The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

Have you seen innovation and invention in the past decade that required thinking out of the box of an old reality? Indeed, you have. I can't tell you what's coming, because you haven't thought of it yet! But the potentials of it are looming large. Let me give you an example, Let us say that 20 years ago, you predicted that there would be something called the Internet on a device you don't really have yet using technology that you can't imagine. You will have full libraries, buildings filled with books, in your hand - a worldwide encyclopedia of everything knowable, with the ability to look it up instantly! Not only that, but that look-up service isn't going to cost a penny! You can call friends and see them on a video screen, and it won't cost a penny! No matter how long you use this service and to what depth you use it, the service itself will be free.

Now, anyone listening to you back then would perhaps have said, "Even if we can believe the technological part, which we think is impossible, everything costs something. There has to be a charge for it! Otherwise, how would they stay in business?" The answer is this: With new invention comes new paradigms of business. You don't know what you don't know, so don't decide in advance what you think is coming based on an old energy world. ..."
(Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)


German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls
Logo No Hate Speech Movement

Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

Honouring computing’s 1843 visionary, Lady Ada Lovelace. (Design of doodle by Kevin Laughlin)

Saturday, March 31, 2007

New Mozilla mobile browser out, amid more competition

Works with Windows Mobile 5.0

Nancy Gohring, Computerworld

March 30, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- The newest version of Minimo, the Mozilla mobile browser, became available this week in the midst of changes within the Minimo project that make its future uncertain.

Minimo 0.2, available for free download, is compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 and is smaller and faster than previous versions, according to early users who posted comments to the blog about the browser. Minimo is designed to be an alternative to the browser that comes with Windows Mobile and its creators promote its speed in accessing sites and other features such as tabs, better security and support for widgets.

The Minimo project, which isn't a Mozilla Corp. endeavor but is hosted by Mozilla.org, was one of the earliest third-party mobile browser initiatives but seems to have been eclipsed by other developers, including Opera Software ASA.

Read More ….

Hands-On With Deepfish

By Sascha Segan

PC Magazine, March 30, 2007

Microsoft's Deepfish technology isn't really a browser, it's a browser feature. But it's a feature that Microsoft's Pocket Internet Explorer desperately needs.

Microsoft announced Deepfish on Wednesday, and the company is being a bit cagy about it. According to them, it's a "new mobile technology ... designed to offer mobile users quick and convenient Web browsing." It's a solution to a real need: relatively few Web sites create special versions for mobile phones and PDAs, and desktop sites often look awful in Microsoft's Pocket Internet Explorer.

Read More ....

How to Partner with Your CEO

By Business success depends on a good CEO-CIO relationship. Here's what it takes to make that happen.

CIO.com

February 01, 2002 — CIO — Whether your title is CIO, CTO or some other variation, one of the highest-stakes business relationships you have is with your CEO. In an era in which technology has become a key strategic tool, an effective working relationship between the head of the company and the head of technology operations is vital to business success.

As CEO for the Vanguard Group, I’ve long been a believer in technology. My interest in IT dates back to the early 1980s, when I was involved in budget planning for Vanguard. Though we are an investment-management company first and foremost, it was clear then that Vanguard needed to transform itself into a technology company as well. Today, technology accounts for more than 40 percent of our operating budget. This year, we’ll spend 20 times as much on systems development as we do on advertising. Technology is a vital competitive weapon and a strategic tool for Vanguard. In fact, no single part of our company could function without IT.

I’d like to share my thoughts with you about what makes a successful CEO-CIO partnership, but first I should make a few disclaimers about my views on IT. As the head of an investment-management company, I see business issues through service-industry glasses. I also have a bias regarding organizational structures. Our company takes a centralized and matrix approach to technology. We believe that there are powerful organizational advantages to structuring IS as a "center of excellence," with key personnel also reporting to business areas.

Read More ....

New report says Web addresses to run out by 2012

By Ben Charny

Last Update: 1:12 PM ET Mar 30, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The original pool of Internet Protocol addresses used to connect devices to the Internet could be exhausted by 2012, a new report shows.

