Google launches Web site tool

Online search and advertising company debuts new tools for setting up Web sites to compete with Microsoft's SharePoint.

CNN Money

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google, already the world's most popular spot for finding Web sites, is aiming to become the go-to place for creating Web sites too.

The Mountain View-based company is taking its first step toward that goal Thursday with the debut of a free service designed for high-tech neophytes looking for a simple way to share information with other people working in the same company or attending the same class in school.

With only a few clicks, just about anyone will be able to quickly set up and update a Web site featuring wide an array of material, including pictures, calendars and video from Google Inc.'s YouTube subsidiary, said Dave Girouard, general manager of the division overseeing the new application.

"We are literally adding an edit button to the Web," Girouard said.

All sites created on the service will run on one of Google's computers.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) acquired many of the Web-site tools when it bought a Silicon Valley startup, JotSpot, last year.

The tools are the latest addition to a bundle of applications that Google offers to consumers and businesses as alternatives to similar products sold by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT, Fortune 500), one of Google's fiercest rivals.

Google's latest service represents a challenge to Microsoft's SharePoint, which charges licensing fees. Google is unveiling its alternative just a few days before Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft hosts a SharePoint conference in Seattle.

While Microsoft's programs typically are installed on individual computers, Google keeps its application on its own machines so users can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection.

By gradually introducing free versions of word processing, spreadsheet, and calendaring programs over the past two years, Google has been threatening to siphon revenue away from Microsoft, which makes most of its money from software sales.

Microsoft, in turn, hopes to take a bite of out Google's bread-and-butter in online search and advertising by buying Yahoo Inc. (YHOO, Fortune 500) for more than $40 billion.

Google says more than 500,000 companies, government agencies and schools use at least some of its applications. The company won't say how many of those organizations subscribe to a premium version of its software suite, but the fees haven't made much of a dent at Google so far.

Last year, Google's software licensing and other products generated $181 million in revenue while $16.4 billion poured in from advertising.

Pakistan 'sparks YouTube outage'

BBC

Pakistan's attempts to block access to YouTube has been blamed for an almost global blackout of the video website for more than an hour on Sunday.

BBC News has learned that the outage was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and Asian internet service provider PCCW.

A leading net professional said the global outage was "probably a mistake".

Pakistan ordered internet service providers to block the site because of content deemed offensive to Islam.

The BBC News website's technology editor, Darren Waters, says that to block Pakistan's citizens from accessing YouTube it is believed Pakistan Telecom "hijacked" the web server address of the popular video site.

Those details were then passed on to the country's internet service providers so that anyone in Pakistan attempting to go to YouTube was instead re-directed to a different address.

But the details of the "hijack" were leaked out into the wider internet from PCCW and as a result YouTube was mistakenly blocked by internet service providers around the world.

The block on the servers was lifted once PCCW had been told of the issue by engineers at YouTube.

A leading net professional told BBC News: "This was probably a simple mistake by an engineer at Pakistan Telecom. There's nothing to suggest this was malicious."

IP hijacking involves taking over a web site's unique address by corrupting the internet's routing tables, which direct the flow of data around the world.

No-one at YouTube or PCCW was immediately available for comment.

Cause of ban

Reports said Pakistan made the move because YouTube content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.

But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.

"They [Pakistan's telecommunications authority] asked us to ban it immediately... and the order says the ban will continue until further notice," said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.

The government decision has caused uproar in Pakistan, according to Wahaj-us-Siraj:

"Users are quite upset. They're screaming at ISPs which can't do anything.

"The government has valid reason for that, but they have to find a better way of doing it. If we continue blocking popular websites, people will stop using the internet."

Other countries that have temporarily blocked access to YouTube include Turkey and Thailand.

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Pakistan TV station forced off air

Internet censorship gathers steam

Gartner CIO survey predicts major global IT change

WTN News • 23 Feb 2008

Stamford, Conn. - Over the next three years, 85 percent of chief information officers see significant change coming as they look to meet rising business expectations for IT, according to a worldwide survey of 1,500 CIOs by Gartner Executive Programs.

