News Blog

A look at Google's Android mobile operating system.

(Credit: Google)

Last we heard, we'd be seeing phones powered by Google's Android open-source software in the second half of 2008. A report Monday from The Wall Street Journal has narrowed that down somewhat: Those handsets will start appearing in the fourth quarter of this year, a later time frame than expected.

And according to the Journal, some handset manufacturers are "struggling" to get Android on track even for a fourth-quarter launch. Sprint Nextel and China Mobile, the world's largest cell carrier, reportedly won't be able to put out Android-powered phones until next year. Other carriers, like T-Mobile, claim their Android phones are still on track.

Some developers of mobile applications, on the other hand, have been sidetracked by the announcement of the iPhone 3G, the second-generation version of Apple's ubiquitous handsets. With a lower price point, a developer kit already released, and a concrete launch date of July 11, not to mention faster Web access and a built-in GPS chip, the appeal of the new iPhone may have pushed Android to the back burner for some companies.

Google announced Wednesday on its official blog that Google search is now available over an IPv6 connection. What?

Right now, much of the world relies on the fourth iteration of the Internet Protocol, also known as IPv4, for its Web connections. The problem is, IPv4 facilitates only about 4 billion IP addresses, not enough for every person in the world to have one.

Google and others estimate that the IPv4 capacity will be "exhausted" sometime in 2011, which means that IPv6--which will enable each individual person on Earth to have nearly 3 billion networks--will potentially take over.

"We hope it's only a matter of time before IPv6 is widely deployed," the Google blog post read. "We will be doing our part."

The IPv6 Google search is available here, but if you don't have an IPv6 connection, it'll come up as a broken link.

Declaring digital sales a success, rock veterans Nine Inch Nails have released another online album, The Slip. Unlike their last album, this one is totally free, and, according to front man Trent Reznor, is a thank-you to the band's fans.

The Slip is available from Nine Inch Nails' Web site in a number of DRM-free formats: MP3, FLAC, M4A, and WAVE. The band is also streaming the album on music social network iLike.

In March, no longer affiliated with a record label, Nine Inch Nails released its album Ghosts I-IV on its Web site. An assortment of payment options were offered: free for the first nine tracks, $5 for the whole digital album, $10-$300 for disc sets. Ghosts, according to Reznor, netted $1.6 million in just over a week.

In the wake of Radiohead's album In Rainbows, offered for a limited time as a digital download for which fans could literally name their own prices, a number of high-profile artists have distanced themselves from the flagging music industry and experimented with nontraditional distribution or digital giveaways. Nine Inch Nails' Reznor has been a vocal supporter of digital sales, collaborating with musician Saul Williams to release an album for free online.

But Reznor has been critical of Radiohead's pioneering effort, eventually calling the pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows a "marketing gimmick" to promote the traditional album.

With his band's latest release, he hopes to be light years ahead in "openness." Not only is The Slip free, it's been released under a Creative Commons license, specifically the "attribution noncommercial share alike license." Fans are encouraged to share the music, blog it, "remix" it, and use it in audio and video projects.

Discount online retailer Overstock.com announced on Thursday that it will be selling its products outside the United States for the first time.

"We're actually right smack dab in the middle of integrating," Jake Bailey, Overstock's director of international sales, said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday. No final date has been given for the launch of international sales, but Bailey said it will be before the end of 2008.

The Salt Lake City, Utah-based company has inked a deal with E4X, which runs a service called FiftyOne Global Ecommerce. The partnership has enabled Overstock to start billing and shipping to a total of 34 new countries--Canada, as well as 33 European nations. FiftyOne lets a participating retailer ship to a U.S. address and receive U.S. currency, while the buyer pays in his or her home currency.

Not all of Overstock's products will be able to be shipped overseas. Some bulky products, like massive HDTVs and large pieces of furniture, will continue to be available only in the States. But, Bailey said, "for the most part, it's going to be the bulk of our product offering."

A federal district court in New York ruled Wednesday that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is owed "reasonable license fees" by online media powerhouses AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo for the music streamed and distributed on their sites.

Currently, music streamed by sites owned by the three companies is advertising-supported and no dividends are paid to ASCAP.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York will now determine appropriate fees for AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo, all of which have applied for ASCAP licenses but have not been able to agree upon fees. The total payments to the group, which represents over 320,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers--not record labels--could reach $100 million. (Click here for a PDF of the court's decision.)

The license fees would cover music distributed as early as July 1, 2002, and then up through the end of 2009. Because songwriters and composers often aren't affiliated with record labels that distribute their music as performed by another artist, they presently are left without licensing fees from digital distribution on the three companies named in the court decision.

ASCAP President Marilyn Bergman wrote in a statement following the decision:

The court's finding represents a major step toward proper valuation of the music contributions of songwriters, composers and publishers to these types of online businesses.

It is critical that these organizations share a reasonable portion of their sizable revenues with those of us whose content attracts audiences and, ultimately, helps to make their businesses viable. This decision will go a long way toward protecting the ability of songwriters and composers to be compensated fairly as the use of musical works online continues to grow."