The projection is "the earliest I've ever seen," said Vint Cert, the Google Inc. senior executive who was addressing reporters Friday as chairman of ICANN, an Internet governing body also known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Web address reports like the one just presented at ICANN's Portugal meeting spotlight the growing importance, and prevalence, of the Internet.

The findings also usually curry favor with supporters of a new set of Web addresses, known as IP version 6 or IPV6, that would be enough for every one on earth to have 1,000 different Web addresses apiece. But IPV6 is controversial because it forces companies that rely on the Internet to invest in upgrading their infrastructure, among other expensive changes.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Microsoft Unveils Mobile Browser With Zoom-In Feature

Deepfish was introduced in preview this week at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego.

By Antone Gonsalves

InformationWeek, March 29, 2007 03:52 PM

Microsoft has launched a technology preview of a mobile browser that tries to deliver a desktop-like view of Web pages.

The company introduced Deepfish this week at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego as a limited technology preview. The software is available by invitation only to a small number of beta users.

Developed by Microsoft Live Labs, the browser has a zoom in/out feature that makes it different than similar software used on phones today. Rather than offering a reformatted version of a Web page, Deepfish captures and delivers the full layout in an as-designed view. Using the software's joystick, the user can navigate through a page and zoom in and out of portions. The browser doesn't support Web sites with Ajax, animation, Javascript, cookies, or ActiveX controls.

Read More ....

TJ Maxx Parent Company Data Theft Is The Worst Ever

The intrusion hands the retailer the dubious honor of surpassing the 40 million stolen customer record mark, something that only CardSystems had been able to achieve.

By Larry Greenemeier,

InformationWeek, March 29, 2007 01:00 PM

TJX Co., the parent company of T.J. Maxx and other retailers, on Wednesday dropped a bombshell in its ongoing investigation of a customer data breach by announcing in an Securities and Exchange Commission filing that more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers have been stolen from its IT systems. Information contained in the filing reveals a company that had taken some measures over the past few years to protect customer data through obfuscation and encryption. But TJX didn't apply these policies uniformly across its IT systems and as a result still has no idea of the extent of the damage caused by the data breach.

As a result, TJX is a company under siege. The company recorded a fourth-quarter charge of about $5 million to cover the costs of containing and investigating the breach, as well as improving the security of its IT systems, communicating with customers, and paying legal fee. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation of TJX. While the FTC wouldn't reveal the nature of the investigation or when it began, it's likely the result of the data breach. And lawsuits have begun to fly, including one by the Arkansas Carpenters Pension Fund, which owns 4,500 shares of TJX stock.

Read More ....

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Yahoo! goes! yahoooo! and! offers! unlimited! email

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt

ITWire, Thursday, 29 March 2007

Yahoo places faith in the gods of storage technology to help them deliver unlimited email storage forever, in a move that seemingly forces Google and Microsoft to respond in kind, or offer infinity plus one instead.

As has been noted online, the original web mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail offered 2mb and 4mb of storage respectively, which was obliterated on April 1, 2004 by Google’s stunning offer of 1Gb of email storage space, free – with the only catch being that you needed to be invited into the beta to get access, something that was enormously successful at the time, instantly bringing an aura of mystery, desire and admiration for having so boldly changed the web mail landscape forever in an instant.

But you might be surprised to discover that Yahoo! are not the first to offer unlimited storage for email – that honor apparently goes to Rediff.com who launched a similar service earlier this year, while Google has spoken about an ‘infinity + 1’ service along with a GDrive that would store all your data.

Read More ....

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

IBM optical chip set allows instant downloads

Ben Ames, Computerworld

March 26, 2007 (IDG News Service) IBM researchers showed a prototype optical transceiver chip set Monday that they said will allow people to download movies or share online data eight times faster than current technology allows.

The chip set can move data at 160Gbit/sec. by representing information as light pulses instead of electrons and could be used for both corporate and consumer applications as soon as 2010, IBM said.

Consumer demand for digital media such as movies, music and photos has caused an explosion in the amount of data being transferred over the Internet and underlined the need for greater bandwidth and connectivity, said T.C. Chen, vice president for science and technology at IBM Research, in a statement.

Read More ....

