NewsFactor Network

Google May Add Facebook, Twitter Links to Gmail

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:58:34 -0500

E-mail is about communicating with friends, coworkers and the world at large. So why should users have to switch over to Facebook or Twitter to post a status update? That seems to be the thinking behind the news that Google will roll more social-networking features into Gmail, the fastest-growing e-mail service.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google will announce later this week a new Gmail feature that allows users to post ongoing streams of status updates while using the web-based e-mail service. A source told the Journal that Google will eventually seek to allow users to stream other Google services like YouTube videos and Picasa photos.

Twitter in Gmail?

In the short term, it's unlikely that having status updates in Gmail would cause much of a ripple at Facebook, which is a full-blown ecosystem of friends, advertising, third-party apps, groups and more.

The new feature sounds closer to Twitter, which is purely a status update service. There may be more room for Google to make some inroads there. A recent survey by RJMetrics found that the formerly torrid pace of new Twitter accounts has slowed to about 20 percent below the peak hit last July. These days, about 6.2 million new accounts are created every month.

But, it turns out, many of those accounts are vapor. Twenty-five percent of all Twitter accounts have no followers and 40 percent have never tweeted. "About 80 percent of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than 10 times," and "Only about 17 percent of registered Twitter accounts sent a Tweet in December 2009, an all-time-low," RJMetrics reported.

Not a Killer App

Twitter seems vulnerable to Google, while Facebook does not, exactly because tweets just go into the either while Facebook posts go to a (sometimes very broad) circle of friends. Just as interest in blogging has started to...

Analysts See iPad Price Drop, with Some Cannibalization

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:27:43 -0500

Just weeks before Apple officially rolls out the iPad, financial analysts are making pricing predictions. But could the analysis itself hinder the initial demand for the pricey tablet computer?

The much-anticipated iPad is priced at $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB model -- all available in March. The 3G models won't be available until April and will sell for $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB model.

Credit Suisse analysts said Apple will stay "nimble" with its pricing strategy and may even discount the devices if customers aren't buying. Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, sees irony in the reports: The comments could actually cause the result.

The Pricing Graveyard

"We certainly saw people rush out initially and buy the iPhone. When the demand dropped off after the first couple of weeks, Apple dropped the price sharply," Enderle said. "Of course, the iPhone over time has gone from about $600 to around $200, which is a fairly substantial drop in price."

Enderle predicts the iPad will go through a similar price drop, but adds that the coverage of Apple's willingness to stay nimble may actually slow initial sales -- especially among consumers who feel burned by buying the first iPhone too quickly.

"The $600 price range has been a graveyard for products, starting with the original iPod, which had to drop its price point very rapidly, all the way to the Sony PS3, which also died at that price point," Enderle said. "I expect they will drop out of that price area fairly quickly."

The Cannibalization Question

Will the iPad cannibalize Apple's other product lines? In a publicized note, Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope indicated cannibalization is not as large a concern as some may believe because there is...

Black Hawk Down: China Busted Hacker-Training Site

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:57:57 -0500

The Chinese government has arrested three hackers who were running an online hacker-training business. The trio of hackers operated Black Hawk Safety Net, a company that collected nearly $1 million from more than 120,000 members.

The three unidentified individuals were arrested after using the now-defunct 3800CC.com web site to train and provide the necessary tools to wannabe hackers, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. Government authorities seized $249,000 in cash, nine servers, five computers and a car from the company.

Last year, China made it a crime to provide other people with hacking tools.

More than 195 million Internet users were attacked by viruses and Trojan horses online within the last six months of 2009, and the accounts and passwords of 110 million users were stolen, according an annual report by the China Internet Network Information Center. Increasing users' trust in the Internet has become "a problem pressing for solution at present," the report determined.

Two men, identified as Li Qiang and Zhang Lei, were listed as the founders of Black Hawk Safety Net in a separate case from 2007. The founders were arrested at that time after their involvement in a virus that caused problems on both private and government computers in the city of Macheng, Xinhua reported.