More details to follow.

(Credit: Sezmi)

We're constantly hearing that seamless integration of television and broadband video is fast approaching, but nobody's gotten it right yet. That hasn't stopped new companies from jumping into the mix.

Enter Sezmi, the latest start-up hoping to capture the market: on Thursday, the venture-backed company unveiled a piece of hardware that it claims will be able to handle broadcast and cable TV, as well as streaming and downloaded Internet video content.

Currently in testing, Sezmi has already inked partnerships with a number of broadcasters, content companies, and broadband service providers. The ambitious company hopes to start putting its wireless boxes in U.S. residences in a number of major markets by the end of 2008.

Sezmi, formerly known as Building B, isn't naming those partners yet, so it's not clear exactly how many channels or how much Web content will be accessible on the box. But the company nevertheless is willing to call its offering "a complete TV 2.0 solution." In addition to content, a Sezmi box allows for up to five personalized accounts and lets members share their video playlists with friends.

It's able to bridge the gap between television and broadband, according to Friday's announcement, thanks to an in-house technology called FlexCast.

"To deliver the full range of content that consumers expect at an affordable cost, we had to create a network that overcame the limitations of broadband and better aligned with mass-market content consumption," co-founder and president Phil Wiser explained in a release. No pricing information has been provided yet.

"Sezmi focused on the television consumer and built an entirely new television offering from the ground up to meet the needs of viewers that want a premium experience at an affordable price," co-founder and CEO Buno Pati said in Friday's release. "We have rallied support across multiple industries, and are excited to work with our partners to offer a new and differentiated TV choice to consumers."

Hey, Sezmi: Feed us more detail, and maybe we'll be more enthusiastic.

Yahoo announced Thursday that it has teamed up with MLB.com, the digital arm of professional baseball's operations, in a partnership that encompasses both video distribution and ad sales.

Considering the turmoil over at Yahoo, the three-year agreement could be either a home run or a strikeout.

On the video side, content from Major League Baseball's MLB.tv will be syndicated on Yahoo Sports through the 2010 season. This means that if you're a Yahoo user, you'll be able to watch live and on-demand baseball games on Yahoo Sports--provided that they're not in your home market. MLB.com says this will amount to more than 2,400 games each year. Yahoo Sports will additionally broadcast game recap show FastCast and other MLB.com video.

The MLB.tv content will be available on a co-branded player on Yahoo Sports in 11 countries, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Currently, access to live out-of-market games on MLB.com's MLB.tv requires a subscription of between $14.95 and $19.95 per month (or $89.95 and $119.95 per year), depending on quality. Yahoo users will pay the same subscription amount for the co-branded Yahoo Sports player.

Yahoo will also be the exclusive advertising partner for MLB.tv in the 2009 and 2010 seasons. In the 2008 season, Yahoo will use its Clickable video ads as well as preroll and postroll ads provided by MLB Advanced Media. After that, Yahoo will take over completely by using its new AMP graphical ad system.

That whole Microsoft thing, or Google thing, or News Corp. thing, or whatever it is now, could shake things up, though.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a plan on Thursday to team up with wireless carriers for emergency text message alerts.

Cellular service providers can opt into the new system, called the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS); then, their customers will receive three varieties of text message from a not-yet-specified government agency.

There will be "presidential alerts" for major national emergencies like terrorist attacks, "imminent threat alerts" for localized emergencies like hurricanes and tornadoes, and Amber Alerts for missing children--which have been broadcast to cell phones since 2005.

A release from the agency hinted that as mobile technology evolves, audio and video alerts may be implemented as well.

"No one questions the value that an effective Commercial Mobile Alert System will have on the safety and welfare of the American public," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement issued Thursday, admitting that there is not yet a federal agency in place to handle the messages (PDF).

When there is, carriers that choose to participate will have 10 months to comply with the FCC's rules. "We are hopeful that we have initiated the dialogue that will allow an appropriate federal entity to assume that central role in an expeditious manner."

CNN reported that T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and AT&T indicated that they would be likely to sign up for the FCC's system.

Meanwhile, nongovernment groups like Google.org have also embarked upon projects to use text messaging, as well as services like Twitter, for both disaster awareness and rescue.

Yahoo announced Wednesday that it plans to acquire Tensa Kft., a Hungarian company known professionally as IndexTools, which makes marketing analytics tools for the Web.

Financial terms of the deal were not released, but Yahoo hopes that the acquisition will be finalized by the middle of 2008. Yahoo, currently battling with both a Microsoft takeover offensive and its status as second-string to Google in online advertising, plans to use IndexTools' technology to bolster its existing marketing analytics software. The initial target, a release from Yahoo explained, will be the 150,000 small and medium-sized businesses using Yahoo's marketing analytics tools.

There are also plans to build a third-party developer platform for the Yahoo-incorporated IndexTools.

In addition to its base in Budapest, Hungary, IndexTools also has offices in Frankfurt, Germany, and in New York.