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Five reasons why there’s so much CIO angst

ZDnet
Posted by Larry Dignan @ 9:11 am

Nicholas Carr asks if CIOs are dead weight. David Berlind notes that CIOs may be dead weight unless they are the only thing in the IT department. Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson says CIOs merely keep the lights on these days. CIO executive editor Christopher Koch defends CIOs.

So what's the hubbub about?

This debate won't go away–in fact you'll hear it at every CIO conference you attend. Why is there so much angst? The short answer is that CIOs are dealing with numerous cross currents that don't necessarily add up that well.

Here are five reasons there's so much CIO angst:

The tech bubble scars linger: Ever meet anyone that survived the Great Depression? They don't spend money and they always expect the floor of the economy to fall from under them. They also don't waste things. Big events can traumatize a generation. For the IT profession, the dot-com boom and bust was such an event. CIOs used to be flying high and innovating because optimism reigned. Today? CIOs are gun shy and the higher ups won't authorize any bold moves. Bottom line: No CIO gets fired for not taking chances. Therefore, CIOs don't take chances. Even Web 2.0 items that may be interesting CIOs want in a suite.

Read More ....

Friday, March 23, 2007

Nokia ships N95 phone with GPS

First in a series of expected GPS phones

James Niccolai , Computerworld

March 22, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Nokia Corp. has started shipping its N95 mobile phone in Europe and Asia, the first in an expected series of devices from the Finnish company with built-in GPS (global positioning system) capabilities.

The N95 is rich in features and carries a price tag to match: At €550 (US$732) before operator rebates it is one of the priciest additions to Nokia's Nseries range. Nokia calls it a "multimedia computer." No plans were announced to sell it in the Americas.

The mobile phone is a slider-type device with a 5-megapixel camera for shooting photos and 30-frames-per-second video. It has a 2.6-inch TFT display with 240 x 320 pixel screen resolution, and comes with an MP3 music player and a MicroSD memory card slot.

The phone works on HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) networks, as well as wireless LANs, EDGE and WCDMA networks, and it's based on Nokia's S60 software and the Symbian OS.

Read More ....

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Fear, uncertainty and doubt drive CIOs to Web 2.0 world

Competitive pressure drives rising use of blogs, wikis and RSS

By Heather Havenstein, Computerworld

IT leaders are using Web 2.0 technology, including blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networking and content tagging to keep their organisations competitive according to a new survey from analysts Forrester Research.

Forrester said that 106 of 119 CIOs from companies with more than 500 employees that it surveyed were using at least one of these Web 2.0 technologies.

CIOs said that adoption is being driven by gains in workers’ efficiency and fear of competitive pressures.

Oliver Young, a Forrester analyst and author of the report, said the online survey, done late last year, proves that Web 2.0 tools are not just a consumer fad.

"They are really making their way into the enterprise," he said. "For those people who were adopting the technology, it was really because it was helping them with some business process they were struggling with."

However, he added that he was surprised by the number of CIOs who responded that their use of the tools was driven in part by the risk of losing market share unless they keep up with competitors' use of the technology.

Read More ....

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Yahoo Ups the Ante in Mobile Web War

By Katherine Noyes

TechNewsWorld, 03/20/07 10:55 AM PT

Yahoo Tuesday made its oneSearch service accessible on mobile phones. Yahoo oneSearch, which was first launched on Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, now delivers locally relevant answers to cell phone users' search questions, company officials said. Yahoo will release versions of oneSearch targeted at additional countries and languages over the coming months, officials added.

Rumors may abound about a tantalizing Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google phone in the works, but Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) Latest News about Yahoo Tuesday made its own, definitive bid for the hearts of mobile Web users by bringing the oneSearch service to mobile phone users.

Read More ....

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Computer Error Rocks Alaska's Fund

Tuesday March 20, 7:28 am ET

By Anne Sutton, Associated Press Writer

Oops! Computer Technician Accidentally Wipes Out Info on Alaska's $38 Billion Fund

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Perhaps you know that sinking feeling when a single keystroke accidentally destroys hours of work. Now imagine wiping out a disc drive containing an account worth $38 billion.

That's what happened to a computer technician reformatting a disk drive at the Alaska Department of Revenue. While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account -- one of Alaska residents' biggest perks -- and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well.

There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable.

Read More ....