Delayed Reaction

News of the arrest, however, comes nearly three months after the three were arrested by police in the Hubei province. The delayed announcement comes just weeks after China's government has denied having any knowledge of a major attack on Google's China-based service. Google, however, came under attack by what many believe was a Chinese hacker.

Some believe the attack was done to sabotage Google's service in China in an effort to increase the number of users and advertisers who frequent Baidu, Google's China-based competitor.

"The digital spying in this case and several other...

Nook E-Reader Heads to Barnes & Noble Stores

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:55:35 -0500

Barnes & Noble said Monday that its popular nook e-book reader is back in stock online and will be rolling out in the majority of the bookseller's U.S. stores this week. Customers also will be able to enjoy exclusive Valentine's Day-themed online content this month, the company said.

The nook differs in several ways from many of the e-readers announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, which suffer from either high prices or little access to consumer channels, said Forrester Research Vice President James McQuivey.

"The nook, despite its slow start, is priced right, targeted to book readers rather than skipping off to focus on magazine or newspaper readers, and, most importantly, the nook will be featured in front of millions of book buyers every month as they walk through the store," McQuivey said. "You can't underestimate the power of that."

A Real Shot at No. 3

The nook is the first e-reader to offer digital lending for a wide selection of e-books, and the company's latest software update now places a LendMe flag next to the eligible e-books in the user's My Library folder. Though the machine's LendMe technology only applies to select books and only lasts 14 days, McQuivey considers this to be a huge step forward, given that people often share books and then spend a considerable amount of time talking about them with friends and family members.

"This fact is so critical to the way people read books that it is amazing that none of the e-readers yet offered to the market have any meaningful book sharing built into them," McQuivey wrote in a blog.

Among all the e-reader launches beyond Sony and Amazon, McQuivey thinks the nook has a real shot at becoming the third key player -- but not because of its social features.

"The social features...

SAP CEO Abruptly Resigns; Co-CEOs Will Take Over

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:26:14 -0500

Leading business-software maker SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) on Monday announced a strategic shift in the corporate suite. L�o Apotheker has resigned as CEO and member of the SAP executive board, effective immediately. The abrupt decision came as part of a "mutual agreement" with the company's supervisory board not to extend Apotheker's contract as a member of the executive board.

Apotheker joined SAP, which is based in Germany but well-known worldwide, more than 20 years ago. The company didn't offer details on severance or his future plans.

His replacement came quickly with two co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization, and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development. Both are already executive board members. In addition, Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka has been appointed to the board.

Ready to Return to Growth

SAP, which is best known for its CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource planning) software, is shoring up its executive direction during the transition. At the request of the supervisory board, Hasso Plattner, cofounder of SAP and chairman of the supervisory board, will play a "strong role" in advising the new leaders on technology and product development.

"The new setup of the SAP executive board will allow SAP to better align product innovation with customer needs," Plattner said. "The new leadership team will continue to drive forward SAP's strategy and focus on profitable growth, and will deliver its innovations in 2010 to expand SAP's leadership of the business software market."

The moves come just more than a week after SAP's fourth-quarter earnings report was released. The company's software-related service revenues were down five percent, service revenues were down 15 percent, and overall revenues were down nine percent.

During the announcement, Apotheker seemed optimistic, saying the company was ready to return to top-line growth. "Despite the difficult environment last year, we never lost focus...

Survey Suggests iPad Blitz Hasn't Won Over Buyers

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:26:46 -0500

The good news for Apple is that it has clearly accomplished its objective of getting the word out about its new iPad tablet computer. The media blitz that began weeks before CEO Steve Jobs' Jan. 27 launch in San Francisco garnered front-page coverage in 47 states and 24 countries. So you'd practically have had to turn off your TV and computer and avoid newspapers to not know about it.

The bad news is that with about a month until the product starts shipping, people aren't likely to line up to get their hands on an iPad, according to a follow-up survey from Retrevo Pulse.

No, Thanks

The company's survey of 1,000 people found that the number who had heard of the iPad nearly doubled from 48 percent in the days before the launch to 80 percent in the Jan. 27-Feb. 3 period immediately following. But the number of those who knew about it but were not interested doubled from 26 percent to 52 percent. The number of definite buyers rose from three to nine percent.

