News : Sony films headed to mobile phones

By Andrew Wallenstein

LAS VEGAS (Hollywood Reporter) - Sony Pictures Television is looking to launch the first movie network on mobile phones in the United States.

The studio has signed a deal with AT&T and MediaFLO USA to launch the linear channel as one of two exclusive channels coming to the newly announced AT&T Mobile TV with FLO service in May.

The channel, to be known as PIX, will be stocked with such titles as "Ghostbusters," "Philadelphia" and "Stand by Me."

Mobile has been viewed mostly as a marketing platform for theatricals in the U.S. With the domestic mobile video category for even shortform clips lagging behind markets in Europe and Asia, Sony is looking to entice viewers with more diverse content offerings.

"What you see a lot on the carrier decks is promotional content that people can snack a little on," said Eric Berger, vp mobile entertainment at Sony Pictures Television. "There's nothing currently there as deeply entertaining as these movies."

Films have been made available on handsets on an on-demand basis. Sony was one of several studios that contributed titles to content aggregator MSpot, which teamed with Sprint to launch MSpot Movies in 2006.

Sony always has been bullish on films via mobile. The studio also was the first in the U.S. to embed full-length titles on memory cards for handsets.

Although the prospect of viewers sitting in front of a two-inch screen for two hours seems dim, Berger noted that the objective isn't to keep people watching for the duration of a film.

"We recognize that people are on the go with their mobile phone and coming and going," he said. "This isn't for people looking to view a movie for the first time. It's OK to miss the beginning."

With AT&T on board, PIX will be available on the biggest mobile provider in the U.S., though the company has yet to disclose the price of the FLO tier. With PIX a part of FLO, Sony allows AT&T to differentiate its service from Verizon Wireless, which has been carrying FLO for the past year.

PIX will be available alongside nonexclusive mobile channels including NBC, CBS, ESPN and Nickelodeon, which offer altered forms of their traditional linear programming lineups via multicast transmission.

Sony is negotiating with other U.S. carriers to carry PIX but did not divulge which specific companies are in discussions. As for pricing, each distribution partner likely will use a different business model. For instance, PIX could end up ad-supported on one carrier while free of commercials on another that will charge an extra fee.

Sony eventually might convert PIX to an on-demand model and might take the brand online as well. The full-length linear strategy is just one of many different content plays with which the studio is experimenting. "We're not doubling down and saying it's only about longform," Berger said. "We'll continue to do innovative things in the shortform universe as well."

Films will run on PIX for a month, with additions coming weekly. Other titles coming to PIX include "Memento," "The Karate Kid," "Layer Cake," "Resident Evil" and "Roxanne."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

News : Apple has biggest impact on world consumers

By Rachel Sanderson

LONDON (Reuters) - The Apple brand has the biggest impact on the world's consumers, while Microsoft and the United States nation brand are those considered most in need of a remake, a survey showed on Monday.

The poll by online magazine brandchannel.com asked its readers to identify the brands with the greatest impact on their lives, and say how they affected readers' behaviour and their view of the world.

The nearly 2,000 professionals and students who voted named Apple overwhelming winner. The creator of the iPod and Mac computer triumphed in six categories including most inspiring brand and the one readers cannot live without.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker was also a winner, but it received the dubious honor of the brand most readers wanted to argue with, and the one they most wanted to revamp. Voted into second place in the category was brand USA.

"Apple has clearly captured the hearts and minds by leading across most categories. Others, such as the USA nation brand, which ranks highly as most in need of a rebrand, requires help according to our readers," said brandchannel editor Jim Thompson.

The poll does not take account of economic brand value, the murky science of assigning a financial value to brand, which regularly puts Coca-Cola Co's (KO.N) Coke in first place.

One of the more surprising results from the survey, was that few of the respondents -- who came from 107 countries -- thought that there was such a thing as a "green" brand.

The result comes despite millions of dollars spent by some of the world's biggest companies to rebrand themselves as "environmentally-friendly".

Discussing Apple, one anonymous reader said there was "never a dull moment" with the company "reinventing itself all along and providing, over and over again, a new perspective on what we thought was carved in stone".

At the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft had "gone from innovative and bold to stodgy and follower," said another unnamed reader.

After Apple, the most inspiring brands were Nike, Coca-Cola, Google and Starbucks, the survey showed.

The same brands, except with Virgin in place of Starbucks, were the brands most readers would "like to sit next to at a dinner party".

The rankings by brandchannel.com were based on answers from almost 2,000 readers from 107 countries. The survey was conducted online from February 24 to March 9.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

News : 3G iPhone launch seen in 2nd quarter

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is expected to launch a high-speed wireless version of iPhone in the second quarter and produce as many as 8 million of the devices in the third quarter, according to Bank of America.

Apple shares closed up $2.76, or 2 percent, at $143.01 after the prediction in a research report about the third-generation phone from Bank of America analyst Scott Craig. Shares in AT&T Inc (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the exclusive U.S. carrier for iPhone, closed up flat at $37.66 after rising to $38.39 earlier in the day.

"Our latest channel checks point to a significant production build of a 3G iPhone beginning in the month of June after an initial small build in May," he said.

