News Blog

In case you missed its one-night gig at Caesars in Vegas last month and are still dying to see it, Microsoft's "Surface" is reportedly scheduled to make a debut in four cities today.

Already delayed for months and still a pipe dream for consumers (until at least 2011), the company plans to display the much-anticipated touch-screen tabletop computer at a handful of AT&T stores in New York, Atlanta, San Antonio, and San Bruno, Calif., just south of San Francisco, according to Boy Genius Report. The exact addresses are listed here.

Unfortunately if you wanted to use it to order wine, you may have missed your chance.

Wednesday has been announced by the French organization Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) as the first Online Free Expression Day. In recognition of its announcement, the group has initiated a 24-hour online protest going on now in nine virtual countries that have been labeled Internet enemies by the international press organization.

I stopped by the protest earlier Wednesday morning and found the demonstration to be similar to what I expected when I wrote about the event Tuesday. My primary concern with the protest was that it would be relegated to a dark corner on the Internet, and that does indeed seem to be the case (though the demonstration does provide a means to automatically e-mail friends about the event).

... Read more

Update: An account of Wednesday's protest has been posted to mediasphere.

In some parts of the world, such as the United States, the Internet is a relatively safe means to communicate and discuss controversial or unpopular subjects. Unfortunately this isn't the case in all countries, and journalists, activists, and other outspoken individuals continue to be threatened and imprisoned at an alarming rate.

According to Reporters sans frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), there are 63 people around the world who are currently in prison for using the Internet to exercise their freedom of expression. Forty-nine of the imprisoned cyber-dissidents are from China; seven are from Vietnam, and two are from Syria. Libya, Jordan, Egypt, and Burma are each holding one person for online speech activities.

In an effort to "denounce government censorship of the Internet and to demand more online freedom," Reporters Without Borders is organizing a 24-hour online demonstration on Wednesday and officially recognizing the date as Online Free Expression day.... Read more

Yahoo stated the obvious in its annual report on Wednesday by saying Microsoft's bid to buy the company is distracting executives and employees.

"The review and consideration of the Microsoft proposal...have been, and may continue to be, a significant distraction for our management and employees," Yahoo said in the company's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yahoo cautioned that the deal "may adversely affect our business."

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Microsoft's big bid for Yahoo

Click here for the latest on the software giant's attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo has spooked workers because of the uncertainty surrounding the deal, Yahoo said. This may make it tough, according to Yahoo, for the company to retain and attract "key employees and hire new talent."

The ironic thing about Yahoo's claims is that the company appeared highly unfocused to many well before Microsoft came calling. Yahoo insiders, analysts, and others close to the company told CNET News.com just prior to Yahoo going public with Microsoft's offer ,that the company was bogged down by ineffective group decision-making and a damaging aversion to taking risks.

They say Yahoo has for some time been mired in bureaucracy and an embarrassing inability to respond to more nimble (though considerably larger) Google.

Nonetheless, Yahoo has rejected Microsoft's offer and Microsoft has indicated it isn't planning to give up. That means Yahoo employees should get used to distractions, at least for the time being.

Included in the filing was the mention of seven shareholder lawsuits against Yahoo over the administration's handling of Microsoft's offer.

Calling all entrepreneurs: follow the money.

If you did, that road down the IT path would likely lead you to clean-tech and Internet-specific businesses, according to results of the 2007 MoneyTree Report released Friday by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

U.S. venture capitalists invested a total of $29.4 billion in 2007, up 10.8 percent from the previous year. That marked the fourth consecutive year of growth. The number of deals reached 3,813 last year, a modest rise of 5 percent over a year earlier.

Clean-technology companies attracted $2.2 billion in investments last year, a 47 percent jump over the prior year. And the number of clean-tech deals rose by 58 percent to 202 venture financings last year, compared with 2006 .

Internet companies, which rely on a business model that's largely dependent on the Internet, also attracted a substantial slice of venture funding last year, according to the report. This sector attracted $4.6 billion in funding, accounting for a 12 percent increase over the previous year.