The Gartner EXP CIO report, titled “Making the Difference: The 2008 CIO Agenda,” is a comprehensive examination of business priorities and CIO strategies. It encompasses more than $132 billion dollars of IT spending and the insights from more than 1,450 businesses across 33 countries and 23 industries, and the message is that business leaders expect IT to make the difference rather than deliver generic IT solutions.

Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner Executive Programs, said in a release that CIOs recognize the importance of IT in changing business processes, attracting customers, and developing new products and services. However, they are guarded in their confidence in IT's ability to create results in these areas.

IT budgets at companies that go beyond generic IT are growing at a rate of 4.9 percent on average, compared with IT budgets at generic IT shops, which will rise an average of 3.1 percent. “Momentum has been building for IT to play a larger role,” McDonald said. “This year, those expectations are beginning to outpace CIO confidence to deliver. This sharpens CIO concentration on IT capabilities like never before."

Read More ....

Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic

By Steve Lohr, The New York Times

For 18 months, Google has been working to come up with a product offering and a strategy in the promising field of consumer health information. Until now, the search giant hasn’t had anything to show for its labors other than bumps along the way — delays and a management change.

But on Thursday, Google’s technology for personal health records, which is still in development, is getting a big endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic. The big medical center is beginning a pilot project to link the health information for some of its patients with Google personal health records.

Cleveland Clinic is at the cutting edge of health information technology, and its more than 100,000 patients each has a personal health record. But a sizable portion of those patients are retirees, notes Dr. C. Martin Harris, the clinic’s chief information officer. Many of them, he said, spend about five months elsewhere, typically in Florida or Arizona, and the clinic’s sophisticated electronic health records don’t follow them there.

“It forces the patient to become his or her own medical historian,” Dr. Harris said.

The Google personal health record, he said, is a solution to that problem, among others. A person can approve the transfer of information on, say, medical conditions, allergies, medications and laboratory results from the clinic’s computers to a Google personal health record — a series of secure Web pages.

The pilot project will last six to eight weeks, and involve less than 10,000 patients. The project with Cleveland Clinic is “a milestone” for Google, said Marissa Mayer, a vice president, who took over management of the health team six months ago.

Google’s personal health record is still in development, and it will be introduced publicly and made widely available, after the pilot project is concluded, Ms. Mayer said.

To be sure, Google is only one of several companies trying to make a business from Web-based personal health records. Microsoft, for example, brought out its entry, called HealthVault, last October, and it has commitments from medical centers including New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the Mayo Clinic. WebMD, Revolution Health and others also offer personal health records.

While it’s still not entirely clear what Google’s personal health record will be like, its approach seems to be ambitious and comprehensive. Google has its own user interface, while Microsoft, for example, appears to be focusing on back-end storage. Google is offering automated data links, so the patient does not have to type in personal data, as is required with some personal health records. And Google, along with Microsoft, has the deep pockets and technological knowhow to offer personal health records free to millions.

Other medical centers are ready to sign up. “This is truly a patient-controlled health record, and that’s a very significant step in the drive toward a more consumer-oriented system of health care,” said Dr. John D. Halamka, chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Halamka is also chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which plans to link its electronic patient records with Google personal health pages. He is also a member of Google’s Health Advisory Council.

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Super-speed Internet satellite blasts off in Japan

(CNN) -- Japan launched a rocket Saturday carrying a satellite that will test new technology that promises to deliver "super high-speed Internet" service to homes and businesses around the world.

A rocket carrying a super-fast Internet satellite lifts off from its launch pad on the Japanese island of Tanagashima.

The rocket carrying the WINDS satellite -- a joint project of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- lifted off its pad at 5:55 p.m. (0855 GMT).

If the technology proves successful, subscribers with small dishes will connect to the internet at speeds many times faster than what is now available over residential cable or DSL services.

The Associated Press said the satellite would offer speeds of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second.

The service initially would focus on the Asia-Pacific region close to Japan, a JAXA news release said.