AT&T said last year it expects to be able to sell a 3G version of iPhone in 2008, but it declined comment on specific launch dates on Friday.

Apple representative Jennifer Bowcock declined comment.

Craig said that now he expects production volume to be much higher than his previous estimates. He said Apple planned to build more than 3 million high-speed iPhones in May followed by more than 8 million in the third quarter of the year.

Craig, who had previously estimated 8 million iPhone units for the whole of 2008, said that was starting to look conservative unless some of the plans were pushed back.

Many other analysts have said they expect Apple, which is holding a developer conference in June, to launch an advanced iPhone around that time.

Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said it would make sense for Apple to bring out its high-speed iPhone in June around the time it launches an upgrade to iPhone software.

Apple has said it expects to have sold 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. It said in January that it had sold more than 4 million iPhones since the phone was launched in June.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Scott Hillis in San Francisco editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Gunna Dickson)

News : Reuters Technology Week

The latest in gadgets and geeks from Argentina, Siberia, and Japan.

Plus, a killer chicken robot.

Fred Katayama presents.

News : IAC's Diller wins court battle with Liberty

By Michele Gershberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IAC/InterActiveCorp chief Barry Diller won a bitter legal dispute with Liberty Media Corp's John Malone on Friday, paving the way for him to proceed with efforts to spin off four of IAC's largest units.

Shares in Internet conglomerate IAC surged more than 8 percent on the Delaware Chancery Court ruling, which blocked Liberty's effort to oust Chairman and Chief Executive Diller and six other IAC board members.

The decision followed a week-long court battle that exposed a deteriorating friendship between the two billionaire media moguls after more than a decade of business dealings.

It also opened the door for further disputes between Malone and Diller, who must now return to the table and either work through the contentious spin-off or agree to swap IAC assets for Liberty's stake in the company.

"I wish this hadn't happened, but it did," Diller said in a statement. "Now it's over and we can all get on with our work and lives."

Liberty and IAC sued each other in January over Diller's plan to structure the spun-off units with a single-class share structure that would halve Liberty's voting control over the businesses as separate entities.

Liberty owns about 30 percent of IAC, but retains 62 percent control through a class of super-voting shares. But Diller runs IAC through a long-standing proxy agreement that gives him the sole right to vote those shares.

The agreement became a point of contention between cable mogul Malone and Diller, a former film and television executive, as IAC's financial results and share performance lagged comparable market indicators.

As late as last spring, the two nearly reached a deal to swap Liberty's stake in exchange for IAC's shopping network HSN. Diller testified to the "nightmare" nature of holding talks with Malone and said public criticism from his partner pushed him to endorse a more dramatic restructuring.

He also said in court that Malone's lieutenant, Liberty CEO Greg Maffei, had harmed IAC by making negative comments about its performance.

Liberty officials could not immediately be reached.

SPIN-OFFS COULD STILL BE CHALLENGED

Delaware Judge Stephen Lamb upheld Diller's right to vote Liberty's controlling interest in IAC, even if Liberty does not agree with his position.

He also said that IAC has to work out the precise structure of the spin-offs, and that Liberty could still challenge those plans as they take shape, a process that may land the two sides back in court.

"The court rejects Liberty's claim that the proposed single-tier spin-off gives rise to any right of consent on Liberty's part," Lamb wrote. "It follows that the (Diller) proxy remains in effect."

IAC's outside investors had sought a ruling that would end the uncertainty over the future of IAC, whose share price had dropped 17 percent since the legal dispute began. Many favored the spin-off plan as a way of improving IAC's business focus without the complexity of operating more than 60 brands.

Diller's plan would make separate entities of HSN, online mortgage business LendingTree, box office service Ticketmaster and time-share exchange Interval.

IAC would retain its Web media and advertising properties like search site Ask.com and dating service Match.com.

But Diller has left the door open to swapping one of those assets with Liberty, and told the court that settlement talks between the sides had continued up until the eve of the trial.

IAC is also holding talks with outside investors to take a stake in one of the spun-off units, including private investment firm Quadrangle Group, Diller said in court.

IAC shares rose as high as $22.20 from their close of $20.49 on the Nasdaq on Friday.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg; Editing by Gary Hill)

News : AT&T plans MediaFlo mobile TV service for May

By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it would launch mobile television services in May from MediaFlo USA, a unit of Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O: Quote, Profile, Research), in an effort to bolster revenue from services other than phone calls.

AT&T, the biggest U.S. mobile service, said it would offer MediaFlo to users of the Vu phone from LG Electronics Inc (066570.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) and the Access from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) and plans two exclusive channels it did not name.

AT&T, which offers everything from music to Web surfing to help bolster its revenue as phone call prices fall, had originally said it expected to offer the service by the end of 2007. It did not reveal service pricing.

Spokesman Mark Siegel said AT&T waited until May to offer the service as it was "a brand new service on a brand new network, and two brand new devices." The company plans to reveal its pricing at the time of its service launch.

AT&T's service arrives about a year after its biggest rival Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research), started selling MediaFlo, which is broadcast live over a network built by chip maker Qualcomm.

