News : U.S. tops new tech usage ranking

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The United States, Sweden and Japan topped a new ranking that measures how well countries use telecommunications technologies -- networks, cell phones and computers -- to boost their social and economic prosperity.

Connectivity Scorecard, created by London Business School professor Leonard Waverman, and published on Wednesday, measured countries on around 30 indicators including usage of communications technology.

"All the other rankings mainly measure only how much have you invested in ICT (information and communication technologies)," said Professor Ilkka Lakaniemi.

Lakaniemi, the head of global political dialogue at telecom network gear maker Nokia Siemens Networks, which commissioned the study, said South Korea's rank in the middle of the table shows clearly the different approach of the study to other rankings.

South Korea is usually on top spots at similar lists, but Lakaniemi said this is mostly due to heavy public investment, while it falls behind in the usage of technology, especially by corporations.

"You have a lot of consumer applications, you have a lot of entertainment applications, a lot of this and that, but they do not really add much to productivity," Lakaniemi said.

The study said the top-ranking United States, which has benefited the most from ICT, was rated below 7 out of 10, mostly due to weak usage of vast broadband networks, indicating there is room for improvement for all countries.

"These results indicate an opportunity for countries to add hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefit by rethinking how they measure and enable connectivity," the study said.

Russia topped the list for developing countries, way ahead of China or India.

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News : Yahoo Warns on 2008 Outlook; Shares Fall

By CNBC.com with Wires

Yahoo topped expectations despite a 23 percent earnings decline, but shares of the company fell as its sales guidance was light and Chief Executive Jerry Yang warned of 2008 "headwinds."

Yahoo's headquarters building in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Investors were disappointed with Yahoo's revenue forecasts for the first quarter and full year, even though Wall Street had already lowered expectations.

"I would classify the results as mediocre and the guidance as cautious,'' said Ryan Jacob, a fund manager at Jacob Internet Fund in Los Angeles. "I think Yahoo is telegraphing the fact that they will be spending more in 2008 to try and regain their competitive position against Google.''

The online advertising and search firm reported a fourth-quarter profit of $205.7 million, or 15 cents a share, excluding traffic acquisition costs. Revenue reached $1.403 billion.

A consensus estimate compiled by Thomson Financial put Yahoo's earnings at 11 cents a share on a topline of $1.406 billion.

In the same period last year, Yahoo brought in earnings of 19 cents a share on sales of $1.228 billion.

Yahoo's sales guidance was lighter than expected. The company said it expects revenue between $1.28 billion and $1.38 billion in the first quarter, compared with forecasts of $1.36 billion for the period.

Yahoo put full-year sales at between $5.35 billion and $5.95 billion, versus projections of $5.89 billion.

Shares of Yahoo tumbled more than 10 percent in extended trading after finishing regular market hours [YHOO 20.81 0.03 (+0.14%) ] up marginally at $20.81.

"While we will continue to face headwinds this year, we believe that the moves we are making will help us exit 2008 stronger and more competitive and return to higher levels of operating cash flow growth in 2009,'' Yang said in a statement.

Yahoo's larger share of the display market makes it more vulnerable to any spending pullbacks in a recession. Analysts expect key rival Google may fare better in a downturn with its dominance of paid search listings, a form of advertising that is viewed as more closely tied to sales.

In the quarter that ended Dec. 31, Yahoo revamped its search engine and announced several online advertising agreements.

The struggling Internet icon, which has been falling behind rival Google in the search and online ad markets, considered the search engine changes the most significant since Yahoo reclaimed control of the technology behind it several years ago.

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News : What's Next for Microsoft? - CNBC

Insight on competition with Google & Apple, with Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates & CNBC's Becky Quick

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News : Microsoft profit rises 79 pct

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) signaled confidence to a rattled stock market by raising its full-year earnings outlook above Wall Street targets and reporting a 79 percent rise in quarterly profit on Thursday.

Analysts took the results as a good sign for technology companies in the face of a slowing economy, and Microsoft shares rose 4.5 percent in after-hours trade. That followed a 4 percent gain in regular trade, representing a gain of more than $26 billion in its market value for the day.

The results and raised forecasts from the world's largest software maker come on the heels of disappointing outlooks from tech bellwethers Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research), which sent shivers through a U.S. stock market that shed about 10 percent to start the year, before bouncing.

Microsoft reported bumper quarterly sales of its Windows Vista operating system and Office software on the back of strong computer sales, while its Xbox unit cashed in on new game titles that spurred hardware demand.

"It's clear that this new product cycle is paying off," said Andy Miedler, technology analyst at Edward Jones. "We're impressed that they had enough confidence to follow through and raised guidance."

Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell told Reuters in an interview that the company was "a little cautious" about sales in North America for the remainder of its fiscal year. Liddell later told analysts on a conference call that there were no signs of any significant impact on Microsoft from a slowing U.S. economy.

"You have to look really hard to find any weakness in our results," said the usually-reserved Liddell.

Net profit in Microsoft's fiscal second quarter rose to $4.7 billion, or 50 cents per diluted share, from $2.6 billion, or 26 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 30 percent to $16.37 billion.

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News : EU leaders clash with Google over the meaning of 'personal data'

With the EU crafting new laws governing how data collectors such as Google protect users' personal data, lawmakers there are clashing with US business leaders over how far that protection can and should extend.

A document currently being drafted by a group called the Article 29 Working Party (Art. 29) may extend the formal definition of "personal data" with regard to legal protections granted by the European Union government to its member states' citizens. Specifically, despite arguments by its own authors to the contrary, the document would extend the definition to include any kind of data that can be traced back to an individual.

The draft definition was the principal topic of a meeting yesterday of the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, made up of lawmakers from the states' respective governments. In attendance yesterday was Google's chief global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer. Last May, Fleischer received a letter from Art. 29 Chairman and Germany's Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar, suggesting that Google should amend its data retention policies not only to destroy the data it collects from Google users after 18 to 24 months, but its server logs as well, and perhaps even sooner.