"Among other uses, this will make possible great advances in telemedicine, which will bring high-quality medical treatment to remote areas, and in distance education, connecting students and teachers separated by great distances," JAXA said.

The rocket was launched from Japan's Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Tanegashima Space Center.

Dell offers award-winning products for retail consumers

Novia D. Rulistia, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Global systems and services company Dell Inc. is now targeting Indonesia's consumer segment by launching four types of laptop computer systems and slim-build desktops, in cooperation with long-time partner PT Metrodata E Business (MEB).

"This is a great way for us to connect to Indonesian consumers we may have not reached in the past," said Dell's regional managing editor, Andreas Diantoro, on Thursday at the company's product launching at Wisma BCA in Jakarta.

The new products are the award-winning XPS M1330 and the Inspiron 1420 laptops, as well as the Inspiron 530 and 530s slim-build desktops, with prices ranging from US$600 to $1,200.

Dell launched these products in Malaysia and Singapore at the end of last year, and it plans to penetrate other countries in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.

"Notebooks will grow fast, as supporting facilities, like wifi and hotspots, are made more and more widely accessible," Andreas said.

Previously in Indonesia, Dell Inc. provided services and products for corporations working in several areas, including the mining, oil, manufacturing and telecommunications industries.

"Notebook sales in Indonesia have been growing higher than in Malaysia and Singapore. We are targeting 10 percent of the laptops on sale in the Indonesian market," said Dell's country manager Megawaty Khie.

The Indonesian Computer Corporation Association (Apkomindo) reported that 60 percent of the 1.5 million computer units sold last year were notebooks. In 2006, notebook sales made up 50 percent of total computer sales.

MEB president director Agus Honggo Widodo said the company planned to offer the consumer products in five major cities in Indonesia -- Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Yogyakarta and Medan.

"We are delighted to have been chosen as Dell's partner in reaching out to the consumer segment in Indonesia," said Agus, whose company has been Dell's authorized distributor since 2002.

Agus said he was confident the new products would soon become the preferred products of young professionals and small office and home office users.

Market observer International Data Corporation, in its Worldwide Quarterly PC tracker, predicted that laptop sales would reach 50 percent of total sales of computers in the world this year.

Apkomindo predicted in January that computer sales in Indonesia would reach 3 million units this year, with notebooks accounting for at least 65 percent of sales and personal computers 35 percent.

Indonesia's market for notebooks is currently dominated by international brands like Acer, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard. (lva)

Machines 'to match man by 2029'

By Helen Briggs, BBC science reporter, Boston

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil.

Tiny machines could roam the body curing diseases

He said machines and humans would eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.

"It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil said.

"But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us."

Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.

Man versus machine

"I've made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029," he said.

"We're already a human machine civilisation, we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that."

Humans and machines would eventually merge, by means of devices embedded in people's bodies to keep them healthy and improve their intelligence, predicted Mr Kurzweil.

"We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons," he told BBC News.

CHALLENGES FACING HUMANITY

• Make solar energy affordable
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Reverse engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Advance personalised learning
• Explore natural frontiers
  
  
  
  

The nanobots, he said, would "make us smarter, remember things better and automatically go into full emergent virtual reality environments through the nervous system".

Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering.

The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter.

The 14 challenges were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, which concludes on Monday.

The real impact of iPhone and Android

Dana Blankenhorn, CNet, February 15th, 2008, @ 7:02 am

Android demo from C|Net in Barcelona Feb. 2008The iPhone and the Google Android platform, which was finally shown-off (sort of) in Barcelona this week, aren’t mobile telephones.

They are Internet clients.

Internet clients use exponentially more data bandwidth than ordinary digital phones, which use thin streams of compressed data. Maybe several exponentials.

Operators are thinking of expanding their networks into homes and offices to handle the extra load.

The Android clients shown in Barcelona aren’t much. What they mainly prove is that the specification can be built and deployed quickly.

While the Apple iPhone roll-out has gone at a predictable pace, with one vendor delivering specified numbers to a handful of networks, the Android roll-out will be far more helter-skelter.