Qualcomm, which sells technology licenses and chips for phones offering high-speed Web links, built the network to help kick-start the market for live television.

But some analysts said that mobile television was taking longer than some expected to take off partly because of weaker-than-expected consumer demand as the service does not blanket the entire country or work on all phones.

"There's still a question whether consumers are ready to watch a significant amount of TV on their handsets." said Stanford Group analyst Michael Nelson.

Gina Lombardi, division head of MediaFlo USA, said in a telephone interview that by the time AT&T offers its service in May it will be available in about 55 markets, covering a potential 130 million customers. MediaFlo markets include Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Orlando and Philadelphia.

Lombardi said she was happy with the number of people using the service and "the amount of time they're watching it" but declined to give subscriber numbers.

Subscriber growth should improve as MediaFlo improves coverage in markets such as New York and as AT&T starts offering its service and both carriers sell a bigger choice of phones that support the service, she said.

Qualcomm hopes to be able to expand its service to markets covering more than 200 million potential customers in February 2009, when television companies have to vacate wireless airwaves that they own.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Andre Grenon, Phil Berlowitz)

News : Indonesian ministry Web site hacked over porn ban

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Hackers have defaced the Web site of Indonesia's information ministry in response to a government move to restrict access to pornographic material on the Internet, an official said on Friday.

Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday passed a new information bill that criminalises the transmission of pornographic material on the Web.

The Southeast Asian country has had a vigorous debate over pornography in recent years, exposing deep divisions in the Muslim-majority nation.

Hackers on Thursday posted a message on the information ministry's Web site (http://www.depkominfo.go.id) saying: "Prove that the law has not been made to cover government stupidity."

The message was accompanied by a mocked-up photograph of a local information technology expert, who has been advising the government on the new law, depicted with a bare chest.

Screenshots of the hacked page were posted on the Detik.com news Web site and a cyber chat forum.

The message had been removed and the Web site was now running normally, said Gatot Broto, an official at the ministry.

The ministry said the law was a response to concerns in society about the negative impact of pornographic and violent sites as more Indonesians gain access to the Internet.

Under the law, anyone found guilty of transmitting pornographic material, false news or racial and religious hate messages on the Internet could face up to six years in prison or a fine of 1 billion rupiah ($109,000).

Indonesia's parliament has yet to pass a controversial pornography bill, which aims to shield the young from pornographic material and lewd acts.

Earlier draft versions contained provisions that could jail people for kissing in public and criminalize many forms of art or traditional culture that hinge on sensuality, sparking criticism it could curb freedoms and hurt Indonesia's tolerant tradition.

(Reporting by Ahmad Pathoni; Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)

News : Museums exhibit high-tech appeal

By Sue Zeidler

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Paintings and sculptures long stored away are finding a new audience as museums strive for mass appeal with high-tech Web sites packed with video, podcasts and interactive elements.

Moreover, these institutions are finding that rather than diminishing the number of museum visits, the Web is actually boosting in-person attendance.

"All museums, especially art museums, realize the Internet is a way to drive visits," said Ford Bell, chief executive officer of the 6,500-member American Association of Museums.

"Some museums now let people go online and download tours ahead of time on their iPods," he said.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art offers a podcast series (http://www.sfmoma.org/education/edu_podcasts.html) that includes audio and video interviews with artists, curators and visitors as they explain or react to works on display there.

Visitors can also save $2 on admission if they present their MP3 player loaded with the current podcast of Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon describing how he filmed an elephant in the middle of the night for his work "Play Dead: Real Time," which was recently featured at the museum.

The Chicago History Museum allows visitors to download three tours, including two of permanent exhibits and one of a special exhibition.

A recent national survey by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) found that Web site visitors were inclined to more than double their frequency of museum visits. "Internet users visit museums in person 2.6 times more often than non-Internet users," said Mamie Bittner, deputy director for the IMLS.

"Of the adults interviewed, 45 percent visited both in-person and remotely, while 5 percent visited only remotely and 50 percent visited only in-person," she said.

The number of in-person visits by adults reached 701 million in 2006, the first year the Institute tracked national museum attendance, while 524 million adult remote visits were logged.

In total, there were 1.2 billion visits to museums.

Following two years of market research and hours upon hours of manpower, the Indianapolis Museum of Art last fall launched a fully loaded Web site featuring links to Flickr, YouTube and Facebook. The site puts around 65,000 pieces of its collection online for public access.

"We'd done a good job historically of using the Web to tell people where we are and where to park. But now we're focusing on being a content resource," said Robert Stein, chief information officer of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

"There's a whole new realm of social networking and interaction online and we'd like to engage people in this kind of sharing related to art," he said.

Stein also noted that the Web site allows people who otherwise may not be able to visit the museum to still see its treasures. "People who may never come to Indianapolis can experience some of the works of art we have here," he said.

Additionally, it is a great way for people to see art that is not readily viewable at the museum.

"There are about 65,000 objects in our collection but only a small percentage of those are displayed at any time. The Web is a great way for people to see what we have to experience," he said.