"As you are aware, server logs are information that can be linked to an identified or identifiable person," Schaar wrote Fleischer last May (PDF available here), "and can therefore be considered personal data in the meaning of Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. For that reason their collection and storage must respect data protection rules.

"The Article 29 Working Party is concerned that Google has so far not sufficiently specified the purposes for which server logs need to be kept," Schaar continued. "Taking account of Google's market position and ever-growing importance, [Art. 29] would like further clarification as to why this long storage period was chosen. [Art. 29] would also be keen to hear Google's legal justification for the storage of server logs in general."

While Fleischer and Google may have had an explanation in mind to present yesterday morning, as the company apparently found itself faced with a head-on assault featuring submissions from the American Antitrust Institute regarding Google's planned merger with display ad services provider DoubleClick, as well as Art. 29's argument for expanding the draft to "any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person."

Art. 29 submitted several examples of data categories that would fall under this broader scope, including drug prescription data, video surveillance data, real estate evaluations, automobile warranty coverage data, employee telephone call logs, routing information for taxi cabs in which individuals may have ridden, minutes of public meetings, and references to individuals in online news stories. Next to last on Art. 29's list of examples of personal data that may deserve some type of legal protection is the IP address of computers an individual may have used.

American press sources seized upon the news this morning as though the meeting focused exclusively on the subject of IP addresses.

However, according to an EU government account of the meeting, a US Federal Trade Commission representative traveled all the way to Brussels to say the US doesn't really have a position on the matter one way or the other. And Google's Fleischer, according to the account, stated the ability of an IP address to reflect personal information "depended on the context and which personal information it reveals." His comments go to the heart of the original matter of whether Google, on account of its "market position and ever-growing importance," should be required by law to destroy its server logs after a year.

While there has been considerable disagreement with the notion that an IP address can be "pinned" to a person, especially since Internet users roam and addresses are still often assigned dynamically to short-term "lease" holders, Art. 29 cites evidence showing that individuals have been indicted for copyright violation and piracy, with IP addresses supplied by their ISPs as critical evidence pointing to their complicity.

"Especially in those cases where the processing of IP addresses is carried out with the purpose of identifying the users of the computer (for instance, by Copyright holders in order to prosecute computer users for violation of intellectual property rights)," reads a June 2007 Art. 29 opinion circulated yesterday (PDF available here), "the controller [the collector of the data] anticipates that the 'means likely reasonably to be used' [citing a 2000 opinion from a different working group] to identify the persons will be available e.g. through the courts appealed to (otherwise the collection of the information makes no sense), and therefore the information should be considered as personal data."

As the June 2007 opinion from the Article 29 Working Group goes on, there are many technical reasons why an IP address can't identify its user, citing a borrowed computer in an Internet cafy as an example. But since the ISP for that computer probably doesn't know right off-hand that it's in an Internet cafy, if a court requisitioned the data for the personal user of that computer, it would do so anyway. Therefore, the group concluded, "unless the Internet Service Provider is in a position to distinguish with absolute certainty that the data correspond to users that cannot be identified, it will have to treat all IP information as personal data, to be on the safe side."

In other words, since an IP address doesn't provide enough information about itself to state whether it can or cannot be used to identify a user, since courts will likely treat IP addresses as though they could do so, they should be treated as though they could.

It's worth noting here that the EU's official account of the meeting mis-defined the concept of the IP address, calling it "a 32-bit numeric address that serves as an identifier for each computer, perhaps confusing it with a MAC address but also neglecting to acknowledge the existence of IPv6.

According to the AP's account of yesterday's meeting, Google's Fleischer responded to these arguments by stating that Google uses IP addresses to discern what country a user is operating in, and to tailor its search results to that country of origin. "If someone taps in 'football' you get different results in London than in New York," Fleischer said.

But he also added that Google uses those addresses later in conducting traffic pattern research, in such a way that individuals' privacy is not infringed, he argued.

"Non-aggregated data" is the final category on the Art. 29 list, and questions could arise as to whether Google's research qualifies as requiring legal protection, should the group's recommendations be adopted. The problem, Art. 29 wrote, is whether each datum used in the research sampling can somehow -- never mind how difficult it might be to do so -- be traced back to an individual source. "If the codes used are unique for each specific person," Art. 29 wrote, "the risk of identification occurs whenever it is possible to get access to the key used for the encryption. Therefore the risks of an external hack, the likelihood that someone within the sender's organization -- despite his professional secrecy -- would provide the key and the feasibility of indirect identification are factors to be taken into account to determine whether the persons can be identified taking into account all the means likely reasonably to be used by the controller or any other person, and therefore whether information should be considered as 'personal data.' If they are, the data protection rules will apply."

So with the broadening of the EU's data protection rules becoming a genuine possibility, and with opposition to the matter appearing to be limited to American corporations and almost indifferent US trade representatives, the question for Google and others becomes even murkier: Will it become illegal for any company that happens to be successful at its business to keep personally identifiable data in an online accessible location for longer than a year?

News : Google-funded firm launches DNA test in Europe

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - A private firm funded by Google Inc launched its Web-based DNA test in Europe on Tuesday, hoping to build on a successful start in the United States, where the $999 service went on sale in November.

Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki, co-founders of 23andMe, will showcase their service at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which starts on January 23.

Subscribers to 23andMe mail a saliva sample and, four to six weeks later, get the results online, allowing them to learn about inherited traits, their ancestry and -- probably with the help of a professional -- some of their personal disease risks.

"We are receiving overwhelming interest in our services outside the U.S. and are pleased to now offer them in Canada and Europe," Avey said. "We hope to continue to expand our global footprint to additional locations in the future."