The participants are users of Retrevo's electronic marketplace. The number of people who were hiding under a rock and hadn't heard of the iPad shrank from 35 percent to just 18 percent, but the number of people taking a wait-and-see attitude was statistically unchanged, from 19 to 21 percent.

A ChangeWave Research survey released about the same time found that just 14 percent of respondents said they were likely to buy the device. Both surveys found that a majority would not pay more than $700 for the iPad.

So when Jobs announced that the price point for the basic iPad model was $499, some boost in interest might have been expected.

But after learning the price and many features, the number of people who said they didn't feel they need an...

IBM's New POWER7 Servers Save Energy with Big Loads

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:36:58 -0500

IBM on Monday unveiled high-capacity servers that are the first to be based on its new, multi-core POWER7 chip. The company said the new product line is designed "to manage the most demanding emerging applications," including high-capacity smart electrical grids and real-time analytics for financial markets.

The servers are optimized for processing huge workloads of simultaneous transactions, data handling, and analysis. IBM said they offer "dramatic improvements" in price versus performance, energy savings, and server virtualization.

Energy Efficiency

The new systems are built around the newest generation of IBM's POWER chip, with eight processing cores, and are designed to manage millions of transactions in real time while utilizing a variety of approaches to remain highly energy-efficient. With Intelligent Energy technology, for instance, parts of the system can be turned on or off, and clock speed can be lowered or raised, on one server or a group. The company said these systems can deliver twice the performance per watt as Sun SPARC servers and eight times that of comparable Hewlett-Packard Itanium-based servers.

POWER7 systems are optimized for massive parallel processing, high-end throughput, and analytics, and the systems can be used to manage others, such as IBM mainframes and x86-based servers.

Laura DiDio, a research fellow at Information Technology Intelligence Corp., said these "turbocharged systems should really jumpstart multi-threading computing." She added that each of the eight cores can execute up to four tasks each, so "it's as if this were a virtual 32-core processor on a chip."

This capacity is four times the maximum number of cores in POWER6 systems and eight times the processing threads.

Smart Energy Grids

DiDio noted that these systems will enable a huge performance boost in the growing market of smart energy grids, allowing utility companies to go from a million meter reads a day to 85 million. In its announcement, IBM noted...

Patch Tuesday Release Will Tie Microsoft's Record

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:52:39 -0500

After a light start to the year, Microsoft is getting ready to dump a heavy load on the shoulders of IT administrators. On Patch Tuesday next week, Microsoft will release 13 patches.

Five of the bulletins carry the maximum security rating of critical. Seven are rated important and one is rated moderate. The bulletins address 26 vulnerabilities.

With 13 bulletins, Microsoft has tied its record for the most security updates released in a single month. The last time Microsoft issued 13 bulletins was October 2009. This month's record release comes on top of a Jan. 21 out-of-band patch to fix a zero-day exploit in Internet Explorer used in cyberattacks against Google and other U.S. companies doing business in China.

The Most Disruptive Bulletins

"Bulletin six appears to be the most disruptive, as it is critical across all Microsoft platforms -- both server and desktops and laptops," said Don Leatham, senior director of solutions and strategy at Lumension. "Microsoft indicates that a reboot is required, so this patch could impact the availability of key servers and impact the productivity of information workers."

Leatham warns that IT teams managing servers will need to be on high alert this month and have proactive patching plans in place before Tuesday. That's because administrators are facing critical patches for the three most common server platforms in Microsoft environments.

Specifically, the patches cover three critical vulnerabilities in Windows Server 2003, two critical vulnerabilities in Windows Server 2008, and two critical vulnerabilities in Windows Server 2008 R2. What's more, Leatham added, IT teams managing work stations might have the heaviest load of all with four critical vulnerabilities for Windows XP and two critical vulnerabilities for Windows Vista.

"The bit of good news in the February patch update is that the Microsoft Office suite doesn't have any critical patches coming out, but overall, IT departments...

