Month: February 2008

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New LG Viewty Camera Phone With DivX Encoding

lgku990

The famous digital media company, DivX and LG have jointly announced the new LG Viewty camera phone (LG-KU990), which is the first cellphone with DivX Certification to natively capture video using high quality DivX format. This newest LG Viewty smartphone features an 3-inch touch sensitive screen, 5-megapixel camera (certified by Schneider-Kreuznach) with auto/manual focus, image stabilizer, ISO 800 as well as SmartLight technology, which enable the users to adjust the brightness level of captured images.

“Users of the LG Viewty have come to expect innovation and quality,” said Dr. Skott Ahn, LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “The addition of DivX recording capability to the Viewty will open up the media experience and enable our users to do more with the videos they capture, from sharing that content online to playing it back beyond the phone on a wide variety of devices.”

According to the global leader and technology innovator in consumer electronics, the LG Viewty camera phone is able to record high speed 120 fps (frames per second), VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) video in DivX format.

“Our goal is to make it easy for consumers to enjoy a high-quality video experience on any kind of device,” said Kevin Hell, CEO at DivX, Inc. “The LG Viewty is a perfect example of this experience. It allows consumers to capture video on its 3-inch screen and then easily transfer that video to a computer or virtually any kind of consumer electronics device.”

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As I said in earlier post Yahoo to step up talks with Google

ygoogle

As I said in my earlier post Yahoo Inc.’s negotiations with Google Inc. have intensified as Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang races to find alternatives to Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited $44.6-billion takeover offer, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

Yang told Yahoo employees in an e-mail that the board of directors was evaluating “a wide range of potential strategic alternatives” and had “made no decisions” about the Microsoft bid, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He did not offer specifics, but the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet company has hired investment banks Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Lehman Bros. to evaluate options.

Analysts said Yahoo’s best hope for maintaining its independence would be a search advertising pact with Google, which generates significantly more revenue for each search query than does Yahoo. Although it could raise antitrust concerns, such a pact could open the door for rival bids, other financing deals or a sweetened offer from Microsoft.

Neither company would comment on the discussions.

No “white knights” have emerged, with News Corp. and others saying they were not interested.

“Jerry is as motivated as hell to try anything he can,” a person familiar with the matter said. “Google is hyper-competitive and it wants to do anything it can, any time it can, to stop Microsoft from getting one foot in the door.”

Former executives say Yahoo has long considered turning over its search advertising business to Google, most recently in Europe. Doing so would mean that Google would place paid ads on Yahoo search pages, and the two companies would share the money generated. That would dramatically increase revenue and cut costs for Yahoo, a step that analysts have long called for.

Google generated 71.2% of U.S. search-advertising revenue in 2007, dwarfing Yahoo’s 8.9%, according to research firm EMarketer Inc. A Citigroup Inc. analyst estimated that Yahoo could boost its cash flow by 25% by outsourcing its search business to Google.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has determined that it cannot bid for Yahoo because of regulatory hurdles. Even a partnership between the two biggest search providers would raise concerns about competition in online advertising, antitrust experts said. But such a deal could help Yahoo regain investor confidence, which has slipped as it continues to struggle under Yang’s leadership. Yang, who co-founded Yahoo, took over for ousted CEO Terry Semel last summer.

Yahoo rejected advances from Microsoft last year when Yahoo’s stock price was much higher. Microsoft made the $31-a-share bid Friday. Google CEO Eric Schmidt phoned Yang that day to offer the assistance of the search giant.

Yahoo has not set a timetable for responding to Microsoft. Analysts say pressure will mount on Yahoo to make a decision in coming weeks.

“This is an unsolicited offer, so it is clear this was not Yahoo’s first choice,” said Ellen Siminoff, who worked with Yang at Yahoo and now heads search-engine marketing firm Efficient Frontier.

By bidding for Yahoo, Microsoft is looking to secure a larger stake in Web advertising and search to take on Google. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said the combination would create a stronger No. 2 challenger to Google.

Google has launched a campaign in Washington to challenge the proposed deal. The company’s lobbyists are asking regulators to scrutinize the proposed merger, saying it raises competitive issues.