(Reporting by Sue Zeidler; editing by Gunna Dickson)

News : "Modder" turns hobby into career

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 (Reuters) - If you ever thought it would be cool to have an Xbox laptop, or wished those old Atari games in your attic could be reborn on a retro handheld device, you might want to talk to Benjamin Heckendorn.

Better known as Ben Heck, the 32-year-old Wisconsin native has attained legendary status among "modders", hobbyists who tinker with video-game hardware to make it do things the original designers never intended.

Technology Web sites enthusiastically track Heckendorn's latest projects, which are marked by workmanship that makes the finished products look they rolled off a factory line instead of a basement workbench.

"That's the American way, right? Start in your basement, garage, or whatever. You're supposed to get out of it someday, but I still have to listen to my clothes drier sometimes," Heckendorn said in an interview.

Heckendorn got his start eight years ago when he decided to fool around with an old Atari 2600 -- the classic console that popularized home gaming when it launched in 1977 -- and ended up reincarnating it as a handheld device.

"I was shocked, I didn't think anyone would care about it but they did," Heckendorn said.

In fact, they cared so much they began offering Heckendorn hefty amounts of cash to transform their cherished game devices into one-of-a-kind collectibles.

"Ben Heck is basically the best. His mods are as professional as the stuff you can get at Best Buy. That's what makes him stand out from the other basement tinkerers," said Adam Frucci, a contributing editor to the popular tech blog Gizmodo, which has chronicled many of Heckendorn's creations.

"Our readers are always excited to see whatever his newest project is," Frucci said. "He's clearly head and shoulders above anybody else."

Heckendorn keeps busy with a couple dozen projects each year, many updated on his Web site, www.benheck.com. Fees range from a few hundred dollars to convert a clunky old console into a handheld, to more than $4,000 to make a laptop computer out of an Xbox 360.

There are plenty of bizarre requests, too.

"Often someone will ask me to combine five different video game systems in one box, which is of course ridiculous. One guy wanted me to build an Xbox 360 controller attached to his rowing machine at home so he could row and play 'Uno' with his friends online. It sounded so weird I did it."

Heckendorn's growing reputation is inching him closer to his dream of working on major retail products.

A couple years ago a soldier injured in Iraq asked him to make a game controller that could be operated with one hand. Heckendorn did it and is now working with a peripheral maker to sell a packaged product.

"There was such a large response to it. Lots of motorcycle accidents, you would not believe it," Heckendorn said. He hopes to donate some to wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

His efforts have also gotten him noticed in the halls of major console makers such as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

"There are no offers to throw bundles of money at me but I do hear from them now and then," he said.

An electronics hobbyist as a child and trained as a graphic designer, Heckendorn learned basic machining skills working for a sign-making business.

"I destroyed a lot of video-game consoles and burned my fingers a lot. Now I know which end of the soldering iron to hold," Heckendorn said.

Where others might have a beloved old car they are lovingly restoring, Heckendorn's personal project is designing a pinball game based, oddly, on Bill Paxton, who has starred in movies such as "Titanic" and "A Simple Plan".

One thing Heckendorn hasn't done much of, ironically, is play video games.

"I didn't used to play, but last year I went out of my way to play more video games," Heckendorn said. "I would probably maybe buy one game a year. Last year I said you know what, this is ridiculous."

(Reporting by Scott Hillis, editing by Phil Berlowitz and Patricia Reaney)

News : Comcast to modify disputed network practices

By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cable operator Comcast Corp promised on Thursday to change how it manages its network in response to accusations it blocks some Internet file-sharing services because they require large amounts of bandwidth.

But Comcast's move did not go far enough to satisfy the top U.S. communications regulator. Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, vowed to continue investigating the management practices of broadband providers and whether they discriminate against certain applications.

Comcast, which has more than 13 million broadband subscribers, said it would adopt a new technique for managing capacity on its network by the end of 2008. The new practice will not discriminate among different applications.

The cable giant has been accused by consumer groups of blocking some file-sharing services, such as BitTorrent, that distribute TV shows and movies on the Internet.

"This means that we will have to rapidly reconfigure our network management systems, but the outcome will be a traffic management technique that is more appropriate for today's emerging Internet trends," Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner said in a statement.

Comcast said it planned a "collaborative effort" with BitTorrent and the broader Internet and ISP community to work out a growing dispute over how far Internet service providers should go in managing traffic moving over their networks.

The dispute over so-called "net neutrality" pits open- Internet advocates against some service providers such as Comcast, which say they need to take reasonable steps to manage growing traffic on their networks.

The FCC has been investigating complaints from consumer groups that Comcast blocked some file-sharing services. The issue also has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers in Congress.

Comcast has denied impairing any Internet applications and has said it merely manages the system for the good of all users. But the FCC's Martin said at a March 7 FCC hearing he was disturbed Comcast did not disclose more to customers and application developers about the way it manages network traffic.

Comcast's announcement on Thursday drew a tepid response from Martin.

The FCC chairman said in a statement he was "pleased that Comcast has reversed course." But he questioned why the company was not moving more quickly to end the practice of blocking some applications.

"While it may take time to implement its preferred new traffic management technique, it is not at all obvious why Comcast couldn't stop its current practice of arbitrarily blocking its broadband customers from using certain applications," Martin said.