The Web site, which takes its name from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each person's genome, says it will display more than half a million data points in users' genomes in a form they can visualize and understand.

The site does not currently make interpretations about a user's risk for developing such diseases as cancers, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, though users could in some cases get help from experts to make some basic assessments.

But the service may prove controversial in countries like Britain, where some experts say DNA tests are often of little value and can trigger unnecessary health worries.

Christine Patch, a member of Britain's Human Genetics Commission, said two months ago she believed many were a waste of money.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler, editing by Will Waterman)

News : Yahoo plans to cut hundreds of jobs - Source

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo is planning to announce cutbacks later this month that will likely lead to hundreds of job losses at the nearly 14,000 employee company, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday.

Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong declined to comment on a report published on the Silicon Alley Insider blog, which on Saturday said Yahoo has created a list of "1,500-2,500 jobs that may be eliminated in the next two weeks."

The source said the report significantly exaggerated the scale of the potential layoffs, the exact number of which is still being settled, but which will be announced around the time the company reports year-end results on January 29.

"There will be some reductions in the workforce," the source told Reuters. "It would likely be in the hundreds."

Yahoo's workforce stood at close to 14,000 at end-2007, up around 2,600, or 23 percent, from the 11,600 employed a year earlier, according to company filings. The company's headcount had grown 16 percent in 2006 and 29 percent in 2005.

The source said Yahoo expects to end 2008 with the same number it had going into this year -- close to 14,000 -- which would suggest some selective hiring in focus areas offset by cutbacks in other businesses.

Writing on Silicon Valley Insider, former Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget said Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang was still deciding whether to go ahead with the layoffs -- and could pull out of the plan if the stock price rebounded.

"We believe Yahoo should reduce headcount by at least a thousand people," Blodget said, noting that for months, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay has called on Yahoo to make steep job cuts of 15-20 percent to reinvigorate the stock.

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News : Microsoft's new virtualization strategy could include graphics

Press sources were not able to keep a tight lid on impending news from Microsoft tomorrow regarding a new acquisition in the virtualization space, and a change to its licensing policy regarding virtual desktops.

Leave it to The Wall Street Journal to let the news slip a day earlier than planned: At a press event scheduled for tomorrow morning Pacific Time, Microsoft will announce its intent to purchase virtualization tools provider Calista Technologies, the WSJ reported this morning.

Should that report pan out tomorrow, the acquisition would give Microsoft one major new tool in its virtualization arsenal that it has not had up to this point, and has apparently been unable to develop in-house: a full-featured virtual GPU driver capable of rendering 3D scenes with the quality one would expect from a respectable graphics card. Today, Virtual PC 2005 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 are relegated to using virtualized equivalents of low-grade graphics cards, with the result being that Windows Vista's Aero environment cannot be supported.

All that could change starting tomorrow if Microsoft adopts Calista's Virtual Desktop platform (CVD). Currently, that product is not a hypervisor as the WSJ and other sources have implied, but is instead a kind of intermediary that enables one or more server processors to provide virtual desktops between them, and serve those desktops to any number of physical clients.

As Calista describes, it does this by way of a new Remote Display Protocol (RDP) that uses lower bandwidth than a typical hypervisor-to-server remote connection. The reclaimed bandwidth can then be used for such services as full streaming video, which Calista's virtual GPU driver also supports. Imagine simulated microcode for major codecs, so that lower-grade client hardware can get the benefit of higher-end graphics cards. Conceivably, future Virtual Server clients would not need their own high-end GPUs to be able to render respectable 3D graphics scenes.

News : HTC Touch sales half that of Apple's iPhone

Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC has reported its sales for 2007, and it looks like the touch-screen smart phone market is more balanced than it is often portrayed to be.

The HTC Touch and Touch Dual run Windows Mobile 6 and utilize a gestural touch interface much like Apple's iPhone, the lineup's chief competition.

Steve Jobs said last week at Macworld that Apple had sold 4 million iPhones worldwide since its launch. HTC today reported a surprisingly aggressive 2 million Touch phones had been sold. In total, the company reported sales of 11.8 million handsets, 12% more than it had sold in 2006, garnering 12% more revenue as a result.

LG, producer of another popular touch-screen phone, the Voyager, is scheduled to release its Q4 reports on Thursday. That company had a guidance of 22.5 million total handsets sold for the fourth quarter of 2007.

With the impending release of a Nokia handset that was shown to run on the Symbian S60 platform providing tactile feedback, and a Sony Ericsson touch-equipped handset it previewed late last year, 2008 will have even more options for consumers seeking a touch device.

News : Reuters Technology

News : Steve Jobs criticizes Microsoft on Zune, says Blu-ray won

The Apple CEO was blunt that he believes the Zune is a failure, and that Blu-ray may have won the format war, but has probably lost the HD content battle.

His comments came as part of an interview with CNBC's Jim Goldman on Tuesday. While Jobs is not necessarily known for his subtlety, his statements are about the most direct on either topic so far.

When Goldman told Jobs about Microsoft executive Robbie Bach's comments that he thought the new Zune was a worthy alternative to Apple's iPod, Jobs all but called Bach crazy.

"Was he inebriated? Do you even know anyone who owns a Zune?" he said of the device.

As to Blu-ray, he said that the format had won the war over HD DVD. Yet in the end, he continued, its likely not going to matter with the advent of HD downloads. Jobs' opinion is not all that far-fetched: many analysts have said that the only thing the battle may have yielded is enough time for streaming HD to become a viable option.

Other highlights of the interview.

On China Mobile: "People just make this stuff up." He claims an executive from the carrier has visited Apple only once.

On the MacBook Air: "Intel did a great job in miniaturizing its very fast Core 2 Duo processor. There was lots more to do though ... we probably built 100 models to get to this."

On the iPhone: "The customer feedback is just off the charts ... I think to make a product that's so beloved, you just know its going to be really successful."