"Work less!" global companies tell top managers

Tuesday March 20, 5:37 am ET

By Susan Fenton

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chi-Won Yoon likes to leave his office by 6 pm -- 7 pm at the latest.

A banker with Swiss investment bank UBS his day is far from over, what with conference calls with London and New York that will keep him busy until midnight. But he wants to send a message to his staff that it's okay to go home.

For many managers at global companies, 70-hour weeks are becoming the norm. Yet their firms would rather they took Yoon's approach.

A global study in the Harvard Business Review showed more than 50 percent of male executives and more than 80 percent of women executives working 60 hours a week or more said they would not be able to keep it up for more than a year.

Women tend to quit such jobs after a few years, the study shows. Men often stay but more than 40 percent who worked those hours experienced "brown-out" within five years and had lost their creative zeal.

Read Nore ....

Monday, March 19, 2007

New-Style Software the Talk of CeBit

At the computer industry conference in Germany, "service-oriented architecture" emerges as the next big thing in business programs

by Jack Ewing, Businessweek.com

A market analyst, asked about the big trends at this year's CeBit computer industry trade fair in Hanover, Germany, replies: "Lots of buzz words." True enough. And one of the words (or phrases) buzzing loudest was "service-oriented architecture," or SOA.

The term has been around for several years, but this year the business software concept—which refers to applications that are chopped up into LEGO-like modules and delivered over networks to desktop PCs—seems to have reached critical mass.

German software maker SAP (SAP), which began working on SOA in 2003, reports a surge in new customers for SOA products and services in recent months. Peter Ryan, senior vice-president at Sun Microsystems (SUNW) in charge of sales for Europe, agrees: "I think it's here. Lots of people are making huge bets on it in their R&D labs."

Read More ....

Public Alpha of Apollo Debuts on Adobe Labs

by Mihai Alexandru, Playfuls.com

09:11 AM, March 19th 2007

Adobe announced that the first public alpha version of Apollo is now available for developers on Adobe Labs. Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system application runtime that allows web developers to leverage their existing skills in HTML, JavaScript and Ajax, as well as Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex software to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop.

Apollo combines the reach of Internet technologies with the richness of desktop applications, working seamlessly across operating systems and outside the browser to deliver a more consistent and engaging user experience. The alpha version of the Apollo application runtime and the Apollo Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) can be downloaded for free from www.adobe.com/go/apollo.

Read More ....

More Rumors About Google Phone

by Mihai Alexandru, Playfuls.com

03:42 AM, March 19th 2007

After Apple has put the mobile world on fire with its iPhone, are you ready for another tech guessing game? This time it is about a Google mobile phone, or at least a Google branded device. Wall Street Journal reports that Google is developing new software tailored to run on mobile phones, a software platform for such devices, along with integrated applications for accessing Google's Internet services.

According to WSJ, a top Google executive in Europe confirmed the existence of a phone project this week. Spanish site Noticias.com reported that Google's chief for Spain and Portugal said her company has investigated developing a mobile phone.

But there is no official confirmation. "Mobile is an important area for Google and we remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users world-wide," said Google spokeswoman Erin Fors in a statement, quoted by Reuters "however, we have nothing further to announce.", she added.

Read More ....

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Skype to connect buyers with sellers

By David Meyer

Special to CNET News.com

Published: March 15, 2007, 9:23 AM PDT

Skype's business model is taking a distinct eBay shape.

The latest software from the Luxembourg-based Internet telephony specialist, acquired by the online-auction king in 2005, enables users to offer services over the company's Internet voice and video network.

Skype 3.1, which was released on Wednesday for Windows PCs, includes a feature called SkypeFind that lets users list and rate local businesses. It also includes a beta version of Skype Prime, a "marketplace which brings together those people who have expertise or knowledge to sell with others who are seeking advice and happy to pay for it," according to the company.

Read More ....

‘Microsoft sucks’, says top blogger

Paul Durman, The Sunday Times

MICROSOFT’s formerly tame blogger has bitten the software company that made his name when it employed him as a “technology evangelist”.

Robert Scoble writes the Scobleizer web log, one of the most-read sources of technology commentary on the internet.