IBM Opens Eco-Friendly, Cloud-Focused Data Center

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:16:32 -0500

IBM opened its latest data center on Friday in North Carolina. Big Blue said the $362 million, 100,000-square-foot facility at its Research Triangle Park campus is designed to support cloud computing and other new computing models.

According to IBM, the new data center cuts technology infrastructure costs and complexity for clients while raising quality and speeding services deployment. Big Blue's data center also has green implications because it uses only half the energy of most facilities its size.

Pat Kerin, general manager of IBM North America, said data centers have always been a critical part of IBM's global technology services and will become even more important as the processes, infrastructure and systems that define business today become increasingly connected and intelligent.

"This new facility not only sets new standards for energy efficiency," Kerin said, "but provides the flexible capacity that allows IBM to deliver services that enable clients to reduce costs, improve productivity, and gain competitive advantage in their markets."

Virtualization and Cloud Computing

With the new data center, IBM is beefing up support for new Internet technologies and services. IBM's stated goal is to meet the business challenges of an environment characterized by an "exponential rise in computational power, a proliferation of connected devices, and an imperative to manage energy costs."

IBM accomplishes this, in part, by using advanced software virtualization technologies that make possible access to information and services from any device with high levels of availability and quality of experience. The facility works aggressively to conserve energy resources by leveraging a smart management approach that links equipment, building systems, and data-center operations.

Support for cloud-computing workloads allows clients to tap into only the resources they need to support their IT operations at any given time. This approach also does away with the need for up to 70 percent of the required hardware resources to...

FBI Braces for Haiti-Relief Scam Onslaught

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:03:04 -0500

Federal law enforcement officials have received more than 170 complaints about fundraising scams tied to Haitian earthquake relief, and they're bracing for more online cons using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

Scams are growing more diverse, and the FBI has a special team of computer analysts, fraud investigators and white-collar crime experts reviewing complaints, says David Nanz, chief of the FBI's economic crimes unit.

"We're seeing a lot of computer-based fraud -- unsolicited e-mails, bogus Web sites," Nanz adds, plus "traditional stuff (in which) people are just raising money on the street fraudulently."

The FBI and at least five state attorneys general have issued alerts on Haiti relief scams.

A hotline at the Justice Department's National Center for Disaster Fraud has received more than 100 complaints, and dozens more have come via the Internet, department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney says.

The complaint volume is lower than after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 but on par with other foreign disasters, Sweeney says. These days, people can be drawn into scams just by typing "Haiti donations" into Google, says Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer for the SANS Institute, an organization that does computer security research.

One site that pops up in response to that search greets visitors with an ominous message: "Warning!!! Your computer contains various signs of viruses..." The user then is prompted to buy virus-removal software.

It's a con to sell bogus software that could be designed to steal personal data, Ullrich says. And it highlights the risks facing Americans eager to support earthquake relief. Among them:

*In-person scams. These range from door-to-door solicitations for fake charities to more esoteric cons. On Jan. 22, for example, federal prosecutors charged a Michigan man with posing as an FBI agent to collect money "to help children in Haiti."

*E-mail, texting scams. These include bogus e-mail solicitations from people...

Bar Codes Go Mobile, Get Hip Again

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:01:59 -0500

Bar codes are getting hip. For decades, retailers and manufacturers have used these patterns of black dots, lines, and squares to encode pricing and other data onto products and supplies. Now, bar codes are gaining currency as an easy way for cell-phone users to view ads, coupons, and other information instantly.

The Weather Channel is using bar codes to deliver maps, forecasts, and severe weather alerts. Universal Pictures is using mobile bar codes to promote its coming thriller Repo Men. Later this month, a Hearst magazine will use the technology to provide additional information to readers. And mobile bar code technology in various forms has recently been used by search engine owner Google, Web portal Yahoo!, sportswear maker Nike, and packaged foods maker Frito-Lay.

In Japan, advertisers for years have used bar code technology on magazines, posters, products, tourist sites, and business cards to deliver information wirelessly. But the features can be glitchy or cumbersome and haven't taken off in the U.S.