That’s because the Android is designed to work anywhere, first on any GSM network and then, with a little tinkering, anywhere else.

This makes it hard for operators to predict where and how demand will come from.

While Internet routing and fiber trunks have always been scaled well ahead of demand, mobile networks will have to route a ton more data on-and-off the fiber for the new clients. Equipment will have to be bought without an assurance of a quick return.

Yet thanks to the iPhone network operators have no choice. In the U.S. Verizon and Sprint are seeing their best customers jump en masse to AT&T, because of the iPhone. They have to compete.

While the Google Android specification may (or may not) allow effective competition on the handset end, Verizon must guess that it will, anticipate that demand, and start investing now.

It’s a gamble, in some ways bigger than the spectrum auction was.

Software giant comes to RI

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

On the back of higher demand for business software in Indonesia, U.S. software giant SAS is opening an office in Jakarta in efforts to better penetrate the market.

Through its local unit, PT SAS Institute, SAS has planned an investment of between US$8 million and $10 million in Southeast Asia's largest economy for the next two years.

SAS managing director for Singapore and emerging markets Bill Lee said the new office was part of SAS's strategy to invest maximally in Indonesia after realizing the tremendous demand growth here.

"We are always trying to establish offices in each country where our customers are located. Besides Indonesia, SAS offices are also located in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Manila," he said.

Around 70 to 100 people work in each of the offices, he added.

PT SAS Institute managing director Uday Mathkar said new projects from the banking industry would drive up demand in Indonesia.

"The demand rise will be fueled by the central bank policy that requires banks to comply with Bank Indonesia's risk management system by the end of this year," he said.

SAS, established in the United States in 1976, has been in Indonesia for 12 years through partners and resellers.

While its global revenue grew by 15 percent last year, the company's revenue in Indonesia jumped by 160 percent.

SAS products sold in Indonesia include software for a credit risk management system, an operational management system and anti-money laundering. (uwi)

Google Android phones make debut

BBC News

The first mobile phones to be loaded with Google's Android software for mobile phones have gone on show.

About a dozen companies such as ARM, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm showed off prototype handsets at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The free software system was launched in November 2007 and is being developed by an alliance of more than 30 companies including Google.

Google has launched an open operating system for mobile phones, called Android. It has also formed an Open Handset Alliance with 33 partners, promising "better, cheaper" mobile phones.

The first Android-enabled phone is expected to go on sale later this year.

One firm showing off a prototype phone was the UK processor designer ARM.

"It's really is a demonstration vehicle rather than a full phone," Ian Drew of ARM told BBC News.

However, he said the wireless phone did show off several applications.

"What we are demonstrating on the Android platform is maps, browser, camera applications, multimedia, e-mail, and calendar - basically everything you'd expect on a mobile phone."

Open world

The Google Android platform is based on open source Linux software that allows developers access to the underlying code.

This allows programmers much greater flexibility to build applications and features tailored to individual phones.

Other companies also showed off Android prototypes such as Marvell, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics.

Korean handset manufacturer Samsung has also said it hopes to have a phone based on Android by early next year.

Android was not the only Linux platform making waves in Barcelona.

The Mobile Linux foundation said that 18 phones from seven different firms would be demonstrated at 3GSM using its Limo software.

LG and Samsung were amongst handset manufacturers showing off Limo devices.

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Unilever achieves €1bn in savings, IT plays major part

SAP consolidation programme on course and cuts fat from food maker expenditure

Mark Chillingworth, CIO

Restructuring plans centred on the ‘One Unilever’ business transformation programme are reaping benefits, the Anglo-Dutch food and household goods maker Unilever. In its fourth quarter and annual results for 2007, Unilever stated that the ‘One Unilever’ strategy of IT and manufacturing streamlining, and other cost reduction programmes had delivered €1bn in savings.

Unilever said it achieved underlying sales growth of 5.5 per cent in 2007, with an underlying sales growth of 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter. “The fourth quarter was a strong finish to a good year,” said Patrick Cescau, group chief executive. “2007 marks the third successive year of accelerating sales growth and came with an underlying improvement in margin.

