Miscellaneous

This was originally posted at CBSNews.com.

If someone loaned you $100, maybe it wouldn't change your life. But in many countries, it could be the difference between prosperity and poverty.

Tiny loans like these are called microfinancing. And last year, some $36 billion of them went to more than 99 million borrowers, as CBS News technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports.

With a new apartment in Harlem, 29-year-old urban planner Justin Moore doesn't have a lot to invest. But through a YouTube video, Justin learned how he could help the poor--and his bank account.

The video was from … Read more

The PC market shrunk during the first part of 2009, but not as badly as expected.

Shipments of PCs during the first quarter were down 7.1 percent from a year ago, to 63.5 million units, according to IDC, which released its Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker on Wednesday. That's an improvement from the 8.2 percent decline that IDC had projected.

It's a "good sign" for PCs, said Loren Loverde, the program director for the PC Tracker at IDC. Loverde says the better-than-expected results were aided by falling prices of PCs and more new PC … Read more

Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the Dell Studio One 19 cannot be configured with an Atom processor.

Just a year ago, this category didn't exist. But after several Atom-powered all-in-one PCs debuted at CES in January, it's officially the hottest grouping of desktops on the market.

A category long dominated by Apple's $1,200 iMac is suddenly rife with nice-looking imitators that pack less power than traditional Windows desktops, but are also gentler on the wallet. They're a subcategory of desktop PCs called Nettops, and, like Netbooks, they're generally defined as a computing platform powered by the Atom processor that runs either Windows XP or a version of Linux. Combined with the all-in-one form factor and a smaller screen than most desktops (between 15 inches and 19 inches), they're essentially the Netbooks of the desktop category.

"A year ago I would have said Netbooks are not going to cannibalize the notebook market. Then the economy went kablooey," said John Jacobs, director of notebook market research for DisplaySearch. Since then, many people who needed a notebook have chosen to spend $400 on a Netbook instead of the typical $800 on a full-size notebook.

"I think we'll see something like that for Nettops," he said. "Either for retirees or younger folks who don't need the portability of a notebook, and just need something to get on the Internet and do basic computing. Nettops, and all-in-ones will be very attractive devices, and we expect to see a lot of retailers who have stayed out of it will jump into it."

The all-in-one category as a whole is expected to grow to more than 6 million units in 2009, and to over 7 million in 2010, according to DisplaySearch. That's almost an 80 percent spike in shipments, which was unexpected at the end of 2008.

Reinvigorating a tired category In fact, the rise of all-in-one Nettops looks to be the most interesting thing to happen to desktop PCs in years. And, just as the economy helped bolster Netbooks' appeal, so too will it make Nettops more attractive to buyers, industry watchers believe. … Read more

Some pieces essentially write themselves. This is one of them.

I received the following e-mail this morning with the subject "BSA  Launches Faces of Piracy Campaign." It came from the Fd.com domain, which I assume is the Business Software Alliance's public relations firm for this campaign.

We've all been following the events of the past week of the pirates off the Horn of Africa. Piracy takes many forms, some more violent than others. I wanted to let you know that the Business Software Alliance is launching a new campaign today "Faces of Internet … Read more

Recent events have raised the question of whether the United States is prepared to defend its electricity grid.

Spies from other countries have been detected hacking into the United States' electricity grid, leaving traces of their activity and raising concerns over the security of the U.S. energy infrastructure to cyberattacks. The spies apparently sought ways to navigate and control the power grid as well as the water and sewage infrastructure, according to a published report. It's part of a rising number of intrusions, the article said, quoting former and current national security officials.

There have long been concerns … Read more

By a vote of 21 to 15, the lower house of France's Parliament rejected a bill that would have required Internet service providers to suspend access to people who have received three warnings for illegally downloading copyrighted music.

While there are plenty of organizations and individuals who supported the bill, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has opposed this bill and similar efforts elsewhere.

EFF's International Outreach Coordinator Danny O'Brien explains his organization's position on the issue.

While we're still waiting for OLED TVs to get more realistic prices, a Japanese company is moving on to making OLED-based posters for advertising.

The prototype, pictured above as a poster for Japan's Rakuten Eagles professional baseball team, uses both organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and inorganic light-emitting diodes (regular LEDs) to create an image that looks like it's animated, according to Tech-On. The poster measures approximately 29 inches by 20 inches, and was created by Dai Nippon.

The LEDs are used for white backlighting behind a printed color image, and the OLEDs to create the text. Light … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Venture capitalists are becoming slightly more upbeat about the economy and market, according to the latest read from the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index, which was released Wednesday.

The ongoing survey of VCs in the San Francisco Bay Area found that venture capitalist confidence registered a 3.03 on a 5-point scale (5 shows high confidence). The first-quarter read was up from the fourth quarter's tally of 2.77, which was a five-year low. (See report overview, PDF).

Is it party time? Not quite.

University of San Francisco … Read more

Edited to include reference to Brian Cooley's 2008 video on BMW's in-car Internet

As CNET's Cartech blog reported last week, Ford Motor and Opera Software have announced a collaboration to add Web browsing to the Internet-enabled in-dash computers that Ford is installing in some of its trucks and work vans.

Ford says it's the first vehicle manufacturer in North America to offer an installed Internet device, though there are several in-dash aftermarket devices and, of course, it's long been possible to use an Internet-connected laptop in a vehicle. A year ago CNET's Brian Cooley … Read more