The FCC is scheduled to hold another hearing on the issue at Stanford University next month, where Martin said the commissioners would "explore more fully what constitutes reasonable network management practices."

Martin's two fellow Republicans on the five-member commission were more upbeat about the Comcast move, saying a cooperative approach was preferable to government regulation.

"The private sector is the best forum to resolve such disputes," said commissioner Robert McDowell.

But Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps agreed with Martin, saying the FCC should continue to pursue the issue. He said Comcast's concessions would not have come without pressure from the FCC.

"I am confident that, through this process, the FCC can come up with clear rules of the road that will benefit American consumers and provide much-needed certainty to both network operators and Internet entrepreneurs," Copps said in a statement.

(Reporting by Peter Kaplan; Editing by Brian Moss/Andre Grenon)

News : Yahoo helps Nasdaq outperform

Technology stocks rallied after an analyst upgraded shares of Yahoo on belief a higher bid is coming from Microsoft. The rest of the market languished near the flat line.

The Dow lost 16 points to 12,532.

The S&P 500 rose 3 points to 1,352.

The Nasdaq gained 14 points to 2,341.

Crude oil finished higher.

Conway Gittens reports from New York.

News : Shakespeare goes digital

LONDON (Reuters) - A U.S. and British library plan to reproduce online all 75 editions of William Shakespeare's plays printed in the quarto format before the year 1641.

The Bodleian Library in Oxford and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC have joined forces to download their collections, building on the work of the British Library which digitized its collection of quarto editions in 2004.

"There are no surviving manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays in his handwriting so the quartos are the closest we can get to what Shakespeare really wanted," said Bodleian spokeswoman Oana Romocea.

"Some quartos do, however, have his annotations around the printed text."

The project is designed to make all of the earliest printed versions of Shakespeare's plays, many of which are only accessible to scholars, available to the wider public.

The process of downloading the quartos will begin next month and take a year to complete. Online visitors will be able to compare images side-by-side, search the plays and mark and tag the texts.

"We (at the Bodleian) have about 55 copies, although some of them are duplicates," said Romocea.

"Each quarto is different, so it's very interesting from a research perspective to compare the quartos.

"For example, some of the famous lines in 'Hamlet' exist in one quarto and in another they don't, or they are very different."

Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and collaborated on several more between about 1590 and 1613. He died in 1616.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

News : Traffic schmaffic: it flies!

A former pilot displayed a prototype flying car at the New York Auto Show. With the AirCar, you can fly over a traffic jam.

At an estimated price of half-a-million dollars, you could buy a Cessna and a Bentley instead of the AirCar and still have money left over.

Fred Katayama reports from New York.

News : Robo-chop

Fighting robots battle for supremacy in the latest of Japan's Robo-One Championships.

More than 100 humanoid robots were entered for the two-day contest which, at the end, saw less than half still standing and divided between heavyweights and featherweights.

Paul Chapman reports.

News : Netflix surveys members on Microsoft Xbox

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Online movie rental company Netflix Inc has surveyed its subscribers to gauge their interest in streaming movies to their televisions using Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360, a Netflix spokesman said on Monday.

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey declined to say whether the survey indicated a soon-to-be announced partnership between the two companies, but said Netflix was interested in getting its movies to consumers' TVs "in as many ways as possible."

In January, Netflix announced a partnership with LG Electronics to produce a set-top box to stream movies to high definition televisions.

(Reporting by Gina Keating; Editing by

News : Citigroup says Microsoft likely to raise Yahoo offer

(Reuters) - Citigroup said it is likely Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) will raise its $31-per-share offer for Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and upgraded Yahoo shares to "buy" from "hold."

The brokerage also raised its price target on Yahoo's stock to $34 from $31, saying it believed Microsoft remained committed to its offer and "is capable of and willing to" increase that bid to conclude the deal.

"While we continue to see no other competing bidders, we believe Yahoo is aggressively pursuing strategic alternatives," analyst Mark Mahaney said in a note to clients.

One possibility is a tie-up with Time Warner (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research), whereby Time Warner would contribute its online content assets to Yahoo in exchange for a stake, the analyst said.

"We believe this could serve as a forcing function to a higher Microsoft bid."

Citigroup said it continues to view a Microsoft-Yahoo deal as the most likely outcome.

Yahoo shares closed at $27.52 Monday on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Jennifer Robin Raj in Bangalore; Editing by Vinu Pilakkott)

News : Yahoo supports Google social network applications

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said on Tuesday that it supports a program by archrival Google Inc to develop applications for social networks and will help create a joint foundation to keep it alive.

Google launched its OpenSocial network in November to lure developers already creating popular Web applications on social networks like Facebook.

Yahoo, Google and News Corp-owned MySpace said on Tuesday they will create the OpenSocial Foundation to maintain a neutral, community-governed forum for developing applications. It will be set up as a non-profit entity, with assets to be assigned to the new organization by July 1.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

News : Join the Torchwood aliens online

The BBC science fiction TV show Torchwood is generating a lot of discussion around its pioneering alternate reality game.