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News : Why are Windows products moving to Apple's Mac OS?

Although you can run Windows applications on Apple's Leopard anyway, many vendors at Macworld are debuting Mac OS editions of products originally designed for Windows.

This, in spite of the vaunted Windows/Mac cross-platform capabilities of Apple's new Leopard operating system. And regardless of Mac fans' claims of relative security versus Windows, some of the new products for Mac OS are geared toward virus protection and Web filtering.

Some vendors well known in the Windows space, ranging from security giant McAfee to network attached storage (NAS) specialist NetGear, are exhibiting at Macworld this year for the first time ever.

At the same time, Blue Coat Systems is releasing the beta edition of K9 Web Protection, a Mac OS edition of its security-oriented Web filtering software for Windows-based home PCs. Blue Coat also produces enterprise Web filtering software for government agencies and large businesses.

Meanwhile, label and business card printing maven Avery is using this year's Macworld as the launchpad for a Mac version of DesignPro, constituting that company's first stand-alone software for Mac OS 24 years after the first Macintosh was introduced.

That great app you've loved for Windows for years, now for Mac OS!

Vendors today have been porting Windows products to Mac OS for many years on end, and the same phenomenon has also happened in reverse -- particularly back in the 1990s, when design divisions within large businesses were adopting Windows in droves.

But migration from Windows to Mac OS does seem particularly evident this year, particularly with big names showing up at Macworld for the very first time. Some analysts agree that the trend is especially interesting at a time when running Windows applications on Apple hardware has probably never been easier.

If you want to run a Windows app on one of the new MacBook Air laptops, or any other Apple hardware outfitted with the latest edition of Mac OS, all you have to do is boot up into Windows.

Alternatively, if you're interested in running the same apps directly within OS, you can use an emulation program such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion, or a package such as Codeweavers' Crossover for Mac.

Crossover is a commercialized version of Wine, an open source software package designed to let applications run faster by re-implementing the Win32 kernel inside Mac OS, thereby allowing Windows apps to operate in native mode.

On the other hand, you can avoid the aggravation of either booting into Windows or loading Crossover or an emulation package, by running Mac versions of your accustomed Windows apps directly inside Mac OS.

At the same time, Apple is also making it easier with its new OS for Windows developers to create Mac OS versions of their products, according to Jeff Gamet, an analyst with The Mac Observer.

For one thing, Apple has now stepped to the Intel processor, an architecture that Windows developers already know quite well, Gamet told BetaNews.

For another thing, Leopard comes with more than 100 tools for Mac OS X development, free of charge, he said.

"This is a giveaway, and there's no surprise add-on cost. Everything you need for developing for OS X is included with the computer," according to the analyst.

With rising market shares come unwanted guests

Rising market shares for Mac hardware are also spurring software vendors on, Gamet said.

Indeed, Apple astounded the computer industry last fall by jumping to an 8.1% market share of the US PC shipments in the Gartner Group's industry study for the third quarter of 2007.

According to Gartner's fourth quarter numbers, just released in preliminary form yesterday, Apple's dropped back to 6.1% at the end of last year. But that's still a far cry better than Apple's results in the 3% range just a few years ago.

And Apple is still in fourth place in the US market, according to Gartner, behind Dell at 31.1%, Hewlett-Packard at 26.1%, and Acer at 9.0%.

Long-time Mac fans gain obvious benefits from obtaining new hardware and software applications for Mac OS, said Philip Leigh, a senior analyst with Inside Digital Media, Inc.

Leigh also told BetaNews that he thinks Apple was smart to offer a solid state drive (SSD) for the new Leopard-based MacBook Air laptop announced at Macworld. Beyond allowing devices to be smaller, SSDs are also more rugged than hard disk drives and better able to withstand the "shake, rattle, and roll" of ongoing use, Leigh contended.

The original iPods came with hard drives, but Apple has since replaced those hard drives with flash memory, the analyst pointed out.

So why are security vendors such as McAfee and Blue Coat flocking to Macworld for the first time ever?

Mac fans have long claimed security advantages for their favorite platform versus Windows, citing reasons ranging from a much smaller installed base to the use of a Unix kernel which gives high levels of protection against viruses.

"Some people don't like Windows because it has so many viruses," Leigh noted.

But as the Mac OS expands in usage, is it now becoming a wider target for security exploits?

In announcing the its own Macworld debut, McAfee officials pointed out the recent discovery of the first Macintosh-based "rogue cleaning tool" exploit.

Known as MacSweeper, the tool reportedly warns the Mac user that something is wrong , and then asks the user to pay for a clean-up.

Other Mac-based exploits uncovered over the past year have included a rogue application for the iPhone and a Trojan horse masquerading as a video codec.

McAfee actually launched its first antivirus software for Mac OS back in 2006, but its efforts in the Mac space have been met by strong resistance from some users who say these products aren't necessary.

The new Mac version of K9 Web Protection, now entering beta is designed to filter out spyware and phishing exploits along with content that might be inappropriate for children.

Above and beyond this week's MacWorld show, Lotus Software -- an entity that supported Mac OS desktops prior to its acquisition by IBM in 1995 -- is now rumored to be planning announcements of a Mac-compatible version of its Symphony office suite, as well as iPod and iPod Touch versions of Lotus Notes, for its own Lotusphere show next week.

An IBM spokesperson was initially unavailable for comment.

News : Monkey brain operates machine - Robot

Scientists have used the brain signals from a monkey to drive a robotic arm.

As the animal stuck out its hand to pick up some food off a tray, an artificial neural system linked into the animal's head mimicked the activity in the mechanical limb.


"It was an amazing sight to see the robot in my lab move, knowing that it was being driven by signals from a monkey brain"

Mandayam Srinivasan, MIT

The system was even used to remotely control another robot arm 950 kilometres (600 miles) away in a different lab.

