by static electricity or electromagnetic interference following the installation of a new solar array used to collect sunlight that is converted into electricity to power the space station.

Technicians are still working to diagnose the computer problem, while the Russian space agency is already looking to send replacement parts into space in July if they are needed, NASA said.

"I'm still optimistic and think we have a pretty good chance to correct this," Suffredini said. "I think we're in good shape. We've still got a lot of options to work through" to recover the operation of the computers."

Alternatives include using parts from other portions of the space station to make repairs. For instance, Suffredini said, if the power supplies for the two onboard Russian computers are found to be burned out, there are others on the station that probably could be modified to work. "We're looking at a lot of options with our Russian colleagues," he said.

"I always expect to deal with lots of challenges," said Suffredini, who was named by NASA as manager of the International Space Station program in August 2005.

[Rasputin]

Safari for Windows: All About the Money?

The debate is still on about why Apple Inc. decided to develop a version of its Safari browser for Windows.

One of the most popular ideas online -- though one that doesn't appear to be widely supported in the analyst community -- is that Apple hopes to use its age-old rival, Microsoft Corp., to boost its revenues.

Offering Safari to Windows users could significantly increase the number of Safari users, and that larger user base could translate into revenue for Apple because some browser makers have revenue sharing deals with search engines, says John Gruber, writer of the popular Daring Fireball blog. Search providers like Google Inc. reportedly split with browser makers the advertising revenue generated when browser users type search terms in the bar embedded in the browser.

Gruber's suggestion has spread wildly across the Web, with bloggers and mainstream publications as far flung as the BBC picking up on the idea.

It's difficult, however, to confirm Gruber's suggestion.

Google declined to comment on any such arrangements that it might have with browser partners. Mozilla Corp., however, has said that it earns a significant portion of its revenue from the search bar in its browser. In its official company blog, Mozilla's CEO Mitchell Baker wrote last year: "We are very fortunate in that the search feature in Firefox is both appreciated by our users and generates revenue in the tens of millions of dollars." Firefox comes with Google as the default in the search bar and users can change that to five other options including Yahoo and Answers.com.

Mozilla didn't respond to additional questions about how exactly it earns revenue from the search bar. Apple did not reply to questions about a potential revenue share with search providers. Safari users can choose Yahoo or Google to run the search bar.

Microsoft Corp. doesn't have any kind of compensation deals with search engine providers or other browser makers based on users who set Windows Live Search as the default search engine or based on users who set other search engines as the default in Internet Explorer, a company spokesperson said.

Google could very well have a similar deal with Apple as it may have with Mozilla, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

Still, he doubts that revenue from the search bar is the primary reason Apple developed Safari for Windows. "Whatever incremental revenue they'd get is almost irrelevant for a company of Apple's size," he said.

[Rasputin]

Red Hat Linux Gets Top Government Security Rating

Red Hat Linux has received a new level of security certification that should make the software more appealing to some government agencies.

Last week IBM Corp. was able to achieve EAL4 Augmented with ALC_FLR.3 certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, putting it on a par with Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Trusted Solaris operating system, said Dan Frye, vice president of open systems with IBM.

"This is the highest level of security function that anybody has," Frye said. "We have delivered LSPP functionality in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and we have certified that at the EAL4 level of assurance."

This rating is awarded by the government-funded National Information Assurance Partnership's (NIAP) Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme for IT Security program, which evaluates the security of commercial technology products.

Red Hat Linux has been certified EAL4 Augmented with ALC_FLR.3 on IBM's mainframe, System x, System p5 and eServer systems.

This level of security certification is not usually required for enterprise contracts, but it is mandatory for some programs within government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. National Security Agency, Frye said.

Linux had already been certified at the EAL4 level, but this is the first time that the operating system has received the Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP) certification, which relates to its access-control features.

Linux developers have been working to add these "SE Linux" access control features into the operating system for several years now. SE Linux shipped as part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and now it has been certified for government use, Frye said. "You now have a level of fine-grained control for everybody," he added. "You can set security based on groups or based on individuals."

In addition to LSPP Red Hat Linux has also been certified with Role Based Access Control Protection (RBAC), and that too is noteworthy, said Red Hat Inc.

"Historically, OS vendors have required you buy a separate branched OS to get something that is LSPP and RBAC certified," the company said in a statement. "This is something completely unique for commercial operating systems because the support for multilevel security is native to the OS."

[Rasputin]

Is New Chip AMD's Last Stand?

Is New Chip AMD's Last Stand?
The Buzz: So what's up with AMD these days? Intel's main competition faces a steep climb as it looks to regain a bit of the desktop performance supremacy that it enjoyed in pre-Core 2 Duo days. But with a new, forward-looking architecture (Barcelona) and desktop processor (a line of chips recently branded Phenom) set to launch in the latter half of the year, AMD may not be done yet.

The company plans to release both dual- and quad-core versions of Phenom, with the quad-core processor built on a single die, unlike Intel's current quad-core offerings. In addition, an AMD enthusiast platform called FASN8 would employ a new AMD chip set, a motherboard that includes sockets for one or two Phenom chips, and a pair of the latest graphics boards from AMD's ATI Radeon HD 2000 series.

Bottom Line: It's been a while since I've seen a lead lost as dramatically as AMD's on the desktop--and I'm a Cubs fan. AMD has a lot riding on Phenom, and with Intel's Penryn set to launch in volume early next year, it may not have much of a window.

[Rasputin]

Phone Services Tame Voice Mail

Tired of wading through 5 minutes' worth of voice mail to hear a vital message from your boss? A gaggle of new services, including GotVoice, SimulScribe, and SpinVox, address the problem by turning voice recordings into digital audio or even text files you can access via the Web or e-mail. Using caller ID to identify the source, they let you process the most important messages first and the rest when it's convenient.

I tried some services and found that they can be useful for business people who typically wade through at least half a dozen messages several times a day. But there are a few drawbacks, and casual voice-mail users will probably find the most robust, fee-based offerings too pricey.

The latest wrinkle in this area is the use of speech-to-text technology to convert voice mail into text messages. SimulScribe leads the pack with a $10-per-month service that transcribes up to 40 messages a month, after which you pay 25 cents per call.

That can get expensive if you have enough messages to benefit from the service. In my tests, however, call transcripts were quite good, meeting the company's claim of 90 to 95 percent or better accuracy. The transcripts arrive via e-mail (along with a digital audio file of the message) within moments; you can also access your messages and audio files over the Web.

SimulScribe forwards your unanswered calls to a phone number that it assigns to you. You can still access and manage your voice mail via cell phone (but not through your carrier's usual voice-mail key). You may not be able to use SimulScribe with carriers for which call forwarding is problematic, and you may be stuck with long-distance or call-Forwarding fees. In addition, because your voice mail is no longer integrated with your cell phone service, you may not realize that you have new messages unless you opt to receive SMS notifications, which also could be costly.

Most of these problems go away, though, if your carrier partners with SimulScribe; Vonage, for example, now offers it as a premium service.

Simulscribe recently rolled out the free beta of a variant called SimulSays for BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry 8800 devices; a Windows Mobile version should be available by the time you read this. SimulSays allows you to manage digital audio recordings of your voice mail on your handset without having to call your voice-mail number; but you must subscribe to SimulScribe to receive text transcripts as well.