“The reshaping of the business and the acceleration of our change programme are bringing real benefit,” Cescau said of the ‘One Unilever’ programme. Highlighting its benefits, the annual report states that in Europe the roll out of a single SAP enterprise resource management (ERP) system continues and that two-thirds of Europe is on the platform, and full implementation will be completed by the end of 2008.

‘One Unilever’ aims to make Unilever a simplified organisation to work within, with a single converged IT platform. It will also standardise business processes across the three operating regions of Unilever: Asia/AMET (Africa, Middle East and Turkey), Europe and Americas. It is hoped ‘One Unilever’ will increase revenue growth and operational abilities.

In the Americas ‘One Unilever’ saw Argentina, Brazil and Mexico consolidate operations into a single head office in 2007, a move that will be followed this year in the US. In 2007 the US went over to a single SAP system, following in the wake of the Latin American countries. Four of the countries in the Asia/AMET region have also adopted the SAP platform.

The restructuring of Unilever cost €875 million (£655 million) in 2007, with ‘One Unilever’ consuming £405 million. A further £130 million was invested in restructuring the European supply chain. “In 2008 we expect to see a further underlying improvement in operating margin,” Cescau said.

In May 2007 Unilever signed a Global Enterprise Agreement with SAP, which gives the maker of Dove Soap and Knorr soups greater access to SAP technology, as well the opportunity to collaborate on best practices. “This agreement enables us not only to accelerate business transformation, but also drive significant IT simplification as we move toward our destination IT architecture,” Neil Cameron, Unilever CIO told IDG reporters in May.

Related Article:

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QTRAX V.2 Beta launches - sees 61,000 unique users per hour

New York, (ANTARA News/PRNewswire-AsiaNet) - Midem Conference - QTRAX (www.QTRAX.com) - the world's first free and legal peer-to-peer music service announced that at today's V.2 Beta launch, its ground-breaking service had approximately 61,000 unique users per hour (between 7am and 1pm EST). This translates to approximately 1,464,000 unique users per day.

QTRAX believes that a significant percentage of users were unable to access the site due to this massive demand and has now dramatically increased its download capacity.

"The response to the service is clearly unprecedented. We launched at MIDEM, the leading music industry conference, precisely because of the degree of support we have had and continue to enjoy from rights holders," said QTRAX President and CEO Allan Klepfisz.

"We believe the exact nature of that support will be publicly clarified within a very short time. As the world's first free and legal P2P service that has chosen to spend 4.5 years on licensing and not to violate IP rights, we have decided that we will provide activation keys shortly upon final execution of all pertinent contracts."

In the meantime, users will be able to enjoy all other functionalities of the QTRAX browser including importing and playing their existing music, browsing the vast and rich content, purchasing artist merchandise and tickets, and, for the first time, enjoying a fully integrated browsing and music experience.

The activation keys will enable users to experience full QTRAX V.2 Beta functionality, including search, download, access content, and play.

QTRAX has created a dynamic new music distribution model that represents a paradigm shift in the way people consume music, how the industry can monetize their catalogs and how artists get paid.

The application download is available immediately at www.QTRAX.com About QTRAX QTRAX (www.QTRAX.com) is the world's first legal and free peer-to-peer music service. Showcasing an innovative ad-supported downloading model that easily directs revenue back to artists and rights holders, QTRAX is the first P2P to be embraced widely by the music industry. QTRAX is a subsidiary of Brilliant Technologies Corporation (OTC: BLLN.PK), a publicly traded technology holding company.

SOURCE QTRAX

CONTACT: Justin Kazmark, +1-212-561-7466, justin.kazmark@morris-king.com, or Jennifer Moses, +1-315-212-4408, jennifer.moses@morris-king.com, both of The Morris + King Company; or Rich Schineller of Perception Management, +1-941-726-9090, rich@prmgt.com; or Shamin Abas of Shamin Abas PR, +1-561-366-1226, Shamin@shaminabaspr.com; or Deborah Gray of Big DGPR, +1-646-247-3094, +61(0)414-911-111, debjgray@hotmail.com/

Web site: http://www.QTRAX.com

Scientists make unique knee-brace power generator

Thu Feb 7, 2008 5:38pm EST

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. Scientists in the United States and Canada said on Thursday they have developed a unique device that can be strapped on the knee that exploits the mechanics of human walking to generate a usable supply of electricity.