The spinoff from the hit Dr. Who series is engaging with Torchwood fans through an intricate and mysterious set of websites where fans are encouraged to interact with characters from the show to help solve weekly missions. Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan visits Cardiff to talk to the people behind the show and the game to learn whether this multi-platform entertainment experience seems like a realistic model for the future of converged media.

Matt Cowan reports.

News : Israeli singer embraces Britney, Apple for success

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Folksy French-Israeli singer Yael Naim found commercial success after her song "New Soul" played in Apple's MacBook Air laptop ads, pushing the song to No. 7 on U.S. music chart Billboard's Hot 100.

She already had gained fame for what some saw as a comic choice to cover pop singer Britney Spear's "Toxic," singing a soulful, poignant version of the commercial hit while playing piano.

But Naim, 29, whose self-titled new album was just released in the United States two months earlier than originally planned following the success of the Apple ad, says she's not worried about being seen as too commercial.

"It opened a great window for us, for a lot of people to have a chance to hear about our music," she told Reuters in New York. "We had a lot of propositions ... but we thought Apple and Macintosh have some connection because today we work with computers to do our music."

The singer-songwriter, who was born in Paris but spent a large part of her childhood in Israel, recorded her new album in her Paris apartment with her music partner, percussionist David Donatien.

"We did not have a label," she said. "We did not have a lot of money so we did it just with a computer."

NAME HALVED

She became disillusioned with the "big studio" experience after her first album "In a Man's Womb" was released in 2001 through EMI, which insisted she keep her name to just Yael.

"It was like they took half of my energy," she said.

Both "Toxic" and "New Soul" appear on her new, second album, which was recorded in English, Hebrew and French and has received warm reviews. Rolling Stone magazine noted: "The way Naim purrs any word with a hard 'ch' will make your loins tingle."

Naim, who spent two years in the Israel Air Force Orchestra, said she was surprised audiences in France had embraced the mixed-language album.

"I did not think anyone would want to listen to ballads in Hebrew," she said. "It is not considered a very sexy language."

She also didn't expect the success of her version of "Toxic," which Rolling Stone described as "a stripped-down, slow-motion, kinda-brilliant cover."

"I don't particularly like her (Spears) as a musician, the voice, but this song is a good song," she said. "I wanted to take something that is completely opposite of the music we do."

Audiences at live shows, such as one last week in Manhattan, react excitedly to "Toxic," as well as to her current hit.

She confided to the crowd of several hundred that she once believed she was an old soul.

"Then my real life began and I figured that maybe I'm not an old soul," she said before launching into "New Soul."

(Additional reporting by Sharon Reich; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Bill Trott)

News : Hurricane flood threat coming soon to Google

By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - Americans in the hurricane danger zone may soon be able to use Google to find out if their own home is threatened by a dangerous storm surge, the director of the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday.

Storm surge, the massive wall of water carried onto land by a hurricane, is considered perhaps its most destructive element and greatest threat to the lives of people who ignore evacuation orders in vulnerable coastal areas.

Bill Read, who was appointed head of the Miami-based U.S. forecasting center in January, said a planned program will couple a Google application with storm surge data that meteorologists have used for years to determine the flooding threat from any category of storm.

"People can plug in their address and see at what level they are at risk," Read told Reuters in an interview.

He said he hoped the program would be available during the coming Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

Data gathered during Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, found the storm surge reached up to 22 feet above normal sea level in eastern Mississippi.

Hurricane Andrew, the destructive Category 5 storm that hit the Miami area in 1992, pushed at least 16 feet of water ashore south of the city.

The damage a storm can cause is largely dependent on its storm surge, and whether it hits a city or a sparsely populated area. Despite the catastrophic damage of Katrina, New Orleans was spared the worst of the surge.

"With Katrina, 30 miles to the west and everything that happened in New Orleans in two days would have happened in a matter of hours because the surge would have been much worse and it would have overtopped the levees," Read said.

Hurricane forecasters use a computerized model called SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) that estimates storm surge heights by taking into account the size, internal pressure, forward speed, track and wind strength of a hurricane.

The idea to make it available to the public evolved from calls that inundate local emergency managers and weather forecast offices every time a hurricane threatens. Read said people ask what flooding will be like at their house.

"We're not going to know that off the top of our heads," he said. "So we can say 'go to our Web site, go to such and such, and it's there."

Hurricane forecasters will also offer a new color-coded graphic on the NHC Web site this year that will indicate storm surge probabilities for threatened areas, similar to forecasts they now offer on wind-speed probabilities.

The graphic will indicate the probability of the surge reaching or exceeding five feet within a given number of hours, Read said.

The graphic promises to help local emergency managers with key decisions such as when to lock down bridges and which roads could be washed out or need to be cleared.

News : The digital march of Penguin Books

The 73-year-old book company is launching an Alternate Reality Game in its latest effort to engage readers through new technologies.

The digital writing project called We Tell Stories will see six Penguin authors create six stories for an online audience over a six week period. Readers are invited to search for clues within the innovative tales, which will lead them to a seventh story hidden somewhere on the internet. The initiative involves Booker-shortlisted Mohsin Hamid, bestselling author Nicci French and popular teen fiction author Kevin Brooks.