He owes his status to the three years he spent at Microsoft, where he was given free rein to comment on the company’s affairs from the inside. The Economist magazine has credited Scoble with playing a significant role in softening the software giant’s former reputation for monopolistic bullying.

In the past, Scoble has tended to be sympathetic about Microsoft’s failings. However, he was provoked into stinging criticism last week after a series of triumphalist remarks, including some disparaging comments about Google made by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive.

Read More ....

Friday, March 16, 2007

CIO Interview: Big changes come from small steps

by Cliff Saran,

ComputerWeekly.com,
Thursday 15 March 2007

There are still companies where the IT department is regarded as a back office function - a necessary evil, part of the cost of doing business. But increasingly, IT directors and chief information officers are finding they offer a unique insight, which puts them and their teams at the forefront of business development.

Tania Howarth, CIO of Coca-Cola Europe, is one such CIO. Howarth has expanded her role outside the confines of IT and believes IT should be an integral part of each area of business operation.

At Coca-Cola, Howarth has been spearheading a number of projects focusing on improving operational effectiveness. These have not been restricted to IT operations. "As a CIO you cannot just hide in the technology," said Howarth.

In her experience, organisations are often not equipped to handle change. Business change encompasses process and behavioural change, and Howarth believes the CIO is uniquely placed to orchestrate these changes. "The CIO can see the connection between the different business functions," she said.

The most successful heads of IT are good communicators, are able to display an empathy with the business and are good at managing people. "To be successful at the top of IT you have to be a successful leader and understand the complexity of management."

Read More ....

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

M&As, Shareholders Force CIOs Into The Public Spotlight

Increasingly, shareholders are asking questions, especially at times of mergers or takeovers, about the combining of IT systems, and the implications this will have for the business. Often, these are questions best answered by the CIO. Here's how to put your best face forward in the glare of the spotlight.

By Umesh Ramakrishnan

Optimize

March 2007, Issue 65

Invariably, when a merger or acquisition is announced, analysts, shareholders and other interested parties start asking shrewd questions about the prospects for the integration of the two companies on many levels.

They know that millions are put into IT systems and that control of the new enterprise often will follow decisions about which systems to keep, and which to scrap in the new entity. Many of the integration questions will revolve around the compatibility - or lack thereof -- of the IT systems of both enterprises. The executive best suited to answer these questions? The CIO.

Read More ….

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Microsoft Suffers Latest Blow As NIST Bans Windows Vista

Tech staffers at NIST, a part of the Department of Commerce charged with promulgating technology standards, are scheduled to meet next month to discuss their concerns about the new operating system.

By Paul McDougall, InformationWeek

March 12, 2007 04:00 PM

In a new setback to Microsoft's public sector business, the influential National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the software maker's Windows Vista operating system from its internal computing networks, according to an agency document obtained by InformationWeek.

Tech staffers at NIST, a part of the Department of Commerce charged with promulgating technology standards, are scheduled to meet on April 10 in Gaithersburg, Md., to discuss their concerns about the new operating system, which Microsoft released to consumers in January amid much fanfare and to businesses in December with lesser flair.

Read More ....

Seagate's encrypted hard drives on route

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By MAY WONG, AP TECHNOLOGY WRITER

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Seagate Technology LLC, the world's largest hard drive maker, announced Monday the first manufacturer to sell laptop PCs with its new built-in encryption technology.

The hard drives, to be available in laptops made by ASI Computer Technologies, will include a chip that makes it impossible for anyone to read data off the disk, or even boot up a PC, without some form of authentication.

ASI, which manufacturers laptops under its own brand and builds systems for lesser-known PC makers, is expected to put the new technology in its machines within a few months. Other major PC makers are expected to introduce computers with Seagate's secure hard drives later this year.

Read More ....

Sunday, March 11, 2007

On Advertising: Mobile phones are new frontier in advertising

By Eric Pfanner, The International Herald Tribune

Published: March 11, 2007

Old media got left behind in the race to go online, in part because the prospects for advertising, traditionally the major revenue generator for newspapers, magazines and television, seemed unclear on the Internet. Then online advertising took off, and old media are still playing catch-up.

Now, with the next iteration of the Internet, the mobile Web, spreading around the world, publishers and other content providers are trying to keep up, lest they get in late on another advertising bonanza.