This marks an escalation in the acrimony between Google and Microsoft, which increasingly compete on numerous fronts. Google is challenging Microsoft’s dominance in desktop software by expanding its online offerings of word processing, spreadsheets and other software. Google plans to release a version today that allows teams to more easily collaborate.

source:latimes

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Sony-Ericsson prepping G-series for February?

sony_ericsson

Sony-Ericsson is expected to unveil a new G-series of phones, which consist of two predicted models. Enthusiast news site SEfanatics reports that the new models will be called the G900i and G700i, and are expected to be shown February 10th. The G900i, codenamed Tyra, will supposedly feature a 2.6-inch screen, WLAN, and a 5-megapixel camera. Meanwhile, the G700i, codenamed Josephine, will also feature the 2.6-inch screen, but with a 3.2-megapixel camera and sans WLAN.

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Sony’s Tinyest TV XDV

Sony

Let’s break it down TV junkie. Sony’s new ¥38,000 (about $355) XDV-D500 features a 3-inch, 432 x 240 pixel resolution display with 160-degree viewing angle, 500:1 contrast, and a battery capable of about 8-hours of TV reception. It can even record up to 10 hours of scheduled programming to 2GB of internal memory. The itty bittier XDV-G200 brings a 2-inch LCD to the show, AM/FM radio too, then ditches the EPG and recording function. This is Japan mind you, so these sets receive

Internal battery power is the continuous drive time is about eight hours when viewers segment broadcasting, AM radio listeners in about 34 hours time.Dimensions are 59.3 × 98 × 14.3mm (vertical horizontal × × thickness), was about 107 g weight.Stand, and comes with a carrying case.

source:Impress

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Investigation into The Pirate Bay

 tpb

When The Pirate Bay was raided back in 2006, three men were brought in for questioning, and the interrogations continued in the months that followed. The police’s goal was obviously to let the people behind the site confess to something they didn’t do. This led to a series of the most hilarious interrogation transcripts I’ve ever read.

Not surprisingly, “the confessions” of the Pirate Bay three didn’t help the police much. Earlier this week, the Swedish prosecutor Håkan Roswall charged four individuals involved with The Pirate Bay for “assisting copyright infringement”. Actually, this is a surprisingly mild accusation if you consider that he called the Pirate Bay “terrorists” only a few months ago. The response of Brokep’s lawyer sums it up quite nicely: “My client will plead not guilty, but i’m not sure if what he’s being charged with, is a crime at all,” he said.

source:torrentfreak 

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Microsoft Web Ads Prototypes

Microsoft

Microsoft Corp.’s online advertising researchers will spend this year teaching computers to be smart about sticking ads into video clips, and to be even smarter about targeting ads to specific web surfers.

Microsoft showed off a handful of early-stage advertising projects at its headquarters Tuesday that may or may not turn up as part of Microsoft’s Web advertising platform.

The demonstrations come just days after Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo Inc., which, if successful, will boost the software maker’s Web traffic and online ad revenue.

With its 2006 acquisition of aQuantive, the software maker gained a broader network of Web sites on which to sell ads, and tools to help marketers buy them.

A few of Microsoft’s projects were aimed at helping advertisers get better at reaching their ideal customers online, particularly using search keywords.

The company showed a dashboard advertisers could use to forecast the success of certain keyword advertising campaigns and a system it says will make it easier for advertisers think about key ideas, rather than hundreds of individual keywords.

But most of the adCenter Labs prototypes had little to do with search.

“Search itself gets a lot of attention because of Google,” said Tarek Najm, a technical fellow at Microsoft. “Advertising in search, as a result, gets a lot of attention.”

Najm said spending on search keyword ads will be dwarfed by what marketers spend on other types of online advertising, such as placement based on ‘audience intelligence’ and display ads including video.

Microsoft – along with Google and other competitors – is also hard at work on new ways for companies to advertise their brands to Web surfers watching video clips.

One crunched a clip, looking for the most appropriate stretch of time and spot on the screen for an advertiser’s ‘bug’, or logo. For example, if a car company wanted to show its logo for 10 seconds in the bottom right corner of the screen, the computer program would find the 10 seconds in which the logo interferes least with the action in the video.

Another used speech recognition to make a transcript of a video, then served up ads – in the demonstration, they were text links – alongside the video. As the topics discussed on screen changed, so did the ads.

The third program scanned a video for surfaces where ads or product images could be inserted later. The demo showed how the same frames could display a Coke ad one moment and a Pepsi ad the next, without having to reshoot the video.