News : Google sees surge in Web use on mobile phones

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google has seen an acceleration of Internet activity among mobile phone users in recent months since the company has introduced faster Web services on selected phone models, fueling confidence the mobile Internet era is at hand, the company said on Tuesday.

Early evidence showing sharp increases in Internet usage on phones, not just computers, has emerged from services Google has begun offering in recent months on Blackberry e-mail phones, Nokia devices for multimedia picture and video creators and business professionals and the Apple iPhone, the world's top Web search company said.

"We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage," Matt Waddell, a product manager for Google Mobile, said in an interview. "We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating.

The growing availability of flat-rate data plans from phone carriers instead of per-minute charges that previously discouraged Internet use, along with improved Web browsers on mobile phones as well as better-designed services from companies like Google are fueling the growth, Waddell argued.

Google made the pronouncement as it introduced a new software download for mobile phones running Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile software that conveniently positions a Google Web search window on the home screen of such phones.

Similar versions of the search software which Google introduced for Blackberry users in December and certain Nokia phones in February have sped up the time users take to perform Web searches by 40 percent and, in turn, driven usage.

The software shortcuts the time it takes for people to perform Web searches on Google by eliminating initial search steps of finding a Web browser on the phone, opening the browser, waiting for network access, and getting to Google.com. By making a Google search box more convenient, mobile phone users have begun using the Internet more, the company said.

"We are actually seeing a 20 percent increase in the number of searches by people," Waddell said.

Google's mobile plug-in software lets users customize their phones to feature Google mobile services instead of relying solely on software features network carriers have pre-installed on the devices.

"Faster is better than slow, especially on a mobile device, where fast is much better than slow," Waddell said. "Not only are we are seeing increased user satisfaction but also greater usage."

Microsoft expects to have sold 20 million Windows Mobile devices by the end of its fiscal year in June, which together with Blackberry and Symbian-based phones represent upward of 85 percent of the Internet-ready smartphones sold in the world.

Users of phones based on software from Research in Motion, Nokia's Symbian-based phones and now Microsoft Windows Mobile can download the software at mobile.google.com/.

Google officials said in August that they had seen a similar surge in usage of Google.com via mobile devices following the launch of the Apple iPhone last year. The iPhone offers a full-featured Internet browser unlike many phones.

Waddell said Google had seen iPhone users perform as many as 50 times more Web searches on these computer-phone devices as users of standard mobile feature phones typically do.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard; editing by Louise Heavens)

News : Apple talking to labels about unlimited music

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple is in talks with major music companies to offer customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPods and iPhones, the Financial Times said.

Citing people familiar with the talks, the paper said the negotiations hinged on a dispute over the price Apple would be willing to pay for access to the labels' libraries.

One industry executive said research showed consumers would pay a premium of up to $100 for unlimited access to music for the lifetime of a device, or a monthly fee of $7-$8 for a subscription model.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Louise Ireland)

News : Green sky for St Patrick's day

Ireland kicks off St Patricks day celebrations with a spectacular fireworks display, colouring the sky green.

Braving wet and muddy conditions, thousands gathered at one of Ireland's most historical sites to watch a fireworks display marking the start of St Patrick's day celebrations.

The Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary was the backdrop for the event, which forms part of a series of activities over the holiday weekend.

Around five tonnes of fireworks were used in the spectacle, including thousands of bright green explosives.

The feast day of the patron saint of Ireland usually takes place on March 17 but was moved this year by the Catholic Church as the date clashes with the second day of Holy Week.

News : Catching a wave from Hawaii to Japan

Japanese adventurer sets out across the Pacific in the world's first wave-powered boat.

The vessel for Kenichi Horie's latest adventure has two wings in front which convert the energy from waves into a movement similar to a dolphin's kicks, making it the world's first boat to be powered by the vertical motion of waves. The trip is meant in part to promote the commercial viability of the invention built by a team at Japan's Tokai University.

Matt Cowan reports.

News : Standby for an IT revolution

With one eye on its own sizeable carbon footprint, the global IT sector is on a green mission to combat climate change.

Currently spewing out emissions comparable to commercial aviation, IT companies are rapidly moving to reduce their environmental impact. At an industry summit in London, delegates have been stressing how energy efficient IT can save both the planet and the bottom line.

Reuters reporter Darcy Lambton has more.

News : Google says Microsoft's Yahoo buy might hurt Internet

BEIJING (Reuters) - Google Inc, the world's leading search engine, said on Monday it was concerned about the free flow of information on the Internet if Microsoft Corp were to succeed in acquiring Yahoo Inc.

Last month, Microsoft proposed buying Yahoo in a deal originally worth $44.6 billion, but Yahoo's board has rejected the offer, saying it was too low.

"We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters.

"We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be."

Schmidt pointed to Microsoft's past history and "the things that it has done that have been so difficult for everyone", but he did not elaborate.

Last year, a European court upheld a landmark 2004 decision that Microsoft abused the near-monopoly power of its Windows operating system to damage competitors, along with a 497 million euro ($695 million) fine.