This is not the first time that a device has been operated by "brain power" alone, but the experiment marks a significant step forward in sophistication.

It holds out the prospect that, one day, paralysed patients might be able to command the movement of prosthetic limbs that have been "wired" into their brains.

Commenting on the research, Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, of the Northwestern University Medical School, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Illinois, US, said: "The idea of driving robotic limbs with what effectively amounts to the mere power of thought was once in the realm of science fiction. But this goal is edging closer to reality."

Miguel Nicolelis, his monkey and the robotic arm

Brain study

In previous research, it has been shown that a rat wired into an artificial neural system can make a robotic water feeder move just by willing it.

"The idea of driving robotic limbs with what effectively amounts to the mere power of thought was once in the realm of science fiction"
Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

But the latest work sets new benchmarks because it shows how to process more neural information at a faster speed to produce more sophisticated robotic movements. That the system can be made to work using a primate is also an important proof of principle.

Miguel Nicolelis told BBC News Online that people would obviously focus on possible future applications for quadriplegics but he said the system also offered a new way to probe the workings of the brain.

"We have designed a new paradigm to study how the brain processes information," he said.

"Until fairly recently, we tried to understand the brain by looking at one neuron at a time, but we all know the brain works in a parallel mode requiring the activation of huge numbers of cells to produce any behaviour.

"So the implementation of this technique for recording up to a 100 neurons in primates is a big deal for science."

News : Office 2008 for Mac hits store shelves

After four years of waiting, Mac users are finally able to get their hands on a new version of Microsoft's productivity suite for the platform.

The suite is a major step forward for those who prefer to use the Redmond company's applications for the Mac platform. Since its last update in 2004, much has changed on the Windows side: this effectively brings Apple customers up to speed.


While the software borrows some from the recently released Windows version of Office, Microsoft also kept in mind the unique needs and features of Mac OS X. It also supports the company's Office OpenXML platform natively.

"We developed Office 2008 for Mac as a comprehensive productivity suite that also helps people simplify their work," Mac BU head Craig Eisler said. "At the core, we focused on delivering reliable compatibility so that users can confidently share documents across platforms."

Office 2008 will improve the cross-compatibility between Windows and Mac. Microsoft says documents will look the same when opened on either platform, and will run faster on Intel Macs due to its Universal Binary support.

Entourage also has received a significant retooling, catching it up with the Outlook client on Windows. The new UI of Office has also made its way into the OS X version, however with a decidedly Mac feel.

Microsoft said it also wanted to ensure that users could use any of its products without much worry for learning the ins and outs of each program. For example, applications that are harder to master like Excel will come with guides that assist in using the program more effectively.

As announced earlier, the suite will come in three options. The base version includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, retailing for $239.95 for the upgrade and $399.95 for the full version.

Home and Student comes with three licenses, and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and a non-Exchange enabled version of Entourage. Retail price there is $149.95.

Finally, Special Media Edition includes all the options of the base version, adding Expression Media. That retails for $499.95 for the full version, and $299.95 for the upgrade, Microsoft said.

News : Apple unveils World's thinnest notebook

Capping off his Macworld 2008 keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs put the rumors to rest by announcing the "world's thinnest notebook" called the MacBook Air.






Jobs began by noting the specs of Sony's Vaio TZ, which weighs 3 pounds and has an 11- or 12-inch screen with smaller keyboard and what he called a "slower processor." The Vaio is also 0.8 to 1.2 inches thick.


In comparison, the 3-pound MacBook Air is 0.16 to 0.76 inches thick with a tapered design. The thickest part of the Air is smaller than the thinnest part of the Vaio. It has a full-size keyboard and 13.3-inch 1280x800 widescreen display. It utilizes a magnetic latch for closing and has an iSight camera like Apple's existing notebooks.

The screen is LED backlit like the MacBook Pro, along with a keyboard with light sensor. "This is the best notebook keyboard we've ever shipped," said Jobs. "And it's full-sized. And it's backlit."

New in the Air is what Apple calls a "multi-touch" trackpad, that works much like the touch interface on the iPhone. Users can move a window by double-tapping and moving, and zoom in by pinching their fingers. "We've also built in multi-touch gesture support. We've taken that even further, you'll actually be able to turn on all sorts of new gestures," Jobs said.

The MacBook Air will feature an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive standard, with an optional 64GB solid-state hard drive as an upgrade. The processor will be an Intel Core2Duo running at 1.6GHz standard, with an optional upgrade to 1.8GHz.

The SSD option is a $999 USD upgrade, bringing the total price to $3098 USD with the 1.8GHz CPU.

Jobs said Intel shrunk the CPU by 60% for the MacBook Air, inviting Intel CEO Paul Otellini on stage. "The processor is as thick as a nickle and as wide as a dime," Otellini explained.

The MacBook Air has a 45-watt MagSafe adapter, 1 USB 2.0 port, Micro-DVI for connecting to an external monitor and audio out. For wireless connectivity, 802.11n Wi-Fi is built in, along with Bluetooth 2.1/EDR.

Because of its size, the Air will not feature an optical drive, however an external Apple Superdrive that connects via USB will cost $99 USD. Users can also mount CDs or DVDs remotely from another Mac or PC on the network.

Jobs added that the MacBook Air will have 5 hours of battery life. With 2GB of RAM, the ultra-thin laptop will run $1799 USD for the base configuration. Pre-orders will be taken by Apple starting today, with shipping expected in two weeks.

Environmental factors were also taken into consideration with the Air. The display is completely lead free and Apple's first to be mercury and arsenic-free, the internals are BRF free, and the retail packaging is 56% less than that of the MacBook.

"The most controversial feature is not the lack of an optical drive but the fact that the battery is sealed in the computer," remarked JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg. "For most folks, this will not be an issue based on the battery life and needs but no doubt, it's a change, that like the iPhone, users will need to get used to. This isn't the first time we've seen Apple do this."