The software sector, which historically grabs the largest slice of venture funding, had less than spectacular year in 2007. Funding levels for the software sector remained virtually flat, rising to $5.3 billion with 905 deals, compared with $5.1 billion for 920 deals in 2006.

"Software is still the largest segment for funding, even though it is flattening out," said Deepak Kamra, a venture capitalist with Canaan Partners. "Within software, software as a service and open source are doing well. Open source is a cheaper way for companies to develop applications."

Venture capitalists get their investment back through an IPO or sale of their portfolio company. Last year, venture capitalists were able to ride the IPO ride on several notable deals.

"The market was good for IPOs in 2007, but now we're concerned about the IPO market shutting down," Deepak said. "Ultimately, the IPO market will come back."

Emerging nations are buying notebooks by the bundle, and Hewlett-Packard is reaping the benefits.

HP reported its fourth-quarter earnings Monday, and revenues were up across its business units, but the PC business was again the star. Revenue for the Personal Systems Group, which sells desktops and notebook PCs, was up 30 percent from the same quarter a year ago to $10.1 billion. It's the first time the business unit has crossed the $10 billion threshold. Shipments of PCs rose about one-third in the last year.

But HP is claiming success for its revenue and sales growth all for itself. Demand for Microsoft Windows Vista had nothing to do with the high growth numbers in PCs this year, said HP CEO Mark Hurd. There was "never a Vista moment at any time over the past year," he said on a media conference call. "There was no Vista hold back, so there was no Vista positive inflection point."

Overall, HP reported $28.3 billion in revenue, an increase of 15 percent from the same quarter a year ago, and earnings of 81 cents per share. The company also reported that the board of directors had approved $8 billion to be used for future share repurchases.

The world's No. 1 PC maker has turned in a string of highly successful quarters since surpassing rival Dell in market share more than a year ago. HP has taken advantage of the explosion of first-time PC buyers in emerging nations like Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Those regions now account for 9 percent of the company's revenue. On the earnings conference call, Hurd noted that HP now sells its products in 400 Chinese cities, with more planned in the future.

Blade servers also saw high growth, with an increase of 78 percent in revenue in the last year. The Imaging and Printing Group, the business unit that sells cameras and printing hardware, saw the weakest growth, turning in flat profits and 4 percent growth to $7.6 billion in the last year. Notably, consumer hardware sales declined 5 percent. Last week, HP announced it is changing its camera business model and wants to partner with someone else to manufacture its cameras.

It's September, so it's time for Internet security companies to release their annual reports and surveys about the threats seen in the first six months of the year. The reports from IBM, Arbor Networks (free registration required), and Symantec (in PDF) each looked at different areas of the Internet in specific but generally found that botnets are on the rise, and that the tools used for attack have gone professional with less noise from mere amateurs. Two of the reports went to find the top three vendors most affected by newly disclosed vulnerabilities were Microsoft, Apple and Oracle, that the United States hosts the most spam-related Web sites, and the sites most-often phished were financial sites.

Arbor Network reported that botnets, at 29 percent, has replaced denial-of-service attacks, at 24 percent, as the No. 1 threat among its respondents. The ISPs contacted by Arbor Networks for their survey also report that the number of professional denial-of-service attacks have increased markedly over "amateur" attacks. The attacks seem to be targeting specific industries, a finding echoed by Symantec and IBM.

In the first half of 2007, the IBM survey showed a total of 3,273 software vulnerabilities, a 3.3 percent increase over the same period in 2006. Oddly, Symantec showed only 2,461 vulnerabilities, and reported that figure was 3 percent less than during the same period in 2006. The differences between reports can be accounted for by the methodologies used by IBM and Symantec to categorize vulnerabilities and the specific vendors they include in that count; for example, Symantec didn't track the Oracle operating system in its report.

The IBM report showed January was the busiest month for reporting new vulnerabilities with 600 disclosed. January 15 to 21 was the busiest week, responsible for 149 vulnerabilities. IBM also said the top three vendors reporting the most vulnerabilities were Microsoft, Apple and Oracle; together they accounted for 12.6 percent of the total. Symantec said that Microsoft reduced its time-to-patch from 21 days in December to only 18 at the end of July, while Apple only reduced its time-to-patch from 49 days in December to 43 days at the end of July. Symantec did not track Oracle in its report. IBM also noted that an amazing 21 percent of the Microsoft, Apple and Oracle vulnerabilities remained unpatched at the end of July.