"We are concerned that there are things Microsoft could do that would be bad for the Internet," said Schmidt.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pledged earlier this month that his company would gain market share against Google in online advertising and Web searching, even if led to his "last breath" at the company.

In a Reuters poll of financial analysts, the overwhelming majority said they believed Microsoft would eventually succeed in buying Yahoo, but many said they felt it may not be the best use of its ample cash reserves.

($=7.09 yuan)

(Reporting by Kirby Chien; editing by Ken Wills)

News : Design and the elastic mind

A new exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art merges art, science and design.

Underlying the exhibit is the premise that technology challenges the human mind to adapt in order to absorb all the changes coming to our world.

Bobbi Rebell reports.

News : Reuters Technology Week

A self-cleaning cell phone, tourists become stars in Times Square, and the "Evolution" flying pod.

Plus, Japan's high-tech fight against hay fever.

Manoush Zomorodi reports.

News : Microsoft and Yahoo met to discuss merger

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) met on Monday to discuss Microsoft's takeover offer for the Internet company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The meeting was said to be the first since Microsoft made its unsolicited offer for Yahoo, worth nearly $42 billion, on January 31. Yahoo rejected the offer as inadequate last month.

The Journal said the meeting wasn't a negotiation and that no bankers were present.

The session was intended to allow Microsoft to present its vision of a combined company, and Yahoo executives mostly listened, the Journal quoted one of the sources as saying.

Microsoft and Yahoo spokesmen declined to comment.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard in San Francisco, Daisuke Wakabayashi in Seattle, and Yinka Adegoke, editing by Jacqueline Wong)

News : Docking in space

The space shuttle Endeavour has linked up with the International Space Station.

Endeavour is on a mission to deliver a Japanese laboratory.

During their 12-day station stay, the Endeavour crew will perform five spacewalks to install the first part of the laboratory and a new Canadian-built robotic system.

Andrew Potter reports.

News : Microsoft's top visionary sees a parallel world

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Craig Mundie, Microsoft Corp's chief research and strategy officer, is sure he has a good handle on where technology is going. When is another story.

Mundie, who took over as Microsoft's lead visionary from co-founder Bill Gates in 2006, is preparing the company for a technology shift that he expects will be as big as the rise of the personal computer or the Internet: parallel computing.

"It's a lot easier for us to have a fairly accurate sense of what will happen and even make good technical progress toward achieving it," Mundie told Reuters in an interview last week. "Almost everything we tried to do took longer than we expected."

The overseer of Microsoft's $7 billion research and development budget, Mundie knows firsthand how even promising technologies can take time to develop. After all, he has led Microsoft's efforts in Web-based television and nontraditional forms of computing.

Parallel computing has been hyped for years as the next big thing in technology, allowing computers to run faster by dividing up tasks over multiple microprocessors instead of using a single processor to perform one task at a time.

The technology's full potential is almost unfathomable today, but it could lead to major advances in robotics or software applications that can translate documents in real time in multiple languages.

The computer industry has taken its first steps toward parallel computing in recent years by using "multi-core" chips, but Mundie said this is the "tip of the iceberg."

To maximize computing horsepower, software makers will need to change how software programmers work. Only a handful of programmers in the world know how to write software code to divide computing tasks into chunks that can be processed at the same time instead of a traditional, linear, one-job-at-a-time approach.

A new programming language would be required, and could affect how almost every piece of software is written.

"This problem will be hard," admitted Mundie, who worked on parallel computing as the head of supercomputer company Alliant Computer Systems before joining Microsoft. "This challenge looms large over the next 5 to 10 years."

The shift to parallel computing was born out of necessity after processor speeds ran into heat and power limitations, forcing the semiconductor industry to assemble multiple cores, or electronic brains, on a single chip.

Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc have already assembled chips with as many as four processors on a single chip. Tilera Corp, a Silicon Valley chip start-up, foresees a 1,000-core chip by 2014.

KILLER APPLICATIONS

Mundie, who assumed half of Gates' job almost two years ago, sets the long-term technological direction for the company as the co-founder moves to a part-time role in July to focus on philanthropy. Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, sets the shorter-term agenda.

Mundie has at his disposal Microsoft's research department with over 800 PhD researchers working on the new technology.

The research focuses on everything from Web search to simultaneous translation to touch-screen technology, but parallel computing is certainly among its top priorities because it will likely affect every part of Microsoft.

Computers about 100 times more powerful than now will emerge within 20 years, Mundie estimated, packing the capabilities of a corporate data center into a single die sitting inside a mobile phone or laptop.

A "killer application" will bring this computing power to the forefront, he said, just like what word processing and spreadsheets did for the PC and how e-mail and the Web browser popularized the Internet.

Pushing a company as big as Microsoft -- with about 80,000 employees -- to look past historical strengths and traditional ways of doing things to focus on new technology is not easy.

"Bill (Gates) and I have both talked at times over the years that you can't do these jobs unless you are an optimist, almost an extreme optimist because in a way you are fighting so many forces that are resistant to change," said Mundie.

(Additional reporting by Duncan Martell in San Francisco, editing by Richard Chang)