Microsoft and a handful of startups including Scanbuy and JagTag are trying to turn the tide. On Feb. 2, Motorola was among a group of investors that made an undisclosed investment in Scanbuy. Bar code tech "makes the world [around us] clickable," says Marja Koopman, a marketing leader at Microsoft. Lately, bar code scanning is being more widely used in part due to the broader adoption of Web-enabled smartphones and prevalence of cameras, now in about 90 percent of cell phones.

Special Software or Just the Camera

In the case of the Weather Channel, viewers hold their cell phones up to the TV screen to scan a bar code displayed at various points throughout the day. The feature, which works with handsets including the Motorola Droid and Google's Nexus One, downloads one of the Weather Channel's mobile apps. Since the TV promotion...

Telecom Italia-Telefonica Deal 'Inevitable' for Italy

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:57:53 -0500

The Italian government is in talks with Telecom Italia Spa about the phone company's strategic options, including a possible takeover by Spain's Telefonica SA, said a person familiar with the situation.

The discussions, involving the Italian treasury, are at an early stage, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The future ownership of Telecom Italia's fixed-line network, which the government wants to keep in local hands for national security reasons, is among the issues under discussion, the person said.

Telecom Italia surged the most in almost a year in Milan yesterday after la Repubblica reported that the Italian government supports an "inevitable" merger. A combination would let Telecom Italia cut debt of about 35 billion euros [$49 billion] and give Telefonica, which already owns a stake in the Italian company, a larger presence in Europe and Latin America.

"Sooner or later there is going to be a deal," said Carlo Luoni, a fund manager at 8A+ Sgr SpA in Varese, Italy. "With Telefonica, there would be the opportunity to make investments that Telecom Italia can't afford now because of its debt burden."

Other bidders for Telecom Italia could also emerge, said the person. Telefonica joined a group of Italian investors in 2007 to acquire a controlling stake in Telecom Italia for 4.1 billion euros, beating Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Telefonica is the largest shareholder of Telco SpA, an entity controlling Telecom Italia with a 22.4 percent stake.

Minister Meeting

Spokesmen for the Italian treasury and Telefonica declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Telecom Italia.

"This story has legs and there is some industrial logic in it," said Roger Appleyard, head of global credit research at Royal Bank of Canada in London. "By merging with Telecom Italia, Telefonica would create a lot of synergies, albeit execution risk is high. Telefonica...

U.S. Falling Behind in Clean-Technology Innovation

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:08:07 -0500

Even before the Great Recession, policymakers were commonly asking, "Where are the new jobs going to come from?" Now with U.S. unemployment at 10 percent, that question has taken on a new urgency. And today's Mr. McGuire-like advice is as succinct as it was in The Graduate in 1967: "Green." Everyone from President Barack Obama to mayors of small towns are proclaiming that green industry is the savior of the U.S. economy, bringing jobs to the unemployed, needed economic activity to distressed industrial regions, and an overdue shot in the arm to U.S. industrial competitiveness.

This is not necessarily a vain hope. Global private investment in renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies is estimated to reach $450 billion in 2012 and $600 billion in 2020. These are hefty numbers, and attracting even a modest share of that investment will produce hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Yet these hopes are likely to remain unfilled unless the U.S. embarks on a very different course. A joint study by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, which I direct, and the Breakthrough Institute finds that Asia's rising "clean-technology tigers" -- China, Japan, and South Korea -- have already passed the U.S. in the production of virtually all clean-energy technologies. The report, Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant, also finds that between 2009 and 2013, the governments of these nations will out-invest the U.S. three-to-one in these sectors, or $509 billion to $172 billion.

China's Growing Clout

In fact, Asia's clean-tech tigers are already on the cusp of establishing a "first-mover advantage." China is exporting the first wind turbines destined for use in an American wind farm, a project valued at $1.5 billion. All three Asian nations lead the U.S. in the deployment of new nuclear power plants. The U.S. produces less than 10 percent of the world's solar cells,...