Last week in London, the Online Publishers Association released a study showing that use of the mobile Internet is on the rise, along with acceptance of mobile advertising.

Read More ....

Google, Yahoo bosses get one-dollar salaries

From correspondents in California, United States, 12:31 AM IST

The three billionaire bosses of Google - Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt - are to earn just $1 in salary this year, according to a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission.

Terry Semel, Yahoo's chief executive, will also earn a single dollar, though he took home a $25.7 million bonus last year in spite of a sharp drop in Yahoo's share price as it struggled to keep up with Google in the search advertising market.

The decision marks the third consecutive year that Schmidt, Google's chief executive, and co-founders Page and Brin have limited their salaries to $1 only.

They should be able to survive on that meagre amount though. According to Forbes Magazine, Brin and Pages' stakes in Google are worth $14 billion each, while Schmidt is worth about $5 billion.

Palm Responds to the iPhone

By JOHN MARKOFF, The New York Times

Published: March 9, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, March 8 — Palm Inc., the maker of hand-held computers, has hired a top Silicon Valley software designer as it seeks to respond to the challenge posed by Apple’s new iPhone.

The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago at Palm on a line of new products, a company spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment further on the project.

Mr. Mercer, 39, joined Palm with two employees from Iventor, the independent design firm that he headed in Palo Alto, Calif., but Palm did not acquire the company, said the spokeswoman, Marlene Somsak. Palm is based in nearby Sunnyvale.

Apple’s iPhone is still several months away from being available, but its flexible interface is already shaking up the cellphone industry, including Palm, which makes the hybrid phone-organizers known as smart phones.

Read More ....

Friday, March 9, 2007

10 Ways to Succeed With an E-Business

By Marc Kramer

Special to TheStreet.com

3/9/2007 11:04 AM EST

A large part of my consulting practice is developing and implementing marketing plans for e-commerce and organizations that depend on their Web sites to either sell products or promote their services. The company leaders have visions of leveraging the Web to be a major rainmaker.

These companies want anyone in the market for what they offer to think of them. At the same time, they want to know how to drive traffic to their Web sites, especially if they are on a meager budget. As a person who owns, operates and has partnerships with many online ventures, I wrestle with that problem daily.

Here are 10 relatively low-cost ways to develop traffic and drive new customers to your Web site.

Read More ....

Thursday, March 8, 2007

SAP delays new mid-market software

Thu Mar 8, 2007 8:56am ET18

FRANKFURT, March 8 (Reuters) - Germany's SAP on Tuesday delayed its new business software for smaller companies until later in the year to allow for more testing.

The world's biggest business software company declined to estimate when exactly the product would be available. Slides presented by Chief Executive Henning Kagermann in January showed a launch was planned for the end of the first quarter.

Hans-Peter Klaey, the new head of SAP's small and mid-sized enterprises (SME) team, said on a conference call the product, codenamed "A1S", was being tested by customers but was not yet ready for the market.

Read More ....

Geezers or Geeks: Target Your Market

By LeeAnn Prescott, Imedia Connection

Hitwise analysis of the iPhone and Windows Vista launch promotions shows vastly different strategies that resonated for each product's audience.

January was an exciting month for techies, with Apple's announcement of the iPhone at Macworld on January 9 and the release of the long awaited Windows Vista operating system. The strategies of the two companies could not be more different, particularly when it comes to their product launch strategies. While it may seem like a stretch to compare the announcement of the upcoming release of a smart phone to the actual release of a new version of an operating system, there are important lessons for marketers in how to communicate to differing target audiences.

Read More ....

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

U.S. Firms Invest in Chinese Web Site

Wednesday March 7, 6:19 am ET

By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer

U.S. Venture Firms Invest $23.5M in Chinese Video Web Site UUSee

0 NEW YORK (AP) -- A group of U.S. venture capital firms, including Disney's investment arm, was set to announce Wednesday that it had invested $23.5 million in UUSee, a major Chinese site for Web video.

UUSee distributes live and on-demand TV from CCTV, China's largest TV broadcaster; CSAT, China's largest satellite TV company; and Beijing TV. The content includes subtitled U.S. shows like "CSI: Miami" and "24."

Read More ....