It generates enough power to charge up 10 cell phones at once, the researchers report in the journal Science.

Researchers have been working on ways to harness the motion of the human body to create power. A shoe-mounted device was nice and light, but did not generate much electricity. A backpack device that generated power as it bounced up and down while a person walks generated a lot of electricity, but was heavy to lug.

The new energy-capturing knee brace, its inventors said, seems to find a happy medium -- generating decent amounts of power while still being relatively light.

The scientists envisioned numerous applications for such a device. It could be of value to hikers or soldiers who may not have access to electricity, they said. It also could be built into prosthetic knees or other implantable devices whose users occasionally must undergo surgery for a battery replacement.

Arthur Kuo, a University of Michigan mechanical engineer who worked on the device, said it works similarly to the way that regenerative braking charges a battery in hybrid cars.

These regenerative brakes collect kinetic energy that normally dissipate as heat when the car slows down. The knee device collects energy lost when a person brakes the knee after swinging the leg forward to take a step, the researchers said. "It generates a fairly substantial amount of power compared to previous devices and it does so in a way that doesn't affect the user very much," Kuo said in a telephone interview.

"You could easily power 10 cell phones at once. There are some low power computers that you could power. You could imagine devices like GPS locaters, satellite phones," he said.

With a device placed on each leg, volunteers walking on treadmills generated about 5 watts of electricity walking at a leisurely 2.2 mph (3.5 kph). Each of the devices weighs about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg), which Kuo said was still too unwieldy.

"Even though we've demonstrated this new way to generate power, we don't mean to say this is a usable product at this time. The principle limitations are that our prototype is pretty heavy and bulky," Kuo said, adding that he thinks it can be made smaller and more practical.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)

Amazon.com adds web services to its offerings

CNN

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Critics thought it was over the top when Amazon.com Inc. expanded from books into music in 1998. When the Web retailer let competitors start selling things alongside its own inventory in 2000, they said Amazon had gone nuts.

Amazon.com employees pack books for shipment in July at the company's facility in Fernley, Nevada.

In both cases, Amazon proved them wrong. Media sales now total in the billions each quarter, and third-party merchandise, more profitable for Amazon than its own wares, makes up nearly a third of everything sold through the site.

Now, Amazon is making an even greater stretch -- selling storage, computing power and other behind-the-scenes data center services.

The venture, which Amazon expects will grow into a significant business segment, could help keep the company strong if retailers get hit by an economic downturn.

More broadly, Amazon Web Services, as the business is called, could improve chances for a new generation of Web startups by slashing how much they spend up front on costly infrastructure.

MileMeter Inc., a Dallas-based startup that plans to sell auto insurance by the mile, started out running its own server in a data center. Recently, it moved most of its applications onto virtual computers in Amazon Web Services' Elastic Compute Cloud.

EC2 lets its customers quickly start up a virtual computer in the "cloud" -- industry slang for data centers around the world -- then use it as a Web server or for crunching data and shut it down just as fast.

"I don't need to have a systems administrator or a network administrator," said Chief Executive Chris Gay. "I don't have to worry about hardware becoming irrelevant."

Gay said he also uses Amazon's online payments service and is evaluating its data storage and simple database services. During the first dot-com boom, he said, "It was a badge of strength to have as much as possible in house.

"Now, unless that is your core business ... it's a liability."

Adam Selipsky, vice president of product management and developer relations for Amazon Web Services, said Amazon wants entrepreneurs to focus on their ideas, not on hardware leases and crashing servers.

"We want to let developers innovate and make money," he said.

Amazon is certainly not the only player. James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Akamai Technologies Inc., Enki and Terremark each offer at least a portion of the Web services Amazon is selling. IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. offer pricier versions aimed at big businesses, while Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are thought to be working on services similar to Amazon's.