Other experiments included an interactive shopping kiosk that used elements of Microsoft Surface, a next-generation touch screen, to show ads and coupons, and a computer program that helped marketers avoid accidentally putting their brand on a web page with distasteful content.

source:tech2 

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Google planning free music downloads in China

google

Web search leader Google is planning to boost its presence in China by tying up with a Chinese online music company to provide free music downloads, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The report, quoting people close to the situation, said Google was in the late planning stages of a venture and will likely offer access to tunes from three global music companies as well as dozens of smaller brands.

The service could start in the next several weeks barring any last-minute problems, it said.

The move would come as Google struggles to wrestle market share from Baidu.com, which dominates the Chinese search market and offers music search.

Google representatives were not immediately available for comment.

China’s search engine market reached 946.6 million yuan ($131 million) in the fourth quarter — almost double from a year earlier, according to a research firm.

Baidu.com led the market in the fourth quarter with a 60.1% share, said Analysys International, while Google came second with a 25.9% share, followed by Yahoo China with 9.6%.

source:usatoday 

 

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iPhone Wins Bronze

Iphone

Where Apple’s Latest News about Apple iPhone is concerned, “me too” appears to be the operative philosophy among the company’s competitors in the mobile phone marketplace.

“We need to stop thinking of the iPhone as a phone,” said Phil Leigh, senior analyst with Inside Digital Media. “Voice is merely one application of many that it will use on the wireless Internet.”

Rivals already are thinking along the same lines as they contemplate the impact the iPhone has had on a white-hot smartphone marketplace, Leigh noted.

The iPhone, which has attracted a whirlwind of media attention since it launched in the U.S. last June, captured a 28 percent share of the U.S.’ converged device market — the category includes smartphones and wireless handhelds — during the fourth quarter, market research firm Canalys reported. Mobile units with Microsoft Webroot AntiSpyware 30-Day Free Trial. Click here. Latest News about Microsoft technology had a 21 percent share.

The iPhone was not launched in Europe, the Middle East and Africa until the after the fourth quarter had begun. There, Apple trailed Nokia, RIM, HTC and Motorola.

The limits on the iPhone’s potential outside the U.S. market are crucial to the product’s bottom line, Llamas noted.

“I can’t think of an upstart company in the mobile phone industry that was able to reach those numbers,” he said.

Competitors are noting the success of the iPhone — and borrowing from its technology, Llamas added. “Look for a lot of me-too devices out there.”

Leigh agreed. “They look at it with fear and loathing because they recognize that it is a paradigm shift that has left them in the dust,” he told MacNewsWorld.

That’s because copycat products already are out on the market, Leigh said. “But none have gained more than a minute share of the market.”

source:technewsworld 

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New Chip Uses 10 Times Less Power

newchip

A partnership between Texas Instruments Latest News about Texas Instruments and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Latest News about Massachusetts Institute of Technology has produced a proof-of-concept microchip architecture that is 10 times more efficient than current technologies.

The design — which was presented on Tuesday at the International Solid State Circuits Conference — uses a redesigned memory and logic architecture to allow the chip to operate at a much lower voltage level, which allows devices such as cell phones to operate with a longer battery life.

While consumers likely won’t see any new devices for at least five years, researchers say the chip could help build long-lasting cell phones and implantable medical devices that use body heat to power its systems. The research, funded in part by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), could also lead to the development of military sensor networks that are scattered across the battlefield.

“These design techniques show great potential for TI future low-power IC (integrated circuit) products and applications including wireless terminals, RFID, battery-operated instrumentation, sensor networks, medical electronics and many others,” said Dennis Buss, chief scientist at Texas Instruments.

How the Chip Was Done

The chip’s development required the researchers to re-imagine how the circuits on the microchip were powered.

That was no simple task considering that microchip architecture was designed to work at one volt, while the new chip is powered at 0.3 volts. To accomplish that, the designers built a DC-to-DC converter directly on the chip, then integrated the memory and logic systems with the converter.

The end result will be a more efficiently powered microchip, which — if the design can be cheaply manufactured — leapfrogs several generations of innovation, said Gideon Intrater, vice president of solutions architecture for Mountain View, Calif.-based MIPS Technologies, a semiconductor design firm.

“In the past, with each transition from one process generation to the next, power consumption was reduced by a factor of about three times,” Intrater told TechNewsWorld. “These process transitions occurred roughly every two to three years.”

Coming Soon

The new microchip is still in the design phase, so it’s difficult to predict the types of devices that might hit the market in the near future; however, the chip would have the capability of extending the current battery life of devices already on the market.