On the subject of spam, IBM reported that the United States, Poland and Russia were responsible for most of the world's spam content. Symantec said the top three spam producers were the U.S., "undetermined" EU countries, and China. IBM said the U.S. alone accounts for one-eighth of all spam traffic, and hosts more than one-third of all spam-related Web sites, results similar to those found by Symantec.

IBM also said the U.S. hosts almost half of all the phishing sites located in the United States; again, Symantec's results were similar. Of the phishing sites, 9 of the 10 listed by IBM were financial, a finding shared by Symantec. IBM also reported that pornographic Web sites constitute 9 percent of all the Web sites. The U.S. remains host to a majority of sites focused on violence, crime, pornography, sex, computer crime and illegal drugs. This is unchanged from 2006.

This one's kind of a bitter irony. We've all been reading over and over about how traditional news outlets are turning to the Web in order to boost readership and advertising revenue in the face of a well-documented decline in print media (Wired magazine has a feature in this month's issue about newspaper chain Gannett's attempt to modernize). But in this case, it's the other way around: The Associated Press, according to a report on Friday evening, has announced that it's axing its youth-oriented, blog- and video-heavy ASAP news portal because it proved to be a failed experiment.

The two-year-old ASAP, which was created as an alternative news hub for the generation of young professionals who typically don't turn on a TV news show unless Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert is involved, will go under on October 31. Director Kathleen Carroll said in a memo that it simply wasn't profitable enough.

This is really too bad, in my opinion, because the AP had a great chance to show that it's possible for an established and reputable name in reporting to create a separate property geared toward the YouTube crowd. Unfortunately, it fell short in a few ways--ASAP offers up traditional AP news stories mixed with podcasts, video footage, map mashups, and blog commentary, but most of it isn't integrated as seamlessly as it could be. There's no central video player, for example.

Also, you have to do some clicking to find what you want to. Top billing is currently given to a feature on The Simpsons, a story and accompanying video about "office casual" fashion, and a link to ASAP's main news blog. Headlines, meanwhile, are kept in small print under verticals like News, Entertainment, and Sports; there's a ticker of AP stories at the top. It just isn't an adequate presentation of what's important--stratifying headlines by freshness and relevance is something that I think the Huffington Post does very well, for example.

The unappealing structure might've been behind ASAP's demise, or perhaps it was a matter of publicity: I'd never even heard of the project until I was at a party thrown by some New York-area media entrepreneurs and there happened to be an ASAP videoblogger walking around.

There's some cool content on ASAP, so enjoy it while it lasts--and stay tuned for more developments in the ongoing evolution of "next-generation news."

The Slingbox is known best for its ability to let consumers watch their home TV channels remotely using a laptop or smart phone. But a local San Francisco news station has found a way to utilize the trapezoid-shaped set-top box to cheaply and easily deliver live news, traffic and weather updates wirelessly back to its studio.

The news operations director at CBS 5, Don Sharp, devised a way to replace more than 20 of its cameras affixed to the tops of local bridges, freeways and buildings that use microwave technology to relay video back to the station with smaller cameras combined with a Slingbox Pro and a high-speed wireless EVDO card, at 800 kilobits per second.

Normally, news stations have to pay $25,000 for cameras to monitor traffic and weather, in addition to the cost of maintaining the units and renting the space for them. Compare that to a smaller camera for $500, a $300 Slingbox and $60 per month for each data card and it could potentially change the way broadcast TV news does business. That's especially true if someday all live shots were done with a small portable camera and Slingbox, since that could eliminate the need for gas-guzzling microwave trucks normally needed to broadcast breaking events.

While CBS 5 is currently believed to be the only news outlet known to be using the Slingbox this way, Sling Media, maker of the device, says it already knows of other stations that are interested.

In the future, CBS 5 hopes to use Slingbox-connected cameras to do live shots from press conferences and local sporting events.

I visited CBS 5 to see how the newsroom is using the Slingbox. To watch a video, click here.