economy

OSLO--The United States is asking for ideas about how to tackle global warming without raising expectations of breakthroughs in 2010 ahead of climate talks among the world's top emitters on Sunday in Washington.

A document obtained by Reuters on Friday listing U.S. questions to delegates from 16 other major economies shows the two-day talks will focus on the fate of U.N. climate talks, the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, and the Kyoto Protocol.

It does not answer key questions such as what the United States, the biggest emitter behind China, plans to do under any future U.N. plan. U.S. legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Instead it shows that major nations may have to go back to the drawing board after the Copenhagen summit failed to come up with a binding deal at the climax of two years of U.N. negotiations.

"The general focus of the meeting: what are the key issues that need to be addressed in order to have a successful outcome?" it asks of preparations for the next annual talks of environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, November 29 through December 10.

"What is the outcome we are all seeking in Cancun? A set of decisions; a legally binding agreement; something else?" according to the document, signed by Michael Froman, deputy White House national security adviser, and U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern. … Read more

TalkTalk will fight in court any attempt to have it disconnect one of its subscribers for unlawful file-sharing, the ISP said on Thursday, as the Digital Economy Act 2010 became law.

The bundle of legislation, previously known as the Digital Economy Bill, saw a final round of debate in the House of Lords on Thursday and then gained royal assent. The Lords briefly examined and approved only the amendments that were added in the House of Commons after the initial period of debate by peers.

In a blog post, TalkTalk regulatory chief Andrew Heaney pledged that the UK's biggest … Read more

Update: 12:43 p.m. To include quote from NBC Universal general counsel.

The U.K.'s House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favor of creating a law that would enable copyright owners to seek the suspension of Internet service of those accused multiple times of illegal file sharing.

The House of Commons voted 189 to 47 to pass the Digital Economy Bill, which also seeks to give the country's government the authority to block access to Web sites suspected of engaging in pirated material, according to British publication The Telegraph.

The bill still needs to go back to … Read more

Shipments of personal computers are on the rise once again and should see sustained growth over the next few years, according to IDC's latest "Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker" released Monday.

Following a down first half in 2009, global shipments of PCs came alive in the second half, helping to eke out annual growth of 2.9 percent and putting the segment back in the black. Gains were due largely to shipments of portable computers, which rose 18.4 percent in 2009 over 2008. On the consumer end, purchases of notebooks jumped 38.5 percent for the year.

"PC volume continued to grow in 2009--fairing much better than in 2001, when a smaller recession produced a decline in PC volume," said IDC research analyst Jay Chou. "The positive 2009 results reflect lower prices and the fact that PCs are increasingly a must-have product."

The commercial and business PC market remained sluggish throughout last year but showed a slight recovery in the fourth quarter with growth of just under 1 percent. The much-vaunted Netbook finally showed some kinks in its armor as its growth slowed in the final quarter while other notebook categories rose 22 percent, said IDC.

For 2010, PC shipments are expected to grow 12.6 percent. Emerging markets have already done their fair share to stimulate the market and are likely to contribute growth of 18.5 percent this year. More mature markets will add growth of 7.2 percent this year, with double-digit gains following in 2011.

Portable PCs will remain the key driver of growth in both the consumer and business markets, grabbing a 70 percent share of all personal computers shipped by 2012, noted IDC. Desktop PC shipments will continue to fall across the world except in the Asia/Pacific region (excluding Japan), helping to keep them in slightly positive territory over the next few years.

PC sales are another story.… Read more

Patent requests related to green technology will get the equivalent of the carpool lane at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent office on Monday introduced a pilot program to accelerate the reviews of green technology-related patents. The goal is to shave as much as one year off the process, which now takes on average of 30 months for an initial action from the USPTO and 40 months for a final decision.

The first 3,000 patent petitions to be filed will be eligible for the sped-up review program, and about 25,000 already pending applications are eligible, … Read more

We stopped by Garmin's booth at the 2009 SEMA Show expecting a new GPS device or news of another OEM integration deal, but we stumbled upon something even better. Sometime next year, Garmin's Nuvi GPS devices will gain the ability to communicate with your car through ESP. In this case, we're not talking about psychic extra-sensory perception, but the EcoRoutes ESP module for Nuvi navigation devices.

The ESP module is a hideaway box that connects to (and is powered by) your vehicle's OBD-II diagnostics port. The device gathers information about your vehicle's performance and relays … Read more

The overlap with the title of this blog, Matter/Antimatter, is completely coincidental, but since most meaningful events are coincidental, it makes perfect sense that it prompted San Francisco-based conceptual artist Jonathon Keats to send me a note pointing to his upcoming exhibition "The First Bank of Antimatter."

Keats' previous artistic enterprises include applying string theory to real estate development, and in the wake of global economic collapse, Keats is now introducing a hedge against future catastrophe by creating a mirror economy designed to skyrocket as world markets plummet: the first holistic response to the great recession.

"… Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--Information technology spending is set for a rebound, but not much of one, Gartner said Monday.

Globally, worldwide IT spending should grow 3.3 percent from 2009 to 2010, said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research, in a speech here at the Gartner Symposium. That puts it at about $3.3 trillion.

Even with Gartner's forecast, spending won't return to 2008 levels until 2012, he said. But purveyors of computing technology and services can be forgiven if they take some heart in the news given the gloomy climate.

"The IT market is exiting its worst year ever," Sondergaard said, with spending dropping a projected 5.2 percent from 2008 to 2009. More than half of IT budgets will be the same or smaller in 2010. … Read more

Twitter’s “suggested users” list is a Who’s Who of Twitter celebrities, featuring the likes of Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, Ashton Kutcher, John McCain, Martha Stewart, and others with millions of followers. The New York Times claimed that a spot on the list would guarantee 500,000 additional followers and reported that social media guru Jason Calacanis had offered $250,000 to be listed.

Last Friday, Twitter did something remarkable. It added a number of well-known social entrepreneurs and innovators to this list, among them Social Edge, Skoll Foundation, Kiva, Matt Flannery (Kiva co-founder), Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen … Read more