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

How MP3 Was Born

Karlheinz Brandenburg often is cited as the inventor of the music format. But he credits many for a discovery that has upended the music business

by Jack Ewing,

BusinessWeek.com, Europe

Karlheinz Brandenburg doesn't like being labeled the "inventor" of MP3. He points out that the most popular format for digital music on the Internet is the work of at least a half-dozen core developers and many others who made important contributions. Even folk-rock singer Suzanne Vega inadvertently played a walk-on role in the creation of MP3. "I know on whose shoulders I stand and who else contributed a lot," says Brandenburg, now director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Ilmenau, Germany.

Still, there's no doubt Brandenburg was one of the crucial contributors to the technology that upended the music business and paved the way for Apple's immensely popular iPod media players and iTunes download service (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/26/07, "Apple's International iTunes Controversy"). In a recent interview, Brandenburg, 52, recalled how MP3 came into being. The story offers a lesson in the innovation process and a warning about how tricky it can be to sort out the intellectual property rights behind inventions that involve numerous organizations and people.

Read More ....

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Falling into the Vista trap

Microsoft promises to wow people who are upgrading from Windows XP to its new operating system, but with the joys of Windows Vista comes plenty of pain.

By Tim Weber

Business editor, BBC News website

I know, I know, I'm a sucker for technology.

The shiny new Vista disk was sitting on my desk, and I just couldn't resist giving it a try.

Even though I fell for Vista's promise - more security and certainly much more fun than tired old Windows XP - I tried not to be stupid.

I knew my four-year-old PC might have trouble coping with Vista, not least because of its wheezing graphics card.

When I bought it, my Dell Dimension 8200 was fairly state-of-the-art (a few stats for the experts: Pentium 4 processor running at 2GHz, 384MB of RAM, a 64MB graphics card, and a Creative SB Live audio card).

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Who Needs a CIO?

Opinion: It may be a thankless job, but it's a necessary one, and it's about innovation as well as maintenance.

By Eric Lundquist

March 2, 2007, eWeek.com

This year along with March Madness basketball and the start of the baseball season is the apparent start of open season on CIOs. The year's first bash comes from "Long Tail" author Chris Anderson. His Feb. 27 blog posting unloads on CIOs, the CIO position in companies and much of traditional corporate IT.

You can read the posting yourself, but here's an excerpt that provides some flavor: "CIOs, it turns out, are mostly business people who have been given the thankless job of keeping the lights on, IT wise. And the best way to ensure that they stay on is to change as little as possible.

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Tech Firms Go Green As E-Waste Mounts

Computer Firms Boost Recycling As Electronic Garbage Mounts

Saturday March 3, 2:10 pm ET

By Terence Chea, Associated Press Writer

ROSEVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- This is where computers go to die a green death.

Inside Hewlett-Packard Co.'s cavernous recycling plant in the Sacramento suburbs, truckloads of obsolete PCs, servers and printers collected from consumers and businesses nationwide are cracked open by goggled workers who pull out batteries, circuit boards and other potentially hazardous components.

The electronic carcasses are fed into a massive machine that noisily shreds them into tiny pieces and mechanically sorts the fragments into piles of steel, aluminum, plastic and precious metals. Those scraps are sent to smelting plants, mostly in the Sacramento area, where they are melted down for reuse.

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Saturday, March 3, 2007

Why Microsoft Needs Yahoo!

By Vishesh Kumar

TheStreet.com Senior Writer

2/26/2007 9:14 AM EST

As Google continues to encroach on Microsoft's turf -- the search giant introduced an upgraded version of its application suite last week -- Yahoo!'s potential value as an acquisition candidate is growing for Microsoft.

And while speculation about a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo! has been swirling since The Wall Street Journal reported last year that a faction within Microsoft's MSN search division was pushing for such a deal, recent developments make the case even more compelling.

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Adobe to take Photoshop online

Hosted version of program to appear within six months, CEO says, as company looks to combine online features with packaged apps.

By Martin LaMonica and Mike Ricciuti

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: February 28, 2007, 11:09 AM PST

Hoping to get a jump on Google and other competitors, Adobe Systems plans to release a hosted version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within six months, the company's chief executive said Tuesday.