Amazon comes closest to utility-style billing, Staten said. Most competitors demand a contract or minimum payments.

Read More ....

Yahoo Offer Is Strategy Shift for Microsoft

By Steve Lohr, The New York Times

Published: February 2, 2008

Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and a global philanthropist, called upon fellow business leaders at the World Economic Forum last week to pursue a kinder form of capitalism.

But on Friday, the brand of capitalism practiced by his company’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, came with a decidedly hard edge.

Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, pushed by Mr. Ballmer, was hostile. And during a conference call Friday with analysts and in a subsequent interview, he never once uttered the word “Google,” referring to the Internet search giant that has humbled Microsoft only as “the leader” in the online world.

Mr. Ballmer, 51, is a famously fierce competitor. To him, failure is never an option. “If we don’t get it right at first, we’ll just keep coming and coming and coming and coming,” he said in an earlier interview.

Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo is thus a tacit, and difficult, admission that the company did not get its online business right. The bid also represents a sharp departure from Microsoft’s well-thumbed playbook of building new businesses on its own. In the past, when Microsoft moved beyond its stronghold in desktop computer software — and into areas like video games and data-center software — it has done so mainly with in-house investment, patience and tenacity.

Read More ....

Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion

Friday February 1, 6:58 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Technology giant Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) said on Friday that it had offered to acquire Internet media company Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) for $44.6 billion in cash and stock.

Microsoft said it had offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, which it said represented a 62 percent premium above the company's closing stock price on Nasdaq on Thursday.

"We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement.

Yahoo was not immediately available for comment.

Microsoft said it had identified four areas that would generate at least $1 billion in annual synergies for the combined entity.

Yahoo shares rose 56 percent to $29.95 in premarket trading on Friday following the announcement. U.S. stock index futures also jumped after the news was released.

(Reporting by Franklin Paul; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Garmin Adds A Cell Phone To Its GPS Device

The nuvifone's built-in camera takes pictures that are automatically tagged with latitude and longitude.

By Elena Malykhina, InformationWeek

January 31, 2008 02:35 PM

First Apple came out with the iPhone, then Google announced its mobile-phone software development platform, and now GPS maker Garmin is entering the mobile phone market with a hybrid device called the nuvifone.

The nuvifone is the first mobile phone by Garmin, featuring GPS, a touch screen, and a Web browser.

(click for image gallery)

The nuvifone, which Garmin unveiled this week, combines a cell phone, a Web browser, and GPS. Its slim form factor, 3.5-inch touch screen, and on-screen keypad resemble another device that took the mobile market by storm last year: the iPhone.

"This is the breakthrough product that cell phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for -- a single device that does it all," said Cliff Pemble, Garmin's president and COO, in a statement.

Unlike the iPhone, the nuvifone is a GPS personal navigator and has built-in third-generation cellular technology for high-speed data access. The home screen features three icons: call, search, and view map for simple access to the phone's functions. Additionally, the phone's GPS works with the built-in camera to take pictures that are automatically tagged with latitude and longitude. Users can e-mail pictures to others, who can then navigate to the location where it was taken, said Garmin.

Once the nuvifone is docked onto a vehicle mount, the GPS turns on automatically, the navigation menu is activated, and a person is then able to make hands-free calls while simultaneously using the navigation function, according to Garmin. The phone comes with maps of North America and Europe, as well as a built-in database with millions of points of interest. It works just like Garmin's standard GPS devices, offering turn-by-turn audible directions.

The nuvifone is also Garmin's first device with the Google local search application, which serves up nearby venues based on a person's current location.

Garmin said the nuvifone will be available in the third quarter of this year, but didn't provide details on specific markets and pricing.

There were over a billion mobile phones shipped last year, according to ABI Research. GPS, digital cameras, media players, and other capabilities are being integrated into phones to create multifunctional devices. Garmin, Google, Apple, and others see the mobile phone market as the next big opportunity, even though the companies are not traditional telephony players.