"When the iMac was first released, a lot of folks were alarmed at the lack of serial and parallel ports, no floppy drive and everything being USB based. That soon became the model of the industry. Most users don't travel with extra batteries or even replace them over the life of their machines. Apple will do replacements directly under warranty as well as offer replacement service for users who do need to get their battery replaced," Gartenberg added. "Overall, it's really a non-issue."

News : Silicon Insider: 2008 Tech Predictions

Michael Malone Says: Recession, Apple Stumbles and Google Tumbles

I can't help thinking that 2008 is going to be a strange year, filled with far too few wonders and a whole lot of the unpleasant and unexpected. And nowhere will that be more true than in Silicon Valley and high technology.

Here are my predictions for the coming year in Tech:

Recession — Early last year, I predicted it for late 2007. And I think we'll look back this year and see that, at least in high technology, it did indeed arrive about last September, if not even earlier. This downturn in tech is hardly unexpected: It typically comes every four years or so, and though unwelcome, usually has the beneficial effect of killing off the old and feeble companies as well as the uncompetitive new start-ups. This frees talent and money to go elsewhere — usually into the creation of the next generation of hot new companies.

I've been smelling recession in the air here in the Valley for months now. People are tired, the money is getting distorted, and most of all, a lot of people who shouldn't have jobs are being snatched up by companies desperate for warm bodies.

I also think that the reality of this recession has been largely masked by a handful of great companies — HP, a resurgent Dell, Google, Microsoft and most of all, Apple — swimming against the trend and posting numbers that not only makes the Valley look healthier than it is, but also buoys up the entire U.S. stock market. As we'll see in a moment, that won't last much longer.

I once predicted that this recession would be deep, but short. Now I'm of a different mind: Because it has taken longer to unfold, I also think it will take longer to end. On the other hand, I also think that the larger U.S. recession, which despite recent GDP numbers, also seems under way, may not be as bad as I first thought, as the slow slide downward will help reduce the damage of the mortgage mess. So, look for a shallower recession in both the U.S. economy and in high tech, but also expect it to last into late 2009, with tech coming out of it first at midyear.
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Apple Stumbles — Hard as it is to believe, the Apple iPod is now 6 years old, being first introduced just weeks after 9/11. Add to that the introduction of the first iMac a couple years before that, and the iPhone early last year, and Apple has enjoyed one of the most spectacular and innovative runs in U.S. business history. In the process, the company has transformed not only consumer electronics, but also the culture itself. That's no mean achievement for a firm that was at death's door a decade ago.

The question now is whether the company can keep going, pulling still more rabbits out of Steve Jobs' hat. The answer, I think, is probably not.

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News : Google Must Make or Break GAPE in 2008

The search giant is looking for a breakout year for its enterprise Google Apps suite.This may be the year Google makes or breaks GAPE, the enterprise version of Google Apps that lets businesses license hosted e-mail, instant documents, spreadsheets and other applications for $50 per user per year.

The numbers sound great on paper: 2,000 new businesses per day signing up for Google Apps. Then there are hearty testimonials from customers now freed from Microsoft Office or Lotus Notes.

The problem is that neither Microsoft nor IBM will wait for Google to come and take market share. Microsoft has Office Live Workspace, and its likely IBM will answer with an SAAS (software as a service) version of Lotus Symphony.

Though analysts were skeptical about Googles ability to offer a portfolio in the SAAS cloud that observed regulations regarding records management, Google answered the call in July by buying security vendor Postini for $625 million.

The deal seemingly cleared the path for large enterprises to jump on board. Google announced Capgemini as a major taker for its enterprise suite in September, but since then, the enterprise waters seem to have calmed for Google.

Google Enterprise Executive Vice President Dave Girouard told eWEEK in December there are big customer contracts coming down the pike in 2008, some of which will even dwarf the Capgemini contract in scope, covering thousands of seats.

Appirio CEO Chris Barbin, whose company has built a series of Google Gadgets that serve up Salesforce.com information through the iGoogle personalized home page, was more specific in an interview with eWEEK Jan. 3.

Barbin said Google is trying to secure six to eight large prospects considering GAPE for anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 seats. One prospect expects to scale to 100,000 seats. "These are large, sophisticated IT shops that are kicking the tires pretty hard," he said.

Though Barbin couldnt name those customers, he said Google is placing a heavy emphasis on financial services and high-tech, the verticals where Office and Lotus are layered so thick. Appirio is right in the mix, helping Google with its application development, SAAS strategy and SAAS rollout expertise.

Still, analysts at IDC are skeptical that Google will get the traction it needs to muscle Microsoft and IBM from major accounts.

IDC analyst Melissa Webster said online tools such as a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications are not the draw, noting that only 6 percent of the respondents in a survey she conducted are using Googles tools. Moreover, virtually all of them are also using Microsoft Office.

"So I dont see Google taking share," Webster told eWEEK. "Plans to us show growth on the Google side, but still, no erosion of Microsoft usage. And the same survey shows a significant number of users are planning to upgrade to Office 2007 next year."

Barbin, however, said Google will take share, noting that users are tired of Exchange and Lotus Notes applications that are expensive, complex to manage and dated.

"I think Lotus is the asbestos of software. Its everywhere, no one wants to get rid of it, but you have to because its a health hazard," he said.

Barbin also said that even if Microsoft and IBM come to the fore with major SAAS office portfolios, they wont be able to match Googles speed to market.

But IDC analyst Rachel Happe said Microsoft is not going to stand by and watch Google own the cloud. Happe also said she doubts Googles enterprise products are set up with the service provisions and infrastructure to support big business the way Microsoft and IBM do.