The online service is part of a larger move to introduce ad-supported online services to complement its existing products and broaden the company reach into the consumer market, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen told CNET News.com.

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Philippines challenges India for outsourced dollar

Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:04 PM ET

By Rosemarie Francisco

MANILA, Feb 26 (Reuters) - It's dusk in the Philippine capital Manila and the five-storey office of Advanced Contact Solutions Inc. (ACS) is beginning to fill up.

By 10 p.m., all 1,600 call centre agents will be at work, rebooking airline flights in the United States and dealing with clients of phone companies and insurance firms.

The Philippines, with a large pool of English speakers and a cultural affinity with the United States, is developing as a strong second to India in the global outsourcing market.

"We're actually flooded, we have a deluge of client visits. Every week we are entertaining somebody," said Arthur Harow, vice president for operations at ACS, which is looking to expand into non-voice outsourcing, including documentation, IT and financial services.

"In the past, you would sell the concept of 'Why the Philippines?' Now you don't have to sell the Philippines."

ACS has 5,400 seats now in call centres, up from 800 in 2004, and shares in its parent firm Paxys climbed threefold in 2006 and are up 39 percent so far this year.

The Philippines earned $3.6 billion from outsourcing in 2006, up 50 percent from the previous year, and the government estimates revenue could jump to $12.2 billion by 2010 as the industry diversifies.

India, the leader in the global outsourcing market, earned $6.2 billion in the 12 months to March 2006, and this is likely to jump to $8 billion in the year to March 2007.

Even outsourcing firms based in India are moving some of their operations to the Philippines.

"India is getting to be an important source of investments in IT and IT services," said Celeste Ilagan, executive director for international promotions at the government's investment agency.

"Clients of Indian companies have dictated that apart from operations in India, they should have a backup offshore and the Philippines is always chosen to complement Indian operations."

INDIA AS PARTNER

Big outsourcing players from the United States such as Sykes Enterprises Inc. , Convergys Corp. , PeopleSupport Inc. , Accenture Ltd. and eTelecare Global Solutions Inc. already have branches in the Philippines.

Last year, the world's largest maker of personal computers, Dell Inc. , opened its first call centre in the country and a second contact centre is in the works.

Kiran Karnik, president of India's software and service industry group, said that, for some lines of business, the Philippines was a better bet because it has stronger cultural ties to the United States than India does.

"If you want to do a marketing kind of thing, India is not the place. Go to the Philippines because the cultural affinity is very, very high," Karnik said at a recent conference in Manila.

The stakes are high, with the Philippines tapping less than a fifth of the $80-billion global outsourcing market at the end of 2006. India corners at least 43 percent.

"I think 2007 is going to be another positive year for the industry," Ilagan said. "Since 2007 started, there have been more enquiries on IT outsourcing, software development. It has become more diverse."

Ayala Corp. , the country's oldest conglomerate and its fourth most valuable firm, joined the outsourcing bandwagon last year when it set up a unit focusing on high value services such as graphics design and legal process outsourcing.

But while the high value of so-called business process outsourcing (BPO) is growing, the Philippines will remain mainly a voice-based centre.

STRONG PESO

The expansion in the foreign-currency-based BPO industry comes despite continued strength of the Philippine peso .

"We have enough margins to absorb that," Endaya said of the strong peso. "The margins in this industry are good if you know how to run the business."

The impact of a continued rise in the peso will be felt more by new players in the industry.

"Those companies which entered quite late in the business, instead of registering break even in two years, because of the peso they may have to wait for a few more years," said Jojo Uligan, a director at the country's call centre industry group.

Entry-level wages for call centre agents in the Philippines have risen as much as 69 percent in 2006 from 2003, but that should not dampen interest in the Philippines, Endaya said.

"India has quite a few costs like free meals, door-to-door pickup of agents, those are standards in India. We don't have those costs," he said. ($1 = 48.05 pesos)

Friday, March 2, 2007

Survey: Vista Used Less than 1 percent of PCs

Eric Lai, Computerworld

Friday, March 02, 2007 02:00 AM PST

Windows Vista may yet prove to be an unstoppable juggernaut, but statistics released Thursday by a market research firm show that the new operating system hasn't even licked its nine-year old ancestor.

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