The increased power, though, would also likely lead to smaller — and more powerful — devices that could run longer and more efficiently between charges.

“It is clear that any battery-operated device could benefit from the longer battery life and smaller battery size,” Intrater said. “These products could include traditional mobile consumer devices like cell phones, PDAs and media players, as well as medical devices.

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New Yahoo’s Zimbra 5.0 Suite

Zimbard

Not quite five months after its US$350 million acquisition by Yahoo. Latest News about Yahoo, open source e-mail operator Zimbra Tuesday unveiled its Zimbra Collaboration Suite ZCS 5.0 software.

This next-generation product has features for reading mail and creating documents offline from a Web browser.

ZCS 5.0 enhancements include offline access to Microsoft Webroot AntiSpyware 30-Day Free Trial. Click here. Latest News about Microsoft Outlook 2007 and support for an array of handheld devices, including BlackBerry devices from Research In Motion Latest News about Research In Motion, Motorola Latest News about Motorola Razrs and Apple’s Latest News about Apple iPhones.

The worldwide reach of Yahoo has enabled Zimbra to reach numerous audiences, including universities, Internet service providers (ISPs) and small companies, the company said in announcing the launch.

“We are proud of our achievements in ZCS 5.0 and appreciate the passionate feedback from the 13,500 open source community members and customers that made our most significant release to date a huge success,” said Satish Dharmaraj, Yahoo vice president and Zimbra cofounder.

“Together, we have built one of the world’s premier e-mail and collaboration products and, with Yahoo’s support, are continuing to innovate at a more rapid pace.”
Product Versatility

The ZCS 5.0 also allows e-mail storage in a designated briefcase instead of as an attachment and facilities-sharing briefcase folders. It also allows for sharing of in-boxes and e-mail folders, along with an option of read-only or management access for other users. The software also offers upgraded calendar features, and ships ready to use in 15 languages.

At the time it purchased Zimbra, Yahoo had voiced hopes that it would provide a vehicle for Yahoo Mail as a hosted solution to big accounts like universities as well as to consumers through ISPs.

Zimbra’s Ajax-based e-mail system can be customized for each account, so its software includes calendar and contact-management features that can be used online and offline.

Zimbra’s open source nature allows for the use of Zimlets, software plug-ins that connect e-mail to a variety of other Web services. Zimlets can be used to leverage Yahoo’s entire platform to serve ads to support free accounts.
Long-Term Value

Analysts with an eye on Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo voiced some skepticism about whether Zimbra’s new software will enhance Yahoo’s value.

“I don’t know that it means much,” Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard & Poors, told LinuxInsider. “I don’t think people are going to base a decision on buying Yahoo based on Zimbra coming out with a new product. I think this is interesting but it’s hardly material for investment.”

Nevertheless, Zimbra’s new system will be integrated into Yahoo’s e-mail network and other Yahoo properties, including Flickr, Yahoo Local, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Search.

“Obviously, [Yahoo] paid $350 million, and we’re talking about an acquisition (of Yahoo) valued at, what, $45 billion?” Kessler said. “So, there’s some but not that much material advantage to this, at this point.”

Zimbra’s move, nevertheless, can have some long-term value for Yahoo, Mike Goodman, a Yankee Group analyst, told LinuxInsider.

“I think everything Yahoo does at the moment has to be looked at under the microscope of a potential deal,” he said. “There have been several announcements with Yahoo the last several days that certainly call into question whether these deals will hold if Microsoft acquires Yahoo.”

If the product can stand apart from competitors, it’s likely to be more successful, Goodman said. “I haven’t seen the new product, but you’re always looking for things to differentiate yourself to enhance the value of the product to the consumer. This is certainly a step in that direction.”
A Positive Step for a Struggling Parent?

Any step forward is a positive sign for Yahoo, Goodman noted.

“In Yahoo, you have a company that’s struggling right now,” he said. “Whether they’re acquired by Microsoft or somebody else, they still have to strengthen their business. No matter what happens, nobody wants an ailing Yahoo.”

If ZCS 5.0 proves revolutionary, it would defy recent trends for Yahoo, Goodman said. “They’re sort of in a quagmire,” he said. “When you look at the initiatives that Yahoo is doing, they’re not really going to redefine the marketplace. They’re not big ideas. They’re subtle differences on ideas already in the marketplace.”

source:technewsworld