Moreover, Happe said, Google is involved in so many big ideas, from social platforms to wireless networks, that it will be really hard for the company to chip away at Microsoft and IBM in the office and collaboration space.

This is why 2008 will be a telling year for Google Apps. If Google can land a dozen large GAPE installations over the next 12 months, it will give the suite the momentum it needs to roll forward. If the big fish dont bite, its unlikely the company will put the same resources behind it.

If GAPE fails, its not clear how much Google will lose. The beauty of this SAAS software is that it is a fortified version of the consumer Google Apps that the company has been rolling out the last few years. Users will still use the free editions of Apps; in the cloud, its all relative.

Moreover, unlike Yahoo, the company wouldnt have to shut down the whole enterprise division—Google still has Geo and the Google Search Appliance to hawk.

Even so, a healthy SAAS business could be a major supporting money-maker for Google when the online ad market matures in five years or so.

News : Analyst: Blu-ray Macs will premiere at Macworld

AppleInsider has posted predictions from American Technology Research analyst Shawn Wu that point to new Macs with Blu-ray drives premiering at Macworld on January 15.

Since Apple has held a seat on the Blu-ray consortium for years already, and CEO Steve Jobs is on the board of directors at Blu-ray supporter Disney, it seems that if Apple was to align with a next-gen format, Blu-ray would be favored.

Wu said, however, that there's also an off chance of Apple releasing a combo HD-DVD and Blu-ray drive instead.

An overhauled Mac Pro workstation, which is expected in the first quarter of 2008, has been rumored to be one of the first systems by the company with a Blu-ray compatible drive.

But such predictions are still only rumors, as excitement and speculation about new Apple products intensifies with Macworld drawing closer.

Reports of a lighter, NAND flash memory-based Mac sub-notebook continue on many sites. Rumors --which sound much like educated guesses based on Apple's naming trends-- are that the new notebook will be named either "MacBook mini" or "MacBook Slim."

News : The rush to render the iPhone obsolete

No list of trends would be complete without a mention of Apple's iPhone, a device that many handset manufacturers will be looking to beat in 2008 in order to attract a consumer that is ever more interested in advanced wireless services. Many of those devices will debut at CES next week.

Since its launch in June of last year, iPhone sales have nearly topped 2 million. While the closed nature of Apple's business model has kept the device out of the hands of many consumers, the iPhone no doubt has sparked a revolution in the entire mobile phone industry.

Manufacturers have been quick to jump on the bandwagon and add devices to their portfolios that mimic the most sought-after features of the iPhone. Even software developers have seized opportunities that the phone's release have created.

This rush of competition will keep Apple on its toes in 2008, in a race to stay one step ahead of the industry which is hungry for a piece of the iPhone pie. It is this high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse among mobile vendors that will likely be one of the bigger stories coming out of CES this year and beyond.

Touch-screen technology

Perhaps the easiest place for these manufacturers to start would be mimicking the touch-screen functionality that the iPhone provides. While touch screens have now been available on phones for several years thanks to devices like Palm's Treo, Apple has put this functionality in the hand of general consumers, not just business users.

Furthermore, the Cupertino company eliminated the need for a stylus which was commonplace among touch-screen phones previously due to their smaller screens. Apple also made the touch-screen technology a larger part of its overall user interface design through the inclusion of finger "gestures" to navigate through the device.

The first device to follow the iPhone with similar technology was the Touch from Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. Like the iPhone, the Touch lacks any kind of physical keyboard, and uses a similar UI concept called "TouchFLO" that requires similar finger gestures for navigation purposes.

HTC quickly found there was a market for such a device, with the Touch selling 800,000 units in a matter of three months through October. The company has since expanded the line with two additional models, the Dual Touch that combines the interface with a slide-out keypad, and the recently released Cruise, which integrates GPS functionality.

Other finger-based touch devices have come along since then: Verizon has recently begun a heavy push of the Venus by LG. More touch-based phones are expected to be introduced at CES, as manufacturers attempt to improve on Apple's innovative design to win over consumers eager for the latest technology.

Visual Voicemail

Many moons ago, voicemail was one of those bonus features that consumers were expected to pay for separately. Those times have long since passed, and voicemail is now a basic feature that users have come to expect for free.

Thus, voicemail technology has largely taken a backseat in many carriers' list of priorities, and has seen little in the way of innovation since it became commonplace over a decade ago. Apple has finally changed that with the iPhone.

Its Visual Voicemail functionality became a hallmark of the iPhone, and is even cited by the Cupertino company as one of the primary reasons why it had to select a specific carrier -- in the United States, AT&T Wireless -- in order to launch the device.

Instead of the standard way of checking one's messages by calling a number and sitting through numerous spoken prompts, Visual Voicemail works more like e-mail. It allows the user to see in a single glance who has called them, and selectively listen to and delete voicemails without having to play them in any specific order.

Due to the apparent technology hurdles, it could be a while before any kind of similar functionality makes it to other phones or wireless carriers. The closest anyone has come so far is Callwave, and even there it requires the individual to be using his or her computer and not a mobile phone.

It will be interesting to watch at CES whether anyone attempts to expand the concept of Visual Voicemail to devices beyond the iPhone.

Full Web browsing

Until the iPhone launched, browsing the Web on the cellular phone was largely a frustrating and fruitless experience. Most of the Web was not available in a format suitable for viewing on the smaller screen of a handheld device.

iPhone's included Safari browser could be credited with changing this dichotomy. Consumers for the first time were able to view Web pages as they were intended to be viewed, no matter if they were formatted for the mobile phone or not.

Apple also overcame the screen size issue by allowing the browser to intuitively zoom in and out of sections for easier reading. Support for actual HTML standards and JavaScript means that a large majority of Web pages will appear on the iPhone screen just as they would on the desktop.

While Apple's mobile Safari isn't completely perfect, it is a step in the right direction, and has spurred other software developers to work on options for other phones. The first of these companies to offer an alternative is Opera.

Its newest Opera Mini browser works much like Safari does, taking Web pages and shrinking them down to fit within the traditional mobile screen, and allowing for zooming in and out of the various sections of a page.

However, Opera's browser doesn't seem to render the pages in the same way that the iPhone does. In tests of both options, Safari seems to consistently load pages closer to that of the desktop than its competitor.

Microsoft is expected to make similar improvements to Pocket IE in the next version of Windows Mobile, which could make its first public appearance at CES next week.

A move toward higher-quality materials

With cell phones continuing to shrink in size and shorten in life span before obsolescence, the trend in recent years has been to make them with cheaper materials. Plastic has become the shell of choice for most phones, and mobile devices have seen a drop in durability as a result.

With the iPhone, Apple went the other direction. Instead of using plastic, the phone was built with a combination of metal and glass, resulting in increased durability and an overall feeling of quality. In addition, the company also successfully shrank the size of its smartphone to a form factor that is much easier to hold in the hand.

In that category, the iPhone currently has no equal. While competitors like the HTC and LG are shrinking their smartphones down to a more manageable size, overall design quality still is lacking. The Touch line is built mostly from plastic, and the Venus only includes a few higher-end materials in its design.

Another break from the norm is the amount of memory made available within the iPhone. 8GB of storage space holds movies, pictures and data -- more than any other device in its price class by far.

Before the iPhone, this kind of data storage was only available on ultra-high end phones, like Nokia's music phones. With the expanded storage came an equally expanded price tag; for example, Nokia's N95 retails for $779 USD unsubsidized,

While many have complained about the iPhone's $399 USD price tag as being high, when looking at its competition, the iPhone could be considered a relative bargain. Apple's entrant into the mobile space may actually benefit all by bringing the cost of higher-end, higher-quality phones down to prices that the typical consumer can afford.

Rivals can go after users Apple has left behind

"[The iPhone has] certainly changed the game in a number of ways, especially with regard to putting the user interface front and center of the device creation process," Disruptive Analysis principal analyst Dean Bubley told BetaNews. "It has also really stimulated a re-evaluation of the commercial relationships of mobile carriers & their handset suppliers."

Bubley said that he doesn't expect the iPhone to be made obsolete by its competitors any time soon, however he suggest that Apple become more embracing of unlockers -- those trying to make the device work on carriers other than AT&T -- in order to avoid becoming an niche product.

In any case, the iPhone will certainly shake up the industry in the year to come. And while it may not necessarily become obsolete -- especially with Apple likely to unveil future upgrades and even a 3G model in the coming months -- the iPhone may lose some of its uniqueness as others attempt to mirror its success.

News : The end of an era as AOL officially retires Netscape

AOL is also saying goodbye to memories: the company has finally killed off the Netscape Web browser - or what was left of it, anyway.

March 31, 2008 will mark 10 years since the Netscape development team opened up the source code to the browser that ushered in the Internet era. With its acquisition of Netscape in 1999, AOL continued that effort and helped launch the Mozilla Foundation into an organization that has taken on Microsoft and shaped the Web as we know it today.

But Netscape's time has long since passed due to the arrival of Firefox and AOL's struggles to stay relevant in an increasingly broadband-connected decade. Netscape 6, the first browser based upon the Mozilla source code, debuted in 2000 and was succeeded two years later by Netscape 7, also a rebranded version of Mozilla.

Meanwhile, Internet Explorer quickly took over Windows desktops and Netscape's market share dwindled to single digits.

The demise of Netscape wasn't a big surprise to most. When the Internet bubble burst, there was little money to fund development of a product that could compete with something Microsoft gave away for free. Even the Mozilla foundation barely limped along with help from AOL until Google laid its golden egg: advertising in search results.

Google -- Microsoft's online nemesis -- inked a deal to give the Mozilla Foundation a cut of advertising revenues when users searched from its browsers. The money aided the development of Firefox, which has become so successful that the organization has even stopped producing its namesake Mozilla suite, although a group of developers continue to work on it under the name "Seamonkey."

In 2005, thanks to the growing success of Firefox backed by Google, AOL revived the Netscape browser hoping it could offer a more consumer-friendly alternative. Netscape Browser 8, as it was called, bulked up Firefox's security with a "Trust Rating" system for Web sites, and took a unique approach to compatibility by enabling users to render Web pages using Internet Explorer's engine directly within Netscape.

Despite limited acceptance of the reborn Netscape version 8, AOL pressed forward with development, promising and delivering version 9 in October 2007 while bringing back the Netscape Navigator moniker. While version 8 of Netscape was largely outsourced to Mercurial Communications, AOL built its own development team for Navigator 9.0.

But the effort didn't last long, due to organizational changes within the company and an overall lack of success.

"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer," AOL's Tom Drapeau wrote on the Netscape blog Friday. "Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions."

Drapeau noted that AOL is not able to invest in Netscape as it once did, adding that, "we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."

Security patches for Netscape Navigator 9 will be released through February 1, 2008 at which point all product support will cease for the current release and all previous Netscape versions. This includes Netscape v1-v4.x, Netscape v6, Netscape v7 Suite, Netscape Browser v8, and Netscape Navigator/Messenger 9.

Those nostalgic for the days before the Web was filled with phishing scams and other malware can install a Netscape theme atop Firefox. Netscape.com will continue to exist, although the site has retained only a fraction of its original users after a year-long experiment in which it became a community driven news site like Digg.com before reverting back to a general portal.

It may appear an unceremonious death for Netscape's eulogy to be written in a developer blog post on an idle Friday afternoon at the cusp of a new year. But as we look forward to Mozilla's 10th anniversary, we can also look back and appreciate the immense impact that Netscape has had by bringing the World Wide Web to computer screens in every corner of the planet and connecting us like never before.